Left Alone to Wonder
It had been a full day to the very minute. Outside the time chamber Vegeta was impatiently waiting, his foot tapping at the ground, arms crossed. He gazed at the door unmoving, as he had been for the half an hour. Trunks was seated not far from him, chin in his palms watching his father.
"You know... we have 9 more days, even if they're in there a few extra minutes, it won't be a problem." Trunks tried to calm his father.
"I don't care if it's a problem, the fact they're even in there is a waste. The Namekian will never match a sayain's strength and the Rori's barely a super phoenix. To try and catch up at this rate is just pointless." Vegeta fumed, not losing eye contact with the door, " And if they don't come out within the next five minutes I'm going to blast them out!"
Trunks decided to keep his opinions to himself, but figured that they must be doing something important if they were staying in that room any longer than necessary. From what he remembered, he didn't want to be in that room a second longer than necessary. They must have been on to something.
"That's it" Piccolo stopped in the middle of their fighting. He looked over at the hour glass. "Time's up"
Rori turned from him to the hourglass on her side with a sigh. She had both been looking forward to and regretting this moment since she'd figured out that Piccolo still had feelings for her. As long as they were in the room, she could have him, but now time was finally up. Her eyes met his and she bit her lower lip, searching her mind for something to say. Technically, she'd never really agreed to giving him up after, even though she'd consented with her body, she had never expressed any words of agreement.
"If this is really good-bye, then do you mind if we wait just a few hours?" she finally gathered up her courage to ask, "It'll only be a few seconds in the real world after all... "
Piccolo watched her, debating himself whether this was a good idea or not. He had made sure they were fighting just up to the second they had to leave so that they could avoid this whole messy process. Yet he knew his answer, it wasn't the right thing to do or a good idea. He'd always prided himself on his restraint, but he couldn't bring himself to restrain himself now. It didn't seem like a bad thing to stay just for a while longer, even though it was avoiding the inevitable. Weren't they all just avoiding their inevitable fate after all? In Trunks' future they'd all died due to the androids, but if the androids were defeated in their time, it seemed fate had created something new and greater to finish the job.
"Just an hour..." Piccolo answered dropping his arms to his side in defeat.
Rori moved in close to him, coming out of her super form and burried her head into his chest, her arms wrapped tightly around his back. She wanted to make sure she wouldn't forget anything about him from his scent to the smallest indentation on his body that she'd traced her fingers over many times over the past month, sealing the memory away.
They didn't spend their last hour together very productively, however Rori made sure to change into her super form before she left the room. As Piccolo had told her, even if she wasn't going to train every day when they left the chamber, she needed to keep herself in this form so it would become easier for her to move in the next.
Piccolo was the first to exit coming face to face with the impatient Vegeta, "Well it's about time!"
Vegeta made beeline to the door, but stopped as Rori walked out, still in her super form. "Rori? You did it too?"
"Did what?" she asked blankly.
"The same as Kakkarot" he commented, "I can't even sense your energy"
"Well I don't know if I did the same as him, but Piccolo had me meditate a lot." she answered shrugging her shoulders, "If you want to find out you'll have to fight me when you guys are done."
Vegeta smirked at this and went past her into the chamber calling behind him, "Don't get cocky kid, I am your prince after all!"
Rori just rolled her eyes and taunted back, "You may be the prince but I'm the legend! We'll see which is better when you come out."
Trunks watched his dad, giving a quick awkward hello congratulations and bye to Rori, before he left to go visit his mother in the mean time.
Rori took a deep breath. She was alone again. Piccolo had gone out to the edge of the look out, followed now by curious Mr. Popo. That feeling of a colorless world began to creep back up into her mind. 17 had made it disappear before and she'd almost forgotten it had been there while she was with Piccolo. Now that she was alone again it was starting to inch its way back into her conscious. Rori went to the other side of the lookout and hopped off the edge, unsure of where she was going to go now. She let herself free fall feet first, as her mind searched for some idea to make it disappear again. The free fall helped for a moment making her feel alive again, before an idea came to mind. She thought about how far her brother had gone with his power and flew off in the direction of his house.
On the way, she found herself on doorstep of Kame House. Whether it was because she wasn't ready to face her brother alone or just by habbit she couldn't tell, but there she was.
"Hey Turtle... Is Yamcha around?"
The turtle stared at her for the longest time, as if hoping she would leave, before calling back, " Master Roshi? There's some weird looking girl here for Yamcha!"
Rori blinked and then realized he didn't recognize her. She laughed before she bent down and patted his head to turtle's displeasure.
Within seconds Yamcha came to the door and blinked, "Oh ... Rori, you're... not going to go all crazy evil in that form, now, are you?"
"Ohhhh" Turtle exclaimed realizing who she was as she stood up and made her way towards Yamcha.
"No, I think it's actually okay now." she said with a smile that turned sinister, "but every now and then I get this voice that tells me to rip something appart.
Rori began to slowly advance in on Yamcha as he backed up, "What?!"
"Kidding" she laughed and gave him a peck on the cheek, "Honeslty, I've actually been forgetting that I'm even like this... Anyways, I'm on my way to Goku's to see how I measure up now. I thought you might want to tag along."
Yamcha paused as if to think something over before he walked out the door, "will you give us a minute, Turtle?"
