Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Another Time ❯ Chapter 11 ( Chapter 11 )

Another Time

By Karete-chan

Chapter 11: …but the fire's not lit quite yet.

The guests from the interrupted party stood in Capsule Corp.'s wide front hall, looking at the young stranger in their midst with varying degrees of interest.

"Do I know you?" Gokou asked her as she gazed up at him with wide searching eyes.

Her face broke into a huge grin. "It is you."

Gokou, unable to help himself, smiled his goofy grin right back. "Uh, Trunks? Care to shed a little light here?" he asked, gesturing towards the young girl.

Trunks sighed and shook his head. "Sure, but I guarantee you're going to think I'm nuts." He grabbed Kat none-to-gently by the arm and led her into the lounge. "Way to break up a party Kat," he hissed in her ear.

She looked him in the eyes for the first time. "I'm not stopping you," she said flatly. "Besides, I could do with a drink." He watched as her eyes travelled over the bottles sitting on the bar.

Trunks snorted as he pulled her further into the room, to clear the way for the others. "You're too young."

"Bulma didn't think so." Kat retorted sticking her nose in the air.

Slowly the rest of the party entered the room behind them. Each person watched them with growing interest as they took seats on the couches.

"C'mon Trunks, spill. Who is she?" Bulma asked again as she lowered herself into an armchair. "If she's your girlfriend I want to know about it."

Groaning, Trunks slapped his forehead and turned back to his mother. "Kassan she's not my girlfriend!"

At the same time there was a snort of laughter from Kat. "Yeah right!" she muttered as she poured over the bottles. "I could just see the look on Vegeta's face if Trunks told him we were dating. He wouldn't let a third class baka like me anywhere near his precious heir!" She laughed again. "Bulma, you sure know how to lighten the mood." She stopped as she realized the room had gone silent. "What? Have I got dirt on my nose or something?"

Vegeta pushed himself off the wall he was leaning against. "What did you say?" he asked softly.

Kat was bewildered. "Uh… Do I have dirt on my nose?"

"You can be just as dense as Gokou sometimes, Kat." Trunks crossed his arms and smirked at her. "But then again, maybe it runs in the family."

Kat's wide eyed, questioning look was quickly replaced with a scowl. "At least I'm not a half-breed brat with a superiority complex!"

Trunks took a mock step back. "Ouch. We're in a foul mood today aren't we?" he said sarcastically.

"You haven't seen the half of it," she snarled back.

The others in the room looked back and forth between the two as if they were watching a tennis match.

"Ok. Back up a bit here. What is going on?" Bulma asked, standing up.

Trunks and Kat glared at each other for another moment before turning their backs on each other. Trunks stalked across the room and threw himself in the chair furthest away from her before he decided to answer his mother's question.

"She snuck on board the time machine Kassan."

"She what now?"

"I held on to one of the legs. Like Trunks would've let me come if I asked," Kat muttered.

"You…you're from the past?" Bulma practically squealed as she looked at the two of them.

Trunks nodded.

Calming herself Bulma looked Kat up and down, which made Kat feel like she was on a microscope slide. "I don't remember her. Who is she?"

Kat lent against the bar. "I'm Gokou's twin sister."

The eyes in the room suddenly looked comical. "What?"

Trunks sighed. "It's true."

"What?"

Kat grinned. "How about that drink?"

*****

It was surprising how fast everything seemed to just fall back into normalcy. Granted, Kat had already had practice at fitting into the lives of family she didn't really know but having the dead come back to life at the same time would make you think that it might make it a little more difficult.

Trunks sighed as he welded the last sheet of metal into place on the roof of his home. His parents had fallen back into their routine very easily after his mother stopped getting teary every time she looked at his father. Now they could have been his mother and father from the past, as if nothing had happened to separate them for nineteen years. Yet they weren't exactly the same. While they fought just as much as they did back there, they never gave the impression that they were taking each other seriously. To Trunks it almost looked like they were sharing a private joke.

He glanced down and saw Kat helping Bulma with something on the front lawn, the grass partly grown back and still very patchy in areas. He had become too used to seeing the girl around. She turned around as if knowing he was looking at her and waved up at him. He frowned at the smile on her face. When she saw his expression, hers changed to match it before stomping off after Bulma to meet an approaching truck.

