Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Everything Happens For A Reason ❯ The Calm ( Chapter 22 )

Everything Happens For A Reason

 

Chapter Twenty-One

 

The Calm

 

Disclaimer: Seriously… DBZ isn't mine.

 

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An alpine wonderland! Little wooden chalets dotted along the vista of a mountainous veranda. Stars twinkled through the scattered firs, and in the distance the lights of the small hamlet reflected up from the glassy surface of a frozen lake. It was a beautiful view from the warmth and seclusion of the Briefs winter cabin. They were only a few minutes away from Mt. Blanc, in a beautiful and secluded little area - close enough to the famous mountain for the family to take advantage of the popular slopes, facilities and life they naturally produced - but far enough away not to be overlooked, intruded on, or woken in the middle of the night by drunken tourists.

 

Bulma sighed, cupping a mug of hot chocolate in her hands, and pulling her feet into the cushions of a window seat. Her hot breath misted the cool glass. Things were certainly calm now - incredibly so, and not only because of the families annual retreat to the Alps. With the excitement, confrontation, and confusion of Yamcha's resurrection finally passed, things were slowly fitting back into place. Her life was by no means back to normal (whatever `normal' was for her) far from it, but they were calmer, more relaxed. Enough time was given to anxiety and Bulma wasn't of a disposition to be kept down for long.

 

Yamcha's behaviour was officiously sweet. He would do all the caring things he did to decorate the beginning of their relationship and which - before he died - had been worn out with time and familiarity. He bought her gifts, took her out, and lavished his attention on her as though they were teenagers again. It was nice. It was comfortable and it was a lot more palatable for Bulma to be with him than any of the others. She knew Yamcha inside out - dealing with his peculiarities was definitely more appealing than dealing with the Namekian's or Vegeta's. It was just like old times….

 

Bulma stopped the thought and caught it before it ran too far away. No. That wasn't true. She hadn't forgotten the transgressions her time with Vegeta produced, nor the hole of dissatisfaction his presence filled within the time of her Desert Bandit's demise, she was just learning how to ignore it extremely well. Learning to ignore all the little seeds of doubt that had mysteriously crept into her mind during Yamcha's time in Other World - learning to forget that at one point she was more than willing to give Vegeta the most priceless possessions she owned - herself.

 

She put the mug to her lips and after blowing the top for good measure, slurped up the melted marshmallows floating there. In the two months that were now passed, she'd learnt to accept that she couldn't change the past, only work on an even better future. All she had to do was figure out what her future entailed. She was almost positive that Yamcha still had a role to play, but the sweeter and more attentive he became, the less convinced Bulma was becoming that her future was involved with him as a lover.

 

Indeed, since his resurrection, that stumbling block had not been crossed. They were together almost every day, throwing around the atmosphere and brilliance of a young couple divinely in love. They both exuded the sexuality and flirting that would usually coincide with fornication, but at the end of the day, when it was right and proper for such a couple to disappear into the bedroom and carry on their relationship as intimately as they had thrown it around publicly, there was always an awkward pause. Yamcha would give her that look - somewhere in between pleading and understanding - she would thank him for a lovely day, they would share a chastised kiss, and then each would go their separate way.

 

Yamcha, she knew, wished it were otherwise, and for his sake she wished it was too, but it was getting harder and harder to ignore the suffering of her own heart. She was glad for the cabin right now, for the excuse to be away from him - to have the time to think where she was headed - where they both were going.

 

“A penny for your thoughts?”

 

Bulma turned and smiled at her father, inviting him to sit next to her. His hair was all over the place, his pyjamas crumpled under a thick robe, and his feet were cushioned in zipped tartan slippers.

 

“I'd give you a million if you could make head or tale of them. I sure as hell can't.”

 

“That bad, eh?”

 

She sighed and nodded. “What are you doing up?”

