A/n: Yes, it is I, the great and powerful Rogue Raven! I live!!! Isn't it fabulous?! ^_^ Thanks for all of your reviews!
albinofrog88: I haven't updated because I am taking Advanced Placement English and History which is like Honors English and History, therefore I have almost no time to update!
angelical nightmare: That you can!
ShadowDncr2: Sorry it took so long for me to update… I'm a slave to AP English and History…
Leelo: Whining is not becoming to you…
love-princess1: **nod nod** it is a sad but true fact that this happens to people… I truly wish it didn't, but it does…
Squirrel: Thanks much! ^___^
hotaru420: Sorry it takes so long for updates… I have almost no time!
Carolyn: Yep yep!
Jupiter Girl: I'll finish as soon as I can, but I have no idea how long that will take…
VejitaGurl: **smile** Thank you!
Meliah: Hello human… Is that all I needed to do?
Raven: Yes, well done Meliah…
Himalayan-Rex: Disturbingness is my specialty!
~*~*~*~*~*~
What I Call Life
You Ain't the Only One
The soft, steady blip of the heart monitor sounded through the darkness of Bulma's private hospital room. Vegeta sat in the chair next to her bed watching her sleep. The doctors had told him she would probably wake up within the first few days after her accident, but it was not so. The days turned into weeks and there was still no change in the beautiful Chikyuu-jin's condition. Almost all of her injuries had healed, which included the seven broken ribs, a punctured lung, a broken jaw, cracks in several places on her skull, and a cracked breastbone.
A figure appeared in the doorway, "Vegeta?" Kakarrot stepped inside the room and turned on the lights. "You stayed in here all night again, didn't you?"
"That's none of your damn business Kakarrot," Vegeta growled from the chair as he shielded his eyes from the new light in the room.
"Vegeta, you can't keep doing this to yourself," the guard said sitting down in another chair.
The prince glared at his guard, "Get out Kakarrot…"
The third-class Saiyan gave his prince a concerned look before rising from his chair and leaving the room.
After he left Vegeta heard the voice of Chi-Chi, "Well? Did he stay in there all night again?" There was no reply, but the prince assumed that Kakarrot had nodded because the next thing he heard was the beginnings of Chi-Chi's rant. "And you didn't say anything to him?!"
"He's the prince Chi… Like it or not he is still above my rank; I can't tell him what to do anymore than you could've told Zarbon what to do when he owned you," came Kakarrot's reply.
"That was low Kakarrot…" hissed the voice of 18.
"Well I don't care if he is the prince!" the Frypan-jin princess screeched. "I'm going in there to give him a piece of my mind!"
"Chi! No!" the Saiyan guard hissed, but apparently Kakarrot's attempt to stop the Frypan-jin female did not work because the next thing Vegeta knew Chi-Chi was storming into the private room like a woman on a mission.
"Get out wench…" Vegeta growled not bothering to look up.
Chi-Chi didn't bother listening to him because it would only slow her down. "Listen here, Prince Vegeta," she growled. "I know you were the one that made sure that 18 and I got help when we were attacked, and I know you were the one that arranged our freedom from Zarbon and The Bar. Believe me, I'm grateful, but I have to speak my mind. Bulma has been in this hospital wing for what, close to two months now?"
Vegeta nodded and continued to look for some sign of life in the woman lying on the bed.
"The doctors warned you that she might not wake up, and it turns out that they were right. She hasn't woken up-"
"Yet. She will wake up…" the prince interrupted adding to himself quietly, "She has to wake up…"
"That's just it Vegeta, she hasn't woken up yet. They said it would probably be soon or not at all. She wouldn't want you to do this to yourself Vegeta…"
"How would you know what she would want?" he snarled refusing to look up at her.
"Because I knew her best… She told me everything. Everything she did and didn't tell you, she told me. I knew what she was going to do after Yamcha raped her; I knew her plan down to the letter because she had no one else to tell."
"I should have trusted her," Vegeta rumbled to himself. "If I would have just listened to her that night none of this would have happened."
"She didn't want this to happen either, but we can't change the past. When you denounced her she was destroyed… I don't know how she lived through being pregnant, emotionally destroyed, and disowned, but she did. If you had seen her back in those days you would have guessed that she was a happily mated woman with a child on the way. Bulma was an amazing actress, and the only people that could tear away the happy mask that she held up were Yamcha and you. That night she lost you she also lost her pride, her self-respect, her title, her future, her family, and most of her friends. Bulma was an eighteen-year-old girl that had just lost everything she held dear to her heart, and she still managed to get over it. What I'm trying to tell you is that Bulma wouldn't want you to sit here and mourn her death-"
"She isn't dead," he snarled.
