CHAPTER FORTY-NINE: MORNING AFTER

Dawn came over Gokou's house, and it was sweet. Unlike the previous night's cold, evil, uncaring moon, The dawn that morning seemed to be filled with an almost motherly mixture of hope, love, and caring. Dawn came over Gokou's house that day, and it was sweet.

Inside the small igloo-shaped house, its inhabitants slept peacefully- all of them, that is, except one. Bardock laid awake in thought as the sun shone its first rays over the landscape.

During the previous night, Gokou and his Father had ended their struggle in peace. When Bardock took the cloth from his son, all of the violence that had taken place that night was over. He had finally realized where his TRUE Saiya-jin pride had lain- with his offspring. Regardless of what the cold, hard, barbaric people of the Planet Vegeta might say, Bardock knew how he truly felt about his son. His son, his only son. He had always thought that the Saiya-jin race had thrived on its cold, hard treatment of family. That the people had survived on not building attachments to their kin. He was wrong. Dead wrong. The cold, hard ones, like nappa, were all complete wastes. People like King Vegeta- who still would probably kill their own sons on the drop of a hat, for that was the Saiya-jin way- loved and took pride in their family. that was all a part of the pride involved in being a member of one of the most elite races out there. Pride for your own. Bardoco wondered, for the first time of many, how he had missed that. He traced it back to that time when he had first seen his son. His power level was so pitiful that Bardock, who at the time had lacked the maturityt to wait and see how GOkou did, simply walked off in disgust. He learned two hours later that Sash was dead.

Parsnip-Sashiime, Sash to her friends, was Bardock's mate and one true love. Despite beiong a hard, Saiya-jin man, he had loved her. Her name was amusing, since parsnip was a Saiya-jin name, but Sashiime wasn't, and that was probably the only reason why she wasn't taken by the time that Bardock had met her. Seripa had introduced them, and they really hadn't wasted any time. They were together in under a month later, although a Saiya-jin marriage is only official at the first pregnancy. That part of the deal followed shortly afterward, with Raditz. raditz was born with the potential to be a First-Class Saiya-jin, and Bardock had always associated him with failed expectations. As a boy, Raditz had finished near the bottom of his class in everything, and was only mediocre in fighting, although he eventually acheived his potential at somewhere around 1,100. Raditz had posessed the extremely rare "Wild hair" gene that apparently came from Sash's side, thus making him a virtual girl-magnet. The manhad lacked any real committment- to anything- and to this day nobody knows exactly how many Grandchildren Bardock really has, nor do they want to. The mothers never disclosed any information, and that was fine with all of them, as far as they were concerned. Then Raditz died.

It was the raid on Tasbah. Raditz had been there, in his complete glory, slaughtering defenseless aliens like everyone else. Big whoop. It went sour when the Tasbah-jin decided to blow up their own planet and everybody on it, including the wild-haired First-Class Saiya-jin. His Pheromones did not help him much at all when his time came.

Shortly afterward, Sash got pregnant again, as if to say "Well, we failed with our lastone. let's see if we can get it right this time!" And knowing Sash, she had thought that more than once while carrying the baby to term.

Saiya-jin births are, in general, very complicated and messy, and kakarotto's birth was no different. The only difference was that this one was EXTREMELY complicated and Messy, and Sash just happened to have been coming out of a minor, yet debilitating illness that apparently had not affected her unborn child at all. Complications in the birth had killed her in the end.

And so, standing one last time over his newborn second son's crib in the maternity wartd, after having just heard of Sash's death, bardock uttered the immortal words: "Damn you to hell."

He had stormed off and ordered the baby sent to whichever planet was open, he didn't want to see him again. He had lost his mate for... for a Third-class Saiya-jin brat!

Now, thinking about it and reflecting some more, Bardock remembered how weak his original estimate had been. Lower-class. Not quite as bad as Third-class, but he should not have been able to rise above a thousand, which was the border of that class, much less be over sixty thousand today after the fight. Why didn't he think about that when he had his son? he was already at 10,000 then- ten times what his maximum should have been- but at the time he was too full of grief to think of anything else.

And now, lying in the guest bed of his very own son's house, Bardock thought back over all of the events in the past twenty- no, closer to thirty years.

He had gone into a slump after the news came that all contact with Kakarotto had been lost, that he was either no longer in his ship, where he should have been, or that he was quite simply dead, because that had meant that his entire legacy was over. bardock's power level had risen by only one thousand in all of these past years. Now, in the gap of only about a month, it had nearly sextupled. Bardock owed a lot to his son, now. To the son that he had forsaken. And to his grandson, too, Gohan the little boy. Bardock quietly decided that in the morning he was going to do something that was unheard of among his people- he was going to try to apologize to Gohan for his actions. But first, however, there was sleep. And the dawn. The kind, almost motherly dawn. A symbol of new beginning. Just the type of thing that Bardock needed right about now.

***

The saucerer ship neared Earth's atmosphere. Zarbon yawned as he looked out of the viewport, completely unaware that he had been keeping the same basic day/night schedule that they kept on earth. He checked the time. In about a half-hour or so, Zangya would be getting up. Normally, she was always up before Zarbon, regardless of how much or how little sleep that she had gotten the previous night, but lately she had been sleeping later. In fact, Zangya had been doing a lot of things differently lately. She seemed more closed, more withdrawn, more uncomfortable lately. And after what happened with the whole Majin incident, quite frankly Zarbon didn't blame her. As much as the thoughts of it would never even enter his mind normally, the fact is that as a Majin, Zarbon had threatened to rape her.

And after everything with Bojack, that was the wrong thing to say. Zangya understood perfectly that that wasn't really him talking, but all the same she preferred to keep more of a distance, thank you very much.

Quite secretly, Zarbon had thought for a while that the thing that Zangya needed was for someone to just shake the sense into her, but then he actually began to understand exactly what Bojack had done to her.

"There really wasn't anything wrong with him- that you could see, I eman- when I first met him. Bojack is probably the smoothest man that you'd ever meet. He's like a poisonous oil. As smooth as hell, but also dangerous if you let any of it on you." She had said in a recent conversation.

"He didn't seem that smooth the two times that I ahd met him," Zarbon had responded.

"But he wasn't trying to sleep with you, now, was he?" Was Zangya's curt reply, and with that the conversation had ended. Case in point.

Zarbon still didn't know the extent of the damage- he really didn't want to, but after piecing together what she had told him, he had already made up his mind that Bojack was one of the most vile, cruel men alive. He was more like an animal than like anything else, only he wasn't stupid.

Zarbon relaxed back in his chair as he shifted his attention over to Earth, and over to Bardock. Now there was a man who had it made!

While Zarbon and Zangya were being tossed around, first fighting Bojack and then facing the nightmare that was Babidi, Bardock was probably lounging around with his son, with a few light sparring matches being the extent of their danger and peril.

Of course. Bad things never really happened to other people, now, did they?

***