Less than ten minutes had passed before the bedroom door swung open and Bulma came tiptoeing out of her room. She stopped at the end of the hall, staring into the dimly lit den and at the man who was still sitting quietly on the couch.

Vegeta had his arms folded over his chest, as was typical of him. His face was so grim that it looked as if he had spent his time alone in deep thoughts of melancholy, and slowly he looked up from his lap at her. They locked eyes, as he always did with her, and his tormented expression only appeared to be even more pained to see it front such a clear angle.

"I just can't…" She said. Feeling a bit cold and vulnerable, Bulma hugged herself as she stepped deeper into the room. "I can't be alone right now. I'm just... so confused... and honestly, I'm scared..." She took a seat next to Vegeta, cradling her head in her hands as she did so. "I don't even know how safe we are. I can't stop thinking about everything that happened today... can we just talk about it? You said you're going to be up all night, anyway. I just can't get over seeing what Frieza did to you…"

Vegeta sighed. Up until this point whenever she had asked for information concerning his history, he'd always rejected the subject or had been selective about what he would tell her. But this time was different. It wasn't as if he wouldn't be up trapped with his own tormenting thoughts all night, anyway. Everything was quickly becoming so complicated and disturbing, and she was going to be greatly affected by it all no matter what they did. The saiyan was starting to feel that he owed a conversation to her.

He sighed, leaning forward so he could look down at his knees. "It wasn't Frieza who got me today."

"What? But I thought-"

"I thought it was going to be him, too. But it wasn't. It was these two little hellions... These… These damned teenagers. They were destroying everything in sight. I never would have expected something like that on this planet. Not from something like them."

Bulma turned to him slowly, looking his muscular frame over as he spoke. Vegeta was resting his chin in a hand, staring straight ahead as he described those kids he'd encountered. "So..." She said softly. "Frieza really isn't on this planet, then."

"No. He shouldn't even start looking for me for another two and a half months. But those kids are hell-bent on destroying everything – the Earth might not even be around by then. I just couldn't even keep up with them. Those kids were annihilating a town when I caught up to them."

A chill was running down the Bluehead's spine as the unwanted image of a bloody Vegeta gasping on the floor replayed in her head. To think that something was capable of even doing that to him was absolutely horrific. But it hadn't been the ominous figure that he'd alluded to so many times? Instead it had been a couple of kids? Bulma didn't want to press him so soon after everything that just happened, but she wished he would be more descriptive. She needed to know more.

"They wanted your friend, you know. They kept saying they wanted to see Goku." The saiyan growled. "They didn't believe me when I said he was dead."

"I guess I'm not too surprised." Bulma sighed. The blanket she had placed on the couch was still there, and she pulled it up over her back as everything sank in. "He had a lot of enemies. But I don't remember him ever having conflict with a couple of kids..."

"That's the odd thing. They didn't seem like they even knew him. They thought I was Goku until I pointed out that they were absolute idiots." Vegeta groaned. He brought his hand down from his chin, falling back into the couch and closing his eyes. "I don't think they're going to stop any time soon. I foresee those two taking this entire planet down, one city at a time. And they'll be able to do it rather quickly." He was speaking in a morose tone. The ego and sarcasm that Bulma had come to expect from him was now completely absent, and she could only imagine how low he must be feeling after what had occurred.

It was hard not to feel for him, it really was. Even after everything he'd confessed to her during what he thought were his dying breaths. Even after describing how brutal he'd been in his past… He was a broken man…

"You know your friend had a brother, right?" Vegeta cleared his throat, still not looking at the woman sitting a few centimeters away. "I worked directly with him for years."

"Wait, we're still talking about Goku?" Bulma pulled the blanket tighter around her frame, looking up so she could see Vegeta's face. He nodded, not returning the gaze. "Yeah. His name was Raditz. He was as stupid as a git, but he was damned good in combat."

She couldn't even speak. The more information she learned, the more questions formed in her mind. All the Bluehead could do was raise her eyebrows and wait for him to continue, wondering what a sibling of Goku might have looked like.

