Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Falling Away With You ❯ Chapter 4 ( Chapter 4 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Froglady15 
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 07.17.2016 | Pages: 9 | Words: 5.9K | Visits: 277 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 07.17.2016 | Pages: 9 | Words: 5.9K | Visits: 277 | Status: Work In Progress
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Just my Husband,
laptop, my 3 dogs and a very overactive imagination… Dragon
Ball Z and any songs mentioned in this fic DO NOT belong to me. I'm
just borrowing them for my own twisted amusement.
Chapter 4
Sunday went by so quickly for Bulma she almost felt like she hadn’t had a day off. She’d been able to sleep in a bit before Trunks came bounding into her room early to wake her up and insist they do something.
She’d gotten breakfast with her parents and then she and Trunks had spent most of the day at the park. Vegeta had been nowhere to be seen, much to her disappointment. She wasn’t overly shocked, but she had hoped he may turn up to spend some time with Trunks; even if it had only been for five or ten minutes.
The rest of the day had gone by quickly and she had just finished putting Trunks to bed. It was early evening and while she loved spending time with Trunks, she was more than welcoming the alone time for the rest of her evening before she started back at square one tomorrow with another long, exhausting week ahead of her. It was her plan to binge watch some of her favourite shows she was behind on and then take a nice long bath before going to bed early.
She was just in the middle of making herself a snack of cheese and crackers to go with her wine night cap when she suddenly noticed Vegeta lean into the door frame with his arms crossed.
“Hey,” she said, acknowledging him despite still feeling disappointed that he had been a no show today. She was going to say something snarky to him but then thought better of it. What was the point? She didn’t want to waste the last of her evening off in a bad mood because she had a fight with Vegeta.
“Hmmmn,” he grunted as he watched her slice several pieces of cheese.
As the silence began to drag on, she began to feel uncomfortable as he stood there watching her. She assumed he wanted something and just wished he would just come out and say whatever it was he had on his mind. She didn’t have the energy to play his cryptic mind games today.
“Do you need something?” she asked him finally as she went to put the cheese away back into the fridge.
“You wanted to discuss the boy,” he said pointedly as though she should have known that was the reason he had sought her out.
“Oh, so you want to act like being a family is something that’s important to you now,” she rolled her eyes. “Alright. I’m just making a snack. Do you want anything?”
He ignored her sarcasm. “No,”
“Okay, let’s go then,” she said, grabbing two glasses and taking her plate upstairs.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“Upstairs,” she answered, not stopping and heading up the stairs to her bedroom.
Vegeta paused a moment before following her. He wanted to speak with her about Trunks, not have this be some casual social thing but followed her anyway. He would stay long enough to say his piece and then leave.
Bulma walked into her bedroom and into her bonus room. She set her snack down on the table, turned on the TV and went to her mini-fridge to grab a bottle of wine. She didn’t ask Vegeta of he wanted a glass, she just poured him one and handed it to him as she passed him and went to sit down.
He frowned at her as she handed him a glass of wine. He took it and looked at it a moment. Great. Now he had to stay here for a while. Well, at least long enough to tell her what he came to tell her and finish his wine.
He grudgingly went over to her couch and sat on the opposite end of from her. It took him a moment to realize the last time he had sat in that very spot on the couch that she had straddled his lap while watching a movie and had ridden him.
Vegeta dismissed the thought. While appealing, that was not why he was here and he had no intention of ever going there with her again. While he had enjoyed his time with her, the outcome from the aftermath had not been worth it.
“So,” she said, taking him out of his thoughts which for once he was grateful she was speaking with him. “How was your day?”
He knew that she was annoyed he hadn’t joined her and Trunks today but he could not detect any malice in her tone so he answered her politely. “It was fine. How was your day with the boy?”
“It was good!” she nodded with a smile. “I do notice a difference in him. He’s a lot more... well behaved in a public setting.”
“Hmmmn,” he nodded.
“He sure likes spending time with you,” she told him as she turned the TV on and began browsing through all the programs she had recorded and let accumulate. Being that Vegeta was with her, she chose something with plenty of sex and violence. “He pretty much talks about you nonstop, you know.”
Vegeta nodded again, unsure of what to say. “I am not sure what all the fuss is about. I see him in the mornings and we meditate before breakfast and sometimes I see him in the afternoons if your mother goes out to run errands.”
“You’re his father,” she said. “He looks up to you. It’s not a big deal to you, I guess, but it is to him. I know this is foreign to you and you aren’t comfortable in this role, but I think you’re doing really good, Vegeta. I’m glad you’re still here.”
“I want to train him,” he said, not wanting to skirt around the subject. For some reason he felt very uncomfortable with her commending him.
Bulma was quiet a moment as she thought about it. She wasn’t opposed to it but she wasn’t sure how keen on it she was either, knowing how intense and borderline obsessive Vegeta could get when it came to his own training. She thought it was great that he wanted to spend more time with Trunks but she didn’t want him possibly pushing Trunks too hard while he was still just little. He would be four in a few months.
“You can train with Trunks, sure,” she said slowly, nodding in agreement. “Just don’t forget that he’s only a little boy. He can't be expected to keep up with you.”
Vegeta was almost shocked she had agreed so easily. He had almost certainly expected a heated argument and that he would find himself packing his few belongings and preparing the ship to finally leave this forsaken mud ball for good.
“By the time I was his age, I was already accompanying my father on purging missions,” he said. “He is more than ready to begin.”
“Alright, I don’t have a problem with you training him but he’s not going to be going on purging missions so don’t be too hard on him is all I ask,” she said. “I realize that you were raised differently and I respect that but things are different here. You can’t train so hard with him that he’s got broken bones and is covered in bruises every day.”
“He is half Saiyan,” he snorted. “I will not expect more from him than what is realistic but you need to remember that he is a lot stronger than your average human child.”
