Marron picked her way down the half collapsed corridor that led to the lower level of Dr. Gero's laboratory. She had come back to the lab to see if she could find any other useful information on the energy absorption capabilities of the Jinzouningen that she may have overlooked the last time she was here several years ago. She took a large flashlight from her pack before she went too far into the lab, swallowing down her fear of the dark laboratory.

All in the name of science, All in the name of science…she repeated to herself and tried not to let her imagination run away with her. She climbed over a large collapsed portion of the mountain and rounded the corner into the lab proper. The first thing she noticed was that she could see, there must have been some rudimentary systems running that she didn't remember being on before. She edged into the dimly lit room, the room that had spawned madness on an unsuspecting world. Involuntarily her eyes were drawn to the row of chambers along the far wall…one in particular.

She drifted across the debris-strewn lab toward the chambers, to the one designated Eighteen. She reached out and put a hand on the cool surface. She wished she knew what had happened to Juuhachi-gou, but all she saw were visions of the last time she had seen her mother two days after her father died. She had found the Android crying on the beach at Kame House, which was alarming; she had never seen her mother cry. She had told Marron she had lost her humanity, that the only thing that made her feel human was gone. Before Marron could ask her what she meant she had flown away. Marron dashed away the tears that rose to her eyes unbidden at the thought of her parents and she turned away from her mother's stasis chamber. The weak light was coming from deeper in the lab and as Marron made her way toward it she noticed something odd. There were plans and tools and parts scattered around a worktable as if someone had been building something. Frowning Marron tentatively edged closer.

The day had worn on to early evening and Mirai still sat on the hill long after Goten had abandoned him in search of food. He was so deeply engrossed in thought he didn't even sense Bulma when she trudged up the hill to find him.

"Well at least I finally found one of you…which means the other shouldn't be too far off," Bulma laughed as she reached Mirai's side. He looked up at her with a faraway look on his face.

"Hnh?" Bulma rolled her eyes and ruffled his hair like she had done to her own son for so many years before sitting beside him.

"Where's Marron-chan? You two are always together lately," Bulma nudged him with a knowing smile. "Is love in the air?" Mirai blushed a bit eyes lowered.

"Bulma-san…" he pleaded. Bulma waved her hand dismissively.

"I'm your mother…or at least the very next thing. It's my job to pry into your personal life," she said with a wink. When he didn't answer Bulma sighed. She reached out and tucked his long hair behind his ear so she could see his face. "I can cut it for you again if you want…like last time," she offered quietly. Mirai smiled and shook his head.

"No, I like it this way…I like being different."

"He's really not so bad, Trunks. He can be a little immature I admit, but he has a good heart. And I know the two of you could learn to get along if you stayed," Bulma said and took his hand. It was Mirai's turn to sigh.

"Kaasan…this isn't my time, its Chibi's. We all know that, pretending it isn't won't change the truth. I didn't think through all of the consequences of my coming here, I just wanted to see you again…" he said with a rueful smile as Bulma squeezed his hand. "…I should never have come back. It isn't fair to Chibi, it isn't fair to you, and it certainly isn't fair to Marron."

"I think she would disagree with you," Bulma told him.

"Of course she would…she's just like you," Mirai said with a laugh. Bulma patted his hand and looked away tears brightening her blue eyes.

"So your mind is made up then?" Bulma asked him.

"Hai…I should leave, before things get any more difficult than they are."

Bulma bit her lip in a moment's indecision. Stubborn, stubborn child…he was just like her. "One condition: You don't just leave without saying goodbye to her. Don't you disappear on her like your father used to do to me," Bulma told him sternly.

Before Mirai could answer he sensed Marron's ki and turned in time to see her land near them. Her jeans and sweater were muddy and torn, her hair wet and matted to her head. Her face was filthy except for the clean tracks made by the tears that still flowed freely from her eyes, washing away the dirt and blood from a deep gash on her forehead.

"Marron-chan! What happened dear?" Bulma asked concerned as she rose. Mirai was already on his feet as Marron stumbled the few steps forward into his arms.

