Memories Restored
Mrs. Brief had a hard time letting go of Vegeta. Once he stopped fighting her, the last thing she wanted to do was leave his embrace. Here was her long lost son, now a grown man with a dark past. She didn't care what he had done or what the others considered him to be, he was still her little Vegeta, the son she could never have. She loved him now as much as she did when he was a boy. She didn't care what the others were bickering about. She didn't listen to them, at least, not until they started talking about what was done to Vegeta to make him forget his previous stay on Earth.
"How could they do something so awful to you, Vegeta?" she whispered.
He grunted. "You don't know the type of people I work for."
"No," she agreed, "I suppose I don't. But it doesn't matter. You're never going back to them. Not again. We can't lose you again."
Vegeta shook his head. "Don't be absurd, woman. If I don't return they'll come here to kill me and destroy the whole planet. Even if I wanted to stay here, I couldn't."
It hurt when he said he didn't want to stay on Earth. She knew that he didn't remember them because of some crazy experiment that sounded more like an excerpt from a science fiction novel, but she still wanted to believe that despite him not having his memories, he would want to stay on Earth where he could be safe from more horrendous tortures. His explanation that the planet would be destroyed wasn't enough to make her change her mind about keeping him there. They would find a way to free him from this Frieza monster somehow. When the Earth's greatest minds combined with its greatest warriors, they were always able to overcome anything that came their way. Frieza would be no different. The problem would be convincing Vegeta that this was so. He didn't seem to like the others very much. He didn't trust them.
"Well, there's no rush. You can stay as long as you'd like. I think my husband and Bulma would be able to figure out how to restore your memories, if you want them to."
Vegeta finally pulled away from Mrs. Brief and looked over at Bulma and Dr. Brief. They weren't saying anything, but they looked thoughtful. Their brows were furrowed and their mouths turned down in concentration. He turned his gaze to Nappa, who was looking at Raditz and making subtle facial expressions as they conversed mentally. He glanced around at the other warriors, who were all eyeing him with distrust and hostility. That was expected. He did want to remember, if for no other reason than he resented having his mind tampered with. But could he trust the humans to reverse what was done? Did they have the technology for it?
Putting his faith in someone to help him out was not something he had much experience in doing. They claimed to know him, even care about him, but he didn't remember them at all. For all he knew, he recognized their scents because he was around them and they did horrible things to him. They were scientists, apparently, and they were able to keep Raditz in a coma for a whole year. Could he trust them? Without his memories, he wasn't sure. In the back of his mind, he knew he had nothing to worry about, but his uncertainty was overbearing. Why would these strangers want to help him? Especially after he tried to kill all their friends and succeeded in killing the one who was going to be mated to the blue-haired woman? Surely she held some sort of grudge. He didn't think it would be wise to let her go playing around in his brain. Definitely not.
At the same time, he wanted his memories back. Nappa had shown his memories of Vegeta going berserk and trying to take on Frieza and Zarbon to protect Earth. He showed him his memories of his power level skyrocketing to over 30,000 when he was only 12 years old. That was unreal. His power had only managed to reach 30,000 several months ago without him having to push so hard it tore his body apart inside. How could he have exceeded that years ago with no ill effects? Was Nappa lying to him, or was there something in his memories that gave him that tremendous power boost? If his power was able to jump 20,000 points back then, what could it do now if he had the same memories to fuel his energy? Restoring those memories to find out certainly was tempting.
But there was always the question of whether or not it was even possible. He didn't know much about these humans. They had the means to keep a saiyan in a coma, but did they have the medical technology to perform brain surgery that would undo the experiment? They couldn't possibly understand saiyan anatomy and physiology as well as Malaka. He spent most of his lifetime studying the saiyans. These people hadn't. They might end up doing more harm than good if he allowed them to try their own experiment on him. What if they had the technology, though? Worse, what if their technology surpassed Frieza's? Could they implant memories or brainwash him somehow to make him their slave? Why else would they want to 'help' him? There had to be some benefit for them.
He was attached to these people somehow. He didn't know why or how it happened, but it did. He could feel it even if he couldn't remember a thing about them. The only reason he even knew their names was because the blue-haired woman introduced herself to him. How could he care about someone whose name he didn't even know? It was ridiculous. It made no sense. But he had known their names at one time. He had known much more than their names, too. Maybe he could trust them. He looked at Mrs. Brief, who was smiling, sniffling, and wiping her eyes with the corner of a handkerchief. She seemed harmless enough. And he felt safe with her. How could he feel safe with someone if she had a history of inflicting harm on him? Did that matter? He didn't feel that sort of safety with the younger woman. Granted, he felt protective with her. How disgusting. He wasn't a protector. He was a killer. And yet, he couldn't kill her. Was that enough reason to trust her? What about the man? He didn't know how he felt about him yet.
The man was an odd-looking creature. He was short, he had shaggy gray hair with a matching gray mustache, he wore thick glasses, a plain blue shirt with an oversized, wrinkled white lab coat over it. And on his shoulder was perched a small animal, all black with big round eyes and big ears. The man had a stick of something held between his lips that he could smell from across the room. It wasn't pleasant. He had a feeling it could smell much worse, though. Even after analyzing the man, Vegeta still didn't know what to think of him.
"That is your husband?" Vegeta asked, indicating Dr. Brief with a nod of his head.
"Yes, that's him," Mrs. Brief answered.
Vegeta looked from the man to the woman, then back. His eyebrow raised. What was he doing mated to her? He looked like he was decades older than her. Not only that, but this man was possibly some kind of genius. While he did like the woman, he could tell she didn't have much in the way of smarts. What an odd pair. He dismissed that thought. He had more important matters to attend to. He phased across the room in front of Dr. Brief and picked him up by his shirt collar.
