Haunt 17
Home ...
He didn't want to believe it but he knew it was true. The girl that fell out of the sky was an older version of his little girl.
He had just said goodbye to his little girl and wife as they were going to visit Carmen's parents in the new city. He decided to stay behind because he knew that he was not welcome there. Carmen's dad still called him a cradle robber and her twin brother was no different. It didn't matter that he could pummel them into the ground and that he was helping to rebuild most of what the androids destroyed. They still did not like him.
And then in a flash of white light, she fell next to him.
He didn't notice at first. She was a hurt woman that looked as if she was run through the ringer and back again. He didn't really think of where she came from and who she was until he got her home and Mom got a look at her. Well, then he noticed the tail. I mean, who else had tails but his family? And the red hair? It had to be Soyna! Had to be.
But he didn't know what happened to her to make her look like that. She was barely breathing and so pale. Then the shocker news that the doctor told them. She was pregnant! His little girl! He hadn't even thought of that stuff yet. His little girl was only 6. SIX! He didn't have to start thinking about being a grandparent for a long time yet! Then the marks started to appear on her skin that the doctor could not explain. Mom knew what it was. She said it looked like Shelong. Once he really looked at it, it sure did look like Shelong. It was so long ago since he had seen the dragon and that was brief. The doctor kept her on oxygen and tried to minimize the medicine he gave her. There was not really many physical wounds on her. That had shocked him. When he found her, her clothes were covered with blood. He thought for sure that she was badly injured.
She was sleeping as far as he knew. Still sleeping peacefully in a bed that they made for her.
He really wanted to know what was going on with her! What happened? Were they attacked again? He thought that was all over!
"You should eat something Trunks."
He looked up at his mom.
"When she gets better, she will be able to talk to us," Bulma said. "Maybe she is here to warn us about something."
"But she didn't use the time machine mom. She fell from the sky!" he said and stared at the food on the table. He wasn't hungry. What came to hurt his family? He thought it was safe to have a life of his own. He thought it was safe to have a family.
"I know dear," Bulma said. "Eat and calm down."
Calm down.
There were just so many questions that had to be answered. So many and how could he let his little girl get hurt like that! It surely was his fault. Was he around to protect her? Who was the father of the child in her belly? How did she get here? More questions circled his head and he knew that he would have to wait and he didn't want too!
"I am going to go check on her," he pushed away from the table.
"Don't look so guilty dear," Bulma said. He stopped. Yeah, that is what he was feeling guilty for not stopping whatever hurt her like that. Why wasn't he there for her? She was his only child! "It's not your fault."
He felt like it was as he walked into the room where they had a bed for her and was shocked to see that the bed was empty. He felt a panic rise in his stomach, like the time that he found nearly drowned by the waterfall, where he had specifically told her not to play. He thought that he had lost her that day and barely got over the guilt of that. For not watching her as closely as a three year old should be watched.
She was no where in the room. He started to run back to the kitchen when he noticed that his daughter room door was open.
He peaked in.
There was the woman that was once his little girl, sitting on the edge of her childhood bed. She was holding on her dolls. It was one of her favorite, if he remembered correctly. It was one that Chi Chi gave her before she passed away.
She looked so sad.
He pushed the door open slightly and the door creaked. She looked up, almost startled but then smiled gently at him. "Hi daddy," she said. Boy, that sounded weird coming out of woman's mouth. She looked so much like Carmen. She definitely had her eyes. The bright calm green that he fell in love with in Carmen.
"Soyna?" he whispered and came into the room. "You really should be out of bed."
She smiled a little wider. "I know. I should be resting." She put the doll back down on the bed. "I just am not good at following doctors orders." She rubbed her eyes and sighed heavily.
He looked at her with great worry. How could she be so sad? He sat beside her. "Soyna?" he said. "What happened to you?"
The smile faltered and she lowered her head. Her thick red hair hiding her face and obscuring her eyes but he knew there were tears in them. "Can I tell you later, dad. I am not really up to it right now. I just want to enjoy being at home for a little while." She still wouldn't look up at him. He forced her to, but putting his hand under her chin.
"Of course," he smiled at her. "As long as you need to."
She smiled again and reached for a hug. He hugged her back and it sure felt awkward at first. He was not used to his little girl being a woman, but it still was his little girl.
"Are you hungry? You should be. Mom, I mean, your Grandma has cooked dinner and there is plenty to eat. Would you care for food right now?" he asked.
