A/N: Wow, how time flies. I'm in for the long haul. I hope you guys are as well.

DISCLAIMER: I once owned my sanity. It's since dispelled.

Kami, it was amazing.

She had been watching Gohan and Goku's spar for the past twenty minutes with veneration. Standing beside her on the Son lawn was Yamcha, who dared not interrupt the father and son duo.

There was something about watching her best friend fight that made Bulma's insides quiver in excitement. Or was it fear? She was always impressed by Goku's power, his energy. But most of all she was astounded by how someone so strong, so fierce, could at the same time be so gentle and good-natured.

Goku was going at an excellent pace. His fists were invisible to Bulma whose eyes were not trained to see things going at such rapid paces. She clasped her hands together and squealed.

"Oh, Yamcha! This is so exhilarating!"

Her boyfriend wrapped an arm around her pulled her closer.

"Yeah. Look at that kid go!"

Eight-year-old Gohan, a molded carbon copy of his mother, was appearing and disappearing, moving almost as quickly as his father was. Bulma could hardly contain herself.

"Woo!" she shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth. "You go guys! Yeah!"

Gohan threw a wild punch and Goku blocked it expertly. He fizzled out of the air and then reappeared behind his son who was knocked to the ground- hard.

Bulma winced. But Gohan merely stood up, brushed off his knees, and went at his father again.

"I've never seen anyone so determined," Bulma told Yamcha, grinning as she watched her best friend and his son.

"Hey!" Yamcha exclaimed, pulling away from her so that he could look down at her. "What about me?"

Bulma furrowed her brow and placed her hands on her hips. "Gee, Yamcha. Someone's testy today."

He scrunched up his mouth at the corners in an endearing fashion Bulma had grown to love, but now found aggravating.

"I'm not testy," Yamcha said, turning so that he could watch the spar above their heads. "I just wouldn't mind a little encouragement from you every now and then."

Bulma glared at him even though he wasn't looking at her. "Encouragement?"

"Face it Bulma," Yamcha told her in a voice slightly louder than usual. "You practically emasculated me in from of Vegeta the other day."

This sudden outburst of information startled the young woman, and she gave Yamcha a scathing look.

"What are you talking about, Yamcha?"

Overhead Gohan blocked a large energy beam and sent it flying past Goku and into a tree. Birds scrambled out of the tree and absconded into the sky, squawking.

"Sorry guys!" Gohan shouted at the heated couple.

Yamcha waved it off, and then looked at Bulma somewhat dejectedly. "You said that without Vegeta's help, Goku wouldn't be able to take on those Androids. I happen to think that I'll be a big help too, Bulma. I've been training just as hard as they have."

"You were sitting on my couch watching TV this morning."

"I was taking-a-break," Yamcha said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "A guy needs to rest every now and then."

Bulma could feel a headache coming. Her eyes were beginning to hurt. After such a nice morning together, she was annoyed that Yamcha would pick a fight. She decided that just this once, she would let Yamcha win an argument.

Then she decided against it.

"Well if you're so important," she said to her boyfriend, her index finger waving dangerously in front of his face, "why don't you go up there and train with them, huh?"

Yamcha turned his nose up at her. "Maybe I don't feel like it anymore."

She raised an eyebrow at him, and he slouched, his eyes lowered.

"Alright, alright. Don't give me that look," Yamcha said, shaking his head. "It's just… sometimes I feel useless. Like I'm not even necessary."

He looked so dejected that Bulma bit her tongue. When Yamcha sighed, she grabbed his arm and said sternly, "Don't think like that. You are not useless."

"Vegeta seems to think so."

She sighed. "Since when has Vegeta's opinion mattered to anyone?"

The statement fed directly into his ego and he ventured a smile. Like that, their argument was over. "Thanks, babe."

Bulma leaned into him and he wrapped his arms around her. Men were so easy to figure out.

"WOMAN!"

Well, normal men anyway.

Yamcha felt Bulma stiffen in his arms. He knew what was coming and tried to stop it before it occurred.

"No, Bulma," he said, tightening his grip on her, "don't-"

But it was to no avail. Vegeta was hovering a few feet off of the ground diametrically in front of them. And when he landed, it was obvious that he was angry, and his anger was contagious.

"What is it Vegeta?"

