It Falls On Me

by Bellaniza

Bulma's wedding to Yamcha is a week away, yet her fears and doubts are increasing as the fateful day approaches. Torn between what she should do, and what she wants to do, is never an easy decision. And what about Vegeta, who has become an unexpected factor in her equation? The battle between the mind and the heart can be won, as long as you can see through both of their illusions.

20. Amongst The Echoes

Holy crap, an update!

It's about damn time, isn't it? My sentiments exactly!

I know it's been a long 7 weeks. This has been, by far, the most painful and difficult chapter to write….not because of writer's block, but because most of this chapter is a page out of my very own life. This chapter is unbelievably personal to me, for much of the heartache my husband and I went though is reflected within it. It has taken much strength for me to write all of this, for re-living my past and the hurt I had caused my husband was no easier this time around.

My husband helped me with this chapter, even though much of the struggle and heartache between Vegeta and Bulma reflected much too closely at times to what we went through. I know it was difficult for him to almost re-live what happened again as we discussed it and incorporated our heartache into what you are about to read.

I apologize for the long wait, but I assure you, it was well worth it. At least I believe it is, if the tears I had shed while writing certain sections of this chapter are any indication. I want to thank each and every one of you again for your amazing patience and generous support of my story.

Without further ado, here is the next chapter. I hope you enjoy it. It's another long read, and if you're an emotional person like I am, it may be a difficult read.

---

There was nothing in sight but memories left abandoned.

There was nowhere to hide. The ashes fell like snow.

And the ground caved in, between where we were standing…

…and your voice was all I heard, that I get what I deserve.

Chapter 20- Amongst The Echoes

"Any progress?"

"No." Goku's answer was painfully short, honest, and to the point.

Bardock frowned as he received the most recent update, reclining back heavily in his chair for a moment, unmistakable concern etched on his face. Unease permeated the room as he drummed his fingertips on the arm rest. "I do not understand. It has been four days. There is still no contact between them?"

"Nothing. Not a word." Goku relented as he rolled his shoulders in annoyance. The shoulder buckles were digging into his collarbone as readjusted his chest plate, getting ready for guard duty. After the discomfort of the chest plate was alleviated he sighed heavy-heartedly, for he also was as confounded as his father was. "They're not talking. They haven't even seen each other since she's been back."

The medic spun his chair partly away from his son and chose to stare blankly at the wall, lost deeply in thought for the moment. Bardock had absolutely no answers for this unsolvable conundrum. He had thoroughly believed that with Bulma back on the planet that her and Vegeta would resolve their mysterious conflict…albeit argumentatively, but yet they eventually would. However, four long days had already come and gone, and it had been increasingly evident that they were avoiding each other. This marked the fifth morning on the beautiful red planet, and it was undeniable…if Vegeta and Bulma were having a fight, then this was unlike any argument or conflict they had with each other, ever. It was very much like them to argue and fight. To be stubborn and demand that the other bend to their will. To challenge each other and stand their ground. To get in each other's faces and invade each other's spaces to eventually come to a mutual resolution.

Instead, there was only silence.

Uncharted territory for all, as the quietness was so potent between Vegeta and Bulma that it already had begun to unnerve even those closest to them. "What's going on?" Bardock murmured with trepidation, his question rhetorical as he turned his chair back around to face Goku again. "They need to resolve this…this…whatever this is…that is going on between them."

"How?" Goku asked in slight exasperation. "I don't know what's going on between them. You don't know what's going on between them. No one does." He paused for a moment as he ran his hands down his face. "Think them staying away from each other has something to do with them not being bonded anymore?"

"I have no way of knowing that. I have never come across a case like this before." Bardock replied. He was utterly lost and without guidance as to how to heal their separated bond. A bond that he had not been aware had existed to begin with, let alone possibly know how a bond could exist between two different races. With both Vegeta and Bulma being unbelievably silent on the matter of what happened between them, he hadn't a clue on how their bond had inadvertently broken. Not to mention this most rare occurrence was between two of the most stubborn and temperamental, yet overly-sensitive and emotional people in the known universe.

In theory, Vegeta and Bulma were two completely separate and different puzzles, who somehow worked together as one grand design. Now they were broken, and here Bardock and Goku were, trying to figure out how to force the pieces to fit together again. Truth was, Vegeta and Bulma were not separate or different puzzles. They were always as one.

Although the pieces at times appeared scattered, their grand design still remained.

"The only thing I can possibly consider is that they need to talk to each other." Bardock threw out on a whim, knowing full well that his suggestion was unrealistic.

"Dad, really?" Goku griped, giving his father a knowing look. "They don't have a very good history about 'talking' things out with each other. You know how they are."

"Fine, they don't have to talk! They can argue and yell or scream at each other and get it out of their systems then, for all I care. Just something." Bardock emphasized, leaning forward in his chair as he placed his hands on his knees. "This nothingness between them….they can't keep doing it to themselves or to each other." He was sure his son could see the worry in his eyes. "Have you tried talking to them?"

"Of course I've tried." Goku said in helpless frustration. "But Bulma won't talk to me about anything. Especially about Vegeta. She just…shuts down. She's been shutting everyone out. I don't know what to do to get her to open up, and I'm her best friend!"

Bardock pursed his lips together in a hard line, unhappy to hear the lack of progress when it came to Bulma. If Goku couldn't break through her defenses, then he doubted that anyone could. "And what about Vegeta?"

"Are you kidding me?!" Goku remarked with disbelief. "Any mention…any hint of anything that has to do with Bulma sets him off. Trust me on that! Honestly…I'd have better luck with Bulma."

Bardock remained quiet, recalling the truth of Goku's words. Each time Vegeta emerged from his healing tank…which as of late was the only time he would see him anymore…he would attempt to speak with him and inadvertently set off Vegeta's temper when he said Bulma's name or mentioned anything in reference to her. Dealing with Bulma could be a hopeless endeavor, but when it came to Vegeta, it was damn near impossible. "Neither one of them will tell anyone what happened between them, that much is clear. Well then, since they refuse to talk to us, then they need to talk to each other. We will have to get them in the same room together."

"Already tried that lots of times." Goku quickly answered, running a hand through his dark, unruly hair in frustration as he watched his father give him a genuinely surprised look.

"You have?"

Goku nodded. "I've tried to get Bulma to eat with me in the dining hall when Vegeta's there. Tried to get her to take a walk with me out in the courtyards when he's around. Even tried to get her to bring me a snack when I'm training with him…and she just says no. I think she knows better. She won't go anywhere. She just works. She stays either in her room, or in her lab, or outside at the construction site working on his gravity room. She won't go anywhere else."

Bardock huffed in annoyance. "She's too damn stubborn and smart for her own good sometimes." He shook his head, aware that his plans to get them to acknowledge each other's existence again were quickly faltering. "I gather your luck with Vegeta has been just as rotten?"

"I'm close to giving up on trying anymore!" Goku said, cutting a hand through the air in blatant frustration. "He's drowning himself in work. He keeps himself in conferences as long as possible. He shuts himself inside the war room, studying up on the Icejins and the Cold Clan and their home planet and their empire. And by some miracle when he's not working, he's training or sparring with me and Raditz and Nappa! And when he's not killing himself in the process, he's in here healing." Goku paused for a moment, giving his father an exhausted, yet saddened look. "Vegeta's staying as far away from her as he can."

"Figures. Even separated from each other, they continue to remain one in the same." Bardock muttered, unhappy that Vegeta was too damn stubborn and smart for his own good also. Bulma was being smart and avoiding all other areas Vegeta could possibly be in. She was playing it safe, sticking to her room, her lab, and outside in her designated construction zone for the new gravity room that was off-limits to everyone except Riko and his construction crew. Vegeta, of course, had to know she was back on the planet. How could he not sense her energy signal and make sure to find himself absolutely nowhere near her? It was unlike the prince to throw himself into the business aspect of the empire so strongly as he had been doing since she arrived. Vegeta was doing all he could to keep himself occupied and somehow found the discipline to ignore her presence. "Well Vegeta's going to have to talk to her eventually." he reasoned. "If he refuses to speak to Bulma first, then eventually she will have to talk to him about something, won't she?"

Goku shrugged, as uncertain about the logic as his father was. "Knowing them, I'm sure they could spend the rest of their lives never talking or seeing each other again."

"Yes, they are that prideful and stubborn." Bardock agreed as the frown returned to his face. He arose from his chair, pacing back and forth tensely as he ran a strong hand through his dark hair, continuing to worry about Vegeta and Bulma. He let out a resounding sigh. "It could be worse, I suppose. I should be satisfied that they are both on the same planet together. If having Bulma here with us is even merely a half-step closer to getting them healed, it's better than having her worlds away." he muttered, trying to see the brighter side of the situation.

Goku had done well in removing Bulma from her poisonous environment on Earth and bringing her there. When she had first arrived back, her gorgeous blue eyes held no sparkle to them. Not anymore. Just a deep, unhealed sadness, surrounded by shadowed darkness from lack of sleep and overwhelming stress that afflicted her so. She was malnourished, which accounted for the weight loss and the low levels of vitamins and minerals in her system. Her blood pressure had been high when she first arrived, but that was understandable. Goku had been keeping him informed on what was going on with her and what was happening on Earth over the past few days before she arrived on Vegetasei. No doubt the lack of rest, coupled with the insane amount of stress she was under, on top of the added stress she was putting herself through when it came to designing and constructing Vegeta's gravity room had caused her blood pressure to skyrocket. Her heart rate had been abnormally high also, mostly due to the caffeine overload she had in her system. Surviving on nothing but her beloved coffee during those nightmarish few days had done that to her heart. Knowing Bulma as well as he did…and oh, did Bardock know her…she had been running on limited sleep for the past week. Now back on Vegetasei, she still was not sleeping as much as he would like, and she was still relying on coffee to fuel her as she worked tirelessly on the gravity room…but comparatively, her health had improved greatly.

Bardock was relatively sure Bulma's self-destructive ways were unintentional, as a means only to cope with her stress and focus on her work, which inadvertently always ended up making her go to extremes. Much like a certain Saiyan prince he knew also, he thought darkly. Vegeta's training regimen had remained intense, his injuries more severe each night as he trained himself nearly to death. He kept a vigil on the prince, making sure he did not die during the healing process, and correlated his absurd training to possibly Bulma's arrival back on Vegetasei. He still couldn't understand what happened between them to cause such a separation. Even worse, he still didn't understand why they were not arguing or yelling at each other. He and Goku had no idea how to heal their broken bond, and the only thing they could think of was to get them to reconnect it again. That prospect did not seem promising at the current moment, considering they both refused to have anything to do with one another. "Alright Kakarot, we'll keep trying to get them to interact with each other. Even if they only argue and yell at each other…it's still better than the silence that's pervading between them."

