A/N: Thanks for all the reviws and favs! Hope you like this next one.

I do not own anything.

Chapter 6

Sleepwalker

Thunder and lightning filled the night, and Uub couldn't sleep. He lay in the futon Mrs. Bulma offered him, but the feeling of the city noise vibrating through the floor, constant and tireless, didn't allow him to relax. He missed his village, and was eager to return to Goku's comforting and familiar presence. He felt trapped in that house with a bunch of strange people.

Realizing he wouldn't be getting any sleep, he got out of bed and left the room bare footed, leaving behind the sleeping Olong and Master Roshi. They were kind and generous toward him, like all the other members of the group (maybe except Pan, who still eyed him suspiciously at times) and it embarrassed him more than if they would have treated him unkindly.

A humming sound and flashing lights at the end of the corridor caught his eye. Curious, Uub trotted there silently and peered inside the room. Pan and Bra were sitting on the couch, covered in a blanket, watching flickering images that flashed over a device Uub had learned was call a "TV". He entered the room quietly and looked at the screen. The girls watched tensely as a shaken woman was approaching a half-opened door.

"Don't go in there!" Bra called in a strained voice.

The woman on the screen didn't listen to her. She opened the door, revealing a terrible masked man.

The woman screamed. Uub gasped in fright. The girls panicked and jumped off the couch in horror.

"Why are you sneaking behind us like that?!" Bra yelled at Uub, holding her chest in panic.

Uub wasn't listening to her. He jumped over the back of the couch and closer to the TV, where the woman was fleeing in terror from the masked man.

"She's in danger, we have to help her!" He cried, pressing his face to the screen. He tried to stab the man with his finger, but it didn't penetrate the surface as he had hoped.

The girls laughed.

"That's not funny! Don't you see, she's crying for help!"

Bra caught Uub's arm and pulled him back gently. "It's just a movie. It's not really happening." She sat him on the couch and Pan settled on his other side.

"I don't understand," he said, still suspecting that masked man, who was now out of sight. "So this guy didn't really want to hurt her?"

"It's all a show. Pretend," Bra continued to explain. She placed a bowl of puffed grains in his lap. "Watch and you'll understand everything."

Pan reached out and took a handful of seeds from the bowl. Uub imitated her, discovering that the salty dish was especially delicious. It was hard for him to worry about the fate of that woman, who apparently wasn't at all in danger, when the food was was so good.

"You never had popcorn before?" Pan asked him.

Uub realized she had been looking at him. It made him realize he was eating rudely, and he blushed in embarrassment. For some reason it made the girls laugh even more; Their laughter was contagious, and Uub found himself laughing as well.

They watched the film until its end, becoming angry with the people inside the box when they made stupid decisions, and becoming frightened when they felt that something bad was going to happen. By the end of the film Uub was full of questions, so they stayed up and talked into the night, until there was no more popcorn and Pan started to yawn every few minutes.

"Let's go to bed, mum would kill us if she know we were up so late," Bra said. To Uub's favor, she added, "She's not really going to kill us, it's just something you say about someone who's really angry with you..."

They left the room and crossed corridor to return to their rooms, keeping quiet. They halted suddenly when one of the doors opened and Trunks stepped out to the corridor. Bra was ready to give an excuse, but Trunks showed no interest in them - It was impossible for him to take any interest, because his eyes were closed. With a combination of curiosity and fear, Uub watched him making his way steadily and surely down the corridor.

"He's sleepwalking!" Pan whispered to them.

"Where's he going?" Bra asked, although no one had an answer. She started walking after her brother in silence. Uub and Pan joined, no less curious to find out where Trunks' sleeping mind was taking him.

He navigated the house corridors until he reached the back door, and without hesitation went out to the backyard. The rain stopped for now, leaving the earth wet and chilly. Silvery moonlight was shining between the clouds that drifted in the cool wind, playing with the shadows. The three watched as Trunks took off, flying into the night.

When Bra began to float Pan grabbed her arm. "Are you sure it's a good idea?"

"We need to bring him back," she replied. "Where can he be flying to at night? I think it's weird. And dangerous."

"I'm coming with you," Pan determined. "Uub, are you coming?"

