New chapter! Sorry for the wait. I do have quite a bit of material planned for this fic, it just won't be super fast in coming, so I hope you won't give up. I plan to keep the chapters somewhat shorter, but this one came out a bit longer. Anyway, thanks for reading and reviews are appreciated.
Age 764
Another month, another hairstyle. Tonight, it's twisted into loose rolls down her scalp and freed at the nape of her neck, a shimmer of blue that just tickles her bare shoulders. Her dress, a short, low cut Versace, clings like plastic wrap around every smooth curve. No matter what angle she views herself in her 360 degree mirror, what she sees is a bombshell, the girlfriend of All-Star player Yamcha, the genius heiress to Capsule Corporation who leaves the paparazzi salivating at the mere thought of her stepping outside her fortress of a home and partaking in a night on the town.
But there is one thing she does not see:
Herself.
Hasn't seen it in a long time, if she's being honest. When did her life become such a circus act? Such a show for others to exploit? There was a time when no one knew or cared whether she was hunched in a lab, drawing schematics for the latest in supersonic air travel, or hiking forgotten trails on a life-threatening quest for ancient artifacts.
Her phone buzzes. Yamcha's already at the club, and impatient. *Party's wild! You gotta get down here!*
Suddenly, she's in no mood to hurry. Feeling thirsty, and far too sober, she meanders to the liquor cupboard in the lounge and pours herself a finger of whisky. She gives the rich, brown liquid a little swirl in the cut crystal tumbler, worth more than the average middle class home, downs it all in one gulp, and then pours another.
Things were supposed to be different once he was wished back. "A fresh start," they agreed, never mentioning why a fresh start was necessary, that by the time Yamcha had died, their relationship had become hard and stale.
And to be fair, things started off well. She can still feel the warmth of Yamcha's skin as she flung her arms around him after he was wished back, the way it filled her up and spread down every limb, the grin that wouldn't leave her face. They spent the next three days in bed, and for awhile they were seventeen years old again.
But the daily life happened. They saw less and less of each other, and when they did it was dominated by arguments and ambivalence. Namek had changed them. But instead of growing closer, these days they drift farther and farther apart, two plants following the light of different suns.
"What I wouldn't give for a little…." A little what? Fun? Security?Romance? Adventure? Words flit through her brain, but none of them quite fit into the shape of the hole that's been living inside her since Namek, the first time she truly, honestly, without a doubt thought she was going to die.
Correction: permanently die.
The whisky slides down like oil. Her throat is on fire. A dim haze descends over her senses, bending her thoughts, giving them new angles. Maybe she's got it all wrong, and Namek wasn't the start of her troubles. Maybe the hollowness eating her from the inside out has been there much longer, and it took planet-wide destruction to make her wake up and take notice.
Maybe the reason she no longer recognizes herself is because she no longer knows who she is.
Her legs go a bit wobbly. She needs to sit. The dress requires that she ease down onto the sofa in increments, and once settled she lies back against the cushions, an arm behind her head, the lights in the room mercifully shut off. But the television glows as it idles in the background, muted, the closed caption informing her of a string of mini-earthquakes that have shaken the coast and befuddled the geologists. The brightness stings her eyes, but searching for the remote requires too much coordination and effort.
Time blurs. She enters that indistinct stage between dozing and waking up, cycling through both as her thoughts skid haphazardly between unfinished projects and the dark well of thoughts that have started to drown her.
Her phone buzzes again and she startles to full consciousness, almost throws it across the room. "Give it a rest Yamacha!"
But when she checks her screen, it's not the picture of her boyfriend wearing shades, a baseball cap, and a magazine-cover smile. She swipes to answer and puts the phone to her ear. "Krillin?"
"Yeah, hey, sorry to bother you, especially on a Friday night, and I know you probably have plans and I hate to interrupt, but –"
"Just get it out," she cuts. She's used to this, the occasional request or demand on her time from the superhuman squad, who still haven't learned how to function like humans. Could I borrow that one capsule….I just need a car for a few….seriously Bulma, this is the last time I'll ask for the dragon radar!
But Krillin asks for nothing, says nothing at all, and the pause is generous enough to make her curious and worried all at once. "Krillin? What is it?" Her body tenses. Her mind propels to the worst case scenario, and she's all but ready to hunt down the dragon radar when Krillin says it:
"It's Vegeta."