“No, I do understand that, Vegeta, that’s not my concern,” she said offering him her plate of crackers and cheese to share with her. “My concern is if someone sees him at the park covered in bruises or a broken arm one too many times, it’s not going to look good. Trunks will be starting pre-school next year and if he goes to school with new bruises constantly the teacher is going to ask him about it and I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to say ‘My dad and I were training or fighting,’ and social services will be down here so fast it will make your head spin. They’ll take him, Vegeta.”
“I would like to see anyone try to take my son from me,” he snorted and Bulma had to resist smiling at his comment. It warmed her heart to know that he actually cared about their son. “I understand your concern however and I will take that into consideration.”
“As long as you’re careful and not too hard on him, I’m alright with it,” she clarified. Truthfully, a part of her wanted to say no. She was afraid of Trunks getting hurt but she also reminded herself that Gohan was about this age and he had lived an entire year in the wilderness training under Piccolo. How much worse could training with Vegeta be? Most of all, her decision to allowing it was the progress she had seen in Vegeta. Trunks had been so good for him. It made her so happy that he seemed to be adjusting to life here again. He had been so lost after the Cell games that she had been worried that he might never recover from what had happened. If working with Trunks was what gave him a purpose in life again, she couldn’t be so selfish as to not let him. Besides, it would more than likely break Trunks’ heart if Vegeta quit spending time with him.
“Noted,” Vegeta replied, taking a sip of his wine, both surprised and relieved that this conversation had gone over so smoothly with her.
“So are you going to start training again as well?” she asked cautiously, not wanting to set him off but he seemed to be in a good mood and she wanted to visit with him and maybe try to understand what it was he had been going through.
Vegeta shrugged in response.
“Hmm, now I see where Trunks gets that from,” she teased, mimicking his shrug. “Well I think you should,”
“Why?” he asked.
“You love it,” she replied simply. “It’s your passion. I know we weren’t on the best of terms after the androids and Cell, but it still made me sad that you quit all of that.”
Vegeta was quiet for a long moment, unsure of how to respond to her. It was something that he was not comfortable discussing. The period after the Cell games was the darkest period of his life. Even he didn’t fully understand what he had been feeling or going through at that time and there were days he was still consumed with depression and the only reason he got up in the morning was for Trunks. As much as he tried to tell himself that the boy meant nothing to him, he knew it was a lie and that he was slowly beginning to grow fond of him.
“For all of the training and hard work I put in during those three years I was surpassed by nearly everyone,” he answered. “It was all for nothing.”
“No it wasn’t,” she said, reaching for the remote and turning the volume down on the TV.
“It was,” he insisted. “Things would have been better off if I had not even bothered. I should have not returned here when I could not find Kakarott in space.”
Bulma blinked and looked into her wine glass as though it would tell her the right thing to say to him. She hadn’t expected him to reply with anything that would actually give her some insight into what had actually been going on in his head at that time. Now that he had, she knew she had to tread very carefully and not accidentally say anything that may be the wrong thing. She knew she couldn’t possibly relate to him, but she would try.
“I don’t agree,” she said finally. “I’m glad you came back.”
He snorted in response and she worried she had said the wrong thing. Sure things between then had been strained since there affair had ended but if he hadn’t come back, she wouldn’t have had Trunks and while becoming a mother hadn’t been very high on her list of things she had wanted to accomplish in life, she couldn’t imagine her life without Trunks and wouldn’t change a single thing if she could.
“I know that you didn’t want to become a parent,” she started cautiously again, trying to be careful of what she said and how she said it. “But if you hadn’t come back, I wouldn’t have Trunks. That may not be a plus from your point of view, but it is to me. I love that little boy so much that I cannot imagine a life without him in it. Whatever we have between us, good or bad or even if you one day decide to leave here for good and I never see you again, I will always be thankful to you that I have him.”
Vegeta wasn't sure how to respond to her comment; that line of thinking had not even occurred to him and he agreed with her somewhat that a universe without Trunks in it felt strange to him.
“You might feel like your efforts with your training were wasted but you shouldn’t feel that way,” she continued, steering the subject away from her and Trunks. She could tell he wasn’t comfortable at all with her honesty with regards to the origin of Trunks. She didn’t care though, she wanted him to know that.
“That is because you do not know what it is like to work for everything you ever wanted, believing that it would be your life’s greatest accomplishment only to be surpassed by a mere child and two machines,” he said bitterly. “And not just any child, the child of my greatest rival.”
Bulma nodded slowly as she listened to him. She wasn’t sure what to say to him so she reached for her wine bottle and topped up his glass, which she was happy he did not object to.
“When I became a Super Saiyan, I believed myself to have surpassed Kakarott by that point. It was my every intention that I would destroy those androids and then I would put that third class clown in his place and take back some of my lost honour. He owed me that,” he said bitterly. “He still owes me that.”
“Alright but he’s gone now,” she said gently. “He chose-”
“Noble Kakarott,” he spat in distaste. “Sacrificing himself for the good of the planet and choosing to remain in the other dimension instead of returning to settle the score with me. He stole my honour by killing the one person who destroyed my life! Frieza’s life was not his to take.”
Bulma once again stared into her wine, realizing that this conversation had quickly gone into a direction that needed to be handled very delicately. She knew Vegeta had this need to be better than Goku but she didn’t realize it was a more deep-seated issue than simply a drive to be better than him. This was much more complicated than that. He felt like he had been robbed of something and still needed to settle the score and he had been denied that opportunity because of Goku’s decision to not be revived.
She loved her childhood friend dearly and it would have devastated her if Vegeta killed Goku or went out of his way to hurt him. Because he had lived here for so long before the androids showed up and he’d never pursued Goku she assumed that all his talk about defeating him had been just that. Talk. That he didn’t hold any real animosity towards the other Saiyan; or if he did, it had slowly resolved itself over the years. Here she was getting a completely opposite picture than what she thought and she felt bad for him.
