Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ A Shadow in the Twilight ❯ Chapter 28 ( Chapter 28 )

Chapter 28

**Author's note: ((--)) telepathic voices**

She was singing to him, again. The gentle melody was no longer being sung in the voice of the cloud-child, but in the husky contralto he'd come to know so well. The tune was his lifeline back to the present, pulling him steadily away from the jealous grip of the stormy astral vortex:

I will remember you

Will you remember me?

Don't let your life pass you by

Weep not for the memories

I'm so tired but I can't sleep

Standin' on the edge of something much too deep

It's funny how we feel so much but we cannot say a word

We are screaming inside, but we can't be heard…

Bardock was having a tough time shoving the last of the weighty blanket of trance-fog off of him. At least that infernal spinning sensation had finally ceased, allowing his sense of awareness to reassemble itself into more identifiable parts. His limbs felt leaden, almost as if his body had temporarily melded to the floor during his out-of-body experience. The hard dampness beneath his back was the first physical thing he felt coming out of the trance. The second thing he felt was a wet mound of something that had been bunched-up and pillowed protectively beneath his head, elevating it off of the hard flooring.

An aromatic smell of blood and female sex still resided in the small divot just under the base of his nose. It was an amalgam of Lluvia's scents; the perfume of her gift, given without reservation exclusively to him…but where was she? The misty air rolling across his bare skin told him that she was no longer in his arms, but he could feel that she was somewhere nearby in the room.

As his waking mind reached out through their bond to touch her mind, he made contact with a perplexing quiet, which felt warm but disturbingly vacuous at the same time. The act of moving took some effort on his part, but the forced physical motion helped to cast away the last of his trance-induced heaviness. He rolled over to one side and peered through the warm haze. He could see Lluvia's mist-haloed figure settled into a kneeling posture a few feet away, her back to him, rocking slowly back and forth on her heels, with her gaze fixed away from him and upon the water before her. Her arms were crossed over her bare breasts with her hands grasping her upper arms.

She must've come out of the memory vortex before I did, he surmised to himself.

Propping himself up to a more vertical sitting position, his fully awake ears strained, listening to the sound of her voice:

I will remember you

Will you remember me?

Don't let your life pass you by

Weep not for the memories…

((Lluvia?)) His worried question reached out telepathically for a response from his bondmate. She gave no indication that she'd heard him call her name. Instead of answering, she continued to sing:

I'm so afraid to love you, but more afraid to lose

Clinging to a past that doesn't let me choose

Once there was a darkness, deep and endless night

You gave me everything you had; oh, you gave me light…

((Lluvia!)) His mind was shouting a demand to be heard, but her mind had closed itself off, set upon completing the final chorus of the long-forgotten song:

I will remember you

Will you remember me?

Don't let your life pass you by

Weep not for the memories

Weep not for the memories…

After she'd sung the last word, her voice trailed off on the final note. The rhythmic rocking stopped and she froze in her kneeling posture, her wide stare seeing only the hypnotic motion of the waves.

Bardock's initial trepidation at her non-responsiveness was quickly evolving into a state of full-blown panic. Could it be that what he'd feared most had come to pass? Had the trip through his tumultuous, battle-laden past been too much for her to witness? Did the mental and spiritual part of the bonding process, which had been so rapturous when their bodies came together, irreparably damage her ningen mind? Had he inadvertently crushed the vibrant spirit of his lotus blossom?

His heart thundered in fear that he'd lost her for good. The smell of his spent seed grew stronger as he cautiously edged on all fours towards her frozen figure. Bardock didn't want to approach her too quickly for fear that she would take off like a frightened animal. He ached to touch her and to hold her sweet body in his arms again, but she suddenly looked so fragile sitting like that!

He would just have to risk it; he just had to!

Kneeling behind her, he held out a quavering hand above her shoulder, hovering for an unsure moment before letting it rest on the warm satin of her pale lilac skin. She slowly turned her head to look, almost curiously, down at his large hand. Her arms uncrossed and, before he could react, her two hands gently gathered his outstretched hand into them. She then turned his hand palm-side up, unfolded his shaking fingers and brought her mouth down to plant a light kiss upon the fold of his lifeline. Tilting her head slightly, she rested her cheek into the warmth of his cupped palm. In that instant, Lluvia released the psychic floodgates that had held in her side of the bond.

Bardock thought that he would surely explode from the mind-blowing surge of love and affection that poured out of her, inundating every part of him.