In an instant Goku was there next to him, prepared to throw him away from Dr. Brief. But before he could make his attack, Vegeta's free hand clamped around his throat and squeezed. Ignoring Goku and Dr. Brief's sounds of surprise, Vegeta sniffed his neck. It was hard to find the man's actual scent buried under axel grease, tobacco, and cologne. When he finally found it, he again felt he knew the man. As if from a dream long forgotten, he knew him. He felt he should respect this man for some reason. In a way, he felt he should be vying for his man's approval even though he never cared about anyone's approval before. He set the man down on his feet and only then realized he was still holding the earthling saiyan's throat while his friends tried to pry him free. He released him with a snarl.
"You'd better stop trying to fight me before I lose patience and kill you."
Goku rubbed his throat and glared at the prince. "Maybe if you'd stop trying to hurt these people—"
Dr. Brief chuckled and patted Goku's back. "Don't worry, Goku, he wasn't trying to hurt me. He was just, er, scenting me, I believe."
Vegeta huffed and stalked across the room to lean against Raditz's bed. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at all the other warriors in the room. Meddling fools. He should kill them all, but he made that damned promise to the blue-haired woman. "You think you can bring back my memories?"
Bulma sighed. "Well, it wouldn't be easy. We would need to see what was done first before we can make any promises."
"Of course." Vegeta rolled his eyes. It could never be easy. At least the woman had the good sense not to promise him anything when she didn't know if she could deliver. "What would you need to do?"
"Well, first of all…" Bulma turned around and pulled a syringe out of drawer. "We'll need to give you a shot."
"A shot?" Goku yelped when he saw the syringe in Bulma's hand. Before anyone could stop him, he ran out of the room with his friends and son trailing after him, trying to convince him to come back in case the saiyans tried anything without them watching. He wasn't swayed. He would not be in the same room as a needle.
Vegeta snorted. "Why the hell would I need an injection, woman?"
Bulma put the syringe away. "To get rid of Goku and the others. I assume you don't want them hanging around here all day."
Vegeta smirked. Maybe there was more to the woman than he originally thought. Getting Kakarrot to leave wouldn't have been an easy task if he had resorted to fighting him, but apparently the fool had a fear of needles intense enough to make him leave the room if he so much as saw one, even if he wasn't the one receiving it. The woman knew her comrades well. That was something he could respect. Knowing one's allies was as important as knowing one's enemies. It was important to be familiar with their limitations. Not usually to use against them, but he wasn't going to say anything in this case. At least he didn't have a bunch of enemies hovering around watching his every move, ready to strike for no reason. He could easily defend himself against them, but at least now he could relax – a little.
"So what do you really need to do?" he asked.
"Vegeta," Raditz interjected, "You're not really going to trust them, are you?"
The flame-haired saiyan shrugged. "Why not? You're here to keep an eye on them. If they do anything to harm me, you can kill them." He wasn't going to tell Nappa and Raditz that he actually did trust these humans. If anything, he was curious to know why. If they could restore his memories, then he would know. It might also help him figure out how to break his attachments if they proved to be less than helpful in gaining power.
Nappa nodded once. "We'll make sure they don't try any funny business."
"Good." Vegeta turned back to Bulma and Dr. Brief. "What do you need to do?"
Bulma bit her bottom lip and looked over at her father. He shrugged one shoulder. She took a deep breath and released it slowly. "I guess the first thing is to see what's going on in your brain. So, I guess an fMRI might be best. What do you think, Dad?"
"That sounds reasonable."
"What's an fMRI?" Vegeta asked. He didn't want them to do anything without thoroughly explaining first.
"It's a functional magnetic resonance imagining scan," Bulma answered. "Basically, the machine gives us a three dimensional picture of your brain and it shows what areas of your brain are most active given different stimuli. We can use it to find where your memories are and see if there's any part of your brain that isn't active that should be. That's probably where your memories of us are. The best part of this type of scan is that it's noninvasive."
Vegeta shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Honestly, it made him nervous to willingly allow someone to perform any sort of medical procedure on him. "I can be fully conscious during the scan?"
"Absolutely. How else would we know what part of your brain is activated by outside stimuli?"
His lip curled. Obviously they didn't know much about saiyans if they thought he had to be conscious to mentally respond to his environment. It didn't matter. At least they wouldn't want to knock him out for the scan. "Fine."
"Alright. We're going to have to go to headquarters in the city then," Bulma said. She held her father's arm and left the room.
Vegeta raked his hand through his hair. He was having second thoughts. "Well, come on you idiots." He walked out of the room with Nappa and Raditz behind him. He spotted Bulma and Dr. Brief down the hall and caught up with them as they walked to the front door of the compound. They went outside and Bulma pulled a small device out of her pocket and tossed it on the ground. From it appeared a convertible hovercar.
"You guys all coming?" she asked as she opened the door and got in the driver's seat. Her father went around and got in the passenger side.
"This is ridiculous," Vegeta snarled as he got in the back seat and scooted to the middle. Nappa and Raditz got in on either side of him, making for a very uncomfortable ride smashed between them. Bulma adjusted her rearview mirror to try to see over his upright hair. She giggled when she saw his scowl.
"It'll only take a few minutes to get there. Hang on." She noticed when she started the car that it had trouble leaving the ground. The saiyans in the back were extremely heavy and they were weighing the car down. She hoped they could make it all the way to headquarters without crashing or scraping the ground. She didn't want to have to repair her newest hovercar so soon after getting it. Bulma pulled out of the driveway and drove to headquarters as fast as she dared with her heavy load.