She nodded in the hug.
................................
It was a couple of days before she really started to talk. That was when the dragon seemed the brightest on her skin. The green scales of it almost blinded him when she moved her arm in the sunlight. Curiosity was killing him, he wanted to know why his little girl was so sad and quiet. How could such a volatile little girl grow up to be so dark. Can they change that much? He wondered if he changed that much from when he was a boy.
He listened to her soft voice as she started the tale at where Carmen died. He was stunned when she mentioned her little brother that they named Vegeta. She warned him that she must be careful when she gets pregnant so that she doesn't die this time. Carmen had bled to death. "Get the doctor to cut the kid out," she said. "I lost both my parents that day."
As she continued her story, he began to understand. He wasn't around. He left her to raise her own brother with his mom. "You said I looked to much like mom and it hurt you to look at me." She said to explain it. He promised her that he wouldn't do it this time around. "I hope not. I didn't like arguing with you all the time, when you did come back. It took until I met my first husband for us to start getting along again."
He remained silent as she recounted a brief record of how she met her first husband and how they fell in love and how it brought him back into the fold of his family. Then she said that she got pregnant. With Twins. Two boys that were born in the other time. But that was jumping ahead a little. She talked about the arrival of the Wodah's and Krad and how they tricked them. How her first husband had betrayed her. How he was killed by the poison. How she escaped with Junior and how her first husband redeemed himself by sacrificing himself to put her and her brother (his yet to be born son) in the time capsule and send them to a safe time after they got so sick from the poison. She told him how the poison took the first year of her children's life away from her and that Bulma, Chi Chi and the other raised them for the first year as she recovered from the poison. Junior only took 6 months it seemed but still had problems with his eyes after.
"Then all I did was train and take care of my kids," she said. "I learned a lot from Grandpa. He is a good teacher."
He blinked. Grandpa? Vegeta? His dad?
"Don't look so stunned. We got along quite well actually. He said that I was more Saiyian than anyone else. I guess that was why we get along so well. But then, he is also quite protective of me as well."
"Dad?" he said.
"He has changed a lot since you last seen him," she said with a sigh and then moved on with her story of telling him how she blew his OTHER self out the kitchen wall and his friend for startling Benot in the kitchen. She was not to clear where they had been but they had been traveling the galaxy. "I really didn't want to met your OTHER self. We didn't get along for awhile but we worked out our differences."
She talked about the preparing for the tournament that Krad was hosting. She talked about how hard she trained and how everyone kept trying to tell her to slow down. "No one understood that I wanted to kill him for everything that he did to me! Well, Vegeta did, but he still didn't want me to fight him. I guess he was right though. I did go a little far, but it was the only way I could see to save everyone else."
She explained how she sacrificed herself for her children and how she lost her grandfather and a pseudo father by the poison. She didn't want anyone else to be lost as well and so, she finished the job.
She was quiet as she said that. "What do you mean by that?"
"I sacrificed myself. I destroyed him and his ship... I thought I had destroyed everything. I wanted to make sure that there was nothing there left to come back and hurt my family anymore." She sighed. "I missed one though. His son, Ligh. But that's jumping ahead again."
She talked about how her boys had wished her back by tricking Goku to give them the wishes over a card game. She of course had to explain why Goku was in charge of the wishes. He had fused with the dragon some time ago to make it harder to make wishes so that the dragon wouldn't be trapped. She was rubbing the shinny scales on her arms as she spoke of this. Why was the dragon on her body if it was supposed to be on Goku's?
That was all explained later as she talked about how things were so good for awhile. She married her second husband and they had a set of twins together, a boy and a girl. At least that explained why there was another child in her stomach.
She talked about seeing her first husband again and how it so upset her to see him, looking so young and innocent. "It was the first time I realized that I missed him and that I never really mourned his death. Damn it, he even approached me the same way with flowers and later the same damn stuffed cat..." she had to stop for a bit... "and He was so stubborn!" She snapped and the arm of the chair broke off in his hands. "I couldn't talk to him about my first husband! How could I! I..." He knew that she must be referring to her second husband here. She threw the arm of the chair aside as she regained her composure. "It was hard for me."
He could see that.
She shook her head and talked about how Ligh had manipulated everything. He could hear a lot of speculation in her voice and a lot of pain that he would hurt her that way.
