A.N. Chapter six, because I'm so nice. And I also don't think anyone knows that chapter five is up yet... heh.

When hazy face in front of her clear, Pan thought that she was hallucinating. The fallen girl blinked, rubbed her eyes, and pinched herself, trying to sober her mind, but all to failure, for the person in front of her just simply wouldn't disappear.

Eyes wide with disbelief, she reached out and touched the arm or the man in front of her, praying that her mind truly was playing with her.

Tears welled in her eyes as her and landed on the warm, solid flesh of the man. The sting of the threatening moisture in her eyes did not fall down her cheek, though she was so overwhelmed with joy she could have sobbed for hours on end.

"G-Goten?" she asked cautiously; she had to be sure he was real. If her emotions went wild over visions, she could very well go insane.

The man enveloped her in a giant bear hug, speaking to her in an amazed voice, "Pan! How did you get here? I thought that they had killed you... They went after our home when I was captured... I didn't know..."
Pan was beyond describable happiness to see him alive, a member of her family alive... and she let him hug her until she felt her lungs burn for breath.

"Goten, air!" she squeaked, gasping once he released her. His eyes reflected happiness, but his face was entirely serious, almost grave as he spoke to her.

"How did you get here?" he asked bluntly.

Pan looked at the floor, partly ashamed, partly for need to gather her thoughts. She had been through so much in such a short amount of time, and she wasn't quite sure how to tell her story. The armor-clad girl took a deep breath, calmly piecing together the events of the past weeks, and repeated everything that had happened since the plan had gone wrong.

Goten, always one to wear his heart on his sleeve, stared at her with sympathy. He smiled at her hopefully as she finished telling him about her plans to use the Prince's training to her advantage.

Pan, however, had a few questions of her own for her Uncle; namely, how had he managed to escape and live? "Goten... how are you alive? How... how can you not be dead," she knew she wanted to cry again as she brought her arms up to hold herself, "how can you be here, now, in the palace?"

Goten thought for a moment, probably forming his own story in his mind, before he spoke to her, "During the battle, Gohan, Dad and I were all captured... we were taken to the center of the base, where they knew that you would try to cross over to the western wing. But when the Prince tried to execute us, he cut my bindings and missed me... and by some stroke of luck I was out of there before the dust cleared," his brow knitted as he thought very hard about the next sentence. "I don't remember anything after that, only I woke up in a slave ship. My story is similar to yours, but having the strength I have, I was bought as a personal bodyguard. It seems stupid they would buy someone with no loyalty to them to protect their princess." he finished bitterly, his expression one of disgust.

"And you don't know where you were before the transport ship?" she asked, knowing that the shock from the near dance with death he had faced must have scattered his memory. Goten sighed tiredly.

"All I remember is waking up on the ship. It brought me here, and a royal guard bought me because he was beginning to lag behind in his reports, and couldn't keep up with the job of being a bodyguard and Foreign Wars commander. So he took the easy way, and assigned me to be the body guard in his place." He shook his head solemnly, "But I can't harm her in any way..." he turned his neck to the side, showing Pan a small scar on his neck. "This device prevents my ki from touching her. It somehow makes it so that anything powered by my energy can't effect her..."

Pan nodded as he spoke, knowing what device he spoke of. Her father had told her about it, how it was important that she try not to show her full powers lest one of those things be implanted in her neck. But she knew that since the Prince only wanted her for sparring at the moment, he wouldn't dare try to put it in her. She was safe for now... though she knew that Goten's weakness would eventually hurt any plans of escape they would come up with.

Pan still couldn't believe that he was alive! He had escaped! But she found herself wondering what real benefit it was to have them both alive. It was almost impossible to do anything to free themselves... and thought Pan would never give up, the situation was more hopeless than any she had ever been in.

She leaned against the wall, and slid down and closed her eyes. For the first time, she felt the true weight of her position. She was a slave, most definitely against her will, to the man who had killed all but one of the people she cared for most in the world. He took a seat next to her, his presence comforting to her.

They sat against the wall next to each other in silence for a few moments, before Pan asked the question that was on both of their minds.

"Goten, what do we do? I mean, it's wonderful to have found you, but what can we do now? I'm not sure whether or not it is an advantage or if it means anything at all to have you here with me... Being alive is good, but I'm not sure there is anything we can do for the earth... Our last plan failed, and if we ever get out of here, it will be years before we could even try again, and that's only if we do the impossible by escaping. I... I feel so... useless..." Pan felt herself sliding into sorrow again. She tried to push it away, but it just kept coming. Reality was hitting her already battered soul, and hard. There was almost nothing she and her Uncle could do for earth. Her failure was brought into a far brighter light now, and though she fought against it, her hopes were being crushed, slowly, one by one.

"In all honesty Pan, I don't know what we can do... We could ask Bulma for her help, but I'm not sure if she would be able to change her 'mate's' mind about this." his voice was unsure, and she got the feeling he had already asked himself these same questions.

As Pan thought on his words, she pushed aside her emotions to ask a question that had been on her mind since her sale.

"Goten... when the Prince brought me in front of King Vegeta, he said that he wouldn't be able to lay a hand on me until I was twenty... until I was 'of age'. What's all this about 'mating'... doesn't that sound a bit primal to you?" she asked curiously, getting a bit disheartened when Goten looked at her with a knowing look in his eyes. It was a look she had seen very rarely on earth; her Uncle was always confused about something or other.