 

“My body is still on Japanese time.” He laughed. “The amount I travel you would think I'd be used to it by now. It never seems to affect your mother. She's out like a light. Hopefully this glass of milk will work its charm on me before too long. Your mother wants to take a helicopter tour around Mont Blanc tomorrow. For her sake I want to be awake enough to enjoy it.”

 

He sat down beside her, cross-legged and looking out in the same direction. “I'm glad I decided to buy this place,” he said, obviously happy to keep up the one sided conversation. “Such stunning scenery. It's a pity Yamcha couldn't be here to share it with us. It's good to have our family back together.” He patted her on the knee.

 

Bulma was slightly taken aback. “You really consider Yamcha a part of our family?”

 

“My dear, I think it would be rather hard on the poor boy if I didn't. After all, you two have been together for a long time, stood the test of life, distance, separation, and death. I think, if your relationship has survived this long under such harsh circumstances, it will pretty much survive anything, don't you?”

 

Bulma took a long thoughtful sip on her cocoa. “Perhaps,” she said at length.

 

“Perhaps?” He looked at her quizzically. “That doesn't sound very convincing. Are you having doubts about your feelings for Yamcha?”

 

“Maybe. I thought, when Yamcha was wished back, it was just that we hadn't been together for so long - you know - why things seemed so weird. But I'm not so sure now. Dad,” she looked him straight in the eye, her courage high. “When did you know that Mum was the woman you wanted to spend the rest of your life with?”

 

“Oh my, Bulma. It's a bit late to be answering a question like that. I'm so tired I can barely think straight.”

 

“Please.”

 

He watched her for a moment, and Bulma knew she would hear an explanation. Her father never could deny her. A fact that she took full advantage of when she was younger, but which she was especially thankful for now.

 

“Our relationship was very different in progression from yours and Yamcha's.” He sighed, running a tired hand through his hair. “I'm ashamed to say that it started very badly. I was… my… how should I put this…?” He looked up, a frown on his lips. “I was very unfair to your mother when I first met her. In fact I would go so far as to say I was intentionally mean.”

 

Bulma was too shocked to speak. Her parents loved each other so completely, so deeply, anyone who was around them could see how well they fit, gelled as a couple. The thought that there was ever bad feeling in their relationship was hard to believe.

 

“You may well look at me like that. I deserve censure for the way I treated her back then. We first met when my offices were in the Derum district. It was a humble beginning back then. Capsule Corp. consisted of three rooms in the basement of a two hundred year old town house. It's been demolished now. I only had one employee - a secretary. Her name was Joelle. She was an amazing woman, strong, confident in her own abilities, and intelligent - too intelligent as it turned out.”

 

Dr Brief rubbed his eyes and set his mug on the side.

 

“Joelle and I got on like a house on fire. We talked more than we worked and I would let her come into the lab to show her everything I was doing. Nothing I did was a secret from her. I would show her how each project worked, share with her my dreams, and ambitions. Did I admire her? Yes I did. Did I date her? Yes, for a while I did. I whetted her imagination and her intellect and it wasn't long before I persuaded her into taking a place in college and getting herself the education her great mind deserved. This, of course, was great for Joelle, but not so great for me. Had I been given the option then I would have advertised for a replacement, but having limited resources I had gotten myself into an awkward contract with Joelle's agency, and therefore I was legally obliged to take on whatever temp they sent me in the interim. Your mother was that temp.”

 

He paused. Looked at Bulma, but even though she had a million questions, she couldn't voice any of them.

 

“You know your mother's temperament,” he said after a while. “It was so different - so busy, so flighty, so simple. It was a stark contrast to Joelle, who I hardly had time to see. I'd given her a whole new life, a life so different to my own. She was too full of college and her new friends, and as a result our closeness and relationship waned. I missed having someone to take an interest in my work. I missed intelligent conversations, I missed Joelle's mind - I missed her, and I took my frustrations out on your mother because of it. Her cheery demeanour, her laughing eyes, and her pretty smile - at that time they all seemed directed to make me miserable. She was the same then as she is now. She would talk endlessly, about anything and everything. It wasn't direct or challenging - and I would unfairly censure and scold her for her dizziness. I didn't know her then, I didn't understand her. I didn't even give her a chance and she took it all with the forbearance and dignity of a saint. Never once did she fight me back.”

