Bulma rushed outside towards the demolished gravity room. 'Not again,' she thought fearfully. And worse, it was her fault this time. "Vegeta!" she yelled as she spotted him laying amongst the wreckage and dropped to her knees beside him when she reached him. He had blood running down the side of his face from a gash on his eyebrow, his chest was badly burned and bleeding, and he wasn't moving. "Vegeta?" Bulma whimpered cradling his head in her lap.

Vegeta was roused by the movement. "Bulma," he rasped. "Get the—"

"Right, I'll get a doctor, hang tight." She started to get up but the injured Saiyan grabbed her wrist.

"No, senzu—" he groaned in pain when he tried to sit up and collapsed. He looked down at himself and saw the main culprit for his reaction: A piece of metal lodged in his side.

Bulma shrieked in horror when he yanked the metal out of his body and a wave of blood gushed from the wound.

"Senzu bean . . . my room," he said breathing heavily and letting his eyes close.

"You have a senzu bean? Where at in your room?"

He didn't answer and she noticed the rise and fall of his chest had slowed considerably. Bulma scrambled up from the ground and raced to the compound. When she got inside the prince's room she searched his desk first and found nothing. She checked his dresser next pulling open the top drawer and tossing its contents over her shoulder as she looked for the senzu bean. She found it in the second drawer, instantly recognizing the brown pouch it was in. She grabbed it and ran back outside. When she got to Vegeta he still wasn't moving. She hurried to dig the bean out of the pouch and pushed it inside his mouth with her finger.

"Come on, swallow it!" Bulma tried to force him to chew it by manually opening and shutting his jaw with her hands. He just laid there lifeless. She put her ear to his chest and tears stung her eyes when she couldn't hear a heartbeat. "No," she whispered. She cupped his face again, moving his mouth, trying desperately to get him to swallow the bean. "Swallow the damn bean, Vegeta! Is the Prince of all Saiyans going to let a little explosion take him out?" Bulma took her fist and brought it down on the center of his chest as hard as she could and Vegeta's eyes shot open and he started choking on the bean in his throat before managing to swallow it. Soon after, his wounds started disappearing and his blood stopped spilling onto the ground.

Bulma threw herself down on him and pressed her forehead against his. "I'm so sorry," she sobbed. "This is all my fault." She blubbered through an explanation about how she had sent her employee Tam to tell him that the gravity room repair was only temporary until the indoor room was finished and not to push it so hard until then. But she got so caught up in arguing with him, and then going out of her way to avoid him to prove the point that she was with Yamcha, she neglected to tell him. Because of her, he'd been seriously injured and nearly died. When he stopped breathing, she really thought she had lost him. It was a more devastating blow to her heart than when she heard the news that Yamcha was dead. As she cried over him, she wondered what that meant and how that could be possible. All she knew was that the thought of him dying made her feel like dying, too.

Vegeta lay speechless while Bulma's tears poured down his face. And he felt the same confusion he felt when, after the first time he blew up the gravity room with himself in it, she was at his bedside when he awoke. Why did the woman feel so much concern for him? From day one of his stay on earth, not knowing him at all, she had expressed concern towards him in ways that no one else had before when she had no reason to care for him. He didn't understand it then and he still didn't now. But it made him feel good to know that, in the event of his death, someone would be this torn up about it. 'She'd be the only one in the universe torn up about it,' he mused as he sat up to stroke her wet cheek with his fingertips.

Bulma sniffled and gazed back into the dark eyes that were staring intensely at her. She wondered what he was thinking, but mostly . . . she wanted him to kiss her again. Bulma closed her eyes and leaned forward. He hesitated as his eyes dropped to her lips that were beckoning to his own. He had kissed her before but this time felt different than the others. He did not have this stirring sensation in his heart the other times. This time felt pivotal. Slowly, he closed the distance between their lips and when they touched, fireworks of passion set off around them; vibrant sparks bouncing in the air, leaping, crackling and scattering in all directions. There was no stopping them. They were spirited away to a place where time, reality, and consequence were mere backdrops to the heat generating from them.

"Bulma?"

Bulma gasped when she saw Yamcha standing there and broke away from Vegeta. "Yamcha! I—"

"You what?" Yamcha cut her off, fuming as he looked from her to Vegeta, who was sitting casually on the ground with his arm resting on his bent knee, with his other leg stretched out in front of him.

