DISCLAIMER: I don't own Digimon, but I do own the OCs introduced in this story and later stories (except where stated).
Thanks to Crazyeight for beta-reading.
DIMENSIONS
BOOK SIX
Tricks
CHAPTER 28
The Trick to Trench Coats
SUNDAY, 18TH JULY 2010
Tokyo Medical University Hospital
11:29 JST
"Ah, my favourite patient," Dr Imai noted with a smile, stepping into the waiting room where quite a large party of people were assembled for the ultrasound. "Even if I do say that to everyone, I mean it honestly about you," Fumiko added, before glancing around at who was in the group.
"Heh, hardly. I know for a fact that you've got a patient who died twice," Harmony noted, her tone rather upbeat.
Fumiko chuckled, nodding to Rika, who seemed pretty relaxed at first glance, despite her odd change of voice. Then again, the fact that she was tightly grabbing hold of Takato's hand said otherwise.
As for Takato, he was watching the situation nervously, and seemed particularly concerned about Rika, who was clearly stressed about how the forthcoming ultrasound would go. Then again, it wasn't helped by having Takato's parents, Rika's mother and grandmother, Kristy, Rey, their Digimon partners and, oddly, Mari there as well.
Rey decided to finally pop the question, glancing across to the Second Angel who sat a short distance from her on another bench. "Mari, what are you doing here?" she asked, with raised eyebrows.
Mari had a slight smile on her face, but it was threatened by concern. "Ryder gets out of hospital today, and I'm waiting to see him," she answered.
"Oh, right, wish him well for me," Rey noted. "I'll come by and see him if I can."
"Fumiko…Dr Imai's going to have to dismiss him anyway, so I've got to wait for Rika's ultrasound to be over first."
"Okay, you'll be able to see the pictures then of…well, me," Rey joked, a smile coming to her face.
"Yeah…speaking of which, I have to say you look pretty good in your new outfit," Mari added, glancing over the redhead and her new clothes. Gone were the old red rather worn Digital Monster symbol top and blue jeans, replaced with newer clothes that were surprisingly good, leading Mari to ponder who picked them out. The girl's hair had stayed loose, currently hanging down to her mid-back. Her top itself was a black and almost completely sleeveless top, crossed intermittently by lines of gold which circled elegantly to create the word Destiny on the front in the middle, and with a thin line of midriff at the bottom. Below there, her usual choice of jeans remained, although this pair was a darker blue than previously. As always, her "10" necklace and D-Vice took pride of place on her neck and arm respectively. She smiled, nodding in agreement to Mari.
"Thanks. Surprisingly, Rumiko picked it out, and I suggested the whole "Destiny" thing for obvious reasons."
"It suits you," Mari added, before glancing down to what she was wearing, a very dark green top, with dull blue lines across the end of the short sleeves and the edges of the top on the front, with a line of midriff poking out between that and her dark blue jeans fastened with a black belt and a silver buckle. Her hair was back to being loose again, and strewn on her chair was a dark blue jacket. And, like Rey, a "2" necklace took pride of place around her neck. "And I thought I was the only one who regularly changed their outfit."
"You're not alone in that now, Takato was taken shopping too," Rey noted. Mari grinned, nodding.
"Yeah, I noticed," she added, glancing across to the boy, who, along with Rika and Rika's mother, were currently engaging in conversation with Dr Imai. As for Takato, his hooded top seemed to be over with, but his Goggles still took pride of place on his head as always. A black shirt was visible under a blue zipped jacket, the former imprinted with a white symbol that looked remarkably similar to the Hazard.
That's because it was the Hazard - at Chaos' insistence (on pain of secret unveiling, embarrassment causing and, well, pain) - and the white colour on it was simply Takato's compromise to deaden the fact it was the symbol of a huge mistake he had made. Chaos didn't mind this particularly, knowing that the contrast between black and white on the shirt made it pretty obvious it was there.
