19
11.2.43
GCS Dante, Outer Sol System
2345 Hours
Chi-Chi gazed in fascination at the spectacular scene before her. There being no atmosphere to obscure her view, she could see more stars than she had ever before. Thousands upon thousands of twinkling lights were the background to two raging suns. The binary stars she focused her attention upon were like nothing she had ever seen. They were magnificent in all their raging beauty. While one part of her was focused on their beauty, another part was worrying about the entire mess her husband and his friends had managed to get her in. Not only that, but once again they had gotten Gohan involved.
Despite her often and vocal objections, she realized that her husband and son's fighting were a necessary evil. After all, they had managed to save the world, what was it? Three, four times now? But the situation had changed. They were no longer fighting for the world or to save their friends. They were following a complete stranger to an unknown part of the galaxy to fight an enemy they had no quarrel with. They would be gone for six months, maybe more, and that was why she had come.
She was not going to wait at home, literally worrying herself sick over her husband and son's condition. She had done enough of that for the rest of her life during the Namek trip. She would follow her husband and son and be a part of their lives. Besides, Gohan had to keep up with his studies, no matter what that rude man had to say. She felt a hand on her shoulder.
"Hey, Chi-Chi, you okay?" came her husband's soft voice.
Chi-Chi let loose a flood of emotion. "Oh, Goku...this, this is all so...it makes me sad. I am so tired of having to see you and Gohan fight. Why can't we be happy? Why is there always so much struggle, so much death? I know this sounds selfish, but I don't want to lose you, or Gohan. I don't even want any of your stupid friends to die again. I-I-" her voice choked up as the tears began to flow.
"Shh. It's okay, it's okay." Goku calmed his wife and took her in his arms. "I know you don't want anything to happen to us. I love you so much Chi-Chi, I love Gohan too. I wish things didn't always have to be this way. You know I love fighting, but this, I don't like this."
"Then, then why are you doing it?" She managed to get out through her sobs.
"Because it's the right thing to do. From what Sabre tells me, there are over 60 billion people still in danger. I can't just turn my back on them. I know, I don't know them, but they are just as deserving as the people of Earth. We have to do this, and when it's over, we'll get things back to normal."
"But what about the next time? And the time after that? It's all been a series of battles, ever since you were a child. I'm scared I'll lose you for good."
"You know I'll do my best not to let that happen. But even if you do lose me, it's not the end of the world. You'll still have Gohan. He's going to need you, especially now. When we were fighting with Cell, he, he snapped. When he saw us all getting hurt, he let something loose within him. Now he's afraid of his new power. I can train him how to use it, but you, you need to be there to train his soul."
Chi-Chi was calmer now. She understood why her husband was doing this, but she still did not like it. However, there was something he needed to know, another reason why she came on this journey.
"Goku, there, there's something I have to tell you."
The tone in her voice worried him. "What is it Chi-Chi? Is something wrong?"
"No, nothing's wrong. I'm...I'm..."
"What?"
"I'm pregnant."
The blow she just delivered him was more powerful than anyone he had ever fought before. Talk about being blind sided.
"What? You're...when?"
"You remember that night..."
"Oh, THAT night. Wow. Yeah, uh, heh heh. That was some night..."
"Now I'm afraid that this child will grow up without a father. And that just wouldn't be right Goku, it just wouldn't be right."
Goku didn't know what to say. He just looked into his wife's eyes for a long time. He saw what made him fall in love with her and it tore him apart on the inside. Finally he spoke.
"I promise you, I will come out of this, and so will Gohan. When this is all over, we'll figure everything out."
"Oh, Goku, I hope you're right." Chi-Chi hugged her husband even tighter, not ever wanting to let him go again. And they sat there in their embrace, set against a background of fantastic beauty.
Gohan, who lay in the bed across the room, was supposed to be asleep. But as all children, he was awake to hear the important conversations his parents had. When he saw his mother break down like that, he truly appreciated the for the first time the effect his actions had on her. As with most children, Gohan never thought about how his behavior affected his mother. When he was trained by Piccolo, fought with Vegeta, went to Namek, and most recently with Cell, those events had taken a toll on her. And he never noticed it.
