AN:      I began writing this fic as I was intrigued by the questions that one might have had at the end of “Just One Cut”. The time line of the story may be a bit confusing for some people. Let’s just say that in the last 3 chapters, none the events in chapter 1 have happened yet. The 1st chapter is set a week after Chi Chi changed. The flashbacks within that chapter have actually not occurred yet. I have gone back in time in a sense, charting the days immediately after Chi Chi turned into a little girl. I hope that everyone is enjoying reading this as much as I am relishing writing it. Oh… and I am planning to do art for this fic. I will have it up my fan art section soon.

^o^ Natz 

Italics denote flashbacks. **…** denote thoughts

Last chapter: Chi Chi goes to see Bulma and they rekindle the friendship they used to have before, when Trunks and Goten were kids. Chi Chi decides to stay for dinner.

Youthful Perceptions 4

You need to cry?

            The phone rang in the Son house, but no one was there to answer it. It rang and rang and rang until it seemed like it had it’s own insistent cry, asking anyone to pick up. Miles away from the house, deep in forest, there was a great river, flowing fast and hard towards its end. At first, one bubble appeared on top of the water, but it was soon followed by a multitude of others. The bubbling water soon erupted and a small, naked figure burst forth from the water, a large fish twisting and struggling in his arms.  A shout of glee came from his mouth as he pulled his catch out of the water. He laid it out on the bank and waited for it to stop its struggles. He smiled happily, the thought of roasted carp overtaking his mind.

 Suddenly, the smile dropped from his face. The thought of food reminded him of dinner… dinner at home with Chi Chi. He had completely forgotten about her waiting at home. He had wandered off after she had given him his breakfast and had started exploring the forest. Since he had come back to this world, he had been going to school full time five out of the seven days of the week and half days on Saturdays. Whatever time he had left had been dedicated to training, trying to se if he could get anywhere near his Super Saiyan level. But ever since Chi Chi had changed he had thought about putting off going to school, as he was actually worried about her. But here he was, already miles away from her.

He grabbed the large fish and hurriedly flew off in the direction of home. As he got near to the house, he realised that he could not feel Chi Chi’s presence in the house. He landed on the garden path and ran into the house, temporarily forgetting his catch on the doorstep. He ran from room to room to find that there was no Chi Chi to be found. He began to get very worried. Previously he might not have thought anything may have happened to her, but ever since she had cut herself, he found himself unable to predict his wife’s actions.

He stopped in the kitchen and noted that it was as he had last seen it when he had left that morning after breakfast. It was clean, all the dishes had been put away and now the tones of sunset and dusk were reflecting through the western window. Amber light was refracting on the surface of the oak panelling of the cupboards. He heard the front door open and he turned to see Gohan, towering over him in the doorway. He stood there, in a blue pants and white shirt with the top buttons undone. His coat was slung over his shoulder, along with the tie, which had probably been the first thing to go. He was not wearing the glasses that usually adorned his face for show.

Gohan raised his eyebrows at the distressed look on his father’s usually jovial face. “ She is fine.” he started and watched as relief replaced the look of distress. “ She flew our air bike over to Capsule Corp in West Capital. She went to see Bulma,” he continued tiredly. He had just come in from a long day of teaching at the University. “You can come over and eat with us. Goten is out on a date and Pan went to the city to find her grandfather, so it will just be the three of us.” Simply, with those few, cold words to his father, he turned and left the house, walking down the path that linked the houses together.

Goku sighed deeply and followed his silent, eldest son. Things were actually quite strained between them now. The problem had started long before then, but it had come to a head the moment they had found Chi Chi in her new body, her left palm bleeding, the knife she had used lying next to her, covered in her blood. It had been hard for everyone there to see her like that, but Gohan had taken it badly. He was a momma’s boy at heart and all he could do was to find fault in his father, who he felt was the whole motive behind her actions. He had allowed himself to get visibly angry and had nearly unleashed the terror of his usually passive emotion on his father, who he had never once argued with in his life before.

 *****

The day Chi Chi cut herself

Gohan was pacing up and down the hallway outside his parents’ room, striding past Videl who was watching at him with a worried look on her face. He reached the window at the end of the hall, where Pan was sitting on the floor cross-legged and staring at the pattern in the carpet as if it was the most interesting thing on the earth at the moment. He turned around and strode back past Videl to the other end of the hall where the passage met it’s end at the top of the stairs and his little brother Goten’s inert body was located laying across the top step. He let out the breath he had been holding and closed his eyes tightly. His hand began to slowly clench into a fist.

**Why had she done it? Didn’t she realised the danger she was putting herself in** he thought angrily. The door of the bedroom creaked open. The small figure of his father emerged from the room, beaming.

