Run. You have to keep going, don't look back...you can't give them the satisfaction of seeing your fear.
Bulma muffled a scream with her hand and launched upward a brittle sheet falling around her waist and exposing her shoulders to the cold. Only darkness met her when she'd opened her eyes, making it difficult to tell if she'd even really opened them. Her lids felt hopelessly heavy with countless restless nights weighing them down. Slick with sweat and heaving in the stagnant air in deep, desperate gulps Bulma clutched her hands to her chest and tried to settle her heart rate.
"It was just a nightmare Bulma...you're way too uneasy." She tried to reason with herself.
Something shifted in the void beside her, but she wasn't alarmed. "Goku?" Swallowing the uncomfortable dryness from her mouth, she leaned over and pressed a palm to the enormous torso of the man beside her. Just this small act took extraordinary trust, for there was no getting used to the black that came at night those days and a hand reached into this kind of abyss could have just as easily been snatched by wild creature or something worse.
Thankfully, sinew and flesh met her fingers and a gentle voice followed it, "Bulma? Hey, are you OK? Did you have another bad dream?" Goku's bulky frame felt like it was lifting from the ground where they'd been sleeping.
"I'm sorry...I didn't mean to wake you." Bulma whispered in response and dropped her hand from his chest. "I just...I'm not sure if I can take it anymore..." She was babbling.
There was movement again: rustling of blankets in the dark, a distant cough.
"Hey, hey...shhh. It's Ok…" He tried to console her but she could sense the uncertainty of his own words.
"Thanks Goku..." Bulma brushed a nervous hand through her hair.
There was a long pause and then his arms reached up from the shadows and wrapped around her in an embrace. Bulma buried her head in his shoulder and melted against him, drawing from his strength with a sigh.
"What was it about?" He asked, slowly, warily.
She swallowed, not really sure she wanted to talk about it. "It was the one about Vegeta this time…"
"Oh." There was hurt in his voice that cut into her. "You don't have to share, I'm sorry."
"No. It's OK! You were right to ask, it's just…"
"Painful." He supplied.
She frowned, "Yeah."
"You know...I know how you feel." He said after a few moments of reminiscent silence.
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know how much I can take anymore, either."
Something in her heart sank at that, if Goku was losing faith then there was no hope left for the world. No hope left for anything.
"We have to stay strong though...for the others." He added and Bulma closed her eyes.
"I don't think I can anymore, I'm just so tired Goku."
Tears burned in her eyes and threatened to spill over but she held them back in defiance. The Bulma that cried when things got rough or frightening was gone, she'd become jaded with time and with unimaginable loss.
"I know...me too, but we have to."
He combed his fingers through her knotted hair and then settled his palm on the back of her head, pulling her closer and tighter as if he'd lose her to the darkness around them.
"I guess you're right."
Bulma felt selfish, everyone was just as tired as she was, just as lost and confused and hopeless and Goku was most of all. He barely ever slept and when he wasn't sleeping he was training hard -pushing himself to the limits and beyond them. It miracle that he wasn't dead.
"I need to get out of here for a little while, get my thoughts together." She said, reluctantly pushing away from him.
"I'll go with you."
"Goku…"
"Look, I get that you're sad and want to be alone. But it's too dangerous to go out there alone Bulma. You could get hurt or worse so either I go with you or I will stop you from going."
There was no room for argument in his tone, she knew it all too well; he only used it when he was completely serious and there was much cause for that those days.
Sighing she nodded, then remembered he probably couldn't see her and added, "Fine, have it your way then."
She was just too tired to argue.