Disclaimer: Gah… Ok, I copied the idea of the Binnie situation from A Ring Of Endless Light, by Madeleine L'Engle (a good book, by the way) and took a few quotes from it. I thought it'd fit pretty well but now that I look at it, it kind of strays from the plot… Anyway, I'm not making any money off this or of DBZ, which I also happen not to own, so please don't sue me. -_-
Chi-Chi raised a small glass of water to her lips, rinsed the liquid through her teeth, and spat it back into the sink. Dr. O'Brien, her oncologist, said that rinsing her mouth often would wash away the bacteria that came with the rotten-orange-juice-tasting vomit that so frequently appeared recently. It was a side effect of radiation, which was really just heavy doses of x-rays.
As she sat back in bed, a door creaking open was heard and Goten was standing at the doorway. "I brought your toast and crackers, Kaasan," he said, walking forward with the plate.
"Oh, thank you, Goten," she took it and looked at it with contempt. "I do miss curry, though…"
"The doctor said you couldn't have spices, remember? Anyway, we don't know how to make curry." Goten started for the door, hesitated, and looked back. "Are you getting better, Kaasan?"
It was a question he asked every day now. And she always answered, "I'm doing my best, dear."
He returned to the kitchen. Goku was out sparring and Gohan was out with Videl, as usual. Goten and his father spent shifts taking care of Chi-Chi, and Gohan helped some of the time, but not regularly. From Goten's viewpoint, his brother cared more about that girl than he did his own mother, but of course that wasn't true, he just didn't want to see her (Chi-Chi) suffering. So, instead of bearing through it, he let others get burdened by the disease instead.
The phone rang, interrupting Goten's thoughts. He picked it up. "Son Family, Goten speaking."
"Hey, Goten," Trunks' familiar voice greeted. "What's up?"
"I think Mom's asleep. Otherwise nothing much here."
"Oh. Well, wanna come over? My mom's working on some project and Bra took Vegeta and apparently your father shopping. So maybe we can play Super Smash Bros or something."
"Sure, as soon as I tell Mom. See you then."
"Bye."
Chi-Chi was asleep, so Goten just left a note saying where he was and raced to the Capsule Corp., where Trunks was waiting.
After an hour and a half of playing Super Smash Bros, Starfox, Mario Kart, and
Zelda (they took turns), they were both pretty tired out. Goten seemed to have the same dull interest of it that Trunks had when they were playing Pokémon Snap a month ago (see If Only). Finally, curiosity and concern overcoming him, Trunks asked, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong." He repositioned himself on the black beanbag cushion.
"She's not getting better, is she?"
"Let's go see what your mom's doing," Goten suggested, standing up.
Trunks sighed. "Sure, why not? I don't think she minds us looking around if we don't bother her too much."
Bulma's new project was a machine that would transform M&M's into senzu beans. So far, it worked, but only with the brown and yellow ones.
"Hi, Mom," Trunks greeted as he and Goten walked into the lab. "How's it going?"
"It would be fine if it weren't so picky," she snapped in reply. Then her tone grew lighter. "Want some M&M's? I have plenty." Bulma indicated the wide array of sacks of the candy on the counters.
"Thanks." They both took a bag and sat down on the chairs.
"Oh, and Goten, you can take a few senzu beans if you want. I understand Chi-Chi's been having a few fevers. I'm sorry." She put a small brown pocket-bag in his hands.
"That's alright. Thanks." He stuffed the bag into a pocket.
"Welcome. I got to go back to work guys." She turned back to the machine.
Goten and Trunks went back to playing N64.
"What the…" Dr. O'Brien's soft fingers probed Chi-Chi's neck, collarbone, and groin. "They're every where…!"
"What is it?" Chi-Chi asked, sitting up on the hospital table.
Catriana O'Brien was merely twenty-eight years old, and physically showed it. Her long blond hair with light red highlights was held up in a neat ponytail that day, and her blue eyes were always glittering behind glasses. But there was an aura about her that made her seem older and smarter and more mature than she looked.
