Finally, time came to remove the casts. Everyone was ready for them to be off; including Trunks, who had at first enjoyed the little hell Kage had lived in.

I wondered if once they were removed he would go back to his old self. I doubted that would be the case, since the ride to the hospital was eerily silent on his part.

"Are your feet going to be normal now?" Trunks asked. He wasn't being condescending, or patronizing in any way, but Kage seemed to think he was.

"Bite me." He spat bitterly.

"Hey," Bulma called over her shoulder. "Behave yourselves."

They were quiet for a moment, before Trunks said, "Are you finally going to be able to walk in a straight line?"

"I'll kill you," the runt promised dangerously.

"You'll kill me?" he scoffed. "You couldn't kill anything."

I hear him sigh, and then all of a sudden, the back seat erupted into chaos.

I turned just in time to see Kage leap onto him, casts or not, and wrap his hands around Trunk's throat. Bra began to scream, demanding that they stop.

At first I didn't think he would actually hurt him, but after a few moments I realized he intended to do just as he said.

The woman yelled at me to stop them.

"Why?" I asked, cocking my head. "This is Darwinism at work. Only the strong survive. Whichever lives will go on to pass their genes-"

"Now!" She cried.

I frowned at being interrupted and then climbed into the back seat to pry them apart. I slammed them both against either side of the doors and then sat down between them. "How old are you?" I demanded of them both.

They didn't respond.

"Can't you just leave each other alone?"

"He started it!" Kage insisted. He folded his arms across his chest in frustration. "If he would just shut the hell up every once in a while, then maybe he could learn to not be such an ass!"

"Hey!" Bulma cried again.

"Well if he wasn't such a freak maybe I wouldn't need to point out all his God-damned flaws all the time!" Trunks hollered.

"Stop it!" The woman said, trying to get their attention.

"So I'm a freak, huh? At least I can appreciate what I have, you spoil little brat!"

"I'm a brat?" Trunks asked, getting louder, "What about you? You waltz in here, take everything from me, and then don't even apologize! Everything you have you stole from me because no one wanted you in the first place!"

Silence. No one said anything for several moments.

This was one of those awkward moments where nothing that can be said will make it any better.

I tried to think of anything to cut the tension, but there was nothing I could do. The damage was done, and now everything hung in the balance.

"Trunks," Bulma began.

"Pull over." He demanded.

She hesitated, and then did so.

He opened the door and stepped out. He didn't say anything, just took off into the air.

"Aren't you going to go after him?" She asked me.

I stared at her. "I think I'd make it worse."

She nodded, "Honey, you know he didn't mean that."

No response.

I glanced at him. He had a deep frown plastered on his face. At first I thought he might cry, or explode, but he just sat there.

We went into the hospital. We went inside silently, all of us glancing at the runt periodically.

The doctor came in all cherry, like doctors are supposed to, and was met with such a thick tension it practically slapped her in the face. "Let's get these casts off," She murmured and put on a pair of goggles.

She took an electric saw and cut the casts from his legs. The process took a long while. The whole time, he simply watched, saying nothing, with a look of deep contemplation on his face.

She sat back and removed her goggles. "There you go," She smiled at him. He did not return it. "It's going to be hard to walk at first, but after you get the hang of it again, you should be fine. Look how straight they are."

They were much straighter. Before they bowed out so far, his knees came out further than his hips. Now they at least resembled normal legs.

They were really small too; not that he'd had much muscle mass before; but now they were next to nothing. The muscle had become so weak, when he did try to stand; they immediately gave out on him and he crashed to the floor.

He crawled towards the wall and used it to push himself back up. His legs wobbled, like that of a baby's. He walked with the support of the wall to the door.

"Where are you going?" Bulma asked.

"Somewhere where no one cares if I'm a freak." He said sarcastically and opened the door. He crossed the hall, and fell once more.

