Over And Over Again

A "Not In A Million Years" Side-Story by Shinsun

X

I couldn't believe it; I just could not believe it. Even after I'd sworn to myself a gazillion times that it wouldn't happen again, I'd gotten stuck in yet another huge mess, so soon after the first mess had been somewhat fixed. First of all, Vegeta was pregnant again; that's three times now, and if that in itself wasn't enough, of course ChiChi had to stick her overly-pointed nose where it didn't belong. Again.

I'm not usually one to pick up the phone when it rings. Actually, I'm not usually one to get phone calls in the first place. But there was something about that one that made me answer it. And of course it was ChiChi, of course it was.

"Hello?" she asked, sounding uncertain, "Can I talk to Goku, please?"

Obviously, she didn't expect me to be able to pick up the phone myself either. She probably thought it was too complicated for me, which was ridiculous.

I forced my voice to sound confident as I responded, "Speaking."

I thanked the gods that she couldn't see my face, because I was seriously freaked out, and while my voice wouldn't give that away easily, my eyes sure would.

"Oh," she said, "Um… I just… I thought you should know that…."

I rolled my eyes, though she couldn't see it. Trust ChiChi to not think of what she's going to say before she tries to speak. Come to think of it, I often had the same problem.

"it's just that… well…"

"Come on, ChiChi, unlike you I haven't got all day to talk." I muttered.

"Oh," ChiChi said awkwardly, "Well, what I'm trying to say is that… I mean… W-what I mean is…"

"Spit it out,"

"Goku, I lost my job." She said in a rush. Her stammering made more sense now; it was hard for her to admit she'd gotten in trouble or done something wrong. Haughty woman, she was worse than His Royal Highness.

"And this affects me how?" I said briskly, I wasn't usually impatient, but ChiChi was really the last person I wanted to talk to right now.

"Well… since my paycheck has been cut out of the equation, I got kicked out of my apartment, I'm staying with Dad right now, but I was kind of hoping I could…. m-maybe stay at your place? At least until I get back on my feet?"

Decisions, decisions. I weighed my options as I tried to wrap my head around how completely in reverse this situation seemed to be. Wasn't I usually the one who didn't have a cent and relied on her for a place to stay? Didn't she always say that if I had to fend for myself I would be crawling back within days?

Well, on the one hand, she was my ex-wife, but I still cared what happened to her. I'd hate for her to end up somewhere terrible and didn't want harm to befall her under any circumstance.

On the other, she had family other than me. She had other places to go, and this was kind of her fault anyway, not mine. Not to mention, I had a hard enough time keeping food on the table for a pregnant Saiyan prince, three demis and a pure-blooded toddler. One more mouth to feed was the last thing I needed.

"Goku? Are you still there?" ChiChi asked uncertainly.

"I'm still here." I muttered.

"Can I…. can I stay with you until…?" she began. I made up my mind in an instant.

"No." I said bluntly, "No, you can't."

"Why not?"

"Why not?" I retorted, "Because were the situation flipped, you wouldn't give a rat's ass what happened to me, because I've got enough to worry about without my ex-wife barging into my life and screwing up what I've worked so hard to put together, because I have children to take care of and a mate that needs me; and because I've succeeded, ChiChi…. and you've failed."

I didn't shout as I laid out this onslaught of reasons, but I could hear the bitter tone of my voice, and knew she must hear it too.

"But… but I…" ChiChi pleaded.

"I'm sorry, ChiChi. But I can't give you what you never gave me. A second chance. A third. I don't think you even gave me one."

"What about all the times you left to fight, to train, to die?" she snapped, "I was always here with a warm bed and a home-cooked meal when you got back, if you got back. I put up with you dragging my sons off to battle when they were hardly old enough to understand why, I put up with villains and crazy monsters and gods know what else threatening and attacking our family just because of you. What about when you got a heart virus and were out of commission for days? Did I back out on you then? Have I ever?"

I took a moment to consider what she said, and reasoned that the cons far outweighed the pros of the lopsided relationship we'd had in another life.

