CHAPTER 24:

The Predicament

He felt awful. His head was on the verge of exploding from pressure, and his breaths came in large wheezes. At least he didn't have to worry about breathing in the fish smell anymore, however good or bad Trunks claimed it was, because his sense of smell had been snuffed out of him some time before. His body felt numb, his lungs felt like they were filling with fluid, his coughs were deep, and his eyes felt like they had lead weights pulling them down. What started out as a slight sore throat and a stuffy head had grown to be a fever, the chills, the sneezes, wheezes, the whole deal.

To put it mildly, Goku felt as if he had been hit by a truck and left as roadkill.

He tried to hide it, though, knowing that Trunks kept slipping him criticizing comments about Goku not buying a jacket in addition to all the food he got, but when he was back on that other planet, he just couldn't think straight. That's what hunger did to him. The thought of food just made his head spin and left him weak and desperate. That's why he could never fight without eating something... everything in his body would just go haywire, and he wouldn't be able to fully trust himself, in addition to the fact that his body would slowly be shutting down.

Everyone was in the cockpit, staring out the round windows to the blue ice planet before them. It looked like a gigantic round frozen rock. It normally wouldn't faze Goku that they'd be heading to some cold place, but the fact that Goku felt so sick right now, he wasn't sure if the final dragonball was worth it. After having to endure this, he just wanted to go home.

"Wow, there it is!" Pan leaned forward in her chair, petting Giru with a triumphant smile on her face, sporting her thick red coat. Goku looked over to her, wondering how in all worlds she could seem so happy right now.

Trunks, who was looking quite warm in his own blue coat, leaned back and closed his eyes. He sighed with a smile and said aloud, "The last dragonball..." He paused and asked, "Are you excited, Goku?" Trunks turned his head to look at Goku, who sat in his chair, shivering from the extreme cold.

Goku opened his mouth to respond, but was met with a severe tickling of his nose that caused him to instinctively intake air for a sharp sneeze, "Achoo!" He frowned and rubbed his red nose, whimpering with tears in his eyes, "Wow, it's really cold in here..."

Trunks, having heard this complaint now for what seemed like the tenth time that hour, frowned and looked ahead as he took the steering wheel, "Well, when we stopped to buy jackets because we found out this planet has a temperature of 269 degrees below zero, you should have at least spent some of your money on a jacket instead of food!"

Pan looked over to see Goku suffering in his chair. "Its amazing that you're not frozen like an icycle, Grandpa."

He refused to admit that jackets were more important than food. Nothing could ever be more important than a good meal. This entire situation was a fluke circumstance. He'd never have to experience anything this cold, ever again, if he could help it. Considering this was a one-time event, it was worth every penny to spend it on food that would sustain him for a lot longer than a jacket was needed. "I'm fine," he lied, "It's my eating habits that keep me healthy."

At the completion of his sentence, the tickling sensation returned, and before he could even raise a hand to block the blast, his eyes squeezed shut and he let out a roaring sneeze that rained a great portion of what had been clogging his nose right onto Trunks' coat, "Achoo!!"

"Auughh.!!!" Trunks looked in shock at Goku and then down at his jacket.

"Grandpa!!!" Pan brought her hands to her face as she saw what had happened to Trunks, "Cover your mouth when you sneeze!"

"I'm sorry but... AaaaaaCHOO!"

"AaaaUGH!!!" Trunks jumped to his feet with his arms outstretched, wailing as he saw the damage to his coat. "Goku!! I can't believe you! This was a new coat!"

Pan turned to her grandpa with a frown, "That is sick. Will you at least TRY and blow your nose?"

"I can't," Goku sniffed and rubbed his nose with his arm, "I used up all the tissues."

Trunks shook his head and sat back down in his chair, taking the wheel with a scowl. "Use a towel or something to sneeze into, Goku. And, while you're at it, maybe you can wrap yourself up and use that as some kind of temporary overcoat."

"I told you, I'm fine." Goku tried to ignore his numbing fingers. In just a short time, it would be over with, and Trunks would turn the heat back up. All he needed to do was survive just a little longer.

