The Long Road Home
By: Chocolate-chan
Warnings: Yaoi, lemon, Trunks injury! ::cries::
Note: stars (***) mean POV change; (//) - thoughts; (//") - remembered quotes; ("//) - song lyrics

Prologue
********
So I can’t tell him, so what?
I spend a lot of time here just thinking about it. So what? I think Kaa-san worries when I get that dreamy look and flee for the safety of my room to shout at the walls and let my brains spill out. It doesn’t matter. They can hear all they want; my thoughts come out in fits and starts, broken phrases speaking of volatile emotion screamed at the heedless walls of my room, incoherent pleas for nothing.
But after a few minutes it banishes itself back to the corner of my consciousness, and even if I want to dwell on it, it won’t come out for all the urging in the world. So I guess in the long run, this is all irrelevant, isn’t it? It’s like a werewolf changing into his animal form once a month; it’s not dangerous unless you’re around to be bitten.
********

I think that the sun was still coming up when I left the house, early, having too much energy. So I burned some of it up on a little flight.
“Goten-kun~!”
I guess it’s a little flight kinda day.
“What do you want?”
“You’re early! Now, what are you doing over Micronesia at this time of morning? Carrying your bookbag?”
“Shut up, Trunks. I notice you’re here too,” I reply. “I just wanted to take a little trip...”
“Well, why don’t we stop for breakfast?” He suggests, falling in beside me.
I’m not in the mood for breakfast. Not exactly a Saiya-jin attitude, but I feel a little sick to my stomach in an odd way, and I can’t explain. Like I know something bad’s about to happen soon. Last time I had a feeling like this, we had a pop quiz in Algebra and I hadn’t studied.... for two weeks.
“No, I’m not hungry,” I maintain stubbornly.
“You’re not sick, are you?”
I shake my head slowly, letting him take it as he will. I wonder briefly, since I don’t feel like having anyone around, what he’s doing on my flight path. This is _my_ flight path. You never asked if you could share it, Trunks! You like to fly _east_ in the mornings. _I_ fly north.
“Did you study?”
“Iie... what was I supposed to be studying for?” I ask, practicing my innocent face on him. It doesn’t work on him, but it does on everyone else. He never believes me when I deny acknowledgment.
“History?” he reaches around, momentarily flying sideways to wave a hand in my face. “Remember?”
Unfortunately, I had independently decided to speed up and he ends up inadvertently smacking me in the face.
“Get off!” I hiss. He scowls darkly at me, and both of us take a moment to gaze at each other warily out of the corners of our eyes and regard each other. He just wants to know what my problem is, I know that. I’ll get over it soon, I suppose. His silence is often comforting, but at the moment it confronts my mind and adds to that acidic feeling in my stomach.
“You’re not like yourself today,” Trunks comments. “Dame yo.”
I know I shouldn’t be glad I’m annoying him, but I am, until I sigh. “I got a feeling about today, ‘s all...”
“Well...” Trunks sounds mistrustful. “I’m hungry, and you don’t seem to want me around.”
I do feel real guilt at upsetting him. He seems to see the apology in my face, waving it away. “I’ll see you in homeroom, Goten, you go on.”
I think about it for a long moment, and say “Come over for dinner.”
“Wakatte wa, I’m hungry already!” Trunks dons a smile for my benefit and I half curse, half thank him in my mind as I shake my head. He flies off in some odd direction. After what feels like a moment more of flying, I realize I’m high above Japan. I make a steep dive that leaves my breath behind as I head for my hometown, landing not too far from the school Trunks and I attend. I stop and buy some kind of granola-fruit thing that is starting to catch on.
“Yuck, people eat this?” I scowl and cram it down anyway, seeing Trunks land a distance away from me with chopsticks hanging from his mouth, carrying an interesting Chinese-print bowl in his hands and running to his class. I would much rather have eaten breakfast with him. I sigh and go to class, falling asleep in first period and earning a detention.

“Goten, what are you doing?”
“Detention,” I say with an awkward one-shoulder shrug.
“Shh!!” The teacher scowls at me, and I blink placidly back at her. Trunks draws a bit closer and lowers his voice dramatically. This teacher is interesting; I feel like I’m in grade school.
“You wamme to tell Chichi-san?”
“Iie!!” I hiss, leaning toward him and glaring. “I’ll make something up. You want me dead?”
“Gomen....” My teacher comes and ushers him away, and closes the door, relieving me of the one break from my monotony. After I’ve finished with the cleaning and copying lines or whatever she made me do this week, I head out the door and down the front steps of the main building.
I blink and have to look twice to recognize the figure sitting all alone at the bottom of the steps.
