(Author's Note: Okay, this part shot off on a tangent that I hadn't anticipated and I'm not entirely sure if I like where it's going or not

(Author's Note: Okay, this part shot off on a tangent that I hadn't anticipated and I'm not entirely sure if I like where it's going or not. Therefore, it might get re-written depending on the feedback I get. Let me know what you think.)

Different Hearts, Same Dream

Part Two

A DragonBall Z fic By Hana Noir

Kyrie came outside every day for a week, hoping to see him again. She wrote, but it wasn't the same as before. Her focus was off. She found herself distracted by the least little noise or movement. On the sixth day, she threw up her hands, disgusted with herself.

"The entire point," she muttered to herself as she gathered up sunblock and several large towels, "was to come out here, relax, write that book you've been obsessing about for the last year and BE ALONE!!!" And free, her mind added. She slammed out of the capsule house and headed for the creek.

She had discovered that the wider area at the foot of the little waterfall was actually deep enough to swim in. And that was what she planned on doing today. She spread her towel out on the outcropping of rock and stripped off her clothes. Today's tank top was orange, a particularly lurid shade that she only wore because it was the last clean one she had. The shorts had started out life as a pair of jeans. They had seen better days, as the denim was cloth thin and almost white from wear. She kicked them off onto the large towel, and heaved a sigh. Skinny-dipping was always something that she had wanted to do. With a mischievous grin, she waded into the water. It was colder than she thought and she shivered, goosebumps blossoming everywhere. With a deep breath, she closed her eyes and jumped in. Gasping and grinning at the same time, she burst to the surface, shaking the water out of her eyes. She did a back flip, then swam for the bottom, looking at the churning area where the water fell into the creek. It was interesting from this angle. She kicked to the surface, sucking air into her lungs as soon as she cleared the water. After several minutes of aquabatic maneuvers, she floated on her back, contemplating the dappled pattern of shadows created by the gently stirring leaves overhead. The water rocked her gently and it was almost enough to lull her to sleep…

The sound of a twig snapping loudly startled her and she submerged briefly, swallowing a mouthful of water. She popped back up to the surface, staring around wildly, several different scenarios going through her mind. Raccoons stealing her clothing, a lost hunter stumbling across her swimming spot, another bear??? None of this prepared her for the sight of Piccolo perched on the edge of the rock holding her belongings, staring down at her. She looked up, astonished, treading water reflexively.

She said the first thing that came to mind. "Long time, no see," she quipped. Piccolo blinked, looking briefly startled before his customary impassive look slid into place. She swam for the bank, teeth chattering when a brisk wind blew across the surface of the water. "Since you're there," she said, pushing water off of her arms and shaking drops off of her hands. "Could you toss me that fugly orange shirt?" The mentioned item almost hit her in the face. "Thanks," she said, voice muffled as she slid it over her head. It clung to her damp skin, but reached all the way down to mid thigh. She climbed up onto the rock and sat down on the towel, slightly behind Piccolo. He stared up at the blue sky, not turning around.

"So," she said, wondering why he had bothered to come back. "What brings you here? I'm pretty sure it wasn't the free peepshow." Piccolo jumped as if he'd been hit with an electrical shock and finally moved around to face her.

He considered her question, watching her closely. He'd found himself heading here several times in the last few days and had always managed to turn back at the last minute, but today, he hadn't been able to stop himself. He finally shrugged. He had a reluctant fascination with the young woman. He was fairly sure that any other female would have been shrieking her lungs out if he'd caught her in the buff.

"I can't figure you out," he finally said, looking a bit surprised that he had spoken aloud.

"Good," she said with a smile, laying back on the warm rock. "I can't figure you out, either. And rather than waste my time trying, I'm just going to enjoy your company when you decide to share it with me." He shook his head. She was just too much.

"Hey, Piccolo," she said after the silence stretched out between them for several minutes. "Can I ask you something?" He looked at her with a bit of trepidation, unable to figure out what she might want to know. She took his silence for consent and asked her question. "You were at the Cell Games, right? Who really did it? Beat Cell, I mean. I absolutely refuse to believe that posing jackass Mr. Satan did it."

He was so amused that he actually let out a short, gruff laugh. "Truthfully? It was Gohan that finally did it." At her blank look, he elaborated. "The blonde haired kid."

"Ah," she said, arching an eyebrow. "The mysterious delivery boy. I don't know who was the bigger moron there, the newscaster or Mr. Satan. They were pretty darn close to tying for the title of "World's Blindest Idiot." He couldn't hide his grin at her pithy assessment of the men. "Hell, even I could tell Satan didn't have a chance." She grinned then. "Of course, I could probably take him down in a fight. He's such a loser." Piccolo agreed totally.

Kyrie shrugged. "Anyway, it's all over with now. I'm just glad I wasn't anywhere near where it happened though. It looked like a really messy fight."