"He killed my Benot!" she said finally. "He made his barter with Goku to get his wishes using my son! MY SON! He set the conditions to get the wishes out of him using my son! He killed my son right in front of me!" The tears were flowing down her cheeks. "I had no other choice but to take Shelong up on his request. A request that I didn't want to take!"
She rubbed the dragon on her arms as she explained how Shelong wanted to be free of the curse of the wishes and that the child, the boy, in her belly would be the way out for him. She said that she didn't want to do it, but Ligh gave her no other choice.
"Ligh had made one wish already. The typical wish of all those universe dominating freaks. Strength and invulnerability. He tried to make more. He wanted to bring his father back, but my husband and Vegeta were able to stop him from finishing a sentence. I gave Shelong his wish and I got the last four wishes. My son's life. Vegeta's life. Ligh's wish revoked and my trip home." She sighed. "So I could see you again."
"See me?" he said as he looked at his daughter. "But why?"
"I do need a place to rest for a little while and Shelong and I thought that this would be the best for me. Plus, I could warn you so that at least one Soyna, won't turn out like me," she said with a small smile. "One Soyna could have her dad around all the time."
He felt so bad! He didn't even do those things yet and he felt guilty about how his little girl turned out. She was strong yes, but she still was so weak.
"Well, I won't make the same mistakes twice." He said and looked at the shiny dragon on her skin.
"I need to get my strength back before Shelong will try to fuse with my child. He doesn't want to risk it not working. I don't want to be the carrier of the curse. I really don't. But if Shelong fuses with my child, there will be no more wishes. His soul will be mortal which mean he will die, in time."
He nodded. "What a terrible burden you have," he said and hugged his little girl. "I wish I had been there for you."
She didn't say a word as she fell into his embrace and was soon asleep. He held her as she slept. He was afraid to let her go. She had glossed over a lot of things. She never mentioned the names of her husbands. Just one and two... he would have to find out their names later but she did mention her children and she obviously loved them a lot. Benot and Legen, from her first husband. Benot looked like him and Legen like his father. He got that much. Flint and Flare from her second husband. And the third child, she was sure was going to be a boy that was from her second husband as well. He looked at her stomach. She wasn't showing yet. The doctor had said that she was about three months along. Give or take a month. Of course, Carmen didn't start showing really until she was five months. She was probably the same way.
She did so much on her own.
She had everyone to help her and she was doing it on her own. He knew why too. He trained her to be independent. He had always done, even now, he was telling her that she had to do a lot of things on her own, and then... well, he left her to raise her brother! How could he do that!
He wasn't going to make that mistake again. Not with the little girl in his arms or with the little girl at her grandparents.
....................
He didn't realize that he had fallen asleep as well and when he woke she was gone. He got mad at himself for not being able to detect her, but he knew that she was still in this time. He should have never have taught her how to mask her presence so well!
She was gone for a couple of days before she came back actually looking quite well but he still couldn't help yelling at her! "Where did you go? How could you leave without telling me where you went? Don't you realize that you should be resting." He ranted like that for a bit and she didn't seem a bit phased by it. She just smiled and stood there staring at him. "What are you smiling about! I am MAD at you."
She smiled even bigger. "I know, dad," she said and then and gave him a huge hug which confused the hell out of him. "It won't happen again. Shelong had a few things to attend to and he is impatient as of late." She pulled away and walked into the kitchen asking about food.
Of course when he asked what she meant about Shelong, he didn't really want to hear it. She didn't even look up from her food. "I have only about a week to remain here. We needed solitude to start..." She got a really sad look on her face. "So that Shelong can get his wish! Okay!" She snapped covering her sadness with anger. Did he teach her that? She raised her arm and showed him the tattoo of the dragon. "See, he is starting to fade!" and it was. The green scales were no longer shinny and bright, but looking a bit dull and faded in places.
"I do not wish to talk of it," she said. "I just... Well... I..." she mixed the food on her plate so that it looked rather unappetizing. "I just want to be at home for a little while. Okay."
He nodded. "Alright. Alright. I will drop it." He sat beside her. He was not going to let his little girl turn out like this. How could he let her turn out like this to begin with? He felt like a terrible father. "I did look for you, you know."
"I know," she said with a sly smile and began eating again.
"I will always regret the day that I taught you how to disguise your presence." He said and he meant it. The six year old version of Soyna was very adept at it at times. He could never find her and it bothered the hell out of him at times.
