Disclaimer; I OWN DBZ!…. oh wait, I meant I DON'T OWN DBZ…damn.
A/N; Wow, I have another chapter out already! Well, this one gets kinda sad at the end, just thought you could use a heads up.
And Zany Enchantress, I went to an autograph signing at the shopping center and I TOUCHED Guy's hair and I KISSED him (almost died right there in front of him)!! And let me tell you…it's so soft and nice, reminded me of what a cloud would feel like...LoL, well anyway this chappie is dedicated to you! Hope you like it
And YES it does SUCK that that stupid Norwegian man won! I was so utterly outraged! But congrats to Kelly for coming second, if Guy couldn't of won then I wanted her to because her music kicks butt.
And Then You'll KnowChapter 32
The sun was slowly rising from behind the hills spreading its golden rays over everything it touched. Today it had been exactly 3 weeks since the Sayians had arrived back from Namek, 5 weeks since the death of Frieza and the fall of his empire. The universe had never been better off. And neither had the Sayians, everything had been going great for them.
Especially for their two princes, Vegeta and Krillen had become nothing short of celebrities, they had been doing interview after interview for just about every magazine and newspaper on the planet as well as appearing for countless photo shoots, it was as if they had become superstar musicians or something extreme. Not that they had just been following their fathers orders. Yet they had managed to remain humble and true to themselves throughout the whole ordeal, and now, after 3 weeks back home, things were finally starting to die down.
Krillen lay in bed, his arm casually flung over his lover's waist. As he lay there watching 18 sleep a smile found it's way to his lips, he thought about how lucky he was to be able to love her and how close he could of come to loosing her forever. It hadn't dawned to Krillen while he was on Namek that he could of died, he had been to pre-occupied fighting for the lives of millions of others that didn't even know he existed to think about how close he had come to death, and now thinking back on it, it scared him.
Beneath his arm, 18 began to stir; she rolled over and slowly, her eyelids fluttered open revealing the beautiful crystal blue orbs that were behind them. She looked up at him and smiled, then her eyelids closed over again and she was once again sleeping. Krillen couldn't help but see the funny side to the situation and laughed to himself. Then decided that she needed to be awake, he hated to wake her, but even more he hated to see her suffer from the repercussions of him not waking her.
"Babe," he nudged her gently in the side "it's morning"
"So" 18 mumbled as she buried her face in the crook of Krillen neck, her hot breath tickled him and made him squirm.
"So," Krillen repeated her and kissed the top of her head before he continued, "That means we have to get out of bed".
Suddenly, he felt 18's warm breath on his neck cease.
"18," his voice sounded a little panicked "18!"
"What?" 18 groaned, she was clearly not a morning person.
"Why'd you stop breathing?" Krillen asked.
"If I'm dead then I don't have to get up" 18 stated, her voice still muffled by Krillens neck.
Krillen repositioned himself so he could look 18 directly in the eyes, "You listen to me ok," he said "You're not to die on me you hear that" he said, then smiled and kissed the tip of her nose.
18 rolled her eyes, something Krillen had noticed she did very often, "I was only mucking around" she said.
"I don't care," replied Krillen "I love you to much to ever lose you"
"I love you to, Krillen"
***
Kakkarot sat at the breakfast table, staring blankly out of the window opposite him.
"What's wrong son?" Bardok asked, the concern in his voice clear, and it wasn't without good reason. Kakkarot wasn't eating, he was merely pushing his food around his plate, and that alone was reason enough to be more that worried.
Kakkarot sighed deeply before he replied, "Chi's still mad at me"
"Still?" asked Bardok, who had been unaware that she had been mad at him in the first place. "What did you do?"
"That's just it" Kakkarot burst out, dropping his fork from his iron grip, sending it crashing into his plate "I have no idea what I did, but she hasn't spoken to me in weeks"
"Have you tried calling her?"
"Of course I have, but she won't take my calls"
Bardok pushed his empty plate away from him and stood up, walking around the table, he rested his hand on his sons shoulder "Welcome to the world of women son, let me tell you something. It's never going to get any easier trying to figure out what they want, so you may as well just grin and bear it. Don't worry, she'll get over herself soon enough."
