Chapter 18

For several moments, Trunks could not breathe. The air was terribly thick, and the intense gravity certainly didn't help. The white light of the chamber made it difficult to see.

"It's hot," he said. "There's less air, and the gravity is different." He blinked and began walking toward the edge of the living area. Suddenly, the young man stopped.

"What? I don't believe it!" Trunks breathed in astonishment. "There's nothing here! We're surrounded by total emptiness! We're floating in a gigantic void…what kind of place is this?"

"Too much for you?" Vegeta jeered from behind him. Trunks turned his head a bit and gritted his teeth.

"Of course not! But…now I know why few can stand a whole year in this place. It's…" he searched for the right word, if such a thing was possible when faced with the sight before him. "…overwhelming."

"It is," Vegeta confirmed with a smirk. "It is."

Trunks gulped. An entire year? Here? And not only that, but trying at the same time to maintain the wall in front of his father? I must not let my father see that I am afraid, he thought as he steeled himself. This is my chance to prove myself to him. But I don't know if I can spend an entire year in this place! It's too much for me- it's too much!

He squeezed his eyes shut and, in about five seconds' time, decided that he could do it, that he would do it, and that he would give his father no excuse to speak poorly of him.

One year.

Moments later, Trunks felt himself falling, and everything fading to black.

He could barely open his eyes. The left was nearly swollen shut already, and the right, he could tell, was going to follow suit. He could not find the strength to wipe away the blood and sweat that had pooled beneath his lids after having dripped down his forehead, let alone to pull his crumpled body from the floor.

The floor. Ten minutes before, the most immaculate white he had seen. It was now covered in vomit and blood. Vomit. The taste in his mouth.

Vegeta's attack had been so unexpected, so lightning-fast. And then had come another, just as Trunks tried to find his footing. And another. And another.

His right eye was forcing its way shut now. He turned it upward. There, covered in a pinkish haze thanks to the gash above Trunks' brow, was his father. Smirking. Chuckling, almost.

Who is this man?

Trunks gasped for air. None came. Then, a moment before he lost consciousness, he heard himself whisper, almost inaudibly, One year.

xxx

Bulma hadn't slept a wink. As she knocked lightly on her son's bedroom door, she rubbed her eyes and yawned. He and Ada probably hadn't dozed off either. Why in the world Trunks felt it necessary to rise so early was quite beyond his mother. Of course, he would want to leave at about the same hour in their time that he hoped to arrive in the past, just for ease of travel. It would, hopefully, reduce calculation error. But that was hours away. Six a.m. seemed a bit excessive. It was his journey, though, and Bulma was going to do it the way he wanted.

She sighed and knocked again. "Hey in there. Better put your clothes on; I'm coming in." She chuckled tiredly to herself. As if. Her son, the prude. Somehow she had managed to raise a kid that was making responsible decisions.

Bulma couldn't take all of the credit, she mused. Vegeta had done just as much to shape Trunks's thoughts on sexual responsibility.

"I don't know what you could possibly be up to–" She opened the door and stopped short, staring, dumbfounded, at the bed.

They were sleeping. They had actually gotten through the night without sitting around and fretting, or planning, or talking, or Kami knows what else. Bulma backed out of the room and slowly closed the door. Thirty more minutes wouldn't hurt anyone.

After all, she figured, they deserved as much time as they could have.

xxx

"I'm going to check the capsules one more time," Trunks heard from the uncharacteristically nervous woman behind him. He smirked and shook his head. He was sure that he would be a wreck himself right now if he hadn't been so distracted by Ada's own hurrying about. While his mother ran the final checks on the time machine, which was now on a small patch of grass just outside of the Capsule Corp. compound, Ada had been going through every other minute detail.

"They're probably in the same place you left them ten minutes ago," Trunks answered, approaching her from behind. He stretched his arms around her and pulled the capsule case from her shaking hands before gripping them in his own. Ada squeezed his fingers and took a deep breath, laying the back of her head against his chest.

