Song slipped out of Trunks' bedroom with a sigh of relief. The kid was finally asleep at his proper nap time, and that meant she could finally do what she'd been meaning to do all week. She danced silently down the hall to the TV room and flipped it on, cursing and hurriedly turning down the volume when it came on blasting.

She cocked an ear to see if the noise had woken Trunks up, but when she heard nothing, she relaxed and turned it to the right channel. She still had fifteen minutes before it started, so she decided to channel surf while she waited.

After ten minutes she had finally gone through every channel (she hadn't known there were that many channels) and was now making the rounds again, when the door opened behind her and Vegeta walked in.

She froze, but all he did was plop down onto the couch next to her and hold his hand out imperiously for the remote. Song was still not sure if he had forgiven her, and in the week she had been here this was the first time they'd interacted besides meals and dropping Trunks off at the Gravity Room. She handed him the remote.

To her surprise he punched in the number for the very channel she had been planning to watch. She studied him out of the corner of her eye, wondering if he wanted her to leave. But he seemed to be ignoring her. From Vegeta, she was beginning to sense, that was as good as an out-and-out invitation.

"Don't change the channel," he ordered, getting up. She flinched at the sound of his voice, but when he returned carrying an armful of microwave popcorn bags, she began to suspect that wondering if he had forgiven her was perhaps not the right question. The better question was, had her little stunt even bothered him in the first place?

To her amazement he held the first bag of popcorn between his hands, concentrated for a moment, and then slowly spread his hands apart as the kernels started popping and the bag inflated. She could feel the heat coming from his hands, and she found herself unable to look away, even when he tossed her the first bag and began popping a second one for himself in the same manner.

"How—"

"Ki."

Having no clue what that meant, she decided not to look gift popcorn in the mouth. Opening the bag, she turned back to the TV, trying to pay attention to the recap.

"Wait—Jessica actually married Brent?" she exclaimed before she could stop herself. Vegeta was already mostly done with his bag of popcorn, and he snorted in amusement before swallowing his mouthful.

"Her bitch of a step-mother blackmailed her into doing it."

"What, did she threaten to tell him who the real father is? I thought she didn't know about that."

"She doesn't, but she does know that Jessica was dating Brent's brother. She threatened to lie and tell him that the baby was his, and Jessica figured that was close enough to the truth to count as a real threat. Now, me," he said, picking up another bag and popping it, "I would have killed that bitch a long time ago."

She laughed, and then went silent as the episode began in earnest. Her mind was still reeling with the revelation that not only did Vegeta not seem to hate her, could fly and pop popcorn with his hands, he also apparently watched the same soap opera she did. She resolved not to bother him for the rest of the episode just in case she was still in his bad books, but when Kenan walked into Celeste's bar with a gun and shot her, she couldn't help giving a shout.

"What the hell!"

"That bastard!" Vegeta agreed.

"She was just trying to give him some space! She didn't even want to break up with him."

"Her father had better kill him or he's not the man I thought he was."

Vegeta popped bag number nine, eyes never leaving the screen as Celeste was taken to the hospital, and Song was more than pleased when he handed her the bag, apparently having noticed that hers was empty.

"Thanks," she said softly. He grunted, and picked up a bag for himself.

There it was: Earth. And still thriving, from what his onboard computer was telling him. Daikon brushed the picture of his mother with the tips of his fingers, and gave the command to land.

Vegeta set Song down on the floor of the Lookout, glad for the excuse not to participate in the festivities taking place in the front garden. He nodded imperiously at Dende.

"She needs your skills, boy," he said, indicating Song. The girl had played a little too rough with Trunks the day before and he had broken her arm; she'd been given a cast and a lot of morphine, as well as a get well card from Trunks, who was himself sporting a black eye from his father to drive the point home that hitting people too hard was bad. When Song had burst into drug-induced tears in the middle of his argument with Bulma over that, both of them had been forced to apologize and hug each other in front of her to get her to stop. Despite Song's condition Bulma had insisted she come along to the Lookout for the anniversary picnic, her excuse being that Dende could fix her arm. Vegeta saw no point in celebrating another year come and gone from the defeat of an enemy, but he had already been coerced into coming, so he was glad, at least, that he had been allowed to bring his own entertainment.

Dende edged closer, still wary of him after all this time.

"Who is she?" he asked, kneeling down and placing his hands over her.

