Chapter 7

GOKU

As the world flashed into focus around him, Goku took a moment to absorb what had just happened.

Despite his speed in a fight, a part of him was reeling from the decision he'd made.

For months he'd been trying to do as Chichi had asked: he'd given up the training, he'd spent more time with his family and tending his crops, he'd run more errands and tried his best to keep her happy. But all along he'd felt a bone deep weariness in his body – that kind of idleness just felt wrong to him. It had been as if every inch of him was itching restlessly. Everything had ached and his mind – usually so calm and centred, if a bit flighty from an outside perspective – had been as chaotic and as restless as the rest of him.

She'd allowed him to sleep inside more times in the last few months than she had in all the years since he'd been revived the last time, and yet he'd slept less than ever, constantly kept awake by the restlessness in his mind and body.

Never mind that none of it ever seemed to be enough for her.

But this wasn't a good feeling right now.

"Ooh ooh ooh, ooh-oooh?"

"Hey Bubbles..." Goku turned to the approaching monkey. This had been the first place he'd thought of when he'd realised that leaving really was the only option left. True, he'd spent more time on the Grand Kai's planet than he had here, but this was always the first place he thought of going whenever he wanted to get away from it all and train. Perhaps intentionally he'd appeared on the opposite side of the tiny planet to the small house where his long-time mentor lived. He hadn't really given it much thought. He'd simply reacted once his decision was made.

"Ooh ooh?" Goku had never learned to understand Bubbles, but the chimp was looking at him quizzically and he really didn't know what to say.

"How's it going, Bubbles?"

At his non-answer Bubbles raced off in the direction of the house and, with a small sigh, Goku followed.

"Goku?!" King Kai's nasal voice was familiar after all these years but hearing it made Goku realise just how long it had actually been since he'd last spoken to the small Kaio. "I was wondering how long it'd be until you were back."

"Hey King Kai, how's it going?"

"Oh, you know, peaceful." The blue man put added emphasis on the last word.

"Oh, don't be like that King Kai!" Goku protested laughingly, though the other man did have a point.

"I thought you'd forgotten me, now that you've got Lord Beerus and Whis to train you."

Goku rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "You know that's not true, King Kai!"

King Kai sniffed skeptically.

"And I suppose you want to train again? You'd better not destroy my house this time! Or my car!"

He laughed awkwardly, "Thanks King Kai!"

Everything hurt and Goku honestly couldn't decide if it was a good feeling or not. Just a few months without training had left him this out of shape but it felt good to be working out again.

Even as he lay sprawled on the ground, looking at the purple sky surrounding the tiny planet, completely exhausted, he felt better than he had in months.

"Say, Goku..." King Kai's voice drifted out of the window from where he was washing up the latest batch of plates, "How long are you planning on staying this time?"

"Just a couple more days, then I'm going to go train with Vegeta at Beerus' place."

"Well, why did you have to come here first? Do you know how hard it is to feed a saiyan?" His voice was irritated but they both knew he enjoyed the company – as long as it was occasional.

"But where else was I going to go? You saw how out of shape I was!"

"So you should have trained at home then, shouldn't you?" King Kai's retort was distinctly grumpy.

Goku kept quiet. In the days he'd been here he hadn't said anything about what had happened between him and Chichi. King Kai was the first person he'd ask for training advice or for intergalactic news, even a good (or bad) one-liner, but he didn't think the blue kaio was any more clued up on relationships than he was. And there was nothing to be done now. He'd made his decision.

Now he just had to live with it.

BULMA

"Goku!"

The spiky haired man, well, one of the two, turned in her direction having appeared just moments before, a clueless but curious expression on his face as he met her glare.

"Hey Bulma."

"Don't you 'Hey Bulma' me! I heard what happened!" This man was just beyond belief, playing innocent like that.

Beside him Vegeta pretended not to listen but she knew him well enough to know he was faking. He'd been irritated enough at how long she'd spent on the phone a couple of weeks ago, and intelligent enough to put two and two together.

"'What happened'? What do you mean?" Goku rubbed the back of his head sheepishly – another saiyan who couldn't lie worth a damn.

She took a deep breath. Shouting at him wasn't going to work – not when Whis was already here and had already finished eating: they could leave at a moment's notice. She'd have to tread at least a little carefully.

"When – exactly – are you planning on going home?" She asked instead of throwing accusations at him.

