Author's Note: Thank you so much for all of your wonderful support! I cannot even begin to tell you how much it means to me that so many of you are reading and reviewing my story. Not only the praise (because really, who doesn't like that?), but the honest critiquing as well. I really appreciate all of it!

Like some of my earlier chapters, this one was cut in half for emotional pull. So it's a wee bit shorter than anticipated, but it also means that you'll get another update fairly soon!

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Eighteen was standing out on the beach, awaiting her impending 'guest'. She, too, had felt the sudden surges in power. However, she had silently decided that it was not her job to stop the somewhat maniacle prince in his quest to tear through hell itself to get to his wife. While she would have preferred to stay out of the matter altogether, she knew her husband wanted her to pitch in, and keeping the children isolated from the ordeal had been the easiest of the jobs.

When Vegeta had shifted his course, and none of the others had followed him, she had easily been able to deduce that the prince would be coming for his son shortly. While she certainly did not like the man, even she felt bad for him and his current situation.

Especially the part where Vegeta was going to have to tell his son about their home.

It was only minutes before dawn when she saw him off in the distance. The cool blonde crossed her arms and leveled her chin as he landed in front of her. She knew that he, much like herself, would respond much better to cool indifference rather than any sort of sympathy or pity.

"He's asleep upstairs," she stated, her voice totally neutral. "If he follows the same pattern as the last few days, he will be waking in about half an hour."

The prince only offered a silent nod. When he didn't move a muscle, Eighteen rolled her crystal blue eyes. "Would you like to come in?"

Vegeta blinked, as though confused by the question. After a moment, he silently shook his head.

To say that Eighteen was unnerved by his behavior would have been an understatement. She had been expecting shouting, demands, and threats. She had expected a temper tantrum of epic proportions. Hell, she had even prepared herself for an all out brawl with the man, should he prove completely unreasonable.

Silent repression from him, though, scared her more than any temper tantrum could have.

"If you change your mind," she softly said, dropping her arms to her side, "feel free to come straight in."

The prince only offered a silent nod, his gaze drifting off to the side. Eighteen took the hint and went inside, knowing that the others would likely be there soon enough anyway. Deliberately leaving the front door unlocked, she approached the living room to check on her husband. He had only returned from his shift at the hospital a few minutes earlier, and he was clearly exhausted.

While he had woken up with the enormous power surges just as his wife had, Krillen had not stayed awake for long. As he had been pulling on his clothes and heading down the stairs, Eighteen had calmly pointed out that Gohan, Goku, and Piccolo had all been on their way to intercept the powerful and out of control prince, and had assured him repeatedly that, should the worst scenario present itself, she would be sure to wake him back up. Krillen, knowing his wife was right, simply mumbled something incoherent before falling asleep on the couch.

The blonde smiled softly at her sleeping spouse. He was curled up in a little ball, still mumbling incoherently, and smiling at whatever it was he was dreaming about. Eighteen gently draped a blanket over her husband and gave him a soft kiss on the forehead. The others would be there in only a few minutes, but she figured that he may as well rest peacefully for what little time that he could.

The minutes passed by quickly, and sooner than she would have liked, Eighteen felt the energy signals of Gohan and Goku as they landed on the beach in front of her house. The blonde shook her husband's shoulder gently. "Krillen," she softly spoke in his ear, "it's time to get up."

"Aw, I don't wanna go to school today," he muttered, rolling to the side and facing the back of the couch.

"Don't make me toss you off of this and make you wake up by hitting the ground," she replied, a smirk on her features as she shook him again.

Krillen sat up quickly, still clearly drowsy but not willing to call his wife's bluff. "I'm up!" he insisted.

"Good," Eighteen said, kissing the top of his head, "because your friends are here to play."

That woke up the little man. "What?" he asked. "They're here already?"

His wife only nodded, pointing toward the door. Both of them could hear that someone was talking outside.

