Author's Note: Thank you, all of you, for your wonderful reviews. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't a review whore. What can I say? I like knowing that you guys are reading this and enjoying this. The constructive criticism is also welcomed with a warm heart; if no one points out my mistakes, I'll never get any better. Thank you all so, so much!
On a slightly more relevant note, I had issues deciding where to make the cut in this chapter. While, much like Chapter 4, I think that it could have had more emotional pull if I cut it off earlier than I did, the remaining part wasn't full enough for me to feel comfortable posting it as a full chapter. Please, let me know your opinions. If you think I made the wrong decision, I can easily go back and re-post with the cut.
Thanks guys!
/\/\/\
"She's waking up," the teenager repeated, his voice soft but excited. "She's waking up!"
"What do we do?" Chi-Chi asked.
"I'll go find her doctor," Gohan said, grinning from ear to ear as he tore out of the room.
Krillen, Goku, and Chi-Chi hovered around the bed, smiling with anticipation as they watched the heiress stir. Slowly, Bulma's radiant blue eyes fluttered open.
"Oh, thank Kami, she's awake!" Chi-Chi exclaimed, clasping her hands together. She leaned directly over the heiress, smiling brilliantly. "Oh, honey, you're okay! You're really okay!"
Bulma blinked, trying to get her eyes to focus. She could clearly and easily make out Chi-Chi's enthusiastic, albeit shrill, voice. The dark haired woman seemed more than a bit blurry to her, though. She tried to say so, but realized that she couldn't.
The heiress began to panic. She quickly realized that she couldn't mover her mouth at all, and if felt as though something was blocking her entire oral cavity. In a panic, she began to thrash, trying to pull her arms up to yank out whatever it was that was blocking her mouth.
"Whoah, Bulma!" Goku softly said, gently pushing his friend back against her bed. "You need to take it easy!"
When Bulma gave her friends a frantic look, Chi-Chi gave her a sad smile. "You have a breathing tube in, honey. You can't talk right now."
Bulma's eyes grew wide. Breathing tube? Why would she possibly have a breathing tube in her? It was at that moment that Bulma realized that she was lying in a dimly lit hospital room.
Her terrified look was replaced by one of confusion. She began tapping her right hand against the bed. Her friends noticed the movement, but they weren't sure what to make of it. The heiress rolled her eyes. She moved her fingers so that the thumb, index finger, and middle finger were all together, and she moved her wrist in a flowing motion.
"Oh!" Chi-Chi cried, reaching in to her purse. "She wants something to write with!" The younger mother pulled a pen and a pad of paper out of her bag. "Here you go, honey," she said, gently guiding the pen into the heiress' hand.
Bulma tried to grab the pen, but she struggled to hold the narrow object. She tried again and again, to get a good grip on it, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not do it.
Chi-Chi gave the woman a sympathetic look. Suddenly, her eyes lit up, and she dropped the pen. "Wait right here!" she exclaimed, dashing out of the room.
Right, because I'm really a high risk for running away right now, Bulma thought, rolling her eyes.
The younger woman appeared again a few seconds later, brandishing a small whiteboard and an erasable blue marker. "I brought Goten's entire book bag with me," she stated, placing the whiteboard on the bed. "I almost forgot that I make him practice his math on this!" Chi-Chi took the noticeably thicker marker and guided it into Bulma's hand.
Bulma managed to wrap her fingers around the marker and, shakily, scrawled out: HOW?:
"You were in a car accident," Krillen softly said. "A pretty bad one. But don't worry, Bulma, the senzu plant should have beans on it in another couple of weeks, and then you'll be better than new!"
Bulma shook her head lightly, dismayed at the lack of mobility she had. :NO: she wrote. :HOW WE GET OFF NAMEK?:
"Namek?" Goku asked, blinking with surprise. "Bulma, Namek was a long time ago."
It was then that Gohan returned, practically dragging Bulma's doctor in behind him. "I found him!" he said, pushing the physician into the room.
Bulma was thoroughly confused. She tapped on the whiteboard, signaling that she wanted it cleared off, before writing :WHO?:
"This is Dr. Oberman," Gohan softly explained. "He's going to be your private physician while you're resting in here."
