Title: I Saw the End Ch. 7
Author: Shokachan
Rating: PG-13-R, for drama and stuff ~_^
Okay, I'm sorry, yet again, for taking so long. You know what? It's exam time…same time as I wrote chapter 6, only a semester later...hmmm, interesting…Is is the procrastination, or do I get more free time come exam week? That would be irony, would it not? Anyhow, at least you get a chapter, no matter how late huh? *weak smile* I mean, right? Okay…no. I'll try to get one out sooner than later, but I'm really bad about writing chapter stories in a timely fashion. If I rush them they turn out with no plot and no imagination…basically crap. Maybe if some nice T/P fans point out some new T/P sites with good fanart (yay fanart!) and original fanfics I'll get inspired *wink wink* Yeah, it's been forever and a day since I've looked a T/P stuff, and almost all my fav sites are closed down…very sad
*Flash* lightning illuminated the room for a split second and I looked away from Trunks' dark shape almost as quickly. I shifted on the couch, soaking it even more. I was embarrassed, but knew that Trunks didn't really care.
*Flash* Again the room was bathed in light for a moment. I looked down at my hands clutched in my lap and tried to breathe deeply. Failed in breathing deeply. The air caught in my throat and I coughed, sobbed.
He had led me into his living room after my confession, but hadn't said a word. Truthfully I still didn't think he understood. He sat on the coffee table directly across from me, our knees barely touching. Thunder rumbled in the distance, but we were silent.
After another moment he broke the quiet. "Pan, what's going on?" He said it softly, like if he were loud I would shatter into a million pieces like a china doll. I might have.
I concentrated on breathing for a moment, and wondered why I had come here. Why? "I was pregnant."
*Flash* Trunks' eyes widened, impossibly large, they looked at me with disbelief.
"Until two days ago, when I fell down the stairs at my apartment. I was tired, or sick, or something, and I was partially-unconscious for a short period of time, and that was all it took to lose the baby." I put my face into my hands, my elbows resting on my knees.
I felt an awkward hand on my shoulder. "I'm…I'm sorry." he said.
*Flash* "I'm not."
The hand on my shoulder stilled, and I shuddered. I hated myself for being so relieved that I had lost the baby, but I couldn't help my emotions. He must think I'm a monster.
"I guess I'm not either."
*Flash* Time paused on this moment, the light shining off the highlights on his face, deep shadows rested in the valleys of it, serious eyes staring back at me, the hand had become heavy on my shoulder.
"Wha-What?"
"You weren't ready, it just wasn't possible for you was it?" The hand slid to my shoulder blade, my chest lowered towards him. "You haven't been the same since the hostage incident, I've seen it. You're better, but you're…you're so young, so impressionable. You just aren't ready for children yet. And you were alone. You didn't love him…did you?"
I used the heel of my had to swipe away more tears. I squinted at his face, but no flash of lightning helped by lighting up the room. "No," I answered.
The hand slid to my mid-back, my chest barely grazed his. Slowly I lowered my head so that it rested underneath his chin in the crook of his neck. He smelled so good.
"No what?" he whispered.
"I didn't love him."
I heard a sigh escape from his lips.
"I mean I don't love him. I did love him. Oh, I really did, you know. I was happy for a while." I wrapped my arms around Trunks, softly, unlike before, when he was a lifeline and I was drowning in the rain, pulled down by my guilt.
Suddenly he stood, my arms falling away from him, his hand lifting from it's comforting position on my back. He walked away, flipped on the light and then came back, sitting on the couch beside me. The light was harsh, real, and I blinked, trying to adjust. His eyes were hard to read, to interpret. They seemed sad, I suppose.
"Are you disappointed in me? For getting pregnant and not being married, or even in love?" I asked. It was a stupid question. Really it was none of his business, he wasn't my family, wasn't my brother or my boyfriend.
"I would never judge you. Especially for that," he said. "It's not like I've ever had sex before, and as you can see I'm definitely not married." he grinned slightly, and I gave a weak smile in return. "You've been through enough, I think. Too much in this past year. You're so young…" he trailed off, looking at me closely.
I stared back with wide eyes. "Not so young, anymore."
"No, I guess not" he replied, sadness settling on his features once more. Then he stood up, gently pulling me with him. "Stay here tonight, it's late and the roads are dangerous. You're in no condition to drive, and neither am I, I think." I nodded and followed him up the stairs. He walked me to the guest room, pulling me into his embrace at the door. He rested his chin on my head and I leaned against him, without the strength to even put my arms around his body, though I desperately wanted to. I wanted to feel his defined muscles against my body, wanted to stay like that for eternity.
"Why'd you come here Pan?" he whispered against my hair, echoing my mental question from earlier.
