A/N: Yay! Fanfiction.net is back!!! And so am I! Yippie! That means no boring afternoons anymore without anything to read!!!
Mmh… I think I forgot to say it the last time… THANK YOU GUYS FOR THE REVIEWS!!! So, I hope I made it up to you with this… Well, not much to say, I think… Most of the stress is gone now… One week ago on Wednesday had been our "Graduation Day" (I have no idea how to call it…)… For those of you who've read my first fanfic The Lost Warrior: That would've been the day of the big fight and the destruction of the school… But too bad… No fight and the school's still there… But we had a lot of fun! Chasing small kids and fellow students with shaving foam and Super Soakers is always fun! I don't know, if you do something like that at your graduation, but it had been really great! On Thursday had been the divine service, where a friend and I held the sermon and on Friday we've gotten the diplomas!
And now up to you reviewers…. Did you have any questions? Mmh… let's see.
@ Videl 17: You're back!!! I've missed you in the reviews of the last chapters of Uwma! Where have you been? I thought you were dead, girl! Or have you just stopped reading that fic? Whatever, I'm so happy to see your name again on my reviewer list!!! Oh, and please don't hurt my bro more than necessary, okay?
@ Princess of Light: Hehe… I haven't seen the race. Two friends of me and I had been in Kiel (that's about 100km from us) to visit one of our ex-teachers. I know, this sounds strange, but he's really a great guy and we like him a lot… We hope that we could stay friends with him for a long, long time… He had even allowed us to call him by his first name in the last school year! BTW I should have known that Michael wins again, but at least Coulthard is second… I can't expect too much from McLaren in this year, but they're coming back.
@ Starlight: Mmh… The meeting with Junior… I think that will take a long time until I get there… But I can tell you, they won't meet until they're seven or eight… As Aurelia Lothlorien had said in one of her reviews in Uwma, it will be like chibi Trunks and chibi Goten all over again! I hope that I can be humorous in those coming chapters…
@ Kawai Fox: I really hope that after this chapter, I can update on a regular basis, with all this spare time I have now… Well, there will be two weeks at the beginning of July when I'm on vacation on the Canary Islands… I won't be able to write in that time, but that's still three weeks from now…
@ Pink Ice: I don't think that I'll write a sequel to this story, but I'm planning a sequel to Uwma as soon as either this story or The Treasure of Power is finished and now even a fourth part of my Lost Warrior series.
Chapter 2: There's no going back
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The plane was already high over the Pacific Ocean, when the sun started to set. Pan was sitting at the window, staring absently out of it. The only thing she could see was water and clouds that were so white and fluffy so that they almost looked like snow. But Pan didn't see the beauty of it, because even though she was looking out of the window, her mind didn't register what she was seeing, because it was too occupied with other things.
I don't want to see you ever again. Go and spare everyone the disappointment.
She had to do this! He was right! After what she had done to him, her family and her friends, after she had lied to all of them, after she hid herself all those weeks behind a mask and just hurt everyone with it, she couldn't go back. Not now, not ever! For once in her life she had to pull through what she had to do, even if it was running away from her home. But this had been her own doing and she had to take the consequences. She wanted to be an adult after all. Wasn't that one of the main reasons for this whole lie?
And now, thanks to her own stupidity she had went into real adulthood. Not the adulthood she had experienced in the last weeks, when she knew that there would be someone to catch her, if she fell. But now, now there was no one to fulfill this role. Now she had to take all the responsibility of her life and the life of her unborn child.
But would she be able to take this responsibility? Would she be able to care for herself and the child? Come to think of it: She had no real place to live, no job, just the money that she had put aside in the last years and the payment from the last few weeks. But that was all she had. That and a few friends from college, including her best friend Angela. She had called Angela earlier and asked her, if she knew a place for her to live for the next few days. Pan hadn't told her what had happened, just that she was coming to LA and that it was urgent. Angela understood and told her that she could live with her in their old dorm room, since she had been so lonely, after Pan had left. That was a start. At least she wouldn't live on the streets for the next few days and maybe even weeks; it all depended on what the headmaster of the school said.
And still, what would she do after that? Finding a job should be nearly impossible in her condition, at least as far as she knew…
All those thoughts set a frown on her face, which didn't go by unnoticed by the woman, who was sitting next to her. The woman might be around thirty years old and had short blond hair. Next to the woman sat a young girl with blond pigtails, about four or five years old, who was sleeping tightly. "Are you okay?"
"What?" Pan's head turned around, when she heard this voice speaking to her. "Excuse me, are you talking to me?"
The woman nodded smiling. "Yes, I asked you, if you were okay, because you didn't look as if you were."
"Oh…" Pan started to grin a bit. "Is it that obvious? Well, you could say that I have some things on my mind…"
"I see… You want to talk about it? I'm sure it will help a bit…" the woman offered.
The demi-Saiyajin shook her head. "No, but thank you. I don't want to offend you, it's just… personal…" She told her, and then to change the subject, she added, "This girl, is she your daughter?"
The woman smiled at her warmly. "Yes, this is Emily. She's my everything."