"Sure, but I won't be able to help out much today. I'm heading back to Earth after guard duty tonight. Chi-Chi says I'm not spending enough time with her lately."

"Ah. Well, we don't want to make your wife angry now, do we?"

"Let's just say I don't want her madder at me than she already is." Goku said with a slight pout.

Bardock stifled a chuckle at his son's honesty. He was well aware that the tempers of human women were right on par with those of Saiyan women, if Bulma and Chi-Chi were any indication. "Leave Gohan here tonight. Your brother and I will care for him."

Goku nodded his head in gratitude at the offer as he raised his fingertips to his forehead and focused on the King's energy signal. "Thanks dad. Alright, I gotta go. I'll see you tomorrow." he said, and with that, he vanished from the medical ward and teleported to the throne room for duty that day.

Bardock plopped down heavily in his chair again, leaning his head back as he stared up at the brightly-lit ceiling. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to think of how to get Vegeta and Bulma to cross each other's paths and get them interacting again. Even if all they did was look at each other and not say anything, that would be more than drowning in the nothingness that continued to remain between them.

But they both were too intelligent.

Too stubborn.

Too prideful.

Too temperamental.

Too emotional.

They were both too much alike to fall for any traps.

---

It was now mid-afternoon on the magnificent red planet as Bulma stood in front of her workbench, the palms of her hands resting flat on the cold metal as she leaned her weight onto them. Her head remained angled downward; the gentle breeze swirled around her as stray locks of her azure hair gently twirled in its embrace, trying to distract the beautiful genius from her imperative work. With a resounding sigh, her lackluster blue eyes gazed outwards over the expanse of the construction site for a moment before she returned her attention to her blueprints and schematics. She reflected over the past day or so. Yes, so far things were going as well as she could ask for.

They had gotten a hell of a lot of work done already. The debris from the old gravity room was gone. The debris removal didn't take as long as she had expected, only yesterday and most of this morning, as Riko and his team cleared the devastation of what used to be Vegeta's old gravity room. They had finished clearing all the remnants, collecting the majority of debris into one big pile. With the help of one of her capsules, the team encapsulated the metallic mess to take back with them to Xyneon so they could later rummage through the debris and see what they could salvage and what they would have to scrap and call a complete loss.

It had been late that morning when the excavation process began. Riko and his team, under Bulma's supervision, used their machinery alongside their own strength to begin to dig largely and deeply into the soil, carving from the planet a space grand enough to hold her crowning achievement of engineering and technological genius. The entire area she was working with had been sectioned off, and no one except her and Riko and his team were allowed to enter the construction zone. While the team had continued to excavate the ground so that construction on the foundation of the gravity room could begin sometime soon, Riko and Bulma popped open the capsules that held all the materials and metals that had been purchased. Together, over the past few days they began discussing the metalworking and shaping that would need to be done as they had studied over her schematics and blueprints, going over her proposed dimensions and painstakingly-precise measurements. Soon enough, Vegeta's new gravity room would begin to take shape. Things were looking promising.

Now, if only she could figure out that damned gravity formula. She had no more success figuring it out there than she had on Earth. She had spent countless hours pouring over her insanely long algorithm, trying to re-write certain functions and modify the formula in order to get the computers to accept it, but to her dismay, her calculations were still being rejected. It was horribly frustrating for her, and a few times she had the urge to pick up her chair and throw it at the computer screens that flashed in red and mocked her in her absolute failure.

Failure.

The red reminded her that she was running out of time. It reminded her that she was not smart enough to figure this out. It reminded her that the gravity room was facing inevitable failure. The red threatened her, telling her Vegeta would get killed if she didn't perfect every single damn aspect of this project. It was during those times she would fight back the most bitter of tears as the pressure to get the gravity room built and up and running seemed to increase tenfold.

Bulma let out a resounding sigh as she lifted her head, her somber gaze blindly traveling beyond Vegetasei's horizon, past the curvature of the planet and forward into the dark void of space that lied just beyond her vision. She removed her hands from her workbench, crossing her arms over her torso in deep thought as she tightened the hold on herself, continuing to stand on the precipice she now faced. She was not sure how long it would really take to build the gravity room. Had she been foolish in believing she could design and construct such an elaborate creation in such little time? How could she tell Vegeta she could not get the advanced gravity formula to compute? How could she tell him she couldn't build this in 6 weeks, or even sooner like he had wanted? How could she tell him that this would take much, much longer?

These were just more reasons for him to be angry with her…and he would never understand.

Bulma huffed a breath of frustration as she uncrossed her arms and looked back down at the mess of paperwork that remained secured in numerous paper clips and underneath paperweights on her workbench. She reached over to grab her disheveled notebook, flipping through her pages of her algorithms and functions, still unable to see where she had gone wrong. Even Riko had taken a glance at it, but the gentle giant had to admit that his forte was architecture and construction, not quantum mathematics and theory. He reassured her that she would be able to figure it out. He had reassured her that their construction of the new gravity room would be flawless, and the materials they had purchased would be more than adequate to withstand such immense gravitational forces, as well as the insane energy output that Vegeta would be emitting.

But still…nothing was reassuring her.

Temporarily defeated, Bulma tossed her notebook down on the workbench, turning her attention back to her schematics and blueprints. She hoped they would be able to finish the excavation in a couple of days, if at all possible. If she could at least get the construction for the power cores started as soon as tomorrow, psychologically that would take some weight off her shoulders. To begin with the first major step of her project by establishing a functioning network connection from the gravity room's power cores to Vegetasei's electrical power grid infrastructure would be amazing. If she was going to let the planet run on excess ki energy output to help ease the strain of their solar power usage at night, Riko and his team needed to dig outwards after reaching the desired depth for the actual gravity room until they reached the transmission lines so that she could connect the gravity room's power cores to the system.

Eventually. Whenever she finished constructing them, that is.

The troubled genius rolled her neck one way, then the other, trying to work out a kink in it. So far all her hard work designing this project felt like a complete and utter waste of precious time. She felt the progress she was making on the gravity room was crawling along at a snail's pace. Seriously, how in hell did she think she could actually complete all of this in 6 weeks?! This was something that in reality should take her a year to construct, at best. Bulma sighed with the heaviest of hearts. When would everything begin to fall into place? When was she going to figure out the gravity formula? What if she couldn't….

"What are you doing?"

Vegeta's distinct, familiar voice cut violently through her anxious thoughts. His tone was harsh, yet genuine with question as he had caught her completely off-guard. An uneasy chill ran through her as the inevitable confrontation with him was suddenly upon her. Bulma managed a difficult swallow, visibly tensing up for a moment as she kept her back to him. Her gaze remained steadfast on the paperwork in front of her, trying with all her remaining strength to simply breathe. All she had to do was breathe. Holding steady behind her words were distinct exhaustion and feigned indifference. "What does it look like?"

Vegeta lowered his fingertips from his forehead, momentarily stunned to say anything as his dark, sheltered eyes beheld the woman he had not seen or spoken to in what felt like an eternity. He steadied his ki signal as much as he could, trying to stabilize his emotions along with his temper upon hearing her infuriating response. "You know what I mean." he spat back. "What are you doing here?" he repeated again, demanding an immediate answer from her.

"Working on your new gravity room." Bulma bit back with attitude, her tone somewhat condescending. Wasn't it obvious to him what she was doing?

Vegeta emitted a growl from his chest, loud enough to give her warning as he uncurled his tail halfway, growing increasingly aggravated. He had kept his distance from her over the past handful of days, but it had become apparent that she wasn't leaving Vegetasei anytime soon. He repeatedly told himself he didn't care why she was there, but her infuriating presence kept gnawing at him, and he damned himself for wanting to know why she was there working on his machine when she was supposed to be busy having the time of her fucking life. "Aren't you supposed to be on your honeymoon with scar-face right now?" he snapped back, his words thick with bitterness.

It was his callous, vengeful remark that made Bulma raise her head and quickly turn around, her azure eyes flickering with deeply buried torment as she bravely faced Vegeta dead-on, steadily holding his intimidating gaze. "Real funny! It's just like you to throw that back in my face, isn't it?!" she growled at him bitterly, angered at the fucking audacity he had to be so insensitive about the nightmare she was going through on Earth because of her ex-fiancée. She huffed in aggravation, quickly turning back around, choosing to ignore Vegeta as best she could and re-focus on the insane amount of work she had in front of her.

"Do I sound like I'm trying to be fucking funny?!" Vegeta snarled, clenching his hands into fists, feeling unbelievably short-tempered with her. He was one of the most feared beings in the universe, yet she had the audacity to turn her back to him, even now?! He was conflicted on whether to feel disrespected by her or not. "I am going to ask you one more time. Why are you here?"

Confusion etched across Bulma's beautiful face, not understanding at all what the hell Vegeta wanted to hear from her. Was he just trying to exacerbate her temper? Was he just wanting to be a complete asshole by throwing her failed nuptials and the ensuing backlash into her face? Was he just wanting to add more salt to her wounds? She glanced up. The expansive construction site in front of her made her presence there more than obvious. Bulma scoffed in agitation. "You said you needed the gravity room completed in less than 6 weeks. Well, here I am, working on it." she grumbled, her annoyance ringing in loud and clear as she continued to thumb through her multiple sheets of blueprints, trying her best to remain level-headed.

"I don't want you here." Vegeta's response was quick and without room for contestation. "Leave. Work on this back on your infernal planet."

His words cut deeply, and she for one, was glad at the moment she was not facing him, otherwise he would have seen the hurt that crossed her face. Bulma remained unusually silent as she mulled over his words inside her troubled mind.

So, he was kicking her off of Vegetasei after all.

Of course he didn't want her there. Why would he? She couldn't blame him. In fact, she was surprised it took him this long to tell her. He was telling her to leave…and what?…go back to Earth? Earth, the very planet that turned its back on her. Back to a planet that would not leave her alone. Back to a planet that threatened everything she worked hard her entire life for. Back to a planet with an ex-fiancée who remained bitter and vengeful. Back to a planet that held no joy for her.

A tremendous sense of sorrow began to take root within her. How could Vegeta do this to her? How could he demand her to go back to Earth and remain there? Had she not already been through enough? She knew Vegeta could be a heartless and ruthless person…she just never knew he could be that way towards her. She had never truly been at the receiving end of his cold-heartedness. This was unfamiliar. This hurt so deeply that she was sure she felt the rest of her heart breaking. Vegeta and her would never be the same again, that much was painfully clear to her now. They were not going to be able to get through this rift they had between each other. Not right now, and maybe not ever.

Vegeta continued to stand, his body tense and ready at a moment's notice to argue back with Bulma….only to hear nothing from her. The fact that she remained standing with her back to him…well, he wasn't sure what he was expecting from her, but it had not been unnerving silence.

