Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Majin Leeli's Story ❯ It Doesn't Matter ( Chapter 12 )

Chapter 4 part c

It Doesn't Matter

Trunks watched as Billy read his book and Chris lay on his stomach, kicking his legs in the air while he drew in a coloring book. Kim was curled up on the couch, somewhere between sleep and consciousness, with her head on Elijah's lap. Elijah was still being quiet, though he seemed a bit more relaxed now that he was watching mind numbing television. Every once in a while the blond boy would look over his shoulder, as if to make sure his father was still alive.

"Dende," Trunks mumbled as he rolled his eyes upward. "This had better all be a bad dream."

There was a sound from the kitchen and Trunks looked down over his shoulder. Goten had disappeared as soon as Kim had finally released him and settled down to rest on the couch. With a sigh Trunks stood up and walked toward the kitchen, Elijah looked at his father with a panicked look.

"I'm just going to talk to Goten," Trunks said reassuringly, "I will be back, don't worry."

"Not that I care," Elijah said, his voice cracking lightly as he wearily turned back to the television.

"That boy is so traumatized," Trunks mumbled, shaking his head as he walked into the kitchen. Goten was doing dishes and Trunks gave a shake of his head. There were three things Goten did compulsively when he was upset: spar, clean, and the dishes. And he'd already trained and cleaned today.

"Goten," Trunks said softly as he took a seat at the kitchen table. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Trunks. Why wouldn't I be?" was the polite, but curt, reply.

"Oh, I don't know…" Trunks said, then decided sarcasm wasn't the way to go. "Um, why haven't you gone after Leeli?"

Goten stopped. "I don't think she would want me too," he said softly, "she probably wants to be with her friends and do… what they do…"

Trunks raised an eyebrow, but decided it wasn't a good time to ask what exactly they did. He looked down at his hands. He wasn't sure what to say. Leeli had done a lot of yelling when she'd flipped out on him and he wasn't sure how much of what she'd said was true. He wasn't even sure Goten going after her was a good idea. But they loved each other, that much he did know. And while he detested the idea of someone not being able to live without someone else, it was true about them.

"Goten, I think you should go after her. I mean… you'll regret it if you don't… I know you will. You need to talk to her," he smirked and then regretted it. "Damn, that hurt. Obviously she doesn't want to talk to me."

"Well, you do tend to be an ass," Goten mumbled and Trunks raised an eyebrow. "But I can't leave the children. They're scared now."

"Look, I'm the father of three out of four of those children," Trunks said, not allowing Goten to use the children as a defense. "I think I can take care of them for a few hours and if not Billy's a smart boy."

Goten didn't reply and Trunks banged his head on that table, then winced as he remembered the cuts on his face. Sometimes Goten's nature was fun and funny, sometimes it just made him stubborn as hell. Oh, and there was that good-doer Son gene he had. Maybe that was it.

"She really told you about the other dimension, didn't she?" Trunks guessed as he lifted his head from table.

"Yes," Goten said meekly. "She said she was a bad person. That she… hurt and killed people…"

Trunks leaned his uninjured cheek on his hand. So that was it. Goten didn't know what do say or do about what Leeli had told him. Trunks shrugged as he remembered what Leeli said when she was throwing him around the room and beating the crap out of him.

"She was scared in the another dimension. She told us she didn't even have her memory for five years. Unlike you I don't think she thought she was going to be able to come home. I don't know exactly what happened, and I don't think I really want details, but she came back. It sounds cold, but what she did was in that other dimension. If she killed or hurt people that was there, not here. For all we know it could have been something in the air that made her do it. Other than flipping out on me a bit ago, which I sort of deserved, kinda, she hasn't done a single violent thing." Trunks sighed at Goten's lack of response. "You're the one that loves her Goten. You have to decided what you can accept and can't, but at least talk to her."

Goten stopped doing the dishes and was still.

Trunks stood up to walk out of the kitchen and check on the kids, but before he did he looked over his shoulder. "Goten, neither her dad nor mine was a good person by any moral standards, think about it, okay?"

