Secrets

Bulma was allowed to stay home from school the next day, so she took her opportunity to sleep in late. Even if she wanted to get up she wouldn't have been able to stay awake for all the painkillers in her bloodstream. It was almost noon when she finally got up.

She took a bath, being careful to avoid getting her hot pink cast wet, then got dressed in a pair of shorts and a tank top. If she wasn't in school she didn't have to follow any ridiculous dress code. She frowned at her reflection in the mirror. She looked as bad as she felt. Terrible.

"Whatever. No one's going to see me today anyway."

She went downstairs and immediately headed for the kitchen when she smelled grilled cheese. That was one of her favorite meals. She burst into the kitchen and greeted her mother before sitting at the table and digging in to the stack of warm sandwiches.

"I'm glad to see you're up, honey," Mrs. Brief chirped as she brought another plate piled high with grilled cheese sandwiches to the table.

Bulma's eyes widened when she saw the staggering amount of food. "Are you cooking for the whole city?"

"No, silly. Just you and Vegeta. He should be here soon."

"I know he eats a lot, Mom," Bulma said around a bite of food, "but that's too much, even for him."

"Oh no, dear. He always eats this much at lunch. He's a growing boy, you know."

Bulma shrugged and finished eating. If Vegeta could eat that much she wasn't going to argue. "Is Dad eating in his lab?"

"Yes, dear. He said he'll be there until dinner."

"Ok." Bulma wanted to go see what he was doing, but he was probably testing a new product and wouldn't want her interrupting for safety reasons. She sighed and took her plate to the sink. She would have to find something else to do.

As she was leaving the kitchen, Vegeta came in. He gave her arm a once-over before pushing past her to go sit at the table. He was still irritated with her for coming into his room while he was sleeping. Now she was hurt and probably wouldn't want to help him anymore. He could apologize or try to explain why he hit her, but his pride wouldn't allow that.

Bulma glanced at him once over her shoulder before going to find something to do. She wasn't upset with him for hurting her. She knew he was asleep when he did it, so it wasn't like he did it on purpose. She was surprised that he was strong enough to break her arm though. He was stronger than he looked, and he looked strong for his age.

Vegeta went back to his room after eating lunch and found Bulma sitting at his desk tinkering around with his scouter. His first reaction was to throw her out, but he held himself in check and went over to see what she was doing. If she was still willing to help him then he wasn't going to discourage her. He sat down in the chair next to her and watched as she took the speaker apart.

She grunted a greeting without taking her eyes off the task at hand. She needed to know exactly how the speaker was designed so she could perfectly mimic it with the new materials she took from her father's lab. It was going to be difficult, considering she didn't have the exact same things, but she might be able to salvage some parts of the original and incorporate them into the new. She hoped she could, that is.

Bulma wrote some notes down on a pad of paper and drew diagrams of the speaker as she carefully dismembered it. It wasn't quite like any speaker she'd ever seen before – it was much smaller for one thing – so she wanted to have a detailed plan of how to recreate it. Having pictures would also help her when she explained what she was doing so Vegeta could easily follow along. They were still having language problems when she got into technical things and it was frustrating for both of them.

"What were you doing in my room?" he asked when she sat back and rubbed her tired eyes.

Bulma could feel herself blushing a little. "I, uh… You woke me up, so I came to see what was wrong."

"Liar."

She sighed. "Ok, so I was already awake. But I heard you and I wanted to make sure you were alright."

He crossed his arms over his chest. "Why would you have thought I wasn't alright?"

"You were… well… screaming."

His eye twitched but he didn't say anything. There wasn't much to say. So she caught him in one of his weakest moments. When he was asleep he was unable to defend himself from his memories. He already knew that sometimes his nightmares got out of control. Nappa and Raditz had both awoken him at different times because he was crying out in his sleep. It was shameful for anyone to see him so weak, so pathetic. His hands balled into fists.

"You shouldn't have come in here."

"Yeah, well, I think I learned that the hard way," she said, pointing to her cast. She gave him a lopsided smile and shrugged. "I guess it must have been pretty awful."

"What?"

"Your dream."

