Vegeta did a dead man raise from his bed in a cold sweat. He tossed the comforter off his legs. His feet slapped the cool carpet. He prowled through his dark bedroom with sleep crusted in the corners of his eyes. He left Bulma laying in their bed, buried beneath her side of the comforter and his. Just her unruly hair spilled from her blanket burrito.

He left his house shoes at his bedroom door. He walked down the hall barefoot and nearly naked with the exception of his black boxer shorts. The hum of the G.R. drew him like a moth to a flame. The pulsation slowly pulled him down the hall, like sailors hoisting a heavy stubborn anchor. He passed Bulla's room without second thought, then Trunks' corridor of the compound. He met the glass courtyard door with his forearm. The push lever popped the lock and he plowed through . The cool night air wasn't refreshing. Stagnant mist hung over the lawn making the air humid and dank.

"I can't believe I forgot to cut it off," he said as he made a beeline through the wet grass.

He stopped dead in his tracks when he came face to face with the closed G.R. door. His memory flashed before his eyes, like blaring red sirens. His eyes lingered on the keypad post.

Bulma would have cut it off from the outside, he thought.

Vegeta pondered Trunks' schedule with his hand on the doorknob.

He never trains this late, he thought.

His cheeks burned like red flares on his face. His mind didn't hesitate to entertain the thoughts of Bulla and Pan just hours before, regardless of how hard he tried to quell them.

She's disobeyed me and left her room

Vegeta stepped inside and staggered through a 500 times gravity in his sleepy stupor. The downstairs chamber was empty. He slapped his hand on the control panel and waited for the roar of the generator to quiet down.

"I'm coming up, Eschalot," he called to the cubby hole in the dome's wall.

Vegeta ignored the wall mounted ladder rungs. He floated to the entrance of the chamber loft. He was stuck with his head beneath the doorway and his shoulder half way through. He was speechless at the disheveled loft. The futon bed was pushed from the wall on its side. Sheets and pillows were piled on the floor, soiled with inky boot prints. The drawers hung limp from the mouth of the cabinet. Papers littered the floor. The crooked closet door teetered by its upper hinge. Oil from the space heater stained the tile floor. The yellow recessed lighting in the walls still burned, casting halos onto the glass domed ceiling. Vegeta swiped at the wall, quickly cutting off the lights. He jumped from the platform and cast himself to the ground. He landed hard; cracking the cartilage in his knee during the process. His heart galloped in his chest, but the culprit wasn't the boldness or invasion of privacy. Snooping by disgruntled capsule Corp employees was commonplace. A stapler from the office here, shuffled equipment there was nothing to bat an eye at.

But, who could come right in with 500x gravity, climb upstairs, absolutely wreck the place, and mosey back out like it was nothing, he pondered.

Vegeta paused at the G.R. exit. He studied the muddy floor. The absence of a crushed pile of bones and red meat sent his mind reeling.

This couldn't have been run of the mill low life trash.

Vegeta grabbed the receiver to the wall mounted phone. His fingers made quick work of Bulma's cell number.

"Bulma- yes who else would it be?," his voice grinded with somber frustration, "Get up. I need you to get up right now and- No woman, I didn't break anything, now hurry. Roll your ass out of bed and lock the door right now! Check the windows too. Don't open the door unless it's me. Just do it," he said before hanging up.

He slammed the phone back down on the receiver and walked outside into the mist. He closed his eyes and focused on the ki pulsations around him. Nothing stood out from the little subtle spikes here and there- insignificant blimps of human beings roaming the city streets. He sensed a moderate, resting energy, not moving, still as the dead of night.

Trunks, he reasoned.

A flighty, skiff of energy paced inside the West Wing.

Bulma.

Vegeta opened his eyes, with his mind drifting to his sulking daughter. He imagined her huddled in her bed asleep, surrounded by books and electronics scattered on her bed like land mines.

And cat hair- fucking cat hair everywhere, he visualized.

He didn't bother searching for her. Her ki, evaded him, always had since she was a baby. Vegeta's mind flashed to the overly eager delivery man and his grey jumpsuit. Vegeta figured the case was closed. The man would surely have shown on the cameras mounted throughout the compound.

If he was a man, Vegeta shuttered, this means another visit from Bulma's intergalactic wanna-be-cop-simp.

Vegeta cringed at the thought of his name- Jaco. The impulsive alien brought insecurity with him, though Vegeta would never admit it. Jaco's humble-brags and incessant teasing were just poorly disguised inuendo. Vegeta always hoped that he could catch him in a wise crack. The stories dug beneath Vegeta's skin and festered into reluctant jealousy.

Just once, Vegeta thought, I already warned him no funny business with my wife and I fucking meant it. One warning, that's it. That's all.

I told her making intergalactic orders would only bring more riff-raff," he talked to himself.

A drawn out creaking sound made Vegeta raise his eyes. Bulla's ferns rippled in a gust of wind. The swinging balcony squeaked through the mist. Vegeta ascended before he realized what he was doing, pure muscle memory took over. The shattered glass door beamed him to a world of clumsy vandalism. The glass littered room stole his breath like a cheap shot to the gut. His heart sunk and his mouth went dry. Only one word lingered on the tip of his tongue- Empty.