A/N: see end of chapter. See chapter one for disclaimer.

Last Time: Trunks realizes that Pan never says his name, Bulma and Vegeta realize they don't know Trunks' fiancée's name (and neither to we D), Trunks almost gets Pan to promise to give him a kiss, but fails, though he does get her to promise to tell what the Fortune Teller had told her the day they met

"Sail Away"

"I'm sure you could use the exercise," Pan whined out in exasperation, fiddling with the worn down fabric over her cut hand. She threw the prince a questioning look but said nothing else. He sighed dramatically.

"I'm only wondering because it will take much longer to get home if we walk," he said, teeth slightly tight, but not at a full clench. Pan rolled her eyes.

"Yes, but if you had been listening, you would have known that we aren't going to be walking the whole way. It's not as if you'll ever get the chance to do this again."

"Do what?" he asked blankly. She threw her arms up and made an aggravated noise.

"How do you switch from the polite boy asking me for a kiss to this dunderhead?"

"How do you switch from the polite… uh… well, more polite than you are now, who avoided a kiss to… whatever you are now."

"Your wit amazes me," Pan said dryly.

The two were standing outside, secluded down the road from her house. She had told her father that she had business in town. Goten had spilled that she had a way to keep their property and that Pan was just finalizing the arrangements at the palace.

Pan edgily had asked them not to expect her back for a few days.

Trunks had wanted to veer off and take a horse, but Pan had started heading in the other direction. He wasn't keen on walking back; his own trek to the farm was bad enough on foot. But on top of that, the new direction Pan was heading in wasn't even the main road leading to the castle.

It made him understandably concerned.

"For heavens sake," she said in final exasperation. "I am taking this route to the castle." She pointed at a path he hadn't been on. "If you want to make your way home on a different trail, be my guest. I just hope we meet up there." She finished, and spun on her heel. Her arms were rigid as she stormed away making it quite clear how annoyed she was at the entire situation.

Trunks wondered if she had eaten breakfast. Sometimes his mother would get testy when she hadn't eaten in a while. Or at certain times of the month. As a child, a guard had told him it had to do with the full moon, and he had spent months wondering if his mother had a lunar curse, because it surfaced every month.

Perhaps Pan suffered from this same waning illness. Not that he still thought it was caused by the phases of the moon. He had learned some things about girls in his late youth. Some things pleasant, and others… not quite so. But really, the only thing to know is that they are inconsistent, and if one was not, she was just lying in wait.

So really, this was Pan being her usual inconsistent self. Which was rather consistent. Which made him worry.

He folded his arms and started to follow her. There was no sense in taking his own way. He could get lost, or hurt. Or worse yet, she could get lost or hurt. She had to be alive for him to cash into the counter curse. And he didn't really want her dead anyway. Best to stay near her, no matter what plan she had for them to get to the castle.

When he finally caught up to Pan, she had lost her edginess. He could tell as her arms were comfortably sitting at her sides instead of all up tight as they had been before.

He had been so concerned with looking at Pan and trying to follow her that he hadn't much noticed where they had walked to. Which explained why he was rather surprised that he knew the place they were walking along, yet that didn't stop his wondering about what exactly she was doing.

"Okay, I understand that we are not going to ride horseback, and apparently aren't going to even walk the normal route. So pray tell what are we doing back here?" he asked, his voice calm and curious as he swept his hand to encompass their area; the flowered trees, high grass and calm waterfall by the pool. The wind was blowing blossoms from the trees all over the ground where they had shared their first dance.

Pan finally turned to face him. Her face was kind.

"Sorry. I just thought, I had meant to teach you to swim, remember? And we won't get a chance after this."

Trunks knew her logic but didn't agree. Well, he did, but he didn't want to. Yes, this probably would be the last chance she'd get to try and make him move like a frog in the water (which he wasn't anxious to attempt), but truthfully, he just didn't want to learn. He wanted to get home. He wanted to be visible.

Something of what he was thinking must have been playing on his face because Pan was chewing at her lip again, a calculating look on her face, if not a little saddened.

"Well, you don't have to," she said calmly. He turned his head, eyes scrunched.

"Don't have to what?"

"Swim," she supplied. She swivelled and pointed to the top of the waterfall. "Up there the water parts and the stream leads back to the capital, surely enough. It's a little meandering, but it does get there. And the current is faster than walking , so the distance is made up in speed. We have a boat there. You don't need to swim," she further explained.

Trunks looked up the waterfall. Actually he liked the thought she seemed to put into the arrangements. She would be showing him one final thing about the country side. One final thing about her world. Because while he used boats, certainly, he had a feeling that his and her idea of water transportation differed immensely. Anyone that would flap around willingly in the water trying to move was as single minded as the animals that actually did it.

