Panic set in. The rush of adrenaline went through his body. Who? Who could possibly know who he was. The only others that had been taken into confidence about this was Goku and Chi-Chi. They wouldn't have said anything. No, it was somebody else. But who else? And what did they want? There was no demand, no blackmail request, so what did they gain in getting his attention?

If they knew who he was then they knew what he was capable of. It seemed stupid to deliberately put themselves in his sights unless they wanted something. But who? They'd not integrated themselves too much on the island, only with the people they'd been introduced through Goku, and Vegeta at least trusted him to not say.

But was it him? Was it Goku? It seemed the most likely on paper given he was the one that knew most deeply about him, but it didn't seem logical. He was an honest man, in both words and actions. That man couldn't lie for toffee so there was no way he could be nice to his face and then do this. And he smart enough to not play this kind of trick on Vegeta of all people.

Radditz? He had admitted to potentially recognising Vegeta not that long ago. But again it was outside of Radditz's personality to leave it in a note under his door. If he thought Vegeta was who he was, he'd come right out and ask him to his face. The being sneaky wasn't Radditz's bag. Plus he wasn't even sure it would bother his friend too much. Of course it wouldn't please him, but Radditz took people on how they acted to him. If they were cool with him, he was cool with them.

No it was somebody out for gain. But what? What? There was now fear in him, but that all boiling rage. The rage he'd not felt in over a decade was slowly coming down over him. The darkness Bulma had tried so hard to want to bury in the past was descending over him and their house. He would kill however it was. If they thought they could play around with him, they were sorely mistaken.


A few days passed. Bulma had been far too busy with the twins to notice his weird attitude or at least he thought. He remembered what this felt like. How every minute of the day was filled with thoughts of only one thing. When he woke up it was the first thoughts, and it continued until his head hit the pillow. But this time it was stronger, more intense. This time it wasn't to distract him from Bulma Briefs, it was to protect her. She was right in her assumptions that it had all started after her dismissal of him. That euphoria he'd felt after his first kill was only experienced with her. So when that was gone, the only way to recreate it was to kill.

But this time, it was to protect her, protect the two innocent children that shared his genes. A part of him wanted to tell her. To talk him out of it? No. But to explain what he was doing to do. That's what she'd do though. She'd try and convince him otherwise. Convince him there was another way to deal this. How could there be? Somebody was out for them. He didn't know who or what they wanted. It was the only way to deal with them. Whatever they wanted, it wasn't good. They could want retribution against him, which therefore put her and the children in danger. They could want money, which again put them at risk. And they could simply want to expose him which put them all at risk.

Before it had been the intention if ever caught for Bulma to say she'd been kidnapped if they got returned. But now with two children and with many witnesses to them being seen as a couple it wasn't feasible any more. It was too obvious they loved each other. If they got sent back, she'd go to prison too, and then who would their kids go to? Her parents and family? That didn't seem like a great idea. They would get sent back too. Sure there was no extradition treaty on this island, but given how high profile it would become if it was announced who he was, and who was with him, the government would fold, it always did. What justification would they have to not send him back? It would bring so many people down with him.

It was better all round that this threat was eliminated. No matter how much it would ruin the trust his partner had only started to put in him. He intended for her to never find out. He was good before, and he was sure he was good now.

Where to start? They had no cameras on the front of the house which he was due to change very shortly. So he had no view who it was. He narrowed it down to being a male, since the statistics meant it was far more likely. The letter was to frighten him into action clearly since no demand was made. What annoyed him more was that he had to wait for the demand to be made. Whatever it was would narrow down the suspects. There could be something he could do to try and speed it up though.

"Do you need anything? I'm going out." Vegeta then stated as he stood from his seat in the kitchen.

"No. Where are you going?.." Bulma asked but Vegeta dismissed her and left.

Bulma sighed heavily. Since the children had come home, his attentions had been lacking. He'd shown barely any interest in the children at all, and she was fearful. Had her fears about the killer not being able to love anybody else but her come true? Where had he been the passed few days? Sure he'd been in the house but she couldn't remember him even holding a child. She was struggling here. 1 baby would be difficult, but 2? She thought it would be okay with them being a pair, but she was fearful and incredibly angry that 4 days in she was already on her own.


A week passed and Vegeta was ready for war on this faceless person that still hadn't come forward. Anxiety had filtered in. He knew Bulma was irritated with him, and had in fact shouted at him when the kids had been crying so much that she was the end of her tether. Anger at his being distant and not being around. Every day he'd been out for at least 9 hours, and he'd come back irritable. He apologised and assured her he would be better, but he hadn't. The fact he was lying to her, and that when she looked at him all looks of love had gone and were replaced with resentment was killing him inside. This was making his anger worse. When he finally found out who the person was, they were going to feel all kinds of pain before they died.

