Nasiya: Rats. I'll have to come up with something. Oh, the horror. Of course, if you're reading this, I thought of something. Hope it's good! Okay, I've got all the versions up. Lemme look a minute -
Version 1: Version 4, only the second granddaughter survived, paralyzed from the waist down. When Mitzu moves out with Vegeta, Kindra stays with Goku. There were more details, mostly surrounding Kindra (most of her thoughts I managed to retain anyway). It ended at the same spot.
Version 2: Version 2 & Version 3 are the same, with one exception: In 3, Goten doesn't have a clue who he is until the end of the story. Vegeta calls him Kakarot all the way through it, never tells him who he really is. In 2, he just goes along with it.
I'm glad you liked We Lost, too. I figured since it was going to take the narrator awhile to learn who he was, and he was narrating, it wasn't fair for the audience to know before he did!
r: I know, I know, you didn't review this one. I'm just hoping you jumped over here to see what was up. Goku died in We Lost. There were 3 warriors in orange & blue. Goten got banged in the head and couldn't fight, and watched & described how both Goku & Gohan died. It was… messy.
DarkSerapha: *examines under microscope* Ah-ha! You just want him for yourself! So, go read Nightmare Journey and tell me if I'm more evil to Goku or to Vegeta. Oh, drat. You're reading Unforgivable too… eh, tell me anyway! And We Lost, that one goes after Vegeta again…
*blinks* Well. I put those notes up there shortly after reading the reviews. They've been sitting there, patiently waiting, ever since. For some reason, until I downloaded (backed up) my reviews, I thought this story was complete. Oops.
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In the end, her plan was both ridiculously simple and excruciatingly dangerous. She decided to keep him in his own little cottage, and claim it as her own. Feeling her father's chi, she shoved Kakarot under the bed and told him not to make so much as a hint of a sound.
She sat in Kakarot's sewing corner, a dress in her lap, threaded needle in her hand. And, in spite of her nerves being on edge, managed not to jump and run when her father shoved the door open. She didn't so much as look up, instead sticking her tongue out the corner of her mouth and making a tentative stitch.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"Fixing my dress. I have to - Kakarot ran away!" She made another stitch, a feeling of almost triumph filling her: She'd never sewn anything before, and her father looked like he was about to have a fit.
"Didn't I tell you to go look for him?"
"I did. There's nobody at that old ruin." Deana shot an irritated look at her father. "That was such an icky place, Daddy! I didn't like it at all! And I'm not going out again. There isn't any reason for me to, anyhow. Kakarot ran away from me - and he liked it when I came to visit.
"I'm not a stupid girl, Daddy. I know what you had Mama and the girls do. I'm just surprised you didn't tell me to help."
Vegeta glared at her. "You're too young."
"I am quite old enough to have a child, Daddy, I've been menstruating for a year now." She hid her smile at his look of disgust. "And I am very upset that you thought I was a baby. I think I'll just stay here and prove I'm not."
"What?"
Deana rather enjoyed the flabbergasted look on her father's face. "I said, I'll stay here and prove I'm not." She returned her attention to the dress, her hair falling to hide her face as she continued her mending. "It's not like Kakarot will be coming back voluntarily, and he's hidden long enough now that I think he'll be gone awhile.
"Since he won't need this house anymore, and I'm the only one of your children who isn't interested in all that fighting, I'm going to stay right here. Mama thinks I'm a baby, too, Daddy, so what would she say if I told her you did to me what she did to Kakarot?" she added conversationally when her father moved toward her.
Vegeta rocked back, then turned and stormed from the tiny house. Deana ran for the bathroom, and tossed her last few meals. After cleaning up, she dropped to her knees next to the bed. "Kaky? I need to leave you under there for awhile. I just made Daddy really mad…"
"'s okay. Heard you." Goku shifted his battered body slightly, compressing his chi further. Nimble fingers danced down his arm, he couldn't stop his involuntary shudder.
Deana sighed, then quickly scooted back to the sewing corner. She swung the discarded dress over her lap, and was taking careful stitches - if unsteady ones - when the door opened. "Hello, Mother."
"Where is he, Deana?"
"Who?"
"Kakarot."
She looked up at her mother. "He had been to that nasty old ruin, even I could tell that. Maybe one of you great hunters could find him."
Mitzu examined her daughter carefully. "Did you see him there, Deana?"
"Yes, Mother, I saw him there. How else would I know? He wasn't there when I left, though."
"You're wet."
"I took a shower. That place was so icky! Piles of yuck just everywhere, and the smell! I had to get it off me!"
"Your father says you plan to live here."
