Disclaimer: I own nothing except the pic used, though I don't own the characters.

Surviving History

AN: Wow guys. Let me just say, I had NO intention to leave this story hanging for 7 months! Hopefully you haven't given up on me completely! Anyway, I'm finding everyone's response to Rink's uncertain fate really amusing. Thankfully, all your doubts and speculations will be answered in this chapter. Enjoy!

Chapter Twenty Eight – Hard Truth


Waking from a light sleep, Trunks turned over in bed and waited quietly for a moment, wondering what had woken him. Glancing to one side, he could tell by her rhythmical breathing that Pan was in a much deeper sleep than he himself had been prior.

After returning from their "date" some hours earlier and finding the guest room without much difficulty, they had both practically collapsed from exhaustion on the only bed provided. As they snuggled and dozed together before sleep, it had occurred to them that they hadn't really had a chance to truly rest since before their Dragon Ball hunt on Namek.

Trunks was relieved to finally have the chance to relax, even if their mode of transport back home was in question, he had no doubts that his mother of this dimension would detect the problem and resolve it promptly; she was a genius, after all...

As if his thoughts had summoned her, Trunks sat up at the sound of Bulma's hushed voice on the other side of the door. He couldn't make out her words, but he assumed she was talking to Rink as she gave a light rap on the door. It's unlocked, he wanted to call out but didn't want to wake Pan. Instead, he got out of bed and went to open the door, still dressed in his maintenance outfit since neither he nor Pan bothered to change into any sleepwear provided. As it was, he could practically hear the bed beckoning for him to return; this whole ordeal was finally taking its toll and it seemed like more than anything, he just wanted more sleep.

After pressing the glowing green access button on the wall, the door opened with a snap-hiss and his would-be-mother stood there with Rink beside her. "Sorry if we woke you," the blue haired woman said sheepishly. "But Rink insisted. I think she had a nightmare but she won't talk about it."

Yawning, Trunks blinked blearily down at Rink to see her clutching at her monkey plushie and anxiously looking from him, to the bed across the room where Pan was still asleep, and back again. Sighing both out of annoyance and resignation, he nodded and waved the child inside. Rink however, didn't budge from her spot beside Bulma and instead reached out a timid hand, once again palm up to him.

Rolling his eyes and stifling an impatient grumble, Trunks knelt down in front of her and tried to keep his voice as quiet as possible. "Come on Rink, we're way past this ritual by now. Just go on in already." Trunks was trying to be patient, he really was, but he was feeling excessively tired, and grouchy and somehow cheated. It didn't seem fair to him that he should be expected to play the role of a parent when he and Pan weren't even married yet, and that was besides the fact that he didn't feel even remotely qualified for the task of fatherhood...

When Rink didn't budge, but instead averted her eyes in response to his irritation, Trunks whined and turned up a pathetic expression to his alternate mother, who simply snickered softly. "There's no way around it, I'm afraid," she told him. "I think she sees the room as your territory, and therefore won't enter without your explicate permission." Tipping her head thoughtfully, she frowned down at the eager child. "She must have had a rough life back on the Saiyan planet." Trunks didn't miss her choice of wording in that she avoided saying Vegeta, even if it was just a reference to a planet, mentioning the name probably caused a pang of sorrow for her.

"I'm starting to think she was picked on simply for looking around without permission," Trunks said bitterly. Turning a gentle, though tired smile down at Rink, he nodded and ran his hand over hers, granting admittance. "Be quiet Rink. Pan's still asleep."

Beaming up at him, Rink nodded her understanding and happily trotted across the room to the bed. Trunks moved to follow but Bulma's voice made him turn back curiously, though he already knew what she was about to ask upon seeing her hopeful expression. "I don't suppose you two would be willing to leave her-"

"Hero already asked us," Trunks cut her off and turned away with a sigh. "Pan said no."

There was an amused tone in his alternate mother's voice as she replied, "and what did you say?"

Halting mid-stride, Trunks glanced sidelong at her. The woman had a point, but there was much more to the situation than she obviously thought. "Nothing." He continued toward the bed but before the door hissed shut between them, he added quietly, "yet."

Frowning, he tried to push the conversation out of his head. For whatever reason, the subject made him feel uneasy and he simply didn't want to deal with it.

