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Disclaimer: This story is in no way intended to infringe on any copyrights, It is a strictly a fan fiction. Dragon Ball, Dragonball Z, and Dragon Ball GT are owned/produced/merchandised by the following: TOEI Animation, Bird Studios, Akira Toriyama, Shonen Jump, Funimation, and others possibly not listed.
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The past through tomorrow
By The Fan fiction Nymph

Hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, Bulma sat hunched over a paper sketch of a tripod machine. She used a stub of a pencil to make adjustments to the sketch.
Her solemn blue eyes were careworn and worried pouring over the possibilities.
Bulma’s forehead was scarred with lines, having survived hard times. An unruly lock of blue hair fell out of the ponytail into her face, but she did not brush it back like she would have years earlier. She was completely oblivious to everything around her. Absorbed totally in her work.

The desk Bulma worked at was littered with papers. Several computers were sat on a desk to the right of her. The room was large – almost a warehouse – filled with bits and parts of scrap metal, wires and such. The walls were barren and scorched; the concrete floor was pitted and sloped down wards stained with oil marks.

Bulma sighed, thinking about why she was reduced to staying in such a place, but it was too dangerous to stay long at the Capsule Corp. building. Years ago the Special Forces of Earth fell to the menacing power of the androids. One by one they were defeated – and killed. Piccolo, Krillen, Yamcha, Tien, Chozu, and Vegeta – all gone. Only Gohan remained.

“Vegeta.” Bulma whispered to herself. “Oh, Vegeta - why? Why did you have to go?” a tear ran down her cheek and fell to stain her sketch. It would have been easier to collapse in a sobbing heap thinking about Vegeta, but she knew that it would help no one if she did, that Vegeta would think her weak. So she wiped away the tears that soul purpose was to flow. Bulma knew that she had to be strong – for the sake of her son – she had to be strong. For Trunks.

He was all she had left; her parents had died in an attack from the androids, Puar had left to live with Oolong and Master Roshi and Chi-Chi was in a bad way (Goku had died before the androids came and Gohan was always fighting the androids.). Most of Bulma’s friends were dead or doing as she was and trying somehow to survive.

Bulma had never felt more alone. In a week she had gone from having everything to having nothing. Not quite nothing, she reminded herself – she still had Trunks. The son Vegeta had left her. The only thing he had ever given her.

The androids had turned Bulma’s world upside down.
She was no longer the carefree, materialistic girl she used to be. She had had to learn to do things she never thought she would. Bulma had taken it upon herself to help the few other survivors that lived in constant fear. It was common for her and Trunks to go to cities after an attack and pull people out of the wreckage tend their wounds and more often bury the dead. Bulma had turned into a survivor in a matter of years.

She had often wished none of it had happened. She wondered if any of it would have had Goku not died. Bulma was convinced that had Goku not died he would have found some way to defeat the androids. And if only Vegeta had survived, had he only come back to her – she could have told him that she loved him. But no, Bulma was too prideful and so was he. Both of them arrogant and vain to a fault. At least she had been. Appearances weren’t her top priorities these days.

Bulma wished they had been given more time together wished Trunks could have met the father he never knew, that Vegeta could have just once said ‘I love you’. If only. Sometimes it seemed to Bulma she lived in a world of ‘what ifs’. But this is how she decided that she had to build ‘Hope’ – a time machine. And with it she hoped to go back in time and give Goku the antidote to the disease that killed him. Bulma would change the future through the past. She would make a future for her son and for the rest of mankind.

Trunks ran into the room, almost screeching to a halt and interrupting his mother’s train of thought.
“Mom!” he yelled to get Bulma’s attention, he continued when she looked up to show she was listening. “Mom, the androids just attacked West city! We need to go – now!”
“Yes. Did you get everything?” Trunks nodded and they left to go to a ‘bunker’ Bulma and he had built. West City was not too far from where they were staying.
They sat in silence listening to the radio waiting for news that the androids had left. Bulma kept herself busy by sewing bandages, Trunks tried to help, but could not manage to thread his needle.

