Title: Keiken no Onna
Chapter 2: Standing on Two Feet
Author: EC-Chan
Disclaimer: Don't own DBZ.
AN: I was just informed that it's been over a year and I really need to update this story by Allison. . I am so sorry that it has taken so long to update this….but yelling at me to update is a good way to get more apparently… (I have no excuse but it was a busy year, writer's block, and I am trying to stop writing ff but it is like a drug lol .)
Dedicated to: This fic is for Sya-Chan because I would not have even bothered to write it if she hadn't asked me too and was nice enough to come up with ideas to help me out. Thanks Sya-chan! ;
Italics = flashback (if they actually work that is glares at last chappy…)
Chi Chi didn't know when she woke up. For so long now she had greeted sleep with heavy weariness and woken instantaneously to aching muscles and a clenching heart. But today was different. Instead of finding herself suddenly conscious, the full burden of her troubles upon her, her mind had slowly drifted blankly into awareness and if she had been in complete control of her thoughts at the moment then she would have worried if she had damaged more then a few brain cells in her fall.
She remembered seeing the top. It was so clearly fixated in her mind that she couldn't help but to remember it. She had almost made it there and had slipped…. at least she supposed she had slipped, though it might have been she had simply fallen.
She also remembered her dream. She had been a feather floating in the sky and then suddenly realized that she couldn't possible be a feather and illogically as most dreams are she sped up upon this realization. Then something strange happened: she had expected the impact; wanted the impact….but there had been none. It was as if someone had stopped her midair so that she couldn't even return to being the feather and dragged her upwards into warm strange arms….alien to her. Then the blankets were tucked around her and she must have fallen into a deeper sleep because the next thing she knew the sun was annoyingly glaring on her closed eyelids.
Smiling to herself, she knew she considered the dream to be not mild, but one of the best dreams she had had in weeks. It was the first time she had dreamed of her own comfort anyway…..of someone lifting her up and helping her get on track in her miserable life. But then she frowned, knowing quite suddenly that she didn't want to be on track. She wanted this peacefulness for a little while longer; the ability to wallow in her misery and adding to it physically.
It had been years since she had allowed herself to train. Actually the last time she had done so was when Goten was a little boy and she had been teaching him…. that had surprised Gohan and she chuckled at the memory of her other son's expression when he had been told by his brother.
That was one thing she regretted; being so hard on Gohan. Goten was the son she had given the opposite extreme….so wild like his father. Truth be told she had wanted him to be like his father then. She simply couldn't find it in her heart to be strict to him as she had to Gohan.
Now her memories were getting bittersweet, so she rolled over, trying to move to a position where the sun wasn't quite so annoying and stopped when she felt herself almost being confined by something. Her eyes snapped open and she let out a gasp of surprise: she was lying in a queen sized bed under a mound of neutral but warm and fluffy blankets in a room with white walls and one shadeless window that had given her the false reassurance that she was still in the clearing in the woods.
Untangling herself as if she had just been bitten by some disease-ridden animal, she stumbled away from the bed, backing into the wall, noting now the door on the only side she hadn't looked at. Her heart was beating wildly in her chest, wondering where she was and how she had gotten there and then a few seconds later, what whoever it was wanted from her.
As if someone had been waiting for a signal, her door sounded from the pounding on the other side of it, and she glared at it distrustingly. The knob turned inward and she looked around desperately for some kind of weapon and seeing none, crouched down in her fighting position.
"Miss Chi Chi?" A tentative voice asked and Chi Chi straightened immediately in annoyed relief.
"Mr. Popo….." She said his name slowly and paused, wondering what she should say. Well she might as well try and get some of her previous questions answered…. "How did I get here?"
The black faced gardener stepped inside the door nervously. "Piccolo brought you in last night. You were unconscious so I told him to put you in here."
"Piccolo?" Chi Chi asked in confusion. Why would he have anything to do with this? "Why?" Her eyes narrowed.
Popo shifted his weight. "He saw you fall from the column and caught you since you were in obviously no condition to sustain the fall. Dende said you had three broken ribs already and a bit of internal bleeding before he healed you."
"Dende healed me?" Chi Chi hissed, liking this less and less.
"Why yes," Popo said in surprise. "Did you expect him to leave you there injured? They were both surprised that you were able to make it that far up the column as it was."
