Hey all, sorry for such the long wait, but if you read my profile you would know my reasons why. Anyway, I've updated THIS chapter and that should make all of you happy! ^_^ Okay, there were some questions from you guys and I'll answer them now.
To Son Marron 2k5: You didn't have a question, but I wanted to talk to you anyway. ^_^ The way I was thinking of the story, it wasn't a custody battle because Charles had accused them (Gohan, Videl & Trunks) of kidnapping Pan so I was doing this in the way that they would do a kidnapping case. Gohan and Videl made a counter-suit against Charles and accused him of not being a good father and they wanted to take custody of her since they were her real parents anyway. So when I saw what you wrote, I decided because of their counter-suit, that you are right and it has turned into a custody battle and I will delete the jury soon. ^_^ And about Pan being 14 in GT, I didn't know, I thought she was a lot younger. She looks so small in the pictures, and pictures are all I know about GT except for the fact that Goku gets wished back.
To Kutie_pan: There are only a few questions I can answer for you, all the rest will be answered in the coming chapters. You have to be patient! Lol. Okay, no, this story isn't based on a real story. I did however get the idea from a story I read about someone having a dream about someone and then actually finding them, so whoever in the world wrote that, you get some credit. The other question about why Pan was sitting with Charles in the courtroom has already been answered in my story. After Gohan took her back after talking to Francine, Charles came with the police again and Gohan was put in jail. So now Pan is in Charles' custody and he is making her sit with him. For your other questions, I've planned everything out, I know what is going to go in each of the chapters, and I had already thought of all of that, so you will find out soon (hopefully, right? Lol).
Okay, enough of my blabbering, on with the story, since this is what you all have been waiting for! ^_^
~Lady Branwen~
I don't own DBZ/GT
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Girl of My Dreams
Chapter 17
"You're his mother?!" Bulma excalimed.
"That's right," Francine answered.
Bulma glanced over at Gohan who only shrugged in reply. Bulma cleared her throat and turned back towards Francine as the people in the court quieted down to hear what was being said. "May I ask why you have decided to testify against your own son?"
Francine shifted in her chair and looked at Charles, then to Pan sitting behind him. "I'm testifying against him because I do not believe anything he has said that these kind people had kidnapped her. He is known to be a liar in our family."
"I see."
"I've seen the way he treats my granddaughter and I want her to be safe."
"What exactly have you seen?"
"I have seen him hitting Pan with his fists, with broom sticks, a lot of things that he shouldn't be hitting her with at all."
"What else have you seen, assuming there is anything else?"
"My son smokes. Every so often, by accident I have seen burn marks in the shape of a cigarette on Pan's arms or legs. I can only assume that my son made them because I know Pan doesn't smoke."
"How can you be sure that she doesn't?"
"Charles has offered her cigarettes, but she says that she doesn't like them."
Bulma nodded and looked quickly over at Pan. "Do you go over their house often?"
"I wouldn't consider it often, no. But I do get to see to their house out of my kitchen window. I have seen my poor granddaughter crying so many times."
"When you have seen him do these things, did he know that you saw him? Were you there or were you watching out of your kitchen window?"
"Well, a few times he did spank her in front of me, he always made sure to tone his punishments down when there were other people present. But if Pan did something that Charles did not like and there was no one around, he would beat her and I would see that from my kitchen window. My kitchen window only allows me to see inside Pan's room, though. So I haven't seen everything. I've only heard her scream the other times."
"And what do you know about my clients?"
"Nothing really. Mr. Son came to my house one day and was very eager to ask me about Charles and how he treated Pan."
"And what did you tell him?"
"The same things I have just told you. Mr. Son seemed very concerned about Pan and after he left I went to look and see how Pan was doing. She had been trapped in her room for a long time and there was nothing I could do to help her as I didn't have a key to Charles' house."
"Why not? I would think that Charles would have given you a key to keep so that you could get in. You are his mother after all and his neighbor."
