Oh, my life, you've made it a cloudless sky I can fly through…
Bulma was running short on time, and cursed her luck. Vegeta had demanded something of her to be done by morning, something that was important enough for him to use her name and be polite. Her son, usually a heavy sleeper, got cranky in the middle of the night so she fetched him to keep him close to her while she worked, singing softly while he held onto her, her multitasking fascinating the soon-to-be toddler.
And finally, she knew big-Trunks was going to leave as soon as possible, so she had to finish unpacking what her older self, the mother of bigger-Trunks, had sent her through Krillin. 'For you only, Bulma-san, ordered by 787-you, not even Trunks can know, and it needs to be seen before he goes back to 784,' he had relayed. Bulma knew better than to try and extort details from the messenger, because clearly her oldest-self hadn't told him anything more than that. Choosing Krillin as a messenger was such a smart move, and Bulma patted herself on the back for it.
'Young and beautiful-me,
It is I, slightly less young but just-as-beautiful-you. Thank you for repairing the Time Machine and allowing the return of my Trunks. Those were the most painful five days of my life, having lost absolutely everyone… But I am not giving you this capsule to complain.
I want you to use the information about the state of 787, so your Earth doesn't suffer the same decline as ours. I also want you to make sure slightly less young-me gets this message, through feral-Trunks (mine is more mellow, I am sure you noticed, I can only imagine what 784-Trunks went through to become so… Vegeta-like).
This is also about my health. And slightly-younger-me's, and perhaps yours.'
The letter continued with details and her own medical records, as well as the wish she had made to the Namekian Dragon. 787-Bulma wasn't sure if the decay was all Cyborg-caused, and if 767 would go through similar health crisis, but she wanted to warn 784, as their two worlds were similar enough. She, however, refused to tell either Trunks about it all. He (either version) and Gohan were just children, and only Krillin noticed her declining health.
On a lighter note, oldest-Bulma also sent her the photos she took of both Trunkses and Gohan, figuring the other two Bulmas would enjoy them, and without even needing to spell it out, the youngest Bulma added them to her collection, and made copies for Trunks to take back home to her 784-self. Thankfully, even if Vegeta blew up the computer where she had stored the sole copy of Trunks' files, the photos she and Chichi took of her future sons were on the main server, alongside the GR logs.
The oldest-Bulma didn't share bigger-Trunks' medical records or other pictures, though, just noting he was a perfectly healthy baby boy with 'stupid Saiyan genes' in terms of endurance.
'Just one,' she reached for her father's cigarettes. It wasn't the first one she'd smoked since everything went down, but she had tried to keep it on the down-low.
Bulma had to plan and be able to juggle Vegeta's request, her cranky and demanding baby, and now her oldest-self's requests. She could do it, she was Bulma fucking Brief.
"Piece of tech better be strong enough to finish our business, brat, else it will rot our minds," Vegeta started, his black unblinking eyes focused on Trunks. "I will be as explicit as possible. I am provoking you to spar by stating my wrong-doings."
"A Saiyan apology," Trunks nodded. She remembered how he had explained it to her in the music room, prior to her departure to 787, when she thanked him for the armor, for her dignity. Vegeta's eyes visibly changed, he disliked the interruption, but he got his anger under control, and took a moment before replying.
"Yes, a Saiyan apology. I will state my wrongs. You will speak your grievances against me, against your world's version of me. It can be the grievances that other Trunks has too, since you seem to share them." Vegeta added, after all, 787-Trunks attacked him for doing 784-Trunks dirty. "You will do so by fighting until you're satisfied." He finished preparing his right arm, then started with the left one, meticulous with the white tape.
".. I don't actually want to harm you. I'm not out for revenge against you," she somewhat believed her own words, but her mind still went to the grudges she had against him.
"Tssk. Even if you don't want to, your blood does. Listen carefully: if you are wronged and you don't deal with its cause, the grudge will destroy you from within."
Trunks stayed silent for a moment, trying to weigh in the words spoken to her, and seeing the personal truth Vegeta was confiding in her. He spoke from experience, clearly, and the most significant experience Trunks could think of had her worried enough for her to ask.
".. Did I wrong you by killing Freeza?"
"No. You did right by me, by our entire species, even. If what you told me when we first fought is true, then you took my grudge away." Vegeta hated having to spell things out so openly, but it was a necessity. He tossed the tape towards Trunks, and gestured to do the same preparation as he did.
"That I killed him in your name? Yes, and I meant it." At least Trunks was quick to connect the dots and recall their first fight and what she told him at the time, catching the white tape.
