A Forgotten Life

Chapter Thirty Five

Light hit his eyes and a high pitched ringing filled his ears. A dull pain throbbed all over his body, though he vaguely remembered being forced to swallow a green senzu bean. Slowly, with the sense of being medicated, Trunks peeled his eyes open, waiting for his vision to focus and his other senses to come back to him.

The source of the light came from the windows across the unkempt room. Images of a rainstorm came back to the young saiyan, and this helped him to get his bearings as to how long he had been out. As he forced himself to sit up on the bed, the ringing subsided slightly, but not completely. His sore muscles ached as he moved so his legs dangled over the edge, his bare feet snuggling into the thick carpet on the floor.

Goten's room, Trunks thought, looking around. He had been in here more times than he could count; he knew it just as well as his own bedroom. As his eyes scanned the room, he found that he wasn't alone.

Having heard Trunks moving around, Goten sat up from where he had dozed off in the computer chair by the desk. His hair was a mess, even more so than usual. His clothes were torn and bloodied, something Trunks was sure they shared at the moment. Though he was sure the younger saiyan had also received a senzu bean, he looked about as beat up as Trunks felt. Goten met Trunks' eyes, but unlike normal, he didn't smile. He simply sat there, almost like a ghost of who he usually was. Trunks swallowed hard. Something was wrong.

"I'm glad you're up," Goten says distantly, pushing himself to his feet. "Everyone else is waiting downstairs."

Trunks nods silently, standing up as well. He followed his lifelong friend to the door and then down the hall to the stairs, where they walked single file into the kitchen, and then finally into the living room. The mood of the room was somber, adding to Trunks' growing sense of apprehension. As he looked around at the faces of his friends and family, Trunks noticed that Videl was alive, sitting with Gohan and their baby. She must have been wished back while he was out cold upstairs. Trunks also noticed that Krillin, 18, Marron, Piccolo, Nate and Kansas were with them in the slightly cramped living room. Like the others, these six had solemn looks on their faces and in their eyes. As Trunks finished his survey of the room, he was startled to find, leaning against the far wall, his father.

Vegeta looked the same as he had when he left a year ago. He even had on the exact same clothes as he did when he walked out the door that fateful morning; blue spandex body tights and the yellow and white saiyan armor Bulma - who was standing next to him - had been making since the Cell games. Vegeta, feeling eyes on him, looked up to meet his son's gaze.

If he's back, Trunks thought, does that mean... Sure enough, a few feet away stood Goku, Chi-Chi right on top of him, just like Bulma was to Vegeta. Like his youngest child, Goku wasn't smiling like normal. Instead, a dark expression was on the saiyan's face. It wasn't something Trunks was used to, and it startled him as much as the fact he and Vegeta were standing in the room.

No one else seemed to share this feeling, though, Trunks observed, telling him that they already had time to adjust to the sudden presence of the two saiyans who been missing for a year.

"What's going on?" Trunks asked. Why were Goku and his father suddenly here? What happened to Xicor and Lila? Why did everyone look so upset? Just how long, exactly, had he been out?

Trunks looked around again, his eyes searching for the one person he knew would help to calm his frazzled nerves. His search, however, turned up empty. With his stomach doing flips, Trunks looked around again, and then yet another time, each time with no results.

"Where's Moon?" he asked, and, when no one answered him, he asked the question for a second time, louder than before.

"Trunks, sit down," his mother says, her voice gentle. Her eyes were sad and wet with unshed tears. The lavender haired saiyan could hear Chi-Chi crying quietly into Goku's shoulder.