Thank you to EVERYONE who
reviewed this while it was in progress. You made this whole fic worth all
the time and effort I put into it.
These Dreams
Epilogue
Twenty-seven chapters. That's how long the story I wrote is. Twenty-seven, counting the prologue and unfinished epilogue. All written in one massive swoop. I had a rough time coming up with a second-half title. Then I glanced down at one of my CD's. That's when it came to me. I quickly typed in the second half.
The story's title?
I Still Believe/These Dreams.
While I proofread what I had so far...I saw Piccolo, Freeza, Vegeta and Void again. The fight. Our funny moments. Times when things were tougher than usual. The rush of power when I went Super Saiyajin. How spectacularly the battle ended. Piccolo and I... Every inch of my heart and soul is in this piece.
Yet I felt like I did after seeing the last episode of DBZ. A little empty. Would there be other adventures? What if Piccolo never could come see me again? Did he just say that to me so I'd quit acting like a baby?
No...he told me he loved me, in his own way, but he still did it. Heck, we'd gotten married - ages ago in the living room where I used to live. We exchanged rings and said some vows. God was our witness and our minister. Even if it wasn't legal, it meant just as much to me as a big church wedding. Maybe even more so. As I thought about it, I looked down at the shiny gold band on my finger. Beyond that were the new anklets and toe-rings Piccolo gave me. They glittered hopefully up at me.
Smells of warm butter and vegetables reached me from the kitchin. Mom was making meatloaf. Yum, yum. My stomach turned over in hunger.
Also, the TV in the living room was on pretty loud. My ears caught a 'glimpse' of Barbara Walters giving a news report. "...we still have no idea what happened. People are waking up everywhere with no memory of why they were unconscious..."
I hate the news, personally, and never watch unless it's something important. Like the Shock and Awe thing. I say everybody who has a family member that died on September Eleventh should be allowed to bust a cap in the asses of both Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. I hope those two bastards turn up soon so they can be publicly executed.
I know that isn't a very Catholic way of thinking, but those two just make my blood boil.
Due to my short attention span I took a break for the millionth time, drifting away from my work to surf the web. First off I checked my email. There was one message.
It was from Father Jim. Due to his hands he has trouble typing, so his messages are always pretty short and abbreviated.
c,
i remember. thx for saving our dreams.
jim
I giggled. He remembered! I immediately sent him a 'you're welcome' reply. Then it was off to Fanfiction.net.
Remember that girl I mentioned? I told her to go write...and she did. By reading it I learned her name was Ami and she had a wild adventure with Vegeta. Very wild indeed, and not always fun or happy. But still, she told her story just as honestly as I'm telling mine. I wish her much luck!
It was five-thirty in the afternoon. I knew because that's when dad gets home from work. His car pulled up, cut off and the door thumped shut. I heard his boots click up to the front porch. The screen opened, closed and the lock clicked. Next thing I knew his six-foot five-inch frame came walking past my room. He looked a little tired after work, the days are always rough, but otherwise he sounded okay.
"Hi, kid!"
"Hey dad! Boy is it a relief that...whatever happened to everyone...is over."
"Mmhmm. We'll talk about it when I go to bed." Dad's keys rattled against his dresser. He took out his wallet, dropped his loose change and sat down to take off his boots. The zippers whirred like clockwork.
Trying not to get emotional proved tough. For me it's been ages since I saw them. They were my parents and I couldn't share my adventure with them because they just wouldn't understand.
But I know you do. You were there, right there with me.
I flipped my TV on. Cartoon Network was still playing re-runs of the last season of DBZ. Sorta. Less than a minute after the show started, my mom came walking in with dinner. Meatloaf, baked potatoes and steamed vegetables. VEGETAbles...hehe! Because of my dad's disagreeable stomach, our dinners are pretty routine. That way if he eats something out of the ordinary he'll know what made him sick. It's also how, in my ditzy moments, I remember what day it is - by recalling what I had for dinner either that night or the night before.
"Hey mom?"
She stopped in the hall. "Yeah?"
"I'm glad you're all right." I used my fork to cut the meatloaf into smaller chunks. Its aromas made my mouth water. "You know...after what happened."
"Me too." Mom said back. She slurped some melted butter off her thumb, winked at me and headed out into the kitchen to get my dad his dinner. I immediately dug into mine...and I must say my mom makes the best meatloaf on the planet! It just melts in your mouth.
