Oh Baby
By: Chocolate-chan
Warnings/spoilers: Cute title! ^_^ Appropriate.... of course, nice lil' lemon to make up for chapter 4 that was lemon-less. Lil' bit of language, lil' bit of... just read the story already! What, am I supposed to tell it to you again up here? If you've made it this far, then you obviously know what to expect!

"Come on, Marron-chan, come to me!"
Young Marron was holed up in a cabinet, a long low darkness that was barely pierced with the light from the open door. She was chasing a small dark smoke-gray cat, who was terrified of her ungentle hands. She reached for it and it snarled at her, yowling. Marron giggled slightly at the noises it made.
Goten bit his lip, exasperated. Marron giggled again and reached forward one hand, a cute little slightly dimpled hand still evident of babyhood. Goten winced when the cat got hold of her with one set of claws. Marron jerked one hand back and surveyed the four scratches on the back of her hand, looking at Goten with liquid eyes.
"You wouldn't get scratched if you'd come here!" He told her, half expecting her to cry.
Instead the girl frowned at her hand and reached for the cat again, getting more scratches and disregarding them with an almost Saiyan tolerance for pain. she grabbed the cat by the loose skin on the back of its neck and dragged it into her lap, doing something that eventually made the cat calm down and lick at her hand slightly.
Goten sighed softly, beginning to wonder if he would be able to get her out of there. He swiped at her with one arm, twisting himself around to reach farther in. She smiled blandly at him and stroked that kitten, who was not purring but was still for the time being. Marron giggled at the expression on Goten's face. Still out of reach.
"Come on, Marron, please? Your mother will get mad at me if I let you stay in the cabinet all day..." Goten reached for her again, when he suddenly felt something hit him on the head, bouncing off, forcing his chin into the bottom of the cabinet with a clack that nearly snapped off his tongue.
He saw the mother cat advancing toward Marron with fur standing upright, tail swishing. The mother cat hissed when she saw her kitten being handled by a strange human, and Goten knew the mother's claws were sharper and longer than the baby's.
"Marron, you need to put the kitten down and come here," he told her, raising his voice above the cat's as he grabbed its tail to keep it from lunging at her. It attacked his hand and he let it go, catching it again, but not fast enough, and it left slashes on the back of the toddler's hands that cris-crossed the ones of the kitten.
Marron howled and let the kitten go, and it went to its mother. Goten swept them both up and tossed them onto a nearby box, leaving them to their own devices as he reached into the cabinet, extending a hand to the small girl who was clutching her hand with the other, fingers getting bloody.
"Come on, Marron." Goten watched as the girl released her hand and sniffed, crawling into reach of him, and he pulled her out, jumping to the floor of the small shed that had been left open since Trunks was mowing the lawn. He cradled the young girl and wiped her face. "You okay? Daijoubu desu ka, Marron-chan?" He enunciated clearly.
"O-jii-chan!" Marron exclaimed and glomped onto him, pain forgotten. Goten nearly found himself with a mouthful of dark human hair, but he loved his granddaughter and didn't hold it against her. He patted her on the back and smoothed her hair so that he didn't inhale it. Goten shooed the cats out of the box they were in and into their bed and went out of the building, knowing they would be alright since there was a pet door.
"You find her?" Trunks drawled slightly over his shoulder as he churned up thick grass with the lawnmower.
"Hai." Goten adjusted Marron as she hung onto him oddly. He took her into the house and slid the glass door shut behind him, ignoring his sixteen-year-old stepson who was on the phone with his girlfriend, one leg thrown over the armrest of the couch. He laughed at something she said and told her she was cute. Goten rolled his eyes as he walked by and Keisuke aimed a pillow at his head.
Upstairs, Goten set his two-year-old granddaughter on the counter and rummaged through the medicine cabinet, patching her up, holding her still to administer antiseptic, then bandaging the scratches on her hands. "Your mom will crucify me, but you'll be okay." Marron smiled up at the sound of his voice but didn't seem to comprehend him.
So far she had names for most of her family and some of the things she played with, but the girl had not picked up any spare words. She shook her head for no or yes, smiled or frowned, but didn't seem to be hitting that stage where a child's every word is "Iie!", even though she was old enough for it.
Somehow Goten had the idea that she understood more than she let on. He spoke to her as though to another adult, and her mother had abandoned most of the cutesy talk mothers seemed to hold on to. Her father didn't speak to her much, besides the necessary, but he took her with him everywhere he could and showed her a lot of attention.
If Goten had ever had any doubts about his daughter marrying Takeuchi Shiro, they were dispelled by the way his daughter looked at him; adoring as though he were god himself. Marron was smiling a bit at him now, with a look of total bliss on her face. She was absolutely adorable.
Goten took her back down to the living room and gave her a bucket of blocks that she often like to play with, and she tugged them laboriously over by the sliding glass doors. She built a small tower and then knocked it partly over as she changed directions to plaster herself against the glass, watching Trunks pass by and laughing.
"Jii-san!"
Goten chuckled and sat down, wiping his forehead and leaning back into the cusions of the chair, picking up a book.
"I guess I'll let you go, Yuuko-chan. No, really. Really. Gotta go. Bye. Bye. Bye!"
Goten knew the boy really couldn't stand to be on the phone for long. There was a beep as the phone was tossed onto the couch cusions.
"You're going out with Yuuko-chan again?" Goten inquired over the top of the book, curious.
"Yeah," Keisuke grunted. Goten reached up to turn a page and realized that his hands were scratched up as well, from trimming one of the trees in the back yard.