The oncologist leaned back with a frown. "There are tumors everywhere on your body. Five times more than before we did the radiation treatment. That never happened before." She sat down at her desk and wrote on a sheet of paper. "I don't think we'll be doing radiation anymore. There's simply too many of them to be safe."
"Then what can we do?"
She looked up. "Well, we can do surgery, to remove them. At least that'll give us a lead. Then we'll do chemotherapy, to try and get them out completely."
"Chemotherapy?"
"Chemo, for short. It's a strong drug and we insert it through your body through a tube. To be honest, it hurts like hell, but it's the strongest thing we've got. I wish it wasn't necessary, but…" She shrugged. "I'd better be going then. You can schedule the operation with my receptionist."
A lot more people had cancer in Satan City than Chi-Chi would have expected, because she had to wait in a long line to get to Mrs. Baker, Dr. O'Brien's receptionist. In front of her was a tall lady holding a little girl's hand.
"Is the line always like this?" Chi-Chi asked the woman.
The lady looked back. "No, sometimes it's long."
The little girl looked up at Chi-Chi then, her brown curls bouncing. The way she smiled, Chi-Chi made a mental remark of the resemblance she had to the girl in the Pepsi commercial.
"Hi," the girl said. "I'm Binnie."
"Hello," she replied. "My name's Chi-Chi."
"I have epil…. Epil…"
"Epilepsy, dear," the mother said.
"Yah. Epilepsy," she said proudly, smiling. "What do you have?"
"Binnie!" her mother scolded. "That's not very-"
"That's alright," Chi-Chi said to her. To Binnie, "I have Hodgkin's disease."
"Oh." At that moment it was her turn in line, so she whispered to her while her mother talked with the receptionist. "My daddy flushes my pills down the toilet. He says it's against Kami's will. My mommy keeps buying me new ones so we hafta get them in secret." She smiled again.
Chi-Chi frowned but said nothing. Just then the mother finished, said a brisk bye to her, and led Binnie away.
Seven days later…
"Mmm, Gohan," Videl purred, putting an arm around his waist as they walked through Satan City Mall.
"Videl," Gohan responded, his arm across her shoulders as he pulled her closer for a side hug. He noticed her eyes had a faraway look. "Whatcha thinking about?"
She looked at him, and smiled. "Us. Gohan, when will you tell your parents? I've already told mine, and they've calmed down, and are fine with it. How long until they call yours and ruin the surprise?"
He tugged playfully at her terribly short hair. "What surprise? I think my parents
already know. At least, my mom does. I think my dad is too dense to get it."
"When, Gohan? When?"
"Soon."
She frowned at pulled away from him. "Soon is too long away. Now, Gohan. I want you to tell them now. You know as well as I do that your mom might not have a soon. I'm sorry but that's the dead truth, ok?"
"Dead truth," he repeated absentmindedly. "Appropriate."
"Stop talking like that! Look, please, I don't want to be mean but really. I don't want to see you until they know." And, with much reluctance, she turned around and walked away, leaving him standing in front of After Thoughts.
Bra walked out of that particular store, saw him, and said, "Oh, hey, Gohan! What's up?" Vegeta followed, looking weary, and carrying several shopping bags.
"Hey Bra, hello Vegeta-san," he greeted drearily. "I'd love to stay and chat, but I gotta run. See you." He left.
When he arrived home, he was puzzled to only find his father and his brother- who were eating- in the house, and not Chi-Chi. "Where's Mom?"
Goten looked up and said, "At the hospital. Getting her surgery. As if you'd know, but no, you're too damn busy with Videl."
"Watch your language, Goten," Goku said between bites.
"I apologize for being away. When will she return?"
"Tomorrow morning."
"I see. Alright then."
Chi-Chi was to wait in the emergency wing for the operation room to be ready. It was a madhouse. Ambulance sirens were heard every few minutes and people on stretchers were rushed here and there by nurses and the paramedics.
