Well, sometimes ideas come to you from your life, or sometimes they just appear in your head out of the blue; this one came to me in the dark of the night. I know ideas like this have been used before, so I apologize for that ahead of time, but I assure you, this is different. This is how I think. This story takes place after Digimon 02, and the couplings in this story are not even supported by me, but I still used them, because this is what the story demanded! If I had used the couplings I like, and made the world all happy, the way Digimon 02 ended, then there wouldn't even be a story.

Further more, this was going to be a songfic, but then I decided against that idea. So instead, I have a theme song for this fic, and that would be Metallica's The Unforgiven II, simply because I thought of this story while listening to it. 

The opposite of Light is Darkness.

It's so dark.

I move around in my bed, my eyes streaming with tears, my hands reaching out into the night trying to find my husband for comfort. But my hands just keep on reaching.

How many times has this happened?

If I were to say that I never woke up crying and screaming when he was still here, I'd be lying. I always scared him at night because I would wake up sweating, and breathing heavily. But that's because I still have those dreams. Ever since I was in elementary I've had dreams of black creatures following me around, and I hear voices.

I still have dreams of the dark ocean, in fact they plague me in the night. When my husband was here he would hold me as I cried, and tell me everything was going to be alright, but now, my hands are still reaching.

I curl up into a little ball and cry until I can not see. It's been at least a two years since everything happened, but I still remember it too clearly.

We had it all planned out. I took the children to Ken and Miyako's house for night and he took the day off. My husband was a lawyer, so he wasn't home often and we hardly spent time together. I felt that with the kids playing with Ken and Miyako's children I would have time to cook for my husband and we could eat dinner together.

Now, he had always been careful about leaving work at work and not letting it come home with him, after all he was good at his job, and he was one of the few honest lawyers. Now that I think about it, I was only privileged to see him in action twice, but at least I know his profession more than suited him. I had always been so proud of him, but he was tired of dealing with spiteful people and wanted to take one day off. It was the middle of summer so, being a teacher, I had all the time in the world and together we decided that a home-cooked meal with candle light was great therapy, and a chance to be alone, so we seized our chance. 

I went out to drop off the kids and pick up a few ingredients for dinner. I remember humming a song as I was walking to the door of our apartment, and when the door opened, I stopped.

I'm not the type to scream, so I didn't. I'm not the type to panic, so all I did was place my bags on the kitchen table and stare blankly at the site before me. 

We had been married for eight years. We had two beautiful children together. We had been friends for more then twenty years and shared almost a lifetime of memories, and some homicidal creep, unhappy with a court decision, took that away from me in less than ten seconds, and left the mess for me to find. 

Now, I'm well aware of the fact that I've watched many Digimon die, some of them were even friends, but nothing had affected me like this. Yes, I cried, and I called the police. They did what they could, asked me some questions and then left me alone with that horrid mess. I'm grateful the children hadn't been there, so I had time to clean up the gore and spent a little time thinking about it so I could explain it to them in a way they would understand. I had to be strong, for them. 

When I did finally pick them up, Miyako hugged me and wouldn't let me go. She made me stand there and tell her everything I was feeling while the children played outside. And as I was talking, I felt strong arms wrap around me as another friend gave me a hug; it was Ken's way of consoling me. He and my husband had become good friends over time, and Ken had always been so understanding about everything. Through time Ken became a best friend all of the Digi-destined could count on, and now I needed his support more than ever. With Ken working as a crime fighter he had the resources and the connections to investigate the murder, and track down the guilty party, which he did without me even asking. But I remember that night, as I sat there on the couch crying with two of my closest friends, and it was then that I realized soon there would be a huge funeral, and not only would I be crying with Miyako and Ken, but with close to fifty other people as well.

My life became such a mess after that. Sure, I was still a teacher, but it was hard to take care of my children alone. Don't get me wrong, I love them to death, but it's not easy being a single mother with two other mouths to feed and a heart of troubles to share with no one. Granted, our oldest, Chisiki, is just like her father, even down to the pensive green eyes. She's quiet, but observant, and quite smart. At times, she scares me, though. When I explained about what happened to her father she didn't just understand, she accepted it and became more closed up than she was before, but she helped me with Omoide, the youngest. She even offered to start cooking and clean the house without being asked to, and though I love her for it, it still scares me. 

As for Omoide, who looks more like me with her large brown eyes, she could grasp the concept of Daddy being gone longer than just one night to work on a case, but the abstract concept of him never able to come back was hard to swallow. She refused to believe he was gone forever, and that tended to cause a few problems at first. She would constantly ask me if he was going to come home now, and every time she asked I had to force myself not to cry and tell her no. Eventually she began to understand and she stopped asking, but that was around the time she started to cry in the middle of the night. She's still as happy and hyper as she was before, but once in a while she'll cry in the night when she thinks no one can hear her.

For a while after my husband was killed, I lived with my mom and dad for about two weeks and then moved to a different apartment, and while I was staying with my parents I started to reminisce of the things that happened when I was younger, when I went to the digital world. 

One day, as my mother was washing dishes, I went in to help her and she smiled up at me, "Hey Hikari-chan. You doin' alright sweet heart? You know, I like having you back here at home. It's been lonely without you and Taichi around, but I know you both have busy lives."

I didn't really say anything back, I just started helping her with the dishes, and then thinking about my strange past, I stopped. "Mom, do you ever hear voices."

"No, not that I remember." She looked down at the dirty plates, a thoughtful look creasing her ever present smile, "Wait," now it was her turn to stop washing, "now that you ask, yes I did. But only when I was pregnant with you, after you were born the voices stopped. In fact, that's why I named you Hikari. The voices always complained about the light and talked about it, and then when you were born, I saw your face, and I felt as though a light had been lit into my darkness. Don't get me wrong, I love your brother, and I felt the same way when he was born, but I just felt that you were different. So, when I was naming you, I knew exactly what I wanted to call you, and your dad couldn't convince me otherwise." She looked back at me with that warm smile on her face, and I couldn't help it, I know I smiled back. Somehow, my mother had always known....

Now, as I lay on this cold bed I shiver, alone. Sometimes my dreams aren't about the dark ocean, sometimes I dream of darkness. I dream I can't see anything, there's nothing but black surrounding me, and it's as though I'm completely blind. And then there are times I dream in black, and then I see a pair of wings shine. By some miracle they are able to glow, I see them coming towards me, and I think it's an angel. But then I hear a deep, maniacal cackle resound through the darkness, and the wings shatter, falling into the abyss as a bunch of feathers.

I'm so alone, and my hands keep reaching, but he's not there. "Iori...."