"Yes, Mama. The two of you always treat me like a baby! I'm not." Deana put on her pouty face. "Like I told Daddy, Kakarot won't come back voluntarily. I can stay right here and prove I'm no baby." She held up her dress. "Besides, everything I could possibly need is here."
"You remind me a bit of my grandmother, and my father. I do not care if you stay here, Deana. Your brothers and sisters were taking care of themselves long before now."
Deana snorted. "No, they didn't. Kakarot took care of them. Do you think I've missed all their whining about their food not being ready and their clothes still being torn? I trained with Kakarot, Mama, but he didn't just teach me how to hit somebody. I can cook, and sew a little, and I know how to take care of the garden and the animals." There was no way in the world she was admitting to her mother that she hadn't learned any of that through actual lessons, but through watching the man on his daily rounds. "And no, I will not take care of everyone else. If they want cows or chickens or a garden, they can get their own, I claimed these!"
Mitzu rose. "Very well, Deana. I'll inform your father I am in perfect accord with your plan." A hint of a smile escaped. "And you are right about the whining. This latest turn should provide quite the competition!"
"Competition?"
"Well of course," her mother said from the door. "You don't seriously think the other children are going to let the weakest member of the family get away with having total independence first, do you?"
"Ha!" Deana replied scornfully, eyes flashing. "They'll come begging me to take care of their clothes, or to fix them something to eat."
Her mother just laughed, and left. Deana sat back in her chair, took a deep breath. "Well. OH! MY THINGS!" She passed her mother as a little blur, packed up her personal things, and darted them back down to the cottage by the time her eldest siblings had returned.
"Kaky?" She closed all the curtains in the bedroom before pulling Kakarot from under the bed and putting him in it. He was still very hot, and although his eyes opened, she wasn't too sure he recognized her. "Kakarot?"
"Water?"
"Oh! Of course!" Deana darted down the small hallway to the kitchen, filling a clean glass and taking it back to him. Then back to the kitchen, where she fumbled her way through making some soup. While it cooked, she went outside to really look at Kakarot's home.
The house was in good repair, she knew he'd recently repaired the roof. The flower beds around it needed weeded, and the yard needed a trim, but all-in-all, the place was in good shape.
The garden was huge, and in sore need of weeding. No one had tended it the entire time Kakarot had been missing. Nor, she discovered, had the eggs been gathered or the cows tended. She tossed all the eggs in the compost pile, unwilling to discover the hard way which ones were fresh and which weren't.
Most of the animals were still fine, it took her awhile to understand the cows were crying because they needed milked. She took care of that, checking on her soup each time she carried a bucket of milk to put in the refrigerator. The goats came next. She scattered feed for the fowls, climbed up into the barn to send hay down for the rest of the animals. And when she went back inside that time, the soup was finally ready to eat.
She fed Kakarot first, her mind busily trying to figure out how to deal with such a lot of creatures and that monstrous garden. Of course, Kakarot had raised enough to supply her entire family, she knew well enough he kept for himself only what he considered unfit for Vegeta's table. Except… why?
"Kakarot?"
"More?"
"Yes you can have more. But… why do you serve - did you serve - my family?"
He looked up at her. Soft bed, clean, warm and comfortable for the first time in a long time. He'd been fed and given something to drink. He was still feverish, but no longer frightened out of his wits. "'Geta… needed me. To raise Mitzu."
"Mama grew up a long time ago."
"Truffle didn't."
Truffle was her youngest brother, a little bundle of energy who had moved up to the main house the year before. She remembered him crying for Kakarot, now he was just like his older siblings. All of whom, she realized suddenly, Kakarot had raised. Herself included.
"You stayed for the children? For us?"
"You needed me." He pushed the soup away when she offered it, turning to face the curtained window. "I would have come back. My… my children will need me, too."
The pain in his voice was so thick her eyes teared. She hadn't really thought about that, hadn't thought beyond keeping him safe from her family. But what her family had done would extend his, and he was one who took the responsibility of children seriously. "Kakarot?"
"What?"
"Why aren't there more people?" A question that had plagued her much of her admittedly short existence.
"There used to be, a long time ago." He laid quietly back against the pillows, not looking at her. "I had a wife, two sons, a granddaughter. I had friends, long ago. Once, your father was my friend."
"What happened?"
He lifted a hand, wearily, rested it on her knee. "Another time, Deana… I'm so tired…" His eyes drifted shut as he spoke, his breathing lapsing shortly after into that of rest.
A rest he was in sore need of, so Deana gathered up their dishes and took them to be washed. She settled back down, continuing her attempt to repair her dress, while she considered her next course of action. And this time, she included the nieces and nephews that would be arriving.
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