"Future"
A tribute to Mimato Week 2016

-x-

It was over.

They had done it.

Again.

And now mankind was no longer in peril.

But being in another world had disconnected him so wholly from this one and he was at a loss as to how he was going to resume his old life. Was he supposed to go to school? What grade would he be taken into? Was he supposed to apply to colleges? Get recommendations?

Did he live with his Dad?

Go to his mom's?

How was he going to adjust to not being with his brother, day in and day out. Go back to seeing him once a week on weekends and during holidays?

And worst of all…

Was she going to be here?

Or…

"Are you going to leave again?" He asked her frankly and it wasn't with any malice or discontent.

It was through earnest blue eyes and a shaky voice and a heavy heart. Because he had become so accustomed to having her with him, he had literally forgot what his existence was like before her and now that everything had gone back to the way it was, he was coming to the realization that she might not be around anymore.

That was the way things had been before they left.

She stared at him, bottom lip caught between her teeth. "I…" She couldn't bring herself to say it, how could she tell him that she probably did have to go back?

He shook his head, "I can't let you." And it was the first time he was standing up for how he felt for her.

She knew, of course she knew, everyone knew. They had kissed and they had kissed some more and then they had done more and while they had never put any labels on anything (they were in the Digital World for god's sake) he thought of her as his girlfriend.

She definitely wasn't anyone else's, that was for sure.

And he would be damned to hell if he let her go off to New York thinking they weren't going to give this thing a fighting chance.

They had come too far, been through too much, gotten too close, for it to just be over.

Hazel eyes moistened at his admission, he hadn't said much but she saw it all burning behind his cobalt irises.

He pulled her in from the door way, wrapping her up in his arms. "You're not leaving me." He said firmly in her ear, and she relaxed in to him at his words.

"Matt." She mumbled, with her face buried so deep in his chest that his entire presence overwhelmed all of her senses.

Almost as if he had bled himself into her veins and had become a part of her so completely she wasn't sure how to discern him from her very being.

"You can't, not after everything." He told her.

And she was scared, so scared to say the words that were on the tip of her tongue.

"What if I have to?" She whispered.

He let out a sigh, "No." He held her tighter.

"Matt…"

He was silent, and she didn't prompt him to say something. If he was going to make any compromises or commitments alike, she wanted it to be without coercion and entirely independent. He needed to decide for himself if this was something he wanted to work on or if the only way things could progress was if they were in the same place.

She loved him, God, she loved him so much it was barely even believable.

And he terrified her, so beautifully, so completely, in an all consuming way that made her realize he was just so much more than a fleeting moment of happiness, or a desperate attempt to rectify her loneliness.

He was no ship in the night.

Finally, she heard him clear his throat. "If you have to leave, we'll make it work." And there was a determination behind his promise that quelled any doubt she'd had.

"Do you mean that?"

He nodded, "You don't get to go off and be with someone else while I sit in my room and write songs about how you were the one that got away." He said into her hair. "It's too cliché and too tortured and it won't be how we end." They deserved more than that.

After all they had fought for, how far they had come, everything they had endured, this romance wasn't allowed to be just a footnote in the story.

They were the story.

If this was going to end, someway—someday that wasn't today—then it would be in a blaze of passion and fireworks and an epic climax worthy of what they had gone through to get here.

They had fought a war, for fuck's sake, in another fucking dimension while the fate of their entire world hung in the balance. Was it impossible to have a happy ending, even now?

She let out a giggle at his words, overjoyed at the sentiment because Yamato was not one for platitudes, or feelings, or words in general for that matter. He was quiet, stoic and always controlled. Hearing him talk about her and describing how strongly he felt, it was dreamlike.

He was actually showing her that he was every bit as invested in them as she was.

"Okay." She smiled, "Then we won't end that way." She pulled her face out of his chest to look up at him through sparkling amber eyes.

He gave her one of his rare but heartbreaking smiles; that caused a million cocoons to burst in her stomach, sending butterflies soaring everywhere inside.

"I don't know what the future holds," She admitted, "Everything feels like it's been turned around and left upside down and I have no idea where our lives might lead us now." She was unsure, of just about everything.

But there was something about his presence that calmed her, "I just think if we can get past these next few months—years—we'll be okay." She said honestly.

He bent his head to her capture her lips, wordlessly assuring her that no matter what happened he would always love her.

-x-

Fifteen year old Reiko Jasmine Ishida sat on the floor of her parents' bedroom, fishing through an old cardboard box. It was full of useless crap like aged CD's (apparently it was how old people had listened to music back in the day) opened envelopes with smudged letters inside, abandoned song lyrics—and a whole bunch of other junk that she really wasn't interested in.

She needed a picture of her parents for an English project and while she had asked her mom for these weeks ago, of course she forgot to take them out. Now, the day before the damn project was due she was stuck sitting on the wooden floor with her butt going numb, searching through a box that probably weighed as much as she did, with content dating back to the late nineties.