Kakkarot rested his head in his hands and sighed again "Thanks dad" he said, he had already decided he needed to get a women's perspective on this situation "Do you know where mum is?" he asked.
"I believe she is on the terrace" Bardok replied as he walked out of the room, leaving Kakkarot alone.
~
Neha sat out on the terrace, just as Bardok had suggested she might be. She was sitting on her favorite swinging love seat, letting the gentle, warm morning breeze slowly rock her back and fourth. Her gaze was cast out at the beautiful lush gardens that surrounded her entire house; she was oblivious really, to how lucky she was. She had never known anything less than the absolute best – she had been born into a family of aristocrats. All she had ever know was perfection, never had she had to go hungry, or spend a night out in the cold, she would never have to work a day in her life or worry about not being able to support her family. All Neha's life consisted of was looking beautiful and standing by Bardok's side through all of his endeavors. She knew she was very beautiful, full of style and class, bred to be the best, but she refused to go as far as to say she was just a trophy wife to Bardok, as the press had dubbed her as in the past.
Bardok loved her, and she loved him. Husbands of trophy's wives didn't love their wives, they had mistresses to satisfy all of their urges and desires and rarely spoke to the wives unless it was to inform them that they were going to be required to hang off his arm at some function or party. In other words – she was only there to make him look good. Neha knew about that, she had seen many of her girlfriends go through the pain of realizing that they were merely an accessory to their husbands success, and all the sacred vows they had shared in their wedding ceremonies had become nothing more than forgotten words, words that were meant to mean so much, just discarded and forgotten. Neha counted her lucky stars that it hadn't been her, that she had only been the one offering the condolences rather than the one needing the condoling.
Neha was then snapped out of her thoughts by the sound of someone calling her. She quickly blinked and turned her gaze towards the French Doors that lead from the ballroom, to the terrace.
"Tur..." Neha stopped herself when she realized it wasn't Turles at all, "Kakkarot" she smiled at her youngest child, even if he was only younger by a few minutes "Good morning"
Kakkarot sat down next to his mother in the loveseat and fixed his gaze on the Royal Palace of Vegeta-sei, which could be seen of in the distance on top of a big hill. It was huge, even from the distance Kakkarot was at, the sheer size of it overwhelmed him.
Neha could tell straight away something wasn't right with Kakkarot; it was mother's intuition. The skill only a mother could possess – to be able to tell when something was wrong by only a singles glance.
"What to talk about it?" she asked, hoping Kakkarot would open up to her, though she really didn't doubt that he would, Kakkarot had never been the type of person to keep things bottled up inside.
"It's Chi-chi. She's mad at me and I'm not sure why. And before you ask, yes, I have tried calling her"
Neha laughed, of course he had tried calling her "Chi-chi is a very complex young woman honey. You can either go over to the palace and try and talk things over with her, or forget about her. I don't suggest the latter, you have a beautiful relationship with that girl and it's not worth throwing away over what is most probably a hotheaded young woman loosing her cool over nothing. I bet she's missing you just as much as you're missing her" said Neha.
Kakkarot smiled, he knew coming to his mother for advice was his best option, "Thanks mum," he said, leaning over and wrapping his arms around her in a tight hug. "I really missed you when I was on Namek you know"
Neha felt a tear form in the corner of her eye, she didn't want to think back to that horrendous 5 weeks "I missed you to son. I missed you to"
***
18 stood by the big glass doors and glanced outside, a glum expression on her pretty features. She hated days like this, where the world seemed to want to play cruel games on her and make her already depressing life even more miserable. Though she had to admit, ever since she had gained the addition of Krillens undying love in her life, things had been looking up. But still, even someone as wonderful as Krillen could only make a life as terrible as hers so much better.
"What's the matter 18?" Tarie asked as she pushed herself up off the bed and walked to her best friends side. 18 looked across at Tarie and flashed her a half smile "Nothing" she said quietly.
Tarie rested her hands against her sore back and looked at 18 as if she thought she were some kind of an idiot. "How stupid do you think I am 18?" she asked. "Is everything going all right between you and Krillen?"
