Chapter 10
I am in misery
There ain't nobody who can comfort me, oh yeah
Why won't you answer me?
The silence is slowly killing me, oh yeah
The irritating buzzing of the alarm clock droned on for several minutes before it was acknowledged. A hand crashed down on it and ended its tirade. A sleepy groan muffled by a pillow could be heard, but otherwise nothing. There was no rustle of the covers being kicked off, no squeak of the bed as weight shifted, and no creak of the floorboards indicating a person's trip to the bathroom.
Fifteen minutes later on the dot the alarm clock's ugly voice rang out again, announcing the beginning of a new day. Another sleepy groan followed, tainted with annoyance this time. The same hand crashed down on the clock and silenced it once more. This time there was a sigh of resignation followed by covers being kicked off, the bed squeaking, and floorboards creaking.
Bulma shuffled to the bathroom to shower and brush her teeth before dressing and heading downstairs to make breakfast. She was absolutely exhausted after losing over two precious hours of sleep the night before. 'Stupid robbers,' her voice grumbled in her head, 'taking away my beauty sleep. Trying to steal my inventions. Trying to kidnap me. They got what was coming.'
Standing in the lukewarm water, hoping it would help wake her up, she nearly fell asleep again, forgetting to bother washing herself. Her shower lasted much longer than usual because of her lack of energy, worse than most mornings. Finally, she got out and dried her hair before wrapping her towel around herself. Stopping in front of the sink, she brushed her teeth and then fixed her hair so it wouldn't turn into a frizzy mop for the rest of the day.
She frowned at the dark bags under her eyes and started muttering curses under her breath as she walked out of her bathroom to find some clothes. Oh, vanity. Because of it she didn't notice the visitor in her room as she trudged to her closet to pick out an outfit. She walked into it and disappeared from view for a few minutes, the only sounds giving away her location being hangers sliding along the bar and one-word comments such as "slutty" or "gaudy."
Her towel was thrown out the door of the closet and there was the soft sound of clothes brushing against skin as she dressed herself. A minute later she walked out dressed in a knee-length khaki skirt and a green blouse tucked into her skirt. She was pulling on matching green pumps as she came out.
That was when she noticed the other person in her room with her. "Ah!" her short scream slipped out of her mouth before she could come to her senses. "Oh my Kami, Vegeta, don't sneak up on me like that!"
He was sitting on the edge of her bed with his arms crossed and his ever-present scowl on his face. He raised his eyebrow at her. "I have been here for fifteen minutes, Woman. I would not consider that sneaking up on you."
Bulma put her hands on her hips and frowned at him. "Ok, whatever, what are you doing in here anyway?"
"I have finished my pre-breakfast training. But there is no breakfast prepared."
The blue-haired scientist rolled her eyes. "You really need to learn to make your own."
Vegeta stood up and in two steps was in front of her, his black orbs fixed on her blue eyes. "Why would I learn a servant's trade?" he asked, truly puzzled.
"So you don't go hungry when there's no one to wait on you," she grumbled, grabbing his arm and pulling him out of her room. "Seriously, you're as bad as a child." Bulma marched him downstairs and into the kitchen and shoved him into his seat at the table. He did not grace that comment with a response.
He watched her moving about the kitchen as she gathered ingredients for his breakfast. Two dozen eggs, half a pound of cheese, and three pounds of sausage links. While she cooked his eggs and sausage, she slammed a bowl of fruit on the kitchen table to keep him busy while he waited. Shrugging, he picked out a banana and started eating, peel and all.
Bulma saw him out of the corner of her eye and had to do a double take. She nearly fell over laughing. "'Geta, you're not supposed to eat the peel."
He looked at the banana and then at the woman who was grinning foolishly at him. He swallowed and asked, "Why? It's edible, unlike the peels of other fruits such as those oranges." He wrinkled his nose in disgust at the memory of trying to eat the bitter orange peel before he figured out that humans peeled them and only ate the soft flesh inside.
"I suppose it is, but people generally peel bananas before they eat them, that's all."
"I am not human," he reminded her as he continued eating the banana. In two bites it was gone and he reached into the bowl for another. Bulma shrugged and turned back to the stove where she was scrambling his eggs. Even if she tried to make his eggs any other way they ended up scrambled, so she didn't even bother trying anything else anymore.
Bulma got a large plate out of the cupboard and emptied the skillet of sausages onto it and filled it with more to cook while he ate those. She did the same with his eggs before carrying the two plates to the table and setting them in front of him.
"So you won't even learn how to make yourself cereal or toast or something since that's a servant's job?" she asked after a few minutes of silence. "I mean, that's hardly cooking."
Vegeta grunted, too busy eating to bother answering with actual words. Having thought of toast, Bulma put four slices of bread in the toaster and opened the refrigerator to pull out some jam. "Do you want orange juice?" she asked while searching for the elusive jar of blackberry jam. She heard another grunt that sounded like an affirmative, so she pulled the carton of juice out along with the jam.
Setting them on the counter, she pushed the eggs around the skillet to keep them from burning before pouring him a tall glass of orange juice. She set it in front of him and watched him reach out for it while his other hand continued shoveling eggs into his mouth. He was an eating machine that never stopped for anything until it was full. She had made this observation every day for the past few months, but it never ceased to amaze her.
When she had served him the last batch of eggs and sausage she made herself a small bowl of cereal and spread the jam on the toast, handing two pieces to him when she sat down across from him at the table. They finished their breakfast in silence.
When Bulma got up to start taking the dirty dishes to the sink to clean, she asked Vegeta, "What are you going to be doing today?" in an attempt to make a little conversation before he inevitably went back to training. He didn't have the gravity chamber, so he was even more stringent with his training schedule, making sure not to waste even a minute, having to make up for a loss in quality with increased quantity.
The one word response was expected: "Training."
"All day?" she asked as she turned the faucet on to begin filling the sink with hot water. "You just reached super saiyan yesterday, I thought maybe you would ease up in your training."
He pushed his chair out from the table and stood up, ready to leave. "Woman, just because I have reached my goal does not mean that I can slack off now." He gulped down the rest of his orange juice and set it down on the counter next to the sink. "If you hurry up and build me a new gravity chamber, maybe I could waste my time talking."
"I'm working on it," she muttered to herself since he had already left the kitchen before she even had a chance to open her mouth to reply. She added, "And it's going to be much better than the last one."
She heard the back door of the compound slam shut and she knew that he had gone into the yard to do his training. 'Looks like it's back to the old routine,' she thought. 'I don't know why I thought maybe things would be different after spending just two days with him.' She sighed and put the dishes in the drainer to dry. She looked out the window above the sink and wished she could have another day alone with the saiyan prince.
Bulma headed for the lab to draw up some blueprints for the new gravity room she was planning. When she got to the door, she groaned when she remembered it being knocked off its hinges. She pushed it aside and flipped the light switch. 'Oh Kami,' she muttered when she saw the state of disarray her lab was in. Tables were knocked over, leaving mechanical parts scattered across the floor. Blueprints were torn up, papers strewn all over, and her computer screen was broken. "This will take forever to clean up."
Deciding to set to work instead of procrastinating, Bulma walked down the stairs and started picking tables up and collecting all the loose papers, trying to put them back into order. That alone took a little over an hour and she still had so much more to do. She sat down in the chair at her desk and rested her head on her arms. Before she knew it, she had fallen asleep, her fatigue from the night before weighing heavily on her.
