…Of Depression
"Drawing into yourself
Can be more dangerous than a hundred battles…"
Tamashii was startled out of her thoughts by a loud, determined knock on the door of the guest bedroom she had been given in Capsule Corporation. She stood quietly and opened the door, already knowing who it was.
"Hello, Trunks," she greeted formally.
He nodded abruptly. "What were you talking about?" Even his voice was determined.
She sighed. "When I said that my dimension is worse than yours?" A nod. She turned and sat on the bed, motioning him to a chair as she did. "I meant just what I said: My dimension is worse than yours. It…It's hard to talk about. I guess that it's not even a different dimension, just a different time. You know that there are several different timelines and dimensions?" A confused shake of the head.
"No…I didn't know that. What do you mean?"
"I come from a timeline thirteen years in the future. There is a timeline and a dimension for every possibility of futures-a timeline where Vegeta-sie wasn't destroyed, a timeline where I wasn't even born…All manner of possibilities exist. In my timeline…the androids have been on the loose since I got to earth. They…They rule now. They've killed everyone who dares to stand up against them except me. I could destroy them with very little effort now, but if I do…If I do, the entire world could collapse. The androids destroyed our government, and now they are the government. Without government, we'll die…" She trailed off.
Trunks stood staring at her, not noticing she had stopped until she began to rock back and forth, murmuring useless nothings to the air. Her eyes were wide and empty, no sense of panic or even sorrow. He recognized that look on her face. It was the same look of "not there" that his mother often got when she thought too long or too hard about his father. He began to panic, struggling to think of what he did whenever his mother started to get that "not there" look. "Tamashii!! Tamashii!!" He practically shouted the name in her ear, but she didn't respond. He realized something as he began to shout her name again. She had told him that her real name was Takara, not Tamashii. He tried it. "Takara!!! Takara!!!!!" His voice verged now on hysterical. He reminded himself to breathe, reminded his heart to beat. Still, he let out the breath he had unknowingly begun to hold in an explosive gasp as she jumped.
"I'm okay!" she said sharply, then took a deep breath to calm herself. "I'm okay…" She took several more deep breaths, and he could clearly hear her, with his excellent Saiya-jin hearing, whispering the word "breathe" over and over to herself, as if she too had almost forgotten how. She shook herself, then looked at him, looking slightly embarrassed. "I'm sorry," she apologized, making him look at her with shock.
"For what?" he asked, baffled.
"For…that lapse. It's…I suppose I ought to explain?" She didn't want to confuse him more than he already clearly was.
He nodded. His mother had, he realized, never explained those lapses to him; she had simply changed the subject. He had gathered that it had something to do with memory-triggered depression, but he had no idea how it worked.
"It…When I start to talk about…my world…and the people close to me that have died, I-I go into a kind of world all my own, a world that takes away the pain. I guess…everyone goes into that little world, but for some people…people like me, I guess, who have seen so many people, everyone that they love, die…They go into that world, and they never want to come out, it's so safe. I do that when I start to talk about my world, and it takes a lot to pull me out, like when you shouted my name. No one's said my name except me since…Oh, gods, since before my fifth foster mother died." She broke into a storm of weeping, and he allowed her to collapse on his shoulder and cry. Almost three full hours later, when she had cried herself dry, she gently pulled herself away. She allowed herself only a moment to regain composure before starting her explanation again. "Every person I've ever allowed myself to get close to has been killed, most of them by the androids. Including every foster mother I've had since I arrived on earth when I was five. After Anna, my fifth foster mother, died a brutal death at the androids' hands and I transformed into Super Saiya-jin three, I built a kind of protective wall around myself. No one got in, and I was totally and utterly alone. I started to destroy myself from the inside out, and that was when I stopped. I volunteered at a shelter for young children who had escaped the massacres of their parents, and I was never really alone again. I kept that protective wall, letting no one get too close, and telling no one very much about myself. When people got too curious, I pretended amnesia. And that's how it's been for five years." She closed her eyes resolutely against another barrage of tears, and swallowed down the hard lump in her throat. "Gods…five years…That's been one hell of a long five years. And…I miss them. Kami, I miss them all so much!" First one tear, then two, fell down her cheeks before she wiped them angrily away. "I am not crying," she muttered to herself, firmly telling the lump that was still in her throat that it was not tears, and that she didn't feel like crying. Still.
Trunks himself had to swallow hard. It reminded him of how he had felt when all of his friends had died, only he had still had his mother. Still did have his mother. Tamashii, or, as he thought of her more often no matter what she wanted to be called, Takara, had no one. She was completely and utterly alone. He held her close, and she only struggled a moment before surrendering and sinking into his welcoming embrace. He told himself that he shouldn't be doing this, shouldn't trust her, but the feeling in his heart told him otherwise. This is right, it told him. You do want this, and you do feel this way about her. Most importantly, his heart told him, It's all right to feel this way. The feeling should logically have been pity, and he told himself that it was, but he knew that it was something more, something deeper. Much deeper. And it scared him half to death. He had just met her! He shouldn't feel this way about someone he barely knew! But that she trusted him pleased him, and he knew that it was, in fact, all right to feel this way. He smiled down at her as her sobs lessened, and gently lay her on her bed. She would be all right. He would make sure of it. He took one last look at her calm body and left the room.
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AN: Hello, people. Took a really long time this time. Sorry 'bout that. It's really sucky, but I DON'T CARE!!!!! REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!! Bubyeeeee!!