Nightmares

Category: Angst, Drama

Rated: T for swearing and slight blood and violence

Disclaimer: I don't under any circumstances own Dragonball Z or any of its power hungry, ego-inflated characters.

Ch1-Prologue

He watched closely as the cigarette butt disappeared into a cylinder snake of ashes shriveled by the countless others on the ashtray. His bright young eyes watched as the lavender haired woman reached into her pocket and retrieved another stick of weed and stuck it between her lips. With a flick of the flame of her lighter, the end of the cigarette grew cherry red and she heaved in the sweat burn of nicotine down her throat.

The lavender haired woman exhaled sharply, cigarette placed at the corner of her mouth, and returned to lying on her back to examine the underbelly of her machine, bent on finally finishing her project. She had noticed the curious eyes of her young six year old son staring at her, but chose to ignore him for the time, knowing what those curious eyes were going to ask her and at any moment; she didn't feel like having to discuss that particular matter today.

"Momma?" Came his high, slightly raspy voice.

"Momma is busy now Trunks." She replied not removing her eyes from the bottom of her invention. Wrench in hand she began to tighten bolts that were abundantly swathed across the bottom plates of solid iron and steel.

With a sigh, the purple haired boy lowered his head and stared at his feet. The woman half hidden under the enormous device knew that her son was still there, knowing that he never did give up on this particular subject that easily, he was always a stubborn one. She knew he would not let this go until he got her to talk again, like she always wound up doing.

"What was he like?"

With that question, the woman lowered her wrench from the bolt crying to be tightened. She closed her eyes and pulled herself from under her invention, still not looking at her son. She was fit for ignoring this discussion today, not entirely in the mood to be asked his usual daily array of questions that seemed to come on a routinely basic schedule. She avoided the persistent six year old and went to reach for the tool by her side; she grabbed it and then disappeared back under her massive creation.

"You asked me that question last week Trunks; do you expect me to say something different this week?" She said with slight annoyance in her voice.

The young boy only sighed and kept his gaze at his feet which he shuffled profusely. "Well, it's just that I really was hoping you'd tell me a story about him this time."

Bulma growled growing quite annoyed at the situation. She had wanted her time in the lab today to be without disturbances so she could work on her latest project. She smirked inwardly at that idea. She was, in her genius, in the process of finishing the very first time machine. For the past five and a half years she had been working on this project around the clock, day and night. After the androids had made their appearance and took away her entire life, she buried herself in building up her dream and making it a reality.

Mainly to keep her mind from dwelling on the painful memories that fateful day had brought her and stole the very people she cared most for. She would have gone insane and she knew it so burying herself in her work kept her mind busy and thoughts of how it could possibly help create a better future kept her moving forward.

Though, in light of it all, she had still a long ways to go until it was complete. Every time she thought she was almost there, something else would go horribly wrong and she needed to fix another problem. What aggravated her more, was that Trunks had now made it his duty to appear more then ever around the lab, something about "mother son bonding time" or something like that she read in one of those parenting guide books. However, she was soon regretting that she gave him the password to her lab. Though outside of the office she came out to cook meals and tend to Trunks, he still made it his personal job at pestering her during the time she most dearly wanted to be alone. She had tried changing the password many times, but no matter how much she tried, he always figured it out. She silently cursed her brains for letting Trunks inherit them.

She grew sick of this subject to. It started about two months ago. Trunks came to her at her lab, much like he had today, and asked about him. At first Bulma was surprised he had brought it up. He never had mentioned anything about him before and was startled when Trunks began to ask questions about him then. After that, Trunks just became more and more demanding about the subject. And it made her feel uneasy, because with remembering him also brought back remembering what happened to him, and all her friends, that one fateful night.

Bulma grunted however, not in the mood to hear anything of it for the day.

"He came here as an ass and he died here as an ass." Was her cold reply, wrench tightening a loosened bolt. It was mainly a reply for herself rather then her persistent six year old.

Again Trunks only sighed, now a days this was the only response he got out of her. He suspected he might have pestered her too much about the subject of his father, but he just could get enough. What little building there were left after the android's attack, they had humbled education to mere shambled buildings and the other children had talked about their fathers. It only made him curious about his own. Never had his mother ever even mentioned his name, let alone who he was or what he was like. Of course Trunks always had questions as to why he was stronger then the other boy's at school, and why he had a strange scar at the base of his spine, but he dared not ask her in fear she would yell at him like she had before.

She would sometimes scream at him when he said the slightest thing, sometimes in her anger she would just go on and on screaming about things that didn't even involve the subject. Often times, he believed when she got like that she was no longer yelling at him, especially when she would occasionally call him Vegeta in her fit of rage, and it would scare him. When he finally got curious enough about his father, and the kids at school constantly picking on him for not having one, he asked her. Though at that time, she would ignore the question in general or quickly change the subject and tell him to clean his room or do his homework.

Eventually he had gotten her to talk, it wasn't much, but it was enough to make his eyes shine with amazement and pride. She told him only bits and pieces about the mysterious man and it immediately captivated him. She told him stories about how strong he was, and how proud he was, and of course, how stubborn he was.

Of course she secluded the part about him trying to kill her and take over the universe, that part seemed to naturally fall out of discussion. Though, the more he asked about who he was, and what he was like, and why this and that, she became more and more resistant and he didn't understand why. He could see with every discussion about him it would bring sorrow into her eyes as well as a shining glint he had never seen in his mother before.

Now a days, the shine was gone and only placed with bitterness and hatred. She seemed less willing to express anymore heroic stories about his father and only seemed to get angry when he brought this up. Of course, that didn't stop him, he was determined and stubborn, something his mother constantly reminded him that he inherited from his father.

