Disclaimer: I do not own and did not create DBZ or its characters. Any original characters are mine and are not to be used without written permission.

This is an alternate universe so it's obviously going to be different than what 'really' went on. If you flame me because of this I will simply ignore it. This occurs after the 'Cell Games' although things may be different than what occurred according to canon, they will be similar. At some point I hope to write of how Buruma and Vejiita came to be, and how we arrived at the beginning of this tale, but that is a separate story. - WR

Part 1:

"The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keeps out the joy." - Jim Rohn

It was the rustling coming from the room which fully awakened him from himself. He had naturally awakened from sleep early in the morning, when the only noise coming from the room near his tree were the soft, slumbering sounds of the woman within.

He could have made his way into the room then, laid down beside her and let her cuddle up to him, unaware in her sleep of the anger and sadness that consumed her. He could have buried his head in her bosom and tried to forget the events of the previous day. He could have stayed while she screamed at him, instead of taking off for the cold solitude of the forest. He could have stayed there instead of creeping back in the middle of the night to caress her face, to breathe in her scent, to stroke back the hair from her lidded eyes. He could have admitted to her that he needed her, especially now.

He could have admitted that to himself.

Yet he did not. He preferred to cover up his neediness with arrogant and willful actions, separating them at perhaps the bitterest point in their relationship.

She would neither forgive his actions of the past three years, nor his inattentive attitude towards her in the airplane accident.

He would not forgive Kakarott for dying.

It wasn't an unforgivable death to be blamed on a fallen comrade, for although he had been placed in that position, he didn't consider Kakarott so. His loathing of the extremely un-Saiyajin-like man and all he stood for and believed in wouldn't allow it. It couldn't possibly be the fact, for all his faults, Kakarott was the closest companion he had on the blue planet he tentatively labeled his 'home.'

It was because Kakarott was the last tie he had to his long dead race. To Vejiitasei. To familiarity and a sense of true belonging in his place in the universe. In Kakarott's eyes, he would most likely always remain an ex-foe, a caged villain, a great sparring partner, and most disgusting of all, a friend. To him, Kakarott had always been the last remaining true member of his race. No matter how human he was in his behavior, he too felt the pull of his Saiyajin blood, however repressed. He felt the honor in battle and the death resulting from it. Their sons did not. The call of the human blood that polluted their veins would not allow it. They might have been strengthened by the mix of Saiyajin and human DNA, but they were held in check for the most part by the pathetic human ideals of peace and compassion.

There was nothing binding him to the planet now. Kakarott was dead and so was the goal he had chased after with an all-consuming fervor. A fanaticism so strong it even surpassed the desire he had felt for so long; the need for the death of Frieza by his own hands. His son had taken care of the former, and Kakarott's demise had successfully rendered the latter unattainable. Forever.

He would never get a chance to surpass him.

Nothing bound him to this tiny little planet, its skies as blue as the oceans. As her eyes. Nothing bound him to this solitary outpost of the universe, far from all other inhabited worlds. Nothing prevented him from blasting off towards oblivion. Nothing prevented him from losing himself in the icy blackness that enveloped space.

Nothing perhaps, except the woman.

Unbeknownst to him, a true smile spread over his face at the thought of her. Not a smirk, not the scowl of displeasure he usually sported, but an honest, if almost imperceptible, smile. Immediately he squelched it, furrowing his face back into the dark, smoldering and somewhat icy stare he had perfected for earth. Not openly hostile, but definitely not a friendly demeanor. But the truth was there, locked inside his heart, if not yet viable outside his most hidden dreams.

The woman pleased him. Beyond his physical needs.

Worst of all, this fact delighted him. This was the hardest fact to absorb, so he ignored it as much as he could. As much as she would let him. The fact that of late she let him clutch his misery to his chest like something precious was rather disturbing.

When he had first come to stay at her house, ostentatiously only to accept the pampering she offered as well as the technological marvels she could build, she had tried to melt the impenetrable encasement of ice that locked away his heart. Friendship, she had called it. She had still been with the despicable human at the time, even though he sensed it wouldn't last. She was too strong-willed. Her mental capacity overshadowed the human's physical power, and her fiery nature eroded the man's soft and feeble personality. When she had discontinued the relationship, he could almost sense the man's relief. A relationship could not work when one felt completely overpowered by the other. Even the weakling had some pride, and he could not retain his essence in a relationship that threatened it.

