"I'm having a bad feeling about this…"
Trunks and Gohan both also shared the unease, but neither had the will to admit it. Bulma was already nervous enough, so confirming her fears would do no good.
"Ah, of course Trunks, you can use my lab, it's your home so no need to ask. I'm going home. Coming too?" Bulma felt like she needed to be gone right about now, but she hadn't forgotten the teenager's request before Gohan's finding interrupted them. Trunks shook her head, still staring at the moult with an expression full of questions.
"Thank you, I still have a few things to do, but I will be there shortly."
The time traveler didn't move an inch while Gohan walked Bulma back to her plane, and Trunks could hear him mention he'd be at Kame-House in case anything happened.
It took Trunks a few long minutes to finally make sure of something else, as she walked back to the Machines and rubbed the moss out of one of the side of the turbines, revealing a word that had been written by her mother before she took off the first time. Hope. Despite all other evidence, this was what fully made Trunks realize it was indeed her Time Machine. She hovered back up to properly turn the vehicle's on-board computer off, then closed the cockpit. She stayed there, looking at the seat through the gaping hole at its dome for a little while.
"Tora-san?" Gohan called her over, again, as the first time clearly didn't register. She finally came down with a little apologetic look.
"My apologies, I've.. gotten lost in thoughts."
"It's worrying, how you.. do this," Gohan gestured, unable to actually put into words the whole thing he'd felt from the teenager when his mom corrected baby Trunks' birth month.
"It's nothing," she tried to reassure, looking back at the Hope scribble on the mossy machine. Gohan had seen it as well as the one on the other model. The lie that it 'was nothing' didn't sit well with the child.
"Mom often says that when there's a problem, it's good to voice it out and bounce it with someone else. Clears the mind. Do you want to try?"
How could she deny such logic? Voicing the issue could be helpful, and Gohan always reassured her. Even if this version was much younger, he was still a smart pragmatic kid. She slid her fingers down further on the machine to remove the rest of the moss, revealing the button to turn it down into a capsule, and pressed it.
"I guess I could," she had a small sigh, and turned her own machine back into her capsule, and put them both in her case; putting one upside down to differentiate them, then sat/slouched under a tree, her right forearm resting on her knee, capsule case in hand, trying to find a way to word her thoughts. Gohan followed her, and sat by her left side like he'd done a few times at that point.
"Gohan-san, you keep calling me Tora," she remarked, then looked inquisitive, a raised eyebrow punctuating the question. "Even if you know who I am. Why?"
"That's because that's what you asked us to call you," Gohan looked down, a little red in the face, ashamed he may have made a mistake by not correcting once he'd understood her true identity.
"I don't mind being called 'Trunks', it is my name, but in this world, Trunks is him, not me. So.. it makes me happy you kept using Tora."
Reassured, Gohan nodded. "I'll keep using it then. Should I tell the others?"
"It's already confusing enough, they've decided to switch to anchor my identity. It's fine. As for this," she made a little gesture with her right hand, holding the capsule case, indicating both the moult and the capsules the case contained. She only continued after a moment to gather her thoughts. "I think my mind is having a hard time dealing with the wider implications of my own existence. The Dragon said I was from another universe, and yet, another 'My Time Machine' appeared here, and before my first trip. The Mother and me in 787 have certainly died at the hands of whomever sent that creature here. Is that my fate?" This machine had 'crossed' both her green trip, and her red, unfinished trip. And perhaps more.
She wasn't certain about the death of her 787 self, but she couldn't fathom any other outcome that would lead to someone but her or Bulma using the machine. She'd still like to be certain, but that was the only hypothesis she could consider. And even if they had chosen to send something to the past themselves, they would have chosen to land somewhere else, somewhere safe to be found, or have programmed a way to send a message to someone to retrieve it. Nothing they'd send would end up leaving the Time Machine in the middle of nowhere, it was too precious. Trunks wanted to run a full diagnosis to see whether there was a message encoded in the computer, a reason as to why it had arrived there and then.
"Different worlds or not, there are two of me currently in this world. There could have been three, if I went to meet my past me gathering the Dragon Balls, four months ago, and asked for the wish to be 'find Dr Gero's lab'. What did 787-me know? Had that Trunks found this Machine as well? Is it going to be me, when I return, or yet another 'Trunks'?"
She brought back her capsule pack to her and put it away in her pocket, then stretched her leg down to reach for the cigarette pack and get herself a proper nicotine dose, as the previous one was discarded unceremoniously. She held the cigarette in her right hand, instead of her usual left, mindful of Gohan's proximity. The boy listened with great attention to the teenager walking through everything. This was no algebra problem, but he still tried to follow. A puff of tobacco later, Trunks let out another long sigh.
"Those two Machines intruded in your world and changed everyone's fate, and I wonder what that means. After all, I am talking to someone who is dead in my world, that cannot go without a price." Fundamental laws of the universe. Universes? "My existence in this world is a lie, and you've never questioned it. Gohan-san isn't the kind to believe in lies." She ended up pointing at herself, indicating she believed she was the lie she was referencing. She saw him look back at her, taking in the implied question.
"I don't think you're a lie, Tora-san."
"Am I not? I shouldn't be here. My presence in this dimension is questionable, but it is also a sinful prowess, and this," she indicated the moult with her half finished cigarette, "is perhaps the cost of my desire to change history. Hell is paved with good intentions."
Gohan kept quiet for a little while, looking at those jaded blue eyes which were staring straight ahead. He tried making sense of the time traveler's problem- existential crisis, without a doubt. He watched his breathing, paced by the slow smoking, the little circles he created out of shallow fun. This was the true Tora he'd wanted to meet for over two years. He appreciated how earnest the teenager had been, how he'd opened up to him, a child, whom he used honorifics with. And yet, he couldn't really grasp at the complexity of the thoughts that plagued his friend. He instead went back to core facts, the actions, the life of his father who should survive his illness thanks to this older kid's decisions. He got closer and pulled at the teenager's jacket to get him to meet his eyes.
"You've come here to save my dad and our world. Your heart and actions aren't sinful, Tora-san. Your Time Machine has the word 'Hope' on it, right? If that's a bad thing, then I don't care for any punishment, I'll fight for you, because it's the right thing to do." Gohan was firm and assertive in his response.
Trunks half chuckled at the conclusion this past version of Gohan had come up with about her turmoil. She smiled back at him and moved her left arm to pull him into a soft hug, and the young kid was happy to hug back. This wasn't her Gohan, but it might as well have been. Concrete, pragmatic, grounding, reassuring. She'll get to 787 when she'll get there, l'appel du vide could wait.
"As expected of Gohan-san... I suppose you're right, thank you. Mother often said I was the kind to think and worry about things too much... Let's fight together, then."
Part of how I have Trunks talk and consider her existence in the main timeline is inspired by how he's represented in the Doujinshi Gracias written by PALS (Shin Minazuki) back in 1992-1996, by the way :)
L'appel du vide is a French expression which means the call of the void, it's a form of intrusive thoughts.