Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ The Story Of You And Me ❯ Part NIne ( Chapter 15 )

The days are getting shorter. It's only five o'clock and it's already starting to get dark.

Rain - though by the temperature outside it should probably be snow - pounding furiously against the cubed glass wall facing Downtown West City for hours, covering these cold floors with long cascading shadows

Lately, I've been spending most of my time thinking about how my situation will drastically change in just a few weeks... maybe even days now. Or what will become of all this even if everything I want to happen magically comes true.

Goku keeps telling me not to worry - that "destiny just has a way of working itself out, even when you think all hope is gone". But I worry so much about Goten. About my baby. About keeping this up when there will be two to take care of instead of just one.

I'm afraid I'm going to be destiny's exception.

Sometimes I wonder why I haven't been getting much sleep lately. If it isn't the baby kicking me relentlessly throughout the night and making me worry about how I'm going to handle this unusual delivery or even how to raise a child on my own, it's my heart, feeling more and more crushed under the pressure I've been voluntarily putting myself through for the past four months.

But I have to keep reminding myself that I was the one who decided to stay here with Goten - to stay here and do this all by myself like the mature, grown-up I still think I am sometimes. Nobody guilted me into this - living here to stare down death in the eyes of someone who didn't want to live when I found him here almost four months to the day. Nobody told me to stay here with Goten and 'force' him to go on. Maybe it was because there wasn't anyone else believed that he could come back, but sometimes I question if he's doing this because he wants to live, or because I'm not letting him die.

His family had already said their good byes. It was over before Ieven interfered. I mean, how could they not? How long can anyone just sit and watch someone they love suffer and die before you finally begin understand, even if it hurts worse to accept the truth and let them go? They were here for every minute of it and would have never given up if they thought he could recover. But they were here to see him with their own eyes as he completely wasted away so rapidly in front of them, giving up on everything about his life without question or doubt, silently telling us that he didn't want to live with his new reality. Or more that he couldn't live without him.

'Goten's energy and very life was bound to Trunks'.'

'Their lives were connected to each other's.'

'He was stripped of the soul they shared.'

'There's nothing left of him now. Just pain.'

I'm tired of hearing it! Even now, they're still the only answers I ever get to all this.

But sometimes at night, just before he falls asleep, when I sit at the side of his bed and place his head on my growing belly, I can almost feel the faintest sign of emotion start to pour through me. The slightest indication that somewhere - deep inside him - he can still feel something. But at the same time, it silently tells me how broken and empty he really is. How desperate he is to for the hurt to just go away, even though he never says a word. It makes me wonder if feeling a part of Trunks inside of me isn't making matters worse for him.

Goten shared something with Trunks more powerful than I think anyone actually realized, enough to make me truly believe that Goten would have died on that bed with him had nobody interfered. Looking back at it now, it's become just about impossible not to see it. They had known each other their entire lives. Fought and died together. Bonded their souls to one another. Two halves of a whole...

... my mind wanders off to someone else again.

And as usual, I feel stupid for wanting to cry.

I would like to think that if I could just understand what he is going through, or what it's like to be so lost without the only person you ever needed, then maybe I would know how to take him away from this pain. Help him remember how to be happy again. Do something for him, other then just being here to push him to live on in this life we have ahead of us without the people we need here the most.

But my own insignificant experiences with love and attachment can't relate. Not like this.

I feel so useless.

The lighting flickers from the candles burning randomly throughout the apartment. The power and phone lines have been knocked out for hours, not that it would really matter if they weren't. Someone's always stopping by to check in on us for one reason or another, and it won't be long before Bulma or Chi Chi or whoever is knocking on the door again to pretend that everything's going to be fine as long as they're here to help.

The dishes rattle on the tray as I carry them from the kitchen to the bed with tiny steps, but it's not the chill from in here sending shivers skittering across my skin.

A little bit of soup from the bowl spills over the side and onto the dish, but I don't bother to wipe it up either - it's not like Goten will eat it anyway. I'm lucky he's eaten today at all, never mind trying to get him to do it again. But regardless of his progress being painfully slow - if at all - I have to keep reminding myself that it's at least that.

Working with so little will to live was - and still is - beyond what I could have ever imagined. To get him to even drink the slightest bit of water or soup, or sit up and show some sign life is like drawing blood from a stone. Sometimes, he drifts off for days at a time before moving an inch, and despite his family's enduring efforts, or Pan and Bra coming by after school to help me with household chores, everyday is stretching me thinner as I go. I'm starting to think I was wrong for trying.

