Disclaimer: I would just like to take a moment to say *pauses to clear throat* IT'S MINE! IT'S ALL MINE! BWA HA HA HA HA! SUCKERS! YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SOMEONE ELSE'S, BUT IT'S MINE! MINE! ALL MINE! *cough* Sorry.

A/N: *shakes head* I need to make a habit out of posting, and not not posting, don't I? Well, congradulations to everyone here, you're all the diehards. (Except for Kim, who's hard to kill. ;P *bows* thank you for making me get off my lazy ass!) I owe all of you really big, personal apologies, but since I don't have the time to do that (what with writing this, my job, and everything that kept me from writing this), I'm just going to throw myself at the mercy of the court and hope my sentence is no heavier than finishing this damned thing! (Which is a burden, believe me! This story needs to end! It's drawn too far out! Eep!)

But I live yet! And have found my way through the roadblock that had me held at a standstill! And have emerged victorious! Take that, evil road block! *demolishes road block with sledgehammer, sics Jack and his flamethrower on it* Bwa ha ha! Anyways, on with the belated chapters!

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Petrified Tears
chapter 93



"Ha! Ha!"

Gohan held his arms up in front of him in a blocking position. His feet braced his body as he leaned forward into the kicks, his shoulders moving to absorb the shock of impact.

"Ha!"

He ground his teeth in the moonlit darkness, wincing as the blows grew harder, tail wrapped tightly around his waist as he kept his back to the moon.

"Ha! Ha!"

His daughter stood in front of him, turning on one foot and turning back to her original stance, bringing up the other foot, turning halfway around, and slamming her foot into the cross section of his block.

"Ha! Ha!" Her fervor faltered, and she lost her balance, falling over into her father.

"Panny," Gohan started, helping his daughter to her feet, but she shook her head, moving back into her attack stance.

Sighing, Gohan dropped back into his block. They'd been at this since Trunks had left; the moon was saying goodnight for another day and dawn was breaking in front of him. He wanted to know what was going on, but she'd said nothing. Not a word, saying only that he'd been overreacting and that she was restless beyond belief.

He'd wanted to spar. But knew that he'd probably kill her if they did. She may have recently broken the barrier, but she still didn't know what she was capable of. She wanted to spar. He knew she wasn't content to merely kick at his arms. But he also knew better to even consider it without a plentiful supply of the sensu beans that Korin had stopped growing.

"Panny, what's going on? What's wrong?" he demanded, bracing himself for the barrage of kicks to come and from the need to kick back. "What's gotten to you?"

She shook her head, her ki flickering angrily about her, eerie in the premature dawn, and brought up her foot, once again starting her assault of her father's forearms.

"Something I'm perfectly capable of handling."

Gohan's feet slipped, pushing his heals backwards through the hillside soil, leaving two gorges between his original position. There was already a five foot stretch of ground between where he stood now, and where he stood when they had started this training session.

"I know that you can take care of yourself," he grunted in reply, more frustrated than furious. "I just want to-"

The explosion of Pan's ki sent him backwards. He caught himself in midair and had very little time to drop back to the ground and get his arms up before her fist tried to connect with his face.

"Pan!"

"Daddy, why won't you let me take care of myself?!"

Gohan dodged the foot flying towards his gut and grabbed the fist meant for his kidney.

"When have I not let you take care of yourself?!" he demanded, leaning forward into his daughter's stalemate, powering up, letting their ki's rage around them like Hellfire. "Huh? Tell me, Panny, when have I ever stepped in on one of your fights?"

She growled, her hair very reminiscent of how Mirai Trunks's had been after his year in the Room of Spirit and Time. Her green eyes flashed as she tried to think of how to get out of this stalemate her father had locked her in.

"Ever since I got back from college!"

"I just want to know what's wrong!" he yelled over the crackling of their ki's, grinding his teeth, knowing how to achieve the upperhand in this stalemate but not about to take it.

