He couldn’t even hear the rain as he slept, but was somehow consciously aware of the steady, beautiful rhythm of something. The thunder did not reach his ears, and the flashes of lighting that lit up his wall did not affect him. Mirai Trunks slept soundly, more soundly than he had slept in a very long time. He was curled up in the soft Capsule Corporation guest bed, lying wrapped up in sheets, clad only in his boxers. He had left the curtains open tonight, because he liked the rain and enjoyed watching it. It wasn’t often that they had storms like this in the future world, so it was a pretty spectacular sight to him. He had thought about cracking the window, but decided against it --- he didn’t want the floor to get wet. And then he had spread the curtains wide open and let the moonlight and lightning seep in and splash across his walls. However, his efforts had really been futile, because he had fallen asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

In his sleep, he turned suddenly, and then a small smile appeared on his face. Deep in sleep and completely warm and content in bed, he dreamed of things that had actually happened long ago. He dreamed of her, and his heart longed to stay in this dream forever.

They were lying on their backs in the long grass of a field, taking a short break from sparring to just relax. The grass was slightly damp from the light sheen of rain that had fallen earlier that morning, but it felt good against his skin; cool and refreshing after a long session of training. They were close enough so that he could feel her arm next to him, and the comfort and contentment of it was enough to make him breathe in deep and simply smile to himself, knowing that she was his. He would have liked to stare at her, to continue to memorize her face. He liked the way that his heart would jump and ache when he gazed into those bright green eyes, and he liked the way that she stared at him back in innocence and uncertainty. But she had often explained that the staring made her slightly nervous, so he kept his eyes on the bright blue sky above them, and watched as the wind swept the clouds to the west, stretching them out and pulling them away from each other.

She had been unusually quiet today, as if there were something important weighing on her mind. She didn’t often hide things away from him, but he could sense that she had been keeping inside for quite some time now --- it was most likely something that she did not want to talk about. As they lay here in silence, he could slowly feel her uneasiness growing. It was strange how he could feel it so deeply and intensely, as if it were his own pain inside, instead of hers. Still keeping his eyes on the rolling clouds above them, he silently reached over and grasped her hand, holding it gently and comfortingly. It was his quiet way of reassuring her he was there, and that she didn’t have to be afraid. He didn’t even have to ask her if something was wrong --- he knew that she would tell him when she was ready.

A few seconds passed before she finally spoke. “Trunks-kun, if something ever happens to me….”

Surprised, his head quickly turned to look at her. “Don’t say things like that.”

Instead of turning to meet his eyes, she kept her gaze trained on the sky, refusing to even look at him. She raised her other hand up and placed it lightly on her chest, curling her fingers up into a fist. “I have to. I want to say this. In this world, you really never know when fate is going to snatch life away.”

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Tayhei.”

“You don’t know that. You’ve said yourself that the jinzouningen are dangerous and unpredictable.” She reminded him gently. “I just wanted to make sure that if something ever did happen to me, you would carry out the promise that I made to Yakosoku. There is nothing more that I want to see in this world than peace. If I do happen to get hurt or killed….I just want to know that things will work out that way. I don’t want to die knowing that the planet’s last hopes died with me. I want to be able to look down on the Earth and see all of these cities rebuilt; I want to see everything back the way it was before the jinzouningen came.”

He didn’t understand why she was talking about this, or why should would choose to bring it up now, but he understood that it was important to her. And that was really all that mattered to him. Although she was trying to avoid his gaze, he could see the emotion and urgency in her eyes. He tried to imagine what it would be like without her; how he would feel if she actually were gone. He knew that he would do what she asked for --- even if she had never asked for it at all. It was an awful thing to think about, though. A terrible thing to think about. The thought of her being killed actually made him feel physically ill, but if she needed reassurance about it, he would give it to her.

“Tayhei, I would never let anything happen to you.” He told her softly, and meant it with all his heart. He sat up a bit and tightened his grip on her hand, trying to get her to look in the eye. “But yes, I promise that I would carry out your wish. I want too see the Earth restored just as much as you do. And I would do it all in Yakosoku’s honor --- and yours.”

There was a long pause, and then she spoke up in a timid, barely even audible voice, averting her eyes and turning away from him completely. “Would you miss me?”

The hesitant question was enough to make his heart feel like jumping out of his chest and falling at her feet. Again, he didn’t want to think about her being gone, but when he did, the stab of pain was so harsh that he had to blink a couple time to gain his senses back. Of course he would miss her. How could he not miss her? Even just simply laying here in the grass brought him levels of bliss and contentment that he didn’t even know existed. As gently as he could, he reached his arm out and rolled her back over to him, curling her into his chest. “Without you here, I honestly think I would be lost. Part of me would simply die inside.”