"I'm not that good at it," she said.
"I think you underestimate yourself," he humped and then looked at her. She was shaking and those tears came in her eyes. What did he say?
"He could always find me! Every time I wanted to be alone, he was right there!" She said and used anger to hide her sorrow again. "I told him that I didn't want him around. That I would hurt him but he was always there!"
"Who?" he said.
She just stood up from the table and stormed out of the room. He was about to follow when his mom stopped him. "She is not ready to talk to you about her husband."
"What?" Had she been talking to mom about her past relationships. Her husbands who he still did not know the names of.
"She is feeling a little guilty about leaving the way that she did," Bulma said. "She is thinking that he won't forgive her this time and walk away. She is trying to stop her own pain because she does really love him."
Trunks sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I am so not ready for this part of having a daughter."
Bulma laughed at him. "You never are with any child. She has a week or so to remain with us. Just be a father to her. Do what you usually do with her."
"I can't spar with her. While she is pregnant!" he said aghast that mom would even suggest it.
"Dear, you couldn't beat her anyway," Bulma said. "She is quite a bit stronger than you, even in her weakened state."
"What? And how do you know?" Trunks said. Yeah, how would she know. He knew that Soyna was strong as a six year old but he doubted very much that she could be stronger than him.
Bulma just shook her head. "Go talk to her about it. When I asked her what she did most of the time, she said that she spared with Vegeta most of the time now. She said that they were evenly matched most of the time, but she had the speed edge on him when she got to level 4. Now, I don't think you have yet made it past 2."
He looked stunned at his mother. "I didn't know that there was anything after that!"
"Well, now you do," she said and left the room.
He rubbed his head further. It was amazing how quickly the world could get turned upside down.
........................................
He got to know the older version of his daughter. A little bit anyway. She was quite solemn most of the time and he never got her to laugh even just once. He only tried one more time to bring up her current husband. He was rather curious what kind of man she married the second time around, but she would just shake her head, get that odd look on her face and walk away from him.
That was until the week was almost up. She sat at his favorite spot with the apple tree and the river. Being spring, the tree was full of blossoms, which ordinarily looked so white, but against his daughters hair, they looked almost pink.
"What you thinking about?" he asked and sat beside her.
"I buried you and mom here," she said. "I know that you loved it here so much."
He was stunned by her statement. He really didn't think she was thinking about where he was buried.
"In the other time, I used to come here to be alone. It is there. It was where I could still talk to you and mom. At least I thought that you could hear me a bit. It made me feel better anyway." She said and looked at him. "All I had was a few pictures to remind me of this time and how good things were before everything blew up in my face."
"I used to come here a lot when your OTHER self showed up. I needed to get away from him a little more until I could calm my own feelings of self doubt." She said and turned to him. "That damn man could always find me! He found me here... He asked me why I came here and I told him. I tried to scare him away from me but he wouldn't balk. He kept coming back, no matter how hard I pushed him away."
She stopped for a second.
"Do you love him?" he asked.
"Of course I love him!" She snapped. "I wouldn't have married the persistent jerk if I didn't!"
"Just checking. You don't like to talk about him since you got here. I don't even know his name," he said.
"I do miss him," she said a little more slowly, "... and I just hope he can forgive me for all that I did to him." He just looked at her as she began to draw pictures in the dirt with her finger. "I didn't mean too.... I just..." She sighed heavily and looked at him. "I was starting to have nightmares again. I was starting to think about how things could be if I gave my first husband another chance and I forgot about how wonderful we had it together." She looked at the river as a fish splashed it's way upstream. "I think that is part of the reason Shelong brought me to this time. To open my eyes."
He smiled at his little girl. "I wish I could met this man." He noted that she did not know his name yet. Would she ever tell him?
"So do I," she said with a soft smile. He was about to ask her to come back with him to the house where they could start supper before Bulma did when she gave a startled look to her face and went rigid.
"What?" he said immediately and grabbed her. Was she in pain? What was wrong?
"You can!" she whispered in a breathless voice. Her eyes were as wide as he had ever seen them. She sure resembled the six year old girl tha the was used to now.
"Can what?" he said.
"For a couple of days anyway," she said with a smile and hugged him with such ferocity that he thought his eyes were going to pop out.
"Huh? I missed something here," he said and she laughed.
It was the first time that he had heard her laugh.
