If I Knew Then

Chapter 3: My Past is Not Their Future

Yay! You people make me so happy. Here's to thank you for all the new reviews I've gotten so far:

Wolf (anon): Thank you for the reviews! Another person who reviews every chapter… this is amazing. I think I'll have to give in to popular trend and start doing that myself. I'm glad you like it!

RnHr4ever (anon): Creative, huh? Thank you! I'm glad I pulled off the whole "different" thing. I'm happy you like it and I'll try to keep it that way!

Trisha (anon): Yes, I do that too. There's becoming less and less of us. Thank you for the review!

Thedarksavior: OMG! That is SO ironic that you say that! Hahah! I go on a boating trip this morning, think "Hey, I should explain about Bulma's past; I'll do that in the next chapter," and then when I come home I look at the new reviews and yours is on there! All your questions will be answered now (I hope), don't worry! I have to warn you though, this story in itself has very little to do with the original timeline. I don't know how it went in the series event for event or anything anyway, so I just decided to make it AU and do what I want with it. But it'll all tie together. And thank you for giving a detailed and thoughtful view. ;D Not many people actually make requests about what they want. Thanks!

Raccly e.r 17: Thanks buddy! It's so great I finally got ur IM lol. Yea, I had such fun writing those two parts! And feel free to take up as much space in your review as you want! Well, I'll tty online!

And speaking of that: I've already planned out the rest of the story this morning! So don't worry, there won't be any randomness going on here.

Now for the story:

STILL GOTTA EDIT IT: DON'T FREAK OUT OVER MISTAKES PLEASE

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Maybe he's pissed that he actually had to apologize to me, or maybe he's just now becoming ticked off about the party thing, but he's becoming a serious pain in the ass. Now I don't pity myself for not having him before. Sometimes I find myself thinking that world domination than the androids are better than having Vegeta living in this house.

Though I must admit that if I had just been myself from this time period, then I would have been too scared to fight back with him. It's amazing how much power he held over me. But now thing are… well… different!

I wonder when it was that I became so strong. I guess that's what fighting to save the Earth does to a person.

It must have started with my mother's death. She died of a breast cancer; and even though leukemia was sucking her strength away she was always insisting on baking and watering the plants. Relative to the time I left, the time after Namek was 34 years ago. She died two year later, struggling for six months with leukemia for breast caner. I remember she still insisted on cooking and watering plants and even wanted to hear about my problems and social life.

"Bulma, honey, don't fret over me. If I go, I'll go happy and productive!" she chirped as I tried to make her lie down.

I'll never forget those words, nor the events after them.

She stood up, grabbed a watering can, went outside, and watered the damn plants. I guess she was concentrating too hard, because she over-watered them and the damned things drowned.

Needles to say, she went out with a bang. She'd cleaned the house the day before, fainting from exhaustion. When we went in to see her, she was sitting up with a duster in her hand, dusting everything within' reach. The first thing she did when she saw us was offer us her cookies.

"I won't be eating these today!" she said, smiling. Then she laid back and died.

What a way to go. It's almost as if she willed herself to die at that exact moment, once she was satisfied that everything was in order for us.

My father was devastated. He gave up all work. The company practically shut down and I was forced to keep it going. The stress of losing my mother, practically losing my father, and having to run the company single-handedly when I was ready made me grow up fast. It was almost like training. Like fate knew what was coming and wanted me to prepare for it.

But I still wasn't prepared when the androids arrived. There was no warning, no indication that such a thing could happen. They appeared out of nowhere with Dr. Gero. Androids 16 and 17. There were more, but they all malfunctioned and turned on Gero. All of them were eliminated.

It all started 31 years ago. I was watching the news for a stock market alert, and there was a big coverage of some sort of attack on North City. You'd think that'd I'd remember every detail of something as important as that, but I'm ashamed to say that I don't. There were more… personal things that I committed to memory.

