When I had a Heart
000
For the third time since his wife and son had left for the day, Vegeta found himself outside, staring into the sky. He hated the prickling sensation working its way down the back of his neck and spreading into his shoulders. It was a sense of something approaching, something familiar and something unwanted. Not matter how hard he hoped that it would not arrive, he knew that it was only a matter of time before it was no longer approaching and would be, instead, standing before him.
In a flash, the terrible sensation was gone. He felt absolutely nothing for the first time in days. It did not bring him any comfort. If she wasn't using her power any longer, then it could only mean…
"It was harder to find you than I thought."
Vegeta clenched his jaw and turned around slowly, willing to show his uninvited guest his surprise. She was lounging on bench—his bench!—as if she belonged there. Her eyes flicked up and down his body, seemingly appraising him, and her lips briefly twitched upward in a smile.
"You've gotten old."
"And you're just the same," Vegeta replied, his voice near a snarl. Though he may have had a general dislike for most people, there were those he disliked more. She was one of them.
That woman…she was infuriating! He had hoped that he had seen the last of her back on Planet Vegeta, and yet she had the gall to track him down on his new home and… and bask in his backyard! It was unacceptable. She needed to leave.
"I'm taking a vacation," she said with a sigh and looked away from him, watching as a pair of sparrows flitted about in a nearby birdbath. Her gold and white, dress-like robes glittered in the sunlight, making her look almost god-like. Well, he supposed, he should hardly have been surprised at that. "I thought a quaint planet such as this might be just perfect. I was terribly surprised when I sensed someone familiar here."
Vegeta scowled and crossed his arms. "I somehow doubt that… And what, exactly, are you taking a vacation from? Hm? I'm sure it's just exhausting ruling over your planet of gold—gold and corpses."
He watched as one of her eyebrows twitched and she tapped a finger against the back of the bench. He was sure it struck a nerve, and yet it did not change her aloof demeaner. Just like before.
Why was it that the most unpleasant memories were often the ones most vivid? He had very few memories of his parents, but he certainly remembered his first meeting with her.
His betrothed.
He was only five years old the first time they had met. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen—he hadn't understood what a betrothal was, but he knew that she brought with her enough gold to send more Saiyans out against Freiza. Even as a child, he recognized the darkness in her. Not even a few months before Vegeta was sent out to Freiza a trade, she took out a unit of his father's best men without even lifting her finger.
The image of her sitting in his father's throne, a silver sword across her lap as a room full of Saiyan men tore each other apart would never leave him.
It wouldn't be until years later that she explained herself, or, she believed she explained herself, at least. Vegeta hardly found her pitiful excuse reasonable enough to forgive her for the hand she played in the destruction of his home.
The second time he met her was when he was about thirteen. Vegeta didn't even remember the planet he was on, but it didn't last long against his team. The natives were slaughtered one by one, too weak to defend themselves. He followed them as they fled his wrath—followed them into an old temple and watched as they bowed before her, begging her to save them.
She didn't save them, she didn't even try.
Part of him had wanted her to fight back, to give him the worthy fight he was looking for. Part of him thought that if she had been strong enough to be the one time future Queen of Vegeta, then perhaps she was strong enough to put a dent in Frieza's forces. It was wishful thinking, however, because she did nothing as Vegeta and his team picked off the weak natives one by one in front of her. Once she was surrounded by bodies, she merely stood and walked by him, her knuckles grazing his cheek.
"It's yours," she had said, "there's nothing for me here."
Vegeta balled one of his hands into a fist, hiding it beneath his crossed arms. He briefly wondered if he was strong enough to take the woman on himself now—or at least knock her down a peg. It seemed she was contemplating the same thing.
"Do you want to know why it took me so long to find you?" She asked lightly, looking at him once more. "Your aura's drastically changed since last we met. It's stronger now, more vibrant. It took a few tries, but I was finally able to narrow in on that particular darkness of yours—oh yes, it's still there, but rather diminished… Is this your home? Why, it looks so… normal. If I were to guess, I would say a family lived here."
Vegeta didn't need to read into her words too deeply to see the provocation. What did she want him to do? Light her up in his backyard? As much as he would have truly enjoyed that, he knew it was useless and he certainly wasn't intended to give her a boost of energy.
The third and last time he had run into her was just a few years before Vegeta chose to rebel against Frieza. Very rarely was given a challenging mission and that particular one ended up being a rouse—it seemed more designed for humiliation than anything. There had been a convenient malfunction in his ship, leading to a crash landing on his targeted planet. He, Nappa, and Raditz were retrieved from the wreckage by the locals and stripped of their belongings. When they awoke for the first time after the crash, they found themselves chained and in the center of a pit.
