Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Lost and Found Love ❯ Refinding A Lost Hope ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

AN: I DON'T OWN DRAGONBALL Z NOR DO I OWN ANY ORIGINAL CHARACTERS! Burns and Lauren, however, are completely mine. ^^ As is Boomer.
Chapter One- Refinding a Lost Hope
Moonlight sifted through the window, bringing minimal visibility in the darkend room. A man sat on the couch at the middle of the room, a glass of whiskey in his hand. A big, black lab lay at his feet, content in the quietness of the night to just be near his master. Glass gleamed from the entertainment center and the pictures on the shelves and walls. The navy carpet looked like a lake in the darkness, waiting to swallow the first to step into its blue depths. The color reminded him of her eyes.
The house had a homey touch, but wasn't warm like most inhabited houses. Every comfort was available yet never used. The house was brilliantly furnished, but the man sitting on the couch didn't care. He could have lived in his car and not cared. His work was all that mattered to him, and Boomer, the dog at his feet.
The television was blank. Vegeta Ouji had no desire to turn it on and watch the problems of the world being broadcast over the late night news. The T.V. had been her idea, as had the decoration of the house. But she was gone now, and the T.V. was never on anymore. It hadn't been on in two years, not since the news had broadcasted her death.
Vegeta shook his head as the phone rang. They had never found her body, but the evidence had been all too clear. She was never coming back, and he had to get over it.
"Hello," Vegeta answered, putting his whiskey on the table in front of him. Boomer stirred but didn't move from the soft carpet.
"Ouji, get down to headquarters immediately. You'll want to see this," the voice on the other end said before hanging up. With skills learned from ten years on the FBI force, Vegeta replaced the phone on the cradle and stood in one swift motion, stepping over Boomer and reaching for his jacket and keys.
Did they find something on the new case? Had they heard from the kidnapper? The girl had been gone for two weeks with no contact and no new leads. Her parents had almost given up.
Locking the door behind him, Vegeta climbed into his truck and sped to the FBI headquarters. The building was alight with activity, no window was dark. It was hell finding a parking space. When he finally walked in the front doors and flashed his badge, the on-duty gaurds nodded him through.
"Burns's office," they directed him. Of course, Burns had been the one who had called him. What did he want? He never called him at home any more, not in two years. Two. The number two haunted him. There had been them, a family of two, cut down to one. Two years ago.
The elevator beeped as Vegeta stepped in and pressed the sixth floor button. Stupid Burns, getting him all paranoid for no reason. He had though his paranoia had left him when he'd been transferred from the Terrorist unit to the Child Protection unit, but Burns had just brought it back.
Grey carpet, short cut and impossibly clean whispered under the soles of his shoes as he walked down the hall to his boss's office. He'd been there a thousand times, but he could feel something in his gut this time. Something had happened, something big, and it had to do with him.
Vegeta knocked on the door, waiting until Burns answered for him to enter before doing so and closing the door behind him. Burns was old; a heavy, greying man nearing his sixties. He had been on the force nearly fourty years, he had gained his family through the force. His wife had been a translator for the South American Ambassador when they'd met.
"Vegeta," Burns acknowledged, nodding to a seat. He was pasty, looking like he'd seen a ghost. Vegeta knew all about ghosts, but he didn't say anything as he sat. "We were sent a tape, dated two days ago." Vegeta didn't flinch at the two, but knew something was wrong. Two days ago had been the date of his wife's abduction. "We have people studying it and trying to find out who sent it, but I wanted you to know before the media got ahold of it. I know you don't watch the news anymore, but I just wanted you to know first." Burns paused, wiping sweat away from his forehead. How was he supposed to tell him? He had watched over Vegeta since the day he had entered the academy. He had watched the kid grow, had been best friends with his father.
"What is it?" Vegeta asked calmly, trying to settle his raging stomach. His gut was clenched painfully, and he knew the news that was coming was bad. "Is it my mom?"
"No," Burns said. He locked expressive blue eyes with Vegeta's dark ones. "It's my baby girl," he whispered, working the muscles in his jaw to keep for letting the threatening tears spill. His daughter had been thought dead for two years.
"It can't be," Vegeta growled, anger surging through him. Had she been alive for two years? Alive and alone under the cruel tortures of the maniac who had taken her?
"The tape is dated, and she's alive on it," Burns said, hearing the pain in his own voice. He had failed his little girl.
Vegeta didn't say anything as the rage poured through him. He had been through two years of hell, but what about her? What had Cold done to her during that time? Fisting his hand, he roared with rage and slammed his fist through his father-in-law's desk. Burns jumped back in surprise and rubbed his face with worn hands.
"They're examining it in the other room," Burns said, leading an impatient Vegeta out into the hall. Both were quiet, seething, as they stepped into the darkend room. On big screen, tied to a chair, her long, once gorgeous hair matted with mud and hanging in limp tangles around her slender shoulders, she was speaking.
"I don't blame you, any of you. Cold wants his brother let out and given his own car by Friday. He'll kill both of us if you don't cooperate," the broken female voice radiated from the screen. Vegeta snarled silently. She looked horrible, with black smudges under her sunken-in eyes and a bruise on her cheek and mouth. She had been delicate and small before, but now her bones were visible beneath translucent skin.