Chi Chi pursed her lips, tempted to scream irrationally at the poor man (though she wasn't quite sure if he could be considered a man), but in the end simply didn't have enough energy to do anything more then simply go back and sit on the bed. She looked back up at Popo and asked resignedly, "How did you know I was up?"
"I didn't," he said, surprised. "I've been checking to see if you were awake every half hour since I've been awake myself. I wanted to know when I should start preparing breakfast. I got the most lovely-."
She cut him off before he had a chance to go into any detail of his garden. Rationally she knew that he was excited because normally neither Namek would eat anything besides their glass of water (not that that was eating….), but she simply didn't have the patience. "I'm going to go back down."
But Mr. Popo shook his head. "I'm afraid that's impossible. Piccolo already has brought all of your things up. They're waiting for you just outside your door; he didn't wish to intrude while you were asleep." Chi Chi snorted at this but Popo went on as if she had remained silent, "I'll go start breakfast then….your things are just outside if you wish to change. You can bring them in and unpack if you'd like. For now this shall be your room until you are ready to leave."
And before Chi Chi could ask what he meant by his last statement, slightly annoyed, he was gone, the door closing behind him with a gently slap. She frowned at it as if it had offended her in some way and twisted it open rather quickly, grabbed her luggage and dragged them easily into the room despite their heavy weight. She was used to it.
"If they think I'm staying here because they want me to," She muttered angrily under her breath but unpacked nonetheless.
It turned out that the two Nameks and gardener meant for her to stay until whatever business she hoped to accomplish was finished. It didn't seem as if Dende knew what she was thinking to do and she had wondered why but then shrugged it away when she realized she wasn't even sure what she was doing here.
It started out with her wanting to prove herself. Yes, she saw that now. She wanted to show Gokou that she could make it without his strength, proving it the only way she knew how. However twisted that way was, she realized dryly. That and she had hoped ridiculously that by climbing to the top of the column and reaching Corran's Tower (Mr. Popo had been eager to fill her in on other details she hadn't know about that) that she would be able to forget Gokou. That'd she'd be finally free and be able to move on.
But she was only fooling herself.
As it was she didn't know why she was there on Kami's Lookout and had been simply wandering around exploring it for a few days now, not having anything else to do. They had given her free reign and although she saw both Dende and Mr. Popo on occasion, not once had she seen Piccolo and his absence was beginning to both annoy and bother her. She wanted desperately to know why he had caught her.
Or was that really it? She couldn't help but remember what he had done to her family. She still blamed him for everything that had happened, as insane and unjustified as that was. He had done what he had thought was right. They all had done so. Even Gokou.
She shouldn't blame any of them really for just not seeing how events would affect her and Bulma and everyone else who couldn't keep up with their rapid actions anymore. They were looking out for Earth as a whole, of course they would miss the results of their actions on a personal level. Who are we but the abused, she asked herself scornfully.
That of course was what tore her up even more. On one side Gokou left her for years on end without saying a word to her; simply expecting her to be there waiting for him when he came back. On the other he had good reason to be away; his one never-ending goal to save Earth. The scale had tipped in either's balance so many times before and she hated him always for putting her in such a position not only once but every chance he had.
It was no wonder she was so against Gohan training….
She shook her head to clear it, realizing that since she had left her husband she had had this conversation with herself way too many times. It wasn't as if any of the facts would change…. She was on her own never-ending quest to find a way to reassure herself that she alone was right. That she had every right to divorce him even though it still felt like he was still attached.
And she could have the conversation a hundred times again with herself, picking up from any topic….she had to stop this, she told herself and walked a little faster. For the first time in a long while she took in her surroundings.
"Ah, I see you have finally made it down here," a short pure white cat said as he hobbled towards her on a cane. "I have been expecting you for some time now."
Around her was the oddest assortment of buckets and other various items in what otherwise appeared to be a fairly livable and homely room. Knowing instinctively that she had somehow found her way into Corran's lookout, she had turned just in time to see Corran himself.
"Why have you been expecting me?" Chi Chi asked with a frown. "I didn't even mean to come down here…."
"Very few people make it here without meaning to," Corran said quietly. "And you Miss Chi Chi are not one of those few. I have been watching your attempts at climbing the tower for some time now. I dared hope that you would have made it by yourself well before now."