After gathering her dismal thoughts together, Bulma spoke in a deadpan tone. "I can't work on this back on Earth. It's impossible." She looked up from her workstation and out over the large expanse of the construction site. It was not like she could build his gravity room on Earth, pack it inside a capsule, and simply bring it to Vegetasei. The power cores were going to be built underground below the foundation of the gravity room, and she had to connect the system to the power grid. She could build the power cores on Earth if she absolutely had to…but all things considered, she did not want to leave and go back there. "You're going to have to deal with having me here until it's complete." she said very matter-of factly.

"Since when does this suddenly take priority?" Vegeta questioned in a scathing, condescending tone, undeniably frustrated and angry with her. It made no sense to him. She always kept going on about being too busy for him. First it was because of her work for her father's company. Then her goddamn wedding plans. Then her fucking wedding and the sickening 2 week-long honeymoon she was supposed to be on right now. All excuses on why she could not fix or build his gravity room in the time allotted…but now here she was, forsaking all of that to build the machine she herself claimed could not be completed in time. He growled, crossing his arms firmly over his broad chest, unnerved at why she was so suddenly dedicated to building his machine. "Forget about any deadlines."

"Not going to happen." Bulma sternly assured him as she stood her ground against him, which she would admit was easier at that moment when her back was to him and she did not have to look at him face to face.

"You dare to defy me?" Vegeta growled in an odd, deceptively dark tone. Once again he was wavering between blowing up in absolute rage at her disobedience, or demanding that he hold a place in her defiant, fiery heart. A heart, he realized only recently, that he had somehow claimed since long ago. It had been painstakingly clear to him over the past few days that Bulma's presence on his planet was unbelievably difficult for him to ignore. She was driving him absolutely crazy, even though they had not seen nor spoken to each other until now. This encounter only confirmed that he needed more time away from her. Since he could not leave the planet to escape from Bulma, it would have to be her that would have to leave. It was less than optimal to have such delays in having his gravity room built, but he would continue to spar with Kakarot, Raditz, and Nappa if he absolutely had to. His gains in strength from sparring with them so far had been substantial, and he was willing to sacrifice how soon he got his machine in exchange for not having her presence around him for a while longer.

"I'm not scared of you." Bulma responded unemotionally, continuing to ignore him as best she could as she sorted through her schematics and blueprints, knowing full and well that Vegeta's abrupt appearance out of nowhere had pretty much scared the living daylights out of her. It was taking a great effort on her part to make sure she did not show any weakness against him, especially now.

"Is that so?" Vegeta muttered in aggravation, crossing his arms strongly across his chest, the tip of his tail flickering in response. "Then you're even more foolish than I originally believed."

It was exceptionally difficult for Bulma to bite her tongue. In a vain effort, she looked back down at the schematics, trying to concentrate on her work again and keep a clear state of mind. She knew Vegeta was just being a fucking jackass by continuing to indirectly throw her lack of judgment and common sense in her face. Hearing it from him wasn't any less infuriating or hurtful than at night when she lay sleepless and haunted by the demons of Earth. Keeping them at bay was already an exhausting feat, let alone re-living the mistakes that she made with Vegeta. The only thing that kept her from exploding into a tirade against him was the fact that she had a very large, expensive, complex, state-of-the-art gravity chamber to construct and program in a very little amount of time, and she needed to stay on Vegetasei in order to do so. "I won't be bothering you. I'll be here until your machine is completed and functional, then I'll go back home." Bulma responded, affirming that she was not scared of him, no matter if almost everyone else in the universe would be. "Besides, I'd rather deal with you than go back to Earth." she muttered, unaware of the resentment that was laced in her voice as she tried to keep her emotions in check.

"Oh?" the prince raised an eyebrow, his voice cold and full of bitterness toward her. "Already tired of scar-face? Imagine that."

Bulma felt a sudden wave of anger overcome her. She turned back around in exasperation to face Vegeta again, and was forced to take a step back, not realizing how close in proximity to her he actually was. His dark glare was icy, unforgiving, and uncompromising. It was a look that many throughout the universe feared, but it did not unnerve Bulma in the least bit. She matched the intensity of his glare with a fierce, brazen, fiery one of her own as she took that step back toward him. She absolutely had it up to here when it came to him continually throwing all this shit in her face. "Is THAT all you're here for?!" she yelled at him, royally pissed off at his insensitivity and audacity to be a fucking asshole to her right now as she pointed a finger at him. "Is it?! I know I didn't marry Yamcha, you unbelievable bastard, but thank you for continually throwing that, and everything else that's happening in my face!" she continued her loud rant in bitter sarcasm. "Really, thanks! I appreciate it!"

During her outburst, she missed the look that suddenly darkened Vegeta's face. At hearing the unexpected revelation about her not marrying Yamcha, Vegeta had also hit a new level of anger. Absolutely outraged, he ignored the furious woman in front of him and quickly transmitted himself to Goku. Before Bulma even knew it, she watched him use his instant transmission ability to disappear. Not believing her own eyes, Bulma shrieked out in utter exasperation, pissed that Vegeta had the fucking gall to just up and leave right in the middle of her yelling at him. Fuming, she whipped back around to her workstation, angrily flipping through her paperwork, tempted to set everything alight in a fiery blaze.

Vegeta's abrupt and unannounced arrival startled them all for a moment, as unfortunately his target was currently in the throne room. He realized Goku was standing guard duty with the other Royal Elite guards as his parents were having audiences with soldiers from their militia. Vegeta ignored the surprised murmurs as he honed in directly on Goku. The gentle, friendly Saiyan didn't miss the pissed off look on Vegeta's face as the dark prince was much too angered to utter a single word to him. All Vegeta could do was outstretch his right arm and clench his gloved hand into a fist, pointing a single finger at Goku in a terrifyingly threatening manner as if to say 'YOU! You're going to get it!'

Vegeta's dark countenance spoke volumes, but all Goku did was pause for a moment, wondering what he was so angry about at first, before simply returning a sly smirk at him. After all, Goku had been tracking his and Bulma's energy signals. He had sensed they were in close proximity together. Based on their fluctuating ki signals, he had figured they were finally talking or yelling at each other again, much to his relief….but judging by Vegeta's adverse reaction towards him, he couldn't help the smug smirk that he gave him. Goku's smile was wicked, indeed. He figured Vegeta must have just learned she didn't get married. Upon seeing Goku's conspiratorial smile, Vegeta growled in unrelenting anger, knowing he couldn't kick his ass right then. Vegeta made a throat-slicing motion against his neck toward Goku, non-verbally promising the third-class warrior a world of hurt later on as he quickly placed his fingertips back on his forehead and teleported himself back to Bulma.

"What do you mean you didn't marry him?!" Vegeta demanded in disbelief, completely thrown back in surprise at this new information as he reappeared in front of Bulma again. He watched her take a step backwards, somewhat stunned at his abrupt appearance in front of her again before seeing her glare at him.

Much to Bulma's surprise, Vegeta manifested right in front of her workstation, startling the hell out of her again as some of the blueprint sheets rustled around from the gust of wind that formed from his rapid appearance. "Kami, what is hell is going on with you?!" she exclaimed in anger, ignoring his question, still pissed off at him, thinking he was still trying to keep rubbing it in her face. "Leave me the hell alone so I can get back to work!" She griped as she gathered a few of the papers and rearranged them back in order the way they were supposed to be, before Vegeta's strong hands rudely slapped the papers down from her hands and onto the table. He leaned forward, glaring at her.

"You didn't marry him." he growled. It was more of statement than a question, really, as he watched Bulma's blue eyes flicker with warning and impending fury.

"No, I didn't fucking marry him!" she snapped back at him in exasperation, not knowing what game Vegeta was trying to play at now. He was acting as if this was news to him, and it was seriously pissing her off. "Stop being an asshole and acting like you don't know!" she growled at him, knowing he was just being a dick by throwing all her problems in her face. After a tense, quiet moment between them as she watched a serious, angered, and almost confused look cross Vegeta's face, a small realization nagged at her that maybe he didn't know. But how could he not know? She looked at him with weariness and sighed out of frustration. "Didn't Goku tell you?! He was there with me!" Bulma relented, not knowing why she was letting Vegeta get the best of her in his little game as she glared back down at her schematics that he had slammed his hands down upon, wanting nothing more than to ignore the man in front of her now.

"Must have slipped his mind." Vegeta growled in response. No, Kakarot had not told him a damn fucking thing about her not marrying scar-face. The prince snarled at the thought as his tail uncurled and began to lash around in agitation, looking forward to beating the life out of Goku for keeping something like this from him. For fuck's sake, he had seen Kakarot with his very own eyes, dressed in human formal wear, leaving to Earth for her wedding! He had been gone all day! He had given no indication at all that she had not married the weakling! Kakarot was going to pay dearly for his deception. "So you did not marry him?!"

"No, I didn't." Bulma muttered in a even, calm tone, her next words holding a threat behind them. "Now get your hands off of my work."

Vegeta ignored her attitude over disrupting her work as he continued to study her, distrusting of the information he was only now just learning about. "Why didn't you?"

Bulma slapped her hands down hard on the metal workbench before she glared back up at Vegeta, matching his fierce gaze. "Oh, I don't know!" she said sarcastically. "Maybe because I changed my mind?!" She rolled her eyes at him, letting out a frustrated growl of exasperation as she quickly whipped around and stormed away from her workbench and away from Vegeta, not wanting 'discuss' the subject anymore.

"Don't you turn your back on me!" Vegeta warned, continuing to watch her walk away from him. "Get back here!" he demanded, but it only took a couple of seconds before it was clear to him that she was not going to listen. He quickly phased behind Bulma, grabbing her arm and turning her around to face him. She didn't appreciate his manhandling, and she tried to pull her arm away from him without success. Watching her struggle, Vegeta jostled her around for a moment to get her to snap out of her attitude, not hard enough to hurt her but firmly enough for her to get his point across. Resentful blue eyes glared up at him, his own eyes remaining steadfast and frozen as he looked into hers. "So, after all that…" he began darkly, tilting his head slightly as he tried to remain as unemotional as possible. "….after everything you've put me through, you didn't go through with it?!"

"Why the hell do you even care?!" Bulma exclaimed, struggling defiantly against his firm grip.

"I don't care!" Vegeta adamantly denied.

"Then let go of me and stop talking to me about it!" Bulma countered, attempting again to free her arm from Vegeta's grasp, to which this time he let her go. She stepped back away from him as if he had burned her, instinctually rubbing her arm where he had grabbed her. He hadn't hurt her at all, but his touch had sent an odd feeling through her that she could not begin to describe. Bulma turned her head away from him slightly so that she wouldn't have to look at him anymore, feeling tears threatening to leave her heart and travel to her eyes, where she was sure she would not be able to hide them from Vegeta. "Just leave me alone." she softly pleaded in anguish, her voice undeniably heavy with emotion as she took this opportunity to end the conversation, managing to walk past him and back to her workstation, visibly shaken up from her encounter with him.

