A/N: I don't own DBZ or the characters, that honour belongs to Akira Toriyama. I use British English spelling.
Recap: Last chapter Young Vegeta left for space, convinced Bulma was only using him for his superior genes, while Future Vegeta and Trunks were shocked to find Fardarna destroyed, and decided to head back to Earth.
Even if her computer hadn't warned her, she would have known that the ship was arriving imminently. First, there was the high-pitched whining noise of the spaceship hurtling through the atmosphere that echoed through the thick walls of her lab. Then there was the fact that those same walls trembled, along with everything on her desk, shaking a shower of white dust from the roof and sending pens rolling away.
As the rattling intensified, Bulma stumbled upstairs and out into the front yard to watch.
"Oh honey, they are back," Bulma's mother exclaimed with unashamed glee as she joined her, clapping her hands together and grinning up at the sky.
The shadow of the ship blocked out the sunlight, and as it came in Bulma had a panicked thought that it might land on the house instead of the lawn. The jets of air slowing the ship's descent kicked up dirt and grass, forcing her and her mother to shield their faces as it splatted them with debris.
Despite her concerns, Vegeta seemed to be an exceptional pilot, fitting neatly into the space allocated for the ship and docking smoothly. But of course he was. He'd spent his whole like flying around in space ships, Bulma reminded herself. He could probably fly one of them better than she could, and that was saying something.
She'd noted the markings on the ship as soon as it got close enough to see, for even though she'd known it was the future Vegeta thanks to her computer's tracking of his coordinates, a small - very, very small - part of her had clung to the hope that it was the younger Vegeta returning to apologise.
Of course, it wasn't. That stubborn man would probably rather become best friends with Goku than ever swallow his pride and return.
The ship finished docking with a hiss, the metal claw coming up automatically to steady the spherical ship. The door slid up, and out stepped a tired and dirty looking Vegeta and Trunks. Trunks had grown a little taller since he'd been gone, and his purple hair had as well, falling in straight locks around and in front of his face.
"Welcome back!" Bulma said rushing forward to give Trunks a hug. He stiffened in her arms but didn't pull away. In fact, he didn't say anything at all, and when she let go and looked at him, she noticed a dullness in his eyes, as if all the boyish excitement he'd had before he left had evaporated from his body.
The moment she'd let go of Trunks, her mother stepped in, fussing over the boy, ruffling his hair and exclaiming over how much he'd grown. Trunks barely reacted to her as well, putting up with the attention but not looking either of them in the eye.
Worried, Bulma turned to Vegeta, but he was too busy lugging out large tanks of what she assumed was the fuel.
"Go shower, then we will eat," Vegeta barked at Trunks. He finally looked at Bulma and she saw the same glaze to his stare that Trunks had. "Get the ship ready. I want to leave after we've eaten."
"I'll get food on the table," Bulma's mother said. "I started cooking the moment I knew you were coming back. I've made all your favourite foods!" She ushered Trunks inside, pushing him gently along.
"Leave?" Bulma tried to ask Vegeta as he bought out another tank and placed it before her. "But I can't-" she let out a growl of frustration as he left the tanks in front of her on the grass and strode into the house. "I can't get it ready that fast!" she called after him.
The only answer she got was the slamming of the front door.
"You invented the time machine," Vegeta snarled, slamming his fist down on her lab desk and making the pens that she'd just tidied up jump around her desk again. "How hard can refuelling it be?"
Bulma pushed the hair out of her face that had stuck to her forehead with the sweat she'd gained from lugging the fuel tanks to the lab and shoved down the wave of irritation threatening to bubble up. If this had been the younger Vegeta she wouldn't have been surprised at the venom in his voice, but the future version of the man had always seemed so much calmer.
Not anymore. He'd showered and eaten, but the haze in his eyes he'd returned with had been replaced with rage that he was directing at her, even though she had the feeling it was meant for someone else.
"I didn't invent this machine, another version of myself did." She waved the spanner in her hand about in exasperation. "I need to run tests, Vegeta. I'm not sending you and Trunks through time without being damn sure that the machine isn't going to explode."
Vegeta growled in response, clenching and unclenching his hands into fists at his side.