"He had two hostages?" one of the investigators asked as the screen went blank. The lights flickered on and everyone looked down at their notes.
A memory hit Vegeta. Two years ago, she had called him on his cell phone to tell him something.
"I have great news, love," her musical voice had rang over the phone, filled with happiness. "I'll wait up for you and then I'll tell you." But she had never gotten to tell him, because she'd been gone, stolen, when he'd reached the house.
"She was pregnant," Vegeta rasped, his knees almost giving out. Burns looked at him sharply, grief schooling his features.
"No, he would have killed the baby," a profiler said. "Theres no way he would have let it live. She would have grown big and he would have killed it, if he'd treated her properly, which he didn't. The bloodly clothes were from a miscarrige," she said. Chichi King; the notorious criminal profiler. They had been best friends. The pain was etched in her eyes, her face a mask of nothing, just like Vegeta's.
"She knew about the baby." It was a statement, made from the shadows. "She got away somehow, ran. He found her as she was having the baby, and she told him she'd go willinging if only he'd let her keep him," Goku suggested. Everyone stared at him, amazed at the intelligence he had had to use to come up with this theory.
"Maybe," Burns said reluctanly. Cold was exactly that, cold. Merciless, cruel, enjoying the screams and pain he inflicted on others. He wouldn't have let her keep the baby, not unless he was planning something. "Can we trace the tape? Anything? There has to be a familiar landscape in the background," Burns said, remembering the mountains and trees behind the chair.
"It looks like..." Chichi rewound the tape, pausing to examine the scene. "Beachtree Pass," she said. "Zoom in on the tree on her left," Chichi ordered. Immediately, the tree was filling the screen. Chichi pressed a slender finger to the screen. "VO + BB," she said, turning to Vegeta. Memories flooded Vegeta, threatening to drown him. He had held them back for so long, and now the dam had broken and they tumbled around him, choking him.
"Where I proposed," Vegeta choked out, his voice thin and strangled.
"Then you know where it is?" Burns demanded. "How far is it?" He had turned into a madman, dependant on finding his daughter. He had abandoned her twice now, and he wasn't going to do it again.
"I know where it is," Chichi said, heading for the door, pulling her gun out to check the ammo. Vegeta shook his head and stood, doing the same with his gun as he swept past Chichi and lead the way down the hall.
"We need a warrant," Krillen called from an open door. Vegeta stopped and turned to Krillen, dangerously slow.
"I've waited two years for the moment I get to put a bullett in that bastards head," he said, his voice a dangerous hiss of rage. "I'm not waiting for him to move her and kill her." Vegeta spun away from the shocked man and stalked to the elevator.
"Vegeta, you need to calm down or they're gonna have to restrain you," Burns's objection died away when he saw the drive in Vegeta's eyes. For two years, his only reason for living had been the hope that by some chance it hadn't been real. Now, they had proof she had been alive up to two days ago and he wasn't going to let God stand in the way of his finding her.
"Burns, I do this with or without your help. Either way, I'm gettting her back," Vegeta said. His life had been hell before her. She had been his salvation, and he had let her be taken and tortured. He would not let them have her any longer. He would get her back.
"Come on," Burns said to the unit behind him. "Chichi, get a crew together and tell them where to go. Goku, come with us," Burns directed as the elevator closed. Goku had just squeezed in as the doors had closed.
"I feel so bad." Goku hung his head, his sorrow evident. She had been such a beautiful person, seeing the good in everyone, willing to give anyone a chance.
"Thanks for looking out for her when you did," Burns said akwardly, patting Goku on the shoulder. Burns had had a fling with a younger woman the night he'd been promoted. He'd never even learnt her name, but seventeen years later a girl had come looking for him.
"I've been looking for you," she'd said, understanding in her deep blue eyes. "You are my dad." He'd known as soon as she'd walked in that she was his daughter. The physical coloring had been unmistakable. They had talked for hours, both sharing with the other, building a father-daughter relationship. Then she'd met Vegeta, who had come to see him about something.
She had fallen in love with him the moment he'd walked in the door. She could feel his pain and knew she could help. Nothing had kept her from him, not even his own past demons and pride. She had followed him, stuck to him, and loved him like he was the only thing in the world that had mattered.
Goku had been her foster-brother, looking out for her as an actual older brother would. When he'd found her curled up on the couch with a bucket of ice-cream and tears running down her face, he had gone straight to Vegeta and had a boxing match with him. As soon as she had turned eighteen, they had married.
The couple had been coming up on their first wedding anniversary when she'd been abducted. Her twenty-first birthday loomed near, making Burns's throat tighten and his heart swell. She was still alive. His baby girl was still alive out there somewhere.
"She was always the first to break up a fight, unless it was between her and someone who'd tried to take something close to her away," Goku remembered, his voice breaking as a tear formed in the corner of his eye. Bulma had been the only family he'd ever had, and now, after being gone for two years, she was back from the dead.
"I know," Burns said, lowering his own eyes as they filled with tears. He had only had three years with his beloved daughter, and now that she had been revealed as alive, there was no way he could let her slip through his fingers.