"I don't see how that girl puts up with you. On again off again for the past two years, and you seeing other girls in between." Goten shook his head and Keisuke amused himself for a few moments by tossing pillows at Goten's head. Goten batted them aside, irritable. "Make me get up, boy, and neither of us will be thrilled." Goten put the book down and looked at the purple-haired teenager. "Besides, it was just an observation. I know you didn't ask for my advice, but I think you'll spare yourself some grief if you decided whether or not you really want to date her."
"We can make it work," he insisted, looking aside. "It's just difficult."
"Humph. And weren't you supposed to be watching Marron until we came back in?" Goten asked him pointedly, shooting a glance at the girl to insure that she was where he had left her. When she looked at him and blinked he turned his gaze back to Keisuke, who sighed a bit at the rebuke. He was the only one of the kids who had never really bothered to make excuses for himself when Goten told him something. None of the kids usually ever said anything back to their father, as he was not unknown to gain unreasonable temper under duress, but they usually argued their case with their stepfather.
"Sorry."
"Don't "sorry." Watch out for your niece next time I ask." Goten said succinctly, raising his book as he did. He could almost smell that the boy was insincere anyway. "She could have been hurt."
"She's alright, though, isn't she?" Keisuke asked, looking over at the girl. He rose and reached down to pick her up, holding her against his chest as she looked at him rather blankly. "She's a little Saiyan, isn't she."
"Her heritage is irrelevant."
"Not really heritage, is it?" Keisuke observed, setting her down. "More like tradition."
"I'm trying to read," Goten said, looking away from the boy to bury his momentary annoyance.
"What, the pictures have captions?" Wrong time. Goten didn't think the joke was overly funny at the moment, where he would usually have laughed.
"Your sister and brother are coming over tonight."
"Which sister?"
"Hikaru-chan is bringing her fiance, and I fully expect you to be civil to him." Goten turned another page, but set the book down as he wasn't really comprehending while speaking to the boy. "Your aunt and uncle will be here, and so will Ai and Shiro. Rei isn't coming. Can you handle these arrangements?"
Keisuke frowned down at him, looking like nothing other than an arrogant young Trunks. "Yes," he said shortly.
"I'm glad." Goten crossed one leg over the other as Keisuke's brow furrowed further for a moment and he turned to leave the room silently. "If you're passing the kitchen, could you check the oven for me?"
"I'm not."
"Let me rephrase: could you do it anyway?"
Keisuke pivoted and went into the kitchen. "It looks like a dead bird."
"Is it a white dead bird, or what?"
"Pinkish-white?"
"Domo." Goten watched with amusement as Keisuke clomped up the stairs and shut his door softly by Saiyan standards, but earsplitting to a normal human. Trunks came in on the tail end of it and tossed a pair of work gloves aside on a table.
"You two at odds again?" He seemed all but outright amused.
Goten only looked at him.
"How come he never stands up to me?" Trunks wondered briefly as he headed for the kitchen.
"He's not going to stand up to you," Goten told him sharply, then bit himself off since it wasn't really an answer. Trunks came out with a bottle of water, and looked at his mate with raised eyebrows.
"Oh?"
"He's going to take out any of his frustrations with us on me," Goten informed him.
"And does this... bother you in the slightest?" Trunks asked, shaking his head with wide eyes as he questioned Goten's tone.
He brushed black bangs out of his eyes. "He's my kid," he said at last, and Trunks smiled a bit.
"Why you?"
"I'm less threatening," Goten said with a shrug. "I'm not as likely as you to take him out back and beat the crap out of him."
"I don't spank my kids."
"I didn't say "spank"," Goten clarified.
"He's too old to spank anyway."
"Besides, you're a bitch when someone pisses you off."
Trunks actually laughed. Then he grew quiet and threw himself onto the sofa in a careless position much as Keisuke had. "What do you think of that man Hikaru's living with?"
"He has a name," Goten told him in amusement, backtracking in the book to the last place he remembered.
"Anyway," Trunks replied testily. "I don't like the idea of her living with him."
"You've been saying that for a week." Since she told him. Notice she moved in first, then...?
"I don't like the thought of what they might be doing," Trunks went on, leaning forward to stare at the floor between his feet.
"I've often heard fathers have a hard time understanding that they don't own their daughters."
"You talk like you're some kind of bachelor," Trunks said. Mostly for his own amusement, Goten looked up to see his eyes, that rather possessive look that was sometimes displayed there. It's like he tamed me or something.
"Sometimes I think Ai was on loan to me."
"Wonder why you never had such a good history with library books?"
"He's nice."
"What?"
"He's intelligent. He's rather dull, but the same thing could be said about you. And his name is Ishino."
"I know his name." Trunks paused. "I'm dull?"
"Yes, Mr. President." Goten buried his face in the pages of the book so he wouldn't have to see the other demi-saiyan's reaction. "You're dull. Until you put on that gi, that is."
"What about out of it?" Trunks asked, almost offhand. "I thought the other day you said-"
"Hhht!" Goten made a threatening gesture toward him.
"I know his name. I also know that he's twenty-five."
"Think about that, Trunks-kun." Goten used his "idiot" voice.
"What?"
Goten abandoned the book for good. "That means he was five when Hikaru was born. That means they're the same generation."
"Well, I wouldn't have let my twelve-year-old daughter date a seventeen-year-old."
"They're fully capable adults at this current stage. In their teen years I would have been worried too. Besides, it's not really "let." They choose for themselves."
"As I discovered!" Trunks shot back. "Ai, and that Shiro... I didn't know about him at first. When I met him I changed my opinion. I didn't think much about Ashitare, but now he and Rei are thinking about children. This one-!" Trunks shook his head.
"Yuuko's nice."
"She's dating him again? The girl-child needs to move on!"
"He's like you were, kind of restless. Yuuko needs better than that, but it's not Keisuke's fault."
"The way we talk, you'd think we had all our own romantic problems solved."
