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part: 2, ch 1
Piccolo opened his eyes when Gohan's words trailed off. Something about the story bothered him, but he ignored it in favor of Gohan. The boy had his head down; recently shortened bangs still long enough to hide his eyes. He played gently with his brother's hair, a motion that was probably soothing to both of them. Unsure, Piccolo placed a large hand on Gohan's knee, not entirely surprised to feel it slightly trembling under his touch. "Thank you for telling me, Gohan," he said somberly, "I'm sorry you had to go through that. I don't know how I can help, but I want you to know that I will always be here for you. Whatever you need, you just let me know." He squeezed Gohan's knee reassuringly. Not looking up, Gohan slowly leaned forward until his forehead came to rest on Piccolo's white-clad shoulder. He cried quietly, his hitching breath the only sound. Piccolo patted his back silently, just letting him get it all out. A part of him wanted (to) snap at Gohan to knock it off, to act like a warrior. It wasn't like he hadn't lost a parent before, after all, and he'd always meet her again in the afterlife. But Piccolo forcefully repressed the urge. The boy had done so much for this world and the effort had cost him greatly. He more than deserved the comfort. Eventually, Gohan's shaking stilled. He rested there for awhile, a warm, damp weight. Piccolo hardly minded. Gohan pulled back after a while, sniffling and wiping his face on his sleeve. With a quick concentration of energy Piccolo produced a handkerchief and passed it too him. "Thank you, Piccolo-san," Gohan said softly, blowing his nose, "Thank you," this time with more feeling and a shaky smile. In that moment, Gohan looked very young. Piccolo nodded. "Is there anything else you need right now?" "Could you...could you get some things from the house for me? I can't...go back there." Piccolo readily agreed and listened carefully to Gohan's list. He noticed how worn out his student was, dark rings forming under obsidian eyes. "You need your rest," he said, soon as Gohan had finished. He stood in a single fluid motion and rested his hand warmly on Gohan's small shoulder. "Yeah," Gohan sighed, drudging up another sad smile, "Bulma-san set up a room for me. I'll go in a minute." Piccolo nodded again and turned to leave. "The Dragonballs..." Gohan blurted out sharply. Piccolo halted, looking back over his shoulder. There was a desperate hope in Gohan's eyes, a hope that faded quickly under Piccolo's solemn gaze. Silence stretched between them, neither willing to say or respond to the unspoken question. Finally, Gohan looked down. "They wouldn't work," he said flatly. "You can't bring back those who don't want to live," Piccolo confirmed, "Not even Shenron has that power." "Yeah," Gohan said. He sniffed wetly and stood, carefully supporting Goten with both arms. "I'm going to go sleep now." Piccolo grunted in encouragement and stepped aside to allow Gohan to precede him to the door. "Isn't Goten supposed to stay in here?" Piccolo asked when Gohan made no move to relinquish his brother. Piccolo eyed the contents of the cluttered nursery warily. Was all this stuff really necessary? If so, human babies were far more difficult to take care of than he ever thought. Gohan was shaking his head. "I want him with me." They walked out into the curving corridor, rich golden light spilling in from one of the many windows. It hadn't taken Gohan very long to tell his story; less than an hour. No more words passed between them as Piccolo followed Gohan to one of the other rooms. The Namekjin watched Gohan curl up on the room's large bed, enfolding baby Goten in the protective curve of his body. The demi-saiyajin fell almost instantly into sleep. Satisfied, Piccolo pulled the door closed and went searching for the nearest exit. He'd made his way down to the first floor and was trying to decide whether to turn left or right or just blow a hole into the nearest wall and escape that way, when Bulma found him. "Piccolo, you're leaving?" she demanded, not at all intimidated by his thunderous frown, "Aren't you going to stay with Gohan?" Her tone was faintly accusatory as she placed slim hands on her round hips. She was alone, which meant Trunks was either still with Vegeta or had been handed off to someone else. "He asked me to collect his belongings," Piccolo said, gruffly, "From his house." Bulma's stance relaxed instantly, her expression pained. "Better you than me," she admitted, folding her arms against her chest protectively, "I was just about to call someone to go tend to the. . .Chichi's body." "Wait until after I'm done," Piccolo requested, "I don't want to have to deal with some panicky humans wondering what I'm doing in a dead woman's house." Bulma winced at his bluntness, but