Disclaimer: DBZ does not belong to me. I am not making any money off this, etc, therefore it would be completely pointless to sue me over this one little fanfic. Also, to answer a question I've been asked about twenty times, no, I had never, ever read Ender's Game before writing this story. Whatever similarities between this fanfic and OSC's writings are purely coincidental, believe it or not.

Fire and Ice
written by Anderea
speak2005@hotmail.com

Chapter One, The Strangers


She was scared. Her father was pointing, shouting, yelling instructions rapidly as he pushed her toward the takeoff pad. He had explained everything to her a few days ago, about their escape plan, about what they were going to do, but the reality--this earthshaking, groundbreaking reality--was so much more frightening. Her mother was typing in instructions, her slender fingers flying over the keyboard.

"What's going on?" Her father shouted.

"Malfunction!" Her mother yelled back, "The last tremor damaged a small part of the capsule. It's fixed now, but two-thirds of the air supply is gone."

"You're kidding."

"Would I be kidding at a time like this? Only one of us is going to be able to go."

The father stared at his wife for a long time, absorbing the information. It was hard for him to believe that after three months of planning, something this ridiculous was happening at the crucial moment. He looked at his daughter for several seconds as the planet around them quivered and trembled. Then he shook his head and pointed one finger toward the door of the capsule, "Get in. Now."

"Dad, no," She begged. "I don't want to go without you and mom. Please don't-"

"Now," He repeated, the quiet voice having unmistakable power behind it.

"Dad."

He hit her over the head, once, knocking her unconscious. Then he picked up his daughter, holding her for the last time, and shook his head.

"Listen to me," he whispered to her still form. "Someday, you'll be able to avenge our race, destroy the ones who so willingly destroyed us." He laid her on one of the three cots of the capsule. "Someday, you'll become a great warrior, the kind that people tell stories about for years after, the kind that I was never able to become. Someday, you'll-" He brushed a lock of hair away from her face, then stood and turned his back on her abruptly, returning to the side of his mate.

"This is so awful..." The mother said softly. Her hands reached out for him and he held her, pulled her close to him.

"She'll live," he said. It was the only thing he could think of to say. "She's all that matters now."

"That's not the point."

"I know."

Beneath their feet, the earth shook violently. They watched the capsule take off silently, spouts of molten fire rising in the air around them as they watched their daughter fly away, her small ship charting its way through the vast obsidian reaches of space. There were no words; there was no use for them. So they clung to each other instead, closing their eyes away from the fiery destruction slowly forcing its way towards them, and accepted.

"Someday..." murmured the mother.

"She'll understand..." the father finished.

* * * * *

She stood up, brushing dark hair away from her eyes. She was tired from the long flight, sore from carrying the groceries, but that was okay. There was enough food now to get her through the next few days, and that was all that mattered. With a soft sigh, she rebalanced the bags on her hip and descended, automatically checking for intruders.

A week. She had found this place a week ago. The cave was an amazing stroke of luck in itself; the rock soft enough so that she only had to do a little blasting to get the space that she wanted, a steady water supply nearby--a small but clean stream--and a thick canopy of maples that would keep her out of sight. And the place would be beautiful in fall. The trees would erupt into a brilliant riot of color and the stream would freeze over during the winter, glinting sun off every inch of its ice-polished surface.

She hated it.

She hated the memories it brought back, the images that flickered in her mind every time she woke up and saw the trees, heard the sound the water running. All forests looked alike, to her eyes, and this one jarringly reminded her of the last one she'd lived by.

[But it isn't the same forest,] she reminded herself for the thousandth time that day, [and that's all that matters.] Briskly, she shook her head, landed, and began walking towards the cave. She would live here, at least until she found a better place. She would forget. Then she would find some way to have her revenge on a certain handsome young man with long black hair and pale blue eyes...

An explosion rocked the ground. Birds rose in the air with a flurry of wings, their voices a harsh cacophony in the shattered silence. She raised an eyebrow to herself, feeling the power level tingling at the edges of her senses.

[What the hell is that bastard doing here...?]

With a soft hiss, she dropped the bags and rose in the air.

