Goku let out the breath he had not known he was holding. "He made it," he softly said, closing his eyes. "He got home."

"Thank goodness," Gohan sighed, his shoulders visibly relaxing. Beside him, Piccolo made the same motion, though not nearly as visibly. The demi-Saiyan drew in a deep breath and turned toward his father. "We need to figure out how this happened."

Piccolo shook his head. "There is nothing to figure out," he told the boy. "He systematically singled us out and picked fights with us, and we three obliged. That is as far as we need to go."

"No, something's wrong," Goku said, still looking in the direction the prince had disappeared off to. "I don't think he's been home for days, and you two had obviously given him a run for his money before he ever got to me." Slightly turning his head, he looked up at the tall green warrior nearby. "He went to you first, right?"

Piccolo nodded, but he did not give a verbal response until prodded by his former student. "He approached me two days ago," he explained. "We conversed briefly, he challenged me to a sparring match, and we fought for several hours. When we were through, he left peacefully." Again, Gohan shot his mentor a look, and Piccolo had to repress the urge to roll his eyes. "Fine, he was agitated. But he did not attempt any hostile movements toward me or mine, and as far as he is concerned, that is a peaceful exit."

"That must have been when he went to find me," Gohan added. "He caught me after my morning classes, and he was already scuffed up. He demanded a spar, and I figured that it would be better for my school and the general population if I went along with it somewhere else instead of, you know, saying no to him. He was…in a mood."

"Vegeta is always 'in a mood'," Piccolo responded.

But Gohan shook his head. "No, this was different," he insisted. "Normally he's just kind of, you know, grumpy. He's not going to have a long, meaningful conversation with you, but he's not going to take a swing at you without a reason. Yesterday, though, he was…I mean, it was almost as though…he was acting like…"

"Like he did when he first got here," Goku miserably finished. "I know. By the time he got to me, he had that look in his eye that he had back then." The Saiyan shivered slightly, remembering all too well what that first experience with the maniacal prince had been like. "I haven't seen that look in a while."

Beside him, Gohan frowned. "It hasn't been that long," he pointed out. "The last time we saw that look, he came back covered in the blood of what I can only assume is a thoroughly thrashed planet."

Though Goku did not want to admit it, he knew his son was right. Vegeta had borne that very look when he had them located to that now slaughtered world. It was a memory that Goku had actually been doing a fairly good job at repressing, but just having his son bringing it up made the seasoned warrior feel sick to his stomach. The prince had called it a necessary release. The others would have called it genocide.

And Goku honestly did not know which side of that argument he fell on. True, he did not condone killing, and he especially did not think that an unprovoked attack was honorable or even tolerable. But Vegeta really had been on the verge of snapping, and if pushed any further without that release, even Goku could not deny that there was a distinct possibility that the pent up rage would be taken out on the delicate Earth. To save their planet, it had been necessary.

But as he thought about it more, Goku's frown deepened. Vegeta dealt with his emotions violently. That was not news to anyone. But without a designated target, without a true enemy to be facing down, the prince turned to either anonymous victims or his own self destruction. And neither of those scenarios were good. Goku was not entirely convinced that he would not be asked to repeat his earlier gesture of taking the prince to a selected planet for destruction, and he did not know how to respond if he was. He hated the idea of giving Vegeta the necessary tools to massacre an unsuspecting people, but if it came down to that or the Earth…

"So, what do you think, Dad?" Gohan asked, placing a hand on his father's shoulder.

The warrior actually jumped with a small shriek. "Geez, Gohan, don't do that to me!"

With an apologetic look on his face, the teenager chuckled slightly. "Zoned out?"

"Duh!" Goku replied, his heart still beating as hard as his breathing from being startled. He shook his head, trying to calm himself back down. During the heat of battle, he was never caught with his guard down. However, outside of that particular environment, Goku had a tendency to get lost in his own thoughts. He was not by any means easily startled all the time, but it did happen more often than he cared to admit. "Now, what were we talking about?"

"Vegeta's state when he got to each of us," Gohan calmly explained. "He was apparently decently well contained when he got to Piccolo, was angrier when he left that, and angrier still when he got to me. He was definitely sporting more than a few bruises when he found me, and he had partially dried blood in the corner of his mouth. He must have gone straight to me after leaving Piccolo."

"So it would seem," the green warrior confirmed.

Letting out a depressed sigh, Goku shook his head. "I know he was fresh from you when he got to me," he told his son. "He was tired and bloody, but madder than a hornet in a kicked nest. He didn't even talk to me. He just swung for the fences." Slowly, he looked back in the direction that Vegeta had taken off in. "He took on all three of us with no breaks in between."

"He is trying to contain himself," Piccolo reasoned. "We all know that he is often fueled by rage, and that there needs to be an outlet for it. We should be thankful that he had the reasoning and rational state of mind to seek us out instead of going back to some of his more savage and brutal past habits."

