Hey guys. It's been a while, hasn't it? Sorry about that. Anyways, before you read on, I would like to clear some things up. This chapter may seem like a filler, and a tad drawn out, but I assure you, it is important. You may not grasp why just yet, but soon it shall all fall into place.

Conspiracy Theories

Mimi had given Matt a break until Friday. A couple of days. What she thought was suitable downtime. Enough time to keep him in suspense, not enough time for him to go cold on her. Dating was always all about the timing. But now she had what seemed like an infinite stretch to fill before they next met. In all truth, she was getting a little impatient.

Sitting next to Jamie on the sofa, she figured she should try to get out of the house. Otherwise she knew she'd go absolutely stir-crazy. Gaze falling on the phone, she thought that maybe there was another digi-destined that she should catch up with while she was in town. Picking up the cordless, she dialled Tai's number. They could go out for coffee and lunch. Talk about things. Not the Thing. That was a big secret. But other things. The way they used to.

After a few rings, Mimi heard the click of an automated response. Assuming he was just at work, or perhaps in the shower, she waited to leave a message.

"Hello my dear, adoring fans. This is Tai. Obviously. I'm not at home right now. For the next three weeks I am off at a father and son retreat with Tai Junior. So while you're all slaving away at your meaningless, consumer driven lives, picture me kicking the winning goal in a soccer game, crushing my opponent in a round of tennis, or sipping a non-alcoholic beverage by the sea after lifesaving lessons. Leave me a message from the mundane world, and I'll call you when I'm back."

Mimi left him a brief message for him to call her, and then hung up. Lucky Tai, going away on a sporting camp. It sounded like fun. Getting out of the city and spending quality time with Tai Junior, who was ironically nicknamed TJ.

TJ was not Tai's real son. Tai Junior was certainly not his real name. Tai was a member of a charity organisation that partnered orphaned children with a surrogate parent. It was similar to the Big Brother, Big Sister program. The surrogate mother or father took the child out and showed them the kind of good time that a parent ought to show their kid. Tai claimed he did it because he'd developed a certain addiction to saving people while in the Digiworld. Mimi often suspected he did it because he was lonely. All the digi-destineds had paired themselves up, and those that hadn't were self-confessed workaholics. Plus, his best friends had always been Matt and Sora, and that opened up a whole other set of complications. As she knew all too well.

Mimi tapped her chin with the phone, contemplating calling somebody else. Izzy? Probably at work. Joe? Same again, or with Amelia. TK or Kari? University. Yolei… Yolei was possible. Mimi dialled her home number. After many rings, the phone was picked up and a breathless voice said,

"Hello?"

"Hey Yolei, it's me. Mimi." Mimi replied, leaning back against the wall as she spoke. "I haven't caught you at a bad time have I?"

"Oh, Mimi, hi." Yolei sounded a little distracted. "No, not at all. Just the kids wearing me out, as usual."

Mimi laughed. "Great. I know what you mean. And I've only got one. Look… I was just wondering if you'd like to go out. The kids can play together and we can indulge in some caffeine."

Yolei's response showed absolutely no thought whatsoever. "For coffee, anything. I'd love to get out of the house. Shall we say Odaiba Central in forty-five minutes?"

"Sounds like a plan," Mimi said. "See you there."

They each said goodbye and hung up. Mimi grinned. Excellent. A distraction. Something to take her mind off the deep, primitive cravings she was having for Matt. All she had to do was see a blonde man and she felt a fizzle down low in her abdomen. It wasn't right. Or normal. She needed to stop herself getting attached. Matt wouldn't divorce Sora. It'd be too much of a scandal for his publicists to have to deal with. Divorcing your loyal wife for a mistress who bore your child out of wedlock. It didn't sound like such a fabulous piece of publicity. Besides which, Mimi wasn't sure she wanted Matt to leave Sora. Of course on some level she did, but at the expense of breaking up a family? She'd bear such guilt.

She shook herself from her thoughts and went to find her son. They'd have to leave soon to be at Odaiba Central Park in forty-five minutes.

"So… do you have a man in your life now Mi?"

