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His teacher	By : AwesomeIncarnate Category: Dragon Ball Z > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 6480 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: You know how you can tell I don't own DBZ? By the way I don't make any money from writing this, and have to have a real job.

Chapter List
- 7
- 8
- 9
Too lazy to do a forward for this chapter. Enjoy.

mj11490: I'm glad you like the story! This is on B&R also, but I post it here first. That's probably why you saw it here. :)

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Chapter 8: Fault

---

The plane blasted across the clear sky, making a hideous noise of it. Bulma wished now that she had chosen something better to get her to Roshi's island, but she couldn't deny that this prototype was a fast son of a bitch. It was designed to fly faster than the speed of sound, which she had assumed would be a silent flight. Apparently not. At least, not inside the cockpit.

Hopefully this way she wouldn't get left behind when everyone else started flying off, though. If she could actually keep up and not need to be carried for once it would be worth the busted ear drums.

She had known all of those guys long enough to know that was exactly what they were going to do—fly off as soon as she showed them the picture from her fax machine. The vehicle that had clearly been lying abandoned for a few years, which was identical to the time machine Trunks had used.

This was all starting to seem like a script from a sci-fi movie. Androids, time travel, talking heads and—Bulma almost laughed out loud—aliens. It was too perfect. She should write a book or something. The main character could be a stunningly beautiful young woman trying to balance her obligations as the heiress of a global corporation with the stresses of occasionally saving the world with her alien friends. "Hey, I'm on to something here."

But first things first. There was Roshi's island. Bulma disengaged the autopilot—she preferred to land manually—and did a circle around it, aiming for what passed as the old man's front lawn. Her plane kicked sand up everywhere, but it wasn't like anyone was outside to be bothered by it.

The plane was as horrifically noisy about landing as it had been for everything else. By the time she opened the top and climbed out of the cockpit, everyone had come outside to greet her. Well, everyone except for Gohan. Maybe they had left before he got home? She hoped not, poor kid.

"Finally!" Krillin called as she climbed down. "We've been waiting for you, Bulma."

What? How? Nevermind. "Hi. I've got something to show Trunks. It's important." And upon saying that she realized that she had left the picture on the seat. Sighing, Bulma climbed back up into the plane. “Hold on.”

"'Kay, but listen. We have a plan to beat the androids. We just need..."

"Hold on, will you? I said this is important." The stupid picture had fallen under the seat somehow, but she managed to get it without having to do anything that would require her to punch Roshi after.

"Bulma! I think the end of the world is..."

"Ah!" Bulma lost her balance—heels may have been a bad idea—and fell from the top of the plane. After a few seconds she realized that her neck wasn't broken and that she hadn't actually hit the ground. Opening her eyes, she saw the face of her future son looking down at her. "Thanks, sweetie. Here, take a look at this."

---

How many impossible things needed to happen in one fucking day?

Trunks stared down at the picture while Bulma explained to everyone how she had gotten it. What the Hell? Another time machine meant that he wasn't the only one here from the future...and worse, it meant that whoever it was had to be from further in the future than he was.

That was definitely the time machine his mother had built, or at least the same model. And his was the first one. So when had this one come from?

He had to assume it wasn't a friend, either. Clearly it had been here for some time, and nobody had come to give him helpful advice. Which meant that someone was trying to stop him from saving the world.

"This doesn't make any sense." It was a blindingly obvious thing to say, but he did anyway. "Who..." Trunks trailed off, looking up at the group. "I have to go check this out."

"I'm going with you." His mother announced. "Otherwise the curiosity will drive me crazy."

"Wait, Bulma." Krillin broke in. "What about the Dragonballs, and the controller? Don't you have stuff to do?"

But Bulma would not be deterred. "Whatever, we don't need both, do we? You and Yamcha go to my place and get the radar. You can look for the Dragonballs yourself. It shouldn't take too long."

"I..."

"Come on, Krillin. There's no point in arguing with her." Yamcha smacked Krillin's shoulder as he walked past to the water's edge. "Besides, it's better than sitting here doing nothing, right? Let's go."

Krillin sighed, defeated. "Fine. See you guys."

"Be careful, boys." Roshi called as the two lifted into the air and were gone. "Alright. We'll stay here with Goku. You two get going too."

Chi-Chi sniffed. "Couldn't have waited ten more minutes? Lunch is almost ready, and now I made way too much."

"Sorry, Chi-Chi. Maybe when we get back." Trunks said. "Let's go." Bulma was climbing into her noisy plane again. He prepared to take off himself.

"You never said goodbye to me.”

Shit. He couldn't very well leave without telling Gohan, not after earlier. "Hold on, I've just got something quick to do." And he took off behind the house, ignoring Roshi's cries that there was a bathroom inside.

"Gohan? I just wanted to...Gohan!" The boy was curled up at the edge of the water, waves lapping his face. Trunks quite literally flew to his side. There was no way he was sleeping. He wouldn't have fallen asleep here, almost in the water.

His hand clutched to his chest and the fact that he was barely breathing were enough for Trunks to leap to a conclusion. Trunks hadn't ever seen this himself, but there was no question what it meant.

I did this. What exactly he meant by that Trunks wasn't sure. But he knew it was true, somehow. This was his fault. Now Gohan would die, because there wasn't enough medicine. He had only brought back enough for Goku. For one person. If he tried to give some to Gohan, both of them would die. "Gohan..."

Wait. It came to Trunks suddenly, and he cursed himself for taking so long to remember. There was more medicine! He stood up, Gohan in his arms. The boy cried out as he was moved, a sound that made Trunks wish he was deaf. Reaching into his coat pocket was a bit of a pain, but he managed to get his capsule case.