:NO: she wrote. :YOU. WHO?:
Gohan raised an eyebrow at the woman. "Me? Bulma, it's me, Gohan," he gently said. Bulma's eyes grew wide, and she began to violently shake her head from side to side. Her body began to jerk, and her eyes rolled up in her head.
"What's happening?" Goku asked, his fear evident in his voice.
"She's having a seizure," the doctor calmly replied, getting between his patent and her friends. He injected something into her IV tubing. As he called for backup, he spared the family a quick glance. "She's going to be okay," he assured, "but I'm going to have to ask you to leave. Now."
The four friends just quietly backed out of the room, fighting to tear their eyes away from their friend's spasming form. They stood in the hallway, watching silently as nurses and other doctors rushed in and out of the room. After twenty minutes, they sat down in the waiting room chairs. None of them spoke a word as the minutes turned in to hours, until finally, Dr. Oberman came out, a serious look on his face. All four of them jumped up and rushed to him, asking how their friend was.
"Ms. Briefs is going to be fine," he assured up front. "However, it would appear that she is suffering from some memory loss. "It technically is categorized as trauma induced memory loss, but at this moment I'm afraid I can't narrow it down any more. Whether is was caused by the emotional stress of the accident, or the physical damage that her skull took when it hit the steering wheel is yet to be seen."
"She has amnesia?" Gohan worriedly asked.
The doctor nodded. "Her last memories appear to involve something called Namek," he went on. "As I do not know what that is, I was hoping that you might be able to assist me. Do you have any idea what that is in reference to? How long ago that was?"
All four had to stop and think for a moment. "It was a place that we went to," Gohan finally answered, "between eleven and twelve years ago."
Again, the doctor nodded solemnly. "I see." He gestured toward the seats, asking the group to follow him. When everyone had gotten situated, the doctor removed his glasses and began to clean them on his shirt.
"There is good news, and there is bad news," Dr. Oberman said, refusing to meet their gaze. "The good news is that, with a lot of hard work and the proper therapy, she should be able to make a full and complete physical recovery. Her hearing hasn't been fazed at all, and while her vision is a little blurry at the moment, we have every reason to believe that it's going to clear up in a matter of days. And the majority of her long term memory, from what we have been able to determine, remains intact."
"Except for the last twelve years," Krillen pointed out, more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
Dr. Oberman placed his glasses back on his face and finally looked up at the group. "With trauma induced amnesia, particularly to this extent, discovering something that the individual would find severely out of place, a physical reaction, just as the one you witnessed, may occur." He turned to the teenager, a gently look on his face. "I'm willing to bet that twelve years ago, you were just a little boy. Seeing you as a full grown man must have been a shock for her."
"I know it was for me," Goku whispered, placing a hand on his firstborn's shoulder and giving it a squeeze.
Gohan spared his father a soft smile and brought his own hand to rest on his father's.
The doctor gave the father and son a confused look, but knew he had to go on. "The point is, anything that Ms. Briefs would see as severely out of place should, how shall I say this…" He bit down on his lip, keeping his eye on Chi-Chi. "She needs to slowly be introduced into what happened in the last few years. She knows that she has lost some of her memory. That shock caused her last seizure. However, having communicated with her, she has come to terms with it now." Dr. Oberman kept his eyes glued on Chi-Chi. He wasn't sure why, but it was always easier to talk to women about these things than the men.
"Twelve years is a lot of time," the doctor went on. "What I need you to do is make a list of things that have happened, between then and now, that would have shocked her emotionally twelve years ago. Then I need you to inform the rest of her family and friends that they need to avoid those topics, at least until she gets a fair way in to her therapy. In time, we may be able to bring her back up to speed on everything, but to be blunt, it could take years. Until further notice, I'm afraid that she is at risk for severe physical distress, including cardiac arrest. Do you understand?"
Chi-Chi nodded, reaching once again for the pen and paper that she had pulled out earlier. "Yes, of course," she softly said. "Thank you, doctor. Is there anything else we need to know right now, doctor?"
Dr. Oberman shook his head. "I'll keep you posted," he assured, getting to his feet. "When you are done with this, I recommend that you all get some rest. You've earned it."
When the doctor left, Chi-Chi removed the top from her pen. "Okay, things that would have broken Bulma's brain twelve years ago," she said, scrawling the same thing across the top of the pad. "Let's start from the top."
