Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ FROM BAD TO WORSE... ❯ Unforgivable Intrusion ( Chapter 3 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Last Chapter: Finding the gravity simulator broken, Vegeta provoked Yamcha into
what started out as a simple sparring match until tempers stared to flare...
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FROM BAD TO WORSE...
Chapter Three

Looking out at the empty chair of her secretary's desk with growing
frustration, Bulma left her office to go search for the missing woman. She
checked the bathroom just in case the lazy girl was sleeping off an exhaustive
night of partying but all of the stalls were empty. The break room was similarly
deserted, which in itself was an oddity. There was always someone in here trying
to sneak a smoke; usually it was her father. She heard quick footsteps out in
the corridor and craned her head around the door in time to see Charles McNeal,
a scientist in Research and Development, moving to the stairs.

"Hey, Charles!" Bulma called after him, "Where the hell is everyone?"

"There's a big fight going on outside! I just called Security!" he yelled
back and rushed up the stairs in the hopes to see some action before the guards
broke up the conflict.

"Vegeta," she cursed under her breath. She would have liked to feel some
surprise at the news. The damned Saiyan couldn't even keep his anger in check
until noon. Before she went upstairs, she had a stop to make at first.

If Vegeta had been only play-fighting before, now he was going all out,
Yamcha discovered to his chagrin. His arms and legs were bruised from deflecting
the Saiyans empowered blows and more and more strikes were getting through his
weakened defenses. Despite the blood that Vegeta kept choking up, he was
cruising along on his anger with absolutely no problem at all. The fighter
wanted to end this without a fatality (most importantly his own) and let Vegeta
get in behind him and get a successful chokehold. He brought his elbow straight
back into the Saiyans injured side, hearing the man grunt in response. The hold
didn't weaken and kept tightening. Yamcha pummeled away in growing frustration,
the sights graying out around him until the grip finally fell away and Vegeta
staggered backwards. Both men fell to their knees, struggling for breath.

"Truce?" Yamcha tried again when he got his wind partially back.

"Never," Vegeta said through a mouthful of blood and was actually rising to
continue the fight-

-Only to face a cloud of acrid smoke.

Bulma had taken a fire extinguisher off of the wall and now sprayed it
between the two antagonists, hiding each one from the other. "Yamcha, get inside
the building! Now!" she hollered at the dazed man.

Seeing what she was doing, Yamcha took full advantage of the diversion and
scrambled over to the crowd of onlookers where several people helped him inside.
Placing herself between Vegeta and the building, Bulma held the extinguisher in
a steady pose intending to give the Saiyan a face-full if he looked as if he was
going to attack. "Just calm down, Vegeta-"

"Calm down? That moron started it!" he said but the fight appeared to have
finally gone out of him. He got slowly to his feet but remained bent over as he
held his wounded side protectively. Bulma saw that the right hand side of his
shirt and the waistband of his shorts were soaked in gore and her dread
intensified. She dropped the extinguisher and rushed over to him. "You're hurt-"

He slapped her hand away. "Go tend to your idiot lover. I don't need your
help," he told her and flew away to the east side of the headquarters building
where his quarters resided.

Vibrating in anger, she pinched the bridge of her nose as she struggled for
composure and noticed Paur nearby, watching her anxiously. The little creatures
fur was all puffed up in agitation. "Paur, what happened here?"

Floating over to her, it excitedly spouted, "You got here just in time,
Bulma! It was awful! That nasty Vegeta was going to-"

"Who started the fight?"

The creature's eyes flitted uneasily to the headquarters building entrance
where everyone was slowly returning to work. "Well, Vegeta said some really
awful things about you and-"

"-And Yamcha, the hothead, decided to defend my honor. How noble of him,"
Bulma said dryly, unimpressed. "I'll deal with Vegeta later after he's had time
to cool down. Let's go see what shape Yamcha is in-"

Paur gave a happy trill.

"-Before I kill him myself," Bulma finished.

