Disclaimer: Nope, nothing's mine…
A/N: Okay, I've decided that I won't write a 500 reviews special, because, first of all, I had no idea what I could write and then I didn't want to let you wait too long with the next chapter, because, when I've finished this one, I'll first write another chapter of The Treasure of Power before I start a new one of this story.
And again, thank you sooo much for all the wonderful reviews! Almost 60 this time! I can just say one thing: WOW! YOU GUYS ARE GREAT!!!
@ trunkslover: Thanks for the idea, but after reading the lyrics, I don't think that they would've fit to this chapter… But maybe I'll use them later!
@ Videl17: I'm waiting for your picture of Takeo! In case you haven't checked your emails, yet, there's a description of him!
By the way now you've all guessed right who Takeo is… Well, wasn't too hard with all those small hints in the chapter, right? *gg* I already have an idea for some kind of sequel to this story. What do you think of "History of Takeo"? It will start in the chapter, in which Pan finds out about the baby and will go… I don't know how far…
And now, on with the story:
Chapter 18: Too late
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The former couple just stared at each other, both not moving a bit. "Trunks…" Pan said again, completely shocked and confused. Her bandana in his hand… Did that mean…? "What… what are you doing here?"
"I've been waiting for you…" Trunks told her in a toneless voice. "I wanted to talk to you… But then I've found this," He showed her the bandana, "and other things in your closet."
"You've been going through my stuff?" she asked him exasperated, completely forgetting that there was something she had to tell him. "What gave you the right to break into my apartment and look through my private things?"
"Hey!" Trunks now yelled. "I wasn't the one who's been keeping things from others! I just wanted to protect you! The others were suspicious of you, because of the lack of your ki and I wanted to prove them that you're not a threat for us." He took a deep breath and then added in a softer tone, "Pan… why?"
Pan bit down on her lower lip. So he knew. The secret wasn't a secret anymore. Her cover had been blown before she got the chance to tell him. But what could she say now? She had hurt him. She could see it. "I'm sorry…" she mumbled. "I just wanted to be treated like a grown-up. That was one of the reasons why I left seven years ago and I knew that they wouldn't stop treating me like a child until I've proven them that I'm a grown-up and capable of taking care of myself. And I was right. At the party they treated 'Pia' like a grown-up, while they were talking about 'Pan' as if she was still six years old."
Again tears found their way into Pan's eyes, letting her wonder, how much of them were still left after the last weeks. She looked at Trunks, who was still listening to her, but she couldn't see any reaction to what she was telling him on his face. It remained impassive and was as hard as stone. "Go on," he said in the same cold voice, he had already used the last few weeks in the office.
Biting the tears back, she took a deep breath and continued. "But I've never expected things to turn out like this. I've never planned to fall in love with you, Trunks. I've never wanted to hurt you… I'm sorry…"
"You're right, Pan," Trunks said firmly and walked up to her. She looked at him and saw the anger and the pain, she had caused, in his eyes. "You've hurt me. I've loved you more than anything else and as I came here this morning I wanted to get back together with you. I was ready to forgive you for hurting me as you ended our relationship. But now, I can't do that anymore. With your lie you've screwed everything up that could've happened between us. You've not just broken my heart, but also the trust I had in you, Pan."
"But I love you and I'm…" Pan said, but Trunks interrupted her.
"No, you're wrong. The way how you've played with love shows me that you're still too young to know what love means. You've not grown up in the last seven years. This lie is the proof for it. You're still a child, Pan, accept it," he told her and was about to leave the apartment, but stopped shortly behind her. "I want you to know that I don't want to see you ever again. Do me the favor and leave this city, or even better the country and I won't tell anyone that you were Pia. Go and spare everyone the disappointment of what you've done, especially Gohan, Videl, ChiChi and Bra. I'll make sure that no one finds out why you've quit work and I'll even write a reference for you, so that you'll easily get another job somewhere else. If they ask, I'll tell the others that 'Pia' was already gone, as I arrived in her apartment." Without saying another word, Trunks left the apartment, not even noticing that he put the bandana in his pocket, leaving Pan all alone there.
