The sun came up over the hills just outside the city limits, slowly spreading bright light between the tall buildings. A few cars were on the roads, and there were a handful of runners and bicycle riders moving around, but it was otherwise still and silent. A lonely bird flew past the boy's window, and he sadly watched as it rested in the nest in the rafters of his balcony.

Goten sighed miserably as he watched the bird settle down, his cheek shifting in his hand. When he had gone to bed the night before, he was sure that his big brother would be back by the time he woke up. Auntie Bulma had told him that Gohan was going to be out late, but that meant that Gohan would have come home during the night.

Like his father before him, Goten was a morning person. He almost always awoke before the first full beams of sunlight hit his bedroom window, and that morning was no different. The little boy, remembering what he had been told the night before, had bounced out of bed with enthusiasm, rushing for Gohan's room. He had not forgotten his eagerness to teach Gohan about his new _.

But when he had burst through his brother's door, he had found an empty bed. It did not even look like it had been slept in at all. Goten had been confused at first, but he had gotten over it quickly, assuming that it meant that Gohan had gotten up first. It did not happen often, but every once in a while Goten had been the second one up.

The little boy had honed his senses, trying to figure out which room his brother was in. But he was disappointed to realize that Gohan was nowhere in the compound. Stretching out his senses further, Goten discovered that his brother was still in the city, but he was out with his friends.

Goten's mood had quickly turned blue. He wanted to ask someone why Gohan had been gone all night, something he could never remember his brother ever doing before, but the only other person awake at that hour was training in the gravity room and had a very strict policy against being interrupted during training hours.

So there he stood, leaning against the rail of his balcony, resting his cheeks in his hands as he watched the world around him. It was really quiet that morning, a lot like the mornings he used to have before his mommy had gone to heaven. It was not exactly the same, though. There was only one bird near his window, not a whole family of them. There was not a beautiful forest just outside, and the perfectly manicured lawns of Capsule Corp did not sparkle with morning dew as spectacularly as the wild grasses had outside of his old home.

Goten could not identify his feelings as the true form of loneliness that it was. Never before in his short life had he been completely separated from his normal life. His mother was gone, and it would be a long time before he would get to see her again. His father, who he had barely known, was doing something somewhere that no one knew anything about. His older brother was somewhere in the city with people that Goten did not know.

Above all of that, it had finally started to sink in that he was never 'going home' again. The months that he had spent at Capsule Corp had felt like a long vacation for quite a while, but it had been slowly seeping in to his mind that the room he had called his own all his life was no longer his room. The kitchen table his mother had served him her delicious food at was not where he was eating his breakfasts. The stream behind the house no longer offered his feet a cooling sensation at the end of a hot day.

He wanted to go home.

Shifting his gaze toward the bird's nest above his balcony, Goten shifted his body to sit on top of the railing. He rested his back against the building and rested his clasped hands gently in his pajama clad lap. As he watched, the bird began moving around the sticks and leaves and random scraps it had gathered, adding to its nest. The bird used its beak and its feet to build a firmer home, solidifying what little it had started with.

Goten watched, fascinated, as the bird kept hard at work. The bird flew away a handful of times, returning with more little treasures. Little buttons, lines of yarn, grasses and sticks, anything the little bird could get its beak on was brought back for construction.

The little boy was completely oblivious to how much time had passed until he felt a hand on his shoulder. Goten shrieked, scared out of his mind by the surprise, and barely remembered how to fly as he fell off his perch. "Geez, Trunks, don't do that!"

"Hey, don't blame me!" the little prince defended. "I called your name, like, five times. It's not like a snuck up on you or anything!"

Goten pouted and crossed his arms, floating down to the balcony floor. "Well, say it louder next time!"

Trunks rolled his eyes, leaning lazily against the railing. "Whatever," he responded. "What're you doing out here?"

The younger boy remembered the calm moment before his best friend had disrupted him. "Oh, yeah," he said. "I was watching the birdie building his nest."