"The last I saw him, he was actually planning to come out here and find Kakarot. Perhaps it's good he failed – you'd be dead by now if he'd made it."

Bulma pulled her legs up on the couch so she could hug her knees. "Why?"

"Well, the reason Kakarot was sent to this planet was so he could carry out a mission. He was assigned to purge Earth – to obliterate all living species and prepare the planet for auction. But all signals were lost shortly after his landing and nobody ever heard of him again. Some assumed there must have been an overheating error which resulted in implosion once his transportation pod came into contact with the planet's atmosphere. Others assumed he was a traitor who had abandoned his cause. But this happened not too long before our own planet was overthrown and destroyed, so I didn't really care. I had other things to concern myself with. Raditz never got over it, though."

"Auction? What? Why, I-… I…" Bulma was so startled by this new information that she was feeling defensive. "The only time Goku was ever violent with others was when they brought unnecessary harm to him or his friends!" She shot. It was hard to not feel offended by the way that Vegeta was nonchalantly describing failed plans at bringing her world to an end. Especially when he was saying that Goku had been the one who was supposed to do it!

"Calculating time gets confusing when you've traveled through as many galaxies as I have." Vegeta continued, not taking any notice of the Bluehead's tone. "I think it must have been about three or four Earth years ago. We were stationed to perform a purge at the far end of an adjoining galaxy, and I granted Raditz permission to stray from our base so he could seek out his brother instead. Nappa, my second-in-command, was going to fulfil Raditz's duties with me during his time away. We orchestrated it that way so he could go without Frieza's knowledge, but something went wrong. He never made it to Earth. In fact, he never even reached this galaxy."

"I'm assuming he didn't just get lost on his way, did he?" Bulma was staring at her knees. Vegeta's life had been so drastically different from hers. It seemed that he never got a break from death or chaos, and his stories were becoming predictably morbid. The recurring theme in his life was that everyone he knew died? She wondered how a single person could go through so much? If she'd had to encounter half of the things that he was describing, she didn't know how she'd ever be able to cope with it. The Bluehead looked up at the saiyan again, admiring the strained lines on his forehead as he continued to glare straight ahead.

His reserved and hard persona was starting to make so much sense… No wonder he could be as cold as he was at times… And, if anything, the Bluehead thought he had turned out rather pleasant for what he'd gone through. She'd think that at this point he shouldn't have any nice qualities at all, but he still had plenty…

"His transportation pod exploded just one light-year after departure. We saw the blast from where we were." When he said this Vegeta finally sighed, which was the first indication of any type of emotion since he'd started his story. "He was a good warrior, but his jealousy over Kakarot never evaded him. Kakarot outranked him in strength, which was why he was chosen to purge Earth in the first place. If Raditz had shown up to find that his brother was thriving in such an opposite life to what we were living under Frieza's reign, it would have driven him to insanity. He would have killed Kakarot and everyone on this world simply out of spite."

Bulma pulled the blanket even tighter around her body. Lack of sleep was starting to make her head feel heavy. She found herself far less offended than she had been a few moments earlier. None of this seemed real. It was just too horrid! This felt as if Vegeta were reading to her from a fictional book! To add to the surreal undertones, the fact that none of what he was explaining had actually come to pass was oddly reassuring in its own right.

And, despite how terrible it all was, getting a deeper understanding of everything was comforting in an strange sense. As shocked as she was, many questions about Vegeta's past were being answered in that moment. "And you were okay with him doing that?" She asked softly. "You would have been fine with him taking out his rage on us all?"

"If Raditz wanted to travel to Earth to see what happened for himself, then he might as well be granted such a thing. I assumed Kakarot was dead. And I told Raditz that, on the off chance that he was alive, I still didn't care. There is no Planet Vegeta anymore. There are hardly any remaining saiyans. Life under Frieza's command is deplorable at best. I had enough to deal with on my own. If one saiyan managed to escape such a fate and was living his days in a foreign civilization, what did it matter to me? It wasn't going to haunt me. But Raditz had a different opinion on the matter. He couldn't let it go."

