A/N: Let me just leave this here... I wrote this in an hour. Again. Yep, I'm pretty bored and mildly drunk.

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Ball Z or anything affiliated with it.

-MalRev

The Ties That Bind

14

My visitors were definitely not what I was expecting. I was nearly knocked off my feet by my sister charging in to throw her arms around my neck, soon followed by my brother and both of my parents. They threw their suitcases on the ground to give me a collaborative hug until I started choking so loudly they had to stop. Sophie squealed joyously and spun me around in circles for a few seconds, chattering happily about a boy she was dating and asking if I thought she looked better blonde. Oliver was already taking out his cell phone to show me pictures of the new puppy our parents had bought them.

To say it was overwhelming was a massive understatement. I was in a severe state of shock between the rapid talking and questions and concerns that Erin had been expressing to them over the past two weeks. They wanted to know who the strange man was she had been telling me about and Oliver asked if I could please convince Sophie to turn her hair brown again so she looked normal like the rest of us. My heart was pounding nervously as I struggled to stammer out an excuse and prayed to god that Goku didn't wander out to the foyer.

"How's work been?" asked my father, clapping a hand on my shoulder. He was tall, which gave my siblings a bit of a height boost over me. "Erin is worried about you. We thought a surprise visit was way overdue so we packed up the car and headed up here!"

"Your sister joined the cheerleading team!" said my mother excitedly.

"Want to see me do my routine?" Sophie asked.

"She looks stupid as blonde," Oliver said, immediately inciting an argument.

When I pressed my hands over my face to stop myself from screaming I felt my connection with Goku relax, telling me he was coming out to the front hall. The last thing I needed was my parents wondering why I had a guy hanging out in my bedroom. Sure I had moved out a while ago and I was almost in my mid-20s but they still liked to think of me as a little girl. They'd be furious if they knew I had a guy I wasn't technically committed to lurking around in my house.

"Naomi, you didn't tell me your family was coming to visit!"

All four of their heads swiveled around to look at Goku standing with a well-fabricated expression of complete surprise in my bedroom doorframe. He smiled widely and covered his mouth like he had just caught a glimpse of God and immediately walked forward to offer my father his hand for a shake. My dad stared for a few seconds before accepting the gesture and Goku didn't hesitate in pulling my mother into a tight hug. He shook my siblings' hands as well and stepped by them to stand beside me, wrapping an arm around my waist.

"It's so wonderful to meet all of you!" Goku said. "My name is Greg Hawthorne. Naomi's been promising we could all meet for… gosh, I don't know. It's been nearly a year now! I'm a veterinarian at the local animal hospital so I stopped by because she mentioned Peter wasn't feeling well. I was just about to head back home—I live right on the ocean."

My mother's eyes were practically bulging out of her skull. "You live on the ocean? And you're a vet? Goodness, how old are you?"

"Twenty-five, ma'am. I was put in accelerated studies for my performance." Goku flashed them all a grin and pulled me closer to kiss the top of my head. I practically melted.

"You should stay," Sophie piped up. "I want to know my sister's boyfriend. Besides, Peter might get sick again and you'll have to come back anyway."

"I wouldn't want to intrude," Goku said.

"No worries!" My father exchanged a glance with my mother and smiled back at Goku. "We'd love for you to stay so we can all chat. Erin told us Naomi was seeing some character named… Goku? She must've been hysterical over something else."

"Hysterical jealousy," my mother muttered.

They all laughed and we made our way out to the living room to sit on my severely lacking furniture. Goku sat and pulled me into his lap to make room for my brother and sister to sit beside him, while my mother took the armchair and dad stood behind it. I tried my best to look relaxed being in Goku's arms but it was tremendously difficult. A whole lot of shit had been happening in the past twelve hours and the last thing I wanted to do was yack with my family for the entire night. Sitting between his legs also brought an unwelcome pressure on the small of my back.

Dad was prepared with a barrage of random questions: where Goku went to school, who his parents were, where he was from. I was surprised at how flawlessly Goku could outright lie to them but it was really for their own good. They wouldn't be very happy if they knew what his real background was. So I sat quietly between his legs, speaking when spoken to and struggling to not react much when he began running his fingers through my hair. He massaged my back under Oliver's watchful eye and acted like he couldn't see Sophie ogling at him from the corner of her eye. He did a pretty good job.

The sun was rising in the sky when my family finally left to go to their hotel. My apartment was much too small to house all of us and I was glad I wouldn't be stuck sleeping on the floor. Goku's last words were still ringing in my head through my awful exhaustion: he had known me for longer than I thought. What the hell did that mean? We had met only a week or two ago, both shocked by the strange circumstances. I seemed a bit more unnerved than Goku but I chalked it up to his past experiences.

