I took it down….and now I'm putting it back up.

It has been DRASTICALLY revised…and there is quite a bit of OOC in here. For one, Goku isn't a complete moron. Two: Vegeta has feelings.

Oh wait! More!

Three: It's so flipping AU that it's not necessary to tell you how much so.

Standard warnings as applied: Character Death, SAP, Angst, Mention of Rape, Mpreg, and not necessarily in that order.

Everything's been CUT UP…so the chapters are MUCH shorter than they would be. New readers, beware. It gets…messy later.

Chapter 1: Death of a Saga

"Oi! Vegeta! Where are you now?"

Hearing like his own could pick up the smallest sound in the loudest of atmospheres. In the quiet of the living space that he and Vegeta lived within, he could hear nothing but his own breathing as he looked high and low for his smaller companion. Goku had looked high and low, eventually coming to rest within the lower regions of the household. He stood his ground, a tired sigh on his lips.

"Where…the hell…are you this time?"

It had been five years since he stepped within these walls. A little more than five years and a few days when he asked Vegeta to come with him and got a yes instead of the expected punch in the face. After all had been said and done before hand, it really shouldn't been that much of a surprise. Much had changed. They had changed.

This house had seen these changes first hand. It had seen the easy companionship they'd fallen into despite their checkered past with one another. If one were to walk in on them on a good day, they would swear that they'd been the best of friends since their early days. That was hardly the case. Goku smiled ruefully to himself, thinking back on days of youth. Nothing was like it was back then, where a fist could do more damage than words ever could. Now though…now words hurt more than anything.

He'd rather have taken a fist to his gut these days than to hear half of what was said in the passing years. It surely felt like it at times.

These walls had seen them in their best, and certainly at their worst. They had also housed him in moments like these, where the smaller saiyan in question would vanish as if there were nothing of him to exist. Moments like these silently freaked Goku out, but he knew if by instinct alone that Vegeta never went that far. Vegeta always came back after vanishing, whether by the dusk of dawn the morrow or rearing midday. It was more than Goku allowed himself to hope for. Vegeta was, after all, a prince…and he could care for himself.

However…

"Vegeta! Would you come on all ready?" he screamed aloud. This wasn't a good time for a vanishing act. "I know you're here so stop hiding from me and get out here!"

He moved to another room and looked inside, absently gripping his tie around his neck. He hated wearing these things, even more so when it came to the event at hand. He didn't stop to look where he leaned. Goku pressed himself into the doorway, fighting off the surge of grief that filled him when he looked down at the tie in his hand. The fabric slid from his fingers, limp, useless, but there to commemorate death as it took hold of life again.

It hurt thinking about it. Goku tried not to do that but so much, because it would be in his face sooner than he wished it. It wasn't something he could avoid no matter how much he loathed the thought that this was a pain he knew stained his soul in such a foul manner. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to anyone.

He shoved the pain flaring in his belly back down, aware that it would be back soon enough.

"I know...it hurts so much thinking about it," he said to no one in particular, "but we can't help it..."

Even if they could help it, one of them would have been mourning over the other shortly anyhow. Such was not the case, as their particular species had a very long life span. They just tended to get killed a lot sooner than they should have because of their endless fighting. Even their sons and daughters would live to see a ripe old age, but their human friends...their families...

Pain blossomed with a bittersweet smile at nothing and everything. Goku stared up at the ceiling, remembering.

Chi-chi, the light and fire of his life and the spark in the air he loved to feel when she was ranting, passionate, and ever loving in her strong manner died just over that time frame he'd been here within this house. Five long years ago, she was the catalyst to a pain that flared a little more the more he realized just how cruel and merciful death could be. She'd been suffering silently, old age eating at her until she could hardly move without pain slamming itself into her. A stranger who didn't know here wouldn't have seen it. She didn't put on airs, but she didn't let the others see what Goku could clearly. Bones settled, joints locked, and her mind was slipping…but her fire reared on until the very end.

She passed in her sleep, a soft wisp of warm air leaving her as she smiled and settled against him unaware. He'd been dreaming of her when she waved goodbye…and when he woke she was no more.

It was hard seeing that fire leave. It was harder still when the touch of death took something more than his own life as its own. He tried so hard not to let it ram him into the ground.

It failed. A month later he was staring at the skies and wondering why Bulma had to die of a stroke.

