Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ The Story of My Life ❯ Chapter 1 ( Chapter 1 )

This is a story that Android 17 tells from his point of view about his life before he was turned into an android. What I'm planning for right now is to write it for 17 from the present and then do another story that will be from Future 17 perspective. So far, I'm not sure how that will work out and if I will continue with it on here or will create another story. I have a lot of different ideas for the future one, though a lot of this stuff would be the same, but the future 17 will have a tad bit darker past...Let me know what you think! Anyway, I don't know right now how long this one is going to be, but we'll see. ^_^ Review and let me know what you think, please so I know if I should go on!

~Lady Branwen~

The Story of My Life

Chapter 1

Not many people know about me or my sister. Sure, they know that we were androids, but they don't know who we used to be. They only know about my sister who lives with that buffoon named Krillen. No one seems to know or care what has become of me. Only my sister visits every once in a while, Krillen and their child in tow. But no one else cares to know where I am or how I'm doing. They don't seem to understand me and probably they think that I've become paranoid and have retreated to the woods to be away from civilization. In part, that's true. I don't want to be bothered by anyone anymore. Too much has happened to me for me to be able to forgive humanity.

We were born as Robert and Jennifer, but everyone called us Bobby and Jenny. It's weird remembering that we had actual names before, not just 17 or 18. It's strange even trying to call my sister Jenny, so when I talk about her from the past, I'll call her Jenny and when I'm talking about her now, I'll call her 18. Anyway, we lived in a small house with our parents, but even then, our life wasn't very good. Our father was a drunk and would get violent sometimes. I barely remember that far back, but one of the few things I remember is the fact that I hid a lot in the closet with Jenny. I'm pretty sure that I knew every coat and cobweb in that closet better than I knew anything else in the house. My father would always start arguments with my mom and they would argue for hours on end. When things started to get bad, or I could just sense that things were going to get worse, I would grab Jenny's hand and run to the closet. To me, it seemed like the safest place for me to go to. During their fights, my parents would often throw things at each other. One time a vase narrowly missed hitting Jenny on the head. Ever since then, I would drag her somewhere safe where we would be out of the way and wouldn't get hurt at the first sign of trouble. The thing that always tipped me off that things were getting worse was that my father's face would get red with anger and he bared his teeth while clenching and unclenching is hands. He sort of reminds me now of a rabid dog, without the drool oozing from his mouth. He was a fat man, always seemed to be greasy and just generally filthy. We weren't like that, my sister, mother and I. We were more normal and cleaner than he ever was. I don't know if maybe that was something Mom did just to make some sort of separation between us and him. She wouldn't leave him for some reason and when things got bad she refused to run away to a shelter or to go stay with my grandparents.

My earliest vivid memory of my past that I have now was when I was about four years old. I came home from playing one day and I couldn't find my sister. I saw Dad sitting at the kitchen table smoking while reading the paper and noticed that he seemed to be getting over some of his anger. Immediately I thought that there had been another fight and I hoped that Jenny hadn't been hurt. I went to the closet and opened it, and I found her sitting all curled up in the corner, but she didn't want to come out, so I left her there to find my mom. I was always worried about my mom too. She was so much smaller compared to my father because of her height and also because of how skinny she was. I was afraid that one day he would hit her too hard and would snap her in two. After the fights I would always go to her and sit with her while she cried into a pillow. She always tried to hold back her tears and I never understood why, but now I know it was because she wanted me to think that everything was all right. But I guess I was a little too smart for my age, or maybe I was forced to grow up a little faster because of the fear. I took notice of everything and I saw through my mom's façade and knew that she wasn't okay when she pretended that she was. I would always do my best to cheer her up and I always gave her a lot of kisses and hugs to show her that I cared about her and that at least someone loved her. I guess I was pretty much a mama's boy. But there was something underneath her surface that was off. She would get more and more distant from me with every fight she had with him and sometimes no amount of kisses would make her smile.

