I just want to give a big thank you to Rogue_1102 and Ruthlesscupcake for the beta on this. You guys rock!


He clung to her like glue, even seated in his high chair, banging his little fists on the tray and looking up expectantly with big blue eyes.

"Mama." Trunks held out his chubby arms to her in impatient expectation, bubbling spit like an angry crab at being confined to the seat again every time he wanted to eat. Yet Bulma knew it was the only way to feed him without getting breakfast, or lunch, or dinner for that matter, all over the floor.

"I know, baby. Hold on. Mama's got oatmeal for you." Swirling the soft mixture with a green silicone spoon, Bulma brought a sampling to her mouth to test for heat and grimaced at the gritty texture then thought better and flashed a forced grin.

"Oh-me-oh." He attempted with toddler linguistic skill and a happy smile. She placed the bowl of globular, off-yellow mush in front of him and carefully spooned it into his eager mouth, unintentionally smearing more on the sides of his face than on his tongue from his inability to cooperate and fidgety body.

"Mama." He gurgled through yummy noises and dribbled bits of mushy oatmeal down his front, obscuring the cartoon dog on his shirt with the words 'I wuff you'. Bulma wiped his messy cheeks with a clean rag she had slung over her shoulder, months of trial and error in full effect.

"No, no, no, no." She chided gently as a chubby fist rushed out to take hold of the utensil for himself. She shook her head with a snicker as his wide eyes began to well with fake tears, mouth pursing in a pout.

"Good morning, dear." Bulma lifted an eyebrow briefly to the cheery greeting while taking note of the immediate retreat of tears vanishing at his grandmother's appearance.

"Morning, Mom." She replied as she watched her mother refill the coffee, set it to drip and pulled down a mug from the cupboard.

"You look more tired than usual." The blond woman's tone lilting up an octave in concern while ruffling the purple mane of her grandson fondly. He responded with a stubborn 'no', swiping fruitlessly at the hand on his scalp.

"Be nice." Bulma gently reminded, as another spoonful of breakfast glided into his waiting mouth, half of it landing on his bib. "I'm fine. Just had a frustrating evening."

"Oh? Going out not as fun as it used to be?"

"That part was nice. The last hour wasn't." She added through a sigh. Feeling her mother's pressing inquisition under furrowed blond brows, she groaned in admittance. "I told him."

As her forehead raised in surprise, Panchy clapped her hands together gleefully to the bemusement of her daughter. "Wonderful! When's he coming over?"

Bulma held the spoon aloft and regarded the older woman in confusion. "Mom, he's not. He didn't exactly… he took the news about as well as expected." She stated, hoping her mother would get the hint.

"It's a shock, I agree. But if only he could see this sweet, precious, perfect little angel…" She cooed in the baby's direction, pressing his plump cheeks between her hands as he protested with all the might he could muster.

Bulma rolled her eyes. "Yes, I should just shove Trunks into his face and say 'love me because we make such cute children.'" She replied sarcastically, scraping the last of the oatmeal from the bowl into the toddler's baby bird-like maw.

The look she received from the matriarch held nauseatingly hopeful agreement. "Exactly!"

She rolled her eyes dismissively. "Your optimism is sometimes too pure for me."

"I think he'll come around."

"And I think he's going to try and avoid me the rest of my life." Bulma retorted airily.

The older woman poured two cups of fresh coffee, passing one across the table which Bulma gratefully took. She blew on the steam as her mother took a seat next to her.

"How could he do that? You're my favorite girl who made my favorite boy." Panchy resumed touseling the child's soft hair. Bulma scoffed lightly, unconvinced, when she felt her mother's caring hand on her own. "You made a mistake. Everyone does. I know you can make this right if it's what you want. Don't give up."

Bulma hummed lightly at the hopeless romantic her mother was, finding no use in informing her of Vegeta's understandably harsh dismissal. There were so many instances that she could have made a better choice with. With hindsight, she knew the error of her actions. Yet, the past was impossible to change and as much as she would have liked the broken pieces of her past to magically mend, the shattered remnants would take time. It had taken her nearly two years to come to terms with her situation. It was entirely possible, due to Vegeta's more defensive outlook on life, he would take as much if not more time to come to a conclusion on his own.