"I found her…I finally found her," Marron wailed burying her face in Mirai's shirt.

"Who, Marron-chan?" Bulma asked as she sobbed uncontrollably in Mirai's embrace.

"O-Okaasan…"

Marron slid around the edge of the worktable farther into the dim lab. She looked at the plans laid out among the parts and caught her breath. With shaking fingers she picked them up, they were the plans for Jinzouningen's Juusan-gou, Juuyon-gou, and Juugo-gou. These hadn't been here the last time she visited the lab, she was certain of it. Without thinking she rolled the plans up and put them in her pack to study later. There could be other useful ideas to be gleaned from Dr. Gero's madness. As she did her gaze fell into the trashcan next to the workbench. Among the scraps of wire and solder that littered it she saw remnants of burned paper. She reached in and pulled out the biggest surviving piece, the edges curled and charred. She could make out the ends of some schematics and words.

-gency

-op

-ller

Marron's heart jumped up to her throat. Someone had found the plans for an Emergency Deactivator. She let the scrap of paper fall from her fingers as she moved deeper into the darker reaches of the lab beyond the reach of the weak light over the worktable. She could make out a table up ahead covered with a sheet, she squinted her eyes in the gloom until she remembered her flashlight and got it out of her pack again. As she fumbled it out of her pack she tripped on the edge of something and fell forward, pin wheeling her arms for balance. She fell to her knees banging her forehead smartly on the edge of another piece of partially destroyed machinery. She shook her head to clear it as she picked herself back up. She looked at the flashlight in her hand and saw she had completely destroyed it when she fell.

Marron formed a ki light in her hand -quite the useful little trick Mirai Trunks had taught her- she thought crazily as her head swam and a trickle of blood ran into her eye. She moved on toward the table even as every sense in her body was telling her to turn around and go…some things were better left alone. As she got closer she could see something under the sheet. She stopped an arms length away and swiped the blood out of her eye with the back of her free hand. She heard ragged breathing and was about to spin around when she realized it was her own. She gave a short bark of laughter at herself for being so jumpy and with a deep breath reached out and pulled the sheet back.

"Oh no…please…no…" Marron whimpered as the first of a sea of tears filled her eyes.

Juuhachi-gou lay on the table perfectly preserved, looking exactly the same as the day she became a Jinzouningen. She was wearing her favorite outfit, a pair of jeans and a black shirt with striped sleeves – the only difference was that her hair was in the short cut she'd worn the last few years. Her normally expressionless face wore the faintest trace of a gentle smile. She had her hands folded on her chest; in one was the deactivator and the other an envelope. Marron took the envelope from her mother's lax hands first. She wiped her tears on her sleeve again and with shaking fingers opened it, forming another ki light to see. Inside was a photograph, one of Juuhachi-gou's favorites. Kuririn and Marron taken when she was about seven years old; Kuririn was leaning over slightly a huge grin on his face while Marron kissed his cheek. Marron flipped the picture over and found three words written on the back. Not without him.

Marron put her hand over her mouth to stifle the small sob that escaped. She unfolded the piece of paper in the envelope and read it as her tears fell on it and ran the ink. When she was done she crushed the note in her hand as her grief overwhelmed her and she sank to the floor.

"Oh Kaasan…I can't," she whispered sobbing even as she knew she would honor her mother's last wish. How could she not do as her mother asked?

Eventually, she took the deactivator from her mother's hand and replaced the picture. She leaned over and kissed her mother's forehead, her blood tinged tears falling on Juuhachi-gou's high white brow.

"Goodbye…I love you, Mama…I love you both. I'll be strong for you, I promise..." she murmured and before she lost her nerve dropped the controller on the floor and with a sob of anguish crushed it into a million pieces. She pulled the sheet back up to cover Juuhachi-gou's face – hurrying now that the timer Juuhachi-gou placed in the deactivator had been tripped by its destruction.

She almost made it; was almost clear of the lab when the bomb Juuhachi-gou placed to finally destroy once and for all the birthplace of the Jinzouningen detonated and buried Marron under several feet of earth and rock.

