"Traces of Love"


This is a really sad little fic about Goten getting over the death of Bra. I have the lyrics to the song "Traces" by the Classic IV, here's a link to the song here. There are a few Japanese words in here, so for those of you who don't know I'll give a list here:
  • Kami-sama: means god
  • 'niichan: brother
  • 'neechan: sister
  • 'kaasan: mother

Faded photograph, covered now with lines and creases
Tickets torn in half, memories in bits and pieces
Traces of love, long ago that didn't work out right
Traces of love.

Goten looked around the neat little room, to his right was her vanity, sitting on it were a dozen pictures, mostly of her family and friends. He walked towards it. Shoved behind a picture of Bra with some of her friends was a much creased picture of her and him. Goten picked it up and studied it. It had been on a day several years ago; he'd gone shopping with Bra and Pan, mostly to carry for them. Pan had brought a camera, and took a picture of him carrying armloads of stuff the girls bought, you could barely see his face. And Bra was hanging on his arm, posing for the picture.
Kami-sama he missed her. She'd only been gone a few days, but the pain that she'd never be back was killing him.
Goten felt a presence behind him, and whirled around to find his best friend, eyes red-rimmed, had been looking over his shoulder. Tunks was haggered. As much as he had never showed it, he had cared for his little sister.
Gohan stood in the doorway watching the two friends. Goten looked as bad as Trunks, maybe worse. Goten never seemed touched by anything, seeing him like this was very startling.
He walked over to them and put a hand on each of their shoulders. All three shared a long look. The Gohan noticed what Goten was holding. He tried to sound cheerful:
"What have you got there, 'niichan?"
He took the picture from Goten's hand, looked at it, and sighed. He began to have an idea of what was wrong with Goten.
Gohan looked up at Trunks and asked," Do we know what the disease was?"
Trunks shook his head and looked down at his feet.
"Iie, 'kaasan has locked herself in her lab. She hasn't come out in two days."
"I guess I better go help her, maybe we can find something working together."
"Umm, yeah. I have something I need to go do," Trunks lamely added and left as well.
After they were gone Goten let the tears fall freely down his face, one landed on the photo he had had that Gohan had set on the vanity.

Ribbons from her hair, souvenirs of days together
The ring she used to wear, pages from an old love letter
Traces of love, long ago that didn't work out right
Traces of love, with me tonight.

Bulma was still not able to discover much about the strange disease that had taken the life of her daughter, even with Gohan's help. Bulma put her forehead on her arms, totally exausted. She'd gotten maybe 2 hours sleep in the past 60, and those were only because she has inadvertantly fallen asleep while staring at her computer screen. A hand touched her shoulder. It was Vegita, she looked up into his obsidian eyes, they softened slightly.
"Go to bed, woman. Before you wear yourself out to nothing."
She didn't have any energy to argue, and really didn't want to, he was right. She hated that, but couldn't ignore the truth of his words. She merely nodded. Seeing how exausted his mate was he swept her up in his arms and carried her to their bedroom. She was asleep before he even set her on the bed. He carefully spread a blanket over her and brushed her forehead gently with his fingertips. "Sleep well, woman," he whispered.
He left her to sleep and as he walked out into the hall heard a sound coming from Bra's room. He nudged the door far enough open so he could peek and see who was in there. Goten was kneeling in the middle of the floor, his forehead on the floor sobbing. Vegita felt that even the son of an adle-brained third class soldier deserved to keep some dignity, and so left without saying a word.

I close my eyes and say a prayer
That in her heart, she'll find a trace of love still there,
Somewhere
Traces of hope in the night that she'll come back and dry
These traces of tears from my eyes.

Goten couldn't stand it anymore, he had to get out of her room, her house. It was driving him insane, but what was really maddening was that he wasn't exactly sure why it was hurting so much. Bra's death was killing him, but he didn't know why. She had been his best friend's sister, his neice's friend. Sure they hung out together, but why was there this gaping blackhole inside him eating up everything he was?
He flew to the top of a mountain a few peaks over from his mother's home. He decided he needed to think, to get his mind off of the loss of Bra and try to sort out what exactly he was feeling.
Ok, first of all, he knew he hurt a lot, and that the hurting came because Bra died. He hurt because he'd never see her again. That in itself seemed fairly natural that you'd miss a friend who died, right? But this pain was suffocating him, it was all-consuming, it shouldn't be like this. Over the death of a friend?
'Maybe she was more than a friend' something whispered in the back of his head.
He blinked, trying to deny it, but could find nothing else that would explain what was happening to him.
He had loved her. And he still loved her; but she was gone.

* * * * * * *

It was the day of the funeral. Everyone was there, all the Z senshi: Goku, Gohan, Yamcha, Kuririn, Tenshien Han, Chaotzu, and even Piccolo. Their families were present also. Chichi, Videl, Pan, Juuhachigou, Marron. Bulma, Vegeta and Trunks were there. A few of Bra's close friends were there, and Dende was there to conduct the services with his shadow Mr. Popo. But it was quite obvious that Goten was missing. He arrived just as Dende was about to begin speaking, and stood in the back.
He listened as Dende gave a beautiful sermon, but the words ran together, the tone of his voice was all he heard.
When the funeral services were over, just before everyone left, Goten walked up to the tombstone. He laid his hand on it and turned and faced everyone. They had all paused when he had walked up to grave, and now they all felt some sort of tension was in the air.
"I loved her," he said in a tone wracked with grief," I didn't realize..realized I loved her until she was gone."
Even though he didn't raise his voice during the confession everyone could hear him clearly, such a hush had fallen.
Everyone heard, including a certain spirit in Heaven.

AN: The little mention of Heaven, is only in reference to the afterlife of the DBZ universe. It has nothing to do with my personal views, and do not mean in any way to offend anyone.