Chapter Twelve: Fallin'

If he had to be honest with himself, he would describe the current feeling surging through his body as pure, unadulterated joy. One would probably be inclined to ask why, as this particular person was never one to really throw himself to the depths of such an emotion. He would much rather scowl and fight than ever feel the need to hop up and down like a squalling brat. As it was, he was elated, for there in what was once the rubble of his old, metal, torture chamber stood a gleaming, larger, newer GR.

Jubilations!

Two weeks had passed since the second incident with his beloved gravity room. Two weeks since Bulma's parents had immediately returned home. Two weeks since her eyes had been healed, since she had returned to the sanctity of her labs, and two weeks since he had regained the ability to completely submerge himself in training. It had been difficult, he had to admit, to continue to train without the GR, and even more so when the two people who had designed it had placed it within a list of other projects. He had calmly bided his time, as he knew that the tiny, little splurge of guilt remaining from getting her involved in that accident was what was really keeping him from demanding that the GR be replaced.

Oh well.

His mental bitching and belly-aching was put to rest as he let his eyes graze over the newly polished and rebuilt structure. Had he been a human, he was sure he would've pissed his pants. As it was though, he let a ghost of a smile grace his face before he did a 180 and walked towards the house. Although he was itching to use his new toy, he knew he had to get something out of the way or he'd never have any peace. A part of him cursed this new-found gratefulness, while the other part encouraged the peace that it brought to his training regimen.

Porcelain-colored hands refrained from chucking the microchip they held across the room. It took quite a bit of strength and resistance, but she managed to instead place the green square back onto its stand. She had been working on the blasted thing for about four hours now and hadn't managed to get it in functioning order, choosing to blame it on the fact that it was alien technology and she had no idea how to fix it.

"Damn," she muttered, blinking away the blurriness from her eyes. They still bothered her from time to time, especially when she had to spend long hours in the lab, but overall they were back to normal. Her baby-blues would be well taken care of from now on. As it was, she needed a break. Shoving the mini-screwdriver to the side (along with everything else), she hopped up from her seat, feeling bones and joints pop from being stationary for so long. "Ah, much better."

"Getting old, are we?"

Her head whipped around, slightly unused to the sight of the man before her. They hadn't really been around each other much in the past two weeks. In fact, she could count the number of times she had seen him in that time span on one hand. It would've been very inconvenient indeed to run into one another, as weaknesses had been flying on both ends. Her blindness and his guilt had probably made them bond more than either would've deemed necessary. In simpler terms, it was weird, and she was internally freaking out. But externally, she was the same old badass as she had always been.

Raising a slender blue eyebrow, she placed a delicate hand on her hip. "If I recall correctly, you're older than I am."

The man before her flashed a toothy-smirk while crossing his arms. "At least my age doesn't show." He hoped she would take the bait; part of him rather enjoyed these verbal spars.

"What do you want?" She sighed, taking a swig from a wayward water bottle.

He shrugged, inclining his head towards the window where the dome stood, still sparkling and gleaming. And still unused. "I saw the new GR."

"Oh? Dad finished it up this morning. He figured you probably had a case of cabin fever by now."

"Hn."

They regarded each other for a moment, probably relishing the moment of awkward peace that was never fully enforced when either was in the other's presence. The weirdness was still there and it would most likely never fade away as it does between two friends that have a relationship throughout the years. These two were still too different and very much wary of their company.

She was the first to look away, of course. Her resolve began to fade under his scrutinizing gaze and she couldn't bear to have him analyze her any longer. "So, do you like it?"

Her voice shook him out of his reverie. Quite out of character, he fixed her with a puzzled gaze. "Huh?"

"The GR," she clarified, pointing towards the window with an elegant finger. Her eyes lingered on the machine, hoping to Kami that it could withstand his maltreatment for a few weeks.

He kept his gaze fixed on her, watching as she lightly pinched her lower lip between her teeth. Funny, he had never really noticed the association between the action and her current emotional state. She bit her lip when she was anxious. Such a normal action, but for some unfathomable reason, it intrigued him.

"It looks to be better than the old one."

"What? You mean you haven't tried it yet?" She dared a glance in his direction.

"No."

"Seriously?!"

"Is it really that hard to believe?" His usual scowl began to resurface.

Absently she pushed a lock of blue behind her ear, smiling to herself as she shook her head. "Sorry, I guess I had assumed you saw it this morning and locked yourself away in there. I'm so used to the hum from the generator that I didn't realize it had never been turned on."

