Vegeta dozed for a few hours, but he could not fall asleep. He had slept so much over past few days that he would remain restless no matter how weary of mind he was. He found himself caught between having too much energy and having no desire to do anything with it. The afternoon sun shone vibrantly, charging the air with heat and vitality. While Vegeta could feel it around him, he felt numb and disconnected from it all. Eventually, it grew stifling, and he extricated himself from the sheets. He made his bed as he went over the possible things he could do with himself now that he had given up on sleeping.

Half-soiled bandages still covered his body, he realized. He determined that he would remove them, then take his first shower in days. He smelled of sweat, old blood, urine, and antiseptic; he would be glad to rid himself of the stench such an admixture produced. Treading quietly down the hallway, he entered the bathroom.

His reflection glared back at him in the mirror. He looked truly awful. His hair had begun to wilt under the weight of its own filth, he had lost a noticeable amount of muscle tone, and his eyelids had a distinct puffiness. Multiple large, half-healed bruises tinted the skin stretched across his upper body with ugly shades of green and purple. When he peeled away the dressings that shielded the various cuts and burns that covered him, at least, he found that most of them had healed completely. Only a few would leave scars.

A dark line of sutures ran horizontally from the center of his chest to just below his ribs on his right side. Vegeta fetched a small hand-held mirror from a drawer in order to examine the stitches more closely. The flesh around them had mended sufficiently. He reached into the drawer again, this time retrieving a pair of manicure scissors and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. After disinfecting the scissors, he removed the sutures one by one. Vegeta did not consider the process all that painful. What little blood the wound seeped the Saiyan would swiftly wash away in the shower.

But no matter how long Vegeta stayed in the humid bathroom, his eyes would not seem to lose their dryness. The mild sting made him remember—he had spent the first few hours of the morning weeping on the gravity chamber floor. Suddenly, he felt sick to his stomach. He could only wonder what had caused him to behave so pitifully. He had not had full control over himself, certainly. Perhaps he had suffered psychological symptoms of withdrawal from the painkillers the humans had given him. He had, after all, torn the needle from his arm soon before that "episode" of his.

No—he could not excuse his conduct with such a feeble explanation as that. He knew full well that his mind had been clear when he woke. He had simply lost control. It wasn't so surprising now that he thought about it. He had not followed any sort of established routine in months. He had no space of his own but what Bulma's family had given him, whether his room or his ship. Most of the time, he depended on others for such basic things as clothing, meals, and scheduling. On this planet, he had nothing by way of currency. Of course he had lost control—he had never had it to begin with, and the chaos had gotten to him. Until Vegeta had taken reality and formed it with his own hands, it remained a shapeless, indiscriminate mess. It was the only explanation. Vegeta would not accept that he simply had emotional meltdowns from time to time; it would not make sense, given who he was.

He would forget about the whole ordeal, and he would move on. Whatever had come over him had passed.

But then there was that woman. At every turn, she had insisted on creeping uninvited into every corner of his life. She had even followed him halfway across the world. It seemed that, wherever he went, she would appear. No matter how far he fled, whether to another continent or another galaxy, she would find him. Whatever order Vegeta had constructed around himself, the woman would wedge herself in, and she would send it all into chaos once more. She had become so omnipresent that she had managed to catch him that morning, when his guard was down. Now, even when he had rid herself of her presence, he found her lurking about his thoughts. He was thinking of her now, he realized.

His hand rested on the door to her bedroom. He couldn't remember how he had gotten there, but there he was nevertheless. He wasn't losing his mind, at least; he did have unfinished business with her, and he had to discuss it with her privately. On the other side of the door, he could sense her dormant energy. Apparently, she still slept. Making no sound, he entered her room.

Vegeta could hardly believe what he saw when he inspected this new space. So many bright colors collided with his eyes that they nearly blinded him. Various articles of clothing lay strewn across the floor alongside loose papers, dirty dishes, and any number of things the Saiyan would not trouble himself to identify. How could a sane person live in such a space, let alone think, work, or sleep? Vegeta had never considered her fully sane anyhow, and the state of her room verified that belief.