"She's beautiful. You and her father must be proud of her."
"There's no father," the woman told her somewhat sadly, but still as if she was talking about a matter of course. "Her father left me, when I told him that I was pregnant with her. You must know, we weren't married, not even engaged and so he just ran away. You can possibly imagine that I was devastated, but what made things worse was the fact that my parents kicked me out. I know, being twenty-five and still living with my parents is a bit strange, but I was just out of college and had no money for my own apartment, so hotel mama had been the best option for me until I earned some money." She sighed. "Oh god, I'm rambling again. I'm sorry… You have probably enough problems of your own…"
"No, please," Pan now said interested. "What happened then?"
"Well, my parents were living in a small suburb of LA. Most people there were petty bourgeois, as well as my parents and so being pregnant without being married or at least engaged was something that couldn't be forgiven. So I packed my clothes, went into the big city to a friend, who let me live with her, and started a new life."
Pan looked at her, stunned by this revelation. "Just like this? I mean, wasn't it hard to start completely anew, finding an apartment, a job with carrying a child in your body?"
"Of course it was hard. You're right, the child was a problem at many places, where I looked for work, but I was lucky to find a place, where the boss didn't care if I was pregnant or not. They had a day-care center there, so I worked until it was too much with the baby and then started again shortly after Emily was born. And with the help of my friends I also found an apartment. It wasn't big at the beginning, but now I do live in a bigger apartment and I even met a nice man, who loves Emily and me," the woman told her. "You see, it was hard, but just at the beginning. And even though my life as single mother hadn't always been easy, I don't regret almost any of my actions."
"Almost?" Pan asked.
"Yes, almost. I regret that I didn't have a chance to talk to my parents. I've tried to call them every so often after Emily was born, but they never talked to me. I've tried to send them letters with pictures, but they always came back unopened. I don't exist for them anymore. Now I understand that I should have talked to them earlier, before I went to LA and started the new life, because once you start a new course of your life, there's no going back to the old one."
"I understand," Pan said and leaned back in her seat. "I understand," she murmured to herself, somewhat depressed, but at the same time relieved. She knew now that her case wasn't hopeless. She could be able to build up a new existence and she knew she had help. She had friends from High School and College in LA and she knew she could rely on them.
~*~
"What are you smiling at, Dende?" Piccolo asked exasperated, when he saw the younger Namek standing at the edge of the Lookout, looking down with a slight smile on his face. "Gohan's brat ran off and that's no reason to smile."
"I already told you, Piccolo that this is a part of growing up," Dende told him seriously. Even though I never thought that the events would turn out like this, he mused to himself.
"We have to tell the others!"
"No, Piccolo. Don't! We can't interfere in her life like this, I already told you that and you should self know it. I am God and I'm not allowed to mingle with the course of events, when they don't mean a threat to the planet," Dende said firmly.
"But we have to do something."
"I already have…" he murmured and at Piccolo's raised (non-existent) eyebrow, he continued, "I gave her hope." He really wished he could do more for his friend's daughter, but it was just impossible. She needs to make her own decisions, even though they could hurt her. But that's the way life is. It is never easy. Dende could just hope that one day she would find the way back home to where she belonged.
~*~
Trunks wondered how much time had passed, since he came home and retreated to his room. He hadn't moved at all in the last hours and he was not even interrupted in his thoughts, when someone had knocked at his door. In that time he had replayed the events of the day over and over again in his mind, slowly starting to regret every single word he had said to Pan. He had been a total ass. How could he act like that? Sure, Pan had lied to him and all the others, but was that a reason for him to explode like that? "Oh god, what have I done…" he murmured, as he finally registered, what exactly his words must've caused in her. He had blamed her for everything, when he had been the one, who had kept her from telling the truth in those last weeks. And now his emotional outburst had driven her away, the love of his life.
But maybe… maybe she was still here, maybe she hadn't listened to him… But could he go back, after what he had done? Maybe he should give both of them some time to calm down, before he appeared again on her doorstep.
But first of all he needed to get out of his room. Just the thought of staying any longer in there and doing nothing was suffocating him. He had to get out. Trunks didn't even bother to change out of his in the meantime crumpled suit and just headed straight to the door.
Bulma just wanted to knock again at her son's door, as it was thrown open and she found a rather disheveled Trunks standing in the doorframe. He blinked. "Mom? What are you doing here?"
"I wanted to ask you, if you wanted something to eat… There's still some pizza left and since you haven't eaten anything since breakfast, I thought that you might be hungry…" she said worried, as just a mother could be.
"I'm sorry, mom, but I'm not hungry. I just need to go out and get some fresh air…" Trunks told her and left his room, closing the door behind him and put a fake smile on his face. "But maybe later, okay? Just put it into the fridge. Bye!" Without saying more, he just went past his mother and left the house, taking off into the air.
His mother sighed, as she looked after him. She was really worried about her son, now more than before. When a Saiyajin turns down food, something must be seriously wrong and she was afraid that the disappearance of Pia might do some serious damage to her son. He had marked her, after all. But maybe a Saiyajin couldn't bond with an android, in case Pia really was one. She also knew of a possibility that the owners might not feel the effects of the bond, since Vegeta had done that while he had been in space before the androids arrived. But if Pia, in case she wasn't an android, didn't know that, Bulma could just hope for a miracle.
