Chapter 12
Disturbance in the Night
Eight hundred hours didn't sound like a lot, but it sure as hell felt like it when you were trapped on a decimated planet with barely anything left upon its surface, with only your own mind as company.
A month or so, trapped on that rock.
Vejita turned six while on that planet. Lost in the dark night.
It was Goku who lifted his head at the stroke of midnight, stupidly, looked at catatonic Vejita, and uttered to absolutely no one, 'Happy birthday.'
Stupid.
The first time he'd ever actually said those words to Vejita, in all their years now together, and of course the one time he said it was when Vejita couldn't hear him.
Maybe Gohan was right; he was a problem.
Days dragged with despondent Vejita spending most of his time buried away and hidden from sight beneath Raditz' mane. Vejita slept under Raditz' hair every chance he got, although it was entirely subconscious—Vejita had never really woken up since his loss of control, had never really come back into clarity since he had nearly destroyed all three of them with his fury.
Just caught up in a rolling fog, with no end in sight.
The only thing that the child seemed aware of now was the comforting scent of Raditz' hair and the need to burrow under it, the need to form a shell, the need to feel safe.
There was nothing Nappa or Raditz could really do except wait for Vejita to process everything and come back into his mind in his own time.
In the meanwhile, as Vejita's shattered psyche struggled to piece itself back together, Nappa and Raditz had only each other for company, and spent their nights speaking to each other over the fire, Vejita ever hidden away beneath Raditz' hair.
Nappa and Raditz didn't like each other, but isolation did funny things to men, and when it came down to the wire, you'd speak to anyone to break that silence.
Night after night, they talked about everything and nothing, and Goku listened to them as Vejita breathed quietly and evenly.
It had become such a routine to Goku by then, after some weeks, that it took him a very good long while to realize one night that he wasn't the only one listening to Nappa and Raditz conversing.
Vejita had abruptly and unexpectedly returned to some semblance of conscious awareness.
In the dark beneath Raditz' hair, Vejita opened his eyes, and shortly after was listening to and comprehending the conversation being held.
It was no mystery to Goku why this particular conversation had stirred catatonic Vejita from his slumber.
"—and well, he had always said he wanted to die young, you know? Never wanted to get old, and that's what happened."
Raditz and Nappa were speaking about their fathers.
Raditz scoffed.
Finally, Nappa prodded, "So, Bardock was your father, huh?"
A pang in Vejita's breast, as his mind ever cleared. Reality was steadily returning, and neither Goku nor Vejita wanted it to.
Raditz' voice was soft when he asked, "Did you know my father?"
"A little. I met him a few times, but we never had much time to speak. I hear he had worked himself up to the top of the third-class. Smart. The king liked him well enough, I suppose."
The king.
The pang grew more painful, his chest threatened to lock up, and his temples were throbbing.
The other two were oblivious to the stirring child, and carried on.
Raditz sounded a bit proud then, when he spoke again.
"He was almost strong enough to be second-class, you know? He was stronger than me. I always wanted..."
Raditz trailed off, shifting and shuffling, squirming, and seemed embarrassed almost.
Nappa goaded Raditz to carry on.
Took a while, but Raditz managed to grumble, quietly, "We used to argue a lot, but... I always wanted to be just like him. He was everything I ever wanted to be. I'm not strong, you know? Not like you guys. I kinda wanted to be an engineer. I didn't think I could ever be as good a scientist as him, so I thought, maybe, ya know... Engineering would be better. I just wanted to impress him. Be more like him. I wish now that I had told him that. I never did."
Nappa gave a 'hm', and then said, "Ah, I'm sure he knew. Fathers always know things like that."
A sudden lurch of Goku's stomach, as Vejita buried his face in his folded arms and was biting his lip in an effort to keep from breaking down. Vejita clung desperately then to that mist, that fog, didn't wanna come out of it, because coming out of it meant facing the truth, and the truth was the last thing Vejita wanted right then.
Wanted someone to lie to him and tell him that there had been a misunderstanding.
Raditz, trying to cheer up, suddenly teased Nappa, "Let me guess; you were a great father, right?"
A laugh.
"Hardly! I never had time for kids. The army was so much hassle, then keeping his highness out of trouble, hotshot that he was back in the day, and then this highness came along... When in the world would I ever have had time for my own brats?"
With every second that passed, Vejita's battle was steadily being lost.
"That's a shame! There weren't ever enough elites. I want... Well. I wanted to have a few. My father said he fought better after I was born."
Nappa's voice was a bit smoother then, a bit fond, when he said, "I believe that. I know that when the king found out that there was a kid on the way, he nearly trained himself to death every day. Wanted to be as strong as he could. To protect him, you know. Said he had to lead by example. Also said he needed to be as strong as possible so that he wouldn't get murdered by his spouse when the hormones kicked in."
Raditz laughed—Vejita started crying.
The first time since he had lost control in his father's arms before Frieza's ship that Vejita had really cried.
Goku was relieved, because Vejita had been bottling everything up, had pushed everything under the rug, was letting too much pressure grow. Hadn't truly cried once since he had left his home, and the building tension had been getting too intense, too dangerous. If Vejita had kept on that route, he would have only ended up exploding again, and likely would have killed everyone in the process.
Shaking, as Vejita tried to keep his break in composure hidden.
Even now, even in these dire circumstances, even facing the greatest tragedy anyone could have experienced, Vejita was still so mortified at the thought of anyone seeing him cry, because his entire future literally depended on how strong and untouchable he made himself appear.
...ha.
Future?
What future did he have? Everything was gone, everyone was gone, his entire race and ancestry scrubbed from the annuls of history, nothing behind him and nothing in front of him, no throne waiting, for he no longer had any subjects.
That dismal realization just made Vejita cry harder, and his shaking intensified.
It caught Raditz' attention at last, for there was a silence and a stillness, and then Raditz' tail unfurled and winded backwards, wrapping itself around the child's waist and pulling him in until Vejita was pressed fully against Raditz' back.
Too much.