Baka, he berated himself. It's not like she's around often enough any more so you can just happen to run into her and have a civil conversation. ChiChi had insisted on having the girl stay with them and Kat had all too happily agreed. As they had left she and Gokou had been chatting animatedly. They were talking about Radditz, and Gokou was having trouble keeping up with the stream of questions coming from his twin's mouth.

That was the happiest Trunks had ever seen her and the thought made him smile. He looked down at her again as she shifted crates for his mother. He shook his head again. For Kami's sake, She's only sixteen!

*****

As the medium sized truck pulled away from the half repaired Capsule Corp. labs two figures stood and coughed in the cloud of dust it left in its wake.

"Sure isn't a place you'd want to live in. I still can't get over the smell."

"We do the best we can. Since Trunks destroyed the androids people have been rebuilding like mad. No one to tear the buildings down again, you see."

Kat nodded. "And Capsule Corp is going to be the temporary hospital?"

Bulma nodded and turned around to shuffle through some papers that were sitting on a crate. After a moment she glanced over her shoulder at the girl, who was moving the supply boxes over near the newly repaired warehouse. Bulma sighed.

"Kat," she began, "Trunks told me what you did for the me in the past."

"Hai?" the girl answered, without breaking stride in her work.

"Well, I was thinking, and I think you'd be better off finishing your education than working here."

There was silence. "Oh," Kat answered quietly.

"The university is opening again next week so I thought it would be better if you got in early to sign up for classes. You and Trunks can go down there together since he'll be attending too."

"Uh huh."

"It would be better if you both had your degrees," the older woman sighed. "ChiChi wanted Gohan to go as well but he said he gave up on studying a long time ago." Her face brightened. "The two of you could go and see him when you go into town. He's taken up a position in one of the dojo's there. You might even be able to get a part time job helping him."

Kat smiled at this. "The day Gohan needs help showing someone how to fight is a sad day indeed."

"So you'll go?"

"Yeah. I might as well. Before I'd only completed up to the end of first year." Her face screwed up. "And it was still too easy."

"I could always have a word with the administration."

Kat's face lit up in grin.

"Oh don't be so grateful. I was going to have to do it for Trunks anyway."

*****

Having him back was like breathing clean air again. He had changed, but not so much that he wasn't the same man anymore, the man she had fallen in love with. Quietly she stepped up behind him, her feet not making a sound in the damp grass. She reached out to touch his shoulders.

"If you wanted a hug, you could just ask me," his deep voice said, laced with amusement.

Bulma scowled but hugged him from behind anyway. She should have known that just because her ears couldn't hear anything, didn't mean his couldn't.

"Something you wanted, onna?" Vegeta asked.

Bulma smiled softly. There had been a time when that simple sentence would have brought out the worst in her. "Nope."

"Then why are you out here annoying me?"

"I'm annoying am I? Guess I'll just go away then." She unwrapped her arms from around him and stepped back.

He was holding her again before she could take another. "Old habits are hard to break."

"Aren't they just?" she muttered as she lent into him.

After a while she lifted her head to look at him. "So, what were you thinking about?"

His eyes darkened.

Bulma sighed. "Please tell me you weren't thinking of challenging Gokou again."

His habitual smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. "I'll always be ready to challenge that baka." He frowned again. "But no, I was thinking about his wayward sibling."

"Kat? What about her?"

He let go of her and turned to watch the sparring match in the distance. "I don't know."

This time it was Bulma's turn to frown.

"She isn't what I thought she would be like," he continued. "She isn't like a normal Saiya-jin, she's not like me, or Radditz or Nappa but she isn't like Kakarott either."

"So? She's a mix of both kinds."

Vegeta shook his head. "No. That's just it. She has the anger, the violence and the insolence of a Saiya-jin but she has the emotions of a human."

Bulma sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Vegeta, what you just described is a perfect mix of human and Saiya-jin."

"And that's wrong. She had no accident when she was a child, to cause her to be like Kakarott and before you suggest that she's like a half breed, I'm sure that a pure blooded Saiya-jins genetic makeup doesn't suppress the violent and destructive urges, that the human blood does to the half breed."

"You learnt to suppress them and she has had far longer to practice."

"That's not the point. She's different up here." He tapped his head.

Bulma smirked at him. "What? You mean she has a brain?"

He scowled at her. "No, I mean in the way she thinks. If she had grown up on Vegeta-sei, she would have been considered a freak."

