The reunion between Joe and Tai was lackluster, which oddly matched the feeling that Joe had about the whole ordeal. It felt like it should be some grand event, after all this time. After all the history between them. Knowing each other as children and all that and however this strange mystery connected them. But instead Tai looks over him with bright and happy eyes but there's nothing special in them. There's none of that love you have for close friends. Now that Joe saw him in the same room as Izzy, he could tell that though Izzy n was right in saying that they had maintained more of a connection than the rest of them, things had still cooled between them.

"How've you been?" Tai asked congenially, but there was a part of Joe that was sad to hear it, a part of him he no longer knew. The way that Tai said those words felt wrong, off, like Joe expected the warmth that they used to be said with during his childhood.

"Good. Still working on my doctorate." Instantly Tai's mouth curved into a slight frown, and his eyebrows came together, head tilting to the side.

"I thought you didn't want to become a doctor?" Joe froze for a moment, taken completely off guard. He could tell from the corner of his eyes that the other's in the room had noticed, and he tried to pull himself together. It was true, especially when Joe was younger, that he had been stressed and felt weighed down by the expectation to become a doctor. But the thing was, he couldn't recall actually telling anyone that. In fact, it was unlike him to confide that kind of thing in someone - he usually kept things bottled up.

"Eh, yeah, I can't believe you remember that." Joe said, and scratched the back of his head. "It just seemed like a good path I guess. A practical career." He gave a halfhearted shrug and tried not to let the single question reopen the old the wound of what he had wanted to do with his future. Maybe, in another life, he had found a good reason to become a doctor. But now that he was really giving it thought, he wasn't entirely sure why he had decided to go this way. Perhaps, with his father, it had just been the path of least resistance

"Are you two ready to go?" Izzy asked anxiously, leaning forward in his chair. Joe and Tai both nodded back.

"I guess the beginning is the best place to start." Joe said. "I just wish we knew what we're looking for."

"It's what we have to go off of for now. Me, Cody, and Ken are going to do a few more experiments on the devices - Ken texted me some ideas on how we might be able to glean more information from them." Off to Izzy's side Ken nodded, hand clenched around his digivice.

"I also found a letter like Izzy's." Cody added, holding up a thick envelope. "So we can also work on that while you guy are out. There's not point in me or Ken tagging along with you guys anyway, since I don't think we've ever been there." Joe nodded and tried not to get psyched out at the idea of spending the next few hours with someone who had become a stranger to him.

Neither of them could afford a car at this point in their life, but when Joe had talked to Shuu about his plight and anxiety over taking a bus and missing it, getting him and Tai stranded in the mountains, he had happily let him borrow his car. In fact, if Joe had to nitpick, maybe even a little too eagerly. He hadn't even told his brother where he was going exactly, had just mentioned he was going with an old childhood friend, let Tai's name slip out of his mouth, and suddenly Shuu had been willing to bend over backwards to get Joe up into the mountains. Maybe he was just happy that Joe was doing literally anything besides studying.

Joe drove since it was his brother's car, and Tai had immediately rolled down his window, hanging one of his arms outside the car and leaning his head out slightly to let the wind whip through his hair. In his other hand was some kind of orange object, and it took Joe a moment of glancing at it during stop lights to realize what it was.

"Is that your device?" While Cody and Ken's were different colors, both his and Izzy's had been blue, to see one a different color was a bit of a shock to his system. Tai looked over almost lazily, raising his hand and looking at his device, thumb gently brushing over it contemplatively.

"Yeah."

"It's so… orange." Joe commented lamely and finally Tai cracked a grin which relieved some of of the tension that had built up in Joe's chest. It was wrong to see the other boy's face so serious. When they were kids he was always so loud and enthusiastic, and sometimes Joe could recall wondering if he had ever had a sad thought in his life.

"Kinda like a traffic cone, right? The paint's really chipped though - if you look close you can see the blue underside - ah, but don't, like, keep your eyes on the road and all that." Tai said quickly.

"You painted yours? Do you think they were some kind of… weird art project? Maybe Izzy's wish came true and camp really was a computer camp." Joe posited and Tai gave a small laugh, shaking his head.

"It wasn't always painted. Kari did it at some point. I was actually really mad that she had gone through my stuff and like, vandalized it kind of. I wanted to yell at her but then she started to tear up and…"

"I mean, who can stay mad at Kari?" Joe replied good naturedly, and Tai gave a firm nod, tilting his head back and sighing.

"She is way too aware of just how much she can get away with. Not even my mom can stay mad at her." Tai slumped forward slightly in exasperation.

"Have you thought about bringing her into our little group?" Joe asked, taking one of his hands of the wheel to push up his glasses as he navigated the traffic.

"I mean, she wasn't one of the summer camp kids." Which wasn't really an answer.

"Ken and Cody are part of it, and if anything they're even further from the summer camp group. I remember Kari used to tag along when we played all the time." Tai's hands had moved in front of his, knotting together and clenching, unclenching.