He didn't feel the need to voice this to Pan however. Not that it mattered. He wouldn't swim. Absolutely not. Hadn't he made a fool of himself enough over the past days?

He locked eyes with Pan, wondering if he could communicate all he had been thinking about. She hemmed and turned.

"Either way we'll have to climb," she said deliberately, her voice stern, her fingers grazing on the rock by the waterfall. "You do know how to climb?" she asked. He made a face.

"Of course I do. I got up to your wooden tree landing yesterday, didn't I?"

Pan ignored his comment.

"Climbing a huge rock wall is quite different then a short sapling. You still think you can do it? I'm not trying to impose on your image. I just need to know if this is something you can succeed at on your first try."

Trunks let his gaze wander up the steep rock. His fingers brushed over it, revealing how rough and damp it was. There was light sand over most of it where erosion had taken its toll and no wind had swept away the remains. It wasn't extremely high up. It would be the same as if he were to climb one of the short towers at home. Ironically, he remembered doing that as a child. His mother had thrown a fit when he had fallen and the healer had spent days on his arm. Even now there was a thin scar along his elbow.

But that was years ago, and he was much more capable now. He nodded to himself then to Pan.

"Yes. I'll climb it." She nodded in approval.

"So climb," she said, gesturing to the rock. He looked at her, eyes shifting.

"Aren't you going first?" he asked, confused. She stared pointedly.

"I'm going to hike my skirts to my waist. I am not letting you climb below me." She said it with such a deadpan voice that Trunks couldn't bring himself to make any comeback but merely smiled a little.

"As you wish," he said, rubbing his hands together a bit before moving to tackle the wall he would be climbing.

It wasn't even as hard as he thought it would be. His slightly calloused fingers from sword training sought out the slight protrusions easily and soon he was able to climb with a certain amount of ease and speed. His feet kicked for hollows, and he always reached up for his next spot. He could barely hear Pan below him because of the water's gentle fall beside him. He'd cast quick glances behind him occasionally to make sure she was still climbing at least.

Soon enough his fingers met with a soft dirt, and pulling himself up, he hoisted himself onto a peninsula of rock jutting between the water. He stepped away from the edge so Pan could finish her climb. But Pan only leaned against the edge before stopping.

"Turn around," she ordered as she supported her body on the edge. Obediently, with a smirk, he pivoted around and waited to hear her scramble up to the sound of fabric rustling. He wasn't sure why she had a sudden concern about her leg privacy. He had seen her legs when she changed sometimes, and could tell very honestly that they were nothing to be ashamed of.

And surely if she were going swimming he would see more, but women were and would always be a little off, so he shrugged and stayed turned until he was given the okay to turn around again.

Their 'boat' as it were, was not far away at all, and had he known where to look he probably could have seen it when he had reached the top of Pan's little water fall. Protected and shielded by a brush of reeds, a sturdy wooden raft lay hidden. He wanted to call it a raft, because of its spaciousness and general… squareness, but the sides were upturned as a boat's. He decided that the clash of boat and raft could only be created by Pan and that such a thing should shock him little.

"Did you sleep well last night?" she asked suddenly, as she hopped onto the boat with a practiced ease that made Trunks somewhat envious, well aware that his own boarding would be less smooth. He answered her before he even thought of attempting it.

"Fine. Why?"

She shrugged. "I like to sleep on these things," she said, fiddling with strings and ties on the boat.

"You seem to sleep everywhere. Under trees, in trees, by ponds…"

Pan made a face but didn't answer.

"Aren't you worried you might drown?" he asked finally. She looked up from a rope knot to answer.

"No. See how the edges are curved? Water won't slosh up, and since the flow is so calm once you get away from the intersection here, there's really no danger."

"Someone could flip it over," he pointed out.

"No one wants me dead that bad. Why? Do you have that problem? Is that why you won't learn to swim."

"No," he said defensively. "I told you; royals don't have time. Or civility." Pan shook her head bemusedly and wormed the rope free.

"You going to hop on?" she asked, standing from her crouched position, the light wind blowing her long hair across her face, looking irritating, making him subconsciously want to scratch his own face.

But ignoring the urge, he cautiously reached a hand out to balance himself and made the hop-step onto the raft. It felt unsteady under his feet, but it was floating on water, and he decided that this was just the feeling of floating. He stood still for a moment, learning the sensation and placing it in his memory as he didn't think he'd have it again.

As the slight rocking began to fiddle with his stomach he hastily sat down and Pan joined him.

