Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ

A/N: Time for my usual crappy apology, 'sorry this took so long' I really am, but there is not much I can do about it, and it's here now so you can all rejoice and be merry once more. lol. I scratched my eyeball and now my eye is all puffy and it hurts when I blink…why must I always be in the wars, oh well, I don't think it's going to kill me.

I hope you all enjoy this chapter, I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all my lovely reviewers, you all mean so much to me and encourage me to keep doing what I do, so thank you!

-D.B

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Serendipity
Chapter Five

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"Ami? Hi, it's Krillen. I guess your not home at the moment. So um, I guess you must hate me huh? I can't say that I blame you. It's been over a week, and I haven't been able to work up the guts to call you. Some man I am, hey? Well, I guess all that I wanted to say is that I am more sorry than you could ever imagine about what happened last time we saw each other. I feel… terrible, to say the last. You didn't deserve it. Anyway, I don't want to tie up to much of your time, I just wanted to let you know that I think I've finally managed to sort myself out, and if you still want to give me another chance… although I probably don't deserve it… well, you know where I am…"

Krillen hung up the phone and sighed, it had been nine days since he last seen either Ami or 18, and he had finally come to a realisation. He loved 18, he knew that, and he couldn't deny it. But he also knew that his chances with her were slim to none, they were just too different. From different worlds, different sides. Even if they did manage to work something out, it wouldn't last. Krillen sighed, after nine days of drumming that same message through his head; he had finally started to convince himself that maybe even one tenth of it was true.

Ami, on the other hand, was kind and caring and gentle and everything that he was – or at least, what he liked to think he was. He could see himself making something work with her. He sighed, he hated to think of it like this, but – she was more in his league, he could see a relationship with Ami being more of a success than a relationship with 18, and in the end, that was what had swayed him to make his decision

Walking out into the lounge, Krillen sunk down onto the sofa and pulled a cushion over his head. He wondered if he would be stuck in this mess if Goku was still alive. Somehow, he highly doubted it. Goku always had something smart to say that saved Krillen's back side. He missed his friend so much; it was hard to believe that almost a whole year had gone past since he got taken away. He still thought about it all the time. That fateful day on the lookout, when Goku had decided that he didn't want to be wished back. He wondered if his decision would have been different if he knew that Chi-chi was expecting. This whole ordeal had been hard for her. She had gone through everything, and she had been alone. Sure, she had had him, and Yumcha, and Bulma and even Piccolo, but it wasn't that same as having the one you loved by your side. Krillen sighed, he knew that feeling all to well, and he hated it.

Suddenly, a shrill cry broke into his thought, he quickly realised it was the phone, and dived for it.

"Hello, Krillen speaking"

"Krillen" the voice, which he instantly recognised as Ami's, repeated his name

"Ami," Krillen seemed startled, "hi"

She picked up on the tone in his voice, "are you busy Krillen? I can call back if this is a bad time"

"No" he quickly replied, "No, this is a great time" he was glad Ami couldn't see the look on his face.

There was silence for a minute, neither knew what to say. "So," Ami eventually spoke "You've got yourself sorted?"

"Yeah," Krillen nodded, even though she couldn't see him, "Yeah, I think so"

"You think so?" she sounded wary of him

"Ok," he tried again, "I know so"

This time, Ami's voice picked up, and it sounded more like the happy carefree girl he knew, and it made him smile. He liked to make people happy. "What have you been doing with yourself?" he asked

"Thinking." It was not the response he had been looking for.

"About what?"

"Well, when you got to thinking yourself, it started me off. I wondered if this was what I really wanted"

"And?" Krillen heart was beating faster, and he wasn't sure if it was from excitement or fear.

"It is" he could tell she was smiling. "I want to make this work, Krillen. I've fallen in love with you"

Krillen opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out, everything went dry and his brain seemed to turn off.

---

Rain pelted down on the tin roof in torrents, and wind hissed violently at the window. 18 sat alone in the little house, on the couch wrapped up in a blanket, her only friend the TV. Dai had gone drinking, which was nothing unusual. He always complained that they were living on the border line of poverty, and yet every week he spent almost his entire welfare check on getting himself intoxicated. 18 didn't understand it.

Outside, lighting flashed, and for a brief second, the whole room was illuminated, shortly after it, thunder boomed right over her head. She didn't even bat an eyelash. Storms didn't bother her. She had spent 3 months living on the streets; a little storm couldn't bother her. She just turned the TV up even louder.