It was all too much, too much for any man, for any child, even Vejita. Couldn't help it; Vejita pressed his face into Raditz' back, grabbed handfuls of Raditz' hair, huddled up, and let himself cry at long last.
Raditz was silent the whole while, and Vejita was beyond grateful for that, because he would have been humiliated if Raditz had pulled him out into the open and exposed him as he tried to comfort him. Better this way. Felt more secure, more sheltered, blocked out from the world around him and bathed in darkness.
Hidden away was the only way Vejita could ever allow himself to express any emotions.
The only thing in dazed Vejita's head then was his father's face, as it had been since that awful day, and maybe it was then, when Vejita was sniveling into Raditz' back, that Goku finally found the courage to admit to himself at last that he had been a terrible father.
He hadn't meant to be, he really hadn't. He thought he had done alright, but it was so clear now for him to see that he had never come close to being a good father, or for that matter a good husband.
Sometimes, it had just felt like that family had been forced upon him, because he had agreed to marry Chichi without knowing what marriage was, and from there it had just snowballed and he had been so bewildered that he had just carried on, even if it hadn't felt all that right.
He loved Chichi, he really did, and hadn't ever wanted to hurt her, and so he had just never said anything aloud. Could never in a hundred years have even tried to explain to her that he just didn't love her quite as ardently as she loved him, at least not quite in that way.
He loved Gohan, and he loved Goten, but he fell short, didn't spend too much time with them, because in the end he just hadn't really...
Didn't want to say that he hadn't wanted them, because he loved them, but he had never planned for them, had never really entirely comprehended how much Chichi and the world would expect of him.
They were his children, but somehow it had always seemed to Goku that they were really mostly Chichi's children.
When he had made the choice to stay dead, he had known that Chichi was pregnant, and somehow that hadn't even mattered to him, hadn't swayed him at all, because even though it was his child, it was more hers. Gohan and Goten had always been hers, because she loved them so furiously.
Couldn't explain it in a way that didn't sound horrible, and that was why he had never tried.
Gohan would have taken it the wrong way, and Goku was very certain that things had been just tense enough that Gohan would have punched him in the face. And then Goten would be upset, and then Chichi would be upset, and then everyone would be upset, with him, and Vejita would be the most upset of all.
Best to stay quiet.
And moreover, Goku had always wanted to ask Vejita, 'Don't you feel trapped?'
Vejita had also had a family that he hadn't planned for thrust upon him. Vejita had never planned for Bulma, had certainly never planned for Trunks, and so Goku had never really been able to understand why Vejita was so easily able to stay put. All those years, and never had Vejita wandered. Hadn't left his family since Goku had died, not one time, and Goku had never been able to understand. Was it just him? Was Goku just a terrible family-man, or was Vejita just inherently calmer?
How did it flip so?
In battle, Goku was calm and composed, and Vejita was restless and volatile. The second the battle ended, the roles reversed, and suddenly it was Goku who was restless and volatile, disappearing for days and months and years on end with no warning, and it was Vejita was calm and composed, settling into one place and apparently never desiring to leave it.
Sometimes, Goku felt as if he were constantly wandering because he had always been searching for something, something intangible and elusive, and maybe he thought that if he just kept journeying he would find it.
He was sure, for a while there, that he had found it when Vejita had first appeared.
Thought he had it again when he had come back to life after that fusion.
But the great divide was ever there, because Goku just couldn't voice his thoughts. Vejita's apparent reliability just made Goku more self-conscious, less willing to attempt to communicate. Goku's silence was as detrimental to those around him as it was to himself, but he lacked the courage and tact to figure out ways to properly express himself.
He almost wished that the others would intrusively barge their way into his head like this, and then he wouldn't have to go through the arduous effort of trying to make them understand.
Vejita mourned his father, and Gohan had started resenting his.
And that was just the way it was.
No point in fretting over it now, and so Goku just watched his solemn brother silently offer Vejita support as Nappa's eyes lowered to the fire and his brow crinkled.
Maybe all three of them were still in some sort of denial.
Vejita cried himself senseless for what felt like hours, and stopped only when he had literally cried himself into such exhaustion that he fell asleep. Restless dreams, as Vejita passed in and out of consciousness, lost in the warmth of the fire and the safety of Raditz' hair, and Goku listened to Nappa and his brother converse once more in hushed tones.
Words came in and out as Vejita did.
"—glad he finally did. He needed to. He was gonna snap."
"Think he already did. Saw my whole life flash before my eyes."
Nappa's snort.
"You're a kid! What kinda life could you have seen?"
Raditz' prim sniff of offense.
Vejita squirmed around, in a half-conscious state, and burrowed beneath Raditz' armor, forcing himself inside. As always, Raditz fell deathly still so as not to agitate Vejita, and started breathing again only when tiny Vejita had curled into a ball of safety in between Raditz' shirt and his expandable armor.
The only thing Vejita seemed to do lately was burrow away, out of instinct. The only way to feel safe at all now that someone's hands were gone.
Raditz suddenly asked quietly, almost breathlessly, "He's so tiny. Why is he so tiny?"
A short silence, and then Nappa offered, "I suppose because his mother was. The king's mother was a little small, too. Not like that, though. He's the smallest I've ever seen." Perhaps Raditz had looked worried or something, perhaps Vejita's tiny size was a concern for him, because Nappa suddenly barked out a laugh and added, "Better worry more about yourself! He might weigh less than your hair, but he could rip you apart with one finger."
Didn't even need one finger to annihilate Raditz, Vejita, and everyone there knew it. Raditz was weak, at least compared to them, and didn't really belong there.
So Raditz whispered, "I know. I just haven't ever seen anything so tiny that's so strong. It's strange, isn't it?"
"Guess so. I think it's kinda funny. You don't expect it, ya know?"
Oh, Goku knew.
Seeing Vejita that very first time, looking at him and feeling how strong he was, and being unable to really comprehend it because Vejita was so small and petite and so unassuming. Seeing it so plainly and yet still feeling as if there was some mistake, some misunderstanding, for surely it couldn't have been that little guy. Made so much more confusing when Vejita smelled like someone to protect, rather than someone to fear.