She didn’t agree with his need to destroy Goku but she could understand his bitterness to a point and she figured that part of his loss in his desire to train had to do with him missing Goku; she knew he would never admit to that, but she suspected that was part of it. Goku had been the last remaining Saiyan other than himself. That meant that now he was truly all alone and that alone was heart breaking to her. Say what he wanted about Goku, his presence here had been what had motivated Vegeta. Now he didn’t have that anymore. It was all beginning to make sense to her what it was that had left him so depressed now and she was ashamed of herself and her conduct after it all had happened. She had been so unkind and insensitive.
“I’m sorry you feel he robbed you of something you felt was reserved for you,” she finally said, trying to think of something up building or a bright side to everything. “Although, technically it wasn’t Goku who killed Frieza from what I remember. He survived and then came back here to seek revenge. It was the older version of Trunks that killed him.
“Now I’m sorry I can’t entirely relate to what you are going through, but since Future Trunks was still technically raised by me, I’m certain he would have known from stories she told him about what a horrible person Frieza was. He would have known what it meant to you to have him destroyed for once and for all. He came here and he did that. With relative ease too if I remember right. You should be proud of that. No, it wasn’t you personally who finished him, but it was your son. Doesn’t matter what timeline he came from. It was your son who killed the person who destroyed your life. Your flesh and blood that carried that out. That to me, is pretty cool and nothing for you to feel shame about. It was still your line that set things right. Or at least as right as it’s ever going to be.”
As right as it’s ever going to be, he repeated mentally. Here he had been in the worst place mentally in his life and she had found a way to over simplify it. He wasn’t sure if he was annoyed or impressed that she had just given him a different angle to consider.
“What else is bothering you?” she asked boldly, knowing there was more to it than just that that had kept him locked in this deep pit of despair for the last few years.
Vegeta was quiet for a long time, drinking his wine while he debated on whether or not to open up to her further. This wasn’t something he did. Ever. Except talking about what had been plaguing him for some reason was already made him feel like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders and it surprised him. Bulma was the last person he thought he would ever confide in. He decided that maybe it was alright to talk to her. So far she had not laughed at his misery or made him feel more ashamed than he already did. She’d done the opposite actually.
“Not only had Kakarott surpassed me but his son became a Super Saiyan and was at a level beyond me. How could a child accomplish such a thing that I worked my entire life to achieve! I then discovered that the Namek had at some point surpassed me as well. Tell me, how would that make you feel? To be out bested and left behind by your enemy, his child and his child’s mentor?”
Bulma shrugged. “Not good, I would imagine. I could see how that could be discouraging but don’t you think you’re being a bit too hard on yourself?”
“No,” he replied. “Not only was I outclassed in battle by everyone around me, I was nothing more than a liability on the battlefield. In my arrogance and failure to accept my own limitations and in my need to prove to everyone that I was superior, I put everyone in jeopardy. I allowed Cell to acquire his perfect form. In doing that, our son was murdered.”
Bulma had only gotten bits and pieces of what had gone down during the fight with the androids and the Cell games. It had been from the point of view of Yamcha mostly, who was not sympathetic to Vegeta in the least. She had gotten a few of the spaces coloured in by Krillin and Yamcha but they didn’t usually want to discuss Vegeta at length. “Vegeta you can’t blame yourself for Cell murdering Trunks,” she said sympathetically. “Don’t do that to yourself. He’s fine. He was wished back by the dragon balls and he was stronger than ever when he went back to his own timeline. It’s not your fault Cell killed him.”
“He would have never had the opportunity if I had just ended him when he was in his imperfect state,” Vegeta said blandly.
“Alright but you still couldn’t predict that he would kill Trunks like that,” she insisted. “He could have killed anyone. It was a battle. Everyone who was out there knew there was a possibility that they could be killed and not brought back even. Yamcha and Krillin won’t be able to be wished back if they die again, yet they were still out there. You won’t be able to be wished back if you die.”
Vegeta snorted at her and took a long sip of his wine. “What a shame,”
“It would be,” she said firmly. “Trunks would be devastated.”
He nodded and noted that for some reason it bothered him that if he died she apparently wouldn’t give a shit. Not that he blamed her. He had been nothing short of miserable to her since their affair. He had nearly let her and his son die because he had been drunk on power and ego, convincing himself that no one in this universe mattered to him. In the short time he had spent with Trunks, he had realized that wasn’t true. He did care.
“I’d be pretty upset too,” she added, almost as if she was able to read his mind.
“Would you, now?” he asked sarcastically.
“Yes, Vegeta, I would,” she answered honestly. “Just like I can’t imagine a life without Trunks, I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”
The mood in the room between them immediately went from casual to awkward and uncomfortable and Bulma immediately wished she hadn’t said that to him. What were you thinking, she chastised herself. “Well, who else would piss me off on a consistent basis, huh? It would be pretty boring around here without you,” she said quickly, hoping to have not ruined things.
“Still as stupid as ever, I see,” he snorted.
“Anyway, I’m glad you’re here and that you’ve been spending time with Trunks,” she said, ignoring his baiting. “So I wanted to talk to you about that so we can do this without it being a fight and an argument.”
Vegeta nodded in agreement. “What do you have in mind?”
“Nothing really,” she shrugged. “Just we need to communicate and be honest with each other about what we both want from each other where he’s concerned. I think it crucial that we be open about it and support each other’s choices and decisions. If there’s issues between us, I don’t want him to know about it. I will never bad mouth you to him and I’d appreciate the same curtesy,”
“I know you won’t,” he growled. “That boy from the future had grandiose thoughts and expectations in his head with regards to me, no doubt thanks to whatever foolish things you told him.”
“Well excuse me, but I think it’s wrong for a boy to grow up not knowing his father. If anything were to happen to you, I’d do the same thing. What did you think she would say about you? ‘Oh yes, Trunks your father was a wonderful man. We knocked boots for two days straight and then he left me when he had his fill and didn’t care to stick around once he found out I was pregnant with you,’” she said snarkily. “Of course not! If something happens to you I’d do the same thing. I wouldn’t tell him about the hurtful, spiteful things that went on between us or that you never attempted to save us when we were in danger-”
“Or that you placed yourself and our son in danger despite my warning that you stay behind,” he reminded her coolly.
