Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

Although this story can be read independently, there are two preceding it. I recommend reading neither; I wrote them when I was thirteen (and that should be explanation enough!) I tried to briefly summarize the events of the other two stories in this opening chapter so nobody will be confused.

Additional information – One Month took place in July of 2005, and Our Nineteenth Year was set between June and August of 2007. The current date is March of 2011.

Chapter One: Purgatory
……………………………………………………………

The church was cold. And Kari secretly hated her dress. The colour clashed with the bouquet she was holding. She knew that this was customary – that bridesmaid dresses were supposed to be plain and boring so the bride shone that much brighter. But really, there was no way anyone could outdo Mimi anyway. So did it matter? Did she really have to wear this scrap of clothing that too closely resembled a burlap sac?

She said nothing, of course. She wouldn't let herself say anything negative – or anything at all, for that matter. She didn't want Mimi to lose it more than she already had while planning this whole stupid thing.

To her right, Cindy sniffed and dabbed her eyes. Beside Cindy was Ayumi, Mimi's new roommate at Tokyo University. She didn't know if Ayumi was crying, but she thought she'd rather not know. Ayumi didn't deserve to cry. She hadn't known Mimi all that long. She hadn't been there when it counted. So what reason – what right – did she have to cry?

Kari was kind of angry. Surely two random people like Cindy and Ayumi didn't deserve to be Mimi's bridesmaids too. Kari was one of Mimi's best friends. She had been for the better part of a decade. Could her job in this wedding really only be as important as theirs?

She looked at the empty spot to her left and smiled. Sora. The honourary maid of honour. It was an awkward title, but it was fitting. She felt good standing beside Sora. Even if Sora wasn't really there at all. It really said something, at least to Kari, that she would rather be second to a dead person than be equal to two girls she didn't like.

T.K. caught her eye and winked. She forced herself to smile back. She forced herself to remember that this was Matt and Mimi's wedding – a happy occasion – and she wasn't going to be the one to ruin it. She wasn't going to mention Tai and Sora. Not if nobody else did. She wasn't going to be the depressed crying girl who everyone avoided and pitied and whispered about.

She was still staring at T.K. and he was still staring back. For a second, it was as if some invisible link had formed between the two of them and they could feel one another's pain, and so she dropped her gaze. She didn't want that from him.

She glanced back again, not sure of what she wanted from him anymore. He wasn't looking at her, but rather he was staring at his shoes, and she was both desperate for his attention and glad to be rid of it.

Kari watched as Izzy's elbow caught T.K. in the side of the ribs and brought him back to earth. He handed over the rings, and even Kari, a girl with newly-developed, impeccable self-discipline, couldn't make herself watch as Matt and Mimi promised to love each other until death did they part.

They'd postponed this day for so long, and Kari knew that she should be happy for her friends. But she couldn't keep her eyes from welling up when everyone stood and applauded. She blinked away her tears, ashamed, because she wasn't crying for the right reasons.

Tai and Sora would never get a day like this. Was she the only one who cared?

Mimi – with her seven million pounds of makeup and gorgeous dress – leaned forward and kissed Matt. The minute their lips met, and the priest called them Mr. and Mrs. Ishida, they began their new life together.

Kari tried really hard, but she just couldn't find the justice in this. What about Tai and Sora? Hadn't they deserved a life together? Thinking about the two of them made the room spin in the worst way, but she couldn't control it. They were on her mind constantly.

It had been over three and a half years and everyone was doing a lot better. But still, that didn't mean they'd all forgotten, did it?

She looked at T.K., Izzy and Joe. They were all smiling and clapping, as if nothing terrible had ever happened and they had no reason to feel anything other than happiness.

She was doing it too, but it was automatic for her. If it was genuine, it was only because of the special circumstances. She didn't usually feel like smiling all that much. A part of her knew that there was probably something wrong with that, but the dominant part of her didn't care. Couldn't care. That was the whole problem.

Mimi took Matt's arm and they led the way out of the church. Kari held onto T.K. as they walked, and when his skin touched hers, it was like a bolt of electricity traveling through her veins.

God, she missed him. He was right there by her side, and if she thought about it, he had always been there. But still, she missed him so much. She missed the way they used to be, before everything had gone wrong.

