Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Branded ❯ Chapter 6

Even before his eyes opened, Vegeta knew something was not right. Not only did his head feel fuzzy, but there was no warm body against his. No smell of lavender soap in his nostrils. No hair tickling his chin. No soft flesh in his hands.

He always woke before Bulma. Where was she? What was different about today? Why did she get up so early after the long night of lovemaking last night? Was something wrong? Did something happen that he needed to know about?

The questions hurt his head and he knew that the only way to answer them was to get up and look for her. But when he sat up, the bed seemed to want to tip and sway, so he lay back until the feeling passed. Using more effort than he believed necessary, he forced his eyes open.

"What the hell is going on?" he asked himself.

Now that he could focus on one point, he tried sitting up again. The wave of vertigo was much less prominent, but his stomach still did a rolling flip and his head pounded in protest. He sat on the edge of the bed and held his throbbing head in his hands. When he was sure he wasn't going to vomit, he sat up straighter and looked over at the bedside clock.

"What?!" he shouted, the pain in his head forgotten as the shock of the time took precedence. "This can't be right!"

Vegeta made his shaky way over to the window and pulled the cord to open the drapes. Bright sunlight poured into the darkened room and blinded him.

"How could I sleep until the afternoon?!" he wondered, scrubbing his light-sensitive eyes with his fists. When his pupils finally decided to retract, he was able to focus on the room around him.

Clothes were scattered on the floor around Bulma's dresser, in which the drawers still stood open. Since she was usually such a stickler for neatness, Vegeta puzzled over what might have made her in such a hurry to leave without telling him. Thinking she may have left a note, he began to search the room more closely.

What he found was not a note or a clue to where she had gone. But it did answer the questions as to why he had slept so long and how he came to feel so horrid. Half hidden by Bulma's discarded nightgown on the chair, was a tranquilizer gun. In the trash can he also found the three small darts that were missing from the chamber of the gun.

"That bitch!" Vegeta swore and crushed the gun in one fist.

Too angry to even wonder why he had been tranquilized, he stormed down the hall to Trunk's room. He already sensed that his son was nowhere near the house, but wanted to see if there were any clues as to where they may have gone. There weren't.

"I'm glad to see you're finally awake," came a high-pitched voice from the stairway. The sound grated on his already raw nerves and he forced himself not to fire an energy blast at it. He turned around to find Bulma's mother standing at the top of the steps holding a covered, silver tray.

"Where is she!" he demanded.

"Vegeta, dear," she giggled. "If you keep running around the house like that, you're going to catch your death of cold."

Vegeta looked down and realized, in his haste and anger, he had not yet dressed. Unashamed, he stood his ground and glared at her.

"Where is Bulma?!" he growled.

"Oh, she flew off somewhere with Trunks," she answered with a casual flip of her hand. "She just told me to check in on you every now and then and bring you this when you woke up."

She held out the tray and removed the lid to reveal a tall glass of water and a bottle of pain reliever. Vegeta wanted to refuse the offering, but his dry mouth and throbbing head wouldn't let him. Gruffly, he grabbed the medicine and downed it with the entire glass of water. Without another word, he went back into the bedroom to dress.

Vegeta wandered out to the gravity chamber, but didn't have the energy to train. The drug had worn off enough to allow his stomach to become hungry again, but he was too angry to eat.

He stood staring out the window with his arms crossed, waiting for the hoverjet to return. His irritation grew until he could even taste it on the tip of his tongue. How dare she treat him like this! Why in the world would she drug him and then leave without a single word?

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he instantaneously sensed two things. One was the smell of Bulma behind him. The second was the presence of another.

"Kakarot!"