Yolei and Mimi were comfortably settled on a park bench. Each had a large coffee in hand. Erin was lying in her pram, gurgling happily as she played with a teddy bear. Not too far away, Jamie and Reece were running after Michaela, who, as the eldest, was clearly far superior to either of them. Jamie, who'd never met a real five-year-oldbefore, was gazing at her with adoration and reverence.

Mimi spoke without thinking. "I'm seeing him on Friday."

Seconds later she realised what she'd done. She'd broken her own golden rule. Her mind had been so fixed on Matt; his rough voice, his eyes, his smile, his sculpted body; that it had just been there, ready to say.

Yolei slapped her hand against Mimi's thigh good-naturedly. "Mimi, that's fantastic! It's so good to see you dating again. It makes me sad to see you on your own, when once married happiness was so easily in your grasp. So who's the guy, then? Do I know him? Is it Tai?"

Halfway through rolling her eyes at Yolei's happy marriage comment, Mimi's jaw fell. She was disbelieving. "Tai?" she asked incredulously.

"Well, he did take you home from the reunion." Yolei justified, rocking Erin's pram a little. "And he's always looked out for you."

Mimi shook her head. "It isn't Tai. I don't think he ever got over Sora. We're just good friends that understand each other. Besides, he's away at a sporting retreat with TJ for three weeks."

Yolei sipped her latte pensively before answering. "How odd, that so many of us digi-destineds are off on holiday."

"Who else?" asked Mimi, trying to steer Yolei away from the topic of her love life. Besides, she felt so out of touch. Like she was alone in some foreign country where nobody spoke her language.

"Well," Yolei began, crossing her legs and straightening her skirt as she started ticking people off on her fingers. "Joe's taken Amelia on a romantic couple's cruise where he may just be proposing to her, if he can summon the guts. Poor thing… courage was never his strong point. Sora's in the middle of nowhere teaching tennis at some camp. TK and Kari are bed and breakfasting, much to Davis's disgust. He thinks he knows what they get up to on their little weekends away. Such a dirty mind. He's wrong, of course, but it's fun to watch him stew. And here you are telling me Tai's at some retreat doing manly, sporting things with TJ."

Mimi smiled. "You're becoming quite the gossip queen, Yolei Ichijougi."

"Well, Mimi Tachikawa, somebody had to pick up the slack when you left." Yolei quipped.

They both laughed, and Erin gurgled a little before silence descended again. Yolei looked like she had something on the tip of her tongue, but wasn't sure if it could be said. Mimi sighed.

"Out with it." She commanded.

Yolei still seemed hesitant, as if worried she might hurt Mimi's feelings, but her curiosity eventually won out. "Well… it's just that there are some things I don't understand. About your past, I mean. Not that it's any of my business. Tell me to shut up if you want. But it's all been kept so quiet and well… it's like… walking into a movie halfway through."

Mimi sighed. She should have expected this. "Tell me what you already know, and I'll try to fill in the blanks."

Yolei fiddled with her skirt as she spoke, eyes fixedly staring at her shoes. "Well… you were dating Matt, and you were at his twenty-first, and you two were together just about the whole night. Ken and I were saying you guys would be the next big digi-destined wedding. But then you went back to America and… I don't know, but when you came back about a month and a half later I'd never seen you so distracted. Like, when I took you out for brunch and you spent five whole minutes buttering your plate instead of your croissant. Of course, I found out later that you were pregnant. And I know you told Sora practically as soon as you landed, but nobody else for ages. You didn't want to spend any time with Matt at all. And then you told him you were pregnant and… something happened. Then I saw you and you swore you'd never speak to him again. I'd never seen you in such a fury. I don't understand why. Did Matt say something to hurt you? I assume you'd gone to see him so you could break up with him, so did things get ugly? That's what we all figured must have happened, but we've never been sure. That Matt had been a real man-bitch when faced with losing you. Which was really very selfish of him. But… what happened to Michael? I mean, Jamie is his son, isn't he? And you dumped Matt so that you could be with Michael and have a family, right? So why aren't you guys together now? If you cared for him enough to have his child and break up with the guy you'd loved for nearly ten years, what could have possibly happened? I just… I just don't get it."

