Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Changing Seasons ❯ Gohan's Confession/Piccolo's Rage ( Chapter 14 )

He stood on the roof of the tallest building he could find, the stars were bright and seemed almost close enough to reaach out and touch. His dark hair whipped about his head and unshed tears made his eyes ache. He glared at the half-moon and stood with arms crossed over his chest, deep in thought.

Gohan always came here, to this roof, late at night, when something was troubling him. The isolation and cold brick against his skin as he leaned against a wall, always served to calm his mind and help him to think things through. It was, he thought, almost better than flying because he did not even have to give a fraction of his attention to staying aloft, his mind was free to unravel and untangle his thoughts and emotions freely, without intrusion.

He was thinking about Alaura. More to the point, he was thinking about what he'd done with Alaura, that one night of meaningless passion that would ruin their lives forever. He was also thinking about Videl and how much his heart ached for her and only her. He had not realized it while he was holding Alaura, but in his mind's eye, thinking back on that night, it was not Alaura's golden beauty he saw in his arms, laying in rapture as he thrust beneath her, it was Videl's exquisite features contorted into expressions of pure bliss.

Now, he feared, he would never have the chance to live out his dreams. It seemed, due to one selfish act, that his heart's desire was doomed to be no more than a schoolboy fantasy. He blinked back the tears that wanted their freedom, as the hard lump took form in his throat and echoed the feeling in his gut and another thought rose up behind his closed lids.

Piccolo. He opened his eyes, shaking his head and feeling a hundred times worse than he all ready did. How could he have forgotten, for even a fraction of a moment, that Alaura belonged to him? He did not want a confrontation with the powerful namek and he certainly never meant to hurt or betray him in any way, but he just could not keep something like this from him. To do so would be adding salt to an all ready gaping, festering wound and that he could not do.

He knew he had to tell Piccolo what happened and just hope that he could be forgiven. If not, Gohan thought, as the cold breeze picked up and sent a shiver down his spine, I don't want to even think about that possibility…

Gohan knew that Piccolo had taken Neko, really his own daughter though kept a secret from since the day they found out she was within Alaura's womb, awaiting her birth, to the planet Jalamir on a mission for Neko's sake and would not be returning for a few more weeks at the latest, but he knew, if he tried, he could reach out, past the stars and blackness of space, with his mind and energy and touch his old friend and teacher with his thoughts as easily as if they were speaking on the telephone from two blocks away.

Closing his eyes and consentrating on his task, Gohan began to reach out with his mind, seeking, sensing, feeling. At last, as sweat began to bead upon his brow, he heard Piccolo's mind's voice in his head, asking him what was the matter that he felt the need to use telepathy from such a distance.

Reluctantly, but knowing he had no other choice, Gohan told Piccolo of the night he'd spent with Alaura. Gohan, his guilt and misery clearly felt through the intimate communion, explained to Piccolo how it was not Alaura's fault, that she was just helpless to resist when he set out to seduce her that night, even though he knew, really, that they had both done a little of the seducing and both were to blame if either one was, but he did not wish Alaura to suffer for what he believed was soley his mistake.

Piccolo was silent for a long time. He stood in the greenhouse, about to go back inside once more, when he'd felt Gohan's mindtouch urgently seeking a response. He'd thought that someone was in trouble, perhaps dead, back on Earth and had answered Gohan's call with a twinge of fear. But, nothing could have prepared him for what the boy was now telling him. Had now just told him. He felt as he'd been submerged in a pleasantly warm bath only to have someone dump a truckload of ice on his head, suddenly and without warning.

He felt like he couldn't breath, no air would enter his nose or mouth to reach his lungs and he gasped as a new feeling sliced across his insides, like nothing he'd ever experienced before. All he could see when he closed his eyes were images of the woman he loved more than life itself giving herself to another, to the one person he thought he could trust above all others, to the one person he never thought would stoop…

"Nooooo!" His eyes flew open as the scream rent from his throat and mouth and his fingertips tingled with power. A sudden flash of light and sound so loud that his sensitve ears were left ringing, and a bolt of power shot upwards from his hands, shattering the greenhouse ceiling above him. Piccolo flew through the broken glass, ignoring the small cuts and slices on his skin as he sped through the jagged hole he had created, flying blindly, screaming in rage and pain as he felt Gohan's mind shrink from his own in barely concealed fear.

Piccolo wanted to hurt something as bad as he was now hurting. He wanted to return to Eath right then and there and confront Gohan and Alaura. Alaura…Alaura, how could she have done this? He thought over and over as he used his destructive powers on mountains and trees and tried to rid himself of the feeling that if he stopped destroying things and stood still long enough, that he would just curl up and die. He wanted someone to pay for this.

He wanted Gohan and Alaura to pay for how he was feeling; Hurt, empty, betrayed. "How could they have done this?" He asked himself, panting, in midair, hands on his thighs as sweat dripped into his eyes and his annatae trembled, "Gohan…I thought of him as a friend…as more than a friend, almost as a son…and Alaura…how could she have hurt me like this? I gave her all I had and this is how she repays me!?" Another wave of power built up from deep inside his gut to take form in a blast of light and terror from his fingertips as another mountiontop exploded in rock and snow some distance before him. "Nooo!" He screamed again and again as he allowed his anger and anguish to take over, forgetting, for awhile, everything else until the entire universe expanded and shrunk until it began and ended with the pain in his heart.