A.N.: Holy wow, two updates in one day!

So, I got a little carried away with writing, basically. I'm thinking I might start waiting until I have longer chapters before posting if I can keep this up. Unless people prefer shorter and more frequent updates? I'm still a little new to the fanfiction format, so I'm not sure what people would prefer.

Due to it being term time, with my kids at school, I could probably manage to put out a chapter about 1-2k long most days. Or, I could write longer chapters, but every few days at most. In the school holidays that would translate to longer, because I won't have time to write during the day. I'm really getting enthusiastic about this story, so let me know which you would prefer!

Abandoned on the table, Takeru's phone rang into silence. Koushiro and Takeru remained staring at Yamato. None of the three had moved or spoken in the minutes since the older blonde's revelation. The spell was finally broken when the phone rang off.

"Well," Yamato said, his voice a strained attempt at normal. "Aren't you going to see who it was, Takeru? Or are we all just going to carry on sitting here?"

Before Takeru had a chance to reply, the apartment's phone began to ring instead. He groaned.

"Well, shit. I'm pretty sure I know who that is," he said. At the questioning stares from Yamato and Koushiro he added: "It's either Hikari or Taichi. I bailed on Hikari after school to sleep, and never returned her call. I have no idea what I'm gonna say." Despite the situation, he felt the slight blush creeping to his cheeks.

"You could always try honesty," Koushiro said, as the phone continued to ring. "It's probably going to be the best plan, going forwards. And if we're going to solve this problem, additional help is going to be a considerable asset.

Yamato growled with frustration, and stood suddenly, striding over to the phone and answering it.

"Hello, Takaishi residence, Yamato speaking." He spoke in brisk, clipped tones. There was a pause. "Yes, Takeru's here. It's... a little complicated, to be honest with you."

He turned to look at Takeru while he was talking, and raised his eyebrows. His composed, relaxed demeanour was suddenly back, as though there was nothing troubling him. Anyone other than Takeru might even have believed it. "No, it's nothing like that. Listen. If you're not doing anything, it might be best to come over. I don't really know how to explain it over the phone. Oh. Is Taichi there? Ah, right. Never mind then. Okay. See you soon."

Takeru sighed as his brother hung up. "Hikari?" His brother nodded, then took a seat at the dining table.

"So. Koushiro. What's your theory," Yamato asked, resting his elbows on the table. "Don't try and tell me you haven't got one by now."

Koushiro started, and ran his fingers through his hair agitatedly. "Well, it obviously goes without saying that the additional information you have given us has changed matters considerably. I had been operating under the assumption that what Takeru was experiencing related to another world, much as Hikari experienced dreams of the Dark Ocean before being pulled there a couple of years ago. I'm still not entirely certain if your news changes that or not."

Takeru sat down at the table, opposite his brother. "What did you see?" he asked him. "Why do you think it's the same place?"

Yamato sighed, and shook his head once, looking down at the table. He frowned, and then looked up again, meeting Takeru's gaze. He seemed hesitant.

"It's a different place," he said at last. "Or, a different location, anyway. But what you said about the over-brightness, that's the same. It makes my eyes ache, it's that bright. But it's not a beach. When I have the dreams I'm.. on a road, by a city. It's barren and dry, and at first it's like there's just a glare to everything from the sun. But there's a building nearby. A few, actually. The windows are boarded up, but there's an open door. Inside, there is still furniture in the rooms, and a few plants growing here and there. And even though it's a really dry place – almost like a desert – the leaves are bright. They're almost blurry. I have to squint to look at them because otherwise my eyes water."

Koushiro frowned. "Takeru, do you have some paper? I feel ridiculous saying this, but with everything that's happened, I forgot to bring my laptop. I think it's important to start writing all of this down so that we can see the overall picture. I can collate the information into one place later."

Takeru nodded. "I've got a notebook in my room," he said.

His clothes were where he had left them in the night, dumped on his bed next to his hat. Almost without thinking he started to tidy them away. His startled yell brought Yamato to the door at a run.

"Takeru! Are you alright? What happened?"

Takeru said nothing. He simply held up his hat and shirt for his brother to see. Both were dotted with several burn marks.

"I don't know how I didn't notice this last night," he said, voice shaking. "I thought it was only my skin that got burnt – I was just asleep. How did it affect my clothes too?"

Yamato's eyes widened. "Well, I think we just got our evidence that this is a different world," he said, with affected calm. "Bring them out. Koushiro will want to see this."

The two boys were talking quietly when Takeru returned into the main room, having taken a few minutes to find a notebook. Everything seemed to take much longer with the dressings making his hands so cumbersome. He dumped the clothes down on the table in front of Koushiro, next to the notebook, then sat down himself. For a few minutes, no one spoke.

"Okay," Koushiro said at last. "Granted, this doesn't look like an enormously positive turn of events. But I think this might actually give us a step in the right direction. Its the definitive confirmation we needed that we're dealing with an alternate world, and not a sort of feedback response to psychological stimuli."

"And now again in a language we understand, please?" Yamato's arms were folded.

