Last time:

"Kami!" I screamed, banging my fists into my skull, cursing my instincts. Why hadn't I listened to her? Why had I insisted on bonding? She had been pleading with me for what I had wanted! Kami damn it! "Kuso! Kuso! Kuso!"

"Just stop it!" she snapped, throwing a harmless pillow at me. "It's your own fault you ass!"

"Shut up! I don't need this right now!"

"Well get used to it!"

****************************************************

Bonded!? Bonded!? BONDED!?

No.

This cannot be my fate. I cannot be bound to this fragile earth-creature 'til the end of my days.

No.

My instincts did not do this to me. I'm imagining things. I'm dreaming; having a nightmare. She's not even really here, sitting on that bed that the supposed deed was done on. Would I still be blind in a dream?

"My father says he's making excellent progress on the Regeneration Tank," came her voice through the ever-present darkness. Kami damn it, I cannot wait 'til I can see again. "Should be done sooner than he expected." She was smiling, I could tell. "But you won't be going anywhere, will you?"

"Like hell I'm not." I grabbed for my clothing, like a foul invalid she hands them to me; loose pants, tight shirt, soft thick socks.

I can feel her smiling again. She's enjoying this, that whore.

"Now watch that language, mister. That's no way to think of your wife."

"Wife is no word to me." I yanked on the pants, securing them with a little knot. "And whatever word you say to combat me means nothing either. You are nothing to me." I pulled on my shirt next, hissing as the tight fabric got stuck on my ears. She laughed. "When your father finishes that damn machine I'll be gone. Bond or no bond."

"Bond or no bond?" The mattress springs whined as she lifted herself off the bed. "But Vegeta, I thought there was no bond. Isn't that what you were arguing about with yourself just moments ago?…'I'm dreaming; having a nightmare. She's not even really here…' Blah, blah, blah." I felt her warm thin fingers on my face and a surge of passion jolted through me. No. I won't take her. "Please, take me again."

"Stop this." I threw the socks on the floor. What use were they to me?

"What use is anything to you? You, who can take whatever he wishes at will without regard for consequence? Why, isn't that how we got into this mess in the first place? Surely you remember that far back…You were in heat, if memory serves me right."

"Silence."

"I'm winning. Take it like the man you boast to be."

"And you boast nothing?"

"I say what I must to keep you here." Her fingers slip away. "What happens if you separate from me? What will become of our bond? Will it lessen?" I hear her lick her lips, making that delightful clicking sound. "I don't imagine that it would."

"Quiet."

"There's something you're not telling me." She paused. I could almost see her perfect little eyebrows knitted together. "Or something you don't know."

"I know everything I need to know."

"Ah, well there we have it…What aren't you telling me?"

"That's a brainless question, woman. Why would I keep it from you just to tell you when you asked?"

"Fair enough. But will our being apart hurt us?…Physically?"

"I'm leaving."

She stops me at the door. Bad move. Doesn't she know how easily I can hurt her?

"Why hurt me yourself when our bond can do it for you?"

"You don't know a thing of what you say."

"Why are you denying this? If harm comes then it'll come to you too." She sounded absolutely desperate. But why? "Vegeta, I don't want to be without my son. I can't leave him. Please, if I'm going to be hurt by this I must know…and if there's any way to sever the bond-What if I had sex with someone else?" She grabbed my arms. "Vegeta, before when we were talking about bonding, you said that unfaithful partners could be separated."

"Yes, but if you were to mate with another-"

"No, listen. You said that if one was unfaithful then they could not BOND with another, not mate. Right?"

"It's so easy to forget that you're a genius."

"At least you admit it."

*************************************************************

So the woman found a loophole in Saiyan bonding. Good. Less work for me. Now I can focus more on training, as frustrating as it is, and less on that damn bond. Finally she proves to be useful.

I wonder when she's going to find a new mate.

"Hey Vegeta."

"Don't you dare do that to me again."

