Vegeta opened his eyes, a dull leaden and burning feeling in his chest. Damn you Ka- what? Agh... still here... Reliving the final moments of his battle with Goku, Vegeta more sensed than heard or saw Helen walk in with his tray. The young woman took slow and measured steps along the path she had memorized. She felt the edge of her shoe brush against the bed, but steadied herself before falling, and soon felt the bedsheets brushing her skirts. Not sure if she should stay Helen let Vegeta take the breakfast tray from her, and left.

Noticing the paper and pencil, Vegeta put them aside and focused on his oatmeal and biscuits. They were spread with the jelly again; a dark substance Vegeta had never had before but had to admit was fairly edible. He had never had milk either but couldn't decide it he liked it or not. The oatmeal was as bland as anyhing he'd ever eaten, but comforting in an oddly familiar way in that it reminded him of the mushy military rations on planet Vegeta.

The simple meal finished, he went to work on the short breathing patterns he'd been taught during ki control training. His muscles still felt weak but the breathing soothed them, the ki also energizing his heart and making him restless. He'd been in bed for early a week, and felt the need to move around. I know I've gained strength... the only good thing to come from that fight with Kakkarot. Vegeta had levitated to and from the bathroom but had moved little otherwise and had resolved to try walking when he remembered the pencil and paper. Scooping them up from his side, he looked at the paper and read the first line:

"Why did you become a soldier?" What, does she expect me to write answers for each of these? And there's hmm... two pages? Whatever, I'll just answer a few. So, Vegeta wrote his first answer. I became a soldier when I made my first kill. I was born a warrior, I'm the Prince of All Saiyans!

I don't even know what corner of the universe this is, so giving you the location of planet Vegeta would be pointless.

I've been to dozens of planets, so yes, I travel a lot. They were all boring and the inhabitants were morons. I have a feeling this place won't be much different. Panning down through questions about his likes and dislikes, he found and odd question.

"How are you so strong?" Well, this planet's gravity isn't as strong as planet Vegeta's so I'm stronger automatically, then there's the army training program, which has a seventeen percent pass rate. In addition my ki gives me unparelleled power.

Breezing through more "useless" questions about his likes and dislikes, he came to the last two questions:

"What was it like being the prince?" Vegeta thought over it for a moment, before quickly writing, I didn't have much chance to be prince. I was mostly just the figurehead of a slave planet controlled by Frieza, a reminder that even the elite could be forced into his service. But all that did was reinforce my pride; without the Saiyans Frieza's empire wouldn't be half the size that it is.

Then the last question smacked Vegeta across the face: "Do you have a wife or lover?" The pencil hovered ovre the paper for a moment, before Vegeta snapped the pencil in frustration and balled up the paper and tossed it into the corner of the room. Time to try walking.

~oOo~

With Vegeta slowly shuffling around the backyard, Annie took the opportunity to clean the guest room: change the sheets, dust things off, and sweep up. It wasn't that Vegeta was a slob, he simply hadn't cleaned, and didn't let her in the room. Not that she minded. At all. And as she finished up in the corner she found a crumpled up piece of paper. She knelt down and picked it up, unfolding it and reading the writing. He didn't return it to Helen? Taking note of what he did and didn't answer, Annie briskly finished sweeping and walked off to find Helen.

She was in her room, at the typewriter as she worked on her book. Waiting for Helen to pause at a new paragraph, Annie tapped her on the shoulder and held out her hand. Helen took it and began to put together Annie's signs, things like "-when I made my first kill," and "-figurehead of a slave planet.", beginning to get a sense of Vegeta's bitterness.

"I wanted to ask about his family," Helen signed, "But it seems that may have been unwise."

"You should, eventually. I think it would help him."

"And maybe he might ask questions about me tomorrow."

"And maybe he might," Though I doubt he will.