“Right,” she sighed. “I won’t be telling him any of those stories.”
“Fair enough,” he agreed. He hadn’t been interested in having a heart to heart with the future version of his son. He couldn’t see him being all that keen on it now either.
They were both quiet for a while, having slipped into a comfortable silence as they watched the show Bulma had on the TV and sipped their wine.
As the credits came on at the end of the episode, Bulma leaned to refill her glass. “Would you like more?” she asked, noticing his glass was nearly empty.
He debated a moment. He should leave. He had come to say what he had wanted to say. Actually, he’d said a lot more than that, much to his embarrassment at his own candidness, but it was bothering him less and less as the moments passed. She hadn’t mocked him or made him feel any worse. If anything, she had attempted to relate to his feelings of shame and doubts of self-worth and comforted him and he found that he did feel a little bit better after talking with her. He wondered why she would even try to comfort him after everything that had passed between them. It was strange to him.
“Come on,” she coaxed, wiggling the bottle a little. “We may as well finish it.”
Vegeta relented and reached for his glass so she could refill it.
Bulma smiled in satisfaction as she emptied the bottle into his glass and selected the next episode of her show to start.
They sat there as they watched the show’s next episode begin with the main character panicking because a heist he was on had gone horribly wrong. He was having a panic attack remembering the last time he was in prison while he was on his cell phone with a hacker friend of his to disengage the locked doors and shut the alarm off and his ex-lover was on the other line as well.
“I thought he was a good guy now or something,” Vegeta commented blandly.
“He is,” Bulma nodded. “He’s just still doing off stuff on the side.”
“Hmmmn,” he grunted.
They didn’t speak again for a little while. “I can start the whole show from the beginning if you want, I’m only like four or five episodes in.”
Vegeta shrugged. He had seen bits and pieces of this show in passing on the odd time she watched it in the family room. It was either featuring some brutal fight or an explicit sex scene so he wasn’t sure what the main point of the program was but it was appealing to him. The main character wasn’t an overdone, fake looking player. To Vegeta, he looked like a believable protagonist with a sordid past.
Bulma grabbed the remote and stopped the show to put it on the first episode. “There, then you’ll be all caught up and will know what’s going on.”
Vegeta nodded and glanced at her. He did not ask her to do that, nor did he really care that much but he appreciated the gesture and realized that she was putting the effort to keep him content and so decided he could put himself out there and stay since she obviously wanted him to.
They watched the first four episodes together in silence mostly. It turned out that Vegeta really liked this show.
“So what are you going to teach Trunks first?” she asked as she shut the tv off when the episode was finished.
Vegeta thought for a moment. He had no idea what he wanted to teach the boy first. “I’m not sure,”
“Well, what was the first thing your father taught you?” she asked, grabbing the blanket off the back of the couch and curling up in it with her knees up, facing him.
“He taught me to fly,” he replied after a moment’s thought. He hadn’t thought about training with his father in his youth in years. Not to mention he would have assumed that Bulma would not have found the training he and his father had done when he was a child even remotely acceptable.
“Hmmm,” she thought to herself. “You think that’s a good idea? I mean he’s already very independent and I have a hard time catching him when he doesn’t want to do something. What will I do if he just flies off because he know I can’t fly?”
“I will teach him that he is not to do that,” he said, agreeing with her concern.
“Alight and when he decides to still do it?” she asked. “How are you going to enforce that? It’s not like he’s a bird and we can clip his wings.”
Vegeta thought for a moment. “If he still does it, come and get me and I will find him and bring him back and we will deal with him if and when it happens.”
“Fair enough,” she nodded.
They hung out for a while longer, discussing Trunks in a calm, mature manner. Bulma was surprised to learn that they agreed on quite a lot of things and she was confident that it seemed like they could possibly successfully do this together with hopefully minimal conflict.
She didn’t realize how late it was when she yawned and checked her phone. It was past one o’clock in the morning. “I’ve gotta get to bed,” she said to him. “Ugh, I so don’t feel like going to work tomorrow.”
Vegeta smirked at her as he got up to leave.
“Hey,” she called out to him. “I’m glad we did this,”
“Hmmn,” he nodded. Truthfully, he hadn’t minded spending time with her this evening.
“Feel free to drop by anytime,” she said to him. “I’m not like I have a life anymore or places to be. I’m just here most of the time trying to catch up on lost sleep.”
“You work too much,” he said.
“I know, but eventually I’ll be the one running everything and that means I have to know how to understand how every part of the company works and all the processes,” she sighed.
“Same as me had my planet not been destroyed,” he agreed. “I was not old enough to take part in anything other than the odd purging mission before my father handed me over to Frieza.”
“So it wasn’t all easy life of luxury growing up as a prince before the shit hit the fan?” she asked.
“No,” he replied. “I was required to be up early to train with my father each and every morning. We would train or meditate for a few hours before breakfast. Then I was made to sit and learn with a tutor. I was taught not only the history of our race, but the histories of the races we had alliances with. I was taught to speak many of the different languages that are used in the galaxy and sometimes was allowed to accompany my father during meetings with other planetary officials.”
“Wow,” she murmured. She always could tell that Vegeta was intelligent and well read, but she had grossly underestimated the amount of instruction and education he had been given. She had merely assumed that he had learned everything he’d needed to learn from Frieza.
“I am more than a mindless soldier,” he said to her.
“Oh, I know that,” she agreed. “I’ve always known that.”
Satisfied, he nodded and headed out of her room. “I will start with the boy tomorrow,”
“Have fun with him,” she said with a yawn. “Don’t take things too seriously though. He’s just a little boy.”
