Hero's Welcome
Disclaimer: Characters and premise belong to Akira Toriyama. I'm just borrowing them for this story.
Notes: I'm using the name spellings from the Viz manga, not from the Funimation dub. For example Boo, rather than Buu.
Videl knocked uncertainly on the Son's door promptly at six-thirty on a Monday morning two weeks after the world had been saved from Buu.
Chichi opened the door. "Hello dear, I'm so glad you came."
"Hello Son-san, I'd be happy to help out in anyway I can but... well... what's the problem?" Videl asked.
Chichi beamed. "Such a wonderful attitude." She handed Videl a frying pan. "Now if you could hold this."
Videl stared at the frying pan, utterly mystified.
"Goku!" Chichi shouted.
"We're coming," Goku sounded like he was exerting himself. Videl wondered what sort of task could possibly make him struggle.
A few minutes later Goku pushed an extremely reluctant Gohan into the kitchen. Goten trailed behind them, the little boy looked worried and amused all at the same time.
"I'm not going back to school and that's final!" Gohan declared.
"My son will not become a drop-out!" Chichi replied with equal determination.
"But Mom! They all know now! Everyone's going to think I'm a freak!"
"It's not like you did something bad Gohan," Goku said. Videl's eyes widened. She hadn't known Son Goku that long but she already knew to be shocked at him sounding frustrated. "You stopped criminals, you saved the world, why do you act like you're ashamed?"
"They're going to know I'm different!" Gohan exclaimed.
Goku blinked in confusion. "So?"
"They're gonna stare and talk about me and act all weird around me." Gohan insisted. "They're going to be scared of me."
"Now Gohan, that's just silly," Goku objected. "Bulma and Kuririn stayed friends with me even when they found out I was an alien sent here to wipe out all life on the planet."
Videl stared at Goku, her eyes bugging out of her head as the frying pan Chichi had given her slowly slipped out of her nerveless grasp.
The sound of the frying pan clanging against the floor drew both Goku and Gohan's attention to Videl.
"Dad!" Gohan exclaimed accusingly.
"Hiya big sis!" Goten exclaimed happily. "What ya doing here? Are you here for breakfast? Mommy's making pancakes 'cause they're the best and big brother isn't happy about school. Mommy though pancakes might cheer him up."
Videl focused on Goten's happy chatter and pushed the bit about Gohan's father and wiping out all life on the planet to the back of her head. "Hi Goten. Hi Gohan. Your mom asked me to stop by before school but I don't know why?" She looked toward Chichi questioningly.
"Oh yes." Chichi picked up the frying pan and handed it back to Videl. "Well as you heard Gohan is being a bit difficult about going back to school. Goku and I can't go to class with him so if he tries to skip out without a good reason I want you to know that you have my explicit permission to wap him over the head with that frying pan," she said cheerfully.
Videl leaned over and whispered in Gohan's ear, "Is your mom an alien too?"
"Nope," Gohan said.
Chichi set a heaping platter of pancakes on the table. "Now everyone, eat up or you'll be late for school even with Goku's instant transmission technique."
Videl picked at her pancakes while the three Son males devoured the huge stack Chichi had put on the table. Finally she couldn't resist any longer. "Did you really come here to kill everyone?" she asked Goku. After everything she'd seen Videl didn't feel the need to question the part about Goku being an alien, just watching the three of them eat was proof enough that they couldn't possibly be human.
Goku glanced up and mumbled something through a mouthful of food. Chichi cleared her throat meaningfully. Goku swallowed and repeated. "Yeah, but I hit my head and forgot all about it. Grandpa Gohan took me in and raised me as his own... I didn't even know I was an alien until Gohan here was four."
"Oh," Videl said faintly.
Chichi looked pointedly at the clock and the rest of the food on the table disappeared like magic. She handed Gohan his backpack and kissed him on the cheek. "It won't be that bad," she promised. "Stop looking at me like I'm sending you to your execution."