"No, but her soul is…"
Vegeta glared at the floor, "What would you know about loss anyway? You've never lost anyone…"
Chi-Chi let out a bark like laugh, "I've lost more than you know… I lost my planet to Freiza… Along with that: my title, my father, my people, and my freedom, so don't tell me I've never lost anything… I also lost my chance at teenage normalcy as well, which made me mentally unhinged, so don't even try to tell me that you've lost more than I have."
The Saiyan prince sat in stunned silence while all the ex-princess had said sunk in.
"You have a son to take care of… I suggest you get to it…" Chi-Chi said softly before turning to leave the room. "There's something Bulma used to say to me back at The Bar, 'Remember Chi, shit happens everyday. Some of its big and some of its small; some is easy to deal with and some of it seems next to impossible to bear. Either way you have to get over all of it sometime.'" With those parting words Chi-Chi left the room and shut the door behind her.
Vegeta rose from his chair and walked to Bulma's side. "I think she's right, you know," he whispered to the sleeping aqua-haired beauty. "But I don't think I can handle losing you again…" The Saiyan prince picked up her small hand and placed it in his larger one, "I will get whoever did this to you… I promise…" Vegeta set Bulma's hand back down on the bed and went to find his son.
~::~::~::~::~::~
A few days after Chi-Chi had ranted about Vegeta moving on with his life without Bulma the Saiyan prince brought Trunks in to visit his mother for the first time in two months as sort of a last goodbye. The doctors had told him that it was absolutely pointless to visit her seeing as she was in a deep coma and couldn't possibly hear anything around her. This didn't deter the prince at all because he was dead set on the future heir to the throne seeing his mother again.
Trunks was sitting on his mother's bed watching her sleep; his father had fallen asleep in the chair next to the bed. Being the busy bodied demi-Saiyan that he was, the young prince managed to walk to the edge of his mother's hospital bed. Moving too close to the edge of the bed Trunks lost his balance and toppled off onto the floor. Normally after committing a daredevil act such as the one he had just preformed, Bulma would rush to his side, pick him up, and make sure he was all right. When his mother didn't come to his rescue Trunks decided that had to do something to bring her attention to his situation. Seeing as the young prince was only eleven months old he didn't know the words he would need to use to get his mother to pick him up, but he did know how to scream. And he did. Trunks let out a yell that could have been considered a combination of his Saiyan anger, his mother's fury, Aunt Chi-Chi's lungpower, and Aunt 18's rage. It could have woken the dead.
Vegeta sat bold upright in his chair and stared around wildly in search of what was making the horrible racket that had woken him up. When he spotted Trunks on the floor he automatically hoisted his son up into his arms. "What's the matter brat?" the prince asked the now silent demi-Saiyan in his arms.
Trunks stared back at his father, but said nothing.
"Well?" Vegeta asked.
The prince's son blinked a few times before turning around and pointing at his mother while making incoherent sounds.
The Saiyan prince's face went hard, "Come on brat, she's not going to wake up." Vegeta turned to leave the room, but he was stopped dead in his tracks by the sound of a terrified gasp. The prince didn't move an inch; subconsciously he was thinking that if he moved it would turn out that the sound was imagined.
Trunks however had no qualms about moving; he squirmed in his father's grasp and crawled up far enough to look over Vegeta's shoulder. "Ma!" he cried desperately.
Thinking that Trunks was just trying to get back to his unconscious mother, Vegeta sighed and continued out of the room. "No, Trunks!" screamed a female voice.
Yet again Vegeta stopped where he stood.
"Oh Kami, he stole my baby! Yamcha you bastard get back here with my son!" the voice shrieked from Bulma's room.
A nurse came hurtling down the hall towards Vegeta; he stopped her, handed her Trunks, and bolted back into the room.
Bulma was sitting up in her bed and attempting to get up despite all of the wires attached to her. When she noticed Vegeta's frantic entrance into the room she gestured for him to come and help her immediately. "Vegeta! You've got to stop him. Yamcha just took Trunks!"
Vegeta moved to her side and tried to stop her frenzied attempts to free herself from all of the cords attached to her. "Onna, calm down, the brat is with the nurse," he said in an endeavor to calm her hysteria.