“You waited for me?”
“It was only thirty minutes,” Trunks told me as he rose to his feet and fell into step with me at the same smooth moment.
“That’s a long time.”
“Yeah, and I’m hungry,” Trunks said patiently. I laugh at his single-mindedness and continue down the street, letting my day’s ill-humor leave me for a moment as I challenge him to a footrace down the street and through the woods to my house, which I win just barely.
“Goten-chan!” My mother calls reprovingly. “What in the world are you doing, being so late?”
I come to a stop inside and kick my shoes off while supporting myself on the doorframe. “Nothing, Kaa-san, I..” ...Tried to think of an excuse.
“It’s my fault, Chichi-san,” Trunks said, stepping in smoothly. “I kept him out. I’m really sorry.”
“Trunks is staying for dinner,” I informed her, and she kept a carefully blank face until I’d left the room, when I thought I heard the sound of her wooden spoon snapping in two. My mother’s no Saiya-jin, but the entire species is afraid of her.
“You didn’t have to do that, Trunks-kun.” I said after thanking him in my room.
“De nada,” he told me, and I snorted as I noticed he had been awake in Spanish class that day.
“Goten!” My mother called, obviously having gotten over being upset already.
Trunks stood aside and opened the door as I started going through my drawers for something I’d suddenly remembered I’d need tomorrow. “Nani kashira, Kaa-san?” I yelled.
“Your brother’s family is coming for dinner.”
“Wakarimashita,” I replied as Trunks closed the door.
“What do you mean, you understand?”
“It means she doesn’t have to lecture me to be good and not to tease Pan.”
Trunks suddenly paled. “Pan!”
“What?” I asked uncertainly as I paused to look at him.
“She.....” Trunks paused and then sighed, plunking himself down onto my bed. “Pan likes me,” he growled under his breath.
“......” I blinked. “Haaaaa ha ha!!” I end up sitting down and doing the idiot’s laugh, holding my stomach. “Yeah right.” I wonder if my brother would allow it if she did?
“I’m serious, she.... “ he shook his head furiously. “She really does like me.”
“Funny,” I decide at last, and he glares.
“You brought me here, you can pay me back for covering for you by keeping her away from me.”
“Oh yeah right, Trunks. She’ll give up as soon as she sees she doesn’t have a chance with you. She’s not as stubborn as you, you know.” I tried to keep from grinning at the thought of my niece dating my best friend, who was at least twice her age.
“Do you know how long she’s liked me?”
“No; do you?”
“No... but it’s a really long time!” He glares at me to get his seriousness across. “I use every given opportunity to point out that I don’t like her, and she still looks at me like I rule the world.”
“Well... you rule a species,” I point out, deliberately being contrary to annoy him. “Nearly, anyway.”
“Yeah right, Tou-san would die laughing before he let me rule the species, but that’s beside the point!” His momentary amusement fades back into something with a trace of fear.
“Well, I’ll admit that she has a lot of staying power, for a Son....” I tilt my head and look at the ceiling, considering. “I’ll help if it gets too bad, then. Wouldn’t want you torn limb from limb or anything.”
Trunks gives me a grateful but mistrustful look, as if to say ‘Who decides what’s too bad?’
It’s about a half hour until my brother arrives, his wife in tow. Pan bursts in a second later, and runs to me for a hug. She seems to act cute whenever everybody’s around. I wonder how she can pull off that and being the hell-demon Trunks claims she is. I put her back down on the ground and look around as Trunks creeps out of my room, warily.
“Trunks!” Pan exclaims, blushing just slightly. I laugh to myself; So it’s true after all!
“Hi.... Pan-chan.” Trunks holds one hand up and spreads his fingers without moving them in a wave. She smiles and comes to stand in front of him, with those big shiny eyes. She looks at us all that way when it’s family, so no wonder no one noticed.
Mom sits us all in the living room, and Trunks quickly claims a spot on the two-person couch next to me. Pan, after all the chairs are filled, sits at his feet. He leans back, looking unemotional. Nice cover, Trunks.
I have to keep from laughing a great many times, whenever I glance at them. But Trunks glares when he catches me, and it shuts me up just enough.
The phone rings, and Kaa-san goes to get it. When she comes back out, she addresses Trunks and I.
“That was Bulma-san on the phone. She says she has to go on a business trip, and she wants you and Bra to stay here.”
Trunks manages not to glance down at Pan. “Naze da? We’re fine at home.” He acts as though his mother’s presumption hurts his manhood. “Besides, Tou-san’s always around.... somewhere...” he shrugs, and I laugh quietly, knowing full well that neither of the kids know where their father is at any given time.
