Chapter 29:
Fearing Fear, Itself
The void was silent and stifling, both immensely hot and freezing cold. There was something wrong, she felt as though the breath were being stolen from her lungs with every inhalation. Bulma crumpled to the ground, one fist squeezed around the fabric of her front as she panted helplessly.
Darker shadows danced against the blackness before her, catching her eyes and drawing her attention to their slow formation. It was ChiChi...her old friend's form slowly separating itself from the ebony well of space.
"Chi..." the woman gasped, lifting a hand for help. "Please..."
The figure stopped just in front of her blue-haired counter-part. A sneer warped itself across ChiChi's face.
"You're so pathetic," she hissed in an icy tone. "You always were, Bulma. Weak and whiny...how many times did Vegeta himself complain about that? You're not cut out for this; you're nothing but a spoiled child. Give it up already. You're dead and gone, forgotten."
"Chi..." Bulma whimpered, her palm falling back down to brace upon the floor. "What...?"
"Don't pretend like you don't know!" bellowed the other woman, back-handing her friend and sending her hurtling to the ground. "You're a wretched, greedy, selfish person, Bulma Briefs! Everything is always about you, no one else. It's your pain, your suffering, your devastation. Nobody else matters, do they? So long as you're kept happy and jovial in your own little world, everyone else can just rot in hell!"
Bulma cupped the sore red spot upon her cheek, eyes over-flowing with tears as ChiChi hurled such hurtful accusations. She was selfish? She was greedy? She was conceited? No...over the years she'd offered up so much of herself, her life, for the sake of her friends'! She was just as willing to sacrifice anything for any one of them as they were for her.
"You're wrong," she wheezed, one arm cradling her stomach. "If-if it did any good...I'd lay my life down...for any...any oneof you..."
"Liar!" ChiChi hissed, aiming a kick at where Bulma most protected herself.
She saw the foot lift back, knew before the action what the other woman was planning. So she opted for the quickest reflex, bowing further over and biting back a shriek as ChiChi's foot connected with her face instead.
Her nose throbbed, her throat swiftly closing up as blood welled up from where tooth cut into tongue. Bulma toppled over, gasping in pain as the most agonized part of her face connected with the hard ground beneath her. She couldn't see anymore...her eyes floating in a hopeless black pool, as dark as the area surrounding her. Her entire skull felt as though it had been cracked into two symmetrical pieces, and the agony was nearly unbearable. But one thought comforted her, the fact that she'd proven her friend wrong...that she had put forth her own capacity for suffering to save the pain of another. She was not a disgusting excuse for a human being...she wasn't...
A wind swept its way across the empty plain, and the hateful form of ChiChi disappeared with it. Bulma only realized such had happened when the warmth of her friend's presence had vanished from before her. She rolled to lay slumped over, half on her side, half on her back. Her gaze remained unfocused and distant, blood trickling down from one side of her temple and from between the space of her lips. And from somewhere deep inside emerged a tiny whimper, a desperate, unspoken plea for help.
- - - - -
There was something decidedly unsettling about this place, the Saiyan acknowledged, every muscle in his body twitching with anticipation. It felt like the entire area was a coiled spring, just waiting to explode with power and force...sending him hurtling elsewhere. Well, he wouldn't be so easily chucked to the side.
Muffled cries caught the prince's attention, his keen eyes scattering about to absorb the source. Nothing met their intimidating glower. Yet the sobbing continued, trembling through his ears and gnawing steadily at some fear deep inside of him. He knew that voice.
It was on impulse that he looked down, a sickening roll of his stomach affirming what his eyes already saw. She was there, fallen over and quivering with pain and fear. Kami above, he could almost smell her terror like a heady perfume!
"Onna!" he rumbled, dropping down and running helpless hands across the ground.
She was on the other side. Wherever she was, it was like he was staring through a horizontal window at his mate. How the fuck was this possible? It made no sense that he could smell her, hear her...but not touch her.
There was a sudden change to her tone then, one that was torn between relief and growing dread. His gaze shifted further down the line of the floor, every hair upon his body bristling like a bobcat's at what he saw.
- - - - -
Bulma's vision had slowly cleared, and while her head still throbbed agonizingly, her center of balance was slowly returning. She couldn't stay here, though...she couldn't stay here lest ChiChi return to complete her hateful deed. Had she blacked out? It seemed that everything around her had changed, shifted ever-so-slightly. And then, from out of the void, she saw another hazy form taking shape.
"Yam...Yamcha...?" Bulma murmured, struggling anew to lift herself back up. It couldn't be him...could it?
"Kami, Bulma...what's happened to you?" exclaimed the scarred man, bounding up to her side and crouching beside her.
"Chi..." she whispered, cradling her belly as his hands ran up and down her arms reassuringly.
"Come on, let's get you up on your feet..." he cooed, hoisting her gently and holding her firm against his chest.