"I guess I don't blame you for being so neutral about everything. You must be pretty de-sensitized at this point…" Bulma closed her eyes, listening to a gust of wind that was picking up outside the house. It was blowing the long grass of the pasture, resulting in a rustling sound that seemed to surround her in that moment. It made her feel even more glad that she was safely nestled inside the capsule house, under a warm blanket…

"I will say that, after discovering some of this planet's gems…" Vegeta continued, just as monotone as he'd been speaking this entire time. "Perhaps Raditz's fate wasn't such a bad thing… I might even be somewhat glad that he never made it to Earth."

"Gems?" Bulma turned to shoot another glance at Vegeta, and this time he was actually looking at her. His face was still as grim as it had been the last time she'd glanced at it, but there was now something else lulling in the back of his pupils. He gazed over her features silently, his dark eyes piercing her own. "Yes…" He muttered. "Had Raditz gotten his way, I never would have known such a thing existed…"

He turned away from her then, resuming his thoughtful stare at the wall ahead of him. Bulma felt her cheeks reddening, knowing fully well what he had been hinting at with that metaphor.

Everything that had happened in the last 24 hours had been repeating itself in her mind mercilessly since she'd been sitting on that couch. But when he said this, it all suddenly paused. Instead, all she could think of was the times he had shown her softness in the midst of his pompous behavior. There had been plenty of times where he'd shown concern over her well-being, and as Bulma considered it all she found herself leaning closer to him so she could rest her head on his arm.

He stiffened when she did this, but he didn't move or ask her to retreat.

It seemed to be an appropriate time to change the subject, so Bulma said the first thing she could think of that might take Vegeta's mind off his brooding. "I find it interesting that you wrap your tail around your waist like a belt." A soft smile was now lining her lips. For the first time that night, as she lay against him, Bulma was starting to feel safe. "I didn't even realize you had a tail for quite a while… With how much of a disadvantage it can be if an enemy were to get their hands on it, wrapping it around yourself like that is actually pretty smart."

Completely surprised at Bulma's observation and knowledge of his anatomy, Vegeta slowly turned to look at the Woman that was leaning into his body. He eyed her with suspicious interest, as if she was going to do something startling at any given second.

"I actually didn't know you had one until the night you transformed into an ape… It took me that long." She continued.

"Then you know that it is the saiyan's tale that produces such a capability." Vegeta replied matter-of-factly, fighting back the urge to grin at this girl's wit.

"Well, yeah… But I was too busy trying to flee at the time to think about that." The blanket had been starting to fall down her frame, and Bulma pulled it back up so it was covering her shoulders. "It was when we were laying together in the grass afterwards… and I woke up because it was wrapping around my waist… That was when I knew you had a tail…"

His breath caught in his throat.

Did she just say what he thought she did?

Vegeta couldn't help but to cringe as her words slapped into his ear. The saiyan had been so caught up in his own melancholic wallowing that he'd nearly forgotten about the awkward morning he'd shared with Bulma just a few weeks prior. She hadn't mentioned it once, but here it was now. The Bluehead had just confirmed what he had been trying to hope hadn't happened. She'd been awake for at least a part of that night, and apparently she also had memories that he couldn't recall.

Vegeta had worried that she might have been aware when he had pulled her into his chest - that she had been consciously taking note of his protective hold. But for her to say he had held her with his tail?

He'd never done such a thing in his life! Not to anyone!

What?!

If Bulma hadn't been laying against his arm at that precise moment, Vegeta would have used it to slap his palm into face. 'Idiot!' He thought of himself. 'What did you do?!'

Kami, his mind was suddenly drawn back from his embarrassment. He could now feel her hair rustling against him as she continued to relax against his side. Vegeta bit his lip, considering all this soft woman had said to him during the day, and he once again reluctantly remembered what might end up becoming of her fate.

