Chapter 18

Trunks hadn't slept the whole night through in over six months now. Thankfully being half-Saiyan, he had an amazing physical endurance, but it was definitely beginning to take its toll mentally. Actually, it really wasn't the lack of sleep, it was the ache which accompanied it, that was driving him mad. He didn't know any other way to think of it – he felt hollow, yet like he was on fire. He could barely think straight when it hit him. His mother had checked him for every toxin and poison, every sickness or malady in existence, but found nothing.

Then one night he woke up screaming. Pain, despair, loss – memories that weren't his own jostled around, fighting each other to be seen inside his head. People he recognized, and a few he didn't – all of them were supposed to be dead – interacting with him, laughing with him, pulling away from him. He was all alone – he would die alone. What was happening? One of the most prominent memories was watching himself(?) grow up, become so much like his father that it was ironic how they barely got along – but he was not at all like he should be... Should be? Sweet. Kind. Willing to risk everything for the people you love. In love with me, not him... Pain that threatened to tear vital organs in two at having to watch him grow up to be an ass, to be not him, to know he would never see him again...

Trunks was curled up in ball on the bed, crying as he tried to sort out what was happening... Then a particular memory of his father surfaced... His father? Explained to him that Saiyans were vastly different than humans, the power and battle lust being the most obvious, but that they were, um, physically different too... WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON! Trunks shouted inside his own head. His father died when he was a baby, and the one from the other dimension had certainly never told him about Saiyan mating cycles and bonding- wait, what was that? The memory started over. Oh, how convenient, he could make them repeat, just not stop, fucking perfect...

"What do you mean Vegeta?" (Something was familiar about that voice...)

"I mean that there's really no telling how much the cycle will affect you, with you only being a half-breed, but the bonding is an instinct that runs as deep as the need for blood – they're actually kin to each other since the bond is sealed by biting and drawing blood from your mate."

He couldn't tell if it was himself or the memory of this other person who paled and felt like they were going to feint. Vegeta finished explaining some of the benefits of being bonded, along with how it would basically be instant death for him if he bonded someone and they died.

"I would not normally bother to be the one to tell you this information, but since your baka of a father's gone..." Vegeta started angrily and then trailed off.

Gohan. Oh Kami, GOHAN... He bolted upright in bed – he wasn't losing it, it was the bond, the bite Gohan had given him in a fit of power all those years ago. Either that or he was totally bat-shit crazy... No, he stopped trying to fight the flow of the memories, found that they couldn't have been from anyone but Gohan's perspective, and also that they flowed easier now. He wasn't trying to fight it. It was Gohan, and Gohan would always have any and every bit of him that he wanted. He felt a strange sense of pride that Gohan had entrusted him with his pain, but wondered what was happening to him to have triggered this. Some of those memories were pretty dark. It made something deep inside him want to kill indiscriminately to feel Gohan slipping, falling, hitting rock bottom hard. How could they be so inconsiderate? How could they not see it?

By the time the flow cut off, Trunks was pissed. How could he have let this happen? The one person in the world that he had ever loved, and he had just felt him to his fate all alone? He had fought with himself over the years about going back to see "them" (him), but always ended up hearing his mother's voice in his reasoning... It was selfish, it would just screw up their world – his world needed him here. Duty warred within him, probably the only time Gohan would be put up against the earth... Trunks sighed heavily, soaked in sweat and mind racing, wishing he could talk to Gohan in person. He had so many questions now... He tried to reach out to him somehow, someway through the bond, but he didn't know how to work it, couldn't feel anything different. Why did fate hate him so much? What had he ever done to it?

That night steeled his resolve to finally go back, to see the boy who was now the man who he belonged to... He probably shouldn't think of it in those terms, he was a King now, after all...but it just seemed right. He tried not to let his doubts overshadow the decision in his mind. Gohan was obviously in need of him there, the memories spoke for themselves; but what came next? Trunks could not just abandon his time and people, would Gohan be willing to leave everything he had ever known to come back with him? How royally would that screw up his time-line here?

He was back at the old CC dome before he knew it – it had been turned into a museum a few years back. The capsule that contained the time machine was hidden inside. He had left it charged and ready to go – 21 years ago... When it burst from it's capsule, he check the battery bank, and found it was depleted. Capsules were supposed to be a stasis, but he doubted his mom or anyone else and found and/or used it – time travel didn't exactly follow the normal laws of physics, so it was probably just that they had lost their charge over the years... Damn. It took ridiculously, unfeasibly, long to charge the stupid thing, almost an entire month for one round-trip's worth of juice. He would just have to endure the lack of sleep, burning ache, unfinished bond, and Gohan's memories floating around in his head while dodging his mothers' questions for the next four weeks. Fuck.