"It was that," Piccolo agreed.

Kyrie yawned, shooting him an apologetic look. "Sorry, I didn't get much sleep last night." Piccolo nodded. "And now I'm getting sleepy. But, if I sleep now, I won't sleep again tonight. It's a vicious cycle." She yawned again.

Piccolo shrugged. "Does it matter?" She looked at him oddly. "You're not on any kind of schedule are you?" Realization dawned in her eyes and she shook her head.

"You've got a point," she said. "I'm so tired that I could go to sleep right here." She grabbed her shorts and shoes and put them back on, gathering up her towels. "Want to walk back with me? I've got a pretty good trail worn out by now." He shrugged and she stood. As she stepped forward, her sandal caught in a split in the rock and she teetered backward, arms windmilling wildly. She landed in Piccolo's lap with a grunt and his arms went around her in an automatic reflex.

She head was bowed and her shoulders were shaking and for a moment, Piccolo was worried that she had somehow managed to injure herself, then he realized that she was laughing silently. She finally looked up at his face and sputtered aloud. "Sorry, sorry," she got out between chuckles. "It was just too silly." She placed her hands on his wide shoulderguards and pushed herself to her feet. He snorted and rose to his feet. Looking down at her made him realize how small she actually was. Bulma probably had a few inches on her.

"I'm quite perturbed with you, you know?" she said as they walked through the trees.

He gave her a startled look.

"I haven't written but about two chapters since I last saw you," she explained. "If there's one thing I can't resist, it's a good mystery. And you, Piccolo, have mystery written all over you." She smiled wryly.

"Hn," Piccolo grunted, crossing his arms. Then he countered with a question of his own. "So what are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere in the first place?"

She slowed, looking up at him, all traces of mirth gone. "I'm running away," she said softly. "I've always been running away." She shook her head, then moved faster, gliding through the trees like a shadow. Piccolo stared after her, the confusion he felt never showing on his stony face.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!! she berated herself as she came in sight of her house. Why did you have to be such an idiot?? She slid to an abrupt halt at the edge of the clearing when she realized that Piccolo was leaning against the side of the house, a smirk on his face. "How—how did you beat me here?"

He grinned smugly. "I'm faster than I look." He pushed away from the curved surface and strode over to tower over her. She looked up at him, a faint sneer forming.

"Size doesn't intimidate me, Piccolo," she said, scorn in her voice. "I've always been the littlest kid on the block."

She had a fighter's spirit, he thought with grudging admiration. A slight grin pulled at his mouth and he let it. She gave him a suspicious look, not relaxing even a fraction. He took several deliberate steps back and she eased up a bit.

"So," he said. "What exactly are you running from?"

"Life," she said flippantly. "People. Take your pick. Generally speaking, I don't have much use for the rest of the human race." She gave him a look that said that she wasn't about to give him a straight answer. He shrugged.

"Why are you out here?" she shot back, dropping her things inside the front door, then turning to face him again.

"I'm not a people person," he said, sarcasm dripping in his tone, turning his back to her.

"What a coincidence, neither am I," she replied just as sarcastically. "Which brings us to the next question. What are we doing even talking to each other?" Her voice sounded odd and he turned around. She was upside down, balancing on her left hand, body straight as a board.

He blinked. "What are you doing?"

She did a few one handed pushups, then replied. "Being goofy. It's one of my more well developed personality traits."

He laughed, the sound a bit rusty. "You've escaped from an asylum, haven't you?"

She pushed off the ground, executed a perfect somersault and landed on her feet. "You could say that," she said, sounding slightly upset.

Then in one of her lightening swift mood swings, she was giving him a speculative look. "Hey, you can fly right?" He nodded, wondering where this line of questioning would lead. "How do you do it?" she asked, tilting her head to the side. He considered the question.

"It's a manipulation of ki," he said slowly. "You use ki to propel yourself." He looked at her to see if she was comprehending his words. She was holding a small rock in her hand, tossing it up and down.

"I think I understand what you mean," she said slowly. "Is it anything like this?" She held her hand out, fingers open and palm flat, the rock sitting in the middle of her hand. It shuddered slightly, then rose a few inches off of her palm. His eyes widened. He could feel the energy she was using to lift the stone and while it wasn't much, it had potential.

"Close," he said. "But you'll need more than that to lift yourself."

"Could you teach me?" she asked, the rock back in her hand. She closed her fingers tightly around it, the grip whitening her knuckles.

Piccolo thought about it. Gohan had been the only person he had ever taught and he couldn't see using the same training tactics on this slight human girl as he had used on the half-Saiyan. He opened his mouth to refuse and was astonished to hear himself saying, "I don't know. Maybe." What the hell am I doing?!?

