Epilogue
Always In My Heart:
the end to an epic love story

 

Vejita looked up as he heard a low humming. The porter skipped out from his office, plopping his head with one hand and with the other looking over the day's train itenary. He glanced up, noticing there was another person on the platform. He nodded politely.

" 'Morning, sir." Vejita nodded back at him.

"Same to you," Vejita replied.

"Where to today?" the man asked with mild curiousity, his eyes still perusing the paper in his hand.

"California." The porter did a doubletake. He whistled low.

"That's a long way from here," he commented.

"Thirteen days."

"There abouts," the porter said thoughtfully. "The train should be arriving any moment, sir. Is there anything I can get you?"

"Not unless you can make it get here faster," Vejita joked drily. The porter chuckled.

"In a hurry, eh? You going home?"

"You could say that." The porter sat down on the bench beside Vejita as Vejita cleared the bench of his things. They talked the time away unless the train was scheduled to arrive, their low voices echoing across the empty platform.

 

The heavy engine announced its arriving long before it came into view. Vejita slung his duffel bag over his shoulder. The train groaned to a stop, seeming to sag with weariness and then expelled a gush of hot steam. Both Vejita and the porter coughed.

"The train will need about ten minutes to rest, but you're welcome to wait inside." Vejita nodded and headed towards the lodging car with the porter, who took and clipped his ticket. Vejita looked over his shoulder at the misty platform one last time before ascending the stairs. He only got half way when the porter put a hand on his shoulder, causing him to stop.

"Mister, I think you left something behind," the porter said. Vejita looked over his person quizzically. He didn't seem to be missing anything... Vejita sighed and backed down the stairs. He turned around, his eyes remained neutral though they saw another person now standing on the platform in a large fur coat and missing her shoes.

"You were late," he said, finally breaking the silence.

"A woman is never on time. You should know that," she replied slyly.

"You're missing your shoes," he said wryly, looking down at her stockinged feet.

"I decided I didn't really care for them." Another length of silence passed over the platform as the porter's eyes shifted from the tall black-haired man to the petite blue-haired woman without shoes. He decided to do something about it.

"Is this her? The woman you told me about?" Bulma's eyes widened as she finally looked at the porter. Vejita grunted and looked away.

"You look just a beautiful as he said you were. But you might want to go inside to warm up, you could catch a cold out here like that," the porter said emphatically.

"Well, I---"

"She doesn't have a ticket," Vejita said, his eyes narrow. Vejita's eyes bore into Bulma's large blue ones. And try as she might she could not look away.

She had come this far and for what? To back down? It that really why she had come, to tell Vejita that she did not want to leave with him? Bulma shuddered though it was blazing hot beneath her coat. No... But the way he stared at her intimidated her. Yes, she was scared that he would be mad at her---hate her for not showing up at the church. Yet here she was, and some part of her knew that if it came down to it, she would beg his forgiveness.

Bulma began, "I came... for... to..."

"Such eloquence," Vejita said snidely. Bulma narrowed her eyes.

"I came to leave with you, you big dope!" she shouted at him from her distance. "And you tell you that you're stuck with me because I'm never going away! EVER!" Vejita's eyes widened in surprise, his jaw hanging slightly ajar. The porter nodded.

"She's just as fiery as you said too." Bulma glared at him, breathing hard, half with excitement and half with fear.

"Well?" Vejita dropped his bag by his feet, walking towards her. Bulma was least expecting his reaction.

He held her head behind his hands tightly, pulling her to him, then crushing her lips to his. Bulma squeaked in surprise, raising her hands in the air. Then slowly she eased into his kiss, pushing forward of her own will and winding her hands through his to cup him face tightly.

The porter chuckled lightly. "Guess we'll be needing another ticket."

The lovers stood enveloped in the haze of the early morning as well as enveloped in each's other arms. The clock struck one from high above them and the train echoed a whistle. The conductor stuck his head out the window.

"ALL ABOARD!" he shouted, his voice echoing in the dark. Two lovers, destined to be, walked hand and hand towards the train and disappeared inside moments before the train rolled out of the station and into the vast unknown of the great United States.

 

The porter grinned as he leaned back in his chair situated in his office. The miracles of life continued to astound him to this day, he shook his head. He nodded as the other porters arrived to relieve him from graveyard shift.

"Hey, Mack! Can you turn that up?" one of them called from down the platform. He obliged by turning the knob on the radio. 'I think it's going to be a wonderful day,' he thought to himself as he exited the booth. Lightly he waltzed through the fast disappearing mist, twirling this way and that with an imaginary partner. A few of the porters stopped what they were doing and laughed and clapped. The porter grinned and waltzed off the platform into the darkness of the early morning.

 

We may never never never never meet again on the bumpy road to love...
Still I'll always always keep the memory of...
The way you hold your knife...
The way we danced till three...
The way you changed my life...

No, no, they can't take that away from me...
No, they can't take that away from me...

 

END

 

thank you all for bearing with me through this. i'd really like your input in this if you would be kind as to email me or something. ^_~ i put a lot of time and effort into this with research. god knows how much research. so many ideas dropped for new ideas and i think this is the way i wanted it to come out. all music is from ella fitzgerald and louis armstrong, jazz singers of the 20's and 30's. i'm proud of this... LEMON-FREE, tasteful, and beautiful. at least, that's what i think.

thank yous:

(again) Bunni Girl

Saiyan Butterfly aka Brandy for her continuing support as well

Android Sephiroth who so graciously donated his beta-ing services. grassy-ass, amigo.

Organic Power who also graciously offered to beta (domo arigatou, mr. robotto)

if i forgot anyone, i'm sorry! i will be back with fiction in a month because i'm taking a reprieve trip to japan to rejuvenate myself and visit relatives. first up, 'Boy' will be finished and a new fic, 'The House of Cards' both B/V

thanks to everyone who ever read, reviewed, or contacted me in some way. your thoughts are too kind. i wrote this for my faithful readers! again, thanks.

revolution "rev" kurame

 


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