Watching the Prince grieve in silence was an ugly affair. It was even uglier after a night of drinking, fighting, and clutching him tightly in his arms as he screamed until Vegeta was hoarse, sore, and utterly lost. Bulma was the closest thing to a true friend Vegeta had. Losing her had caused something to die inside of him.

Losing her made Vegeta clutch to Goku a little more, and Goku welcomed it. They were more alike than anyone wanted to admit, and being alone wasn't high on their "to do" list. In what was left of the world that they knew and loved, they were perhaps the only two who could still be considered young by looks alone. They were the last of their kind, and watching those they chose to love and protect die around them was the window that opened itself up to a foul air no one wanted within their senses.

They packed up their things and moved here into the remote mountains, knowing that it wasn't over. They weren't lying to themselves about it by moving away from their loved ones. They just didn't want to see it up close.

As life would have it, Yamcha took up with death a year later. His heart, as brave as it may have been, was frail from disease he could no longer fight. Goku had come at his request, only to swallow his own heart as Yamcha smiled and said he had no regrets.

Yamcha was always braver than given credit for.

One year to the day, Tien died. Tien, stone, morale, and disciplined Tien…had wept when he died. He wept because he knew that Chou-Zu would die shortly after him. Goku had known, and it didn't make it any easier when the clown prince like doll had closed his eyes moments after Tien and chased him into the afterlife.

They buried them next to one another. Goku hated it more and more knowing that he was losing all that he knew, but the silent steady stance of Vegeta behind him kept him from going there. Vegeta never left his side when he mourned, but the smaller Saiyan did not mourn with him. For that, he would vanish.

Much like now.

He always returned a day or so later, looking like his soul had been drained from him. He would smell of salt and sweat and tears, and blood from smashing all that was in his path into nothingness. He'd walk into the house saying nothing, doing nothing, but telling him everything with a single snort. Goku would move then, to sit with Vegeta as they reflected on what was left.

Imagine the ungodly blow to the back that it was when not two years later Gohan called screaming that his wife had been killed in a car wreck. The son of a bitch who killed her was a living vegetable without the pretense of recovering, but his family was one who believed in miracles. If he did wake up, he'd have a nightmare on his hands, and a lawsuit.

All Goku could do was console his eldest son and his only granddaughter. It was a loss neither of them was expecting, not that anyone should ever. Videl was perhaps the last string on the bow that reminded Goku that there was still one more piece of him that had yet to die. For the first time in probably too long of a while, he prayed that his silent but ever present best friend would live just a little longer.

Krillin did live a little longer. Four months of which Goku was completely oblivious of his terminal illness.

Krillin knew of pain and where death settled into that torture. He'd lost his wife and child to some cracked out bastard looking for a dollar to get his fix. Krillin had lived through that, and the pain of watching the system twist that jerk into a walking disease to be fixed by medication and rehabilitation, until he killed a nurse when she wouldn't give him the needle. After that it was cakewalk watching the murdering ass being tossed into a prison where he asphyxiated on his own vomit from withdrawl. Fate was a cruel bitch when she was ready, and it didn't leave Krillin without changing him.

Goku shook his head tiredly, wondering where Krillin had gotten the fucked up idea that hiding the fact that he had cancer would do anyone any good.

There wasn't any warning. One moment Krillin was up and talking, and the next he was gone. It mystified Goku in such a way that he'd been speechless for hours. Vegeta, on the other hand, wasn't quite so silent about it. He'd stormed off in a rage, tearing across the plains until he came to the nearest vacant piece of land and wiped it out with a hard blast from his fingers. Goku didn't try to stop him. He wanted to do it to.

That was only a few short days ago. Now it was time to bury the last of what was a grand saga. Yet, Vegeta was nowhere to be found.

"Vegeta...Where are you?" he shouted trying his best to keep his own rage in. He didn't know what hurt more, knowing that his friend was gone, or knowing that he had died from something he didn't know he had. "We're going to be late!" It was a mix of the two. It stung in ways that made blood boil. "Vege-!"

"I'm not going!" Vegeta suddenly snapped from behind. Goku whirled, spying him in a simple t-shirt and yet another pair of skin tight jeans. Vegeta was dressed to remain here, which he could plainly understand. The smaller saiyan crossed his arms and looked away from him. "You can go for all I fucking care, but I am NOT."