Outside Vegeta was busy polishing his kicks, never being satisfied completely with their execution. He would do one that met his standards and three hundred more trying to replicate it. Then he would switch legs and go through the process all over again. It was tedious, but he demanded nothing less than perfection from himself. He had not powered up to super saiyan, trying not only to conserve his energy, but also figuring that by increasing his power in his base state he would also increase his power in his ascension.
'That woman had better be busy building a new gravity chamber,' he thought as he completed another series of kicks. 'I cannot push myself to my limits and beyond in the low gravity of this planet.' He started fighting an invisible opponent, kicking and punching at it and dodging unseen blows. In his mind he was replaying a fight he had in the past with a warrior on a planet long since destroyed. With his photographic memory he was able to remember each fight he had to the smallest detail and learn from the mistakes of both himself and his opponent.
Back in the lab, Bulma woke up and wiped the drool from her cheek as she sat back and surveyed the mess around her again. She had certainly made progress, but there was still a lot to do. It frustrated her that she was being held up from working on the gravity room Vegeta needed. But there was no way she could work while having to tiptoe through various gadgets and not have the use of her computer.
She started going around the lab picking up pieces of blueprints and setting them on her desk. Why the robbers had felt the need to destroy anything they decided not to take was beyond her. Maybe they just wanted to make life difficult for her. Or they resented that she could make so much money from patenting her ideas and wanted to deprive her of her livelihood. Whatever the case, they had done a great deal of damage to her many unfinished blueprints, and she wasn't happy about it.
Bulma yelped and nearly fell over when she stubbed her toe on a large machine, her feet unprotected since she had abandoned her shoes. She bounced on her uninjured foot, holding the throbbing toe and growling a string of expletives directed at the offending machine. Regaining her composure, she picked up another piece of a blueprint and hopped back over to her desk, her feet carefully landing between unfinished gadgetry.
Looking back around the lab, she didn't see any more shreds of her ideas, so she sat back down at the desk and started piecing the blueprints together like jigsaw puzzles, taping them into place. Almost two hours passed before she had them neatly stacked on the corner of her desk. 'Now for the hard part,' she thought, 'I have to sort through all this junk and figure out where it belongs. Serves me right for working on too many projects at once.'
Vegeta finished his 'fight' and wiped the sweat from his face with his towel. He had gone over it three times and managed to fix all the mistakes made, perfecting the performance of both warriors until his own technique had benefited from it. His tail swished through the air behind him, accompanying a self-satisfied smirk on his face. Judging by the sun's position in the sky, he had almost an hour before lunch. He chugged two bottles of water before settling down on the ground to spend the rest of the morning doing sit-ups.
Bulma had successfully identified all the pieces of two projects and set them aside on one of the tables. 'There's only like a billion more to go,' she thought tiredly. She slid the blueprints that went with said projects under the piles of parts and picked up another one to start figuring out which pieces went with it. 'I don't even remember this one,' she laughed to herself. She shook her head at her own short attention span when it came to inventing.
She was just getting started when she heard a surprised, but still cheerful, voice calling to her from the top of the stairs, "Oh my! Bulma, honey, what happened to the door? Oh well, I'm sure it can be fixed easily enough." Mrs. Brief's slightly concerned expression returned to its bright smile as she continued, "I came to tell you that lunch is ready and Mr. Vegeta is already eating, so you might want to hurry." She giggled. "You know how much that young man eats."
"Yes, Mother," Bulma called up the stairs, picking her way back through the wreckage of her lab. Funny how her mother noticed the door but none of the rest of the mess.
Bulma walked into the kitchen and hugged both her parents before sitting down at the table to begin serving herself. "Hey 'Geta," she said, ignoring how he didn't even pause in his eating. "So I think I need to tell you what happened here last night," Bulma started after taking a few bites of food.
"What do you mean, honey?" Mrs. Brief asked as she scooped more potato salad onto Vegeta's plate.
"Well, the reason the door to my lab is broken is that last night some burglars broke in, wanting to steal the plans for some new invention they could patent and make millions off of," Bulma answered, trying to sound casual so as not to alarm her parents.
The newspaper Dr. Brief was holding lowered and he looked at her over the edge. "Goodness. Are you alright, dear?"
Bulma nodded and began to relate to them everything that had happened that night. Mrs. Brief began fretting over her daughter and whimpering about "some people" while Dr. Brief listened quietly, nodding his head to show he understood everything right.
When she got to the part about Vegeta rescuing her, she couldn't help but notice how he actually paused in his eating, staring at his food as if he wasn't sure he wanted to keep eating. His tail tightened around his waist and he took a drink of water, swallowing slowly. Bulma realized that he was uncomfortable being painted as a hero, so she tried to downplay his actions as much as possible while still giving him credit.
When Mrs. Brief started fawning over Vegeta's heroics, he looked like he was about to bolt from the room. In an effort to save him from his discomfort, Bulma barked, "Mom, would you listen to the rest of the story, please?"
Mrs. Brief turned to her daughter and smiled brightly. "Of course, dear, please continue."
The tension in Vegeta's shoulders eased and he picked up his fork to continue eating as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Bulma finished telling her tale, purposely drawing out the details of the business she had with the police to make her mother forget about Vegeta. She knew that her mother was easily distracted, so it was not hard to get her thinking about a new topic, even when the previous one had been very interesting.
"Well, dear, I'm just glad that you weren't hurt," Dr. Brief said as he raised his newspaper back up to finish reading before he went down to his own lab to work on his latest invention. Bulma might have been offended that he didn't seem to think much of her story, but she knew he was deeply concerned and was probably thinking about how to keep such an incident from happening again.
Mrs. Brief looked to be close to tears despite the smile still plastered on her face. "I just can't believe anyone would do that to my baby," she kept repeating to herself as she ate her lunch.
When Vegeta stood up to leave, Bulma rose as well and asked before she could think of something better, "How was your training this morning?"
Vegeta's eye twitched in irritation. Why did she seem to always be trying to keep him from his training with these foolish questions? "Inadequate. I think I'll go see if Kakarrot wants to spar," he said. "I need a good challenge."
"That's a good idea," Bulma agreed. "Do you want me to call him so you don't waste your time flying to his house if he's busy training with Piccolo and Gohan?"
Vegeta thought about that for a moment. They had just sparred the day before, and chances were that Kakarrot would still be rather sore from the beating he received. And for some reason he thought it worth his time to train with the Namek and half breed, as if they would be any real help in a fight. Vegeta was well aware of the need to spend his time wisely, so, grudgingly, he accepted the woman's offer.
"Alright, I'll call him now," she said as she grabbed the phone and went into another room for privacy as she talked. Even though it wasn't a secret topic, she hated talking on the phone around other people.
A few minutes later she came back into the kitchen where Vegeta was waiting, arms crossed as he looked out the window onto the sunny yard of Capsule Corp. "I talked to Goku," she told him, "and he said he wants to work on training Gohan this afternoon, but he'll spar with you after dinner."
Vegeta grunted and left the kitchen, going down the hall to the back of the compound. He went into the back yard and, after stretching to limber up, went through his kata, having little else to do. Bulma went into the living room and watched him out the window for a few minutes before pulling herself away to get back to work in the lab.
Bulma spent the next few hours organizing the mechanical parts in her lab. When she had all the parts picked up and sorted into piles according to projects, she smiled in triumph and sat in her chair, propping her feet up on the desk. Finally, things were mostly taken care of and she would be able to get to work on Vegeta's new gravity room. It was aggravating to have wasted a whole day just cleaning up the mess the burglars made, but she had to admit her lab was more organized now than it had been in years. If she really tried, she might be able to keep it that way instead of it being the black hole her tools and parts kept disappearing into.