"That's all true, ChiChi," I conceded steadily, "But I only did everything I did to protect you. To protect all of you; I think dying for one's family is a justified enough reason, don't you? …No. You always said I was being unfair, or stupid, or reckless, or whatever excuse you always had. Well I was never stupid, ChiChi. I knew a lot more than you gave me credit, and you never let me try anything. I could have been a scholar if you'd just given me a chance. But no, apparently all I was good for to you was a husband with a strong arm and the… necessaryattributes to suit the daughter of the Ox King. Hell, you didn't even ask if I wanted to marry you in the first place."

Why did I keep falling in love with royalty? First ChiChi, then Vegeta; who's next, King Yemma? I shuddered at the thought.

"Let me ask you this," I went on, not caring if she was paying attention or whether she cared; I had to get it off my chest, "Were you there for me when I carried Vegeta home unconscious and tried to explain that he was pregnant? That wasn't intentional, ChiChi. I would happily have told him to hit the road and would have come back to you if you'd have been just a little understanding. But were you there when my world was upside down and I'd been dealt a bad hand? No. I had to fend for myself. Not just myself, I had to fend for Vegeta and my son-to-be at the time; my son, by the way, that I have raised up to now completely without your help."

I waited for her to answer, to rebuke me and come up with some crazy logic for what she had and hadn't done, but I heard nothing. I glanced at the telephone and realized she'd hung up. I wondered how much she'd heard.

X

I thought about what ChiChi had said all day. What if she was right and I was wrong? What if everything I'd done up until this point had been based on the wrong choice? Should I have stayed with her instead of tossing our two-and-a-half-decade marriage away on an impulse?

I was still questioning myself when I lay down next to my mate, attempting without success to sleep.

I could feel Vegeta's querying gaze on me; he wanted to know what had happened. And why. His Highness was always asking why. It wasn't enough to tell him something, you had to explain why it happened and how.

So I tried my best to explain what had happened with ChiChi, knowing he wouldn't give up until he got an answer.

And once I'd all but bent backwards to bring the situation to light, he said the exact opposite of what I'd expected him to say.

"You still care about her." He almost sounded wistful, as if he wasn't even talking to me.

"Yes." I said shortly. I did still care about her, and that really didn't make my status quo any less complicated than it was.

"Why?" And there it was. The famous why.

I had no answers, but I pretended I did, and the night basically went on like that until neither of us had anything to say.

X

A few days passed, and I almost forgot about ChiChi entirely. I was kept busy as two children, a toddler, a young adult, and a pregnant prince vied for my attention, so my thoughts rarely landed on my ex unless I had two seconds alone to think about it; which I never did anymore.

I had a hard time sleeping one night, and I just lay awake, savoring the quiet and the relative solitude. And I say "relative" because I wasn't by any means alone, but no one was talking to me or anything.

My train of thought was interrupted when I felt a shift in the ki signal of my mate beside me. I felt a surge of nervousness – the last time that had happened while he was asleep, he'd woken up to sheets stained with blood – but I didn't act. Vegeta turned over, mumbling something restlessly. His brow was creased with anxiety and maybe fear; and I could feel him shivering ever so slightly. Then he flinched as if he'd been struck, a sound like a whimper escaping his lips. I was about to wake him up when he jolted to awareness with a shout of terror.

He sat up slowly and drew his knees to his chest, shaking like a leaf.

'What happened?' I asked tentatively.

"Nothing," he lied. And I knew it was a lie, "Just a nightmare."

Thoughts raced through my head; thoughts that didn't belong to me. Rapid images and sensations of unbelievable pain and fear; blurry, flickering visions of loved ones and scenery that didn't make sense, a ripping, tearing agony that would surely have torn me apart if it belonged to me. And death. I could all but smell the death in these thoughts.

Was that what he'd dreamed about? Dying? And what was that horrible agony he'd gone through? What could have been that painful? Something told me it was a memory of something he'd endured; relatively recently.

The images and sensations clicked, and I wondered why I hadn't thought of it before. He was remembering when he went into labor all those months ago, remembering what it felt like. …Gods, had it really been that terrible? Why hadn't I felt his pain then? He must have been blocking off his mind so I wouldn't have to suffer it as well. How he managed that while going through such torment was beyond me.