nodded. "Kurirrin called earlier. I asked him to have Master Roshi tell the Ox King what happened. I figured it would be better for him to get the news from his old Master. And Yamcha's coming over." She paused and then, in a softer tone, said "How's Gohan?" Piccolo shrugged. "Asleep." Which was the most truthful and utterly useless statement he could come up with. The dirty look Bulma threw him told him she knew it too. "How do I get out of this rabbit warren?" he demanded to distract Bulma from whatever other pointless information she felt like imparting. Bulma rolled her eyes. "Men. Come on, I'll show you." _____________ The sun was just touching the distant hills when Piccolo landed outside the Son's small, dome shaped house. The front door hung open, half-ripped off its hinges. Piccolo looked at it a while, the cooling breeze tugging and swirling his cape, before he walked inside. The interior was as neat and clean as he remembered from his few visits, every dust free surface and corner showing the signs of a competent housekeeper. More familiar with the unbound wildness of nature and the comfortable disorder of the Lookout, Piccolo found the extreme organization slightly disconcerting. After not seeing anything Gohan asked for in the kitchen or living room, he resigned himself to going into the bedroom. With the body. Well, at least it wasn't decayed enough to really start reeking. Gohan's room was easy to find and not just because the house was small. Piccolo's nose wasn't anywhere near as sensitive as a Saiyajin's, but he could easily pick up the rotting metal smell of aging blood and the fouler taint of spilt bowls even before he stepped through the doorway. He looked down at Chichi's coiled body with a disgust that had nothing to do with the smell or the sight of blood. Self-sacrifice was one thing; this was just vile. Snorting in contempt, he gave the small form a wide berth and began collecting random items from around the place, tossing them into a pile on the bed. A couple things he wasn't able to find, but that didn't worry him too much. He checked over what he did have, comparing it to the list in his head, and decided it was sufficient. Conjuring up a bag, he stacked Gohan's things inside, shouldered it and started to leave. On his way out, he spared the corpse one last glance. . . Piccolo stopped and stood staring for a while. Then, he turned back to the various shelves lining the walls and pulled out a few more books. Gohan hadn't ask for them, but Piccolo knew he liked them from previous conversations. He picked up some pictures too; they were everywhere so Gohan had to be fond of them, and a few more baby toys. Clothing wasn't an issue. Piccolo could always provide Gohan with more if Bulma didn't. He left the dresser and closet untouched. Everything else was added to the sack. There was no point in bothering with the front door; he simply charged out through the ceiling, uncaring of the plaster and wood dust that coated him. Soon as he was high enough in the air, he twisted around, palm outstretched. "Special Beam Cannon!" The attack made quick work of the cozy little house Gohan had grown up in. If Goku ever decided to come back to life, he was going to be more than a little miffed. Piccolo continued to fire ki blasts, his expression unreadable, until all that remained where several blackened, debris littered craters. Everything of Gohan's past had been turned into so many carbon particles. Good. In a flare of white, Piccolo spun from the destruction and flew back to Capsule Corp. ____________________ Full night had fallen before Vegeta listened to the demands of his body and brought his training for the day to a close. He finished up his final forms and went to power down the gravity room with fingers that trembled from fatigue. But it was a good kind of fatigue; the product of energy well spent. The omnipresent hum of the generators went quiet in stages as the machines slowly cut off. Vegeta did a few stretches as the gravity dropped to keep his muscles from cramping. A slight, pleased smirk rose to his lips. He had improved today, had been improving in the months since the battle with Cell. Kakarotto was going to get quite a shock when they met up again. Vegeta didn't particularly care when or where that would be; he'd be just as happy to kick Kakarotto's ass in hell---or wherever the idiot hung out while dead----as on Chikyu-sei. It was only a matter of time. His stomach took the chance to remind him of how long it had been since his last meal. Grabbing a towel for his shoulders, Vegeta made his way straight to the kitchen. Around him, the massive complex settled into its nightly routine, buildings empty, hallways dark and closed up until tomorrow. Lights flicked on in response to his passage and went off soon as he was out of range. Capsule Corp was