Chichi's arm was getting better. It wasn't okay yet – still in the sling, and it ached. The bone was up-and-down purple, the bruise following along the skin as if someone traced the path of her ulna with a permanent marker. She wiggled her fingers in between dishes. They tingled sometimes. She did not let herself think about what that might mean – nerve damage, swelling, not being able to feel her baby's hair when she touched it with those fingers.

Of course, it might be fine, too. With an injury like that, it was hard to tell.

Chichi pulled another dish out of the sink. If she rested her hip against it, she could brace it on the counter and scrub with her good hand. So far, she'd broken four dishes that way. She expected to break at least a few more.

Not that anyone was around to notice.

Chichi braced her good hand on the counter and leaned against it heavily for a moment or two. Her husband had been dead for she didn't know how long now. A few weeks, surely not more than a month. Her baby had been gone for almost that long. For the first time in her married life, the house was quiet, and she didn't need to start boiling rice first thing in the morning. She'd wished for that, guiltily, once or twice. Thought of the things she'd give for a day without cooking, thought about the things she'd do with five minutes to herself. The books she'd read, magazines she'd flip through, long baths she'd take, programs she'd watch on tv.

She finally had all the quiet she'd ever wanted. Books sat on the shelves, untouched. She felt numb in her baths, empty when she'd sit by herself on the couch. The television, at least, was on some of the time – but that was more background noise, something to fill up the quiet.

She wondered if the afterlife was this quiet. If her husband, wherever he was, was humming to himself, or if he was sleeping, or if he was just gone for as long as it took the dragonballs to…

But she couldn't think about that. About cold, empty dark, even if he wouldn't remember it.

She thought about Gohan, instead. Which, instead of making her want to faint, made her want to be sick.

What kind of mother was she? She'd lost him twice in as many days. The first time to her husband's older brother. The second to Piccolo, as she was composing her husband's body, no less.

The first time, that was bad enough. Her arm ached with the remembrance of how Raditz had closed his hand fully around her wrist, then turned his hand – just that, like he'd been turning the lid of a jar – and he'd flung her aside. Like she was nothing. Like she hadn't trained as a fighter from the time she could pick up a knife. Like she hadn't fought in tournaments, fought even her husband. Like she was any other house wife in the world, the ones she'd seen on the news sniffling after someone had ransacked her house or taken her children. The ones she'd quietly pitied and vowed never to be.

The second time was worse.

Krillen told her not to worry about it. This was, of course, after the two of them had combed the yard, hands cupped to their mouths as they called and called until the sky turned morning gray and the rain stopped. Until they both had to admit, to themselves and each other, that Gohan was gone.

"Piccolo won't hurt him," Krillen said. Like he was sure.

"How can you know that?" she'd asked. She'd been leaning on the counter then, too. "Why else would he take him away?"

Krillen had been very quiet. He'd stood in the middle of the kitchen, bloody, mud-covered, and tired. He had looked from her to her husband's body again and again – before the body had thinned and disappeared. (It was another thing, Chichi decided, that she was never going to forgive her husband for. Other wives at least had a body to look at long enough to make it real. Other wives didn't wake up every day for a week and think that maybe, at last, it wasn't true).

Finally, though, he said, "I know it's hard to believe, Chichi, but he liked Goku, in his own way." The monk scuffed his foot on the tile and added under his breath, "I think so, anyway."

"If he liked him so much," she said. "Why would he have let –"

"Chichi, look," Krillen said. "I don't know, okay? I know it's hard. But that thing, with Cymbal, Piccolo had to know it was a trap, he probably told Goku it was, but he came anyway. And he did the best he could. None of us woulda made it if it wasn't for him."

And Chichi tried to think about it that way. Tried to think of the times that she'd seen Piccolo when he hadn't been murdering someone, or trying to. And yes, that Goku had told her he was alright, that the two of them had left together from the house several times.

"That doesn't explain why he stole my son," she said.

"If I had to guess," Krillen said, "it's because he knows that Cymbal and the rest of them will want to kill Gohan while they've still got the chance. He might think it's the only way to keep him safe."

Which, of course, made her think about Cymbal. About the one and only time she'd really met him, how he'd tossed her aside easily, like Raditz, but if she had to categorize them, the big demon was somehow worse than her husband's alien brother. Because Raditz had been an animal, she'd seen that right away. He'd been direct, and passionate, and instinctual.

Not like Cymbal. Who, while he clearly loved his work, was, for lack of a better word, a professional. Who knew exactly what he was doing and how he was going to do it. And she understood a little better why Goku wouldn't talk about those years he'd spent fighting back and forth with the demons, no matter how many times she asked him about it. Why he still sometimes sat bolt upright in the middle of the night, hand fumbling for the bo he still kept beside his bed even years later.

The thought that a monster like that might want to hurt her child was the maternal equivalent to a kidney stone; her insides twisted for days at the thought of what someone like Cymbal could do to her little boy. She had, after all, seen what he did to Krillen. And Krillen was a fighter.

Which lead her to two unfortunate admissions. The first was that Piccolo might have been right to take Gohan. That he could protect the boy better than she would ever be able to.

