Author's Note: I don't want to give away any spoilers so I'll make this short and sweet. Read, review, enjoy, and repeat when the next chapter comes out lol.
Two weeks had gone by without Cheena having a single nightmare or Kakarot having a single dream. Things seemed to be going well for everybody, but there was something right under the surface of Goten that seemed troubling. For the past two weeks Roza had noticed Goten seemed a lot more agitated and wouldn't eat as much as he used to. She also noticed he was reacting like he normally does to her romantic approaches. Finally one night after she had put Kakarot to bed and made sure he was asleep, she decided to ask him about what was going on. She found him downstairs in the kitchen getting a drink of water. To say the least he looked terrible. His eyes looked so tired and he had started to walk with a slump in his shoulders like he was too exhausted to even focus on walking.
"Goten, can we talk?" She asked nicely.
He sighed and sat at the table, lighting a candle so they could have a faint light in the dark room. "Sure, I might as well. What do you want to talk about?"
"About you." She responded, "There's something wrong with you and I want to know what. You look like you've been exhausted out of your mind the past couple of weeks."
"Its nothing Roza, don't worry." He tried to assure her.
"I'm your wife, Goten, of course I'm going to worry about you. Come on honey, I want my happy Goten back." She said.
Thinking he had put the conversation to rest Goten was starting to get annoyed, "I said don't worry about it. Now can I please try and go to bed?"
He started to walk out of the kitchen but Roza grabbed his wrist to stop him. That is when Goten got really mad, "I said drop it!" He yelled angrily at her.
She flinched and stepped back, shocked by his outburst, "I'm sorry…I just…I can't help it if I worry about you, that's what you do when you love someone."
"Oh blah blah blah, don't give me that lovey dovey nonsense." He sneered back at her.
If any other man besides her husband or her son had gotten smart like that to her, her saiyan attitude would have caused her to punch the hell out of them. But being talked this way by her husband who she knew she could never even think of laying a harmful finger on, all she could do was let the words escaping from his lips sting.
Goten quickly realized what he had done. He turned and looked at her with a look of shame in his eyes, "Roza, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled at you or said what I said. I've been having nightmares the past two weeks. You remember that nightmare I had a few years back about a lady in red that tried to seduce me and threatened Kakarot and you? Well I never told you this but I've had those nightmares off and on like maybe 10 times total in the last five years up until two weeks ago. I never thought much of those nightmares, I thought they were just silly nightmares just like any other nightmare, but I think there may be something more there."
Roza looked concerned, "What do you mean?"
Goten sat back down at the table and began to explain, "The past two weeks I've had nightmares about that lady every night, sometimes like 4 or 5 times a night. I've not been able to sleep peacefully for two weeks now. Roza I'm wondering, maybe the lady in red fairy tale isn't completely just a fairy tale, like you told me. What if it is some kind of symptom of a saiyan mental illness?"
Roza looked horrified, "I never thought of that. But that can't be, you don't have a mental illness."
"Roza, I was in prison for 15 years and life wasn't exactly easy for me. Maybe all of that stress has caused something inside of me to snap and maybe I developed a mental illness because of it." Goten explained.
Roza looked down in shame, "Even today I'm still hurting you. Goten…I'm sorry. If you're right about this, then that means its my fault you're having these nightmares."
Goten stood up and hugged his mate close, "I didn't mean it like that. Roza, you know I forgave you already. Honey, we're married, we have a child together, I'm not mad at you anymore. Please don't start beating yourself up…you know I…I…" He began to look dizzy.
"Goten?" She looked at him curiously.
Suddenly he started to fall but Roza caught him, "Maybe you'll be able to sleep well tonight."
She carried her sleeping husband up to their bedroom and laid him under the sheets. As she was putting her gown on she watched Goten carefully and wondered if he would have another nightmare tonight. That is when she got an idea.
"Bulma is extremely smart. I bet she could figure out what is causing Goten to have these nightmares. I think I'll go see her tomorrow." Roza told herself as she slid into bed next to her already sleeping husband.
The night was not going to be as peaceful as Roza had hoped. Less than 2 hours after she had fallen asleep, she was awoken by the painful moans of Goten. Roza quickly turned the desk lamp on and looked at Goten still asleep but clenching at the middle of his chest in pain. Then she saw something troubling, he was bleeding in the exact spot he was clenching.
"Goten! Goten wake up!" She shook him.
Goten eyes jolted open and he sat up breathing hard and sweating, "Oh my God, that felt real."
"The lady in red again?" Roza asked worriedly.
Goten nodded and Roza pointed to his chest, "Honey….I think that was real."
Goten looked down and saw the blood seeping through his white loose t-shirt. He quickly pulled his shirt off and there carved into his chest was a large "W".
"Its just like my nightmare. She carved this in my nightmare. You mean….she's real?" Goten was so confused about this.
"Goten…we need to talk to Bulma about this. She can figure out what is causing this, right? I mean, what if this lady in red can get into other people's dreams? What if she could hurt Kakarot?" Roza thought about going to get her son because right now she really wanted to hold him and make sure he was safe, but she knew she was probably worrying too much about him, he would come to get her if anything was wrong.
Goten nodded, "You're right, we need to get this figured out tomorrow."
Goten was caught by surprise when Roza leaned down her head and began licking his wound, "Roza…what are you doing?"
Roza pulled back from his wound and blushed, "I'm sorry…it's a saiyan instinct. Call it primitive but saiyans never did move away from such simplistic medical practices such as licking a wound, even though we had advance technologies like the healing tanks or spaceships."
Goten blushed, "Its okay…Its kind of soothing actually."
