Author's Note: Okay, I couldn't help it. I had to post this one today or I'd burst.

That afternoon found Vegeta and Bulma wandering the down halls of an abandoned hospital. There were magnets that she needed that could be found in some kinds of medical imaging equipment. They held hands, only letting go for Vegeta to rip the housing off MMR machines and similar, or Bulma to fossick around inside. It was like a mockery of a romantic stroll – her partner didn't want to be there, and the rotting wallpaper and peeling vinyl flooring really set the scene. Vegeta held her hand stiffly, and she had to seriously doubt his hand-holding experience. Their bickering from the morning had ended with their strategising. Now they were just being withdrawn and civil.

When poking through the innards of one of these Bulma saw a pair of beady black eyes and a whiskery, furry face dart out of a gap, coming straight at her hand. She leapt away backwards, letting out of shrill squeal of horror. Vegeta caught her in mid flight, and Bulma tried desperately to climb him whilst keeping her eyes on the machine.

'RAT! RAT!' she cried.

Vegeta tried to put her down on the ground. 'Don't be so –' but whatever he was about to say was cut off as a rat the size of a small dog squeezed itself out of the housing, straight towards his feet. 'Argh!' Vegeta staggered backwards and crashed into a wall before remembering that he possessed the power of flight, and floated them out of reach. The rat stood on its hind legs and squeaked aggressively at them.

'Dear Kami!' swore Vegeta. 'It doesn't give up!' He blasted a ball of chi at the rat, which exploded.

Vegeta breathed hard and Bulma shuddered. And then she laughed. She'd never seen Vegeta react like that to anything. He glared at her and she laughed harder, until reluctantly he began to laugh also.

'Disgusting things,' he said. 'Eurgh!'

Next they went to find crystals. They struck it lucky in a sea-side resort town. There was, as she had hoped, a tacky crystal shop a street back from the seafront, entirely intact and unlooted, merely abandoned, and it had the type she needed. Bulma found she was enjoying herself. As she gloated over the easy find Vegeta wrapped an arm round her shoulders. She wondered if he knew he was smiling. It was such a surprising expression to see on his face that she almost dropped her own smile.

'Where to next?' he said.

'To Turtle Island to get the heart virus antidote.'

It had been weighing upon Bulma's mind, and now that the machine was near completion she was anxious to have it on hand. Before she could blink they were standing in the blazing afternoon sun of Turtle Island. The house looked worse than ever. A palm was now growing jauntily out of the upper storey window.

'What happened here?' said Vegeta, surprised. 'Where's Roshi?'

'No-one knows,' said Bulma, making her way to the corner of the house where her capsule stash was buried. 'We think he may have made a last stand against the Androids. Or maybe he just got unlucky.'

He frowned. 'This timeline is more different from the original than I thought.'

'The original?'

'I believe the Trunks that visited my own timeline was from the original universe. The split caused by his arrival was the first, or so it's been conjectured. But what he told me of his world doesn't quite match this one. Someone's been here before.'

Bulma closed her eyes tightly, feeling the hot sand through her sneakers. It shifted as she moved, just like her whole reality seemed to these days. She was a player adrift in a game whose rules she didn't know, manipulated from on high in ways beyond her knowing. She felt cheated.

'I don't care. Whatever's been done to this place, I don't care. This is my reality.'

Vegeta said nothing.

It was a hot day on the island, and Bulma shucked her lab coat. Underneath she wore the same short purple dress she had worn yesterday. She knelt to start digging the box up. Vegeta knelt behind her.

'Is there any reason you're not helping?' she asked.

Vegeta growled.

'I guess the guy that wears gloves all the time doesn't like to get his hands dirty.'

He didn't answer. She turned back to glare at him, annoyed, but when she saw that he was regarding her backside in the short skirt of the dress she turned back again, her annoyance fluttered away with the butterflies that erupted in her.

It occurred to her that he had dug in the dirt before. He'd dug Goku's grave and wrecked a pair of gloves doing so. But it wasn't the same Vegeta.

'You're going to take all day about this are you?' said Vegeta, finally leaning forward to join her. He pulled off the black gloves and began scooping massive handfuls out of the hole she'd made. Within seconds he reached the case with the capsules inside. Bulma pulled it out and opened it up while Vegeta stood and dusted his hands off. The capsules were intact. In the case were now just one boat, one hovercar, one food supply and the capsule containing her heart virus antidote stash.

She took this, and then closed the case again and put it back in the hole, covering it up. Long years of caution wouldn't let her take more than she needed, or put too many eggs in one basket.

When she finally stood up she took a step back, bumping into Vegeta. He put an arm around her waist.