~oOo~

Vegeta was in the back yard going over his breathing exercises again. His torso was still too injured to try much of the hand to hand combat forms, and it felt goof to drink in the fresh air as he attempted to clear his mind of Helen's question's. "Do you have a wife, or lover?" Visualizing didn't help much, as the violent and sharp movements of the martial arts softened once the woman who asked the questions came to mind again and again, and then the sparring forms became something else entirely, and his breathing patterns sped up.

With an angry sigh Vegeta opened his eyes, and began working up his ki for a Galick Gun as he moved to the center of the yard. The attack burst up into the sky with a mighty roar, Vegeta's chest aching and his abdomen sore. I hate this damn planet. I hate... Vegeta wanted to say he hated everything, but could not quite bring himself to do so. "I hate everything: this planet, this house, and those two women- especially Helen!" Slowly, Vegeta resumed the breathing patterns for a moment...

...Until he sensed a presence behind him in the house. He turned around to discover Helen at the window, facing out to the yard almost as if she was watching him. He stared at her and there was a breathtaking moment where it appeared her eyes were locked on to his, an odd power flowing between them. Then she "looked" away. With a "harrumph" he went into the house, slamming the back door shut. This earned him a sharp look from Annie when he passed her in the hall on the way to the guest room, where again he slammed the door on the way in.

Stretching out on top of the covers and folding his arms behind his head on the pillow, Vegeta thought through his situation. Attack ball, gone; no blasted rejuvenation chamber, no comunnication with the Planet Trade Organization... but on the other hand that also means Frieza doesn't know where I am. And then this planet... do they even have electricity yet? It seems so primitive, but they have running water and flush toilets- The train of thought spiraled down the drain as there was a knock on the door. After a moment it opened, with Helen slowly moing in. She was right in the center of Vegeta's angry mix of thoughts, and though he didn't particularly feel like seeing her right now he couldn't really yell at her to leave, so he remained silent as she made her way to his bed.

She sat down on the edge, and felt for his hip with the back of her hand. "...Bandage?"

Hmm? That's right, I'm still wearing them. Hmph. Having waited a few seconds, Helen felt for the bandages, and the safety pin holding them together. She felt it in the small of his back, and removed it; slowly but surely unwinding the gauze. Putting it aside, Helen's fingers gingerly moved over Vegeta's abdominal muscles, her palms feeling his warm skin, her thumb lingering in his bellybutton before her hands made another circuit of his torso. "What are you- doing?" Vegeta asked, though he didn't move to stop her.

"Healed," Helen Keller declared. Then she moved her hands up to his head, getting the shape of his sharp chin before her hands settled into her "listening" position. "Felt... in yard. Heat..."

She sensed that? This woman can sense ki? "I- I haven't fully healed, there's some internal damage as well, I'll still need more rest before all that's recovered; and... alll this damn sitting around was just getting on my nerves." Vegeta continued rambling on, "So my ki returned while I was just being a vegetable- even stronger than before, of course- and I just had to move, so that's why I was in the back yard; I was just going to do my breathing exercises to even my ki circulation but that wasn't working out so I built it up and released it with my signature technique, the Galick Gun."

Seeing a questioning look forming on Helen's face, Vegeta began to explain whata he could of ki, while he was still in this strange talkative mood. "It's a power, a... force, that moves around inside like blood but not. If you train and gather it outside your body you can use it for a variety of things, such as attack or flight; everyone has it. Saiyans have a transformation available to them if they gather enough ki, called a Super Saiyan... but so far only two Saiyans have achieved that."

Helen briefly thought of the breath of life that God had breathed into the world, and wondered if His hand had been in these recent events, anad if He was known to the Saiyans. Is this how they speak of the Holy Ghost? Confused, Helen opened her mouth and spoke, "Teach..."

But Vegeta's strange talkative mood was over. "Maybe later. Right now you can just leave." Helen swallowed and nodded, then gathered Vegeta's bandages and left.

~oOo~

It took a while for Helen to digest the information Vegeta had dispensed. There was certainly more to this "ki" he talked of. I feel it as this heat he has, similar to how I occasionally feel a person approaching. Could I sense Annie, or John? Ah, and what would Annie say of it? ...if she knew. She is unwilling to talk to him, so this is information she wouldn't have anyways... but I must tell her something, or she'd likely forbid me from seeing him; and then she may as well throw him out because they wouldn't be talking to each other, and indeed she might throw him out anyways. Ah! Yes, I'll let her know he still needs rest. "Internal damage..."