Uub was surprised that Pan asked him. He nodded in willingness to help and the trio began flying in Trunks' wake.

The night was cold and the girls formed a faint halo of golden energy to keep themselves warm against the wind. Trunks' distant figure, silhouetted by the moonlight, showed no sign that he was noticing their energy. He continued to fly toward his unknown goal, unaware that he was being followed.

After a while he began to descend. They were very far from the city now, in a wooded and wild area. The open starry sky helped Uub feel more confident, and he led the girls to the ground, following Trunks. They cut trough the crowded, thick branches and were left in complete darkness. No light penetrated the trees. Pan lifted her hand above her head and created a small energy ball to illuminate the pitch black ground. They landed just a few steps from the barefoot Trunks, who was standing motionless on the forest floor.

"Trunks," Bra called to him. "Wake up!"

But Trunks didn't hear her, starting to walk through the woods. Bra ran and caught his arm. He pulled against her grip, and then, in an almost meaningless gesture, pushed her away with a force that caught her off guard. She was pushed back, and landed hard against a tree trunk.

Seeing her friend hurt, Pan sprang angrily and blocked Trunks' path.

"What's your problem?" She demanded loudly, gesturing to Bra, who was getting up painfully. "Wake up already!"

She threw a ball of energy at him. He pushed it aside with an instinct that wouldn't shame a waking person. The explosion broke a heavy branch overhead and the light went out.

In the absolute darkness Pan let out a cry of pain. Uub leaped blindly into action, feeling for her body to the ground, and found her lying motionless. The energy signs that belonged to Trunks and Bra were quickly moving away; Bra was undoubtedly following her brother.

Uub created an energy ball over the tip of his finger, and the warm light fell on Pan's unconscious form. Uub shook her gently. She opened her eyes to slits, but sank back into unconsciousness. Trunks apparently hit her on the head.

Uub loaded the younger girl on his shoulders gently and then surveyed his surroundings helplessly, not sure what he should do. He had to bring Pan to safety, but he couldn't leave Bra alone with Trunks when he was so unaware of his actions. Looking at Pan's face, he decided to stay. She looked young and incredibly gentle in her current situation, but he knew she would never forgive him if he abandoned her friend. Her dislike toward him was beginning to fade, and he didn't want to do anything that will make her look at him like she did on the day they met.

Cursing the thick forest and the absolute darkness, he began to follow Bra's energy sign. He was so concentrated on it that upon hearing a sound in the bushes he was extremely alarmed and prepared himself for a fight. But it was only a doe, watching him from the vegetation. He breathed with relief, dropping his hands. The doe was still there, watching him with big dark eyes, intently.

"Hello," he said. It comforted him to be able to talk to someone, or something, in that dark place. "Have you seen a girl with blue hair around here?"

The beautiful doe cocked her head as if she was able to understand him. She came over with light steps and sniffed Pan's head carefully. Then, for no obvious reason, she fled.

Uub tried to look for Bra's energy again, but he suddenly felt so tired that he found it difficult to concentrate. He yawned heavily. Feeling he was about to fall asleep, he shook his head and put Pan down for fear of dropping her. As he laid the girl gently on the ground he studied her face, pushed strands of black hair away from her eyes. Her small straight nose was dotted with delicate freckles. He hadn't noticed that before.

A bitter smell suddenly came over him. A red stain began to spread on the ground near him. Uub looked up in shock - A dead body was lying in a puddle of blood near them. His mother.

He cringed away from her wide and empty eyes, horrified, and stumbled and fell to the wet ground. As he tried to crawl away he hit something soft. Pulling back, he looked at his hands, which were now stained with blood. He had tripped over the body of his younger brother.

He jumped to his feet in horror. His sisters were also lying dead in pools of blood, all around him. His neighbors, his cousins, the elders - all of them were dead at his feet.

"I've trained you so you could protect them," said a familiar voice behind him. He turned sharply to see Goku standing in the middle of the forest, his fists on his hips and his face grim. "I left my family to make you a strong fighter. But you couldn't even save them. Maybe I was wrong, Uub. Maybe you can't control the evil within you."

