She was ninety nine point nine percent confident her house was haunted.

And what do you do when your daily life is troubled by the paranormal? Was there someone you could call? Some 1-800 number in the yellow pages? Maybe she could catch it if she stayed up and watched the hour long infomercials that ran through the latest hours of the night.

She stared down at her old cord-style office phone, a dusty and pastel yellow relic, its kinky cord spilling over the back of her desk, and she wondered if she really should call somebody.

She needed a priest, a rabbi, that hippie from the store downtown that smelled nauseatingly of incense. Something.

She had a fleeting urge to ask her Saiyan to sniff around and see what he thought, but tossed it right out the window, because: well, pride, obviously.

It had been almost two weeks since she'd found him passed out face down in his pillow, in the same tattered suit that Eighteen had snapped his humerus in, just bleeding into her good sheets. Two weeks, and she hadn't properly seen him again. Just traces of him. A missing roast in the fridge. A wet towel thrown carelessly beside the hamper—couldn't even make it into the hamper, she'd grumbled—and, occasionally...this was the creepy part...things rearranged on her desk in her lab downstairs.

Was it him? Why on Earth would he be down there in the first place?

It was more likely she was dealing with a poltergeist.

She was notoriously disorganized, she was willing to admit. Yes, she left paperwork sprawled from here to Tallahassee, yes, she had a few more lipstick-stained coffee cups growing mold on her desk than was appropriate, and yes—cue eye roll—she could probably clean up some of these spare nuts and bolts that everyone kept tripping on when they came down to visit.

She knew that it was likely she'd just misplaced something and forgot where she'd set it. Sure. But this was different. This was more.

The first time caused her to pause a second, and then resume life. The second time, her eyes narrowed in suspicion, her fingers still over her drawer where she kept her firearm. The third time, she threw a saddle and some reins over her paranoia and let it lead her, rigging a camera system into the knick knacks and picture frames that formed a hodgepodge wall on the back of her desk with spare wire from her desk drawers.

Was this some unhappy Capsule Corp employee, trying to find dirt on her or sell blueprints under the table for some hush-hush CC project? ...Did Capsule Corp even have a hush-hush project?

Although she was a left brainer through and through, she was also an engineer, innovative by definition. Her father's nutty improvising and visionary wackiness was imprinted right smack on her DNA, and, with that, came a little bit of creativity.

In this case, even though she knew sensibly that her ghost was likely someone with a grudge (or a death wish), she couldn't escape the hairs on the back of her neck and the suspicion that this was somehow supernatural or something. This was somehow important somehow. Bravo getting past her Saiyan guard dog, but then again, Vegeta's reaction to her pregnancy had been to pull a Narcissus and dive head first into that famous reflecting pool, and so he was likely blind to anything but his own twitching pecs at this point.

Did she fear for her or Trunks' safety? Well, yes, kind of, a little bit, maybe. Because each time the intruder opened the lab door—the creak undeniable—Bulma would lean forward, ready for the creep's face to slide across the TV screen as he slid into her office chair and started opening her drawers—

And each time, the sonofabitch would turn over her photo frames and knick knacks one by one, dominoes falling in tandem with her jaw as it inched further and further towards the floor, and the chair creaked, once again, invisibly, with someone's weight.

She was about to tear out her hair.

It was in this frustrated, wacky cloud of anxiety that she was trying to get a spoonful of mashed peaches into Trunks' mouth. Two dozen empty jars spread out before her—out of Trunks' curious reach, of course.

This wasn't the first time she lamented her half-Saiyan's appetite, but with the grim purpose of any overtaxed parent, she soldiered on.

The problem wasn't that he refused to eat the peaches—four peach jars licked clean were testimonial to that. No, the problem was that he had to also wear it like war paint.

It was a tragedy of the highest level.

1. She watches the spoon enter his mouth cleanly with grim anticipation. Her mouth parts with hope

2. His chubby fingers float upwards towards his mouth as her heart sinks

Trunks lets the orange goo dribble into his round hand with the help of his little shoveling tongue and then his hand squeeeezes, baby food squirting from his thick knuckles. And just as she groans, he pops the slick spit up peaches back into his mouth for a second round, and finishes his performance by smearing the remainder of it across his cheeks radiating the happiness that is only felt by a Saiyan in front of food

4. and then lets out an ear-curling shriek as it gets in his eye.

