Disclaimer: As always I own nothing but the original characters and the situations I put them in. Everything else belongs to somebody else so give credit where credit is due. Thanks to all my reviewers and especially everyone who wrote back answers to my questions. You guys are the greatest!

From Confrontation to Arguing

When Bulma and Vegeta had arrived back at the small villa she was staying at with her cousin they were met on the porch by Lana who didn't look at all pleased to see who Bulma had brought back with her. Whispering to Bulma whether or not she should call the cops Lana didn't take the news that Vegeta would just kill them all very well. Vegeta certainly didn't appreciate having to carry the unconscious woman inside the house where he dumped her onto the couch. "Stupid twit." He muttered under his breath.

"She's just...yeah, she is, isn't she?" Bulma said with a chuckle as she moved over to throw a blanket over her cousin. Whenever Lana had come to visit she'd always stayed out of Vegeta's way after their first meeting. Lana had taken one look at Vegeta's scowling face and fainted dead away. This was two for two in the fainting every time she had to actually talk to Vegeta, Bulma thought in amusement. "She'll be fine. The list is in my room."

"Of all the people to travel with, why her?" Vegeta wanted to know as he followed her out of the room as they headed for the stairs going up to the second floor. "If you ran into any trouble she'd be more of a hindrance then a help. She'd either cry or faint."

"Or one after the other." Bulma added, grabbing the rail as she walked up the steps. "And she's not so bad. She is a twit and more than a little bubble headed but she's a good distraction and sounding board. You just scare the hell out of her."

Shaking his head Vegeta followed her, his eyes watching her carefully. She'd said that the fainting had passed but he wasn't taking any chances. Looking her over as they climbed he studied her body, looking for changes. He'd never been around a pregnant woman before and he was somewhat curious about the changes their bodies went through. She didn't look like she was with child, though she was a little rounder than he recalled. Then again that could be because she'd stopped her stupid dieting too. Her breasts were bigger, something he could have done without. They'd been appealing enough before but now they were impossible to ignore. Damn it. Once they reached the top of the stairs he followed her down the hallway and into her room which was fairly simple and rustic, not her style and more his. Taking a seat on the edge of the bed he waited while she got a couple sheets of paper which she brought over and handed to him, taking a seat beside him. Doing his best to tune her out Vegeta read through the list, not finding anything that bothered him overly much. Yes these were his people's customs but they really served no purpose in this sort of situation. A lot of these had to do with the upbringing of a son and since he was going to let Bulma help raise the baby even if it was a male that pretty much canceled out all the other rules on her list. He wasn't about to let her know that right away though. "If I agree to all of these you have to give your word on a few things too."

"Like what?" Bulma wanted to know, her hands in her lap. It felt so weird to be so close to him all of a sudden. King of the Jerks he might be most of the time but he smelled fabulous and hey, she was pregnant. Hormone fluctuations to the extreme were to be expected. Maybe this explained why Chi Chi put up with Goku. Once you had had a Saiyan there was no settling for anything but.

"Well first of all if it's a boy you aren't to dress him up in any of those girlie outfits you're always cooing over at the mall." Vegeta began, biting back a shudder as he recalled outfits he'd seen her go all mushy over when he'd been forced to come with her to carry her bags. "And you aren't going to spoil him either. I've seen the way you humans put your children in front of the television and let them eat whatever they want. I won't allow that sort of behavior. Your planet would be a lot harder to conquer if you people would just spend more time improving your minds and bodies instead of destroying them both with junk."

"Well I happen to agree with you on those last two and for the first...well not girlie if it's a boy, I promise." Bulma hedged, not about to tell him about all the cute outfits she'd already bought on her cross-country trip around Europe. There was just so many cute little outfits and since this could very well be her only child...and he'd said girlie after all. Cute didn't necessarily mean girlie.

Eyes narrowing, since he was well aware she'd been hedging, he decided that they'd just cross that bridge when they got there. If she tried to put his son in something stupid he'd simply incinerate the offending clothing and put the boy into something proper. "Well I have no problems with this list of yours...though later on we'll have disagreements." There was no way there wouldn't be. They'd argued before they'd had a child to share. It was bound to only get worse.

"Well that goes without saying." Her mind running along the same path as Vegeta's Bulma shook her head ruefully. "And I haven't told my parents yet either. The only people that know are my doctor, me and Lana. She only knows because I had to explain all the baby clothes and books I've been reading. She doesn't know that you're daddy though."