..........................
Home ...
He didn't want to believe it but he knew it was true. The girl that fell out of the sky was an older version of his little girl.
He had just said goodbye to his little girl and wife as they were going to visit Carmen's parents in the new city. He decided to stay behind because he knew that he was not welcome there. Carmen's dad still called him a cradle robber and her twin brother was no different. It didn't matter that he could pummel them into the ground and that he was helping to rebuild most of what the androids destroyed. They still did not like him.
And then in a flash of white light, she fell next to him.
He didn't notice at first. She was a hurt woman that looked as if she was run through the ringer and back again. He didn't really think of where she came from and who she was until he got her home and Mom got a look at her. Well, then he noticed the tail. I mean, who else had tails but his family? And the red hair? It had to be Soyna! Had to be.
But he didn't know what happened to her to make her look like that. She was barely breathing and so pale. Then the shocker news that the doctor told them. She was pregnant! His little girl! He hadn't even thought of that stuff yet. His little girl was only 6. SIX! He didn't have to start thinking about being a grandparent for a long time yet! Then the marks started to appear on her skin that the doctor could not explain. Mom knew what it was. She said it looked like Shelong. Once he really looked at it, it sure did look like Shelong. It was so long ago since he had seen the dragon and that was brief. The doctor kept her on oxygen and tried to minimize the medicine he gave her. There was not really many physical wounds on her. That had shocked him. When he found her, her clothes were covered with blood. He thought for sure that she was badly injured.
She was sleeping as far as he knew. Still sleeping peacefully in a bed that they made for her.
He really wanted to know what was going on with her! What happened? Were they attacked again? He thought that was all over!
"You should eat something Trunks."
He looked up at his mom.
"When she gets better, she will be able to talk to us," Bulma said. "Maybe she is here to warn us about something."
"But she didn't use the time machine mom. She fell from the sky!" he said and stared at the food on the table. He wasn't hungry. What came to hurt his family? He thought it was safe to have a life of his own. He thought it was safe to have a family.
"I know dear," Bulma said. "Eat and calm down."
Calm down.
There were just so many questions that had to be answered. So many and how could he let his little girl get hurt like that! It surely was his fault. Was he around to protect her? Who was the father of the child in her belly? How did she get here? More questions circled his head and he knew that he would have to wait and he didn't want too!
"I am going to go check on her," he pushed away from the table.
"Don't look so guilty dear," Bulma said. He stopped. Yeah, that is what he was feeling guilty for not stopping whatever hurt her like that. Why wasn't he there for her? She was his only child! "It's not your fault."
He felt like it was as he walked into the room where they had a bed for her and was shocked to see that the bed was empty. He felt a panic rise in his stomach, like the time that he found nearly drowned by the waterfall, where he had specifically told her not to play. He thought that he had lost her that day and barely got over the guilt of that. For not watching her as closely as a three year old should be watched.
She was no where in the room. He started to run back to the kitchen when he noticed that his daughter room door was open.
He peaked in.
There was the woman that was once his little girl, sitting on the edge of her childhood bed. She was holding on her dolls. It was one of her favorite, if he remembered correctly. It was one that Chi Chi gave her before she passed away.
She looked so sad.
He pushed the door open slightly and the door creaked. She looked up, almost startled but then smiled gently at him. "Hi daddy," she said. Boy, that sounded weird coming out of woman's mouth. She looked so much like Carmen. She definitely had her eyes. The bright calm green that he fell in love with in Carmen.
"Soyna?" he whispered and came into the room. "You really should be out of bed."
She smiled a little wider. "I know. I should be resting." She put the doll back down on the bed. "I just am not good at following doctors orders." She rubbed her eyes and sighed heavily.
He looked at her with great worry. How could she be so sad? He sat beside her. "Soyna?" he said. "What happened to you?"
The smile faltered and she lowered her head. Her thick red hair hiding her face and obscuring her eyes but he knew there were tears in them. "Can I tell you later, dad. I am not really up to it right now. I just want to enjoy being at home for a little while." She still wouldn't look up at him. He forced her to, but putting his hand under her chin.
"Of course," he smiled at her. "As long as you need to."
She smiled again and reached for a hug. He hugged her back and it sure felt awkward at first. He was not used to his little girl being a woman, but it still was his little girl.
"Are you hungry? You should be. Mom, I mean, your Grandma has cooked dinner and there is plenty to eat. Would you care for food right now?" he asked.
