The Cursed Idle Mind and Bloody Instinct

Epilogue (fracture)

She cursed herself for not seeing it before. But for all her intelligence she had been stupid. Stupid and blind. They had warned her that something was wrong. Yamcha had told her all about the man's strange behavior. Hell, she'd seen some of it herself over the broadcast. But that had been nothing. She had smiled and told Yamcha that it was just like Vegeta to be so selfish. That he had only interfered so many times because he had wanted the glory of taking out Earth's greatest threat himself.

"Oh but you knew better."

Her own mind was against her now. She kicked aside a broken keyboard as she ventured further into the ruined laboratory.

Why had she been so foolish?

"You caught him. You saw him with that… thing."

She did not want to think about it, but there was no use in fighting it now. It was the cold hard truth. Vegeta, her Vegeta had gone completely insane. And he'd been that way for a long time now. How else could it have been explained? The father of her child, she'd caught him fucking that awful man… thing… android. Whatever the hell it truly had been. And ever since the day that creature died, the man had been a behaving like a walking ghost.

Bulma had been used to rarely seeing him. As he was always locked away in that Kami damned gravity chamber. But then he would at least come and find her every once in a while for what she had begun to call congical visits. Or she would sometimes be granted his presence at the dinner table. But after the Cell Games, things had changed for the worse.

She had convinced herself that maybe the prince had been upset because of the passing of his rival. Hell, she'd been hysterical herself. It was that much more comforting to know that the man she loved was experiencing the pain of the loss as well. But even then deep down she knew. Vegeta could care less that Goku was dead.

It was that accursed creature he was mourning.

He was upset because Gohan had killed Cell, the same monster that had slaughtered his own son… their son. He was all broken up because that fucking monster had gotten exactly what he had deserved for all the pain he'd caused.

All along he had been mourning that murderous bastard.

But this of course didn't really make any sense either. Vegeta had practically put the nail in that monster's coffin. He'd helped Gohan defeat Cell. At least that's what Yamcha had told her. This just didn't make any sense at all.

Unless… Vegeta felt guilty. Did he really regret murdering that vicious creature in favor of saving the entire planet?

Even the thought seemed completely ridiculous.

Vegeta loved himself more than anything else. Of course he'd even murder his fuck buddy in favor of saving his own life.

This of course still did nothing to explain the man's subsequent behavior.

Bulma was so wrapped up in the mess of her own thoughts that she didn't even realize she as crying until she reached the wall safe. The beaten in plaster and steel blurring and slurring together. She'd built it tough but had known good and well that if Vegeta was ever able to locate it, all the Capsule Corp engineered steel in the world wouldn't be able to keep the man out.

She sighed miserably and reached in her pocket for her cell phone.

"Oh Vegeta…" she sniffed. "What did I do so wrong to make you turn to that monster?"

The phone began to ring and she pressed it to her ear.

"Hello… Chichi… Is Gohan there?"

(End.)