Bulma stood up and and stuck her hands in her pockets, not knowing what else to do with them as she looked away guiltily. "I didn't mean for this to happen," she said softly. "I'm-, I'm sorry, Yam."

"Do you love him?" Yamcha demanded. He didn't want to believe it was true; he didn't want to believe that Bulma had actually fallen for the scoundrel. It had to be some kind of mistake, maybe he tricked her somehow. Maybe his own eyes were playing tricks on him and he didn't actually see her kissing him back so passionately.

Bulma looked up in surprise. She looked back and forth between the two men, Vegeta wearing his typical visage of indifference and Yamcha looking crushed . . . absolutely crushed. Yamcha was supposed to be the love of her life. After 10 years together she thought he was it for her, she wouldn't find anything better. He loved her and she was supposed to love him and only him. The answer to his question should have been a simple "no." Only, she didn't feel like "no" was the right answer. Her heart was screaming just the opposite. It was bizarre, it was unbelievable . . . could it be that she really did love Vegeta? She stared at the ground, frowning in confliction, not knowing how to respond. She couldn't give herself a straight answer, how could she give him one?

Yamcha's fists clenched and unclenched at his sides. Her silence spoke loud and clear. But he already knew the truth when he saw them kissing. He was shocked when he got home from a night out with his teammates and saw them making out on the ground. He may as well have been invisible, they were too wrapped up in each other to notice his presence. At first he couldn't move or speak. He felt like he had been standing there for hours before he regained his senses and spoke up. And as he stood there, Vegeta's words to him when they first set the 60 day time frame for their bet echoed in his mind:

"Oh believe me, it'll be over long before then. The moment the woman is no longer yours, you'll know it."

"You lose, weakling."

"It's not a game, Vegeta," Yamcha said icily.

The prince laughed. "Isn't it? And I won."

"What is he talking about, Yamcha?" Bulma asked.

Yamcha paused for a long moment before admitting. "This was all a bet."

"A bet? What do you mean?"

"I bet Vegeta that . . . that he couldn't get you to fall for him. The loser of the bet was supposed to leave Capsule Corp."

Bulma gaped at him. "You did what? Yamcha, how could you make a bet like that?"

"Because I wanted to get rid of him! I thought this was the perfect way to do it. I never thought you'd actually go and fall for this asshole!" he yelled with his chest heaving in anger. "I thought you were better than that, Bulma."

Her cheeks flushed hotly but she didn't have a retort. There was no defense for herself. She'd done a terrible thing to him. She'd hurt him, bet or no bet, she made the decision on her own, no one forced her. But she still felt betrayed. By the both of them. Her eyes strayed to Vegeta, who was standing now with his arms crossed over his chest. He hadn't said much during the confrontation and he hadn't looked at her since Yamcha showed up. So, it was all just a bet . . . but the things he made her feel were very real. Was any of it real for him?

Yamcha got even angrier at the way she was looking at Vegeta. He saw the hope in her eyes. What could she possibly be expecting from a guy like him? "Don't you get it? He doesn't give a damn about you," he spat. "It was just a game to him! He just said so himself."

Bulma chewed her bottom lip. "Is that true, Vegeta?"

The prince turned his back on her. "Why wouldn't it be?" he said coolly before taking off into the air.

Yamcha gave her a withering glance that screamed, 'I told you so' and stalked off towards the house. He had to pack.

Bulma sank to her knees in the grass and her shoulders slumped. "What just . . . happened?"

Vegeta sat on the roof that night in his usual spot brooding. He'd won. He had set out to put both of the humans in their place, making amusement for himself out of their pain in the process, and he'd succeeded. He should have been pleased. He shouldn't have been feeling any nagging residual feelings. He shouldn't have been irritated that the bet was over already. It didn't matter that he was so absorbed in kissing Bulma that Yamcha was able to catch him unawares and discover them sooner than he intended. He won. That was all that mattered. He had no regrets or remorse—he was immune to those sentiments. He was also immune to the muffled sounds of crying wafting up to his ear from the woman's balcony on the gentle night breeze. He refused to feel anything.

AN: Merry Christmas:)