Reaching the bedside, he regarded a frustrated Rink as she struggled to "quietly" find a place to settle on the bed. Thankfully it was a rather large bed and most of her movements went unnoticed by Pan, who was somehow still asleep through all the commotion. She did, however, grimace, grumble and turn over, but never woke fully.

Unfortunately for both Trunks and Rink, Pan had unwittingly turned away from them, which was going to make the next few moments extremely awkward. Trunks barely managed to resist a groan before leaning over to lift Rink with one arm and rearranging the blankets with the other. After somehow getting both the child and himself settled in bed without disturbing Pan, there remained only one lingering dilemma.

Reassurance.

Trunks laid on his back and sighed tiredly as he stared at the ceiling but was all too aware of Rink's nervous fidgeting in his peripheral as she looked from him, to Pan, and back again. The girl knew she wasn't supposed to bother her sleeping guardian, but she still wasn't exactly comfortable with him enough to seek comfort. Put simply, although she was right where she wanted to be, safely wedged in between her two guardians, she still wasn't happy.

The notion of letting her deal with her problem all night crossed his mind, but it didn't take long for the guilt to run its course before his resolve buckled and, with a stifled grumble, turned onto his side to face her.

Anxious, Rink met his annoyed gaze in the darkness and hesitated a moment after he lifted his arm as an unspoken, open invitation. Trunks was breaking his own rule by coddling her, but he knew doing so would be the only way he'd get any more sleep, and that currently took priority on his list.

The tense moment seemed to pass as Rink took one last, hopeful glance at Pan, still fast asleep, before finally taking the only other option open to her and sidling up to Trunks, who then encased her protectively, monkey plushie and all.

Knowing well how frightening bad dreams could be at her age, Trunks concluded that a few encouraging words wouldn't hurt, anything if it meant getting to sleep faster. "No more nightmares Rink. We're here," he murmured and gave her head a comforting pat.

Rink made a tiny sound of contentment as she settled into his embrace, and Trunks didn't resist the smile that tugged at his mouth. For a brief moment before lapsing back into a peaceful sleep, he allowed himself the delusion that perhaps acting out a father's role wouldn't be as hard as he had fabricated it to be.


Trunks woke the next morning to a thoroughly numb sensation in one arm and a dull glare shining through the room's windows. Blinking against the harsh, pale rays, he could see that sometime during the night his bed-mates had shifted positions. Where Rink had initially been huddled up to his torso, she had switched targets and was nestled into Pan's embrace, who had turned over to oblige at some point.

Trunks might have smiled at the scene, since they were both still sound asleep and downright adorable in that instant, but he couldn't feel his arm anymore and he winced as he attempted to reclaim it from under Pan's head without disturbing her.

After making a successful escape from the bed and its occupants, with Pan only shifting slightly and mumbling something incoherent in response to his sudden absence, Trunks left the two to their slumber and quietly left the room in order to find his mother.

He felt he had been fairly patient up to this point, but now it was time to get some answers. Rest and recreation was fine and all, but he was ready to go home. He missed his real mother, his sister, Goten, and although he didn't care to talk to his father, just... knowing he was around would be a passive comfort. This alternate-dimension with all of its missing pieces... It felt so wrong, so empty and scattered.

Granted, Trunks felt bad for Hero and his mother, but after thinking it over, there was just nothing he could do for them at this point. Without the Dragon Balls, there just wasn't any redo-button to fix things.

Shaking his head with a dismal sigh, he made his way down the various halls of the complex, noting idly how cold it was compared to the bedroom. In fact, he could see his breath fog in front of him as he made a short bathroom detour and then navigated towards Bulma's workshop. Upon entering the buzzing workplace that smelled of oil and charred metal, Trunks honed in on a large computer terminal, where his alternate mother could be seen studying charts and gauges, tapping keys on the interface with one hand while her other held a steaming mug of liquid, presumably coffee.

"Any luck?" Trunks asked as he approached from the doorway and noted how their time machine was perched on a raised pedestal and was hooked up to all manner of wires, hoses and maintenance equipment.

Bulma tipped her head in his direction with a frown and yawn. "Well, I have a theory, but nothing conclusive yet. Grab some caffeine and have a seat," she told him and gestured to a nearby counter equipped with a coffee station. "We have a few things to discuss."

From the sound of her tone, things didn't exactly sound good. Trunks didn't presume to know this version of his mother perfectly, though he knew his mother well enough to pick up on the mannerisms that they so obviously shared.

