He struggled to consciousness. His eyes opened, and he looked around. His arm, his fake arm, wasn't attached. He tried to sit up, but a gentle, strong hand pushed him back down.

"Lie back down, Gohan." It was Bulma.

"Hi, Bulma…" He said. "Sorry I broke my new arm…" He said.

"Be quiet, Gohan, and go back to sleep." She said.

"Hey, it's not my fault…" He said.

"Listen to Bulma…Gohan." It was Piccolo, with anger in his voice. It couldn't be Piccolo, Piccolo was dead. Then it hit him. He was still in the past. He remembered it all. Going back in time, fighting the androids, going down to save Piccolo, nearly getting killed by Cell. He realized that they had called him Gohan. This wasn't good.

Suddenly, something filled his veins. It was knocking him unconscious. He let sleep take him, not that the medicine was giving him any choice.

"Gohan?" The voice said. This time, it was Goku. "Is that really you?" Gohan struggled to speak, but he was so out of it, that he couldn't respond. "Why didn't you trust me with your secret?" Goku asked. Goku knew that his son couldn't respond. "Gohan, Ichidou, whoever you are…" Goku said. "As soon as your conscious, we need to talk."

Gohan sat up in bed, and looked around. He was alone in the room, he was somewhere at Capsule Corp. He looked around, trying to decide whether or not he should try to get out of the bed. He realized that he wasn't wearing much except for a hospital gown. He decided that, since he didn't know where his gi was and that he didn't want to walk around with his rear end hanging out, that he should just lie back down and wait for someone to come in.

He didn't have to wait very long. Bulma herself walked into the room, and looked at him, worried. "Are you okay?" She asked. "How do you feel?"

"Why did I end up here?" Gohan asked. "Why didn't you just stick a Senzu in my mouth and get it over with?"

"First of all, you have only been in here for one day, so you haven't missed much time. Second…" She paused. "You have no idea what happened to you, do you?" She asked.

"No…what?" He asked.

"You had a problem." She said. "The problem is that the arm isn't exactly built to handle turning the energy source the androids use into ki. At least, not in high amounts. They are similar in function, but they are completely different. The damage the arm did to your body was extensive. It wasn't a matter of sticking a senzu in your mouth. In fact, we tried that, and it didn't bring you back around. In order for your body to convert the energy into ki, the arm sent tiny nanomachines into your body to serve as converters. These nanomachines were slowly but surely replacing cells in your body." She said. "To put it bluntly, your arm was slowly turning you into an android."

"What? I don't understand it, she should have caught that." He said.

"Who is this 'she', I take it that you are referring to the future version of me? I'm sorry, Gohan, but did I age gracefully?" She asked. "Am I still pretty?" She said. "I'm sorry." She said. "It wasn't something that she could have 'caught'. It was so well integrated into the system that I couldn't have caught it. I nearly didn't. The only reason I know any of this is because I had the doctors check your body for any signs of damage. When they showed me your blood through the microscope, it scared me half to death." She looked at Gohan. "You've been lying in that bed for the past ten hours, while a machine I built to take out the nanomachines has been slowly filtering your blood out, and back in, clean of machines. I based the design off of a dialysis machine." She said. "I'm going to check…" She looked over to a machine. "Yup, you're completely machine free." She smiled. "I'm going to tell everybody that you're okay. Expect some visitors." She began to walk out.

"Bulma!" Gohan said.

"What?" She said.

"Just to let you know, you're still pretty in the future." He said, smiling.

"Glad that somebody thinks so!" She said, and with that, she walked out.

Goku walked into the room a few minutes later. He was wearing Saiyan armor, which was pretty beat up. It seemed that he rushed down to check up on him, as soon as he found out that he had regained consciousness.

The two of them sat there, for what seemed like hours. Gohan didn't know what to say. This was his father. He realized that he had been hiding behind Ichidou, behind his alias. He didn't want to confront his father, he didn't want to become that little, helpless boy again. It was then that he realized that his father was in tears. He needed to say something.

Goku stared at his son. It sounded funny to say that, but it was true. He remembered the day, three years ago, when he sparred with Ichidou. He suspected that it was Gohan, but, his son wouldn't lie to him, would he?

"Hello, father." Gohan said, finally. Goku looked up, and began to study his son.

"Hi, Gohan." Goku said.

"I want to explain…" Gohan said.

Goku smiled. "You don't have to explain anything. You didn't want to hurt the future, I understand." He said. He got up and walked over to Gohan. "You're really strong, Gohan. I'm so proud of you." He said.

"I'm sorry…" Gohan said.

"Don't apologize either." Goku said. "Promise me one thing."

"What?" Gohan asked.

"Once Bulma's finished with your new arm, you owe me a hug." Goku said.

"Okay…" Gohan said.

Goku got up, and left the room. As soon as he was gone, Gohan let it all out. All of the pain, the sadness, the fear, all out at once. "I'm not a kid anymore." Gohan said, regaining his composure. He looked over to his bedside, and saw a box of tissues. He had better clean himself up, because he was sure he would have more visitors.