Bulma turned to irritatedly shout at him when Trunks was crying and he hadn't bothered to get up to him but noticed Vegeta no longer in the room with her. She stood up and picked her child up out of the crib. She held him tucked into her breast as she began to walk around to soothe him back to sleep. A noise was heard behind her from their front door and she turned around to see a piece of paper now sat on the door mat. Frowning in bemusement since the post had already been for today she walked over to it and picked it up. Still holding her child she opened the letter. A scream erupted her throat as she read Your life or theirs, Vegeta Attacku?

Barely a second later Vegeta was next to her in a panic that she'd hurt herself. In her hand she still held the paper and wordlessly she handed it over to him and he read it. Anger seized him. The paper scrunched in his hand and he threw it away before ceremoniously kicking out and smashing anything within reach. "Vegeta!" Bulma's voice cut through the red midst and noise of smashing and he stopped dead. Turning around to her, his heart broke. She looked terrified. There protectively in her arms against her was their son crying loudly, and she'd angled the child away from him in protection. Never had he seen her scared of him. Seeing him now stopped she stepped away with their son.

"Bulma." He called out but she carried on walking to go and calm down their son, and now daughter who'd awoken from all of the noise. A threat now on their life? It erased any thought that this person was going to live. They were dead.

After calming their children back into a nap, Bulma went in search of her partner. As she crossed their home, she could see the mess that had once been their kitchen still everywhere. Glasses, cups, cutlery, jars and the kettle all lay in bits on the floor through the rage that he had in him. It was terrifying. It had felt like the night she'd told him in her old bedroom when he'd snuck in at night much as he always did, when she asked him to stop coming to see her. Suffice to say her bedroom looked much like her kitchen did at the moment. The rage, the all out rage she'd seen in him, was what she knew some of his victims saw as he killed them and she'd now seen it.

Of course the provocation was there but there was something strange about that, and she knew he could answer that. Striding through her home she found him in the office, his eyes staring into a computer no doubt going through the CCTV he had installed all over the house. "You knew." She said straight away jolting him from his concentration. "You weren't shocked at the letter. You were angry, not shocked. And that explains your sudden demand for CCTV in and outside the house." She. Was. Pissed. He could tell. Her beautiful face usually warmed with love as she looked at him now looked drained, pale, and so so angry.

"Last week. A letter came saying that they knew who I was. That was it." Vegeta explained to her. "And today they've threatened you and the kids, so they are..."

"No." Bulma cut over him and his brow frowned deeply. "You promised me, promised us that you would not do that here!" She shouted at him.

"This person just threatened your lives!" Vegeta shouted back. "And you expect me to not do anything about it?"

"No of course I don't. I just don't expect you to go out and kill this person."

"Have you forgotten what I am?" Vegeta's face darkened.

Bulma's face fell and her head fell. It stayed down for a few seconds, and when it came back up to meet his, tears filled her eyes. There across his face was the evil-evil man he'd been. Or maybe the past tense was wrong there. Maybe he was right. That is what he is. No matter how much love, no matter how far he could go away from where they'd once lived and no matter how many children they could have, the person he was was always the same. He was a killer. And he was evil.

"Yes, I had." Bulma admitted quietly, her hands reaching up and wiping tears that were now falling. "And maybe I'm the stupid one that thought with everything we've ever wanted together, you'd change." She turned on her heel and left the room.

Vegeta shook his head and sat back down to continue his investigation on the CCTV. A person could be seen, but he was trying to work out from the figure that was well covered if he could recognise the gait of the person. Noises could then be heard from the living room so he got up to investigate what it was.

When he got into the room he stopped seeing Bulma sliding a large full bag over her back with the double buggy with both children in it with another large full bag over the handles, like she was going somewhere for a while. "Where are you going?" Vegeta asked.

Bulma turned to him. Her expression was initially hard but when it looked upon the man she loved so integral to her being it softened for a few seconds, before turning hard again. "Staying with Goku and Chi-Chi."

"And you don't think that's overacting a little?" Vegeta rolled his eyes with a folding of his arms. What was wrong with her? He'd killed people, she knew that, what was one more? And the others didn't bother her. So why did the one person that actually threatened her life, mean more than the others?

"No. I don't."

"Bulma," Vegeta growled irritation, but with a softness that did show her tears invoked pain inside him. "This is about your safety, our children's safety..." He started.

"Yes it is. Our safety from you " Bulma shook her head that he just didn't get it, pushed on the buggy and left the house with the children. Vegeta watched through the glass front of their house as she walked down their driveway. A part of him shouted that he should run after her. The other part, the darkness that sunk into his body and sucked him down with it, told him that he would never be free until this person was dead. He'd promised to protect her and the children, if she never wanted to see him again, if he saved them from harm, he'd have still kept his promise. The darkness won, because the darkness always won with him, so he turned around and walked back to the computer.