Below, a pair of light greyish pants finished off a blue and black look that, while not completely the same as his old look, was still not too dissimilar.
"Harmony's still eying me with disdain about the shirt I see," Chaos thought, a satisfied tone to his voice, which went all but ignored as Takato continued to listen to Dr Imai.
"Hmm…what's with the symbol?" Mari asked, recalling the symbol from both Guilmon and from Ryder's talks about the Tamer's history, something he was particularly knowledgeable on thanks to his knowledge of the TV show, and his own theories, some of which had been validated by Chaos' presence behind it all.
"Seriously, don't ask. Takato was complaining to Chaos the other day about how his fellow Tamers were giving him strange looks in class and asking about it all," Rey answered, sighing. "But, of course, Chaos couldn't care less, forcing him to wear it."
"Takato must get sick of Chaos, surely?" Mari asked, raising an eyebrow as she pondered why Takato hadn't gone insane with annoyance yet.
"It's Takato we're talking about here, he couldn't hold a grudge if his life depended on it," Rey answered with a grin.
"That's your father you're talking about, you know?" Mari asked, not being particularly serious about the matter.
"Yeah, so?" Rey answered, the two laughing afterwards at the concept. "Speaking of clothes, what is Ryder planning to wear once he's got to a point where his clothes aren't destroyed within two days?"
"Oh, don't even mention that," Mari groaned. "He's acquired some obsession with getting a brown trench coat kind of thing when he leaves the hospital."
Rey raised both eyebrows in bewilderment and surprise. "Why?"
"Something to do with Doctor Who," Mari answered, before sighing with a smile on her face. "It's brilliant that I only learnt he was a geek after getting into a relationship with him," she joked.
"Yeah…I really can't believe you two have only been together for seven weeks by this point," Rey noted.
"Well, to be fair, it hasn't been the easiest of seven weeks. I nearly died several times, he nearly died…well, he died twice," Mari correct. "And porting my whole life, minimal as it was, into a whole new country where I was lucky enough to know the language would've been a lot harder weren't it for him, and all of you guys to be honest."
"Glad to help, even if I was literally popping in and out all the time."
"And even if I didn't figure out who you were until two weeks ago," Mari added, smiling before glancing across to the conversation still at hand between Dr Imai, Takato and Rika. Her gaze caught that of Fumiko, who flashed a brief smile before she looked back to her current concern.
"I'm sorry, but I don't think we'll be able to fit anyone else into the room, let alone everyone," Dr Imai noted, frowning to Rika and Takato. "And I don't think you'll want it to be crowded either."
Rika shook her head nervously. "Nope, definitely don't want that."
"So, shall we get moving?" Dr Imai asked. Rika nodded and cast a brief glance across to Takato, her hand becoming locked into a grip with his. Takato felt Rika's fingers slip through his softly, before his hand was gripped tightly, and he was pulled to his feet. Dr Imai decided to take that as a yes. "It's a pretty small room, do you want to take one parent with you?" she then asked Rika, Rika glancing across to their assembled parents nearby. Naturally, Takato's parents were out - even if they were the parents of the father of her child, they wouldn't exactly reassure her at a point like this. She looked briefly to her grandmother, and to her mother. Takato felt pain wince through his hand as Rika weighed up her options.
"Mum," she decided, Rumiko smiling as she stood up and walked over to her daughter. Seiko nodded in agreement at the decision. Dr Imai cast a concerned glance over the situation, before turning, gesturing for the patient and her two companions to follow her along the corridor.
Rumiko glanced to her daughter, currently locking Takato in a painful grip that he was far too polite to tell her about.
"Scared?" mother asked daughter, a comforting tone to her voice, knowing that elements of the situation felt all-too-familiar.
"I've been into the middle of a living blob of red mass that deletes things when it touches them, facing a horrific beast that looked worse than anything in any horror film, whilst my friends were at the constant risk of death. And that's nothing compared to how petrified I am right now."
