"Dinners ready!"
"Coming, mommy!" Nira shouted over her shoulder. "Come on, guys, lets pick this stuff up quick or moms going to get on us again." She chided her two brothers, Corren and Riz.
Riz was only two years old and hardly helped, doing the exact opposite actually. After removing half of the contents of the toy box Nira started to get irritated, "Corren, take Riz to dinner. Tell mom I'll be there in a minute."
Corren smiled and picked up their baby brother in his short arms, "Gotcha, sissy!" Riz was more than half Corren's size so the journey might be a little dangerous but Corren did it with a grin anyway.
Nira continued picking up their toys when she stopped at a book. She picked up the small book and looked it over. It was the same one mommy's reading to them. She opened the book and stared at the pages. She couldn't understand what the words said she couldn't read very well.
"Nira! Hurry up!" her mom shouted.
Nira quickly put all of the things away again, making sure to leave the book out, before running to the dining room.
"I'm here, mommy!" she said, pulling out a chair and taking a seat.
"About time." Her mom smiled.
"Hey, there sweety." Nira's father grinned, messing with her hair. Her father works late so he doesn't get to see his family until dinnertime.
When everyone sat down Nira's mother exclaimed, "Dig in!"
About halfway into the meal, Nira's father started pulling her hair away from her face, "Keep that out of your food!"
"We're going to have to give you a hair cut." Her mom sighed, putting spoon full of green beans on her plate.
Nira nodded her head. Riz had been making it a habit of taking random things in his little hands and pulling on them. Nira's hair had become a favorite.
Her dad tucked what he could behind her ears before taking his seat again.
"So, what did you do in school today?" mom asked.
Nira shrugged, "We're learning the ABC's."
"That's good!" she grinned, "Soon you'll be able to read, right?!"
Nira nodded, even though she wasn't very good at it. She hoped to get better soon so she could start reading the big books on mommy's shelf.
DBZ
"This really boils my blood." Krillin growled.
He, Bulma, and Piccolo were outside Nira's room at the medical hospital. They had to pull a lot of strings to be able to come since the mental hospital was still in a degree of chaos but they managed it.
"When's Juu getting here?" Bulma asked.
"She should be almost here. Marron was giving her some trouble this afternoon but I doubt she hasn't violated some traffic laws." Krillin smiled, albeit a little bitterly.
Piccolo hadn't said a word for a while, but he looked very angry. He sat cross - legged on one of the uncomfortable hospital chairs and his arms were crossed as well. It was because of him that they had been able to stay at the hospital (by the means of pure intimidation).
Bulma kept wringing her hands together. The last words she heard Nira say playing over and over in her head like a CD.
DBZ
When she had ran into the lobby when all of the noise had died down and seen Vegeta she was shocked! He didn't look like himself! Or, he didn't look like the Vegeta she had come to know. He looked just like he did when they first met, and that both scared and to some degree infuriated her. In that moment she didn't know whether to attack the man with words or feint!
Then she saw Nira collapse to her knees and she was scared shitless!
She ran to the young woman and kept trying to find an exit wound but Nira's shirt and Piccolo, who had put his finger in the bullet wound to stop the bleeding. (AN: Yes, this an actual technique for bullet wounds.) Her hands were shaking a little, but very little of it was because of her fear it was more because she was angry! She felt like throwing a screaming fit!
Everyone, especially Piccolo, kept telling her not to sleep. Don't sleep don't sleep don't sleep.
Then, almost out of the blue, Nira uttered two words:
"Sweet dreams."
And Nira had fully collapsed. She had passed out.
DBZ
Bulma shivered in the chilly hospital wing and tears slipped down her cheeks but she wiped them away before anyone could notice. She had been so terrified and she still is. This waiting was tearing at her nerves.
The doctors had told them that they couldn't see Nira just yet, but it shouldn't be too long a wait now that she was out of surgery but there was some bad news: Nira was in coma. From the blood loss? The shock? No one was really 100% sure. But there was no telling if she would wake up or not.
Bulma nearly turned to her cigarettes that she had been trying to quit but always carried with her. She stopped herself when Krillin put a hand on her arm and shook his head when he saw her taking the package out.
Juu was standing beside Krillin, bouncing a four – month old Marron on her hip. She looked pretty angry, she liked Nira well enough, or maybe its just because she had to drive all the way across town to get here.
Piccolo was still sitting on the chair, he hadn't moved for over an hour. He seemed to be meditating.