When her stomach growled she checked her watch to see what time it was. Only 4:15. It would be another couple hours before dinner, so she decided to go upstairs and grab a snack to hold her over until then. She found her mother in the kitchen, as usual, cooking a meal fit for an army to fill the belly of a saiyan. "Hey, Mom, is Dad in his lab?" Bulma asked as she pulled the jar of jam and jug of milk out of the refrigerator.
Mrs. Brief never stopped stirring the sauce she was making on the stove as she answered, "Yes, dear, he's been there all afternoon."
Bulma put two slices of bread on a plate and spread peanut butter and blackberry jam on them. "Ok, I'll go see what he's up to in a few minutes. When is dinner going to be ready?" Bulma poured herself a glass of milk and put the jug back in the fridge.
"Around 6:30, dear. Have you gotten your lab cleaned up?"
"Yeah, Mom, it's pretty much back to normal. Maybe better," Bulma said over her shoulder as she grabbed her plate and walked out of the kitchen to go find her father. She knew what she wanted to do with the gravity room she was planning, but she would need his help on some of the logistics behind it. He had also been working on some new training bots for the saiyan and she wanted to make sure they would be able to withstand the new room.
Vegeta was growing bored with his training in the yard of the compound. It just wasn't as intense as he needed it to be, and it frustrated him to no end that he felt like he was making little, if any, progress. He dropped down to the ground again and supported his weight on his right arm. He began a set of one-handed push-ups, not even bothering to count how many he completed. In Earth's gravity he could do a million and not get tired.
As he exercised, he found his thoughts frequently wandering back to the blue-haired woman. She was an enigma to him. Someone who showed fear toward him, but wanted to be with him. She trusted him, even though she knew what he was capable of. She didn't seem to agree that he was evil, instead she had called him amazing. No one had ever said that before, not even Nappa or Raditz. He would have torn them apart if they had suggested he had reached a level where he could not improve further.
She had witnessed him killing her friends during his first battle on the mudball, but she wanted to be his friend anyway. He wasn't even sure what she meant by that. The concept of a friend was foreign to him, a luxury he had never been allowed and never felt he needed. What exactly was a friend? He could come up with no answer, but for some reason he was sure that his decision to not be her friend was a good one.
He had lived for years without any companions. He had his subordinate saiyan comrades, but they hardly counted. Nappa had sort of raised him, but he had been so mature even at a very young age that he hardly needed a caretaker. He had considered that a kind of blessing. Sometimes his mother told him she wished he would act more like a cub, but he could tell that she was proud of him being able to take care of himself so well. Vegeta shook his head, trying to clear his mind of his nostalgic thoughts. He hated thinking about his past.
Bulma was back in her lab drawing up the plans for the new gravity room, having finished talking to her father about it. She wanted to make it an additional room to the compound instead of him having such a limited area to train in the spaceship. Her father agreed that that would probably be beneficial to the prince, and it wasn't as if they didn't have space to spare on their property. She was singing along with a song on the radio as she sketched out the blueprints. Even he would be impressed with this!
Bulma's mood had improved greatly by the time Mrs. Brief called her for dinner. She was no longer grumbling about stupid robbers, instead babbling happily about the new-and-improved gravity room with its high-tech training bots and ability to withstand much higher levels of gravity than the old chamber could. She bounced up the stairs and practically danced through the hall on her way to the kitchen.
She sat down at the table across from Vegeta, who ignored her presence, and went on to tell her parents over and over again how much of a genius she was. She was almost finished drawing up her plans and, once she had ordered the parts she needed, would be able to start construction of the new gravity chamber. She clapped her hands in excitement when she thought about Vegeta's reaction to her brilliance.
Vegeta ate his dinner faster than normal, eager to get in some real training before the day was out. Bulma hardly noticed him leave so excited was she about the gravity room. Her parents listened patiently, knowing that it was best to humor their somewhat conceited daughter. They smiled and nodded, offering short congratulations as she babbled on, many of her words slurring together so they could hardly understand what she was talking about by the time she excused herself and returned to her lab.
Vegeta flew to Goku's house as the sun rode low on the horizon. A familiar rush of adrenaline pumped through his veins as he thought about a good fight with his rival. His confidence was through the roof after his easy victory the night before. 'That fool had better be ready for another beating,' he thought with a smug smirk on his face. 'I barely broke a sweat all day, and I'm ready for a challenge.' Seeing his rival's house not far in the distance, he arced up into the sky and landed in the front yard of the small dwelling.
"Kakarrot, get out here!" he roared. He could have gone inside, but the last person he ever wanted to see was that fool's harpy wife.
Fortune was not on his side as the door flew open and ChiChi marched out of the house, face contorted in rage as she pointed her finger at the saiyan prince and shrieked, "You shut up and let him finish eating, you idiot! He's been working hard all day and you are not going to deprive him of a full meal because you're too hot-headed to wait!"
She stomped back into the house, the front door banging shut behind her. Vegeta growled and flicked his tail behind him in anger. He wanted so badly to kill that woman, but he knew Kakarrot would not allow it. Not that it mattered now, since he was finally stronger. Still. It was better not to get into a life or death fight with the younger saiyan if he could avoid it for now.
He huffed angrily and crossed his arms over his chest. He leaned against a tree and waited for the other saiyan to finish eating so they could spar.
Ten minutes later Goku was bounding out the door, calling over his shoulder to his wife that he would be back soon, which, translated, meant not to wait up for him. He spotted the impatient prince under the tree and waved to him as if he were an old friend. Vegeta snorted.
"Are you finally ready, Kakarrot?" he sneered. He hated being kept waiting for anything.
"Yep!" came the cheerful reply, "Where do you want to go? Same place as last night?"
"Wherever," Vegeta said nonchalantly, "You lead the way." The two saiyans blasted off into the darkening sky, both excited about the prospect of a fair rematch.
Goku led them back to the rocky wilderness they had fought in before. There were a few craters they had created while fighting and some decimated rock formations, but otherwise it looked about the same. Goku landed in a large open area and Vegeta landed a few yards ahead.
"So what'll it be, Kakarrot? Transform or not?" Vegeta asked, crouching down.
Goku smirked. "First to go super loses." He sank into his stance and the two saiyans sized each other up, each waiting for the other to make the first move.
Goku was the first to move, racing forward to engage Vegeta in hand to hand combat. Vegeta swung at Goku's exposed side, but his arm passed through an after image. He quickly ducked as Goku's leg swept over his head. The fight had begun.
Bulma finally finished the blueprints for the gravity room. She held it up in front of her and grinned widely, eyes roaming over the sketch and double checking all the calculations. Everything seemed to be just as she wanted it to be. She kissed the paper and smoothed it out on the desk and started writing out a list of materials she would need to start building it. She would show her idea to Vegeta when he got back to make sure he wouldn't want any additional equipment. She looked at the clock on the wall and was shocked to see that it was almost midnight. He hadn't returned already, had he?
The stars were shining brightly overhead as Vegeta and Goku continued their spar, neither giving any quarters. Both looked like they had seen better days, but they kept fighting as if they had not a single injury. The top of Goku's gi had long since been torn off and Vegeta's training shorts were looking ragged.
