Two Standard decades of his life had been speckled black space stretching out with nauseating infinity.

The last few years have been clashingly different, but indistinguishable all the same. The same confining, rounded structure of the GR, his pod. The same regimented, single-minded schedule. The same violent goals. The same deeply resented, deeply seated inferiority.

Except, where once he was Frieza's weapon, honed and whet with every purge, he was now his own blade, to seek and destroy on his terms. And yet Vegeta has never felt less in control.

Erupting from Namekian soil and spitting doom, and overcome with the hunger of the walking dead for life, he'd been full of the fury of the born again. It hadn't lasted; at least, not that pure thing it had been before he'd been winked back to Earth. He'd been discarded by both Frieza and Kakarot, forgotten, left to steep in his humiliation on a backwater planet. His mutated hatred for himself found its host in the last Saiyan left to him. It bit into this new prey with its ape's teeth, aroused further by the struggle like those drug-addled bastards who'd jumped him on Ily'e 7 before it was colonized as Frieza 1699. There was a silver lining here, he'd choked, weeks into his vacation on Earth. And with new self-volition, he swore he'd make the universe itself weep for leaving him out of history.

Yesterday, blue curls glanced out the rounded windows of Capsule 3. His stomach had clenched with anxiety, but his eyes had followed, glued.

Today he discussed programming code with The Woman. She has the arrogance and optimism from having always been free. She walks with a purposeful stride, her curls bouncing spiritedly. Her brows pinch together when she's frustrated with her work, with him. Her nails are smoothly rounded, the crescents pale ivory. Her lips are full and pouty when she first wakes up, blinking over her second coffee. Inside he has a full inventory of details on her. He's become a collector. A part of him that's tangy as metal and cold as empty space indexes it under "Self-Protection." But he's becoming something Other than that machine, that tool, that fouled definition of "Saiyan" that he rebelled against with every breath. He's becoming More, and Different. The part of him that's new and alien is unafraid to admit that it's cataloging these details because it simply likes to.

But still, under Vegeta's skin, the same sickness guides him; it isn't the fury of living, but of dying, of mimicry, of existing in a body with a soul that's already dead, that only makes its presence known with the rebellious gestures of the caged.

Except for when blue curls slide across pale, round shoulders and rasp against paper as her pencil sketches out radical ideas in her notebook. He likes to listen to her work, seated in the spare chair in her office. Sometimes the woman's father glides in, puffing on a pipe, and the tobacco smoke makes him sneeze. Sometimes, his conviction knots and something he's beginning to understand are his own feelings about the events that make up his life, these things gnaw at him all day and night. He pushes himself too hard in the gravity chamber to exorcise it, but he always turns back around and lopes to her, planting himself in the office chair to watch her wrap his swollen fists in bandage tape as she tsk's at him. He looks at her long eyelashes bat against her pale cheeks as she surveys his knuckles and says nothing.

The vacuum of space is nestled inside him, the only lover or friend he's ever known. Over and over he relives the press of his forehead against the window of the pod as he watched it watch him. He was like a toy in a snow globe. Frieza shook him up, made him put it to rights again. Vegeta'd always known what to do, didn't even disagree with it. Back then, he'd never questioned his role, his position in the game, his being-in-the-world, a world that was not his own, a world where no one but Frieza owned anything. They hadn't even owned their own destinies or bodies, whose daily use required bartering their labor with the blood of others. Not until a few years ago, at least, before the mess on Namek, did he question his purpose and begin stewing with something he would later identify as rage, and remorse.

Just a few short years ago, violence had been the rule of thumb, so often applied that it had become a fiction, a poor imitator of something that was supposed to be wild and passionate. Violence was language; he'd only been sentient when violence used him to communicate itself. The last two decades had been a life of savagely curbed existence, with sin at the root of it all. Except on his side of the universe, "sin" was so far removed from a concept of "good" and "evil" that it just was. Sin was living. In Frieza's domain, sin was the currency of trade.

Here on this planet, though, there are liminal periods, blips in space, where suddenly he has the opportunity to choose, but there's more than one answer. Sapphire eyes gaze up at him from a mess of curls, asking for his opinion of a prototype. Sometimes he shuts the door, settles back into his round, confining space, where it's familiar, and hollow, and breathless, and void, where he acts out the routine, mimicks the military object that was once Frieza's, mimes the empty gesture of control that he places severely on his own body now that no one else has a right to it. Pain was more than just punishment, it was self-realization, and clarity, and submission to a power that was right and wrong. It's frankly the only language he knows to use to talk to himself.

