CHAPTER ONE

It was the third time this week that he had shown up in her front yard in the dead of night. If Gohan, and now her youngest, Goten, hadn't been so fond of him, the Namekian would have already met the business end of a shotgun long ago. And yet… ChiChi couldn't quite bring herself to take it from the mantle above her bed, let alone load it. The weapon had been a housewarming gift from her overprotective father, and not surprisingly, it had sat above the mantle all these years collecting dust. The only time it had been close to seeing battle was when she found out this same stoic alien had kidnapped her baby boy all those years ago—but that all turned out for the best, didn't it? The spitfire woman sighed, passing a hand over her tired eyes.

The moon was three-quarters full, semi-blocked by puffy gray clouds, and the breeze was stronger than usual; it was the end of spring, and summer was right around the corner. The wind rustled the hem of Piccolo's cape, stirring it around the green strip of his ankles peeking from under his pants. Cast halfway in shadows, and partially in the weak moonlight, he appeared as a waif of his villainous youth, lurking and ominous.

This was the straw that broke ChiChi's back.

Who was he, thinking he could skulk around her property and scare the pants off her whenever he felt like it? He must assume that she forgave him for his previous theft of her son like some kind of fairytale villian—he would be sorely mistaken! Gohan, the sweet boy he'd grown into, may have convinced her to allow Piccolo's continued presence around the home, to continue training him and his baby brother… and he did help out with the fields when the season started… not to mention those pesky aphids hadn't come around since he cleared them out last spring… Argh! But what other choice did she have? Her sons needed a strong figure to help teach them right from wrong now that—

Oh. Damn it, Goku. It was times like this when ChiChi missed her husband so dearly; tonight marked a fortnight from the four-year anniversary of his death while fighting Cell, and she was sure of at least one thing: no matter how much she might miss him, if she could ever forgive him for not coming back was becoming less and less certain with every passing day. She had never been a bitter woman, someone who was so filled with anger and longing and such intense sadness, but being the wife of a fighter could weigh on you. Years, it had been; years of the come and go, the fading intimacy, the struggle to raise to children essentially on your own with dwindling funds. It had never been about the money, no, Ox King made sure his own were looked after.

It was the fact that Goku could never quite figure out who his own was. There were too many people; friends, loved ones, old acquaintances. The family he had made seemed too expansive, too widespread in the adventure that was his life; where could she draw the line? In their forgotten home, high in the mountains, that was the lonely reality that ChiChi lived.

Standing in the front doorway, warm golden light surrounding ChiChi in a hazy golden halo, frying pan in hand, an outsider wouldn't be able to tell any of this. Standing proud and unafraid was a woman who seemed to radiate strength, balance, and humility. The night hid her weary knees, and her chest rising and falling with shallow, frustrated breaths. She had never, and would never back down from a threat (if a threat this was). That was something Goku had once confided that he loved about her, and she prided herself on; Piccolo would not become an exception to this.

"If you ain't gonna start talkin', I suggest you find yer way home, mister." Her fingers flexed, tightening and relaxing on the slick, solid wood of the pan's handle, resigned to attempting to control her emotions.

Of course, he didn't respond at first. Piccolo took his time, a quality of his that she held a certain respect for but at the same time despised. The clouds thinned momentarily, revealing what appeared to be a thoughtful expression etched into his jade features. Irritation and mild confusion spiked in her mind; now, what about what she just said would invoke such a thing?

'No backing down', she thought. Her legs carried her forwards, down the worn cedar steps of her front porch and a few feet into the darkness that bled into where the light faded. "Piccolo! Now, I have had just about enough o' this foolishness. If yer lookin' for the boys, they're at Bulma's for the weekend. From what I heard, I reckon they're going camping tomorrow, and since I know you can track them, there is absolutely no reason fer you tah be lurkin' around here." ChiChi planted her feet firmly, cocking her hip and placing her free fist on it while gesturing with the frying pan avidly.

Of course, without warning, Piccolo stepped from the shadows. His quiet approach startled her internally, making her heart stutter softly. It wasn't that he advanced upon her quickly at all, no, what was more alarming was the precision he took with every footstep, arms locked across his chest stubbornly. Piccolo didn't enter her personal space, halting just outside the reach of the flickering porch light, but it was close enough for ChiChi to sense the turmoil brewing beneath his collected façade.

"I'm not here for them. Not this time. I'm here for you."

The words, coming from anyone else that she knew, would have been comforting, maybe even welcomed given the stress she had been under recently. But how he spoke them, the baritone in his voice making her bones reverberate, put her on the sharpest edge. Hackles raised and eyes narrowed, ChiChi grit her teeth, spine straightening to give her a wee bit of extra height.

"And what business do yah have with me, Piccolo? I ain't yer pupil, and for the last time, I don't need yer damned money!" The handle of the frying pan squeaked in protest as she gripped it, twisting it in her sweating palm; subconsciously, her feet slid into an opposing stance, defensive and unreceptive.