"Things are that bad?" Trunks replied with a wry smile and poured himself a mug of the dark liquid. "Why am I not surprised?"

Bulma didn't reply as Trunks took a seat beside her. "I ran all the diagnostics and everything's come back clean. You said Porunga repaired it to its original condition? Well, its true, he did. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it. Which leads me to believe there's an external force at play here."

"External force?" Trunks repeated with a frown, a bad feeling crawling up his spine. "Like what?"

Bulma shrugged. "It could be any number of things. An imbalance in the flow of time, an equation in the system could be slightly off, or maybe your dimension doesn't even exist anymore..."

Trunks glared at her with that last comment. "Don't even joke about that."

"Who's joking?" the woman shrugged again, as if the thought of such tragedy didn't phase her much anymore. "At any rate, my guess is that all of you're time-hopping has probably caused a slight rift in the flow of time, so it might help if you just let things settle for awhile until they balance themselves out."

"Balance," Trunks repeated and blinked at her, his mind whirling. "For every imbalance, there is an equalizing."

"Say what now?" Bulma questioned with a quirk of a brow.

"Porunga," Trunks explained as a new theory suddenly clicked in his mind. "He was looking at Rink when he said that." It was Bulma's turn to blink at him as she glanced from the terminal and back, her own mind putting the pieces together. "Could Rink be that external force?"

"I guess it's possible," Bulma said with a contemplative tip of her head. "It shouldn't really matter if you're taking her back home with you, but then again, there's still so much about time travel that we don't understand."

Trunks nodded in silent agreement. That was certainly how he felt about time travel and if he ever got back home, he was determined to discuss with his true mother that the time machine and any further development of it should be locked away in the deepest vault they had.

"You know," Bulma started, uncharacteristically hesitant as she broke him away from his thoughts. "Rink would be well cared for here, if you have to leave her with us, that is."

"That's-" Trunks felt his words hitch in his throat as his heart-rate thundered into a gallop, perplexing him. He honestly couldn't explain why he suddenly felt so anxious by the mere suggestion that they might be forced to leave Rink behind. Before, when Hero had proposed the idea, the prospect actually sounded beneficial, for all parties. But now, knowing that they might not even have a choice in the matter, it made him feel frustrated.

Trunks liked to be in control of his life, granted most people did, but he felt he was an extreme case.

Whether it was piloting a ship, choosing between his unappealing career as CC. President or his hobby as CC. Mechanical designer, or even to his relationship with Pan, he had the undeniable need to make precise, logical judgments. Although if he thought about it too long he would probably realize just how illogical courting Pan really was. She was chaotic and biased with her decisions, often leaving out precision and logic altogether.

But then again, maybe that's why he loved her so much. Despite having opposing outlooks, and often arguing about them, in the end they always seemed to balance each other out.

At any rate, Trunks didn't appreciated the fact that such formless entities like time and space were going to dictate what he was or wasn't going to do.

Graciously, Bulma had allowed him a few moments to come to terms with the situation, speaking again only when Pan and Rink appeared from the workshop entrance. "It's your decision in the end. Just remember, if you do try to take Rink with you, there's no telling how many different dimensions you'll land in, and you may never find another hospitable place to leave her."

Trunks gave her a silent, disheartened nod but tried to mask his mood when Pan drew beside him with a yawn. "When's breakfast around here?" She seemed completely oblivious to the dire conversation, too groggy from sleep to pick up on all the subtle nuances.

Rink was just as delirious, standing at Pan's hip and curiously looking around at all the foreign machinery in the area. A sudden, excited bark drew her attention to the entrance where Hero and Duke appeared. The dog quickly lopped over to give the child a morning greeting of licks and she let out a happy squeal in response.

"Perfect timing Hero," Bulma said. "Would you take everyone outside for awhile? Pan and Trunks have something to discuss and apparently I have breakfast to make."

"We do?" Pan wondered as she gave Trunks a quizzical look.

"Er, well," Trunks muttered awkwardly as he gave his alternate mother a dirty look. Right under the bus, thanks a lot Mom.

The blue haired woman merely turned to leave and waved a hand at him, as if to reply, anytime Son.

As if picking up on the tension in the room, Hero cut in with a dose of enthusiasm in his voice. "That's a great idea Mom. Rink's probably never seen snow before."