Every. Time.

She dropped her head into her arms on the edge of the high chair tray and whimpered soundlessly.

She felt Trunks' sticky hand pat her hair supportively.

Their was a knock as one of the cupboard doors closed behind her, and she looked up in that direction, harried.

And met Vegeta's alarmed stare.

He gripped a turkey leg with one hand and an oversized can of pumpkin in the other, and her eyes ticked over the items with puzzlement.

And then jumped reflexively as Trunks walloped what remained of the jar of peaches, sending goo flying through the room and into her face, the jar crashing against the wall amid a string of giggles. She sputtered and wiped her eyes, causing most of it to just settle into the hair at her temples and later form a crust in her bangs.

When she opened her eyes, Vegeta was gone.

Irrationally, she felt a surge of anger towards him. Maybe it was just that he still had yet to say a word to her since Goku death and Cell's demise. Maybe it was that she was a hairs-breadth away from having a stress-induced meltdown, and, you know, he was to blame. But she was just suddenly on fire with indignation.

She jumped from her seat and spun around just to catch his profile through the windows cross the lawn, the back door already clicking shut softly.

"Oh no you don't," she growled, drawing Trunks from his high chair and storming after him, oblivious to the sticky orange mess splattered over her and smeared across Trunks' face like a bad case of jaundice.

"Wait!" She called, trailing after him hurriedly, her sneakers sinking into thick summer grass.

She saw him freeze and his shoulders hunch, and she only had a second to feel insulted before coming up on his side, Trunks bobbing at her side. Now that she had him in her crosshairs, her resentment curiously flew out the window, replaced instead by the question burning in her mind's eye.

"Wait," she huffed, standing now in front of him, looking up into his face. His eyes were walled off, expressive if only for their no-holds-barred contempt for everything they landed on—the eyes she'd been dealt since he'd discovered she was pregnant. But his face was, uncharacteristically, drawn.

"Vegeta, I need your help," she said, before nearly retching at her choice of words. Her face scrunched up. "Well, maybe not your help, but your advice, or, your...whatever." She waved her hand dismissively. "Someone has been breaking into my labs and pawing around my stuff," she explained, trying to keep the worry out of her voice.

She really should have thought this through. She didn't want to seem incapable in front of the Saiyan...especially this Saiyan. He'd just twist the knife deeper, probably, although what else did she have to lose?

His eyes widened fractionally, the turkey leg wavering in his knuckles, but she pressed on, knowing she was fighting time, his already miserly patience dwindling. "I tried rigging up security cameras, but somehow, the bastard knew! I'm starting to become really concerned. There's all sorts of security-sensitive information in my lab, but oddly enough, nothing has been breached. Except for all my personal stuff... my pictures of Trunks, stuff I've collected over time from my adventures with Goku-san. It all just gets shuffled around or winds up missing, and it's really creeping me out."

They stared at one another helplessly for a countless moment. He still had the same impossibly dark eyes, eyes she could fall into when he shared her bed, sprawled out over his wide chest. Still the same chiseled jaw, clenched, making her want to chastise him for grinding his teeth like she used to. His chest drifted up and down subtly as he stared at her, and her lips drew down softly in a runaway moment of memory. For a moment—oh Kami! Just a hungry moment—her heart unthawed fractionally, and her gaze drew across his features with the softest sigh, the salty taste of the skin of his jaw against her lips remembered suddenly, violently.

His eyes narrowed and his mouth parted as if he were finally about to reply, but she recognized that look. No good could come from that look. No good could come from this man. With pulse-racing self-preservation, her heart cinched up, locked up, and drew all its bridges upwards into itself, shuttering itself from the world.

"Look, I'm not asking you to go out of your way for us or anything, or good Kami, acknowledge us or anything of that nature," she snapped. "I'm just worried about my son and I's safety, and I thought maybe you could pass by one night and see if you could catch this guy. Just peep on him, get his stats. I could take it from there."

He snorted softly, turning fractionally away from her as if thinking about it, gaze drifting.

