I highly recommend reading my main fic, 'Warrior's Daughter', to learn more about Chiyo.
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"I really appreciate this, Bulma."
It was mid-morning at Capsule Corporation, and Bulma Briefs studied the harassed-looking woman in her living room.
"It's only for three or four days," Chi-Chi continued, clasping her pale hands around the torso of her youngest child. "So Gohan can work with his tutor. You know what a handful she is."
"Tutor, huh?"
Bulma secretly though that Chi-Chi was too hard on Gohan with the studying - after all, he was only six - but she chose not to comment.
"I don't want Chiyo to distract him," Chi-Chi explained. "Gohan needs his study time and he has tests coming up soon."
"What about Goku?"
Chi-Chi immediately scowled, like she frequently did when her husband's name was mentioned.
"Goku who?"
Bulma laughed ruefully. "In the doghouse again, huh?"
"If we had a dog. He and Piccolo – " she pronounced the Namekian's name like it was a curse word – "do nothing but train all day long. If I let them watch Chiyo who knows what would happen!" She looked fondly at the little girl, who had wandered away from the two women and was examining an expensive glass sculpture on the coffee table. "Chiyo, don't touch that. She gets into everything. Gohan was never like that."
"Well, we don't mind," Bulma replied lightly. "You know Chiyo and Gohan are always welcome here."
"Thank you." Chi-Chi clasped her hands together and smiled, her expression lifting. "Well, I guess I'd better get going...I have an hour and a half's flight home, and groceries to buy." She went to retrieve Chiyo and led her by the hand back to Bulma. "You'll be good for Mommy, won't you?"
"Pitty swan," Chiyo said cheerfully.
Chi-Chi smiled; obviously that meant a 'yes' of some kind. Then she sniffled.
"Don't cry, Mommy," the little girl said, patting her leg. "I'll be okay."
"You can call any time," Bulma said, patting Chi-Chi on the shoulder. Inwardly she steeled herself for the frequent calls that she would no doubt receive in the next few days.
"Would you like more orangeade, Chiyo?"
Mid-morning had turned into mid-afternoon. Despite Chi-Chi's caution on Chiyo's short attention span, she proved remarkably easy to entertain. Bulma had given her some spare butcher's paper and dug out some of her old school supplies. Between that and the chocolate cake Bulma's mother had set out, at least a few hours passed while Chiyo coloured with a ferocity that turned Bulma's crayons to stumps. All Bulma had to do was work in the living room and keep an eye on her, and exclaim in delight over the little girl's drawings once in a while. Easy as pie.
The complicated part was when Oolong, Puar and Yamcha came over for barbecue.
"Yeah!" Chiyo chirped, offering her cup for Bulma to refill.
"What's the magic word?"
The little girl instantly looked contrite. "Please? With sugar on top?"
"Well, alright, since you asked so nicely." Bulma stifled the urge to giggle as she filled the cup.
As Chiyo drank, Oolong seemed to notice her for the first time.
"Hey, who's the kid?"
"Huh?" Bulma turned away from the barbecue, a greasy spatula in her hand. "Oh, she's Chi-Chi's. I'm babysitting for a few days while Gohan has some big test."
Oolong sniggered. "Doesn't look much like Goku."
"What, you mean you can't notice the resemblance? Take a closer look."
The pig rose up on his knees and peered over the table, staring at the little girl. Chiyo appeared totally ensconced in her drink, slurping with gusto. Her tail uncurled itself and flopped over the side of her chair, twitching back and forth. Oolong blanched and sat back in his chair with a thump.
"Sh-e's got a t-tail—"
"Took you long enough," Bulma said rudely.
"Are you crazy?!" Oolong squawked. "If the kid looks at the -"
"You dope! I've already thought about that. She'll be fine." She tapped her head. "Bulma's got it all figured out. Don't you worry."
Oolong shook his head and dived back into his beer. Bulma turned back to the barbecue, and for several long minutes nobody spoke.
Then a high-pitched voice said, "Bulma! We're here!"
Yamcha appeared in the doorway with Puar, who perched as always on his shoulder.
"Pull up a seat," Bulma said, gesturing with her spatula. "There's beer in the fridge, or orangeade."
"Right." Yamcha sat, fixing Chiyo with a curious stare. "Hey, who's the kid?"
"Honestly, don't you guys notice anything?" Bulma turned around with a plate loaded with kebabs and set them down on the table, scowling. "She has a tail. I'll give you three guesses whose kid she is."
Chiyo, strangely, hadn't pounced on the kebabs despite her previous complaints of being hungry. She returned Yamcha's curious stare, frowning as if she remembered him from somewhere, but couldn't place where.
"Yeah, but I sworn I could have seen her before." Yamcha took a kebab from the pile and tore off a chunk of meat, chewing quickly as if that would make the answer come to him. "Has she been to Master Muten's?"
