Chapter 9 – A Moment Like This
One minute, she was free falling at about a hundred miles per hour and then the next she was laying in her bed with Vegeta sat beside it, with his head resting in his arms and his face pressed against the silk bed sheets.
She could remember everything. From the moment the dark side of her took control right through to the battle and then free falling towards the blue light. Bulma followed the blue light because she knew it was safe and she knew it was safe because it was the colour of Vegeta's aura. It was as though Vegeta had been guiding her to find the light again and it was Vegeta who helped her out of the darkness.
Slowly, Bulma lifted her stiff hand and when Vegeta didn't move, she lifted the rest of her arm and moved it closer towards his head until there was only an inch of space between her hand and his head.
When he still didn't move, Bulma ran her hand through his hair softly, enjoying the silky smooth feeling of his hair. It was strange. She thought that his hair would have been rough or dry or even knotted because of the way it never moved but it was the exact opposite, it was soft just like hers.
Vegeta felt his hair being touched and immediately sat up straight, only to find a pair of soft blue eyes staring at him.
Before he knew it, she was hugging him tightly with her arms around his neck and her legs wrapped around his waist.
When Vegeta first looked up at her when she touched his hair, he looked so lost and worried that it hurt her. What was he some afraid of? She was perfectly fine. So she did the first thing she thought of that her mother would do to comfort her: she hugged him.
"What are you doing, girl?" he demanded in a husky voice. He didn't say it in a harsh way, he was just genuinely curious. She had been awake for less than a minute as far as he could tell and she was already fast enough to move without giving him any time to expect it.
Bulma shuddered as his breath caressed her ear and she inhaled deeply before speaking. "I just… missed you. That's all." she only half lied. She did miss him, but to admit to hugging Vegeta because of his moment of weakness would more than likely make him angry.
Vegeta smirked against the base of her neck and breathed in her unique scent. Even though she had been in bed and not moved even an inch since she had first slipped into the coma a whole week ago, she still smelled sweet, yet spicy.
He would never admit to missing her too, even though he did. He missed her more than anything and if he was completely honest, he would say that it kind of worried him. He had never missed anyone or anything so much since his mother was killed and even then he hadn't missed his mother nearly as much as what he had missed Bulma.
"I did it," Bulma smiled against his shoulder, "I did it."
Before she even realised it, she started to cry. The tears soaked Vegeta's armour and the smell of salt water filled the air, replacing the heavenly scent.
"Why are you crying?" he demanded. "You won, didn't you?"
"My p–parents they're go–" was all that she managed to whisper before more tears filled her eyes and she tried to choke back sob after sob. But after a couple of minutes, it became nearly impossible to stop the tears and sobbing.
Vegeta wrapped his arms securely around his waist to comfort her. He wasn't used to seeing a girl cry. Hell, he had never ever seen anyone cry before. Well, except his brother but that was when he was still an infant. He wasn't really sure what to do to make her feel better so he just let her get all of her crying out of her system.
It took a whole hour before she finally calmed her sobbing and ran out of tears. She was completely unaware of it when Vegeta moved them so that they were laying on the bed so neither of them got stiff. He didn't exactly know how long they would be sat like that and he wasn't going to risk it since the tears appeared to be never ending, especially since he hadn't been training.
"I must seem so weak." Bulma chuckled as she wiped her eyes.
Vegeta shook his head slightly before moving a strand of hair away from her face. "Not at all. You were close to your parents." he shrugged.
Bulma looked down at her hands which were gripping tightly at Vegeta's spandex top. She wasn't sure when or how he took off his chest armour but she didn't care. One by one, she loosened her fingers until she had let go completely of his top.
"H–How long was I out?"
"About a week." He shrugged again.
"And you never left me? Not even for a second?" She smiled lightly.
"What makes you think that?" Vegeta demanded.
Bulma shrugged. "I'm not sure whether I just imagined it or… not but," she paused and looked him straight in the eye, "the entire time it felt like you were next to me and helping me." she smiled lightly again. "And you did. You helped me defeat her."
