Disclaimer: I do not own DBZ or any of its characters.

Recovery

The sky was filled with dark, water laden clouds, casting a depressing gloom on the city. The weather outside was a perfect mirror of the mood of the girl sitting alone in Satan First Municipal Hospital. Even as it began to rain outside, tear drops started to trickle down her cheeks.

Nearly four hours had passed since Videl's fight with the Red Shark Gang. Whenever she closed her eyes, she could still hear the sickening thud of a bullet sinking into flesh, still see Gohan standing there shielding her, still feel his cold, limp body, drenched in blood. They were memories that she would never forget. No matter how much time passed, she knew that they would continue to haunt her until her dying breath.

She had gotten him to the hospital as soon as possible, but there had been far too much blood. The doctors refused to say anything until they knew for sure, but they hadn't sounded optimistic about his chances. So now she sat on a hospital bench, unable to stop the tears as she waited to find out if Gohan would survive. It was a scene that was all too familiar.

Memories began to flood over her.

She is sitting in that exact same seat in the exact same hospital, waiting for news from the doctor. She is alone; her father left yesterday on a trip to promote his new line of martial arts dojos. Tears flood down her face, ruining the makeup her mom had painstakingly applied that afternoon so she would look good for Erasa's thirteenth birthday party that night. They were just supposed to make a quick stop at the bank and head straight to the party.

A deep sob escapes her throat. Why did she do it?

"Excuse me, Ms. Satan?" A voice brought her back to reality. It was the doctor who she had talked with earlier.

"Yes?" she said.

"I'm Dr. Reynolds," he greeted, holding out his hand. She shook it nervously.

"Nice to meet you."

"You're Mr. Son's friend?"

"I am." She looked up at the man in a desperate search of some sign that Gohan was all right, but his face remained stoic and professional, just like the doctor from that day.

"Are you Videl?" a dull looking doctor holding a clipboard asks.

"That's me," she says, sniffling back her tears, "Is my mom okay?"

"Is your father here?" he asks, ignoring her question.

"He's in West City. He won't be here for at least another hour. What about my mom?" she asks again, slightly louder.

"It would be better to wait until your father arrives."

"I don't care! Is my mom alright? Tell me!" The doctor looks at her silently, eyes betraying nothing. "TELL ME!"

Videl shook her head, clearing her mind of the unpleasant memories. This time would be different. It had to be. Even so, she found herself bracing herself for the worst while simultaneously praying for good news.

"Your friend's condition is stable," he said.

She let out a massive sigh of relief. He was alive. It was as if a giant weight was lifted off her chest and she could breathe properly again. "Thank god," she whispered quietly under her breath. Tears again began to sprout at the corners of her eyes, but this time, they were tears of joy.

"He is one lucky boy. If that bullet had hit just an inch lower, it would have gone through his heart," the doctor explained. "As it is, he had a collapsed lung and a ruptured aorta. It's a good thing you got him here as quickly as you did. If he had gotten here any later, we wouldn't have been able to save him."

"Where is he now?" Videl asked. The details of his injuries were all well and good, but for now, all that mattered to her was that Gohan was alive. She didn't want to concern herself with what-ifs.

"He's resting in his room."

"Can I see him?"

"It may be a while before he wakes up from surgery, but you can see him if you wish. Right this way."

He led her through the hallways of the disturbingly quiet hospital. A few nurses bustled about from room to room, but otherwise there was little activity in this wing of the building.

She hated hospitals. The eerie silence only broken by a few footsteps and hushed voices. The pervasive smell of disinfectant that grew more and more pungent the further they got from the lobby. She could certainly see why hospitals made good settings for horror movies. The ghosts of her past certainly had no trouble haunting her here.

They stopped in front of a plain door. Next to it, she could see the name "Son" written on the name plate. This was it. Gohan was inside.

The doctor mumbled something she couldn't quite make out and left her alone to enter the room by herself. She grasped the cold metal handle, willing her hand to stop shaking.

A pair of large metal doors looms before her. The grim-faced doctor stood just a step behind her, but she felt alone. Alone to face the reality that lay behind those two doors, a reality that she didn't want to accept. She would show the doctor that he was wrong, that there had been some kind of mistake.

Ever so slowly, she reaches for the handle. Her hand is trembling with trepidation. She tries to keep it still, but her body refuses to listen to her. The tremors continue even as her fingers wrap around the handle of the door.

The smooth metal of the handle is like ice. She can feel no warmth in it, no sign of life, just a lifeless, biting cold, as if the door itself were trying to ward away visitors. A shiver runs down her spine. It is doing a good job. She is frozen with fear—fear of what she would find, that what she desperately wants to deny is in fact the truth.