"I just hope there aren't too many children in the family at the same time," Goten said, pretending to be annoyed.
"Shut up, you're not fooling anyone."
"Speaking of which-"
Crash!
"Shit," Trunks said in a wondering tone as Goten hauled himself up and into the kitchen. He was greeted with the parents' worst kitchen nightmare; a small child covered in flour and something that looked suspiciously like chocolate sauce, one of Marron's favorites, creating audio aftershocks on the pots and pans she'd tumbled out of the cabinet.
Goten sank slightly, feeling a little guilty for being short with Keisuke earlier as he surveyed the results of his inattention. His granddaughter looked up at him with her bright eyes and laughed at the wonderful ruckus she was causing.
"Yes, it's delightful, honey," Goten told her as he moved over to pick her up. "You make wonderful messes." Marron laughed again and smeared white handprints all over his shirt as he lifted her like she was lighter than she actually was.
"Could be worse," Trunks said from behind him.
"Yeah, we should be glad she didn't find some way to get into the good china. She probably can't since it's up there almost next to the ceiling, huh Marron?" Goten hoisted her a little higher. She watched his moving mouth with fascination as usual.
"Oh yeah?" Trunks nudged something with his toe that made rough brittle jostling sounds. "Then what's that?"
Goten took a moment to glance down under his feet as he realized he crunched when he walked. "Your imagination?" Marron looked strangely pleased with herself. "Look at you..." Goten shook his head.
"Shiro and Ai will be here in an hour or two."
"I'm beginning to be suspicious of you, girl. When did you learn to fly?" Goten peered down at Marron, who looked around the room. He moved toward the door to take Marron for a bath. As he passed Trunks, the girl cried "Jii-san!" and reached.
Trunks plucked the toddler out of his hands. "I'll take her."
"Why? I'm already messed up."
"You do the pots then." Trunks found chocolate handprints appearing on his face almost before he registered the sticky wetness. "You're not going to just shove them all back in the cabinet, are you?" Trunks shouldered the door open as Marron clung to him.
"Keisuke!" Goten yelled up the stairs. "I'll give you ten bucks to do the dishes!"
"Twenty!" came the reply.
"This isn't highway robbery; they're practically clean!"
"See you at dinner."
"Fine then," Goten muttered and picked them all up, sweeping up the shards and doing the few pots quickly, checking what they planned to have for dinner. They hadn't really had so much of the family together at one time in quite a while. Bra hadn't spent as much time around her brother's family since she was married and had children of her own. She practiced law, but it was not a demanding type of position so that she could care for her children. Someone like Bra had too much pride to become a simple housewife, however.
Goten thought about Keisuke now. The boy had grown, as he aged, from the perfect, quiet, studious young boy to a young man who took entirely too much after his older brother. But where Akira had calmed with time and medication, Keisuke had taken the opposite route and became difficult. Raising the young quarter-saiyan alone without any other siblings around had forced both his father and step-father to radically re-evaluate their approach to child-rearing.
He poked at the large "Dead bird" in the oven with a fork and sighed softly. They took things by day now, as they came.

"Alright, now, if you guys are hungry, and if you can be quiet, if you can be quiet, and if you can be quiet..." Trunks paused until there was silence. "Thank you. We can eat. Yes, Tanaka, I saw your hands in the turkey. So you can eat without sneaking now." The boy drew his hands into his lap, properly abashed. Everyone laughed.
Trunks followed the progress of the first plate through Goten at his right to Bra, her daughter Hoshi, her little son Tanaka, Keisuke, Ishino, Hikaru, her twin brother, who passed it to Shiro who dealt out for himself and his young daughter before passing the plate to his wife.
"Why is my child bandaged?" Ai asked her father, blinking her solemn dark eyes as Goten flinched slightly.
"There was a cat, and..."
"So, what's it like just having one kid around now?" Bra asked Keisuke.
"Sucks," he said succinctly. "Goten says everything is me."
"Modify that?" She asked.
"Everything is me."
Bra threw a glance at Goten who was rolling his eyes and fending off his daughter. Marron clacked her little fork against the tray of the highchair. Ishino chatted with Akira for a moment or so, and it seemed to Trunks as though Akira had known the young man even longer than the rest of the family. Trunks didn't think too highly of that.
"So, Ishino... what was it you said you did?"
"I'm a medical technichian," Ishino supplied between bites with a smile. "Hikaru-chan and I met in the emergency room."
"And how's that going?" Shiro asked Hikaru. "Last time you and I really spoke, you were fretting about aortas..."
"It's really great! I love being a nurse and interacting with all the people..."
"Hoshi-chan, wanna pass me a roll?" It arced through the air and plopped onto Goten's plate. "Arigatou."
"Sure thing, O-ji-chan."
"What are your career plans?" Trunks eyed the man mistrustfully.
"I really like what I'm doing right now," he admitted. "I know if life arrangements changed suddenly, I would have to alter my career plans, and I'm prepared for that. I always have options open, but I like where I am." He ran a hand through light frost-blue hair with a wry grin.
"Tou-chan, don't give him the third degree! This isn't the freaking Spanish inquisition..." Hikaru bit into a roll and glared at her father. Trunks looked at her mildly, but Ishino put a calming hand onto Hikaru's and laughed it off.
Goten had been lucky enough to snag a drumstick even though Tanaka had looked at him enviously, since the two were in an eternal food war. He bit into it and looked from Trunks to Ishino. "You don't happen to like martial arts, do you?"
"I don't care for them overmuch, but I'm not against them. The only thing I deal with that's martial arts related is sprains and broken bones and death. Lotta death."
Trunks laughed as Goten apparently lost interest in the young man. "He checks out. Boring like you Trunks, but not stalker material."
"I never said he was a stalker."