"That piece of crap you pass off as an acceptable training unit malfunctioned. I demand that you go and fix it!"

Yamcha watched as his girlfriend balled her fists near her side. "Piece of crap? If it's such a piece of crap, why do you insist on locking yourself inside of it every night, huh? I'll tell you why!" she continued when Vegeta opened his mouth.

"It's because I'm a genius!"

Vegeta glared. "Your pride is severely misplaced, woman. Capable of grasping simple technology you may be, but a genius? Let's just say that I beg to differ."

Bulma paused for a moment and exhaled deeply as though to compose herself. "You being a complete asshole aside, I thought we agreed to be nice to each other!"

Yamcha gave the two of them a searching look. "You did what?"

"I agreed to no such thing!" Vegeta declared contemptuously. He glared at Yamcha. "And you stay out of this!"

"Don't you yell at him!" shouted Bulma.

"Then do as I say. woman!"

"The name is BULMA!"

"YOU GUYS!"

Goku's voice cut through the shouting. It surprised all parties involved, even Vegeta, who had been too royally pissed off to notice Goku land.

"Do you guys think that maybe you could uh, keep it down a little?" Goku nervously pointed towards the small dome where he lived. "Chi-Chi's sleeping and she's already mad at me because I kept Gohan out past his bedtime last night and she hates when I have guests over and don't tell her first."

Yamcha frowned. "Jeez, Goku, is there anything you're allowed to do?"

While Goku mulled that over, Yamcha glanced back at his girlfriend and Vegeta, who were still glaring at one another. Vegeta looked as though he were ready to strangle Bulma, and that worried Yamcha mostly because if something bad happened, his girlfriend might expect him to jump in.

"You know what Vegeta? You are a huge jerk." She put her nose in the air. "All you have to do is ask nicely and I'll go right now and fix the gravitron for you," Bulma said airily, tilting her head up so that she and Vegeta were eye to eye. "Just one itsy-bitsy, teeny-tiny little display of politeness. I'll snap to it, Vegeta."

"These were not conditions of our agreement, woman."

Yamcha was jolted. "There was an agreement then?"

"Well it wasn't part of the deal for me to fix the GR either. I'm doing this out of the kindness of my heart!"

Vegeta opened his mouth, and then shut it. "Too easy," he muttered.

"Maybe you should just fix it," said Yamcha, shrugging. "I mean, it's not like you haven't fixed it a thousand times before. Besides, it'll shut him up."

"Yamcha's right, Bulma," said Goku, who must have given up on trying to find things his wife allowed him to do.

Bulma turned around to face them both, her mouth wide open. "Whose side are you guys on anyway?"

"The side of peace and quiet," mumbled Yamcha. He coughed when Bulma sent him a dirty look, hoping to cover it up. When her look didn't disappear, he attempted damage control.

"Why should she fix the gravity room for you anyway?" he asked Vegeta, feeling a little braver since Goku was so near and because Bulma's puffy blue Afro hid his face. "Don't you have her dad eating out of the palm of your hand?"

Bulma stomped his foot and he stumbled backwards. Worse yet, now Vegeta's anger was directed at him.

"Foolish earthling!" he snarled. "Had the old man been around I would have gone to him first rather than settling for second best!"

Bulma stood her ground firmly. "So I take it you aren't going to be civilized?"

Vegeta was glowering. "Don't be ridiculous. I will not be humiliated at your expense!"

"I'm not asking you to bow down your royal pain in my ass!" Bulma exclaimed, looking at him a bit differently. "Is that what you think this is? You think I'm trying to embarrass you? Tell you what, I'll fix the Gravity Room for you because on Earth, people do favors for one another! I'm practically a saint!"

Vegeta rolled his eyes.

Vegeta began to walk away and Bulma balled her fists and raised them in the air.

"HEY! AREN'T YOU FORGETTING SOMETHING?"

He did not turn around, merely stopped walking and gave her a look from the corner of his dark eyes.

She huffed. "I didn't magically materialize out of thin air, Vegeta. I need you to fly me back!"

He didn't answer.

"If you want to train today then this is in your best interest!"

Yamcha stepped forward as if to oblige her but Bulma rejected his offer and stubbornly held her ground.

"Unless you take me, I'm not stepping one foot near that Gravity Room."

