Epilogue

Walked away

Heard them say

Poisoned hearts can never change

Walked away again

Turned away

In disgrace

Felt the chill upon my face

Cooling from within

Hard to notice, gleaming from the sky

When you're staring at the cracks

Hard to notice, what is passing by

With eyes lowered

All the cracks, they lead right to me

All the cracks, they crawl right through me

Walked away

Heard them say

Poisoned hearts will never change...

The earth was a skeleton of what it had once been- cities and skyscrapers covering the land and making it, from space, look brown and gray and blue and white. Making the average denizen of earth forget death and dying had been a freebie wish from Chen Ron who, despite being a dragon and therefore a difficult bitch, still hadn't been much more inclined towards world-wide chaos than anyone else.

But it was back. It was back, whole, complete, pulsating with life. Humans teetered on the edge of obliterating themselves, exceeding the limits of the earth's capacity, sucking the vitality out of the rest of the world. From the outside, things could be said to be back to normal.

From the outside, it was as if nothing had even happened.

Such little things as love and war rarely affect the outside.

Ky'ale stretched, rolling over onto her back, writhing so that the rough wood floor of Goku's old, worn, childhood home scratched her back, and the broad side of her horns rubbed at already-bare patches rubbed in the floor from dozens of similar motions. A loud crash from outside didn't so much as faze her, though it did seem to upset the boy at the table right beside her head. Gohan slammed his pencil down, glared at the window, and then down at the cat, as if it were somehow her fault.

"Can't they be any quieter?" he growled, seeming frustrated, most likely by the level of difficulty presented by primitive human calculus. Saiyans were all bad at that sort of thing.

"No, not really," the kairn replied, dryly matter-of-fact and not entirely talking about the training currently occurring outside. Gohan didn't conciously sense that presense of details he wouldn't want to hear, but some deep instinct kept him from prying further. There was another bang from outside, and he hesitated in picking his pencil back up.

"I should probably go help them," he offered hesitantly.

Ky'ale lazily opened one upside-down eye, gave her best shrug- which, with feline shoulders pressed against the floor to begin with, wasn't easy- and demurred, "Whatever you want." She was never Chichi's first call for babysitter, but with Krillin out of town and Yamcha off training, taking Bulma with him, it was her or Piccolo.

Chichi didn't like Ky'ale, but Chichi hated Piccolo. It was amazing how easily the human population forgot that it had been Ky'ale who had wished for Vegeta to be immortal, Ky'ale who had almost destroyed the only chance for the earth being reborn, Ky'ale who had almost ruined everything that anyone there stood for. It all became Vegeta's fault- Vegeta, who, after all, became immortal, and corrupted Goku, and didn't have cute paws or a fuzzy face or a way with children. Things had gone back to the status-quo on the outside, after all; Vegeta was still the problem and Ky'ale was still the pitiful pawn of evil.

"I mean," Gohan was saying, idly drawing figures on the table top, "I'm one of earth's protectors, too. Mom never understood that."

Ky'ale writhed, clambored to her feet, and cocked her head easily at the half-saiyan. He had impressed her, these past two years- first, with his easy acceptance of life and death and the easy transition between the two, and then, with his parents' divorce, his mother moving to the city to live near Bulma and the others, while Vegeta, of all people, the stoic warrior who had made his hatred for the half-breed quite clear since the moment they met, who had tried to kill him several times, started spending more and more time over at the place where first Goku, and now Gohan, were growing up. (Ky'ale had gone ahead and moved in with them; she had no inhibitions about that and keeping Vegeta's bachelor pads was starting to wear on her.) He made it clear he knew what was going on, and even more so that he didn't mind. He reminded her of his father, and in some way, that made her distressingly proud of him, as if in some way she'd had a hand in it.

Well, his father got like that through massive brain trauma, and I've been trying to kill Gohan since he was a little kid. Maybe I have helped, some. Honestly, that could have been a more heartwarming thought.

"You know, Gohan," she said, carefully, "your mother told me to always make sure you were doing your homework at this time."

He sighed. "I know."

"On the other hand, Chichi's not here right now."

The effect was instantaneous. Gohan was, quite literally, through the door before his pencil landed.

Four hours later, Gohan had gone home, sweat-streaked and carrying half-finished homework under his arm. Goku was proud of him. "Priorities," he said, watching his son's form weave through the air. "That's what I always say." Vegeta only shrugged. Frowning, Goku turned on the other saiyan, looking imploringly down at him and striving to appear as helpless as a two-hundred-pound alien martial artist can. "Hey, I know you don't like training with him, but it's not all that bad. And he sure is getting better at it."