Words faded away as Vejita retreated once more into the realm of sleep.
And it was silly, yeah, but Goku still felt proud and excited that the scent of Raditz was comforting to Vejita, because Raditz smelled like him, and maybe, one day...
Getting way ahead of himself.
A fool's hope.
Well! Goku was an expert at clinging to a fool's hope, and ever had it served him well, so maybe, one day, many years from now and in a different life, he could attempt to determine if Vejita might have still felt that way. If it helped his Vejita in his time, Goku would have happily let him curl up and sleep.
The obstacles between them were not insurmountable, though the distance seemed to be.
Across time, Goku held Vejita's hand as he fell asleep.
Something he had never done for his own children.
Dawn came on this ruined planet, and it was the first morning since that day that Vejita woke up. He woke up, comprehended, knew who he was and where he was, why, knew everything. It was easy for Nappa to see, and how he smiled when he finally looked at Vejita that day and saw Vejita looking back.
Raditz was asleep yet, and perhaps it felt to Nappa that they had been separated again, like that first trip onto the enemy's ship. A look at sleeping Raditz, at puffy-eyed Vejita, and Nappa knelt down and held out his arms like the last time. Like the last time, Vejita was just vulnerable enough to run and leap into them. Nappa sat Vejita on his shoulder as he had in happier times, and Goku tried to smile but just couldn't.
Vejita wasn't coping, and the only reason he was alert then was because he started that morning by engaging in his very first act of traumatic suppression. Surely not the last, either, but this was certainly the most important.
Vital to his survival, this repression.
Vejita couldn't handle the death of his father. Couldn't accept it. Couldn't comprehend it. Couldn't deal with it. Couldn't fathom it. Couldn't go on, knowing that his father was dead. Just couldn't get his mind to wake up like that, couldn't focus, couldn't think.
Couldn't breathe.
So he pretended that it had just never happened at all.
The king wasn't dead—he had just gone out. Had gone away. Was elsewhere, was doing something important, was ruling from afar. Had simply gone out, somewhere, and would one day be back.
The king would come back.
That was the only way forward for the child. The only way Vejita could even find the will to wake up was to pretend that his father was away. Goku could literally feel there, in his chest, that if Vejita had been forced to come to terms with the truth, he would have curled up on the ground and stayed there until he died.
Sometimes, it felt to Goku as if no one anywhere had ever loved anything the way Vejita had loved his father.
Nappa looked over sometime later, at Vejita perched there on his shoulder, and their eyes locked, black on brown. Nappa studied, analyzed, contemplated, and then very carefully asked, "Are you ready?"
Ready to move on. Ready to continue. Ready to live. Ready to try to survive.
He was, but only because he was lying to himself, so Vejita nodded.
Nappa's smile then was one of the sadder ones Goku had ever seen.
Because Nappa may not have been quite as dumb as everyone thought he was, he suddenly and very pointedly asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"
Vejita understood, and held Nappa's gaze to just as pointedly respond, "Talk about what?"
Nappa's turn to nod, in understanding.
That was that; it had never happened.
When Vejita stared into the fire that day, another fire lit up, this one inside of his chest.
Revenge.
Vejita found purpose once more that day. Found a reason. Found his 'why'.
And that purpose was just to kill Frieza, whatever he had to do to make it so. However long it took, however many times he had to nearly kill himself, however many different ways he had to change himself. In Vejita's mind, the king was still alive somewhere, someway, somehow, and only by killing Frieza and overthrowing his army would the king ever be able to come back.
Until he could come to terms with it, he would just pretend, as he had been pretending for so long now.
The universe was so impossibly vast—
Someone had to be out there.
He carried on, for the king. Even now.
As Nappa tried to pretend along with him, Vejita removed his cape, and once again took to sewing up the tears.
Someone out there.
The most honestly astounding thing about Vejita, Goku was realizing, was just how willing he was to prostrate himself for something he valued, how quickly and easily he abased himself, submitted, humiliated himself, for the sake of protecting something he held dear. Didn't matter what, be it his father, his planet, his pride, his sense of self, his love of his people. It didn't matter.
If it was going to help him reach the goal he wanted, then Vejita swallowed his dignity and swept himself down onto his knee before his superiors without a second thought. Showered Frieza with all the praise he wanted, allowed Zarbon to say whatever he wanted, didn't care.
To Vejita, the only thing that mattered was the end, not the means.
The goal now was to become the strongest, to find a way to overthrow Frieza without Frieza ever suspecting him.
Vejita hated Frieza, and that was why it was suddenly so easy to smile at him, to bow to him, to compliment him, to pretend that he was proud to be a member of this army.
Vejita hated, and smiled.
Frieza was easily placated by Vejita, because Frieza really did think that Vejita was just a small, harmless little monkey, not worth fretting over, but Zarbon was much harder to impress. Frieza seemed oddly entertained by Vejita, having a prince dancing about as a little marionette, but Zarbon ever frowned and sneered and glowered. Frieza complimented Vejita on odd occasions, was polite to him for the most part and sometimes in good moods Frieza even teased Vejita quite playfully.
And always, Zarbon just stood off to the side and grimaced.
Vejita just smiled sneeringly at Zarbon in turn, and kept his eyes low.
For now.
Now that they were off that annihilated planet and back on Frieza's ship, now that Vejita had found security in the art of repression and suppression and denial, he lost his need for Raditz' hair. He was awake now; didn't need to borrow away.
Raditz seemed simultaneously relieved and disappointed, because of course Raditz was scared and lost, too.
Goku wished he had stayed under that security blanket, because Vejita would have had at least one thing, one little thing, that was even remotely comforting.
Vejita trained every single day, never let himself rest, and yet still, as it had been for a while now, he didn't get stronger. Still stuck atop that same plateau, still unable to overcome it.
Nappa always tried to lift his spirits by uttering, "Stop worrying so much about it. You're so young; when you're older, you'll get stronger. Just wait."
He didn't wanna wait.
Wanted it now.
Children were not patient, and even though Nappa said 'wait', Vejita kept on pushing himself, hoping that it would just happen overnight, overcoming that barrier, and that miraculously one day he would just wake up stronger than Frieza.
