Title: Always Follow the Rabbit

Author: Mrpointyhorns aka Blemery

Rating: R

Status: In Progress

Part: 20

Pairings: Taichi/Koushiro

Warnings: Slash

Spoilers: Season 1 and 2, plus some of the movies (nothing blatantly but there) also characters from season 3

Summary: Taichi's has started to settle in his life, and while that can be quite nice, he and Koushiro have never been better, it can also be a bit disappointing, especially his dead-end job. The only thing interesting that ever happens is when he has to babysit his nephew. Until Koushiro detects a disturbance that is about to give Taichi the adventure he craves.

Note: I uploaded this months ago, but I forgot to publish it! Sorry about that.

Koushiro might have been embarrassed about how long it took him to figure out why his computer wouldn't connect to the network. He knew it existed because he had seen it in the digital world, but he hadn't been able to find it since. He tried daily, but was unsuccessful. However, any embarrassment was dissolved because he spent most of his time caring for Takato. He would admit that many of the hours was actually used for playing or cuddling and not for caring for any needs, but somehow that became just as important to Koushiro.

It was on his way down to the end of the block to pick up some bread, butter and maybe a sweet, when he realized that since he arrived he didn't see much digital technology, there were no cellphones, or laptops. There were cash registers, and credit card machines, but nothing personal. All these things could be used by the public without giving the public direct access to the network. It all started to fit into place, it was probably part of the deal between the worlds that separated partners, that separate children from parents, and caused suffering to children both in this world and the digital world.

He hurried to get his purchases and return to the room he had rented. Now, that he suspected that the network was restricted from public use then he might make progress getting on. Either the human government or the digital one controlled the network and now that he knew that he could figure out who and how to get on, how to get on without being detected. It might take a while, so he made sure to get as many dry snacks as he could, peanut butter and two loaves of bread from the market.

He rushed back and into the room. "Tentomon," He called softly, when he entered, the digimon fluttered over when the door shut and took a bag from Koushiro. He started to unpack it. "I figured it out."

Tentomon stilled and looked over at him his head tilted slightly. "What were you figuring out again?"

"I haven't been able to get onto the network. I think I need to in order figure out why Cherubimon sent us here." Koushiro helped unpack the bags with Tentomon.

"Daddy." Takato had crossed the room and hugged Koushiro's leg. His strength was gaining every day, but he would usually exhaust himself within a few hours of being awake, at least the exhaustion came from playing around the room, and not simple things like sitting up in bed, or getting a bath. He looked up at him. "Breakfast time?"

Tentomon had the bag with breakfast, and he said, "I have it."

Koushiro nodded and looked down at Takato. "Let me get the rest of these up. Do you want to help?"

Takato's eyes got big and bright his mouth opening slightly. He reached out a hand and nodded. Koushiro settled a partly unpacked bag on the floor and Takato leaned down to pick out one of the items, he stood up on his toes to put it on the table an old card table with a wobbly leg. Tentomon had brought it home one evening and said that he watched someone toss it out, and he thought tables were necessary for homes. Koushiro wanted to say that this wasn't their home, it wasn't, Taichi wasn't there, but he couldn't say as much in front of Takato who looked beside himself at the idea that this was his home. Koushiro mostly used the table to stack up the groceries, which was better than keeping them on the floor.

Koushiro unloaded the third bag, and folded up the bags and put them under the table when he was done, even though they weren't reusable bags, he continue to bring them back to the market, because he wasn't going to get new bags every day, or every few days, they went through food fast, because of Tentomon but also because they didn't have anything to cook with or keep the food cool, so he was limited on what he could get them.

It was ridiculous how easy it was for Koushiro to find the network now that he realized what he was looking for and maybe because of how private it was there were few restrictions. He was on the network by noon, and he could have been on earlier, but he didn't want to take any risks with their safety, by getting caught on the network. Once he was on the network, he tried to find out information about what Cherubimon wanted them there for, but most of the network was nothing but a bunch of numbers floating around, it seemed that the public did use the network in some passive ways; like their machines could get on the network to do what it needed like process credit cards, but the humans didn't have direct access to the network. There was some information exchanged by the people in the government about issues like a protest at the testing centers, or trade issues, but that was only nominally interesting.

