An Eight Ball of Answers

Trunks slept on the couch. He didn't really sleep, but stared at the ceiling. His bed was too big without Pan. And if she came back, he wanted to be there when she walked through that door. He wanted to hold her in his arms, smell the scent of her hair, and kiss her all over.

He missed her. She sent him a text message and told him that she was staying at a hotel. He could find that hotel and apologize. But did she want him to? What was he supposed to do? Would someone please just tell him what he was supposed to do? Why was being in love so hard? There was no doubt, he loved Pan; he loved her so much it sometime felt like it hurt more than helped. Why didn't his parents tell him being in love was so painful? If he had known this is what it would feel like, maybe he would've never made the decision to fall in love.

But then again, he never really decided to fall in love. He never decided to fall in love with Pan. It just…happened.

Pan had rented a hotel room. She didn't want to go to Goten's and Marron's and be a bother, and it was a little late to go by Bra's. And her parents were out of the question. Showing up on their doorstep in the middle of the night and trying to explain the situation. Yeah, that would go over quite well…

Hey Mom, Dad, I bet you're wondering what I'm doing here. Well, I was thinking that maybe being with Trunks wasn't a good idea. I mean, yeah, I'm carrying his children, but is that really what's best? So, I decided to see if being away from him would be better. Got anything salty to eat?

Pan didn't like the way her brain summarized what would happen. Most scenarios included her father going berserk and looking for Trunks on a murderous rampage. Gohan angry! Gohan smash!

She missed him so much. Should she go back? She still had time. She could still get in her car and drive back. She had the key. And he would want her back, right? Right, of course he would. He loved her. She loved him…right? Right, of course.

Then why did she feel that leaving was best? Why did she decide to go if she loved him?

Was it because she loved him? She didn't want to hurt him. But was she hurting him by leaving? Was she doing the wrong thing right now? Women would kill to have a man like Trunks love them. They would give up anything to be as happy as he could make them. Then why? Why wasn't Pan satisfied? Was she that selfish that she would never be happy with her own life?

Her mind kept going in circles. She laid in the hotel bed with stiff sheets and comforters, on top of a mattress that was lumpy. It had an odd smell of cheap detergent.

Inside her belly, the babies kicked and squirmed. She put her hand over them, trying to soothe them to sleep. They knew something was wrong. They couldn't feel their daddy. 'Where was Daddy?' they wanted to know.

Would someone please tell her what she was supposed to do? Would someone please hand her a list of rules and steps she was supposed to follow? It seemed that she had been going the wrong way, but she didn't know how to get back on the right road. Would someone please explain to her what she needed to do?

However, there was no all-knowing voice that came. There was no angel that swooped down to show her what would have happened if she didn't do this or that. Nothing she had seen in the movies. There wasn't even a sign.

Then she remembered something that would at least give an answer to her. It was cheap and childish, but it was better than nothing. She put on her sweater and opened the door. The hotel was far from fancy. You open the front door and you were in the parking lot. She crossed over to her car, the icy winds of winter bit at her face. She climbed inside and got behind the wheel. She searched around the passenger seat the reason she came out in the cold.

A Magic Eight-Ball.

She took a deep breath. "Should Trunks and I be together?" She shook it.

No way! It read. Pan stared at it. How blunt and negative. Well, one more question wouldn't hurt. It was just a toy.

"Should I go back to New York?" she asked again while shaking it.

Ask again later.

"Son of a bitch," Pan hissed at it, "Will Trunks and I be happy together?"

No way!

Pan pursed her lips together and wrinkled her brow. "Do you have any testicles?"

My sources say no. Crap, it tells the truth.

Pan glared at it. "What do you know? You're just a ball with a floating dice with answers on it in a dyed liquid. Are you really supposed to show me my destiny?"

Definitely.

Now it was getting scary.

"Should…" Pan thought about something random, pulling something out of the top of her head. She was hungry. "…I go out for pizza?"

Yes.

