DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Digimon or related chars. Damn. I do however own any original
creatures, characters, and concepts (except where SPECIFICALLY noted), including this dumb fic.And while there's not much I could actually do to you should you for some reason steal my crap, I WILL put a hex on you. So THERE.
Specific notation alert: Teyu is property of my sister Sammi, who can be found on FF.net under the penname Osidiano.
Author's Note: Uhmmm. . .yes. I think I'm just about there: to a point I have a clue, I mean. Sorry for the lack of updates--my computer crashed with this chapter on it. :x But, the comp is back and so am I.
This story is faintly AU (or would that be AC?) from the actual series--BelialVamdemon never happened. In fact, nothing after the release of Quinlongmon and the dissapearance of BlackWargreymon happened. Okay? Given that, this takes place one year after 02. I already told you this repeatedly. =P
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10
Alice


The only sound in the room, aside from Hikari's shallow, sobbing breaths, was the beep and hum of hospital monitors and machinery.

Takeru was alone in the room with her, now; was holding one cold, lifeless hand in both of his as if to warm it somehow. Outside the door, he had ceased to hear Taichi's muffled voice rising and falling in a heated argument with the doctor over something Takeru didn't remember--maybe Taichi had been removed; maybe he had been sedated. There had certainly been something wrong with him when he came bursting in the hospital doors, practically screaming to see his sister. . .to know what happened, why couldn't they tell him what was wrong the stupid ignorant fucks, why couldn't they do their damned jobs and do something.

Maybe that was where Miyako and Iori had disappeared to, then--off to see Taichi, to talk to Taichi and try to calm him down. Takeru didn't remember if they had said where they were going. He didn't even remember them leaving.

"Hikari. . ." He spoke softly, meshing his fingers with hers. "Hikari, please wake up. Wherever you are, please come back. . ." Wherever. . .God, he wished he could follow her again. He thought he knew, after all, where she had gone. He had, after all, followed her once before--saved her and brought her back. But. . .

"But it's different this time, isn't it Takeru?"

Takeru jumped slightly, Hikari's fingers almost slipping away as he jerked his head up. When had the door opened? He blinked at the young man--the boy, really; only a little older than Takeru--across from him. When had he come in, and sat down there beside Hikari's bed? "Who. . .? When. . .?" He blinked a bit, vision hazing and watering briefly--the boy seemed, for a moment, no more than a colored blur of pixels before clarifying once more.

The boy shrugged narrow shoulders, leaning back to tap at a monitor with one finger before he reached up and pushed his glasses back on his nose--they were battered and a bit smudged; the left lense cracked. "I don't think either of those really matter right now." He looked back at Takeru with a faint and faintly crooked smile, head canted to one side at a minute angle. Under the harsh hospital tracklights Takeru could not see the boy's eyes--only his own confused reflection. "Do you?"

Blinking again, Takeru simply stared at the boy; somewhat at a loss. There was something familiar about him, to be sure. . .but it was a distant kind of recognition he felt, like seeing a face in the crowd for a second time; like meeting the face in a not-quite-noticed photograph. "A. . .are you. . . a friend of Hikari's. . .?" It was a stupid thing to ask, a stupid thing to say--he was not sure though, just now, if there was anything that would not have seemed stupid.

"Nn." He reached up again, this time to tug at his green shirt where it slid faintly from one shoulder--his hand stayed there, fingers restlessly toying with the fabric, and the navy collar of a shirt beneath. "I wouldn't say that, no."

"Then why--" Takeru made an odd sound as he was cut off by the boy leaning across Hikari's still form, placing one icy hand over Takeru's mouth. He recoiled immediately, even dropping Hikari's hand--the boy's skin had felt dead, had been icy so that Takeru could feel small burns blister into life on his trembling lips.

The boy sat once more, folding both hands back into his denim-clad lap and head canting ever so faintly--a twitch to one side, really, the gesture almost reminiscent of a hunting snake. "Even if I were a friend Takeru, how would I know what you were thinking? No, Hikari isn't familiar with me, technically speaking, and I don't think she'd like me much anyway. But she's what I'm here to talk about. . .Or the two of you, in any case."

The expectant silence found no reply from Takeru--he had knocked his chair down as he stumbled back and now stood; one arm raised in the act of rubbing at the icy burns, and eyes wide. Who was this? Who was this strange boy with the torn and faintly tar-stained clothing; the wild dark hair and the creeping, vague feeling of familiarity? Because he was familiar, somehow. . .somewhere Takeru had seen him, or heard his voice; or something so close it blurred into the same. And why did his touch burn like that? How. . .?