"Master, no! What are you saying?!" Uub shouted in distress. It couldn't be. They were all alive, healthy and happy when he left the village. "Please, I -"

"No wonder nobody likes you. You took me away from them, and for what? Now you have no one left in the world. Good-bye, Uub."

With these words Goku evaporated. Uub tried to hold on to what was left of him, but it was just air. He fell to his knees in the pool of blood, shocked, broken.

A shrill, horrible sound of laughter echoed in the woods. Uub's eyes searched the dark with horror. There was no one there - and then there were a pair of terrifying red eyes, floating in endless darkness, watching him.

"I'm right here, boy... Inside you... All the strange dreams, the stranger's memories... You really are stupid if you don't understand what's happening. These fools thought your little human soul could restrain me..."

It sounded again, the laughter, unsettling and endless, like the vast emptiness of space...

Uub's stomach churned in a terrible sickness of fear. Shaking desperately with total helplessness, He crept to Pan and lay beside her, burying his face in her silky hair. It's all a nightmare, a nightmare he couldn't wake up from. They couldn't all be dead. He couldn't have done this to them. It couldn't be...

He must have fallen asleep in his turmoil, because when he opened his eyes the forest was flooded with the light of dawn. Pan was shaking in her sleep, her skin dotted with dew. Uub recalled the events of the night and looked around in horror. The bodies disappeared, and there wasn't a drop of blood to be seen.

"Uub! Pan!" Goku's voice called. Soon after he landed near the two, looking concerned.

Realizing that he was hugging Pan, Uub released her and fell at Goku's feet, his emotions overflowing. Unable to control the tears, he begged his Master for forgiveness, not knowing why.

Goku put his large hand on his head comfortingly, confused by Uub's behavior. Only as he relaxed a bit Uub realized the truth, that what he had experienced that night really was a nightmare. Goku didn't say the words he said to him, and the villagers and his family were safe and sound. The high and frightening voice was also imaginary... Still, it haunted him, strange and unexplained, like the nightmares her used to have in his childhood, before he met Goku.

Gohan was there too, lifting Pan as she began to regain consciousness. Vegeta found Bra, who was looking exhausted and haunted like Uub felt. She explained to the three men how they had followed the sleepwalking Trunks into the forest before they lost him.

"But where is he now?" Gohan asked, looking at the trees as if Trunks could be hiding among them. "I can't sense him."

"He's close," Vegeta claimed. "His energy is weak, but it's there."

He held Bra's hand tightly and took off with a determined look. Goku, Gohan and Uub flew after him, Pan resting in her father's arms.

In the early morning, the forest didn't seem as threatening as it appeared at night, but Uub still couldn't shake off the sights he had witnessed in the dark. The elders told stories about dark enchanted clouds that could come over people who wandered in the woods at night, causing them to lose their minds. Was that what had happened to him?

He looked at his Master. Goku felt his gaze and looked back with a reassuring smile. Everything was fine, at least for now.

They found Trunk lying on the floor of a rocky cave hidden among rocks and roots of huge trees. His father rattled him until he awoke, and he did so reluctantly. Unlike the other three, Trunks' sleep must have been full of pleasant dreams, because he clung to sleep desperately.

"Boy, you have a lot to explain!" Was Vegeta's greeting to his eldest son.

Trunks looked confused as he pushed his hair from his face fatigue. "Where are we? Why am I here?..."

"You really don't remember anything?" Uub was so shocked that he was able to open his mouth in front of everyone.

Vegeta clenched his fists in anger. "Damn! Cassius was right!"

Gohan looked at him. "You're not thinking -?"

"That's exactly what I'm thinking!"

"I don't understand," Goku interrupted. "Right about what?"

"Your brat had done something to Trunks! He is under Aainha's influence!"

"Dad, come on," Trunks interfered, standing up to prove him wrong. "I'm not under any -"

"You're not in any position to decide what you are at this point," Vegeta interrupted sternly. "It's no coincidence that after you were alone with The Guardian you start walking in your sleep."

Trunks grimaced in anger. "The Guardian? He has a name! It's Goten!"

"How many times do I have to say it, boy?!" Vegeta snapped at his son. The branches were rustling with his energy. "Your friend is good as dead! His fate was sealed, and he won't be coming back!"

