Space was strange, it took over everything and nothing at the same time. V supposed that was why it was called space, there was really no other name for it. Abyss wasn't right, no, that promised an end somewhere, black hole? No, that hinted at edges to contain it's endlessness. V had been around the galaxy in her short four years, she imagined even more places than she actually remembered. Although, it was a funny thought to imagine Vegeta, Nappa and Raditz carrying around a little baby with them. I wonder who changed me? V mused staring into the vastness of space.

"V, it's your turn." Gohan pulled V away from the window and over Bulma's trash laying on the ground.

"Um… Gohan." Krillin stuttered nervously "are you sure you she wouldn't rather spar with you?" Krillin gulped, last time he and V sparred she had moved so fast it made him dizzy, it almost felt like he was losing energy. Krillin shivered, Goku might have been ready to fully accept that alien but he wasn't so sure she was good guy material.

"I didn't ask to spar with you anyway." V huffed, frowning and scrunching up her face.

"I didn't say anything." Krillin tried to defend himself.

"You didn't have to. I can feel it." V crossed her arms and turned her back on him.

"What do ya mean you can 'feel it'?" Krillin demanded, what kind of powers does this girl have? Krillin was becoming more and more wary of this girl the more he got to know her. Chichi was holding off for a reason and Krillin was going to find that out before V had a chance to hurt him or any of his friends.

"Just go away." V threw an empty can at him. Gohan knew it wasn't the time but he wanted to laugh at how childish the act was, V acted so much older sometimes and then she did things so young.

"V, he didn't say anything." Gohan went over to her and tried to talk to her

"He doesn't have to say it, I can feel it." V felt Krillin's disapproval and mistrust like a physical weight pressing against her.

"How can you feel it?" Gohan asked immediately thinking of how he felt V differently than he felt the others. He almost felt V twice, her energy and then, it was like a sense of her.

"I don't know, it started during training with Mr. Piccolo." V shrugged "I could just feel things, but they were coming from other people and not from me."

"Can you feel things from me?" Gohan asked, V nodded and a smile broke out over her face "you most of all!" She exclaimed happily "from much farther away too."

"Seriously?" Gohan asked, he tried to think of how far his sense of V went but they hadn't strayed too far from each other since they met, he'd have to test that out sometime.

"Hey, Gohan?" Krillin asked "don't you think this is a bit weird that she hasn't said anything to anyone about this little power of hers before now?"

"No." Gohan said innocently "she doesn't know all of our powers yet and you're not giving her a whole lot of reason for her to open up to you." Gohan narrowed his eyes slightly. V felt Gohan's defenses rise…for her. She was used to being allowed to be angry, being rewarded and praised for having a temper, so to reign it in for the time that she had done so was impressive to her. But when Gohan defended her, V's anger dissipated and all she could feel was that Gohan cared about her. V threw her arms around Gohan and squeezed him. Gohan just looked at her "what'd I do?" Gohan chuckled. V just squeezed him because she could and he wouldn't get angry. Gohan couldn't understand what he felt from V with his extra sense of her but it was so alive and forceful it nearly overwhelmed Gohan.

"Just be careful." Krillin whispered to Gohan. Gohan sighed but he didn't want to argue, it would just upset V.

"Would you guys mind cleaning up around here?" Bulma yawned and stretched as she climbed out of her bed in nothing but her crop top and underwear. V couldn't imagine walking around in something like that, how in the world did she expect to fight in something like that?

"Bulma doesn't fight." Gohan told V, V couldn't figure out if she said something out loud or if Gohan could just read her that easily. It didn't matter to her either way, really, it was such a stupid thing to worry about.

"We all cleaned up our mess." Krillin tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice but Bulma sure could be one brat of a roommate "besides, Gohan and I don't drink beer and eat junk food, that's all your stuff."

V tried not to be annoyed with Krillin when he didn't mention her but she'd prove him wrong, she was a good guy and she would never hurt her new family, even if some of that family was an annoying bald little grown up who was barely taller than Gohan, let alone her. V resisted even showing any kind of emotion towards it because then she let him win and V would not let him win.