She was kneeling, her hands in her lap, hair now tucked behind her ears and smiling almost shyly at him.

"So, this is the last bit we'll spend together. And you did say you'd let me teach you to swim," she said cautiously, looking at her hands instead of his face. He was slightly taken aback by the gesture, because she had never seemed so hesitant in saying something to him. Well, not when it involved getting him to owe up to his word.

"Yes," he said simply.

"So you will?" she asked, looking up. He turned his gaze away and said nothing. But a smile was on her lips when she dropped the subject.

Pan plunked her bag in the corner, an accessory he didn't recall her taking and wondered how many times she had done that to him. He assumed it carried provisions of some sort and didn't pay it more heed (except to take a discreet sniff in its direction to see if there was any food for breakfast) once she took a long rod that had been laying on the boards and plunged it into the water.

With a strong shove she moved away from the shore the raft had been tied to. He looked up at her, for she was standing now, and while he trusted her on what she was doing, he didn't much trust the rockiness of the raft and his own steadiness. Standing up was out of the question so he merely brought his legs up and waited for her to get them out of the fast current leading to the waterfall.

She brought the rod up only to plunge it down just as quickly and drag them away from the fall. He could see her shoulder blades shifting with the stress of it but didn't know how to relieve her, and assumedly she had done this before so left her to it.

The prince turned his eyes to the fall, where, looking down, he could see Pan's farm estate clearly. There was the main house, which was no small size, followed by the adjoining kitchen that made delicious pies. Past the kitchens were the stables with the horses, outlined with trees with a meandering path driven in the forest which he knew led into town.

To the other side of the house was the fruit trees that Pan enjoyed to climb, and beyond that the row of barns, including the one he had slept in the first night. The water pond was amongst the forest that started at the stables and met up at the first barn. The main estate was laid out in a large circle, with the fields and additional buildings spreading behind them.

He had never seen her property from such a view, and it seemed much bigger when he got to see it in all of its entirety instead of looking at it from building to building.

He could see why she wanted to keep it so badly. It was a beautiful place. He could also see why his father wanted it so bad.

But he would be able to let Pan keep it. Even if he had to appeal to his mother to force his father into it. He knew that wives had a certain hold over their husbands. He wasn't sure what they did exactly to make the men do whatever they pleased, but for some reason each and every one of them would fall upon themselves when their wives started up… whatever they did.

He was almost nervous to get married and find out what they did. Ritual torture? Threat of poison? Imprisonment?

But then again it might be different. After all, surely not all women would pull the secret that makes men work for them. Certainly not every man would do it. He had a hard time picturing Pan's lovely fiancé following Pan's whim.

If only Trunks could marry someone like Pan. She didn't seem to ask for anything completely irrational. He would be able to live with someone like Pan.

By the time he turned his head away from Pan's farm, she had already brought them down the second stream path and away from the fall's currant.

The water was flowing much slower here, allowing Pan to bring the rod up and lay it across the raft. With a sigh she dropped down, jutting her legs the length of the boards and swung her arms to get the feeling back into them.

They sat in silence momentarily until she suddenly reached over and pulled her bag to her. He leant forward curiously. She pulled out a weighted down cloth and set to untying the bundle immediately. If he had any doubt as to what it was, the smell he had gotten surprisingly used to was filtering up from it. It was tantalizing, and more so because it would be the last one he ever had.

She pulled the cloth away to reveal a fresh, still warm, blueberry pie. He unconsciously swallowed and waited for Pan to bring a knife out and start cutting.

But she didn't.

She reached behind her and pulled two forks from her bag and passed one to Trunks, handle towards him. He took it cautiously and watched as she held her own fork, not making a move.

"Are we going to eat this, Pan?" he asked finally, hoping that she would affirm and he could go on his happy way eating. She looked up at him, her face still tilted down so that her eyes looked to be digging up in her lids. The angle blocked her mouth but he would have bet money it was smiling shyly. The way it always did when someone asked her a question that she saw as honest and cute, as she might say.

He tapped his fingers against his fork, a slight irritation taking over. If they took any longer the pie would start to loose its warmth. Whether she sensed that herself or the message was played on his face, he wasn't sure but she nodded, her sure-to-be-there smile deepening.

She set the pie between them and nudged it a bit to the prince in a silent communication that he could start. There was no additional movement on her part, which caused him to continue to stare at her while his attentions would have loved to be on the pie by his folded knees.

She smiled. Pulling fly-away hairs (that were only loose in her imagination) behind her ear she stuck her own fork into the soft layer of pastry and scooped.