"Her?"
Bulma laughed almost hysterically. "Yeah apparently she was my 'alternate ego' or something like that. She said she was the hidden evil within my heart and my mind and she wanted us to rule the universe."
"Us?"
"Yeah." Bulma paused again before chuckling. "Me, you and her. She kept saying that together, we would be indestructible and nobody would be able to touch us."
Vegeta frowned. "She wanted us to be tyrants?" he said uncertainly. "But isn't what she wants what you want?"
"What do you mean?" Bulma narrowed her eyes at Vegeta as she pulled herself away from him as though he had just burned her and sat up. "I would never be a tyrant."
"What she wants is what you want somewhere deep down inside of you. That is why she is called your 'inner evil'." he said like it was obvious.
Bulma got up off of the bed and walked towards the door before she opened it and looked at Vegeta. "If you seriously think that, then you aren't the person I thought you were."
Vegeta frowned at the princess. What the hell was she complaining about now? He only said what the truth was. It would most likely be a hell of a lot worse if it had been him instead of her. He sat himself up on her bed and just stared at her with a confused expression.
"Leave, Vegeta." she said in a soft voice.
The Saiyan Prince got up off of the bed and walked over to her. "Not until you tell me what I have done wrong."
Bulma sighed as she shut her door and took a seat back on her bed. "You said that I want to be a tyrant, Vegeta. You more or less said that I want to be like Frieza."
Vegeta rolled his eyes. As usual, she had taken things the wrong way and was overreacting. "I never said that. I said that was what your inner evil wanted and since she was a part of you, that would mean your inner evil self, wanted to be a ruler whether or not her or your followers accepted it. That was all I was saying."
The human princess looked down at her hands as they twisted around each other.
"What now?" Vegeta sighed in annoyance.
"I was just wondering," she whispered as she looked from her hands to Vegeta, "as to why… why did you stay with me?"
Vegeta sat down next to her on the bed. Neither of them was looking at the other, instead choosing to keep their eyes forward. She was still fidgeting with her hands, seeming unable to keep still whereas Vegeta simply sat there. "I don't know." he told her honestly after a couple of moments before silence once again filled the air.
"I did know, by the way." Bulma said after another couple of minutes of awkward silence.
"Know about what?"
Bulma smiled up at the prince. "About the connection between us."
"Then why didn't you close it? Or at least close off some of your thoughts?"
"I did! I closed off quite a lot of thoughts actually." Bulma chuckled before growing silent and thoughtful. Then, she spoke again. "You probably only saw a quarter of what goes on in my head."
Vegeta looked at her like she had grown a second head. She couldn't be serious, right? He had enough trouble just keeping track of a fraction of the thoughts that passed through her mind to his. How was it possible that that hadn't even been more than a quarter of her thoughts? He knew the girl talked about nothing but crap but that was just ridiculous.
"Ha! You look so confused." she giggled. "If you want, I'll let you see everything?" Vegeta raised a suggestive eyebrow at Bulma, who just rolled her eyes in response and punched him lightly on the shoulder. "You know that's not what I meant!"
"Then what do you mean?"
Bulma rolled her eyes once again. "Everything that goes on in my head of course!"
He looked at the human princess sceptically. How did he know that what happened to her last week wouldn't happen to again if he said yes? Okay so the chances of that were slimmer than slim but he remembered the burning in his mind. He wanted to say yes to see if she was just trying to impress him, but at the same time, he wanted to say no because he knew he probably wouldn't be able to handle it if what she was saying turned out to be true.
"Well?" Bulma pushed as she looked at him expectantly.
"Whatever." he muttered as he reluctantly opened their connection. He blocked her from all of his thoughts and prepared himself for the onslaught.
It was most definitely not what he had been expecting.
There were so many that if he focused too hard, it made him dizzy. He caught one every few minutes and even then he couldn't believe most of the things he was seeing or hearing.