The androids and Gero started a rampage. They wiped across the Earth in a single day, attempting to eliminate all humans so that they may create a civilization of perfect androids. I don't see why they didn't just don't get their own damned planet then.

That's what I said to my father the moment before he died.

The androids had moved into West in less than an hour, and were practically pillaging the city. Capusle Corporation was no exception. Goku and Gohan had been at the lookout talking visiting Korin to try and learn how to make their ki invisible, and had no where near enough time to reach us. Realizing this, I made a few emergency hidden refuge shelters that would save a decent amount of people, but there was no where near enough time to alert everyone. We were trying to find at least a few more people before we dove into the hidden underground alcove in the room.

There was a big explosion and the wall on our right caved in. Seeing as how Vegeta had flown towards us out of from the smoke, he was obviously the culprit.

"Human," he hissed, grabbing my father by the collar of shirt and shaking him. "I know you know where Kakarott is. Now tell me!" Vegeta roared. Suddenly there was another explosion, throwing me to the ground and causing Vegeta to drop my father. Smoke fogged my vision yet again and I darted around to look for what happened. Looking back on it now, I realize I didn't know what the hell was going on.

"Vegeta," a monotone voice said when the dust cleared. "I'm so glad we found you. You're on our top priority list." I recognized the blonde woman from the TV. Her partner in crime, a raven-haired male wearing some kind of handkerchief around his neck, was at her side, nodding to agree.

"After we eliminate him, the only real fighters left will be Goku and Gohan Son," Gero noted.

In an instant, the raven haired Android, who I later found out to be Android 17, was holding my father up by the neck.

"So, Vegeta," Android 17 said, giving Vegeta a Vegeta smirk. "Tell me where Goku is or I'll kill this human." My father couldn't even speak. All he could do was kick his feet in vain as he struggled to breathe. Vegeta spat on the ground by the android's shoes.

"Go ahead, it's no concern of mine." Never will I forget that response.

Thousands of accusations screamed in my mind. Why couldn't he have said he didn't know? Or better yet, why didn't he explain that my father might know?

I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. I couldn't even blink as I watched the android in anticipation. The android shook my father, still looking at Vegeta calmly.

"I'll ask you one more time."

"And I'll tell you one more time. I. Don't. Care." All I saw was a bright light erupting before the entire room was encompassed in heat. My father got blasted.

After that, Vegeta just stared at the android like he was bored. "It's not like I know where Kakarott is, anyway." That's when they began to fight.

Regardless of the battle, I was in shock. My father's death, the sudden arrival of the androids… everything was just too much for me. It was a miraculous thing that I somehow managed to stand up and run away. I didn't get far.

Next thing I knew, I was staring at a piercing set of crystal blue eyes.

"Where do you think you're going?" Android 18 asked me rhetorically. Either fate stepped in or I was just damned lucky. Suddenly she looked over my shoulder and noticed something. What it was, I discovered later.

But at that moment, all I could think of was to run. I ran and I ran. I didn't think. I didn't look. I just ran. Fate (or my unconscious part of my brain) turned me in the right direction, because I found myself at the entrance of the underground refuge. I threw myself in, not even considering they might see me, and stumbled down. I assume they didn't see me, because we weren't found.

There were 300 of us in that underground computer lab. I told them to stay quite for the sake of their lives, and they complied. After I used the motion detectors to see if anyone was still around, we left.

Only ten minutes after the attack Goku, Dende and Gohan arrived. Goku left to fight, leaving Gohan and Dende with me. Gohan put up a big fuss about that, but it was probably the best decision Goku ever made. Gohan said they stood a better chance against the androids together, but Goku insisted that they weren't even close to being as powerful as just one of the androids, even together.

I still can't figure out why he had to go fight though.

Maybe it was just the way he does things. He goes out to meet the trouble head on when it occurs. He doesn't wait and train to become more powerful while evil is taking over the world. That's not how he does things. It's all in one shot.

Even without him, Gohan and I managed to make a network of underground living areas using capsule houses. We found about 100 more survivors scattered throughout the other 3 major cities. About 50 more were found in minor areas. Of the 450 of us, half of them were too damaged from the attack and didn't live to see next week.

