Summary: Before Earth, before his change of heart and before his family, there had been a son he'd never wanted, made from Frieza's seed and born from his body. Then he was dead, and Vegeta made sure to forget he had ever been there at all. Only, he isn't dead. He is alive. Tormented and abused, but alive, and now Vegeta will do what he couldn't have done the first time. He will save him.
Warnings: Rated M for language, abuse, sexual violence, depictions of rape, mpreg, etc.
Every Eye Will See
Chapter Ten: The Ache
"Who is his mother?" Bulma had asked, the demand in her tone already telling him she would not be so easily swayed from receiving an answer. He was right when he expected her question would be the very last one he wanted to deal with.
Damn you, woman. Damn you.
The silence now was even heavier than before. The others shuffled awkwardly, their eyes darting everywhere and anywhere that was not the two of them, and yet her eyes never left him once.
"It's complicated," he told her.
Her eyes narrowed. "Is it some kind of secret you can't tell me, then?"
He grit his teeth. "No."
"Oh, so you just won't then," she challenged back, and every subtle crease in her growing frown told him that this whole matter was quickly escalating to a point where he no longer had control.
He wondered why, now of all times, she felt the need to rear her stubborn head.
He took in a deep breath and released it. He felt so oddly calm, and yet he was quite certain that he had never been so angry with her in his whole life. "Fine, then. Biologically: it's me."
She blinked at him once, twice, several more times. Finally, "You think this is funny?"
His brows furrowed at her. "No, Bulma, I don't." When her mouth opened, he cut her off, "Some saiyans men had the ability to carry and conceive."
"But that's impossible. You're biologically male, you can't—"
"I'll remind you that I'm not human, so perhaps you should stop thinking within the binary of your species," he told her, even though the distant edges of his memory reminded him that he had once been in her position, disbelieving and frustrated and so damned confused.
Her gaze dropped away. He watched as her bright eyes flickered back in forth, her curled fingers cupping her chin, her lips twitching with silent, half-hearted words. He would never admit it, but he always found it just a bit endearing when she did this.
"But I'm confused," Kakarot spoke up suddenly. "How would the baby even get there?"
Vegeta seethed, mortified heat crawling up his neck and over his face. "How do you think?!"
"I don't know! That's why I'm asking!"
Vegeta growled, digging the tips of his fingers into the bridge of his nose. He let the annoyance and frustration drive away the pounding of his heart and his rushing blood. He basked in the familiarity of it and wondered if perhaps being in a constant state of agitation was simply a healthy normal about himself that he would have to accept.
"Well, then," Bulma spoke, her determination powering through his gaze as if it were nothing more than paper, "who is the father?"
And just like that, the agitation, the annoyance, the frustration, the panic, it all faded away. His blood chilled and his body froze solid.
"It is not relevant."
She hesitated at that. "Vege—"
"No," he said, voice unfeeling, glacial, unrelenting.
That face flashed through his mind—pale, black lined, always smug. Those nasty red eyes, too.
The name connecting the features to a single being danced around his throat, but he would not say it. He could not say why—he has said that name plenty of times already, and it had never disturbed him this much. All he knew was that now, in this room, with these people, he would not say it.
Did that make him seem weak to these people? The ability to care was lost to him in that moment. He would not say that name, he just wouldn't. He could not say it.
Bulma's mouth gaped, lips moving but not speaking, seeming lost. Finally, she closed her mouth, frustration and something else he could not decipher taking over her gaze. There was a calculating look in her eyes as she stared into his, like if she looked deep enough, the answers he would not say would jump out at her.
He met her gaze openly and yet revealed nothing, his eyes daring her to keep trying.
Eventually she gave up, crossing her arms over her breasts and turning away like a petulant child. Or perhaps not like a child—maybe there was something more serious in her demeanor, something deeper than the jealousy that lurked over her visage. Perhaps it was concern? Or was she feeling betrayed? In this moment he just couldn't care.
"I... I know of the boy you speak of," King Kai said, dispelling the farce of his ignorance. "But I did not know that he was... from you."
