AN: Good Lord, this is turning into quite a novel. To think I originally planned a one-shot, too. I just can't keep anything small, can I? Well, again, this chapter is a little longer than most, but that's a good thing for you guys, I guess. Again, keep an eye out for foreshadowing and symbolism.
Reviews are so helpful! Thanks so much for all the wonderful ones I've gotten already!
Silence is goldenBut I think
It's gonna kill me now
Everything I've seen
Never seems to fill me now
No one told me that the world
Could fall through…
Patience can wait for now
I think I've waited for too long
You always gave a choice
And the right to be wrong
All my life has been
Slipping through your hands…
In-between this
Am I going to find a way
To defeat this
Living inside yesterday?
"Am I Going to Find Out?"
Lifehouse
The air felt too thick to breathe by the time TK reached the beach, and he pressed a hand to the painful stitch in his side. Bending over, he could just make out the patterns his dripping sweat was making in the loose sand beneath his feet. The beach was dark, lit only faintly by the streetlights on the distant docks, and he could hear more than see the waves pounding the shore. Desperation had given him wings through the evening city, and as he panted before the expanse of water, shining in the moonlight before him, he realized something.
He didn't have even the faintest idea of how to get to the Dark Ocean.
Assuming he could even get there, the next major question was how to find Matt and get him out with an absolute minimum of confrontation. That was key… TK wasn't about to take on Dark Digimon with his bare hands, Crest or no Crest. Being hopeful was one thing, being stupid was entirely another. If nothing else, TK had enough problems without being stupid.
Regaining his breath, TK stretched his sore muscles as he straightened. He glanced helplessly at the empty beach around him, as if to find the answer patterned out in the stars or scrawled, childlike, into the sand beneath his feet. The beach was very dark, and he could feel the old fear creeping upon him, but he pushed it away. There was no time for that, just as there was no time for his ignorance… every moment Matt was in that place while he dawdled on this beach was a moment unforgivably lost.
How had he done it, in that might-have-been time when Kari had been lost? He'd followed her, how? Pulling his Crest from beneath his shirt, he held the charm in his fist; calming his thoughts and attempting to center, to focus on the golden heat of the Crest and try to find the subtle pull that had so often lead him to Kari. A whisper across his mind, a ripple in the expanding pool of his power indicated the distant gleam of the Crest of Light, but he pushed that familiar warmth aside. He had to try to push through to find the Crest of Friendship, although he wasn't sure he could find a Crest other than Light. There was a chance with Matt, though… they were brothers, after all, bound by blood. Pushing for a long moment, he allowed himself to fall a little deeper into the luminescent pool of golden fire inside the center of his mind, always holding himself a little back from the blinding heat.
Light? Kari's essence appeared again on the edge of his senses, a little farther away, this time. She was still on her way home. But he didn't want to find her! His Crest showed him Kari again, and TK felt a murmur of confusion from the incandescent object. It didn't understand what he was trying to do, and he couldn't seem to focus closely enough with it to make it understand.
No! Matt, MATT! Show me Friendship… Friendship!
His quickly building frustration threw him out of his trance, finally, and TK rotated the tension from his shoulders, trying not to notice the slightly queasy feeling he was getting from concentrating so entirely on his interior self. The stars over his head wavered slightly in his vision, and he blinked slowly until they stopped moving.
This wasn't working… all he could find was Light and that did him absolutely no good right now. All this activity with his Crest was going to alert Patamon and quite possibly Kari soon, too. He eyed the object in his hand, still bright from his earlier trance, the innocuous charm and its telling symbol of a rising sun, as much a part of him as his hand or his eyes, and yet so foreign at times. TK took a deep breath, knowing what he had to do, but not looking forward to it at all. He had only done this once before, and that had been so long ago that it seemed almost as though it had happened to someone else. Sensing his intent, the Crest of Hope grew brilliant in his hand, the light banishing the shadows clinging to the soft dunes around him. Closing his eyes, TK brought the Crest to his heart, holding there in his tightly clenched fingers.
Exhaling, he let go of his conscious self, released everything he was, all of the memories, all of the pain, everything that made him TK, right up to his innermost sense of himself, centered deeply by his love of Kari… and his love for Matt. He released all of it, dropping deep into the Crest of Hope, allowing the Crest to sweep forward, taking everything with it until he was nameless and empty within, everything that he was having been released. There was a moment of silence in that everlasting place in the center of his soul before his Crest acted, filling all that he had emptied for it with light and fire, with water and wind and time and strength. Then, as the power peaked within him, TK released the memories of Kari and Matt and allowed Hope to take hold completely.