'Back to the lab?' he asked, his breath tickling her ear. Bulma was rigid with discomfort. Was he meaning to be this familiar with her? But no, he'd told her not to get attached, so surely not? She was probably just imagining it. But he had definitely been staring at her ass earlier – she felt a bloom of arousal hit her at the memory.

'No, to the garden first.'

They left the magnet in the garden. It was such a powerful magnet it was too dangerous to bring into the lab. She would have to make the shielded housing for it first.

Back in the lab Bulma went about the work on the cloaking device feeling awkward under Vegeta's supervision. It was hard to keep her mind and even her eyes from straying to him frequently. Vegeta for his part was treating her with an abnormal amount of gentleness and attention. Which didn't mean that he didn't laugh at her when her acid test on a shard of the crystal unexpectedly exploded in pink foam. It splattered the bench, the floor and her lab coat, but at least he helped her clean the mess up. The lab coat was ruined by the corrosive mixture. He ripped the clean back of it to rags to use to clean up the rest of the foam. When he passed her one of these rags his fingers brushed hers and a tremor of desire ran through her.

I'm a hot mess today, Bulma moaned to herself silently. And I can't stop looking at Vegeta to see if he's looking at me! I'm going to get us both killed if I don't get my head back in the game. What's wrong with me?

She turned back to her notes on the laptop. If she was reading up on the device, at least she couldn't harm or damage something if she became distracted.

She was very distracted. Before long she became aware that she could hear Vegeta breathing. He lounged with his elbow propped on the bench next to her. When she looked at him next he was looking at her neck as if it presented a puzzle. He glanced back to her eyes, inquiring, and Bulma felt a blush colouring her cheeks as she turned back to the laptop. She remembered him gasping into her neck two nights ago, spending himself in her, convulsing with pleasure, and her blush deepened, a rush of warmth heading to her loins as well. She stared at the screen, for a few moments so addled that she couldn't even fake reading. The notes could have been written in ancient Namekian for all she took them in.

She stood up abruptly and went to the house, pouring herself a glass of water and gulping it back. She went to the bathroom and washed her hands, splashed her face with cold water, but these efforts to cool her wandering thoughts didn't have their effect when Vegeta followed her every step of the way. He had a glass of water too, washed his hands at the same time as she did, and when she splashed her face he asked 'I understand that digging in the sand makes your hands dirty, but what on Earth are you doing now?'

'Freshening up.'

She got back to the laptop, read three paragraphs and felt quite pleased with herself for not bringing Vegeta to mind in that time before realising she'd just fallen off the wagon again. On reflex she turned again, and saw that he was sitting back in his chair, his lips parted, his eyes unfocused, looking right back at her, drinking her in.

With a feeling near panic she turned back to the laptop again. She wasn't imagining this was she? Memories of their love making the other night snarled up with today's odd afternoon, walking around holding hands, as uncomfortable as school children on their first date. She stared at her hands, still feeling his touch. She wanted to feel it again, and she wanted him to mean it. She could practically feel his gaze on her now. She wanted those kisses again, the kisses that swept her away along the dark river of desire. She touched her lips with her fingertips and they tingled. She wanted to be in his arms and have him feed the ache inside her. Want, want! She was all about want!

She closed the laptop. She didn't know what she was going to do now, but it couldn't involve concentration – her heart beat hard and her lips felt swollen. She looked back over her shoulder from the workbench, knowing, even as she tried to stop them, that her eyes were going to slide right to Vegeta. She saw his grey boots first, then the black jeans which were even more worn that when he'd arrived in this timeline, and the cream and white patched shirt that they'd bought from the market, open at the neck. When her gaze made it to his face Bulma felt spots of colour bloom on her cheeks, all thoughts chased away by the direct stare of Vegeta.

'I…' she started, but then faltered, having no clue what she had been planning to say.

Suddenly he pushed up from his chair, knocking it over in the haste with which he crossed the distance between them. Bulma's eyes widened with alarm before he buried his face in the crook of her shoulder, breathing in deeply. He pressed himself against her, knocking her back against the workbench, facing away from him. She caught herself with her hands on the bench and nearly screamed with joy at the suddenly reciprocated desire. Instead she laughed disbelievingly. Vegeta was hard where he pressed himself against her and her knees were turning to water as he rubbed his face up the sensitive skin of her neck. He ran his hands up her arms too, then down her front. He squeezed a breast with one hand while pulling her tighter against him with the other.

Bulma gasped, and looked out through the glass windows of the hangar where the two androids were lounging in the sun – they had opened the overhead hangar doors. Sixteen was looking back at her in frank surprise.

'Vegeta!' she whispered, 'we have company here!'

'Not any more,' he replied. The bench in front of her disappeared. Vegeta let go of her and she stumbled to her hands and knees on the hot sand of Turtle Island.

Vegeta laughed - the sight of her on all fours before him in that dress was rather inflaming. He'd been thinking of it over and over since she's dug up the box earlier, and here it was again.