"I don't know," I whispered back. Slowly I pulled away and opened the door. "You just feel like home to me" I added before slipping quietly into the room, shutting the door before he could respond. I feel into a deep and dreamless sleep that night, and left before dawn the next morning, before he woke up.
Back in my apartment I prepared for work, and returned to my class a day earlier than I had anticipated. I wasn't healed, but I was better. So much better because I wasn't alone, I wasn't the only one who knew, other than the hospital personnel that didn't care, or the white, sterilized hospital room that had witnessed my tears. I felt like a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I don't care how clichéd it sounds, it was true. The sun was shining as I walked in that morning, and I lifted my face to it, and felt immeasurably better.
***
A little over two weeks later found me in the midst of last minute preparations for the kids' dinosaur museum, and I rushed happily around the gym, our temporary showcase, putting up paper-plate stegosaurus' and jointed paper diplodocus.' School had just ended and The "museum" was set to open at six o'clock, a mere three hours in the future and I was still setting up some displays and making preparations for the play that was set to premiere at seven.
I held Toru-chan's stegosaurus in my hands and jumped, trying to fit it into place at the top of the display. Unfortunately I was a bit too short. Another leap with a bit of sustained ki to keep me in the air a moment longer would have done it, but before I could attempt it the creature was whisked out of my hands from behind.
I turned around with a bright smile on my face and leapt up, wrapping my arms around Trunks' neck. "Trunks!" I exclaimed. "Whatcha doing here?"
"My, aren't we happy today?" he asked.
"Why shouldn't I be?" I asked back, grinning. The sun is shining, it's a lovely seventy degrees Fahrenheit, and my kids are about to show off their astounding artistic and mental abilities. Trunks looked around the gym and smiled in a stunningly sweet way.
"It's adorable, these projects, this show. You're really proud of your students aren't you?"
"Well, they aren't all mine, it's all of the second grade classes, but yes, of course I'm proud. They've worked hard on this, you know. All these projects, and we spent all day setting up the displays and work stations." I smiled brighter at the thought. "It's going to be so much fun for them."
Trunks nodded and I looked up at him and narrowed my eyes a bit. "what are you doing here, anyhow?" I hadn't seen him since that night I had collapsed on him and poured out my secret, my guilt. We had talked on the phone a couple of times, skirting around that topic, except once, when he asked me if I was going to be alright now. I had told him that I'd be fine, I had him.
"I had heard about your hard work on this world-renown exhibit, and wondered if you might like a date to the opening night" he said, with a faux-snooty accent.
"Why, Mr. Briefs" I returned in kind, "I would be more than honored." And I was.
He was great with kids, I noted later that night, when I was off talking to parents and had left him in charge of dressing the children up for the play. He could gain a child's trust almost instantly with his long-honed people skills and innate sincerity. A fellow second grade teacher turned to me while we were at the snack table a few feet away from where Trunks was coercing a child into a T-rex mask.
"Your boyfriend is really good with the kids." She grinned a little wickedly "and Extremely good looking to boot. He seems familiar, to me, though…"
I grinned a bit. "He's not my boyfriend, just a friend of the family. He came over to help out." I purposefully left out his professional status.
"You two seem awfully close for being family friends" she mused.
I shrugged. "We've known each other forever. I think I met him the day I was born. He's…quite a bit older than me, actually." I looked closely for signs of him listening, but found none. I'm not sure if I was hoping for a reaction or not.
"He cant be that much older."
"A bit over ten years" I replied.
"Hmmm" she peered closely. "Well, you'd never know, would you?" And then she wandered over to a display her class was in charge of to praise a student or hers on her memorization of paleontological facts.
"How are we doing, Kae-chan?" I asked after walking over to Trunks, placing my hands on his shoulders. He was kneeling down in front of me, helping one of my students tie her shoes. She could do it on her own, I knew. I grinned at the thought of Trunks inadvertently winning over girls, even starting at age seven. The girl grinned up at me.
"Mr. Briefs is helping me with my costume!" she exclaimed energetically.
"Oh, is he now? How nice of him." I answered with a serious face. Finally the shoe-tying was completed and Kae ran off with an "Arigato, Mr. Briefs!" and a flip of the hand.
Trunks turned to me, uprooting my hand from their place, and slipped his arm through mine. For some reason I found this unspeakably cute. My stupid heart beat a little faster, a staccato rhythm against my rib cage. Doki doki, boom boom.
"You look a little tired" he said, searching my face.
I decided not to take it the wrong way, and dragged a hand across my face. "Does it really show?"
"Not at all. I can just tell with you." The play started and I never found out how exactly he could "just tell."
***
We walked slowly, side by side under the moonlight, through the maze in the parking lot to my car. He stopped me from opening my car door by placing his hand over mine before I lifted the handle.