"....So I've been feeling sluggish, and I went to the doctor 'cause I was falling asleep at work. He says I might not need these pills anymore, the ones I've been taking since I was twelve or so, remember the little white ones?"
"That's great, Akira-chan!"
"Pass me the potatoes?" Goten blinked widely at him.
Trunks turned away as the phone rang and Goten snatched the hot bowl from his hands.
"Moshi moshi, Briefs residence?"
"Tou-chan?" Trunks frowned as he recognized his eldest daughter's voice. She sounded exhilarated.
"If you want to come to dinner now, it's too late and we don't love you anymore."
"Can't make it to dinner, Tou-chan, sorry. But I'm at the doctor's now with Ashitare,and-"
"Is everything alright?"
"Uhm, yeah! Actually, I'm going to have a baby!"
The phone clattered against the counter as Trunks juggled to bring it back to his face. "Nani?!"
"Yeah! We just got the news back, and Marron-chan's going to have a little cousin in about seven or so months.... You wanna tell everyone?"
"You're just scared!"
"I'm just not there," she corrected. "Please, Tou-chan?"
Trunks huffed a sigh and felt his face turn downward. "My daughter's having a kid...."
"Aww, it's okay, Tou-chan. I'm still your kid. Only now, Goten-san will have more grandkids to play with!"
"The first one's breaking him," Trunks murmured.
"What?"
"I'm going to the dining room," he informed her, moving toward the doorway and pushing the swinging door open.
Goten glanced up at him, swallowing whatever was in his mouth. The others didn't really notice. "Everybody!"
Heads swiveled. "Rei and Ashitare are having a baby!" He held forth the phone and made motions. They cheered, clapping, as Ishino looked around in puzzlement and clapped politely. "Hikaru-chan, Rei's your...?"
"O-nee-chan."
"Ah."
"Is there anything else you want to spring on us?" Trunks asked as he headed back to the phone's base.
"No, that's it. Is it okay if I come see you guys soon?"
"This is your home, daughter. Come when you want."
"Thanks, Dad. I have to go, Ashitare's looking shaky." The phone clicked.
Trunks set down the phone, and looked at it for a long moment. As he turned with thoughts of going back to dinner, he was brought up short by the sight of Goten standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame as he steadied the door, looking at him with an adoring and knowing expression.
"What are you looking at?"
Goten came and wrapped arms around his neck, and even though he tried to be sympathetic he couldn't stop smiling. He kissed his husband gently, and then grinned at him. "Now, who had no sympathy when Ai was pregnant, and who is gonna get laughed at now...?" He looked positively evil.
Trunks sighed.
"I know, love. They're too young, right?"
"Yeah..."
"Everything will be just fine, understand? Ai had a baby and it didn't bring the sun crashing into the earth; and anyway, the way I figure, be glad she's married."
"I know, right?" Trunks sighed. "I told myself they'd never grow up fast enough. They're barely up, much less grown, and they're having kids."
"You know damn well that you were younger than they were. At least, Marron was. How old were you?"
"What do you think they'll call this one?"
"I never saw you react to Marron." Goten looked at him, almost clinically.
"That's because they were looking at me. Ai said, "We're calling her Marron," and she looked at me, like she was asking permission. So I nodded. But even though I never really talked about it, I'm kinda glad they named her that."
"Woulda been better if it was one of yours?" Goten asked sneakily, peering up at him questioningly.
"It is, you big dolt. Now let's go before there isn't any food left."
A few hours later it was quiet. Trunks went upstairs and took two aspirin, and came back down the stairs to where Goten was in the kitchen, cleaning. He stood in the doorway and watched him for a moment, noting that Keisuke had long since abandoned cleanup duty. Goten was moving a little jerkily, thrusting dishes into the wash water as he rinsed the others.
"They took her away."
Goten didn't say anything.
"Your daughter took her daughter and went home, and now you miss her. Don't you."
Goten didn't really say anything, but he slowed down.
Trunks came to stand behind him. He dropped his hands on Goten's shoulders, squeezing affectionately.
"Hey, what do we need more kids around here for anyway? Isn't Keisuke just delightful?" Goten muttered, rubbing at his cheek with one wet hand absently as he tossed dishes onto the dying rack.
"You don't have to be sarcastic."
"I'm not; he's a great kid. I really don't know what you're talking about."
"You love kids, Goten-chan. Come off it."
"You be saying that when I wring your kid's throat?"
"You wouldn't. They all love you as much as you love them."
"They're so difficult. All kids."
Trunks pressed his face into Goten's hair. "So are you, Chibi."
Goten turned his head and looked at him solemnly.

Marron shrieked and giggled on Goten's back, as he was "forced" to play horsey with her. He giggled and nearly tumbled her onto the grass, holding her by her feet. After she was laughing so hard she could barely breathe, he set her on his lap and gave her some water. Trunks laughed at both of their flushed faces as he sat in chairs under the trees with his eldest daughter.
"Well, did Kaa-san ever feel like that with any of us?"
"All the time. Ai did too. Try milk." Trunks advised her absently as he looked over at his granddaughter. It had been a long time since either he or Goten truly thought of their children and themselves as the two separate families, Son and Briefs. Trunks was just as happy to consider Marron his own granddaughter. She was adorable, with her dark shiny hair in low pigtails and her Pyo Pyo overalls on. Since they were shorts she had grass stains all over her knees. Over the past few months she had grown exponentially, and looked at least three now. She still hardly spoke. It caused her parents concern, but Goten shrugged it off. Goten ruffled her hair now and kissed her on the head as she panted for breath on his knee, grinning up at him.
And after all, who better to name her after?
"Well, I've had an odd reaction to lactose. What else might work?" Rei drew his attention once more, and Trunks sighed as he thought.
