Litanya: Hi again. Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. I'm glad that so many people like this fic. Sorry for the late update... I don't really have an excuse. All I can say is that I have started uni again, so my updates will probably get even slower (or faster... sometimes I end up updating instead of doing my work...). I'm really sorry about the delays, but I am having problems with some of the characters... I know what I want to happen but I don't know how to get them there. Anyway, I don't own Digimon and I hope you enjoy this chapter =).

Untitled

Chapter Five

Mimi lifted the cookies out of the oven and set them down on the heat-proof mat on the bench to cool. She then slid a tray full of unbaked cookies into the oven and set the timer.

"Uh Mimi... no offense but I think that you have enough cookies," Koushiro remarked as he watched her from the kitchen doorway. The kitchen table was covered with boxes of cookies, and there were even a few boxes in the corner. Mimi sighed and pushed a strand of her hair behind her ear absently.

"I know, I know... I can't help it! I always cook when I'm worried, you know that," she picked up a cookie and took a bite without really thinking about it. It had been two days since Jyou had bumped into Hikari and Takeru at the hospital and since then they had not heard anything from the young couple. That worried her because she knew that they would probably need help and yet they weren't asking.

"Maybe we can drop some of the cookies off at Hikari's," Jyou suggested as he took a cookie. Mimi beamed at his idea, and she privately wished that she had thought of it.

"Visiting hours are over now, right?" she asked her husband.

"Yeah they are. Taichi was pretty badly hurt in the accident, so the nurses are keeping a close eye on him too. Hikari and Takeru should be back home now," Jyou felt a little guilty for trying to manipulate Mimi into visiting the young couple, but he felt as though he was facing a moral dilemma. He had yet to tell Mimi about Tami. He didn't know whether or not he was meant to or not. He hated keeping secrets from her but... he didn't really know how Hikari would react if she found out that Jyou had told Mimi about Tami directly.

"Hikari must be stressed out. Cookies could cheer her up," Koushiro added his opinion to the discussion, "And it would show her that we are here to help. I don't really know how she is dealing with the situation, but she probably could use some help." Mimi was already grabbing one of the boxes of cookies that she had kept in the corner with one hand, and grabbing her bag with the other.

"Yeah we should go and help them out. We shouldn't just let them think that they have to be alone."

Tamika was bored. She loved playing with her aunt and uncle, but at the moment they were engaged in a serious conversation in the kitchen, so she was left to play in the living room. Normally she would have been happy playing with Frankie, but she had left her teddy with her dad, to make him feel better. Her other toys weren't enough to hold her interest tonight.

"...I can always offer to work the night shift," she overheard Uncle 'Keru say as she drifted closer to the kitchen door, "that way you can get to work during the day whilst I stay with Tami, then when you finish work you and Tami can visit Taichi and I'll go to work." Tamika frowned at the sound of his voice. It sounded off somehow... she knew that it wasn't sad, but it still didn't sound right.

"Are you sure you'll be able to do that? Those night shifts kill you... and if you have to watch Tami during the day you'll never get to sleep. Maybe I can talk to my boss and see if she'll let me have every second day off or something. It's a pretty reasonable request so maybe..." Tamika didn't know why, but Aunty 'Kari didn't sound right either. She recognised that their voices sounded the same as her father's when he was told that he had to work extra hours. She had never liked that tone of voice.

She was distracted from listening by a knock on the door. Her aunt and uncle were still talking and it appeared that neither of them had heard the knock, so she went to investigate. She was too short to look through the hole in the door to see who it was, so she dragged a chair over to the door and stood on it so she could see. She smiled happily when she recognised one of the people standing on the other side of the door.

"Uncle Jyou!" she cried before jumping carefully off the chair. She forgot about the chair as soon as she had jumped, so she banged the door into it when she opened the door, but she didn't really care. She loved visitors. "Uncle Jyou! Did you come to visit? Who are the other people? Are they family too? I saw Daddy today and we had a tea party with Frankie, and it was fun. Did you know that Daddy talks funny now? But we aren't supposed to tell him coz if we do then he may feel sad about it." She flung herself into his arms, and he picked her up a little clumsily. He had a bit of a shocked expression on his face and she giggled.

His two companions were watching them curiously. Tamika stared back at them. She decided that the lady looked nice and that she was very pretty with her chestnut brown hair and soft brown eyes. She was dressed prettily too, which Tamika approved of. The man with them looked a bit quiet. He seemed to be less sure of how to act than the other two, a little more hunched in on himself. But he smiled at her after a moment and she couldn't stop beaming back at him.

