"Please come home, I can't be here without you"

That's all Gohan could say while lying in his bed, gripping his sheets tightly in anguish. He stared through teary, blurred vision longingly into the foggy rain of a cold and damp fall evening. Every night, repeatedly, it was always the same collection of silent cries, almost like prayers.

Please come home, I don't want to be alone anymore.

I'm sorry I failed you.

Come back, please...

I still need you.

He often laid there in his bed crying, sometimes multiple times a day. He was always contemplating his failure; contemplating how much better his life would be if he had just listened to his father and used his newfound strength in Super Saiyan 2 to end it, to destroy Cell as quickly as he possibly could.

In the short few hours he was ever able to sleep, he always dreamed the same hellish nightmare: Cell in his second form, bloated with foam frothing from his insectoid mouth, and his father with his fingers to his temple disappearing into nothingness. His own heartbroken scream still haunted him "DADDY!".

He endured this constant suffering for months but to him, it didn't feel like months. It felt like decades.

During the empty and awfully monotonous days, he was almost never allowed out of the house. Chi-chi's misguided attempt at protecting him was enforcing a strict all-day studying policy. She had lost Goku and refused to allow Gohan to do anything she deemed unsafe. It was this constant isolation that prompted Piccolo to keep tabs on him. He stopped by daily, despite Chi-chi's unwelcoming attitude, to check up on the boy and ask the occasional 'how are your studies?' or 'keeping up on your training?'.

To Gohan, it was obvious Piccolo was deeply worried about him, even though he never said it out loud. But he knew that his worries were meaningless; no one could ever help him.

The daily studying and the nightmares took their toll on the eleven-year-old boy. He longed for his father and for the otherworld but he knew he couldn't leave his family behind, at least not yet. Chi-Chi was closer to giving birth with each passing day, and Gohan knew he couldn't just abandon her. He had to be there for his new little brother no matter how much he didn't want to. So he carried on, never talking about the crushing guilt and pain that plagued him daily, he just kept studying.

Time passed and, as Gohans pencil glided along innumerable papers packed with calculus and physics, the fall came to an early close. An unusually frigid winter took its place, along with something entirely unexpected.

He was woken up just before daylight, but not from his usual nightmares, he was awoken by the earth-rumbling sensation of the Eternal Dragon being summoned. Knowing that no one needed to use the Dragon Balls at the moment, Gohan panicked, threw on his new purple training gi that Piccolo brought him just last week, and darted out the front door. He flew in the general direction of the far distant light of the dragon balls made it about a mile and a half away from the dragon itself before the wish was granted. He could faintly hear the booming voice of the green, snake-like Shenron through the whistling wind that enveloped him as he flew.

YOUR WISH TO TRANSPORT YOURSELF AND THE ONE CALLED SON GOHAN TO THE PAST IS GRANTED! I WILL NOW TAKE MY LEAVE.

Gohan, thinking he misheard the dragon, merely got part of a word out.

"W-wha-"

Suddenly, he felt himself being sucked through space and time. He was trapped in a spinning vortex that shook him violently, causing him to become both extremely disoriented and nauseated. After an undetermined amount of time spent spinning, Gohan was spat out and flung onto the ground, knocking what little air there was left out of his lungs. He laid there for a moment, unable to pick himself up as his body readjusted to normality. When he gained the strength and clarity to sit up he looked around, everything seemed to be the same. He was still in the same hilly, rocky wasteland-ish type area as before, except now there was no snow anywhere and it was significantly warmer.

Despite no longer being dizzy, it took him a moment to get his bearings and process what had just happened. His first instinct was to begin scanning for energies around him so he began doing just that, hoping he'd find the one who summoned the dragon. Strangely enough, he concluded no one was nearby prompting him to broaden his search to a radius of about a hundred miles. When it became clear that no one was within that range he broadened it again, eventually feeling out roughly half the planet looking for any ki that felt even slightly malignant. However, despite his best efforts, he could not find whoever he was supposed to be looking for, but he did feel a strange ki. It was very far away but felt oddly warm and comforting. Gohan studied it for a moment and then, like a mountain, the realization hit him and his heart began to beat out of his chest; he recognized that ki. His adrenaline, which was already pumping hard, began to overflow and his knees began to shake even though he was now hovering in the air.

D-Daddy... is that you? How?... Wha-

All other questions cleared from his mind as he felt the tiny amount of ki surrounding what was definitely his father.

Why is your energy so low? You must be hurt!

Gohan sped off as fast as he could into the direction where he felt Goku's ki at. He was so focused on his energy, he didn't even feel the tears in his eyes well up and spill over onto his face. He didn't understand exactly what was going on but if he was going to get to see his father he would seize the opportunity at any cost.

In the short span of a minute, he found himself coming upon an island featuring a green valley surrounded by thick forests and two large mountains. He looked to the valley, it housed a village consisting of no more than fifteen to sixteen huts and one large church-like structure. Separated and overlooking it on a plateau, was a little pink house. Kame House.

Wait...did I get transported to when you had the heart virus? B-but since when did Master Roshi move to this island? He wondered.

He made it to the house and flew through the open second-story window extremely quickly, causing a shockwave of wind to blow throughout the room.

Goku, feeling the disturbance in the air, woke immediately and threw the covers off of himself. In his drowsy stupor, he stood ready to fend off whatever threat may be invading his master's home at such early hours in the morning. Gohan, startled by his father's reaction and confused by his appearance, flew back through the window just before he could be spotted.

"Hey! Who's there?!" Goku yelled across the empty room in a threatening manner. He was sure that he had heard or at least felt something shift inside the house. He stood straight and stiff on his bed in his traditional fighting stance but dropped his arms to his side when nothing attacked him.

"Come on, I'm sorry I yelled. Please come out..." He paused for a moment to give the mysterious entity that had disturbed him a chance to reveal itself. He sighed when no one appeared. "I know you're here. Im'a come get you since you don't want to show yourself!"

Goku got out of bed and searched every inch, every nook, every cranny of the room, and even the bathroom, before determining that whatever he'd felt was of his own imagination.

"Man, maybe it was just a bad dream," He said while climbing back into his wide bed. "That's it! No more of Launches cooking. I gotta' find my own food from now on."

Gohan waited until he felt his father fall asleep to relax. He sat on the roof with his head resting in his hands, so overwhelmed with all that had happened he didn't really know how to feel. His mind raced with different thoughts and emotions, anger, and sadness being the most prevalent, yet he felt a glimmer of hope knowing that whatever time he was stuck in, he was stuck in it with his father.

I can't believe it, you're really here daddy.

But you're so young now...

He moved his fingers through his hair, trying in vain to calm himself down.

What time did I get sent back to?