Homeward Bound

Author's Note: Here's the last part to Homeward Bound, but not the last of the series. This epilogue also explains why this fanfic is named the way it is.

Epilogue: There's No Place Like Home

Gohan sat at his desk writing in his journal for school, remembering all of what happened only five short weeks ago. His eighth birthday had come and gone and Colby had moved away. The day his father had moved back into the house to try and repair his marriage gave him mixed feelings. He knew that he was only trying for his sake and that made him feel guilty. His father should be with the one he really loved instead of stuck in Satan City with his first family.

Colby called him often to tell him some news or just to say hello. His aunt had taken him in, far away from his parents, but her home was in northern capital. The collect calls were often expensive but neither ChiChi nor Goku minded paying.

"Are you finished with your homework, Gohan?" Goku called from the living room. "We're ready to leave for the mall!"

"Just a minute tousan!" He tapped the pencil against his cheek and then wrote something more.

I know my tousan misses Vegeta more than anything in the world. They talk to each other on the phone every night, my kaasan completely unaware, and more than once I've heard him crying. Why does he stay with us? I know about the Bond, I had Vegeta explain it to me last week, and I share something like it with Colby though he has no Saiya-jin blood. There is a constant, daily ache in my heart that I know comes from Colby's absence by my side. Both tousan and Vegeta are fully Saiya-jin, how can they stand being apart? I'm going to tell tousan later today that he can go back to Tokyo whenever he wants. There's no sense in both of us being miserable.

I hear tousan and kaasan discussing whether or not they need to send me to a therapist when they think I'm not listening. Kaasan thinks that I spent too much time by myself moping while tousan says that nothing is wrong with me. I know that one day she'll make me discuss my feelings with a stranger, kaasan usually gets her way majority of the time.

Videl's stopped ignoring me when we pass each other on the street or in school and she's started to talk to me again. I liked the games she used to come up with when we were younger, hopefully she'll let me play with her despite kaasan glaring at her from the living room window. She used to do that every time I jumped rope or played hopscotch with her, I bet she's afraid that I'll grow up to be gay. You know what? I never thought that kaasan was a homophobe before but I bet that she is. I wonder what'll happen when she finds out about tousan and Vegeta.

Gohan closed his notebook and pushed his chair back. Family time was something that his parents were trying out. Both had this theory that if they all spent more time together as a family then there wouldn't be another truly messy divorce. They weren't remarried yet but his mother was working on it.

The phone rang and Gohan picked up before the first ring had even completed. "Son residence."

"Gohan? Can I speak to your father? It's important."

Vegeta didn't sound too good and that made him worry. Did something bad happen to him? "Sure, just a minute. Tousan! Tele-" Before the word was even completed, his father had picked up the other end. Curious to what the call was about, Gohan didn't replace the receiver and instead listened in.

"I need some help. Lots and lots of help." There was a noise in the background and Vegeta exhaled.

"What's wrong, koi? Did they try to evict you again?"

"Your friend Bulma gave me a little present, that's all." A wail came over the line and both of Gohan's eyebrows rose. That almost sounded like a-

"She gave you a baby?!" Goku asked in shocked tone of voice. "Why in the world would she do something like that? I didn't even know that you knew her!"

"He was just lying by the front door of my apartment in a basket when I came home from work today. There was a baby bag sitting next to him along with a note." He cleared his throat a little nervously, not sure of the reaction. "His name is Trunks and it seems that he's my son."

There was absolute silence over the line for several seconds and Gohan thought that his father had hung up at first.

"N-n-nani? Did you say that she dropped off your son?!"

"Hai, permanently. She had a copy of the legal papers in the basket. Bulma's given me custody. You've got to help me, koi! I don't know a damn thing about taking care of a kid!"

"I'll be over as soon as I can, Vegeta. Gohan, since you've been listening the entire time-" Gohan gulped audibly, thinking that he was in trouble. "-how would you like to go see Trunks today?"

He smiled. "Can I really? Won't kaasan be mad that our "family fun time" got cancelled?"

"You just leave your kaasan to me."

Gohan hung up his extension already knowing what his father was going to say. Some unknown until recently relative is going to be deathly ill and Goku's going to take Gohan to see him or her before they kicked the bucket. Every time they went with Vegeta someplace he used that or a similar excuse. His mother had to know that something wasn't quite right but she never questioned it.

For however long it lasts, whether it's only two months or two years, Gohan will always think back to this time and remember that he, once again, had been home.

~Owari~

Coming up next is a one-part story about Vegeta and Goku traveling to Saiya at the king's summons. After that is volume two which will probably be entitled "Fractured Souls". It takes place six years after this one. Reviews fuel my writing so keep 'em coming!