Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Swarm Saga ❯ Of Sleep and Homes and Rings ( Chapter 6 )

Disclaimer: Only in my dreams.

 

Chapter 6: Solace

 

Gohan took off his glasses and tossed them onto the desk. He then rubbed tired eyes and tried to focus on the computer screen in front of him in the futile hope that he would suddenly have perfect vision. He found the entire situation terribly unfair. With all the saiyan genetics, his height, his strength, and advanced hearing and smell, he ended up with his grandfather`s eyes. He really hated the reading glasses but supposed that he should just be happy that he wasn't in bifocals just yet.

 

His hand began to rub the back of his neck in a gesture that reminded everyone of his dad. He tried to reset his shoulders, which unfortunately did not work. It really never did and he wasn't sure why he kept trying. He dropped his head forward and rolled it from side to side willing the Vertebrae to align correctly and the muscles to elongate. Lifting his head, he placed his glasses back on and, with a swipe of his hand through his ebony spikes, stared bleary-eyed at the screen. He made the programs flip through the various maps he created that described the criminal activity in Cherry Town over the last twenty years. Every so often he would stop and make notes on the changes he saw in the ebb and flow of crime types.

 

“Gohan, it's two in the morning. Come to bed.” The oldest demi Saiyan looked toward the darkened doorway of his study as his wife filled the entrance giving body to her voice. She wore one of his old t-shirts that hung down to her mid thigh and her midnight hair was tousled from her pillow.

 

“I will in a bit. I'm not really tired yet.” He turned back to the screen and his notes.

 

Videl looked at the love of her life. She took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds before releasing it in an audible rush. She might have believed him had she not seen the circles under his eyes or the way he shuffled his feet instead of walking when he came in from his afternoon spar with Goku. She had been missing his warmth in bed at night for this past week and assumed that he was only getting one or two hours a night.

 

She leaned against the doorframe and crossed her arms over her chest. “Gohan, you need sleep. You're going to make yourself sick. Turn off the computer and come to bed.”

 

“Just let me finish this first.”

 

Videl pushed herself off the door and slid into the darkened room watching the colors from the computer screen play across Gohan's face. The glowing light just served to highlight the strong planes of his face and broadness of his chest and shoulders. She moved up behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders. He hissed and leaned forward, removing her hands.

 

“Don't.”

 

Videl let her hands fall to the back of his chair, the leather cool against her skin, and forced herself to keep them there. He rarely turned down a massage. Usually his head would fall forward and he'd succumb to the pleasurable torture her hands would inflict as she worked out the knots that always seemed to gather in his neck. He never did tell her why his neck seemed to constantly hurt and she never thought it her place to ask. “So, what are you are looking at?”

 

“Videl.” She heard the exasperation in his voice. He turned a little in his chair and looked over his shoulder at her, wincing in pain.

 

“You might as well tell me Gohan. I'm not going to bed until you do.” She pulled the chair from her computer over next to his and sat down on it. She made a show of settling in to make herself comfortable.

 

“Don't be ridiculous. You need your sleep.”

 

“So do you.”

 

“Fine.” His shoulders slumped and he turned back to the screen. “This map shows every crime reported in Cherry Town five years ago and where that crime occurred.” He continued to explain the meanings of the symbols on the map and how the computer program was able to manipulate the data that helped create it. After a few minutes he turned to look at her, placing one arm over the back of his chair and propping his head on the other. “Bored yet?”

 

Yes! Unbelievably so. “Not really. Why are you looking at all of this again?”

 

“One: it will help the police identify changing patterns in crime and perhaps somewhat predict where the next problem area will be. It also helps identify the programs that actually help alleviate crime. And two: it'll make a great paper to present at conference next fall.”

 

“So the Great Saiyaman is helping fight crime with his brains instead of his brawn huh?” She watched as he stifled a yawn and rubbed his eyes underneath the rim of his glasses before rolling his eyes at her. “I thought you said you weren't tired.”

