Raditz watched as his brother curled around the tiny girl cub, holding her tight to his chest. The infant rooted, soon finding a source of nourishment and began eating. Yet, something wasn't right. Kakarot stared down at the babe, eyes wide and frightened, and the babe whined as she sucked.

It cannot be. It cannot Raditz sank to his knees beside his brother. "Do you feel her energy?" Kakarot nodded. Raditz relaxed slightly, and stroked the child's head gently. He smiled, his face softening in a way it rarely did. "Hello, my little niece. I am your uncle, Raditz. Soon, little girl, your brother and your cousin will be born, and you will have other cubs to play with. Your father is on his way, and you will meet him when he arrives."

Kakarot shuddered. Raditz turned his attention to his brother. "Saa, little brother. Rest easy, now, and care for the babe. I will see to tidying up." Kakarot made no reply beyond curling more around the cub, so Raditz set out to clean up. The orange rags in the closet went mostly into the trash, except for the few he used to bind his ankle. He turned the chair back, then checked on his brother. Kakarot was drowsing, arm curled around his fussy daughter.

Raditz nodded, and headed for the bathroom. He was still sore and in desperate need of a bath. He'd managed to clean his brother up well enough before resettling him, but knew the younger needed a proper bath soon. He shed the rags still hanging from his frame, and stepped into the shower.

Bubbles frothed as he scrubbed muck from his hair and skin. He would have preferred a different scent, but the lilac shampoo and body wash were all that was available. Of course, he could have gone without soap at all, but then Vegeta would be sure to tell him he'd not managed to wash his stink off.

Raditz sluiced the last of the bubbles from himself with a sigh. Vegeta was coming home, but he wasn't in any hurry. He was still angry, even more so than when Raditz had admitted defeat and left the training field. His visit with his son had been going badly, then been interrupted by his less-favored mate giving birth to a weak child.

He toweled his hair briskly, getting the worst of the water out, then attacked the tangled mass with a brush he'd had to make himself. The plastic things humans found acceptable were to weak for him to use. He ran the brush through his hair, feeling for his niece as he did. Her energy level was low. Extremely low, even for a newborn Saiyan. Especially for a newborn Saiyan. Raditz had felt the levels of human infants, and this new Saiyan was even weaker.

Raditz set the brush aside and dressed, puzzling over the whys of it. Yes, Kakarot had starved himself, and yes, the ki-feed had not been properly established from the beginning, but she was the daughter of the two most powerful Saiyans alive. Two Saiyans who had proven to have extremely strong half-breed children, so why had such strength bypassed this full-blooded girl-child? Kakarot had not been bonded at the conception, and his bond was… faulty, for lack of a better term, but how could that make a difference in the child's strength?

He stared down at the two, both of them now sleeping. Kakarot slept restlessly, his tail lashing in agitation, head tossing. The cub slept no better, whining pitifully before opening dark eyes and rooting once more. The girl's cries became shriller, waking Kakarot. His brother shifted, sitting up more, and held the babe to a better feeding position. "You have no bond with the babe, do you?"

Kakarot bowed his head, obviously unwilling to face him, and shrank back against the pillows. Raditz crossed the room as quickly as his ankle allowed, and settled beside him. Reaching out, he lifted his brother's chin. His brother had teary eyes tightly closed. "What can I do, Kakarot? How can I help when I do not know why your ability to bond has been destroyed?"

"Destroyed, Raditz?" Vegeta strode through the door. "What do you mean by that?"

"How else to explain why our brother-bond no longer works, my prince? How else can I explain why our mate-bond may as well not exist, or why he is unable to form a parent-bond with his child?" Raditz stayed by Kakarot's side, head bowed in submission to his prince, his alpha. "I have no other explanation, save that his ability was somehow destroyed."

Vegeta stared down at them. Kakarot cowered back, absolutely silent. His daughter shifted restlessly, her tail twitching. Tiny fisted hands waved about, the girl whimpering. Kakarot turned her so that she could feed. "That is my daughter? That?" Vegeta snarled. "If she were not the only female Saiyan in existence, I would end her pathetic life now."

Raditz turned, gaping, at the sharp snap. "Kakarot!"

Vegeta kicked Kakarot through the wall. Raditz watched, horrified, as the prince tore into the damaged Saiyan. He sprang to his feet, interspersing himself between the two barely in time to deflect the blast that would have ended his unresisting brother's life. "You know what the bond does to him!" he shouted desperately, dodging the blow Vegeta aimed for him. "Your merest wish becomes his firmest command!"

He reeled backwards, mouth a bloody mess, and tried to block the rain of blows, the kicks and punches. Vegeta beat him into the ground, breaking one arm and both his legs before going after Kakarot once more.

He came to slowly, aware at first only of the agony of his body. He found himself unable to move fingers or toes, unable to bend elbow or knee. He blinked once, gazed up at the white ceiling for a moment, and closed his eyes once more.

"Kakarot?"

He opened his eyes once more, and blinked until his brother's face came into focus. "Ra-ditz?"

"Yes." Raditz reached out, hand hovering for a moment before dropping to his side once more. "You are at Capsule Corporation, Kakarot. I… I could not get to you without using my last senzu, and this was the only place I could think of to bring you."