"It will only be a few days." Bulma placed the spanner on her desk and put her empty hands up as she stepped towards him, nervous of the wild fire in his eyes - not because she thought he'd harm her or the machine, but because he had the same look the younger Vegeta had whenever he got upset before disappearing for days on end. "I'll refuel it and set it up for you to return when the androids arrive."
"No." Vegeta made an odd choking sound as he ground out the word. "I want to go back to my timeline. To when I left."
"Your timeline? But I thought-"
"You thought wrong." Vegeta pressed his lips together, drawing a white slash across his face that Bulma found all too familiar. This wasn't something he was going to back down from easily.
"Don't you want to defeat the androids here? To figure out how you can do it in your own timeline?"
"No! I don't…" Something in his expression cracked as he struggled to finish his sentence. "I don't want to be here when they come. I don't want to see them…"
"It's okay to be afraid," Bulma said, placing her hand gently on his arm.
Vegeta recoiled at her touch, disgust at her words on his face. "I am not afraid! But my being here will not change this timeline."
"You are a Super Saiyan. We need all the help we can get, and you can help us-"
"No!" Vegeta roared again, his ki bursting around him in wild lashes that made the hairs on Bulma's arms stand on end. "Just fix the fucking machine!"
At his shouted words his ki exploded out, sending a pulsing wave through Bulma that tossed her back into the wall and made her gasp as the wind was knocked out of her. There was a crackle of electricity and the lab fell into darkness as all the electronics shut down.
Vegeta's ki waves vanished instantly and as Bulma drew in a wheezing breath she felt him at her side, grabbing her arm.
"Bulma, I didn't… shit, are you…?"
If she hadn't been so furious, the concern in his voice would have been sweet, but she was sore, tired and now he'd set her back an evening's work. "I'm fine," she gasped out, slapping his hand away as she struggled to right herself. "Don't fucking touch me! You've done enough, you idiot. Now the machine will take even longer to fix."
"Bulma, I-"
"Don't." She raised her hand, knowing that with his Saiyan vision he'd still be able to see her. "I don't know what your fucking problem is, but I'm not interested. If you want to have a proper, adult conversation later, come find me, otherwise I'll let you know when the time machine is ready."
Without waiting for a reply, she left the lab, blinking back burning tears, unwilling to cry over any version of that damn man.
The humid air weighed down on her, sticking to her skin like a layer of plastic wrap, choking her pores. Bulma leaned back in her outdoor chair on the balcony with a sigh, taking a languorous sip of her lukewarm water before placing the glass against her forehead in an attempt to cool down. It didn't help much, but with the power out she would take what she could get.
Thanks to Vegeta's little temper tantrum, the power wouldn't be fixed until tomorrow. The cut couldn't have come at a worse time with a sticky monsoon thunderstorm rolling in.
Thunder grumbled in the distance, followed by brilliant flashes lighting up the night sky. As a child, Bulma had always hidden under her bedcovers during a storm, but she'd since learned to enjoy watching Mother Nature pour havoc on the world. Nature was indiscriminate in its destruction, unlike the real dangers of the universe who wielded even more power in their hands and aimed for maximum destruction.
Dangers like the man currently exiting the back door, hands in the pockets of his loose grey pants and shoulders hunched. If she didn't know better, she wouldn't have thought this man to be a threat. In the dim lighting his small stature became more apparent. But Bulma wasn't fooled. She knew exactly how dangerous he was, because his younger self had shattered her heart when he'd left.
The man in question made his way over to the balcony rail and leaned his elbows on it with a heavy sigh.
"Is Trunks asleep?" Bulma asked after a moment's silence, feeling an urgent need to fill it. Her anger at his power-cutting ki explosion had faded, but it was still hard to be around this man, this constant reminder of the person she had only a week ago been naked and romping in a bed (on the floor, on the table, anywhere had been acceptable) with in the most intimate way possible. She couldn't help but appreciate his rippling back muscles as he shifted slightly, visible even under his t-shirt. He'd filled out during his time in space, and no longer looked half starved. Unfortunately, it had the unwanted effect of making him look even more like her Vegeta.
Her Vegeta. She started when she caught her train of thought. Since when had she started thinking of him as hers?
Vegeta hadn't even responded to her question, his gaze set on the stars not quite hidden by the clouds above them. Even from behind he looked deflated and exhausted, and Bulma knew instinctively that something in space had happened that had shaken him.
