Bulma groaned as she began to wake up from her nap. When pressed, she could find a little rest in any location. However, when she slept anywhere other than her own bed, she always woke up with a slightly stiff neck, and not nearly as well rested. It also left her mildly disoriented as she tried to remember where, exactly, she had fallen asleep. That particular afternoon took her slightly longer than usual, though. It was a rare moment indeed for her to be asleep in one of the Capsule Corp bedroom and have it not be her own.
Groggily surveying her area, the heiress let out another groan. "Oh, right," she remembered. "Vegeta…"
With a grunt, she collapsed her head once more against the pillow. "Vegeta," she softly said to herself, "what am I going to do with you?" Everything involving that Saiyan had her so confused. He was gorgeous, he was sexy as hell, and she certainly enjoyed making love with him. In small doses, she even enjoyed just being near him. But there was so much missing, from both her mind and their relationship, and she was at a loss for what to do next. Should she sit him down and demand a verbal play by play of everything they had experienced? Maybe she should ask him out on the date and try to rekindle that lost spark. Or perhaps she should simply give him time and space, allowing him to make the first move.
None of those seemed like scenarios that would play out well to her, though. Even with missing chunks of her memories, Bulma still knew well enough that playing Twenty Questions with the Saiyan prince never made it beyond question six, and that was when the questions involved things like "How was your training?", not "Describe to me in detail how we fell in love". And Vegeta did not strike her as the type who had ever actually been on a proper date. Besides, did she really want to go out in public and then get him agitated? That certainly would not do. And she had been trying to give people space, including herself, but that had only seemed to make things worse.
"There has to be an answer," she told herself. "Every problem has a solution, and I will find the solution to this."
She spoke the words, but there was a nagging sense of doubt lingering in the back of her mind. There was just so much that needed to be done, and even though she did not like to admit it, her relationship with the prince was not at the top of her list. Trunks had to come first. He was a child, her health was in danger, and she could very well have been the only one with the ability to help him. Everything had to be put in to helping the boy. Anything else was a luxury.
Rolling out of bed, Bulma began assembling a mental checklist of what she would do for the remainder of the day. More food would have to be ordered, Trunks' vital signs needed to be checked on, Vegeta had to be consulted so she could get all possible information on what she was up against, and Gohan should probably receive a call as well…
The heiress glanced at the clock as she stood up. "Damn it," the grumbled. It was already almost seven in the evening. "I guess I've got less time than I thought I did..." Forcing herself completely awake, she decided that her first stop should be with her son. After all, his condition would determine the order and urgency of everything else. Rapping softly on his door, she called out, "Honey? Are you in there?"
But there was no answer, and Bulma rolled her eyes. "If you won't answer, young man, I'm coming in!" she threatened. Still, there was no response, so she followed through with her promise and opened the door.
The boy was not in there.
"Hn, wonder where he could be then?" she asked herself. "Maybe the kitchen…"
Trunks was not in the kitchen, though. Nor was he anywhere else in the compound that Bulma had searched. "Well, that can't be good," she muttered. "Maybe I should get Vegeta, see if he can help me find the kid." Quickly, she made her way to the prince's old room, unable to repress that sense of dread that was forming in the pit of her stomach. She had told him only a few hours earlier to move out of her room, and already she was turning to him for help. But it could not be helped. She needed to know where her son was. If Vegeta was going to be mad at her, then so be it.
The boy had to come first.
"Vegeta?" she gently called out, repeating what she had done only a few minutes earlier on Trunks' door. "Are you in there?"
The elder prince gave no response either, and Bulma could feel the nervous sweat that formed on her palms. "Vegeta?" she called again. "Listen, I'm freaking out a little right now, so if you're in there, let me in, and if you're not, now would be a great time for one of your coming-out-of-nowhere-in-the-knick-of-time moments. Really, really good." Still no answer came, and with a small swallow, she turned the knob to enter.
However, the door was locked, and refused to budge. "God damn it!" the heiress shouted, more so at the door than anything else. "Listen, Vegeta," she hollered, "you can be as mad at me as you want, but I've got no idea where our son is, and I am not going anywhere until you help me!"
A minute passed without so much as the sound of scuffling feet, and in her frustration, Bulma kicked to door as hard as she could. "If you do not open this door in the next ten seconds," she threatened, "I am going to pull it off its hinges and scream at you until your ears hemorrhage blood!" She was a little surprised when she still heard nothing, but Bulma Briefs was never one to let a good threat lie idle. Ducking next door to her own room, she grabbed her basic tool belt and immediately removed the locking mechanism from the door. "Daring to ignore me, that bastard," she growled, dropping the removed lock to the floor. "I ought to kill him for this."
