LEAPING MOUNTAINS
written by State Hopper
CHAPTER SEVEN
(Flash backs written in Italics)
He looked tiny under the covers, stronger than an ox but in need of knowing that we'd always be there. I smiled down at him, shifting the hair from where I saw his father. Vegeta had been so content during those first few days, at his quietest when he had held his baby son. Typically the moment attachment seemed likely I watched him pull away. We had changed since then, this change wasn't on the outside visible to the world, it was what lay deep down inside of us.
Closing the door and pulling back the covers I slipped my feet into bed. His back was to me but I knew he was awake. I contemplated touching him, but weakly decided against it "What I said in the kitchen when Goku was here... I apologise. I know it was few days ago, but you know that I don't think those things."
He was silent for a period, before adjusting the covers "You act as if I gave a damn."
"I know you did." Glancing at me, his eyes sat like two empty holes at night, dead and gone with the sun. He was wasting away, I could see it right before me. I wanted him to be happy, to be all that he could be. Though there was a deeper part to me that wanted him to be there only for me, to exist only for me, to be unconditionally mine. Turning back toward the window, he sighed into his pillow. I just sat there for a few moments longer, staring at the groove between his shoulder blades, "Goodnight."
(Thursday 20:00)
"He's a smart boy" Mr. Dash spoke from across his meek classroom desk. "Nevertheless, he's lately become disruptive during my classes. Failing to apply himself in areas where'd he usually have no trouble at all." Gathering at my purse, Track shifted uneasily in his seat.
"Disruptive?"
"Clowning."
"Clowning?"
"Making up wild stories, nonsense about that" he gestured.
"The School?"
"What? No, space, space Mrs. Henderson."
"There not stories!" Track protested.
"Shh, don't interrupt."
"Hm" Mr. Dash adjusted his glasses "there's no answer but discipline... absolute discipline. Your son's head is too high in the clouds."
"I don't see how that's anything to be ashamed of?"
"If he disrupts the education of others Mrs. Henderson, it is."
"I can assure you that he won't disrupt your classes." I stood up "Did you ever consider that perhaps the work is too easy for him, perhaps he's bored." with a small laugh, Mr. Dash placed both his hands atop the desk.
"The work isn't too easy Mrs. Henderson. So, unless you have any further questions?" he offered a loose handshake.
"Thank you" I grit "You've our number." Nodding briefly Track and I merged with the crowded school corridor, where children screamed and parents screamed right back.
"Mom why didn't you tell him, Dad would've. Everyone thinks I lie."
"You know you're right, what does it matter if they do to. It's special Track." I pushed back the throb in my skull.
"Dad said it shouldn't be a secret." I gripped at my jeans "Dad said that being a Saiya-jin is-"
"-your Dad isn't in a public school! Look, Dad's right to teach you to be proud of it all. It's good. But many people wouldn't understand, they'd be jealous... I wish I was special like you and your Dad." I touched his head. "Just promise no more stories, okay-"
"-Ardin," with a cringe, my name rung out with a familiar accent attached to the last syllable. Gathering myself, I turned with as much joy as could be mustered.
"Got dragged here as well I see."
"Dragged? Why would I not attend? My sons education is very important to me."
"I know, I was just..." shaking my head, I shifted back for a gruff mother to pass on by, her wailing daughter not two feet behind.
"Vegeta decided not to come I see."
"No no no, he was busy... besides, it's not really his thing, like Goku I guess."
"Goku's here" she quipped. Plastering a smile upon my face we continued along the corridor, stuck in a sea of ever changing faces until eventually pouring ourselves out into the parking lot. From out beneath the school lights, families crammed themselves into dry metal boxes to depart of a place that no one had ever really liked. Pulling the keys from my bag, Chichi stopped in the second lane. I could see Goku in the distance, dressed casually but forever lacking in taste. Waving a large hand above his head the man strolled up with abundant good humour.
"Hello Ardin, Vegeta here to?"
"No. He's at home. He's probably waiting, I best be going."
"Men, they're like children" Chichi belittled.
"Hm yeah. Hope this rain holds off for the Tournament." Nodding in agreement, Chichi wrung her hands.
"Well it's late. Goten has school tomorrow."
"Okay." God after all these years and I still couldn't make any sort of conversation with her, it wasn't that I disliked her, we just never had anything to actually talk about.
"Goku go start the car will you. I'll find Goten." Briefly acknowledging the order, Goku proceeded with little follow through. Watching her amble her way toward the first parking lane, I heard him clear his throat.