"You should concede now, Kakarrot," Vegeta panted after they pulled away from each other. "There's no way you're going to win this."
"No way, Vegeta. You're losing power fast, you won't last much longer." He failed to mention that his power was draining just as rapidly.
The saiyan prince powered up as far as he could go, unable now to ascend even if he wanted to. The fight had dragged on for hours and it had been grueling every second. His body was not used to sustaining such a high level of power for an extended period of time, the day before excluded. But he had no built up energy to burn going into this fight, and his reserves were starting to run dry.
He charged at Goku, screaming his rage. He raised his fist, ready to give a strong uppercut to the other saiyan's jaw. Goku readied himself, anticipating the attack and planning on giving Vegeta's jaw a hard blow.
The two saiyans met and each landed their punches, knocking each other out simultaneously. They plummeted to the ground unconscious.
Bulma searched all over the compound, but the prince of all saiyans was nowhere to be found. The only conclusion she could draw was that he was still out with Goku. But he had been gone since about seven that evening, and it was after one in the morning. The giddiness she had as a result of her new project was wearing off and she was feeling extremely tired. Deciding to wait until morning, she dragged herself up to her room, changed into pajamas, and threw herself into her bed. She was out like a light as soon as her head touched her pillow.
When Vegeta started to come to, he could see the predawn light overhead. He groaned and raised his hand to his chin, prodding it tenderly as it throbbed in pain. He dropped his hand back to his side and blinked his eyes a few times. His body felt like it had been crushed and wouldn't respond to his brain's commands to move.
Next to him, Goku was also regaining consciousness. He opened his eyes and looked around, seeing the prince lying a few yards away from him. He moaned in pain as he tried to sit up and fell back down on his back. He would have laughed at their predicament if his ribs hadn't protested so violently. Breathing was painful enough as it was.
"Hey, Vegeta," Goku said, ignoring the pain in his jaw.
"Hn?"
"Can you get up?"
He heard an annoyed sound, a failed attempt to get up, and a grunt of pain. "No."
A few minutes of silence passed between the two saiyans.
"Kakarrot."
Goku turned his eyes to the body of the other saiyan. "Yeah?"
"It was a draw."
"Yeah."
Vegeta coughed up a mouthful of bloody phlegm and spit it out. Goku's stomach growled. Vegeta's rumbled in agreement. Both saiyans sighed.
"Do you think someone will come looking for us?" Goku asked after a while.
Vegeta rolled his eyes. "How should I know?"
They lay there motionless for several more minutes. Goku's breathing was ragged and Vegeta coughed up blood periodically. The wind blew over them, coating their sweaty, bloody bodies in a layer of dust. Vegeta's tail flicked in irritation. It caught Goku's attention.
"I miss my tail, sometimes."
"Hn."
The conversation died. The growling of their stomachs grew louder and happened more frequently. Both imagined themselves wasting away out in the wilderness, defeated by their own metabolism. It was a sad thought, really. How did the two most powerful beings in the universe die, you ask? They beat each other to a bloody pulp and then they starved to death. Pathetic.
"Maybe if we raise our ki, someone will come help us," Goku suggested.
"I don't know about you, but my ki is on vacation."
"Oh. Yeah."
Vegeta watched the light in the sky growing brighter as the sun rose to warm them. He had gotten slightly chilled since his body was more busy clinging to life than maintaining its usual high temperature. He coughed up more blood.
"Maybe we should have gone super," Goku stated.
"Why? We would have ended up in the same state. Maybe worse," Vegeta argued.
"I suppose."
"It doesn't matter now anyway."
The wind blew again. Goku closed his eyes to keep the dust out of them. The last thing he needed was another little pain added to his aching, unresponsive body. He wiggled his fingers and toes and winced in pain. Even they were angry at him.
"Won't your harpy wife be worrying by now?"
"ChiChi? Probably."
"Maybe she'll send your brat to look for us. You, anyway."
"Hey, you're right!" Goku groaned as pain ripped through his chest. He had gotten a little too excited there for a second.
Both saiyans jerked their heads to look at the source of a loud noise not too far from them. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. A tyrannosaurus rex came into view from behind a mountain. It looked hungry. The saiyans looked edible. And it had spotted them.
"Kakarrot."
"Yeah, Vegeta?"
"If we live, I'm going to kill you."
"What did I do?"
Vegeta turned his head to look back up at the sky. He could not accept this fate. He would not be eaten by a brainless lizard. Not that he could do anything about it. He coughed up some blood. The sky was fading from early dawn pink to pale blue. Some clouds blew overhead, casting a shadow on the helpless saiyans.
The dinosaur drew closer, licking its chops as it sniffed the air filled with the scent of fresh blood. Its prey was not even trying to escape. While that may have puzzled a smarter animal, this one was not complaining. It was hungry and it wanted an easy meal. It seemed as though it just found one.
"Do you have any of those beans?" Vegeta asked, his mind suddenly desperate for hope.
"Sorry, 'Geta. They're not in season."
"Damn!"
Deciding he would not be a dinosaur's breakfast, Vegeta tried to force himself up again. He got his back an inch off the ground when he fell back down, his lungs crying out in agony.
"We have to get up, Kakarrot."
"I can't move."
The dinosaur was only a few strides away now. They could smell its foul breath as it closed in on them. At that moment, the only defense either of them had was spitting at it. And they figured that wouldn't be terribly effective. Just when they were about to give up hope, something flashed across the sky and knocked the tyrannosaurus to the ground. It writhed around, its short arms unable to help it get back to its feet.
Another flash and the unlucky dinosaur was out cold. The saiyans watched in a cross between relief and bafflement as the giant lizard was taken down. By what, they couldn't tell, but at that moment neither of them cared very much. It could have been the androids, arriving early, and they would have been grateful. Well, Goku would have been, at least.
"I think we just got our lucky break," Goku sighed in relief.
"We don't know that yet," Vegeta reminded him warily.
Goku and Vegeta looked up into the sky, trying to make out who had saved them from becoming the dinosaur's next meal. No one was above them. They tried to sense out any ki, but they were unable to detect anyone. Maybe because they were just too out of it.
Vegeta coughed up more blood and inhaled as deeply as he could before shouting, "Who's there?" He groaned in pain.
Goku winced as his ears rang with Vegeta's voice. He listened for an answer.
"Is that you, Vegeta?" a boy's voice called out.
Vegeta rolled his eyes. "Of course!" he yelled.
"Gohan?" Goku called. "Son, where are you?"
"I'm here, Daddy!" the boy yelled as he ran toward them, jumping over boulders and leaping over craters. "Piccolo and I went out looking for you since you hadn't come back last night."
He finally reached the two full-blooded saiyans and knelt down next to his father. "Are you ok, Dad?"
"Well, I am really hungry," Goku answered, his characteristic grin on his face, though he was unable to hold it for long due to the pain in his jaw. And the rest of his face.
"You fool," they heard Vegeta say. "You can't even move and all you care about is your stomach."
Gohan looked over to the other saiyan and noted that he was in the same condition as his father. It reminded him of how they looked after they fought the first time. He shuddered at the thought. He had to remind himself that they had only been sparring. Vegeta was on their side now, at least until the androids were defeated.
"If we can get back to Capsule Corp," Vegeta started before taking a break to catch his breath, "the woman can have us… patched up… in no time." He spat out some blood and gasped a little, trying to get more air into his lungs.
"Are you admitting you need help, Vegeta?" Goku asked in shock.