"Anything basic, you know, with high alkaline content. Shy away from soda like you would a snake. Way too acidic for you to be drinking too much of." Rei nodded and seemed to take notes.
"Shouldn't I be feeling movement? It's six months along, and..." Rei bit her lip, causing her father to notice how pale she was. "It's been too still. I haven't really felt the baby move in a while. I'm really worried."
"Have you gone to the doctor?"
"I'm going tomorrow. Still, I'm really getting concerned."
"Have your... uhm, body routines changed, since you noticed it was still?"
Rei nodded.
"Go as soon as possible. Be sure you let me know, okay?" Rei nodded again.
"I will, Tou-san. I just pray everything's okay. I really need to get going." Rei started to move her bulky self to her feet, and Trunks rose to help her, since even with the added weight she was light to him.
"I'll take you to your car, kay?" Trunks looped his arm with hers and walked at her pace around the front of the house.
"Bai, Goten!"
"Ja ne, Rei-chan."
Trunks waved her off and went around to the back of the house again, seeing Goten approach with Marron in his arms, carrying her with legs spilling clumsily out of the cradle of his arms. She was asleep.
"The child sleeps like no other I've seen," Trunks commented. He snapped his fingers for emphasis.
"If she sleeps too long she'll miss dinner." Goten waited as Trunks came and opened the sliding door for him, and stepped inside over the sill, careful not to jostle Marron. "Something smells off about Rei."
"Marron'll be fine." Trunks couldn't find anything to say about his daughter. "She'll wake when she's hungry. I swear Goten, you act like she's your own. The point of being a grandfather is to spoil the kids. Feed her ice cream when she wakes up."
"She gets sick if she eats too much ice cream."
"Feed her cookies then! God!" Trunks shook his head as Goten's eyebrows did a little number somewhere between funny and strange, and he turned to carry Marron upstairs to sleep.
"Fine! you can be that way if you like, Yuuko! I know you were cheating on me all along anyway!" Keisuke's voice came from the living room. "What are you crying for? I've heard it from everyone. Yeah, save it. Bye." The phone slammed and Trunks crossed his arms as he stood in the entrance to the living room. Keisuke turned with a snap as though sensing his father's presence.
"What, were you listening in? Private conversation!"
Trunks surveyed his son, and even now it seemed he was almost looking in a mirror. Even though he saw the gathering wrinkles on his own face and the thickness of body that he had not possessed in youth, he often forgot when he was away from mirrors. He remembered spending long moments fixing his hair when he was in his teens as Keisuke was, and the boy was his spitting image, only with darker eyes.
"You were making it easy. I'll thank you not to yell in my house? And just a piece of advice, if you treat all girls like poor Yuuko, you'll be like your brother, twenty-two and single."
"I don't care overmuch for your advice, and my brother has personality problems."
"Watch it."
"Leave me alone."
"Fine." Trunks went upstairs and collapsed on his bed, even though that was where Goten had laid Marron. She rolled slightly and smacked him in the face with one hand. Trunks moved away and started to feel sleepy. He woke some time later when it was dark. Goten woke him and told him to put on his pajamas and get under the covers so that both of them could use them.
Trunks stumbled into the bathroom and brushed his teeth, changing and going out to where Goten was already in bed.
"Are you okay? You slept for a while."
"I'm fine. Still sleepy," Trunks muttered as he kicked under the covers with his feet, searching for a comfortable way to lie. Goten curled into him as he turned his back on him, arms settling easily around his waist as he sighed into Trunks' hair. They lay silent for a long time, and Trunks heard Goten yawn, then snuggle into him drowsily.
Just as Trunks was in the middle of a yawn as well, there was a sharp ringing. Trunks grumbled, but reached clumsily for his lamp. He hit it with his fingertips, just enough to knock it off and hear it crash to the floor. Goten jumped against him.
"Goten, turn on the damn light!" Trunks said as he rose and searched for the phone. There was movement in the hall.
"O-Jii-chan, Jii-san!!" Marron connected with Trunks' chest just as he was about to get the phone, and knocked him off balance slightly. Goten's light clicked on as he reached over to pull Marron into his lap.
"Yes?" Trunks asked gruffly. He looked at the clock. It was nearly midnight.
"T-tou-chan...?" There was a gulp. "It's Rei."
Trunks' annoyance dissolved when he heard his daughter's voice, and perceived that she was crying. "O-jou-chan? What's wrong? Where are you?"
Goten cocked his head and looked at Trunks as he ran fingers through Marron's shoulder-length hair.
"Doctor's," She said, almost unwillingly. "I, uhm," She sobbed once.
"What's the matter, Rei? Tell me what's wrong." Trunks rose and started to pull clothes on.
"The baby... it's... I was right. It's too still."
"What?"
"My baby's dead."
Even though Trunks had been steeling himself for it, it was still a shock. He froze for a long moment, and took a breath.
"We'll be there in a few minutes."
"Alright..." Rei said, and clicked off with a strange finality in her voice.
"Goten, get dressed," Trunks said as he set the phone down and pulled on a shirt hastily.
Goten looked down at Marron. She rubbed her eyes. "Jii-chan, asa gohan desu ka?"
"Breakfast in a little while, sweetheart," Goten said as he passed Marron to Trunks. Goten got dressed as Trunks pulled the same overalls onto the little girl. Goten met him down at the car and they made the trip in silence. Goten must have guessed what was going on, because he didn't ask any questions.
As they waited at the desk to learn where Rei was, Trunks looked down at Marron, who clung sleepily to Goten's leg. He realized that she had uttered maybe the first full sentance he had ever heard from her, and he hadn't noticed.
Rei sat on a table, and shivered. Ashitare was with her, his green eyes filled with pain as he held her hand. Rei's face was dry, but showed tear tracks still. She was obviously cold, and the doctor was nowhere in sight.