Vegeta had not expected that. He wondered just how secretive Frieza had been that not even a Kai had known the origins of his spawn.
"Can you see him?"
"Just a moment..." said King Kai. Then, a loud, near-horrified gasp. "Oh my."
"What?" Vegeta shouted to the ceiling, his fists clenching and teeth baring.
The Kai did not answer for several long seconds, before releasing a rough breath. "I see him. He is on the ship. He is... he is not well..." He said nothing else.
Vegeta took a deep breath, holding himself back from demanding more. He was not quite sure he wanted to know what the Kai had seen. But not knowing did not mean it was not happening—
It was then that a just as horrible truth—a disgusting irony—dawned on him. The division that he had gone to all those years ago, had engaged in a trade of prisoners for a sack of coins and a stronger alliance, was the same one that held him son.
Ziloh had his son.
"You know the coordinates of this planet, I presume?" he asked abruptly, because he was done. He was done with confessions, and shocked expressions, and Earthen elephants that trampled throughout the room, and the nerves and tension that captivated his body. They all could gape and dwell and analyze all they wanted, but he was finished with the whole lot of this. He could not stand to be here any longer, not when all the air had just been so brutally punched from his chest.
"Ah yes, let me see," King Kai answered. Slight swishing filling the quiet room as he searched through his little book.
"Ah ha, here it is! The coordinates are 8205XY." After a moment, he also named the approximate amount of light years it was away from Earth. The number went straight over his head, so he only nodded, and turned back to his wife.
Her frown twitched, though whatever was on her mind remained in her head. "At the moment, I'd say that the ship could get you there in around five days. If you give me the rest of the day to work on it, though, I may be able to get you there in two."
He nodded again. "I'll be leaving once it's done, then."
With that done he turned away. The archway separating the living room from the rest of the house was barely even ten steps away. In fact, two of the ten steps had been made so quickly that Kakarot nearly missed his chance to grasp his shoulder and stop him.
Vegeta resisted the immediate urge to shake him away like a temperamental child. "What?"
Kakarot's dark eyes bored into his own. His expression was blank, so oddly betraying nothing, but Vegeta knew that even he was analyzing him, in whatever way the clown considered to be calculating.
"Sometime today, Kakarot," he snapped, giving into the urge, and jerking his shoulder out of his hold.
Kakarot let him go with a fight, and the blankness of his face did not dissipate, but his mouth finally opened with, "I'm coming with you."
Vegeta glared up at him. "Two of us aren't needed to find the dragon balls, Kakarot."
"I know," he said. "I just want to."
Despite his words, he said it like it was for Vegeta's benefit. Perhaps not for the little spheres that were threatening their very worlds and livelihoods, but for something, nonetheless.
Yet, Vegeta could not find a reason to say no. "Do what you want, clown."
Kakarot nodded, and finally the hint of a smile broke through his impassiveness.
No one said anything further as he stalked out the room.
It was hours later when Vegeta stepped outside the confines of his home.
The air had chilled considerably, wisps of wind flowing intensely against his cheeks and bare forearms. Once upon a time, the weather shifts of Earth had baffled him, profuse sweating or fierce shivering making a mockery of him until he had learned how to consistently control his body temperature. Now, he hardly felt it.
An odd buzz reached his ears, followed by loud, excited shouting. He turned his head towards the sound and saw his son several yards away, a strange looking controller clenched in his hands. A bright smile lit up the entirety of his face, his knees shaking as if barely restraining himself from jumping up and down. A glance at Yamcha told him he was near the same. Both of their faces were tilted up.
Vegeta looked up as well. There was not much light, but he could see a peculiar white contraption far up ahead, gliding against the deep orange of the sky with bits of dark blue breaking out as the last of the sun disappeared.
That must be the 'drone thing' they had been so thrilled about. He watched it for a moment longer, wondering just what was so exciting about it. Why build that useless thing when you could fly even higher than it yourself? He had wondered the same thing once when Bulma dragged him along one windy day to watch Trunks run around with a kite. She had told him that it was fun, that it was a way for parents to bond with their children.