"Shut up, Kakarrot. I'm not foolish enough to ignore these injuries."
"Then we'll take them to see Bulma," a deep voice said from above them. All three looked up to see Piccolo hovering above them, cape billowing in the wind. He landed next to Vegeta and knelt down.
Gohan nodded and awkwardly slung his father's arm over his shoulders and picked him up under his back and thighs, unable to reach his knees for a more comfortable position. Goku grunted and yelped in pain as his body was lifted and jostled a little bit. "Sorry, Daddy," Gohan apologized before floating up a few feet in the air to wait for his mentor.
Piccolo was not as gentle as the demi-saiyan. He threw Vegeta over his shoulder and was surprised to hear no complaints. He merely spit out another mouthful of blood. Piccolo smirked. Whether or not he was stronger, Vegeta was definitely tougher than Goku. Or at least more accustomed to severe pain.
Piccolo and Gohan carried the limp saiyans back to Capsule Corp, the trip taking nearly an hour because they weren't able to fly very fast for fear of hurting the saiyans worse. They landed softly in the front of the compound and went inside to find one of the Briefs.
"Bulma! Where are you?" Gohan called out when he got in the door.
"Gohan, sweetie, is that you?" The kitchen door opened to reveal Mrs. Brief, an apron tied around her waist and flour all over her face and hands. "Oh my goodness! What happened to Goku and Mr. Vegeta?" she cried as she ran over to them and started fretting over the half conscious saiyans.
"We need Bulma, Mrs. Brief," Gohan stated shyly. "They're hurt pretty bad and need to be taken care of."
"Oh, of course! I'll go get her right away. Poor boys, they look like they're in so much pain. My little girl can patch them right up though," she babbled as she ran down the hall and disappeared through a doorway on the right. Piccolo and Gohan exchanged glances and sighed.
A couple minutes later Bulma came running down the hall from the direction Mrs. Brief had just gone. She saw the four aliens in her hallway and gasped in shock. "Oh my Kami! What happened? We have to get them to the infirmary right away, follow me!" She turned and ran back down the hall, going left into another long hallway that led them to the infirmary.
Piccolo and Gohan followed her, trying to make the ride as smooth as they could for Goku and Vegeta. Bulma took them into a large room where there was lots of medical equipment set up. It looked mostly new, no doubt acquired after Vegeta arrived.
The saiyans were laid on two examination tables. A gasp escaped from Vegeta's lips while Goku yelled out in pain. Just looking over them, Bulma could see that they were in bad shape.
If she thought Vegeta had looked bad earlier that week, she was mistaken. One side of his face was swollen, his eye barely able to open. He had deep gashes on his arms, the skin on his knuckles completely gone. His right arm flopped limply from the elbow, indicating a broken bone. His chest had cuts and scrapes on it, but worse were several protruding ribs, the wounds bleeding steadily. The way he kept coughing up blood led her to believe that at least one of his lungs was punctured. She couldn't believe he was alive.
She looked over his legs, which were mostly covered in bruises, though there was one cut on his left calf that went to the bone. She asked Piccolo to turn him over so she could see his back and gasped when she saw it. One shoulder was burned raw. More cuts and scrapes littered across his back. His lower left side was a deep purple, showing signs of some serious internal damage, possibly a ruptured spleen.
"I can't take care of them both," she said, almost frantic. "Vegeta is bad enough he could die within an hour and Goku probably isn't much better. I need to call my dad and get some more doctors in here."
Bulma ran to the phone and picked it up, her shaking fingers barely able to push the right buttons as she dialed the number that would connect her to her father's lab. She waited impatiently as the phone rang several times, practically screaming when it finally picked up. "Dad! I need you in the infirmary now! I'm going to call some of the doctors from headquarters to come over, we're going to need help." She slammed the phone down without waiting for an answer and called the headquarters building.
By the time she hung up the phone, her father had come running into the lab, out of breath and hunched over with his hands on his knees. "What's wrong… Bulma?" he gasped out. She pointed at the two saiyans, unable to form words fast enough to answer.
"Oh my…" he murmured when he had reached the saiyans who were slipping in and out of consciousness. "I don't know how to treat all of these wounds. When will the doctors arrive?"
Bulma nearly cried when she heard that. "Soon. I told them if they're not here in under fifteen minutes I'd fire them all and make sure they never get a job again."
Dr. Brief nodded. "Let's take care of what we can while we wait for them to get here."
His calmness was infectious, and his daughter fed off it. She needed him to help her stay grounded so she wouldn't panic to the point of doing more harm than good. Piccolo and Gohan backed away, watching the two scientists work.
Bulma took chest x-rays of both of them and an x-ray of Vegeta's broken arm. She figured those were the most pressing injuries for the time being. While they developed, she cleaned the deeper wounds on Vegeta while Dr. Brief took care of Goku. She dabbed at the burn on his shoulder and applied some salve to it before turning to the deep cut on his calf. She cleaned it thoroughly and injected a local anesthetic before starting to sew it back up.
Dr. Brief was cleaning the myriad cuts and burns on Goku's chest when six doctors ran into the room, looking winded and scared for their lives. Or jobs. Bulma turned to them and screamed, "Don't just stand there, you idiots, get over here and help these two!"
The doctors practically tripped over their own feet as they hurried over to the two patients and began poking and prodding the unmoving bodies. "How are these men alive?" one doctor asked in awe.
As they were busy examining the saiyans, Bulma slapped the x-rays up on the light for them to see the state of their ribs. As suspected, Vegeta had a punctured lung as well as six broken ribs. Goku was only slightly better with two broken ribs.
"Oh, hell, we have to operate, now!" the tallest doctor shouted when he saw the x-rays. They pushed Vegeta's table away to an adjacent operating room. Bulma watched them take him away, knowing that she would be no help if she followed. Three of the doctors remained behind, tending to Goku, whose injuries were mostly superficial, though serious.
She numbly sank into a chair as she watched the doctors work on her best friend. She prayed to Kami that Vegeta would be ok. Goku was now hooked up to machines that measured his vitals, and she was relieved to see that he was doing fine. More than likely his saiyan physiology was keeping him alive where any human would have died hours ago.
Bulma buried her head in her hands as she waited for news on Vegeta. His breathing had been so shallow and ragged and he had kept coughing up blood. Yet he had not cried out in pain or asked for anything to stop the pain. He silently endured it. 'Always the tough guy,' she thought. 'Even when you could be dying, you don't show any pain. Would it really be weak, just to make some sound? To cry out, scream in agony?' Little did she know why he stayed so silent in his suffering.
Vegeta was unconscious. The doctors had been horrified at the amount of anesthetic his body required to finally slip fully out of consciousness, but it was required for them to perform surgery on him. The extent of damage his body had endured was mind-boggling. None of them could believe that this man was still alive, much less awake when they arrived.
"I will make you scream, little monkey," the scratchy, feminine voice screamed angrily.
Vegeta was chained to a metal wall, his bonds draining his ki so he could not break free. He was facing the wall, his tail curled around his leg as he clenched his teeth. The ki whip cracked down on his bare back again, burning and tearing away his skin. Another river of blood poured down his back and legs, yet he did not so much as whimper.
Another lash of the whip. His body jerked with pain, but he did not cry out. He forced back the tears that were forming in his eyes even as his body begged him to just give in and scream, if only to end the torture.
"I will make you let go of your damned pride!"
