Hey guys! Welcome to chapter 12! Sorry for the delay in getting this one out, I just haven't had the time to write of late.

Many thanks to Varjotin for your review on the last chapter! :)

Enjoy!

Chapter 12

Hana groaned as her eyes slowly fluttered open. It felt like her head was being torn in two. She blinked a couple of times as her blurry vision finally begun to focus on the purple and white figure sitting in front of her. She was in the communal area of the ship, laid out on the same sofa that she normally spent her nights.

"Sorry you're out here" she jumped at the sound of Coolers voice. Every sense she had felt like it was in overdrive, his voice seemed sharper and louder than usual, and the sound pierced her ears. Every sense that is, other than her ability to sense Ki, which was blurring in and out of focus. "You needed to sleep it off, but I wanted to be able to keep an eye on you. How are you feeling?"

Pushing herself up into a sitting position and swinging her legs over the side of the sofa so that she could set her feet onto the floor, Hana pressed a hand to her forehead. Truth be told she felt awful, nauseous, and wanted nothing more than to sleep for the next few days, but Laverna's words were still swimming around in her head as fresh as if she had only just heard them. Before she could even think about anything else, she had to know about Zee.

"I'm fine. Cooler, where the hell is Zee?" she asked, trying to keep her tone even but she instantly knew she had failed when she felt her voice waiver. Not being able to sense him, Hana looked up just in time to catch the look of surprise that crossed briefly over Coolers face at her words before it smoothed over again into a neutral expression.

He was good at hiding what he was thinking, which usually wouldn't be an issue when she could sense it anyway, but when she couldn't it was just plain frustrating. It became very apparent in that moment quite how reliant she was on her sensory ability to read people. Her overuse of that talent was being made very clear of late.

"What's brought this up?" he asked carefully, maintaining his clearly very well practised poker face.

As much as he had gone down a non-confrontational route, his approach only served to rile Hana even more. She didn't need to be able to sense anything to know that there had been at least a tiny bit of truth in what Laverna had said to her, and she was determined to find it.

"It doesn't matter what brought it up Cooler, he's not with King Cold, is he?"

Cooler surveyed her for a moment before he shifted to the side slightly, taking a seat in front of Hana.

"Hana... it's rather complicated, I'm not sure that now is the time to-"

Slap!

Hana landed a hard open handed smack to his face, causing a fresh surge of pain to shoot through her head making her feel sick. Taking the slap head on, Cooler didn't move as Hana gripped her head and slowly regained her composure.

She threw a glare at him as she folded her arms across her chest, "don't you dare give me that shit Cooler. He's either there or he isn't, there's nothing fucking complicated about it. Is he there or not!?"

"No... he isn't..." Cooler started carefully, quickly shifting himself back in his seat to avoid the next blow Hana threw at him. This one was much harder than the last, and in her still weakened state couldn't stabilise herself and the momentum of her blow caused her to tumble to the floor. That didn't perturb her for long as she tried, and failed, to get back up.

"What the fuck do you mean he isn't?! Where the fuck is he?!" She screamed from her position on the floor, not bothering to pull herself back onto the sofa and leaving back on it instead as she remained where she was.

Cooler glanced away briefly, clearly mulling over what to say before he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I'm... limited to what I can tell you Hana." He sighed "but what I can tell you is that Zee was transferred from my father to my brother. Frieza."

"Is he safe there?" Hana asked, pulling herself into a more upright position, still relying on the sofa against her back to support her.

"He... is less safe than when he was with my father, but..."

"Reassign him then" Hana snapped, "assign him to you."

At the very least if Zee was assigned with her and Cooler, there would be some chance that they could look after each other. As much as she didn't totally trust Cooler, he at the very least seemed stable and safe to be around. From what little she had heard, his brother was the opposite.

"I can't reassign him Hana. It's not within my authority to do so"

"Then who has the authority to move him? Cold?"

Cooler nodded once, and Hana couldn't help but think that power was most certainly not equal between the members of the Cold family. From assigning her to Cooler when he clearly didn't want her, to having total control over Zee's whereabouts, clearly it was King Cold who was calling the shots.

"I can ask for him, but my father would need to approve. If Frieza decides to protest, we'll have a whole different problem to deal with as well. We can discuss it when we deliver Granite."

"and why would Frieza protest? Surely he won't care about having one man taken from his ranks?"

"No, he couldn't care less about that. But if he thinks its something that I want, I wouldn't put it past him to be difficult"

Hana booted Cooler hard in the shin from her position on the floor causing him to jump up.

"That's for not telling me about Zee" she snarled as she used the side of the sofa to drag herself to her feet. "When we land with Cold, I want you to do everything in your power to get him moved. And let me make something clear," she took a shaky step forward, "if anything happens to Zee while he's with Frieza, or any other time for that matter, I'll fucking kill you."

With that she stormed off towards her room, using the wall along side her for support as she felt Coolers eyes watch her leave. She was still very much pissed off with him, but she knew she needed to rest. Plus, she knew it would be wise to wait until she could sense him better before she asked him any more questions. Without her usual advantage he was surprisingly hard to read.

