An Error in Compromise
With all the gentleness he could muster, Goku pushed on the bedroom door with the side of his knuckle, filling the dark room previously lit only by the glowing stars of the mock solar system over his son's bed.
The light from the hall washed over Gohan and Chi Chi. The former lay star-fished under his covers, sleeping restfully and blissfully unaware of his mother's presence hovering over him, the collar of her robe draping loosely over her shoulder and her hair in haphazard tendrils from a lazy bun; she was uncharacteristically messy as she'd rushed from the shower to check on him as he slept, as if the absence of her presence would make him disappear.
He'd forgotten about the toothbrush in his mouth, because when he started brushing his teeth in their bathroom it occurred to him that he hadn't seen Chi Chi in a while, and wandered the house until he found her on her knees on the floor of their son's bedroom.
The light of the hallway disturbed her, and her expression met his. "It's late, isn't it." It sounded like it should be a question, but with the tone of her voice it sounded more like a statement.
He hummed, contemplatively in response. He was to tell her it was no big deal, and that he was just wondering where she went, but she smiled gently back at him and he froze, swallowing the excess toothpaste that slid to the back of his throat.
"I'll be there in a minute, okay?" Chi Chi mistook his silence for validity of her previous statement. "I just..." She glanced back at the sleeping child. "I want to be with him a while longer."
Goku smiled slightly and nodded, closing the door slowly again, failing to mask the usual creaking noise it made as the hinge moved in the joint. Chi Chi's explosive response to his return earlier that day had worn her down, and no doubt she'd already been worn thin by his absence and the near-death situation their son recently had on Namek.
He resumed his brushing and headed back down the hall to their own bedroom. It was nice to be home again, where the grandfather clock ticked audibly in the hall where his socks met the carpet and Chi Chi's smell was everywhere.
He much preferred to bathe outdoors. Their shower was such a small, enclosed space filled with easily breakable objects that he hardly felt comfortable. But he hadn't been under the stream of water for a minute when Chi Chi entered the bathroom.
"I missed you both so much."
It wasn't the first time he'd heard her say that that day, when her anger melted to sorrow the way it usually did.
"I can't speak for Gohan," Goku smiled as he worked shampoo through his hair, "But I can say I missed you too, Chi Chi."
"Yeah, right." Came her sharp reply.
She'd carried some contempt with her from the circumstances of his departure and his return. He left suddenly when he'd heard his assistance on Namek was needed, and the next time he saw her he was begging her to let Gohan train with him to fight the Androids when the time came. It was all with his best intentions, but with little regard for her feelings.
It was a little bit selfish, he only weakly admitted to himself. Bulma's suggestion to nip the entire situation in the bud had fallen short against his desire for a strong opponent. But he'd never dare to tell Chi Chi that.
Goku glanced over the top of the shower curtain to see what she was doing. She stood with a foot on the open toilet seat, carefully snipping at her toenails with her back towards him.
"But I did." He insisted, letting the water run over his hair and unable to hide the smile in his voice.
"Prove it." She dared back. The tenderness of her mood from watching Gohan was wearing off, leaving the sturdy temperament she almost exclusively held for him.
"Okay, I'll be out in a second so hold on." It wasn't really his intent to seduce her, but he liked to tease her about it when she was being stubborn. Although admittedly, when she got worked up over things it made him want to seduce her.
"That's not what I meant!" She shot him a hard look over her bare shoulder and he looked back down at the floor of the tub, pretending not to notice.
"I meant that I want you to actually act like you want this life, Goku."
He paused. "Like right now? This life?"
He didn't see her eyes roll, but he knew that was what she was doing by the inflection of her voice. "Yeah, I mean this one."
He dwelled on the thought for a moment before shutting the water off.
"Pass me a towel?"
He heard the bathroom cupboard open and close and her hand shot through the crack between the shower curtain and the tiled wall. He accepted it, wordlessly watching her eye herself in the mirror. She was undoubtedly berating herself for an unkempt appearance she'd been oblivious of all evening.
He dried himself off and opened the shower curtain, causing loose steam to flow over her: to the surface of her skin and the openings of her nostrils, and tiny droplets on the tips of her long, dark eyelashes.
It had been the longest he'd gone without her since before they were engaged, and though she didn't believe it, the truth was that he did miss her terribly. Because in the world outside he ached for a fight- his DNA demanded it. But Chi Chi's presence was like a steady white noise, drowning out the distractions in his mind of the outside world, holding his focus with her own. However, that wasn't always necessarily a pleasant thing.
He'd learned a bit more than he'd liked to about his heritage on Namek. He'd once dismissed his biological parents as insignificant factors due to the existence of his grandpa, but Frieza had told him how he faced his father who looked like him had a will to destroy him just like Goku did, however different their reasoning might've been.
It made him wonder briefly if he'd been loved the way that he and Chi Chi loved Gohan, but he'd been loved so much by his Grandpa he supposed it didn't matter in the end.
His mind strayed to Trunks, still blown that Bulma and Vegeta would be parents. He was in full anticipation on how that would pan out.
"What're you thinking about?" Chi Chi questioned him. She was in the bedroom now, disrobing at the corner of his eye and pulling a nightgown from the hook on the back of the door and only her shoulders in a graceful motion.
"Nothing, really."
She eyed him suspiciously, walking to the bed and pulling the covers back.
"That stupid look on your face didn't seem like nothing."
Goku chuckled. Chi Chi called things like she saw them. His minimal experience with people taught him that not everyone was that way.
"Hey, I'll tell you about it soon, okay?" He pulled on the boxers and sweatpants that were on the bathroom floor.