She kept her eyes on the back of Mimi's head. It was still strange for her to see brown hair, even though it had been years since Mimi's hair had been pink. She'd gone back to her natural colour for the funerals and she'd never ended up switching again. Maybe she'd realized that it was time to own up to the fact that they weren't children anymore, and pink hair wasn't the most sophisticated thing in the world, even on a beautiful girl like Mimi.

It was hard to believe that Tai and Sora had been alive just three and a half years ago. It was hard to remember the lines of her brother's face, the exact colour of Sora's eyes. She inhaled T.K.'s sweet scent; and just like that, she was seventeen again, and the biggest question on her mind was whether or not she was ready to go all the way with her boyfriend.

But then four psychopaths were running through Odaiba High with guns, and Tai was in a coma. Sora was distant and Mimi was angry and T.K. was there. Because where else would he be but beside her throughout everything?

The happy sounds of the present faded away and all she could hear was the beeping of Tai's monitors, and then the silence as the nurse turned them off with sad eyes and calm breaths, as if it had happened everyday. And it probably had happened everyday for her. But this was the first person to die who Kari had ever cared about. How was it that the world still spun? How could people halfway across the world go on with their lives in the same way? Didn't they realize that something so unbelievably catastrophic had just happened to her?

T.K. had stayed with her that night, holding her hand, telling her everything would be all right. But her heart wouldn't slow down and her mind was racing just as fast, so a nurse forced her to take a sedative. She fought the whole time, until finally it got the best of her.

It wasn't until she woke up the next morning, when T.K. took his head out of his hands long enough to whisper the awful news, that she found out about Sora.

Kari hadn't thought it was possible to feel that much pain at once. Tai and Sora were dead. It was as if someone had taken a picture of their group and cut them out. Sora had died literally minutes before Tai. Five minutes was all it took to change your life forever.

If the funeral had been hard, the burial had been even worse. Nothing would ever compare to the sight of her brother and one of her best friends being lowered into the cold, hard ground, where they would spent the rest of eternity.

That was the day that Kari decided to stop cutting. It was probably the time she most needed to do it, but she refused to give into the temptation. Sora had killed herself, and while it wasn't from taking a blade and slicing her wrists, it might as well have been. What purpose was cutting serving, anyway? What if she cut too deep and couldn't get help in time? What then?

Her parents told her she could take some time off, but Kari went back to school that September. She did her best to keep herself busy. Between homework and cheerleading practices and leading an active social life, Kari's schedule left little time to sit around and feel bad for herself.

T.K. was there through it all. But he wanted too much too fast. He tried to sympathize, but he hadn't lost his brother, so he would never really be able to understand why Kari couldn't just pick herself up and get over it.

T.K. had known Tai and Sora for two years, and although he'd been close with them, it had only been two years. Kari had known Tai since before she was born. Her mother once said that just the sound of his voice caused her to kick inside the womb. He was her brother. Her blood. Her protector.

And he was dead? Just like that?

She couldn't deal with it. She couldn't deal with anything. Tai had always been the strong one, not her. And that was too much. How could a person function under the weight of such grief?

Tai had been her hero and her best friend. In many ways, he was the person she was closest to in the entire world. She had loved him since she was first born, from the very moment she saw him. And he was gone. He'd left her. If he could leave her in the worst way, who couldn't? Who wouldn't?

Even T.K. would leave her, eventually. And given how much of a downer she'd been lately, she'd known that it would be sooner rather than later. She'd figured that if they were going to break up, it didn't matter if it was in six months or six days. Why postpone the inevitable? He'd fought it at first, said she was going through a hard time and repeated over and over that they would see this through together. Eventually, he had accepted it and they both knew that it was truly over between them. Their relationship was over in November, so soon after it had begun. It hadn't felt like enough time. She wanted to be with him again so badly, but she wouldn't let herself have him. She wouldn't lower the walls she had built up around herself. She couldn't afford to hurt that much a second time. She knew that it would literally kill her to lose T.K. and she had found the best way to protect herself.