>>>>>
It was déjà vu all over again as she went to the door of Vegeta's quarters
and knocked briefly on its surface before daring herself to enter. She had just
seen to Yamcha's injuries, nothing too serious, surprisingly. Either the Saiyan
had truly been using him as a convenient sparring partner in his boredom or he
was even more off of his game than usual. It was probably a mixture of both.
This time she was carrying a first aid kit instead of a tray of food into the
room, and this time Vegeta was awake. He was stepping out of the bathroom
holding a damp towel against his side when she walked in.

"What are you doing here, woman?" he snapped peevishly.

"Your powers of observation must be slipping," Bulma said, holding up the
kit she had brought. She went to the bed and upended the box, sorting through
the supplies. When she looked back, she saw that he had yet to move. "You know
damn well I'm not going anywhere here until I see that side of yours. The sooner
you get over here, the sooner I can leave. Believe me when I say that's
something we both want."

"No arguments there," he said in agreement and went over to sit on the bed.
He lifted his arm and pulled away the towel and she hissed in breath at the
sight. His entire right side was one gigantic swollen purple bruise. There was a
tear in the skin between two broken ribs and was still trickling a small amount
of blood.

"Vegeta, you need to go to the infirmary," she told him, grimacing at the
sight.

"Just tape it up here, there's nothing more anyone can do. It'll heal on
its own- "

"You might have internal injuries."

"I do," he amazed her by saying in a calm voice. "I have two cracked ribs,
two broken ribs and a perforated lung. Like I said, it'll heal. I've had worse."

She stared at him in disbelief, her blue eyes swimming with emotion. That
worried regard only hit the wall of his own obsidian gaze and was immediately
deflected. She would find nothing looking into his eyes but her own reflection.
"Alright," she relented. "I'm going to clean this first so it'll probably sting
a little-"

"-Just get on with it."

He didn't flinch when she dabbed disinfectant directly into the nasty cut
and, assured by his tolerance, allowed herself to inspect it thoroughly as she
cleaned it. It looked as if a piece of rib had actually pierced the external
wall causing the brutal tear. It was small but it was very deep. Pressing her
fingers into his swollen flesh she could feel the fragments of bone around the
wound, wondering if he required surgery. She spared his face a glance and found
that he was staring vacantly at the far wall, his eyes distant and unfocused. He
appeared to have gone into self-disciplined trance to escape the pain of her
ministrations.

She was grateful for his control. When the nurse in the infirmary had reset
Yamcha's nose he had bawled like a baby. Bulma supposed she couldn't blame him
but it sure hadn't impressed her any either. As she applied a thick bandage to
Vegeta's side and taped it in place, she couldn't help but notice the lack of
body hair on the Saiyan's muscular torso. It was the same with Gokou, who was
utterly hairless from the eyelashes on down (they used to skinny-dip a fair bit
when they were teenagers. Bulma used to always chide the younger man and ask him
when he was finally going to hit puberty to actually grow some pubic hair). She
wondered if that was the same with Vegeta and realized, with that thick wiry
hair that not even heavy gravity could bring down, it would probably be for the
best if he were.

She selected the longest elastic bandage in the kit and wrapped it around
his chest and waist, securing it in place with a pair of clips. "Finished," she
announced.

He blinked and then looked at her before gingerly touching his side. He
grunted softly once, nodding to himself. "Is there anything that you CAN'T do?"
he asked her sincerely.

"Not too much, no." She looked at him in surprise for a moment before
dabbing some antiseptic on a cottonball and raising it to his face. He flinched
away from her in annoyance and something more. "I won't hurt you," she soothed.

"What are you doing?"

"You have a scratch above your left eye. While I'm here I might as well
clean that, too," she insisted.

He relaxed, but only barely. The muscle in his jaw jumped nervously when he
felt her hands on his face, gently wiping at the small cut and finding several
others, tending to them as well. Sensing his tension, Bulma teased, "You really
don't like women getting up close and personal, do you?"

"Truth be told, I'd sooner use my hand. My fingers aren't much of a
conversationalist but at least they're quiet," he said aloofly.

She released a frustrated huff of air. "I wasn't talking about sex."

"Really? Then what good are women for?"

