A/N This chapter is dedicated to my two amazing reviewers. You guys are awesome and make me want to work even harder at providing good entertainment/drama in every single chapter. It wouldn't be the same without you.

Forever and always enjoy!


I felt like I had been stranded on a desert planet. I was lost, disoriented, and slowly dying from the extensive heat of the sun's rays burning down on me.

Only in this case, the sun was an android. And the heat was her fury. A fury that was directed at me.

Why had she gotten so angry?

I was definitely lost. Even worse, I was a lost idiot. That's what had gotten me into this mess in the first place. I had had no idea what I was trying to say to 18. It had come out all wrong. All because I couldn't work up the nerve to tell her how I feel about her.

I had been a coward too apparently.

It was official; my second encounter with 18 had gone a thousand times worse than the first.

I think I would have preferred her choking me instead, just so that I wouldn't be able to open my mouth and talk.

But what had I really been trying to say to her?

I had spared her partially because I thought she was redeemable. Plain and simple. I knew at the time that 18 had some good in her. That she could change.

Now why couldn't I have just said that then? Those four sentences sounded so much better than what had spewed from my mouth.

I could care less that she's an android. She was already more human to me than most of the people I knew. Besides what you are doesn't define you right? Why did she have to take it the wrong way? Why did she get so angry to begin with?

I understood she was upset but I had never seen her that angry before. She had been absolutely livid when she screamed at me to leave. I had flown away from her anger as quickly as I could. But I couldn't forget about what I saw when I looked back. She had still seemed to be fighting with something when I left.

But what?

I couldn't help but wonder if it had something to do with that look she gave me before I gave my answer to her…

Yep this had lost and confused written all over it. Desert planet here I come.

Too many questions filled my head and I had no way in finding the answers. She couldn't possibly ever like me after that. I felt like the tiny thread of hope I had been clutching this whole time had finally snapped. It was now in an impossibly tangled mess at my feet.

But just because something seems impossible doesn't mean you still won't try to prove it wrong.

I was an idiot after all, and I refused to believe that this was it. Like so many things I had now lost in my life, before me stood something I could still get back. 18 always had a solid hold in my thoughts; she was a comfort to fall back on. Goku was gone but she wasn't. I couldn't lose her now too. I don't think I could handle another person leaving my life because of what I did. I had to do something, anything, to repair the damage I made.

I may not know how to win her heart but I may know how I can fix it.

I needed advice. Badly.

But who's?

I had tried calling Yamcha but apparently he went on a cruise with some new girlfriend and I didn't want to interrupt that. Tien and Chiaotzu were on a mountain somewhere and from now on I was going to avoid all wildernesses even if it killed me. Gohan was too young to understand any of this yet. Besides I didn't want to load him with any more problems on top of his own to worry about. All that was left was Piccolo.

. . .

Wait scratch that.

All that was left was Bulma.


"Hi Mrs. Briefs. Is Bulma home?"

"Oh my, if it isn't our young and handsome Krillin." Mrs. Briefs had answered the front door of Capsule Corp., balancing a large tray of her home made tarts in one hand.

She peered down at me and smiled, not noticing some tarts were sliding off the tray. Mrs. Briefs was definitely an air-head, but at least she was an air-head that knew how to bake.

"And please dear, call me Bunny. Would you like a tart? They're blueberry, Vegeta's favourite."

A snarl escaped from inside the building. "They are not my favourite you blasted servant woman!"

My shoulders slumped. I had been hoping that the Prince of all Snap-a-tude wasn't going to be at Capsule Corp. The odds that he was training in his gravity room were about twenty to one. Of course with my luck, I would get the stinking one.

I looked behind Mrs. Bri — I mean Bunny, and saw a head of brilliant blue hair bounce down the stairs at the end of the entrance hallway.

"Who's at the door?" Bulma came up beside her mother and saw me, "Oh hey Krillin. What are you doing here?"

"Uh hey, Bulma." I started rubbing the back of my head nervously. "Do you think we could talk for a minute?" I eyed Bunny standing by us rearranging the tray of remaining tarts into a big smiley face. "Alone?"

Bulma nodded. "Why, sure Krillin. Just give me a minute. I have a big presentation today so I need to get ready. Why don't you wait in the kitchen with Vegeta and Trunks?"

I nodded weakly. "Sure." That sounds like a nightmare.

