Litanya: well, another Friday night, another time to update. I do not own Digimon, or any of the characters in this fic. I am not sure exactly who they belong to, but they do not belong to me. This plot, however, is mine, so please do not copy (not that you'd want to.) The rest of this fic will probably be set around Sora and Tai, with a lot of Takari and Kenyako hints… especially Kenyako…

An Old Box

Chapter 9

He didn't remember falling asleep, but the gentle sunshine of an early Saturday morning awoke him from his slumber. He blinked and sat up as he realised that it was morning. He was still in the clothes that he had been wearing the day before, and he was halfway over the end of the bed, where he had flopped the night before. He gasped in pain as he realised that the burning feeling in his hand was still there. He had unconsciously begun to call it the 'eternal flame of pain.' He thought that it described it extremely accurately.

"Tai, come on, breakfast is ready!" he groaned softly and let himself slide off the end of the bed. He then changed quickly, to make it look as though he had not slept in his clothes. His mother would yell at him if she knew that he had. He walked out into the kitchen and grinned at his parents, trying to make out that he was fine. They would only worry if he looked like he was in pain, and he did not want that. Kari was seated at the table, already eating her cereal. It seemed that their mother hadn't gone overboard with the cooking on their first day home. For that both Tai and Kari were glad.

"Hi Tai!" Kari chirped happily. She was happy the whole ordeal was over. For her at least, the collective dream was now only a memory, along with the titanic battle afterwards. She had no powers that could change her life and she had no memories of being 'experimented' on.

"Hey Kari, Mum, Dad," he seated himself down at the table and poured himself a bowl of Rice Bubbles. His father was reading the paper and his mother was in the kitchen, cooking herself one of the new recipes. His father answered him with a grunt and his mother just greeted him good morning from the kitchen. It was a normal morning.

"Your friend Izzy called last night after you had gone to bed. I told him you were sleeping and he apologised and told me to tell you that you should meet them in the park at 10:30am to try and figure out what happened," his mother called out from the kitchen and he almost choked on his cereal. Kari looked up from her food, one eyebrow raised.

"Are you alright Tai?" Kari asked as Tai's coughing fit came to a stop. It had taken him almost five minutes. He nodded his face still red.

"I'm fine, I just swallowed my food the wrong way," he quickly excused himself from the table and washed his dishes in the kitchen sink. Kari and his parents just watched him, thinking that he just needed some time after the shock of the fight. He escaped to his room, glad to have some space so he could try and stop his hand from hurting. He slowly straightened his hand out, cringing as the pain hit him hard. He stared at his hand, concentrating on its appearance to make sure that it looked relatively normal. Apart from the scar of his crest, his hand was perfectly fine. He sighed to himself and dropped his hand down to his side. What happened next was unexpected. The carpet of his room caught fire as his hand let off a loose ball of fire. He cried out in alarm before using his powers to quickly quench the fire with water. He hadn't even been thinking about fire, not to mention commanding his hand to use it. He was afraid to point his hand anywhere, afraid that wherever he went fire would follow him. He sighed, realising how stupid he was being. He looked at the clock, and realising how little time he had, quickly got down to getting ready. After all, he had to attend, if only to keep up appearances.

She was tired. Her mother had had to drag her out of bed to get her to go to the meeting, and now that she was here, she just wanted to sleep again. It seemed that many of the digidestined felt that way because the meeting was taking place with everyone lying on the ground in the middle of the park. Tai seemed to be the person that was most awake, and he didn't look very tired either. But she knew that he was hiding something from them. She knew Tai, and he always would look out for the best of others before himself. It was his worst flaw, not that she could find many in him.