"Thanks, Mom. I'll consider it." Bulma acquiesced vaguely, lifting herself from the table to get ready for the day.

Stepping into workout shorts and a logoed tank top, Bulma wondered what her daily practices would look like, now that he knew about their child.

She didn't get to find out his immediate reaction post-disclosure, however, as the morning dragged on into midday of training and the absence of one of their teammates caused a confusing rift within the gym. She finally got her response when Roshi entered and declared her partner would take the rest of the week off, eliciting questioning stares in her direction from the rest of the group, inquiries of which she was not quite ready to answer just yet.


"Seriously, Yamcha. Pick me up right!" Bulma hissed through her teeth as the background music to the set was turned off once again. She heard Chichi sigh loudly again behind her and could practically feel the judgemental eyes from the aerialist as she sat crosslegged in the same spot for the past hour being DJ, her finger on the play and stop buttons of the ancient soundsystem.

Rather than turn around and give her another irritated look, Bulma focused her attention back to her temporary replacement partner. Yamcha had an equally vexed expression across his face as he rubbed an arm over his sweaty forehead and shook out his black hair.

"I'm trying Bulma, okay. It's a little hard when I haven't done this with you before." He groused, taking a swig of water and wiping his hands with a dry cloth.

All week without Vegeta felt a little off-balance for most of the troupe. His perfectionist attitude coupled with snarky jabs were what kept them on task if not to keep him off their backs. Without him, no amount of positive reinforcement from their captain Goku made up for the counterbalance of tough love.

The past afternoon was no different in frustration over Bulma lacking her partner while still needing to get several routines down. With Vegeta being about her height, they established synchronicity that didn't seem to gel just right with the other men in her troupe. While Yamcha was the first to volunteer to help, the specificity of the choreographed set was made more difficult for him to adapt to and seemed to be grating on his last nerve in trying to mimic his absent teammate.

Bulma rolled her shoulder and rubbed the small of her back that was beginning to ache where Yamcha would lift, toss her airborne, she'd catch the trapeze bar, do several timed flips and swings before dropping into his waiting stance. The issue lay with her return where he would grasp her too hard around her middle instead of her hips and guide her to the ground. She was sure she was going to bruise like an overripe peach from being manhandled.

"It's the descent. You have to time it better." She reiterated for the third time, gesturing with her hands as if that would get the point across more effiectively.

"Look, I don't know the routine. I'm trying to work with you, but you can't keep yelling at me. I'm sorry I'm not-" Yamcha began before being cut off by the light click of the metal entrance door closing where the attention of the three turned to the newcomer.

"Vegeta?" Chichi said rather quizzically, getting up off the floor and cocking her head to one side.

Regarding him, both Yamcha and Bulma shifted on their feet and drew their brows together.

"What are you doing here?" Yamcha inquired.

"My week was up so I thought I'd come back for a practice warmup." He replied dryly. "I didn't expect anyone training here so late, though." He added incredulously.

"Your week leaving us in the lurch, you mean." Yamcha retorted with a scoff.

"Call it what you want," Vegeta responded unperturbed as he made subtle eye contact with his blue hair partner.

As her gaze stayed centered on him, he shifted focus from her to the side then back again. He jutted his chin toward the entrance door when his gaze finally stayed on her for more than a second.

"I would like to talk to you." He requested firmly.

From his stance, Bulma noticed he looked clearly uncomfortable but not angry like the last time she had seen him. That's a good sign, she surmised.

"Sure." She nodded as he opened the door and stepped out into the mildly humid evening air.

Leaning against the shady part of the hangar and placing one ankle over the other, she watched him do the same, albeit more tensely with a small pulse in his jawline as he spoke.

"I had some time to think." He began.

"Okay." She responded warily.

He brought his dark eyes to hers with a seriousness she hadn't really seen in a while. "You can't try and justify what you did. I don't want to hear it. I just need direct, honest answers."

She was truly surprised that he had even come back after a week but actually wanting a dialogue was completely unexpected. Wanting the conversation to go better than last time, she nodded her head and agreed to his particular terms. "I can do that."

"When did this happen?"

Surmising the 'this' he was talking about, she considered how to answer the question. "Well, he's a little over one now."

