A/N: See chapter one for disclaimer. Thanks for the well wishes, New York was fun, except I had a reaction to the mosquitoes there giving me bites the size of grapes and smashed my nose into a pool. These mishaps accounted for the lateness of this chapter.

Last Time: Vegeta told Bulma about Keipher, who advised to wait to see Pan before he signed anything, Trunks fell asleep on Pan's shoulder, Pan took him to a tree house to show the true view of his kingdom, and Koslin discovered how misdirected he had been and decided to return to the castle

"You've Changed"

"One day, this will all be yours," he said dramatically, whisking a hand out in front of him. Pan gave him a look and he leaned back on his hands. "My father said that to me once. He took me to the highest tower when I was six and stood me on the window. He said that this was my home. And that I had a right to rule over it."

"You are the prince," Pan replied dully. Trunks frowned.

"Yes. But my father was showing me the kingdom."

"Well… you are the prince. Why wouldn't he show you?"

"Oh, never mind. I swear, try to tell you a meaningful story, and you shove it right back at me."

"What's meaningful about a tower guide?" Pan asked with a shake of her head. "I once climbed the silo on a dare from Goten and got a pretty good view from there."

"It wasn't the display of the view. It was the fact that my Father was the one showing it. Don't you hold onto your memories with your Father?"

Pan looked him up and down before answering. It was odd to have him just start off into a strange story for no reason. They had been seating quite peacefully, munching on a bit of bread and beef when he came out with his quote. It had broken the comfortable silence, much to her dismay.

But now he seemed to have some reasoning to what he said. He had a reason for bringing it up. Because sitting there had triggered a memory, and while the experience itself, which Pan found rather priggish of him to mention since the land before them could almost belong to no one, and what ever land the royals did take a fancy in always turned out worse from start. She had felt almost annoyed that he would gesture at the majestic landscape before them, surely the most captivating spot under their rule, and have the gall to call it there own. It was no one's to hold. It was to be looked at and shared.

But he wasn't bring up a snobbish quote so much as recalling a memory he had had with his father, who he apparently held all his memories of. But there seemed to be something different…

"Well, there are a lot of memories of my Father," she said slowly, unsure of exactly why he brought it up, and almost feeling, like pin-pricks up her spine, that she should tread slowly as to what she said.

"But I mean with you exclusively," he replied.

"I suppose," she started, "that I remember the more special ones vividly. But I don't think I could remember each one completely. I have lots of memories with my Father."

Trunks frowned.

Pan was heartened. Now they would see what was causing him to bring this up.

"Well," he said, sounding frustrated. "My father didn't spend much time with me, so I remember everything he said. Being a King makes you busy."

"You don't sound too sure there," Pan pointed out. Trunks huffed.

"He didn't have time for me. He had time for my mother though, and games, and other things…" he trailed off, then suddenly turned and glared at her. "Oh shut up."

"I beg your pardon?" she asked incredulously.

"I don't want to hear about what a complainer a prince is, or how selfish he is, or-"

"I wouldn't do that," she said defensively which was met with a mock-questioning look.

"I mean… when something is important and hurtful, I wouldn't joke."

"How do you know it's important?" Trunks asked with a small frown.

"Because when you talk you don't have that lilt you usually do."

"I do not have a lilt," he said, almost frightened. Pan held back a giggle.

"Yes you do. It's an 'I'm better than you do, and I know everything' kind of lilt. Sometimes you don't have it when you are talking about certain things. Sometimes you take on a very… soft tone, like now."

"Men don't speak in soft tones," he said with resolution.

"Never?" Pan asked, moving her face closer to his. He looked on, unabashed.

"Never."

She tilted her head slightly, a small smirk crossing her face but holding no superiority. Her hair always seemed to curl around her face, giving her a pixie or impish sort of look, which fit well when she threw on her smirking face.

And this face was found a fraction from the prince's own, so close that her shallow breathe was causing his own unruly bangs to shift. She moved one arm over his legs, balancing her upper body over his and brought their noses together.

