CHAPTER II: Memories

  

They waited nearly an hour for Gokou, then they cut the birthday cake without him. Bassan and Bulma-san were so deep in conversation at the moment they didn't even notice Pan as she meandered into the kitchen. Whatever Bulma-san was telling her grandmother must be really interesting.

The entire evening had rolled by her in a blur. She had responded mechanically to everyone's hugs and kisses and well wishes. Everything and everybody began to fade in and out focus at some point and the floor began to seem uneven when she moved too quickly. Was she getting sick? Her mother's laughing, young-looking face as they had tried on the short, close cut red dress she wore and applied the first make-up she'd ever worn, Krillan-san's objecting squawk when she unwrapped the silky black lace undies his wife had bought her, Vegita-san's irritable 'humph' as he stalked outside after Yamcha-san gave her a Tropical Barbie House, claiming he needed an insulin shot, Marron's cool remark in her ear that the Barbie house was probably four or five years too late---everything was dreamlike, pale against the one thought that began to dominate her entire mind as the night wore on. Hours rolled by and everyone began leaving.

She pulled a soda from the ice box, Bulma-san chuckled quietly at something.

"…just avoided it entirely," said her grandmother. "I remember how much it hurt him when we were children when someone pulled it or stepped on it."

"Just try petting it...gently," Bulma-san said conspiratorially. "The reaction is…explosive." Bassan covered her mouth, bursting into embarrassed giggles.

Pan left quickly. She could have gone the rest of her life without overhearing that. It was weird seeing Bassan and Bulma-san so young. They were like…girls.

Trunks was coming. She felt the rise of his and Goten's approaching kis, and the room seemed to tilt. She shook it off angrily, made some excuse to her father that didn't make sense even to her own ears, and bolted out the door.

He was just getting out of his car, saying something in his quiet, somber voice to her uncle. Goten slapped his own head suddenly. He caught sight of her and leaned over muttering something in a stage whisper. Trunks smirked and tossed him the keys, stepping back as Goten gunned the car into the sky.

"Did he forget my present or something?" She tried to sound as casual and

relaxed as she'd been with him when they had traveled together. How had she taken his presence all day every day for a whole year for granted?

"He left it back at my house," he grinned. "I think he did it because he wants to drive my new car." He paused, looking her up and down, taking in the change. "That's a pretty dress, Pan-chan. You look really…grown-up…" His words trailed off as she approached, and she wondered if it was because he could hear how loud her heart was pounding. She stepped a little closer and his face grew still. The radiant face of Tugol reflected in his blue eyes, rimming the irises with the momentary illusion of red.

"Really?" Her voice had unconsciously dipped down into its lowest register. She took another step toward him, into his personal space, as though she were being pulled by a magnet. He leaned down, his eyes widening. There was less than an inch of space between his face and hers. He stared down at her, vague shock dancing across his nearly immobile features. He took a slow deep breath, preparing to say something, and his fair skin suddenly flushed deep red. He stepped back, breathing hard.

"I…Pan-chan…" He stammered. "I have to go!" He blasted off, almost knocking her over with the force of his power up.

She stood trembling, tears of humiliated rejection brimming at her eyes. She turned back toward the house blindly, another wave of vertigo washing over her.

"Give him time," a deep, quiet voice said from the darkness.

Oh no, she cringed. Vegita-san. And he had seen the whole mortifying scene. He walked to her slowly, his face unreadable. "He will see you as a woman when you become a woman." He smiled that half-smirk that made him look just like his son. "He will not have less than his equal in mind and strength. No human chit will take him from you." One warm, callused hand tilted her trembling chin up to look at him. "He will still be waiting when you are old enough."

Her chest caught in a grateful sob. "Thank you, Vegita-san." The hand on her chin tightened without warning and his face froze, eyes suddenly wary. His hand moved to her forehead and then her cheek, and the dark, slanting eyes drew together.

"You're burning with fever, brat," he said mildly.