Figures she'd have started shopping already. It was a very lucky thing she was filthy rich, otherwise she'd have put her family in the poorhouse by now. Not that Bulma's mother was much better. The human female's obsession with shopping had never and would likely never make sense to him. "We'll have to tell them when we get back." Vegeta said after a pause, looking over at her consideringly. Her mother was such a bubblehead he had no doubt she'd be too busy bubbling over about the baby to care that her daughter was carrying his child but as for her father... While he had nothing to fear from Bulma's father physically the absent minded professor might forget that fact and try to avenge his daughter's honor. If that were the case he supposed he'd have to let the old man get some swings in. It wasn't like the weak human could produce even a scratch. Of course the professor was smart enough to try and create something to cause the harm for him. Then he'd have a new toy to play with, Vegeta thought, hoping that that would be the case.

"Yeah, I think they'll be okay with it. Daddy's probably not going to be very happy with you for a while but it's not like you're going to up and abandon us or anything. You'll be around and I'll talk him out of the whole needing to be married thing." Bulma replied with a knowing look, having given this a lot of thought. "I'm over thirty after all. It's not like I'm not more than capable of taking care of this baby if you were to get yourself blown up or something."

"Which I don't plan on doing any time soon."

"You never plan to blow yourself, Vegeta. You just bite off more than you can chew or push yourself too far." Bulma pointed out, rolling her eyes.

Opening his mouth to argue Vegeta shut it, knowing that regardless of what he said he wouldn't win this argument. They'd been having it for a while now and nothing he said had yet to penetrate that thick skull of hers. "So how long is it going to be in there?" Vegeta asked instead, pointing a finger at her stomach.

Blinking at the change in topic Bulma looked down as she patted her tummy. "Well hopefully at least five more months. The baby's getting pretty big already so I'm kinda hoping he's a little early so that he doesn't have time to get too big. As it is I'll probably be yelling for the drugs pretty quick, even though I keep telling myself I'm going for a natural pregnancy."

"Drugs?" Vegeta repeated, the look in his eye saying quite plainly that he didn't like that idea at all.

"Pain killers, Vegeta. You aren't the one who's going to have to go through this labor so don't even think of telling me that I can't have those pain killers if I want them. I'd imagine this is going to be as pleasant as sticking burning sticks into my eyes so if you want to live you aren't going to comment. Besides, I'm not talking about being drugged to the gills or anything, just enough that I won't weaken when they try to talk me into procedures I don't want. Believe me, I've been doing research into this and I've already started a list as to what they aren't allowed to do for me. I'm going to get a midwife hopefully, better to skip the doctors unless it's necessary. I'd tell you horror stories but I'll save them for when you've really pissed me off."

"Is it really that bad?" Vegeta wanted to know, raising an eyebrow. It couldn't be that bad, otherwise why would women willingly continue to repopulate their worlds?

"Oh believe me, it's that bad. Well it can be anyway." Bulma rephrased, not wanting to dramatize it to the point where he thought she was just being overly emotional. She could only pray he decided he'd rather train than come to the delivery room with her. The last thing she needed was him calling her a weak human while she was trying to push out a ten pound or more baby. She'd likely try to grab a scalpel and go after him with it in between contractions. Now there would be something to see.

"What will happen if the baby is too big?"

"Well then there's a chance of a lot of tearing or a C section."

Processing this Vegeta tried to not think about the tearing she'd referred too. "What's a C section?" He asked instead, hoping that was something that didn't involve things he'd rather not visualize.

"Well basically they cut open my stomach and take the baby out that way. A lot of women prefer it because it's quick, relatively painless and you get out of the hospital sooner." Bulma explained, surprised that he was bothering to ask any of these questions. Then again, given his past lifestyle he'd probably never crossed paths with a pregnant woman. He knew even less then she did.

"Oh." Was his response. After that he demanded to have his dinner and decided then and there that he wasn't going to ask any more questions about human pregnancy.

They left the next day in the ship that Bulma had been storing at a nearby airport. Lana was sorry to see Bulma go and thrilled to see the back of Vegeta though she didn't have the courage to say so. Heading out they were nearing the border of the country when Bulma frowned, tapping her scanners with an annoyed look on her face.

"What?" Vegeta wanted to know, eyeing the console. The last thing they needed was another crash. The last one had already screwed up their lives enough as it was.

"This scanner is supposed to display the landscape ahead of us but it's not working. It should be showing mountain ranges coming up in about two minutes but nothing's showing up period. According to this there's nothing in our way for several hours." Chewing absently on the bottom of her lip she wondered if maybe she was off course. But no, everything else said she was taking the same route she'd taken before. So what was going on?

She had her answer two minutes later when she came to the remains of what had been five mountains which had been reduced to five craters in the burnt, unturned ground. It looked like someone had blown the mountains into pieces. Staring at the deep impact holes as they flew over Bulma turned her head to look at Vegeta as an uneasy shiver down her spine. "Please tell me you didn't do that."