Vegeta remained where he stood, suffocating and drowning in his emotions as he felt his heart had just been ripped out of his chest for the second time. The entire time he thought she had married scar-face, and now to find out that she hadn't….it was almost too much to bare. He thought he had purged Bulma from his heart. He had believed that he was strong enough to keep himself frozen to her, but seeing her and feeling her only served to prove to him that she was still embedded in his very heart and soul.

She had rejected him in favor of her fiancée. She had chosen the scar-faced weakling over him. He had gone through absolute hell, and for what? For nothing?! Only for her to change her mind and not marry him? For her to be brave enough to come back to his homeworld and continue to do what he asked of her, despite their still-existent tumultuous divide? He growled and without turning to look back at her again, Vegeta took to the air, flying away quickly from her and the construction site as he headed back to the palace. He needed to vent.

And who better to take his anger out on, than the very person who kept such a thing like this from him to begin with.

---

After a couple of hours, Bulma's tank beeped that the programmed cycle was completed and Bardock quickly tended to her, purging the tank of the healing fluid as he watched her remove her breathing mask and wipe the fluid away from her face as much as she could. He opened the door for her and she stepped out, the genius engineer dressed in a black sports bra and black spandex shorts as she shivered from the cool air hitting her body. Bardock quickly handed her a couple of towels and she began to wipe away the remnants of the healing fluid off of her as much as she could.

"How are you feeling, kiddo?" Bardock asked, using the human term quite affectionately as he watched Bulma wrap herself in a very large towel and use the other smaller one to wipe off fluid from her face, neck and arms.

She had taken a few moments to sense whether she really was okay or not. After her encounter with Vegeta, she began to experience those painful aches again, as they pulsated through her, bothering her. She had thought her symptoms had finally gone away, but they had seemed to come back with a vengeance from out of nowhere. She vaguely attributed it to the stressful confrontation she had with Vegeta, not realizing how close to the truth she really was. She had decided to leave Riko in charge of the excavation so that she could come see Bardock about her symptoms flaring up again. To her confusion, all he had done was thrown her in the tank, and it must have worked because they were now gone. "Better." she answered simply, knowing full well the burdens and heartache that plagued her heart and mind still remained.

"Good. You've been so busy the last few days, I was worried you were getting in bad shape again." Bardock said, reaching over to press a button on her tank and getting her latest reports. "You were killing yourself back on Earth."

"I was not." Bulma said adamantly, tossing her smaller towel aside and grabbing another fresh one to use on her hair. "Way to exaggerate, there."

"I'm not exaggerating. When you first got here, you were suffering from tremendous fatigue. Your stress level was extreme…your blood pressure was dangerously high, your heart rate as well. You were lacking vitamins and minerals, and you had lost a good amount of weight relative to your height and frame."

"Yeah, well, having the world turn on you can do that to you sometimes." Bulma muttered bitterly, frowning at her returning thoughts of how Yamcha and the media and her own company turned against her from the fallout of her cancelled wedding. Even worse, now she had the added stress of Vegeta not wanting her there. How was she supposed to leave Vegetasei and go back to that blue planet she was supposed to call home? She was beginning to realize that maybe now she did not have a home to call her own anymore.

"I imagine so." Bardock stated. "I was very displeased to hear about everything that had been happening to you over there. I still am." He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. "You know Bulma, all you have to do is give me the word, and I'll be more than willing to go to Earth and set your people straight."

"Thanks, but Goku already offered to kick some ass for me. And anyway, it's okay…" she murmured with a slight shrug, "…it will all blow over eventually. It has to."

"Well, my offer still stands." Bardock reassured her. "I'm glad you're here though. It makes nursing you back to health much easier." he said with fatherly affection. "And I was even more glad to hear that you called off your wedding to Yamcha."

"Yeah, well he's a motherfucking bastard and I'm glad I ended it with him before it was too late." Bulma agreed as she tossed her head down, beginning to dry most of healing fluid from her hair.

"And you being in love with Vegeta had absolutely nothing to do with calling off the wedding, I'm sure?" Bardock teased, watching as she suddenly stopped drying her hair and looked up in shock for a moment, before she narrowed her eyes in realization and clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth.

"Of course he told you." she muttered, shaking her head in annoyance as she ran the towel once more through her hair then slung it around her neck. Apparently Goku couldn't resist telling her own mother or Bardock about her being in love with Vegeta…but somehow he could keep his mouth shut from Vegeta about how she didn't get married? Where was the logic in this?!

"Oh, come now. Of course my son couldn't keep something so vitally important like that from me." Bardock snickered, a sly smile plastered on his face as he watched Bulma's cheeks tinge slightly red from embarrassment. He pushed himself off away from his workstation and walked up to her, placing his strong, gentle hands on her bare shoulders as he looked into her eyes. "It's good that you love him, Bulma. He needs someone like you."

Her bottom lip trembled for a few moments as she tried to reign in her emotions. She had somehow survived her earlier encounter with Vegeta without making a complete emotional fool of herself, but this wasn't going to be any better. Talking to anyone about Vegeta still proved to be a difficult feat for her, and after hurting him so much, she knew Vegeta did not in fact need someone like her. "I don't want to talk about it." Bulma said in an even tone, trying her best to keep calm and not worry about who else might know. She would have to talk with Goku soon.

"I know you don't want to talk about it. And I won't make you." Bardock reassured her, eyeing her with much love and admiration. He couldn't help but to see Bulma in a different light now. After all, she had been bonded to Vegeta. Their bond, it had broken somehow, but still, it had existed. She was in love with him, and despite the act that he puts on, Bardock was relatively sure that Vegeta loved her still. But it hadn't been his place, nor Kakarot's place, to tell Vegeta that she cancelled her wedding and ended her relationship with Yamcha. Whatever was going on…this was between them and them only, and it had to remain that way if their bond were to ever heal and reform again. "Anyway, you have to take care of yourself, Bulma." he continued, showing he was true to his word as he bypassed the subject of her being in love with the turbulent prince.

"Why, when I have you to do that for me?" Bulma reasoned, thankful he was not going to pry any further on the subject of her and Vegeta as she ran the towel once more through her hair again, trying to squeeze out the remaining excess fluid.

"Very funny." Bardock softly scolded as he gave her a gentle but reprimanding look. "My order will stand. You are to check in with me twice a day so I can keep monitoring your progress. Your health is of the utmost importance."

"Do I have to?" Bulma whined slightly, giving Bardock an unhappy frown. "I don't have time. I've got work to do. I need to have the gravity room built and finished as soon as possible. I've already wasted a week, and…."

"Yes, yes I know, Vegeta's new gravity room is your top priority right now. And because I know you will keep working like crazy, I know you won't be resting or taking care of yourself like you should, so I think you can spare 15 minutes twice a day to let me make sure you're okay. This is not negotiable, Bulma. Doctor's orders." he reminded with a fatherly tone, giving her a challenging look.

"Ugh, fine." Bulma relented. "But don't expect me to be happy about it."

"I don't expect you to be. Expect my sons to keep checking up on you constantly and bringing you food to eat. And you better eat up while you're here, you need to put some weight back on. We Saiyans like a female who isn't skin and bones."

"I'm not skin and bones." Bulma said defiantly, giving Bardock an annoyed look.

"No, you're not. But if you continue to not eat well, you will be eventually. Now go shower and change, and I'll have Raditz bring you something to eat."

Bulma tightened the towel around her body a little more snugly before she started to head out of the medical bay to her room, calling out behind her to Bardock. "Send Goku instead. I need to have a talk with him."

---

Bulma had spent the rest of late afternoon and evening outside, relieving Riko of supervisory duty as the excavation continued until it was too dark for any of them to see well enough anymore. She had felt like kicking herself. Here was another night wasted for no good reason, and it was precious time lost that she did not have the luxury of losing. Bulma had decided yesterday to get some heavy duty job-site light towers, balloon lights, and portable flood lights to light up the construction area, so that way her and Riko and the team could continue to work throughout the night, but she forgot about getting them today. In hindsight she did not know why she forgot, but she attributed it to having alot on her mind lately.

Goku had kindly taken Riko and his team home to Xyneon again tonight, per Bulma's request to the King, which he granted her without hesitation. Before Goku left he had told her that he was heading back to Earth after he got off of duty to spend time with Chi-Chi. So left alone to her own devices again, Bulma had returned to her lab, trying to ignore her haunting thoughts as she tirelessly worked on the gravity formula. The first few days on Vegetasei she had locked herself in her lab, downloading and transferring files from her flash drives onto her computers, continuing her unrelenting work on the gravity room, putting the finishing touches on the schematics and blueprints, and trying to figure out the calculations on that damned gravity formula. Not to mention at the same time she had been trying her hardest to avoid Vegeta, who could have been anywhere at any moment.

Now, Bulma meagerly sipped on only one cup of coffee, per Bardock's suggestion, as she tried to get her calculations to perfection, but to no avail. Horribly frustrated as the feelings of failure began to take hold again, she decided to go to bed early to try to get a good rest and be refreshed for the next day. Try, of course, was the key word, since she was rarely ever able to sleep well and get enough rest. Even with only having one cup of coffee in her system, she had an especially difficult time getting to sleep as she lied in her large, cozy, luxurious bed. She sighed despondently, knowing this was hopeless. She changed positions, deciding to get off her back and lay on her stomach as she crossed her arms underneath her pillow. She had left her balcony doors open, needing the fresh air; the crimson drapes moved softly in the gentle breeze as her somber gaze focused on Vegetasei's night sky. The stars and constellations here were distinctively different from the ones viewed from Earth.

Honestly, she had been unsure of how she would feel stepping foot back on Vegetasei again, but when she and Goku had first arrived a handful of days ago she had felt a sense of relief for a few short, precious moments. The unrelenting stress that weighed heavily upon her from Earth had been momentarily lifted from her shoulders as she had gathered a collective breath, inhaling the warm, fresh air of her beloved red planet. She allowed, only for a moment, a fleeting sense of peace overcome her as she escaped the suffocating tendrils of Earth and was welcomed home by twin suns that at the time were halfway set over the gorgeous horizon.

Yet, she wasn't as welcomed to her second home as she had hoped.

Bulma's troubled thoughts came back at her again in full force as she lied peacefully in bed. Her mind was unforgiving as it insisted on throwing everything back at her: Yamcha, the media, the board of directors, the stockholders, the rumors, the threats, the speculation. It had all caused her immense stress, but comparatively it was nothing to the hurt and heartache she was feeling here.