"Not even when it is spoken to you?" she said softly, far too softly to be even really considered soft. It whispered out of her lips, like air escaping a closed door. Her breath was warm and Trunks found himself holding back a shiver despite himself.

"Not even then," he said quietly, well aware of the terrible closeness of her face, her small nose brushing against his, her eyes bearing into him so that he wondered if his own eyes were crossed.

"Are you sure?" she asked, even more whispery before, her lips so close to his own that he could jerk forward a fraction of an inch and they would be locked. He dug his palms into the wooden plank behind him that was supporting his relaxed seating position. Not that his back was anything but relaxed at the moment.

He could almost feel the splinters from the wood digging into his palms, cutting, bruising, giving him an anchor back to where he wanted to be – sitting calmly beside Pan and munching on bread. He couldn't deny that having Pan's face pressed against his own, her voice showering over him in throaty undertones, was something he didn't want.

He had half a mind to connect the lips she seemed so keen on keeping in reach. But she was just playing with him. And he didn't like to be played with. He frowned.

"Quite sure," he said stiffly, perhaps louder than he should, given her close proximity. But she didn't seem to mind, she just pressed closer. He swore he could feel her chest touching his, and her leg seemed to want to wrap around his own dangling one.

He almost felt that he would wake up at any moment. Surely this clinging seductive creature before him was not Pan. The Pan that had thrown a down right fit when he had given her a kiss the other morning – her wrapped palm at his side a testimony of it.

Who was she? He thought wildly, taken his crossed gaze from his foot and looking into the dark eyes in front of them. They were not laughing, as Pan's often were. They were not even flashing as he could make them go. They held no anxiousness that he might expect, as she waited to get a rise out of them. They weren't even lust driven.

They were clear, though not empty. And he was strikingly reminded of the gaze she had given him that time, standing waist deep in the blue ripples of pond, hands clutched around a fallen flower petal, blinking at him, an upturn of lips, and a whisper to her palm, and then releasing it to the wind.

He breathed and thought he might choke. Pan looked like she was going to be crushed if he said anything.

"Pan…" he whispered softly. She blinked, tore away from him, and for a wild moment he thought he had indeed destroyed her or something. But no, she was back beside him, a mad grin on her face.

She promptly brought a hand to smack his head.

"I told you! Never say never, that was soft soft soft!" she chanted, clapping her hands together and being very much impishly happy. He smiled despite himself, oddly glad that she was gone from his face, glad she held some sort of demented glee. For the look she had held was disconcerting, and almost frightening. So clear yet so un-blank. He could deal with blank stares. But hers was…

He chewed his lip trying to figure out just what that looks was. And it came to him rather suddenly. While something always seemed to cloud Pan's eyes, anger, frustration or merriment as they were now, what he had just saw was nothing. Not a 'nothing' sort of stare, just that, her eyes held no emotion tangible to man. They had been clear. They had been pure.

They had been open.

The look she had given him, as a pure look, one not from her eyes but from deeper than that. It was odd sort of look that left him rather weak. He had never seen someone be able to do that, and it troubled him.

Because he wasn't sure whether he wanted to see it again or not.

It seemed like they sat there forever. The edges of eternity scraping along the perimeter of the tree planks, the faint glow from the sun over bright green leaves the only testimony as to how long they truly were.

It had danced across the sky, and from where it sat elegantly, the prince and Pan had only been there a few hours, but they might have sworn it was more.

The prince had fallen to his back, his hands folded beneath his head as a make shift cushion, lids covering blue eyes, which would open from time to time, looking into the punctured canopy above him, or to glare at a strand of hair that dared to tickle across his nose.

Pan was lying beside him, her feet by his shoulders, her chin propped on folded arms. Where Trunks' feet sat propped near the edge, one of her arms dangled over, her gaze cast all the way down the tree trunk, causing slight nausea, which was always treated by a short time of closed eyes.

They had laid back, after Pan's pretend seduction, him on his back, her on her stomach, each gazing at the world up and below them until they had to hide behind closed eyelids.

