Thanks to Adli for Proofing this chapter :D

Depths of Darkness

Chapter Five – Home

October 6th

It had been one year since she last set foot in West City, since she'd perused the high-street shops, vacated the bustle of her Capsule Corp office and ventured for some solidarity in the local park. Of course, that was after visiting her favourite burger stand and buying the fattest, juiciest quarter pounder to eat beneath the trees, watching the people bumbling by in the afternoon sun.

It had been a year?

The land was completely stripped of anything natural. The plot where the park and gardens used to stand was nothing but a large square of inky mud, spoiled with garbage and rocks. Blackened tree stumps lay naked and sharp, like someone had gone at them with a blunt chainsaw. No evidence of what once was had been left behind.

Rain drops battered against the ground, making everything seem that bit more abysmal and derelict, especially under nightfall. But West City wasn't entirely desolate. As Bulma tramped through the muck—surrounded by looming, crooked buildings—drawn, tired faces would emerge from glassless windows to peer at her. They weren't threatening in any way. They were miserable, left to drag their way through the rest of their lives. Children ran into buildings that were lit with the dull orange glow of a petering log fire, their feet covered by torn shoes, loose rubber soles lapping at the wet ground like thirsty dogs. Pots clattered and echoed. Murmurs swept through the streets in ghostly choruses as the rain continued relentlessly.

Bulma pulled her hood tight over her face, drawing the strings together and twisting them round her fingers. She kept an eye on Mina's steady pace as she marched on ahead, like she had a tendency to do. Energy levels flickered all around them, confusing Bulma's train of thought. She had little clue as to where they were in relation to her home. Her only landmark was the remains of the park, but even from there, memory eluded her in the darkness. She wanted to lift her head up and get another look at what and who was surrounding her, but it was too much. The people here were the secondary result of what had taken place a year ago, what she had been oblivious to while trapped on Orlon. These were the people Yamcha wanted to help. They were the reason he was a broken man.

As Bulma looked up, on one of the crumbling brick walls, she noticed a crude piece of graffiti-work, the paint a bright, obscene shade of orange, depicting a stern-looking man, a furrowed brow, long hair past his shoulders and a long beard that rested on his chest. Underneath it, the words 'Jo will teach peace to those deserved of his wisdom', but the words had been rushed, and the paint had dried as it dripped down the bricks in anguish. She found herself staring at the graffiti, secretly willing for this 'Jo' person to bring some wisdom her way, because she was completely clueless. Even though it was only a slapdash work of someone's imagination, it was quite haunting, the picture itself. The words were definitive. Were they true? Who was or wasn't deserved? Surely a living being couldn't choose. It would always simply be an opinion. Bulma concluded that it was just an act of boredom, though it was definitely an attention grabber.

Something tinkled to the floor, diffusing a brief melody within the vacant streets. Bulma flinched as the sound came from inches behind her. She turned, peeling back her hood slightly, and was confronted with the drooping eyelids of a stranger who'd been apprehended in a sleeper-hold by an impassive-looking Vegeta. On the ground, directly beneath the man's constricted, claw-like hand, was a huge blade, long and thin, like a classic samurai sword. The rain bled across its narrow, silvery surface, reflecting an obscure version of Bulma's cloaked face. The man lost consciousness, and Vegeta released his hold, allowing the body to fall onto the saturated ground.

Rivulets of rainwater traced pathways down Vegeta's face, pulling individual hairs against his forehead. He was oblivious or unconcerned about that matter, while he smeared his hands, as if infected with a mild disease, onto his thighs.

"Pathetic. Both of you," he said, looking past Bulma at Mina.

Mina sighed and continued on as if disinterested, but Bulma could see that the woman was once again shaken up by Vegeta's insisting presence. What was that about? What exactly did he have over her to make her act so … sheepish? The minute sense of relief she had felt when seeing Vegeta had dissipated at a remarkable speed, replaced by a keen sense curiosity and mild irritation.

"Why are you here?" she whispered, looking around and catching sight of a person's face disappearing behind a frayed curtain.

He narrowed his eyes. "Why don't you ask her?"