She stopped in front of a tall skyscraper that easily consumed a whole city block. She got out of the driver's seat and walked around the car to the sidewalk leading up to the main entrance. Meanwhile, the saiyans and Dr. Brief got out of the car so she could capsulate it before going inside. With her capsule tucked safely in her pocket, she led the way inside. She and Dr. Brief greeted the receptionist at the front desk and went to the elevator. They were waiting for an elevator when a small group of Capsule Corporation employees walked by. They looked at the saiyans and steered clear of them.
"Hopefully no one recognizes you from the news. They probably haven't seen any reports yet," Bulma said as an afterthought. They heard a cheerful ding as the elevator doors finally opened. The Briefs stepped onto the elevator. The saiyans didn't. Raditz and Nappa were waiting for Vegeta, but he wasn't planning on entering such a small space, even if he wasn't alone. When the doors started sliding closed, Bulma held them open and met Vegeta's gaze. "Vegeta, you need to get on."
"I'm not getting on that thing," he grumbled, taking a step back.
"Why not?"
Vegeta shook his head and backed up another step. The longer he looked at it the smaller it seemed. He backed up until he bumped into Raditz and Nappa. They exchanged a glance, understanding what was going on in his mind, and sighed. Nappa pushed Vegeta forward, fighting against the prince's resistance until he was across the threshold. "We'll be with you, Vegeta," he said, so low the humans couldn't hear.
Bulma released the doors. "You guys wait for the next elevator. These have a weight limit you'll probably exceed. Come to the tenth floor. We'll wait for you."
Nappa and Raditz looked like they were about to argue, but the doors closed in their faces before they had the chance. Nappa glowered at Raditz. "I don't like this at all."
Raditz shrugged. "I don't know if we can trust them, but they're the best chance we've got of getting Vegeta's memories back. We'll just have to go with it."
"Sometimes I think you'll go along with anything." They looked up and watched the number above the elevator doors changing, steadily increasing until it reached 12. There it paused, then came back down again, stopping at the tenth floor to pick up more passengers.
There was another ding as another set of doors opened and a few men and women dressed in white lab coats exited the elevator. Nappa and Raditz got onto it before the doors closed. Raditz pushed the button next to the number 12 and crossed his arms over his chest. He glared at his reflection in the opposite wall of the elevator. They waited a few seconds before the elevator gave another ding and the doors slid open. The two large saiyans stepped off and saw Bulma, Dr. Brief, and Vegeta waiting for them in the hall. They joined them as they started walking down the long hall with Bulma leading the way.
When they came to crossways of two halls, Bulma took a left. She greeted the employees she saw meandering in the hallway, most of them writing notes on clipboards or walking hurriedly to another room somewhere on the floor. Each employee would stop and greet both her and Dr. Brief with respect, then continue on their way. Vegeta wondered why everyone would treat them with such respect. It wasn't that he didn't think they weren't worthy of it, but it made him wonder what their position was that they would automatically earn respect from everyone they met. He was broken from his thoughts when Bulma abruptly stopped to open a door on the right side of the hall. She went inside with her father. The saiyans followed close behind. The room was big, but there was a large machine that made the room hot and stuffy.
Bulma led them over to the machine, which had a table that moved into a cylindrical opening. Vegeta didn't like it. If he was supposed to go in that thing, he would refuse. He didn't particularly care for small spaces. Other than his space pod, he stayed out of any place where he couldn't move freely ever since his experience on base 35.
"Ok, Vegeta, do you have any metal on you?" Bulma asked. He took off his scouter and handed it to her. She nodded. "Good. Now I need you to lie down here." She pointed to the table that Vegeta already decided he wasn't going to lie down on.
"No."
"What?"
"I said no."
"Yeah, I heard you," she grumbled. "But you've got to lie down on this thing if we're going to do this scan. You do want your memories back, don't you?"
"Not if it means going in there." He took a step back from the machine.
Bulma put her hands on her hips. "Don't tell me you're scared, Vegeta."
Nappa growled and stepped forward, putting himself between his prince and the woman. "Don't even joke about that, wench."
Vegeta took another step back, bumping into Raditz. "I'm not going in there."
Bulma moved to the other side of the table. She wanted a barrier between herself and the big saiyan, even if he could easily get around it. "But you have to. This is the best scan available. If you don't do this, then we might never figure out how to bring your memories back."
Raditz looked at the machine. He could see why Vegeta didn't want to get in it. The space was very small. He doubted he would even be able to fit in it. Vegeta would be extremely confined in there. He understood why he hated small spaces. He couldn't blame him. And he definitely wasn't going to push Vegeta to do anything that might make him break with reality again. Still, the woman probably knew what she was talking about. He didn't remember specifically what happened while he was in a coma, but he knew that she was highly intelligent and that she had access to the best medical equipment on the planet. He sighed. If Vegeta wanted his memories back, this would be his best chance.
"You should do it, Vegeta. Don't worry, me and Nappa will be right here in case anything happens."
Vegeta glanced over his shoulder at Raditz, who gave him an encouraging nod and a nudge toward the machine. He hesitantly moved forward. His tail was bristled by the time he reached the table. He didn't want to do this. But he couldn't show fear. He took a deep breath and got on the table. Sweat trickled down his temples.
"Don't worry, Vegeta," Bulma said as she started strapping him down. She saw his muscles tense. "I'm doing this so you can't move too much in there. Movement messes up the image of your brain and we'd have to do this all over again. This should only take fifteen to twenty minutes. I'll ask you questions while you're in there and you just have to try to think of the answers, ok?"
"Hn."
"I should also warn you that the machine can be pretty loud."
He frowned. "How loud is loud?"
"Loud." Bulma finished strapping him in. "I need everything metal to get out of this room. That means your communicator goes," she said to Nappa. "And if you have anything else metal it needs to be left outside the room for the duration of the scan. Metal can interfere with the machine."
