steph4nie-ff: Thank you. I love these characters, no one can go wrong with them.
Calico Neko: Glad you are enjoying the story. There are some very good Yamato stories out there I know you'll enjoy.
Alforce Zero: I don't really know yet if we will find out the identaly of the child's mother. It is still up in the air. I don't think the show did Joe justice. I think he's one of the characters that was almost forgotten, which makes it hard for people to get an idea of him. I actually learned his personality after reading some fan fic from here.
Digi-Girl101: Just up dated! Cheers! haha
JyouraKoumi: I do have to check out some of your stuff. Gosh, you read about every one of my stories! The very least I could do is check out yours! Sorry I haven't done so.
gizmo-396: Why thank you. If I didn't get reviews, I'd never know what people thought of the story. Sometimes it doesn't matter but feed back seems to help on focusing your story.
Nikki1: I am a very big fan of Sora and Matt. Of course there is a huge chance that they'll get together. I just have to time it right. Right now, there is a lot going on with Matt so now wouldn't be a good time for him to seek out attention of Sora. However SHE doesn't know that so maybe she will struggle with the advances herself before the child is born or maybe it will happen after. I do think I am going to have Matt keep the child. His father will be a huge impact on this idea. I think in the story Matt will even forgive his mother and take the first step in having her back in his life. I always received the impression that he didn't hate his mother, he just couldn't stand her. Sooo...there is some head ups.
Thank you to everyone who read and continue to readand a special thanks to those who reveiwed.
On with the story...
"Well what do you think?" Tai held out his paper about four inches in front of Izzy's nose. Tai went over to Izzy's home after school so he could receive help on his written report. He did well in school however; Tai had a difficult time keeping his mind focus and would often ramble about four other topics that had nothing to do with the assignment. Hence, the help of Izzy who would read Tai's paper carefully, cross out extra information and rearrange paragraphs to enhance the report.
Tai asked Matt to tag along and Matt agreed, after getting permission from his father. "Is Hiroaki available?" Matt asked the secretary at his father's office. "Yeah…" Tai mocked his friend on the telephone, which received a slap across the head from Matt. "Hey Dad….nothing, how's work?" Tai rolled his eyes and held up a watched that wrapped around his wrist. Matt slapped his arm down, "Yeah everything's fine. I was wondering if I could go to Izzy's to do some studying…."
Tai watched Matt, grinning at his face expression as he talked to his father. "So?" he asked once Matt hung up.
"He's fine but he's going to call Izzy's mum and let her know I'm coming and I bet she will be asked to call when I get there."
"Your father has some major trust issues!"
"You think?" Matt raised his eyebrow."Well…" Izzy took Tai's homework assignment out of the other's boy grip; bringing the brunette back to reality. "You do have to alter a few…What are you doing!" Izzy cried out.
"Nothing!" Tai held up his hands, his chocolate brown eyes enormous.
"Not you! YOU!" Izzy darted over to where Matt sat and took the cookies and milk away from the blonde.
"Hey your mum gave those to me." Matt glared before nicking one last cookie from the plate.
"Cookies good!" Tai also snatched one from the plate.
"You can't eat there!" Izzy was shaking his red head franticly, "That is a computer table not a snaking table!"
"Do they make snaking tables?" Tai asked.
"I wasn't hurting anything," Matt stared down at the computer's keyboard.
"But you could have spatter the milk or crumbs on the computer and might have…"
"Sorry!" Matt stood up and moved to the bed where he sprawled down on top of the covers.
"I know what you're thinking." Izzy stared at the blonde.
"Do you?" Matt asked, not even looking up from the magazine he found on the nightstand of his friend's table.
"You think I'm over reacting."
"Didn't say that." Matt said calmly.
"No but you were thinking it."
"I was." Tai raised his hand.
"Well I'm not." Izzy glared over at Tai. "This stuff cost money!"
"I eat in front of my computer all the time." Tai smiled until Izzy turned to glare at him. "But it is a habit I am working on breaking!" He said hastily.
"Said I was sorry," Matt reminded Izzy.
"You don't get it. This has to deal with respecting other people's things. You wouldn't like it if I ate over your keyboard would you?"
"Come off it, Izz. I always respect your stuff! I forgot how overbearing you are towards you computer."
"He was having a blonde moment." Tai pointed to his head and rolled his eyes to only receive a glare from Matt.