He gestured towards Mina, who was at least fifty meters away, but still spun around, eyes bulging, and shouted back, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Vegeta huffed, letting the subject drop, and he stepped over the limp body he'd rendered unconscious. Or, at least, that's what Bulma hoped.

Bulma stood still, chewed on the situation like a mouldy piece of bread. It was driving her insane. She didn't know what she hated more: the fact that two people she knew very little about had so much more depth than she could ever comprehend, or that Vegeta and Mina had some sort of connection. The world around them was eating itself alive while they waited for Frieza to come and place the nails in the coffin, and all she could care about was something feeble like these two. It shouldn't have mattered but it did. And until she knew the truth, it would remain on her mind.

An awkward couple hundred meters passed, and a collection of relatively high energy levels left the three of them taking shelter in an empty building. Once Bulma had come in out of the rain, the damp started to set into her clothes, chilling her to the bone. She sat on the dusty flooring of what looked like an old office block, her knees huddled to her chest. They were on the ground floor, Mina crouched beneath a window, every couple of seconds checking the area, only to return even more bemused than before. Vegeta sat opposite Bulma, the darkness and gloom of the building shrouding half of his face. She remembered the building she and Vegeta had had to take shelter in back on Orlon, him teaching her how to sense energy. Now she could sense the life force of almost every soul that came her way.

She couldn't help but stare at him. The smoothness of his jaw, the contours running up to his ears, the bridge of his nose, the soft sculpt of his lips-

"Well? Go on. You're dying to say something," he said, glowering.

Her face warmed and she lifted her chin from her knees, taking no particular interest in an old, smashed computer screen on the floor. "I wouldn't even know where to begin."

Firstly, she wanted to beat the crap out of him. That wouldn't ever be possible, though. And words around Vegeta were so hard to form. They seldom delivered the punch they intended, more so rolled off his skin like the rainwater outside, as he paid little to no mind of them.

"Hn. That's not going to win you any prizes. You humans are all the same," he said, turning away from her to observe Mina.

Bulma shot up. No way was he going to follow her around and speak so crassly, like he had the right to do so. Everything was so complicated. There was a world spinning, round and round, and she was getting motion sickness and needed to jump off. Now.

"I do know that I don't want to be anywhere near you anymore," she said, her voice bouncing off the walls.

He feigned nonchalance, leant back against a pillar, and contemplated her words. "That's excellent news. Without those anklets, you can run off to wherever you like and get killed."

"Bulma, sit down," Mina hissed, still crouching, laying her hand out flat and levelling it downwards to suggest the motion of sitting down.

"No. I'm not some three year old kid who needs babysitting by 'Mrs I-don't-know-who-the-fuck-I-am', and a mass-murdering, remorseless Saiyan," she shouted and decided to up route to her initially intended destination—Home.

The path grew narrower, the streets darker, the rain thumped against her clothes, trying desperately to get her to look up. It didn't matter that people were watching out of their windows, or gangs were gathering at all corners. The only conceivable objective for Bulma was to get to her home. That was where she belonged. It was where she needed to be. Yamcha had told her there was no point. Everything had been destroyed, but she didn't care. Her mind was slipping, trickling out of her ears; she knew that. Was it so bad to just imagine? Imagine crawling under the duvets of her own bed, let the silk sheets drift across her skin, having her Mom knocking gently on her bedroom door to ask if she wanted any of the fresh, cinnamon buns she'd made. She could smell them now, drifting and weaving through each road, until the scathed street signs became more familiar.

The rain softened, almost like mist breezing against her skin. She stopped walking as she came to a clearing, a junction, or what was a junction a year ago. Now it was a mass of bricks and shattered tree branches all gathered into one huge pile. Beyond that pile, just to the left was the Capsule Corp compound. The massive remainder of the domed building still stood, but the entire top of it had collapsed in on itself, like a cracked hard-boiled egg. Only half a 'C' was left printed on the walls, the black paint chipped and barely legible.

She pulled her hood down, and almost instantly, her hair was damp. This was her home. This was what Yamcha was trying to stop her from seeing. It was her home. But it didn't look like home anymore. If it wasn't for the large amount of land it occupied, and the halved Capsule Corp logo, it might as well have been any old building in West City.