Trunks leaned forward and tilted his chin up, catching a good look at what his friend had talked about. "Huh, I never saw that before."

"Well, I think he just started it, like, this morning or something," Goten admitted. "He's been building since I got out here."

The young prince nodded and hopped up onto the railing. He walked slowly along the narrow path, cautiously approaching the nest. "Wow," he muttered, carefully keeping his voice quiet, "I didn't know that birds could build this well."

"I've seen bird nests before," Goten added, watching from down low, "but I never watched it being built, and I never saw one in the city before."

"We don't get a lot of wild birds here," Trunks responded, still studying the nest. "Most of the ones flying around here are Grandma's pets.

Goten nodded along. "That's what I thought," he replied. "There aren't a lot of animals around here that aren't pets."

"Or bugs," Trunks supplied. "There are some stores around here with a lot of bugs in them. But you're right, most of the animals are pets."

Letting out a sigh, Goten leaned against his balcony door and looked at his sock clad feet. "I miss the animals," he softly admitted.

Trunks frowned as he looked down at his friend. He had thought a lot about how hard it probably was for his friend to not have his mom around anymore, but he had honestly not thought at all about how hard it was to go from living in the country to the middle of a city. Jumping off of the railing, he clapped a hand down on his best friend's shoulder.

"Tell you what," he pitched. "How about after breakfast, you and me fly to the country and hang out at your place?"

Goten's eyes sparkled with hope. "Really?"

"Sure, why not?" the little prince answered. "We've got nothing we have to do today. It'll be great!"

Letting out a joyful whoop, Goten jumped into a hug with his companion. "Oh, Trunks, that'll be fun!"

The elder boy laughed before shoving Goten off. "Yeah, but we can't go until we eat breakfast, so let's go get some food." He paused for a moment, his blue eyes narrowing as something sparked his senses. "Hey, your brother's coming back."

Goten's smile faded slightly as he remembered that Gohan had stayed out all night. However, it returned with vigor as he realized that Gohan coming back meant that all three of them could go to the house together. "Let's go say hi!" he giddily cried, pulling an off balance Trunks behind him.

The boys arrived in the kitchen just as Gohan snuck in. "Hey Gohan!" Goten laughed, practically tackling his brother. "Good morning!"

Gohan grunted as the half-Saiyan projectile collided with his chest. "Hey, Goten," he wheezed. Catching his breath, he smiled at the other child. "Mornin', Trunks."

"Where the hell have you been?" Trunks demanded, his arms crossed as he glared at the older boy.

"That's precisely what I was going to ask."

All three boys turned around to find a very grumpy Bulma standing in the kitchen doorway. She had obviously just gotten out of bed. Her hair was sticking out in every given direction, her eyes were not quite as open as they normally were after her morning coffee, and there was not one ounce of makeup on her face.

Gohan's face flushed red. He knew he was in trouble, but he had really been hoping that he would have gotten more time before running in to the Briefs matriarch. Not only was he certain that she was going to be the strictest one, but with her recent bout with her mood swings, there was no way to prepare.

Shifting so he could put Goten back on the ground, Gohan offered a respectful little bow to his guardian. "Good morning, Bulma," he politely offered. "How are you doing today?"

"Not well, Gohan," she sneered. "See, between morning sickness, back pain, and the fact that I am no longer a thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six, I got to stay up half the night wondering where the hell a theoretically responsible eighteen year old boy had gone off to after his senior prom!"

Gohan hung his head. "I'm sorry I didn't call," he genuinely apologized. "By the time I realized how late it was, I was..."

"Save it," she bit out. "Do you have any idea at all how hard it is to wait up at night, worrying about whether or not your little boy is okay?"

Gohan did a double take. For a brief moment, it really did seem as though it was his mother giving him the lecture instead of Bulma. "I really am sorry," he quietly responded.

Bulma opened her mouth to start scolding again, but the appearance of a full coffee cup in front of her diverted her attention. She snatched at the mug before taking a sip of the scalding fluid. "Enabler," she accused of her husband, taking another sip.

