Disclaimer: I don't own digimon.

Author's Note: All right. This chapter isn't as descriptive as the last one. The city is hard to describe. I have everybody living in various apartment buildings, cuz I can't remember exactly how the whole living arrangement thing worked. Also, Jun is really OOC. I was reading some things on her, to see how much I remember, and she is totally different from the girl I made her into. Sorry to anyone who loves her as she was. Last thing. I forgot that everyone was supposed to get a digimon in the end of 02, so that's not in here.

Enjoy. Review. Hope you like it.

Obstacles

Davis stepped into his room as the portal closed behind him. He turned around and shut the laptop he'd gotten for Christmas last year. Through the wall of his room he heard the excessively loud rock music that was still blasting out of his sister's stereo. He sighed and picked up Demiveemon before choosing his way through the clutter on the floor to get to the doorway. There was a loud crash against the wall as his hand touched the doorknob, and he closed his eyes, trying not to imagine what went on in Jun's room when their parents went away.

He turned the knob and stepped outside. Going into the kitchen where the noise was more muffled by the cabinets, he set the little blue cynodont up on the counter and then heaved himself up to sit next to his partner.

"What are you gonna do?"

Davis shook his head.

"I'll get the phone. You can call him now." The little digimon began to march around the sink to get at the phone. Davis reached out, grabbing him before he got too far away and held him out in front of him.

"Can I just think this over first?"

The cynodont squirmed until his partner set him down again.

"You're not thinking, you're just stalling. You don't wanna call Izzy because you're jealous of him."

"Shut up." He muttered, staring off across the room.

"See." Demiveemon said, walking forward and precariously climbing up onto his friend's knee.

"All right, so you're smarter than you look." He peered down at the little digimon. "I really don't wanna talk to him right now, but I can't just do nothing."

He stared off again, thinking about the strange girl he had met moments before. Her voice had had an odd accent to it, just below the surface. And she had acted so weird, like he was a ghost or something. What about that bit where he was a cartoon character?

"She had purple eyes, you know." He whispered.

"Who? Rika?" The cynodont looked up from where he had been fiddling with a spoon.

"Yeah."

"So one girl decides she doesn't want date you, and you immediately start thinking about another one?"

"Shut up." Davis countered, gently shoving his partner into the sink, which was followed by a clattering of dishes as he hit the bottom. He laughed at the little cynodont's misfortune.

"What are you laughing at?" Sneered a baritone voice from the doorway.

Davis jumped, eyes wide as he turned to see Jun's "boyfriend" standing there, glaring at him, shirtless and wearing a pair of hastily pulled on khakis. Jun walked into the room wearing an oversized tee shirt and hopefully a pair of underwear. Seeing her brother sitting on the counter, she glared at him and came over to stand in front of him.

"What are you doing here? I told you to stay out of the house."

He swallowed. There was a strong smell of alcohol on her breath and her eyes were bloodshot. Plus there was that other thing he almost couldn't place that was wrong with her.

"You're high." He whispered.

"Get out."

"Jun, I just..."

"Get out!" She screamed, pointing at the door.

He swallowed again and hopped down to the floor. Reaching into the sink, he lifted out the bowl Demiveemon had hidden in and then headed for where his sister was pointing. Mark stared him down as he passed by. Davis grabbed the backpack he'd thrown next to the couch before walking up to the door. Jun paced over and stiffly opened it for him. He stepped out but then turned around to look at his sister.

"He's not a good guy, Jun. You really shouldn't be doing all that stuff. I'm worried about you."

Her eyes narrowed. "Stay out. Davis."

The door slammed in his face. He blinked and stood there for a second, fighting between the urge to go back inside and throw Mark out, and the urge to break down crying from worry. He pushed them both aside and headed down the stairs until he got to the door. Once outside, he took a deep breath and, still clutching the bowl containing Demiveemon to his chest, headed toward the bus stop up the street.

It was about five thirty, but the sun was already starting to go down. His world and Rika's might have the same time pattern, but they were obviously not in sync by the hours. It had looked like it was about one in the morning on her side of that rip.

He came to the bus stop and leaned against the wall of the building it was next to. There was no one else waiting at the moment. He sighed and closed his eyes for a while, thankful that the sound of traffic partially drowned out his thoughts. Demiveemon poked him in the chest from where he was hidden beneath the bowl. Davis slid his book bag off his shoulder and zipped it open before taking the bowl and setting it inside. The little cynodont looked up at him with sad eyes.

"Where are we gonna sleep, Davis?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe TK's."

His partner nodded and he zipped the bag back up again. Standing, he lifted it to his shoulder and leaned against the wall.

Way too much had happened today. First of all, Izzy had gathered everybody up after school so that he and Kari could announce that they were now dating. Davis had a suspicion that the only reason they'd done it that way was so Tai and himself wouldn't totally flip out at the idea. Kari had looked directly at him when she'd said it, almost as if she was apologizing. It had really ticked him off, though, and he'd left before anyone could talk to him. Then he'd gone to the digital world to blow off some steam, where he had met Rika, which meant he had to talk to Izzy, even though he desperately didn't want to. And to top it all off, he'd been kicked out of his own house by his sister, who was sleeping with a crack dealer and didn't seem to care that she was really messing up her future.