never completely quiet. Even in the dead of night, there was always something happening. Some robot performing its programmed duties or Mr. Briefs pulling an overnighter to finish his most recent project. Bulma, he knew, got her best ideas at around three o'clock in the morning. More than once he'd found himself taking a header to the floor; shoved out of bed in her mad scramble to record an idea before it went away again. And she wondered why he didn't spend the night with her unless they'd been fucking. Idiot woman. Speaking of Bulma. . .Vegeta could hear her voice coming from the kitchen, accompanied by a deeper male voice. He hesitated. Vegeta didn't feel very sociable at the best times and this wasn't one of them. Normally he could go raid the mess hall the workers used, but that was shut down for the night. And his last attempt at hunting within the city limits had ended badly. (How the hell was he supposed to know those animals were someone's property? Like he knew what 'dog tags' were.) There was no help for it; if he wanted to eat, he was going to have to go in there. With a sigh of defeat, he entered the brightly-lit room. "So, the mighty prince finally crawls out of his cave," chimed Bulma teasingly. She sat at the table across from her old lover, Yamcha. "Have a good workout?" Vegeta snorted at her and stalked across the cold tiles to the industrial sized refrigerator. "How's it going, Vegeta?" Yamcha asked, more out of politeness than actual interest, with that touch of nervousness that the Saiyajin's presence never failed to inspire in him. Vegeta shared his amusement with the inside of the fridge. Ah, the joy of intimidating those weaker than yourself. "Fine," he answered the both of them, in the midst of stacking foodstuffs on the counter. He liked that word; fine. Meant next to nothing as far as he could tell, yet the humans found it a satisfying response and generally shut up upon receiving it. Perfect. It worked this time too, though Bulma sounded thoroughly disgusted with him as she resumed her conversation with Yamcha. Vegeta half-listened to them as he prepared a series of sandwiches. The primary subject seemed to be Kakarotto's brats and where they were going to live now that their mother had done the world a favor and taken herself out of it. Piccolo, it seemed, had apparently taken it into his head to turn the Son residence into a hole in the ground. Vegeta snickered wickedly at that, trying to envision Kakarotto's face if/when he got the news. Vegeta hoped he'd be the one to pass on that little tidbit. Sucked to be them. Vegeta finished putting together his dinner and was about to haul it up to his rooms for some privacy, when Yamcha announced he was ready to turn in for the night. Bulma offered to accompany him and they left Vegeta in blessed solitude. He transferred his meal to the table, added a couple of beers to wash it down, and began to tuck in. He thought about fighting as he ate; reviewing old battles to determine what mistakes were made and when, and planning out new battles, moving the characters in his head like pieces on a game board. It was relaxing. Meditative. It was much later in the night when he finished off the last sandwich and pushed away from the table. He stacked the dishes into the washer and brushed crumbs onto the floor and left it at that. The lights would go off on their own after a few minutes. He trod lightly up the stairs leading to the second story and its collection of rooms. This, like the kitchen, was part of the Briefs' private quarters. A sprawling network of bedrooms, bathrooms, storage rooms, offices, and dens, all of it jumbled together like some child's toy chest. Most of them were unused. Bulma had told him once that it was originally supposed to be an 'apartment complex', rather than a single unified house. Built back when most of the lab workers and their families had lived onsite; some nonsense about housing costs. Now though, it was just the Briefs. His own series of rooms---one bedroom with a balcony, a full bath, and a sitting room he never used---was at the other end of the hall from the stairs. He had to walk past the nursery to get to them and he peered into the overly fluffy room on his way by. The small, misshapen lump that should have been distorting the bed's surface----wasn't. Vegeta frowned. He disliked it when things weren't where they were supposed to be. Especially when they were *his* things. Where did his heir get off to this time? Sniffing the air, Vegeta went searching for a scent trail. If there wasn't one, then somebody had carried Trunks out, making it no longer his concern. But if the brat had wandered off on his own... Vegeta refused to be dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to once again pry his errant offspring out from behind the hot water heater. Or out from under