Crossroads

Chapter 31

Bulma eventually came out of the room where she'd been hiding for no reason other than the sound of her son's cries from another room nearby. She scooped him up and cleaned him off before bringing him with her into the kitchen, where the rest of her guard, all that was left of them, Prince Tarble, and her mother and father were all sitting, talking about something quietly.

She wasn't sure what they were discussing. She could hardly digest their words, much less join in on the conversation. Goku had said enough to her to last her conversationally for a month, and she wasn't much in the mood to talk, but she needed to show her face, and the baby needed to eat. She put on a brave look, and pretended to be of sound mind, but just one glance at all of them and she knew she was in danger of falling apart.

She wouldn't allow it.

"Bulma, dear," her mother called, "It's good to see you up and about, sweetie. Are you hungry?"

"No, Mom," she replied, "I can't eat anything right now and I have to feed Trunks."

Bunny fussed, "Oh, but you have to eat something! I'll grab little Trunks' bottle and I'll start whipping up your favorite for dinner! Come now, have a seat and relax."

Bulma frowned but inched closer as all eyes were on her. Had she locked herself away for that long? She sighed, at least Trunks napped a good bit, then.

Tarble stood from his place at the table and offered her his seat, smiling at her. She took it, confused by him, and lost within her own incomplete thoughts.

Why is he being so kind to her? Does he feel bad for her for his brother's sake?

What is she supposed to be doing with herself, now? She didn't know. Well, maybe she did, but she wasn't sure she could manage. She wasn't done sorting through her thoughts about everything that Goku said, and everything that he and Vegeta have done. Including saving their lives.

Her father's voice caught her attention, though, as he said, "I was hoping to be able to look more into Dr. Gero's schematics, but Tarble has informed me that his labs were completely destroyed. Such a shame, to have lost all that research. Not that the androids interest me, but I was really hoping we could use some of his work on some of our projects."

"Dear, isn't that like cheating?" Bunny asked, far too cheerfully, "You didn't do the work, after all!"

Bulma smiled at her, she didn't know why, she supposed she found her mother endearing. She said to her father, "It's not lost, Dad. While I was there, I used a Capsule hard drive to backup all of his files. It's in the other room, I was looking at it earlier. I guess I forgot to tell you."

Tarble balked, "You did?!"

"Well, yeah," she replied nonchalantly as she adjusted Trunks in her arms, almost feeling like herself for a moment. "I figured that the laboratory was going to get destroyed, so I made sure to copy the research that Capsule Corp. helped fund, not to mention everything else. I don't think it's stealing. We had a business contract after all, it's not our fault he voided it by being a complete maniac. It's what I was looking into before... Goku and I talked earlier. All of Dr. Gero's blueprints are on that thing. Including the work that he was doing for our gravity neutralizer. And apparently, he was trying to figure out a way to create a launch pad, kind of like a Star Trek materialization pad."

"A what?" Tarble asked.

"Star Trek!" Serenity laughed cheerily at the mention of it, "It's a movie franchise! You should watch it, your Highness! There are some interesting technologies in it! What a great idea, Princess!"