* * * * *

Trunks didn't want to be here. What if the wrong person saw him and guessed who he was? What if Vegita or Bulma recognized him? He shook his head, forcing himself to focus. It was risky, yes, being here. But it was a risk that he'd calculated many, many times, one that he had to take.

Frieza was standing in front of him, with that damn smirk on his face. Such an arrogant being. Always figuring that his family's linage, his strength excused anything he wanted to do. Always on the prowl for a new challenge, for someone to test his powers on.

And that would make him what? Frieza's newest experiment?

He grinned, powering up and settling into a fighting stance. [Well, guess what? This experiment isn't going to go without a-]

"Hey," a soft voice said.

He turned his head slightly. The speaker was young, thirteen or so, small for her age, with a pair of dark sunglasses perched on her nose. Her hair had been cropped short, as if she'd simply grabbed a fistful of raven strands and ran a blade through them. He glanced at the worn, dirty clothes, the ragged jacket, the faded jeans, and couldn't hide a smile.

[Not much for appearances.]

"Sorry for the interruption," the girl said, arms crossed over her chest, eyes deliberately on Frieza so he couldn't see her face. "But Frieza and I have a prior dispute that I would like to settle now."

[Is she crazy?] he wondered, considering the slender figure before him, [She has no chance of-]

He stopped short, trying to gauge the extents of her power. There was energy rising off her body in waves, whipping the air around her into a frenzy, raising her ki signature until it rivaled his own. He stared; couldn't help it. It was hard to believe that someone as painfully young as her could possibly be-

"Well?" she repeated.

"If you can handle it," Trunks said.

"So now it's two against one?" Frieza asked sardonically, "I think I'll just..."

"Die," she whispered. Her energy level flared up sharply, to a level that only a few had ever reached before. She walked slowly toward Frieza, fresh power shivering around her with each step, distorting the air around her.

"I don't blame you if you don't remember me, Frieza," she said. "It's been a long time. Fourteen years."

[Fourteen? That can't be right. Fourteen years ago she couldn't have been more than-]

"My father always told me," she hissed, her voice rising. "That you were the one to blame for destroying everything. And now..." She rose two feet in the air, "Now you pay."

"Am I supposed to be scared?" Frieza drawled.

The wind rose in strength and volume, shrieking as it flew past his ears. He threw his arms up to shield his eyes from the dust, shaking his head in disbelief. [Impossible. There can't be that many of us around.]

Debris began to float from the ground, kept aloft by the waves of her power. She hovered there for a second, hands in her jacket pockets, considering Frieza like an insect she wasn't sure whether to capture or squash. It was an act. He knew it was an act. He'd done the same thing before countless times--forced his face and body to calmness in order to unnerve an enemy.

But dammit, it was one thing to practice it and another thing to _see_ it.

"You!" Frieza screamed. "You! I took care of your family a long time ago! I killed you!"

"You almost did," she said. "I'll admit that. I almost didn't make it in time. But being alien does have its advantages."

[Alien...] He turned the word over and over in his mind. [I'm partly alien. Did she mean that she's a...]

"You're that, that..." Frieza was saying.

"Bingo," she whispered. Then her breath caught, became sharper, harsher. The lines of her face changed, her jaw setting, mouth tightening as black locks of hair rose to form shifting strands above her head. She didn't make a sound, but her whole body tensed, arched, then-

Her hair color changed, going from black to blonde as a golden aura sprang up around her. She looked at him, the level gaze mocking him in its detachment, daring him to act. He shook his head, then began to draw on the memory that would trigger his power to levels that no human could ever hope to obtain.

[Yes. Being alien does have its advantages...]

* * * * *

[What the hell's going on?] Vegita thought, hands clenching involuntarily as he stood there and sensed the two unfamiliar power levels raise. One of them--the higher one; the one that had been around longer--was familiar, whereas the other one.... He frowned, closing his eyes as he reached out for it, rolling the scent of power in his mind.

