Author's notes: I'm back with another chapter! Enjoy!

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Short-pants: thanks and I'm glad you like it. Keep reviewing!

Black Seconds

'What is it with children and candy', said Tien. 'They always need to have candy. Do all kids have a too low blood sugar level?'

Yamcha went to sit on the desk. 'Marron went to buy a magazine', he shot back.

'And for the exchange of the money she bought candy', Tien said. 'Bugg. What is that anyway?'

'Bubble gum.' Yamcha explained.

Two hours of nothing, Tien thought, while he stared at his watch. They were, after all, dealing with a ten year old. She could talk and ask questions. But it was nearly one o'clock. Outside was a black September night and Marron had been gone for more than seven hours. Then he heard a weak noise. He waited a moment, wondering, to listen. The noise grew stronger. Rain, he thought. A strong downfall. It rattled against the windows and washed away the dust and filth of the glass. He had yearned for rain. Everything was as dry as cork. But now it came on a bad moment. He felt the pain in his body, a mixture of restlessness and the need to do something. He didn't want to sit around with a bunch of papers, he wanted to go outside, to the dark and search for Marron. The bike, he thought suddenly. Bright yellow and very new. It hadn't been found yet.

'She could have fallen with her bike', Yamcha said. 'Maybe she's lying unconscious in a ditch. It has happened before. Or she could have met someone, who managed to charm her completely. A thoughtless person but one with the heart on the right place. Like Buu. Do you rememeber Buu?'

Tien nodded. 'He had rabbits. And with those he could lure in little girls.'

'And Marron adores animals', Yamcha said, thinking about it. 'But she can also have ran away from home because of something that she couldn't discuss with her mother. Maybe she's lying somewhere in a shed, sleeping. Determined to punish her mother for something.'

'They had had no fight', Tien retorted.

'Her father could be involved', Yamcha went on. 'It happens. A teacher or another adult that she knows could have picked her up. For reasons we don't know. Maybe she got some food and a warm bed somewhere. People sometimes do the weirdest things', he said. 'We always almost immediately think the worst because we're in this job for so long already.'

Yamcha loosened a button of his dress shirt. The silence in Tien's shadowy room was tense.

'We have a case,' he concluded.

'Probably,' Tien nodded. 'But we can't do much. We have to wait. Till she shows up, in whichever state.'

Yamcha jumped from the desk and walked over to the window.

'Has Lunch left?' he asked, with his back to Tien. The asphalt of the parking terrain in front of the Palace of Justice, where the police bureau was stationed, was glinstening black and oily in the rain.

'Yes, this morning. She's gone for four months.' Tien said.

Yamcha nodded. 'Research?'

'She's going in depth at why some people are so short,' Tien smiled.

'Right,' Yamcha snickered. 'Off course you can't help her with that, considering your two metres of length.'

Tien shook his head. 'One theory claims that they don't want to grow,' he said, 'That some people simply refuse to grow up.'

'That's a joke, right?'

Yamcha turned around and looked at his boss with two large round eyes.

'No, no. I'm not joking. Sometimes things have a very simple explanation. More simple than we think. At least, that's what Lunch says.' He stared out of the window, suddenly sad.

'I don't like it at all that it's raining.' He said.

Suddenly the bell rang shrill throughout the house. Eighteen looked at her friend wild-eyed, her eyes shone with an almost metallic light in her fear. It was late. Fear and hope fought a fierce battle in her body.

'I'll open!' Bulma said, who stormed out of the room. She shivered as she pushed the doorhandle down. On the sidewalk stood Marron's father.

'Krillin,' she said softly.

She stared at him and stepped back a little.

'Has she been found already?' he asked.

His face was wrinkled with worry.

'No. We are waiting.'

'I'll stay here tonight,' Krillin said resolutely. 'I can sleep on the couch.'

A surprising stubborness sounded through his voice. Bulma walked slowly backwards, into the hallway. Eighteen heard his voice and braced herself. She felt so much. Relief and anger at the same time. Now he entered the room. A small and thin man with no hair. She recognised his old grey coat and a sweater she had once knitted for him. It was difficult to meet his gaze. She wasn't strong enough to face his despair, she had only enough room for her own desperation.

'Go to bed, Eighteen,' he said. 'I'll sit by the phone. Did you eat something?'

He pulled of his coat and hung it across the back of a chair. Like he was right at home. He had lived in this house for years.
Bulma stood in a corner. She had the feeling she was interrupting.

'Then I'll go,' she said with a downcast gaze. 'But I want you to call if something happens, Krillin.'

Suddenly she didn't know how fast she had to get away from there. She stroked Eighteen's back, ripped her coat of the hanger and ran outside. She drove as fast as she could homewards. The thoughts were racing through her head.

It was raining hard, de wipers were surfing fast over the windshield. She became depressed by her own cowardice. Her relief had been so great when she had seen Krillin on the sidewalk and had known she would be able to leave. She had felt a bottomless, creepy fear the whole night long. But she couldn't submit to it. She had to be stronger than Eighteen. Now that Krillin was there with her, the fear rose suddenly and almost took her breath away. She didn't need to be there, for the worst. She didn't need to answer that definitive phonecall, that horrible message. 'We've found her.' Now Krillin would have to answer that. I'm a coward, she thought, while she wiped away her tears.

