"Ladies," Eighteen said, lifting her glass of champagne, "to an afternoon of freedom from responsibility."

The brunette fighter and the temporarily bald heiress raised their own glasses, smiles on both of their faces. They had all been going through quite a bit of stress over the past month, and the idea of having even one afternoon off of all of it was extremely appreciated by them all. Bulma had hardly been the only one having a rough month.

Chi-Chi had been trying to take care of three overly anxious Son's in her house. Between trying to keep Goku away from Vegeta, keeping Gohan from blaming himself for the entire situation, and having to explain to Goten three times a day that until Trunks decided that it was time to play again, he would be the one to call, she had barely had the time to even cook, let alone clean, garden, do laundry, or run errands. Putting her feet up was not even within the range of her fantasies.

Eighteen had found herself as a half time baby-sitter and half time spy. Due to Goten's inability to go without playing with someone else for more than a day at a time and Gohan's stress and moodiness, the smallest member of the Son family had spent every other day on Kame Island. When her husband was open to play with the children for an extended period of time, the blonde would fly over to check on the two princes. As the only one with no discernable energy, she was the only one who could get even a little bit close to their isolated home. While she had never been particularly fond of Vegeta, she had made a promise to Krillen, who had made a promise to Goku, to make sure that things were quiet in that little home. She, too, had been under significantly more stress than she was used to.

So there they were, three women, all in need of a day without thoughts, a day without stress, a day without responsibility. A moderately priced bottle of champagne was keeping cool in a bucket of ice, and a box of very nice chocolates was open between them. Chi-Chi had brought chocolate cookies in dough form, so they were easily popped in the oven and flooding the room with their delicious aroma. All cell phones had been turned off, all other phones were unplugged from the wall, even the computer had been disconnected, just to make sure that no one could talk to them.

For the first time in weeks, all three of them were smiling.

With their feet kicked up on a coffee table, the ladies clinked their glasses and began to finally relax and enjoy the day.

/////

Goku landed next to the lake and immediately pulled off his clothes. There was very little in life that he enjoyed more than swimming around in a nice cool lake after a nice long fight, and even he needed a break from everything that had been going on lately. Rolling out his stiff shoulders, he let out a giddy little cry as he cannon balled into the pristine water. He held his breath for only a minute before surfacing, shaking the drops free from his hair as he smiled broadly.

The Saiyan spent a few minutes just floating around in the water before finally getting down to cleaning himself off. Starting with his shoulders, he slowly used the cool water and his calloused hands to scrub away the dried blood that was stuck to him. There wasn't too much around the top of his shoulders, so they were quickly taken care of. But as he worked his way down his chest, a frown reached his youthful face. Blood had never bothered him before. If anything, he actually enjoyed it a little too much for someone who fought on the side of good. But as he cleaned the dried and drying blood off of his torso, he knew there was too much.

Goku had been fighting all his life, and as such, was intimately familiar with how much he bled from injuries. He may not have been the sharpest tack in the box when it came to 'normal life', but he would never miss something battle related or injury based. The cuts on his body were minimal, but the blood seemed to be everywhere. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

Slowly, Goku got out of the water and picked up his shirt. He had certainly watched Vegeta spit up a fair amount of blood during the fight, but blood was always a common occurrence during their fights. Sure, it had seemed like there was more than the usual amount, but when the prince was in a particularly feisty mood, it was just something that had to be accepted. And since Goku had never particularly cared about how dirty or banged up he was after a fight, he hadn't bothered looking at his shirt.

His shirt had blood all over it, and Goku didn't need his super sense of smell to tell that the vast majority of it was not his. Thanks to his weighted undershirt, he had never felt the wetness against his chest.

"Oh, Kami," he whispered, staring at the hardening shirt. His hands started to tremble as he really began to realize what that much blood loss would mean. Goku's head snapped up as he tried to sense the prince's energy, and his heart beat raced as he realized that he couldn't sense it.

"Crap, crap crap…" he muttered, barely taking the time to jump into his pants before teleporting as fast as he could for his son.

If he wanted to have any chance at finding the prince in time, he was going to need help.

/////

Gohan jumped a bit as his father appeared. "Geez, Dad," he said, a smile on his face, "we've got to find a way to get some sort of warning system when you're going to do that."

"Come with me," Goku commanded.

The teenager felt his blood run cold at his father's tone. It was one he hadn't heard since Namek, when the world was going to hell in a hand basket and Goku was trying to force Gohan to get to safety. It meant something was very seriously wrong.

Glancing down at Trunks, Gohan decided that it would be okay to abandon his post for something that got his father that worked up. "What is it, Dad?" he asked as they took to the sky.

Goku related the story as quickly as he could to Gohan, emphasizing the point that time was of the essence. As Gohan realized that he, too, was incapable of picking up any sense of energy from the prince, he came very close to a full panic. The dragon balls were still a long way off from being fully charged, and the teenager was fairly certain that if the prince died, he would not be going to the same place Goku ended up.

"I'll check north, you check south," he said, veering off from his father.

They had a lot of ground to cover, and no time to cover it.