This time, a true smile found its way to 18's lips "Yeah, every thing is great between us" she sighed happily.
Tarie smiled "That's good to hear, I'm glad you found someone to make you happy 18"
"Thank you Tarie, that means a lot to me"
Tarie sat back down on the bed and rested her hand on her swollen abdomen. Bulma had perform and ultrasound on Tarie only yesterday, and it everyone's surprise it had revealed that Tarie was more pregnant than everyone had first though, Bulma had said she was approaching 5 and a half months, but in actually fact, she was almost 6 months along.
18 felt sorry for Tarie in a way, it was now very noticeable that she was pregnant and there was no possible way to hide it. Which meant that poor Tarie had been restricted to Krillens old room, for almost a month now, she had been stuck inside these walls, it must have been driving her insane, but if it was she wasn't letting it show.
"Oh 18, quick come over here!" Tarie suddenly burst out, scaring the crap out of the pre-mentioned young women.
18 came and sat beside Tarie, who promptly took 18's hand and rested it on her stomach. "What the hell are you doing?" asked 18, who did not seem at all impressed.
"Just hold still for a second" urged Tarie.
Sure enough, a few seconds later, 18 felt something that almost felt like a strong heartbeat, against her flattened palm. She jerked her hand away in shock and Tarie laughed at her.
"What the hell what that?" 18 asked, clearly not expecting what had just happened.
"That was the baby kicking, it's awake. Feels wired doesn't it?"
18 blinked "it does that often?"
"Yeah all the time now, especially when I am trying to sleep"
"That must be frustrating" said 18 as she stood up, she had to leave her friend now, Chi-chi would be heading for the G.R's in a minute and that was when 18 could work her fastest – when she didn't have to worry about Chi-chi pummeling her. She was already nursing some bruised ribs from an incident a few days before, and there was nothing anyone could do about that. Usually she just went to Nison, but he couldn't fix an internal injury so she just had to live with it.
"You going?" asked Tarie.
18 nodded, "I have to. Tell 17 I said hi ok, I'll stop by again when I can"
~
18 walked down the hall. She could see Krillen in the distance walking towards her but he didn't see her, he appeared to be in a very in depth conversation with Nappa, and although she couldn't see his face, she could tell by the way he was walking and such, that he wasn't in a very good mood at all. She never got to find out for sure though, as both he and Nappa turned off into an adjoining hall before they reached her.
18 sighed and pushed open the door to Chi-chi's room, and to her dismay saw that Chi-chi had not yet left for the G.R and it didn't look like she was going be any time soon.
There she stood, in the middle of the room, screaming, flailing her arms about and stomping her feet. And the unfortunate recipient of it all – Kakkarot.
He stood there, such a look on his face that 18 almost felt sorry for him; he really looked like he was about to cry, and couple that with the expressions of absolute bewilderment and terror, and you got yourself one pretty pitiful looking man.
"Chi," he tried to plead with the irate woman "What have I done to upset you so much?"
18 gently shut the door, quite interested to hear what Chi-chi had to say about Kakkarot that was so dreadful. She had met Kakkarot on a few occasions, all though very briefly and he seemed like a decent enough guy, plus add that to the fact that his best friend was Krillen, and Krillen had never said anything but good things about him. 18 quickly came to the self-conclusion that as usual, Chi-chi was probably making a huge deal over nothing.
"What have you done!" Chi-chi exploded, she was very mad at Kakkarot for something that was totally out of his control, "Think back a few weeks. To when you came to see Krillen instead of me!" she hissed as him and stormed halfway across the room, picked up a pillow and hurled it at him. Kakkarot made no attempt to dodge it. Chi-chi was so blinded by rage; she couldn't see straight anymore and the pillow sailed across the room towards a destination that was nowhere near Kakkarot.
Kakkarot blinked. "Yeah, what about that day? I came to see Krillen, so what?"
Chi-chi growled "Exactly! You came to see Krillen, my stupid, moronic, dumb brother. What honestly could have compelled you to want to go any where near that loser? And even worse than that, you chose him over me! You wanted to see him, more than me"
Kakkarot growled deep in his throat "Krillen is my friend, and you have no right to talk about him like that. I don't care what you think about him. He is a Sayian to and if you just got to know him, you would get to see that he is a really great guy. If you are going to think about anyone like that – especially you own brother, then you should be ashamed of yourself Chi-chi" Kakkarot said while slowly shaking his head at her.