"She's bald," Krillen said. When the other's stared at him, Krillen waved his hands defensively. "Hey, this is Bulma we're talking about! What's the first thing that woman's going to think about?"
"Her hair," Chi-Chi admitted, writing that down. "But I think that one might be unavoidable. She's going to see a mirror at some point between now and when her hair is shoulder length like it was for Namek."
Krillen shrugged. "I thought it would help," he quietly said.
"I'm sure it will," Chi-Chi softly responded, smiling at the short man. "Okay, what else?"
"She's the president of the company," Gohan added. "Twelve years ago, she was just the VP. That's why she had enough time to go on the trip."
Krillen's head shot up. "Oh! Her room is different! We should change it back!"
Chi-Chi looked up from her pad. "Different how?" she asked.
"It used to have a lot of pink tone is it," Krillen answered. "She had pink curtains, pink bedspread, a light pink dresser…it was a girly girl kind of room. I remember because she sent me up to her room, like, five times for crap she wanted to take to Namek. Every time I went in there, all I could think of was 'holy crap, that is a lot of pink'."
"I take it her room no longer looks that way?" the woman asked.
Gohan sat up, all of the color draining from his face. "Oh, Kami, no…"
The three others turned to him. "What is it, honey?" Chi-Chi asked.
Tears began to roll down the teenager's cheeks. "Vegeta," he whispered. "Twelve years ago, the only thing she felt for him was fear. The room changed ten years ago when he moved in to it."
"Kami above," Goku whispered. "That can't mean what I think that means…"
Krillen buried his face in his hands. "No, no, no, no…"
Gohan nodded, a choked sob leaving his throat. "We have to remove any evidence of her new family," he whispered, crying softly. "We have to move Vegeta, and Trunks, out of her world."
/\/\/\
Dr. Briefs hung up the phone, a tired sigh escaping his lips. He wasn't sure which phone call would have been worse: the phone call saying that she was dead, or the phone call that he ended up getting.
Breaking up his family was going to be the worst thing he would ever have to do.
The good doctor walked back up the stairs to the guest room his son-in-law lay in. He walked three steps in before pausing, staring at the man's unconscious form. "Oh, my dear boy, how did this ever come to be?" he whispered. He approached the bed and sat down, staring at the other man's sleeping features. "You've come so far," the doctor went on. "I remember very clearly how you were when my Bulma brought you home with her. You were wild and unpredictable. Don't get me wrong, dear boy, we still enjoyed your rather unique presence back then."
The elderly man chuckled to himself. "You certainly had a way about you back then, young man," he laughed. "You were boisterous and loud, and you were more than a force to be reckoned with. But so was my dear Bulma." Another laugh sounded in the room. "I remember the first time I watched the two of you together like it was just the other day. She had just finished putting the finishing touches on that first gravity room you had used."
"Ah, she was so proud of that thing. And she never hid that for a moment. She has always been like that, you know. For every piece of work she had ever done, she wanted heaps of praise. Don't misunderstand me, she usually earned it, but it was such an addiction of hers. Everything that girl did got her more and more love and adoration. And then you came along. I could tell that you were impressed, but you never gave her verbal praise. Then she tried to pry it out of you, and you just pushed back harder." Dr. Briefs laughed loudly at the memory. "Neither of you got anything accomplished for the rest of the day. You just argued and argued and argued. And by the time you both stormed off, I could tell that there was something special there."
He shook his head, scratching his kitty behind his ears. "You two have been good for each other," he went on. "You've both matured quite a bit without ever giving up who you are. Personally, I think both of you just have too much fight in you to be happy with anyone else. You need someone who you can fight with, and can fight right back with you. You both play this intellectual tug of war game that's been going on for a decade."
Dr. Briefs sighed as he continued to scratch the kitty. "You're not going to take this well, will you, dear boy?" he asked the unconscious man. The doctor got to his feet, shaking his head again. "I'll be packing your things," he quietly said, placing a censor on Vegeta's wrist. "This will let me know when you're getting ready to wake up. I can only hope that you will be able to listen calmly when you find out."
Sadly, the doctor got up and went for the door. He paused for a moment, sparing the sleeping man one last look.
"I'm sorry for your loss, son."