Pan jumped up from her seat and smiled brightly, "I know what we all need!" She brought her hands together with her eyes shut tightly in a wide grin, "I'm going to make us all some tea! That should warm us up."

Trunks smiled as he kept his eyes ahead, "Tea sounds really great, Pan."

"-giru giru-! Giru come, too! Giru make tea! -giru giru-" The round white robot sprung out of her reach and made two peace signs, "Giru champion of the world!"

Pan laughed, "You silly 'bot! Of course you can come with me." She walked out of the room followed by the bleeping robot, humming some song she made up on the spot.

Goku watched Pan leave and head to the remains of the kitchen. It was so depressing, knowing that all that food had been wasted. He sighed then turned his head to Trunks, frowning slightly, "Trunks?"

Without taking his eyes off the planet ahead, he responded, "Mmm-hmm?"

"Do you..." Goku paused a bit and scratched the side of his head with his left index finger. "Do you think a week has passed since Pan said she wouldn't cook for me?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You know... Pan said she wasn't going to cook for me for a week, so I tried to make something this morning, and..."

Trunks turned to Goku and gave him a stern look. "There is no way I am letting you cook again. Ever again." He reached out his right hand and pointed to the boy, narrowing his eyes, "If you lay one finger on any of the remaining items in that kitchen, both Pan and I are going to make you regret it."

"But Trunks –"

"No 'but's! If Pan doesn't want to cook, then I'll cook. You're going to live on our cooking schedules." Trunks lowered his hand and brought it back to the navigation wheel. "If you want a snack, go eat the sofa or something, I don't care. Just don't go into that kitchen unsupervised. Got that?"

Goku hung his head. "Aww... awww...ahhh" His eyes snapped wide as his hands went up to cover his face, "Ahh..."

Trunks turned to look at Goku, raising an eyebrow, "Goku?"

"Ahhh....Ahhhhh..."

"Goku are you okay?"

Goku shook his head and opened his mouth to speak, but instead, inhaled deeply. "Ahhh...AHHH!!"

"Goku?" Trunks frowned as he reached for the boy's shoulder.

"AAACHHOOOO!!!!"

The force of the blast went straight to Trunks, knocking him completely out of the chair and short-circuiting the entire control panel with sparks flying in every direction. Like fireworks, different reds and yellows and greens erupted from the board as the wind in the room died down. Trunks lay sprawled on the floor, looking up, smelling the smoke of the burnt wires. His mouth lay open, his eyes wide as if not fully able to comprehend what just happened.

Trunks opened and closed his mouth a few times before rasping, still staring into oblivion, "Goku..." His voice sounded cracked, "Do you have any idea what you just did...?" He sat up, rubbing his head, glaring angrily at the boy. "Do you have ANY IDEA?!"

"Hey hey! It was an accident, I swear!" Goku threw up his arms defensively before him.

"Unless I do something about that control panel we're going to crash right into that planet!!!"

"Trunks, calm down...!"

Trunks closed his eyes as he stood, his fists balled at his side as his forehead was shaded by his hair. His temple pulsed, and he did everything he could to hold back the wrath that was to be evoked upon that idiot little boy. When he spoke, his voice was calm, with a hint of malice, "Do you... do you get it, Goku?" He looked up, and his eyes spoke of immense fury. "Do you understand that because you didn't get a jacket, you got a cold..." As he spoke, his voice began rising in decibels. "And because of your cold...you DESTROYED THE COCKPIT!"

"What's going on, you guys?" Pan stepped into the darkened room holding two cups of tea, steaming thickly in the cold air. Giru stood on her shoulder, holding a third cup.

Giru held the cup back muttering under his circuits "Danger? Danger? Danger! Danger!" The robot began rattling off the word 'danger' in several hundred different manners of being terrified.

Trunks pointed to the robot and growled, "Turn that thing off."