"Trunks, what's...oh my goodness, Gohan!" Bulma had come around the house, and was now running towards him. From her face, she seemed to have an idea of what was happening.

He fumbled the case open and seized the right capsule, letting everything else fall to the ground. "It's okay." It really wasn't, but he had to say something. "I'm going get him help."

"Trunks, are you sure that..."

"There's no time to be sure!" Trunks clicked the capsule and tossed it behind him, his time machine emerging in a puff of smoke, the top open and waiting for him.

To Bulma's credit, she either saw that there was nothing she could do or decided that there was no other way. Both were true. "Be careful."

"I'll be back in a few minutes." Gohan let out another cry of pain as Trunks leapt into the time machine, clutching his chest even tighter. He closed the top, punched the machine to life and coaxed it up into the air and, with one last look down at his mother, hit the buttons that would take him home.

Maybe there would be consequences to taking someone to the future with him. Trunks didn't care. There was no point in saving the world if Gohan had to die for it again.

---

The best part of time travel was that it was instant. Bulma didn't have to sit around worrying for days or weeks about whether Trunks would come back injured, or come back at all. He could travel forward to three seconds after he'd left and that would be the end of that.

But that was also the worst part of time travel. After a full minute had gone by with no return of her son, Bulma was already starting to fear the worst.

She forced herself to go inside and put coffee on. Standing in the doorway and fainting from hunger and low blood sugar would do nothing. At the very least she needed breakfast. She was getting too old to be staying up all night like that. She pulled the carton of eggs from the fridge and set it carefully on the counter. It was hard to get real eggs these days, but it was one thing that she just couldn't eat the synthesized version of.

Trunks had probably just made a mistake programming the machine to return. Hit a five instead of a four, maybe. Or maybe he'd entered PM instead of AM. She hoped that she wouldn't have to go get him. She'd built a second time machine, just in case something happened to the first; maybe she should plug it in and start charging it after all. Just in case.

Bulma didn't realize that her hands were shaking until she dropped an egg. "Damn." Seizing a cloth from the countertop, she crouched down to clean up the mess. She was being silly. It had only been a few minutes. Gohan and Trunks had used to disappear for days fighting the androids. Everything was fine; she just needed to be more patient.

Trunks had better be ready with a good reason for being so late when he got back.

A sudden banging from outside made Bulma jump. "What was that?" She asked nobody in particular. Then her brain caught up. Outside, where the time machine had left from. She scrambled to her feet and ran from the house. As she did it crossed Bulma's mind that there shouldn't have been a banging sound. The time machine was noisy, but not that loud. Something must be wrong with it.

Expecting to see a flaming ruin, Bulma was almost disappointed when she emerged from the house. The time machine was intact, though judging by the way it was skewed on the ground it had fallen from the sky. Smoke was billowing out from the inside, but it certainly wasn't totalled.

So preoccupied with the machine was Bulma that at first she didn't see her son climbing out. When her attention shifted to him and she the expression on his face, the need with which he was looking at her, and then what was cradled in his arms, Bulma felt cold.

"Oh, Trunks, what have we done?"

---

"I'm home." Gohan called out as he came into the house. Nobody answered. "Mom? Dad? I'm home." Where had he been? Gohan didn't remember. But he was home now, and that was what mattered. "Hello?"

The house was silent as a grave. Wondering what was going on, Gohan wandered down the hall and turned the corner into the kitchen. "Mom?"

Chi-Chi was sitting on the floor beside an overturned chair, smiling down at a bundle of blankets in her arms. "Shh, Gohan. You'll wake up the baby."

"Mom, why are you on the floor?" Gohan approached her, stopping just a few feet away. The baby was wrapped up so tightly that he couldn't see anything but blankets. "Come on, get up." She needed to get up. Gohan didn't know why, but she couldn't sit on the floor, that was bad. That was...

"Alright, here, take the baby for a minute." Gohan instinctively cradles his arms as the bundle of blankets was thrust towards him, and staggered forward a bit when he felt...nothing. He looked down. The blankets were empty. There was no baby.

Chi-Chi clicked her tongue. "Now look at what you've done, Gohan. You go out all day and then come home to make a big mess all over my clean floor!" She was still sitting down, and when Gohan looked down past his empty arms at her, he saw the puddle of blood that she was sitting in, slowly spreading outward.

"Mom! What's wrong?" He dropped the blankets and crouched downward to help her. Chi-Chi smacked him.

"Gohan! How could you do that? You killed the baby! Now I'm alone again and it's all your fault!"

"What? No, I didn't...Mom, there wasn't a baby..."

"All your fault!" Chi-Chi screeched. "I only want what's best for you and you ignore me every chance you get. Get out! Out!"

"Mom, I'm not..."

"OUT!"

Gohan ran from the kitchen. What was going on? He was scared, and he didn't know why. He stopped in the doorway, turned back. Chi-Chi was picking up the blankets that he had dropped, now soaked in her blood, and was whispering, "It's okay, mommy's here now. I won't let them hurt you again. It's okay."

He raced the short length to his room, yanked the door open and slammed it shut behind him. His breath came in short, fitful gasps. Something was wrong. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be.

"Gohan?" Goku was sitting on Gohan's bed, holding the jacket Trunks had given to him. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be out training."

"Dad! Something's wrong with Mom! She's..."

"Shh, Gohan." His dad said in that reassuring voice he used. "Don't worry about your mother. She'll be fine. You need to go out and train or else you'll just be in everyone's way when the androids come, like always."