[Different.] He opened his eyes. [Like Piccolo's ki signature is different from Goku's. Like Gohan's is different from mine.] He hissed, glaring into the distance. [I have to see this. I have to see who these power levels belong to.] He gritted his teeth, ran a few steps, then shot up in the air, not caring that Goku's friends would follow him.

Let them.

* * * * *

She watched the boy as he transformed.

Not a boy, really, she reminded herself absently, Almost a man. Eighteen or so. Straight hair, such a pale shade of blonde it was white, two strands of which kept on falling into his blue eyes. Well-built--broad shoulders, narrow waist--but compact, without the bulky muscles that would hinder movement. Human looking, missing the trademark signs of a Saiyan. None of the disorganized jet hair or coal eyes that usually ran in their blood. But he had to be Saiyan. There was no other race that she knew of that was capable of this sort of power, capable of turning into a Super Saiyan.

[Is the enemy of my enemy my enemy? Or is the enemy of my enemy my friend?]

After all, she and this oddly pale Saiyan were only allies because they both wanted Frieza dead. Afterwards...afterwards he could turn on her, and she wouldn't be able to do much about it.

"Funny," said Frieza, feigning contemplation. "I remember your parents. Remember crushing your puny little race. But I don't quite remember your name...."

She rose in the air. "How sad. Can't even keep track of your victims."

"You're hilarious, kid," Frieza laughed. "Talking like you're fifty. How old are you? Twelve? Thirteen?"

"Seventeen," she said flatly. "Almost eighteen."

Frieza stopped laughing. "You're kidding."

"Am I?"

Frieza growled, the laughter disappearing from his eyes. She could see the ki blast he was forming in his right hand.

"It's all starting to make sense now, neh, Frieza? My appearance, my age, everything. Took you a while."

"You little..." Frieza screamed, throwing the energy he had formed toward her.

She put her hands in front of her, splitting the energy into a hundred different fragments that flew harmlessly over the terrain, raising clouds of dust wherever they landed. She glanced up at him. "Not bad. Could do better though."

Frieza hissed and formed a bigger blast, once again flinging it at her. She caught the ball with one hand, then swung it upwards. The blast shot off into the air, exploding spectacularly--and harmlessly.

"Please," she said, her voice scathing. "Do something that actually takes some of my time?"

Frieza grinned, then rose in the air, forming a glittering red-gold blast in his hand. It grew larger and larger, blocking out the sun, until he stopped, holding it over his head with both his hands.

"This again?" she said. "You like this attack, don't you? Been using it often."

"I'm sure you would know all about it," gritted Frieza, mechanized hands softening underneath the heat of the power.

* * * * *

He was impressed. Very impressed. There was unmistakable power behind those soft words and a ki signature to match, one that was higher than Frieza's, almost as high as his.

[Unless she's hiding her true power level.]

But he doubted it. You didn't make allies by concealing information from them, and this girl couldn't afford him as an enemy. After all, experience--and strength--came from age, and he was much older than her, and therefore much stronger.

If he was older than her in the first place.

What was all that about her being seventeen? She barely looked thirteen, let alone...

Frieza threw the fiery ball in his hand toward the girl. She stood there, watching, until the blast engulfed her, sinking halfway into the ground. Pillars of dust rose in the air until the area surround her was so clogged up that he couldn't tell whether she was still standing or not. However, he could still sense her power, blazing away underneath all that debris in the air. The blast was rotating, still forcing its way into the ground, but...

...it slowly rose, the waves of heat shimmering their way across the ground. She stepped out of the huge crater the blast had created, holding the flaming blast up with one hand.

She cocked her head to one side, raised an eyebrow inquisitively. "Yours?"

Frieza growled and fired a small shot of power at the larger blast. The surface of the flaming sphere rippled, like waves across the sea. The girl looked at it, this time in calculation, as the exterior contracted and expanded, threatening to set itself off. Just as the whole thing was about to explode, she hurled it through the air toward Frieza. The being shrieked and dodged--barely--then whirled and looked for the girl.

Trunks laughed. It was almost hilarious, seeing this half-robotic thing turning around and around, searching for someone who obviously wasn't there. With a sharp, short hiss, Frieza whirled around to face him. "Did she get scared and run off, pretty boy?"