By the time that Tentomon returned for the evening Koushiro hadn't found anything that Cherubimon might have brought them there for, and he was beginning to feel betrayed by it. He was separated from his friends and Taichi, but he had no idea why, and Cherubimon had given him no clues. He was just useless being here when he could be helping his friend. He explained everything to Tentomon and Takato looked on with interest as he showed them the network a little bit.

"Can I see Oto-chan, please?" Takato asked. Koushiro automatically pulled up the photos and videos he had of Taichi and his family and put them on a slideshow. Then he looked at Tentomon. "Have you heard anything?"

"No," Tentomon looked at Takato and then to Koushiro. "The people that pass-by they talk about work, or home life, but not about digimon or anything going on. I think probably people try not to think about it unless it affects them."

"Maybe." Koushiro pushed his lips together in thought looking at the carpet.

"Do you think that maybe, Cherubimon brought us here because of Takato?" Tentomon asked. "He seemed pretty determined to get us here, and so far the only thing we've done is take care of him. If we weren't doing the right thing, don't you think Cherubimon would be calling again?"

Koushiro nodded along as Tentomon spoke. He agreed almost immediately. "That is actually a good thought. Takato tested positive on having a partner, that might mean he is a key in helping this world, and if he had starved, then he couldn't help. I guess we can't be certain that he is what Cherubimon sent us here for, but if it isn't I think we will hear from him again."

"So what should we do then?" Tentomon asked.

"I think we need to get back to the others. They need us too, and it's the best thing we can do right now, beside if we are trying to get back to them and we didn't do what Cherubimon wanted then, I think he'll show up." Koushiro looked at Tentomon the bug digimon agreed with him and Koushiro felt relieved. He wanted to get back to the others anyway, and he couldn't waste more time trying to find something that might not be there.

"Daddy?" Takato looked up at him. Koushiro smiled softly and Takato continued, "No partner."

Koushiro frowned and combed fingers through his hair, because he was a little upset that Takato had been listening so carefully. "Takato, it is okay, remember?"

Takato nodded his head slightly, but looked so unsure and scared. Koushiro held his arms open and Takato came to them hugging him.

"Did the test hurt?" Tentomon asked. Koushiro may have hushed him, but Takato peaked over at him and shrugged a little. "It was scary then?" Takato nodded quickly. Tentomon looked up at Koushiro. "My friend Gatomon had a test like that too. Her master brought every child in front of her to see if they were her partner. Was your test like that?"

"Not at first. The first test, they just see you and you line up with other kids and they look at you, but you can't see their faces they are in funny suits. They have little beep beep things, and if it says beep beep beep then you test, mine went beep beep beepbeepbeepbeep more and more." Koushiro rubbed his back and hugged him tight, he was shivering a little and he wanted to reassure him. Takato pressed his face against him for a while.

Tentomon fluttered closer. "That sounds scary."

Takato nodded and turned his head back to Tentomon. "Then I had to meet all the digimon that tested. Some were okay, cute, but lots were big and had big claws and teeth, and growls. Everyday, over and over, until there was no more, I didn't like it, everyone was mean." Takato shivered.

Koushiro hugged him tightly and rubbed his back. "It was mean. But that's not how it is here. I have a partner, and you're not mean to me."

Takato blinked bright eyes up at him. He leaned his head far back and after a few moments of blinking, his eyes filled with fat tears. He shook his head, his little fist curling into Koushiro's sleeve. "No, Daddy."

"And you're not mean to me." Tentomon spoke up again. He was close by but not touching. Takato's head turned slightly, as though the thought didn't occur to him before.

"Hey," Koushiro said softly drawing his boy's attention again. He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. "If you have a partner, or if you don't, I'm not going anywhere. We're a family. Always. And no tests," Koushiro promised.

