Doo de doo! "Oh Thursday doesn't even start, it's Friday I'm in love!" I love 80's music. All those great British accents…drool…okay, stop being a dopey girly girl, Teresa! You have your Writing Clips in! Look how sophisticated you look…actually, I think I look like a twelve-year old…hmm…at least my bangs are out of my face. Anyway, some of you might have noticed that dirty evil Teresa has been starting new stories WITHOUT FINISHING this one! How evil can one authoress be? Well, I'll tell you right now that it is all my teddy bear's fault, but we won't get into that. We're not speaking right now cause he made some snide comments and I might've told him to stick it…nevermind. Okay, well now that I've overdosed on Mexican Wedding Cookies…mmmm, cookies. Jade, envy me and my endless supply of dessert food and prepackaged chippies…Now that I let my thoughts wander again, I'll have to apologize. Oh, I see the problem! Wait a second…Okay, back to the eighties music! Woohoo, I'm so on track now. On with part 10!
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A Taste of Humanity
Part 10
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"Get dressed 18! We need to go shopping, come on!" Bulma waited impatiently outside the android's door. Krillin was downstairs, busying himself with cleaning the front room and doing all the dishes. There was no way he was being taken along with those two hardcore shoppers. He would only get in their way, and when they realized he was holding them back, he'd likely be viciously punished. The dishes were so much safer.
"Give me a second, Bulma. I'm just having some trouble with this damn dress." 18 called from inside the room. "Wait a second…Bulma, get in here right now!"
Krillin chuckled as he heard the intense sounding conversation drifting from upstairs. Perhaps 18 had discovered that her chosen outfit had no matching handbag. It was funny how two women who had been through situations which could have potentially been the end of the world could get so worked up about something only the two of them would ever notice or care that much about. The voices were now likely to be inaudible though, now that Bulma had joined 18 for some sort of private outfit counsel or other.
Back upstairs, Bulma immediately rushed into the room where 18 was trying to get dressed. "What's wrong, that dress matches your earrings perfectly and…" suddenly, 18 turned around so Bulma could see that her zipper was far from wanting to join together as it should. "18…is that dress too small?"
"It shouldn't be, don't you remember when we bought it? It fit me perfectly." 18 growled her frustration at this problem. "What the hell is going on here? Am I suddenly becoming fat?"
"Don't even joke about that, that's not funny!" Bulma hissed in a low tone. "What if Krillin heard you?"
"Who cares? It's not like he'd have a fit if I put a few pounds on." 18 rolled her eyes. "He loves me too much. But it's definitely worrisome…"
"Definitely…" Bulma rubbed at her chin quizzically, walking a circle around 18 and examining her critically. "Have you been eating healthy? Exercising regularly?"
"Of course. I do almost all the cooking, and Krillin and I still train everyday. It's nice to be off away from that nasty old man every once in a while, even though he's learned by now to keep out of my way." 18 sighed, looking down at her body and wondering where the extra weight was. "Is my butt getting big, do you think?"
"No, same annoyingly perfect android butt you've always had." Bulma sighed as she glanced at 18's profile, then froze. "Oh my god."
"What?" 18's eyes widened at the shocked and serious tone Bulma had taken on.
"Your…wait a second, lay down for a second." Bulma commanded, and 18 was so confused that she complied without argument. Bulma pressed a hand to the slight pouch that 18 hadn't noticed forming on her stomach. "Hmm…very suspicious. This isn't normal weight gain. It's too centralized."
"So? What's wrong?" 18 was beginning to feel a bit nervous with the way Bulma was staring at her and prodding her stomach as though she was looking for something.
"Maybe just my imagination…18, when was the first time Krillin and you had sex?" Bulma asked bluntly. 18 admired her friend's candor, but it was sometimes embarrassing.
"Oh, um, about six months ago." 18 told her.
"And have you been doing it pretty regularly? Like twice a week or so?" Bulma continued in a perfectly serious and scientific tone. 18 rolled her eyes in shock.
"What's with all the questions about our sex life! What does that have to do with anything?" 18 growled.
"It depends. You don't use contraceptives, do you?" Bulma asked. "And it's been regular?"
"I…no, we don't, and yes it has! Are you satisfied? Did you want to know what kind of underwear he wears, maybe? Or if we've ever done it somewhere other than in the bed?" 18 asked sarcastically. Bulma quirked a malicious eyebrow.
"Maybe we can talk about that later, you know. Trade stories and such. But this is serious. Now, I just have two more questions." Bulma assured her, regaining her serious poise. "Have you recently had any health problems, anything at all? No matter how insignificant, I need to know if I'm going to be sure."
"You know nothing's ever wrong with my health, Bulma. My maintenance system is in perfect working order, especially after that adjustment I made a couple months ago." 18 rolled her eyes at the ridiculous question.
"Why did you make an adjustment, though?" Bulma jumped on the comment.