Vegeta rolled his eyes at her as he left, closing her door behind him.
Bulma stood in her bedroom looking at her door a moment before smiling to herself. Tonight had been a great evening; she almost couldn’t believe it! She hoped this was a sign of things getting better and easier between them.
-0-0-0-
Chapter 4
Sunday went by so quickly for Bulma she almost felt like she hadn’t had a day off. She’d been able to sleep in a bit before Trunks came bounding into her room early to wake her up and insist they do something.
She’d gotten breakfast with her parents and then she and Trunks had spent most of the day at the park. Vegeta had been nowhere to be seen, much to her disappointment. She wasn’t overly shocked, but she had hoped he may turn up to spend some time with Trunks; even if it had only been for five or ten minutes.
The rest of the day had gone by quickly and she had just finished putting Trunks to bed. It was early evening and while she loved spending time with Trunks, she was more than welcoming the alone time for the rest of her evening before she started back at square one tomorrow with another long, exhausting week ahead of her. It was her plan to binge watch some of her favourite shows she was behind on and then take a nice long bath before going to bed early.
She was just in the middle of making herself a snack of cheese and crackers to go with her wine night cap when she suddenly noticed Vegeta lean into the door frame with his arms crossed.
“Hey,” she said, acknowledging him despite still feeling disappointed that he had been a no show today. She was going to say something snarky to him but then thought better of it. What was the point? She didn’t want to waste the last of her evening off in a bad mood because she had a fight with Vegeta.
“Hmmmn,” he grunted as he watched her slice several pieces of cheese.
As the silence began to drag on, she began to feel uncomfortable as he stood there watching her. She assumed he wanted something and just wished he would just come out and say whatever it was he had on his mind. She didn’t have the energy to play his cryptic mind games today.
“Do you need something?” she asked him finally as she went to put the cheese away back into the fridge.
“You wanted to discuss the boy,” he said pointedly as though she should have known that was the reason he had sought her out.
“Oh, so you want to act like being a family is something that’s important to you now,” she rolled her eyes. “Alright. I’m just making a snack. Do you want anything?”
He ignored her sarcasm. “No,”
“Okay, let’s go then,” she said, grabbing two glasses and taking her plate upstairs.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“Upstairs,” she answered, not stopping and heading up the stairs to her bedroom.
Vegeta paused a moment before following her. He wanted to speak with her about Trunks, not have this be some casual social thing but followed her anyway. He would stay long enough to say his piece and then leave.
Bulma walked into her bedroom and into her bonus room. She set her snack down on the table, turned on the TV and went to her mini-fridge to grab a bottle of wine. She didn’t ask Vegeta of he wanted a glass, she just poured him one and handed it to him as she passed him and went to sit down.
He frowned at her as she handed him a glass of wine. He took it and looked at it a moment. Great. Now he had to stay here for a while. Well, at least long enough to tell her what he came to tell her and finish his wine.
He grudgingly went over to her couch and sat on the opposite end of from her. It took him a moment to realize the last time he had sat in that very spot on the couch that she had straddled his lap while watching a movie and had ridden him.
Vegeta dismissed the thought. While appealing, that was not why he was here and he had no intention of ever going there with her again. While he had enjoyed his time with her, the outcome from the aftermath had not been worth it.
“So,” she said, taking him out of his thoughts which for once he was grateful she was speaking with him. “How was your day?”
He knew that she was annoyed he hadn’t joined her and Trunks today but he could not detect any malice in her tone so he answered her politely. “It was fine. How was your day with the boy?”
“It was good!” she nodded with a smile. “I do notice a difference in him. He’s a lot more... well behaved in a public setting.”
“Hmmmn,” he nodded.
“He sure likes spending time with you,” she told him as she turned the TV on and began browsing through all the programs she had recorded and let accumulate. Being that Vegeta was with her, she chose something with plenty of sex and violence. “He pretty much talks about you nonstop, you know.”
Vegeta nodded again, unsure of what to say. “I am not sure what all the fuss is about. I see him in the mornings and we meditate before breakfast and sometimes I see him in the afternoons if your mother goes out to run errands.”
“You’re his father,” she said. “He looks up to you. It’s not a big deal to you, I guess, but it is to him. I know this is foreign to you and you aren’t comfortable in this role, but I think you’re doing really good, Vegeta. I’m glad you’re still here.”
“I want to train him,” he said, not wanting to skirt around the subject. For some reason he felt very uncomfortable with her commending him.
Bulma was quiet a moment as she thought about it. She wasn’t opposed to it but she wasn’t sure how keen on it she was either, knowing how intense and borderline obsessive Vegeta could get when it came to his own training. She thought it was great that he wanted to spend more time with Trunks but she didn’t want him possibly pushing Trunks too hard while he was still just little. He would be four in a few months.
“You can train with Trunks, sure,” she said slowly, nodding in agreement. “Just don’t forget that he’s only a little boy. He can't be expected to keep up with you.”
Vegeta was almost shocked she had agreed so easily. He had almost certainly expected a heated argument and that he would find himself packing his few belongings and preparing the ship to finally leave this forsaken mud ball for good.
“By the time I was his age, I was already accompanying my father on purging missions,” he said. “He is more than ready to begin.”
“Alright, I don’t have a problem with you training him but he’s not going to be going on purging missions so don’t be too hard on him is all I ask,” she said. “I realize that you were raised differently and I respect that but things are different here. You can’t train so hard with him that he’s got broken bones and is covered in bruises every day.”
“He is half Saiyan,” he snorted. “I will not expect more from him than what is realistic but you need to remember that he is a lot stronger than your average human child.”
“No, I do understand that, Vegeta, that’s not my concern,” she said offering him her plate of crackers and cheese to share with her. “My concern is if someone sees him at the park covered in bruises or a broken arm one too many times, it’s not going to look good. Trunks will be starting pre-school next year and if he goes to school with new bruises constantly the teacher is going to ask him about it and I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to say ‘My dad and I were training or fighting,’ and social services will be down here so fast it will make your head spin. They’ll take him, Vegeta.”
