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Second Chance
by Lady Ravenpan
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Unable to live in his own world anymore Trunks goes back to the past where 98 years have passed since the Cell-games.
Chapter 01
“We need to have sex right now.”“No.”
“Please?”
“No.”
He fell silent for several moments. “Not even phone sex?”
“No.”
“Okay, maybe not RIGHT now…”
“I have to get back to teaching this class, I’ll see you tonight.”
“Sure thing,” The demi saiyajin hung up and rubbed his hands together. It was roughly a quarter to six… when it would officially be evening.
No reason he couldn't start his flight over now. He pulled on his denim jacket and took to the air, lazily flying toward the university as his mind wandered.
He hadn't been paying attention to the setting on the time machine, that day, he was too upset. After rebuilding his world, his mother had come down with a bad flu… with her immune system already shot, and no medicine to be found, she died barely a week later, and he was left with nothing.
He never got close to anyone in his timeline, other than his mother – and, of course, his long dead master Gohan. The world looked upon him with a sort of morose awe… both thankful and afraid.
Afraid he would become the next threat, afraid of his inhuman strength and physiology and without his mother, he just couldn't see reason to remain any longer. So, after her burial, laid next to her long-dead husband, the seventy-six year old demi saiyajin, still looking not a day over twenty-five, he climbed into his time machine and left.
He had arrived to the alternate timeline he’d helped to create over half his lifetime ago – not certain just how far back he’d gone, or if he’d skipped over to a similar time, or if he’d gone to the future so far they would all be gone.
But seeing skies unstained by too much smoke, cities untouched by destruction, he knew that if nothing else, he could try and find peace here.
Capsulating his time machine, Mirai stuffed it into his pocket along with his hand, his sword strapped to his back as he headed along the trail. He recognized the area as belonging near the Son home – and he wondered… were they still there?
His heart jumped as another thought touched his mind. Was Gohan a grown man now?
What sort of man had this alternative version of his master become? Had he grown up hard and uncaring, did he let despair overcome him. Was his life filled with joys or sorrows. Did he ever find love or did –
His mind’s train of thought collided as he looked up. There were two houses there, now and a grown man wearing a well tailored suit was just landing beside the one built not far from the original.
*Well, at least someone who knows how to fly still lives here,* Mirai thought to himself, moving forward slowly, not sure if he was ready to be seen yet – trying to figure out who it was. It definitely wasn't Goku, the hair was different. But the hair was also different from that of the Gohan he’d known, both in his timeline, and as a child in this.
The figure paused with his hand on the door and slowly turned, a lock of black hair falling down his forehead, though the rest of his hair stood up in almost a flamed shape. Square glasses were perched on his nose, and his jacket was buttoned, though showed this man was of a massive frame not common among humanity.
The briefcase fell from nerveless fingers as his eyes widened, seeing Mirai.
*Well, either I’m about to get in trouble, or this man recognizes me,* he thought, belatedly deciding to reach out and touch the man’s ki to identify him, if knowing him was indeed the case.
Surprise hit him like a shock wave when he realized that this… THIS was Gohan!
He watched as the man slowly dropped his hand from the doorknob, moving toward him, wary for some reason. Mirai took note of the lines etched around his eyes, showing a care-worn look in the otherwise youthful face. He didn’t look much more than thirty, but for a demi saiyajin to look even that… Mirai wasn't sure just how old he was. It was both comforting… and disconcerting to the time traveler, who simply stood still, unpocketing his hand and letting both rest at his side as he watched the Son approach.
He stopped barely a meter away. “…Mirai?” he asked, not sure he was seeing correctly, he pulled off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes, looking again as he tucked them into his breast pocket.
The other only nodded, “Gohan?” He asked, certain by ki but… he smiled. “Wow, you really grew up.”
He was silent a moment, his eyes moving slightly in calculation, “Well, ninety-eight years will do that to a guy.”
“You’re a hundred years old?” Mirai gasped in surprise. “I had no idea I went so far!”
“How old are you, now? I see you've aged. Fifty? Sixty years old?” Gohan asked quietly.
“Seventy-six.”
“You look good.”
“So do you.”
Silence stretched for long, uncomfortable moments. Finally, Gohan spoke, “Is there another threat?” He asked, worried that this was why the other had returned to their timeline.
“No, I just… Mother died and I couldn't stay there anymore, not with the fear in their eyes.”
Gohan put an arm around Mirai’s shoulder, guiding him to walk with him back toward the house. “I’ll make us some tea – why fear?”
“I hardly age… they’re all afraid I’ll decide to make myself a god and finish what the cyborgs started so long ago.”
