She wore no black this time.

She was trudging up the hill to the cemetery, a handful of flowers in her hands. Not roses. Not orchids. Not for him, not for them. Thistles and dandelions. And she knew that they would understand.

Or rather, Goku wouldn't have known the difference - a flower was a flower to him. Piccolo would understand. Or would have understood. How odd was it that she'd accepted that her husband was dead within hours…and yet the strange, solitary being that had literally stumbled into her life with barely even a hello still seemed so much a part of it?

She couldn't quite suppress a sigh…and thought that she would have liked to have cried again, but she was out of tears. Yes, it would be strange without him…his constant sarcasm, his peculiar ways…his own language, composed of sidelong looks and half-smiles and faint tilts of the head. The way he'd listened to her. He hadn't always done what she said…in fact, hardly ever had…but he'd listened.

But then, losing a friend was always hard…wasn't it?

It wasn't as if she'd been in love with him, after all…she knew she'd get over him eventually. If she could ever accept that it had happened to begin with. She forced herself to try to think of him as dead. Thinking of him…that was the easy part…he'd been on her mind so much as of late anyway. But picturing him as a flesh-and-blood statue stretched out in a coffin…that was impossible. The closest she could come was a mental image, unbidden, of him stripped to the waist, dripping with water, head tilted to one side with an expression of puzzlement as uncomfortable on his face as a bikini on a nun…

Chichi forced that image out of her mind as quickly as she could…disgusted with herself. Not only was he dead…he was asexual…and as cold and distant as the moon he'd blown up. And she didn't…hadn't…loved him. At all.

Which would explain why she was trudging up that hill…a handful of weeds in tow…tear trails still wet on her face…to say goodbye to him.

It was shameful, really…for her. She was supposed to be a responsible mother, a faithful wife…she should have been thinking about Gohan, not falling head over hem into an impossible, dead-end relationship with someone who most likely could not have returned her feelings…even if he hadn't died. This was completely whimsical…more suited to a starry-eyed teenager than a mother…

And then she realized that she was standing by the grave. And the tombstone that, in her mind, anyway…was a monument to both. Goku's body, and a little piece of Piccolo's soul…the dragonball. She would have liked to have buried the Nameksei-jinn warrior…but if Gohan hadn't brought the body home, then there probably wasn't enough left of it to…

She couldn't finish that thought. Even beginning it brought brand new tears to her eyes and tied her throat in a knot. Instead, she forced herself to look up…to see the tombstone…and the small, ordinary ball of stone that would confirm the death of the Nameksei-jinn warrior.

And saw her own reflection, orange and distorted, eyes puffy from grief, hair disheveled, expression disbelieving…then understanding…

The dragonball was still orange. Still Live. Still active….

Piccolo wasn't dead - or not yet, at any rate.

Next thing she knew, she was skidding down the hill, dropped flowers scattering in the wind of her passing. She was running full out to the little air car…not bothering to open the door, but vaulting in with a skill that an Olympic gymnast might very well have envied. She didn't even stop to wonder just what exactly she was going to do until she was well within the borders of Gingertown.

Or what had once been Gingertown.

It was easy to forget just how destructive a chi battle could be. It had only been around three years since she'd seen the effects of one, and already she had forgotten so much…the smell of ozone, the black streaks, the giant gashes that rent the earth…but this was within a city. Which made it infinitely worse.

Gutted skyscrapers stood at crazy angles or lay about like toppled Lego towers…cars were scattered about like rice thrown at a wedding, smashed in and crippled. Broken glass twinkled dully with the blue and red lights of a single, forlorn police siren that lay bereft of its car…alone in the center of the street…a pair of mismatched eyes, blinking in mute shock at the city they had traveled all their lives.

They weren't the only ones shocked.

There was no order to the world that Chichi found herself standing in. Alleys had been bared to the sunlight, main streets had been turned into tunnels by the falling debris…pavement had literally been melted in places, running together with metal and glass…

And how was she ever going to find him…in this.

Pursing her lips in determination, she pulled her car along the remnants of what had once been a school….continuing on foot. She would find him. She had to find him. So she walked.

She walked for what felt like years…picking her way over piles of debris, skirting the larger obstacles…not daring to call for him. Finally, it all started to blend together…pieces of lives, pieces of people, scraps of cloth and memories…a dead city, the tiny, fleeting hope from earlier nearly as dead.

Finally, with quite possibly the deepest sigh she had ever breathed in her life, Chichi sank down against a relatively undamaged brick wall, brushing a soot-smudged hand irritably against eyes that were no doubt watering from the residual dust.