"My life sucks." He muttered.

The bus came. It was pretty full, so he had to stand. After a few minutes of listening to a ditzy blonde girl chat with her bored looking boyfriend, Demiveemon started poking him in the back. He rolled his eyes and slipped off one strap of his book bag. When he zipped it open a little, the cynodont thrust his cell phone into his partner's hand. Stuck to the screen was a post-it note where the little digimon had laboriously scrawled two words.

Call Izzy.

Davis hesitated for a moment but then closed the bag again, resettling it on his shoulders. He pulled the note off the screen, crumpling it up, and slowly punched in Izzy's number. It rang twice before anyone answered.

"Hello?" The genius asked absentmindedly.

"Um," He swallowed pent up emotion. "Hey, Izzy."

"Davis? Are you all right? You left so fast, we didn't get to..."

"Listen," he interrupted, "I don't wanna talk about that right now."

"Uh, okay. So what is it?"

Davis paused for a second, considering how to summarize it.

"After I left, I went to the, uh," he glanced around and then whispered into the mouthpiece, "digital world."

"You're not at home, are you?"

"No, so you might have to guess some words."

"'Kay."

"So, I went there and I was, um..." What should he say?

"Venting steam?" Izzy guessed.

Davis stopped for a moment, anger rising. "You don't have to throw this in my face, you know."

"What?!" He could just see the older boy's face. "Davis, I'm not throwing it in your face. I'm sorry it had to come out this way."

"You're not sorry." He muttered.

"All right, I'm not sorry. I really like Kari, but everyone knows you like her too, and we were trying to let you down easy."

"Whatever," Davis broke in, spitting the word out angrily. "I told you I didn't want to talk about this, so if you'll let me continue."

"Fine." Izzy sighed. "So you were in the digital world, picking daisies."

Davis rolled his eyes. "Yeah. And this girl showed up."

"So there's a new one of us?"

"But not in the way you think. She said she wasn't from our... from around here."

"Our world?" His voice sounded excited.

"Yeah. She came through a rip. I saw it. It was night on the other side."

"Whoa." There was the sound of stuff falling. "Shoot. You made me drop all my data. But is this for real, Davis?"

"Why would I make it up?"

"I gotta see it. Now."

"If you wait till tomorrow, you can see her too. I asked her to come back through in a day. The time pattern looked like ours, even though it was night."

It was quiet for a few moments on the other end of the line.

"Izzy?"

"Yeah? Sorry, I zoned out for a second. I was doing calculations. But this is huge. I've been working on a theory that suggests this could happen."

"That's great." He returned, non emphatically. "I'll let you go so you can work on it."

"All right. Thanks for call..."

Davis hung up, not really caring what the older boy had to say anymore. He sighed and rested his forehead against the pole he was holding on to. Glancing out the window, he saw that he was only one stop from where he wanted to get off. He slipped the phone in his pocket and made his way toward the rear doors of the bus.

He got off only three blocks from TK's building. Walking down the sidewalk, he felt Demiveemon poking him in the back again. Since there weren't many people around, he addressed the little cynodont directly.

"What is it now?"

The little voice was muffled by the fabric. "You were mean to him."

"So? He was mean to me."

"Somehow I doubt that, Davis. Izzy isn't mean to anybody."

Davis rolled his eyes, not accepting that truth. The two of them were quiet for a while.

"You should call TK." The hidden digimon said. "He should be informed why you are sleeping at his house."

"Like I'd tell him the truth."

He fished his phone out of his pocket again and called TK. It rang for a while. Just when he was about to hang up, his friend picked up the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hey, TK. Look, can I ask you for a favor?"

"Depends what it is." The boy returned flatly.

"Doesn't have anything to do with this afternoon."

"Sounds safe then."

"All right, so my sister's having a giant sleepover with a bunch of her girlfriends and I desperately need to get out of the house before they eat me alive."

There was a laugh at the other end of the line. "Sure, Davis. You can crash at my house tonight."

"Thanks. I'd call Ken, but you know he's been permanently grounded."

"It's fine. Do you want my mom to come pick you up?"

"No. I'm only a block away now."

"So, if I'd said no, you would've been screwed." TK said with a smile.

"But I knew you wouldn't. I'll see you in a while."

"Bye."

Davis hung up. He walked the rest of the block until he was a few strides from the door to TK's building.

"Most of it was true." Demiveemon whispered.

"What?"

"Your sister is having a sleepover, and you did need to get out of the house before Mark beat you up."

"Shut up, Veemon. That's not funny."

He pushed his way through the door and headed upstairs.

Post Script: Okay. It was kinda sad. It'll get better. Just wait till chapter four. Please review. I'd love to hear your comments, just don't write long hateful flames. Thanx!!

One last thing. Thanks to ApricotKisses for telling me my summary sucked. If anyone wants to write me a new one, I'll post it instead.

neoKOS-MOS