The only consolation he had was the fact that he had fought for the greater good, and the fact that this time, his mother would be closer by. He hated to see his mother cry. It was the worst feeling in the world, worse than anything else. He hated having so much power but never being able to use it at the right times. And now, instead of simply being the humble, studious son his mother desired, he was following in the footsteps of his father, becoming a warrior. Living the life his mother tried to protect him against.
When he finally drifted off to sleep, his dreams were permeated with a sense of guilt. None of them made any sense, but the feeling that he was letting his mother down was definitely present.
While Gohan dreamt, Chi-Chi and Goku held each other while gazing out at the stars. Chi-Chi fell asleep in his arms, something she hadn't done in quite a while. Goku was definitely shaken up at the recent turn of events, mainly his wife being pregnant. He was forced to reconsider his straightforward approach to this problem. If anything should happen to him, what then? What would become of his family? Leaving not one, but two children behind, it was a very frustrating problem.
In the end though, he came to the same conclusion. If it was necessary for him to sacrifice himself to save an entire civilization than so be it. Chi-Chi, Gohan, and his unborn son would survive, regardless of his status. So, once again, he would fight for the greater good, knowing that it was for the best. What troubled him most, though, was the strength of his opponents.
Already, he could sense the true strength of Sabre. He had a fantastic amount of power, easily equal to all of them put together. Apparently, his transformation multiplied his strength many times over, something turning Super Saiyan did, but to a lesser extent. Gohan had reached a new level, so at least there was more training they could do. But how much until they hit the next limit? If they weren't strong enough to go toe-to-toe with those Necrons, then all their training would be useless.
But Goku, ever the optimist, felt that they would have a chance. Training with this new guy would allow them to assimilate each other's techniques. They could learn a lot from eachother, seeing as how they were trained in different schools of fighting. Heck, they were trained in opposite ends of the galaxy. He would push himself as always, partly because he was called upon to help the weak, and partly because of his natural Saiyan blood. He loved a good fight.
He looked down at his wife, who was currently sleeping in his arms. She was so soft, so beautiful; his heart melted all over again. He pulled her closer against his chest and could feel her breathing, her heart's beating. He never wanted to let her go again. He stood up, wife in arms, and carried her over to their bed. Although it was small compared to the one they shared at home, they didn't mind being so close to each other. Not in the least. After placing his wife on the bed he lay down next to her and drifted off to sleep, his last thought being, "I just want everything to turn out okay."
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In the last room, Bulma was laying in bed while her baby was asleep next to her in the special crib she had brought along in one of her capsules. Trunks stood against the far wall, gazing out at the stars. He, however, was not really focused on them. His mind was awash in a sea of thoughts, ranging from his mother back home to the current predicament facing him. A half-dozen touchpads were scattered on a coffee table adjacent to him, containing information on their new foe.
The only reason he hadn't made an objection to his coming was that Sabre had told him that his mother had been appraised of the situation, and that someone had been sent to make his time safe again. As with Goku, he had decided that the greater good was to go ahead and help out these people. He knew what would happen if they did not try and help, and he would never allow that to happen to anyone again. He had seen enough suffering and death than anyone ever should have to.
Another of his dilemmas was what to think about android 18 coming with them. She was nothing like the one in his time, but just looking at her filled him with an almost irrepressible rage. Physically, she was identical to the one in his time, but, everything else about her was different. As far as he could tell, she was a pretty decent 'person'. But that face, those eyes...they were the same. If he was going to be able to work along side her, he would have some serious adjusting to do. It was strange how eerily similar this world could be, yet so different at the same time. Being in this time was like seeing the way things were supposed to be.
Laughter, smiles, happiness, those things were utterly foreign in his world. It was painful for him to think about his world for any amount of extended time while in this one. Everything was so much better here, it wasn't fair that his time had to have such catastrophe, such fear. But it was no one's fault. Only Dr. Gero and his twisted creations were to blame. It was a shame that he would not be able to get his revenge. The only consolation he had was that his mother would be safe, and that he would be given the chance to stop this from being the fate of others.