 

“So how did your opinion of Mum change?”

 

He smiled, a wistful smile that Bulma thought hid untold emotions, and she wasn't sure if she was supposed to see it. “You don't know what you've got until it's gone.” He winked. “It's an old adage, but it's a good `un.” He picked up the rest of his milk and downed it in one. “If I thought I missed Joelle when she left, but the feeling was amplified ten times when I eventually found a replacement and your mother left to find a permanent position of her own. The office was so quite, so dull, so lifeless without her there. She was the first and only woman I pined over for months after she was gone. With Joelle it was a jealousy - jealousy that she was living a life without including me, when I had shared everything with her. With your mother… with your mother it was a regret that I never told her how much I appreciated what she did for me, how I was sorry for my own behaviour.”

 

“Wow! It was a sucker punch then? Wham! Enlightenment. I love that woman?”

 

He laughed. “Not quite. A year passed by the time I saw her again. She was then working for a direct competitor of mine. We were at a conference together, and naturally business pulled us out of the woodwork to meet with each other. She met me with a smile and that naturalness about her that tames even the darkest heart. I tried to apologise to her, but she wouldn't allow it. She said she understood we all go through bad times and that she hoped I was better. Such forgiveness! It didn't happen straight away. I took her employers business card and for months after, when I was feeling down, or lonely, I would make excuses to call the number and speak to her. It's weird, we're so different, from such different backgrounds, and of such different dispositions, but we always seem to gravitate towards each other, as though we have an invisible leash. I guess it all hinges on how I feel without her. I know it sounds corny, but I only feel complete when I'm with her. She is the only person I can be around all day and never grow tired of.” He swallowed as though the emotion were too much. “That, I believe, is the true mark of love.”

 

“When you say it so beautifully, Dad. I think you might just be right. Thank you.”

 

“No need for thanks. I just hope it makes your own relationship with Yamcha a little less uncertain.”

 

Bulma smiled and launched into his lap to give him a tight hug - tactfully avoiding the fact her father's story only made her uncertainty about Yamcha all the greater.

 

 

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“I don't know Puar. I think it might be a little rude. After all, I wasn't invited.”

 

“Psh!” Puar huffed, passing Yamcha the pint Shuma just pulled him - a concoction with more head than beverage. “Since when have you needed an invitation? You used to go with them every year uninvited and they still put you up.”

 

“I know, but… I don't know… it feels different this time - wrong. Besides, you know the cabin only has two bedrooms.”

 

“Ah! So there's the root of the problem,” Shuma interrupted. “The frosty bitch still ain't putting out for you, eh?”

 

“Shut up, arsehole! No one asked you!”

 

“Really, Shuma, you have the wrong impression about Bulma. She really is a very nice girl.” Puar added. “She's got a smart mouth on her too. I think you two would really get along.”

 

“Yeah,” Shuma agreed. “Introduce me to her, Yamcha.”

 

“No thank you. I don't want to be responsible for world war three!” He took a swig of his beer and immediately wished he hadn't. “Holy crap!” he swore, tiny hop bubbles travelling painfully up his nose. “How in the seven levels of hell have you managed to hold down this job for so long? Even Bessie must have noticed you're a complete waste of space by now!”

 

“Over there.” Shuma pointed to the unusually busy bar. The two or three drunkards who usually frequented the place had quadrupled in the last few weeks.

 

Yamcha hadn't missed it but he hadn't really thought about it either. “I don't understand.”

 

“Of course you don't, Yamcha,” he whispered, picking his words carefully, knowing Puar would overhear. “You know the real me, they see the surface me.”

 

“What the…?”

 

“Here. I'll demonstrate for you.”