"I know I'm being ridiculous."

"Everything's going to be fine. Time machine's in great shape. I'll be there and back before you have time to worry."

"It seems strange, you know – that you've spent the last three years preparing for a trip that's only going to last a day. For a fight that won't be more than a few hours, at worst," Ada replied.

"Mom and I both came out with the same answer in our calculations. The discrepancy in my return time will only be a couple days, max. I could be back by tonight, even. It all depends on how precise the time machine's nav calculations are."

They had had this conversation dozens of times. For Trunks, the trip would be less than a day. The battle with the androids in the past would be over before the sun set, and he would be on the way back to his own time. For those waiting for him, the time machine could return at any point in the next 68 hours (give or take 4.57 minutes, according to the calculations). Just a small trip. No worries. Just a little skirmish. He probably wouldn't break a sweat. Back before dinnertime, Trunks joked, whenever Ada started to bite her thumbnails in worry.

Ada turned to face him, eyes hard. Her hair was wet from the shower she had just finished, and black locks were tossed here and there about her bare shoulders. The simple white tank top she wore was, like every other piece of clothing anyone on the planet owned, very old. It was fit for a young adult, not a grown woman, and the fabric stretched tautly over her chest. Trunks had, months ago, mastered the art of taking her in with a glance rather than a stare. If his eyes lingered a moment too long, she would catch him and give him playful hell for hours ("My face is up here, sweetheart.").

"Come back to me," she demanded quietly, gripping his forearms tightly.

Trunks took no time with his answer. He leaned down for a passionate kiss, taking her face in his hands before running them through her untamed hair. Ada responded hungrily, pressing herself against him and fastening her arms about his neck. After some moments, Trunks' lips wandered to Ada's jawline, then to her ear. Finally, he took her neck, relishing the feeling of her soft, cool skin against his tongue. All the while, he could feel Ada's ki climb higher and higher.

"Come back to me," she whispered into his hair.

She wanted him desperately. He felt her hands wandering about the hem of his shirt, but never actually grasping it. Trunks summoned all of his strength, every ounce of will he had, and planted one final, chaste kiss on her shoulder before pulling his head back to look at her again. Ada gave him a sad smile.

"Someday," she said, repeating the words he had used so many times before, "but not yet."

"I'm sorry," Trunks replied, pulling her to him in a hug.

"Don't be. I understand."

He smiled at her words, kind but false. She didn't understand, not really. She wasn't a bastard. Trunks would take no chances on bringing another like himself into the world. He had made up his mind long, long ago to do everything that his father didn't. If that meant denying himself Ada until he could marry her, until their future together was certain, so be it. He was not Vegeta. He was not Vegeta. I am not Vegeta.

"Hey there." Bulma wandered into the garage, pulling off her oily, blackened work gloves and wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. "All systems go. It's as ready as it'll ever be."

Ada opened her mouth to respond but found that she had nothing to say. Instead, she simply nodded and looked over at Trunks. For a moment, he, too, was unsure of how to respond. All systems go. He had been waiting, working, training for three years, and it was finally time.

"Right," he said, nodding firmly. He blinked and started looking around. Everything was in the time machine except what he would be carrying on his person, which meant, first of all, his jacket…he had just had it…Where is…?

Ada tapped him on the shoulder and, with a small smile, held up the familiar piece of denim clothing. He returned the smile and turned so that she could slip the jacket over him, as she was wont to do. She straightened the collar and brushed off the sleeves, then reached for the sword lying across the table next to them. She reached the straps over his shoulder and under his arm, respectively, and buckled them, then checked that it was secure in its sheath.

"Armed and ready, then?" he asked, turning to face her.

"Almost." Ada reached for the case of capsules that she had checked so many times that morning and slipped it into the front pocket of Trunks' jacket. She brushed a stray lock of lavender hair into place, then stepped back and gave him the once-over. Taking a deep breath, she folded her arms nervously and nodded. "Ready."