She lightly gripped his jacket and looked up into his eyes. He was startled by the depth and greenness of them, and the seriousness in her voice. “I would want you to be happy.”

“I couldn’t possibly be happy if you died, Tayhei.” He argued softly. He wanted to smile and break the tension and sadness that had suddenly sprung up between them, but he sensed that she needed seriousness and reassurance now, not smiles. Carefully, he brushed the golden strands away from her face and held her closer to him, making sure that his eyes never left hers. “The only joy I have ever experienced in this lifetime is the joy of being with you. There is no way that I would be happy without you.”

“I feel the same way.” She replied in a thoughtful voice, still fingering the edges of his jacket absentmindedly. “I worry about that every time you mention going into the outside world to fight the jinzouningen. I worry about it when you talk about going back to the past again and helping them fight.”

“Would you miss me?” He asked in a somewhat playful tone, turning her question back on her. He already knew that she would --- he was confident enough in their relationship to trust that she loved him with every fiber of her being. But it would be interesting to see what her reply would be. After all, he and Tayhei had very different views of the world. He tended to be a bit more pessimistic than she was, and she looked at the world as more of a whole than he did. They saw everything in very different shades, but not so radically different that it caused problems between them. More often than not, he appreciated her optimism, and her philosophical view of the world.

It took her a long moment to answer, and then she closed her eyes and spoke to him softly, her fingers freezing on the edge of his jacket. Her voice was a little sad, as if it hurt her just as much to think about losing him. “I would be strong and continue to fight and achieve our goal. I would devote every waking hour to becoming stronger and defending this city. But I think I would cry at night --- I think I would cry every time I saw the ocean or the sun or a wildflower.”

“Would you fall in love with someone else? If I had been gone for many years?”

Tayhei didn’t hesitate at all this time, and quickly and decisively shook her head at him, bringing those beautiful eyes up to look into his. They were so full of emotion and love that it made his heart ache, and he unconsciously held onto her tighter as she spoke.

“Never.” She asserted. “Even if part of me was dying to be held and cared for again….I could never bring myself to fall in love with someone else. I know what if feels like to love you and be loved by you. I will never feel this strongly about anyone else again. And if I don’t feel that strongly --- if the love isn’t that deep, then it isn’t worth it. I only want you. And if I can’t have you, then I will have no one.”

“Me too. I could never love anyone else. No one.”

Mirai Trunks woke up out of the dream quickly, sitting up straight in bed and bringing his hands up to his head to brush his hair out of his face. Dreams like that were the reason that he tried to avoid sleeping. It hadn’t been a nightmare, like so many of his dreams often were, but it wasn’t a healthy dream either. His dreams about Tayhei always seemed to fill him with an unquenchable longing and a horrible sense of loss and sadness. The main thing was that he never wanted to wake up from those dreams. If he could, he would gladly stay in that dream forever, just so he touch her and hear her voice, look into her eyes. At the same time though, it was too hard to see her, to remember her. And more importantly, it made it too hard to realize that was trying to break one of his promises to her.

He had told her that he would never love anyone else. But yet, that was exactly what he was trying to do with this timeline’s Tayhei. He wasn’t too entirely sure if that was breaking the promise or not, seeing as how they were technically the same person. He knew in his heart though, that it wasn’t the same. This Tayhei was not the woman that he had loved. She looked exactly the same, but they didn’t share the same soul, or the same spirit. He didn’t want to dishonor his Tayhei by trying to fall in love with someone else, but he was too sad, too lonely. He didn’t think that he could be without her. Every bit of resolve and patience that existed inside of him had run out a long while ago. He needed her back again. And because he would never be able to touch his own Tayhei again, he had to settle for the closest thing.

After satisfying himself that Bra was safe and asleep, Vejiita crept out of her room silently and closed the door behind him with a soft click. He often did this, even when Bulma had still been alive. He had been given the gift of soft movement, and he used it to his advantage, quietly moving from room to room to assure himself that all of the occupants were safe. He even checked on Bulma’s laboratory assistant brat, though a large part of him didn’t care if she were safe or not. He had never gotten caught before, and he had never told anyone that he did this. They would surely see it as a sign of weakness, and he would be viewed as less of a Saiya-jin because of it. Saiya-jin warriors did not get up in the middle of the night to assure themselves that their brats were safe and sleeping.

