A/N Oh Mighty Dragon. . .I WISH DBZ was MINE!!!! What. . .you can't do that. . .because why?
The owner/creator is Akira Toriyama and I tip my hat to him for creating such delightful characters and situations. DBZ is alsoed owned by Funimation and Viz and many other companies who have chipped in to make this such a great universe.
oh well... onward and upward
however the ideas in this story are mine, if you wish to use them contact me FIRST at either ring_princess@hotmail.com or ring_princess2001@yahoo.com or cite me somewhere, Please!
Before we go any farther, I'd like to thank my friend and boss for getting me out of the terrible writers block this particular story was suffering under. THANX!!!! (He's such a great guy!)
Chapter Five
Confusion of a Saiyan-jinn
The bed was too soft, the night was too bright and that damnable woman and her boyfriend were too loud! Vegeta ground his teeth, the noise contrasting sharply with the delighted laugh of two people downstairs. Hell, couldn't they shut up for the ONE minute it would take to get him to go to sleep.
Or was Yamcha going to stay here until three in the morning AGAIN! Vegeta rolled over and stared at the clock, then over at the calendar, where he marked when the weakling had last been over, for no other reason than boredom and the time Yamcha left because Vegeta didn't sleep until the weakling departed the vicinity.
The weakling idiot had never stayed till three in the morning. Oh what the. . .
Vegeta sighed and rolled back over, rubbing his temples.
That hideous screech this morning from the woman had woken him to one of the worst and unpredictable days of his life. Damn her. The food hadn't tasted right, the gravity room seemed empty, though he KNEW he was the only one that used the infernal contraption, and Yamcha had come over for the first time in weeks, which was too soon for him and the woman had just been acting funny from the moment she had woken both of them up.
Vegeta hated things being unpredictable and to top it all off there was that dream which no matter how hard he tried he could just not remember. He growled in the back of his throat and clenched his fists, dreams were important! Not being able to remember this one was like an itch he couldn't scratch, the tail he didn't have, and his kingdom which was destroyed, argh! It was driving him nuts!
He could remember every detail of the dreams in which Frieza tortured him, the dreams of his days on Vegeta-sei, few they had been, and the dreams of the planets and the people he had destroyed on a whim, yet he couldn't remember this one. All his life he had no choice but to remember his dreams and past.
Now, now there was something he wanted to remember and he couldn't!!! The more he focused on the few hazy things he could remember the more hazy they became. It just wasn't FAIR!
He threw himself off the bed, he couldn't take being in that box of a room anymore! It didn't matter to him that he could NEVER sleep when Yamcha was here. The other warrior's ki always seemed to be a challenge to him; this was Vegeta's dwelling, Vegeta's territory. Yamcha had no right to be here without Vegeta's express permission. And if Vegeta had his way, the permission wouldn't have come and so the idiot would not be around and disturbing Vegeta's sleep patterns.
What did the woman see in that pathetic puppy that kept her attention?
The dark scowl that graced Vegeta's face was well practiced and more natural than any smile. His arms crossed and his feet spread apart, Vegeta surveyed the back lawn with dead black eyes. The darkened grass and flowerbeds held nothing to threaten him. The threat to him was in the house, flirting with her, the woman.
Vegeta bared his teeth and unknowingly tensed the night breezes across his bare arms and chest doing nothing to sooth his growing temper.
Unwittingly he gazed up at the sky, his attention automatically on a minute star, barely registered by even Saiyan-jinn eyes it was so far away and so dim.
:Vegeta-sei. . .: He thought. The word bringing with it a host of meanings and corresponding feelings, thick and fast, barely even registered on the Prince's conscious mind. He floated to the top of domed house, his feet making a small sound as he settled down on the roof. :Home.:
So faint, barely discernable from Chikyuu-sei, yet Vegeta saw it, wasn't expecting it and he fell to his knees. Traveling the light years across the cold/hot of space the light of Vegeta-sei's explosion reached Chikyuu-sei.
Vegeta's head sagged down; chin barely touching his chest, his hand reached up to cover his eyes. He looked up again, it was still there, bringing up memories best left buried.
Hot and wet, a single tear slipped from Vegeta's eye, leaving a trail of cold down his cheek before slipping between his fingers.
:Gone. Dead.:
------------------------------
Bulma snuggled deeper under the covers, warm and contented. The bed was so comfortable and she felt glued to the mattress. She smiled in that half-awake stage where you could think and still confess to be sleeping, last night had been wonderful.
It had been the first time her and Yamcha's schedules had both been free for weeks. He had picked her up in his new car and taken her out to dinner at their favorite restaurant. After dinner, he'd taken her dancing at the club he was a member of because of baseball. Oh, he had been such a gentleman, paying attention only to her. They'd come home early and had talked for hours catching up like they had in the first days of their official twosome relationship.
Oh, it had been a marvelous evening and now she didn't want to move. Her self-imposed darkness was too lovely, the memories too pleasant and fresh not to remember. The bed was too comfortable to even move. She wasn't going to move and nothing was going to make her.
Except, her conscious plus the fact Yamcha was coming back tonight.
She hated her conscious, it was so nice just to lie here and rest and think.
The alarm went off.
"BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"Shu up," Bulma murmured, still refusing to move. Yet, the alarm clock was a machine and like all machines wasn't about to stop doing what it was doing without intervention, divine or mortal and no deity was going to shut her alarm clock for her.
One sapphire eye opened, and reluctantly the other opened as well. To turn off the contraption meant moving and once she started moving she wouldn't stop.
Bulma sighed and rolled over and sat up, giving in to the inevitable.
The bathroom seemed so far away and she lazily made her way towards it.
Thirty minutes later, showered, dressed and hungry, Bulma headed down the stairs, making a deliberate thump every time she put her foot down. A small defiance to her house guest who moved so silently she had vowed he'd taken years off her life scaring her.
Thinking of her houseguest.
Vegeta was sitting on the table, using the chair for a footrest, chin on his folded hands.
Bulma stopped on the threshold of the kitchen. Her mother was nowhere in sight so it must be her responsibility to get the both of them breakfast.
"I could here you coming all the way down the stairs." Vegeta commented, his voice heavy, heart not into having their morning verbal spar, yet making the effort anyways for the appearance of normalcy.
"Implying, I'm fat, monkey boy." Bulma grinned, arms akimbo.
"Take it as you will." He shrugged, ending the argument before it truly had begun.
Bulma frowned, disappointed. "Well, I'm not fat."
"Just loud," Vegeta's eyes flicked over towards her and a small smirk twitched his lips.
"Precisely," She rolled her eyes. "You are one to talk, you are sitting on the table."
"I feel like it."
"Well, I feel like being loud."
Vegeta snorted. Bulma moved farther into the room, eyes searching his face, his eyes were red and hair tangled. "Vegeta, are you okay?" She asked suddenly concerned. "You seem a bit. . .off."
"So what?" Vegeta mumbled. "No one cares anyhow."
"I do! I wouldn't have asked if I didn't care!" Bulma protested, her hands flying up in grand gestures.
Vegeta slid over and off the table. "Right," He scorned. "You care." He headed towards the door, brushing past her as he did.
She regained her balance and whirled. "Aren't you hungry, at least?"
"No."
"You aren't hungry! Vegeta, what the hell is the matter with you? You NEVER refuse food!"
Vegeta stopped abruptly, his lean figure framed by the doorway; he looked over his shoulder at her. "You wouldn't understand." He said coldly.
Bulma was taken aback. She was a genius, she could understand anything! The feeling that this had happened before ran through her, Vegeta was shutting her out, again. "Like hell, I wouldn't understand!" She semi-shouted.
"You use that word a lot." Vegeta tried to divert her.
"Tell me! Tell me, Vegeta what you think I wouldn't understand before you assume that I just wouldn't understand."
Vegeta's shoulders stiffened. "No."
"Why NOT?"
"Because you STILL wouldn't understand, no one on this planet would understand and you would be the LAST person too understand of ALL the people on this mud ball."
"This is about Vegeta-sei, isn't it?" The words tumbled, unbidden out of Bulma's mouth, she didn't know where they came from, yet they were out before she could think them through. She slapped her hands over her mouth and the slightest widening of Vegeta's eyes (or at least the one she could see) told her she was right. The words hung in the air between them and the silence became uncomfortable.
"BONG." The grandfather clock in the hall struck the half-hour.
Both chikyuu-jinn and saiyan-jinn jumped from the unexpected noise. The moment passed and Vegeta strode angrily down the hall, glaring at the clock on his way past.
:What would she know about it?: He thought angrily, trying to brush the woman's brash words from his mind. :How could she understand WHY anyone would mourn the most despised planet next Glacier-sei?: He mentally shook his head. :My people, the women, the children, the artists, the scientists, the very things that made up MY culture gone in an instant. Others could understand, people whom I have done the same too perhaps, but not her, not the woman.:
Ahead of him, his sanctuary appeared, the gravity room. It seemed appropriate it should be his place of refuge. The door slid closed behind him and as it did, layers of the walls placed up by Vegeta slid away. His shoulders slumped, his head sagged, as he sank down to the floor once again the gravity of being the last true saiyan-jinn hit him.
---------------------------------
Even as Vegeta mourned in silence, he hated himself for being weak. Letting himself feel any emotion, much less grief. It was something he had been trained against. Repressing the emotions was second nature, something done so others wouldn't be able to hurt him, even when one was alone it became a habit so there would be no chinks in the armor, no conceivable way to be in pain.
Vegeta had been trained to be strong in all things, including his emotions. The manly man, even as a boy, taken to the extreme, Frieza was fond of extremes, especially in his 'pets.' :I was one of his prime pets, especially after he destroyed my planet. He haunts me, oh how Frieza haunts me from beyond the grave. There is no place to hide when the abuse is in my head, behind those carefully constructed shields between me and the rest of the universe.:
Tears flowed and Vegeta's eyes closed. :I had those walls for a reason and I will keep them!: He vowed internally. :Yet, I miss home.:
Home, there was no substitute for it. The palace had been so busy, so bright in his youth. He had been too young to notice if anything was wrong and too young to care as well.
:It's gone, and I still can't reconcile that fact to myself.: He drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, head buried. :I want home.: He thoughts turned childish. :I want fajka, my favorite meat dish. I want to smell my mother's perfume, it was otsu, the blue flower of passion and proposals, it was spicy with an edge of musk. I want deep red skys fading to violet sunsets and black starless nights. I want to hear the songs of the Hunra (ODD) class, their chanting backed by drums with haunting descants. I want the caress of pallurn against my skin, the fabric ONLY made on Vegeta-sei, softer than chikyuu-sei silk velvet, stronger and stretcher than anything synthetic, it was perfect for under armour or mother's fanciest court apparel. I want HOME.:
Everything on Chikyuu-sei was off, jarring him. In space he expected things to be off, tobe cold and forbidding. He was planet bound here and well, a planet meant that one should be home. Home was gone; home was gone all those years ago TODAY.
So the tears flowed and he mourned. So, Vegeta was weak in his own eyes.
Then he decided enough was enough. He raised his head, scrubbed his eyes and regained a measure of control. Determinedly he stood up. There was a timepiece in the gravity chamber.
Seven o'clock.
:It can't be seven. I did NOTHING all day!:
He scowled and departed from the gravity room with long strides. He was halfway to the house before he noticed that the weakling had come again tonight. Yamcha and Bulma were on the front porch, shamelessly flirting so that the whole neighborhood could see.
Vegeta paused for a moment and mentally sneered. :Chikyuu-jinn, emotions like that should be private.: He took back up his long stride, adding a slight rolling of the hip, making it the arrogant saunter he was known for.
As he prepared to go right past them, he stopped and gave a slight inhalation. Not quite daring to look over at the woman, for it the scent was coming from her. Spicy with just a hint of musk, it was the way a woman should smell. His eyes strayed and caught hers, the deep blue of the otsu shone back at him.
"Something wrong, Vegeta?" Bulma purred, words edged with sarcasm.
"Only you," Vegeta snarled in a rapid change of mood and stalked into the house. :Haven't you been enough of a weakling today, and hasn't that woman caused you enough trouble?: He thought rhetorically. :It's only your imagination. . .yet what is this feeling that this has happened before.:
Bulma stared blankly at the door, before Yamcha persuaded her back to their conversation.
