The prompt: Goku/ChiChi, Goten's conception, the night before Goku leaves for the Cell Games.

The fill:

When she hurried to the bathroom for the third time to be sick that morning, she knew there was something wrong. On her way there, her eyes took in the room as they always did. Seeing the empty bed, the missing gi hanging from the chair and boots from besides the bed to trip her up, the ticking clock reading nine in the morning, so early and so much more to go. The lack.

Goku was such a huge force in her life, in the life of everyone he met. When he was gone, all it left was a void that gaped to turn open and empty doorways into mouths. Then she would be swallowed by that vacancy. The only thing that she was allowed in these places was worry and doubt. In the silence all Chi-Chi could hear over and over again was:

How could he have left us?

Was I not a good enough wife to return to?

What are we going to do without him?

They followed and held in their tight embrace, stronger than one of Goku's hugs.

Even Gohan was noticing.

Even Piccolo and the rest of Goku's well meaning but absentminded friends noticed.

But, Chi-Chi thought as she flushed the toilet again and dragged herself to the sink, she had a feeling what this was. She ran the water and avoided her reflection. In the bedroom next door she could nearly hear Gohan, humming as he went through his homework and through the rest of his life without a father.

Oh, but he had Goku's friends as a constant reminder.

She 'loosened' up enough to allow Gohan to see them more, wanting to get the boy out of the house. He didn't mope, instead choosing to try and cheer her up, and Chi-Chi couldn't decide which was worse. Perhaps Goku had told him, or someone else, that there had to be a man of the house. Once again that mantle had been thrust on him, just like three years ago when his father had been in space.

Lost, they had thought. Only now she could think with not a little bitterness that he had stayed there to train rather than return home. He had missed another enemy trying to take over the planet, only foiled by his son and friends just barely being able to defeat his old nemesis. Remembering that fight (or rather what they had told her had happened) filled her with unease. They'd only barely managed to defeat him, and no matter how strong Gohan was, he was just a boy. Why should he be forced to fight and become the planet's guardian? Why couldn't he just stay home and do his homework like a normal boy?

Only Piccolo didn't continue to comment on their loss. And even so, you could read it in his black alien eyes as he attempted small talk.

Vegeta had stopped by momentarily, grimacing in hatred even more than ever while simultaneous pleading in that arrogant way of his to babysit Trunks. Who was getting older and learning to walk and destroy everything in his tiny grasp. Looking over him, and Gohan who had done his best to keep the boy entertained, had been a moment of brightness. For a brief afternoon there had been peace while they marveled over the infant that could hardly stand on his own. Trunks could barely say anything more than his name and yelling at them for food or some object to teeth on. No word of sorrow for their loss escaped his two-toothed mouth.

She found herself preferring the pitiless company of Vegeta, or Piccolo if you avoided anything more than his exact words, or that pair of android twins that hung around Krillin now like a pair of denim clad puppies.

The Saiyan prince was never a man of many words of sympathy, and offered neither to her or Gohan. He seemed to care little of Goku, and if not for Bulma calling her for advice and telling her about his vow to never train, Chi-Chi would have believed him.

The Namek showed his concern wordlessly, turning it into chores to be performed silently. He saved any true emotion for Gohan, and she tried not to hate (hate? who?) for the alien who had murdered Goku and stolen her son away only to become a fatherly influence.

The androids had been created to destroy her husband and would have done so if they hadn't run into those stronger, and of course seemed as arrogant as the young could only be. Why they were spending time with Krillin, who seemed the least likely person for them to align themselves with, she had no idea. When Krillin would stop, smiling and seemingly oddly at peace with himself, they would follow him and sprout off oneliners and sarcastic remarks that the short man would brush aside harmlessly.

Their presence and his newly grown hair and easy smile reminded her that some good had come of that mess. And when she noticed Krillin locking eyes with Juuhachigou that ended with them smiling at each other over nothing and for a solid five minutes, Chi-Chi was able to disregard her unease with them to support him when Bulma would call to mock Krillin and 'that harem of teenagers' he was growing.

At least someone was happy.

When she looked in the mirror, she could see filaments of red in her eyes. Who was this woman, this middle-aged woman with her black hair falling out of a messy bun and the mouth set in a miserable line?

She knew exactly what this was, and what had caused it.

And what made it worse was that she couldn't entirely blame Goku.

Goku, as disorienting as it was, made a pretty blonde. The bright hair went well with the pale skin with its spots of pink.

But he still giggled in that sweetly idiotic way of his.

"Aw, Chi-Chi, cut it out." The large man squirmed just from her running her toe against his instep.

"How come the strongest fighter on the planet is so ticklish?"

He looked at her, suddenly serious with unfamiliar eyes that reminded her of traveling to Master Roshi's and flying over a murky green ocean. Leaning in close, he whispered seriously to her, "That's my weakness."

"Oh, is it?"

