"What are you doing, Trunks?"
Trunks did not turn around from the work on his desk, instead continuing his writing as his long black hair fell over his face. His room was shrouded in shadows and darkness, the once sky blue curtains and blinds switched for emotionless gray blinds and black curtains. The walls, once a cream color, were now painted over with jet-black paint. His room was in disarray, clothes and books scattered across the hardwood floor, his bed unmade, his closet ajar with clothing hanging out with very few articles actually on hangers.
"Nothing," he finally said and shut his book. Turning around on the swivel chair, he faced his mother with a pale face and sunken blue eyes.
Bulma willed herself to face him despite her initial reaction to want to turn away. "D-do you want something to eat? I'm making curry. It's spicy, just how you like it."
"No thanks, mom," Trunks said with a slight smile, "Maybe later, okay?"
Bulma nodded and began to turn away.
"Mom?" Trunks called.
Bulma hurriedly turned back around. "Yes?"
"I-I just want you to know that I'm thankful that you're still here at least," Trunks replied.
Bulma nodded and smiled trying with difficulty to hide her tears. "I am too and...I'm so glad you're back."
Trunks smiled at his mother and turned his thin frame back around to face his desk.
Bulma sighed and turned to go back down the stairs, to set a table for two as she desperately waited at the table for her son to eat a meal that would go untouched. She would sit at the table until the sun dipped into the horizon, sobbing quietly.
It had been six months since Trunks had been wished back to life with the Namekian Dragonballs. Six months since his own father had delivered the life-taking blow that paralyzed and eventually killed him. Six months he had been forced to live once again.
Perhaps Trunks' grim notion of life would not have been so warped had his father not have left the mortal plain just days before his resurrection. According to Bulma, Vegeta had pushed himself harder than he had ever done in training shortly after Trunks passed on. So hard, in fact, that Vegeta eventually sapped all of his life energy one day while training and just collapsed.
"He never stopped, save for an occasional shower and a bite to eat," Bulma remarked to her son months earlier. "In the last days, he never left the chamber, not even for a drink of water. He was like a man possessed, your father."
Bulma grew silent and nearly fell apart in front of her newly resurrected son.
"He blamed himself...for your death," Bulma continued as she looked into her son's face, still in slight awe by his being in front of her. "And in truth, he was...he's the one that pushed you, he's the one that delivered the blow..."
"But..." Trunks whispered, his hands balled into fists at his sides.
"...It doesn't matter to you, does it?" Bulma said, "I mean, it does, but in a strange way you're at peace with the fact that your father...caused your death."
The teenager could only nod quietly.
"I know. It took a while for me, too but I eventually forgave him as well," Bulma said as she stood up and began to walk toward the kitchen. "He was a hot-tempered, pompous jerk...but he was passionate. And deep down I know that he loves us all. I never wanted anything other than to love him too...despite what he had done. But..." Her voice trailed off as she stood at the doorway, facing Trunks once again.
"He couldn't accept it," Trunks said suddenly, his teeth clenched. "He couldn't accept what he had done, so he trained himself to death..."
"Trunks?" Bulma asked, slightly confused, "He was...grieving for you. He knew no other way than to work out his anger and pain through violence."
"No!" Trunks barked, not necessarily at his mother, but at the ludicrousness of her remark. "He trained himself to death because he couldn't handle what he had done to me! Because he was a coward, he killed himself!"
Bulma suddenly walked briskly toward her son and slapped him hard across the face.
Trunks made no sound as his head turned violently away from his mother's. Eventually, he regained his composure, facing his mother with a steely expression. His eyes, however, reflected hurt at her action.
"I-I'm sorry," Bulma stammered, but then her expression turned heated, "But I'm not going to let you talk about your father that way. I won't hear it."
"You just don't want to hear it because it's the truth," Trunks stated darkly and walked past his mother slowly. As he began to ascend the stairs, he stopped midway. "He was less of a man than I could have ever imagined," he murmured quietly and ran up the stairs.
Bulma placed her hand over her mouth to stifle a sob, wishing that she could bring Vegeta back.
But that was impossible...
"What do you want, Kakarot?"
It was evening. The crisp autumn wind blew about the Saiyan prince's hair as he stood at the edge of a cliff. It was a long drop down. Vegeta, who had never wished the "plague" of becoming human to ever befall him, suddenly welcomed the prospect of being one of those lesser mortals, if only to experience a quick and painless death at his own hands.
Such was Vegeta's thoughts following the eventual death of Trunks. He was there, watching as his son's breathing grew strained. He was there as he watched the nurses and doctor try everything they could, as the beeping of various status monitors went off. And he was there, actually embracing Bulma as they watched their son slip away.
He had done this. He had made this happen. And now he wanted nothing more than to banish himself into the lonely darkness that Trunks no doubtingly experienced when his own father snuffed his life from him.
Vegeta wanted to die.
"I came...to express my condolences," Goku said quietly. The taller man in the bright orange gi walked stayed his ground, simply viewing Vegeta from his place by the cliff. He knew what the shorter man was thinking, what he desired. But he chose to not say anything fearing the man's dive deeper into despair.
So Goku watched, waiting for Vegeta to answer.
"Your condolences...?" Vegeta finally replied, his form never turning from the direction of the horizon. "You...have nothing to be sorry about, Kakarot. You actually love your children."
Goku was silent, still content with allowing the man to talk.
"You...adore your children, as much as they adore and admire you," Vegeta continued, "They treat you with the utmost respect, not because they fear you...but because they...love you."