But she has to know. She cannot abandon her. She takes a deep breath and jerks down on the stiff handle.

The door swung inward to reveal Gohan lying motionless on a hospital bed. From this distance, she couldn't tell if he was breathing or not. Despite what the doctor had told her, she was suddenly overcome with the certainty that Gohan was dead.

No, she cried internally, rushing to his side. No, not again.

She is standing at her bedside looking down. She can't seem to make herself remove the sheet covering her face. Her entire body is trembling violently and her legs feel wobbly. Seeing her state, the doctor reaches and pulls back the covering for her.

No, it can't be. She covers her mouth with her hand, trying to hold back the tears at the sight. It was her mother. She was lying on the bed so peacefully she could almost believe she were asleep if it weren't for the lifeless, gray color of her skin.

"NOO!" she howls, collapsing onto her mother's body. The world disappears beneath a waterfall of tears as she cries and cries and cries.

Videl blinked. The past could wait. She grabbed Gohan's wrist and checked his pulse. A second felt like an hour as she waited for the dull thump that would indicate he was alive. It's there. He's alive, she sighed to herself and fell back into the chair that sat near his bedside. It took a while for her to bring her own pounding heartbeat under control.

When she had calmed herself for the most part, she finally took a good look at Gohan. Aside from the hospital gown he was wearing and the IV attached to his arm, he looked completely normal. One would never guess he was anything other than sleeping peacefully, but Videl knew. She knew the wounds which lay beneath that paper thin garment. Wounds that had brought him to the brink of death. Wounds that she had caused.

It was all her fault. If only she hadn't gotten herself trapped, Gohan wouldn't have had to intervene. If only she had taken away that guy's gun, he wouldn't have gotten shot. If only she was stronger, faster, smarter, then none of this would have happened. She should have been the laying on that hospital bed right now, not Gohan.

The worst part about it was, the one person she really wished was there to comfort her was the one lying there on that bed. How she wished she could again feel the reassuring warmth of his strong hand on her back and lose herself in his kind, compassionate eyes as he told her everything would be all right. But that was a distant dream and no more.

Still, she couldn't help but reach out and grasp Gohan's hand, seeking comfort in the feel of his limp hand in hers.

"I'm sorry, Gohan," she whispered.

Darkness. It enwrapped Gohan like a blanket, hiding him from the pain and suffering of the outside world. He clung to it like a baby. Here he was safe. Here he protected. Here he was at peace.

Suddenly, from out of the darkness came voices.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Bulma.

"Goku's death was not your fault." Krillin.

"Gohan. You're the only real friend that I've ever had." Piccolo.

"You've got to get him! Do it NOW! We all know you have the power. It's time to use it!" His dad.

No more! he shouted mentally. It was just too painful. He tried to cover his ears, but the sound passed right through his hands and bored into his head. Bulma. Krillin. Piccolo. His dad. It seemed like everyone he knew joined in the cacophony, drowning him in a sea of memories until his head seemed like it was about to explode.

Then, out of the deafening chaos, one voice rang out above all the others.

"I'm proud of you, son." Suddenly, all the other voices stopped, and he was once again surrounded by absolute silence. That didn't matter, though. That voice. It had seemed so real, as if his father were standing right next to him. Frantically, he looked around, but saw nothing but darkness.

"Dad!" he cried out.

"I'm right here, son." Goku suddenly materialized directly in front of him. Not caring if he was real or an illusion, Gohan threw himself at the father he hadn't seen in seven years.

"Daddy," he whimpered. He was no longer a Saiyan warrior with the power to destroy galaxies. He was just a little boy in his daddy's arms.

"I'm proud of you, Gohan," Goku said, holding him tightly and stroking his hand over his head.

"I'm sorry, Daddy. I couldn't save you,"Gohan said, his voice barely above a whisper. Over and over again he repeated, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Goku shrugged out of their embrace and held Gohan at arms' length. He smiled warmly and looked at him with eyes that held nothing but kindness.

"I love you, son." The words resounded in his mind like a shotgun. The walls of darkness that surrounded him started to shake with the force of the sound. Instinctively, he looked to his father for help, but the phantom of Goku that had held him disappeared before his eyes. At the same moment, the walls began to crack, letting in beams of blinding light, and along with the light came yet another voice.

"I'm sorry, Gohan," it said. He knew that voice. It was Videl! And with that, the walls shattered around him.

Gohan's eyes flickered open and he stared at an unfamiliar ceiling. Where was he? What had happened? He could hear a strange beeping sound coming from somewhere, but couldn't for the life of him think what it could be. He tried to move, but immediately felt excruciating pain, and with it memories started rushing back. That man had tried to shoot Videl. With no time to think, he had jumped in front of her. He had tried to put of a ki shield, but he had been too slow and weak to deflect the bullet. They must have taken him to the hospital.