“I would like to see anyone try to take my son from me,” he snorted and Bulma had to resist smiling at his comment. It warmed her heart to know that he actually cared about their son. “I understand your concern however and I will take that into consideration.”
“As long as you’re careful and not too hard on him, I’m alright with it,” she clarified. Truthfully, a part of her wanted to say no. She was afraid of Trunks getting hurt but she also reminded herself that Gohan was about this age and he had lived an entire year in the wilderness training under Piccolo. How much worse could training with Vegeta be? Most of all, her decision to allowing it was the progress she had seen in Vegeta. Trunks had been so good for him. It made her so happy that he seemed to be adjusting to life here again. He had been so lost after the Cell games that she had been worried that he might never recover from what had happened. If working with Trunks was what gave him a purpose in life again, she couldn’t be so selfish as to not let him. Besides, it would more than likely break Trunks’ heart if Vegeta quit spending time with him.
“Noted,” Vegeta replied, taking a sip of his wine, both surprised and relieved that this conversation had gone over so smoothly with her.
“So are you going to start training again as well?” she asked cautiously, not wanting to set him off but he seemed to be in a good mood and she wanted to visit with him and maybe try to understand what it was he had been going through.
Vegeta shrugged in response.
“Hmm, now I see where Trunks gets that from,” she teased, mimicking his shrug. “Well I think you should,”
“Why?” he asked.
“You love it,” she replied simply. “It’s your passion. I know we weren’t on the best of terms after the androids and Cell, but it still made me sad that you quit all of that.”
Vegeta was quiet for a long moment, unsure of how to respond to her. It was something that he was not comfortable discussing. The period after the Cell games was the darkest period of his life. Even he didn’t fully understand what he had been feeling or going through at that time and there were days he was still consumed with depression and the only reason he got up in the morning was for Trunks. As much as he tried to tell himself that the boy meant nothing to him, he knew it was a lie and that he was slowly beginning to grow fond of him.
“For all of the training and hard work I put in during those three years I was surpassed by nearly everyone,” he answered. “It was all for nothing.”
“No it wasn’t,” she said, reaching for the remote and turning the volume down on the TV.
“It was,” he insisted. “Things would have been better off if I had not even bothered. I should have not returned here when I could not find Kakarott in space.”
Bulma blinked and looked into her wine glass as though it would tell her the right thing to say to him. She hadn’t expected him to reply with anything that would actually give her some insight into what had actually been going on in his head at that time. Now that he had, she knew she had to tread very carefully and not accidentally say anything that may be the wrong thing. She knew she couldn’t possibly relate to him, but she would try.
“I don’t agree,” she said finally. “I’m glad you came back.”
He snorted in response and she worried she had said the wrong thing. Sure things between then had been strained since there affair had ended but if he hadn’t come back, she wouldn’t have had Trunks and while becoming a mother hadn’t been very high on her list of things she had wanted to accomplish in life, she couldn’t imagine her life without Trunks and wouldn’t change a single thing if she could.
“I know that you didn’t want to become a parent,” she started cautiously again, trying to be careful of what she said and how she said it. “But if you hadn’t come back, I wouldn’t have Trunks. That may not be a plus from your point of view, but it is to me. I love that little boy so much that I cannot imagine a life without him in it. Whatever we have between us, good or bad or even if you one day decide to leave here for good and I never see you again, I will always be thankful to you that I have him.”
Vegeta wasn't sure how to respond to her comment; that line of thinking had not even occurred to him and he agreed with her somewhat that a universe without Trunks in it felt strange to him.
“You might feel like your efforts with your training were wasted but you shouldn’t feel that way,” she continued, steering the subject away from her and Trunks. She could tell he wasn’t comfortable at all with her honesty with regards to the origin of Trunks. She didn’t care though, she wanted him to know that.
“That is because you do not know what it is like to work for everything you ever wanted, believing that it would be your life’s greatest accomplishment only to be surpassed by a mere child and two machines,” he said bitterly. “And not just any child, the child of my greatest rival.”
Bulma nodded slowly as she listened to him. She wasn’t sure what to say to him so she reached for her wine bottle and topped up his glass, which she was happy he did not object to.
“When I became a Super Saiyan, I believed myself to have surpassed Kakarott by that point. It was my every intention that I would destroy those androids and then I would put that third class clown in his place and take back some of my lost honour. He owed me that,” he said bitterly. “He still owes me that.”
“Alright but he’s gone now,” she said gently. “He chose-”
“Noble Kakarott,” he spat in distaste. “Sacrificing himself for the good of the planet and choosing to remain in the other dimension instead of returning to settle the score with me. He stole my honour by killing the one person who destroyed my life! Frieza’s life was not his to take.”
Bulma once again stared into her wine, realizing that this conversation had quickly gone into a direction that needed to be handled very delicately. She knew Vegeta had this need to be better than Goku but she didn’t realize it was a more deep-seated issue than simply a drive to be better than him. This was much more complicated than that. He felt like he had been robbed of something and still needed to settle the score and he had been denied that opportunity because of Goku’s decision to not be revived.
She loved her childhood friend dearly and it would have devastated her if Vegeta killed Goku or went out of his way to hurt him. Because he had lived here for so long before the androids showed up and he’d never pursued Goku she assumed that all his talk about defeating him had been just that. Talk. That he didn’t hold any real animosity towards the other Saiyan; or if he did, it had slowly resolved itself over the years. Here she was getting a completely opposite picture than what she thought and she felt bad for him.
She didn’t agree with his need to destroy Goku but she could understand his bitterness to a point and she figured that part of his loss in his desire to train had to do with him missing Goku; she knew he would never admit to that, but she suspected that was part of it. Goku had been the last remaining Saiyan other than himself. That meant that now he was truly all alone and that alone was heart breaking to her. Say what he wanted about Goku, his presence here had been what had motivated Vegeta. Now he didn’t have that anymore. It was all beginning to make sense to her what it was that had left him so depressed now and she was ashamed of herself and her conduct after it all had happened. She had been so unkind and insensitive.
