Here we go again. I got my e-mail posted now (Syna@3web.net), so if you so wish to make a comment that way, go ahead.
But, now, on with the reason you are her, the story...
It Never Ends
C-12 Nightmare
Chi-chi was restless in her sleep. She knew why and didn't want to remember. It was only a couple of day's time before her anniversary was coming up. An anniversary that she would have to live through without her husband.
She sighed and got out of bed. No use fighting it. Might as well get up and do something. Not that there was much for her to do anymore. Videl took care of most of everything. She felt like such a burden living with Gohan at times.
When Goten left the way he did, she didn't want to live alone in that empty house and Gohan's invitation was well received. She still felt like she should do more than just taking care of the garden, but no one seemed to begrudge her that.
She looked out her window at the new garden that was created by her son and Junior. She still didn't know how Soyna knew that it what she wanted more than anything was to have a place that was so peaceful, that she could forget that they were in Satan city, if only for a little while.
She grabbed her robe and shuffled down the hall. She looked into the room of her grandson. Little Fry. He was sleeping soundly with his arms wrapped around his newly won teddy bear from the fair, that was as twice as big as him.
Soyna may be a fighter and they may but heads on that, but she was always good to the boys. The boys were the only one that never seemed to be afraid of her. They knew that she would never do anything to hurt them. She may chase them around and threaten them at times, but she had never really hurt them. It was Soyna's type of play. She figured that she just spent too much time with Vegeta and the testiness wore off on her.
She smiled and decided to go down to the kitchen to make herself some tea, hopefully it would relax her enough so that she could fall back asleep, and not think of her missing husband.
That is when she heard a loud groan emerge from her youngest son's room. She wasn't about to intrude on him. He was a big boy and knew how to take care of himself. Even though he had worked pretty hard all weekend on the garden, and then his foolish sparing with Soyna.
She heard a large thump and could resist taking a peak into the room. She found her son wrapped in his sheets sitting on the floor, covered with sweat and panting. He had one hand over his eyes and the other rubbing his throat, his chest was heaving heavily.
"Goten?" she whispered.
He startled and looked up at her. "Mom?"
"Are you alright?" she whispered and slowly entered the room.
He rubbed his throat again. "Just a nightmare," he whispered and pulled himself onto the bed. She went to sit by him. He was shaking. It had to be one hell of a nightmare. She touched his arm and was shocked as he flinched. Goten was never one to have nightmare. She knew Gohan used to have them, but Goten, never seemed to be bothered by his dreams.
"Are you okay?" she asked again.
He shook his head and seemed to be trying to get his shaking under control and it was taking a lot of his strength to do it.
"What was it about?" she asked.
He looked at her startled for a moment and then he looked like he was searching for words. She saw this look before. Her boys had to protect her from their Saiyian side, didn't they? Even Goku didn't tell her about the nightmares he would have. He would toss and turn all night and mutter about one enemy or another.
"Why don't I go make us both a cup of tea to help you relax," she said. She saw the relief on his face that she wouldn't have to say anything.
"Thanks mom. That would be great," he said with a forced smile.
She patted her son's arm and left to the kitchen.
She saw him rubbing his throat again, where that horrible black scar persisted. He must have been dreaming about that.
............
His throat was burning! It felt as if he had just pulled that whip off his throat. He surely would have screamed if mom hadn't entered the room. A familiar face to calm him a bit.
He didn't want to tell her about the nightmare. He didn't want her to know that he was in pain for a long time. She would get worried all over again, and he knew that was the last thing that she needed.
He struggled out of his sheets and grabbed a pair of pants to slip on and the bandana to wrap around his throat. The burning stopped quickly after that. He was thankful for that. He could hear the kettle whistle downstairs.
His shaking had stopped but the images from the nightmare persisted. They hung in his head and wouldn't leave.
Krad laughing as Trunks held him up and had a hand on his bleeding throat. Trunks managed to avoid the whip and escape to the space capsule. How Krad seemed so unconcerned with the escape. He remembered what he had yelled as the door closed. "You won't live through the night young Saiyian!"