So fast she almost missed it, Goku shot a pleading glance at Vegeta who was now watching with a raised eyebrow. Unless he'd heard elsewhere (which she doubted) this was the first he was hearing about this. She'd intentionally left him in the dark so that Goku wouldn't have any warning that this conversation was coming. Sometimes she didn't know if Vegeta would throw Goku under the figurative bus, or take his side.

But where she expected another sheepish grin from her oldest friend, she instead saw his expression drop, his hand still on his nape but still, now. Gone was the usual nervous energy.

"I don't think I will be."

Had she been anyone else she might have gaped as she processed his words, but she wasn't anyone else: she was Bulma Briefs, a top notch genius. Even so, his words were nigh on incomprehensible. "You have a family Goku! You can't just leave them!"

"Bulma..." He sighed, sounding tired and resigned. But not uncertain. His eyes met hers and held the contact. "I don't want to leave them. But I can't carry on like I was. Neither of us was happy... maybe we hadn't been for a long time. I don't want to leave but this feels like the right thing to do."

Now she did gape. In all the years she'd known Goku she'd become used to him coming out with naïve statements and asking clueless questions. There was no one – not even her husband – whom she'd rather have around if there was a threat, and the shift in his personality in those times was immense. But this? This was a side of him she'd rarely seen. Never outside of a fight.

Goku was kind and generous: willing to do anything for anyone. But empathy wasn't a trait she'd ever associated with him. And for all that what he said didn't seem empathetic at first glance, he actually was thinking about Chichi's happiness too. Not that that meant she was going to stop fighting her friend's corner.

"Don't be ridiculous Goku, go back home! You certainly never seemed unhappy." Goku was one of the simplest people she'd ever met. If he had food and fights, or training, he was happy. It was something she'd envied at various times in her life – what would it be like to be that happy? And what did it mean that he genuinely felt that both he and Chichi had been unhappy?

If he was actually saying it she didn't doubt it. Not that she was all that sure that Chichi would agree with him, but Goku was honest to a fault.

"Tch!" Vegeta scoffed from beside his rival. Great, she just needed his input on this. "So you finally left the harpy? Took long enough! Now you can finally get back to training – you're getting weak!"

'Back to training'? What did that mean? Goku never stopped training.

Goku dropped into a stretch, his focus entirely shifted to Vegeta and the upcoming training, "Yeah, you're right! These last few days at King Kai's have helped but right now I couldn't beat anyone!" His jovial nature was back.

Had Chichi really stopped him training? She'd spoken about doing so for years but Bulma hadn't ever really thought the other woman would actually do it, and Chichi hadn't mentioned it when they'd spoken. If there was one thing that would make her oldest friend unhappy, it was that.

Bulma could sympathise with the other woman: Vegeta and his training drove her up the wall. But to stop him training would just drive him away. It had been a simple choice, really: accept him for what he was and build a relationship around that, or accept him as nothing more than the father of her child and an occasional house guest. She'd made that choice and had stuck with it through the years.

Admittedly, Chichi's situation was a little different to hers to say the least. Bulma didn't need Vegeta: she was a wealthy heiress for starters and a brilliant inventor in her own right. She had taken over running Capsule Corporation a few years ago and the business had flourished - not that it had ever been anything less than expansive in the first place. Chichi, on the other hand, had lost all her family's wealth in a fire, and they'd never been all that wealthy for so-called royalty. Chichi had never learned or had a profession, instead expecting Goku to step up and get a job but living off prize money when that didn't work. The money they had received a few years ago was enough to support the family indefinitely but Chichi was Chichi… Chichi depended on Goku to provide for their family, whether he was capable of it or not, whereas Bulma didn't depend on Vegeta for anything, she simply enjoyed having him around.

Many, many years ago, Bulma had had her reservations about Goku marrying Chichi. Her friend, despite having grown into a man physically, had really still been just a child and had still had a lot to learn about the world. Goku had had, and still did have, a very strong sense of right and wrong and had believed very strongly in not hurting people, especially girls. As such, when Chichi had appeared at the tournament, despite not knowing her face from the next, Goku had kept his promise to marry the young woman. It hadn't mattered to him that he'd agreed all those years before without knowing what the word 'marry' meant, it only mattered that he had hurt someone's feelings and it was within his power to right that wrong.

To Bulma that had seemed like the worst possible reason to get married and she'd been somewhat disturbed by Chichi not only agreeing, but wanting to go ahead with the marriage, despite seeing that her future husband really didn't have the slightest idea of what he was getting into and clearly not having any feelings for her, to the point of trying to pull away from any physical contact she made.

After their wedding, to which she and Goku's other friends hadn't been invited, Bulma hadn't seen her friend for over five years. Neither had anyone else.

