When you're knee deep in danger, blood and sweat, you know death is always a factor. It is a definite if you are not stronger than the danger. I knew this as I stared back at the bright ball of death that Nappa shot at the kid. I stared down that train wreck, took it full on without any hesitation. I asked myself why, but I think now I already knew the answer. Even before the concept really hit home in my thick skull, I knew the answer the night the kid warmed my cold heart. He'd wormed his way in there over that year, bringing with him his light and warmth.
I knew I'd die for that kid if I needed to. In a heartbeat.
From that day forward I would have put myself in front of any danger for that kid. I admit, as much as it bruises my pride to do so, that I'd do the it for that eternally jovial idiot, the day that he did the same for all of us. In one fell swoop he saved the entire earth from Cell's explosion, sacrificing his life. In that moment I was filled with a deep sense of respect despite having been nearly in a rage at him thirty minutes prior. Goku put the kid in such danger, but the idiot had blind faith in him... And the kid... boy did he step up.
I was filled with such respect... I didn't question why he'd left the kid and his mother alone. I didn't question why he felt that would bring peace, but For a while it did. Even today I think that was more correlation, as opposed to causation.
I watched over the kid and his mother, nobody asked me to, though I would have accepted the task had he done so. From afar, Chichi still didn't quite tolerate me, and I could do without her yelling. I sometimes watched them from the nearby ridge, other times from the tree line when it was dark and they were inside. I watched them like a hawk at first, less so after the first year. Usually the kid was face deep in a book, and she was knee deep in some imagined responsibility.
Sometimes I'd take the kid off her hands, and after a spar, let him do as kids are supposed to do. More rarely I'd find myself helping her. I swear she would pull a fast one on me, but somehow I'd get roped into helping her. Always it was the same excuse; that I ate there often enough to contribute. I rarely needed to eat, perhaps more than most of my kind, but still not often. My rudeness and protests wouldn't deter her from the notion either. Most of the time I carrying heavy things for her, though weeding her garden for her wasn't so bad. She showed me a few things, like how to wash on a washboard. Washing laundry was not the most dignified of work, and I hardly saw the need to do so as I could materialize what I needed at will. The subject made her bawk at me like I was strange, whatever...
Aside from the constant yelling, she actually wasn't so bad to be around.
On a night I couldn't sleep, still wound tight from a fight I had been too glued to the ground to really help in, I came to check on the both of them. She had been giving birth in a barrel tub outside, in the middle of the night. Again, I hadn't been asked, but I stayed. I had no idea what to do, humans are so different, but still I stayed. I let her nearly give me a hairline break in my hand when she asked to hold it. Somehow she managed even through all of that, to teach me a little about humans. She earned a bit of my respect that night, though I'd never admit it. Holding the little squirt afterwards, even momentarily, I wondered why Goku would leave this behind.
I... came by more often after that, it became routine... Sometimes I came just to watch either from the nearby ridge or from the tree line at dark. Sometimes I'd supply them meat, a clean shot would fell a deer easily enough. Other times I brought them fish. I wouldn't usually stick around for the heavier game, though I knew she would offer dinner if I had. Sometimes Gohan would show up at the lookout, with his brother when his mother needed a break. Sometimes the kid and I would still spar.
It was nice to have a family, Even so vicariously. I wondered again why Goku would leave it all behind. But I never again questioned why he didn't train in the years before he and I faced Raditz.
When Goku came back... it was going to be just for a day. But danger came again, and it's name was Buu.
That day, I thought Gohan had died. I was filled with such conflicting emotions of Loss and Rage that they somehow balanced each other out leaving me a little numb. A little calculating. A little careless. Carelessness I paid for later. After Goku gave me words of comfort. After I'd spent hours teaching Goten and Vegeta's brat the most embarrassing overpowered technique that was known as the Metamerese Fusion dance. A sense of relief with the knowledge that Gohan was actually alive was short lived by my carelessness. I paid for it when I couldn't reign in the ego that was Gotenks, surely an ego caused by Vegeta's brat. I paid for it when I underestimated Buu.
I didn't know what happened after Gotenks and I had been absorbed. But when I awoke, Gohan was nearby. After the dust settled, I had learned that Goku, that jovial idiot, had once again saved our asses. Goku did however have a lot of help from Vegeta, and surprisingly some help from that fool Mr. Satan. Somehow, Goku had returned to us. Everyone was shocked, but they were elated he'd be staying.
When Goku came back... Chichi, Goten, and Gohan no longer needed me to fill his role. I knew it was my time to step to the side. Again, I realized too late that there were two more of the Son family that wormed their way in, warming my cold heart. But with Goku? They were so happy... I kept my smile fixed, but my heart felt a little heavier.
I still found myself watching over them...
Gohan was often at school, or with Videl. Mr. Satan's daughter. The girl he'd brought to the tournament with him. The girl he downgraded our friendship to by calling me 'strange'... The girl who nearly died on the stage. At first I was... jealous. Quietly so. Eventually though, I grew to like her. She had heart. She was good for him.
Chichi somehow still managed to rope me into doing things for her, accompanying her to the city on rare occasions... I still never could grasp how she was able to do it.
But with time, grew distance... Distance that I thought would help. With distance I could clear the heaviness that seemed to be building in me. But somehow... The heaviness grew with the distance. So I stayed near. On the fringe of their lives. There when they felt need of me. I do not regret it.
Though I think now that I had longed for more, back then I just settled for what I got.
The rain thundered all throughout the night prior, leaving the morning gray, dreary. Perfectly set to pull on heartstrings already strained. Making the fall morning chill more frigid. A grave is prepared in Satan City. By mid morning mourners gather around it, each wearing black. Carrying Umbrellas to match. From the skies it would almost look like a small forest of parasols. Surrounding the grave as the casket descends. Friends and family... Goku, Gohan and Goten. Bulma and the rest... A few are absent, certainly. Chichi's passing hadn't been expected. What was started as simple hip surgery, a result of a fall, turned sour when she had caught pneumonia in the hospital. She fell ill fast. Within the second week she had passed.
After the burial, long after the mourners departed and the cemetery crew covered the lot with sod. A figure, who'd been on the fringe of the ceremony, finally came forward. Unlike the mourners, he had no umbrella. The rain soaked into the turban long ago, the cold droplets running down the sharp features of his emerald face, dripping off of his nose. The cape was heavy now, failing in its duty it hung there, adding to the weight of the shoulders.
After what felt like an eternity he crouched down to the headstone, there were no flowers in hand, no token he could leave as memento. Just words that had never been spoken, feelings that had never been understood fully, let alone expressed. A heaviness sank his heart, heavier than the weights he wore. Momentarily he felt his nostrils sting, and his eyes begin to burn. He closed them, with a grimace, and took a deep breath before standing. Leaving that place a little too quickly, the disturbance of leaves the only evidence he had been there at all.
Let me know if you would like to see more in a review.
For PiChi fans, its a 'what could have been' sort of moment, I suppose.
I could stop using italics but I didn't want the transition from Piccolo's thoughts, which makes a huge part of this chapter, to be jarring.