Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Confessions Of A Believer: II ❯ Gambit ( Chapter 4 )

"Can I have him back?" I asked, as Vegeta cradled our son between his elbow and arm, looking down at him, "He's hungry."

Handing me the child, Vegeta folded his arms across his chest. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Piccolo fly off and Dende speaking with Kami off to the side, stealing glances my way. Tired, my breasts starting to leak, I sank down onto the floor at Vegeta'a feet and arranged myself so that the infant could feed. Looking down at me, Vegeta said; "I have to think of name for him."

"Anything but underwear or vegetables." I said without looking up. I was too involved in my baby to pay much attention to the father. I heard Vegeta snort above me and say something about true saiyan names being names of warriors or some such rot. He went on for about three whole minutes until I snapped; "Fine! Call him Artichoke for all I care, just stop with the speeches, please!"

"I will think about what his name should be later," Vegeta said to me, "Ami, you know you have to go back to your own world."

I nodded, the baby still sucking, to say that saiyan babies had healthy appetites was like saying the Titanic had a little accident, as Vegeta went on; "The baby can't go with you."

My heart caught in my throat. I gasped and looked up at him from my place, cross-legged on the floor, the little half-saiyan at my breast. Leave my baby? Was he serious? I looked down at the precious little face and every motherly instinct I had rose up inside of me. I turned my back to him, shielding the newborn with my body, even though I knew it was futile, and cried; "No! Get away from us! You can't take him away! He's mine!"

"Don't do this, Ami!" Vegeta said, kneeling down and grabbing my shoulders, "Your not thinking logically! The baby has saiyan blood, you don't know how trying they can be to take care of! Give the infant to me and I will take care of him. Besides, what are you going to tell people in your world who ask where he came from? Ami! Stop crying for one minute and listen to me!"

"No!" I cried, tears streaking my cheeks, my son felt my distress and started to wail, "You can't take him! I won't let you! He's staying with me! I'm his mother!"

"Ami..." Vegeta's voice was on the verge of completely losing it and snatching the infant from my arms. However, it was young Dende who intervened, stepping over and sitting down next to me. I moved away slightly, uncertain of his intentions, holding the child in such a way as to force him to pry my hands from him. But, the namek did not make any movements towards me.

"It will be okay, Ami," He said, in his optimistic tone of voice, I just glared through my tears, my heart thinking this was all so, so unfair, "Your baby is very special. I have sensed it. It won't be goodbye, you know, we'll arrange for you to be with him..."

"I want to keep him! He's mine!" I cried, sniffling.

"Vegeta will bring you the child every night," Dende said, and I paused in my crying to listen and actually consider what he was saying; "Around eleven in the evening, your time, I will make sure he brings the infant to you and you may keep him with you until morning. How does that sound?"

I looked down at the now-sleeping baby, thinking. If I couldn't keep him with me all the time, then this was as good as it got. At least I would have him for nine hours out of the day.

"It's better than nothing," Dende said, smiling at me. I sighed, feeling like a piece of my soul was being ripped from me, with shaking hands I gave my son over to the young namek, who handed him to Vegeta. "Come," Dende said to me, and reached into his robe to pull out something small and orange, "We need to get you back home."

"But...I..." I reached out towards Vegeta and my baby, but the saiyan prince had turned around, admiring the child himself and didn't see me. Dende touched my arm and shook his head; "Don't worry, he'll be back in your arms soon, I promise."

I felt a gentle warmth flow through me at his touch and realized the namek was using his healing powers to relieve me of the pains of childbirth, giving me a newfound strength. I followed him to the kitchen, where he used the small dragonball to make a portal of the shiny surface of the refrigerator and I stepped through, tripping over my printer and hitting my hip on the side of the computer desk as I did so.

