Chapter 2: Postprandial Ponderings
"The Little Emotions are the Great Captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it."
It had been over a month since coming back to Earth, and Bulma was offering her skin to the afternoon sunshine, enjoying the near-quiet in the late afternoon. It warmed her heart to know that she was back home, safe and sound. It still surprised her, and on the occasional morning, bright blue eyes would snap open only to slowly realize that she wasn't on the unfamiliarity of Namek or in the voidless existence of Space.
The short hemline of her summer dress hung casually across her thighs, the bright yellow fabric reflecting the sunny weather. A book on Quantum Field Theory perched upon Bulma's knees, her mind was replete with thoughts far different from her inventions.
Bulma was rapidly coming to the conclusion that she was done with adventuring for the rest of her life. Sure, it'd been fun when she was younger, but the seasoned heiress was looking forward to staying on Earth, tinkering in her lab while overseeing Capsule Corporation. It was a tamer and much more appealing horizon that would come with new challenges.
Not that she was ready to plant roots for good, Bulma arrived at her first obstacle.
Yamcha was coming back soon, which wasn't a problem in and of itself. The dilemma that she found herself in was the fact that Yamcha had been pressing her for marriage before the arrival of Raditz. He'd been proposing the idea for a while before that, but the sapphire genius had her own aspirations and dreams to fulfill before starting a family.
That had been part of the reason she'd gone to Namek, to explore and find something to get rid the restlessness in her soul.
She loved Yamcha and she enjoyed his company. He was easy-going and laid back, he helped her relax, eased her worrying, but Bulma wanted to become President of Capsule Corporation. The legacy that her father had started was more important to her than continuing the Briefs line. It wasn't unappealing to think of herself with kids, it just wasn't for her right now.
Not that she was exactly with Yamcha at the moment, him being dead and all. Oh well, she'd cross that bridge when she got to it.
A muffled explosion dragged Bulma from her thoughts and she tilted her head towards the noise. It was a daily occurrence at the Briefs household, these incessant explosions that would jolt the groundskeepers when they'd forgotten that there was a man with the ability to create atomic bombs within his palms.
Most of the people that worked on the premises of Capsule Corp. had been given the choice of signing a waiver to deny any knowledge of Vegeta or the choice to be relieved of their stations at the company. Everyone had simply agreed to the waiver, but a few had quit since the Saiyan Prince had taken up permanent residence.
Vegeta was menacing to most and truculent to all, with the singular exception of Bulma's mother. It must have been her cooking that chased away the black cloud that always seemed to linger above the Saiyan's head.
"Oh sweetheart, there you are!" Her mother's voice beckoned her head to rise and turn towards the house. She smiled as the blonde woman came into view, carrying a water can. "Could you give me a hand with something?"
Shutting her book, Bulma nodded before standing, "Sure mom, what do you need help with?"
"Well, dinner is nearly ready and I wanted you to go let Vegeta know that he should take a shower before eating," Her mother's voice lowered to a whisper, "Otherwise that handsome man smells like a bed of wilted petunias," Bulma always thought her mother was too nice, even when talking about less pleasant subjects.
A sigh left the young woman's lips, "Mom, you know how that man is with training. He's not going to stop until he's ready,"
"Oh, I don't know about that. He's a very nice young man and besides, who could resist such a beautiful girl like you calling them to dinner?" Bunny gave her a wink and brushed a short blue curl away from her daughter's face.
A mortified look surfaced on the younger Briefs' face, "Oh God, let's not joke about the possibility of Vegeta and I ever having a more than a hostile relationship,"
Her mother lightly smacked her on the shoulder with her free hand, watering the potted plants by Bulma's chair with the other. "Don't be so dramatic, young lady. Now stop procrastinating, and get Vegeta,"
The surprising deftness of her mother's hand had Bulma headed towards in the direction of the Gravity Simulation Room. Rounding a large white building, the energy outbursts were causing a dance of blue light against the dome's windows.
Capsule Ship 3 – painted in large black letters above the entrance – greeted Bulma as her attention was raptly taken by the flashing apparition caged within the ship.