Bunny looked up from her tray and chimed, "I think I'll go see if your father wants some tarts, honey." She blew Bulma a kiss and disappeared around a corner, leaving a trail of fallen tarts behind her.

Bulma looked at the tarts that littered the ground and sighed. "Anyways, I'll meet you in the kitchen when I'm done." She turned around on her heel and trotted quickly down the hallway and up the stairs.

I walked down the hallway at a slower pace, wanting to delay my waiting with Vegeta for as long as possible. I looked at walls and noticed a couple new pictures had been hung since I had last visited. There was a new one of Trunks with his hair spiked to look like Vegeta's. I chuckled at that.

There was also another new one down the hallway in a larger frame. It was one of Bulma when she had embarked on her journey for the Dragon Balls all those years ago. Her hair was braided into a single blue pony-tail and she was beaming with the excitement of youth and adventure. She was sitting on a white motor cycle and laughing at Goku who had fallen off it.

She must miss him.

Not wanting to continue with that sad thought I entered the kitchen and saw Vegeta sitting at a table piled high with an assortment of breakfast dishes. It's definitely a saiyan trait to have super powers along with super appetites.

Across the table Trunks sat in a highchair with his lavender hair covered in blueberry tart filling. He was squishing his latest jelly-filled victim between his chubby little fingers when he looked up at me and scowled.

"Weak'ing! Weak'ing!"

Yep. Definitely Vegeta's son.

Vegeta swallowed a mouthful of pancakes, etiquette that already superseded Goku's by a life time, and gave me a nice welcoming sneer.

"Humph. My son can already detect your pathetic power level." He then continued to dig into his pile of pancakes with a small smirk on his face.

I frowned. Well, at least he's showing pride for someone other than himself.

I sat down at the farthest seat from Vegeta and twiddled my thumbs nervously. I didn't want to be left alone with him. I hope Bulma's going to be done soon. I groaned inwardly. Knowing Bulma, getting dressed quickly would require multiple wishes from a certain dragon.

"Why are you here disturbing my meal pip-squeak?" Vegeta's questioning growl practically rattled the table.

"Uh," I gulped, "I wanted to talk to Bulma."

Vegeta narrowed his eyes, "What do you want with my woman?"

Why can't he just ignore me like the good old days?

As if I could push the anger that radiated from him off of me, I raised my hands. "N-nothing Vegeta, I swear. I just want to discuss something with her, honest."

Vegeta continued to look at me as sweat beaded on my forehead. Finally he snorted and continued eating, seeming to be satisfied with what he saw.

I let out a breath of air I didn't know I was holding and slumped down into my chair. That was close. After my nerves settled down I noticed something warm and sticky on my head. I raised my hand and touched it, bringing it back to look at. It turns out I had blueberry tart filling smeared all over it.

I looked at the culprit sitting beside me in his highchair. Trunks' hands were covered in the sticky jelly and he was smiling innocently at me.

He was a cute kid. It was hard to believe that without his future self we might have all been wiped out by the androids.

I'll never forget how shocked I when I saw Bulma with a little baby boy in her arms. It was on the day that the androids were supposed to appear and I hadn't seen her for about three years. But there she was waiting for us to show up. She didn't want to miss out on seeing the androids of course. It was a new challenge for her.

And everyone knows how Bulma loves a challenge.

The Saiyan Prince was probably one of the toughest challenges she had ever faced. Who would have thought that someone like her would end up with Vegeta? That such an unlikely couple would produce the savior of our planet?

Without Mirai Trunks we wouldn't have been prepared. Goku would have died from a heart virus and everyone else would have been killed by the androids. I was grateful for the risk Trunks took in trying to warn us. His timeline had been devastated but he wasn't going to sit around and let ours suffer too. He may have looked like his father but he had the kind, warm heart of his mother.

I gave Trunks a big fat smile as he tried to paint more of the blue jelly onto my head.

"Weak'ing has momma's hair now!"

"Oh yeah? Well two can play at that game."

I scooped up a bit of jelly leaking down the side of the highchair with my finger and planted it on Trunk's nose. He shrieked from the surprise and brought his little fists down hard on the remaining blueberry tarts in front of him.

Splat.

With strength way above the average human, Trunks had exploded sticky blue jelly onto everything in the room. It covered the table, the walls, the cabinets, and…Vegeta's hair.