"Do you want to talk about it?" She asked, setting down her glass and hauling herself out of the sunken chair to join him against the rail.
Vegeta shook his head, not taking his eyes off the sky.
"Things were… interesting while you were gone," Bulma said, deciding that he wouldn't have come out if he didn't want company. "Vegeta - uh, young you - and I… um…" She flushed as she stumbled over her words, not sure how to explain to this man that she'd slept with his younger self. And not just slept with. Fucked. Royally and completely fucked in almost every room of Capsule Corp over the course of their tumultuous relationship.
"Are you pregnant?" Vegeta asked flatly, finally turning his gaze in her. She was shocked by how cool it was. Both Vegetas had always looked at her with eyes like molten lava, burning with an undisclosed need.
"No. Maybe. I don't know… it's too soon to tell."
"I assumed that is why he is not on Earth."
"No, he didn't leave because I was pregnant." Bulma placed her hand on her stomach self-consciously. "He left because he's an idiot."
Vegeta actually laughed at that - a sharp barking sound that didn't seem at all like there was any humour behind it. "I can't argue with you there."
"He thinks I only slept with him to have a baby," Bulma said. "But I didn't. I admit, I didn't tell him human pregnancies were different from Saiyans, but I thought he changed him mind - he said he didn't care about the risk… but now he thinks… oh, he is arrogant and rude and sometimes I wish I was one of his bots so I could smack him but I can't help it, I think I love him and now I've… I've ruined everything between us!"
Vegeta was silent at the end of her rant, his dark eyes unblinking in their stare. Slowly he reached a hand towards her and wiped a tear that she hadn't realised had fallen from her cheek with a rough thumb. "If I know my younger self, I'd wager that nothing is permanently ruined."
"How can you think that?" Bulma asked with a sniff, missing his touch already as he pulled his hand back. "He's left the planet."
"If my younger self felt so slighted that all feelings he may have had for you were gone, you would not be here." Vegeta pressed his lips together, perhaps sensing her confusion at his words. Finally, he let out a huff of air then continued. "He would have killed you, destroyed the planet, then left."
Bulma stiffened. "He would never do that."
"Wouldn't he?" Vegeta cocked his head, dark eyes boring into her.
She swallowed the lump forming in her throat. There was no one in the universe who could know Vegeta better than himself, but even though his words rang truthfully in her ears, Bulma knew that there were no circumstances that would make Vegeta - her Vegeta - kill her. "No," she said quietly, pulling her gaze away to the stars that somewhere out there held the man she wished was beside her now. "No, he wouldn't."
"Because he loves you," Vegeta replied.
"Loves me?" Bulma laughed out loud at the sheer absurdity of it. "Cares for me, maybe, in his own way, but I don't think he is even capable of actual love!" At Vegeta's hurt glare she stumbled over her words. "That is… I mean… well not now anyway. Anything is possible in the future - look at you. But I promise you, the depths his of feelings for me do not equate to love."
Vegeta stayed silent for a moment. When he finally spoke, it was so softly that she had to strain her ears to hear him. "Why did he leave then?"
"Because… because he's an asshole who only thinks of himself. Because he was angry with me, and he thought I'd wronged him." Bulma rolled her eyes at the notion, her fury at the man bubbling in her chest and making her want to slap the Vegeta beside her because he looked so damn much like the man she really wanted to take it out on.
"I have been betrayed more times than you can imagine. One would think I'd be used to it, even in my younger self's youth. The only reason a betrayal would hurt a man like him… a man like me - is if I actually cared."
"I…" Bulma started to argue, then closed her mouth, unable to find the words. Damn him, he had a point. "If you cared you'd help us with the androids," she said instead, knowing that it was unfair of her - he had no obligation to this timeline - but needing to say it nonetheless.
"Don't," Vegeta replied, his voice almost a whisper. "I can't."
"Why not?"
"I don't want to see it all again." He turned to her and touched an errant curl, wrapping his finger around a lock. "I can't bear to… I can't watch you suffer through this once more."
"I won't. We are going to defeat the androids."