"Okay Izzy, lets get down to business. Why did you call the meeting?" Tai took charge as usual, not allowing anyone else to speak. Kari was between her brother and T.K, a pensive look on her face. It looked as though she was deep in thought about something, and it didn't take Sora a long time to guess what that was. Kari was staring at T.K, without doing a good job of hiding it either. But that didn't matter as the young blond child of Hope was too naïve to notice. He was fiddling with the grass in front of him, now and then shooting glances at Kari out of the corner of his eye. Sora smiled to herself as she realised that the two of them were completely hopeless. They knew that they loved each other, but for some reason they were too scared to act. That reminded her of another situation, but she didn't want to think about that. She continued to move her gaze along the rest of the group.

Matt was on the other side of his brother, his guitar case lying on the ground next to him. He had muttered something about having band practice to go to after the meeting and something about 'catching up' for all of the months he had missed. He was obviously worried that his band had moved on without him and found a new lead guitarist and lead singer. His mind did not seem to be on the meeting at that moment. Mimi was next to him, tying some daisies together to make a daisy chain. Although she was seventeen years old, childish activities never seemed to be 'too young' for her. Joe was next. He had what looked to be a medical studies book laid out in front of him, but his attention seemed to be more on the daisy chains than his work. Or rather, his attention was on the girl making the daisy chains. Sora had to suppress a giggle at the sight. As she took a closer look, it seemed that Mimi was also eyeing Joe from the corner of her eye. It seemed that romance was blooming everywhere she looked. Cody was next to Joe, the shorter boy looking pretty funny next to tall Joe. Cody was staring up at the clouds, his childish fascination with them never having faded. He still believed that his father was up there somewhere in Heaven. Cody was now ten years old, very wise for his young age.

Yolie, Cody's friend since he was born, was next. She was sixteen and the age gap between the two friends seemed huge. Yolie had actually baby-sat for Cody's mother many times and their friendship was strong. At the moment Yolie was playing a card game with Ken. It was 'Bloody Mary,' a game they had grown to love in the 'collective dream.' Ken was still losing a lot, his hand turning a bright pink colour. He just smiled at Yolie though, not making a sound so that the meeting was not disturbed. Ken always had been a considerate person, after he had stopped being the Digimon Emperor. The game continued and Sora winced, not being able to watch Ken get hit another time. Izzy was next to the pair, taking pains to make sure that he couldn't see the card game either. He had his trusty lap top sitting open on the grass in front of him, and every one in a while he would click the mouse. As Sora was sitting next to him, she could see that he was in a game of online chess. It seemed that the seventeen year old genius never seemed to want to stop thinking. It was amazing. On Sora's other side was Davis, who seemed to be sleeping. He had been the last one to arrive at the meeting, arriving half an hour late. His apology had been that he had slept in and his sister had forgotten to wake him up. Just after he had arrived, Tai had spoken. The meeting had now officially begun.

"Well, I was just thinking that last night we all just disappeared before I could explain what had happened correctly. We also left before I could get some details on this that would clear everything up," everyone stopped and listened to the conversation now that it had actually started to get interesting. Sora found herself listening carefully to the talk, and she stopped analyzing the people around her.

"What do you need to know?" T.K asked. After all, it had been his coma that had started it all.

"Well, there is one thing that has been puzzling me about all of this. It was T.K's coma that started it all, but Tai was the first to be 'experimented' on. Wouldn't it have made more sense for T.K to have been 'experimented' on first and then make him get Tai?" there was a small pause, before T.K answered.

"It's easy to explain, I think. I was controlling the coma to a point. There was no way that I would be as sadistic as that, but I was controlling the characters in a way. Everyone was acting as I had perceived them when I was eight. That was why Tai would have been captured because he would have negotiated the safety of everyone else before he thought of himself. That was how I perceived him to be back then and I still do now. That would be why Tai was 'experimented' on before me," the blond seemed to explain it easily, as if his thoughts had dwelt on that very question.

