Takeru isn't sure that Ken really believes him, but he doesn't know what else he can say or do. Nothing in his head is certain any more, and it's all he can do to think past the imminent future, and the prospect of waking up. How will it work? Can he really be sure that Hikari is telling the truth, and isn't just a figment of his imagination? And if she is… what will he wake up to?
A part of him still wants to stay here, at the cottage, where everything is safe and familiar. How can he face the others after everything that's happened? He misses his old life, but that's not what he's going back to. He can't go back to that. Even if everyone forgives him - and he really doesn't feel as though he deserves their forgiveness - there's still the fact that he's missed three months of everyone's lives. Three months of his own life.
As they say their farewells to Ken, and Hikari leads him out of the cottage's gardens, he thinks he can understand the look on Ken's face all too well. It's not just that Ken has given up hope. He has a feeling that in some way, the other boy doesn't want to be saved.
No one should feel like that, Takeru tells himself, as he walks around the side of the cottage and realises where they are headed. But as he stares at the snow-covered hill which he never used to understand, he can't help but relate.
They stand in a circle free of snow, warm and dry in the middle of the cold hilltop. He's not surprised that they never found it before - Poyomon and the cheerful boy he used to be. It's a fair walk through the snow, and easy to miss unless you know where you're headed. Hikari rubs her arms, and doesn't quite meet his eyes.
"What now?" he says after a moment. His voice sounds wrong now. Too young. But at the same time, he's not sure what would make it sound right. He can't remember what he sounded like before being in this strange place. It's an uncomfortable thought.
"Now you wake up," Hikari says, making him blink. "I… Gennai's keeping me asleep so I can be here, so I can't wake up until you let him know I'm ready to come back, but you can wake up on your own. You just have to want to, I think. Well, that's what Gennai said, anyway."
"I could have woken up at any time?"
She shakes her head, looking down at Patamon as she speaks. "No. He, um, kept you under at first. Until he was sure the virus was gone. And you needed to remember, anyway. Otherwise you wouldn't know where to wake up to."
"It's okay," Patamon says. "I'll be with you wherever you are, Takeru."
He stares down at his partner, not sure what to think. He has to want to wake up? How can he manage that when an unknown future awaits him, full of people he's wronged - people who should hate him for what he became? He's not ready for this. Part of him is already wondering if he'll ever be ready. How is he supposed to push past that and want to confront everyone, when it's the most intimidating, terrifying prospect he can think of?
"Takeru," Hikari says, and he looks back up to see her smiling sadly at him. "Go home. Yamato's waiting for you."
It hits him - really hits him. Yamato is the crying boy. He's been there all along, by his side. Broken by worry and an endless wait but steadfast, all the same.
Come back, Takeru.
He closes his eyes, and lets the weight of reality take hold.
It's hard, opening his eyes. They feel heavy - everything feels heavy. The lights overhead are too bright. And it's loud. The bleeping of machines and a steady, thumping roar which he belatedly realises is his own pulse. A heartbeat he'd forgotten all about in that other place. He's real. Real in a way he's sure he couldn't have imagined before spending months outside his own body. It's impossible to doubt Hikari now.
Hikari. She's still there. I have to tell Gennai!
He tries to sit up and fails, wrestling with a body which feels as though it's made of lead. Nothing works. Nothing moves. Panic sets in, sending the paired thumps of his heartbeat racing ever faster. Why can't he move? Is he trapped again? What's going on?
A cacophony of sound explodes somewhere nearby. A sharp hammering, accompanied by a voice he knows all too well - Yamato's here somewhere, screaming his name. It's so loud it hurts. More voices start, the words jumbling together as they overlap. There's too much noise; too much feeling; too much of everything, and he can't move. He can't stop it. Turn it off! Turn it off! Make it go away!
"LET ME IN THERE!" his brother screams, but somehow his voice is further off. Further and further until it stops altogether, and there's just the roaring of his pulse; the bleep of machinery; and soft-loud footsteps, drawing closer.
"Takeru," a familiar voice says, speaking in little more than a whisper. It still seems too loud, but everything is settling now. The roaring in his ears is fading. The lights are less blinding.
"Takeru, please blink if you can hear me."
It takes him a moment to register the words, but then he's blinking - because of course just one blink sets off a chain of them. It's as though he isn't in control of his body at all, and that's not a comforting thought.
"Okay, now, try to stay calm. I understand that this must be very disorienting, but you have to give yourself a chance to settle back into your body. You've been away for quite some time you know."
Who is that? He knows the voice, he's sure of it. But he can't quite place who it belongs to. The words make sense though. He has been away. All that time in the other place, he never felt as solid as he does now. Never felt so heavy, or tired.
There's movement by his head, and the face of his partner looms in front of him. Patamon. Patamon's here, just like he said he would be. He's not alone.
