Warning: discussions of birth and near-death situations, crushes.


Chapter Eight - Lilac - 1988

Miyako has never seen Mimi like this.

Sweaty, pale, sickeningly cold, screaming, there's none of the elegance that she fell in love with. And yet, she has never loved her more. Her senpai was here, giving birth. 'Showing off for the rest of you,' she'd joked at the time and it hadn't seemed funny then. It seemed less funny now.

At least Wallace is here.

Michael should be here, she thinks, not bitter, but worried. He'd said that he'd be here an hour ago. And all they've heard was that some people got rushed to the ICU, or something. Her English even now still wasn't great. But still. She worried. What if?

Then the doors opened and in comes Michael… bleeding? She leaped up to him, the seventy-two and counting different basic medical procedures blurring into her brain courtesy of Jou-senpai. She moves as fast as her body could take her, helping him to the nearest bench. "You should be getting that looked at," she says as Sally takes his other side.

"Hi to you too," he wheezes. "It's fine. I got lucky. You should have seen the other guy. How's Mimi?"

"Breaking Wallace's fingers," Miyako says, rubbing her belly. She wishes now that she hadn't told Ken to stay at the hotel. Just because Daisuke is a besotten mess still confronting his feelings didn't mean that they all had to be. And panicking over having a kid to look after, besides.

Michael manages a smile. "Sounds about right."

That is about as far as the conversation got before he gets wrangled away by actual medical professionals to be looked slumps in her seat.

"This is a hassle," she tells her stomach. The baby doesn't kick, though her stomach gurgles, which she takes with something. She's not sure what.

But she misses her mom again, and surely, that counts for something.

Something vibrates in her pocket. She freezes because that was for phones. She doesn't have a phone. Phones that she was used to weren't invented yet. (Not for her lack of trying but it was one of the things she hadn't gotten a hold of for disassembly that would work in America.) There's only one thing that it could be.

Miyako reaches into her pocket and pulls out her D-3. It was still small, mostly static. Heck her D-Terminal had been more responsive than it. This time, however, the Crest of Light pulsed on screen, pink and steady as a heartbeat.

Heart in her mouth, she pressed the first button. "Hikari-chan?" she whispers. Sally sits up straight to look at her, eyes narrowing into slits. But Miyako can't turn away.

A relieved voice filters through a speaker. "Miyako-san," says Hikari and she sounds… not the same, but not younger either. Heavier, worn, exhausted. She doesn't know what she expected. "Finally. I got through to someone. Is this a bad time?"

"Mimi-senpai is giving birth again," Miyako offers. "But I'm stuck out here."

"Oh." The surprise gives way to glee. "I'm so glad for her. I… It's been so long."

"It has." They fall silent and Miyako fidgets.

"I have… I have a lot of things to tell you." Hikari's voice sounds hoarse, like she hasn't spoken in weeks. "But in the spirit of childbirth can I start that I have a son now?"

Miyako wants to shriek, but her mind has gone blank. "With what?" she squeaks because now they're older and there is enough time to peruse books and so her brain has gone exactly to where things need to go.

"Not as bad as you might think, but…" She pauses. "I really think both of us can only handle one more time."

Miyako has never felt so much curiosity in her life. "You have to tell me everything when you get back."

Hikari breathes through her nose. "I hope you can meet him."

"That's ominous." Miyako says, too dry, too casual. All she can think of is not coming home one day and then never coming home at all, heart in her gut and being digested.

"You wouldn't believe it if I told you." Hikari pauses, a few seconds too long before adding, almost half-heartedly. "No one ever did, usually."

She sounds accepting of this, like it's a fact of life rather than something honestly gut wrenching to hear from your best friend, your jogress partner. But then again, they had been left to die so it might even out somewhere.

Miyako stiffens up and then winces at the pain it brings her. Pregnancy remains a lot of sensations. She swallows and reaches for the nearby water bottle.

"Was that why you left?" She contains the anger welling up in her throat. "Was that why you looked Daisuke-kun in the eye and told him you were happy with the possibility of never seeing any of us again?"

It slips out so no, maybe she's not as okay as she had thought she was.

Hikari doesn't even pause. "Yes. I'm sorry, but yes. There are a whole host of reasons for it, some I'm sure my brother has told you, but yes. I tried to tell… most everyone, everything. And no one believed. No one ever bothered to look at me. They looked at onii-chan. And he knew it. I knew it. So we used that to our advantage." There's a rustle of cloth, and a tiny voice making sounds that shouldn't come from a human throat. "Even you didn't see the Dark Ocean until you called for it."