Yamcha was right.

She didn't want to see this.

She didn't want the thought of her mother and father suffocating under the rubble to clamour about in her mind. Their last dying breath. Did they even know what was happening? She hoped not. In fact, she hoped the building had collapsed on them. It would have been far better than if …

Her knees gave way and she dropped to the floor, nails clawing at the muck, raking back clods of pebbles and grot. Blood rushed to her forehead, pumping, dampening the sound of rainfall. She wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't form, and the more she opened her mouth to wail, the more her throat tightened and refused to let her give in. A rasping, asthmatic sound gurgled from the back of her throat. It reached no further than a few meters from her body. It wouldn't have attracted any attention, yet footsteps rang loudly behind her.

Looking up wasn't necessary.

"I did not come here to hold your hand," he said. "I came here to seek some clarity."

The steadiness and surety of his tone did not comfort her, rather it antagonised her.

When she did finally look up, it was baffling to see that he was gazing down at her, no fixed, readable emotion clear on his face.

She sniffed. "And have you?" The bitterness was tangible. She swung her arm out, hunching further forward, and pointed to the graveyard of her past. "Does this ring any bells?"

Vegeta said nothing. Didn't even have the curtesy to look at the damage he may or may not have created. She wished for him not to be the perpetrator. With every bone in her body, she wanted him to be innocent in all of this. The way everything was falling smoothly into place, she doubted she was going to get the desired outcome. But could the man who held her so passionately, and wordlessly promised her an escape from their torture- could he be capable of being a part of something so cruel?

"Do you remember anything?" she said, silent tears running down her face.

Vegeta flinched, only slightly, and looked vaguely insulted for a moment, before composing himself into his usual steeled, self-justifying posture.

"I remember a lot of things." He looked out across at the wasteland. "But not this."

Bulma mulled for a moment, and then stood up. "Of course."

Whether his words were true or false was not going to be determined without any facts. She wasn't so simple-minded that she would categorise him as innocent. They had all fallen victim to a strong dose of amnesia in the past year. There was no telling as to what was real or fake anymore. Time would tell the truth. But Bulma didn't know how much longer she was willing to wait. Being around Vegeta was proving too cumbersome, his presence like an infestation in her bloodstream. Though a small part of her hankered for him to be beside her again. An emotion that had manifested itself under her skin, and, without a serious amount of pain and distress, couldn't be removed. Regardless of what Vegeta had or hadn't done on this planet, he had saved her on Orlon in more ways than one. He'd been victim to Frieza's twisted games for years before she even knew him. And that kept her holding onto the slim hope that there was light beyond the obsidian-shaded horizon.

Dirt and chips of rock embedded themselves beneath her nails as she clawed her way through a mountainous pile of rocks, letting them slide and tumble to the summit with an incredible 'cracking' and 'popping' sound. The noise vibrated through the streets, but she paid no mind to it, because there was something at the bottom. She knew it. It had to be. It was located at the exact point, two meters below the ground. Vegeta stood on the side-lines for no apparent reason, supposedly watching her without deterring her from creating such a racket. In fact, no one approached. Besides the small groups of people who were patrolling the city mere moments ago, the city seemed abandoned. No sound at all, except for Bulma's exclusive rock fiesta. Ten minutes became twenty minutes, and twenty easily became an hour, before she started finding the soft soil at the bottom of the pile.

Sweat and tears streaked her face. She rubbed her hands down her skin, smearing the grains of soil and grime down into the hollow of her neck. The constant rain water did very little to make her feel any cleaner, dribbling onto her face, mixing with dirt. Like a beacon glowing amidst a foggy night, a dainty keypad presented itself, implanted into a solid square of cement, all its numbers scratched and scuffed so they were almost illegible. Bulma frantically pushed back a border of stones, heaving them as far away from her as possible to reveal a metal grid, shaped like a manhole cover, apart from the familiar Capsule Corp logo etched on the front in big bold letters. Her chest constricted painfully. The lab hadn't been discovered. No one had tampered with it because no one knew of its existence. Not even Yamcha or Krillin.