---------------------------
Vegeta had retreated to the roof once again. It was becoming a habit, Yamcha comes over, go to the roof. It was the farthest away he could get from the sickening couple without actually 'leaving' the residence.
He couldn't tear his eyes away from the fading burst of Vegeta-sei, numbly he wondered how many days, weeks, months the explosion would be up there, mocking him. A visible reminder of all he had lost.
The couple's laughter seemed to mock him more. 'How dare they laugh!' His lips turned back into a snarl and his fists clenched, the thought was completely wasted, as were the emotions. The humans didn't know what had happened; they didn't care or even deign to notice what happened in the night skies above them. Vegeta cared, each dot represented something to him, he could barely see the dim red of Vegeta-sei's star occluded as it was by the bright explosion of the planet. It still shone, unnoticing of the havoc that had been played around it.
"You don't care!" He snarled at the star. "Just as they don't care. You don't care that your planet is dead. MY PLANET!" He took a deep breathe. "Frieza was young for a Ice-jinn, he must of thought it was FUN to rearrange the skies. Oh, I was only an excuse, my disobedience, my arrogance that got Vegeta-sei killed. He wanted to teach me a lesson, hah!" Vegeta paced back and forth a few moments, staring at the round roof under his feet. "You know, he could have cared less about Bardock, what was Bardock to him. A mere, yes third class soldier, albeit a powerful soldier. Bardock's rebellion over the loss of his soldiers, laughable to LORD Frieza." Vegeta's voice twisted. "My father had always been expendable." Vegeta laughed mockingly. "One of the most powerful emperors of the stars and he was expendable. No, Vegeta-sei was destroyed to RE-EDUCATE me!"
The laughter below stopped and Vegeta took deep cleansing breathes.
"You know, it was one of just MANY lessons. This one was a lesson in POWER and POWER killed them, pure power. Vegeta-sei is dead, all because of me! ME!" Vegeta screamed into the inky blackness. "On my head rests the guilt." He whispered and stared back up at the star.
----------------------------
Bulma held her breathe and stared upwards towards the roof, almost as if she could see through the ceiling.
Yamcha snorted. "I take it this is a regular occurrence."
Bulma inhaled involuntarily and darted a quick glance over at Yamcha, appalled at his apparent callousness. "Hardly, Vegeta is more reserved than this."
Yamcha frowned. "Well," yet he was interrupted by Bulma.
"Something has been bothering him ALL day." She whispered. "He didn't even use his gravity chamber." She bit the inside of her lip. "I should go see what's wrong." She moved to get up.
"Baby, I think he needs to be alone." Yamcha advised, 'I'm here to see you, he sees you everyday.' Jealousy made his vision cloud momentarily. 'Can't you remember that he killed me.'
"I suppose you are right." Bulma conceded reluctantly. "He likes working things out himself. It's just. . ."
"You say it yourself, he wants to be alone. So leave him that way."
"Yamcha, you are being callous." Bulma cried. "Vegeta is a person with feelings as well."
"He killed millions without thought or care."
"How do you know, you weren't there?" Bulma cried. "You aren't being fair to him, Yamcha!"
"I can't believe you would defend him, Bulma." Yamcha cupped her chin in his hand.
"Yamcha. . ." She whispered.
"I'm taking you to that conference in a month, you need to get out of here."
"You are being subjective just because he killed you."
"So are you! You are living with him. You need time away, to gain some objectivity."
Bulma pulled away. "I thought you didn't want to go."
"I have ALWAYS wanted to go. This is exactly why you need to get away, Bulma. Your memory is like a sieve."
"It is NOT!" Bulma's eyes widened and they began to water. "I'm fine."
"You're frustrated about that project. I can tell. I don't know enough to understand it, yet I know it is important to you. This conference is also important to you and I AM taking you."
Bulma took a deep breathe. "I didn't say I didn't want you to go, Yamcha."
"I love you, honey and I don't want to see you get hurt or see you hurting yourself because of Vegeta, Prince of Saiyan-jinn."
"I love you too, Yamcha." Bulma murmured, yet her heart didn't reflect in her voice and her gaze flickered away from his back to the roof for a mere moment.
Yamcha pressed a soft kiss to her lips. "Try to get some rest."
Bulma nodded and smiled tremulously. "I'll try."
-------------------------------------
"Is he finally gone?" Vegeta sneered from the living room door.
Bulma looked up from her laptop and stared at him. Perhaps Yamcha was right, Vegeta needed to be left alone to get through whatever it was that was bothering him.
"You needn't be so rude about it, broccoli for brains." She snorted and typed a few more letters into her laptop.
Vegeta snorted. "I take it that is a yes."
"If he isn't here, he's someplace else." She raised both eyebrows. "Besides, you warriors seem to have this amazing ki sensing ability, you could use it instead of bothering me."
"Why shouldn't I bother you? You have nothing else better to do than be bothered."
"I have plenty of things to do than wait on you hand and foot Vegeta." Bulma snapped.
"Like what?"
"Research, for one, my business is a world wide concern." She closed the laptop and glared across at him.
"ONLY a world wide concern," He rolled his eyes. "If you were as smart as you think you are you would make it a galaxy wide concern. Unlike 99.99% of the humans on Chikyuu-sei you DO know there is a galaxy out there."
"Uh-huh, how do you propose that?"
"You have the technology at your fingertips, use it."
Bulma rolled her eyes and sighed. "Riiiggghhhhttt. Go to bed Vegeta."
"You first."
"Bastard." She hissed and glared at him.
Vegeta smirked, "Very unoriginal woman."
"Vegetable-head I could care less about original at the moment." She sat the laptop on the table and stood up. "In fact," she began as she strode across the room. "Unoriginal is what I am after at the moment." She stopped right in front of him. "If I want to call you a bastard, a son of a bitch and. . ."
Vegeta scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder. "Lack of sleep is making you even more crazy, woman."
"PUT ME DOWN!" She pounded his back and tried to kick him as he started up the stairs. "Monkey whore, mother. . ."
He threw her down on the bed and walked out. "Woman, one last thought before you sleep," he interrupted her. "Keep acting like you are, I'll start thinking you'd make a wonderful saiyan-jinn female. And woman, you really don't want me to think that."
Bulma sputtered for a few moments. "Why?"
Vegeta smirked. "Oh, think about it."
Bulma began to turn red, it started from about her bust line and worked upwards until it disappeared into her hair line. "You, you. . ."
Vegeta laughed all the way to his room.
-----------------------------------
The next morning Bulma was still mad at him.
He chuckled at her from the doorway. "If you bang those plates down any harder, you'll break them."
She twirled, not knowing what a beautiful picture she made, her hair swirling and eyes sparkling in anger. "Thank you for the advice, I'll try to be careful." She gritted out. She turned back to the table and slammed the plate down, and no sooner than she did it shattered, a piece slicing deep into her thumb.
She stood there staring mutely at her thumb as the blood dripped crimson over her pale skin. Her face paled and her eyes widened.
Vegeta didn't even make a noise as he came up from behind her and pressed the artery shut.
Bulma didn't move or even acknowledge his existence. Her eyes still riveted on her thumb.
"Snap out of it woman." he growled into her ear, catching a whiff of that damnable spicy scent as he did so. It was so close to the scent of the otsu it was almost painful.
Bulma blinked and looked over her shoulder at him. His look was intense as if he was trying to distract himself from being so close to her.
"So what do we do now Vegeta." she said dully.
"This is going to need stitches." He nodded at the thumb.
"How can you tell?" She said in surprise.
"I can see better than you can." :Just like I can smell better, feel better and hear better.:
"Oh, wonderful," She replied sarcastically.
He grabbed her other hand that was at her other side and positioned it over top of where his fingers were on her thumb, effectively giving her a hug at the same time. "Squeeze hard." Bulma tried not to notice his hard muscles or the fact that his hands were uncommonly soft and smooth for a man his age, or even the fact his lips brushed her shoulder accidentally as he looked over her shoulder.
She bit her lip and nodded. :How do I get myself into these situations?:
Vegeta pulled himself away from her and headed towards where she kept the first aid kit. He took it out of the cupboard and felt her eyes on his back. He just kept getting the supplies out that she'd need, though his fingers felt like they were fumbling and he sweated lightly. :Must she look at me with those eyes, those eyes that among MY people would bring her more mating offers than she could count or refuse. Otsu made flesh.: He shivered lightly.
He turned and glided back to her. "Sit." He ordered, trying to act as if everything was normal.
She sat on top of the counter and watched him as he prepped a hypodermic needle, and flinched ahead of time. She couldn't help it, needles didn't bother her per se, just the remembered pain when one was used.
"This will sting for a few moments." He said as he plunged under where her fingers were still squeezing her thumb.
:His movements are impossibly gentle for such a gruff man.: She thought. :It's like he believes I am something delicate, even something desirable.:
He leaned over her thumb and began to stitch the artery shut, he never looked up or he would have seen the confusion in her dark blue eyes. He didn't look because he knew if he did, he would do something he wouldn't regret and he wouldn't be able to repair her wound.
He tied off the knot and snipped the string with a small pair of scissors. He picked up the other needle about to start stitching when he saw that she was still holding the artery closed.
"Let up the pressure, slowly." He murmured, his breathe caressing the exposed inner muscles.
She complied, the bottom of her spine tingling.
"Now, rinse your thumb off. He turned on the water, then made sure it was warm.
She began to hesitantly put it under the water.
Vegeta sighed in exasperation and grabbed her wrist and forced it beneath the stream. She began to hiss, but surprisingly felt nothing but the water streaming over her thumb.
After a few moments Vegeta took her hand back out of the water and still not looking at her face began to stitch closed the thumb itself.
"There, done." He breathed. His breathe tickling the hairs on her hand.
She shivered. "Thank you."
"You should be more careful." His finger involuntarily caressed the stitches, his eyes trained on her. "I can't always be around to fix things."
Bulma controlled her breathing carefully. "Really, you don't seem to do much."
"You want me to fix, everything." Vegeta's eyes caught hers. "I don't think you know what you are asking."
"It is only fair that if you cause the problem, you should fix it." She responded.
Vegeta smirked, "Every problem."
Bulma was silent for a moment. "Can every problem be fixed?"
"Most," His voice was getting lower and she was leaning closer to hear him.
"Okay," She whispered lips millimeters from his. "Fix the plate."
Vegeta blinked for a moment, and then smirked as he pulled away from her, turning towards the table, "Tease."
Bulma had lost her composure as he turned away, her face heated and she licked her lips. "Not as much as you." She whispered.
He snickered. "I suppose." He swept the shards up, one hand reaching for his gloves the other casually sweeping them into a pile.
She slid off the counter and moved behind him. "Last night, just now and hundreds of other small encounters we've had." She placed mere inches between, their bodies sensing the others heat. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were flirting with me."
A short burst of ki restored the plate to wholeness and he just stood there, he didn't have room to turn around, his hands rested on the edge of the table. "What if I was?"
She placed a hand on his shoulder and his black eyes closed, her hands were rough and calloused with the small nicks and cuts most women didn't gain in a lifetime. "I don't know."
"Why not?"
Bulma swept her hand down his arm and narrowed her eyes. "It bothers me."
"Bothers you, worried you'll enjoy the attention." He looked over at her, barely seeing the edge of her profile over his shoulder.
"No. Perhaps it bothers me because it isn't necessary."
Vegeta blinked.
"It bothers me," She whispered into his ear. "Because I feel like this has happened before." The hair began to stand up on the back of his neck, and his skin prickled. This sounded too familiar. "And you already won."
--------------------------------------
Bulma looked up, again. She couldn't explain it, she was expecting SOMEONE to interrupt her work and it was bothering her that this sixth sense of hers just wasn't working like it was supposed to.
She turned back to her work and frowned, unable to concentrate because of that small niggling sensation in the back of her mind. Someone was going to get her, interrupt and…
…too bad she couldn't remember.
She took a deep breathe and let it out, expanding her cheeks and extending her lips. She ran a hand through her hair and with the other searched for a rubber band to tie it back. Her eyes scanned the screen, looking over her previous work.
"Damn," She whispered. There were too many mistakes in the computations than for just simple distraction. Somewhere in the equations something was fundamentally wrong and for the life of her she couldn't figure out what.
Perhaps she should take a break. Bulma loved challenges, thrived on them in fact. However, this equation was getting beyond her and she knew if it was beyond her, than it would be beyond every other scientist on the planet. "I will figure this out." She murmured to herself. "After lunch, I'll figure you out!" She vowed to the computer screen.