“I think she’s having mercy on you, so you don’t have to look after your sister. Vegeta-san’s going with her.”
Trunks makes a face. I also know full well that Bra only behaves when her father could possibly be within earshot. He sits back with a frown and I laugh for a minute. Then I stop to think. Bra’s coming over.
“Trunks, I think we need to talk about something really fast, it’s just something I learned in class, in need to see you in the other room...!” Hopefully that answered Gohan’s questioning look.
Trunks allows himself to be dragged from the couch and into my room, where I close the door in my sudden panic and lean against it.
“What in the _world_ is your problem, Goten?” Trunks asks in consternation, crossing his arms.
“You...Pan...” I take a breath, making gesturing motions between myself and him. “Bra...! Me....! She...” I make a ‘you know...’ kind of gesture, and Trunks gets his revenge by laughing at me for a solid five minutes.
“What?!” I explode. “It can’t be _that_ funny!” I pick up a heavy pillow and throw it at his head, and he catches it and looks at me around it; I’m standing on the hardwood floor with feet apart and a fist clenched.
“It’s not...” he allows, “The funny part is what my father would do to you if he....! Ha haa!” Trunks resumes laughing, and I growl in frustration and roll up my sleeve.
“Hey!” My door bursts inward without warning, as Pan walks in on me on top of Trunks on the bed, both of us wrestling. “Baa-chan says the hyenas need to come to dinner!” She frowned at us.
“Can’t now, busy beating up Trunks!” I insist and try to pull my hands from his, where he has our fingers locked so I can’t throw one at his face.
“Now!” Kaa-san yells from the other room, making me pause and consider, just long enough for Trunks to throw me off onto the floor. Pan’s father calls her, and I rub my surely bruised hip, still frustrated as the doorbell rings and I hear Bra’s voice in the other room. Trunks rises from the bed, face flushed from laughing, and eyes still shining with amusement. He reaches down a hand and picks me up, and I sigh.
“Come on, we’ll work together,” he says. “Let’s get lost after dinner, kay? Let’s go flying.”
“They can fly,” I point out under my breath as we go into the hallway.
“So? Not as good as us.” We grab seats at the table, and Bra conveniently finds a seat on my other side. She smiles at me, and I kind of wave a little stupidly at her. Trunks is staring at his plate when I glance over at him, with a superior smirk. Whatever makes him think he’s special, I’m not sure.
Bra’s hand lands on mine several times during the evening, and she blushes as I apologize at first. Then I just give up and pull my hand away silently. Pan and Trunks appear to have no physical incidents, although she engages him in embarrassing conversation that I have to lead him out of. Trunks asks for certain items on the table just as Bra tries make a move on me.
Trunks beckons me when we retire from the table, and I pull my shoes on as Trunks waits outside. Just as I’m going out the door, I yell, “Kaa-san, Trunks and I are going out flying! Bye Nii-chan, bye Videl-san, bye Pan-chan....” and the best part, “...bye Bra-chan!” The door slams as I take off into the sky and Trunks quickly catches up.
“Where do you want to go?”
“I dunno.” It is hot and humid out, and getting dark. “I want to go home.”
“....” Trunks pauses as if deciding whether or not to laugh at me, and says finally, “Race you to Okinawa.”
“You’re on!”
********
“It’s really strange about those two, they’ve always been in together on so many schemes, and we usually never found out what they were.” I take a drink of tea, and my wife looks at me with a smile, knowing firsthand some of those experiences.
My mother looks at me with a warmth I’ve never seen her display for my little brother, and briefly I wonder why. When he was little, she was always sad when she looked at him, like she could only see father.
“I don’t know, I suppose they’re just born trouble-makers,” she replies, affectionate if not exactly happy about it.
After a while the conversation begins to drift until it’s about female things between my wife and mother, and I excuse myself to go wander the house.
Speaking of the Demonic Duo, could remember several of their incidents that made me laugh. I sit out back thinking about my little brother. He’s really something else again; there’s no one in the family like him. I mean, sure, he’s a lot like Tou-san, but he has a lot more dimension to him than my father ever did. His eyes hide things about himself, and it’s strange. When he gets in a mood, it’s hard to look at us and tell we’re related.
//“Gohan-chan, come meet your new brother!”//
I look around, whip sharp, sure I’d heard those words clear as day, only realizing after a moment that it was all in my head. I remember my mother coming home with him very well, and I remember the emotions in her eyes when she held the baby boy.
//”Gohan-chan, watch Goten. Don’t let Trunks play with him.”//
There was a phrase that was only heard once. When was that? I wondered about it for a moment frowning, before it finally came to me.
