Trunks circled the garage, admiring the time machine his mother had built. He beamed with pride as there was finally hope that the evil Androids could be stopped. The majority of his friends had been killed trying to fight them, but thanks to the efforts of him and his mother, history could be corrected.

"Quite something, isn't it?" his mother, Bulma, said standing in the doorway.

"Yeah." said Trunks.

"Even at my most ambitious, I never would have dreamed I could have built an actual working time machine." she said.

"I'll make you proud, I'll do everything in my power to set things right!" he said, excitedly.

Bulma walked into the garage and pulled a chair from underneath the work table.

"Alright, sit down. There's something we need to discuss." she said.

Trunks complied and sat down. Bulma pulled a cigarette out of a carton and lit it.

"So, do you know exactly what you're supposed to do?" she asked.

"Of course." he said, "I need to deliver the vaccine to Goku and warn them of the Androids. Then I need to train with them to prepare for the battle, all while not letting either you or father know of my heritage, that way things can happen naturally."

"That's mostly right." she said.

"Mostly?"

"The tricky thing about time travel is that you never really can change your own timeline. Think about it, if you went back in time and stopped the Androids, would we still have the need to build a time machine in the future? And if we don't build a time machine there would be no way for you to have warned anybody, correct?" she asked.

"I-I guess..." he stammered, "I always thought that was weird, but I assumed you had it all figured out..."

"I do. What you need to do is everything you just said, except destroying the Androids in that timeline won't fix this one. You should continue to train with them, but also focus on getting strong enough with Goku's help so you can return here and destroy our Androids yourself. I'm sure just watching and learning from Goku will be more then enough."

"I see... but why am I only hearing about this now?"

"Because there's another part to it."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, we've tried this before."

"What?"

"Eighteen years ago we were warned by a boy from the future that we would be attacked by Androids. However, even with the vaccine and forewarning we still ended up like this. We know what went wrong last time and hope to fix it in this upcoming try."

Bulma takes one last drag on her cigarette before putting it out.

"The reason I put off telling you all the details is because this also involves you making an important decision." she said.

"And what's that?" he asked.

"Basically, it's up to you if you are ever even born in the next timeline at all."

"Why is that an important decision? All I need to do is keep my identity secret from you and father. Why wouldn't I want to be born?"

"Because what you do doesn't really affect what happens here, and the means of ensuring your birth are a little strange..."

"What do you mean?"

"Basically, I lied when I said Vegeta was your father."

There was silence for a second. Trunks looked bemused, not sure if he understood.

"I'm sorry I've been too afraid to tell you," she said, "but the man I got intimate with all those years ago was not Vegeta, but a handsome, young time traveller!"

Trunks's eyes widened, "That's not possible!" he said, convinced that just saying that will make it true.

"It definitely is" she said, "I know it's strange, but that's why I'm leaving it up to you whether the same thing happens in the next timeline or not. If you're not comfortable with it, that's your decision. I just thought you should know."

"My decision?"

"I don't know how it all got started, but it seems as though there are many timelines parallel this one. Somewhere along the line a different 'you' was born and grew up to go back in time and start a relationship with me. I don't know if the other you knew I was his mother or not. Maybe the situation was different for them. I never found out. One thing's for sure though, you will not be born in the next timeline unless the same thing happens again, and myself from the past absolutely can not find out your identity, or else there's no chance."

"No! How could you say that! I would never do something like that!"

"And that's OK if that's what you want. Like I said, it doesn't change our time either way. I'm just saying that if you do want to be born in the next timeline, that's OK too. You have my permission."

Trunks blushed. The things he was hearing left him completely speechless.

"P-permission!" He said with disbelief.

"Yup, and you should be grateful of that. I used to be quite the looker back in the day! Just think of my young body as an early eighteenth birthday present. That is, if you want it of course!" she said.

"MOM!"

"Oh, I'm just teasing. But everything I said is still true."

Trunks bolted up, knocking over his chair. He tried to say something, but instead just ran out of the garage and to his room.

"Maybe I was too upfront..." Bulma said to herself.

Trunks slammed the door behind him. Was this really happening? Her words kept echoing in his head: "You have my permission". Trunks felt an intense uneasiness in his gut. He never had time to build a relationship with a girl, and he had fantasized about sex for a long time. It was something he wanted, but there was absolutely no way it was going to happen like that. That's what he was convinced of.