So they stayed friends – best friends – and even when times got serious and he brought up the subject of their relationship, she remained constant. They were meant to be friends and nothing more. She resisted. She told herself she didn't miss the Friday night dates, the way he carried her books as he walked her to class. She convinced herself that she didn't care about how practically every other girl at their school was dying for a chance with him. She didn't let it bother her when he actually went out with a few of them. And she pretended that she wasn't overwhelmingly pleased when he stopped seeing a girl after only one or two dates.

Sometimes, she stopped to wonder what Tai would think if he was watching her. She wondered if he would think that she was throwing everything away. But she was being silly. He was dead. And her heart broke for him.

When Kari graduated, Tai wasn't there to see it. He didn't sit with his parents the way she had when it had been his turn.

He hadn't been there to congratulate her when she got accepted to her top three University choices. He hadn't been there to fight with her when she settled for going to Tokyo University so she could stay close to the rest of her friends.

She knew that she should have gone away. She had been dreaming of going to America for school since she was young. But Japan was home. And she needed her home. Tokyo University – and the people going there – were her last connection to her brother.

Tai missed her eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth birthdays. Her twenty-first had been five weeks ago. Sometimes, she liked to close her eyes and pretend that Tai was still alive. She tried to imagine what they would be doing at that exact second. But it was Tai who'd gotten the imagination in their family, so she didn't get too far with her daydreams.

She learned a long time ago that life didn't always work out the way anyone wanted.

……………………………………………………………

T.K. straightened his tie and glanced at Kari. She was only on her third drink and T.K. was pretty surprised. It wasn't in good taste to get utterly wasted at a friend's wedding, but it was Kari's taste to get utterly wasted almost anywhere.

He, on the other hand, knew to stay away from almost all forms of alcohol. The last time he'd had too much to drink had been at senior prom, and the night ended when Kari ditched her date to take him to her parents' house, where he spent the rest of the night throwing up in their bathroom. He grinned at the memory. Maybe he was crazy, but there was something he really liked about Kari leaving her date to take care of him, her ex-boyfriend.

She'd been acting strange since the ceremony. Actually, the truth was that Kari had been acting strange for years now. But he was so used to it that he no longer flinched at most of the things she did.

She laughed at something he said, leaning into him the way she always did. For a minute she was the old Kari again, the one he'd fallen so hopelessly in love with so many years ago.

He blinked and that Kari was gone. He wondered if he would ever see her again, how long it would take. Sometimes, he felt certain that he could wait forever if he had to. And other times, he promised that he wouldn't do that to himself.

"Remember the first time we met?" she asked.

"How could I forget?" he said. His throat felt a little thicker when he thought back to the surprise party they'd held for Sora. They'd only been fifteen, and even then, he'd known that she would affect him in a way that nobody else could ever manage to. "Why do you ask?"

She shrugged. "Just thinking back. It was so long ago."

"Yeah," he said. "I know."

"Everything is crap now," she declared. "Compared to then." He couldn't help but laugh at her bluntness.

"A little bit," he admitted. But if it really was crap, it was only because Kari refused to let herself be happy. With him. He watched her sigh and lean forward in her seat. "What are you thinking about?"

She shrugged. "Do you think," she asked, and her voice was soft around the edges in that way it always was when she started talking about them, "that Tai and Sora would've gotten married? If they hadn't died?"

His chest constricted. She often wondered aloud about Tai and Sora, and what life could have been for them, but it didn't get easier for T.K. to hear. "Yeah," he said. "I do."

He hated her in that moment. Why did she need to bring it up? This was his brother's wedding. This was supposed to be a happy occasion. God knew they could use a night like this. Was she really going to be a downer and ruin everything?

"So do I," she said, and then looked away.

He wanted to get up and walk away. He wanted to leave this awful conversation – and her ­– behind. He didn't, though. And he honestly could not understand why that was.

"Kar?"

"I'm fine," she said, and he knew it was the biggest lie.

"No, you're not," he said. I try, but I can hardly remember back to the times that you were, he finished silently.

"I miss them," she mumbled. "They would've had so much fun tonight. I wish they could be here."

"They are here," T.K. said, but sometimes he wasn't so sure he believed that. She sniffed. "Hey," he said, reaching out and cupping her face in his hands. "Don't do this."

"Do you want to dance?" she asked, but she was already pulling him onto the dance floor, so he didn't have much choice either way.