That night, I walked into my parent's bedroom and I found her sitting on the bed in front of the dresser mirror, nursing a large lump on her head and a cut on her cheek. She looked at me when I walked in, but other than that, didn't acknowledge me. She was more distant than ever and she was strangely calm. There were no tears, not even a sniffle. She seemed intent on doing something, but I didn't know what. Her change in demeanor scared me and I was suddenly afraid that she would run away or leave me somehow. I jumped up on the bed and said "I love you, Mommy" and squeezed her.

She winced and said in a lifeless tone, "Stop it, Mommy's stomach hurts."

I whispered that I was sorry and leaned against her while she washed the blood off her face with a rag and put a bandage on her cut.

Mom was such a sweet person and earlier in my life she was happier than she was after that last fight. She would do anything for anyone and was an all around good person. We may not have been the wealthiest family in the world, we weren't even middle class, but that didn't mean we weren't good people. Even my father had been nice at one time, but he had slowly gotten into drinking and it had consumed him. I was too young to really understand anything, but I could see that my mother wasn't as happy as she used to be and she lost some of her vibrant personality. She always made Jenny and I up though, so we would be dressed up even when we went to the grocery store. She always kept my hair short and combed it nicely every day for me. I used to almost fall asleep while she brushed my hair because she was so gentle while doing it and it relaxed me. She wanted us to have some refinement in our lives even when we lived in the dumps. I guess now that I remember her, she seems to have come from a higher class than what we were.

Anyway, after she was done with mending herself, she got up and walked out of the bedroom and down the hall to get her car keys. "I'm going out," she said without feeling to my father. He just grunted in reply and didn't even look up from the paper.

"Mommy! Wait! I want to go with you!" I cried. That fear of her leaving me came over me again and I refused to let her go.

She stopped in her tracks and turned to look at me. I could see that she was debating whether or not to take me with her.

"Shut the fuck up and go to your room," my father shouted at me.

That was the last straw and it made me burst into tears. I didn't want to go to my room, I wanted to be with my mom! That did it for her too, because she came and picked me up and carried me out to the car to take me along.

The ride in the car was quiet and Mom didn't really seem to notice me at all. I found myself staring at her while she drove. She had her elbow resting on the car door and was driving with only one hand. She had put glasses on to cover the bruises by her eyes and to try to mask the tears that were steadily flowing down now. We went to a whole bunch of different stores and looked around. I only vaguely remember that a few people stared at Mom while we passed them and I wondered why they were. It never occurred to me that our life wasn't normal and that not everyone's mom gets beaten up.

During the ride home, I suddenly remembered that I had left Jenny at home all by herself and I began to worry that maybe she had gotten hurt too.

"Mommy, we forgot Jenny." My voice cracked as I started to really worry about my sister and the fact that she could be squished like a bug by my father. She would never be able to put up a good fight against him especially if my mother couldn't.

She looked over at me and caressed my face and said, "She'll be okay, Bobby, he wouldn't dare to hit her." Mom wasn't completely sure of what she told me and I saw it on her face. Her eyebrows knitted together over her glasses after she said it.

When we got home, I ran to the closet and opened it up to find Jenny still sitting in the corner, still unhurt. Mom came up behind me and coaxed Jenny out of her hiding place. She carried Jenny back to our room and she put us to bed and read us a story since it was past our bedtime and she wanted us asleep. In fact, now that I remember, she read us story after story and I assume that it was because she didn't want to go back and deal with our father again. Finally after a while, the door to their room burst open and my father came out and demanded that my mother go to bed.

"Now come on. You know what you have to do to apologize, bitch."

Jenny sank down and pulled the covers up over her nose, but couldn't bring herself to cover her eyes. I sat up and watched as my mom slowly got up and followed my father back into their room and shut the door behind her. I heard a slap and later a lot of moaning. I didn't know at the time what Mom had had to do and I'm disgusted now to think that my father thought that she was the one who needed to apologize. At the time I thought that he was beating her again and I became determined to stop it.

I jumped out of the bed after I had been listening to the moaning for maybe fifteen minutes and proceeded to go and save my mom.