"What...Dad, you need to listen to me!"

The sound of tearing fabric filled the room as Goku rent the jacket into pieces. "You're not doing what you're supposed to, Gohan. Put it in the box. Here, there should be room in this one now that it's empty." He tossed the scraps of fabric that had one been a coat aside and pulled from somewhere the little cardboard box that it had been kept in. "Go ahead, just put it all in here. It'll fit, don't worry."

An explosion rocked the house. "What was that?"

"The androids. I told you that you needed to train, didn't I? Now it's too late."

"No!" Gohan ran from the room into the hallway. It was filled with smoke and he couldn't see anything. He thought he heard the sound of fire somewhere.

He tore down the hall and ran outside. Gohan's front yard, the surrounding fields, the forest and even the mountains were all gone. He was standing in a rocky canyon littered with the bodies.

Piccolo, Vegeta, Krillin, Yamcha, Tien, Chiaotzu, Dende, Master Roshi, Bulma, his parents...everyone he had ever met in his life was lying dead on the ground. Directly in front of him stood the androids, Seventeen holding up one more body. Trunks.

"Ah, he finally shows up." Eighteen said, putting her hands in her pockets and sauntering forward. "And here I thought he was just going to hide until we went away."

Seventeen threw Trunks down; the other half-Saiyan landed immediately in front of Gohan, his body completely broken. "Just what does he think he's going to do, do you think? There's no one to die for him this time. They all already have."

Gohan backed up involuntarily as Eighteen took another step. His heart raced so hard he thought it would fly from his chest. He was going to die. His hands flew behind him, searching for the doorknob back into the house, where he would be safe. Nothing. The knob, the door, the house were gone. "Don't..."

"Don't what?" Eighteen asked playfully.

"No..." Tears and snot ran down Gohan's face as she got closer and closer. If she caught him...if she caught him he was sure he would die. He had to get away. "Don't hurt me..."

"You can't get away, little boy. There's nowhere for you to run." Both androids laughed.

"No!" She was right, but Gohan ran anyway. He had to get away. He didn't want to die. He was scared. He ran as fast as he could, until the canyon and the androids and even the world were behind him. He ran until he was running through darkness, and even then he kept running. He had to keep running. It was the only thing he could do.

But even in the darkness he knew they could find him. He could hear their laughter, echoing everywhere.

Gohan ran, waiting for the darkness to swallow him.

---

"He's not getting better."

Bulma tightened the cap on the bottle of medicine and put it and the syringe she had used to get the liquid into Gohan's mouth on the bedside table. "It's not magic, Trunks. The medicine will take a few days to work." She looked down at Gohan and pursed her lips. "Now, tell me what's going on. I wasn't there when they fought the androids the first time, so I don't know all the details. But I'm pretty damn sure I would have heard about this if it had happened."

"I don't know. I don't know what happened." Trunks took a second to try and calm himself. For all the help that did with Gohan laying in bed dying right beside him. "He just got sick. I guess I should have known. He was acting weird. I should have known he wasn't feeling well. But I didn't." But he hadn't. All that had happened, and it hadn't once occurred to him that it was because Gohan was sick that he was feeling so awful. So stupid.

"Trunks, stop. You couldn't have known this would happen. We don't really understand how time works. Maybe saving Goku made this happen, or..."

"Goku!" Trunks stood. "Goku never got the heart virus!" All of the sudden, this seemed important.

"What? What do you mean he never got it?"

"Until this morning. That morning, I mean." It was hard to get used to the idea that everything he had done that day was almost two decades in the past again. "It didn't attack him until he started fighting."

Now Bulma stood as well, started pacing the room. "You told him to train. Maybe doing that held it off for a year? Gohan must have picked it up then. They were training together?" Trunks nodded, though he couldn't remember if Gohan had said anything about that. Of course they had trained together. "Hm. That's probably what happened. It would have needed prolonged contact to get through a Saiyan's immune system. To be honest, I still don't understand how it ever got to Goku in the first place."

"Should..." Gohan made a soft whimpering noise and Trunks had to sit down beside him again. "Should I bring back more medicine? For everyone else? They've been around Goku now, and they're just human, except for Dad and Piccolo."

"No, the virus isn't contagious anymore by the time it gets to this point." Bulma waved a hand at Gohan. "The only one to worry about would be Chi-Chi, but we tested her after Goku died; she has a natural immunity to the virus."

"She's immune to it?"

"Most people are." Bulma paused and smiled very briefly. "We were all terrified of this virus when we first heard of it, but it's actually not that impressive. Ninety percent of the population is immune to it. The reason why it was so scary was that there was no cure for it back then and anybody who did get it died." Now she frowned in thought. "Maybe I will give you another bottle, just in case Yamcha or one of them is susceptible. Most people with immunity are also carriers, so Chi-Chi might give it to one of them. You're immune to it, though. So am I."

"Okay." Trunks didn't really care if he was immune to the virus. He would rather he got it a thousand times than Gohan. He was way to young to suffer this much. To suffer at all.

"Oh!" Bulma snapped her fingers at Trunks, face creasing in sudden worry. "How's Goku doing with the medicine, do you know?"

"Fine, I think." Gohan was squirming in the bed, as if in pain. Which he probably was. "I think Chi-Chi said he was feeling better."

"Thank heavens." Bulma whispered. Trunks heard her, though, and turned his head. "I gave you the wrong bottle." She explained. "An experimental version of the medicine. It was made to work faster, but..."

"But?" Trunks had a feeling he knew what the 'but' was.