Rei accepted a hug from Goten with a slight sound, and he held onto her for a moment, patting her hair. After a moment he pulled away, and let Trunks approach his daughter. He stepped up to her and pulled her into his arms, and Rei cried again. Goten motioned Ashitare into the hall, and held Marron close as she shivered. He coached the details from Ashitare.
"It was... freak accident, they said, y'know? Just one minute, then the next..." He didn't make total sense, but Goten got the point. "Nothing anyone could do."
"I understand," Goten told him. He noted that Rei's husband looked pale and heartbroken. "You wanna watch Marron for a bit for me? I want to see how Rei's doing."
Ashitare hesitated, then reached his hands for his niece. Goten recalled that he liked kids fairly well, and Marron obviously liked him okay since she went to him without complaint. "You hungry, onna?"
Marron nodded as she rubbed her eyes some and looked at him with exotically slanted eyes blinking. Goten had always thought her Japanese features were cute, and Ai's too. Trunks could do that with his eyes sometimes when he wasn't thinking about it. But he pushed those thoughts aside as he went into the room, pushing the door open with the flat of his hand.
Rei wore her father's jacket and he was handing her tissues. This hospital smelled so strongly of cleaners that he wanted to cry as well, but he was sure that Rei had other reasons for her emotional display, and he wondered what thoughts entered her mind at the moment.
"Maybe it's okay," Rei mused as she took note of Goten's reappearance. "I mean, I'm upset that it happened, but maybe it'll work out okay. I was..." she bit her lip as though afraid to speak the thought since the baby was dead. "I was kind of daunted by the prospect of being a mother. It was starting to get really scary."
"Everything will be alright," Goten told her as reassuringly as he could. "And when you're ready, I know it'll work out."
"I know how you feel, too." Trunks told her. I was scared to death when Marron went to the hospital to have you. This hospital. I was sitting in the waiting room the next floor down, practically chewing my fingers off in anxiety." He thought. "Y'know maybe you should tell your husband what you told me." She thought for a moment.
"Maybe it wasn't such a bad experience, having me, huh Tou-chan?"
"I could do without the worry, but you were always a great kid." They shared a smile.
Goten could recall such moments when he had felt close to his own adopted daughter, but the comfort they had always offered each other was sometimes meager, almost pathetic in comparison. I'm just not good at that stuff, Goten told himself. Ai had grown to be much more dispassionate than anyone would have guessed knowing that he had raised her.
Still, no matter how much he loved his daughter, he was somewhat jealous that he had never had a child of his own. He had just never found someone that he was compatible with, no one he wanted to marry and have children with. No one before Trunks, at any rate. But this way, he would never have a child of his own, genetically related to him. Most of the time he didn't think about it since he considered Ai to be his own. Still, irrational as it was.....
"Didju ever... lose a kid, Dad?" Rei was so quiet that her voice barely rose above the ventilators.
Trunks' brow creased, and he opened his mouth as though thinking hard.
"How are we doing in here... Urameshi Rei?" The doctor came in with a clipboard. "It's too cold? Well, I'll have you put in a room soon, and you'll have plenty of blankets."
"In a room?" Trunks' brow furrowed once more, leaving him with a highly Vegeta-esque expression. "Is something wrong?"
"Are you her husband?"
"Father." The doctor looked at Goten, who pointed to Trunks, saying "I'm with him."
"Father also," Rei supplied. "My husband is out watching his niece."
"Ah," he said, shrugging it off. "As long as they're family I won't have to ask them to clear out. There's nothing wrong with you at all." He sighed softly. "In cases like this, parents often ask questions. Well, I've seen this thing before. In a vastly different form; in fact, I think you just might be a medical anomaly. But you did nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong with you that caused the pregnancy to terminate. What happened to you I've seen when natural selection between sets of genes burned itself out. When too many factors depend on each other and one loses out, sometimes the results are not good. There's a likelihood that if you had given birth the baby would not have survived. The only thing that's wrong with you is the emotional trauma, that and the fact that your system is going to be undergoing rapid changes that have already started to take place. You're going to feel a little weak for a while, and I want you to be under observation."
There didn't seem to be anything to say to that, and the doctor eventually left.
"Is it..." Rei swallowed hard as she looked at her father. "Is it because I'm...?"
"I don't know," Trunks told her honestly. "Does Ashitare even know about us?"
"N-no... I couldn't just come up to him and... well. I assumed he would find out some time. If you'd like to tell him, do so."
"I wouldn't interfere," Trunks said. "Although I'll say I don't think you being part alien from outer space...." he sounded silly, poking her in the shoulder as he said it, "would have an effect, since there have been any number of Saiyan half-breeds and quarter-breeds and..." he stopped to count on his fingers. "Eighth-breeds... and..."
"I think he needs sleep," Goten said, taking him by the arm. "And so do you, Rei-chan. Try to rest, will you?"
"Al-alright." She was still shaking slightly, clutching the jacket around herself. Trunks neglected to take it back.
Outside in the hall, Ashitare was watching a fairly awake Marron eat a cookie. He seemed comforted watching her.
"We have to go now. Marron shouldn't be up so late," Goten said as he fetched his granddaughter. he lifted her into his arms and she smiled at him around her cookie. "Rei will need rest too, so maybe you should think about it."
"Don't know if I could sleep here," the young man said with an almost sheepish smile.
"Goodnight."
Goten thought hard as they walked out toward the car.
"How come you were looking at us funny?" Trunks asked all of a sudden.
"When?"
"When I told her about when she was born," Trunks unlocked the door for him but didn't tear his gaze away.
"Dunno what you mean," Goten said, leaning in and strapping his dozing granddaughter into her seat. He closed the coor as quietly as he could and climbed in the front as Trunks slid into his seat.