If either of them were in a thinking mood, they may have thought it ironic that the prince would be looking up, and her down, as their positions in life fairly demanded of them. By birth right, Trunks would always be above the rest. And similarly, Pan's status allowed her to be further downwards.

And perhaps if they had been feeling philosophical, they would have noticed that each spent more time with their eyes closed rather than open. Just as each expressed to hiding behind their social status - hiding who they were.

How the prince felt he was never perceived as anything but a title, and that she would never amount to something more that her father's place allowed her to go.

Perhaps neither of them cared enough, and was just sleepy.

It was Pan that broke the quiet peace. She didn't speak immediately, just turned her head slightly on her folded arms. Her glance was cast backwards at the prince, her upper teeth rubbing gently at her lips.

It was odd to have him here, she mused, confident that that was the strange feeling she was having. Not one she had had before in her tree fort, had quite loved the view it gave as he did. She adored it, and appreciated it for what it was; a creation surpassing anything that man could do. It was beautiful. And though she was positive the prince would never say anything to that extent, she could tell he had been pleased by it.

And it puzzled her. At the time she hadn't thought about it, had simply been delighted by the small suck in of air he had took, as if the mere sight would cause him of all people to gasp. But lying on the wood, looking to the leaf covered ground below; it struck her in reality what an odd reaction that had been.

She had come to accept such a thing from him. That Trunks might appreciate such things and that it wouldn't have been met with contempt. Her sharing her most secret spot in the world with him, she knew he would show it the proper respect.

And that was what bothered her. For a few days ago, if she had showed this same landscape to the prince, he would look down his nose at her and bark some madness about royal etiquette. It had only been a handful of days since she had trudged up to the castle and demanded that she speak to the King.

Hours ago really, on the grand scheme of time. Yet, how could one possibly change so much in a few days?

Pan abruptly closed her mouth, as she realized that her teeth had gnawed a slight cut into her lower lip from chewing in thought. While she didn't exactly mind sitting and analyzing the prince for the afternoon, she wasn't sure if he was really worth it, and felt more partial to just talking to him.

"You liked the view, yes?" she asked suddenly, suppressing a smile at the jump Trunks gave, opening his eyes and looking at her with some agitation.

"The view," he said, like a parent repeated to a child who had said something incredulous. Where once she might have gotten aggrieved by his stupid answer, this time she just threw him a look, sitting up and turning her back to him.

Her feet dangled over the edge as they had before they had stretched out, and gave off the appearance that she didn't really care what his answer was, especially if he was going to be saucy like that.

Human nature called to him, making him desirous to answer anyway. The mild thought of being ignored or brushed off like something menial was too much for the prince, so he sat up and moved beside Pan. He took the wine bottle they had bought firmly in his hands, and tipped it up, giving himself a drink.

Pan made a quick face about him drinking straight from the bottle, and made a slight cough that Trunks heard only as 'rack wash' which made no sense to him, so ignored it, putting the bottle down.

"Yes," he said after a moment, slightly down heartened that she hadn't jumped at his suddenness of speech like he had moments before. "I did like the view."

"I know it's your land but…" Pan trailed, trying to think of a logical and reasonable reason why Trunks wouldn't run off and tell his father about the wonderful land just at his boarders, and what could they do with it. But she didn't have to think of a reason because he spoke up before she could start.

"I'm not going to touch it," he said pointedly. She looked over at him surprised, and he was looking at her from a slightly bowed head, a patronizing look across his face. "Just because I could do anything with it I want, doesn't mean I would. Some things are better left alone," he said in explaining tones, like he were a tutor and she was a thick student. Pan made no move to reply her surprise at him.

He shot his eyebrows up and gave his head a small shake.

"What?" he finally asked her. She smiled a little, leaning back on turned palms.

"It's odd that's all," she said, almost unnerved by his fixated stare and turned her attention in front of her. She was going to express what was on her mind, but couldn't find the nerve to be looking at him when she did it.

"Odd?" he prompted her.

"Yes. It's just- well, come on. 'just because it's here, doesn't mean I'm going to touch it'," she tried to imitate him. "What is that?"