"I'll tell you why, dear. Charles changed his name because I disowned him. He has always been in trouble, though he was never caught by the police. This was all while he was still young. He would steal from a few of the stores in town and he did it quite often, but he always left the impression of a sweet boy who never did anything wrong and so he got away with it. Later, I had had enough and as soon as he turned 18 and I didn't have to take care of him any longer, I disowned him. He was a disgrace to the family. I had been raised with high morals and standards and having a son who stole for whatever it is he wanted, just didn't suit me and I didn't want any part of him.
"Years later, Charles came to visit me and he told me he had just bought the farm next to mine. He told me that he had been reborn and wanted to start a brand new life, free of stealing and doing wrong. He wanted to start things all over with life and myself. I believed him and I started treating him like my son again, for he didn't steal and he became a good boy. Charles decided to get a new identity along with his new life. His original name was Benjimin Maktahi, but he then changed it to Charles Miller. He adopted Pan and everything was going well until around her seventh birthday when things started to go wrong and I started to hear her screams. One day she ran to my house and cried in my lap for a long time. She showed me a giant bruise on her leg and told me that her father had hit her. Just then, Charles came in and took her back to their house. Since then, we haven't been on very good terms and I don't like to acknowledge him as my son. But ever since then, I would occasionally go over to their house and talk to Pan while her father was out working on the farm and I would out bandages on her wounds and talk to her. I always offered to let her stay with me, but she would always refuse. I think that she was afraid that Charles wouldn't let her."
"So I take it that you do not want to see Pan stay with Charles."
"No."
"Do you think that Gohan Son and Videl Satan would be better parents?"
"Objection, your honor! She's leading the witness," Mr. Hahn interrupted.
"Sustained."
"I'll rephrase the question then," Bulma said, very annoyed that Mr. Hahn had interrupted her. "Do you know of anyone who would be better parents to your granddaughter?"
"Yes. Anyone other than my son. I'm sure that Mr. Son would be a lovely father, but I just haven't been around him enough to be certain that he would not hit her. But I do think that he would be a better parent not only because he is not Charles, but because that night that I talked to him, he was concerned about Pan's safety, like a true parent should be."
"Thank you, Mrs. Maktahi. I have no further questions."
"Your witness, Mr. Hahn," Judge Swartz said.
He stood up and walked slowly to the podium, thinking what he could ask that would get an answer favorable to his client. "Mrs. Maktahi, do you really know if Charles Miller beat his daughter? Or are you just assuming?"
"I've seen it."
"You said you saw him beating her through the kitchen window, correct?"
"Yes."
"Isn't your house some distance away from your son's house?"
"Yes."
"Forgive me for being rude, but I do have to point this out. You are not in your younger years. Many people start to lose their eyesight in their old age."
Francine seemed a bit ruffled, but answered, "That's true. I know what I saw though because even if I couldn't read a sign that distance away, I can still see motions."
Mr. Hahn bowed his head and walked away and past the gates to a police officer at the back of the court and slung his arm over Greg's shoulders. "Sorry about this, Greg," he whispered. Calling back to Francine he said, "Mrs. Maktahi, please tell me what you see. Do I have my arm leisurely thrown over my good friend Greg's shoulder's or do I have him in a lethal choke hold?"
Francine squinted her eyes to see better. "In a choke hold," she said confidently.
Bulma groaned in agitation.
"Okay, how about now?" He moved his arm to put a choke hold on the officer.
"You have that poor man in an even tighter choke hold!"
"Your wrong, Mrs. Maktahi. This is a rather loose choke hold. Before, I just had my arm slung over this officer's shoulders. Remember Mrs. Maktahi, the distance from your kitchen window to Pan's bedroom window is most probably a greater distance than the length of this courtroom. You have a farm in between your two houses."
"It's not the farm itself. I have my vegetable garden outside of my window and that goes on for about 30 feet, then there is the dividing line of our two farms. Then about 6 feet after that is their house. Our houses are closer together than most farm houses are."
"Even so, that makes 36 feet that you have to see and that is quite a long distance to see someone beating someone up. I understand that what you have heard and supposedly seen would go together and point to my client beating his daughter, but you have to admit, there is a chance that what you think you saw, isn't really what happened, right?"