"I was surprised to see you. I don't like these things, the chairs are too small and there's no reward for even coming."
"He asked me about you. Like I said on Tuesday, there's nothing here."
"So I can't even talk to you now?"
"I didn't mean that..." he stared at me, unblinking "I was only saying."
"I better get the car, I don't want Chichi to get upset with me again." He turned, "... see you Sunday."
Grabbing my purse from the dashboard, I ran through the rain and into the reach of porch light. It was often at this time of night that Vegeta would be watching the TV with a plate of buttered toast; it was only recently that his schedule had started to change "Dad must be training" I removed my coat. "So you can watch whatever you like okay, within reason." Emptying out the contents of his school bag, Track grabbed his drink bottle before settling on the couch. Listening to the commercials merge and overlap, I caught sight of Vegeta entering from the hallway.
"Your taking it all very seriously lately."
"Hn?"
"Training. Well, this one's happy. It gives him run of the telly."
"I thought you had a meeting" he opened the bread bin.
"I did. It's over. Where'd you think we were?" Moving from the counter, I was reminded once again how overly built Vegeta was. He carried his muscle differently to the others, due to a lack of height I supposed. Resting my cup within the sink, Vegeta proceeded to browse over the back of the jam jar, processing the scientific jargon and numerical listings. At that moment the doorbell rang. Vegeta failed to even flinch, let alone show signs of getting up. Wiping my hands on the tea towel, I proceeded down the passage and on toward the front door. It was a man, I sighed a breath of relief, it was a strange man. Nightfall glowed in from behind the six-foot foreigner. Lowering his hand, I was looked at in a most peculiar way, as if I wasn't meant to be there.
"Yes? Can I help you?"
Screwing up his face the man proceeded to stare down at me. "AJ?" That one word had the chamber locked, trigger cocked and bullet fired, how could I explain the suffering in my chest. Induced by a name. Latching the door behind me in rigorous panic, everything pumped wildly from out on those three front steps. "It's Trent, Trent Perkins..." he alleged "You know, Perkins Perkins smells like gherkins... you remember? You remember right?" I felt sick "I've come to take you back. I've come to take you home." I didn't even process the last part of his sentence. All that was ringing in my head was T.R.E.N.T. We'd known one and other ever since my family moved to Invercargill back in the summer of 1993. He'd lived a couple of kilometres from me, in the neighboring valley. Like a storm I was flooded with milk-bottles, merry-go-rounds, gumboots, rotten apples, wool sheds, rugby, one-cent lollies, chicken wire, kisses, laughter, eels, dingys and saddles. Stumbling backward I banged into the door.
"Go away, go away-"
"AJ, it's okay..."
"D-did it happen to you?" Shaking his head Trent clasped at his elbow.
"Hear me out Ardin, just... let me talk okay. You, well you had an embolism, here. You went into a coma... are in a coma. It was a lucky break we thought, considering. For the first few months we all assumed you would just come out of it, just around the corner you know..." he gathered at his pants "when those months grew into years and then those into ten then fifteen, people stopped talking about you, your're folks stopped visiting, but I didn't." he smiled "Around two years ago, a yank named Spencer Redden, approached your Dad about using you in a testing facility for coma research. It was a wonderful chance. From what I've been told the process... well, it's like a subconscious transfer, in this case mine into yours. You're sorta' dreaming, induced by your condition. They used me because it was assumed I would be less threatening." he shrugged "I can bring you back, they have told me what to do... you can come home. I can't believe I'm talking to you, AJ..." shaking my head, I began to cry.
"... I've a son, I was pregnant for nine months! I work... I-I gethhhurt, I remembathings..." words began to fall "This isn't a dream! You're the dream... go away I don't want you here. Go away, go away!"
"Why're you debating this?"
"I couldn't be without them."
"But they aren't real!"
"They're real to me!"
"I'm your friend, you'll have me. You've got a life AJ, there's a lot of money invested in you."
"What year is it?"
"What?"
"The damn year, what is it?"
"Twenty five... two thousand and twenty five."
"Twenty five... twenty, my god, oh my god... I'm going to die sooner... before them all, aren't I?"
"AJ this isn't living... it's not real. Don't you get that?"
"You've no idea what you're talking about." I think he'd thought about me far more than I had him. He had my face to look at every day. Able to watch me sleep for twenty-one years.
"Why this?" he threw up his hand "Trust you to choose a wacko reality. "
"Everything went white."