"Pan, I-"

"No, because the other day I trudged up to your thrown room, and in no uncertain terms you said that my farm was on your land and that you had every right to take it. But now you're almost contradicting yourself. In a few days! It's not just that; there are other things. You've changed in leaps and bounds, and I don't understand it," she breathed. Her chest heaved, having slurred everything on her mind in one rambling breath. He looked at her expressionless for a moment.

"What are you asking?" he finally said. Pan threw her arms up.

"I'm not asking anything. Well, okay, I am. I just don't understand how you can change in such a short time. I mean, completely change in that long." She looked at him expecting an answer. He returned her pointed stare.

"First, I don't see this big change-"

"Oh come on. You are sitting and having an amiable conversation with a peasant," she said the word as if it were a bitter profanity on her lips. "Last night you shared a room with a peasant. If I told you that you would be doing that when I first met you, you would have me thrown to the dungeons on the basis of madness."

"You don't know that," Trunks said. Pan raised her eyebrows in disbelief. "People who are mad don't go to the dungeons," he explained. Pan rolled her eyes.

"Stop it! You know what I'm talking about. You would have to have noticed."

"I've changed as much as you, Miss Son," he said, folding his arms stubbornly across his chest.

"I haven't changed at all," Pan replied, frowning.

"Oh yes you have. You are taking a prince to places that are special to you. You are going to a Ball. You let a boy sleep in your bed. If someone had told you that at the same time as this supposed person told me these things, you would have deemed them just as mad." Pan scowled.

"There's a difference, because I haven't changed my persona-"

"You may not have noticed," Trunks interrupted her, "but you have. You probably wouldn't notice," he held up a hand as she opened her mouth in protest. "Do you understand? You don't realize it, but you have changed as well. I mean, I can not see you viciously attacking any defenceless person in your barns with evil brooms."

"I can assure you I would, and maybe it would be more of a challenge if they fought back instead of being a pathetic royal whelp."

Trunks groaned.

"As this could go in circles of childish remarks, why can't we just accept the fact that we both are acting differently and hopefully for the better."

"It's not an act though, I mean, you've changed," she protested.

"Pan," he began, lifting a hand a pulling her face so it was facing him head on. "It's only a change if one never goes back to the way it was before. And I can assure you, that when I'm back home, I will not sporadically go on picnics with peasants."

Trunks could have sworn that Pan looked disappointed. Enough that she let herself drop to the side where a thick tree branch saved her from toppling over the side. The lack of surprise on her part of almost tossing over the edge made him suspect she knew full well the branch would catch her.

"You'll go back to how you were?" she asked quietly. He raised an eyebrow and moved his left hand over his lap and beside his right hand that had been straightened to support his body. With the curve of his arms, it dragged his shoulder and upper torso in the position his arms had pulled him in.

He leaned forward, his face moving towards hers.

"And how was I before?" he asked. Pan bit her already bruised lip.

"You were cruel and arrogant and self-righteous."

"And I'm not that now?" He was considerably closer than she would have liked, the strands of hair around her chin actually shifting from his breath. She leaned away from him.

"Not all the time," she murmured. He hummed softly.

"Maybe you've changed me, Pan. Maybe you've given the horrible prince a heart, and he will become the best ruler ever, friend to high and low class alike. Maybe you'll be a heroine."

"I didn't do anything."

"Someone had to. People don't change on their own."

"Well, maybe you didn't change," she let out, her chest rising and falling rather quickly, her breath becoming quickened as his face was so close, his fingers brushing the side of her hips, his nose nudging her cheek and his breath warm and smelling of cinnamon.

"I thought that's what this was all about. My changing," he said with a smile.

"Maybe you," she inhaled deeply, well aware of his eyes on hers, inches away. "Maybe you just needed a circumstance to bring out who you are." She breathed again, her growing steadier than it had been. "That's why you're here, right? You're fiancée sent you, right? To learn friendship? Love? She can't have expected you to just learn them in such a short time. Maybe she wanted you to awaken them."

"Awaken my sleeping powers of love?" he asked mockingly. She frowned.

"Maybe."