I was eleven, twelve, and Goten was only a few months old. Trunks had been six months or more, somewhere around there. Our mothers had been visiting as they had wont to do pretty often back then. The baby was lying on a blanket in the living room, and Trunks was sitting by the coffee table. Bulma-san and Kaa-san had left the room, and that was my mother’s parting warning. Both of the mothers were worried that Trunks, still being so little, would see Goten and want to play with him, like a doll. Goten was a fair bit smaller, but that changed later in life. Right now, I only remembered how rough Trunks was with his toys at home. Quite a few were broken.
I watched TV, keeping my peripheral vision peeled for movement. I didn’t really worry, though, since Trunks didn’t like to relocate himself. It was an odd habit of his; most parents said that once their kid could walk, he was running and climbing into everything. Trunks could walk if he wanted to, but he usually chose for some reason not to, crawling or simply crying until the adults appeased him again. He had it pretty good, though Bulma worried for him occasionally.
As the TV blared mindlessly, however, I saw a little hand reach up and grasp the corner of the table. Goten was suddenly quiet, whereas before he’d been kicking his little feet and waving his little fists and making adorable little baby noises. I turn my head slightly, watching Trunks’ determined eyes as he used the table to pull himself up to a standing position. He got a triumphant look as he stood on his own. I watched with amusement, muting the TV and popping a chip into my mouth and crunching it as Trunks maneuvered himself around, heading straight across the room to where Goten lay on his blanket.
Curious, I moved off the couch and around the coffee table, getting on my knees not too far from Goten’s blanket.
Trunks came to a teetering stop, standing just past the edge of the blanket, looking at Goten like he was something else again, some weird thing that had been introduced into his world like... I dunno, flying pigs, or his father’s presence. Oops... shouldn’t say that aloud.
Trunks was clutching his favorite blanket in one hand, and a rattle in the other. He looked down from one to the other, then back at Goten. He reached out and flung the blanket at Goten. //Good choice.//
The blanket fell over his face, and Goten made a questioning sound, a drawn out coo as he wiggled under the blanket and finally pushed it off slowly, one pointed section of hair at a time emerging. His little fists gripped the edge of the blanket and shook it gently, giggling.
My gaze moved to Trunks, who frankly looked ecstatic. He seemed thrilled that there was something so lifelike that was down low enough for him to play with. He took a step onto Goten’s blanket, and another, but his little foot caught under the edge and he lost his balance, arms pinwheeling as he went down.
I darted forward to catch Trunks before he crushed Goten, but no luck; he crashed right onto the baby and both made a slight Oof! sound.
I smacked myself in the forehead, but my mental cringing was interrupted by a giggle. I opened one eye warily, to see Goten reaching up, giggling, to poke Trunks in the cheek experimentally. He laughed some more and the two began a half play, half wrestling routine. I watched, blinking, somewhat impressed by how quickly they were taking to each other. Trunks seemed to think Goten’s hair was fascinating. He was having a kind of ‘What’s that?’ reaction. Goten, on the other hand, decided to pull Trunks’ little cat-ear hat from his head and slobber on it.
I let out the breath I was holding as the two seemed unharmed. Trunks was a quiet baby, but he laughed now with Goten. Usually his mouth only opened to food, and to cry whenever his mother made his father hold him. That coupled with his unwillingness to walk gave him quite a bit of weight over the infant Goten.
I moved over beside the blanket. “You, Goten, are certainly part of the family.”
Trunks and Goten paused and gave me looks; kind of half-smiles. Which was odd on Trunks’ part, since he never smiled at adults, and Goten had not really ever bothered to look at me yet. They were both really cute.
“Gohan-chan, we’re back!”
I glanced left and right, and snatched Trunks up into my arms. Our mothers came in just then, and Bulma-san smiled as my mother asked what I was doing.
“I, uh... Trunks wanted to see Goten. I think they like each other,” I said. I pulled Trunks against my chest, and he held on to me but when I looked at him he seemed a bit put-out that I’d interrupted his play.
“Why is Goten chewing on Trunks’ hat?” Bulma asked, and all I could say was... “He’s not. He doesn’t have teeth yet.”
I laughed to myself as the night came into focus again. The two them had always been close... when they were still little, sometimes one or the other of our mothers would take them, and put them down in the same bed. Trunks would always comfort Goten when he had nightmares. I’d seen it on occasion. It seemed as they got older that Trunks drew himself, emotionally anyhow, farther away from the world, but I could still tell how fond he was of Goten.