"I'm sure everything will be fine," Rumiko reassured, giving her daughter a warm glance. "Takato, don't you agree?" she asked, catching the boy by surprise.
"Huh…oh," Takato spluttered, before turning his gaze to the girl next to him, giving an equally warm smile as she had received from her mother. "It'll be fine Rika," Takato said, in lieu of the fact that his hand was now aching and he held a deep inner concern at how things had so suddenly changed for them, something that Rika easily saw through to but decided against mentioning.
"I hope so," Rika noted.
"Trust me, I deal with this thing very regularly and it usually passes without incident," Fumiko noted, passing her patient a reassuring smile. Rika was by now getting rather irritated by people giving her too many smiles and not enough actual reassurance that nothing could go wrong, be wrong, or do wrong.
"Just remember about Rey, Rika. She exists and seems healthy, and surely that is proof of everything being fine with your child?"
"Rey hasn't mentioned a lot about anything really though. To be honest, I'm just concerned about everything right now. I'm hoping this ultrasound goes okay, I'm hoping that I won't get too big and look too stupid, I'm hoping that I won't be too sick or have too many mood swings, and I'm also worried that I may be causing physical pain to Takato right now."
"So why are you still gripping his hand?"
"If I lighten my grip, he'll think I'm giving up or feeling depressed, and he's got enough to think about right now. I really want to give him time to think, since I'm really worried about how this'll affect our relationship."
"Well, I can't disagree with injuring Chaos, but what's all this concern about your relationship with Takato?"
"I just really need him right now, and you hear of all these young single mums, even my own mother. I really don't want him to run away or get scared or stop…"
"Rika, everything will be fine," Harmony asserted.
"STOP SAYING THAT!" Rika screamed in frustration.
"What?" Harmony spluttered.
"Everyone just gives me words without anything to back them up. It doesn't bloody help! I'm petrified here, and all you can all do is point at the darkness and say it isn't that dark."
"Rika, what do you want me to say? Do you want me to promise you that everything's going to be okay, just because we're part of a God? Because I'm sorry if this is worrying to you Rika, but I just can't promise that."
"No, but…" Rika began, rather timidly.
"Rika, I am as subject to the whims of Destiny, Fate and time as any other being. I mean, don't get us wrong, you're going to be in far better shape for this than most girls thanks to me, and afterwards I'm not going to let everything just go all screwy. I do have some pride, you know. But, I can't change what's going to happen; I let go of those forces of the universe long ago, and they control themselves. Not knowing them is the reason why I still put up with every day Rika, because I know that if my eternal life was all known to me and fixed, I couldn't bear it."
"I see," Rika thought sadly.
"Rika, I have been pregnant so many times before, and trust me, the facilities of today beat absolutely anything I've ever had to put up with in the past. Seriously, you don't want to hear about it, and all that kind of stuff is the reason why I don't let you open the Pandora's Box of my memories."
"You could at least tell me some things though. Like, have you ever had any complications with a pregnancy?"
Harmony paused briefly. "I can't really remember," she answered unsurely.
"So you have then?"
"What difference does it make to this?"
"If I'm not human, it makes a lot of difference. Be honest, can you even have a child?"
"Of course I can! I've had tons of children in the past, even if I can't remember them individually. And sometimes I remember those past lives, and how that's all gone now, and I feel really depressed about it, but I move on because I have to. And I know that Chaos, moronic and evil as he can be at times, is forced to do the same. By becoming human, we gained so much…but we also lost a lot, and neither of us has really got past that properly. But being human has given my life meaning to be honest; Gods aren't really needed once things are running, so being able to be incarnated as people like you, and remember that you are really amazing Rika, is what I love. And being you has been so different, and even if I have to put up with Chaos practically every day, and even if we are carrying his child, it's still been brilliant to be you. You, of all my incarnations, will be able to tough this one out Rika regardless of what happens. I am certain of that."
