Scars - Chapter 31

Videl put her students through a rigorous session of training, and most of them were not having fun anymore by the time she was finished. She sighed and firmly told her class that they were well on their way to becoming as strong as her father, who was, of course (rolls eyes) the strongest man in the world. This cheered them marginally, but the ten boys and girls were very glad when she finally dismissed them for the day.

The black-haired young woman watched the poor hurting group flee her presence with a scowl on her face. Gohan, Gohan, Gohan.... the word trekked a track in her thoughts - worry over him, frustration at his silly conduct - he was making her nuts. She'd barely slept a wink, and moreover, she'd spent all that time awake wondering if he was ok, and being jealous that some random guy had whisked him wordlessly away from her before he could explain why he'd been so screwed up the night before.

Well, that was just about enough of that. Her best friend had no reason to freak out and run away from her like he had, and she was going to go and get the truth straight from the horse's mouth if she had to beat it out of said horse with her newly learned Kamehameha move.

Videl pulled a sweat towel over her shoulders and mopped her damp forehead with the end of it, exiting the training room to her personal shower and change area. She cleaned up and changed into a pair of black sweat pants and a comfortable red t-shirt. She put on some socks and sneakers, and a pair of black sweatbands on her wrists. Deeming herself presentable, she ran her fingers thoughtlessly through her short black hair and made sure there was nobody around to see her as she went to the roof of the building and took to the sky.

Videl landed in the long grass that comprised the Son's front lawn a little while later. She was drawn curiously closer to the house when she discovered that the front door was wide open, and as she drew nearer she could hear ChiChi talking to herself in a small voice. Peering into the door presented Videl with a totally foreign image: ChiChi was scooping huge amounts of food into the garbage. Something was wrong... Oh something was very, very wrong indeed. It had to be. The Son family did not throw food away, ever, not for any reason, under any circumstance.

A quick search of ki showed that Gohan and Goten were not too far away, and that Goku was not in her range. Videl's abilities to work with energy didn't extend all the way around the world like Gohan's or Goku's - she could only feel energies within several hundred miles of her position at any particular time. Videl knocked on the open door, clearing her throat.

"Hey ChiChi.... is everything ok?"

ChiChi looked up, ostensibly startled from her thoughts. She straightened with what was evident stiffness, and bit her lip, trying to smile for her guest. Videl came into the little kitchen and took the pot out of ChiChi's hands, setting it on the counter top. She looked the woman over, and caught the tremor in her fingertips and the blood smeared on her cheek out of the corner of her eye. She moved forwards and wrapped ChiChi in a rare hug.

Videl wasn't sure if this would be a good action or a bad one, but it seemed profoundly necessary at the moment. ChiChi stiffened further, then collapsed against Videl and let silent tears run down her cheeks, her eyes squeezed tightly shut. She bit her lips to try and keep from sobbing, not because she was the sort of woman who didn't cry - this is ChiChi we're talking about here - but because she was the sort of woman who thought it uncomfortable to talk openly about family problems. She preferred to bury them, climb on top, and wait for something to hatch out of the mess below.

Videl held ChiChi tightly and stroked her back. She could see that ChiChi was somehow hurt, her movements were stiff and seemed to cause her quite a measure of pain. She led ChiChi out of the kitchen and into the living room, where she guided the woman into a chair. ChiChi sat, but only very gingerly, and she leaned heavily on Videl, even after she got herself under veritable control and accepted some tissues to pat her face dry with.

Videl put her arm around ChiChi's shivering shoulders and pulled the pin from her hair, letting it down so she could stroke it for the poor woman. She'd never noticed the streaks of grey at her temples before... or perhaps she had, but they hadn't really registered. She wondered at ChiChi's real age; 45 maybe? It was hard to tell. Since Goku looked much younger than he really was, Videl was guessing based mostly on Gohan and Goten's ages.

"ChiChi what happened to you?" Videl asked carefully, looking into the woman's face, seeing lines etched softly into her pale flesh and again wondering at her age.

ChiChi shook her head, putting her face in her hands and rubbing it thoroughly. Her hands were calloused, her knuckles bony from working forever and ever and never taking a day at the spa to relax. She put her hands back in her lap and smiled distantly.

"Videl I'm alright honey, sometimes things just get a little out of hand around here. You don't need to worry about it,"

"Oh ChiChi don't give me that, you're not perfectly alright, you're shaking like a leaf."

"There isn't anything you can do."

"I can listen..."

"Videl...."

"Please ChiChi, yield to me just a little... tell me what happened that's got you like this."