She lay splayed across her bed with about as much elegance as the laundry littering her floor. The sheets had tangled themselves around her legs in an impossible knot, and one foot stuck out from beneath them. Twisted awkwardly to one side, her head rested flat on the mattress, her pillow fallen to the ground beside the bed. She wore a flame-red nightgown that exposed her bare shoulders, and Vegeta stared at her for a few seconds before he remembered what he had resolved to do.

"Woman," he barked.

Bulma's face twitched, but she remained unconscious.

"Woman," Vegeta repeated.

Lazily, Bulma opened one eye. An instant later, however, she jerked both eyes open. She screamed. Desperately, she flailed her legs in attempt to disentangle them from her sheets.

"Woman!" Vegeta growled, glowering at her.

Bulma froze. She exchanged her expression of terror for an apologetic one. "You scared me!" she said, panting.

His arms crossed over his chest, Vegeta merely scowled in silence.

"You could have knocked or something, you creep! I would have answered the door." Flustered, she tried to straighten her blanket. For some reason, she seemed to be avoiding eye-contact. "You don't just barge into people's rooms without telling them. Not here on Earth."

"You said earlier that I could find you here if I needed something," the Saiyan said matter-of-factly.

Bulma fetched the pillow that sat on the floor next to her, then held it tightly in front of her chest. She studied Vegeta's face for a moment, looking concerned. "Is something wrong, Vegeta? What do you need?"

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but he quickly realized how little desire he had to actually talk about the events of that morning, and he ended up just standing beside Bulma's bed awkwardly, agape. Why had he even considered this present encounter necessary? He should have just returned to his room.

"What's the matter?"

"This morning," he began quietly. "Should you mention it to anyone, it will cost you dearly. It was because of that vile medicine you gave me. I was not myself, and you shall not speak of it—not to me, not to anyone. Understand?"

Bulma blinked. "It's okay to vent sometimes, Vegeta. You don't need to feel bad about it. I don't think any less of you. I think more of you, actually. You were being honest. I think you were being yourself just fine. Don't worry."

"I don't care what it meant to you. Did I ask for an opinion, a value judgment? You shall not speak of it!"

"Chill out. I wasn't planning on going out and telling everyone anyway. That would be a really stupid thing to do."

"Assuredly!"

Bulma set her pillow down, and she turned, putting her feet on the ground. Vegeta couldn't help but glance at her naked neck; delicate lace framed her breasts. "Don't worry. I won't go blabbing. I wouldn't be a very good friend if I let down your trust like that. Anything else on your mind?"

He detested that "friend" talk. She seemed to make it a point to mention it every chance she could. It made him want to gag. Vegeta's eyes darted back to Bulma's face. Inexplicably, she was blushing. He decided not to think about it. "I'm hungry," was all he said.

"Oh, okay. I guess that makes sense. You haven't eaten in a while." She stood up, pulling her nightgown further down her thighs. "We thought you might wake up today because they took you off the morphine last night, so my mom was planning on making a big dinner. You're in luck. Why don't you head downstairs and see how things are coming? It's like five o'clock or something. I'm going to get dressed and stuff." She disappeared into her closet and tossed an outfit and a pair of shoes onto her bed.

Vegeta didn't move.

"You just going to stand and stare? I'm flattered, but I'm not going to strip in front of you. Honestly, I'm surprised you even came in here. And now I'm having to kick you out. What's up with that?" She was talking mostly to herself.

"This room is filthy," Vegeta grumbled as he tiptoed to the door, trying to avoid stepping on any clutter.

"Well, thanks. Everybody has their messes. I'd rather mine be in my room than in my brain or something. Better out than in!" Bulma sighed. She smiled at the Saiyan from over her shoulder, then pointed at the door. "Seriously, Vegeta, get out."

And he did. For a moment or two, he paced in the hallway in attempt to forget everything that had just happened. He supposed he would go downstairs and scrounge for food as the woman had suggested. He was starving; he had not lied when he said he was hungry. As he descended the staircase, he heard Bulma slam her bedroom door, then enter the bathroom.

A second later, she shrieked. "Ugh! Why is there blood in the sink? Vegeta!"

The woman was driving him crazy.