She glossed over the keypad once more. Number three and six were the only numbers she could make out, but how was she to know the entire combination? This lab was barely used by anyone other than her Father, and even that was on a rare occasion, when he wanted some peace and quiet away from the house. Bulma had been in there two, maybe three times on her own. She closed her eyes, could picture the interior, herself wandering through the room gawping at all the untouched machinery. But could not remember the digits. Knowing her Father, it had to have been something sentimental, and meaningful. She tried her Mother's birthday, jabbing the keys for extra clarity.

Nothing happened.

Several combinations swam through her mind, and she regurgitated them one after the other to no avail. Her hands started the shake with rage, or anxiety, or something else. It was useless. She sat back on her haunches, back aching from leaning over the keypad for so long, and she chewed at the loose skin on the pad of her thumb. Vegeta was still standing at the entrance to the grounds. He was neither here nor there in this situation.

Random sounds kept making her flinch. It would take a second for someone to apprehend her, and Vegeta wasn't necessarily going to come charging to her rescue. He'd been brainwashed by Frieza. And until very recently, he swore that he would kill her. The thought of his gaunt, life-drained face when he spat those words at her made her skin prickle and stomach quiver.

A distant number appeared in Bulma's head. It had been there from the beginning, but she disregarded it for the sheer unlikelihood of it being correct. How could it be? How would her Father have thought to use such a number? Sweat trickled down her spine as she gingerly leaned towards to keypad, fingers tinkling above the numbers that were burning holes in her brain. She typed them in, carefully, with a trembling hand.

Zero-one-six-zero. Orlon's Coordinates.

A dull clicking sound came directly from the metal grid, followed by a mechanical sigh of latches being released one by one. Her heart felt like it was ensconcing itself in her throat, lodged there, straining against her vocal chords when she tried to speak. How, and more importantly, why had her Father used Orlon's coordinates for his lab? She didn't want to know. Despite that being the only number that stood out, screaming at her against all the others, she simply pushed it away. But it was right.

No words came while she sat hugging her knees, staring at the now accessible door.

Just tears.

Everything was preserved, untouched, pickled, you could say. There was a tainted hush of solemnity in the atmosphere, tangible in the air, heavy, pressing down on Bulma while she gathered the sight of what had been left. A leaden, amber glow was being cast from five of twenty the affixed ceiling lamps, meaning a fair portion of the lab was still hidden under a film of darkness, albeit for the stagnant red lights on the control panels around the room. A soft beeping was coming from somewhere, which sounded like music to Bulma's ears. She closed her eyes, tried to imagine the lab in its prime, her Father bustling around laden with bundles of papers and equipment. The image lacked colour, though. Like watching a black and white movie. And her Father didn't have a face, just a grey mass where his features used to be.

It was everything she imagined it to be. She walked around, brushed her fingertips along a workstation, and only picking up a thin layer of residual dust. It was bizarre. As though the lab had been set aside, immune to the chaos that had torn down the Earth outdoors. A little haven. Already, Bulma was becoming enraptured by the prospect of spending some time down here. Was that so far of an impossibility?

A thud, and Vegeta appeared at the bottom of the ladder, the same ladder that led straight back out to the tainted reality. She'd left the door open, knowing he would eventually follow, but judging by the 'thud', it was now closed, sealing them both in. For someone to breach the seal, they would have to know the code once again.

Bulma mindlessly continued through the lab, pushing through its darkness, finding a cluttered workbench with an abundance of blueprints, adorned with her Father's scrawl on their crumpled faces. His wiry writing was dashed everywhere, over diagrams of a ships, mistakes crossed out, numbers jotted erratically. Bulma's heart swelled, and then more tears came at the thought of her faceless Father hunched over this very desk, maybe a year ago, scribbling away.

It was too overwhelming. Her legs were buckling, begging her to cave, to give in like she was so used to doing lately. She looked over at Vegeta, who was stood rigid, still by the entrance, his brows knitted tightly, fists clenched. They were alone. Vegeta, the man who promised to kill her, had the perfect opportunity to do so without anyone being wiser to it.

She swallowed, recognising the look on his face, and in a heartbeat, he was charging towards her, as if he had read her mind. She stood her ground, waiting, capturing the intensity of hatred in his eyes.