Lately Goten had seemed troubled when someone had mentioned Trunks. I couldn’t help but wonder what was up. Trunks had gotten quite distant, moreso in the past few months. Was it my imagination? Maybe it was... I guess I wouldn’t know unless I asked them, but even if I did, I very much doubted that I would even understand the answer they gave. They were the only ones who understood each other.
********
I slept on a futon on Goten’s floor, as was usual when I was there. My sister slept on the couch. Gohan and his family had left a long time ago, so I was free of Pan. For some reason, however, I found that I wasn’t too keen on the idea of Bra liking my best friend, and I found myself frowning a lot as Goten fought to pull himself out of several delicate situations. I think Chichi’s starting to look at them funny.
Saa, what am I expected to do about it? I ignore that twinge in the back of my consciousness and let them alone, only occasionally interfering when Goten’s eyes beg me for help. I play it cool as usual.
My father taught me that. He shows it though, when you piss him off. Me, they call me the “Brick Wall.” Maybe I just have more to hide. Maybe it’s since I don’t hide things because 'I’m a prince', like he does. I guess I’ll never know.
For days my sister lost her imperial manner, that way of carrying herself that she learned from being raised nearly exclusively by my father, or as close to exclusively as my mom would let him get with her little girl. I’m her kid, and I always will be. Whether I like it or not.
Tonikaku, Pan came over a lot, since I was there I think. Or maybe I’m giving myself a big head, but I asked Goten and he just shrugged. “I don’t talk to her much,” was his excuse. Age difference.
Goten went to the store. It was raining. He was flying. I think he’s crazy. But my sister insisted he take her with him. I know she’ll be miserable, so it’s pretty funny to me. Goten loves rain and sun and especially snow, when he can sneak up behind me and shove a snowball in the back of my pants. Hits the tail spot. Numbs the brain. Bra’s a fair-weather fiend. Yes, fiend. She usually was, but she was sweet and nice, and she was all smiles for him. She cheered when he said he’d buy her lunch.
I laid back on his bed and clicked on a light as the thunder rolled outside. Pan came in and sat on the end of the bed. I have no idea why. I was reading a book, and chose to make-believe I was too absorbed to notice. It was a good book. It was one of the few of Goten’s books that had those creases on the spine, from when you read it a whole lot. I’d given it to him a long time ago.
Pan sighed and leaned back against the wall, feet stretched across the end of the bed. I licked my thumb and turned a page, bringing that arm up behind my head and holding the book in my other hand. I yawned a few times. I was just about to turn out the light and take one of those fifty-pound rainy-day naps when Pan said my name.
“Whaddaya want?” I said around a yawn. I plopped the book face down on my chest and looked at her over it.
She had that look. It must be something about her family, ‘cause Goten gets that look when he really really _really_ wants something from me. He doesn’t use it very often.
“Do you have anything you’re doing next Friday?” She began, putting on her sweet-and-nice act and kind of twirling her forefingers.
“Wakarimasen; naze da?” It came out slow, mistrustful.
“Because I wanted to ask you a favor....”

I sighed. Goten sighed beside me.
“We’re idiots,” I told him slowly.
“Yeah......” he said, then perked up when he realized he had some soda left in his cup.
Pan and Bra had begged us to do it. Our mothers made us. Mine over the phone, no less. I swear, it’s the only reason we were here.
“I _will_ make Kaa-san _pay dearly_ for this,” I insisted yet again.
“Shut _up_,” Goten said, getting tired of that particular phrase. “Come on, at least they’re not over _here_. It’s just us guys over here.” Goten banged his cup and got up to retrieve more drinks for us.
“Saa,” I insisted as he sat down again. “‘Us guys’ would rather be anywhere else.”
“Well... maybe you’ll get your chance.” Pan was coming over this way.
“Let’s go home,” she suggested. I glanced at Goten.
“Where’s Bra?”
“I ‘unno. I’m tired.”
I would admit that every blue moon or so, Pan made a pretty young girl. She was wearing a dress, red, her favorite color, and her hair had been done nicely by her mother. I sighed and rose from my seat, and Goten looked sad that he would be all alone.
“Well, I feel kinda bad, leaving Goten...” I said to Pan. But then again, she wanted to leave, and that meant I could finally go home from this stupid dance-thing at her school, and I could get some well-deserved sleep. Sacrifices must be made. Goten would understand.
“Go get your coat,” I told her. “I’ll meet you at the front door.” As she left I turned to Goten. “What a miserable evening, huh?”
“Yeah,” Goten muttered glumly. “I coulda been cruising for a hot date of my own.” He pointed across the room to where Bra was being chatted up by a nice-looking blond boy. He saw me glaring at him and brought more of his little friends in a circle around Bra for protection. I was less than pleased.