She shoved back from the table and was about to turn around when something on the screen caught her eye.
There was a pattern in all the numbers, a broken pattern at the moment, but a pattern. Bulma frowned softly. :A pattern like that generally only appears in some sort of matrix, something that is permanently fixed. Now, how could. . ."
"Woman!" Vegeta grumped from behind her, unnerved at the sight of her just staring at the mechanical contraption brow furrowed.
Bulma whirled, her mind lost the problem. "Shit, Vegeta. Don't sneak up on me!"
Vegeta smirked. "There's no food."
"There's no food because my mother's not here and I was just about to leave to make some." Bulma replied sweetly, batting her eyelashes at him.
Vegeta snorted. "Really, seems like you were just staring at that machine."
Bulma's smile became broader. "Why yes, Vegeta I was. In fact I was on the edge of solving a problem beyond your capabilities when you interrupted me." The last word came out on the edge of a shriek.
Vegeta growled. "You assume far too much woman, especially about my intelligence."
Bulma snorted herself and waved a hand at him. "Fine, have it your way."
Vegeta's eyes flickered to the screen behind and they widened fractionally. :That's a crystal matrix, the coruscarads, shit! The bitch has the technology almost figured out. However, without a source for the crystals she won't get any farther than 'theory.' Serves her right, stuck up arrogant female.: His lips twitched into a smirk and he transferred his gaze back to her. "I always do, eventually."
Bulma brushed past him, Vegeta gave one last look at her laptop, contemplating erasing the data, then decided against it. It would be amusing to see how far she got before she realized what she had in front of her. His eyes narrowed and his smirk became broader. "You have no idea, woman." He chuckled maliciously. "You could have saved yourself months of work, but no, I'll let you muddle through."
Vegeta kindly flipped the lights off on the way out.
--------------------------------
Bulma had a knife in her hand and was lining up vegetables to chop as Vegeta walked through the door.
"Took you long enough," She said flippantly.
"I suppose you were napping." Vegeta replied sarcastically.
She looked up at him startled.
"Watch what you are doing!" Vegeta barked as the knife barely missed her middle finger.
Bulma hurriedly looked back down and slowed down her cutting. "I know what I'm doing." She muttered.
"You could have fooled me." He snarled and crossed his arms. "I'm beginning to think you enjoy pain."
"And you don't?"
"Pain makes me stronger, don't change the subject."
Bulma set the knife down and glared at him. "I have not changed the subject, you are arguing for the sake of arguing."
"So damn what, woman." Vegeta replied. "I like arguing and so do you." He strode over and picked the knife up off the table and slid the cutting board to his side.
"Like arguing?!"
"Humans, you waste so much energy emoting." Vegeta mused for a moment. "Yes, we both like arguing. Woman, must we go over this again. If I recall we've already had this conversation at some point in the past."
"What are you talking about? We've never had this conversation!" Bulma's voice was incredulous, Vegeta was going absolutely nuts.
Vegeta blinked, flushed for a moment. :Shit, that dream again.: "I concede you that point."
"Oh, so glad, conceding to me about a conversation we've never had." Bulma huffed, crossing her arms, a distinct imitation of one of Vegeta's favorite poses.
"We also really don't converse or argue." Vegeta added, grimacing at the déjà vu feeling. He hated that dream, it was worse than the ones with Frieza or his past in them. Those dreams he didn't mistake for reality. "We debate, discuss and so on."
"At the top of our lungs," Bulma raised her eyebrows, voice breathy.
Vegeta glared at her for a moment and they both proceeded to ignore the doorbell, which rang at the same time as the clock in the hall.
"Besides those are euphemisms for the same word; argue!"
Someone rapped on the door, this time in tune with the Vegeta's slicing sounds, yet neither cared anyways.
"They sound better." Vegeta tried not to sound petulant, and he was secretly pleased that the conversation was back on track to the one in his memory.
Bulma rolled her expressive blue eyes. "I suppose."
"You could try using them in a sentence."
"You first, if you want to sound like you are in first grade." Bulma sneered.
The door opened and closed.
"You are being impossible."
"Not as nearly as much as you are being. Argue is the correct word, because that is what we do. However, the issue is whether or not we LIKE arguing." She leaned forward, pounding the table with each word, causing the vegetables Vegeta was slicing to jump. Vegeta set the knife down and stared at her for a moment. Her eyes were sparkling and her face somewhat flushed.
"Explain why we do it so much then?" He retorted.
Bulma grimaced.
Vegeta smirked. "You make it easy to make you mad." :And you look so beautiful, it is just a temptation I can't resist.: Providing part of the answer for her.
"Easy! You son of a bitch, I'll give you. . ."
Vegeta couldn't resist, it was way too much like his dream not to do it, and this part he remembered well. He cupped her chin and his hand and kissed her. Bulma stiffened in shock then relaxed into the kiss, answering a need that she didn't even know she had, the kiss deepened and she moaned in the back of her throat.
"Bulma," Yamcha whispered.
Bulma shoved away from Vegeta violently, her face going white with shock. "Yamcha," she sputtered. "This isn't what it looks like."
Vegeta sucked in air for a few moments. "Actually, this is exactly as it looks like." He muttered.
Bulma gave him a dirty look and moved across the room to Yamcha. "It isn't. He's just being an ass."
"What am I supposed to think, walking in and finding my girlfriend kissing a mass murderer, who by the way is LIVING in her home!"
Bulma wiped her mouth and looked pleadingly up at him. "Yamcha, listen to me. There is nothing between me and Vegeta."
Unseen Vegeta raised his eyebrows. "Liar," He hissed.
Yamcha glanced between them. "I don't know who or even what to believe at the moment."
Bulma looked stricken. "It just happened, Yamcha."
"I KNOW, I SAW IT!" Yamcha yelled, raking his hand through his hair.
"That isn't what I mean and you know it!" Bulma choked.
Yamcha sneered. "Oh, right, you were not in control of the situation. He was." Yamcha nodded at Vegeta.
Vegeta turned around slowly. "I was." He reluctantly agreed.
Bulma put a hand on Yamcha's bicep. "Relax, please."
He grabbed her hand. "And what is this?" He glared at the bandage. "He's not only kissing you, yet hurting you as well."
Bulma snatched her hand back. "He isn't! Vegeta wouldn't do that, it was an accident."
"You are defending him again!" Yamcha yelled.
Vegeta smirked and leaned back. Prime Time entertainment right here in the kitchen.
"You know what, I don't care!" Bulma yelled back, "Yes, I am defending him. You don't know everything Yamcha!"
"He killed me, tried to kill you, then you INVITED him to live with you and NOW he is coming on to you. What am I supposed to think, Bulma? Tell me that!"
Vegeta looked at the woman; her slight body was shaking in frustrated rage.
"You are just jealous, Yamcha!" Bulma choked. "I love you, but Vegeta is my friend. Can't you trust me?"
"FRIEND! After what I just saw you presume to call him a friend." Yamcha hissed.
A tear fell from Bulma's eye. "Yes." She straightened proudly. "Vegeta is my friend."
"Do all your friends try to kill you and kill me!"
"Not everything is about you, Yamcha!"
Silence descended onto the kitchen.
Vegeta pushed himself away from the table. He sauntered over to them, paused, reached over wiping Bulma's tear away with his thumb, "Don't cry for me," he whispered, and continued walking out.
His voice drifted back over his shoulder. "Humans, they waste so much energy emoting."
Bulma tried to shake off the feeling of Vegeta's thumb wiping away her tear, it had been so tender, yet so passionate. She couldn't help but cry for him, he had so few friends. Her spine tingled and she wanted to pant, yet she couldn't, Yamcha was still there, seething.
She took a deep breathe, wondering all the while where Vegeta had went. "Baseball is changing you, Yamcha."
"Namek changed you."
"Damn straight it did. I thought we were beyond this." She shook her head. "I grew up on Namek and I thought you were okay with it. And baseball, Yamcha, you didn't used to be so self-centered. Look, this was only one time."
"While I was here, how do I know what is going on in this house when I'm not? You could be sleeping with him for all I know."
"You need to trust me. Yamcha, I am trying to trust you with all your fans and that, yet how can I trust you if you don't trust me?" She stared at him. "Your distrust gives me the impression you are also doing something untrustworthy and so I question you and it turns into a viscous cycle."
"I have to make a living, I have bills to pay."
"You could always live here, a room is ALWAYS open."
"No."
Bulma threw her hands up in frustration. "Here is where I could ask why not, but that would show a lack of trust in you and a belief that something is going on with someone else behind my back. I don't want it to be like that, Yamcha. I don't want all this mistrust. I love you Yamcha, there shouldn't be any mistrust in love."
Unknown to them, their voices were echoing up the stairs and into Vegeta's room, where he was packing a few clothes. :She's right. A couple should be able to trust each other, yet even trust can be abused. It is an ideal system she is talking about. Then there is the saiyan-jinn system, yet most wouldn't think that way is ideal. Including our own people.: Vegeta shuddered.
"Yet, there is." Yamcha retorted. "I think in this instance it is well founded. What you are saying and what I see are two different things, Bulma."
"Vegeta even accepted responsibility for the instance. . ."
"You are enjoying his attention, Bulma. I can tell." Yamcha hissed.
Bulma flushed and Vegeta snickered. :Human, you have no idea.:
"Vegeta…" Bulma began and paused. "Fine, yes, I do enjoy the attention. I dare say it is more than I get from you."
Vegeta winced and Yamcha blinked. Bulma wasn't helping her cause any.
"We have schedules, duties that come first." Yamcha growled. "You've said that yourself. You KNOW how hard it is for me to get time off."
"That doesn't change what I said." Bulma replied and then sighed. "I want this relationship to work, Yamcha. I love you."
Vegeta grimaced. :There she goes again with love, and watch he'll take her back. Fools the both of them.:
"I don't know, this is going to take time."
:Time, always time.: Vegeta shook his head. :There is no time, not when you could die at any time.:
"We have that time, Yamcha." Bulma rested her hand on his and smiled at him.
Yamcha leaned down and kissed her gently, "All right."
Vegeta shook his head in disgust, :Humans.:
"Let's go out to lunch, Yamcha. We have a lot to talk about." :Even if we sit in silence.:
Bulma murmured.
"My car's outside," Yamcha smiled. "That's what I wanted in the first place."
"Oh, you…" Bulma teased, her mood suddenly congenial. Vegeta could tell it was mostly forced from being around her so long, but if the idiot was fooled, well the more fool he was.
The door closed behind them and Vegeta closed his eyes. "Time for me to get out of here as well, before..." He shuddered again. He didn't even want to think about what was happening to him and with HER of all the females in the galaxy. He needed to get away, to focus these emotions into something constructive.
He scooped up the bag and walked out the balcony's sliding glass doors. His sensitive ears heard the click of the security system as his feet left the balcony.
--------------------------
The bare mountaintop suited what Vegeta wanted his mood to be, cold, desolate and utterly empty. Vegeta grimaced and stared moodily at the rock, the irony of the situation.
Humans waste so much energy emoting he had told them. Saiyan-jinn had emotions as well, yet they took that energy so carelessly wasted by the humans and channeled it to suit their needs. This bespoke power, training, control, discipline. The four things all saiyan-jinn strived to attain.
Emotions were things not to be trifled with and it was better to put them to good use rather than giving into their moods. One ruled emotions, not the other way around. Allowing oneself to be ruled by one's emotions was wrong. It cried out against everything Vegeta had been trained against.
He took a deep cleansing breathe. These humans were making him soft. It didn't matter that his planet had died. It had happened years ago. It was dead there was no bringing it back. He had no home and never would, end of lesson.
It was past time to regain some perspective. He had one purpose; to achieve his destiny, to become the Legendary Super Saiyan-jinn. And beat Kakorroto, he tagged on as an after thought.
He shook his head and set himself on the pinnacle, moving into a graceful starting move. His motions fluid he stretched all his muscles, slowly, feeling them burn as he held tight extended positions. His eyes closed and he lost himself in the kata.
He focused his will, his great determination to going through the motions; making them fluid, graceful and keeping himself completely balanced. He went through them once in legato, slowly and smoothly and then cresendoed to allegro, where an observer couldn't tell one move from another and back again, ending in the same pose he had started with.
