CHAPTER 12
Ada did not sleep that night. Instead, after collapsing onto her bed, bearing an immense smile stretching from one ear to the other, she lay awake, turning from side to side for several hours. She gazed out her window at the moon and even let a giggle escape her lips once or twice. After several hours of tossing about, Ada got out of bed, grabbed some leftover casserole from the refrigerator, and set to work with pen and paper at the small desk in her room. She wrote without pause for most of the night, completing her new story shortly after four a.m. Still possessing an uncanny amount of energy, Ada made herself breakfast and ate it atop the roof of her Grandpa Gohan's shrine. She could not remember the last time she had stopped to take in the sunrise over the mountains. The girl mentally chided herself for not always appreciating that she lived in one of the most astoundingly beautiful places in the world.
The ensuing twelve-hour workday presented a problem, as Ada, by noon, had fallen asleep on a rooftop she was helping to mend only to be promptly awoken by a fellow volunteer. The sun was relentless in spite of the coming change of season, and between the heat and her exhaustion, all of the otherworldly happiness of the night before crumbled into a grumpy disquietude that launched Ada into an anxious, agitated conversation of the mind.
As Ada continued to drive nails into two-by-fours and then into shingles, progressing slowly from one end of the roof to the other, her head swam with troubling thoughts. Trunks had shown up at her house so suddenly, his reason apparently being to sweep Ada off her feet. She had let him. She had been so angry only twenty-four hours before their encounter, yet she had let him. And she had loved it. Ada frowned, unwarranted shame clouding her perception. She was the strong, independent one, the reliable, mature-beyond-her-age bookworm, the warrior; such had been Ada's self-defining mode of thought for years. Letting some…some boy…materialize out of thin air and wrap his arms about her waist, letting him kiss her…somehow seemed to weaken that image. It made her no better, she began to fear, than girls like Louisa.
Her cheeks grew rosy as she considered that the kiss with Trunks had been her first with anyone, and that, despite her nineteen years, she knew nothing of romance. As a young girl, she had asked her mother about boys from time to time out of simple curiosity, and she always got the same response: "Sweetie, your father and I fell in love the moment we saw each other. Sure, we were just kids…but I knew. And the next time I saw him, I married him! All of this 'dating' business that everyone talks about these days seems like a waste of time. You're either willing to spend the rest of your life with a person or you aren't. I hardly think that a year of going out to dinner with someone can help you make that decision…"
Ada rolled her eyes and shuddered at the prospect of having a similar conversation with her mother again. The only other source of her relationship knowledge came from the self-proclaimed goddess of love, Ms. Bulma Brief, and Ada felt justifiably skeptical of the inventor. Ideal relationships don't usually include letting an evil, horny alien prince screw you and subsequently father a child with whom he wants no association, Ada mused as she pried the top from a crate full of roofing tiles.
So what, then, was Ada to do? How was she to act around Trunks? Perhaps, she thought, the bottom falling out of her stomach, he had only acted romantically toward her because he had broken up with Louisa and needed someone to fill the gap for a while. She pondered what else someone like Trunks could possibly want with a girl like her.
Her thinking was not intentionally negative or demonstrative of low self-esteem; Ada knew herself to be a prize for the guy who finally showed that he could handle her. Yet, Trunks was…well…Trunks. He was very nearly the strongest person in the universe with an unusual and exceptional talent in swordplay. With severe features balanced against soft coloring, he was remarkably handsome. The man had the brains of an engineering genius and the heart of lion. Despite all of these things, traits that, Ada imagined, would make anyone cocky (and rightfully so), Trunks was gentle, earnest, caring, selfless, and, as an added bonus, perhaps as psychologically damaged as Ada.
"Hey, Miss Goo Goo Eyes!"
"Huh?" Ada snapped her head toward the source of the noise, the smile on her face fading into confusion.
"I asked if you could hand me those towels," said a large middle-aged man working several feet away from her.
"Oh," she replied, grabbing a bucket beside her and passing it his way. "Sure thing." He nodded in thanks and chuckled at little, presumably at Ada. Ignoring him, she wiped the sweat from her brow and began another row of shingles.