He dropped the discussion, and Tai and Sora spent the rest of the night hanging over both of their heads. Maybe this was the biggest problem of all. If he hadn't spent the last three years letting her change the subject whenever it got tough to talk about – if he had forced her to get all of her feelings out way back when – then maybe things would be okay between them now. Maybe things wouldn't feel so horribly unfinished. He would never know for sure, and while a part of him wanted to find out, a larger part of him was too afraid of hurting her.

He said nothing. He ignored the feeling in his stomach as she situated herself in his arms. Her head was against his chest, and even though her heels made her taller and her head didn't quite rest where it normally did, he felt sure that this was where she was supposed to be.

"If none of this ever happened, and we hadn't broken up, do you think – do you think we'd still be together?" she asked. "Do you think we would've eventually gotten married?"

They had one rule – a rule Kari had implemented – that said they weren't allowed to discuss any aspect of their previous romantic relationship. And every time he'd tried to sidestep it, Kari had enforced it wholeheartedly. So how come it was okay to talk about it now that she had a few drinks in her and was feeling nostalgic?

He said, "It would be breaking our rule for me to answer that."

"Fuck the rule," she whispered. "I'm not saying that we should run off and get hitched … I'm not even saying we should get back together. I'm just asking if you would've maybe ever considered married me. It's a simple question."

He stared at her, not sure what to say. If he told her yes – admitted that when they'd been together and he'd imagined his future, she had always been front and center – it would hurt too much. But he couldn't say no. He couldn't lie.

"Never mind," she mumbled, looking down.

"Yes," he said sincerely, a second too late.

She looked at him and he felt it, the same awful way he'd felt it at the church.

He had to look away. It was too hard to stay like this. He loved her, but she fucked him around so much. And he wasn't sure he could take it for much longer. He would have walked away ages ago if it had been anyone else. But it was Kari. He couldn't make himself forget her.

"I need another drink," she mumbled, then moved away from him and made a beeline to the bar.

As she walked away, he thought vaguely that if she never came back, it would be both the best and worst thing that could ever happen to him.

He loved her too much. Sometimes, he couldn't even breathe. She was everything to him. For every time she did something shitty to hurt him, there were a million times that she'd done something amazing. It had been years, and yet he couldn't forget the girl she used to be. Sometimes, he'd get fed up and tell himself she was never going to change. It was always then that she'd do something to give him hope.

Maybe she wasn't the girl she used to be, but there were times that he laid in bed at night and could remember exactly what that girl had been like. And he knew that as long as he could remember, he would never be able to give up on the hope that she could come back.

Kari didn't return, so he walked over to the bar and found her talking to a guy he'd never met. She was laughing and moving around in her seat the way she normally did when she'd had too many drinks, and the stranger had his hand on her knee. T.K. felt rage flare up inside of him, but his hands were tied. He wanted to bash this guy's face in. Hitting on Kari when she was drunk was wrong. Looking at Kari was wrong. She was T.K.'s, and random guys weren't allowed to flirt with her because they thought she was pretty or nice or even loose.

But he could do nothing, because Kari wasn't his anymore, and there were too many people who would gladly kill him for ruining Matt and Mimi's wedding reception – especially Mimi.

"T.K., over here!" Kari exclaimed, waving him over.

He went over to her, and maybe it was him who acted first, but either way, they both leaned in. His lips crushed against hers and she didn't pull away. Maybe there was no going back to the way things had been, and maybe this moment was as far as things could go for them, but this random guy didn't know that. And for right now, that was all T.K. cared about.

Kari put her arms around his neck, and even though her body was flush against his, there was something between them. There would always be something between them.

……………………………………………………………

I've had this chapter written for ages now. I was hoping to get a decent amount of this story written before I began posting, but every time I sit down to write another chapter, I just end up tweaking and re-writing this one. (This chapter should be perfect by now, but clearly is far from.) Posting this is basically just to force me to get the second one going, and I really can't promise that you will see its finished product any time soon.

This story is really difficult to write for a long list of reasons. Updates will come when they come. That being said, I have no idea what I want to do with this story. I'm really afraid of rushing it, or even dragging it out. Many of you have been waiting years for this, so I really don't want to disappoint.

Review! Suggestions are welcomed & encouraged.