If there was one thing that Bulma Briefs admired about the Prince of Saiyans, it was his training routine. He was consistent and driven each and every day. Vegeta flew off to Kami-knew-where once a week for a day of rest. When she asked where he went, he'd told Bulma once, 'to rid himself of the disgusting sights and sounds of humanity'. The other six days a week, he would rise before the sun had awoke and he'd only take breaks for lunch and dinner. He always wore his broken armor while training and only accepted 'sleeping garments' for sleeping, so his spandex-like suit and armor were washed and cleaned every night.
On occasion, Bulma would set up her reading spot closer to the ship just to watch him train between glances at her books. There was a passion that Vegeta held for training, a resolve that surged under his skin for the thirst of power he'd seen on Namek. Bulma hadn't personally seen Goku become a Super Saiyan, but if it pushed Vegeta this hard to attain it, the power must have been astounding. Today, his eyes were full of fire and craving for something greater.
Bulma knew that he was pushing himself harder on certain days because he'd come out of the GSR with a limp in his gait and she'd make some smart comment about him trying to kill himself. She knew that he'd gone through worse than the pacing he was putting his body through and knew that he'd never intentionally endanger himself, no matter how angry and brooding the Saiyan seemed. His control and determination impressed the heiress.
The man with a permanent scowl was suddenly floating outside the door where Bulma stood, a smirk softening the effect. "Like what you see, woman?"
"Glad to see that you're arrogant as usual, Oh-Mighty-Saiyan-Prince. Now come out of there and get cleaned up, dinner is nearly done," The sarcasm wasn't lost on Vegeta and he crossed his arms in belligerence.
"Why don't you come in here and make me? Or are you too feeble to even step foot in here?" From where Bulma stood on the steps leading into the ship, she could see that he was already up to 50 G-forces. The ship could only go up to 100 Gs at its maximum capacity and her father had only finished the machine three weeks prior. The man's training must've been more relentless than she realized.
"You asked for it," She smirked, and flipped open the keypad panel. After a few seconds of calculations, her fingertips pressed a combination of the buttons causing the diamagnetic field to flicker before correcting itself. However, Vegeta's form had fallen from a floating smirk to a shaking grimace.
A synthetic voice rang out inside the ship, loud enough for Bulma to make out, "… now set to seventy-five gravitational forces,"
"Bitch…" He growled, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. The proud prince stumbled as he tried to move towards the main gravity controls, and simply kneeled on the metal floor. "Change it back," It seemed even an effort for him to glare at her as sweat gathered at his temples.
"All you have to do is ask nicely, Vegeta. I'll be more than happy to turn it off," She made a show of holding her hand over the open panel, ready to shut down the machine.
"When I… g-get out of here…" He took a ragged breath but made no movement to stand, "I am going… to kill you,"
A delicate blue brow raised in cynicism as she watched Vegeta. He was about to collapse, and even in the midst of defeat, the Prince was full of pride and fearless.
"Oh, I highly doubt that Vegeta," Bulma counted to five before the next press of buttons commanded the ship to shut off. Another quick instruction of her hand and the door slid open in front of Bulma. "I mean, honestly, can you even stand?"
A few strides and she stood before him, offering her open hand to Vegeta. "Now come on, I'm starving,"
Before the blue-haired scientist realized, the glaring Saiyan grabbed her wrist and pulled the surprised woman to her knees. Vegeta wrapped an arm of iron around her abdomen as his face neared hers. "You have tested me too many times, insolent female,"
Bulma could play this version of chicken with Vegeta. They'd been pushing each other's envelopes farther each day, with the fights escalating slowly. Now, physical boundaries had been crossed, but Bulma didn't fear Vegeta nearly as much as she had before he moved in. No matter how hard her heart was beating within her chest.
She whispered, "We both know you won't kill me, Vegeta,"
"And why is that, woman? It wouldn't be that difficult, even in my current state," He emphasized his words by tightening his grip on her waist, in response she sucked in a shaky breath. He was so close, Bulma could count the drops of sweat on the bridge of his nose.
The azure genius wouldn't let him see her anxiety. "Doing anything to me will only alienate you from Earth. No one will help you, you'd be forced to leave," She offered quietly, her hands lightly pushing against his chest, an insistence that he let her go.