She watched his face pinch slightly, the gears working. "And before you start doing the mental math, I was pregnant… when we were still together. I didn't know, okay. Didn't find out 'til a couple of weeks after we broke up." She added candidly.

"But you knew. After we called it quits." He said in a low tenor as he rubbed the bridge of his nose.

She exhaled slowly. "Yea. I thought it was the flu." She admitted.

There was a long pause between them and enough silence, she could somewhat make out the grinding of his teeth. She almost got the point of inquiring if he had any more questions when he spoke again as her mouth opened.

"Why didn't you tell me? Didn't you think I should have known?"

He didn't look at her and said it more to the ground but she could hear the hurt in his voice. At the time, their sordid romance was anything but romantic. Passionate, yes. Yet the fighting over nothing one minute to end up in each other arms the next lead to a rocky foundation. Despite all the problems between them, however, Bulma couldn't say she didn't respect him or care for him dearly. He was her friend first before her lover. It pained her to have done him wrongly.

"I was angry. Bitter. I know it's not anywhere close to reasonable but that's how I felt at the time." She replied sincerely, unsure if he believed her.

He exhaled roughly through his nose. "A boy. What's his name?"

"Trunks." She said with a smile.

This took him by surprise as he glanced up with a wince of distaste. "That's a terrible name."

Bulma finally let out a small chuckle for the first time in a week. She placed her hands on her hips with a smirk. "I don't believe I asked for your opinion."

His brows remained drawn but the look of dislike subsided as he muttered, "If I had one, I wouldn't have let you give him such a stupid fucking name."

"He looks like a Trunks. So there." She stuck out her tongue, humored at his reaction to her progeny's namesake.

The tension subsided for the moment, he pressed on. "Why did you come back? Why didn't you just stay gone?" He asked more out of numbed curiosity.

Bulma inched a bit closer, feeling out the situation and glad he appeared to be less hostile than he was a week ago.

"I'm trying to make things right. I can't take back what I did. It was pretty fucking selfish what I did. I made a mistake. A huge one. But I'm trying to set things right. Now." She put forth with all truthfulness she could muster.

Vegeta kicked at the pebbles at his feet absentmindedly, appearing as if he was chewing on her words.

"Is he happy?" He asked in a murmur.

Bulma nodded, a serene expression spread across her face. "Yea. He's a very happy kid. He smiles all the time. He has a great laugh."

He smirked at that with a loud snort. "Then I know he's not mine."

She pushed her shoulder playfully into his with a snicker as he nudged back in reciprocation.

"I want to see him." He said with purpose.

"Okay. When works for you?"

He thought for a brief moment. "Shouldn't we work around your schedule? Seems yours is probably more full than mine. When's your next day off?"

"Tuesday. I have to take him to the doctor." She hesitated an offer for him to join them at the appointment. The man had difficulty in committing moving in together. A first time 'meet and greet' while in an unfamiliar medical situation may be more than he currently could handle. "Nothing serious. Just a check-up in the morning. We're free in the afternoon." She suggested.

He grunted lightly and backed off the wall they were both leaning on before heading back toward the door to the hangar. "I'll take a break. How's 2?"

"2 is good. He'll be up from his nap then." Bulma grinned, pleased with how their meeting had gone. She entered the meet up in her phone planner and made a personal note to prepare her parents for it. When she had finished, she looked up and noticed he hadnt actually left and was standing at the open door observing her with an unreadable, but distant, expression.

"You okay?" She queried.

He shook his head at being addressed and nodded once.

With another grunt, he added, "See you tomorrow for practice," then had departed into the gym, the metal door rattling the hangar's aluminum siding. Unsure of how the lunch date would go, Bulma was at least happy that they were on speaking terms again.


Post Author's Note- May 26, 2020

What a crazy year so far, right? This story has been in the back of my mind for a while. I was in the process of finishing out my last semester of school and am relieved to announce I finally received my bachelor's degree. On top of everything else this year has thrown in the way thus far, I'm happy with how this chapter turned out. Now that I'm done with class pressure hopefully I can get future chapters out sooner. Thank you all for the support, comments, and taking the time to read. Creative writing has been an incredible outlet and I appreciate everyone that wants to share it with me. Hope you and yours are safe and well.

~Blackswans22

Find me on twitter where I guess I have an account now. I love to talk about fics and DBZ. Feel free to message me :)

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