She just stood there, as the door was closed, not moving a bit. She was trying to comprehend the exact meaning of the words Trunks had just said. She started to cry, when the realization slowly sank in. I don't want to see you ever again. Go and spare everyone the disappointment. Blinded by her tears, she stumbled over to her bedroom, pulled a duffel bag out under her bed and began throwing clothes into it.
Trunks wanted her to leave? Okay! He would never see her again!
~*~
Takeo crawled out under the main control and cleaned his hands with a piece of cloth. It was hopeless. There was nothing he could do alone. The most important wires were completely scorched and he needed the right tools and some spare parts, which he would only get at… Capsule Corporation. That was the last place he wanted to go to, but going there was his only chance to get back home. "Why me?" he groaned, burying his head in his hands.
~*~
Bulma was lying lazily on the couch in the living room, watching her favorite soap, when suddenly the doorbell rang. Vegeta and Bra were in the gravity room, so she was the only one, who could open the door. Mumbling complains about missing a part of the soap, she went to the door and opened it. On the other side stood a young man with spiky black hair, dressed in dark blue jeans, a white T-shirt and a denim jacket and wearing sunglasses, of whom Bulma thought that she had seen him before. "Uhm, can I help you?" she asked.
The young man scratched the back of his head in a for Bulma all too familiar manner. "I hope so…" he said grinning, "I-uhm, kind of need, uhm, your lab…"
"And why do you need it?" Bulma crossed the arms over her chest and looked at him suspiciously.
Takeo instinctively took a step back. He must've disturbed her in some way - otherwise she wouldn't be so pissed. And in the last year he had worked with her in the lab, he knew not to mess with Bulma Briefs, when she's like that. "I need to fix something?" It was more a question than a statement.
"And what?" Bulma wanted to know, slowly getting impatient with the young man's superficial answers.
"Is everything okay, mom?" Bra, who had just come out of the gravity room, followed by Vegeta, wanted to know, when she saw her mother talking with this strange, but incredible handsome man.
Takeo's head turned around, when he heard the voice behind him. He groaned inwardly, when he saw, who it was. Great, he thought, more people I so didn't want to meet here.
"This young man, who hasn't even told me his name, wants to use my lab, but doesn't want to tell me why," Bulma answered smugly, now knowing that this young man couldn't become dangerous.
Vegeta walked up to this young man and first stopped, when he was standing right in front of him. He grabbed him by the collar of his T-shirt and slowly raised him a bit, not caring that the young man was larger than him. "Listen you worm, tell my mate why you need the lab or I will kick you from the compound."
"I can't…" Takeo just said, but as soon as those words were out, he was flying a few meters until he roughly hit the ground. Luckily it didn't hurt him at all and when he was sitting up again, he saw Vegeta already walking towards him. But before anything else could happen, they all heard Bulma scream.
"What is it, woman?" Vegeta asked annoyed and turned to the two terrified women standing at the door. First it sounded like she wanted him to take care of this boy and now she was screaming?
"V-Vegeta… Look at him…" Bulma managed to say, pointing with a shaky finger to the young man lying in the grass.
Vegeta did as he was told and looked at the boy. And he could just stare. This young man looked exactly like… him! Just the blue eyes were wrong and he was a bit larger, but otherwise it was his face, his hair, his everything! "Who are you, boy?" Vegeta demanded to know, even though he already had a slight idea.
This time Takeo groaned out loud, realizing that he had lost his sunglasses. His cover was blown, so there was no need to lie anymore. He got up and dusted off his clothes. "My name is Takeo. Takeo Vegeta Shen… err Son... err, whatever... I'm from twenty-five years in the future."
~*~
After leaving Pan's apartment, Trunks didn't go directly home. He didn't want to face anyone directly after, so he decided to take a small walk. He was slowly starting to doubt, if what he had said was right. No matter what he had said, he still loved her and he didn't know if he could bear losing her. But it's too late now. He couldn't take back what he had said to her. He shook his head, trying to get rid of those thoughts. Of course did he say the right things. She had lied, not just to him, but also to everyone else. She had broken his heart and his trust.