"You ask too many questions, Takeru. Has anyone ever told you that?" He rolled his shoulders in a shrug, continuing before Takeru could respond--just as well; he hadn't intended to. "After all, if you'd just listen for a moment you'd know--in the final analysis, the answer to all of them is the same."

Takeru's jaw worked a moment, in an effort to force words beyond the knot in his throat--it pulled and stretched at his burned lips, and he stopped, simply shaking his head. Too many questions? He hadn't asked anything. . .hell, he hadn't said anything, only stood staring at this strange, strange boy with his crooked little smile. How? How was this happening? Or maybe it wasn't. That seemed reasonable, sure. . .slipped off to sleep, stuck in a strange delirious dream with--

"Mmm. . .no, Takeru." The boy stood now, stretching his arms up above his head--back and neck and joints popped almost grotesquely, as if the action had snapped them back into place after some horrible misalignment. Takeru flinched at the sound of it. "It's. . .well, something like that, Takeru; but not a dream the way you think, sorry." His hands dropped from up above his head, one resting on his hip. "Which also isn't what I'm here about, not yet."

Again Takeru choked faintly, hand moving from his burned lips to cover his eyes. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. . .What was happening? He realized at last that he no longer held Hikari's hand, and moved back beside her bed warily. Her fingers were still cold and unresponsive against his, when he took them again. ". . .Who are you?" He did not look at the boy. Rather, he kept his eyes on Hikari--the bandaged burns and the teartracks on her ashen face. Had he said he knew how to help Hikari. . .? Takeru couldn't remember. . .

"Not in so many words, but yeah, sure. If you really want to help her, that is. . ."

"I do!" Takeru snapped his head up, azure eyes narrowed in perhaps the single most frigid glare one could muster under such circumstances. Was he trying to suggest that Takeru didn't want to help? Or maybe that he was afraid to help? Looking at the boy's amused little smile, Takeru thought that just might be it. "Tell me how, if you know. I'll do anything. . ."

The boy nodded, then turned his head; one hand rising and sweeping wide into a gesture which encompassed the back wall with all its machinery, its softly murmuring monitors. "Ask them, then." The boy looked back at Takeru once more, and he thought, for a moment, that he had seen some vague flash of violet and metal behind the boy's glasses--hadn't they been cracked a minute ago?--that made his head scream and spin. He brought his hands to his head, trembling in the wake of the brief and agonizing static; trying to hold onto the boy's enigmatic words. "They still know, after all. . .they always know, don't they? Always have precisely the answer you're looking for; or seem to."

For a moment Takeru stared at the boy, not understanding. . .

And then he saw it. How could he have missed it? It was only the most distant corner of his mind that noticed the boy with his crooked smile was gone, and only the most distant corner or his mind that noticed he had let go of Hikari's hand; had left her side and walked to the back wall with its clickwhirrhum of hospital machinery, it's soft and steady monotony of beeps and sighs. What did he see there? What was it. . .that he was reaching out for, that his hands would so brush the screen and slip through it into the trembling electric synapses beyond the glass? Takeru. . .wasn't sure, really.

But it knew. The green light and the green darkness reached out to take him and he closed his eyes to the static, the familiar shadows of blue-black and silver across his skin. It had the answer he needed, true; it knew where he needed to be and--

The only sound in the room aside from Hikari's shallow, sobbing breaths, was the beep and hum of hospital monitors and machinery. They hid the turning of the lock, in that otherwise empty room, quite effectively.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

He had fallen asleep on his notes again.

It was, perhaps, the third time in recent weeks that Jyou had opened blurry eyes to blurrier images of black on white; diagrams and notes and formulae scattered haphazardly across his desk, and his pencil fallen to the floor from tired hands. At first he had been embarrassed, but now, on this third (fourth, maybe fifth) time, he found himself becoming irritated with himself, and worried. What if he were ever to fall asleep like that in class? What if he was working himself to hard on this, what if he had taken on more than he could handle? What if he wasn't cut out for--

The heavy slamming on the door came again, cutting roughly in on his thoughts and announcing itself as his reason for waking. Jyou blinked, and adjusted his glasses where they had nearly fallen from his face in his doze as he stood. "Coming. . ." Even his voice sounded tired, and heavy--he removed his glasses briefly again to scrub at his face, trying to wake up completely. It did not help, but he crashed into the doorframe of his bedroom and that did the trick nicely. He muttered something not quite a curse, and then called again to the insistent pounding. "Coming! I said I'm coming already. . ."

