Chapter 9 : And now for an Earth interlude

Chichi drooped over the kitchen table like a wilting flower, and yawned heavily. She lowered her head onto the open book she had been reading, and closed her eyes, tired from a peaceful day of gardening and worry for her son. No sight or word from Gohan for almost a fortnight, only the rumours that he was down south, still fighting them. Always fighting them. As much as she hated her son putting his life on the line, she held a certain amount of pride in him, the tones of the peoples voices as they spoke told her what they thought of her son, and then she smiled to herself. 'That's our boy Goku.' She closed her eyes and let herself sleep.

Bdonk.

Chichi jerked awake at the noise from the front door, then still in the trace of one just woken, stood up automatically to let whoever it was in. She woke properly half way down the hall, then froze for a moment. 'Idiot.' She shook her head, and nearly laughed at herself, 'androids wouldn't knock.' And although it had sounded more like something falling than a knock, she continued down the hall, and undid the three latches on the door. It came open without a squeak.

Gohan blinked one eye open as his mother opened the door, and for a dazed moment wondered how she could shift the whole wall, before realising it was just the door. He was leaning up against the doorframe, looking exhausted, and it had been his shoulder hitting the wall that had made the 'Bdonk'.

"Oh Gohan!" Chichi exclaimed, looking at her son, and realising a hug would not be appreciated right now. He'd flown home from a battle not too far off, and looked rather the worse for wear. His orange and blue gi had been almost entirely ripped off his chest, and only hung in a few taters around his left shoulder. He was battered bruised and beat up, to say the least. "Gohan." Chichi repeated. "Come inside. Oh Gohan."

Gohan mumbled something in agreement and let her help him in, and lie him down on the couch. "Thought I'd better come home. Gotta see Bulma." Gohan winced as Chichi applied balm to his ribs, which made the heavy graze sting. Chichi raised an eyebrow. "And you mum." Gohan tried to grin.

"Go to sleep." Chichi said. "We'll see her in the morning."

"I said I'd-"

"Sleep!" Chichi ordered, in her not-to-be-argued-with-on-pain-of-death voice. Gohan smiled, it was good to be home, if only for a while. He went to sleep.

Chichi fought off her own fatigue as she patched and stitched up her son for nearly half an hour. She stood up from her kneeling position beside the couch and looked down at him.

Snow white- bone white bandages covered half his face and more then half his chest. His left wrist had been broken for sure, but she had straightened and bound it to a splint and it lay by his side as he slept. She wondered if he'd given the androids half of what they'd given him, and hoped he had, they wouldn't sleep well tonight either.

She brushed off her hands, and sighed. "Oh Gohan." She said again. "I am so proud of you." Then she burst into tears.

*************

Gohan woke the next morning to the biggest breakfast he'd had for a very long time. Chichi was bustling round the kitchen making all his favourite dishes at once, no matter if they were not breakfast dishes, she was making them anyway.

He pulled on a clean blue and white top over the bandages, his mother had gone a little overboard and the stained white gauze made little hills over his chest and ribs.

"Good, you're up in time." Chichi said, and she placed the first of many courses on the table. "Eat up, you look underfed, have you been taking proper care of yourself? No, don't answer that I might not like it. Eat."

Gohan gladly obeyed, Chichi kept talking. "I was planning to visit Bulma sometime anyway so we can go over as soon as you're ready. She's been really busy lately so we shouldn't stay long." Chichi sat down with her own meal.

"All the more reason to stay longer." Said Gohan. "She needs a break, she'd been working to hard since Trunks disappeared." He finished off a pair of fried eggs. "I'll fly us over."

"Oh no, you're in no condition for that." Chichi said flatly.

"What? So we take the car? I thought that old thing broke down?"

"Mother knows what she's doing Gohan." Said Chichi. "Eat your breakfast."

*************

Two weeks of disturbed sleep, of working every waking moment, of only eating when she remembered, which, if her stomach was lucky, was ordinarily once a day. Bulma had scanned the entire interior and exterior of Vegita's old ship, loaded the network of plans onto two different computers, and had spent the last twelve days on a swivel chair sliding from one computer to the other to compare the data. On no more than three occasions had she misjudged distance and nearly crashed into said computer. She'd fallen in love all over again, with her coffee maker.

The computer sequences were perfect. Bulma turned away from the computers, and opened a window, bright morning light spilled into the dusty lab.

Now it was time to start work on the ship.

*************

Gohan closed his eyes against the cool breeze and warm sun on his face. How long had it been since he had last flown this fast without using any ki? Too long, he decided.

"I can still remember my first flight on Nimbus with your father." Chichi reminisced, clinging tight to Gohan's arm as she watched the ground fly past beneath them. "I was just a little girl, and Goku came flying through the clouds and asked me if my name was Chichi. I thought he was in love with me because he knew my name." She chuckled, then stopped. "Well, I remember earlier that day I had thought Yamcha was in love with me." She shook her head, and Gohan laughed. "Yamcha?"

"Well he said he was!" Chichi laughed too. "Just to side step a beating from me, because he'd knocked me over the head earlier. I was young, and a romantic with a capital, three dimensional R. But we're not talking about that, we're talking about Goku. I remember I used his tail to pull myself up."

Gohan winced, he remembered the sensitivity of a saiyan tail, it wasn't something you forgot. "Poor dad. Look, there's Capsule Corp."

They descended quickly onto Bulma's front porch, and Chichi rang the bell. They were a long time waiting for an answer, and eventually let themselves in.

"Bulma." Chichi called down the empty halls. "It's Chichi and Gohan. Buuulmaaa. Are you home?"

"She'll be down in her labs." Gohan said, knowing it was the truth, and leading the way.