A part of her shattered into irretrievable pieces.

But he stopped, inches shy of her, his stance painfully stationary, as though he had been shot with an electric current up through his legs.

Tired of the same game, Bulma turned her back on him. "If it's still so much of a struggle, why are you here?"

As the words rolled off her tongue, she glanced over her shoulder, eyes stained with hopefulness.

Vegeta barely flinched, posture relaxing.

"For once," he said, voice raw and constricted-sounding. "You're right."

She turned away at the sound of his fading footsteps, soon accompanied by the sound of the grid thudding shut again. And, once more, she was alone, feeling more bereft than ever amongst the blaring memories of her Father's existence.

Moments passed, when numerous clanging came from the entrance to the lab, followed by unintelligible murmurs. It continued, became louder, more aggressive and severe. At first she tried to ignore it, rifling through cabinets for useful items, gathering capsules and cramming them into her pockets. But it became deafening. Uninvited guests wanting to destroy a preserved memory. She sank to the ground, pulling down a random piece of paper as she did, and read it just for the sake of having something to look at before whoever was outside eventually found a way in.

She must have been too loud, or Vegeta must have been spotted as he left. Either way, people knew something was down here, and after seeing how animalistic humans had become, she didn't want to imagine the lengths they would go to get in here. But, then, she guessed she would find out soon enough.

Bulma sat trying to wrack her brain, shake away the memories that polluted it and replace them with times before the Earth had been redeveloped into a living nightmare. Every time she gathered a thought about her parents, their faces were never clear. Just a blur. The faintest image of a party on the Capsule Corp grounds kept flickering, but she couldn't pick it up or pause the image like on a screen. They slipped away like pleasant dreams. Nightmares always stood out, knocking aside anything beautiful.

Banging continued so violently that another lightbulb blew above her head, casting more darkness, which was ever so slowly devouring the room. The vibrations ran right the way through the room with each bang. The blueprints, trashed with illegible markings done by her Father's hand, shook and trembled in her own. There was no way out. No one was coming for her this time. The only people who knew were Vegeta and Mina.

Mina.

The moment Vegeta stepped onto the scene that woman was merely itching for a way out. At the first chance she had, she darted into the shadows unnoticed. Not until it was important. That was all Mina seemed to want—to escape. But why-

A bolt popped and tinkled across the tiles, skittering to a stop by the leg of one of the workbenches. Bulma held her breath, awaiting the next row of bolts to patter to the ground. The thrashing got louder, voices clearer. She thought she heard the name 'Jo' over and over, but maybe she was too dazed to configure anything these people said. Whatever they were saying, the tone wasn't friendly or welcoming.

She dropped the blueprint and closed her eyes.

If they found her, they might not kill her. They might interrogate her, though, keep her held prisoner like Yamcha's men had done …

"Bulma?"

Goku was in the middle of the lab, cautiously lowering two fingers from his forehead while gathering his surroundings. Her heart was beating rapidly, hands shaking. He had sensed her energy. He'd come for her. Goku strode over, flinched when several bolts popped to the floor, and then raucous cheering followed all too clearly now that the grid had been peeled away.

Goku held out his hand, and Bulma didn't falter to take it.

What was left of this planet was a rotten mess. The air was plagued with a foul stench of sweating, fermenting bodies, riddled with neglect and starvation. Bodies on the balance of this realm and the next. All it would take would be a slight push in the right direction and their troubles would be over. Death would take them gladly.

It had been hours since he left her, concealing his energy so as not to be found. He'd flown over colonies that looked more like cesspits, their inhabitants gawking as he passed them, some feebly attempting to shoot him down with a measly pocket of energy. The humans had somehow acquired the ability of harnessing ki. How, he did not know. And how, he did not want to know. They had it, and that was all that mattered. How he was going to deal with this little niggle was more important. That could wait, for now. Collecting distance from Bulma was the best thing for him to do, and if that amounted to never seeing her again, then so be it. It was more sufficient that way. He worked better alone. Always had done. Even in the company of fellow Saiyans, he preferred solitude.

