. O .
"You're telling me there's three children at Capsule Corporation right now?" Malory asked, worry lines gathering in the furrow of her brow.
"My husband, father, son, and Chi Chi's two boys, yes," Bulma counted off on her fingers, irritation creeping into her voice.
Mrs. Briefs pulled out a few wallet-sized pictures and passed them over to Malory. She then wiggled her fingers in front of AJ, cooing as the baby gurgled back.
"Would you mind, dear?" she asked Lana. "I love my grandson and Goten's a delight, but it's been ages since I've gotten to dote on a little girl. And she's just a doll, yes she is!"
"I'm going to kill Cyril!" Malory exclaimed after she shuffled through the pictures. She all but threw them at Lana, then refilled and drained her drink again in one fell swoop. "Literally!"
"Uh- Malor- sure, here," Lana didn't so much pass AJ over as release her hold, since AJ was halfway in Mrs. Briefs' arms already, just as delighted as the older woman. "Malory, you only gave him two hours to gather intel! Archer takes longer to pack his toiletries!"
"How did you know that?"
"Which part? Witnessing the neurotic packing tendencies of your son before every single mission or listening to Cyril complain the entire time he handed out the dossiers before this trip?"
"Well," Malory scoffed, "we had a deadline to make."
Bulma smacked the table with an enraged fist. "What the hell is going on at my house?!"
. O .
"No, I'd be crazy to actually operate," Dr. Briefs reassured Cheryl with a chuckle. He shot Ray with a syringe full of something bright orange and unnatural looking before returning to his computer console. "My degrees are in physics and engineering, chemistry, material science, robotics… not medicine."
"So how's Ray… oh…"
A shimmery glow flashed down from the ceiling around Ray's exam table. The multipurpose robotic arm that saved Archer's life popped open like a Swiss army knife, revealing a laser cutter. The entire room looked on with varying degrees of morbid curiosity as Ray was sliced open and dug through.
Ray himself registered his nerves numbing, but whatever the doctor had slipped him was amazing at preventing him from feeling or caring about anything, ever again. Ray remained just lucid enough to notice the boy in his line of sight, head cocked slightly to the side like he was listening for something. Every so often he'd glance over at Ray directly and the slightest of tensions would ease off his face. The boy was talking now, quite possibly at him, but Ray couldn't make out the words. And then the shimmer dropped, sound doubled, and the doctor approached him with another wicked long needle.
"Amazing," he heard Cyril say as a soothing warmth enveloped him from toes to scalp. As the heat dissipated, his focus returned, senses sharpening like he'd been dosed with a shot of adrenaline.
"Any time you're ready, son," the doctor allowed.
Ray flipped to his back and sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, and barely kept himself from jumping up and running around the room. The doctor handed him a robe, Pam his clothes, and the group parted a path to a bathroom at the back of the lab.
. O .
"This doesn't feel right, they should have checked in by now," Lana muttered, popping another pain pill Malory had produced from her handbag.
"I haven't heard from the musketeers either."
"Oh no, Malory! You did not send them here!"
"They would have snuck over somehow anyway!"
"Malory!"
"Krillin!"
"No matter how many times you say his name, my answer's not going to change, Bulma."
Lana and Malory paused in their own tiff as the other women continued theirs.
"But-"
"Do you think that I didn't seriously consider you? Do you think I don't wonder what sort of influence that old pervert and sorry excuse for a pig would have on my kids? For all that Vegeta's a hard-ass, at least I know the boys would be kept in line and properly mannered with you. And the Kais above know you've got the money to take care of them, keep them fed and schooled and… trained. They'd have every opportunity available to them!"
"What about your father, hon?" Mrs. Briefs asked quietly.
"Please. Dad goes down for a nap with Goten when he visits. He's great with the kids in short doses, but I remember what I got away with when I was younger and there is no way he'd be able to keep up with them full time."
"So why not-"
"Once a week," Chi Chi interrupted. "After Cell, Krillin came over once a week. He pulled Gohan out of his funk - something Piccolo and I hadn't even managed to do. When he found out I was pregnant, he read baby books and cooked us dinners and practiced diapering dolls with Gohan. He stayed longer than my father did after Goten was born - he and Gohan fought over who would take the midnight feedings. Literally. And Gohan didn't win them all. Krillin was there, Bulma. He offered to be the boys' custodian. No one else did."
