The hallways of Capsule Corporation were glum these days. The atmosphere was so heavy and dark that many of the hired help had quit, leaving the house unattended and quiet. He stepped lightly through the silent hall, not bothering to look into any of the rooms. Vejiita couldn’t stand it in this house. There was too much, too many memories. Reminders of her were everywhere, so many that he could not even close his eyes for fear of seeing her face once again. They all surrounded him and squeezed him until he was screaming for air, but even then, he could not bring himself to leave. Every time he attempted to walk out of the front door, he was hit by an overwhelming sense of dread. He knew that he should go; he was of no more use here. A burden in fact, for it seemed as though everyone else was trying to take care of him. No one understood him, though. They chastised him for not wanting to see his own daughter, for not having said one word to her since they had gotten back from Sukuashi.

How could he look at her? Speak to her? It wasn’t just that he had broken his promise, that he had let Bulma die. It was the fact that she looked so much like her, sounded so much like her. It was painful to watch her grow up and become more and more of a woman every day….more and more like Bulma every day. Bra could never know it, but it pained him more to look at her face than anything these days.

As he walked down the silent, dark hall, he noticed something out of place. His sharp black eyes took in the small stream of sunlight, coming through a cracked open door. Not just any door in the hallway, but their old bedroom. He could not bring himself to sleep in the same room that Bulma and he used to share, could barely even bring himself to sleep in the first place. It was because of this that he did not want the room to be touched at all. The room had been closed off on his order, and no one had been in there since, or so he thought. All at once, fury lit up in his chest like a raging fire. If some insolent maid had disobeyed him and entered the room to dust, he was going to be incredibly angry. No one should be touching that room, opening it up so that all of the memories could escape. With a snarl, he lurched toward the door and peered in with furious eyes, ready to launch an attack on whatever intruder dared to be in there. Then, he stopped.

He stood still as stone, his eyes blinking slowly as he stared stupidly before him.

Bra was sitting at Bulma’s vanity, makeup and perfume bottles scattered all about the table. Her tiny hands grasped Bulma’s brush, staring at it for a moment before running it through her short turquoise hair. She gathered it up in her hands, then tied it back in the same manner that Bulma used to when she wanted her hair out of her face. She tucked the stray strands behind her little ears, then picked up a bottle of perfume next to her. Vejiita could smell the delicate, womanly scent of lavender and vanilla before she even sprayed it, and the memory of the scent was more painful than a hit to the stomach. Bra applied the perfume to her wrists, smelling each of them deeply. For a moment, the little girl looked as though she were in a trance, then her face crumpled up and her eyes watered slightly.

Until then, Vejiita had been in shock, but now he became more aware of a different sensation. His eyes were fighting against him; they were burning like hot coals beneath his eyelids. His heart had once been so small and covered with ice that he barely even knew it was there, but now it was heavy and huge, more of a burden than he could bear. It ached repeatedly in his chest with every heartbeat, and it was all he could do to keep himself from doing the one thing which he refused to let himself do.

I will not cry. He told himself again.

But as he sat there watching his daughter sobbing, he didn’t know if he could hold everything in for much longer. It was actually innocent what she was doing. She missed her mother, and the only way that she could get her back was to become Bulma herself. That was why she had been dressing more maturely, acting more maturely, and taking an interest in the lab downstairs. And, he thought, feeling sick to his stomach. Wearing her perfume. She was only trying to become the woman that she missed so much. Kami knew she needed her mother, he was simply not enough for her. He meant well of course, but Vejiita was not the greatest parent in the world. He didn’t know how to deal with children, how to make them stop crying or stop fighting with each other. Before when Bulma had left the house and the children had started fighting, he had just hauled Trunks out to the backyard by his neck and sprayed him down with the power hose on cold. He didn’t know the first thing about raising a child, especially raising a child alone. Bra had been acting strangely lately and he simply did not know what to do about it. She was perhaps too young to understand, and that is why he kept himself from getting angry at her. Instead, he just grew more and more angry with himself.

It was all his fault, and he knew it. The reason that Bra did not have a mother to watch over her and comfort her was because he had failed. The memory took him hard and fast, and he stumbled a bit, trying to gain his balance as Bulma’s dying face appeared in his mind.

She blinked again, and then her eyes slowly closed and left nothing but dark eyelashes against pale skin. Then she fell to the snow, her hand falling out in front of her, blood dropping carelessly around it, dying the fresh snow a deep red.

