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Living with You

Chapter 3

Bulma was extremely happy that they had come to a truce. A weight seemed to lift from her shoulders. The panic that had settled there since she had seen Vegeta's face that morning after hearing about her lie was gone. She couldn't help but smile at Vegeta with such joy on her face. It must have rubbed off on Vegeta, as he gave her a half smile. Just a twitch at the corner of his mouth, barely showing his teeth, but Bulma knew that was his smile. Bulma tried not to stare too much at it. She was used to his smirk, but this was better and she didn't want him to become conscious of smiling and so go back to making his face unreadable.

She turned around, intending to go back to her room, but apparently she had turned around too fast and felt woozy. Vegeta noticed and was there in a flash, with one hand on her back and the other gripping her shoulder in an attempt to steady her.

"I'm okay," she tried to wave him away. "It must have been all the pressure that I put on myself to get you out of the house. I've been worried all day after seeing how pissed off you were this morning." She gave a little laugh in spite of herself. Even though they had reached a truce, she didn't feel quite up to reminding him of it so soon.

"You should have been. I'm very dangerous when I'm angry." He gave her a toothy grin, showing her his fangs on purpose. "Lay on the bed until you feel better. I don't want you falling down and having everyone accusing me of mistreating you or something." Again he thought of the security camera being outside instead of inside the gravity room.

She did as he said and lay on the bed while Vegeta pulled out the chair from the desk opposite the bed and sat next to her.

Was this some sort of trick on her part, he wondered. Maybe she had not quite finished with her devious plans… He heard Yamcha calling for Bulma around the grounds. "Great. The idiot is looking for you now. And if you walk out of here like a drunk woman, he's going to accuse me of molesting you."

Bulma smiled and tried to keep herself from giggling. "Ah yes, the Saiyan hearing. Actually, Vegeta, I feel fine now. I don't have to stay in the bed."

She stood up, wobbled, then plopped back down on the bed. She stayed put, deciding that it was better to stay, especially since she was somehow allowed into Vegeta's inner sanctum. She worried about what Yamcha might be thinking. He was probably thinking she had somehow gotten captured by Vegeta. She shook her head at herself, wondering why she had ever dared to go against Vegeta in such a way. Nevermind that she was headstrong young woman who had always been used to getting her way. She had made such a mess of things. Suddenly she heard Yamcha's voice calling for her from a distance. He seemed to be a bit panicky. Yep, he was definitely believing her story now. If she had not changed her mind, she would have been happy at her change in luck. Now Yamcha would automatically believe her without going to check the security cameras.

Vegeta continued to look at her, but then suddenly came up with the strangest idea. He didn't know why the idea had suddenly popped into his head, but he was going to investigate. He got up and sat next to Bulma on the bed. She looked at him in surprise, then in wariness.

"What are you up to?" she asked squinting her eyes and looking sidelong at him.

He didn't say anything, but looked into her eyes, trying to read what she would do once he investigated. He knew she would get mad, but he took the plunge anyway, surprising Bulma beyond belief.

"Vegeta!"

He had pulled her shirt up past her stomach and had put his hand on her stomach, with his fingers digging under her belt. She was too shocked to do much of anything but stare at him. His fingers didn't go very far under her belt, but stopped once his hand seemed to cover a good area of her stomach. He didn't seem very interested in what she thought that he was interested in. Instead, his hand was still upon her stomach and he sat quietly looking at the floor in deep concentration.

"That's disgusting."
"What is?"

"You're pregnant. It's Yamcha's," he said with a look of extreme disgust on his face. He pulled way his hand and looked at it like it was crawling with germs from reading Yamcha's child's energy from Bulma's womb.

"How do you know…Hey! It's not disgusting! WHAT! Pregnant!" Bulma's brain was on overload. She couldn't believe what he had just said. "No. No way," she said in disbelief, determined that Vegeta was wrong. "You're just getting back at me for accusing you of rape."

Vegeta looked at her like she had gone insane. "Bulma, I would not lie to you about you being pregnant with Yamcha's child. It's a terrible thought. That poor kid." He looked down at her stomach, imagining what kind of father the kid would have. "Believe me, as much as I hate Kakarrot, I would much rather that that child be his rather than Yamcha's."

Bulma felt her stomach, trying to figure out how Vegeta could possibly know a thing like that just by touching her stomach. It didn't feel any different than it normally did. She looked at Vegeta, knowing that he wouldn't lie to her about something like this. Then again, maybe he would, but he seemed to be genuinely disturbed at the prospect of the baby being Yamcha's.

"Tell me you're kidding."

Vegeta snorted. "What's the matter? Don't you love that sleezeball?"

Bulma fidgeted uncomfortably. She had never planned on having a baby with Yamcha. She had never admitted it to herself before, but she knew that Yamcha wasn't right for her. She stayed with him because it was easy. He cheated on her, but she liked him and didn't want to ruin their friendship by dumping him, as crazy as it sounded. Of all times that she had to have an epiphany about her relationship with Yamcha, it just had to be now that she was pregnant with his child.

"Are you sure?" She asked it quietly, without the desperate tone that had been there a moment before. Now she sounded resigned to her fate.

"Yes," he answered bluntly.

Bulma sighed and pulled her blue hair away from her face.

