A nap with a binder on was a terrible idea, especially after the clash she'd had with Vegeta a couple of hours prior. Even if it was one made out of pure fabric and not one reinforced, Trunks' ribs protested when she undressed to get a well needed shower, even if it was, what, four in the morning? She'd have to go without for a few hours to let her body rest free. Once out and dry, she put back on her watch, a tank top, her pajamas and some slippers, grabbed the notebook from her windbreaker, and went to check on the computer. She considered setting camp elsewhere once she didn't need access to the lab. This world's Bulma having adopted her felt alienating in a way, and keeping her guard on at all times was a strain. She didn't want to get attached, else saying goodbye would be difficult. She didn't belong in this world, she was just there to create a better future for them, and in the process, to find a way to save her own world. Staying with them outside of battle proved difficult.. Except with Gohan.
Trunks didn't mind working in the dark. She didn't even think about turning on the light when she approached the Time Machine and its associated computer; the different machines still on in the lab provided enough light for her to walk safely. She grabbed a chair and dragged it close to the two items so she could sit with the computer on her knees, without detaching it from either the power supply nor the Time Machine.
With most of the data having been processed, Trunks could open some key files, following the procedure notebook, and compare from the files for her own Time Machine. She was no IT genius, but her Mother had properly annotated her code and named her files in a way she could understand and follow, so at least seeing different entries was in the realm of feasibility.
Two hours and a fresh pot of coffee later, she found the parts where departure (or rather, 'return procedure') and destinations were set, and she confirmed the information she'd gotten while accessing the console prior. It did come from 787, and it did arrive in 763. She also found the previous two trips the machine did, which were different yet similar to the ones she did.
It arrived in August 764 like I did, to match Son-san and Freeza's arrival, but it didn't depart from September 783, rather from early 784.. It also used the return procedure immediately after, while I stayed almost a month. This Trunks, if it is a Trunks, did not stick around to use the Dragon Balls. The second trip also arrived on May 12th, 767.. It also returned a few weeks in, back to the end of 784, when I'll be returning to early 784. And it left again in May 787, to arrive in October 763.
Trunks decided it was time for a little break, she stood, put the computer on the chair and stretched her arms forward, then rolled her shoulders back slowly. She went on to serve herself some coffee, pondering the information she'd got, slouching on the armchair, cup in hand, leaning back, staring at the ceiling. This Machine's departure dates did not match her own, which meant another person used it. This Machine's trips were to the right years, but not from the right ones. It meant the Machine was piloted by someone else than her. And because there was no second person waiting for Son Goku in 764, nor did someone else show up to fight the Cyborgs today, even if the arrival dates matched, it probably meant the Machine had arrived to another place rather than this universe, if the Eternal Dragon's words about her being from another universe altogether had to be believed.
"Then how did it land in this universe on this third trip, in 763?" the time traveler pondered in a whisper.
A flash caught her attention and she groaned at the sudden luminosity change. Bulma jumped off when she noticed someone was in her lab, and Trunks sat up properly, blessing how her (fairly small) chest was probably hidden under the looseness of her pajamas. She was careful not to spill her coffee, and drank it to hide the sudden surprise. Bulma herself was also in pajamas, but she'd put on a robe on top of it, and was carrying the quiet baby.
"You scared the shit out of me, Trunks! Why didn't you turn on the light?"
"My apologies, I'm used to working in the dark," she smiled meekly, and moved off the armchair that was Bulma's, ready to return to work.
"You've- not slept?" The young mother approached the teen and checked on her, curious and worried. Trunks kept guarded with her mug.
"I dozed off for a little under two hours."
"That's far from enough." Bulma frowned and scolded, her baby clinging on to her robe.
"Bulma-san," she sighed, unwilling to be scolded again by this nosy version of her mother, "My habits are still none of your concern."
"I guess you've already had this talk with my future self?" Bulma wasn't happy about it, she readjusted the baby who kept staring at the teenager with that unmistakable Vegeta gaze.
"Yes." She finished her coffee, passed by Bulma and went back to her chair to continue comparing the files. She wanted to tell this Bulma off since her sleeping patterns weren't exactly better, she wanted to explain how her own mother had even worse ones, that she slept enough, but not all in one go, how Saiyans didn't need that much sleep as evidenced by Vegeta, how she already knows all of this due to her time with Vegeta, but she kept it to herself. Enforce boundaries, do not justify yourself.
Bulma was shocked for an instant, this teen she'd grown to love as her own displayed a much colder attitude than before. She took back her seat and observed the teenager at work, and offered the baby a breast, which distracted his gaze away from his older self. Bulma compared the two silently, wondering of the kinds of horrors her future self lived through while raising a half-Saiyan alone, turning this teenager into such a hardened soul who probably had no childhood whatsoever. She promised herself she'd raise this version to be spoiled, safe, happy and healthy, if the current crisis was to be properly averted. Even if Vegeta wasn't going to get involved. She observed silently for a while, until her baby was done feeding, she went to put him in his crib, and finally worked up the courage to approach what she felt was a hostile teenager. She was used to approaching Vegeta, so a moody teen was no threat.. right?
"Trunks."
"Mh?" The teenager raised an eyebrow but didn't look away from the computer screen.
"Tell me about her- your mother."
Other files weren't done compiling, so there was nothing she could work on currently. She looked up to Bulma with a look expecting other questions, and seeing how shaken she looked, she let down her barriers a little and gestured she could come closer. She went through the computer's file to find a photo she could show her.