I looked down at Goten for a moment with another sigh. I suppose I could work up the adrenaline, for his sake. After all, the guy’s my best friend and all.
“Come find me after you go home,” I told him with a smile. “We’ll go do something so the whole day’s not a total waste.” Goten perked up a bit and nodded. I went to find Pan and take her home.

“Did you have fun?” Pan asked. I pretended I hadn’t heard.
She frowned when she got no answer. I suppose she took it for the truth, since my mind was screaming ‘Nonono!’ I turned the corner, saying, “Does your dad want you home, or at Goten’s?”
“Home,” she said, and I nodded. It was a shorter trip. I bid her goodbye as she got out of the car, looking as though she had something to think about. I wondered what on earth that possibly could be. I waved as she went in the house, and then pulled away, turning the radio up.
“//Yarusenai, saenai, nemurenai...//” I turned it up louder and adjusted the treble so that the woman’s voice floated high above the booming bass. It penetrated and numbed my mind just enough to prepare me for sleep. I was determined to get at least a bit before Goten came for me. With that in mind, I stepped on the gas, just a bit.
********
I arrived home to sleepy faces and controlled chaos.
“What’s going on?” I asked my mother as she walked through the living room on the cordless telephone. Kaa-san never spoke on the phone if she didn’t have to, and never this late at night. Bra paused behind me, uncertain. She moved to change her clothes, and my mother paused long enough to tell Bra to put some clothes on, not pajamas.
“Kaa-san, nani kashira?” I insisted, frowning slightly. I got no answer.
“.... It’s not that bad, is it?...” She sounded concerned, but I was too tired to care.
Bra came out in her red miniskirt, and she watched my mother with growing concern. At last she sidled up to me. “Where’s Trunks-nii-chan?”
I looked down at her and frowned. I looked left and right, and searched the house for him. He had left a long time before Bra and I and he should have been back now, but he wasn’t anywhere to be found. Of course, it was entirely possible he’d stopped to eat (the food there was lousy), or just gone off by himself.
I went out to the living room and stood again, watching my mother walk by and listening in confusion to her one-sided conversation. “It’s on the next road?”
I shoved my hands in my pockets and thought. Bra grabbed one of my arms, and asked again about her brother. “I don’t know,” I said, sounding a little annoyed to myself as I thought about it.
“Goten.” I glanced up as my mother set the phone down across the room.
There was a strange feeling in me, that I realized had been there before. I recognized it only when she said my name that way, and I dropped my hands and let Bra cling to one of them, confused.
“There’s been an accident. Trunks is...”
I swear I didn’t hear the rest. I know Bra didn’t either. She was very still, her hands slipping from mine.
“And... Pan?” I asked at last.
“She wasn’t in the car.”

I waited outside the room. I’m such a coward. My mother went in, and Bra tarried in indecision before stopping and looking up at me.
“Aren’t you going in?” She asked, her lips barely moving.
“Yeah. Yeah, I am in a minute.” I’m a coward. After a moment, Kaa-san came back out to us. Her face was starched and set in place.
“You can’t see him now.”
“What?” Bra sounded incredulous that she was being denied entry. Her voice sharpened slightly, but my mother didn’t reply.
“A-alright then,” I said, and stepped back one step. Bra looked at me and her brows knit together.
“I want to see my brother!”
“No,” I said, surprising myself. “Kaa-san would know if you could go in.”
“Goten!” She fumed, whirling around to me and forgetting her manners.
“Hush,” I told her and gathered her to my side, pulling her along the hallway against her will.
“You let me go!” Funny, at another time that would have been the last thought that came out of her mouth. “My brother’s hurt! Don’t you care about him at all?”
I stopped and whirled her around. “You listen to me,” I told her, not angrily but matter-of-factly. “I’ve been his best friend since Gohan was in middle school.” She always says my brother is old. “There’s no way I couldn’t care what happens to him.”
“I don’t understand!” She cried, stomping one foot.
“There’s just some things you can’t see, Bra.” I took her down and bought her a doughnut in the cafeteria.
Bra didn’t know my mother nearly as well as I did. I knew that it must have been pretty bad if she wouldn’t let us go in. I did know that he would be going for surgery soon, which was also an indicator of how bad it was.
Bra sat across from me and ate slowly, her hands shaking. I knew she wasn’t hungry but she tried to eat. I gave her an encouraging smile when she looked up at me, and she burst into tears.
“Bra-chan,” I said softly. “Come now. Calm down.”