"No, you don't understand!" Bulma replied desperately as she failed to pull out of his iron grip. "Yamcha was just here! He threw Chi and Juu against the wall, they were knocked out, and I tried to pretend I was unconscious so he'd leave, but-"
"But what Onna?" the prince asked now worried that his woman may be suffering from some form of memory loss.
"I can't remember what happened after that…" Bulma shook her head and looked up at Vegeta pleadingly, "Vegeta, you've got to stop him! He'll hurt Trunks! Please Vegeta!"
"Onna, listen to me," Vegeta said while trying to suppress his rage at the mere mention of Yamcha. "You were attacked, but I'm not sure who did it-"
"No, you listen to me! Right after you left Yamcha showed up and I accidentally told him that Trunks wasn't his son and he got really angry…" she trailed off in fear.
"Why did you-"
"Don't interrupt me Vegeta!"
Oh yeah, the Onna was back. "Okay, he showed up and he was really angry?"
"Yes," Bulma replied, talking slowly as if speaking to a person that wasn't mentally capable of understanding Saiyago, "he-threw-Chi-and-Juu-against-the-wall."
"Why would the weakling throw the harpy and cyborg against the wall?"
Bulma frowned at the names he had just dubbed her friends with, but continued on despite the insults. "They were trying to protect me from him. After he threw them against the wall he said a few choice things, slammed my head against the wall and threw me across the room next to Trunks. I can remember thinking that I had to get him out of the room so he wouldn't hurt Trunks, but I don't know what happened after that. Please Vegeta, you have to go save Trunks from that bastard. If not for me than for the sake of your blood!" She gave another violent tug on the cords that were connected to her body, "Why can't I get out of this bed?!"
"So it was that weakling bastard that attacked you?" Vegeta growled, enraged that no one had bothered to tell him who the attacker was before this point.
"Yes!" Bulma replied irritated. "Why is this so difficult for you to understand?"
"Onna-"
"No! My son first; talk later! Now go!"
"Onna, listen to me, the brat is fine. The weakling left him alone after he finished with you."
"Then why was Trunks crying a few minutes ago?!" she asked exasperated.
"I'm not sure, but he's fine. He's out in the hallway with the nurse."
"Nurse? What nurse? Why is there a nurse at The Bar?"
The Saiyan prince was about to answer when a loud female voice erupted from the hallway.
"I don't care if she's with the Prince of All Saiyans! We're going to see her and we're going to see her now!" the female voice roared.
Another female voice, more hurried this time followed it, "Miss, no, please, you can't go in there. The prince will have my head!"
Apparently the second female was having no effect on the first woman because seconds later the door slammed open and Chi-Chi stormed into the room followed closely by a very angry looking 18 and a worried looking Kakarrot. A defeated looking woman in white carrying Trunks, followed by a short bald man in a lab coat entered the room after the trio.
"Chi? Juu? Kakarrot? What's going on? Are you guys okay? Did Yamcha hurt you badly? Why are you up and about? You were unconscious a few minutes ago… Who are they? And why does that woman have my son?" The flurry of questions was followed by a short silence, "Well? Why are you all looking at me like that?"
"How?" Chi-Chi asked in a whisper while staring at Bulma as if it were a miracle that she was alive.
"The doctors said that she…" Kakarrot trailed off and continued to stare at Bulma who was now getting really angry.
"Dr. Krillen?" 18 asked looking to the short, bald man in the lab coat.
"I have no idea…" Dr. Krillen replied looking thoroughly shell shocked by Bulma.
"Damn it!" Bulma yelled. "Would you all stop looking at me lie that and tell me what the hell is going on?!"
"Well," 18 mused with a smirk, "at least she didn't lose her personality while she was asleep…"
"While I was asleep? What the hell are you talking about?"
"You didn't tell her Vegeta?" Kakarrot asked finally coming out of his stupor. "I thought that would be the first thing you told her when she woke up… I thought that the first thing she'd want to know was that she'd been in a coma for two months…"
"Two months?" Bulma said faintly, her eyes glossing over. "Two months?"
Chi-Chi and 18 reached up and smacked Kakarrot across the back of the head. "You are so tactless Kakarrot!" Chi-Chi growled to the Saiyan guard.
"What?" asked Kakarrot now completely bemused.
"You don't just go and blue shit like that out!" 18 yelled smacking the Saiyan again for good measure.
The Saiyan laughed sheepishly, "Sorry…"
But Vegeta wasn't concerned with the stupidity of his guard, though he was well aware of it' he was now worried about Bulma who was now wearing a glazed look and muttering to herself under her breath. "Woman?"
Bulma didn't reply; she just stared off into space.