It had been there since the morning? How unobservant had he become? Mentally he continued to berate himself, blaming everything from the lack of training to the backwater planet he was stuck on. She merely watched him, noting how his eyes widened slightly and the lower lip pouted out slightly when he was puzzled. He looked 'cute', really, although she would never risk her skin to say that out loud. Part of him still appeared to be a little boy that just needed to be hugged and coddled. The sane part of her, however, highly cautioned against it, so she chose to shoot down the idea and never resuscitate it ever again. Bad thoughts! Bad, bad thoughts!

Just as she opened her mouth to lift the tenseness from the air, he blurted out a "thanks" before spinning on his heel and trudging off to the GR. Her blue eyes followed his muscular form as he easily slid into the capsule, locking himself away to probably beat himself senseless for hours.

Oh yeah, major weirdness points there.

"The old bat's here," Vegeta muttered, standing in the threshold of his housemate's room. It was dimly lit, as she was hunched over a blueprint at her desk, squinting to make out the scribbles hastily written out. Once she had processed the man's message, however, her back straightened, eyes widened, and she gaped for a moment before collecting herself.

Bulma's grip tightened to the point of snapping her pencil in half. "W-what?"

"You heard me."

She hopped up from her chair, taking a few long strides to stand before the Saiya-jin. The sweats she wore hung loosely on her hips, and her tank top left little to the imagination. Discretely, he took a step back, wanting very much to not have to do that, but the mere fact that he had noticed bothered him.

"You're kidding!" The blue-haired woman whispered fiercely, hopping from foot to foot to keep from screaming out her agitation. When his gaze held the same, expressionless look as before, she hissed out a "damn" before darting to her closet to change into something more 'presentable'.

Bulma's grandmother—the woman deemed as the 'old bat'—had a habit of criticizing anything and everything associated with Dr. Briefs. This included Bulma, although not nearly to the same extent as material goods. Mrs. Kelley could be quite as ditzy as her daughter (Bulma's mother), and wanted nothing more than to make Dr. Briefs uncomfortable in every way possible. Vegeta very much disliked the hag, although there was something to be admired in her blunt responses. His first encounter with her had almost ended in disaster (and disaster usually meant the destruction of half the neighborhood). She had liked absolutely nothing about him: his hair was too black, his eyes too narrow, skin too pasty, muscles too compact…on and on it went until he had accidentally melted the fork he held in his hand. Bulma had quickly escorted him out of the room, where he then proceeded to leave the compound and destroy some uninhabited island.

Now she was back, and though he would've much rather spent his time in anyone else's company, he was a little curious to see what she would have to say this visit. For some odd reason, Bunny had thought it a good idea to inform Mrs. Kelley of Bulma and his brush with death (even though death had never even come close to touching him). Perhaps that was what this visit was for…another reason to blame the good doctor on something that had been out of his control.

"I don't have anything to wear!" whined the woman from her closet. He personally didn't care, as he was hungry and could probably eat them out of house and home right now. The Prince changed his mind, however, when Bulma bounded out of her closet, in a decent—but delicious—looking dress. "How's this," she asked, doing a quick twirl before him.

Maybe he was still recovering from the accident, but in that very moment, he was floored. That's not to say that he had never noticed the woman's beauty; she did point it out to him on a weekly occasion. But to see her stand there, in a form-fitting blue dress…he nearly gaped openly at her. His passive expression remained the same, as usual, but he couldn't help his eyes as they betrayed him.

"Well?" Bulma did a slower twirl, glancing a few times in the mirror to make sure the dress was still spotless and pressed.

Vegeta shifted uncomfortably to his other foot. "You look…" With her attention focused on him, he lost the rest of his sentence. Damn her doe-like stare!

"…Nice." The grin that spread across her face was almost enough to make him continue, but he decided to cross his arms over his chest. What the hell was wrong with him anyway?

The woman wasn't stupid. She knew better than to get overtly irritated that his compliment was lacking. To say that she looked nice in the dress was the nicest thing he had ever said to her in the first place. One didn't need to push the Saiya-jin to know that he could take it back in a heartbeat. Instead, she beamed.

"Thanks," she replied, absently brushing at the skirt. "We need to get you into something more…acceptable. I doubt Grandma would be all too silent on what you're wearing now." Although, personally, she'd hate to have him change out of his running shorts. Of course he was athletic, but that one tiny garment detail made him look all the more human and less like the brute he usually was.

Vegeta felt his frown deepen. "The hell I care what that bat thinks of my appearance."

"Oh, come on, Vegeta! You know we'll never hear the end of it at dinner if you don't have a shirt on." Determined to be a smartass, he shrugged on the shirt that had been hanging limply around his neck. "Ha, ha, ha. Very funny, ass. I'm serious! Please go shower, and please put on slacks and a shirt!"

"No."