For a second, Trunks looked at him, still smiling. Then he pointed a finger upwards.

"Hey, Frieza!" The girl's voice carried over from above just as a blast headed toward Frieza.

[A slow-moving blast,] thought Trunks. [She can't be tiring this quickly. Probably wants to play around a little more.]

Frieza shot up in the air, "You little...you're going to pay for that!"

The girl's ki level flared sharply, translucent golden flames shooting up once again around her body as she shot down toward Frieza. As he watched, she clenched both hands into fists, two hilts appearing in her palms, a blade shooting out of each.

[Swords...She just made two of them appear out of nowhere...]

He didn't know who this girl was, but he was developing a lot of respect for her.

* * * * *

Frieza screamed as she brought the blades down, screamed at the searing pain slicing through his mind, the whistle of steel through his ears, the spray of liquid warmth on his hands. Blood. His.

The last thing he saw was a golden blast heading toward him.

* * * * *

She landed on the ground and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath to calm herself. Slowly, slowly, her hair color darkened to normal and her power level subsided to its normal state. The golden aura around her faded. She opened her eyes again, turned to face the Super Saiyan.

The stranger stepped forward now, smiled to indicate that he was not an enemy. She glared at him warily. What was a smile worth? It was simply a curve of the mouth, an odd mannerism that two-legged beings had developed over the years. Her silence seemed to amuse him; the set of his jaw changed from tense distrust to barely-concealed amusement. He turned away and rose into the air, put his palms together, then rapidly fired several blasts toward Frieza's ship, causing it to explode in an extravagant display of kaleidoscopic color.

[A display,] her instincts told her as she watched. [A show of power.]

[Why, though? Why bother wasting energy like that? Is he trying to intimidate me? Trying to prove he could be a valuable ally? Trying to tell me to back off?] She glanced at him, watching the man's white-blond strands of hair fly back as the shockwave of the explosion engulfed them both in a ripple of heat.

[I don't know.]

[I guess I'll find out, though.]

* * * * *

Trunks exhaled, long and low, and smiled a little ruefully. He'd gone through so much trouble to make himself strong enough to defeat Frieza, and this little girl had just shown up and blown the guy to bits. If only he'd known that he wasn't needed, then maybe...

[Never mind. What's done is done. Have to get moving now.]

The girl's eyes were flickering over him, moving from the sheathed blade strapped to his back, to the face, to the Capsule Corp logo on his jacket. He considered her as well, trying to search for a flicker of emotion on her face. Damn those sunglasses. They hid her eyes and the eyes were always the key to figuring out exactly what a person was thinking.

"You're not a full Saiyan, are you?" she said abruptly. Not a question.

"Why?" Trunks said, imitating the flat tone of her voice. "Are you?"
One of her eyebrows went up beneath the shades. They stood like that for a few seconds, watching each other, then she finally looked away, took the glasses off, and looked up at him again.

Blue-green. Trunks exhaled sharply, almost took a step back. Her eyes were the softest shade of blue-green possible, slanted, framed with dark lashes that only enhanced the pale color. Cold eyes. Predatory eyes. Eyes that belonged on the face of the sleek black jaguars he'd seen in picture books when he was a child.

She jammed her sunglasses back onto her face, tucked strand of dark hair back behind her ear.

"Full Saiyans don't have light hair," she said, bluntly.

"And full Saiyans," said Trunks slowly, not sure what the game was but playing along anyway, "Don't have pale eyes, either."

She looked at him for a long time from beneath the shades, then, point made, she turned away, sat on a nearby rock, tilted her face away deliberately.

[Wonderful.]

He turned his back on her and glanced at the group of power levels that'd been collecting throughout the girl's fight with Frieza. They'd collected an audience; a small crowd was standing a safe distance away from them, watching them.

"Hey, c'mon!" Trunks called, "I won't bite."

They didn't move at all.

"I know where Goku will be landing."

That got a response out of them. They fidgeted, began talking to each other in hushed tones, glancing at him every two or three seconds as if accusing him of eavesdropping. Like he could hear them from this distance.