/////

"I'm telling you, something isn't right!" Krillen hissed, trying to make sure that his daughter and Goten didn't hear him.

Yamcha, who had come over at a stressed out Krillen's request, rolled his eyes. "Knowing this group? Probably. But Bulma is flanked by two scary, overprotective women, and Gohan and Goku are watching the other two lunatics. How much could possibly go wrong?"

Krillen opened up the refrigerator and began pulling out snacks for the children. "A lot," he gently whispered. "We know that Goku and Vegeta were fighting each other, and is it just me, or did Vegeta just magically fall off the radar?"

The taller fighter shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe Goku teleported him to another planet to cool off for a while."

"Does that seem likely to you?" the tiny man asked, cutting apples into slices for the kids.

With a heavy sigh, Yamcha sat down at the table. "No," he reluctantly admitted, "but I can't think of any other way to explain it that would have a happy ending. I mean, the explanation that currently makes the most sense is that Goku accidentally…you know…"

Gently placing his knife down, Krillen nodded. "I know," he whispered back, keeping his eyes on the table. "You don't think that he actually did…you know?"

"I don't know," the former bandit responded, also keeping his gaze averted. "I mean, he would never do it on purpose, but sometimes…well, he really isn't always aware of his own strength…"

The laughter of children sounded in the background as the two men fell into complete silence. Neither of them could bring themselves to finish the sentence, no matter how much they were both thinking it.

/////

Gohan's heart leapt to his throat as he began to notice a faint smell of blood in the air. While his sense of smell was not anywhere near that of his father, it was still significantly better than any human's. It seemed to be getting fainter as he kept flying, though, so he swiftly turned around. It took him precious seconds to figure out which direction it was heading in, but as soon as he did, he ascended and took off.

Goku's head snapped to the side as he felt the power jump in his son, and he immediately sped toward it. Praying that they had made it on time, he pushed himself to his absolute limit to meet up with his son.

"Did you find him?" Goku panted.

"I think so," Gohan called out, descending to the ground as fast as he could. Both of them came to a grinding halt when they finally found what they were looking for.

Vegeta's head was lolled off to the side, leaning against the trunk of a tree. A pool of blood surrounded him, and his clothes were already hardening with the drying blood. His face was virtually white, and trails of blood seemed to be leaking from his mouth and nose.

"Oh, Kami…" Goku whispered.

Gohan grabbed his father's hand and pulled him down into the blood as he placed a hand on Vegeta's chest. He would not make the same mistake he had just a few weeks earlier.

"GET US TO THE LOOKOUT, NOW!!!"

Responding strictly to the sound of his son's voice, Goku slammed his fingers to his forehead and concentrated as hard as he could on Dende's energy. The two Son's were gone in a blink of an eye, appearing a moment later at the palace in the sky.

With a grim look on his face, Dende, who had been waiting for them, knelt down and got to work.

/////

"Did you ever get that feeling that there's something you should be doing, but you don't know what it is?"

Chi-Chi and Eighteen lowered their glasses, looking at the temporarily bald heiress. "What?" the blonde asked.

Taking another sip from her glass, Bulma stretched out her legs and rolled her shoulders. "I don't know what it is, but I just get this feeling like there's something really important I should be doing right now."

The brunette offered a simple shrug, pulling a chocolate from the box. "Maybe you had a business meeting or something today. You know, you are the president of the single largest enterprise on the entire planet. I don't know how much you did for the company a decade ago, but you're always giving presentations and checking up on the latest projects."

Bulma leaned back on the couch, raising a would-be eyebrow at the younger mother. "I really do all of that?" she said with a hint of a laugh.

"And you brag about it all the time," Eighteen added with an eye roll. "Every time we see you, it's 'I closed a deal on this' or 'I just invented that' or 'You will never guess whose ass I just kicked in negotiations today'."

"So," Chi-Chi concluded, "it was probably something along those lines that you had scheduled for today, but since the entire world knows that you're 'recovering' from a 'moderate car accident', it would have been cancelled anyway."

Topping off her drink, Bulma thought about what she had learned. "I thought you guys told me at the party that my story was kept out of the media."

"It was," Eighteen coolly replied. "At least, it was while we still weren't sure whether or not you'd, you know, die. As soon as we knew you were likely to make it, we had to offer the media a little something. After all, your head was shaved when they tried to put your skull back together. You would have been bald no matter what, and we figured 'recovering from accident' was a lot nicer sounding than 'has spontaneously decided to shave herself bald'."

"I don't know," Chi-Chi answered with a giggle, "I think, 'burned off all head hair in a bizarre science accident' has a nice ring to it."

"'Late life punk rocker phase'," supplied the cyborg.

"'Cooking experiment gone awry'?" the brunette chuckled.

Eighteen laughed. "That might be the most believable one I've heard yet!"

"Hey!" Bulma shouted, putting down her glass. "I am not that bad a cook!"

Chi-Chi snorted, taking another sip from her own glass. "We beg to differ," she laughed. "You burn food, you theorize alternatives to recipes based solely on a chemical level with now knowledge of how it tastes, hell, I've heard that you've managed to set cereal on fire."