She did as prompted, mindful of her muscles and the tension the upcoming combat would have on them and in the fabric. She did keep her watch, however, but she rolled it on the inside of her wrist.
"So.. I need to channel my anger, remind myself why I should resent you, and fight you with that, is that right?" Having to think about all of the ways Vegeta hurt her did get her ready to punch something.
"Yes. And I will defend myself, so you better give it your all." Vegeta was getting impatient, he started to build ki slowly.
Trunks tossed the remaining tape aside, made sure her hair was secured in its low ponytail, then guarded on the offensive with a nod. With determination, her ki matched his. They were attuned once more, and neither transformed, even when Trunks charged Vegeta with the firm intention of letting out all of the pain he had caused her, even if she had convinced herself she didn't care.
"I let that bastard Cell absorb the blonde bitch, and interfered when you tried to off him!" Vegeta had started to put into words what wrongs he caused to his heir. Revisiting them over two weeks later was painful, he had been ruminating for far too long for any of it to be healthy, but there was much more he needed to acknowledge.
Trunks couldn't deny that Vegeta started with what had hurt her the most. Even her death didn't cause her as much pain as the void she felt when she realized what Vegeta had done.
Their deadlock position, holding each other's fists, allowed them to see each other's eyes up close. Vegeta's remained hard to fully grasp, there was always so little emotion, beyond feral anger, but Trunks' blue ones were much easier to read. The pain was real. She hissed and kneed through the guard, not letting go of the deadlock, even using it in her favor to bring Vegeta down to each hit.
"After all your speeches about fighting to kill, you got stupid! I would have fixed it, if you hadn't attacked me! You betrayed me!"
She punctuated by kneeing again and again, until Vegeta brought her arms down and blocked the hit, then broke the deadlock by swiping Trunks' legs and then jumping out of the way. Trunks rolled away with a hiss. Vegeta spat blood.
"We take pride when we face our enemies at their strongest!"
"Liar! Wouldn't you have taken any opportunity to get rid of Freeza, given the chance? Didn't you do so, with his men? Mother told me about it all!"
Vegeta charged her fast, fist held back, and Trunks fell for the faint, her breath cut short when his feet connected with her sternum. She barely recovered by flipping mid-air and landing, crouching, on the ship's wall.
"I misjudged," Vegeta admitted.
"Monsters aren't foes to fight, they're to be eradicated. If you wanted a challenge to test your newfound power, you could have gotten it from me, or Goku-san, or even Gohan-san!" She had to insist, dropping to the ground and preparing for another attack.
Vegeta snarled. "I know, now! Pride is worthless, you've taught me that!" he hollered and launched himself at her.
"Pride is worthless if you let it bring death," she corrected, fighting back with fervor. 'I don't doubt for an instant your pride is one of the reasons Mother fell in love with you..' she thought when he blocked her kick with his forearm. She let herself fall to the momentum and kick upwards with her other foot, straight in the jaw, then stood away, guarding again, much more calmer. What Vegeta perceived as an eye-of-the-storm kind of fake tranquility.
"I know, brat, damn it all, and Kakarot's death, and yours.. I couldn't do shit! My desire for vengeance had to be entrusted to that clown and his fucking brat. I couldn't do anything to Freeza, I couldn't do anything to Cell, even when that son of a bitch murdered my goddamn heir right in front of me."
"Goku-san and I chose our deaths," she rubbed the blood off her face from a previous cut with her right forearm.
Vegeta stood tall, spat blood, and clenched his fists. "You died needlessly!" he growled, and attacked again.
Trunks blocked the attacks with her forearms, but the first three hurt, so she instead focused on dodging them or deviating them. Vegeta didn't joke when he said he'd defend himself, his dark eyes flashed some expressions sometimes, which unnerved her. Vegeta truly blamed himself for it all, and he had no way of expressing guilt. Trunks punched him straight in the face, a sudden surge of anger taking over. She was starting to see red, and it wasn't just the blood reaching her eyes.
"It doesn't matter! I don't matter," she countered, but Vegeta was more agile. He locked her arm under his and headbutted her, hard.
"That's bullshit, your mother and your entire fucking world are waiting for you." He gripped her arm so she wouldn't go away, and kneed her, but she blocked it with her own knee after the first hit.
"You owe me shit, you owe older-Trunks shit, you owe our worlds shit. Why do you even do any of this, when you don't care?" She managed to break from the hold and put some distance between the two.
"You're my heir!" Vegeta repeated, as if it meant something more, something Trunks couldn't quite seize, but understood as 'I have a responsibility to you'. Vegeta's faster movement reached as she was too slow to think about what he was saying and paying attention to the fight. The back of the hand slap across the face was painful.