"Yeah, about six months ago. That was when that weird Garlic guy – "
Bulma immediately cut herself off mid-sentence as the unpleasant memories returned in full.
Garlic Jr and his minions were only a vague memory half a year on; she remembered little of what had happened while under the influence of the weird mist he made. She'd been filled in by Gohan and Kuririn afterwards, but it still seemed like a nightmare her brain didn't want her to recall.
But now she did, in horrifying clarity, and she remembered Chiyo had been on the island with Gohan and Chi-Chi...
"What's the –" Yamcha began, but she gestured frantically to shut up. He looked mystified but obeyed.
Chiyo seemed unaware of their exchange; she tore her gaze away from Yamcha and dug into the kebabs with an enthusiasm that Bulma took as a compliment.
"Wasn't Kuririn meant to come?" Bulma said as she sat down.
Yamcha shrugged. "He's out with his girlfriend. She didn't want to come."
Bulma raised her eyebrow, but secretly was pleased. She didn't much like Marron (and did wonder what she saw in Kuririn of all people).
But men would be men, and men always went for beauty for brains. As if a girl couldn't have both!
Mrs Briefs appeared on the balcony, interrupting Bulma's train of thought.
"Who wants tea and cake?"
"Meeeee!" Chiyo squealed, as if she hadn't just stuffed an entire pile of kebabs into her mouth.
"I can only imagine Chi-Chi's shopping bill every week," Bulma said to her mother in an undertone, as Chiyo tucked in to an enormous piece of cake. "Oh wait, I don't have to. Not with Vegeta cleaning out my kitchen twice a week!"
Yamcha choked in the middle of gulping his orangeade, coughed and wiped his mouth.
"What, Vegeta's still here? Doesn't he have somewhere else to go-like back to space?"
"Yeah, he's training in the gravity machine Dad built for him." Bulma pointed over the balcony to the sprawling Capsule Corp grounds, to a round structure planted in the grass. "All day long he does nothing but train." She scowled. "He's like Goku, but with an attitude."
Chiyo took a long gulp of the sweet, milky tea Mrs Briefs poured for her. "Who's Vegeta?"
"He's an as-"
"He's a bad, bad, stinky man," Bulma said loudly, cutting Yamcha off, "who does nothing but huff and puff and growl like a bear with a bellyache."
"Like Piccolo!" Chiyo said, and Bulma giggled. "He's big an' green an' goes 'grrrr'!"
"He sure does, honey. He sure does."
BOOM!
The explosion made the entire house shudder, and Bulma almost choked on her tea in her haste to get to the balcony.
I'll bet it's Vegeta, she thought, and sure enough the gravity machine door opened and smoke began to pour from it.
Bulma cursed without thinking.
"This is the last straw!"
"Bulma-"
"No!" she said and Yamcha fell silent, looking alarmed. "I have had it with this rude, pushy, annoying sh-Saiyan!"
She slammed her teacup on the table and went inside, pushing roughly past Oolong. Chiyo crammed the rest of the cake in her mouth and followed.
Bulma took the stairs two at a time and made a beeline for the gravity machine. She didn't glance back to check if anyone was following; the pitter-patter of little feet told her it was Chiyo on her heels.
Vegeta appeared at the machine entrance, sweaty, sooty and covered in burns and grazes. He was in his training "uniform" - an old pair of bike shorts and trainers, and nothing else.
"Bulma!" he yelled as he spotted her. "This machine is broken!"
"Oh, really?" Bulma snapped, hands on her hips. "If you didn't try to wreck everything in sight then you'd be already finished with-well, whatever it is you're doing here."
"Training," he growled. His gaze shifted to the little girl standing at Bulma's side.
Chiyo looked up at him, blinked and said, "Looks like Daddy."
Despite herself, Bulma snorted.
Chiyo circled around Vegeta curiously. Her tail twitched as she inspected him, and Bulma saw his gaze follow it.
"So Kakarrot made another whelp," he said.
Bulma scowled. "Well, at least someone recognizes what the tail means."
"Don't be ridiculous. I recognize a Saiyan child when I see one, tail or no tail. Even a half-breed."
"You know she can hear you, right?" Bulma said testily. "Anyway, don't try to change the subject. We all know your ultimate goal is to beat Goku, but stop trying to blow up my home!"
"Then have your father actually improve the design to hold its own against a Saiyan's strength!" Vegeta growled.
A wave of dizziness washed over Bulma, and she shook her head.
"Are you listening to me?!"
"I hear you! Just give...me…" she sat down hard and put her head in her hands. "I don't-feel right."
"Bulma?" Chiyo's tiny hand, patting her shoulder. "Are you okay?"
Vegeta's rough voice turned to fuzz in Bulma's ears, and she let the darkness overcome her.