Nappa took off his scouter and handed it to Bulma. Neither he nor Raditz had anything else metal. They never carried anything with them aside from their scouters and armor, which didn't have any metal on it anywhere. Bulma carried the two scouters out of the room and came back a minute later. She went over to the fMRI machine and typed in some commands.
"Just relax, Vegeta," she said. "This won't hurt. All you have to do is lie still and try to remember, ok?"
Vegeta swallowed. "Get on with it already."
Dr. Brief nodded and pushed the button to move the table into the machine. Vegeta felt his heart pounding in his chest. He was enclosed on all sides. He couldn't move. He was trapped. He tried moving, but he was restrained. Forget this, it wasn't worth it. He wanted out. He struggled more until he broke the restraints. He had to get out.
"He's panicking," Bulma muttered.
"We'll have to bring him out," Dr. Brief said.
"No, keep him in there," Raditz said. He looked away when he saw the incredulous look Nappa was giving him. "We can calm him down. Just keep going. He has to remember."
"Are you crazy?" Nappa hissed.
"Look, we want him to get his memories back, don't we? Yes, this is uncomfortable for him right now, but it's not going to hurt him. So we'll just calm him down and help him through it. It's worth it, don't you see that?"
Nappa rubbed his hand over his face. "Fine. But if we can't calm him down it's over."
"Right."
"Are you sure you guys are going to be able to help?" Bulma asked skeptically.
Raditz snarled at her. "Of course we can help! Shut up and do your own job, wench."
Bulma huffed indignantly as she turned back to the computer screen. She hoped they could do something to get Vegeta calmed down soon or he would probably destroy the whole machine in his efforts to get out. She had to admit, if anyone knew how to deal with Vegeta, it was probably those two. As tired as she was of the way they treated her and her friends and family, she was counting on them to help with Vegeta. The goal was to get his memories back, not to make friends with the saiyans. She had to keep that in mind when working with the brutes.
A few minutes passed with the two large saiyans trying to get through to Vegeta via their mental links. The whole time he was thrashing around in the machine, blindly flailing his arms and legs in desperate attempts to get out. Bulma bit her lip as she monitored the machine to make sure it wasn't being damaged in the process. She tried to block out his cries. He was worse than a caged, terrified animal in there. She could sense a deeper fear, something that stemmed from a terrible experience. Was he claustrophobic before? She didn't think he was. Something had happened during the past seventeen years to make him so afraid of small spaces.
Dr. Brief reached over and rubbed her back. "He'll be alright, Bulma."
"I know." She cringed when she heard another roar erupt from inside the machine. "But I don't think he does."
"Get me out of here!" Vegeta bellowed, his voice raw. "Right now!"
Bulma looked to her father for support. He shrugged one shoulder and frowned. He didn't like putting Vegeta through this any more than she did, but he, like the saiyans, thought it would be best to keep him in there until he calmed down. It was likely that if he was taken out before the scan could be done that he would never go back in and then they would have no way of knowing how to undo the experiment done on his brain.
Several more minutes passed before the yelling ceased. The only thing they could hear coming from the machine was Vegeta's labored breathing. Bulma started the scan when he stayed quiet for another minute. She was trusting the saiyans to keep him from moving around since the restraints were broken. Hopefully the noise of the machine wouldn't make him panic all over again. If it did, she was tempted to call the whole thing off. He could live without his memories of Earth. She didn't have the heart to prolong the procedure if he was that scared. She promised herself never to mention his behavior to him or anyone else. She knew he had a huge, fragile ego sustained only by his pride. She didn't want to do anything to hurt him. Not when she was using ammunition created by his horrifying experiences while away in space.
Bulma and Dr. Brief were both surprised at how well the scan went once Vegeta stopped moving. They and the saiyans asked him many questions about his memories right up to the point where he couldn't remember and the memories right after. They asked questions about his time on Earth, but he couldn't remember anything. At least, no explicit memories. The scientists made a thorough, detailed map of Vegeta's brain of the most active areas when he was remembering and found there was one tiny area in the midst of the other memories that never became active in correlation with any questions. In fact, it seemed to activate on its own on a set time interval. That had to be a result of the experiment. Now they just had to figure out what to do about it. They took Vegeta out of the scan machine and he instantly scrambled off the table and shot across the room to be as far away from it as possible. His tail was bristled and tight around his waist and his eyes were wide and shifted nervously around the room. He looked like a cornered animal. It broke Bulma's heart when she saw him.
"Well, the good news is we've found an area that might be where your lost memories are located," Dr. Brief said. "That bad news is, we still don't know exactly what was done or how to fix it. I don't think any brain scan is going to show us that. We would have to actually look at your brain. That's an awfully risky experiment."
Vegeta was quick to regain his composure once he got away from his confinement. He smoothed out his tail and rolled his shoulders back. "I don't care what the risks are. Do it."
"But Vegeta, we could inadvertently cause brain injury."
The saiyan prince rolled his eyes and stalked over to them to look at the images of his brain. "You can't cause any irreparable damage that easily. Unlike you pathetic humans, saiyans can recover from almost anything. Even brain damage."
Bulma's eyebrows raised. "You're serious?"
"Of course, woman." Vegeta looked through the different scans and saw the area that they must have pinpointed as the area in question. Its activation was completely unrelated to any of the areas around it. "As long as I can be fully conscious during the operation, you can look for any obvious signs of something being done."
"You're sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure!" he snapped.
Dr. Brief nodded. "Alright then. Come this way." He walked out of the room and went down the hall and turned left into another room. An operating room. There was advanced medical equipment to magnify the site of operation so doctors could see what they were doing on the microscopic level. "I'm no brain surgeon, and neither is my daughter. I would rather have one of our neurosurgeons perform this operation."
"I'm not letting any doctor play around in my brain. It's you or no one does it." Vegeta sat down on the bed. He was having a hard enough time trusting these two. He wasn't about to extend that weak trust to more people he didn't know and didn't have any sort of attachment to.
