04: Chapter 04
I slowly wake to the sound of birds and a child’s laughter. I wonder if I’m still dreaming but my stomach can tell that the food I smell is real. When I look over I see that Gohan is already up for the day. I haul myself out of the bed and get clean for the day and then go out to join the Son family for breakfast. Goten’s behavior is rather reminiscent of his departed father waiting for the food to hit the table. When it does, there is a mad dash for it. I politely wait for things to settle down and serve myself a humble amount and start methodically eating it with the pace I’ve adopted for any setting where there are more people than myself. As I am eating I suddenly become aware that I’m the only one moving and everyone else is staring at me. I stop and try to figure out if I’ve done something impolite at this table but can’t think of anything. Measured forkfuls taken in a sedate manner and my plate isn’t overflowing, so what rule have I broken here. I know the others had started eating so I didn’t begin too early.
I look to Gohan for the answer and he has a rather stunned look on his face. Chichi finally asks me if I don’t like her cooking. Not like her cooking, this is great and I tell her so. Small relief shows on her face, but still. Gohan turns to me and very carefully says that I have very nice table manners, better than his even though he tries. I turn to look at his plate and see how heaping it was when he started and how half-empty it is. I sigh to myself and wish I could do that. Wait a minute! I can in this household! Chichi is used to feeding Saiyans and their appetites and that’s why everyone is looking at me strangely. I sit back in my chair and laugh out loud and the others look at me.
When my private joke is over, I fill my plate like I secretly had wanted to when I entered the kitchen and start “inhaling” the food like my mother used to call it. Everyone looks relieved and they all go back to eating except for Chichi who is filling everyone’s plates as quickly as we empty them. Gohan leans over between mouthfuls and tells me to tell her when I’m getting full otherwise she won’t stop. I laugh to myself and eat like I normally can eat only in private. After we all start slowing down and Chichi herself actually sits down to eat the breakfast chatter begins. I tell Gohan that I would like to see my parents and wondered if I could do that today. He says that we should give them a ring since you never know when Bulma will be busy. We decide he should break the news.
He goes over to the phone in the kitchen and dials the number and tries to prepare her for the surprise, while aware that we don’t want to tip off both of the younger saiyans to who I really am. I could still here the “WHAT?!!” from my chair even after Gohan had ripped the phone away from his ear and covered up the speaker with his hand. After she is slightly less loud the conversation continues and it looks like I get to meet with my parents today. Gohan will bring me over and take little Trunks back with him to play with Goten so I can meet with Bulma and Vegeta in relative private.
I won’t say seeing my parents was exactly disappointing but it certainly didn’t evoke the feelings I thought it would. Though now I think my feelings towards Bulma should have been expected. She is so like Mom and yet so different, that emotionally it was difficult being around her. I had hoped seeing her would help alleviate a tiny amount of the grief I have carried with me since the accident. However, it only made it more pronounced. Seeing Bulma sitting in front of me looking so young in her expensive short skirt and cigarettes made me angry when I thought of the life my mother had had instead of this. She did save the visit though when noticing my unrest she asked me about it, I of course, denied it. She just looked at me a second and then she showed me that whatever dimension, timeline, or world I could come from, Bulma would always be my mother and gave me her patented hug. I cried in her arms a time. When I dried my eyes I felt better. So, I did get the therapy session I was looking for after all.
Speaking of therapy session, my time with Vegeta was something else entirely. He hadn’t known that I was coming because Bulma had not seen him since he went into the gravity trainer after his breakfast. So, when I opened up the door to the dome, he started bitching at me without even looking to see who it was. So, I waited until he faced me and then I did see a moment of surprise on his face before it disappeared below scowls. He asked what I was doing here. I told him visiting. He “hmphed” and then he wanted to spar. Vegeta asked if I had been keeping busy and growing stronger or slacking off like Gohan had in his training. I told him I had definitely been quite busy since I last seen him, though training was not one of the things I did a whole lot of. He then called me a weakling for it.
I totally lost it at that point when I thought of everything I had had to do since I had been in this timeline. Him having the audacity to call me weak really pissed me off, so his sparring session did start. Vegeta seems to thrive off combat and was completely enjoying our time together. I on the other hand was lashing out at him as a focus for everything that had frustrated me. All my anger was brought to bear against my father. He took it all and kept looking for more. Finally, after I let off an energy blast that destroyed part of the gravity chamber, my anger burned itself away with that last shot. I stopped floating and told Vegeta I was done sparring. He seemed stunned that I quit in the middle of what he was considering fun, but it wasn’t fun for me and I didn’t have the passion to keep going even if I wanted to just to humor him.
I left the dome with a pissed off Saiyan bitching at me, but I couldn’t stay there any longer. That wasn’t what I had wanted from him when I came to see him but he is Vegeta and I should have known better. I go back into the house and ask Bulma if she has a change of clothes and a shower I could use. She apologized for nothing better than a set of armor that would fit me, but I don’t mind since my clothes were pretty much ruined from the sparring. I thanked her and gave her a kiss on the cheek before I took off. I think I love both of them but I don’t know whether I really want to see too much of them again while I am here in this time.