the sink. Or out of the ventilation shafts. Or out of wherever else he could tuck his little, surprisingly squishy body that only his father could pry him out of. Vegeta longed for the days when all he had to worry about was committing genocide and his eventual domination of the known universe. After a moment, he found the trail he'd been dreading. No more than a few hours old, heading down to the right, near the stairwell. So, the demon-child *had* defeated his mother's most recent restraining devices. Vegeta would have been proud if he weren't so annoyed. Luckily, it didn't go down the stairs; thus cutting the number of bizarre places Trunks could be wedged into in half. He followed the trail and discovered quickly that it was fairly short, leading into one of the nearby guestrooms. Hmm. Vegeta opened the door with a casual twist of his wrist. He failed to be surprised when the scents that reached him next were of Kakarotto's spawn. Of course. Where else would Trunks go but to 'Gohan-niisan'? The distant glow of a security light though the window showed the older boy already sitting up, waiting for him. His expression was curious and open, amazingly calm for someone facing the man who'd tried to kill him on more than one occasion. Though the fact that he could have taken Vegeta in a fair fight did sort of negate that. "Vegeta?" asked Gohan, titling his head slightly. Shadows slid across his smooth face with little to hold onto. "I'm here for the brat," said Vegeta gruffly, striding into the room without further preamble. Gohan touched the gently snoring bundle beside him. "He can stay, I don't mind," Gohan said, blinking as Vegeta came to stand at his bedside, arms crossed. Vegeta looked down at the three children, Goten's wild burst of hair just visible between Trunks and Gohan. Obviously hybrid, but just as obviously saiyajin. The entirety of a species that once numbered in the hundreds of thousands now confined to a single queen-sized bed with white sheets. His species, his subjects, his kin. His. He reached out one rough hand and caught Gohan's chin in a none-to-gentle grip. Startled midnight eyes grew broader, but there was no fight or resistance in them. Too tame, too trusting. It made Vegeta want to hit him, just to see the rage he knew the child was capable of. He still remembered the young warrior that fought him so viciously six years ago, the one that raged against Cell a year or so ago. Vegeta studied the Gohan of now; the lengthening of features as baby roundness melted, the gentleness of expression that was never meant for a Saiyajin face. The boy's scent was changing too, becoming stronger, richer as his body released hormones that sent him on the fast track to adulthood. Soon, the scent said to Vegeta, just a few more years and his body will begin to hunger for things he cannot yet name. Soon, he will fight and rebel against even the most gentle of opposition, searching for his place in the pack. And Vegeta would be there to show him his place, the place that Kakarotto had never learned or wanted. Perhaps, to show him other things as well. . . "Uh, Vegeta?" said Gohan haltingly, sounding seriously freaked when the Saiyajin no Ouji released his chin to trail callused fingers over the soft skin of his jaw line. "Trouble sleeping, Vegeta?" came a dry voice from directly outside the window. Vegeta jerked back, surprised. He growled at being caught unawares and gave Piccolo an evil glare. The Namekjin hovered at level with the windowsill, returning Vegeta's look with one just as nasty, if much colder. The message was clear. Fuck off, Saiyajin, this one's mine. Vegeta smirked and inclined his head in acknowledgement. For now, Namek, for now. Gohan looked rapidly between them, trying to figure out what he was missing. "Brat," Vegeta snapped, causing Gohan to whip his head back to him, "You keep an eye on Trunks. If the woman comes shrieking at me over something he's done or gotten into, I'll take it out of your hide." Having formally issued his royal decree, Vegeta walked out the door and was soon swallowed up in the darkness. ______________ Various friends and family members trickled in and out of Capsule Corp over the next few weeks. Yamcha and Puar had been the first, living the closest. Kurirrin showed up the next day, with luggage and his new wife in tow. Vegeta took one look at 18 and locked himself in the gravity room for the rest of the day. Between the two of them, Yamcha and Kurirrin had Gohan smiling and talking. 