Vegeta snorted, getting back up to his feet. "Roughly 4,380 days are missing from your memory, and that is the ultimate question you came up with?" He shook his head as he opened up a cabinet. "What the hell made you even ask that?"

Cheeks burning with embarrassment, Bulma placed her hands in her lap and stared intently at them. "I, uh, saw a crack on the kitchen ceiling, and then Chi-Chi, um, she said that we, uh…that she thought it was from…"

The Saiyan growled slightly, pulling out the fixings for coffee. "I knew it."

"Knew what?" the heiress asked, her head suddenly snapping up.

"I knew you told that harpy!" Vegeta snapped. "You swore that you would stop telling her every little detail about…"

"YOU MEAN WE DID?" Bulma screamed, slamming her palms against the kitchen table. Both of them winced at the volume, and her face turned an even deeper shade of red. Keeping her voice slightly lower, she hissed at him, "The kitchen ceiling?"

Again Vegeta snorted as the coffee maker started. "Woman, you will be hard pressed to find a place in that house where we have not done it." Offering a slight shrug, he seemed to relax slightly against the counter top. "Besides, it was your idea to try it on the ceiling." He offered an almost wicked smirk before adding, "All six times."

Bulma opened her mouth to protest, but for the first time in weeks, she actually took a moment to contemplate her argument before speaking it. While she was somewhat afraid of being up high without an airplane around her, there had always been a part of her that had wanted to give sex on the ceiling or up high on the walls would be a kinky delight.

"Well," she finally said after a significant pause, "I guess it actually does sound like me…" She shook her head, regaining the blush she had temporarily lost. "I'm sorry, Vegeta. This just seems so…you drink coffee?"

Vegeta found himself slightly caught off guard by that statement. Questions about their history together, about their son, about the age old question of how they had started their relationship he had been expecting. Questions about what he consumed had not. "What?"

Shrugging, Bulma got to her feet and joined him at the counter. "The only other Saiyan I really knew hated it. When I first gave coffee to Goku, he actually turned it down." She giggled slightly at the memory. "It's the only time I can ever remember him turning down food."

Rolling his eyes, the prince pulled two mugs from another cabinet. "Kakarot and I hardly have the same tastes."

"Somehow, that doesn't surprise me." She leaned against the counter just a few feet from the prince. "I like it…"

"First cup black, just to wake you up, second cup loaded with so much milk and sugar that you can't even tell it's coffee anymore."

Bulma blinked, surprised that he knew her ritual. Although, she thought for a moment, if I really did spend a decade with him, I guess it would make sense for him to know my weird habbits…

"However," he went on, opening the refrigerator, "if you must know, I did not drink it until my fifth month on the planet."

Curiously, the temporarily balded heiress hopped up onto the counter. "Why did you start?"

Calmer than he had been in weeks, Vegeta simply poured the bitter beverage. "We were arguing at seven in the morning," he casually said. "You were making coffee as we fought, you poured two mugs, you slid one toward me." Mimicking the gesture, he slid a dark blue mug toward his estranged lover.

As the scalding cup slip into her hand, Bulma's world suddenly went black and white.

////

"I am not going to skip out on a board meeting just to fix your toys!"

The view whipped around to face the stairs, furiously descending them.

"Toys?!?" an angry voice barked. "It is not a toy! It is a vital piece of training equipment!"

Without turning around, Bulma hopped down the last four stairs. "Well, I'm still not skipping out on a meeting to make up for your own stupid mistakes!" She steered abruptly, turning a hard left into the kitchen.

"My mistakes?" the voice behind her shouted. "Your idiocy started this whole thing!"

Snarling, she flipped on the coffee maker and whipped around, staring down a clearly agitated Saiyan prince. "No, you started the whole thing when you decided to blow the first model of that damn gravity room to hell and back!"

Vegeta only snarled. "If we're going to go back that far, you started it by building an inferior machine that could not handle a blast that never even connected with the frame!"

