Disclaimer: They still ain't mine. Sighs.

Apple Sauce

Apple Sauce: Baloney, Nonsense [Slang, Informal; Early 20th Century]

v. You Could Be My Luck (Even If The Sky Is Falling Down): Storm's a brewin'!

Shinjuku shimmered in the rain.

Her card binder clutched to her chest, Jeri walked with her head down, trying to remember hearing anything about sudden torrential onslaughts being mentioned on TV that morning. She passed a cluster of people sheltering under the grocers awnings, and peered left and right before chancing a dash across the road. Her socks seemed to absorb half of the puddles she splashed through before she reached the other side of the street.

Maybe she should have let Rika loan her that umbrella after all …

The downpour kicked up a notch, as if in agreement. She turned right at the corner and narrowly avoided colliding with a group of grade school-aged girls, shrieking gleefully as they ran for cover. Belatedly, Jeri realized she might have done better ducking onto the opposite side of the pavement; it was all she could do turn away as a truck rumbled past, soaking the hem of her skirt as it hugged the curb. A few pedestrians smiled at her sympathetically in passing.

"… Aw, nuts." She pulled a face and tried to unstick her skirt from her knees.

Well, she probably couldn't get any wetter at this point. Jeri focused on the thought of warm, dry socks and hurried on. A bowl of her dad's noodle soup wouldn't go down so bad, either … The intersection was fairly quiet when she reached it, and, spotting the dark green smudge of the park through the haze, she made a split-second decision and stopped at the lights. For a shortcut, the route through the park wasn't all that short, but there was more cover at least.

At least, in theory. Jogging through the entrance, Jeri was a little tempted to stop and stick out her hand, just to see if the rain was falling up as much as it was falling down. It sure felt like it, anyway. The rumble of traffic receded under the hiss of the rain battering the trees as she moved further in. The fountain and the bike-racks stood deserted. Guilmon's old hideout looked cold and miserable; with any luck the big guy was curled up somewhere nice and warm in the Matsuki residence … Just the thought of somewhere cozy and indoors spurred her on, and she broke into a run.

And Jeri would have run non-stop from there all the way home if that one crooked paving stone hadn't gotten in the way. But she didn't see it coming - she could barely see much of anything, through the rain - and the fall was pretty spectacular. It might have been an eight-out-of-ten if the binder hadn't gotten in the way of the ground and her face. Picking herself up carefully and testing a slightly tender ankle, she spotted the looming silhouette of the dinosaur clock a little way off and limped towards it.

The damp had crept a little way into the crawlspace, but she chose the driest spot she could find and gingerly hunkered down, setting her binder down beside her. It looked a little beat up from the fall, but it wasn't anything to worry about; the cards inside were sealed in waterproof plastic. Now if only she could say the same for herself …

Her left knee was bleeding slightly, and on closer inspection Jeri found a nasty looking graze on the heel of her palm. The ankle throbbed a little but held up alright under her weight; she peeled her sock down to check for any swelling, just to be safe. Everything looked fine apart from a little redness, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

'Well, would you look what the Gatomon dragged in!'

The voice startled her, familiar though it was. Jeri had to look twice before she recognized the face peering down at her over the edge of the crawlspace.

'Impmon? What are you …' She paused. 'Were you up there the whole time?'

'I, uh, I might have been. I wasn't sleeping or nothing, if that's what you're thinking,' he added, a tad defensively.

'If you say so,' Jeri smiled. 'What were you doing, then?'

'Oh, just … hanging out.' The critter swung down from his perch, holding on for a second (just long enough to grin cheesily) before dropping to the ground. 'You?'

'Ah, I just wanted to get out of the rain for a second.'

'Huh?' He turned. 'Well, would you look at that!'

'I wouldn't - go out there if I were you,' she murmured, a little too late. Impmon peered back at her curiously, the downpour quickly turning his coat a shade darker.

'Why not?'

'You'll be soaked!'

Impmon shrugged cheerfully, raindrops dangling off his ears. 'A little water won't hurt me.'

'Oh.' She blinked. 'I guess Digimon don't really have to worry about catching colds, huh?'