18 blinked and unbeknown to her, a smile broke out onto her face. It was about time someone put that bitch in her place – now all he had to do was smack her around a bit, maybe kill her, and everything would be great.
"What?," Chi-chi screeched "How dare you answer me back." She was about to open her mouth again, undoubtedly to shout off some more insults to Kakkarot, but she stopped. She seemed oddly calm for a second. But 18 knew that wasn't at all the case, she gulped, fear invading her entire being. As Chi-chi slowly stalked towards her, she felt like a rabbit caught in headlights – there was no where she could run, nothing she could do to escape the pain that would surely be greeting her soon.
Desperate to escape, she turned her fear filled eyes to her last resort – Kakkarot.
He also, had a grim look in his eyes, and it told 18 everything she needed to know. Kakkarot wasn't going to help her, he knew what the consequences would be if he did. He would loose Chi-chi forever, and for some reason 18 she couldn't possible comprehend, he wasn't willing to do that.
"18, how long have you been standing there?" Chi-chi asked, her tone of voice almost deadly.
"I…I…I'm not sure ma'am," she stuttered, her voice whisper quiet, "N…not long"
Chi-chi cocked an eyebrow "Not long?" she asked skeptically, then with a resounding slap, she sent 18 crashing into her closet, breaking the wood and tearing open the skin on her back.
Kakkarot felt his heart skip a beat. Why had Chi-chi done that? That poor girl had done nothing wrong. He stood there, this heart thumping in his chest from fear. Not fear of what would happen to him though, fear of what Chi-chi would do to this girl, how far she would go just to vent the anger he had caused.
18 felt tears running down her face. Or was it blood? She really wasn't sure, everything was blurry and she her head was spinning so fast it was making her feel sick. As soon as the feelings subsided, she hauled herself to her feet, she panted trying to regain her breath, the collision had winded her badly.
"How much did you see 18?!" demanded Chi-chi. She grabbed onto 18's forearm, her iron grip preventing her from running anywhere, not that she would of anyway.
"Chi-chi, don't do this, you'll kill her!" Kakkarot tried to reason with Chi-chi, but there was no stopping her.
She then decided to whirl on Kakkarot again, she disposed of 18 by way of punching her in the side of her head, she couldn't go far through, since Chi-chi was still holding her, and the result was 18's arm almost being yanked out of it's socket.
"Kakkarot, she is my slave and I can treat her however I damn well want to!"
"Not while I'm around you can't. I don't want to have anything more to do with you Chi-chi, if this is how badly you treat people, you don't deserve to have anyone love you"
She tried to lash out at him, swinging her fist as hard as she could at his face, like she had done with 18 only seconds before. Kakkarot easily caught her wrist though, and when she tried to repeat the attack again, he caught that to.
"Let me go!" she shrieked, trying to hurt Kakkarot any way she could, but he refused to budge.
"No Chi-chi, you need to cool down for a while" he said, and with that, he picked her up, carried her into the shower, turned the tap on cold then locked the bathroom door. Leaving her a prisoner in there.
"Hey, are you going to be alright, 18?" he asked, finally remembering her name, this was Krillens new girlfriend. There was no reply at first, but eventually she managed to nod her head, signifying she would be fine. But nonetheless Kakkarot gently scooped her up and carried her out of the room, keeping her safe from harm, for another day at least.
***
Slowly 18 opened her eyes, she didn't know where she was, she recognized nothing about her surroundings. She knew she wasn't alone though, beside her she could hear someone lightly breathing – they were asleep. But who was it. 17? Krillen? Kakkarot?
Forcing herself to roll over, and kind of relieved smile appeared on her bruised face. It was Krillen; he lay beside her on the bed, sleeping peacefully and 18 noticed for the umpteen millionth time just how cute he looked when he slept. Like an innocent child, void of all the shit life could throw at you.
