Insert generic disclaimers.
	<<Speaking in the Cat language.>>

*** *** ***   *** Cut Here  ***   *** *** ***

               *** F I S H ! ***
An insane fusion of Red Dwarf and DBZ
                By Ryo Hoshi

	Two: Trunks Quits Whining.  (Finally!)


	Trunks rolled himself out of his bunk and stumbled over to the nearest
bathroom, eyes closed tightly.  He stripped and got into the shower, turning
up the water as hot as it would go.  He started scrubbing himself, still
showing no signs have having woken up yet.  He hummed a little tuneless tune
to himself for no reason known to man or beast.
	Just then, Ai stuck her head through the wall.  Trunks didn't notice her as
she looked him up and down.  Particularly down.  "Trunks-chan!"
	Trunks yelped and fell heard to the floor, hitting his head on the wall.
	Ai giggled.  "Trunks, Holli wants you to show up in the infirmary in about 30
minutes.  Seems that she thinks you're going bonkers -- like that's news --
and wants to run the headshrinker stuff on you."
	Ai pulled her head out of the wall, right before the thrown bar of soap hit
the wall.

	*** *** ***

	"I still don't get why I need my head checked.  I'm the sanest of us all!"
	"That doesn't take too much."
	"Die."
	"I'm a computer; I can't die.  Sorry to disappoint."
	Trunks growled.
	"Now, answer truthfully.  What does this picture remind you of?" it said,
flashing a simulated inkblot up onto the viewscreen.
	"Me rearranging your circuits."

	*** *** ***

	Hours later, Holli called Ai into the main communications room.
	"So, what do you want, Holli?"
	"I found out what's with Trunks."
	"Oh?"
	"He left Earth because of some disaster."
	Ai learned forward.  "Details, please."
	"I'm not sure.  He mumbled something about his mother and sister, and that he
was to blame."
	Ai sat back as heavily as a hologram could.  "Damn."
	"What I could make out is that he ended up leaving Earth without making up
with his father."
	"Funny.  I thought he disliked his father greatly."
	"Hey, don't ask me.  I'm just a computer.  You're human."
	"I'm a hologram."
	"Details, details."
	"So, why did you want me?"
	"There's a message for him.  From his father."
	 "I see.  And?"
	"Well, it came in the day after Trunks went into stasis.  The day of the
accident."
	"That it?"
	"It was also the last contact we had with Earth."
	"Funny...we weren't out of range by then...why didn't they tell us they had
lost contact with Earth?"
	"Didn't want to make the crew nervous?"
	"Like that would have helped when Ken couldn't do his nightly talk with his
wife.  Captain no baka..."
	"I'll delete that from my memory."
	"Why?  He's dead, after all.  And that was what his wife kept calling him."
	"She said Ranma no baka, not captain no baka."
	"As you said, details."
	"I'll play the message for you."
	Holli's face vanished from the screen and was replaced by Vegita's bruised
and battered face.
	Ai watched the message raptly.  When it was over, Holli's face returned.
	"Holli, I wouldn't play the video part in front of Trunks right now."
	"What about the audio?"
	"I think it's safe."

	*** *** ***

	Trunks walked into the cafeteria.  He was in a bad mood.  One could almost
see the bad mood itself, it was so bad.
	Neko cautiously looked out of the kitchen.  She blinked, then quickly
vanished from the kitchen, abandoning the fish dish she had been making for
herself.
	Trunks ignored her and walked over to the drawers.  He opened on and pulled
out a knife.  He just held it, looking at it.
	Life, he thought, stunk.
	He couldn't really deny it any longer.
	Everything he held dear was gone, and it was his fault.  (The rational part
of his mind meekly begged to differ, pointing out that he didn't cause the
accident himself; that it was his replacement's fault.)
	And with just a flick of the knife...
	No, he though, it was the coward's way out.
	He put down the knife and left.
	Neko came down from her hiding place in the ventilation tubes.  She blankly
picked up the knife and held it to her face.  She stared at the gleaming edge
for a long minute.

	*** *** ***

	<<Honored Grandmother, could you please hide this for me?>>
	Honored Grandmother looked at Neko.  She looked at the bin of knives in
Neko's arms.  She muttered, under her breath, <<She must have gone through the
whole ship in search of these.>>  Out loud, she said, <<Certainly,
Granddaughter.>>  She took the bin -- still somehow keeping her features in
shadow, and stashed the knives somewhere, quickly.
	They stood there for several minutes, silent.
	Neko sat down.  <<Honored Grandmother, Trunks says he's a man.  But I still
haven't been able to figure out what a man is.  Could you please tell me?>>
	Honored Grandmother looked at Neko, wondering what to say.
	She spent the next two hours telling Neko about the birds and the bees.

