Gradual Love

"Darn it, Goku, if you don't stop taking it easy on me, I swear you'll pay for it . . ."

Son Goku laughed appreciatively as his wife faced off against him, her face bright red and eyes snapping with anger. She was wearing one of his old training suits, the belt cinched tightly around her slender waist, and the baggy fabric made her look even smaller than usual -- but did nothing to diminish the rage on her features.

ChiChi's anger was not irregular . . . after the wedding, she had demanded that Goku teach her how to be a better fighter. Just because his defeating her had led to their marriage, didn't mean that ChiChi wanted to be weaker than he all her life. Goku thought it was a little silly -- he knew instinctively that ChiChi would never reach his level -- but if that was what she wanted, then fine.

Of course, after the wedding night, Goku became intensely protective of her . . . and as a result, refused to hurt her. Whenever they sparred, Goku never hit her very hard -- even though it made ChiChi very mad.

"Aw, come on, hon," Goku dodged another ill-aimed punch and grabbed ChiChi's wrists, spinning her around and pinning her with an arm around her shoulders. "You're never gonna' be as strong as I am. Why don't you just give up?"

"Give up?" ChiChi roared, in the same tone of voice that had scared the daylights out of Kuririn and Yamucha at the Tenkaichi Budoukai. "Are you crazy? One of these days I'm going to beat you, Son Goku!"

"Okay, whatever," Goku rested his chin on her shoulder, enjoying how mad she was getting. It was rare that Goku could ever egg her on except in these situations . . . and no matter how many times they went over the argument, Goku never failed to get a rise out of her. "If that'll make you happy."

Any next taunts were swallowed up in ChiChi's inarticulate yell of rage, and the next second, Goku found himself lying flat on his back on the lawn. ChiChi, having successfully thrown him over her shoulder, shouted in victory and straddled his chest, punching him in the face.

Goku spent a few moments unable to think or speak, too shocked by the fact that ChiChi had managed to get the best of him. Her blows didn't hurt, but they were enough to startle him. "ChiChi, whoa!" he called, "Go easy!"

"Easy?" ChiChi scowled, "I've had enough of you babying me! I married you, didn't I? Why don't you give me any respect?"

"I just don't wanna' hurt you, that's all," Goku explained, and he reached up and snaked his arms around her, pulling her body down close to his. "I'm not trying to be mean, honest. But I know how strong I am, and I . . . I don't want to see you hurt. Okay?"

ChiChi calmed down a little, the frown still present on her face but not quite so ferocious. "I don't like being patronized, you know," she warned him, though the vehemence was gone.

The word was unfamiliar to Goku, and he blinked. "Well, whatever that is, I don't think I was doing it. Or if I was, I didn't mean to."

A small smile quirked the corners of ChiChi's mouth upward, and she rested her head on Goku's chest. "All right, I believe you."

Goku grinned, releasing her to comb his fingers through her raven hair, which had long escaped the confinement of ChiChi's hair band. "Good . . . but you sure are cute when you're mad at me!"

ChiChi's eyes widened and she opened her mouth to retort, but Goku pulled her face down and kissed her before any more scathing words could be flung at him. Goku knew he was getting her angry, but was also aware that she never could stay mad for long.

Sure enough, ChiChi soon stopped swearing against his mouth and kissed back, making Goku smile. He still wasn't one hundred percent sure about the love stuff, but he did know that he sure liked this! There was something about sparring with ChiChi -- especially when it ended up this way, he thought with an inner wink -- that made it even better than sex. At this stage, anyway . . . maybe not when they got a little better at it, but right now it was still kind of embarrassing.

Goku's musings were interrupted as ChiChi broke off suddenly, and dug a knee into Goku's gut. "Oof!" he yelped, and ChiChi rolled off him, laughing in triumph.

"Boy, when you let your guard down, you really let it down!" ChiChi doubled over in hysterics as Goku gave her a baleful stare. "Maybe you're not such a hot martial artist after all, Goku-san."

