No answer.

“Bra!!”

Still no answer.

“Bra! Would you get your butt down here already! We have to go!” Bulma shouts as she gets ready to get into the car. She wipes a small bead of sweat just above her brow. The humidity was horrible that day. She only wondered when this heat wave would be over and how long she had to wait for her daughter.

“Bra!!!”

“Just a minute mom. I’m coming down, wait in the car!”

Bulma sighed and got into the car. She put on the AC as high as it could go and savored the cool blast of the air. Bulma looked into the rearview mirror to see her reflection. “Well hello there Bulma you ol’ girl, you look a good as ever!” She said to herself sarcastically. Bulma brushed away loose strands of her aqua colored hair away from her face. Streaks of gray started appearing a few years ago. Age was finally starting to come after her. Even though she was in her 60’s, she didn’t look it, at least to everyone else’s eye’s. To her own, she saw an old lady. She even had a few wrinkles near her eye’s. Frowning she turned away from the mirror. The past few years, she started to age a little faster. It was only a few years ago when someone would say she looked 30 at most. Not only that, Vegeta had to still look like the first time she saw him. ‘Doesn’t that man ever age?’, she thought as she looked out to the house to see her daughter jogging to the car.

Bra looked exactly like Bulma did when she was her age. An exact replica. If saiya-jin genes had effected her aging in any way, she would remain good looking for a longer time than her. She could say that she was a bit jealous of that fact, but there wasn’t anything that she could do about it. With no dragonballs left, there was no way she could wish for her youth back. She would just have to die the old fashioned way. Old age.

“Hi mom, I’m ready. Lets go!” Bra said as she stepped into the car. Bulma woke from her thoughts and looked back at her daughter. “So, what took you so long?”

Bra gave her mother the ever so cute smile that usually makes everyone forgive her. ‘Oh no, that’s not going to work for me. For her father maybe, but not for me,’ Bulma thought as she eyed Bra. Bra realized this but didn’t stop smiling. “I just had to finish a few calls, and get a few more things capsulized, that’s all.”

“Oh, and who did you call? You could of just called when you got to the college or by the car phone.” Bulma said as the car pulled out of the driveway, into the street.

“I wanted to call Pan. We were deciding where to meet.”

“And you couldn’t call in the car? Your both going to the same college, and you both had plenty of time to decide where to meet. You don’t have to wait until the last day.”

“Oh mom...”

“Oh mom? Oh mom? Bra, your already an adult, start behaving like one. Why, when I was your age...”

“You were acting the same way as me, weren’t you?”

“....”

“Right... anyway it doesn’t matter. I’m here and that matters....Take the highway mom, its faster.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s where I was headed for.” Bulma snapped. Bra turned her head to the window and smirked. ‘Touchy, touchy,’ she thought. For the next half hour none of them spoke, only the occasional changing the station routine. During that time Bulma’s thoughts were around the subject ‘my baby girl is going to college,’ and ‘soon she won’t need me anymore,’ and ‘I hope she’ll be all right’. Bra on the other hand was thinking more along the lines of ‘Wow, I’m really going to college. No more curfews, no more nagging,’ and ‘I hope mom can take care of herself while I’m gone.’

“So how is Pan? I haven’t seen her for a while.” Bulma said, breaking the silence.

“Pan? She’s doing fine. You’ll see her when we get to the campus. How much longer till we get there anyway?”

“Hmmm, I think about another half hour.”

“Oh, okay.”

Meanwhile, in the opposite direction.

“Hey dad, how much longer?”

Gohan made an irritated face and looked at Pan. “That’s the twentieth time you asked that. This is the last time I’m telling you. We’ll be there soon.”

“Oh.”

Pan looked out the open window on her side. Strands on her straight black hair, loose from her ponytail fly in the wind. Sure the AC was great, but feeling the wind on her face reminded her of flying, therefore it was better. She closed her eyes and wish that she could fly to college, and not take a car there. It wasn’t fair. Why was flying restricted, it wasn’t like most people didn’t know about flying. It didn’t matter. When she got to the campus, she’ll fly all she wants and nobody will stop her. Grandma never stopped her from flying around, as long it was near the house. Grandma. Pan sighed as she thought about Chi-Chi. ‘I hope she’ll be all right now that I’m leaving for college. She hasn’t been the same since grandpa left,’ Pan thought, and thought back as remembered hearing ChiChi cry in the middle of the night, holding a picture of the whole family. As much as Pan loved her Grandfather, she hated him the same amount for doing this to his family, and most importantly, to grandma. She didn’t think she could ever forgive him for doing that.