Hikari and Takeru heard the commotion and came out of the kitchen. Mimi couldn't help but notice how tense they were. Tamika seemed to pick up on it too, as she wormed herself out of Jyou's grip and raced over to them.

"Look who came to visit Aunty 'Kari! Uncle Jyou is here! And he brought some other people!" she grabbed Hikari's hands and danced around in a little circle, "Is that Aunty Mimi and Uncle 'Shiro? Daddy said that they was friends with Uncle Jyou and that Aunty Mimi was a pretty lady and that Uncle 'Shiro was very shy and that they both hung around with Uncle Jyou a lot and since they all came here together then I think that they are them. Am I right, am I right?" Hikari couldn't help but smile at her hyperactive niece. The girl was too adorable for her own good.

"Yeah Tam-Tam, you're right. You have a really good memory," Takeru replied, unsure of what was really going on.

"Oh I'm sorry Takeru. She just let us in when we knocked... I think that she checked first to see who we were and I guess when she saw Jyou she just assumed that she could let us in," Koushiro finally shook himself out of the daze he had fallen into when he had seen Tamika. Hikari sighed.

"It's alright. She's just like her father- too impulsive for her own good. Didn't your Dad tell you not to open the door to strangers?" Tami stopped dancing around and nodded enthusiastically.

"Yep! He told me to always look at who is knocking and if you don't know them then to turn them away, but I saw Uncle Jyou and I know him so I opened the door," Tamika explained all this as though she was lecturing them instead of the other way around, "Daddy also told me that if it is a stranger I should run and get him because it could be someone trying to steal me and he doesn't want me to get stolen coz then he would have to try to replace me and I'm ire-irreplacababale." She looked so proud that she remembered what her dad had told her. Hikari wished again that she could get the camera, but knew that she couldn't.

"Umm..." they all looked at Mimi, who appeared to be struggling to understand what was going on. She had expected to hear that Taichi was injured, but she was unprepared to deal with what appeared to be his daughter appearing in front of her. She hadn't known that he had a daughter- not that she really knew anything about his life these days.

"Oh... this is my niece, Tamika. Tami, this is your Aunt Mimi and Uncle Koushiro. As you can probably figure out, Tami is Taichi's daughter," Hikari said quietly, watching for any negative reactions. Koushiro just nodded a greeting to the little girl, whilst Mimi still stared at her in shock.

"It's nice to meet you," Tami said politely, seeming to realise that if she ran up to Mimi she would probably knock her over, "What's in the box?" Mimi blinked before looking down to the box of cookies that she was holding.

"I kind of made chocolate chip cookies... If it's okay with Hikari, you can have one if you would like one," Mimi's voice shook a little, but she was slowly getting over her surprise. Tami immediately turned to her biological aunt and bounced up and down.

"Ooh can I have one? Pretty, pretty please? Daddy says that Aunty Mimi makes the best cookies!" Mimi was amazed at that last comment. She was surprised that Taichi remembered her cookies, and that he had taken the time to tell his daughter about it. He had only tasted her cookies once and the memory of that day never failed to bring a smile to Mimi's face

~Flashback~

Seventeen year old Mimi Tachikawa was sitting on the edge of the pond at Odaiba Park. It was a beautiful day and the park was full of young kids playing soccer and other games that involved running around. Mimi envied them. They all looked so carefree. She wished that she could be like that.

She was having a bad day. Firstly she had been yelled at by her parents for missing what they deemed to be an 'important' breakfast with one of her father's clients, and then she had had a fight with Jyou and Koushiro over something stupid. Now both of her best friends weren't speaking to her and her parents weren't very happy with her either. She wished that she could just be as free as a young child was.

"Hi Mimi, how's it going?" she looked up from the concrete to see Taichi standing next to her. He was looking at her curiously, as though he knew that something wasn't right with her and he was trying to figure out what it was without asking. Well, she wasn't going to tell him anyway. She could deal with it herself.

"Hey Taichi," she mumbled, before inwardly cringing at how pathetic she sounded. Taichi didn't comment on it, which relieved her.

"Do you want to come over and make cookies? I kind of promised Hikari that I'd bake some cookies for her class whilst she worked on a project with Takeru, but I'm not very good in the kitchen. Do you want to help? You can have some of the cookies," she hesitated. She didn't really want to go, but if Taichi needed help then she couldn't really refuse.

"Uh... alright... I guess that I can come and help," she stood slowly and concentrated on looking everywhere but at Taichi. She didn't want him to guess what was wrong from her face. She knew that he was good at things like that and she really didn't want him to know.

"Thank you," he told her as they started to walk towards his apartment, "I know you probably have a lot to do and I appreciate your help." She smiled and gave a little nod, but she didn't say anything.