The whip landed on his back again, harder than before. Vegeta was sure that it had taken away a good chunk of muscle that time, but he bit his tongue until it bled to keep from making any sound. To keep from admitting defeat at the lizard's hands.
His blood was running freely and he felt weak and light-headed. His breathing came in ragged gasps as his vital organs threatened to shut down. The whip tore at his body again, and his legs gave out from under him. His weight was supported only by the shackles on his wrists.
"Sir," Zarbon interjected, "I think he will die if you continue."
"Shut up, Zarbon! I know my monkey can handle more than this." Frieza was furious. Vegeta had failed his last purge mission, letting a small handful of civilians live. When the new owners of the planet arrived, they were attacked and many were killed. They refused to pay for the planet. All blame was placed on the young prince's shoulders as a result.
Another crack of the whip. And another. Vegeta's white ribs were bared to the world, and still Frieza did not stop. But the saiyan prince refused to be broken. He would not scream.
Vegeta had barely survived that round of torture. Nappa had carried him to the medical bay of the ship, unsure if the prince would survive the minute long trip between Frieza's throne room and the rejuvenation tank. The young prince, then only eleven years old, was barely clinging to life when the synthetic saiyan DNA engulfed his body. It took nearly a week for him to recover. After that, Frieza would frequently beat him to an inch of his life, but was never satisfied with even the softest whimper of pain from the proud saiyan prince.
The prince woke up much earlier than a human would have, only to find a doctor sewing his chest back up. He could breathe easier now and some of the pain in his body had dulled. The doctors cried out in surprise when Vegeta opened his eyes and slowly rocked his head back and forth, trying to figure out where he was. He didn't even seem to notice the pain in his chest.
"Finish it," he said, his words thick and unclear. He hated waking up from the effects of anesthetic. Those moments held some of his worst memories.
Trying to keep his hands from shaking, the doctor finished stitching Vegeta's chest and stepped back from him, ready to let someone else finish taking care of the inhuman patient.
Vegeta's mind wandered back to the dream he had while he underwent surgery. He smirked when he thought about Frieza's rage, his hatred for his unbreakable pride. Physically beaten to the point of death, he had remained defiant. The beast within him would not allow the pink lizard to tame him and shape him into another of his mindless puppets. He had endured endless torture, yet he had come out victorious.
"Where is the blue-haired woman?" he asked, still groggy. "I wish to see her."
"Y-yes, sir, I'll go get her at once," one of the doctors said as they all flew out of the room. Vegeta snorted, ignoring the pain it caused. Apparently summoning one woman was a group effort. Fools.
Bulma ran into the room a minute later, unaccompanied by any of the doctors. "Oh my Kami, Vegeta, are you alright?" she asked frantically, her hands cupping his face as she looked into his eyes.
"I will live, Woman," he answered shortly. "Is that clown Kakarrot still alive?"
She smiled and ran her hand through his thick hair. "Yeah, he's fine. I don't think he was nearly as badly injured as you, you big jerk! I was so worried about you." Vegeta could see the tears in her eyes, threatening to fall. She squeezed her eyes shut to hold them back and pounded his chest with her fist, forgetting all about his current physical state.
Normally she could not have hurt him if she tried, but her hitting him sent a shot of pain through his chest. "Woman, don't hit me," he groaned, his voice angry and tired. She gasped when she realized what she had done and stroked his cheek instead. "I do not know what a friend is, but I don't think they go around hitting each other's broken ribs."
She laughed a little, though with little amusement. "You jerk, I hate you! How could you do this to yourself? You idiot, you fucking idiot," she shouted until her voice broke and tears slipped down her cheeks. "I didn't know if you were going to live or die and I couldn't forgive you if you went and died because you sparred with Goku."
Vegeta cocked his head and watched her closely with his good eye. She was crying for him again, and he once again couldn't understand why. She would have been upset if he died. Who had ever cared if he lived before? Maybe Nappa and Raditz, but simply because their lives were only guaranteed as long as he still had his.
"Why do you cry for me again, Woman? Can you not see that I will be fine?"
"I know! I know, Vegeta, but I can't stand to see you like this. It hurts me to see you in such pain," she mumbled, voice shaking with more unshed tears. "You jerk, you big jerk."
"Pain? This is nothing to me. I endured this much pain and more, sometimes days on end, when I was Frieza's slave. Pain is what I know. I have grown immune to it, so do not worry." His voice had started out strong, expressionless, as if he were simply relating facts, but by the end she could sense some sadness because of the truth behind his words.
"No one should have to experience such suffering," she whispered, stroking his hair as she gazed into his ebony orbs. "Not even you, Vegeta."
"Do not pity me, Woman," he said threateningly.
"Never."
He exhaled slowly and closed his eyes, his body's energy being focused on healing itself. He wished he had a rejuvenation tank that would make the healing process faster, but he could only rely on the primitive medical technology of the planet he was on.
Vegeta opened his eyes again when he felt the woman's lips on his forehead, reminding him of the night he had opened himself up to her so candidly. He looked at her curiously. "What does it mean when you do that?"
"What do you mean?"
He sighed. "When you… when you… whatever it is you just did."
"You mean when I kiss you?" She was stroking his hair again, the feathery strands tickling her fingers.
"Is that what you call it? I've seen you do the same to others, except on their cheeks. And with the weakling…" he didn't bother finishing his statement. He figured she could understand what he was implying.
She smiled and her fingers moved down to the side of his head behind his ear. Subconsciously she lightly traced her hands over that spot until his eyelids drooped and his jaw fell slack. She didn't notice as she answered, "A kiss is a sign of affection between humans. I guess depending on where you kiss someone means something special. Like a kiss on the cheek is between family members and close friends. And a kiss on the lips is shared between lovers."
Vegeta was hardly listening. He instinctually leaned his head into her hand as she scratched behind his ear, and for some reason she seemed to take the hint and scratched a little harder, increasing his pleasure. A deep rumbling sound erupted from his chest as she continued, "And a kiss on the forehead, I think, is to show someone that you care about them. I think it's most common for parents to kiss their children on their foreheads, but it's not exclusive to that."
"Woman…" he murmured, trying to get her attention.
That was when she heard the vibrations from his chest. She looked down at his face and smiled when she saw the look on his face. He looked like he had taken some pretty strong drugs. He was still leaning into her hand despite himself, and she realized what was going on.
"Woman," he tried again. He desperately wanted her to stop her ministrations, but he was unable to control himself.
"Yes, Vegeta?" she asked, scratching more purposefully.
"S-stop that," he said so softly she could hardly hear him. He tried to move his head from her hand, but it was as if his body was no longer connected to his brain as it refused to comply. His purring grew louder and his eyes shut completely, his face relaxing in pleasure.
She had heard correctly, but she couldn't believe it. He looked too much like he was enjoying what she was doing. "Stop?"
He tried to nod his head, but it just didn't work. He tried to speak again. "Yes… Wo…man." His tail was slowly curling and uncurling at his side, gently brushing against Bulma's legs.
"Ok, if that's what you want," she said, smirking slightly. She took her hand away from his head and watched as his eyes slowly opened, as if unsure about what was going on around him. He closed his mouth and smacked her leg hard with his tail as he glared at her.
"Do not do that to me."
"Well, sorry, it kind of looked like you were enjoying it."
He huffed indignantly. Did this woman understand nothing? Just because doing something felt good didn't mean it was appropriate! Outside of family and mating, it was largely taboo to do anything to elicit feelings of pleasure in another saiyan. They were warriors, not a bunch of sissies.