"But you won't," Vegeta said, and Bulma was shocked to see pain in his eyes glistening in the dim evening light. "I can't change this timeline. The past can't be changed. Everything will happen as it did and there is nothing I can do to change it."
"What are you talking about? You are here. That's proof enough that time can be changed."
Vegeta shook his head, his face crumpled in abject misery, and he dropped his hand away from her hair. "You don't understand."
"Then make me," Bulma whispered fiercely, before wrapping her arms around his waist and planting herself against him.
Vegeta stiffened at first, then his arms returned the embrace, holding her close. He began breathing in ragged breaths as he buried his face in the side of her neck, letting out a shuddering breath that whispered through her hair to caress her skin.
They stayed like that, locked together tightly for a few minutes, their chests rising and falling together in time, so in harmony that Bulma was sure their hearts were beating at the same time.
Being here in his arms should have been a comfort but it only made the hole in her heart that had formed when her Vegeta left for space more apparent. Still, she held on tight, clinging to him like a lifeboat whilst knowing that he was doing the same.
"Gods, I miss you," Vegeta mumbled so quietly against her that she had to strain to understand him. "I am lost without you."
Bulma knew that he wasn't really talking to her, but to his dead lover, the version of herself that Bulma still struggled to see herself becoming. Regardless, she pulled back from him and placed her hands on either side of his face, glaring at him.
"You are not. You've raised an intelligent, strong son, built a freaking time machine, got yourself and Trunks out of an impossible situation, vanquished your enemy, and saved an entire timeline."
"But I haven't." Vegeta took her hands in his and pulled them away from his face. He kept holding her hands, his thumbs gently rubbing her palms. "It would seem that even though I can influence little things, I cannot change big events, like who will live or die."
"What?" Bulma started and tried to pull away, but his grip on her hands was strong. "But you killed Frieza."
"Who would have been killed by Kakarot if I hadn't got there first." He peered at her earnestly and began to tell him about the people he and Trunks and gone to in space. "In the end, I couldn't save them," Vegeta said as he finished. "Their entire planet was demolished. There was nothing left."
"I don't believe that means you can't change the future," Bulma said, an anger rising in her that she wasn't sure if was because of his claim that things couldn't be changed, or at the horror that this man had gone through time and time again. She ripped her hands out of his and began pacing back and forth. "It's scientifically impossible for you to come here and not change things."
"You don't believe in fate?"
"No. We make our own fate." She stopped again in front of him and placed her hand on his chest. "I refuse to believe that the future is set. We will defeat those androids, I am certain of it, but we could use your help, especially if… if other you doesn't come back."
"He will," Vegeta said.
"And so will you." She dug her fingers into his t-shirt desperately. "You owe it to yourself to do everything in your power to save this timeline. You aren't a coward, Vegeta. You won't run away from this."
Thunder and lightning hit at the same time as the air began to speckle with raindrops. Vegeta looked down at her hand. "I am not afraid of dying. I am terrified that I will never see you - my you - again."
"You can't bring her back without defeating the androids in your time," Bulma pointed out. "There is a way to do it. There has to be."
"I wish I had your confidence in this," Vegeta replied.
"I have enough for both of us." Bulma smothered a grin, sensing that she'd won. "So you will return."
She phrased it like a statement, but was relieved when he replied to confirm it.
"I will return."
Bulma smiled openly at his words and pulled him into a tight hug once more, enjoying his warmth as the cool rain set in properly, soaking them through. "Things will be different here. You'll see."
Vegeta didn't respond to her hug like he had the last time. He just placed one hand on top of her head and clicked his tongue in annoyance. "Yes, we will see."
Bulma lay on a mechanics trolley under the time machine, attempting to unbolt one of the fuel tanks without stripping the thread. Sweat dripped down her forehead and into her eyes, making them itch, but she grit her teeth and tried again.
The door to the lab swished open just as she finally got the bolt undone.
"Finally, you fucker!" she exclaimed in glee as it came loose, and she twisted it out. "It's still going to be a few days," she called out to who she assumed was Vegeta. No one else would dare enter her lab when she was in the middle of something - not even her father.
To her surprise, it was a small face that appeared beside her, tilting sideways as he peered under the machine.
"Need a hand?" Trunks asked, the ghost of a smile on his lips a stark contrast to the wide grin he'd often sported before going into space.
