"It's not working."
"That's because you're not following my instructions. You have to clear your mind. I can tell by your face; you are not doing that."
Bulla and Trunks sat across from each other by the pool, their legs crossed. Bulla's muscles ached from a week of grueling training with Vegeta. Each day, she fell short of his impossible expectations. And each day, it wore on her a little more. She couldn't understand what her former self had seen in him. The man was relentless, pushing her to the point of exhaustion from sunup till sundown without a hint of encouragement or praise.
When she wasn't busy trying to not pass out in the GR with her father, she was working on channeling her ki with her brother so she could, theoretically, fly again. It hadn't been successful so far. She wasn't exactly disappointed about that if she was being completely honest with herself. The mere thought of leaving the ground still made her stomach lurch.
Bulla rolled her neck back and forth, frowning at the uncomfortable heaviness in her limbs that seemed to stretch all the way to the tips of her fingers and toes. "Got any of those Senzu beans, by any chance?"
"Sorry, we reserve the use of those for life-or-death situations," Trunks said evenly.
Which are apparently frequent enough that we can't spare even a single one. She kept the thought to herself, letting out a deep sigh through her nose.
"You're just a little sore. It's nothing a dip in an ice bath won't cure. Now, stop whining and focus, Bulla."
"I am."
Bulla closed her eyes and tried to focus on her breathing. 'Tried' being the operative word. She was hyperaware of everything.
The hard stone patio she sat upon, which wasn't helping at all with the lingering aches in her legs and hips. The fountain endlessly sloshing water into the pool. The sharp chirps of the birds that had taken up residence in her grandmother's wisteria pierced the air repeatedly. And last but certainly not least was the incessant sound of her brother's cell phone periodically buzzing and rattling around on the patio table.
She cracked open an eye. Trunks sat across from her, eyes closed, the line of his shoulders loose, his breathing soft and even. He was perfectly relaxed. Zen as fuck, in fact.
"Bulla." Trunks censured quietly without opening his eyes.
A tendril of frustration curled into her chest and she all but snarled, "I can't do this. It's too hard! I don't know what I'm supposed to be feeling, but it's not working!"
Her brother let out an exasperated sigh, "because you're not trying, you're fidgeting and—"
Bulla got to her feet, having had her fill of 'meditation' for the day. "Oh, believe me, Trunks I am trying. Morning, noon and night, I am trying. But it's just not clicking. None of it! I am no closer to being a 'battle-hardened warrior' today than I was when I woke up. And then, everyone keeps telling me what a 'wonderful bond' I supposedly have with our father. To give him a chance. To get to know him. So, I make the effort, and give in to his ridiculous demands. But the man is like a fortress, surrounded by a moat filled with flesh-eating piranhas. I am tired. I am sore—"
"I get that you're frustrated. But I promise you can do these things you already have."
"That was the old me." Bulla crossed her arms over her chest. "Maybe the person I am now… just isn't meant to be a great fighter."
Trunks stood and ran a hand through his lavender hair, something he always did when he was growing frustrated, she noticed. He turned to face the pool, pulling a cigarette from the pack in his back pocket. The other thing he did when he was frustrated. He brought one of the slender white cylinders to his lips and lit it with a tiny burst of ki.
She had spent hours attempting to merely feel this energy supposedly coursing through her veins, while he, with almost no effort, casually used it to light his stupid cancer sticks.
Trunks exhaled a thick plume of smoke, before turning to face her. "Bulla, I wish we lived in a world where you could spend all of your time in the garden or whatever, if that's what you want, safe and happy, without worrying about any of this. But the fact of the matter is as long as Saiyan's exist on Earth, this place is in danger. All of Earth's military might put together doesn't stand a chance against the kind of danger our mere presence attracts. As for Dad, he'll come around. Eventually. He always does."
Bulla had to bite back her response. She hadn't expected things to be easy, of course. However, she had expected something more than an aching body and yet another generous helping of frustration. She thought she might feel some sliver of a connection to her former self. Yet she remained adrift in the ocean of her mind, endlessly waiting for a lighthouse to emerge from the darkness and guide her home.
"Bulla! Trunks! Lunch is ready!" Panchy's musical voice called out through the sliding glass door, saving her from having to repeat the same conversation she had been having with the men in her family all week.
Bulla reluctantly trudged into the dining room. Her spirits raised somewhat when she saw the sprawl of dishes covering the table. Braised pork belly glistened invitingly, enough to feed a crowd of twenty easily. A colorful, fresh salad added a burst of brightness, roasted potatoes and asparagus, seasoned and cooked to perfection, and at the center sat an entire roast chicken. To top it all off, there was a luscious sponge cake with thick, creamy frosting and bright red strawberries.