"I don't feel too well," she said faintly. The skin on her cheek under his hand seemed to be on fire. The world spun round again and she put out a steadying hand and touched his chest. She felt his heart began to slam against his breastbone under her small hand, though his face showed no reaction. His eyes widened. He inhaled slowly as though testing the air for poison, and she felt something like a jolt of lightening ripple through him and back into her. Her hand clenched of its own volition, fingernails raking lightly down his chest, and she turned her face and mouth into the hand on her cheek and made a soft involuntary noise, leaning into his body. He seemed to choke with effort. He stepped quickly back and away from her.

The night came back into focus again. Oh Kami, what had she done?!

"Ve-vegita-san…I'm s-s-so-sorry! I want…Trunks….I want Trunks!" She began crying in great hiccuping sobs, but he made no move to comfort her. He stepped back another few feet, in fact. What kind of horrible person was she to have done what she'd just done?! To have felt what she'd just--

"Be quiet, girl!" He snapped. His voice sounded strained. "It's not your fault!" He looked upward and swore softly. "It's the moon. Inside, brat. Now! Out of the moonlight."

He followed her in the house, and the happy babble of conversation dipped and stopped entirely at the sight of her face. Her mother came toward her.

"Pan-chan? Honey, what's wrong?"

"She's not well," said Vegita-san from the door, his face grim. "Where is Kakarott?" He asked her father.

Gohan shook his head. "He should have been here tonight. What's wrong, Panny?" He touched her forehead. "Gods, Videl. She's burning up! We're going to see a doctor, sweetheart. Right now!"

"The doctor cannot help her. What's happening to her is natural," Vegita said quietly.

Bulma-san and Bassan exchanged an odd look. "Does this have anything to do with how close the moon will be tomorrow?" Her grandmother asked.

"It does. She's going into heat," he said bluntly.

Her father broke the stunned silence that followed this statement. "What? You son of a bitch! That's the most disgusting thing I ever---"

Her mother put a calming hand on his arm and cut him off. "Your mean that literally, don't you?"

"Saiyan women usually experience this the first time in their mid twenties. But the girl's human blood and this moon have brought it on early."

"I take it," said Videl in her best mother voice, "that this is a little more serious than the onset of menstruation. What will happen to her? What should we do?"

"Watch her. The fever and disorientation will break tomorrow night at moonrise. Then you will have to restrain her. Keep her from human males--she would probably kill them. And keep her from Trunks or she will have him, and you will most likely be a very young grandmother."

Videl gaped at him and her father began sputtering angrily.

"Pan is fifteen years old, Vegita," said Bulma-san indignantly. "Trunks would never--"

"When her fever breaks under the full moon tomorrow night, she will lose all control and most of her sanity," Vegita cut her off. "There will be nothing in her mind but the scent of the mate she had already chosen. She will try to hunt him, and if she finds him, her scent will draw him into that madness with her. He will not be able to resist her." His mouth twitched. "She scared the hell out of him just now. He ran from her as if she'd set his feet on fire."

"What…what can we do to stop it?" Gohan said after a brief silence.

"Nothing," Vegita said. "If she were my brat, I would take her somewhere isolated. Let her hunt what she wants. Spar with her if she wishes it. Restrain her if she tries to escape. Only males of her own blood will not react to her. Your presence may actually dim the frenzy for her."

"Shit," Bulma said softly. Everyone looked at her. "Bra told me she wasn't feeling well tonight." Vegita stared hard at her. "I thought she just wanted to stay home and finish the project she's been working on. I thought she felt warm, but she's never been sick a day in her life!"

Vegita turned his mind westward, seeking some sense of his daughter's ki---and pulled back sharply with an angry hiss. He began cursing, his face murderous.

"Vegita?" Bulma-san said fearfully. "What is it?"

"Goten-kun went back to Capsule Corp to get my present," Pan said drowsily from her mother's arms.

"Vegita?" Bulma said plaintively.

"They've torn the house apart," he replied tonelessly.

"Bra-chan and my Goten?" Chi-Chi sounded like someone trying very hard to sound displeased and not succeeding. Pan could see even through her foggy vision her grandmother beginning a mental plan for the menu of a wedding banquet.