…

Just beyond the front door, Goku and Gohan had just landed. The two saw the prince sitting off on the side of the house. His legs were crossed at the ankle, and his weight was shifted back on to his hands. His eyes were fixated off to the east, in the direction of the rising sun. It almost seemed as though he were completely unaware of the presence of the others.

The two Son men exchanged a nervous glance with one another before they both shrugged. Goku turned to the prince and approached him softly. "Vegeta?" he quietly asked. "How are you?"

Neither man was surprised when Vegeta did not respond, although they were a little concerned by it. "Vegeta?" Goku tried again. "Gohan and I are going to go inside to see Krillen, and maybe get something to eat. Do you want to come with us?"

Again, the prince remained silent and still.

Gohan placed a hand on his father's shoulder, and he shook his head. Goku, now visibly upset, tried one last time to interact with the other pureblooded Saiyan. "We'll be inside, Vegeta, if you need anything. Just…just let us know, okay?"

A small wave of relief washed over Goku as he watched Vegeta shake his head. While it wasn't a positive response, it was still a reaction, and that was more than any of them could have hoped for at the moment. Deciding not to push his luck, Goku turned to the house and went inside, with Gohan close on his heels.

…

"Hey guys!" Krillen said, his voice excited but soft. It was barely five in the morning, and all of the children were still fast asleep just up the stairs.

"Hey!" Goku responded, also keeping his voice down. "How are you?"

Krillen offered his best friend a lopsided smile. "Tired," he admitted, "but not too bad." He pointed at the east wall of the house and tilted his head in that direction. "Is he seriously just sitting out there?" he quietly asked.

Gohan nodded in affirmation.

The short man let out a low whistle. "I don't know about you, but I think that's really weird for him…" He paused for a moment before looking up at Goku. "How much does he know?" he softly asked.

Gohan softly bit down on his lower lip before answering. "I told him that she had retrograde amnesia, that she can't remember anything beyond what happened on Namek, and that if we were to tell her anything that she might find emotionally shocking in her current state, she's at high risk for having a massive, potentially fatal, stress induced heart attack."

Eighteen raised an eyebrow at his words, but kept her mouth shut.

"He seems to have taken it…well…" Krillen whispered. "You know, all things considered, I think this actually might be a fairly good way for him to be handling it. It's a lot better than, you know, blowing something up."

Goku couldn't help the small chuckle that escaped from him. "Yeah, you think he's calm now," he laughed, "but getting him to sit still long enough to hear it was a royal pain in the ass!"

As the two old friends enjoyed a laugh during their brief moment of relief, Eighteen wordlessly signaled to the teenaged hybrid to follow her. The two silently made their way into the next room over, the kitchen, before the blonde spoke.

"You lied to him," she quietly accused, glaring at the boy.

Gohan chewed on the inside of his cheek. Had had rarely shown any talent as a liar, and had really only been able to pull it off in absolutely crucial moments when the truth just wasn't a possible option. This, however, was not one of those crucial moments, and he knew better than to protest with the mercurial blonde fighter.

"I gave him the information he needed," he finally said.

"With a few facts rearranged in his favor," Eighteen softly shot back.

Averting his gaze, Gohan surrendered. "How did you know?" he quietly asked.

Eighteen placed one hand on her hip, and extended the index finger of the other. "First of all, retrograde amnesia does not work like this. It erases the trauma that the person suffered, blocking only a small amount of memory. It does not take away fifteen years and destroy memories like the birth of your only child. You know damn well that means that she has suffered physical brain damage."

"But he doesn't need to know that," Gohan countered. "In two weeks, the senzu beans will be grown, we'll give her one, she'll be healed completely, and her brain will thus be fixed. Her memory will be restored, she will no longer be in danger of anything like a stress induced heart attack, we'll all enjoy a good laugh over this and then never speak of it again."

"Then why did you do it?" Eighteen pushed. "Why did you lie to him if you think everything is going to be fine? Why tell him that she has one kind of amnesia but not another?"