They figured out he was part Saiyian. He didn't know if they thought that Trunks was Saiyian or not. He didn't fit the image of a stereotypical one, but then, none of them did anymore.
He was also haunted by the image of Soyna from his dream. He knew very little truly about her battle with Krad and what had happened. But in his dream he saw her with the whip wrapped around her arm, a younger version of Junior being protected and huddled close to her.
He could see her blood dripping down her arm. He could see Krad laughing as she snapped the whip out of his hand and blasted it.
"You won't live through the night my dear lady," he laughed as she started to slump. Dragging her little brother away.
Horrible images of how he had suffered and struggled against Trunks who tried to clean and tend his wound. How he forced him to eat and drink and the constant worry on his face.
Did Soyna and Junior go through all that too?
He sighed and rubbed the scar through the scarf. He rubbed his eyes and went down to join his mother for a cup of tea.
...............
She looked at her son as he walked into the kitchen, a hand protectively covering his throat. He looked so worried.
"Here you go," she said and sat a cup down on the table. He sat down and took a sip without so much a word.
"Was the nightmare that bad?" she said and sat across from him. He looked so serious. It was not a common look for him. Usually always with a smile and laugh. He was like his father that way.
"Yeah," he whispered. He rubbed his throat again. He wasn't even aware that he was doing that.
She stared at him waiting to hear more, but he seemed more engrossed in how the steam was rising off the tea. She didn't think that he was going to say something but he finally did, "If I would have stayed home instead of leaving, we would have nothing to worry about."
He looked up.
He looked so distressed.
"What?" she said.
"If I had stayed home, we would have never had to worry about Krad coming. He had all these big invasions plans for elsewhere. If I hadn't been so brass and I just went about my business," he said and took a sip of the tea.
"You don't know that," she said.
He sighed. "What are you doing up mom?" he seemed to be anxious to change the subject.
"I couldn't sleep. I was thinking about your father," she confessed.
Goten looked at her concerned. "Why were you thinking about dad?" There was a touch of guilt in his voice.
"It would be our anniversary next week," Chi-Chi said. "I miss the big dummy."
Goten smiled lightly and then a dark look came on his face. There was so much more going on in that head of his, that Chi-Chi would have ever have thought before. He looked so serious. A look she was not to familiar with on her children. "Why did you wait for him?"
She looked at him. What did he mean?
"He always left you alone and yet you still waited for him to come back to you," he said. "Why?"
Chi-Chi looked at her son and was stunned. Why, indeed? She never really thought of it before. They only spent a few years really together as a married couple. Most of the other time, he was out saving the universe or something of that sort. He ALWAYS left without really saying any sort of goodbye. He always seemed to just expect her there, when he came back. And she was.
"Well, it is not as simple as saying that I loved him, which I still do. I knew what he was like when I married him, and I loved him for being that way," she sighed. "I hurts when he is gone. I always miss him. I never really found the need for anyone else."
Goten seemed okay with that answer. She wondered what he was looking for in that?
"Will I ever to be able to find someone like that?" he said. "I mean, I thought I had found someone like that, but she..." he sighed deeply. "I don't want to be alone and I don't want to hurt anyone else like Dad hurt you."
She sighed. This was coming out of her son. She smiled. He grew up a bit since his first stint in high school, where there were girls calling every second day asking for him, or he was on a date with one of his tarts, because that is all that they really were. He was never serious about any of them. She knew that he hadn't been dating since he got back, which she thought was odd, but thought he would get back into the swing of things, like he always did, in no time. But he hadn't.
"Your father never meant to hurt me," she said.
"I hardly even got to know him. When he was here, it was always when there was trouble and we were going into a fight of one form or another," he sighed. "Maybe, that is why I went searching for him."
She reached across the table and took his son hand in hers. He looked up at him, with the same eyes that his father had. "Your father gave me all that I ever needed in you two boys."
He didn't seem to like that answer all that much.
"Thanks for the tea mom. I think I'll go back to bed now," he said and walked out. He had barely touched his cup of tea.
Chi-Chi wished she understood her sons a lot better.
...............