Jyou let his hand rest on the doorknob for a moment, listening. There was a vague mumbling from the other side, a furtive sound of shifting; the dry slide of fabric, and the low bumping of sneakers under shifting weight. He blinked slowly behind the thick lenses. Even from through the door, their was an almost palpable tang in the air--and animal thing not quite fear but the anticipation of it. Curious, and worried, he turned the knob and slowly opened the door. . .

Only to have it rammed open at the first sign of movement. From beyond a vague and jittering blur burst in, into him, past him. For a brief, long moment Jyou had the impression of an animal, of desperate dark eyes and dusty red. He realized he was falling only when he felt a jarring stop. Finding himself on the ground in a rather uncomfortable sprawl, Jyou blinked up at his 'animal'; at the mumbling muttering intruder over the tops of his now-crooked glasses.

"Uhm. . .Koushiro? Is some. . .thing. . ." He trailed off into a quiet pause as he took in the harried state of his friend--the wide darting eyes and pallid, almost plastic-looking skin; the constant movement and the fluttering, shallow quick breaths. A part of him--the part of him that was still screaming mad and not simply irritated or worried or embarrassed about his falling asleep on his homework--was already making its prognosis. He silenced it with a cough, and distracted himself by returning his glasses to the full upright position. ". . .wrong?" The end of the sentence was belated, tasted lame and leaden on Jyou's tongue, but Koushiro did not seem to notice. He made no indication, in fact, of even being certain Jyou was there.

"Jyou? Jyou. That's you, right? Of course. Yes, right." He nodded, a rapid series of jerking head-bobs which perfectly matched his babbling, jerky words; and unslung his laptop from it's holder on his back. It may have been the same one, for all Jyou knew, that had seen them through the Digital World and back again those years ago. "I have to be sure you see--I really really have to be sure it's you. Because it might not be you, you see, and if I told you and it wasn't then I would have wasted so much time and I really don't think we ha--"

Jyou reached out and tugged on Koushiro's pant leg. "Koushiro. Koushiro."

Cutting the word abruptly, Kou reached up and rubbed his hand across his forehead. He blinked rapidly, and ran his tongue along dry lips. "What?"

"Breathe." Jyou released the fabric--it felt grimy, but not dirty if that made any sense; like clean clothes worn through a greasy cloud--and stood, brushing Kou's hand aside and letting his own palm rest on the other boy's forehead. It was cold, and clammy with sweat. "Now slow down, and tell me what's wrong, and why I wouldn't be me, and why you don't think we have any time."

"Ah." Koushiro breathed at last, a deep shaking intake; he looked as if he had somehow forgotten to get around to breathing, or thinking straight. He clutched his laptop to his chest as he spoke, but did not open it. "It's. . .it's really quite simple, really kind of complicated and Taichi didn't believe me. . .you will, won't you Jyou? Yes. Yes yes, fine, good."

Jyou blinked again, somewhat bemused by all this. His head was pounding where the door had rammed his forehead, and he still wasn't quite entirely awake--all in all there was a rather surreal quality to the encounter and conversation. He resisted the urge to pinch himself.

Koushiro was still talking. "--so you see I told him but I'm not sure he believed me and that just might be part of it. I think there are certain rules we have to follow--I've got it figured out, you see--and one of them I think might be that nobody can know." He nodded again, chewing his lip. "I had to come tell you though, because the memo. . .I forgot at first but then I remembered the memo the message the warning; something's going on Jyou, and it's part of this because. . .because. . ." He stopped, then forged ahead again before Jyou could say anything. "I had to come quickly. I tried to take the bus but I couldn't because--"

"Koushiro, you walked?"

"No. No no no." Kou blinked up at Jyou, from beneath Jyou's hand, as if it were the most ridiculous question in the world. "I ran, of course. No time to walk."

Quiet for a moment, Jyou moved his hand from Koushiro's face, then returned it. "Koushiro, you live on the other side of the district." And Koushiro, though healthy, was surely not athletic enough to run so far.

"Yes. Yes, and see that's why I wanted to take the bus but I couldn't, because of the girl; so I ran because it was almost as fast, I think."

The creeping feeling of surreality was growing. Jyou moved his hands again--he had discovered they were shaking ever so faintly against Koushiro's cold plastic skin. ". . .What girl, Koushiro. . .?" He was almost afraid to ask.

"The little girl on the bus. She had a stuffed animal, and it was green--she asked me if I knew where to find Alice, or about the rabbit hole and I had to tell her no." He frowned, almost flinching, and looked away. There was that feeling again, the animal almost-fear hovering at the edge of his voice. "I guess I was lying, and she wasn't happy about it. . .so I had to run. Couldn't take the bus. . ."

