His body was burning, fighting an unforeseen foe.
What was happening to him?
He heard a chuckle from his right and startled. A set of ruby eyes peered at him.
"Frieza?"
A white tail slithered onto the corner of his bed and he braced himself.
"Even with the help of a frail human, you're pathetic. Wasting away on this mudball. What a total disappointment."
"This isn't possible. You're dead. That hybrid Saiyan-"
"Do you really think you'll ever be truly rid of me?" spoke Frieza, looming over him menacingly. "I practically raised you as my own. I made you what you are."
He struggled to move, but something was weighing him down. His body was inextricably paralyzed.
"I see you have nothing to say for yourself, even after you had the gall to desert my army. I would have thought you had more sense. And yet, you always were a hopeless cause, my monkey prince."
The emperor morphed into one of his larger forms, his sharp horns protruding from his bulbous head.
"I should have taught you more humility and quashed whatever silly pride your father programed into you. But now I guess I have all the time in the world to torment you." He grinned, lighting a red beam in his finger. "It's so easy when you do it to yourself."
"No!"
His bed disappeared and he plummeted, flailing around as he sunk lower into a dense crater. He was suddenly surrounded by dirt, worms and maggots crawling up his legs.
He gasped, willing his lungs to fill with air. He raised his head in an effort to stand up and saw that there was a gaping hole in his chest, blood gushing out. He reached up helplessly.
Beyond the void he could see the Namekian horizon, an eerie dark green. A yellow glow manifested and Kakarot stood poised at the top. He leant down with a mysterious smile and started piling dirt into his grave. The maggots crawled on his open wounds, already feasting on his dying body.
"N-no. Stop." Cold sweat dribbled on his brow, but he felt hotter than ever. It was like a torch was being lit inside his body. "Please."
"Hold on," someone called. "You're going to be okay. Just give me one more second."
He heard a clasp and all at once the heat subsided. The dirt, Kakarot, and Frieza all disappeared into nothingness.
His fists slackened and he fell back against his bed.
"That poor boy," another person sighed.
"Let me know if he gets up," said a tired voice. "I'm going to tell dad it worked. I don't think we'll be needing the nurses after all."
He awoke later to the sound of humming and a meow. His eyes snapped open and he was met with the green stare of the black feline. He grunted in surprise. While still perched on his chest, it yawned and stretched. After meowing again, it jumped off the bed.
Vegeta soon became aware of a set of metal cuffs around his wrists and ankles.
He sat up. What the fuck?
"Vegeta? You okay, sweetie?" Bulma's mother sat in the chair adjacent to his bed, an uncharacteristic frown on her face. Most disconcerting to him was the fact that her eyes were open.
"Mrs. Briefs," he managed.
"Aww, you don't have to be so formal with me. Panchy will do." She rose to her feet and beamed. "You had us worried sick, you know! Bulma hasn't slept a wink until now."
"Where is she?"
"Now, I'm aware you two lovebirds want to be reunited, however, you need to eat first."
"Tch. Lo-lovebirds? We're not-!"
"I see. You're both still in denial. How adorable! But you know, love is a precious thing and you'd make me a very happy mother-in-law." She laughed bubbly and handed him a tray of food.
One lesson Vegeta's learned from Earth is that some battles were not worth pursuing, especially when he was being offered food. He knew when he was outclassed and stayed quiet.
"I figured you would be hungry. You have such a healthy appetite—I'm sure for more than food too." She winked. "Don't worry too much about that though. Why I'm sure a dashing, handsome man like you doesn't struggle on that front at all."
Vegeta felt a flush creeping up his cheeks as he picked up a chicken drumstick. There seemed to be no end to the vulgarity of these humans.
"Anyways, I think I'm going to head up and let Bulma know you're alright."
"Don't wake her."
He frowned at his food. Something was off about his ki. It was like his senses were stunted. He'd wager it had something to do with the metal contraptions on him. He must have been incapacitated for a significant amount of time. "I'll see her after I've eaten."
"Aww, how thoughtful of you. You really are a sweet boy." Panchy giggled. "Between me and you, I think Yamcha's days are numbered. It wouldn't be out of place to make a move, if you know what I mean."
His brow twitched as he dug into a drumstick, too famished to deny her outlandish statements.
"Oh Vegeta, you're such a nice addition to this family. We were all so afraid of losing you. The ladies in my garden club were devastated to know you were suffering like this, especially without telling Bulma how you feel."
Vegeta wonders if maybe he's woken up too soon.
