Author's Note: I would like to apologize in advance for the length of this chapter. I had every intention of making it significantly longer, but I feel like each chapter is more affective when it focuses on one major issue at a time. The 'original' chapter is over twice this length, but it just didn't carry the same emotional pull as it did when I cut it off when I did.

So yes, this chapter is short. But this does mean that the next chapter will be up in just a few days!

\/\/\/

Gohan stood frozen in his place at the door. He just could not bring himself to the room. It was too sad, too miserable, and more than that, too terrifying for him.

It wasn't his first time in a hospital room. He had been in one himself when he was only about five, during the aftermath of the battle with Vegeta. He had a few broken bones and required a couple of stitches, but he had gotten off easy compared to his father. Goku had been stuck in that full body cast for months. It was a hard, intense, violent battle. There had been bleeding and bruising and breaking of bones. There had been pain and suffering. There had been death.

At the moment, that all seemed like such a nice alternative to standing in that doorway.

For the first time, Gohan felt sick to his stomach over the accident. For the first time, he realized just how different this was from what he was used to. He had spent so much time worrying about what would happen when…if, IF…Bulma died that he had not really taken time to consider the state that she would be in.

He wasn't at all prepared for what he saw.

The only light in the room was the eerie glow that radiated from the monitors attached to the heiress. There seemed to be one for every major organ, because they were all at risk for failing. An ominous beep sounded every time her frail heart beat. There was a frightening hiss every few seconds as another breath of air was pushed into her lungs and suctioned back out by her breathing tube. And Bulma herself…

She was virtually unrecognizable. Almost every inch of her visible body was black, blue, and red. Her skin and muscles were swollen all over. Anything that had not received bruising and breaking during the crash had certainly gotten cut through during surgery. Even if she had been awake, she probably would have been unable to open her eyes from the swelling. Several IV's were leading in to her arms. Her beautiful blue hair, which she had spent the last year growing out, had been shaved off. Row after row of black, ugly stitches ran in tracks along her shorn head.

This was not the Bulma that Gohan knew.

He would have sworn that he was in the wrong room, that he had been staring at a stranger, if not for the Saiyan by her side.

Vegeta sat in a hard, plastic chair that had been dragged right up against the side of the hospital bed. As though in a trance, he stared intently at his love. His right hand was very softly holding on to hers, mindful to not disturb the needle in it, and with his left hand, he was slowly tracing lines down her once beautiful face. He just kept repeating the same trail along her, running from her forehead, down her cheek, and along her jaw. The same motion, the same pattern, the same movements, every time.

Gohan found himself staring at those motions for several minutes. He simultaneously wanted to go in and make sure everything was fine, and to turn around and never look back.

He was actually somewhat surprised, after ten minutes of standing in that doorway, that Vegeta had not even seemed to notice his presence. That, as far as the teenager was concerned, could not be a good sign. Vegeta was always on alert. Between being a warrior in the most brutal army in the universe, and being the father of the most hyperactive and powerful child ever, Vegeta had more than mastered the ability to know where everyone was, at all times.

But he had done nothing to indicate that he was even slightly aware of the fact that the teenager was standing there, watching them. Gohan decided that it would be best to slip out unnoticed. The last thing he wanted to do was startle an on edge, agitated, distraught Saiyan. Quickly, he turned around to leave.

"One afternoon."

Gohan froze where he was. Apparently, Vegeta had noticed his presence. Either that or he's talking to himself, Gohan wondered as he turned around to face his prince. He wanted to respond with something comforting, something soothing, or if nothing else, something intelligent.

Unfortunately, the only word he could get out was, "What?"

"One afternoon," the prince repeated. "That was all she wanted from me. Just a few hours out of one day."

Gohan wasn't sure where this conversation was going, but he was sure he wasn't going to like it. Gohan walked a few steps into the room, waiting for Vegeta to make the next move.

"All I would have had to do was sit in the car with her for a couple hours, let her get her little prizes, and help her get home. I could have stayed outside that place and meditated while she did her shopping. I could have worked on concentration while I was in the car. Hell, I could have listened to her in the car." Vegeta shook his head slightly, his face still completely blank. "But I didn't," he continued. "I didn't feel like it, so I let her go by herself."

