Hey, I'm back!  Yay!  Okay, I know this has taken a reeeeaaaaaallly long time to update, and I have to say….I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!  I know how you guys feel, going through story withdrawal and all of that.  So I'm really sorry about the lack of updates, but to be fair, you can't really expect me to update very often when I have three big assignments to do in just one class, plus the other assignments.  So…yeah, that's my excuse.  Lol.

Okay, since it has been almost 2 months ^_^;; since the last update, I'll get right to the story. 

~Lady Branwen~

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Disclaimer: You know the drill, I own nothing.

Girl of My Dreams

Chapter 18

Trunks' mind wandered as he sat in his seat sullenly. 

"Why do I have to be here? This is dumb.  We're trying to save Pan and we get put on trial!"

Trunks looked around the room at the people who had shown up.  Everyone was there lending support to Gohan and Videl. 

"Everyone knows Gohan would never hurt anything unless he absolutely has to.  My dad, you could say that he would kill someone if they looked at him funny…in fact, he probably would, but Gohan…he wouldn't do anything.  How can anyone accuse him of hurting his own daughter?"

His gaze fell on Videl.  She sat with her arms crossed.  She appeared to be watching Bulma gathering her notes, but Trunks knew that Videl was really looking beyond Bulma to where Pan was sitting, watching to make sure Charles didn't lay a finger on her.

Gohan appeared to be deep in thought

Trunks stopped looking around and turned his gaze inward.

"If I hadn't have had that dream, none of this would have happened.  I'm not sorry for it though.  Pan is the best thing that has ever happened to me and she has brought so much joy to the Son family.  I don't think anyone can grasp how much they love her.  I just wish…I wish that maybe when I had had the dream and went looking for her, I wouldn't have kidnapped her.  I couldn't think of what else to do at the time, but maybe I could have done something different, that way we wouldn't be here now and maybe Pan would be safe at home with her real parents."

"Trunks, I'm glad you saved me."  Pan whispered to him through their bond.  "I could very easily have died that day that you saved me.  Don't forget, he was coming at me with a knife.  He had every intention of killing me I bet.  Please don't hate yourself for us being here.  It gets me away from the house and if I'm not alone with him in the house, that means he won't hurt me."

Trunks sighed and leaned back in his chair casually and looked over at Pan sitting across the room.  She was looking at him with a slight smile on her face.

"I love you," he said.

She smiled broadly at him, then looked down at her hands and didn't look back up again, but the smile stayed.

"Caroline, have the Sons ever given you a reason to believe that they would harm a child?"

Trunks' mother's voice shocked him back to reality and he sat up straight in his chair to pay attention to what was being said.

"No."

"And their child, Joey, is six years old, is he not?"

"Yes, I believe so."

"In all of those six years, have you ever seen anything wrong with Joey?  Have you ever seen him with bruises, cuts, anything?"

"Not really.  I've seen him with bruises, but they were small.  Every kid gets bruises from being rambunctious."

Bulma nodded.  "Could you describe him for the court?  Is he sad?  Gloomy?  Happy?  Playful?"

"Well, he is very polite.  I always see Gohan and Joey playing outside.  Videl takes him to the park a lot as well.  He plays with my two sons there and also at my house."

"Have you ever babysat for Joey?"

"Yes, a few times."

"On those days when you have babysat him, did you ever see any marks on him that would suggest that Videl and or Gohan were hurting mentally or physically?"

"No.  Neither."

"Do you believe that the Sons are the type of people that would hurt their children?"

"Not at all.  They are very loving and caring people.  Videl used to help helpless citizens and worked with the police to stop criminals.  I hardly doubt that the daughter of Hercule Satan would turn to a life of crime by kidnapping a girl or hurting her own child."

"Amen," Videl said under her breath.  Gohan turned his head and gave Videl a smile and squeezed her hand.

"Thank you, Caroline.  Now…about that business of one of the defendants flying…Are you absolutely sure that you saw Trunks Brief flying?"

"I-It looked like him.  Same hair, hair-cut, same build…"

Bulma paused and looked at the floor.  "Did you see him up close?"  When Caroline hesitated, Bulma looked back up.  "Well?  Was Trunks Brief up close when you saw him?  Or was he far away?"

"Well, he was far away…"

"Do you take any kind of drugs that would impair your judgment or that would make you hallucinate?"

Caroline sat looking at Bulma incredulously.  "I beg your pardon?  I do NOT hallucinate."

"Excuse me for challenging your judgment, Mrs. Hawthorn, but if someone told you they saw someone flying through the sky, wouldn't you be a little skeptical?  It's not common practice to fly you know?"

"I know what I saw," Caroline replied tersely.

"Remember you are under oath, Caroline.  Are you sure that you don't take any pills?"

Caroline sighed.  "I was taking painkillers.  I had an operation a few days before I saw Trunks flying."

"Thank you, Mrs. Hawthorn.  You may step down now."  Bulma walked over to her desk and looked through her notes to find who she would call to be her next witness.

"You're next witness, Mrs. Brief?" Judge Swartz called.

Bulma grinned inwardly as she saw who was next on her list.  "Your honor, I would like to call Gohan Son to the stand."

A murmur from everyone in the courtroom was heard as Gohan slowly stood to his feet.  All eyes were on him as he walked to the podium.  His face was stern, but he wasn't concerned with the eyes boring holes into his back, he was preparing himself to save his daughter.