It was a strangely overwhelming relief that she was now curled up in a blanket on that couch, and that the saiyan's initial concern about Frieza had been a false alarm. But, if the rest of the dragonballs weren't retrieved soon, that worry could very likely become a reality.

And he didn't want that for her.

If this had been a month earlier, Vegeta wouldn't have been able to care less about some seemingly random woman from the dirty end of the universe being tortured by Frieza and his men. But a lot had changed since then. This wasn't just a random woman - this was the Bluehead! He could imagine far too easily the type of turmoil she would face if such a thing were to happen to her, and he felt compelled to do everything in his power to prevent it.

It was that damned fondness he'd developed for her that caused him to feel so uneasy. And, as Vegeta recognized this, he felt another wave of grief wash over his body.

… How had he let himself grow so damned fond?

"It's dangerous for me to continue being near you. It will not end well." He finally grunted. "But you face certain death if you go back home. Those teenagers will no doubt obliterate your city… I just don't know when that will be."

When he got no response, the saiyan thought that Bulma was perhaps thinking everything over and weighing the circumstances in her mind. But when several minutes passed without even a nod, Vegeta tilted his face to get a look at her.

Her head was still resting against his arm like a heavy weight. Her eyes were gently closed, her lips slightly parted as her warm breath came out in soft wafts. Evidently, at some point while Vegeta had been sulking in his thoughts, this Woman had fallen asleep on him. How long had he been sitting with her in silence, anyway?

'This is the second time she's done this.' Vegeta thought at he carefully turned, lowering her onto the cushions of the couch as he rose to his feet.

As soon as her face came into contact with the pillow Vegeta had been sitting on she grabbed it, digging her fingertips into the rough threads and rolling onto her back. He studied her face as she relaxed back into the cushions. She had that same carefree expression on her features that he had gotten used to seeing when it had been routine to wake her up each morning.

With a sigh Vegeta bent down to lift her, and carried Bulma back to the bedroom. He was careful not to wake her when he set her on the bed and pulled the thick covers over her body. She seemed so delighted by this act that she grinned and quietly mumbled "thanks" in her sleep, before turning her back to him and pulling the blanket up over her ears.

"Hm." Vegeta replied, turning on his heels and returning to the couch he had been sitting on so quietly. He kicked his legs on the seat, folding his arms uncomfortably over his chest as he laid back and closed his eyes. "At least one of us is resting easy during the eleventh hour..."

And then, out of habit, he reached out. Feeling for her aura, just as he had done every night for weeks, he found her so easily.

Blissfully nestled in that thick bed like she was, one wouldn't think she'd ever had a worry in the world with how secure she currently felt. Vegeta didn't think he'd ever tire of the sedation that washed over his body when he experienced the calm of her sleeping ki. Even on a night like this, after she had confessed that she was too afraid to be alone, the Bluehead was now so warm and soothing as she dreamt away her woes.

And, as Vegeta relished in this sensation, his own worries began to dissipate. He wasn't aware of it happening in the moment, for he was far too distracted by his amazement at her aura to pay it much mind. But, as real as anything else had been that day, he felt it. So blissfully and numbingly calm... washing over his limbs like the warm waters of a hot spring…

For that moment in time he wasn't hyperaware of the many horrendous possibilities that lay ahead for him and the delicate Bluehead. He wasn't ridden with shame at how close he had come to death, how pathetically vulnerable he'd acted in front of Bulma during what he thought were his dying braeths, or at how much he had royally messed up her life. All he felt was the careless peace that was radiating from the Woman in the other room, and it was with this that he was able to painlessly drift into his own sleep…

.

"We have to change course. We need to steer away." Bulma said the next morning, an urgent glare in her eyes as she stared at the saiyan sitting across from her. The two were sitting at the table, rushing through their morning meal in a hurry to start their day.