*************

"Sena!" The bellow from behind Sena made her slow to a halt as she recognised the familiar voice. She spun round on the dusty, crowded street and searched for the voices owner. The tall scar-face male saiyan was also slowing from a run as he caught up.

"Toma," panted Sena, she was not unfit, but had sprinted all the way from the palace and was more than halfway back. "What?"

"You completely ran past me back at Pasha's." Toma said, coming closer to make it more difficult for anyone to overhear. "Look, I know what you tried to do, I overheard that much. The Prince is important Sena, he could help us if the Council doesn't get to him first." His voice was an urgent hiss, very hard to lip-read, and tricky to pick out exact words unless they were directed straight at you.

"I wasn't going to ki-" Sena began, but Toma waved a large rough hand.

"Yes yes, I know. I just wanted to tell you- talk to him, get him to trust you, if he's on our side we've all but won." He looked down at her doubtful face with his dark and serious eyes.

"If he recognises me..." Sena began, and neither needed to finish the sentence.

"If he does he does. It's what-"

"-father would want, why I was placed here, the only way, I know, I know." Sena said, having heard the it's-what-your-father-would-do speech before.

"Good." Said Toma, certain he'd won. "Before you leave, here." Toma pulled a small brown bag drawn shut with a string and placed it in her hand. "These will numb the pain for an hour each, use them this day and you will feel nothing, but the pain will return with a vengeance when you run out. If i have given you enough that should be when you retire to sleep and no one will know or notice."

'Except me' Thought Sena, but took the bag anyway, taking out one of the bean shaped pills and swallowing it.

"Talk to the boy-prince." He reminded, then slipped backwards through the crowd and disappeared. Sena muttered something, annoyed at being ordered around but knowing she was in no position to argue. She turned on her heels and ran back to the castle in time for inspection.

She returned in time for inspection, and was found the same as every other Krinchi, innocent, with nothing to hide. Whispers began among the Palace servants, that the new Prince was haunted by Kings of the past, and any who served him was in danger of murder as well. But the higher born in the Palace continued their search, though to no avail did the hours of investigation bring.

**************

"Bulma, you can't!" Gohan almost begged, as the three of them sat round Bulma's kitchen table having morning tea. They were debating Bulma's spaceship and her going into space. Bulma was firmly concreted in her decision to leave and find her son. And although Gohan missed Trunks, and worried about him day by day, and wanted him back just as much as Bulma, he did not think it safe for her to go into space by herself, let alone find some way around his kidnappers and then return with them on her tail.

"Because?" Asked Bulma, taking a large mouthful of her coffee and looking over her cup triumphantly.

"It's not safe. Remember Namek, and that was with me and Krillin, with father, against one enemy. This is only you, against who knows how many Saiyans." Gohan countered, not taking his eyes of Bulma's, fighting a mental battle with her. They had already established the fact that Gohan could not leave, not with the state of array the planet was in, not with the androids still roaming loose.

"Gohan." Bulma said between clenched teeth. "These days, nothing is safe. Nothing. I will be leaving as soon as the ship is ready." She narrowed her eyes and stared at his, neither back down.

Chichi picked up her empty cup and saucer and dumped them in the sink. "Well then. Gohan, we better get home so I can begin packing."

Gohan nearly dropped his biscuit. "What!?" He exclaimed.

"Chichi, I'm going to Planet Vegita alone." Bulma said, shaking her head at Chichi.

"Course you are." Said Chichi. "And I'm coming with you."

"Mother!" Gohan said, in the exact same voice as before. "Not you too, please." Both woman looked at him, in the manner of ones who have made up their minds absolutely and in entirety. "Traitor." He mumbled to Chichi.

Gohan knew himself defeated, and groaned, lying his head on the table with a 'chink'.

"Very good." Said Chichi very firmly. "Now Bulma, you go and have a good sleep, and I'll be over tomorrow to get things organised here." She left no room for argument. Took Bulma's arm and escorted her to her bedroom. On her return she and Gohan washed the small amount of dishes, and Gohan finished the small pile of biscuits on the table.

"I know you're very much against this honey." Chichi said, in a much softer but still as determined tone. "But I was thinking, while you and Bulma argued, and I remembered how I felt when you were off on Namek, and I had to get to you. So I'm not letting Bulma go alone. We will find a way."

Gohan muttered something under his breath. And put the tea towel back on the rack.

"Come on. I'm going home." Chichi said, and gave her son a hug on impulse, one could never have too many hugs these days. Gohan hugged back, accompanied his mother home because she was still not comfortable riding Nimbus alone, then went out into the desert to train off his frustration at Bulma and his anger at the Saiyans. He trained all the harder for the thought lingering in his mind. 'If I can destroy the androids now... I can go with Bulma too.'

**************

AN: I established two facts while writing this chapter 1, I cannot spell biscuit, thank Kami for spell check

2, Since my younger brother was playing the DVD for Lord of the Rings, I just had to put that quote in. ( ""Course you are." Said Chichi. "And I'm coming with you.")

It's becoming easier to bring fics, and the movie…Together!!! HAHA (yeah very few people are going to get the Together thing, It's a LoTR Billy and Dom thing… ^_^ )

right…

Hi ya Penchy-chan how's it going? I'm working out the Rebel side of things, so in chapters to come…^_^ I hope. School starts again soon and that's gonna put restrictions on my time, this one was slow in coming cos I was doing lotsa stuff with friends and writing other things too, so I hope its not too long before the next chapters out ^_^

Assena :Yeah, I'm great aren't I? ^_^

The rest of you lot out there (if there are others following me and my fic) I'd luv to hear from you, hint hint, reviews, hint hint hint