Bonds and Nooses

A multipart Goku/Vegeta

Written by Slamdancer

Disclamer: Don't own 'em, not making any money

Warning: YAOI people, MALE x MALE relationships, MEN having hot sweaty sex (not in this chapter though, but you get the picture!) NO Chichi bashing!!!

'......' denotes thinking

"...." denotes speaking

Thanks to Chibi_Vegeta and Ashes for beta-ing

Separation.

Chichi was leaning against the doorpost watching Goku train underneath the trees, sunshine filtered through the leaves and the warm golden rays kissed his body. 'My beautiful husband,' she thought. His movements became faster, a blur, when the fight with his invisible opponent intensified.

He'd been back for a year now, she still remembered the ecstatic happiness she had felt when he survived the fight with Kid Buu, when The Universe was saved and her husband was alive to tell the tale.

A soft smile. They hadn't left the bedroom for weeks. Unfortunately no state of bliss is perpetual, and too soon the yelling and the crying started all over again. Even though she was the one who started the yelling and the only one who did the crying, she didn't like it, and she didn't like what she was turning in to. So she stopped.

That was 2 months ago. Goku was no fool, even though it was quiet, it wasn't safe. Pressure was building and something had to give. With everything he did, he expected her to rip his head off.

Chichi knew he wanted to please her and make her happy. But she also knew that he couldn't. She had been dreading this conversation for a long time, and now the house was empty for the first time in weeks. 'One way or another this ends here.' Goku deserved an explanation, and she deserved her freedom...

With a roar he delivered a deathblow to his opponent. He stayed up in the air breathing loudly, slowly coming out of his battle fury. When his feet finally touched the grass he was his sweet self again. Chichi clapped. "Come on in, great warrior, you saved me, let me thank you with lots and lots of food." His stomach chose that moment to make its presence and its emptiness known, they laughed as they walked in.

Chichi hadn't lied when she said lots and lots, she hadn't cooked like this for weeks. Goku beamed at her, "Thanks Chichi!" Then he attacked the food.

The battle was intense, but Goku had the upper hand, having more experience eating meals than this meal had in being eaten, but it put up a good fight nonetheless. Wait a minute, was Goku slowing down, amazing, there was still food left on the table, no never mind, false alarm, he was just gathering strength for the final attack. Five minutes later he leaned back, feeling very, very satisfied.

Chichi looked serious all of a sudden "Could you come take a walk with me, we need to talk."

'Oh boy,' Goku thought. 'This is it. I've been waiting for this ever since she stopped yelling at me, she gave up on us, or maybe just on me. I hope she doesn't want a divorce, I couldn't bare not seeing Gohan and little Goten every day.'

They walked in silence through the woods to a small clearing. Chichi sat down on the soft grass, Goku sat down beside her. When she finally began to speak she couldn't look at him.

"I don't know when things started changing, when I realized I wasn't the girl I used to be, nor you the man I married." 'This is going to be harder than I thought, how do you explain a marriage going to hell? How do you say I love you but I can't go on being your wife, you're killing me?' "I'll start at the beginning, maybe it'll make more sense that way." She took a deep breath and tried to relax enough to stop trembling. It wasn't working. After a while she gave up and started talking anyway. "I stopped fighting to be a wife and a mother, I know you never asked me to, but someone had to take care of our family. You were out, training, fighting, rubbing your freedom in my face.

"I took it out on you, and even on Gohan, pestering him about his homework when the world was about to be destroyed. And then you died, again, but this time you didn't want to be brought back to life with the dragonballs. I hadn't even told you I was pregnant yet.

"The nights Gohan cried himself to sleep in my arms. He blamed himself, thinking that if he had trained harder, fought better, you would still be alive. No child should carry that burden. He was so confused, why wouldn't you come back to us, he asked me, didn't you love us anymore? I had no answers for him, how could I explain what I didn't understand myself."

'But,' Goku thought, 'what do you mean you didn't understand? I did it to protect you and our son, our friends, our planet don't you know that?' He was hurt, but he didn't show it, because he suspected there would be more, and he wouldn't like that either.

"Six months later Goten was born right here in this clearing on a beautiful summer night, I was looking for berries and fruit and basically thought I had at least 3 weeks before I would have my baby. He was my second child. I should have known better, you Saiyajins are always in a hurry. The only explanation I have for miscalculating like I did is that I was still mourning you. A dull ache that was with me every waking moment, because you were not."

