The morning was young. A thin film of mist blanketed the landscape, the world given a gentle pinkish hue from the Sun peeking over the horizon. The grass was still wet with the crystalline dew that had settled itself in nicely overnight. The Earth as a whole was still sleeping, save the birds singing away merrily, looking for their first feed of the day.

There was one who was not sleeping however.

It had been an entire week since CC001 had disappeared, with Pan (hopefully) safely stowed away inside. It had been tough for everyone, not least her parents, who had seemed to isolate themselves from society completely, never returning anyone's calls, reluctantly answering the door to those brave enough to try and see them face-to-face. Capsule Corp. gatherings were definitely out of the question.

Confused, blue eyes stared longingly up into the sky.

"Where are you Pan-chan?"

Trunks knew more than most that it wasn't just a risky situation the intrepid 'space traveller' was in, it was downright dangerous. The prototype hadn't even been fully completed yet – another 'con' of her testing the ship – there was no point of contact installed. They didn't even know where the young girl was.

That was the problem with investing in intergalactic travel – you'd have to have a pretty robust telecommunications system to enable you to converse through various galaxies. They'd even got Goku to try and sense her ki, but to no avail, thus leading them to believe that she had already passed into some far-flung galaxy, leaving them with nothing but their prayers, hoping that she was OK.

As Pan had grown, many aspects of her personality had changed dramatically. Gone was the boisterous… almost overbearing tomboy he had gone into space with. She had become introvert, a recluse almost. It was rare for her to join in with 'family' activities. Whenever they would get together at Capsule Corp. for their annual get together, she wouldn't no longer join in with their childish games; gone was the Pan who would spearhead any campaign to wreck havoc upon their unsuspecting friends.

He sighed deeply. He missed the old Pan at times. He knew that everyone had to grow up at some point, but the change was just too drastic for him. He missed ridiculing her for her ill-thought through plans, her high-pitched shrieking whenever she didn't get her own way, how angry she got whenever she would lose a spar…

At least one thing hadn't changed – she still had an unwavering sense of adventure. Why else would she have left herself in the unforgiving hands of the universe?

Her fascination with the unknown was somewhat unsettling at times. It served no other purpose than to get her into trouble, that's for sure. She had turned into such a dreamer; it was as though she was already living on another planet at times.

Another planet… that's where she probably was now, at least he hoped she was.

The weeks turned into months, into years…

Some form of normality had found itself again on the Earth, with day-to-day life running as smoothly as it ever had.

Gohan and Videl still grieved silently for their lost daughter, but had found solace in an unexpected arrival, another child – their son, Goken. He was the spitting image of Gohan as a young boy – even down to the clothing that Chi-Chi had insisted that he wear – she didn't want another grandchild in a gi with frivolous dreams implanted in their head from an early age.

As a result, Goken's training was kept to a minimum. He spend the majority of his days playing happily as any other four-year old would in his back garden, helping his mother bake cakes, hanging off of his father's every word. Strangely, his relationship with his Grandmother Chi-Chi was stronger than that of his Grandfather, no matter how hard the light-hearted Saiya-jin tried.

Contact between the Son and Briefs family had become strained over the course of four years, Bulma believing inwardly that Gohan and Videl blamed her for the disappearance of their eighteen year old daughter, as she was then.

Pan would have been turning twenty-two in a matter of weeks. Her birthday was an unspoken milestone that no-one forgot, nor celebrated.

Trunks couldn't help but imagine what she was doing, where she was, what she looked like… She had plagued his mind ever since she had gone away, and it was starting to become unbearable. He was unfocused; he could never devote himself 100 percent to the task at hand. Hence, Bulma handed the reigns of Capsule Corp. over to Bra, letting Trunks take some well-earned time off. Admittedly that was three years ago now, and still his mother hadn't let him anywhere near the running of the company again, choosing to leap into the Vice-President's role once again, much to the disdain of those around her, telling her to start to slow down, actually enjoy life again, rather than have the stresses of running a global enterprise staying with her well into her sixties.

Although he fully understood the pursuit of one's dreams, he couldn't believe how selfish she had been at the same time. There had been no contact for four years, here he was wondering what the stupid girl looked like, she could be dead for all they knew.

Dead…

No! That was one thought that the purple haired Saiya-jin had to continually shake off. He couldn't be pessimistic with regards to this situation. Positive thinking held more power over events that people would generally like to think.

He still held some degree of hope that she would return home, prove to the non-believers that she did still care for them all, unlike his father, the man who upped and left his entire family in pursuit of some long dead dream.

She wasn't like him, was she?

The vast expanse of the universe was a foreboding thing. The never-ending spray of black spread in front of a person could more often than not be the trigger to send one over the edge. However, it was the solitude and the undefined beauty of the darkness that Son Pan so enjoyed.

Her journey through numerous solar systems and galaxies had been a fruitful one. She had discovered planets that those on Earth could have only dreamed of, technologies that would make Bulma and her father possibly wet themselves with joy. She smiled, thinking of her family back home. Although there had been no contact for so long now, she still held them dearly in her heart. Family meant everything to one after all.

She particularly missed her Grandpa and Trunks… It definitely wasn't the same going into space without them.

There was just one more errand she had to complete before departing for Earth; one more planet to visit – in her own solar system – one more planet to gaze upon before resuming normality… and explaining why she went on this uncharted 'mission' in the first place.

She leant back in her chair, brushing her waist length hair back over her shoulders. She really needed a hair cut – it was becoming a hindrance having to maintain it, especially in combat. One thing she had got used to was the classic Saiya-jin spandex she had got given on a far, far away planet by a helpful family of, well, the kindest way to put it would have been little, green aliens – they had heard of the Saiya-jin legend and were fascinated by their culture. They had been given a relic of the 'long-forgotten' (as they had put it – ha!) Saiya-jin training suits, and had given it to her as a present in exchange for her first hand accounts of witnessing the Super Saiya-jin transformation and beyond.

She was snapped from her reverie by her ship's control panel beeping and flashing, alerting her to the fact that they were fast approaching her chosen destination.

"Five minutes until point A reached." The metallic voice of the computer echoed throughout her ship, ensuring that the young space traveller was all suited and booted, ready for the violent judder and halt that the ship hadn't yet perfected as a stopping procedure.

Pan held her breath in anticipation. This was going to be the hardest part of her journey to date. It was an excursion she was hoping to put off forever, but somehow she was drawn to this part of the universe. It wasn't a planet she could explore – hell, she couldn't even land on it, but she needed to see it for her own eyes sake. She looked out of the front window as they neared closer, before feeling the unmistakable smack and bounce of the ship stopping.

She exhaled deeply as the ship made a similar sound, the engine letting off stream and settling into a state of rest for the time being.

All she could see through the large circular windows was a mass of twinkling stars, their gorgeous pattern studded with large pieces of rock, floating lifelessly. There wasn't even a surface big enough for her to walk on, let alone a ship land on.

The pieces of rock were a deep red in colour, beautiful in contrast to the deathly black around it. There didn't seem to be any sign of disturbance for decades.

A lump formed in Pan's throat as she gazed upon the mass of shining white and burning red. She blinked back tears, she couldn't cry, she didn't want to cry. She was too strong to cry at this…

It was no use. The young woman fell to her knees as the dam behind her eyes buckled, tears started to stream down her cheeks, her eyes never leaving the sight before her.

A choked whisper released itself:

"Vegeta-sei…"

Eeeeeep…. Sorry this took so long, had a mental week, and now it's a bank holiday and have one hundred and one places to be… So instead I did this.

Will try and update COA this week before I go away on Thursday…

Thanks for reading!

-listenserendipity