"Snow?" Pan repeated, suddenly distracted with excitement, and reminding Trunks of a cat with a ball of yarn. "I wondered why it was so cold this morning."

Trunks gave a silent sigh of relief. He was extremely grateful for Hero's distraction, because he wasn't looking forward to this discussion at all, and the proper timing and setting would be important. He knew that if he'd had such a hard time accepting the bad news, Pan was going to take it ten times harder.


Outside, with the sunlight glaring down through a pale, overcast sky, Trunks sat on a bench inside the Capsule Corp. fenced premises. Every square inch of the area was covered in a foot of white powder, and as it turned out, Hero had been right about Rink never encountering the cold substance before.

At first sight, the girl froze and stood stalk still, the blinding whiteness no doubt overwhelming her. It wasn't until Pan and Duke launched into the powdery mayhem with exuberant barking and whooping that Rink overcame her hesitance and followed after them. The temptation to play in a new environment was too great to resist, it seemed.

Hero even got in on the fun and began to teach Rink how to build a snowman. Of course, Duke was helping too, by retrieving as many sticks and rocks as he could find.

Trunks remained where he was, a "party pooper", as Pan had so aptly put it. He didn't care though. Not when he had more pressing matters on his mind, like trying to put his thoughts together in order to break the news to her with the least amount of drama as possible.

He still wasn't sure how to go about that when the quarter Saiyan crunched over the snow towards him and sat down beside him, the gaze she fixed on him was somehow both suspicious and concerned at the same time. "Either something's bothering you or you're thinking again," Pan intoned with a wry grin. "I'm not sure which has me more worried."

"Ha-ha," Trunks returned flippantly, narrowed his eyes at her and glanced away long enough for the sarcasm to die. "It's a bit of both, I guess."

"That's even worse," she joked and leaned against his shoulder to watch the others continue with their snowman construction.

"Pan, look," Trunks sighed out, already getting exasperated with the conversation. "What would you say if, hypothetically, we decided to leave Rink here with Hero and his mother?"

Pan's expression sobered in that instant, and she frowned as she repeated with a touch of derision, "hypothetically?" She leaned away from him and began to fidget anxiously at the extra coat she had on. "Why are you asking that? I already told you, I don't want to leave Rink behind."

"I know," Trunks sighed out again and he couldn't bring himself to meet her piercing gaze. "I know you don't want to leave her, Pan, but there's a chance we might have to, if we ever want to make it back home."

"What?" Turning to face him directly, Pan grabbed at his arm to convey her explicit attention. "Trunks, what are you talking about?"

Trunks glanced to see Pan's worried expression and suddenly felt his throat constrict with heartache, knowing well how the truth was going to hurt her. "There's nothing wrong with the time machine, Pan." He swallowed, his voice shaky as he fought to finish his answer. "I think I understand what Porunga was warning us about."

Hesitating a moment, Trunks found the courage to look at her straight on, and she simply stared back, dark eyes intent and focused, eagerly awaiting his explanation. "We were never meant to take Rink back home with us, and I think that if you took a close look, you'd see we were brought here for a reason." He gestured for her to shift her attention back out to the yard, where the sounds of an ensuing snowball fight could be heard.

Pan's sad expression deepened and she seemed about to retort with a scathing reply but instead clamped her jaw stubbornly and tore her gaze away from him. Trunks didn't miss the watery sheen in her eyes as she watched Rink's oblivious antics in the snow.

Hero was attempting to teach the child the ways of snowball fighting, but when she launched an impromptu projectile which landed squarely with his head, he went down with a dramatic crash. When Rink worriedly crept close to check on his unmoving form, he humored her and explained that he was "dead" and therefore had to remain inactive for five minutes. Rink however didn't seem to comprehend the concept and insisted the game resume immediately.

Despite his unwilling efforts, Trunks could only look on and see how easily Hero took to fathering the child than he himself had. In fact, it was as if the universe itself was offering a sign, although Trunks wouldn't put it past Pan to defy such impossible powers.

He was genuinely surprised when Pan sighed and turned back to him, a defeated look in her eyes and a ragged hitch in her voice. "I guess, if we have to leave her somewhere, leaving her with you from another dimension would be my first choice."


AN: Only two chapters left, guys. I'll try to update next week, but it depends how fast I can finish ch29.

Next Chapter: He gave Pan a meaningful look, one that they both knew she couldn't misinterpret.