Author's Notes: First off, thanks to those who reviewed my last chapter: Lord Pata, PrincessJaded, BenignUser, SugarSpiral, emotionless-robot, Potgenie and daikariluver00.

And second, I apologize, but when I started writing this fic I was going to have some serious soul searching/emotionally romantic stuff. By now I've decided that, given my inexperience (and therefore lack of realistic connection) in both arguing and romance, that won't work. And while I did get suggestions, I don't think I'm qualified to write about them. So this story is going to take a rather drastic turn (in my opinion), starting with this chapter. The wonderful suggestions I did get I tried to put them in as much as I can. And there's going to be quite a bit of focus on Ken and TK, just because it's more exciting to write them than it is to write an arguing couple.

Any interesting ideas you see here are property of emotionless-robot's story "Teddy Bear". You should read it :D And the Shell is courtesy of whoever thought of it in the digi-challenge-forum. Digimon is property of Toei/Bandai (I think). The only thing I get by writing this is 1) Putting off bed-time, 2) Sparkling reviews that make me feel warm and fuzzy inside, and 3) Making people waste their time by reading long and unecessary author's notes.

Time Apart Changes Things

Chapter 3: What the Hell…?

"Tai, are you going to come out anytime soon?" asked Agumon, as Tai cowered behind his hastily-erected pillow fort.

"Hell no!" came a muffled reply. The nineteen-year old boy grasped his prized teddy bear as if it could shield him from the dreaded wrath of Kari. The girl was currently stalking just outside of Tai's room, ready to pounce. She mimicked her digimon partner's silent footsteps as she patrolled the living room, waiting for Tai to emerge. And wait she would. All night and into the next morning, if necessary.

Gatomon suddenly vaulted into Tai's room, causing him to give a very high-pitched squeak. "Don't kill me!" begged Tai from behind his dugout.

Gatomon scoffed. "I'm just here to ask: did you really tell Davis what Kari was doing in the past four years – knowing very well that she hadn't done anything?"

"What about that fiasco with Ken?" asked Tai. "Not that I said anything, of course." Tai added the last part while shrinking away from Gatomon's suddenly outstretched claws.

"That was some weird idea with Yolei and Ken and who knows what else. Don't ask me who came up with that; I don't know," answered Gatomon. "Anything else?"

"Matt?"

"Idiot! Those were singing lessons! And in return Kari would teach Matt how to dance!"

"…Oh. So that's why they had their arms wrapped around each other."

"Her and Sora?"

"It's a girl thing, moron. They like to scream and hug each other when they haven't seen each other in a long time. Like a week."

"…Oh. Whoops."

"You told Davis that?" asked Gatomon, hackles raised and claws extended.

"No! I mean, yes!… I mean…wait, what was I supposed to…don't hurt me! AHHH!"

Kari stopped pacing as screams of anguish began emanating from Tai's room. Confused, she poked her head inside.

Tai held his best friend against him, sobbing as the poor creature was ripped to shreds by Gatomon's fury. The teddy bear had put up a valiant fight, but in the end was unable to fend off the enraged Champion. Slowly, the funeral procession began as Tai trekked outside to bury his fallen champion, the bystanders silently looking on in a mixture of shock, confusion, pity, and disgust.

"It's about time he got rid of that," Gatomon remarked, breaking the silence.

TK and Ken met once again, trying to drown out the sounds of arguing in the next room. Kari and Davis were going at it again, and it was only by the grace of whatever benign deity that the two weren't attacking each other again. TK sighed, an act Ken mirrored.

"Thirteenth time in two weeks," TK reported.

"Any luck finding the source of the arguments?" asked Ken.

"At first I thought it was because Davis was instrumental in Kari getting two weeks worth of detention on the first day, plus Davis' flirting. But I spoke to a guy and he shot that down. There's no way something like that could generate so much fighting."

The two winced as Davis dropped the f-bomb. Ken nodded. "Hm…you're right, it does sound trivial. Maybe there is a deeper issue at hand, and they're bringing up trivialities just because they ran out of things to say."

"In this case, we're going to need to find out the root of the matter before any of this is solved," continued Ken. "Any ideas?"

"We'll probably have to get in on their personal lives, something a little more personal than what we currently know of them. It might be helpful to learn a little about Davis' history during his absence," TK advised. "We should probably get in touch with Mimi and the other New York digidestined."

Ken nodded. "And we should have some spies in both of their inner circles too. I'll have Veemon and Gatomon on it."

"Jun and Tai too," added TK. "More pairs of eyes, and they probably have a history of them as kids too. That might come in handy."

"Let's see if Kari has a diary too," said Ken. "I doubt Davis would have one, but if Kari does, that would help a lot."

"She's going to kill us if she finds us snooping, right?" asked TK.

"Of course. But that's the risk of private investigation," replied Ken.

"I swear you're going to make money doing this in twenty years," said TK, shaking his head.

"Maybe."

"Damn it!" shouted Davis. "Kari just went too far!"

Veemon lounged by Davis' bed, looking mildly concerned. "What did she do this time?" he asked.

"She…she…she insulted my hair!" he exploded.

Veemon stared blankly, before rolling on the ground, laughing.

"What?" protested Davis. "I take great pride in my hair!"

Veemon shook his head, clearing tears out of his eyes. "Do you have any idea how dumb that just sounded?"

"…"

"Ok, very dumb," said Veemon. "You do realize that your first argument with Kari was about your lecherous behaviour, and then became watered down to something as meaningless as hair."

"So?" asked Davis. Veemon stared at him dumbly for a second. The blue dragon chose his next words very carefully:

"You're an idiot."

"The prick!"

Gatomon lazily opened an eye as Kari stormed into the room in a whirlwind of energy. Do I really want to know? she thought to herself. But I am supposed to be spying on her…Ah, what the heck, another rant won't kill me. "What's up?"

"I have never been so insulted in my life! Not even when Tai hid all my clothes in retaliation for accidentally telling Sora about his teddy bear!" Kari ranted.

"What did he do this time?"

"He said that Cody's hair looked better than mine!" Kari shrieked. "The Shell!? How can anyone beat that?"

Gatomon turned onto her stomach, yawning and stretching her arms in front of her. True, it's hard to beat the infamous Shell in terms of plainness or utter lack of style, but still, getting angry over something so insignificant was just…barbaric. TK and Ken are right, she mused. Something must have happened. Sounds juicy, too. "I thought you and Davis were best friends before you left."

"We were, but then that jerk, he…he…turned into a jerk!" said Kari.

Very articulate, Kari. You're losing your grip on reality, not to mention Japanese. "What do you mean turned into a jerk? Did something happen?"

"He came back from Japan and started flirting with all these girls, and making fun of me, and…" Kari continued to rant about every single one of Davis' shortcomings since his return not a month ago, something Gatomon was largely tuning out.

Damn ears, cursed Gatomon. Makes tuning her out all the more difficult. Oh well, it looks like conventional methods aren't working. Time to take drastic measures…

"Kari," began Gatomon, using her best patronising tone of voice. "Sit down." After Kari had down so, sitting on the floor with her back propped up against the bed, Gatomon continued, "Let's start from the beginning. Without leaving anything out, tell me exactly what happened between the two of you from the time he sent that e-mail saying he was returning to the first day of school."

Kari nodded, and began.

Author's Notes: If my calculations are correct (I'm a music major; so don't count on my calculations being anywhere close to being correct) there should be one more chapter.

*Begs* Review! *Falls prostrate on the floor*