---

"That appeared to go surprisingly well," Kristel said as she watched her leader land. "If I had my aura monitoring device I believe we would have been able to see her visibly crumbling."

"Indeed," Koshi nodded with a slight twitch of her tail. She appreciated when her plans seemed to being going perfectly, "we'll give her a few minutes to think about what I said and then Tsuko will go in to bait her and remind her of the good times some more."

"Right-o, boss," Tsuko saluted with a smile.

"What about her daughter?" Mameko asked from where she was leaning against a tree. "We did decide the girl could be an asset to us, did we not?"

"Yes," Koshi nodded, raising a hand to her chin in thought. "And it would be a waste to take Leeli back and leave the child," she looked up at Tsuko.

"Kim," Tsuko filled in.

"Right, Kim. To leave her behind where she will not be properly trained and her power will be wasted seems foolish when we can do so much for and with her," Koshi continued, "besides, it would be improper to separate Leeli from her child."

"It'll be nice for the kids in our dimension to have some playmates," Muzai said from where she was sitting.

"Now, we just have to hope that you are convincing Tsuko…" Koshi began.

"Koshi-sama, we have a problem," Ka interrupted and Koshi glared.

"What?" Koshi said, making it evident in her tone that she did not appreciate being cut off when she was speaking.

Ka pointed at the distant figure in the night air. "Look who's coming to find Leeli."

Koshi's eyes narrowed before she smirked. "Maybe this is to our advantage."

---

Leeli felt Goten's ki long before he set down in front of her. He gave the fallen tree a sad look before looking up at her. Leeli gulped down hard. She hadn't expected anyone to come after her, especially not Goten. Not after what she'd said. Not after what she'd done to Trunks.

"Is… is Trunks okay?" she asked, half to break the ice and half out of worry.

Goten nodded, still not speaking.

"Look, I'm sorry. I'm," Leeli let out an almost hysterical laugh, "really damn sorry. I can't help the fact that I did all those things. They happened and I can't do anything about it now. I'm sorry that it hurt you. I'm just… I'm just sorry." Leeli hung her head, waiting for Goten to just walk away.

"Why did you hurt Trunks?" Goten asked quietly.

Leeli looked up into Goten's dark eyes. It was hard to see in the dark, but she could feel that he was looking at her, begging for an explanation that he could understand and forgive. She sighed slightly. If he was asking it meant that Trunks hadn't told him.

"I was upset," she began, knowing she couldn't tell Goten about the Goten in the other dimension. Even though she'd never done anything with him the mere idea of another Goten would make his insecurities even worse. "I was upset and Trunks came in and started to accuse me of things I didn't do, and I was so angry that I just snapped. I didn't even know what was happening until Kim and Elijah and you came in. And I got scared and I ran. I didn't mean to hurt him like that or destroy the living room. Really, I didn't."

Goten nodded and Leeli could tell it wasn't quite the answer he wanted, but it was the truth. Leeli hung her head again. She couldn't look at him. It was so hard. She just wanted him to tell her to go away and be done with it.

"I don't like," Goten said and Leeli looked up. "I don't like that you hurt people. I don't like that you killed them. I don't like that you liked it. That you continued it. I don't like the fact you wouldn't tell us… me about any of it. I don't like that you gave up hope of coming home. I don't like that you gave up."

Leeli pressed a hand to her face as she closed her eyes. She'd be damned if she cried again.

"But… it doesn't matter," Goten said, his voice cracking a bit and when Leeli looked up he looked to the side. "Trunks reminded me of something before I left. His father wiped out the inhabitants of entire planets. He wanted to do that to this planet. He tried. Your father tried to conquer this planet. But both of them, even though they did terrible things, killed people, they redeemed themselves. They became good, in their fashion. Vegeta and Piccolo both defended this planet when times got tough." Goten looked back at Leeli. "They did bad things, but they're not bad people."

Leeli stared at him for a moment and smiled shakily as Goten smiled back.

"I forgive you, just stay here with us."