She was only just beginning to realize the futility of searching for a single body in the mass grave that had been Gingertown. The feeling of hopelessness….helplessness…. would have swept her from her feet if she hadn't been sitting. She wasn't going to find him. He must have been hurt, or he would have come back. He was going to die…and she couldn't find him.

She turned her head, chastising herself harshly for being such a coward. She would find him somehow. She had to.

Then she saw it. Smeared across the bricks was a streak of indigo, like a brand new sort of graffiti….or as if someone had fallen along it, and the harsh surface had scraped blood…

Chichi was up and running beside the wall in barely a breath, still-strong legs pumping…until she reached the end of the trail. Her eyes were nearly frantic as they combed the surrounding area…no body…nothing…just a mangled streetlight…and a pile of rubble…

And a green hand protruding from beneath, so coated with dust and dried blood that it appeared to be simply another bit of debris.

She slid in next to the rubble like a runner coming into home, hesitating only a moment before taking that massive hand in both of hers…and that hesitation was only because she was afraid of clasping a hand…and nothing else.

That fear was proven unfounded when she felt the hand twitch….tremble…the long, corded fingers close weakly around the warmth of hers. She spent a silent moment thanking Kami….before she remembered that the other was most likely buried under at least a ton of rock….and would no doubt appreciate getting out. Now.

Immediately, she knelt and began casting aside bricks….pipes….gravel….general rubble. It seemed like a small eternity before her hands encountered something warm, sticky, and breathing. With a definite sigh of relief, she renewed her efforts, seeking the best way to dig him out…

Piccolo was obviously not content to wait. She couldn't quite stifle a gasp as he practically jackknifed to a sitting position, eyes closed against the grit, chest heaving with deep breaths. He brought his other hand up and swiped the back of it across his eyes so that he could see.

He turned his head, and he looked at her with the most clear expression of amazement on his face that she had ever seen. "What are you doing here?"

By way of answer, she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him. And he let her…though once she let him go, she noted that she'd never seen anyone look so confused. Not even Goku.

Chichi almost felt bad for causing such an uproar at the hospital in New Hope City. The nurses going back and forth through the lobby were all pale as porcelain, and they jumped at every little sound that might even remotely constitute a very large being getting fed up and exiting a hospital room in a less than conventional manner.

The woman couldn't help but grin a little at that. So Piccolo hadn't exactly been a model patient. She supposed it was time to go in and check up on him…and deliver the periodic threat to keep him where he was.

She walked calmly up to the door that the nurses were avoiding as though it carried the black plague, put on her best mother face, and opened it.

Gohan, of course was sitting on a stool by the bed, a math book opened across his lap. The boy's face had actually regained a bit of its color now that he knew at least one of his friends…quite possibly his oldest and the closest to his heart…was alive. He hadn't left the massive warrior's side, and for once, Chichi didn't really mind. Gohan was almost smiling. She had been afraid for a while that the expression of utter heartache would never leave his face…and anything that could make that much difference was worthwhile in her book.

Piccolo, on the other hand, did not look so cheerful. He was sitting up in bed, arms crossed, shoulders slightly hunched. His eyes were fastened to the opposing wall in a stony glare.

She stifled a laugh with some difficulty. If he had any idea how funny she found his sulking fits…

Instead of laughing, she put her hands on her hips. "What have I told you about terrorizing the orderlies?"

"I'm not speaking to you," he retorted, glaring harder at the wall.

"Well, pout all you want," she answered, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling, "you're still staying put until the doctor says you've replaced at least half the blood you lost."

"I am NOT pouting."

"I thought you weren't speaking to me, either."

"Hmph." His brows drew so low into a scowl they very nearly covered his eyes. She could have sworn she saw Gohan laughing silently behind his textbook.

She knew she was pushing it at this point, but she couldn't resist leaning down and giving him another peck on the cheek. Immediately, he turned a deep shade of purple…and Gohan, nearly choking on his laughter, exited the room.

The former demon king snorted, though oddly enough, he didn't really seem to mind. "There're rules here for everything…isn't there at least one that says you can't molest the patients?"

"Sorry, bud - not a one," she answered.

As his color began to change from plum to his normal, leafy shade, he turned his head a bit to look at her, the scowl softening ever so slightly. "Guess I'll just have to deal with it, huh?"

Chichi crossed her arms, consciously mocking his don't-screw-with-me pose. "You better believe it."

As for Piccolo, he merely shrugged. "It won't be anything I can't handle," he shot back, his trademark smirk pulling up at one lip.

She didn't know if he meant more by that than he was saying, or if he really was as oblivious as he looked…but she had a definite feeling that somehow, everything was going to turn out alright anyway.

And those feelings were never wrong.