Mirai Trunks sat with his back against the headboard as Marron slept fitfully in his arms. She had refused to let him out of her sight after she had thrown herself into his arms and tearfully told them about finding her mother in the ruins of Dr. Gero's lab. Mirai had felt his heart twist as she revealed what had happened to her there. He and Bulma had both been alarmed at how close she had come to being killed, she had been lucky she was close to the entrance of the lab and had been able to dig herself out with nothing more than a few scrapes and bruises.

He brushed her clean damp hair back from her brow, the small bandage over her cut the only thing marring her alabaster complexion. How close he had come to losing her today, and yet ultimately he still would when he left. Even in her sleep she still clung to him. She had been so distraught when Bulma and Bra had tried to lead her off to get her head bandaged and cleaned up, that in the end Mirai had taken care of her himself. She had said very little about what Juuhachi-gou's final note had said, but whatever it was had unraveled Marron quite a bit…she wasn't a clingy person by nature.

Carefully he extracted himself from her embrace and was getting up to make some tea when Marron's eyes flew open searching the room wildly until she saw him. He sat back on the bed with her and rubbed her back gently as she hugged his pillow to her chest.

"I'm sorry, Mirai…I don't mean to be such a bother," she murmured. He lay down next to her and leaned on his elbow.

"You aren't…I was just going to make some tea. Would you like some?" he asked soothingly. She gave him a ghost of shrug and turned her face away.

When he returned with the tea a few minutes later she was sitting against the headboard with her knees pulled up under her nightgown to her chin. He sat cross-legged next to her and offered her the cup of tea. She took it woodenly and stared into it as if it would offer her answers. Mirai watched her silently as she bit her lip and then finally spoke.

"When she first disappeared I always thought she would come back. I mean, my father was gone but I still needed her, even though I was an adult. Then after a while I just…accepted that I'd probably never see her again…She obviously didn't need me. You know the last thing she ever said to me was that she had lost her humanity; my father was what made her feel human. It hurt when she said that, wasn't I proof of her humanity too? Maybe she thought I was too much like her. I know she loved me – she just never worried about me the way Papa always did," she said with a little chuckle.

Mirai smiled a bit as he remembered the little bald monk and his selfless wish for the Jinzouningen to be free of the self-destruct device and be happy. He could imagine how proud Kuririn must have been to have had such a beautiful caring daughter. "Your Otousan was a good man…a good friend. I liked him very much. I'm sure Juu-your Okaasan must have cared for him deeply," Mirai said quietly.

"You would have never known it to look at them. I was their daughter and even I had my doubts at times. Until today…now I understand everything she felt…all too well," Marron whispered tears filling her eyes.

"Understand what?"

"I didn't understand until I found her that her life without my father was just a prison to her…she'd never grow old, she'd never die…she didn't want to be without him. I never knew until today how much she loved him, just how much my father meant to her," Marron said as tears slipped out of her eyes again. She turned and looked at Mirai.

"I don't want that to happen to me. I don't want you to never know what you've meant to me. I'm scared when I close my eyes that you'll be gone."

"I wouldn't leave you like that Marron," Mirai told her softly and brushed her tears away with the backs of his fingers.

"But you're still going to leave me…." she said miserably, eyes lowered, her tears shining on her eyelashes like diamonds. Mirai took the forgotten teacup from her lax fingers before she spilled it, and then tipped her face up to look at him.

"No regrets remember?" he reminded her gently.

"I'm afraid. I'm so afraid of what I'll become without you in my life," she whispered. Mirai pulled her closer into his embrace.

"You're strong Marron, you're sensitive, intelligent, and kind. You're the most beautiful woman I've ever met inside and out. You don't need me," he told her swallowing the lump in his own throat. I'm the one who needs you…he thought.

"You're wrong," she whispered, so quietly he almost didn't hear it. "That's why I've made a decision," she said and moved so she could look in his eyes. He looked back questioningly.

"I'm going with you."