Bulma pinched the bridge of her nose, praying to all that was holy that the man could cooperate with her just this once. How had they gone from getting along to him being a complete ass again? Well, not a complete ass. He had definitely improved in the civility area…but that was not to say that they suddenly got along. That would take years and years of work, and with the stress he was inducing, she highly doubted she'd live to see next year. What a jerk.

But he was a man. And men could be swayed one way or another through careful methods. Gaining up the courage (and shooing away the sudden exhaustion), she managed to cross the room to stand as close as the Prince could stand. Her eyes nearly widened as she felt the heat radiating from his body. Sure, his alien body ran a higher temperature than most humans could stand, but it seemed even more intense after he had finished his work out. Shaking it off, she clasped her hands under her chin.

"Please, Vegeta?" Batting her eyelashes proved to be an annoyance, but one she suffered through silently. "I know Grams isn't the easiest person to deal with, but if you don't get dressed you can't come to dinner. And if you don't come to dinner, she'll think you're avoiding her." True, but the old hag wouldn't care. "If she thinks that, she's bound to stick around. Secretly, I think she likes you…" A lie, but she could deal with that later. "You don't want her to stick around too long, do you?"

Her husky voice and mere proximity had thrown him off. All Vegeta could manage was a weak shake of the head.

"Won't you please get ready for dinner then?"

An equally puzzled nod answered.

Managing to put on the sexiest smirk she could, she leaned on her tiptoes, inches away from his face. "Thank you," she whispered, sure as ever that he could hear her. Quickly she turned away and rushed to her bathroom, feeling her cheeks burn in embarrassment.

Vegeta was left looking after her, still shocked, before shaking his head and spinning on his heel towards his bathroom.

This planet was ruining him.

"Bunny, dearest, you're looking as lovely as ever," claimed the old woman in a stuffy tone. She embraced her youngest daughter, eyeing the odd family behind her with the most critical glance.

Vegeta felt boredom and exhaustion strike his body with severity. He was almost tempted to bolt to his room, but his stomach won out that argument almost immediately. Instead, he let out a soft sigh, trying his best not to glare at the humans before him. His hands settled in his pockets—Bulma asked that he try not to scare whomever Grandma brought to dinner this time—and he waited to be acknowledged by the seemingly 200 year-old woman.

"Briefs, how are you?" The old woman turned her eyes on her son-in-law.

He didn't miss a beat. "Very well, mother. So glad you could join us for dinner today."

"Hmm, I'm sure." She turned to her blue-haired granddaughter. "Well child, how are you?"

Bulma struggled not to roll her eyes at her grandmother's treatment of her father. After two and a half decades, she was sure that she was used to it, although it never ceased to give her the slightest hint of irritation. "Fine, Grandma. You remember Vegeta, don't you?"

"Oh. Yes," she shuffled over to the alien prince, nearly half a foot shorter than him. She stuck out her hand and he took it, though he wanted very much to toss her towards the dining room so they could eat already. He stopped those thoughts, as Bulma was eyeing him with one of the evilest looks she had managed yet. Vegeta was nearly impressed.

Ever the gentleman, and still a Prince, he bowed politely and quickly pressed his lips to her wrinkled hand. "Mrs. Kelley, always a…pleasure," he managed, watching as a pleased look passed her face.

"Yes, yes. My Bulma, it seems your taste in men is improving. This one is much better than I had originally given him credit for. Better than that Yamcha. Definitely a keeper."

Bulma sputtered, feeling her face flame again as the taboo thought of her and Vegeta—together—passed through her mind's eye. "Grandma, it's—it's not like that between us. We're just…friends." Or as close to the definition of friends one could get.

"Hmm," the old woman replied, pressing her lips into a thin line. "I see. Yes, well, let me introduce Thomas. He's recently joined your grandfather's company, may he rest in peace." A tall man walked in, his eyes a sort of gray-blue, with dark hair. His complexion nearly rivaled Vegeta's. "And here's Angela. She's my new secretary. They're twins," she crowed, laughing lightly as a woman walked in to join her brother. They were much the same in coloring, though her hair was a bit more brown than black. After a series of greetings, and some staring from the Briefs' household, they filed into the dining room to begin their meal.

Sorry this took so long! I've been busy running errands and working out so there hasn't been much time for this…although I hope this chapter makes up for it! So now we see Bulma and Vegeta come full circle…they can't act like they have before, but they're too afraid to get any more friendlier, heh heh. Next chapter ought to be interesting ;)

In case anyone was wondering, their names weren't mentioned in the first part of this chapter because they didn't really know who they were at that point. They've changed so much throughout this story that they didn't understand what was going on in their heads haha! So review and I shall work on this next chapter!!