A/N:  NO!  YOUR EYES DO NOT DECIEVE YOU!  This IS another chapter of DCT!  Can you believe it?  After over a year of no writing, I finally have gotten back into the groove to finish my precious baby!  Thanks to all who have stuck by me for all of this...lack of inspiration.  I'm on Spring Break now and it has become my Spring Break Resolution to write a chapter a day until the story is complete!  Sorry to say...but the ficcie is indeed almost done. 

One more thing:  I dunno about the rest of you, but I like some music when reading, so I've put together a little play-list of suggested songs that go with the mood of each section of story (a new section begins at the asterisks *nods*).  If you feel up to it, they're definitely worth a listening to.

1)  Story of the Year: Til the Day I Die

2)   DDR: A Girl's Heart

3)  The Calling: Wherever You Will Go

4)  Nickelback: Someday or Avril Lavigne: I'm With You

Lemme know if you like this play-list thing, cuz I can do it for the remaining chapters if ya'll want...  This is kind of like my way of inserting a song into a fic without making it the ever-dreaded song-fic!  :-P  Anyway, enjoy, and as always, R&R, please!

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Chapter 26:  For One Thing, For Everything

The blonde alien's head shot up in alarm as the door was blown clear off the wall, his steely green eyes widening as the Super-Saiyan stepped through.  Ty-io's hand released its iron-clad grip on Bulma's chest, sending the woman dropping to the ground, unconscious.  Blood trickled from betwixt her lips, her cerulean eyes bruised and swollen over.  The tall, handsome man rose to his feet, fierce glare plastered upon his countenance as he warily regarded the insanely glowing Vegeta.

"You're too late...it's already been done, Prince!" he hissed, tossing his locks and laughing haughtily.

Vegeta's eyes swept down upon the woman's form, growing large in shock.  Her stomach, the area exposed by her gown, was...rippling with energy.  The Saiyan blinked, shaking his head and roaring angrily.  What the hell had they done to her?!

The question was voiced aloud, Vegeta's dark tones echoing with a barely-contained rage.

"What did we do?  Why nothing that should concern you too badly..." replied Ty-io off-handedly.  "Why don't you just leave her here and be on your way?  There's a ship exactly thirty-seven meters from this building...it's pre-programmed to return to your little blue planet, Earth.  You have no further purpose here, Vegeta; it'd be best if you just left now."

With a mocking smirk, the servant of Ungo made a shooing action in Vegeta's direction, as though bidding adieu to some clingy little child.

"She belongs here, Prince," Ty-io added menacingly.  "You do not.  Her destiny is of greater importance than yours...or has my lovely little sister been feeding nonsense to you again?"

The Saiyan's glare was cold and empty, his eyes narrowing dangerously as the fog in his mind began to clear...as he remembered something other than rage and vengeance and the fallen Bulma's perfuming scent.  Sister...a girl...with violet hair, and golden eyes...a young girl...

"Sariah..." Vegeta growled, crouching low to the ground in a fighting stance, his cocky aura beginning to return.  "Yes...I remember.  She's the one who told me to come here...a dream angel, or so she claimed to be.  I'm quite surprised that such a pretty little thing could be related to a beast like you."

Ty-io nodded with a sneer, also defensively lowering himself towards the tile.  "Sariah is a fool.  She believes that by exposing the visions she has of the future, she can avoid their imminent occurrence.  Her beliefs are true to a mild extent, but no more.  Bulma may not succumb to a Yangh nobleman now...but eventually, she will be useless to me!"

"You?!" roared Vegeta, launching himself at the bronzed man as he spoke. "What does any of this have to do with you?!  Ungo's the one who wanted her!"

Ty-io laughed, easily dodging Vegeta's attack and swinging his leg in a high spin to catch the Saiyan's head, scoffing, "You think that Ungo and Incoz were the only ones behind this scheme?  You are truly slow if you think that they could pull off such a feat on their own!"

Vegeta's skull darted below Ty-io's calf, his own leg shooting up in a straight line to block the alien's kick and flip him off-balance. "What hellish nonsense are you speaking of?!"

The blonde man tuck-flipped into the air, leaping out of the ruined doorway and into the main hall of the Lab.  His laughter echoed off the white-washed walls, though he offered no explanation.

In a fury, Vegeta phased out and appeared directly behind Ty-io, catching the man off-guard and jabbing him in the small of his back with a well-placed heel.  Ty-io's head snapped back, his eyes glittering viciously as he somersaulted in mid-air and rounded off the Saiyan's attack with one of his own.  Unlike Vegeta, however, Ty-io pummeled his opponent with both feet.