"Um, Vegita-san," Gohan said delicately. "Shouldn't we--um…"

"Go and pry them apart?" Vegita snorted. "You are not listening to me. If you and I try to separate them, they will turn on us in a killing rage. If you come within twenty feet of Bra yourself, you will end up fighting your brother for her." Videl started angrily. Gohan suddenly realized with a chill of horror how far Vegita was standing from the rest of them---all the way on the other side of the living room against the far wall. Away from Pan.

"This is primal to our blood, boy." Vegita-san told him darkly. "There is no decency and nothing resembling thought in it. Do you remember the oozaru change when you were a boy?" Gohan nodded wordlessly. "It is almost the same---and just as mindless and feral. Kakarott and I will go mad tomorrow night because of our tails. It will be something kin to what is happening to Pan. You must keep your head and take Bulma, your mother, your woman, and the girl somewhere safe tomorrow afternoon. And do not tell Kakarott or I where you are going."

He turned to Bulma. Her face was a jumble of conflicting expressions. "Are you leaving?" She said.

"I cannot stay here, but you should. There probably isn't much of a house to go home to now anyway." He snorted indignantly. "Kakarott's get! Both Bra and Trunks. If Pan does not have him tomorrow night, she will have him later." His lips curled in a wry half-grin. "I don’t think running will do him any good."

Pan felt a big silly grin begin to slide across her face at Vegita-san's words. "It'll be later," her father said sternly, his expression promising worlds of hurt for Trunk if he saw him in the next twenty-four hours. "Much, much later!"

The door burst open and Gokou stormed into the house. The look on his face silenced Chi-Chi before she could even open her mouth to berate him for his tardiness. "We have a problem," he said. Everyone in the room stared at him in confusion. It took Vegita a few seconds to realize why. Kakarott had spoken the words in Saiyago.

 

 

Trunks spun in a wide yawing wheel above Capsule Corp's family complex. He didn't want to go home and he couldn't go back to the Son's.

Sick perv!

What the hell was wrong with him? He had just gotten the erection of his life from the sight of a little girl he'd known since infancy wearing a slinky dress. From the sight and the smell…Kami, what was that perfume she'd been wearing?! He breathed deeply in and out, trying to expel the scent and regain something like calm. Maybe there was something wrong with him. He had never dated much. Hardly at all, in sharp contrast with Goten's revolving door of serial monogamy, swearing on his soul that each new three month romance was the great love of his life. He knew he had never been in love. That was a Saiyan thing maybe. His father had been about Trunks age when he'd met his mother, and though he never spoke of it, Trunks got the distinct impression that there hadn't been many women before her---maybe none. Saiyans were longer lived, maybe they were late bloomers where things like this were concerned.

Whatever the state of his sexual funtion or dysfunction, Trunks reflected, Pan was definitely not a little girl anymore. She had done that elusive, almost magical transformation that young girls and swans shared. She had gone overnight from looking like a skinny child to a young woman. Which only made him a chicken hawk, Trunks thought sourly, not a pervert.

He would just avoid her for a while, he decided, and hope fervently that he had not done or said anything to give away the direction his thoughts had taken. And hope even more fervently that, if Pan had seen something less than big-brotherly in his manner, she would not mention it to her father. Trunks shuddered. Son Gohan, for all his mild mannered ways, would snap his spine like a twig if he even suspected.

He nodded morosely to himself. He would avoid the Son's for a few months. Time enough for her to forget his flushed face and trembling hands, time enough for him to forget the way the red dress had clung to the new curves of her body and the smell of that fragrance that, even now, threatened to burn a hole in his reason. It wasn't as if he didn't have enough to keep him occupied. He had plunged back into the grind of CEOing Capsule Corp's thousand ring circus almost as soon as the dust from the battle with Evil Shen Lon settled. Depression had set in soon after. It was all meaningless pantomimes of social and professional roll playing. Each striving for ascendancy against other merchant giants on a level where profit was assured for all concerned. Meaningless. In the five years since he had taken the reigns of Cap Corp unassisted, he had grown steadily more despondent and restless, yet, until eighteen months ago, he had felt utterly powerless to break out. His father had seen this, he knew, watching him with that cold inscrutable gaze that masked a deep love Trunks only caught glimpses of now and then, and dragged him, literally, to the space ship launch that had sent him on the year-long quest for the Black Dragon Balls. Maybe peacetime and a harried six day work week were unhealthy for Saiyan nature. This being bound in and constrained by timetables and meetings and neckties that choked off the fighting spirit. Maybe his sudden attraction to Pan was part of that. He had seen in her, when they'd travelled together, the wild, raw, unfettered child he had been. She still possessed the burning need to fight and strive harder and rise to each new battle with a wordless song of combat pounding in her ears. He had lost that somewhere between boy and man, and in doing so, failed the promise of the great warrior he might have been. And he didn't know why.