/\/\/\
Eighteen hung up her phone, her face void of all emotion. "That was Krillen," she neutrally reported, turning to the only other person in the room.
"And?!?" Yamcha demanded, ready to pull his hair out. "Did something happen? Is she okay? Is she going to make it? Is she even alive? What happened, Eighteen, what?!?"
The blonde gave the scarred human a withering glare. "Will you calm yourself, or do I need to subdue you, too?" the calmly threatened.
Yamcha slammed his lips together and sat in a kitchen chair, folding his hands in his lap. He didn't want to risk doing anything that would keep information about Bulma from reaching him.
Eighteen gave him a brief, affirming nod. Knowing that the man was at least somewhat controlled, she went on. "Bulma woke up," she coolly said. "She's still a little out of it, and she's not able to speak at the moment because her throat is raw from where her breathing tube used to be, but she has regained consciousness and is expected to easily make it until one of those damn beans has ripened enough to fix her injuries."
The human's eyes lit up. He opened his mouth to say something, but stopped and clamped his mouth shut again upon receiving the blonde's glare. Silently, he indicated that he wished for her to go on.
"It seems that she's got amnesia," the woman went on. "Not total memory loss, but enough to block out the last twelve years. Apparently, the last thing she remembers is being on Namek, and we're not supposed to say anything about anything that's happened between then and now. If she deliberately asks a question, then she should handle the answer alright, as long as it isn't too shocking to hear. But we're not supposed to supply her with any information on our own."
The former bandit lowered his head slightly as he tried to do the calculations. "Namek?" he asked. "That was, what, fifteen years ago?"
"Twelve," the blonde retorted as she rolled her eyes. "Damn, you're ignorant. You should know that better than I do." She pulled out a chair for herself and sat before she casually continued. "What it means, genius, is that if she asks, you can tell her that you two broke up, since that's hardly news to her. But you can't tell her that she and Vegeta are together."
Yamcha's head shot up, his eyes opened up wide. "She doesn't know…"
"Don't even start thinking about it," Eighteen snapped, her voice dripping with threat. "It is true that she does not remember being with Vegeta. It is also true, Yamcha, that she cannot be told about her relationship with him because it would be too much of a shock to her system. But before you start celebrating and thinking that this is the gods way of giving you another chance with her, you need to think about this: they are a family, Yamcha."
"Hardly," Yamcha snorted.
Eighteen closed her eyes and tried to take a calming breath before she went on. "Look, I hate Vegeta almost as much as you do. He's an asshole. But even I would never wish this upon him."
When Yamcha muttered, "I would," under his breath, Eighteen lunged across the table and slugged the man in the jaw.
"What the hell, Eighteen?!?" Yamcha shouted, cupping his jaw and spitting out blood.
The blonde marched over to the human, grabbed him by the collar, and shoved him against the wall. "Listen to me, you son of a bitch," she coolly spoke, "whether you want to acknowledge it or not, Bulma, Vegeta, and Trunks, are a family. They have been for years. Now, I don't know the specifics of what you and Bulma went through when you were in your relationship. I don't know if she cheated on you, or you cheated on her, or you both cheated on each other, or if you broke up on good terms. I don't know if she got with Vegeta out of love, out of lust, out of boredom…hell, for all I know, he was a revenge lay that got out of hand. But this is what I do know: when the sun rises tomorrow, and those three children wake up, I get to tell a nine year old boy that he no longer gets to call his mother "Mom", that his parents are no longer together, and that he no longer has a home. So if you think your little pity party about however your relationship ended with her is going to make me care at all, you are sorely mistaken."
Slowly, Eighteen loosened her grip. "You got your information, Yamcha," she said with ice in her voice. "Go home. Now."
Yamcha rubbed his jaw again, looking at Eighteen's back. As he headed for the door, he stopped.
"I'm sorry," he quietly said. "It was a moment of weakness when I thought…what I thought. I…I just want you to know that I would never do anything to make this situation worse. I would never try to seduce Bulma like this. She has a family that loves her, and my inability to get over the past doesn't give me the right to try to keep them apart."
Eighteen turned slightly to look at him, offering him a single not, before heading into the living room.
Yamcha quietly walked out of the house, took to the sky, and tried to fully process everything that had happened.
Nothing was going to be the same.