18 meanwhile, hung mostly in the background, a silent, stone-faced sentry. Though the speculative look she got from watching Goten and Trunks began to make Kurirrin nervous. The Ox King came right in the middle of lunch, hauled Gohan into a massive bear hug, and stood wailing about the horror of it all. The other adults somehow managed to pry him off and get him calmed down before Gohan passed out. Master Roshi and Oolong were next, offering their condolences in the form of some choice pornography. Thankfully, Yamcha confiscated it before Gohan got too much of an eyeful. Tenshinhan and Chaotsu stayed only shortly, but their sympathies were heartfelt and honest. Neither of them had ever had more than vague respect for Chichi, but they liked Gohan, both as Goku's son and as himself. Dende made his feelings known first through Piccolo, then later in person when he was able to leave the Lookout. Those who knew the young god thought he seemed a little edgy, but figured it was probably something guardian or Namekjin related that they wouldn't get anyway. Even Yajirobe made an appearance, tossing out a bag of senzu beans and a "tough luck, kid" with equal brashness before leaving again. Everyone agreed that it was the nicest thing they had ever heard him say. A small, informal ceremony was held for Son Chichi in the indoor garden. After some discussion, they decided against getting Chichi a grave marker. For one, there wasn't a body (several dirty looks in Piccolo's direction) and for another, Goku had never got one. It was too permanent an action----as if by not doing it they could hold onto to the possibility that one or the other might yet return. Gohan remained quite throughout both events, holding so tightly to Goten that his arms shook. Those that had them offered their homes to Gohan, but only Bulma and possibly the Ox King had the facilities or desire to help care for Goten. After talking with his grandfather, Gohan decided to live at Capsule Corp. It was best for all involved, as the Ox King was too old to be looking after young boys by himself and Gohan really didn't want to be so near the place where his mother had died. Bulma was delighted and showed it by outfitting Gohan with a brand new wardrobe---whether he wanted it or not. An unexpected commotion occurred roughly five days later when Trunks came stumbling and tripping into the living room one morning, proudly waving a lavender tail. Trunks had taken to sleeping with Goten (who had his own crib at the foot of Gohan's bed, despite Bulma insistence that there was plenty of room for another nursery), so it was possible that being with a tailed Saiyajin had caused his own to regenerate. At least, that's what Bulma speculated. Trunks was quite pleased with himself and made a point of showing off his new appendage to everyone. Bulma, however, planned to have it removed again and she made the mistake of saying this where Trunks could hear her. He responded to this the way anyone would at the threat of losing one of their limbs; ran away screaming. They eventually tracked him down to the production room, tucked inside the large control box of one the construction bots. He'd tangled himself up in the wires much the same way environmentalists strap themselves to trees. Bulma browbeat Kurirrin and Yamcha into helping her get him out, and everyone else was treated to sight of two hardened warriors being bested by a one and half year old. Vegeta even left the gravity room to watch and privately thought it was the most delightful thing he had ever seen. In the end, Bulma promised to let Trunks keep his tail, solving that crisis for the time being. Gohan's tail grew back a month later, with considerably less fanfare. Bulma and Gohan had more than one argument regarding school. It was the only sore spot of their relationship. Bulma very much wanted him to attend rather than go back to home schooling. Being a touch prejudiced by her own happy memories of school, she hated to see him miss out on socializing with his peers. But Gohan flatly refused to leave Goten alone for that long ever again. None of her nagging, pleading, or rationalizing could change his mind. The problem, Bulma reflected, was that Gohan didn't have to obey her unless he felt like it and he was apparently starting to realize that. Legally, she was his guardian---the papers his grandfather signed said so---but none of the Z senshi were greatly affected by the law. Love and years of training had kept Gohan firmly within his mother's rein. In both regards, Bulma was screwed. She managed to convince him to enroll in the school sponsored Home Study program and attend weekly group meetings, but he would go only if Goten went with him. If the teacher and the other students were bothered by the sight of a twelve-year-old carrying around an infant on his back, they learned to keep it to themselves. Gohan trained with Piccolo or Vegeta when not studying or looking after his brother. The younger brats grew fast and the household soon learned the real meaning of terror when Goten mastered the art of mobility. Months passed in this way and slowly drifted into years.
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