"But it might also just not work at all. It's experimental, like I said. But if Goku was feeling better with it...it's probably okay." She sounded uncertain, but Trunks let it drop. He had more important things to worry about right this instant, and it wasn't as if he hadn't made bigger mistakes than handing out the wrong bottle.

"I'm going to go make breakfast." His mother announced. "Are you hungry?"

"No, thanks. I'll sit up here with Gohan for a while." He shouldn't have to be alone like this.

"I'll bring something up for you." The door opened and closed quietly, and Trunks was left with Gohan.

He reached out and took the boy's hand. It was sweaty and Gohan tried unconsciously to pull away, but Trunks held on. "You're going to be okay. You'll be fine. I promise. I won't let anything happen to you. You're not dying again."

---

Bulma got all the way to the top of the staircase before she had to sit down and rest, to let the adrenaline fade from her system. What the Hell was going on? Sometimes it was hard not to feel as though the universe was conspiring against the two of them.

As awful as she felt for poor little Gohan, she was more worried for her son. Trunks had loved Gohan, their Gohan, more than anything. That love seemed to still exist for his younger counterpart.

Truthfully, that concerned Bulma more than the heart virus, even with the fact that she was guessing about the dosage of Gohan's medication since it wasn't designed to be given to children. She hoped that Trunks would be able to realize emotionally what he knew intellectually—that this Gohan wasn't his, and just as important, that this Gohan was just a child.

Bulma frowned. She was not a stupid woman. Trunks might think that she was in the dark about just how far his relationship with the other half-Saiyan had progressed, but she was perfectly aware. She had realized pretty quickly that Gohan's feelings for Trunks went far beyond fondness, and it had always been obvious that the feeling was more than mutual.

She couldn't pretend to have been happy when she discovered that their relationship had been sexual—not hard; she had washed both of their laundry, after all—and when Trunks was barely twelve, to boot. But she had moved past her initial motherly desire to dismember Gohan and feed him to the androids and seen that her son was happier than he had ever been. If there had to be someone who she would let Trunks play child molester with, she supposed Gohan was the best person; someone she knew would never hurt him. Besides, Trunks had grown up far too fast in so many other ways, it was almost unfair, in a way, to force him to stay a child in that respect.

But Trunks couldn't have that again with this Gohan, and was dangerous for him to think he could. Bulma had known Gohan at that age. He'd been smart, independent and caring, but still very much a child. Not at all as grown up as Trunks had been at ten, despite all of his battles.

She just hoped that Trunks realized that he wouldn't be able to reforge that bond with someone else, even if it was the same person. If he hadn't yet figured that out he would eventually, and having Gohan yanked away from him after being dangled in front of his face would devastate him all over again.

And there was nothing she could do about any of it, at least not without making things between her and her son very uncomfortable.

Sighing, Bulma stood. Breakfast. She needed food, and coffee. It would take several days, at least, for Gohan to recover, and maybe another week after that before he would be ready to go home. Some time before she could expect things to go back to normal, or her version of it, anyway.

"The trials of being the smartest woman left alive..." Bulma sighed to herself as she made her way down to the kitchen. "And here I used to think space travel was hard..."

---

Gohan ran through darkness for hours, or maybe days. Maybe minutes. He had no idea. He didn't get hungry, or tired, nor did he stop being scared. He just ran into infinity.

Abruptly, after some endless time, Gohan became aware that he was coming up on something in the dark. He slowed down as he approached. The darkness didn't get any less dark, but suddenly there was just another person there, clear as day, sitting on the nonexistent ground in front of him. "Trunks? What are you doing here?"

The baby babbled and started to crawl away. The darkness melted around them both, leaving them in the little clearing they had sat together in not long ago in front of the ocean. "No, Trunks! Don't move, it isn't safe!"

Trunks ignored him and kept crawling, right to the edge of cliff they had sat on. If he went over..."Trunks, stop!"

He did, turning his little head to look back at Gohan and smile. And as soon as Gohan took another step toward him, Trunks raced forward and plunged into the air. "Trunks!" Gohan raced over to where he had been, but the landscape vanished and the darkness came back; Gohan wound up leaping at nothing, smashing into a ground that didn't exist. "Trunks!" He pounded at the invisible barrier, willing it to shatter again, so he could get the baby, but the darkness remained resolutely solid.

"Wow, Gohan. Is that the only thing you're good at? Letting people die?" Gohan started and snapped around to stare at Trunks, not five feet from him. His Trunks. Gohan coloured when he realized he had thought of the man that way. He was holding baby Trunks on his hip, which it took Gohan a second to notice. What he did see right away was the expression on his face, the sneer that matched the tone of his voice perfectly. Trunks had never looked at him like that before.

"Well, are you going to answer or just sit there like a baby?" Little Trunks raised a pudgy hand and hit the air in Gohan's direction as big Trunks spoke. Even the baby was looking at him accusingly.

"I..." Gohan didn't know what to say. Somehow, that this was coming from Trunks made his brain freeze up. "I didn't..." This was all wrong. "I didn't mean to." Completely wrong.

"You didn't mean to let your dad die? You didn't mean to let Nappa kill Piccolo? You didn't mean to sit there while Frieza killed Dende and not even try to help? You didn't mean to pretend that Goku was healthy when you knew he was sick? You didn't mean to wait until we were all on the verge of death before coming to 'help?'" Trunks looked down at him just as coldly as the androids had done. "You were hoping you'd get to watch us all die, weren't you? You wanted to see me die."

"No! I don't...I don't want anyone to die." The tear tracks on his face felt like fire. Why was Trunks doing this to him? He was the one person who was supposed to...supposed to...supposed to love him.