Trunks fell and rolled away, then stood, a little dizzy. The taste of iron and the sensation of wetness confirmed he had broken skin, and his rubbing her blood on his face was only further confirmation. He could have followed and taken advantage of her stunned status, but he didn't for a reason she couldn't really get.
"You say so, but I've yet to see you even try to get to know me. I am not an extension of you, I am not your child," she growled, bitter, eyes turning teal, only conveying her anger and desire for him to have shown he cared in any less painful way.
"Kill me, for everything I've done, for everything I didn't do." He was cold by saying so, assertive about his own desires.
Trunks closed the distance once secure about her balance and gave him a mean right hook, then grabbed her father by the hair to punch him again.
"You're a fucking idiot," she punctuated, then punched him in the face again. "I know what you did, I know it was thanks to you that Gohan-san succeeded. I know that despite my relinquishment of our bond, despite my hatred, despite that you have no idea who I am, you still acted as my father!" One more hook after releasing his hair, then she rubbed her bloody hand on her sweaty forehead. "Your death would be a waste!"
She was pretty sure she broke his nose and perhaps something else, but that didn't deter the older Saiyan from jumping back in. Trunks managed to catch his fist and force them both into a deadlock once more.
"You died because of me!" he snarled. "You should kill me for my stupidity!"
Perhaps Vegeta was right, this was a sensible way to apologize, and accept apologies; her heart was calm, they could put all their grievances and work through them. Stupid Saiyan genes. And the more she thought about it, the more she realized it was what Gohan, the one she met in 787, tried to do. And with as much fervor as he put into fighting back, Trunks didn't doubt Vegeta's honest desire for death, when asking her to kill him all while defending himself. This world's Gohan blamed himself too, she knew it, and she knew they all needed to redirect their anger to the right target.
"You didn't kill me. It was Cell," she whispered, oddly calm, studying his eyes while their hands kept locked.
"You shouldn't have died, you.. didn't come back." He matched her whisper, and if anything, his eyes were hollow- conflicted, scared even.
So Vegeta felt it too, that something had gone wrong. The look of recognition wasn't missed. Fighting in base under higher gravity was exhausting, but perhaps it was necessary to let go of their issues. And yet, her death, what she felt, what her older counterpart felt, she didn't want to go there. She headbutted him to break away.
"In the end it worked out, I was allowed back, and I have no intentions of dying again," Trunks reasoned, slowly guarding again. She wasn't done. When they continued trading blows, Trunks had to think about working through and conveying what she felt in a way he understood.
"We're even, what you took from me when I had accepted our bond, you gave back when you protected my dignity. You showed me you cared when you put me in your armor," she hissed between blocks and deviations. "I should have never expected anything from you, I was even awful to you when you tried to make amends. You still considered me your child. You never gave up on us."
"You're an ignorant orphan, of course you couldn't understand," Vegeta spat when they put distance again, panting.
She rubbed her busted lip from a couple of hits prior, then licked the wound, waiting for the blood to stop flowing. Fighting without transforming with gravity was slowly eating at both their endurance, but it felt satisfying in a way she was afraid of. Her eyes returned to their normal blue, less guarded, wanting to be seen, despite being afraid of it, refocusing on her need to be able to leave.
"You don't owe me anything, but you owe your son."
"The boy will grow up perfectly well without me, brat."
Vegeta didn't want to interfere, and he doubted his presence was a good influence at all, and if Trunks knew any better, she would say he was being selfless by wishing for death and let Bulma deal with the baby on her own. So Trunks plain slapped him, the right hand open landing on his left cheek. Vegeta touched his cheek, surprised at the sudden hit that felt very different in intents and strength.
"No, he won't. He needs his father, and Bulma-san needs her, ugh, mate. Speaking of which," she slapped again, with a little more strength. "That's for not saving them both from Gero, even if I have no right to that apology, it comes from older-me who had to step in in your stead." Then another one, this time charged with ki. "And that's for jumping naked in my bath. That was disgusting!"
Vegeta didn't try to block, he just tooks the hits, but maintained eye-contact all along. While the first grief was somewhat understandable, the second one somewhat lost him. He couldn't help a tired laugh at the last grief, contrasting with his bloody and bruised face.
Trunks had to chuckle too, out of all their grievances, she only truly resented him for the bath incident that still mortified her. It was petty and shallow, but one that mattered to her, and she had to admit it had been the most haunting memory of everything, in a way. She was vulnerable, he could have found out…
She gave a light punch on his shoulder, then brought him close into an embrace, an embrace she wouldn't have dared give in any other circumstances. Both arms around his shoulders, holding still, her heart beating fast.