Here she also met Binnie again, but not at all as before. She saw her mother rush in, carrying her limp body in her arms, and looking outraged. She recognized Chi-Chi, rushed over to her, and said, "Please, be a dear, and hold Binnie-chan for me while I get the nurses to help the poor girl."
"Yes, of course," she replied, taking the child, who stirred in her arms. "What happened to her?"
"She always passes out after seizures." The woman rushed to the long line frantically, as if her daughter's life depended on it.
It did.
Chi-Chi looked over the child uncomfortably. Her mouth was open slightly, and a pink foam had protruded out from it. Her eyes were lolled back. Again she stirred, and it began.
Chi-Chi had never seen someone have a convulsion, but she heard somewhere that you were supposed to keep them from swallowing their tongues. She took a white hankerchief from her purse and stuffed the wad into Binnie's mouth.
The little girl's limbs and overall body was jerking wildly around, and animal sounds groaned from her gagged mouth. Chi-Chi looked around frantically but no one was noticing, not even the nurses, who were wrapped up in several other emergencies. It was all she could manage not to throw Binnie out of her arms and onto the floor, so desperately she held her.
And then the flailing of her body, the animal-like sounds, and the arching of the child's body stopped as quickly as they'd begun. The pink foam still came slowly from her nose and lips, but otherwise she was still except for raspy breathings. Chi-Chi remembered her mother saying how she passed out after a seizure.
Binnie's small chest rose. Fell. Rose. Fell. Stayed still. Did not rise. Her body grew heavy, a different kind of heavy, not the same heaviness she felt when she had held Goten as a baby. Chi-Chi was quite aware of the death that had taken the child from her arms.
Only then did a nurse come. "Poor thing," she cooed sympathetically. She gave a strong pinch on Binnie's wrist, where the pulse would have been, and made a tut-tutting sound.
"I put the hankerchief in her mouth, to keep her from swallowing her tongue," Chi-Chi managed to say weakly. A deep darkness had moved into her.
"Good job," the nurse said, taking the child.
"My God, I'll kill him, it's his fault," Binnie's mother shrieked, and her words dribbled off into a shrill, agonizing scream.
At that moment Dr. O'Brien came. "Your room is ready," she announced. "Are you alright? You look faint."
"I'm… I'm fine…" She let the oncologist lead her to the room, where she lay on a table and a breathing mask was placed over her mouth and nose. Physical darkness moved in, and her eyes closed, but the other darkness, the darkness of death, still loomed there.
Waiting for her.
"I'm sorry, really, I am, but I don't know what to do," Dr. O'Brien apologized. "I've never seen a case like yours. After the surgery, you still have ten times more tumors than you've had before. There's nothing more we can do, except extremely heavy doses of chemo."
Chi-Chi was sitting in the office three weeks later, not for check-up, but for a conference. She was told to bring Goku with her, so there he sat, in the chair next to her with his hand resting on hers.
"The chemo," she continued, "at least, the kind we'll be giving you, is so powerful that only one in a millionth chance is there that you'll survive through it. Out of that one millionth chance, there's only one in two thousandth possibility of remission, where the cancer is completely out of your body. And only if you have the remission throughout five years without a recurrent can we say you're fully cured. If you don't get the one millionth chance, you'll be dead within a week.
"I'm letting you decide. You can take the risks of the chemo and probably live a few days, or you can do nothing and wait for the disease to overwhelm you. If you wait, judging by the look of things, you'll probably live a month. Please think this over."
"Is there a third choice?" Goku asked.
"No third choice. I'm sorry. Please get back to me when you've decided." She stood up to leave.
"I've decided," Chi-Chi declared suddenly. "I don't want the chemo. I want to live with my family as long as possible."
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
"Chi-Chi-" Goku began, but she hushed him.
"This is my decision," said she. "My life. I don't want the chemo."