The boy's clenched hands dropped to his sides, the fingers falling open as he opened his eyes to the portal that formed effortlessly before him, into the dark Ocean beyond… and within him, only Hope remained.
Day, you have bruised and beaten me,
As the rain beats down the bright, proud sea,
Beaten my body, bruised my soul,
Left me nothing lovely or whole—
Yet I have wrested a gift from you,
Day that dies in dusky blue:
For suddenly over the factories,
I saw a moon in the cloudy seas—
A wisp of beauty all alone,
In a world as hard and gray as stone—
Oh who could be bitter and want to die
When a maiden moon wakes up in the sky?
"The New Moon"
Sarah Teasdale
There was no time in this dark place, wherever it was. Or perhaps it was just that, once there, time ceased to matter, counted and observed or not. Everything ceased to matter in this place; even the sand in his shoes and the grimy feeling the briny air was leaving on his skin and hair. Even the memories of the people he loved, who couldn't love him, and the aching empty holes that had brought him here, even they did not matter.
Had anything ever mattered?
Matt didn't know anymore, he wasn't sure if he'd ever known. Thinking that far back made him tired and depressed… memories were useless, why keep them? All they brought was pain, small aches through the days and weeks and months and years that eventually mounted up to an emotional hemorrhage from which there could be no recovery. It was funny how you didn't notice depression until you looked up and realized that a wall of slick gray ice had removed you from the rest of the world, and all the people around you were feeling and living normally, and you were merely imitating life as you saw it, not as you felt it, and in a mediocre way, at that. As though you ran and ran and ran and could never keep up with everyone else, jogging so effortlessly and happily ahead of you, leaving you behind to your darkness and pain.
Matt didn't feel like running anymore, it wasn't as though he could ever catch up. Everyone was better than him, everyone found life so easy and he was such a failure, even TK, who had been through so much, was better off than he. Matt's wounded soul shied away from the painful subject of TK, shied away from the bottomless ocean of loss and failure that had so long accompanied any thought of the younger boy.
Burying his face in his knees, Matt tried to make himself smaller in the descending darkness of the colorless beach, wishing with all his soul that he could simply fade away, become invisible, become nothing, to disappear from the world from the memories of all who knew him, to know rest and freedom from pain. Oh, how he longed to fade into oblivion, loosing his grief and guilt into the summer wind, to be scattered across the emotionless sea.
All around his huddled form, shadows grew, lingering with greater strength and boldness as the hopelessly lost boy allowed his own light to fade, yearning in vain to fade with it. The shadows relished the irony that the Bearer of Friendship had no one to save him here, no one who would notice or care that he'd gone, and they laughed that he would get his last wish. They would see to it that he would die here, alone and not mourned, his memory lost to the wandering sea, cast forth from the hearts that should have carried him alive in memory for all time. They would happily devour the soul of Friendship, casting his languished and unused powers into darkness, and they would laugh as Enmity grew between the Digidestined, until they all fell at their own hands. Then they would enter the worlds of Light unopposed, gamboling happily at the heels of their Master as he destroyed the Pillars. They would be unable to stand against him, even if their own Friendship survived. The Pillars would fall, as they should have so long ago, unable to turn the tide this time.
This time, there was no hope for any of them… neither would there be light.
And, oh, how the shadows would laugh, freed at last from this their prison, given again reign over the souls of man and creature alike, over the worlds and the heavens. Oh, how the angels would weep. Tears in vain, vain! The time of evil's dominion was at hand.
It would all begin with the death of one boy who thought he was beyond the concern of all the blessed, all who walked in light. So little self-esteem, so seemingly unimportant, and yet he would be the first to fall, the first drop of water in an ocean that would eventually devour the Earth. He would be forgotten by the world of light in the chaos of the fall, but they, the shadows, would remember his name, his face, and his soul as the first battle of their glorious revolution.
But Matt knew of none of this, lost in the slowly dying storm of his own pain, as the shrieking of his own soul against this last act was lost in the tormented cries of his too sharp memories, jagged and unrelenting as they sliced that last of his resistance and will into scattered, windblown pieces. The feeling that it would all be over soon was his only comfort as the last of his tears fell across cold, lifeless cheeks.