Gohan crossed his arms, also looking up to the sky. "Do you think there was a specific order he hit us in?" he asked, mostly to himself. "I mean, I thought it was strange that he grabbed me from school instead of going to Dad…"

"Willingness to hit?" Goku guessed. "He seemed pretty ticked off by the time he got to me, and it sounds like he was pretty controlled when he got to Piccolo…"

"He would much rather take a swing at me than the boy," Piccolo interrupted. "I offend him more."

Gohan's eyes widened slightly. "He went by power level!" he realized. "He was planning on letting it all out, so he went from weakest to strongest so we could keep him in check as he let his anger out!" He whipped around to his father, a shocked look on his face. "That's why he saved you for last! He knew that he lost it, you could stop him!"

Goku frowned. Gohan's explanation made sense to him, but he was not sure that he liked it. Stopping Vegeta was not a job he wanted on his hands. Sure, the shorter Saiyan had been perfectly calm by the time he had left that last fight, but it had almost gotten out of hand. Just as he had a few days earlier, the prince had thrashed out wildly with no care for his own safety. Goku, however, had recognized the behavior and held back. He knew that doing so would enrage the prince, but he was genuinely afraid of inflicting the same damage. He had damn near killed the guy last time, and he desperately wanted to avoid making that mistake again.

But if Vegeta was going to rely on that for calming down, Goku was not sure he would be able to keep him contained. If Vegeta had been hell bent on inflicting as much damage as possible, Goku could have stopped him. But was the damage worth it? Vegeta had taken a lot of hard blows, physically and otherwise, as of late, and it was unclear what would happen if they did not let up. The younger Saiyan had a sinking feeling that if they did not find a better way to get Vegeta to calm down, it was going to end very, very badly.

As Gohan and Piccolo began to discuss their respective matches with one another, Goku continued to look to the sky. He wanted to help his fellow Saiyan, but he was not sure he could live up to what he was expected to do.

/

"Seriously, what the hell happened to you?" Bulma asked again, approaching the battered Saiyan. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Vegeta replied, keeping most of his anger hidden. "It was just a spar."

Bulma raised her barely existent eyebrow at her lover. "Um, I don't really remember what your spars are like. Do they usually end with you looking like you've been put through a meat grinder?"

The prince growled slightly at the insinuation that he had been defeated. "Would you like to see what Kakarot looks like for reference?"

But the heiress did not take on the fight. "Hey, if you tell me this is normal for you guys, then it's normal for you guys. I mean, it's not like I'd know the difference anyway." She casually shrugged one shoulder and leaned against the wall. "And since you don't strike me as the pathologically lying type, I really don't see the need to question it. If you were a manipulative son of a bitch, my friends wouldn't be telling me that you're, you know, one of us."

Vegeta did not give a response to that. He was too stunned by her suddenly relaxed attitude. There had been near unbearable tension in their home for so long that the sudden absence of it was almost disturbing. Even before the accident, and even after over ten years with one another, whenever he returned from a spar or training there was drama. Where was the screaming? Where was the demanding for him to be more careful? Where was the concern that he was going to go too far with his fighting?

It was extremely unsettling to him to see her taking his worn and bloody appearance so nonchalantly. It was weird for a usual spar, but he had been gone for three days and fighting the entire time, stopping only long enough to get to his next target. He had not even bothered to eat in all that time. If he were being perfectly frank with himself, he had taken it far further than he should have. If he did not get food and rest in the next hour or so, his body was going to start shutting itself down to compensate for the severe energy debt.

But the woman seemed to hardly notice. She had made a very small initial fuss, but it went on for under a minute and she had already turned away to go work on something else. That was not the woman he knew. The woman he knew would have screamed him stupid for pushing himself so far beyond his limits that it was dangerous, and at the same time she would bring food to replenish him and insisting that he sit down. Angrily affectionate was the term she had always used to describe her unorthodox method of showing that she cared. It was a phrase that had privately amused him greatly. And it was those actions that had drawn him to her in the first place so long ago.

There had been a distance between them ever since the day of the accident, but to him, the gap between them had never seemed so wide as it did that day. A small voice began to whisper an idea in the back of his mind, and he roared at it to whither and die. The words the voice spoke were ones he refused to give credence to. There was no possible way that such a ridiculous notion could possibly come to pass. It was ludicrous, and he refused to acknowledge it.

Meanwhile, Bulma had returned to her spot beside the couch. "He's been out all this time," she gently said, running her fingers through her son's soft lavender hair. "I called Chi-Chi and asked her about it, but she said that Gohan went through the same thing and that I shouldn't worry. It's hard, though. Trying not to worry, I mean. I don't know about you, but when I tell myself to not let something get to me, I tend to flip about it ten times worse than I normally do."

Vegeta said nothing, but he did walk to the same side of the furniture that his family was on.

"It just seems weird to me, you know?" Bulma went on, glancing up at her estranged lover. "I mean, sleeping for three days straight? You'd think he'd need to eat or something. Especially when you think about how hungry he was before he conked out. I know Chich told me that this is normal, but I swear, that boy does not wake up in the next twenty four hours, I'm going to…"

"Talk so loud you could raise the dead?"

Both adults snapped their heads down to the couch, where Trunks was slowly opening his eyes. "Oh, honey!" Bulma exclaimed, grabbing his face with both hands. "How are you? Are you okay?"