Her eyes grew heavy, it was almost 2am, she didn't expect Dai home anytime soon, he was probably sitting wide eyed in some titty bar somewhere. She didn't care, as long as he wasn't anywhere near her, she was happy. Well happier anyway.

All of a sudden, 18 heard a hissing sound and then the house went dark. The power was out. She could hear the rain coming down even harder now. "Fuck" she mumbled as she pushed herself up off the couch. The fact that the house was dark didn't bother her; she had excellent night vision, and could easily navigate her way around the small house. What bothered her was the fact that the only way to turn the power back on was to go outside and around to the side of the house to where the metre box was. And even then, there was no guarantee that resetting the power would work, if a power line had fallen down, she was just going to have to wait until the electricity company did something about it.

They didn't own an umbrella, so 18 had no choice but to venture outside in the storm of the century, she couldn't flare her energy, people might see and she couldn't risk it. She finally reached the metre box, now up to her knees in disgusting mud and flicked the switch a couple of times.

Nothing happened.

She kicked the side of the house in her frustration, mud flicked up of her boot and splashed onto her cheek. Her whole body shook with frustration. Once she was back inside, she set about lighting candles, she found a torch, which much to her joy, had working batteries. She could feel the temperature dropping now that the heater was off, she considered lighting the dustbin on fire, but quickly decided against it. Instead, she produced a small ball of white hot energy in her hands and she instantly felt warmer.

She was so sick of living like this. They had nothing, no money, no food and pretty much all of their furniture was stuff Dai had scavenged off the side of the road. 18 took some deep breaths, trying to blow her frustration away. It did nothing though, and she had to extinguish the ball in her hands to stop herself from hurling in into the wall.

For the 10 millionth time she wondered why she was here. This wasn't where she belonged and she knew it. At this point, everything about her life felt wrong, she felt like the whole world was coming down on top of her and there was nothing at all she could do about it. She did have to admit though, her life was considerably better than what it had been a year ago, she wasn't being controlled and manipulated by a madman anymore, at least she had a roof over her head. But still, she had dreams too, she wanted a happily ever after just like everyone else, and this wasn't what she had in mind.

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Krillen stood out on the small balcony of the Kame House, a warm mug of coffee in his hands, gazing out at the seeming endless body of water that surrounded him. He closed his eyes and listened. There was no sound more soothing than that of the surf breaking calmly against the shore. He loved the island; he couldn't imagine ever living anywhere else. It truly was paradise.

Upon opening his eyes, Krillen spotted something out in the distance. As it got closer, it became obvious that it was a hover car, to be more precise, it was Ami's hover car. Quickly jumping to action, Krillen gulped down the rest of his coffee and disappeared back into his room to get dressed. Then he ran down the stairs and quickly picked up as much of the junk as he could scoop into his hands and dumped it all in the kitchen. He was just in time; there was a knock at the door.

Taking a few deep breaths, he ran his hands through his hair and opened the door. Ami was standing there, "Hi," she smiled, "Hope I'm not intruding"

"Not at all" Krillen replied as he ushered her into the house. "Can I get you something to drink?" he wondered if that was the right thing to say.

"Sure" she replied as she sat herself down on the couch.

Krillen quickly retreated into the kitchen and took a few more long deep breaths. He hadn't been expecting Ami; he wasn't sure how he was supposed to act around her now. He didn't know how she was feeling, had his little outburst the other week pushed them back to being 'just friends'? He had no clue. Sighing, he shook his head to try and clear his thoughts. He didn't understand woman at the best of times, and this was certainly not his idea of the perfect situation.

Besides Ami, the only other experience he had had with women – besides Chi-chi and Bulma of course was with Marron, and Ami was completely different to her. The way to Marron's heart was through his credit card, she was so superficial – he had known it would never work, ever since the very first day they met. He had offered to help carry all of her shopping bags to her taxi. Ami was the total opposite though, she was sweet and sensitive, and Krillen had no idea how to deal with sweet and sensitive.

Blinking himself back to reality, Krillen headed back out into the lounge, where Ami was waiting for him.

There was a rather awkward silence between the two for several minutes, as they sat, sipping their coffees. Eventually, Krillen worked up his courage enough to open his mouth without sounding like a complete fool.

"I'm sorry," he said, and Ami lifted her dark brown eyes to look into his, "I've been a jerk this past week."