The Saiyan lifted his arms up instinctively to fend off the onslaught, using the corded muscles beneath his skin to cushion the impact.  Cursing angrily, Vegeta watched for an opening, his coal-black eyes dark and narrowed, unreadable.  It came.  Just as Ty-io was about to pull back his left leg and replace it with his right, the Prince phased out to the side and skull-bashed his opponent.  The other warrior's pupils dilated in confusion and pain, a groan escaping his lips as he fell onto one leg...but Vegeta wasn't done.

His iron-boned knee caught the underside of Ty-io's jaw with a sickening crack, and he slammed his folded fists down onto the alien's spine.  Blood and spittle flew into the air, shortly followed by the servant of Ungo as he was kicked into the opposite wall...merging with the white-wash and plaster.

The prince's chest was heaving in effort as he lifted a hand, wiping the trickle of crimson fluid that trekked down his chin.  The smirk his lips twisted into was arrogantly mocking, his cold turquoise eyes narrowing into dangerous slits as he advanced on the weary alien.

Growling viciously, Vegeta bent down and grabbed Ty-io by the collar of his shirt, yanking him up harshly, the fabric biting into his opponent's neck.

"Now tell me what you did to her?" he commanded, his voice deadly soft as his free hand pointed to Bulma's prone body.

"She's pregnant," Ty-io hissed, coughing up large amounts of blood.  "The...IKU..."

Vegeta flung him to the ground in disgust, wiping his hands upon the thigh of his tunic and grinding the blonde man's head into the floor with his foot.  Ty-io yelped his outrage, turning his skull sideways to avoid facial-damage.

"I've fucked around with you enough, Baka," whispered the Saiyan, lifting a palm and pointing it at Ty-io's back.  "It's time to say our farewells."

"Wait!" cried the brute, coughing painfully again.  "If you kill me, you won't know how to turn off the IKU.  The wench will die from bodily stress if it's not gradually shut down, along with your bastard."

The Super Saiyan flashed with leashed power again, causing his fallen opponent to wince as the magnitude of the prince's level reached his internal sensors.

"Tell me.  Now," Vegeta demanded, his tones boding no argument.  He reinforced the command by increasing the pressure beneath his booted foot, eliciting another outraged bark from the alien.

"Fine!  Fine!  But you'll have to swear not to kill me!" Ty-io bargained, feeling one of his eyeballs slowly being shoved further into its socket.

"No deal, Asshole," grit the Saiyan, summoning a swirling ball of ivory energy into his hand and blasting a hole through the servant's back.  Ty-io couldn't even scream in pain before his eyes glazed over and his body lay permanently limp.

Not long afterwards, Vegeta also crumpled to the earth, losing consciousness.  Maintaining such a form of higher power had drained all of the prince's energy, and he reverted to his normal form once more as he hit the stark-white tile.

* * * * *  

Cerulean eyes opened to the room, blurred and rolling around wildly, struggling to make sense of all the shapes and colors bombarding their retinas.  Bulma groaned and tried to sit up, immediately ceasing in the effort when lightning bolts of pain traveled through her body.  Panic enveloped her being and though she opened her mouth to scream, no sound came out save a modest squeak.

'I'm hurt and I'm paralyzed,' she surmised, taking slow, deep breaths to calm her racing heart.  'And where am I?'

The woman squeezed her eyes shut again, trying to remember what had happened before her collapse.  Nothing registered; nothing save sensory perceptions that seemed from a lifetime ago.  She and Vegeta arguing over the gravity training module...a room with curious faces peeking behind a window...a stunning lavender dress and dark, appraising eyes...calloused fingers softly running along her arms...a rare smile and words she'd always wanted to hear...

Bulma's eyes opened with a gasp, and she again stared avidly around the small room.  It was sparsely furnished and as white as a hospital's lodgings...  Without realizing quite how she did so, the Earthling found herself sitting straight as a rod, sea-blue spheres wide as everything came flooding back. 

Instinctively, her fingers fluttered to her belly as she recalled all the conversations she'd overheard Ungo and Celeria having.  The tips brushed lightly over her bared stomach and froze, drawing her eyes down in relief to see that it was still as flat as ever.  Relief quickly became disgust, however, when she watched her skin ripple like the surface of a lake as her fingers came in contact with it.  What the hell was going on?

"Vegeta..." she breathed, unreasonable fear building in her person as she stumbled to her feet unsteadily. 