He snorted. Talk about an understatement. He didn't dream so much as replay memories in his mind when he slept. There were no distortions as in the dreams of some other species. Saiyan dreams were perfect recollections of past events. His recollections were particularly vivid. For some reason his memories had a clarity that others' lacked. He never forgot anything, and that was not a blessing to him. He wanted more than anything to be able to forget. At least then he would be able to get a decent night's sleep once in a while. His nightmares were part of the reason he resented having to sleep so often.

"What was it?"

The tip of his tail started flicking with his agitation. Not only did the girl try prying into his life by asking what he liked doing, but now she was trying to pry into the deepest workings of his mind as well? Into his past? He never told anyone anything! Not even Nappa or Raditz, his two closest comrades. The only other saiyans left… What was he dreaming about, anyway? The dreams started blurring together after a while. Each night he relived a different event, none pleasant. What difference did it make if it was a beating when he was five or nine? A beating was a beating. He came out of it with broken bones, severe blood loss, and battered pride.

He closed his eyes and focused on not thinking about his past. He wouldn't allow her to bring it to the forefront of his consciousness. "Do not ask such foolish questions, girl."

"Were you… you know, abused? Wherever you used to live?"

She was startled by his bark of bitter laughter. There was no trace of humor in it at all. She frowned as she wondered what could have happened to him that would possibly warrant such a strange, incongruent response. "Vegeta?"

"Stupid girl. Abused? It ceases to be abuse when it's done with good intentions, doesn't it?" He laughed again. "Who cares anyway?"

"I care."

"You're a foolish child. You nor anyone else can help me so don't concern yourself with me. Fate has chosen me to be the laughingstock of the universe." He brought his fist down on the desk, cracking its surface. He bared his teeth and growled. Here he was, letting her fog up his rationality with emotions again. Before he knew what was happening he felt hot tears streaming down his face.

"It's ok, Vegeta. No one's going to hurt you anymore," Bulma said as she drew him into an embrace. "You're safe here."

He shook his head and pulled away from her. "I'm not safe anywhere. Besides, I have to return. If I don't…"

She waited for him to finish, but after a minute it was obvious that he was closing himself off again. Already he'd said much more than he meant to and she knew things about him that he didn't want anyone to know. He cursed her for making him so weak, for making him give in to his foolish emotions. He wiped his face with the back of his hand and got up from his seat. He had to go somewhere else for a while. His mind was in chaos, but if he could meditate then he would be able to get himself back under control.

"Wait, don't go," she called after him when he made a hasty retreat.

He paused and stood still while he waited for her to say her piece. He heard her sigh and then the chair slid across the carpet as she stood up. Even though he heard her softly padding across the room to him he still flinched when she touched his shoulder.

"You don't have to leave here."

Vegeta brushed her hand off and sneered. "You know nothing of what I have to do."

He strode out of the room, leaving Bulma behind feeling confused about what he might mean. She didn't understand why he would have to go back to wherever he came from if he didn't want to. She and her family would never make him leave. They would never send him somewhere where he would be hurt.

'Vegeta, why would you leave us? Why would you choose to go somewhere where you'll be abused?' Bulma's brows furrowed as she turned and went back to the desk to continue her work. She would talk to him later, try to help him understand that he didn't have to go anywhere, no matter what he thought.

Vegeta ran downstairs to the indoor garden as fast as he could. His mind was filled with tumultuous emotions that he was eager to rid himself of. In the garden he sprang into the trees and found a large branch he could sit on while he meditated. He had a difficult time clearing his mind as thoughts raged through his head. 'What has that foolish girl done to me?' he thought furiously. He hated her for making him think of terrible things, for reminding him of the life he had to return to. He hated her for trying to give comfort she had no right to give. For trying to make him believe he didn't have to go back without facing dire consequences. Even if there weren't already soldiers coming to get him, the lizard would hunt him down until he found him and then kill him in the slowest, most painful way imaginable.

He swallowed back a lump in his throat and glared at his hands as they clenched and unclenched in his lap. He felt like his emotions were warring for dominance in his head while he fought to contain them all, bottle them up and bury them deep inside. More tears stung his eyes as his hands flew to his temples and started yanking his hair and clawing at his scalp. He was torn apart inside. Trapped, he was trapped in his rotten life with no way out. He was a slave, he was a prisoner in his own body. If only his mind, his very being could be freed from his physical constraints. He had to get out but he couldn't.