“Kuso yo, Son Goten!” She yelled loudly and turned away. I sighed and took a deep drink of my soda. Bra would touch nothing else. I bought a cup of coffee and took it and Bra upstairs to where my mother sat in the waiting area near Trunks’ room.
“It’ll be a while,” she said softly as I handed her her coffee and sat Bra down across from her. Bra’s face still showed dried tears, but she looked composed. Her eyes were glazed with exhaustion. I couldn’t sit. I paced around and drank more soda, briefly wishing I smoked. My mother told me she had called Bulma, who was now working on canceling the rest of her trip. I nodded and took a walk around the floor, coming back to find Kaa-san gone and Bra asleep in her chair.
I think, just at that moment, I loved her. She’s the sister I never expected to have. That was how I’d come to think of her. I don’t know what she felt for me, but I could only call her “family.”

“Bra-chan.” It took a little repetition.
“Muuhh?” She blinked and raised her head, looking around at me. I pulled her to her feet and she didn’t bother to ask where I was taking her. She tramped along sleepily after me, and I stopped and pushed open a door.
Bra blinked in the dim light and looked up, seeing her brother in the bed, in what could only be described as a lower-body cast. My heart hurt to see him like that.
“Oh, Nii-chan..” Bra said, her hands flying to her mouth as she moved over and laid her head on the side of Trunks’ bed, not touching him.
His face was paler than any living person should be allowed to be. His eyes and mouth were shut tightly, and he was in such a deeply drug-induced sleep that he didn’t move, barely breathed.
I swore softly for a moment or two, as this was the first chance I’d had to see him as well. My mother was in the shadows. She ignored me. Bra raised her head; I think my harsh language scared her more. I never swore in front of her.
“What happened?”
“They say it was a drunk driver,” my mother replied. “He died.”
“Hmph,” I replied, immediately putting the other driver from my mind. I stepped closer to Trunks, and looked down at him. I had never seen him so still. I had no thoughts of death, it was only my intuitive knowledge of him that had me disturbed.
After a while, Kaa-san took Bra out of the room. She called my name, then came over to pull me by the arm. She couldn’t budge me with all the strength in her body, and I knew it.
“It’s time to go home. You need some rest, and so does Bra.”
“Then you take her home,” I told her. “I ain’t going.” And that’s all I had to say about it.
********
Everything in my body was strangely disconnected. I was in a dark place, gray-black, or black-gray. My eyelids were exceptionally heavy. I learned that as I pried them open with all the strength I could muster.
It was daytime. The curtains were drawn. Sunlight’s rays tried in vain to penetrate the room, and I moved my head slowly to look around. My neck didn’t feel connected, but my head did move.
Goten? Yes, that had to be him. He was asleep in the chair near my bed. One leg was crossed over the other, one elbow on the armrest, chin resting on the back of his hand, magazine open in his lap. Head dipped down in sleep, lips slightly parted as he breathed.
I scented the air carefully, something I think most Saiya-jin could do pretty well. The place was not familiar, but had a tang of circuitry and cleaners. I don’t want to know why I’m in a hospital.
I look down at myself last of all, and am greeted by an expanse of piled blankets. My legs are _not_ that big. And I can’t feel them. I try as hard as I can to move them, or even feel them. All I can detect is a distant heaviness, maybe a faint buzzing.
“Goten...” I want answers. “Goten.” He doesn’t even move. I took a breath, trying to repress the sharpening of my voice, as though it was knew enough to panic and the rest of me didn’t. “Goten!” I snapped out.
Goten bolted upright, spilling a previously unseen cup of soda on his shirt. He curses and grabs a cloth to wipe his hands, ignoring the cup as it falls to the floor.
He’s over at my side in a flash. His hands find one of mine, and his large unnaturally dark eyes stare down into mine. I hold my breath for a moment at his expression. It takes a moment for him to summon a smile for me. “Hey... how are you feeling?”
“Not much of anything,” I informed him, ignoring that fact that he hadn’t said _what_. “What happened?”
Goten’s fragile expression was punctured, and his brows knit as he told me everything he knew.
“I.... see,” I told him after a moment of deliberating, which was actually a front to hide my momentary panic. I swallow hard several times and am pretty sure that Goten is not fooled.
“Don’t worry about a thing, Trunks... okay?” He is concerned for me, and I can tell several things from his tone. One is that he is fumbling for some kind of assurances. Another is that he has none; no words he can apply to me. Another thing I hear dimly is a kind of determination. Not the state of being, but more like a declaration. Like there’s something he intends to do and he’ll see it done. I just shake my slightly aching head and dismiss it all from my mind.