What a fun way to spend her Sunday.

"Rei, what are you doing in mom and dad's room?" A tiny voice called to her from the doorway.

"Get outta here, pipsqueak. It's none of your business." The teenager said to the five year old who was peering at her through curious hazel eyes.

"You know mom hates it when you go through her things." He reminded her.

"Listen tattle tale, it's for a school project now scram." She stuck her tongue out at him for good measure.

"Yeah, sure. Mom's gonna be sooo mad at you when she finds out." He taunted.

"I seriously doubt that."

"Remember the last time you took her dress without telling her and then you spilled soda all ov—

"Didn't I tell you to leave like five times already, why are you still standing there?" She huffed, finally looking up at him with a withering stare.

He defiantly raised his chin, "You're not the boss of me." He said.

Rei narrowed her blue eyes, "I sure am when no one's home, kid." She said levelly.

"Too bad Junior's home." He argued. "He's the boss of both of us." He cross his arms over his chest.

Rei let out an aggravated growl, "Are you seriously just going to stand there and bother me?" She asked.

"Maybe." He shrugged.

"That's it." She muttered. "Junior!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, calling to her older brother in the same high pitched screech until she heard his hurried footsteps climbing up the stairs.

Yamato Taichi Ishida—more casually known as "Junior" came rushing into his parents' room where he had heard his sister's frantic screams coming from. At the sight of both his siblings, unharmed and in one piece, he let out a sigh. "What the hell are you hollering for?" He demanded.

"Can you get the twerp outta here, I'm trying to figure something out." She requested sweetly.

"God damn it, Rei. You can't just scare me like that." He reprimanded, glaring at her through crystal blue eyes.

"She's in mom's room, she's not supposed to be when they're not home."

Junior sighed, "It's okay, champ. How about we go work on your jump shot?" He suggested. "It's been looking kind of rusty as it is."

It was appealing to the five year old, "But she's probably not even really doing her homework." He protested ruefully. "I wanna see what's in the box too." He whined.

"Kaito…" Junior said sternly. "She needs to find a picture for her school assignment, does that sound like much fun to you?" He asked the little boy.

"No." He muttered.

"You are such a pest. You know that?" She raised an eyebrow at him menacingly.

"Rei, just shut up and get back to what you were doing." Junior, who had inherited his patience (and everything else as well) from his father, said in irritation. "C'mon, kid." He nudged the five year old along and Rei let out a sigh of relief.

About an hour later, she had about five or six pictures laid out in front of her as she struggled to choose between them.

The first one was a group picture of her parents and their friends with a bunch of weird looking animals that her mother had said she would explain but never got around to telling her about. Rei kind of figured that picture might raise some alarming questions and a project adding up to fifteen percent of her grade so wasn't worth all that hassle.

She easily cast it aside.

The next was a picture of her mom, the inscription on the back read: Miss you, princess. Can't wait til May; in her father's familiar scrawl.

For some reason, that picture kind of made her heart hurt. She didn't like thinking of her parents apart from each other and her father being sad and lonely. Rei knew just by the way he looked at her that they had been in love for forever, there was something about the way his eyes lit up when she came in the room—like she was his sun and moon and stars.

And that had always given Rei a sense of security, that in a world that was quickly changing, where relationships were easily discarded and people seemed to come and go as they pleased, at least her parents would always be together all the same.

Her eyes fell on another picture, it was of her parents together and it looked like Christmas because they were both wearing really festive, really ugly sweaters. She marveled at how much she resembled her mother—just her eyes were different—but everything else was practically identical. And in this picture, where she looked like she was barely twenty, it was uncanny.

Her father was holding her mother in a tight embrace, her mom had that smile she had always reserved only for him and they looked so happy.

She kept it, because even if she didn't use it, she wanted it.

Rei laughed out loud when she found a picture of her dad, clad in a leather vest with pants to match, singing into a microphone on a dimly lit stage.

Was he wearing mascara!

And another of her mom, probably from the same embarrassing concert, caught mid gyration in the middle of a crowded venue—her mouth open as if she'd been singing along.

She looked at a few more pictures, there was one from when Junior was born—she knew because of the blue blanket and because her parents looked painfully young, so it couldn't have been of her or Kaito. There was another from when Rei was probably a year old, her mom beaming happily at the camera with Rei on her lap and Junior staring sullenly away from the lens. She guessed her dad was taking the picture and her brother had wanted to be doing anything but posing in a tuxedo. On the back her mother had written: Davis & Kari's Wedding 06-08-01.

"Everything alright in here, princess?" Her dad's deep baritone took her by surprise.

She stared up at him sheepishly, "I needed a picture for a project." She told him.

He nodded, "Right, the same one you asked your mother about weeks ago?" He raised his brows.

"Yep."

He chuckled, "Well how about some help from your old dad, are you looking for something specific?" He asked her. "Because you know, if there was ever an expert on the archives of our relationship, it would be me."