"Alright, before I went to college, you didn't want me to-"

"I let you go, didn't I?! I didn't push you coming home every summer, or every Christmas-I think I was pretty understanding with the fact that you spent 4 years away from home, without coming home, without letting me or your mother come visit. I would like to think that I have allowed a lot out of you! I think that requires a lot of trust-for me to hear about you getting hit by a car, and not hightailing it over and killing the guy who hit you! To know that you had friends from bad places, and not disapproving or thinking that you were making bad choices! I think I've been pretty understanding about the fact that you grew up without me a long time ago, Panny. I'm sorry for wanting to know what's wrong, so that I can still feel like I'm your father!"

Pan stared at him, suddenly aware that he'd gone from needing-to-kill to needing-to-cry, before relaxing, backing away from the stalemate.

He relaxed, powering down, watching as she stood there before him, head cocked, hair blond, eyes green.

"Daddy?"

"Panny, you've grown up without me…you're only 21, and still I've missed out on 5 years of your life, 5 years where I wasn't there to help you because you were somewhere else, or didn't need me to come help you. I'm sorry if I'm coming off as nosy, but I just want to know what's wrong, I want to know what happened that night with Trunks. I know that's where all of this started, and that's why I'll go beat it out of him if I have to, even if you'd hate me for it."

She blinked, unconsciously powering down.

"Daddy-"

"I can't stand seeing you like this, Panny," he whispered. "I saw you when you came home last Friday, I was awake. I know something happened, and I know that whatever that something was-is, it started with Trunks."

She swallowed thickly, watching him with eyes gone from blood-lusty to almost black. "You knew?"

He nodded his head defeated. "I knew something was wrong, Sweetie, I know something still is.. But I know you can take care of it…although I never expected you to take care of it the way you did Vegeta."

She blushed, rubbing the back of her neck.

"Please Panny, tell me." He looked up at her, his eyes tired and hurt. "Pan, at least tell me what's wrong. I promise I won't-" "Trunks kissed me and then blew me off…I thought I'd just had a crush on him, but I don't," she hurried out, her face blank, her eyes big. She started at her own words and backtracked frantically. "I-I mean, it wasn't anything serious at all…I was just…we were talking about Grandpa, and the last 4 years, and somewhere it's kind of like we forgot who we were with and things got really confused and he kissed me-or I kissed him, I can't remember-and then he went bastardous and I went childish and we both got pissed at each other and me at myself…"

Gohan stared at her, shocked. He'd known Trunks had done something, but he'd have never guessed this. He would have thought something far worse, and he wouldn't expect Pan to be alleviating him of all blame and chalking the whole thing up to a misunderstanding. After a moment, he smiled, stepping forward and wrapping an arm around her, not about to let her see the broken welts and bruises on the other.

Two little arms lifted and wrapped around his back, clinging to him. Her face lifted as she pressed her cheek into his chest, black sapphires glinting in the dying light. He smiled and lifted his other hand, knocking a hair from her eyes.

"Daddy…" She sighed and turned the side of her face into his shirt, staring off into something beyond her line of vision. "Daddy…you know I've always liked him…that I used to think I loved him…but I mean…I know now he's never wanted me like that. That's what's bothering me. I don't…I don't even know if he really means that much to me, or if it's just old feelings. It's just hard to know I'll never be anything more than a kid in his eyes, that he-"

Gohan curled his other arm around her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, relieved.

"It's alright, Panny, I understand," he whispered, not really sure if he meant it.

"Daddy…don't hurt him, please?" she whispered, looking up into his eyes, tears glimmering in her eyes. He lifted a hand and brushed them away with the back of his knuckle. Curling his lips in an exhausted smile, he had nodded.

Gohan watched as Trunks slipped out of Pan's window, walking out to stand beside Goten on the roof. He had carried his little girl in after she'd told him, after she'd fallen asleep as they stood there and watched the sun rise, just as Trunks had carried her in just now.