Months came and went.
It was unclear to Goku whether or not Nappa and Raditz knew that Frieza had destroyed their home. Surely, as instantly as Vejita, they had suspected foul play, had wondered how a rock could have ever done them in, but maybe they just couldn't bring themselves to admit that they had been played and betrayed.
No one talked about it at all, and it truly was almost like it had simply never happened.
It was very likely that Frieza felt he had gotten away with it quite easily, because of course monkeys just weren't that smart.
Oh, if only Frieza had ever been able to see Vejita's mind and how razor-sharp it was.
Wouldn't have been smiling like that.
Frieza smiled and said 'Good evening, Vejita', and Vejita smiled so easily in turn and crooned back, 'Good evening, Lord Frieza', no bit of pleasantry missing in either of their false voices. Two foxes in a stand off across a frozen river, neither of them willing to make the first lunge forward lest the ice break beneath them.
The only thing Vejita feared was Frieza, and although he would have never admitted it of course the only thing Frieza had feared were the Saiyans.
They stood on either bank, and made no move.
Goku would never really understand why Frieza hadn't killed Vejita. Why he had allowed Vejita to live, when that worry must have been ever present for him. Perhaps Vejita had been just too useful, or perhaps Frieza didn't want to admit even to himself that he was leery of Vejita, and killing him when he had been a child would have made it obvious to everyone that he was afraid. Had a reputation to maintain, of course.
Whatever the reason, Frieza kept Vejita alive and well.
Vejita was seven all of a sudden, when Goku looked up. Still waiting for someone to come back. Still pretending. Still denying. Vejita was still working furiously on creating his own techniques every chance he got, because of course when that 'someone' came back, he would proudly show them off.
Goku's chest hurt all the time, and he wasn't sure if it was him or Vejita.
Frieza ever smiled at Vejita, as Zarbon sneered.
Another day, another planet, another war, another lie, and Vejita was eight. Eight years old, and Vejita could say that he had lived half of his life under Frieza's shadow. Sad.
That year, Nappa had some kind of midlife crisis, perhaps, because all three of them had been sitting on the ship, conversing as they waited for their destination to arrive, and abruptly Nappa had stood up and walked out. Vejita had watched him go, curiously, and some time passed.
When Nappa came back, Vejita tilted his head like a dog and stared, and Raditz drawled, "What happened to you? Get into a fight with a razor?"
Nappa's bright, shining head was certainly a point of interest.
Vejita uttered, before Nappa could speak, "Looks like it won."
Nappa merely narrowed his eyes, lifted up his chin, pursed his lips, and griped, "It was pissin' me off! I like it better this way. I've been meaning to do it forever."
Raditz was quite keen on it, bored to death no doubt on that long trip, and was very enthusiastic when he said, "I'm gonna call you gramps from now on."
Nappa's narrowed eyes were a warning, but Vejita just turned to Raditz and said, quite seriously, "You know, you would be a little quicker on your feet if you followed suit. That thing must weigh a ton."
That shut Raditz up fast enough, and Nappa was spared more teasing.
Nappa did look quite more intimidating with no hair, and perhaps that was what he had been hoping for.
It had been a tease, of course, but Vejita glanced over from time to time at Raditz' hair and hoped that he hadn't taken it seriously, that he wouldn't actually do it, because Raditz' hair had not only once been a source of comfort, but also because Raditz' pronounced widow's peak was just like his father's.
And perhaps, when it was all said and done, that was why Vejita had drifted to Raditz' hair in the first place, for that familiarity had been the only thing to cling to in that shock. Something just similar enough.
When the ship zoomed by the stars, Vejita sometimes glanced out of the window, and some part of him hoped that out in the distance he would see a great red planet.
He never did.
The universe seemed dull and muted, not bright and infinite as it had before. Without...
Vejita always pushed the thought away before it could ruin his world of make believe, and carried on.
All anyone could do, really, just carry on.
Goku wished he hadn't carried on then, wished he hadn't come at all in fact, when it finally came to pass. That unspeakable thing Goku had long feared, from the first minute a child had walked amongst mercenaries. He had fooled himself, somewhere back there, and had told himself that it would never happen. Goku had convinced himself of that, as much as Vejita had convinced himself that someone was still waiting for him.
They were good at lying to themselves, and coming to reality hurt.
Vejita was nine, the first time it happened.
Goku didn't know why he just hadn't seen it coming, why he had just somehow assumed tenacious Vejita was inexplicably immune from the worst evils in the universe, why it surprised him.
But, oh, how it took him so far aback the very first time a stronger soldier overpowered Vejita and pinned him down and took one of the very few innocences that Vejita actually had left.
Nine years old; incomprehensible.
Vejita hadn't been able to sleep, because he kept having nightmares about that, and so he had gone out in the middle of the night to the training room. He had only wanted to occupy his mind, and had made a terrible mistake. Middle of the night alone; it had just been bad luck.
How could he have known someone stronger than him was already using the training room?
There were so few people on this ship stronger than him. He had beat himself into the ground to make sure of that, but they existed yet, that handful, and Vejita happened to come across one of them.
In his daze, his sleep-shock, his desperation to escape nightmares, Vejita had just pressed the button to open the door, without even looking. Should have been able to hear that someone was already inside, but his mind was so far elsewhere that he didn't realize he wasn't alone until the door had slid down shut behind him.
The soldier glanced back, seemed startled, and then griped, "Get outta here. Can't you see I'm busy?"
As it always was, Vejita lashed out when scared and vulnerable, and his voice was very spiteful when he retorted, "You get out."
A scoff of disbelief, and Goku had already started squirming, just as he had that last time years ago when Vejita kept on digging his hole.
Never knew when to stop, never knew when to concede, never knew when to just turn around and walk away, because doing so would have made him feel weak, and feeling weak was Vejita's greatest fear.
The soldier turned around fully, and observed Vejita for the first time. Seemed more startled to realize that it was a child back-talking him, and then that smirk spread across his face.
Somehow, someway, Goku already knew what was going to happen.