"What? Did I scare you?" she laughed. "Sorry. Thought with our mind reading that you'd know I was coming."

"Its not mind reading, woman. It's far deeper and more complex than that. You wouldn't understand even if I explained it to you."

"And why not?"

"You're not a Saiyan."

"Whatever. Anyway, I came to tell you that I'm breaking our bond tonight."

"With?"

"What's it matter?" I heard her hop up on the kitchen counter. Thank Kami I can't see her. "Want some?" Mouth full. Did she forget I was blind? And how can she be so enticing ALL the time, even when she's eating and I can't see her? "Because I'm a woman, silly. Now, answer my question."

"It doesn't matter…I'm curious."

"You? Curious? Since when?" She sighed. "I thought your business was the only business that mattered and no one else's was worth asking about…or something like that. I don't know. I lost track a long time ago with you."

"It is my business though. This bonding involves us both."

"Ah," she laughed, hopping back down and heading for the doorway. Her delicate feet slapped at the floor. "But whom I sleep with to break that bond is MY business alone…I'll come find you when we're finished."

"It's HIM, isn't it?"

"Who? Yamcha?"

"No."

"Then who?"

"That man you were with before."

"I'm not following you."

"Right after the first time we mated." My teeth are clenched. Why can't she just remember? "You went on a 'date' with him."

"Oh!!" She laughed at this, finding it extremely funny. I didn't get it. "Andy…No, it's not Andy. I don't know where Andy is…Hmm. Never even considered him." A slight change in the air tells me she's gone, then I feel her coming back. It's so easy to detect her when I concentrate. "You were right the first time," and then she was gone again.

"Wait! Woman…!"

*********************************************************

So it's the weakling, is it? That putrid, vile, insignificant excuse for a human being!

I punch at the air, having stopped caring that I was missing the punching bag long ago. The room was so heavy with heat and gravity that I could barely stand, let alone punch and kick properly, but this was no time for resting. If I wasn't in here, right now, doing this, then I'd surely be in the housing quarters, following that damn woman around until the weakling finally arrived, and then she'd get so angry with me when I killed him. I'd rather not go through all the headache and simply try to ignore the situation.

So what if she's going to degrade herself to bring that scum back into her bed. What do I care? I'm finished with her. That's why I left in the first place. Damn you mother for making me return. Though it is nice to have your silence.

For a moment I feel as though she's right there, watching over my shoulder. I can almost feel her breath and smell her hair, the alluring scent a mother gives off to her young--another signature-like connection, all scents are different--but she's not really there. And even if her spirit was, with that stupid golden halo, I wouldn't be able to smell her, not the way I used to be able to. It's all memory, all imagination. I hate her.

And I hate the woman even more.

And the weakling even more than her.

Damn the universe.

Damn everyone but me.

"'Geta!" How many times do I have to tell her to NOT call me that? Sometimes I think she wants me to hate her. "Infinity, and yes." I hear her swipe her "key card", as she calls it, and that little beep that always follows before the door opens. The gravity dissipates, until its back to normal. Her scent fills the room.

"What? Can't you see that I'm training?"

"Yes. I watch you on that little monitor my dad installed to make sure you don't over work yourself. I love it."

"What do you want?"

"I just came by to tell you that Yamcha will be here in a few minutes. Oh, and Terrak is still out with my mother. Kami they get along."

"Yes, well, unfortunately Terrak doesn't share the same dislike as myself for you people."

"You don't scare me Vegeta," she said, stepping closer. "Not one bit."

"I never thought I did."

"Then why the attitude? I know what you can be like when no ones around."

"Woman," I sighed. "No one IS around. You have no battle there. I'm the same always. You cannot change me."

"I already have Vegeta. I can see it in your…"

"In my what?" I step forward; I'm only inches from her, I can feel it. "My eyes? You see that in eyes that cannot see? Tell me woman, how is that possible? If I cannot even look at you when I'm talking to you, then how can my eyes express this non-existent feeling you believe I have?"

