The next day Gohan made one of his rare trips into town. Gine stayed behind to fix the door.
"I can't guarantee much," she said, holding the hammer awkwardly. "But I'll try to follow your instructions as best I can."
"Whatever you do will be fine," Gohan said. "If you really can't figure it out, go ahead and leave it for me when I get back."
"But I've got to fix it. I'm the one that broke it, after all," she said earnestly. "If it's not fixed by the time you get back, I'll… I'll…"
"You'll let me help you finish it," Gohan said kindly, before she could threaten to do something desperate. "I appreciate the gesture, but there's no need for you to go to such great lengths. Honestly, I'm a little less worried about the door and more worried about how you two are going to feed yourselves. How much does a warrior know about cooking, anyway?"
"Oh, don't worry about that," Gine said dismissively, waving her hand in the air. "Cooking is one of the few things I'm actually good at. It was my job back on planet Vegeta. I suppose it's probably gone by now…"
A harrowed look came over her face, and she stared at the hammer in her hand without truly seeing it. Gohan patted her arm. She met his eyes and he gave her a comforting look. He hoped it was enough. There really wasn't anything he could say.
When Gohan returned two days later he found a roughshod door badly fitted in his doorway, young Kakarot sitting in the yard wearing one of his shirts like an oversized dress, crying his eyes out, and Gine outside taking her frustrations out on a block of wood. When she saw Gohan coming she dropped the wood and ran to him.
"I'm so sorry," she wailed, "I almost burned your house down and the door doesn't actually open, you have to take the board down in order to get in and out, and Kakarot soiled all of your clothes except that shirt and I don't know where the clothes washing facilities are."
Gohan chuckled, setting down the heavy pack full of fabric for new clothes for Gine and Kakarot along with other supplies.
"First things first," he said. "When you say you didn't burn the house down, how not burned are we talking?"
It turned out: not very. The ceiling was a little blackened and the pot she had been using would never be the same, but it was nothing that wasn't easily fixed. While Gohan taught Gine the finer points of washing clothes by hand, Kakarot played with the fabric he had bought, his impulse to tear it apart with his teeth quickly corrected by his mother.
"This is for wearing, not eating, Kakarot," she scolded, draping the cloth around herself. "Like this."
Clumsily the little boy attempted to pull a sheet of fabric around him in the same manner as his mother, but only succeeded in pulling it over his head entirely. Gine laughed, and Gohan was relieved to see that the sorrow and heaviness he had left her with had already begun to lift. Dinner that night was delicious, courtesy of Gine. She had been unused to an open wood fire for cooking complex dishes, but once Gohan gave her some tips, she was able to make a very serviceable stew.
"Don't you humans have stoves and things like that?" Gine asked as she watched the fire carefully and adjusted for hot spots as Gohan had instructed. "The info dump made it seem like you're practically ready for space travel."
"Info dump?" Gohan asked, pulling his needle through the sleeve of the garment he was working on. "What is that?"
"It's just this thing that gives us all the knowledge we need while we're traveling to another planet," Gine said distractedly. Gohan blinked, impressed.
"That's amazing. I'm almost positive we don't have technology like that here on Earth. But to answer your earlier question, yes, we do have stoves and hover cars and washing machines. I simply choose to live a simpler life."
"But why?" Gine asked, sprinkling on the spices and giving the stew a taste. "Why give up technology if you have it? No offense, but you humans already seem a bit primitive to me, why go even more primitive?"
"A fair question," Gohan said, holding up his work to inspect the seam. Kakarot was gnawing on a chew toy Gohan had gotten him in town, but he had nearly bitten clean through it, so Gohan was already trying to think of other things he could stick in that ravenous mouth to keep him from inflicting real property damage. "There are plenty of humans that wouldn't understand my lifestyle either. As a martial arts master I have decided to give up worldly pursuits and cares in the interest of clearing my mind and allowing my spirit to be free."
"A martial arts master?" Gine repeated, turning around to look at him incredulously. "You're a fighter? I had no idea."
"True, I don't look it. I'm full of surprises, actually. I used to be quite handsome in my younger days, too."
Gine laughed and turned back to the soup.
"If you'd like, I would love to spar with you later," she said, giving the soup another taste.
"I thought you said you didn't like fighting," Gohan pointed out, starting on the hem.
"I don't like being forced to go around just killing things on someone else's orders," Gine said bitingly, "but I'm still a Saiyan. Fighting is in our blood. I would just rather do it for fun."
