He stared down at the gravesite as a numbness flooded through his soul. He honestly had no idea how to handle the situation at all, and the only response his system could respond with was a near total shutdown. There were mourners all around him, but he barely noticed them at all. Even as the eulogies were given and the casket lowered down, all he could do was stare in miserable awe at everything that had happened.
So many years ago, Vegeta had rebelled against his evil master, put everything he had on the line, and risked it all for a chance at immortality. He had literally been to Hell and back in his pursuit of eternal life. It was a thought that had so consumed him that he had, at one point, honestly not wanted to live at all if he could not achieve his goal.
But that day, as he stood in front of that grave, he fully and truly realized how ridiculous that entire quest had been. Finding a home on Earth, no matter how much he had resented it and resisted it when he was younger, was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Things he had never contemplated having before that had become the greatest treasures he had ever acquired in his many years. His wife, his children, hell even a full night of sleep…none of them had made it onto his priority list until after he had arrived on the planet.
Ever so slightly, the barest hint of an upward curve formed on his mouth as he remembered those good years. It had taken a long, long time for him to get comfortable on that miserable excuse for a planet, but he would not trade it for anything in the universe. He drifted back to that first day he had actually talked to the woman. He was their enemy at the time. At least, that was how he had seen himself. Sure, he had been temporarily allied with them on Namek, but it was not exactly as though he had much choice in the matter. His options had been to ally with them or die where he stood. What the hell else was he supposed to do?
Somehow, that idiot woman had deemed that microscopic bit of camaraderie in crisis as enough to invite him to live with her. She had been downright vulgar when she made her offer, and it had seemed downright absurd. It was a ridiculous proposition, and he had even told her as such, but without any other feasible alternative, he had gone along with it.
And that had been the start of his new life. He had no idea, all those years ago, that her lewd extension of generosity would actually change him forever. That woman was relentless with her harassment of him. She had seemed too vile to him that he had, on numerous occasions, considered walking away and never looking back. And damn if that woman had not been every single place he had ever tried to be. His training grounds, the kitchen, hell, she had been waiting for him in his bedroom as he had left the shower on several occasions. It had been so annoying. She never left him alone!
Oh, and the fights…from day one they had laid into each other verbally. They could fight about anything. Anything! A light bulb could burn out in a room neither of them ever used, and they would scream each other stupid for hours on end over it. It became their trademark behavior faster than either one of them had noticed.
The beginning of the end, he had called it. It was that little practice of theirs that had eventually led to their obscure relationship, which had led to their unique family. Neither of them had anticipated that particular scenario, and it had almost torn them apart as soon as it had started. It had not been an easy start by any stretch of the imagination.
Someway, somehow, they had miraculously become an actual family. And no matter how long and hard he had rallied against the entire concept of settling down, he had eventually come to enjoy it. It was not the life he had expected to have, but it had been so much more than he had ever hoped for. A spitfire wife, two remarkable children…it really had ended up as everything he wanted.
His children had changed him in ways he had taken years to truly fathom. They had tempered him and given him a form of strength that he had never contemplated before their existence. They had solidified in his mind the importance of actually having a family. His woman and his children offered him everything.
Suddenly reality came right back to him, and that ghost of a smile was gone in an instant. Out of his peripheral vision, Vegeta watched the other mourners. While there were a handful he could identify, he had no idea who most of them where. He knew that the ones who stood anywhere near him had been her friends in at least some capacity. There were dozens of people there just to say they had been to a celebrity funeral, but they had just barely enough good taste to stay near the back.
Relatives of hers, and therefore his, were trying to offer their condolences, but he was not listening to them. Not even his direct descendants could garner a response. There was nothing new to hear that had not been said a thousand times to him since she had died, and it was not like he was ever going to say anything back. The others tried for several minutes to engage him, but they quickly discovered the futility of it and gave up.
It was a remarkably beautiful day. She would have loved it. Perfectly clear sky, nice and warm, and there was a gentle summer breeze blowing by. It truly was her favorite kind of day. Vegeta had long since lost count of the number of mornings like that where she had greeted him with her blue eyes shining bright and a giant smile on her face. She could go on and on about what she could do on such a beautiful day, and she had a gift for somehow getting him to go along with her.
But those days were over. The funeral had concluded and people were leaving. Someone was hosting a wake, but Vegeta neither knew who was throwing it nor cared about going. It had always been his view that grieving was a private matter, not something that people should host parties about.
Still, if anyone would want a party thrown in their honor, it was her. He could not think of a single social gathering that she had not wanted to go to, and only a handful that she had not enjoyed. Everything in life had given her an excuse to celebrate. In some ways, she really had turned out like the twittering blonde that would keep everyone happy. Granted, she had more intelligence and a much better ability to understand the concept of 'comfort zones', but she really could turn anything into an excuse to party.