He stared, not able to see anything but her hand, the snow, and the blood….So much blood that it made him sick. It made him sicker to imagine that it was her blood that he spilled onto the cold unforgiving snow. Beating in his ears loudly, his heart began to ache painfully and he clutched at it, wanting to rip it out. He wanted to die, to be with her, even in death, even in pain. He ran forward, still reeling at the blood, at her death, and his scream tore through the winter wind.

“BULMA!!”

It was too much for him to handle, and as he screamed her name, his dark eyes glazed over with pain and his voice struggled to make the out the word --- his anger and pride fighting like hell against his sorrow. There was something there that moment, something that no one had ever seen come from him before as he carelessly shed his callous skin to reveal the man that he really was. He had been hiding it for so long now that couldn’t for the life of him, remember what it was like to open yourself up to someone and become so damn weak in their eyes.

He reached her and wrapped her up in his arms, clinging to her unresponsive body as he kneeled in the deep snow, not even feeling the cold. Her blood was all over the place, still falling, and the deep red that had already fallen was sinking into the snow so that only small pin points of dark red remained there, small blemishes on the vast stretch of spotless snow before him. The wound through her middle was terrible, her clothing soaked in deep red. Vejiita refused to look at the wound. All he wanted to see was her face. All time slowed down to nothing then, and the wind began to blow the snow into a near blizzard around them. It spun dizzyingly, creating a blur of colors and light in front of his eyes, spare snowflakes landing in her hair, on her face.

All at once, Vejiita gripped his head with both of his hands and screamed in frustration. The screams tore out of him as if he were possessed, and his body shook violently. Bulma, the snow, the blood, none of it would disappear, and he howled, clawing at his head to try and get the images out. He fell to his knees on the floor, then onto his side in the fetal position, still screaming. From far away, he could hear heavy footsteps running and frantic yelling, but none of that mattered anymore. He was having a seizure of some sorts, he knew. He had been getting those frequently the past few months. He saw Bra’s face peering down at him horrified, and though it was cloudy and dizzy around him, he could see her eyes perfectly. Bulma’s eyes.

“Papa!” She screamed, with tears seeming to burst out of her. He stared at her, his eyes sloshing about in his head as though he were drunk. He wanted to say something to her, but he couldn’t get his mouth to work. His thoughts were too garbled for her to understand him anyhow.

“Not you too! Please don’t leave me too!” Bra continued to cry, shaking him as she cried down the hall for help.

She lay her head down on his chest, crying into his shirt and his arms ached to hold onto her there, but his body wouldn’t let him. Not that he minded. His heart wouldn’t have let him hold her anyway. He didn’t want to look at her, didn’t want to touch her. He loved her dearly, though it was something that he would not freely admit to people, but he loved her so much that he knew he could never stay here and hurt her like this. He was nothing now, a complete failure.

I couldn’t protect her mother and I can’t protect her. He thought. His heart told him that he needed to get away. He couldn’t be there with her, with Trunks, in this house that reminded him every day of what he had done. He had to get away. That was his last thought as his eyes rolled back into his head and he lost consciousness.

Trunks found her in her bedroom, sitting on the bed amid dozens of stuffed animals. They all surrounded her, like a barricade, with the biggest teddy bears in front as guards. This he knew, was no accident. Ever since she were young, Bra had always thought her animals held some kind of special power, and was certain they would protect her from anything. There were mounds of them on the bed, covering almost the entire surface, which was quite a feat. Her bed was huge, an old fashioned iron bed dressed in fluffy purple fabrics, to match the violet shades of her room. At the moment, she was wearing purple pajamas with little white hearts, and her turquoise hair had been pulled up with a purple ribbon as well. Although she looked like any normal girl, Trunks knew that there was much more going on inside of her. Her knees were curled up to her chest and her eyes were open, unseeing and watery with tears.

It pained him to know that he was going to have to break her heart in a moment; he would much rather eat his own leg. Bra could be a pain sometimes, but she was really a sweet girl, and he did love her. Besides, they had already been through quite a bit together, especially lately, now that Bulma was gone. Both of them had to survive on their own and try to figure out just what was going through Vejiita’s head. When Bulma was around, she almost acted like a translator, and was always able to comfort them whenever he flew into one of his tirades. But now that she was gone, there was no comfort and definitely no understanding. Vejiita looked at him as if he were nothing more than an insignificant pest. And Bra….He barely even acknowledged her existence now. Since Bra had always been closer to him than Trunks ever was, he knew that this was hurting her deeply.

Trunks took a deep breath. Unfortunately, I’m about to hurt her even more.