I looked at the clock. Not more than four hours had passed since Vegeta took me through the mirror into the anime world. And yet, yet, enough time had gone by for me to carry a baby to term and give birth. I laughed bitterly, would anyone believe me if I told them? I highly doubted it. So, why, I kept asking myself as my fingers sped across the keyboard, was I even writing this whole thing down?

I walked over to the couch and sat down, curling myself up into a ball I closed my eyes, forcing my mind to stop thinking. Just stop thinking about anything and felt myself slip into a blackness that made midnight bright by comparison. I slept a lot that first day without my baby, if Shawn noticed anything different about me he did not say. Sleep was my great escape, my solace, my best friend. In sleep I could drown in false euphoria and not feel the emptiness that was growing around my heart.

When Vegeta brought the infant to me, at the selected time, I was shocked to see how much he'd grown in only a few short hours. I keep forgetting the time difference. Handing him to me, I automatically began to feed him, my breasts were so hard and sore from not being able to feed him that it was a relief to feel his little mouth upon me.

I had 'borrowed' my sister's breast pump when I went over to her house to visit her for a few minutes, having Shawn drive me there and back, so I could, at least, get rid of some of the unused milk myself.

"How are you feeding him?" I asked, looking at Vegeta through a mantle of my dark hair, which I hadn't yet braided up, "If I'm not there."

"Formula." Vegeta said, "And I use a bottle."

"If you bring me some empty bottles," I said, moving the child to my other breast after he'd started rooting around again, "I can fill them with mine for you...he should have breast milk anyway, there's more vitamins. It's a proven fact that breast fed infants grown stronger and faster than formula fed infants..."

I was babbling but I didn't care, my emotions were a mixture of happy relief to have my son in my arms once more and dreaded sadness because I knew the time would come when I would, once more, have to give him back to Vegeta to take back into the anime world until it was safe to bring him back to me the next night.

"Have you came up with a name for him?" I asked, as the child blinked up at me with eyes that looked so much like his father's, his tail wiggling behind him against my arm. Vegeta, who had followed me to the sofa and now sat, perched on the edge of it, watched me feeding our son. I think he liked sitting there because it gave him a vantage point in which to look down instead up, at me.

"Yes, we call him Chikara." Vegeta told me, "I named him myself."

After he'd told me what it means I laughed; (A/N: chikara is japaneses for 'strength, power' I think! I thought it a fitting name for Vegeta's offspring!) "I'm just happy it's not something like Garter Belt or whatever."

"Well, Bulma did offer Panty as a suggestion," Vegeta snickered, looking both disgusted and amused at the same time, "And I thought Trunks was bad..."

"What did you tell her?" I asked, curious about how his family was taking having a new member, all of a sudden, "Was she pissed?"

"Yes," Vegeta said, without hesitation, "I didn't lie to her. But, she knows I am head of the family and make the decisions."

I looked down at the baby, smoothing his dark hair with my hand, smiling when it refused to lay flat. His hair was so thick that it made his head look twice as big. I looked back at Vegeta and asked; "Who watches him while your training?"

"Bulma," He said, "And sometimes Bra, if she's home. I won't let Kakkarot's mate anywhere near him!"

"Oh." I thought, feeling envious that my baby got to spend half the day in some other woman's care, two other women. Just thinking about it made my heart hurt. "Is he...you know...what Dende said...special?"

"Yes." Vegeta said, smirking, "I could teach you to sense ki and you would know for yourself how special he is."

"I don't need to be able to sense ki to know that, Vegeta," I said, "I was just wondering, you know, if maybe our being brought together was for a higher purpose, in order to create him. I just wondered what his future will be like..."

"He'll be a warrior," Vegeta said, as if I didn't know that all ready. He was part saiyan, of course he'd be a warrior! That went without saying! "I will train him myself."

"Just do me one favor," I said, in all seriousness, "Since every time you bring him back to me he's a little older, make sure he knows who his mother is. Make sure he doesn't start calling your mate 'Mom'. I think I would want to die if I ever heard him refer to her as that!"

