Song stepped off the bus and shaded her eyes with one hand. Capsule Corp. was huge, much more intimidating than it looked on TV. As she stood there a muffled explosion rocked the compound. She flinched, and turned back in time to see the bus driver give her an amused grin and drive off.

Well. Screw him. Song picked up her duffel bag and set her shoulders. She could do this. She had to. She had no other options. This did not comfort her.

But she walked up the drive to the main door anyway.

"WOMAN."

She flinched again, and lost the attention of the bored security guard before she'd even had a chance to state her business. He turned very pale and ducked down under his desk, leaving her gaping and trying to figure out where the angry male voice was coming from.

"WOMAN GET OUT HERE NOW. I NEED ASSISTANCE."

It was coming from just inside the compound, out on the lawn, and Song decided she might as well take advantage of the mayhem and slip inside.

"IF YOU CAN'T CALL ME BY MY NAME I'M NOT DOING ANYTHING FOR YOU, YOU SHORT BASTARD."

Ah. That was Bulma. So the angry male voice belonged to her… husband? Song wasn't sure. Her mother had never mentioned a marriage in the Briefs clan, but then, it was only fifty-fifty that she would have mentioned such a thing anyway.

She heard a curse and before she could stop herself she ran into someone—someone peculiarly unyielding, and she was knocked over, her bag flying backwards to land some feet away from her. She had a brief impression of a lot of black, untamed hair and a scowling face—"Watch where you're going, fool!"—before the solid wall of a person strode off. Song turned to see a short man stop just under a window in the main building, and then tense to jump, and—

Surely she was seeing things. He'd—he'd merely—

No. He'd flown. Or simply jumped very high, but she was pretty sure what she'd seen counted as flight. She heard the same set of voices—Bulma and the angry male voice she now had a face to go with—yelling just inside the window, and then she heard another voice, a much more welcome one, behind her.

"Song, sweetie, is that you?"

She jumped to her feet and turned around in time to be tackled with a huge hug by the blond woman she had last seen at her kindergarten graduation.

"Song, it is you! What are you doing here, darling, you should have called, where's your mother, are you hungry?"

"Aunt Pansy…" she murmured, not returning the hug, and felt the sting of tears in her eyes. She would not cry. She wouldn't. Her aunt released her from the hug and held her appraisingly at arm's length. Her voice, when she spoke, was softer and more understanding.

"You look famished, dear. Come inside, I'll make you some sandwiches."

And she was grateful that Pansy turned away to lead her inside, because she did cry, then, a little.

"Is… is Bulma here?" she asked from behind her third sandwich. Pansy nodded, busy slicing more tomatoes. Song was well aware of her aunt's propensity to cook ridiculous amounts of food, but the mound of tomato slices next to the cutting board was getting on six inches tall, and there were three large bowls of torn lettuce. Nearly six pounds of bacon sat next to stove, apparently all intended for frying. She wondered if she'd interrupted a party. A large party.

"Your cousin's upstairs, I think, it sounds like she's talking to Vegeta. They might be a while up there, but they'll be down here for lunch, you can count on that."

Song scoffed at her aunt's choice of words—talking—but now she had a name to go with the angry voice and angry face. She took another bite of her sandwich. Pansy set down her knife and pinned her with a stare in the way only women of their family could. Her own eyes were just as squinty as her aunt's, but Pansy had more practice, and Song looked away first, gathering up bread crumbs from her plate and squishing them together into a ball.

"What brings you here, sweetie? Your mother didn't call to say you were coming."

Song pinched the ball of crumbs until it flattened and disintegrated.

"She kicked me out," she mumbled. Pansy made a noise of sympathy.

"Well, you know you can always stay here, Song, sweetie. Until you and your mother work things out."

Song scoffed to herself. They were not going to work things out. Her mother, in point of fact, had not kicked her out, but Song wasn't going back there come hell or high water so it hardly mattered.

"Anyway, why don't I show you to a room. We had quite a lot of guests at one point and we never did close down all the guest bedrooms. There should be plenty of space for you."

