Widowed

Chapter Seven: Plans

When ChiChi woke up that morning it was the most cheerful she'd been since the news was delivered to her that she was a widow. As per usual, this cheerfulness was the result of a determined plan, one that she would enact immediately –using force if necessary. Disturbances such as these happened often in the Son household, and ChiChi had long since developed the perfect coping mechanism: wallow, devise a plan, and never look back. After a week of sleeping alone in her marital bed she had finally uncovered a master plan and with a newfound purpose she set about the daily tasks of a devoted housewife.

First, she crisply straightened the sheets on her bed, and set the two homely pillows in place on the headboard before making her way to the shower. Next, humming as she went, she rounded up all the dirty laundry thinking she could start it a day early this week seeing as Goku had left and wouldn't need breakfast. Oh yes, everything was going to be perfectly all right now. The accountant was coming by today so she could settle what needed to be done with Goten's inheritance, and things with Goku would be fixed by that evening. It would be so, because she was Son ChiChi, and she had a plan.

Lilililili

ChiChi sighed as she closed the door on the accountant. Her options were not favorable, but they were manageable. Strangely, just as she turned to make her way into the kitchen and begin fixing lunch—Goku would be home soon—the doorbell rang. Honestly, she thought she had rid herself forever of that Kami-awful accountant for good. Maybe this time she'd throw him through the window. It seemed to work last time.

So when the wife of the strongest man in the world opened her door she was armed not only with the frying pan she had carried in from the kitchen but also with a scowl and narrowed eyes so fierce they would have given Vegeta pause before intruding on the woman. And yet, as soon as she realized her visitor was not the unwanted accountant (nor the Prince of Saiyans, nice try guys), her mouth fell open and the frying pan went limp in her left hand.

"Uhhh…" The Ox Princess had never been so inarticulate.

"Hello, ChiChi. Is Goku home?"

"No?" the young wife took a moment to compose herself, "but he'll be back soon. I-I thought he went to visit your house. That's what he said last night."

"Ah yes," the man replied, "he did, but I never got the chance to talk to him." By this time Master Roshi had taken full advantage of ChiChi's confusion and lapse in killer-instincts to invite himself into the kitchen and sit down at the table. Knowing if he could just restrain himself long enough for Goku to arrive that the housewife would never be so impolite as to throw a friend of her husband's out of the house (literally, in some cases), the hermit continued to make quiet conversation while ChiChi prepared lunch.

All of a sudden, ChiChi gasped and began making frantic motions out the window. This confused the martial arts master until seconds later Goku rushed in the door.

"Ah, Goku!"

"Master Roshi? What are you doing here?" Goku seemed truly perplexed.

"I was just having a pleasant chat with your sexy woman here—" there was a pause while Goku and Roshi waited for the slap to the back of the head that (curiously) never came—"while we waited for you to come home. I was hoping to see my favorite pupil today, you see." The old pervert grinned.

"I'm sorry. I should have said 'hello' while I was at Kame House. I was a little distracted," Goku laughed nervously and scratched the back of his head.

"That's alright, don't worry about it." The old man waved his hand aside and stood up.

"Uh, is that it, Master Roshi?" Goku asked, unsure why the Master, who was currently searching for his walking stick, seemed prepared to leave.

"I think he wants to speak with you, honey," ChiChi chirped, barely concealing the way her voice shook.

"I-I'm fine." ChiChi resumed her stirring. "Go with your Master for a walk. Lunch will be ready when you get back."

Her formerly deceased husband gave a last long look at his widow before following her advice and leading Master Roshi out the door and along one of the worn forest paths. As soon as he was out of sight ChiChi sat on the kitchen floor and stifled a cry.

It was inevitable, she thought. He was here to convince Goku to leave her, once and for all. The turtle hermit was the closest thing Goku had to a father figure but she had always treated him with such disdain for his perverted ways and this was going to be his revenge. Revenge from all of Goku's friends who had only ever seen the sour and bitter ChiChi. Was it her fault, she wondered? She saw the Z Warriors even less frequently than Goku did, and she was always so… stressed when she did see them that… she knew they didn't have the greatest impression of her. All she could do, she reassured herself as she promptly got up from the floor, was hope whatever he said had little influence on her Goku. Then, maybe her plan would still work and they could live happily ever after once again.

Less than half a mile away, hobbling along a wide forest path, the very turtle hermit of ChiChi's thoughts began advising his young protégé.

"Honestly Goku, I'm here to talk to you about ChiChi. I know you asked Krillin this morning, but I really wanted to put my two cents in, if you don't mind."

"Aw, man! You're going to tell me not get married, too, aren't you?" Goku cringed. His revelation just minutes before still thrummed powerfully in his heart, but his mind might crumble under all the pressure from such reliable friends.

"What? Of course not, you dope!" The old man squawked, and just for good measure he wacked the Saiyan on the head. "Don't you ever leave that sweet, beautiful woman or I'll have to beat the stupidity out of you!" They both knew Roshi couldn't so much as bruise the Saiyan if he was blindfolded, hung-over, sleep-deprived and confined to a wheel chair, but the sentiment was understood.

Roshi continued, "look, all those fellas are too young to get it. Yamcha called, so I know you talked to him as well as Krillin and that's what made me come over here. "Those moronic friends of yours think ChiChi is too tough to live with, but you're not exactly a piece of cake either. It takes a strong woman to put up with you, and I don't blame her for going a little crazy every now and then.

"I'm guessing Vegeta said something, too?"

Goku nodded, then added, "and Bulma."

"Kame," grumbled the old master, "what idiots they all are. They wouldn't know a good marriage if it hit 'em on the head. They think just because they're so happy where they are that you can't be, too. But I've seen you two. I saw the way she doted on you while you had that heart virus. She was annoying as a mother hen and vicious as a dragon in PMS and that's probably all those good-for-nothings remember."

He looked up under his eyebrows at Goku, "But that's because she loves you. I know that, and I think you do too."

Goku nodded again and nervously whispered, "Bulma says it's not enough."

He was expecting another outburst at this but instead the hermit just mimicked the nod in apparent approval. "That's true. You have to love her too. Now, that's something you'll just have to ask yourself, so I'm not going to, but I've got one last thing to say.

"I've never intruded on your personal life, or Krillin's or Yamcha or Bulma when they were together. But I've always watched, and sometimes I've seen things I wasn't supposed to." There was a moment where Roshi seemed distracted by something—Goku sincerely hoped it wasn't thoughts of Krillin and 18. "I want to see all of you happy. I didn't think you were really happy at your wedding, but I saw how you looked at ChiChi when you first woke up after your sickness, and Goku—" he shook his head for emphasis—"that's the purest love I've seen in a long time. And I mean a long time."

In the minutes after that Roshi declined Goku's invitation to lunch in favor of returning to Kame House sooner and Goku headed back home with a little bit more of a skip in his step than he'd had when he first left that morning.