The boy had shed his jacket and shirt and shoes and socks, standing there in his pants and a muscle shirt, moonlight glinting off muscles and hair. Goten seemed to absorb all the light that hit him.

It all made perfect sense to him now, as he watched the two lift silently off into the night towards the training fields, just as Dende had promised. He hadn't needed to stop being her father, just needed to look at it from a different point of view.

He had looked at it from the old man's perspective, as a father who had already gone through this, who was willing to do anything to keep his daughter happy. The old man was right, she was older and he'd have to give her up someday, but she'd always need him. The talks and the hugs and the smiles weren't gone, just more rare, more precious.

"Gohan…"

He turned, watching as Videl came cautiously out to join him in the yard, grasping her robe around her, eyes wide and scared. He held out an arm and tucked her into it, kissing her forehead and holding her against him.

"Who'd have ever thought a war would have be waged over our little girl," he joked quietly, watching as his brother and his old friend disappeared into the distance.

"Anyone who knew you," she replied flattly. He looked down at her, seeing the seriousness in her eyes. "We all saw this coming Gohan, we all knew. But we always thought it'd be you…not Goten…why's he doing this, Gohan? Why's your brother…"

Gohan covered her mouth gently, briefly, before lifting the hand and brushing her hair back away from her eyes. "Goten revealed something to me this morning…since my father died, Panny's been going to him. He knew every reason right down to every insane detail about why she wanted to go to college so far away. It's why he accompanied her over there, why he left to visit her every few months, whether or not she wanted him there at all." He sighed. "Our father was more a quirky uncle to him, always dead or never there when my brother was growing up. But Goten never saw it that way. Dad was Dad, just the same. Goten still looked to me as a role model and for guidance, but Dad was Dad, Dad was there to protect and to listen. And as Panny's grown older, that's what's Goten's become to her, a second father. When she won't listen to me, she'll listen to him. And I don't mind it, because I can get my revenge on him when he finally has kids. Panny's our little girl, I'm her father. But he's her uncle, slightly estranged and not always there, but who can always be counted on to protect and to listen, same as our father."

Videl looked up at him, not sure she followed.

"Honey, you're rambling. You're tired, you haven't slept in three days, you're not-"

"I'm making sense in my own head, Videl, it's finding the right words to tell you." He paused for a moment, then looked up at the closed window of his little girl's room. "Goten sees himself as her guardian angel, especially now that Dad can't be that for any of us anymore. He'll always be there to protect her. She was so close to my father, and Goten is more like my father was than I could ever hope to be. It was almost like my father and brother knew what was coming, knew the repercussions to come, and they filled the same place in Panny's heart. Both swore to protect her, just as I did. The only way a father or grandfather or brother can, since you and I both know that's how Panny sees him." Videl nodded, her head resting against his shoulder. "But that's just the problem. You're right, we all saw this coming. But I'm probably the only one who knew that Trunks would kill himself for hurting her before he'd ever give me the opportunity to do it for him. He'll be good to her if they can ever get past their own defenses, as much as I hate to admit it."

Troubled blue eyes lifted to meet his own eyes of onyx, eyes so much like his little girl's, but so much older, so scared, not quite so dark.

"But then why's he going off like this? Gohan…"

"I'll explain everything once we're inside…right now, we need to do everything in our power to keep Panny asleep, and make sure if she does wake up, that she doesn't register their kis. She'll never forgive either of them or us if she were to realize what they're doing out there."

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A/N: Heh, yeah, it was Goten out there, kudos to everyone who figured that out! *hands out kudos bars* Again, I apologize greatly for not updating for so long...but as I always do when I disapper for a month or two, I've returned with several chapters! *coughs* Currently just two, but I'll have more in a few days...I swear...working trained-monkey behind the cash register at Kfart allows for a lot of thinking time...*coughs* Anyways, just get to the next chapter already! -Panabelle ;P
Shrine of the Saiyan Squirt