Roza nuzzled her head against his chest and continue licking the wound.
Goten could swear her heard a voice faintly whisper, "What disgusting creatures."
"Did you hear that?" Goten asked.
"Hear what?" Roza questioned curiously.
"I guess I'm just so over stressed I'm hearing things." Goten laid back and tried to relax.
Roza kissed his chin, "If you can't get back to sleep then how about a nice warm bath to get you to relax?"
Goten smiled, "That sounds really nice, if you would be so kind to join me, my beautiful wife."
Roza smiled and stroked his hair, "Sounds fun."
In the house next door a similar set of circumstances was about to transpire only an hour later.
"Daddy…Mommy…" Cheena frightfully said as she stepped into her parents' room.
Gohan and Videl both awoke to the sound of their child's frightened voice, "Baby, what is it? Another nightmare?" Gohan asked and invited her to jump into the bed so he could comfort her.
Cheena crawled into the bed and cuddled up into her dad's arms with her mother brushing the hair out of her eyes, "Sweetheart what happened?" Videl asked sweetly.
Cheena showed them her arm and said, "The mean lady in red did this to me."
Videl and Gohan looked shocked. Carved into her arm was a "W". Videl was shocked, she knew her daughter had not done this to herself. A five year old would never think of doing this, plus Cheena got plenty of love and attention so she was trying to get more attention. Both parents knew their daughter was telling the truth, the lady in red must be real.
"Cheena, come with mommy and let me disinfect and clean that wound, okay? Then your going to sleep with mommy and daddy tonight." Videl told her kindly.
Cheena was so relieved, if the lady in red did try and hurt her again then her mom and dad would be right there to help her.
Videl looked at Gohan and whispered, "Tomorrow we are going to figure out what is going on."
Gohan nodded, "Bulma will know what to do."
Cheena looked at her parents and said, "Kakarot has seen the lady in red too."
Gohan's eyes widened, "What? Really?"
"Uh Uh." Cheena replied.
Videl took Cheena to the bathroom to clean her wound. Gohan stood up and looked out his bedroom window, "How can two people dream about the exact same thing? Wait, I wonder if Kakarot has been attacked tonight as well. I hate to wake Goten, but this is important."
Gohan picked up his phone and called his brother. Goten and Roza were just getting out of the bath when the phone rang. "I'll get it." Goten said and went into the bedroom to pick up the phone.
"Hello?" Goten said.
"Goten, I'm sorry to wake you." Gohan apologized.
Goten smiled, "Oh don't worry, Roza and I were already awake. What's wrong, bro?"
Gohan felt stupid for asking such an out of this world question but this was important, "Has Kakarot been okay? He's not been attacked or anything has he?"
Goten was puzzled, "No…why?"
Gohan explained what had happened to Cheena and Goten nearly dropped the phone, "So Cheena has been seeing a lady in red and was attacked by her? And she says that Kakarot has had dreams about the lady in red too? Well I do vaguely remember him bring up something about an imaginary friend in red a couple of years ago. Gohan, was the wound in the shape of a W?" Goten questioned.
"Yeah, how did you know?" Gohan questioned.
"Because the same thing happened to me. I've had nightmares about the lady in red too, and she carved a W on my chest tonight too." Goten explained.
Gohan was really confused now, "What in the world is going on?"
"I can't say for sure, but we know its not good. Roza wants us to go see Bulma tomorrow to see what she can figure out about this." Goten told him.
"Yeah, Videl suggested the same thing and Kakarot should get checked out too." Gohan said.
"I agree. We'll get together in the morning. Lets try to have as good of a night as we can." Goten said before he hung the phone up.
The next morning Goten and Gohan explained the situation to Goku and Chi-Chi and the Son family went to Capsule Corporation. They explained everything to Bulma and Vegeta immediately became interested.
"The lady in red? That was supposed to be some silly saiyan fairy tale that parents told their kids on Planet Vegeta to get them to behave. How in the world can some silly story be real?" Vegeta wondered out loud.
"Well we wont know for sure what is going on until we do a brain scan. So if you don't mind Cheena, Goten, Kakarot, jump up onto the scanners and we'll take a look." Bulma asked.
The three saiyans did just as she said and after about 15 minutes of scanning them Bulma had the results, "Well the kids are absolutely normally, but Goten your brain is a little out of whack but that is probably due to the exhaustion you've been experiencing, not too mention you've not exactly had it easy in life."
"So what does this mean, Bulma?" Videl asked.
Bulma looked at her and answered, "Well the good news is that they are fine mentally from what I can see, but I want to do a couple of more test. I'm going to induce them into sleep and monitor their brains as they sleep, I want to see what changes when they have a dream, hopefully they'll have a dream about the lady in red. Then I'm going to wake up and induce sleep again but the second time I'll tweak it to where they'll have more control in the dream and maybe they can get some answers out of this lady in red that way."
Cheena looked nervous, she didn't want to confront that horrible witch again. Kakarot took notice of her fear and tried to comfort her.
"Cheena, its okay. If anything starts to go wrong then Bulma can wake you up, right Bulma?" Kakarot asked.
Bulma nodded, "Of course, I'm not going to put any of you in danger."
Cheena nodded, "Okay, I can do this."
Kakarot smiled, "After we're done we might never have to worry about that mean old red hag again. Just remember that."
"Thanks Kakarot." Cheena said as she laid back.
Once the three saiyans were laid back Bulma flipped a switch which released a small amount of a gas that caused them to peacefully fall asleep.
Bulma sighed in anticipation, "Lets hope this goes well."
"Good luck you three." Roza thought to herself.