Gohan averted his gaze before finally answering. "I only had to lie to him once if I told him that she had retrograde amnesia. Now, if he asks me questions about it, I can just tell him facts about a trauma based amnesia, not one that resulted from physical brain damage."

"But why?" Eighteen asked again. "All logic points to him preferring that her memory loss was due to a physical nature. As you stated, the senzu beans will be fully formed in a matter of a couple of weeks. Would he not take comfort in the knowledge that with the simple ingestion of a bean, she will remember whatever the hell it is she loved about him in the first place?"

But the teenager shook his head. "I honestly think that it would have been a bad idea to let him know that a senzu bean could fix everything. We don't know that it will actually fix her memory. We have absolutely no experience to show what, if anything, they do with the mind. I even made a reference to the idea that her memory might not come back with the bean. I can't even begin to imagine how catastrophic it would be if he thought that the bean would fix her memory and it didn't?"

Eighteen quietly agreed. "You seem to have put a lot of thought into this."

"I'm a little paranoid like that," the teenager admitted. "And it's not like I've really slept in the last few days…hey, wait a minute, what did you mean by 'first of all'?"

The blonde just quietly raised an eyebrow at the boy.

Gohan put his gaze back on Eighteen's face. "You said 'first of all' when we started talking about this. What was the 'second of all' that you were thinking of?"

Eighteen stared the hybrid straight in the eye. "Because he hasn't destroyed anything yet," she coolly stated. "He's a tempermental, violent man who gets his frustrations out by making something, or someone, suffer. If he had no hope of having that woman back, he would not be quietly biding his time and waiting for her recovery. He would have snapped, and you know it."

"No, he wouldn't," Gohan insisted. "Vegeta wouldn't do that…"

"You're as bad as his son," Eighteen hissed. "You have a blind faith in a man who hasn't deserved it. Have you forgotten that just last year he massacred thousands of people, in a single moment, just to goad your father into a fight?"

"He was possessed!" the hybrid hissed back. "You cannot hold him responsible for what happened with Buu!"

The blonde took a large step forward and stared up at the tall teenager. "I was there, Gohan," she quietly said. "I could hear what he said, remember?"

Gohan bit down on his lip for a moment as he gathered his courage. He had never been good at confrontation, and even though he had never really fought Eighteen, there was no denying that she was an unbelievably intimidating woman. "He made a mistake," he firmly stated, "but it was not all him in there. Yes, he had some control, but not enough to stop everything. I know Vegeta, Eighteen. I've known him since I was six years old. I've known him as the greatest evil in my life, as a tentative ally in war, as a reluctant neutral party, as a wild card in battle, and as a father and a friend. I have watched him change a lot over the last decade, Eighteen. And while he may have made a mistake last year, I honestly believe that he would not revert back to his old ways." He locked eyes firmly with her before finishing with, "Not while he has his son."

Quietly, Eighteen nodded. "Perhaps you are right," she stated. "I will never have that insane faith in him that you do, but I will choose to have faith in your decision right now." She turned her head in the direction of the front door. "Speak of the devil, he's coming in now."

She gave Gohan one final glance. "For the sake of us all, I hope you're right."

With that, she and Gohan went back into the front room. They joined Goku and Krillen, watching silently as the prince entered the small house, walked over to the staircase, and looked up. Their gaze followed his, and only a few seconds later, a lavender haired boy appeared at the top of those stairs.

Trunks rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he looked down, but once his eyes focused, he was suddenly wide awake. For the past few days, whenever he had gotten up, the only other one awake had been Eighteen, who had always just quietly let him go about his day.

But at the base of the stairs he saw Goku, Gohan, Krillen, Eighteen…and his father, all staring up at him.

A cold feeling formed in the young prince's stomach. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. It frightened him. And there was only one person who he wanted to talk to when he was this scared.

"Papa?"

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