"Oh, that can't possibly be true!" Bulma countered.

Holding up her hands defensively, Chi-Chi just laughed. "Hey, all I know is what I hear!"

The balded heiress crossed her arms and slouched back against the couch. "Boy, do you guys know how to cheer someone up," she pouted.

"We do, don't we?" Eighteen responded, an amused look on her face.

Sitting up slightly, Bulma reached once more for her glass. "Seriously, though," she said, reclining again, "I have this gut feeling like I need to be out there, doing something."

"We told you," Chi-Chi assured, topping off Bulma's glass, "anything that you may have had on your schedule have been long rescheduled or dealt with by your father."

"But I have no memory," the scientist reasoned, swirling her beverage. "How can I know that I need to be doing something when I don't even know what I do anymore?"

Eighteen kicked up her feet and took a sip. "How should we know?" she countered. "We are neither neurologists nor do we have access to your warped mind. Perhaps it is the beginning of your mind healing itself."

"Maybe," Bulma acknowledged. "Still, I just know I should be doing something…somewhere else…"

/////

"Why is it taking so long?" Goku demanded, pacing back and forth frantically on the Lookout.

Gohan remained kneeling next to Dende. "Sometimes it just takes longer," he responded without looking up.

"But he is alive, right?" the pureblood asked.

No one said a word.

"Right?" he asked again.

"Goku, please, I'm trying to concentrate," Dende tensely answered.

As the rattled Saiyan seemed ready to ask another question, he found himself pulled aside by Piccolo. "Goku, Dende will not be able to help at all if you continue to get in his way. You must stand back and have faith in his abilities."

With a look of desperation is his eyes, the Saiyan looked up into the Namek's eyes. "Just tell me that I didn't kill him," he asked.

"Have faith," Piccolo repeated, placing a reassuring hand on Goku's shoulder.

"Oh, Kami, no…" Goku whispered, pulling back. His eyes widened in horror. "No, tell me I didn't do it…"

"Goku…"

"TELL ME I DIDN'T DO IT!"

"Dad," Gohan softly said as he jumped to his feet, "we don't know anything yet. And even if, Kami forbid, the worst has happened, we all know that it was an accident. You would never do it on purpose, and we can always wish him back."

Goku shook his head as tears began to form in his eyes. "I killed him…I actually killed Vegeta…"

"No, you didn't," Piccolo responded.

"I thought he was okay," the Saiyan went on. "I mean, he was still talking, and he flew away on his own…I just never would have thought that he was that badly hurt...I killed him, oh, Kami, I killed him…"

Glancing down, Gohan put his hands on his father's shoulders. "You did not kill him," he assured.

"Yes, I did!" Goku said, near hysterical. "I killed him with my own two hands! I murdered him! I…"

"Goku!" Dende called out, glaring over his shoulder. "Vegeta's alive!"

The younger pureblood was on the ground faster than anyone could blink. "He's okay?" he desperately asked. "He's really okay?"

Dende smiled at the warrior. "Well, he's not quite up for a rematch yet," he joked, "but he is breathing on his own just fine, and with a little rest, he'll be good as new."

"Oh, thank you," Goku sighed, closing his eyes in relief. "Vegeta? Are you awake yet?"

The little guardian laughed lightly. "Goku, he's going to be out for a while. He was pretty seriously wounded, so it took quite a bit out of both of us to fix him up. Don't worry, he'll be just fine, but he's probably going to be asleep for a few hours."

"Perfect," Gohan responded, clapping his hands together and smiling to himself. "I'll have plenty of time to get back to Trunks before he wakes up." The teenager turned to his father to quickly explain the promise he had made, ending with, "If anyone asks, you found him," before flying off to the boy.

The others simply stood back and relaxed for a moment. It was a moment they all sorely needed.

/////

"Oh, would you let it go already?" Eighteen groaned, flopping back in her chair.

"What?" Bulma shot back, throwing a chocolate at the blonde. "It's true!"

Chi-Chi groaned. "True or not, just drop it!"

"Seriously!" the scientist insisted. "I swear, I'm supposed to be doing something right now!"

"We don't care!" the other two shouted back.

Pouting again, Bulma filled her glass with champagne. "Then figure out what I should be doing!" she insisted.

Blowing some stray hair off her face, Chi-Chi turned toward Eighteen. "Any way we can do that?"

"Without access to all of your computer files, the most either of us could do would be to make sure that everyone is okay," the blonde coolly responded. When the heiress glared at her, Eighteen rolled her eyes. "Fine, I'll do it." Her icy eyes narrowed as she began scanning the energies of the group members. One by one they were checked off, until she reached one mild glitch. Vegeta's energy was there, but there was something definitely something off about it.

It was there, though, and since she didn't feel like listening to Bulma complain, she decided not to mention it.

"Everyone is fine," she finally answered. "Everyone is alive and well, your company is taken care of, and you have the most ridiculously loyal group of friends in the galaxy to help you get through whatever crap might possibly be thrown your way. Now will you shut the hell up and drink?"

Giggling again, Bulma took a good solid drink from her glass. "Deal!"

For the first time in weeks, things were finally looking up.