Disclaimer: I do not own Dragonball, DBZ, or DBGT.

This is my first fanfiction about one of the most intriguing couples of DBZ Bulma and Vegeta. This is and A/U fic so please read, review, and enjoy. I appreciate constructive criticism. Thanks guys.

Tay

Chapter 1

"Mommy, Mommy wake up, wake up! Get up, it's my birthday. I get to open up lots of presents and eat yummy birthday cake, and well… Wake up!" The beaming blue haired 6 year old crashed through the door to her mother's room,

a giant grin on her face. Bulma Briefs, was over excited to get to see her mother. She had spent the past 3 months away for her first year at a prestigious boarding school in England. After returning home late the night before, the only interaction she had had with her parents was a quick dinner. Then she was rushed off to bed hearing the sounds of her parents' arguments.

Bulma examined the room excitedly; she couldn't find her mother anywhere in the bedroom. She walked slowly towards the bathroom door ready to do some sneaky, peaky, spying on her mother and opened it very quickly.

"Boo! Mom… huh."

There lying on the floor was her mother, blond hair swirling across the bathroom floor. A small bottle was clutched tightly in her hand. Bulma had a feeling that something wasn't right. The curious six-year-old slowly shook her mother.

"Hey 'zactly what do you mean lying on the floor like that, Mrs. Pendergast says that the floor isn't for sleeping, cuz you'll get all the foot germs on your face and foot germs are very scary things. Mommy, wake up!" Her small hands reached towards her mother's arm, jerking it up above her head. She let go

and the hand fell to the floor. It was still, lifeless.

With a few more violent shakes Bulma cried out.

"Daddy, Daddy, help! Mommy's not listening, she's not wakin' up."

It took a few minutes for anyone to respond to the six-year old's cries for help. Dr. Briefs rushed into the bathroom, finding his daughter on the floor with tears in his eyes. There on the floor, was his wife, dead.

"I don't get it! Where is mommy going? Why is she in that truck. She should be here with me giving me presents ….It's my birthday, can't she come home?! Daddy?" She watched as the ambulance took her mother away. Dr. Briefs turned to his daughter and after making sure the police and ambulance were gone, he spoke quietly. There was no emotion in his voice.

"Bulma, your mother was very sick. She won't be coming home ever again. She's with the angels now." He said, quickly losing his patience with the young girl's incessant questions.

"NO! It's not fair!" She screamed. After dealing with the exhausting questions from the authorities, he was about to snap.

"SHUT UP ALREADY!" Her father angrily yelled.

"But Daddy," Bulma said tugging on the sleeve of his shirt.

Dr. Briefs turned to his only daughter, a look of anger on his face and shouted. "GO TO YOUR ROOM!"

Tears streamed down her face as she ran to her room.

That was the last birthday Bulma ever had, life would never be the same.

12 years later...

Despite the death of her mother at such a young age, Bulma tried to have a normal childhood. As normal as your life could be when your father was a brilliant, paranoid scientist. Dr. Briefs was the CEO of Capsule Corporation, a multi-billion dollar corporation specializing in technologically advanced products. What society didn't realize was that Bulma was also a brilliant scientist.

Many of the products that were sold by Capsule Corporation were designed and created by Bulma, not her father. Including the compression capsule known as a DynoCap, which allowed the user to store a number of large objects into a capsule the size of a cockroach.

It had taken only a few years to find out the truth about her father and mother. Bulma's mother had lived with her father's jealousy and rage for years, as his business was growing. He had grown paranoid of the attention that was given to his young, beautiful wife. Unable to deal with his jealousy and rage any longer, she had taken her own life.

As Bulma grew older, her father resented her even more for her beauty and intellect. While away at school, she had excelled in her studies and was often praised for her scientific knowledge and skill. Afraid that someone would recognize her scientific genius, her father had her taken out of school and home-schooled her at the age of ten. He hired the best tutors in the country and forced her to work alongside him in his laboratory. She blossomed and enjoyed work in the lab. Tinkering with small objects, disassembling and rebuilding became one of her passions.

The years flew by and Dr. Briefs treated Bulma as an employee, not a daughter. Gizmos and gadgets had been her salvation.

As her knowledge and experience in the lab grew, Dr. Briefs time in the lab decreased. He had grown into a cold, calculated man and gave his work and responsibilities to Bulma. He was often out with women, and his womanizing ways were known throughout the scientific world. However, he was still an esteemed colleague and took credit for being a genius inventor who kept pumping out wonderful scientific gadgets that were created by his daughter.

As the years passed Bulma's love for science grew despite her isolation from friends. She hardly saw her father at all, and when she did, they were to introduce her to his gold-digging flavors of the month. The thought of men like her father disgusted her, and for that reason, she knew that she would never fall in love with a man like him.

It was a week before Bulma's 18th birthday, and two days before the Science Symposium. Bulma was eagerly anticipating a short break after having convinced her father to allow her to go to a Scientific Symposium just outside of West City. She couldn't wait, this past week had been hell. The Red Ribbon Army, a rival corporation was expanding its linguistic technology and Bulma's father had acted like a slave-driver. He refused to let her leave the lab until she had some quality objects that could be tested and put on the market. For Bulma it wasn't a hard task, in 3 days she had designed a new device that could take any spoken language and translate it so that the user could understand. Then she had spent the last 4 days designing the counter part which would allow its user to speak any language fluently while compacting it into a tiny chip that was implanted at the base of the brain.