"Something about all of this feels a little… dangerous." Tai admitted, and Joe was relieved to hear someone actually say it. "Izzy had you read the letter, right?" Joe nodded. "That's not normal - and I've seen other people read it. A couple of weeks ago, when Izzy first came to tell me about this, we went and had one of his college friends read it. She recited it out loud five times and tried to put it into different words in what seemed like a million different ways, but nothing stayed. And the entire time, the look on her face…" Tai stared forward at the traffic, but Joe knew he wasn't really seeing it. "...she looked so sad. Whatever that letter said, it was enough to nearly bring her to tears. Izzy isn't really known for his poetry, so it wasn't so beautifully written that she just couldn't help herself. It was more than that. And the worst part? Whatever is going on here, after she read that letter, I could tell that it explained enough that she knew the situation. That she understood it. Maybe the whole world knows it. But for whatever reason we don't, no, we can't know. And that has just a whole can of worms of implications."

Joe hadn't even thought about that, but a chill ran up his spine as suddenly his anxious mind went into everything that could mean in the span of a few moments. His mouth felt dry and his hands began to shake.

"What we're not meant to remember, can it hurt us?"

"When I asked Izzy that, he just said 'the pursuit of knowledge can never wound you.' But I'm not so sure…" Joe felt his head nodding along. "...but I also know that at this point I can't go back. The least I can do is leave Kari out of it." Tai said tensley.

"After reading Izzy's letter, I don't think I can let it go either. Although you sure have me thinking about how we have no clue what we're getting ourselves into." Joe admitted as he pulled the car into a spot near the base of a hiking trail. He put it in park and undid his seatbelt, opening his door. "We're here."

Joe wished he could say things looks just like he remembered them, but if he was being honest with himself he didn't remember much about the walk to the summer camp. And for once he knew with a certainty that wasn't something off or strange or suspicious, it was just one of those things about life and growing. An inconsequential moment from ages ago that his brain had calmly put to the back of his mind where most lost memories go. Part of him wondered, if he could manage to remember such an inconsequential moment, if he could find the place where his brain had been hiding all the other memories as well. The ones that were obviously so important and yet were somewhere he couldn't reach.

The hike up the hilly was on a dirt pathway that was well worn from countless children and their parents feet climbing it every summer, hoping that their child would be able to learn or glean something from the experience. Joe could recall that his parents had wanted him to come out of his shell more and make more friends his age. For at least the first few days, all it did was cause the anxiety in his chest to well up to new levels. But after that summer, he did have more friends, so apparently their plan had worked. But now he couldn't remember what it was that had brought them all so close together, such very different children.

Each step up the mountain felt like a step closer to the truth and a step farther from safety, as the conversation with Tai in the car hung heavy in his mind.

The summer camp had a haunted feel. The spring air meant that small wildflowers were poking up out of the grown, and the grass swayed in the wind. But plenty of snow was stubbornly sticking around. For a place that was supposed to be full of activities and excited children, the lack of any people or even animals was so wrong that Joe kept glancing around, expecting an adult to emerge from the woods at any moment, leading a small gaggle of kids.

"Hey, I think this the one I stayed in!" Tai had jogged up ahead and was looking eagerly into one of the cabins. Joe felt his eyebrow raised, surprised that they didn't lock these up during the off seasons. Or maybe they had just been lucky and this was one year they had forgotten to.

Joe stepped into the small cabin after Tai, looking around curiously. Everything was covered in a layer of dust, and through the light filtering from the window the particle in the air were obvious. The wood was scratched and old looking, familiar areas completely worn out, any varnish on the wood completely gone after years of little feet trodding on it.

"Hey, it's still here!" Tai exclaimed excitedly, looking under one of the top bunks. Joe looked curiously to see Tai proudly pointing at an etching into the door. 'Tai Kamiya, 8-1-1999'. Joe shouldn't have been surprised. Next to Tai's name were several others from a smattering of years since then. Joe opened his mouth to give some kind of reply, probably berate Tai for being so proud of vandalising property, when a thought came to him that made him stop.

"Tai, do you remember what the last day of camp was like?" The other boy gave a shrug.

"I don't know, everyone was sad and we all boarded buses?"

"No. Tai, I don't remember finishing camp. At all." Joe was frowning slightly as he left the cabin, walking around almost as if in a trance, looking around the camp, a lost look on his face. Tai trailed after him.

"We must have. We-" Tai froze, eyes wide. "We hitch hiked?!" He exclaimed, and Joe was envious for a moment as clearly Tai had managed to shake something loose from his memories. But the jealous vanished as Tai's hands raised to his head, a few pained sounds exiting his mouth. "Ugh, I can't remember! How many August firsts did I have?!"

"What do you mean?" Joe asked softly. Tai had taken to kneeling on the grass, and Joe reached out and gently put a hand on his shoulder.

"It's like, like every time I try to remember August first I'm in a different place. One second I'm at camp, the next I'm at home with Kari while she's sick, then suddenly I'm downtown. How was I in all those places if I was at camp? Did I run away? That doesn't make sense…"

Joe pressed his lips together in a thin line.

"Maybe we should head back to Izzy."

"Yeah." Tai agreed, and as they left Joe wasn't sure if they were heading towards Izzy, or running away from the summer camp.

oOo

Hope you enjoyed it! Please leave a review if you did - they keep my motivated!