"Thanks."
"Any time. Well, all the time really."
Seeing her obstetrician pause by a door, push it open and gesture inwards, Rika swallowed her spit in an attempt to calm her raging nerves. This was going to be tough.
"TAKATO, FOR GOD'S SAKE, TELL HER TO LET GO OF THE FREAKING HAND!!" Chaos simultaneously screamed in pain. This was going to be tough.
12:00 JST
"So, she's going to run through a bunch of checks when we get here, so, to prepare you…does this hurt?" Mari asked, tapping Ryder's knee with the side of her hand. He winced in pain.
"It's my legs that need crutches Mari!" Ryder quickly squealed, Mari rolling her eyes.
"It was a joke Ryder, and I intentionally just touched them rather than hitting them. I suppose this at least tells us what your new limits are."
"I could've told you that!"
Mari laughed, putting her arm round his neck from where she sat on the side of his hospital bed. A pair of crutches in the corner a constant reminder of the transition he was about to make. And not a moment too soon, in his eyes.
"Even if I'm in crutches, I'm going to be happy to finally be in the outside world again," Ryder noted with a smile. "Digital Watch must think I'm dead."
"They're not completely wrong then," Mari added dryly. "And really, were you being serious about the whole trench coat thing?"
"Oh, you may worry about it now, but when I'm running around enthusiastically, hands in pockets and pondering, I'll…"
"Trip over your shoelaces endlessly?" MiniDonmon chuckled from the foot of the bed, his claws tucked around the bar.
"I didn't mean all at the same time!" Ryder argued back. "And, I thought, if I need some new clothes anyway, I may as well go for something individual, like you have…you look good, by the way."
"Thanks but…please, tell me, how is it individual if you based it off of a TV series?" Mari asked, raising an eyebrow in bewilderment.
"That's besides the point…and anyway, in this universe Doctor Who was never cancelled, so I am technically being original thank you very much."
Mari was about to argue back, before she simply chuckled at the bizarre nature of the situation. "This is one of the oddest arguments we've ever had, isn't it?"
"Yeah, but still…okay, what do you suggest?"
"I don't know. I'm not in the shops right now."
"Okay, so what about…a brown jacket? A bit like a trench coat, just without the weird image."
"You're really serious about all this, aren't you?"
"Well, I've had a lot of time to think about it all."
Mari let loose a warm smile, nodding and pulling her arm tighter around him. "I know, and I'm going to make sure you recover as soon as possible. Until then, you're just going to have to take it easy."
"Thanks," Ryder said in return, the pair's lips meeting as Fumiko stepped into the room, fresh from dealing with her latest patient. Smiling briefly at the happy moment she had walked in on, she went straight to speaking to get their attention.
"So, Ryder, everything seems to be in order," she noted, glancing over his chart as Ryder and Mari pulled out of the kiss, embarrassed by how they'd been interrupted.
"Oh, yeah, good, thanks," Ryder stammered, as Mari stood up and walked over to the doctor, having a quiet word with her.
"How's Rika?" she asked quietly.
"She's fine, everything went great," Dr Imai answered, a hint of bemusement in her voice. "They're all looking over the ultrasound image now; I presume you'd like to join them in the waiting room?"
"Yeah," Mari answered, nodding. Dr Imai stepped over to the crutches, picking them up and heading over to Ryder.
"Now, as you proved with your surprising escape two weeks ago, you seem to know how to use these, but they'll still take a bit of getting used to, so take it easy with them, okay?" Dr Imai asked. Ryder nodded, turning himself on the bed, carefully putting his feet on the ground, without weight on them.
Fumiko glanced to Mari, gesturing for her to hold the other crutch so Ryder could take them more easily. She nodded and did so, as Ryder carefully bent over and put his weight onto the crutches.
He almost instantly stumbled to one side, Mari grabbing him before he fell. She breathed a sigh of relief as he laughed nervously.
