Goku was many things – strong, loyal, caring…strong…but for some inexplicable reason, the very idea of subtlety was something that completely eluded his mental grasp.
"I'm home!" Goku called as he barged in through the kitchen door. Chi Chi had been hefting a cauldron – the cast iron clattered noisily to the floor, denting and cracking the already worn linoleum. She stood dumbfounded for a long moment, as Goku stood cheerfully in the doorway. "Sorry it took so long, Chi Chi, but we had to fight across the Nine Circles of Hell in order to climb the Tree of Life, except we had to fight Vegeta's dad first, but then he decided to come with us, and my dad decided to come too, this is him," Goku stepped further into the room, dragging his father behind him, "His name's Bardock, and you remember my brother Raditz? He came too, he's sorry about trying to kill everyone, and Piccolo's here too," Goku caught Chi Chi deftly as she launched herself at him, stopping his chatter to breath her in for a long moment. A thought struck him, and he pulled away to look at his wife's tearstained face. "So should I go catch some fish for dinner?"
Chi Chi laughed until she was sobbing, then abruptly pulled herself together. "Will it just be the five of us?" she asked as she wiped her reddened face.
"Gohan said he had to go pick someone up," Goku answered, looking proud of himself for having remembered.
"Well, then, off you go. Bring back at least two of the big ones," Chi Chi told him. As soon as the recently dead warriors had lifted off of her lawn, she burst into tears again. She only let it take a few minutes of her time, before she pulled herself together and started cooking. Cooking, she knew how to do. Goku running off and coming back and running off, she wasn't sure she could deal with any more.
~*~*~*~*~*~
There was no set place for Gohan to know where she would be; he simply knew where she was, and made a beeline for her. She was fumbling with the keys to the house she was standing in front of, trying to juggle the four year old girl and two bags of groceries.
"Videl," Gohan landed as he said her name; she froze, turned slowly, and dropped the groceries and keys.
"Gohan?" she took a tentative step closer, noticed his arms, and froze again, suddenly suspicious.
"Its me," Gohan grinned and held his arms out, "An old family friend owed me a favor. Speaking of family," Gohan's grin widened, if it were possible, "Do you want to come to dinner and meet my family? The rest of it, I mean," Gohan looked at the little girl, half hidden behind her mother's leg. "Or spending the rest of our natural lives together? I never got a chance to ask you that, before," Gohan, unlike his father, understood subtlety; he just chose to ignore it.
Videl came to him slowly, tentatively. She kissed him fiercely, then pulled back abruptly to look him in the eye and gauge his reaction. Whatever she found there, made her believe. And unlike Bulma or Chi Chi, who had had decades to fantasize about falling back into their loved one's arms, as well as all their children grown, Videl turned to the child still on the porch and said, "Pan, I want you to come meet your daddy." Pan ran, leapt, and toppled her father. Gohan pulled Vidle down with them, and held his girls tightly, until respatory fucntions became necessary.
"C'mon, I'll help you get this mess cleaned up, and then we'll go meet my parents." Gohan started to scoop the ruined groceries into the shredded bags, but paused and looked up at the suspicious change in Videl's tone.
"You said your father died of a heart virus when you were eleven," she glared at him.
"Um, he did. I was kind of dead, too," Gohan admitted, looking into her icy blue eyes. "But King Kai gave me a ride, to meet my dad – he'd already fought his way across hell, with some of his old friends, who died when the androids first came. We climbed the Tree of Life," Gohan explained. "And I came looking for you." His point driven home, something that Videl would come to understand as well as Chi Chi had, Gohan turned back to the task at hand - he threw out the rest of the ruined food, scooped up his family, and took them to the only place he'd ever called home.
When he set them down in front of the Son residence, Videl hadn't been expecting such a hardened bunch of warriors. The androids had left hard people in their wake, true, but the men quirking their eyebrows at her weren't men who'd been through just the androids. It would take her time to understand Bardock, Raditz, and Piccolo just as individuals, and not just their relationship to Gohan; for the moment, she bowed politely as Gohan introduced her, and then politely introduced their daughter.
"Hey, Gohan!" Videl turned with Gohan to greet the man approaching. Dripping wet, bare-chested, with two enormous fish slung over one shoulder.
"Hey, Dad!" Gohan returned enthusiastically. "This is Videl, and our daughter, Pan!" Gohan held up his daughter, and Goku dropped the fish to take her, something seriously close to wonder overtaking the legendary hero's face.
"Wow! I'm a grandpa! I'm your grandpa!" Goku boggled, tossing her gently into the air as she laughed. "Do you want to meet your grandma?" Goku asked her; the little girl nodded timidly, and followed Goku into the house. Gohan and Videl followed more sedately, holding hands as they went.
"Is it just me," Bardock, narrowed his eyes at the retreating couple, "But does the bitch look and awful lot like the dame?"
"Definitely," Raditz agreed, "But right now, lets get those fish gutted before little brother remembers he forgot them." Raditz started for the food, knowing from just four years of climbing what his brother could be like, despite their history.
Father and son gutted the fish quickly and efficiently, then brought them in for Chi Chi to cook. The older woman was still entranced in her granddaughter, even though Videl had been wrangled into setting the table. Chi Chi took the fish though, leaving her new-found treasure to Goku and Gohan. Piccolo hovered near them, watching from a distance, but it wasn't long before all four Sayajin were hovering around the child cautiously, and even Piccolo wandered close enough to growl at her when she tugged on his gi. With the backs of both mother and grandmother turned, Pan learned how to throw her first real punch, looking for approval in the new faces around her.
Dinner commenced, in as loud and clamorous a fashion as was possible for the Sons, before spilling out onto the back lawn for some supposedly light sparing matches. It didn't really end, either, even after Gohan had dragged Videl off to his old bedroom, and Chi Chi had hinted strongly that she and Goku should do the same. Hinting strongly, however, was defined by Chi Chi as being one step short of a frying pan to the skull. She knew better than to even hope that Goku could wrap his mind even partially around subtlety for more than a few moments.
Bardock, Raditz, and Piccolo quirked their eyebrows at the retreating couples, but turned diligently back to the child under their care. Pan corrected her stance under their debating influence, her face deadly serious.
"Is it just me," Raditz asked his father, "Or are we going soft?"
"Its what makes you stronger," Piccolo interjected. "You'll fight ten times as hard to protect this little mud ball than you'll fight for anything else."
Both Sayajin stared at the Namek for a long moment, until Pan riveted their attention again.
"I'm gonna be the strongest warrior ever!" She declared.
It was cute when she was four; they didn't know then, how much she meant it.
A/N: Yayness for being done! Just with the chapter, not with the story. As soon as I get the next chapter out, you'll see where this is going.:) Hunky-dory...