I really believed that I could do this on my own - Staying here with Goten, nursing him back to health, taking sole responsibility for my pregnancy no matter how much my parents still want me to come back to the Kame House and raise the baby there. Every night, I have to hear my father on the other end of the phone pretending that he and my mom aren't deeply disappointed with me, asking mundane questions he already knows the answers to, trying to act like all of this doesn't break his heart. His 'Little Chestnut'.

But I don't want everyone running to help 'poor helpless Marron' anymore. I need to be able to prove that I can pull it back together. That I wasn't some irresponsible kid who fucked up the second she moved out of the house and had to crawl back to mom and dad to pick up the pieces. That I could take care of Goten and myself, and take the real life responsibility to make this all work out. I lived through the embarrassment and humiliation of telling everyone how I wound up in this predicament - I thought I could handle anything after that.

Its no surprise that Bulma's been telling me that I'm carrying too much stress for the baby - that I'm going to have a hard enough time without all this worry from caring for Goten around the clock as well as coping with such a strange pregnancy. I've already heard all the stories from Chi Chi and Videl, and as much faith as I have in Bulma to help deliver the baby here in the privacy of this apartment instead of in a hospital, I'm nervous for what is still yet to come.

There aren't any books on how to survive a Saiyan pregnancy, as I should have expected, but I've been getting plenty of the gory information on the matter from three very vocal women who have dealt with this before. I'm only two weeks away now from delivering and I've already been warned that it's not going to get any easier. There are enough scary things about a normal human birth, yet I would do anything to be able to just walk into a hospital and have this baby where I know everything would just be an everyday procedure... routine. But a child with a tail is hardly routine. How could I ever explain that?

I guess truth be told, it's been a lot more difficult than I've been admitting to everyone whose genuinely been asking about it, at least now that the initial shock is over... I've just become a good liar. Most of all to my parents.

Outside, the storm rolls on.

Fleeting thoughts of the old Goten sting my heart as I look up from the tray once I near his bed.

He's turned away for the moment, curled up in the same position he's usually in these days, lying on the bed as if he were slowly sinking into it as the shallow intake of air barely expands his frame. His body has lost just about all the strong, muscular build it once had, instead now more defined by the outline of his spine and the hard angles of his shoulder blades. He only weighs 148 pounds now, which regardless of being an improvement to what he was at his worst, is still extremely dangerous for someone Goten's size, and especially dangerous for someone with Saiyan blood in them... or so I've been told.

He's always cold. Still dying a little more each day he's reminded that Trunks isn't ever coming back... reminding me of the same. His eyes don't have the life they used to, but then again... he isn't the same man he used to be either, reinforcing my growing belief that it might have been a mistake to force him live on like this. He had already made his choice to die before I interfered with my own situation.

Maybe Vegeta was right.

He shifts his position. With some effort, he slowly manages to prop himself up on his elbow, still turned away from where I stand. A pull of the sheets exposes his bare back right down to where his drawstring pajama pants sit loosely on his hips. Only half of those intricate markings catch my eye.

Only half.

I miss him.

The hurt hasn't gone away like I hoped it would by now. In fact, the closer my pregnancy gets to the end, the more I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not ever going to see Gotenks hold our baby in his arms, or be there to have a tiny hand grip one of his fingers. There will be no perfect little family for us. Living together to watch first steps and hear first words, or to see our child off to the first day of kindergarten and high school and college, knowing that the life we created reflects so much love and passion of the lifetime together we never got the chance to have.

No. Those memories won't exist. The real things left about my life are very different from what I dream about when forget that I'm in this game without him - that Goten is so far away from getting better. That I'm barely twenty years old and am not only pregnant, but far from having even a normal human baby that I would at least know the first thing about raising.

That I'm in this alone. That he never even existed in the first place. He was a ghost.

And I miss him so much.

I take a deep breath to steady my nerves as another gentle roll of thunder rumbles the floor beneath me. I reluctantly turn back to the kitchen with the soup and decide not to bother him with more food he won't want to eat. The rest will probably do him better anyway.

But no sooner than I turn my back to him, I can already hear what I predicted would eventually be happening sometime tonight... not that I really expected Goten to have kept down the applesauce I gave him earlier. The most solid thing he hasn't thrown up so far has been soup, and even that's a gamble fifty percent of the time.

I take a deep breath. Nothing's ever easy.

