Gohan and Goku had followed Vegeta back to his temporary home, neither of them thinking that the prince should be left alone. While they didn't dare say it out loud, they were both more than a little afraid of another genocidal breakdown. Even though they had decided to keep that incident hidden from the rest of the group, they certainly did not approve of it and had no intention of allowing it to happen again.

Assuming, of course, that they could stop him if he did…

As they landed at the house, Vegeta kicked the front door open. Without turning around to look at Goku and Gohan, he simply commanded, "Go away."

"Vegeta," Goku, quietly started, "we really want to make sure that you're okay. We just want to help…"

Angrily exhaling through his nose, Vegeta turned his head a quarter turn toward the younger Saiyan. "I do not need your help," he bit out. "Go away!"

But Goku didn't leave. Taking a step forward, he took a step toward the prince, he reached out for him. "We're here to…"

Vegeta didn't bother letting the younger Saiyan finish his sentence, opting instead to just ignore him and stalk inside his house. He had long ago learned that reasoning with Kakarot was useless, and he had to put his son down before beating the sense into him.

Silently, he ascended the staircase and entered his son's room, closely followed by the two Son's. He placed his son gently down on his bed, slowly stood up, and let out what seemed like a very calming breath. Without any further warning, he whipped around and clocked Goku in the face, sending the taller man through the open window.

Gohan barely blinked as his father yelped and flew past him. He had figured that something like that was likely to happen, and wasn't actually surprised. Vegeta clearly wanted to be left alone, Goku was clearly not going to let him be alone, Goku clearly annoyed Vegeta, and Vegeta was clearly on the verge of snapping. It hardly required a genius to figure it out.

"Anger management therapy?" he asked, peeking through the window to affirm that his father was okay. The prince shot the teenager a sharp glare, and Gohan immediately held up his hands in surrender. "Sorry, I seem to be channeling Krillen right now," the teen quickly answered.

"Either leave through the front door or you're leaving in the same fashion your father did," Vegeta threatened.

"I will, if you really want me to," he quietly responded, "but I want to at least offer you this: I could stay up here with Trunks, just to keep an eye on him and make sure he's okay, and you can go pound the hell out of my dad until you feel better."

Vegeta cocked an eyebrow at the teenager. "Are you offering to baby-sit my freshly ascended, completely unstable son as I beat the shit out of your father?"

Gohan simply shrugged back. "Dad wants to help, and there's really only one thing he can do to help right now. You need to vent in some way that does not end in anyone or anything getting killed, and tearing into my dad seems like a good way to do that. And I…" He paused for a moment, glancing down at the unconscious child on the bed. "I remember what it was like to make that jump that way."

The prince glanced down at his son before gazing out the window. "Do you swear that you will not leave his side, no matter what?"

The demi-Saiyan nodded solemnly. "I promise, Vegeta."

Nodding at the boy, he raised his arm to the side and fired a blast out the window, immediately followed by Goku's yelp. "I'll hold you to that," he said, jumping out the window and heading for his opponent.

Gohan smiled as he watched the fight begin. "You're welcome," he quietly spoke.

//////

Back at Capsule Corp, Bulma was sitting on a sofa, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders as she stared at the wall. "I don't get it," she whispered. "How did any of this happen? How did I just lose it back there? How did I completely forget my own son?" She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders, trembling slightly. "How?"

Quietly, Bunny sat down next to her daughter and handed her a mug of hot cocoa. "Here you go, sweetie," she softly answered. "I even added extra marshmallows, just the way you like it."

Bulma accepted the mug, but she didn't drink from it. "I've lost my entire life, haven't I?" she quietly asked, slowly glancing at her mother.

"Oh, honey," Bunny gently answered, wrapping her arms around her daughter, "I know it seems rough right now, but you haven't lost your life."

"Yes, I have," the younger daughter bit out, tears starting to roll down her cheeks. "I had this…life before this happened. I had a family life. I had a kid, and I set up play dates for him, and I grounded him, and I held him, and I…I gave birth, Mom, and I don't even remember it." Her hands began to tremble as she set her mug down. "Birth, Mom. The most amazing thing I've ever done in my life and…and there's nothing there."

Again, Bunny offered a hug. "It's there, sweetheart," she assured. "You just can't get to it right now."

Bulma shook her head, crying softly. "Is it?" she asked. "I'm trying to remember, Mom. I'm really, really trying to remember it, and it's just…it's not even like I'm missing something, like there's a hole I need to fill in. It just feels like it never happened."