But sometimes he watches her hands as they adeptly empty a training bot, and she asks him firmly for a screwdriver, hunched over the metal belly with complete disregard that her back to him has left her defenseless to a widely known predator, and he has a choice. The choice to succumb to the emptiness, or the chance to breathe in the wild wide open.

And he hands her the screwdriver.

It's with some obvious guilt that Bulma sits the recently deceased computer on her work desk and turns to the Saiyan leaning against the wall.

"Can't do it," she admits heavily. "Computer's on the fritz."

Even so, her mouth slants as he, predictably, returns her news with a scowl.

"I need it done now."

"I know that," she says through her teeth, before she carefully exhales. Her shoulders slump. "Look, it will get done. Just...later."

She watches him turn towards the window, his strong jaw gritting, his crossed arms bunching with an unspoken effort. A curious pang of regret that she can't help courses through her.

Bulma knows that his broody funk has something to do with his frantic need to perform the ritual of beating the shit out of himself for upwards of twelve hours a day. Without that ritual, he's lost. She worries her lip, worries about his penchant for hurting himself, resents it.

And that's why she finds herself neck deep in tomorrow's 5 am, with mounting evidence that it is indeed possible to survive off fumes and day old coffee. But it was worth it. Oh, Kami, was it worth it.

"How much longer?" Rumbles a voice from behind her, and she turns in surprise, looking at the fixture in the shadows of her lab.

"It's done." She swivels in her chair, meeting his eyes with a look of uncertainty.

She watches his shoulders shake, watches him run his palm over his face with bald exhaustion.

She watches him, and for the first time, sees this house guest, with the chip on his shoulder and rough edges, as just a man. For the first time, he could be human, and his skin glows amber in the light of her office lamp, the shadow of day old scruff on his cheeks, and she wonders briefly what it would feel like to skim her hands over his tired face in comfort.

"Thank you," he finally admits, voice dragging over relief.

"It was my pleasure," she concedes, humbled.

He reminded her of this guy she used to date during one of the many falling-outs she had had with Yamcha. He had been sweet enough, and he seemed like a fun guy, but in an underdeveloped way, like a pancake you excitedly cut into that's still doughy in the center. Later, she discovered that it's because he was already in a relationship—in this case, a bromance. He had one of those needy, immature best friends that was absolutely hair-pullingly annoying, the kind that dropped "dude" as if it were god's gift to pepper language, the kind that was always getting his friend into trouble because he thought it was funny. And even though it was very clear to Bulma that it was just really juvenile, her boyfriend was in a bad bromance with a dumbass. And at the end of the week, Bulma had come to the conclusion that, fair or not, it also made her boyfriend a dumbass.

Once she'd dropped the breakup bomb on him, leaving him with his mouth moving as if only hot air existed up there and his mouth was its exhaust port, Bulma swore off men who had something more important in their lives than romancing her. But it was half-hearted, because later she got back with Yamcha, who she was pretty sure was in love with a version of her rather than the reality, but she missed his predictability. And then the obvious final falling, with Vegeta.

Anyway, her date reminded her of this brief boyfriend she used to have that she hadn't thought of in years, but in this case, she wasn't fighting another boy for his attention. Instead, she's fighting the idiot for his own attention.

Bulma sipped her martini and listened with poor enthusiasm. Yamcha could have told the guy her stiff, blank expression meant WARNING, WARNING: the flat line of her lips; her strained gaze over the cloth napkins, the little candle, and the salad bowls between them; the quick, cutting body language. Yamcha had always had a knack for reading her moods. Unfortunately, he'd never had a talent for overcoming them.

The man was going on and on about his most recent paper for a psychology journal. It wasn't a field she had much experience with—unless personal experience with megalomaniacs counted. She ticked off the most recent offenders: Cell, both androids, although Eighteen was loosening up, Frieza, daddy Piccolo, Pilaf...Vegeta. The behavioral sciences are a bit fleshier, a bit more controversial than her own hard sciences, and if she cared what this guy thought of her, her ego'd be a little dampened by her lack of knowledge in this field.

But she didn't. It was becoming crystal clear that this date, a favor for her mother and a boon to her recently debased self-esteem, was a mistake. But it wouldn't even matter if she was at all interested in the guy, anyway: the guy was still going on and on as if she were hanging on to his every word. She wondered if his effusive blindness to her misery was because he's, mystifyingly, used to women's attention. Her eyes flicked over his suit. Nah: the charcoal gray suit is about a decade past its prime, his slicked back hair several seasons behind schedule. This was a man who hadn't had many encounters with women, but at least he's talking, which is more than she could ask for from Vegeta.

