Disclaimer: As always I own nothing but the original characters and the story lines. I very much apologize for how long this has taken, due to circumstance writing this summer was not an option. Thanks to those who wrote words of encouragement and I hope you enjoy.

Shared Past

Matt sat on the back porch, watching the sunrise. He was in a reflective mood at the moment as he inhaled the silent beauty around him. Soon Rika's grandma would wake up and begin breakfast, Rika coming down shortly after. Rumiko would stumble down eventually too, Matt thought with a small smile on his lips. The woman hadn't gotten in till pretty late and given the noise hadn't been entirely sober as she'd made her noisy way to bed. They might not even see her till noon or after. Then again according to Rika the woman bounced back from this sort of thing easily enough. Taking a sip from the bottle of water he'd brought with him he pictured Rumiko the first time he'd seen her. It had been at the movie audition for some movie that hadn't gone anywhere due to bad acting and a lousy script. Even a good director hadn't been enough to salvage it. He'd been there because his mother hadn't been able to get a sitter and so he'd been dragged along while she did a segment on the auditions. Rumiko had been there because she'd known the director and had gotten the crazy idea of having Rika audition.

Past

"Come on, Matt." Nancy Ishida huffed, giving her son's arm a quick pull. "This will just take an hour or so and then we're off."

We were supposed to be spending the day together was what Matt wanted to say but he simply let her drag him through the crowds. He didn't get to see his mother often and it was really annoying that they were going to spend their time at some stupid movie audition. Twenty minutes later he'd been sat down on a chair, ordered to stay put and then deserted. All of eight years old he was far from pleased and looked it.

"You better be careful or your face will stick that way. It's bad enough at it is." Came a female voice and Matt looked over to see a girl about his age, dressed in a really weird dress and smirking at him.

"At least my hair isn't in pigtails, not to mention that ugly dress." Matt shot back. The dress was pink with lace, ruffles and a teddy bear design. It scared him a little in face.

"Hey, I didn't ask to look like this you know." The girl shot back, sending him a peeved look now. "My mom made me wear this. Do you think anyone with any brains would willingly be caught dead in this thing?"

"Good point." Matt had to agree. "So why are you here?"

"My mom knows the director of this lousy movie. She said that if I tried out for one of the roles I'd get to pick out what I get to wear for the next week plus get a new pack of cards." The girl explained, taking a seat beside him. "She's off flirting with one of the actors so I decided to walk around, maybe miss my turn. I'm Rika by the way. Who are you? Are you here to try out too?"

"Naw, as if. Well my mom mentioned it but I told her no way was I gonna blow my summer for something so stupid. My name's Matt, my mom's a reporter and so is my dad. She's here covering this thing for her studio. She's here somewhere."

"Ditched you here, huh? My mom's always doing that when she's working too." Rika said with an understanding look on her face. And since she was bored and he seemed okay she decided to let him in on a little secret she'd found out. "Hey..are you hungry?"

"A little, we were supposed to get something to eat first but mom got behind schedule. Why?" Matt wanted to know, noticing the gleam in her eyes. She was up to something and odds were that something was no good. Sounded like his sort of fun. "And how old are you anyway?"

"Seven. I know where they have food set aside for the director and the other head guys here. Wanna go sneak some? Unless you're scared of getting caught that is." Rika added with her cocky smirk firmly back in place.

"Hell no. Let's go."

Present

"Hey, where were you?" Rika wanted to know as she elbowed Matt affectionately in the side from her spot beside him. "You've been staring off into space forever."

"Hmm? Oh hey..uhm how long have you been there?" Matt asked with a laugh as he smiled at her sheepishly. Boy he must have been out of it. He hadn't even heard her approach, much less sit down.

"Couple minutes. So where were you?" Rika wanted to know, her undone hair blowing with the faint morning breeze. It was rather chilly out and unfortunately she'd forgotten to grab a jacket. "You had the stupidest smile on your face. It was rather freaky." Rika added with a smirk. "Dreaming about some girl?"

"Just thinking about the day we first met. I've sworn off dating for at least the first few weeks." Matt replied with a devious wink. "Do you remember how we snuck into that trailer and gorged ourselves on all those pastries?" Matt chuckled, knowing that she did even before she nodded. "And then we got caught by that assistant who drag us over to the director and other guys to apologize."