The weariness in his too-heavy body rises up, pulling his eyelids down. The lights above him glow faintly through his eyelids. Real. All of it real. As real as the sleep which takes him; honest and dreamless.
Waking is unlike anything in the other place. It's slower, easier. A gentle awareness of his surroundings which settles over him until his eyes open to see the lights once more - set into the ceiling. He blinks, feeling lighter than before but no less substantial, and then moves. It's not easy - everything feels stiff and sore and underused, but he can turn his head to one side and make out the bleeping machine, then slowly look the other way and see the sleeping form of Patamon on his pillow. Small chest rising and falling.
It's real. The thought is so strange it's all he can make room for in his mind. It's real. All of it. Not a dream. Not an illusion. It won't… it won't change. Everything will stay the same. If he gets up - if he can get up - he can go outside and see a world which doesn't change all the time, even if it is only the digital world, and not Earth.
Somehow he can't bring himself to specify Earth as being "the real world" any more. He knows reality and this is it. Digital or flesh, there's nothing make-believe about where he is now.
He curls his fingers, then straightens them, wishing his body felt stronger. It's as though every movement is through some thick, viscous material.
Three months, he thinks. That's how long they said I was…wherever that was. I haven't moved in three months.
The thought settles over him ahead of a more worrying successor - if it's this hard to move his fingers, how is he meant to walk? How can he get up and keep his promises? There's danger - an enemy he needs to fight, and here he is, hardly able to move?
Panic lends him energy, and he forces aching limbs into action. Lift the arms, push down with the hands, slide his body upright-
-Land heavily back on the bed with a grunt of discomfort. It's too much. He can't lift himself. Everything works, but it's too weak to be of any use.
The warm presence by his head stirs.
"Takeru?" Patamon says sleepily. He turns his head in time to see his partner stretch out on the pillow beside him. "You're awake!"
He blinks and nods, not trusting himself to speak. He hasn't in three months - and he can't remember what his voice sounds like. He's not sure he's ready to find out. The only memories he has of speaking in this world are of hurling threats at his friends. The thought that he might still sound like that is terrifying.
Patamon sits up beside him, watching him with a gentle smile. "I said I'd be here, didn't I?"
It's all he can do to smile. He wants to cry. They're back, and Patamon's here, and really, he feels like the luckiest, most undeserving person in the whole world. After everything - all he's done - Patamon is still here. He's still got his partner by his side
Something moves, outside his field of vision. He turns his head downward, towards his feet and the source of the noise, and gasps.
Yamato.
There's a chair at the foot of the bed he's lying in, and Yamato's in it, head lolled forward, slouching in such a way that he doesn't fall out while he sleeps.
But he's stirring now, shifting in place as he wakes. Takeru is gripped with a sudden urge to feign sleep again, and put off the looming confrontation in his mind. He's sure in his gut that Yamato won't be angry and that just makes it worse because he should be. He doesn't deserve kindness, or a brother who has spent three months waiting for him to come back to a body and a life he'd forgotten all about.
Patamon nudges him, then takes to the air and lands by Yamato's feet.
"He's awake," his partner says.
Takeru doesn't know whether he wants to laugh or cry. And as Yamato's head snaps up and their eyes meet, he suspects his brother feels exactly the same.
A moment later the question is answered as his brother's eyes fill with tears. But there's no sobbing this time. The answer is both. It's somewhere between joy and sorrow. Where relief and shock mingle freely with the weight of the time that's passed. And then there's tension, and Yamato practically launches himself out of the chair and across the room.
His brother's arms do what his own can't, and lift him upright into a hug so tight he can hardly breathe. He's pretty sure he's never seen Yamato move so fast.
"You're back," Yamato says, choking the words out past tears. "You came back."
The words rise up as soon as he realises the truth of them, although it turns out his voice is little more than a whisper, scratchy and dry with disuse:
"You asked me to."
A.N.: Okay, so, this has been a while coming, as I am furiously trying to get my digimon bang fic completed on time (it's currently about as long as Metanoia, so fear not - there's plenty to look forward to, and it fills in several of the gaps).
Anyway, after so long with my head stuck in that fic, I needed a break of sorts, and this was the most productive side-track I could think of. I hope it's suitably emotive. I almost cut off earlier, so that I could give the initial reunion a full chapter but, well. Honestly, I've been waiting to write this for SO LONG.
Also, while I did do a bit of reading up on comas, please don't take this as an example of how they work. Quite aside from Takeru's body being data instead of flesh and blood, what he was experiencing wasn't really a coma in the medical sense. Again with my disclaimers, eh?
I'm not sure how long it'll take me to get to the next chapter - I have a ridiculous amount of Renascent left to write before the deadline. But I'm not gone! I'm making progress, even if it is on a so-far-invisible fic. And I hope you enjoyed this update! Please let me know what you think.