X

The next day we went to Capsule Corp and Vegeta explained to the others that he was pregnant again. I put on a brave face and remained in high spirits the whole time; more for my mate's sake than my own. I was still worried beyond belief about what would happen; and even if this pregnancy didn't go wrong, there had been enough bumps and cracks and acid-filled abysses in the road of the first pregnancy, and going through that again might be the death of Vegeta. Literally.

Usually when we were alone together, Vegeta and I did what most couples did. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. But when everyone had gone to bed that night and my mate and I had a moment alone, I was not feeling up to whatever he was planning this time. I remembered the second, brief pregnancy that had ended much too quickly and too terribly. I didn't want anything like that to ever happen again; and if that meant I didn't sleep with my mate at all during this or after, so be it.

Vegeta shared my concerns, I later learned. He was just as –if not more – worried about triggering another miscarriage than I was. But unlike me, he found a loophole we could both squeeze through.

So while my mate kissed me and forbade me from retaliating at the same time; frankly, I suffered in silence. I wanted nothing more than to incinerate our clothing and take him right there on the sofa, but I did no such thing. I even banished such thoughts from my mind in an attempt to just enjoy what I was doing right then. Hard to do when every molecule in my body was demanding I take it up a notch.

I was finally starting to relax when the door banged open and Vegeta and I broke apart, startled.

Of course it was ChiChi, why did I expect any different?

I got to my feet once Vegeta released my hair from his grip, a growl building in my throat.

"What in the actual fu –?" ChiChi began angrily. I was tempted to ignore her and go back to kissing my mate; what, did she expect us to stay together but never touch each other? I'm not as innocent as you think, ChiChi.

"You can't just come barging in, ChiChi, what are you even doing here?" I demanded. Despite myself, I was unsure about this. I didn't want to start a fight, especially not with my pregnant mate within range of feminine hands that I knew for a fact could be used as weapons. Perhaps I'm a bit too overprotective, but you get my point.

The woman in question started spewing some deranged attempt at logic, but I was barely listening. She was wrong, that much I knew, and she needed to get the hell out of my house.

I fought to stay patient, and eventually just stated calmly, "I'm not the same person anymore, ChiChi. Things have changed."

"Why?" she snapped, "Because of him?"

She pointed a finger sharply at Vegeta, who'd been following the argument from the sidelines.

Yes, Vegeta had changed who I was more than I ever could change alone; but that wasn't the point of this. The point was that ChiChi wasway out of line.

Gods, how had I lived with her? How had I shared her home and had children with her? How had I been able to stand within ten feet of her?

I felt the snarl cornering my mouth as I grit out, "Leave Vegeta out of this, I changed because I finally realized how stupid and naïve I'd been before!"

I expected her to pounce on the admission, and she did. Though not in the way I thought she would.

"And now you're so smart?" she sneered cruelly, "Because you knocked up a whore prince in exchange for a scar on your shoulder?"

The moment her words registered, my heart stopped beating; so great was my rage.

I shot to Super Saiyan without even thinking, and time slowed down. I could see my mate's wide eyes following my movement, which was faster than the human eye could even comprehend. Super Saiyan two greeted me like an old friend as I pinned the vile woman to the wall and closed my fingers around her throat, my power rising ever higher. All I wanted in the moment was to watch the light leave her face and for her to fade like a wisp into nothing. I felt my unfathomable strength choking the life from her, and I didn't care. Let her die. Serves her right for picking a fight with a god. Cracks eddied up the wall as I crushed the woman against it, bruising and possibly breaking. The fact that she hadn't been killed the moment I touched her showed that even in my fury, I held back. Pathetic; why couldn't I just destroy her? It would be so easy….

"Dad, what are you doing?!"

Only the voice of my eldest son could have loosened my grip, and I looked up to see my mate and all three demis gathered before me, looking panicked.

"You'll kill her!" Trunks added frantically.

I blinked, confused. Wasn't that the point? She deserved to die, so why shouldn't I kill her?