Vegeta had slept surprisingly well, but morning came on him like an unwanted bee sting. As soon as he'd opened his eyes, it had all come flooding back. And he was sitting across from the perfectly alive Bulma Briefs, yet feeling as if he were staring into the face of a ghost.

"So that means you have decided you want to go back home." Vegeta replied, nodding his head as if he approved. Truth be told, he felt she was doomed with either decision she made, and it was making it harder for his breakfast to go down.

"No. I'm not going home. We need to keep searching for the dragonballs. Before time runs out." Bulma forced a large amount of food in her mouth, which made her look like a confused pufferfish before she managed to swallow it all down.

"Woman." Vegeta said calmly. He had already explained his concerns about her options to her that morning. "I have already told you. It isn't ideal to stay near me. If Frieza intercepts my plans and learns of you-"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm as good as dead if he finds out." Bulma shrugged, waving a dismissive hand in the air. "And I don't stand any better of a chance by going home. I'll just get slaughtered by those teenagers instead."

"Yes." The saiyan looked down so he could glare at his plate. "But Frieza will prolong your pain for as long as possible. He will relish in your agony. He will do all he can to destroy your will, and he'll terminate your life as soon as he grows bored of it. Those teenagers - if they catch you, they'll make it quick. It will be swift, and death may even come over you before you realize what is happening. You'd be suffering far less and maintain much more dignity dying by them than in the hands of Frieza." He was back to speaking in his monotone now, trying to block out any physical reaction that wanted to arise from describing such things.

"It's touching you care about how I die." Bulma said with partial sarcasm. Trying to lighten the mood, she forced a smile on her face - despite the morbid subject of the conversation. "But I can't just go home and wait for something to happen to me. We still have time. We can find those balls, but we need to hurry. If those kids are causing as much destruction as you say, then the dragonballs themselves are on borrowed time."

"What do you mean?" Vegeta's voice was finally portraying some trace of emotion – she had taken him by surprise.

"There are two individuals on this planet that, should one of them die, the balls will become defunct. If we don't locate the last dragonball before one of them encounters those kids..."

"Dammit!" Vegeta growled, clapping his palm down on the table. "This whole situation keeps getting more and more distorted as time passes!"

"Which is why I need to stay with you... because I know more about how the dragonballs work." Bulma replied with a sly grin. "Look, this isn't just about you and your need to fulfill a wish anymore. This is also about my planet and my life." Vegeta looked up from the table to see the devious look on Bulma's face. Something about it had the side of his lips tightening into a grin of his own.

"There's more to this than just you." She continued. Then, because she couldn't resist, she said "God, Vegeta! Get over yourself!"

"Never." The saiyan said back, a full smirk on his face now. Truth be told, he had wanted her fate to be of her own decision. And, despite his valid worries about the tyrant that would be seeking him out, the saiyan was secretly glad that Bulma had made the choice to stay with him…

"We need to change route, because there is one ball in particular that we need to get as soon as possible." Bulma continued, basking in the glory that she had won this exchange of words. "The fact that those teenagers have a special interest in Goku has me especially concerned."

"Explain." Vegeta was leaning back into his chair.

"Because, if they find out where Goku lived, they'll obviously be going to his house to look for him. And I don't want them to do that."

"You're joking?!" Vegeta spat. "His house?! Wasn't that the first place we met?! There was a ball right there, and you didn't tell me!"

"Why would I have told you, Vegeta!" Bulma hissed back. "You weren't exactly acting very nice at the time! Of course I tried to lead you away!"

"Great." He groaned. She had a point. Damn, she was smart! "Alright. Okay. So we will go fetch the dragonball from his home."

"Yeah." Bulma replied, pushing a strand of blue hair behind her ear. "And I want to get it soon. Even if those destructive teenagers don't know what the dragonball is capable of, I need to make sure its current owner is warned and is able to hide."

"Current owner? Great, don't tell me. He lived with someone? That means that Kakarot had a mate?"

"Yes – but uh, I'd rather refer to her as his wife." She nodded. "I'm worried about her... But the person I'm really worried about his son."