He also wondered why artificial creations brought with them so much evil. These cyborgs that had been able to defeat Sabre, they were just like the androids and Cell. Artificial creations designed for nothing more than destruction. If he had known that the Dante had an artificial intelligence of it's own, he'd have been much more disconcerted.
But the times ahead looked bleak. It would be more training, more fighting, more dying. He wondered if he would make it out of this. From the briefing, it sounded as if they had gotten themselves in over their heads. He knew Goku and his father would have no trouble adapting to the situation, they would enjoy the training and fighting immensely. They couldn't help it, it was their natural Saiyan instinct to love to fight. Goku was driven by sheer the sheer fun of it, his father was driven by the need to be the best, to be better than Goku. It was funny sometimes, to see him so consumed with the fire to be the best, other times, it was not.
It was strange when he thought about his father. He grew up never knowing him. And now, here he was, in his life for the first time. He was certainly an interesting man. He was shocked, at first, at his personality. He had no idea what his father was like except for the stories his mother told him, but nothing could have prepared him for what he was to find. His father was a complicated man with a past as terrible as his own. He could see where he had gotten his rage from, life had been so cruel to him. Never had he been truly loved. He was sold into Frieza's possession as a child before his planet was destroyed, then raised to fight and destroy in order to please his master. He was demeaned and forced to swallow his pride for so long, it made him hard, callous.
Apparently, when he came to Earth, all of that changed. When he had been showed mercy by Goku, when he had stopped Killing from ending his father's life, that is when the change began. Never before had someone done something kind for him. It was a shock to Vegeta, who did not know how to react. Ever since then, he had been trying to get the upper hand on Goku, trying to prove himself. The reason Trunks knew all this was from the year he had spent with him in the Room of Spirit and Time. He was able to catch glimpses into his father's psyche and learned his father was not the hateful, angry man he pretended to be.
If all that was stripped away, you would find a man who was insecure in relationships, feared intimacy, and all he had to rely on was his pride. He isolated himself from others because he did not want to get hurt. That is why he and his mother could never stay together. Along with their obstinately stubborn personalities and inflamed pride, Vegeta was afraid. He had never known love before, and pulled away. But he knew that he still loved his mother, no matter how he acted to the contrary. He was as father now, as well, and if his reaction after his own near death at the hands of Cell was any indication, Vegeta was not the man he pretended to be.
When he had heard that his father was in the infirmary he was not really worried. His father would be fine, the only thing hurting tomorrow morning would be his ego. But, these Necrons that kept popping up in places they shouldn't, that was bothering him. This new enemy, seemingly invincible, was totally foreign to him. Every other being they had faced had some anterior motive, greed, power, money, but these Necrons, they had no desire other than the total annihilation of the Coalition. He had been the only one to read the information provided to them, and what he found was disturbing indeed.
When they were to make the final stand on the planet, what was it? Gargantua, when they were to make their final stand on Gargantua, there would be no taunting, no gloating, no threats. The Necrons would ignore them until they attacked them, and would return to their objective as soon as they were no longer a factor. It scared him, really. They were to fight an enemy seemingly without a soul, without emotions. If they didn't have emotions. what did that make them? Something to be feared, he was sure of that.
He looked back at his mother, which gave him an odd feeling indeed. She was turned away from him, and as far as he could tell, she was asleep. It was odd seeing mother so...young. And she was different too. She was so happy, so full of energy. Back home, his mother seemed to have lost that, she seemed so, sad. He could understand why. She was probably longing for days like these, when everyone was still alive, going off on some great adventure. But for her, there were no more adventures, everyone was dead. He started to choke up again, something he did with less frequency now, but it still happened from time to time.
It wasn't that he was sad for these people dying, for he had never knew them. Except for Gohan, that is. He was sad because of what he never had. All this, the camaraderie they shared, the lives they lived, the sheer essence of it all. Back home, it was just he and his mother, living in a dying world, wondering when their time would come. But now, things were as they should have been, they way his mother remembered them, and that tore at his heart. Trunks turned back to the window and tried to regain his composure. It didn't work.