“She went back to sleep,” he said nonchalantly. It doesn’t seem like anything is wrong with her, except for the obvious. She’s practically chased me around the room just after she woke up. It probably tired her right out.” He grinned again, happy that there was nothing to be worried about.

Gohan’s eyes narrowed at his father, his anger boiling over in him like lava. There his father was, like always, happy, smiling and calm. He had grown used to it over the years. He had grown to love that gentle nature his father always seemed to have. It counteracted well with his mother’s sternness. But then, years had passed. She had grown less angry and impetuous. She had become slower, sadder and lonelier, but his father continued in his happy docile way, literally growing younger while she had grown older. He knew that he should have seen the signs of despair in his mother, but he had been too busy with his own life, his own wife and daughter and his work. She had made sure that they had not moved to far away from her, but in truth it was his suggestion to set up house next door to his childhood home. In that way he could take care of her, watch over her whenever his dad went on his bouts of training, which he seemed to do ever so often and without much warning. When he had gone off to train Ubuu for nearly 10 years, never even coming home to say hi, Gohan had watched over his mom like a hawk. But when he had returned from the dragon in his man-child state Gohan had loosened up on watching her as carefully as he had before.

 He looked over at Pan, his little girl; her gaze still on the carpet, her face was now tightly drawn as if she had experienced a terrible revelation. In truth she had. Another one of her grandparents had become younger than she was again. She had gone through a lot in the last 2 years, with finding, then losing, and finally regaining Goku so suddenly. She had become stronger, both in body and mentally. She had experienced the joy of battle, the rush of adventure and the throbbing pain of complete an utter loss in the last 2 years. She was almost 16 and she had been through so much. Just like he had when he was her age. He looked away from his baby girl and his gaze fell on the shining blue pools of his wife’s eyes. She had been watching him, he knew. She was worried about him, about how he was taking it. He knew it. She was always concerned about him. She knew what he was capable of; she also knew the fears he held in his heart. She was the only one who knew, who understood the fear he had of becoming that one thing he could not bear to be: his father.

 He could not be the saviour of the world. His dad had taken that upon himself and look where it had got all of them? A strange cycle of life and death, loss and victory had marked their lives. They used to pretend to be super heroes. Years ago they had stood side by side, pledging to uphold justice, but then they had come to realise that the ones who saved the world ended up more empty than those who didn’t. Life was about being there for your family, making sure they knew that you loved them. You did not have to be a superhero to know what it was like to be loved by your family. That was what he wanted for himself. That was why he had stopped trying to save the world.  Look where saving the world had got his father, in a swift, relentless current of dying and being reborn, stuck in the body of a now 13 year old. It had driven his mother to her edge. And here he was pacing outside of his mother’s sickroom because of a man who loved to save the world.

He could not help himself. He had to speak. Videl saw his mouth opening and her eyebrows rose suddenly, wishing perhaps to stop him before he did or said some thing that he would later regret.

 “Really dad… She is fine? Nothing is wrong with her? Don’t you think that some thing is wrong when your wife gets up one day and decides to do some thing like this to herself” he said tersely, the words hissed in the general direction of his now short father.

 Goku’s eyes turned upwards, his expression confused. “ Well, I admit it did bother me when I first found her. But she and I talked when she woke up. I guess it’s ok with me once she wanted to do it.” He paused, and then continued confidently,” Anyway, the doctor said she was fine, right?” He looked around. No one spoke. He shook his head dismissively and walked over to Gohan, putting his hand on his son’s arm and patting it reassuringly. To his great surprise, Gohan pulled his arm away from him and took a step backwards. He looked at him curiously. “Gohan?” he said apprehensively.

At the sound of his name Gohan became rigid. “What?” He spat out. “What do have to say now?” he added and turned away from his dad and towards the stairs, where Goten lay, as still as he had been the last time Gohan had looked at him. He had not even stirred. Gohan wondered, in the back of his mind, if the boy had actually fallen asleep. He turned back around to his dad and glared at him for a second then took off down the stairs, levitating over Goten’s body and into the kitchen. There he came to a stop.

It was mid after-noon and the bright sunlight was streaming through the western windows. The kitchen was spotless. He often wondered how his mother had managed to keep the house so neat with 3 males, all with Saiyan blood, living there as well. Then he remembered: She had trained him to always be neat, to clean up behind himself. She had tried the same with Goten and it had worked to a degree. He had acquiesced to making sure that he kept clear of all the places that his mother resided in. She had stopped going into his bedroom years ago, allowing him the freedom of being a slob in the place he called his own.  But his dad was the real work. The times that he was there, she had a full time job of cleaning, cooking and washing. He knew that his dad was truly a simple man, he had grown up in the woods, and he had hunted there and trained there for many years. He knew had known nothing about homemaking when they had gotten married, his world travels ill preparing him for the challenge of settling down and making a home.

