Hey, did you guys miss me? I know, I know... it's been a while. It's time for recovery... my soul suffered a bit writing the Gohan part of this fic... and I have more bad guys to add, too. Sometimes I hate being a writer... it's a curse I know I will never be rid of. Even after I finish this fic, I'll always be thinking about it, wanting to change this or that, thinking it could have been so much better. Mostly I hate having to be the bad guy... even though I get to be the good guy, too, I can feel the taint of it inside. I know I will never be purely good if I'm a writer... a writer by definition must be both good and evil, to accurately represent both in his or her story. Putting myself in HFIL holds no purpose... they can never torture my soul the way I do.

Man, am I emo or what? No wonder my chappies are so harsh! Well, here's hoping I can write a few whimsical chapters before throwing myself back into what is left of Kress.

HAPPINESS

Pel wiped her face clumsily as the Namekians lowered the box into the hole in the ground. Her mommy was gone… she wasn't coming back, not ever. Even though her mommy had told her goodbye over a month ago, Pel still had hoped that she would somehow get better. Dende had poked her and Goten with a needle earlier that day, telling them that her mommy had worked really hard to make a medicine that would keep them from getting sick, too. Pel rubbed the sore spot on her arm… somehow she knew it was important, that it was a good thing.

"Thank you, Mommy," she whispered as she dropped a flower into the hole on top of the box. Goten's hand moved to hold hers, and she took it, squeezing tightly. She looked up at him, at his tear-streaked face. He was her brother… he was all the family she had left. She didn't want him to be sad. She smiled. "It's okay, Goten," she said, wiping his face. "Mommy wouldn't want us to be sad. We came all this way to find a new home… Mommy would want us to be happy here," she said, hoping to cheer him up.

Goten smiled at her. "Yeah, you're right. Mommy wouldn't want us to be sad. But…" he trailed off, looking wistfully down into the hole, "I miss her," he said.

Pel tried to smile, but her lower lip seemed to stick out despite her best efforts. "Me, too…" she said, and they hugged eachother, each crying a little before letting go.

Dende came up behind them and knelt down to their eye level. "I'm very sorry for your loss," he said to them.

The two children smiled up at him. "Mommy would want us to be happy," Goten said. "Right, Pel?"

Pel nodded, wiping away the last of her tears. "Yeah. She worked really hard to get us here, and to make us that medicine… the least we could do is be happy," she said bravely.

Dende smiled. "You two are something amazing. You have a home here, as long as you want. Pel, you can learn healing with me if you want to," he said to the young girl. He looked over at Goten. "And there's someone here who wants to meet you, Goten," he said, and a tall Namekian walked over to them, looking down at Goten with kind eyes. "His name is Nail, and he wants to teach you how to fight."

Goten's eyes went wide. "You mean, I can learn to be a fighter like my father?" he asked. He had never known his father, but he knew Bulma thought very well of him, and something within him demanded that he grow up to be just like him.

Nail smiled at him. "It won't be easy, but I can sense you have potential," he said.

Goten grinned, and looked over at Pel. "Will we have to separate?" Pel asked, plaintively.

Dende shook his head. "No, you two will be together. It was your mother's last wish," he said, deciding to leave it at that.

The two children smiled at eachother. They were going to be together, they were going to learn new things… and they were going to be happy.

Dende knew their mother would be proud.

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I know it was short, but it's just the kindling to start my new rash of writer's fever. Hopefully, it will last a while.