His work was in mental health; she'd picked up that much. He was talking about one of them now, as if eagerly selecting a fancy wine at a wine-tasting in order to wax on about its merits and earn a few googly eyes and pats on the back. The man may as well be wearing cashmere and an ascot, because he was holding up this particular disorder like surveying the viscosity of wine in the sunlight, with a smug, slanted smile that she was certain she's seen before on Cell's face.

"And it's nearly untreatable."

Bulma was applying a refresher layer of lipstick. She didn't intend on sticking around for the dinner course. "What's that again?"

"Narcissistic personality disorder. It's almost untreatable. Very elusive, even in my hands." He folded his hands together on the table and peered into their depths as if admiring a precious gem. Bulma glanced at them, just to make sure there was nothing there. "These people behave and intensely believe that they are the most important person in the world. And then their loved ones have absolutely no recourse: they can't point out the apparent problems this creates in their relationships, because this person is incapable of understanding that they're not the center of the universe. In their minds, they're incapable of doing any wrong."

Bulma snorts. "I know someone like that," she mutters, closing her purse with a snap.

He was really on a roll now, and Bulma immediately regretted encouraging him. "Many of my clients act as if they are the most important person in the world. They over-exaggerate their abilities, have unrealistic confidence in themselves, and are extremely selfish. They completely overestimate their talents and skills, lack empathy for others, and just cannot recognize the needs and feelings of others. It's tragic. Real tragic stuff. I wrote all about it in my master's thesis."

Bulma nearly choked, meeting his eyes for the first time since they'd brought out the bottle of wine. "Is that so?" She drained her glass of wine, but it's contents weren't doing anything to remove her from this situation.

He was really on a roll, becoming the textbook he was always meant to be, she figured. "Like Greek Narcissus, they long to stare at their image in the reflecting pool, but the pool must be completely still or it will distort their image. Not until they admit they have a problem can they be treated, not until after they've lost everything. Not until they have no one willing to wait for them on the other side any longer, when they've been stripped of all their illusions, can they acknowledge their own insignificance and their true feelings."

Bulma paled.

Not until they've been stripped of all their illusions can they acknowledge their true feelings.

"And who wants to stick around for someone like that? Anyway. Enough about me. Let me ask you: have you ever been to a private island?"

The restaurant door shut smoothly behind her. The delicate breeze ruffled her hair, the tips of it brushing her cheeks in a caress. Her pace was slow, thoughtful, as she walked the pier alone, the groups of friends and couples dressed for a Saturday night gliding past her like a stream around stone. She gazed out over the lake, the lights of the pier and the boats flickering on the choppy wake, and hugged her purse to her chest.

When the front door opened with a soft click, the living room was dark. Bulma's heels clipped the hardwood, echoing, as she made her way to Trunks' room. The crib was empty; a dull anxiety jabbed her, but she just made her way to her sitting room, as if pulled in by a fishing line.

She could see his hair superimposed over the tv screen, the movie quiet as white noise. She could see the other one's back, rising and falling, as she approached them from behind, in his blue onesie, on his belly on the couch. His fine, lavender hair, silky and shiny, freshly washed; his chubby cheeks and lips, wet and pursed with sleep. She ran her fingers delicately over his head, smiling at the way his breath hitched and then continued undisturbed, deep in dreams.

And then she turned toward the other one with a sad smile, her silhouette a cut out in front of the tv. He watched her, sunken into the couch, eyes black and gleaming in the dark. She fell into the couch next to him, ignoring him stiffening beside her, put her hands on her thighs, the hem of her dress under her palms.

And then curled her arms around his neck, burying her face into the familiar crook of his neck and inhaling. Her eyes watered.

"Just let me hold you," she assured him, sensing his growing panic. "I just need to hold you...and be held by you, for just a minute. For just a minute."

After a long moment, she felt him relax fractionally, felt the rise and fall of his chest, inches from hers. The inside of her elbows, on his broad shoulders. Her forehead against the edge of his shirt, the soft, warm skin of his collar. Squeezing her eyes shut against the world outside of this embrace, even if just for a moment. An act of rebellion against the world around them, a self-indulgence, a middle finger to his past, their past, the past year, to her date. A rebellion and an homage to every snarl of his lips at her easy affection over the years, to the snarl of the yarn that had knit them together, and then left them tangled.

His breath came out in a defeated sigh, and she fisted the back of his shirt, rested her cheek on his smooth cheek.

"Thank you," she breathed, husky with unspoken emotion.

"You're welcome," he finally answered, understanding, his dark voice throaty in the shadows.

A/N: As always, present tense indicates a scene from the past. It was real dicey trying to get the tense right in this chapter. If there are errors, don't hold it against me. I'll fix them...some time. I just desperately needed to set this chapter free. I release you, Ebenezer.