Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Decoding the Saiyan ❯ Sight ( Chapter 13 )

Disclaimer: I don't own Dragonball Z.

A/N: The prompt for this chapter was `sight' from the Senses Challenge on the Blue & Black LJ community. As always, I previously underestimated the number of chapters this fic will have. According to my latest plans, there should be around 18 chapters, but I wouldn't be surprised if it hit 20. I've written a few of them already, so it's just a matter of filling in the gaps :)

Sight

Vegeta returned to Capsule Corporation two days after their short-lived conversation, but didn't even bother to set foot inside the main building. Instead, he went straight back to his training in the capsule ship, which irritated Bulma to no end.

“Jerk,” she muttered to herself, passing by one of the large windows that looked out over the back lawn and the ship that sat there. She could see intermittent flashes of light through the small ship windows, and rolled her eyes, wondering how many bots he would have piled up for repair by the end of the day. With a sigh she glanced at the clock on the wall- it read ten-thirty-five- and headed back down the hall, cup of coffee in her hand, to return to her work.

On her way down to her private lab she passed her father, who was no doubt taking his own morning coffee break. “Limiting your caffeine intake, daughter?” he asked, peering at her over the rim of his glasses. She rolled her eyes, lifting her cup out to him.

“It's decaf, Dad.”

The old scientist screwed up his nose as he got a whiff of the stuff. “Foul liquid,” he muttered, but nodded approvingly at her anyway. “The sacrifices we make for our children, eh?” he smiled, before continuing down the hall.

She shook her head, suddenly thankful that her parents were so laid back. They, at least, would be there to support her during and after pregnancy, and had thought nothing bad about the news that she had let a homicidal alien impregnate her.

At least you have grandparents who love you, she thought to the little one inside her, her hand rubbing her still-smooth stomach. She paused, suddenly realising that the baby would only ever know one set of grandparents, and her thoughts turned to Vegeta once more, feeling sympathetic for the man who was orphaned at such a young age.

.

The gravity machine inside the ship was still humming when she entered the kitchen at midnight, looking for a snack before bed. Now that she was pregnant, her appetite had definitely increased. Cutting herself a large piece of chocolate cake, she mused that the I'm eating for two excuse was definitely one of the benefits of pregnancy.

.

“Mom,” she asked, two days later, “have you seen Vegeta take any breaks?”

“Oh no, dear,” the older woman replied, fluffing at her golden curls. “Your father just told me that he checked the ship's stats, and that machine has been running non-stop for three days! That poor Vegeta works so hard! You're so lucky to have such a man, Bulma!”

“We're not together, Mom,” she said, frowning out the living room window. “He doesn't want anything to do with the baby.”

“Nonsense!” her mother replied, her wide smile never faltering. “He's out there training to save you two, isn't he? If it weren't for him,” she added with a giggle, “I'd be worried that we might all die next year!”

Bulma blinked. Only her mother could talk about impending doom with such enthusiasm.

.

The midnight snacks were becoming a bad habit. She padded quietly past her parent's bedroom, and made her way to the kitchen downstairs, chocolate cake once more on her mind. She stopped short, however, as her eyes focused on something disconcerting in the dark outside. The red light from within the capsule ship glowed out through its small port windows, giving the entire spacecraft an eerie, pink glow. But it was the single, unmoving foot that she could see through one of the windows that scared her.

“Shit!” she hissed, running down another flight of stairs and through the door that led outside, ignoring the cold night air that breezed beneath her flimsy pyjamas.

She ran across the lawn, heading straight for one of the ship's small windows. She could hear the gravity machine within the ship running, and she sent a small prayer to Kami that Vegeta would be all right. Her worst fears, however, were only confirmed when she peered through the ship's window. Vegeta lay prone on the floor, awake and grimacing in pain, while his leg jutted out from his body at an impossible angle, the bones clearly broken. The sight alone was enough to make her feel sick, but she forced back the bile that rose in her throat, and focused her sight on the gravity controls.

She stepped back from the ship, bending over as she threw up on the lawn. “Oh Kami,” she groaned, forcing herself to straighten. The gravity was still running at 450 times, and she had only one way of making it stop.