Before I knew it, six o'clock
rolled around. It was dad's turn to use the computer. I'd have to finish
the epilogue later.
Toonami was done. I spent the next hour making dream catchers from bracelets, thread, spare beads and feathers from my dad's old feather pillow. Dunno why...I guess to remind me of what happened. Thanks to previous experience I completed two in an hour. I probably could've done more, but thread is harder to work with than string. I hung the first one up on a wall in the room I was currently in. The empty nail used to hold a calendar. Now it held something much prettier.
The second one was blue. It didn't match much in my room, but I hung it up on the pull-cord for my ceiling light/fan anyway.
My dad watched me hang my dream catcher up. He clicked out of Netscape and said, "Turn the computer off for me."
I glanced over at him, "No prob."
I got the computer settled. My next job was turning the beds down. That didn't take me very long. I soon found myself sitting in the recliner next to the bed while dad settled down. I confirmed his alarm was set and shut off the light.
"So, what do you know about all this mess that happened?" I asked him.
Dad yawned and rubbed his eyes. The only reason I saw it is because, next door on the right, my bedroom light was on. It cast just enough light for me to see around the darkened room. "I only know as much as you do, which is nothing. It could've been a weird terrorist attack or any other number of things. Mass hypnosis...never know these days."
Boy did he not have a clue! But I could make jokes about it, now that it was over.
I curled my fingers into claws and giggled, "Ooh, maybe it was a big, ugly bug monster!"
"Hah-hah!" He laughed at that, "Only you would think of something silly like that."
"Heh, yeah."
The sheets rustled. My dad turned over onto his right side, the side he goes to sleep on. He must've been tired after a rough workday, but I didn't feel like questioning him about it. If it was really bad he'd have told me about it. "Say g'night, kid."
"G'night, kid." I replied jokingly. Then I stood up to kiss my dad's cheek and paddled his butt. "G'night, daddy. Sleep tight."
"'night."
That was that. I slid from dad's room and entered my own, shutting the door behind me. I wedged a soft-cover book under the door so the cat couldn't just push it open on me. I hate my door, all you have to do is push and it'll open, no turning of the knob required. The book also makes the door a little harder to open...and since I always sneak back onto the computer when dad goes to bed, jamming the door gives me more time to shut off the screen whenever someone knocks(ninety-nine percent of the time it's just my mom, argh!).
I slid a DBZ tape into my VCR and turned it on. On it were the episodes where Piccolo fused with Kami and battled Cell. Bad memories there, I switched to the tape with Piccolo training chibi Gohan. The episodes with Piccolo's true voice - not the clogged-sounding wannabe we all hear from mid-Freeza saga on. I'll never forget how hard Piccolo laughed when I let him hear it while we fooled around in my room. And it takes a lot to get even a chuckle out of him.
Grinning, I turned the computer on, brought up the unfinished part of my story and wrote in the last few paragraphs. The next several hours were spent proofreading everything. Over and over...reliving, revising and perfecting. All to the sounds of Piccolo's voice filtering off my TV. It made me miss him even more. Especially since the TV masks all the different undertones in his voice...it has a growl to it that just doesn't transmit over TV speakers very well. Sometimes he makes little rumbling sounds when he breathes out - you don't hear that on TV either. At least not unless he does it loud. Which is rare.
I clearly remember it being midnight when I finished proofreading everything. Twelve o'clock on the dot.
Can you believe I got emotional when I realized I'd finished this? For a few moments I actually couldn't move. All I did was stare at the long masses of paragraphs, words and letters. Unable to believe I wrote it. I actually cried when I realized there wasn't anything else to add. No amount of proofreading let me find anything I forgot to mention. No places to add something in. It was done.
And now it was time to share it.
I opened Fanfiction.net, logged into my account and started uploading. Everything was up in about five minutes. Before long, people would see it, read it, and Believe.
You're one of them. I know because you're here right now, and it's because of you that everyone can dream safely again. Thank you, Believers.
Now very heavy-hearted, I switched my computer off. Stared at the blank screen. Tiredness made my eyelids droop. I went through all my nightly rituals and settled down in bed.
But for some reason I didn't want silence. I was used to hearing Piccolo breathe next to me, either while he meditated or slept himself. The silence...it just didn't settle well with me. I guess I'll just get used to sleeping alone again.
