That night, Tai lay in his bed, the blanket pulled halfway up his chest, his right hand on his head. What a trying few days these past four had been, he mused to himself. He had every intention of keeping the vow he had made to himself to never again take the little things for granted. Once all the Digidestined had traveled back through the digiport and ended up in Taichi's room, he had thanked them all for their help with his...little handicap. they had, of course, casually brushed it off as no big deal...saying how he would have done the same thing had it been any of them (which was completely true), but he still felt as though it needed to be said. Jyou had noted absently that the sky was clear now. True enough, the thick black clouds that had shrouded Odaiba in darkness were gone, there was no trace of their foggy depths in the crystal blue sky now, and the children wondered if the clouds here had vanished as quickly as Kuroniji Mountain and the forest had when Kurarimon had been destroyed. They wondered what their parents were making of all this. Then Izzy made a small announcement that he had discovered the meaning of what Pipermon had said before, when she had first come to their aid against Kurarimon.

"Patronus Liberum," he had said, "is, indeed, Latin..."

It was Latin for "Protector of the Children".

But she had been so much more than that...

And then the children all parted ways, headed to their own homes to contemplate the trials and tribulations of the past four days in their own way.

When their parents had arrived home, Tai and Kari had rushed forward to greet them, embracing them tightly. They had come it the realization that there had been a brief moment back there that they feared they might never see their parents again. Mr. and Mrs. Kamiya, though they had found it a trifle strange, did not question the children. Tai had done that once before, one of the very first times he had returned home from the Digiworld unscathed. They hadn't known what was going on then, nor would the Kamiyas learn of their children's deep involvement in things until weeks later, when Myotismon had attempted to take over Tokyo. Now that they knew, however, the Kamiyas were never too surprised by much of anything Tai and Kari did, and decided that the children would tell them what had happened when they were ready to do so.

Tai had made especially certain to study their faces. He had found, in the four days of his blindness, that he had begun to forget things...the exact color of his mother's eyes...the way his father raised one eyebrow in his funny way when he was telling one of his signature corny jokes...the way Kari's expression always seemed a little bit worried, even when nothing was wrong... Even the other Digidestined had little unique characteristics Tai had found were becoming hard to conjure...the way Sora's mouth pulled up a little more on the left than the right when she smiled...how Yamato’s eyes always seemed afire, even when he wasn't angry... Yes, he had vowed to never again take his sight for granted, and as he lay there on the bottom bunk of the bed, he tried to picture the faces of those close to him...to burn their images into his consciousness and keep them in his heart and mind for always.

He draped one arm over his forehead and sighed.

Pipermon's eyes suddenly flashed through his mind, and a stab of grief made him wince. He had only seen her--REALLY seen her--for such a short time...but those eyes would be something he would never forget, not so long as he lived. It had hurt to lose people before...but every time it happened, it seemed that the pain was brand new. Even after it had been so long, and the wounds on his heart had slowly healed into scars, those wounds had been ripped open again when Pipermon had been so wrongfully killed before them. It seemed strange to Tai, how the heart was always perceived as such a tender thing... The heart was one of the toughest and most resilient objects within a human being, save perhaps the soul and psyche themselves. Tenderness, he realized, was not possessed within the heart...the heart could be broken a thousand times and still continue to go on... It seemed that it could keep on going long after you believed it could not... No, tenderness dwelled, not in the heart, but in the hands. For what does a heart know of the healing power of a friend's touch? True, it could feel things, both good and bad, that the physical skin and nerves would never know how to describe, but tenderness was something a heart could not afford to feel, for the moment it did so, it would never again be able to heal itself after being so tragically wounded. A heart could not bear the effects of tenderness, else it would remain perpetually vulnerable to any future wound. Tenderness was a job meant only for the hands.

Or claws, in Agumon's case...

Guardian angels...that's what digimon were. He didn't care what anyone said about spirituality, faith, or the Great Beyond...HIS guardian angels were digital ones. It had been so hard to leave them, the digimon, to leave them in the Digiworld when they had to come home to the real one. But they had promised to see each other again soon, and that was perhaps the only thing that made it bearable. So long as they lived...and perhaps even longer...they would be together. It was like Pipermon had said...friendship was like that; an unbreakable, if not intangible force that held stronger than any other bond in the Universe.

His thoughts trailed away into the silence of the house as he started to drift off to sleep--

--and then he heard something.

He moved his arm from where it lay across his forehead, snapped open his eyes, and sat bolt upright. It was music...a familiar song, too. He recognized it from a CD that Kari liked to listen to, a soft, soulful melody sung by a talented Canadian soprano. The name of the song, however, escaped him for the moment.

"Kari," he whispered, "did you leave Napster running on the computer?"

No response.

"Kari?"

He stood up, and swung his legs over the side of the bed, slowly clambering up the ladder.

"Kar, is that your CD player--"

He stopped.

She was sound asleep.

But...she was such a light sleeper...how had the music not awakened her? He gasped as a strange thought ran through his mind.

What if he was the only one who heard it?

What was frightening about the idea was the fact that it seemed to make sense. The music was relatively loud...surely it would have woken up someone else by now... He glanced at the foot of his own bed. No, not even the cat, Miko, had been awakened by the ethereal sounds of the music. He turned to the door, and stepped down from the ladder.