"Well. If it had only been Takeru's skin which was damaged by the burning rain, and not his clothes, it would be reasonable to assume that he was physically here for the duration of his experience. That it was an actual dream he was experiencing – albeit one with consequences that are all too real. But the burn marks are on these clothes, too. If Takeru had truly been asleep in his bed the whole time, that wouldn't be possible. The only explanation which accounts for his clothes being damaged is that he was physically transported to the other world in his sleep."

"Wait. You're saying that when I wake up in the water, I'm actually waking up? That it's not a dream at all?" Takeru could feel his heart hammering away again. "Then... does that mean..."

"It means that, if my theory is correct, your body would no longer be resting in your bed during the point at which you are experiencing the so-called dream."

"Well. This just got a whole lot more unnerving," Yamato remarked. He picked up Takeru's hat, running his fingers over the burns. It was as though someone had pressed a hot poker to the material in several places, and then somehow prevented it bursting into flames.

"But I don't understand," Takeru said, after a minute. "Something doesn't add up. If I'm awake the whole time I'm there, why doesn't it feel like hours and hours have passed?"

"He's got a point, Koushiro. The last few nights, I've felt as though I was in that other place a bit longer, but it still never feels as though it's gone on for more than half an hour or so."

Koushiro frowned. "Well, it's only a hypothesis at this stage. Obviously we have an incomplete picture, so I will have to refine it as time goes by. But one explanation could be that time passes differently between the two worlds, much as it once did between here and the Digital world."

"So time moves more slowly there? Koushiro, this is bad. What if I got stuck there? Or Yamato? It would be as if we went missing. We have to find a way to stop this happening."

Yamato put a hand on his shoulder. To a casual observer, he would have seemed almost calm, but Takeru could tell the difference.

"Relax, Takeru," he said. "We'll work it out. We've always found an answer before. There's no reason to assume that things won't be the same this time." He looked across at Koushiro, who was watching the two brothers carefully. "But we do need time, and I don't know how much of that we'll have before we need to have at least a temporary plan. I don't want my brother getting hurt again, Koushiro; we need to think of a way to protect him from any more of those burns."

Koushiro looked decidedly uncomfortable, and Takeru had a feeling he could guess why.

"It's what you said before, isn't it," he said, not daring to look at Yamato. "You don't know how else to get us back."

The boy hung his head. Takeru thrust himself away from the table, and stalked over to the kitchen area, fists clenched. He didn't think he could trust himself to speak. It felt as though his stomach had opened into a yawning pit. If he opened his mouth, there was a strong chance he'd be sick.

"What are you talking about?" Yamato asked, looking alternately at the two of them. "What don't I know?"

Takeru hung his head. He closed his eyes for a moment, and then opened them. The note he had left for his mother was still on the worktop. Apparently she had simply pushed it out of the way, but not thrown it in the bin. He read and reread his message as Koushiro started to speak.

"Yamato, how have your dreams been ending?"

Silence.

"That bad, eh?" Koushiro's voice was soft. Almost sorrowful.

"What do you mean? What does how the dreams end have to do with anything?"

Rather than let Koushiro overcomplicate things, Takeru swallowed heavily, and cut in before he could reply. He kept his eyes on the note, focusing on the slight dogear in one corner.

"That's how we get back, Yamato. And assuming it's the same for you as for me, we get back by being scared to death. If the rain doesn't hurt me, that means it won't scare me. So something else will have to. Otherwise I'll be stuck there, so far as we can guess."

"But you two have been talking since last night. You must have come up with some sort of idea by now?"

"I just don't have enough information. The only logical solution I have been able to hypothesise is that in previous versions of his experience, Takeru generated a fear response from a giant wave bearing down on him, which preceded the start of the rainfall. That was sufficient to wake him before he sustained any injury, until last night when he had already left the water by the time of the wave's arrival."

"So you're telling my little brother to risk drowning himself? Oh, excellent advice Koushiro. I can certainly see why Takeru is so optimistic about it all now."

"Well when the only alternative is that he never sleeps again, perhaps you can see why I was a little desperate-"

"Wait," Takeru snapped. He had turned the note over to look at his mother's original message. "Stop arguing, you two. I might have something."

Koushiro was watching him curiously as he turned around, sharp eyes immediately fixed on the note. Yamato's expression was somewhat more desperate. Takeru could understand that. The thought of it being his older brother being in serious danger made him break out in a cold sweat.

"It's this," he said, brandishing the note. "Mum wrote it last night, when she got in from work. I didn't think about it before, because as far as I knew, I'd just been asleep. But she gets in late, and she wrote that she looked in my room and saw me sleeping."

"I don't follow," Yamato said, even as Koushiro's face lit up with understanding.

"Yamato, Takeru went straight to sleep after school yesterday. He would have been out cold well before five in the evening. But he didn't go to the other world straight away. He was still here, naturally asleep, several hours later when Mrs Takaishi saw him and wrote the note. Which means there's an additional factor at play. It's not simply a matter of falling asleep and immediately being transported away – and if that's the case, so long as it remains consistent, then there should be a way to circumvent it."