"It's alright" Ami replied softly, she knew why he had left that night at the restaurant. She knew he had gone to see the blonde woman, but there was nothing she could do about it. He was his own person and she didn't control him. She could only hope that he had worked it all out of his system now.

"No," Krillen continued, "It's not ok, I shouldn't have let my own problems interfere with us," he reached out and gingerly took her hand, not sure if she was going to pull away or not. She didn't, and he smiled. "I'm sorry. I don't know what else I can really say other than I'm sorry"

Ami blinked, tears welling up in her eyes. She had never been very good with controlling her emotions, and she really didn't want to cry, but as hard as she tried to stop them, the tears found a way. One at first, then another and then another. She looked at Krillen through misty eyes; he was smiling warmly at her.

She began to laugh, and felt her cheeks getting red. "Sorry" she mumbled as she wiped the tears away with her fist, "You must think I'm an idiot"

Krillen raised an eyebrow at her, then reached out and gently wiped her cheek with his thumb, "not at all," he hoped she couldn't feel how much he was shaking

"I'm just going to go and freshen up. Can I use your bathroom?" She asked, standing up.

"Yeah," he replied, "Of course"

Leaning back against the bulk of the couch, Krillen closed his eyes and blew out his breath. He had no idea how that was going to go, luckily it went well, but it just have easily could have ended in disaster. He looked toward the sky, maybe Goku hadn't left him, maybe he was merely helping him from up above, acting as Krillen's voice of reason, rather than standing beside him cracking jokes. He missed Goku.

Suddenly, Krillen's thoughts were interrupted, by someone knocking on the door. It was odd, Krillen thought, as he got up off the couch, it was rare for them to get one visit on the island a week, let a lone two in one day. He walked over to the door and pulled it open.

"Hi" the face on the other side greeted him, with somewhat of a nervous smile.

Krillen's eyes grew wide, never in a million years had he envisioned the scenario that was now playing out in front of him. "1-18?' he stuttered, not quite believing his eyes. He blinked, and sure enough, she was still there, "What are you doing here?" he asked.

She shrugged her shoulders, "I didn't know where else to go"

Krillen blinked again, it sounded like she was in trouble, "Come in" he stepped out of the way of the door.

18 stepped inside and took in her surrounding. She had been here once before, when she was looking for Goku with her brother and 16, but then, she hadn't been very interested in what was inside, just, who was inside. She smiled, everything here was very cosy, and she could tell this was a place where people were happy. Photo's adorned the walls and mantle, souvenirs from the ocean and battles past were scattered everywhere. It felt like it was truly a home.

"Are you alright?' Krillen asked as he quickly glanced over her from head to toe. She appeared fine, but he knew better than that, no one would be able to physically hurt her, but on the inside she was venerable and open to attack. He understood her.

"Yeah," she looked at him, their eyes connected and she couldn't help but smile, "I just needed a break"

"From Dai?" Krillen asked

"From everything" she replied, "Sometimes it just gets a little bit overwhelming"

"I bet," he trailed off for a minute, "please, sit down"

His mind was going at a mile a minute. What was going on here? He had just spent over a week convincing himself that 18 was out of his life, and now, here she was, sitting in his living room, talking to him, in such a way, that Krillen doubted she had ever spoken to anyone else. His heart was beating fast, and it wasn't until he heard Ami's voice that he realised it might be from an emotion other than euphoria.

He heard her, speaking to him as she walked down the hall from the bathroom. He spun around, to face the door he knew she would soon be walking through and his face paled drastically. Behind him, 18 was silent, as soon as she had heard the voice of a woman, she had known this was a bad idea. What had she been thinking, Krillen was a great guy, of course he had a girlfriend. What had she been thinking, she mentally chided herself.

At the moment, Ami rounded the corner, and stopped mid sentence. Her eyes travelled from the blonde woman sitting on the couch, the one she knew was named 18, and then to Krillen. "Who's this?" she asked.

Krillen swallowed, "this is 18, she a friend of mine," Krillen then turned to 18, trying to make the best of this situation "18, this is Ami"

18 nodded at Ami, she had no intentions of saying anything and getting Krillen in even more trouble.

