Not long after Piccolo left, Val went back to her room first, rummaging through the capsule Bulma brought her. She found it a bit annoying to see what could be months worth of condoms with everything that had happened since she took over guardianship temporarily. She grumbled, unsure whenever those would be useful.

She took the laptop and Dr. Gero's data to the library, going through the files he had on Cell. She saw that herself and each of the fathers as they were had their own research notes as well as electronic copies of their DNA samples. She skimmed them quickly, seeing Vegeta's, Goku's, Piccolo's, King Cold's, Frieza's, and her own. Nothing in them clued her into how to stop Cell, so she did not read too closely nor carefully. Curiosity got the better of her, getting her to open her own notes to see what he had written about her:

Subject: Val

Race: Anthromorph

- Considered also Namekian, Demon Clan

Gender: Female

Intelligence: higher than average human, but lacking in social intelligence

Characteristics: beautiful, shorter height, slimmer, possesses some strength/battle prowess, dutiful, loyal - most to Vegeta and Namekians, stubborn, selfish tendencies

- thick skin, less so on scars on arms. Seems only Namekian fingernails, possibly teeth can break it. Needle was able to penetrate scar on hand.

-DNA necessary to create Cell with Piccolo's majority Demon Clan DNA. Other subjects incompatible with him, but hers compatible with all. Makes best possible Cell possible.

- Hair samples taken from hairbrush highly degraded, unusable in creating Cell.

- Blood sample necessary. Spy robot unable to procure one- thick skin.

- Kanae, new recruit for the Red Ribbon Army, hired to infiltrate Capsule Corps and get a sample.

- Kanae almost failed, but reported Val blessed her, making her able to get five blood samples, but unable to sneak one away.

- Samples were locked away in secure Capsule Corps lab. Kanae unable to steal one sample until another employee destroyed Namekian samples. Kanae stole one of Val's samples in the ensuing chaos, bringing it to my lab.

- Kanae delivered the sample while I was sleeping. Went nosing through my research notes, spoke out against it. Nearly destroyed the blood sample.

- Once sample was taken by force from her, terminated her to prevent her from warning Capsule Corps of my research.

Val stood up and pushed herself away from the desk, hands shaking and over heating at what she had read. She shuffled out of the building, releasing the heat safely. She still felt shaken, mind reeling. She felt on edge, wanting to fight, fury burning through her at Dr. Gero's act and Kanae's betrayal. The sample... the red headed woman with the bright read lipstick... at Capsule Corps... cursing her to get a sample... For what should have been a good cause... If not for that curse, Cell would not have been created... but a sample another way... the destruction of the Namekian samples-

"Val, I said are you okay?" Tien asked standing suddenly near her.

She blinked up at him, shaking her head. He stepped closer to her, eyes glancing over at both wrists to see her bracelets were on. "Cell is-" she started. "Dr. Gero was a monster," she swore. She told him of everything she had just read, fury fueling her to just keep talking and quickly so he could interrupt her.

When she finished, he looked absolutely confused. "But, what?" he asked. He hummed to himself. "Show me," he requested.

She stomped her way off to the library, waking up the laptop she had been using. She still had Dr. Gero's notes on her still up. She gestured for him to sit down while she stood, pacing the library nearby. She threw a glance at him now and again seeing him a bit confused, but kept herself quiet as he. Thoughts twisting and turning in her head.

Eventually, he pushed the chair back away from the desk and closed the laptop when he was done. She halted in her feet and her thoughts, looking over at him to break the silence between them first. "Nothing good ever comes from stealing," he ruled. She clicked her teeth, not sure how to answer. "You should just delete it all before it can get stolen from you." He reached for the computer.

"Don't you dare," she swore. She was on him, hand pressing down on the lid of the laptop protectively. He pulled his hand away. "His intentions were evil, but mine are not," she said.

"Why did you have Trunks and Krillin steal it for you anyway?" he asked. "Wasn't what Vegeta stole you plenty? Or what about what you took from Frieza's ship?"

She raised her chin up defiantly, hand still staying protective over the laptop, ready to tear it out of his reach if need be. "What he took, I've used to help us, to help others. Without the medicine from Frieza's ship, there would be no antivirals against the heart virus. Without that data Vegeta stole from the Imperial Army, Future Trunks would have never been able to travel back in time to warn us."

He looked over at her, confused. "Wait, what?"

She swallowed thickly. "After I died, we all died, years later. Future Trunks said Bulma, his version of her, used the data from the Imperial Army to create the time machine. If Vegeta had never taken that data as a gift to me, we'd all be dead. The future would have never changed, it would have stayed the hellish Future Trunks described. Vegeta's intention wasn't malicious when he took the data."