Annie watched Helen feel her way back to her room after the talk with Vegeta. The bandages were in her hand, and she still appeared calm despite the visit being perhaps a little longer than it might have needed to be. Though I can't imagine what they'd be going on about. Vegeta's about as mean-tempered as anyone I've met. The fact of them simply being a young man and woman had occurred to Annie, but she didn't want to consider that yet. It was too soon.

~oOo~

The following day Helen was simply typing, hoping to make progress on her book but her finger were feeling poetic at the moment. There was a long poem lurking in the back of her mind, lurking in the darkness and waiting to creep out. She continued on:

A circle
A cycle
I blindly reach out to touch the wall,
Hands stretching through womb-like darkness.
Resistance
I am denied freedom
I smile;
Here is where I define the invisible
Where the intangible becomes real.
Magic?
Yes, I think that's the word.

The flow of words eased up, and came to a stop for a moment, then suddenly Helen felt she had taken the verse too far and then no more words were forthcoming. As always, the darkness was always there, but Helen's inspiration had moved away from it. It was something else now, coming through the darkness; it was light, it was heat. Helen tried to forge ahead with another sentence:

So precious and sweet,

It's no use. This, this- "key" it's as if a whole new sense has been given to me! I'll try to speak to Vegeta about it. Rising from her desk she sighed then made up her mind and left the room, her old desire for learning renewed.

After knocking Helen waited a few moments, but unexpectedly Vegeta himself opened the door. "In?" She sensed him move aside, and then cautiously stepped in- then Vegeta closed the door behind her and leaned against it. He took in her long dark hair, artfully arranged in a simple fall of ringlets, her wide mouth and noticably protruding left eye. The eye both fascinated and repulsed Vegeta.

Vegeta's scent intoxicated and mystified Helen. It was sharp, and had an almost wild quality to it, like a monkey or a tiger in heat. That seemed an almost appropriate likening to Helen, as there was an exotic strength and danger about the man. "Teach... ki." Helen then held her hand to her mouth in a rather distracting manner, which after a moment Vegeta realized meant she was asking to listen to his voice. He roughly grabbed her hand and put it to his throat, where she adjusted the position slightly as the Saiyan began to speak.

"Fine! I'll teach you how to control and direct your ki, but I want something out of it; I won't do it for free."

Inching in, Helen proposed, "Learn... sign?"

He almost reflexively spat out a no, but Vegeta stopped to consider the offer a moment. It is getting to be a bother with her... hand on my throat like this. Not like there's anything better to do in this dump. Might as well. "Fine. We'll do the lessons one after the other, get it all out of the way at once. There. Satisfied?"

"...No." Helen's hands moved up past Vegeta's lips to get a sense of the warrior's face: his sharp chin and nose, high cheekbones; a widow's peak leading to strangely stiff and spiky hair. Then Helen's breath caught in her throat as she suddenly felt Vegeta's own hands on her face, drawing it in towards his. Their lips met like two hands searching for each other in the dark, holding fast when they greeted each other. Helen quickly wrapped her arms around Vegeta's neck, her passion buoying her up so that she almost didn't notice him carrying her towards the bed, where he gently laid her down. For what seemed like an eternity but was really only a few relatively short moments the embrace continued, until Vegeta heard a loud crashing noise that startled him out of the kiss.

Helen shuddered, the burning heat of the connection still coursing through her. Confused, she felt Vegeta lifting her up and guiding her to the door, opening it for her and pushing her through. She felt a familiar pattern of footsteps coming down the hall, and prepared as she could for the questions that were sure to come.

Vegeta heaved a sigh, and flopped down on the bed. Annie finding them was the last thing he wanted, and he'd heard her stomping off from the argument with John. A full-blown crisis had been averted- for the moment.