“I’m sorry you feel he robbed you of something you felt was reserved for you,” she finally said, trying to think of something up building or a bright side to everything. “Although, technically it wasn’t Goku who killed Frieza from what I remember. He survived and then came back here to seek revenge. It was the older version of Trunks that killed him.
“Now I’m sorry I can’t entirely relate to what you are going through, but since Future Trunks was still technically raised by me, I’m certain he would have known from stories she told him about what a horrible person Frieza was. He would have known what it meant to you to have him destroyed for once and for all. He came here and he did that. With relative ease too if I remember right. You should be proud of that. No, it wasn’t you personally who finished him, but it was your son. Doesn’t matter what timeline he came from. It was your son who killed the person who destroyed your life. Your flesh and blood that carried that out. That to me, is pretty cool and nothing for you to feel shame about. It was still your line that set things right. Or at least as right as it’s ever going to be.”
As right as it’s ever going to be, he repeated mentally. Here he had been in the worst place mentally in his life and she had found a way to over simplify it. He wasn’t sure if he was annoyed or impressed that she had just given him a different angle to consider.
“What else is bothering you?” she asked boldly, knowing there was more to it than just that that had kept him locked in this deep pit of despair for the last few years.
Vegeta was quiet for a long time, drinking his wine while he debated on whether or not to open up to her further. This wasn’t something he did. Ever. Except talking about what had been plaguing him for some reason was already made him feel like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders and it surprised him. Bulma was the last person he thought he would ever confide in. He decided that maybe it was alright to talk to her. So far she had not laughed at his misery or made him feel more ashamed than he already did. She’d done the opposite actually.
“Not only had Kakarott surpassed me but his son became a Super Saiyan and was at a level beyond me. How could a child accomplish such a thing that I worked my entire life to achieve! I then discovered that the Namek had at some point surpassed me as well. Tell me, how would that make you feel? To be out bested and left behind by your enemy, his child and his child’s mentor?”
Bulma shrugged. “Not good, I would imagine. I could see how that could be discouraging but don’t you think you’re being a bit too hard on yourself?”
“No,” he replied. “Not only was I outclassed in battle by everyone around me, I was nothing more than a liability on the battlefield. In my arrogance and failure to accept my own limitations and in my need to prove to everyone that I was superior, I put everyone in jeopardy. I allowed Cell to acquire his perfect form. In doing that, our son was murdered.”
Bulma had only gotten bits and pieces of what had gone down during the fight with the androids and the Cell games. It had been from the point of view of Yamcha mostly, who was not sympathetic to Vegeta in the least. She had gotten a few of the spaces coloured in by Krillin and Yamcha but they didn’t usually want to discuss Vegeta at length. “Vegeta you can’t blame yourself for Cell murdering Trunks,” she said sympathetically. “Don’t do that to yourself. He’s fine. He was wished back by the dragon balls and he was stronger than ever when he went back to his own timeline. It’s not your fault Cell killed him.”
“He would have never had the opportunity if I had just ended him when he was in his imperfect state,” Vegeta said blandly.
“Alright but you still couldn’t predict that he would kill Trunks like that,” she insisted. “He could have killed anyone. It was a battle. Everyone who was out there knew there was a possibility that they could be killed and not brought back even. Yamcha and Krillin won’t be able to be wished back if they die again, yet they were still out there. You won’t be able to be wished back if you die.”
Vegeta snorted at her and took a long sip of his wine. “What a shame,”
“It would be,” she said firmly. “Trunks would be devastated.”
He nodded and noted that for some reason it bothered him that if he died she apparently wouldn’t give a shit. Not that he blamed her. He had been nothing short of miserable to her since their affair. He had nearly let her and his son die because he had been drunk on power and ego, convincing himself that no one in this universe mattered to him. In the short time he had spent with Trunks, he had realized that wasn’t true. He did care.
“I’d be pretty upset too,” she added, almost as if she was able to read his mind.
“Would you, now?” he asked sarcastically.
“Yes, Vegeta, I would,” she answered honestly. “Just like I can’t imagine a life without Trunks, I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”
The mood in the room between them immediately went from casual to awkward and uncomfortable and Bulma immediately wished she hadn’t said that to him. What were you thinking, she chastised herself. “Well, who else would piss me off on a consistent basis, huh? It would be pretty boring around here without you,” she said quickly, hoping to have not ruined things.
“Still as stupid as ever, I see,” he snorted.
“Anyway, I’m glad you’re here and that you’ve been spending time with Trunks,” she said, ignoring his baiting. “So I wanted to talk to you about that so we can do this without it being a fight and an argument.”
Vegeta nodded in agreement. “What do you have in mind?”
“Nothing really,” she shrugged. “Just we need to communicate and be honest with each other about what we both want from each other where he’s concerned. I think it crucial that we be open about it and support each other’s choices and decisions. If there’s issues between us, I don’t want him to know about it. I will never bad mouth you to him and I’d appreciate the same curtesy,”
“I know you won’t,” he growled. “That boy from the future had grandiose thoughts and expectations in his head with regards to me, no doubt thanks to whatever foolish things you told him.”
“Well excuse me, but I think it’s wrong for a boy to grow up not knowing his father. If anything were to happen to you, I’d do the same thing. What did you think she would say about you? ‘Oh yes, Trunks your father was a wonderful man. We knocked boots for two days straight and then he left me when he had his fill and didn’t care to stick around once he found out I was pregnant with you,’” she said snarkily. “Of course not! If something happens to you I’d do the same thing. I wouldn’t tell him about the hurtful, spiteful things that went on between us or that you never attempted to save us when we were in danger-”
“Or that you placed yourself and our son in danger despite my warning that you stay behind,” he reminded her coolly.