I blink. I swear that’s all it was, and my mother is leaning over me, increased light in the room lighting her hair like a blue angel. My father is glimpsed farther off, arms crossed, but at least he is standing at the edge of my bed, acting as though he cares. Maybe he does, somewhere deep down. As the years passed and he took a achingly clear preference to my sister over me, I took a somewhat dimmer view of his emotional state. Maybe I just don’t care anymore whether he loves me or not.
Goten is across the room. I wonder briefly who opened the blinds, but the sunlight makes Goten look far too pale. He doesn’t look well at all. I want to talk to him, but my mother is all over me. She hugs me, (gingerly,) and starts apologizing all at once. I always wondered why people’s first reaction to anything bad is an apology. People are just insecure. I blink a few times and squint up at her, trying to phase in on her words. I start to catch them after a while.
“... as soon as you’re out of here-”
“Calm down, Kaa-san. It doesn’t hurt.” Which is a lie. Focusing is harder than it was before, and there is pain now, that wraps itself around my consciousness and tries like an evil demon to drag me down and scour my consciousness from the face of the world.
Goten’s brows lower in my direction, my peripheral vision tells me. The boy is not book-smart, but when it comes to me he knows more than... me. He knows too damn much.
My sister is in the room, but she doesn’t come near me. I imagine she had already seen all she could take, or she would come to me. We’re a bit closer than most people bother to see.
The door is flung open suddenly and Pan runs to me, past my mother and throws herself toward the bed, gripping the edge. “Trunks, this is all my fault!” She declares, and Gohan runs into the room after her, followed a moment later by Videl.
“It’s okay Pan, it’s not your fault,” I tell her. I don’t think I’m very soothing, but at the least it’s the truth.
“If I hadn’t asked you to go you wouldn’t have even been out of the house that night!” She looks to be on the verge of tears, and my eyes widen, incredulous at her reasoning.
“Yeah, then a meteor would have crushed the house and I’d be dead. You don’t control stuff like that, Pan,” I inform her. Her father takes her aside and the door opens again.
“Everybody out,” a doctor informs them. He comes over to check my chart. He sets a small cup next to my water. “Take that. Everybody go, he needs to rest for a while.”
Goten comes to help me sit up enough to take it. The doctor asks him to go after the others are all out, but I shake my head. Goten sits in the chair next to me and doesn’t say a word.
The doctor begins to explain to me the severity of my injuries. Of course, it doesn’t really sink in. Something about nerves and bones...
“Try that over again,” I say, and the doctor thinks for a moment.
“As soon as the bones in your legs are healed, we’ll take off the casts and put you in rehabilitation. But the nerves in your spine that control a lot of the movement of the bones and muscles below the waist have been bruised or severed. We gave you an operation intended to restore several of them. The procedure is uncertain, and it works just as many times as it fails. In short... we’re not really sure if you’ll even be able to walk again.”
He continues, but the words are gentle as if he knows I have a hard time listening to him anymore. After a bit he gives Goten some directions for my care and leaves and I look at the ceiling, brow furrowed in thought.
“So... so no big deal, right?” Goten jokes weakly. “You can just fly everywhere.”
I don’t bother to answer, and he turns his head aside with a muttered apology.
“It’s kinda scary,” I told him at long last.
His lips press tightly together. “I bet.”
“I did wonder why I couldn’t feel anything down there.” I raised my head enough to glance down at the end of the bed, and I offered Goten the smallest smile. He makes a small sound as if he’s trying to acknowledge my humor, but it’s just a sound and his face doesn’t move, even to blink.
“Lighten up, Goten. There’s nothing you can do about it.”
“I’m going to hit you if you don’t start taking it seriously!” Goten vows as he takes my empty cup and refills it with water, slamming it onto the table enough to make several fat drops land on the table and shine with light from the window.
“I am, believe me. But everybody’s so freaked out..”
“Sometimes I forget,” he says after a moment. “How dispassionate you can be. I suppose it’s because...” he pauses and his eyes find mine. “... I know you’re not.”
I make no comment. He probably does.
“But... like I said, you don’t have to worry.”
I look at him, just a bit uncomfortable. “No one ever said you had to take responsibility for me,” I informed him.
“No, they didn’t. Demo...” Goten pauses as though trying to find words to explain it. “Kuso yo, Trunks! There’s just some things you have to do!” His brows meet and he appears annoyed. For a long time I look at him. My only real question is why you have to do those things you have to do.
“I’m very demanding.”
“I know.” His face has smoothed, and he is calm once again.
“Open the window,” I ask after a moment, and he does. We don’t speak of it again.
********
The Long Road Home, part 2