They were the lucky ones.

When Goku didn't return, we obviously became a bit worried. So we did the logical thing and summoned the dragon to bring him back. It told us that Goku hadn't even been killed. He'd been captured. Gero managed to get him into a cryogenic tube of some sorts.

The androids noticed the ruckus and came to see what it was all about. We wished for Gohan to be able to go past Super Saiyan, the logical choice at the time because we thought Super Saiyan was the highest, but the dragon said Gohan already could. Realizing we had to use the wish before the androids arrived, I wished for enough food, shelter, and water to last the human survivors 100 years, which suddenly came popping up all over the underground network. Goku quickly fell out of the option list. We couldn't even try to wish him back again, even if he was dead.

It was too dangerous to make a wish. That dragon can be seen from miles away, and all they'd have to do is sense it and come flying to us. From what we figured, we didn't have nearly enough time to make a wish. Besides, the dragonballs were scattered across the earth and there was no way we'd be able to get them on the surface.

During the first year of survival, I didn't think once about Vegeta or what happened to him. Carrying on the human race was something that stood out more to me than worrying about him. Not that I would have cared. He'd killed my father, but my father had practically already been gone. He didn't even look scared before the android blasted him.

My thoughts returned to Vegeta when Dende was talking about how differently could have turned out with him. He explained that Vegeta did not die fighting the androids, but had been convinced to leave the planet.

The androids told Vegeta that he had no reason for protecting these people, and that if humans could possibly be so weak, they deserved to be wiped out. Vegeta must have agreed, because he immediately left the planet to conquer Frieza's army. He told them that the mudball planet wasn't worth their time, and that once they were done to come seek him out so they could have a 'real' fight.

"If Vegeta had stayed with Goku, we would've had a fair shot at winning." That sentence has been the single driving point of my entire mission.

After years of pondering what he did and why he did it, I slowly began to understand Vegeta. I began to… know him, and simply by carefully observing the things he said and did. I should have been an expert at him. I had 30 years!

He blasted off in one of the Capsule Corporation spaceships and never came back.

The Androids did indeed take over the planet and make an entire civilization, unaware of our underground resistance. Once in a while a group of ten or so would be caught or killed, but they didn't know that a group of 300 were down below.

Yes, the first thing I told the people to do was start having babies. I explained to them that the human race depended on carrying the next generation, and luckily 60 of the survivors were between 15 and 30. They popped out babies real quick.

I never had one of my own, though I often told myself if I ever did have one I would name him Trunks. But it felt wrong to just 'have babies' like that when I was 35 and everyone else had a match. Yes, there were more women than men, which astounded me because I didn't think many women would have been able to survive the attacks as well as the men. But it turns out that the women had been safe in hiding while the men had run out to see what the commotion was.

For 19 years we struggled to survive, planning resistance movements or Goku rescues every once in a while but failing miserably. All it did was dwindle our numbers. Gohan had a son named Goten, whom he trained to fight of course. The kid could turn Super Saiyan by the time he was 7, but had to turn back down quickly in case someone sensed him.

Finally, 11 years ago, Gohan broke the Super Saiyan II barrier and managed to defeat Gero. Gero had been talking about Goku dying and Gohan kind of… lost it. But Android 17 and 18 just ruled the android civilization in his place. They were the bigger fish we had to fry, and at the rate they were gaining power, we'd need to have some kind of Super Saiyan III.

The next major event occurred 5 years ago. That androids learned that Dende was still alive and produced some kind of microscopic nanobot virus that targeted Namek's. Usually, I would have been able to fight this, but they placed the Namekian nanobots INSIDE the human nanobots, those dirty bastards. I came up with a treatment for the humans, but I had no idea of the Namekian virus until it was too late.

Before he died, Dende gave the four star dragonball the power to grant one more wish (without summoning the dragon, a major features). He told me that if I could find the stone that was originally the four star dragonball, I could have one wish granted by summoning the four star ball itself.