"But it did," the blonde reassured. "It's like that movie that you loved that got scratched that skips that dramatic part in the middle. You got yourself a little bump on the noggin, and now your brain has skipped a few chapters. But just like the movie, it's still inside of you. You just need to buff out the disk and you'll be right as rain!"

The blue haired heiress sniffled as she blinked at her mother. "How…how is it you can compare my life to a scratched disk and actually make me feel better?"

Bunny giggled, giving her daughter another squeeze. "Some people are scientists, some people can fly, and some people save the world. I happen to bake cookies and make people feel good." She shrugged lightly and smiled. "It's what I do!"

Letting out a laugh that still held a few tears, Bulma hugged her mother back.

///

"No, Mom, it's okay," Gohan said, adjusting his phone in his hand. "Trunks is still asleep." He paused for a moment, listening patiently. "No, no, Dad's with Vegeta right now." Another pause, quickly followed by a chuckle. "Yes, he's going to be that dirty and hungry when he gets home. I'll remind him to stay outside until you can hose him off…yeah, I'll let you know when the fight ends. Love you too."

He clicked his phone shut and sighed, taking a seat next to Trunks. It had been only about ten minutes, and the teenager had a feeling that the boy would be out for a few hours. Eight years earlier, when he had made his own ascension, he had stayed on his feet just long enough to go home and tell his mother that his father wasn't coming back. Sixty seconds later, he had passed out and remained out for three days straight.

Gohan brushed the hair away from Trunks' eyes. Trunks hadn't held the transformation nearly so long as the elder boy had, but it had also been a completely erratic transformation. Gohan's, while emotionally triggered, plateaued and maintained. Trunks, on the other hand, continued to surge. Without a direct enemy to focus on, his power had remained completely unchecked. His small body barely managed to handle it.

"Boy, do I not envy you," he quietly said, looking at the boy's sleeping face. "I mean, when I went through this, I completely lost it. Everything in my life just seemed to fall apart after that. It seemed to slam me into puberty over night and I was…I was…angry, all the time. I did awful things back then, Trunks."

He sighed, leaning back in his chair, shifting his gaze to the ceiling as he remembered a part of his life he would have preferred to have forgotten. "I was terrible," he went on. "I snuck out of the house in the middle of the night, I screamed at my mother, I got into fights with the only people I could…if your dad and Piccolo hadn't been there to literally spend a year beating the sense into me, I really don't know what I would have done."

Gohan rotated his chair, looking at a random spot on the wall. "I guess your transformation could go a lot better than mine did," he theorized. "I mean, I've already lived through it and I know what you're going through, so I can help you talk about it. And your dad has already helped me get through mine, so that's a plus. Also, we've got my dad and Eighteen and Krillen, and they'll all help you out, too."

Again, he rotated the chair, looking at the nine year old over his shoulder. "But I've never had to go through what you have, Trunks. My parents were never…separated? Is that what I should be calling it? I mean, they didn't get in a fight and decide that it wasn't going to work out, but they are fighting, and you did move out, and I don't know how it's going to end…why is this what I'm dwelling on?"

He turned the chair all the way around, finally facing Trunks completely. "I guess the point I'm trying to make is that we're here for you, kiddo. And I really hope that you remember that…"

"…because you're about to go through hell…"

////

Goku quickly brought his arms in front of his face, barely able to block the attack flying for his face. For almost two hours he had been trying to hold his own against Vegeta, and it had not been like he thought it was going to be. When he had been launched through the window, he had figured that meant that the prince wanted a good fight. The younger Saiyan had been more than happy to oblige, but he was finding that it was significantly harder than originally planned.

Ever since Namek, Goku had the comforting thought of knowing that he was stronger. He was never dumb enough to say it out loud, but he was more than aware of the gap that existed between himself and the prince of his race. And armed with that knowledge, Goku thought a fight would be the best way to let Vegeta get his frustrations out.

However, the gap in strength seemed almost meaningless at the moment. Goku had fought Vegeta, in life and death combat, multiple times, but never had it been like this. While Vegeta was known for being reckless when he was worked up, he had never so completely disregarded his own safety in a fight. Goku had thought that trying to talk to him about it at first would help, but in retrospect, even he realized that it was probably not the smartest thing to do.