There was always the possibility, Ada realized, that Trunks' intentions had been perfectly pure. Perhaps he had broken things off with Louisa not only because she annoyed him but because he wanted to be with Ada. Maybe the kiss hadn't been a meaningless display of affection. Maybe Trunks truly had feelings for her but had not known how to properly express them. If that were the case (Even though it almost certainly is not, Ada reminded herself.), then what did the events of the evening before really mean? Did he want there to be something between them? Something real, something solid? Ada wondered gloomily if, considering their circumstances, any kind of relationship would even be a possibility.
xxx
Trunks had been throwing punches around in an old Capsule Corporation warehouse for nearly eleven hours, yet he was still unable to clear his mind. He knew that Ada would suggest meditating to focus his thoughts, but that was just the problem: Ada. She was, undoubtedly, working away somewhere in the city, toting loads of destroyed brick around or constructing underground shelter homes, probably without giving him a moment's thought. Still in slight shock at his own gumption, Trunks continuously replayed in his mind the previous night. He had actually done it; he had kissed her, had emptied himself of some of the insanity that had been building up within, had shown her how much she meant to him.
After returning home, he had stayed up all night just thinking about it, too content with reality to allow his dreams to take its place. Not until he started training that morning had Trunks begun to doubt himself. Perhaps, he thought, his mind was simply tired from lack of sleep and his healing injuries. There was, however, the possibility that the darker thoughts that were now plaguing him contained some truth that needed to be considered. He had, he grudgingly admitted to himself now, given Ada no warning before kissing her. Trunks hadn't run the back of his hand delicately along her face or whispered sweet nothings into her ear. If he had allowed her the time to think about what was happening, would she have still returned the kiss? Trunks wondered if he had cheapened the moment by not giving her the time to truly consider her feelings.
The young warrior fell into a pattern of block-punch-block-punch and tried to repeat it as quickly as possible while still fretting over Ada. She had kissed him back, Trunks thought, and willingly, so there was certainly a chance of her actions toward him being genuine. Maybe she really did feel something for him. So what then? he mused. Where do we go from here? Despite his past endeavors in the dating world, Trunks knew that he was about as schooled in the art of romancing a beautiful woman as he had been at the age of twelve.
He stopped suddenly, grimacing at what he considered his own growing weakness. He was supposed to be training to defeat the androids, a task that would take nothing less than his absolute devotion, and yet his mind could not have been farther away. If Trunks wished to make any progress before his muscles began screaming at him to quit for the night, he would have to try focusing his energy again. The young Saiyan stood perfectly still, letting the beads of sweat rolling down his forehead drip onto his eyelids. He peered into his ki and realized very quickly that the source of his troubles was approaching him in the flesh. She was close, perhaps making her way into the warehouse.
Upon hearing the echoing sound of a door closing nearby, Trunks knew that he was right.
xxx
"What are you doing? How do you plan on making any progress training in an environment that offers no obstacles?" Would it kill you to be nice for once? The guy's going to run away if you can't stop being such a bitch. Ada walked through the warehouse door and stopped near the center of the room, smirking and folding her arms, hoping against all odds that Trunks would think she had already forgotten about the kiss.
"Well," he responded, tongue-tied and rather embarrassed at how right Ada was, "I didn't really have any other options. And I've already had some trouble with my wounds today as it is; any outside pressure probably would have been too much."
"What kind of trouble?" Ada inquired, concern becoming evident in her face despite her efforts against it. "Did they reopen? Have you checked your bandages in a while?" She approached him, gently took hold of his injured arm, and motioned for him to sit down on the floor with her. Trunks did so, allowing her to examine the slowly-healing mess while trying to keep his ki from exploding at her touch.
"The bandages might be destroyed," she concluded after picking at the gauze, "but your arm is actually doing okay."
Smiling at Ada's evident relief, Trunks said, "It's not like I was able to do anything too intense today, anyway. I haven't been able to focus."
"Oh?" She let go of his arm after quickly rewrapping his wound in what remained of the bandage. "Why's that?"
Trunks gulped and stared blankly at her, clearly unsure of how to respond. Ada looked back at him, a little tickled at his disorientation. He wasn't at all the quiet, sure, confident fighter that she was used to; instead, he seemed distracted, perhaps even worried. It pained Ada to think that she just might be the cause of such a change.
"I was thinking," she blurted out, more to fill the silence than anything, "that I might train with you again. To help you, I mean. There are quite a few people at the volunteer sites, and it's not as though I'm making much of a difference…and even if I were…they'll be back soon enough, to destroy more, to kill more…I feel useless out there. But if I were helping you, then–"
"That would be great!" he exclaimed with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. Ada laughed a little.
"If you're sure –"
"Of course."
"Let me finish," Ada chided, frowning as she fought to force the next sentence from her mouth. "What I wanted to say was, 'If you're sure I won't be a distraction'."
"What do you mean?" Trunks asked, moving closer to her but clearly trying to pass it off as a series of minor stretches. Ada was not fooled. She decided to save him the trouble and leaned over, giving her weight almost entirely to the arm beside Trunks and touching her shoulder to his. He flinched slightly in surprise.