The first was a memory of her and her parents. The three of them were in their palace, eating junk food and laughing and watching television. Bulma looked around six years old and was cuddled up in between her parents on a burgundy sofa. He had never seen Bulma look so happy and at peace before.
The scene at the palace on Earth soon faded away and then the large field surrounding the back half of his father's palace filled his mind. She and Vegeta looked to be only around seven or eight and it was shortly after his mother had died. The two of them were sparring and Vegeta was quite clearly kicking her ass. He almost laughed at the promise she made to herself to get strong enough to return the favour.
Suddenly they were inside his father's throne room and Vegeta was stood beside his father, with his younger brother at his side. Vegeta smirked when he heard what vulgar things she had been thinking about him that day and he had to admit, the shock on his face when she said what her power level was, was pretty amusing.
The scenery soon shifted again to the memory of when Frieza killed her parents as a way of telling her he was challenging her to go through with her threat, and as Vegeta felt her heart literally break in two and her mind rip apart, he promised himself that if she couldn't kill the lizard, then he would.
Once again, the scenery shifted, but this time they were in utter darkness and Vegeta wondered if this was when she had gone into a coma. It would make sense seeing as though that was what happened after she changed. He could feel his own presence and he could feel her panic as she tried to find him in the darkness. Then suddenly, they were in front of her other self. He smirked when the evil Bulma said that Bulma often thought about sleeping with him. He could tell she had tried to blur that part out but his Saiyan hearing still heard the words. He watched intensely as Bulma used his own attack with such grace even though she seemed absolutely lethal. He couldn't help the pride that filled his chest as she won her inner battle using one of his attacks, an attack she had never even seen before. It must have been due to the energy he'd shared with her. Vegeta continued to watch and listen as Bulma ran towards his aura, desperate to see him and then relief filled his senses when she finally saw him.
Bulma ended the short display of memories with a sly smirk. "I told you that you wouldn't be able to handle it." she stated smugly.
"So all you think about is fucking me, hm?" he said teasingly.
Her mouth fell open. "No! She was lying. I have never thought about you in that way before!" she said stubbornly as she folded her arms over her chest and refused to make eye contact. For some reason, it felt like her chest was swelling with shaky breaths and she shifted slightly in her seat.
Vegeta's plan had worked but he didn't know how long it would remain that way. He had only mentioned what he had so that she would forget about him not being able to handle her thoughts. "Of course." Vegeta smirked.
"She was!" Bulma argued. "If I honestly thought about you that way then I would have done something about it!"
"Then why haven't you?"
"Well because I-" Bulma paused as she realised the trap she had just fallen in to. He had purposely set her up so that she would admit to wanting to sleep with him. Narrowing her eyes, she looked at him with a smirk. "I see what you're doing."
"And what is that?"
Her eyes narrowed even further. "You're trying to trick me into saying something that would make it sound like I want to sleep with you."
"Why would I trick you into saying something if there is nothing to say?"
She had no idea what to say. All she knew was that she was losing the argument and she didn't like it one bit. "Fine, I do think about you in that way. But so what if I do?" she raised an eyebrow at him.
Vegeta's eye widened for a fraction of a second before returning to their normal size. He hadn't expected her to actually admit to it. The girl really was an enigma.
When Vegeta didn't answer, Bulma took that as a sign as to say that she had won the argument.
"Now if you don't mind, Vegeta," she said as she stood up from the bed, "I would like to go to bed. But you can help me… if you like."
Once again, Vegeta had been left speechless by the girl. She had managed to turn the whole conversation around so that she had the upper hand.
Vegeta stood up and advanced on Bulma until she was pressed against the wall with no escape. He placed each hand at the sides of her head and leaned in close so that he could whisper in her ear. He could hear the increasing speed of her heartbeat and he could smell the sweet scent of her arousal.
"This isn't over, girl." he whispered huskily into her ear, his teeth very gently scraping over her ear lobe as he spoke, making her body shiver in response.
Bulma closed her eyes as she felt his body press against hers but when nothing else happened, she opened them to find she was alone in her room.