She drew back, prepared to swat him and caught a flicker of amusement cross
his face. He was actually joking with her, she realized with something like
amazement and betrayed an amused giggle. He really could be quite witty when his
guards were down.

They stared at one another again and this time, she could have sworn that
she saw some hint of emotion in those dark depths, all it would take would be
someone who was willing to search for it. Was she up for the challenge? she
wondered mildly. Was there a treasure worth finding in that bottomless shaft?

For no good reason Bulma could fathom, she said, "For the record, Yamcha
and I broke up several months ago."

He squinted at her in suspicion. "Why are you telling me?"

"No reason. You referred to us as lovers. I just wanted you to know that we
weren't anymore, that's all."

Wondering what in hell had sparked this revelation, Vegeta opened his mouth
to start in with the sarcasm but, mercifully, broke off coughing instead. Her
cheeks flaming Bulma stood helplessly off to the side as he struggled to get his
breath. She offered him a Kleenex to wipe his mouth and her worry was back when
she saw the flecks of blood on it after he had pulled it away. "I want you to
lie down and try to get some rest. I mean it, Vegeta, no forays into the country
side."

"No...arguments," he choked.

She gathered the scattered medical supplies and returned them to the kit.
As she got ready to leave, she noticed the tray of food she had brought last
night was still on the nightstand, untouched. "Why didn't you eat what I brought
you?"

He looked up at her and then frowned at the food. "That was you? I didn't
know where it came from so I didn't touch it."

She shook her head. "Can't you trust anyone?"

His face was as hard as she had ever seen it when he told her, "Don't take
it personally. I've been poisoned before. It's not a lesson I care to repeat."

She opened her mouth to respond but found there was nothing she could say
in defense of that harsh confession. "If I bring you up a meal later, will you
eat it?"

He eyed her closely, perhaps looking for any sign of threat or deception he
had become so used to confronting on all of his travels. There was only
sincerity in Bulma's open, trusting face and certainly no hint of any
underlining motive. He wasn't sure how to react to that and could only offer her
a brief nod in reply as words failed him.

>>>>>
With the idea of an innocent swim beaten out of him, Yamcha limped upstairs
after he had gotten some rest in the infirmary with the intention of scrounging
something to eat before he went home. He missed the days when he had lived here,
enjoying the charity of Bulma's parents and the perks that the immense building
offered him. His perspective had changed entirely when he got wished back and he
felt inexplicably claustrophobic in the building and bored with the prospect of
Bulma being the only woman he had ever been with. He realized he needed more.
Their break-up hadn't had the devastating impact on Bulma he privately would
have hoped. She had apparently made her piece with her grief during her exploits
on Namek and had reached a similar conclusion about her own life. She didn't
want to be tied down with a relationship either. At least, Yamcha was beginning
to suspect, not with him.

In the infirmary, he had been caught off guard by her anger and lack of
sympathy to his injuries. Before, she had always fussed over him and cried her
eyes out. He had been at a loss to understand her change in attitude until she
snapped, "Didn't you realize that Vegeta was only baiting you? What the hell
were you thinking?"

Vegeta? his stunned mind was whirling at the indignation in her voice,
aimed solely at him. He had suspected more than just the concern of a hostess on
the day that the rude Saiyan had crashed into the yard. There had been a way
that she had looked at Vegeta that he recognized. Once upon a time, Bulma had
looked at him like that; curious, mischievous...turned on.

Was it possible? he wondered.

There were voices in the kitchen and he lingered outside of the door, ears
straining for any shred of information that might add weight to his suspicions.

"-Poisoned, are you serious?" Mrs. Briefs asked shrilly.

"I'm very serious and so was he," Bulma responded. "I guess I'm not
surprised. His race was...not liked very much in the galaxy. Prejudice was
something he had to deal with every day, being the last of his kind. I don't
imagine he had it very easy."

There was the sound of a retrained sob on the part of Bulma's mother at the
news. That woman could summon tears at the drop of a hat. "Oh! That poor man.
I'm sooo glad that you invited him to stay here, Bulma. He needs someone to look
out for him, that one. Was he badly hurt in the fight?"

