Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Piccolo's Embrace ❯ Revelations ( Chapter 9 )

Gohan had made his way back up the stairs, holding the dragonball in one hand, his now machine in the other as glanced around the living for any sign of either the woman or Piccolo.

"Hello! Guys?" He asked, knowing that the Namek could sense his presence as he did with him. He also knew it wasn't like Piccolo to just ignore him. Well, this is kinda rude, he thought, rounding the corner to the foyer where he stopped in his tracks a smirk replacing the shocked look in less than three seconds.

"Hello, Gohan." Piccolo said, lifting his face from Alaura's neck. He carefully set her down on her feet and turned around to greet his former student properly. Gohan peered behind Piccolo but only caught a brief flash of white skin before Piccolo turned in such a way as to shield her with his body while she hurriedly pulled her skirt back down and straightened the creases and pulled up the shoulders of her blouse. "Good to see you, again."

"Oh, Gohan?" Alaura asked, peeking over Piccolo's shoulder at him. He noticed that the pencils weren't sticking up in her hair anymore and were lying scattered on the floor next to them. He thought the way the pale tendrils fell and framed her face looked cute. He was beginning to understand why Piccolo spends so much time here. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Yep." He held up the small orange ball, "Thank you giving it to me. You still want to give it to me, right?"

She glanced at Piccolo, who shrugged, "I have no use for it." It had crossed his mind, for a split second that maybe he could get the other dragonballs together and make a wish that Alaura's memory blocks be removed finally so that she could tell him what her attacker had looked like so he could go destroy him. But he realized that would be a wish more aimed at Making him feel better, not her. So, he kept silent.

"Can I see that for a moment?" Alaura asked, stepping out from behind Piccolo, a little more put-together.

"Sure." He handed it to her and as she felt it's smooth roundness and soft warmth she was overcome with a series of bits and pieces of imagery, and feelings to go with them. Bits and pieces and emotions she did not want. With a sound like a cry of pain, she shoved the dragonball towards Gohan and ran from the room. They heard the door to her bedroom slam shut.

"What was that all about?" Gohan asked, still staring after her. Instead of answering Gohan's question, Piccolo said, intead; "I think we need to find out how a dragonball got into Alaura's house."

"In her dance studio." Gohan put in, "Under a brick in the corner in a small hole, there were other stuff there too as well, just worthless junk."

"So, it appears as if someone had hidden it and probably means to retrieve it someday soon."

"Well, we could put it back and wait." Gohan said reluctantly, he really wanted the dragonball.

Piccolo took the ball from Gohan and said, "I'll do it. You should go now."

"But, Piccolo, what if something happens?"

"I'll take care of it." He said, "Now, I know your mother worries about you."

"Right." Gohan said, sighing, "Let me know what happens, okay, Piccolo?"

Piccolo nodded briefly an Gohan made his way to the door. He started to open it but paused, turned his head and said; "Say good bye to Alaura for me and thank her for letting me look around."

Again Piccolo nodded and Gohan shut the door behind himself.

He stood in the hallway a moment, the dragonball in his hand, his ears twitched slightly at the sound of soft sobbing coming from down the hall. He walked towards the sound, his not so clean white cape billowed out behind him as he turned the corner and opened the door to the dark green and cream colored bedroom and saw Alaura sitting on the bed, her bare legs dangled over the edge and her hands were over her face as her hair hung down like a canopy to hide her eyes and emotions.

"Alaura?" He asked, quickly placing the dragonball into one of her dresser drawers and shutting it softly so that it was out of sight, for now, he would put it back where Gohan had found it later, right now, at least, he had more pressing matters. Such as the woman he loved about to fall to pieces in front of him and holding on by a slender thread. "I think it's time we talked about this."

"No!" She raised her head, her blue eyes, which had always reminded him of a cloudless summer sky, flashed angrily, "How can you ask me to do that, Piccolo? You of all people? You know what I."

"What you went through?" He asked, kneeling on the floor and taking her hands in his own. Her hands were swallowed up by his larger ones, For once, he had to look up into her face, "No, My Love, I only know what you have told me, and it's not enough. I don't say this to be cruel. I say this to help you. I can see it eating away at you, bit by bit. Every time something happens to remind you, you fall apart in front of me and I am tired of not being able to do anything about it!"

"Piccolo." She said, sniffing, pulling one of her hands away to run it under nose and across her eyes, "Even if I wanted to tell you everything that happened that night, I cannot. There are.gapes.holes." She motioned at her head, "I don't know what I am thinking, teaching dance when I'm such a mess myself." She laughed bitterly, "And that strange ball.Piccolo.where did it come from?"

"The dragonball." He said, suddenly, as if an idea just crossed his mind, "What happened when you touched it? I could sense the fear and rage inside you when you held it in your hands."

She was silent for a moment, uncertain how to to explain what she had felt, what she had seen. Finally she she sighed and said; "It was like it was happening to me all over again. I felt as if I were back there.in that place.with all the noise and explosions and then I couldn't see and he was there." She paused, her heart starting to beat faster as the memories flooded back, like a dam that had been held in place for too long, and over her as she spoke.

He did not speak as she took a few deep breaths and tried to regain some semblance of control. He knew how difficult it was for her to willingly try to remember and talk about it with him. With anyone. "He was there and he was hurting me, Piccolo." She went on, "I couldn't see his face while I.while he was."

He nodded, understanding and not asking her to go into graphic detail for him, and she went on, sniffling forlornly, "But, something strange happened." She said, looking straight ahead, away from him, all the way into the past, "I seemed to leave my body and float above, near the ceiling and I looked down and saw.saw myself and I felt.I felt nothing, Piccolo. It was so wonderful. I could be there, floating, away from all of it, all the horror, the pain, the humiliation and I never wanted to go back down into that soiled and tattered body again!"

The tears were streaming, silently down her cheeks as she talked, it seemed, more to herself than to him. "I never realized it before.but while I was looking down I could see not only myself but him as well."

He waited, holding his breath, he did not want to break whatever spell had come over her, not at this crucial moment. "What did he look like, Alaura?" He asked in hardly a whisper, a whisper of bottled rage, "Who was he?"

"I...I don't." She dropped her head and rubbed her eyes, "It's all mixed up, Piccolo. I remember flashes of his clothing.dark blues and whites.a lock of black hair falling onto my face as he bit me." She held one hand to her right breast, where Piccolo knew she still had the scar. He had kissed it tenderly before, as if his touch had the power to heal. Never before had Piccolo wished he'd been born a healer like Dende. "And his eyes.I remember his eyes most of all.my blindness must have been fading gradually by then. I remember those hard, cold eyes looking down at me as if I were something to be used and then thrown out with yesterday's newspaper.trash."

Piccolo brought his hands to her waist and pulled her off the bed into his lap, rocking her gently as she laid her head against his shoulder, her tears soaking his white cape. As his hand smoothed her hair his eyes narrowed as what she had told him clicked into place in his own mind and he put the missing pieces of the puzzle together himself.

"Vegeta." He said under his breath, filling his heart fill with more than just anger.he felt rage.

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