Gohan comes home from the Cell Games without his father, puts on a brave face for his mother, says things about making a choice. Then he falls on his bed and sleeps for eighteen hours. It's the deep, dreamless sleep Saiyans have in space, or while healing from grave injuries, and when he wakes up it's nighttime and he's hungry.

Chi-Chi is eating dinner with his grandfather, lights up when she sees her son awake and alive. There's a feast in the fridge just for him: pork fried rice with mung beans and scallion, his favourite, but also his father's favourites - whole steamed fish, meat buns, pork belly, duck breast, fried egg noodles - and he takes everything out, slowly, methodically, and lays it on the table.

"I made it when you left, thinking you'd both come home," Chi-Chi says, and she has run out of tears. Gohan eats it all. He's ravenous. He feels more Saiyan than human, an awful thing that happens in the wake of difficult battles, when his body is knitting itself into a stronger thing than it was before. When he's done eating he doesn't know what to do. His father had always been the one with hobbies, fond of fishing, or walking, or tree-planting; he looks to his mother, but she has no homework for him, not tonight.

So he leaves the house, calls the Nimbus and heads west towards somewhere else, over miles of forest darker than his mood. The trees give way to scrub, then rock, then mountains. Something flares to the north, like a light or like hope. He chases it without a thought.

It's Tenshinhan and Chiaotzu, eating some kind of fish speared on sticks by a fire. Tien raises an eyebrow when Gohan touches down by them, says nothing, hands Gohan a fried trout.

Chiaotzu lifts off to give them space. It's Tien and Gohan alone, eating fish in the night.

"I thought I would leave before him," Tien says, eventually. "When he was about your age, I fought him in the World Tournament, and I fired my Tri-Beam at him, knowing that it would kill me a little sooner."

It's a tasty fish. "Was it worth it?"

"I don't blame him, if that's what you mean." Tien looks into the fire. "I'm not angry. He taught me that. I could have killed him, back then. He taught me…"

"...He doesn't talk much, about that tournament."

Tien barks out a laugh. "It was hard for all of us. King Piccolo killed Krillin that evening, while we were eating dinner. I thought - I always thought - that strength was everything, that strength was what separated right from wrong. He fought me with a childlike ease and a strange attention to detail. I saw something in him, something that I realized I'd never understood, I'd never understand. I knew then that I could never kill him, that none of us ever could."

Gohan looks at him. Tien smiles, sadly. "It's not your fault. Nobody's born a killer - none of us are, not even Vegeta. I knew that, I learned that, during our fight. I said to my old master, my destiny is not what you'd have me believe. I'm no killer."

"Have you been training all this time to beat him?"

"I thought so, for a while. Then I realized I couldn't beat him, so we trained harder, Chiaotzu and I. Then I realized that none of it mattered, so we trained harder still. For a while I thought he'd killed my drive when he took my old loyalties, but then I realized he'd given me - peace, and meaning. Your father could have done anything, Gohan, could have crushed us all and turned this planet into his playground, but he decided to marry and have you, and I think as he got older he learned that sometimes it's harder not to fight. He made that his mission. He died believing it."

"There's so much I don't understand about him," Gohan says, trying not to cry, not sure why he's sad.

"You understood him," Tien returns. "I know that for a fact. Sure, there were parts of his childhood that he didn't talk about, but he took everything that had been done to him and let it make him stronger, and kinder. And he made you both strong and kind."

"But when I fought Cell, when he killed Sixteen, I was angry, and I was cruel. And that's what took him from me, that after all this trying to make me strong and kind I was still - just -"

"- You've seen your father angry. Your father's anger was awesome, truly, but it's as bright and pure as he is. What's terrifying is his fury. When King Piccolo killed Krillin, I saw something awful in him that I guess we'd eventually call Super Saiyan."

"I felt it," Gohan whispers. "My father's fury, I've seen it, but also my own. It's not just fury. It's - helplessness. I think our bodies - Saiyans' bodies - react instinctively to a hopeless situation." Saiyans are survivors, not fighters. They survive by becoming stronger than their enemies, but Gohan is tired of being strong, so tired.

"Humans do that too. Just not in the same way. Facing death makes us remember those we love, I think, and what we have to protect."