Men alone in space, with free reign to do as they would, kept for long periods of time in one ship, imprisoned in a way, pent up and restless, and then to have a small child there; a recipe for absolute disaster.
The soldier crossed his arms over his chest, and Vejita, so desperate not to feel vulnerable, said again, "Get out. It's my turn."
The soldier didn't get out.
Rather the soldier took a step towards Vejita, and though Vejita didn't remember that 'incident' from years ago, it was still buried there, deep down, and Vejita's subconscious began sounding off the alarm. The hairs on the back of Vejita's neck stood on end, suddenly, as fear rushed up from the depths. Didn't know why, but knew suddenly that he needed to get out of here.
But, of course, by the time Vejita realized that he was in danger, it was too late.
Vejita turned on his heel and made for the button to open the door, but didn't make it; a hand in his collar stopped him short. A yank backwards, and Goku closed his eyes then in some stupid effort to not see. That was impossible, for Vejita's eyes were very wide open, in terror.
As it had been once before, someone stronger took advantage of someone smaller and weaker.
There was a reason that children and the elderly were the most vulnerable classes. Why other people preyed on them.
Time slowed down then, and senses dulled. Shutting down had protected Vejita after his father's death, and even though Vejita himself wasn't aware of it, it was happening again.
Fragments and confusion.
An incomplete picture.
When Vejita had been overpowered and pinned to the floor, when he couldn't move, when suddenly he was in pain, autopilot came on, as if a switch had been flipped.
Goku didn't know what to do, because there was nothing he could do, and honestly the act had forced him to shut down just as much as Vejita had. Didn't know what to do, and so Goku knelt down there next to the child, and even though he knew Vejita wasn't aware of him and that this was only a memory, Goku still reached out and grabbed Vejita's hand and clenched it. Held it the entire time, all those horrendous long minutes, never once let go, because it was all he could think of to do.
Vejita didn't cry.
Goku might have—couldn't remember.
There was nothing happening in Vejita's head, not really, everything had shut down defensively, and so it was just a great blur, and Goku would be eternally grateful for that. Not for himself, because sadly his own consciousness had made him far too very aware of every minute, but he was glad that at least the child seemed to have successfully blocked a good bit of it out.
Only one thought, in fact, crossed Vejita's mind, when the weight rolled off of him and cold air rushed in, when he sat up in a daze and looked around dumbly, when he mindlessly and clumsily dressed himself, when he stood up with a pang of pain and limped on down the hall. Just one thought :
Yet again, his 'guard' hadn't been there to protect him.
Never really there when Vejita needed him, always there when he didn't. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time. Useless and worthless and serving no purpose. And had Nappa actually been there, it occurred to a hurt and vulnerable Vejita, it actually wouldn't have mattered, for of course Vejita was stronger than Nappa. A guardian who couldn't guard, a protector who failed to protect, a shield that cracked with the softest blow, an attack dog that was muzzled.
Nappa had always been useless.
Vejita limped into his room, locked the door, and huddled down in the shower. He zoned out there under the hot water, sat down, wrapped his arms around his knees, and stayed there for hours.
A bit of a blank spot.
Once again, repression came to the child's aid.
Goku sat down on the foot of Vejita's bed that night and stared off into nothing, because it seemed that nothing was really all there was left. Darkness. Shadows. The great void beneath his feet. Everywhere Vejita looked, there was nothing, because he was nothing.
The next day, Vejita stayed in bed, burrowed under the blankets, and when Nappa came in to collect him, Vejita yet again withdrew when Nappa's hand was upon him. And, yet again, not-so-dumb Nappa understood, without a single word. Sometimes, with Saiyans, they didn't need to say anything at all, because they could smell it instead.
Nappa could smell it, had to have, for the utterly horrified look on his face had no other explanation.
Hard to say who looked worse then, when Nappa stole the spot at the end of Vejita's bed and stared at the wall in Goku's stead. If Vejita hated Nappa for failing to protect, then there was no doubt in Goku's mind, at that look on Nappa's face, that he hated himself just a little more.
Things were quiet for a few weeks.
At least amongst the trio; Vejita was ever more aloof, Nappa was dismal, and Raditz just seemed quite clueless but was silent because no one else was speaking.
Things were not so quiet in Vejita's room.
Odd sounds.
After that awful assault, that new trauma piled up onto everything else, Vejita suddenly began hearing things at night.
Something rustling.
Familiar sounds, brought up from the depths. Things he had forgotten, things he had pushed away, feelings he thought he had gotten rid of.
Maybe because Vejita had buried the abuse so deeply and so fervently that there hadn't been any more room and so the fear of someone else was pushed up to the surface. Couldn't block out everything, not everything, and in annihilating the memory of assault, Vejita began to remember someone that had once wanted to kill him.
Someone that he should have been the safest with.
Goku couldn't remember the exact day it had started. A week or two, maybe, after the 'incident', when Vejita woke up abruptly in the middle of the night yet again. This time, because some noise had startled him awake. A cold sweat, a panic, another awful terror that made every hair on his body stand up, and Vejita looked around the room and listened.
A rustle, soft and barely audible.
Vejita's gaze snapped over to the dresser in the corner, and he stared at it with the widest eyes Goku had ever seen.
Absolutely petrified, and didn't know why.
From within the dresser, there was another rustle, a shuffle, as if something were moving around in there. A buried memory from long ago, of being inside the dresser himself. Seemed someone else was in there now, and Vejita burrowed under the blanket and squinted his eyes and clenched his teeth, clinging to his pillow and trying so hard then not to cry.
Sometimes, being a child was terrifying. Everything seemed so scary, and there was no reason at all.
Vejita heard noises from within the dresser, and couldn't sleep.
Chichi had once ran her fingers through Gohan's hair and convinced him that there wasn't really a monster under the bed, but no one was here to soothe Vejita.
Time dragged, miserably, as Vejita had more trouble sleeping with every month that passed.
The circles under his eyes were dark, and sometimes Nappa asked, "How are you sleeping?"
Vejita shrugged a shoulder, because he was too proud to admit that he was scared to sleep.
