Gohan stood away from the rest of Z Fighters on the edge of the Lookout and stared intently down below as if looking for something. He couldn't really see anything but the clouds, it was much to high for even his sharp Saiyan eyesight. Only the guardian could actually see the Earth and what's happening there from the Lookout, but he wasn't the Earth's Guardian. That position was just recently appointed to his friend, Dende. Gohan doubted that even Dende could find what he was looking for at the moment, though.
"I have to tell Mom" Gohan whispered to himself, still disbelieving that his responsibilities escalated from battling an evil creation to breaking his mother's heart.
Grief swelled in his heart with a vengeance. Earlier elation and adrenaline rush from battle and winning against Cell evaporated almost completely and the post battle reality truly hit him. His father was gone. His mother became a widow. For the second time. Permanently, this time. Pain and guilt tore through his soul as he tried to wrap his mind around these new truths. It still seemed unreal in a way, but he knew it was just because it was so outrageous.
They all spent last three years training. They spent it making sure his father wasn't sick. His mom started the day with checking his Dad temperature! They did everything they could so he'd be alive and strong. And now he wasn't here. Wouldn't be here. It truly was too outrageous.
Gohan was blaming himself for it. He wasn't good enough. It was his fault. If only he didn't made the mistake of underestimating Cell... of toying with it, of allowing himself to submit to desire for inflicting pain and meting out punishment.
"Ahh, Gohan" Krillin asked from behind Gohan causing him to turn around startled out of his thoughts. "Do you want me to, you know... come with you?"
"Would you...?" Gohan looked at the former monk hopefully, desperate for any kind of support.
"Yeah, of course" Krillin replied with half amused smile on his face. "I'm not sure if I'll be able to help much, though. Last time I didn't do too well."
"Last time?" Gohan looked blankly at Krillin.
"After battle with Raditz I was to tell Chi Chi bad news. Not only that your Dad was gone, but also that you were kidnapped by Piccolo." Krillin explained.
"Piccolo didn't kidnap me" Gohan protested.
Krillin folded his arms in an eerily similar imitation of Vegeta and looked at Gohan with all authority he could muster, which wasn't that much considering how much more powerful than him the boy was.
"He took you – a defenseless child - while you were unconscious, without permission from your parents and upon many protests from Master Roshi, Bulma and I. He did kidnap you, Gohan."
"He trained me" Gohan argued stubbornly.
"He did that too" Krillin conceded. "Anyway, I wasn't able to do it then."
"Do what?"
"Tell Chi Chi" Krillin said. A chuckle of self-derision escaped his lips. "I mean, I went there, to your house, dressed in my best suit. I rehearsed different ways I could tell her the news when she opened the door and... my mouth and my mind froze! I couldn't say it! Chi Chi fed me and she allowed me to sleep over because it was so late and all that time she thought that Goku and you were playing around on Kame Island."
"You mean to tell me that the whole year she didn't know Dad was dead?" Gohan looked incredulously at his friend.
"Haha, no, of course not" Krillin laughed. "I escaped. In the middle of the night, too. I couldn't handle the pressure much longer. I believed then that I would rather face Piccolo myself than tell her what happened. In the morning, Chi Chi and her father chased me to Kame Island and then Master Roshi told them all of it."
Gohan fell silent for a moment to think and then asked, "How did she take it?"
"She fainted." Krillin said bluntly.
Gohan fell silent for a while longer.
"Maybe it won't be so bad then" he decided. "I'd rather she faint than cry."