"Knock it off, Goten. I'm serious."
"How did I look?"
Trunks worried with his lip a bit as he thought. At last he only shook his head. "I'm not really sure."
"I don't know. I guess I just don't relate."
"What?"
"I've never had my own, y'know, I mean like you did."
"Oh..." Trunks thought about that, hand reaching for the ignition, but pausing on it. "Does that... do you want your own?"
"You know I love Ai very much. And obviously it's not that critical to me to have another kid, or else I had plenty of opportunity, didn't I?" But I only loved you... Goten smiled. "Anyway, it doesn't look like even if we wanted our own kid it would be as easy as opening a soda or something." Goten thought. "Soda. I'm thirsy."
Trunks placed that last comment aside and started the car, driving out of the parking lot and finding the way home by instinct as he considered. Marron yawned in her sleep.
"Why do you want your own?" Trunks asked suddenly, the issue occupying him probably more than it should. "I mean, most people have kids to have kids and that's it, and you've got a kid..."
Goten looked up from where he was watching the traffic flow. "Well, yeah.. and I like kids, but..." Goten thought about it for a moment, rubbing his chin absently. "It's just...."
He seemed to be hard for him to explain. Trunks looked sideways at him. "Do you just want another? You always seem like you're upset when Marron goes home..."
"I've always been with a kid, y'knowit?" Goten seemed observational. "Having a kid is something that's... Idunno, special, when you're with someone. But it's not that important."
Goten yawned and laid his head against his mate's shoulder, wrapping arms around one of his to hold himself upright. Trunks could sense that Goten wanted both of their minds at ease, and he managed to feel only slightly guilty.
"Sorry, I know I can't..." Trunks' face felt warm as he thought of a nicer way to phrase it. "...Do that for you."
"Hush." Goten brooked no argument, and Trunks fell silent.
He glanced down at Goten now, who was watching out the windshield with wide eyes. Trunks couldn't recall too many a time when Goten had sat and watched everything with those huge dark eyes the way he was doing now.
He and Marron had never really discussed having children. They had gone merrily on their way until Marron came up with morning sickness. After the birth of their first daughter, Trunks had often thought about it when they lay down to sleep at night, how something so unexpected could happen. It changed their relationship a little. I guess that's when she stopped being my blushing bride. But what was strange to him was that he sometimes found himself thinking about it with Goten, even though there was about the same amount of chance of them having children as there was of having an ice cream tree grow in his back yard. I guess it changed "the act" for me.
He chuckled to himself and found Goten observing him with wide unblinking eyes, white with red twinkles, light reflections of other cars. His eyebrows wrinkled very slightly, his lips tightening, also very slightly as they did when his brows moved that much. Trunks reminded himself to watch the road, and shook his head slightly at that question in his gaze. When he happened to glance back down, a streetlamp passed over his face, lighting it oddly with its yellowish glow and one eyebrow remained elevated while the other sank too low in a look that seemed to indicate him trying to force his way into his mate's thoughts.
Trunks turned back to his own thoughts. His relationship with Goten was different by far than his previous marriage. Naw... really? For one thing, if it wasn't him and Goten sniping over power issues it was the snide remarks from their kids on their romantic habits. Kids are cruel. And silly.
Making love to Goten felt different emotionally. While with Marron he had often had sheer hormones to guide him, being with Goten was a more conscious act. It was usually contrary to their natures, since it was often tender and the two of them were anything but, by instinct. Goten stirred him sweetly. Animalistic moments were less common with them than one would think.
The weirdest thought was that sometimes when they were only around the house together, even alone, or with Keisuke randomly passing through the room, it felt like they were still friends. Everything was easy for them when it came to day-to-day interactions. Occasionally he felt odd treating Goten like just another person, but it was comfortable. Maybe they weren't impulsive enough. It was something to think about. Maybe Goten was right to say he was boring.
He wondered if Goten would be in the slightest interested in hearing any of it, and decided it wasn't the best idea he'd ever had. Still, it was nice to be able to talk to Goten about pretty much anything. It was a comfortable marriage.
Trunks' thoughts had turned back to his young daughter by the time they had reached home. He rose, pushing Goten into his own seat, and took Marron upstairs, putting her back to bed. He came back down, and out to the car, locking the doors and moving in awkwardly to pat Goten on the cheek. "Wake up, Chibi.."
Goten opened his eyes and then closed them, sighing softly and not really registering the direction. After it was clear he was asleep again, Trunks managed to gather his mate into his arms, and bump the door shut with one hip as he carried Goten inside. He made it somehow through the darkness, and Trunks laid Goten on the bed, somehow sensing that his son was awake even though not active.
He knocked lightly on Keisuke's door, seeing the strip of light underneath that glowed softly. There was no response so he pushed the door open. Keisuke sat at his desk, sketching lightly in a pad, many torn-out pages lying around him in neat stacks or crumpled piles depending on the self-deemed success of each picture.
"How come you're up so late?" Trunks asked him, voice near a whisper in the quiet room.
Keisuke absently brushed purple bangs from his view, his eyes flicking sideways slightly to consult the shading on another picture. "I could ask you," he replied distractedly.
Trunks waited until the boy finished whatever line he had been on and laid down the pencil, learning long ago that only bad feelings resulted from interrupting the boy's concentration. "Your sister lost the baby."
Keisuke had still been studying his pictures, but now he looked up at his father, one hand catching the bottom hem of his loose t-shirt absently. "Is she okay? What happened?"
Trunks said that she had been fine and that it had been an accident.