"What's wrong with Soyna?" Trunks asked. He had watched his father carry her into her bedroom. She looked drugged up.
Bulma looked up from her book. "Oh, nothing really. We just got her a sensu bean so that she would rest her arm."
Trunks looked at her confused. They healed, they didn't knock you out.
Bulma must have seen the look of confusion on his face. "Oh, it is nothing to worry about. It is just the reaction of the bean on that poison that is in her arm. It may heal you, but it seems to activate the poison a bit as well. I was hoping that she would actually rest her arm for a bit instead of us having to use a sensu, but she insist on sparing and hardly resting at all." She gave a big sigh. "I wish she would stop acting like Vegeta when it comes to training."
He grinned. He noticed that too. "She will be okay though?"
"Oh yes, she will just sleep a day or two and then be back to trying to destroy herself by training," Bulma scoffed.
Trunks looked in the direction that his father had carried her. "She is persistent isn't she."
Bulma sighed. "Very," she closed her book. "I worry about her sometimes. We don't know if this Krad is coming but she is training to kill him all by herself. She doesn't like the idea of anyone helping her. Even when Vegeta suggests it she gets all tense. I am so afraid that she is going to do something rash."
"What do you mean, mom?" Trunks said.
"She is so much like your father. What do you think that I mean?" she said and opened her book again.
Trunks sighed and decided to drop it. He had work tomorrow, and he was finally going to be able to concentrate.
.........
Pan arrived home from school on Monday to see her uncle looking very frazzled at his pile of homework. She would have laughed at him if it weren't so distressing to see him, running his hands through his long hair and how red his eyes looked and even the untouched food that was beside him.
"I hate Mr. Ketn," he said as he looked up. "He has to be the meanest teacher, ever."
She smiled at him. "He isn't that bad."
"You are good at this school thing," he said and closed his book. "the only reason that I am getting anywhere in school is because of Junior. If he wasn't helping me, I would be so failing and mom would be so disappointed in me."
"What assignment are you doing?" Pan asked as she sat by her uncle.
"The best/worse moment."
She remembered that. She cringed. "That is an extra one, isn't it. You only have to do it, if you want extra credit. Oh. Right. Now it isn't for you is it?"
"What the hell am I supposed to right, when I really can't even think about those things anymore," he said with a sigh. He spotted his glass of juice and took a sip out of it. "Plus, he would think it is fiction anyway."
"I know he thought mine was fiction," Pan grinned. "But then, how many kids get to explore space on a space ship built from a defunct race's technology."
He grinned at that.
"You wrote that?"
"Uh-huh. I wrote that my best moment was meeting my grandfather for the first time. I just kind have said that he was missing for awhile. At least, I didn't say that he was dead. He would have sent me to the shrinks for sure. Then I wrote that loosing him again was the worse. In a little bit more detail than that. He thought it was a great work of fiction and gave me a B for effort. He thought it was an original look at his assignment."
"Do you think he would go for it again?" Goten asked. "I mean, my best and worse is pretty far fetched too."
"Probably not," she said. "Make ups some lame ass thing about a wedding or me being born or something."
He laughed. That was her uncle.
"I think I could do that," he said. "Thanks Panny."
She slapped him. "Don't call me Panny."
He just smiled brighter.
............
Goten was glad when his brother got home and had to beg him to go spar with him, for at least an hour or so. "I have had my nose in those books all day. Please. I need to spar, or else I am going to blow something up!"
It was a relieve to stretch his muscles for that hour, even though they never fully powered up.
He wanted more than anything to drive out the images from his nightmare that still intruded on his day, making it so hard to concentrate on anything.
Maybe Krad was coming after all. Maybe that was what the dream was trying to tell him. He didn't know, but the images of that day, were stuck in his head and his throat stung every time he saw an image of that whip.
He remembered how sick he was. He remembered how smug Krad was. How sure that he was going to be dead. Wouldn't he be surprised when.. no ..IF he showed up that he was still alive. That thought pleased him. It would prove that they were even more resilient than he thought they were.
But then, was that a good thing, or a bad thing?
.........
AN/ There you go. Yet another chapter.