Vegeta's muscles shook and sweat poured off his body. He stood in place for a few moments then moved into a different starting position. The sun was setting in a glorious display of reds, oranges, golds and pinks behind him. Violet streaks of clouds lined with gold marred the perfection of the sky dome. Vegeta paid no attention, his mind in other places, transcending the mortal ness of his surroundings.
He felt nothing. Nothing could touch him in this state of being. Not guilt, not anguish, not hurt and definitely not love.
Vegeta swung his arms around into another deceptively easy looking position.
Memories couldn't even touch him here, in this state of mind he could escape anything he wanted. This was why he strove for it, every day, every hour. Only in this highly disciplined state of thought was he safe. Safe from the things he despised the most; emotions and memories.
He surrendered even more into the motions and patterns of the katas, letting them wash away his troubles.
-----------------------------
Bulma absent mindedly ran her key card through the house's reader. She turned and smiled
at Yamcha. "Would you like to come in?"
Yamcha shook his head. "I shouldn't."
Bulma stared at him, inwardly sad and thoughtful. :It doesn't have to be this way, Yamcha.: "I understand."
"I don't think you do." Yamcha stared down at her, his eyes cold.
Lunch had been a disaster. They had mostly stared at each other in silence, unsure of what to do, unsure of what to say. Bulma sighed and dropped her eyes away from his.
"Perhaps, I don't Yamcha. I don't understand anything anymore, least of all what is happening between us. I don't know if I even want to understand it." She said desperately, "And even if we understood it, could we stop it from happening?"
"I don't know."
Bulma looked away. "It doesn't have to be this way." She put her earlier thought into words.
"It wouldn't be this way, if you. . ."
"Don't finish that sentence, Yamcha." Bulma hissed, glaring back up at him.
Yamcha took a step back. "Just saying things as I see them, babe." He protested.
"You're wrong."
"Am I? You must admit, this seems rather suspicious looking from a cause and effect stand point."
"Must you drag Vegeta into the middle of everything?" Bulma huffed.
"He's the cause of everything. So I am perfectly justified," Yamcha began.
"JUSTIFIED!" Bulma shouted, "Justified by bringing another victim into this fight."
"Vegeta is NOT a victim!" Yamcha glared.
"Really?" Bulma raised an eyebrow. "I am sure Vegeta himself wouldn't describe it that way, yet it doesn't change the truth."
"He was a willing, active participant in what he was doing." Yamcha defended himself.
"You are like a brick wall, hard and unmoving." Bulma took a deep breathe and turned into the house. "Guess what. I don't want to argue with you anymore today. Good bye Yamcha. Call me sometime."
"Fine, 'cause I don't want to argue either. We wouldn't even be arguing if he wasn't here."
"Oh, give it a rest." Bulma groaned.
"Good bye, Bulma." Yamcha slammed the door behind her. "I'm off to find more congenial company."
"YOU DO THAT!" Bulma screamed. "LEAVE ALREADY!"
Yamcha's tires squealed and blew smoke as he pealed out of her driveway.
Bulma tapped her foot for a few moments, her arms crossing. It took her a few moments after replaying events in her mind to realize that if the compound was locked, Vegeta was gone.
Her brow furrowed and she headed up the stairs. "Vegeta?"
No one answered from his room and she pushed the door open, marveling again at the meticulous neatness of the man. She opened his balcony door and strode out onto it, the gravity machine was powered off, there were no lights in the windows.
Vegeta was missing. :I don't get it, why did he leave?: She shivered slightly and rubbed her arms as goose bumps formed on them. There was no breeze.
Her brain answered her own question. :He left because of me, his emotions.: Bulma frowned, :He's running.:
:He'll be back,: came the solid belief in her mind. :He'll be back.:
----------------------
Vegeta at the time wasn't particularly concerned about returning. He'd return when and if he felt it was time to return. He could survive on Earth without the help. The Brief's residence was just a convenience for him. However, he'd go back. He would be drawn there fully knowing the reason and hating himself for it the entire time.
He'd go back because of her, the way she made him feel.
Vegeta shuddered and his eyes opened. He was losing his focus. He followed through with the kick which was the next move in the kata and then stopped.
His mountain perch gave him a clear view of the darkening sky. He didn't know how far he had wandered from Capsule Corp, he didn't care. Vegeta-sei was still there in the black dome of the heavens, still burning.
He stared, the stars reflecting back from his irises, a dark ebony mirror.
"I failed you." He whispered. "Frieza..." He stopped to take a deep breathe. "I was given a choice, my death against all of yours. I was young, there was no guarantee he wouldn't kill you all anyways. Perhaps I should have chosen death." He stared down at the ground. "Now, you are like this mountain top, bare, lifeless and only I remain. I have survived Frieza, though it is an empty victory. There was no vengeance for your death, just for a monk who shouldn't have been there in the first place, by a man who had no right to kill Frieza." Vegeta looked back up. "Yet I go on. I am not the strongest and I haven't lived up to your expectations. I shall go on and keep trying, trying to be strong."
Vegeta blocked the many memories that could run through his mind as he said this, he wouldn't remember, those memories no longer mattered. What mattered now was that he would be strong, he'd be in control.
He would do it. Focus regained and Bulma put out of his mind, Vegeta went back to training. He only hoped his focus would last.
-----------------------------
The house was too quiet, her lab seemed too empty and nothing felt quite right. Vegeta should have been back by now. Bulma paced back and forth in the hallway. He'd been gone over a week.
Vegeta hadn't left his gravity machine alone that long since the one time he had blown it up and that was only because she had to fix it and then once it was fixed and long before she thought he was healed enough to train he'd gone back to using it.
This was completely out of character for the surly prince. In her head she KNEW that he should be back by now and there was something important he needed to tell her and he'd be different.
Bulma paced into the living room, moving back and forth until unable to stand her own motion any longer she flopped onto the couch.
BRRIING!!
"Bulma Briefs!" She chirped as she picked up the phone.
"Hey, babe."
Bulma stifled a groan; she didn't want to talk to Yamcha right now. Her mind was on another man for goodness sake. Besides the fact they hadn't been talking to each other since their last fight.
"Hey, Yamcha."
"How you've been?" Yamcha's voice was tinged with concern.
"Yamcha, I don't go to pieces every time we break up."
The door slammed and Bulma jumped from the couch towards the door of the living room, the cord stretching behind her.
"WOMAN!"
It was Vegeta all right.
"Oh, Vegeta's there." Yamcha sounded deflated. "I thought Tien had him out in the mountains somewhere."
"Oh, is that where he was?" Bulma said sweetly to Yamcha and smiled at her guest.
"Well. . ." Yamcha began to sputter.
"Why wasn't I told!" She screamed at both of them.
Vegeta blinked for a few seconds, and the silence lengthened. He shrugged.
"Babe, I didn't think it was important." Yamcha sputtered.
"Oh, really," Bulma's voice was thick with sarcasm. "Do you KNOW how worried I was?"
For some strange reason, the feeling of triumph welled in Vegeta's breast. He tried to knock it down, yet it was still there. Control kept a smirk from gracing his face.
"Vegeta can handle himself." Yamcha replied.
Vegeta grunted.
Bulma glared at him, her foot beginning to tap. "He is still a guest in my home."
"You didn't say anything," Yamcha protested.
"We haven't talked since he left," Bulma screeched and Vegeta clapped his hands over his ears. "My company wasn't congenial enough, remember?"
"Bulma," Yamcha sighed. "I didn't call to argue with you."
"Well, so much for good intentions."
"Babe," Yamcha said desperately. "Look, I don't care that Vegeta's there."
"Uh huh?" Bulma sneered.
"I don't. I was just calling to see if you made hotel reservations yet?"
"No."
"If you don't do it soon, we won't have anyplace to stay!"
"Yamcha, I OWN the hotel; there is ALWAYS a room available to me."
Vegeta left, the conversation no longer concerned him, so he was no longer concerned with it.
"Oh, what about me?"
"Yamcha, it's a SUITE for kami's sake." Bulma rolled her eyes to the heavens.
"Oh."
"Oh."
There was a long pause in the conversation. "All right then, I'll talk to you later."
"Sure, Yamcha."
She hung up the phone decisively and stalked after her houseguest. "VEGETA!"
"Must you always make such a racket?" Vegeta commented.
"Only returning the favor," she smiled sweetly at him.
Vegeta was seated at the table this time and he kicked the chair back, precariously perching it on the hind legs.
"I take it you're hungry." Bulma interpreted. "Frankly, I am not surprised." She began to move around the kitchen, taking out various dishes and implements.
Vegeta stared at her without emotion. :Does anyone totally understand women?: He thought, deep inside himself.
"So, where did you go?"
"None of your business."
"Was it nice there?" She continued.
"Woman," he growled.
"And why didn't you tell me?"
"Woman, can the questions."
"Tell me!"
Vegeta clamped his mouth shut and glared at her.
"You're shutting me out!" She glared back. "Vegeta you can't go through life without caring for others."
Vegeta kept silent.
"Answer me!" Bulma placed everything on the table and stared him. :This isn't the way things are supposed to go. Vegeta, let me in.:
"Woman, just cook."
Bulma stood there for a few moments, her mouth opening and closing. She looked like a crab and Vegeta kept himself carefully still, gazing back at her with that emotionless black stare. It made his eyes look dead.
Bulma looked away and began to cook. "This can't go on forever."
Vegeta snorted.
-------------------------------------------
Things began to settle back into a routine. Bulma worked in her lab and Vegeta beat himself up in his Gravity Chamber.
Bulma hated it. She wanted to go inside there and beat him herself. Beat him until he would talk to her, beat him because she could. Other times she when she wanted to join him was because she craved it, she longed to prove herself to him. Feeling perhaps it would be the only way for him to open up to her.
She poured herself another cup of coffee, lit a cigarette, its butt quickly joining an ash tray full of them, the liners bent and creased. The tray was black with soot its original color lost.
They didn't talk to each other, either. There were no more arguments in the mornings, evenings or lunch times. Silence was the rule and it was more comfortable than silences with Yamcha. Yamcha she didn't want to talk with though, Vegeta she did. She didn't know how to talk to Vegeta though, she had tried at times, his stony silences had quickly made her just shut her mouth and eat. He was worse than a wall, a wall didn't breathe air and have a heart that beat. Vegeta did.
Bulma ran a hand through her hair, making furrows in the locks and stared at the screen of her computer. Her eyes were red and bleary and she desperately wanted a drink of something harder than coffee. She wanted to just forget her problems for a few moments.
The equations in front of her weren't progressing. She typed a few numbers in lazily and waited to see if they would help. They didn't. She couldn't see the patterns in the numbers anymore. She couldn't find it and she knew it was there, perhaps if she unfocused her eyes and just stared at it. It wasn't working.
She needed a break and she couldn't take one.
Thus, she was becoming more and more violent.
-------------------------------------
Vegeta had to work ever harder to quell the emotions within him, and so he did so ruthlessly. He wanted nothing to do with them. He built his walls thicker and higher than ever before. He couldn't let the woman see what she did to him.
His muscles burned, sweat poured down his body as he did pushups and fought the machines she created for him. At times his blood would spill and he would ignore it and keep on fighting, and the blood would dry and sometimes even flake off showing the new skin underneath as he trained. This outward strain compared to the inward strain was nothing.
A nagging feeling in the back of his head told him that he was wrong and perhaps she was right. He couldn't block people out forever. He told that part of him, his forgotten conscious to shut up, loudly and repeatedly.
It wouldn't listen, so it through him into a rage, which fueled his movements and his lagging energies when he got tired.
He hated and loved the voice. He hated the voice because it told him he needed people, it told him that he was lonely. He loved the voice because it drove him harder and harder, straining his muscles to exhaustion and beyond. He hated the voice because it said he wanted her to be with him, fighting him. It showed him pictures of his every desire, his every quelled fantasy of women with her there, teasing him. Part of him wanted to embrace those fantasies, make them come true.
It could not happen, he wouldn't let it.
And so he fought, alternately winning and losing the struggle within himself.
-----------------------------
AHHHH!!!!! END CHAPTER!!!! I couldn't do it, it's 3kb short. I am so ashamed... but it's closer to the length of my other chapters. :) And I worked on it all month too...
SIGH... Thankx again JC (my friend) for helping me get out of my writers block. And Thankx you all for reading. You make it worth while.
