Chapter 10

TWO MONTHS LATER

Moroshka sat up in her bed of pine needles, gasping. It had been her own cries that had woken her. She looked around with open eyes and waited breathlessly as the nightmare's hallucinations disintegrated into reality. She blinked away the burn, and felt herself tranquilize as the memories of her dying planet faded into a white-sweet moon peeking at her through evergreen branches.

She shuddered and held her head in her hands. The Kai had taught her how to keep those horrors out of the forefront of her mind. But ever since she fled the Brief household, they'd been haunting her sleep. She felt like her sanity was balancing on a razor's edge, and if she didn't find peace soon, she might become dangerous.

Moroshka startled when she notice her ki. It had climbed significantly during the nightmare this time. She immediately powered down. Of all the careless… She thought in aggravation. Hope no one sensed me.

But sure enough, several minutes later she felt Gohan's approach. Agh. Figures. I shouldn't have made a residence so close to his home. She'd spoken to him the day she self-exiled, considering he was the only other person on the planet who had been there the fateful day that she'd taken Vegeta's life. And she'd left him in no uncertain terms that she was to be ostracized. No more connections or ties. They meant too much when she had them, and they hurt too much when they were gone.

The soft thud of feet on the forest floor sounded behind her. Gohan…

"Moroshka…"

She glanced at him through slitted eyes. He looked disheveled; wrinkled clothes, sleep-tossed hair, as if he'd just hopped out of bed the moment he sensed her. She sighed. "I told you two months ago that I don't merit sympathy or charity, Gohan," she said wearily, perfectly complacent to bask in the hell that had become her life.

"Yes you did," he said as he plopped down next to her and rested his elbows on his knees, fixing his gaze on the brilliant crescent moon. "But you forget I was raised by a hard-nosed Namek. Tough talk is often just that-TALK." He looked her in the eye, then. "You don't have to exile yourself like this."

She faced him, vehemently. "Gohan! I killed-"

"Yes, yes. I know. You killed Vegeta. I was there, remember?"

She huffed and lay back down. "And then in an effort to redeem myself in Trunks' eyes, I showed him just how evil his father had been, shattering his image of a man he worshipped; and that doesn't include subjecting him to the tortured screams of my people as they were flung into space." She felt her eyes moisten and blinked it back. "If I could do it again, I would have taken the blame and let him kill me without adornment or apology. That way-"

"They miss you, Moroshka."

"Wha…what?" Her heart jumped up in her throat. Have I longed to hear those words so badly?

"Bulma has been calling our house looking for you," Gohan said. He met her eyes solemnly. "She wants you to come home."

A bit of silence passed as this sunk in. "She…does?" Moroshka couldn't help it. Her throat constricted, inhibiting speech. But then, Bulma wasn't as marred by her betrayal as Trunks was. Her biggest offense was against him. "Trunks…he hates me."

"Oh really?" Gohan quirked an eyebrow. "I'll have to remind him then, because when he came over last week, all he wanted was to see you again, Moroshka."

She almost pitied herself at how quickly she felt her hopes rise. He wanted to see me? "You saw him? How…how is he?"

"If it weren't for the cloud hanging over his head, I'm sure he'd be fine. I told him I would try to find you."

For the first time in two months, Moroshka felt like an old wound had finally stopped aching. Thoughts of Bulma and Trunks filled her mind, as they always did, but this time they were glimpses of what could be instead of what had already been.

"They…don't despise me, then?"

"No. Something you could have realized much sooner if you would have bothered to leave a forwarding address."

She said nothing, daring to hope that this might not have such an ugly ending after all.

Gohan rested a hand on her arm, and eyed her seriously. "You can't watch over them if you're not there, Moroshka."

She cringed. He was right. It had been nagging at her since the day she left. She got to her feet and dusted off. "Enough said-"

"Moroshka!"

It was Supreme Kai's voice, and both she and Gohan heard it.