"They're rooting for you, you know. You have many fans. Except Karen. She's team Yamcha, but I think that's because she's just bitter about her divorce." She set down her magazine and rose to her feet. "Oh, kami! Would you look at the time? Well, If you need anything else just call me. I'll be tending to the plants."
Hours later, Vegeta stepped out onto the veranda freshly showered and fed. He wore earthling attire offered to him by Panchy, a pair of loose knee length shorts and a thin white sleeveless shirt. The fresh summer breeze drifted through his hair and, although he's made light of the Earth's weak and aging star, the final rays of sunshine touching his bare skin were a welcome sensation. The orange hues signifying the oncoming sunset were oddly calming to him.
It almost made him forget his helplessness and his nightmares. No matter how long he's been on this planet, he still hasn't become accustomed to it's cyclical nature. It was the side effect of drifting endlessly through space most of his life.
"Vegeta?"
He whirled around, alarmed that he was spotted unawares. He couldn't detect anything, not even his own ki.
Bulma ran up to him, relief washing over her features. "You're okay!"
"I assume your mother informed you I was up here?"
"Yeah, she said you wanted to let me sleep."
He rolled his eyes. Of course.
She watched him closely, leaning up against the railing alongside him. She was wearing one of her sundresses, her hair pinned up in a messy bun.
"What?" He asked, meeting her gaze.
Bulma smiled. "Nothing. I'm just glad to see you walking around in one piece again."
"What are these?" He gestured at the metal cuffs around his wrists and ankles.
"Ki suppressors."
Immediately, he tensed. "Why would you put these on me?"
"Don't look at me like that." She sighed and sat on the bench overlooking the view of the compound. "For the record, I did it to save your life."
"Explain yourself."
"For some time, I've been confused about the fact that you've been working nonstop to get stronger and only making incremental improvements. But it's a bit more complicated than that. I measured your ki output during one of your sessions one month ago and compared it with your most recent session. It's decreased, Vegeta."
He ground his teeth. "You're monitoring me."
"Hear me out before you get mad."
He crossed his arms and took a seat alongside her.
"I wanted to get a sense of your progression to help you out and to program the bots to your power level. But then I saw that data and subsequently what was happening to your body since you were hospitalized last week. Your ki hasn't only been decreasing. It suddenly spiked over the past week, but in a really destructive way."
He clenched his fists.
"It's as I thought. You were suffering from some kind of dysfunction with your ki. At first, I was convinced it was just an infection on one of your cuts. But you were like that for almost a week, even after a full trial of antibiotics. It was like your ki was consuming you from the inside out. You were running a really high fever, even by saiyan standards."
"It isn't common for a saiyan to become ill due to disease."
"I figured," she affirmed with a nod. "You were burning up so much that it scared me. Worst case scenario, I thought I would have to speed up my replication of the heart virus medicine the kid from the future gave us in case it turned out that it could kill you too in this timeline."
She sighed, looking at him wearily. "But I calmed myself down before assuming the worst and focused on treating your symptoms. I could see your energy flickering off you. So I made those ki suppressing cuffs and your fever almost immediately went away."
"How long-?"
"That was almost ten hours ago."
He frowned.
"Maybe you should take a brief rest from training for now and figure out what's causing this."
"But this has already been a tremendous impediment to my progress."
"I know this is a setback, but you can't go on aimlessly training. You have to make sure your body's not destroying itself."
He hated when she made such rational observations.
"Is this permanent? Am I...damaged?"
"No."
"And I've been unconscious for a week?"
"More or less."
They remained silent. Distantly, he could hear the avian species humans called birds, cawing.
"By the way...I thought you should know that you were screaming different names when you were out...and um speaking in different languages. You have some really intense nightmares." She turned to face him. "Do you...want to talk about that?"
"That's none of your concern." He cleared his throat, embarrassed. Was there no end to his humiliation?
"It's okay if you don't want to talk about it," she said, not pressing him on the topic. "But you can if you want to."
He ignored her comment. "Was there anything else unusual about my sudden illness?"
"Yeah." She smiled, the light catching in her eyes. "You're surprisingly charming and sweet when you're high on meds."
"Tch." His cheeks burned as he recalled some of his actions. He'd called her beautiful of all things. "Clearly, I was not in my right state of mind."
"Right." She laughed.
"Tell no one of my uncharacteristic behavior or I'll-"
"You'll what? Careful," she teased. "Don't roll out threats you can't hold up. In the state you're in, I could probably go toe to toe with you. Not sure you could live down being defeated by a weakling like me."
"I mean it."
"Don't worry." She winked. "Your secret's safe with me."
He rolled his eyes, only semi-convinced by her devious smile.