After about two hours of walking around he was suddenly standing in front of his home. He just wanted to go inside, when he heard someone yelling his name. He turned around and saw Goten running towards him. "Hey Goten, what are you doing here?" he asked, trying not to show his inner turmoil.
"Hey Trunks! I've been looking for you…" Goten greeted him.
"You've been looking for me? Why?"
"Well, you see… This afternoon I've seen something… It's about Pia…" his best friend stuttered, not really knowing how to tell him, what he had witnessed.
"Please Goten… Don't talk about Pia, okay?" Trunks said a bit sadly.
"Is something wrong?" Goten asked worried.
Trunks took a deep breath. "I've been at her apartment today, but she wasn't there. It was empty, everything was gone…" he lied.
~*~
After slowly getting used to the fact that they had again a guest from the future and after several tries of reassuring Bulma that he didn't come to warn them against a new threat, Takeo, now again wearing his sunglasses, sat together with his 'grandparents' and 'aunt' in the living room, where he had just finished telling why exactly he had come to the past. "Okay, do I get this right?" Bulma wanted to know. "You are the son of Trunks and Pan, who is Pia, and came back to the past to get those two together, because in your time they had a huge fight after Trunks found out about Pan's true identity and told her to leave - what she did, cutting off all connection she had with her family to raise you alone?" Takeo just nodded briefly. "Wow…" Bulma said surprised. "Pia's Pan… Who would've thought?" Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Vegeta and Bra changing some strange looks. "Wait a minute…" she concluded, "you two knew about it?"
"Well, uhm… yeah?" Bra said uncertainly.
"How long?"
"Dad knows since the party and I found out after Pan broke up with Trunks, because I-uhm kinda gave her the advice to break up with the guy she was seeing…" the young Briefs-woman told her mother.
Bulma threw both of them accusing looks, but then sighed. "Whatever…Right now we have to make sure that Takeo's plan really worked and we have to fix the poor boy's time machine…"
"Fixing the time machine won't be such a big problem," Takeo told her. "I need just to replace some scorched wires. But to do that I need some special tools that I can just find here…"
"Ah, don't worry," Bulma said. "I'm sure we have those tools…" She began to giggle. "I still can't believe that I'm going to be a grandmother. And of a handsome young man like you! ChiChi will be so excited!"
At that moment they heard voices coming towards the living room and just a few seconds later Trunks and Goten arrived there. "Hey Trunks!" Bulma greeted him. "What are you already doing here? Didn't you want to make up with Pia?" Bulma asked, not knowing if Trunks already knew that Pia was Pan.
"Yeah, I've been there…" Trunks told her the same lie, he already told Goten. "But she wasn't there and all of her stuff was gone. She must've moved out."
Takeo looked up, surprised by what his 'father' was telling them. "That's not true!" he blurted out.
Everyone looked at him and for the first time since Trunks has come into the living room, his gaze fell on the strange man. "And who are you?"
Oh shit, Takeo thought, this was so not going as planned! It seemed like everything happened like it already had happened in his timeline. And now he had to tell him, who he was. He looked at him and opened his mouth to speak, when suddenly Goten began to yell.
"Hey! It's you! You were the one I saw with Pia this afternoon! Euh, what are you doing here?" he asked confused.
"Trunks, Goten," Bulma now said. "Why don't you two sit down? There's much we, or rather this young man, has to explain to you."
The two men reluctantly obeyed and sat down, both eyeing warily this strange young man. "Okay, I repeat my question. Who are you?" Trunks wanted to know.
Takeo took one deep breath. "My name is Takeo Vegeta Son…err Shen. I'm your son."
"My son… Yeah, right…" Trunks said sarcastically.
"It's true, brat," Vegeta now said. "He comes from the future, 25 years to be precise, to bring you and Kakarotto's grandbrat back together. I take it you found out today that Pan is Pia, right?"
