10. Healing Friendship

Heavy noises surrounded the area: the fight had already started. Leela had to take her little brother Orion out of here. But where was he? Why did Orion have to be so nosy?

"Orion, answer me!" Leela called. "Where are you?"

"I'm here! Come quick!" Orion replied from a distance. He stood in between fallen buildings, wanting his sister to see what he saw: Trunks was fighting both androids.

Leela followed Orion's voice. Finally, she found him. "Orion, get back here." she whispered behind a wall so neither Trunks, nor the androids could see or hear her. But Orion didn't listen. He was too fixated on the fight up in the sky.

Leela saw how Juunanagou dared Trunks to shoot Ki at him. Then she noticed that Orion was right behind Juunanagou! Juunanagou was deliberately standing in front of Orion, so Trunks couldn't see him!

Leela knew then that the android was very much aware of her little brother standing behind him.

Fear hit her when she realized that if Trunks would actually shoot… NO!

Trunks collected his energy, aimed at the android before him…and fired. Juunanagou flew up, dodging it. The ball of energy now made its way to the small boy.

"Get away!" Leela yelled and ran towards her brother to push him aside...but she was too late. She heard Orion scream her name as the ball of energy swallowed Orion, then exploded which made Leela hit the wall behind her with such force...if only she had been one second sooner...

"Orion..." Leela mouthed… and passed out.

-

"Orion.." she woke up with an enormous headache, but it left her body unexpectedly fast. This wasn't a dream! These were the blocked memories that had been placed in an unconsciously level inside her mind. It must have slipped through when she slept. That would explain why she didn't have that headache bugging her whenever she thought about it.

She looked around in her room, noticing she was no longer in bed, she had fallen on the floor. As she tried to stand up, she looked at white bandages tied neatly around her broken wrist. Her eyes widened.

What have they done? she thought. If they had done this, then they would know, wouldn't they? What was she suppose to do now? Wait? Flee...? But if they knew, and wanted her dead, wouldn't they have done that already?

"I see you are awake. Took you long enough." Trunks came in. He sure didn't sound so pleased.

"Trunks!" Leela startled. "You…scared me."

"Yea, I only came here to bring you this." he showed her a plate with some food and a glass of milk next to it and put it on the pedestal cupboard.

"…thank you." Leela said but didn't move.

"Why are you on the ground?"

"I…uhm, I fell out of bed." Leela admitted.

Trunks couldn't suppress a smile. "Are you serious?"

Leela saw his smile and got a bit upset. "It's not that funny. I had a nightmare!"

"What was it about?" Trunks asked, a bit more seriously now.

"Non of your business." she answered annoyed.

"Fine, just eat your damn food, so we can train." Trunks said, just as annoyed as she.

"Look at my wrist, you think I can?" she said in sarcasm.

"I think you can, yes." Trunks said. "In a short while you can. About one..." he paused at the last word, making sure she would hear it correctly: "week."

"You know, don't you?" Leela began. She knew he did; only she was able to heal a broken bone in a week for she was an android. She was made with a fast healing ability.

"I cannot believe you tried to hide that from me!" he said with a firm voice.

"I never thought you would find out anyway, if it wasn't for Juunanagou!" she called back.

"That's not the point here. You kept it a secret. How can you keep such a thing a secret from me?" Trunks asked with indignation.

"Because you hate...that." she couldn't find a better word to describe what she was.

"Is that why you hid it?"

"I thought you would hate me as well. I am the one thing you despise so much."

"Maybe you are, seen the way you treated Qiana. You're no different from the other two!"

"Remember when we fought and the androids shot Ki at you? I saved you from it. A little reverence might not be so wrong here." Leela pointed out.

"And do you remember the last time we fought the androids? You past out when Juunanagou was about to kill you. I saved you from that. So now we're even." Trunks shot back.

Leela glanced at Trunks. "I did NOT kill her!" she attacked Trunks. She was fed up with his continuous blaming. She couldn't stand it any longer.

Trunks saw she was blinded by rage; she punched and kicked wherever she could, not caring where she would hit. Because of that, Trunks could overpower her easily. He had blocked her every move and saw his chance to grab her and push her to the floor, using his weight to pin her down.

"Stop it!" he demanded her to cease her attempts to break free, but she kept struggling. He moved both her hands into on of his above her head, then closed his free hand around her neck, not choking her though, but it made her gasp in fear and stop her struggles. "You will stop these pointless fights you cannot win, understand?" he hissed.

