"That's some pretty impressive marksmanship, Marron," Yamcha said, watching with reluctant interest as his niece skillfully skinned and cleaned the rabbit. "How far away were you when you shot it?"

"Fifty yards maybe," Marron mumbled at the pile of giblets she'd collected on the table. Seventeen still hadn't returned.

"Wow," Yamcha breathed. "Where'd you learn to do that?"

"Uncle's been teaching me," she said, picking up the hide and holding it in her hands as though she'd forgotten what to do with it. "I don't know why he's so mad at me. He likes hunting."

Yamcha laughed.

"He's mad because he loves you, Marron. If anything happened to you he'd be devastated."

"But why'd he have to yell at me?"

Yamcha sighed.

"Some people yell when they're scared."

Marron was incredulous.

"He wasn't scared, he was mad."

"I'm pretty sure he was both."

Marron began working on the hide again, mulling that over. Yamcha cleared his throat.

"Actually, Marron, I feel like I need to ask: why did you just up and decide to go hunting by yourself?" Marron's shoulders hunched in shame, and Yamcha pressed forward gently. "I'm not mad at you, Marron, it's just that it was a pretty dangerous thing you did. But you're a smart kid, so I know you must have had some reason."

It was irritating, being scolded for something she knew had been a dumb idea. Not that Yamcha was really even scolding her. She might have felt more justified in her desire to lash out at him if he had been.

"I don't know," she said sullenly, deboning the rabbit sloppily in her anger. The truth was, she hadn't had a reason. She had just thought it would be nice to get some meat for dinner, and went. Wasn't that what grown-ups did? Decide something and then do it? It was only in the cold light of hindsight that what she'd thought of as easy practicality was revealed to be merely childish thoughtlessness.

"Even I don't go out in the desert by myself at night," Yamcha continued. "It's really dangerous."

"Uncle, I know!" Marron wailed angrily. "Stop bugging me about it, I get it!"

"I just want to make sure you really understand what you did wrong."

"I do! I know it was dumb to go out at night by myself, and I know I shouldn't have taken Uncle Seventeen's gun without asking. I just..." Marron's voice subsided into a mutter, but Yamcha still heard her say, "...wanted to do something useful for once."

Suddenly Yamcha wasn't a grown up scolding a sweet but misguided kid for doing something a little dumb. He was everyone that had ever kindly told him he wasn't a failure, even when they both knew that wasn't true.

Baseball had never brought him the satisfaction he'd hoped it would. It didn't matter how many trophies he won or how loudly the crowds cheered, all of it rang hollow. When he finally retired he moved on to picking up jobs here and there as a bodyguard, chasing that feeling of being essential, but no one wanted an ex-baseball player defending their life, and no one cared that he'd been a finalist in three World Martial Arts Tournaments, because he was from the era before Mr. Satan's reforms and his integrity was therefore suspect. He hadn't even been able to get married and start a family, his one goal in life, because if he wasn't comparing them to Bulma they were comparing him to the suave baseball star they thought he was. These days the only moments of true satisfaction he got came from playing uncle to his friends' kids, and even that felt like borrowing happiness that didn't rightfully belong to him.

Gohan had already been grown by the time Yamcha realized uncle-hood was the closest he was ever going to get to being a father, but Goten had been the perfect age and was easily impressed by Yamcha's tall tales and simple magic tricks. Even though the moments were few and far between, Yamcha had been able to hang out with Trunks a few times in his youth and give him a taste of male-bonding that didn't smack of child abuse. Not that he didn't find himself, even in those moments when he was silently pretending to be Trunks' father, still slipping into the role of helping Trunks understand his actual father better, because he wasn't a monster, and he'd watched Vegeta realize Trunks (the big one, but it was clear it bled over to the little one too) actually mattered to him. He had played with Marron when she was small, made her laugh and helped her up when she fell, and he'd been ready to gently lecture her on her behavior tonight and then let it go until he realized that she felt as out of place in her world as he did in his.

If she were his child he'd tell her about his failures and his successes, the contributions he'd made and the times when his fear had prevented him from doing what needed to be done. He'd help her learn from his mistakes and her own, like any father would. But she wasn't his. None of them were. The ache of being forty-eight and childless, of not being able to say the things to Marron he wanted to say because she wasn't his and it wasn't his place, grew until it hurt to breathe. Anything he might have reasonably said died on his lips, and the silence stretched until any reply would be worse than none.