Those tears remained, bright on his cheeks as they reflected the light of the rising sun moments later. The relentless amber light cast through the shadows surrounding the darkened figure, melting them away as gently as dawn does the night. As natural and as silent as the passage of time, the light flowed across the beach, putting to rest the living shadow like the hand of merciful death in the night, granting sleep to the suffering and lost.
As they died, the shadows cried out in anger and pain, too late, too late! Destroy us if you will but saving him is beyond even a Pillar! You cannot help him because you will never understand him… Hope will never understand despair! Too late!
The light stretched in a great circle around Matt, bringing radiance and color to everything within its golden borders, but all the time deepening the shadows without. Across the span of the endless beach, the bubble of light was a tiny stronghold against the listless, despairing darkness that stretched beyond imagination in every direction. At its brightest point the light seemed to solidify, forming into the image of a young man that wavered in and out, as if such a creature of light was unable to ground completely in the dark world.
"It is never too late. Stand up, Friendship, you are needed."
Silence stretched out between the figures, dark and light, and Matt remained unmoving. The light dome did not so much as waver or flicker, though the winds of shadow had begun to shriek in rage beyond the golden sanctuary. Too late, they screamed, too late! He is ours, ours!
"Friendship, wake up. You must wake up. Your time has not yet come!"
The voice remained kind, but took on a bite of authority. There was an echo in the tone, as if two voices were speaking, one young and the other older, deeper. Matt still did not respond, and the figure of light shivered dramatically, shimmering into two equal forms and then rejoining, almost solidifying completely. The circle of light shuddered in reaction and shrank inward swiftly as the figure seemed to appear completely, revealing a young boy clutching his heart as though in pain. Then the light seemed to sweep forward again, as though winning a battle with the boy, and the bubble re-expanded, sweeping back though the converging shadows. The figure, again more light than flesh, stood tall and unmoved over the pitiful form huddled in the sand.
"Wake up! You MUST wake up!"
The echo was almost gone, the older voice dominating the figure's tone with a now unmistakable attitude of command. The winds shrieked their laughter at the battle being fought within the luminescent shield, their growing noise almost drowning out Matt's soft, whispered reply.
"Go away… let me die in peace."
This reply seemed to give the glowing figure pause, and there was a moment before he responded.
"I can't do that. You are needed alive… and whole. Both worlds depend on this."
Matt finally stirred, shifting angrily but not looking up. "You really do know how to charm a guy. Why should I help you? I've worked to save both worlds, and they've never done anything for me. It's my life and this is my choice."
The reply was swift this time, and angry. "And what of those you will leave behind? What right have you to choose for them?"
"No one cares about me. No one has ever done anything for me… why should I worry about them?" Matt stirred listlessly, tracing random patterns in the suddenly warm sand beneath his feet.
"There is one who cares a great deal about you… who was willing to risk his very soul to save you from this. Will you so belittle his sacrifice?"
"Geez, who are you and why won't you leave me alone?" Matt finally growled, squinting up from his knees on annoyance. He had to blink several times before he could make out the figure in the light, and then…
"TK? What are you doing here?" There was wonder and a little fear in his tone.
"No, you are mistaken, but TK is the reason I am here. He needs you… he did this to find you. Can you now truly say that no one cares for you, that no one has ever done anything for you? There is at least one soul on earth that values your life above his own. Is that not enough?"
Matt stared for a moment, confused and a bit disturbed by the answer he had received. "But… but you are TK! I'm looking right at you. What's going on here?"
The figure of TK seemed to sigh, wavering slightly. "In many ways, I am TK. It was his desire to save you at any cost that made this possible, and it is his power that protects us even now. But I am not TK in the way that you mean."
Matt stood angrily, shedding sand and the last of the shadow as his concern for his brother overrode all other conscious thought and subdued, for a moment, his despair. Clenching his fists, he faced the figure challengingly.
"If you're not really TK, than who are you and why do you care so much?"
The figure of TK shimmered again, as though the cold words had struck it a physical blow. "I am Hope. Because TK houses all the forces of hope in his own soul, in many ways he and I are one and the same. I am the sentient embodiment of everything your younger brother represents, normally housed in his Crest. TK has the power of Hope, but he lacks the knowledge of how to use it… in order to get here he relinquished his body, soul, and all its strength to me."