She had let her guard down. It had been days without any sign of Vegeta, then today he confronted her out of nowhere. Granted, it was about the gravity room…or so it seemed, at first. Initially she thought Vegeta was just being an asshole about everything by rubbing her dire troubles in her face. She assumed he found out she cancelled the wedding and knew about the fallout afterwards and all the shit she was having to deal with…but after seeing Vegeta's adverse and almost genuine reaction when she said she didn't marry Yamcha, she began to realize that maybe he really didn't know. After talking with Goku earlier, he confessed he had not told Vegeta that she didn't get married after all. Dumbfounded, she asked why he didn't tell him, to which he responded that it wasn't his place to tell him, that it was hers. Of course, she hadn't appreciated the tiny lecture from her best friend, but she supposed he was right. Goku had finally put two and two together and after asking again, she had finally broken down, telling him what happened between her and Vegeta that night. The information was vital, and unbeknownst to her, he now knew the foundation of their divide that inadvertently caused their bond to break.

Bulma sighed with a heavy heart as she kept looking out into the sky. She kept telling herself that everything was going to be okay someday. Maybe not tonight, maybe not tomorrow, but someday….yet her thoughts kept haunting her that it was too late when it came to the man she had spent the majority of her life around. She unwillingly recalled how enraged Vegeta was that fateful night as he called what happened between them a mistake. He had called her a mistake. She knew he meant it. Vegeta was the type of man who meant what he said. He was brutally honest, and was unafraid to speak his mind, no matter if his words drew blood or shed tears. And so far, he had kept true to his word. He had not returned to Earth, for any reason. He had avoided her, only speaking her today about the gravity room, although things had taken an unusual turn as he demanded to know why she didn't marry Yamcha.

Well, if Vegeta did love her before, he probably didn't anymore. He was right to feel how he felt. She couldn't blame him. She had inadvertently burned her bridge with him. A bridge that had been around for so long, and thought to be so strong, that nothing could ever destroy it. Yet, in only a few moments, she had done exactly so, and hurt him terribly in the process. Blinded from the truth, misguided by her mind, and afraid of her heart, she had made the biggest mistake of her life by not choosing to be with Vegeta right then. Hot tears gathered in her eyes and dampened her pillow as Bulma felt the horrible sting of regret, suffocating in a sorrow so deep that it threatened to choke her. She lifted the corner of her pillow to wipe away the tears as she tried to take in a deep breath and compose herself.

Vegeta was never going to forgive her. He would never understand. He would never listen. Any hint, any inkling, any feeling of love that he may have had for her…she knew she had lost, for Vegeta was a man that did not love or trust easily, if at all. Bulma was sure any pathway she had to his heart was dead. Shattered. Destroyed. It was evident how angry he was with her. How cold and frozen he was. How heartless he was when he told her he didn't want her there. How cruel he was to tell her to leave the planet.

He always meant what he said.

Too late was the haunting confirmation that rang through Bulma's mind. She lost Vegeta. She had lost the absolute love of her life. No, not of her life, of her existence. The anguish consumed her, and she had no way of knowing if she could somehow heal and move on without him.

Feeling like she had nothing more left to lose, Bulma contemplated on leaving Vegetasei. She was not wanted here, that was painfully clear. If her presence there would only continue to piss Vegeta off, then she would have to gather the items she needed to build the power cores so that she could at least construct and program them on Earth. That would take her away from Vegeta for awhile. He had told her to forget about any deadlines, so she would have to take his word on it. In a way, it was almost a relief to know she had extra time now to build his new gravity room, but the fact that he wanted her presence there to a minimum only made her believe that after the room was done, she would not be coming back to Vegetasei again.

After telling Goku the short version of what Vegeta had told her, she decided that maybe taking Goku's advice was a good idea after all. He had told her that if she was going to leave the planet, she should at least let Vegeta know how she felt for him. He said it would be good for her to get everything off her mind and her heart and tell him. Of course, she knew it was unlikely that Vegeta would believe her. She knew him. She argued with Goku, telling him that Vegeta would refuse to listen to her emotional crap. His ability to sense ki, fly or teleport away made it that much easier for him to avoid her. Goku reasoned that she would have to corner him and make it so that he had to listen to her.

She scoffed. That was highly unlikely to ever happen.

Off in the far distance, random flashes and dots of light sparked in the night sky, as distant sounds of powerful booms and clashing of forces snapped Bulma out of her train of depressed thoughts. She quickly raised her upper body, turning and leaning on her elbow as she continued to look outside, wondering what the hell was going on. Who would be sparring at this time of night?

---

Many hours later, after Vegeta seethed in his restless thoughts and sickening emotions while he waited for Goku to be relieved of guard duty, they finally met up to spar late that night.

No, this wasn't a spar. More like an all-out brawl.

Vegeta was enraged over Goku not telling him Bulma hadn't gotten married. Goku didn't appreciate that he couldn't go to Earth to spend time with Chi-Chi like he had told her he would. Not to mention his talk with Bulma earlier that day left him feeling inexplicably frustrated with what has going on between them. Once again, this was some sort of warped, twisted therapy as Goku groaned out in pain. Vegeta had just slammed him into the side of a mountain. He didn't have much time to recover as he felt Vegeta's hand grab onto the top of his chest armor and yank him free from the mountain, only to slam him back up against it, making an even deeper indentation in the solid rock. They had been fighting against each other for a couple of hours, nothing but silence between them as they drew each other's blood, broke each other's bones, and beat the living crap out of each other.

Vegeta watched with great satisfaction as blood spurted from Goku's mouth after slamming him back into the mountain. "Why didn't you tell me she didn't get married?!" he growled in rage at his rival, finally breaking the silence between them.

"You didn't ask." was Goku's brave, cheeky response to which he received a very powerful punch to his face for his efforts. It hurt like a motherfucker, and he reached up to cradle the side of his face that began to swell up…but still, he found it somewhat humorous that Vegeta was so uptight about this.

"I saw you leave here, dressed for her wedding!" the prince yelled into his face, baring his canines at him in a feral growl. "You were gone the entire day! You never said anything about her not getting married!" Vegeta roared angrily, grabbing Goku and pulling him out of the mountain before whirling him around and throwing him powerfully into the air.

Goku managed to regain his sense of stability and direction as he stopped his momentum in mid-air, quickly turning to face Vegeta. He wiped the blood away from his nose, and couldn't help the smug smirk that crossed his face, even as he was hunched over, taking a short moment to catch a breath. "Like I said, Vegeta, you never asked."

Enraged at Goku's audacity, Vegeta shouted out, throwing his arms down to his sides as he powered up in a brilliant display of ki as he flew at him, ready to throw a devastatingly hard punch into his stomach, only to have Goku dodge his fist at the last moment, blocking it and countering with one of his own. Goku was fired up as he easily punched Vegeta's side, earning a painful growl from the prince as the two continued to fight. "My father asked you how her wedding went! You said nothing would ever be the same again!" Vegeta shouted, seeing no flaw in his logic as he considered that enough evidence for him to believe Bulma's wedding had occurred.

"I didn't lie. I meant what I said!" Goku explained as be blocked a flurry of punches and kicks. Granted, he had meant it to say it that way, keeping his answer about how her wedding went very vague on purpose. His statement held a double-meaning that only he understood at that time. Bulma had cancelled her wedding and ended her relationship with Yamcha! He found out that she was in love with Vegeta! Of course nothing was ever going to be the same again! "That didn't mean that she got married!" he tried to reason.

"That doesn't mean that she didn't get married!" Vegeta spat back in anger, still royally pissed that all of this had been kept from him the entire time. He managed to knee Goku in his stomach hard, knocking the wind out of him. Feeling his temper flare up, Goku took a moment to recover before surprising the prince as he quickly span around and landed a roundhouse kick hard on his back.

"What are you so angry about, Vegeta?! She didn't marry him! You should be happy!" Goku said in exasperation, managing to block Vegeta's assault as he came flying back at him, arms and legs flying by in a frenzy as they each tried to land another punch or kick on each other.

"There is nothing to be happy about!" Vegeta exclaimed, as he tried to punch and kick the hell out of Goku, but his emotions began to get in the way and his concentration began to falter. "She should have chosen me as her mate, not him! But she didn't! She chose that fucking weakling over me!" he blurted out his resentment. "Him, Kakarot! That good for nothing, scar-faced pathetic human being over me! I'm the Prince of all Saiyans, heir to the throne and to the Saiyan empire! How the fuck could she have picked him over me?!"

Honestly, this was much more information than Goku ever expected to get out of Vegeta. He wasn't sure why Vegeta was suddenly letting his guard down and revealing his distress to him of all people, but he decided to see it as a good thing. Perhaps he could try to help mend the brokenness between him and Bulma since they were now having this apparent heart-to-heart. "But she didn't!" Goku answered back. "She decided she couldn't be with him. She left Yamcha over you, Vegeta! Doesn't that mean anything?!"

"No!" Vegeta spat back in a growl. ""I have done everything she has ever wanted of me! I have bent over backwards to please her, to give her anything she's ever wanted!"

"And she's done the exact same for you!" Goku countered, not believing how stubborn he was being over this. "She does everything you ever ask of her, Vegeta. EVERYTHING. No matter what you demand from her, she does it. She bends over backwards, setting everything else aside to please you and make you happy! You've always been the most important person in her life! There isn't anything she wouldn't do for you!"

"Bullshit!" Vegeta replied in a scathing tone. "There was one thing she refused to do! She refused to go to scar-face when I told her to, to tell him that it was over between them!" he shouted, finally revealing to someone exactly what caused the rift between them. "But she didn't! She decided to choose him over me, so don't you dare say that I've always been the most important person in her life!"

"How could you demand her to do something like that if you've never told her how you felt about her before?!" Goku said in angered exasperation. "Vegeta, for Kami's sake, she's human, not Saiyan! Human women, they need to be told that they are wanted, that they are needed, that they are loved." he said in a plea. "Trust me, after my years with Chi-Chi, I have come to learn this the hard way. Human women, no matter how well meaning your actions are, they need to also be told they are loved by us."

"And that's fucking bullshit!" Vegeta said angrily.

"Have you ever told her you wanted to be with her?!"

"I shouldn't have to tell her anything!" Vegeta defended strongly, cutting his arm through the air in a blatant display of frustration. "My actions should speak louder than any damn words that I could ever say to her!"

"Then shouldn't Bulma's actions speak louder than her words?!" Goku shocked Vegeta with this reverse psychology in defense of his best friend. "She stopped her wedding. She ended her relationship with Yamcha, and she's here, right now, despite her fear of you, to work on your machine like she promised! You should know that she had already decided to leave Yamcha the night before the wedding! She couldn't go through with it because you mean more to her than he does! She made me take her to Yamcha so she could end it with him once and for all, hours before the wedding was going to start!"