"Well yeah," I said blankly.

Vegeta looked at me with those endless black eyes that I loved so much.

"Kakarot," he said steadily, "Let her go."

What? Why should I?

"But she called you a -!" I objected, nonetheless releasing the woman on his command. I never could say no to him.

"I know," he nodded, "But that's no reason to murder her."

That was a perfectly good reason to murder her!

I lost interest in what he said next. He spoke in his mind, but mine was still fuming. It was unfair. ChiChi got to dish out abuse and cruelty whenever she wanted, and I couldn't even kill her for it?

Then Vegeta called me shi-kḁdria, and it all melted away. Who cared whether that bitch lived or died when I had a mate like Vegeta? She wasn't worth dirt in comparison.

I wasn't thrilled that ChiChi was allowed to stay until she recovered, but at least my anger had subsided to the point where I could think rationally. I wasn't all that used to being so angry all the time, but now it was like second nature, and I don't think that was a good thing.

X

I woke the next morning, and Vegeta wasn't there. I sensed him downstairs, and his ki was calm enough so I didn't worry too much. At least ChiChi hadn't caused any trouble. Yet.

I headed down the stairs once I'd blinked the sleep from my eyes, and glimpsed my mate carrying Tess to the kitchen for his breakfast. He stopped to kiss me on the cheek and whisper to me. He told me not to start trouble with ChiChi, as if I didn't already know that.

"I know," I said quietly, then in my mind so no one else would hear, 'You were sick this morning, weren't you? I'm sorry I wasn't there for you.'

Of course he wasn't upset, but I still felt guilty. I was supposed to help him through this every step of the way.

I walked away, but I didn't go far. I ended up listening in as Vegeta talked to ChiChi, despite myself.

Gods, she was ruthless. Hitting Vegeta right where she knew it would hurt the most. His pride, his family, his freedom, and his aptitude.

I kept my voice civil as I broke up the discussion and offered to teleport the bitch home. I wasn't a fan of taking her anywhere or even touching her, but I wanted her gone.

And then she stood, meeting my eyes warily, as if looking for a threat. Then her hand shot out, and I thought she would slap me. Instead she grabbed me by my bangs and kissed me.

No kiss had ever felt so wrong. Not the ones I'd stolen from Vegeta without his consent, nor when I cheated on my wife with the prince. I felt my blood boil in my veins, but refrained from attacking her, or even breaking away until she did. I knew she wouldn't quit until she was satisfied.

I said nothing and teleported her to her father's place, struggling to stay calm.

And get this; she tried to lay another one on me the minute we rematerialized. This time I refused and pushed her away none-too-gently. Enough of this shit.

She fixed me with a coy yet totally inappropriate smile, "You gonna stay?" she asked sensually.

I didn't dignify such underhandedness with a response and just teleported again, hoping the message was clear and she'd just stay away.

Anger doesn't even begin to cut it. I was so furious that I was about ready to blow up the entire fucking planet and be done with it. I appeared before my mate, and immediately, a knowing look came into his eyes.

"Shh, Kakarot. It's okay. I know you need to vent your anger, just don't do it here." He said quickly, he glanced around once and took my hand in his, "Teleport somewhere, anywhere. Gohan will look after the kids."

I did as he said, going to the first place that came to mind. Luckily it was uninhabited; the island where Vegeta and I had sparred before.

I shot into the sky without a word, hitting Super Saiyan three in an instant and streaking away. I didn't want my mate at such a close proximity when I really let loose.

And as acres of tropical land and beaches were detonated and blown away by my own hand, my own ki, I couldn't help almost shying away from what I'd become. The only way to satiate my emotions anymore was to cause mass destruction and then turn to my mate to help me let off the remaining steam in the only way I knew how. I was glad I'd cleared up the issue with Bulma yesterday and found out that it was okay to indulge and fulfill my baser urges.

And I thought, as I obliterated half of the island with one shot, that I was damn lucky. Vegeta was the only one that could survive the kind of relationship we thrived on, and I wondered how I'd ever been satisfied with a human partner before.

-Shinsun