His muscles trembled as uncontrollable rage coursed through his veins. Rage mixed with despair as he screamed and beat his fists against his legs. He leaned back against the trunk of the tree and banged his head against it a few times, hard enough to daze himself. He shook his head to clear it and groaned when he returned to his senses. Here he was, beating himself up again. What did he need the lizard for when he was more than able to do it himself?

Vegeta laughed bitterly and rubbed his eyes. He was falling apart mentally and didn't know how to save himself from the dark abyss of madness. He'd fallen into it before and barely managed to climb out. This wouldn't be the first time he'd slipped in again, though. No, for the past three years of his life he'd become well acquainted with insanity. He lived as much in flashbacks as he did reality. He lost all grip on his reasoning and felt pain that wasn't real and saw and heard things that weren't there. Now here he was, crumbling into a soft weakling who couldn't stand to face his own fate. He was plagued with hatred for his lot in life. He was torn from his place as crown prince of Vegeta-sei and thrown into the life of a lowly soldier. Just a child and already he'd seen more horrors than men three times his age could bear. He screamed again when everything faded to black.

Vegeta blinked and rubbed his eyes, trying to get the dust out of them. That last explosion was big enough to split the ground. Buildings crumbled down around him and the small squadron he was with. He coughed a few times and peered through the dust and smoke billowing in the wind. All around them he could see hundreds of dead, maimed bodies lying on the ground. The stench of fear, blood, and death was thick in the air. He nearly gagged.

This wasn't the first purge he had ever been on. Far from it. But he had never been on a mission with this particular squadron. They were ruthless. They killed for pleasure as much as duty. They delighted in tearing their victims apart – literally. No adult male was left in one piece before they were killed. Women were all raped before they were likewise torn limb from limb. And children… Vegeta gagged again.

Children no older than himself he saw being shredded with the claws of the squadron's captain. He saw the terror and pain in their eyes and heard their shrieks of agony as they were disemboweled. Most of them mercifully lost consciousness before they were blasted into oblivion. Vegeta found himself working harder and faster than he ever had before to reach as many civilians as he could to kill them quickly. And cleanly. He was revolted by the methods used by the others. Saiyans were not known for their mercy, but they weren't complete monsters. Not when they were killing someone defenseless; there was no honor in making their deaths particularly miserable.

"Here, monkey, you hungry?" one of the purple-skinned reptilian aliens asked as he shoved a dismembered baby's body into his hands.

Vegeta looked at the mangled body and felt bile rising in his throat. He normally wasn't above eating his victims if he was hungry enough, but for some reason the thought of eating that infant repulsed him. He swallowed the rising bile back and dropped the bloody body on the ground, ignoring the taunting laughter of the six members of the squadron. He didn't know why he'd been sent on a mission with them. Normally he was accompanied only by Nappa and Raditz. They were their own elite squadron. Being stuck with such morons was degrading.

"Clean up this mess," he spat. "Frieza will be angry if he can't sell the planet because there's too much gore smeared across its surface."

The other aliens grumbled as they went to work blasting each body. He was only eight years old, but he was undoubtedly many times stronger than each of them. Even if they were to gang up on him, they would still be outmatched. They knew they had to listen to his command.

Vegeta opened his eyes and stared up into the concerned blue eyes of Mrs. Brief. She was kneeling at his side and gently shaking his shoulders to wake him up. He pushed her away, somewhat gently, and rolled over before emptying his stomach of all its contents. When he was done retching he sat back on his knees and tried to control his trembling body. He was exhausted. That memory was one of the more disgusting ones that periodically haunted him. He later figured that was probably why Frieza made him go with those soldiers. To scar his mind with such a hideous sight forever.

"Oh, Vegeta honey, are you alright?" Mrs. Brief asked, rubbing his back soothingly.

He nodded weakly and spat into the grass to get rid of the bitter taste lingering in his mouth. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and fell over onto his back. His head was spinning and he could hardly see straight. All he knew was that his stomach hurt, he was tired, his mouth tasted terrible, and Mrs. Brief was there with him. For some reason, that last part comforted him, knowing she was there and wouldn't take advantage of his weak state. The next thing he knew she was gathering him up in her arms and she was carrying him out of the garden. His eyes drifted closed as exhaustion overtook him.