She parked in front of the double garage and saw Trunks wasn't home yet. She went inside and ran up the stairs. Bra was sleeping. She stood there for a while, watching her daughter's round cheeks. They were warm and red. Afterwards, she went inside the room to sit at the window and waited for her son. Like her friend had been waiting all those hours on Marron, she realised herself. He was later than usual. She felt a twinge of that same fear, but she hushed herself with the idea that Trunks was an adult. Imagine to be sitting like that, she thought, and that no one showed up. It was incomprehensible. Suppose that it was Bra who disappeared like that? Suppose that the tires of the Opel of her son wouldn't sound anymore? She tried to imagine that she would be waiting hour after hour. That the sound of tires, for which she was waiting, didn't resound. That she, after a while, started waiting for another sound, the ringing of the phone. She called the number of his cellphone, but it was turned off. When he finally returned home, it felt weird to her that he didn't pop his head round the corner but instead immediately walked to his room. He must have seen that the light was on through the window and must have known she was still awake. She stayed there, thinking for a few minutes. She didn't want to go and tell him. Then she went after him. Kept waiting in the doorway of his room. He had turned on his computer. Sat right there with an averted head and hunched shoulders. From his whole demeanour you could see he was pissed of.

'What's the matter?' she asked quickly. 'You're very late.'

He grumbled something under his breath. Then slammed his fist on the table.

'I have a dent in that stupid car,' he said sulky.

Bulma thought about that answer. She thought about everything that had happened and looked at his angry back. Suddenly she got angry. It streamed out and she couldn't stop it.

'Fine,' she said, 'then you have a dent in your car. Your father and I don't have the money to fix it, so you'll have to keep driving around with the dent or save the money yourself to pay the bill!'

She almost forgot to breath. Her son became unsure, but didn't turn around.

'I know that,' he said moody.

A maze appeared on his computer screen. A cat sneaked down through the small path. Her son followed him with his eyes and turned on the sound. Inside the maze a mouse scittered about.

'It just sucks,' he suddenly spoke up.

'I don't want to talk about it right now,' Bulma yelled. 'Something terrible happened. Marron has disappeared!'

A surprised shock went through her son. He kept staring at the screen. From the boxes a vague noise could be heard.

'Disappeared?' he asked, thunderstruck, while he turned around slowly.

'Yes, Marron,' she said. 'She went to the Shop to buy something around six o'clock. I've been at Eighteen the whole night. They haven't found her nor her bike.'

'They?'

'The police!'

'Where did they search?' he asked, while staring at her with big eyes.

'Where they searched? Everywhere off course. She hasn't been at the Shop.'

Bulma had to find support from the wall. The seriousness of the situation returned to her again. Her son was still tinkering with the computer and maneuvered the hunting cat inside a dead end. The mouse stood still, awaiting the next step.

'So that dent of yours is nothing you have to worry about,' she said, scared. 'It's only a dent in an old car that can easily be fixed. I hope you can see it isn't that important.'

He slowly nodded. She heard him breath, tense.

'How did it happen?' she asked, suddenly compassionate. 'Did you get hurt?'

He shook his head. Bulma felt with him. It was a defeat to get a dent in your car. He was young and thought he could do everything and this was a serious blow to his pride. She understood, but she didn't want to be a mother hen. She wanted him to grow up.

'I clapped against the guardrail,' he said with a sigh.

'O,' she said. 'Where?'

'At the city bridge. In the centre.'

'Was Sharpener there?' she asked.

'No, not then.'

'Do I have to go down to have a look at it?' she asked.

'No, don't bother,' he said, tiredly. 'I have discussed it with Yajirobi. He's going to help getting it fixed. I don't have the money, but he said the payment could wait.'

'Yajirobi?' Bulma asked, incredulous. 'Are you still talking to him? I though you would go to Sharpener?'

'Yeah,' Trunks said. 'But Yajirobi knows cars. That's why I went to him. Yajirobi has the garage and the tools, something which Sharpener doesn't have.'

He started to move the cat around again. Why isn't he looking at me, Bulma thought. Then suddenly, a horrible thought popped up.

'Trunks,' she said breathless. 'You didn't drink, did you?'

His chair turned around and he stared at her with an angry glare.

'Are you crazy! I don't drive when I'm drunk. You think I would drive then?' He was sincerely insulted and she was ashamed. His face was as white as a sheet. His short hair was in disarray and in the middle of this whole mess the thought struk Bulma that it needed to be washed.

She kept standing in the doorway, undecisive. She couldn't find rest, she wasn't tired, listened the whole time for the phone. Tried to feel the fear that would attack her if he did ring for real. Thought of the moment when she would pick up the phone and waited, standing on the outer edge of the cliff. She would, or fall into the depths, or be pulled to safety by a happy ending. Because this has to have a happy ending, she couldn't imagine another version, not here, not in this peaceful village, not with Marron.

'I have to go to Eighteen in the morning,' she said. 'You have to help Bra get her breakfast ready and the like. I want you to bring her to the school bus. Not only bringing her to it,' she added, 'you have to wait till she's inside. Do you hear me? I have to be with Eighteen in case something happens. Krillin is there now,' she said softly.

She sighed desperate and asked her son to go to sleep. Left him alone and went outside. It was a sudden inspiration. She opened the door of the garage. Surprised she saw that her son had thrown a big cloth over the Opel. He never did that. He probably couldn't bare to see it, she thought. Childish, really. She switched on the light. Lifted the cloth. On the front right side she found what she had been looking for. A dent, a broken lamp and some laquer. A couple of long, greywhite scratches. She shook her head and relaid the cloth. Walked into the garden. Stood there for a moment, thinking. Felt the rain in her neck, wet and cold. She threw a fast look at the window of her son's room. There she saw his pale face, partially hidden behind the curtains.

Author's notes: So what do you think? Review.