'Chichi, you were always so strong, you never needed me, I didn't think my death would hurt you like it did.' Goku frowned. That was weird, not expecting your wife to be hurt when you die, but he really didn't. In fact, her pain still surprised him.

He had always assumed Goten was born at CC or at the hospital. Knowing that his son was born outside, under the watchfull eyes of ancient trees, felt right somehow.

"I gave birth to him all alone underneath the stars, even though it was relatively fast and painless, it still left me exhausted. I didn't have anything on me to cut the umbilical cord with, so I had to...

"Well...

"After that I barely had the strength to take my sweater and wrap it around him to keep him warm. I held him close, and he smiled at me. That's how Vegeta found us a couple of hours later. Gohan had called Bulma as soon as he came home and found that I wasn't there. When he heard I wasn't at CC either, he was so worried he asked Vegeta to help him search for me.

"There is something very similar about you two. I never noticed it until that night, since you don't look alike, but as he was standing there in the shadows, I thought it was you. My heart leaped, only to come crashing back down again as soon as I realized that it couldn't be you, you were never coming back. He picked us up and slowly flew back to CC as unshed tears began to cloud my eyes. He started talking to me. 'What is his name?' I wondered how he knew it was a boy, but decided to let it slide.

"'His name is Son Goten'

"'And the cord?' 'What a strange question,' I thought, 'why is he asking me that?' 'I didn't have anything to cut it with so... I had to... bite it.' I was blushing very hard at that point, it was embarrassing to discuss something like that with Vegeta, it was too intimate. 'Your son had a true Saiyajin birth, that is good, it will give him strength.' My mouth was hanging open. 'Was that a compliment? From Vegeta? It can't be, I must have misunderstood.' I looked at his face and saw a mixture of surprise and... respect. But he wasn't done yet, the next thing he said almost made me drop my son 'You are a strong female, a warrior, it is fitting that you are the mate of a Saiyajin.' That was a compliment if I ever heard one, and the worst thing was, you can't cry in front of someone who calls you a warrior, so I clenched my teeth and tried not to think about the fact that I wasn't your mate anymore, but your widow."

'So much pain' Goku thought,'when I was trying to prevent and protect and... It's just not fair, but I won't apologize for it, at the time it was the right thing to do.' He was wondering why she was telling him this, why now? Life sure would be better if he could read his wife as easily as he could read Gohan, his friends and his enemies. Not Goten though, never Goten.

Chichi's soft voice filled his ears again. "As the days passed by, turned into weeks, into months, into years, I realized I was happy. I was working twice as hard as I had been when you were alive, and I still had a bleeding hole in my soul, but in spite of all that I was truly happy. It was because of Goten, he was such a playful child, so sweet. Gohan was my baby, but Goten was my heart.

"When he was 4 years old he came to me and said he wanted to be a martial artist like his daddy and save the world. Outside I was smiling, inside I was screaming and my heart was breaking, I was losing another one of my boys to fighting.

"He was very quiet, looking at me with those big eyes full of stars, he wanted to ask me something but he was shy. Maybe I wasn't hiding my pain as well as I thought I was. 'What is it, Goten? You can always ask mommy anything, you know that.' I could see him summon up his courage as he jumped on my lap and wrapped his little arms around me. 'Mom, Gohan told me you were the best female fighter in the whole world, would you please train me, please mom, would ya please, pleaeaeaeaeaeaeaeaease?'

"I was stunned, never in a million years had I expected this. 'Don't you want Gohan to train you, sweetie? He saved the world too you know.' 'Yeah, but he's not my mommy.' He said it like that explained everything. As I said before, Goten is my heart, I will do anything for him."

Chichi was quiet for a moment, there was a faint smile on her lips, loving, proud and fiercely protective at the same time. Her fingertips were caressing the grass, a warm breeze, heavy with the scent of flowers and summer made upper treeleaves rustle. Goku understood and felt jealous.

Vegeta had explained to him once, in a rare moment of candour, the nature of parent-child bonds. "Baka, of course you can't feel Goten's emotions," he said. "He's bonded to that hellcat you call your wife, not to you. The first instinct of newborn saiyajin brats is to bond with the parent with the strongest telepathical abilities, so when Gohan was born he bonded with you. It's only a half bond though, his human blood weakens his abilities. That's the reason why you always know his feelings and where he is, but he can only sense you when you're feeling very powerfull emotions, it's the same with Trunks. Goten however was alone with the she-beast when he was born, had the situation been different, you would have been there or Gohan, but you weren't so he had no choice but to bond with the harpy. He forged a bond with a ningen that's even stronger than the one you share with Gohan, if you had been there you would have had a full bond."