"Oh!" Bulma started, embarrassed at having been caught swearing to herself by a child. She used her feet to wheel the trolley back and out from under the machine. She sat up, wiping the sweat and grease from her face with the sleeve of her overalls. "Sorry, Trunks, I didn't realise that was you."
"You thought it was Papa," Trunks replied glancing at the tools in her open tool box. He looked cleaner than he had the day he'd arrived back from space, and his hair had been cut - sloppily which made her assume Vegeta had done it - but he still looked tired, his movements lethargic.
"Yes," she admitted. "He has been making his presence known frequently. Trying to hurry me along, I think."
"We had to use a combination of metric and imperial bolts." Trunks handed her a different wrench. "That might be why you are having trouble."
"Thanks," Bulma took it from him and stood up to set the other one down. "It's hard to see under there. Tight too."
Trunks gave her a slightly wider smile at that. "I did most of the fittings underneath. Papa couldn't fit." His smile wavered suddenly and he looked down at the ground. "Except in the last month. There wasn't enough food and… he said that Mama would have called it a silver lining."
A heavy pang hit Bulma in her stomach. Kami, the things that those two had been through were universally unfair. She was struck by a sudden urge to gather the boy in her arms, hold him tight and insist that everything would be okay. "Are you okay?" she asked instead. "Your father told me about…" She trailed off, unwilling to put to words the horrors that he'd described.
Trunks shook his head, and when he looked up, his eyes were shining with unshed tears. "When I came here I thought I'd be safe."
Bulma knew that he didn't mean safe from physical harm, but from the kind of hurt that only the loss of a loved one could bring. "I'm so sorry, Trunks."
"And now Papa…" Trunks dashed away a falling teardrop angrily. "He doesn't believe we can get Mama back."
"Has he said that?"
"I know he is thinking it." Trunks glared at her then, as if daring her to continue arguing. He looked so much like Vegeta - her Vegeta - in that moment, with his knitted brows, and scowling lips drawn into a thin line across his face.
"And what do you think?" Bulma asked.
His scowl faded away at that, replaced by something closer to bewilderment. "I don't… I don't know."
She gave in and hugged him then, and to her surprise her sank into her, wrapping his small arms around her waist and burying his face in her greasy overalls. "Believe it or not, your father isn't right about everything," she said softly, placing one hand on his head to soothingly stroke his hair. "You know, there was a time when he was actually convinced that he was smarter than me. Can you believe it?"
Trunks let out a wet laugh against her, gripping even tighter.
"He only has you." Bulma pushed him back and slid to her knees in front of him, going down to his height to look into his bloodshot eyes. "Trunks, everything that man does is for you. If he really has given up hope, then you need to hope for him. Because as long as you believe, your father will never, ever give up trying to make it so."
Trunks stared back at her, then broke into a grin - a real one this time. "You will make a good Mama."
Bulma's hand instinctively went to her stomach. "It's too soon to tell," she said, repeating what she'd said to Vegeta.
He cocked an eyebrow at her with a Vegeta-like smirk before carefully removing her hand and replacing it with his own. He shut his eyes, eyebrows furrowing in concentration. When he opened them he let out a little laugh. "I can feel its ki. My ki."
"Are you sure?" Bulma gasped and looked down at her stomach. She didn't feel pregnant. Not that she knew what feeling pregnant felt like, beyond throwing up because of morning sickness, but still. She'd always assumed she would just know.
Trunks threw his arms around her neck, almost knocking her backwards with the force of it. "I know that Papa will think that this is more proof that you can't change the past," he said in a fierce whisper. "But thank you."
Bulma opened her mouth to tell him that she didn't get pregnant on purpose. But didn't you? A small voice in her head said, shutting her mouth. Didn't a part of you want this boy in your arms to be born? She couldn't deny her traitorous thoughts - not completely. Oh, she'd made some effort to tell Vegeta, to explain that she could get pregnant, but she could have stopped him, could have made explicitly sure that he understood that if they had sex then it would have been lining up perfectly with the timeline she'd calculated. If she had said something, then maybe Vegeta would still be here, on Earth. But then maybe her womb would be empty and this small boy would be shedding tears for yet another loss.
Bulma squeezed her eyes shut and held Trunks tighter.