The sun rose, creeping over the crimson rocks of a deserted wasteland, when he finally decided he'd covered enough ground. Was he cowering? Definitely not. None of those humans would even begin to understand. Did he even understand? Lately, his judgement had been so cloudy and incoherent that it worried him. For a moment, he was almost satisfied in lending a hand to that clown and his son. Help them protect the Earth. He wouldn't do it. It wasn't his problem. Frieza was his problem. True, the two problems were skipping merrily, hand in hand, but he would not let this mud ball come at the forefront of his ideals.

Why did she ask him that question?

'Do you remember anything?'

Questions like that, he could not tolerate. Forcing him to speak truths he would rather not? Though, she did not force him to dispel that information, did she? What was it about her that allowed him to sink into a dewy false sense of security? Even on Orlon, she had managed to wind herself into his mind. Never had he shared a shred of care towards anyone … except her.

As his feet touched down at the edge of a particularly high rock, a faint static buzz was emitted in the corner of his mind's eye, and he let out of heave of exasperation, before clarifying that he had, in fact, been followed after all. How he did not notice this energy … She'd been tailing him the entire time. Of course.

"Who are you?" she said, yet he did not turn round and grace her with his attention.

"Think carefully," he said, gazing out at the infinite sun rise, its orange, hypnotic blur almost making him think he was on a different planet.

"I can't," she screamed, and the ground ruptured beneath his feet, knocking his balance slightly.

Vegeta turned to her, the contemptible sight of her chest heaving up and down as she collapsed to the floor, the tendrils of smoke from the energy blast she'd just created still snaking their way out of a gaping hole in the rocks between them. Part of him was slightly impressed, but then, she had always stood out from the rest of them.

"Do you really think someone capable of that kind of power could be from this planet?"

The question was rhetorical, but he let the words soak in, which, judging by the way her face was twisting with confusion, it was working pleasantly well.

Still on her knees, looking up at him with pleading palms on her lap, she said, "What? What am I?"

He frowned. Her density was much worse than he remembered …

"You're pathetic. Get up." Again, he turned his back on her.

"You didn't answer my question … in Goku's house. Why do I know you?"

The sun's warmth crawled across his skin like someone throwing a blanket over him. A similar kind of heat to that of another body against his own. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling. If he had the patience, he would have stood there for a while longer, remembering the silk of Bulma's thighs against his hips.

"Answer me," she shouted.

He grimaced, accepting that she was too stupid to gather the evidence on her own. Vegeta glanced over his shoulder. She was still sitting on the floor.

"You fool. You recognise me because we both have one thing in common—Frieza."

The guy beside her was strong. No doubt about that. His arms were the size of tree trunks! But his breath could kill a thousand warriors with one exhale from those putrid lungs of his. No, there wasn't any potential there. To the left of her, leaning across the table, elbow almost pushing Kroner's tray back into his chest, was a lithe, twig-thin kind of guy, who backed all his strength up in his mind. But he had no teeth. She sighed, tearing segments of fruit and popping them into her mouth, as the two warriors tried to maintain her sporadic attention. None of these guy were ever worth her time. Why she even cared was beyond her. She was not here to find a male. Hell, they were everywhere. And, yes, the few she had opened her legs to were OK. But that was all they were to her—a moment in time, drenched with the toxicity of alcohol and hallucinogenic fumes. She wanted something more, someone more.

Who was she kidding? It was the wrong fucking place. And definitely the wrong fucking time. Her life was mapped out before her, drilled into a titanium plate. There was no other way around it.

The mess hall was thriving with worn-out bodies, all roaming for their thirty minutes of free time to exchange gory details and spill themselves over the worst tasting food in the universe. The noise was deafening, way above the necessary amount as each warrior tried to outdo the other's story by raising their voices just that little bit higher. It wasn't uncommon for a fight to break out, just because one guy was louder than the other. It was amusing, to say the least.

A wisp of red hair wafted in front of her eyes as she swallowed the juices from the fruit segment she'd been savouring for the last minute or so. When she went cross-eyed trying to pluck the stray hair from her scalp, the guys either side of her, and all around the room hushed. Footsteps paced across from one end of the room to the other.