Pan looked back and forth between Goku and Trunks, frowning, "But we need Giru to locate the dragonball... What's wrong? Trunks?" Pan knotted her brow at him, "Are you feeling okay?"

Trunks threw up his arms in frustration, "I'm fine. The cockpit isn't, though." He thrust a finger to point at the dashboard, glaring intently at the boy. "It'll take me several days to fix this dashboard. I can't believe you, Goku. You only make my life ten times harder."

Goku blinked and sniffed his nose. "Does this mean you won't be cooking, either?"

Trunks ignored the comment. Somehow, Goku always boiled every situation down to food. Everything could be explained through food to him. Somehow, even 'marriage is like food'. 'Battles are like eating food', 'sleeping is like preparing food'... Trunks wondered if there were anything in life that could not be summed up in a food simile. He needed to get Goku to understand the graveness of their situation, and decided to explain it the method Goku knew best.

"Listen, Goku..." Trunks coughed to clear his throat. "Think of this like your stomach..."

"Think of what like my stomach?"

Pan crinkled her nose. "What are you talking about?"

"Just hear me out." Trunks cleared his throat again as he looked at the approaching planet. He moved his hands to his right side, miming an object, "Think of this like your stomach." He moved his hands to his left side, miming a second object. "Think of this as a stick of dynamite." He mimed the second object being inserted into the first object, "You eat the dynamite, and so it is in your stomach, right?"

Goku pouted, "But why would I eat dynamite?"

"Just listen! This is purely hypothetical."

Pan put her two cups on the blacked dashboard and shook her head, "I don't understand your story."

"That's because I'm not finished." Trunks took a breath, then continued, "Okay, so here is a stomach with dynamite in it. Consider this like my dashboard." He gestured to the computer. "It has the potential of blowing up if you do anything that might disturb it." He pointed to the imaginary objects again, "So imagine this is your stomach, Goku. You accidentally swallowed dynamite, and let's say – oh I don't know – Kid Buu decides to throw a ki blast at you."

Goku scratched his head in confusion, "This is silly. I would never swallow dynamite."

Trunks continued, once again ignoring Goku. He raised his arms, miming an explosion, "Then bam, your stomach explodes everywhere." He pointed his index finger outward, "However, you are still barely alive, somehow, hypothetically. In order to be able to function again, you either need a senzu bean, which would replace your missing body parts," He gestured to the dashboard again, "and obviously I don't have another cockpit to replace this one. Or," He pointed at Goku, "you go to a hospital and people piece you back together." He looked at the blinking boy. "Do you know how LONG that would take?"

"But how does that have to do with why you aren't going to cook for me?"

"I'm saying this, because the dynamite in your stomach is like my dashboard, and it has exploded, and I need time to FIX it. And until I fix it, I'm NOT going to cook for you."

Pan gaped, "The dashboard exploded?!"

Trunks huffed and picked up his tea as if he were casually talking about the weather, watching Pan turn red.

Pan spun to face Goku, "Grandpa, what did you do now?!"

Goku sniffed, I didn't–! I mean–! I ahh... aaahhhh...AHHH..."

Trunks could only stand in shock as he saw Pan in the direct line of fire. He reached out with his free hand, eyes wide, "Get down! Get down!"

"Danger! Danger!"

The blast of Goku's second sneeze threw Pan back against the door. Giru toppled off of her, slamming into the wall, spilling the hot tea everywhere in the cabin. The droplets of the tea all froze in mid-air, raining down like pellets of hail, causing a hundred clinking sounds as they landed throughout the cockpit.

Pan lay motionless on the ground, leaning against the door. Her eyes were open in speechless shock.

Trunks hurried over to her and checked to make sure she was okay. He smirked a bit, then looked toward Goku, "I think you killed her this time."

Giru was the first to move. He propped himself up on his limbs and muttered, "No danger. No danger," before standing on his two legs. The robot hobbled over to Pan and tugged her coat sleeve to gain her attention.

Pan looked down to the robot and then toward her grandpa, blinking twice. "That... wath probably the motht.... dithguthting thing to ever happen to me!!!" She groaned and spit, "I think you got your thnot in my mouth!" She made gagging sounds and stood on her feet, wiping her tongue with her gloves.