"I won't do it again, I swear. I will not even eat a bloody thing in this room again. Can we move on now?" Matt sighed. Izzy was a pretty level-headed person but there are times when he just exploded over the tiniest issues.
"You're unbelievable."
"Am I unbelievable?" Matt glanced over at Tai.
"Yeah." Tai nodded until Matt fixed a stare at him, "But in a good way!"
Matt and Izzy continued to look angrily at one another for a few more minutes before Izzy broke the stare off, returning to Tai's homework.
Tai fidget around, silence was his fear. Inside a voiceless room terrified him. Stillness was unpredictable. Oh, there was the good silence, sometimes but this was not the good type. This was the tension silence. Tai panicked, he did the only thing he could think up, he screamed. He clapped his hands over his ears (to block out his own voice) and screamed until his throat hurt.
"What's going on?" Izzy's Mother came running into the room. "Are you alright!" She looked at Izzy who was giving Tai a funny stare.
"Tai?" Matt said slowly.
"My head hurt," Tai shrugged, returning to Matt's cookies as nothing happened.
"Your head hurt?" Izzy asked Tai while glancing at Matt in confusion.
"Yeah but it's gone now."
"What's gone?" Matt asked.
"The head pain," Tai said. Everyone in the room stared blankly at the shaggy head boy before Izzy's mum turned to her son.
"If you need me," Izzy's mum put her hand on her son's shoulder.
"Sure," Izzy nodded, continuing to stare at Tai. Izzy watched his mother leave the room, taking one last glance at Tai before she shut the door.
"You're an idiot." Matt hissed at him.
"Now now, didn't we discuss your antisocial history once before? I thought we were trying to improve that?" Tai pointed a finger at the blonde.
"I….grrrr." Matt turned back to the magazine.
"Did you two ever wonder what Jack was really up to when he invited Jill up the hill? And why would a water well be up on a hill when water should be easier to drill at lower ground elevation."
"I never thought about it." Matt said slowly, eyeing Tai carefully.
"You should concentrate on your homework not nursery rhymes." Izzy told the shaggy head boy.
"I don't think it was a real water well," Tai went on.
"Love to hear your theory on that at a later time," Matt said, returning to the magazine.
"You two are no fun. Aliens will be taking over our wretched marble shape planet and the two of you wouldn't even blink an eye." Tai mumbled as he bent his head down to start revising his report Izzy corrected for him.
"Izzy," Matt called out after a few minutes of silence.
"Hmmm?" Izzy asked from his desk.
"Never mind." Matt sighed.
Izzy turned in his chair and eyed the blonde, "What?"
"Forget, never mind." Matt waved his hand.
"Don't you hate when he does that?" Tai asked the red head. "Just ask the bloody question!" Tai glanced over his shoulder at the blonde. He then turned back to Izzy, "You have to be forceful with the boy."
Matt glared at Tai until the other bent his head down to continue his schoolwork.
"What if your parents didn't die?" Matt went on, "I mean say they put you up for adoption just because."
"Just because?" Tai looked over his shoulder. "Want to be more specific? Just because is…"
"Not talking to you!" Matt hissed and Tai mocked a mouthful before turning back to his work when Matt tossed the magazine his way.
"I don't know. What do you mean?" Izzy asked, turning in his chair.
"Say…I don't know. Say they just gave you up because they didn't want to raise a child or something." Matt asked. "How would you feel?"
"How would you feel?" Izzy asked in return. "What if your parents didn't want you after the divorce, how would you feel? I'm sure I would feel the same. It isn't so hard putting yourself in someone else situation if you only think about it."
"No one wants to be unwanted," Tai said, this time not bothering to look over at Matt. "No one wants to feel that they weren't loved."
"I'd feel abandon,'' Izzy nodded. "I would over come it like most adopted children do but… I hate to say this but I am glad my parents died and just did not give me away because they made a mistake they could have prevented. There is some relief knowing that they loved me. However, if they did not, I would always have questions in my head. Why didn't they love me, why didn't they want me, why did they give me away? I'd might want to search for them, to search for an answer I may never find. To somehow fill that void with an answer that only they could give me. Even then I'd be faced with the fact they might not want to see me, to talk to me or have any knowledge of my existence." The red head thought a moment longer, "There are times when I feel I missed something. A void that will never be filled. Remember that time Tai accidentally knocked you out with the bat?" He watched the blonde wince and rub the side of his head.