Bulma was able to hear Trunks softly crying, and her gut wrenched. She knew he was probably thinking about his home, and about how it was so much worse than here. It was so odd for her, because she was his mother, but at the same time was not. She was not the one who raised him in a destroyed world, she was not the woman he grew up with. She had her own son in the crib next to her, but at the same time, the young man standing at the far end of the room was that same child. Some would question her logic of bringing her child along with her to a war-torn sector of the galaxy, but she could not bear to be separated from her infant son for six months or more. It would be wrong of her to leave him in her parents' care while she went away, possibly with a chance of never returning. She loved her son, and nothing would ever keep them apart.
The universe worked in strange ways, but the last few years had been a series of twists and turns none of them could have expected. The biggest had been her and Vegeta's relationship, and Trunks coming back in time. She remembered how she and Vegeta had been subtlety growing closer while he stayed at Capsule Corp. He still had been the brash, hostile, volatile man he always was, but something was different. Then, it had accumulated in a single night of passion. He left the next morning. She was so shocked that she didn't mind until she found out she was pregnant.
When Vegeta found out, he had taken it silently, but he was definitely surprised. He never said a word about it though. Once she had Trunks, Vegeta stopped by much more often, usually making some excuse as to why, but they both knew he was there to see his son. He was immensely proud that he had sired a son, something that was evident when the fire in his eyes lit up when he looked at him. She knew he loved his son, although he would never use those words...
She focused her attention on the sniffeling. She could no longer bear it and went over to comfort him. He didn't sense her approach until she had put her hand on his shoulder. He tried to wipe the tears from his eyes and play it off as he turned to her.
"Mom, wha, what are you doing up?" *sniff*
"It's okay, Trunks." she said as she wrapped her arms around him. "It's okay."
"Oh, mom," was all he could manage to say before breaking down again. He hugged her back and cried on her shoulder for a long time.
Bulma was touched by her sons outpour of her emotion. At least she knew he would not grow up to be like his father. So she held him for quite a while before he pulled back and assured her he was okay. They went to their respective beds and fell asleep quite quickly, for each knew tomorrow would hold its own set trials, and that from here on out, things would be getting serious.
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11.2.43
GCS Dante, Outer Sol System
2345 Hours
Chi-Chi gazed in fascination at the spectacular scene before her. There being no atmosphere to obscure her view, she could see more stars than she had ever before. Thousands upon thousands of twinkling lights were the background to two raging suns. The binary stars she focused her attention upon were like nothing she had ever seen. They were magnificent in all their raging beauty. While one part of her was focused on their beauty, another part was worrying about the entire mess her husband and his friends had managed to get her in. Not only that, but once again they had gotten Gohan involved.
Despite her often and vocal objections, she realized that her husband and son's fighting were a necessary evil. After all, they had managed to save the world, what was it? Three, four times now? But the situation had changed. They were no longer fighting for the world or to save their friends. They were following a complete stranger to an unknown part of the galaxy to fight an enemy they had no quarrel with. They would be gone for six months, maybe more, and that was why she had come.
She was not going to wait at home, literally worrying herself sick over her husband and son's condition. She had done enough of that for the rest of her life during the Namek trip. She would follow her husband and son and be a part of their lives. Besides, Gohan had to keep up with his studies, no matter what that rude man had to say. She felt a hand on her shoulder.
"Hey, Chi-Chi, you okay?" came her husband's soft voice.
Chi-Chi let loose a flood of emotion. "Oh, Goku...this, this is all so...it makes me sad. I am so tired of having to see you and Gohan fight. Why can't we be happy? Why is there always so much struggle, so much death? I know this sounds selfish, but I don't want to lose you, or Gohan. I don't even want any of your stupid friends to die again. I-I-" her voice choked up as the tears began to flow.
"Shh. It's okay, it's okay." Goku calmed his wife and took her in his arms. "I know you don't want anything to happen to us. I love you so much Chi-Chi, I love Gohan too. I wish things didn't always have to be this way. You know I love fighting, but this, I don't like this."
"Then, then why are you doing it?" She managed to get out through her sobs.
"Because it's the right thing to do. From what Sabre tells me, there are over 60 billion people still in danger. I can't just turn my back on them. I know, I don't know them, but they are just as deserving as the people of Earth. We have to do this, and when it's over, we'll get things back to normal."