That, more than anything, made her next decision for her.

I'll do it, she thought. Just as soon as my arm is better. I'll go talk to Roshi myself. I'll start training again.

And then I'll go give that big lummox a piece of my mind.



Cymbal was pleasantly unconscious for nearly an hour. And then they came to the steps.

There were three of them. They lead from the ground to the porch of a small cottage style house just off a small dirt road.

As he pieced it together later – it hurt much too much at the time – the woman had not been able to move him, or even attempt to move him, herself. Instead, she'd gone up the road, detached her donkey from the cart she took back and forth to town every day, and lead the shying, frightened little animal down to the side of the water.

She'd gotten some rope, made a liter out of a blanket she kept in the cart and a pair of boughs from the nearby pine trees. And then she and the donkey, by means of rope and more maneuvering than he frankly wanted to think about, managed to haul his saturated, still-bleeding body onto the liter.

It was an incredible feat, he would acknowledge later. How that small woman and a donkey between them had managed to haul him – Hell, he must have made three of her, at least – anywhere. He was missing an arm and most of a leg, which had to help some in terms of weight. Still, he was well over 300 pounds of lifeless even without those limbs.

But again, he'd figure that out later.

His thought waking up was actually that he might be on fire again.

Hot pain shot up his shoulders, the back of his neck, tingled in the severed stump of his left arm, the shattered bones in his torso. The black behind his eyes turned read; he actually screamed, clapped his still-present hand over his eyes, and tried to think far enough past "burn" and "ow" to make some kind of sound value judgment as to where he was, why he was on fire, and what his next move should be.

Clearly, "play dead" was no longer an option.

Slowly, he opened an eye, peered between his fingers.

The world was interestingly blurry. And both the woman and a mid-sized, fuzzy creature - donkey, he decided, or he was hallucinating again – were staring at him in something like abject horror.

The liter was tilted at a 45 degree angle. Halfway up, he realized, a set of steps. And he wasn't on fire. He just hurt very much.

"Jesus, lady," he said after a second or two. "There are easier ways to kill somebody."

The woman shot an uncertain look at the donkey. The little animal pinned its ears and stomped once. The blood smell was spooking it, and it wasn't sure how it felt about its load moving around and talking.

The woman said something encouraging. Put her hand on the donkey's harness.

"No, really," Cymbal said. "We're not doing that again." With an effort, he put his hand on the side of the liter, tried to sit up. Which hurt almost as much as going up the steps, but at least it was slower, instead of the sudden explosion.

The woman said something negative – probably telling him not to get up – and took a step toward him. He wasn't sure how he would have reacted to her efforts to get him to lie back down; whether he would have done it or snapped her fool neck. Fortunately or unfortunately, he never got to find out.

The litter shifted with his shift in weight, and one of the boughs snapped against a step with a sound like a gunshot. And of course the donkey, whose nerves were strained to the breaking point anyway, panicked. Which, for donkeys, meant that he kicked up his heels and, failing to hit either Cymbal or the liter, he fell back on the last resort for panicked donkeys. Which is to run away from the source of panic as quickly as possible.

The fuzzy thing ran squarely through the door as fast as he could go. And Cymbal, of course, went with him. The liter swayed slightly sideways and bounced off the door on the way through, and then they were in the living room, the donkey's hooves clattering like half a dozen pots and pans as he sprinted across the hardwood. The woman screamed, then yelled something one-syllable over and over – stop, maybe? – as the donkey dithered for a moment at a doorway, and finally careened into the kitchen, bouncing his forehead off the kitchen table, collapsing one of the legs. Fruit from a bowl skittered across the floor like scattered marbles. And there the donkey stopped, ears pinned, sides heaving. It let out a mournful bray and sat down.

Cymbal lay very still for a few seconds as he tried to process his situation. There were, he realized, grapes on his chest. And everything hurt very much. His head especially.

"Well played, burro," he said. He covered his eyes with his remaining hand to shield them from the kitchen light.

The woman was beside him then, stammering something over and over again. Cymbal didn't know the words, but he knew what it was. Apologies sound the same in every language. A few things do. Like, for instance, the sound of people begging for their lives. The tone, the posture – it never changes.

"Lady," he said, "it's fine. Just don't do me any more favors."

She was already up, though. Moving to touch the donkey's forehead, make soothing noises at it, no doubt convince it to drag him somewhere else.

Cymbal turned his head to the side, looked at where they'd come from. The overturned furniture, the smears of water and sand and blood. He noted wryly that he'd seen murders that made a lot less mess.

"If I survive this, you know," he said casually. Because he could say whatever the Hell he wanted, long as he kept his tone neutral, and she wouldn't know what he was saying. "I'm going to kill everyone. Seriously. Everybody."

She smiled at him blankly. Stroked the donkey's ears.

"My sire used to have an attack he suspected would destroy the whole planet."

She nodded, made a soothing sound. Tried to tug the now-recalcitrant donkey back out of the kitchen.

"Which would be handy," he added. "As there is literally nobody on this mudball that I do NOT hate right now."