It's not a name she expected to hear anytime soon, if ever again. And her fear probably shouldn't deflate as rapidly as it did. And she'd rather not think about the little worm of excitement wiggling through her chest. "What about him?" she says, cool as back-of-the-freezer ice cream. "Last I heard, that asshole was still knocking around in space."
"Actually, he landed back on earth weeks ago. He's been lying low on a small, uninhabited island off the coast."
"You're kidding." What she wouldn't give for ki-sensing. But she's a genius inventor, and there has to be some kind of workaround. How hard would it be to implant micro-trackers under their skins without them knowing? Bulma's already drawing schematics on a used napkin as she replies, "Okay. But I'm not sure why that concerns me."
"The thing is, he's not really lying low anymore."
Her brow creases. What was he driving at? But a few moments later everything clicks. She stands, walks to the tv, and manually raises the volume.
–over three dozen people have been evacuated, with more expected –
She rubs her temples. "Please tell me this doesn't have anything to do with the earthquakes?"
Another lengthy pause. "Goodbye Bulma."
The line goes dead. That bastard's actually had the gall to dump this in her lamp and then hang up. Because clearly this is Bulma's responsibility. Of course. Why shouldn't she, the frail human, the weakest of the group by far, be the one to keep the psychotic alien under control?
She stands up and begins rummaging through her purse. "I offered him a home," she mutters. "My part should be done." Keys located, she heads outside. "They fight, they win, and then they leave me to clean up the damn mess!"
The honest part of her brain reminds her that she always wanted Vegeta to return, had even prepared for it. But she ignores it to listen to her her stilettos echo across the cold cement of the hangar, like two swords fencing.
Once buckled into the pilot's chair, she kicks off her heels and wiggles the feeling back into her toes, her feet more comfortable than they've been all day. Mid-flight, she pulls the top down – because why the hell not? – and the wind blows her two hundred dollar coiffure to smithereens.
But she keeps the dress. After all, she's still Bulma Briefs, and in her experience in dealing with volatile men, it never hurts to look fantastic.
He senses her approach long before her helicar lands in a stretch of meadow and she huffs her way up to the crest of the hill to stand at his back.
"So you decided to come back to this mudball of a planet. I'm almost flattered."
Her words are pointed. Like a child poking a beehive. She clearly expects him to start buzzing, but then she's used to the easy fish, isn't she? The ones who always go for the cheapest bait. Vegeta may not be famous for his even temper, but in Frieza's service one learns early on how to keep their mouth shut.
After a beat of silence, she tries a different tack. "Look at you, sitting on that boulder all by yourself like some kind of medieval gargoyle." Her voice is light, sweet, flower petals wafting on a breeze. "I would have never pegged you for a brooder, but the way you stare up at the sky, it's….almost poetic."
What's poetic is how she can slip in and out of personas as easily as taking off a jacket, putting on a new pair of shoes. But problem solving is her stock-in-trade. She probably tinkers with the people in her life as much as her machines, always searching for the perfect code, the perfect circuit, the perfect algorithm to give her the result she wants.
"Are you going to say anything?" Now her voice verges on desperate. A twang of damsel-in-distress. "Please Vegeta, it's cold and a little creepy out here. Who knows what's on this island. The least you could do is turn around and look at me." Too bad he's never been the hero, and he never will.
Despite himself, the barest hint of a smile creeps into his mouth. She's fun to play with, and a few more minutes ought to do it.
"Look asshole, I flew two hours to get here, and I am not leaving without a damn conversation!"
There she is.
"And I'm not talking until I get something to eat," he says.
"Wonderful! Great! Fly us down to my helicar and I can get us to a restaurant in thirty minutes."
"I would never debase myself by stepping into that tin can."
"Then you can fly us –"
"And I don't eat out of the palms of strangers."
"What is that? Some kind of a Saiyan proverb?" She sighs. "Let me guess, you're too proud to go begging."
"I'm too smart to get poisoned." He stands. "I'm hunting."
"Hunting? Hunting? This island is a preservation site. Do you know what that means? It means hunting isn't allowed, and even if it was allowed, why would you go through all the trouble when I can literally get you mountains of food in thirty minutes or less, and –"
She stops, palpably fuming. Vegeta's smile broadens. There's something oddly satisfying about disappointing people. When you live your life in another's service, it's often the only power you have. He begins a slow countdown in his head – ten, nine – something he used to do with Zarbon or Dodoria – eight, seven – after willfully misconstruing yet another order – six, five – the dwindling silence before they decide the stupid monkey isn't worth the trouble – four, three – and they'd give up and storm away – two, one, zero.