Trunks had turned his head to look at the approaching planet again. Within twenty minutes, they'd be entering its atmosphere, and if he didn't have the landing gear in place, they'd all be like that stick of dynamite in the stomach...Trunks frowned. That was a pretty bad analogy on his part. At least it somewhat got through to Goku...

"Listen, you two." Trunks turned to face them with a stern look on his face. "Because we don't have landing gear, we're going to have to land this thing manually." He looked down and then back at the window. "I'm going to get into my space suit and fly this ship in."

Pan shook her head, "But you could be hurt!"

Trunks put his cup on the dashboard and turned to Pan with an agitated look, "Well, we're all going to be hurt if we don't do something quickly."

Pan protested with her fists balled tightly, "Then I want to help!"

Goku nodded in accordance, "Me too."

"No." Trunks shook his head, "This has to be done by one person. There will be too many liabilities otherwise."

"Then let me do it." Pan crossed her arms. "I want to feel like I've helped out even a little bit on this trip."

As Trunks was shaking his head, Pan cut his rejection short with a punch in the gut. It wasn't hard, but it was enough for him to clutch his stomach and flare his anger, "What'd you do that for?!"

"You and Grandpa ALWAYS do everything yourselves. Why can't you let ME do something for once?! I want to do this! I want to go out and fly this ship in!"

"But, Pan, if you mess up, you're going to die!"

"And if you go, you're going to die!"

At these comments, Trunks felt a slight tinge on his left finger, under his glove. He realized what it was with a scowl. This only flared his anger more. He would not let the stupid wedding ring come in between him and that space suit. If his suspicions were right, things would get pretty complicated if he tried to go out there if the ring decided to glow on him.

Goku put his hands between the two and interceded. "Hey guys, why can't I just do it?"

"You're too important, Goku. The Earth needs you alive when we come home, and I'm not going to jeopardize that." Trunks paused, "Besides, you're sick." Trunks ripped off his glove as if it were a leech, tearing it from his hand, and exposing his left hand to the chilly air. "This ring is coming off!"

Pan's eyes widened, "You're taking it off?"

Trunks glared at her, "I can't think straight when I have it on, especially if it involves you getting hurt." He tore off his other glove, exposing his right hand to the freezing temperatures as well. He needed full mobility of his fingers to grasp the metal around his finger.

He brought his right hand over and took the metal between his fingers, securing it with a steady grip. Carefully, he tried to slide the ring off, but it wouldn't budge. Sighing, he tugged harder, but it still wouldn't move. "It looks like I'm going to need to use soap."

"Here, let me take mine off." Pan removed her gloves and set them on her empty chair. She tugged at her ring, and frowned slightly. "That's strange. Rings don't usually get stuck on my finger. My hands are usually too small..."

Trunks walked up to her and took her left hand, "Here, let me help you out. You might need two hands to pull it off." He tugged at her ring several times, but to no avail. "Looks like you're going to need to wash your hands, too."

"Well, it's better this way, anyway. I want to make sure I don't get sick like Grandpa."

Trunks smirked slightly, but could not get the image of her dying out of his head. He needed to get in his suit quickly. That meant getting the ring off quickly as well.

He and Pan walked over to the bathroom and flipped on the lights. Behind them, Goku and Giru were expectantly waiting, leaning against the wall.

Pan nodded, "Okay, you first." As Trunks turned on the water, Pan grabbed the soap and handed it to him. She watched as he lathered his hands with a somewhat pained and longing feeling. It hurt a little, to see that he was finally taking the ring off. Once it was off, would he ever wear it again? If he did, what would that mean? Pan tried to clear her head of those thoughts because all it did was leave her feeling as if she were incomplete in some way... that something special were being stripped from her. Perhaps it was because, even though it wasn't serious, that wedding between her and Trunks had been a significant event. She got to share a good memory with him. Well, it seemed good now that she looked back on it, but time always had ways of softening memories.