He stared at her hard. She could tell he still disapproved. "What's your intention with Dr. Gero's data then?" he asked.

She hesitated, thinking over it. "A better future," she said vaguely.

He huffed. "Can't you figure out things on your own? Without stealing?" he griped.

"Future Bulma didn't," she responded. "Even if it changed more she intended," she thought out loud.

"It's changed more? More than just Goku surviving and Cell coming?" he asked curiously. She stood upright, clenching her jaw. "What else has changed?" he pressed.

She looked down at him, mind reeling. Future Trunks telling her they never broke up, Kami trying force the timeline to stay on track, Piccolo telling her to put the future back on track out of fright of how Cell came to be because of the changed timeline, Goku not caring that things changed since the present timeline's Trunks existed. She thought of her own desire to know the future, how she pestered Piccolo for it, how she wanted to make her own choice for the future rather than to be shoved down the path to permanent guardianship and pushed back into a relationship with a man she knew she did not love. Here was the opportunity to tell him what she had wanted, a chance to give him a choice when she railed against not having one herself. He could decide it all, here and now. She took a deep breath. "Well..." she started. "Are you sure you want to know?" She looked over at him. He looked up at her, hesitating at first, but nodding. "Okay. This is what Future Trunks told me, before he went into the Room of Spirit and Time..." she started.

She kept talking, talking faster, louder, and more forcefully when he tried to talk over her. When she finally finished, he was standing himself, breathing fast. "That can't be what happened," he said with her finally letting him a proper word in.

"It is what happened," she said.

He came around the desk, shuffling towards her in a hurry. She backed away from him, but he closed the distance between them. His hands came around her shoulders. "He had to have lied," he said in disbelief. He leaned his head in close, too close. She willed herself not to move in any way, letting him make a choice. He shook his head and leaned back and away. She saw him mouth, 'Aiko,' to himself.

"He had no reason to lie. He was truthful about everything else," she insisted. She hesitated, and then admitted. "I think my timeline change when I decided to split my time up between training and working on the antivirals."

He looked down at her, reading her face. His eyes flashed in realization of her half truth. "Piccolo told you to do that. After Trunks, Future Trunks left us. After Piccolo warned us about the androids and Goku's death," he said. He let her shoulders go and started to step away and pace away from her. "He knew the whole future, what it was supposed to be, and then he told you to do that."

She shook her. "Changing the future like that, for me, wasn't his intention," she defended. "I would have come to that conclusion anyway-"

"No," he interrupted. "You just wanted to work on the antivirals then. He told you to split your time. But-" he shook his head. "It's what you should have done. It's what you needed to do, to prepare for both threats that were imminent... It was the right thing to do... His intention..." He looked at her a little too long.

"His intention was to not drive a wedge between the two of us or anything like that," she explained.

He blinked away, looking away. He sighed. "No, he wouldn't have, even if he did seem... or at least you seemed..."

"Seemed what?" she asked.

"Interested in one another," he finished, tone slightly jealous. "Even before he saved your life after fighting Garlic Jr."

"It wasn't like that before-" she started.

He spoke over her, "then why did he, in the other timeline where we all died, why would he have been the one to attack the androids first? When you said Trunks said they goaded me over your death, but he went after them first. Not me. Not Vegeta."

She shook her and started. "I-" she stopped. She frowned, thinking. "I don't know," she realized. She hummed, bringing a hand up to her necklace, fiddling with it for a few seconds.

He brought his hands to his hips, shaking his head. He looked over at her, asking, "what do we do now?"

She met his gaze, swallowing. "Well, once Cell came, it shook Piccolo up. Seems to have scared him with how bad, how worse the future could be now," she preempted. "He said to push the future back to what it was supposed to be, as much as it can be. To make the only change in the long run to be Goku's survival, and in turn everyone else's."

He kind of looked at her. "He said that to me, too," he recalled.

She nodded, saying, "to set the future back on track."

He looked at her surprise. "Those were his words. How do you know them?" She opened her mouth to answer. "He thought you wouldn't be listening in on us because that was when you getting Krillin and Future Trunks to steal that data from Dr. Gero's lab for you." She grimaced at being caught. "That was after Cell. This what he meant... Put the future back on track. You become Earth's guardian, not just die while in the midst of your training. But not just that, but also," he looked over at her, slowly stepping back over towards. She froze up, willing herself to stay still as he closed the distance between the two of them to an informal one. "For us to get back together...?"

She looked up at him, mouth slightly parted. She found close, too close, but not daring to take a step towards or away from him. 'Give him the choice,' she thought to herself, willing herself not to flinch away, even as he raised a hand up to brush a stray hair from her face.

It was at that moment they both sensed someone unexpected land on top of the Lookout.