"I mean," she sighed, "that you need to concentrate on your training. And I don't want you to get sidetracked by…by whatever is happening…" Ada used her hand to gesture awkwardly between Trunks and herself, flushing as she did so. She felt exceedingly childish at her inarticulateness when it came to the man sitting beside her.
"It's worse," Trunks replied, his own cheeks reddening, "when you aren't around."
"That's really very sweet of you, but…today, I got to thinking that maybe I made a mistake by…by letting you kiss me…" Ada's voice shook from nerves. She wanted nothing more than to lean over and kiss him again, this time until her lips were tired and swollen, and yet she was struggling with whether or not to end everything that was just beginning to blossom. "Like I already said, I might only be a distraction…and neither of us really has the effort to put into…into this…"
"Ada," Trunks said calmly, stopping her flustered babble. "What is it that you're so afraid of?"
"Hm?" she blinked, completely unprepared for the question. "What am I…what?"
"I know that you don't really believe anything you just said to me," he explained. "So why are you trying to run all of a sudden? What are you so afraid of?"
"I…I'm not…" She trailed off, mouth open and eyes vacant but troubled. After brushing several strands of hair behind her left ear, Ada shifted uncomfortably and pulled her knees to her chest. The couple sat in silence for a few moments, neither looking at the other.
"I won't leave."
Ada snapped her gaze to Trunks and narrowed her eyes. She was on the defensive, and he seemed to be rather frightened by it.
"You're leaving in a year!" Ada shot at Trunks, pretending to have misunderstood his meaning completely.
"And then I'll come back," he pleaded. She looked at him skeptically. He quickly corrected, "I promise I'll come back."
"You know you can't make that promise," she countered in a voice hardly louder than a whisper.
He frowned at her words and opened his mouth to say something several times before shutting it again, defeated. Out of ideas, Trunks simply took Ada's hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze.
"Ada…why not just give it a chance? If you decide you don't want to be with me anymore, you can go. I won't even ask why," he said.
"I hope you realize that once you have me, you're keeping me. There won't be any opting out," she countered in a tone only half playful. Trunks smiled slyly at her, and an instant later, Ada felt his lips crush her own. The unexpected vivacity in his kiss set her entire body aflame, and she impulsively braced herself against him. Trunks clutched at her back with his tired fingers and pulled her to him until he could feel her chest heaving up and down beside him.
Ada tensed at the spark that ignited low in her stomach and burst into a feeling that was, until then, quite foreign to her: desire. She did not understand the intense want she had suddenly begun to harbor for Trunks and was terrified of its potential power. As he kissed her more deeply, the heat of the flame only grew. Trunks bit down gently on her lower lip and then eased his tongue into her mouth and began exploring it with tender passion. Ada smiled inwardly at the realization that he probably had no clue what he was doing in spite of the seeming finesse with which he handled their embrace. It didn't matter. To Ada, it was perfect.
She briefly registered a noise from somewhere in the distance – perhaps a car whizzing past the complex – but ignored it for fear of pulling away from the kiss. She soon realized her mistake.
"Hey, Trunks!" a familiar voice called from the other side of the warehouse. "Dinner's rea–"
A moment's silence. Trunks snapped his head away from Ada and toward the source of the noise. Bulma Brief was standing there in open-mouthed speechlessness.
xxx
Postscript: I've got a bit of housekeeping business to mention. First of all, I'll be leaving for school again in just a few days (I know everyone asks this, but, seriously, where did summer go?) and am going to be quite busy until then. Once I'm at school, I'll be ridiculously busy. Thus, my updates will become much, much more sparse. Do not lose faith in me, however, for I will still be updating. You may not see another chapter for an entire month, but I promise that I won't abandon this story. I've come too far, and I love it entirely too much. In the meantime, please keep the reviews coming! I'll probably be rather slow in responding to those, too, but I'll still get back to you on them because I absolutely adore reading them. Other than that I wanted to give you an idea of what's coming next for our heroes. I won't be writing the rest of the three-year gap in as much detail as I've been writing; entire blocks of months will probably be skipped when it gets to that point. I'll still write about a few key things that happen within that timeframe, though, and will get back to more detail when Trunks heads back to the past. I think that's all…goodness, I should hope that's all. As always, thank you, thank you, thank you for your support!
Ah yes, and I've gotten over 1,000 hits, which is far above my expectations when I set out on this project. To celebrate, I offer you this slightly altered fan favorite:
"Vegeta, what does the Story Traffic page say about the hit count?"
"IT'S OVER ONE THOUSAND!!!"
Somehow, I'll never get tired of that joke.