Song nodded and followed her aunt upstairs. She'd forgotten how huge this place was. She heard about Capsule Corp. all the time on the news, but didn't often connect it to the sister her mother rarely spoke of. As they rose she could hear the sounds of arguing growing louder, but luckily they did not seem to be coming from the floor Pansy eventually settled her into.

"Why don't you have a shower and change out of those clothes. Come downstairs when you're done. I'm sure Bulma would love to see you."

Song only nodded, but in truth she would only be doing it to please her aunt. She wasn't sure she'd ever met Bulma, or if she had, she'd been only a baby. Seeing her meant nothing. Pansy gave her another smile, and went back downstairs.

She started to go to her bag, and then looked down at her clothes, a black and white striped long sleeve shirt and jeans with holes at the knees.

"What's wrong with these, anyway?" she whispered to herself. Aunt Pansy's words had reminded her of the fact that she was still wearing the same clothes as the night of the big argument, even though it felt like it had happened years ago. Her mother had mentioned her choice of outfit then too.

Song scowled. She'd change, but only because she wanted to get out of dirty clothes.

As she soaked in the tub she could hear the arguing voices grow louder, and then softer, as the speakers passed the bathroom where she was. They did seem to be going downstairs for lunch. She immersed herself in the tub and wondered how long she could get away with staying in the bathroom. An hour? A week? Forever?

She only soaked for half an hour, but she did the full number on her hair, teasing the long side of her half-shave up and out, to fall gracefully over the right side of her face after rising nearly six inches above her head. She did her makeup too, but only to stall for time.

Eventually she ran out of ways to stall and made her way downstairs.

Bulma was still there, complaining to her mother about something, but when she saw Song she broke off and turned toward her.

"Gosh, Song, is that really you? What the hell have you done to your hair?"

"Hi to you too," she muttered as Bulma came over and ran her fingers through Song's very hair-sprayed locks. She grimaced at the texture and when she pulled Song in for a hug it was short and perfunctory.

"Mom tells me you're going to be here for a while. Listen, of course you're welcome as long as you need a place to stay and everything, but it would really be a big help if you could watch Trunks for me while I'm working."

Song blinked at her cousin, who had said all of this over her shoulder as she went to the sink to wash the hair-spray off her fingers.

"Who's Trunks?" was all she could think to say.

"Oh, he's my son. Normally when Vegeta's not training him he follows me around, but he's getting too old to be allowed in the workroom; he keeps destroying things," her cousin said with an affectionate eyeroll. Song nodded vaguely to show she'd heard (though she couldn't say she quite understood it all; training him?), but Bulma's eyes lit up and she smiled widely.

"Oh, you will? Thank you, thank you so much. I'm sure he won't be too much trouble." Before Song could protest Bulma checked her watch. "I have to go. See you at dinner, cuz!"

Song watched her cousin walk away, wondering if she should go upstairs and repack her bag or just split now before anyone noticed.

A tug on the hem of her shirt made her look down. A young boy with purple hair (Briefs hair, she thought) was staring mischievously up at her.

"Hi," he said. "I'm Trunks."

Daikon thanked the Namekian and strode back to his spaceship, heart lighter than it had been in months. He finally had a lead—a real lead! Granted, the Namekian had not been able to give him coordinates, but he had a name and a description— Earth, green and with much water. He climbed aboard the small pod and gave the launch command. As stasis claimed him, he fixed his eyes on the picture tucked behind the manual controls—an image of a red-skinned woman scowling, her white hair disheveled and tied back messily. His own face, much younger, peeked out from behind his mother, eyes wide and cautious, hair black and cut short. He fell asleep dreaming of cook fires and purple skies.

A/N: holy cow, this thing has been languishing on my hard drive for the last six or seven years. It isn't finished yet, but I've got a good amount of chapters already written, and some ideas for where to go with it, and after all this time I still want to do something with it. So here you go, in all its first draft, silly double OC romance glory.

Oh, and can you guess what Song's name pun is? ;)