Wait for it...
"You know what?" she clips, in a decidedly "not-giving-up" tone.
"Nevermind. Let's do this!"
"What?" He's so shocked he turns around and looks at her.
Big mistake.
Gone are the outrageous outfits and sculpted hairstyles. Tonight, she's poured into a wisp of a dress that leaves nothing to the imagination, and glitters like moonlight on the sea. With every movement, whether a broad gesture or a minuscule shift in balance, the dress shimmers and she transforms into something else entirely, a continuous wave of fluid motion, and all of it topped by the wild abandon of her hair.
In his mind, she'll always and forever be 'that woman.' But for the first time he's known her he thinks of her as that woman.
"You want to hunt, let's hunt." She lifts one shoulder, casual-like, as if hunting in evening wear with homicidal aliens is a regular past time for her. But the little tremors in her body give her away. Her insides must be thrumming, and there's no way she hasn't noticed how his eyes move unabashedly up and down her body, canvassing, getting the lay of the new terrain. "Don't let the get up fool you. I was shooting little kids by the time I was sixteen."
His eyes snap back to her face. "I'd purged three systems by the time I was sixteen."
"Hey, let's not get into some kind of dick measuring contest, 'cause I'm pretty sure you'll win." She chuckles.
Vegeta's the farthest from amused. "Do you…" He cocks his head, confused. His stare is so intense he may as well be trying to see through her. "I thought you were…"
Perhaps he doesn't understand human anatomy as much as he thought.
She starts laughing. At him. Laughing.
Laughing.
His eyes narrow. "What's so funny?"
"Nothing. It's just a little tragic how Saiyan sex education has clearly failed its youth. Now let's go get dinner!"
"I know what sex is," he calls. But she's already tromping away, hips swaying, a pair of uncomfortable looking shoes slung over her shoulder, and he should probably feel much more angry than he does. "Bitch."
Due to rigorous conservation efforts, the island is lush with a variety of fauna: deer, goats, wild boar, and the highly endangered Red-paw Bear.
"There." Vegeta points at the hulking beast wading in a stream, a fish clamped in its mouth. "That's the one."
"I told you there were only twenty-three of those left on the planet."
"And now there'll be twenty-two."
Bulma pauses. "I've done worse things."
They'd tracked the bear through a mile of unchecked foliage, so thick in some parts he was forced to blast it away, leaving a charred, smoldering trail in their wake.
"So much for the hard working folks at EnviroCare," Bulma sighs. "I'll have to remember to write out a generous cheque in the morning."
"Do you always absolve your guilt by throwing money at things?"
"Hey, better than feeling no guilt at all." Her bare feet are bleeding, her arms criss-crossed in silk-thin scratches. Her skin shines with a film of sweat and excitement. It's clear she's done this sort of thing before, but not in a long while.
What made her stop?
He holds out an arm. "Stay here. I'll be back with the kill."
One precisely aimed ki-blast finishes the work. He hoists the carcass over his shoulder and returns to find a gleeful grin on her face, and a small animal impaled upon the heel of her ridiculous shoe. "Check me out! I finally found a use for these things!"
He grabs the shoe and examines it. "I assumed they were simply idiotic footwear worn by the less intelligent of your species." He wouldn't go so far as to say he's impressed. But as he hands back the shoe and looks her over her – disheveled, dirty, and without any trace of the fear that permeated her back on Namek – he has to admit she has a certain amount of grit. "But it's clear they are intended to double as weapons."
"Obviously. And as an added bonus, they make my legs look amazing." She extends a slim, well-shaped leg, turning it about and wiggling her toes.
"I wouldn't know."
"Riiight."
He leads her back to his camp, a little clearing complete with a fire pit and a boulder against which he sleeps, and throws the bear down.
"Gather some firewood," he orders, and starts in on the butchering, bits of fur and bone tossed over his shoulder and into the dark jaws of the forest.
"You gotta be kidding me." She eases down to the ground and rubs her mangled feet. Without any momentum, the exhaustion has caught up with her and seeps into her expression, her movements. The dress will need to be thrown out. "I don't think I can move another muscle. Can't you just fry it in your hands?"
"It tastes better over a fire."