She didn't want to wake him, but it turned out she didn't have to, because only a few minutes later, his eyes fluttered open and he found himself staring into her beautiful blue orbs
He quickly sat up and brushed 18's hair off of her face "I was so worried about you"
"It's ok" said 18, forcing herself to sit up. She had been hit by Chi-chi so many times now she was starting to become immune to the pain "It's not the first time I've ended up like this and it wont be the last. You're going to have to learn to deal with the fact that you have a psychotic slave bashing sister"
Krillen pulled 18 close and wrapped her in a comforting embrace, he was careful not to squeeze to hard though, for fear of hurting her bruised ribs. "It will be the last time babe, I promise you"
18 gave a dry sarcastic laugh "don't kid yourself Krillen. You know as well as I do that that's not true"
"Why do you always have to think so negatively about everything?" Krillen asked, not chastising her, merely asking, curious for an explanation.
"Trust me, when you've had a life like I have, it's hard to find the positive side in anything"
"That's sad" Krillen said, and he kissed her.
Out in the distance, 18 heard the low rumble of thunder; she quickly pulled away from Krillens kiss and turned her gaze out of the open window. Krillen followed her lead, wondering what was out there that had put such a look on her face.
"What's wrong?" he asked. "Don't like thunder?"
18 shook her head "I hate storms. They bring back bad memories. Horrible, twisted, scary memories"
"Well it's ok now, I'm not going to let the bad memories come anywhere near you"
***
"Vegeta! Vegeta stop!" Called Bulma as she sprinted to catch up to him. Finally he did stop and she was able to catch him.
"What's the matter?" she asked as she threaded her fingers through his and they began to walk down the halls on the way to know where in particular. Their relationship had been 'official' for three weeks now, and while things had been wired for the first few days as they both got to know what was and was not ok in their relationship, now things were going great. Bulma had realized that she had been exactly what Vegeta needed, someone to love and be loved by, and even though he wasn't the most romantic man in the world, he was very affectionate – but not in public, was his one rule, never in public, the palace was fine, but outside the palace, he would not tolerate it and Bulma supposed she could understand why. He had to keep some aspect of his private life – well private.
"Nothings wrong"
Bulma scoffed "Vegeta, I am without a doubt the smartest women in this palace. Do you really think you can lie to me? I might be young and gorgeous, but I'm not dumb".
Vegeta shook his head; his woman was so vain sometimes "It's my sister"
"Chi-chi? Don't worry, she's been giving everyone the shits lately"
This was a revelation to Vegeta. He had received an earful a little while ago on the topic of his new found acceptance of Krillen and how it was just sick and wrong, after a 10 minute rant on that topic, Chi-chi then spent another 10 minutes insulting him and calling him just about every profanity she could think of. Vegeta had grown bored of her immature behavior quickly though and walked off on her.
"So, she's been annoying you as well?"
"I thought she was your 'best friend" Vegeta said with a smirk.
"Yeah," Bulma said with a sigh "So did I. But now, I don't know, I just don't really wanna see her. She's always bad mouthing you, and the way she treats 18 makes me sick, if she only took the chance to get to know her, she would see that 18 is really nice"
Vegeta looked down at her, he knew that Bulma spent a rather large amount of time with the slaves, he wasn't sure what the reason for it was and he didn't really care. He didn't really like that fact that she considered them her friends, but he said nothing about it. Even though he would never actually say it, having the woman in his life was one of the best things that had ever happened to him and he didn't want to push her away by taking complete control of her life.
Bulma looked down at her watch and winced. She had promised her parents she would be home in time for dinner. "I gotta go" she said as she kissed him on the check, "C'ya later ok"
"Bye women" he called after her, knowing full well how much she hated it.
"Don't call me woman!" she yelled back over her shoulder, not bothering to turn around and look at him
***
One minute she had been sleeping peacefully, next she was wide-awake in her bed panting for breath. Nightmare? No. It had been the thunderstorm that had woken her from her slumber. The weather forecast had predicted thunderstorms, but 18 had been hoping they would blow over – as it was, she had had no such luck. As another crack of thunder sounded over the palace, 18 shot up from her current position, to sit bolt upright. She shook with fear and tried hard not to sob. There were very few things that scared her more than storms.