'Not really.' The critter frowned as she groped for a handkerchief in her purse. 'Don't you have, like, a coat you can wear, or something?'

'Of course I do.' She paused to blow her nose. '… At home.'

'Well it ain't gonna do you any good there, is it?' Jeri frowned at him, but Impmon only grinned, and the rain poured down all the harder around him. He ducked out of sight before she could think of a retort, and she heard the scratch of his claws as he scrabbled up the side of the dinosaur. Muttering to herself, she tucked her handkerchief away and stared glumly out at the downpour battering the trees.

A sudden flash made her start, and her heart sank. Jeri braced herself for the first peal of thunder, but it never came - a pair of massive boots hit the ground outside the shelter instead.

She gaped at them for a minute, before gathering her wits enough to shuffle closer to the archway and peer outside.

Someone stuck a large, clawed hand out in front of her. 'Need a lift?'

Jeri blinked at the hand, and leaned out of the slide's shelter to stare up at its owner. He grinned down at her. Bemused, she reached out and let him help her up; in the time it took for her to get to her feet, she was twice as wet as before. Beelzemon, despite looking a little like a drowned crow, seemed no less bothered by the rain than his shorter, fuzzier self had been. Jeri eyed him curiously as she plucked at her skirt.

'… "Lift?"'

He cleared his throat. 'If you want. I mean,' Beelzemon shrugged elaborately, 'you can walk, sure, but … I know a shortcut.'

If she'd been looking elsewhere Jeri wouldn't have seen the change coming, but watching Beelzemon fumble and clown around like he wasn't being sweet was always fun - and she knew the signs by this point. The Mode Change started at his eyes, all three of them, all suddenly bright bottle green; and ended with the wings mantled behind him. The arm cannon was the only no-show, but Jeri figured there were better choices of umbrella.

A gust pressed a hank of sopping hair against her cheek. 'I think I might take you up on that,' she mumbled, shivering. She pretended she didn't see him brighten a little like he sometimes did, like it still surprised him that Jeri might accept his help, or anything else Beelzemon might offer. Jeri hummed, thoughtfully. 'And, you know, I think there might even be a bowl of noodles in it for you.'

Beelzemon assumed the wide-eyed, guileless look of puppies offered toys or treats everywhere. 'And dumplings?'

Jeri groaned a little at the thought and grinned helplessly. 'I sure hope so. Just a minute,' she added, holding up a hand to stall while she fetched her card binder. 'I'd hate to leave these behind - ah!' Jeri hissed and caught herself against the leg of the dinosaur when her ankle protested the sudden bending and straightening.

'Whoah, hey, easy!' Beelzemon dropped into a squat in front of her, his expression gone slack with surprise, arms extended awkwardly. 'You okay there?'

'I'm fine, it's fine!' Jeri gestured at her scraped knees, embarrassed. 'I kind of ... got into a fight with gravity and lost.'

'Tch.' Beelzemon raked the war wounds with a narrow-eyed look. 'Well hey, don't beat yourself up about it; gravity fights dirty.' He offered Jeri a hand, taking great (and obvious) pains to be slow and non-threatening about it. 'Alright, so, uh - how's about we get this show on the road?'

Jeri beamed. 'Sounds good to me!' She let him shepherd her away from the dinosaur clock and held on where he told her to hold on; Beelzemon rose to standing carefully, streaming with water and creaking with leather, and turned to get his bearings. Jeri shifted in the crook of his arm, testing her range of movement curiously. She paused when he looked down at her and smiled suddenly.

'Let's do this! Jeri Vs. Gravity, round two! I like your odds this time, kid,' he added conspiringly, and a little encouragingly.

'Me too,' she wanted to say, and tried to say, but Beelzemon took a running start and leapt into the air with all four wings spread, trailing feathers and Jeri's startled laughter instead.

The rain cheerily continued to sluice down the city in their wake.

fin

A/N: So this was (kind of obviously? IDK) the start of a very old and much larger story that I can only find fragments of on my harddrive and can only guess at where it was going, but I cropped it here and tidied it up a little because I'm still so compelled by this dynamic, and these two need more content going for them GDI.

Title courtesy of Capital Cities' Safe and Sound.