Vegeta never found the appeal. He would live on this planet for the rest of his life, but he doubted he would ever come to understand humans.
Vegeta took in the brilliant grin spreading over Trunks' cheeks, took in the child-like joy that burst over his face as his creation zoomed over his head. He also took in the pride he saw, not only in his son's eyes but also in Yamcha's when he gazed down at him, and Vegeta wondered just how big a deal it was that Trunks had built this thing on his own. Vegeta certainly had no way with mechanics or engineering—Trunks was fully his mother's son in that regard.
Yamcha laid a hand on his son's hair once more, though there was something else in his eyes now. It was subtle, nearly hidden by the joy and the pride and the excitement, but there all the same.
What it was came to Vegeta so abruptly he felt like he had been slapped. It was longing he saw glowing in the other man's eyes, burning like an ember amongst the fire that was his joy as he gazed at Trunks.
He should be my son, those eyes said.
Vegeta turned away. He was feeling... something? He could not name it, and he did not care too, but he did not like it.
He continued on his way to find his wife, intent on seeing her progress with the ship. He did not doubt that she had already made good progress on it. Bulma was a woman that certainly knew how to put her mind to good use.
Vegeta could not say the same about himself.
He hardly registered the time passing by since he left the gathering. Instead, his mind kept wondering about Tene'mareen. He thought about how hot it was and how hard the air was to breathe and how terrible the smell was. He thought about the people who worked with broken bones and empty stomachs, with the threat of whips on their tattered skin and bullets in their soulless head. He thought about war and death and pain and how none of it compared to that wretched place.
At the time, he wondered what crime could possibly warrant such a punishment. He wondered why anyone bothered to live that kind of life. He wondered why the lot of them had not taken knives to their throats and saved themselves the trouble.
Now, he thought about how for everyday for the past thirteen years, his son had known nothing other than that hell.
Thirteen years. Thirteen years.
Vegeta's toe kicking again the first stair of the gravity chamber knocked him from the spiraling well of despair that nearly swallowed him whole.
He climbed up the rest of the steps and legs that were only the slightest bit shaky. When he reached the top, he punched in the code and strolled inside.
Not much had changed about his chamber. It was still large and bare, with red tile floors and a circular staircase that led into the lounge area. The control panel had been raised from where it was normally kept underneath the tile, and that was where he found his wife, curled in the chair with a tool producing a small flame in her hand, focused intently on the matter before her.
"Bulma," he said as the door slid closed behind him.
"It'll be ready tomorrow morning," she said promptly, her eyes not even so much as twitching toward his direction.
He stared at her for a moment. Then, "If you have something to say then I suggest you say it."
"I have nothing to say," she said, her voice hard, her fist clenched tight around her tool.
"Bullshit," he said.
"Why am I not surprised you'd say that."
He felt the familiar heat of anger begin to brew. "You are trying my patience."
"Well maybe you're trying mine!" she snapped suddenly, pinning him down with a gaze full of fire. "But that doesn't matter to you at all, does it? Of course not! Gods forbid Vegeta actually—ow!"
He was by her side in a second, snatching her by the wrist to inspect her hand. She was in one piece and there was no blood, but the flame had burned through her glove and singed her finger just slightly.
She jerked her hand back and he let her. Silence fell over them.
"If you're angry with me," he said, pushing down the anger, "you've got until tomorrow morning to speak up."
She was silent for a moment, seeming to ponder over his words. Then, she said, "So, you're bringing him back here? That's your plan?"
He blinked, caught off-guard by the question.
"Naturally," he said slowly. Then he narrowed his eyes. "Did you have some kind of problem with that?"
"No, I was just making sure we've got our discussion about it out of the way."
"What is there to discuss?"
She gave him a disbelieving look. "You can't be serious."
He hardened his gaze, not liking what he thought she was implying. "I am. He is my son, Bulma."
"That's not what I meant, and you know it," she said, even though he really hadn't.
Still though, the offended air of her tone relieved him just a bit. He was not sure what he would have said if that had, in fact, been her problem. "Then what did you mean?"