"How admirable of her." Vegeta spat back sarcastically. "It doesn't erase the fact that she had made her decision to choose him over me. Now she regrets it. Now she has changed her mind, but it's too fucking late! She should have known after all our years together that I always held her above all else, even myself!"

"And you've done such a good job at showing her that, haven't you?" Goku spat back in anger, earning a dangerous, dark glare from the prince. "What with you always arguing and fighting with her, and demanding things from her, never telling her 'thank you', and always being stubborn about wanting to do anything with her. Oh yeah, Vegeta, you've done such a wonderful job of letting her know that you always held her above everyone else when half the time you treat her like shit! It's a wonder how she can even put up with you!"

Vegeta roared in fury, throwing his elbow back and taking a big swing at Goku, landing a painful punch on his jaw, knocking him back. Goku was suddenly jerked forward as Vegeta held onto his orange gi in his fists, bringing him face to face with him. The prince held darkness in his eyes, the black flame within them flickering in a dire warning to the third-class warrior. "You no nothing of our relationship."

"I know more than you think." Goku said, smugness laced in his voice as he gave Vegeta a smirk. It wasn't just over the fact he knew they had been bonded. He knew their dynamics were complicated. He knew there was much love and affection between Vegeta and Bulma that very few were aware of. He knew their connection….their bond ran deeper than anyone ever expected. They were something unbelievably special. "I know how much you love her."

"I do not love her." Vegeta growled low, his tone of voice threatening, warning Goku to not take this any further.

"You're a liar. I know you do." Goku said rather assuredly, earning another growl from the prince. "You've been able to hide it pretty well from everyone, but not from me, and not from my father either! Whatever happened between you and Bulma, just let it go! She knows she made a mistake, but she stopped it before it was too late, and she's paid for it already!" he pleaded to him. "You have no idea the hell she has been through since she broke it off with Yamcha! He has turned everyone against her! The media harass her relentlessly, people are threatening to take away her control in the company, the world has turned its back on her. You have no idea of the absolute nightmare she is going through over there." Goku ended angrily, trying his best to restrain his emotions as he recalled all the bullshit that was happening to his best friend.

"Well, guess she gets what she deserves, doesn't she?" Vegeta spat bitterly.

Hearing this only served to make Goku mad as he swung hard at Vegeta, managing to get a good body shot in. "How can you say something like that?! She decided you were more important than everything else in her life, and she continues to pay dearly for it. Not only has her own world turned their back on her, but even over here she has to deal with you. You, Vegeta. She is scared to be over here, you know that? Bulma is scared to be here. She's so afraid of you, and what you might do or say to her, that she can barely work on your machine as it is! She's afraid at any moment you will ban her from Vegetasei, and then she truly will have nowhere to go."

Vegeta had been stunned into bitter silence as he listened to Goku's words. There was a reason why he decided to finally share what he was feeling. Kakarot was the only Saiyan he could confide in. He was the only other one who knew as much about humans as he did. He was the only other one who knew what it was like to be in love with a human woman. Kakarot was the only one he could trust with something like this. "She's not the only one who has been going through absolute hell either, you know!" he began, taking a swing at Goku's chest, and managing another solid punch in.

Unfortunately, his emotions were at the forefront of his mind, and they made him lose focus and distracted him as Goku kicked at him also, kicking him hard enough in the front of his chest to break many ribs. The pain was instantaneous as his ribs curved and sliced his insides, cutting through and piercing his lungs, as well as a few of his vital internal organs. He gasped in shock from the pain, doubling over for a few moments as he brought his arms to his torso, trying to ride though the wave of excruciating pain. "She has no reason to be afraid of me! I would never ban her from here. This is her home also, no matter how much she pisses me the fuck off!" he managed to say, feeling his blood begin to surface inside his mouth as he spat it out, finding it difficult to breathe.

"So what's stopping you from going to her now and telling her that?!" Goku questioned strongly as he watched Vegeta hover in the air, clutching at his chest. He willed his breathing to calm down as they both were feeling the effects of their violent sparring. Goku clutched at his dislocated shoulder that dangled his broken arm, and he eyed the prince warily. "You've been a mess ever since you came back from Earth that night. Don't give me that look, you know what I'm talking about! You need to tell her that everything will be okay between the both of you, before she really believes that it's too late."

"Shut up Kakarot, don't tell me what to do!" Vegeta growled in warning. Sure, he valued his advice, but it didn't mean he liked to hear it sometimes. He began to feel a little lightheaded, as he had to blink hard a few times to clear away the dizziness. He felt as though the entire inside of his chest cavity was on fire, unaware of the severe internal bleeding he was suffering from.

"The only thing getting in the way of the both of you being together is your own damn pride!" Goku blurted in frustration. "Does your pride mean so much more to you than her?" he asked in astonishment, floored by the prince's stubbornness.

"She's the one who made this decision, not me!" Vegeta growled back in defiance, his pain spiking unbelievably high as his energy signal began to waver. Blood continued to gather in his mouth as he spat it out. Perhaps Goku did not realize how injured he really was.

"I see." Goku murmured in bitterness. "Then you don't deserve her either, Vegeta."

The prince had felt as though Goku's words had slammed his chest again, much like his vicious kick had done earlier. Goku's opinion mattered greatly to him, more so than he would ever admit. His words had hurt him, and feeling highly emotional and angry, Vegeta's growl was fierce as he managed with the last of his strength to phase in front of Goku and punch him hard in the stomach, sending him flying backwards into the face of another cliff. Goku had been caught completely off-guard as he landed hard against the rock, and before he knew it, Vegeta was in his face, baring his bloody canines at him in an aggressive, feral manner. "If anyone in this fucking universe deserves her, it's me." he hissed.

"Then what's stopping you from claiming her?" Goku asked genuinely, glad to finally get Vegeta to admit that he still wanted her. He felt Vegeta clutch at his orange gi again, thinking that the prince was going to hurl him against another mountainside again, only to sense his life force begin to drop down at a steady and alarming pace. "Vegeta?"

The prince could not manage any more words as his lungs burned with fire, stealing his voice away. He was dying at a rapid pace as his crimson blood was drowning him internally. "Shit!" Goku shouted in alarmed panic as he felt Vegeta collapsing. In an excruciatingly painful effort, Goku slammed his dislocated shoulder into the solid rock, popping it back into its socket before using what strength his broken arm had to hold Vegeta up while he used his good arm to raise his fingers to his forehead and teleport them directly to Bardock.

---

Bulma had been unable to sleep well during the night, restlessly tossing and turning as the ache in her chest pulsated off and on throughout half the night. It had not been a sharp, painful sensation like it had been before; it had been a dull, yet strong sensation which was enough to keep her in an uncomfortable, light sleep. By the time it was 4:00 AM, she realized she was not going to get a restful, good sleep that night either. Sighing in disappointment, the beautiful scientist got out of bed and decided that the early bird caught the worm, as she took a warm shower and got dressed. She walked through the palace, the hallways quiet as she roamed aimlessly, unsure if she wanted to grab something to eat first or head down to her lab and continue to work on the gravitational formula some more. Scrunching her nose in distaste for the latter, she decided to head to the kitchen and make herself something to eat, before a gentle, yet strong hand fell upon her shoulder. She turned to the Royal guard, who motioned for her to wait. She wondered why she was being detained for the moment as the guard was being spoken to through the scouter. After a moment, he pushed a button on the scouter, and addressed Bulma with a small, respectful bow.

"Bardock wishes to see you in the medical ward, Bulma." the Royal guard informed her.

"Oh. Alright then, thank you Borgos." she said, finding this request to be unusual as she turned around to start walking the other way. Bulma quietly entered the medical bay, walking past medics as they nodded their heads at her, not questioning her presence as she made her way to the rejuvenation tank room. Unconcerned about anything, she carefully pushed opened the doors and entered the large room. It was eerily quiet, aside from the soft mechanical sounds of a few tanks being in use as she made her way to Bardock's station, finding him sitting down in his chair and mulling over information on his computer screen.

"Ah, good. You're here." Bardock said to her as he continued to keep his studious gaze at his screen. "I sensed you were awake and roaming about."

"Jeez, can't a human girl wander around a royal Saiyan palace without anyone noticing?" she mused in a soft, joking tone, leaning against his desk beside him, crossing her arms loosely over her torso as she gently nudged his shoulder with her hip. "What's up?"

Bardock's eyebrows furrowed in concern for a moment as he pushed a button and cleared Vegeta's current readings from his screen. He turned around and looked at her. "It's been roughly 14 hours since I last checked on you. I figured now was as good of a time as any."

"Figures." Bulma muttered, rolling her eyes gently as she held out her forearm to him, wrist facing upward as though to say 'stick a needle in me.' Bardock had a ghost of a smile on his lips as he grabbed a few small, circular devices. He put one sensor on her wrist, and stood up and put another one against the pulse of her neck, then putting the last one over her heart.

"How are you feeling?" he asked as he turned the sensors on, checking the incoming data that was being relayed from her sensors to his computer.

She shrugged. "About the same. Couldn't sleep very well tonight."

Of course she couldn't, Bardock thought to himself. Broken bond or not, their ki signals were amazingly responsive to each other. He figured she would be disturbed and restless tonight, perhaps even in pain, and he guessed he was right. Vegeta had been gravely injured and had not been sedated while in the tank so that he could monitor his progress closely. He was not surprised to hear she couldn't sleep well. "Drinking too much coffee?"

"No. I listened to you." Bulma said, childishly sticking out her tongue at him. "Only had one cup last night before I ended up going to sleep. Took me forever to go to sleep, and then I just kept waking up."

"I could always give you something to help you sleep, you know." Bardock said, studying her data, intrigued at her ki signal as on the other screen he pulled up, Vegeta's was responding to her presence. The anomaly was still present within their life forces, but the ki spikes had toned down significantly compared to the first few days.

"Really? You know how I feel about that." Bulma murmured as she tilted her head, watching the data on his computer screens.

"Oh, I know. You hate sedation just as much as he does." Bardock said as he motioned over behind her to one of the tanks.

Bulma turned in the direction he was motioning in, wondering who he was talking about, as she then saw Vegeta inside a healing tank. A tank that wasn't very far away from her. Her heart jumped into her throat for a moment as his dark eyes looked directly into hers. She quickly looked away from him as she then noticed another body inside a rejuvenation tank near his. It was Goku, and he looked like he was sound asleep. She turned to look back at Vegeta, his gaze unwavering as he looked at her intensely.