Gohan did not turn around as he felt his father enter the kitchen, directly behind him. He just moved over to the sink and jerked the tap on, stuck his hands under the cold running water, and splashed his face with the water. He took up the towel hanging on to the side of the rack and dried his hands. He heard a scraping noise behind him as Goku pulled out a chair from the table and sat, silently.

 **At least he realises that he shouldn’t talk right now** Gohan though fleetingly, aware of his father’s tactics when it came to dealing with him. Regardless of what people thought about his father’s intelligence, or lack of it, he knew that his father was aware of a lot more than people gave him credit for. This only contributed to his frustration in dealing with his father’s nonchalance about his mother.

He sighed, trying to quell the feelings that were stirring deep within him. He did not want to say anything to him, but he realised that he had already made his father curious as to why he was so angry with him. He stated flatly, “What do you want dad?” while continuing to methodically wipe his hands in the towel.

He could feel his father take in a breath and pause. “I want to know what’s wrong.” He said after the pause.

Gohan let out a contemptuous grunt. “You know what’s wrong. Don’t play games with me dad.” He looked up at his father. “ You aren’t that dim minded are you? Can’t you figure it out?”

Goku’s eyes widened in disbelief. He could not believe that Gohan was being so rude to him. Actually scratch that. He always had known that Gohan had it in him to be ruthless. Chi Chi was the one who always kept him so polite and she was not there at the moment. “Well, I guess it has some thing to do with your mom… and me too I guess.” Goku looked dead straight into his son’s eyes.

**No shit Sherlock** Gohan thought, rolling his eyes. This really made no sense. It was not logical. He had to end it now. “ I give up. You will never get it dad,” he said, his teeth clenched, getting ready to walk out of the room.

“You need to cry?” came the soft reply from right next to him. Without thinking, he slapped away his father’s hand as it came to rest on the small of his back. When he looked back his father was standing staring at his hand and then back at him. At the sight, he just felt the rage build back up inside himself again. He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself with deep breaths.

 “Don’t touch me! You really don’t want to see what would happen.” he spat. He could feel the anger stirring deep in him, burning like bile in his throat. He had to push it down. Anger like this was not good. It would push him over into the threshold of violence. He had given violence up. He was now a scholar. All scholars needed was logic and reasoning. He was a father now. He had a duty to his family. His father would just have to figure it out by himself. And with that he walked out of the kitchen and through the front door.

*********

Goku trod through the door of Gohan’s house, dragging the fish behind him, thinking of that moment when Gohan had told him not to touch him. Goku really did not understand why he had gone to such extremes. Chi Chi was fine. She was back to her normal self, cooking and cleaning, being the good little wife to him. She had not even once nagged him. He thought back to the time he had found himself in his young body. He had been at the lookout, after a great fight with Ubuu in the room of space and time. When he had seen the little blue elf, he had hardly recognised him. Pilaf had grown old and even more crotchety than he had been before. When the dragon had disappeared he had just felt like a veil had lifted over his skin. He had lost some thing, but he had still gained much. He supposed that was what it had felt like for Chi Chi, the feeling of loss, but still knowing that there was something to be gained, some thing that had been given back. It was the chance, the opportunities to do what had seemed impossible before.

He heard his name being called, softly. He looked up. Gohan had disappeared up the stairs. Videl stood in the doorway of the kitchen, smiling softly at him. She was wearing a purple T-shirt, tied at one end, with a short black skirt and leggings. He walked over to her and presented her with the fish, which she took with a good-natured chuckle.

“You just caught this right?” She asked with a grin.

He nodded. She turned and walked back into the kitchen, opening the door to the walk in freezer and putting the fish up on a basin on a shelf.  As she reached up, her hair fell back and she reminded him of Chi Chi, whenever she was cleaning something up high.

“ I will de-bone it later. That could be used to make soup for tomorrow morning. “ She said snapping him out of his reverie. We should go eat now.” She walked past him and walked toward the stairs. “Gohan, we are ready to eat!”

She paused waiting for a reply. Seconds later, the sound of footsteps could be heard coming down the stairs. Gohan appeared next to his wife, smiled tiredly in her direction and walked past his father, on his way to the table in the kitchen, without one look in Goku’s direction.

Videl turned back to Goku who was staring at his son’s back as it disappeared into the kitchen. Goku sighed, Videl smiled sadly. It was going to be a long dinner.

 *******

3 / Bulma’s Hideout / 5