"You're scary, and I'm crazy for talking to myself." Yet, she started up the car and pulled out of the parking lot. A light drizzle began to fall, rain mixed with slush. Winter was definitely coming and snow would be here soon.

On the way, she called the pizza place for a carry-out order. She put gas in her car and drove to the pizza place where she ordered a large hand-tossed with everything on it. She ate it in the car, still seeking answers from the Magic Eight-Ball.

"Will I be pregnant forever?"

Outlook not so good.

"I hate you." She shook it angrily. "Should Trunks and I be together! Tell the truth, dammit!"

Ask again later.

There was a tapping on her window, which caused Pan to jump. Her first thought was the owner of the pizza place was going to ask her to leave because there was no loitering allowed, but it wasn't. It was Uub, wearing earmuffs and a thick green scarf that matched his turtleneck.

Pan rolled down the window. Uub's breath was visible in the cold. "What are you doing here by yourself?" he asked.

"Eating pizza and getting my fortune told," Pan held up the Eight-Ball, "Care to join me?"

Uub walked around and opened the passenger door and sat in the seat. He took off his gloves and breathed into his hands to warm them. "So why are you asking questions to the almighty Eight-Ball?"

Pan shook it. "Trunks and I had a fight. I'm trying to figure out if we should be together." Outlook not so good. "It keeps giving me the wrong answer."

Uub picked up a slice and took a big bite out of it. "What does it keep telling you?"

Pan said and leaned her head against the window. "That I shouldn't be with him."

"Did you ask the testicle question?"

"Yes, and it said no."

Pan and the Eight-Ball stared at each other. The sideways eight was another pair of eyes.

Uub took it from her. "If you said it told you the wrong answer, wouldn't that mean that you know the right answer?" Pan looked up to him. "I'm guessing you ask it the same question over and over, don't you? You're hoping to get the answer you want to satisfy yourself."

Pan looked out the window. The rain had turned to snow. It was lightly falling, turning everything gray. "Maybe I am. Who knows?"

Uub gave her a smile. "Pan, couples fight. It's what they do."

"But what if we're not meant to be together, Uub?" Pan looked at him, her chocolate eyes gloomy, "What if it's just not meant to be? What if it's not love?"

"Pan," Uub reached across and patted her hand, "What is love to you?"

Pan licked her lips. "I…I don't really know."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps, love is sitting in the parking lot in the snow with an Eight-Ball, asking the same question over and over about someone hoping to get a yes answer."

Pan smiled. "I guess you're right."

"I'm always right," he said. He opened the door and setting his foot out but not quite leaving, "You're wanting to see fireworks, but your not facing the party. They're going off all around you, but your only hearing the bang." Pan blinked at him, not quite understanding the metaphor. Uub stepped out and shut the door, but he leaned into the window. Pan pushed the button to roll it down. "By the way, that thing is a lie. Ricky Martin has nothing on the sexiness of Enrique Iglesias." He snapped his fingers and walked off to his car, shaking his hips.

Pan laughed and drove off. Uub's metaphor still replayed in her mind. Was she really avoiding the fireworks?

She came to a red light. The Eight-Ball was staring at her. She reached over and picked it up. One last question. Just one last. Whatever it said, she would do.

"Should I go back to Trunks?" She shook it hard.

She bit her lip. She looked down at her swollen abdomen. The Eight-Ball was staring at her, tempting her to see the answer.

She rolled down the window and dropped the toy outside in the snow.

Trunks had been pacing back and forth to and from different rooms, checking the different phones to see if perhaps Pan had called. He tried calling her earlier, but she didn't answer. Perhaps she didn't want to talk to him.

Before he wore out the carpet, he decided to sit down on the couch. He was worried so much about Pan. Was she okay?

This is Pan. She's not afraid of anything.

He propped his feet on the table and turned on the television. Flashing across the screen were the bold words of "Thunder Storm Warning".

Except that.

Trunks jumped out the door and flew out the door.

