Homeward Bound

Chapter 6: Shattered Dreams

The sun's weak morning light filtered through the brilliant green leaves of the plants around them, successfully waking Vegeta from a light slumber. He stretched slightly and just looked at his companion for a moment before waking him for the day.

Vegeta had never really noticed how different someone could be from himself. There were things that were similar between them like the passion for fighting and the quick thinking, but he was sure that was where they ended. Besides, he was a Saiya-jin and Goku was ningen. They couldn't have much in common.

Despite how often he continued to tell himself that they were not compatible there was something that kept binding them together. Some people would say that it was fate, while still others would consider it chance. Vegeta was one of the latter ones; nothing dictated what would happen in his life, he was in complete control of his destiny.

Goku stirred slightly and began to make the upward climb through the thick layers of slumber. It was only just past dawn by the glow-in-the-dark numbers on Vegeta's watch, but he felt that there was no hurry to get going. The other man should get all of the sleep he could while there was still time.

'Stop lying to yourself,' a small voice deep down inside scolded. 'You know that you just want to watch him sleep. Why is admitting the truth so hard?'

He spoke crossly to it, more than a little irritated because he had, indeed, been hearing the truth. 'I need no one in my life. It's better to be alone.'

'Keep telling yourself that.' Now the voice was gentle. 'You may believe it one day.'

"Shut up!" he said aloud accidentally, startling Goku into full wakefulness. He sat straight up, groping for a weapon that wasn't there.

"Wha? What's going on? Is there someone attacking us?"

"Iie," he sighed. "You can go back to sleep. It's only seven."

Goku took one look at his face and shook his head. "Something's obviously bothering you so spill it. Keeping it all inside isn't good, Vegeta."

He looked into his warm eyes and found himself saying things he thought Enma-sama himself couldn't pry from him. "I look at you and I feel something, some kind of emotion I never felt before. I'm usually only angry, tired, or neutral but this is more powerful. This is something I can't control. It... frightens me."

"You hate to lose control," he said in mutual understanding. "You could always count on yourself when everything and everyone around you had failed. If you lose your control then you lose yourself."

His eyes widened and a look of wonderment came upon his face. "Exactly! I've never met anyone who understood that so well. I usually get called a control freak."

"Well," he smiled. "You *are* a control freak, but there's nothing wrong with that." He paused and said in a softer voice, "You are right about the emotion, Vegeta, but I can put a name to it."

"Oh?"

He nodded once. "Hai, it's love."

Vegeta's world froze for one long moment and all he could hear above the dead silence in his mind was the beating of his heart and another. The thumps grew louder and louder until they filled his ears with deafening noise. Just when he thought that his heart could take anymore the thumps ceased and he was left in peaceful silence.

"Vegeta, are you alright? You have the strangest look on your face." Goku laid a steadying hand on his shoulder and gazed at him in concern.

"D-did you just say that it's love?" The last word ended so high up on the scale that it was a mere squeak.

He nodded, completely relaxed. "Is something wrong?"

"Uh, iie. N-nothing's wrong." He bit his lip slightly and turned away. Everything was becoming a little bit too much for him. He looked into Goku's eyes and said in a weak voice, "I'm confused."

"Love is a confusing emotion, Vegeta, but we have time to talk about it later. Right now we need to perform a rescue." Acting on impulse, Goku bent down and quickly kissed the other man full on the mouth. "For good luck."

"Luck..." He said dazedly while bringing one hand up to touch his lips. "Yeah, good luck to you, too."

No one was around as they carefully moved between the trees searching for some small thing above ground that would enable them to enter Cyrus' hidden hideout undetected. Goku helped Vegeta by pointing to various things, but all were discounted when the small device in Vegeta's hands showed that there was no metal in the immediate vicinity.

There was a fairly large tree stump, about six or so feet away from the two men's current position, that set the green lines on the nearly-invisible grid that made up the viewing area of his detector rise into higher levels than before. Vegeta crouched next to it and rapped with his knuckles discovering that the stump was indeed hollow. The two of them worked quickly, running careful fingers along the outer wood to find some sort of hidden catch and, after hearing the soft sound of it releasing, the lid was slid away.

"There are small holes in this wood so that air can filter through," Vegeta whispered as he looked down into the darkness. Steel lined the inner section of the tree so that they both knew that it was their ticket inside. He attached a cord onto the lip of the hollow stump, tugging to make sure that it was secure, and motioned for his companion to climb down first. He was going to replace the lid so that nothing seemed the least bit out of place.

Goku's weight held the cord steady as Vegeta slowly climbed down to join him, a small flashlight glowing at his belt. For ten minutes they descended, each hoping that they would reach the bottom soon. By the small beam of light that Vegeta's flashlight produced, Goku saw the floor as a distant metallic gleam. Judging the remaining distance as only three or so feet, he let go of the cord and let gravity carry him down the rest of the way. He braced himself for the impact and was startled when it didn't come when it should have. Instead he dropped an additional three more feet and gritted his teeth as his heavy booted feet impacted with the floor with a dull thud that made a bone-jarring jolt run up both his legs to end at the base of his spine. He must have made some sort of pained sound because Vegeta quickly climbed the rest of the way down and turned concerned eyes toward him.