"I mean, I felt that too, but..."

"...You're not all Saiyan, kid."

It's not a dinner-table topic, and Gohan hasn't thought enough about it, what being human means to him. "Hey, Tien."

"Yeah?"

"What does it mean, to be human?"

"Well, Gohan, that's a pretty big question." He tosses a twig into the fire, and they watch sparks climb skyward, towards Korin's tower, or space. It occurs to Gohan that Tien's never been off-planet, at least while he was alive. He's heard rumours that death glows rose-gold. "Some people spend their whole lives trying to find the answer."

"What does it mean to you?" His voice cracks, trying to find space around the lump in his throat. A tear, warm and wet, rolls down his cheek.

(Vegeta wept on the brink of death. This is a thing that men and women do, when all that is left is the acknowledgement that being cruel is not enough.)

"I've spent a lot of time thinking about it. I don't have an answer. I did a lot of bad things, Gohan, when I was younger. You can't ever get rid of those things, but you can let them make you better. The only way you can move is forward."

"Forward," Gohan whispers, almost to himself. He likes that. It sounds like something his father would want him to think. "Yeah." He's still crying.

Tien pats him on the head. "When I said it was like you'd suddenly become a man, I meant it." He smiles, sadly. "It's not easy becoming an adult, especially when you don't get a choice. But you have people - Piccolo and Bulma and Krillin and your mom - to help you. Chiaotzu and I won't exactly come knocking on your door, but we're here too. If you need to talk."

And he has Vegeta's begrudging respect, whatever that means. "Thanks." He wipes his face. "It - I mean -"

"- It doesn't have to mean anything, right now. Your mom is probably wondering where you are."

He's right. "You're right." And maybe the end is just the beginning.

"Of course I didn't tell you the whole truth," King Kai says, over dim sum. His expression is flat, and pointed, and serves as a reminder (however infrequent) of his station. God makes jokes to pass the millennia, but does not make light of serious situations. "I knew nothing about you, had no idea how you'd respond if you learned about Frieza. And I still wasn't sure how much I could trust you with that kind of knowledge. Besides, it was mostly true - the useful bits, anyways."

"It still doesn't seem right." Goku has his arms crossed, and his mouth twisted. This has been bothering him for quite some time.

King Kai him another cup of tea. "Didn't Master Roshi once tell you a story about Dragon Balls? And didn't you once tell Gohan a story about Super Saiyans?"

"Well - yes, I guess." Goku pouts. He's very good at pouting, no thanks to his Saiyan blood. His mannerisms are so obviously Earthling it confuses even the dead. "But that was because I was worried about Gohan, that he wasn't going to be able to go Super Saiyan without actually losing someone."

"And I was worried about you, that you weren't going to take your training seriously, without understanding that Vegeta was going to fight like a man with literally nothing to lose."

Not until now had Goku felt ready to confront the Kai about the story he'd spun him years prior, about the Saiyans losing their planet when their guardian had sentenced them to death for their sins. But as it turns out the guardians were just Namekians, and earth's was the only one; and the Saiyans' arbiter was Frieza, certainly not worthy of determining or delivering justice.

They had been walking, the two of them, through a training field, and a Kanassan had thought Goku to be a Saiyan named Bardock.

"All the old legends are lies," King Kai says, as though it's obvious. "Truth is fragile, and often difficult to use to teach a lesson. It's hard to say if the Saiyans deserved what was coming - nobody deserves to lose their planet. But they earned it. Besides, they left a legacy in you and Vegeta, a little kinder and more humble for it all."

"Gohan." It's not an excuse, but low-class Saiyans never practiced parenthood, and Goku's always struggled with being there for his son. And yet, tempered a little by forests and good people, he's grown up so brave, and so fair. "He deserved better than me."

"It's not like you, to doubt yourself."

"I was thinking about my grandpa."

"Bardock? - The Saiyan that the Kanassan, Lila, mentioned?"

"No, my grandpa Gohan."

"Ah." King Kai clears his throat, and straightens his back. "You should know better than to compare yourself to someone. You gave your son a lot of things, and his strength is only one of them. He loves you, and misses you."

"Yeah." He's right, of course. "You're right."

"Some day they'll tell stories about you."

And maybe death is not the end.