Bulma frowned and looked over the brain scans. The area in question was fairly deep. Even if he wasn't afraid of brain damage, she was. She didn't feel safe cutting into his skull and poking around without further research. "Alright, Vegeta. You win. We'll do the surgery, but not until we've consulted with some of our colleagues. We have some of the best neurosurgeons on the planet working for us and they'll be able to tell us how to do this. They won't have any direct involvement."
"How long will that take?" Vegeta grumbled.
"As long as it needs to." Bulma looked through the scans again and shrugged. "These are good images, so hopefully not too long. Dad, is Dr. Hable here today?"
"Yes, I believe so." Dr. Brief stroked his mustache and took the scans from Bulma. "He'll be able to help us. If you'll excuse us, Vegeta." He and Bulma walked out of the room, closing the door to give the saiyans privacy.
What was supposed to be a quick consultation turned into a three hour meeting involving several of Capsule Corporation's best neurosurgeons, neurologists, and neurobiologists. There was a long-winded debate over the ethics of the Briefs, who were primarily engineers, performing brain surgery. There was disagreement over the best location to go in and which tools to use to perform the operation. Finally, the location for entrance was agreed on – a one inch square area behind the patient's temple, directly above his ear. They would need a probe and an operating microscope among other things, which was actually rather obvious. The ethics debate was still unsettled by the time Dr. Brief and Bulma left the office.
Once they were out of the office, Bulma groaned and held her head in her hands. "That was like a full neurosurgical residency crammed into a three-hour span."
Dr. Brief chuckled and reached over to pat his daughter's back. "What did you expect, dear?" They were still chatting when they reached the operation room where, hopefully, the saiyans were still waiting. He opened the door and nodded his greeting when he saw the saiyan prince sitting on the operating table. Vegeta growled impatiently, his tail flicking and twitching behind him.
Bulma went over to the sink and started washing her hands. She wasn't thrilled about doing brain surgery on him. Maybe he was confident that his body could heal any damage done, but that didn't make her any less nervous. Besides, she was no medical doctor, let alone a surgeon. Frankly, the idea of cutting someone open was disgusting. She didn't know if she would be able to handle it without throwing up or passing out.
While Dr. Brief washed his hands and prepared to do surgery, Bulma carefully analyzed the brain scans one last time to figure out where exactly they needed to look for something. "You want to lie down, Vegeta?"
"No."
She chuckled. "Well, it would be easier for us if you did. So please, lie down."
Vegeta sneered as rested on the bed. He stared at the sterile white ceiling while Bulma felt around on his head for the place she wanted to go in. The feeling of her fingers in his head was not entirely unpleasant. He closed his eyes.
"Here." Bulma pushed his hair out of the way until she could see his scalp. She gasped when she saw a very thin scar right where her finger was. She followed the scar an inch before it dove down. Again, she followed it until it took a sharp turn toward the back of his head. It went across an inch before it turned up and met the first line she found. A one inch square area had been cut sometime before. She had definitely found the right place. "I don't believe this."
"Don't believe what?" Dr. Brief asked as he came over to see what she found.
Bulma traced the scar with her finger. "This scar. This has to be where they went in to do the operation."
"Remarkable." Dr. Brief looked at the brain scans and then at the area outlined by the scar. It matched up well enough. "I think you're right. Well, we know we have the right place."
"Stop blabbering and do something," Vegeta grumbled.
"You're so impatient," Bulma hissed. "We'll just shave this area and then we can get started."
"No shaving."
"We have to shave it for sanitary purposes."
"Don't worry about sanitation. It'll take more than your weakling earthling microorganisms to infect a full-blooded saiyan."
"Are you going to be this difficult through the whole procedure?"
"Only if you keep making stupid suggestions. Cut it open and figure out what was done to me so we can get this over with."
"Jerk." Bulma pulled on a pair of gloves and put on a face mask. Whether or not he thought he was immune to earthling bacteria, she wasn't so sure. She put on a scrub hat and started gathering the tools necessary for the procedure while her father suited up for surgery.
When they were finally ready, Bulma tried to cut into Vegeta's skull, but she had difficulty just getting through his skin. "Vegeta, your skull's too thick or something. We can't cut through it."
Vegeta snorted. "Have one of them cut through it with ki, then. I can't help it your tools are too primitive."
"Use ki?" Bulma asked. She snapped her fingers. "That's it!" She held up the small saw, concentrating her ki to it as she had taught herself to do with her sword. She grinned when the saw lit up with her energy. She carefully started cutting into Vegeta's skull, thrilled when it actually worked. Slowly, cautiously, she sawed through the skull until she could remove the square piece of bone. She was so pleased with herself she forgot to be disgusted by the sight of Vegeta's brain.
"That was brilliant, dear," Dr. Brief said.
"Thanks, Dad. Where's the probe?"
Dr. Brief handed it to Bulma. It wasn't until it was in her hand that the magnitude of what she was about to do hit her. She was performing brain surgery. She was not trained to do anything like that. She hardly dabbled in anything medical, let alone perform surgery assisted only by her father, who also stayed away from the medical sciences as much as he could. She gulped. Maybe rushing into this wasn't such a good idea. But his brain was there, exposed, and he was waiting for her to continue. It wasn't safe, but he assured her saiyans could heal from almost anything. She would have to be extra careful, that was all. She and her father already worked out the angle they needed to go in, so that wasn't a problem.
"I don't know if I can do this," she breathed.
"You'd damn well better do it," Vegeta snarled.
Dr. Brief took the probe from her. "Would you like me to do it?"
"Please do." Bulma switched places with her father and watched with apprehension as he stuck the probe in Vegeta's brain. She nearly gagged. "I don't think I can watch this."
