"Hello Gine."

The young woman looked up to smile at the elderly man standing over her. The human man from the planet Earth was her only companion in this place called Heaven.

This was supposed to be her reward. The blue creature with the horns and a clipboard had explained to her that she had been good during her life in the mortal realm, and that was why she was being sent to this place, where she was supposed to spend an eternity in bliss.

"You can have anything you want here," he'd told her. "All you have to do is ask."

But it wasn't true. At least, not entirely. When she asked for things, just thought of them, they appeared out of thin air. But when she'd asked for her husband, her parents, her sister and brother, her children, her friends…

They were somewhere else, a place called Hell, being punished for their 'sins.'

It had taken a long time for the blue creature to explain what was going on to her. Saiyans had not known about Heaven and Hell. They believed in gods, who controlled the rain and the flows of the rivers, who gave strength to the soil to raise crops, who wrote out the fates of all mortals in the universe. They believed especially in the Great Moon, the most powerful god of all, who had given them the power to defeat the Tuffles during the Great War long ago.

But the idea that the gods cared about how you behaved in the mortal realm? That was a concept that was entirely foreign to Gine. Saiyans didn't qualify deeds as being good or bad – there was only strength and weakness. The strong ruled over the weak as was only natural, and the weak had to accept whatever the strong decreed. That was what you could be punished for: weakness.

Gine was weak. She'd known it since she was a child. If anyone deserved punishment it was her. And in a way, she was being punished. She had never been more alone in her life than she was in Heaven.

Gohan sat down next to her in the grass. "I'm sorry I didn't come to see you yesterday. My grandson came to visit me."

Gine smiled at him – he'd told her quite a bit about his grandson, including the part where the boy had accidentally killed him. "And how is Goku these days?"

Gohan laughed. "As well as a dead man can be, I suppose. Actually, I told him about what you'd suggested, that he was one of your people sent to destroy my planet."

Gine's frowned at him. "Oh Gohan, I didn't mean for you to tell him! I just thought you'd be interested to know where he came from."

"Well as it turns out, he already knew." Gine's eyes widened with surprise and interest. He took her hand gently. "Gine, I want you to listen carefully. This is going to be a bit of a surprise." He took a deep breath. "When Goku was in his 20s, many years after I'd died, a Saiyan man came to Earth looking for him. The man told him he was his brother. His name was Raditz."

Gine's mouth opened in surprise. Finally, she said, "I have a son named Raditz."

"Yes," Gohan squeezed her hand, "and you had another son too."

"Kakarot," she breathed. "Oh gods, are you saying…"

"He would really like to see you Gine."

Gine covered her mouth with hands and shut her eyes tights, trying to stop the sobs from coming. But when the elderly man moved closer to her, putting his arms around her, she fell onto his chest and wept like a child.

To say that the mother-son reunion was emotional would have been an understatement. When Goku had emerged from where he'd been carefully hiding, he and his mother had stood staring at each other for what seemed like hours. Then suddenly, Gine had launched herself at the man, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his neck, inhaling his scent.

"It's really you," she whispered as he hugged her back. "My baby boy, my little Kakarot." She pulled away to look at him, cupping his face in her hands. "You look just like your father."

Goku smiled. "Really?" he laughed. "Must've been a good-looking guy!"

Tears shone in Gine's eyes as wrapped him in a hug again.

Finally, the woman had managed to pry herself away from her son, and now mother and son were sitting under a tree. Gine was cradling Goku in her arms, an awkward position since the man had a good six inches on her. Nevertheless, the mother refused to let him go.

"Tell me everything about you," she said as she petted his dark hair. "I want to know everything that's ever happened to you, as far back as you can remember."

"Gosh," Goku said, looking up at her. "That's gonna take a really long time."

"My understanding is that we have all of eternity."

And so Goku told her everything, about his peaceful, happy life with his grandpa Gohan, how abruptly it had ended, how Bulma had come into his life out of nowhere and turned it upside down, Master Roshi and Krillin, his face-off with King Piccolo, and, eventually…

"My gods," she said quietly. "Raditz did all that to you? How…how could he do that to his own brother?"

Goku sat up a little. "It's okay…it all worked out eventually, really."

Gine shook her head, tears rolling down her cheek. "No." She grabbed his hand, squeezing tightly. "I want you to know that we…we're not like that. Tha…That's not how Saiyans behave…"

Goku nodded. "I understand, really. I know that Frieza made you guys fight, made you violent…"

Gine laughed despite her tears, a sound that tinkled like music in Goku's ears. "Oh my love, Frieza didn't make us fight.That's not what I meant at all." She rubbed his hand between her own. "Saiyans have been fighting since the day the very first one pushed himself out from the soil."

This was the Saiyan theory of evolution – that they'd started as seeds and small plants embedded deep within the red soil of Planet Vegeta, before they finally pushed themselves up and out by their roots, as it were, to roam the surface.

"No," she continued, "what I meant was that we…we are loyal. To each other. We don't turn on our own kind, and especially not on our own flesh and blood.

"I don't know why Raditz did what he did to you and your little boy. He…," she paused, the words catching in her throat. "Maybe it was growing up under Frieza, without any Saiyans to guide him..." She closed her eyes and sighed deeply. There were so many things she'd do differently now, if only she'd known about all of this, about any of it, how short her time would be, about Heaven and Hell, how she would never see her family again.

"It's my fault, I wasn't there to teach him properly. They…they took him from me…," her voice caught as tears streamed down her red face. "Whe…when he was just a baby, and then y…you," her body trembled with the effort of keeping her tears under control. "I…I shou…shouldn't have let th…them…," finally she broke, covering her face with her hands and her whole body shook with the force of her sobs.

Now it was Goku's turn to hold her, wrapping his large arms around her small frame and rubbing her back gently as she cried against him. "It's okay mom," he shushed gently, trying out the unfamiliar word, hoping it would bring her some comfort. In truth, he didn't fully understand everything she was saying – was she talking about when he'd been sent to Earth as a baby? Was Raditz sent to some distant planet too when he was little? But it didn't really matter, all he wanted to do was comfort her, ease her pain. He could see in her eyes, in her voice, that she truly loved him without question and he wanted to give that back to her somehow.

After some time, Gine calmed down. Slowly her sobbing stopped and her breathing began to become more even. But she still clung to him, breathing him in, eyes closed as she remembered the day he was born.

The doctor had handed him to her, naked and wailing like he was trying to tell them something – maybe that there world was about to end? – and she'd cradled him in her arms, soothing him. His skin was so soft and warm, just like Raditz's had been, and his tail brushed against her gently. She'd knelt into him, breathing deeply. He still smelled mostly like her, but underneath her own scent was something else, something new and different – him. Eyes shut tight and nose pressed into his shirt, she focused on that scent, imagining that they were still in that dark, sterile room, that instead of him being taken away and placed in an incubator where she would only see him a few more times before he was sent to Earth, she was leaving with him, taking him to their little house where she'd already set up a place for him to sleep next to her. Bardock and Raditz would come home from their missions, and they would all live together, happy and safe, her perfect little family.

It was a sad fantasy that would haunt her for the rest of eternity in this place where she was clearly being punished, regardless of what anyone said. But, she thought to herself as she clung to her newfound son, his cheek resting gently against her head, maybe, just maybe, some god had had mercy on her and thought to give her a little respite, a small reward, for…something.

Maybe she was a good person after all.