“Right,” she sighed. “I won’t be telling him any of those stories.”
“Fair enough,” he agreed. He hadn’t been interested in having a heart to heart with the future version of his son. He couldn’t see him being all that keen on it now either.
They were both quiet for a while, having slipped into a comfortable silence as they watched the show Bulma had on the TV and sipped their wine.
As the credits came on at the end of the episode, Bulma leaned to refill her glass. “Would you like more?” she asked, noticing his glass was nearly empty.
He debated a moment. He should leave. He had come to say what he had wanted to say. Actually, he’d said a lot more than that, much to his embarrassment at his own candidness, but it was bothering him less and less as the moments passed. She hadn’t mocked him or made him feel any worse. If anything, she had attempted to relate to his feelings of shame and doubts of self-worth and comforted him and he found that he did feel a little bit better after talking with her. He wondered why she would even try to comfort him after everything that had passed between them. It was strange to him.
“Come on,” she coaxed, wiggling the bottle a little. “We may as well finish it.”
Vegeta relented and reached for his glass so she could refill it.
Bulma smiled in satisfaction as she emptied the bottle into his glass and selected the next episode of her show to start.
They sat there as they watched the show’s next episode begin with the main character panicking because a heist he was on had gone horribly wrong. He was having a panic attack remembering the last time he was in prison while he was on his cell phone with a hacker friend of his to disengage the locked doors and shut the alarm off and his ex-lover was on the other line as well.
“I thought he was a good guy now or something,” Vegeta commented blandly.
“He is,” Bulma nodded. “He’s just still doing off stuff on the side.”
“Hmmmn,” he grunted.
They didn’t speak again for a little while. “I can start the whole show from the beginning if you want, I’m only like four or five episodes in.”
Vegeta shrugged. He had seen bits and pieces of this show in passing on the odd time she watched it in the family room. It was either featuring some brutal fight or an explicit sex scene so he wasn’t sure what the main point of the program was but it was appealing to him. The main character wasn’t an overdone, fake looking player. To Vegeta, he looked like a believable protagonist with a sordid past.
Bulma grabbed the remote and stopped the show to put it on the first episode. “There, then you’ll be all caught up and will know what’s going on.”
Vegeta nodded and glanced at her. He did not ask her to do that, nor did he really care that much but he appreciated the gesture and realized that she was putting the effort to keep him content and so decided he could put himself out there and stay since she obviously wanted him to.
They watched the first four episodes together in silence mostly. It turned out that Vegeta really liked this show.
“So what are you going to teach Trunks first?” she asked as she shut the tv off when the episode was finished.
Vegeta thought for a moment. He had no idea what he wanted to teach the boy first. “I’m not sure,”
“Well, what was the first thing your father taught you?” she asked, grabbing the blanket off the back of the couch and curling up in it with her knees up, facing him.
“He taught me to fly,” he replied after a moment’s thought. He hadn’t thought about training with his father in his youth in years. Not to mention he would have assumed that Bulma would not have found the training he and his father had done when he was a child even remotely acceptable.
“Hmmm,” she thought to herself. “You think that’s a good idea? I mean he’s already very independent and I have a hard time catching him when he doesn’t want to do something. What will I do if he just flies off because he know I can’t fly?”
“I will teach him that he is not to do that,” he said, agreeing with her concern.
“Alight and when he decides to still do it?” she asked. “How are you going to enforce that? It’s not like he’s a bird and we can clip his wings.”
Vegeta thought for a moment. “If he still does it, come and get me and I will find him and bring him back and we will deal with him if and when it happens.”
“Fair enough,” she nodded.
They hung out for a while longer, discussing Trunks in a calm, mature manner. Bulma was surprised to learn that they agreed on quite a lot of things and she was confident that it seemed like they could possibly successfully do this together with hopefully minimal conflict.
She didn’t realize how late it was when she yawned and checked her phone. It was past one o’clock in the morning. “I’ve gotta get to bed,” she said to him. “Ugh, I so don’t feel like going to work tomorrow.”
Vegeta smirked at her as he got up to leave.
“Hey,” she called out to him. “I’m glad we did this,”
“Hmmn,” he nodded. Truthfully, he hadn’t minded spending time with her this evening.
“Feel free to drop by anytime,” she said to him. “I’m not like I have a life anymore or places to be. I’m just here most of the time trying to catch up on lost sleep.”
“You work too much,” he said.
“I know, but eventually I’ll be the one running everything and that means I have to know how to understand how every part of the company works and all the processes,” she sighed.
“Same as me had my planet not been destroyed,” he agreed. “I was not old enough to take part in anything other than the odd purging mission before my father handed me over to Frieza.”
“So it wasn’t all easy life of luxury growing up as a prince before the shit hit the fan?” she asked.
“No,” he replied. “I was required to be up early to train with my father each and every morning. We would train or meditate for a few hours before breakfast. Then I was made to sit and learn with a tutor. I was taught not only the history of our race, but the histories of the races we had alliances with. I was taught to speak many of the different languages that are used in the galaxy and sometimes was allowed to accompany my father during meetings with other planetary officials.”
“Wow,” she murmured. She always could tell that Vegeta was intelligent and well read, but she had grossly underestimated the amount of instruction and education he had been given. She had merely assumed that he had learned everything he’d needed to learn from Frieza.
“I am more than a mindless soldier,” he said to her.
“Oh, I know that,” she agreed. “I’ve always known that.”
Satisfied, he nodded and headed out of her room. “I will start with the boy tomorrow,”
“Have fun with him,” she said with a yawn. “Don’t take things too seriously though. He’s just a little boy.”
Vegeta rolled his eyes at her as he left, closing her door behind him.
Bulma stood in her bedroom looking at her door a moment before smiling to herself. Tonight had been a great evening; she almost couldn’t believe it! She hoped this was a sign of things getting better and easier between them.
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