Okay, as you will be able to tell, I continued the story line, connecting this chapter with the last one, but this is STILL AN ALTERNATE ENDING! I just want to get that out of the way. :) I like both endings, but this is the last ending I'm writing, I swear! Actually, personally I like this ending better, but that's just my opinion, read it and decide for yourself. Thanks!
~Lady Branwen~
Disclaimer: I obviously don't own DBZ or Linkin Park! Duh!
Points of Authority
I can't stop thinking about her. Her death haunts me and I can't stand thinking about the last look she had on her face before she died. There was so much anguish, hurt, and rejection all on that face that had never shown any of those emotions before. Could I have changed her? Could it be that when she had kidnapped me along with 17, I had been her one and only true companion and she fell in love with me?
I keep telling myself that it can't be true. 18 could not have fallen in love with me. I've grown up seeing her destroy whole cities with a grin on her face. I've seen the pleasure she took in hurting people. How could she have the capacity to love someone like me? Sometimes I wish she were still alive so that I could just confront her about it and just get this 'love' nonsense over with. But…She truly was nice to me once she and 17 had kidnapped me. She never beat me or challenged me to a fight after that.
One day I was feeling particularly annoyed with these thoughts and I somehow managed to bring myself to their cave in the mountain where they lived. I don't know how I ended up there, I was never allowed to see where we were going, but nevertheless, I found myself walking around in the familiar lab.
I walked around, taking in the sights and seeing how they had lived. I never really took the time when I was there to look around. I was always plotting on an escape route. For the first time, I walked into a bedroom. If I remembered right, it was 17's room. There was barely anything in it; just a closet with a few changes of clothes, a TV that didn't work, and a bed. Across the hall from his room was 18's.
In deep contrast to her brother's room, the walls were painted a peach color and a four poster wrought iron bed with a place for a canopy. In place of the canopy, 18 had wrapped vines around the bars. It must have been beautiful when she first hung them up, but now the entire vine was shriveling and falling apart. 18 took great care of her room. The bed was made and everything she had was neatly arranged. I found a few romance novels lying on her bed stand. What would she want these for anyway? Could she really feel love? Under the novels was a notebook. I opened it and read:
"Well, after seeing that kid's journal, I decided to see what this is all about. Writing down thoughts I mean. 17 took everything that Trunks ever wrote in. Trunks. Hmm…It's weird calling him by is actual name. We've always just called him 'blondie' or 'kid.' He didn't have an identity to me until I actually started talking to him when 17 kidnapped him.
"Trunks seems foreign to me. He's nothing like 17 or I and he's nothing like those pathetic humans we blow up every day. All they ever do is run around screaming. They are no match for us. Trunks on the other hand, he's not as afraid of as the other humans are. He even goes so far as to threaten us, yet around me when we had our little talks here in the lab, he was calm and he never threatened me. I suppose that it's because I didn't hurt him. I didn't hurt him not because I liked him or anything. I was actually planning to mess with his mind or something…but that didn't work out. Instead, I think he was messing with my mind because I get these strange feelings when I'm around him. Before, I always wanted to kill him, or use him as a punching bag. Now though, I don't feel that…I don't know what I feel."
There was more in her journal, all of it kind of the same, hinting that she had some feelings other than hate for me. That gives me even more proof that she felt something toward me. The fact that I think about her so much makes me think that I also had romantic feelings for her. I took her journal home, along with my own writings that I found on their couch.
I've always thought that when I finally killed them, I would be able to live in peace. I would be ecstatic that they were gone and I could live the life I was supposed to live. Instead, I just found myself thinking about her more and more, wondering what would have happened if I had let her live. I never think about 17; I'm glad he's dead. He was a worse menace to society than 18 was in my opinion…or are my feelings getting in my way of judgment?
I've decided that I have to go back in time and change things around. I want to know what happens if 18 lives. I can't admit it…I can't admit my feelings for her, but I know they are there. I hate myself for feeling this way about one of the androids who have ruined my life and robbing me of the chance to make something of myself other than a warrior. I will never be able to become a doctor, lawyer, anything at all thanks to them. And here I am pining away for 18. No one can understand how ashamed I am of myself.