He was pathetic to watch. I didn't like to be pitied, and I doubted he did either, but watching him was like watching a baby deer look for its mother who'd just been hit by a car.

It took him longer this time to get back up. It took everything he had just take a few more steps before he collapsed again.

Finally, I couldn't watch him any more. I picked him up off the floor and started for the car.

Bulma and Bra stayed behind to fill out the paper work.

In the car, he finally fell apart. "Why would he say that?" he demanded in Saiyan, "Why did he need to say that?"

I shrugged. "He's at that point in life where he wants to blame everyone else for his problems. He'll grow out of it."

He shook his head furiously. "He doesn't even know how good he has it!"

"I know."

"He doesn't even know how many different forms of hell there are! He's never had to live a hard day in his life! He's never had to worry about anything! He'll never know what it's like to be so poor that you're willing to do anything for a meal!" He slammed his hand against the dash board, cracking it. "He's never had to wake up to the sound of a ship taking off with your entire life!"

Kage had always been slow to anger. In the time I've known him, I'd only seen him this truly upset once, and that had been out of panic. Now, he was like a totally different person.

He sat there sobbing for a moment, purging all his emotions at once. "A freak," he suddenly spat. "Where does he get off?" He paused for a long while. "He's right though."

I glanced at him, cocking my head. "About what?"

He shrugged as if to make light of the statement. "About no one wanting me."

My eyebrow rose. "The woman wants you. And her parents, and Bra. And Trunks too, even though he won't say so." I stopped suddenly. "And… me."

His eyes met mine, and then fell to his legs again. "I don't know… what's wrong with me." He thought about this for a moment, attempted to rephrase it, and then just left it alone.

"How do you mean?"

He scratched his knee and then leaned back in the passenger seat. "I don't know. There has to be some reason people don't like me."

I snorted. "People don't like me either; but I don't dwell over why they don't."

He nodded. "I know I shouldn't care; that it's easier if you don't care; but I don't think I'll ever be able to get over it. I'm just going to keep asking myself, 'Why did he leave me? What about me is so intolerable?' You know?"

He was talking about his father. From what I understood, his father was a soldier, who shouldn't have had children to begin with. So he abandoned the kid, his son, on the first planet that seemed relatively safe.

I pulled the lever to make my seat go back and stared up at the ceiling. "Even though you piss me off, you're pretty tolerable."

He shook his head. "Obviously not, since I was dumped." He leaned his seat back as well.

"Well, I don't care what you're father thought. You're a good kid."

"Thanks." He paused. "You're a good Da."

My door suddenly opened. The woman stood there with a look of concern on her face. Bra was at her side. She looked from me to Kage. "You alright, sweetie?"

"Yeah." He replied. "I'm sorry for trying to kill Trunks earlier." He paused. "And I'm sorry for being such a brat the past few weeks." He climbed into the back as I circled around to the passenger seat.

She shook her head. "You handled it better than any of us would have, I'm sure. There's no reason to apologize." She paused to start the car. "Just don't try and kill Trunks anymore."

"Even if I never learn to be normal," he started, "I wouldn't want to be a freak around anyone else but you guys."

"And me?" Bra asked hopefully.

"And you."

Bulma glanced at me. "If you were expecting to learn to be normal from us, you have extremely poor judgment skills. We just barely function in society."

By the time we got home, Trunks was already sitting there on the front steps, waiting. He stood up when I came by with the runt in my arms.

"I wanted to say…" he began and then stopped. He face contorted, and then he took a deep sigh, looking down at the ground. "I wanted to say that I didn't mean… what I said. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too." Kage replied. "I still hate you though."

Trunks gave him a look of surprise and incomprehension.

"We're brothers, right? We're supposed to hate each other; until we're old and don't care anymore, right?"

He blinked and then smiled. "Sure. I hate you too."

They didn't hug, because they were men (or something like that), but they did touch their knuckles together lightly. It was there way of kissing and making up, I suppose.