I plucked my discman off the desk, slipped my headphones on and felt around for the PLAY button. I listened to a few different songs, all by Heart. I was already asleep when the opening strains of my favorite song(by her) filtered into my subconscious. Sometimes if I play music when I'm sleepy, I still hear it when my brain falls asleep.
The song...its haunting music
and lyrics, echoed into my dream as I slept soundly for the first time
in a long while.
Spare a little candle,
save some light for me.
Figures up ahead,
moving in the trees.
White skin...in linen.
Perfume on my wrist.
And the full moon that
hangs over
These dreams in the mist.
Darkness on the edge.
Shadows where I stand.
I search for the time
on a watch with no hands.
I want to see you clearly,
come closer than this.
But all I remember
are the dreams in the
mist.
The first thing I noticed was a cool silver fog all around. Cool as in chilly, but not uncomfortably so. In it I saw an indistinct shape moving about. Stars shone above...millions of stars like you see at night in the desert. Oh, but they were ten times more brilliant!
All at once the fog swirled. Two hands reached out and snatched me forward. Next thing I knew I was pressed close to a strong chest...my Real contours contrasting against jagged Anime ones. The shape pulled me forward so quickly that we both twirled in mid-air. Finally a face came into view. A handsome, angular green face with dark eyes, a teardrop nose and lips drawn into a tight line.
Shocked, I wrapped my arms around his neck. "Piccolo!"
"Hey, kid." Piccolo gazed down at me, liquid-black eyes twinkling. His lips didn't smile, but his eyes did. "I told you I'd be back."
These dreams go on when
I close my eyes.
Every second of the night
I live another life.
These dreams that sleep
when it's cold outside.
Every moment I'm awake,
the further I'm away.
Is it cloak 'n dagger?
Could it be spring or
fall?
I walk without a cut
through a stained glass
wall.
Weaker in my eyesight.
The candle in my grip.
And words that have no
form
are falling from my lips.
I hugged him again. Tightly. Glad to know I didn't have to stop seeing him. Then I leaned up to capture his soft lips. A glow came between us when our mouths touched. Piccolo didn't even hesitate to kiss me back this time. He placed a hand on the back of my head to hold me there. Our tongues touched and mingled. My breath rushed out...he'd stolen it again.
There was a soft swishing sound. I looked up.
A goldish glow swept down Piccolo's body, making his jagged Anime features less distinct. Right before my eyes he faded from Anime to Real. Then he smiled, his eyelids lowering slightly. Oh God, all the stars seemed to fall right into his dark gray eyes. I've never seen him look at me with such unmasked emotion. Right then I knew he was and always will be my soulmate.
They say love has no boundaries. Now I know it's true. Here we were, two people from completely different worlds, and we have almost everything in common. Like two puzzle pieces that belonged together. Yin and yang.
And staying with him was possible after all...even if it's only in my dreams.
But that's good enough for me.
Thank you, Believers. This is all possible because of you.
These dreams go on when
I close my eyes.
Every second of the night
I live another life.
These dreams that sleep
when it's cold outside.
Every moment I'm awake,
the further I'm away.
There's something out
there
I cant resist.
I need to hide away
from the pain.
There's something out
there
I cant resist!
The sweetest song is silence
that I've ever heard.
Funny how your feet
in dreams never touch
the earth.
I slid an arm free and took Piccolo's hand. He watched me curiously. I just gave him a little tug and off we went, swirling into the mist. We twirled through outer space, glided over sparkling oceans and drifted across distant skies. Smiling, laughing and having a grand old time. We never touched the ground. Not even once.
In a wood full of princes,
freedom is a kiss.
But the prince hides
his face
from dreams in the mist.
"Cyndi," Piccolo slid free and gazed down at me, his eyes curious. "Just how big is your imagination?"
"I dunno." I took his hand, smiling. "Let's find out!"
And off we went.
These dreams go on when
I close my eyes.
Every second of the night
I live another life.
These dreams that sleep
when it's cold outside.
Every moment I'm awake,
the further I'm away.
These dreams go on when
I close my eyes.
Every second of the night
I live another life.
These dreams that sleep
when it's cold outside.
Every moment I'm awake,
the further I'm away...
~¤§The End§¤~
Thanks for Believing!
Song credit: "These Dreams", by Heart.