She knew that she wasn't acting like her usual self, but she just wasn't feeling like her usual self. Her usual self would never have fought with Jyou over something so petty. It hadn't helped at all that Koushiro had taken Jyou's side of the argument. So what if she hadn't been very nice to Jyou's lab partner? The girl was obviously flirting with him so that he would do her work for her. Mimi wasn't against Jyou dating (although she sometimes wished that he would ask her out instead) but she only wanted the best for him. His lab partner definitely wasn't the best.

They arrived at the Kamiya apartment and Taichi quickly let them in and led the way to the kitchen.

"We have the ingredients in here somewhere," Taichi assured her as he haphazardly searched through the cupboards, pulling out random ingredients as he went, "Would you like a drink? We have tea, coffee and juice."

"Um... maybe some water?" he looked up at her when he heard her hesitate, a small frown crossing his features before his grin returned so quickly she thought she might have imagined it.

"We have that too. I'll get you a glass," he got her a glass of water and soon Mimi had started on the cookies. She had determined pretty quickly that Taichi was hopeless at baking (either that or he was faking it very well) so she poured all of her attention on making the cookies and keeping Taichi away from anything that could make a mess. She was covered in flour and in a much better mood by the time the cookies were laid out ready to go into the oven.

"Hey Taichi," she said slowly as he put the tray into the oven.

"Yeah?" he said as she hesitated over whether or not she should finish her question.

"How did you feel when Sora started going out with Yama?" she had wanted to know the answer to this question for ages. She had two reasons: firstly she was convinced that Taichi may have cared more about Sora than just friends should, although she had never said anything about that to anyone. Secondly, she wanted to know if she was right to feel jealous as a friend that Jyou wanted to start going out with new people.

Her suspicions about Taichi's feelings appeared true as he froze on the spot at her question. A multitude of expressions crossed his face in about a second's time, but Mimi swore that he was panicking a little.

"What do you mean?" his voice sounded a little strange, and when he closed the oven door, it slammed a little harder than was necessary. She had really unsettled him.

"Well, I just thought that it would be weird for you. I mean, they are your best friends and it must be a little weird at least," she decided to let him off the hook and not let him know that she knew how he felt. He considered her words for a moment, visibly relaxing. It was like he had an automatic response for this question.

"Yeah, it is a little weird but as you said, they're my best friends," he turned to look at her looking a bit more serious than usual, "You know Mimi, Jyou's not going to stay single forever, but as his best friend it is your duty to support him in any decision he makes. He really cares about you, you know. If you told him honestly how you feel, I'm sure that you'd be surprised by his response." She mulled over what he had said whilst the cookies baked. Taichi kept a conversation going, but she only answered with half her mind. She was only pulled out of her musings when the oven beeped.

"Alright! I bet that these are going to taste fantastic. You really seemed to enjoy making them and that always means that they'll taste good," Taichi seemed like a five year old boy as he put the cookies on the bench. He immediately tried to grab one before pulling his hand back quickly as it burned his hand. Mimi laughed.

"You know, it was kind of obvious that that was going to happen. Things that have been put in burning hot places become burning hot themselves," Taichi's mature reply was to poke his tongue out at her. Half an hour later, when the cookies were finally cool enough to eat, Taichi made sure that she had the first try.

"These are really, really good! The best cookies I have ever tasted!" Taichi exclaimed after devouring his cookie in about two bites, "You should become a cook. You obviously like it and you're obviously good at it. Just give Jyou some of these and he'll never want to look at another girl!" Mimi blushed and continued to nibble at her cookie. She wasn't really very hungry, but she had to admit that it was good.

The whole afternoon had been great. Taichi had really managed to get rid of her horrible mood and she felt like she could handle the tough period that was bound to come up in her friendship with Jyou. She left the Kamiya apartment that afternoon with a small box of cookies, flour all through her hair and the resolve to be the best friend she could possibly be to everyone, just like Taichi was.

~End of Flashback~

Mimi snapped out of her daze as Hikari confirmed that Tamika was allowed a cookie if she promised to be really good.

"Yummy! Thank you Aunty Mimi. Aunty 'Kari, can we take some cookies for Daddy when we go see him tomorrow? If he knows that they're from Aunty Mimi he'll be really happy and Frankie can have some too!" Tami was getting crumbs all over the floor as she danced around excitedly. Mimi wished she had the energy that the little girl seemed to have- she was quite sure that she would have collapsed with exhaustion by now if she had been using half the energy Tamika seemed to use effortlessly.