Bulma had to hold her head to fight the dizzying wave of nausea that threatened to solidify itself at the abrupt rising.  She braced herself against the doorjamb, resting her forehead upon the cool metal as she sucked in deep, steadying breaths.  When her eyes finally rose from their focus upon the floor, it was to take in the sight of two destroyed male bodies...one with a burnt hole proclaiming his cause of death and another whose body was so bloodied and bruised she felt her throat catch in despair.

"Oh no, Kami, please no..." she whispered, pitching forward and falling to her knees at his side, gently rolling him over and brushing the spiky ebony hair from his fiercely intimidating countenance.  Right now, he looked pale and with features so drawn that he seemed in perpetual pain.  This wasn't her Vegeta...her strong, unbeatable, infallible prince...

"Please...please, Vegeta...  Wake up..." the woman begged, tears biting at her eyes and sliding down her cheeks to drip onto his.  Hesitantly, she brushed them away and rubbed her thumbs lightly across his smooth, unblemished skin.

Sobs clawed their way from her throat, and she bent over his head, cradling it like she would a small child, rocking back and forth as she cried over his silent form.

"Vegeta... Saiyan-no-Ouji..." she called, her voice raspy with emotion.  "My Saiyan-no-Ouji...you've got to wake up...  Kami above, you can't die on me!"

It was then that the pulsing of Bulma's stomach slowed and finally stopped, though the woman noticed not as she wept for her absent lover.  Nor did she see as her belly gradually widened into a heavier paunch, glowing with a strangely ethereal light where Vegeta's body touched hers.

* * * * *

"Saiyan-no-Ouji...she's never called me that before," Vegeta murmured from a distance away, heaving a sigh that echoed the tragedy of his very soul.

"You never gave her the chance, Prince," the girl-child whispered, placing a pale hand upon the Saiyan's arm.

He laughed emptily, running fingers through his wily mane as his black pools drifted to rest upon Sariah's genteel form.

"I do love her," he said, almost desperately.  It was hopeless...how could he convince this angel of what he himself had always refused to acknowledge?

Sariah smiled sadly, nodding and surprising him with her words, "I know you do, Prince.  It is why you gave your life for hers...and that of your son."

His eyes sparked with prideful interest.  "A son?  She'll bear me a son?"  Another sigh breezed through Vegeta's silvery, semi-translucent form, and he shook his head, "It matters naught, I suppose...for I'll never get to know the boy."

Regretfully, Vegeta glanced back down where his mate sobbed over his broken body.  It'd happened so suddenly, the transformation...he should have realized he would not survive it.  But then, the strain on his body was more than just what he had endured at Ty-io's onslaught...rather, he'd also used the bond between himself and Bulma to keep her from dropping at the pain of forcibly severing the IKU's connection.  He'd suffered his life in her stead.  She should be dead too, he realized, because his spirit had departed and his mortality drained...

"Why-" he began the question, only to be cut off by his companion's reassuring response.

"You live on within her.  Your bond is still there, see the glow?" Sariah pointed out.  "That is your son taking up where you left off.  His life will sustain her, and she will have a connection that rests almost as deep as the one with you.  Mothers and their children naturally are bonded, but hers will be so much stronger...she will feel you through him."

"But I won't feel her..." Vegeta finished, his gaze visibly pained. 

He was empty again.  Inside, there was nothing.  When Bulma's soul had wound itself about his, she was a tangible presence...warm, caring, spirited and defiant.  He'd loved the feeling of her anger, of her indignity, of her happiness.  It was like an aphrodisiac; making him want more of it...more of her.  And now...now he was without the drug that had so sustained and fascinated him.  Now...he was in hell, despite the heavenly presence next to him.

"She needs to leave, before someone finds the Lab in such disarray," Sariah commented, speaking what Vegeta himself had only begun to consider.  His mate was in danger if she stayed there...both her and their child.

"Bulma always claimed she was intelligent, let's just hope that she's smart enough to save her own hide this time," he said crudely, though inside his heart was twisting.  If she didn't go quickly, someone would come upon her and there would be an even greater price to pay...and, this time, he would not be there to save her.

"Bulma, you wicked little wench, get the devil out of there..." he hissed, glancing uneasily around as she continued crying with such absolute vulnerability.  Dammit, if only he could still talk to her through their bond...but that was the job of his son now.  There was nothing he could do, and he felt an utter failure.

"Onna..." Vegeta called faintly, his voice tight and pinched.

* * * * *

He wasn't waking up.  The stupid, arrogant bastard...  Despite her begging, her humbling...he refused to open his god-damned eyes!  Another wail of despair was ripped from Bulma's throat as she lifted her oceanic pools to rest upon his pale face.  She attempted a laugh, though it was little more than an intermingled choking of sounds and breath.