"18!" she heard someone call her name, scaring her even more. The glow of a flashlight shone into the cold room, and then she saw Krillen, and with him the greatest feeling of relief washed over her. She was going to be all right.
"Are you ok?" asked Krillen as he wrapped her up in a big hug, "I remember you told me you hated storms". He could feel her shaking. She mumbled something into his chest, but he didn't know what she said.
"It's ok, I'm here now. It's ok". They lay there for the longest time, not saying a thing, merely silently protecting each other from whatever inner demons they were fighting against. After what must have been close to an hour, neither of them was any closer to achieving sleep. There was a question, poking away in the back of Krillens mind.
"You awake?" he asked quietly. A reply instantly came, "yeah"
"Can I ask you something? You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, I'm just curious"
"Yeah," 18 shrugged her shoulders "I don't see why not"
"Why are you so scared of the storm? Has it got something to do with your past?"
18 gulped, and Krillen knew he had hit the nail right on the head. "Uh-huh" 18 muttered, "It's a long story"
"I've got time to listen" Krillen offered, hoping that 18 would be willing to share her darkest secrets with him
"You honestly wanna know?" she asked. Krillen only nodded his head and kissed her.
"All right," 18 took several deep breaths before she began her story. She was scared, scared that by the end of this, Krillen would know that she was nothing more than a freak, and he wouldn't love her anymore. But logical thinking kicked in, and she realized that Krillen wasn't that shallow. If he could love her for what she was now, then there was no reason why he wouldn't be able to love her 20 minutes from now.
"A long time ago, before we came here. 17 and I – we lived in a small village, not to far from here. Just the two of us with our parents," 18 paused and wiped some tears off her cheeks, remembering back to the days she constantly tried so hard to forget. "Things in our house were always tight, we never had much money, but we managed. My father," she spoke the word with such hate that Krillen cringed, "worked as a janitor at a university somewhere, but his true passion had always lay in science. As soon as he got home every night, he would go straight into his stupid lab. Our mother told us never ever to go in there. After all, who knew what kind of crazy shit my father was doing in there." A smile formed on her lips as she thought back to her mother.
"Tell me about her?" Krillen asked, wanting to bring some happiness to this already sad tale.
"Her name was Bianca, and she was the most amazing person I have ever known. She was beautiful too, she looked just like 17, long black perfect Sayian hair, and beautiful blue eyes just like mine. Everyone loved her, and she was friends with everyone she met. I honestly don't remember a lot from back then, it's all hazy, but I do remember her, and everything about her. She used to sing us to sleep at night and she once my father started heading down the wrong path, she tried her best to protect us from him, but it was no use, she wasn't a fighter."
Krillen wrapped his arms around her a little tighter as a crack of thunder boomed throughout the room, echoing off the walls. He felt her jump, and wished there was something, anything he could do to help her.
She took a deep shuddering breath before she continued, hating to have to relive this pain, but all the while knowing it was for the best "It was when we were about 7 I think. He started coming home later, acting strange. My mother tried to talk to him, find out what the hell was going on, but he wouldn't talk to us. He started making and receiving strange phone calls and wired packages were always being delivered to our house. No one said anything about it, he just told us he was working on some new experiment and to leave him the hell alone. For the longest time, my mother suspected that he had taken up drinking but there was no evidence, no way to prove him guilty." She stopped for a few minutes "and that's the good part of the story, from here on in…well, it's not pretty".
Krillen looked down at 18 lovingly and wiped some of the tears from her face. "It's ok 18. I know it must hurt, but I'm here."
