Feeding Genius

Chapter Eighteen

Hope

Disclaimer: DBZ's not mine… yadda, yadda, yadda.

***********************

It's been a week. A week since that day, which has thrown my life into a sea of panic and uncertainty, and what, might you wonder, has happened within that time? Well, the first couple of day's passed in a drugged up haze of confusion and emotion. I spent the majority of them keeping an eerie and zombie-like vigil at my husband's side. My brain and nerves were so stupefied at the time I found it hard to process just exactly what was wrong with him. My scientific rationale was replaced with a cloak of stubborn denial.

"My husband is Saiyan!" I remember screaming at the doctor, "His body has been through twice as much punishment as this before and it's only taken him a matter of days to recover… look at him!" I shoved the poor man's face into the glass; making him squeal a little in either surprise or pain, (I'm not sure which) "Look at him! There's barely a scratch on him! How can you still sit there and tell me he may not recover?"

Of course now my head is clearer and time and contemplation have worked their claim onto my world, I understand completely. The regeneration tanks work on the cellular level. The clear green liquid contains alien enzymes that stimulate and encourage damaged cells to multiply ten times faster than they would naturally, but it still relies on the body's natural healing abilities. Vegeta's body may have escaped serious damage, but his head hasn't been so fortunate. It took the brunt of Faylorn's punishment, and even though the large dark bruises around his throat and the major lesions that had sliced their way through his head are healed, any damage sustained to his brain is never going to be. Once brain cells die they cannot be reproduced, rendering even the miraculous power of a regeneration tank, useless.

On the third day Master Suh came to see her former pupil after her very short spell in the adjoining tank. Our meeting was very peculiar indeed, especially as I didn't have a clue (at that point) who she actually was.

She walked up to me and I lifted my head enough to gaze through hollow and strained eyes. Her tall and striking figure strode no more than two feet in front of me, but her eyes were fixed on Vegeta's tank, their dark red orbs pinning him under a stony gaze. Her features didn't betray anything more informative than curiosity. I didn't like her looking at him so familiarly, and that impulse feeling was made all the more concrete when she spoke.

"Hm! So much for the legendary."

Having taken the habit from my husband I growled warningly.

She turned to look at me as though it hadn't registered there was anyone else in the room. Those calculating eyes left Vegeta and scrutinized me with detached cynicism. "So you're the female." She said absently, "Well, now I see where the child gets his exotic coloring from." She smiled slightly, "Vegeta-sama has peculiar taste. I would have thought the woman he chose to mate with would be stronger, but you're no warrior. I see a pretty face can still work its magic, even to a creature as particular as my Saiyan prince."

Hers! Emotions pushed to the edge of their limit, seethed under the spell of her right to feel possession over my husband. "And just who the fuck do you think you are to call Vegeta yours?" I screeched indignantly.

The pristine woman chuckled at my outburst, "Well, well, maybe it was more than beauty after all." She looked to the tank for a second before turning back to me, "It's a pleasure to meet you Saiyan Ashora."

Ashora? I still don't know what she meant by that, and perhaps my confusion showed at the time.

"I see," She stated sharply, her strict voice fitting the sterile room, "He hasn't explained that yet. No matter." She placated, stretching out a hand in greeting, "I'm Master Suh. I believe the Commander told you of me."

I nodded mutely, barely grasping her hand in acknowledgement.

Her look of austerity dissolved as she crouched down to my seated position, her high plucked eyebrows just barely echoing my look of sorrow. "I need to apologize to you for not being able to stop Faylorn." She said formally, her voice unchanged, despite the softening of her face, "Your mate entrusted your son to my charge… I failed that trust and I am truly ashamed of myself for it." She bowed her head solemnly in respect, before standing once again. "No doubt Ouji-sama will repay me for that when he recovers, and I will welcome it. It is no more than I deserve."

She walked back to the glass looking through it. "I see they have him sedated. Fools, it makes it ten times harder for me to gauge his ki and recovery level. These scientific sort think they know everything about everyone, but with beings as extraordinary as our prince and myself, all normal biology is redundant. It's infuriating and disgusting to keep a warrior in this state."

I wasn't sure how to answer. My indignation at her slur on my profession was almost strong enough to shape my tongue into insults, but then what had been achieved in the last few months was enough to make me think twice, and the last sentence was especially well tuned to silence my protests. I could almost hear it spoken in a brusque masculine growl, rather than the clear matronly voice of the woman standing before me. I felt tears pierce the corners of my eyes. Would to kami that it had been Vegeta! What Master Suh had said was true though and I couldn't deny it, even then, when my body and mind were still a muddle. It wasn't right seeing him so vulnerable.