"Vegeta...we have to go..." Goku said careful of his words. "It's Krillin. He's been with us forever and it's only right that we go and pay our respects."

It was then that Goku blinked at Vegeta, who turned to him slowly, revealing a tear snaking its way down his red cheeks. "Why...why are you crying?" Goku could only stammer out unsure of what to make of this. Vegeta shook his head, trembling from the words he wanted to say, but his stubborn pride would not let him say. Everything he ever did, ever felt, always came in a haze of confusion bundled with anger he would not diffuse in a normal manner. However, today something snapped. It was as if a bright light blinded him and left him hanging on the rope he hadn't seen until that very moment.

Goku stepped forward only to have Vegeta step back with a shudder. "No more..." he whispered. "I don't want to do this...anymore..."

The tears streamed with his heart, swelling, overflowing, and filled with grief he hadn't known for several years. Letting that woman into it and seeing her go hurt, yes, but those he'd fought, fought with, and somehow came to respect in his short time knowing them, was worse than lying at the feet of a mad man dying. It was worse than waking up to find his home gone, his life over, and nothing more than the darkness of space to comfort his screaming mind. It tore him in half and left him bleeding in the reality that it would never stop.

Vegeta clenched his fists at his sides, trembling like never before. Again Goku stepped forward and this time grabbed him by the shoulders. "Vegeta, calm down..."

"I'm not like you!" he screamed, ripping himself away. "I can't do that! I can't calm down! He fucking LIED to us! LIED TO ME!"

"How the FUCK do you think I feel?" Goku screamed right back, unable to keep calm for once. The rage in his eyes was like none Vegeta had ever seen before, but he didn't care. Goku shook his head, jerking his body back as his rage hit a peak. "My best FRIEND...he LIED to my face and told me he was fine! FINE! and then he's fucking DEAD because he had CANCER!"

"How the hell can you stand this shit?" Vegeta questioned, on the verge of falling to his knees. "How?"

"I can't..."

"And don't give me any shit about him having his reasons!"

"Believe me...that's the last thing I plan to tell you. And I can't take it...but I know me," Goku muttered. He knew himself too well, and it was probably all the more reason to go and do this. "I need to see him...to bury him. If I don't...I'll be no better than he is. He lied trying to protect us from more grief...but in the end, it only caused us more fucking heartache..."

His bitterness and his raw anger was enough to keep Vegeta standing, have him turning, and flying off into the unknown. Goku remained at the doorway, aware of the situation but willing to do nothing about it. For once, Vegeta had the right idea. A part of wanted to tell the world off, to choke time and place things in a semblance that wouldn't drive them to the brink and past it. Yet that human side of him knew it would do no good to relay how he felt now. No one was there to hear him.

Not now anyhow.

In these grueling five years, Vegeta never let him see more than he wanted him to. Sometimes he'd see behaviors, traits, that would make him blink, and other times Goku felt like ripping his head open just to see what was in there. In the end, dealing with things alone seemed to make Vegeta feel better.

At least until he came back and saw the reality of what was written on Goku's too stern face.

Vegeta didn't want to be alone. Goku didn't want to be alone. Those two singular thoughts of a similar frame molded themselves into a dangerous scene from a book neither dared to open in such times. It was easier to sit, ponder, and quietly comfort one another without making things complicated. Some nights didn't adhere to the unspoken rules, and it led Goku to ponder about the state of his smaller companion.

Nights were all he scented was blood from cutting up his hands were nights where Goku would watch Vegeta. Other nights, where exhaustion grabbed them and tugged them under the hazy spell left them curled around the other. Goku would wake to find him curled up at his side, pressed against him, his warmth radiant and vibrant against the cold night and his own chilled soul. Perhaps he was caught in a dream...or some sort of sleep awareness...but those times, he could see the soft smile upon a face etched with a lifetime of hardships and labor.

Vegeta would come around on his own and not before. It was an unspoken truth in the lies that was life.

Thoughts of Vegeta plagued him through the day and after things were lain to rest. He was still mad, for various reasons, and didn't care to speak to the others after the funeral. No one knew what to make of it, though they quietly assumed the less than obvious. Goku was mad, yes, but at what? Or whom? It was easy to point fingers, and easier to rely on the pointed finger. In truth, no one knew. Krillin was the last of a fading saga, and with him, it finally ended.

So where did they start now?

I told you it was shorter. :) Reviews welcomed. Flames ignored.