Pan drove her car further down the road. Rain tapped hard against her hood, but her mind was too spun around Trunks to take notice of it. Perhaps Uub was right; however, what if the Eight Ball had actually been a significant sign? What if she had gotten the right answer but didn't want it to be so? Which then brought her back to what Uub had said; did she want only the answer she wanted, and if so, then didn't she already know the answer.

Urgh, she felt like she was back in philosophy class. Question: why? Answer: why not? It just ended in a question. Pan liked hard, stone facts. Facts were things that no matter how much you said otherwise, it was still true and factual. Oh, how she wished love was a mathematical process with a simple solution.

Pan sighed. Why couldn't life have a manual or a to-do list?

She traveled down the familiar road and stopped at the gate to Trunks' estate. What was the code again? Oh-three-two-eight? Or eight-two-three-oh? She leaned out the window to see the keypad. She reached out to it, but suspended her hand in thought.

In her peripheral vision, she saw a figure drop down from the sky behind her vehicle. She turned her head to see whom it was. A flash of lightning lit up the sky and illuminated the person's silhouette. Pan let out a high pitch screech, very unlike herself.

"Pan?" the figure called out, then stepped up to her car.

Pan narrowed her eyes to get a good look at the person. "Trunks? What are you doing out here in the rain?"

Trunks came up to the car. His lilac hair stuck to his face and he was completely soaked. "I came out looking for you! It's a thunder storm, didn't you notice?"

Pan blinked slowly. "A thunderstorm?" To answer her, there was another clap of thunder, followed by a flash of lightning. Her eyes widened. How could she have missed that?

"Let's go inside," Trunks said, as he punched in the code; which turned out to actually be three-seven-four-one.

"So an Eight Ball said you shouldn't be with me?" Trunks asked, towel drying his hair. He had changed his clothes and was wearing a long dark robe.

Pan had also changed into her pajamas and was sitting on the edge of their bed. "Yeah, but I don't think it was telling the truth."

"Did you ask the testicle question?"

Pan pulled at a loose thread. "Yeah, and it said it didn't."

Trunks put the towel over his shoulder. "And what are you going to do?"

She didn't look at him, but continued to pull at the thread. "I want…to be with you."

He sat down on the bed next to her. "Then stay with me. In case you forgot, we are going to have a family. I think we should have that family together."

She looked at him. "Have you ever asked yourself if you were doing the right thing?"

"All the time," he answered. Then his sapphire eyes softened, "Do you feel like you're making a mistake?"

It was something about his eyes that kept her looking into them. "Are we only together because I'm pregnant, or are we really in love?"

Trunks' eyes followed Pan's hand to the loose thread, and he yanked it off. "I'd like to think so."

"But how are you really sure? I mean…"

He cut her off by taking her chin in his thumb and index and then pressed their lips together. Another thing about him, his kisses made her spine tingle.

He pulled back and looked at her through those magnificent blue eyes. "I just do."

Pan kept staring at him. Was this what love was? Just knowing? It didn't sound so bad.

She grabbed his shoulders, looking him straight in the eye. "Let's get married."

Trunks' eyes became round. "M-Married? So soon?"

Pan narrowed her eyes. "If we're so in love with each other, then marriage should be perfect for us, right? And if I'm going to have your children, I think it would be best to get married."

Color drained from Trunks' face. "Y-You want to get married? Now?"

Pan gave him a cold glare. "What, do you not want to?"

"It-It's not that I don't want to…" Trunks rubbed the back of his head.

Pan narrowed her eyes. "But…?"

"Well, since Goten already popped the question to Marron," he said, "it would be like stealing their thunder if we get married now."

Pan stared at him. Her face stoic. "They're engaged?"

He gave her a puzzled look. "Yeah, didn't she tell you?"

She grabbed him by the front of his robes. Her hormones raged inside her at the news. "NO! That bitch never told me!"

"Uh…"

Pan pushed him away and stomped to the bathroom, then slammed the door shut behind her. Trunks' shoulders sagged as he let out a long sigh.

"Just when things were finally getting better…"

(A/N): I honestly, truly hate this chapter. My first time with this messed it up. Hopefully this will be better now. stabs chapter with a spork