"Trunks was the same way, Vegeta," Goku replied, taking two steps forward before remaining in place again, "He loved you as much as any son could love his father."
"And how would you know this, Kakarot?" Vegeta spat fiercely, "Are you some type of damned psychic?"
"No, I don't think so," Kakarot said grimly, "But I do know the look in Trunks' eyes whenever he looked at you. It may have been mixed with slight annoyance at times but it was always one of caring, love, and respect."
Vegeta remained quiet.
"Vegeta...don't beat yourself up over this too much. He can have a second chance...well, third if you count the whole Buu craziness. It'll be okay and when you see him again, you can say you're..."
"'Sorry'?" Vegeta suddenly exploded, wheeling around to face his eternal rival, "That I'm sorry for killing him with my own two hands? That I'm sorry for snuffing out his life because of my need for discipline? Does that SOUND like something YOU could do?"
"Vegeta..." Goku began.
"I couldn't even bare to look him in the eyes after what I've done, let alone make a feeble attempt at apologizing." Vegeta walked toward Goku and looked the man directly in the eyes. It was a stare that was truly imposing, even to the mighty Goku.
"Wake up, Kakarot, and realize that my actions today far outweigh anything else I have done in my past. I do not deserve to live after what I have done."
And Goku watched as Vegeta walked away from him and back toward the hospital alone.
"Oh, Vegeta..." Goku sighed.
"What are you still doing here, Vegeta?" Bulma interrogated viciously as her husband stood inside the doorway of her room.
She had become hysterical earlier that day when the prognosis for her son looked grim. Eventually, when the doctors confirmed that Trunks was, indeed, paralyzed because of the injuries sustained, the broken woman let out a primal scream that echoed throughout a good portion of the hallway, startling many of the patients and visitors who heard it.
The doctors felt that she required medication and was summarily held down by two larger men as she tried desperately to attack Vegeta who stood not three feet from her thrashing nails. When the injection of sedative was administered, Bulma became calm, but her anger was allowed to smolder into a comfortable stew.
And as she sat in the darkness of her hospital room, all cried out, all she could think of was how she could possibly right that which was wrong; how could she kill the man that murdered her son?
"I came to see how you were," Vegeta answered. There was no hesitation in his voice, but that does not mean he didn't have second thoughts about being in the room with the grieving woman. He had effectively extinguished the life of her first born. He had taken her baby!
Bulma sighed and turned her head away toward the curtained window.
"How do you THINK I'm doing?"
Vegeta was silent.
"How am I...SUPPOSED to be doing after some brute murdered my son?"
Again, Vegeta remained silent, only listening to his wife's words.
"You being here disgusts me, Vegeta," Bulma spat.
"And how do you think I feel, woman?" Vegeta rumbled heatedly, "My being alive...disgraces the memory of our son."
Bulma was silent and remained so as Vegeta walked slowly toward her bed.
"My actions today...were unconscionable. I committed the worst act any father could commit against his own flesh and blood. I...I..." Vegeta was able to stifle his emotion as he stopped just inches away from Bulma. He longed to look into her face, into her eyes, wanting to see the mother of his children look at him, even if it was an expression of sheer hatred.
"Your words mean nothing, Vegeta," Bulma said curtly, her head remaining turned. "They're nothing but empty declarations that have do nothing but fall flat like so much of the pompous crap you always spew."
Vegeta scowled at the woman in the bed yet he said nothing. Instead, his features softened, realizing that now was not the time to confront her, yet wondering if anything in his life would ever be a "good time" ever again. Without saying a word, Vegeta turned around to leave.
As he did he heard rustling of the covers but thought nothing of it...until he felt a sharp but relatively insignificant pain in his lower left side, basically on top of where a human's kidney would be. He felt a lighter weight driving against him, pushing what was apparently a sharp edge deeper into his side.
He grunted as Bulma attempted to drive the blade deeper into his body, listening to her angry sobs as she pushed as forcefully as she could, trying desperately to kill the nigh invincible man.
It was in this moment that Vegeta's despair had reached the very bottom, watching as his wife tried desperately to inflict pain and suffering and death upon him. Yet, he could not blame her much. Even as he felt the warmth of his own blood trickle down the side of his left leg, he was not angry, not vengeful. He just...was.
Bulma yelled in desperation and finally let up from the blade, panting heavily, her breaths ragged as she sucked them in and blew them out. She did not know what she would have accomplished by attacking Vegeta. However strong her resolve was, she was physically no match for her husband. But what surprised her the most was that the Saiyan ALLOWED her to stab him. And she did with no apprehension, driving the blade into his side, hoping to cause the man pain for all he had done to her son.
To her life.
She wanted him to feel pain, as much pain as she could possibly inflict.
And when she realized she could not kill him she let up, exhausted from the effort and rationality finally returning to her. And when logic returned, her emotions suddenly hit full force with the realization of what she had done.
"Vegeta..." Bulma sobbed. She wanted desperately to embrace him, to apologize for what she had done. But she had no right. And deep down she stilled resented him.
"This was your one chance..." Vegeta said calmly, not turning around to face his wife. Vegeta was thankful that the room was dark enough so that Bulma was unable to see his muscular form trembling almost uncontrollably. "And this is the last time you will ever do this to me again."
Bulma sobbed quietly as she sat back down upon the bed and watched as her husband walked toward the window. Opening the curtains and then lifting the window, he placed a foot on the windowsill and nodded his head. "I will see you tomorrow..." Vegeta finished and he darted out of the room, flying high into the night sky, his tears nearly obstructing his view as he flew toward the horizon.