Trunks shifted his gaze to his mother, whose eyes were wet despite her feigned air of casual confidence. In that moment, she looked older than she ever had before. Every crease that lined Bulma's skin seemed twenty times deeper, as though all of the goodbyes she had ever been forced to say were carved into her brow.

I used to think that I was one of the lucky ones, she had once told her son, in a moment of despair. But there's no such thing. You can either be dead, or you can be alone. And I'm not dead yet.

Trunks embraced her. After returning the gesture, Bulma pulled back and looked her boy in the eyes. "Ready to go, kiddo?" After a nod and a smile, the three made their way to the sparse patch of grass in front of the remains of the old Capsule Corp. central building. Ten minutes later, Trunks was closing the glass covering atop the machine and firing up the engines.

He nodded down at his mother, who had decided the night before that she would not cry, and silently promised her that he was going to make her proud. Bulma gave her son a thumbs-up, a wink, and a smile, as though she were bidding her child a confident goodbye on his first day of school.

As the time machine began to lift into the air, Trunks turned his eyes on Ada. She looked so small from up there…Trunks had to remind himself that she wasn't the tiny, fragile girl he was seeing from his high seat but a woman who could take care of herself. Who would take care of herself, no matter what happened.

Come back to me.

Trunks thought of Ada's words and realized, for the first time in three years, that every promise he had made to her was meaningless. If destroying the androids in the past meant dying, or being unable to return, he would have no choice but to follow through with his original purpose. He would die, and die knowing that he had lied to her.

For her own good…she knew all along…there is no choice…

As a million thoughts swirled about Trunks' mind, each painfully adamant in its own way, he did a final systems check. Then, with the pull of a lever, the time machine vanished from the sky.

xxx

At the same second that the time machine vanished, so did Trunks. Body and soul.

And Ada was not ready for it.

His ki had disappeared completely, and she had never in her life felt that absence. Since her infancy, even when she was unaware what she was sensing when she felt human presences, she had felt that of Trunks. She had grown up with it, had come to recognize it as him, fully, completely, and unabashedly him, his essence, his…self. No matter the distance between them, it had been there, even faintly.

Even when they had stopped speaking after Gohan's death, there were nights that she would lay awake and meditate on the fact that she could feel Trunks. As lonely as she felt, she would never be alone because of him.

And he was gone. Gone.

Ada had only ever felt the same sensation when Gohan had died. But that had been different. He had been her brother, of course, and the most important thing in her life, but it was not the same. Over the past year, she had gradually allowed Trunks to break down every mental wall that she had built up to the point that his ki, it felt, had begun to flow together with her own. As if their ki reflected their closeness as a couple, his mental being had become more and more intertwined with hers. Its vanishing left a vacuum. Ada felt as though part of her own soul had been ripped away.

She could not fight the tears that began to well up in her eyes, nor could she seem to catch her breath. She grasped at her heart, as though the missing piece might have just broken off and could be caught before falling to the ground and shattering.

xxx

Trunks gave the city below a final look before engaging the final sequence in the time machine. The trip would take only a few minutes, and the potential error in calculations meant that the others very well could be in combat with the androids when he arrived. He had to be ready for anything. Taking a deep breath, he braced himself and pulled the lever.

The infinite blackness outside of the machine, he was ready for. The emptiness in himself, he was not.

It was immediate and jarring, causing him to gasp for air and throwing him hard into his seat.

Ada was…gone. Well he was gone, so of course she was gone…but…but she was gone.

It felt like nothingness, like a part of himself had been sliced away without warning.

But I've been on this trip before. Nothing like this happened then-

Trunks blinked and tried to catch his breath. Of course it hadn't happened then. The two of them had been…friends. Actually, they had hardly spoken since Gohan's death. And now…well…it suddenly became very clear how far things had come. Indeed, if they had wanted to, he wondered, would they have been able to turn back without leaving serious mental scars behind? Not that either of them had entered into the relationship lightheartedly, but neither of them had expected this, either.