After Trunks felt he had let the soap sink into his hands, he tried tugging the ring again. However, no matter what, it refused to budge. It was almost as if it somehow fused onto his skin every time he tried to remove it. But that was impossible. No metal could merge into skin like that. This ring should be removable!

"Having trouble?" Pan grinned at Trunks' attempts to remove the object from his finger.

"No, I'm fine. I have this completely under control..."

"Let me help."

"No! I said I'm fine..." He continued to tug relentlessly.

Pan shrugged, "Okay. Well, mind if I use the soap?"

Trunks grunted, "Be my guest," as he tried to somehow twist the ring off his finger, thinking that the new method might help.

Goku laughed and picked up Giru, "Wow, those rings sure are stubborn, aren't they?" He tossed Giru once in the air, then caught him, "Kinda reminds me of Chi Chi a little bit."

Pan groaned in dismay when she saw the soap trick wasn't working. "Grandpa... do you think you could form a teeny little ki blast. You know... a microscopic one that could maybe... cut off the ring?"

Trunks looked up with a frown, "You're going to cut it off?"

Pan spun to face him. "Well, what else do you think I should do?! It's obviously not coming off any other way."

Trunks opened his mouth to object, but Goku interrupted his thought, "Maybe you two should just keep them on, guys. They look nice on you."

"Grandpa... just take it off." Pan held out her left hand toward the boy.

"Okay, if you say so..." Goku looked slightly disappointed. He held out his right hand, "Tell me if this burns, 'cause if it does, I'll stop..."

"Just do it."

Goku formed a tiny ki ball that hovered above his finger. As he lowered the ball to meet with Pan's ring, thousands of little sparks began to fly. Pan cringed and squeezed her eyes shut, but held in her complaints. After Goku was finished slicing it, his little ball vanished and he said, "Well, that should have worked. If it didn't, then, I don't know what to say."

When the smoke cleared from her hand, Pan looked down and her eyes widened, "No... No WAY!!!"

Trunks moved closer to look, "What's wrong? What happened?" What he saw made his own eyes bulge and his mouth drop. "That's... that's impossible!!!"

As Pan let out a scream, Trunks backed away and hit the wall, his vision blurring as he found he couldn't find the breaths he needed to keep up with his heart rate. Thousands of feelings, of fear and confusion and horror and disbelief, passed through his mind. This couldn't be happening. That ring should have been sliced in half! There was no way to remove them. No way....No... It just couldn't be. What he heard on Kikaru was true. Their rings... they bonded them for life...

Trunks choked as he looked at his ring. "What.... how... How am I going to explain this ring to my family? To... my MOTHER?"

"Trunks! Pan, calm down! It's not like it's the end of the world or anything like that."

Trunks pounded his fists against the wall. "Don't you GET IT, Goku?! It IS the end of the world!!!!" He brought his hands up to tear at his hair, wailing in despair, "We're going to crash and the Earth is going to EXPLODE!"

"I can land this ship, Trunks. Don't let your emotions get the better of you. This is like any battle. Keep your head clear, and you can always think of an alternative way to win." Goku smiled as he said this. Trunks wanted to strangle him. How could Goku be so chipper after this?!

Goku continued by setting Giru back down on the ground. "All you need to do is show me where the spacesuit is and–"

Trunks grabbed him by the collar and dragged him out the door. "You're doing this now, or else we're all going to die, and don't give me a fuss about wearing your suit." He growled, "And if you put that suit on backwards again, you're going to severely regret it."

Goku smiled as he was being so roughly escorted. Trunks really had no idea how much like Bulma he could sound sometimes. This brought Goku's memories back to home as they reached the launching bay and Trunks began to roughly dress him.

He noticed that Giru had followed behind them, stopping every now and then to throw forth peace signs while saying, "Goku! Hero of the world!"

Laughing, Goku realized that, once again, he would be sporting that title. A realization hit him though, and he stopped with a frown.

This time, his reward would be starvation.

----------

----------

-11/13/04-