 

His posture fell as he let out a long suffering sigh and faced away from her. She grabbed the arm of his chair and swiveled it until he faced her. Grabbing his hands she said, “Gohan, I need you to tell me what's wrong. You come home from work, fight yourself into exhaustion, and then work at this all night. I'm worried.” She reached up and removed his glasses so that he would be able to see her face without any distortions.

 

“Videl, there's nothing…”

 

“Don't lie to me Gohan.”

 

He stared at her without blinking for what seemed like an eternity. The only noise in the room was the whirring of the computer drives as they manually saved the data and hum of the monitor fan. “I just haven't been able to sleep that's all. It's really nothing to be worried about.”

 

She couldn't help it. She had never seen him like this. This wasn't her husband. The man who sat before her was mostly a shell. He wasn't even this bad after Buu. She closed her eyes and dropped her head in understanding. She leaned forward and rested the top of her head on the planes of his chest releasing a ragged breath. This was her fault.

 

“Honey, I'm so sorry. I should have made sure that Bulma knew exactly where I was. I should have never scared you like that.”

 

Gohan looked down at the back of his wife's neck. He heard the faint sniffles that underlay her voice. In the back of his mind the mantra just kept repeating itself, `This is not her fault. It's mine. I was the one who wasn't there to protect her.'

 

He leaned back and, placing a hand under her chin, lifted her face to meet his eyes. With his thumbs he swiped at the tears caught in her lower lash. He studied her face and noticed her hands twisting in the hem of his t-shirt that she wore. How could he possibly lay voice to the nightmares that gripped him every night?

 

When he closed his eyes he saw visions of his wife and child dead from a ki blast because he had not been there to protect them. How he had never been able to protect the lives of the people most important to him. After Buu, he had succumbed to Vegeta's derision about his lack of training because the older man was right. Now, there was always an afternoon spar with his dad and numerous weekend spars with Goten and Uub so that it would never happen again. When he hadn't been able to find Videl, he knew he had failed. The years of training did nothing.

 

“Del, I …” She placed her fingers over his mouth. He felt the moisture track down his cheek.

 

“Shhh. I know. You don't need to say it. You did what you had to do. And you know, as well as I do that Pan and I can take care of ourselves. Both you and your father saw to that.” When he tried to look away she got off the chair and sat on her ankles in front of him. She placed her face directly in his field of vision so he would have to look at her. “No one is asking you to be him because you're not. If you were, you wouldn't be the man I blackmailed into falling in love with me. And I think your mother is a much stronger woman than me.”

 

Despite himself, Gohan felt the laugh push it way out of his chest. He looked at his wife as she smiled up at him. Her soft black hair tumbled haphazardly around her face and the changing colors from the screensaver only caused sparkles to dance off of those two twin oceans that he could easily drown in. How she knew some of the things she did he never understood.

 

She smiled softly up at him before dropping her gaze to the spot where her hand played with the fabric covering his knee. “You can always talk to me. Don't keep things like this bottled up again.”

 

“I promise.”

 

“Does that mean you'll come to bed? You do need the sleep. You have a class to teach in the morning.”

 

“I'll try.” He let the implication behind his words stand. He touched her cheek and ran his fingers through the short silken jet locks.

 

She smoothed the fabric over the muscles in his thigh and leaned into his caress as her hand moved farther up his leg. “I'm sure we could find something to tire you out.”

 

+++

 

The French doors to the balcony were open. The nighttime breeze swept over the lawn and into the room chilling the occupants. The man stood in the doorframe and let nature run non-existent fingers through his upswept mane. He turned and looked at the woman as she whimpered and snuggled further into what little warmth remained on his side of the bed. Studying her while she slept, he memorized her shape. Her face smoothed out while she slept; transforming her back into the naive, stupid, young woman who reached out to the mass murder she allowed into her home. It was times such as these that the man knew he must commit to memory.