Goku rolled his eyes, more annoyed at himself for letting ChiChi get through his defenses than in actual pain. "Well, nobody's ever kissed me in battle before."

"And nobody'd darn well better!" ChiChi snapped, but her eyes sparkled to let Goku know she was only half serious.

Goku rolled his eyes, then pounced on ChiChi without warning. He intended to startle her by playing the same trick as she had on him, though he knew it wouldn't work. ChiChi was too smart to be fooled by something so obvious as that maneouver.

Even later, Goku wasn't sure what happened. He didn't know whether he moved too fast, or if ChiChi's mind was elsewhere . . . all he knew was that when he feinted at her, ChiChi simultaneously tried to tackle him. Surprised by her sudden move, Goku was unable to stop himself before his knee came into hard contact with ChiChi's stomach.

It took him a few seconds to realize that ChiChi wasn't kidding when she collapsed in on herself, crying out in pain. When Goku finally noticed that the tears streaming from her eyes were real, he panicked. "ChiChi!" Goku screamed, "You weren't supposed to let me hit you!"

"Thanks . . . a lot . . . genius," ChiChi gritted, and Goku was able to smile a little, albeit tightly. If she was able to be sarcastic, she couldn't be hurt too badly. "Goku-san," ChiChi grabbed the front of his t-shirt, her eyes rolling. "I think . . . I'm going . . . to . . ."

The next second, Goku was forced to turn away as ChiChi vomited all over him.

Goku's own stomach lurched instinctively, but he had seen much worse in his lifetime and was able to control the reflexive impulse. Less easy to hold back was his ever-escalating hysteria, which was building up at an exponential rate. "ChiChi . . ." he searched desperately for words of comfort, but none came to him.

"Goku-san," ChiChi's face was screwed up into a perfect picture of agony, but she bit down hard on her lip and managed to speak clearly. "Hospital," she ordered, spitting out the words between clenched teeth. "Now!"

Wordlessly, Goku nodded and picked her up, swallowing his revulsion as ChiChi threw up again. What was the matter with her? A simple knee to the stomach shouldn't have affected her as badly as it did . . . he must have done something else! Immediately, Goku's brain came up with the simplest response -- he hadn't controlled his strength, and he had hurt her.

Again.

The frenzied trip to the nearest hospital was the closest thing to a nightmare for Goku, as he clutched the small form of his wife to him. His thoughts were chaotic and scrambled, and he didn't manage to make one coherent statement inside his mind. All he knew was that ChiChi was in pain, and he didn't know what to do.

Part way through the trip, ChiChi began bleeding heavily from an alarming area, soaking the legs of her jumpsuit by the time they reached the hospital. For his part, Goku found it difficult not to rip the doors off the hinges and blast through walls as he fought to find his way in the confusing labyrinth of corridors. As it was, he ran over several nurses and doctors who didn't get out of the way quickly enough.

"She's sick, where am I supposed to go?" Goku shouted, distraught, to several startled-looking passers-by, and he was quickly led to the Emergency Ward. All the bustling doctors and nurses made Goku extremely nervous, as did the distressingly-clean, sterilized smell that pervaded everything. That smell, actually, scared Goku almost as much as ChiChi's condition, because it was so foreign to everything the young man had been brought up with.

A white-clad doctor came up to them then, concern crinkling the lines of his face. "Right this way, sir," he turned abruptly and strode to an available room, Goku following at a frantic pace. "Can you tell me what happened?"

In halting words, Goku struggled to communicate what preceded his arrival. He left out the part about sparring, however, just in case his attack hadn't been the cause -- he was willing to grasp at any reason to hope that it wasn't his fault ChiChi was in pain.

"Well, we'll be able to tell much better once we've examined her," the man glanced at Goku dubiously, and the warrior swallowed hard. He could tell the doctor didn't quite believe him. "If you'll just wait outside until we've finished --"

"WHAT?" Goku's voice scaled upwards into the panic register, and in a sudden spasm of decision he stopped in the act of putting ChiChi on the stretcher. He glanced wildly at the doctors, the medical instruments (including myriad needles!), and computer monitors, and he clung to ChiChi like a mother to her child. "No! I'm not letting you take her if I can't come with you!"

