Chapter Text
Six months after his little brother Goten is born, Gohan goes on a solo trip to gather the Dragon Balls on the other side of the world, and wish for his father back again.
(If he wouldn't come back for Chichi, if he wouldn't come back for his friends, if he wouldn't come back for Gohan… maybe he'll come back for this son who has done nothing but be born yet ?)
(Goten doesn't deserve to be even halfway an orphan, and if it's Gohan that messed up and made him one, it's also his job to do all he can to fix it.)
He made a trip out of it from the start - a study trip, that is, planned out with specific landscapes he wants to explore, all of them natural habitats of species he just can't see in the mountains of Paozu, through different climate spheres he has never seen outside of books too - and plans it around the time of his Grandfather's vacation.
(And if he helped the Ox King with most of his paperwork, to make sure he would actually be able to take that vacation and spend it on Mount Paozu with his daughter and grandson, that's for him and him only to know.)
(A few sleepless nights were a small price to pay in the face of his mother's smile when Grandfather had called her to tell her the good news.)
(Gohan doesn't get much rest on the nights where he does sleep anyways.)
His mother was glad for his renewed interest in his studies past his books, even if it was more than clear she was worried about letting him both away from Mount Paozu, from her line of sight and from the reach of her arms, and she'd come around to the trip after a while. He had been careful to wait long enough after his 'breakdown' a few weeks prior, careful to shift the contents of his studies in the direction of in situ observations, careful to not let her catch onto the real point of that trip. He made sure she would trust that he would be nothing but fine on his own.
She gave him her permission only after they'd reviewed his route, back-up route, and flight back on three different maps three separate times.
With that step completed, there's only a few surface preparations left, but Gohan doesn't leave for almost two weeks after that.
It is only once he is completely sure that everything is going according to plan - that his brother is grown enough to not need constant supervision in all things of life, that his mother has settled back in a more comfortable rhythm of living, that his Grandfather will be there both to help her and keep her company in his stead - that Gohan actually takes his leave.
He brings supplies, of course, books and notebooks and tools. There is no lying to Chichi Gyumao - not completely, at the very least, and certainly not about scholarly projects she approved of in the first place - and Gohan doesn't want to push his luck any more than he already is.
(He doesn't want to lie to his mother at all, really, no matter how many times he's done it before.)
And he does intend to study throughout this trip after all. He still wants to be a scholar, and he never gets tired of seeing more of the world, and he'll have to explore most of those places in earnest anyways. It'll surely be more than enough to fill up at least two of these notebooks, to learn from the world around him, to enjoy the nature he's loved since before he could even walk.
(But he just can't tell her the real goal of his trip.)
They've payed the highest of prices to preserve it all after all.
(Not when there's a chance he'll fail.)
Once he's out of the house, and stepping over the threshold of their property, and flying up in the sky…
Then he pulls out the knock-off Dragon Radar he devised out of Bulma's old broken version he'd brought back from Namek, and turns to the east, where the first echo of latent power pulses like a heartbeat.
It's even easier than following a compass after that.
The echo is so faint he can't consciously track it himself yet - even Piccolo can't do it reliably, and following the chaos the Balls usually engender instead is a safer bet, if his father and friends' first adventure is anything to go by - but that's where Bulma's genius always shines the brightest even in their world of aliens and spirits and demons.
Time-travel, not just one way, but back and forth. With the patchwork resources of a devastated world. Will she ever be stopped ?
It takes him about three weeks, from the moment he left his mother's embrace and let his grandfather ruffle his hair and hugged his little brother goodbye, up to the time he lands atop a cliff facing the unknown sea with his precious cargo carefully tucked away in his satchel.
(It would have gone faster, if he hadn't been alone, and if he hadn't been careful not to make too many waves when he could avoid it with each artifact he grabbed on his way.)
(But Gohan is alone, and he doesn't want to be found out by the kind of people he knows would be watching for an unknown party looking for the Dragon Balls, and he can't go too fast without being spotted by those same people and then some too.)
(He can do this, he can do it himself, he can do it right.)
They are… three very long weeks.
He spends nearly all of that time alone in the world's wilderness - barely ever comes close to any settlement, and only stops in a single town in some northern country, both to buy gifts to bring back to his family and to swipe the six-stars dragon ball away from some bandit group trying to pawn it off to the local museum as an 'artifact of a civilization millennia gone !' - with only his own mind for company.