"And our moms came running over to yell at us and we were so busy trying to pretend we weren't scared out of our wits that we tried to talk our way out of it." Rika said with a rueful shake of her head. "And then I got into a yelling match with mom and you tried to charm your way out of it. I still can't believe that we ended up being in a movie together as our punishment."

"Well you have to call that a creative punishment, even if it did backfire." Matt pointed out. "I mean we had the time of our lives making that movie and by the time filming was over our English was like perfect. I still say our director was an idiot to risk his whole movie by casting two kids in major supporting roles when they had to speak in a language that wasn't their first. I mean we both were pretty good already thanks to our upbringings but still. We had to take grueling English lessons in between takes to make sure we pronounced everything right!"

"Well that's what you get when you're dealing with Hollywood directors. They come to Japan on a holiday to visit friends before you begin your own movie and you end up casting two unknown, basic English speaking kids for two of the roles." Rika added with a smirk. "I can still remember our mothers' faces when the director asked them if the way we were acting was how we normally were. No one likes to admit their kids are brats."

"We weren't brats. We were a product of our generation and environment." Matt corrected with a crooked grin. "And hey, that movie was a blockbuster hit as you'll recall. Not to mention the fact that I've never had to take English since I speak it better then any of the teachers."

"True, it was always nice to have that period free for something else." Rika agreed. Since Matt's mom's first language had been English it had only been natural for her to teach her kids and Rika's own grandfather had taught languages at a university. She'd inherited his ability to pick languages up easily and was quite accomplished herself though she never really used any of them since that wasn't a career she was interested in.

"And you have to give that director credit. He came up with a punishment that benefited our moms and him. They got paid to send us to America to be in his film, we got a so called learning experience and he got two kids who were exactly like the character roles they were supposed to play. Not to mention the fact that said kids were both indebted to him for saving them from their mothers' wrath."

"Yeah. If the idea of having her kid in a movie, a Hollywood movie at that hadn't blown my mother away I would have so been sent to boarding school for that little stunt to add to my growing list of stunts." Rika added, hugging her knees against herself since it wasn't exactly warm outside. "She was so thrilled with the idea she completely forgot to even lecture me."

"My mom didn't but then my mom rarely misses a trick. I think the only reason I got to go was that it got me out of my dad's hair for the whole summer so that he didn't have to worry about hiring someone to watch me. Hell he was getting paid to let someone else watch me." Matt added with a thoughtful look on his face. "Now how could any parent pass up on a deal like that?"

"True enough. Of course my grandmother came along to supervise so it wasn't like we had a lot of opportunity to cause mischief." Rika said after a moment, wondering just how much Matt had minded being shanghaied into leaving Japan and his family behind. He'd acted like it was some big adventure then but really, was that how he'd thought of it..or how he wanted everyone to think he did? She'd viewed it as a summer without her mom and her mom's lifestyle. In other words she'd been glad to go. Then again from what Matt had told her about summers after the movie when it had been just him and his dad...well maybe he had wanted to go as much as he'd said. Being stuck in some apartment with a paid stranger while your dad worked wasn't any kid's dream summer.

"Yeah, your grandmother has eyes like a hawk. All she'd have to do is give us that look and we'd want to tell her everything we'd done even remotely bad that day." Matt added, recalling the experience fondly. He'd been scared in the beginning but Rika's grandmother had pretty much adopted him from day one. She and Rika had made him feel like he was with family even though all his real family was countries away. Unlike Rika's mother and grandmother his parents and brother couldn't have afforded to visit whenever, even if they'd wanted to. His mom would have had her hands full with work and T.K. and his dad with work and what little social life his dad had. He didn't call his parents workaholics for nothing.

"We should head in and get dressed if we're going to the Digital World today. If we stay out here in our pajamas any longer we're bound to catch something and get stuck in bed all day. I don't know about you but one of my grandmother's herbal remedies is not something I want to consume any time soon if it's all the same to you." Rika said as she got to her feet gracefully before holding her hand out to him, tugging him up when he took it. "Any idea what breakfast is by the way?"

"Nope but no matter what it is it'll likely be ten times better then either of us could ever cook out." Matt pointed out as they headed in, their hands still linked as they headed down the hallway that led to their rooms.

"I've gotten better." Rika argued for the sake of arguing as they came to a stop in front of her room, letting his hand go. "See ya in ten to twenty."