"But you never try to stop it."

"I did!" He had tried, on the highway. He had done the best he could. The androids had been too strong.

"You didn't. You could be strong enough to stop the androids by yourself. You know that, but you didn't try to be. You didn't train hard enough to be able to stop them. You never let yourself get stronger than them, in all those years we fought them."

"I-I..." What? That hadn't been him, had it? He hadn't fought the androids with Trunks. He...

"You didn't really want to stop them. You want the world to end, don't you? You want him to grow up in Hell, just so you don't have to fight." Trunks lifted his baby self off his hip and held him out in front. "You even want him to die. A baby."

"I...I'm sorry." What else could he say? Gohan felt utterly defeated. Maybe Trunks was right.

"And I'm sure all the people who have died because of you are happy to hear that you're sorry! That doesn't make them any less dead!"

"I'm sorry! I'll try harder. I'll get strong enough to fight. I'll save..."

"It's too late. You can't fix it now." The darkness disappeared for just a moment. They were standing in the ruins of what had used to be a city, the skeletons of buildings barely standing upright, cars flipped over and burning, bodies everywhere...

Scrambling to his feet, Gohan looked around wildly. It looked like the city the androids had attacked on the island. But there was nobody anywhere, at least not anyone alive. People and...parts of people were everywhere, not moving. "What...why are you doing this?"

"Because you need to see. This is the world you're making, Gohan. The world you want."

"I don't want this!" He spun to face Trunks—he didn't remember turning—and the destroyed city, the fires, the corpses, all vanished. They were in darkness again. Baby Trunks was gone. "Where did he go?"

"He's dead, just like you wanted."

"Trunks? Trunks, where are you?" Bulma's voice was faint in the void, but her footsteps echoed loudly.

Trunks smiled in a way that made Gohan step back. "Oh, there's his mother. Time for you to explain why you let her son die."

"No, Trunks!" The man vanished just as so suddenly he might never have been there. "Trunks! Trunks! I'm sorry! I don't want—"

"Gohan? Have you seen Trunks?" He still couldn't see Bulma, not properly, but a shape was starting to become clear, as though she were on the other side of a screen.

Gohan couldn't do it. He couldn't take any more people hating him. He needed to go...needed to be somewhere else. Somewhere safe. Somewhere where nobody could find him, ever again. He wasn't aware of starting, but soon he was running even faster than before, away from Bulma's voice and the spot where Trunks had been, away from everything. Away from himself.

"Trunks, I'm sorry."

---

Gohan was moaning. Trunks would rather have gouged his own eardrums out than listen to that, but he sat beside the bed and held Gohan's hand. "It's alright, Gohan. You'll be okay." His words were useless and weren't even convincing himself, but he said them anyway. He wanted to give Gohan more medicine, but his mother had forbade him from touching the bottle, saying that it would be too easy to overdose Gohan and kill him.

He had expected some improvement after five days. Expected that, at the very least, Gohan wouldn't sound like he was in such terrible pain anymore. Wouldn't sound like he was dying. Bulma had told him not to worry, that the medicine took some time. Trying not to worry was like trying not to exist.

He would die if he lost Gohan again, Trunks knew. He just wouldn't be able to live with that pain again. If he died, at least he would be with Gohan again...

"Trunks..." His heart nearly leapt out of his chest; he knocked the chair over standing up. He was waking up!

"Gohan! Gohan, it's okay. I'm right here! You're okay!" Finally. That Gohan was finally going to be okay, finally stop being in pain, made Trunks want to jump right through the ceiling with happiness. Or kiss Gohan until he couldn't breathe, but he had more sense than that, sadly.

A moment's waiting and observation, however, killed his joy. Gohan didn't wake up, didn't really change at all. In fact, just as Trunks sat back down under the weight of his own disappointment, Gohan let out his loudest cry yet and clutched at his chest hard enough that Trunks was worried he might break his own ribs.

He was just on the edge of going to the door to yell for his mom to come when the boy just seemed to collapse into the bed, falling back into a more normal, and Trunks hoped less painful, sleep. The long white shirt they had put on him—Bulma didn't think he should be wearing his only set of clothes for days on end, even if he was in bed, and the clothes Gohan had been wearing when Trunks brought him to the future were folded neatly on the beside table—was wrinkled and sweaty from being gripped so hard.

Closing his eyes to stop himself from crying, Trunks stood again and turned to face the room. Gohan's room. It just wasn't fair. Why did everything have to happen to Gohan? Why couldn't he ever just be a kid? Just be a person?

He didn't bemoan the loss of a regular life in himself; even without it, he'd gotten to grow up with his best friend, his big brother and the love of his life. But Gohan didn't like fighting, even when it wasn't life and death. Trunks opened his eyes and looked around the room. There was hardly anything in it; they hadn't changed anything after Gohan had died, the older had just not had much to begin with.

The only personal touches Gohan had had were some pictures hanging on the wall or sitting in frames on the small table in the corner. One was his parents' wedding picture, one of him and his family before Goku had died, there were a few group shots with all of Goku's friends before the androids had attacked, and the rest were all of Gohan and Trunks, or just Trunks by himself. He was so young in all of the pictures, just a kid. It just wasn't fair.

Not that it was coming as news to him that the world was unfair, either. Trunks turned to sit back down with Gohan.

And leapt to his feet before hitting the chair at the sound of an explosion from outside. Another one followed a few seconds after.

