Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Wish For The Past ❯ Healing ( Chapter 48 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Disclaimer: *walks on stage, dragging a reluctant Radditz by the tail* Hiya! I decided that Radditz needs a turn under the spotlight, so here he is! *grins*

Radditz: Let go of my tail! *blushes furiously*

Brenda: *sticks out her tongue* Only if you promise to disclaim the chapter for me!

Radditz: All right, all right! Brenda doesn't own DBZ or any of its respective characters. NOW LET GO OF MY TAIL!

Brenda: *grins and releases the Saiyan teen's tail*

The excitement of obtaining both a pouch full of senzu beans and another dragonball had not worn off by the time Goten and Trunks arrived back at the capsule house. In fact, they raced around outside for a full minute, chasing each other in a swift game of tag, before they felt calm enough to storm the house without breaking too many things. Giggling insanely, they were too distracted to bother using their ki senses to see who was in the house, and so they raced blindly into the room where Bardock was sitting with Goku.

Seeing the older Saiyan sitting on the bed with the little seven year old in his arms brought the two boys up short. With guilty consciences, they suddenly remembered that they were supposed to have been watching over the little chibi, but had, instead, left him in Vegeta's care. The thought of Vegeta actually watching over Goku was... unlikely, to say the least. Goten and Trunks gulped simultaneously and nervously approached Bardock, knowing that he couldn't be very pleased with their irresponsibility. It was too late now, though, so they might as well hear what their punishment was.

Surprisingly, Bardock didn't so much as blink when the two demi-Saiyans came into his field of vision. He continued to sit on the edge of the bed, holding a naked Goku in his arms, his eyes wide and unseeing. His entire body was twitching or shivering, Goten couldn't decide which, and he seemed completely unaware of the fact that his tail was now in the mouth of the boy in his arms.

"Grandpa?" Goten asked, suddenly concerned. When Bardock didn't respond, he glanced over at Trunks, then floated up to eye level with his grandfather. This close to the Saiyan's face, he could see that the pupils in his eyes had disappeared, leaving a blank, white space where they had once been. "Grandpa?" The eight year old's voice was tinged with panic now, and he waved a hand frantically in front of Bardock's face. "Grandpa, wake up!" No reaction. Goten tapped his grandfather on the shoulder, then tugged his green shirt in a vain hope that maybe physical contact would snap him out of whatever was happening to him. "Grandpa!"

Trunks lifted himself off the ground so that he could get a closer look at Bardock's face. One look at Goku had told him that he was still alive and relatively well, so it couldn't be that Bardock was in a grief-stricken stupor. Hoping that perhaps a second voice talking to him would elicit a reaction from the warrior, Trunks added a verbal plea of his own. "Bardock-san? Are you all right?" Unfortunately, it didn't seem that Bardock could hear either of them, since he didn't show any signs of a reaction to either of their voices.

"Trunks! What's wrong with my grandpa? Why won't he wake up?" The little chibi was nearly in tears, and he reached out to grasp his grandfather's shoulder, shaking him as roughly as he dared without knocking him over. Still there was no response.

"I don't know, Goten! I've never seen him like this! I've never seen anyone like this!" Gnawing on his lip with worry, the lavender haired boy anxiously ran through his mind all the things that might possibly be wrong with Bardock, but came up blank on any one thing that matched the symptoms. "Hey, Goten, try giving him a senzu bean! They're supposed to be able to heal almost anything, after all, so maybe it'll cure whatever's wrong with him."

The younger chibi brightened visibly and dug a hand into his gi in search of the pouch containing the precious senzu beans. "Great idea, Trunks!" Upon finding the bag, he quickly dumped a bean out into his open palm, tossing the bag and the rest of the beans to the bed. Still floating in the air, he used his other hand to pry Bardock's mouth open and was about to place the bean in the man's mouth.

With a gasp, Bardock shuddered and his eyes returned to normal, his whole body trembling like a leaf in a storm. "No!" he cried out, almost as if he were in great pain or mental turmoil. Goten jumped in surprise, the small bean in his hand slipping through his fingers to bounce on the floor. Gulping down a sudden lump of fear that formed in his throat, he found that his grandfather was staring at him with haunted black eyes. Breathing heavily, the older Saiyan choked out, "It can't happen like that, Goku. I won't let it happen that way."