"Huh. I never would have guessed." Then she lays down, her face to the stars. "Why'd you come back, anyway?"
Vegeta frowns. Why. The humans are so obsessed with the world. They believe there must be a reason for everything – every tragedy, every triumph. They look up at the stars, and what do they see? A universe without end, and all the limitless possibilities it inspires.
But black is not the color of promise. Vegeta's lived his life in the void long enough to know that. When he's up there, the darkness wraps around him as though he's sealed in a jar, the little pinprick stars like innumerable air holes, a feeling of being trapped and free all at once.
When he looks up at the stars, all he sees is another dead end.
And she wants to know why.
"I couldn't find Kakarot." It's not a lie, exactly. It's half an answer to an asinine question, and more than she deserves. "But his mate and brat are on this planet, so he's bound to come here eventually."
He stalks off and gathers the firewood himself, and in a few minutes, huge steaks of bear meat are sizzling over the open flames, luscious fumes of roasted meat pervading the camp.
He's starving, and eats like it.
"You eat like Goku."
Her words snap him out of his food trance. She's watching him with wide eyes, a dash of amusement, and if he's not mistaken a hint of mild disgust. "I eat like a Saiyan," he clips.
She shrugs. "Goku's the only Saiyan I've known till you guys showed up. I never knew it was a species thing." She nibbles on a small piece of meat. "In case you're wondering, there's plenty of food at capsule corp."
"I wasn't."
"I mean, if food isn't your thing, I do have other things to offer."
He freezes, mid-chew. She's back to lounging, her body stretched across the ground in a casual, almost inviting repose, in a dress that's close to tatters. "I'm not interested in that."
She laughs. "I'm talking about an invention, you pervert." Now she has his interest. "A gravity chamber."
Now she really has his interest, and the woman must know it too, staring at him with that raised eyebrow and insufferable smirk. "Isn't that what Kakarot used to get so strong?"
"The one and the same." There's something almost Saiyan in the way she grins, a mixture of superiority and recklessness. "Only this one's not on a spaceship. It's at Capsule Corp."
"You built one."
"Yep!"
"For me."
She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. Her eyes scramble in every direction, searching for a way out. "I…"
In a flash, Vegeta's on her, pulling her up from the ground. Her holds her arms tightly and his words are low and hot in her face. "What is it you want?"
"What?"
"I don't trust people who ask for nothing in return. There's always strings attached, so what is it you want from me?"
"Nothing, I –" Her heart rate increases, breath rapid, eyes dilating. He's seen it all before. He's seen her so many times like this, in the grip of fear, within his grip. Her flesh and bones are nothing more than thin reeds in his hands. How easy it would be to break them, crush them, make her beg for mercy for even daring to think that she could –
But then she closes her eyes. Closes her mouth. Breathes deeply, in and out, in and out.
When she opens her eyes again, the fear has evaporated, and her voice does not quaver. "Do you remember our last conversation? Do you remember what I told you?"
You saved my life, and I'll never forget that.
His grip loosens. He looks away. "No."
A hand on his face. Hers. Warm and unthreatening.
No one's ever touched him like this before.
She moves his face gently back to meet hers. "You're the one who gave me something, remember? And maybe I just want to return the favor."
Could it be that simple? An amicable transaction between two parties?
Fight for me, and free your people. Frieza had promised a fair exchange as well. And what did he get out of the bargain? Bondage, and pain. Years and years and years of it, and even now, Frieza's death has become just another kind of prison, locked him into a life of confusion and meaninglessness.
But there's still that hope, dangling. Defeating Kakarot is his universe without end. The one horizon he can't cross, and if the gravity chamber is his only chance at the impossible, at giving strength and purpose and pride back into his life, then he needs to take it.
He releases her. "Fine."
Her jaw drops. "What?"
"It's obvious you won't leave me alone until I agree to live in your garbage heap of a home –"
"You mean my state of the art, five-star luxury mansion?" she fires.
A beat goes by. "Are you finished?" She crosses her arms with a shrug. "As I was saying," he continues, "if I'm to have no peace until I agree, then I agree. I'll stay in residence at Capsule Corp until Goku returns, and we can resume our battle."
Relief floods her face. She laughs, sags, staggers a bit. He could knock her over with a feather. "And here I was thinking you were gonna kill me to save yourself the trouble!"
"I still might."
He walks two steps backwards and flies off without a word.