It might have been an ordinary day at Capsule Corp. It certainly looked that way to the casual observer. Trunks and Goten were talking about their latest girlfriends; Trunks looking rather strained about something, Vegeta was in the gravity room training, and swearing, and blowing up the training bots, and Goku and Bulma were in the med room, waiting for Goku�s father to wake up again.

See why I say �might� have been an ordinary day?

Bardock actually was awake; he just wanted no part in this �consciousness� thing everyone else seemed so fond of. He was perfectly happy lying there; his eyes closed against the harsh med room lights, the scent of his son faintly tickling his nostrils; as if he were simply dreaming of being with him.

"I dunno Bulma, it feels like he�s awake, but he won�t move or nutin�."

Bardock almost smiled at the sound of his son�s voice. He cracked an eye open and peered at the near clone of himself. "Do the lights have to be so fucking bright?"

"Yay! You�re awake!" Goku grinned down at Bardock, who opened his other eye and scowled.

"Damn it, not so loud." Bardock complained.

"Sorry dad. Hey Bulma, isn�t there a dimmer on the lights?" Goku looked over at Bulma.

Bulma nodded. "Yes, I programmed the computer to respond to vocal commands. Lights at seventy five percent."

The lights obediently dimmed to a more acceptable brightness for Bardock�s recovering eyes.

"Ugh, who knew coming back from the dead took so much getting used to." Groaned Bardock as he sat up.

Goku raised a hand and waved it around like an excited grade schooler. "I did! I came back from the dead lots of times!"

Bardock gave Goku a funny look. "You never really grew up, did you?"

"What...? I�m tall." Goku blinked and tilted his head like a confused puppy.

"Never mind."

Through all this; Bulma was barely restraining her laughter.

"WOMAN!" came Vegeta�s customary bellow of annoyance, both preceded and followed by several loud explosions.

Vegeta came storming into the room shortly after, stopping short at the sight of Goku�s father sitting on one of the recovery beds.

"You are a hallucination." Vegeta declared, and proceeded to march over and rant at Bulma about the quality of the training bots that her and her father provided.

"That�s the prince of our race?" Bardock gave the ouji a skeptical look.

Goku nodded. "Yeah, that�s what he says all the time. That and that I�m a baka."

"I guess it should have been expected when he was taken away..." Bardock murmured thoughtfully.

"What?" Goku asked.

Bardock shook his head. "He�s not acting like a Saiyajin prince should at all. And I should know; I was a royal palace guard for a while... Before Frieza came."

"You! Father of Kakarotto!" Vegeta stormed over "Explain your presence here."

Bardock blinked up at him from his seat. "Royalty asks questions politely. And my son apparently found some way to bring me back to life."

"The Dragonballs!" Goku chimed in helpfully.

"What the hell do you mean �royalty asks questions politely�?!" Vegeta snapped.

"Just what I said." Bardock smirked slightly "I spent time as a palace guard, I know what royalty is supposed to act like. I don�t know what that ice-lizard taught you, but you aren�t acting like royalty."

Vegeta was, of course, completely floored by this declaration. Literally; he fell over.

"WHAT?!" Vegeta shouted as he stood up again, turning a rather alarming shade of maroon.

"You heard me, ouji. I got around in the palace. I�ll have you know I even helped your mother with your diapers." Bardock smirked at the look of shock and embarrassment on Vegeta�s face.

Vegeta seemed torn between blasting the entire room, blasting only Bardock, and killing himself then and there to avoid further embarrassment. He finally settled on storming outside. An action followed by shouting from Trunks and Goten:

"Ah! Father?! Why are you-?!"
"Ack! Vegeta! What the-?!"

Then there was a loud explosion and Goku felt the three ki flare high enough that every Z-senshi on earth would sense it, and then fly out towards the desert.

"So... Are you hungry?" Goku broke the silence, with a hand rubbing at the back of his neck in the classic �Son sheepish gesture�.

Bardock shook his head slowly. "Maybe later."

"Not really." Bulma agreed.

Bardock looked up at Goku. "Kakarotto, he was powerful. I could feel that, I didn�t even need my scouter to know that that was a high power level."

"Yeah, we�ve gotten really strong. A lot of nasty people and things have been trying to take over the world and stuff, so we have to keep fighting them off, so we get lotsa practice and training." Goku beamed.

"Ah... Right." Bardock decided then that he should never attempt an intelligent conversation with his son; he wouldn�t get one.

Then there was a long, awkward silence.

Goku sniffed the air again, then leaned over and sniffed at Bardock. "Dad, why do you smell like chocolate?"

"Smell like what?" Bardock and Bulma chorused; for different reasons.

"Chocolate." Goku tried to explain, "Dad smells a little like warm chocolate."

"What the hell is chocolate?" Bardock asked.

"Uh..." Goku fished around in his pockets and soon pulled out a crumpled bit of wrapper "This had chocolate in it, it should still smell like it."

Bardock took the wrapper and smelled it, then a faint smile etched its way onto his face, and soon turned into a hearty laugh. "This is chocolate?"

"Uh... Yeah." Goku nodded.

"This smells like Saiyajin musk scent! All adult Saiyajin with tails smell like this if they don�t bathe often enough!" Bardock flopped back onto the bed, laughing his head off. "A food that smells like unwashed Saiyajin! That�s too much!"

"Goku?" Bulma turned to her friend.

"Yeah Bulma?"

"Your father is weird."

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