It took us 5 years to find that stone. It was in a storage facility. Apparently before Dende died, an android had stumbled upon it and put it in storage. No one had noticed it wasn't a dragonball anymore. We learned this when I did surgery on a volunteer and made him look and have the same parts as the androids on the surface. He infiltrated the storage facility and confirmed the location, just before they noticed the signal he was sending and 'recycled' him. He wasn't one of us anymore.

Gohan and I spent a day discussing what the wish would be. He suggested immortality, but I told him he wouldn't want to live forever. In a way, it was almost selfish not wishing for it. There were many great ideas, all which had a catch. Most of them I can't even remember, because when we did come up with the idea of rewinding time and keeping our memories, I erased everything else and focused on that. What else could a 55 year old woman do?

I remember our final moments like they were yesterday, because in a way they were. We managed to sneak into the building but were detected. I ran into the room to summon the dragonball.

"Go! I'll hold them off!" Gohan yelled, turning Super Saiyan II and whooping ass all over the place.

I summoned the ball and the one in the middle of the pile of three turned back into the dragonball. I looked in the middle of the four starts and saw something amazing.

It read, "What is your wish?"

As I read the words, I couldn't help but thank Dende profusely for the opportunity he gave us. All I could think about were his dying words.

"Use it wisely."

I hope we didn't let him down.

Faintly, I could hear the sound of an enormous explosion and an alarm going off.

"Android 17and 18 are here!" Gohan yelled to me from the hallway. "Hurry and make-" He didn't get to finish.

I made my wish just as the duo walked through the door. The last thing I saw was a pair of crystal blue eyes before I shut my eyes tightly and prayed.

That's when I arrived. I can already tell I've made a dramatic difference. Vegeta might stay…

I wonder what would've happened if Gohan had come. Sure he may have only been 10 or so, but he still would've known.

We could've discussed everything that's going on and planned it better. He always was good at picking out mistakes that I couldn't see.

He was supposed to come back to urge Goku to train more, and train more himself. By now he's studying or something with Chi-Chi. That would've changed, though I'm sure Chi-Chi's surprise would've been just as equal to if she had seen what became of her son originally.

Now that I think about it, I should be doing other things than just focusing on Vegeta. There are other things that I wish I had all my life, and I should be taking this opportunity now. First things first…

"Mama?"

"Yes dear?" I should've known she was in the kitchen.

"Hey mom, I'm going to a doctor's appointment tomorrow, want to come?"

"You're not pregnant, are you?"

"No! No! I'm just gonna get the normal check ups, like early signs of arthiritus or… cancer."

"Okay dear. If you really want I'll go." Good. Maybe if they hadn't caught it late, she'd have lived.

I think I'll go outside and get some fresh air. All this recalling has me emotionally drained.

And of course, I run into Vegeta.

"Watch where you're going, woman!" he barks, shirtless and sweaty from the gravity chamber, flipping a towel over his shoulder. Normally such a sight would turn me on.

But I can't help but hate him. All those years of pondering what he did makes me hate him.

I hate him with a passion.

He's the reason I'm here. He's the reason everything became so fucked up.

And he's the one that can fix it.

But I have to try and remember that this isn't the same Vegeta. This one is changing, I can see it. He's staying here, he's getting stronger. And best of all, he's obligated to me.

He won't be leaving anytime soon.

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Next chapter: Bulma devises a ruthless plan! Please review! Praise, complain, I don't care. Tell me if you loved it, if you hated it, what you want me to change about it, and I probably will! I'M PROBABLY GOING TO EDIT OR REDO THIS CHAPTER anyway. (That was just to get your attention, cause I know no one reads

ANs.) So if you see any mistakes or something's wrong with the timeline, don't fret. I'll fix it if you point it out, or I'll fix it even if you don't.

Man, this is one of the longest chapters, but you can't tell cause everything is in paragraphs. O O Oh well. Until next time!