As he crept back towards his room, he thought about Trunks and Bra. There were many things that he had for them in his heart, many things that he would never be able to share with them. He had been a father the only way he had known how --- the Saiya-jin way. He had learned slowly what it meant to be a father on Earth, but those traits and feelings were often parts of himself that he hid. The things that Mirai Bulma had said to him earlier had struck a very sensitive nerve. She had basically accused him of not caring about his children --- had flat out told him that he was a bad father. Saiya-jin or not, this had greatly upset him. On one hand, it was an issue of pride: he considered himself to be the best at everything, and that included the way that he raised his brats. And on the other hand, there was a tiny piece of guilt in his heart about the way that he treated them.

He knew that it would never change. He had been able to change slightly when Bra was born, but that his limit of change. He would never be able to be the human father figure that everyone expected him to be. That was just intolerable to him; most parts of it actually disgusted him. He would never be able to change anymore than he had already changed for his children. He had already given up too much of his Saiya-jin blood, had thrown away too many of his old habits. And if Mirai Bulma actually expected more than that from him, then she was simply insane. He had nothing left to give. There was no room for anything else.

If his Bulma were still alive, things might be different. She would undoubtedly work her magic again, slowly molding him into something softer, something more loving. If she were still here, he wouldn’t have to feel so alone anymore. He wouldn’t have to go back to an empty bed and wake up knowing that she was never coming back.

It was the loneliness that ate away at him the most. The loneliness was sometimes more than he could handle. And seeing Mirai Bulma only confirmed that. It would be far, far too easy for him to let her touch him. It would be far too easy for him to pretend that she was the Bulma that he knew. His heart didn’t want that at all --- part of him knew that it was incredibly wrong, and completely unacceptable. But the other part of him, the lonely part, wanted nothing more than just feel her hands on the side of his face again and taste her kiss. He wanted that so badly that it made it hard for him to think about anything else, and he wandered the halls of Capsule Corporation in angry confusion, wondering why he was allowing himself to think these thoughts.

And then he saw her.

She slipped out of her doorway in an attempt at stealth, still wearing the same clothes that she had been wearing earlier. She had tied her long turquoise hair back into a high ponytail, and the look on her face was one of frustration and sadness. Her deep blue eyes glinted in the darkness as she walked past him, never even noticing him in the dark shadows of the hallway.

He didn’t know where she was going, or what she was planning to do, but he couldn’t stop himself from following her. In this darkness, on this rainy night, he only knew that she reminded him of the woman that had been his mate. And the loneliness that he had been ignoring for so long caught his heart tightly and begun to squeeze until he thought it might be crushed. He just wanted his Bulma again; he just wanted to feel normal again. And he believed that he just might do anything to get that back.

Mirai Bulma flung open the backdoor of Capsule Corporation and scampered out into the rain, not even caring if she got wet out not. It was pouring down even harder than it had been before, but luckily the wind had died down, so it didn’t feel as though the rain was slapping her in the face as she walked. The thunder and lightning however, had not died down. The sky was lighting up every ten seconds or so, followed almost immediately by the rumble of thunder. The storm was right above them, and she could feel it growing more and more powerful with every minute. This intimidated her a bit, but it was no worse than the fight she had had with Vejiita earlier.

The fight had made her feel ill. She was sorry for the things that she had said to him; she was sorry that she had accused him of being a horrible father. She didn’t even know him, really. Didn’t know anything about him. It wasn’t right of her to make judgments like that when she really wasn’t qualified or informed. She just chalked it up as yet another one of her stupid mistakes on this visit. This stupid mistake had quite a serious consequence, however. He was angry with her, and from the looks of things, he would be angry with her for quite some time. She didn’t even know why she insisted on fooling herself about this situation. Even though she knew that it wasn’t going to work out, she kept holding onto her hope, kept looking at him as though he were hers.

She needed some time to think. Stepping carefully through the large puddles in the grass, she approached the long ladder at the side of the building --- the ladder that led up to the roof. It probably wasn’t safe to climb up there in the middle of a lightning storm, but she didn’t really care about that right now. All she knew was that she wanted to get away from everyone else, and find a place where no one would find her and no one would bother her. The fight with Vejiita and this storm had brought back too many memories about past, and another storm quite like this one.

It had been raining just like this when she first realized that she might love Vejiita. The two of them had been attracted to each other for quite some time before then, but had never acted on it. Then one rainy night much like this one, she had gone up on the roof of Capsule Corporation to think, to cry, to be alone. And he had appeared behind her, stepping out of the rain like a ghost. They had kissed wordlessly, but communication had passed through them anyway. Her feelings for him and his for her had seemed to wrap around them, growing and surging like the storm clouds over their heads. He had flown away and left her there, but she hadn’t been upset. When he left, it didn’t feel like he was leaving. It felt more like he was giving her a promise.