Vegeta's dark eyes continued to bore into hers. He had sensed her ki heading in his direction for a few minutes already, and frustrated, there was nothing he could do about it. Worse, he was unable to hear what she and Bardock were currently talking about. Adding to his irritation, why did Bardock put sensors on her? What did she need them for?

Bulma managed to tear her gaze away from Vegeta's unnerving stare as she turned back around to Bardock and gave him a scolding look. "Why didn't you tell me he was here?"

"What does it matter? He can't hear us." Bardock asked in return, raising an eyebrow in curiosity before Bulma huffed her bangs away and tucked them behind her ear.

"That's not the point."

Bardock stood up and turned to face Bulma, crossing his arms sternly over his chest as he looked at her. "I never thought I'd see the day when the both of you would rather be apart than together."

Bulma held an annoyed look on her face as she motioned an arm firmly toward Vegeta's direction. "He's the one who's never coming back to Earth. He's the one who wants me to leave Vegetasei! This isn't all my fault!" she said, getting angry as she pointed a warning to Bardock.

Vegeta's eyebrows furrowed in agitation, watching them talk about something, before watching Bulma motion over in his direction. Were they talking about him?! She saw her point at Bardock angrily, and he instinctually tensed up.

"Okay, okay, calm down. I did not mean to upset you." Bardock said, raising his hands up as he backed down, sensing Vegeta's ki spike up for whatever reason. "I'm just making a comment. It saddens me to see the both of you separated like this. I've never seen you both like this before. I just want you both to be okay again." the medic said honestly, placing a gentle, fatherly hand on the side of her face.

"I know, I know. I'm sorry." she apologized as she inhaled deeply and let out a heavy-hearted sigh. Bardock smiled sadly as he then proceeded to remove the sensor nodes from her neck, heart, and wrist.

"You're doing better." he said, placing the sensors down on his desk before turning back to look at her. "Limit your caffeine intake today, if you can. Make sure you eat, and consider letting me give you something to help you sleep tonight."

Bulma could only respond with a nod as she stood silent, contemplating something. She bit her lower lip, wondering if she could do this. She needed to get everything off of her chest, and with Vegeta awake and in a healing tank, she figured this was her opportunity to talk to him without interruptions. Like Goku had said, she would have to corner him and make him listen to her. This would probably be the only way. "Think you could give me some privacy? I need to talk to him."

"Anything for you." Bardock responded, trying to hide his surprise at her abrupt request as he trusted her to watch over Vegeta and Goku while he stepped out of the room. "I'll stand guard outside to make sure no one else comes in."

All Vegeta knew was that Bardock had left his field of vision, and tracking his ki, realized he was leaving the tank room. He was now alone inside there with her, aside from Kakarot, who was sedated inside his own tank. Anxiously, he watched as Bulma slowly made her way to his tank, standing alongside it. For a moment he wondered if she would program sedatives to him, or worse, as he waited tensely, seeing her study the screen on his tank. A concentrated look was present on her beautiful face as she pressed a few buttons, adjusting his healing to more optimal levels. After all, no one, not even Bardock, knew his physiology like she did. After seeing her press some buttons, he did not feel drowsy, and Vegeta was sure she would now walk away from him, but before he knew it, Bulma clicked the switch over and he heard sound inside his tank as her dulcet voice came in crystal clear.

"I know you're going to be pissed, but I need to talk to you, and I need you to listen, and this was the only way I could think of doing this." Bulma began as she stood in front of his tank, looking through the glass at him, seeing his dark eyes lock fiercely onto hers. She remained silent for a moment, managing to tear her gaze away from his as she looked off to the side. "For as long as I can remember, I had never been able to figure out exactly what we were to each other. I had thought that maybe you and I were friends, but you shot that possibility down a very, very long time ago. You told me bluntly that we weren't friends and never would be, and yes, you were right. We aren't anything close to the definition of 'friends'. We were never romantically involved with each other. Then I thought that maybe we were more like brother and sister. We certainly argue like siblings, but no, I never saw you as my brother, and I'm sure you never saw me as your sister. Then I would think to myself that maybe we were just business partners, only if it weren't for the fact that business partners do not live with each other for half of their lives. Then I would think that maybe you and I are just companions. That seemed to be the most plausible explanation, except that companions tend to get along and have an agreeable time together, and enjoy each other's time greatly, which for the most part we don't. So remained the same life-long question I asked myself: What are we to each other?" Bulma paused, managing to turn her eyes back on Vegeta, seeing that he was very much listening intensely to what she was saying. Whether it was because he was being forced to, or he actually wanted to listen to her, she wasn't sure.

"Up until over a week ago, I had never been able to define exactly who or what you were to me, Vegeta. Or what your presence and existence in my life meant. It had been a hopeless analysis, up until the night we kissed. It was then that I finally knew what you were to me." Bulma's voice wavered with emotion as she attempted to keep her voice steady during her confession to him. "Somehow, and during some time in our years together, you had become my everything." She watched as an angered, dark look crossed his face as he tore his gaze away from her. Bulma managed a difficult gulp, steadying her emotions as she continued talking. "I can't explain to you why I was so blind, or why I was so scared to be in love with you. I tried so hard to not fall in love with you." she said, her voice full of anguish as he turned to glare into her eyes again. "I tried to keep telling myself that there was nothing going on between us. That everyone was seeing something between us when there really was nothing there. That just because we grew up together and spent half our lives around each other didn't mean anything, because you're Saiyan, and I'm not. Because you're a prince, and I'm just a human engineer. I convinced myself long ago that if we weren't friends, then there was no way we could ever be anything else. And I had convinced myself of that so thoroughly that I finally believed it."

Bulma took a moment to pause, turning her eyes away from Vegeta's again as she gathered her thoughts and emotions, trying to her best not to cry in front of him. After a few painful, quiet moments, she began to speak again as she stared off into the distance. "I miss you, Vegeta. I have missed you so much, it's been destroying me. I haven't been able to sleep, I haven't been able to eat, I can't think straight, I've been miserable ever since the night we fell apart. I can't stop thinking of you. It hurts so badly to be separated from you that I was sure I was going insane from it. It took me almost making the biggest mistake of my existence to realize that it's you who I love. It's you that I can't live without. It's you that I've always loved more. I was so fucking blind and stubborn that it took me losing you to finally wake up and realize that you're the one I can't live without." She took a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh before she turned back to look at Vegeta, who still continued to stare at her intensely. She stepped up closer to his tank and looked him dead in the eyes.

"I know you don't care about a word I've had to say to you. I know you hate me for hurting you. I never meant to hurt you, Vegeta." Bulma's voice trembled as her emotions began to take over. She had been okay up to that point, but when it came to the subject of hurting him, the regret gripped her heart and lungs, threatening to choke her. She felt hot tears gather in her eyes as her vision began to blur. She took a moment to steady herself and find her voice again, willing herself to keep her tears at bay. She tried to best to keep her eyes locked onto his. "I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry I was so stupid and scared to be in love with you that I took it out on you the wrong way. If I could go back in time and do it all over again, I would let you take me to Yamcha so I could tell him it was over, and be with you. I'll probably never forgive myself for hurting you, and it's something I will always regret." She felt her throat begin to constrict from the overwhelming emotions that coursed through her. She sniffled and looked at Vegeta again, seeing a very stern frown on his face. She knew he was angry at her for cornering him and making him hear all her human emotional bullshit, and she tried her best to compose herself.

"I love you, Vegeta. So much. More than you will probably ever believe. More than you will ever really know." Bulma confessed. "But I know what I feel doesn't matter anymore. I just need to know if someday you and I will be okay again. I don't want to lose you, not for the rest of my life. Even if we're only business partners…I just can't lose you forever, Vegeta. Please, give me a sign that we're going to be okay." she pleaded, her voice laced with sorrow as she pressed her open hand on the tank glass, hoping that Vegeta would return the gesture and press his hand against hers. The stern, angry look on his face remained, and he did not raise either of his hands to the glass to mirror her own.

Bulma managed a difficult swallow, tears now escaping her eyes as she took it as a clear sign from Vegeta that he would not forgive her, nor forget what happened between them. Too late….the thought whispered in her mind, as the haunting thought now came true.

With the heaviest heart in the universe, Bulma downcast her blue eyes away from him, slowly removing her hand from the glass, reaching over and turning off the speakers that fed into Vegeta's tank. She gave a single nod, acknowledging that the damage she had wrought between them had been too devastating, and they were never going to be okay again. Holding in her unbelievable sorrow, she turned around and quickly left the tank room , bursting strongly through the doors of the medical bay, startling Bardock and leaving him to wonder just what in the world was going to happen now.

---

Hours later, the twin suns attempted to bring dawn to the red planet, but their powers combined could not defeat a stronger adversary. The charcoal-gray sky loomed with darkened clouds, which promised to burden the land below with a torrent of rain.

Let the rain fall, she thought to herself, let it wash down upon me. Let me bathe in its healing, let it wash away everything….

Bulma closed her eyes as the tears ran down her face, burning a pathway down her cheeks. The feeling hit her hard, as the once unnamable, overwhelming emotion gripped her.

Despair.

She had nothing. Absolutely nothing. She lost Vegeta forever, as any hint or small trace of affection or love he may have had for her had been destroyed by her blindness and stupidity. Now she was going to lose her beloved red planet. It did not matter if anyone else wanted her to stay there, all that mattered was just the opinion of one, and if Vegeta did not want her there, then so be it. After her stunt she pulled on him earlier, she was sure he would find her and kick her off the planet now. It was for the better, she figured, knowing now it would hurt too much to be around Vegeta if she stayed around. She would effectively ban herself from there for life, just like he had refused to ever return to Earth. Bulma was now faced with the inevitable knowledge that she had to return to a planet that eagerly awaited to torment her, to never leave her in peace. Back to a planet with a bitter and vengeful ex-fiancée. Back to a planet that turned its back on her. Back to a planet that threatened to take away her future. Back to a life that she was not sure she could derive much joy from anymore.

Yes, the despair and anguish residing within her was quite a burden to bare, and all Bulma could think about was how good it would be if she could just lay down and go to sleep, and not wake up for a very long time. Long enough to where life passed her by, and she could awake to find her heart and soul no longer hurt. The sky rid itself of its own burden as rain fell upon the land, and she made no move to shelter herself. Bulma closed her beautiful azure eyes, letting the warm, therapeutic rain calm her heart, relax her mind, and soothe her soul. She knew rain could not heal, but for the time being she bathed in its comfort. Even if this was only temporary, she would take whatever precious moments of peace that she could find.

After what felt like a long time, her serenity was disturbed as a tremor of unease suddenly coursed through her…and somehow, she knew…she could feel Vegeta standing behind her. "Go away." she said, wondering if he would even listen to her.