The sincerity in his voice must've been noted, because her countenance became a bit more gentle.
"Alright."
Goku walked to his own side of the bed and pulled back the bedspread, exposing her body to be chilled by the cool bedroom air.
"Give me the blanket back!"
He laughed playfully, still withholding her covers from her.
"Alright, but can I cuddle with my wife tonight?"
"No. If you really wanted to cuddle you should've thought of that before you dropped that bomb on me today." Chi Chi hissed, and brought her arms protectively to her chest to ward off the goosebumps poking through her skin. "Stop teasing me."
His eyebrows raised in feigned innocence. "I wouldn't."
And just like that, he tossed the blanket back to her and curled himself around her before she could protest. His knees bent under hers and the top of her head slid just under the reach of his nose. Chi Chi always smelled good, but he liked it the best when she was like this. Her hair was still damp and smelled like the herbal shampoo she used.
They lay like that in the stillness for a while, and her steady pulses under his told him that she wasn't quite tired yet, though the buzz she'd set across his mind was kicking in and sleep was creeping through his brain: the peaceful and deep kind. The kind he only had when he was with her.
"Do you think Gohan will be alright?"
Goku snapped to attention, his eyes still heavy with sleep. He pulled her tighter. "Yeah, Chi Chi, he seems like he's okay." He replied sleepily.
"No. That's not what I mean." Chi Chi squirmed against him, forcing him to loosen his hold on her so that she could stare intently at him from across the pillow.
"What do you mean?" Goku yawned.
"I mean, do you think he should talk to someone? They say kids can carry trauma around for years and no one will notice because they compartmentalize-"
"-Let's talk to Gohan in the morning and see. He can tell us." Goku cut in lazily.
"I know." She bit her lip. "I've just been so worried about him this whole time. I don't know how to stop. Or how to make my brain be quiet."
Goku propped his head on by his elbow. She tossed onto her back with a hand above her head and the other on her stomach. Her brow furrowed as she released what was left of her bun and her hair spilled over the pillow, the damp scent of her herbal shampoo spilling with it.
"Gohan's not your average kid, Chi Chi. He's incredibly strong. I've seen it. I wouldn't ask you to let him train if I wasn't sure he could handle it."
"I know." She repeated, though this time her voice lifted at the end like the kind of voice she made when she was fending off tears. She turned toward him, sliding her palms under the pillow.
"Sometimes I feel like all I do is worry and cry." She bit her lip and breathed deeply. "And I don't even know if it's normal because I don't even remember what my own mother was like."
Goku was fully awake now, and reached to run a hand over her shoulder and down the length to her elbows, absentmindedly admiring the small hills of muscle beneath her skin.
"I'm no help there either." He replied gently.
"Sometimes I... I want to have another one, you know? But I can't imagine loving anyone as much as I love Gohan." Chi Chi mused darkly.
"Another baby?" Goku pondered, "Where would we put another one?"
Chi Chi chuckled and smacked his chest playfully. "That's what you're worried about?"
"Well it's the first thing to come to mind, yeah." Goku smiled back, realizing how silly his words sounded now.
"Well for the first several months we'd keep the baby in here with us, like we did with Gohan, and then after that we have Gohan's room."
"What if it's a girl? Gohan won't be able to change in his own room if there's a girl there, will he?"
Chi Chi's smirk remained. "Then I guess we'd add another room so that Gohan can be as carefree in the nude as his father, since that's clearly the priority here."
He smiled back. "That sounds nice."
"I think so too," Chi Chi agreed, but then her joyful features fell, casting sad shadows on her face in the darkness of the room. "But sometimes I think of all the awful things that can happen to us, I picture the blood and the smells and the carnage and I-"
"Shhh." He whispered, putting a finger to her lips. He'd never dare to do that in the light of day.
"You can't let that be the only reason we don't try."
Her eyes widened. "You mean you'd want to?"
He shrugged. "Well I love Gohan. He was so cute as a baby, wasn't he?"
Chi Chi's expression lightened as he reached to pushed her fingers through his hair, which was something he loved and it caused him to slide his eyes shut and let his hand that once rested on her elbow to fall to the curve of her hip. He liked that spot- during his time spent about the universe he'd think about it when his mind needed a temporary rest from the desperation at hand, and thinking about his hand on that spot eased his mind with thoughts of pleasure.
"Gohan was an easy baby. They're usually much harder."
"Maybe we'll only make 'easy babies'?" Whatever that meant.
Chi Chi snorted. "I doubt that."
He felt heat emanate from his body now, not because he necessarily wanted a baby in this instant, but because Chi Chi had made him think about lovemaking, and his hand was on the part of her hip that he liked a lot while her fingers were in his hair, and he was lying down with her for the first time in a long time, and he was longing for her.
It was his favorite thing, maybe more than fighting, because they'd had one another figured out, and making love with Chi Chi was the most primal thing he'd ever done, as even fighting required some level of critical thinking. Sometimes. And it filled him only with the desire of pleasing her. Sometimes she was too competitive for her own good- and those nights could take forever.
"Goku." Chi Chi gasped when he slowly pressed his lips against hers and stifled her weak reluctance, and her hands pushed against his chest halfheartedly before working their way up to the back of his neck, pulling him back down against her and he dropped against her clumsily. Her nightgown rode up her thighs as her knees parted and her back arched against him in familiar expectancy.
It occurred to him somewhere in the back of his mind that it was possible Chi Chi thought he was trying to make a baby while she was still unsure, but the fact of the matter was that he simply missed her, and this was the only thing that made their minds be quiet.
A/N: Apologies for any inconsistencies with the storyline, it has been a while! Thanks for reading!