Unable to resist a dramatic entrance, Bulma kicked the disabled door open and placed her hands on her hips. "Mister, you have got a lot of nerve…to…"
Any argument she had been forming in her mind before died in a heartbeat. Vegeta was in there, but he was lying still on the bed. He looked almost lifeless, save the extremely shallow motion of his chest.
"Oh, no," she whispered. She rushed to his side and shook him by the shoulders. "Vegeta?" she called out. "Vegeta, if you can hear me, give me some kind of sign. I need to know that you can hear me."
Nothing. No flutter of the eyelids, no growl from his throat, no a twitch of the fingers. "No, no, no," the heiress kept repeating. She shook him harder, praying that it would wake him but knowing that it would not. "Vegeta!" she shouted inches from his face. "Vegeta, wake up!"
I should have caught this sooner, she thought, continuing to shake him harder and harder and screaming his name. I should have known. He hasn't been eating. He hasn't been sleeping. Even I know that he's pale and underweight. He looked like hell when he came home today…gone for three days and looked that bad when he got back, how did I miss it? This is bad, this is very bad…
When he still refused to respond, the heiress dug her cell phone out of her pocket. "Please pick up," she whispered. "Oh please, oh please, oh please…"
"Hello, Son residence…"
"Gohan!" Bulma cried out, interrupting the poor teenager. "Put your mother on the phone! Now!"
Only a few seconds passed before Chi-Chi's voice came over the line. "Bulma?" she asked. "What's wrong?"
Unaware that she was doing it, Bulma let out a choked sob. "He's not waking up," she sobbed. "I'm trying to wake him up, but he won't, and I don't know why, and Trunks is gone, and Vegeta needs help, and I don't know what to do! Help me, Chi-Chi, I don't know what to do!"
"Whoa, whoa, calm down," the raven haired mother firmly commanded. "I can't help you if you can't listen to me, okay? I need you to calm down."
Bulma swallowed and nodded. She wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand and her running nose with the back of her sleeve. "Okay," she gasped. "Okay, I can listen."
"Good," Chi-Chi praised. "First of all, Trunks is here. He got here around an hour ago, but he was really worked up and Goku and Gohan are out with him right now helping him. I wanted to have more information before I called you, and I'm sorry that it led to worry. But he's here, and he's safe, and he's being closely looked over."
Bulma slouched a little as she let out her relieved sigh. "Thank you," she gratefully said. "Okay, okay, Trunks is safe. That's good. Now what about Vegeta?"
The silence on the other end of the line was anything but reassuring. "Chi-Chi?" she quietly asked. "What do I do about Vegeta?"
Chi-Chi was quiet a moment longer before sighing. "Hold on a sec," she bit out, placing the phone on the counter. Bulma waited anxiously, unable to make out what Chi-Chi was saying to who she could only guess was Goten. A minute later the phone was picked up once more. "Bulma?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm going to get someone to you as fast as I can," the younger woman assured. "Stay right where you are with him. It shouldn't take more than a few minutes. Do you want me to stay on the phone with you until then?"
The heiress could feel the tears rolling down her cheeks again. "Yeah," she whispered. "I really would."
"Okay," Chi-Chi calmly replied. "Don't worry, honey, it'll be fine."
With a tearful laugh, Bulma shook her head. "How do you do it?" she asked. "How are you staying so calm?"
A light chuckle escaped the younger woman. "It's a mom thing," she explained. "When some else's child is in trouble, you stay calm and level headed and can fix any problem. When it's your own kid…well, you and I both know how calm I am when Gohan and Goten are in trouble…"
"As subtle as an atomic warhead?" the heiress laughed, once again wiping away her tears.
"Bulma, I'm hurt!" Chi-Chi gasped. "I am at least as subtle as a dinosaur in a china shop!"
Bulma smiled, wiping away residual tears. "I thought the saying was a bull in a china shop."
"No, I'm not that subtle."
One more sad laugh and one sleeve wipe later, Bulma sat on the corner of Vegeta's bed and looked down on him. "Chi-Chi," she quietly confessed, "I screwed up."
But the younger woman dismissed it immediately. "Honey, you are recovering from hell, and no one bats a thousand. Whatever you did, I'm sure it can't be so bad as to be irreparable."
"It might be," the heiress choked out, her tears returning once more. "Chich, I've been so worried about Trunks and so wrapped up in trying to get everything back together that I've been ignoring Vegeta."
While her normal response to such a claim was He's a big boy, he can take care of himself, Chi-Chi stilled her tongue. Obviously, Vegeta was not taking care of himself. Everyone in the group knew that his wellbeing had taken a definite slide over the past few weeks, but none of them had truly understood just how bad it was. He had been a little quieter than usual, perhaps, and had definitely lost weight, but there had never been any indication that his self negligence had taken that severe a turn.
No, that's not true, the younger mother thought. There've been a dozen signs. We just ignored them all. Gohan's been telling us that Vegeta's been falling apart for a while, but we told him to leave well enough alone. We all could have stepped in. We all had the chance, and we all did nothing.