She nodded in the hug.
................................
It was a couple of days before she really started to talk. That was when the dragon seemed the brightest on her skin. The green scales of it almost blinded him when she moved her arm in the sunlight. Curiosity was killing him, he wanted to know why his little girl was so sad and quiet. How could such a volatile little girl grow up to be so dark. Can they change that much? He wondered if he changed that much from when he was a boy.
He listened to her soft voice as she started the tale at where Carmen died. He was stunned when she mentioned her little brother that they named Vegeta. She warned him that she must be careful when she gets pregnant so that she doesn't die this time. Carmen had bled to death. "Get the doctor to cut the kid out," she said. "I lost both my parents that day."
As she continued her story, he began to understand. He wasn't around. He left her to raise her own brother with his mom. "You said I looked to much like mom and it hurt you to look at me." She said to explain it. He promised her that he wouldn't do it this time around. "I hope not. I didn't like arguing with you all the time, when you did come back. It took until I met my first husband for us to start getting along again."
He remained silent as she recounted a brief record of how she met her first husband and how they fell in love and how it brought him back into the fold of his family. Then she said that she got pregnant. With Twins. Two boys that were born in the other time. But that was jumping ahead a little. She talked about the arrival of the Wodah's and Krad and how they tricked them. How her first husband had betrayed her. How he was killed by the poison. How she escaped with Junior and how her first husband redeemed himself by sacrificing himself to put her and her brother (his yet to be born son) in the time capsule and send them to a safe time after they got so sick from the poison. She told him how the poison took the first year of her children's life away from her and that Bulma, Chi Chi and the other raised them for the first year as she recovered from the poison. Junior only took 6 months it seemed but still had problems with his eyes after.
"Then all I did was train and take care of my kids," she said. "I learned a lot from Grandpa. He is a good teacher."
He blinked. Grandpa? Vegeta? His dad?
"Don't look so stunned. We got along quite well actually. He said that I was more Saiyian than anyone else. I guess that was why we get along so well. But then, he is also quite protective of me as well."
"Dad?" he said.
"He has changed a lot since you last seen him," she said with a sigh and then moved on with her story of telling him how she blew his OTHER self out the kitchen wall and his friend for startling Benot in the kitchen. She was not to clear where they had been but they had been traveling the galaxy. "I really didn't want to met your OTHER self. We didn't get along for awhile but we worked out our differences."
She talked about the preparing for the tournament that Krad was hosting. She talked about how hard she trained and how everyone kept trying to tell her to slow down. "No one understood that I wanted to kill him for everything that he did to me! Well, Vegeta did, but he still didn't want me to fight him. I guess he was right though. I did go a little far, but it was the only way I could see to save everyone else."
She explained how she sacrificed herself for her children and how she lost her grandfather and a pseudo father by the poison. She didn't want anyone else to be lost as well and so, she finished the job.
She was quiet as she said that. "What do you mean by that?"
"I sacrificed myself. I destroyed him and his ship... I thought I had destroyed everything. I wanted to make sure that there was nothing there left to come back and hurt my family anymore." She sighed. "I missed one though. His son, Ligh. But that's jumping ahead again."
She talked about how her boys had wished her back by tricking Goku to give them the wishes over a card game. She of course had to explain why Goku was in charge of the wishes. He had fused with the dragon some time ago to make it harder to make wishes so that the dragon wouldn't be trapped. She was rubbing the shinny scales on her arms as she spoke of this. Why was the dragon on her body if it was supposed to be on Goku's?
That was all explained later as she talked about how things were so good for awhile. She married her second husband and they had a set of twins together, a boy and a girl. At least that explained why there was another child in her stomach.
She talked about seeing her first husband again and how it so upset her to see him, looking so young and innocent. "It was the first time I realized that I missed him and that I never really mourned his death. Damn it, he even approached me the same way with flowers and later the same damn stuffed cat..." she had to stop for a bit... "and He was so stubborn!" She snapped and the arm of the chair broke off in his hands. "I couldn't talk to him about my first husband! How could I! I..." He knew that she must be referring to her second husband here. She threw the arm of the chair aside as she regained her composure. "It was hard for me."
He could see that.
She shook her head and talked about how Ligh had manipulated everything. He could hear a lot of speculation in her voice and a lot of pain that he would hurt her that way.
