Oh, you're thinking
back
you're going back to places that you've
been
Where days could last forever
but you can only dream,
Oh, we're going back
I'm looking back to places that we've seen
Moments that have been, places we can
dream.
~ Feeder, 'Summer's Gone'
Arrival
It was a beautiful day in early spring: one of those first days of true sunshine, when it's really a little too cold to spend outside in just a t-shirt, but everyone's too grateful for sunshine to really care. Bulma was one of those people who couldn't care less. It was Sunday and she craved the feel of sunlight on her skin. She had set up her chairs in the garden, in a place out of the wind and in the sunlight, placing a blanket with Bra's toys at her feet. Her daughter was lying on her belly, happily humming a tune as she produced one drawing after another. Her fingers and clothes were steadily staining with the colors of the crayons and pens she was using, but Bra was quietly enjoying herself and Bulma was too happy to see her daughter play for once to complain about that. She loved her daughter to death, but sometimes she was just too hyper for her own, and her mother's, good. Bra was an intelligent child that, unfortunately, had a rather short attention span. She really had to be kept busy; otherwise she'd annoy the hell out of you.
Bulma looked up from her magazine and smiled at her daughter. That's what you get from sleeping with Vegeta. You knew that she'd get a temper. It's only logical that she'd be fiery, with a parentage like hers. "What are you drawing, sweetie?"
"Oh, it's a story," Bra told her, getting up and gathering her drawings to show her mother.
"What is it about?"
"It's about the dragonballs!" Bra announced proudly, waving with a particular drawing that featured seven orange balls. "Look, I even drew the stars on them!"
Bulma inspected the drawing and laughed in approval. "Good work. So what else is your story about?"
As Bra was telling her story of the drawings, Bulma wondered where her son was hanging out. Probably in the city, whistling at pretty girls with Goten. He was really 'at that age' when girls suddenly became interesting, and he was surely acting on it. They both were, actually. Last week he had come to her proudly and told her he had kissed a girl in his class. Yes, her children were really growing up. It made her feel old sometimes. She ran a hand through her aqua hair and listened almost subconsciously for the constant buzz of the gravity room. It was a sort of instinct, something she did when Vegeta got up early and went to train. The Gravity Room was situated right next to their balcony, so she often just lay listening to its humming on early mornings while waking up. It was one of those little habits that made life comfortable, she supposed.
Bra was just in the middle of explaining her rather intricate story about evil ugly dragons and her father defeating them, when a lot of things happened at the same time.
A nauseating feeling bubbled up in her stomach…
A flash of light blinded her eyes…
Vegeta came bursting out of his Gravity Room…
And before her, a time machine just stood on the neatly kept grass as if it belonged there. It had simply winked into existence before her eyes. Bulma blinked for a moment, picking up her daughter on her arm as Bra began to wail in shock. "This is weird," she said wonderingly.
"We've seen this before," Vegeta said, crossing his arms. "The ki inside the time machine is very low, but it has extreme potential."
Bulma began to inspect the Time Machine, absently consoling her sobbing daughter. "It's alright, honey. Nothing bad happened." She looked at Vegeta and said slowly: "It looks like the time machine that Future Trunks used, yet a little more sophisticated. The design is a little different… I think we can trust it." Also, she added silently, because this very design is on my desk in my lab right now. I dug up those old notes I made of Future Trunks' instructions mere weeks ago. And here the completed time machine stands. How is this possible? Her mind was racing through all possible solutions, every one of them wilder and more exotic than the last.
"Hey! Come out and show yourself!" Vegeta called in a demanding tone of voice. "We haven't got all day! I have better things to do with my time!"
"Don't be an ass, Vegeta." Bulma circled the Time Machine, suddenly noticing something she had not seen before. Stains. Red stains. "I think… he cannot get out. He's bleeding. I think that whoever is in there, is dying."
It took only one look of understanding before they opened the Machine. Bulma took care of the opening mechanism while Vegeta was on guard for whatever would come out. It turned out that his guard was necessary enough, but not for the offensive.
The person in that time machine, covered in blood and bruises and obviously badly hurt, was Trunks. "No!" Bulma choked, as Vegeta pulled him out of the Time Machine.
Even Vegeta looked stricken. "I don't know what hit him, but it messed him up pretty bad," she heard him mutter under his breath.
For one moment, Bulma couldn't do anything but stare at her son. His lavender hair was matted with blood, his face covered in bruises and blistered. And from what she could see under his clothes, it wasn't much better there either. His clothes were ragged, charred and full of holes, as if he'd been subject to multiple ki attacks. He'd probably be burned all over, as well.
It wasn't until Vegeta snarled: "What are you waiting for, woman, get him some sensu beans!" that Bulma finally noticed her wailing daughter and the world again. She put Bra on the ground and raced into the house. Thank Kami they had two sensu beans left in her lab. She had asked a few from Korin since Vegeta had so badly injured himself a few months ago during training.
When she returned only minutes later, Vegeta was kneeling over his son and trying to get a response out of him. "He's out cold," he reported. "He might have some internal bleeding, and at least four of his ribs on the right side are broken. I'm sure about two more on his left side."
"How did you suddenly get to be a medical expert?" asked Bulma, while kneeling in the grass.
Vegeta gave her a dark glare. "I was a soldier, remember. Of course I can assess physical damage."
"Trunks?" Bra asked with a tiny voice, touching his face. "Trunks are you alright?" She looked up at her mother, who kneeled and gave her brother a badly needed sensu bean. "This isn't our Trunks, is he?" she asked. "He is older." The blue-haired girl watched her brother carefully as the bean thankfully did its work. "Trunks?" she asked again.
Trunks' body shuddered with light spasms and rolled over to the side. He began to cough, clots of blood appeared in the grass. Bra yelped and hopped backwards to give him space. She shot a panicked look at her mother, new tears welling into her eyes. "Trunks? Are you OK? Truuu-nks!"
"Trunks, sweetie, you can open your eyes," Bulma added to her daughter's plea. "You're okay, we healed you."
Trunks eyes opened so suddenly that she jerked back a little. Later she wouldn't be able to recall if it had been the unexpectedness of his action, or the pure pain in his blue eyes. "Mom?" he croaked, his face displaying so much emotion that her heart was breaking. His lips trembled. He whispered, his voice full of disbelief: "You're alive?"
"Of course I am, sweetie," Bulma said tenderly, stroking the hair of the blood-covered young boy in tattered clothes that she could only call her son. She was not really prepared for his arms locking around her shoulders as he fell against her, weeping heartbrokenly for all he was worth, but she tried to console him as much as possible, sharing a shocked look with Vegeta. What happened to him? She mouthed.
Vegeta shook his head and did not tear his gaze from his son, obviously very uncomfortable. He kept his silence respectfully, watching Bulma hug her crying son as tightly as possible.
Bulma kissed Trunks' lavender-colored hair, tasting the dried blood in it. She did not care. He must have seen the most awful things. So she kept him, soothed him, and loved him. She did not really want to think about what would happen from now on. This obviously meant bad news, but for now… right now she would give Trunks all the love and solace he needed, although she felt as if it would never be enough.
Her words sounded empty and meaningless even to her own ears. "Trunks, I'm here for you, sweetie, don't cry, its OK, it's alright, we're all here… You're safe here…"
"No," his voice came, muffled against her shoulder. "We'll never be safe again…"