She risked once more glance through the window, and her eyes met Vegeta's. “I'm going to turn it off!” she yelled. “Give me ten minutes! Can you hold on for that long? !” She knew enough about fighters to know that injured as he was, he'd be using all his ki just to stop himself from being squashed under the extreme gravity.

He nodded minutely, his face still pulled in a painful grimace. She wasted no more time, and ran for her lab.

.

She set her lamp up just underneath the capsule ship, before crawling under the spacecraft herself. It was a tight fit- the ship's legs held the base of the ship only three feet off the ground, forcing her to remain on her hands and knees- and in the dark it was difficult to locate the particular panel she was looking for. The grass below her was damp and cold, and insects fluttered in the artificial light from her lamp and head torch, but she ignored the less than ideal conditions and focused only on what she had to do.

The ship's gravity controls ran on an independent system, meaning that there was only two ways to shut the gravity off; by pressing the controls inside the ship- which Vegeta clearly could not do in his broken state- or by disabling the circuitry that powered the gravity machine.

“What the fuck,” she hissed, doing her best to unscrew the only outside panel that gave her access to the intricate circuit boards. “Should have been more prepared for something like this...” she muttered, grunting as the panel finally came free. She couldn't quite understand why they hadn't installed a panic button to shut down the machine from the outside in the first place.

Once the heavy panel was off, it was not difficult to isolate one of the vital components in the gravity machine's circuitry. It took no more than a minute to loosen the component enough to shut the machine down, and she sighed, laying flat back in the grass to catch her breath, as she heard the engine whir to a stop.

She rolled onto her hands and knees, quickly crawling out from under the ship. She got to her feet and made her way around to the ship's door, peering through the adjacent window.

Vegeta lay flat on his back, his bare chest rising and falling quickly with gasping breaths. She avoided looking at his broken leg, not wishing to be sick again, and banged on the glass window, catching his attention.

“You've locked the door, so I can't open it!” she yelled. “I have a senzu for you, but you have to open the door yourself!”

She bit her lip, wincing as Vegeta sat up slowly, roaring in pain. Stepping away from the ship, she paced back and forth, only taking the odd peek inside to check Vegeta's progress as he slowly dragged himself across the ship's floor, leaving a bloody path in his wake.

Eventually the agonizing wait was over, and she heard the airlock begin to hiss open. She ran inside as soon as the door's opening was big enough to fit through, and fell to her knees beside Vegeta's slumped form.

“Vegeta,” she whispered, picking up his head gently as his eyes fluttered open. They focused on her, his pupils dilating under the glowing lights that shone above them.

Wasting no time, she pressed the senzu bean to his lips, feeling thankful that Krillin had given her the bean after hearing about the last incident with the gravity room. Vegeta opened his mouth and chewed the bean slowly, and she watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed the medicine. In less than a second he shot up, rising to a sitting position so fast that to Bulma it appeared as if he had used Goku's instant transmission technique.

“Is your leg okay?” she asked once she had gotten over the shock of his sudden movement. He nodded once, avoiding her gaze, and she watched as he straightened both his legs in front of him, no trace of the debilitating injury left on his body.

She bit her lip as she peered at his serious face. Physically he seemed fine, but she could tell that the incident had shaken his confidence, and had no doubt bruised his pride. Hesitantly, she placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“You push yourself too hard, you know,” she said gently.

“I have to be a Super Saiyan!” he hissed, violently shrugging her hand from his shoulder. She sighed, knowing that berating him further was of no use, and got to her feet.

“I'll fix the machine up tomorrow,” she told him quietly. “I had to mess with the circuitry.”

He nodded once more, refusing to look at her. She left him sitting there in the ship, trusting that he would work through the issues in his mind, and headed back to bed.

She felt more than a little shaken up herself.

.

When Vegeta entered her room the following night, she didn't turn him away. She didn't press any talk about the baby, either. The Androids were coming in just over a year, and she could see the pressure of it on his face, in the way he moved, and in the desperation that he brought to their lovemaking. It was that pressure which had caused him to train too hard the night before, and she was willing to believe that it was the same pressure that had made him dismiss her news about the baby. She gave him the benefit of the doubt, and the satisfaction of release selflessly, understanding suddenly just how much he needed it, needed her, even if he couldn't say it out loud.

He had a lot on his mind, after all, and they had only a little time left before the prophesised end of the world.

It would have been foolish to waste it.