"See ya." Matt agreed and headed for his own room to shower and change. Back out in fifteen he found Rika's grandmother in the kitchen, making up breakfast with the radio quietly playing some old tune he didn't recognize. "Morning." Matt called over as he talked to her, placing a kiss on her cheek in the hopes of getting extra servings of whatever smelled so good. "Smells good."

"Don't worry, I do remember how much a growing man eats." Rika's grandmother said with a faint blush to go with her pleased smile. Matt was such a sweet boy, it was so nice to have him around. She wanted to ask why he'd needed to come here but Rumiko hadn't even given her a hint. Then again it would have been like her girl to let the boy stay without bothering to ask. Matt's parents hadn't called here yet which worried her. Did they even know where he was? She was going to have to have a talk with her daughter about that as soon as the girl got herself out of bed. Pushing those thoughts aside until she could speak to Rumiko she expertly flipped one of her pancakes. "I made more then enough for everyone." She added when she noticed how Matt was eyeing the pancakes. The boy was never too full that he couldn't eat more, she thought with an inner chuckle.

"Such a jewel. I should steal you and we can live the rest of our lives happily in a villa on the south of France." Matt said with a wink.

"It would serve you right if I believed any of the nonsense you like to spread, you charming rascal." She replied, shaking her finger at him as her granddaughter came wandering in.

"Trying to convince you to marry him and run off to Bora Bora again?" Rika inquired as she walked over to the kitchen table to snag an apple. "When are you going to learn that my grandmother is perfectly aware that she could do so much better then you, Matt. I mean rally. She's so out of your league."

"Doesn't stop me from trying. After all I'll never find better." Matt said with a flirty look in the lady in question's direction, causing the older woman to blush even more.

"You know...some people would have a problem with a friend only a year older then them flirting with that person's grandmother." Rika said before biting into her apple to chew a rather large piece.

"But that's what's so great about you, Rika. You're so much bigger then that." Was Matt's cheeky reply.

"Hush, the both of you. Now come sit down and eat."

"YES, MA'AM!" Was Matt's reply.

"So this Matt, hmm?" Yamaki said a couple hours later as he looked over the young mad standing beside Rika. Or lounging would likely be the better word, Yamaki thought to himself. He'd already reviewed all available information on the young tamer before him who would now be using his facility to transfer to the Digital World.

"Sir." Matt said with a polite bow of his head. He knew making a good impression was key in order to be able to access the Digital World without too many problems. There were other ways of course but this would be the safest and easiest. Using his device wouldn't guarantee he went where he wanted to go necessarily.

"I understand you've already transferred your digimon to our sector?" Yamaki asked though he was already perfectly aware that the digimon was even now with the other Tamers' digimon. By now they understood the Digital World well enough to know that there were layers to it and that depending on the person they only had access to certain layers unless they had the help of data streams. Even though they couldn't police the people who entered the world they could get a general sense of who was there and insure that they didn't cause any problems. Many sectors who's job was similar to Hypnos employed Tamers to patrol the areas as Hypnos did with its original Tamers.

"Yes, I brought Gabumon with me. He's been given orders to stick close to Renamon until he learns the area." Matt said with his most charming smile. He likely should have waited for permission but he hadn't wanted Gabumon around for the others to question before Matt had permission for the transfer. "I hope you don't mind."

"Well he hasn't been causing any problems that we know about. Renamon will be keeping him well in line as you said." Yamaki said, imagining that the fox digimon would be a hard teacher, not to mention disciplinary. "Your D Arc will need to be altered to work for our sectors."

"Actually I still have a digi-vice." Matt said as he removed it from his pocket and held it out for Yamaki's inspection.

"A digi-vice? I've heard of them but they're very rare." Yamaki said in surprise, taking the device to look over thoroughly before returning it. "Most that started as one have naturally converted over time, once the tamer reached a certain level in the Digital World. Have you had your digimon long?"

"Since I was a kid. I was in the group that were the first humans to ever enter the world." Matt said with a faint smirk. "You guys weren't regulating it then. You won't have any record of it."

"You're right. Though there have been reports as far as records go MY Tamers were the first." Yamaki said with a grudging now. They had learned of course from the digimon in the Digital World that his tamers hadn't been the first humans to cross over. He just hadn't known that this young man was one of those children. Or former children since the man before him was a year older then Yamaki's original tamers. "Well then..I guess you'll be wanting to see how your digimon is doing. Follow me."