"Sir --"

Fear slammed into him harder than Piccolo's attacks had. Goku shook his head vehemently and backed away, still holding ChiChi close. The instinctive protectiveness he felt for her had magnified itself ten times over by now, and he pressed his forehead to hers. "No. NO! No, no, no . . ." he tried to protest further, but wasn't able to think clearly enough to speak coherently. "She's mine . . . you're not taking her away!"

ChiChi, her head lolling back on Goku's arm, managed to meet his gaze. She had been drifting in and out of consciousness for some time, and he didn't know how much of the situation she had been able to grasp. But before Goku could fly off with her, ChiChi mustered up a super-human resolve and grabbed Goku's collar, bringing his face down close to hers.

"I'll . . . kill you . . ." ChiChi declared vehemently, her breath coming in ragged gasps, her tone hoarse. "If you . . . don't . . . let them . . . help . . . me."

"How are you gonna' kill me?" Goku demanded in anguish, "You - you can't even --"

"I'll . . . find . . . a way . . ." ChiChi's mouth curved upwards in the barest hint of a smile, but her expression changed to pain again in less than a second. "Please," she begged in a cracked voice. ". . . It hurts . . ."

In the end, it was her weakness that persuaded him. Granted, Goku hadn't known ChiChi for very long, but he was acquainted enough with her idiosyncracies to realize that she never asked for help. She never admitted to pain, always wanted to do everything herself, always refused Goku's assistance . . . he couldn't very well refuse when she finally asked for it.

That didn't make it any easier, of course, when Goku had to leave her in a hospital room filled with doctors and needles, with her crying out in pain. It didn't ease his anxiety as he paced up and down the hallways at near super-speed, until he was asked to stop because he was literally wearing a groove in the floor. He tried going to the cafeteria to get some food, but had to turn away when the lady behind the counter asked for money.

No matter what he tried to do, either practicing his kata in the hallway, attempting (and failing miserably) to meditate in the lounge, or trying to sneak into ChiChi's room to see if she was all right -- none of it calmed him down in any way. The longer he waited, the greater his jitters got . . . until it took all his self-restraint not to burst into the room, grab ChiChi in his arms, and fly away with her -- away from the doctors, away from those scary needles, away from the dying people in the next room and the sickly clean smell of the scrubbed halls and floors . . . The smell kept getting stronger, filling his nostrils until they stung, growing stronger inside his head until his temples pounded and he could barely think straight.

Hours passed, and Goku was curled up on one of the couches in the waiting room, his hands pressed over his ears, wishing he could go away from this place and everything that had happened. He didn't like being scared like this, and didn't like not knowing what was the matter with ChiChi.

He especially didn't like thinking that it was his fault all of this had happened . . .

"Son-san? Son-san!" the impatient-sounding voice of a young woman brought Goku back to his senses. He took his hands off his ears, forcibly ignoring the blaming voice inside his head, and looked at her worriedly.

"Is she okay? What's the matter?"

The doctor lady looked concerned, which didn't surprise Goku, but what did make him jump a little was the way she glared at him. It wasn't obvious, but her eyes were dark and stormy, and her mouth was pressed in a thin line. Goku felt a twisting sensation in his heart, like someone had stabbed him and was turning the knife over and over inside his chest.

"Your wife," the doctor began firmly, with a look of doom on her face -- Goku wanted to shrivel up and die right there. It was the same look that Grandpa Gohan had given him, years ago, whenever he did something really, really bad.

"What, what?" Goku demanded frantically.

She sighed, annoyed, and Goku wondered why the heck she was so mad. Weren't doctors supposed to be nice and reassuring? Why did she look like she was going to kill him? Goku swallowed hard and edged away from her, even though he knew he could destroy her with his pinky finger.

"Your wife has had a miscarriage."

******


Chapter Five

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