Dark blue filling dripped, slight stem rose from inside of the pie. Pan hastily put her hand under the chunk of pie on her fork and leaned over the pan so none would drip on herself or their water raft.

She put the forkful to her mouth, conscious of the prince's eyes on her. She slipped the fork into her mouth and slowly turned it over and pulled it tantalizingly slow from her mouth.

"It's good," she said, after a moment of Trunks' staring. He shook his head slightly as if to shake himself from some sort of daze and stuck his fork into the other side of the pie, lifting it up.

"You want to eat this. Straight from the pan?" he asked. Pan shrugged. Trunks didn't wait for further invitation as he stuck the pie in his mouth and felt his mouth water around it. Sweet blueberries slipped down his throat and he was quick to stab his fork in and grab another mouthful.

The two sat peacefully, the current in the water so slow that the movement made the prince little sick though he was not used to water. The pie was tantalizing delicious, and he didn't care if he got sick eating it, because there was something almost forbidden about eating without proper servings taken out.

He had a mind to request full pies and a single fork more often.

He all but ignored Pan when, some time later, she set her own fork down in an empty spot on the pan and rolled back on her heels. She rubbed her stomach, whether in appreciation or from ache he didn't know, and didn't ask. Some common courtesy rule floated up from the back of the prince's mind; that one should not continue to eat in a lady's presence when she was finished.

But he glanced at Pan, and she was definitely patting her stomach in a satisfied, decidedly manly sort of way. He concluded that Pan wasn't lady like, so no rules would be broken as he continued to eat the pie though she had stopped.

Somehow the blue juice that dripped down his chin just didn't taste as good as when he had all but been having an official eating contest with the pie. As if each had been concerned the other would get more pie than them, and had seen it necessary to eat quickly, paying mind to how much the other was consuming.

Except now she was done with her fork. She was done eating. Some sort of competitive eating ritual had been stopped. But it had had some merits. He wondered briefly if Pan had lived in the castle when he was younger, if she could have gotten him to eat all the horrible green vegetables that were put onto his plate.

He had a strong suspicion that the cooks were out to get him, and if not by some poison slipped in his wine, it would be talkative service and food that was not so appealing to his taste buds. But surely that would have been different if she had been there. They could have pie every night, eating it as the way they do now. He cast his mind back. Did he eat anything other than pie at his visit?

He wasn't so sure. Well, of course he had eaten different things when they had been in town (bread, meats, pretzels…), but actually at her house…

He would have wondered if that was all she ever ate, but her slim waist answered it for him. As the taste of blueberries and sugar began to reach the end of its novelty, he decided he didn't much care about Pan's regular eating habits, and that as long as he could find pie somewhere at her house it didn't matter.

Not that he expected to return to her house…

Trunks found his mind returning in an endless loop. The part of him that wanted to stay with her, only because it was a new experience each day which brought a strong appeal. The company was tolerable most of the time, and even when it wasn't… well, most of the time it served for good entertainment.

But this wasn't his home, he reminded himself for what felt like the hundredth time. As soon as he was home, he would wonder how he could have ever wanted to stay away. People to talk to, decisions to make… a sense of dependency. People needed him, unlike here where he was invisible to all in every sense of the word save for an obnoxious girl who force fed him pie all day.

Which made him awfully untrue to himself.

Pan didn't force feed him all day.

One day when his body protested to the continual application of the fatty pies, he would look back and recall how Pan had shoved each piece down his throat, and perhaps this lie would make him feel better. Yes. It was the barbarian peasant that was the cause to his (if at all) gaining of weight. Everything was her fault.

It would be much easier to leave if he convinced himself she was nothing but trouble.

Yet, maybe that wasn't a lie.

The prince looked up from the pan, most of the pie gone, more so from his side than hers. He kept his face down turned, but his blue eyes rolled up, shielded by heavy lids and fallen bangs.

Pan was thankfully not looking his way, but had turned slightly, facing the direction in which they were headed, her legs bent and her elbows resting on her knees. Her face was in a mild scowl that she probably didn't realize she was making and he could see one of her fingers absently tapping out a rhythm on her cheek.

Trunks hated when his mind wandered irrationally from one thought to another. And from starting to think about getting the cooks to serve him pie in a pan with a fork, to the acknowledgement that Pan was a handful of trouble in every sense of the word, was definitely a quick irrational thought jump. These jumps made him feel absent minded and very much so distracted.

Which was really all Pan's fault.

Which was why he had to go back home and away from her. Maybe his rational mind would return as well as his once refined logical mind. Somehow he was in doubt.