"No, not now." Trunks leaned over the bed to peer out the window. He could see smoke rising just on the edge of his vision. In theory, there were a dozen reasons for an explosion to happen in a city. In reality..."Why does it have to be now?"

"Trunks." The door banged open and his mother walked in, sounding out of breath. "They're in the city."

"I know." His voice hitched and he looked down at Gohan. Somehow, miraculously, the androids had never attacked Capsule Corp. But if they chose to today..."I'm going."

"I'll sit with him." Bulma came over put her hands over his. "He won't be alone, I promise."

"Okay." Trunks shook his head. "Right, okay." One last look at Gohan and he turned away. Even if they didn't attack Capsule Corp., he still couldn't just let them destroy the city. "I'll be back as soon as..."

"We'll be okay until then."

"Yeah." Realizing his was stalling, Trunks made himself walk to the door. "Bye." He didn't wait for an answer, took the hallway at a run to get his sword and left the house as fast as he could.

He had to stop them from destroying the city. From hurting anybody. "Be safe, Gohan."

---

Sighing, Bulma sat. She hoped Trunks would be okay. He wasn't in the right place mentally to go off and fight, but it wasn't like he had a choice. She looked down at the reason for her son's distraction. He was laying there peacefully, oblivious to everything.

He wasn't getting any better. After all this time, the medicine should be starting to have some effect on him. The experimental version of the drug she'd accidentally had Trunks give to Goku would work—if it worked at all—in a few days, but she was giving Gohan the stable version. Yes, it took up to two weeks to work on a human, but even then there was a steady increase in the condition. For a Saiyan, even a half-Saiyan, it should work faster, in less than a week. Gohan should have been, if not cured, at least conscious by now.

A sudden cry from the boy tore through the silence in the room, punctuated by an explosion outside. Gohan writhed in obvious pain, clutching at his chest as though he wanted to grab his heart to stop it from hurting him anymore.

Bulma glanced at the clock. It was too early for him to have more medicine. But...he wasn't getting better. She grabbed the bottle from the bedside table and twisted the cap off.

Gohan cried out again as she worked the syringe into the bottle, but it wasn't just a shout of pain this time. "Trunks...I'm sorry..."

Freezing inside, Bulma squirted the medicine into Gohan's mouth. "Drink this, Gohan. You'll feel better." She wondered why everyone did that, talked to sick people who couldn't hear them. Almost as though they thought words could change what would happen.

Maybe it was true, she thought. Words were powerful things, able to wound and heal. She thought it was better that Trunks hadn't heard the ones Gohan had just said. The last thing he needed was something else to blame himself over, and if he knew that Gohan was dreaming about him, that was exactly what he would do, whether Gohan died or not.

Bulma almost dropped the bottle when she realized what she had just thought so casually. She wasn't that horrible a person, was she?

Sitting on the bed beside him, Bulma took Gohan's hand. He was so small. Just like he had been at his father's funeral, and when the androids had attacked. So young. "You need to get better, kiddo. You fought the Saiyans, you flew through space with me and fought Frieza. You fought so much. You have to fight some more, Gohan. You can't die. You just can't." If he died, Trunks would die. She was sure of that. The words hung there uselessly, and Bulma certainly didn't feel them changing the course of the future.

For a long time she sat, until long after the explosions had stopped, until after night had fallen, staring hard at Gohan, willing him to live. He had to get better soon. If he didn't in the next day, she knew, chances were he wouldn't get better at all.

---

"I'm bored." Eighteen announced, casually kicking Trunks in the ribs and sending him flying into a nearby car.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Eighteen. We've only been here for twenty minutes." Seventeen watched Trunks pull himself to his feet. "And I let you go first and everything."

"I don't care. It's not fun to kick him around anymore. He's not even trying to beat us."

Trunks was having about as much luck as usual in fighting the androids. That was to say, neither of them had broken a sweat and he was covered in cuts and bruises. As they talked, he moved in an attack that he knew was futile, disappearing and reappearing to the left of Seventeen, blasting the android with as much energy as he could.

Before the energy could even make contact with Seventeen, Eighteen was there knocking it away. She responded with an energy wave of her own that sent Trunks flying into the only building that was still standing on the street. At least he had bought enough time for the people to escape.

He heard nothing but crashing for a few seconds, but when it finally settled, Eighteen's voice reached him again. "...wish we hadn't killed Gohan. At least he was fun to hit."

"Hey, Eighteen, you were the one who wanted to kill him, remember? I told you." Rage stirred in some part of his mind, but most of Trunks was focused right now on not losing consciousness.

"Shut up." Eighteen strode over to where Trunks lay in the remains of the building and put a foot on his chest. Trunks coughed in response. "Listen, prettyboy. I don't want to play with you anymore. Next time I see you I'm going to kill you, so if you want to keep that pathetic little life of yours, I suggest you get stronger before then, you hear me?"

Trunks tried hard to ignore her, but she just stood there with one foot on his ribcage, looking down at him like she was expecting an answer. Gohan, Trunks knew, would have said something clever in this situation. Trunks could only nod his head weakly.

"Good." She stepped off his chest and took to the air. "Let's go, Seventeen. I'm tired."

"Whatever you say, sister."

He had done it; gotten them to leave the city. Well, they were leaving, anyway. Trunks felt so useless right then that he didn't even try to get up, just lay there in the rubble while everything got dark around him. Gohan, I can't do this without you.

Thinking that made him remember that Gohan was lying in bed waiting for him to come back. Trunks tried to get up, but he couldn't, and the effort of it brought him the rest of the way to unconsciousness.

