“Can the jinzouningen hurt us now?” Bra asked softly, curling up one fist just under her chin. Her blue eyes were watery and childlike, and it looked as though she were trying to stop her chin from trembling.

They were in her room; he had thought it best to take her there right away. It was in the middle of the afternoon, but after an experience like what she had just gone through, the little girl needed some rest. He had drawn the soft purple curtains to shut out the sunlight and tucked her into bed, arranging all of the stuffed animals according to her orders. He had to admit that his heart was still pounding. Seeing her there with Juunana-gou so close to killing her was enough to make him sick. The image of it had been burned into his mind, and he was certain that he was going to have nightmares about it for years to come. He had never realized just how much he cared about Bra until that very moment, until he saw those tiny hands wrapped around the jinzouningen’s strong arms, struggling in his grasp.

“No, Juunana-gou is knocked out, remember?” He comforted, bringing the blankets up closer to her and tucking in all of the edges to keep her warm. He tried to put a casual smile on his face, as if it were nothing --- as if nothing had even happened. “And as soon as Mirai Bulma gets here, she’s going to found out a way to keep him from hurting anyone again. And Papa is capturing Juuhachi-gou right now, so that Mirai Bulma can keep her from hurting people too.”

“Papa?”

Her tiny, hopeful voice made him pause for a moment. Their father was still a sensitive subject. He didn’t quite know how to approach it without upsetting her even further. She had already seen enough drama for today. She didn’t need another dosage of it now, thinking about Vejiita. The truth was: he didn’t know anything about their father or what was going to happen with them. Yes, he had seen him. Yes, he had shown up and saved the day. But that didn’t mean that he was ready to come home yet, or even ready to talk to them yet. He would have to gather his courage and try to find him later; he needed to have some questions answered. He nodded, again, trying to look as casual as humanly possible. “Hai. He showed up just in time and saved Tayhei and Mirai Bulma.”

Her deep blue eyes lit up a bit. “Is he going to come home now, then?”

He could only answer honestly: “I don’t know.”

There was a sudden knock on the door, and Goten poked his head in. There was a grin on his face a mile wide, and his thick black hair was sticking up all over the place: the after effects of flying. His friend’s happy face was probably the most refreshing, wonderful thing that Trunks had seen all day. He could always count on Goten to cheer him up with that infectious smile and sunny nature. It seemed as though Goten could face the worst hardship in the history of the world and still laugh about it afterwards. It made him grateful that he had him as a friend. Somehow, Goten managed to balance out his usual moody nature. Trunks motioned for his friend to come in, and Goten walked into the room, throwing a wink at Bra as he sat down on the bed.

“I just thought I’d let you know that Mirai Bulma and Tayhei are here now.” He told the two of them. “They headed down to the lab with Juunana-gou.”

“By themselves?!” Trunks screeched. A quick stab of fear ran through him at Goten’s words. Surely they wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave themselves alone with the jinzouningen again. He didn’t care if Juunana-gou was unconscious --- there were still dangers. A sudden, horrible image of Juunana-gou coming after Tayhei with a scalpel appeared in his mind. She was so weak, didn’t even know how to defend herself at all. There would be nothing that she could do to stop the android. And Mirai Bulma wasn’t much better. If she was anything like his mother, the height of her fighting capabilities was firing some fancy Capsule Corporation weapon. He stood up quickly, already two steps towards the door.

Goten held up a hand, a look of amusement on his face. “Koronu is with them.”

Trunks froze in his tracks, immediately relieved. But the gnawing fear didn’t go away completely. They were still down there in a lab with a lunatic that took children as hostages and obviously had no mercy. “I think I’ll go down there anyway, just to make sure they don’t do anything stupid. Besides, they might need my expertise in the lab.”

“Expertise?” Tayhei’s voice laughed from the doorway. “You have about as much experience in the lab as you do in cooking.”

He turned to see her enter the room, still wearing her lab coat. Despite the fact that she had just edged herself out of a near-death situation and flew through the air as Goten’s passenger, she looked completely polished and perfect. He hated her for that. That was one of the most annoying things about her. She always managed to look good. No matter what time of day it was, no matter what was going on, she managed to look perfect. It was sickening. Especially since even he had his bad days. He leaned back and crossed his arms tightly over his chest, narrowing his eyes at her. He really wasn’t in the mood for whatever she had to say right now.