"Seriously." Bulma huffed "you guys can't help out?" Bulma walked over her trash "I've got more important things to do than clean, put yourselves to use." Bulma dropped back in the captain's seat.

"But you don't even fight." V did not like someone yelling at her little brother, even if he didn't care, V wasn't going to take this sitting down.

"I'm the babysitter." Bulma reminded her a little too smugly for V's taste. V never really had a problem with her temper around Chichi or Goku or Gohan, they were her family even if Chichi was unreasonable sometimes, but Chichi was still V's mom and V loved her and you weren't supposed to yell at your mother. But Bulma was a meanie and rude and she was yelling at her brother. Krillin and Gohan felt the spike in her energy but Bulma was immune to V's sudden burst of anger.

"You don't do anything!" V shouted back. Krillin and Gohan covered their ears, they had never actually heard her speak above her timid huffy tone before.

"Excuse me?" Bulma hopped to her feet and wagged her finger in V's face "if it weren't for me you wouldn't even have this ship." Bulma reminded her.

"Oh yeah." V shot back childishly "if it weren't for my space pod you wouldn't have anything to go on since you blew the other ship up to begin with."

"You brat." Bulma screeched through clenched teeth "you can't talk to me like that!" she screamed, V's energy surged and knocked Bulma straight off her feet.

"V, no!" Gohan leapt at V and grabbed her arms "V, you have to calm down." Gohan said seriously "Bulma isn't a bad guy here."

"She yelled at you." Almost immediately V's energy dropped to its normal state, her voice returned to that timid gentle tone she had found as her own. Gohan almost felt like he had whiplash from V sometimes.

"Are you mad at me?" V exclaimed "I'm sorry, I won't do it again." V said quickly "I promise. I won't get mad again."

"It's…Okay, V." Gohan worried that V was going to worry her whole life about him or his mom or dad getting angry with her. "It's just that Bulma is a human and not a fighter at all. Our mom knows how to fight but Bulma does other stuff, smart stuff." Gohan smiled "come on we'll go and spar."

"Okay." V followed Gohan over breathing a sigh of relief. She paused and forced herself to look at Bulma. She didn't want to, she really didn't want to but Gohan was so innocent and kind it made V want to be that way too and so she did what Gohan would do. "I'm sorry, Bulma." V said before allowing Gohan to lead her off to the side of the ship so it could just be him and her.

"you're doing great, V." Gohan assured her before they settled into their meditative seats and linked minds.

Linking minds with V was one of the most amazing things Gohan had ever experienced. When they first linked it was like a light went on inside both of the young Saiyans that had never been turned on before, as if a connection that had been missing their whole lives had finally been made. They could feel everything from each other, V could hear all of Gohan's thoughts and even sift through his memories as she pleased. Gohan always felt the strongest waves of emotions from V, he had never seen anyone feel the way V did. She felt passionately about whatever it was that she felt at the moment. Anger was anger in it's purest form, courage was the stuff of books and fairytales, love was undeveloped but she had connected to Gohan, Goku, Chichi, Piccolo and another face Gohan didn't recognize.

"let's get to it." V smiled at Gohan as she settled into stance. She liked sparing like this because then Gohan couldn't get hurt, even by accident.

"Let's go." Gohan smiled and settled into his own stance.

V wanted to teach Gohan everything she knew, everything from Piccolo that she learned before he was ready to begin the real training, everything she learned from not being able to fight back. V could take a hit and bounce right back up, if Gohan could learn how to roll out of anything then V wouldn't have to worry so much about him getting hit because he would be okay.

"Feel before you move." V told Gohan "if you know what your opponents going to do then you can dodge it or brace yourself for the hit." V moved faster than Gohan could have imagined and still he sensed she was holding back.

"Don't worry about what you can't do." V coached "know what you can do and use it. Every fighter has a weakness and a strength."

"What's your weakness?" Gohan asked trying to figure out how you can possibly hit something you can barely even keep up with.

"Before?" V asked and hesitated "I had no reason to fight, no one cared about me even if I could get away from Raditz and the others. At least with them I wasn't alone."