He could not deny he had been greatly amused by the turmoil of the doomed union, but neither could he refute his satisfied feelings at the end of it. He admired her resiliency, her drive, her fighter's spirit. Her lithe and curvaceous form.

The inevitable clashing of their passionate natures in a more romantic sense had produced a son, if not emotional attachment. Or it was assumed so by both parties involved.

It was not simply the thoughts of her that troubled him. Last night he had dreamed strangely. One could say he never truly dreamed, he simply remembered. He had dreamt of a woman who he had never laid eyes upon. She reminded him of his faint few memories of his mother, possessing the dark-colored hair and eyes of a Saiyajin, yet there was something ethereal in her appearance. He could only make out her face, for her body seemed robed in a white fabric that blended into her surroundings. The one thing that stayed embedded in his mind was the expression in her eyes. They had been filled with such murderous rage, such desire for revenge, that he almost believed she was the collective specter of his past; the revenge of the slaughtered come to besiege him until the end of his days. Then she had spoken in a haunted tone, the words in Classical Saiyago echoing in his skull,

"Ex'iel fa'go, Vejiita au Vejiitasei, Lunare rou Saiyajin."

"Ex'iel approaches, Vejiita of Vejiitasei, King of the Saiyajin."

and over it all had been the endless screaming of a female, coupled with violent pains that manifested all over his body. He knew that Saiyajin possessed the possibility for great mental powers, yet not only had there been no evidence of these manifested within the last one thousand years, but also clairvoyance had never been listed as one of the abilities of the gifted. However, he felt certain that it wasn't something to be taken lightly. It was a sign.

All thoughts of the strange, ghostly woman and her message were cut short as the French doors that divided the room and the balcony attached to it were slowly nudged open, and the woman, his woman, emerged. Unfortunately, it was for her first smoke of the day. Clothed in only a short, loosely belted robe, she leaned heavily on the railing of the balcony, one hand held close to her mouth to be ready for the next drag, the other idly running her fingers through her sleep-tousled hair.

He could almost, almost, forgive her the earth-termed cigarette.

He shifted slightly on his seat on the limb of the tree, and then dropped off noiselessly to float in the air below it. Smoothly, he glided over to her, crossing his arms and waiting for the sleepy-eyed woman to open them fully and acknowledge his presence. He received a large puff of tobacco smoke exhaled at the exact angle to hit him squarely in the face. He spluttered, the harsh fumes causing the inside of his sensitive nose to feel like it was on fire. Coughing out the foul, and now he knew, disease causing smoke, he glared at her coldly and moved back to breathe in cool fresh air.

"You don't have to seem so surprised Vejiita, I knew you came back last night, and you didn't have the balls to stay in the house, so this was the obvious solution." She exhaled slowly, savoring the taste of the tobacco. "It's not like you've never spent the night in a tree."

Wildly, he examined all corners of his consciousness for the thousandth time, and when he was quite certain there was no connection tying him to the woman he relaxed. It was simply one of her odd perceptions, a gift that he had always intrigued him. He cleared his throat slowly.

"Vejiita..." She rolled the word over her tongue slowly, eloquently, almost soothingly. He didn't expect her to be in a soothing mood, not after the torrid battle of tongues that they had engaged in the night before. "Chi called me this morning..."

"So that explains why your lazy ass is out of bed before the sun is highest in the sky" he purred, slipping back into the comfortable routine of exchanged barbs. Here he was in his element, here he was a match, here he knew where he stood and what to expect in return.

"She..." The woman paused, her eyes bleak, then she fell to her inner strength, a pool of reserve so deep that he had barely touched its depths and yet he stood in awe of it. He respected it. It was something very Saiyajin in nature, and therefore he looked upon it with pride. "She's going to be making arrangements for Son-kun..." Her voice caught a little on the oft-used term of affection. "I know there is no body to be interred, but she wishes for something to honor him." The emphasis on the word was unmistakable.

"What does the funeral of..." he stopped mid-sentence. The man had proved himself not a weakling. "What does the funeral of that bastard have anything to do with me? He was my rival." He choked upon the words, but the steely gaze of her blue eyes had prevented him from going on angrily about his former subject. "It will no doubt be a pathetic human custom."