“What are you doing here?” He snapped at her.

“I came to check on Bra.” She informed him simply. She leveled her green eyes at him, raising her eyebrows slightly. “Do you have a problem with that?”

He snorted indignantly, and rose his chin up a bit so that he could look down at her. He did his best to look commanding and intimidating, and tossed his lavender hair back with his head. “Well, I just thought that you were supposed to be down in the laboratory, helping Mirai Bulma with Juunana-gou.”

Tayhei shrugged, and edged her way over to the bed, taking a seat next to Goten. She absently picked up on of Bra’s stuffed animals and softly ran her hand over the bright yellow fur. She smiled at Bra, completely ignoring Trunks in the background as she spoke. “Apparently, she and Mirai Trunks needed to talk about something privately. He, Gokuu, and Vejiita just dropped in with Juuhachi-gou. Besides, I was getting the distinct impression that she didn’t want me there.”

“I guess she’s smarter than I thought after all.”

He could tell that she wanted to snap at him then. Tayhei turned towards him quickly, her green eyes full of fire, and her mouth just about to open, but Bra managed to squeeze her words in first. She spoke in that tiny, hopeful voice again, her mouth taking on the beginnings of a smile. “Papa is home?”

Shaking off any signs of anger, Tayhei turned back towards the little girl and nodded her head. “Hai.”

“Can I go talk to him?” Bra asked, giving each and every one of them a very convincing and pleading glance.

He wanted to tell her yes, but he still had no idea how their father was feeling right now. He didn’t want to put too much on him at once; otherwise he might run off again. Besides, he highly doubted that Vejiita would be in good spirits right now, considering the angry look he had seen on his face when he went to fight Juuhachi-gou. He didn’t want to subject Bra to any of their father’s unbalanced and uncontrollable anger. He uncrossed his arms and stared down at her. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Bra. He probably isn’t in the best mood right now. He just finished fighting Juuhachi-gou and he’s probably tired and hungry. And you know what he can be like when he’s in a bad mood. Maybe you should just wait until later on, after you’ve both had some rest, okay?”

Trunks paused, and then shot a look over at Tayhei, who stared back at him with a look of unguarded suspicion. He smiled sweetly. “Tayhei, do you think you could make something for him to eat?”

She gave him a disgusted look. “What do I look like? Vejiita’s personal chef?”

Mirai Trunks didn’t quite know what to think of the tone in his mother’s voice. He could sense that there was anger inside of it, and assumed that it was because of what his father had said. Vejiita had compared her to the Bulma of this timeline, and she had come up short. That had to have been devastating for her, and he knew that it had hurt her deeply. She had turned away and tried to pretend as if it didn’t matter, but Trunks knew her well enough to know that part of her had been crushed with those cruel words. His heart had ached for her when she turned away, when he saw her trying to keep her hands steady as she worked. She obviously didn’t want anyone to know that it had hurt her. His mother was a strong woman and a very prideful one as well --- and she didn’t like to be seen as anything less than that. But part of her was still fragile, and he knew that it was probably his job to help that heal.

“Okaasan, I’m sure he didn’t mean what he said.” He comforted softly, reaching out a hand to touch her shoulder. “He is just going through a really stressful time and doesn’t quite know how to act.”

“You don’t have to defend him, Trunks.” She told him in a cool voice. He couldn’t help but notice the edge of anger that he heard there. She spun around to face him, brushing his hand away from her in the process. “I know what he’s like. I married him, remember? I spent a lot of time living with him, sharing a room with him, sharing a bed with him. I heard things like that almost every day. If you think he ever had any kind of warm and fuzzy moments --- you’re wrong. He is like this all the time. Trust me, I’m well aware of his little mood swings, and immune to his evil little comments.”

“It doesn’t look like it.”

“I’m fine!” She snapped angrily. She held up her hands in a warning manner, and shook her long turquoise hair behind her. “Don’t bother me about it again, Trunks. It isn’t like I’m going to fall apart every time he says something mean to me. I should be used to it by now. I’ve known Vejiita a lot longer than you have. I think I would know him and his moods a little better than you.” She spat the last part out bitterly, and then turned towards him with a lethal glare in her eyes. “Besides, that isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about.”