Shaking himself from his reverie, Yamcha fiddled with the salt shaker on the table and pondered how to make Marron feel better. If he couldn't give her any grand advice then at least he could take her mind off things. He scratched his face and that gave him an idea.

"Hey, did I ever tell you how I got these scars?"

Marron glanced over at him, frowning thoughtfully.

"No," she said slowly, unwilling to give up her melancholy so easily. Yamcha gave her a gentle grin.

"That's probably because I've never told anyone. Want to hear?"

Marron gave a casual shrug to hide the fact that she was burning with curiosity.

"It was about, oh gosh, around thirty years ago now, man I feel old. Anyway, I was training for the World Martial Arts Tournament and I decided to take a break and work on my car. I thought it would be a good idea to hold up the car with my hands while I working on it, and wouldn't you know it, the car slipped and part of the undercarriage slashed me in the face. I was lucky it didn't bash my skull in."

Work on the rabbit had come to a halt. Marron was staring at him in horror, mouth hanging open.

"Dad told me you probably got them fighting bad guys," she said accusingly. Yamcha laughed.

"I'm glad that's what he assumed, but no." He gave her a wry grin. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't spread this around, I already have a reputation for being a screw up and I don't need to add this to the list."

It was a little humbling, Marron mused as she slowly sliced the meat into strips, to be entrusted with a secret, even if it was a totally lame one. Yamcha had not sounded bitter as he called himself a screw up, but he had sounded sad, and she remembered that though he had been a fighter like her father and even trained under the same master, he'd given up the craft long before Krillin, largely due to feeling hopelessly outclassed. She had heard a lot of gossip like this before the growth spurt, having looked young enough not to set off the sensors adults seemed to have that told them when little pitchers with big ears were around. She liked being taller, but she did miss the juicy gossip.

"I won't," she promised, unaware that Yamcha was congratulating himself on having successfully gotten his niece's mind off her problems, at least for the moment.

"You ever hear the story of how I met Goku?" he asked, hoping to add to his accomplishments.

"Yes," she said, "all the time." Before Yamcha could be too disappointed, she continued eagerly.

"Is this really where you met Auntie Bulma?"

Yamcha laughed, embarrassed.

"Yes, and everything you've heard about that is probably true."

Marron straightened up excitedly.

"So you really beat Uncle Goku?"

"Sure did!" Yamcha boasted, pleased that this was the detail she had latched onto, even if it wasn't exactly true. "Had him right where I wanted him. Of course, that was a long time ago."

"Is it true Uncle Goku was shorter than my dad when they were little?"

"No," Yamcha mused thoughtfully, "no, I think Goku was always a little taller than Krillin. They were about the same size when I first met them, actually."

"Oh," Marron said, not sure if what she felt could properly be called disappointment. "Dad always said he used to be taller than him."

"I'm sure that's possible," Yamcha said generously.

"Do you think Bra will ever be taller than me?" Marron mused. "I bet Pan will, but Vegeta's kinda short."

Yamcha coughed painfully, more impressed with the girl's easy dismissal of the Saiyan Prince's height than he had been with her shooting.

"I wouldn't go around saying that to just anybody, Marron," he warned. She shook her head dismissively.

"It's okay, he and I have an understanding."

"Oh?" Now he was just amused. "What kind of 'understanding'?"

Marron, who had been feeling very superior, came abruptly up against the fact that she wasn't one hundred percent sure what people meant when they used the phrase "have an understanding."

"We just do," she said, pretending to be preoccupied with the rabbit. Yamcha smiled to himself and didn't press it. He was about to offer some spices for the jerky, since she seemed to be intending to make plain salt jerky and that seemed like a waste to him, when Marron spoke up again, her tone conversational. "Uncle, do you think I'm mature?"

Yamcha regretted the guffaw that slipped out of his mouth before the sound of it had even died away. He was laughing mostly at himself for getting so melancholy when really she'd just been worried about growing up, but the damage was done. Marron spun around, knife still in hand, her expression a mixture of outrage and betrayal. Yamcha held up his hands, desperate to explain.

