Sorry for the long wait for this chapter. I've been having some serious difficulties writing, and being forced to write for class just hasn't been helping. Luckily for you all, I'm being forced to take a rather boring class for the summer (unfortunately it ends on Thursday). I've been writing instead of listening to the two hour lectures everyday for four days a week. So here is the next chapter. I said I would not abandon this story, nor the other one. And I won't. But I am very sorry for all of this. There is absolutely no excuse for this.

Virgo Vixen-Congrats! You guessed it! But I promise I've got some more stuff planned for it. So don't expect the same things.

Chapter 10: Please Let Me Explain

Do not ask me of my heart. I no longer know what I stand for.

-Trunks

Not her son. These words ran through his ears. He heard her, but his mind was finding it difficult to understand. Was it possible? No, of course not. He was her son. She had given birth to him, she had raised him, she was his mother. So what was she telling him? There was no way he was adopted. He was a Saiyan and although he got that blood from his father, there was never any doubt what his father had done with his mother. If the pictures of Bulma holding him as a baby in the hospital wasn't enough, there was always the wild hair colors that ran in her family alone.

After the shock of what she said had worn off, he began to think logically. Whatever it is she had meant had something to do with why everything is different—why he did not recognize his room, why his parents are acting so strange, why he had children, and why Pan was here.

When he was finally aware again of where he was, he noticed his mother was facing him leaning against the back of a chair. She had the printouts in her hands and was still reading them; the look on her face showed that she too was trying to comprehend what she was reading. Every two seconds or so, she would glance at him.

He was dying to know. Five minutes of silence had gone by since Bulma's announcement and Trunks wasn't sure how much longer he could take it.

"Mom?" Trunks said cautiously, not sure what was happening.

She looked at him, mouth gape, wide eyes, staring into his. She finally understood what it was she was looking at. They held their stare for a moment, her examinating him, looking up and down in disbelief.

She shook her head as if to clean her thoughts and then cleared her throat. She gathered herself together, Trunks could actually see her get a hold of herself before she finally spoke.

"You are my son, but not exactly my son," she tried to explain.

"Yours, but not yours." If Trunks hadn't woken up with Pan in his bed followed by two children he can't remember having, he would have thought she had lost her mind. "Care to elaborate on that?" he asked sarcastically.

The blue-haired woman realized how confusing it must have sounded to him, but then again the entire situation was confusing for her as well. The man in front of her was not the boy she had raised. It was hi, but not completely. How did she explain this to him? Or to Pan? Tsuki? Akira?

She walked to where he was, handing him the papers she had just been reading. He took them from her and looked at them, not sure he was going to like what he was about to see. What he saw, he could not explain, not because he was in awe, but because he did not know what it ws he was looking at. This held the answers to this strange day; to why his life was suddenly perfect.

Flipping through the small pile, he noticed the stack of papers had lot of numbers and letters that he could not make any sense of. Page after page of some foreign language. As the president and owner of Capsule Corporation, he knew math and was used to things like this. He as used to technical skimatics, but these equations were foreign to him. Never in his life had he seen them.

Going back to the front page he saw a graph of several lines growing across the page. These lines seemed to have started from the same point, but gradually they broke apart from one another creating more lines; almost like thread pulled apart. Some separated from already separated parts, giving it a tree-like effect.

He wasn't sure what he was looking at.

"Would you mind explaining to me what it is I'm looking at?"

"These lines here," she began to explain, "are separated time lines."

"Separated time lines?"

"Yes, since Mirai Trunks came to us, I've been studying and matching the different timelines. When the lines pull apart is where, for whatever reason, something changed from the norm. Something happened that wasn't supposed to happen that created an alternate timeline."

"Could you make this any more confusing?" Trunks asked. His mind was going into overdrive trying to comprehend, but not able to wrap his brain around this.

She sighed as if it should have been the simplest thing in the world. "As an example, do you see this line?" she pointed to one of the lines, "If you follow it…" she broke off, running her finger along the line. A small thin line came from further along the line, looping around causing the line to break off. "This is where Mirai Trunks came from the future, hence the small line circling back. He changed the time line, so we broke off of the normal line." Just as she said, a line separated from it. A line came back from the same spot as before, from the future of the timeline, Mirai presumably that looped around to the past that broke off. Trunks assumed it was when his Mirai self came back to help with the androids.

"So this is our timeline," he said allowed, not really asking.

"Yes, and do you see what I'm talking about?"

He was confused for a moment before he saw it. This was more confusing then her explanation about the chart. Now this was the most confusing thing he had seen and just a moment ago he thought this chart lone was complicated. But now that he understood what this chart was, he could understand it. But this one small part baffled him.

After the loop made by his Mirai, the line continued as all the others but then it split again. This meant that the timeline split. Not only that, but those two lines seemed to be joined futher on by a small thin thread.

"What does this mean? That line between the two, what is it?"

"That is you," Bulma said.

"Me?"

"Yes, you. Someone after Mirai Trunks left, the timeline split again. This is my timeline," she said pointing to one of the lines, "and this is yours," she said pointing to the other. "And I don't know how, but you came here."

"So I'm not your son," he started this time. Now he understood. He was her son, just not the one she raised.

The knowledge set in for a minute through silence. This wasn't his reality, this wasn't his life, these weren't his children, Pan wasn't his wife. What changed? How did the life he lead turn into something as drastic as this? As happy as this?

"How did this happen," he voiced his concern.

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out how to got you back, so don't worry," she said, not knowing that wasn't what he was asking.

"You can't send me back now?"

"o, I don't have a time machine just laying around," she took the papers from him and put them back onto the computer to later study them some more.

"I thought you had made plans to build one."

Yes, plans. But I never actually built it. I never wanted anyone to get a hold of it. Who knows what could be done with it?"

"What if someone had gotten hold of the plans?"

"I keep those locked up so no one can get them. And if someone even did get a hold of them, "She said sitting back into her chair, "I doubt they would be able to understand what it is they're looking at."

"And how long is it going to take to build it?"

"I don't know," she sighed. "Some of it needs customized parts. It could take up to two years. If you help me along with it, it may take only six months."

"What a minute, you're saying I could be stuck here for a couple of years?"

"Let's hope not. You have your own life, and Trunks here has his own life."

"He could tell. The Trunks here seemed happy. How could he not be waking up next to Pan everyday. He even had children. More than likely he wasn't having an affair, he didn't spend so much time at work, he had fun, he had Pan.

All in all, he was going to be stuck here for awhile. He had better make himself at home in his home, in someone else's home.

"Hey, Mom?"

"Yes, Trunks?"

"Can we not tell anyone else about this?"

"Why not? Don't you think some people need to know?"

"No, I just don't want anyone else to worry is all." Bulma was silent for a moment thinking of all the negatives and positives, thinking which would out weight the others.

"Do you really think that you can keep it up for that long?" She was skeptic as he knew she would be.

"But I've already got one thing going for me."

"And what is that?" she raised an eyebrow.

"She already thinks I'm the same Trunks." Bulma didn't miss what he had said. She as in Pan. But she didn't want to mention anything. He was right through. Pan didn't need to worry so much, and she did believe he was her husband, just confused. He would need some help. Some serious help, but she could help him until he got used to everything. The only issue would be what they would do until then. Hopefully he would pick it up quickly.

"Okay, I will help you with what you need to know," she gave in.

He smirked. This was going to work.

Thank you all for reading. Please review.