"You're going to have to help me, Bulma," Dr. Brief said. "No one else can do it." He adjusted the equipment to help him see what he was doing deep in Vegeta's brain. It was strange seeing things at the cellular level. It was almost disorienting when he moved the probe. Any amount of movement was huge.
"I know," she sighed.
"There, I think that's the area." Dr. Brief sent a tiny electrical impulse to a neuron with the probe. "Did you notice anything, Vegeta?"
"No."
"Strange." Dr. Brief stimulated the neuron again. "Anything?"
"No."
Dr. Brief moved the probe to stimulate another neuron nearby. "What about that time?"
"I remembered the coordinates for planet 1084XR."
"Well, that's close." Dr. Brief stimulated another neuron. "What about now?"
"I remember entering the command to enter stasis."
"At least we know the electrical impulse is working." Dr. Brief frowned. "What's going on with this neuron, then?"
"Do you think it's one of the neurons that didn't activate in response to questions?" Bulma asked.
"Yes, I believe so."
"Can I take a look?" she asked.
"Be my guest." They again switched places. Bulma made tiny movements with the probe and watched the screen showing the individual neurons to see if there were any signs of something going on that shouldn't be. She stopped when she saw what appeared to be a miniscule node on one of the neurons. "What's that?"
Dr. Brief looked at the screen. "I'm not sure. Can you zoom in at all?"
"I think so." Bulma fiddled with the controls until she figured out how to change the magnification. She was able to enlarge the image a few times. She moved the probe again to relocate the neuron with the strange attachment. "There."
"I'll be darned. It looks like some sort of parasite or something."
"I wonder what would happen if we removed it." Bulma used the probe to detach the tiny device from the neuron. "Can you remember anything now, Vegeta?"
"Nothing I couldn't remember before."
"Then what the hell is this thing for?" Bulma wondered aloud. "It was obviously implanted, whatever it is."
"We should have a look at it. Take it out."
Bulma removed the probe from Vegeta's brain and handed it to her father. The microscopic device was on the end of the probe, but they couldn't see it without some sort of microscope. Dr. Brief stood up. "I'll take this to the medical lab and examine it. I don't think there's much else we can do until we figure out what the purpose of this device is."
"Ok, Dad. What do we do until then?"
"There's another probe here. Why don't you map out all the synaptic connections? There has to be some reason stimulating that neuron didn't make Vegeta conscious of any memories."
"Sounds tedious," Bulma muttered. She heard her father leave the room as she picked up the other probe and sterilized it before inserting it into Vegeta's brain. She quickly found the area they had been looking in before and started mapping out all the synaptic connections. She was glad Vegeta was being patient with them. He hadn't said much of anything through it all except when asked. She figured if there were anything obviously wrong he would mention it. So she kept probing deeper. Over an hour passed before Dr. Brief came back to the operation room and sat down next to Bulma.
"I found that its only purpose is to periodically send an impulse to the neuron it was attached to," he reported. He was baffled. Why would the neuron need to be stimulated every few seconds? The only explanation he could come up with was that the neuron was receiving no impulse from anywhere else. "Have you found the synaptic connections to the neuron it was attached to?"
"Yeah." Bulma pushed her diagram over to him to look at. "It's weird. It's only attached to neurons over here. The neurons next to it on all other sides aren't connected to it."
"Isn't it obvious?" Vegeta said. "Whatever connections those neurons would have had have been removed. I bet if you follow all those neurons that are connected you would find a dead end."
"How would that have been done?"
"How the hell should I know? I was apparently unconscious from trying to save your asses."
The corner of Bulma's mouth turned up. Vegeta always did have a way with words. "Well, we could build connections between these neurons."
"Could we just move the dendrites and axons to meet?" Dr. Brief asked.
"Maybe." Bulma moved the probe back to the neuron that had the impulse device. "You know, now that I think about it, these neurons over here are shaped kind of funny. It's like their axons purposely curve around these neurons and connect to other neurons farther away. That doesn't look natural."
"You're right."
Bulma moved the probe to the neuron connected to the long axon and stimulated it. "What do you remember now, Vegeta?"
"Waking up in the rejuvenation chamber."
She nodded. "See? I think the problem is that his memories have been bypassed. He remembers before and after these memories, but they're totally disconnected from all the surrounding memories. That device was attached to keep them alive since they weren't receiving any outside stimulation. It's genius, really."
"Yes, brilliant," Vegeta sneered. "If you know what's wrong, shut up and fix it."
"Well, excuse me," Bulma retorted in the most sarcastic tone she could muster. "We're the ones working here. Keep your mouth shut unless you have something useful to say."
"Stupid woman."
Bulma moved the probe to an area of the brain that perceives pain and sent a small shock through it. Vegeta winced in pain. "Serves you right, jerk." She moved the probe back to the hippocampal region.
Dr. Brief shook his head. "That was unethical, you know that, dear."
"Sorry, Dad."
"Don't apologize to me."
"I'm not apologizing to him. He deserved it."
The Briefs worked tirelessly well into the night trying to reconnect the right neurons so Vegeta could finally access his lost memories. It took a long time and it was frustrating and discouraging when the neurons refused to behave the way they wanted. Over time, though, they were able to train them to reform their natural connections and eventually the group of neurons that had been disconnected were receiving information from the surrounding neurons. That only left the problem of directing the axons to the appropriate dendrites to finish the reestablishment of the original connections. That was all guesswork. They had to go by trial and error based on Vegeta's reports of what he was remembering with each connection.
Bulma looked at the clock on the wall and groaned when she saw that it was after 2:00AM. They had been working nonstop for hours. She was tired and hungry. They couldn't stop for dinner. "Who knew we would spend the night rewiring someone's brain."
Dr. Brief chuckled. "We only have a few hundred more neurons to go."