Thinking of insulting my ability to defend myself and the whole inexplicable reason I'm still alive, no doubt. She bared her teeth in humiliation. "Nevermind, I'll do it myself!"

She spun around angrily without bothering to wait for his rejection and marched back towards the back door. She clutched Trunks maybe a little too tightly, making him squirm.

She was so tired of playing second banana with him! Her mind was a growing storm, buzzing and snapping with fury. Why did she even try? Did she never learn?

The back door stuck in the summer heat, and she tugged on it in frenzied frustration. When it finally budged, she let out a loud "Ugh!," punctuating it with a kick to the doorjamb.

"I give up!" She hollered out to the spacious, empty seat of Capsule Corporation, the echoes causing Trunks to glance around for the source with wide eyes. She placed her other hand on her hip with a steely frown. "If you need something done, you gotta do it yourself," she murmured to herself.

With renewed strength, she slid Trunks from under her arm to rest on her belly, leaning back to accommodate his weight and plant a big kiss right on his moist lips. He blinked with surprised delight.

"Don't worry, kid, mama's got this." She wiggled her nose against his and smiled. "Mama's bringing out the big guns."


Trunks was sound asleep when she tip toed from the nursery and gestured at her mother in the adjoining room that she was headed to bed. Bunny smiled warmly and waved her on, turning back to her evening dramas in her fuzzy pink robe and curlers before she joined her husband in bed.

Bulma padded to her room giddily.

Tonight was the night. Tonight she caught the culprit!

It had been a long day at the Capsule Corp headquarters downtown, and Bulma had barely had time to scarf down a plate of cold noodles before getting Trunks, whiny and rubbing his groggy eyes, into the bath and into bed. Her heels clacked on the hard wood of her spacious bedroom, her lab coat drifting against her calves. It had been a long day, but it was going to be capped off wonderfully. She might even set off some of the fireworks stored in one of the lab closets and down a pint before Trunks inevitably needed to be rocked back to sleep. Screw it! It was Friday night, and she was in control of her life—not some thief sneaking around in the night. Not even some hunky Saiyan freeloader.

She fluffed her hair and strode into her expansive closet, where a concealed safe stood innocuously in the far corner, looking like an oversized jewelry cabinet. Smile still curling around her teeth, she placed her long fingers against the screen, neatly manicured nails splayed, and was rewarded with the pop of the lock.

Picking her favorite firearm was nearly as difficult as deciding what to wear in the morning, but without much to-do, she plucked one of her older models from the bottom rack, a black long rifle whose weight was solid and familiar in her palms.

Bulma Briefs just happened to be armed to the teeth.

Ah yes, it took her back to the good old days, hunting dragon balls and avoiding little imperialists with Napoleonic complexes.

She snorted softly. Nothing much had changed.

Bulma used her teeth to open the bag of ammo, careful not to upset her mani or lip stain, and carefully loaded the magazine, one by one.

She had no intention of shooting anyone tonight; however, she couldn't wait to scare the pants off the unsuspecting sneak. Loading the firearm was just a precaution, but she had to admit, the rifle's familiar weight was doing all sorts of things to her self-confidence.

What a freeing night this was going to be!

Bulma sank the magazine into the butt of the gun decisively.


Only when she kicked open the lab door with her glossy nude heel and swung around the corner, rifle aimed dead center at the offender's chest, did she experience reservations.

Vegeta sat leisurely in her office chair, arms folded behind his head, and swiveled his body with his toes just enough to reveal one eyebrow creeping steadily upwards.

Her shooting stance wavered, and the muzzle drooped towards the floor. "Vegeta?" Without thought, she dropped the magazine from the gun before resting them on the top of a file cabinet. Her knuckles found closure on her hips. "What on Earth are you doing here?"

The ghost in her leather chair looked up at her with wide, haunted eyes, curled his hand around a photo of Trunks, Yamcha, and Puar at the carnival that always came round in early, early Spring, when the daffodils weren't quite awake and the heat of the sun was still tender.

It was just Vegeta, her ghost, trying to find somewhere to tread.

"Can't a Prince get a little privacy?" His voice echoed hoarsely through the lab.

She drew near him soundlessly, rebelliously, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, waiting.