"Okay, got a bit confused there, sorry," Ryder mumbled, Mari rolling her eyes as he pushed himself up and gave it another attempt.
Turning, he began to walk, putting his weight on the crutches as Mari and Fumiko smiled in relief to see him finally and properly exit his bed. Even with the slight glimpses of pain on his expression when he put a bit too much weight on his feet, it was still great to see him walking.
"Finally," the three sighed in relief. MiniDonmon took to the air, following the group as they headed down the corridor.
"I can't see it," Rika complained, Rumiko giving her daughter a bewildered look. Rika frowned, sighing. "No, really, I can't see it."
"Rika, I'm right there," Rey noted, gesturing with a finger to the almost invisible blob on the image.
"Geez, that's the most disappointing ending to something that I've ever seen. I mean, come on, what was the point of all that just to get a black photo with a bit of a blob on it?"
"It was to check that the baby was healthy," Harmony argued back.
"But we KNOW she's healthy, she's right here!" Chaos argued, pointing out sharply with a finger at Rey.
"SHUT UP!" Rika and Takato groaned in tandem.
Chaos and Harmony both finally silenced, waiting for their alter-egos to say something.
"I am so sick and tired of you two arguing all the time," Takato complained.
"We get it, you hate each other, what are you trying to prove?" Rika asked, raising her eyebrows in irritation.
"Um…" Chaos pondered.
"Erm…" Harmony did likewise.
"Finally, some silence," Rika said, breathing a sigh of relief as their parents gave them strange looks. This whole "switching personalities" thing was very confusing, and rather worrying, particularly for Takato's parents who'd only had a week to come to terms with the concept.
The silence was broken by Kristy, who glanced up to see some new arrivals for the group.
"Hey, it's Mari and Ryder!" she noted excitedly, Rika raising a bewildered eyebrow at her as they all turned to face the new arrivals. How could Kristy always be so optimistic?
Rika, Takato and Rey wandered over to where Kristy was smiling, saying hello to the two teenagers and the doctor, and looking at Ryder's crutches curiously.
"So does it hurt?" Kristy asked curiously.
"Only if I lean on it," Ryder answered.
"Pretty hard to avoid that, isn't it?" Rika asked dryly.
"Yeah, I guess. Anyway, how'd the ultrasound go?" he asked, curiously tilting his head and hoping for good news.
"It went fine," Takato answered. Ryder's eyes picked onto something notable about the Gogglehead, however, other than his new outfit.
"Is that a bandage around your hand?" he asked, bewilderment in his expression. Rika and Takato both laughed nervously, not really wanting to talk about it.
"Don't ask," they both said.
MONDAY, 19TH JULY 2010
Shinjuku Upper High School
08:21 JST
"Okay, now this time, push up even harder on the crutches, okay?" Mari asked looking with concern to her boyfriend as he painfully made his way through the school gates. The sun brightly beamed down on them and attempted to make an optimistic tone to a rather irritating event.
"Easy for you to say, this is harder than it looks," Ryder grumbled, MiniDonmon watching with concern from where he floated just above Ryder. Mari sighed, glancing across the schoolyard to where groups of pupils had begun to gather, be it by a large patch of Ivy creeping its way over the wall, under the shade that the school provided at this time of the day, or just randomly dotted about.
"Over here!" Jeri called enthusiastically, altering their attention to a group containing Kazu, Kenta, Henry and her, along with most of their partners. Mari began to walk rapidly towards them, before slowing her pace upon seeing Ryder's slow movement. She sweatdropped, before sighing.
"This is going to get a bit annoying," she thought. Ryder winced in pain, his crutch almost slipping on the ground before he steadied himself. Mari ran over rapidly to ensure he was alright, putting her arms out in case she needed to grab him.
"I'm okay thanks," Ryder said, sighing, before beginning his trudge across the schoolyard, the problem alleviated somewhat when the others decided to simply come to him rather than the more painful opposite.
