Prologue: Reflection, and hope.

So, I probably should have realized this was the plot for 'literally every story involving Bardock ever' when I started, but I'm just gonna go ahead and keep writing it anyway.

It had taken years. If Bardock had made any move openly, had gone after any sizable outpost, any center that definitely would have had the information he needed, he would've been, at best, captured on video. If Freeza or his top advisers knew he was alive, they would never allow him to stay free. Or alive, for that matter. Therefore, he had been forced to attack only small outposts, ones he could raid and destroy fast enough that all traces of him would be long gone before any authority arrived. He'd been forced to piece-meal the information together, getting a hint here, the location of an outpost with better information there. It had taken him two years to just narrow the star cluster Kakarot had been sent to. It would've taken far too long to check the entire area, especially as it was off the beaten path-he wouldn't have been able to guarantee fuel for his pod. Still, it had helped direct him to which stations he should look into.

He had spent the decade in solitude. Saiyans were rather infamous throughout the universe, easily recognizable, and no one would feel bad for reporting him to Freeza's men. It had hardly been surprising. He got enough food and water at the outposts he took, though it was never particularly good. It had been a boring, repetitive, and wholly uneventful decade. He'd been forced to avoid anyone who was capable of giving him a challenge, for fear of discovery. He also doubted there would be anyone of any kind of power on Kakarot's world, if there was anyone but his son left on it in the first place. (The planet had been said to have a large moon, after all.)

Still, once he began seriously training Kakarot, he'd be able to satisfy his need for fighting. Or he would go crazy and possibly do some serious damage to his son. He was sure the kid would be tough enough to live through it at that point. Hopefully. Making decisions with his head was difficult-Saiyans were built to fight, thirsted for a good challenge, and rational thought didn't generally have a hand in most decisions. It was why they had started working with Freeza in the first place. He had offered them a challenge. "Conquer entire planets with limited numbers. Fight to your heart's desire, and let me take care of all the brainy bits. At the end, you get paid."

It had been a far too alluring offer. Saiyans were so rarely anything but fighters. Freeza had offered them endless fights, to prove themselves, to get stronger, and live well if they did enough. Anyone had the opportunity to advance. The Saiyan ability of growing in strength after a bad defeat meant that enough battles could allow anyone to someday join the elite. He had done it, after all. Never officially, of course, but he had been one of the strongest Saiyans before Freeza had wiped them out.

Freeza. He had found the report in the first outpost he had attacked. 'Planet Vegeta hit by large, unexpected meteorite. All but a handful of survivors destroyed." Bullshit. He wondered if any of the other survivors believed the lie. He supposed it wouldn't matter if they did or not, they would certainly pretend to. Freeza did not tolerate insubordination. But the lie meant one very important thing. Freeza had the power to destroy the planet of a powerful warrior race utterly, in such a short time no one even knew it had happened until it was over.

He had almost tried to stop him, too. If he hadn't realized the soldiers in the background of that vision were Freeza's men, instead of fellow Saiyans, he would've believed the Saiyans would've listened to him. Surely, the entire race together would've been able to topple the tyrant. He had also thought what he had been holding had been the orb the elite had used to make artificial moons. He had thought that he had been taught to do it, and that the whole race would've been changed. Then, truly, they might've won. But his ship had malfunctioned. It had taken a day to fix-he hadn't been the one in the unit with ship expertise-and in that time he had thought on the vision. And in that time, he had received a second one. A young man who looked like him had been facing down with Freeza on a planet he didn't know. After a moment, he had realized the man must have been his son, Kakarot. Fully grown. And if he had been facing Freeza fully grown, then that meant Freeza had lived. The two visions combined helped him realize that he wouldn't have been able to defeat Freeza -but Kakarot would be able to. Bardock wouldn't have faced the tyrant. He would only have died in futility. So Bardock had decided instead to search for his son, who supposedly would one day face Freeza as an equal.

After deciding that, he had immediately blacked out. Later he found that he had been unconscious for two days, and had suffered from splitting headaches ever since. It had been years before he puzzled it out. He had changed the future. The people they had attacked had visions, yes, but had not used them to their advantage. He knew the visions were vague-as he had had one of his own death, thinking it his victory-and that they might not have understood exactly what was going to happen to them, but now he wondered if they had simply never interfered with their own visions. To do so, if done correctly, changes the future, as he had done. He had never received another vision. Apparently, he was only allowed to change the future once, and in return he was given the damn headaches.

He had wondered, from time to time, if he shouldn't just give up and leave Kakarot be. What he had done hadn't affected his son's future yet-and he was supposed to be able to challenge Freeza when it was over. The future was different, yes, but he wasn't so foolish to think the change was all that significant as of yet. Freeza believed him dead-none of his actions had changed simply because he hadn't been challenged before destroying Planet Vegeta. If Bardock died, or never interfered, Kakarot's life would run the same course it would if he had never changed the future. Eventually, Kakarot would kill Freeza. And yet…

He wasn't sure. What if something else HAD changed? Or would, if he just stepped back, or threw himself in the line of fire? Besides, Kakarot might need a way off the planet he had been sent to. He doubted Freeza-or anyone, for that matter- remembered the boy. Prince Vegeta had been making a name for himself as one of Freeza's prime fighters, and likely didn't know Kakarot existed. Or, he suspected, would care even if he did. He didn't know the names of the other two Saiyans the Prince traveled with, but Kakarot wouldn't be of any more concern to them. And Bardock would not abandon his son. Strangely, despite never paying much attention to Raditz when he was a child, Bardock felt far more responsibility toward his youngest. Perhaps it was that his life this past decade had been focused on finding the boy, or maybe it was the guilt over leaving Raditz to die, but he swore he would not let his last son down.

Bardock wasn't a fool. If he had tried to rescue Raditz, he would've died. Once he was on Planet Vegeta, there would be no way off again. Freeza had wasted no time once every Saiyan but his handpicked 3 were either dead or on the planet. The 'accident' had happened right after that bastard Dodoria had wiped out Bardock's squad. He knew he had done the right thing.

But when did that ever matter? He had abandoned one son to save the other, and the guilt of that would never be erased. But he had committed himself to this course of action, and he would not back down. Whether or not Kakarot would be able to beat Freeza if Bardock left him alone didn't matter anymore. He had never been a father. No Saiyan had ever had much of an emotional investment in their children-or in general. If he had realized one thing about his race it was how limited their normal range of emotions were. Clearly, he-and the rest of them by extension-were capable of it, but they never had bothered on Vegeta, He'd had reasons, justifications, but the fact was that Bardock had a son for years and never so much as looked at him if there was anything else he could be doing. Raditz would probably hate him if he were alive.

But he might yet have a chance to redeem himself, at least slightly. He had the location of Kakarot's planet. It had been buried in an old archive, untouched until Bardock came along. Nobody knew about it. It would take a year, maybe more, but he would find his son. He would find him and make him into a warrior capable of taking on the tyrant that had wiped out almost their entire race. Bardock was stronger now. He might have avoided real threats during his search, but he had trained, and been forced to fight smart to take those outposts quickly and quietly. He was certain he'd be able to crush Dodoria now. He could probably take out Zarbon. But Freeza and his family? Beyond him. The Ginyu Force? He doubted it. So he would find his son, train him, and together they would grow strong enough that they would be able to take on that tyrant. Together, they would get revenge.