Untitled Document

Notes: This whole little story refuses to go the way I think it should. I intended to get to what I thought would be the heart of the story after this chapter, but I think I have one more chapter to go before I finally get to the hyperbolic time chamber. This is pretty angsty, so fair warning there. It is so hard to get into Trunks' head, but I'm trying.

Many thanks to the four people who took the time to review my prior chapter. I was so very encouraged by all of your friendly reviews. Special thanks to Rosedust, who has written one of the best Vegeta/Trunks moments I have ever read with A Midnight Talk. It really encouraged me to receive such a happy review from her.

Disclaimer: I don't own Dragonball Z or any of its stories. I just like to borrow them from time to time and play with them, but I promise to put them back when I am done.

Destiny

It was dusk when the time machine finally brought me back to when and where I belonged. As I landed the craft, I tried to see if anything had changed. I surveyed the landscape but couldn't really distinguish anything in the rapidly fading light. But even with the fading light, I couldn't miss the gaping hole in the roof of the Capsule Corporation building, and it taunted me.

I jumped out of the machine as soon as it touched down and was immediately tackled by my mother. She looked me up one side and down the other, trying to see if she could figure out exactly all I had done while on my trip to the past. She started talking as soon as she saw me, babbling about what I had done, who I had seen, if I had given Goku the medicine

I grasped her by her shoulders and held her at arms length to get her attention and stop her rambling. "Mom!" It came out harsher than I had intended, but I just had to know. I had to know if I had made a difference, if my trip had been worth it. "Has anything changed?" I desperately searched her eyes for the answer.

But I knew I didn't even need to ask. The sadness and loss I saw in the depths of her eyes told me everything I needed to know. The androids had taken away everything - her friends that were closer than family, the one man she knew she belonged with - all of the things that were most important to her, all of the things that would be most important to anyone.

I saw the sadness that was always somewhere in the eyes of my mother; the pain of loss that she had so valiantly tried to hide from me all of my life. But as I aged, I knew how to spot that look just as easily as her moods. It was as much a part of her as her seemingly endless optimism and often frustrating tenacity. Unfortunately, she did not wear this loss as well as her natural characteristics.

There was something about losing everything and everyone that was most important in your life. It scarred you in a way that nothing could ever fully heal, that no emotion could every truly cover. I should know. I know the pain I see in her eyes because I see it every time I see my own reflection.

That look It was still in her eyes. It was then that I knew for sure.

The hope I had returned home with started to fly away with the wind that sifted through my hair. But I tried to grasp on to it. I couldn't let it slip through my fingers. There had to be something, there had to be somehow I could make a difference against this unbeatable foe. What good was time travel if it couldn't alter our future?

That machine had been our only hope for months. Its promise of salvation is what kept both of us going and gave us the strength to get up each morning and face the terror of the androids that loomed over the whole of humanity like a foreboding storm cloud. The storm that started the day Gohan was brutally murdered by those monsters had never ended. It raged within my soul. That machine had been my one ray of hope. The hope that I could get him back, get all of them back.

I could feel my shoulders slump as I stood there and could not find the answer. Was this future doomed? Destined to be destroyed because I was too weak? No! I would not allow it! I had to do something. There was no one left to hold those androids accountable for their crimes against humanity. I had to do it. I had to be the one to stop them. But how? What could I do? How could I stop them?

Then it struck me with the suddenness of lightning during a summer storm and lit up my soul. I had to learn from those who were greater than I was. Goku, Gohan, my father - they were the key. I looked at my mother and I could see the worry etched on her features and reflected in her eyes. She knew what I was thinking. She knew the decision I had come to.

I had to go back.

But going back was not an easy task. It had taken eight months to charge up enough power to send the machine 20 years into the past. I couldn't wait that long to go back. Who knew how many more innocent lives those monsters would take in that time? We decided that I would have to go back sooner.

In the short amount of time I had been gone, my mother had been devising ways of charging up the time machine faster. She smiled sheepishly at me as she explained that she had needed a way to vent her nervous energy. She must have been very worried about me because she managed to come up with a way to cut the time by half. If I did not travel as far back into the past, I could go back in just three months.

I wanted to go further back in time so I could train with the other warriors as they prepared for the androids, but it just wasn't feasible. I would try to go back to about the same time the androids started to attack the Earth. I could only hope that Goku would recover successfully from the heart virus.