He circled round once more, before landing at the threshold of the family quarters. A loud noise, a distant, muffled sound of screaming metal, rolled out of the east wing where his father's gravity room was bunkered. Two distinct ki signatures rose sharply into the low cloud cover that hung above the city tonight, flaring brightly as though they had been dowsed with some explosive chemical. What the hell was Goten doing sparing with Bra? He had left the Son's on a twenty minute errand and probably let Trunks sister distract him with the quantum thing-a-ma-bob she had been working on night and day for the past week. Sometimes Goten was no better at holding a thought in his head than his fath--

"Who the hell are you?" He said rudely to the small boy he had almost tripped over. He was pale haired and pale-skinned, almost albino, with huge dark eyes, surely no older than five or six, but…Something that flickered around the outline of the boy's small frame gave him the impression that he was not seeing the child as he really was. Illusion? He bent down and said in a kinder tone. "Are you lost?"

"No. I was looking for you," the tiny boy said. "Do you want to know what's wrong with you? You were thinking that just now. I can show you"

Trunks felt a chill in the warm night air. "I'm fine."

"You've changed since you were a boy. You and your friend Son Goten,"

the pale boy said. Alarm bells were ringing in every corner of his mind, and Trunks tried to look away or move but the dark eyes held him frozen. "Fifteen years ago, you began to change. You became slowly, very slowly, listless and withdrawn, ruled by the world around you rather than seizing your life and taking from it all that you wished. You have no friends aside from Goten and he is more like a brother. You have no woman, no hobbies, no great desires and no drive to fight your way out of the grey monotony your days have become. You shy away from all the things that once inflamed your passions." Trunks felt something like real terror began to creep up his spine. He couldn't break free of the boy's gaze! "Son Goten has meandered his way into manhood, rejecting responsibility, rejecting all deep emotion and serious thought. Neither of you are the men the sum of your experiences should have made you. Shall I tell you why? You have lived two lives--the last fifteen years have come and gone twice for you. And though your conscious waking mind does not remember, your sub-conscious does, and it has…lessened you. I will give you the gift I just gave Son Goten a short while ago. I think it will help you to know yourself." Trunks watched helpless as the boy levitated slowly up to meet his eyes. He touched one finger to Trunks forehead, now damp with cold sweat.

"Remember."

Two lives, two youths, two sets of conflicting memories clashed together in his mind, one full of love and family, safety and constant comfort, one soaked in blood, terror, torment and madness. He remembered. He remembered his life on Chikyuu, growing up, university, Capsule Corp, the long search for the Black Dragon Balls and everything that had followed.

But also…

His first night as Frieza's prisoner he shrieked and sobbed and spat impotent threats as they tore out his fingernails with practiced slowness in the flag ship's officer's mess, the white face of his captor beaming around a delicate mouthful of food as he told the torturer to make the "entertainment" last all through dinner. Later, blood from his bleeding, nailess fingers in his hair and streaming down the sides of his face as he clamped his ravaged hands over both ears, listening to Goten's pitiful wails, knowing he would be next, when Lord Frieza had---

"Oh gods!" He screamed. "Oh gods!" The faces of hundreds, millions of people, all the people he had killed…

Goten!

He stumbled inside. The Tsiru-jin--he knew that name now--had said he's done the same thing to Goten! He ran blindly through the halls. He did not stop or take note of the broken walls and ceilings, the smoking rubble of furniture. He suddenly remembered Goten and Bra's spikes of ki vaulting into the air moments before and he smashed through the roof and into the clouds above Capsule Corp. He saw them.

Bra-chan…

"You son of a bitch!" Trunks aimed a spinning roundhouse at Goten's naked back. "She's not one of your cheap bimbos!"