'You're a wicked woman; I'm sure you wore that dress on purpose,' he said, the laughter in his voice not quite hiding the anger in it. He was angry. He really did think she'd worm that dress on purpose.

The Woman flipped herself over, the skirt riding up her thighs now. Gods, she had no mercy.

'Of course I didn't! You know I don't have many clothes.'

She held her hand out for him to help her up, and he did, pulling her rather too hard. She tumbled right into him and he trapped her. Her eyes weren't smiling now, she was slightly scared, which he was glad of. Let her be frightened – this was her fault. He wasn't sure what had happened today. He'd let down his defences at some point, forgotten who he was with and what they were about, and then that dress, and here! He'd often wondered what it would be like to have her on this beach, right out in the open, in the middle of the day. And then the torture of this afternoon – unable to get away from her, and all the time he could see and smell her mounting arousal. The scent was like a drug to him, enticing, inciting, stupefying. When she'd glanced at him her eyes were dark blue pools of hopeless desire. His good intentions were in tatters. She's the same person, his senses told him. She's your Woman. He couldn't hold out against her any longer.

He'd made himself a deal whilst watching her dither and blush in front of her laptop – he told himself that it would be the better thing if they could just blow off the lust with a quick, mindless screw - that way they'd both have clearer heads for the task at hand. All he had to do was not let himself fall apart, and not let the Woman get too emotional. She'd said she didn't care about getting too attached, so let the consequences be on her head. Here, out in the blazing sun, there would surely be less shadows for emotion to hide in, and there'd be no expectation for him to sleep snuggled up to her afterwards either.

He kissed her roughly, and she squeaked, but she didn't resist. She melted. Her mouth was soft and giving. Her trust was disarming. She kissed him back…

The world narrowed to just himself and the creature he held in his arms. He could feel her breath on his cheek, and her weak arms clung to him with all their might. God how he had missed that…Shit, he was totally lost already!

The Woman broke it off, leaving him disorientated. He opened his eyes, surprised to see that the sun was still shining.

'I thought you said that this wouldn't happen again,' she said, smiling once more.

'And you told me not to be a ridiculous martyr,' he said, his voice husky. He was surprised he could still speak sensibly at all. She twined her fingers in his hair, stroked his cheek with her other hand.

Her smile faded away, looking up at him with her mouth open, frowning. She was concerned for him.

'Why? What changed your mind?'

He had to halt the way this was going. He wanted to just do what he'd come here for – to scratch their burning itch mindlessly and not feel the pain of the other night again.

'Shush Woman! I didn't come here to soul search.' He kissed her again, willing the confusion away, grabbing a handful of the round rump she'd been teasing him with before. Yes, this was it. He'd have her in the sand – revenge for all those times she'd sunbathed here in her tiny bikinis to the delight of that letch Roshi and the pig. She'd always been a cock-tease.

He pushed her back and grabbed the hem of the dress, pulling it up over her head. It was a stretchy thing, and it sprung away, leaving the woman blinking in her underwear. She seemed shy about it, standing with her arms crossed infront of her stomach, which wasn't like Bulma. His Bulma was brazen about her nakedness. It was probably some earthling woman thing, like her underwear wasn't matching, or she'd forgotten to shave her armpits or something. But no, now that he thought about it, this Bulma was more timid. He'd thought her modesty was about not wanting to antagonise him, but they were well past that. Was she actually shy of him?

He grasped her wrists and pulled her arms away from her body. Then he put a finger under the strap of her bra.

'Take this off,' he instructed. She did, while he also pulled his shirt and gloves off. Her face lit up at the sight of his bare chest and arms. Vegeta grinned; her admiration as warming as the evening sun on his back. He hadn't worked all his life on having the perfect warrior's physique to impress her, but it was a side effect he enjoyed. For her part, her breasts were gleaming soft and pale in the sun, like ripe fruits waiting to be picked. But first things first. He pointed at her panties.

'Those too.'

She wriggled out of them, and he kept one eye on her tuft of blue hair they revealed as he shucked his boots and climbed out of his own jeans and underwear. Of course, this was easier said than done with grace. He nearly lost his balance and hopped around a couple of times with one foot stuck in the leg of his jeans. The Woman reached out to steady him, earning herself a growl, but she just laughed. He stood up, dick pointing straight at it's intended destination. That's when she rushed him. She wrapped one arm round his neck, grasped his penis with her other hand and pressed herself against him.

She was rubbing her face against his neck now, then biting him gently. The little spikes of pressure from her teeth blended with the strokes of her tight little fist on his dick, a mix of pleasure and pain that was more than the sum of it's parts. Then she bit him a little harder. He was making some kind of noise, and doing, he was not sure what, with his arms. As she turned up the pressure he almost fell to his knees. He'd lost control of the situation again.

