"Unexpected Romance: Changes"

Chapter 3- "Bonding"

By- Tiny

Chi-Chi had been pacing the house over and over again as she waited for her 'guest' to return for dinner, as he had every other night over the last week, and for some reason he still hadn't shown up. Gohan had come home rather beaten up and with his clothes torn to hardly more than shreds, earning him a good scolding from his mother in the process, but Vegeta had yet to return. It was almost as though he didn't want to come back to her home, even though he had nowhere else to go, and it had been when the clock struck ten that she decided to go out and look for him.

Gohan had mentioned that the prince was training in the desert somewhere, probably the same place he had fought Goku only a short time before, so that was where she decided to start looking. She had already been over the whole area once and was making her second pass when she spotted something in the canyon, barely visible from so high up but still there. Deciding it was the best lead she had gotten and was likely to get in this place, she put her aircar down in the sand nearby and ventured into the canyon in search of the Saiya-jin prince.

The place reeked of some kind of fluid that she had smelled at sometime or another in her past, but she couldn't quite place what the smell was as she maneuvered through the tight quarters of the craggy walls. She knew that Vegeta had to be in here somewhere at this point, as she found most of his armor discarded a few feet inside of the canyon and there were pieces of his bodysuit everywhere. The smell was getting worse as she moved up through the canyon further, expecting to stumble upon the prince at any moment, but never expecting to see what awaited her.

She finally found the Saiya-jin's nearly unconscious form about halfway into the shady part of the canyon, his hair matted with thick clods of dirt and skin cut open in many places by the sharp rocks. His eyes were bloodshot with dark rings underneath them from where he had been fighting sleep for most of the day, his lips chapped and cracked due to lack of moisture. To top it all off, there was a massive sore along his side that looked almost like a big blister had popped there, and judging by the heavy amount of fluid around his body that was likely the case.

Seeing the Saiya-jin man like this, so battered and torn inside the walls of this craggy canyon, brought a pang of guilt to Chi-Chi's heart as she moved closer, wondering how she was going to get him out of here. Vegeta had always presented himself as the invincible and all-powerful prince of the Saiya-jin, acting as though nothing was capable of besting him or causing him pain. Yet here he was now, still holding on to life by what little threads he had left and still fighting, even though he had so little energy left that it wasn't doing him much good.

"Get...away from me...woman," the prince spat, or would have if he had any spit left, "I do not...need...any...assistance."

"Nice try, but your too injured to get out of here by yourself, now just let me help you for once!" Chi-Chi said sternly, placing Vegeta's arm over her neck, "Do you think you can walk with me to the exit there? Your not exactly a lightweight and it's hard to hold you up..."

Vegeta couldn't help but chuckle weakly as he moved his legs in step with her movements, barely able to manage that due to how low his energy had dropped, his side searing with white hot pain. His scrapes and other wounds were covered with sand and dirt from where he had been crawling and, though he had a feeling they wouldn't get infected, they would hurt him quite a bit. Still, he tried not to show as much in front of the small woman helping him along, though he couldn't quite understand why he was trying so hard to show no weakness to someone who posed no threat.

Chi-Chi seemed to know that that was exactly what he was trying to do as she looked over at him, her eyes wide and glazed over with pity, and then shook her head at the prince. She was not impressed by his continued attempt to prove that he was invincible and 'perfectly fine', and Vegeta could tell as much by the way she seemed to 'accidentally' bump into the wall a few times. Each bump sent a fresh wave of pain through Vegeta's body, causing him to wince slightly and bringing a soft smile to the human woman's face.

It took a few minutes to get to the aircar, due mostly to the fact that Chi-Chi was having to support the prince's considerable bulk most of the way, but once they got there she tossed him in the back as gently as she could manage. It was cold inside the car and it caused him to shiver slightly, his open wounds still very sensitive, and Chi-Chi had to turn up the heat a little bit to make him as comfortable as possible. His eyes were blinking open and shut as his body began to drift off, but he managed to give the small woman one last look before closing his eyes and falling asleep.

Chi-Chi didn't know what it was that washed over her as the Saiya-jin prince looked her in the eyes, at least not at that time, but she did know that it was like something between them suddenly clicked. She tried to shake the feeling off as she took them both back to her house, the Saiya-jin man snoozing in her backseat all the way, but nothing she tried worked. She always found herself looking back at the Saiya-jin prince and thinking that if he didn't survive this that something inside of her would die with him, though that didn't make any sense to her mind.

"Whatever's going on Chi-Chi, if he doesn't make it then it's nobody's fault but his own for being so stubborn," the woman told herself over and over, "You aren't going to suffer one bit if he doesn't make it. Not one bit..."

And yet, even as she though these things, she looked back at the Saiya-jin prince and felt a tear form in her eye, quickly wiping it away and trying only to think of getting them both back home. She would be unsuccessful the whole trip and Vegeta must have known it for, even in his sleep, he smirked slightly every time the human woman thought of him...

On a planet deep into space, a few hundred light years from the now destroyed Nameksei, a young man sprang from his bed in a hurry, his body slick with sweat and the sheets sticking to him. The planet had a natural temperature that was much higher than that of his home, but he still felt very cold as he wandered outside to gaze up at the stars overhead. They were always beautiful in the blackness of this planet's night, twinkling like a billion jewels high overhead, but that didn't seem to matter much to this man's heavy mind as he looked for his home among the stars.