Trunks smiled weakly up at his mother. "Hungry," he told her with a small chuckle. "You think you could help me fix that?"

"Of course!" Bulma replied, hopping to her feet. "Give me a minute and I'll bring you a feast!"

As he watched his mother disappear into the kitchen, Trunks laughed with what little energy he had. "Mom? Successfully making a feast?"

Vegeta crossed his arms and sat at the far end of the couch. "There's a first time for everything," he grimly said, settling his weight. With his expression serious, he caught his son's eye. "How are you feeling?" he demanded.

"Fine," Trunks quickly answered, though his smile suddenly looked far more forced.

Vegeta's eyes narrowed at his son. "You can't bullshit me, boy," he lectured. "Now, while your overly sensitive mother is out of the room, how are you feeling?"

"Nauseous," Trunks answered, not even waiting for his father's sentence to finish. He knew better than to try to keep anything from the man. "And kinda jittery. And it feels like someone took a buzz saw on a walking tour through my skull." The boy glanced over his shoulder, making sure that his mother was still out of earshot in the kitchen before turning back to his father. "And…and I had a dream," he softly added. "A…a bad one."

While Vegeta was never one who particularly gave a damn about what someone's subconscious was telling them, the look on the boy's face encouraged him to ask, "What was it?"

Once more, Trunks checked to ensure that his mother remained out of range before talking. "I was playing in the park," he quietly began, looking at the blanket on his lap. "And there were some other kids there. You know," he said, dropping his voice and looking up, "human ones."

The father nodded, but gave no other response.

"We were playing tag," the child went on, lowering his eyes again. "And it seemed fine until I realized that I couldn't keep up with them. It was wrong, you know? They're just humans. They shouldn't be even a little hard to catch. So I ran harder and harder, but they were always, like, just out of reach."

Without being aware of it, Trunks brought his hand out, imitating his action from the dream. "They were right there, but I couldn't reach them. I ran and I ran and I ran, but they were just not…I couldn't get them. And they laughed at me, and I got…I got mad, Dad."

"Trunks, there is nothing wrong with feeling anger, particularly in a dream," the elder prince counseled.

The child trembled slightly and shook his head. "No, Dad, this was…it was different. Like, bad different."

Vegeta raised an eyebrow, silently daring his son to go on.

Trunks shook his head again, and his tiny fists clenched on the blankets. "I was so mad at them," he quietly continued, his breath trembling at the memory. "I yelled and I screamed at them, and they kept laughing at me. And I was so mad that I…that I…" Tears quietly began to roll down the young prince's cheeks, and with his blue eyes shining with them, he looked his father in the eye. "I killed them, Dad," he whispered. "I killed them all. And it was fun."

At that moment, Bulma entered the room again, an enormous tray of food balanced in her arms. "Okay, I grabbed whatever I could that was premade," she announced, barely managing to balance her load, "but once I put this baby down, I can go right back and cook you some nice, hot…" It was as far as she got before she saw her son's tears. "Oh, God, Trunks!" The tray was dropped in an instant, and the heiress ran as fast as she could toward her crying son.

"No," Vegeta commanded, moving between mother and son faster than either could see. He placed a hand on her shoulder and gave her a serious look. "You'll get hurt."

"But…but," Bulma stammered, looking at the hardened mask of the man before her. She desperately wanted to comfort her son, but it only took a second for her to realize that Vegeta was right. Trunks was clearly upset, and he had more than enough power to hurt her accidentally. "But I want to help him," she spoke, looking beyond him to the boy.

"Let him rest," he firmly told her, guiding her away. "He will eat, and he will rest, and then you can coddle him until he is sick of it and makes a break for it."

Bulma wanted to protest, but she felt that perhaps it was not a battle to fight. Fighting had gotten her son in that position in the first place, and she would do anything to keep from adding to his troubles. With a small nod, she crossed her arms and took a step back. "Just let me know as soon as he calms down, alright?" she softly asked.

Vegeta stood, stunned, as she left the room again. She left. She just left. Her son was falling apart, and she just left? Bulma had never shied away from even the worst of Trunks' temper tantrums, no matter how harshly he would warn her to keep distance.

And Trunks had placed him on a situation he had never seriously contemplated before. Dreams of violence and massacre were not uncommon in Saiyan children, particularly in ones that were breaking new levels of power. But Trunks had been blabbing about his dreams his whole life, and none had ever come close to that level of violence. Visions of that magnitude were common to the elder prince, normally either right before or right after a planet purge. He had reveled in the destruction, and to him those dreams were sweet moments of joy. But Trunks was not a warrior. Trunks was a child. An innocent child. He had never participated in, or even seen, something like the slaughter of children.

As Trunks continued to cry, Vegeta sat back down on the couch, only partially watching. The voice was whispering again. He tried to shut it out, but it refused to go away. It was not loud, but it was persistent. Like an echo through his skull, it ricocheted around his mind. Vegeta clenched his jaw and exhaled slowly through his nose, trying to will it away.

But that only made it worse.