Chapter 9
It wasn't surprising that the first thing Mei wanted to do was to walk over and check on Trunks. She knelt down at the boy's side, and placed her hand lightly on his brow. Her eyes were troubled as she withdrew her hand, bringing it to her chest. "He can't stay down here. The chill in the air is bad enough..." her nose was wrinkled up again as she glared at Vegeta to the right of her.
"I'm NOT moving him again, woman." he snapped at her, crossing his arms as he still leaned against the right side of the door way to the cantina. "He is a Seiyajiin, stronger than you think. Just deal with him the best you can."
Mei stood to her feet abruptly, her hands into fists at her sides. "You have GOT to be kidding me! All that crap you've put in him, not knowing what I've already gave him? I don't even know what it WAS that you GAVE him! And you want ME to just rely on the simple fact of what ancestry he is?" She was almost shaking with anger at Vegeta, literally fuming from what I could tell. "The first I've ever heard of your race was from Haido! And even then I know NOTHING other than the fact that you need twice the amount of anything medically, for the majority of the time! You've taken him into space too soon, and he's already sick!"
Vegeta almost looked out right shocked that this tiny lady was almost screaming at him, but stood his ground. "Do what you can, as it is. The boy stays..." he coldly stared back at her, and Mei gave out a slight sigh in defeat.
"Fine, but you're helping me!" She huffed as she walked away from the pair and made her way into the infirmary. I could hear her rustling about in there, opening and closing cabinets undoubtedly. Suddenly her head popped out into the door way, eyeing Trunks again for some reason. With a scoff she disappeared again, and more movement was heard from inside the room she was in.
Vegeta moved from his perch, which honestly made me nervous, making his way towards the sick bay. "What the hell are you looking for anyways, woman!" He stopped abruptly at the door as Mei shoved a folded blanket at his chest. "Hold this." Mei ordered as she released it, and wandered back into the room leaving the warrior at the door. It was almost comical how Vegeta seemed to just stand there mesmerized, or annoyed, that he was being forced to do the bidding of this brave lass. I almost wanted to laugh at the sight of it all, but stifled my giggle to myself.
A wince from Trunks took my attention and I looked over to my left to see the lad. He shook, and swallowed harshly, breathing heavily as he slid his forehead down his hands. He finally rested his head on his forearm as another shallow deep breath from him echoed, & Trunks trembled again from his spot on the cold floor.
"Trunks, are you alright?" I asked quietly, trying to stretch my neck further to see his reaction from where I sat. At the mere sound of my voice he tensed up, and almost seemed frightened for a moment. "Trunks?" my eyes narrowed questionably.
"Yes..." he weakly responded as he slightly picked his head up in an effort to look behind him. He quickly gave up this idea and dropped his head back into place.
Before I had a chance to press the matter of his answer, Mei was back outside in the cockpit carrying her medical bag, pushing by the Seiyajiin in front of her. She rushed to kneel down behind Trunks, sitting on her legs as she folded them beneath her. Placing the medical bag to the right of her on the floor with her right hand, Mei simultaneously with her left hand gently took the bottom of the boy's shirt tail. She slid the garment upwards, revealing the bandaging I had applied the night before on his back. Clearly the small yet arduous scuffle between the child and Vegeta strained his wounds, as it was easy to see that he was bleeding again from that horrendous affliction on his back. I was shocked that the sweat shirt itself wasn't stained red with blood as bad as the dressings were from where I could see; it's no wonder why the boy was in such angst.
Vegeta was now standing behind her to the left, and bent down placing the blanket that was shoved at him behind her on the floor. With a scoff he stood back up right, and his eyes shifted from Mei back to me for only a mere moment. A sudden tap on his right shoe snapped his attention back to the woman below him. "What in blazes do you want now?" His annoyed expression was hard to miss, as he looked down at Mei crossing his arms.
"I need you to hold this up." Mei gestured to the shirt tail in her left hand, slightly yanking it upwards as she turned her head to at Vegeta, her back still to the mighty Seiyajiin above her.
