It is not yet dawn when I awake.  The sky has just begun to lighten in the east, and the stars still shine brightly down on us from the other horizon.  The fire that warmed us through the night is no more than glowing embers.

Goten is still asleep.

His face is peaceful and relaxed in repose.  It does not show the cares and worries he should bear - for we are now cast adrift on an ocean of vast possibilities.  We are alone, separated from our own dimension by an instrument of my devising.  One that cannot return us to our home.

He should hate me for that.  He should hate me for a lot of things - but he does not.  At least, he says he does not.  I hope he does not.

But he really should.

Last night he said he forgave me.  As simple as that.  Three words, and my actions of the past three years are reduced to naught in his eyes.  All the pain and suffering I have caused, all the deaths - his own mother, even!

He does not believe that I killed her.  It may be that he is right.  Maybe I was not the one who forced her car into the path of that truck.  But I cannot help feeling...

And the others:  Piccolo, Dende, Yamucha, Juunanagou...  So many that I can name - far, far more that I cannot - they are all dead, and by my hand.  My intentions in the matter cannot alter the facts.  I killed them.  I cannot remember doing so, but I know I killed them.  It has taken me so long to accept this truth, but now that I have I find that I cannot dislodge it from my mind.

Now I must sit and piece together the broken fragments of memory that I have tried so hard to suppress.

Otousan.  He was the first, although I have little doubt that Piccolo and Dende followed him within an instant...  And Mr Popo with them.  I can recall my anger at my father building - he was going to kill Goten! - and its release was coupled with the largest single burst of power I had ever been able to achieve.

I did not think that it would be powerful enough to hurt Otousan, much less shatter the confinements of the Room of Spirit and Time...  I did not think it would be enough to kill.  But it did.

I had never thought of myself as a warrior.  Not since my mother died.  Warriors were people like my father: those with both the skill and the power to force whole worlds to cower before them.  Saiyajin warriors, at any rate.  That is what I spent my youth aiming to be.  Strong, powerful, skilled...  just like my father.  I fell far short of my target.

So why was I able to overcome my father?  I do not know.  But he is dead.  There is little point in disputing that.

I do not recall what happened after that.  Perhaps that was the very first time I lost control.  My only memory is of landing rather harshly just outside Goten's front door.  The rest is nothing more than an incomprehensible tangle of anger, pain, and fear, wrapped around scattered thoughts of Otousan and Goten.

Goten.

I watch his chest slowly rise and fall with each breath.  It was for him that I manifested such a substantial amount of ki - power that cost the lives of my father and three innocents.  Does he realize this?  I can only hope he does not, that he will never find out.  He would feel that it was his fault, somehow...  But it was not.  The fault is mine, entirely.

I should have trained harder, I should have learned to control my power more minutely.  I failed to see my true potential.  If I had, I would have seen that I was indeed capable of achieving at least some of what my father strove to obtain from me.  I should not have given up so easily.  But I did.

I failed my father.  I failed Goten.  My father is dead as a consequence, and Goten - is in exile.

He has given up so much for me.  He shouldn't have.  He should have stayed safe in his own dimension, away from me, away from the death and destruction that I cause.  Instead he is here with me, facing the uncertainty of where to go, what to do next...

He should not have come with me.  He has a brother, a family back in our world who love him, and will miss him...  Unlike me...

He should have let me die.  Why won't he let me die?  He stopped me two years ago...

When I first associated the gaps in my memory with the disappearance of the towns, and other acts of random violence, I spent three months trying to kill myself.  I slit my wrists,  I tried poison, I tried hanging myself.  Seven attempts.  He found me every single time, caring for my wounds and staying by my bedside until he was sure I would not try to do myself in again.

The last time, he held a knife to his own wrist and swore that if I killed myself, he would too.  I could not let that happen - but as he pointed out, if I was dead, there would be no-one left able to stop him.  Not even Gohan.  You can't keep watch over someone for twenty-four hours a day by yourself.  Although Goten did a pretty good job with me... Too good...

I wonder if that is why he used the dimensional transporter, after I had told him of its limitations...  Were they trying to kill me then?  My alternate father, and Goten's?  Had I been threatening Bra?  If so, Goten should have left me to my fate rather than use the unfinished transporter.

The transporter.  Yet another reminder of death.  I must make another one if we are not to be left stranded if that one is broken; but to do so - to do so requires the use of a lab with technology on par with the one I was accustomed to using, and one very special component.

Juunanagou's brain.  The cybernetic part, anyway.  I was incapable of building anything that came even close to matching its efficiency when it came to manipulating the frequency drivers that determined the destination for transportation.  It is an integral part of the transporter, and I cannot replace it.

Except with another compatible cyborg brain.

I wonder what Goten will make of that...  I doubt he will be happy about it.  Perhaps if we find a world like Mirai no Trunks', where Juunanagou and Juuhachigou are on a world destroying rampage...

My, does that sound familiar.

Except I should have known better.  I did not have the excuse of having no human memories, of not knowing what it felt like to love and be loved, of being denied independence by a maniacal mad scientist.

So why did I do it?  Why did I become what I so despised?

I do not know.  I cannot remember.  I do not want to remember.  But I must.

If I do not know why, I will be unable to control my powers - and that makes me a danger to all those around me.  A danger to Goten.

I will not give up, this time, for Goten's sake - and for my own.  Goten is all that remains of my world, now; he is the only thing that binds me.  If anything were to happen to him there would be no point in my continued existence.  But if I were the cause...

I cannot bear to think about it.  He does not deserve it.  He does not deserve any of it.

I glance across to where he lies, still sleeping peacefully.  Soon the sun will rise, and with it the first day of our exile will begin.  Perhaps I will be able to make a fresh start in one of the worlds we may encounter.  I think that that is what Goten will want, when he tires of roving the dimensions like the homeless wanderers we have become.  The new day will bring with it new beginnings.

But it is not yet dawn, and here under the fading light of the stars I must remember...

I must try...