"I can't believe you're coming into school for the last three days!" Kazu asked, voicing his irritation. "Come on man, just extend your holiday a bit," he added, grinning widely at the concept.
"Yeah, it's not fair on us; you're making us look bad," Kenta added. Ryder groaned, pushing himself into a standing position on his crutches.
"I just want a bit of normality," he noted, before chuckling. "As if I have had that at all in the past two months," he added.
"Mrs Asagi is going to dump a ton of homework on you for all of this, you know?" Henry noted. Ryder nodded, shrugging.
"Meh, I'm going to be stuck mostly at home anyway, may as well try to grasp Japanese history and the like while I've got the chance."
"We'll get you out of the house Ryder," Mari insisted, smiling.
"Even if I have to drag you," MiniDonmon added with a laugh, before gently landing on his Tamer's head.
"Wow, thanks, that's such a great concept," Ryder said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. Jeri simply giggled, before glancing over to the school gates as Takato and Rika arrived, without their partners, although it was pretty obvious that Renamon was somewhere nearby.
"It better not be showing Takato," Rika warned, her tone quiet but hardly soft.
"Rika, it really doesn't. If anything, people will just think you've put a bit of weight on…uh…" Takato began in a whisper, pausing upon being glared at. He laughed nervously, scratching the back of his head.
"I'll pretend I didn't hear that," Rika muttered.
Takato breathed a sigh of relief, thanking the heavens. Or himself. However it worked.
"Rika, Takato, over here!" Jeri called out cheerfully, attracting attention to their group. Rika and Takato headed in their direction, Takato smiling as he arrived and Rika taking on her usual expression, or rather, lack of expression.
"Man, what happened to your hand?" Kazu asked, noticing the bandage still wrapped around the Gogglehead's digits.
"Um…accident?" Takato asked, taking a brief glance over to Rika as he pondered how to explain this one. She simply glared back, a subtle warning to shut up and bluff it away. "God, she's in a bad mood this morning." "Yeah, accident with a…um…toaster," he finished quickly.
Kazu and Kenta, thankfully, were too dense to notice this back and forth. "Ouch," Kenta noted.
"Bored of the hotel yet?" Henry asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, I miss home," Takato answered, sighing. He shrugged. "They've begun to work on it, and it'll take a few weeks to complete, so I am going to have to get used to running to school every day."
"As opposed to…what?" Terriermon asked, a sarcastic expression on his face.
"Oh ha ha," Takato answered dryly. "Are we all meeting up on Wednesday after the end of school, by the way?"
"I suppose so," Henry answered. "We'll have to contact the Digidestined, we haven't had a proper reunion in a while," he added.
"That's because they're all scared of Rika," Terriermon joked. Rika simply glared at him, while Henry did the scolding.
"Terriermon!"
"Momentai!" Terriermon answered, grinning widely as the school bell rung. "Thanks, I'll be here all week!" he joked.
Rika simply groaned, silently walking away from the group towards the school, in a desperate bid to escape the lunacy.
"Geez, what's gotten to her lately?" Kazu asked Takato. "She's more grouchy than usual."
"Probably sick of having to put up with you, Kenta and Terriermon," Mari noted with a smile, answering for Takato. The last thing they wanted was another stuttering session from Takato, that'd just make Kazu and Kenta more suspicious.
"I don't know why, how could anyone hate us?" Kenta asked, he and Kazu grinning as the taller boy nodded in agreement.
"You two maybe, but certainly not me," Terriermon chuckled. Everyone else simply groaned, turning and drudging towards the school doors.
It was going to be one of those days.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Ryder's finally out of hospital, they're all meeting for a reunion, and they're going to have an unexpected guest. The next chapter is going to be great, I can tell you that. Plus, I've also written a preview for the rest of Book Six that's going to be attached to it that'll leave you in surprise and suspense as to what is going to happen.
The key word for next time is "Demon".
Until next time…