"Ridiculous..." he mumbled under his breath as Vegeta knelt down on his left knee, getting eye level with the little doctor. He took the shirt from her grasp and it seemed at this point that the bandages on the child's back caught his eye. As Mei pulled away the top part of the bandage tape and worked her way down, it was apparent that the mighty warrior wasn't quite prepared to see the damage that was done. Never in my wildest years did I ever expect to see this man again, and here I was now seeing new expressions on Vegeta. His eyes widened as Mei completely removed the rest of the dressing from Trunks's back, and Vegeta seemed very angry suddenly judging by the harsh blinking of his eyes. "How old is this?" Vegeta went from tense to relaxing his shoulders as he gently laid his hand on the left shoulder of Trunks lightly, still grasping the shirt.
Mei bundled up the used dressings and placed them behind her on the floor. "It's about maybe 2-3 days old, but that is really just a guess." She replied as she reached into her medical bag. "The infection in the blood didn't start here, but this most surely is what sped things up to make him sick."
"Were you THIS injured when you were taken on board the fleet's armada on your planet?" Vegeta scowled at Trunks, turning his gaze from the boys back to his young face.
Trunks just opened his eyes as his shoulders shrunk inwards, and blinked as he narrowed his eyes staring at the wall in front of him. It seemed the question from Vegeta was one he didn't want to answer, judging by this reaction.
Vegeta scoffed and his grip tightened on the boys' shirt, frustrated. "You idiot. WHY didn't you say anything? You mean that you lied in that cell and never mentioned this!"
"It wasn't…" Trunks stopped short of finishing his statement, shutting his eyes as his head bent slightly in an attempt to with stand Mei cleaning the wound with a piece of small gauze. He recoiled with each stroke of the cleansing cloth as it was applied, erasing the fresh blood from his back. I watched as she quickly finished and tossed the gauze behind her with the rest of the used bandages. "This isn't from our fight on Earth…"
My stomach felt as if I had been punched in the gut as it sank into the floor beneath me. Earth? This is the name of the planet that he is from? Certainly this had to be another planet named similar. It couldn't be the planet I went and surveyed a few years back for the anonymous benefactor. I had an awful sensation that collided against me, tearing at my heart. "Earth, you say? Which nebula or star system is that located?" I asked, afraid of what the answer might be.
"It's a small system, one way on the other side of the MW number 3 system." Vegeta replied as his right hand met with the other that held the shirt, rolling it upwards on the tops of the boys shoulders, holding it into place.
There was no mistaking it anymore, this revelation I was having. How am I going to explain this to Trunks? As a fellow Seiyajiin I have betrayed him, unknowingly, yes, but betrayed him just the same. The more I let my mind dissect the pieces, the faster it placed them back together. For the first time in almost 15 to 20 years, I have never taken and completed a job that I regretted this badly. "Trunks, how long ago was it that Cooler visited your home planet?" I asked, directing my thoughts to him only.
"It-it was… about 4 ye-." He stopped his sentence to take a moment to withstand Mei placing a new bandage on his back. She held this new piece of dressing with her left hand pressed against his back. Trunks did as best as he could to deal with this, his body shuddering by the mere placing of the bandage. She then with her right hand took some medical tape she had already prepared for this a few moments ago. Quicker than I could explain, the new gauze was taped securely into place. Trunks's breathing was starting to get back to what I would call normal now that Mei had seemed to be finished with the new dressing. Even so, the poor boy looked unquestionably exhausted, both physically and mentally, as he rested on the steel floor of the Korna.
Mei reached to her left to take away the rolled up shirt from Vegeta's hands. "This floor is awful, and it's going to get worse over time for him."
"What would you have me do then, to make it more tolerable?" he growled as he stood to his feet. He stole a quick glance at Trunks, and then faced his eyes on Mei again, awaiting her answer. "He's not moving from this spot. Besides, the old man doesn't want 'holes' in ship, remember?"
Mei unrolled his sweat shirt over his shaking body back into place. She turned and gathered the dirty bandages together, standing to her feet with them in her arms. She spun around and flipped her hair out of her eyes with a whip of her head, walking past Vegeta and into the infirmary. "I'm shocked you're even bothering to ask, because according to you, mighty Seiyajiins can handle EVERYTHING…"
Vegeta sighed aloud, and crossed his arms, facing the direction she had went. "I need him ALIVE. Not half DEAD…."