---

He was tired; couldn't run any more. Gohan lay on his stomach in the darkness, trying to breathe. He fallen down some time ago and not bothered to get up. He couldn't do it. It didn't matter how far he ran, he would never get far enough away. So he just lay there.

If he stayed in one spot long enough, Gohan was sure, he would just disappear, and then nobody would be able to find him. That idea scared him, but maybe it was for the best. Better than always having to run from everyone, that was for sure.

For the first time it occurred to Gohan to wonder where this place was, how he had gotten here. He remembered fighting the androids by the highway, doing his homework with Trunks and then yelling at him later, and then going home and...wait. He had gone home? Gohan didn't think so. His parents were at Roshi's house. Then, that hadn't really happened? But he remembered it, more clearly than any of the other things. Maybe going to Roshi's had been a dream.

Something about the his recent memories just didn't add up for Gohan, but he was interrupted before he could figure it out.

"Giving up? I'm not surprised."

"Go away; you're not real." He didn't know what made him say that, but as soon as he did Gohan realized it was true. Trunks wasn't really here talking to him. But that meant...

"I don't need to be real to tell the truth." Not-Trunks knelt beside him. "And I won't go away until you do. None of us will."

Gohan found the energy to look up and saw that they were in his front yard. His mom was there standing beside an empty cradle and his dad was lying under a tree clutching at his chest. All his friends were laying around the yard, all injured and dying.

He made himself stand and look around at all of them. It should have been awful, terrifying, but Gohan hardly felt anything seeing the whole thing . "This isn't real." He said quietly to himself. It was true, he was sure of that. Everything was fake.

"Does it make you feel better to say that?" Chi-Chi demanded, turning away from the cradle to face him. Blood dripped down the front of her skirt and her face was white as death. Gohan flinched and shrunk back despite himself as she glared at him with red-rimmed eyes. "Your brother is still dead!"

Gohan felt his resolve melt away. He took a step back, away from his mother, and he bumped right into someone else. "S-sorry." He stuttered, turning.

"Sorry doesn't bring me back to life." Dende said, a hole burned clear through his heart. "It doesn’t make it stop hurting." The little Namek boy didn't sound any different than his usual cheerful self. That somehow made it worse.

"B-but, you're alive! You came back!"

"But I didn't forget. Who didn't save me. Who didn't even try." Piccolo came from somewhere to join them, unhurt but with a halo over his head, and Dende smiled up at Gohan's teacher. "Neither of us has."

"I didn't...I couldn't do anything..."

A scream tore Gohan's attention from the Nameks. Goku was writhing under his tree, clutching at himself as though to pull his own heart out. "Dad!"

He ran to his father, but Trunks grabbed his shoulder halfway there. "There's nothing you can do for him now; it's too late."

"No, I have to help..."

"You don't want to help. You want to stay home and hide under your bed until everything is safe. Well, guess what? You can't. You dad's going to die, and it's your fault."

"No...I...don't want..."

"It doesn't matter what you want. Your mom didn't want your brother to die before he was born. Your dad doesn't want his own heart to kill him. None of your so-called 'friends' wanted to die protecting you. It's time for you to accept responsibility." The hand on his shoulder was painful, like ice.

"I didn't want any of that!" Gohan sobbed. Tears forced his eyes shut and his breath hitched as he tried to catch it. "I don't want anyone to die! I don't want..."

"I didn't want you to leave me alone!" Trunks snarled, pulling him around. "But you did anyway! Do you know how much that hurt me?"

"I'm sorry! I'm—” Why wouldn't Trunks just let him talk? Let him explain?

"I don't want you to be sorry! Look at what you've done to everyone you know! All of them hurt because of you! If it wasn't for you, they'd all be happy! They'd all be alive! If it wasn't for you, the androids wouldn't have killed everyone! If it wasn't—"

"It isn't my fault!" Gohan screamed, falling to his hands and knees. His shout seemed to silence the world and he drew in his first clear breath in what seemed like years. "It isn't my fault." He repeated, just to hear it again. Blinking the tears from his eyes, Gohan looked around the yard.

Like a hammer it had hit him. He couldn't control pregnancy, or diseases or alien tyrants or androids. He couldn't control battles and evil and alternate universes that he didn't live in. He couldn't control what happened to other people. "It isn't my fault."

Suddenly wanting to laugh, Gohan climbed to his feet again, faced Trunks, but spoke loud enough to let everyone hear. "You can't blame me for things I didn't do. You can't make me blame myself." Trunks was almost smiling, now.

"Ah, how nice. Gohan had a grown-up moment." A voice like winter drifted towards him and he spun around to face Seventeen, Eighteen right behind him. "Too bad it came too late."

Gohan squared his shoulders and glared right at the androids. "Go away."

"Oh, you poor boy." Eighteen said, coming around from behind the other android and walking right up to him. "You think you can control us just because this is your dream? We control you, in here." She poked him in the chest. "Through your fear."

"I'm afraid of you." Gohan admitted. He could feel it in his whole body, creeping through him like worms under his skin. Every fibre of his being just wanted to be away, somewhere safe. But he stood there, unmoving. "You scare me a lot. But I won't let you hurt me anymore." And he punched, his fist smashing right through the android's stomach like it was made of water. "I won't let you hurt them again. Get out of my head!" Eighteen gasped and exploded all at once, and Gohan let shot an energy wave at Seventeen, who was destroyed just as immediately.

In fact, the whole world suddenly seemed to be exploding. The yard disappeared in pieces, like someone ripping up a drawing. Everyone just faded away, and in few seconds he was alone with Trunks as everything disappeared. The other half-Saiyan just knelt in front of him, tears shining on his face. "I knew you would figure it out, Gohan." And Gohan felt himself pulled into a hug that ended almost as soon as it began; Trunks vanishing with the rest of the world, leaving Gohan alone in...