I haven't told Mom of my plans to go back and change our history. I know she would be against it. I can hear her now, "All that I have worked for! Building this time machine so that you can make the world a better place and so that maybe with Goku's help you can get stronger to defeat our androids and here you use it to bring one of them back to life!" I can't tell Mom, but I don't know what I'm going to tell her when 18 suddenly appears.
I climb hesitantly into the time machine. It's been 6 months since I last used it. I know it works. It's the dead of night and Mom is asleep in her room. I sigh and wrap my coat around me to keep out the chill wind that has suddenly picked up. I lift my gaze toward the sky thinking of Gohan and how ashamed he must be of me. If I'm this ashamed, he must be. Or maybe he remotely understands me, but just doesn't approve. I don't know. 18 turned out all right in the other timeline, maybe she'll be nice in this one too.
I close the hatch and punch in the coordinates for the day I had come back from the past. I find myself right outside of Capsule Corp. I see another time machine a few feet in front of me. "Oh shit, I didn't go back far enough, I'm already here."
I sit in the time machine thinking that it would be best if I just went back to my own time. I hadn't messed with the timeline yet and everything would stay the same. But thanks, to my father, I had some stubbornness in me and I refuse to leave without what I came here for.
I climb out and fall to the ground and walk toward the door to just peek inside and see how much time I had before my other self would come out to kill the androids. Just as I get to the door, it swings open and there I stand with my old girlfriend behind me.
"How can she be here?" I wonder as I look from the me in front of me and then to my girlfriend whom the androids had inadvertently killed while she was shopping. I'm sure if they had known that she was my girlfriend, they would most definitely have tortured her.
But anyway, here I was, standing face to face with myself and my dead girlfriend. Yep, the timeline had already changed.
"Where are you going?" I ask my past self.
"I'm going to go kill the androids," he says slowly. "Why are you here."
"Never mind why I'm here," I say. "Tell me what is happening in this timeline. Have you went back to the past? Has anything major happened to Nadia?" I ask indicating my old girlfriend.
He turns and looks back at her. "No, nothing has happened to her that I know of…I did go to the past though. I went to give Goku his heart medicine and I ended up going back to see if the medicine worked and I stayed to help them with the androids."
"What else?"
"Well, they were absorbed by Cell and Gohan defeated him."
I sigh and look at the ground. Everything is almost the same, except for the fact that my girlfriend is still alive and my other self's hair is still long. "What about Mom?"
"She's still around…Do you want to talk to her or something?"
I shake my head. "No, that's okay. Listen, why don't you just stay here and I'll take care of the androids and Cell for you? You just got back and all. You should spend some time with Mom and Nadia."
"But-"
"It's okay, I'm strong enough to kill them and Cell."
He stands looking at me then nods. I don't bother to wait and I fly toward the city the androids were destroying when I had come back. I find them both exactly where they were supposed to be.
As soon as I let myself be seen, both 17 and 18 look at me and immediately notice I am different.
"He's changed," 17 comments. "I see you've finally decided to come and fight us. It's been a while."
"So, you've come back for more punishment? Good. I've been having a bad day and killing you will be just what I need," she says.
She tries to attack me but even in this time I am too fast for her. I fight with her and argue with 17 until I finally have 18 cornered just as I had in my own timeline before I had killed her. Again I see that haunting look on her face. I stand with my ki blast held at point blank range in front of her face and look at her to see exactly what she feels. She stands there not moving at all, just continues to stare wide-eyed at me. Quick as lightening, I turn and aim the blast at 17 who had been sneaking up behind me. The blast leaves nothing to say that he had been there a moment before.
I turn back to 18 and study the expression on her face. Her mouth is dropped in astonishment and she backs into a wall. Then she looks at me and studies my face, trying to decide if I will kill her too.