"He'll be showing up around two hours from now. Follow me."

* * * * *

["Follow me."]

His last words seemed to echo in her mind as he turned to face her. She shook her head to herself, wanting to hit him for being so...so transparent. He had been shouting, true, he had been talking in those...other people's direction, but the tone of his voice, the way he'd kept on glancing at her... He'd been talking to her, rather than to the small crowd in the distance.

["Follow me."]

[An invitation?]

"You going or what?" he said to her. Then, without waiting for a reply, he powered up, pushed off the ground, and left for the sky in a streak of golden light. She hesitated only an instant before taking off after him.

* * * * *

Trunks still wasn't sure what to make of her. She was small, almost fragile looking, but.... He almost winced, remembering how easily she'd destroyed Frieza, how simple she'd made it look. Not fragile. Anything but fragile.

[Mother never mentioned anyone like her in our time.... Why? Because she never showed up to fight Frieza? Because mother never met her? Because she defeated Frieza by herself, then slipped away before Vegita and the others showed up?]

[And if she's powerful enough to defeat Frieza, why didn't she show up to help in the fight against the-]

His watched beeped. He opened up the face, looked at it, and began to slow down for a landing.

[So if she deliberately avoided Goku and the others in my timeline, then why is she here to meet Goku now? Because of me?]

[Probably.]

[Wonderful. Another problem to solve. Another kink in this multidimensional mess to work out.]

[Don't even know her name.]

* * * * *

It was done. She'd gotten her revenge on the being that had destroyed her planet and her family.

[So why the hell am I following this complete stranger?] She sighed, the soft noise lost in the current of wind flowing against her face. She already knew the various answers to that question. Because she wanted to see Goku. Because she wanted to finally see the face plastered on a million newspapers across the country, the celebrity who'd won so many contests in his youth. Because she wanted to see the staggering power that she'd sensed from a distance so often. Because....

The pale-haired man's eyes glanced back at her for the twentieth time in the past ten minutes. She glared at him, glared at his back, at the logo sewn onto the denim jacket. Stupid halfbreed. No tact whatsoever.

Shaking her head at her pointless anger, she brushed persistent bangs away from her eyes, combing them back behind her ears. So annoying. They always got in her face whenever she was trying to do anything. She should've cut them as well when she cut her hair. She should've bought those little hairclips that humans used on her last trip to the city. The plain ones. Not the ones with ridiculous glitter and beads glued all over them. Should've-

* * * * *

[Should've talked to her earlier,] thought Trunks, scanning the ground below him for a landing site. [Need to ask some questions. Need to find out what kind of person she is. Need to...] He winced a little, thinking of the small crowd following him. [Need to be able to have a conversation with her without having a dozen people staring.]

[Need to see whether she's a potential threat or a potential ally.]

He shook his head, jaw tightening, and descended. That was what it came down to in the end--whether this girl would help them or not. If she would, that was good; they could use another person on their side. If she wouldn't... Trunks didn't want to think about what they'd have to do if she wouldn't help.

They couldn't afford another enemy.

* * * * *

The man was looking at her again.

Resisting the stupid urge to make a very human hand gesture at him, she landed twenty yards away from him, thick-soled sneakers absorbing the slight impact soundlessly, and leapt onto a boulder, balancing herself on the smooth rock surface.

It wasn't the pale blue scrutiny that bothered her. No, it was how painfully _obvious_ he was being about it, glancing at her, glancing away, glancing back again two seconds later. If he had to examine her, had to analyze her, he could at least be more discreet about it.

Then again, clumsiness and obviousness were human traits. And this man was, judging by his ki signature, at least half human.

Unfavorable genetics. Lack of subtlety. Two points against the man.

But the fighting style, the too-high ki signature, the casualness with which he handled his strength, the way he smiled when he powered up, fire leaping up behind that level gaze.... Plenty of muscle. Knowledge of how to use it. Two points for him.

Two minus two equaled zero. She sat, letting her legs dangle over the edge of the boulder, and sighed.