"But what about the next time? And the time after that? It's all been a series of battles, ever since you were a child. I'm scared I'll lose you for good."
"You know I'll do my best not to let that happen. But even if you do lose me, it's not the end of the world. You'll still have Gohan. He's going to need you, especially now. When we were fighting with Cell, he, he snapped. When he saw us all getting hurt, he let something loose within him. Now he's afraid of his new power. I can train him how to use it, but you, you need to be there to train his soul."
Chi-Chi was calmer now. She understood why her husband was doing this, but she still did not like it. However, there was something he needed to know, another reason why she came on this journey.
"Goku, there, there's something I have to tell you."
The tone in her voice worried him. "What is it Chi-Chi? Is something wrong?"
"No, nothing's wrong. I'm...I'm..."
"What?"
"I'm pregnant."
The blow she just delivered him was more powerful than anyone he had ever fought before. Talk about being blind sided.
"What? You're...when?"
"You remember that night..."
"Oh, THAT night. Wow. Yeah, uh, heh heh. That was some night..."
"Now I'm afraid that this child will grow up without a father. And that just wouldn't be right Goku, it just wouldn't be right."
Goku didn't know what to say. He just looked into his wife's eyes for a long time. He saw what made him fall in love with her and it tore him apart on the inside. Finally he spoke.
"I promise you, I will come out of this, and so will Gohan. When this is all over, we'll figure everything out."
"Oh, Goku, I hope you're right." Chi-Chi hugged her husband even tighter, not ever wanting to let him go again. And they sat there in their embrace, set against a background of fantastic beauty.
Gohan, who lay in the bed across the room, was supposed to be asleep. But as all children, he was awake to hear the important conversations his parents had. When he saw his mother break down like that, he truly appreciated the for the first time the effect his actions had on her. As with most children, Gohan never thought about how his behavior affected his mother. When he was trained by Piccolo, fought with Vegeta, went to Namek, and most recently with Cell, those events had taken a toll on her. And he never noticed it.
The only consolation he had was the fact that he had fought for the greater good, and the fact that this time, his mother would be closer by. He hated to see his mother cry. It was the worst feeling in the world, worse than anything else. He hated having so much power but never being able to use it at the right times. And now, instead of simply being the humble, studious son his mother desired, he was following in the footsteps of his father, becoming a warrior. Living the life his mother tried to protect him against.
When he finally drifted off to sleep, his dreams were permeated with a sense of guilt. None of them made any sense, but the feeling that he was letting his mother down was definitely present.
While Gohan dreamt, Chi-Chi and Goku held each other while gazing out at the stars. Chi-Chi fell asleep in his arms, something she hadn't done in quite a while. Goku was definitely shaken up at the recent turn of events, mainly his wife being pregnant. He was forced to reconsider his straightforward approach to this problem. If anything should happen to him, what then? What would become of his family? Leaving not one, but two children behind, it was a very frustrating problem.
In the end though, he came to the same conclusion. If it was necessary for him to sacrifice himself to save an entire civilization than so be it. Chi-Chi, Gohan, and his unborn son would survive, regardless of his status. So, once again, he would fight for the greater good, knowing that it was for the best. What troubled him most, though, was the strength of his opponents.
Already, he could sense the true strength of Sabre. He had a fantastic amount of power, easily equal to all of them put together. Apparently, his transformation multiplied his strength many times over, something turning Super Saiyan did, but to a lesser extent. Gohan had reached a new level, so at least there was more training they could do. But how much until they hit the next limit? If they weren't strong enough to go toe-to-toe with those Necrons, then all their training would be useless.
But Goku, ever the optimist, felt that they would have a chance. Training with this new guy would allow them to assimilate each other's techniques. They could learn a lot from eachother, seeing as how they were trained in different schools of fighting. Heck, they were trained in opposite ends of the galaxy. He would push himself as always, partly because he was called upon to help the weak, and partly because of his natural Saiyan blood. He loved a good fight.