While I waited for the machine to be ready, I trained. Or at least, I tried to train. I didn't really know what to do. I was already a Super Saiyan, what more could I do? I knew I could hone my skills and learn new techniques, but those things would not do a whole lot against the androids who were so much more powerful than I was. I needed to get stronger, but there were limits to what even a Super Saiyan could do, weren't there?

I didn't really think about these things while I trained. Becoming stronger was somewhere in the back of my mind, but I trained because I needed to release my frustration. I was mad, confused, and very, very alone. Seeing the Z warriors had been a painful reminder that while they had others to train with and help them grow stronger, I had no one.

More than just having someone to spar with, I did not have anyone who understood me. My mother tried to. She tried to encourage me, but I always knew that she was worried about me. She knew, just as I did, that I was not strong enough to face the androids. She was afraid that I might be foolish enough to confront them again. She was even more afraid that if I did, I would not come back. I still don't know how I survived my first confrontation with the androids after Gohan's death. She never told me how she found me or nursed me back to life. We never talked about it, just like so many other things we never talked about.

I was all she had left. I didn't want to be all anyone had left. I couldn't handle it. I wasn't strong enough for it. It's hard knowing that you are the only person left for someone, but I was the only hope for the rest of humanity, and that's a difficult thing to take. It's a difficult job to have, and I didn't want it. I didn't ask to be a hero. Goku must have handled it a lot better than I could. He had been the last known hope so many times, but even he had died.

Don't get me wrong. I wanted to fight. I was born to fight. It's my heritage, and as little as I know about my heritage, I do know that it was full of proud warriors. I could not deny who I was. Fighting was as much a part of me as the color of my hair. I had no more control over my whether or not it was lavender than I had control over whether or not warrior's blood flowed through my veins.

Sure I could cover up that urge, pretend it wasn't there. But just like my hair, no matter what color I dyed it, it would still be lavender at the root. No matter how much I denied it, or my mother denied it, I was destined to fight. And unfortunately for me, I was destined to save my timeline as best I could. What killed me inside, what ate at my soul, was the fact that I was not strong enough to fulfill my destiny.

So I trained to release my anger and frustration with myself.

But I also trained to prevent my mind from asking the questions to which I had no answers. But no matter how much I avoided them, they still plagued my mind. What had happened? Why didn't it work? And finally, what had I really accomplished by going back? After I returned I knew that things had gone horribly wrong. Nothing had changed. Instead of saving the future, I had created a split in the timeline at the point that I journeyed back to the past. At least, that was my mother hypothesized.

But even if mother had a theory as to what had happened, it still did not answer the question as to why. Was time so cruel that there was nothing that could be done to correct past mistakes? Goku's death was a mistake. It wasn't supposed to happen. The strongest warrior in the universe could not die at the hands of an invisible foe. These hideous androids weren't supposed to be allowed to erase all of civilization from existence with so little resistance. It just wasn't meant to be! So why didn't fixing that obvious error correct the timeline?

These questions swirled around in my mind as I punched, kicked, and slashed at invisible foes. But these foes were not so invisible in my mind. They held the faces of those androids who had mocked and taunted me. The androids had become the embodiment of my rage, my fear, my frustration, and my loneliness. I fought with them everyday, and everyday I lost. Deep down, I knew the battle was not with them, but with my own mind. Until I could find a way to conquer my weaknesses, I wouldn't be able to defeat my greatest foes.

Finally, the time machine was ready to return to the past, but one more question plagued my mind. Was I ready? I did not know what awaited me in the past, but I wanted to believe that in three months I had accomplished something. During the time I waited, I hoped that I had finally been able to win one battle, the battle with myself.

I embraced my mother and placed a quick kiss on her cheek before I hopped up into the time machine. Mother knew that I would be gone longer this time, and that I would be facing an even more difficult task than simply not breaking the vial that held the cure for the heart virus. But even knowing that I think she envied me a bit.

She longed to see her old friends again. I wanted to see them too, but would I have to admit my failure to them? Would I have to face my father and explain to him that I could not complete this one simple task? Would I have to see the disappointment in his eyes as he realized that his only son could not live up to his potential?

But even as I pondered these things and fought with my insecurities, I knew that going back was the only way to find out if I was truly ready to face my destiny. That thought alone gave me the strength and courage to face any possibility that awaited me in the past. The past held more for me than the future ever had, and for now, I was going to place my hope in that fact.

I looked down at my mother as the craft lifted off into the air. I silently promised her that I would return stronger and more confident than I had ever been. I would save the future so I could return the light of hope to her eyes.