As soon as she entered her room Hana darted straight for the bathroom, only just making it to the toilet in time for her to be violently sick. Wiping her mouth with a bit of tissue she shuddered as another stab of pain rippled through her head. She needed sleep. Desperately.

Making her way back into her bedroom Hana wasted no time in kicking off her boots and crawling into bed, still fully dressed. She would deal with Cooler later, for now, she needed rest.

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In what felt like only a few hours, Hana was pulled from her slumber by a gentle knocking on the door. The one and only upside to being woken was that she realised she could sense Coolers presence the other side of the door, indicating that her sensory abilities were back in full swing.

"What?" she snapped as the door slid open and Cooler stepped into the room. She caught the flicker of annoyance at her tone cross his features before he reverted to his usual impassive and unreadable expression.

"We need to re-fuel, so we'll be landing soon. Do you want some time off the ship?"

She most certainly did. The ship was fine, and had everything they needed, but after over a week of living on it, the days were starting to get a bit repetitive. A change of scenery would hopefully improve her mood, and it may even help think over what to do about Zee. If Cooler couldn't get him moved, she needed some kind of back up plan.

"Yes, I would." Hana responded before climbing out of bed and making her way towards the bathroom as Cooler left and headed back up towards the control room. Just as she was passing through the doorway something caught her eye on the floor causing her to backtrack a couple of steps.

Her boots hadn't moved from the spot she had kicked them off, but as she glanced to one of them, laying on its side she noticed the light reflecting off something silver inside it.

Walking back towards them Hana knelt down and pulled a small silver device from within the depths of the boot. Turing it over in her hands, Hana instantly recognised it as a communication device. There was only one person who could have put it there, and Hana shuddered at the thought that she hadn't even noticed it was there until now.

Biting her lower lip Hana mulled over what to do with it. She knew that Cooler would most certainly want to know about it, it would no doubt be extremely useful to him in tracking down Laverna and the rest of the rebellion. Given his dishonesty about Zee however, Hana had no intention of telling him. Not yet anyway. This could well be her backup if Cooler couldn't get Zee moved.

Heck, even if he was moved, this could still be their out. Hana glanced towards the door, despite knowing full well that Cooler was at the front of the ship, and stashed the small device back into her boot. She'd wait and see how things played out for now, and keep her current trump card under wraps.

She quickly darted into the small bathroom and got showered and changed before heading up towards the control room to join Cooler.

On arrival she collapsed into the high backed chair, directly next to the captains chair that Cooler was occupying. He glanced at her briefly before focusing his attention back to the service station that was quickly drawing up towards them. He was a good pilot, she'd give him that much. Hana had only ever once been in a small aircraft piloted by Zee, and the landing had been anything other than smooth.

She barely felt them touch down into the landing bay, and was in a little world of her own as the door swung open into a ramp somewhere to her right. She was only pulled from her thoughts when Cooler passed in front of her, heading towards the rear of the ship.

"We can't leave Granite on the ship unattended, so he'll be with us."

"Us?" Hana scoffed, "You said I could have time off the ship. You didn't mentioned that I'd have to spend the time with you" she spat the last word as she unstrapped herself and stormed towards the ramp and out of the ship.

Various workers had assembled on the platform to refuel the ship, and as Hana stormed past she could feel the presence of Cooler watching her retreating form. As the staff around her caught sight of him she felt a surge of hatred rush through the group, and turned her head slightly to glance at them as she continued to walk away.

Clearly they knew who Cooler was and clearly he wasn't all that popular. Not that she was overly surprised. The Cold clan had been ruthless in their takeover of this portion of the galaxy, and no doubt many of these beings had lost their home planets as a result.

Aware that service stations usually had cafeterias Hana stormed through the corridors in search of one, fully intending to put whatever she got on Coolers tab. And she was absolutely starving.

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An hour or so later Hana made her way slowly back to the ship. A refuel didn't take all that long, and she'd already dragged out the time she had. She hadn't really got any further in her thoughts about Zee, and had settled on the plan of asking King Cold directly when they delivered Granite.

There was no point in relying on Cooler for something he didn't have the power to even do for her. If anything happened to Zee she'd never forgive herself if she hadn't exhausted every possible option to keep him safe. Not after everything he'd done for her.

Hana passed by one of the workers she'd seen earlier, who glanced at her as he held his tool kit close to his side. She stopped and watched him as he walked away, a soft frown on her face. Something felt off, but she couldn't quite put her finger on what.

Shrugging, Hana turned and continued back towards the ship, where Cooler was waiting for her in a foul mood. Apparently he hadn't had an enjoyable time with Granite, who had now been safely stowed away back in his cell.

The pair strapped themselves into their seats without a word to each other as Cooler started the engines and slowly took off from the landing bay, setting a course for King Colds ship.

Down in the depths of the ship, Granite sat in his cell adjacent to the engine room and watched as the wires behind an open panel in one of the walls started to spark.