The only issue is, of course and always, the enemy imprisoned within it.
Gohan can exile himself away from any other 'intelligent' life form - he can even fly far enough away from any living being in and of itself too, which is what he does during the second week, when the fifth signal leads him to one of the polar ice caps - but he can never escape Cell.
The bio-android is always there - silent or laughing, invisible or omnipresent, furious or condescending - no matter where Gohan goes, what Gohan does, what Gohan wants. He's just another truth of the boy's world. The sun rises to the east, the Earth rotates around the Sun, and his enemy is his shadow.
And isn't it the cruelest part, maybe, that Cell has become the strongest constant of Gohan's life ?
But he has.
And Gohan hates him a little more for it.
And hates himself even more than that for allowing it to come true.
Through no fault of her own, his mother's months of grief had still dug a chasm between Chichi and Gohan - though he has been doing his best to tend to the space in between during those same months, and knows she has too, he knows, stronger than anyone else on the planet would have ever been in her place - a split between them that had its roots in their first separation over seven years prior.
(She didn't talk about it often, but Gohan knew that the year after his father's first death had been hard on her, past even the war she'd lived through as a child.)
(She'd been nearly entirely alone, the Ox King too devastated by the loss of his son-in-law, and Gohan's disappearance had only made it worse. But she'd held on, trusting that the rest of their friends would bring back her husband as soon as the year was up, and that her boy would find his way home. She'd been the strongest of them all.)
(What a blow it must have been, to not only lose her husband again so soon after getting him back, but to find her only son so changed too ?)
Goten, meanwhile, is a wonderful ray of absolute sunshine that everyday reminds his older brother of the father Gohan stole from him. He's not guilty of anything either, that happy little guy bouncing around with the joy of the world in his smiles, but he deserves so much better than what he's got now. He deserves the 'Da' he called for when he was three months old. He deserves to have his call answered. And his big brother couldn't fix that.
(Couldn't fix what hurts, couldn't bring back what's missing, couldn't right what's wrong.)
(Couldn't fix his mistakes, not even with the magic of an all-powerful dragon, just because he couldn't finish the job when he should have-)
(But he's still going to try.)
Gohan loves his family - loves them so much it hurts, and it pulls at the beast he's keeping locked up in his chest, and it drives him forward in plans he knows his mother wouldn't approve of if she knew - but it is Cell that has been there every second of every day since the evening after the funeral without 'fail'. It is Cell that has haunted his nightmares and his dreams alike, has encroached upon his waking thoughts too, has entrenched himself within every second of his days. It is Cell that he can never lie to, never hide from, never be free of.
It is Cell that is here even now, as he holds the last of the Dragon Balls in his hand, the cult that had been worshiping it as the 'Phoenix Egg' in the mountains of Shinra unconscious all around him.
'Nice work, really, but did you have to leave them breathing ?'
Cell, who cannot stay silent to save his non-life, even now.
Gohan doesn't grace his complaint with an answer as he tucks the last of the Dragon Balls - and of course, it is the fourth star one, was there ever another option for the end of his search ? - in its own velvet back, and then in his messenger bag with the other ones, along with the camera he used to take pictures of some mountain goats with just twenty minutes before.
And then he's walking out of the open air cave the cult had elected as their ceremony grounds, and pushing off the ground in a slow take-off towards the top of the mountain chain and over it back towards the equator, his end destination already planned out from the top of that trip.
Even with the sound of the wind rushing in his ears as he speeds up past the speed of sound - and it's only his very peculiar biology, both Saiyan and Gyumao, that makes such feats as comfortable as a stroll through the forest - Cell's voice cannot be drowned out.
And the bio-android echo makes full use of it without fail.
'Ignoring me again ?', he taunts in Gohan's ear, as though flying over right over his shoulder. He gets no answer, again, but that has never stopped him. He likes to hear himself talk enough for not just the two of them but for the whole world around too.
'You should be glad, really, to have me to keep you company. Daddy's gone, Mama's busy, Teacher's done with your mess.'
His path up in the sky takes him a little higher than the new Capsule Corp personal flying cars will ever climb to, the cold air crisp in his lungs as he enjoys the perks of being able to breathe more than just di-oxygen, some of the stars the light of the sun usually eclipses visible from so high up.