Please tell me what you think!
RingPrincess
The owner/creator is Akira Toriyama and I tip my hat to him for creating such delightful characters and situations. DBZ is alsoed owned by Funimation and Viz and many other companies who have chipped in to make this such a great universe.
oh well... onward and upward
however the ideas in this story are mine, if you wish to use them contact me FIRST at either ring_princess@hotmail.com or ring_princess2001@yahoo.com or cite me somewhere, Please!
Before we go any farther, I'd like to thank my friend and boss for getting me out of the terrible writers block this particular story was suffering under. THANX!!!! (He's such a great guy!)
Chapter Five
Confusion of a Saiyan-jinn
The bed was too soft, the night was too bright and that damnable woman and her boyfriend were too loud! Vegeta ground his teeth, the noise contrasting sharply with the delighted laugh of two people downstairs. Hell, couldn't they shut up for the ONE minute it would take to get him to go to sleep.
Or was Yamcha going to stay here until three in the morning AGAIN! Vegeta rolled over and stared at the clock, then over at the calendar, where he marked when the weakling had last been over, for no other reason than boredom and the time Yamcha left because Vegeta didn't sleep until the weakling departed the vicinity.
The weakling idiot had never stayed till three in the morning. Oh what the. . .
Vegeta sighed and rolled back over, rubbing his temples.
That hideous screech this morning from the woman had woken him to one of the worst and unpredictable days of his life. Damn her. The food hadn't tasted right, the gravity room seemed empty, though he KNEW he was the only one that used the infernal contraption, and Yamcha had come over for the first time in weeks, which was too soon for him and the woman had just been acting funny from the moment she had woken both of them up.
Vegeta hated things being unpredictable and to top it all off there was that dream which no matter how hard he tried he could just not remember. He growled in the back of his throat and clenched his fists, dreams were important! Not being able to remember this one was like an itch he couldn't scratch, the tail he didn't have, and his kingdom which was destroyed, argh! It was driving him nuts!
He could remember every detail of the dreams in which Frieza tortured him, the dreams of his days on Vegeta-sei, few they had been, and the dreams of the planets and the people he had destroyed on a whim, yet he couldn't remember this one. All his life he had no choice but to remember his dreams and past.
Now, now there was something he wanted to remember and he couldn't!!! The more he focused on the few hazy things he could remember the more hazy they became. It just wasn't FAIR!
He threw himself off the bed, he couldn't take being in that box of a room anymore! It didn't matter to him that he could NEVER sleep when Yamcha was here. The other warrior's ki always seemed to be a challenge to him; this was Vegeta's dwelling, Vegeta's territory. Yamcha had no right to be here without Vegeta's express permission. And if Vegeta had his way, the permission wouldn't have come and so the idiot would not be around and disturbing Vegeta's sleep patterns.
What did the woman see in that pathetic puppy that kept her attention?
The dark scowl that graced Vegeta's face was well practiced and more natural than any smile. His arms crossed and his feet spread apart, Vegeta surveyed the back lawn with dead black eyes. The darkened grass and flowerbeds held nothing to threaten him. The threat to him was in the house, flirting with her, the woman.
Vegeta bared his teeth and unknowingly tensed the night breezes across his bare arms and chest doing nothing to sooth his growing temper.
Unwittingly he gazed up at the sky, his attention automatically on a minute star, barely registered by even Saiyan-jinn eyes it was so far away and so dim.
:Vegeta-sei. . .: He thought. The word bringing with it a host of meanings and corresponding feelings, thick and fast, barely even registered on the Prince's conscious mind. He floated to the top of domed house, his feet making a small sound as he settled down on the roof. :Home.:
So faint, barely discernable from Chikyuu-sei, yet Vegeta saw it, wasn't expecting it and he fell to his knees. Traveling the light years across the cold/hot of space the light of Vegeta-sei's explosion reached Chikyuu-sei.
Vegeta's head sagged down; chin barely touching his chest, his hand reached up to cover his eyes. He looked up again, it was still there, bringing up memories best left buried.
Hot and wet, a single tear slipped from Vegeta's eye, leaving a trail of cold down his cheek before slipping between his fingers.
:Gone. Dead.:
------------------------------
Bulma snuggled deeper under the covers, warm and contented. The bed was so comfortable and she felt glued to the mattress. She smiled in that half-awake stage where you could think and still confess to be sleeping, last night had been wonderful.
It had been the first time her and Yamcha's schedules had both been free for weeks. He had picked her up in his new car and taken her out to dinner at their favorite restaurant. After dinner, he'd taken her dancing at the club he was a member of because of baseball. Oh, he had been such a gentleman, paying attention only to her. They'd come home early and had talked for hours catching up like they had in the first days of their official twosome relationship.
Oh, it had been a marvelous evening and now she didn't want to move. Her self-imposed darkness was too lovely, the memories too pleasant and fresh not to remember. The bed was too comfortable to even move. She wasn't going to move and nothing was going to make her.
Except, her conscious plus the fact Yamcha was coming back tonight.
She hated her conscious, it was so nice just to lie here and rest and think.
The alarm went off.
"BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"Shu up," Bulma murmured, still refusing to move. Yet, the alarm clock was a machine and like all machines wasn't about to stop doing what it was doing without intervention, divine or mortal and no deity was going to shut her alarm clock for her.
One sapphire eye opened, and reluctantly the other opened as well. To turn off the contraption meant moving and once she started moving she wouldn't stop.
Bulma sighed and rolled over and sat up, giving in to the inevitable.
The bathroom seemed so far away and she lazily made her way towards it.
Thirty minutes later, showered, dressed and hungry, Bulma headed down the stairs, making a deliberate thump every time she put her foot down. A small defiance to her house guest who moved so silently she had vowed he'd taken years off her life scaring her.
Thinking of her houseguest.
Vegeta was sitting on the table, using the chair for a footrest, chin on his folded hands.
Bulma stopped on the threshold of the kitchen. Her mother was nowhere in sight so it must be her responsibility to get the both of them breakfast.
"I could here you coming all the way down the stairs." Vegeta commented, his voice heavy, heart not into having their morning verbal spar, yet making the effort anyways for the appearance of normalcy.
"Implying, I'm fat, monkey boy." Bulma grinned, arms akimbo.
"Take it as you will." He shrugged, ending the argument before it truly had begun.
Bulma frowned, disappointed. "Well, I'm not fat."
"Just loud," Vegeta's eyes flicked over towards her and a small smirk twitched his lips.
"Precisely," She rolled her eyes. "You are one to talk, you are sitting on the table."
"I feel like it."
"Well, I feel like being loud."
Vegeta snorted. Bulma moved farther into the room, eyes searching his face, his eyes were red and hair tangled. "Vegeta, are you okay?" She asked suddenly concerned. "You seem a bit. . .off."
"So what?" Vegeta mumbled. "No one cares anyhow."
"I do! I wouldn't have asked if I didn't care!" Bulma protested, her hands flying up in grand gestures.
Vegeta slid over and off the table. "Right," He scorned. "You care." He headed towards the door, brushing past her as he did.
She regained her balance and whirled. "Aren't you hungry, at least?"
"No."
"You aren't hungry! Vegeta, what the hell is the matter with you? You NEVER refuse food!"
Vegeta stopped abruptly, his lean figure framed by the doorway; he looked over his shoulder at her. "You wouldn't understand." He said coldly.
Bulma was taken aback. She was a genius, she could understand anything! The feeling that this had happened before ran through her, Vegeta was shutting her out, again. "Like hell, I wouldn't understand!" She semi-shouted.
"You use that word a lot." Vegeta tried to divert her.
"Tell me! Tell me, Vegeta what you think I wouldn't understand before you assume that I just wouldn't understand."
Vegeta's shoulders stiffened. "No."
"Why NOT?"
"Because you STILL wouldn't understand, no one on this planet would understand and you would be the LAST person too understand of ALL the people on this mud ball."
"This is about Vegeta-sei, isn't it?" The words tumbled, unbidden out of Bulma's mouth, she didn't know where they came from, yet they were out before she could think them through. She slapped her hands over her mouth and the slightest widening of Vegeta's eyes (or at least the one she could see) told her she was right. The words hung in the air between them and the silence became uncomfortable.
"BONG." The grandfather clock in the hall struck the half-hour.
Both chikyuu-jinn and saiyan-jinn jumped from the unexpected noise. The moment passed and Vegeta strode angrily down the hall, glaring at the clock on his way past.
:What would she know about it?: He thought angrily, trying to brush the woman's brash words from his mind. :How could she understand WHY anyone would mourn the most despised planet next Glacier-sei?: He mentally shook his head. :My people, the women, the children, the artists, the scientists, the very things that made up MY culture gone in an instant. Others could understand, people whom I have done the same too perhaps, but not her, not the woman.:
Ahead of him, his sanctuary appeared, the gravity room. It seemed appropriate it should be his place of refuge. The door slid closed behind him and as it did, layers of the walls placed up by Vegeta slid away. His shoulders slumped, his head sagged, as he sank down to the floor once again the gravity of being the last true saiyan-jinn hit him.
---------------------------------
Even as Vegeta mourned in silence, he hated himself for being weak. Letting himself feel any emotion, much less grief. It was something he had been trained against. Repressing the emotions was second nature, something done so others wouldn't be able to hurt him, even when one was alone it became a habit so there would be no chinks in the armor, no conceivable way to be in pain.
Vegeta had been trained to be strong in all things, including his emotions. The manly man, even as a boy, taken to the extreme, Frieza was fond of extremes, especially in his 'pets.' :I was one of his prime pets, especially after he destroyed my planet. He haunts me, oh how Frieza haunts me from beyond the grave. There is no place to hide when the abuse is in my head, behind those carefully constructed shields between me and the rest of the universe.:
Tears flowed and Vegeta's eyes closed. :I had those walls for a reason and I will keep them!: He vowed internally. :Yet, I miss home.:
Home, there was no substitute for it. The palace had been so busy, so bright in his youth. He had been too young to notice if anything was wrong and too young to care as well.
:It's gone, and I still can't reconcile that fact to myself.: He drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, head buried. :I want home.: He thoughts turned childish. :I want fajka, my favorite meat dish. I want to smell my mother's perfume, it was otsu, the blue flower of passion and proposals, it was spicy with an edge of musk. I want deep red skys fading to violet sunsets and black starless nights. I want to hear the songs of the Hunra (ODD) class, their chanting backed by drums with haunting descants. I want the caress of pallurn against my skin, the fabric ONLY made on Vegeta-sei, softer than chikyuu-sei silk velvet, stronger and stretcher than anything synthetic, it was perfect for under armour or mother's fanciest court apparel. I want HOME.:
Everything on Chikyuu-sei was off, jarring him. In space he expected things to be off, tobe cold and forbidding. He was planet bound here and well, a planet meant that one should be home. Home was gone; home was gone all those years ago TODAY.
So the tears flowed and he mourned. So, Vegeta was weak in his own eyes.
Then he decided enough was enough. He raised his head, scrubbed his eyes and regained a measure of control. Determinedly he stood up. There was a timepiece in the gravity chamber.
Seven o'clock.
:It can't be seven. I did NOTHING all day!:
He scowled and departed from the gravity room with long strides. He was halfway to the house before he noticed that the weakling had come again tonight. Yamcha and Bulma were on the front porch, shamelessly flirting so that the whole neighborhood could see.
Vegeta paused for a moment and mentally sneered. :Chikyuu-jinn, emotions like that should be private.: He took back up his long stride, adding a slight rolling of the hip, making it the arrogant saunter he was known for.
As he prepared to go right past them, he stopped and gave a slight inhalation. Not quite daring to look over at the woman, for it the scent was coming from her. Spicy with just a hint of musk, it was the way a woman should smell. His eyes strayed and caught hers, the deep blue of the otsu shone back at him.
"Something wrong, Vegeta?" Bulma purred, words edged with sarcasm.
"Only you," Vegeta snarled in a rapid change of mood and stalked into the house. :Haven't you been enough of a weakling today, and hasn't that woman caused you enough trouble?: He thought rhetorically. :It's only your imagination. . .yet what is this feeling that this has happened before.:
Bulma stared blankly at the door, before Yamcha persuaded her back to their conversation.
---------------------------
Vegeta had retreated to the roof once again. It was becoming a habit, Yamcha comes over, go to the roof. It was the farthest away he could get from the sickening couple without actually 'leaving' the residence.