She waited as Vegeta thought over her proposal. In the time it took for her to blink her long lashes, Vegeta's hand seized her wrist. She yelped as she slammed into his chest.

"Hey! Careful buddy!" she shouted, half of her face going numb. "This is precious cargo you're handling."

Vegeta's tossed her over his shoulder with a flagrant disregard of her former statement.

Next to them, Goku arched his eyebrow.

"Be careful with her, Vegeta," he said sternly when the two of them began to rise into the air.

"Yeah!" Yamcha chimed in. "You drop her and I'll kill you!"

Even Bulma was skeptical at that. After all, Vegeta had already killed Yamcha once. She doubted her boyfriend could return the favor. And when Vegeta grunted, she knew that he agreed.

Bulma could have kissed the dirt; so glad was she to have reconnected with it. She stood unsteadily, blades of grass scraping at her bare legs. Never before had she felt so dizzy after a flight. And then again, never before had she flown with Vegeta.

"Kami! What's the matter with you?" she shouted at Vegeta, who was eyeing her lazily from across the front yard.

Still raving mad and quite nauseous from the flight, Bulma picked a twig from her matted blue tresses and flung it at him. He caught the tiny stick in his fingertips, snapping it in half.

"If you throw it at me, you won't get it back," he said as a handsome smirk tinged his lips.

Bulma was almost at a loss for words. Shaking her head so that several green leaves fell from her scalp, she beheld the prince with a mixture of rage and bewilderment.

"You nearly killed me!"

"Relax woman," he replied, "Had it been my intention to kill you, I'd have done it while in the air."

Bulma stared open-mouthed at him, still picking through her hair for collected foreign objects. "It's not exactly relaxing to know you've put so much thought into it!"

Vegeta turned his back on her and began walking towards the compound front gates. "You exaggerate your value, servant woman. The planned execution of a weakling such as yourself requires no thought at all."

The sky had grown a bit darker in the past few hours and the air cooler. Indifferent to the change in weather, Vegeta continued his vigorous training regiment, jabbing the air so furiously that behind him, trees bended.

Training in the forest was not ideal, but since the GR was undergoing maintenance and he refused to grant the woman's friends the privilege of sparring with him, it was all he had.

It was too bad he was growing so damned hungry.

He briefly considered killing an animal to satiate his appetite. For some reason, this was not as appealing a thought as it might have been several weeks earlier. Vegeta cursed himself for craving earth food. The little blue planet was truly making him soft.

Perhaps he would take the woman up on her offer now. After all, she had agreed to fix him a meal whenever he was hungry. There should be no exception but he couldn't be certain. Earth women had unforeseeable mood swings, and he had managed to cohabit with the worst of them all.

Vegeta powered down and looked around. A woodland creature would be more filling than those damned noodles the woman's mother was always shoving down his throat. He could capture one easily enough, but was it worth it to waste the time, when the earthling woman had offered her cooking?

He hated his own indecisiveness and the rumbling of his own stomach as it begged for nutriment. He planted one boot firmly on the soil and pushed off the ground, blasting into the air. Moments later he saw the Capsule Corp. compound and floated above it, trying to sense the woman's ki.

Satisfied to learn that it was near his Gravity Room, Vegeta landed a foot behind the machine and silently walked around to its front.

She was lying underneath the gravitron, her long legs sticking out, knees bent at awkward angles. Vegeta could hear her banging at something, the clanking irritating his ears. He thought about giving her another couple of minutes so that she could finish, but his stomach growled again and he lost all thoughts not pertaining to food.

"Woman!" he said loudly enough so that she could hear him.

There was a loud thud, followed by a groan.

"Ow! Damn you, Vegeta! I hit my head!"

He could not hide his impatience any longer. Placing one hand on his hip, Vegeta used his other to grab one of her knees. He instantaneously yanked her from under the gravitron.

He bent slightly over her, still holding her ankle in his hand. "I'm hungry," he said coolly.

She tried to kick free but did not succeed against his vice grip. "Let go of me you big lug! I almost had a heart attack!"

"Then we're even," he said with a smirk. She was absolutely filthy, her hair, face, and lab coat covered in grease. "Your appearance nearly gave me a heart attack."