Bulma frowned. "But I remember Gokou mentioning something about meeting his father in the other world and learning that the man was quite intelligent."

Vegeta thought for a moment. "I don't remember his name, I was probably never told it because he was third class, but he was intelligent and was the only Saiya-jin in the science division." He shook his head. "But he was still Saiya-jin! Nothing could change that fact. If you offered the daughter the choice between sparring and tinkering in a lab…she would have a hard time deciding and that's wrong."

Bulma regarded him quietly for a moment. "There's something else bothering you."

His face darkened again.

She smirked and nudged him in the ribs. "C'mon, fess up."

"She irks me."

Bulma stared at him. "That's the stupidest thing I've heard all day. You've only known the girl for five minutes." Bulma paused and eyed him carefully. "What did she do to piss you off?"

"Nothing. It's her behaviour that irks me, not what she's done to me."

"Oh? And what about it?" Out of the blue Bulma suddenly realised that this was probably one of the longest conversations she had had with her husband.

"She was running away."

Bulma looked at him incredulously. "Wouldn't you? If I knew I was…" She looked at his expression and paused. "Oh stupid question, forget I asked."

"She's stubborn, has a smart mouth and tries to act like she doesn't really care for others."

Sounds like someone else I know, Bulma thought.

"And she is a coward."

Bulma glanced over to where her son sat watching Gohan and Kat spar. The three were laughing, something she hadn't seen her son do in a long time.

"Vegeta, maybe…maybe there was more to it than that."

Vegeta turned and regarded the three younger Saiya-jins quietly. He slid an arm around Bulma's waist. "Perhaps."

A contented smile passed over Bulma's face. Everything she always wanted. She never thought she'd hear herself say those words again. And never while Vegeta was standing quietly, just holding her as she watched their son smile.

If anything tried to ruin this, she'd take her new laser to its head.

*****

It was happy. It sat amidst the ruins of what had once been a peaceful farming village and gloated. Happy was the one emotion apart from terrifying violence that it could convey to the outside world and that made it seem extremely insane. Of course seeming insane and being insane often walked a very thin line but in this case the creature was far on the other side and still going strong.

It was no surprise, except of course to the poor unsuspecting villagers, the planet it had been on last week, that whole solar system a couple of years ago and anything else that seemed to be in its way, since it had spent nearly its entire life in darkness and alone. Every now and then something would wake it and its biologically enhanced senses would pick up faint signals. But it never moved. It had been told to stay and it would, until the signal to move was sent.

But now, now it was free to roam. Well, it would be after it finished its mission. It grinned to itself. They were so much closer now and all in one place. It got to its feet and headed towards its ship. It could remember a time when signals from Saiya-jins used to come from everywhere.

*****

ChiChi grinned at the people surrounding her table. The chatter was as louder than it had been in years and she had almost pulled a muscle trying to get all the cooking done. Bulma had, of course, insisted on helping, much to her dismay but she had managed to distract her long time friend with repairing the electric can opener.

The food was quickly disappearing down the throats of her guests. Five Saiya-jins. She sighed happily, no doubt the food wasn't even being tasted but it was good to be able to feed a family again. She tried to stifle a giggle as Vegeta, Trunks and Kat paused in their vacuuming of her table to stare disgustedly at her husband and son's eating habits. A while ago it would have annoyed her no end but now she couldn't care less. Just like she didn't care that Vegeta was at her house either. She still wasn't fond of the man and probably never would be but she could tolerate him in her house.

Her eyes fell on Bulma who was also grinning widely at the people eating. A sobering thought suddenly overtook ChiChi as she watched the couple. Bulma looked so old sitting next to Vegeta, who looked hardly any different then he had when ChiChi had first met him. She wondered if she looked like that as she sat next to Gokou. They would have to do something about that.

A burst of laughter broke ChiChi from her thoughts and she joined in as the joke was relayed to her. She smiled happily. All she ever wanted was a family.

Author's Note:

To my reviewers on ff.net:

The Questionable Who

Heidi

Sheena

And those from mm.org:

ME

kixbra

Thank you all very much.

I realise this chapter is a little short but I was having a bit of trouble coming up with filler. More story line and plot in the next couple of chapters. I promise. Also I realise I made some promises that this chapter would be up by Friday but I had some issues I had to deal with. Look for the next chapter soon.