WARNING: This chapter contains horror elements. Please read with caution.

Bulma looked up and smiled when Vegeta sat down beside her in the grass. He said nothing, awaiting the smug comment about his predictability in coming to find her, but to his surprise, she remained uncharacteristically silent. He examined her more closely. The spring sun brightened her already bright skin, and her eyes reflected the golden light of noon. She should have seemed radiant; she seemed radiant even in the evening darkness, her lust for life glowing on flushed cheeks, but instead of radiant, her sun-blanched face seemed pale rather than bright, and her eyes clouded behind the flash of her smile. Vegeta scowled. He sat rigidly and made no move to touch her as he might have done.

Bulma frowned a little, but recovered quickly. "Mad at yourself for taking a break?" she gibed.

"Why are you here?"

"I just wanted to talk to you."

Vegeta looked for the playful glance that usually accompanied such statements of hers, but didn't find it. She'd seemed happy enough that morning, inviting him back to bed. Since then, Vegeta had done nothing uncustomary. Only if she were delusional could the woman blame her sudden change in demeanor on him. If she came to confront him about some imagined grievance, he decided he would have none of it. "Talk, then."

Vegeta's grip on his biceps tightened when silence persisted despite the woman's alleged desire to talk. He parted his lips to demand an explanation, but she let out a long sigh before he could begin. "I'm one of the richest people in the world, you know," she mused, staring at the ground. She reached behind her ear to brush a stray lock of hair away from her face, then let her hand linger over her neck, rubbing absentmindedly. "I have everything I need and more."

Vegeta narrowed his eyes. He had no response for such empty, cryptic statements that had nothing to do with him. Bulma may as well have spoken to herself.

She met his eyes as if aware of his skepticism, then stared at the ground once more. "Do you want to go inside? My mom just barbequed a bunch of stuff since it's so nice out."

Without a word, the Saiyan stood to his feet and made way for the kitchen. The woman likely included an invitation to her bed with her invitation inside. Perhaps she simply had something on her mind to distract her from her usual direct manner of interacting. She would not have come to find him otherwise. Even so, he watched her with particular attentiveness as she sat down at the table beside him. He noticed that she hadn't gotten any food for herself.

"I have everything I need and more," Bulma said.

"That's the second time you've said that." The Saiyan kept scrutinizing her even as he ate.

"It's just been on my mind, you know? Being privileged. I wonder if that's the reason I survived the Androids' attack in the future. It's barely more than a year away now."

"Why does it matter? I will dispose of them, and you say you survived even in a time where they weren't defeated."

"It matters because there's another factor involved. It's not just the Androids." Bulma paused, and the avoidant silence agitated Vegeta further. "I don't know how much you're going to care, but I am pregnant."

Finally, a direct statement, but Vegeta hadn't expected this one. "What?" he challenged brusquely before he could fully process what Bulma had revealed.

"Pregnancy. I'm having a baby."

The Saiyan set down his utensils. Something like anger twinged in his chest. This constituted a breach of terms and trust. To think that he had played into the woman's trap willingly—his stomach turned at the thought. "You planned this." The accusation came out flat, Vegeta's mind racing too quickly to let his shock manifest.

"Are you kidding?" she rebutted. She raised one hand defensively, but kept her tone calm. "There's no way I'd plan this. I already had enough going on in my life, and I'm not in a serious relationship. I was on birth control the entire time—I promise. It's just not one hundred percent effective, apparently. Pretty statistically miraculous that it happened at all. Even without contraception, conceiving is still pretty unlikely—"

"Stop babbling!" Vegeta snapped. He didn't know what he'd rather she say, however. He knew only that he needed to formulate a strategy and quickly.

Bulma eyed him crossly for a moment, then shrugged. "Don't worry, Vegeta—I'm not expecting anything from you that you didn't already agree to. I wasn't expecting you to be equipped for this. I just figured you'd want to know and that it'd be good to be upfront about it since you contributed."

The Saiyan's fingers twitched with the impulse to charge them with energy, but a vague dread kept him from actually doing so. Bulma's even self-assurance testified to her truthfulness. She had been afraid—that much he now realized—but now that she'd made her admission, she held to it firmly. Bulma did not mean to deceive him. This new situation was a real one.

"Like I said," she continued, "I have everything I need. This is just a part of life. I might not have got around to this otherwise, so maybe it's a blessing in disguise. It's my body, and I want to have this baby. You can choose what part you want in that for yourself."

Never before had Vegeta considered having children, for Frieza had seemingly closed off that possibility in destroying the Saiyan race. Bitterness had shut the subject out of Vegeta's mind, leaving only the ever-present distraction of purposeless sexual appetite. Desire promised nothing but torment and the temptation of messy attachments.

"...and you can keep training," Bulma went on, unconscious that Vegeta's thoughts had overridden her speech. "I'm thinking about doing some designs for an incubation pod, if you know what I mean, so I might not have to deal with the later months physically speaking. I have some ideas already—the tech's pretty simple compared to time warping. I'll definitely do it if I'm confident it won't harm anything. For you, this means that we don't even have to disrupt our arrangement all that much for quite a while. I'm certainly okay with keeping that up, by the way." She waved her hand, drawing Vegeta's eyes. "You've been pretty quiet. What are you thinking?"