"I did do that."

"But why? Do you realize how many innocent animals you probably blew up, not to mention maimed? All that aside you've just changed this whole region's ecological balance which will result in a zillion different changes to the plants, animals and people that live there. How many times have I told you to think before you blow something up!"

"It was you or the mountains."

"Oh." Bulma said after a long pause as what he was saying hit home. "I guess you did take the news as badly as I thought you would."

"Still wish I'd spared the poor little animals?" Vegeta asked silkily, looking over at her with a slight smirk on his face as he raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Well yes...but I'm glad you at least chose an unpopulated area." Was her weak response as she turned her head, staring straight ahead of her. Scary. He could be really scary sometimes.

Rolling his eyes at her Vegeta turned his eyes ahead as well. Normally he would have flown outside but he wanted to keep an eye on her, just in case. Not to mention this ship was so slow he would have kept passing it accidentally, without even trying. Regardless of what Bulma had said he was also still unsure about her new alien friend. This Akithos might seem as harmless as a puppy but that wasn't necessarily true. Just because they'd been relatively harmless when he was a boy didn't mean that the same held true now. And trust her to get all bent out of shape because he'd blown up some stupid mountains. They'd been handy and at least he hadn't gone on a rampage which had been what he'd felt like doing at the time. Nothing in his life was going the way it was supposed to, dammit. He was supposed to be the king of his planet, ruling the superior to all others Saiyan race with his bond mate producing him full blooded Saiyan heirs who would take over for him. There was supposed to be no earth in his future because it would have been blown up once his people realized that Kakorrot wasn't going to be doing it. Then he never would have met the damn complicated, voluptuous hellion sitting beside him. She never would have had a chance to worm her way past all his armor to become perhaps the biggest complication life had ever handed him. And that was before he'd found out she was carrying his child. Running a hand through his hair he cursed whatever Kami had decided that he was deserving of this fate. He wasn't supposed to be in this situation. He wasn't supposed to have these sort of issues to deal with. He wasn't supposed to care about her or the child she carried. Yet he did. He'd been worried when she'd been sick and then had gone off on her little vacation. He'd been furious when he realized she was in fact carrying his child but it had been that fact that had kept him from blowing up the whole planet as well. He didn't know what he was feeling anymore. He wasn't supposed to feel period. He was a warrior and warriors had no use for emotions unless they could be used like rage or pride. What he felt towards Bulma and this child were too complex and complicated for him to put his finger on. He wasn't sure he even wanted to.

"What are you thinking about?" Bulma finally asked after an hour of complete silence. Vegeta hated her taste in music so the silence was killing her. There was nothing more boring than having nothing to do but sit in a chair while you flew in a straight line with not even music to distract you.

"How much you've screwed up my life."

"Gee thanks. Like I didn't have a lot of help doing that." Was her sarcastic reply as she turned her head to glare at him. "As you'll recall in that cave, when you went off on your little snit, it was your choice to come back and start snuggling up to me, pal. I might have been a willing participant but it takes two to do what we did. Unless you're accusing me of repeatedly raping you but in that case you'd have to admit that I was strong enough to force you. In other words, you screwed it up and I helped."

Glaring at her Vegeta felt the familiar need to strangle her. "You started it when you came onto me before I even left in my so called snit."

"And it was your choice whether to accept my offer or not." She pointed out stubbornly, sticking out her chin as if to tempt him to pop her one. "What's really bothering you is that you wanted to and did accept. That you know you got exactly what you asked for."

"I don't recall asking for a child."

"Well excuse me for assuming you were smart enough to know where babies come from."

"Do you practice being this annoying or is it just a gift?" Vegeta demanded to know, glaring at her as he fought the urge to punch something. She always did this. She always turned things around so that he couldn't tell what was the truth and what wasn't anymore. Damn her.

"Around you it just comes natural." Bulma replied sweetly, imagining shoving him out the nearest airlock. It wouldn't kill him of course but it would make her feel better. "One can only hope that if this is a boy he doesn't inherit your way with women. I'd like to be a grandmother someday."

"You liked my way just fine. In fact you were always quite vocal about that." Was his smug reply, the look on his face as close to lewd as Vegeta's could get. He was deliberately trying to piss her off and damn but it was working.

"True, I was." Bulma agreed, forcing a smile onto her face as she hit him where it hurt. She couldn't say she'd had better because that would be a bald-faced lie but there were other ways to needle him. "You are a better lover then a fighter anyway. I guess everyone has to be good at something."