Vegeta woke up a while later in his own room. He stared up at the ceiling as he gathered his bearings before turning his head to the side when he heard a noise. His eyes widened a little when he saw the blue-haired girl looking back at him with a small frown. He groaned and closed his eyes again, then felt a cold, wet cloth on his forehead. It felt good.

"Hey there," Bulma whispered as she patted his forehead and cheeks with the cool cloth, wiping away the beads of sweat.

"What happened?"

"Mom found you in the garden. She said you were screaming and then you got sick, so she brought you up here to rest. She's downstairs making you some soup." Bulma continued patting his face with the cloth, glad to see him relaxing with the pleasant sensation.

"I don't get sick," he rasped.

"That's not what I heard," she teased. She bit her lip when she saw him scowl. Maybe now wasn't the time to poke fun at him. He was probably feeling miserable enough without it. She rested the cloth on his forehead and sat back in the chair she had pulled up to the side of his bed. "Is there anything I can get you?"

He cracked his eyes open and looked at the girl before swallowing. His throat was dry and scratchy. "Water."

She nodded and left his room to go fetch him a glass of water. He watched her go before turning onto his side and closing his eyes again. The flashback he had was running through his mind again and he felt a familiar wave of nausea overcome him. He shot out of bed and practically flew to his bathroom where he dry heaved into the toilet. His stomach hurt even worse since it had nothing to force out. He groaned and sat down in front of the toilet, wrapping his arms around the cold porcelain bowl.

His tail stretched out behind him and twitched from side to side as he panted to regain his breath. His body shook with the tension in his muscles and he swallowed repeatedly to keep from drooling as he continued salivating heavily. He didn't have anything left in his stomach to throw up, but his body was still preparing for the next onslaught of retching.

"Vegeta? You in here?"

He sighed and grunted to let the girl know where he was. She came in holding a glass of water and nearly dropped it when she saw him pathetically clinging to the toilet. He was pale and sweaty and looked absolutely awful. She kneeled down next to him and handed him the glass of water.

He accepted the water and stared at it for a while before shrugging and gulping it down. The cool liquid soothed his burning throat as it went down and he could practically feel his body temperature leveling out with it. Why he was burning up so bad he didn't know. Normally, his memories didn't have such a strong effect on him unless he was sleeping when they happened.

"Feel better?" she asked when he set the glass down on the floor between them.

"Hn." He leaned back on his arms and took a deep breath.

Bulma gave him a lopsided smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "I know you said you don't get sick, but maybe you should see a doctor?"

Vegeta shook his head. "I'm not sick. I just…remembered…" he shook his head again as he trailed off, not wanting to finish that sentence. There was no reason to tell her what he was thinking that made him regurgitate his lunch.

She shrugged, stood up, and held out her hand to help him up. He glanced at her hand and rolled his eyes. He could get up on his own without her pitiful help. Just to prove it, he batted her hand away and rose to his feet. He brushed his shorts off with his hands and walked back into his room and collapsed on the bed. While he wasn't sick, he was still very tired. The upheaval of so much food was hard on his body.

Bulma followed him and sat on the edge of his bed to watch over him. When her mother left him to go make soup she was given the duty of playing nurse until she returned to take care of him. Not that Bulma really minded. She still liked spending time with Vegeta even if he was a mean little cuss and didn't take kindly to having her around.

"Why are you still here?"

She chuckled a little and ran her hand through his feathery mane of hair. "You can call me Nurse Bulma. I'm here to take care of you until my mom comes back."

Vegeta snorted and stretched his arms over his head as he yawned. Bulma was surprised and how long his canines were. He looked like an animal. A shudder ran through her body. He pulled his shirt off and tossed it across the room where it landed in his dirty laundry hamper. It was soaked with sweat. He laid back on the bed with his arms crossed under his head.

Bulma's eyebrow quirked when she saw his bare chest. Again she was stunned by his well-defined muscles. He was surely too young to look so…ripped. But, more fascinating still, was the myriad scars marring his otherwise smooth skin. She reached out to trace one, but one of his hands was gripping her wrist and holding it away from his body before she knew what was happening.

"Vegeta?" she squeaked.

"Do not touch me."

She yanked her arm free and scowled at him. "Fine. But at least tell me how you got all those scars."

"No."

"Please?"