"Vegeta, do you understand what you're doing? I mean really understand. Do you understand what you're asking of me?"
Initially, he had been ready to snap at her for daring to insult his intelligence. That last bit though, had him pausing, had him staring at her with uncomprehending eyes.
She closed her pretty blue eyes and took a deep, long breath. When she opened them again, they held a look he could not even begin to decipher.
"This morning everything was normal. Now all of a sudden, I find out that you have a teenage child somewhere out there in the universe and now he's going to be living with us? What do you think will happen when he gets here? Do you think he'll just... just fit right in here? You think he'll eat our meals with a smile on his face and play with Trunks and Goten and spar with you when you feel like giving him some attention?"
She shook her head, seemingly answering her own question. "He won't, Vegeta. Goku told me what he looked like, what they all looked like. He was abused in probably the worst ways imaginable. Do you know what that kind of treatment does to a person? To a child? He has probably never known love in his whole life. Do you understand what it means to bring a child like that into our home? Children like that don't... don't act like normal children, Vegeta! What if he's violent? What if he hurts me? What if he hurts Trunks?"
He stared at her; his mouth open but not a single word passing through. He felt cold. He felt like a stone had settled deep in his gut.
"So, what are you saying, Bulma?" He demanded, the heat of burgeoning anger coloring his voice. "Are you saying I should just, just leave him?"
"No! I would never say that!" she shouted, looking hurt that he would even suggest such a thing. "It's just, gods, you never think. You're bringing a child here who needs a mother, and I'm willing to be that, but are you willing to be a father? You already don't spend time with the son you've got now unless he's willing to get beaten up in the gravity chamber! You can't just ignore an abused child and expect him to heal. You're bringing a child here who has been hurt for so long he might never heal from it."
She was on her feet then, like the words are a power that have taken her over her body. "You've thought about nothing. Did you tell the doctors to prepare for a neglected child with profound injuries? How will you make sure he takes all of his medication? Where will he sleep? What if he can't sleep? What will you do when he clings to you and won't let you out of his sight for even a second? What will you do when he gets out of the honeymoon phase and starts destroying our home in a test to see if you really care about him? What will you do when all that is happening, and your other son needs a reminder that his father loves him too? What will you do?"
Vegeta stared back her, at her angry eyes and fiery face, and what could he possibly say except for the truth?
The words are like a physical blow to his pride. "I did not think of that."
"I know you didn't, Vegeta!" and surely enough, she did not even look surprised by the confession. "This is a life—your child's life we are talking about. You can't just... just... just not think this through!" she shouted, throwing the torch down against the tiles beneath their feet. "But you don't have to think anything through, because you have me, right? Why think about consequences when you have Bulma, right? It'll be me and it's not fair because it's always just me!"
Suddenly, the fire died down. Her body slumped inward, the strings of her marionette of anger abruptly cut.
"Do you know how scared I was when I had Trunks?" she asked, and to his horror, Vegeta could see tears begin to fill her eyes. "Do you know he spent the first week of his life inside an incubator because I needed to run all the tests I could to make sure he didn't die because he was a saiyan on a planet where they aren't supposed to be? Did you know I thought I was doing the best thing for him by surgically removing his tail but instead almost lost him from an infection I had no idea to anticipate? Do you know that just when I had given up hope, I wrote you a note apologizing for killing your son? I ripped it to shreds because you weren't there anyway! You were never there, and you didn't care! I had to do everything all by myself and now you want me to do it again!"
She brushes roughly at the tears, but they still fall, staining her pretty, pale face. "You can't just drop him into my arms and expect me to make everything better. I don't know everything, Vegeta! I don't know how to help your son! I don't know how to be a mother to a child who has never known one! Do you know what it's like to love a child who might never be able to love you back? I don't know, and I don't want to know, but I'll do it because I know he needs me. He's going to need you too, and Trunks is going to need you, and I'm going to need you! I can't keep doing this by myself!"
Vegeta remembered everything about Bulma.