((It was you! The little girl on Terraflora was you!)) He cried into her mind, a wave of guilt and surprise flowing from him to her.

Lluvia's soft cheek nodded her reply into his hand. ((It was I, Saiya-jin mine. But to tell you the truth, I really didn't remember any part of it, in spite of what I said! It's kind of embarrassing; after all, I did say that I would remember you, but I didn't!)) She kissed his hand again and a small electric tremor of forgiveness surged upward from his palm into his body. ((You shouldn't be so hard on yourself, Bardock. It wasn't your fault!))

((How…how can you say that? If my crew and I hadn't purged your planet, you wouldn't have spent so many years wandering homeless and destitute!))

She shrugged her shoulders. ((You said it yourself: you were…you are a soldier, trained since childhood to be just that. You couldn't help becoming the person you were, anymore than I could have.))

He gulped heavily before transmitting his next thoughts. ((I nearly killed you!)) A guilty shudder rippled through his body. Sensing his inner turmoil, she enfolded his anguished psyche in a comforting mental hug. Her next telepathic question took him aback.

((Do you believe in miracles, Bardock?)) When he didn't immediately answer her, she turned around to face him, her two hands still holding onto his one. Her eyes attentively gazed into his, wordlessly awaiting his response.

((I...I honestly don't know what to believe in anymore! As a Saiya-jin warrior, I never allowed myself to empathize for those creatures whose lives I had taken, whose homes I indiscriminately destroyed. Now, after seeing the repercussions of my actions through your eyes and your life…how I displaced you…how I…)) He squeezed his eyes tight and quaked inwardly again at the thought of what he had almost done on that fateful day. If he had killed her as a child, his life would have been bereft of this precious and matchless bond!

She smiled, releasing one hand to bring a fingertip up to smooth out the trademark Saiya-jin crease between his eyes. ((Can't argue that…but you know what they say: a miss is surely as good as a mile!)) His eyes shot open just in time to catch the bright teasing glint in her eye. It was such a bad joke that he couldn't help shaking his head and emitting a groaning chuckle into the moist air.

Arrgh! ((Woman, you are such a baka! Whatever am I going to do with you?))

She leaned forward into his embrace and felt his much-relieved heartbeat resound through his warm bare chest against the side of her face. Everything else fled from their minds as his strong arms pressed her tightly to him, both of them reveling in the poignant caress of their shared bond.

"I don't know about you, Saiya-jin mine, but I am planning on spending a lifetime showing you exactly what I'm going do with you! But for now, do you think that we might get the heck out of this bloody steam bath? My fingers and toes have gotten awfully pruney hanging around here!"

Bardock grinned, giving her an affectionate squeeze, as he playfully added, "Mine, too! I also happen to think that it would be a crime to let that big, cozy bed back there in your quarters go to waste tonight, don't you agree?"

Much later…

"I hate you, you know."

As they lay together in the sheet-tangled bed, Lluvia's head was nestled in the crook of Bardock's right shoulder, his arm possessively gathered underneath her.

During this brief interval between couplings, her hands were idly playing with the tufted end of his reddish-brown tail. Her fingertips were alternately stroking with and against the furry grain and rustling the feathery ends. To the Saiya-jin warrior, the deliberate motion was both erotic and soothing, drawing a rumbling purr of contentment from deep within his chest. His own free hand was absently twirling and un-twirling one of her thin braids around his index finger.

"You 'hate' me?" he asked lightly, not sure what she meant.

"Yes, I hate you, Bardock." He turned his body onto its side, careful to keep her body as close to him as possible. His nose was buried into her fluffy, fragrant hair, the warm breath of his question stirring the white-gold strands in front of his lips.

"Why?"

"Because you dared to touch my soul; the space deep within me that I have kept well-hidden and safe for so long and…I hate you for it." His left hand cupped her chin to tilt her face upwards and his mouth closed briefly on the tip of her nose in a gentle, affectionate nip. When he let go, he tilted his head down just a bit to look into her eyes.

"Is that so very bad, my lotus blossom?"

She expelled a little sigh of defeat. "Yes, because from this point forward, I will miss you so very much if you're not near me!" As she whispered her heated confession, a small tear trickled down from the corner of her eye, and her kiss-swollen lips came up to meet his.

((As I will you, my lifemate)), affirmed Bardock in his mind, returning her kiss with renewed passion. ((As I will you!))

I Will Remember You - Sarah McLachlan