"Yes." Looking as sincere and sober as a confessing boy, Goku held his index finger to his mouth. "Don't tell Cell."

"Of course not." She made a motion to zip her mouth. "Not a word."

"Thanks," be breathed a sigh of relief. "Now nothing can defeat us."

"I hope not."

"Aw, Chi-Chi," Goku smiled once again and pressed his face into her stomach. "Don't worry."

"I can't help it. That monster's out there, planning on destroying the planet." Chi-Chi rubbed one arm, recalling that radio broadcast that had shattered the thin peace.

Goku kissed her bellybutton. "You trust me, though. Right, Chi-Chi?"

"I do."

"Then relax."

A kiss turned into a lick into a bite as he slipped downward. Awaking that sweet warmth and wetness that was for him alone. She tried to imagine not being here, not marrying him despite how his friends had panicked, and could only shudder. A life without Goku, and Gohan? How could that even be called a life? No matter what happened, she was so happy for the decisions she'd made in the past.

"Goku?"

"Hm?"

"Do you think." It was becoming harder and harder to talk and think clearly. "That we should expand out the house? What with Gohan getting older?"

"Maybe," his smile seemed to shrink. "Maybe after all this is done."

He took her hand as he so rarely did. And she squeezed it and felt at ease, as she so rarely did anymore.

"Maybe."

Then she was pulling him down, taking control of him and dominating him in a way no one else did, that no one else could. Goku was hers, hers forever for the rest of her life. Just as their vows had proclaimed.

Then he was kissing her, and she couldn't think anymore.

All lost now. Any future they would have together was lost when he'd sacrificed himself again to save the planet, and refused to return.

He had left, and left her with another child.

Had she honestly thought how happy she was at that moment? Or were her memories colored by what had happened? Did she still think that?

She was far from being too old to have a baby. But after the chaos that had followed Gohan's birth, the difficulty of carrying him and then raising a child as hungry as his father, she had planned on only having him. Gohan was enough, in every sense. Although she had planned on having more when the marriage had started, but after time went on she realized she didn't need another child.

Ch-Chi could already feel the baby at her breasts, like Gohan had been, like their father had been which had caused this whole mess. It would be a boy, she could tell. A hungry one who fought just as his father had done. A peaceful well-mannered girl was too much to hope for.

A healthy dark-eyed baby that would need her, and his big brother. He would need them to teach him how to be strong, how to fight, how to make the father he would never know proud. Yes, they would have to tell him about Goku.

Not like Gohan she could sense. He would be different, from being born during such a different time. Tragedy rather than peace. Broken than whole. But he would be strong and tough and his father's child.

Would he cling to her as her first-born had, crawling into her bed after crying for his mama because a monster was coming to get him, fall asleep besides her with his hair like dry grass in her face. Already retreating into his own person instead of a little person that they could still recognize parts of themselves in. Weeping, as he had when he'd returned home to blame himself for letting his father die, and Chi-Chi would never (forgive the Saiyan for putting that burden on him) forget. Holding him tiny and bigger, his tears the same. And Goku would awake and reach out for them as his son did for her. 'It's okay, it's okay.'

What were the last words he'd ever said to her? 'Gotta go' before he'd ran off to become a blur, without even a promise that her son wouldn't have to fight. He hadn't lied, Chi-Chi had to give him that. No, Goku never lied.

What were the last words he'd ever said? Not for her ears to hear.

Goku never left a body behind. All he left were the clothes he hadn't enjoyed wearing and would have preferred being without, a family that were left bereft of joy without him. He had died, and given her a life. Almost as though he were keeping the scales even. She could almost see him above in that place he'd described, with its bright yellow clouds and absurd keepers, putting a baby on a scale while on the other rested…

She tortured herself with reminders of what had happened. Not a shred of him left, blown up, had it been painful? A split second of splitting pain that tore him apart, and gave her with a lifetime of horror.

That monster, how could he had brought her child to stand before that gaping hungry mouth that sought to devour everything? Was it because she was a mother that she wanted to protect, were fathers built differently and wanted to make their children strong and proud of them? (even Vegeta had fought for his son) Or was that only Goku being Goku? Had he done his best to save their child before the monster forced the decision on him?

He had placed a baby on scale and a bloody, bleeding heart on the other, and she didn't know if it was his heart or hers.

Her hand found the curve of her stomach, still unsubstantial. But not for long. The baby would grow, and need its mother. A strong mother that wouldn't mope and think solely about the past. Gohan and Goku weren't the only fighters in the family.

She turned on the water to splash her hot face, and recall that year without Goku, and that year before that, and how she'd worried more about her son than her husband as any mother would. If it came down to it, always her son, always. Goku had chosen the same perhaps, in his way. And now she had two children to worry and would always outweigh everything on her own scales.

The running water blocked out the sound of her crying, she was sure. She would wait until the flush left her wet cheeks and tell Gohan that he had a baby brother on the way.

Just as soon as she was ready.

Just as soon…