"Make sure you ease it open when you take off," Bulma instructed as Vegeta and Trunks climbed in the machine that would blast them almost two years into the future. "Not letting it warm up is what caused most of the damage on your last trip."
She wrung her hands, revealing her nervousness, and Vegeta was tempted to climb back out of the machine and grab her hands to steady them and reassure her that they would be fine. He had complete faith that the machine wouldn't blow up. Unlike last time when he'd been almost certain they would die.
"I had other things on my mind when coming here," Vegeta reminded her, recalling how desperate they'd been to escape their time. He'd been half dead when he'd left, and Trunks had been injured. He couldn't hide a proud smile as his son climbed in next to him. The boy was as reckless as he'd always been, but he'd done well on this trip, especially considering it wasn't the holiday they'd thought it would be.
They buckled themselves in - a new safety feature Bulma had installed - and closed the glass window, immediately muffling the outside sounds. It was suffocating and more claustrophobic than his old space pod, and Vegeta was thankful that the trip wouldn't take long - for them at least.
He stared up the machine, powering it up slowly until the high whirring noise steadied.
"Bye young Mama!" Trunks yelled out, making Vegeta wince as the sound reverberated off the glass and around the small chamber.
Bulma lifted her hand in response, keeping her other hand on her stomach, and Vegeta felt a pang that he couldn't stay. After all, of his younger self didn't come back, she would be left alone.
Before he could change his mind, he set the machine to full throttle and lifted them into the air, before clicking the button that sent them hurtling through space and time.
They were gone.
One moment they hovered in the air in the egg-shaped machine, the next… nothing.
It was as if they'd never been here.
Bulma crumpled to the ground with the weight of it all, one hand over her mouth, the other settled on her stomach as she finally let the tears she'd been holding back fall. Knowing that they were gone somehow made the absence of the younger Vegeta more painful. He was meant to be here! He was supposed to stay.
She let herself cry, hot ugly tears pouring out, until finally they dried up and all that was left were the remaining sniffles. Wearily, she made her way to the lab that had a communicator set up with the ship
young Vegeta had stolen.
She'd left a few messages after he'd first gone, begging him to come back, trying to explain that it was just a misunderstanding. He hadn't replied, and there was no way of knowing that he'd even seen them. The bastard was probably wilfully ignoring them. He had the self-control of a saint, despite being the devil incarnate most of the time, and she doubted he would ever succumb to the urge to see them.
Still, she had to try. She had to let him know exactly what his past self had encountered in space. She shuddered to think what would happen if he encountered Zersa. If Vegeta's older self couldn't defeat her, then his younger version with no real control over his Super Saiyan abilities wouldn't stand a chance…
Vegeta had no self-control.
The woman had stolen it with her pouty mouth, fruity perfume and biting words.
He'd just finished a round of five hundred push ups in the spaceship's training area when the message came in. He'd rushed to the screen but had been standing in front it, his finger hovering over the button to bring it up, for five minutes.
He'd made the mistake of listening to her other messages and the result had been days spent thinking about how much he hated her and nights spent dreaming about burying himself inside her and fucking her until the collapsed with exhaustion.
In his dreams she wound her limbs around him after sex, holding him close and whispering words that promised to stave off the desperate loneliness that haunted him, the loneliness that had caused him to seek her out in the first place. But when he awoke, he was alone and painfully hard, and all that rage came flooding back.
"Fuck it," he muttered to himself. It wasn't like seeing her face or hearing her voice could make his obsession - because that was what it was, consuming his every thought - any worse.
He hit the button.
A/N: Thanks to everyone for all your reviews on the last chapter! If you are interested I recently published a Vegebul one-shot called Variable.
Review commentary:
Which Out of Time chapters have lemons available on AO3?
Chapters 19, 23 and 28. If you like lemons then you'll also want to check out Variable and Blue Christmas on AO3! Most are also available on my Tumblr (Wr1tersblock42).
What happened to Fardarna? Seria and Ara are not dead right?
My lips are sealed... you'll have to wait to find out sorry!
I hate when writers introduce new characters in dragonball z fanfiction especially one that supposed to be a vegebull fanfic
Fair enough. I love that fanfiction means as a writer you can write anything you want because the whole point of it is to use your imagination. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