He looked down at his wife, who was currently sleeping in his arms. She was so soft, so beautiful; his heart melted all over again. He pulled her closer against his chest and could feel her breathing, her heart's beating. He never wanted to let her go again. He stood up, wife in arms, and carried her over to their bed. Although it was small compared to the one they shared at home, they didn't mind being so close to each other. Not in the least. After placing his wife on the bed he lay down next to her and drifted off to sleep, his last thought being, "I just want everything to turn out okay."
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In the last room, Bulma was laying in bed while her baby was asleep next to her in the special crib she had brought along in one of her capsules. Trunks stood against the far wall, gazing out at the stars. He, however, was not really focused on them. His mind was awash in a sea of thoughts, ranging from his mother back home to the current predicament facing him. A half-dozen touchpads were scattered on a coffee table adjacent to him, containing information on their new foe.
The only reason he hadn't made an objection to his coming was that Sabre had told him that his mother had been appraised of the situation, and that someone had been sent to make his time safe again. As with Goku, he had decided that the greater good was to go ahead and help out these people. He knew what would happen if they did not try and help, and he would never allow that to happen to anyone again. He had seen enough suffering and death than anyone ever should have to.
Another of his dilemmas was what to think about android 18 coming with them. She was nothing like the one in his time, but just looking at her filled him with an almost irrepressible rage. Physically, she was identical to the one in his time, but, everything else about her was different. As far as he could tell, she was a pretty decent 'person'. But that face, those eyes...they were the same. If he was going to be able to work along side her, he would have some serious adjusting to do. It was strange how eerily similar this world could be, yet so different at the same time. Being in this time was like seeing the way things were supposed to be.
Laughter, smiles, happiness, those things were utterly foreign in his world. It was painful for him to think about his world for any amount of extended time while in this one. Everything was so much better here, it wasn't fair that his time had to have such catastrophe, such fear. But it was no one's fault. Only Dr. Gero and his twisted creations were to blame. It was a shame that he would not be able to get his revenge. The only consolation he had was that his mother would be safe, and that he would be given the chance to stop this from being the fate of others.
He also wondered why artificial creations brought with them so much evil. These cyborgs that had been able to defeat Sabre, they were just like the androids and Cell. Artificial creations designed for nothing more than destruction. If he had known that the Dante had an artificial intelligence of it's own, he'd have been much more disconcerted.
But the times ahead looked bleak. It would be more training, more fighting, more dying. He wondered if he would make it out of this. From the briefing, it sounded as if they had gotten themselves in over their heads. He knew Goku and his father would have no trouble adapting to the situation, they would enjoy the training and fighting immensely. They couldn't help it, it was their natural Saiyan instinct to love to fight. Goku was driven by sheer the sheer fun of it, his father was driven by the need to be the best, to be better than Goku. It was funny sometimes, to see him so consumed with the fire to be the best, other times, it was not.
It was strange when he thought about his father. He grew up never knowing him. And now, here he was, in his life for the first time. He was certainly an interesting man. He was shocked, at first, at his personality. He had no idea what his father was like except for the stories his mother told him, but nothing could have prepared him for what he was to find. His father was a complicated man with a past as terrible as his own. He could see where he had gotten his rage from, life had been so cruel to him. Never had he been truly loved. He was sold into Frieza's possession as a child before his planet was destroyed, then raised to fight and destroy in order to please his master. He was demeaned and forced to swallow his pride for so long, it made him hard, callous.
Apparently, when he came to Earth, all of that changed. When he had been showed mercy by Goku, when he had stopped Killing from ending his father's life, that is when the change began. Never before had someone done something kind for him. It was a shock to Vegeta, who did not know how to react. Ever since then, he had been trying to get the upper hand on Goku, trying to prove himself. The reason Trunks knew all this was from the year he had spent with him in the Room of Spirit and Time. He was able to catch glimpses into his father's psyche and learned his father was not the hateful, angry man he pretended to be.
If all that was stripped away, you would find a man who was insecure in relationships, feared intimacy, and all he had to rely on was his pride. He isolated himself from others because he did not want to get hurt. That is why he and his mother could never stay together. Along with their obstinately stubborn personalities and inflamed pride, Vegeta was afraid. He had never known love before, and pulled away. But he knew that he still loved his mother, no matter how he acted to the contrary. He was as father now, as well, and if his reaction after his own near death at the hands of Cell was any indication, Vegeta was not the man he pretended to be.