She swore for a split second there was a flash of mirth in his eyes, the corners drawing up in a crinkle… or it was a trick of the light. Either way, ChiChi did not appreciate being the butt of some private joke.

"You refuse to let me speak. If you had, you'd know I'm not here about that, this time. It's about what happened to Goku, and how you're…" An extended pause, as if he were chewing on a mouthful of words and he couldn't decide the best one to spit out. "Well, how you're faring. I know it's been a long time now but…" He sounded unused to speaking of such trivial matters, as if it were a foreign concept; a strange notion for an alien being, how fitting. Regardless of the humor imbuing the situation, ChiChi absolutely refused to see it, her temper rising to a boil. So it was her feelings that were funny to him, then?

"I wouldn't say anything if Goten hadn't brought it up to me first. Your business isn't my concern but those kids… Regardless. He tells me he doesn't want you to be 'sad' anymore." Piccolo cleared his throat after a moment, looking over her head at the way she left the front door ajar. "Gohan mentioned how much stricter you are with Goten as he grows. Your fear, or apprehension, whatever it is—you aren't doing a good job of hiding it from them. Why don't you ever consider asking for help?"

If Piccolo had been looking at her in that moment, he could have seen the exact moment when ChiChi's expression leapt from shocked to distressed, to disbelieving, to downright appalled. She couldn't decide what was more disconcerting: the fact that her sons didn't feel as though they could speak to her about their concerns, or that Piccolo was actually berating her. The silence between them after Piccolo's question became almost awkward until the confounded woman could work her mouth again.

It took all ChiChi had to bring them face-to-face, but one moment her frying pan was drooping in her hands, and the next she was three inches apart from him, rearing on her tippy-toes to shout in his face.

"Because I don't need help, especially not from you! Not from the person who almost tore my family apart before it could begin! I'm raisin' my boys how I they oughta be, and that's the end of it! I am their mother, and you—" Panting, ChiChi shoved a stocky finger into his chest. "You are not their father!" Angry tears pricked at her eyes, blurring Piccolo's face as she glared up at him. It was quite embarrassing, the fact that she only cried when her temper reached its peak, but that was irrelevant in the moment.

The way his eyes stretched was nearly comical, but for Piccolo to stand there and stare the quivering woman before him was the only thing he could do. He took note of how her umber eyes shimmered, the way she bared her teeth at him with insulted fury, how she ground her nail into his gi as if she could dig straight through to puncture his heart. After a solid minute of deliberation, he wrapped his fingers around the wrist responsible for the offending finger, grasping it resolutely a few inches from ChiChi's face. Piccolo knew when to swallow his pride, and he cared about the Sons… oddly enough, ChiChi included. But he was not going to be bullied by her the way her late husband had been.

"Don't shoot the messenger, ChiChi. I'm not the reason Gohan and Goten don't feel comfortable talking to you. Goku has been dead for four years now, so why don't you suck it up and stop taking out your insecurities on the boys who need you?"

It was absolutely safe to say that Piccolo wasn't prepared for a frying pan to the side of the head, but he took it like a champ, releasing ChiChi's empty hand to clutch at his face instead. Violet blood was smearing onto his palms, his ear throbbing and ringing as he gawked down at the furious and somehow equally surprised little woman before him. His shock faded quickly however, replaced almost immediately with anger.

They locked eyes, neither submitting in the battle for control over the situation. Surprise prickled the air like electricity, dancing on the stiff, warm breeze that blew through the clearing, swaying the short grass beneath their feet and fluttering black bangs with warm flecks of blood smeared in them. ChiChi's hand, cramping from her grip on the handle and the weight she put behind the blow, relinquished the frying pan, allowing it to fall to the dirt with a muffled clang. "You… you need tah leave. Now. You won't be seein' the boys any time soon." Eyes wide and clouded, ChiChi turned on her heel and scuttled towards the door, ultimately submitting in their fight; surprisingly, she made no attempt to retrieve the pan.

A millennium seemed to pass before she made it to the door, stumbling in the house nearly blind from the frightened, shameful tears that finally made their way free. Breathing erratically, she clung to the door handle for dear life, using her body weight to start pushing it closed as she leaned against it for support. ChiChi's chest was burning, images of Goku laughing swirling in her mind mixed with the sharp smell of alien blood, but all of that was drowned out by Gohan and Goten. Laughing babies with crazy hair, the watery smiles she would get after bandaging up their boo-boos and healing them with kisses, the way their faces lit up coming home to dinner after a day of training. When did all of that begin to fade?

A dirt-caked frying pan was abruptly shoved into the doorway, clanking loudly against the hardwood as the door slammed into it. ChiChi's yelp resounded through the empty house, the sound startling her more than the sudden appearance of her abandoned cookware. Frozen against the cool wood, she swallowed thickly as Piccolo's voice floating through the crack, thinly veiled vehemence bleeding into his rumbling tones.

"Open the door, ChiChi. We aren't done here."