* * * * *

Bulma shaded her face against the sun, letting go of Yamcha as he landed alongside the rest of the group. She took in the desolate area, examining the treeless environment, the random tufts of brown grass poking their way up the cracked, dry ground, and shook her head, forcing herself to accept the new set of circumstances. After all, It wasn't as if she hadn't dealt with weird events before. Just that day, Vegita had shown up at her place unannounced, acting like the spoiled brat he was, then Frieza had shown up, also unannounced, acting like the xenocidal maniac he was, and now...these two. Unannounced. Acting like....

At least they didn't demand room service.

* * * * *

A glance, no, several glances in her direction. A small crowd had arrived. Mostly humans. A Saiyan, small for his race. Surly looking. Wearing a--she forced her eyes away--pink shirt. A... She leaned forward, straining to see more clearly. Was that green-skinned being...a Namek? She closed her eyes, trying to remember the images in that electronic tutorial on her ship. Yes. Namek. And then, finally, an odd ki signature that felt like a mix between a human and a....

Oh.

[Amazing,] she tilted her head to one side, examining the boy more closely. He wasn't that old. Seven, maybe. Eight at the most. [Hard to believe any Saiyan would deign to have a child with a human woman.]

[Then again...]

The strange man, the one with the pale hair who could turn into a Super Saiyan...he was partially human as well, wasn't he? She glanced at him, irritated to find that his eyes were on her again, his arms crossed over his chest.

[Idiot hybrid.] She pulled her knees up, wrapped her arms around them, stared back at him. [He's contradictory enough as is, with dual bloodlines. Does he have to annoy me more by looking at me like that? By analyzing me? By not bothering to hide that he's analyzing me?]

[But then what do I care, anyway? Fine. Evaluate me. Sit me down on your little couch and try to get in my head. Good luck. If you ever figure me out, be sure to tell me. I've been myself for seventeen and a half years and I still don't know what the hell I am, don't know what the hell I've _become_.]

She swallowed convulsively, remembering mocking words and probing fingers, obsidian hair and ice eyes, slow smiles and silken laughter and white hot pain and-

Biting the inside of her cheek, she forced the unwanted images back until they reluctantly retreated into a corner of her mind, snarling as they slunk back into the cage she'd created for them. She brushed dark bangs out of her eyes tiredly, ignoring the sharp tang of blood in her mouth. The memories would return. They always did. But until then....

The wind picked up. She tilted her face to it, allowing the cold to seep into her skin and flesh and bone until the fear was gone.

* * * * *

"Are you all right?" She didn't move, didn't jump, didn't say anything. When it was obvious she wasn't going to give a reply, Trunks sighed, turned his face to the sun.

[I really don't want to deal with this right now....]

"Well?" he said. She turned to face him and stared, the blank expression behind the sunglasses conveying an all-too-clear message.

[I'm not welcome.]

"I'm fine," she said. "Do you need something?"

Trunks raised an eyebrow at the flat, matter-of-face tone of voice, privately wishing--not for the first time--that those shades were off. "Yes, in fact," he said, jamming his hands in his pockets, "A name, an address, a phone number...something along those lines."

"That's not important."

"To me it is."

"...."

* * * * *

Gohan looked at the sun for the umpteenth time, groaning mentally when he saw that it'd barely moved. He wished he had a watch, wished there was some other way to judge time other than the shadow cast by the rocks and the temperature.

How long was two hours, anyway?

* * * * *

"Look, don't get me wrong," said the man, flushing as he realized his mistake, raking his white-blond hair back with one hand in frustration. "I'm not trying to pick up on you or anything."

[You better not be.] She wasn't sure what she'd do if he was.

"All I'm asking for is a name."

She took off the sunglasses, glared at him. "What's yours?"

"What?"

"I asked a question. What's your name?"

"...."

* * * * *

His body was perfectly still but his mind wasn't. It was clicking rapidly, moving from idea to idea, bouncing off questions that only led to more questions, ricocheting off unsolved problems that could not be solved because of unknown variables.

Two unknown variables, specifically.

Who the hell was he?

And who the hell was she?