His bedroom. He was standing in his bedroom as though nothing had happened. His bed, dresser, desk, everything was just like it had been that morning.

Except for one new thing: a big standing mirror in the middle of the room, which Gohan was not reflected in. His image was there, but it wasn't his reflection. Where Gohan was standing, the him in the mirror was sitting cross-legged on the floor, a small box in front of him and a cracked glass bottle beside him.

The not-reflection broke the mirror rules even more by speaking. "You did it."

"Did what? Wait." Something occurred to Gohan, the only solution. "You made all of that, didn't you?"

Mirror-Gohan looked up from the box at him and nodded his head. “It was your dream; who did you think made it?” He looked younger than Gohan actually was, maybe like he had looked a few years ago. “I’m sorry.” He added. "Are you mad?"

He felt like he should be, but he couldn't summon the anger. "Why?"

"I had to see if it was safe." He looked back down at the box again. "To open this."

Gohan sat in front of the mirror; it didn't seem polite to keep looming over the other him. "What's in it?"

"Only what you put there." And Mirror-Gohan reached down and pulled the top off.

"It's empty."

"That's 'cause you took everything out of it. You can't hide everything in here, you know. Look, it's not that big." Mirror-Gohan lifted the box to demonstrate. It was indeed pretty small, maybe big enough for one of the Dragonballs to fit inside.

"Okay." Gohan found himself at a loss for words, but his not-reflection smiled at him and suddenly looked much older. "What's in there?" He pointed at the bottle sitting to Mirror-Gohan's right.

"Oh, don't worry about that. I'll keep it safe for you until you need it."

"But...what is it?"

"You already know." Mirror-Gohan stood, and a door appeared behind him. "It's time for you to go."

Gohan looked behind himself at his own door. "But..."

"Go. It's waiting for you." Mirror-Gohan made a shooing motion with his hands.

He did as he was told and headed for the door. With his hand on the knob, he stopped again and looked back. "What's waiting for me?"

Mirror-Gohan tilted his head and smiled. "The world. Well, and him.”

With a return smile that Gohan thought used his whole body, he pulled the door open.

It was dark when he opened his eyes, and the shock of going from dream to reality made Gohan take a huge breath when he opened them. Where was he?

He sat up, saw the form of a person, half-lying on the bottom of the bed just under his feet. "Trunks?" He whispered. No, it looked like..."Bulma?" But she was older, way older.

Gohan got up on his knees look out the window beside the bed, the only source of light in the room. A city stretched out in front of him, but something seemed wrong about it. As he watched, the sunrise crested at the far end of the cityscape, lighting up the world. Gohan's breath caught all over again. The buildings...they were all destroyed. What was going on?

Trunks. Some irrational part of his brain told him that he needed to find Trunks, to make sure he was okay. He climbed carefully out of the bed, trying not to wake up Bulma, and realized that, for the first time in what seemed like days, he didn't hurt at all, anywhere. Looking down at himself in wonder, Gohan couldn't help but notice that he was only wearing a long white shirt. Oh, well, he could find clothes later. He had to find Trunks first.

He could feel the man's energy. Just had to go to him. Crossing the room slowly in the dark, Gohan eased the door open and stepped out into a hallway. This was definitely not his house, but it did seem familiar.

No matter. He had to find Trunks. As long as he could do that, he would be fine.

---

Grey darkness, the kind that came just before dawn, hung over the city when Trunks woke up with a coughing fit. Almost every part of him was on fire, and the spasming of his larynx wasn't helping.

After he finished inhaling a few pounds of dust and then hacking them back out again. Trunks opened his eyes, saw the sky. He was alive.

"Gohan!" Sitting bolt upright—bad idea; it made the rubble shift underneath him and threw up more dust—Trunks looked around at the pre-dawn greyness and tired to figure out how long he'd been laying there. All night, at least. Maybe even all day after that. He had to get home, get to Gohan. He shouldn't be alone.

It was a whole battle to get to his feet, but once Trunks managed that, the rest wasn't too hard. After taking a minute to orient himself—he didn't think he had a concussion, fortunately—he took off at a run that turned into flight as soon as he could manage it.

The sun just started to come up as he reached Capsule Corp. Seeing that his window was open, Trunks headed for it rather than wasting time with the door and stairs. His room was just down the hall from Gohan's.

He did pause for just a second to toss his sword on the bed and strip his bloody jacket off, but before he had time to decide if he should change or not, Trunks heard the door creak open.

He turned—and his heart nearly stopped. The little silhouette in the doorway could only belong to one person. Trunks felt his insides freeze over. What was going on? Was this a ghost, a hallucination? Was Gohan...

And then the form was running towards him and Trunks dropped to one knee instinctively. Gohan leapt at him, wrapping small arms around his torso, face pressed right up to his chest. Trunks hugged back just as hard, his head resting on top of Gohan's. He was awake. He was alive.

Gohan pulled away from his just a little bit to look up at him, and as Trunks looked down, the whole world caught fire.

It may just have been the sunrise coming through the window, painting the room all red and gold, but more likely it was Gohan, pushing himself up on tiptoes to press their mouths together. Everything seemed just so much more real all of the sudden, but at the same time it was all completely insignificant.

He kissed Gohan back and for the first time in a long, long time, Trunks truly believed that everything was going to be alright.

---

End chapter

---

Yes, something happy happened for once. Quiver in shock.
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