Miyako wants to spit but all the anger drains out so quickly she doesn't see the point. "Hikari-chan that's not fair."

"It's not," Hikari agrees. "Which is why I'm here, trying again. I'm not a blinding sun, I'm a distant star, and really, that's all I can ask for." Another rustling. "And if I didn't, I wouldn't have found what I did."

She stops again and Miyako is about to shake the Digivice over the melodramatics, but then she hears Hikari humming steadily without pause and the noises in the background fade away.

"I found your families, Miyako-san."

Miyako drops her digivice and Sally dives for it in reflexive shock. She nearly drops it when they both hit the floor.

"You… you what?"

Hikari lets out a sound that could have been a laugh or a poor sob. "I found them, Miyako-san. They're alive. They're sleeping, but they're alive."


Reasonably, Miyako knows that Tachikawa Aiden is Mimi-san's baby and therefore she should be holding him. That said, Mimi is also crying her eyes out after the afterbirth and learning their parents who they thought had been sacrificed actually hadn't been, so she thinks it's okay for now to peer at the freshly cleaned infant.

The few of them who had made it to America were not much better. Ken is leaned into her side and her shoulder is damp from the force of his sobbing that is wrapped in a lot of post-Kaiser guilt. Little Kaito, who is one of the only small children to ever make her worry in a way that's not just maternal hormonal societal ingrained crap, is sucking his thumb in seeming contentment. He's almost three, he just doesn't really get it yet. And honestly, Miyako hopes he never has to. The poor kid barely talks, but he reads books older than her.

Taichi and Meiko have rushed into join them, Michael under his arms and face burnt in humiliation. Tsukiko is blissfully asleep, thank hell, because that is a terror that has Miyako wincing in recollection of Iori's years of being as sweet as a habanero pepper. Thankfully, Iori remembers none of this.

Meiko immediately settles by Mimi and Daisuke looks up from his attempt to smother himself unconscious with a shoddy hospital pillow because of the sheer denial.

A few moments later, Mimi collects herself and looks up at Taichi. Her red rimmed eyes are accusing and fierce and Taichi appears to wilt a little. "You didn't know, did you?"

"I'd have told you if I did," Taichi says, voice hoarse, awful, broken. "I'd have told you and ripped dimensions open myself and dragged them home and beat the dickens out of them."

Mimi manages a snort, wet with snot. They've messaged everyone and gotten very few responses from everyone that isn't Koushiro. Who stayed in Japan. Workaholic.

Miyako looks at her digivice, which has been silent for hours now, and she doesn't know why. Aiden snoozes on and eventually she hands him over to Wallace, who sighs with something weighty and relieved all at once. Sally's against his other shoulder, her D-Terminal hasn't left her hands since they'd gathered in Mimi's hospital room.

"Hikari-chan," she murmurs. "You shouldn't have told us."

"I needed to."

They all jump and Kaito bursts into tears at the upset. But he isn't very loud so Miyako is fine letting Michael handle it in his slightly drugged out state.

"Cripes, Hikari," Taichi grumbles. "Warn a man, would you?"

Hikari doesn't laugh. She merely continues. "You need to know. In case I can't get them out."

The room almost froze over.

"What," Michael says, still stroking Kaito's hair. He's reduced him to hiccups and sniffles now. "Like it's beyond you?"

"It might be," Hikari agrees. "But there's more to it than that. The short version is that the Digital World, our old one and this one, were at best, older Earth type. The digital world is young to us. And we only just ended the war. But we don't have much time before the children who came before us will need to fight."

"Do you know who they are?" Mimi asks.

"No," Hikari says without hesitation. "I have a suspicion on one. But I don't get to see the candidates being picked. I need to find Homeostasis. I think I'm getting close, which is why it's unlikely I'll be able to get them out of where they are. And my husband can't do it either. He's already tried. We've all tried."

"What do you mean 'we'?" Miyako feels a strange twitch coming into her spine.

"Other humans, Miyako-san," Hikari says and Miyako doesn't faint, but she comes pretty damn close.

"There are humans in there?!" Wallace glances at everyone. "Then why aren't they sending their kids?"

"It's not like that, I don't think." Ken speaks for the first time, voice wet. "It's not that we can choose who goes, it's that the children do."