Her mouth watered at all the delicious smells wafting through the kitchen. Her grandmother's ability to pull together these decadent, over the top feasts three times a day, would never cease to amaze her.
"Everything looks great, grandma." Bulla sat down alongside her grandmother and Trunks, immediately loading up her plate with a little of everything. Ever since she started training with her father, her appetite had grown significantly.
"Thank you, dear," Panchy beamed as she took a dainty bite of her salad.
Just as she began to relax, the door slid open, and in walked Vegeta and Goku. Her father's usual scowl was firmly in place, although there was a hint of tiredness in his dark eyes. His usually pristine armor was dirty and scuffed. Goku, though equally disheveled, seemed no less cheerful than usual.
"Something sure smells good!" Goku sniffed the air, eyeing the spread as if he hadn't had a proper meal in weeks. "Looks like we finished up just in time. I'm starving!"
"Don't you have a wife that cooks for you?" Her father sneered at the taller man as Goku tucked into the spot across from her and helped himself to a generously sized slice of cake. "I'll leave room for seconds."
"You're back!" Her mother poked her head into the kitchen and wrinkled her nose at the sight of her father.
"Hi Bulma!" Goku beamed at the Briefs matriarch in between bites of cake.
She smiled briefly at her old friend before returning her attention to her husband. "Vegeta, you're filthy! Come on, let's get you cleaned up and then you can eat."
Her father scowled, but followed his wife out of the room nonetheless.
Trunks was just tucking into his second plate when his phone chirped out several times and he excused himself, stepping outside to take the call. Leaving her alone with Goku and her grandmother.
She studied the orange-clad man discreetly as she chewed tender bits of pork. His sons bore such a striking resemblance to him, but their demeanors were so different. Gohan had a calm, more studious disposition. Yet there was a warmth to him as well, but his personality seemed more reminiscent of their mother's. From her observations, Goten appeared to be the most reserved among the Sons. She got the impression that hadn't always been the case, though. The photograph of herself with Goten and her brother floated through her mind. She thought of his expression, the light in his eyes and the flush of his cheeks. It was a sharp contrast to the strange, intense way he had been looking at her that night on Ensalada Isle.
He hadn't smiled once that night.
It bothered her.
And she couldn't help but feel oddly curious about him. She supposed it was natural in a way. He was the first person she laid eyes on when she woke up in this state. His unusual behavior following that day had only made her even more curious.
The youngest of the Son family had been absent from the last two gatherings. She wanted to ask Goku why that was. Would that be a strange thing for her to do? She didn't know.
The question was on the tip of her tongue, when Goku paused his feasting suddenly and met her gaze.
"Hey, Bulla!" Goku said through a cheek full of asparagus. "How's the training going?"
The question caught her off guard, but perhaps she could squeeze a question or two about his younger son into the conversation if she got him talking about something else first?
"It's… going. I guess. I won't be battling it out in the sky like you and my father anytime soon." Bulla replied, trying to keep her tone light and cheerful as she speared a glazed carrot with her fork. "That was… intense."
"Oh that? That was just a friendly spar," Goku said. "We've had some fights in the past I wasn't sure I was going to walk away from. That was back when he was a soldier in Frieza's army, though. Oh, and that other time when he let Babidi possess him."
Bulla's fork froze halfway to her mouth. "My Dad was a soldier in Frieza's army?"
"Oh yeah, for like… twenty years, I think." He pointed his fork at a particularly thick slice of pork belly on her plate. "Are you gonna eat that?"
"Go ahead." Goku helped himself, seemingly oblivious to her racing thoughts as she tried to process this information, her previous train of thought utterly forgotten.
Her father had told her Frieza was a tyrant, responsible for the near extinction of their race, commanding the Planet Trade Organization, who made their mark in the galaxy by purging planets of all living inhabitants and selling them to the highest bidder. He'd mentioned that Saiyans had been part of the organization at one point, but she hadn't made the connection that he had likely taken part in carrying out these acts personally as well.
For over twenty years, no less.
"Frieza is only one on a long list of individuals that would happily see me and, subsequently, you two, dead."
"And just why are there so many people that want you dead?"
She recalled that night, the way his scowl had flickered for just a moment, and then the way her mother had swiftly interceded. Bulla thought her mother had been trying to save her from that nightmare of a conversation. Perhaps she had instead been rescuing her father from having to explain himself further.
"How exactly… did you meet my father?" She asked quietly.
Goku paused, a thoughtful look crossing his face, "Well, it wasn't under the friendliest of circumstances... He and another Saiyan named Nappa came to Earth to take the Dragon Balls."
Bulla set her fork on her plate. "I assume he wasn't asking nicely when he came for them."
"Not exactly." Goku let out a small little laugh, as if this information was somehow amusing.
