When Videl finished reading, she looked slightly sick, slightly hurt. Gohan had expected that- how else could she have reacted?


Piccolo wanted to swear from his position above the windowseat. The story wasn't over, he knew, but Videl's papers had run out. She was gazing at Gohan nervously. "I...see." she whispered, the words strangely empty. Seconds dragged by as she tried to digest what she had read. After almost a minute, she stood, her legs and step unsteady, and made her way out the door.


Gohan looked injured for a moment, as if he had been hoping for a different reaction. What did he want her to say, Piccolo wondered... There was no way she would take that story with a positive attitude unless she had plenty of time to think about it. Almost as if Gohan had reached the same conclusion, he turned to the computer and began typing again, applying himself to the task with enthusiasm. Piccolo turned and gazed out the window, watching as Videl left the house and leaned up against the wall next to the gate. She was crying into her palms as the wind brushed past her hair and clothes.


The man inside simply typed and typed, oblivious to her agony.


***


Gohan sagged back in his chair and glanced at the glowing clock across the room. It was three AM, and he was exhausted. Without blinking, he saved his file and flung himself into the bed, not bothering to clean himself up. It didn't matter, did it? Nobody would see him if he could help it. Curling up and dying, yes…


Tucking his knees under his chin, Gohan was soon adrift in a sea of dreams.


Piccolo, however, contemplated the computer even as his student slipped away from conciousness. "Damn it, Gohan, you could have left the goddamn file open!" he sighed, staring at the blank screen. He wante to read whatever Gohan had been working on, wanted to know how the story would end, but the physical boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead had destroyed any chance at that.


The screen flickered and went dark, while a large, fluid blob began bouncing about the computer. Piccolo groaned and slammed his hands down on the desk- a dull thunk followed, and Piccolo nearly fainted. How was that possible? He couldn't even feel walls or chairs… He must have imagined it.


But no, the desk had been jolted, and the screen saver was gone!


Experimentally, he ran a hand towards the desk, and it passed straight through the plastic-sheeted object. "What the hell? Maybe if I hit it harder…" He did that, slamming his shin as hard as he could into the desk- it passed through and Piccolo was thrown off balance, landing half inside the adjacent study/guest room.


"Kuso..." Piccolo hated not understanding. All of his life he had known exactly what he was capable of achieving. He had made no misjudgments of his strength through the years, and always felt confident that he knew exactly where his limit lay. But now everything had been shaken, and Piccolo suddenly found himself wondering what exactly he was. That physical contact had been so short and sweet that he found himself longing for more, even if it was merely the feel of grass beneath his feet.


Scowling, he pushed himself up off the plush carpet and stalked out of the house. Outdoors the moon would have been full and dazzling, had Piccolo felt like admiring it. No, at the moment he wanted an escape.


He could still fly.


It was different, though, he noticed this immediately. It wasn't so much his energy or ki that was propelling him, now it was more a matter of will and concentration- the change was strange, but at least he was moving. Up, up, higher than the rooftops, the trees, the city. Slowly he drifted on the wind, feeling whatever magic that held him together being tugged and tested by the gushing wind. Eventually he picked a direction and flew though the sky, aiming himself at a glittering strip of sand that was the beach.


He arrived minutes later, letting himself drop into the sand and surf, prepared to test the full extent of his new abilities here and now. Experimentally he kicked at the sand- nothing, no trace of it splattered into the sky. Jumping, Piccolo found that the ground beneath his feet was still solid- how come he could go through sand, but not the earth below?


No answer came as he moved to the water, stepping in without hesitation. For a moment a cool, damp feeling washed over him, but it slipped away after a brief second. Touching the water, Piccolo noticed that while he could feel the pressure of the water and the eerie sensation of it inside of him, he wasn't wet in the least.


Somehow that made him sad. Turning, he noted that no shadow trailed after him, nor did his breath puff up before him.


Breath? He shouldn't have to breath, now…


It took a mere second for him to be completely underwater several hundreds of feet from the shore. Swimming was like flying- without a body or energy only his mental will could move him about in this murky real. He was holding his breath at the moment, or at least he thought he was- carefully Piccolo exhaled, but no bubbles slipped towards the surface. What in the world? He took another breath- nothing at all. Did that mean he wasn't really breathing, or that he could take in oxygen anywhere?


He surfaced with more questions than answers, and moved back to the beach tiredly. That was another thing- no sleep now, no food, nothing but the ability to watch the living. How come he was like this, he had been dead before and this was completely different!


There was an young man on the beach, glowing in the moonlight. He was tall and auburn haired, occupied by holding a long pole of driftwood and nudging at the clams that occasionally surfaced in the sand. Piccolo watched him longingly, acutely aware of the millions of tiny, indescribably small things that made life worth living. After all, that boy would never remember this night, would he? Never recall the smile that slipped across his own features as the clams spluttered in the night?


And then, to Piccolo's surprise, the boy (he couldn't be more than twelve years old) looked straight at him and grinned slightly. "C'mon, are you going to introduce yourself or strand there all night?"


Piccolo fell over into the sand.


"Eh? Wha's wrong?" The voice held a bit of a foreign accent that Piccolo didn't recognize.


"You can see me?"


"Of course. I'm dead."


Another fall. "What?!


The boy giggled softly. "Come see, ne?"


Piccolo did so, creeping forward with disbelief in his eyes. "What do you mean- you're dead, just like me?" Yes, it was true! What the namekusei-jin had taken to be shimmering moonlight was truly a slight shimmer, the faintly transparent skin of another dead mortal. "You are!"


"Mmhmm. You aren't human, are you? What's your name? I'm Louis."


Oh, that explained it- his accent was slightly French. "Daimaou Piccolo. Can… can you help me? You're…" Piccolo's eyes widened. "You're holding that stick, something physical! You have to show me… There's someone I have to speak too, someone important-"


"Who you love?"


"Yes, yes!"


"And you want to speak, want to hold whoever it is- you really don't understand what you are, do you? You're newly dead, huh?"


Piccolo nodded, already amazed. This kid knew so much for his age! "Yes, please-"


"It's okay, I've seen lots of souls just like you. Everyone goes through it, yanno. There's a sort of…hm…adjustment period, you could say. You have to get used to the new parameters of your existence. It's not easy!"


Piccolo watched the swinging stick as if it was a talisman that would guard him against the very gates of hell. "I know. I have lots of questions…. Why the hell are we here?! Do you know that?"


"Sure do!" The boy's face was the very essence of amiability. "It's cuz your soul mate ain't dead yet."


Piccolo's eyes widened. Was that it?! Gohan wasn't gone, so he was tied to the earth….incredible. "Everyone does this?"


"Eh, naw, not everyone. Only people who have met their match, their other half. If you don't love them with all your heart, you don't hang around them when you're dead. Heck, the afterlife'd get pretty crowded were that the case!"


Somehow, behind the cheerful visage, Piccolo decided the boy knew much more than anyone his age should.