 

Everything could be gone with the snap of a wrist. He had seen it often enough, experienced it often enough, caused it often enough. Vegeta suddenly turned away from the form of his sleeping mate to look out the open door again.

 

He looked up at the sky and saw the sliver of the descending moon. He reached up and traced the shape with his finger. He had never seen the moon on Vegita-sei. Nappa used to go on and on about how the moons were sacred. He had finally gotten so sick of listening to him that he threatened the idiot into silence. When Kami restored the Earth's moon, he finally understood Nappa's sentiment. That first full moon had pulled at his soul.

 

He closed his eyes and breathed in the air. The sweet smell of early spring flowers and an oncoming storm floated into the room reassuring him that he was home and all was well with the world. Home. He wasn't sure how or when it happened, how Earth became home and how these people became his friends and family, but this mudball became almost as precious to him as it was to Goku.

 

Dark eyes roved from the moon to the few stars that had yet to be obliterated by the oncoming clouds. They were nothing but giant balls of burning hydrogen and helium but each had planets around them. Two of them once had a small red planet shared between them. When he was a child, Nappa had made sure he could locate them from anywhere in the galaxy. Now, he couldn't even point in their general direction.

 

This was not how he ever expected his life to turn out. It certainly was not the life Freeza envisioned for him. Although he had met a few of his father's expectations, the current situation could not even come close to the life the king had mapped out for him. His face hardened as he closed his eyes and envisioned that life. He could picture himself on the throne, glowing with power. Saiyans teemed over the surrounding landscape. Those images haunted his dreams every night for the last week. Contemplating the stars did not help any.

 

The first rain drops slapped against his face as the winds picked up, blowing the curtains around him. He heard another whimper from inside the room. Stepping back he closed the doors and drew the curtains, shutting out the churning storm outside. He moved back to the bed and slipped under the cloying covers, pulling his mate to him.

 

---

 

Yamcha paced around the living room of his small house stretching his favorite bat over his shoulders. He tried to look anywhere but at the strange leather jerkin that lay over one of the breakfast nook chairs. The ball player could still feel it in his hands; slippery without being slimy and just a little to thin to be normal. The garment just left his stomach in knots. It represented too many possibilities, unknowns, and fears.

 

He was getting to old for this. The players on the team he managed talked behind his back in the locker rooms. They all wanted to know how he still managed to pitch a hundred and fifty mile an hour fast ball at his age. He let out a soundless laugh. If they only knew. Sometimes he felt that his martial arts training only managed to give him a strong throwing arm. His time to play hero was over; not that he ever had one. What did he do with it besides die twice? Three, if you counted the jaunt Kami sent him on to Vegetasei. He shouldn't even be here by all rights. What did he have to show for his two second chances?

 

He finally stopped his movement and looked out the window into his back yard. The empty backyard. The lawn was cut and the gardens were meticulously kept due to the expertise of his gardeners. Sunlight dappled down through the trees, over the lush grass and, sparkled over the small pool tucked into the corner. Even with the all the perfectly spaced life, the yard had no soul, no laughter. To be perfectly honest, the house was just a bunch of walls as well. His stuff was there but he rarely was. He spent most of his time on the road.

 

He stepped through the patio door and ran his hand over the top of the grill, he never used, that Bulma gave him a few years ago. Sitting down, he propped the bat against the patio table and ran his hands through the short hair on his head. Sometimes he missed the length he had when he was younger. Long hair would look stupid now though; too much grey at the temples. He let the morning sun pour across his face as he looked out at the lush lawn.

 

He envied his friends and their families. Houses full of people. Back yards filled with toys and children. He was the only one with no family outside of Puar. Kuririn had managed to get married; his daughter out of college. Even Gohan, Goku's oldest child, had children. He wondered what happened. How had he managed to miss out?