"Probably the embolism."
"Suppose..." I looked up at him "Hey, it's good to hear your voice, makes me feel a little young again."
"Christ, I'm thirty nine now... divorced twice with a daughter."
"You've a daughter?"
"Lisa. She's thirteen" he shrugged. "She lives with her mother in the states. I haven't seen her in about three years." he sighed "It's too longa' story"
"Well how long do you have?"
"The longer I stay the harder it is for me to wake up." Glancing over my shoulder Trent rubbed his arm.
"What is it?"
"We shouldn't be talking here. He'll... things are a little messy right now, just go. I'll meet you by the gate in a few minutes."
Closing the door behind me, Vegeta looked back from half way down the hall. Track was no longer in the living room, his books and felt-tips packed up and gone. I only assumed that Vegeta had chased him off to his room again. The smell of his skin gathered at me on approach and on taking him at the waist I agreed that he was the realist thing in that room.
"Who was that?" I felt the words, before I heard them.
"Just an old aquaintance."
"Aquaintance" he repeated.
I straightened from my stoop "Yeah." I watched his profile stiffen and slip dead from his skull. "Vegeta, what's the matter?"
"Don't touch me." he proclaimed, peeling both my arms away. "I contemplated just leaving, I feel absurd being here. Watching you lie and act as if nothing ever transpired." Opening my mouth to speak, he cut me off with a very loud declaration. "Tuesday! I heard you talking with Kakarott, discussing what you'd done. To think that you could... with that, that low class moron!" The moment he said Tuesday, I knew.
"Vegeta please we'd just argued-" I attempted at a feeble approach, yet was promptly warned off. "I'm not making excuses but-i-it was nothing, just a seconds comfort-"
"-what in the heck does he need comfort for!"
"It wasn't for him, look I couldn't tell you! It was just a stupid kiss, h-he was only there!"
"I want you out of here by the time I get back, you and the boy."
"I forgave you!" I shouted back, it came out so fast that I didn't in anyway have time to consider the implications of my words "All those terrible things! I never gave them a thought! You're no better than me, you're no better!"
"How dare you!" his voice grew hoarser "How dare you use that! My past was never anything to do with you, never! You filthy coward! Get out of here, get out!"
"You're not taking my house! Jesus you think you did all this by yourself! I know what I did was wrong, hell I'm not stupid - and I don't blame you if you can't forgive me. But Goku's a friend, that's all... punish him if you want, punish me! It won't change anything, Christ I don't think you'll ever be what you want." Breaking for the door I rid myself of the entire battle. Gathering at my forehead wet breath erupted past my lips, where everything stung and what wasn't stinging was numb. Ambling down the cold night lit path, I approached a man I had known better than myself. In a time when a friend was the best thing I had.
"Ardin where are you going?"
"Lemme go"
"Are you coming home, you need me to do that?"
"No..." I began walking again. "I just need to get away for a bit." Right then was when I wished for home, back within the gullies of New Zealand. Back where things were simple and a day behind. Wading our way through the unknown Tom, Dick and Harret's of Central City. Trent proceeded on amazed. Entering a small coffeehouse on the corner of Chancery and Main, we looked up to the ding of a bell. The cafe was dimly lit, murmuring like a seedy bar. Sliding into a small red booth, out of sight and out of mind, Trent slapped the table.
"I'm fucken surprised just how real it feels. I mean shit! If it were not for how I looked and well... everything else, I'd assume I was awake."
"Can you hold back on the swearing Trent..."
"What? Oh yeah whatever," he leaned forward "Ya know, I sorta' wanted to see what your 'family' looked like?"
"As if you would take it seriously, and besides you already know what Vegeta looks like."
"Vegeta" he repeated "That's funny. Trust you to aim for the big gun." He pat down his shirt, "Shit I thought at least my smokes would come through, look at my shirt, eighty bucks and it looks like shit here, mad. So is this Vegeta just as black and white?"
"What, no, colour. We had a fight, a bad one."
"Well isn't that his character?" Trent read the menu. "I thought he was a bad guy?"
"How far into the series did you see?"
"I dunno it was years ago..."
"So, you boast a good memory"
"Seriously, I don't recall, not far anyway" He shrugged.
"Well I can see why you would think that"
"Think what?"
"Think that about Vegeta."
"I guess that means he's the rehabilitated character. Most shows have one."
"What's happened in the passed time?"