"Yes mother," Gohan sighed.
"Grab hold of me," Goku instructed and the next thing Videl knew they were standing in front of Orange Star High School.
"Hey Gohan, Videl," Yamcha said. "Goku, tell Chichi she owes me. I can't believe she made me come here and play sign post for you guys." He waved and walked off.
"Bye guys," Goku said. "I promised Goten he could show me all the neat places you guys found around the place."
Gohan smiled at that. He knew his father had found most of those places when he'd been a child, after all he'd been the one to show them to Gohan who had showed them to Goten in turn. But Goku would never spoil Goten's fun by letting on that he already knew about the secret places Goten wanted to share with him.
Goku touched two fingers to his forehead and vanished.
Gohan looked back at the school and his smile vanished just as quickly.
"It won't be that bad," Videl assured him. "I've never seen you make such a fuss about anything."
Gohan chuckled nervously and scratched at the back of his head. "I guess it's my dad being back. I don't know, it's like... it's stupid. Ever since I've been a little kid it was like there was always some catastrophe looming over us, then Dad died and it was sort of my fault. I didn't want to make things worse for Mom then I already had. But now Dad's back so if I feel like being stubborn or a pain I can. Does that make any sense at all?"
Videl smiled crookedly. "I get it." she said. Videl hooked her arm through Gohan's. "Lets go. You might feel like giving your Mom a hard time, but I did promise to wap you over the head if you weren't in class and I'd hate to break a promise."
As Gohan had feared people whispered, stared and gave him a wide berth but with Videl at his side it wasn't quite as bad as he thought it would be. "Maybe when we wish their memories of Boo away we can wish for them to forget about me getting unmasked at the Tournament," Gohan sighed quietly to Videl. She rolled her eyes at him and led him into their home room.
"Where's Sharpner?" Videl asked as they took their seats beside Eresa.
"He's not sick is he?" Gohan asked forgetting his own predicament for a moment.
Eresa looked guilty. "He's got a bad case of can't go to school on account of him being afraid Gohan might be mad about all the times Sharpie's called him Nerd-boy and all. You wouldn't hurt him would you? I mean he's an idiot and a jerk sometimes but that's just Sharpie ya know, he doesn't mean anything by it."
Gohan looked miserable. He and Sharpner weren't friends in the strictest sense of the word but they ate lunch together, sat together in class and generally hung out together with Videl and Eresa while they were at school. If Sharpner was afraid of him now what were the rest of his classmates thinking?
Videl looked from Sharpner's empty seat to Gohan's brooding look to Eresa wringing her hands nervously and threw up her arms in frustration. "This is stupid!" she exclaimed. "Gohan's exactly the same person he was before the Tournament. We all saw him jump fifteen feet in the air and take a fast ball to the head without blinking on his first day of school. Stop acting like he's suddenly different."
Videl glared at Gohan and Eresa. "Come on, we're going over to Sharpner's house and dragging his malingering ass to school." Neither Gohan nor Eresa had the nerve to argue with her. "Gohan, carry Eresa. I didn't bring my jet-copter and I'm not sure I could fly while carrying another person without dropping them."
Gohan gulped and vary gingerly picked Eresa up by the waist being very careful to avoid any impropriety or holding her too close.
Eresa 'eeped' when Gohan followed Videl out the window but was soon whooping with glee as they zoomed across town.
They landed on Sharpner's front step. Videl knocked authoritatively.
They heard Sharpner walk to the door, gasp when he saw Gohan through the peep-hole then they heard the sound of furniture being dragged in front of the door.
"Sharpner, open this door right now or I'll break it down!" Videl threatened. "You are being sooo stupid!"
Tentatively Sharpner opened the door a crack. "You're not going to beat me up?" he asked Gohan.
Gohan grinned weakly. "If being thought of as a nerd really bothered me do you think I would come to school wearing long sleeves and loose clothing? I mean you have figured out that I wasn't trying to hide a lack of muscles, right?"