Unbidden, a scene played out in her mind. A city reduced to a pile of smoking ash. Her father, the architect of its ruin, standing triumphant in his trademark blue and white armor, gazing down upon the devastation he had wrought.
It wasn't a pretty sight.
"I see."
Bulla sat back in her chair, her appetite waning as she absorbed Goku's words. She had initially found her father to be a cold, coarse man, and she still did. But it never occurred to her he would be capable of that level of brutality.
Bulla spent the rest of the day in the greenhouse with her grandmother. The decision had earned her a glare from her father, but she couldn't find it in herself to care much about whether he was displeased with her at the moment.
The warmth of the afternoon sun filtering through the glass panes, the airy tune her grandmother hummed, and the earthy scent of soil and blooming flowers were all a welcome distraction.
In here, Bulla needn't concern herself with lost memories, ki control, or fighting or whether her father was or was not a former mass murderer. She only had to worry about the task in front of her. Which at the moment was cutting very thin slices of skin from the strawberries her grandmother hadn't used for the cake she'd served at lunch.
The little vegetable garden she had suggested was coming along nicely. She had initially planned on having one small bed with a mix of things, but that had quickly turned into two generously sized beds. Her grandfather had even joined them to install a solar powered drip irrigation system and a trellis for the cucumber plants.
After she'd finished preparing several small nursery pots, Bulla set to work pressing the strawberry skins gently into the soil, before covering them and giving them each a thorough watering. "In about six weeks, these should be ready to transfer to the garden. We'll have to trim off the blooms this year. That way, the plants can have a chance to bulk up a little. That means we won't get any berries until next year. The wait is going to suck, but the difference in quality will be worth it."
"You're such a natural," Panchy said, her voice filled with pride as she tended to a row of delicate pink orchids.
Bulla shrugged as she topped each of her little pots off with clear shot glasses she had borrowed from the liquor cabinet to give the seeds a nice humid environment. Hopefully, they wouldn't be missed too much over the next few weeks. "I probably learned it from you."
"I don't think so. You never spent much time with me in the garden growing up."
Bulla looked up. Surely that couldn't be right. "Never?"
Panchy shook her head. "No, you were usually trailing after the boys with Pan or spending time with your father. Besides, I've only ever planted flowers. You're such a smart girl. Who knows where you picked it up."
"Maybe," she mumbled. She supposed her grandmother's guess was as good as anyone's. It was odd though, in the thousands of selfies she'd looked at dozens of times on her Instagram, she had seen nothing related to gardening, or planting anything really. And if she had learned anything about her former self with absolute certainty, she had a penchant for documenting even the most mundane activity with a photograph.
There wasn't any literature on plant cultivation on her bookshelf. She knew that for certain. By now, she had memorized every title. She had a small succulent in her bedroom, but a seasoned gardener would surely have more than one tiny cactus and a vase of old dried out sunflowers.
Her grandmother's cheery voice broke her train of thought. "Speaking of Pan, when will she be joining us again?"
"She said she would be back in a few weeks, maybe longer." Hopefully not too long though, she was eager to have her friend back. She swept the bits of soil littering the table back into the bag, before sealing it up and carrying it back to the stack of unopened bags in the corner with the rest of the tools and supplies. Bulla made her way over to the sink, getting a few pumps of soap and set to work scrubbing away the remnants of dirt from her hands.
"She's such a sweet girl." Panchy squeezed in beside her to refill her watering can. "I'm so glad that you two are speaking again. Your falling out just broke my heart."
Bulla froze."Falling out? Pan never mentioned any falling out."
Panchy nodded with a small, sad sigh, "yes, it was sometime last fall. About six months ago, Pan just suddenly stopped coming by to visit you, and at Sunday dinners you two wouldn't even look at one another.
Bulla's confusion deepened. She searched her mind, trying to recall every conversation she'd had with Pan before she left. But she couldn't remember her ever implying they'd had any kind of 'falling out'. "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure. Very little happens around here that I don't know about, but that's our little secret. Besides, I always know when one of my babies are hurting. I'm just glad it's in the past and you two have found your way back to each other."
That couldn't be right. Surely her grandmother was mistaken. Pan wouldn't lie to her about something like that? Would she? Perhaps Pan had been absent merely because she was away for work.
But Pan had only started working for the Galaxy Police three months prior to Bulla's memory loss, not six.
As her grandmother went back to watering her flowers, Bulla dried her hands hurriedly on a rag and pulled her phone out of her back pocket. She opened up the messaging app, after scrolling through the backlog with no success at finding her friend's name, she typed it into the search bar.
The last message was from Bulla, dating back to six months ago. In the fall, just like her grandmother had said.
'Are you ever going to speak to me again?'
It may have been a lie of omission, but still.
Pan had lied to her.