The woman propped herself up on her elbows and glared at him. "In case you hadn't noticed, I'm busy working on the GR. I don't exactly have time for your insults, as witty as they may be."

Her sarcasm was not lost on the ravenous Saiyan prince, and he let go of her ankle and pulled her to her feet unceremoniously.

"We had an agreement. You're to cook for me whenever I so desire."

She rolled her eyes at him and tried to wipe off a long streak of grease with her sleeve. "Fine."

Vegeta was immediately wary. "Fine?"

"Fine," the woman repeated slowly, "After all, I made a promise. And I keep my promises."

He grunted.

Bulma leaned over the stove and checked the rice. So far it seemed alright, but she knew how dangerous it was for her to cook. In fact, she was completely flabbergasted as to why she had agreed to cook for Vegeta in the first place.

And as though she weren't nervous enough about preparing dinner, Vegeta had stayed to watch. It wasn't his presence that worried her; Bulma knew she was more than able to handle the irritable Saiyan prince. It was the way he was watching her cook. His eyes bored into the back of her skull in a manner that unnerved her to no end.

"Can't you find something else to do?" she finally asked him, turning from the boiling pot to face her onlooker. "I can't cook with you breathing down my neck."

"Get over it woman," was his dark reply. "I don't trust you."

Bulma pointed a wooden spoon to where he stood near the refrigerator. "I am not trying to poison you Vegeta! If I had wanted to poison you, I would have done it a long time ago!" she added, echoing one of his earlier sentiments.

He mumbled something that sounded like "insufferable" and "wench". Bulma grasped the wooden spoon tighter in her hand, not caring if she got splinters.

"You could show a little more gratitude you know! I'm cooking for you, fixing the Gravity Room! I made those bots you destroy and I slave for hours in my lab trying to make new ones! I never even get a thank you!"

He returned her fierce look. "I suppose my training to rid Earth of those foretold tin cans isn't sufficient enough."

Bulma tried to push down her growing anger. She reminded herself that Vegeta was right. Somehow, this knowledge did not make her feel better.

"Woman," he started, but she cut him off.

"And that's another thing!" she exclaimed. "Would it kill you to call me by my real name?"

Vegeta growled. "I don't have time for this immemorial babble. Now-"

She interrupted again. "Bulma is two measly syllables. Come on! Say it with me! Bul-ma!"

"WOMAN!"

"BULMA!"

Suddenly Bulma found herself thrown to the ground and a moment later there was a loud popping sound followed by a horrendous smell.

From her position on the floor Bulma could not see very much, but she gathered that whatever had happened, had to do with her cooking.

"V-Vegeta?" she stammered, standing wobbly and looking around the kitchen.

Vegeta was standing by the sink, running water over a busted and burnt pot. Black rice stuck to the walls and to the stove. Bulma was mortified.

"Oh no!" she exclaimed, putting one hand over her mouth. "Look at this mess!"

"Tell me woman," Vegeta said crossly, "is this going to be a recurrent happening?"

Blushing red, Bulma nodded. "I can… I can order pizza for us Vegeta."

He rolled his eyes for the millionth time that day and turned off the water. Bulma was surprised to find that after all that had just transpired, he was not yelling or blowing up at her. Much less had happened to cause an insane reaction from him and it worried her. Had something hit him in the head?

"Are you… uh, are you okay?" she asked him, walking over to the sink and looking at him.

He raised an eyebrow, probably confused by her concern for him. But it couldn't be helped. He had thrown her to the ground for her own safety (or possibly in a last ditch attempt to save the food). Whatever the reason, Bulma found that she just couldn't stay mad at him for long.

"I'm fine," he said, sounding grouchy.

Bulma found the house phone and pressed the number 3. While she was waiting for the pizza place to pick up, she turned to Vegeta once more.

"What kind of pizza do you like?"

He raised an eyebrow. "How should I know? Just order the damned thing!"

"What do you think I'm doing?" she hissed as the ringing stopped and a teenage boy's voice came through the line.

"Hi Ms. Brief!" he said cheerfully. "What can Pizza Grande get for you today?"

Bulma heard the faint growling of Vegeta's stomach and she actually smiled.

"I'd like to order fifteen large pepperoni pizzas…."

A/N: CRAP this chapter took a long while to write. I certainly didn't expect to get writer's block so early. I hope you guys enjoyed it!