He remembered it very clearly. Bound in chains that even he could not break, surrounded by masked faces staring down at him, holding number fans. It had taken him a few minutes to realize that he was in an auction house.
"Ah, see? There you have it. The Saiyan is not dead!" There had been laughs and jeers as he struggled, shouting, cursing, and growling at the audience. Bidding had started immediately after, and though he had no concept of that world's currency, it seemed that many in the crowd wished to have one of the last Saiyans as a pet. A war had broken out between a grey, bird masked woman and a man covered in all black. It only ended when a woman in gold doubled their bidding price, calling an end to the auction. Of course, no money would ever be exchanged. Vegeta recalled hearing the screaming as explosions started outside of the building and the walls began to shake. His rescue had arrived.
Large stone chunks had started to break from the ceiling and tall pillars began to topple. He likely would have been crushed, since he was left behind while the bidders fled the building, had the woman in the gold mask not appeared in front of him. She held a staff topped with an eight-pointed star, which she used to break his chains. Vegeta, being the man he is, did not hesistate to attempt to blow a hole through her. Though the beam caused her to stumble back while her dress singed, it left behind no obvious signs of a wound.
"I'm trying to help you, you fool," she had snapped at him as she broke the chains at his ankles. "Do you wish to rejoin your friends or not?"
As much as Vegeta would have liked to have disagreed, he had no clothes and no form of communication to tell his rescue party to stop attacking the building. He growled at her as his fingers twitched, wanting very much to try to put a hole in the woman again, but reluctantly agreed. Once he found Nappa and Raditz, he could try to destroy the woman.
He followed the woman into a door to his right and took out anyone who dared stand in their way. Looking back on it, Vegeta felt rather stupid for how long it had taken him to figure out who his savior was. However, he hadn't seen the woman in over a decade, so why should she have been one of the first people he thought about? The gaudy mask should have given her away.
He remembered grabbing her by the back of the hair as soon as he realized who she was. She screamed as he pulled her backwards and shoved her against one of the shaking stone walls. "Why is it that I have now met you three times? For as vast as the universe is, it hardly seems likely." He had his forearm across her collarbone as he pointed his finger at her temple and prepared to blast her brains out. She had hardly seemed phased.
"The Fates are funny that way, I suppose. Again, I'm helping you—"
"Were you helping when you massacred over a dozen of my father's men in his throne room?" He had snapped at her, the ball of energy growing brighter. Her eyes narrowed and she practically sneered at him.
"I did nothing than offer them incentive. I merely suggested that I was looking for a particularly special Saiyan, one whom I would grant the wonders of the Aeterna empire to, should he be found. They were the ones who believed I meant 'the strongest.' I did not tell them to fight each other to the death to prove themselves."
He had heard enough. He released the energy beam, intending for it to take her head clean off. To his surprise, it did not. The force jolted her head to the side and the smell of burning hair flooded his nostrils, but she remained perfectly intact otherwise. As he stared at her in shock, he failed to take alarm as her green eyes glowed brilliantly and her body started to increase in temperature. It wasn't until he could feel his flesh searing that he released her and stepped away.
"If you're quite finished, then I suggest we continue so we can leave before the building comes down around us."
In the end, she did help Vegeta find Nappa and Raditz, and they were able to retrieve their gear just before the Ginyu force arrived to 'rescue' them. Vegeta learned after the fact that he was always meant to fail, and his 'rescue' was to be nothing more than a humiliation tactic as punishment for a previous botched mission. The Ginyu force was to rescue him while he was bound and naked, and use that image to torment him for some time afterwards. Of course, that part never came to pass because of the interfering woman. Regardless, Frieza used his capture as further excuse to publicly abuse him, though that was hardly anything unusual during his time as a slave.
It wouldn't be until a few years later that Vegeta ever found reference to the Aeterna Empire. It had been an extremely wealthy and powerful intergalactic empire which ruled for nearly a millennium until a sudden darkness destroyed all of the inhabitants on the capitol planet, Aurilius. The empire fell, though rumors said that their ruler had lived and was known to make appearances when she grew bored of her solitude. No one knew her name, and so, she was merely called the Sovereign.
Just his luck that she would be before him for the fourth time when she most who ever saw her once would never see her again.
"Why are you here?" Vegeta growled, taking a step forward. The woman looked vaguely amused as she shrugged.
"Oh, you know why. It's the same reason I showed up on Planet Vegeta almost half a century ago."
Half a century-? He supposed it had been that long. Well if he hadn't felt old before, what with looking at her unchanging features, he certainly felt old now. "And what was that? To find you special Saiyan?" His voice came out as nearly a sneer. Surely if there was some sort of special Saiyan left, it would be him, as the Prince… She couldn't have meant Kakarrot, could she have? That was the last thing he needed: yet another reason for Kakarrot to think himself better.