"Very well," Dr. O'Brien said, wrote something in her clipboard. "Then you're free to go. I trust I won't be seeing you again." She held out her gloved hand. Chi-Chi took it and they shook.
"Kaasan?" Goten whispered into the darkness, where his parents were in bed. "Tousan? I had a nightmare, can I sleep with you?"
"Of course, Goten," Goku said, scooting over, making room between him and his wife.
As Goten clambered in, he noticed the air was different. Tense. His parents were talking about something they'd rather not talk about in front of him. He glanced at his mother, who was watching him with eyes so wide and so sorrowful it made his heart ache.
"What is it, Kaasan?" he whispered so only she could hear.
"I love you, Goten," she said, holding him close. Her body was cold.
"Kaasan… Are you getting better?"
"I've done my best, Goten-kun." Once again, they fell asleep.
The woodpecker rammed its head against the hard bark of the tree, in desperation of getting food for its starving young. RAP! RAP! RAP! Every blow brought a terrible pain and a dent into her beak. The bark was not what she- or any other woodpecker- was used to. It was as hard as a rock, and she didn't know what to do about it. So she kept rapping until finally her body could take it no more and she fell to the ground in a feathery heap. Her spirit lifted to the skies and the soul flew away high.
A lone, silver wolf waited below. His stomach growled, as he hadn't eaten in two weeks. He had abandoned his pack to be with a female lone wolf, to whom he had been attracted to. She died of starvation, as he would soon. He threw back his head and let out a long, melodious, suffering howl to the moon that echoed throughout the forest. Then he turned and walked away and if death should take him anytime soon, so be it.
And the moon shone on, just like its glorious night of being full went on.
Goten woke up again later that night from his strange dream about the woodpecker, wolf, and the moon. It meant nothing to him, but left him a little sad.
It was late. It was so late it was early. The clock said 3:06 AM.
He saw his parents sitting at the end of the bed. His mother was slouched against his father, who was crying, sobbing, with his face buried in her shoulder. She did nothing to comfort him, only lay there, though his arms were around her in such an embrace that no one would dare try to separate them.
"Kaasan?"
No reply.
"Kaasan!"
Still nothing.
"Mama!" His voice cracked and tears welled into his eyes. He crawled over to them, and lay a hand on her arm. It was dead cold.
He pulled away. Had to get away. Away! He found himself running from the house, to where he did not know, but would soon find out. He ran away so fast that he didn't even notice his older brother who was standing still at the doorway, grieving and internally crying.
Gohan did not get a chance to tell his mother he was engaged to Videl.
Goten found himself at the Capsule Corp. He instinctively ran to Vegeta's gravity room, which was repaired, and pounded on the door. "Vegeta-san! Vegeta-san!"
He heard Vegeta turn down the gravity and open the door. "What is it, brat? Why do you bother me from my training?"
Goten flung himself at the man, clutching his waist tightly, and covered his face into his chest. Then, for the first time in a long time, the sobbing began. The tears flowed and flowed and ran down Vegeta's armor.
Vegeta picked him up and sat down on a bench with the boy in his lap, and held him. Let him cry. Vegeta closed his eyes and clenched his jaw, trying to hold back the tears, not for Chi-Chi (he'd never liked her anyway) but for the boy, because he could do nothing to cheer him up. That he could do nothing to make his crying cease.
Goten noticed Vegeta's body shivering under his, and looked up at him questioningly. His eyes opened. "She left, didn't she?"
"Yes. My Kaasan is dead."
"I'm sorry." Vegeta gave him a rare hug, something he never did to anyone but his family, but then pulled away. "What's that in your pocket? It's hard."
Goten, just as confused, pulled out a small brown sack. The sack of senzu beans Bulma had given him were still in his pocket after all that time.
Only then did he realize it. Senzu beans could cure and heal anything. Anything. Including cancer, no matter how absurd. As long as the person was still alive.
He could have saved his mother.
Could have.
If only.