The donkey consented to move. Stood up. Walked – with clear ire – back toward the living area.

Cymbal immediately noticed two or three things when they did, with much skidding and general moving of debris, make it back into the other room. Because he was, at heart, a soldier and used to keeping close watch on his surroundings. The first was a small cluster of photographs on the wall – a few years old, at least , he guessed. This woman and a young man. This woman and a baby. A small girl, maybe four, sitting on a bench with flowers and smiling uncertainly at what he guessed was the camera.

The second was the few scattered dolls lying on the floor, no doubt flung helter skelter by the donkey's one-equine stampede.

The third was a little girl, maybe five or six, standing at the foot of the staircase in what Cymbal loosely recognized as some sort of sports uniform. Her slick black hair was in pigtails, and her jaw was dropped in a clear attitude of shock.

"Seven hells, I've been captured by a soccer mom," he said.

And then, he couldn't help it, he laughed. Out loud. The back of his hand pressed to his forehead as he laughed so hard that blood, previously pooling in his lungs and throat, trickled from the side of his mouth.

The last thing he saw clearly before he lost consciousness again (thank any gods listening) was a pair of concerned, eerily similar faces peering down at him.


Piccolo had said a week. This, Krillen knew, meant a week. Piccolo wasn't like a banking service or Fed Ex. You couldn't get him to deliver faster by harassing him.

Still, three days later, he was there again. Hands in his pockets. Wondering what the Hell was wrong with him.

Piccolo and Gohan were nowhere in sight. Not that Krillen even knew exactly that they were there . He'd just gone out to where they'd been, and he'd raised his chi enough that Piccolo would be able to find him easily. If he wanted to.

So Krillen stood still and waited. It wasn't that he expected Piccolo to come find him, exactly. It was just that, at the moment, he didn't have anything better to do. And that he knew, he'd been able to tell from the strained slowness of the other's movements, that Piccolo was still badly hurt from whatever fight he'd had with his family.

Not that even a badly-injured Piccolo was all that likely to need HIS help of all things. But he couldn't stop thinking about it. So there he was. In the middle of the freaking desert. Just waiting for…

"Hn. Can't you tell time?"

Krillen jumped a solid three feet in the air, spun halfway around, and almost turned an ankle due to sand being shifty.

And of course, there was Piccolo. Standing, sans cape and turban, just out from a few rocks. Arms crossed, chin down, looking generally like he was going to kick someone's ass.

Probably mine, Krillen thought fatalistically.

Out loud, he said, "It's eleven thirty."

Piccolo raised an eyeridge. And, flatly, "What the Hell are you doing here."

Krillen had all kinds of things planned out in his head that he would say when Piccolo asked him something like that. But at that moment, he couldn't remember a one of them. He put his hand behind his head, laughed nervously, and said, "Well, y'know, I just happened to be in the neighborhood, and…"

Piccolo's eyes narrowed.

"…and I thought, well, I guess I didn't think this through so well, but I…"

He started to growl, just low at first, like it was coming from way far off.

"…thought I'd see how you were doing."

Piccolo went completely silent. Actually looked at him a little wide-eyed.

"After the fight and everything."

More silence.

Krillen grinned a very nervous grin. "So, uh, you're fine, and I'll be going now."

Piccolo shook his head hard, like he was trying to shake something out of it. "Were you dropped on your head when you were a kid, too?"

"Uh…not that I know of," Krillen said. He took a step backward. "Sorry to bother you. I guess I'll see you…"

Piccolo huffed. "Not so fast."

Krillen stopped, one foot still in the air.

"If you're here, you can make yourself useful." Piccolo looked away from him – the first time so far that conversation he hadn't had him pinned in a stare – and said, to some nearby rocks, "Well, come on."

Gohan stepped out from the shadows, looking shy and happy and a heck of a lot better than he had two days ago. Even if the little bit of "scared" in his eyes hadn't gone away just yet. The boy looked straight at Krillen, grinned in a way that looked a lot more like Chichi than like Son, and bowed at him.

"If you're going to be underfoot," Piccolo said, "you can at least teach the brat something about energy manipulation."

"You mean teach him chi blasts," Krillen said.

Gohan blanched visibly.

Piccolo shook his head. "Just light for now. Maybe how to power up without frying himself."

Gohan took a step back. Looked over at Piccolo with giant eyes.

"It's that, or the next time you get ticked, you'll make a whole lot of glass again," Piccolo said, no trace of sympathy in his tone whatsoever.

The boy took a deep breath that puffed him up like one of the tiny sand birds on Master Roshi's island. He nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Wait," Krillen said. "What?"

Piccolo smirked. "See what you get for being a pest?" he said. Turned on a heel, and started to walk away. "I'll be back in a couple of hours. Try not to die."

Which meant, Krillen realized, that he was going to go pass out for a while, because someone else was keeping an eye on Gohan. He opened his mouth. Closed it. Kicked sand with his foot.

"YOU'RE WELCOME!" he finally bellowed at the demon's retreating back.

Piccolo very obviously pretended not to hear him. Which, Krillen decided, was pretty much par for the course.