This is set in an alternate universe where the Buu saga never happened.
Something else did, though.  All comments to rhionae@hotmail.com please.

Disclaimer: The characters portrayed within are not mine, but the
property of Akira Toriyama and a whole lot of other people who are not
me, but who have a lot more money than me, so please don't sue me!



What Friends Are For

"And in today's headlines the disappearance of yet another town..."
Goten stared at the TV in morbid fascination.  Another 'disappearance'.
<Yeah, right. Towns don't just drop off the face of the earth - at
least, not without help.>  Help.  He winced.  <Okay, bad choice of
words.>

A startled gasp behind him brought him back to reality, and he hastily
hit the off switch for the TV.  <Not fast enough, though.>  Trunks stood
motionless in the doorway, wide blue eyes staring at the now blank
screen.  "Trunks - " he stretched out a hand towards his friend.  Trunks
was a year older than him, and Goten could remember being teased for
needing the comforting hand of his older brother Gohan when they were
younger.  Trunks had never needed such comfort. Not then.  <But that was
before - >

Trunks glanced down briefly at the hand on his shoulder, then turned
glistening eyes towards Goten.  "Why is this happening?"  A single tear
escaped its confinement, and Trunks caught his breath, attempting to
restrain the remaining flood.  He stumbled backwards, catching himself
on the doorframe as his knees buckled, and slowly lowered himself to the
ground.  "Why?" he pleaded, despair lacing the single word, each damp
tear, every shallow breath into a delicate web of sorrow.

Goten knelt before his heartbroken friend, wrapping his arms around
Trunks' shoulders in a now familiar posture.  "I don't know, Trunks," he
pulled his friend towards him, stroking pale hair, soothing his
shuddering body.  "I just don't know."

***************

"It happened again."  Goten stared at the food on his plate.  He wasn't
particularly hungry.  Trunks hadn't shown up for dinner at all.  <I'll
have to take something to him later.  He doesn't eat enough as it is.>
He looked up to see Gohan staring at him in shock.

"I didn't even feel it this time," he murmured dazedly.  "How could I
not feel it?"

"It was only a small town, this time."  <Only a couple of thousand
people, only a few hundred families.  It could have been worse.  It has
been worse.>

"But even a small town..." Videl sighed and shook her head, looking up
at the brothers from feeding her daughter, Pan.  "So many lives wasted.
What does he hope to gain from all this?"

"Gain?" Gohan snapped.  "How can *anyone* gain from this situation?
There is no point to it.  Perhaps he hopes to die himself.  Kami knows I
*will* kill him the first chance I get for what he's done to this
planet..."

"It's been three years, niichan."  Goten's words were emotionless; he
stared sightlessly at the plate before him.  "Three years, and you
haven't had a single chance.  He'll never let you have a chance."

Gohan sighed, resting his elbows on the table and burying his face in
his hands.  "Three years."

Three years since that day.  The day Piccolo died.  The day Dende died,
and Mr Popo with him.  The day they found Trunks on their doorstep in a
bruised and broken pile, well on his way to bleeding to death.  The last
day any of them had seen Vegeta.

*Vegeta*  The name was a curse to them, had been so for three years.
<And every week it gets worse.>  Goten glanced at his dinner one final
time before standing up.  "I'm going to see Trunks," he answered Videl's
questioning gaze.  "Maybe I can convince him to eat something."  She
nodded sympathetically before returning her attention to Pan, who was
watching them all with serious wide eyes.  Gohan didn't even look up.
Making sure Trunks ate *something* had become one of Goten's daily
chores, as neither Gohan nor Videl were able to convince him to do so.
<And there's no-one else now.>

So many people he knew had died in the past few years, so many close
family and friends.  <Kaasan, Trunks' grandparents, Dende and
Piccolo...  At this rate we'll all be dead before another decade's over>
he mused morbidly as he headed up to the room he shared with Trunks.
Capsule Corp was more than large enough for them to have separate rooms,
but Trunks had insisted when they had moved in, almost two years ago
now.  <When Kaasan died.  It was good being near Trunks -  he knew what
it was like to loose a mother, he understood how much I missed her.>

Chichi's death had been the result of a car accident during one of her
infrequent visits to the capitol.  The reports stated that an apparently
drunk driver had crashed into her aircar, knocking both their cars into
the path of oncoming traffic.  She'd been dead before they could cut her
out of the wreckage.  They'd never caught the drunk driver.