He stayed quiet, cataloguing his aches and pains, trying to puzzle out what had happened, how he had gotten so very, very injured.

"Vegeta has not been here. He has not come the entire time you have been recovering. I do not know if it is because he regrets what happened, or because he will try to finish it if he sees you again." Raditz tried to smile and failed. "Or perhaps Bulma threatened him and he is too afraid to cross her."

"Vegeta?"

"Yes, he was… angry. You almost died."

He blinked. He was much stronger than Vegeta, so he must have really pissed the perpetually cranky prince off. "Why?"

"You do not remember?" Raditz hurried to help his brother when Kakarot tried to sit up.

"Nope. I must have pissed him off pretty bad."

"Ka… Kakarot?" Can you hear me, brother?

"What? Hey, do you know what happened?"

Raditz looked positively miserable, and slumped into the chair next to the bed. "Tell me, what is the last thing you do remember?"

"Well, lemme think. I had lunch, and then I went to get some firewood, and then I went hunting and I guess I must have met up with Vegeta for a spar, but I don't remember that."

Can you hear me? Can you… can you still feel me? I think you cannot. I believe our bonds are well and truly broken.

"Ugh, it really hurts to move. What'd he do, break all my bones?" The younger Saiyan's laugh faltered at Raditz' expression. "You mean, he did?"

"Some of them twice," Raditz said quietly. "You have… lost much of your memory, Kakarot."

"Really?"

"I would estimate up to a year's worth, if the last thing you remember is going hunting. You have not hunted at all for at least that long."

"Why not? Chi-Chi would have my head on a platter if I didn't help keep the larder stocked."

"Over a year's worth of memories. Chi-Chi… is in Otherworld."

"Huh?"

"Do you remember her illness?"

"Oh, the bleeding thing? Yes, the doctor told us yesterday."

"It was not yesterday, Kakarot. The illness worsened, and she died of it about a year ago. You were the only one who knew exactly when. The rest of us did not learn until some months after it happened."

"Oh. Well. Huh. She should be happy then, if she's in Otherworld," Goku said, grinning. "She didn't really like looking after a Saiyan brood, you know. I don't think she'd have tricked me into marrying her if she'd known how much trouble I was gonna be. What else happened that I don't remember?"

Raditz blinked. "Your human mate died, and that's all you say?"

Goku shrugged, then yelped. "Oh, shouldn't do that again for awhile! Well, I'm gonna miss her, she cooks real well! Cooked, I guess I mean. And I guess I'll have to find another wife, because you shouldn't have sex with someone you aren't married to. Even though Bulma and Vegeta did, and I don't see how come I have to be married to have sex when they weren't, but Chi said it wasn't right, what they did, and so I have to have a wife."

"Huh?"

"What?"

Raditz drew in a deep breath. "Kakarot, you are the most un-Saiyan Saiyan I have ever met. Do you feel no loss?"

Goku blinked at him, then broke into a dazzling smile. "Oh! I get it! I told you, I'll miss her. But she's in Otherworld, and it's nice there. King Yemma probably sent her on into heaven, as a reward for putting up with me for as long as she did, you know, so there's no reason to feel like she's lost."

Raditz stared. After a moment, he shook his head. "If it were not for your tail, I would swear that you are not Saiyan at all."

"Tail?" Goku grabbed for his backside, and yelped in pain again. "I got my tail back?"

"It was the only one of the wishes I had that the Dragon was able to grant."

"You wished my tail back?"

"Vegeta wished his own back. Since there were no other surviving Saiyans to wish to Earth, I wished for the return of the tails of all those with Saiyan blood. The permanent return - you will not be able to lose your tail and have it stay lost. It regenerated four days after Vegeta ripped it from you."

"Why'd he rip off my tail?"

"You killed his daughter," Raditz replied bluntly.

"I killed Bra?" Goku repeated, open-mouthed.

"No, his infant daughter. She had not yet been given a name."

"Vegeta had another baby? And I… I killed a baby?" Goku sounded like he was going to be sick. "Why would I? You're lying!"

"I am not lying, little brother. Be still, and listen to me." Raditz took a deep breath, and then told his brother what had happened, as best he could, over the last year.

Goku laid back down when he finished, and stared fixedly at the ceiling. After a time, he said. "I don't get it."

"I don't either." Raditz stood, striding angrily around the small room. "Our brother-bond was weak, but it was there! When I bit you, as a mate would, and you returned my bite, it simply… disappeared, and I was unable to feel you as a mate should, either. Nor could Vegeta, yet it seemed you were able to tell how we felt. You… often responded more to what I felt than to what I actually said. I believe that is why you killed the baby."

"Because you wanted her dead?"

"Because Vegeta did," Raditz corrected. "He said as much."

"He did?"

"He called her weak, then said he would end her 'pathetic existence' if there were another Saiyan female alive. It was no more than a few seconds later that you snapped her neck."

Goku puked over the side of the bed. Raditz took care of him after, then sighed. "It seems whatever hold the bond held over you is gone, now. Erased completely out of existence."

"Um, so… I had… gave birth to Vegeta's kid. That means… I had… sex with Vegeta?"

"You don't remember that, either?"

"No."

"Oh."

At a loss, the two simply stared at each other.