It's breathtaking.
To a being that doesn't need to breathe at all, of course, it seems to mean nothing at all.
And Cell prattles on.
'It's a wonder he's only showed up once, and the lot of those 'warriors for good' not all what with your dramatic little power-up.'
"They have better things to do."
On another day, Cell would have jumped on that comment and twisted towards absolute self-deprecation, where he knows Gohan's own brain is wont to drift towards by itself. He has done it, more than once, expanding on all of the things grand and minuscule that the old group of his parents' friends might be doing at any given moment - training, eating, shopping, laughing, sleeping, staring at wall paint drying - while Gohan had struggled to get the outbursts of his newly gained power under control in the deepest parts of Mount Paozu he could find when he started to lose control. He has pushed on the boy's own tendency towards guilt, well-deserved or not, trying to make him slip up further than he already had.
It's one of his favorite pressure points - to remind Gohan of his greatest failure, and of the way nearly everyone around him seems to have walked away after it, leaving his mother and him to deal with the aftermath alone - and to remind Gohan of how very much all of it is his fault.
(One would think he'd have gotten bored of it after the first three months, given he brought it up at least bi-weekly or more, but he only seems more fond of it now.)
(Perhaps it's challenging to the perfect being, to dig for something he hasn't tried out yet, every time Gohan gets used to his latest round of insults enough his reactions are no longer 'amusing' enough.)
(There's no winning this game.)
But not this time.
Instead, the bio-android sighs right as they pass over the shore of the Yevon Ocean, in that faux empathy of his.
It's not an emotion he often affects - no matter how susceptible Gohan can be to his taunting, they both know the boy is not stupid, and Cell doesn't much like to lie anyways - but it comes by every now and then when he wants to experiment.
'A year in space for your dad and about twenty seconds on the battlefield for you, was it ?' - he ponders as if he doesn't know precisely how long it's been since Gohan 'ascended' down to the minute just as well as the boy does, and isn't too familiar with nearly all of the whereabouts of Son Goku bar two outer space excursions thanks to Gero's stalking - 'And no one to check on you afterwards at all.'
"And ?", is the one terse word that Gohan lets out as he spots the cliff chain he's been aiming for in the distance.
'And, it's a wonder you haven't exploded your backwater little house yet, isn't it !'
"I'm handling it."
Gohan doesn't land right on the highest point of the cliff chain. Instead, he slows down to disappear into some dense forest near the shore battered by the ocean, and starts a voluntarily slow trek uphill. There's about an hour or so until nightfall, it's no use to rush just now, when he'll just wait up there for the sun to sink behind the horizon anyways.
Either way, Cell wouldn't shut up, and hiking is a little more distracting than sitting would be.
'Are you ? What's your record again, six days without running into the mountains to blow off some supernova steam, or was it five ?'
It was seven, as a matter of fact, not that Gohan is proud of that fact.
He's pretty well-versed on controlling his everyday strength, thanks to the time his father and he had spent making Super Saiyan into their new normal back in that day-year of training, and it had surprisingly not been that difficult to adjust to the jump in base physical strength that his 'ascension' had brought. Gohan and his whole extended family have always been a little stronger than most earthlings anyways, even when he himself had just been a toddler before his first rage black out, adjusting to it is routine for him.
But the flashes of more that threaten to overwhelm him every other day ? The glimpses of golden hair just a little too light that cover his growing black hair ? The burgundy of his eyes that go cold sharp teal ?
That's harder to keep a hold on.
(So he's been going out when he can't smother it down before it builds up too far - he's been carving out an entire new chasm on the other side of the Paozu chain, when he has enough time to get there, instead of pushing all of that ki inside of him like one would curl up over a grenade - he's been doing all he can to use up all of that energy spilling over the cracked vessel in his chest before it starts to leak out where it shouldn't.)
(And he hasn't told anyone. Because his mother had been busy with the funeral and the farm and the kingdom and the pregnancy and the baby, because Piccolo has only been back once and he'd reprimanded him for his lack of control a few months back, because Goten is the most wonderful baby who likely wouldn't have an answer anyways. Because it's his problem to deal with.)
(And, well, because he had others things he wanted to keep for himself too.)