Chi Chi gave him a disbelieving frown. "You were watching me?" Instead of commenting on anything else he had said, she pulled this out of his jumble of words and took offense to it.
"It is a little hard not to," Corran said, waving his hand towards one of his buckets of water.
Very reluctantly Chi Chi edged towards it and stared, her mouth agape in amazement at what she distinctly saw in it: the pole she had just spent the last month or so trying to climb. How on earth….? She looked back at Corran who had a very pleased look on his face.
"The last woman I had up here was Marron," the cat admitted suddenly. "You're a bit older, but….would you like so lunch?"
Chi Chi stared at him blankly. "Marron? As in 18's daughter or that wretched girlfriend Krillin had that one time?"
"His girlfriend," Corran said chuckling a bit.
"I think I'll head back upstairs," Chi Chi decided, not liking the look on his face.
"You may come back at any time to visit," Corran said solemnly, reattaining the solemness from the beginning of this conversation.
"Thank you," Chi Chi said, not really knowing what else to say as she edged for the staircase that led her back upstairs. She did not like how that cat had looked at her before….especially with the mention of Marron.
Once back upstairs she continued her wandering until she ran into Popo who ushered her inside for lunch.
She spent the afternoon in Popo's gardens, ignoring his incessant babble about everything in it and just taking a look around. Popo was a very good gardener and everything was arranged in such a lovely way that she found momentary peace in viewing it.
Before Popo could leave to prepare dinner, Chi Chi had stopped him, suddenly unable to prevent herself from asking him a question that had been plaguing her mind for the last couple days. She had been trying to be patient, but this was just too much…. "Where is he?" Chi Chi blurted out angrily. "Hiding from me? What's the big idea of him bringing me up here and then not even being around for me to thank him if I wanted to?"
Popo's eyes widened, "Mr. Piccolo?"
"Yes!" Chi Chi said angrily, crossing her arms and waiting for a reply. "Him!"
"He has been out training…." Popo trailed off, losing his will to speak as Chi Chi's expression filled with dark anger. "He didn't think you would want to see him…."
"And where is Dende then?" Chi Chi asked, it suddenly accruing to her that she yet to see him as well. "Does he think that I don't want to see him either?" Mr. Popo nodded. "Honestly!" She huffed. "If I didn't want to see either of them, then how logical would it be for me to attempt to climb this tower?!"
"The would not blame you for not wanting to see them…." Mr. Popo attempted to explain. "They regret how much they have hurt you…."
"Where's Dende?" Chi Chi snapped. Piccolo might well be off training in some wilderness she'd never be able to reach before he decided to come back on foot, but she knew Dende had to stay at the Lookout for the majority of the time.
"In the sacred chambers I believe, but I would not go in there unless you were a guardian," Popo said quickly. "Why don't you wait for Piccolo? He said he would be back after dinner."
Chi Chi had half a mind to ignore Popo's warning and to go barging in on Dende, but she quickly controlled her temper. Piccolo was the one of the two Namek's she would rather see anyway and she could wait until after dinner to see him.
To Chi Chi's consternation Piccolo did not arrive right after dinner as she had expected. In fact, it was well past nightfall and she was still waiting for him. Popo assured her numerous times by now that yes, he was coming and no he had never said a specific time, just after dinner.
Minutes crawled into hours and Chi Chi was beyond annoyed now with the tardy alien. She would wait for him all night if she had to; it was simply her nature. In fact, she would still be waiting for him come morning if he didn't return as he promised. She was too stubborn for her own good…
Fortunately, this was not the case. Just as she was beginning to look around for a nice place to sit and was contemplating on asking Popo for a comfortable chair or at least a blanket, she saw a speck of green in the far horizon.
"Finally," she breathed, a frown tightening on her lips. "It's about time!"
She waited patiently for Piccolo to land on the Lookout before stalking over to him, her hands on her hips. "Where on earth have you been?" She demanded.
I didn't mean for Popo to have more then a smaller role in this story, but I think a larger role is kind of fitting for this chapter at least lol…
I don't know when I'll next update this .…. If all else fails yell at me =.=… But I will try to put more up within a few days, and have all of it up by the time I go to school at the latest since it's only going to be a couple more chapters. This is really bad that I haven't finished this already . gomen nasai…