Gohan had been heartbroken, and only Videl's steady support, and their
baby daughter, had let him pull himself together to get on with his
life.  He had thrown himself into his scholastic studies, determined to
live up to his mother's expectations in order to honour her memory.  He
had also done his best to support his younger brother, who had lost the
only parent he had ever known...

<But he didn't have to - I had Trunks.>

It had been a strange turnaround of events, Trunks being the one to
comfort him, listening when he spoke of the loss he felt, holding him in
the rare moments he couldn't stop the tears.  <He was always there, and
I was never alone.>

He paused, just outside the door.  <He was alone too long.  Vegeta
doesn't count.  He didn't give a damn.>

Goten wasn't surprised to find Trunks curled up on his bed, unblinking
eyes focused on the photograph he grasped in a desperate grip.  He sat
on the bed behind him, reaching around to run his finger down the glass
which encased the photo, giving its brittle protection to the precious
memory it encased.

"You keep staring at this and you're going to wear it out," he spoke
quietly, sad amusement tinting his voice.  "I'm surprised you don't have
it burned into your brain by now."

"Oh, it is," Trunks assured him in a soft whisper.  "But seeing it in my
head, and seeing it *here* in my hand - it's very different, you know?"

"Hai, I know."  He rested one hand on Trunks' shoulder, squeezing it
lightly.  Trunks tilted his head up to face his friend, one hand
relaxing from its grip long enough to brush long pale hair out of the
way of deep blue eyes.

"I can barely remember that day now, Goten.  Soon, I'll forget
everything about what it was like then - and that scares me."  He turned
once more to the picture he held so dear, the one photo he had of
himself with his both parents, on the occasion of his eighth birthday.
He and his mother were both smiling, she with one arm wrapped around
him, the other firmly holding onto his scowling father.

It was the only picture he had left of them.  The rest had been
destroyed, some by Trunks himself after he'd recovered from the severe
beating Vegeta had inflicted upon him, but most by Vegeta after Bulma's
death - scant weeks after the photo had been taken.

He'd hunted down every picture of her he could find, destroying them
all, as if he could erase the past by eradicating them, erase the
memories of possibly the only person he had ever cared for, and who had
wounded him by succumbing to a fatal heart attack.

<Selfish bastard.  He wasn't the only one to suffer from her death.
Everyone missed her, especially Trunks.>  But if he couldn't have her,
neither would anyone else.  <At least Trunks had a better reason for
wanting to forget.>  The target of Trunks' anger had been Vegeta - not
that there were many photos of him to begin with.  Now only this single
photo survived, which Goten had kept hidden until he was sure that
Trunks would not destroy it too, as he had his own copy.

<I know he doesn't want to forget his mother, and he shouldn't forget
Vegeta either - at least, not while he's still alive.> No, forgetting
Vegeta would be a very bad idea.

<Well, I have other more immediate things to worry about.>  He stood up,
stretching a little.  "I have that history assignment to work on.  Help
me with it?"

"Uhn."  Trunks slowly uncurled, and returned the photo to its place on
the dressing table next to his bed.  He paused a minute, blinking up at
Goten, before getting to his feet and leading the way to the study where
Goten did his schoolwork.