"Hmmm," was all Gohan replied. While Gine set the table, he tried the little shirt he had been making on Kakarot. The boy squirmed and tried to bite him, but at a sharp word from his mother he stilled, and Gohan pulled the shirt over his head. Gohan still didn't quite believe this child was only a few days old. He was already practically walking. The shirt fit fine, and once Kakarot realized Gohan had been trying to dress him, not tie him up or eat him, the little boy smoothed his hands down the blue fabric over and over again, clearly fascinated. When Gine caught sight of him, she gave him a smile.
"You look very nice, Kakarot," she said. "Tell Grandpa Gohan thank you."
Kakarot turned to Gohan and babbled unintelligibly. Gohan decided to take it as an expression of gratitude, though it was impossible to tell.
"'Grandpa' Gohan," he mused. "I like the sound of that."
As the days and weeks and months went by, the three of them began to integrate into each other's lives seamlessly. Gine put her armor away and wore the clothes Gohan made for her. She cooked and cleaned and hunted, and both of them quietly did not mention the possibility of her leaving.
When all the chores were done and Gohan was in the mood they sparred. Gine had to go easy on him, of course, but quite a bit less easy than she'd been anticipating, considering the average power level of this planet. Sometimes she almost wished for a scouter so she could read his power level. It was so hard to tell. Sometimes she would lightly tap him and he'd go flying, but then other times he would move her limbs in such a way that she ended up on the ground without hardly knowing how she got in there.
"If you're anything to go by, Gohan said, after one of these sparring sessions, "it's clear the Saiyans rely more on brute force than they do on technique. You're pretty formidable as you are, but if I were to teach you you would be truly something else."
Gine, who had never been called formidable in her life, looked away, pensive.
"I don't know," she said. "I think I like the idea of leaving the killing life behind."
"Who said anything about killing?" Gohan scolded. "What I'm talking about is the martial arts. They're used for peace and self-defense. They can also be used for self-improvement and to settle one's own soul. Killing doesn't even have to enter the equation."
"Settle one's soul?" Gine rolled those words around in her mouth like she enjoyed the taste of them. "That I could handle."
Thus it was decided. The sparring sessions turned into teaching sessions, and when Kakarot was old enough he joined them.
One night after a bedtime story, Kakarot lay drowsing, and Gine was nearly asleep herself when he spoke.
"Mama? Do I have a papa?"
The story had been about a mother and a father, and the realization that she was about to have that conversation gave Gine an adrenaline rush that woke her right up.
"You did. He's dead now." Gine sometimes surprised Gohan with her bluntness in talking to Kakarot about such unsavory concepts, but she saw no reason to hide reality from him, and though she wanted to live as an Earthling, secretly she thought some of their social mores were a little silly. Just because someone was a child didn't mean they were exempt from death or violence.
Kakarot digested that.
"What was he like?" was his next question. Gine thought about how to answer.
Distantly apathetic, if she wanted to answer candidly. Quiet, for a Saiyan, but not above boasting. Strong, but not power hungry. He was the type of man who saw to his own needs and pleasures and didn't seem to care about anyone else's. She knew, from comments she had overheard from his teammates in the mess hall, that he probably did care about them in his own way, but if those feelings extended to her she had never seen evidence of it. Their first coupling had been motivated by boredom and availability on his part, and something like hero worship on hers. The second time had been much the same. The fact that he had never coupled with anyone else had given her hope for a long time that his feelings for her were special, but she could see now with the perspective distance gives that Bardock was not the kind of man to do something that sentimental. He had coupled with her and no one else because that's what he'd felt like doing, plain and simple. Her feelings had not entered into the equation one bit.
"He looked exactly like you," she said to Kakarot. "Except he had a scar on his cheek, like this."
She traced an X on Kakarot's left cheek, the ticklish sensation making him giggle softly.
"Was he strong?" he asked, his voice a quiet murmur as he drifted further and further into sleep.
"Yes," Gine said.
"Stronger than Grandpa Gohan?"
She laughed, a small exhale through her nose.
"Yes, even stronger than Grandpa Gohan."
"Wow," Kakarot breathed, his eyes closed. Gine wondered if he would even remember this conversation later. "Do you think I'll be... as strong as him?"
"My dear, you'll be even stronger," Gine whispered. Kakarot began to snore, and Gine lay awake for a long time that night.