Again, the lightning flashes. The wind rips past the building, daring to blow out the candles here inside.

I feel a small twitch from the baby, followed by another. This baby never gives me a break, but just more of the thrills of carrying a Saiyan, so I've been told. I can feel the baby's growing power. I know he or she is going to be strong - really strong - and it scares me to death.

Another hard kick from inside. Wait...

My legs are warm. No, wet! A puddle under my feet?

No! Not now!!! It's too early!

"G-Goten!" I drop the tray, crying out for him as if I think he's somehow just going to hop out of bed and come to my rescue. The glass and bowl of soup shatter on the floor. "My... my water broke..."

He immediately looks back at me from leaning over the bucket next to the bed just as my first contraction mercilessly grips me like a vice, twisting inside of me. Like a charley horse I can't stretch out and I buckle over. My mind floods with panic.

"This can't happen now! I need Bulma here! I can't have the baby like this!"

The pain washes over me in a wave like the building fury of the storm outside. I can feel the baby's pressure, along with a sickening throb radiating from deep within. This can not happen now!

I clutch my belly - still so small regardless of the strength of what's inside - enduring an excruciating torture I can't even begin to explain to him. I'm so scared. I need a phone... but the power's out!

How am I going to be able to call anyone?!? I can't do this alone!

Terrifying thoughts consume me in an instant of something going very wrong for the both of us, and I choke up without the slightest idea of what to do. I didn't plan on it happening this way.

"Goten.... the baby... I-I'm..." I wince again harshly through my plea. I start crying.

The baby stirs restlessly inside. I feel that hot pulse that I've been told about that tells me it's closer than I want to think about. Sayians aren't born with lengthy deliveries like human babies are born. There's no hours of labor and pushing to muscle through. It comes quick and savagely. Too quick to call for help, even if I could call Bulma to get her here as fast as she could. This baby is coming now!

I manage to stumble to the edge of the bed, lying on my back as I scream again. I feel like I'm being ripped in two.

"Goten! Please! Help m-me... I can't... I... pl-please... I can't do this by myself. I... I don't know what t-to do," I sob uncontrollably, more from fear than anything else. "I'm so scared!"

"I know," he tells me, barely above a weakened whisper. If I wasn't mistaken, I would say that he almost looks afraid. Hesitantly, he touches my belly, feeling the baby fighting to be born. His eyes widen at what he can sense.

I immediately grab his wrist, desperately wanting him to tell me it's going to be okay, but another gigantic contraction hits me again before I can form the words. I clutch his hand against me, feeling the baby pushing harder to get out. My screaming doesn't make matters any better. I can't even hear myself anymore, and everything seems to be going numb except the one direction the baby's headed for.

"The baby's coming! It's... it's happening! Goten!"

He moves slowly to the foot of the bed, looking at me with an expression that gives me no comfort whatsoever. I know he wants me to tell him what to do or expect, but I'm in no condition to be giving directions, even if I knew what they were.

I flail my arms, grabbing handfuls of sheets and pillows from the white hot snap that nearly splits me in half. My eyes blur up with tears, praying that he's doing something down there to help this. I can barely see anymore. My teeth clench together tightly as I flex every muscle in my body.

Another hot rip of pain.

I feel the baby moving. I can feel everything stretching farther than it's supposed to.

That nauseating swell of energy filling me inside again. Of power wanting to be born as much as our child wants to be. The sheets begin to tear in my hands.

I squeeze my eyes shut. Screaming out the finish with enough force to rip my throat raw. It happens so fast.

A baby cries.

It's over.

My lungs empty in heavy, heaving breaths. Too sore from crying to really realize what has happened.

But there's a baby.

I come to my senses and blink out the tears, just enough to see the most beautiful thing I have ever witnessed illuminated in the faceted glow of the street lamps shining in the window behind them. Raindrops like colored diamonds on the panes, and everything else suddenly seems so insignificant.

I've already forgotten the pain.

Held so delicately, crying with a pair of lungs that can probably be heard all over West City, the smallest life fusses and kicks in the two hands still too scared to realize what has happened. Completely cradling the tiny, wet baby in just the palm of his hands, he looks on with eyes that don't believe what they are seeing.

I'm in such a daze and wonder from witnessing something so precious, I can only manage to stare in awe of the moment I will keep with me for the rest of my life. Any words I could conjure up now would be useless. My heart is in my throat.