	*** *** ***

	Trunks rummaged through the kitchen drawers.  There had to be a knife in
here, he thought to himself.
	Ai watched Trunks covertly from the kitchen door.  She shivered.  Just what
we need, she thought to herself.  A suicidal Saiyan.

	*** *** ***

	"Ai?"
	"Neko?"
	"You see Trunks?"
	"Yes."
	"He not right in head.  Like father."
	"Your father?"
	"Dived out airlock."
	Ai facefaulted.  "Figures.  So you think Trunks is gonna off himself?"
	"Yes."
	"So...how are we gonna get medicine in him?"
	"I hold him down, make him swallow pills"
	"You, hold him down?  You have to be insane."
	"Probably am.  Still, can do."

	*** *** ***

	Trunks did not notice the pair sneaking up on him in the infirmary.  He was
too busy going through the bottles of medicine and muttering dire things about
whoever packed the thing last and the lack of whatever chemical he wished to
poison himself with.
	Neko struck fast, knocking him to the floor with a fluid kick and sitting on
top of him.  "Trunks stay!"
	Trunks looked daggers at her but made no move to get up.
	A service robot Ai had helped Neko activate rumbled into the room.
	"Give Neko the bottle of antidepressant," Ai ordered the robot.
	"YES MASTER."
	"The preferred term is mistress.  Call me mistress."
	"YES MASTER."
	"..."
	"How many?"
	"Let's see...Holli said two of them, I think."
	Neko popped two pills into Trunk's mouth.  She clamped one hand over his
mouth and with the other she pinched his nose shut.  "Swallow."
	Trunks swallowed.
	"Good boy."

	*** *** ***

	They left Trunks in his bunk after dosing him with a bit of a sleeping
potion.  They didn't want him waking up before the antidepressants took effect
and coming after them.
	Neko had slunk off to finish her fish dish, leaving Ai alone to talk with
Holli.
	"Do you think it will work?"
	"Do I think what will work, Holli?"
	"Putting Trunks on antidepressants."
	"Why didn't you ask me that earlier, when I asked you for a dosage?"
	"Ummm..."
	"You hadn't thought of it, right?"
	"Right."
	"Computers.  I'll never understand them."  Ai walked off.
	Holli sighed.  "Humans make no sense..."

*** *** ***   In the next episode 
[One of the many corridors in the ship.]
TRUNKS: ::Happily babbling something one would expect from Mihoshi::
NEKO:	::trying to press herself through a wall and whimpering::
AI:	::with sweatdrop:: Holli, I think we better decrease the dosage...
HOLLI:	::nervously:: Hai.

*** *** ***   *** Author's notes/rant ***   *** *** ***

	Second rant.  Yay.  Somebody comment, please.  Even flames will be liked.

	Well, so Trunks is depressed.  And pondering suicide.  (Well, he was.)
	Hope you consider this an...umm...appropreate subplot for something that
started off WAFFy.  
	I don't think I should try writing WAFFy stuff.  Keeps turning dark.  Ah,
well...need to figure out that tags to use for this again...  I really don't
want to have to stick this with a dark tag, 'cause it isn't dark.  It isn't
really WAFFy.  Nor Romance.  And definitly not Original Flavor (whatever
*that* is.)
	Help.
	Really.
	I need it.
	And I just have this thing about trusting headshrinkers.  There's just
something about someone who you pay to sort through your private files.  It's
like paying someone to sort out your hard drive: you never know what they will
dig up to use against you.  (I'm not a paranoid as much as suffering from the
levels of paranoia needed to survive the local public school system.)
	I don't have any friends who I trust that far.  Yes, I can throw them a
pretty good distance.  But not far enough to trust them with my innermost
thoughts.
	You know, I really have to wonder why I'm therefore asking complete (or
mostly complete) strangers for help.  It make no sense.
	But, as Holli says, Humans make no sense.


		--Ryo Hoshi
"Great.  My one bit in this scene and I get upstaged by a mallet."
		--Steph from Freakazoid, episode/fragment: "The Lobe"