"How encouraging."
"It is possible that with as many connections as we've made, the rest will form connections where they belong."
"Do we want to risk it?" Bulma asked through a yawn.
Dr. Brief moved another axon to a network of dendrites and stimulated the presynaptic neuron. "Why don't you go ahead and take a break, Bulma? Have some coffee and a sandwich or something." He wouldn't mind having a break as well, but he was willing to let his daughter have a break first. She was losing patience faster than him and would be more likely to make mistakes in her frustration if she didn't get some food and energy soon.
"Are you sure?" When she received a nod from him, Bulma pulled her gloves off and washed her hands before leaving the room. No one else was anywhere on the floor. She hated being in the headquarters building when it was so deserted. She went into the break room and flipped on the lights. She sighed when she saw a comfortable couch, a coffee machine on the counter, and a refrigerator with a stock of food for quick, easy meals.
She started a pot of coffee and pulled some bread, lunch meat, and cheese out of the refrigerator to make a couple sandwiches. She hadn't eaten since the snack she had in the infirmary, which wasn't exactly substantial. She downed two cups of coffee and sat on the couch to rest a few minutes. With a yawn, she laid down and closed her eyes. A quick power nap wouldn't hurt.
Bulma cracked her eyes open when she heard the door shut and footsteps moved across the room toward the counter where the coffee pot was. She yawned, stretching her arms over her head, and sat up. "What time is it?" she mumbled.
"Oh! Miss Brief! I'm sorry, I didn't know you were in here!"
Her fatigue forgotten, Bulma jumped to her feet and whirled around to see who was behind her. She didn't recognize the man. He was probably in his late twenties and he had thick brown hair and green eyes. He was much taller than her. She wondered why she had never seen him around before. He was kind of cute. She shook that thought away. "It's ok. But what time is it? Seems pretty early for people to be coming in to work."
"Miss Brief, it's after nine in the morning."
"After nine?" she shouted. "Oh no, Dad! I can't believe I fell asleep that long." She ran out of the break room and headed for the operation room. When she went inside, she found her father barely managing to stay awake. Nappa and Raditz were both sitting in chairs along the wall, their heads drooping with exhaustion. Vegeta was the only one who didn't look tired.
"Good morning, Bulma," Dr. Brief slurred. "I trust you slept well."
"I'm so sorry, Dad. I didn't mean to sleep that long." Bulma sat down next to him.
"It's alright, dear. I know how much you needed the rest." Dr. Brief stood up and stretched. "Why don't you take over for a while? I could use some coffee. I've made a lot of progress."
"Sure. Don't worry about coming back right away. I can handle this. You rest."
"Thank you, sweetheart."
Bulma went over to the sink and washed her hands before pulling on a new pair of gloves. "It's no problem." Bulma sat down again and looked at the screen to see where her father had been working. "So how are things going, Vegeta?"
"I remember you, if that's what you mean. I still don't know why I cared about you though. You were a whiny, self-absorbed brat."
"Same to you." Bulma chuckled and started attaching axons to dendrites. There was an obvious pattern that her father had been following. Maybe Vegeta's brain was orderly enough that she didn't have to test every single connection. It wouldn't surprise her. Everything about him was always neat and orderly. Instead of the cobwebs of dendrites and axons weaving around she would have expected, his were easy to follow with relatively few crisscrosses and tangles. "Looks like it's been going pretty fast. Has he been checking every connection still?"
"No. We found it works faster if he connects and I check the connection while he moves on. If there's anything wrong I tell him."
Bulma was impressed. "Wow, you're good."
"Cut the small talk and work. I'm as ready for this to be over as you."
"You got it, Veggie."
"Don't call me that."
Bulma smirked as she resumed her father's work rearranging axons and dendrites. At first she kept making mistakes, and Vegeta wasn't too kind when he told her so. After a while, though, she got the hang of it and made fewer mistakes. Vegeta seemed content enough to stay quiet, so she didn't bother talking to him. Besides, she didn't want to distract him from testing the connections by retrieving memories. Lunchtime came and went, and still Bulma was making synaptic connections. She was amazed at the complexity of the brain. How could all those neurons know what to do when the brain was growing and developing? It seemed impossible. She reminded herself to be careful not to get too interested in neurology. She didn't have time to pursue another doctorate.
It was mid-afternoon when Dr. Brief came back in looking rested and cleaned up. He was wearing a new shirt and lab coat and he smelled like he had recently taken a shower. Bulma smiled at him when he came over to her, though he couldn't see it because of the surgical mask. "How is it going, dear?"
"Good. I think I'm almost done."
"And how are you doing, Vegeta?"
"Fine."
"Very good." Dr. Brief sat down. "I told your mother to make a big dinner to celebrate."
Vegeta, now able to remember Mrs. Brief's cooking, perked up when he heard that. His mouth started watering. It had been a long, long time since he'd had a good meal. He was served disgusting entrees when he was with the lizard and the animals he ate on purge missions were not always satisfying. Not only that, but he and his comrades were not gourmet chefs and the meat was often either burned or undercooked if they bothered cooking it at all. Having a meal made by Mrs. Brief would be enjoyable, to say the least.
"Would you like me to finish up?" Dr. Brief asked.
Bulma shook her head. "No, I'm fine. Why don't you get those guys something to eat? They're probably starving."
Dr. Brief looked over at the two saiyans. The one Bulma kept in the infirmary was sleeping and the other one was nodding off. They hadn't slept at all. He nodded in agreement. "I'll be back with something for them in a few minutes."
"Thanks, Dad." Bulma sighed and sat back to rest a minute. "So where are we at in your memories?"
Vegeta shrugged. "I'm eating dinner with your family the night I left."
"I guess that means we're almost done, huh?"
"Hn."
"No need to thank me," she joked. "This shouldn't take much longer."