A few more days of searching on the network to make sure that they weren't needed some other place, and to look on the network to find access to the digital world. If he couldn't help here, then he wanted to return to his friends. It wasn't the easiest task the network wasn't as complex as the one he was used to, but that made it more difficult to use. It wasn't user friendly like the internet was and so it took more coding and programming to do anything. A few times he had to practically reinvent tools that he was used to in his world so that they worked in this world.

Another complication was that he couldn't spend copious amounts of time working on the task because Takato was getting better and he was an active child that wanted attention. Koushiro enjoyed him and was easily pulled away from his computer to take care of Takato, or simply play with him. Tentomon also seemed content to play with Takato and never mentioned the slow progress Koushiro was making, unless Koushiro brought it up.

Koushiro may have given even more hours to Takato if it wasn't for the fact that he missed Taichi and he knew that Taichi had to be worried about him. He could imagine the weight on Taichi's heart and how it would hurt him. He couldn't allow Taichi to suffer like that without a good reason.

Earlier that morning, he had finally programmed the network so that it gave him a map of the digital world. After that he had set about trying to figure out where he might have come from and narrowed the location to a few areas of the map, there were only so many massive desert terrains that he could see, so it wasn't too difficult. Then he connected his digital device to his laptop and activated it to track digital devices in the area on the network map, instead of in the physical world. Then, he began to comb over the areas he had narrowed down.

Then, Takato had wrapped his arms around his neck from behind and tried to scale his back to look over his shoulder. It didn't workout very well, but it had distracted Koushiro and he suggested that they visit Tentemon in the park. He set his task aside for the time being. He was weary about taking his computer in public since the public didn't use them so he hid the computer in the room and went to the park. The got some popcorn from a cart and found Tentomon's normal nest of trees. He stayed in the trees and Koushiro tossed popcorn up, sometimes it came down and he'd catch it in his mouth and sometimes it did not. Takato also ate the popcorn, but he didn't throw any up to Tentomon because he was too high, and because he had been unable to catch the popcorn in his mouth and it landed on the ground.

Koushiro showed him that if he left the popcorn some birds would skip over and pick them up. Takato seemed to enjoy this and watched them with interest for a while. He leaned back against Koushiro's shins which were propped up. Koushiro leaned back against the trunk of the tree keeping an eye on Takato and his partner, but also watching the people walk around the park. Most stayed away from where they were, as the path diverged over here, but most people picked the other pahts to travel.

After the lunch of popcorn, Koushiro brought Takato back to their small room. He settled them down on the bed so that Takato could take a nap, even though he was still young enough for a nap, but Koushiro didn't push him too much except getting him into bed. He sat against the wall at the end of the bed and worked on his laptop. Koushiro explained to Takato what he was doing with the digital device, and that put him to sleep after ten minutes or so.

He picked up searching for the digivices. He seemed to have a good idea on where he had been before Cherubimon had moved him and was able to find one signal quickly; it blinked into view after twenty minutes of working. Koushiro wasn't sure if that was one digivice or if his device was far enough away that the five devices registered as one. Then, he saw another signal arrive with the first, followed by three others. Then, he saw the original two move in his direction.

"It's them."

He knew it had to be and judging by their travel they were aware of his signal, even if it was artificially created with the use of the laptop. They would arrive and Koushiro wouldn't be there. Koushiro felt guilt fill his chest. He could imagine how disappointed they would be, he was as well, knowing that they were just there in the network, but Koushiro couldn't reach them because he needed a portal or gate and he had yet to attempt to create one. Besides, Tentomon was still at the park and he couldn't leave his partner here.

He touched one of the signals on the digital device and then on the map that showed their location. "Tai, I'm safe, just hold on a little longer."

He moved his eyes back to the three other lights and pulled up his email account. He could try to send a message to the laptops in the RV now that he knew the general location. He quickly typed out a message that was similar to his own words, saying that he was safe, and he was trying to return to them. He made it generic for all of them, he wanted to be personal and address Tai as well, but he didn't think that was appropriate as he knew that all of his friends would read the email. After he sent the email he dropped the signal letting the dots fade off the screen. "See you soon."

Next Chapter is back to Taichi and the others! Also, some testing of some waters. Not sure if it will be a permit, but we will see.