Bulma approached, hesitated, then put a hand on the other's shoulder to lean in and see what the teenager wanted to show her. It was a picture of three people standing in what Bulma recognized as the underground lab (those walls were unmistakable), which was repurposed as some sort of temporary kitchen. She noticed herself, with long blue hair pulled back in a loose braid, a Capsule Corp cap worn backwards, a cigarette in her mouth, red overalls stained with oil, and with tools in just about every single pocket. She looked satisfied, mischievous, and arguably quite fit (from labor, clearly), but absolutely exhausted, with dark circles. Bulma noted that Trunks' words about her beauties being comparable were somewhat truthful, despite her circumstances this older Bulma had aged gracefully. Her arms were around the shoulders of a younger (and shorter) version of Trunks, with short hair in a side-part, a loose Capsule Corp blue and white long sleeve shirt and jeans, looking absolutely embarrassed and red in the face. A taller, young man in a familiar orange gi, very short hair, an imposing scar on his face, from his forehead to his left cheek, and most notably, a missing left arm, was holding a sparkly cone-hat and approaching the younger teen; the older woman was trying to nudge the teenager to wear said hat and the teenager didn't seem to want it, nor the picture taken. A simple white cake with a candle on it as well as other miscellaneous objects on that mess of a table completed the picture. In a little unwrapped box near the cake, a capsule whose handwritten number Bulma recognized; the car Trunks had lent her earlier the day before.
"This was us a little over four years ago. It was when I turned 13."
"Are you telling me I gifted you that car at thirteen?"
"My world doesn't exactly have traffic laws or people checking who has their license."
"Wait, hold on, that's not Son-kun, which means- is that Gohan?"
Trunks confirmed her guess with a slight nod, eyes focused on her former mentor, before she managed to close the picture. Bulma straightened up but didn't remove her hand from her would-be teenager and said teenager didn't fight her off.
"This is the kind of person Mother is. A hard-working genius who lives off coffee and tobacco." The teenager tried to explain who, fundamentally, Future Bulma was.
"I- she baked you a cake for your birthday."
"She used salt instead of sugar." Trunks chuckled at the memory of her, Gohan and her mother tasting the cake and promptly regretting it. The absolute monstrosity was still a vivid memory she cherished.
"Can't be a genius-"
"At everything, yes. I am giving you a lot of trust here, Bulma-san. I am but an intruder in this universe. As much as I feel the warmth of how welcoming everyone has been, including Vegeta-san, I do not belong here."
"Vegeta's been welcoming?" 'Hold up right there, did I hear that right?' The blue haired genius' mind crashed at the wording, completely forgetting why the teenager was telling her all of that.
"Well, not warmly, but in his own way, I guess." Trunks was flustered at her own presumptuous reading of her would-be father's welcome. Perhaps she'd read too much into his behavior. "I'm starting to understand why 'Bulma fucking Brief' could fall for him."
"Hey, language, young man." Bulma's hand tightened on the shoulder as a light form of punishment. Trunks looked up with a telling smirk.
"Gohan-san wasn't the one who taught me, Bulma-san." Of course the kid learnt by imitating a version of Bulma.
Bulma let go and raised her hands in defeat with a displeased huff. She'd take note to not swear around the baby anymore. Or at least try to.
"But I'm serious. You aren't my mother, it's important for me to maintain the difference, despite the similarities, despite everything. Do you understand?" Her last words were begging.
"I get it, I'll try, but worst case scenario, you have two beautiful and intelligent mothers." Bulma's confidence and vanity spoke, and Trunks could only chuckle at the uncanny similarities. Yes she was making it harder for her, but it still filled her heart. Bulma got serious again "How can you be so strong? It must be an absolute mindfuck."
"It is. I am just pretending. The existential crisis will have to wait until the immediate threats are dealt with, and the immediate questions are answered," she gestured to the Time Machine. "I find solace that while Iwasn't born in this universe, a Trunks exists. Close enough."
"What do you mean you weren't born? Baby-you is right there."
"If that baby was born in June, then it cannot be me. My birthday is on November 21st. At best we're genetic siblings." Let alone the baby is the wrong gender, but Trunks wasn't ready to let that be spoken just yet. It didn't matter in the grand scheme of things.
"That mahkes sense, I guess."
"And to make my existence even more questionable, this Machine made two similar trips to mine, but departed at different dates than I did. So it isn't my machine. From the travel logs, it seems another Trunks met another Son-san to give him the medication, and departed immediately after, while I stayed twenty-two days to use the Dragon Balls. And if it is a Trunks with the same birthday as mine, that Trunks was seventeen, not sixteen. The Machine also came back to May 12th 767, but not to here."
"Multiverse theory implies there's at least four worlds we care about, then." The Brief brain kicked in.
"Four?"
"Well yes," Bulma counted. "This universe, where handsome-sixteen-year-old Trunks killed Freeza, the universe where you come from, the universe which this Time Machine comes from as you say its logs imply a different pilot, and the universe which it arrived in, because we didn't see handsome-seventeen-year-old Trunks three years ago, just you."
So death in 787 was not her fate. At least not yet? For that she'd need to know what was the egg and why is it here.
"The question is- why did it arrive in this universe for this trip and not for the other two?"
Bulma had no answers, she shrugged. "We'd need to run experiments, or maybe it just took a wrong turn in the whatever-time-road?"
Trunks shrugged back, she had no idea either. She locked the computer to let it finish compile, put it down next to the Time Machine and looked up at the cockpit. If that Trunks and Bulma were killed, she needed to see for herself.
"Do you believe it could be repaired? The glass dome."
"On it."