"Yeah of course we can," Takeru scooped Tamika up so that she would stop dropping crumbs on the floor. They fell onto his shoulder instead.

"How is Taichi going?" Jyou asked, "I didn't really know whether to drop in on him or not so I thought that I'd ask." Takeru exchanged a quick glance with Hikari before taking Tamika out of the room, muttering something along the lines of 'bath time'. Hikari gestured to the couch and they all took a seat. Hikari perched on the arm of the armchair and fiddled with her fingers.

"Taichi's... Well, he's doing alright. He has a pretty severe case of Broca's aphasia. The speech difficulties are frustrating him to no end, but I think it's the weakness on his right side that is worse for him. He's always been such a physical person and now he can barely move his arm and leg. It annoys him that he can't write either, because if he thinks we do not understand him correctly, he can't even write it down for us to read. In short, he's pretty miserable about it all, but in true Taichi fashion he's pretending that it isn't bothering him. He's good at that," it was obvious that Taichi was not the only one frustrated with the situation. Hikari looked like she was about to burst.

"Yeah I noticed. He did that with the whole Sora thing too. But you know, he's not the only one in your family who likes to deal with things themselves without asking for help. We're your friends you know, and it hurts when you don't ask us for help when you need it," Mimi said as gently as she could, knowing that she could be very blunt at times.

"You knew about the Sora thing? When did you find out?" Hikari seemed to disregard the latter and most important part of what Mimi had said which irritated the older girl to no end.

"I had my suspicions for a while, but I found out for sure when I helped him make those cookies. He never told me, but I could tell by his reaction to something I said," Mimi admitted.

"You came over and made cookies? I don't remember that," Hikari said distractedly. It seemed that she was deep in thought over some other matter.

"I don't really know when you needed them for, but Taichi said that you needed him to bake cookies for your class or something," Hikari sighed.

"I never asked him to bake cookies for me, although he does make good ones. You must have been upset about something so he was trying to cheer you up. He did that a lot too," the two boys were looking really confused as Mimi let this information sink in. She inwardly winced as she realised that Taichi had done a lot to try to make her feel better, whilst she had never offered any advice to him.

"What is this Sora thing you're talking about?" Koushiro asked, finally giving up the idea that they would offer the information. Hikari sighed again and rubbed a hand over her eyes. She looked a little as though she hadn't slept for a few nights. The sad thing was that that was probably true.

"My brother was... well, let's just say that he cared about Sora more than he should have. He was really very upset when she started dating Yama," something seemed to click in Koushiro's mind, and Mimi was sure that she heard him mutter "so that was it" under his breath. But she had to concentrate on her main objective- to help Hikari.

"I meant what I said when I told you that we're here for you," she told the younger girl seriously, "If you need help with anything at all- housework, babysitting, anything, just ask. Koushiro and I have time off work, and Jyou can help out at the hospital and we are always free to talk or do anything you need us to. I'm worried that you'll stress yourself to the point of collapse and you don't need to. So tell us what you need help with and we'll do it, alright?" at Mimi's words, Hikari started to cry. She didn't know why, she was just so overwhelmed with everything that she had to do and Mimi's offer was just so nice.

Mimi, Jyou and Koushiro didn't look surprised by her tears. Mimi came over and gave her a hug, whilst Jyou and Koushiro hung around a little nervously at the back, like most men do when women cry.

"Thank you so much for the offer. I'm sorry for not letting you guys know about everything earlier and I've just been worrying about Taichi and Tami and I haven't been able to think straight. I might need you to help babysit a few times if that's alright... I can't get much more time off work and neither can Takeru and it's really hard to find time to visit Taichi and look after Tami and... I'm sorry I don't know where all this is coming from..." it felt so good to just let the words pour out of her mouth. Hikari was normally a pretty quiet person, but she just couldn't help but let the words come out. She was tired and she was worried about her brother and it was such a relief that there were people other than Takeru (who she loved to death but who was just as stressed and tired as she was) who cared about her.

"That's fine Hikari. This is what we're here for," Mimi told her softly. Whilst Hikari was happy, grateful and relieved that her friends were there for her, she was kind of disappointed. Maybe if her friends had been as concerned about Taichi years ago as they were for her now, none of this would have happened in the first place...

To be continued...

Litanya: Whoa that took me a long time. I am seriously sorry for the long delay. I am going to try to update at least once a month from now on, but I'm going to be extremely busy with uni work (I already need to read about 100 more pages than I have already read and I've only been back at uni for 3 days...) but this fic will be a priority for me outside of uni work. Anyway, I hope you guys all enjoyed the chapter and I'll hopefully update again soon. Have a good day/night etc.!