The girl. Vegeta crossed his arms over his chest, examining her. Short. Skinny. Hair cropped short, tousled and dark. Sunglasses. Unsmiling. All in all, completely ordinary. Perfectly invisible, from the conventional pair of sunglasses to the black jeans to the well-worn sneakers. He could pass her on the streets without glancing at her twice.

If it weren't for the ki signature, that is. The signature that, if raised, would have every Saiyan and demi-Saiyan and trained human within a two hundred mile radius searching for her.

And the white-haired man... He was really something. Vegeta snorted, remembering the man's little speech, the warning bells it'd set off in his head. The stranger had said that Goku would arrive in two hours. Fine. The stranger had said that he knew Goku by reputation only. Fine. The stranger had said that he couldn't tell them his name. That was wrong. Very wrong. A name was simply a title, something to label a being with, something meant to be given away without trouble.

[He should have just made up a name and gotten it over with,] thought Vegeta, baring his teeth in a half-annoyed, half-amused gesture that was more growl than grin. [The idiot.]

* * * * *

"Well?"
"...."

His mother had always told him that if she had a second child, and if it were a boy, then she would have named him...

"Alec."

* * * * *

His mother was human. Therefore she always thought that his father's views were funny.

"He always insisted on giving you a Saiyan name, or at least something that sounded like one," she would say quietly then smile, always the same amusedly wistful smile. "So I let him. I let him pick out a name for you just so that he'd shut up and go away."

"And," She would add, in a softer voice, later on, when Trunks grew older and began to understand that soft longing behind her eyes whenever she spoke of his father, "I loved him too much to say no."

* * * * *

"Alec. That's a human name."


"What's your point?"

"It's not probable."

"It's not probable, but it's not impossible."

"...."

* * * * *

Piccolo strained to hear their voices, wishing they'd talk louder so that he could pick up their conversation better. Something about names. Something about...Alec?

The breeze whipped up, carrying their words farther away from his ears. He growled in exasperation and gave up, watching them instead of listening to him, waiting for the wind to die away before he tried to drop in again. It was almost amusing to watch them from a distance, watch the man talk--or try to talk--and watch the girl...

She wasn't rude, exactly, but she was cold. Precise. No noticeable movements, no hand gestures, no nervous habits, none of the excess behavior that would reveal impatience or anger or something along those lines. Just near silence and an attitude that practically screamed, "I don't care." All in all, as mute and charmingly social as an ice cube.

But the power level, the quick, skillful movements when she fought, the nonchalance with which she destroyed Frieza...fire. A controlled fire, maybe, but one that burned every bit as bright and painful as a unmanageable one.

Fire and ice.

The next two hours were going to be interesting ones.

* * * * *

"Now. What's your name?"

"...."

* * * * *

She had always been a loner. Ever as a child, she had always preferred silence to conversation, action to talk, the sound of the wind murmuring through the trees to the noisy bustle of the city. While other children played, whispered, laughed, shaping the rungs to their meaningless social ladders, she was off on her own, traipsing the forest around her home in her childish feet.

Her mother and father had always teased her about her lack of sociability. Then worried. It settled into a pattern after a while. She would stay up too late and overhear one of her parents' muttered discussions. Then she would go off, make a few friends who never really were friends and stick around them for a while, doing whatever they thought was fun. After a few weeks, her parents would begin to worry about peer pressure, resulting in a lecture on potential bad influences. This was her cue to slowly drift back to the forest she knew so well.

A pattern. One that she was used to, one that she had no desire to break away from.

Then came the day when earthquakes fragmented the surface of her planet, melting the once-peaceful refuge into a hellish crypt of flames and death. The day when Frieza came to destroy the last of the Saiyans, forcing her parents to sacrifice themselves so that she could live.

The day she began to hate the name she grew up with.

* * * * *

"Call me Ender," she said. Her mother's nickname for her had always been Ender.

The man was skeptical and trying to hide it. He wasn't doing a very good job. "Ender's a human name. And a nickname for Andrea."

"What are you trying to say here?"

"It's not possible."

"Neither is Alec."

Was that a trace of a grin on his face?