It was thirty more minutes until the doctor gave them the green light. The four adults (and one baby) walked into the hospital room.
Nira was on bed, hooked up to a million machines. For a few minutes there was only the sound of an IV dripping and a heart monitor beeping. The four adults just stared at the girl, not really sure how to react until Piccolo of all people took a seat of the edge of her bed. After that everyone just took his or her seats.
Bulma and Juu sat on the chairs while Krillin sat on the window sill. Nobody talked.
DBZ
"Are you guys ready for a bed time story?" Nira's mother chirped.
"Uh huh!" Nira giggled, climbing onto her mother's bed and tucking herself under her arm. Corren had already gotten comfortable on their mom's other side. Riz was in his cradle in the other room and dad was finishing up some paper work in his office.
"Okay," mommy said, opening the book, "There once was a little girl.
This little girl was walking in the woods, alone. She had lost her family somewhere on the path that they had taken and she didn't know what to do!
She shouted and cried, "I'm lost!" so many times her throat was sore and she couldn't speak any more!
So the little girl kept very quiet, and whenever she heard someone coming she would hide, because her mother always warned her to stay away from strangers.
The little girl hardly slept because she was afraid a bog bad wolf would come and eat her but one night she was just too tired and fell asleep beside a big oak tree on the side of the road.
But while she was sleeping a woman had found her! The woman was surprised to see a little girl asleep on the side of the road and woke her up.
"Ahhh!" the little girl screamed, "Who are you? Are you a wolf in disguise?!"
"No, no." the woman said, "I'm not a wolf, never have and never will be. You should learn some manners!" she laughed, "What is a girl like you doing out in the woods by yourself?" she asked.
The little girl cowered beside the tree, "I lost my family and I don't know where I am." She answered truthfully.
The woman smiled in a kindly way, "You're lost? If so, you can come with me. I have plenty of space in my home for you, and we'll go looking for your family along the way, okay?"
The little girl wasn't so sure about going with a stranger but she was so cold and so tired that a house sounded so good that she took the woman's hand and walked with her to her house.
Along the way they met two men. One was short and ill tempered and the other one was tall and kind hearted. They're wagon had been attacked by a pack of wolves so they couldn't move.
"Oh, what happened here?" the lady asked.
"Our wagon fell apart!" the short one shouted.
"Our wagon was attacked." The tall one answered.
"Could you kindly give us a place to stay until we fix it?" said the kind one.
"Could you go away so we can fix it ourselves?" growled the mean one.
The little girl couldn't help but giggling at the two men. They were the oddest pair she had ever seen!
The two men were stunned to see the little girl giggling at them but they didn't say anything. The taller of the two smiled kindly at her, thinking about his son he had been trying so hard to see and the shorter one huffed and turned away, he was secretly very bashful.
The woman invited the two to accompany her and the little girl and off they went again.
When they finally reached the woman's house there were two people outside her front door.
"That must be my friends!" she chirped as she led the group inside.
"Hello, you two. How have you been?" she asked her friends.
"We're doing fine." The man answered, "The Mrs. just had her baby and we'd thought we could come over to visit."
The Mrs. nodded her head to the woman, she wasn't very talkative unless she had something she wanted to say. In her arms was a little girl who looked a lot like her father.
After everyone was inside the woman's servants made them all tea Each of them passed around stories and the little girl was surprised by how friendly they all were. Even the mean man was nice enough to help her to her seat when he saw she was too short to get to it.
Finally it was the little girls turn and at first she wasn't sure what to say, then she finally told them about how she had lost her family in the woods one night. "There was a lot of howling and screaming." She said sadly, "I don't know what happened to them that night, but I've been very lost ever since."
The group of adults were shocked to hear her story, none of them knew what to do for the little girl, but the woman had a good idea.
"Little one," the woman said, putting down her tea – cup, "If your parents are lost, why don't we become your family." She suggested, "I can be your mommy, this short man can be your daddy."
The short man blushed deeply but didn't reject the offer.
"We'll be your family too." The tall, kind man said smiling.
The little girl was shocked to hear this but accepted the offer anyways. And for many years she had started to mature and finally she was a grown woman.
The grown woman figured out what had happened to her family by herself and after a few years she was able to accept it and in turn accept her new family. She loved them all and even though she knew she wasn't whole she was far from broken.
She lived with her family for the rest of her days with a smile on her face.
And they all lived happily ever after. The end."