"Hey I apologized for that!" Tai interrupted.
"You woke up in the hospital and couldn't remember how you got there or the staff waking you up every hour."
"It wasn't that bad!" Tai mumbled.
"I remember," Matt frowned.
"You said you hated knowing something happen yet not being able to remember it. That is almost what I feel every day. It is as if I came from a different time and placed in this time. There is a past that I can't recollect but I knew it was there."
"Would you be upset if they gave you up because they were too young at the time?" Matt asked.
"If someone is old enough to have sex then they are old enough to know they could become a parent. If they can't deal with it they shouldn't be screwing around." Izzy said.
"Screwing around…" Tai echoed for no reason while scribbling his words down on his paper.
"What if they didn't have time to be parents? You know, trying to make their own way in life."
"So to save their own they ruin someone else?" Izzy asked with a sigh, "I shouldn't really say that. If someone knows that they cannot be a good parent and they do the most responsible thing they could do, they do reserve some credit. It's better then a child being raised by parents who wish they were never born."
"What's with all the "what if's", Matt?" Tai asked.
"Just curious." Matt mumbled.
"You've been curious about a lot of things lately." Tai sighed.
"So?"
"Hey, just questioning your questions." Tai mumbled.
"Hey sport," Hiroaki placed his briefcase down on the small table beside the door as he looked at his son, "You cleaned. I am amazed."
Matt glanced up from the television set, the light casing shadows on his face, "its boring being grounded…"
"If I knew you were going to clean, I would have grounded you a lot earlier." Hiroaki joked. He walked behind his son, tussling the blonde's hair with affection. "What are you watching?"
"The news." Matt turned his head upwards to look at his father, "How was work?"
"The same," Hiroaki smiled down, "Did you eat?"
"Yep, left-overs are in the microwave for you." Matt turned back to the television, "Tk was over."
"Oh yeah?" His father moved into the kitchen.
"He wanted to know if you can give him early allowance."
"For what?"
"He's saving up for a lap top. Izzy convinced him that it would be ideal for all of his writing material." Matt raised his voice so his father could hear from the kitchen.
"I thought he had a lap top? His mother's old one." His father walked over to Matt, settling down beside him with a hot bowl in his hand.
"The key word is 'old'." Matt glanced over at his father. "Mum's giving him an early allowance and our grand parents already chipped in."
"Are you trying to make me feel guilty?" Hiroaki glanced over at his son.
"Not at all," Matt smiled, "Just forewarning. Teeks will bring all the proper material along and will use it when he has you cornered. Then you will feel guilty."
"Is that how he plans to work it?"
"Its how he always works it and you always cave in." Matt shot up an eyebrow.
"Not always."
"Yes, always." Matt smirked, "He has your wrapped tight. Anything he wants you some how figure a reason he should get it."
"Hmmm," Hiroaki picked up his late night cup of coffee, "It's my guilt, I suppose." He nodded his head. "I give him things to make me feel better about not being with him every night."
"Oh so that's the reason? Hell if I knew that was how you are; I would have struggled to live with mum!" Matt glanced over at his father. "By this time I could have had that car we saw in the lot."
"Watch your mouth and I give you stuff so don't start trying to make me feel guilty," Hiroaki said.
Hiroaki finished his bowl of soup, placing it aside before looking over at Matt. He watched as the light played over his son's angelic features, the unruly hair that always manger to fall into his eldest son's eyes, the alluring blue of Matt's eyes. "You know I sit here and at times I find it hard to imagine you being this tiny child I use to hold."
"Dad…" Matt glanced over at his father.
"Do you know I would have to take you out into the balcony every night just to get you to go to sleep?"
"So you said…" Matt yawned.
"The first time you ever saw the moon you thought it was a ball and cried while reaching up towards the sky. Your little fingers kept trying to grab at it…"
"Good night," Matt stood up rolling his eyes.
"Nite," His father took over the remote control and started to flip through the channels. Matt stopped at the end of the hallway that leads to his bedroom.
"Dad?" He stopped, his hand holding the corner of the wall.
"Hmmm?" Hiroaki glanced up.
"Thanks."
"For what?" Hiroaki raised an eyebrow.
"For everything." Matt turned, leaving his father staring at him oddly.