If Vejita could have swallowed his pride, for just a moment, Goku was certain that Nappa would have happily pulled off a Chichi and convinced Vejita that there actually wasn't anything inside the dresser. But Vejita suffered in silence, as always, and didn't say a word.
Vejita bowed to his superiors, abased himself for them; could never turn to his own people and do that, could never turn to Nappa and admit he was afraid, because Nappa and Raditz were supposed to look to him to lead.
Nappa just watched him, morosely, and did his best.
Not enough.
Vejita was ten; once more, Nappa wasn't there when Vejita needed him, and that time Vejita wasn't angry about it because he had long since stopped expecting anything useful from Nappa.
At times, Goku did wish that Vejita could actually be aware of and comprehend the fact that if huge Nappa hadn't been so frequently beside of him, Vejita would have lost that last bit of himself so much sooner. Wished that it had actually clicked in Vejita's head that nothing bad had ever happened to him when Nappa was beside of him.
Vejita was a child, and so no one could blame him, really, for how he felt.
Every night, it seemed the rustling inside the dresser grew louder. Sometimes, Vejita was very certain that the dresser actually shook a little.
Still, he was too stubborn to crawl into Nappa's arms.
Vejita was eleven; that year, Zarbon was the one in the right place at the right time, like before. And, just like before, somehow it was worse being saved by Zarbon than it was to be held down.
That time, Vejita had been zoned out into his safe space, head empty and eyes unfocused, as a hand clenched his hair and pressed his head into the floor so firmly that his cheek and eye had bruised. Thoughtless, entirely blank, just pursing his lips and waiting for everything to fall still. Waiting; the story of Vejita's life, it seemed.
And everything did fall suddenly still, as it always eventually did.
But that time, instead of the weight above rolling off of him, it collapsed atop him. The wind was momentarily knocked out of him from the force, and it had taken Goku a very long time to even know what was happening, because Vejita had been nearly comatose and so to be aware of the surroundings was nearly impossible.
And by now, of course, Goku had very happily let Vejita's autopilot take as much control as possible, for Goku was just as unable to cope with everything as Vejita.
A long moment of immobility, as his chest clenched, and then the weight rolled off him as it always had. It took Vejita and Goku a while to realize that it was only because Zarbon had kicked the offending soldier right off of him, after having knocked him unconscious.
Cold air, somehow still less unpleasant than flipping himself over to see Zarbon staring down at him.
Alertness returned, now that everything was over. Autopilot was turned off, the switch flipped, the lights came on, Vejita woke up, and regretted it.
Hated that it was always Zarbon that saw him in his most vulnerable moments, when it was Zarbon almost more than Frieza that shaped Vejita's fate. Frieza was too busy, too important, too high and mighty to deal with everything beneath him, and so Zarbon's good graces were what Vejita needed to survive.
Not good impressions he had made so far.
There was no expression at all upon Zarbon's face, as utterly blank as Vejita, and there was a very awkward, very long silence before Zarbon abruptly averted his eyes, turned his back on Vejita, and said, softly, "Get dressed."
Vejita did.
When everything was quiet again, Zarbon turned back around, and his face was yet unreadable. Vejita didn't look up at him, not because he was ashamed exactly, but because he had been weak and had lost and didn't feel like being lectured.
He was in pain and just wanted to go to sleep.
Wasn't sure if it was his body or his pride that was aching like that, though, when Zarbon suddenly grabbed his upper arm and walked him down the hall.
The first time that Zarbon had walked him down the hall, not dragged him.
Surreal.
Goku stood back at the end of the hall, watching, because he was too dazed and dumb to even lift his feet to follow. It wasn't even until Vejita and Zarbon had rounded the corner that Goku moved, dragged along against his will by Vejita's memories.
Zarbon's grip was very gentle, and would have been easily broken out of if Vejita had had half a mind to.
Vejita didn't have any mind at all at that moment, and didn't even realize he had reached his room until Zarbon stopped walking.
Zarbon didn't let him go, and Vejita stared at the door so potently that Goku was shocked it hadn't burst into flames.
An eternity of silence, as if Zarbon were composing his words up in his head and testing them all out before he dared utter them aloud, and yet it seemed to serve little purpose, for Zarbon only asked, bluntly, "Is this the first time?"
Vejita was tellingly silent.
Goku thought he saw a crinkle of Zarbon's brow, cast quickly back under that blankness.
Oh, had there ever been a worse silence?
Goku crossed his arms and turned his back to them, staring at the wall as his own mind threatened to just go dark. Wanted to forget any of these past years had ever happened, wanted to wake up the next morning and be back home, wanted to be safe and sound and with people he knew and trusted, and above all else he wanted to wake up and see that Vejita was no longer this frightened little child.
Wanted to somehow break out through the walls of Vejita's head and find Chichi and Gohan and get them out of here, for never should any of them have set a single foot here. No one should have ever ventured here, and only now in hindsight was it so obvious.
A short, clipped sigh, and then Zarbon reached out and grabbed Vejita's chin to force his head up.
Somehow, Vejita had just enough sense left to meet Zarbon's golden eyes and actually see him.
Zarbon held Vejita's gaze, unblinkingly, eyes sharp and stern, but his voice was soft when he uttered, very calmly, "I cannot put you under constant surveillance. You do know this? You're on your own here. I told you this long ago. I cannot and will not be your guard. Don't ever expect me to be, and never ask me to save you, when you know I can't. I cannot help you. I'm not your father. You have to learn to help yourself. Everyone here is alone. We don't protect the weak here. Don't ask it of me."
Ask it of him?
Ha—!
Vejita would quite literally rather have died than ever gone to Zarbon 'asking' for help, and there was nothing more infuriating in that moment than having Zarbon dare bring up the word 'father'.
The words lit him up, brought life back into him, forced him to focus, forced him to think, forced him to feel, and oh, did Vejita ever feel then, as he bristled up with absolute electricity and locked eyes with Zarbon as a tiger would have locked eyes with the bear.
Felt, alright.
Hate.