Slowly making his way down the hall, he noticed a soft bluish glow coming from under a door down toward the end of the corridor. The door...the door to the computer room? That's odd, he thought, and placed his hand on the doorknob. Twisting it, he slowly opened the door, and stepped inside.

The computer monitor was lit up by a pale blue glow, like the blue of the desktop, only without the icons. It was strange, he was quite certain he hadn't used it today, and his father was always so careful to turn it off when he was done...or at least turn on the screensaver with the flying toasters. But if it wasn't off...and this wasn't a screensaver...where was the music coming from? And why were there no icons on the screen? Had someone left a sound file running?

No, he decided. No, the song usually had lyrics, whereas this version had none, only a single melody played by a... He frowned, This was too weird... He slowly began to approach the computer. A single melody...played by a flute! But, how was that accomplished? Could it be--? No, that was impossible... How could...?

He reached out to touch the screen--

--and he kicked something with his bare foot.

He yelped, but from shock, not pain, as whatever he had kicked was not very large or heavy. It had been small, and it jangled and rolled away from him when he hit it. The computer screen went dark, and the music stopped, and Tai was left alone in the dark and silent room, perplexed, and a little afraid. What in God’s name--? he fumed inwardly. This was really bizarre...what on earth was going on? He reached for the screen again, then stopped, and hesitated. He crouched down, balancing precariously on the balls of his feet, and groped along the floor in the darkness. Then his fingers bushed up against something, and it jangled. It was a small, round object, cool, and made of metal, and when he wrapped his fingers around it, it chimed softly...like a...

He picked it up and lifted it close to his face, shaking it gently back and forth.

Like a bell, he realized, a bell... The bells that rang so daintily...inside a Chinese Feng Shui therapy ball.

He jumped when the music started again, softer this time, and he smiled, suddenly understanding as the title of the song finally came to him.

"Don't worry," he whispered, tossing the bell up in the air and catching it again, "I will..."

He turned and slowly walked from the room, heading back down the hallway to his bedroom. He paused out in the hall, and ran his fingers over the tiny bell, then reached behind him to carefully pull the door to the computer room closed. he closed his hand around the little round chime, and placed it close to his heart.

"I will remember..."

Then, with the bell in his hand, and the song lyrics running through his heart and mind, Taichi Kamiya returned to his bed, knowing, for certain, that the dreams he had that night would be sweet ones.

Well, minna-san...there you go. One complete fic. ::pumps fist into the air:: Yeah! I did it! I finished it! ::stops:: Well...okay, I certainly can't take all the credit...I never could have done it without the help of several individuals...so here goes... ::Thumbs through some papers:: Ahem... "I would like to thank the Academy, for--" ::stops, and throws a piece of paper aside:: Oops...wrong speech notes. ::flips through a few more:: "Friends, Romans, Countrymen...lend me your ears--" ::gapes:: How the hell did my Shakepseare notes get in here?? ::grumbles indecipherably:: I know it's in here somehwere... Aha! Here it is. ::clears throat:: Okay, first, I wanna say thanks to everyone who stuck with me and put up with my week-long bouts of not posting anything. I do apologize for that...believe me, if I didn't have to go to work, I wouldn't... ::sigh:: But, alas, I do. But, rest assured, writing stories will never take a back burner to work. If my managers don't like it, then too damn bad. Secondly, I wanna thank all the wonderful people who have reviewed for me thus far... Okay, SoraMisty, so the song wasn't "Amazing Grace", but you were kinda on the right track. ^_~ I really do appreciate all the reviews, so, thanks so much!

I owe TK Takaishi a big thank you, for all his technical support...without him, I never would have figured out this blasted HTML coding...and this entire last chapter would have pissed me off immensely until I did, so arigatou, TK-san. And thanks also to Wanderer D, for always listening to me rant about how stupid my job was, and for giving me tons of ideas... And also for making me laugh... AS DO I!! ^_~

Oh, and, of course, thanks to Sarah McLachlan, the wonderful singer/songwriter from whom I borrowed the above song...even though I know celebrities have more important things to do than read fanfics, so she will never read this little accolade... >_< But I still felt it needed to be said. Sarah McLachlan, Mirrorball is the album, if anyone is interested, it's a really good CD...the song is called, appropriately, "I Will Remember You". ^_^

And last, but certainly not least, thanks a million bazillion to ts, tiger, or any other name this wonderful person may go by, without whom I don't know what I would have done. Tiger, I still owe you that alternate ending, so don't think I've forgotten it. ; ) Just don't go and lose the moon before I can get it to you. And get those midgets away from it!

Well, okay, gang, this will be the last time I "sign off" for a while...a few ideas for a possible second fic have been swimming around in my brain, but I haven't been able to really tie anything together yet, so no promises.

Yet. ^_~

Golly, I dunno what I'm gonna do...this fic was like...all I did for so long...I'm gonna go through a withdrawal period or something! Ack! Accchh! Nnngh... ::falls over:: Okay, I'm fine. In any case, arigatou gozaimasu, minna, for everything. I hope you enjoyed the fic, I sure enjoyed writing it. Please don't ever hesitate to send me an email, I love to talk...Lord knows, I love to talk, just ask D-chan, he'll tell you... -_- I never shut up! I know one thing is for sure...I'll be remembering all of you! Till next time, Dear Readers--ja matte ne!!

~~kino hikari
hikari_san@hotmail.com

Back to Chapter 17

Back to the Library

Back to the Foyer

Email the Author