"I know," she said quietly, her sad tale was to emotionally draining for her to talk much louder. "One day, my father, he just never came home from work, and the funny thing was – my mother didn't seem to care, it was wired, for as long as I could remember, they had been happy, we had been happy. Then right before my poor, innocent eyes my world started to crumble and fall around me. I wasn't a dumb child, and neither was 17. We would lie in our beds at night and listen to our parents scream at each other, sometimes we could hear our mother cry, and we hated it. For a 7 year old, there is nothing more scary than hearing your parents yell, especially when you hear your name in the mix and you just know that's it your fault that mummy and daddy are angry. Because you weren't good enough or you weren't pretty enough, or because no matter how hard you tried you just couldn't do anything right. For the longest time, father never came home, it was like he had just dropped off the planet, then one day, 17 and I got home from school and there he was watching T.V and stuffing food in his mouth. Right away he looked at us, and there was a gleam in his eyes, and we knew something wasn't right. 17 said something to him – I don't remember what exactly, but it wasn't nice and father knocked him clear to the other side of the room. I was petrified, we both were. We knew he had changed, but we never though he would hit us. But it was worse than that. He hadn't only hit 17 that day, he broke 2 of his ribs. And it didn't stop, the three of us, we just became his punching bags. A day never went by without at least one of us bleeding – we became his prisoners, forbidden to leave the house for fear of the worst beatings of our life. 17 and I, we were young and impressionable and we very quickly became dark and cynical. We learnt never to trust anyone, because they'd probably beat you, rape you and leave you for dead. We became hostile, sarcastic, and wary of everything going on around us. Now I can see that that was exactly what he wanted. He was trying to break us, and it worked. He had been the willing test dummy, and now it was our turn, we were being prepared for a fate we didn't even know about." Stopping again, 18 sat up. Suddenly she was feeling unbearably hot.
Krillen looked up at her, the concern he was feeling plainly showing on his face. He was scared – scared that she wouldn't be able to handle what was to come. He knew this story was going to get worse. Far worse, he could feel it in his bones. And 18 was already a mess, her words were slow, and more often than not, hard to understand through her crying. But he didn't dare stop her or question her words. He could plainly see how hard this was for her, there was not a doubt in his mind it was taking every morsel of courage in her entire being to share this with him.
"One night, he was fighting with mama, not just verbally, I remember seeing the blood pouring from her face. She was all bruised and swollen, but I had been there through everything and to me she was still beautiful. Outside, it was raining, just like this," she clenched her eyes shut tight to try and stop the barrage of tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. "All that day, he had forced us to dig him a hole. We had no idea why, but there was no way we would argue with him. It wasn't very deep, about half a meter or so. Every time we even so much as looked at each other, he would beat us, and he enjoyed doing it too."
18 opened her eyes, and Krillen was surprised. There were no tears there, her eyes had dried up. She had given up on crying, and now she only wore a blank expression, not revealing anything at all. Krillen had seen that look before; a long time ago, when he had only just began building the foundations of their friendship. She had been cold and distant, exactly like she was now.
"That night, when they were fighting – well, he was fighting, mama was just taking the abuse like she always did. I was so scared, I was crying, and he told me to shut up or he'd shut me up. 17 was trying so hard to be brave, he was always the brave one. Then suddenly the front door was slammed open and a strange man came barging into our house. He was so old. The next thing I remember, we were out in the backyard, knee deep in mud that had been the piles of dirt from the hole. Father had mama, the old man was holding 17 and I, keeping up away from our parents. Mama tried to scream, to escape, but no one could hear her over the storm. My father yelled something at us, but I couldn't hear him, and then he picked up a shovel, and smacked my mother over the head with it. He killed her, right in front of us, he killed her. And he had no qualms about it either. He buried her in the hole, covered her up with the mud, and left her there to rot. The woman who he had loved so much, he just ended her life like she was some kind of insect. It made me sick to my stomach."
"18, I…I'm sorry" Krillen whispered, having lost his voice to emotions. It was the first time he had spoken in a long time
"I'm not finished," 18 said, her voice still totally void of any emotion what so ever "the next thing I remember is waking up. I can only assume we we're either drugged, or clubbed with the shovel as well. But when I woke up I was in a small room, made entirely of metal and lit with harsh lights that hurt my eyes. But the worst part was that I was alone – all alone and scared. I was 10, and so very scared. I pounded on the door with everything I had, screaming out for my brother, I sat there for so long banging on that door, but no one came, and eventually I guess I must have just fallen asleep. After that, the old man came back, told me his name was Gero, Dr. Gero and that he was a good friend of my father. He injected me with something and I got weak, so I could still walk, but couldn't escape. He took me to some room, and there I saw the most horrifying sight of my entire life." Her emotions returned then, and the tears exploded down her cheeks, her breathing came is short, loud gasps and was shaking like a leaf.