"I'm so sorry, Gohan." That voice. The same voice from his dream. Very carefully, he turned his head to the side and was greeted with the sight of Videl sitting at his bedside, tightly gripping his hand. Her eyes were red and puffy. He could tell she'd been crying. "I'm sorry," she repeated as if it were a mantra.

"What for?" he asked weakly.

Videl stiffened at the sound of his voice. Her eyes darted to his face and she regarded him for a long moment with a look that contained excitement, disbelief, and embarrassment all at the same time.

"Gohan," she whispered. She sounded happy, but he thought he could sense sadness as well.

"Are you all right? You didn't get hurt, did you?"

"No, I'm fine, but I…"

"How's Erasa?"

"She's a little shaken up, but she should be fine," she said. She looked down to the ground. "I'm so sorry," she whispered once again.

"Why are you sorry?" he asked. Immediately, he saw pain fill her eyes and her gaze darted away. For a long while, she was silent as she stared at the floor. He didn't mind. He had plenty of time.

"It's all my fault," she said. Her voice sounded weak and fragile, something he'd never heard from the normally feisty girl. "If I'd just taken them out before you got there."

"Videl, it's not your fault."

"Yes it is," she said, her voice suddenly growing stronger. "Just like it was my fault when a helpless old man died two weeks ago because I wasn't fast enough to take down the guy with the gun in time."

Gohan did some quick calculations and realized that was the same time Videl had suddenly disappeared from school. The day she had begged him to train her.

"Just like it was my fault," Videl said, "when I wasn't strong enough to remove a piece of cement from a trapped fireman before it crushed him to death. Just like it was my fault when—" Her throat suddenly caught and she fell silent. When she spoke again, her voice was tiny and distant. "When my mother threw herself in front of me to protect me from a bank robber who I provoked."

"Videl, I..." he stretched out his hand towards the suffering girl in front of him, but pulled it back, not knowing what to do.

"It was Erasa's thirteenth birthday," she said. She hugged her knees tightly to her chest in a defensive gesture as she related her story. "My mom needed to stop by the bank before taking me to the party. While we were there, a man wearing a black ski mask and waving a gun around walked in and told everyone to get on the ground. He was pathetic, I thought. I refused to get down. I thought I could take him. I was an idiot. I ran at him and he pointed the gun right at me. Before he could shoot, my mom threw herself right in front of me."

Here she paused as images of that day seemed to be running through her head. With a suppressed sub in the back of her throat, she said, "The bullet hit her heart. They took her to the hospital, but there was nothing they could do. She died a few hours later. I swore that day that I would get stronger. Strong enough to protect everyone I love so no one would have to die again."

Gohan sat in shock as he listened to his friend bare her soul to him. The pain he saw in her eyes…it was the same pain he had felt every day for nearly seven years now. It was no wonder he had felt mysteriously connected with her. They were truly kindred spirits. He let out a humorless chuckle, only to regret it as fire ripped through his lungs.

Videl looked at him. The pain in her eyes was replaced by a mixture of concern and confusion. "What?"

"If only strength were enough," he said regretfully, looking up at the ceiling as he thought back to that horrific day that had changed his life. For a while, he examined the miniscule dust particles floating in the air, illuminated by the harsh fluorescent lighting. Should he tell her? Did he dare relive that nightmarish day out loud? With one glance at Videl, he had his answer.

"I assume you've figured out who I am," he said. It was not a question, but his tone prompted a response.

"I have," she said.

"And who am I?"

"The one who really defeated Cell," she replied, a trace of wonder in her voice. He could tell she had many questions that had been shoved aside because of all that had happened. Now, it was time to answer those questions.

"That's right," he confirmed. "Me, my father, and our friends were the other fighters at the Cell Games."

"Then when you said your father died during the Cell Games, you meant he…"

Gohan nodded gravely and proceeded to tell her what really happened that day. He told her everything—how his father had fought Cell and realized he couldn't win; how he had taken his father's place, how Cell had attacked his friends to draw out his power; how he had had the chance to kill Cell, but didn't; and how his father had sacrificed himself to protect the world. He even told her about the nightmares he had had ever since. By the end, tears were starting to form in the corners of his eyes.

"Even with all the power in the world, but I still failed to protect the people I loved," he concluded, staring up at the ceiling as if he were confessing his sins directly to heaven. For a few minutes, neither of them spoke. The steady beep of the heart monitor and gentle whir of the air conditioning filled the room in white noise.