It was impossible not to respond to that grin. It held everything that was 'proud father' in it. "For a disgraceful half-breed, your son is nearly decent to the point where I forgive it for being your spawn," he allowed, stiffly, rolling his eyes when, by the angle of Goku's grin, he was far from taken seriously. He tried to comfort himself by promising himself that both Kakarotto and Gohan would die someday- but that thought was dampered by the fact that, thanks to their recent wish the last time Chen Ron had come around, so would he.

Somehow, that didn't bother him nearly as much as he'd thought it would. He'd wanted to be immortal to kill Frieza; now, the damned emperor was dead, and the saiyan race was avenged- if not by him (a surge of anger and regret twisted in his stomach, but he pushed it back down) then at least by a member of his own breed, by blood if not spirit. Eventually, he'd started chasing the goal to prove to himself that he could get it, more than for immortality itself- and he'd found that getting it wasn't nearly so glorious or satisfying as he'd thought. He'd found more in the chase than he'd gotten at the end.

And so he hadn't even been upset when it was gone. A part of him was glad.

He could've trained more, but it didn't look like Goku really wanted to. The taller saiyan was wandering away, so Vegeta wandered after him, sliding back beside his long-term rival when the human-minded saiyan slowed down for him. "What're you thinking about?"

For a second, Vegeta didn't want to reply- on the other hand, Goku wouldn't shut up until he did. So he truthfully, if a trifle waspishly, replied, "Dying."

Goku blanched. "Ah."

Then, something strange occurred to Vegeta. "You'll be going to Otherworld," he pointed out suddenly, by the look on Goku's face, something he had already considered. "I'll be going to Hell."

"Well, maybe, if Ky'ale could get up to Otherworld..." He could see it was a weak argument before Vegeta could even answer.

"She was young. Too young to make the choice." Vegeta's smile became a little more pointed, like a knife in his own heart. But Vegeta didn't have a heart, did he? Did he? He'd changed in more ways than he cared to identify. He glanced over at Kakarotto and was a little surprised by the emotion in his features. "Does it bother you?"

"We'll jump that hurdle when we get to it, I guess," was the other man's frail response. Then he stopped. They were in the side yard, maybe a hundred feet from the house, two hundred from the GR. His face was wrought with a sudden, poignant concern. "You don't regret it, do you?"

Vegeta shrugged, then, seeing that Goku wasn't going to give it up, said, "No. Not really." Which was almost the complete truth. The corners of Goku's mouth tucked in slightly, his eyebrows drawing together. "I survived," Vegeta growled, suddenly almost defensive of his own personality. "I have no regrets."

He was doing it again. Goku backed off. "That's fair," he lied. Vegeta heard the infidelity in his voice and rolled his eyes, turned to walk away.

Goku lunged forward and pressed his hand against the older saiyan's back. Vegeta stopped. "Hey, I'm sorry, alright? I shouldn't have asked." Vegeta didn't turn around. "But sometimes I don't know what to say to you, Vegeta."

They stood like that for a second; then, slowly, the tension eased out of Vegeta's posture and he turned around, letting Goku say what he obviously needed to.

"Damn it, Vegeta. I love you. I told you I didn't need for you to feel the same way, and I guess I still don't, but god damn. I don't know how you feel about me anymore." He spread his hands, imploringly, but the caustic laugh sounded almost saiyan. "One second, you hate me, the next second you like me. I can't figure you out."

He hadn't ever been able to figure the saiyan out. He'd never been able to fully understand him- although in some ways they thought so similarly it was like uncovering a lost twin. They were the last standing members of a fallen species, so couldn't the prince open up, just a little?

As for Vegeta- he didn't know what to think. His mind was a maelstrom, his concious mind alighting on one topic after another, never pausing to consider. Hate, rage, fear, want, and that last, most deplorable emotion of them all- it was all a tornado of semi-concious contemplation. He growled, then lunged forward and kissed the taller saiyan squarely on the mouth, quick, closed-mouthed and pulsatingly emotional.

Goku pulled away and blinked in surprise. "What was that for?" he asked, his voice stressed until it cracked. Vegeta's stomach twisted in mingled sympathy and revulsion. He didn't think he could stand it if Goku broke down.

"Pick a four letter word," Vegeta growled in response. Something bright glittered behind the ice in his eyes.

THE END