"Or, and this is a more appetizing thought, I think… Instead of killing you, I could blow up your precious Earth and be rid of this useless planet and it's pathetically weak people," There was no heat to his words, so Bulma had an inkling that this was some sort of sick joke to Vegeta. She wanted to turn the tables on him.
"I don't think you truly want to do that, Vegeta," She murmured, sliding her palm up from his muscled chest to his jaw. Her small thumb mapped the contour of his cheekbone, "After getting rid of Freiza, aren't you tired of repeating the past?" The prince had turned to stone at her utterance.
Unmoving, his eyes no longer gazed at her face, but at the floor, the metallic sheen reflecting his own face back at him. He was silent for what seemed like hours, just staring past her face at the ground.
The words were barely more than a whisper, "It's who I am," Stated as if it were a fact, nothing more.
"It's not who you could be," She was surprising herself with her own soft voice. Did she really think that Vegeta could change? If she were honest with herself, Bulma knew that Vegeta had already transformed much in the past six weeks. It was a gradual rehabilitation of his soul and the researcher in her wanted to see the experiment come to fruition.
His arms loosened and Bulma fell on her butt, "Leave me be, Woman. I will be accounted for at the evening meal,"
Standing, she offered her hand a second time with a small smile. "Do you need help inside?"
"I need no one's help," He was still staring at the floor, and Bulma wondered how the tiles of the floor didn't buckle under the mere scowl of Vegeta's.
She dropped the proffered hand and backed up to the door. "Right…"
Dinner, ever since Vegeta had joined them, had become a banquet of a sort, with two-thirds of the food going to the man with a black hole for a stomach. Shockingly, the meal wasn't awkward even after the incident in the Gravity Room. The royal Saiyan was ignoring his present company, per usual. Bulma was more than thankful for that as she devoured her portion of food.
Taking a break between bites, the young Briefs declared, "Dad, I want to come back to work starting next week,"
Her father glanced in her direction, "Are you sure honey? Not that the Alpha and Beta development teams couldn't use your help, but you've only been back for six weeks… Wouldn't you like to rest a slight more?"
Bulma sighed, "I'm feeling restless, just lounging around and reading on research that I could be relating to real world applications,"
Dr. Briefs and his wife chuckled at their daughter, with Bunny making the soft comment, "Just like her father, such a busy-body,"
The older man pushed up his glasses, "Well darling, I know that there's nothing I can do to stop you from coming back to work if you want, but I was going to ask if you could take over my responsibility of upgrading Capsule Ship 3's gravity diamagnetism field,"
Cerulean curls tilted in confusion, "What? Why are you upgrading it?"
"If you haven't already noticed, Vegeta here has already reached half the maximum of g-forces that it can go up to. He expressed a concern that he would soon reach 100 Gs and I told him that if I had more time, I would be able to optimize the ship to withstand 500 Gs. He asked that I perform the improvements as soon as possible, or… What was it that you said, son?"
In a rare display of bending to the human social construct, Vegeta willingly spoke. "I would systematically destroy the cleaning bots in his lab and leave their parts on the roof,"
"Ass…" Bulma muttered into her plate of food, but Vegeta's eyes cut to glare at her. She ate another forkful with feigned ignorance of his glower.
The doctor didn't seem fazed by the statement and continued, "I didn't see a problem with upgrading the ship, because I've already had the plans finished for a time, I just haven't had a free day to complete it. Will you take a look at the plans and finish it within the next few weeks, then you can come back to work whenever you'd like,"
Bulma shook her head, "Sure… I guess,"
"Woman, the gravity room will be available for you to upgrade in three days. If I require anything else of you, I will notify you," Vegeta announced before standing up and headed towards his room.
A glower surfaced on Bulma's face and her mouth opened to send the angry remark that she was no one's servant, but the muscled back of the prince was gone along with the sound of his footsteps.
Moments later.
"Can someone please tell me what possessed me to invite him to live with us? Anyone?" Her face met her palm in exasperation.
"Darling, you were only doing what you thought was best. He's just misunderstood, that's all," Her mother supplied.