"Kai?" she asked, alarmed. He made it a rule not to communicate at random in this dimension. It was some sort of code he had to live by. Therefore, this had to be important.

"I shouldn't be intervening, but Trunks is in danger. You have to hurry. Babette just poisoned him."

Babette! Moroshka had completely forgotten about her. Vegeta's dying words suddenly rang in her ears. 'Protect them…from others like you…'

"Poisoned him with what?" Gohan screamed.

"I can tell you no more. Now GO!"

Moroshka let her panic fuel her action. She jumped up, needing no more incentive to move. "Gohan. Go get Dende, and I'll intercept you on the way to Capsule Corp. With Trunks."

"Right."

They both shot off in opposite directions. As her body sliced through the air friction, blood roared in her ears. Moroshka had never flown so fast.

* * *

She burst through the front doors to Capsule Corp. to find Bulma in the front room, cradling her son in her arms. The valiant woman looked up with tears streaming down her face. "Moroshka! Thank heavens you're here."

Moroshka ran up and knelt down beside them. Trunks' teeth were clenched shut, and his body was lightly convulsing. He seemed totally incoherent, but that wasn't what made the bottom of her stomach drop out. Trunks was fading…literally. She was able to look straight through his flesh and bones to the tiled floor beneath.

Bulma sniffed back the tears, and started to ramble. "He went to go see Babette for the first time since you left. A couple hours later he collapsed in the doorway, saying something about a snake bite," she sobbed. "And then I couldn't reach him anymore. It's getting worse."

Just when she said it, Trunks' body fluttered twice like a blitzed light, and settled on a more transparent tone. Moroshka curled him up in her arms, and swallowed back the fear frenzying for attention. Oh Trunks! Hang in there!

"Gohan's on his way with Dende, Bulma. I'm going to meet him half way," she said as bravely as she could.

"Wait!" Bulma pulled something out of her pocket and handed it to her. "It's Babette's address."

Moroshka stuffed it in her pocket, and nodded. Without further discussion she raced out the front door and flew towards a feint power on the horizon of Gohan and Dende.

Trunks cringed as she flew, as if aware of the altitude change. "Don't die on me, kid," she said in a choked whisper, holding him closer. His body was emanating little heat, and weighed half of what it used to.

She met up with Gohan in just a couple of minutes. Dende was wrapped securely in his left arm, his face stunned from the windburn. They descended immediately and she laid Trunks' body on the ground. Little moans were escaping his fading lips, and he shuddered violently.

If the guardian and half-saiyan were unsettled by his appearance, they said nothing. Dende immediately leaned over him and placed his hands on Trunks' head. The little Namek was suddenly encircled in an aura of healing, and when it went to transfer to Trunks, something happened-and it wasn't good.

Dende cried out and fell back, gawking at his hands as if he were surprised to find them at the end of his wrists. Then his stare fell on Trunks' prone form.

"What happened?" Gohan asked, the panic in his face mirroring the panic that Moroshka felt.

"I…I can't heal him!" Dende cried. "He's not wounded."

"What?" Moroshka screamed, the flicker of hope she had quickly diminishing.

"He's being sucked whole into another dimension. When I tried to transfer my energy to him, it tugged at me! He doesn't need to be healed. He needs the spell to be reversed!"

"It's a spell, not a poison?" Gohan asked.

Dende nodded. "His consciousness is already there, and whatever it is he's experiencing on the other side can't be very good," the Namek said, looking at each of them with the fear of losing a friend to something worse than death. "See how he convulses?"

Moroshka knew of a few parallel dimensions, the Dead Zone being one of them. It felt like a cold, skeletal hand gripped her esophagus. Trunks, no! She felt the water stinging her eyes, and stood up, taking the address out of her pocket.

"Talk to him," she said to Gohan. "Try to keep him grounded while I go and search out the witch that did this to him."

She took to the air once again, her stomach tying itself into knots.