Keisuke nodded, looking glad that his sister was okay, but he didn't say anything. Somehow Trunks thought his son was easier to speak to when he was half asleep, seeing as how he didn't argue back or ask too many questions. Times like this he wondered if maybe he had grown a little too tough with the boy over the years, but there were times still when he was sorely tested by the boy's... well, and make it truth. The young man's erratic and often thoughtless behavior often drove his father up the wall. He had grown to have a surprisingly sharp edge, in comparison with his sweet, mild siblings. His humor took a turn for the acerbic, but that was when he was in a good mood. Otherwise?
Otherwise he spoke sharply to his siblings, disregarded Marron almost entirely unless he was in a good mood, challenged Goten at every turn, and was nearly cruel to his on-again off-again girlfriend, the darling Yuuko. It was really only on-again off-again because of him, because from what Trunks had heard the young girl was rarely the type to become upset. As of yet, he had made little to no move to cross his father, but Goten often reminded him that the boy had good cause to stay on his father's good side.
So maybe he wasn't the proper one to judge. Having learned to think on his feet as a father, these thoughts came to him in the space of about twenty seconds in condensed form. He spelled some of it back out to himself as he said to Keisuke, "You don't like children, do you?"
Keisuke obviously thought he was being accused of something, because he looked sharply at his father, one brow lowering as Trunks remembered his own mother doing more than a few times in his lifetime. His brows were thinner than his father's as well, accentuating the image. "What makes you say that?"
"I've been thinking about kids lately. You don't care for them, do you."
"Not overmuch," he admitted. "They have their moments."
Trunks pulled over another chair in the room and straddled it backwards, pulling his jacket off and into his lap as he faced his son. "And you don't care overmuch for girls?"
"Oh, now you're insulting me," Keisuke said, sure of it now, until he stopped and thought about it. "That came out wrong..."
"No, so did mine." Trunks folded his hands patiently. "I mean, you don't spend much time aroung them. You don't concern yourself with their feelings."
"Why do you always talk to me about Yuuko? You and Goten. If one of you isn't offering me unwanted advice the other's telling me what I'm doing wrong."
"Which one's which?"
"I think you two share duty."
"Do you want to hear what I have to say, or not?" He kept his voice calmer than he felt.
Keisuke muttered something beneath his breath. "Why not?"
"Dump her."

"What?" Keisuke looked at him suspiciously. "This one I've never heard. Reverse psychology, Tou-san? It's always "Yuuko-chan is so wonderful, Yuuko-chan is so perfect, you make a beautiful couple..." from everybody, and how I need to treat her better. What's all this now?"
"Obviously you don't have a clue what you're doing to her, muchless yourself. If you can't find it within yourself to treat her like a person then you obviously don't love her the way you think you do."
"Well, what if I don't love her?"
"My father taught me nearly nothing about girls. I wonder if that says something about me now." He made a pretense of thinking about it until Keisuke laughed, slightly amused. "But he did teach me some things that he said applied to people in general and girls in particular. I didn't understand that at the time, but I took it into my head nonetheless, because if he had bothered to stop and tell me then it must be important. There was other equally important stuff he didn't tell me, either."
Keisuke yawned, but motioned him to keep going.
"Part of that would apply to you now. That code of honor would dictate that you let her go before you really hurt her badly, worse than you have. You're being selfish by keeping her with you all this time, when it's obvious even to us senile adults that she's miserable, and even scared of you." Trunks draped his hands over the front of the chair, forefingers tapping a silent beat as he thought. "Even after seeing some of the things you have done, I tend to think you take her for granted at an absurd level, rather than deliberately be cruel to her. If I had found myself acting to your mother the way you are to Yuuko, I would have sent her to Goten with no regrets."
"Goten?"
"She used to have a crush on him," Trunks told the boy with amusement. "A long long long long time-"
"Yes, yes," Keisuke said, "I get it." He paused. "I could have been Goten's kid?"
"I know him better than anyone, and I know that he would have taken good care of her if need be. I know that they were close. I don't know if he had feelings for her at any point at all, but she was closer to him than probably everyone but his big brother." And me I like to think. "Tonikaku, I just thought it was something you should think about. A relationship is a two way thing, and sometimes you can make enough mistakes to close down that road forever."
Keisuke was simply looking at him now. Trunks rose to his feet, knowing the boy probably wouldn't even think about it till he was out of the room. "Anyway, after that little lecture I'm exhausted." He bid Keisuke goodnight and turned to go.
"Tou-san?" Trunks turned, and Keisuke was standing. He had never noticed before, but his teenage son was as tall as he was, given the fact that one of them wore shoes. In adulthood he would most likely look down to talk to his father. That was odd; Marron had not been particularly tall. Both of them had one rather short parent. That was how Goten managed to stay about the same size as him and still be slender in comparison. Goten was natural, Trunks was rather dwarfish. He thought what his father would say to that adjective.
"Ee?"
"Thanks for the advice."
"Sure," he said. "Get some rest, kid." Trunks shut the door and went back to his own bedroom, pulling off articles of clothing until he could be comfortable, and climbed into bed, tucking Goten in beside him.
Goten stirred beside him, turning his face away from the heat of their bodies with a soft sigh as he pulled the pillow into himself. Trunks lay with his head on the pillow facing him, watching as Goten curled into one of his odder sleeping positions, his head bent and shoulders nearly pressed to the headboard and the rest of him facing the normal direction. In the morning or half-way through the night he would probably wake to find Goten draped across him in the totally opposite direction, snoring, head hanging upside down off of him. That was a familiar sight.
So much had happened that even though Trunks was exhausted he couldn't bear to close his eyes. After a while the lights of pain from a raging headache pounded against the back of his eyes to the point that he rose to get some aspirin, and came back to the bed, nudging Goten aside from where he had draped himself lengthwise across the bed, and when he laid down he was at last able to get a little sleep.

Oh Baby, part 2