"Well, it isn't as though I've never been sick. Every once in a while, the system needs an upgrade, and it's easy enough for me to do it without any sort of surgery." 18 shrugged as though this were all very mundane. "And a few months ago, I had some sort of stomach illness. Every morning I felt nauseous, but it always passed. I figured my system was just in need of an upgrade."
"Kami, 18, now we see yet another one of the disadvantages of letting an obsessive megalomaniac crackpot asshole raise a little girl." Bulma buried her face in her hands before sitting up, looking very weary. "Did you never learn anything about being a woman? Besides the obvious, self explanatory things?"
"What do you mean?" 18 sat up defensively, straightening her back and sticking her chin out.
"Never mind. Just forget I asked that. Okay, last question. When was your last cycle?" Bulma asked in a tired voice.
"Cycle?" 18 narrowed her eyes at Bulma as though she were speaking some foreign language. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Kami save me!" Bulma threw her arms skyward before returning her attention to the confused android. "Okay, now 18, have you ever bled?"
"Of course I have, you've seen me fight!" 18 shook her head. She didn't see why Bulma was getting so frustrated. If she was going to ask stupid questions, she couldn't expect anything but stupid answers.
"No, I mean…without getting hurt! You know, from down here?" Bulma indicated her own pelvic region and stared expectantly at 18 who suddenly caught on to her meaning.
"Oh, that! Yes, I've done that. I thought it was leftover internal damages from previous battles." 18 told her.
"Well it's not. I swear to everything holy, Dr. Gero is the worst father in the history of the universe. He didn't explain any of this to you, did he?" Bulma shook her head before rushing on. "Every woman does that about once a month from when she's around twelve until she becomes too old to bear children. If you do that, it basically means that your body is fertile."
"Really?" 18 seemed a bit excited now, but then she sighed sadly. "I wish I would have known that before it stopped."
"It stopped?" Bulma sat up erect again, her attention riveted on 18.
"Yeah, about…oh, five months ago maybe?" 18 sighed. "Does it mean I'm too old? I didn't think I was very old."
"No 18, you hopeless twit. It means you're pregnant." Bulma told her in a no-nonsense tone.
"I'm WHAT?!" 18 roared, leaping into the air.
"Calm down, 18." Bulma smiled, remembering when she'd found out she was pregnant with Trunks. She wondered if she had looked half as confused as the woman before her did.
"But it's impossible!" 18 cried out. Just then, there was a knock on the door.
"18, Bulma, are you two doing alright in there? I heard yelling…" Krillin spoke outside the door. 18 was immediately the picture of calm composure in a half-zipped dress.
"We're perfectly alright, Krillin. Are the dishes done?" 18 asked as Bulma gave her a look of utter shock. The transformation had been immediate, and it still had Bulma's head spinning.
"Ah, no, not yet." Krillin's sheepish voice replied.
"Well you'd best get back to them, then. Bulma and I will be able to handle ourselves fine without your help." 18's voice was still perfectly calm. It was utterly amazing. She waited for the sound of Krillin's footsteps to disappear down the stairs before turning her still calm face to Bulma. "Now, as I was saying, it's utterly impossible for me to be pregnant." 18 told the other woman, who took a moment to regain her composure.
"About that. Well, I can see why you'd worry about the remaining functions left to you by Dr. Gero's tampering, but as you can see, you're showing all the signs." Bulma explained. "If you'd like, we could go back to my lab for a test."
"I suppose that I can do that." 18 answered slowly. "But I want Krillin to come. Tell us at the same time, so that if it's true, he can be surprised."
"Fair enough, but I suggest you get dressed first. May I suggest something a bit loose fitting?" Bulma teased and 18 shot her a glare.
"Don't start with me. You're only getting on my case because you're jealous of my perfect ass!" 18 shot back at the other woman. Both of them broke into giggles as 18 picked out some clothes.
"You figured me out!" Bulma cried out in mock horror.
"Of course I did. Didn't you know that Dr. Gero gave me mind reading powers?" 18's eyes widened threateningly and there was a pause before Bulma caught on to the joke and laughed, tossing the discarded dress at her friend.
"That wasn't funny." She pouted.
"You're the one who laughed." 18 replied easily.
Bulma smiled slightly and turned to leave so 18 could dress. It was nice to have a friend who liked shopping as much as she did, but that wasn't all she had in common with 18. They both loved to match wits and engage in banter, but it wasn't the same type of thing as she did with Vegeta. With Vegeta, there was always so much emotion involved, and with all the flaring passion between them, they'd either end up not speaking or kissing frantically. Obviously that was different than her banter with 18, but it wasn't just because they were friends. It was a sort of understood mutual respect for each other that they had developed as well as the fact that 18 and her never really argued. They teased. It may have seemed odd, but Bulma counted her as one of her best friends, and she dearly hoped that 18 and Krillin would find happiness together.
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The End (Of Part 10, That Is)
No pouting cause it was kinda short. I'm still upset with my teddy bear, and it's hard to write when you're angry.