Matt's jaw dropped slightly, and the anger drained from him. He had never thought that someone could love him so selflessly, so completely beyond his own life. "So where's TK right now? In the Crest?"
The figure wavered again, this time amused. "Certainly not. He is here, as well. He is just… away from this plane. He is fighting me, though. He is… unhappy with the way I am handling this. He feels I do not understand how to speak with you." The figure seemed to tilt its head at the boy for a moment. "Perhaps he is right."
Snorting slightly, Matt turned away from the form of his brother, no longer wanting to associate TK's face with what was being said. "I doubt either of you would really understand what it took to get me here."
As the words left his lips, the bubble of light around the pair shuddered violently, before shrinking inward completely, faster than dreaming. The world returned to its bleak darkness and there was a heavy thud on the sand behind him. Whirling, Matt saw TK on his hands and knees in the sand, shaking with exhaustion, completely corporeal with only the faintest luminescence still shining from his form. Matt stared, immobile for a long moment, watching the younger boy struggle to breathe evenly, hiccups and gasps interrupting him as though he'd just run a marathon. Finally he knelt beside the boy, rubbing his back in soothing circles, feeling how warm TK's body was, almost feverish.
"Why are you doing this to yourself, TK? I'm not worth this."
Still breathing heavily, TK shook his head wildly, the glow still slowly dimming from his skin. "No… No I don't believe that. I had to do this, because I do understand you… how you got here. I know what it's like to want to die."
TK's breathing had calmed as he spoke, and Matt's hand stilled on his back. "TK, you don't have to… I know you of all people haven't—"
Shaking his head again, TK fell into a seated position, looking completely drained of energy. "No… I did… I have been there. When I was… trapped in Spiral Mountain, I wanted so badly for it to be over, to just die if that's what it took. I wanted more than anything to die. But I didn't… I couldn't. Do you know why?"
Trapped by TK's anguished eyes, Matt could only mutely shake his head.
"It was because of you. I knew you were out there, somewhere, waiting for me. I knew you would have given your life to save mine, and I couldn't betray that. Thinking of you kept me alive… and my hope for you, Matt, for no one else but you, that hope was the one that eventually saved me. You saved my life, Matt. You didn't even have to be there to do it."
The brothers stared at each other for a long moment before Matt replied. "You always were a weird kid, squirt."
TK watched his eyes for another moment before breaking into a grin of relief. "Thank you, thank you, God, I was so afraid I'd been too late. I was so afraid…"
Matt smiled softly in return, feeling something wake up inside of him that had been buried in grief for twelve years. "It's alright," he soothed, brushing TK's bangs away gently. "You saved me this time. I guess that makes us even. You'll have to teach me that trick you did with your Crest."
TK smiled wryly over at his brother, looking sheepish. "I wouldn't recommend it… I feel like I got hit by a truck… twice."
Matt smirked, allowing TK to rest his head against his shoulder. "So how are we going to get out of here?"
His voice faint, TK murmured, "Don't look at me… I'm fresh out of tricks… and… energy at the… moment…"
Laughing softly, Matt shifted so that TK's head was in his lap as the boy drifted into a deep, drained sleep. "I guess we'll figure it out in the morning," he said, looking down on the slight, protective glow from his brother's Crest. The Crest seemed to be saying that it would protect the brothers until they were strong enough to leave this place.
"I can keep an eye on him, too, you know. Nobody asked for your opinion," he said in an amused tone to the shimmering talisman.
As he settled down to keep watch over his brother with a renewed sense of purpose that made him immune to the shadows, Matt could have sworn the Crest blink a pleased affirmative back at him. He was still hurt, still lost in many ways, but as he sat there with TK huddled trustingly before him, helpless and exhausted, none of that seemed to matter.
This is the story of a girl
Who cried a river and
Drowned the whole world
And while she looks so sad in photographs
I absolutely love her when she smiles…
How many days in a year
She woke up with hope
But she only found tears
And I can be so insincere
Making the promises
Never for real…
As long as she stands there waiting
Wearing the holes in the soles of her shoes
How many days disappear?
You look in the mirror,
So how do you choose?