Vejiita was gone. He had skipped out of the hospital after he regained consciousness, blasting past Trunks in the hallway. He had expected anger and confusion, after all, it wasn’t often that someone woke up in the hospital, but this was different. Vejiita wasn’t just angry, it seemed as though he had given up on life. He didn’t even have to say anything, because Trunks could read it on his face. When his father’s cold black eyes locked on his for just an instant, Trunks understood everything. He was leaving them. He couldn’t stand to be there in the house with all of those memories and a little girl that looked just like the wife he had just lost. In all fairness, Trunks couldn’t be angry with him. He missed his mother too, and he knew that for Vejiita, the loss was much harder. Vejiita hadn’t just lost a wife; he had lost his only link to this planet. He was feeling pretty alone right now. And although circumstances looked pretty dim, somehow he knew that his father would be back. He didn’t know where he was going or how long he’d be gone, but he knew that he would come back eventually. He had too much pride to cower away in the darkness and hide from his own family. When he sorted all of his problems out, he would be back. Unfortunately, it was going to be hard to try and explain that to his sister in a cheerful manner.

He looked over at her again, with her rosy cheeks and soft turquoise hair. If he squinted, she really did look exactly like Bulma. As soon as she lost all of the baby softness around her face and grew into her body, she would be an exact copy. His little sister would grow up to be a very beautiful woman, just like his mother had been.

“Hey.” He said simply and brushed back a stray strand of hair from her face. She didn’t acknowledge him.

He picked up one of the stuffed animals that surrounded her, a pink hippopotamus which had always been one of her favorites when she was younger. “I remember this guy. Mr. Hippo, right? I won this for you at the carnival. The carnival is coming back to town soon, you know. Goten and I were thinking about going.”

Her eyes moved slightly, and he could tell that she was at least listening to him now. He nodded, then sat Mr. Hippo down at her side, giving his pink head a gentle pat.

“I’m sure if I asked Goten, he’d be more than happy to have you tag along. Maybe we’ll even chip in and buy you a snow cone.”

She didn’t look up. “Can Tayhei come?”

Shit.

He was already in enough pain, and he didn’t consider himself to be masochistic. All Tayhei ever did was make him miserable. He would never be able to understand why Bra was so attached to her, but for some strange reason, she was. And Bra’s happiness was what was important now, unfortunately. He tried as hard as he could to make a happy face, which resulted in a waxy looking smile that stretched from ear to ear with clenched teeth. “Of course Tayhei can come.”

“A snow cone won’t help. I’m too old for snow cones.” Bra said suddenly.

She looked up at him with her eyes still watery, but he did see maturity there, something that he had been noticing a lot recently. It was understandable. They had both been forced to mature very quickly in the past few months without their mother around. She stretched out her legs and grabbed Mr. Hippo, holding him gently with her tiny hands.

“I know.” He agreed. Then, with his stomach queasy, he finally told her what he had actually come in there to tell her. “Listen, Bra….”

“He’s gone, isn’t he?”

“He escaped from the hospital last night. Scared the hell out of a couple of nurses, slapped a doctor around….” Trunks took a deep breath. “I don’t think he is going to come home, Bra.”

She didn’t move, just moved her eyes down to stare at Mr. Hippo, her face expressionless.

“Maybe it’s for the best.” Trunks continued. “He needs some time on his own, some time to forget about Okaasan and start living again. When he is ready, he’ll come back and we’ll be a family again. Until then, I’m here to take care of you, don’t forget that.”

She nodded slowly.

“I talked to Gohan-san about letting you stay with Pan-chan for awhile and he thought that it was a good---”

“No!” She cried all of the sudden and whipped around so that she was facing him. “No! You can’t leave me either. Please….” Her voice fell into a whimper and then her face crumpled and the tears started to fall.

Trunks’s heart ached. He reached out and took her into his arms, rocking her back and forth amid all of the stuffed animals. “I’m not leaving you, Bra. I will figure something out so that you can stay here and be happy. We’ll wait for Otousan to come back together, okay?”

She didn’t reply, just held onto him tighter, mashing Mr. Hippo against his chest as she cried onto his shoulder. He smoothed his hand over her little back gently, and felt his own eyes welling up with tears. He was responsible, yes, but not responsible enough to take on a family yet. He had no idea how he was supposed to take care of Bra; he could barely even take care of himself. His mother’s death had been hard enough, but now he had to suffer through the immature, irrational antics of his father. Not that he hated his father, or felt any kind of anger towards him. What he had told Bra was true. Vejiita leaving was for the best. He had been making everyone miserable while he was here, much more than usual. His black mood had just hung over all of them like a heavy cloud, making it impossible for any of them to get over her death. It was better for all of them this way.

If it’s better this way? His heart challenged him. Then why does it hurt so bad?

Chapter 3
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