"I think 'Vegeta is just misunderstood' is the understatement of the year, Mom," Bulma pushed her plate away and bid her parents good night. She had a long day ahead of her tomorrow if she was going to upgrade the GSR when Vegeta wanted it finished. She'd need to go over the blue-prints to make sure everything was correct, check to make sure she had the necessary materials and prepare a small team to help her.
Her feet padded up the stairs and straight to her room, but she stilled before going into her room, glancing down the hall at the door that led to Vegeta's room. Considering what she'd said to Vegeta in the Gravity room, he'd acted rather civilly at dinner. There hadn't been any screaming or quips about her being a 'Servant Woman' or 'Shrieking Harpy' which was his usual caliber.
Against her better judgement, Bulma walked the few extra steps down the hall and knocked on Vegeta's door. No answer. Knocking again, she pressed an ear against the wood, nothing but silence. Testing her luck again, the blue-haired scientist turned the knob and the door opened to reveal a large, empty room. Had he gone back to the ship to train more? He'd been wearing his designated 'sleeping garments' at dinner.
Crossing the boundary into Vegeta's room, she noticed that the door to his balcony was ajar, light from the night's stars illuminating a figure overlooking the grounds. Hesitating, Bulma decided that since she had come this far, it was too late to turn back. Stepping out onto the balcony, the azure-eyed woman moved to stand beside the prince.
She'd been wrong that he was looking at the estate and the sprawling city beyond it. His onyx irises were staring at the stars and planets above.
"Usually when a person doesn't answer a knock at their door, they don't want to be disturbed," His voice was softer than usual, faraway eyes settling on a particular spot in the sky. "Have you come to shriek at me in the privacy of my space?"
"I wanted to apologize… for bringing up the past," Tongue in cheek, she added, "I wouldn't want to be reminded of all the things I've lost and I'm sure you're the same way,"
"You've no idea, Earth-woman," He clenched a fist at his side, "You couldn't imagine what I've lost. So don't assume that you and I have anything in common,"
The wall that Bulma Briefs had built around her heart, she wanted to take it down. Brick by brick, she wanted to set the wall aside and attempt to help this man in front of her, this man that had probably seen more horrors than he would ever admit. The incident in the GSR and his civility at dinner showed that Bulma hadn't paid attention to the changes in the Saiyan Prince.
"Look, I know that we might never be friends or anything close to it. However, I do want you to know that you'll always be welcome here, no matter how arrogant you are," Vegeta opened his mouth to respond, but she held up a hand, "I know you don't need to hear this, but I need to say it. You may like being a lone wolf and doing your own thing, but you might need a place to stay in the future, after you've done whatever you're here for.
No one should have to worry about if they have a place to rest their head. Even knowing just part of you past, you probably haven't had anything close to a home for an incredibly long time. I don't care how long you stay for now, I know there's a reason you're here and I think it has something to do with Goku. So, anytime you're on Earth, consider this yours. Besides, you might end up liking Earth and the next time a big bad comes around, you could help out," She took a deep breath after finishing and began to go back inside, not wanting to face what she'd just said. Bulma had extended an olive branch. It was the best she could do.
"Woman, this planet is nothing to me. What I've gone through, what I've done, it's made me stronger. Alone, that's what makes a person strong and unconquerable. Attachments are simply weaknesses to be exploited. Your servitude is understood but needless," Vegeta called back to her, finally moving his head away from the sky and facing her. He wasn't angry. He was distant. Cold. Bulma could tell that his wall wasn't simply encasing his heart, but his soul. Vegeta, Prince of Saiyans, was the epitome of heartless apathy.
Bulma sighed, her olive branch thrown in her face, and headed back to the hall.
The armor on his dresser haunted her in the shadows of his room as she neared the door, turning back to the balcony, Bulma said, "After I finish the upgrades to the GSR, I'll start on creating some new armor for you, you need more than two sets of clothes,"
Stopping at the door, she turned her head and spoke, "One day, you might surprisingly decide that there might be something on Earth worth saving,"
A trademark 'Hmph' was heard from the balcony, followed by "Unlikely,"
A/N: Just to let everyone know, I'll be updating this story every Wed. afternoon. If I happen to be out of town on a certain Wednesday and the chapter is already done, I'll upload it early, if not, you'll get it Thursday afternoon. If you review, I'll give you a delicious internet cookie!