In fact, those were the only times she ever spoke about him not prior to him asking.

"Well," Trunks dared to speak up again. "What about the first time you met him? You never told me that one."

"Don't you have homework to do?" She said flatly, eyes not leaving her work.

"Finished it." He replied with a child-like grin. Now she had no reason to avoid him.

Bulma sighed heavily and pulled the cigarette from her lips and stubbed it out. She sat up and carelessly chucked her wrench to her side. With a clank of metal it hit the floor and she glared at Trunks and his curious and hope filled blue eyes.

Bulma cursed her weakness for his big blue eyes and heaved one last sigh in surrender, one that brought a huge smile across her young's face. He promptly slid to the ground to form a comfortable sitting position, readying to hear the no doubt, amazing story about his father. So reluctantly Bulma crossed her legs, one mechanical prosthetic crossed with the sheen milky skin of her other leg.

"The first time I saw him face to face? Let's see…" She began to look skyward as the thoughts spiraled around her head.

"It was on another planet."

"Namek?" Trunks' asked since his mother had mentioned the planet before.

"Yes, he was looking for the dragonballs." Bulma explained.

"The dragonballs?" Trunks couldn't help but ask. "You mean those magical balls that could grant any wish? Why did he want them?"

Bulma sighed. "While your father was strong Trunks, he was also a terribly proud and selfish man, he wanted to wish for eternal power from the dragon by giving him immortality."

Trunks' eyes lit up in shock. "Why would he want that?"

Bulma shook her head. It was no use telling the boy to be quiet when he got rallied up like this. When he was this excited on the matter, he couldn't help but ask any and all questions that filled his head.

"Well," She began. "At that particular time, you father wanted to destroy this dastardly evil creature."

"Freeza!" Trunks shouted out almost gleefully, proud to know at least the answer to that question.

"Yes it was Freeza! Now shut the hell up or I won't continue the story." Bulma hissed glaring at Trunks who gulped and bit his tongue.

"Anyway- " She glared at him once more for good measure. "As I had told you about my escapades on planet Namek that involved Freeza, your father wanted the power in order to finally put a rest to the wretch once and for all."

"Wow, how noble." Trunks remarked and Bulma rolled her eyes. 'Boy if only this kid knew. Noble my ass, HA! The self-centered bastard.' Bulma inwardly remarked. Ignorance was bliss she guessed, besides, it was probably for the best that she not mention that why his father wanted immortally was not for such a dignified reason. But somehow, she didn't think that that bit of information would help Trunks, from the parenting guide books she read, they had mentioned something about children's sensitivity to this subject or something along that line…

"Yes well, anyway." Bulma coughed, "I first saw him when he was battling this green hulk-looking son of a bitch. He threatened to blast us to the next dimension if we didn't give him the damn ball. After that your father finally came face to face with the little prick Freeza once and for all." With that, she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out another Marlboro and a lighter. After lighting it, she puffed a few good times before exhaling a stream of smoke out her lips and nostrils, right into Trunk's little face, he only blinked and coughed a little.

"Well, what happened next?" Trunks asked impatiently.

Bulma took another drag and took her time exhaling another seam of smoke. "Well, in short terms he got his butt kicked and lost."

As soon as she said that Trunk's face fell and Bulma mentally kicked herself. 'God damn it look what you did now! Some genius you are, didn't you learn anything from reading those "How to raise a child: for single parents" books! This is what you get for skipping those chapters!" Yes she skipped plenty of chapters, and right after the point where they said you shouldn't swear in front of your kids she stopped reading them all together.

"Shit." Bulma mumbled and reached over to drape her arm over her son, hoping to restore some of his previous enthusiasm.

"Of course, he did give that tight ass Freeza a run for his money." Bulma smirked in between another drag, trying to raise back the respect that somewhat vanished partly from his eyes.

The attempt worked and a small smile soon returned on the purple haired boy's face. She would admit that looking at her son smiling with such pride made her feel nice for a change. Though she knew if her son knew half the things about who his father really was he would have something else besides a smile on his face. Of course, she would never tell him any of those things; the boy already had a hard life as it was.

"Well, I'll tell you this much Trunks, he did put up one hell of a fight. Shit, to see your father in the heat of battle was definitely a sight to behold. I may have not seen the battle against Freeza, but I can imagine it was really something." She gave a smirk to her son and he smiled back at her. After a minute or two in silence, Bulma smacked her hands on her knees and exhaled sharply.

"Okay, that's it you can leave now and clean your room, it looks like a damn pig's sty in there, you would think the roaches would be paying rent." Bulma urged with shooing motions with her hands, "And don't you dare throw everything under your bed again like you did last week, hear?" now that that was out of the way she could get back to her time machine.

"But that can't be over!" He whined. "I wanna hear more!" He spoke demanding like.

Bulma's eye twitched, if it was one thing she couldn't stand, it was being disobeyed – and when he raised his voice to her.

"Boy, "She said shortly, tight motherly scowl forming on her face. "You better get-in-that-damn-room and clean it up right now or I'll beat you so hard you'll wish the androids got to you first." Bulma's eyes glared feverishly at the boy. He gulped in fear and took a knowing step back.

"NOW!" She hollered when she got no response. Trunks visibly jumped at the power of her voice.

"Y-yes momma." he stuttered and dashed for the door out of the lab.

She glared at the boy as his mass of purple hair scurried out of the lab like a frightened mouse and the aging scientist snickered at her handy work when she heard the door slam shut. 'And where in those books does it teach you to do THAT I ask you. Ha!' And with that, she looked about her for her precious wrench and disappeared under the time machine to finish up for the day.