Little Onion

When the initial excitement of Bra's birth subsided and everyone had held the baby and given their congratulations, Bulma tried standing. Despite the miraculous intervention of Whis, giving birth had exhausted Bulma. It just took a while to take effect. Gohan's quick reflexes caught her when she stumbled.

"Bulma! Are you okay?" he asked.

"Oh, yes. I'm just… light-headed."

Vegeta instantly told everyone to get lost so that his wife and newborn daughter could rest.

They all agreed. Even Beerus and Whis didn't put up a fight. No one was going to begrudge Vegeta his family time before the battle royale tournament.

Bulma lay in their bed, pale and unnervingly thin — Vegeta had grown used to her ballooned belly.

"Isn't she beautiful?" Bulma asked tiredly, looking up at him and their daughter he was holding in his arms. Vegeta hadn't let Bra go since Trunks had offered her up hours ago.

"Should I call the doctor?" Vegeta asked, tucking in his wife, trying to school his face into nonchalance so as to not give away his concern.

"I'm fine. Whis said I might feel tired. The shock of no longer being pregnant."

"…I shouldn't have told him to talk to you," Vegeta grouched, the ugly black serpent of guilt roiling in his belly. What if Whis' magic had harmed his wife or baby? It wasn't natural what he had done, and there could be side effects they weren't aware of.

Bulma's hand reached out and touched his forearm, squeezing. "Vegeta, please. That was the easiest birth imaginable. And Bra is healthy. That's what matters. We should be thanking Whis. He is an angel, I'm sure he knows what he's doing."

Vegeta scowled harder and grunted, letting his wife's words reassure him. He didn't tell her that he was suspicious of Whis' motivations. Whis, Beerus, Goku, Gohan… they were keeping something from him. They were too desperate for him to fight; desperate enough to accelerate Bulma's pregnancy. Something serious was going down beyond an benign concern for an overdue child. But he didn't want to worry his wife just yet, not while she was still recovering.

"I think I'll take a nap," Bulma said, already sounding half asleep. She gave Vegeta a weak smile. "You'll take care of her, won't you?"

Vegeta's arms tightened about the precious bundle in his arms. "With my life," he promised her.

Bulma smiled, and her eyes fell closed, trusting him to take care of their newborn.

Vegeta lingered, watching Bulma sleep. When he convinced himself that she was indeed just tired and nothing more, he left the room and made his way next door to the nursery.

Trunks and Goten were fussing with the room arrangements.

"Out. Now," Vegeta snapped at them. The two boys nearly tripped over their feet to comply, knowing Vegeta couldn't be argued with when he used that sharp tone. "And don't disturb your mother, she's sleeping!" he added as they curtailed it out the door.

Vegeta stepped over to the crib, intending to put Bra down to sleep, but hesitated. He looked down at the tiny thing wrapped in sea-foam green, sleeping as soundly as her mother was next door.

He couldn't find it within himself to put her down. As a Saiyan, even half-Saiyan, he knew she was strong. But she looked so small, and the crib was big and impersonal. It didn't feel right.

Vegeta took stock of the room. A large armchair was by the window. He settled down in it and watched the tiny child breathe in and out against his chest.

"Bra," he said, trying out the name again on his tongue. With her blue hair and eyes, and pale skin, so much like her mother already, Vegeta knew it to be an appropriate name. Still, he was a little saddened that he couldn't bequeath her a name from her Saiyan ancestry. He had lost that privilege with Trunks, and now again with his daughter for not voicing his desires sooner.

"Echalotte," he whispered to himself. He had been so proud of that name. Echalotte was a warrior princess of Saiyan legend, proud, strong, and unusually smart for a Saiyan, even by elite standards. Vegeta had no doubts that a daughter of his and Bulma's could live up to such a name.

Bra's tiny eyelids fluttered open at the sound of her father's voice. Blue, blue eyes latched onto his face, as unsettling and piercing as her mother's gaze. Vegeta steeled himself, ready for the tears that would come just as they had when he had shown his face to a baby Trunks.

But there were no tears. Bra only smiled.

Something indescribable shot through the heart. He knew the sensation too well.

Her smile was more radiant than the sun. It broke right through him, melting away reservations about his capabilities of being a good father. He would be damned if he didn't do everything in his power to be the kind of father he had never had, and often hadn't been to Trunks. He had let Trunks and Bulma down in the past. He didn't intend on repeating those mistakes.

"Do you like that name?" he asked her privately. "Echalotte?"

Bra made a happy, gurgling noise. Her little feet kicked restlessly inside her tight wrappings.

Vegeta shifted her and laid her in his lap. Gently, he untucked her blanket until she was free, and his heart skipped a beat when he saw what she had been hiding. A tiny tail.

A true Saiyan.

It was a silly sentimentality, one he thought he had given up long ago. He knew now that a Saiyan's power went beyond that borne of a tail and the great Oozaru transformation. And no doubt she would need to lose it before the next full moon, for her own and everyone's safety. But the sight of the fifth appendage rocked him as much as her mere existence did, and brought about feelings of nostalgia that Vegeta felt ill equipped to handle. He reached out and tentatively touched her tail. On instinct, it curled about his hand.

In the privacy of the room, just the two of them, Vegeta smiled softly down at his daughter.

"Let me tell you about about the Saiyan princess, Echalotte," Vegeta told her as he counted her fingers and toes. "She was beautiful and fierce. A lot like your mother, actually…"

Bra listened and struggled to grab onto her father's calloused fingers as he regaled her with stories of her heritage.

Vegeta decided then that, when it was just the two of them, he would call Bra by her Saiyan name. It would be their little secret.

His little Echalotte.

~xoXox~

Daddy's little Onion 3

AN: Beta-read by the illustriousArtephile / Marcella-Duchamp.

Inspired by episode 83 of DBSuper.

Can we please make Echalotte a thing? Please? Like it's her middle name? Echalotte is so perfect for our little onion. I don't want it to die away.