 

His thoughts turned to the woman he had been dating for the past two years. She was a divorced mother of three. Her youngest was still in his last year of high school. During the past five months she had been hinting at marriage. He wasn't sure why but he kept putting the idea off. He was not scared of commitment; he used to talk seriously with Bulma about getting married. But he had never told her about any of it, about playing hero, or dying, or aliens, or Cell, or Buu. Somehow it felt like he was lying.

 

Then again how do you tell your girlfriend that you willingly put your life on the line every time the Earth is threatened? She knew he was a fighter at one time, but only because he had gone to support Marron. She had never met the others although he spoke of them often. He loved her, he really did. He got along with her kids and even that putz of an ex-husband of hers. Funny how just thinking about her made him feel better. Over the past year she had become his foundation. She never accused him of cheating, the way Bulma had, and never wished him to be stronger or something he could never be, Saiyan.

 

Inside he could hear Puar up and banging pans in the kitchen. “Yamcha, breakfast? Why are you out here alone?”

 

“What would you say if I told you we weren't going to be alone anymore?” The floating cat looked quizzically at her companion and blinked.

 

Her blue and white face split into a grin as she finally understood. “I'd say it's about time.”

 

Yamcha stood up and smiled at his friend then strode into the house towards the shower. He walked past the chair with the unusual jerkin without sparing it a glance. He had a ring to buy.

 

---

 

ChiChi watched her husband's forehead wrinkle in thought as he pushed the food around on his plate. The action was really beginning to worry her. He had not even taken a single bite out of his breakfast yet and her husband was known for the bottomless pit that was his stomach. The teenager at the other end of the table sat eating slowly while never taking his eyes off his sensei's plate. He eventually looked up and shot ChiChi a glance with a brow raised in question. She shrugged in return.

 

Suddenly Goku looked up at the young island man. “Uub, I want you to take some time off. Take a month or two. Go visit your mother and the rest of your family. We'll resume training when you get back.” He ended the sentence by shoveling the seemingly forgotten breakfast in his mouth.

 

The boy sat at the other end perfectly still; eyes wide and mouth open. The warrior princess looked askance at the being happily eating. Who was he and where had he put her husband? “Sir, may I ask why?”

 

Goku stopped eating and looked at Uub. “We've all been a little distracted lately. Gohan's barely keeping his feet under him and you've been hesitant. Think of it as a chance to recharge and refocus.” Goku continued to eat and look at the other two at the table. “I tell you what; while you're gone I'll even talk to Vegeta and see if he'd be willing to work with you some.”

 

ChiChi remained still for a minute or two before she remembered something important. “Goku, it's the middle of the school year. He still has to go to school. I promised his mother that he would get an education while living here and I intend to keep that promise.” It wasn't fair. She had gotten used to having a house full of boys. When her husband had brought Uub home with him she had decided that she would treat him the same as her own children. Now Goku was sending him away and she wasn't ready for that yet.

 

“You're crazy Chi. He can get to school just as easily from there as he can from here.”

 

Why couldn't he be wrong this time? Why couldn't she think of another argument to use? She watched as Goku grabbed another serving of eggs and Uub excused himself from the table to call his mother. Funny how the house suddenly became eerily quiet. She looked at her husband and slowly ate her breakfast. The princess consoled herself that it would only be for a few months. Besides, Gohan and Videl had Pan right next door and it might even be fun to have her house and her husband, at this she smiled secretly, to herself. With that though she straightened up and moved her chair a little closer to Goku's. She watched his spikes bob up and down as he ate and she failed to notice that the wrinkle in his forehead never smoothed out.

 

 

TBC

 

 

A/N: Thank you for reading my fic. Please feel free to review. I like them just as much as everyone else. Also, thank you to whoever you are that always reads the update 2 seconds after I post it. I watch the hit count go up immediately and I know it means I'm on your favorites. I just get downright giddy at the thought.

 

Kimmy Jarl - Thank you so much for your review. After reading your fics I am honored that you read mine and felt it review worthy. I'm gonna keep mum on the whole name thing for now. Mostly because this plot line keeps trying to move in directions it's not supposed to.