"Don't mess this up, Gohan," he thought to himself.  "This is your daughter you are fighting for.  DO NOT let her go back to that creep.  You know what he has done to her.  Do you really want that to continue to happen?  If you screw this up, think of what her life is going to be like with him.  She might not even live to see her next birthday."

Gohan was sworn in and he sat down.  He looked over at Videl who watched on anxiously.  Trunks' attention was focused entirely on Gohan.  Then Gohan glanced over at Pan whose eyes were full of hope of salvation and for a better life than what she had grown up with.  Gohan winced as he realized just how much Pan was depending on him to save her.

"Save her.  Don't let your only daughter, whom you haven't heard from in so many years, down."

Finally, Gohan turned to Bulma.

"Mr. Son, I would like you to tell the court what happened.  Let's begin around the time that Pan was born.  How did you first find out about her?"

"Videl told me about her."

"What did she say to you?"

"I don't remember exactly what she said.  I remember that she told me that she had had a baby and it was mine.  I was so happy about it too.  I hugged her and asked to see our child, but then I saw the look on her face and knew that something was wrong.  She told me that she had given Pan up for adoption because she thought that I wouldn't want it and because she believed that her father would disown her or something."  Gohan looked over at Videl and smiled.  "We tried to get her back, but," here Gohan's smile turned to a frown and he looked back at Bulma, "she was already adopted."

"Did you try finding out who adopted Pan?"

"Yes, we did try, but the people at the adoption agency told us they couldn't give us the information of the new parents because there had been a few cases where the biological parents had changed their minds and wanted to keep their baby.   They didn't want us to see our baby because then we might want it back."

Bulma stood looking at Gohan quizzically.  "You said parents…"

Gohan looked at Bulma blankly.  "Yeah…"

"That would mean that there were two people being the parents."

"That's true," Gohan agreed.  Suddenly he realized what it meant.

Bulma turned to Mr. Hahn and Charles.  "I was under the impression that Mr. Miller was the only parent.  According to his mother and even his brother, Charles raised Pan on his own.  Hmm…"  Bulma appeared to be deep in thought, but then snapped out of it and returned to asking Gohan questions.  "So what happened after that?"

"We kept trying for a while to find Pan, but after a while, we gave up hope of that.  Then we just decided to hope that someday Pan would find out that she was adopted and would want to find us.  We left our name published in the phone book and all of that so that she would be able to find us easily."

"And when did you meet Pan for the first time?"

"When Trunks brought her to our house."

"And was he flying?"

Gohan looked down and chuckled.  "No."

"Do you believe that Trunks abducted Pan to bring her to you, to maybe show you that your daughter was still around or something?"

"No," Gohan laughed.  "As far as I know, Trunks didn't know about Pan being our daughter.  I didn't tell him, anyway.  Besides, I hardly think he would go out one day to find my missing daughter for me."
"Did you know immediately that the girl that Trunks brought to your house was your daughter?"

"No.  I had thought that she was a friend of his or something, though I had never met her before.  He introduced her to me and said that her name was Pan.  The name, obviously, made me think of my daughter.  I looked at her more closely and realized that she looked like Videl and I.  Then I was fairly confident that she was our long lost daughter.  It would have been too much of a coincidence for her to have the same name and look like us and end up NOT being our daughter…"

"Right.  Did Pan have any idea who you were?"

"No, I don't think so.  She never really said anything, but it's kind of hard not to know at least about my wife.  She must have heard about Hercule Satan's daughter at some point in her life, I don't know of anyone who hasn't."

Gohan looked over at Pan and was surprised to see her smiling at him lovingly.  "Mr. Son, did you tell Pan who you believed her to be?"

"I did.  Well…I kind of did.  I asked her if she was adopted to help validate for me that she was indeed my daughter."

"And what did she say?"  Bulma crossed her arms and began walking slowly around the courtroom.

"She admitted that she was adopted.  We told her about how we used to have a daughter and that we had given her up for adoption and we believed that she was our daughter."

"How did she react?"

Gohan smiled.  "Well, when we first told her, she fainted.  When she woke back up, she thought we were crazy or something."

Bulma stopped and stood looking at Gohan.  "Where did she stay?"

"In our house."

"Was she happy there?"

Gohan shrugged.  "I guess so.  She never complained about anything.  We took her out shopping and treated her the best we know how.  I mean, 14 years of not seeing her…" Gohan felt like crying over everything that was happening.  "Why can't she just be at home with us?"  He paused and looked at his hands that were folded on his lap.  He shook his head, trying to shake off the emotions that were suddenly flooding him and continued, "We had to make up for all that lost time with her."

"I have a daughter too," Bulma said, more for the judge and for everyone else in the court rather than for Gohan, "I would hate to lose her and not see her for such a long time.  I'm sure any parent would want to make up for their lost time with their child.  Did she enjoy herself while she was with you and your wife?"

Gohan looked over at Videl.  Videl was staring intently at Gohan, all the while biting her nails.  "I'm sure she did."

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Hopefully not too bad of a cliffhanger?  Hopefully I can get the next chapter out sooner than this one, but the way things are going, I'm not sure it will be like it used to be *sniff* in the good old days when I had time to write things.  Okay, see ya later!

~Lady Branwen~