"Uh.. sure.." Turtle said before slowly crawling his way up into the house. It was taking so long, the Yamcha thought it might be better if they just moved and took Rori's hand taking her to the other side of the island. He had gotten up enough courage again to finally ask her to talk and yet when he had her attention, he found himself at a loss for words.
"Is something wrong?" she asked when he hadn't started to talk, but kept her hand in his nonetheless.
"Did you... I mean... Were you..." he couldn't seem to find his words, "Tian said he saw you with one of the androids... and that you seemed to be with one of them...romantically"
The words finally spilled out. Yamcha had been thinking it over the past few days. He couldn't believe it, but he had to hear it from her if it was true. He'd been waiting for her for two years now, there was no way she could have been with the android over him.
"Oh, 17..." Rori let her hand slide out from under Yamcha's. This she hadn't been prepared for. It wasn't like she was with Yamcha, and she certaintly had told him she wasn't interested, but when he said things like that she suddenly realized how out of place her hand was in his because he thought it was something more. "...Tian was right. 17 and I had something..."
"What the hell Rori?!" he yelled. He knew he shouldn't be angry at her, but he was. She'd told him she wasn't interested over and over again, but he hadn't lost hope.
She'd given him all of her attention the past two years. Years where he'd felt kind of like an outsider in his own group. He didn't measure up to the strength of the saiyans or Piccolo. In this fight there was little he'd be able to do. He was only human, he had limits, but at least he'd had Bulma before. She had kept him feeling like he was still with them. Once things ended between him and Bulma, he'd found himself feeling like an outsider even more so. Then Rori, showed up crying and feeling alone as well. Even if it wasn't romantic, the attention she'd given him made him feel like he mattered in the group again. She was a saiyan after all and being around her made him feel like he mattered again.
He just thought, if it was going to be someone that wasn't Piccolo, it would be him. Yeah, he wasn't a saiyan or a Namekian, but as far as humans go, he was one of the strongest. He'd watched her get it hit on by all kinds of men and never accept anyone. She'd even joked to him before they she didn't think they could handle it. He was different from the other humans at the very least. How could it have been anyone else? "You said it would never be anyone again! If it wasn't Piccolo, you could never... Do you know how many girls I turned down?! I was waiting for you!"
He paused noticing how she had cast her head down. She couldn't look at him. He reached out and lifted her chin so he could look her in the eye, calming his voice. He needed an explanation, "I just... I thought if you could love again it would be me..."
Rori had a hard time meeting his eyes. She wished he had just continued to yelling at her, that she could deal with now she had to be honest, "I'm sorry Yamcha, but 17 wasn't what you think. I was with him, but not because I loved him because I didn't love him."
Yamcha backed up shaking his head. He couldn't understand, "So you didn't love him... You don't love me either. Why him? I don't get it, Rori!"
"You wouldn't understand..."
"Then help me understand it!"
She sighed, it was hard enough admitting this to herself, "Maybe I don't love you Yamcha, but I do care about you! And you don't want that with me, I can tell, you want me to love you back and I can't. 17 wasn't asking for me to love him back. To him I was just a challenge. He didn't want me to love him he just wanted to win. I can deal with that, but I can't love you like you love me. I can't pretend to love you, Yamcha. I care about you too much."
"but eventually that could-"
"No! I'm not going to do that to you!"
"It's not just up to you. I'm not a kid, Rori. I'm just asking for a chance, maybe it won't work, but if it doesn't I can handle it. So you don't love me now and maybe you won't ever, but I still deserve a chance!"
"God, you're so fucking stubborn! Fine is this what you want?!" She walked right up to him grabbing him by the shoulders and pulled him into a kiss. He froze under her grip, before he began to kiss her back. His hands fell over the small of her back pulling her closer. When she pulled back her eyes met his and she realized what she'd done. She hadn't hated it. It wasn't what her and Piccolo had and it didn't excite her the way 17 did, but she couldn't say that she hadn't liked it. Was this what Piccolo had wanted for her? Rori let him go and backed up, "I-uh... I-uh.. I'm going to Goku's now..."
Before she could go he grabbed her wrist holding her in place, "If you need to run away for now... think this over... fine. I know this isn't the best moment, but-"
"No" she cut him off, if this was really what Piccolo wanted for her, fine, "...alright... let's give this a trial run, but for now it's between you and me... until we're sure. "
Yamcha stared at her a bit in shock, but he wasn't going to question it. If this was the chance she was giving him, he'd take it, "I'll get my coat."
When Yamcha came back out of Kame house they both flew off towards the direction of Goku's place.
A/N: Next time on Dragon and Phoenix, Gohan sets Rori straight because he can't stand seeing both her and Piccolo so unhappy, Rori finds out why Cell saved her, Vegeta and Rori have some saiyan bonding time, while I cry over my dissertation and hope this brings me some momentary relief! Sorry this chapter was short. I was hoping to make this one big long chapter of her fixing up her life a bit, but as I have this part finished, I thought why wait for the rest of it since it was just a long chapter of shorter little episodes. As I've had less time recently I thought this might solve the problem of me taking forever to put out a chapter Hope you like it and to anwser some questions: it will be addressed eventually to Piccolo and Rori having a kid. If you guys prefer the bigger chapters, they will take longer for the moment, but I'm open to doing that. I'll count on your opinions! Thanks for all the lovely reviews!