"You can stop playing now, Baka..." she admonished, his strong features blurring with her tears, "I know you can hear me...you'll stand up any minute now, scowling at me for my womanly sensitivity.  Let's just cut to the chase...wake up, Vegeta.  Wake up and yell at me!  Scream at me!  Call me a witch, a wench...a whore if you must!  Just fucking say something, Vegeta!"

She succumbed again into hopeless sobs, her entire body shaking with the severity of the realization that he was gone...and for good.

"Fine then, be an asshole!" she screamed, standing up suddenly and letting his head fall to the ground with a dull thud.  "See if I care, you prick!  Have fun with your little games, but I'm fucking leaving!"

Bulma crammed a fist into her mouth to quell her whimpering and turned away, running down the hall and to the doors that lead into the building.  Dozens of pure droplets flew from her eyes as quickly as rain from clouds, decorating the space she passed through like glittering crystals suspended in time.  The woman slammed into the doors, smacking her free fist onto them as they refused to yield an exit to her.  She slid down the length of the cool metallic barriers, sobbing even more heavily and wrapping her arms around her knees, burying her face as she continued crying.

So loud was the woman's noise-making that she did not hear the quiet sliding sound as the doors opened up.  It was not until a warm, furry palm touched her arm that she looked up with a start.

"Madame Bulma..." crooned a gray-furred Yangh female.

The Earthling blinked in confusion, wondering who the hell this was and how the hell she knew her name.  Suddenly, realization dawned.  She remembered this woman...

"T-Torpae?" Bulma wheezed.

The bitch smiled gently and nodded, "Yes, Mistress, it is I."

"Wh-What are you doing here?" the woman asked, still startled at her barely-acquaintance's abrupt arrival.

"I am here to escort you to the ship," Torpae said candidly, as though it were the most obvious fact in the world.

"Bu-but...why?" Bulma ventured, horribly confused at the strange turn of events. 

Torpae sighed and knelt next to Bulma, patting her reassuringly, "It is best if those questions are left unasked and unanswered, Mistress."

The Yangh glanced around, her fair brow furrowing in thought.  "Where is the Lord Prince, Madame Bulma?"

Another sob set the woman's body trembling, and she shook her head, unable to speak for a moment.

"He's gone...gone..." Bulma choked finally, her eyes red-rimmed and still spilling tears.  "I tried to wake him up...but he won't come back to me..."

"I am truly sorry, Mistress," Torpae whispered, pulling the other female into a hug.  "But surely you will not leave him here?"

"His body is an empty vessel now...what meant the most is gone," the Earthling rebuked, readily accepting the comforting embrace.

"So you would abandon him upon our planet?" the Yangh asked skeptically.

"N-No...but I don't th-think I can bring myself to...to touch him now..." Bulma murmured, hiccupping on her tears.

"I will carry him," Torpae said firmly, standing up and helping Bulma to her feet as well.  "Stay here, I shall return quickly."

Bulma did as she was commanded, waiting by the open entrance as her 'friend' loped down the hallway and returned several minutes later, toting Vegeta on a make-shift stretcher.  The woman turned away, unable to stand the sight of her lover's limp body.

"I loved him, I truly did...but I don't think I actually realized it until it was too late," she confessed guiltily, feeling her eyes well up again.

"You are wrong," stated the Yangh confidently.  "I could see your affections from the very first day, Mistress.  He loved you as much as he claimed to hate you, perhaps more-so.  Your case was no different.  Love can never come too soon or too late...it always happens at just the right time, though it may not always seem so."

Bulma nodded faintly as she followed Torpae out, wondering if what she said was true.  Could it be possible that she had fallen in love with the arrogant bastard prince without ever knowing it?  Was it obvious to everyone but herself?  Was that what had driven Yamcha to cheating...because he saw through the veil she herself could not?  Because he could sense the depth of her attraction to the Saiyan?  The woman sighed, giving in to the thought that perhaps...maybe, just maybe...she and Vegeta really had loved one another from the onset. 

And maybe, though she feared the consequence for such a fervent hoping, maybe he was the prince that she'd always wished for...

"Vegeta..." she breathed.  "Forgive me for not seeing it sooner.  I wish you could know what I've only just found out.  I wish I could have told you before you left..."

And from somewhere distant, Bulma heard a faint whispering that wrapped her heart in warmth and love.  Closing her eyes, she could almost pretend he was beside her, sighing the words softly into her ear –

I know...I, too, have always known, Onna.  And I have always loved you, Chikyuu-no-Hime.

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A/N:  So...love it?  Hate it?  You gotta leave a review so I can find out! :-P  Til next time, folks!  Ja'ne!