“I see,” Gohan nodded. “Dad and Vegeta went off on some training thing, they took Trunks and Goten with them, something about seeing if any other races have techniques they can learn.”
“Goten?”
“He’s my little brother, you’ll meet him eventually, that is… if you stick around.”
Mirai merely nodded as Gohan dropped his arm, opening the door and picking up his briefcase while inviting Mirai inside.
“What about young mother… Chichi?” Even as he asked he knew it was a stupid question – if Gohan was a hundred, they would have well passed the human lifespan by now.
“I think you know,” Gohan replied after a long moment, reading his features.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s been thirty years,” Gohan sighed, then shrugged. “Life goes on because it has to. My wife, Videl, died ten years ago,” he sighed sadly. “I don’t know where our daughter is, she disappeared around then.”
“My apologies,” Mirai told him, taking off his shoes at the door. “Forgive me for asking, but… I need to know. Was your life… I mean did you…”
“Have a good life?” Gohan finished with a chuckle, kicking off his own shoes and putting his suit jacket on the hall tree. “Yes, I did. Judging by Dad and Vegeta, I've probably got a few more ahead of me,” he sighed. “sometimes I can’t decide if I feel old or just am old,” he made his way to the kitchen.
Getting his other shoe off, and leaving his sword against the wall, his jacket on the hall tree, Mirai followed. “I guess saiyajin have an inordinately long lifespan.”
“Yes,” Gohan chuckled, getting out some things to make them tea. “I asked Vegeta about it a while ago, he said that if they didn’t kill each other first,they could go to almost a thousand years.”
“A… A thousand years?” Mirai gulped, sitting down hard in his chair.
“Yep, a thousand.”
Mirai groaned, folding his arms on the table and resting his head on them. “A millennium is a long time….”
“Trust me, I know,” Gohan put a few teacups on the worn table, old pictures of his family bearing on the walls even in the kitchen.
Mirai looked up and his eyes traveled, he could see a little girl, presumably Gohan’s daughter, growing up… and Gohan’s wife aging. He saw the girl stop aging… and the woman got still older.
One photograph stood on the table, it was of an old woman, and Gohan with his arms lovingly around her, his chin on her shoulder from behind. They looked happy but he could see a sadness in her eyes. “It must have been hard for you all to watch your wives grow old while you stayed young.”
“It was,” Gohan told him, searching the cupboards for something to eat. “Dad once suggested trying to use the dragon balls to keep them young, but Mom, Bulma and Videl all talked him out of it. They wanted to grow old…” he paused.
Mirai smelled salt on the air and looked up to see a tear streak down Gohan’s cheek while he rested his hands on the counter top, his back half turned. “Gohan…?”
“I don’t think she ever knew … how hard it was to watch her grow old… knowing that I’d see her into old age, watch her die – and she’d never see anything other than the young man she married. I wanted to grow old with her, Mirai… but even though I got older, I never aged.”
Mirai got up and went to hug Gohan, the older man shedding tears into his shoulder as he held him. It wasn't long before he was crying as well. He knew as a son, it would be normal to see your parent grow old, age, and die… he’d prepared himself for that but he never thought of what it would be like to watch that happen to the young girl you married. He never let himself get close to anyone, seeing them all age while time barely touched him.
It had been ten years, but the loss and decades of pain poured out in Gohan’s tears – it still hurt so badly, and with his daughter missing for so long now, he was so alone. He’d turned down the invitation to go with the others on their galaxy-wide search of strength, hoping one day his daughter would return, and if she did, he had to be there. “I miss her.”
“I know you do,” Mirai rubbed his back.
It was a few moments more before the elder demi saiyajin regained his composure, wiping the tears from his eyes, “Sorry about that. Piccolo’s still around, though – and your sister, Bra, she’s around.”
“I have a sister?”
“Yeah, she was born a year after my daughter – she’s running Capsule Corp while her brother, the other you, is off on his power search with the others. Occasionally, we have to ‘die’ and let our ‘children’ take our places.” Gohan sighed. “I feel like I’m in a bad Highlander movie.”
“Maybe you are, want me to cut off your head?”
“Don’t make an offer you have no intention of following through on, Mirai,” Gohan told him with a stern look.
“You… you *want* to die?” Mirai asked in disbelief.
Gohan didn’t answer, turning to switch off the kettle before it could sing its piercing whistle – knowing just when, out of long habit.
Mirai sighed, taking a detour over the clouds to the west, staying out of sight of humanity below. That had been ten years ago, a decade ago, when neither of them could see past their grief to anything other than a familiar face and warm tea for comfort.