"I think it's a safety precaution," I said when my thoughts finally returned. "They seem to think he sustained some degree of brain damage during the fight. They're scared he might lose control of his power when he wakes up."

"I understand my dear, but he has to come around eventually. He should be remotely placed on a dead planet, away from any sentient life forms when his body is healed. It will be safer."

"No!" My faculties clawed together in a fit of selfishness, "I'm not going to let him wake up alone on some cold and disgusting planet! I will be there when he wakes up... I have to be. How can you even suggest I let him suffer alone?"

"It's no less than I've done before."

"B…before?"

"I was his mentor for many years. Old King Vegeta handpicked me to train his son because I was the most adept teacher in the universe. Controlling the prince's destructive urges was one of my duties. No one on Vegeta-sei could tame Vegeta Ouji; the king didn't have the time or inclination, and the guards were too scared of the king's disapproval to reprimand him. Leaving him to decimate a planet once in a while was always the best way to get him to concentrate in the long run." She stopped and chuckled, "I think my presence and my tactics created a bit of a stir. Nappa had his nose well and truly put out and so did a lot of the royal guards. In the end Nappa was lucky to escape with his life, either King Vegeta or I would have gladly done the job if he had pushed much further. Aliens were not held in high esteem, but that was a long time ago now. Then I had a higher power level than any Saiyan alive… the King included. Ouji-sama has gone far beyond me now, but then… I always knew he would."

She walked towards me to sit on the other end of the bench.

"The King wasn't any more inclined to let aliens in close contact with his empire than the rest of his species, (especially those that posed a serious risk to his authority) but you see I was a means to an end. After Frieza forced his way into the Saiyan's affairs he was prepared to do anything to make his son stronger, and for the right price (of course) I was brought in."

"What was Vegeta-sei like?" I asked, caught up in the narrative. She had told me more about Vegeta's history in a five-minute acquaintance than Vegeta had in a five-year marriage, and I was eager to learn as much as I could.

"Well," she replied with a thin smile, "Each species has its own comforts I suppose. It was a little too extreme for my liking. The air was so thick with dust and sand in the summer months you couldn't go outside without a ki shield, it would make your eyes and lungs bleed. And then in the winter there was freezing like you wouldn't believe. Not like any other planet I've ever seen. The majority of the Saiyans water supply was found in large underground caverns. In the winter it would freeze and expand, creating great fissures to crisscross the planet."

"Fascinating. The weather cycles must have been completely unpredictable… erratic and violent when they struck. It would have been an amazing site to witness and even more fun to study properly." I stopped, and smiled apologetically. "Sorry us scientific sort get carried away with things like that."

She chuckled, "Oh of course. If I had remembered before then I might not have… but never mind all that. Tact never was one of my strong points, and you'll have to become accustomed to this peculiar old warrior, because she isn't going to change her time-worn habits for one human female." She got up again, rustling as her robes de-crinkled. "It was different meeting you." She said in a way of taking leave, and after glancing once at Vegeta, "I strongly advise planetary relocation before he wakes Bulma." She paused, "If you want to go as well… well… that is your own choice."

"Wait!" I remember calling to her retreating back, "How do you know my name?"

Not breaking her stride she walked through the doors, leaving a clipped, "I know about everyone and everything on Gleya, child," drifting across the room in her wake. "Everything."

I was left with an unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach once she was gone. There was hope engraved in her words as she had spoken of Vegeta's recovery with an air of certainty, but then confusion as to her method for his recuperation.

She has been a semi regular visitor to the regeneration tanks since then. Coming at least once a day, but I'm still not sure what to make of her. Sometimes she can be almost scarily friendly, and others she can be prickly and dismissive. In ways she reminds me of Chichi… comforting and yet awkward at the same time. Still… I don't think there is any harm in her. In fact I have high hopes of becoming closer to her.

If she told me the truth, and that she knows everything about everybody on Gleya, I am hoping she can shed some light on Faylorn's character. She was seen conversing with him on many an occasion according to Rian, and that intrigues me more and more. What did they talk about? What information could she give me in locating Trunks?

I close my eyes, sucking up the pain of the continued uncertainty with regards to my son. Master Suh is with Vegeta now, in one of her more compassionate moods, and brooked no opposition when she told me to, "Get some rest young lady." Yeah right! The only way she eventually managed to coax me out of the room, was with promises to meet me in the morning to discuss Faylorn, but she can't make me sleep. Besides I have more pressing matters to attend to. The communication embargo put into effect after Faylorn's rampage was lifted a couple of hours ago, after the security team had finished doing its search of the station, and I intend to utilize it immediately.

The glow of the static-filled screen in front of me muddles across the otherwise dark room. I am in Vegeta's quarters. For some reason I feel safer and protected here, and even more so now as I'm cuddled up in Trunks' blanket, holding the material over my nose in attempt to reconnect with him, breathing his scent in. I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment… my heart, aching under the familiar smell. "I love you kiddo." I whisper into the shadows, "Momma misses you."