He sighed heavily and pulled a sheet up over himself. If he blocked her view of his body, maybe her curiosity would fade. Unfortunately, her curiosity could rival his own and would not be dampened so easily. She crossed her arms and waited for him to answer her question.

"Come on, just tell me."

He growled low in his throat and turned on his side facing away from her. "Many of them are from fights."

"And the rest?"

"Beatings."

Bulma was dumbstruck. She had gathered earlier that he was abused wherever he was from, but she had no idea that it was bad enough to leave so many scars all over his body. Some of them looked like they were from pretty nasty injuries, too. And what scars weren't from being beaten were from fighting. Fighting with who, or what? An angry rhinoceros? Or a pack of vicious porcupines? She had no idea how someone so young could have gotten into fights violent enough to scar his body so badly.

"You know, whoever did this to you could go to prison for abusing you."

Vegeta scoffed and curled into the fetal position. "Don't be foolish. He's never going to prison. It doesn't matter. Someday he'll pay for what he's done to me. When I'm strong enough, I will repay him in kind. And then I'll do what he never had the balls to do to me. I'm going to kill him."

"You shouldn't joke about that."

"Who's joking? I meant every word I said."

Bulma frowned and shook her head. He was all talk. No eleven year-old boy would really be planning on murdering someone, even if that person did beat him when he was younger. She refused to believe he would really follow through on his threats if he were able to.

"Now leave. I want to sleep."

Bulma shrugged and stood up, still looking at the lump under the covers. She wanted to talk to him more, but if he was as sick as he looked then he needed his rest. "I'll tell mom not to disturb you. You can let us know when you're ready to eat." She turned and left his room.

Vegeta released a breath he didn't know he had been holding when he heard the door click shut. He was expecting her to put up more of a fight when he told her to get out. Usually she had something to say about him demanding she get away from him. He was grateful that for once in her life she decided to listen to him and go without any arguments. A few minutes later he fell asleep.

Bulma came back into his room about an hour later to check up on him. He was still curled up in bed, and from what she could tell he was sleeping soundly. At least he wasn't having another nightmare. She sat down in the chair next to his bed and propped her feet up on it. After waiting a few minutes for him to wake up, she started rocking the chair back on the back two legs as she thought about what to do next with his scouter.

He rolled over suddenly, scaring her enough to make her jump back and lose balance. She fell backward in the chair and grunted as she hit the floor. She rubbed the back of her head and got back up to her feet and set the chair upright. When she sat back down in it she saw Vegeta's piercing black eyes glaring at her.

"Oh, hey," she said, laughing nervously, "Didn't mean to wake up you. Sorry 'bout that."

He rolled his eyes and sat up. "Whatever."

Bulma coughed. "Well, anyway, are you hungry yet?"

"Hn."

"Alright then," she said, standing up again, "I'll go get some soup for you. Be right back."

Vegeta kicked the covers off and got out of bed. He went to the bathroom to relieve himself, but stepped on the glass that was still on the floor. He winced in pain when a large shard of glass pierced his foot. Immediately blood spurted out of the wound.

"Just great," he muttered. With a shrug, he did what he went into the bathroom to do, then put his foot on the counter next to the sink. Carefully, he pulled the piece of glass out of his foot and threw it in the trash. That done, he hopped onto the counter and sat with his foot in the sink and washed his foot until it was satisfactorily clean. It continued bleeding, but he wasn't all that concerned about it. He'd suffered worse than that.

Bulma came back into his room with a steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup only to find that he wasn't in bed anymore. "Vegeta?"

She set the soup on the table next to his bed and looked around the room. She saw that the bathroom door was ajar and went over to it. She peeked in and saw Vegeta on the floor in front of the sink digging through the cupboard underneath.

"Vegeta?"

"Girl, where is the damn first aid kit?"

She blinked a few times. First aid kit? Why would he need that? She opened the door wider and gasped when she saw blood all over the floor and counter. "Oh my Kami, what did you do to yourself?"

He cringed as her voice raised an octave. "Nothing much. I just need some damn bandages."

The top half of his body disappeared in the cupboard as he crawled in to reach the first aid kit he saw at the very back. He pulled it out and sat on the floor with his back leaning against the cupboard. He opened the kit and pulled out a roll of gauze bandages and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.