"What about now?" Gohan asked, he hated that sad look V got thinking about her past.

"now, I think I'm much faster than I am strong." V sighed "I can dodge someone but the second I have to actually finish them, I'm just not strong enough."

"How do you know?" Gohan asked "you put up such an amazing fight with Nappa and Vegeta."

"I could feel their confusion. I was fast but when I hit them as hard as I could, they wondered why I was holding back. I wasn't holding back, I'm just weak."

"You're not weak!" Gohan exclaimed in disbelief "how could you think that?"

"If you look at my speed, I'm weak by comparison." V shrugged "I know I'm not weak in general "I'm just faster than I am strong, my advantage is speed."

"Oh, I get it." Gohan nodded "but that's not bad, what good is being super strong if you can't catch someone?" Gohan smiled but V scrunched her face into her thoughtful expression and stared off into space "but what good is speed of you can't do any real damage? V shook herself and shed all sorrow as if she had changed personalities completely.

"Let's go again." V smiled at Gohan. Gohan nodded a little confused but didn't ask her "sure."

V was good at pretending; she didn't even have to think about it. She had to pretend all the time with Raditz, mostly Vegeta though. There was nothing in the universe Vegeta hated more than V's cries. V had to pretend a lot of things didn't hurt, like the time they blasted her out of a planet's atmosphere or even the time they blew up a planet while she was still on it. That one hurt a lot. The hardest times though were the times they would mock her about the family she didn't have, how they were all that she had and how grateful she should be that they took her in. V was very aware of how closely Gohan was watching her, he was even getting pretty good at using their strange link to keep tabs on her. That was why she had to pretend that she wasn't thinking about Vegeta and Raditz and Nappa. She had to pretend that being out on space like this didn't bother her and that she wasn't thinking of her warm bed at home with her new mom and her new dad and her new friends on Earth. V had never felt home sickness before, she didn't even have a name for it until she heard the word on Gohan's thoughts because he was feeling it too. V wanted to make him feel better but she didn't know how and on top of that she had to pretend that Krillin's feelings toward her didn't bother her in the least even though it was one of the things at the forefront of her mind. What did she do to him anyway? She saved him, she was the reason he was alive because if Krillin had to be the distraction there's no way he would have survived, he wasn't durable like her and Gohan were.

"V." Gohan stood in front of V. "what are you thinking about?" Gohan smiled gently, she'd never talk to him if she thought he was accusing her of something, Krillin was doing plenty of that. V glanced out the window before returning her eyes to Gohan. For just a moment V thought she might just tell him everything but a jolt knocked V off the chair and Gohan straight on top of her.

"Hey, what's the big idea?" Krillin grumbled rubbing his head.

"We're being taken in!" Bulma screeched. V tried not to yell at Bulma because Gohan would yell at Bulma and if learning to bite her tongue was all V needed to learn for their mom to love V like she loved Gohan, then that is what V would do.

"Fighting?" V asked Gohan.

"Maybe." Gohan pushed himself to his feet while V pulsed her energy and lifted herself onto her feet nothing is better than flying V thought as she and Gohan walked to the front of the ship with Krillin and Bulma.

"What's going on?" Gohan asked Bulma.

"Does it look like I know?" Bulma snapped at him. V opened her mouth to let Bulma know what V thought about someone yelling at her baby brother but one look from Gohan and her anger dissipated. If Gohan said he was okay, V would believe him.

"Well, we'd better find out who's in charge and explain we're good guys or make him let us go." Krillin said trying to be the tough guy. V snickered at him.

"got something to say over there, V?" Krillin challenged. V bristled at the challenge and made a move toward him but Gohan stepped in front of her "don't do it, V." Gohan matched her eyes with his own determination "prove him wrong, V." V glared at Krillin, her energy swirling impatiently but Gohan didn't budge and V's energy settled. Unclenching her fists, she sighed and dropped her head. "I'm sorry, Gohan."

"There's nothing to be sorry about." Gohan smiled and took V's hand "now let's go."