When he had heard that his father was in the infirmary he was not really worried. His father would be fine, the only thing hurting tomorrow morning would be his ego. But, these Necrons that kept popping up in places they shouldn't, that was bothering him. This new enemy, seemingly invincible, was totally foreign to him. Every other being they had faced had some anterior motive, greed, power, money, but these Necrons, they had no desire other than the total annihilation of the Coalition. He had been the only one to read the information provided to them, and what he found was disturbing indeed.
When they were to make the final stand on the planet, what was it? Gargantua, when they were to make their final stand on Gargantua, there would be no taunting, no gloating, no threats. The Necrons would ignore them until they attacked them, and would return to their objective as soon as they were no longer a factor. It scared him, really. They were to fight an enemy seemingly without a soul, without emotions. If they didn't have emotions. what did that make them? Something to be feared, he was sure of that.
He looked back at his mother, which gave him an odd feeling indeed. She was turned away from him, and as far as he could tell, she was asleep. It was odd seeing mother so...young. And she was different too. She was so happy, so full of energy. Back home, his mother seemed to have lost that, she seemed so, sad. He could understand why. She was probably longing for days like these, when everyone was still alive, going off on some great adventure. But for her, there were no more adventures, everyone was dead. He started to choke up again, something he did with less frequency now, but it still happened from time to time.
It wasn't that he was sad for these people dying, for he had never knew them. Except for Gohan, that is. He was sad because of what he never had. All this, the camaraderie they shared, the lives they lived, the sheer essence of it all. Back home, it was just he and his mother, living in a dying world, wondering when their time would come. But now, things were as they should have been, they way his mother remembered them, and that tore at his heart. Trunks turned back to the window and tried to regain his composure. It didn't work.
Bulma was able to hear Trunks softly crying, and her gut wrenched. She knew he was probably thinking about his home, and about how it was so much worse than here. It was so odd for her, because she was his mother, but at the same time was not. She was not the one who raised him in a destroyed world, she was not the woman he grew up with. She had her own son in the crib next to her, but at the same time, the young man standing at the far end of the room was that same child. Some would question her logic of bringing her child along with her to a war-torn sector of the galaxy, but she could not bear to be separated from her infant son for six months or more. It would be wrong of her to leave him in her parents' care while she went away, possibly with a chance of never returning. She loved her son, and nothing would ever keep them apart.
The universe worked in strange ways, but the last few years had been a series of twists and turns none of them could have expected. The biggest had been her and Vegeta's relationship, and Trunks coming back in time. She remembered how she and Vegeta had been subtlety growing closer while he stayed at Capsule Corp. He still had been the brash, hostile, volatile man he always was, but something was different. Then, it had accumulated in a single night of passion. He left the next morning. She was so shocked that she didn't mind until she found out she was pregnant.
When Vegeta found out, he had taken it silently, but he was definitely surprised. He never said a word about it though. Once she had Trunks, Vegeta stopped by much more often, usually making some excuse as to why, but they both knew he was there to see his son. He was immensely proud that he had sired a son, something that was evident when the fire in his eyes lit up when he looked at him. She knew he loved his son, although he would never use those words...
She focused her attention on the sniffeling. She could no longer bear it and went over to comfort him. He didn't sense her approach until she had put her hand on his shoulder. He tried to wipe the tears from his eyes and play it off as he turned to her.
"Mom, wha, what are you doing up?" *sniff*
"It's okay, Trunks." she said as she wrapped her arms around him. "It's okay."
"Oh, mom," was all he could manage to say before breaking down again. He hugged her back and cried on her shoulder for a long time.
Bulma was touched by her sons outpour of her emotion. At least she knew he would not grow up to be like his father. So she held him for quite a while before he pulled back and assured her he was okay. They went to their respective beds and fell asleep quite quickly, for each knew tomorrow would hold its own set trials, and that from here on out, things would be getting serious.
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