He opened the bottle of hydrogen peroxide and poured it over the hole in his foot. Bulma tried to snatch it out of his hand when she saw what he was doing. "Vegeta! Don't do that! You're only supposed to use that on superficial wounds!"

"Shut up. It won't hurt me." He upended the bottle over his foot and only winced a little as it stung his open wound. When he was satisfied that his foot was thoroughly disinfected he wrapped the bandage around his foot a few times and secured it in place so it was applying a good amount of pressure to stop the bleeding.

"You should really go to the hospital for that."

"It'll heal fine on its own." Vegeta stood up and tentatively put his weight on his foot. There was some discomfort, but nothing unbearable. He walked back into his room and sat on the edge of his bed. He grabbed the bowl of soup from the nightstand and, ignoring the spoon, drank the soup out of the bowl.

"Your manners are terrible." Bulma sat down in the chair by his bed and watched him quickly ingest the soup.

He swallowed the last of the soup and set the bowl back down on the table. "I need more."

"How can you eat so much all the time anyway? It's inhuman!"

He smirked and flicked his tongue over his long canine. "I'll take that as a compliment. Now go get me more food, nurse."

Grumbling, Bulma went downstairs to get another bowl of soup for her houseguest. He was making himself a pain on purpose, she was sure of it. When she returned to his room he was sitting in bed with his injured foot propped up on a pillow and he was studying the diagrams she drew while taking apart his scouter.

He took the soup from her and drank it as he had done before. He was still hungry but he didn't feel like waiting for her to get him more, so he didn't say anything. Anyway, dinner would be ready soon enough and then he could eat his fill.

"What're you looking at?" Bulma asked as she sat on the bed next to him.

"Diagrams."

She looked at the pictures she'd drawn and wondered if he was really understanding what he was looking at. So far she hadn't explained these new ones to him and she had notes written in English using words she hadn't taught him yet. She looked at him, but his eyes were roving over the picture and he had a crease of concentration between his brows. She knew better than to interrupt his thoughts, so she waited for him to start asking questions.

Finally, he set the notebook aside and asked, "How long will it take to make all these parts?"

"Probably a few weeks if I work on it a little every day."

He frowned. "That's too long."

"What? Are we on some sort of time limit?" she asked.

"Of sorts. I need this done as soon as possible."

"Why?"

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I need this to work so I can get back…home… as soon as possible. The longer I'm gone the worse it is for me."

"But you don't have to go back! Vegeta, you're welcome to stay here as long as you want."

He shook his head. "No, I can't stay here! Brat, you don't understand. I have to go back. They're going to hunt me down anyway, I have no choice but to return. And the sooner I get back, the less I'll be punished for my absence."

"If this thing helps you go back, then I'm not going to fix it. I won't let you go back there if they're going to hurt you!" Bulma jumped off the bed and grabbed the notebook. She wasn't going to let him see it and try to figure it out if she could help it.

"Stupid girl. I can fix it myself then."

She frowned at him. "Not without my help."

Vegeta glared at her. "Your assistance is no longer required. I know the diagrams and I can use them to fix this myself. It might take a little longer, but at least it'll get done."

"You won't remember them."

Vegeta tapped his finger against his temple and smirked. "It's all locked away right here. I never forget anything."

"You have photographic memory?"

He looked at her blankly.

"I mean, you can remember things exactly as they were?"

"Hn."

"I can't believe this. What can't you do?"

"I've never been very talented at singing."

"I'm serious!"

"So am I."

Bulma scowled at Vegeta and tucked the notebook under her arm as she grabbed his soup bowl off the nightstand. "Whatever. Don't forget to clean up the bathroom. There's blood and glass all over in there."

He scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest. "Tell your crazy mother to take care of it."

"She's not your maid!"

"She always takes care of the cleaning."

Bulma huffed and turned on her heel to leave his room. "Fine, but she'll probably make you go to the doctor when she sees how much blood you lost."

His eyes widened a little. "Alright! I'll do it." He was still grumbling when she shut the door behind her with a triumphant smirk.

A/N: I know there hasn't been a lot of "action" in this story, but it'll come, eventually. Be patient with me! I also hope I can update faster in a few days. I have three days of classes left before I'm officially done with college, and then I should have more than enough time to write. :)

dbzluver9000: There will probably be some romance between them eventually, but not for a long, long time. They're just kids!