"Its j-just.... just Goku... .... ..." ChiChi bit her lip hard, looking at the doorway, where sunlight crept smoothly into the kitchen and painted the floor the colour of dandelions and daffodils. "You won't understand Videl... its because he's not human I think. S-sometimes he... gets like that.... only once in awhile.... its really isn't his fault."

"Did he hurt you ChiChi?" Videl was playing back to the night before, to Gohan's creepy countenance trying to power down, to the guilty look on his face afterward, when he'd regained his control over himself. Videl scowled helplessly, her fingers curling into a fist as she too stared into the sunlight in the next room. ChiChi didn't seem to be able to answer her. She was shaking her head and grabbing up a fresh tissue to blow her nose into.

"It isn't his fault Videl... I'm not as strong as I used to be... he... he was just a little bit rough. He's going away for a little while I think.... he'll come back and things will be ok again, and he will be sweet and gentle and very, very sorry for it. If you could just help me to the bathroom... run me a bath. A warm bath... and get some fresh clothes for me, and I'll finish cleaning up in the kitchen, and everything will be fine. I've got to find out how Gohan's eye exam went... I need to start lunch over again, I should do some groceries, and teach Gohan to cook like I was going to.... He's going to be moving out soon.... I think its time he had a place to himself, to learn to take care of himself, by himself. My little boy..." ChiChi shivered with a miserable look on her face, her long black hair sticking to her cheeks where it was wet from her tears. Videl brushed it out of her face and smiled very sadly at ChiChi, feeling that there was a great injustice here, and also knowing that there was very little that she could do to change it. Even if she did do something, it was highly unlikely that anything would change. It seemed that ChiChi didn't want anything to change.

Videl picked ChiChi up damsel in distress style, glad for Gohan's teachings, because she was very strong now, and it was easy to pick up the thin creature that was Son ChiChi and carry her up the stairs to the bathroom. Videl let ChiChi sit on the toilet. She plugged the tub and began to run a warm bath for her. She pulled the pink robe from the back of the door and helped ChiChi undress part of the way. She wrapped the robe around the woman's small shoulders and left the room to get her some clothes from the master bedroom.

While Videl was getting fresh clothing, ChiChi changed out of the rest of her clothes and wrapped the robe around herself, feeling very scared when she saw a small bit of blood between her legs. That hadn't happened before... well not from sex, anyhow. She felt so confused... She knew Goku loved her deeply. She knew it completely, so that she didn't doubt it in the slightest. But there was a part of him which was completely incompatible with humans, too, and she was scared of that part of him. In the years since he had returned from the dead Goku had been a sweet and gentle creature, he had been an especially loving husband and father, he had been around much more than before he'd died... in essence he was perfect. Except for the times when he would get like this, and go away for awhile. Last time he'd gone for about a week. The time before that it was a month or so... it depended on how long he needed. When she asked him about it, he had a hard time talking about it. That wasn't unusual, Goku was not too strong in the articulation department. But she could see in is mind's eye that he went to spend some time living in the roughest parts of the world, that he refused food and sleep and was an utterly violent animal to any and all who encountered him. As if he saved up the scary inhuman qualities in himself and let them out all at once. It always ended the same way. He always grew weak from hunger and eventually passed out somewhere. By various circumstances, he would come back to his family, and little would be said of it.

Goten's emphatic sense helped ChiChi understand a little bit what was going on inside her husband, and her mental connection to him helped as well. ChiChi only hoped that Gohan would somehow not find out exactly what happened... she feared that at this point, her son would really hurt his father. Based on how they acted towards one another lately....well... she wouldn't put it past him.

Videl came back into the room with fresh clothing for ChiChi. She set the clothes on the counter and retrieved a pair of fluffy terrycloth towels from the linen closet, and a face cloth. She tossed the face cloth into the warm water and turned the taps off, testing the temperature of the water with her fingertips and deeming it pleasantly warm. She looked to ChiChi, who was obviously lost in thought.

"Alright ChiChi, you can climb in, I'm gonna close the door over and stick around for awhile. I know you're a grown woman, but just the same I really don't think you should be alone right now, so don't be too upset if I come ask how you're doing in awhile, ok? And as much as this is your house, I'm going to go downstairs and clean up and start some lunch. I'm not the best cook, but I can make soup and sandwiches for Gohan and Goten and you and I. I'm gonna go ahead and guess that Goku won't be joining us for lunch today.... just relax and try to enjoy your bath, alright? Just one more question ChiChi.... do you think you need to see a doctor.... I mean... are you physically hurt... bleeding or anything?"

ChiChi frowned. "I think I'm alright Videl... I can take care of myself... thanks for all your help. You can go now."

Videl gave the long-haired woman another look, nodding finally and heading out of the room to finish what ChiChi had started downstairs.