How long had passed? He couldn't tell. All natural light had gone but was seemingly coming back now as he continued to play over and over the video of the person walking up their driveway and sliding the letter under the door within meters of them all. His eyes looked down at the letter. As something about the wording spoke to him he heard a banging on the front door. He stomped off and found both Radditz and Goku at the door looking worried. No doubt worried about his mental state with Bulma now left.

"Hey buddy" Goku smiled in the way he always did. Vegeta curled a lip but allowed them in.

"We want to help find this person." Radditz said obviously being filled in by Goku and Bulma.

"I'll find him." Vegeta growled in such a way Goku knew what Bulma had seen now too.

"Radz man, can you wait outside a sec?" Goku asked and Radditz shrugged and did so. "Our deal was you kept your head down and out of trouble and I could protect you. But if you do this, I can't stop anything that will happen. You know it will ruin any protection I've been affording your identities"

"Fat lot of use it's been." Vegeta spat. "Somebody found out. You know the only way to keep that safe it to end it."

"Let me do it. Let me get my top guy on it. He'll work it night and day."

"You expect me to trust the life of my family into somebody else's hands? You know who I am right? Wait, of course you do. You came to me. Don't project yourself as the man of pure virtue when you came to me in request to save your family by ending the problem. I ended the problem so well, I took the wrap for it so don't you dare TELL ME TO KEEP MY COOL" His eyes, and veins bulged as he screamed at Goku who remained calm and placid.

"I know and you know how grateful we are, we both are. But you want to protect the life you have here, not just them. Let me find the guy, we'll put him away."

Vegeta's jaw clenched and unclenched as he mulled the thought over. "Take this." He handed over the note with the threat on it. "You have three days to find him. If not, it's open season. He becomes the buck I'm going to shoot, then skin, then hang up on my wall - am I as clear as I can be?" Goku nodded determinedly taking the note before leaving.

"You okay?" Radditz asked seeing a determined look on Goku's face.

"Yeah, just need to drop into work." Goku climbed into his car with Radditz following.


They arrived at the police station around 15 minutes later and went into the detective's department and Radditz followed as Goku strode straight over to a small cubicle with a man working away at a computer in it. "Johns," Goku started and the male turned around.

"Yes boss." The detective replied.

"Take this, and do everything you can to find out who sent it." Goku handed over the threatening letter to the detective who looked down at it arching his eyebrow. "This is top priority and also top secret." Goku demanded.

"Okay. Who's the people it's talking about?"

"Bulma and her partner." Goku stated and Radditz arched his eyebrow at the seeming lack of concern by the man who'd just heard a colleague had been threatened.

"Bulma huh?" The detective stated and looked up with a wry smile. "She's something, ain't she?" The detective looked up giving a look to Radditz looking for an agreement. It wasn't that Radditz didn't know that, of course Bulma was a gorgeous woman, but it was an incredibly weird thing to hear and the look...

"Get back to me as soon as." Goku carried on, missing the look.

"Of course. I'll get right to it. Wouldn't want anything to happen to her. Will be less to look at around here." He laughed turning around and getting back to his computer.

Seeing Radditz's disturbed face Goku waved it off used to the sleazy detectives the department employed. A woman around here was a novelty so when they'd finally hired one who happened to be gorgeous as well meant this kind of chauvinistic talk was hugely common. Bulma had spoken to him about it, and he'd assured her that when she came back from maternity they were aware to keep that kind of talk to themselves.


Bulma rolled over in the spare bed of Goku's and Chi-Chi's home. Being the president's daughter had afforded them a huge home that had housed her and the twins in a room easily. Having Gohan and Chi-Chi around, with Goku too, had helped her have little pieces of time to herself. And as they slept soundly, her mind wondered back to her partner because of course it would.

She knew that them being apart was not the answer here. Before in their separation this had all started so she wasn't going to allow another separation to bring more death on the world. But he had to understand that it wasn't the answer, and the anger he held inside him could not fester or be around the children. Objectively his anger would be taken out on others, but it couldn't happen. It wasn't just them any more. They couldn't be stupid kids about decisions and he couldn't act on his impulses like he could. not when there were lives that depended on them both being around. There were ways to resolve this issue, but his default answer was not the right one.

Bulma sighed, rolled onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. A bed felt wrong without him in it, and she was worried that even this time apart had pushed him too far over the edge. Resolving that she'd go and see him tomorrow as long as Chi-Chi could look after and watch the twins for a few hours alone.