Gohan sat there, dumbfounded, staring at his father. Staring at the blood, the bruises, hearing the sound of his father's labored breathing as broken ribs moved with each breath. Every detail about him said that he needed Korin or Dende now but Gohan was also acutely aware of his father's seldom known stubborn streak. If Daddy said they wouldn't go until he talked, they wouldn't.

So, he sat there, trying best to articulate himself even as his mind would not stop screaming at him over what he had done. Over what he had done AGAIN.

It came with a low whimper then a gentle sob. His hair fell in front of his eyes and his heart ached. "I know you want me to be happy. I want to be happy. I want to be happy about a baby and I've tried. I know it doesn't seem like it but I have. I tried lying to myself. I tried getting excited over a sister...everything I could think of doing but my heart isn't cooperatin'!"

Goku just nodded, lay a hand on his son's face. Gohan clung to it tightly, his one solid anchor in the mess of emotions. "So what is your heart sayin' son? No filters. I wanna know, full force."

Trembling, his heart racing behind his ribs, Gohan went on. "Doesn't matter what you all say—EVERYONE compares siblings of the same sex. At some point. Because it even happens with same sex siblings. And...I was proud of being your son, Daddy. But I'll never match up to this baby."

"Gohan-"

"Cause the baby's not a murderer." There. He'd said it. "The baby hasn't killed its father." He looked up, tears in his eyes. "And I can't compete with that."

Eyes softening, Goku tilted his son's chin up, "Gohan. You didn't kill me."

"I nearly just did again!" Gohan shouted back, voice broken. "And I didn't kill Cell when I should have! I let the bloodlust control me! And you DIED for it!"

Goku stayed quiet a moment. "Gohan," he finally said. "Do you remember what I said to you on Namek, after I turned Super Saiyan the very first time?"

Blinking, Gohan asked, "Huh?"

Goku smiled. "C'mon, I know you remember it 'cause that was the first time I raised my voice at you."

The boy paused. Thought.

"Do as I tell you right now before I lose what little sense of reason I have left!"

He remembered that. It had stuck with him ever since that day. "You tol' me to go, to leave before you lost what little reason you had left."

Goku nodded. "I meant it too. I could feel what little self control I had slipping. That was one reason I stayed on Yardrat so long before I came home. When I looked at you on Namek...I started to forget you were my son." He shuddered, physically. "The blind rage just overpowers you. I toyed with Freeza when I should have just killed him and most of that reason was because of that bloodlust. That's the price we pay for Super Saiyan."

Gohan looked at him "But we learned to control Super Saiyan—"

"Super Saiyan. Not Super Saiyan 2." Goku corrected him. "If anything, what happened was my fault. I saw you tapping into it in the Time Chamber. I should have taught you to hone it, control it. Controlling Super Saiyan the first time was hard enough—I lost myself to it—and you were tapping into a level far beyond it. And you're still just a kiddo."

Gohan eyed his father, tears still staining his cheeks. Goku reached out, pulled him into his lap. "Gohan, tell me, when you entered that form either this time or the first time, did you lose track of who I was? Where you were?"

After a momentary pause, Gohan nodded. "It was like...I knew you at first but then it was just—fight. Like that was all I knew. And seeing fear...seeing the kind of damage I could do...that's why I toyed with Cell. I...I should have known better."

Goku shook his head. "Gohan, you're not listening. When you first hit that state, you lose yourself on the emotions, you drown in them. And if the main emotion is rage...well, what was it you told me 'bout anger you read in those books?"

Face deflated still, Gohan complied. "When we're angry, our frontal lobe shuts down a little. That's here." He pointed to his forehead. "And that where we do all our reasoning, all our rationalization."

Goku smiled, "So when we first enter Super Saiyan—any form of it—we're kinda all animal thinking, aren't we?"

"...guess." Gohan bit his lip "Especially if we're in battle. Animalistic brain takes over unless we know how to control it."

"And you remember how long it took when you first went Super Saiyan before you could focus or plan?"

"...long time." He stared at his hands, at the blood, until Goku covered them with his own hands.

"Gohan. Knowing what you know about what that form does to us, knowing we hadn't expected Super Saiyan 2 to be so powerful, knowing that you really couldn't think straight and were just following instinct and your Saiyan blood makes that fight not flight...what else could you have done, huh?"

Gohan considered. He should have thought the battle out but being drowned in adrenaline made that impossible. He should have been better trained but he didn't even realize he'd the ability to tap into the form let alone train to control it—controlling Super Saiyan took him weeks in the time chamber—without the threat of a battle on top of it. Achieving a new form in a life threatening battle was one of the worst ways to do it, he was utterly convinced.

Then there was this time. He knew maybe that it was a risk but the desire to not feel...it had felt like he was bleeding to death and the only way to stop it was to not feel at all. He never believed it would take away his ability to even recognize his father. He barely remembered anything his father had said to him in the Cell battle so maybe he should have but...much like his father, the prospect of not recognizing your family anymore was beyond comprehension.

And all those emotions he had...they were compounded ten, twenty, thirty, fifty times only without his ability to filter them. He had been wrong about the form. He thought it would push away everything but the sense of power but it didn't. It just transformed all those emotions into physical power. All that anger and fear and sadness and grief and loss became energy for his fists.

Tears still in his eyes, Gohan rubbed at his nose. "I did the only thing I knew to do. The only thing I could think of to do." He lowered his head a bit more. "It was all I knew how to do."

Goku leaned forward, forehead against his son's. "If there was nothin' else you coulda done, why do you torture yourself?"

When Gohan didn't answer, Goku asked again. "If there was no other way you coulda done that battle, why do you torture yourself for something you didn't know and didn't understand?"

After a moment, Gohan gave a shaky reply. "I...I dunno, Daddy. I dunno why I..." he swallowed the tears in his thrust. They burned like fire. "I...I dunno why I do that." Looking up at his father, face wet and eyes red, he finally relented.

"Help me."