"What's she doing here?" Ami's eyes locked onto Krillen's, there was no malice however, just a desire to understand, "She's a friend, just stopping by"

Ami didn't buy it at all, not for even one second. Anyone could see that he had feelings for the blonde woman, it was beyond obvious, even now, just standing here looking at him looking at her, he never looked at her like that. "Can I speak to you for a moment?" she asked.

Alarm bells went off in Krillen's head, those words never ever meant something good was about to happen. "Sure" he turned to look at 18, "Just, make yourself at home, I wont be long" and with that he followed Ami upstairs and into his bedroom.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked as she sat down on the bed

"Tell you what?" Krillen asked

"That you like 18"

"Because…" he trailed off, trying his best to understand everything that had just happened, "I don't know if I do, well, not like that anyway"

"I think you do"

He sighed, suddenly, he felt tired "It's complicated, we hardly know each other, yet we've been through more together than most people will probably go though in their whole life. 18's had it real tough; I think she just needs a friend, that's all"

"A friend?"

"Yeah"

"Well when you work it out, let me know, I can't handle much more of this though so please, before you go telling me you've made a life altering decision, please make sure you've actually made it"

Krillen had nothing to say as he watched her go.

He sat alone for a few minutes, sorting out this thoughts, he had to work up the courage to face the goddess in his living room again. He could hardly recall anything that had gone on downstairs now. It was just a blur in his mind, hopefully this time things would go a bit smoother. Bracing himself, he stood up and headed back down the stairs.

"She left" 18 looked up at Krillen as he walked into the living room.

"Yeah, I know. I'm sorry you had to see that" he sighed as he sat down next to her.

"It was my fault, I shouldn't have come here"

"What?" Krillen sounded startled, "No, you are more than welcome here anytime. Have you ever heard the saying what's mine is yours?"

18 shook her head, "No, but I think I get the gist of it"

"Well it applies perfectly here"

18 looked deep into Krillen's eyes; she saw so many emotions there, kindness, warmth, regret, things she had never seen in Dai before. She suddenly wasn't sure what to say.

"Why did you come here," Krillen asked, "really"

"Because I hate it there" 18 replied, knowing Krillen would instantly make the connection, "and the other night, in the coffee shop, you were so nice to me, I wanted to thank you"

"You don't need to thank me"

"Yeah, I do. I can't ever remember someone being as nice to me as you are. I honestly can't"

"What about Dai?" Krillen knew he was a horrible man to everyone else, but he thought that he would at least treat 18 with a little tenderness.

"Dai?" 18 scoffed, "he cares about nothing except himself…" she trailed off, Krillen sensed that she wanted to say something else, but he didn't push her.

He didn't want make her uncomfortable with personal questions, but it was the only way he would ever be able to understand why 20 minutes ago, she had shown up on his doorstep with a look in her eyes that was more miserable than he had ever seen on anyone. "If he makes you so unhappy, why do you stay with him?" He wasn't really expecting an answer, and so when he got one, he was more than a little shocked.

"Because," 18 sighed, "It's all I know how to do"

Krillen furrowed his brown in thought, "I don't understand you" he finally said.

"You forget Krillen, I was completely reset. Everything I ever knew was taken away. I've had no choice but to try and relearn everything, and all the while there is this programming screaming at me to stop, every time I do anything not related to the original mission objective, my programming tries to force me to do the exact opposite. I don't know how to do anything else except be with Dai because I've never learnt," she paused "every single day I have to force myself to go against the programming, it's getting easier I guess, but some days I really do want to kill him"

Krillen chuckled, even though he was quite sure it was inappropriate. "Well you're more than welcome to stay here. Our doors are always open"

"I wouldn't want to trouble you"

This time Krillen did laugh, "Trust me, the Kame House has been a home to every single one of us at one stage or another. We're more than happy to take people in" he smiled brightly at her, and she believed him 100 per cent.

"I can't. Dai will-" Krillen interrupted "Dai will never find you here. He can't track Ki and we're in the middle of a giant ocean."

18 was silent, she was really thinking over her options.

"At least spend the day. We can spar; I bet you haven't done that in a while"

This time, she smiled, "How can I say no to that?"

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A/N; Yet another chapter all done. How did you like it? At least a little bit enjoyable I hope. As always, you can find out about my crazy life in my live journal (stupid links don't work here) but you can get it from my profile page, and that will explain when and where my updates are coming – if you do decided to read it, feel more than free to comment if you want. I'll have the next chapter up as soon as my busy timetable allows for it! Thanks for reading

-D.B