Watching the skyline of the bustling city, Vegeta had a sobering thought. One that he has dreaded since his revival.
"What if I can't transform? What if...I'm simply incapable?"
Saying it aloud was gut wrenching. All his life he had assumed it would be something obtainable with his training and work ethic. The beatings and humiliations he's endured had served to make him stronger. Yet, what was so effortlessly accomplished by his rival in a fit of rage eluded him. Shouldn't his own rage have been enough?
Bulma turned to him, radiant as ever.
"Don't beat yourself up about it. It isn't a matter of IF you can transform, but when." She crossed her legs and stroked her chin. "If you think about the sheer amount of training you've already done, it just doesn't add up. I think it's already inside you. We just have to figure out what makes Prince Vegeta go 'bang!'"
She tapped his chest with her pointer finger in a mimicry of one of his blasts. He peered up at her smirking face, processing her words.
"You'll see it soon enough, tough guy. Things will run their course naturally."
What if she was right? Although at times she could be frivolous, she did have a knack for having a good intuition about certain things. Her confidence in him was so unwavering that it was contagious.
The wind picked up and with it so did his spirits. "I suppose."
She leaned back into the bench, still smiling at him. "I've been thinking about the future and it's just strange."
"What in particular?"
"You were still here on Earth after such a long time, even though you could have just left. You even fought against the androids without having known they would be coming."
"What makes that strange? I have to prove myself as a warrior. A saiyan always seeks greater challenges. Presumably, Kakarot dies from an illness." He shrugs, gazing at her from his periphery. "My only recourse would be to seek a stronger adversary."
"I know, but well...you also died defending the Earth long after Goku was gone."
"How sickening."
"It's just that maybe...there was something you were defending all along? Maybe living here wasn't so bad after all."
He crossed his arms, feeling self conscious. "I highly doubt that. My planet and my people are gone. All that remains worth defending is my pride."
"There's nothing wrong with pride, but sometimes we need a bit more than that to go on."
He thought about his life here. Many things did irk him about this place. It was where he'd experienced the first of his crushing defeats and the home of his rival. But despite that, the Briefs treated him with respect. Although he was following certain unwritten rules in order to live in relative harmony with the rest of the earthlings, they didn't particularly demand much from him in terms of fealty. The food was good and in contrast to his earlier life, he lived in much greater comfort.
Would he defend it?
He didn't really know if this small utopia was sustainable. He knew better than anyone that large threats beyond the androids loomed from space and he wasn't particularly averse to conflict. He's seen so much destruction and partaken in much of it. Not to mention, he's already died once and knows what awaits him.
He's cursed the Earth many times over, but in spite it all he couldn't envision a future where she stopped gazing at him with warmth. The idea of the life flickering out of her eyes or of her subjection to a grim fate was unsettling.
"Bulma." Saying her name, Vegeta realized that it felt soothing to be in her presence. He would never admit it, but she filled him with an ease he hadn't known since his infancy.
It terrified him.
He was currently his most defenseless, yet she made no move to wield power over him. Was this feeling what Kakarot deemed was at stake in the midst of battle? This small quiet before a storm...
Did such a thing exist?
Almost instinctively, his hand sought hers. Their eyes met and he could sense that same impalpable energy underlying most of their interactions. The azure of her irises beckoned, their depths not unlike the color of the Earth's oceans. An errant strand of teal hair wisped around her face, drawing his gaze to the delicate shape of her mouth. More than anything, he wants to know the press of her lips.
Under cover of the encroaching evening, he set about answering an unspoken question. He drew closer, decreasing the space between them until their noses grazed. For a timeless instant, it was just the two of them basking in the warmth of the setting sun with their fingers interlaced.
"Yes?" she whispered, rosy cheeked and breathless, leaning into his touch.
Just then, her phone buzzed where she had set it down between them.
Her eyes closed and she sighed. "Shit."
"What's wrong?" he asked in a low voice.
A quick glance at her screen revealed the caller ID.
YAMCHA
And just like that, the moment dissipated. It was no more real than the figments of his nightmares. A hazy fever dream that only filled him with loathing and disgust for what he's become. A shadow of his former self.
"Vegeta..." She grasped his hand, guilt writ across her face.
He extricated himself from her grip and stood up, crossing his arms. "I was going to ask you if the old GR is still in working order, seeing as I should continue my training. I've wasted enough time."
"You need to wait. It's too soon-"
"I'll figure it out on my own. I don't need your help."
He was already at the door, shutting it behind him. Shutting her out. No sooner had his heart begun to thaw, it crystalized once more just as swiftly.