Vegeta just rolled his eyes. He had sensed when the woman had gotten out of bed, and he had gotten in the habit of making sure there was a hot cup of decaf ready. While Bulma interpreted it as a gesture of kindness, Vegeta did it because the hot brew gave the woman enough of a placebo effect in lieu of caffeine to keep the woman in a tolerable mood.

"Thank you," she grumbled, taking a slightly more relaxed sip. "You know that I am well aware of the fact that there is no caffeine in this, right?"

The Saiyan prince rolled his eyes. "And yet, you still guzzle it down as though it came from the spring of eternal life." Out of the corner of his eye, he had been carefully watching as Gohan had tried to make his way subtly for the door. "Stop right there, dumbass," he commanded.

Gohan froze and stood up straight. "I, uh, was hoping to take a shower…"

"Oh, I'll bet!" the irate heiress snapped. "How could you, Gohan? I thought you had more sense than that! Even if numbnuts here gave you some terrible advice…"

"Hey!" Vegeta shot back. "Do not dare insult me in such a manner!"

"But," Bulma went on, ignoring her husband, "doing what you did is just unacceptable!"

Gohan's eyes were enormous. "But…but how did know?" he asked in a shocked manner.

Bulma's eyes shone to an even brighter shade of blue. "Gohan Son, how dumb do you think I am if I'm going to miss something like a teenager being out all night after the prom? It does not take a genius level IQ or any of my advanced degrees to know about it!"

The teenager flushed bright red. "Bulma, I know I'm young, but I promise you that I knew what I was doing."

With a tired sigh, Bulma pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and gently took a seat. "Gohan," she softly explained, gently rubbing the swell of her stomach, "I know that you are a very bright young man, and I know that you have been going through a lot lately, but I think you may have gone too far too fast."

Gohan lowered his eyes and shook his head. "I understand that you're trying to look out for me," he responded, "and I appreciate that, I really do. But I've been thinking about this since before…everything…and I can assure you that I made the right decision."

"Gohan," Bulma returned, "I know that you are a very mature young man, and I don't doubt that you've put thought into this, but…oh, I don't even know how to say this."

Taking a seat next to his godmother, Gohan took her hand. "You want to tell me that I did it in response to the way my parents were," he explained. "And I knew you were going to. That's why I love you so much. But proposing to Videl was the smartest decision I have ever made in my life."

Bulma suddenly sat up a little straighter. "You did what?" she asked.

From the doorway, Vegeta groaned. "You idiot!" he shouted. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

With an utterly innocent look on his face, Gohan looked up at the prince. "What?" he asked.

"Unbelievable," the prince grumbled, walking away in frustration.

Still slightly stunned, Bulma blinked with confusion. "You proposed to Videl?" she very slowly asked, trying to comprehend what was going on.

"Well, yeah," Gohan answered, suddenly as confused as his godmother. "Why, what did you think I did?"

Bulma's head dropped, and she had to fight to keep from laughing out loud in the flustered boy's face. "You know what?" she chuckled, finally looking back up at the teenager. "It's nothing. Look, I still think you're too young to get married, but I can save that conversation for later. Now be a good boy and help me get up so I can go take a shower and get ready for my day."

With a jovial nature, the teenager did exactly what was asked of him and helped her up. As he watched the pregnant heiress leave, Trunks slid his way back into the kitchen in a second attempt to get breakfast. The little boy hopped onto the counter and opened the cabinet to pull out a bowl. "I heard what you and Mom," he casually said.

"Oh, really?" Gohan responded in an equally lazes-faire tone.

"Mm-hm," the child responded, hopping down. Just barely shifting his eyes to the older boy, he playfully accused, "You knew exactly what she was talking about, didn't you?"

An almost wicked smirk crossed the teenager's face as he began to leave the room, his jacket tossed over his shoulder casually as he responded, "Every single word."