The woman sighed, defeated, and flopped down on the couch by the door, the first time Lana saw her guard drop. "I'm sorry, Bulma, but this has been a little too much. I'm not used to attempted kidnappings and I'm not sure I want to get used to them, so if it's okay with you I'd really just like to give my boys a hug. If you want to stay, I can call kinto- I can call a cab."
. O .
Ray returned to the lab to find the whole group surrounding the regen tank. The doctor motioned him over. "The dart seems to have flushed out of your Archer's system, but he's a bit disoriented. Can you try calming him down? There's still a few minutes left to go."
Gohan was on the periphery of the crowd again, between his friends and the playpen. Ray noticed Vegeta had also moved, but was acting more like an escort to the doctor. All he needed was sunglasses and an earpiece. Ray's mind wandered again, picturing the man in a perfectly tailored black suit. And, again, said piece of exemplary man meat knocked him out of his daydream with an eyebrow of incredulity and a nod towards Archer.
"Dammit, Archer!" Ray muttered, drawing up to the tank. Ray knelt down, paused as it hit him that less than ten minutes ago he'd been flayed open like a fish, and stood up again.
"Huh," He said, hand reaching for the small of his back where he'd already checked in the bathroom was unmarred and perfect, along with a black hand and arm that was likewise as pristine. He did a couple more squats, trying to feel any sort of change from an hour ago, a day ago, but couldn't sense a lick of difference.
Archer watched him from inside the tank, intently enough to pause the handsy reaching to break out that he'd been doing before. They locked eyes when Ray stopped in a crouch and he caught the confusion and growing irritation in his partner's glare.
"Is he always so combative?" the doctor asked.
"Yes," everyone answered.
"But in this case, it's more warranted," Ray added. "He drowned a couple of years ago."
"Oh yeah!" Pam exclaimed. "I forgot about that. It does explain a lot."
"Like, almost drowned?" Gohan asked.
"No. Literally. Intentionally," Cyril said with a sigh.
"Archer. You're okay. You're safe," Ray said close to the glass, so Archer could hopefully understand.
"How did he-" Gohan started then stopped, slightly baffled. The kid himself was a walking contradiction in about fifty different ways and he was getting tripped up over an intentional drowning? Ray almost laughed.
"We were in a deep sea research lab that was getting ready to implode and were one wetsuit short for the team to escape," Cyril explained. "It's a long story, but Archer let Lana take the last- OH MY GOD! What is going on with Lana?! Have you guys heard from her?!"
Ray groaned as Archer's eyes widened when he registered Cyril's words. A mass of bubbles exploded from his mask and it nearly dislodged as Archer tried to chime in.
"God dammit, Cyril! Calm down! Archer, you too! You're still healing you giant idiot!" Ray exclaimed, slapping the tank window. "Don't you remember what happened?"
Archer's frantic reactions stilled while he actually tried to think. He quirked one eyebrow, split skin healed over but with a bare thin line where the hairs had been disturbed, and wiggled his hand, palm flat.
"We were in the tunnel? Ran into our targets early?" Ray prompted. "You shot at the kids?"
At that, Ray knew he remembered. Even in the tank and actively supercharged to heal, Archer paled.
"They're all okay. Don't worry," Ray reassured. "And you will be, too, just hold on a few more minutes."
Archer quirked one last questioning gaze at Ray. "You shot at the kids, Archer. Be lucky you're not dead."
And with his job done, Ray stood up and stepped away from the tank, just enough to command his own protective position between the two warriors and the rest of his own team, flimsy a posture though it was.
"So…" Cyril said, more collected if not exactly calmed, "what's that about Lana now?"
"Not sure," Ray replied. "Between our broken gear and the blockers she managed to set up, we haven't made contact with her or the targets at the spa."
"Vegeta here will go check on them once your Archer is out," the doctor added.
"No need. They'll be here shortly," Vegeta said.
. O .