He couldn't tear his eyes away from the fading burst of Vegeta-sei, numbly he wondered how many days, weeks, months the explosion would be up there, mocking him. A visible reminder of all he had lost.
The couple's laughter seemed to mock him more. 'How dare they laugh!' His lips turned back into a snarl and his fists clenched, the thought was completely wasted, as were the emotions. The humans didn't know what had happened; they didn't care or even deign to notice what happened in the night skies above them. Vegeta cared, each dot represented something to him, he could barely see the dim red of Vegeta-sei's star occluded as it was by the bright explosion of the planet. It still shone, unnoticing of the havoc that had been played around it.
"You don't care!" He snarled at the star. "Just as they don't care. You don't care that your planet is dead. MY PLANET!" He took a deep breathe. "Frieza was young for a Ice-jinn, he must of thought it was FUN to rearrange the skies. Oh, I was only an excuse, my disobedience, my arrogance that got Vegeta-sei killed. He wanted to teach me a lesson, hah!" Vegeta paced back and forth a few moments, staring at the round roof under his feet. "You know, he could have cared less about Bardock, what was Bardock to him. A mere, yes third class soldier, albeit a powerful soldier. Bardock's rebellion over the loss of his soldiers, laughable to LORD Frieza." Vegeta's voice twisted. "My father had always been expendable." Vegeta laughed mockingly. "One of the most powerful emperors of the stars and he was expendable. No, Vegeta-sei was destroyed to RE-EDUCATE me!"
The laughter below stopped and Vegeta took deep cleansing breathes.
"You know, it was one of just MANY lessons. This one was a lesson in POWER and POWER killed them, pure power. Vegeta-sei is dead, all because of me! ME!" Vegeta screamed into the inky blackness. "On my head rests the guilt." He whispered and stared back up at the star.
----------------------------
Bulma held her breathe and stared upwards towards the roof, almost as if she could see through the ceiling.
Yamcha snorted. "I take it this is a regular occurrence."
Bulma inhaled involuntarily and darted a quick glance over at Yamcha, appalled at his apparent callousness. "Hardly, Vegeta is more reserved than this."
Yamcha frowned. "Well," yet he was interrupted by Bulma.
"Something has been bothering him ALL day." She whispered. "He didn't even use his gravity chamber." She bit the inside of her lip. "I should go see what's wrong." She moved to get up.
"Baby, I think he needs to be alone." Yamcha advised, 'I'm here to see you, he sees you everyday.' Jealousy made his vision cloud momentarily. 'Can't you remember that he killed me.'
"I suppose you are right." Bulma conceded reluctantly. "He likes working things out himself. It's just. . ."
"You say it yourself, he wants to be alone. So leave him that way."
"Yamcha, you are being callous." Bulma cried. "Vegeta is a person with feelings as well."
"He killed millions without thought or care."
"How do you know, you weren't there?" Bulma cried. "You aren't being fair to him, Yamcha!"
"I can't believe you would defend him, Bulma." Yamcha cupped her chin in his hand.
"Yamcha. . ." She whispered.
"I'm taking you to that conference in a month, you need to get out of here."
"You are being subjective just because he killed you."
"So are you! You are living with him. You need time away, to gain some objectivity."
Bulma pulled away. "I thought you didn't want to go."
"I have ALWAYS wanted to go. This is exactly why you need to get away, Bulma. Your memory is like a sieve."
"It is NOT!" Bulma's eyes widened and they began to water. "I'm fine."
"You're frustrated about that project. I can tell. I don't know enough to understand it, yet I know it is important to you. This conference is also important to you and I AM taking you."
Bulma took a deep breathe. "I didn't say I didn't want you to go, Yamcha."
"I love you, honey and I don't want to see you get hurt or see you hurting yourself because of Vegeta, Prince of Saiyan-jinn."
"I love you too, Yamcha." Bulma murmured, yet her heart didn't reflect in her voice and her gaze flickered away from his back to the roof for a mere moment.
Yamcha pressed a soft kiss to her lips. "Try to get some rest."
Bulma nodded and smiled tremulously. "I'll try."
-------------------------------------
"Is he finally gone?" Vegeta sneered from the living room door.
Bulma looked up from her laptop and stared at him. Perhaps Yamcha was right, Vegeta needed to be left alone to get through whatever it was that was bothering him.
"You needn't be so rude about it, broccoli for brains." She snorted and typed a few more letters into her laptop.
Vegeta snorted. "I take it that is a yes."
"If he isn't here, he's someplace else." She raised both eyebrows. "Besides, you warriors seem to have this amazing ki sensing ability, you could use it instead of bothering me."
"Why shouldn't I bother you? You have nothing else better to do than be bothered."
"I have plenty of things to do than wait on you hand and foot Vegeta." Bulma snapped.
"Like what?"
"Research, for one, my business is a world wide concern." She closed the laptop and glared across at him.
"ONLY a world wide concern," He rolled his eyes. "If you were as smart as you think you are you would make it a galaxy wide concern. Unlike 99.99% of the humans on Chikyuu-sei you DO know there is a galaxy out there."
"Uh-huh, how do you propose that?"
"You have the technology at your fingertips, use it."
Bulma rolled her eyes and sighed. "Riiiggghhhhttt. Go to bed Vegeta."
"You first."
"Bastard." She hissed and glared at him.
Vegeta smirked, "Very unoriginal woman."
"Vegetable-head I could care less about original at the moment." She sat the laptop on the table and stood up. "In fact," she began as she strode across the room. "Unoriginal is what I am after at the moment." She stopped right in front of him. "If I want to call you a bastard, a son of a bitch and. . ."
Vegeta scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder. "Lack of sleep is making you even more crazy, woman."
"PUT ME DOWN!" She pounded his back and tried to kick him as he started up the stairs. "Monkey whore, mother. . ."
He threw her down on the bed and walked out. "Woman, one last thought before you sleep," he interrupted her. "Keep acting like you are, I'll start thinking you'd make a wonderful saiyan-jinn female. And woman, you really don't want me to think that."
Bulma sputtered for a few moments. "Why?"
Vegeta smirked. "Oh, think about it."
Bulma began to turn red, it started from about her bust line and worked upwards until it disappeared into her hair line. "You, you. . ."
Vegeta laughed all the way to his room.
-----------------------------------
The next morning Bulma was still mad at him.
He chuckled at her from the doorway. "If you bang those plates down any harder, you'll break them."
She twirled, not knowing what a beautiful picture she made, her hair swirling and eyes sparkling in anger. "Thank you for the advice, I'll try to be careful." She gritted out. She turned back to the table and slammed the plate down, and no sooner than she did it shattered, a piece slicing deep into her thumb.
She stood there staring mutely at her thumb as the blood dripped crimson over her pale skin. Her face paled and her eyes widened.
Vegeta didn't even make a noise as he came up from behind her and pressed the artery shut.
Bulma didn't move or even acknowledge his existence. Her eyes still riveted on her thumb.
"Snap out of it woman." he growled into her ear, catching a whiff of that damnable spicy scent as he did so. It was so close to the scent of the otsu it was almost painful.
Bulma blinked and looked over her shoulder at him. His look was intense as if he was trying to distract himself from being so close to her.
"So what do we do now Vegeta." she said dully.
"This is going to need stitches." He nodded at the thumb.
"How can you tell?" She said in surprise.
"I can see better than you can." :Just like I can smell better, feel better and hear better.:
"Oh, wonderful," She replied sarcastically.
He grabbed her other hand that was at her other side and positioned it over top of where his fingers were on her thumb, effectively giving her a hug at the same time. "Squeeze hard." Bulma tried not to notice his hard muscles or the fact that his hands were uncommonly soft and smooth for a man his age, or even the fact his lips brushed her shoulder accidentally as he looked over her shoulder.
She bit her lip and nodded. :How do I get myself into these situations?:
Vegeta pulled himself away from her and headed towards where she kept the first aid kit. He took it out of the cupboard and felt her eyes on his back. He just kept getting the supplies out that she'd need, though his fingers felt like they were fumbling and he sweated lightly. :Must she look at me with those eyes, those eyes that among MY people would bring her more mating offers than she could count or refuse. Otsu made flesh.: He shivered lightly.
He turned and glided back to her. "Sit." He ordered, trying to act as if everything was normal.
She sat on top of the counter and watched him as he prepped a hypodermic needle, and flinched ahead of time. She couldn't help it, needles didn't bother her per se, just the remembered pain when one was used.
"This will sting for a few moments." He said as he plunged under where her fingers were still squeezing her thumb.
:His movements are impossibly gentle for such a gruff man.: She thought. :It's like he believes I am something delicate, even something desirable.:
He leaned over her thumb and began to stitch the artery shut, he never looked up or he would have seen the confusion in her dark blue eyes. He didn't look because he knew if he did, he would do something he wouldn't regret and he wouldn't be able to repair her wound.
He tied off the knot and snipped the string with a small pair of scissors. He picked up the other needle about to start stitching when he saw that she was still holding the artery closed.
"Let up the pressure, slowly." He murmured, his breathe caressing the exposed inner muscles.
She complied, the bottom of her spine tingling.
"Now, rinse your thumb off. He turned on the water, then made sure it was warm.
She began to hesitantly put it under the water.
Vegeta sighed in exasperation and grabbed her wrist and forced it beneath the stream. She began to hiss, but surprisingly felt nothing but the water streaming over her thumb.
After a few moments Vegeta took her hand back out of the water and still not looking at her face began to stitch closed the thumb itself.
"There, done." He breathed. His breathe tickling the hairs on her hand.
She shivered. "Thank you."
"You should be more careful." His finger involuntarily caressed the stitches, his eyes trained on her. "I can't always be around to fix things."
Bulma controlled her breathing carefully. "Really, you don't seem to do much."
"You want me to fix, everything." Vegeta's eyes caught hers. "I don't think you know what you are asking."
"It is only fair that if you cause the problem, you should fix it." She responded.
Vegeta smirked, "Every problem."
Bulma was silent for a moment. "Can every problem be fixed?"
"Most," His voice was getting lower and she was leaning closer to hear him.
"Okay," She whispered lips millimeters from his. "Fix the plate."
Vegeta blinked for a moment, and then smirked as he pulled away from her, turning towards the table, "Tease."
Bulma had lost her composure as he turned away, her face heated and she licked her lips. "Not as much as you." She whispered.
He snickered. "I suppose." He swept the shards up, one hand reaching for his gloves the other casually sweeping them into a pile.
She slid off the counter and moved behind him. "Last night, just now and hundreds of other small encounters we've had." She placed mere inches between, their bodies sensing the others heat. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were flirting with me."
A short burst of ki restored the plate to wholeness and he just stood there, he didn't have room to turn around, his hands rested on the edge of the table. "What if I was?"
She placed a hand on his shoulder and his black eyes closed, her hands were rough and calloused with the small nicks and cuts most women didn't gain in a lifetime. "I don't know."
"Why not?"
Bulma swept her hand down his arm and narrowed her eyes. "It bothers me."
"Bothers you, worried you'll enjoy the attention." He looked over at her, barely seeing the edge of her profile over his shoulder.
"No. Perhaps it bothers me because it isn't necessary."
Vegeta blinked.
"It bothers me," She whispered into his ear. "Because I feel like this has happened before." The hair began to stand up on the back of his neck, and his skin prickled. This sounded too familiar. "And you already won."
--------------------------------------
Bulma looked up, again. She couldn't explain it, she was expecting SOMEONE to interrupt her work and it was bothering her that this sixth sense of hers just wasn't working like it was supposed to.
She turned back to her work and frowned, unable to concentrate because of that small niggling sensation in the back of her mind. Someone was going to get her, interrupt and…
…too bad she couldn't remember.
She took a deep breathe and let it out, expanding her cheeks and extending her lips. She ran a hand through her hair and with the other searched for a rubber band to tie it back. Her eyes scanned the screen, looking over her previous work.
"Damn," She whispered. There were too many mistakes in the computations than for just simple distraction. Somewhere in the equations something was fundamentally wrong and for the life of her she couldn't figure out what.
Perhaps she should take a break. Bulma loved challenges, thrived on them in fact. However, this equation was getting beyond her and she knew if it was beyond her, than it would be beyond every other scientist on the planet. "I will figure this out." She murmured to herself. "After lunch, I'll figure you out!" She vowed to the computer screen.