Growing, still--Jyou gave in to the urge and pinched his arm. It hurt, and it felt like a snakebite in a bad dream--cold and damp from Koushiro's forehead. He licked his lips, mouth feeling strangely like cotton. What was Kou talking about? What little girl? Who was Alice, what was the rabbit hole, how was Koushiro lying to say he didn't know about them? His mind filled with questions, each more meaningful, more meaningless than the last. He settled on one, and it too tasted like lead on his dry tongue. "Koushiro. . .what did she do. . .?" He should not have asked.

Koushiro's wide, harried black eyes came up to meet his own solemnly, and he lifted the laptop away from his body, holding it out with a reverent fear in its own right and way childlike. His fingers trembled faintly on the edges of the folded machine, then pulled them apart, and open. "She told me." His voice had calmed now. . .cleared from mumbling delirium to that faint, hoarse whisper.

The blank, black screen shivered to life--it made no motions of its normal starting but scrolled with numbers, ones and zeroes that spilled across the monitor. It was strange, that Jyou should suddenly feel that he could not, that he dare not look away from them. They were. . .beautiful, in a strange way, almost liquid. They were frightening, in a strange way, and he felt more and more that this was all some strange and elaborate dream. That he must, at this moment, still have his face pressed into scattered homework.

His eyes felt heavy again, his world felt dim and shuddering around the edges again. Across vast and misty distances he heard a soft and frightened voice--whose he could not remember, or why it spoke such words: "And she showed me. . ."

The numbers spilled across the screen, spilled across his eyes.

The dream ended, and there was only sleep.


~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hey Yama, someone here to see you."

Staring through a screen of filmy white smoke with his back against a cold wall, Yamato almost ignored the summons. He would have; if the questioning, puzzled note had not suggested something of vaguely more interest than watching Takashi lounge and read his magazine. He had read the captions on the cover photo hours ago, before Takashi bent it over backwards and before the beginning and ending of practice, so that now only the vague memory of wide and mournful grey eyes remained. Yamato flicked his fingers disinterestedly, and the tattered remains of a cigarette crumbled and fell from them--a hovering fan had handed it to him before practice, male or female he didn't remember, and he had let Father Time smoke it to the filter for him. He looked down at the dead stump he was left holding before he answered, and dropped it as he spoke. "Friend or foe?"

Akira shrugged, fiddling with his glasses. Five minutes ago it had been a paper cup, five minutes before that a pencil, five minutes before that it had been his keyboard. Some days Yamato found it irritating; for now it was just a part of Akira and that was fine. "Hey, I don't know. I sure haven't ever seen 'em before, but you know lots of weird people so. . ."

Yamato raised a brow faintly. "'Em'? What's that--him, her, or them?" He stood, but only partially--he let himself lean back against the wall, and debated taking out his guitar to play a bit more before heading home as their absent band member had already done.

"It's. . ." Akira paused, not taking the jibe with his normal wry smirk and scowl but rather looking even more puzzled than before. "It's. . ." His hand left his glasses, circling uselessly in the air like a dizzy, drowsy sparrow. "Hell, I don't know what it is." His gesturing hand dropped, and tucked disconsolately into the pocket of his jeans. The admission seemed to confuse him even more: Yamato wondered absently if, up until now, the other boy had acknowledged his failure to identify the stranger.

"Screw it." Yamato looked at Akira once more at the frustrated words--he wasn't sure when he had looked away, but the smouldering cigarette butt had briefly been more interesting. "You can figure it out yourself, right? It's your visitor. . ." He slid his arms into his jacket, and waved to Yamato and Takashi. "I'll see you guys. . .practice tomorrow, right?"

"If you say so."

He favored Yamato with one of those wry smirk/scowls this time. "I do. So you better be there, because I know where you all sleep." He waved then, and walked out with Takashi's laughter following him--and some crude comment no doubt, but Yamato had missed it this time and it was probably recycled anyway.

The building--was it a warehouse? It reminded him, sometimes, of a warehouse--was quiet for a while then except for the turning of thin pages, and the trapped vibrations of their music in the walls and floor. Yamato found himself wondering, after the passage of minutes, if his visitor was still waiting for him outside. Shortly after, he actually remembered he had a visitor.