"Well, anyway," she said, "I need to finish cleaning and treating all these cuts, buddy."
She filled a bowl with warm water and grabbed some hydrogen peroxide out of the cabinet above the sink. She found a clean rag in a drawer and brought them over to where the saiyan was lying, still immobile.
She dipped the rag in the water and dabbed at the cuts to remove most of the sweat and dirt from his wounds. "This might sting a little," she warned as she opened the bottle of peroxide. She poured it over his cuts, the chemical foaming and stinging as it came into contact with bacteria. She patted his cuts dry and was pleased to find that there was no new blood on the rag.
Vegeta frowned when he felt the stinging, but he did not find it too uncomfortable. In a strange way, it was almost enjoyable. He watched the blue-haired woman rummage through the drawers, looking for something else.
"Aha!" she said as she pulled out some antibiotic ointment and bandages. "Finally found it." She returned to his side and carefully applied the ointment before placing the bandages over his cuts. "Knowing you, these will probably be healed by tonight. I don't know how long your arm and ribs will take, though."
"They'll heal soon enough. Do you usually just let a broken arm heal on its own, or do you do something to help it?" he asked, looking down at his limp appendage. Sure enough, the doctors, in their haste to treat his punctured lung and broken ribs, had forgotten about his arm.
Bulma sighed and rubbed her forehead. Were those idiots completely incompetent? She obviously had to do just about everything herself. So, she set to work.
An hour later, Vegeta's arm was in a cast and he was hooked up to an IV to replace the fluids his body had lost through bleeding. Obviously a blood transfusion was impossible since there was no matching saiyan blood to be had, but his body would recover quickly enough on its own. Bulma was amazed by and thankful for saiyan physiology allowing for rapid healing.
"So I think," Bulma said, poking Vegeta gently in the sternum, "you're not going to be training again for a couple days."
He grumbled in response. "Obviously."
"Good! That gives me more time to get started on your new gravity room," she said enthusiastically, "Oh that reminds me, I want to show you the blueprints for it I drew up last night. I think you'll like it." With that, she left his room and went to go get the blueprint out of her lab. Several minutes later she returned and spread the paper out in front of him to look over.
She started to explain what everything meant, but he looked up at her and scowled. "Woman, I am not stupid. I know what these things mean, though your handwriting is atrocious."
Bulma shut her mouth, clearly surprised. "Oh."
Vegeta shook his head. Everywhere he went people seemed to mistake him for a brainless idiot. They didn't realize he was capable of learning almost anything. He was fluent in over one hundred languages, understood complicated physics, and could do the hardest mathematics in his sleep, among other things. He was looking over the blueprints, somewhat impressed, when something caught his eye.
"This equation is wrong," he told her. "The walls would collapse with only 50Gs if you don't redo it."
"Huh?" She looked at the equation he was pointing at, but didn't see anything wrong.
"Let me show you. Get me paper and a writing utensil." Bulma found a notepad for him and handed him a pencil, which he looked at in disgust when he saw bite marks all over it.
"This is what I mean," he said as he started writing out a formula she had never seen before. Soon the whole page was covered in calculations she wasn't sure she could have done with a computer. He worked through it quickly, as if he had the whole thing memorized. It was hard to believe that he was making the calculations for the first time.
Bulma sat in the chair next to his infirmary bed and went through the page of mathematics she could hardly follow. "Where did you learn this?" she asked, obviously in awe, "I have never seen anything like this before."
"I have been to dozens of planets with highly advanced technology. I picked up on many things while I was there."
"I thought you would have been too busy killing people to take a math class."
Vegeta snorted. "Not every planet I went to was purged. I spent a lot of time on Frieza's base planets. And it's not as if I needed anyone to teach me, I just had to see how it was done."
Bulma looked at him wide-eyed. He learned math like this, that made her knowledge of Calculus III look like a walk in the park, just by seeing it done, no explanations or anything? That was unbelievable. And she told him, "I don't believe it, Vegeta, there's no way you could teach yourself math like this."
Vegeta frowned and looked up at the ceiling, shoving her blueprints away. "You should not underestimate me, Woman. I was bred to perfection in more ways than just my fighting abilities." The tip of his tail flicked back and forth in agitation, and she knew that she had offended him.
"I'm sorry, Vegeta," she said softly, "It's just hard to believe. It would probably take me a year to learn this with a tutor helping me."
"Hn."
"What did you mean by 'bred to perfection' anyway?"
The saiyan still wasn't looking at her, instead brooding over her slight to his intelligence. He didn't feel like talking to her anymore, yet for some reason he couldn't fathom, he wanted her to know the answer to her question. He told himself that it was because he did not want someone like her thinking he was inferior. And still he was reluctant because he knew how much the woman prided herself on being a genius. She was, in many ways, simple-minded comparatively.
He tried to work his way out of answering. "I don't think you want to know, Woman." He hoped she would read into it more than she should just so he could leave it at that.
She wasn't falling for it. "Oh come on, Vegeta. I know it has nothing to do with Frieza, so it can't be that bad." Perhaps he would have to give her more credit next time. He sighed.
"Consider all those generations, bred to produce the best king possible in every way: strength, wisdom, ability to lead, even telepathic communication. I am the culmination of over a millennium of selective breeding." He stopped there, figuring the woman could draw her own conclusions from what information he had already given her.
One thing had caught her attention more than the rest. "Telepathic communication?"
"Hn."
"What do you mean, Vegeta?"
He turned his head to face away from her, suddenly finding the plain white wall very interesting. He was silent for a few minutes before he answered, "Saiyans used to be a telepathic race. Generally, saiyans could only form telepathic links with members of their tribe, but a few were able to link with any other saiyan."
He paused, letting his words sink in. If he was lucky, she would accept that as the entire explanation and he would not have to continue. Unfortunately, her curiosity nearly matched that of a certain saiyan prince. "You're one of those few, aren't you?"
Vegeta closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. "The only one who had such an ability in the past three hundred years. It had become exclusive to the royal family, and many feared it had died out completely." He wished his body would respond to him, but it still protested angrily whenever he tried to move it. In his vulnerable state, his mind was shouting at him to bolt, get away from the source of his discomfort. Get away from the blue-haired woman before she forced him to recollect memories that made him nearly lose his sanity.
Bulma pulled herself out of her thoughts after a minute and asked softly, "What is it like? Could you always hear the other saiyans? Or could they hear your thoughts?"
There it was, the question he wanted her to take back, make it so it had never been asked. He could have refused to answer. He knew that answering would only result in reopening the unhealed wound. She wanted to know what it was like? It wasn't as if his mind had been constantly cluttered with every thought of every saiyan. He had much more control than to let that happen. No, it was more like a subconscious awareness of all the saiyans. He could speak to them, if he opened a mental link with them, but he hardly used that ability. Mostly, he used his telepathy to draw comfort from their presence even when they were far away. How could he express that to the human woman? She could never understand that level of connection with others. She prided herself on her closeness with her friends, but it wasn't the same.
A wave of anger passed through Vegeta's body, burning away the growing lump in his throat and drying the tears in his eyes. He was furious with himself for letting this horrible human female make him think about things he had tried to forget for over two decades. He had been successful most of the time, but now here he was remembering again, and as always it hurt. It was not a physical pain he could block out, it was a gut-wrenching, heart-shattering pain that caused the deepest suffering he could not escape until it gradually passed.