His eyes locked on her left hand, still tightly held between wrapped blue cloth. It was relatively clean. There was caked on dirt from the climb up, but no thick layers of dirt were present or any soaked through blood.

As if sensing what he was looking at, Pan started from her dazed staring and turned her head to Trunks.

"What are you looking at?" she asked, out of curiosity, not irritation. The prince straightened up in his spot, his legs still folded, but forcing his back to go tall. He nodded towards her hand.

She followed his gaze quickly and slowly brought her hand from under her chin. She held it a bit from her face, turning the hand and inspecting the wrapped cloth.

"Don't you think you should let the air heal that?" he asked her, reaching over and nudging her hand. Pan made a face but nodded.

"It's probably about time," she said quietly after a pause. She studied the hand for a few moments more before shoving it abruptly his way.

Trunks stared at the flung hand inches from his chest. The fingers had curled in automatically, their decent from being straight impeded by the cloth. He didn't bother to make sure that it was what Pan wanted before he started untying the complicated knot on her hand.

His fingers moved quickly and efficiently. He didn't recall learning to undo knots before, so with that in account, he thought he had done a good job, giving the lack of experience he had. Pan was looking at him with exasperation.

As if you could do better, he thought wickedly towards her.

Whether she saw his sudden distaste or not, she didn't say anything. He unwound the last spin of fabric and drew his hands away. She didn't pull her hand back, but instead leant forward herself and examined the now naked hand resting in front of his chest.

The cut was slightly jagged, as if she had jerked her hand when the knife had first cut into her. It started near the beginning of her second finger and etched down to her fifth. It was almost directly in line with the main lifeline there.

He considered pointing this out to Pan, but stopped himself before he'd have to put his foot in his mouth. No point bringing up palm reading with what had she had learned yesterday.

He looked up at her, remembering the night before, when she had understandably been upset. There were reasons people had full rights to being upset when a friend died. To have it happen on an almost fated night seemed unbearable. Her eyes were down cast, still inspecting the work of her palm, so he could study her face at will.

Her skin was pale, but he had noticed that from the first day she had stomped into the castle. He remembered how curious he was about it. But she seemed a different type of pale. Less subtle then before. Her bottom lip was bruised and cut into slightly out of her habit to chew it when she was nervous. It looked sore to him, but he imagined it was one of those types that she didn't notice it enough to consciously stop scarping at it. Her cheek bones seemed to jut out more, and there was an odd bluish tinge settling below her eyes.

He would have said that she had been sleep deprived and emotionally torn for a good week, but the blue was from accumulating days not weeks, and he was sure that her cheekbones were just an exaggeration by the angle her face was inclined at.

One of the ribbons in her hair brushed across her collar bone, bringing her from her examination. She curled her fingers and brought her hand to her chest in a loose fist. She looked up at him, and her face fell back into the still slim, but non jutting, face that he was used to. He resisted the mild urge to trace her cheekbones to see how prominent they really were. His hands held tight in a grip on his knees.

"Thanks," she said, hesitantly, before her torn lip twitched upwards and she raised her hooded eyes to look him in the eye. "Even though you did stab me in the first place, you jerk."

He allowed himself to smile softly at her before jabbing back.

"You're the one that was holding the knife."

"And you insinuate it was my fault, how doth your memory fail," she all but quoted, looking up at the sky in fake righteous anger.

"Yes, it was my fault, mi'lady Denial."

And as quickly as the wind brushed by them, the thick almost unpleasant atmosphere that had soaked up their sailing was put to a stop. It had been awkward, as they each settled into their own thoughts while the water lapped at the intruding raft. Unlike the day before, when silence had fallen in the tree, this seemed to be a time of conversation. At least for the moment.

And the two young adults were more than willing to oblige.

And there we go. This chapter did take forever to get out, I realize. I battled something much worse than writer's block for it; I battled a lack of interest. Not in the story, just maybe Trunks/Pan as a whole. My interest has slid for the past few months, which makes writing very very hard. In no way or form will I ever leave this fic here unfinished. I am not that kind of writer. I'm not the kind that demand a set amount of reviews before I write more, and I'm not the kind that will leave this because I don't feel like writing it. It's 25 chapters of unresolved love and tension. It's the longest thing I have written to date, and I would be a quitter to leave it. There is no fear of that. What I do after this, I don't know. I do know, that it has been hard this summer to write this, and I appreciate all those that have been supportive despite the lack of updating. DragonBall GT has just hit my Canadian television, and I hope with such weekly influence, it will re-spark the interest in the couple I love so dearly. In short, my interest does dwindle, but I refuse to leave this be, and do hope to have it done before New Years if not before. Thanks to all of you.

Angel Eevee