<And where Trunks studies whatever he wants to.> Goten mused as he
followed his friend out of the room.  Trunks didn't go to school; he
hadn't for six years.  Vegeta hadn't cared when his ten year old son had
started skipping classes, and after the first few attempts by the school
authorities to ensure that Trunks obtained an education he had destroyed
the entire building that housed the school administration in a highly
successful attempt to get them to  leave him alone.  It had taken Gohan
a month to arrange a suitable compromise: Capsule Corp had built a new
administration block for the school, and Trunks attended school only for
exams.  As long as he passed them, no-one would attempt to send him to
school.

<If they came around here now they'd probably rather send him to a
hospital.  If he loses any more weight I swear I'll be able to see right
through him.>  Goten pulled his chair back from the desk, wincing as it
scraped harshly across the floor, and settled himself down to study.
<Of course, studying's impossible without a little brainfood.>  He
smiled as Trunks perched on the chair beside him, one hand automatically
digging into the enormous pile of chocolates and candybars which Goten
had painstakingly convinced him were an absolutely necessary part of
studying.  <Only took me a couple of weeks, too.  Although how he's
managed to survive on sweets for the past couple of years I really have
no idea...>

Trunks was little more than whipcord and bone, and although a year older
than Goten, he was also a good two or three inches shorter.  His pale
skin from several years of hiding from the sun, and naturally pale hair
which he inherited from his mother combined to give him a washed out
appearance, like a well worn shirt that had been through the wash too
many times.  Only his eyes gave any indication of brightness, and that
was from their deep blue colour alone.  For they too were marked with
the griefs he had borne, dark rings accentuating their depths and the
pain and sorrow lurking within them.

<And most of it has a single name - Vegeta.>

"So do tell me, what do you know about the events which led to the
renaming of our city after the Glorious Champion Of The World?"  Goten
lifted one eyebrow at Trunks, a tiny smirk resting on his lips.

"You've got to be joking."  Trunks blinked in disbelief.  "That's your
assignment topic?"  He blinked again as Goten nodded solemnly.

"It was either that or do a paper on my own family history."  A touch of
amusement lightened normally serious blue eyes.

"Your brother married Mr Satan's daughter, Goten.  You're still doing
your family history."

"Yeah, I know.  But I feel happier lying about the Cell Game than
talking about my parents."  He shrugged.  Trunks eyes narrowed.

"Lying is all perspective," he informed his friend.  "Whatever you say
about the Cell Game - somewhere it may just be true."

Goten frowned.  "What do you mean?"

"Think of that version of me who came back to stop your father dying
from that heart disease.  By coming back in time, he altered history and
created our timeline; and also the timeline which Cell came from.  So we
know of three different timelines."  Trunks leaned towards Goten, his
eyes brightening with excitement.  "But what if there were more?"

"More?"

"More timelines, created by other time travelers.  Or perhaps - perhaps
the time-traveling isn�t necessary to create alternate worlds."  Trunks
paused, waiting for Goten�s response to that statement.  Goten blinked.

"You�ve lost me," he admitted.  Trunks sighed, sweeping long hair out of
the way with a flick of his wrist.

"What if every time someone had to make a decision there were certain
possible choices they could make.  Each possibility leads to another
decision, and another, until you get a huge series of alternate worlds,
of alternate dimensions. You following this?"

"I think so," he nodded cautiously.  "But there would be an infinite
number of possible worlds out there�"

Trunks chuckled.  "There could even be a world out there where Mr Satan
truly did defeat Cell."

"That must be some world."  Goten snorted at the thought of that idiot
ever defeating someone it took Gohan�s whole power to destroy.  "But
this isn�t getting my assignment done."

"Isn�t it?"  Trunks had a mysterious little smile on his face.  "What if
you could go to that world?  You could then give a truthful account of
Mr Satan beating Cell."

"And just how am I going to get there?" he queried.  "Did you build a
time machine or something that can hop through dimensions while I wasn�t
looking?"

"And what if I did?"  Trunks� smile was a little wider.  "Want to visit
a world where your parents are still alive?"

End part 1.