He turned back to her, teeth bared and eyes blazing with unrepressed rage burning hotly in his ebony orbs. She felt as though his gaze was burning right through her, and she backed away, not sure what had upset him. His tail was twitching erratically in his fury and his fists clenched despite the pain. "V-Vegeta? What's wrong?" She heard a low growl that shook her to her core. She was somewhat glad that he couldn't move right now as the feral look came back to his eyes and his tail bristled.
Vegeta glared at the frightened, trembling woman at his side. She was the cause of his pain! He wanted to rip her heart out of her chest, but he couldn't move. He snarled, "You and your foolish questions, Woman! Do they ever cease?" He tried to move again but his body just wouldn't let him. "Whenever I am around you, I… I…" he sputtered angrily, not able to form a coherent thought.
'You make me remember what I have worked so hard to forget!'
Bulma screamed in pain and grabbed her head in her hands, clawing at her temples as his voice tore through her head. She could feel his pain like it was her own. At that moment she wasn't even able to wonder how she had heard him without him speaking, she was just trying to get the horrible, agonizing feeling to go away.
'This is what it is like, Woman,' his telepathic voice growled, 'to have telepathic links to every member of the saiyan race. To feel them being ripped away all at once when they were slaughtered like sheep.' Another unbearable wave of pain flashed through her mind. She couldn't breathe in her agony and she couldn't escape it. She let out a bloodcurdling scream and fainted.
Vegeta watched impassively as she fell to the floor. He was too far gone in his moment of insanity to care. He considered it fitting that she should experience what she had caused, opening a festering wound that would never heal. Out of it poured the deepest grief, the hottest fury, the coldest hatred, the blackest loneliness. No consolation could ever lessen its effects, no matter how many years had passed since it happened.
Vegeta turned when he saw Piccolo, Gohan, and Dr. Brief running into his room to see what was going on. They had heard Bulma's scream and dropped everything and ran, anxious to make sure the saiyan was not hurting her. What they found was Vegeta still lying helplessly in his bed and Bulma crumpled on the floor. She was deathly pale and covered in beads of sweat.
Piccolo was the first to speak, growling, "What did you do to her, Vegeta?"
Vegeta rolled his eyes. "If you haven't noticed, Namek, I can't even move. What could I have possibly done to the woman?"
By that time Dr. Brief and Gohan were on the floor next to Bulma, gently shaking her to help her regain consciousness. Finally, much to everyone's relief (aside from Vegeta), Bulma's eyes fluttered open and she groaned, still holding her head, which felt like it was spinning out of control. Slowly, her color returned and she stopped shaking.
When she tried to sit up, Dr. Brief pushed her back down. "Now, dear, you need to just lie down for a few minutes. It looks like your blood pressure dropped dramatically and you need to take it easy." When she made no complaint he ran his hand through her sweaty, tangled hair a couple times before standing back up. "I'm going to get her a glass of water, I'll be back in a minute," he told the others as he left the room.
Once the doctor was out of earshot, both Gohan and Piccolo turned to Vegeta, eyes narrowed in suspicion. He returned their looks with amused indifference. His mind was still mostly unfocused because of the lingering pain.
"What?" he asked tiredly. He wasn't in the mood for explaining himself to the two warriors, especially when he was still unable to defend himself.
"We know you did something to her," Gohan said, his voice shaking in barely restrained anger, "so what did you do?"
Vegeta sighed. These pests would never leave him alone. "She asked a question. It is not my fault she could not handle the answer."
Piccolo clenched his fists at his sides and demanded, "What do you mean?"
"Guys," a weak voice rose from the floor, "It's ok. He's right. I shouldn't have asked."
"Are you alright, Bulma?" Gohan asked.
"I'm fine, my head just hurts," she answered, then added when she saw him glare at the bedridden saiyan, "He didn't touch me. Don't worry."
Still distrustful, Piccolo nodded and walked out of the room to go check up on Goku. Gohan stayed behind, wanting to make sure Bulma was ok while Dr. Brief was gone. Vegeta stayed silent, staring blankly at the ceiling.
"I'm sorry, Vegeta," Bulma whispered, not sure he could hear her. "I didn't know—"
"Don't bother apologizing, Woman," he cut her off, "It doesn't matter."
Bulma frowned but didn't say any more. Now that the pain had subsided, she was thinking about his words and the fact that they had been spoken directly into her head. He had only mentioned being able to form mental links with other saiyans, but he had done it with her.
"How did you…?" She didn't get a chance to finish her question before he answered.
"It's not impossible to do so with another race if I have enough will behind it."
She got the impression that he wanted the discussion to end there. She sighed and reluctantly dropped the subject. Dr. Brief came back to the room holding a glass of water and handed it to his daughter, who was now allowed to sit up. She sipped at the water for a while before dragging herself up into the chair again.
"Are you feeling better, dear?" Dr. Brief asked Bulma.
"Yeah, Dad, I'm fine." Bulma looked at the notepad that had fallen to the floor and reached out to pick it up. Gohan saw what she was doing and grabbed the notepad and handed it to her, noticing the sharp, elegant handwriting scrawled across the page.
Bulma handed it off to her father and explained, "It's an equation Vegeta used to calculate the necessary structural build to withstand high levels of gravity in his new gravity room." She looked to see her father eyeing the paper, fingers stroking his moustache.
"Interesting," he mumbled, "it looks correct, I think."
Vegeta snorted. "You have no idea what it means, do you?"
Dr. Brief looked up at the saiyan, face tinged with pink. "Well, I," he stuttered, "I mean, well, no actually."
"It's ok, Dad," Bulma said comfortingly, "This stuff is way over my head too."
Gohan looked from Vegeta to the scientists and back again. If he understood correctly, Vegeta had successfully stumped both Bulma and Dr. Brief with some mathematical formula. If that were the case, did that make him smarter than the world's two greatest geniuses? He peeked over the doctor's arm to see the equation. It made his head hurt just looking at it.
"Well, it's not much use to us if we can't decipher it, is it?"
Vegeta was growing tired of their confused babbling. "Give me that," he ordered, indicating the notepad. "I'll put it into terms you simple-minded humans can comprehend."
Ignoring the insult directed at his intelligence, Dr. Brief handed the paper back to the irate prince. "That would be wonderful, my boy," he said, interested to see the equation translated into something that made some sense.
Vegeta thought for a minute, tapping the chewed up pencil against the paper before he started scribbling a long equation down. After a while, he finished and presented it to the Briefs.
"Calculus! I can understand this," Bulma said in excitement. Dr. Brief nodded his agreement as he checked the saiyan's work. It was flawless. He was dumbfounded.
While the two scientists talked about the changes they would need to make in the design of the gravity room, Vegeta's mind had finally calmed down and he found himself very tired. He closed his eyes and fell asleep to the sound of scientific jargon being bounced back and forth between two highly impressed brilliant minds.
A/N: Here it is, the longest chapter in the whole story! About 13,000 words. This is also one of my favorite chapters, mostly because of the Vegeta/Goku "conversation." I was snickering to myself the whole time I wrote it, so I hope you enjoyed it too. Am I making Vegeta too perfect? Probably. He's the strongest, smartest, etc, etc. In my defense, it wasn't as if he was portrayed as stupid in DBZ.
I also admit I know nothing about medical stuff. Personally, I avoid it as much as possible because I hate doctors and hospitals and all things medical-related. So, I'm sorry if anything was done wrong. If you have more knowledge on this subject than me, by all means, tell me and I'll fix it.
Song: "Misery" by Maroon 5