Mimi's jaw was somewhere in the vicinity of the ground. She could hardly gather herself together enough to speak. When she did, it was disjointed and spluttered.

"Where… what… how did you get that information?"

Yolei looked surprised, as if that wasn't the reply she'd expected at all. She sounded uncertain as she answered.

"Well… I got it from a variety of places, in bits and pieces. I suppose Sora told me a lot. She'd spent a lot of time with Matt after… after you two had your showdown, so I thought… well I thought she would know. She told me things that Matt had said and done, anyway..."

Mimi's heart was racing. What was going on? Why did Michael keep coming up? He was completely unrelated. He was her friend, her supporter, but that was all. Who had started this crazy idea that he was Jamie's father? Was it Matt, trying to escape blame? But he'd seemed so sincere when he'd spoken to her at the reunion. Bitter and resentful, even. Mimi didn't think he could fake that. So was there some conspiracy going on? Did Michael know about this? Worse, was he behind it? But no. That didn't sound like him. As far as she knew, he hadn't had any contact with the Japanese digi-destineds in five years or more. She didn't think he could be involved. So why was Sora throwing his name into this mess? Mimi was beginning to doubt the information she's given Sora, that day she'd come back to Japan. Thinking hard, she tried to remember their exact conversation.

"Sora, I have something I need to tell you. It's important."

"Sure, Mimi, shoot."

"I'm… pregnant."

"That's such good news! … Isn't it?

"Yes. And no."

"Who's the father?"

"Matt, of course! I haven't slept with anyone else, ever. But don't say anything, please. I have no idea how to tell him…"

So Sora must have known that Michael wasn't implicated. So why was she spreading that he was? Had Matt told her that, she'd believed him? What had Matt told Sora? Things were getting so complicated. There were so many secrets and rumours running around. Before she'd just thought Matt was ill-informed through some weird misunderstanding. But now… she wasn't sure it had been an accident. There was something very, very amiss.

She turned to face Yolei, determination setting her features.

"Yolei, despite anything you may have heard to the contrary, Michael is not Jamie's father. He's my friend, and that is all he has ever been. The only man I have ever been with is Matt. Jamie was definitely conceived that night of Matt's twenty-first. I came back from America to tell Matt he was going to be a father, but I never specified that the child was his. Looking back on it now, I suppose he must have thought something similar to you. And he left me. That was why I was so furious with him. I don't know why Michael came into this, but we are absolutely not romantically involved, and we never were."

Yolei looked dumbstruck. With wide-eyed wonder, she said, "Mimi, I… I had no idea. What a thing to have happened to you! All this time none of us knew. We weren't nearly angry and disappointed enough in Matt. Leaving you with a baby to take care of, all by yourself…"

Mimi was brisk, waving this away. She didn't want that wound reopened. "Yes, well. I'm over all of that now. It's in the past. What I'm more concerned about was how Michael fell into this. How this rumour started. It makes no sense. These things don't just come out of nowhere, but I don't understand how it could have arisen at all."

Yolei had a worried look slashed across her face, her eyebrows almost joined in a frown of concern. "I don't know, Mi. The only thing I can say is that I suppose the rumours weren't helped by the fact that you disappeared back to New York without a word to just about anyone. Nobody really knew the story."

Except Sora. "Yes…" Mimi didn't know what to think, so she remained quiet.

"Well, these are the sorts of things that happen when you sleep with a guy out of wedlock, Mimi dear. I hope you've learnt your lesson." Yolei spoke jokingly, and had the distinct air of someone trying to bring the conversation back to a level that was steady and certain. The atmosphere had gotten far too dark.

Mimi forced a smile. "Oh, and you and Ken were celibate until your honeymoon, then? Yeah, right. Sure. I believe that."

Yolei laughed. "Don't you remember? I never wanted to kiss him; I just wanted to marry him!"

The conversation returned to light banter, but underneath her giggles, Mimi's mind was racing. She needed to talk to Matt.

Emma's useless facts about nothing in particular

In sailing, a dog watch lasts two hours.