He blinked, completely puzzled. “What is it, then?”

“You lied to me.”

The sudden change in conversation topic had his head spinning. He looked towards her, drawing his brows together in confusion. He had been certain that she was upset over Vejiita. She had been fine up until then --- had seemed almost weepy when he had first come into the room. But now she was staring at him with a look that was borderline hatred, her deep blue eyes sparkling with fury. She said that he had lied to her, but he didn’t think he had lied to her since childhood. He would never deliberately deceive her. Her cared about her far too much to hurt her like that. But there was no mistaking the seriousness in her eyes and the anger in her voice. She leaned towards him, pointing a finger straight at his chest, fire in her eyes.

“You told me that this trip was just a visit, that you had no other intentions behind it. That there was no other reason. But you had a plan the entire time, didn’t you? You knew that you were going to find Tayhei here. You knew that you were going to try and get her back.” She backed away from him again, drawing her hands back and clenching them hard at her sides. The long turquoise hair swayed back and forth while she shook her head. “That was the entire reason that we went on this trip. That was all that there was. You lied to me. You led me here under false pretenses.”

“Okaasan, it wasn’t like that.”

And it truthfully wasn’t. He hadn’t led her there under false pretenses --- she had asked to come, wanted to come. Whether or not he wanted to find Tayhei made no difference. All of the same things would have happened. Nothing would have been different. This mess with the jinzouningen still would have happened, this world’s Bulma would still be dead, and Vejiita would have said the exact same words to her. The fact that he came here to find Tayhei didn’t make a difference. His mother had come on her on accord, without any kind of pressure from him at all. In fact, he had pretty much expressed the fact that he didn’t want her to come. He thought it would be too much for her, and he was right. She was falling apart in front of his eyes, had been falling apart ever since she started packing for the trip.

“Then why didn’t you tell me, Trunks?” She demanded, and the hurt in her voice was almost just as evident as the anger.

“I didn’t want you to think that I was getting my hopes up for nothing.” He told her, as gently as he could. He titled his head to the side and tried to reach out and touch her shoulder again, but she backed away. If it were possible, her eyes became even angrier, and more hurt. A sheen of tears began to form there, glistening in the harsh light of the laboratory.

“Well you are getting hopes up for nothing! These two worlds are completely different, Trunks. You can’t just expect her to fall in love with you and go back to the future world. It doesn’t even make sense!” She exclaimed in a harsh, angry voice. She looked down and shook her head, her teeth clenched. “We should never have come here. Ever since we stepped foot in that time machine, nothing has gone right. It was a stupid idea, and a stupid plan. I can’t believe that you would be so foolish as to think that this would actually work, that you would actually get Tayhei back again. There are no second chances. You couldn’t protect your Tayhei and you lost her. Accept that.”

Trunks felt his blood turn to ice in his veins. He couldn’t keep the anger out of his voice when he spoke. “Are you saying it’s my fault that she died?!”

He glared at her with wide, furious blue eyes. There had never been a time when he was angrier at her. There was nothing she could have said that would have possibly hurt him more. She knew, knew how he felt about Tayhei and her death. It had taken him years to get over the guilt, and it had been her that helped him through it. It had been her that continuously assured him that it wasn’t his fault. He absolutely could not believe that she had said that to him. It was completely uncalled for, completely cruel, and almost unforgivable. He knew that she was suffering from something far greater than he could imagine at the moment, but that didn’t give her the right to say something like that. Nothing gave her the right to say something like that. As he glared at her, she suddenly seemed to falter a bit. She took a step back, and the tears spilled over and onto her cheeks.

“No! I’m not saying it’s your fault.” She choked out. Most of her anger was gone now, replaced by a bitterness that was so sour he could almost taste it. She looked at him with watery deep blue eyes, her mouth firm and un-trembling. “All I’m saying is that you can’t expect fate to bend over backwards for you. It’s not going to happen. Nothing ever works out for us. Nothing ever goes the way that we want it to. That’s just the way our lives are.”

He stared at her for a moment, then straightened up and shook his head. “Well, that’s fine if you’ve given up on your hope, Okaasan, but I haven’t given up on mine.”