A heavy silence spread after the echo of his words between the cave walls faded. Uub wished he could disappear just from hearing the frozen insensitivity of Vegeta's words. Gohan looked down at Pan's face with bitter defeat. Goku gave Vegeta a look that could ignite a flame.

"It's not too late," he insisted. "No matter what spell she cast on him, he's still Goten. He may have forgotten the past, but nothing can erase who he really is. It would never be too late to save him, if we do whatever it takes."

Vegeta grunted as he turned his back, flying away and taking Bra with him.

Trunks made his way back home as fast as he could, leaving the others far behind. He had to be alone with his thoughts, with the images that were spinning in his head. He couldn't remember how he reached the forest at night, that much was true. But it wasn't the whole truth. He did remember what happened, even though he still wasn't what part of it was reality and what was the dream from which he didn't want to wake up when his father shook him roughly.

He shook off Gohan and the others and slipped straight into his room before anyone could to stop him, locking the door behind him. Solitude gave him immediate relief. He sank on the floor with his back to the door and pressed his eyes to the roots of his hands, blocking all light, trying to return to the dark woods of his dreams. He tried to bring up the fragrance of rain on the leaves ground, the sense of soft earth under his bare feet, the rustle of leaves in the wind and the sweet song of nocturnal birds. In the blinding darkness he shivered as he felt Goten's presence...

He jumped when someone knocked on his door validity.

"Trunks!" It was his mother. "Your father told me what happened. Are you okay? What happened to you?"

Trunks struggled to keep his voice steady as he replied, "It's all right, Mom! I'm going to take a shower."

Thus ended the brief conversation and he slipped into the bathroom. He took off his clothes absently, surrounding himself with his memory of Goten close to him in the dark, on a rough stone floor. He stood under the running water and realized he was about to drown in a dream, in the remarkably realistic sensation of Goten's lips on his lips, on his face, on his body. But he didn't want to fight it. He wanted to stay there forever, in that dark place where there were only the two of them, searching each other's bodies without saying a word. He didn't want to remember how he woke up alone on the cold stone floor.

He clutched his chest, as if in pain. He had never felt like that, such a burning sense of missed opportunity, of bitter loss. He wanted more than anything for that night to have really happened, and his inability to know for sure if it had been just a dream or not threatened to stop his heart. But it felt so real at the moment. At that moment he felt he was about to die of ecstasy. He had never felt so alive, so complete, as if all his life up to that night had been a dream, and that dream had been his first real experience. As if he had been reborn.

No more cold intimacy with a variety faceless he had no feelings for. That night, Goten ... It was the love that everyone were talking about. That pure, complete joy that filled him to the brim as they lay together in the cold darkness, leaving no space of regrets and disappointments. He could still hear Goten's breathing, his heartbeat, so close, as if they were sharing one heart.

After what seemed like an unusually long time he came out of the shower, dripping wet. He dried his hair, then glanced at himself in the mirror, feeling an urge to check whether he still looked the same. His eyes were very bright in the fluorescent light, but maybe it was just his imagination. But a red mark on his shoulder was certainly not an illusion. He leaned over and looked at it closely in the mirror. That mark wasn't there yesterday. It was a bite mark...

The memory hit him like a thunderbolt. The ultimate feeling that overwhelmed him at his climax, and Goten biting and clawing his shoulder and the flesh of his back, matching his partner's ecstasy.

Trunks turned and looked at his back in the mirror. Red and purple marks adorned his skin, just where Goten had grabbed him.

It hadn't been a dream. Nothing of it had been a dream - he spent the night with Goten, and at dawn his best friend disappeared without a trace, leaving Trunks alone on the cold ground.

His heart shrank almost painfully. Feeling the urge to scream, he found himself starting to cry. He couldn't remember the last time he cried - not since he was a small boy, that was for sure. But it felt good. He was finally feeling something, real emotion, as if the ice he was trapped in since Goten vanished shattered and he could feel the warmth of the sun on his skin once again. He knew now that it had been the first time he felt real passion, real pain, real love...

"I love you," he said out loud in the silent room, as if Goten could hear him. He had never in his life said those words out loud to anyone.