~*~
Trunks didn't care where he was going. Just the feeling of fresh wind in his face made him feel slightly better. But suddenly, after a few minutes, he spotted a building and realized that he had been unconsciously flying into the direction of Pan's apartment. It seemed as if his subconscious had been leading him there and as soon as he had spotted the building, he sat down on the balcony.
And there he stood now in front of the glass door, not knowing what to do. A little voice in his head told him to go inside, to look if Pan was still there… But he was scared. Scared of her reaction, scared of his own reaction. God, he didn't even know what to say.
Come on! Go! the voice told him. Trunks took a deep breath and put his hand on the handle and pushed it down, halfway expecting the door to be locked, but much to his surprise, it wasn't. The door swung open and he took a hesitating step inside. A second and a third, until he stood in the living room. The room was dark, since the curtains were closed and just the small stream of light from the balcony door went inside, but that was enough for Trunks' sensitive eyes to see what he had been scared of. The apartment was almost empty. Most of the furniture was gone, most likely the pieces, which Pan had bought.
Not bothering to open the curtains, he continued his way into the bedroom, just to find it deserted as well. The doors of the closet were standing open and the closet itself was empty. He wanted to walk over to her drawers, when he suddenly heard something crack under his foot. Trunks stopped and looked down. There was a frame on the floor. He bended down and picked it up. Inside of this frame was a picture of him and Pan, as they were still younger. It was taken before she had left for California.
And there he saw it. The look in her eyes. The same look she had given him, as they were a couple. The love in her yes was evident. She had loved him even back then and he had never noticed it. How could he have been so blind??? With a roar he threw the picture to the floor and burned it with a ki-blast. She had loved him and he had told her to go away! Now she was gone…
He wished he could turn back time to undo everything, or go back to when they've been happy. But that was impossible. There was no going back. He had to take the consequences of his actions and he had to deal with them.
But not now, he decided. First he wanted, no, needed to forget everything. If even just for a short amount of time. And there was just one way to do it.
To get hopeless drunk!
Trunks left the apartment and landed in front of a small and dark bar, not caring for the looks he was receiving from the other people there. He didn't care, if the others recognized him or saw him like this, as he sat down on a barstool. "What can I get you?" the bartender, a huge man with a mustache asked.
"The strongest you've got…" he answered absently and put a bundle of bills on the table. The bartender just nodded and took out a bottle with some clear liquid, filling it into a small glass. When he wanted to put the bottle away, Trunks waved with his hand. "I'll take the whole bottle."
The man stared at him, as if he was insane, but upon the sight of the bills, he turned to some other guests. "Do as you wish…" he just said.
Trunks took the glass and poured its content down in one swift motion. Other guests looked at him strangely, since he didn't show any reaction to the alcohol, which would normally scratch (a bit) in his throat and just refilled the glass to repeat the movement.
It didn't take long for him to empty the first bottle, even though he already had a few problems with refilling his glass after he had drained the first half of it. Usually it would take longer for a Saiyajin to feel the effects of alcohol, but since Trunks had started to drink on an empty stomach, he felt them sooner.
Three hours and three bottles later, Trunks was sitting in a corner at a table, surrounded by some women, who were drawn to him by his money. All were dressed pretty sexy, so that it wouldn't be difficult to guess, what kind of work they were doing. But with almost being in delirium, he didn't notice that small fact. "An den sshe djust left! Me! Trunks… uhm… Briefss… Yes… dats me!" he told them for the xth time that evening. It was even a wonder that he was still awake, let alone able to talk. Any normal human would've been out cold after half of the bottle, since the stuff was almost pure alcohol.
"Aw, poor boy…" one of the woman, who was massaging his neck, whispered in his ear. "Shall I make you feel better?"
"Leave him alone…" Trunks suddenly heard a voice saying. It sounded dull and as if it came from somewhere distant.
He looked up, but thanks to his blurry vision was just able to see a figure in the dark. "Waddaya want?" he slurred, blinking and shaking his head, hoping that his vision got better, but to no avail. The whole room was just starting to spin from those sudden movements. "If ya're djust 'nother one who wanna make me feel better, go 'way!"
"Trunks, you've had enough. Come one, I'll take you home," the voice said gently, but firm.
"No!" Trunks now tried to stand up, but had to take support in the table. He was surprised to see that the person was larger than him, nothing to be surprised of, since Trunks was everything but able to stand straight. "I don't wanna go wit ya! I'll stay'ere wit my friends… Dey care for me!"
The figure just sighed. "I'm sorry, Trunks…" And the next thing Trunks saw, was a fist flying towards him…
…Followed by darkness.
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Poor Trunks… But at least Pan has new hope… Hope you liked it… This time I've copied nothing from chapter of Uwma, but I think I'll do that again in the next chapter… And don't forget to review!!!
Eternally yours
ChibiChibi