"I'm guessing Gohan didn't explain this to you then, huh?" he asked, and Pan shook her head no. He sighed and continued, "As you know, you are part Saiyan. Your Saiyan genes dominate almost totally over your human ones, despite the fact that the majority of your blood is human. So most of your instincts, physical appearance, and..." he found himself blushing a bit, "bodily functions come from that part of you. While you have a human menstrual cycle, you haven't truly gone through puberty and matured until you are twenty... And when that happens, your human cycle will become irrelevant, and you will continue to live on the Saiyan cycles of heat during particular times of the year when different Saiyan moons are rising.

"However, on your twentieth birthday, not an hour after your birth, all your hormones will... just kind of snap at once, and you won't be able to control you... impulses." He smiled nostalgically, "Why do you think that your parents got married when they were twenty?"

Slightly disturbed at Goten's insinuation, Pan felt her cheeks heat. Then the shock of this new settled in on her, and the all around strangeness of this new information was mind boggling. And it seemed highly unfair, for in roughly three months, she was going to 'snap', as Goten so eloquently put it.

Apparently she would be some hormone-driven, sex-craving female, ready to act on the 'impulses' she couldn't resist. This scared her, not only because she hadn't trained for it, but also because it wasn't something that she had ever seen happen, and it wasn't normal.

"Will I still be here in three months?" she asked, in a frightened voice as more realizations hit her already shocked mind.

"Probably, why do you ask?" he responded, not quite getting the idea. Pan turned to him; worry and shock still on her face. She had never been trained to handle news like this.

"Goten, I'm twenty in less than three months! Who will I go after then? If I am to be some hormone-crazed female, who will my hormones make me go after? My only choices would be the prince and... and..." she trailed off, exasperated, as realization dawned on Goten.

Pan was shaking her head, this new problem coming down on her hard, and she cursed mentally. That was why the Prince had wanted to know when she would turn... damn him!

"Pan, you don't mean that you might lust after the prince, do you?" he asked, trying to confirm the thought that had filtered into his brain. She looked across to the opposite wall, horror written on her face.

"I'm afraid... that I... I might..." she couldn't even bring herself to say it, "but... I may not, because I hate him so much." she finished, the contempt she felt for her owner rushing through her veins again, lying in wait to boil her blood.

Goten knew the hate she felt. The bastard had killed his brother and his father, and had tried to kill him. "Just keep hating him, Pan. He will know when you turn twenty, almost at the exact hour. He will be able to smell you. You're probably in a room that leads only into his, am I right?"

"Yes. But how did you know that I was in a room off his quarters?" she asked, looking at him quizzically. He gave her a small smile.

"If I'm supposed to protect the Princess, I have to stay in a room right off of hers. There is another room off of hers where her personal servant stays, and I figured that you would stay somewhere similar." As he finished, a female voice called a name and his head snapped to attention. He frowned before he turned to the niece he had only just been reunited with. "Pan, I have to go. But we have to meet again soon... we'll have to figure out what we should do here... we need to do something about your coming of age as well... Meet me in the entrance hall, where all the royal wings meet, alright?" she nodded at him, and with that, he took off down the hall. Pan began her way back to where she hopped she would find the three royal halls again.

She couldn't believe that he was alive. At least now she wouldn't have to live this nightmare alone...

She thought back to all they had talked about, and what he had said about her age. She slowed to a walk as she came upon the royal halls again. What would she do? She knew that she would continue to hate him, but she didn't know if she would be able to control herself. If her parents had married at twenty because her father, the ever cool, calm Gohan, couldn't control himself, then where did that leave her? She was naturally impulsive, if somewhat cautious... and the bloody Prince would be the only male she would be exposed to.

Grudgingly admitted, he was attractive, even if he was, quite literally, the Spawn of Satan. She had never thought of him in a sexual way... she had known and hated him for all of three or four days. But he wasn't painful to look at. What if... what if she did end up wanting him? She shuddered violently and dismissed the thought from mind as she spotted one of the purple-skinned Tsukaeme.

Pan approached the small creature, and told it her position as Trunks' slave, and that she was lost. It eagerly led her to the Prince's quarters, and she gave it a small smile and thanks before opening the door to his room.

She let the door open, and walked directly to the door that led to her room. She hesitated at the door, remembering that her own room was not equipped with a bath. And after her fight, she knew that was something she needed.

Frustrated, she searched his room for another door, and upon finding one, opened it. The bathroom, like everything else, was huge and marble, and she silently marveled at the sheer size of the bath in the center. She decided to risk the bath; the Prince couldn't touch her now anyway, or even look at her inappropriately, so she stripped down fearlessly, and played with the controls until she got the hot water activated. As the bath-pool filled with warm, soothing water, she let herself lean back into the water, and felt herself completely relax for the first time in a long time.

Being here was definitely not going to be an easy thing anymore.

A.N. Ah, this chapter was a lot easier to edit. I'm changing Goten's character to be less serious, and I changed some of the situations to be more believable, and less just kind of slapped together to hopefully make my story make sense. I hope you enjoyed this chapter... Some of these chapters are kind of boring, so please bear with me!

Don't forget, I'm starting a Mailing List, and if you want to be on it, leave your e-mail addy in your review! Thanks!

-Tanny