"Grandpa?" Goten asked uncertainly. "Grandpa, I'm Goten. You're holding Goku in your lap." Bardock blinked and stared at his grandson for a moment, then glanced down at the boy in his arms. As the last vestiges of the vision left him, he shivered and shook his head in denial of what he had seen. "Grandpa, are you all right? What happened?" Tears sparkled in the little boy's eyes which he hastily wiped away, only to be replaced by more tears.

"I... I... " The Saiyan's gaze shifted from his grandson's face to the concerned face of the other little demi-Saiyan in the room. Both boys stared back at him expectantly, waiting for him to give them an explanation that would allay their fears. Looking down at his son, he inwardly cringed. How could he tell them that he could see the future, and that he had just seen the destruction of their world and the deaths of everyone on the planet? How could he tell them about the horrible torture and ultimate deaths of his two sons that he had just witnessed? About his own, painful death at the hands of the child who was sleeping a few rooms away? "I... can sometimes see the future," he finally said, reluctance dragging at his voice. "And when I'm having a vision, I can't hear or see anything that's going on around me." He half expected them to laugh derisively and claim he was making it up, but that wasn't the reaction he got.

The eyes of the two chibis widened in awe at his words, and Trunks grinned broadly. "Cool! What did you see, Bardock-san??" They both leaned forward slightly, eager to hear all about this newly discovered ability.

Somewhat surprised that they actually believed him, Bardock shifted his shoulders uncomfortably. "I don't really want to talk about it, Trunks. I'm... er... not certain about what exactly I saw," he lied, warily eyeing the boys to see if they believed him. Fortunately for him, it appeared that they did, though their faces were twin masks of disappointment.

With his eyes on the floor, it only took Goten a moment to spot the senzu bean he had dropped. Giving a delighted laugh, he darted down and picked the thing up, turning to give his grandpa a triumphant look. "Grandpa! Me and Trunks got senzu beans! Now Goku won't die!" Grabbing hold of one of Bardock's hands, he thrust the bean into it, beaming the entire time.

Bardock blinked owlishly, caught off guard by the reference to Goku dying so soon after his visions concerning that very same thing. The vision he had at first thought a nightmare had come back again, more extensive and graphic than before, allowing him to see every detail of every event leading up to the deaths of his sons and himself, among other things. A shudder swept over his body, and he quickly jerked his mind back to the situation at hand, using the dawning joy of being able to heal his son to wipe away those dark thoughts. His face breaking open in a wide grin, he gently removed his slobbery tail from his son's mouth and he rubbed the boy's cheek in an effort to waken him a little. "Come on, Goku, wake up. We have something for you!"

Murmuring discontentedly at having the tail pulled from his mouth, Goku yawned and pressed his face into Bardock's chest in an effort to sink further into the realm of sleep. Bardock smiled and rubbed his cheek again, a little more vigorously, until Goku sleepily opened his eyes.

"Ohayoo, tousan," he mumbled tiredly, reaching one hand up to rub his bleary eyes.

Knowing that it was sometime in the afternoon, Goku's greeting amused the older Saiyan. It was to be expected, of course, since the boy had only just woken up and couldn't have known what time it was, but he still found it funny for some reason. "Good 'morning' to you, too, sleepyhead," Bardock chuckled. "Here, eat this. It'll make you feel better." So saying, he popped the senzu bean into his son's mouth.

With all the trust a son has in his father, Goku unquestioningly bit into the hard brown bean, chewed, and swallowed. His eyes suddenly widened and a gasp of surprise escaped his lips even as the small cuts and bruises that weren't hidden by bandages instantly vanished. The boy stared in amazement at his arms, then at the rest of his body, hesitantly reaching a hand down to gingerly touch the bandages covering the area where the hole had been in his side. Nothing. No pain at all!

"Daddy, it doesn't hurt anymore!" the chibi laughed in delight, pressing against his once-injured side a little more firmly. Then he got a very startled look on his face and his eyes widened to their fullest in stunned awe and wonder. "And I'm not hungry, either!"