"I suppose," Francine answered grudgingly.
"No further questions."
"You may call up your next witness, Mr. Hahn."
"I would like to call Caroline Hawthorn to the stand."
Caroline was sworn in and sat down nervously in her seat.
"Mrs. Hawthorn, what is your relationship to the defendants?"
"I am their neighbor."
"Do you know them very well?"
"Yes, we invite each other over to dinner on a regular basis. We're good friends."
"Did they tell you that they were going to get their daughter back? I would think that that would be fairly big news and would be gossiped about. Did you ever hear anything about that?"
"No, I was never told about Pan coming back to them, though Videl did tell me that she had a daughter that she gave up for adoption. She seemed sad about it, which I don't blame her. Videl told me about Pan a long time ago, long before any of this ever happened."
"When you did finally see Pan at their house, did they tell you about her?"
"No, they seemed to be so overjoyed and wanted to make up for lost time, I thought. I didn't want to go over to their house and bother them. I knew that eventually I would meet the girl."
"So, they never told you specifically that this girl over here," he pointed to Pan, "was their daughter, you only assumed that it was."
"Well, yes. I don't see any other reason why they would be so happy to see a girl who looks remarkably like them…"
"Did you see when the girl first arrived at the house?"
Caroline sat still in her chair, not saying a word.
"I'll ask again, did you see when the girl first arrived at the house? Please remember you are under oath Mrs. Hawthorn."
Caroline sighed and looked hesitantly over at Gohan, Videl, and Trunks. "Yes I did."
"And? Was she struggling?"
"No."
"Was she happy?"
"I'm not sure, I couldn't see very well."
"What did you see?"
Again, Caroline stayed quiet. Judge Swartz leaned over and said, "Please answer the question, Mrs. Hawthorn."
"I saw that purple hair boy flying with Pan in his arms. Then he and Pan stood talking to Gohan and his son before they went inside a few minutes later."
The courtroom was silent and Videl, Trunks, and Gohan's mouth hung open in shock. Everyone who knew them and knew that Trunks could fly looked slowly over at him.
Vegeta leaned over the rail and berated Trunks. "How could you be so careless, boy? You know these pathetic humans don't know how to fly and they don't even believe in it!"
"Shut up, Vegeta! That's the exact reason why no one will believe her," Bulma hissed.
"Fl-Flying? You expect us to believe, Mrs. Hawthorn, that that boy over there flew to the Son house?"
"Well, that's what I saw and you want me to tell you what I saw. I'm sorry if you don't like it," Caroline said calmly, but defensively.
"Did you see anything else?"
"No."
"No further questions."
Mr. Hahn went and sat back down and Charles immediately leaned over. "Is this going well?" he whispered. "There seems to be too much bullshit going on in this courtroom. You didn't even question her further about the boy flying."
"Why would I?" Mr. Hahn asked. "He couldn't have been flying, no one can."
"Well, when he kidnapped Pan, he picked her up and flew away."
Mr. Hahn shook his head and groaned. "Mr. Miller, I don't know what is going on here, but no one can fly."
"I saw him," Charles said through clenched teeth.
"If you say something like that up on the stand, our case is over. You will be thought of as a lunatic, just like Mrs. Hawthorn. No one will believe anything you say. Now, if you don't say anything out of the ordinary, we'll do just fine."
"You're witness Mrs. Brief," Judge Swartz called out.
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Okay, there you go! Now, I'm going to warn you, I will be updating less frequently from now on because I'm starting school. I started yesterday, so I just want you all to know about that. Anyway, I wanted to ask a question not related to the story…Does anyone know of a place online that will make cds for you? Like a cd burner? I have some songs I want to burn, but I don't have a burner now. You can find almost anything on the net, so I was wondering if anyone knows of a site like that? Okay, I'm pretty sure next chapter will take place a week or so after today because I don't want to have to go through all of the witnesses, so next chapter might just start off with like Trunks or Charles or some kind of important character to all of this. We're getting near the end :( Okay, see ya next time!
~Lady Branwen~