Vegeta didn't reply. He was glad the operation was almost finished. He was alert, unlike the others, but he was still tired. He didn't feel any pain from the incision anymore. Actually, that stopped hurting a few minutes after it was done. There was no feeling when they were poking around in his brain, but it was strange to suddenly have memories long forgotten flooding through his mind. He saw people and places that he hadn't thought about since leaving Earth. He felt a new sense of attachment to the woman and her parents that went even deeper now that he understood why. Most of all, he felt he could trust them. He was no longer concerned about them trying to hurt him or screw with his mind. He wanted to leave the operation room and go back to the Capsule Corporation compound, have a good meal, take a hot shower in his own bathroom, and sleep in a comfortable bed. Really, he just wanted to be with his pack.
Dr. Brief returned with a crate filled with Chinese take-out and set it on the empty chair next to Nappa. "Here you go. Lunch courtesy of West City's finest Chinese restaurant. I'm sure there won't be enough for a full meal, but we wouldn't want to ruin your appetite for dinner."
Nappa sniffed the food in the box. "Chinese?"
Raditz, who had woken up a few minutes prior, leaned over the elite soldier to have a whiff of the delicious scents. "Take-out?"
Nappa pushed him away. He still didn't trust the humans. He wasn't going to readily accept any food they offered him. He had to be sure it wasn't poisoned or drugged or something. He pulled one of the white boxes out of the crate and opened it. There was white grains of something in it. A puff of steam rose out. He sniffed it more closely. "What is it?"
"That's steamed rice," Dr. Brief told him.
"What's that?" Raditz asked Nappa, pointing to another box from which some truly glorious smell was rising. Nappa picked up the box and opened it. There was some sort of meat covered in a dark red sauce.
"General Tso's chicken," Dr. Brief said from across the room.
"General who?" Nappa picked up one piece of chicken and popped it in his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully. It was spicy. Very spicy. He quickly swallowed. "What the hell are you trying to do, kill us?"
Bulma laughed. "Too hot for you?"
"I'd like to see you eat it," Nappa snarled.
"I would, but I'm busy with brain surgery, if you hadn't noticed." Bulma smiled at them and turned back to the screen to see what she was doing.
Nappa grumbled and tried another piece of chicken. Now that he knew what to expect, it wasn't nearly so unpleasant. Actually, it was really good. He grabbed a handful of the chicken and shoved it in his mouth.
Raditz snatched the box from him and started eating the chicken. He had the same reaction as Nappa at first, but once he was accustomed to the amount of flavor the chicken packed, he was eating it full-speed. While he worked on that, Nappa started opening the other boxes to examine their contents. The saiyans completely forgot their distrust as they gorged themselves on the food Dr. Brief brought them. It was all delicious, and not nearly filling enough. It only took a few minutes for them to finish it off.
"I think that's the last one," Bulma said as she pulled the probe out of Vegeta's brain. "Why don't you go through and make sure you don't have any gaps in your memory from the time you left for that mission and the time you were knocked out before the experiment."
While Vegeta searched through his memories, Bulma pulled her gloves, cap, and mask off and went to the sink to wash her hands. She splashed cool water on her face and ran her hands through her hair. She was still exhausted. Her sleep hadn't been all that restful and she was stressed from performing neurosurgery in an experimental operation she had no right to be doing. She hoped everything went well because she was tired of probing Vegeta's brain. She wanted him to have his memories restored without any trouble. She dried her hands and face and went back to sit next to the bed.
"I can remember everything," he told her.
She grinned. "Even the parts when you saved me and Mom?"
"Hn."
"Good. We'll just patch up your head and you'll be good to go." She put on another pair of gloves and put the piece of skull back in place, then moved the flap of skin over it and started suturing it up. "This will heal on its own, right?"
"Hn."
Bulma pulled off her gloves and threw them away. She pushed the medical equipment aside when Vegeta sat up on the edge of the bed. "I'm so glad you're back," she cried as she threw her arms around him and held him in a tight embrace. "You promised you'd return."
Raditz and Nappa looked up when they heard that. They were shocked that Vegeta would make such a promise, especially when he was still practically a cub. Even more surprising was Vegeta's reaction to her affectionate attack, a clear and drastic change from what he would have done before the operation. Either Vegeta was screwing with them, or he had all his memories back and was acting as if the intermittent years had never happened.
Vegeta hesitantly put his arms around Bulma and buried his face in her neck to smell her scent. It was different than he remembered, but it was recognizable. Well, he'd known it would change as she grew into adulthood. "If it weren't for your scent I probably wouldn't recognize you, girl."
"Why's that?"
"You don't have your baby fat anymore."
Bulma pulled away from him and scowled. "Are you saying I was fat? Honestly, Vegeta, I can't believe you! You're such a jerk!"
The saiyan prince laughed as he stood up. He knew that would get a rise out of her. Even as a girl she had a vain streak. It was probably worse now that she was grown up. He guessed correctly. When Bulma realized he was teasing her, she started laughing with him. She couldn't deny it, she was a little pudgy when he first knew her. She looked a lot different now. She wasn't only taller, but she had the body of a woman. It probably would be hard to recognize her. Hell, if it weren't for his unique hairstyle, she doubted she ever would have known who he was. They'd both changed.
"I missed you, Veggie." She playfully punched his arm when she saw him grimace at the nickname he never liked. "Come on, let's go home."
A/N: And just like that his memories are back! There's perks to knowing the smartest people in the world. I'm not done writing this story yet, but I will be soon. So, I want to know what you want me to write. There's a poll on the top of my profile so you can vote to tell me what you want to see written next. And wow, over 2K hits on my stories two days ago. That's an all-time high. Thanks guys! And thank you for all the reviews. :)
Beta'd by lilpumpkingirl
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