'Leave it to Vegeta to find the deepest wound and rub salt into it.' Goku thought.

"Do you remember our last big fight?" Chichi finally continued. "Do you remember what it was about? I don't. All I remember is rage, you always shut me out. When you weren't abandoning me, that is. I couldn't even look at you without feeling pain, resentment, anger, and more pain. That night, like all other nights we were fighting, I wanted you to hurt, I wanted to make you feel the pain I felt when you had left me once again. That's why I was throwing things at you, that's why I was screaming, but it wasn't enough, it could never be enough.

"Then I saw the arm chair, your favorite, it was perfect, big enough for you to feel it when I throw it at you, and destroying it would make you unhappy, either way I win. I picked up the chair and held it above my head, having to keep up with a demi-saiyajin had made me stronger than ever. I heard you gasp and whisper 'Oh no! No no no!' and I still thought it was about the fucking chair, until I finally noticed that you weren't even looking at me, you were looking at something on the floor.

"Time itself seemed to slow down as my brain tried to make sense of what I saw. It was Goten, all curled up, his hands covering his ears, crying without making a sound, his misery seeming too big for someone so small. Carefully I put the chair down and picked him up. He struggled. The light of my life was afraid of me, but I didn't let him go until he gave up and broke down.

"He was crying loudly now, I carried him to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, washed his face and helped him into his pj's. He was still crying when I put him in our bed and lay down next to him. I tried to hug him, but he struggled again so I waited. He didn't trust me anymore, but his misery really was too big for him. He flung himself in my arms and clung to me desperately, sobbing like his heart was breaking, I know mine was.

"'Don't worry Goten, mommy's here, she'll make it all better. Don't cry anymore, mommy's here now.' At that moment I realized he may have gotten his daddy back, but the price had been losing his mother. I rubbed his back until he calmed down, until only an occasional hiccup was left.

"You came in to the room and got in bed next to us, I was glad you had come to comfort Goten, but when you started rubbing his back to, I saw red. He was MY son, you preferred death above family, you had no claim over him. At that moment Goten started talking, his voice trembling. 'Mom, remember the day I asked you if you wanted to train me, you said I could always ask you anything, can I still?' I looked at him, he was so serious, this was going to be something big. It was not a very hard decision to make though, my son was asking me if he could still trust me, how could I refuse? I nodded at him.

"'Could you promise me never to yell at dad again?'

"Unlike you I expected something like this, I noticed he hadn't asked us to stop fighting, just to stop the yelling. It was a big request, but it wasn't unreasonable, though you didn't agree.

"'I don't think it's fair to ask your mother that, maybe you should ask for something else.' I wanted to yell at you to shut your mouth, this was something between me and my son, but instead I put my hand on your lips. 'I promise.'

"I learned a few things about myself those next days, this may come as a shock to you, but I'm not a very nice person. It is not in my nature to act calmly when I'm angry. Without yelling I can't let my frustration out or at least make it known, so it was growing rapidly.

"You have no idea how close I came to killing you in your sleep, or poisoning your food."

'What?' "Chichi..."'How did we get here, why didn't I notice my wife was becoming my enemy?' More wrongness, Goku shuddered. The words wife and enemy should not be in the same sentence. 'It's really over, there was a battle and I missed it, I can't believe I didn't see it, I can't believe I lost.'

"The only one who understood was Bulma. We had long talks about our saiyajins. She admitted that my bad example was the reason why she never married Vegeta. She really is a genius isn't she. She helped me realize that something big had to change or it would destroy our family, and when I made my decision she listened to me trying to explain the unexplainable.

"My sweet husband, I never stopped loving you...

"But you're not my mate anymore, and I know now I'm not yours either, maybe I never was."

Goku wanted to tell her that she was his mate, of course she was, but the words wouldn't come out. He tried again. Nothing, just silence. As he looked down at his hands, he saw that they were balled into fists so tight, blood was running down his fingers into the lush green grass. It didn't even hurt.

"Chichi, I do love you. I never imagined that it wouldn't be enough, that a marriage needed more to survive. I didn't mean to...."

At a loss for words he was quiet again. He didn't mean to do what? Not love her more? This could not be fixed.

"Goku, I... I think it would be best if we separated."

Her body was trembling violently as he wrapped his arms around her. With her face against his shoulder she started crying.

Even though he knew she was right, it hurt, it hurt really bad. A single hot scalding tear ran down his cheek as he buried his face in her hair until her scent was everything, everywhere.

TBC

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Slam