Author's Note: Funny. I had a hard time with this chapter. Kept wanting to leave it out. Or maybe, I was just being lazy. : ) Hope you enjoy.

Happy Birthday Vegeta

Chapter Ten: Aftermath

Bulma woke, an easy surfacing of awareness. Snugly tucked into a bed in the medical wing of Capsule Corp, she got the strangest flood of relief that she recognized her surroundings. Bad that she was in the medical wing, but unreasonably happy that she was home. Closely following the relief, was the knowledge that she wasn't alone in her bed. Curious and curiouser… Shifting her head she saw Son Gohan, sleeping soundly, looking so much like his father, that hot tears spilled and burnt damp trails to the pillow beneath them. She knew the sudden storm of emotion was unlike her, but she rarely indulged in its expression anymore. Useless things, tears. With a whimper she rested her head upon Gohan's and grieved for a loss that still plagued her when she least expected it.

Sniffling quietly, careful not to wake the snoozing demi-saiyan, she pushed herself to an upright position and gasped when every major muscle group protested. Confusion set heavily on her brow, as she tried to figure why she and Gohan were in the same bed, and why she felt like hell…Kami don't let them be related reasons… She started with a yelp as someone cleared their throat from within the darkness edging the room.

"Bulma?"

"Piccolo?" She searched the room, fully expecting Krillin and Yamcha to be waiting in the shadows, but disappointed by their lack of presence. She blinked bleary-eyed at the Namek who approached her bed, arms crossed, face grim, hugely intimidating, if not for the fact that she slept beside Son Gohan, the one person guaranteed to be able to reason with him.

The Namek glanced at the sleeping Son beside her, and his dark, usually inscrutable eyes, flickered with a number of emotions, what might have been regret, tenderness, sympathy? But, she was in the med-bay, and it's entirely possible that she took a crack on the skull and was dreaming the whole scenario. Course, if it were her dream, it wouldn't be Piccolo standing in front of her, or Gohan in her bed. Damn. She sighed.

Piccolo turned his suddenly expressive eyes on her and said, "He insisted, on the same bed. Not good enough being in the same room, No. We couldn't pry him from your side." He sounded, exasperated, but, indulgent. This sensitivity from the demon-born Namek, frankly, gave her the creeps.

"What exactly do you remember?" he questioned gently, with a small smile.

Dread churned a slow freeze in her stomach, and she swallowed past the knot in her throat, whose sole intention was to keep her from speaking, she wasn't ready yet….but for what, she had no idea.

She leaned back against the pillows and cast about for her recent memories. Her mouth trembled when they didn't march up in chronological order upon her demand. Fuzzy, bad feelings of absolutely, conspicuously, nothing were what she had. She frowned at Piccolo, and then realized she remembered him. "I remember you…Gohan, Goku…" ? Her voice trailed weakly off. The Namek kept his face still as the implications of her words rolled over him. Explaining an amnesiac Bulma to an angry Vegeta, was not his idea of a healthy pastime.

With a light breath, he replied, "As good a place to start as any. Do you remember what we were doing?" After a moment, she shook her head, a tight, tiny negative motion. "What about the Dragonballs?" he baited the line and waited for her response.

"Oh!" her breath caught as images undulated through the inky emptiness of her short term memory. "We found the last Dragonball! It's in a micro-capsule in my pocket--" she broke off as the rest of her reluctant recall trickled into full blown being. The last memories to congeal, were the ones of her telling Gohan that nothing was going to happen to them, and then black, stinging unconsciousness. Vague impressions of being tied up, helpless, nauseous and threatened roared from the hazy blackness in the back of her mind. Salty tears slid unchecked down pale cheeks.

"Oh God Piccolo! They were gonna cut off my head!" The scream that emerged was wordless and shrill, a small, hurt animal sound. She wrapped her arms around herself and rocked, and between sobs, she spoke brokenly.

"I…didn't see much….but I heard everything. The man carrying me wanted to keep me from the…Queen….and that…horrible woman wanted my hair!" Blank, blue orbs grew wide with disbelieving horror, frantic fingers flew to her head, and she began to shake violently, as they found short uneven lengths of hair. "Oh God!"