"You love me Vegeta, I know you do." As she turns her hair brushes my hair. I shiver, but only a little. "You'll figure that out when its too late, only I won't be rational enough to take you back."

"Back?" I hissed, grabbing her back, surprised that she was still that close. "When did you ever have me? When was I ever yours?" She stiffened. "I belong to no one, least of all some weakling earth woman who believes in such despicable feelings as love."

"I will have you again, Vegeta." She slipped from my grasp as I let her go. "But you will NEVER have me."

"I could have you if I wanted you."

"You think so?"

"I know." She's definitely glaring at me right now. "The way you through yourself at me all the time…It's like a pattern. You're angry now, but you'll change, you'll become impassioned again, and want me, and then become upset when I turn you away, as if it were the first time it happened." I sighed, crossing my arms. "You need to learn to accept your defeat woman. You will NOT make these next months this unbearable for me."

"You're breaking. I can feel it."

And then she was gone.

*******************************************************

The woman has been up in her room for an hour now with that weakling, but I refuse to enter her mind to learn if our bond has been severed or not. I will not even try. I will wait for her to come to me and tell me that the deed has been done.

That damn moron. He was so smug coming here.

"Why Bulma, are you getting younger?" he'd said before he handed her those disgusting flowers she likes so much; I could smell them though I tried not to. "I swear you are. I don't know how I could have ever been without you."

"Because being younger and looking younger are two totally different things." I'd laughed at that little line, not bothering to mask myself from the de-bonders. Disgusting.

"Yes, well, we're together now. That's all that matters." Fake. All fake. At least I have the honor to be truthful with the woman. "I hate you woman"—honesty.

"No, all that matters is separating me and Vegeta so I don't die from our being apart. I explained all this to you on the phone. Now come on. I can't wait another minute."

Whore. Dirty, foul, degrading-

A knock at the gravity room door brought me from my thoughts. Can't be the woman. The woman never knocks.

"What?"

"It's me, friend." Ah, Terrak. Finally you're back. What is it that you find tolerable about that woman? "May I come in?"

"Yes."

"Is the gravity off? I don't want to be flattened like yesterday." He laughed beside himself. "That was dreadful."

"It's off."

He began speaking before the door was closed behind him.

"I'm terribly worried about you and Bulma, Vegeta. Why is she with another man right now? I don't understand."

"How do you know?"

"She told me when I passed her in the hall."

"When?"

"Just a moment ago. She said that Yamcha fellow was in her room and that they were going to break your bond. Why? Why would you do such a thing? Leave your bond. You know what'll happen if you separate!"

"Yes! Kami, Terrak! I know what I do. I don't do things blindly just because I'm a blind man!"

"Vegeta, you could die. You know that. Why risk it?"

"What do you mean, I could die? That's not how it happens Terrak. Only she would die IF she were to try to bond with another."

"Vegeta, you know I know all there is to know about Saiyans. Why try to hide it from me?" He paused. I couldn't help but tremble. "You know that when a Saiyan and an alien bond there is a whole new set of rules. The Saiyan is the only one susceptible to ill-happenings. Vegeta, if she mates with Yamcha, you could very well die! Maybe not right away because you're strong, but soon, much sooner than you were meant to, you will die!" Why did he have to say it? Avoiding the truth was the easiest solution. Damn him! Let me die in peace!

"And why does this bother you? It's my decision, damn it!"

"All I want to know is why."

"Because," I sighed, slowing crouching then sitting on the floor, head in my hands. "If I cannot offer her what she wants, if I cannot bury my pride for her sake-"

"-then you don't want to live to see her in pain."

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---Chapter 16!! Yay! Who'd a thunk it, eh? Vegeta is growing soft these days! Heehee! But I like it the way I have it. He's soft, yet he's still not saying exactly what he feels, you know? I hope so :P And I hope you liked it.

REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Reviews=More Chapters)

Next time: I know, but I'm not telling :P