"I just need something with a story." She said. "The theme of this assignment is true love and what it means to us and blahblahblah." She stopped to roll her eyes. "We're supposed to use an image and describe how it's related."

He nodded, crossing his arms across his chest.

"I couldn't really think of an example of unconditional love more personal than you and mom." She looked away from him, feeling her cheeks heat up.

He smiled that patented dad smile, all reassuring and paternal. "I think I know just the one." He said after a minute.

He went his side of the room, and she waited as he shuffled around papers, and moved around objects. In the silence, she heard her mom's voice coming in faintly from downstairs, calling for Kaito and Junior to come inside and get ready for dinner.

"We brought home Thai." Her father said absent mindedly, still searching through his belongings.

"From Taisho Fusion?" She asked eagerly, not bothering to cover up her enthusiasm.

He grinned, "We would never be fickle enough to show up with anything else." He winked.

She really was the princess.

Finally, he goes over to her, photo in hand. "This is the one." He met her eyes with his twin blue ones.

She always knew she had gotten her father's eyes, "It's special?" She asked in a small voice.

He nodded, "Very." He sat down on the floor beside her.

Rei looked at the photograph, a little confused by what she saw. It was at an airport, during what looked like a really sad goodbye in which even her father looked like his eyes were glistening with tears.

She had never, ever seen that expression from her dad.

And her mother was mid sob, her arms clutching on to him for dear life, as if they were about to be ripped apart any minute.

"Dad, why did you—

"Reiko! Matt!" Her mother's voice floated into the room, a lot closer this time. "Dinner's ready!" She called, followed the by sound of her padded footsteps.

"Sweetheart, dinner's—" She stopped mid speech at the sight of both father and daughter sitting amidst a clutter of junk on the floor. "What's going on… in here?" She peered around.

"Did you forget about my project?" Rei scowled.

She laughed, "I guess, I did. Did you get the picture you wanted?" She asked.

Rei shifted uneasily, figuring out how to answer that question. This wasn't really what she had been expecting her father to come up with.

How was she to explain that this was what the embodiment of love looked like to her?

"Babe, you can go eat with the boys, I'll finish up here." She said to her husband, feeling badly for neglecting her daughter's school work.

Matt nodded, knowing his wife wanted to amend the situation.

"Why'd dad give me this?" She asked.

She looked at it, a knowing smile spreading over her delicate features. "Love, wasn't it?" She murmured.

Rei just looked at her expectantly.

"When Matt and I were just a little older than you, we realized we loved each other." She began. "But I was leaving Japan. And he wasn't. And we were only teenagers who didn't know the first thing about a functioning relationship let alone how to maintain a long distance one."

Rei chewed her lip, staring at her mother's familiar features with anticipation.

"We'd been through a lot together, in a really short amount of time. He had become everything to me so quickly, I didn't even have time to process all of it until it was too late." She continued. "I was leaving for New York on this day." She held out the picture, tapping it with her finger. "We were so scared and so unsure of what was going to happen, when the next time we would see each other would be, if we would even make it long enough for that to happen." The story, so far, was depressing, but her mom's hopeful tone betrayed that.

"Your father never gave up though, before I left he had made me a promise that he wouldn't allow me to leave him. That somehow, some way, we would make it work—and it took almost five years and a lot of flights back and forth, a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of fights and tears but we found our way back in the end." She grinned sweetly in nostalgia.

Rei stared at her parents' melancholy expressions, "Did you think you guys were going last?" How did people truly know the meaning of forever?

She touched the top of her daughter's head, "No." She said honestly. "And there were times where I was so close to calling it in, just walking away and starting over." She confessed.

"But you didn't…" Rei noted. "Why?"

"Because we couldn't just…end that way."

"What do you mean?"

"Your father had told me that our story wasn't allowed to end with me moving on with someone else while he wrote songs about how I was the one that got away." She remembered fondly.

Rei felt a smile tugging at the corner of her lips, "What happened after the five years?" She prodded.

"I finished college, came back to Japan, moved in with your father—

"Before you guys were married?" Rei asked slyly.

A panicked expression fell on her mother's face, "What, no of course not!" She back peddled quickly. "We got married, obviously."

"Wait, were you guys even married when you had Junior?"

"Oh my goodness, Rei. Of all the things to ask." She felt a bead of sweat slide down the back of her neck. "We were married, of course we were married!" Things were getting a little out of hand.

Matt was going to kill her.

"Okay so you move in with Dad, who was still probably in his rockstar phase, then?" She raised a brown eyebrow.

"He made me the happiest woman alive by making me Mimi Ishida."

Case closed.

-x-

A/N: I wrote this for the tumblr prompt "Future" for Mimato week. Read at your own risk (it's a plot bunny gone rogue)

It doesn't really have much to do with the original one shot I posted, I just updated it under that one because I didn't feel like creating a whole new story (am I the only one who gets annoyed of having to click that user licensing agreement every time?)