"Hmm. She must have loved me lots to go to such extremes to get me to open up don't you think?'

"I suppose," she said, freezing, his hand reaching and moving her chin, their noses almost touching, his lips accidentally brushing across jaw-line skin, coming to rest just off her own lips. He hovered, as if debating whether to plunge forward into a kiss or not.

"I guess you will like having a future Queen that fancies love." Pan choked quietly, his talking shooting air into her own mouth, which was being accessed at a rapid pace by her lungs.

"Do you love her also?" she asked, feeling her stomach fill with flutters. Her mouth was dry and she didn't think her body was only reacting to the strong male closeness, but her heart and mind were making a big deal as well, waiting for his answer.

"What do you think?" he asked, stretching his tongue out to moisten his lips, and from their closeness brushed hers with the tip as well. Her breath hitched and against her will she found her eyelids fluttering closed, lips poised, and leaning forward.

Their lips never touched.

Trunks pulled back at the last second and stood up. He saw her lightly shut eyelids, her eyes going frantic underneath. Her shoulders moved with jerky movements. She suddenly looked up and mustered a mild glare.

"What was that for?" she demanded, and he wasn't sure if she was angry about almost trying to kiss her like before, or if she was angry because he stopped.

And truthfully, neither was Pan.

Bulma never heard him come in.

She was poised at her writing desk, lips twisted to the side, a finger twirling absent-mindedly in a strand of hair. She had a light feather quill in her hand which she scratched against her paper from time to time, but the writings were slow and there was a pregnant pause between each.

Usually she found she could work at a fiendish rate. Not that it was really work, mind you. A Queen could never work in the general sense, heaven forbid. But Bulma had an interest in things, so took it upon herself to waste her free time designing things. She liked to make up odd things, figure things out. She would walk around the castle, finding things that worked at an insufficient level, and then design a way to make them better.

It was her hobby in a way, and a profitable one at that. Vegeta had discovered it when she had made an intricate design that allowed her to rotate things in her wardrobe, always changing which outfits were displayed further most.

He had thought, she recalled, that she had bought it off some genius mind somewhere, and intrigued, had demanded from whom. She had shrugged at him; eyebrows rose, and said that she had created it herself. The rings and wires, pulling the hooks from the front to the back so no reaching or digging would ever have to be done.

He had been rather astounded, the picture of his slack jaw and unlined face for that split moment was still vivid in her mind. And, soon learning that she liked thinking up designs, he had ordered in a writing desk to their room, and allowed her whatever resources she wanted.

She had been afraid that her interest would soon turn into a nightmare if Vegeta expected her to come up with brilliant things and always be working on something for him. They were newly-wed, and barely knew each other, so it came to a surprise when it appeared he was not waiting for her to show her brilliance.

He never asked her if she thought of anything else, and never questioned her beyond 'how was your day?' or 'what did you do today?' which were two separate things to just asking how her work was.

She had never understood it, but somehow Vegeta had known that she couldn't just think of things for him. Somehow he understood that it was something she could do, but not something she wanted to do constantly under the heavy glare of the King, husband status aside.

But he had. And because of that, when she finally found a better way to pump the water, or a cleaner way to extract sewage, he was appreciative and very affectionate in the soon after.

But today, Bulma couldn't seem to focus. She had an idea of course; she needed to find a better way to carter all of a feasts food into the Ball room. Having servants carry everything in tray by tray seemed horribly time consuming and tiring.

She wanted to get it done before Trunks' Ball, so she needed the designs now. And they weren't that hard. Solving a way for servants to carry more than one plate at a time around should have been simple and would have given her the impression of being helpful.

But her ideas would not come. Her gaze kept turning to the window, sighing, wishing her baby was back. It was in this state, mouth slightly open, quill dangling from limp hands as she daydreamed, that the King found her.

As said, she never heard him.

He was right behind her, strong hand on shoulder, mouth by her ear before she realized she wasn't alone in the room. Bulma jumped and whirled around, her quill slipping from her lacking grip, and eyes scrunching, lips morphing from a shocked gap to a scowl.