The teenager felt his blood run cold as he realized what Vegeta was saying. Bulma had asked her husband to come along, he had turned her down, and now, here she was, barely clinging to life. It didn't take a genius to figure out that if Vegeta had been in the car when something went wrong, he would have easily been able to keep her safe. But because he wasn't there to protect her, she was barely alive.

"Vegeta, it's not your…"

"It's not working."

Gohan blinked in confusion before taking a step closer to the prince. "What's not working?" he quietly asked.

But the prince said nothing, simply continuing to trace his fingers along that same pattern on his lover's face, over and over and over again. He was still yet to look in Gohan's direction. In fact, he was yet to shift out of that position at all.

The teenaged fighter took another step closer to the hospital bed, looking down. A barely visible soft blue light was pulsing softly from the prince's fingertips. It only took the boy a second to realize what was going on.

Vegeta was directly feeding his energy in to his wife.

"What makes you think it's not working?" the boy quietly asked.

Vegeta traced his pattern down his wife's face, an unreadable expression still on his own. "She's not waking up," he plainly replied.

Gohan shifted uncomfortably where he stood. After a moment of thought, he grabbed the other chair in the room and pulled it next to Vegeta's. "That doesn't necessarily mean that it's not working," Gohan softly replied. "After all, it was unlikely that she was going to wake up within the first few hours anyway. When a body goes through something like that, the best thing that it can do for itself is rest."

The prince ever so slightly shook his head. It was the first physical acknowledgement that Gohan had gotten from him since he had entered the room. "I thought we were going to have more…"

As his sentence dropped off, Gohan moved his seat back slightly. He wasn't sure why, but he suddenly wanted to be out of Vegeta's line of sight. It wasn't that he was nervous or anything, it just seemed to make the atmosphere more comfortable. "More what?" he softly pushed.

Vegeta kept his eyes locked on his wife. It took almost two minutes to answer.

"Time," he finally responded.

Again, Gohan was not sure what the prince was talking about, but, for the first time, he honestly thought that if he just waited patiently, he might actually get an answer. Under any other circumstance, the prince could give someone the cold shoulder for weeks, months if possible. He did not open up. Under this sort of situation, though, he actually seemed willing to talk. Not a lot, and not without some guidance, but he was actually putting out information.

"We were supposed to have more time."

Gohan flinched at those words, but kept quiet. He didn't dare risk interrupting the man's thoughts.

Vegeta's trail along his battered wife's face still hadn't strayed at all. "This wasn't how this was…she wasn't supposed to…not now, not like this…"

"Time to do what, Vegeta?" Gohan asked, trying to get the prince back on track.

The room was silent for a moment. "Just…time," he finally answered. He sighed softly to himself. "You wouldn't understand, boy."

Against his better judgment, Gohan reached out for the elder Saiyan. "I know how hard it can be to think that someone you care about might die, but even if she…"

Those were the only words that the poor boy could get out before he found himself slammed into the hospital wall, his air completely cut off by the bloody hand on his throat.

"Shut the fuck up!" he hissed, grinding the teenager harder into the wall. "You have no fucking idea what you're talking about! You have never, never been in this situation, boy, and don't you dare tell me that you have!"

Gohan opened his mouth, desperately trying to suck in air.

"You have always had some way to get your family back!" the prince snapped, squeezing Gohan's throat even tighter. "Magic balls, mystical creatures, even death! There has always been a way!"

The teenager clawed at the hand around his neck as his world began to blur.

But Vegeta hardly seemed to notice the boy's struggles. "But I don't have that choice, do I?!?" he shouted, intensifying his grip further still. "You people won't let me near the dragon balls, the gods all want to see me suffer, and when I die…"

Just as Gohan was ready to give in to the darkness, he felt a painful rush of air as his windpipe was released. Even while he had been on the verge of having his throat crushed, the teenager had been listening to every word. Hey, if he was going to die, he at least wanted to know why. He had figured out that he had crossed a line a half second before the prince had him up against the wall. What he didn't understand, though, was why he had been released. Not that he minded, of course.

"Get out," Vegeta growled, turning his back to the boy.

The teenager didn't need to be told twice. Gohan scurried to his feet and bolted for the door. He figured that it was about time he took that break his mother had been talking about…

Vegeta didn't make a sound as he heard the door slam behind him. He just silently walked toward his overturned chair, set it back up, sat down in it, and continued his ritual.

"You have to get through this, woman," he whispered, leaning in to rest his forehead against hers. "You have to…"