"Are you alright?" he asked, quickly checking him over with his hands to see if there was any major damage.

Goku sighed. 'I'm too old for this stuff.' "My inexperience judged the distance to the floor wrong. So instead of only falling three feet, I fell six."

"Ow," he winced, rubbing the other man's lower back. "Do you need to rest here for a minute? We have plenty of time until everyone wakes up."

"Iie, we can't if we want to get in and out with the minimum amount of casualties." He pulled out his gun and removed the safety as Vegeta removed his backpack and let most of his equipment rest where it was. In the middle of a chase the total weight of the things you were carrying on you could be the deciding factor. "Let's do it."

The two of them crawled along the ventilation duct, peeking through the steel grating into the rooms beyond. It was only seven-fifteen, still enough time to free the children before Cyrus began his day. The long hallway was deserted as the two of them silently walked down it, but the sounds of footsteps soon made themselves known to the men. A side hallway enabled a quick way to get out of sight and they saw the lone guard pass them on his patrol. Vegeta yanked him off to the side and pressed the cold muzzle of his silenced pistol against the man's forehead and made sure that he saw the empty look in his eyes.

"Where do you keep the prisoners?" Goku asked in his most pleasant voice. He had decided while still above ground that he would use kindness before threats. You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar as the old saying goes.

The guards voice was heavily accented almost to the point of misunderstanding. "I will not tell you. Nothing either of you do to me could ever rival what the Master would do to me if I tell you where the children are."

Vegeta's voice, when he spoke, was quiet and devoid of all emotion. "What if I told you that your master isn't half as scary as I am?"

"You lie," he said while staring into his eyes. Something there made him pale and he rose one shaking hand towards the direction he had come from. "T-that way. They are there."

"Arigatou," he said with a wide smile. His finger pulled the trigger in one quick moment and he dropped the guard's dead body onto the floor. "You've been a big help."

"Ve-ge-ta," Goku drew the syllables of his name out in disapproval as they went off down the hallway.

"I clearly said above ground that I would *try* to minimize the casualties. You can't actual believe that if we had let him go he wouldn't have run straight to Cyrus."

"Iie, he would have run straight to Cyrus," Goku said as he covered a sleepy guard's mouth with his hand. "But you could have also just knocked him unconscious." He then proceeded to slam his head against the wall and the short man fell to the floor in an undignified heap. "Like that."

Vegeta nodded. "Next time I'll see what I can do."

They moved on down the narrow side hall towards their first mission objective.

***

The previous day had left both Colby and Gohan mentally drained. Cyrus was a fast learner but even he couldn't learn at the pace he needed the understand the literature on the dragonballs. Gohan lay in the darkness of early morning feeling that maybe, just maybe, his situation was completely hopeless. 'If it is, all I can say is shigata ga nai -- there is no help for it.'

Based on Gohan's calculations, breakfast came everyday at approximately seven-thirty while he and Colby woke at about ten to fifteen minutes before. The pale yellow beam of a flashlight swept down the cell-lined hallway, passing over the frightened children as they sat inside.

"Gohan?" Colby whispered into the darkness. "Do you hear that? Someone's coming!"

The other boy listened closely for a moment and heard the soft footfalls making their way towards them. In fact, there were two sets. He sat up and quickly made his way to the steel bars. Something told him that everything was about to change.

"Those people coming aren't guards," he said very quietly to his friend. "They're walking too softly." He blinked as a beam of light hit his eyes and almost didn't believe what he saw after they had cleared.

"Gohan!" Goku exclaimed as he unlocked the cell door and pulled him into a tight hug. "Thank Kami I've found you."

He was stunned beyond belief, wide dark eyes just staring at his father. "T-tousan?" his mouth moved but no sound came out as if saying the words aloud would make his him disappear.

"I'm here Gohan," he said, still holding him tightly. "and Cyrus is going to pay for what he's done to you."

"Iie! You can't hurt him!" Gohan pulled away and looked up. "He doesn't really know what he's doing!"

Colby nodded as he stepped into the light. "He's right, Cyrus is a netball."

Saying nothing else, Goku pressed the ring of keys into his son's hand. The two boys immediately went off down the hall to free the other prisoners while the two men stood guard at the end of the hallway. The still-sleepy children walked slowly down the stone hall, rubbing at their eyes and almost not believing that they were being set free. Some did not speak the language of the land and had to be told by bilingual peers what exactly was going on. Giant smiles spread across all the children's' faces and Goku knew that rescuing them had been the right thing to do.

"Gohan, you take the other children to the elevator while we go and confront Cyrus," he motioned to Vegeta. "We'll be along in a little while."

He shook his head stubbornly and passed the keys to Colby to finish the job. "Iie. I refuse. Cyrus isn't evil, just a little disturbed. How can I give up on him knowing that he can change?"

"We don't have time for this," Vegeta muttered as he looked around. "I'm surprised it was allowed to go on for this long."

The boy nodded and fixed his father with a pleading look. "Promise me that you won't hurt him, Tousan. You've always taught me not to turn my back on those that need me. Are you going to turn your back on him now?"