Grinning from ear to ear from the simple pleasure of seeing his son well again, Bardock lifted the child off his lap and set him down on the bed. "Here, let's get these bandages off you and we can get you cleaned up," he said, pulling off the wrappings from the little Saiyan's lower torso to reveal pink, unbroken skin with a few smears of blood on it. He then undid the bindings on the splint that bound Goku's formerly broken right leg and deftly removed the strips of cloth along with the splint. Again, there was no trace of any kind of injury, besides the blood that had once seeped from the open wound.

Goku lifted his leg up and wiggled his toes experimentally, grinning broadly at Trunks, Goten, and Bardock when there wasn't even a twinge of pain. Hopping off the bed and landing lightly on his feet, he jumped up and down a bit to test his newly healed body while the other three Saiya-jin in the room watched in happy amusement. The naked little boy ran around the room in a state of giddy hyperactivity, whooping loudly for all the world to hear. Chuckling as he watched his son's antics, Bardock finally stood up and snagged his son out of mid-stride, holding him out at arms length.

"All right, you, it's time to get you cleaned up and dressed in some clean clothes," he said, smirking faintly as he looked into Goku's eyes. The boy had a look of mild disgust on his face, and his tail was curling and uncurling as it fought to express his glee at being healed again and his dismay at the thought of taking another bath.

"Do I have to take a bath?" he pleaded. At Bardock's nod, he sagged a little bit and his tail hung limply. The warrior tucked the little Saiyan in the crook of his arm and carried him off towards the bathroom with Goten and Trunks tagging along close behind.

Feeling sympathetic with his chibi-father's predicament, Goten suddenly piped up, "Hey, I'll take a bath with you, too! Taking baths is lots more fun with more people!" Seeing the other boy's face light up hopefully, the eight year old grinned and started pulling off his clothes while Bardock began to fill up the tub.

"Me too! I'll take a bath, too, Goku!" Trunks chipped in, not one to be left out, and he, too, removed his clothing and hopped into the slowly filling tub. As the two black haired boys clambered in as well, all three grinned up at Bardock, who was suddenly looking not quite as pleased about the prospect of bath time with three chibis. "Will you take a bath with us, too, Bardock-san?" the lilac haired boy asked innocently, his eyes twinkling with mischief.

"Pleeease?" Goten and Goku chimed in unison, giving him the patented Son Puppy Eyes.

"There's plenty of room!" Goten added, followed quickly by Goku chirping, "And it'd be more fun!"

"And you're dirty, too!" Trunks pointed at the various drops of blood that Bardock had gotten on himself and his clothing while holding Goku.

Unable to deny their logic and their pleas, the warrior finally laughed in defeat and started pulling off his gi. "All right, you win. I'll take a bath with you, too." Tugging off the weighted shirt, wrist bands, and boots, he cautiously stepped into the tub and was immediately tackled by three wet boys.

"YAY!!!"

As he struggled under their combined weight, he awkwardly turned the faucets off and sat down, Trunks and Goten hanging off either arm and Goku sitting in his lap, his short, chubby arms wrapped as far around Bardock's torso as they would go. With twin gleams of mischief in their eyes, the two demi-Saiyans simultaneously shoved the older man's head under the water with all the power that the two untransformed chibis could muster. Goku grinned and added in his part of the fun by tickling his father's ribs furiously even as his two friends held him under the water. Bardock's body jerked and convulsed as he tried not to laugh under water and was just about to give in despite himself when Goten and Trunks let his head come up, gasping for breath.

Giving the trio a playful glare, he snatched all three up in a giant bear hug, grinning fiercely as he dunked them underwater. He held them there until they began to wriggle, then brought them up for air, laughing genuinely for the first time in what felt like eternity. With a last squeeze, he released them into the water and splashed them with his tail as he leaned back against the wall of the tub.

Still giggling, Goten and Trunks each grabbed a bar of soap and set about lathering themselves up while Goku waded over to his father and threw his arms around his neck. "Thank you, daddy," he whispered, a smile on his lips and a hint of tears in his eyes. He didn't need to say what he was thanking Bardock for. They both knew.

Bardock patted his son on the back, a gentle smile softening his features, and held him like that for a moment before reaching for a bar of soap. "Come on, let's get you cleaned up."

Please review! (Heh, I'm back to my old lines again!)