All the while, in those 7 days Dr. Briefs had stumbled home drunk with 7 different women. This was the trend Dr. Briefs had apparently had even while married to her mother. There was no doubt about it; Bulma hated her slave driving, whore of a father. She was still hurt that her mother had left in such a horrible way, overdosing on medication, but somehow understood the pain that the poor woman felt.

Two days before the symposium, Bulma was inside her room packing her few belongings when her father entered her room.

"Bulma, dinner will be at 7, I expect your punctual presence." He turned on his heel and stalked out of the room.

Having been used to him talking at her, not to her, she resumed her packing. She spent the rest of the day studying the agenda and planning which discussions and presentations to attend.

At 7:00 sharp, she was lead to the table by one of the household staff. It had been so long since she had formally dined with her father, that she didn't recognize any of the present staff. She mainly ate in solitude in either her room, or the lab. Dr. Briefs was sitting at the head of the table with a young beautiful blonde woman at his right. He looked up and acknowledged her presence with a mere nod of his head as she sad down. While dinner was served, he turned toward his daughter.

"Bulma, I'm afraid that there will be no way you will be able to go to the symposium this year." He said in his cool, calm voice. Bulma could feel the silent rage burning inside her chest at the thought. For so long, she had endured her father's cold, controlling way, but this was too much.

Silently seething, she clenched her teeth tightly and made the words come out as politely as possible.

"I thought we had come to an understanding father, one of us needs to show and learn what new technology would be at the Symposium and you said you were unavailable. I worked my ass off..."

"BULMA!" He shouted at her, "watch your language young lady. I didn't raise my daughter to talk like a common whore."

Tears pricked the back of her eyes, as she fought to control her temper.

"May I ask why father?" She quietly asked.

This time the blonde perked up.

"Easy, he knows that there will be competitors there, and with competition, people will be looking to scoop up brilliant young scientists such as yourself and ..."

Dr. Briefs cut her off, his voice laced with anger.

"Leilei, meet me upstairs in my room, I will talk to you later."

She hopped up, as if struck and quickly left the room.

"Father, I am not going to leave the company, I have poured my blood, sweat, and tears into research for this company and..." he cut her off quickly.

"Bulma, you are not going, end of discussion."

"But Father..."

"I SAID END OF DISCUSSION, NOW LEAVE..."

She quietly left the table, heading back down to her room, across the hall from the lab.

She tossed and turned all night in her bed. There would be no changing her father's mind. For so long she had tried to get him to acknowledge her, praise her, for Kami's sake even talk to her like a normal person, but it was to no avail. She realized that she was in the same vicious cycle as her mother, trying to please her father with no reward. He would always be controlling and Bulma knew she could no longer live like this. She decided to make a plan to leave.

Bulma had a small personal account in her name in which she could order scientific books, buy any toiletries needed or other necessities, and to deposit her paycheck for time spent in the lab. A whiz at the computer, she had set up a second account in her name years ago, and had moved money into that account secretly to buy the things her father would not approve of. She had a small fortune in her personal account, and on her 18th birthday, she would receive her inheritance from her mother's death.

For the next week, she inconspicuously searched the Internet for any internships or job opportunities available. She came across an advertisement for an interplanetary scientist needed on the planet Vegeta-sei. Her heart thumped, she knew this would be the one place her father could never find her. She sent her information in and prayed to Kami that she would get a response.

Her salvation came two days later when she received a translated letter from the lead scientist at the Palace of Vegeta-sei.

Dear Ms. Bulma Briefs,

I am very pleased to offer you the position of Royal Scientist at the palace of Vegeta-sei.

Your experience and technology would be very beneficial to the kingdom. All Royal Scientists have housing provided inside the palace.

We look forward to hearing your response.

Sincerely,

Bardock

Head Scientist

Vegeta-Sei

Bulma spent the next few days researching everything she could about the planet Vegeta-sei and its mysterious warrior race. She also worked on a device that would acclimate her body to the planet Vegeta's gravity which was 10x stronger than earth.

The self-regulating gravity modulator was a chip that went into under armor, and would allow her to walk on the Saiyan Planet.

Since she alone almost every given day in the lab, she took only the items that she had purchased with her small income, packing them quickly into DinoCaps. Bulma did the same with her meager belongings in her room. She packed all of her books, music, and clothing and was able to fit her small pack of capsules into a small backpack. The last part of her plan was to use one of the space pods to travel to Vegeta-sei.

On the evening of her 18th birthday, she left her father a letter inside her now empty room and gathered up her small backpack containing her package of DinoCaps containing everything she ever owned. She walked quietly down the hall and snuck out one of the camera-blind servant doors. She quickly uncapsuled her blue Vespa and hopped on rushing quietly away from her prison for the past 8 years. She stopped at the first store she came to and quickly grabbed enough cash from the ATM to get her all supplies needed. Walking down the aisles of the store, she grabbed enough water and supplies to last the three-day journey and left. Opening her #15 DinoCap, she happily got into her Space Pod and was off.

As Bulma left the earth behind, she felt relief for the first time. It would take her 3 days to get to Vegeta-Sei, but she couldn't wait. No longer would she be under the control of her father, she was independent for the first time. This was the beginning of her new life.

What did you think? This is actually a story I started a few years ago called Finding Love Amongst the Pain, but I decided to change the beginning and finish it. Thanks! Please read and review.

Taylor