He was still out there stargazing when another figure emerged from the small hut he was staying in, the form turning out to be a smaller female, probably just entering her early teens in human years. Her body was slender but still very athletic, her muscles tight and noticeable on her small form, and her hair came down over her shoulders in thick locks of jet black. She actually looked a lot like the man standing before her, at least in the face and eyes, and she seemed worried about him as he let out a drawn out sigh and sat down on the ground.

"Something wrong uncle?" the girl asked, sitting next to him, "You seem...distant."

"It's nothing...just...I felt cold and needed some air," the older man answered, still gazing up at the stars, "I wanted to see if I could find my home up there, but as usual I couldn't."

"You worry too much, I'm sure everyone on Earth is waiting for you to come back," the girl giggled, "And when you do, I'll bet they're all there ready to welcome you home!"

"Yeah, whatever you say," the tall man smiled, "C'mon, you need to get some sleep before we start training."

"More like you need the sleep old man, cause me and Diive are gonna kick your a...butt this time!" the girl beamed, "You won't know what hit you!"

The older man just shook his head as he ushered the young girl back inside the small hut, tucking her into bed and then heading back to his own on the other side of the building. He spent most of the night tossing and turning, trying to put whatever was troubling him out of his mind and go to sleep, but it did no good as he just lay there until the sun started to rise. He could hear his two fellow occupants getting ready to go already, inside the kitchen and devouring the food that was there, and he rose up out of his bed and rubbed his face.

"What the hell is wrong with me?" the man sighed, scratching his thick head of hair, "I'm sure nothing is wrong back home, especially not with Chi-Chi..."

Vegeta awoke in the morning to the smell of peroxide and bandages, his body not as sore as it had been the previous evening when Chi-Chi had found him but still very sore and numb. His head throbbed with pain as he sat up in the bed his hostess had set him up in, noting in the mirror that those smells he had awoken to had been all around his body, despite the fact that most of his wounds had already healed up. Still, he was grateful to the small human woman in his own way, as she had gotten him out of the canyon and cleaned out his numerous injuries.

The thought of the human woman made him somewhat excitable as he attempted to stand up, falling back down on the bed instantly but still looked around for the woman who was treating him. Why he was so desperate to see the human woman was beyond him but nevertheless he wanted to see her, his mind thinking of nothing else as he straightened himself up in the bed. He could hear the sound of feet pitter-pattering up the stairs towards his room, the door swinging open to reveal the human woman's form as she sat a massive platter of food near him.

"I know how much you Saiya-jin like to eat and I figured you'd be up sooner or later, just not quite this early," Chi-Chi smiled softly, "Are you feeling any better this morning? You were pretty fidgety when I was cleaning the wounds..."

"I'm a Saiya-jin, woman," Vegeta grumbled, "Of course I feel better, there was nothing wrong in the first place!"

"Well, then maybe I should have left your pompous ass to rot in the canyon if there was 'nothing wrong'!" Chi-Chi snapped, getting right in his face, "Why I bothered to find you in the first place is beyond me! Why I ought to..."

The small woman was cut off abruptly as the prince grabbed her and pulled her into a deep kiss, which Chi-Chi knew she needed to get out of but, at the same time, didn't want to as she returned the kiss. Heat was building between them as Vegeta's hands brushes along her backside, the feel of his hands on her making her want to melt into his arms, but she pulled away nonetheless. Both of them seemed out of breath and each with wide, twinkling eyes and it was several minutes later before Chi-Chi finally rose to her feet and headed for the door.

"Umm...eat your breakfast and get some rest, you'll need it if you want to get better," Chi-Chi blushed all over, "I'm...I'm going to see what Gohan is up to."

Vegeta looked like he was going to protest, but didn't get the chance as Chi-Chi rushed back down the stairs, leaving the Saiya-jin prince behind to ponder what the hell had just happened. Deciding it would be easier to think on a full stomach, Vegeta began to devour the food she had brought up for him, his mind constantly going back to that kiss they had shared and why it had happened at all. The woman had been nothing but cold towards Vegeta since he had come to stay here, constantly putting him down and snapping at him for even the littlest thing.

The only real time she had shown any compassion for Vegeta had been on the previous night when she had found and treated him, and that seemed to only be because she was worried her son would be upset. Still, she had continued to look back at him on the way back to this place and he had picked up on her thoughts several times, the waves of concern mixed with fear easy to recognize. That was when it hit Vegeta, halfway through eating his food as he began to choke, realizing exactly why he had kissed her and why she hadn't pulled away immediately.

Vegeta, prince of the Saiya-jin race, had bonded with his rival's wife...

Author's Notes: No power levels in this chapter due to a lack of fighting, but I hope you all enjoyed the interactions involved between Vegeta and Chi-Chi, as well as Goku and the girl in space. Yes, that was Goku and yes, that little girl is his brother's daughter and will play a critical role later on in the story, but for now anything more about her is going to be strictly hush-hush. You won't see much more of Goku for some time yet, but rest assured that he will return much sooner than in the original to play a very important part in the story.

The next chapter will feature Chi-Chi going to Bulma and Lunch for advise on what happened the previous day, their response to her situation surprising even Chi-Chi as she falls more and more for the Saiya-jin prince. Meanwhile, Vegeta is back to his training after his wounds have fully healed, trying to put Chi-Chi out of his mind as he senses something approaching. What is the something that Vegeta is sensing and will it draw him closer to Chi-Chi or pull them apart? Stay tuned to find out!