Slowly, I partially sit up against the pillows behind me to get a better look. I suppose any other mother who has just given birth would demand to hold their child as soon as they could, but this is already a special circumstance all it's own. I'm in such awe, I barely notice his voice over the perpetual rain hitting the glass as he speaks so quietly.

"It's... a boy."

And our lives are changed forever. Just like that.

I've been standing here for a while. Trying to go unnoticed... at least as long as I can.

Next to the extra bed brought down from the loft, Marron sleeps, completely wiped out from what she's gone through. From here, she looks as delicate as an angel. As beautiful and glowing as she's ever been. She handled it better than everyone thought she would, though. But she's strong. Like her parents. I'm proud of her.

I hear the baby softly cooing in his crib near the window.

I can't but help think of what he will look like someday. What kind of man he'll grow up to be. Soft, aqua hair, blending to black at the sides. Little fists clenched as he kicks and moves in his sleep. He looks just like his father would have if he was ever a baby... as strange as that sounds. I know he'll be strong, too. It's in his blood.

The apartment is surprisingly quiet now, the complete opposite of what it was just a few hours ago; Three sets of grandmothers coming in and out only minutes after the birth, despite Marron probably wanting nothing more than some well deserved rest. Fussing about everything and trying to take care of a situation that had already happened. I think everyone was more in shock of how the baby was delivered at all... seeing how the only person here to help her was the one person everyone thought would never make it this far in the first place, never mind saving the day! I can't say it wasn't nice to see them proved wrong.

More than one spark of life was lit this evening. I now have a son - that should be reason enough for anyone to live.

I watch from afar, not to disturb anything, but I know I won't be able to stand aside for long. You don't get many second chances like this and I don't know if there will ever be another.

But it's not long before the newborn kicks and squirms as all babies do, and the little voice soon cries out for attention in the dark. It only takes a moment before he is under the watchful gaze of a loving parent, standing on weak legs at the foot of the crib, calming him with soft little words and gentle touches to the face that has yet to see the rest of the world.

It doesn't take long before he's carefully being lifted from the crib with cautious hands still unfamiliar with what they are holding. Wrapping him in a soft blanket. Not really knowing what to do with this tiny life created in such an unusual way, but comforting none the less.

The baby calms, slowly falling back to sleep as he's gently cradled in rocking arms and looked apon with so much affection and love. But underlying the feeling of carrying your own son, I too know there's so much sadness from being reminded of what can never be.

With quiet steps, the baby is carried to the dark, far corner of the room, holding the tiny newborn close and sinking against the wall to sit alone together in the corner. Curled up around the baby. Visibly losing the composure that is slowly starting to fade. Long overdue emotions begin to surface.

For a moment, I contemplate interrupting at all. I should just let this happen. After all, I know what it feels like to be so hopeless when you don't want to be - when you want to be happy and the feeling just seems so foreign and lost compared to what you know.

Perhaps this personal moment should be left untouched. Besides, who am I to interfere now?

But as I stand here - unnoticed and out of sight, quietly watching the pent up tears finally streaming down the face of the one person I never wanted to hurt - I feel that familiar ache in my heart that has reminded me this whole time what I've been missing the most.

Without a sound, I approach, knowing in my heart that the closer I get, the more I know I will regret this later.

The faint sound of a suppressed sobbing hiccup coming from the corner only makes it harder, but as soon as I get close enough to actually see my son - the tiny life I helped create - my own tears are already falling.

I kneel down in front of them, but he doesn't notice me. Not yet, even though I'm close enough to touch him if I were to reach out. But once he feels the light from the golden ring over my head glowing warmly off his face, he knows.

Slowly, he opens his eyes and looks up to see me. Something resembling devastation and disbelief washes over his face almost instantly, and fresh tears well up in his eyes, spilling down his cheeks without a blink. Unsteady breath shakes his body curled up around our sleeping newborn son.

He's as beautiful as I remember him.

No words need to be said. Nothing I could possibly say to him right now would explain how much I've missed him. How I feel so much regret for not being here when he needed me the most, and letting him suffer alone. It hurts so much to see what has happened to him since I've been gone - what the breaking of our bond has done to him.

The dam breaks and I wrap my arms around the both of them, pressing the side of his face to mine, feeling the hot sting of his tears drip down my cheek. So much hurt. There's so much I want to say, but can't.

"I... I love you, Chibi. I've missed you." So simple compared to what I feel, but something I never thought I'd get the chance to say.