"You are his only mother." He said, nodding, "I'll make sure he addresses Bulma by her first name when he learns to talk."

"Thank you."

As he leaned over me to look down at Chikara, I noticed that he was wearing, about his neck, the tiny fourteen-star dragonball. The very object that allowed him to pass through one realm into another as long as the dragonball was close enough to any type of reflective surface.

The rest of the evening passed in silence, I was wrapped up in my baby, feeling the time slip by much too fast, Vegeta looking in my kitchen to see what I had to eat. Not much, really, and that seemed to irritate the saiyan prince. Folding himself down onto the sofa next to me, he reached over and turned the television on, flipping through the channels until he found something that seemed to hold his interest.

Looking over, I realized that he'd turned it to South Park. I saw him smirk when Kenny was impaled on a flagpole. All the time he was watching the sick cartoon, I was staring at the tiny orb around his neck. It seemed to glow of an inner power, pulsating softly. Chikara hiccupped as I burped him and curled up against me, sleeping, making tiny gurgling sounds every now and then.

Six o'clock came, I walked him to the mirror, holding Chikara out to him when he had his back to the mirror. However, before he could do anything, I snaked my left arm around his neck, holding Chikara cradled in my right and leaned down as if to kiss him. Vegeta looked surprised at my brazenness, considering all of the other times he had been the one to initiate anything, and moved to complete the embrace.

That was when I knew I'd have one moment and one moment only. I had to go for it. Scared, knowing what I risked was probably my life if I failed, but wanting my baby more than anything else fueled me onward. With one motion, I yanked the necklace off of him and shoved him through the mirror, throwing the necklace with the dragonball behind me where it landed on the sofa. Being far from the mirror, Vegeta could not come back through.

He stood, the momentarily shocked expression on his face giving way to anger, on the other side of the mirror, his anime-ish features exaggerating his temper. He banged on the glass, trying to get back through as I backed away, clutching tightly to my son. I glared at him and mouthed; "No one is taking him from me. No one."

I laid Chikara down on the sofa and walked back to Vegeta and the mirror, without a word a took the mirror down and turned it around so that it faced the wall. Trembling, because I knew it would only be a matter of time until he found a way back over, perhaps using the miniature zero-starred dragonball, the twin of the one I was now in possession of, I hurriedly tucked the orb into my pocket and gathered up some clothes and stuffed them hurriedly into the black duffle bag I used to use when I worked as a nursing assistance and had to stay the night at my client's homes on occasion. Picking up the baby, who, by the way, was about four weeks old according to Vegeta, and left my house.

Pausing on the sidewalk outside my house, I didn't know what to do, where to go. All that mattered was I had my son with me, but I hadn't thought ahead as to what I was going to do. It was all very impulsive and I cursed myself for being an idiot. I started walking, not really knowing where to and ended up on the other side of the river, on a street I used to know very well. Jackson street. I had lived there when I was just starting high school and my mother had ran an adult family home for elderly people called Comfort Care.

I carried the baby towards the familiar blue and white trimmed house, it had two old mattresses leaning against the double garage doors and there was a plaque cemented into the ground on the walkway that read; "As For Me And My House, We Shall Serve The Lord" My mother, when she started going back to church, had that put there. I knew that the five bedroom, four bathroom house was still empty, even though it had been a few years since I had last been inside.

I placed Chikara down under the willow tree in the small front yard for a moment as I went around to the side where I knew there was a window that was easy to pry open. Once I had it ajar, I crawled through, ending up in the basement bathroom and ran up the four carpeted steps and around the corner and back outside through the front door where I gathered up my son and went back inside. Shaking I went to the room upstairs on the right that had always been mine, sitting in the chilly darkness, holding my son to my breast, tears streaking my cheeks and my heart threatening to break through my ribs. I had never been so scared in my entire life.

And to think, all of this started because of a trip to a stupid anime convention.