"Well, you're working GREAT on that last part!" Mei yelled from inside the sick bay. Vegeta rolled his eyes and another sigh was heard. Again, this was quite comical for me to watch, knowing his demeanor from years ago. He has seriously softened when it comes to engaging women. Either that or he realizes how bad Trunks is, and is willing to listen to professional advice. That did strike a notion in me, as I thought about it. What was it that changed his mind about the lad? Was it seeing the wound on his back? Maybe it was because he thought that it could have been prevented some how? I was getting mixed signals. Even if he truly doesn't remember this child being his at all, perhaps some where underneath all this control, something was connecting to him with Trunks. I'm sure that Vegeta himself was trying to understand all this emotion all of a sudden about Trunks. However, any sign of attachment or empathy towards the boy is rarely being seen, or visibly shown by Vegeta. "What would you have me do, woman!" he bellowed out as he was now at the entrance to the sick bay. He then abruptly staggered backwards as she then slammed what it seemed to be 3 stacks of blankets at his chest. "Help me get these under him, and then we'll start talking about what else you can do to HELP me…" Mei stormed past him dropping the stack into his reluctantly receiving arms. I noticed in her arms she had retrieved the IV bag that was half empty, as well as the attached tubing from the infirmary. She made a diversion to the front of the ship as she carried these to the ship's console, reaching into a drawer on the bottom left side. It was my official "junk" drawer filled with random things inside from small ship parts, to pens, paper, and bolts and screws. As she tucked away the IV bag with tubing under her left arm she fumbled through the drawer. She then pulled out a metal carabiner clip snap hook, and closed the drawer with a slight tap from her right foot. She spun around, her hair whirling behind her and made her way back to Trunks, clip in hand. Mei then plopped back down beside him, standing on her knees behind him. I watched as she clipped the bag at her eye level to the rafter of the ship, and attached it to a screw hole that usually is used for tying cargo to the ships' side with rope, clipping it though the same hole on the bag used to hook it to the pole in the sick bay. She then fished her way down the tube to the peripheral cannula, pulled the top off exposing what seemed to be a new 20 gage needle inside. "This has to go in one of his hands, so I need you to at least release his binds for another stick. He needs fluids so I can give him something for pain. He's hurting." Mei now looked up at the powerful Seiyajiin who followed her to her spot to the side of Trunks. Vegeta knelt down, setting the stack of blankets to the left of him, kneeling to the left of Mei. He then reached over Trunks and pressed something on the cuffs, allowing them to release from Trunks left hand, freeing it for Mei to administer the IV needle. Trunks shook vigorously again, but unable to move he could do nothing but allow his limp wrist to rest inside the mighty warriors grasp. Vegeta glared down at Trunks away from Mei's stare to him. "Boy, don't make me do anything I will regret later. Not that you could, but at this point, I don't know what to believe anymore." Trunks only stared at his currently bound hand in front of him, and then titled his head forward, making his lavender hair cover his eyes. Vegeta tries to roll him over slightly so Mei can gain access to his hand but realizes quickly that it's not going to work because of the horrific gash on his back. He then replaces the boy back to the previous position, resting him back onto his right side. I watched in amazement as he reached over and releases his other hand free from the wall. To my amazement, this Seiyajiin decides to place his left arm underneath Trunks's neck, and the right hand under his knees. Vegeta then raises the boy from the floor while kneeling down on both of his knees, holding him in arms, and looks to his right at Mei. "You wanted to put those under, right? Then be done with it already and then you can use the time afterwards to hook that IV into his hand." Trunks's head shifted to the right as it was now resting on Vegeta's left shoulder. This brought a peculiar expression on the hardened Seiyajiin's face but he immediately recovered with a slight scoff under his breath as he looked away from the boy back to Mei. Mei placed the tubing down to her right quickly as she scrambled to get one of the folded blankets to her left from the other side of Vegeta. She leaned over behind him and scooped up the first blanket of the stack. "You could at least WARN me before you do that!" She unfolded the blanket only to a small square shape, wide and long enough to cover the floor needed to shield his body and limbs from the coldness of the floor. She repeated the same pattern with the other two blankets, making quite a nice pallet for the lad. "Okay, you can place him back now." Mei confirmed as she reached to her right to retrieve the IV tubing while scooting over away from the make shift mattress.
*to be written* Samayou Productions; 2005 All Rights Reserved. (2005)
(Finishing date entry here)