She shoved back from the table and was about to turn around when something on the screen caught her eye.
There was a pattern in all the numbers, a broken pattern at the moment, but a pattern. Bulma frowned softly. :A pattern like that generally only appears in some sort of matrix, something that is permanently fixed. Now, how could. . ."
"Woman!" Vegeta grumped from behind her, unnerved at the sight of her just staring at the mechanical contraption brow furrowed.
Bulma whirled, her mind lost the problem. "Shit, Vegeta. Don't sneak up on me!"
Vegeta smirked. "There's no food."
"There's no food because my mother's not here and I was just about to leave to make some." Bulma replied sweetly, batting her eyelashes at him.
Vegeta snorted. "Really, seems like you were just staring at that machine."
Bulma's smile became broader. "Why yes, Vegeta I was. In fact I was on the edge of solving a problem beyond your capabilities when you interrupted me." The last word came out on the edge of a shriek.
Vegeta growled. "You assume far too much woman, especially about my intelligence."
Bulma snorted herself and waved a hand at him. "Fine, have it your way."
Vegeta's eyes flickered to the screen behind and they widened fractionally. :That's a crystal matrix, the coruscarads, shit! The bitch has the technology almost figured out. However, without a source for the crystals she won't get any farther than 'theory.' Serves her right, stuck up arrogant female.: His lips twitched into a smirk and he transferred his gaze back to her. "I always do, eventually."
Bulma brushed past him, Vegeta gave one last look at her laptop, contemplating erasing the data, then decided against it. It would be amusing to see how far she got before she realized what she had in front of her. His eyes narrowed and his smirk became broader. "You have no idea, woman." He chuckled maliciously. "You could have saved yourself months of work, but no, I'll let you muddle through."
Vegeta kindly flipped the lights off on the way out.
--------------------------------
Bulma had a knife in her hand and was lining up vegetables to chop as Vegeta walked through the door.
"Took you long enough," She said flippantly.
"I suppose you were napping." Vegeta replied sarcastically.
She looked up at him startled.
"Watch what you are doing!" Vegeta barked as the knife barely missed her middle finger.
Bulma hurriedly looked back down and slowed down her cutting. "I know what I'm doing." She muttered.
"You could have fooled me." He snarled and crossed his arms. "I'm beginning to think you enjoy pain."
"And you don't?"
"Pain makes me stronger, don't change the subject."
Bulma set the knife down and glared at him. "I have not changed the subject, you are arguing for the sake of arguing."
"So damn what, woman." Vegeta replied. "I like arguing and so do you." He strode over and picked the knife up off the table and slid the cutting board to his side.
"Like arguing?!"
"Humans, you waste so much energy emoting." Vegeta mused for a moment. "Yes, we both like arguing. Woman, must we go over this again. If I recall we've already had this conversation at some point in the past."
"What are you talking about? We've never had this conversation!" Bulma's voice was incredulous, Vegeta was going absolutely nuts.
Vegeta blinked, flushed for a moment. :Shit, that dream again.: "I concede you that point."
"Oh, so glad, conceding to me about a conversation we've never had." Bulma huffed, crossing her arms, a distinct imitation of one of Vegeta's favorite poses.
"We also really don't converse or argue." Vegeta added, grimacing at the déjà vu feeling. He hated that dream, it was worse than the ones with Frieza or his past in them. Those dreams he didn't mistake for reality. "We debate, discuss and so on."
"At the top of our lungs," Bulma raised her eyebrows, voice breathy.
Vegeta glared at her for a moment and they both proceeded to ignore the doorbell, which rang at the same time as the clock in the hall.
"Besides those are euphemisms for the same word; argue!"
Someone rapped on the door, this time in tune with the Vegeta's slicing sounds, yet neither cared anyways.
"They sound better." Vegeta tried not to sound petulant, and he was secretly pleased that the conversation was back on track to the one in his memory.
Bulma rolled her expressive blue eyes. "I suppose."
"You could try using them in a sentence."
"You first, if you want to sound like you are in first grade." Bulma sneered.
The door opened and closed.
"You are being impossible."
"Not as nearly as much as you are being. Argue is the correct word, because that is what we do. However, the issue is whether or not we LIKE arguing." She leaned forward, pounding the table with each word, causing the vegetables Vegeta was slicing to jump. Vegeta set the knife down and stared at her for a moment. Her eyes were sparkling and her face somewhat flushed.
"Explain why we do it so much then?" He retorted.
Bulma grimaced.
Vegeta smirked. "You make it easy to make you mad." :And you look so beautiful, it is just a temptation I can't resist.: Providing part of the answer for her.
"Easy! You son of a bitch, I'll give you. . ."
Vegeta couldn't resist, it was way too much like his dream not to do it, and this part he remembered well. He cupped her chin and his hand and kissed her. Bulma stiffened in shock then relaxed into the kiss, answering a need that she didn't even know she had, the kiss deepened and she moaned in the back of her throat.
"Bulma," Yamcha whispered.
Bulma shoved away from Vegeta violently, her face going white with shock. "Yamcha," she sputtered. "This isn't what it looks like."
Vegeta sucked in air for a few moments. "Actually, this is exactly as it looks like." He muttered.
Bulma gave him a dirty look and moved across the room to Yamcha. "It isn't. He's just being an ass."
"What am I supposed to think, walking in and finding my girlfriend kissing a mass murderer, who by the way is LIVING in her home!"
Bulma wiped her mouth and looked pleadingly up at him. "Yamcha, listen to me. There is nothing between me and Vegeta."
Unseen Vegeta raised his eyebrows. "Liar," He hissed.
Yamcha glanced between them. "I don't know who or even what to believe at the moment."
Bulma looked stricken. "It just happened, Yamcha."
"I KNOW, I SAW IT!" Yamcha yelled, raking his hand through his hair.
"That isn't what I mean and you know it!" Bulma choked.
Yamcha sneered. "Oh, right, you were not in control of the situation. He was." Yamcha nodded at Vegeta.
Vegeta turned around slowly. "I was." He reluctantly agreed.
Bulma put a hand on Yamcha's bicep. "Relax, please."
He grabbed her hand. "And what is this?" He glared at the bandage. "He's not only kissing you, yet hurting you as well."
Bulma snatched her hand back. "He isn't! Vegeta wouldn't do that, it was an accident."
"You are defending him again!" Yamcha yelled.
Vegeta smirked and leaned back. Prime Time entertainment right here in the kitchen.
"You know what, I don't care!" Bulma yelled back, "Yes, I am defending him. You don't know everything Yamcha!"
"He killed me, tried to kill you, then you INVITED him to live with you and NOW he is coming on to you. What am I supposed to think, Bulma? Tell me that!"
Vegeta looked at the woman; her slight body was shaking in frustrated rage.
"You are just jealous, Yamcha!" Bulma choked. "I love you, but Vegeta is my friend. Can't you trust me?"
"FRIEND! After what I just saw you presume to call him a friend." Yamcha hissed.
A tear fell from Bulma's eye. "Yes." She straightened proudly. "Vegeta is my friend."
"Do all your friends try to kill you and kill me!"
"Not everything is about you, Yamcha!"
Silence descended onto the kitchen.
Vegeta pushed himself away from the table. He sauntered over to them, paused, reached over wiping Bulma's tear away with his thumb, "Don't cry for me," he whispered, and continued walking out.
His voice drifted back over his shoulder. "Humans, they waste so much energy emoting."
Bulma tried to shake off the feeling of Vegeta's thumb wiping away her tear, it had been so tender, yet so passionate. She couldn't help but cry for him, he had so few friends. Her spine tingled and she wanted to pant, yet she couldn't, Yamcha was still there, seething.
She took a deep breathe, wondering all the while where Vegeta had went. "Baseball is changing you, Yamcha."
"Namek changed you."
"Damn straight it did. I thought we were beyond this." She shook her head. "I grew up on Namek and I thought you were okay with it. And baseball, Yamcha, you didn't used to be so self-centered. Look, this was only one time."
"While I was here, how do I know what is going on in this house when I'm not? You could be sleeping with him for all I know."
"You need to trust me. Yamcha, I am trying to trust you with all your fans and that, yet how can I trust you if you don't trust me?" She stared at him. "Your distrust gives me the impression you are also doing something untrustworthy and so I question you and it turns into a viscous cycle."
"I have to make a living, I have bills to pay."
"You could always live here, a room is ALWAYS open."
"No."
Bulma threw her hands up in frustration. "Here is where I could ask why not, but that would show a lack of trust in you and a belief that something is going on with someone else behind my back. I don't want it to be like that, Yamcha. I don't want all this mistrust. I love you Yamcha, there shouldn't be any mistrust in love."
Unknown to them, their voices were echoing up the stairs and into Vegeta's room, where he was packing a few clothes. :She's right. A couple should be able to trust each other, yet even trust can be abused. It is an ideal system she is talking about. Then there is the saiyan-jinn system, yet most wouldn't think that way is ideal. Including our own people.: Vegeta shuddered.
"Yet, there is." Yamcha retorted. "I think in this instance it is well founded. What you are saying and what I see are two different things, Bulma."
"Vegeta even accepted responsibility for the instance. . ."
"You are enjoying his attention, Bulma. I can tell." Yamcha hissed.
Bulma flushed and Vegeta snickered. :Human, you have no idea.:
"Vegeta…" Bulma began and paused. "Fine, yes, I do enjoy the attention. I dare say it is more than I get from you."
Vegeta winced and Yamcha blinked. Bulma wasn't helping her cause any.
"We have schedules, duties that come first." Yamcha growled. "You've said that yourself. You KNOW how hard it is for me to get time off."
"That doesn't change what I said." Bulma replied and then sighed. "I want this relationship to work, Yamcha. I love you."
Vegeta grimaced. :There she goes again with love, and watch he'll take her back. Fools the both of them.:
"I don't know, this is going to take time."
:Time, always time.: Vegeta shook his head. :There is no time, not when you could die at any time.:
"We have that time, Yamcha." Bulma rested her hand on his and smiled at him.
Yamcha leaned down and kissed her gently, "All right."
Vegeta shook his head in disgust, :Humans.:
"Let's go out to lunch, Yamcha. We have a lot to talk about." :Even if we sit in silence.:
Bulma murmured.
"My car's outside," Yamcha smiled. "That's what I wanted in the first place."
"Oh, you…" Bulma teased, her mood suddenly congenial. Vegeta could tell it was mostly forced from being around her so long, but if the idiot was fooled, well the more fool he was.
The door closed behind them and Vegeta closed his eyes. "Time for me to get out of here as well, before..." He shuddered again. He didn't even want to think about what was happening to him and with HER of all the females in the galaxy. He needed to get away, to focus these emotions into something constructive.
He scooped up the bag and walked out the balcony's sliding glass doors. His sensitive ears heard the click of the security system as his feet left the balcony.
--------------------------
The bare mountaintop suited what Vegeta wanted his mood to be, cold, desolate and utterly empty. Vegeta grimaced and stared moodily at the rock, the irony of the situation.
Humans waste so much energy emoting he had told them. Saiyan-jinn had emotions as well, yet they took that energy so carelessly wasted by the humans and channeled it to suit their needs. This bespoke power, training, control, discipline. The four things all saiyan-jinn strived to attain.
Emotions were things not to be trifled with and it was better to put them to good use rather than giving into their moods. One ruled emotions, not the other way around. Allowing oneself to be ruled by one's emotions was wrong. It cried out against everything Vegeta had been trained against.
He took a deep cleansing breathe. These humans were making him soft. It didn't matter that his planet had died. It had happened years ago. It was dead there was no bringing it back. He had no home and never would, end of lesson.
It was past time to regain some perspective. He had one purpose; to achieve his destiny, to become the Legendary Super Saiyan-jinn. And beat Kakorroto, he tagged on as an after thought.
He shook his head and set himself on the pinnacle, moving into a graceful starting move. His motions fluid he stretched all his muscles, slowly, feeling them burn as he held tight extended positions. His eyes closed and he lost himself in the kata.
He focused his will, his great determination to going through the motions; making them fluid, graceful and keeping himself completely balanced. He went through them once in legato, slowly and smoothly and then cresendoed to allegro, where an observer couldn't tell one move from another and back again, ending in the same pose he had started with.