Goten untangled himself from Bra and turned on him, baring his teeth, eyes burning crimson, earning an angry growl from Trunks sister as her arms were suddenly empty.

"What the fuck, Goten?!" Trunks raise his fist, but Goten blurred toward him and stuck him once across the temple. Trunks lost conscious almost gratefully and fell.

 

 

"Kakarott?"

Vegita's voice cut through Gokou's internal musing--he had heard everything the other man had just said, though he knew his face looked distracted. In the moments that followed his retelling of his encounter with the Tsiru-jin child on the mountaintop and abbreviated account of the events that had made the boy's existence possible, Vegita had gone pale and silent. The fact that Frieza had taken their children--even though it had never happened, had all been undone in the end, the very thought was probably eating a hole in Vegita's gut. Gokou had listened to Gohan stumble, red-faced with embarrassment, over an explanation of what was happening the Pan and Bra, recognizing this as having been part of the data included in the learning program of the space pod that had first carried him to earth.

"How do you feel?" Vegita asked quietly.

"I…feel like I want to tear something apart," Gokou said honestly. "But I don't know how much of that is the moon. I don't think I turned out quite the way Gurasia intended. I still have a lifetime of memories of being Son Gokou. I was Kakarott for less than two years."

"He did this when he did because of the moon," Vegita replied. "You will be all the more violent tomorrow because you don't have a life's worth of living with violent Saiyan impulse to help you maintain control. He may believe that you will destroy Chikyuu tomorrow---that was your original mission and part of your infant programming conditioning."

"He also repaired the brain damage I suffered as a baby when he made me remember," Gokou said thoughtfully. "If I'm more intelligent now, I should have better mental discipline."

Vegita grunted. "We will see. I would say that we should take a ship and leave Chikyuu for two days, but for the fact that Frieza's posthumous brat is running around loose."

"Either way is bad," said Chi-Chi. "If you stay here, you put Chikyuu in danger. If you leave, who knows what he'll do if you're not here to stop him."

"I can't find Trunks!" Vegita said suddenly. Gokou had sensed the other Saiyan scanning for his son's ki every moment or two for the last half hour, reassuring himself that the boy was all right. Bulma paled. "His ki is gone---no," he said in relief. "He's unconscious. Ah. Goten knocked him out." He frowned. "Something is wrong. His ki feels different." He turned to Bulma, but she spoke first.

"I'm coming with you," she said.

"No, you are not." He picked her up and sat her in Gokou's arms. "If you let her leave, I will kill you."

"You masagonistic son of a---"

"Are you going to hurt Goten?" Pan's sleepy voice cut through Bulma's angry curses.

"You said yourself it's not his fault," Gohan said warily.

"You would not be so charitable if it were Trunks with Pan," Vegita said darkly. "No, I won't hurt the boy. I won't go anywhere near them until morning."

"If all you say is true, I shouldn't come with you," Gokou said. "Kuso," he swore quietly. "We're all but paralyzed."

He turned away as Vegita took his leave of Bulma, watching Gohan carry Pan's fever-wracked body into Goten's old room, followed by a pale worried Videl. They would sit up with her all night, bathing her hot forehead, guarding her from herself. He closed the bedroom door on his son's family and saw that Chi-Chi had drifted back to her comfort zone, the kitchen. Bulma was curled up on the sofa, frowning in concentration, as she scribbled furiously in an old school notebook of Pan's.

"What is that?"

"Something I started thinking of building the moment I grew Vegita's tail back. I put off building it like an idiot, and now I'm sorry I did. I may be a lot sorrier this time tomorrow if you and Vegita kill each other or someone else."

He stared at the mesh graphs and equations she'd written in her fluid hand, and for the first time in his life the letters and numbers didn't bleed together in a nonsensical jumble. "It's…is it a reflector of some kind?" Bulma's mouth hung open. "You knew that Saiyan infant pods were programmed to subliminally teach Vegita-sei's language, customs, and rudimentary fighting techniques?" She nodded mutely. "My father, Bardock was a scientist. He equipped my pod with extra features. Mathematics, physics, and the basics of space ship drive engineering."