 

Shuma straightened his back, calmly walked over to the opposite end of the bar, swaying his fake hips all the way. He bent down to the lowest fridge giving Yamcha and the whole bar a glimpse of thong. Yamcha turned away, absolutely disgusted, as a chorus of wolf whistles erupted from the regulars.

 

Eventually Yamcha recovered enough to turn around. Thankfully Shuma was standing again. He met Yamcha's gaze and winked.

 

“Bloody favouritism that is!” Someone complained close by.

 

Puar was in fits of giggles. Yamcha just groaned. “Understand why Bessie keeps her on now?”

 

“She could have just told me, Puar.” Yamcha grumbled.

 

“Where's the fun in that?” Shuma added.

 

“Don't worry, Shuma,” Puar continued. “We won't let on that you prefer girls.”

 

“I think that's why Yamcha doesn't want me to meet, Bulma. He's worried she might jump ship and run off with me instead.” He reached out and patted Yamcha on the head. “Isn't that right Mr. Lover Man?”

 

“Shut up!”

 

“I still think you should go to France and meet her. It'll only take you three hours at full speed.” Puar smiled and lifted her best friend's chin. “Go get her and work things out once and for all.”

 

“What if she turns me away?”

 

“Well, then at least you'll know where you stand,” Shuma butted in, “won't you?”

 

Yamcha stared at him in shock. “Where the hell did that little pearl come from?”

 

Shuma shrugged his shoulders. “There are enough depressing fucks littering this bar as it is. At least there'll be one less to pretend to care about if you're gone.”

 

 

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Flies danced around his face, the heat of the midday suns already rotting the warriors around his feet. It always surprised Vegeta how quickly the carcass deteriorated after the spark of life left it. It wasn't more than four hours ago he'd laid the last of Frieza's bases to waste. Species, so varied and yet all unified under the spell of one warlord, one uniform, they all decayed together, dying under the banner of an ill-fated union with the megalomaniac.

 

He studied them at length. Who were they all? What planet did they originate from? Were they all the same as he was, ripped from the home they were born on, the best of their kind, playing out the dream of a sick and twisted man? He shrugged. More than likely they were. He would not lament their deaths. They were necessary, oh so absolutely necessary. He might not have been the strongest on Namek the day it exploded - he could at least admit as much - but he was a survivor. It was his duty to extract that freedom, that victory, to the fullest.

 

He would not survive one day, to be challenged the next. There was only one kind of opposition he was interested in at this moment, and it was of a Saiyan kind. He would have his fight, no one would stop it, and no feeling would quash it.

 

Realistically he probably didn't need to be so thorough. He doubted any of the peons from this base would ever grow strong enough to worry him, but he wasn't his master. His master was dead and Vegeta wasn't willing to court disaster by being blind to his own power.

 

He got up and walked a little way. He needed to leave this planet, but he also needed rest. His body was sore from exhaustion and weak from lack of proper sustenance. He had become too accustomed to the abundance of food expertly prepared for his massive appetite on Earth. Too dependent on the supply - so much so he had almost forgotten what it felt like to be truly hungry - how he had spent the majority of his life.

 

The Witch didn't know how lucky she had it.

 

Friends indeed! The more he thought of the term she bandied around towards their time together, the more he understood it, and the more he understood it, the less he felt inclined to agree with the sentiment. They were not friends- not by a long shot. They were two members of two separate species, pulled together by situation and the compatibility of appearance. He knew his fascination with her, and he was pretty certain it had nothing to do with any emotional attachment. It was carnal - pure and simple. He lusted after her, and now his search for Kakarrot had come to a fruitless end he would go back to Earth and wait the confrontation out.

 

In the meantime, he had the lust to take care of - the lust that time and distance hadn't been able to dull. She might have chosen the Human, but Vegeta wasn't of the mindset to care. He didn't take defeat well. He would have his victory, he would have his fuck, and then he would have his revenge.

 

Not bad for a plan B.

 

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A/N - I know, I know - short and late. I apologise. Real life is a bitch right now.