Hikari is silent for a long time. "It's ultimately the choice of the child and the partner what happens to them. We, the parents, can influence that, but they aren't our copies. They aren't extensions of us. They will do things we don't like, and that's all right. I think. It hurts and this is life threatening. And that's why I'll be trying to help in any way I can."

"So that means our families have to wait." Meiko's voice is measured, lilting softly and exhausted from the weight of it. "Or would Koushiro be able to do it?"

"We need the gate open and stable," Hikari replies. Her voice fades out as she murmurs to someone away from the speaker. Then she returns. "Because even if we get them out and wake them up, they'll likely need medical attention."

She's right, Miyako realizes.

"I guess Jou gets to open a hospital," Mimi says with a tired giggle.

They all laugh because that's exactly what Jou doesn't need right now.

"Miyako-san," Hikari murmurs. "I missed you all more than I thought I would."

Miyako sniffles and fails to hide it as a cough. "You could just say I'm sorry like normal people."

"I'm sorry?"

Miyako laughs and she means it. "I missed you too, Hikari-chan."

She means that too, if only because of the lump in her throat, and the suspicion that's reflected in Taichi's now suddenly bright red eyes.

"You can't run away from being an adult forever," Miyako adds, because she can.

Hikari had not mentioned two things: her and Taichi's parents, and the likelihood that she was coming back from all of this alive.

She can almost see Hikari smiling. "Oh no," she says. "I've never tried to run from that."


"She found our families!"

"Ssh!" Miyako and Ken hiss together and Daisuke huffs on the phone, having been taping another show for Mimi to cover her time off. "How?" he says when he's sick of sulking.

They look at each other. "Probably exploring," Ken says cautiously, because they hadn't asked and hadn't considered to. "The world is large. She did say there was a war. It was likely something she found by accident."

"Accident," Daisuke says, wearily. "Right. Uh… I'm gonna need a minute." He hung up and Miyako had to remember not to be offended. This was the eighties. It was expensive.

Still, Miyako lays back and sighs. They're alone in their hotel room and Miyako had hoped to come back and have like, gentle pregnant sex while she broke down because childbirth was scary to watch but instead she's curling as much as she can against Ken, who is not settled. He is shifting and squirming at her side, eyes heavy and hollow.

"She loves dumping bombshells on us, huh?"

Ken laughs but there's nothing really in it. "I guess so."

She sighs and looks up at him, cursing that he's gotten taller, broader and healthier. Because he looks so small anyway, like the kid who'd hidden behind some giant Primary Village blocks to sulk and look unhappy because Iori liked throwing his morals in people's faces at nine. "We can do this."

"I know you can."

"Ken," she says in exasperation. He tries to smile. He fails. "What is it?" He looks away and she nudges him with her knee. "Come on, tell me. I'm not Daisuke, I won't laugh."

"He wouldn't laugh either." Ken looks at her with reproach, but he's grinning a little, so he can't really be angry.

"No but he'd be adorable and confused and you don't need it."

Ken sighs. "You two are insufferable." He doesn't shrink away, but moves around her like a purple and grey blanket. Which, okay, she's been running cold lately, but she doubts it has anything to do with that.

They curl there on the bed, listening to the soft classical music that plays from the television, undercutting the low noise of the city life in New York that only pretends to stop.

"What if Osamu is there?'

Oh. Shit. Oh.

Miyako doesn't move, she doesn't think she can because it will snap Ken out of this talkative mood, this open honesty that they've been fighting with him day in and day out to do.

"What if he's rebooted and still eleven?" he continues. "What if he's out in the world without parents and knows nothing except being dead?" Ken laughs. "It scares me, Miyako. I don't know what's worse. I don't know if I can face him yet."

Miyako feels words bubble in her throat, to tell him it'll work out, to tell them that they'll help, that he doesn't have to face this alone-

But Hikari's words come back to her, clear as bells: I tried to tell… most everyone, everything. And no one believed. No one ever bothered to look at me.

Perhaps it isn't just that no one had believed her, but that no one cared what she believed.

"You don't have to be," she finally says. "You shouldn't. It was, you were kids, and it was hard and scary and they didn't really get it, and they may not now, and it's… it's okay if you're not ready. I'm not either. I don't think Daisuke's ready. We don't have to be ready."

"We're adults," he says, like that means anything at all. And she laughs.

"Ken," she says. "We fought life or death fights as kids. That's not a good measurement."

He smiles through fresh tears and Miyako smiles back and she leans back on him until the phone rings, and they have to talk through their resident disaster everything else.