"Well," the woman shrugged, "if he currently exists, this planet seems to be my best shot at finding him. There's a handful of you here, if I'm not mistaken."
Immediately, Vegeta's mind went to his son—his only son. If there was even a chance that she could take him from Vegeta, well… He took another two steps towards her, his arms at his sides and both of his fists clenched. He felt the air around him start to move as his energy started to rise. "If you think for one second I'm going to let you anywhere near my family—"
"You'll what? Blast me into oblivion? Tear me apart, limb from limb? What do you think that you can do to me that someone else hasn't tried? Please, Vegeta, I have over two millenniums on you. I've been through it all, and I'm still here."
He didn't care one bit what anyone else had tried. He was sure that she had never run into anyone like him, now that he was in some of the best shape of his life. Without a second though, he had a powerful ki blast in his hand and he was ready to—
"Daddy!"
Vegeta froze, inches away from at least trying to blow the woman up, as well as half of his back yard. Had he not stopped when he did, disaster may have ensued. Bulla slid open the back door and skipped out into the backyard.
"I got Trunks a birthday present! It's a shirt. He rips his as fast as you do—what are you doing?"
Vegeta held the ki blast in his hand, looking between his daughter and the dark haired woman on the bench, who merely looked up at him with a raised brow.
"Momma's gonna be really made at you for training outside. You know how mad she was when you blew up the garden. She likes to smoke on that bench. Why do you wanna blow it up anyhow? Did it give you a splinter?" Bulla asked, swinging her shopping bag in front of her and tilting her head to the side.
"She can't see me," the woman said with a small smile. "So you have a daughter? I find that… shocking actually. Shall I show myself to her? Ask her to invite me inside?"
"Go back inside, Bulla," Vegeta called out lowly, signally he should not be disobeyed. However, being Bulma's daughter, of course the girl didn't move. "I said get back inside!"
Bulla stamped her foot and twirled around, slamming the door so hard that as it slid closed, it bounced back open again.
The woman ignored the ki blast staring her down in the fact and picked a small leaf from her lap, tossing it to the grown beside her. "I would like a place to stay. I do not intend to make an impact on this little world, so I would prefer not to integrate myself with someone important… is this state a—" she waved her a hand a bit, as if searching for the right words, "—a democracy? I see no signs that would indicate there is a ruler… Not matter, I don't particularly care…"
Vegeta let the energy in his hand dissipate before he pinched the bridge of his nose. "You can't honestly believe I would voluntarily house you, can you?"
"Well… You could accept me with open arms, or I could wait for your wife—or is it mate?—to come home. I can imagine it now, 'why, yes, Lady Vegeta, I was your husband's betrothed and as he is still claiming to be the heir to Planet Vegeta, that treaty still stands and—"
"Enough!" Vegeta snarled. He wanted to hit something, he wanted to hit something hard. He really needed to make his way back to the training room so beat some of the robots to a pulp. If he broke something outside, or in the house for that matter, he would never hear the end of it from his bloody wife! "I don't believe for one second that you would attempt to collect on that contract and—"
"No, of course not," she said with a laugh, "I knew long ago that you weren't the one I was looking for… And so long as you accommodate me, I promise I will not interfere with you family."
Vegeta clenched his jaw and looked away, staring at a nearby juniper bush. He briefly wondered if the amount of yelling her would get for blowing it up was worth it… It was. He threw his hand out to the side and with one quick blast, it was gone, leaving behind nothing but a pit of dirt. Well, that made him feel at least a little bit better.
"You will be nothing but a humble, considerate guest while you're under my roof," Vegeta said, pointing a finger at her for emphasis. "You will not cause trouble for me or mine. Once you find that the person you're looking for isn't here, you will leave at once."
He could see the thoughts running behind her eyes as she looked for loopholes. However she jumped up, a smile on her face, and her hands at her hips. "Agreed. Oh, this should be such a wonderful vacation. You Saiyans are great fun."
000
Author's Notes: and with that, we will see if I update again. It was rather hard to finish this, which is not a good sign on chapter two. I hope I will get a wave of inspiration to finish it. A few notes: I am going off of the pre-Super birthdates to figure everything out. I tried to do some extensive research to get the ages correct. I know that in Super, Pan is older than Bulla/Bra. In this, I am going with the original birth years, which makes Bulla a year older than Pan, and twelve years younger than Trunks. At this point, for those curious, I calculate Vegeta to be fifty-five, and Goku to be fifty—obviously not factoring in any deaths and hyperbolic time chamber adjustments.
I would like to give ZFJ a special thank you for being my first reviewer! I honestly wasn't expecting any on this story, so that is pleasant surprise! Thank you for reading!
Ever Your Servant,
A.F