"Bobby! No! You'll get hurt!" Jenny whispered from the bed.

I didn't pay attention to her and instead walked across the hall to my parents' bedroom door. I pressed my ear against the door, giving my dad one last chance to stop hurting my mom before I tried to intervene, but I still heard the moans, so I went in. He was on top of her and her hands were gripping the pillows and she was moaning and her face was twisted. I was scared for her and yelled, "Stop it! You're hurting her!" I jumped on the bed and tried my best to punch my dad and make him stop. He only laughed at me and pushed my roughly off the bed.

"Stop," my mom said. Then gently to me she said, "Come here, Bobby."

Father stopped moving around on top of her and I cautiously walked to her side. She twisted around the best she could with him still on top of her and she smiled at me and touched my cheek. "Everything is okay, Bobby. You can go to bed. Mommy loves you very much. Tell your sister I love her too. Goodnight, honey, go to bed."

I was reluctant to leave her there when I was so sure that he had been trying to kill her moments before, but her smile reassured me and I walked backwards towards the door and slowly closed it behind me. I walked back to my bed and listened to the silence in the house for a while before I let myself go to sleep.

Now for my second earliest vivid memory…it was the next day when I woke up. I was tucked in more tightly than I had remembered. Jenny was huddled up on my one side and my favorite stuffed animal, my stuffed dog named Mr. Fluffles, had been placed beside me on the other. I got out of the bed I shared with Jenny and walked to the mirror on Jenny's little dressing table and started to brush my hair. Then I saw a pair of lips on my forehead made from my mom's red lipstick. I wrinkled my eyebrows in wonder at why she would do that and just leave it there. Usually when she gave me kisses when she had her makeup on, she would rub the lipstick off for me. I walked back to the bed, not bothering to rub it off and saw that Jenny also had a pair of lips on her cheek. I sat on the bed and played with Mr. Fluffles for a while, waiting until my mom came to say good morning like she did every morning. I waited for a while, but I got bored and so I went in search of her.

The house was unusually quiet and I was wondering why Mom wasn't cooking pancakes or eggs for us like she usually did. I headed to the kitchen and found two plates of food on the table. She had made eggs, pancakes, and sausages for us that morning, a combination that she rarely made because she complained it took her too much time. I started to eat, but I got thirsty and called for Mom to get me a glass of orange juice, but she didn't answer. I got up and got the carton out myself and pulled a chair up so that I could climb up to get a glass. Once I had grabbed one, I stood on the chair and waited for Mom to come and yell at me like she always did when I climbed on chairs. "You could fall down and crack your head open!" she would say. "What would I ever do without you if that happened?" Then she would hug me and lift me off the chair and would set me back on the floor with a smile when I apologized. I waited for her to do that, but she never came. I shrugged and climbed back down with the glass in my teeth so I could be extra careful, just for Mom. I poured out the orange juice and managed to get some into the glass while I poured most of it on the floor.

"Mommy! I got the orange juice myself, but I spilleded it!"

I expected her to scold me, but it never came. I started getting worried again about her leaving me and I became desperate to find her. "Mommy!" I called as I ran through the house looking for her. Finally I came to their bedroom door and saw that it was closed. Jenny came out from our room rubbing her eyes and yawning. She had Kara, her white stuffed cat hanging in one of her hands.

"Mommy made us some food. I guess she went out and left it for us," I said to her. Jenny nodded and shuffled to the kitchen and sat down to eat.

I stood in front of my parents' door looking at it. All I wanted to do was to open it and check to see if maybe Mom had been tired and went back to sleep after making us some breakfast. But there was something holding me back and I just wanted to believe that Mom had gone out to the store and would be back soon. Curiosity got the better of me though and I opened the door and went in. I was overjoyed to see my mom lying on the bed. I climbed up on the bed beside and her and just looked at her for a minute in shock. She was dressed in her best dress, one I had never seen her wear anywhere. It was a white silk spaghetti-strapped evening gown with a layer on it that shimmered as the sun coming in from the window hit it. She had her face all made up and the red lipstick was on her lips and I touched my forehead when I saw it. Her black hair was done beautifully and it was swept up and curled. I had never seen her looking so beautiful in all my life. I thought that she had become an angel right before my eyes.