"You are pretty much a nerd," Videl teased Gohan, in hopes that it would reassure Sharpner. "You break the curve on practically every test we take."
Gohan blushed and scratched the back of his head.
Sharpner opened the door a bit more. "You're really not mad?"
"Saiyaman is just what I can do, Gohan is who I am. You know I don't go around beating people up for calling me names," Gohan sighed. "I hid what I could do because I didn't want people acting like they had to be scared of me. I just want you to act like normal."
"Gohan hasn't killed my dad yet so I don't think you have anything to worry about," Videl said.
Curiosity got Sharpner to open the door all the way. "Why would Gohan be mad at Mr. Satan?" he asked as the other three filed in.
"Well to start with flying and ki blasts aren't tricks," Videl reminded him. "Secondly, picture the Gold Fighter seven years younger."
"Videl!" Gohan squeaked.
"Look Gohan, I know your group decided not to publicly humiliate my father for some reason but I don't want to lie to my friends," Videl said.
"You're the delivery boy from the Cell Games," Eresa realized. She sat down heavily. Sharpner gaped.
"Yeah," Videl said. "And despite what my dad has said, repeatedly, to the whole world, there weren't any tricks at the Cell Games. No wires, no mirrors, no pre-set explosives, nothing. My dad didn't beat Cell, he was damn lucky Cell didn't kill him. Gohan was the one who really saved the world. My dad stole the credit for it and he lied to make people think the things Gohan and his friends can do are tricks or cheating just because he couldn't do those things. Like I said, Gohan hasn't done anything to my dad after all that, he wanted to be my friend and saved my life when I was being a pain and prying, he's not going to hurt you for calling him a nerd okay?"
Sharpner and Eresa sat on the couch with their mouths hanging open as they stared at Gohan and Videl.
"I'm sorry Gohan," Videl said. Her shoulders slumped. "It's just driving me crazy knowing that my dad lied. I don't know why you guys aren't mad at him for all the crap he's pulled."
"You know he did help us save the world from Boo," Gohan consoled her. "And really, he's doing us a favor by keeping the media from hunting us down."
Videl pictured reporters swarming around Gohan. She could imagine him very politely having a nervous breakdown over it.
Gohan deduced the direction Videl's thoughts were going in and picked up where she left off. "You heard Dad this morning; no sense of discretion. And reporters would drive Piccolo-san crazy. Vegeta would use them for target practice and #18 might help him... or she might convince them to bribe her and I don't even want to think about the sort of trouble Trunks and Goten would get into. Really, we appreciate your dad drawing off the media."
"Okay, okay," Videl laughed. "But he's still in the dog house for lying to me." She noticed the glazed looks her friends were giving them and walked over to poked Eresa in the shoulder. "Ooops, I think we broke them."
Gohan waved his hand in front of Sharpener's eyes. "Information overload?" he suggested.
Videl gave the two blonds a stern shake. After a few moments they blinked and managed to pull their jaws up.
"You beat Cell," Sharpner said as he gave Gohan a bug-eyed stare.
Gohan flushed and nodded, he stared at the floor.
"And Boo..."
"I didn't," Gohan said quickly. "I fought him a couple of times but I lost. Everyone that fought him individually got beaten. It took everyone to defeat Boo; it took everyone on the whole planet to make my dad's Genki Dama powerful enough to stop him. You and Eresa did as much as I did..."
"He's cute when he's being modest," Eresa said to Videl.
Videl blushed, she didn't want to admit it but she'd been thinking the same thing.
Gohan noticed the look Eresa was giving him and quickly moved so that Videl was between them.
"Hey since we're already cutting class we ought to do something exciting," Sharpner suggested.
Gohan groaned. "I'm cutting class! And it's Calculus! Mom is going to kill me."
"You're hopeless Brains," Sharpner said, shaking his head sadly.
Gohan grinned.