His thin frame trembles, reluctant to release the fear of this being just a cruel trick his eyes are playing on him. I can feel the empty void in my heart filling with the energy that we used to share, remembering what it's like to feel whole again after being alone for so long. Feeling our soul deep inside me again when I thought it would never come back. I know he feels it, too.

I want to stay like this forever, but I'm reminded that my time is limited.

Gently, I pull away, looking deep into familiar eyes that haven't changed a bit, all though they now carry more heartache and pain then I remember. I smooth my hand across his cheek - still wet with tears that continue to fall - and my focus turns to the miniature sleeping form cradled in his arms.

Slipping my hands under the blanket, trying to swallow the panging reminder that I might never again get this chance, I hold my son for the first and possibly only time. The lump in my throat makes it impossible to make words, but I know I don't need to.

He's perfect.

I almost don't know what to do, looking at the little face so reminiscent of his parents, feeling his strong ki hold the same signature as Goten's and my own, and as much as I've already fallen in love with him, I know it won't be easy to give him back. A little fuzzy tail pokes out from the corner of the blanket, curling around my wrist.

I lose it instantly.

"Tell him about me, Chibi. Tell him everything," I cry, wishing things were so much different than they are. Wishing this wasn't so unfair.

But through my plea and futile attempt to take in as much of him as I can, he wakes, slowly opening his eyes to the world for the first time. Bright, blue eyes. Looking right at me. Grabbing my finger with all the strength I knew my son would have. My son.

This is harder than I thought it would be, knowing he won't remember this when he's older. I won't be here to see him grow up or to tell him about who he is. Or to be here to give him everything he deserves. I want to give him so much, but instead, there is only one thing I can.

"Toran."

I smile behind my tears and without a response, Goten nods at the name I've given our son, amid the tears of his own I know he's trying so hard to choke back. Placing his hand over mine, holding our son together and giving me the promise that he will always be here to tell Toran about me... about the father he never knew that loves him so much.

"Chibi..." I brush away the stray strands of black hair from his eyes, remembering too clearly how much it hurts to be away from him. My memories are nothing compared to the reality, no matter how much I need them to be. "I'll miss you."

He shakes his head, losing the frail composure he had tried so hard to keep, tightening his grip on my hands and squeezing my arm with the little strength he has left at all.

"Please... You can't go. I need you..."

For a second, I contemplate the ramifications of what would happen to me if I didn't go back, although it's hard to be a renegade angel when you're being watched so closely. But right now, if it were up to me, I would never go back. The paradise of Otherworld is nothing without him and I would give everything up for Goten in a second.

But it's not up to me. My time is almost up.

I hand Toran back to him, trying to memorize his face, wishing that he'd remember this someday more than anything, and I hold them both, feeling Goten sob hard against my shoulder. I kiss his forehead. Rubbing his back. Feeling complete again, even just for this moment.

You will never be alone, Chibi. You have a whole lifetime to remember how to be happy again, and I will be there with you for all of it. I love you. I always will.

I don't know how long we stayed like that, but the minutes pass so quickly when you want time to stand still. But even though it wasn't nearly as close to the forever I wanted, I now know there will be a part of us that will always be together.

I startle for a second.

A baby moves in my arms, but still sleeping soundly as ever.

The early morning light peeks through the clouds and through the apartment. A warm change from the rain and cold.

I rub my eyes, still curled up in the corner, just the two of us. I must have fallen asleep here sometime in the night.

But he's gone.

It's hard to remember everything. There isn't any proof that he was ever here at all. Maybe it was just a dream.

But I know it in my heart. I feel like he's still next to me, even now.

I look down to my son. Toran. Our son.

Slowly, I push myself up the wall to my feet. Toran wakes, but no crying. He just looks at me. His eyes reminding me so much of him. But it doesn't hurt to remember anymore. Not like it did before. I never want to forget.

For Toran.

I carry him to the bed instead of his crib. Not the fold out cot for me, but the big bed Marron still sleeps in; the one where she probably will continue to until she regains her strength. Trunks' bed. But I don't mind. I'll take care of her. I'll always be here to take care of both of them. I have a purpose now.

Carefully, I place Toran on the bed, lying down next to him, but only for a moment. And I close my eyes as our son lies between us, gradually falling asleep though I try not to. But my eyes are heavy. And I feel at peace.

I feel Trunks.

I love him. I've always loved him. I always will. But I know now there's a whole lifetime to live for him that's still ahead of the three of us.

And I know I won't ever be alone.