"What? In the world?" he pushed back the condiments "God ah, let's see... well Pisa finally fell, ah America's first woman president... oh and Prince Will died of cancer, lung if I recall... ah... pretty close to an Aids cure." he paused "I dunno, it's hard to sum up twenty years AJ. It's like asking what the eighties were about."
"Hm, any wars?
"Well yeah, two actually, almost ten years apart. We participated in the latter, concerning mostly Korea, North..." Sensing the approach of jasmine a young woman, name tagged 'Nene', stopped at our booth.
"Evening. What can I get for you both."
"Yeah, just two coffees thanks."
Studying her as she walked back toward the counter, Trent released a breath in both amusement and befuddlement. "It's surreal ... you've managed to fabricate personalities and facial compositions for every single person. It boggles the mind."
"Can we drop this."
"Jesus, you've gotten up tight in your old age or maybe that Vegeta character has just turned you sour,"
"... tell me about your daughter.
"What's the point" He leaned back into his seat "You don't get this do you. You're missing life, your life... you've missed so much already."
"I'd miss a whole lot more if I left."
"They wouldn't be without you. They'd still be in your head."
"I don't expect you to understand. I'm not sad, or angry by what you've told me. By all laws I should be dead right? So I guess, I know that I'm the luckiest."
"I'm sure they're real to you, but-"
"-what'll you do?" I interjected.
"I thought I'd come with. Maybe you'd change your mind," he looked away "it's awful. You're like a ghost there"
"But I'm happy here... think of that when you look at me." Touching his arm, I let him go, let him fall back into the reaches of my past. I wasn't his anymore. The hall was dark when I entered, yet warm with bodily heat. Along the walls were pictures of years gone by, family, friends and art for the sake of merely being pretty. Placing my keys upon the telephone table, a small mummer resonated from the living room, the midnight news was on time. Star light shone in from the windows, enlightening me to the fact that no matter what the situation Vegeta always endured.
"I left my wallet" I broke.
"You were right" breath sped by his lips "I'll never be exactly what I want... but you should know that strength has no limits. I think I may go mad with you, for that I'm actually thankful. I now have a reason to hate you, and I do."
"You're just angry"
"That to..." he glanced toward the hall.
"Trent, he's outside... he leaves in an hour or so."
"Get out. I told you and the brat to go, go so I can leave this disgusting excuse for a planet in peace. Don't you think I'm serious?"
"I know you're serious. But I'm not leaving."
"Yes..." words echoed from his right arm, the surface of an olive palm staring me straight in the face "you will."
TO BE CONTINUED...
AUTHORS RESPONSE:
spontaneousxhumanxcombustion
2005-03-13
Yeah it's always the kid that suffers eh. Guess I kinda wrote her from my own experience, passive until finally you realize screw it, what have I got to lose. Well the tournament will feature next chapter, which will take a long time in the making I think, kinda dreading how I am to tackle the Buu situation, its so longggggggggg... and I don't wanna have to write that much!
: DAngel :
2005-03-08
Thank god it doesn't feel to Mary Sueish, damn I have tried hard. Thanks for the Vegeta character point, he's my favorite so I try to stay loyal, "I am devoted to you, my one and only love" give us a break guys! Thanks for the killers arms comment, I know it took a while! Glad you like this, it's the most fun to write.
Clicka
2005-03-08
Yeah she just doesn't work with Goku, I know its wrong kind hard to keep him character. Hum it was a very choppy chapter, I was trying to flesh it out kinda did it the wrong way I think.
bLUE
2005-03-08
reason for the 'all over the place' above. I am finding it hard to get into Goku's character, I am trying to make him a little less black and white but he just comes off out of character, I think because he's always very honest but doesn't explode with deeper emotional-damage, like Vegeta, he's easy. Give me ideas if you want!
Kale
2005-03-05
weird cause well, okay it was slightly addressed in this chapter, I don't want to say bored, but his present relationship lacks adrenaline and as we know Goku thrives of it (Battles at present are few and far between, nine years right?). The Ardin situation is dangerous and risky, a thing to conquer. The whole situation only spurring on further physical contact, in an effort to compensate the guilt. It didn't have to be Ardin I think it could have easily been 18 or perhaps Bulma, Ardin was someone most frequently visited, passive, and with his continuous rivalry with Vegeta, a challenge. Don't get me wrong he loves his wife, that's obvious, he's confused and further confused by her actions, Ardin isn't being fair to him.
SSJ Naomi
2005-03-03
Hi, I hope I addressed your question about Goku above, or in this chapter, he's a hard guy to get into the head of.