Trunks was familiar with his scent when bloodied and sweaty, but the circumstances were different; this wasn't the Room of Spirit and Time, and she wasn't carrying his unconscious body to bed. Vegeta was tense, but she didn't care. She could finally hug her father, indulge in a contact similar to the one she had with her mother, with her version of Gohan. And only then did she fully realize how much she wanted such contact.
"I am done with your stupid Saiyan apology," she sighed against his temple, strangely satisfied with the smell of blood caused by the violence they had both indulged in.
It felt so different from the despair such violence and blood usually caused. She didn't want to run, she didn't want to destroy anything, she didn't want to smoke nor did she want to wash right away. It felt like peace, with the shorter man immobile in her hold.
".. What's this you are doing?"
When Vegeta's low voice spoke so closely to her ear, Trunks froze, then released him and pushed herself away, vaguely mumbling some words of apologies, avoiding his stare demanding answers.
Vegeta looked inquisitive, and was about to insist about this all, but he couldn't ask further questions. The gravity was suddenly turned off, and a pissed off Bulma in a lab coat and looking as if she hadn't slept all night walked in.
"How dare you disconnect the Gravity Room from the surveillance system? What the fuck went through your minds? Are you still trying to kill each other? Fucking hell, Saiyans!"
She was ready to slap the two of them, but she screeched when she saw their bloody faces and arms. Vegeta crossed his arms and snarled something about superficial wounds and her interruption of something important, but there was no fighting a sleep-deprived, caffeine-fueled, nicotine-driven Bulma.
Five minutes later, they were both sitting in the GR and Bulma was tending to their wounds, after having thrown wet towels their way to wash off the blood. Bulma rubbed painful antiseptic in their cuts and tears and putting some cream on their bruises, grumbling something about stupid Saiyans not giving her a break, and ignoring Trunks' attempts at telling her it was nothing.
Trunks had to share a sympathetic look with Vegeta, who had submitted to Bulma's will begrudgingly- and silently. She truly had tamed him, and Trunks couldn't help a quiet laugh at the observation, until she hissed and held back a curse when Bulma pressed a little too hard the cotton on her eyebrow. Vegeta mocked his heir with a telling smirk and a glint in his eye.
"Neither of you dumbasses move while I fetch some more supplies." Bulma scolded, and left before the order was acknowledged. Indeed Trunks had broken Vegeta's nose, so Bulma taped the cartilage in place and hoped the stupid Saiyan genes would heal it quickly. She needed more, though, considering the muscle tears she noticed.
Gohan felt Tora and Vegeta's ki spike nearby by ten in the morning, but it wasn't as strong nor as desperate as he had felt before. He knew they were training, at least he understood it when he felt their kis when he woke up earlier, but the spike caught his attention. And not only his, but also the baby's, who looked in that direction too.
"Are they ok?" He asked Bulma when she was coming back in, looking absolutely pissed, and followed her to help her out, leaving Trunks in his playroom with Chichi.
"Yes they're alright, somewhat… Stupid Saiyans, why don't they just hug, like people," Bulma half-complained, but then ruffled Gohan's hair as he walked by her side. "I think they finally made up, Gohan-kun, you don't need to worry."
The boy agreed, he believed so too, after all, they had so little time and he was genuinely happy they could part ways as father and son. He was quick to help Bulma gather the necessary materials to heal the stubborn men who spent a solid four hours fighting and exhausting themselves.
When the doorbell rang, in the compound, Panchy's voice echoed 'I'll get it darlings!' in the interphones so there was no need for others to worry about it.
The moment Bulma was gone after interrupting their.. whatever word defined their fight-apology-bonding-time, Trunks gave her alternative father a soft smile and scooted closer, close enough to touch, to talk in whispers.
"Kakarot.. And his brat—" Vegeta whispered.
"I'll explain this to him before I go. He might refuse, but I will make sure he understands your feelings." 'He's tormented by Goku's passing and refusal to come back,' Trunks understood.
Vegeta made a vague affirmative hmph sound. He appreciated how Trunks had read correctly his intentions and offered to mediate between him and the other half-breed.
"My selfish request is that you live and do right by Bulma-san, by Trunks, by Gohan-san, by his unborn brother. Be there for them."
Another vague hmph, then a grunt, then a slight nod. That was the best acceptance she could get.
"If it wasn't clear, I never.. truly resented you. I accept your apology and forgive you, Father."
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You'll find art on my fic excerpt twitter thread! /secretofdbz :)