"She told me, that you are welcome." The woman ignored his attempts to draw her into a contest of insults. "Gohan told her about your actions. I was surprised to hear about them " She stopped. "Considering your attitude toward me and my son all this time."

"Stupid female." The term seemed almost endearing. Perhaps it was because of his restless night. He carefully made sure it could not be taken as such. "What use do I have for you, or either of your spawn."

"You never have had much use for me, Vejiita" she smirked, "until the sun has set. Then it seems you cannot bear to keep yourself away, at least while you're on planet." He could feel the rage emanating off him along with his ki, and he laughed as it blew the hair wildly around her face and put out the cause of the irritating smoke.

"I haven't touched you in over two of your earth years, silly woman. Do you honestly think you continue to have the power to lure me with sex? You, an alien so weak that the mere act of coupling might kill you if I were in any way passionate?" He knew this was not true, and he gritted his teeth.

"Really Vejiita, the night we shared I seem to remember differently..." Her demeanor was hard and ruthless, born of a desire to conquer to feelings of inadequacy he invoked within her, but her eyes betrayed her, tears threatening to spill. She would not let them drop. There was only one time she had cried before him, he remembered it distinctly. It was the day she had sought him out in the wilderness, the day she had told him she carried his son. The day that he had crushed her forever. He had already known, of course, and had wanted nothing to do with it. It was the very day after that he had sneaked into the hangar on the compound, and fled whilst they were all occupied with her impending condition. A cowardly position he still regretted, but that had served its purpose: separation from the woman.

Their half-hearted argument was cut short at the sudden appearance of their son, the young man from the future who now came careening around the side of the building, shirtless, half-asleep and blind as he attempted to don the rest of his attire mid-air. The sudden raising of his ki must have awakened and alarmed the boy, causing him to rush to aid his father in protecting his mother from any dangers. He stopped, seeing them talking as well as his mother's state of undress. He blushed profusely and turned his back on them.

"Your presence is not needed here boy," he growled.

"Father, I..." Trunks mumbled some words of apology, turning and staring at the ground like a scolded juvenile. He raised his face and gave a quiet smile, one intended to show he accepted his father's dominance over their tentative relationship.

Cursing himself for a fool, he looked away, ashamed deep within himself that he had relieved himself of some of the frustration he felt towards the impossible female that was the mother on the son. He could feel their eyes on him, one in accusation, the other searching the edges of his mind and ki, trying to ascertain his mood. The boy was as untrained as himself in mental touch, yet his was much lighter, presumably because he was very passive around his father. It was in this pondering of just how far his son's abilities stretched that he looked at the rosy sky in the east, seeing two trails of light left by those flying through use of ki as well as two different energy signatures. They were not unfamiliar nor were they malicious but they didn't promise anything in the way of pleasure to his taste and so he spat on the ground in annoyance.

Kakkarott's brat and the Namekian.

His son looked surprised at the intrusion of their 'family reunion' yet he seemed more relaxed. Gohan landed quite perfunctorily on the balcony and embraced Buruma with all the innocence and ignorance only a pre-adolescent could muster. The other figure remained in the air, staring coolly at him and his son. He glared back venomously, daring Piccolo to speak.

"The three of you need to come with us to the tower." It was a demand, not a request.

"I do what I please, your petty Namekian rituals have no interest to me." The dragon balls could not be raised for a years time, therefore anything related to the Guardian of Earth had no interest to him.

"The preparations have been made." Piccolo seemed unimpressed by his statement, and simply stared impassively at the woman. "I suppose you know that I have rejoined with the one who guarded this planet for almost a millennia." The woman nodded her head, azure curls falling over her eyes. "Then you know through him I have seen a great many things, and that I am permitted to share with you certain truths. All those joined in the collective vision must be present for the conditions to be met. Without it, balance will not be achieved."

"I will ensure our appearance at the appointed time." She seemed to understand the warrior's cryptic message and smiled the smile of one who waits. "You may go on with your message, we will appear before the sun sets." Quietly dismissing the conference, she walked noiselessly through the French doors and shut them behind her, cutting off any argument before he could put his refusal into words. Following her example, the early morning visitors left with great haste.

"Damnit." If he was going to have to do what was asked of him, and he was, because one could not call the Prince of all Saiyajins devoid of curiosity, he was going to do it on a full stomach. Squaring his shoulders he walked stiffly and moodily in the direction of the kitchen, unresponsive to his silent son's look of chagrin.