Vegeta's muscles shook and sweat poured off his body. He stood in place for a few moments then moved into a different starting position. The sun was setting in a glorious display of reds, oranges, golds and pinks behind him. Violet streaks of clouds lined with gold marred the perfection of the sky dome. Vegeta paid no attention, his mind in other places, transcending the mortal ness of his surroundings.
He felt nothing. Nothing could touch him in this state of being. Not guilt, not anguish, not hurt and definitely not love.
Vegeta swung his arms around into another deceptively easy looking position.
Memories couldn't even touch him here, in this state of mind he could escape anything he wanted. This was why he strove for it, every day, every hour. Only in this highly disciplined state of thought was he safe. Safe from the things he despised the most; emotions and memories.
He surrendered even more into the motions and patterns of the katas, letting them wash away his troubles.
-----------------------------
Bulma absent mindedly ran her key card through the house's reader. She turned and smiled
at Yamcha. "Would you like to come in?"
Yamcha shook his head. "I shouldn't."
Bulma stared at him, inwardly sad and thoughtful. :It doesn't have to be this way, Yamcha.: "I understand."
"I don't think you do." Yamcha stared down at her, his eyes cold.
Lunch had been a disaster. They had mostly stared at each other in silence, unsure of what to do, unsure of what to say. Bulma sighed and dropped her eyes away from his.
"Perhaps, I don't Yamcha. I don't understand anything anymore, least of all what is happening between us. I don't know if I even want to understand it." She said desperately, "And even if we understood it, could we stop it from happening?"
"I don't know."
Bulma looked away. "It doesn't have to be this way." She put her earlier thought into words.
"It wouldn't be this way, if you. . ."
"Don't finish that sentence, Yamcha." Bulma hissed, glaring back up at him.
Yamcha took a step back. "Just saying things as I see them, babe." He protested.
"You're wrong."
"Am I? You must admit, this seems rather suspicious looking from a cause and effect stand point."
"Must you drag Vegeta into the middle of everything?" Bulma huffed.
"He's the cause of everything. So I am perfectly justified," Yamcha began.
"JUSTIFIED!" Bulma shouted, "Justified by bringing another victim into this fight."
"Vegeta is NOT a victim!" Yamcha glared.
"Really?" Bulma raised an eyebrow. "I am sure Vegeta himself wouldn't describe it that way, yet it doesn't change the truth."
"He was a willing, active participant in what he was doing." Yamcha defended himself.
"You are like a brick wall, hard and unmoving." Bulma took a deep breathe and turned into the house. "Guess what. I don't want to argue with you anymore today. Good bye Yamcha. Call me sometime."
"Fine, 'cause I don't want to argue either. We wouldn't even be arguing if he wasn't here."
"Oh, give it a rest." Bulma groaned.
"Good bye, Bulma." Yamcha slammed the door behind her. "I'm off to find more congenial company."
"YOU DO THAT!" Bulma screamed. "LEAVE ALREADY!"
Yamcha's tires squealed and blew smoke as he pealed out of her driveway.
Bulma tapped her foot for a few moments, her arms crossing. It took her a few moments after replaying events in her mind to realize that if the compound was locked, Vegeta was gone.
Her brow furrowed and she headed up the stairs. "Vegeta?"
No one answered from his room and she pushed the door open, marveling again at the meticulous neatness of the man. She opened his balcony door and strode out onto it, the gravity machine was powered off, there were no lights in the windows.
Vegeta was missing. :I don't get it, why did he leave?: She shivered slightly and rubbed her arms as goose bumps formed on them. There was no breeze.
Her brain answered her own question. :He left because of me, his emotions.: Bulma frowned, :He's running.:
:He'll be back,: came the solid belief in her mind. :He'll be back.:
----------------------
Vegeta at the time wasn't particularly concerned about returning. He'd return when and if he felt it was time to return. He could survive on Earth without the help. The Brief's residence was just a convenience for him. However, he'd go back. He would be drawn there fully knowing the reason and hating himself for it the entire time.
He'd go back because of her, the way she made him feel.
Vegeta shuddered and his eyes opened. He was losing his focus. He followed through with the kick which was the next move in the kata and then stopped.
His mountain perch gave him a clear view of the darkening sky. He didn't know how far he had wandered from Capsule Corp, he didn't care. Vegeta-sei was still there in the black dome of the heavens, still burning.
He stared, the stars reflecting back from his irises, a dark ebony mirror.
"I failed you." He whispered. "Frieza..." He stopped to take a deep breathe. "I was given a choice, my death against all of yours. I was young, there was no guarantee he wouldn't kill you all anyways. Perhaps I should have chosen death." He stared down at the ground. "Now, you are like this mountain top, bare, lifeless and only I remain. I have survived Frieza, though it is an empty victory. There was no vengeance for your death, just for a monk who shouldn't have been there in the first place, by a man who had no right to kill Frieza." Vegeta looked back up. "Yet I go on. I am not the strongest and I haven't lived up to your expectations. I shall go on and keep trying, trying to be strong."
Vegeta blocked the many memories that could run through his mind as he said this, he wouldn't remember, those memories no longer mattered. What mattered now was that he would be strong, he'd be in control.
He would do it. Focus regained and Bulma put out of his mind, Vegeta went back to training. He only hoped his focus would last.
-----------------------------
The house was too quiet, her lab seemed too empty and nothing felt quite right. Vegeta should have been back by now. Bulma paced back and forth in the hallway. He'd been gone over a week.
Vegeta hadn't left his gravity machine alone that long since the one time he had blown it up and that was only because she had to fix it and then once it was fixed and long before she thought he was healed enough to train he'd gone back to using it.
This was completely out of character for the surly prince. In her head she KNEW that he should be back by now and there was something important he needed to tell her and he'd be different.
Bulma paced into the living room, moving back and forth until unable to stand her own motion any longer she flopped onto the couch.
BRRIING!!
"Bulma Briefs!" She chirped as she picked up the phone.
"Hey, babe."
Bulma stifled a groan; she didn't want to talk to Yamcha right now. Her mind was on another man for goodness sake. Besides the fact they hadn't been talking to each other since their last fight.
"Hey, Yamcha."
"How you've been?" Yamcha's voice was tinged with concern.
"Yamcha, I don't go to pieces every time we break up."
The door slammed and Bulma jumped from the couch towards the door of the living room, the cord stretching behind her.
"WOMAN!"
It was Vegeta all right.
"Oh, Vegeta's there." Yamcha sounded deflated. "I thought Tien had him out in the mountains somewhere."
"Oh, is that where he was?" Bulma said sweetly to Yamcha and smiled at her guest.
"Well. . ." Yamcha began to sputter.
"Why wasn't I told!" She screamed at both of them.
Vegeta blinked for a few seconds, and the silence lengthened. He shrugged.
"Babe, I didn't think it was important." Yamcha sputtered.
"Oh, really," Bulma's voice was thick with sarcasm. "Do you KNOW how worried I was?"
For some strange reason, the feeling of triumph welled in Vegeta's breast. He tried to knock it down, yet it was still there. Control kept a smirk from gracing his face.
"Vegeta can handle himself." Yamcha replied.
Vegeta grunted.
Bulma glared at him, her foot beginning to tap. "He is still a guest in my home."
"You didn't say anything," Yamcha protested.
"We haven't talked since he left," Bulma screeched and Vegeta clapped his hands over his ears. "My company wasn't congenial enough, remember?"
"Bulma," Yamcha sighed. "I didn't call to argue with you."
"Well, so much for good intentions."
"Babe," Yamcha said desperately. "Look, I don't care that Vegeta's there."
"Uh huh?" Bulma sneered.
"I don't. I was just calling to see if you made hotel reservations yet?"
"No."
"If you don't do it soon, we won't have anyplace to stay!"
"Yamcha, I OWN the hotel; there is ALWAYS a room available to me."
Vegeta left, the conversation no longer concerned him, so he was no longer concerned with it.
"Oh, what about me?"
"Yamcha, it's a SUITE for kami's sake." Bulma rolled her eyes to the heavens.
"Oh."
"Oh."
There was a long pause in the conversation. "All right then, I'll talk to you later."
"Sure, Yamcha."
She hung up the phone decisively and stalked after her houseguest. "VEGETA!"
"Must you always make such a racket?" Vegeta commented.
"Only returning the favor," she smiled sweetly at him.
Vegeta was seated at the table this time and he kicked the chair back, precariously perching it on the hind legs.
"I take it you're hungry." Bulma interpreted. "Frankly, I am not surprised." She began to move around the kitchen, taking out various dishes and implements.
Vegeta stared at her without emotion. :Does anyone totally understand women?: He thought, deep inside himself.
"So, where did you go?"
"None of your business."
"Was it nice there?" She continued.
"Woman," he growled.
"And why didn't you tell me?"
"Woman, can the questions."
"Tell me!"
Vegeta clamped his mouth shut and glared at her.
"You're shutting me out!" She glared back. "Vegeta you can't go through life without caring for others."
Vegeta kept silent.
"Answer me!" Bulma placed everything on the table and stared him. :This isn't the way things are supposed to go. Vegeta, let me in.:
"Woman, just cook."
Bulma stood there for a few moments, her mouth opening and closing. She looked like a crab and Vegeta kept himself carefully still, gazing back at her with that emotionless black stare. It made his eyes look dead.
Bulma looked away and began to cook. "This can't go on forever."
Vegeta snorted.
-------------------------------------------
Things began to settle back into a routine. Bulma worked in her lab and Vegeta beat himself up in his Gravity Chamber.
Bulma hated it. She wanted to go inside there and beat him herself. Beat him until he would talk to her, beat him because she could. Other times she when she wanted to join him was because she craved it, she longed to prove herself to him. Feeling perhaps it would be the only way for him to open up to her.
She poured herself another cup of coffee, lit a cigarette, its butt quickly joining an ash tray full of them, the liners bent and creased. The tray was black with soot its original color lost.
They didn't talk to each other, either. There were no more arguments in the mornings, evenings or lunch times. Silence was the rule and it was more comfortable than silences with Yamcha. Yamcha she didn't want to talk with though, Vegeta she did. She didn't know how to talk to Vegeta though, she had tried at times, his stony silences had quickly made her just shut her mouth and eat. He was worse than a wall, a wall didn't breathe air and have a heart that beat. Vegeta did.
Bulma ran a hand through her hair, making furrows in the locks and stared at the screen of her computer. Her eyes were red and bleary and she desperately wanted a drink of something harder than coffee. She wanted to just forget her problems for a few moments.
The equations in front of her weren't progressing. She typed a few numbers in lazily and waited to see if they would help. They didn't. She couldn't see the patterns in the numbers anymore. She couldn't find it and she knew it was there, perhaps if she unfocused her eyes and just stared at it. It wasn't working.
She needed a break and she couldn't take one.
Thus, she was becoming more and more violent.
-------------------------------------
Vegeta had to work ever harder to quell the emotions within him, and so he did so ruthlessly. He wanted nothing to do with them. He built his walls thicker and higher than ever before. He couldn't let the woman see what she did to him.
His muscles burned, sweat poured down his body as he did pushups and fought the machines she created for him. At times his blood would spill and he would ignore it and keep on fighting, and the blood would dry and sometimes even flake off showing the new skin underneath as he trained. This outward strain compared to the inward strain was nothing.
A nagging feeling in the back of his head told him that he was wrong and perhaps she was right. He couldn't block people out forever. He told that part of him, his forgotten conscious to shut up, loudly and repeatedly.
It wouldn't listen, so it through him into a rage, which fueled his movements and his lagging energies when he got tired.
He hated and loved the voice. He hated the voice because it told him he needed people, it told him that he was lonely. He loved the voice because it drove him harder and harder, straining his muscles to exhaustion and beyond. He hated the voice because it said he wanted her to be with him, fighting him. It showed him pictures of his every desire, his every quelled fantasy of women with her there, teasing him. Part of him wanted to embrace those fantasies, make them come true.
It could not happen, he wouldn't let it.
And so he fought, alternately winning and losing the struggle within himself.
-----------------------------
AHHHH!!!!! END CHAPTER!!!! I couldn't do it, it's 3kb short. I am so ashamed... but it's closer to the length of my other chapters. :) And I worked on it all month too...
SIGH... Thankx again JC (my friend) for helping me get out of my writers block. And Thankx you all for reading. You make it worth while.
Please tell me what you think!
RingPrincess