"Mommy, you look so pretty!" I said to her. I shook her and tried to wake her up to tell her when she didn't answer me, but when I touched her shoulders, they felt cold. Now that I thought about it, her normally porcelain looking skin had a blue tint to it. I didn't know what to think and it was strange to me. I thought that maybe it was more make up or something and it made me so nervous to feel her so cold that I shook her even more. I panicked and cried and shook her harder. I wanted my dad then, so that he could start an argument with her so she would wake up and argue back, but I knew he was at work and wouldn't be home until later in the day when my favorite TV show came on.

Jenny appeared in the doorway and asked me why I was crying. She walked up and climbed onto the bed beside me and looked at our mom in wonder at how beautiful she looked. I lay down on the bed beside Mom and I wrapped her arm around myself while I curled into a ball against her like I always did when I was scared.

"What are these?" Jenny asked me as she held up some little plastic bottles. There were about five of them there and they were all empty. Then she reached over and held up an envelope.

"I don't know," I replied. "I don't care either."

I knew something was horribly wrong with my mom but I had no idea what death was. I just thought that maybe she was sleeping too long and that was what I thought was wrong. So I tried to shrug it off and took the envelope with me and left Mom while Jenny and I played in our room. I checked on Mom every once in a while until finally Dad came home from work.

"Where's my food, Natalie?" he roared.

I ran out of my room and hugged his leg.

"Get off of me, Bobby," he said.

"But Daddy, Mommy isn't waking up…"

He had been trying to push me off of his leg, but when he heard me say those words, he froze and slowly looked over at me.

"What?" he asked quietly.

"She isn't waking up. She made me breakfast though, but she hasn't waked up since I waked up."

Dad tried more gently to push me off and I allowed him to and followed him as he walked to their room. He pushed open the door and gasped when he saw Mom's beauty. It was about noon then and the sun came pouring through the skylight overhead directly on the bed and directly on my mom. She looked more radiant than when I had last seen her. I thought for sure that she would wake up now with the sun in her eyes like that, but she still had her eyes closed and she didn't wake up.

I think that my mom did all that for a reason. She dressed up like that before she died so she could show my dad what he could have had all those years that he had abused her. I'm almost sure now that my mom must have been at least middle class. Her parents were always dressed up when they came to visit and I wondered why they looked at my dad like he was an icky slug when they shook his sweaty hands. If she didn't come from a richer background, I don't know how my father would ever have been able to afford to buy a dress like that for her. He was always drinking and spent the money on booze. He barely made money anyway. Mom must have saved that dress from a long time ago when she had gone to her prom or even from when she was married. I wonder what would have driven her to marry my dad and sink so low to the bottom of the social and economic scale. Remembering her now in that dress…it just makes me think that she deserved a lot better and she had never deserved to be beaten the way she was. Why would she leave a life where she could afford a dress like that and marry a man who hit her and made her life hell? Could it be that maybe she had been in love once with him and there was a time when he had always been completely sober? Was it something like a rich girl falling in love with a noble poor boy and she leaves her wealth and luxury to be with the man she loves? Maybe she had been in love with him at one time, but why did she decide to stay with him for so long? She could have left and taken us to live with her parents.

Dad stood as if in a trance and stared at my mom for what seemed to me to be forever. He finally sighed and left the room dejectedly. I ran to my room and grabbed the envelope and handed it to him while he sat on the couch and rested his face in his hands.

"Daddy," I said while shaking him. "Mommy left this on the bed." He looked up and took it from me. Jenny came up beside me and we watched as he read the letter silently to himself. I could see that he was holding back his tears. When he had finished reading, he said, "She told me to tell you that she loves you." He got up then and went to the bathroom and didn't come out all night and went to sleep finally on the couch around midnight.