Perhaps Zarbon had meant it to be somehow comforting, maybe Zarbon as before was just trying to help in his own way, trying to keep that fire under Vejita lit. In that, he succeeded, for Vejita's chest was very much burning when he wrenched his arm suddenly out of Zarbon's careful grip.
Zarbon's brow lifted, as if taken aback a bit.
And Goku couldn't help but wonder then, in Zarbon's expression, if maybe Zarbon had wanted Vejita to come crying to him, to beg him for protection, if Zarbon had hoped that the child had broken at long last, if Zarbon had thought he would see the last prince of this race crumble.
If Zarbon thought he had finally won.
Hardly; there was a hell of a lot more fight left in Vejita, and Vejita made sure to let Zarbon know it.
A low, very fervent oath :
"I don't need anything from you. I don't want anything from you. I will never ask anything of you. Not you. One day, you'll come to me. You'll see."
Zarbon's look of surprise very quickly turned into amusement, and Zarbon merely smiled. A sneer of satisfaction, perhaps, that the game with the monkey would keep on going.
"We shall see, indeed."
Yes, they would.
Zarbon looked Vejita up and down, ever smiling, shook his head to himself, and then simply walked away.
Vejita stomped inside his room and slammed the door behind him, sat down in the shower, and glared lasers at the wall for hours.
It was a bit strange to Goku that Vejita never once felt hate, exactly, for the soldiers that abused him, never really even remembered them, never dwelled on them personally, sometimes didn't even recognize them the next time he crossed paths with them.
Goku committed every single one of the creeps to memory, memorized every face and every detail, for one day he would pay them a visit if they were still living, one way or another.
But Vejita didn't care about them at all, and in some way Vejita didn't even seem to really blame them for what they did. In Vejita's mind, every single thing that happened here happened because of Frieza, and therefore because of Zarbon. Those two held all of Vejita's ire, all of Vejita's hate, all of Vejita's blame.
Without them, after all, he would have yet been sitting safely at home.
If Vejita was weak and some other soldiers took advantage of that, then he didn't hold it against the soldiers but rather their master.
Had Goku known, back then, the true extent of the reign of terror Frieza had wreaked upon the universe, he wouldn't have given him that lifeline, that chance to just walk away. Wouldn't have tried to let him live, if he had been able to really comprehend the chaos and destruction to countless peoples Frieza had brought down.
Goku always had been blissfully and often willfully ignorant.
And as for Zarbon...
Goku was very uncertain about what, precisely, Zarbon wanted.
Perhaps even Zarbon didn't know.
Zarbon was an odd creature that seemed to want to play villain and hero at the same time, wanted to be both dragon and knight, sun and moon, and with Vejita was unable to determine which role he preferred. Zarbon hated the Saiyans, fervently so, and yet something about Vejita held Zarbon back. Maybe because Vejita was a prince, which brought out Zarbon's inner knight, maybe because Vejita was so small, which brought out Zarbon's inner hero, or maybe because Vejita was night, and so Zarbon was tempted to be day.
There were times when Goku looked at very prissy, prim, educated, intelligent Zarbon, and wondered where he had come from and why. Wondered, even, if maybe back on his own planet Zarbon had been a prince himself, and that was why he didn't hurt Vejita.
A courtesy from one royal to another.
Vejita didn't care who Zarbon was, who he had been or who he could be, where he had come from—Vejita just wanted Zarbon to be the one on his knee bowing and begging, wanted Zarbon to be the one scared, and above all else wanted to be the one who made Zarbon that way.
One day.
Zarbon would come crawling to him one day, of that he swore.
Until then, Vejita hibernated.
Vejita was twelve; same old power level, same old disappointment, same old rut. Furiously running only to be going absolutely nowhere. Hating himself almost as much as he hated Zarbon, because he couldn't ever make Zarbon kneel if he couldn't even get strong enough to outrank all of the soldiers on this ship.
This wasn't even a fraction of Frieza's army, was a literal drop in the ocean, and still Vejita couldn't overcome them all.
The road before him felt so long, and that was why, in the end, someone had wrapped their hands around his throat.
He shouldn't have fought against that attempt at mercy.
That year, on an assignment, they had encountered another very strong people, another real challenge, and Raditz had been so out of place and so scared that he had frozen up and nearly gotten himself killed. Nappa had saved him, at the last breath, and had gotten so injured doing so that Vejita had actually thought Nappa was going to die. And that had terrified him, more than he had ever expected, because though he resented Nappa there was no one else out there that even wanted to try to protect him.
Vejita had paced the ship furiously on the way back to base, frazzled and harried and checking in every two minutes to make sure that Nappa hadn't stopped breathing. Goku felt distressed, too, because Nappa just smiled away even as he clung to life, because any time Vejita showed Nappa concern or care Nappa felt vindicated and useful, despite his failures.
Sad.
Vejita's sentiments for Nappa were as much like the ocean as Frieza's force, always rising and falling, sometimes calm and content and then other times overcome by the great storm.
For now, though, Vejita wasn't ready to lose Nappa, or Raditz for that matter, though Raditz was considerably less important. He didn't, not that time, for Nappa survived the journey back and was put in the regeneration tank. Before long he was as good as new, and Vejita was envious that Nappa came out of that tank far stronger.
No matter how close he came to dying, Vejita just couldn't get stronger, and that seemed horrifically unfair.
And then, one dreary morning, Goku woke up and Vejita was thirteen.
In Earthling years, he was officially a teenager. In Saiyan years, he was anything but, hadn't grown even a centimeter over the past two years, still looked eight years old.
The only thing that had grown over the years, in fact, was Vejita's unbridled fear of his long deceased mother. It seemed that every year, it got worse. More frequent. More terrifying.
It was that thirteenth year when Vejita had the first true night terror.
Goku wasn't sure if it was a night terror, really, or a hallucination, a fragment of a traumatized psyche, just Vejita's damages manifesting themselves in some manner, or, hell, maybe it really was a ghost. Didn't know, and didn't care; just knew that one night, everything had suddenly crashed down around Vejita's feet.
When Vejita's mother at last came to truly haunt him.