The desperation in her cry pierced Gohan's slumber, sharp quills tasseled with blue bird feathers, that for some reason made him furious. Shocked awake and vertical, he found himself in bed with a hysterical Bulma. Her tears were ragged and gasping, her body quaked it's vulnerability to him, and he was crushed by it. There was no way her present state was not his fault. She had trusted him to protect, and he had failed. He drew away, mortified, he had no business being anywhere near her. And yet, responsible as he was for every second of her agony, he could not move away. He wrapped the shelter of his arms around her and folded her trembling form against his, trying to restore some semblance of safety to her world. She melted against him and sobbed. He forced back tears of his own. "I'm so sorry Bulma, that I let you down…so sorry you had to go through that." His voice ached and broke with the sheer depth of his regret. He held her, absorbing her terror, assuming her grief, until the tears and trembling became, at least, controllable. Bulma looked at Gohan disoriented, her eyes red rimmed and her face chalky. "How long have we been gone?" She rasped.

"Not as long as it seems. Less than 24 hours," he hesitated, "you've been unconscious most of it." She touched the back of her neck where the blank sensation had begun, and shivered.

Gohan caught Piccolo's eye, and with a tilt of his dark hair, motioned for him to leave. The Namek nodded, accepting that they needed to work through this together, and silently withdrew his presence from the room. As his Sensei's ki faded, Gohan continued his explanation.

"I'm pretty sure you got more than one dose of their poison dart, and...I think being half-Saiyan helped me metabolize it a lot quicker than you." He moistened his lips nervously. "The doctor gave you a clean bill of health, physically." A quiet snort came from Bulma. "But?"

"But" he took a deep breath, "You're gonna be groggy until the poison is completely out of your system, and you may be…emotional…about the whole thing, for an 'indeterminate' amount of time."

Bulma slid back down on the distressed bed linens, and drew her knees up. She let her head drop slowly forward, as though it was unbearably heavy, and rubbed her face on the thin cotton blanket, drawing comfort from the faint familiar scents of lemon, bleach and starch. A tremulous sigh escaped as her fingers worried the short wisps of hair at the back of her neck. "I feel so fucking…vulnerable." she said without lifting her head.

Son Gohan trembled as he knelt beside her on the bed, aching and angry and helpless again. It was becoming a bore. "Bulma. Look at me." he ordered brusquely. She turned to him, and found his usually bright eyes weighted with unshed tears, dull with unresolved emotions that mimicked hers very closely. What he meant to tell her, was that he would never be caught so off guard again, that he would never fail her (or the Prince) again. What loosed itself from the slimy tangle within his chest and slipped between his unsuspecting lips, was, "Me too, Bulma, me too."

Compassion bloomed in the blue shadows of her eyes. "You were so concerned about not having your ki before they took us…how the hell did you get us out Gohan? I don't remember anything." The last words rang with her frustration.

Her compassion, as undeserving as it was, unleashed a tsunami of guilt that hammered at him trying to smash him apart leaving unrecognizable fragments of Gohan in the foamy surf.

He nearly strangled on his reply, so reluctant were his words to lie. "I found one of the men," his voice hardened with the memory, "..carrying you, don't know to where, I didn't ask. I made sure he won't be getting back up." His tone was hollow, like the words. Empty of all but placating half-truths. He fought off the urge to be sick right there…purge himself of all that had happened. "I quite literally ran into Piccolo and Krillin in the jungle, we took the jet back here…end of story." Gohan remembered her words, and so did Bulma.

"I've got to get cleaned up and get home. I told Vegeta I had a two-day conference, but that I'd be home early if I could. Not that he seemed interested. His birthday is tomorrow then." she finished thoughtfully. It took longer to gather the Dragonballs than she had anticipated, and at more personal cost, but she had them.

Kami! She had a lot to do.

"Hand me the phone Gohan. I need a hairdresser….no scratch that. I need a miracle-worker." she smiled carefully as if testing her ability to do so. A very small part of Gohan's pain was relieved by the return of her humor.

"You could use the Dragonballs." he offered, and thrilled when she socked him in the arm hard enough to bruise anyone else. She looked deeply into his black eyes, still silvered with the shadows of all they had not talked about. "We made it…thank you." Gohan visibly flinched. "Don't. Don't thank me." he replied in that eerie lifeless voice. "Are we getting together for Vegeta's birthday?" he changed the subject.

"Of course, dinner tomorrow night…at our house." she laughed as if practicing the sound, and found it genuine. "I probly won't ever be able to get Vegeta to go out on his birthday ever again." Son Gohan grinned with her in remembrance of the Saiyan Prince in a Sombrero.

"Okay, I'll see you then, unless you need an escort home?" She considered it for a full minute before she decided to answer. "I think I'll be just fine Gohan, thanks to you."

"Hmmmm." He brushed her cheek with his lips, and left before she could see through him.

Next on Happy Birthday Vegeta…."Something Wicked This Way Comes…Vegeta!" maniacal laughter