She let out the breath that she had been holding, relaxing finally. Her hand fell to the side, fist uncurling. A rain of tiny pebbles slipped though her fingers to patter to the ground. Piccolo's eyes widened. Who, or what, was she?

He extended a hand to her. "How strong is your grip?" he asked curiously. She gave him an odd look and reluctantly grasped his hand as if to shake it. "Don't hold back," he advised. "You can't hurt me." Something darkened in her eyes at his words, then she started squeezing. He stood passively as she bore down with all her might. He didn't flinch, even though the pressure she was exerting was enough to crush the bones of a normal human. He extended all of his senses as she held his hand. There was a great deal of ki potential in her, but it was unfocused and untrained. She was strong, stronger than the average human, and he could sense something that made her more than human. She wasn't an Artificial Human; he couldn't sense anything from them and he could definitely sense something from her. Her ki was different from that of Kuririn or Yamucha, but nothing like Goku or Vegeta. She wasn't part Saiyan. But she wasn't a normal human. She was an enigma.

"Enough," Piccolo said, pulling his hand from her grip. She stared up at him, green eyes wary and hopeful at the same time. His own eyes narrowed. "What are you?"

She flinched and took a step back. "I'm nothing."

"I don't think so, little girl." He took a step toward her. "I'll ask you again. What are you?"

She held her ground, her eyes sparking. "Don't push me," she warned, her voice low. "I won't be pushed again!"

Piccolo took another step and suddenly a flash of light burst from her, making her hair whip wildly. A wall of concussive force slammed into the Namek and slung him backward. It had happened so quickly that he hadn't even had time to shield. He landed flat on his back, the air rushing out of his lungs, making him gasp and cough. Damn…he thought with a touch of admiration.

It vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and Kyrie looked around wildly. The grass was flattened for a ten foot radius around her and the ground beneath her was scorched slightly. She saw Piccolo still on his back and she staggered to his side and fell to her knees. She let out a sigh of relief when she saw him looking back at her. "Ah, hell," she said softly. "I tried to warn you. Are you hurt?" He gave her a slightly scornful look and rose to his feet, looking around for his turban, which had come loose and bounced away.

"You're a human," he said, reaching down and lifting her to her feet. "But you're different."

"Yeah, well," she muttered, avoiding his eyes. "What are you?"

"No," he caught her by the arm, making her look at him. "No quick change of the topic. I want answers." She tried to pull away, but he held her still.

"I don't know!" she shouted, her face furious. "I'm a freak!! Something that never should have been allowed to live!! I'm an experiment gone bad, someone's idea of a sick joke, okay??"

He marched her over to the rock that she sat on to write and plopped her down. "Explain. Now."

"I don't know all of it," she shot back. "All I know is that a government agency got the bright idea that they could create some sort of ultimate soldier. They started experimenting with genetic engineering." She shuddered. "They created some of the most god-awful abominations I've ever seen, awake or in nightmares. I was supposed to be their 'perfect model'." Piccolo hid his distaste. Damn humans, he thought, meddling where they had no business. That was the same kind of mentality that had given birth to Cell. "They said I was unstable," she continued. "They couldn't control my abilities. They decided that the project was a failure."

"And they just let you go?" he asked, astonished by the stupidity of humans once again.

"Of course not," she said tartly. "I escaped. I'd been planning it for a while. They made me too intelligent." She snorted. "The idiots. A soldier doesn't need intelligence. Or a conscious. But I have both. And I wasn't staying around long enough to find out what had happened to all of the other 'failures'."

Piccolo was stunned. Just when he thought humans couldn't sink any lower, something managed to surprise him. "How long ago?" he asked.

"Six months," she sighed.

"So that's what you meant by 'running'," he stated. She nodded, head bowed. "They're still after you?"

"Yeah, I tried living in some of the big cities, figuring that I could hide among all the people, but that didn't work," she said with a shrug. "So, I came out here. I thought I'd finally be alone." She wrapped her arms around her ribs, hugging herself. "I can't stand to be around people. All the noise, the constant noise! It made me think I was going crazy!!"

Can you hear me like this?

She gasped, her head snapping up and her eyes meeting Piccolo's in astonishment. "Wha—wha…"

Piccolo shook his head in disgust. Really, humans had no idea what they were tampering with. "You're telepathic. That's why you couldn't stand to be around people." He sat down on the ground cross-legged and stared up at her. "I can't believe how monumentally stupid humans can be." He caught her glare and snorted. "You have no idea of what you can do. The least I can do is give you some basic training. That way, you'll be less of a danger to yourself and anyone around."

"Gee, thanks so much," she said with a hint of her customary wry humor.

"Don't mention it," he shot back, winning a small smile from her. "How can you be so damned cheerful?" he asked rhetorically.

"It's quite simple," she said softly. "If I didn't laugh, I'd have to cry."