"How do you feel about me?" I ask. "What was that look on your face a minute ago? You looked like I was about to betray you…like I was breaking your heart. What is that all about?"
"I-I don't know what your talking about," she says.
"You know exactly what I'm talking about. Are you in love with me?"
Her expression softens and she looks away. "Of course I don't," she denies. "You just killed my brother, how can I love you?"
"But you knew this would happen. I know you have feelings for me 18. I went back to the past and I saw you there. You were completely different. You had a kid and you got married. You are capable of loving someone."
She doesn't look at me directly. "So? That doesn't mean I have any feelings for you or for any human."
"Oh I think you do. I read your journal, 18." Her head whips in my direction and she stares at me in horror. "You do have feelings about me but you're not willing to admit it to anyone, not even yourself."
"How did you…never mind. Get on with it."
"With what?"
"With killing me! Do you really have to humiliate me like this? I kept you alive when 17 wanted you for his toy, I warned you about 17's plans to kill you and you do this to me before I die?"
"See, that's another thing…you did me all these favors…why? You wouldn't have unless you had some type of feeling for me."
She can't find any way to deny it.
"What do you want from me?"
"I killed you in my time, 18. Ever since then, you have been haunting me and I've found that I have feelings for you too."
Her mouth moves, but nothing comes out. "You…you have…feelings for me?"
I nod.
"What kind of 'feelings?'"
Now it's my turn to be uncomfortable. I loath saying these words, but I can't possibly deny them. "I love you." As I say it, I'm looking at my feet, pretending that my shoes are the most interesting things in the world.
She puts her hand on my arm and I look into her eyes. They are not their usual cold selves; her eyes show more affection than I have ever seen in them before. Then again, she could just be faking all of this, so I keep my guard up.
"You don't really mean that…do you?"
I'm shocked at how convincing she is…I feel myself leaning closer to her until our lips meet. I know that I'll either hate myself for the rest of my life, or I will feel this undeniable feeling that 18 is supposed to be the one I love. As our lips touch, I feel at peace and know I am in love with her. She wraps her arms around my neck and pulls me into a deeper kiss while I draw her closer to me.
We pull away stand looking at each other for what seems like ages.
"Did you feel that?" she asks.
"Yeah," I say rather breathlessly.
"Me too…" These feelings are so obviously foreign to her. She has no idea how to feel or what to do about any of this.
"Listen," I say as I take her hand in mine, "Why don't you come with me back to my time? I came from six months in the future. You don't have any ties here. Your brother is gone. There isn't anything for you here."
"I guess I could."
I smile for the first time in such a long time and we fly together back to the time machine. I could sense Cell's energy already at the house and I kill him easily. I see my other self coming to see what was going on, so I grab 18's hand and we run to the time machine and go back to my time.
As we are traveling through time and space, I see 18 staring wonderingly at the colors swirling around us.
"18…"
She turns to me.
"I'm sorry about killing your brother. I know he's all you ever really had. I wish that I didn't have to take him from you, but I couldn't allow him to live."
She looks at me and says, "Believe it or not, I understand. But that doesn't mean that I'm happy about it."
I stroke her face and find to my surprise that her skin is not cold as I had always thought the androids were. In fact, she feels warm.
She turns away and focuses her attention back on the swirling masses of colored clouds. "I'm just glad you made it a quick death. Not a long one like he was planning for you."
Suddenly the time machine is back out on the front lawn of the house. It is still late and dawn will not come for a few more hours. I lead 18 into the house and into my room. I give her an old shirt that she can wear for the night and promise her that we can go shopping for clothes in the morning. We climb into the bed together and are just content to hold each other that first night. Just because we are kind of rushing things in terms of moving in together, doesn't mean that we have to rush everything. 18 falls asleep quickly, resting her head on my shoulder and I stay awake watching her sleep. I still have no clue what to tell my mom in the morning when she sees a supposedly dead 18 lying with me in bed…I suppose there is really nothing I can say other than that we were meant to be.