"What?" she snapped, blue eyes locking with those of her husband. He slowly took his hand off her shoulder, and by the subtle confusion on his face, Bulma shook her head, eyes closed, guessing that he had no meant to startle her.

She gazed up at him with apologetic eyes. "Sorry," she murmured. "You frightened me," she explained. He shrugged, pulling a chair from the wall and sitting in it, in a rather slouching way.

"You were off. Didn't you hear the door?" he asked. She shook her head. He sighed.

"I just want him home," she said more to herself. She bent and picked up her quill, setting it on the desk before looking at him as if she just noticed he had entered their room.

"What are you doing here?" she asked suddenly. He raised an eyebrow.

"Our son is coming home tomorrow, according to you. And if that is the case, I would very much like to spend the day yelling at him. So, I would like to rest this afternoon in wait for that joyous occasion," he said in a deadpan voice. Bulma smiled despite herself.

"Does this mean I get you all to myself this afternoon?" she asked, with as much innocent as she could muster. He smirked despite himself.

"Actually it means I get you all to myself this afternoon."

If either of the guards standing watch outside of the King and Queen's chambers thought it odd those hours later, the occupants neither went to nor requested dinner; they never made voice to it.

She had only snuck down to the healer's room to steal some herbs for her spells. The bruise on her face was healing nicely, but now that she knew Trunks would be coming home, she felt that perhaps some extra caution should be taken.

She didn't want to have to explain a bruise to her fiancé. But the slave she was using now for concealing was all but gone, and she needed some special roots to fix herself another batch.

With roots in hand she had planned to slip out again, but a patient sitting at the healer's table caught her eye. There was nothing extraordinary about him, in fact, in his dusty clothes and scowling face he was rather unattractive, but what caught her attention was the rather large egg shaped bump on his head. She probably wouldn't have noticed, but the hair was balding where it was, and it seemed to be rather red.

"Are you all right?" she asked, stepping into view.

"What does it look like?" he asked venomously. He sneered. "Why so affronted? I have no use for grass, amateur healer."

She blinked at him rapidly before looking to her hand, where her fingers clasped the roots. She held them up.

"These," she spoke rather lightly, "are not for you. And I am not an amateur healer. I am not a healer at all."

"Then what are you doing here?" he asked, his voice fallen to normal tones.

"Getting these," she said, waving the roots.

"What kind of woman walks around with roots if they are no healer?"

"I am not just a woman. I am the prince's fiancée, future Queen, and as such I can carry around roots and anything else for that matter if I feel so inclined."

The man's eyes widened and he looked appropriately humble.

"I meant no disrespect."

"None taken." She stood on her tip toes and looked at the bump. "That looks like the kind that don't bother you much, just spring up days after the injury," she said thoughtfully. He looked at her suspiciously, but nodded. "I don't like those. Sometimes you can't even remember how it happened."

"Oh, I remember this," he said, air whistling through his teeth, his chin rose, as if he were proud of the way he got it.

"Fight?" she asked mildly.

"Actually a kiss."

"Some kiss," she murmured, her eyebrows shooting up.

"Indeed. But, that would be a Son for you," he said, wistfully. She stood rigid in her spot, before forcing her lips not to upturn.

"Pan?" she asked. He looked at her surprised.

"You know her?" She shook her head.

"She hit you?"

"Actually no," he said, eyebrows knit in confusion. "I don't know who did. It was a bowl…" he trailed off, glanced at her face and must have realized how odd his story was sounding. He turned his face away. "Doesn't matter. The healer will be back shortly." This seemed to end the conversation, and she took it as her leave, not fighting anymore to hold back her amusement.

She sent a boy to learn love from a girl, but all he seemed to want to do was drop bowls on ugly men giving them nasty bumps. She shrugged to herself, imagining an invisible Trunks taking a swing at the kissing man with Pan. She grinned and couldn't help a small skip down the castle halls.

"Trunks is jealous, Trunks is jealous…" she chanted under her breathe, looking forward to be able to sing it to his face the next day.

Thanks for reading,

Angel Eevee