Cell knows all of that, of course, in such excruciating details it's almost obscene. Knows of the lack of control that persisted long after their fight, when the first signs of it had been his slipping up into the cruel cold apathy of overpowered-overstimulated-overpressured, and knows that Gohan has only gone from destroying everything around him to injuring himself instead. Knows that he hasn't had the space, the time, the help he maybe needs.
And how he delights in it under that empathetic guise he wears like a fairytale hag's coat over his sadistic smile.
Especially now that he can no longer be the target of Gohan's strength anymore.
'Really, think about it, kiddo. He went and spent a year up in space with these peaceful warriors learning to control his rage - and he got bonuses out of it, all that teleportation business, that doesn't have much to do with your Saiyan power-ups. And you - oh yes, he helped you control that first new hairdo back in your cheat chamber, how nice. But afterwards ?'
Afterwards, they'd come out of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, with Gohan so sure that his dad would be able to beat anyone that would ever come their way.
Even the being that had impossibly come to haunt his dreams when he'd never seen his third form before, likely an unconscious transfer from Dendé's thoughts back towards him, that strange unnatural creature that had seemed so much worse than anything else they'd ever confronted even in that glimpse of nightmare.
Afterwards, there had been ten days spent at home and in the forest and watching the enemy, and then there had been the Games.
'You got to come into your power just like Daddy did back in space, right there on the battlefield, so poetic !'
"And ?", Gohan answers again, and it's probably a mistake, but he wants this over with already.
What he wants is irrelevant, of course, but it's worth a try. He can't shut out the android just now - the sharp increase in ki use floating in the air might clue some of the proficient ki users of the planet into his current whereabouts, and he doesn't want to deal with the additional headache once he's at the top of the cliff anyways - but ignoring him has never worked either. Indulging him might be the lesser of two evils.
Of two very very very close evils.
(So close both might even be right there in his head.)
(Ah. Dendé would like that one. Maybe Gohan will tell him one day.)
Cell laughs, though not to Gohan's mental joke, the sound echoing between his ears.
'And, well, your little friends all saw exactly what you did with all of that power. All of the ugliness you hide in that little head of yours. Is it any wonder they stopped coming around ?'
Is it ? Gohan thinks back to the horror of Namek, and the moment where his father had ascended, and who else might have seen those first instants of the legend coming to life. Krillin had been dead - had been the catalyst of the whole thing too - Piccolo had been unconscious after taking that hit meant for his father, Bulma had been on the other side of the planet fighting for her own life… And there had been no one else there with them.
Had Gohan really been the only witness to the familiar yet foreign man his father had become that day ?
Had no one else known what being a Super Saiyan had first meant for a man as good and kind and controlled as Goku ?
Had everyone else thought that the rage had all just been Gohan's fault ?
(And would they have been wrong to assume that ?)
(Angry, furious, enraged little Gohan.)
(Unstoppable, unbeatable, uncontrollable-)
"Because I'm an 'angry monster brat' ?"
'Because they're afraid.'
And Cell hits where it hurts. He always does. He probably always will too.
Knowing it doesn't help much.
Gohan knows he has made people afraid before. Garlic Jr. and his henchmen, Raditz, Piccolo, that awful tutor, Freezer for a split second… Sometimes, few enough he can count them on one hand, he's even done it on purpose.
(Cell had deserved to feel fear, to see his smile replaced by a rictus, to know what all of his victims had felt-)
(But he never, ever, ever wants to be what terrifies the ones he loves.)
Is this how his father had felt, he wonders, when he'd landed on that far-off planet right after Namek ? Rage triggering unfathomable power against his will, remembering his own son staring back at him with too-wide eyes, knowing even the universe-sized tyrant had started to fear him… Had he been worried he would find that same fear in his wife's eyes if he came back before he got it all under control ?
Or had he just found something new to learn, gotten so absorbed in a technique he'd never seen before, his thirst for more keeping him in the stars for just a little while longer until Freezer had pinged in on his radar and attracted him back to Earth ?
Had it been a little bit of both ?
(And this time, when he'd refused to come back, what had been the reason ?)
(To nip new threats in the bud by taking himself out of the equation ?)
(Killing new joys in the cradle with the same decision ?)
Did it really matter ?
"They're not like you."
If Gohan's plan worked, then his father would be back, and their family would be complete again.
'Oh ?'