The stray hair was forgotten when he walked past her, the breeze of his haste catching in her throat. Vegeta, ever so subtly, clocked her, before remaining impassive throughout his journey to the canteen.

The first thing that occurred to her was; he wasn't dead. Then she spotted the bruise under his left eye. She wanted to jump up and run to his side, console him or whatever he needed. But he would push her away like he always had done. For she was nothing more to him than a comrade. Perhaps not even that.

Some of the other warriors in the room were visibly shaking and sweating. So long as Vegeta was around, they knew their life was balancing by a thread.

Zarbon's voice chimed over the speakers, stopping Vegeta in his tracks.

"Good afternoon, little lab rats."

His voice made her feel ill.

"Just a quick announcement. Vegeta is to report to Lord Frieza in his quarters immediately. That's Vegeta, to Lord Frieza, pronto. Spit spot, your highness," he said in a sing-song voice, followed by a fluttering chuckle.

She fixed her eyes on Vegeta, which, she was certain, everyone else in the room was doing. His shoulders were pulled back, blades almost meeting in the middle, and the rubber of his gloves squelched as he clenched his fist, the noise echoing throughout the entire hall.

Her heart battered against her rib cage, teasing her into actions she knew would get her into trouble. The need to jump out of her seat was incongruous, bizarrely powerful. But as he squared his shoulders, turned on his heel and strode towards the exit, that need subsided with her acceptance of her actions being futile when it came to Vegeta.

Just before he made it out of the hall, a chesty voice, from the opposite side to her bellowed, "Frieza's little lap dog, off to please his master once again," followed by delayed laughter.

What happened next was too quick. The room erupted and everyone was blinded by a blue flash. As soon as the flash faded, and she regained her vision, the stench of charred bodies overwhelmed the place. She gagged, covering her nose and mouth with her forearm, took a quick sweep of the quarter of the room that had been vaporised. It was too late to do anything or help anyone. Besides, the warriors here would never do such a thing.

Commotion ensued, but not the kind she expected. Men and women hurriedly scooped up what was left of their food and vacated the room, pushing people out of the way to get back to wherever they couldn't be found when one of Frieza's 'highers' found out about it.

She barged through the crowds and out onto what seemed like one of many endless corridors, hoping it would take her to him before it was too late. She sprinted, ignoring a warrior hollering for her to stop immediately. She kept running, slipping past people, dodging everyone, until she saw him.

"Vegeta," she said, steadying her breath.

He came to an abrupt standstill, but didn't turn back to see who had called him. She knew he didn't need to.

"What?" he said, barely audible.

Now that she had caught up with him, she didn't have a clue what to say to him. Nothing would work, but …

"Don't—"

"Don't what?" he barked, whipping around and squaring up to her, his forehead almost butting against hers. "You think … if I had a choice, I would?"

Crying was never an option for her, but she refrained from backing down against him. She sighed, dejected, knowing that this was the closest she would ever get to him.

"We'll stop him," she said.

"Who? You're on your own," he said, stepping back, smirking sardonically.

"I thought—"

"No. You thought wrong."

"Conspiring again, are we, Vegeta?" Zarbon said, appearing out of thin air like he always did.

Her face rushed with blood, and not for being caught in a compromising position. It was for fear of what would now become of Vegeta. Only hours had passed since he'd been requested to go to Frieza's quarters, yet he was going again, so soon? What did Frieza want from Vegeta? Hadn't he had enough? For years she'd been watching Vegeta disappear and reappear with new cuts and bruises across his flesh. She knew what Frieza was doing to him, but didn't want to think about the in-depth details. Everyone on the ship knew that. It made her stomach sink to her heels.

"When Frieza requests your presence, he expects it immediately. But … I guess you've prioritised your time for …" Zarbon looked her up and down, a look so scathing and cutting it made her want to fall into the ground and never come back up again.

"Whoever you are," he finished, bringing his sparkling eyes back towards his main target.

Vegeta widened the distance between them, stepping out of arms reach. Moments later, he was way down the corridor, and she glimpsed his shoulders, ever so slightly, sinking. Zarbon's words hit her harder than he probably intended them to. Whoever she was? She had a name. And she would make damn sure that he remembered it.