I'm a dead man.

"Look at what you've done!" Vegeta jumped out of his chair and began to furiously wipe at the mess in his hair. His efforts only caused it to smear more.

"This is disgusting!"

I couldn't help but laugh as I watched him struggle helplessly. He was losing a battle with blueberry tart filling.

Hey, if I was going to die, I might as well have one good last laugh.

My laughter soon filled the kitchen as Vegeta tried to get the gunk from his hair off his hands now. He looked like he was performing a strange dance. I looked beside me, wiping a tear from my eye, and saw Trunk's watching Vegeta with wide and curious eyes. I guess this was a first for him. Vegeta didn't strike me as the spontaneous dancing type. For now though, he was literally a manic on the…kitchen floor.

I laughed even harder at that thought, now clutching my aching sides.

However at the noise Vegeta turned to glare at me and I saw my death sentence reflected grimly in his dark eyes. I immediately snapped my mouth close and straightened up.

Please let my death be swift and painless.

Vegeta closed in on me, his cold eyes locked with my frightened ones. Ki energy glowing brightly from his raised right hand.

A hand pointed at me.

"You dare to mock me! Prepare to die, you worthless piece of –"

And that was when Bulma's entered the room.

"Vegeta! What did I tell you about yelling in the house? Trunk's has sensitive saiyan hearing! Do you want to permanently damage your son's ears?" Bulma looked at Vegeta clearly annoyed, hands placed on her hips and her foot tapping the floor impatiently. "Well do you?"

At Bulma's disapproving shrill voice Vegeta looked like a giant hairy spider had just crawled up his neck. He lowered his, now ki-free, fist and turned to face her.

"Enough woman! Look what your dim-witted human did to my hair!"

Bulma looked at Vegeta's hair and a smile crept its way onto her face. She removed a particularly gooey piece of jelly from his hair with her finger and licked it.

"Oh suck it up Princess; it's just a little jelly. No harm done." Bulma then looked over at Trunks and saw that he was covered head to toe in jelly.

"Oh just look at you Trunks!"

Bulma sped over to the sink to wet a cloth with some warm water and then she hurried over to Trunks and began to wipe off all the jelly on his face, hands, and arms. Vegeta just stood there watching her, arms crossed, and frowning.

"Did daddy's big geeky voice hurt your widdle biddy ears Trunks?" Trunks giggled as Bulma wiped his chin. "I bet it did, oh yes it did!"

I sat there in complete awe. Bulma had just diffused a saiyan prince time bomb like it had been effortless, as easy as breathing.

They really are perfect for each other.

Bulma picked up Trunks and held him out to a still frowning Vegeta.

"Now go give Trunks a bath, Vegeta. You can take one as well to clean your hair."

Vegeta eyed Trunks like he was some foreign object…or a dirty sock. I wasn't quite sure what he thought of his sticky son just then.

"I am not giving him a bath. That is the job of the servant woman."

"She's my mom, Vegeta, not a servant. You're his father so give him a bath."

"No, I am a Saiyan Prince and I will not be told what to do."

"Vegeta you give your son a bath right now or I'll take apart the gravity room tonight while you're sleeping."

I never thought I'd see the day when Vegeta had no snarky comment to banter back with. He went completely silent for a moment, I guess assessing the truth in Bulma's words.

Bulma was not someone to be taken lightly.

"You are an infuriating woman. I am the Prince of all Saiyan's and I will not be treated this way."

But with an icy glare that only Vegeta could accomplish he reached out and picked up Trunks by the back of his shirt collar.

Trunks dangled in the air joyfully like it was something he was used to. Poor kid. Then Vegeta exited the kitchen and stomped up the stairs. When he finally made it to the upstairs bathroom he slammed the door hard, violently shaking all the picture frames hanging on the walls.

I looked over at Bulma. "Uh...is he going to be okay?"

Bulma had begun to wipe up some of the mess on the table and walls. "Just give His Highness some time to cool down his hot royal head." She scrubbed hard at a tough stain on the wall and continued, "He's just upset that he can't kill Goku anymore."

Wow, even in his own twisted way, Vegeta misses Goku too.

Finally satisfied with her cleaning, she grabbed a chair and pulled it out to sit in front of me. She handed me a clean cloth and I began to wipe at the mess that also covered me.

"Now what did you want to talk about?"