"Hey!" Goten said confused. "Pia is really Pan? As in one and the same person?"
Trunks nodded, both answering his father's and Goten's question, completely shocked by this revelation. This was his grown-up son from the future? Wait a minute… "Pan is pregnant?"
"She didn't tell you?" Takeo asked surprised. This was really exactly like in his timeline.
His 'father' shook his head. "Why did you come to the past?"
"See," Takeo started to explain. "In my time my mother ran away after she had a huge fight with you, where you told her that you never wanted to see her again. She has raised me alone the last 25 years and in this time I could see that she still loves you. She's hurt and I wanted to at least change that in another timeline. I also know that you still love her and that you're also hurting, so I went back in time to talk to my mother and to tell her to not run away. Of course without telling her, who I really am."
Trunks stared at him wide-eyed. The fight he was talking about… That was exactly the same fight he and Pan had this afternoon… Did that mean? He clenched his fist and suddenly noticed the piece of cloth in his pocket. Her bandana. "Oh shit… I told her to leave… I told her that I never wanted to see her again… But I-I was confused… and hurt… But I didn't mean it… You're right… I still love her…" Trunks suddenly realized. Yes, he still loved her! And he didn't want to lose her!
"Okay guys," Bulma demanded. "Trunks, Takeo, you two are going to her apartment to see if she's still there. Goten, tell your family to meet us here. And now go!"
The three young men obeyed and left at once, taking off into the sky.
Trunks and Takeo flew the short way to the apartment building in silence and landed just a minute later on her balcony. The door was slightly ajar, so they just entered. They checked out the different rooms and met again in the living room. "Her clothes and other private stuff isn't there anymore," Takeo told his 'father'.
Trunks stared in shock out of the window. "She's gone. I lost her."
"Not yet. In my timeline she left with a plane to LA. Maybe we'll still get her at the airport." The two men nodded at each other and Trunks gave his 'son' a small grateful smile, before they again took off.
~*~
Pan was sitting at the airport, holding a ticket to LA in her hands. She had already checked in and was now waiting for her flight to be announced. She stroked over her still flat belly. "I'm sorry little one," she whispered, "but you're daddy doesn't want to see me ever again. I hope you'll forgive me for letting you grow up without him." She looked up and stared out to the runway. The tears on her face had long dried. Just a few more minutes and she would sit in one of those planes. "Takeo, I'm sorry. I'm running away, just like your mother did. Please forgive me," she mumbled to no one special. At that moment her flight was announced. She grabbed her small backpack and went to the line that was now at the gate of her plane. "Goodbye everyone, I'll miss you…"
~*~
Trunks and Takeo arrived just in time at the airport to listen to the announcement. They quickly ran to the gate, but where stopped at the security. "Your tickets please," one man said.
"I don't have one…" Trunks said. He looked past the man and saw through a window Pan standing in a line. "Please, can't we get through without a ticket? The woman I love will any moment go onto this plane and I have to stop her!"
The man shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I can't. I've got my instructions."
"But… Pan!" Trunks yelled. "PAN! NO!!" But in vain, she couldn't hear him through the glass. "Please let me through… I'm Trunks Briefs. I'm sure you know me."
"I'm sorry Mr. Briefs, but I'm not allowed to let anyone without a ticket through," the man told him firmly.
Suddenly Trunks grabbed the man by his collar and lifted him easily up. "Listen. You let me go through or…"
Takeo put a hand on Trunks' shoulder, shaking his head. "Let him go. It's too late."
Trunks looked to the gate and saw how a stewardess closed it and how the plane slowly moved to the runway. He let go of the man and just ran past him, until he was standing at the window, Pan had just looked out a few minutes ago. He hit against it, but not strong enough to break it, shouting her name, but no one on the plane noticed anything.
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I know, you hate me again… But this cliffie isn't as bad as the others, I think… But I guess you hate me for what I'm putting Trunks and Pan through, ne?
But please review though, okay? Thanks!
Eternally yours
ChibiChibi