"Absolutely the Story of a Girl"
Nine Days
A feeling of uneasiness had plagued Kari all the way home, staying with her as she fell into a fevered, restless sleep. Despite the cool, controlled temperature of her bedroom, she had tossed off her blankets, sleeping tangled in sweat soaked pale pink sheets. As she tossed and turned in the grip of some nameless nightmare, Gatomon looked on helplessly, her tail twitching in anguished agitation as she kept watch over her partner through the haunted hours of the night.
In her dream, Kari was running from some formless, looming evil through a shadowed, oppressive jungle. The branches seemed to fight her, scratching her arms and face, and the still, close darkness under the tangled vines pushed in around her, stealing her breath even as she ran. The dense black leaves blocked out the weak light of the moon and stars, causing the girl to trip and stumble over unseen obstacles in her path. The ground shook and trembled as she went, only slowing her further, and she could feel the very essence of the world crying out around her.
It was the Digital world, dying beneath her very feet, being ripped apart at its very core. Ahead of her, she could see a clearing in the trees, and she could hear the crash of stone objects hurtling to the ground. She broke through into the free air and was horrified to see that only the two center columns remained, the outer seven having collapsed into darkened ruin, their light and power spilled out into the chaotic shadow and lost forever. The two center columns still glowed, brave against the dark, even as the world buckled around them. This was how it had happened… this was how it had ended the first time.
Only two remained… they had to act… but where was he?
Sounds began to reach Kari over the roaring winds, the cries of Digimon, screaming out in despair and then silenced. Thunder crashed over her head and she fell to her knees, her pink aura flaring, crying out in terror.
"TK! TK, where are you?"
"Kari."
Relief flooding her heart, Kari leapt to her feet and moved towards TK, who stood between her and the golden pillar, a white aura surrounding his form. Before she could move more that a single step, another voice spoke from behind her.
"Hikari."
Whirling in place, Kari gasped out loud, staring unabashedly at what was before her. There, between her and the black jungle, was another TK, this one glowing gold, with the Crest of Hope blazing from around his neck. She opened her mouth, trying to speak but unable to bring to words the horrified dismay she was feeling. This was wrong, all wrong! It hadn't happened this way!
She looked at the golden TK before her, adorned with a white hat and an easy, carefree smile, looking very, very young and strong, his smile reassuring and hopeful. He held out one hand to her, his smile inviting and familiar. Confused, she turned back to the other TK, nearer to the pillar. This TK was dressed in a high school uniform, without a hat, his bright hair loose in the wind. He also wore the Crest of Hope, but its glow was obscured by his own white aura, and he had a sad smile on his face and tired, wise eyes. This TK held out both hands to her, and as he did so, she could see the white scars on his wrists.
The white TK looked at her beseechingly, speaking softly, "Please, Kari, I need your help. Help me."
Unsure, she looked back over her shoulder, at the golden TK who also spoke, his voice much, much older and so familiar. "Hikari, you must choose. You cannot have it both ways."
Kari swung her head back and forth, frightened and torn by what was happening. "TK, what's going on? I don't understand… I—I can't make a choice like this!"
The golden TK spoke again, his voice unrelenting. "Child of Light, you MUST choose. You can NOT have it both ways."
Turning away from him, she looked at the other, who was still holding out both hands towards her. His smile was kind and his voice reassuring. "I'll always be strong for you, Kari. Trust yourself, you'll know what to do."
She stepped to the side, away from both of them, hugging herself, tears of fear and loneliness streaking down her face. "No… no, I can't, I can't choose… not like this, not like this, it's not supposed to be like this!"
"Kari! Kari, wake up, it's just a dream!"
The Child of Light snapped awake, gasping and shaking as the terror of her nightmare refused to release her. Gatomon stood on her lap, holding out her D-3, concern in her large, dark eyes. Kari could see that she had an urgent e-mail, taking the insistently beeping device in her hands and deftly accessing her messages. The familiar action helped calm her racing heart, and she scrolled down the brief message. Dismay on her face, she forgot her dream completely as she leapt from the bed, shedding her blankets and throwing a light jacket over her pajamas.
Watching her partner in shock, Gatomon glanced out the window where false dawn was just starting to streak, pink and gold across the sky. Grabbing the D-3, she read the message for herself, quickly realizing what had Kari so upset.
It read:
Kari,
TK has gone to retrieve Matt from the Dark Ocean. They will need your help to return. Pick up Patamon and go to the beach… you know where… once there you will know what to do.
Gennai