If he fights, he may die. If he doesn't fight, he will die.
She couldn't remember now which of them had said those particular words. It didn't matter much, when they each recognised them as true. The fire of her protest — absolutely not, nothing matters more than his future, no-one has a claim on Gohan to be their salvation, she simply wouldn't stand for this — had been snuffed out by the bald truth of it. He'll die if he doesn't save himself.
She had reconciled and unreconciled herself to it, several times over. Searching for a way out. Round and round it went in her mind, spinning her till she was motion-sick. She passed the daylight hours in a daze, losing herself in the familiar rhythmic rap of knife on chopping board, the scent of fresh soil shaken from the roots of vegetables, the sticky, fragrant steam of the kitchen. Her own special brand of alchemy. Love, condensed into dumplings and rice.
They were in bed now, but still awake. Goku was watching her in the half-light with that strange perceptiveness he seemed able to switch on and off at will. She hadn't failed to notice, over the years, that he usually let the ability slip away when he didn't want to know or see what was in front of him. At least he wasn't doing that now, at least not with her. She turned to him.
"Why is this happening to us?" she said, at last.
Something odd passed over his features. Irritation? Guilt? She couldn't tell. But apparently whatever he'd been expecting her to say, it hadn't been that.
"I don't know," he said, slowly. "I only know that it is happening. And the way out of it isn't pleasant."
She said nothing.
She felt his hand slide along the curve of her body and her anger flared for a moment. How could he think of such things — at a time like this?
But then his mouth found her inner arm, his lips alighting gently in the crook of her elbow. The fury faded.
He'd come out of the room of Spirit and Time hungry for her. She was accustomed by now to the fluctuations in his sexual appetites. Sometimes fighting took precedence, and he'd be disinterested for months. Other times, he was ravenous, and wanted her six times a day. She'd turn him down when it began to chafe. But his wolfish grin when she demurred would make her want to change her mind. Sometimes she did, saying "Oh, all right, one more time. But this is the last time, do you hear me?"
And he'd wrap her legs around his waist and take her to bed again, with about as much exertion as an ordinary person might expend to carry a feather.
They'd been at it every night these past nine days. Sometimes twice a night — when she awoke and realized he was on his back, eyes open, lost in thought. She'd never known him to suffer insomnia before. It had created a deep, gnawing dread in her, and she'd reached over to kiss him just to quiet the rushing of blood between her ears. She never had been able to think of anything else when his hands were on her — he was as single-minded in sex as he was in fighting. Nothing else existed while it was going on. It was ideal if you wanted to forget yourself.
Tonight, she wanted to forget — but at the same time she didn't. Something in her hoped that if she kept turning the problem over in her mind she would come up with a solution that didn't involve sending her little boy into a life-or-death battle for their survival.
She pulled away from Goku a little, and he paused, his hands on her hips.
"What am I going to say to him?" she whispered. "What can a mother say to her child in this kind of situation?"
Goku's grip tightened in warning. "You can't say anything to him about this, ChiChi."
Her eyes widened. "You can't be serious. You haven't told him that he's the backup plan?" She scrambled to the other side of the bed, kicking the covers away. "Goku!"
He sat up on his elbow. "Think about it! If you tell him, the pressure will overwhelm him. If he knows— or even suspects— he'll crumble." His voice was quiet, but uncharacteristically harsh. "It's the last thing we should do."
She said nothing, feeling the rapid rise and fall of her chest.
"ChiChi," he reached his hands out to her. Her horrified eyes flicked down to study them as if she'd never seen them before. He withdrew.
She saw him breathe deeply before he spoke.
"ChiChi, he has so much power, but he doesn't access it easily. The circumstances have to be just right. I have to give him the crisis he needs. I can't save him. My only options is to help him save himself."
She shook her head. Her insides were churning.
"You can't tell him," he repeated. She could see he was trying to win her over — slowing his words, tilting his head, and arranging his face into something sympathetic. The smooth calm of his features made her want to lash out and slap him, hard. She imagined, for a moment, his look of shock. He'd feel little to no physical pain, she assumed, but it would strike at his heart.
She restrained herself.
"It's not right," she said, lower lip shaking.
"It feels wrong, I know," he said, stretching his hands out to her again. She caught the briefest flash of hurt in his eyes.
"But … I would do a lot of wrong things to keep the two of you alive." He closed his eyes as he spoke, leaning his back against the headboard.
This statement hung in the air between them for a long time, the ring of truth reverberating. Eventually, she found herself lying down again, facing away. She didn't know who should be more ashamed.
She felt him move a little closer behind her. When she didn't object, he seemed to take that as a good sign and curled his body around hers. Her tears were running sideways, pooling in her hair and on the pillow.
"I need you to do something," he said, his face buried in her hair.
His voice was terribly steady. Couldn't he break too, for once? Did she always have to be the one who broke down and came apart? Wailing, swooning, screaming— losing her mind as the peril closed in time and time again. If he would just go to pieces, she could be the strong one, rising to the occasion, reassuring him of his resilience, and his previous successes against all odds. Her hands gripped the sheets. She wanted to tear them suddenly, but instead she answered him.
"Okay." Her tone was flat and even.
"I need you to tell me that I can't let him fight."
She frowned. That didn't make much sense.
"And I need you to say it in front of him."
She stiffened. "You want me to trick him? To act as if I don't know?"
"I want you to help me give him the conditions he needs," he breathed against her neck. "I want you to help him save himself."
"And us," she murmured, resentful.
"And us, his family, who he loves."
She cried then, for hours, and Goku stayed wrapped around her, speaking only to remind her that Gohan might wake if she wept too loudly. She didn't want that. She couldn't think of anything worse in this moment than a tentative knock at the door, his small, concerned face appearing around it to ask whether mom was okay. She stifled her sobs.
The sun began to intrude, soft light falling first on the floor. She wasn't sure whether either of them had slept at all. Suddenly, she felt frantic. She turned to Goku and straddled him. His surprise quickly turned to excitement. As their bodies joined — quiet, breathless, tear-stained, urgent — she felt more bitterness towards him than she could ever remember having felt before.
When she began to tremble, her climax approaching, she felt him slow the movement of his hips to prolong it, long waves of exquisite sensation rising and falling till she felt helpless. He had long ago made an art of it. He had mastered her. He knew — by the sounds she made, the flushing of her skin, the way her body gripped him inside — how to draw an orgasm out of her body like a song. She felt a rush of love and gratitude, and saw it reflected back in his eyes as his own pleasure peaked and he gasped, holding her gaze throughout.
When they were sated, she let herself fall forward onto his chest with a sigh. When had they learned to do it like that? A process of refinement over many years, she supposed. An ability they'd cultivated, like cooking or fighting. They lived quite separate lives, in many ways, and didn't have many shared enterprises, but their love-making was one. Gohan was another. She didn't know if she could do what Goku had asked, even to save Gohan's life. If her little boy lived, she'd have a secret from him forever. She found herself crying again. Goku took her hands and put them to his mouth, placing soft kisses against her small, clenched fists.
She saw them off a few hours later, moving as if in a trance. If he doesn't fight, he will die. They both will. Give him what he needs to win. If he hates you some day, at least he's alive to do so.
Sitting with her father in the long hours afterwards, she can't recall the last thing she said to them. But she remembers Gohan's flutter of panic, and Goku's feigned sheepishness, and the sound of them both taking flight. She hopes the lie on Goku's face for Gohan's benefit isn't going to be her final image of him. She hopes she can look Gohan in the eye after this. She hopes that doing wrong turns out to be right.