"Hm," he grunted, deepening his scowl and dropping his gaze to his lap. Perhaps this new development need not signal anything disastrous, though unintended. Bulma had called it no more than a "part of life," and that seemed true enough. Saiyans had, raised, and trained children like so many other creatures, and it had not compromised even the strongest and purest among them. Vegeta himself was their son and heir. The thought of having his own heir far from repulsed him; in theory, it seemed good and proper, if anything.

"Honestly, I don't expect you to do anything. It's okay if you don't care. I don't need you to care. I like doing things my way anyway, and I'll be fine on my own. I always am."

The woman demanded nothing from him, or at least seemed to demand nothing with the way she had framed her justification. Even if she had demanded something, Vegeta could still discern his role and choose it freely regardless of her. Little would change. Perhaps everything would fall into place.

Bulma touched his arm. "Vegeta?"

He met her eyes. The more nervous expression she'd worn before had returned, and Vegeta's stomach stirred to see it. Immediately, he shared her anxiety. He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry, then blinked. When he looked at her again, he saw that her concern remained, and it struck him anew along with the fact that she'd inspired it. This woman had moved him, and because she'd done so, he sat nearly trembling beneath her touch, unsure and divided. For a moment, he'd considered that everything could fall into place—palpable corruption. Bulma's pregnancy had resulted from his failure to cut her away; the proof was tangible. She'd shredded him to pieces and left him grasping after them, pathetically desperate for an outreached hand or a gasp in the shadows. She was wretched and guilty, and he hated her. He swept her hand away from his arm.

"It's all right," she reassured him. "I understand that this is pretty shocking."

Her smooth tone grated against his antipathy, and her stare enraged him. He felt his pulse quicken in his neck, and without thinking, his eyes wandered to the woman's own neck, delicate and so easily twisted too far. In a flash, the sight recalled the crooked cervical vertebrae of the Saiyan noblewoman frozen alone in space. She hadn't haunted Vegeta in what seemed like an age, but her memory seized him with a temptation and a vengeance.

"Vegeta?" The interruption seemed to screech like a shrill scream. "Are you going to say anything? You're making me a little nervous."

Vegeta shuddered. With skin already so pale, Bulma had resembled the noblewoman all along. Starkly would purple streaks and red stains stand against the white; such bright eyes would darken stunningly, dreadful in their transfiguration. She would arch unsuspecting into his hands, seeking release in all her irreverence, and he would give it to her, crossing the line between embrace and strangulation. Terror would earn real reverence from her, then the utmost sincerity of the following silence. Vegeta would make her what she always should have been to him, what he always should have loved.

"Do as you will," he sighed, having held his breath before without realizing it. "It doesn't matter to me." It truly did not matter to him what she thought she'd resolve to do. The outcome would remain the same.

"Oh, good," Bulma sighed, her shoulders shrugging off her dissolving tension. "I figured you wouldn't care, but I was worried there for a second."

"I don't care," Vegeta reassured himself.

"Great. Thanks for being so chill about this." Healthy color rose to her cheeks, and a relieved smile curved her lips. Surely, she deserved her punishment. A crumpled jaw would serve her justly for all her laughter and idle talk. Just as that first time so long ago now, curdling blood would gargle in a throat slicked for retribution; Vegeta closed his eyes briefly, remembering and envisioning it anew. Pleading horror and tears streamed down the alien woman's ash-smeared face, and Raditz worshiped, savoring pain, iron, and salt in his last happy moments. Bulma would resemble Raditz more; like him, she'd delighted in leading the Prince astray.

"Anyway, now that that's out of the way, you can finish your lunch and get back to training." She clapped Vegeta's shoulder as she stood from her chair. "Unless you want to do something else."

Vegeta interpreted Bulma's last comment as the invitation he'd expected since the moment he'd left the gravity chamber. He shifted his legs, arousal enticing him, but she was a prurient woman shackled to crude appetites, and for once, he wanted nothing to do with her. How ironic it would be if he showed her the same mercy as the girl from his final purge mission, thrusting viscera out through a freshly-gored hole and freeing them both of sick cravings. Vegeta grinned and glanced toward the woman as she turned to leave. "I'm going back to the ship," he said.

"What's that funny look for?" she asked rhetorically, amused. "Okay, have fun training. It's back to the lab for me. Lots of designs to sketch out. I'll keep you updated on them."

"Right." It would be nothing to stab too far while fingering her.

"See you later, Vegeta."

"Yes."

His veins purred with the longing of the kill. Finally, desire had set loose his nerves, and Vegeta's senses soared. "Harden your heart, Vegeta," Frieza's voice echoed. "Embrace chastening. There is only the promise of nothingness. Control yourself." But the voice was distant, and Vegeta mocked it in his freedom, restraint be damned.

Special thanks to my new beta, carvedseawood! I couldn't have done it without them.