Two hours into the fight, Goku was getting more than a little worried by the amount of damage that the elder Saiyan was taking. He was having to inflict more and more serious injuries on the smaller man, trying to get him to stop but only egging him on. Each time Goku hit him down, Vegeta got back up faster and more violently than before. While Goku made sure to protect his vital organs and to make sure he didn't take any major injuries, Vegeta seemed to have abandoned the very idea of defense.

Quietly, Goku prayed that Vegeta would either calm down or pass out soon. If he didn't, then there was no telling how badly the fight could end.

////

"Sweetie pie?" Bunny softly said, patting her daughter on the head. "Someone's at the door, so I'll be gone for a minute, okay?"

Softly chuckling and dabbing away at the last of her tears, Bulma nodded. "I'm okay, Mom. You don't need to stay attached to my side at all times."

The blonde smiled as she got to her feet, heading for the door. Glancing at the now cold cup of cocoa, Bulma rubbed her head, marveling at the odd sensation of peach fuzz underneath her fingers. Over the past two hours she had calmed down significantly, but she still found herself prone to crying almost sporadically. She didn't necessarily feel sad when she did it, and it wasn't usually attached to any thought that would normally lead to tears, but could not seem to stop the occasional parade of tears down her cheek.

Bringing her head up slightly, Bulma looked in the direction of the front door, trying to puzzle out who she was hearing. There were two voices, one of them obviously her mother's, but there were certainly three shadows that she saw poking out from around the corner. Curiously, the heiress got to her feet to go see who it was.

"Oh, honey, you're up!" Bunny gushed, hugging her daughter upon her entrance.

Raising what little bits of eyebrows she had Bulma looked at her mother. "Mom, my injuries are completely healed. There's no reason for me not to be up."

"Well, you were just so upset earlier that I thought…"

"Mom," Bulma hissed quietly, "not in front of company!"

"Sweetie," Chi-Chi said with an eye roll, "we already know."

Bulma straightened out, all the color draining from her face. With a horrified look, she stared at her mother. "You told them?" she whispered.

"Gracious, no!" Bunny immediately defended. "Sugar, all I did was open the door when they got here. I didn't even know that they were coming over! I was just so excited when your little friends got here, and they already seemed to know everything!"

Warily, Bulma looked at her two guests. Chi-Chi stood in the doorway, a picnic basket hanging from one arm, with a knowing look on her face. Beside her stood Eighteen, her arms crossed and with a look of complete indifference. While Bulma had fairly easily come to accept that over the past twelve years she had become close with the brunette, she was not entirely convinced that the same was true of the blonde.

Shaking herself out of her thoughts, she turned to Chi-Chi. "And how, exactly, did you manage to find out everything?"

With a look of pride on her face, the brunette quickly produced a cell phone from her bag. "Mommy's little informant never fails," she cockily said.

Bulma's jaw went slack. "Gohan, sweet little Gohan who would never do anything wrong, told you about how my entire life fell apart this morning?"

"First of all," Chi-Chi said with her mothering tone, "your life did not fall apart this morning, it fell apart almost a month ago. You just weren't aware of it until recently. And secondly, while I may joke about it, I do not actually use Gohan to spy on people. When Trunks powered up, Goku and Gohan felt it, and Goku teleported them over here. Gohan called to let me know what happened because, believe me, I needed to know."

Getting defensive, Bulma put her hands on her hips. "And just why do you need to know?" she bit out.

"Because," Chi-Chi calmly answered, "the ascension to the second level of Super Saiyan is a major change, and it's going to change a lot in his life that you're going to need a lot of help with. The rest of us know roughly how to deal with it from…from…"

As the brunette seemed to struggle with the end of her thought, Eighteen rolled her eyes. "From when her son became a little jackass when he went through this."

The dark haired mother whipped around and slapped her blonde counterpart in the shoulder. "You do not get to talk about my little boy like that!" she shouted.

Eighteen seemed unfazed. "Long story short, if your son follows the same pattern, he's going to be a little bastard for the next year."

Bulma immediately followed in Chi-Chi's footsteps, smacking the android. "You stop that!"

"Can we just get on with this?" Eighteen coolly said.

Perking up, Chi-Chi's face lit up with a smile. "Oh, right!" She swiftly turned to Bulma, holding out the basket. "We come bearing gifts of chocolate and alcohol!"

Blinking in surprise, the scientist eyed the basket. "You brought what?"

"Chocolate and alcohol," Eighteen replied. "You've had a bitch of a month, ending with a bitch of a day. You can't tell us that you don't want this."