His face buried into her hair and his fingers traced light patterns into her lower back. Bulma could already feel herself relaxing in the safe, familiar grip. Her eyes drifted down to the floor, just in time to see another familiar face, twisted in anger and jealousy, before it disappeared from the sheen.
"Vegeta...?" she breathed, pulling herself from Yamcha's grip and falling upon knees once more. Her palms smoothed over where she had spied his face, but he was there no more.
"Bulma, get a grip...you're seeing things," came Yamcha's voice, grabbing her by the shoulders and yanking her to her feet.
"Yamcha, stop that!" she exclaimed, batting away his hands and struggling to catch another view of the Saiyan. She was still so dizzy...maybe it had been an illusion...
She was jerked around to face the man, his eyes impassioned and desperate. She'd never seen such an unnerving glow to them and instinctively shied her own blue gaze away. What was going on?
"Bulma...he's not there," her companion whispered softly. "He's dead, remember? He's dead and gone and not coming back. All you've got left is this..." A warm palm cupped her girth, bringing forth new tears.
"Yamcha...I don't believe it," she persisted, struggling to direct her vision down once more. He cupped her face roughly, not releasing her at the pained wince when his fingers pressed into a growing bruise. She was staring at him fearfully now, frightened of how strangely he was behaving.
"Forget about him," Yamcha commanded fiercely, and he gripped her stomach more forcefully. "Now."
"I-I can't..." She tried jerking away, biting back another cry of pain when he continued to hold tightly to the swollen underside of her belly. His hand barely fit around the bottom-most part, and yet his grip felt like a vice against her tender skin. "Let me go, Yamcha. Please."
Her stern tone did nothing to dissuade him, and instead his warm fingers suddenly began to press and massage her stomach in a comforting way. She was immediately lost to a haze of pleasure. When almost every part of her body ached like she'd been run over, this one reprieve from pain and concern was welcomed. It was therapeutic, gentle, soothing.
"It's all you've got left," the warrior murmured, his strokes pushing deeper and deeper into her skin. "All that's left keeping you from where you belong...with me."
- - - - -
The scene had been too much for Vegeta to bear. She fell so easily into the arms of that man who had hurt her time and time again, so willingly. Perhaps she still loved him...maybe there was no point to his trying to win her from her own heart's desire.
An ear-splitting cry of pain stopped the Saiyan in his path leading away from the lovers. It bounced and echoed from every direction, making it impossible to determine the exact direction of its source. He spun around, staring into the blackness and struggling to separate image from space. There was nothing, but the screaming continued. It was so full of panic and agony...he felt himself imploding with ferocity. Bulma...something was wrong!
His legs urged him into a run. Where they led, he had no idea...but they seemed to know just where to head, and so he pressed even more speed into reaching his goal.
- - - - -
Yamcha was gone, but a vicious, nerve-shattering throbbing had taken his place.
She was sitting in a pool of blood, sticky and slowing spilling out to flood the floor in a thin, bitter crimson layer. Pain like nothing else rippled through her torso, stealing her breath and forcing a new scream from between her lips. Something was wrong. It shouldn't hurt...it shouldn't hurt! Kami above, it felt as though his fingers had torn a hole in her gut!
Another agonized, strangled sound pulled its way from her throat, her body weakening to fall flat upon the blood-covered expanse of cold, hard ground. Inwardly, the sensible side of her mind calmly informed her that she was miscarrying. Yet, it wasn't true...she was too far in her pregnancy to be miscarrying so quickly, so resolutely. It wasn't possible...this wasn't possible...
Somewhere across the way, she heard someone else's fear-filled voice bellowing her name. Eyes glazed over and blurred lifted to watch his progress, a swift sprint that ended in similar backwards-collapse upon the floor.
"V-Vegeta..." she moaned, forcing her hands behind her body and propping herself to view him. One drenched palm reached out for him, shaking and silently pleading for his aid. "Help me...please..."
Vegeta was cursing in the hundred or so languages he had learned in his lifetime, rubbing a sore spot at the end of his aristocratic nose. Damn it all to fucking HFIL, he'd run into something. The Saiyan regained his feet with as much poise as he could muster, running hands across a smooth, cold barrier. Invisible, fuck it all! What the hell was going on here?
Another feeble cry captured his attention, and the prince's eyes fell upon the woman just on the other side of his unseen wall.
"Onna!" The term came out with just as much shock and denial as hers had, ebony eyes watching in fear as the area she was secluded in slowly filled up with a stinking, thick, congealing liquid he recognized all-too-well.
- - - - -
Author's Notes: Please don't kill me. Truth is, I've had this particular file on my computer for almost two years...in as complete a form as it is now. For one reason or another, I just never posted it :( It was short, yes...but I'm hoping to pump out the next chapter in a week or two, depending on my schedule (after all, 18 hours of school, 15 hours of work and 10 hours as a research assistant each week don't exactly leave the greatest amount of free-time). I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope that this bodes well for my return into the realm of fanfiction. Ja'ne!