"Why don't you spend the night at my house?" For a moment I stood in shock, my body tense, but then I saw his facial expression and it left me in a wave. He meant it completely innocently. His grin held a hint of nostalgia. "We can catch up--really catch up, I mean. We see each other all the time, Panny-chan, but I feel like it's disasters or holidays with us. That's why I stopped by today. We should hang out more. We used to be pals, you know. Hung out with you as much as Goten. We've sort of lost that, I think."
I shrugged and kept it light. "Sure, why not? We can catch up." Trunks nodded.
"I'll meet you there, then. See you in a few!" he tossed a wave in my direction as he walked to his car across the lot. I followed him with my eyes as he walked away.
"Catch up," I repeated in a whisper. "pal."
I followed his silver sports car down the highway and then on the back streets to his house, thinking thoughts that I was embarrassed of. Why was I so affronted at being his friend, his 'pal.' it's not what I wanted, never what I wanted. But he was just my friend, right? When he asked me over tonight, at first, I had truly thought…well doesn't matter what I thought. I couldn't think of that.
Finally I pulled into his driveway. Trunks was already out of his car, and so he walked over and opened my door for me. I grabbed my keys and purse and slid out.
"I swear, I ought to just leave my stuff here instead of toting it back and forth" I said, jokingly, as I grinned up at Trunks as he fiddled with the key to his front door.
He laughed good-naturedly as he successfully turned the knob and disarmed the alarm. "You probably should. You do seem to end up staying here and awful lot. I'm starting to think you cant get enough of my irresistible self." he said the last part with a ridiculous bat of the eyelashes that I couldn't help laughing at.
"You know" Trunks said with a tone completely unlike the jesting one he had just been using, "When Elizabeth suggested leaving some of her stuff here I completely freaked out, for some weird reason." he shook his head as if to reprimand himself for his irrationality.
I decided to keep it light. "Well, you don't mind me because you know I'm not using you for sex." Trunks' head shot up and he looked at me with eyes wide with surprise. I grinned hugely. "I'm after your money!" I cried and ran as fast as I could up the stairs, laughing like a hyena.
A sharp bark of laughter followed me before his body did. He chased me from the entrance hall to the upstairs one. I ran into a random room, trying to shut and lock the door, but his hand got in the way, and his strength was too much for this quarter saiya-jinn to win against. I was almost breathless with laughter as I collapsed against the floor, and the door opened, Trunks standing triumphantly in it's frame.
"Ha ha! I win! Puny girl you can never beat me! He eyed the room as I laughed even harder, then squinted down at me with laughter gleaming in his eyes. "I knew you were lying! You are using me for sex, that is why you sought refuge in my room!"
"Never! Pure Dumb luck!" I gasped back, and then added, before he could reply "bad luck!"
"You cant fool me!" he said, and helped me up from the floor and onto the bed. He stood beside it while I recovered. "I know you want this!" he said, faking immodesty. Our Trunks was never too good at taking compliments or dealing with innuendo, really. He turned as red as a tomato and stuttered. He must be completely secure in his belief that we could never have a relationship to be able to joke about it so openly with me. This thought sobered me a little, even while I knew that I should already have known that--and should feel the same way.
Suddenly very sleepy I yawned, then stretched feeling very much like a cat, and then curled up on the right side of the bed and put my hands under my head acting as a pillow. "I like it here. You get to go sleep in the guest room" I murmured, my eyes closing of their own volition.
"My room," Trunks answered, and then jumped over me to the left side of the bed. The light had never been turned on, so the room's only light came from the moon shining through the window, and it shone right through my thin eyelids. I turned over and nestled back into the mattress, and then felt something cover me. I opened my eyes slightly to see Trunks pulling the covers up over me, himself still on top of them. Still keeping my eyes closed I tugged them out from under his body and held them up. I felt him pull them over his body and he moved closer to me.
I opened my eyes to look straight into his aqua blue ones, slightly muted by the dim moonbeams. I smiled sleepily and he moved even closer, his arms closing around my back. I had heard that sleeping face to face was difficult and uncomfortable, and if you wanted to sleep with a guy spooning was the only way to go, but this wasn't true, I thought. My arms were pressed between my chest and his, not uncomfortably, and my lower right leg slipped between his knees. Slowly my arms slid up his chest and around his neck and he turned off of his side onto his back, taking me with him. I laid my head against his chest and, after a while, fell asleep, lulled by his not-yet-sleeping breathing pattern .
***
I'm thinking that maybe I'll put off the next chapter a bit and do a little side story about this chapter from Trunks' point of view…that's the only thing I hate about first person, I cant get his thoughts in there! But, then again, maybe that's part of the first-person mystery.*evil laugh*