He thought about how much those brilliantly blue eyes would sparkle whenever she was planning an event. He honestly thought that there was nothing else that gave her so much joy. During the planning, that light blue hair would be pulled back in a casual style, usually a loose braid or a low ponytail. She would make lists of everything that had to get done, occasionally leaning back in her chair, putting her feet on her desk, and chewing on the end of a blue pen as she thought.
Always with the blue pens, Vegeta mused to himself. While he had never, ever understood it, he knew perfectly well that she adamantly refused to write in any other color. Whenever she had to write something down, it absolutely, positively had to be in blue. She could run around the compound for hours, shoving aside the pens that were filled with black or red or purple ink. If it was not blue, it could not be used.
It had been one of her more bizarre personality traits, but he had secretly been amused by it. Sometimes, if she had been bothering him a lot, he would steal all of her blue pens. It was only a matter of time before she had the need to write something down, and when that happened, he could just sit back and watch the fireworks. He could let it go on for an hour or so, and he would really enjoy it, but in the end he always dropped one in a place she would search. After all, torturing someone could only be fun for so long.
When she planned her parties, though, he had only ever stolen her blue pens once. The aftermath of that decision had not been one he had ever wanted to repeat. She had screamed at him with such intensity that his sensitive ears had actually started to bleed. It had taken three days for that annoying ringing to go away, and two solid weeks before she was willing to talk to him again. And that was all without her even knowing that he was the culprit!
She had always had a hell of a temper. In fact, one more than one occasion, Trunks had openly commented on the fact that her temper was even shorter and wilder than Vegeta's. After all, while Vegeta's list of things to set him off was practically written in stone, hers changed on a virtually daily basis. Something that she deemed humorous and enjoyable one day would be classified as inexcusably offensive the next.
It was one of the things that he had always found marvelous about her, but by no means the only one. Her seemingly unending spirit, her remarkably intelligent mind, and her eyes…
It always came back to her eyes. Those shining cobalt orbs were always able to hypnotize him. That was the only explanation he could offer for how she got him to do some of the unbelievable things she had conned him in to. Things he would never have been willing to do had been done, and all because of those damnable blue eyes.
Those eyes that he would never get to look into again…those eyes that were gone forever…
Vegeta looked up, once again remembering where he stood. The casket was buried and all the others were gone. His eyes squinted on their own accord as the setting sun blared into them. It took a moment for him to realize that he had missed almost the entire day. He had to have been standing there alone for hours, and he had not even noticed. Years ago, such a thought would have troubled him, but he found himself unable to even begin to care.
So many years had passed since he had first made landfall on the planet. So many years since he had wanted to live forever. So many years since he was willing to risk it all for his precious immortality.
It was a wish that he had never gotten, a goal he had never achieved. And as he stood there, looking at her grave, he wondered why, exactly, he had wanted it so badly in the first place.
His Saiyan blood had kept him young and strong far more than any human could hope to. Even on that dismal day, he looked like he had barely entered his fortieth year. All those years they had spent together and he had barely aged a decade. She, in the meantime, had grown old with time. True, she had lasted a remarkably long time, especially considering her human blood. But no matter how young her mind stayed, her body was unable to stop the inevitable. Gradually it had given in to the command of age and withered away. Her strong body had softened and grown weak. Her mind, formerly sharp as the deadliest blade, had dulled slightly. That beautiful blue hair that she had always been so damn proud of had turned pale, eventually going to pure white.
The only thing about her that had never changed, no matter how old she got, were those eyes. Every day of every year of every decade he had known her, those eyes had sparkled with a life that was unquenchable. Even in her twilight, as the last bits of strength left her body, those eyes shone with a will that would never surrender. Her body was gone, but her spirit would last forever.
It seemed like it was just the other day that he had seen those bright blue eyes looking at him for the very first time.
The sky was darkening, and the Prince of Saiyans knew that it was time to leave. He was not sure what he would do, but he could see the keeper of the cemetery approaching, and he actually lacked the will to fight to stay. He had a lot of time left before his own natural demise would come. There was nothing that would stop him from coming back the next day, or the day after that, or every day for the next hundred years...
He had not achieved his immortality, and for that he was grateful. Some day, many years down the road, he would finally drift off into his own oblivion. If he had been burdened with the knowledge that he would be alone forever, surely he would be driven mad. That miserable intention that had nearly destroyed him had fallen through, but that ambition had given him her.
He knelt down and placed the lone lily, her favorite flower, on her fresh grave. As he stood to leave, he offered his final words he would ever speak to her.
"Good bye, Bra."