"He killed my Benot!" she said finally. "He made his barter with Goku to get his wishes using my son! MY SON! He set the conditions to get the wishes out of him using my son! He killed my son right in front of me!" The tears were flowing down her cheeks. "I had no other choice but to take Shelong up on his request. A request that I didn't want to take!"
She rubbed the dragon on her arms as she explained how Shelong wanted to be free of the curse of the wishes and that the child, the boy, in her belly would be the way out for him. She said that she didn't want to do it, but Ligh gave her no other choice.
"Ligh had made one wish already. The typical wish of all those universe dominating freaks. Strength and invulnerability. He tried to make more. He wanted to bring his father back, but my husband and Vegeta were able to stop him from finishing a sentence. I gave Shelong his wish and I got the last four wishes. My son's life. Vegeta's life. Ligh's wish revoked and my trip home." She sighed. "So I could see you again."
"See me?" he said as he looked at his daughter. "But why?"
"I do need a place to rest for a little while and Shelong and I thought that this would be the best for me. Plus, I could warn you so that at least one Soyna, won't turn out like me," she said with a small smile. "One Soyna could have her dad around all the time."
He felt so bad! He didn't even do those things yet and he felt guilty about how his little girl turned out. She was strong yes, but she still was so weak.
"Well, I won't make the same mistakes twice." He said and looked at the shiny dragon on her skin.
"I need to get my strength back before Shelong will try to fuse with my child. He doesn't want to risk it not working. I don't want to be the carrier of the curse. I really don't. But if Shelong fuses with my child, there will be no more wishes. His soul will be mortal which mean he will die, in time."
He nodded. "What a terrible burden you have," he said and hugged his little girl. "I wish I had been there for you."
She didn't say a word as she fell into his embrace and was soon asleep. He held her as she slept. He was afraid to let her go. She had glossed over a lot of things. She never mentioned the names of her husbands. Just one and two... he would have to find out their names later but she did mention her children and she obviously loved them a lot. Benot and Legen, from her first husband. Benot looked like him and Legen like his father. He got that much. Flint and Flare from her second husband. And the third child, she was sure was going to be a boy that was from her second husband as well. He looked at her stomach. She wasn't showing yet. The doctor had said that she was about three months along. Give or take a month. Of course, Carmen didn't start showing really until she was five months. She was probably the same way.
She did so much on her own.
She had everyone to help her and she was doing it on her own. He knew why too. He trained her to be independent. He had always done, even now, he was telling her that she had to do a lot of things on her own, and then... well, he left her to raise her brother! How could he do that!
He wasn't going to make that mistake again. Not with the little girl in his arms or with the little girl at her grandparents.
....................
He didn't realize that he had fallen asleep as well and when he woke she was gone. He got mad at himself for not being able to detect her, but he knew that she was still in this time. He should have never have taught her how to mask her presence so well!
She was gone for a couple of days before she came back actually looking quite well but he still couldn't help yelling at her! "Where did you go? How could you leave without telling me where you went? Don't you realize that you should be resting." He ranted like that for a bit and she didn't seem a bit phased by it. She just smiled and stood there staring at him. "What are you smiling about! I am MAD at you."
She smiled even bigger. "I know, dad," she said and then and gave him a huge hug which confused the hell out of him. "It won't happen again. Shelong had a few things to attend to and he is impatient as of late." She pulled away and walked into the kitchen asking about food.
Of course when he asked what she meant about Shelong, he didn't really want to hear it. She didn't even look up from her food. "I have only about a week to remain here. We needed solitude to start..." She got a really sad look on her face. "So that Shelong can get his wish! Okay!" She snapped covering her sadness with anger. Did he teach her that? She raised her arm and showed him the tattoo of the dragon. "See, he is starting to fade!" and it was. The green scales were no longer shinny and bright, but looking a bit dull and faded in places.
"I do not wish to talk of it," she said. "I just... Well... I..." she mixed the food on her plate so that it looked rather unappetizing. "I just want to be at home for a little while. Okay."
He nodded. "Alright. Alright. I will drop it." He sat beside her. He was not going to let his little girl turn out like this. How could he let her turn out like this to begin with? He felt like a terrible father. "I did look for you, you know."
"I know," she said with a sly smile and began eating again.
"I will always regret the day that I taught you how to disguise your presence." He said and he meant it. The six year old version of Soyna was very adept at it at times. He could never find her and it bothered the hell out of him at times.