The static clears and at once I'm thrown from the pain of loss, into the glaring reality of the communication I am faced with. I've had seven days to prepare myself for this, and yet I am no closer to finding the right words.

"Bulma!"

"Daddy!" I sob at the screen, seeing him in his usual disarray.

"Your mother and I have been worried sick about you! It's been a week! What on earth has been going on? Is Vegeta there yet? I felt so certain he would try and find you when he left. Does he know?"

"Yes," I hiccup through tears. "He's here, and no dad he doesn't know you lied to him, not yet anyway."

"Bulma what's wrong? You look awful!"

"I'm… I'm fine dad… I… just…" The tears overwhelm me. "Vegeta's hurt… and…"

"How badly this time?"

"They don't know for sure… but… that's not all… Trunks."

"Calm down," he soothes through the monitor. "Stop the tears and tell me everything."

I draw a shaky breath in but it doesn't help, "I can't stop them... Trunks is missing."

"Missing? Well have you searched all the station yet? That boy is as crafty as his father sometimes, and just as elusive… What about that nice young Commander? Has he…?"

"No dad…" I interrupt, "He's not hiding… he's been kidnapped."

I feel as though I want to curl into a little ball, and instinctively I wrap my arms around my chest, hugging myself and rocking slightly backwards and forwards. Dad hasn't replied yet, and I'm glad for the silence… happy to be able to lose myself in the pain once again. At length I'm drawn back to the screen, but I don't see anything other than an empty lab.

"Dad?"

I hear a clang to the left of the camera and it's quickly turned around. "I'm still here Bulma-chan."

I feel better for crying and I watch curiously. He seems to be working on the computer at the other end of the bench.

"What are you doing?"

"The chip Bulma, the chip." He enthuses.

"Chip…? I don't…"

He adjusts the camera on the top of the monitor and zooms it in to let me have a better look at the computer screen.

I gasp loudly, hope quickly stemming up from the very bottom of despair. "And you think you can get range on it? He could be light-years from earth!" I feel obliged to force my mind into reason, even though my heart is doing sickeningly premature summersaults.

"Well we won't know until we try now will we, dumpling?"

"How long?"

"Give me five hours." He says calmly, looking at me in a perfect parental smile, "You get some rest, and I'll have the results for you when you wake up."

"No, I can't wait that long… there's got to be someway of getting it done sooner."

"When we put the chip in him it was left switched off, so we could only activate it in extreme situations. Do you remember? I still can't believe he managed to survive for a whole week on his own, and no worse for the experience."

I nod, "Little monster!" I smile, fresh tears threatening, "It was just after he learnt to fly wasn't it. He wanted to try and find Vegeta. We didn't tell him that his daddy was training off planet, so he went out to look for him."

"That chip has proved handy a couple of times when he's flown off on his own, but you know how traumatic it can be for him if it's turned on too suddenly. Do you really want to put him through that, on top of what he must already be going through?"

"No… I just…"

"I know, dumpling, I know." He smiles, "Now get some rest."

I nod numbly.

"There's a girl. Night, night."

"Night, night daddy," I whisper. "I love you, tell mom the same."

"Sure thing! Bye."

The screen blips once, and static returns. I can't move. I watch the jumble of it all, and let the moment sink in as I rub my forehead in twin hands, raking to get my mind to think straight.

Circumstance is such a strange thing. I don't want to feel too secure in finding Trunks this way. It's a long shot at best. The tracking device was only designed for the eventuality of Trunks accidentally flying off and getting lost. Trunks being kidnapped by a powerful creature from the slime of Vegeta's past into the darkest reaches of space; wasn't exactly top of our concern list. The transmitter was only long range in comparison to Chikyu's dimensions. I have absolutely no idea how effective it might be in pinpointing his position now.

Eventually, and after many minutes contemplation I grudgingly get up. Every bone and muscle in my body feels overworked and drained into fatigue. I look once to the door, and once to the bed. Maybe it might not be such a bad idea to get some rest. I haven't slept much at all over the last week, and something tells me that I'll need the strength it offers in the trials the next few days may present.

Closing my eyes I move away from the door and my long-held Saiyan vigil, to instead crawl under the covers of the large bed, still fully clothed. Sometimes hope is a dangerous thing, but right now I will live in it, gleam a few hours sleep under its delusional spell, and then tomorrow… well tomorrow I'll worry afresh.

***********************

A/N - Sorry this chapter is a little short, but (for some reason or another) it was really hard to write. I guess the old writers block had to kick in eventually though eh?

*hugs*

Ember