"You were training at a level that I told you was hazardous!" she shouted back.

"You implied that it would be hazardous to me, not the machine!" the prince fought back.

Bulma's view swiftly turned again, looking down at the now hot brew. She forcefully threw open a cabinet and slammed two dark blue mugs onto the counter. In one fluid motion, she removed the pot from heat, poured both cups full, and returned the pot from whence it came. "It never dawned on me, you pain in the ass, that your personal well-being would rank lower on your list of priorities than the well-being of metal and wires."

She slid one of them over to her counterpart, not at all apologetic when the overfilled, hot fluid splashed on to his bare left hand. Snarling, Vegeta shook off his damp hand and picked up the scalding mug with the other. "I can heal by getting a night's sleep! That damn machine requires your lazy ass to get fixed!"

Not even realizing she was doing it, Bulma watched him hesitantly take a sip of the bitter brew. He sucked on the inside of his cheek, considering it briefly before taking another sip.

"I am not lazy," the heiress fought back, watching him drink. "And my ass, you bastard, is the finest thing you'll ever see!" To prove her point she whipped around, confident that he was still watching her.

"If you do not fix that damn machine right now…"

"Nuh-uh," Bulma interrupted, refusing to turn around. "You tried to hotwire your way in, you're stuck without it until the meeting is over."

/////

"You tried to hotwire it," she whispered.

Vegeta's eyes grew wide, and he was immediately pausing his sip. "What?"

Bulma's enormous eyes looked up at the prince. "That morning, the one where I gave you the coffee…you had been pushing yourself too hard in your training, and I thought that I could force you to get some rest if I reprogrammed the door to not open. You were mad, and you knew I wouldn't undo it, so you tried to hotwire your own way into it." Slowly, she approached him and took his left hand in hers. "You got an electrical burn on this hand…that's why you flinched when the coffee spilled on it…"

The shocked prince had long since lowered his mug, staring at the woman before him. "You remembered…"

Her body trembling slightly, Bulma gave a silent nod. Slowly, she began to run her fingers over his hands, turning it over for inspection. "You wouldn't let me bandage it."

With a mild smirk, Vegeta shook his head. "A Saiyan does not require medical attention for such a…"

"… 'superficial wound'…"

The smirk dropped from the prince's face. "How much do you recall?"

Biting down on her lower lip, Bulma analyzed him further. "Not much," she honestly answered. Slowly, she brought her head up and offered him a hopeful smile. "But enough, I think, to really give this a try." When the prince did not respond for a minute, the heiress chuckled. "You are so far out of your emotional comfort zone right now, aren't you?"

Vegeta snapped an angry glare her way. "Shut up!"

Bulma only laughed harder, patting his hand before surrendering it. "Okay, tough guy, I get it. No mushy crap." Giving him space even she could tell he needed, she went back to the table with her still steaming beverage. "So, if I'm going to get back into some form of life with you, there's one thing I need you to tell me, honestly, right now."

With a scowl on his face, the Saiyan took a seat on the opposite side of the table and angrily shoved the milk to his estranged lover. "What?"

"How the hell did you and I end up together?"

/////

Watching silently from the top of the staircase, Gohan smiled to himself. Things finally seemed to be on the right track. They were both willing to talk like adults, Bulma was starting to recover her memories, and it seemed like neither one of them was willing to truly give up on it.

Situating himself, the teenager grinned. Not only that, but he had first class seats to what could quite possibly be the only telling of a story that had puzzled mankind for ages!

/////

Groaning, Goku slowly opened his eyes and winced at the sunlight that seemed almost burning to his eyes. "Where am I?"

A sound somewhere between a whimper and a moan sounded next to him. The warrior turned his head to the side, cringing at the pounding in his head. With barely opened eyes, he realized that he was in his own bedroom, in his own bed, sleeping next to his own wife.

It took a few minutes, but Goku eventually realized that something was very wrong with that picture. The last thing he could remember was being up at the Lookout, forcefully eating something as he worried about whether or not Vegeta was actually going to wake up.

