Disclaimer: I wish I owned it, but sadly I do not.
Few times had she been referred to as jealous.
In fact the only times that the word jealous was used to describe her were when talking about her in relation to another person. After all, why would she, Bulma Briefs, be jealous of another person?
She was the richest woman on earth. Blessed with brains, beauty, wealth, and the love of those around her. She had no need to be jealous. But today was different. Today she felt jealousy as well as a myriad of other emotions.
Today her husband had died.
Few understood them as individuals. Fewer understood them as a couple. None knew how it had happened. Similarly none would ever feel the distinct pain she felt. The heart wrenching distress, the helplessness and the hurt.
The feeling of having you heart and soul break simultaneously.
Thinking back now she could pinpoint the exact moment he died, because it was at that same moment that she clenched her chest and gasped. She felt the sudden emptiness within her. And then his sheer energy blew their ship off course causing her panic to augment. The stabbing pains coupled with the vast emptiness left her immobile; unable to even help her companions fix the ship. All she could focus on was the feelings inside her as well as the feeble plea from her mind trying to weakly assure her that everything was alright with Vegeta.
But now she was sure. Her best friend since childhood had confirmed her haunting suspicions. He was gone. He had sacrificed himself for them.
He had left her.
And as she cried her heart out she could identify a feeling in herself. A feeling past the small relief of knowing that her son was alive. Past the immense pain and sadness. That feeling was jealousy. Looking around her she could see what was occurring through her tears. They were all looking at her unable to fathom a way to possibly console her. She was jealous of them. They hadn't just lost their other half. Their world hadn't been split in two, having one of the two sides be completely destroyed.
She felt Yamcha trying to console her. Telling her to get a grip. She was jealous of him too. What did he know of her pain? What she wouldn't give to be the one consoling a person in her state as opposed to being consoled.
She saw Videl crying for Gohan, the boy she had surely just realized she loved. What she wouldn't give to be in her shoes. She was sure Videl felt pain too. But nothing like she did. Gohan and Videl had barely known each other. They hadn't formed an unbreakable bond with each other. Her mind wasn't forcing her to think of all the moments she'd never be able to have with her soul mate. She wasn't having her heart become pieces while knowing that she would never be able to kiss him, hold him, fight with him, make love to him, or to simply be with him. She didn't have to deal with the fact that even in death she might never be with him.
Looking over at Chichi and Goku her jealousy flared again. Surely the loss of a child was great but in their case it was different. Chichi was unconscious, her usual reaction to such news.
How she longed to slip into the darkness and forget if even for a bit.
Upon awakening she will realize what everyone else already has. Gohan will come back. He had never died before. He could be revived. He was in heaven. Vegeta did not have those luxuries.
Vegeta would stay dead, never to be with her again.
What she wouldn't give to not be her. Better yet, what she wouldn't give to be with him. The pain consumed Bulma leaving her to realize that it wouldn't abate. It wouldn't get better with time. It was a wound that wouldn't heal, a wound she'd have to open even more than it already was in short amount of time, as she would tell her son that his father was dead. Jealousy to be anybody, anything but herself at that moment, filled her. She didn't want to face the world without him but she had no choice for even in death they would be apart.
She was jealous of herself even. Because she had known what it was to be complete.
As her emotions rushed on within her she realized just how jealous the great Bulma Briefs could be.