"Just before he disappeared, he told me that he was proud of me," Gohan told her. "Up until now, I never believed him. How could he be proud of someone who was too arrogant to save everyone while he could? Now, though, I think I finally understand." He turned his head to look at Videl. She stared back, eyes glimmering with unshed tears.

"He loved me. More than I ever knew," he said with a confidence he would never have been able to muster just days ago. "Just like your mom loved you, Videl."

A tear drop dripped down Videl's cheek and she rushed to wipe it away. "I know," she said, wiping away another tear. "I know all that, but because of me she…" Finally, she could no longer hold back the tears and they streamed freely down her face. "Why does it have to be so hard?" she choked past her constricted throat.

"I don't know, Videl," he said, tears of his own beginning to well up. He saw everything so clearly now. His father had loved him and been proud of him until the very end. He had given Gohan and everyone else a chance to live. Gohan had been wasting that chance. Instead of learning from his mistake, he had run away from reality and from his responsibility to protect the people of Earth. Well no more. Never again would he turn his back people. He would use his power to protect those he loved. But that resolve didn't stop the pain of loss he felt now. Soon, he too was crying alongside Videl.

Time held no importance for the two young fighters as they wept. They had entered a different world, a private world known only to the two of them. There they could cry without shame. They were free to properly grieve for the parents who had given their lives to save them. No words were needed, because each understood the other's pain. Pain that was finally receiving a long overdue bath of healing tears. It washed over years of guilt and grief, cleansing and sealing wounds that had been festering for far too long and finally giving their scarred hearts the chance to heal.

When they had depleted their last reserves of tears, the arrival of a nurse jerked the two back to the real world.

Gohan and Videl looked at each other with puffy eyes and realized that at some point, Videl had grabbed his hand and was clasping it tightly with both hands. She did not pull away, however, and neither did he. Rather, he gave her hand a slight squeeze and smiled warmly at the girl who had become such a life line for him. His heart leapt when she squeezed back. So much had changed in such a short time.

"Ahem," the nurse cleared her throat. Her cheeks were tinged a bright shade of pink as she entered the room to check on the status of her patient. Gohan couldn't help but blush as well, but he still didn't let go of Videl's hand, and was glad when she made no move let go of his either. Seeing their intent to stay as they were, the nurse walked to the other side of his bed. Silently, she took his pulse and blood pressure and checked the various instruments that were attached to his body. Every once in a while she wrote down something on the clip board in her hand.

"We didn't expect you to be up so soon. How are you feeling?" the nurse finally asked when she was satisfied all was normal.

"Pretty good," he said, unable to contain a smile. He was, in fact, better than he had been in a long time.

"Any pain?"

"Only if I move."

"I see." She made a note on her clipboard. "Well, everything seems to be fine for now. If you need anything or start experiencing any more pain, there's a call button on the side of your bed. Just press it and I or one of our other nurses will come to help you."

With that, she left the room, obviously feeling more than a little awkward. As soon as she left, he and Videl burst into laughter. His chest felt like it was being ripped apart from the inside, but he just couldn't contain himself. Moments ago, he had been crying his eyes out, but now he felt so happy. So free. He knew that eventually he would come down from this high, but right now he just couldn't bring himself to be sad. And all of this was thanks to the girl whose hand he now held.

"Hey, Videl."

"Yeah?"

"Let's get out of here." He made the suggestion casually, like he hadn't just been shot in the chest hours ago.

"We can't. You just got out of surgery. You need to rest."

He flashed a light-hearted grin. "Do you trust me?"

"Yes…why?" she asked hesitantly.

With his free hand, he put two fingers to his forehead and flashed a mischievous smile. "You're going to love this."

Hope you liked it! Make sure to review to let me know what you thought. I'm going to try to respond to some of the awesome reviews you've been writing.

On that note, I receive several reviews last chapter expressing doubts that Gohan could be injured by a gunshot. I'm thinking of writing a sort of addendum addressing this issue, so look for that later today or tomorrow.

Also, I'm afraid I have some bad news. Even though I've been writing like a mad man these last couple days (including staying up until 6AM yesterday), it just wasn't enough to finish. I will still be posting one more chapter tomorrow, but it turned out I needed one more chapter to wrap things up like I wanted to. I haven't even begun to write that chapter, so unless I can churn out an entire lengthy chapter in a day, tomorrow will likely be the last you hear from me or this story in a while. Don't worry, though. I tried my best to make sure that the ending didn't feel rushed or incomplete, and I think I did pretty good. Hopefully you won't track me down and burn me at the stake at least. And who knows? I might end up finishing the last chapter up in Japan, mainly because it will drive me crazy not having every loose end wrapped up to my satisfaction.

See you tomorrow for the grand finale (for now)!