"Vegeta!" he called out, sitting bolt upright and regretting it immediately, as did his equally incapacitated wife. His vision blurred, and the pain won out, causing him to black out against his nice, fluffy pillow.

Two hours later, the two Son's seemed to come to at the same time. "I will never drink again," Chi-Chi groaned, trying to force her eyes to close even further. "Not one drop, not at any occasion, not ever, ever again."

Equally off his game, Goku pressed the heel of his hand against his left eye socket. "At least you know what happened to you and why you feel lousy," he mumbled. "I don't even remember coming home last night."

Chi-Chi pulled the blanket up over her head, trying to hide from the harsh light of day. "I think you got home after I did," her muffled voice barely called out from under the comforter. "I'm pretty sure that the bed was empty when I passed out in it." She was a quiet for a moment before adding, "Or was that Bulma's bed I passed out in?"

"I don't know," Goku whined, "but my head is killing me and I'm dying of thirst." Slowly, he tried to get up again, pausing just long enough to feel confident that he would not pass out again. "I'm going to get some water. You want anything?"

Letting out a soft groan, his wife curled up deeper into the blankets. "Bread, water, and as many pain killers as you can get your hands on."

Goku gave the world's most subtle nod as he slowly got out their bed. It was another hour before either of them had the energy or the mindset to actually try to greet the day.

"I take it from the fact that you don't remember coming home last night that you were not, in fact the one who brought me home from Bulma's?" Chi-Chi quietly asked, still not feeling fantastic.

"Hm?" Goku blinked, trying to remember the night before. "Oh, right. I, uh, called Gohan and asked if he could take care of it."

Chi-Chi's eyebrows drew together as she thought about it. "I thought Gohan was supposed to be watching Trunks. If he was doing that, how could he have brought me home?"

Her husband could only offer a shrug as an answer. He had absolutely no idea how she had gotten home, and he was more perplexed with how he had gotten back home. Nothing seemed to make any sense.

Sitting up slightly, the brunette woman noticed something on their night stand. "Hey," she mumbled, reaching for it, "I think there's a note here."

Turning to face her, Goku raised his eyebrows. "What does it say?"

Chi-Chi squinted, still feeling a tad under the weather with her now fading hangover. "It says that the Yamcha Taxi Service is officially closed, and that you're supposed to direct any further questions to Piccolo. Oh, and PS: Goku, drink a lot of water, whatever Piccolo gave you might leave you dehydrated."

Nodding slightly, Goku finally got out of the bed for real. "I need to check on things and make sure that everything is okay," he quietly said, a hint of desperation in his voice. "I'll be at the Lookout."

Knowing that Goku would do as he felt regardless of her acknowledgement, Chi-Chi followed her instincts and burrowed back into the warm covers of her bed.

/////

Sitting on the staircase, Gohan had both hands clapped firmly over his mouth and nose. It was all he could do to keep from gasping every ten seconds until he finally heard the words, "That's pretty much what happened."

As soon as the story was over, he staggered to his feet and shot back to Trunks' room. If Vegeta found out that he had ditched the unconscious boy in order to eavesdrop on a story meant for no one's ears, Gohan would face a certainly ugly death.

But only one phrase came out of his mouth as he silently slid back into the room.

"Totally worth it!"

/////

Bulma could only stare blankly at the coffee machine as she began to make more. "That…is a lot of information to process…"

"You asked," Vegeta casually responded. "As you seem to be willing to accept our life together, I refuse to walk on eggshells any longer. I never did so before your damn accident, and quite frankly I refuse to do it any longer. That is not how either of us work, and I'll be damned if I do it any longer."

"You're not damned already?"

The words flew out of Bulma's mouth so fast that she hadn't had a chance to stop them. There she was, barely crossing the threshold of 'comfortable' with this man, and she was damning him without a second thought.