"I'm not that good at it," she said.
"I think you underestimate yourself," he humped and then looked at her. She was shaking and those tears came in her eyes. What did he say?
"He could always find me! Every time I wanted to be alone, he was right there!" She said and used anger to hide her sorrow again. "I told him that I didn't want him around. That I would hurt him but he was always there!"
"Who?" he said.
She just stood up from the table and stormed out of the room. He was about to follow when his mom stopped him. "She is not ready to talk to you about her husband."
"What?" Had she been talking to mom about her past relationships. Her husbands who he still did not know the names of.
"She is feeling a little guilty about leaving the way that she did," Bulma said. "She is thinking that he won't forgive her this time and walk away. She is trying to stop her own pain because she does really love him."
Trunks sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I am so not ready for this part of having a daughter."
Bulma laughed at him. "You never are with any child. She has a week or so to remain with us. Just be a father to her. Do what you usually do with her."
"I can't spar with her. While she is pregnant!" he said aghast that mom would even suggest it.
"Dear, you couldn't beat her anyway," Bulma said. "She is quite a bit stronger than you, even in her weakened state."
"What? And how do you know?" Trunks said. Yeah, how would she know. He knew that Soyna was strong as a six year old but he doubted very much that she could be stronger than him.
Bulma just shook her head. "Go talk to her about it. When I asked her what she did most of the time, she said that she spared with Vegeta most of the time now. She said that they were evenly matched most of the time, but she had the speed edge on him when she got to level 4. Now, I don't think you have yet made it past 2."
He looked stunned at his mother. "I didn't know that there was anything after that!"
"Well, now you do," she said and left the room.
He rubbed his head further. It was amazing how quickly the world could get turned upside down.
........................................
He got to know the older version of his daughter. A little bit anyway. She was quite solemn most of the time and he never got her to laugh even just once. He only tried one more time to bring up her current husband. He was rather curious what kind of man she married the second time around, but she would just shake her head, get that odd look on her face and walk away from him.
That was until the week was almost up. She sat at his favorite spot with the apple tree and the river. Being spring, the tree was full of blossoms, which ordinarily looked so white, but against his daughters hair, they looked almost pink.
"What you thinking about?" he asked and sat beside her.
"I buried you and mom here," she said. "I know that you loved it here so much."
He was stunned by her statement. He really didn't think she was thinking about where he was buried.
"In the other time, I used to come here to be alone. It is there. It was where I could still talk to you and mom. At least I thought that you could hear me a bit. It made me feel better anyway." She said and looked at him. "All I had was a few pictures to remind me of this time and how good things were before everything blew up in my face."
"I used to come here a lot when your OTHER self showed up. I needed to get away from him a little more until I could calm my own feelings of self doubt." She said and turned to him. "That damn man could always find me! He found me here... He asked me why I came here and I told him. I tried to scare him away from me but he wouldn't balk. He kept coming back, no matter how hard I pushed him away."
She stopped for a second.
"Do you love him?" he asked.
"Of course I love him!" She snapped. "I wouldn't have married the persistent jerk if I didn't!"
"Just checking. You don't like to talk about him since you got here. I don't even know his name," he said.
"I do miss him," she said a little more slowly, "... and I just hope he can forgive me for all that I did to him." He just looked at her as she began to draw pictures in the dirt with her finger. "I didn't mean too.... I just..." She sighed heavily and looked at him. "I was starting to have nightmares again. I was starting to think about how things could be if I gave my first husband another chance and I forgot about how wonderful we had it together." She looked at the river as a fish splashed it's way upstream. "I think that is part of the reason Shelong brought me to this time. To open my eyes."
He smiled at his little girl. "I wish I could met this man." He noted that she did not know his name yet. Would she ever tell him?
"So do I," she said with a soft smile. He was about to ask her to come back with him to the house where they could start supper before Bulma did when she gave a startled look to her face and went rigid.
"What?" he said immediately and grabbed her. Was she in pain? What was wrong?
"You can!" she whispered in a breathless voice. Her eyes were as wide as he had ever seen them. She sure resembled the six year old girl tha the was used to now.
"Can what?" he said.
"For a couple of days anyway," she said with a smile and hugged him with such ferocity that he thought his eyes were going to pop out.
"Huh? I missed something here," he said and she laughed.
It was the first time that he had heard her laugh.
..........................