"Listen to me," she finally told the other woman, "I know that things seem hard right now, but know that your friends will always be there to help you and your family. Just hang in there. Help is…"
"Bulma?"
"…on the way," the mother finished. "Okay, Trunks is in my living room. If you need anything, don't hesitate. Tell Goku not to break your stuff. Goten, put that down…" Chi-Chi did not even bother with a formal good-bye, favoring instead to stop some imminent destruction of her property at the hands of her son.
Meanwhile, Gohan was placing two fingers on Vegeta's neck, and Goku pulled Bulma in for a hug. "It'll be okay," he assured. "We'll take good care of him and get him back on his feet. Right, Gohan?"
Gohan frowned, keeping his eyes on the fallen prince. "Uh, sure. Dad, why don't you and Bulma go get a snack or something?"
Goku began to guide his oldest friend out, trying to maintain a jovial attitude, but it was not enough. Bulma was a smart woman, and she knew what was not being said. Things were not looking good, and Gohan wanted to work without her watching on. "Gohan…" Her pleading paused, though, as she noticed the serious expression on the teenager's face. "Just…take care of him."
"I will," the boy promised, still not looking up.
Bulma was barely aware of her actions as Goku led her to the kitchen and began to offer her food. "This is my fault."
"No, no, no, no, and no," Goku firmly said, placing three boxes of cookies in front of his friend. "This isn't your fault, Bulma. Things've been crazy, we've all gone a little nuts, and things'll get better soon. You just let us help you, and you and Vegeta will go back to putting the fun in dysfunctional in no time at all."
"But…"
"No buts!" Goku interrupted, adding a cake to the table. "It wasn't Vegeta's fault you drove off a cliff and smacked your head, and it's not your fault that he does this stuff when he's stressed. You're both screwed up in your own ways, but it always works out in the end and this time isn't any different."
A soft smile came on Bulma's face, and she tentatively grabbed a frosted oatmeal cookie. "You really have faith in me and Vegeta working out, don't you?"
"Yup!" the cheerful Saiyan swore. "Ever since Trunks first showed up in his time machine and…"
"Hold the phone," the heiress interrupted, putting down her drink, "ever since who did what now?"
Confused, Goku scratched the back of his head. "Gee, you really do have big holes in your head still, don't you?"
Bulma scowled. "Boy, do you know how to make a girl feel better."
"What? Oh, you know what I mean." Taking a seat, Goku pulled an enormous slice off of the cake and dumped it unceremoniously onto a plate. "Yeah, before you and Vegeta ever hooked up, there was this future version of Trunks that showed up in a time machine and told us about the androids that were going to kill us all."
"I remember the androids," the heiress added in. "Well, sort of. I remember what they look like, and that they were evil, but then they turned out to be not nearly as evil as we thought they were. I am also aware that Krillen married the blonde one."
"Right!" Goku cheered. "So anyway, when Trunks came, he told us that his world had been, like, destroyed everything, and that everyone but you and he died."
The widening of Bulma's eyes at that statement was accentuated by her still mostly bare head. "All of you died? Even you?"
"Well, I had a heard virus and died from that," the Saiyan casually responded. "Do you really not remember any of this? I thought you were getting better."
The heiress looked away. "So did I," she whispered. "I was starting to get some of my memories back in that house Vegeta and Trunks were staying in, and I thought they would be returning more and more. That's why I…I mean, why Vegeta and I…um…"
Goku swallowed his cake and nodded. "Why you had all that sex with each other. Don't worry, I get it."
Bulma's drink flew out through her nose. "Oh, holy crap, that hurt," she sputtered, wiping away what remained. "Goku, do you have to be so blunt about everything?"
"Usually, yeah."
Pushing her drink away, Bulma shook her head. "The point is," she went on, "that I figured that things were going to fall right back into place pretty quickly. But I haven't had a damn one since, and I swear that it's driving me insane! What the hell am I supposed to do, Goku? I have all this crap I have to get done, and all these things that are supposed to be part of my life, and I don't know a damn thing about ninety percent of it! How the hell do I make this better?" Her head lowered slightly before she added, "How am I supposed to take care of my family?"
Goku opened his mouth, but he stalled, his eyes growing distant as something entered his mind. "Bulma, why don't you have some cake, and I'll be back in a moment."
Bulma looked up and shifted her weight to her feet. "Does Gohan know something? How is he? Is Vegeta going to be okay?"
"Bulma," her friend gently spoke, guiding her back down, "just wait right here."
"But…"
"Please."
Her hands were shaking as she sat back down, and they continued to tremble so badly that she could not pick up her drink again, even minutes after Goku had disappeared. "He's going to be okay," she forced herself to say. "Goku and Gohan are taking care of him. He's going to be okay. He has to be okay."