Before she had a chance to apologize, she found herself pressed up against the wall and a very intense Saiyan staring at her. But to her great surprise, he didn't seem angry at all. No, he wasn't mad…he seemed almost happy.

"Now that," he deeply growled, leaning in with a smirk, "is the woman I fell for."

Bulma wasn't entirely certain what was going on, but she did know that she had never been more turned on in her life. Everything about that moment was so raw, so intense…and as their lips hungrily met, Bulma knew it was something else:

It was so familiar…

/////

Bulma flung the lab door open, growling in frustration as she angrily descended the staircase to the main lab floor. "Damn it, Vegeta, I don't care if it means the androids come and kill us all, I am not going to fix that damn machine the second that you break it!"

Vegeta flew over her head and landed on the stairs in front of her, blocking her completely. "If I thought that it would give you a chance to build a superior machine, I might actually acquiesce to your constant need for more time. However, as I know you're just going to build the same piece of crap no matter how much time I give you, you are going to do it now!"

Knowing perfectly well that pushing him would not do any good, Bulma simply took the railing with a solid grip and hopped over the banister. It was a good ten foot drop, but she had her flats on and knew she could stick the landing. "Look, I've got work to do," the heiress shouted back, adjusting her skirt and her glasses. "Why don't you go find something else to do as soon as you finish unbunching your panties?"

Using his incredible speed, Vegeta was immediately next to her again, forcing her to back into the wall. "Do not think that just because we occasionally screw each other that anything between us."

"Go to hell," she hissed, putting her hands on his biceps.

Smirking, Vegeta deeply growled, "Someday, but I think now is a little premature."

Between having her hands on her occasional lover's body and listening to his husky, dark voice, Bulma's breathing was becoming faster by the moment. "Is there anyone else in the lab?"

"No," he quickly responded.

"Good."

Before another second had passed, Bulma had flung her glasses across the room and the two were pressed up against the wall. As their mouths and tongues fought with each other, they were almost frantically tearing at each others. Bulma's shoes went flying from her feet, and Vegeta lifted her roughly, allowing her to wrap her legs around his waist. Staggering back with a serious lack of focus on his surroundings, Vegeta barely found a near empty lab table. He flipped them around, pinning her on the cool steel as the continued their passionate pastime.

It was the first of a thousand times they made love in her lab.

/////

Bulma pulled away from Vegeta briefly, gasping for air. "The lab," she panted.

"Which time?" the prince growled, moving down to her neck.

Gasping, the heiress rolled her head back against the wall, letting her eyes roll up in her head as the familiar sensations flew through her body. "The…the first, I think…" She dug her fingers into his hair. "I…I jumped the rail, and you pinned me against the wall," she panted, feeling him slowly going lower on her body. "We…we were on the lab table…we broke a prototype and tore three," she paused to gasp again, "…three blueprints…"

Grunting as he tore her shirt open, Vegeta smirked as he lightly bit her ear. "That was definitely a good day."

Suddenly, Bulma's eyes snapped wide open. "Wait!"

That was not the word Vegeta wanted to hear. "What?" he growled, using the wall to push himself off of her.

Bulma shook her head. "We shouldn't be doing this," she panted, hating every syllable as it left her mouth. "As fantastic as I'm sure it would be…"

"You remember us having sex in the past?" he interrupted.

Slightly stuttering, Bulma answered with a fairly quick, "Yes."

"Do you want us to have sex right now?"

Still breathing hard, the heiress nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, but…"

"So what's the problem?"

Bulma thought for a moment. There was a part of her brain that said that it was all too fast, that any sane person would take their time and get to know him again before immediately jumping him. But a bigger part of her wanted to throw caution, and their clothes, to the wind.

Well, it worked for us once, she thought, looking him aggressively in the eye. "Let's make this ceiling like the one back home!"

/////

Note: As much as it pains me to say this, the end of the story is nigh. The next chapter will, most likely, be the last. I may break it into two chapters, but…we'll see. However, there will be at least two shorter stories branching off of this one, so keep your eyes open!