Trunks could never concentrate while knowing that people were being killed and he could do nothing about it.
Bulma noticed her son’s uneasiness and felt it within herself too, but she didn’t know how to help him.
For herself, working to help people and working on Hope was enough, but Trunks needed something different.
Too much Saiyan blood pumped through his veins for him to be able to sit idle as people died. He had too much of Vegeta in him.

Trunks picked up some of the unfinished gauss and went to work to fix it; he was determined to help his mom in some way. Somehow he managed to sew his fingers together and bend the needle he was using beyond recognition. Frustrated her threw it down and ripped his hands apart.
“Why cant I do this?!” he demanded at the radio. Bulma stood shocked for a moment then went to him to try and comfort her son.
“It’s alright Trunks, there are different ways to help people.” Trunks relaxed as her hand fell on his shoulder.

“BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. The androids have left West City. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. The androids have left West City. They are now on their way to…Kanto! They are on their way to Kanto!” warned the voice on the radio.
Hearing the all-safe siren Bulma and Trunks ran up to the surface carrying all the gauss that could and hurried to West City in one of the few surviving cars.

West City had been the home of twenty million people in its prime. Before the androids. Now all that had been left were some scattered few hundred survivors, living an everyday fight for life struggle.
Returning to the City, Trunks and Bulma found only death. Only the destruction the androids had wrought. And the once brilliant City slipped further into decay.
Bulma gasped aloud seeing what had become of her home. The towering buildings were now only a charred burnt ash or maze of collapsed metal beams.
Dead bodies were scattered through out, some trapped in the buildings that had collapsed, others first hand victims of the androids play.Trunks dug his fingernails into his palms in an act of anger and rage. “Monsters!” he cried. Suddenly he was aware of the ruins of the Capsule Corp. building. He ran over to it afraid of what he may find.

Through the fire and smoke he could make out what once had been his home, so long ago, now that not even a memory remained. Bulma could only stand and watch it burn, a funeral pry of all she once loved and knew.

Trunks seeing something ran into the fire. “Trunks!” Bulma called afraid to loose her son, she started into the flames herself. Before she could he was out again, in his arms he cradled a singed stuffed animal, a bunny rabbit.

“Trunks? Are you okay?”

Trunk’s hands closed around the rabbit his eyes filling with tears.
He let out a cry of anguish and despair. A scream for justice that echoed through the ruins of the city. Dropping the ragged toy he took up into the sky.

“Trunks!” Bulma screamed after her son, but he was gone.

Eventually Bulma had made her way home, knowing that Trunks would come home when he was ready. She only hoped he did not do anything stupid.
Before leaving Bulma had dragged all the bodies out of the neglected buildings and piling them high she had burnt them with a simple funeral rite.
It was dirty work, but she felt it had to be done.

As she watched the flames consume the lifeless corpses she prayed that perhaps in death they could finally find true rest and fear of the androids no more.
“Please don’t do anything stupid Trunks. You’re too important…your all I have left.” Bulma whispered to herself, clutching a faded photograph. In an attempt to stop feeling so sorry for herself and everyone, Bulma set the picture down and went about finding some thing useful to do.


Early the next morning, several hours before the sun, Trunks crept as silent as possible into the kitchen. Behind him Gohan followed. The two demi-sayains had been out training since Trunks found and bullied Gohan into it. Cautiously Trunks flipped on the lights to reveal Bulma slumped at the kitchen table. She had obviously fell asleep waiting for Trunks to come home.

“Gohan, help yourself to some food, I’ll take care of my Mom.” Gohan nodded as Trunks gently picked up his mother and carried her up to her room.

Gohan was distracted by the small paper Bulma had been clutching and dropped when Trunks moved her. He picked it up curiously and was surprised to see a faded picture of Vegeta. He was scowling in the photo as he had in life; it was obvious the picture had been taken when he had not been looking. Gohan smiled and followed Trunks over to Bulma's room and set the picture down upon the bedside dresser.

"What’s that?" Trunks asked as he stood up from setting down his mother.

"It’s a picture of…Vegeta”