It wasn't unlike Goku to disappear off on adventures for months at a time and she'd had no doubt he could look after himself, but she'd worried all the same.

She'd almost fainted when he'd arrived that day at Kame House with a child.

But their marriage had lasted the intervening years and Chichi had become a friend. Her younger self would have been glad to hear that Goku had left Chichi, but her present self was surprised and unsure what to think.

Time to let the subject go and gather more information for the next time.

Goku

"It sure is good to be back!" Goku exclaimed as they stopped on a branch of the enormous tree that made up a substantial part of Beerus' unusual planet.

"We'll get straight to training once I've taken Lord Beerus his bento." Whis said in his typically serene manner.

Vegeta, as usual, stayed quiet but Goku fell into a series of stretches, already anticipating the upcoming training. He needed this.

"Oh," Whis paused before entering the interior of the tree, looking over his shoulder and turning just slightly. "We'll be having guests tomorrow. After you complete your training, please prepare the room next to yours. I've already added an extra bed to your roomthat will need to be made."

"Guests?" Vegeta questioned, but Whis was already moving off and made no move to explain further.

Goku scratched at the side of his mouth in thought. "I wonder who it's going to be..." He paused, mulling it over, then, "Do you think they'll be really strong?"

He saw as Vegeta rolled his eyes and wondered why he did it. It wasn't as if he didn't enjoy fighting strong opponents too.

"Why are you asking me who it is? I don't know any more than you do." The Prince snapped, "Whis had better not be expecting us to act as maids while they entertain some 'guest'."

Goku thought for a moment. "Why do you think there's another bed in our room? Why wouldn't that person stay in the room next door, with the others?"

Vegeta turned his back at that, probably displeased with himself for not having thought of it first. "We'll probably find out over dinner." He said instead of answering.

Vegeta

The afternoon's training had passed in a satisfactory manner. It was clear that Kakarot hadn't trained recently but the clown's skills hadn't fallen to the point where he would hinder Vegeta's training. He might not want to admit it but the other man was skilled enough that even years of not training would be unlikely to dull his fighting sense, only his strength.

Dinner, yet another strange assortment of foods from some alien planet, was coming to an end and he was feeling comfortably full. The same could seemingly be said for the others, too. Kakarot was sat patting his stomach, Beerus was contentedly looking up at the ceiling and Whis was finishing the final spoonful of food, a delighted smile on his face.

"So, er Whis san," Kakarot started, "Who are these guests?"

"Guests?!" Beerus demanded, sitting up and looking at his angel.

"Yes, Lord Beerus sama." Whis replied cordially. "We agreed several weeks ago that it would be beneficial if Vegeta san and Goku san had fighters aside from each other to train with. Since my sister suggested the same thing, we agreed that Champa sama would send a few of his fighters here for a couple of weeks."

This was interesting news and Vegeta could see the clown perking up at the words.

"Who's it going to be?" He asked, excitedly.

Whis tilted his head to the side in thought. "I'm not sure. My sister informed me this morning that Cabba would be coming, with a possibility of two others."

Vegeta groaned internally. He didn't have the time or patience to deal with the young soldier. How the whole 'master' business had gotten so stuck in the smaller man's head in the first place, he really wasn't sure, but he really didn't care for it.

"Cabba, huh?" Kakarot mused. "So maybe the other two are those saiyan girls..."

Just what they needed: that crybaby and her keeper.

"As long as they stay out of my way, I don't care." He growled irritably.

"I thought you might feel that way, Vegeta san but that won't be the case. While you and Goku complement each other's styles well you are too familiar with one another. That familiarity certainly has advantages but you also need to train with others."

"Why are we helping them get stronger?"

"Despite the competitions we have organised in the past, Universe Seven and Universe Six are twinned and aren't, in fact, rivals. This training will be beneficial for all parties.

"In addition, both of you have reached a point in your training and abilities where it would be of use to you to mentor others. You might be surprised by how much you learn by teaching. So I'm afraid your training will, at least in part, involve helping Champa sama's fighters improve, rather than simply beating them."

Vegeta didn't like the sound of that. As if teaching Cabba wasn't bad enough, now he'd be stuck with the other two, too? Finding that Whis was still watching him, Vegeta schooled his expression and bit back any argument. He still needed Whis' training.

A/N: Thank you again for reading and I really hope you're enjoying the story!

Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter up, I've been ill and then my mother turned up unannounced for a ten day visit. I'll try my best to get more up this weekend if I can manage it!