the work of the eyes is done

go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you

. . .

He hadn't gone back in quite a while.

Trunks had found himself, several times in fact, yet again visiting to the past, just to see...

The last time he went, he had seen his father, a rare gleam in his eye, sweep Bulma off of her feet, carrying her from the dining room to bed. He had remained sitting alone in the dark, letting her joyous laughter wash over him like a wave, warm and gentle, until the room went cold again. Then he had returned home, at once fulfilled and empty.

The day he went back for the last time, his mother was having a bad day. He could practically see the movie that surely played on repeat in her head – everyone she had known and loved, dead at the hands of technology not all that different from the projects she had once dedicated her life to. She put a good face on it, but knew that it was painful for her to look at him, the last surviving trace of her former life.

He went to the lab just to give her space, but could not resist the siren song of the past, so idyllic in comparison to what was now. He set the controls for some years after his last visit – it somehow was not enough anymore to see fleeting moments. He had to know: would they really get to be okay?

Why had he gone back, if not to ensure that that exact thing would happen?

. . .

It was summer when he arrived, twilight approaching night, the stars just beginning to show themselves. He breathed deeply as he approached the compound, savoring the taste of air not yet polluted with death and ruin. Had his father, a jaded mercenary recently escaped from hell, done the same, all those years ago?

He could feel his parents moving around the house, but himself – his past self – and another unfamiliar ki were between him and his destination. He concealed himself and waited for them to pass.

He was a teenager, almost a young adult, and the boy with him was undoubtedly the progeny of Goku. The boys chattered loudly as they left the house and walked towards the gravity machine, complaining about being grounded. Trunks could not help but feel bitter over their blissfully mundane problems. No one who knew Vejita in his time would have believed him capable of having a hand in raising a semi-normal teenager.

He had started toward the house again when he noticed that he was not alone.

A girl, thin but strong, stood silhouetted in the dim light before him. He didn't know her, but he didn't have to. If his teenaged self was a testament to the relative normalcy of his family's life, this waif was the reminder that blood will always out, in the end.

She was the mirror image of Bulma, but with Vejita staring out from behind her eyes and lurking in her aura. No one could mistake her for a regular human being, though the uninitiated would never have been able to put a finger on why. She remained still, locking him in a calculating gaze while he grappled with his shock.

"He told me you would be back," she said, more sagely than a girl her age should be capable of.

"W-who?" His stuttering voice shamed him.

"Our father." She was visibly unimpressed with this older version of her brother. "He told me everything."

"Everything..."

She appeared disgusted that she had to lower herself to explain anything to him. "So apparently you never grow out of it... great."

She glanced back over her shoulder at the house, then stepped closer. He noticed that she had the lithe build of a dancer rather than that of a warrior, and offhandedly wondered how she had developed the robust ki he could feel emanating from her.

"He said that one day you would come, to see if what you did was worth it."

He could imagine Vejita, terrifying in his love and protectiveness of this sharp, precocious girl, sugarcoating nothing so that she could never fool herself, so that she would always know exactly who she was. His throat caught with an emotion he could not name; he was unable even to reply. He retreated back as she advanced towards him, eyes bright and jaw set.

"I love him," she exhaled, fierce and vulnerable at once. "You can't have him, and you can't come back. No one is supposed to go back." He thought she might cry, but when he looked again he just saw anger. "She's alone right now, waiting for you. You can't really be this weak."

He felt terror, and rage. She was the living embodiment of what he had lost, or really never had. She was a true child of Vejita, cherished and meticulously honed. He had not been prepared for his question to be so literally – and beautifully – answered.

Wordlessly, he seized her into an embrace. Her hair smelled just like their mother's. Inexplicably, she stood motionlessly and allowed it.

"He knew that I would find you," she whispered. "Go home."

. . .

[A.N.: Thank you to everyone who has followed this story, which took far longer to complete than perhaps it should have. You're truly the best.]

Lady Rhapsody

. . .