The rustling from the dresser had ever been intensifying, had grown louder and louder every year, then one night, during a fitful, fearful, restless sleep, Vejita was awoken with a gasp by a loud 'thunk'. He bolted up at the waist, breathing through his mouth, and his eyes instantly flew to the dresser, for long now had it been tormenting him.
Something was different this night, and it was obvious right away when the ever-rustling dresser suddenly started shaking, just a bit. As if something were trapped within and trying to escape.
Vejita's eyes were locked onto that dresser, and Goku shuddered as the dresser suddenly fell utterly still, as still as Vejita.
A long, awful, dreadful silence.
No one had ever stared at anything as helplessly as Vejita stared at that dresser.
The silence was broken at last by another sound. A new sound.
The hair-raising grating of fingernails scraping down wood.
Vejita was hopelessly immobile, entirely petrified, and indeed every single hair on his body had stood completely upright, his tail had bristled out as much as was possible, eyes locked and pupils completely dilated. Couldn't even tremble, he was so frozen, and then a drawer suddenly shuddered. An awful scrape, scratching, shuffling, shifting, and then the dresser drawer began to push itself open ever so slightly.
Goku's eyes were locked there, too, and the utter and abject terror then was one of the more remarkable things Goku had ever felt, if only for the sheer force of it. Never had he felt that, never, had never even known someone could actually feel that scared.
That it came from a man Goku had long admired for being fearless was all the more remarkable.
The dresser drawer pushed open just a little more, and Vejita stopped breathing without realizing it. His vision was blurry suddenly, as water rushed into his eyes with a sting, as horror brought up the primal urge to cry.
Another shuffle, another push, and the drawer was open enough for fingers to poke out.
Gods above—
At the sight of them, Vejita actually exhaled, audibly and with a strangled noise that was little more than a breaking gasp. Couldn't run away, because he couldn't move.
The fingers gripped the edge of the drawer, and fell momentarily still, then another hand slowly emerged from the darkness beside of it.
In the pitch-black of the shadows in the corner of the room, the drawer pushed open a little more, and from within the crack, dark hair appeared. Pooled out, almost, rose out of the crack and spilled over, hair as black as the shadows around it.
As the hair fell all around those awful fingers, Vejita felt the first tremor. His immobility broke, as he started shaking, trembling, quivering, and that was perhaps the very first time that Goku had looked at Vejita and saw just a normal little kid. Nothing special, nothing otherworldly.
Just a kid.
Saw Gohan, shaking and crying and hiding under Chichi when the fear took hold.
Goku wished then that he had tried a little harder, for as Vejita started trembling it was so painfully obvious that he still wanted his father to come and save him from his mother. Wished, for the first time, that Goku had bothered to be the one to hold Gohan's hand instead of always letting Chichi do it.
From within the hair, behind it and yet also in front of it, a pair of eyes opened, as black as everything else.
Indescribable terror.
Eyes, glinting from within the darkness, unblinking.
Low, uneven, garbled humming, echoing somehow all around him in the empty room.
Vejita didn't find the power or ability to move until, beneath the eyes, there came the glint of teeth, breaking out into a smile. At that awful sight, the spell suddenly broke, for Vejita was so scared then that he simply wasn't able to remain frozen, not when every last cell in his body was screaming at him to get out of that room.
To get away from his mother.
Danger.
With a burst of adrenaline, Vejita leapt out of bed, tangled himself in the blanket and fell onto the floor, squirmed frantically out, and ran to the door. And how Goku felt petrified himself, for to get to the door the child had to run by that dresser.
Swore that those fingers had grasped out for his neck as Vejita bolted past.
He made it, one way or another, and skidded into the hall.
Vejita had no conscious thoughts then, led on once again by latent instincts. Didn't understand what was happening, no, didn't know if he was awake or dreaming or dead or somewhere in between, just knew he needed to find someone else, because if he was alone again his mother would finally succeed in what he had failed in doing twice before.
Nappa was his guardian, and one who had always failed in guarding, and so Vejita couldn't go to him. Would have served no purpose. Instead, Vejita darted silently into Raditz' room, fueled only by terror, made a beeline for the bed, jumped in and under the covers, and crawled immediately under Raditz' hair as he had in his most vulnerable moments.
Pride be damned.
Raditz awoke with his own fright, bolted upright at the waist with a gasp, and it took Raditz' sleep-shocked brain a moment to comprehend.
Vejita was shaking, and Goku could see his brother push back some of his hair to get a glimpse at the child beneath. A long study, a long stare, a long silence, and then Raditz, no doubt seeing Vejita's silent fear, merely laid back down without a single word, covering Vejita and leaving him be.
It was all for the best, for if Raditz had asked, 'What's wrong?' what could Vejita have said?
'I'm scared of my mother'?
Made no sense at all, least of all to Vejita.
He didn't sleep that night, burrowed underneath and inside of Raditz' hair, clenching handfuls and breathing as quietly as he could so that his mother wouldn't hear him and know where he was.
The longest night of his life.
When morning at last came, it was hardly less frightening, because in space of course there was no sun, only perpetual night, black, but Raditz was awake and so was everyone else, so at least the ghost wouldn't come out then, surely.
Raditz clearly wanted to ask, but knew better, and Vejita left his room without having uttered one single word.
Just tried to carry on without cracking under the pressure.
Raditz must have said something to Nappa, because sometimes, after that, in the middle of the night Vejita would wake up in terror to a sound, only to see Nappa poking his head in to make sure all was well.
Each time, Nappa would ask, 'Do you want me to stay?'
Depending on how badly the dresser was shaking, Vejita's answer to Nappa's question varied.
Sometimes, if he thought he saw hair poking out of a gap in the drawer or a glint in the dark, Vejita would nod his head, and Nappa would come in and sit on the edge of the bed until Vejita fell asleep.
Nothing seemed to make his mother go away, and Vejita was truly helpless in that aspect, for even if he managed to get stronger than Frieza and Zarbon combined, what would it matter if the person he most feared was already dead?
Vejita stared at the shadows under the dresser every night, and felt only terror.
No matter how hard Goku held his hand, that fear never went away.
Fingernails.