"Vegeta…"

She looked at him, trying to read his face. His face was placid, not pulled into a sneer or any other of his normal looks. He was watching her with curiosity, seemingly because he had never been faced with this type of situation before. Now that she thought about it, he looked extremely handsome, surely a credit to his species. Of course, it helped that they weren't arguing at the moment. Bulma thought, if the two of them had more quiet moments like these, she would be very happy to be his girlfriend.

Her eyes widened slightly at this last thought and she quickly turned away, looking up at the hatch leading to the gravity room, excepting to see Yamcha there knowing exactly what she had just been thinking. She turned back to Vegeta, whose face looked the same, not at all surprised at the sudden look of fear on her face.

"Vegeta…do you think that…Well…Look, I know I did a really dumb thing to you. You didn't deserve it as much as I might like to think. And I apologize again for it, okay? I'm kind of hoping that you might…you know…keep the baby a secret for me? At least for a little while."

His face went unreadable. She panicked.

"Only for a little while! I don't know how to tell my parents, or Yamcha for that matter. I'll tell my parents first. They will take it better, or at least I can deal with them. Yamcha on the other hand, that will be more difficult."

She looked at her hands resting together on her lap. "I don't know how he is going to react. Whenever we've gone to the mall and have seen a baby, I would always coo over it, but he would just sort of stand aside and look at it like it was a monster of some sort. I don't think he's ready to be a father."

"And you are?" Vegeta asked in a neutral tone.

She looked up at him, unsure of what to say.

"I have no idea, Vegeta. But I'm definitely more ready for it than he is. Oh, Vegeta, you think you know Yamcha well enough, but you don't. He's not exactly father material, if you get my drift. I've broken up with him and taken him back so many times that I've lost count. He's never broken up with me, it's always me breaking it off with him. He's always cheating. I don't know why he has to. I'm beautiful, I'm rich. What else does he want? Do you know, when we were kids, he was scared to death of girls? He had such a difficult time talking to me for the longest time. But eventually, he got over it, and we were a good match. Then, he became more and more confident in himself. I suppose at first he just wanted to see if he could be able to talk to other women, then if he could kiss another woman, and so on until he finally cheated on me."

She didn't know why she was telling Vegeta any of this, but she seemed strangely comfortable telling him her troubles, like he would be able to take care of all of them with the snap of a finger. He still had not changed his looking. He seemed to take in all she said, though, as if he were interested in her history.

"Please don't tell anyone, Vegeta," she begged. "I'll tell everyone in my own time, and when I do, I won't mention in any way that you knew anything about it. You can have your peace and solitude from everyone else." She smiled, hoping that the last part would convince him, if nothing else would.

"Fine. It's not my business anyway." He stood up and walked towards the hatch. He looked up through the hole, cocking his ear and listening for Yamcha. "Are you feeling better? Are you able to walk now?"

"I think so…"

She stood up without the least bit of wobbling and was able to make it all the way to Vegeta's side without feeling faint.

"Good. He is on the other side of the grounds. He won't be able to see you right now, but he is heading around again. If you don't want him to see you, which I'm sure you don't," he looked at her meaningfully, "then I think you should leave now."

Bulma nodded and proceeded to climb the ladder. She was conscious of wearing a skirt and she wondered if perhaps Vegeta was looking up. When she was near the top, she turned and looked back down at him, only to find him smirking, clearly letting her know that he had been looking.

For some reason, she couldn't help but smirk back at him and he chuckled, then turned away, most likely to take a shower down in the hatch.

Bulma looked around the gravity room, fully making sure that Yamcha had not entered before she raised herself up and out of the hatch. She then stealthily made her way across the grounds toward the living quarters area of Capsule Corp. As she neared the sliding doors leading into the living room, she heard Yamcha's voice still calling for her as he was walking around. He was definitely close. Bulma dashed to the door and slipped inside, pulling the curtains tightly closed after her. From there, she quickly ran up the stairs to her bedroom, where she quickly disrobed and got into a soothing bubble bath, hoping it would be able to calm her and help her think.

Meanwhile, Yamcha had just turned the corner and was walking to the sliding doors that Bulma had just gone through.

"Where is she?" he wondered aloud.

The gravity room had been strangely quiet for a long time. Yamcha truly found it odd that Vegeta wouldn't be training, especially since it was in perfect working order. He saw Vegeta step out of the gravity room and shut the door behind him. As he walked toward the house, Vegeta looked directly at Yamcha, never breaking eye contact. Even as he passed, he did not break the eye contact, and bumped into Yamcha on purpose, nearly sending Yamcha stumbling into the rose bushes near the doors.

"What is with that guy," Yamcha thought.

To him, Vegeta was suspicious in every way. Yamcha could twist anything and everything that Vegeta did into something sinister. And from now on, he fully intended to do so. He had not been the greatest of boyfriends to Bulma, but now he would be. But even as he thought so, his spirits went down. For one, and most important to him, it would mean having to stay with only one girlfriend, and he did not want to do that at all. Secondly, he felt guilty that he knew he couldn't be completely faithful to Bulma.

"Then I guess that just means I have to be extra persistent in defending her from Vegeta," he vowed.

So, yeah, Yamcha doesn't want to take responsibility for his actions, I guess. Nice guy, huh?

Stay tuned!

Lady Branwen