"Uh…" I blinked a couple times. I had almost forgotten about coming here to talk to Bulma.

What should I say?

I busied myself with scrubbing for a minute. I needed a plan. I didn't want Bulma to know it was me who screwed up badly with a girl. She would never let it down. On top of that, she would never believe me if I said I was having issues with 18. It was me, Krillin, after all. No, I had to be clever about this.

I set the cloth aside on the table and couldn't help but look down at the checkered linoleum floor of the kitchen as I said, "I know this friend of a friend of mine who, you know, likes a girl."

Oh yeah, she'll never know it's me this way.

"He wants to tell her he likes her. But when he had the chance to, he chickened out and told her something else. Something that kinda, accidently, insulted her. All in all, things didn't turn out well for him. She's pissed and he feels like dirt now."

Finally I looked up a Bulma, my tone desperate. "What should he do?"

Bulma watched me with a knowing smile on her face. "Well, first of all, this guy sounds like a major dweeb. And secondly, he shouldn't have been such a pansy and should have just told her he liked her to begin with."

Bulma tapped her fingers on the hard surface of the table seeming to be deep in thought. "But since he clearly didn't do that…" She quickly gave me a hard glance. "I guess his best bet would be to apologize to her, maybe beg on his knees a bit for her forgiveness." She definitely looked hard at me this time. "He should buy her some flowers and take her out to a fancy restaurant. That use to always work for me when Yamcha screwed up. But now…"

Bulma smiled then. I mean really smiled.

Her smile was brilliantly intense, yet filled with warmth at the same time. It was a smile that had seen its fair share of heartache and pain but had still endured through it. It was a smile that showed strength despite everything. It was unbreakable. It was a smile full of love.

And it was a smile for someone she was thinking of at that moment.

For someone who hated weakness and had a large amount of pride, but was upstairs anyways, taking a bath with her son.

"Just make sure you show her you care, Krillin. You don't always have to say it, but at least try. Trust me, she'll know."

"Right then. Apologize. Beg. Flowers. Date. Show her I care. Got it." Wait did she just say my name? I looked up pleadingly at Bulma as she rose out of her chair.

"Bulma please don't tell anyone."

She winked at me. "Relax Krillin, I won't say a thing." To emphasize her point, she proceeded to pinch her index finger and thumb together, sliding them across her mouth.

"My lovely ruby lips are sealed."

I hope Bulma was the right person to talk to.


Bulma and I were on our way out of the kitchen and passing the stairs when we heard a young bubbly laugh from the top of it.

Looking up we saw a very happy, but very wet and naked, Half-Saiyan Prince.

"Oh Trunks!" Bulma rushed up the stairs and grabbed him before he would try to attempt going down the first step. "What is that silly daddy of yours thinking leaving you to walk around in your birthday suit?"

She rubbed her face up against Trunks and gave him a peck on his nose. "Who's a cutie in their birthday suitie?" Trunks just smiled up at his mom, giggling happily and loving all the attention.

Vegeta came stomping up behind them with nothing but a towel around his waist.

"Woman he refuses to stay in the bath tub!"

"Well, duh Vegeta. Did you give him his favourite yellow ducky to play with?"

Vegeta looked at her like she had gone insane. "Yellow duck? He does not need some cheap entertainment from a loud aquatic bird."

"Vegeta it's a rubber duck and it's his favourite. If you want him to stay in the tub then give him the yellow duck."

I watched as Bulma finally noticed what Vegeta was wearing then. Her eyes lingered on his bare, wet chest and I was nauseated when she began to lick her bottom lip.

What is he? A piece of chocolate?

Bulma shifted Trunks to balance him in one of her arms as she trailed the other down Vegeta's chest.

And to my horror, Vegeta looked like he didn't mind being a piece of chocolate just then.

Please Vegeta, whatever you do, do not let go of your towel.

Bulma looked up at Vegeta and purred, "You, on the other hand, can come out of the bath tub like that anytime you want –"

Noooooo!

Now, I don't want to brag or anything. But I was out of there quicker than Goku's Instant Transmission.

I was out of there period.

I had flown halfway to Kame house before I finally slowed down. My mental state of being could not deal with…whatever that was between Vegeta and Bulma.

I hoped, however, that I could deal with what I had to do next.

"I have to ask 18 out."

This has 'messy explosion' written all over it.