"How dare you." Vegeta began angrily, his fists clenched as he glared at her, hating how Bulma still kept her back to him. He had just gotten out of his healing tank, honing in on her ki signal and immediately teleporting to her, caring not for the thin layer of healing fluid still on him. "How dare you corner me like that and spew all your human emotional bullshit to me!" his harsh voice rang loudly through the sound of the steady rainfall.

At hearing this, Bulma turned around to glare at Vegeta angrily, pissed off that he disturbed her serenity, pissed off that this still wasn't over. She felt fresh hot tears well up in her eyes. "It's not bullshit!" she yelled at him. "I meant everything I said to you!"

Vegeta took a few threatening steps closer toward her. "Do you think I care about anything you said to me?! You think l believe you when you say you love me?!"

"I do love you!" she yelled adamantly.

Vegeta scoffed. "Love. Such a fickle human emotion! You think your 'love' means anything to me?" He pointed a finger at her. "You 'love' strawberries. You 'love' the color purple. You 'love' inventing. You 'love' movies. You 'love' Saturdays. You 'love' coffee. You 'love' me. It's sickening! Your human word has absolutely no depth. It's so overly generalized it has lost all meaning!"

Bulma's chest heaved with emotion as she tried to will the tears down and not break down in front of him. She supposed he had somewhat of a valid point. Humans did tend to generalize the word and use it to describe how they felt about many things. "That doesn't make it any less true! I love you, Vegeta! Doesn't that mean anything to you?!"

"No." came his heartless, icy cold reply. "If you really loved me, you would have realized it a long time ago and you would have chosen me."

Bulma scoffed, placing her hands firmly on her hips as she glared at him. "Oh, and you did such a good job letting me know that you had feelings for me also, didn't you, Vegeta?!"

"Don't you fucking try to turn this around on me, Bulma!" Vegeta snapped in warning, enraged at her attempt to pass the blame onto him.

"Why not?! How long have we been friends and you never once told me you had feelings for me?!" Bulma shrieked, stepping up closer to him, refusing to back down from his intimidating stance.

"We are not friends." Vegeta growled, cutting his arm through the air in blatant frustration.

"And yet you keep insisting that we're not, even after all these years! I swear, Vegeta, what did you see me as, then?! Did you ever feel anything towards me, besides the usual irritation and anger?!" Bulma yelled at him, realizing this fight was going nowhere as she made the executive decision to end it. Without another word she turned around and began to storm away from him. The sooner she put some dry clothes on, gathered materials and supplies for the power cores, and got off this planet, the better. A gloved hand on her arm abruptly stopped her in her tracks as she was quickly spun around and brought alarmingly close against him.

"Woman…" Vegeta warned sternly as he glared down into her impossibly blue eyes. "…you don't have a clue as to how I felt about you."

Bulma's breath hitched in her throat, weary of Vegeta's next actions as she tried to push off away from him, uncomfortable at their sudden closeness. "Well obviously you never saw me as a friend, so what was I to you?!"

Her question was infuriating as the prince gave her a fierce glare. "I've done everything you've ever asked of me, Bulma! There wasn't anything I ever denied you!"

"And I've done everything you've ever asked of me!" she countered, managing to pull her arm away from his grasp this time, attributing the ease of her effort to the slickness of the healing fluid as Bulma stepped back away from him, needing space to breathe again.

"Oh, just like you immediately left scar-face to be with me?!" Vegeta threw back in her face.

"You didn't ask me to do anything! You just demanded! You were ordering me to leave him for you! YOU WERE BEING UNREASONABLE!" Bulma yelled back, stomping her foot on the ground in fury as she clenched her fists also.

"I WAS NOT BEING UNREASONABLE!" Vegeta boomed in rage, pointing a finger at her. "If you weren't going to choose me, you should have never kissed me back! You should have never made me believe that you were mine!" the words poured from his mouth, unable to hold back his emotions and feelings over what happened between them.

Bulma's chest heaved with emotion, her breath hard to catch as she was flooded with unyielding emotions also. "I told you already, I made a fucking mistake! Just because I didn't want to leave right at that moment to tell Yamcha it was over, it didn't mean that I was never going to! You never gave me a chance, Vegeta…" she pleaded.

"I gave you more than enough chances!" Vegeta growled out in a scathing tone, abruptly interrupting her. "And all you did was throw it back in my fucking face!"

"For Kami's sake, I didn't marry him!" Bulma yelled out in exasperation, her emotions choking her up and making it harder for her to speak as she kept repeating the fact to him. "I didn't marry him! You're the one that I love!" she kept insisting, only to see Vegeta's demeanor darken upon hearing her last sentence.

A dangerous look crossed his handsome features, as Vegeta's ki flared up around him. He didn't miss the apprehensive look on her face as she took a step back from his threatening display of power. He glared off to the side, quickly powering down from letting his fierce temper get the better of him. After a moment of tense silence between them, he spoke. "If you had feelings for me…if you loved me, then you would never have considered marrying the weakling!" he raged. "Did you ever think to consider my thoughts on it?! Did you ever think to consider how I might have felt for you? Of course not! But none of that matters now, does it?! You made your fucking decision, and you cannot take it back now, no matter what 'supposed' clarity you've finally gained."

If Bulma had believed it was bad enough having almost married Yamcha and making the biggest mistake of her existence, then missing out on something her and Vegeta could have had together…well, that was more heart-wrenching of a pain than she could have ever imagined. The horrible, sinking feeling clutched at her chest as the feelings of 'what-could-have-been' stuck her hard. "You never told me you loved me!" Bulma yelled out accusingly, her own temper flaring up at his audacity to act like everything was her fault!

"And you never told me." Vegeta spat her words back in her face.

Bulma was ready to respond with hellish wrath, but her throat was constricted again. An overwhelming wave of anger, mixed with unbelievable regret, was choking her. Her heart ached terribly from the intensity of the emotions she felt between them. She wanted to blame someone, anyone, other than herself. What hit her hard was that she couldn't. She remained bitterly silent at that fact. "How could I?" she muttered after a few silent moments, looking at his darkened face, willing him to give her an answer and not leave things forever broken between them.

"It's pretty fucking simple, Bulma." Vegeta growled, as he quickly wrapped his tail around her waist, pulling her up harshly against him. Before she knew what was happening, his lips descended upon hers in an intensely passionate, possessive, almost painful kiss. Love and loss overwhelmed them both at once as the sensations were too much to bare. Just as abruptly, Vegeta broke their kiss and he glared into her troubled, azure eyes, his own onyx eyes frozen, much like his heart. "Like that." And with those final words, his tail let go of his hold around her, quickly turning around to walk away from her.

"Vegeta!" she cried out, her heart shattering into dust as she was engulfed in darkness, with no light anywhere to help guide her. She couldn't help but begin to cry in sorrow, her sobs wracking her body as she lost the strength to remain standing. She fell to her knees, uncaring that she was kneeling in a puddle of water and mud. She yelled back out to him, her voice choked up in anguish. "You said we would always be okay!"

Hearing his promise he made to her, pulled forth from so long ago, made Vegeta stop in his tracks. He quickly turned around, visibly shaken. It wasn't the reminder of his promise that had him so distraught, it was the fact that she was crying. Not only could he hear it, but he could feel it. A look of fury overcame his handsome face as he stormed back over to her. "Stop crying!" he demanded at Bulma as he clenched his fists.

Hearing Vegeta yell at her to stop crying did quite the opposite, as she continued to cry even harder this time, knowing that she was making him even more angry by not being able to stop herself from displaying her human weakness. It was shameful to cry in front of him, but she couldn't help it.

"Stop crying, woman." Vegeta repeated sternly, almost willing to do anything to get her to stop crying as the painful ache in his chest and within his heart twisted and pulsated so strongly that it threatened to floor him. "Stop crying. You don't know what you do to me when you cry." he growled. He hadn't felt her cry in so many years…he had forgotten how much it also afflicted him.

Bulma tried to stifle her crying as much as she could, wiping her tears away from her face, even though they blended in well with the raindrops. She covered her face, trying hard to catch her breath and calm herself down, wanting nothing more than to run away from him. She felt such shame to cry in front of him, and what made it even worse was that she was crying over him, crying for him,…crying for everything she ever had with him that was now lost and gone. And here Vegeta was, stone-cold and strong, unemotional and unrelenting in his resolve to not understand…to not forgive…to not give her hope that someday they would be okay again.

After a few long agonizing moments, Bulma managed to gather her composure as best she could, feeling horribly exhausted and unbelievably ashamed of herself as she wiped more tears away and cleared her throat. Feeling disgusted that she was wallowing in mud, she stood up and somehow gathered the courage and strength to repeat his promise that had been forever etched in her heart. "You said we would always be okay." she repeated softly, bravely looking into his dark, troubled eyes.

Vegeta closed his eyes for a moment, a pained expression on his face as the sharp pains and aches in his chest lingered for a few moments longer before slowly fading away. He opened his eyes, only to find Bulma's piercing blue ones looking directly into his as she made her plea to him. He frowned as he studied her with meaningful purpose. After a few tense moments, he relented, inhaling deeply and letting out a burdened, heavy-hearted sigh as he remained a man of his word. "And I've never lied to you, woman."

---

So give me reason to prove me wrong…to wash this memory clean.

Let the floods cross the distance in your eyes.

Give me reason to fill this hole…connect the space between.

Let it be enough to reach the truth that lies across this new divide.

A/N: Well, there it is! No happy ending yet, but do remember behind every dark cloud there is a silver lining.

I actually had more to this chapter, but after much contemplation, I decided to end it there and leave the resolution for the next chapter. You probably hate me for doing that, but c'mon now, you know nothing is ever simple when it comes to them!

What did you think of this chapter? Dark and depressing, wasn't it? And stressful. And emotional. Believe me, it drained the hell out of me. I hope you'll leave me a review and tell me your thoughts and feelings about it. I've been told it takes a brave writer to put so much of themselves into their work. It's not an easy thing to do at all, but I believe it makes for a unique, captivating story, and I hope you agree.

I see my story is getting close to 500 reviews. If I could reach that amazing milestone with this chapter, it would be a wonderful birthday present for me! My birthday is Nov. 6th (I'm turning 30...eep!) So I hope you'll leave me a review and help me reach my goal!

And if you haven't already, I invite you to join me and many other wonderful V/B authors and fans on the We're Just Saiyan' community on Google Plus. It's free to join, and it's run by two amazing ladies, MayMayB and Mallie P! There are many well known and famous V/B authors that are part of the community, and it's pretty much a safe-haven for those of us who love Vegeta and Bulma, and DBZ in general!

Thank you for continuing to read my story. The next chapter is already under construction, and all I can tell you is that I've been waiting for it ever since I first started writing this story!

*~*Bella*~*

(Lyrics at the beginning and end of the chapter are from Linkin Park's song "New Divide.")