Goku was a little annoyed that his own lesson had gotten thrown back into his face but he also knew that his son was right. Despite his kidnapping of children and murdering of innocents, Gohan must have seen something inside of Cyrus in the short time they had spent time together. It wouldn't be right for him to pass judgment on a man he didn't even know. Let Enma-sama take care of it. "I promise, Gohan-chan. Now please take the other children and leave this place. Cyrus will not be harmed."

"Domo arigatou," he bowed respectfully and led the others down the short hallway to freedom.

"What do we do, now?" Vegeta asked as his finger twitched slightly on the trigger guard. In the very short time he had listened to him, he could tell that Gohan was a very special little boy. Anyone who would kidnap him deserved to be killed in Vegeta's book. He was very close to outright begging Goku to allow him to dispatch Cyrus to the afterlife. It would be a fitting end to his sinful life.

"We talk to Master Cyrus," Goku said the title in a mocking tone of voice. "Then we get the hell out of here. I want to be back in Western Capital by tomorrow so that I can legally take custody of my son. ChiChi shouldn't have anything to do with his life."

"Goku, you're doing the same thing your ex-wife did. You could at least give her visitation rights. By doing so you're proving that you're a better person than she is."

He smiled at him. "Ah, you're right! Good idea, I think I'll do that."

Mission objective number two took precedence over Goku's revenge on ChiChi and they found Gohan standing before the door that obviously was Cyrus'.

"I can't leave without you. So I'm just going to have to go inside with you."

"But-" Goku immediately began to protest before Vegeta held up his hand to halt his words. The P. I. had a feeling he knew why Gohan didn't want to leave his father, he was afraid that if he let him out of his sight that he was going to disappear.

"You can come with us," Vegeta said. "I'm Vegeta by the way."

The boy smiled brightly and shook his hand. "Nice to meet you, Vegeta." He lowered his voice. "You love my tousan, don't you?"

He just stared at him for a moment before finally sputtering, "W-w-what did you just say?"

"It's in your eyes when you look at him, it's in your voice when you speak to him. You've fallen pretty hard."

He blushed slightly. "Um, I guess so. I don't really have anything to compare this to."

"He loves you too, Vegeta." His expression suddenly changed to once of fierce protection. "If you hurt him I'll hunt you down and castrate you with a dull butter knife."

Taken more than a little aback, he nodded and prayed to Kami that the little boy was just kidding. "I'll never hurt Goku. He doesn't deserve anything less than the best."

Gohan nodded and opened the door to Cyrus' bedroom. "I'm glad we've reached an understanding."

***

The large, king-sized bed only contained one slender body in the center. Cyrus was fast asleep with one arm flung over his eyes, loud snores filling the air. Goku and Vegeta hung back by the door while Gohan went over to wake the man up.

"Hey," he said softly while kneeling on the bed. "We need to speak with you."

Cyrus opened one eye, half hoping that it was Colby who was calling his name, and caught sight of Gohan's face above him. "Aw, it's you. What the hell do you want, kid?"

"It's what the hell *we* want," Vegeta answered for him, one hand placed lightly on the gun at his side. "And what we want is to talk to you."

Cyrus was immediately on his feet, Gohan scrambling to move out of his way. "Who are you? Is the damn security so bad that you two guys got in undetected?!"

The two men hovered on either side of the agitated Cyrus as Gohan looked on in silence. "I'm Gohan's father, Goku," he said. "This is Vegeta, private investigator and part-time bounty hunter."

His shoulders slumped in defeat. "You're going to turn me into the cops for the bounty, aren't you? Well, I've accepted the consequences of my actions a long time ago. I'm ready."

"I'm not takin' you anywhere," he spoke in his best urban accent. "What does a nutty mental patient like you get in prison? Screwed. Literally."

He blanched. "Oh my God."

"We're cutting you a deal," Gohan interrupted, not wanting the P. I. to frighten the man any more than he had to be. "If you disband your people they we'll allow you to go completely free. No prison time, no rape."

"That's all I have to do? Really?" He thought it was too good to be true -- and a little too simple. After the boy nodded he hit a button on a small intercom by his bedside that Gohan hadn't ever noticed before. "Aldrick, gather everyone in the dining hall. I've got an announcement to make."

"Hai, sir," was the response

Cyrus sighed and collapsed onto his bed, deep in thought. After a moment he raised his head and looked at the small group. "It's really over. Two men and a little boy come into my bedroom, demand that I give up everything I've ever worked hard for and I give in just like that."

Goku shrugged, firm with his belief that he had deserved it. "You just had the right motivation but if your group hasn't disbanded in one week then we're coming back and sparing no mercy. You got that?"

He nodded, fingers shifting slightly to rest near the hidden hilts of his knives. Vegeta saw the tiny movement and pointed his gun at his hand. "If you don't stop that right now you're going to be one body part lighter."

"He means it, Cyrus. I can tell." Gohan used his eyes to plead with him and the man's hands dropped down to rest at his sides. After looking at him for several moments longer, he turned and went through the door without another word. Goku and Vegeta followed, the latter keeping his eyes on him, leaving Cyrus alone in silence to think about his fate.