---

"Shit!"

Elijah jumped and looked at his father in alarm. He was used to the older man cursing, but right now everything was making him jump. "What… what's wrong?" he asked, as he stroked Kim's hair back.

"Nothing," Trunks shook his head. "Dammit, dammit, dammit. I hadn't thought of that."

"What?" Elijah said his voice rising in panic. Kim looked up at him, realizing that her pillow wasn't going to stay still and got off the couch to go and play with Chris. "What? What hadn't you thought of?"

"It hadn't occurred to me that Leeli may still be nuts and attack Goten," Trunks said, forgetting he really didn't want to tell the boy this. "And he's too," he paused for a moment, "Goten… to defend himself from her."

"She wouldn't attack Dad," Elijah said, leaning forward, "would she?"

"Huh?" Trunks said, looking over as he realized he'd been talking out loud. "Uh, no, probably not," he backpedaled, "but I think maybe I should go check and make sure they're… both… okay."

"You're going to leave us here alone?" Elijah squeaked, grabbing his father's arm.

"Elijah, it'll be okay," Trunks said, not exactly sure how to deal with his son clinging to him. "I'll be back as soon as I can. Just stay in the house, okay? Just stay in the house."

Elijah nodded as he let go of Trunks' arm. He watched as his dad told the other kids to listen to him and stay in the house. And watched as his dad walked out the door. Elijah wrapped his arms around his legs and rested his chin on his knees and waited for someone to hurry back home.

---

"What is wrong with that boy?" Mameko snorted as she watched Goten and Leeli have their touching reunion. "With anyone else this plan would have worked easily. He must have hit his head to be so damned forgiving."

"That's what happened to your boy," Ka shrugged as she watched the scene over Mameko's shoulder and ignored the glare the sayia-jin woman gave her.

"It appears Koshi was right though," Mameko said, deciding not to give a verbal response. "He did forgive her."

"Yep," Ka nodded, leaning away, "I just hope he doesn't someone manage to screw up this next plan."

"He can't. This plan is based completely on his … problematic personality," Mameko said as she stepped back from where they were watching. "I think we should just be glad that they're too caught up in each other to notice our ki."

Ka said nothing and Mameko glanced over at her. "What's wrong?" she half asked and half demanded when she saw the surprised look on Ka's face.

"Look," Ka said, pointing at the quickly approaching purple haired man and wishing she wasn't always the bearer of such news.

Mameko turned her head and let out a low growl, twitching her tail before she smirked. "Well, as Koshi would say, this might be to our advantage." She turned and made a motion for Ka to move. "Come on, let's get back before the others move in."

---

Trunks let out a sigh of relief when he saw that Leeli wasn't beating the shit out of Goten. And then smiled when he realized that they appeared to be making up. At least he thought it looked like a hug and not an offensive maneuver. He set down as they both looked up and he suddenly remembered that Leeli had beaten him up. "Shit," he mumbled to himself, "hope she's still not pissed."

"Trunks, what are you doing here?" Goten asked, obviously alarmed at the thought of the children being left alone.

"Uh… well, do be honest I wanted to make sure she didn't beat the crap out of you," he said with a smirk. "Y'know, double check to make she sure she wasn't crazy anymore."

"I'm sorry I beat you up, Trunks," Leeli said, running her hand through her hair. "You really didn't deserve it." She paused a moment. "Actually, you did, but not to the extent that I…"

Trunks held up a hand. "Don't worry about it," he said with a shrug. "I've gotten beaten up worse. But don't do that to me again or I will fight back," his voice had dropped to an almost warning tone. "You scared the hell out of the kids. Elijah actually gave a damn about how I was doing. Do you have any idea how freaky that is?"

Leeli hung her head. "I'm sorry. I really am. I don't know any other way to say it."

"Why should you have to say it?"

Almost as one Leeli, Goten, and Trunks jumped and turned as Koshi walked into their view a feral smirk on her face. "Being majin means you don't have to say you're sorry. Ever."

[Love is a Battlefield]