Krillen jumped to action and wrapped an arm around her, but she shrugged it away – not wanting to be touched.
"He was chained up against a wall by his hands, his feet dangling just from the ground. His stomach had a huge open wound and blood was just oozing out of it. All of his hair had been shaven off and there were wires coming from his head. I was sick all over Gero's boots, he kicked me across the room and I landed in a pitiful sobbing mess at my father's feet. That's the last thing I remember, I guess they did to me what they did to 17. They turned us into freaks"
"You're not freaks"
"Yes, we are Krillen. We are. They took away everything we were, and you know what the worst thing was? It was all legal. It was in the name of science, and since our father was one of the scientists, they didn't need our consent. They chopped us up, took things from us, added things to us. Practically turned us into robots. You know, I'd give anything to have a tail again. Everyday I think about it, about how a man could kill his wife, abuse his children, stand by and watch while his only daughter was sexually abused by a man at least 7 times her age. We escaped eventually, but we had nowhere to go. Astrid found us and took us in, she had been mama's friend forever, she had known something wasn't right in our world. We lived with her for a year or so, then you brother and sister raided our village. They either killed or captured, we got captured. You know how it goes from there" she looked up towards the roof and blinked, wiping some tears off her cheeks as she did so.
"18, I…" Krillen stopped; he didn't know what to say. What could you say to someone who had gone through something like that? There were no words
"You must think I'm a total monster. I'm sorry Krillen, I never should of let myself fall in love with you. It's not fair to you" she whimpered through her tears, then she did something Krillen totally hadn't been expecting. She got up and ran, and she disappeared so quickly that Krillen didn't even notice she had gone until she had well and truly cleared the slave quarters. But once he realized, he quickly pounced up off the bed and chased after her. There was only 2 places she might go, and he was willing to bet he knew which one.
~
Her tears mingled in with the pouring rain as her heart thudded in her chest. Half from fear and half from running all the way up here at full speed. She flung herself to the ground in front of Astrid's grave and cried harder than she and cried in years.
She didn't know how long it had been, seconds, minutes or hours and she didn't really care either. All she wanted right now was to be left alone. She had just destroyed any chance she had at improving her pathetic excuse of a life and taken Krillen down with her. It had been foolish of her to think she could ever have anything good in her life, to be happy was asking too much. She had obviously done something or pissed someone off in a past life, and now she was paying the price.
Suddenly, the rain stopped falling on her. She opened her eyes and looked up, only to see Krillen standing above her holding a big umbrella over them both. She scowled at him, then turned away, "What do you want?" she sneered at him.
He crouched down beside her, resting on his ankles. Cautiously he reached out and rested his hand on her very wet shoulder. "I want you 18" he said.
"No you don't. You can do so much better. Just leave, forget about me. Move on!"
Krillen felt a feeling of anger wash over him then, and he spoke to her in a harsh tone, trying to talk some sense into her. "For God's sake 18! Can't you see that I love you? Don't shut me out; I want to be with you. You make me feel like I'm floating just thinking of you 18, and I'm sorry, but I refuse to give that feeling up!"
18 sat up, she was now covered from head to toe in mud and she was shivering in the cold. Krillen knew that come morning she would be sick. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. She had nothing to say. So instead she settled on a small smile. Krillen smiled back, a great feeling of relief washing over him. He wrapped his free arm around 18 and hugged her tightly, holding onto her for what felt like dear life.
"Don't ever leave me 18," he cried into her mud encrusted hair, tears running down his cheeks, and onto hers, "I couldn't bear to have to live the rest of my life without you"
"I'm sorry," she replied quietly, "I shouldn't have burdened you with the stories of my past"
"It's ok," Krillen soother, pulling her closer still, "I promise you, it's ok."
***
A/N; Poor 18. I got a little bit misty eyes when I was writing this…not to mention a little bit angry because I couldn't get it right! But anyway, I hope you all enjoyed it, and didn't think it sucked or anything.
I'd love reviews! Thanks a bunch for reading
~Deadly Beauty