"Bulma's cousin," Vegeta said, sitting back. He found the boy's obvious dislike of him amusing, but not as amusing as Song was going to be once she woke up.

Song stirred, and mumbled something. Dende frowned.

"Is she drunk, sir?" he said tremulously. His voice was a little deeper than it had been at their first meeting, though he was still far from whatever the Namekian equivalent of puberty was.

"Something like that."

Dende hummed. "She is not responding as I had hoped," he said, a doctor's response if Vegeta had ever heard one.

"What does that mean?" he asked, when Dende didn't say anything else.

"There is something in her system I do not recognize."

Vegeta waved a dismissive hand. "That's fine, as long as the arm's fixed."

Song opened her eyes. Her gaze was unfocused, and she stared at nothing for a while, just breathing. Then she said in a light, high voice,

"Vegeta? Whyzzat man green?"

Vegeta hid a smile. This was going to be fun.

"He's green because he's very, very sick," he said seriously. Song's brow puckered.

"Is he gonna throw up on me?" she asked worriedly, still in that high, vague voice. Vegeta tried harder not to laugh.

"Yes, Song," he said. "You'd better get out of the way quick, before he loses it."

"But I am not—" Dende began, but Vegeta put up a hand, as Song sat up quickly. Then she swayed and slumped down against Vegeta.

"Why's it spinning?" she demanded, trying unsuccessfully to make her limbs work together to help her sit up. Vegeta pushed her gently upright.

"Vegeta, sir?" Dende queried, as much disturbed at Vegeta's gentle treatment of the girl as her mental state.

"She'll be fine, Dende," he said, grinning. "In a few hours."

"Where're we?" Song asked, frowning deeply at him.

"We're in the sky, Song," he said in a soft sing-song that he could see gave Dende the creeps.

"The—" She appeared to think this over. "Izzat why he's so sick?"

"Yes," Vegeta said, nodding. "He gets very airsick, this one." He allowed a grin to overtake his face as Song turned to Dende and patted him comfortingly on the shoulder.

"'s'okay," she said. "Even if you throw up on me, I won't hate you."

Vegeta couldn't help the bark of a laugh that escaped him at that. Song turned to him, concerned.

"'re you okay, Vegeta?" She was talking in slow motion, which was funny enough on its own that it took him a moment to regain his composure.

"Yes, I'm alright," he said. "I just had a slight cough."

"Don' get sick," she ordered. "If you get sick you can't train Trunks. An' then I have to watch him all day. Though I guess I wouldn't mind that too much. He's pretty cute."

She began a long, meandering dissertation about how cute his son was, and Vegeta tuned her out, disappointed that his fun had run out so soon. He looked up in time to see Krillin, in the thick of the party, turn abruptly away from his wife and look up to the sky. He wasn't just admiring the clouds: his head was moving slightly back and forth as though scanning for something. Vegeta had a grudging respect for the man's ki-sense; his power level might be a joke, but he had fine-tuned his abilities to the point that he could even sense his wife's energy. He had, of course, refused to teach Vegeta, much less any of the rest of them, the trick of it.

"Dende, watch her," Vegeta ordered, and stood up, striding over to the picnic, which was starting to falter as others picked up on Krillin's concern.

"What is it, man?" Yamcha demanded, the drink in his hand forgotten. Krillin looked grim.

"There's a power level out there in space, coming right towards us," he said. "It's not that big, but it's definitely not human."

Vegeta reached out to where he could feel Krillin concentrating, and felt it as well.

"Pah," he scoffed. "Even you could handle that nothing."

"That's not what I'm worried about, Vegeta," Krillin said, not taking his eyes off the sky, as though he expected to see the unknown being coming down out of the clouds. "It could be a scout, or whoever it is could even be suppressing their power level. I'm not going to relax until we know more."

"I don't sense anything," Yamcha announced. "Are you sure you aren't just seeing things, buddy?" he added, grinning nervously. Vegeta rolled his eyes.

"It's there, all right, weakling," he informed him. Yamcha gulped.

"Krillin's right," Piccolo cut in, eyes also on the sky. "We have to be cautious until we know whether or not this is a threat."

"When is it ever not a threat?" Gohan said grimly, and Vegeta had to agree with him. He had never encountered a group of people that attracted as much trouble as these buffoons.

He leaned against a nearby pillar as they debated back and forth on their course of action; Vegeta knew what he was doing, and that was exactly nothing unless the newcomer turned out to be a challenge. He closed his eyes, and resigned himself to boredom.