His mother would stop crying every other night when she thought he couldn't hear her - their friends would come back to celebrate with them - Earth would have its real defender standing again.
"They're not the type to be afraid of some 'brat' who can punch real hard. Coward."
Goten would have a father.
'Oh, how I'll enjoy to see you fall, lying little monster.'
Everything would be right again.
Gohan reaches the very top of the cliff chain as the sun fully dips behind the horizon, and by the time he's settled on his heels and laid out the small velvet square of fabric down over the rocky ground, the sky is already nearly completely dark. He does it in blissful silence too, and enjoys it as much as he always can, sure it won't last long.
He's found the Dragon Balls in time for the small window of the New Moon, when the light being all but snuffed out by the Dragon's presence should be least noticeable by most of the world, and buy him some time to hide from the people who would notice either way.
He's planned it out as carefully as he could over the last month, and it's all come to this moment, alone on a cliff on the other side of the world from his home.
All that's left is to call.
Gohan is quiet as he watches the artifacts glow that warm soft light in front of him, like only the gentlest of fires is contained within, and not an entity with power over both life and death and more.
How many times have these small orbs nearly caused the end of the world ?
How many times have they fixed it after the massacre anyways ?
How many times can their lot still be saved ?
(One more time, Gohan quietly prays, one more time at least.)
(One more miracle.)
(One more life.)
Cell is quiet too in his head, even if he feels the weight of his presence in his head, always watching. Gohan ignores him best as he can, all of his focus down to the Dragon Balls, and the wish that threatens to burst out of his mouth like a sob any moment now. He knows the words.
"Hear my call, Eternal Dragon Shenron," he enunciates low as clear, "and grant my wish."
The warm fire glow of the Dragon Balls turns bright as a star right in front of his eyes. Gohan doesn't blink. He looks up instead, following the serpentine ribbon of light that climbs up into the sky, and soon coalesces into the familiar scales of the Eternal Dragon. His rings surrounding the world, his strange power both like and unlike ki sipping into the atmosphere, his red pupil-less eyes as wide as the boy is tall zeroing in on his summoner immediately.
"Young warrior - what brings you to call upon me ?"
Gohan bows his head low, raised to be polite first and foremost, before he answers Shenron.
"Shenron, I'm sorry for calling you so soon after your last rest, but. There is a wish I need to make."
The dragon's eyes never leave the boy, but his head tilts slightly to the side, almost curious.
"One wish - only one, for I was awakened too early - I'll grant."
Gohan inhales. Holds his breath. Exhales slow.
The words rush out of his mouth.
"I wish-"
It's a simple wish. Shenron, before Dendé, couldn't have granted it. But Gohan knows better.
"I wish for Son Goku to be brought back to us-"
Now, the Eternal Dragon is so much more powerful, and there's so much waiting for Goku back home.
"-to his family, his friends, his youngest son."
This time, it will work, without a doubt.
"I wish… I wish for my father back."
It has to work.
And he can feel Shenron's power all around him, can taste it in the very air, can hear the way even sound distorts around his presence. And he knows, he knows, he knows that it's only his father's refusal last time that kept the wish from coming true. And he's so sure that this time, Son Goku will hear him, and know how much they need him back.
They need him. They love him. They miss him.
His mother doesn't deserve to be a widow. His brother doesn't deserve to be an orphan. No one deserves to pay for Gohan's mistakes but him.
And his father will understand.
Gohan is so very sure.
"I'm sorry, young warrior, but…"
But Gohan is wrong.
Goku does not come back.
Shenron is powerless.
And Cell laughs.
“Congratulations, brat ! You did what no one else has managed to before,' he smiles in Gohan's head, all of those sharp teeth on display, his eyes colder than death itself, 'You killed Son Goku… and you got it to stick.”
(Afterwards, when Gohan makes another desperate wish, in the trails of his failure…)
(That, too, is refused to him.)
("Please, please, Shenron, please at least take him out of my head, please-")
(And Shenron seems to shift back just a little, and his iris-less eyes narrow not on Gohan but on something just a little above his head, and the great dragon in the sky seems to curl in on itself to descend closer to the boy - and when he speaks, his voice is a whisper, and it doesn't make his words any easier to hear.)
("Oh, young warrior, I'm sorry but… So deep in your soul… This is something none of us can do.")
Gohan vanishes into the wild for a full week afterwards.