"That does seem logical," Ken agreed, absently stroking his now bruised hand as if that was making it feel better, "Perception is an important part of dreams. But I don't think that T.K was the only one that was controlling the characters. I know that most of us think that way about Tai, but I think that there were a few people that were not acting as T.K had perceived them. For example, you did not know me when you were eight. Therefore you could not have been controlling my actions, or what Yolie, Cody and Davis were doing. Besides, you were yourself in the 'collective dream' and in the 'Real' world too for most of the time that Tai, Yolie, Entier and I were being 'experimented' on. Therefore how could you control all of us?" That was a good question. Joe thought about it, but he couldn't come up with anything.

"Yes, I suppose you're right. Maybe my sub-conscious was controlling the start of the dream and then everyone came in and added a part of themselves to it. That is probably the best explanation for what happened," T.K mused, unconsciously playing with a few leaves of grass.

"Yes… I think that that is correct. It would make sense that way. Now the 'collective dream'…" Izzy went on to explain the effects that the 'collective dream' might have on people. It was a long and boring explanation and Sora found that she just could not keep her eyes open…

She jumped awake as Davis poked her right shoulder. She looked at him and he put a finger to his lips, indicating that she should not say anything.

"And that wraps up the explanation. It's pretty prodigious, isn't it?" everyone mumbled their sleepy agreements, trying their best not to yawn. Sora found it a miracle that Davis had been awake to awaken her. Tai was the only one other than Izzy that did not look like he was about to fall asleep. She wondered how he could brave one of Izzy's long speeches.

"Okay, so that explains it, but is there anything else you want to know? By the sounds of it you didn't have a few answers," Sora was even more amazed. Tai sounded like he had actually listened to Izzy's speech and understood. That was a major feat for anyone to accomplish. Izzy didn't look too surprised; he was busy sorting something out on his lap top. The others however were all looking at Tai as if he had three heads. The thick-skinned leader didn't seem to notice though. Sora winced a little as a small breeze began to blow. Her hand was still affected by the wind, and was causing her a lot of pain. She didn't want to tell the others in case she sounded crazy. None of the others seemed to be having a problem with their hands, so she didn't want to make a fuss.

"Actually I was wondering if you guys still had your 'gifts'," Izzy admitted, still typing away at his lap top. Yolie's facial expression became unsure and Sora didn't know what to say either. Lucky for them Tai decided to answer the question.

"Yeah, they've gone. I think that they were only there to help us destroy Pscychonomon, and then they just disappeared. The only reminders we have now are the scars on our hands," Tai said smoothly. Sora figured that he just wanted everyone to believe that they were normal again. She thought that that was why he had lied.

"Okay, so now you guys are back to normal. That's good," to Sora's surprise she heard evident relief in Mimi's voice. It was almost as if the thought of their powers scared the pink-haired girl. Maybe that was why Tai had lied. Sora had no idea why the child of Sincerity had any reason to be scared, but there was no doubt that she was.

"Does this mean that the meeting is over? I'm sorry to have to rush off, but I promised my grandfather that I would go to kendo practice now. I'm really sorry," Cody apologised and stood up, getting ready to leave.

"That's okay Cody, I have to leave too," Matt also stood up, grabbing his guitar as he did so.

"Well, I guess that we should end the meeting here. If there's anything else we can just phone and schedule a meeting. We're basically going to see each other at school… wait a minute, the exams start in two weeks, don't they?" Tai's eyes had gone as wide as dinner plates as this realization hit him.

"Yeah, but don't worry, you'll do okay."

"No, it's not that. It's… something else. Anyway, Kari and I had better go. We promised our mother that we'd be home for lunch and she might freak out if we don't get there in time." And without another word he left. Sora frowned. She had known Tai for a long time and she had never known him to be this… weird.

'It must be an after effect of the 'collective dream,' she surmised before she too turned and left to go home…

To be continued…

End of chapter 9

Litanya: Sorry for the short chapter. I was going to continue but I have a really bad headache and need to go smash my head against a wall somewhere. Please review if you feel like it, but please don't flame me for my choice of couples. Really, I believe that that is low. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.