Her breasts were squishing up against this chest, but she wouldn't let him get a hand in to touch one. She was latched on like a limpet, and he'd have to pull her off him first. Her scent was much stronger now, he could barely think straight. He tried fighting fire with fire; licking her throat, pressing her ear lobe against his teeth with his tongue. She made a noise like 'hunnnn,' so then he bared his teeth and bit her just lightly at the crook of her neck. She jumped and squirmed, and let go of him. He was just about to take charge again when she slithered down his front, splaying her fingers wide to touch as much of him as possible. He was momentarily distracted by the sensation of her silky hair sliding down his chest and abdomen, his own hair beginning to stand on end, when another even more diverting sensation struck him – her hot little mouth had closed over his prick.

'Ha-aaahh!' was his involuntary utterance.

She went to work on him, and he held still. Weak though she was, she had his most delicate parts to ransom now, with her hands and her teeth and her soft, sucking lips. He gave himself over to trusting her. Gah! It was too good! If he didn't stop her soon he wouldn't get to finish fulfilling the daydream she'd inspired with the purple dress. When he couldn't stop himself from moving his hips to her movements, when he felt himself close to the edge he gasped out 'Stop Woman!'

She let him go long enough to ask in a mock innocent voice 'You want me to stop?' That was all the moment he needed – he lifted her swiftly by her shoulders, kissed her, and then, because she still had too much control with her feet under her, he dipped her low to one side, one arm around her back to hold her weight, the other free to roam. She squeaked in surprise but soon he had her moaning into his mouth. He filled a hand with one of her breasts – the soft weight of it satisfying in a way he couldn't explain, her nipple hard against this palm. This he rubbed softly. She arched, pushing up against him and he laughed, obliging her silent demand for more. When he finally abandoned her breast he sought out the warmth between her legs and found her slippery and swollen already. She squirmed against his hand and her reaction quickened his own arousal.

He couldn't help it – she'd think him an animal, but he brought his hand back to his face, turning his face from her kiss to smell her sex on his fingers. Sweet heaven, he couldn't wait any longer. She was ready.

He let her fall from his hands to land sprawling in the sand.

He took a second to take a mental picture of her naked outrage, limbs spread wide before she popped back up again, snapping her legs shut.

'You jerk! What's the big idea?'

He dropped to his knees in front of her, enjoying the moment, and grasped her knees, spreading her legs again. She didn't really resist – her anger was no match for her desire at this point. He made a detour now he was here, to taste that salty slipperiness that he hadn't had in years, and she practically cried.

'Vegeta!'

He didn't know how his name could be so erotic. Just the sound of her begging him made his balls tighten, eager to release their load. After a few moments he answered her call, raising himself, then raising her hips with both hands and sinking himself deep into her.

For a second he lost his breath. The sensation went beyond his cock, right up his spine and nearly knocked his brain offline. But the sight of her open mouthed in the sand brought him back to earth. He leant over her, one hand to balance himself and one to tease her nipple. He thrust away, all the thoughts of revenge and bikinis falling by the way side, all that mattered was this and her and now.

She reached her arms up to him, and just like when she'd cried his name he obeyed her. He pulled her up into his lap, wanting to be closer, wanting…something. Whatever it was he'd give it to her.

She moved in his lap and kissed him, even while she kept the rhythm going, relentless. The Woman had him again, her pretty face contorted with the pleasure she was wreaking. Holding onto his shoulders she straightened again, mouth open to the sun, deep blue eyes staring straight into his heart – he was loved, he was wanted…it cracked him down the middle, and the pain of it was breathtaking.

'Ah, Vegeta!' she cried again.

He cried out himself as he came, but she kept going, dragging out his own pleasure making him gasp over and over again, shuddering as he lost himself in her. He saw her eyes close as her climax took her and she groaned, her body pulsing, squeezing him again and again. Her hair was mussed, her face sweaty and pink cheeked, her mouth red and swollen and she panted, opening her eyes to look into his.

'You're so beautiful,' he said, still catching his breath.

It was one of those moments that hurt nearly as much as Frieza's energy bolt piercing his chest. She smiled, then laughed, but her eyes were misty. Those weren't tears were they?

He'd gone way off script.

Oh gods, I've done it again, he told himself as she rubbed her nose against his and kissed him lightly on the mouth. Then she hid her face in his shoulder and clung to him like he might turn to smoke and float away. He found he didn't want her to stop.

Yes, he was at the bottom of a hole, digging himself deeper with every day, every turn, every gods-be-damned look into those blue eyes.

Author's Note: How'd you feel about the situation he's put himself in? Review and let me know. For time travel enthusiasts, more plot, less kissy kissy on the horizon.