"Crap. . ." He muttered the word, shaking his head as he straightened from the wall. He wasn't rude like that, not really--just there were those times he felt so detached, and then he felt like crap afterwords. He wiped his mouth on the back of his wrist, and looked over at Takashi--the drummist had abandoned his music mag and picked up something else; possibly, knowing him, pornographic in nature. "Hey." When there was no reply, he picked up the dead butt and flicked it. "Hey, drummer-boy."

Takashi jumped with a yelp when the old cigarette landed in his lap, and scrambled to his feet as if he expected to burn him. "Don't do that! Scared the shit out of me!"

"Whatever. I'm out." Yama jerked his thumb back, indicating the door. "Lock up when you're done, okay?"

"Fine. Asshole."

Yama let that slide with no more than a smirk and a tip of two fingers which was not quite a wave, as he slipped out the door and into the cooling air. He closed his eyes for a moment, and breathed deeply--the air was almost clean out here, compared to the menthol-smoke behind the door; he smiled a bit with the rain-scented breeze on his face. It would be a good evening. . .it felt like a good evening, caught midway in this respite from the rain, and maybe he would stop by to see Takeru later. They could watch monster movies together while the sky poured down. Maybe they--

The thought halted when he opened his eyes, and he blinked faintly, reaching up to brush wind-tossed blonde bangs from the blue. His visitor, apparently, was still there--the tiny figure was apparent. "Hey. . .did you want to see me?"

It stood in a puddle, shoelaces untied and clothing faded--to Yamato there was the impression of vivid color, of bright pink and something else gone shallow with time and wear. The only brightness which remained was held in the stick-like, pale arms--something jarringly green and purple, with glassy dark eyes. The figure itself--and Yamato could, now, understand Akira's uncertainty--made no response, save that the lowered head, whose angle and pale brown bangs hid the eyes, was touched by a tiny toneless smile.

Yamato frowned a little, and moved towards the child. "Are you okay. . .?" For surely the child looked sick, almost skeletal in its clothes, and that odd shade of pale. "Where are your parents?"

The small figure shifted, tilted its head ever so slightly. The hair seemed, from this new perspective, more ragged, and a not-quite dusty shade of blonde. "Mommy and Daddy. . ." the child spoke slowly, as if unsure of it's voice--an uncertain voice, yes, and in more ways than one. At the first it had sounded distinctly female, high and sweet; but now it was bland, and indistinct. ". . .don't live together, anymore. . ."

Feeling his throat close slightly, Yamato nodded. He must have still been in that detached, aimless mood of his because he couldn't quite bring himself to feel sorry, that this child had to live with a broken home; even knowing from the inside, he could feel nothing but the tired desire to walk away. ". . .Where do you live. . .?" Or run. He didn't want to take the child home--strange child, had the clothes seemed time-dulled pink before? They were aged green now, and the thing in those pale arms something vaguely resembling white. Still smiling, the faceless faded child. He didn't want anything to do with it.

"I'm lost. . ." The voice now was fading again, but into something rather than out of--male now, the petulant innocence of a little boy. "I'm so lost." Only one hand clutched the indistinct lump with the glossy black eyes now; the other hand stretched, reached out for Yamato from within its tattered sleeve. "Take me home Mister? Please Mister?"

Yama took a step back, shaking his head faintly. Excuses tumbled through his mind--he picked them up, tossed them aside. Why did he need an excuse? Why couldn't he, why shouldn't he help a sick child home on a cold rainy day? He scrambled, in his mind, and finally choked out something--not what he wanted to say but something and that seemed, in this odd and numbing not-fear, quite the accomplishment. "I. . .I thought you knew my name. . ." It did though--it had come to see him. Hadn't Akira said that? Didn't it. . .didn't it feel like that?

"Uh-huh." The child nodded sagely, still reaching out. Its reach strained for a moment, and then relaxed so that it stood, hand up as if expecting

(knowing)

that Yamato would come and take it in just the barest moment; once everything was all explained. "You're Mister Alice." The child smiled happily, and looked up at him. "And we're going to the rabbit hole."

But they did not.

Because then it looked up at him, and Yamato saw. . .something. Something blue and silver--something like the looking glass, or it's cold brother the sea. He did not know then, he would not know later behind his locked door and with a handful of painkillers and trembling breaths. Because then Yamato saw something, heard something felt something that entered through his eyes and stabbed into his skull; that ran down his spine like wild knives, like needles on the raw flesh all so rusty, rusted metal on the raw nerves and nails on the board and oh god it hurt. Because then, just then, he felt his hand drawn to the one outstretched; the pale unnatural stick fingers, sharp as bone. Because his skin brushed them, and it burned colder than ice so that blisters clustered and popped on the pads of his fingers.

Because then, Yamato ran.