"Give us a call later on, dear," mom said as dad and Oliver toted their suitcases back outside. "I know you're busy with work but we'd love to take you and Greg out for dinner tonight. And I'm glad to hear you're finally sleeping now. Maybe you just needed a good man all along."

I could practically feel the self-satisfied smirk on Goku's face when he kissed the top of my head again. He was thoroughly enjoying the moderate amount of power he had over me. I'd be asking questions and getting answers as soon as everyone was safely out of earshot.

As soon as the door closed Goku lifted me off the ground by my shoulders and lugged me back in the bedroom so we could resume our conversation. He shut the door while I set an alarm for three in the afternoon—I'd really been ripped off in regards to sleep. When the blinds were drawn to block out the sun we both climbed into bed and I stared at him expectantly until he finally gave in and started talking. There was no way I was going to bed without knowing how he had known me for a "long time."

"You're welcome for the acting," Goku said.

"You're welcome for sharing my bed with me at night. Now talk."

The Saiyan bit the inside his lip and adjusted himself a bit. "I've known about our connection since the day it happened. When I accidentally wound up in your world you were an eleven year old girl sleeping in bed and I figured it was a mistake that wouldn't come back for me. The first few sleepless months made me realize I was wrong so I went back to see you every once in a while. I never slept with you or anything but I'd hang around or pass out on the floor.

"All of my friends back home found out soon enough, including Chi-Chi, and Bulma's been trying to sever our bond for nearly five years. Odds are that it can't be done. How I felt about you didn't start out as… you know, sexual… but you started getting older and the more I visited the more obsessed I became. I was going to reveal myself when you turned eighteen. You were so excited to be moving, though and I didn't want to interfere with your happiness. I hung back and waited until the right moment.

"Bulma thinks its fate, that you and I are meant to be and somehow one of us wound up in the wrong part of time and space. The ultimate outcome of our relationship is so important that we were forcibly bound together and it just keeps intensifying. My marriage was strained almost from the beginning but this was kind of the icing on the cake. Soon you won't be able to bear being with anyone else. Whoever or whatever did this to us does not want that to happen at any cost."

The revelation didn't make me feel any better. Thinking of Goku creeping around in my bedroom when I was a little girl gave me the heebie jeebies and I wondered what kinds of things he had seen me doing throughout my life. Sometimes I snuck boys upstairs or enjoyed my own company, so to speak. I felt cheated by whoever had made Goku and me into an item without my consent, whether it was God or some other mystical force beyond our control. The demons were the most likely culprits but we had no clue who they were or what they needed to happen for the dimensions to connect.

Still, it sounded like a confession of true feelings that I had been hoping for. It alleviated the guilt I had been feeling over coming between him and his wife. They had been on the rocks from the beginning and she didn't want to put up with him traveling between dimensions. But marriage meant you had to work through your problems instead of avoiding them or throwing a hissy fit. Goku and Chi-Chi could've been happy together after some effort if it wasn't for me driving down the final stake.

Goku gently brushed my hair away from my neck. "I've been fighting with my determination to remain committed to my family and this consuming drive I have to be with you. Gohan already understands and he's come to terms with it but Goten is still too young. I'll never feel any better about hurting them."

"If you're expecting me to say I'm gonna drop everything to be your faithful wife then you're crazier than I thought." I rolled on my back to look at the ceiling and shortly shut my eyes. If it was a test I wanted to pass with flying colors. Goku wasn't too bad of a liar so I couldn't know for sure.

"I'm not telling you to do anything. It's in both of our best interests but you have free will. You're attracted to me and I'm attracted to you so I don't see what the big deal is. Bulma can't break us apart which means you'll be stuck with me forever, regardless of what man you choose to marry. You'll break someone's heart like I broke Chi-Chi's. Am I really that bad?"

Instead of answering I chose to turn on my side so my back was facing him. Goku sighed and pulled me back in place, holding me down by my arms to keep me from moving. Okay so he wasn't that bad but I didn't want anyone telling me what I had to do or what guy I had to be with. Or did I? Wasn't it much easier that way? If it was fate, that meant I had been saved years of repeated heartbreak. We could've been that icky word I hated to hear: soul mates. I shuddered and Goku laughed.

"Sleep on it?" he asked.

"I guess, but that's not a guarantee. And no funny business while I'm passed out."

The man who served as my sleeping pill and decade-long stalker nodded and lightly kissed my forehead before returning to lying beside me under the sheets. He pulled me close so our bodies were pressed together like puzzle pieces and soon dropped off to sleep, now free of all his guilt. I stared at the wall and tried to make sense of everything I had just learned. Once again, sleep evaded me.