He remembered when he first met her, when her terror made sadistic joy burn through his body. He remembered everything after that as well. He remembered hating her attitude and her voice and the way she looked at him like he was little more than an unruly child. He remembered the first time he had sex with her, and the time after that, and the time after that. He remembered how she pried and prodded him with questions he never wanted to answer. He remembered being shaken from a nightmare and waking up to her hand bruised by his grip and tears in her eyes. He remembered never apologizing for that, and her never asking for one. He remembered breaking her heart and not regretting it.
He remembered the day he fell in love with her. He did not remember ever telling her he had.
He remembered her one day demanding that he marry her. He remembered not agreeing to do so, but still showing up on the date she picked in the itchy suit she had laid out on the steps to the gravity chamber.
He remembered wondering why this woman seemed to want him so badly.
He remembered looking at her, her smile and her eyes, and feeling regret.
He wondered if he could truly do what she asked. He told himself—that day with his face in the dirt and Buu's handiwork all over his body—that he would be better. He told himself he would be the father that Trunks should have always had, and a husband deserving of the love Bulma was so willing to give.
He had not done any of that, had he?
In his mind, he saw Trunks. He saw innocent blue eyes and a face that looked like his, yet always smiling, always laughing, always bright. Then he saw another boy. He saw a face that was solemn but soft, and eyes that were damaged and unwanted but curious all the same. They were so different, yet just as equally his.
He had never known just how much of himself he would have to give up to be what they—his sons and his wife—needed. He had let them down.
He wondered if he could ever stop letting them down. He wondered if it was too late to do better.
He knew, though, that it was not too late to try.
He curled his fingers under her chin, a gesture gentler than he was used too. He lifted her head up, and when their eyes met, he made his promise. "I will try my best to be better. You have my word as the Prince of all Saiyans that I will try."
It was not enough. Gods knew she deserved so much more, but she took it. Her whole body deflated in on itself, and she gave him a small, but forgiving smile.
"We're really in for it, huh?"
He said, "You seem to know a lot about abused children."
She blinked at him, seeming surprised that he had noticed. Then she said, "When Yamcha and I were young, we talked about adopting. He wanted to adopt a girl from a developing country. I wanted to adopt a boy who would adore me." She gave a self-deprecating huff of a laugh. "Guess I wasn't always the best prospective parent, either."
He said nothing to that, but he knew she had not expected him too. The next several moments are spent in silence. Bulma wiped at her face with a cloth that he hoped was clean. Outside, he could hear the buzz of the drone flying overhead.
But, as it always did, the silence ended.
Bulma asked, "Why won't you tell me who the other father is?"
The judgement from earlier was gone. There was simply curiosity there, and not even the entitled kind. She wanted to know, but he knew that if he refused to say, she would let it go.
He entertained the thought, but only for a moment. It would be so easy to say nothing. It might even be for the best for her to never know. He could not say a half truth, after all. He could not say how the boy had come about without revealing the dark things of his memory that he never wanted to see the light of day again.
He did not want her to know. He did not want her to know what he, in his weakness, had allowed to happen. He did not want to think about how terrifying her reaction could be.
Yet, he had to tell her. He had to tell this woman, who had stuck by him, who had waited for him, who had raised his son and was willing to raise another, who had loved him even when he had not deserved it.
(And perhaps, he admitted despite how his pride seethed, it would not be so awful to say it out loud, to let someone else bear the secret that he had hidden so deeply inside that even he forgot it was there.)
"It's Frieza," he said.
At first, her face remained just as blank as before. Then he saw her brows furrow as the wheels in her head began to spin.
He saw the exact moment the meaning of his words hit her. His wife's blank face crumbled in distress, and her eyes grew wide and horrified. He did not know what she saw in his face, but whatever it was, it made her hands cover her mouth in sorrow, and tears spark anew.
When she wrapped her arms around him, he let her. She held his neck tightly, and she smelled like sweet lavender and home.
"I'm so sorry," she said, sounding so broken inside for him. He said nothing back, only dipped his nose into her neck and breathed.
TBC
I hope y'all weren't expecting some Bulma-bashing, because *T'Challa voice* we don't do that here.