Bulma shook her head in mild wonder. "You're so different, Son-kun. The way you look out of your eyes, the way you speak and carry yourself---but you're still you at the same time. You're right, it's a lunar reflector. If I pull an all-nighter, I can have two built for you and Vegita by noon. Then, you both can keep your cool, so to speak, and concentrate on finding this Frieza Junior. By sundown I may have enough built for the rest of you so the kids will be able to think clearly. I'm giving first priority to Bra and Pan, ahead of the boys. Dammit, I need to get to my lab!"

"If I let you leave Vegita'll kill me," his brief grin faded quickly. "I can't go myself either. This boy will be after you as well. I know you don't remember, but it was you who destroyed Frieza at the end."

"I did?" She smiled delightedly. "I wish I could remember that."

"No you don't," he said frowning. "Could you call Krillan and Juuhachigou and tell them what to bring?"

"Yes!" She exclaimed. She kissed his cheek as though he were still the addled child and she the wild teen-aged girl who had first searched for the dragon balls, and turned to pick up the phone.

He stood and strode purposefully through the kitchen where Chi-Chi was mechanically doing the dishes and out the back door. He craned his head around, trying to judge the best angle, and fired a small spinning disk of ki

downward. He bit back a scream and sank to his knees as the blast neatly sliced off his tail at the base, sending a white hot streak of agony shooting up his spine.

"Gokou-saa!" Chi-Chi came bolting out the door at the sound of his cry. "Oh, Gokou-sa, what have you done to yourself?" She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and he buried his face against her stomach, arms encircling her waist.

"I'll be okay," he gasped. "Problem solved." He raised his head, looking up at her. "I won't be a liability tomorrow night now. Oh Kami, Chi-Chi! I'm sorry…I'm so sorry!"

"For what?" She whispered.

"I left you to go train Ubu. Like you were nothing. As though I was going on an overnight camping trip…Time didn't register with me. Ten years didn't seem that different from ten weeks. And I didn't even realize what I'd done until tonight. I love you, Chi-Chi!" She was shaking all over, tears running down her face, falling onto his, mixing with the ones he was shedding. "I never meant to hurt you. I love you so much…" She took his face in both hands and stopped his words with a kiss.

 

 

Vegita set down on the half-shell domed roof of Capsule Corp's main complex and knelt, slowly turning Trunks body over. He bit back a stab of irritation that the boy had let himself be cold-cocked so easily. Trunks shivered at his touch. He half-sobbed and seemed to deliberately dive deeper into unconsciousness.

"Trunks," he said softly. "Dammit, boy. Wake up!" Something was very wrong. The boy's ki was…fragmented. He caught a faint but distinct odor on the younger man's clothes and his blood ran cold. Tsiru-jin. Even after so many years, that scent still had the power to make his stomach wrench with horror. Frieza's brat had done something to Trunks. He shook the boy harder.

Trunks eyes shot open with a hoarse cry. "Toussan?!"

"What happened?" He sat the younger man up, checking him for injuries. The boy's body began to tense like a spring, shuddering.

"Toussan…" Trunks face was blanched under his tan, his eyes sunken, wide and staring like a traumatized child's. "Oh, Poppa!" He pitched forward into his father's arms trying to choke back a scream. "I remember. He made me remember…I remember it all!"

Vegita suddenly understood without further explanation the meaning of Trunks nearly incoherent words. He knew what what memories the Tsiru-jin had resurrected. Fifteen years in the court of Frieza, waking horror piled upon horror piled upon horror, a victim of tailor-made revenge crafted by the diseased imagination of the Lord of Tsiru-sei. Something seized Vegita's chest and twisted. He put his arms around his son and held him in a fierce embrace, something he'd only done a handful of times in the boy's entire life, letting the younger man cry in a way he would never be able to, feeling his own heart convulse with each wracking sob. He held him until the shaking and tears subsided, all the boy's great strength spent for the moment, the first dim promise of morning beginning to glow faintly in the east. Just before dawn, Trunks stirred. "I never knew how bad it was, Toussan," he whispered. "How bad it was for you." And slept.

Vegita bowed his head over his son's sleeping face and finally wept.

* * * * *


Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 3