"Onna?" Vegeta tried again, hoping to rouse her from her stupor.
The aqua-haired beauty blinked a few times, "Where am I?"
"You're in the medical wing of the palace," Dr. Krillen replied hoping she wouldn't have another attack of anger.
She nodded a few times, "Two months? Why?"
The doctor nodded, "Your injuries were very severe… Several broken ribs on both sides, your skull was cracked in at least a half a dozen places… We didn't dare put you in the regen tank until you woke up. We were afraid that if we did you would never wake up again…"
Looking satisfied with the doctor's answer she turned back to the prince, "Where is Yamcha? Has anyone found him yet? Did he hurt Trunks after I went unconscious?"
"Vegeta sent a vicious glare at Chi-Chi and 18, "I was not informed of who your attacker was until you told me, but now that I know I will track down that weakling and make him pay for what he has done."
"Heh… Sorry about that Vegeta…" Chi-Chi muttered nervously, backing away from the angry Saiyan Prince. "We thought you knew…"
"It doesn't matter how Vegeta found out," Bulma growled. "I just want him stopped…"
"Once Yamcha finds out she's alive he'll probably come back and try to finish the job…" Chi-Chi said gravely.
"Exactly. What's to stop him from actually killing Blu next time? Or even Trunks? Or both?" 18 asked.
"Me…" Vegeta growled. "He won't touch her."
"Vegeta," Bulma said tentatively, "that's really gallant of you, but I'm afraid it's impossible. The public wouldn't look highly on a prince taking a low level woman in as a ward. I'm sure they wouldn't be any too pleased with what my former position was either…"
"You're not low level," Chi-Chi stated. "You're the heiress to the Capsule Corp. fortune. That makes you second to only the royal family. I don't think the people would have much of a problem with you."
"Precisely," 18 added, "and if I understand correctly the people liked you when you were the future princess of Vegetasei anyway."
Bulma looked skeptical, "Yes, but they never said a word against me because they were afraid of what Vegeta would do to them. You should have seen what he did to this guard who-"
"Onna that's enough!" Vegeta interrupted, a small tinge of red appearing on his cheeks.
Kakarrot cocked his head at the prince, "Vegeta? Why's your face going all red? Don't you want them to know what you did to Raditz's friend when he-"
"Everybody out!" Bulma yelled suddenly cutting Kakarrot off. "Right now! All of you out! Yes Chi, that means you too!" Still unable to get out of the bed she shooed them out while still sitting on her bed.
Dr. Krillen and the nurse carrying Trunks moved from the room as quickly as possible, followed by a dejected looking Kakarrot a nonchalant 18 and a furious Chi-Chi.
Once everyone had cleared out of the room Vegeta smirked at Bulma, "So Onna what was that all about?"
"They may be my very closest friends, but they still don't need to know our business," she replied as she looked out the window. A comfortable silence passed before she spoke again, "Vegeta, what comes next?" Bulma turned to look at the prince who had probably saved her life.
Vegeta turned away from her; he couldn't see her like she was now. Her spirit seemed broken some how; she was different. "We go back to the palace of course," he replied sounding as if he were trying to convince himself that it would be that easy.
"And live happily ever after?" she asked with a not e of sarcasm. "Vegeta you can't possible believe that it will be that easy? No matter what Chi and Juu say you know the people won't accept me."
"Then they shall be forced to accept you!" the prince replied angrily.
Bulma shook her head, "You can't force them to do anything Vegeta you are their prince. The highest-level fighter of their kind. Their idol. Their hero. For Heaven's sake Vegeta, they worship you like a god. They are not going to accept their future king taking in a low level woman, let alone him mating her. You know that. The Saiyan people will never accept their future king mating a low level urchin woman that has been thrown from society."
"Then we'll go to your parents and have them take you back in," he said wisely.
"It's not that simple Vegeta. They know everything already, or at least they think they do. If you didn't know, Chikyuujins tend to be even more stubborn than Saiyans."
"And I thought that was just you…"
She glared at the prince and punched his arm lightly, "Shut up bakamono…"
"As soon as you're healed we'll go speak to them, and they will take you back in, even if I have to force them to do so."
~*~*~*~*~*~
A/n: ARGH!!!! Blast school! I despise it! I have officially sold my soul to my Advanced Placement English/American History class!
Meliah: Well that was definitely a brilliant idea…
Raven: Shut up Meliah… So what did everybody think?
Meliah: **opens mouth**
Raven: Besides the fact that it's extremely late…
Happy Holidays All!
~*~Raven~*~