"Is this a smart idea?" Bulma wearily asked, not entirely opposed to the idea.

"Absolutely," Chi-Chi immediately answered. "Krillen's watching Goten and Marron, the boys are doing their thing right now, Gohan's well aware that this is our plan for the day, and we're going to make sure that there are no interruptions for the next few hours as we celebrate your recovery and just be overall happy."

A small smile began to form on Bulma's face. "You're sure we won't be interrupted?"

Walking all the way in and heading for the kitchen, Chi-Chi nodded. "Absolutely. The men folk have been told that interruption of the women folk will result in a severe lack of sex in their near future. So, barring the end of the world, we will be left completely alone to eat, drink, and be merry." She placed her basket down on the kitchen table and began to rummage through it. "Oh, and we're raiding your movie stash to catch you back up on all of your favorites."

"Are you sure these are still going to be my favorites?" Bulma asked leaning against the doorframe and crossing her arms.

Chi-Chi looked up at her and smiled. "A quarter are romantic comedies, another quarter regular comedies, and half of them are really hot guys fighting and on adventures. That work for you?"

Bulma smiled back. "That sounds great!"

/////

After several hours, Vegeta finally shoved Goku away, announcing very clearly that they were done.

"Oh, you feel better now?" an exhausted Goku panted, getting to his feet.

Wiping the sweat from his dirty brow, Vegeta glared at the taller man. "Did you not learn from earlier?" he growled.

Goku blinked, trying to think back to what was being referred to. "Oh, you mean about talking to you about how you feel?"

"Drop it now or I swear, Kakarot, I am going to…"

"Oh, don't worry about it," Goku calmly said, trying to wave it off but wincing at the movement. After all of the blocking he had done over the past several hours, he was fairly certain that he had at least a couple of hairline fractures in each arm, and they hurt.

Vegeta raised an eyebrow at the younger man. "Start one more sentence with the word 'oh' and I will have to hit you again."

Goku shrugged, easily accepting it. "Hey, do you want me to go see if there's another senzu bean ready yet?" he offered. "You look like you could use it." A rock sailed by the tall man's head, and Goku yelped as he barely dodged it.

"I'm fine," the prince growled, forcing himself to not limp as he began to walk away.

Goku opened his mouth, more than ready to protest, but for once he decided that it was better to just let it go. Vegeta was more than slightly injured. A substantial amount of blood had been spit out, especially during the past few minutes, and Goku was experienced enough to know that the amount of blood coming out was too much to just be from facial injuries. There had to be at least some internal bleeding, and Goku was very worried about it, but he didn't say a word. The last thing he wanted was to worsen Vegeta's mood and make bad injuries worse, and if Vegeta thought that he could take care of it on his own, he probably could.

After several minutes of silence, Goku stretched out his body. "Well, what do you want to do now?" he eagerly asked.

"Good bye, Kakarot," Vegeta simply said, taking off for the house.

Goku nodded to himself, anxiously rubbing his hands together. "Okay," he softly said to himself, beginning to pace around. "At least this time no one died…"

////

Three miles away, Vegeta landed roughly and immediately fell to his knees. His hand reached out to hold on to a tree as he vomited a mouthful of blood. For several minutes he coughed and hacked, emptying more and more blood each time.

He shakily rolled over, leaning against that same try and taking in several ragged, wet breaths. Every movement he made left him wanting to scream in pain. He tilted his head to the side, emptying out another mouthful of blood. Holding back a cry, Vegeta tried to get to his feet, but he could not do it. Exhausted, he slumped back against the tree.

The prince had refused help from his rival out of spite and pride. He was sick of having every person he knew 'wanting to help'. He was tired of the way they were all looking at him. He hated the way every talked to him like he was weak and incapable of dealing with his own problems. So when Kakarot had offered him help, with that pitying look on his face and using that voice he usually used on Goten, Vegeta had been so angry that he refused the help.

As he shuddered against the tree, he was severely regretting it.

He needed help, and he needed it badly. He could feel blood pooling in his lungs and his stomach. He could tell that several of his organs had taken major injury. And as his vision blurred and he broke out into a cold sweat, he realized that his spleen had likely ruptured completely.

Gasping for air, Vegeta tried to raise his power level, hoping to signal his location to any of the others. Try as he might, though, it was not happening.

"Oh, shit," he whispered, his eyes rolling up in his head as he blacked out.

No one knew where he was. No one knew he was seriously injured. No one knew that he needed help.

For the first time in a month, he was completely alone.