"Then you stop your endless blaming." she hissed back.

"When I get proof about who killed Qiana and it turns out to be you, you know where you stand, right?" he threatened.

"I hope you get your proof, because it will say that it wasn't me and I'll be laughing in your face!" Leela blurted out in anger, though she didn't mean it.

Trunks glared at her and stood up, leaving her down on the floor.

Leela grabbed her painful wrist and glared back at him. "Did you love her Trunks? Did you really?" she stood up. "She damn well didn't love you!" she pushed him aside and left the room.

"Get back here." Trunks followed her.

Leela turned around abruptly. "You have no right to treat me the way you do." she looked at him.

"And you have no right to speak so carelessly about things you know nothing of, android!"

Leela gazed in his eyes, shocked…If he only knew who the cause of her being an android really was, he would not even dare to think it. Except, she wasn't completely sure if he really was the one who had killed her and her little brother. Her dream told her it was him, but then why did she keep thinking of Juunanagou being the murderer? It's was so confusing! Thinking about it made her feel dizzy. She hated her creators for making her what she was now and for blocking her memories. She was a saiyin; one of pure blood...then why didn't she feel like one?!

"…I need to go." Leela replied.

Trunks realized he had hurt her badly and it made him feel guilty. He'd known her for quite some time now. He should know she wouldn't kill anyone for some stupid reason. But then again, she was an android. He knew like no other what androids were capable of doing. Still, he couldn't let her leave like this. Not after what he'd said. He grabbed her wrist before she could turn around. "Wait." he said.

Leela moved closer in order to decrease the pain. "Let go!" she shouted in pain.

Trunks realized he had grabbed her broken wrist and let go immediately. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..." he paused his sentence.

"It's okay, just leave it." Leela said annoyed.

"Lee, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have called you that."

"Why not? I am one, right? My big dark secret is out."

An awkward silence fell between them as though they were strangers to each other, not knowing what to say. Both felt the distance between each other, even though they were standing only a few inches away from each other.

"…I don't like the way our friendship is breaking."

"Then stop blaming me for something I didn't do." she pointed out. "It's really hard for me to just go back to the way it was when you keep bringing up Qiana's death and blame me for it."

"Then why were you the only one there when I found her?"

"I was trying to prevent her death. I told you it was Juuhachigou. She fled when she sensed you coming. Why would I kill Qiana? You know me better than that. Sure, she and I didn't like each other, but I would've never been able to kill the brat. I would've probably broken a leg two, but not kill her. She wasn't worth the fights we're having now."

"It's just confusing me. Why didn't I sense Juuhachigou when she was there?"

"You were too angry to sense anything back then. You were too fixated on what you saw, rather than what you didn't see. It's what you didn't see that you should've seen."

"Still, it is quite suspicious."

"I'm not arguing that. I'd probably feel the same way." Leela thought about whom to blame for her brother's and even her own death, so on some level, she could relate.

"You kept it from me. That's what makes this suspicious too." he looked at her wrist.

She knew what he was talking about. "Yes, I am an android, but I am not like them." she looked him strictly in his eyes. "I'm not." she repeated. She could feel his confusion and sadness. The two androids had cost him so much grief in his life already and now this. She couldn't really blame him for blaming her. After all, it was like she said; he was blinded by rage and therefore couldn't see what was really going on.

He was fighting all his life to prevent anyone from getting hurt ever again, but he couldn't prevent it. He hadn't succeeded in defeating the androids yet. Their destructive nature never seemed to end. Leela knew that Qiana made him feel this burden less, because she stood symbol of what he was trying to save; humanity, even if she only was a small piece of it. Therefore he kept Qiana close to him. It told him there was hope for the world yet, until she got murdered. That was such a disappointment to him; he felt like he had let the world down; that he couldn't even save her, never mind the whole world!

He was so angry with himself that he didn't want to admit he would never be able to stop the androids, so he blamed the person closest to the scene: Leela.

"Trunks, you and I…" Leela began and put their differences aside without hesitating. If Trunks wasn't ready to trust her, than that was fine, but she sure wouldn't wait for it. She had to take matters into her own hands now and said with firm voice: "The way we started, it's how we'll finish them."

Trunks gazed at her. He had put her through hell by his painful accusations, and yet she was still willing to try and maintain this breaking friendship. He felt a brief sign of renewed motivation running down his veins. If she was willing to help this friendship back in place, then the least he could do was try the same. Together he and Leela would defeat the androids. He grinned and replied: "Yes we will."