Pan spied her father eyeing her with the corner of her eye. She wondered, for that brief second, if he actually knew what she was thinking. She dismissed that thought and smiled at her father. Smiling back he turned his eyes back to the road. In the distance, she could already see the campus. She knew that she arrived before Bra, now she had to figure what to do in that time. Her thoughts went back to grandma. ‘Well, at least we got junior to lift her spirit.’ She thought and smiled at the thought. Her clever brother was named after her grandpa Goku, but everyone called him junior, especially around Chi-Chi. She didn’t need reminders of her dead husband. Junior was still practically a baby, but clever with a good sense of humor and looked exactly like dad when he was a baby.

‘He’ll take care of her without me around. He loves her as much as me. I just hope Grandma isn’t too upset with me leaving.’ Pan thought, turning her eyes back to the road.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Huh!? What was that?” Pan exclaimed, as she turned to her father, wide-eyed. ‘So he can hear my thoughts!!’

“You must have sighed a hundred times, and you were frowning practically the whole time on the way here. You’re usually a little more happy than that. What’s bugging you to keep you in a mood like that?”

“Oh nothing. I just thought...”

“Thought what? About school? What?”

“Oh nothing dad. I was only thinking about things. It doesn’t matter anyway.”

Gohan gave his daughter a skeptical look, lightly shook head, smirked and looked back on the road. ‘Great, I’m a great parent,’ Gohan thought sarcastically, ‘my own kid doesn’t want to talk about her problems. Although, I think I know what its about...’

Gohan pulled into the campus parking lot. “Well, we’re here. Where are you suppose to meet Bra?”

“In the diner, a few blocks from the campus. We wanted to get something to eat before we sign in. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Nope, I don’t mind. I’m feeling hungry myself. Lets go wait for them in the diner. They should be there soon, I guess.”

Gohan and Pan left to go to the diner while, only 15 minutes away, Bulma and Bra were arguing which station should be left on.

“This station is better mom!! No one listens to the stuff that you listen to anymore!!”

“What are you saying!!?!? That I’m so old that no one listens to my type of music anymore?! What about you!? Your generation of music doesn’t even make any sense!! I’ll listen to my kind of music on the way there, and you will listen to whatever music you want in the dorm!!! Got it?!?”

“Come on mom! Its not like you can’t listen to this type of music on the way back...”

“Its my car, so I’ll listen to whatever I want to, and you can’t stop me, end of story.”

“Fine. I don’t want to argue about this anymore.”

“Fine, no problem.”

Bra looked out the window and saw the campus ahead of them. After a few moments she finally spoke, “Mom, there is supposed to be a diner that I’m supposed to meet Pan. Lets go there first. Its a few blocks from the campus, kay?”

“Fine. Do you think that Gohan is with her, or do you think he left?”

“I dunno? He is probably hungry, so he is probably in there with her. Pull up there mom. That’s the diner.”

Bulma pulled up the car in front of the diner. After capsulizing it, she and Bra entered the diner and scanned the area for their friends. In the corner of the diner sat Pan and Gohan. “Hey guys! Over here,” Pan called out. Bra ran to Pan and gave her a hug. “Hi Pan. Hi Gohan. Hope you didn’t wait too long for us.”

“Nah. We just got here not to long ago. We were about to order, so you want something?”

“Sure I’m starved. Mom? How about you?”

“Sure. Maybe just a salad, I’m not that hungry, although, I figure that you two are starved. Am I right?”

“Yeah. I just hope that they have enough food out for all of us.” joked Gohan as he reached for the menus.

After they had their lunch, Gohan and Bulma walked the girls to their dorms to put down all their stuff. They said their good-byes and promises to call each other and visit frequently. When they left, Bra and Pan went to their respected beds and looked at each other. “So,” Bra started, “Do you think that they will be all right without us?”

Pan looked at her best friend and said, “I don’t know. I just don’t know. Without us watching over them, who knows? They should be okay... I hope.”

“Yeah, me too.”