"No, I mean―of course you're mature, it's just... I mean, you are only ten―but for a ten year old you're―it was just I'd been thinking about something else―I mean, I was thinking about what you said, and then―that is―I would never laugh at you... I mean I just did, but... I just―I was..."

Yamcha quickly realized his backpedaling was only digging the hole deeper and he trailed off awkwardly.

"Uncle, you suck," Marron spat with all the venom available to a ten year old girl (which was a lot more than he would have guessed), and spun back around to her work, nose in the air. Yamcha winced.

"Marron, I'm sorry―"

"Go away!" she ordered, and Yamcha felt he had no choice but to comply. He would think of some way to make it up to her, but first, he needed a beer and some fresh air.

The roof of the hideout was flat, and it was the tallest structure for miles, allowing for a spectacular view. Even at night, the stars that illuminated the sky lit up the landscape so well it was visible for miles. Distant rock formations formed silhouettes against the horizon, the milky way painting a wide stripe overhead. Back in his bandit days, Yamcha had spent many evenings on this roof staring up at the stars, thinking expansive thoughts and engaging in the kind of dignified philosophizing particular to sixteen year old boys. He preferred city life in a lot of ways, but one of the major exceptions was the lack of a night sky to dream under.

Behind him, Yamcha heard someone land on the roof. He couldn't sense who it was, so it was likely Seventeen, back from sulking.

"Beautiful night," Yamcha said without turning around. The younger man sat down next to him, feet dangling off the cliff edge.

"Sure is," Seventeen agreed, but there was tension in his voice. He waved off the beer Yamcha offered to him and stared out over the desert with pensive eyes. Yamcha let him sit in silence.

"Listen, I need some advice," the android said eventually. Yamcha hmmm'd invitingly. He'd been expecting something like this. Seventeen was quiet for another minute before finally speaking.

"Do you think I should just... stop this?" he asked. His tone was as casual as it ever was, but underneath it was a pleading note.

"Stop what?"

Seventeen gestured expansively.

"This whole... road trip idea. I was trying to make her feel better, have some good bonding time, I don't know." He switched to a parody of his own voice: "Oh, hey, Marron, let's go look for the dragon balls! And while we're at it, why don't I teach a ten year old how to shoot a gun, that's a totally responsible thing to do!"

He sighed, deflating.

"And then I went and yelled at her. I'm supposed to be the fun uncle. I like being the fun uncle. But what if she actually gets hurt? It would be my fault. I can't believe that didn't occur to me until today, but it didn't. Never mind what her mother might do to me, I can't handle the idea of something bad happening to her. But it was my dumb idea to come out here in the first place, so it would be pretty douchey of me to just call it quits before we're even halfway done."

The note of frustration in his voice was building, and when he paused to take a breath Yamcha took the opportunity to interject.

"Look, man, I totally get where you're coming from. But you gotta remember, she's Krillin's kid. She's probably tougher than your average ten year old girl. She can handle herself if things get hairy."

Seventeen gave him a sour look.

"What, my sister's genetics don't come into play?"

"Aw, come on, I didn't mean it that way. I was just talking physical toughness, you know? Krillin could punch out sharks even before he met Master Roshi, there's no way Marron doesn't have some of that. As for mental toughness, of course she takes after her mom. And she has you to look after her. She'll be fine."

"But what if―"

"I gotta be honest with you," Yamcha interrupted, letting the liquid courage in his belly guide him to lecture someone who could tie him in knots. "Marron seems like she needs this. I dunno if something happened, or if it's just part of her growing up, and maybe it's none of my business. But she needs to know she's up to this sort of thing. Maybe she'll never be a martial artist like her dad. That's fine. But she's got a lot of big personalities in her life and she needs to know she can figure with the best of 'em if she puts her mind to it. She needs to know what she can do, and be proud of it even if no one else is."

Yamcha was not sure he was quite making sense, and he was not at all certain he hadn't started talking about himself somewhere along the way, but Seventeen seemed to be mulling his words over thoughtfully, so he considered his advice given and took another swig from the bottle in his hand, feeling both satisfied and morose.