He leaned back and breathed deeply, realizing he had perhaps a minute before arriving in the past. He had to be focused, ready to fight.

Yet, there was no Ada, and all that he could think about was the hollowness inside of him.

xxx

The hollowness. It had not receded, Trunks noted grimly as he sponged alcohol over the gash in his leg. When he had come to, dried blood on his face and on the floor around him, there had been half of a senzu bean lying next to him. A parting gift from Vegeta, he assumed, so that the young man would have the strength to carry himself to the medical supply cabinet in the bathroom.

How thoughtful, he grimaced. He finished bandaging himself and limped from the bathroom. There were two identical beds in the living quarters of the time chamber, built several feet apart from one another into the same wall. Each had a pair of curtains for privacy, and those on the right bed were drawn. Clearly, his father was losing no sleep over the day's events. Trunks made his way to the bed on the left. He contemplated fetching the capsule case that he'd left in the pocket of his jacket – Ada had packed him an extra pair of clothes, just in case – but found that showering and tending to his wounds had drained him of all the energy the senzu had supplied. He threw his bath towel to the ground and collapsed on the bed, pulling the curtains shut behind him.

Back before dinnertime, he mocked himself. Maybe for Ada, and for his mother. It would all be the same to them. He, on the other hand, would not be returning home for a year, and he would be spending that year with a man who had beaten him to the edge of death mere hours earlier. Just thinking about the flame-haired Saiyan in the bed next to him made Trunks tense and grit his teeth, rage flowing over him at both his father and the entire trip to the past. He was exhausted, but there would be no sleeping in his state. It had been, without a doubt, the worst several days of his life since Gohan's death, and all Trunks could do was lie awake and burn over every detail of them.

He had arrived in the past later than expected. Somehow, his calculations had been off. His mother hadn't caught the mistake either. So much for a genius family. By the time Trunks had found the others, the fight was half over, but not with the androids he knew. These were different. Besides that, Goku had only just fallen ill – weeks later than Trunks had anticipated. The situation had begun to fall apart before he could so much as get his bearings.

Less than an hour later, his father had blown his way into Dr. Gero's laboratory to discover that androids 17 and 18 had both been awakened, along with another unexpected monster- a "number 16". To Trunks' chagrin, Vegeta had then insisted on fighting the creatures. By the time it was over, the lot of the fighters were passed out next to a mountain highway. Trunks also had a sizeable chink in his sword, and Vegeta, an even bigger one in his pride.

The rest of the day had included the introduction of the creature Cell into the fray, the discovery of the blueprints to Android 17, the destruction of Dr. Gero's laboratory basement, and, perhaps most importantly, Goku's reawakening.

In a matter of an afternoon, everything Trunks had believed possible about the circumstances of the past timeline was changed. And there was every possibility his interference had caused it.

Perhaps to prove something to the man he called 'father' – or perhaps as a means of punishing himself for his meddling, he was still unsure which – he spent the next three days sitting atop a rock, waiting for his father, who was perched on a tall outcrop, to acknowledge his presence.

Trunks was angry, thirsty, starving, lonely, and more miserable than he had ever been…until he learned of what awaited him in the Room of Spirit and Time. If he returned home at all, if he managed to live through the battle with the androids and Cell, it would not be for another year.

An entire year, alone, for all intents and purposes.

He had not signed up for this.

He wanted to go home.

He wanted to lie in bed and bury his face in Ada's neck and apologize for his false promises. He wanted to remember what it felt like to have her ki within him, to hold onto her forever.

Trunks turned onto his side to face the wall and grimaced at the pain that shot through him. He could hear muffled snoring coming from the other bed. I don't suppose he'd answer if I asked how he manages to sleep at night…

And with that, Trunks managed to sleep himself.

He did not dream. He had never dreamt. Not since he was young.

But that night, he did.

xxx

A/N: Some dialogue at the beginning taken from DBZ dub episode 132, or 133. It's been a while since I wrote it. Please review- I hope you enjoyed the new (and long-coming) chapter!