They're not talking about me, Yamcha noticed with acute bitterness. But I
know who it is that they are...

"The injury originally happened in the simulator yesterday, that's why I
intentionally disabled it. Unfortunately he went and picked a fight with Yamcha
out of boredom and that idiot obliged him. Now he had two broken ribs and a
pierced lung. The internal bleeding bothers me but he doesn't seem to be worried
about it-"

"Bulma! He needs to be in the infirmary!" Mrs. Briefs was practically
wailing in her grief.

"I know, I know but he's relented to stay in bed. I didn't think he'd
listen to me but he was really rather personable earlier. He even cracked a
joke, though it was rather crude..." She giggled lightly and, outside of the
door, Yamcha felt a shiver run up his spine. He knew that amused sound
intimately and resented no longer being the recipient of it.

Recognizing that laughter herself, Mrs. Briefs said quickly, "I don't want
to hear it."

"Anyway, I'm going to bring up a meal for him and wait around even if he is
asleep. He hasn't eaten since early yesterday and if there's anything I know
about Saiyans it's that food is just important to them as fighting."

Bulma's mother tittered in agreement. They began discussing sandwich
options when Yamcha pulled himself away from the door and prowled for the
nearest exit. All of a sudden he wanted very badly to get out of this damned
house.

Dr. Briefs returned home late that evening and his first stop was the
gravity simulator before he entered the house, finding it deserted. He'd had a
very long day and wanted nothing more than to retire for the evening but he
still had company business to finish. He found Bulma in the living room alone
with a laptop on the couch in front of her. She was somehow able to type nonstop
into the computer while she watched a television program at the same time. His
heart swelled with love and affection for her.

"Hi dad. How'd the meeting go?" she asked as he came up beside her and gave
her an affectionate kiss on the cheek.

"Better than I could have hoped. That communication chip is going to be
received with open arms."

"If we ever get it to work, you mean," she said despairingly.

"What do you mean?"

Blushing for no reason that he could fathom, Bulma confessed, "I hit a wall
on the specs this afternoon. It kills me to admit it but I can't seem to
simplify the computations enough for the database to recognize the code. I just
can't get around it. Given the day I've had maybe tomorrow after I'm rested-"

"What happened today?" He noticed that she appeared unusually stressed and
eyed her with growing concern.

Haltingly, she told him of what had happened to Vegeta in the simulator and
his injuries following the conflict with Yamcha. "I checked in on him before and
he's sleeping. He doesn't seem to have a fever or anything. As hard as it is for
me to believe, I think he's going to be okay."

Dr. Briefs was looking up at the balcony to the third floor. "Well, thank
heaven for that. And Yamcha?"

"Broken nose. Wounded ego," she said with a verbal shrug.

Not truly understanding the circumstances of the young couple's breakup,
Dr. Briefs chuckled lightly and let things go at that without offering any
comment. He was a bit of an eccentric at heart, giving his only daughter a
degree of freedom and independence that almost bordered on neglect. He had
always allowed her to make her own choices in the direction of her life without
any interference. He was about to discover in the very near future how his lack
of concern would affect him personally and with dire consequences.

"Don't worry about the designs. We'll puzzle it out together tomorrow," he
assured her and decided to go to bed after all.

Bulma nodded absently and went back to watching her show while her fingers
flew over the keyboard, seemingly of their own volition.

>>>>>
Deliberately setting her alarm an hour early, Bulma intended to get down to
the lab before her father showed up to give herself a head start. It wounded her
personally that she had been unable to make sense of the scrawled data written
on the last schematic because without it, the last segment of the decagon design
was the final piece of the puzzle that made the entire working model functional.
At least in theory. Once she got a bee in her bonnet about something that she
took personally there was no stopping her, never mind that this was an inanimate
object. For Bulma, technical devices were her passion.

She entered the downstairs of the headquarters building and went straight
to her office. As usual, she glanced at her desk and was surprised to see that
the blueprint she had been fruitlessly studying yesterday was missing. Choking
back what she hoped was needless alarm, she left the room and began to do a
search of the various labs. As she neared the section where her father's office
resided, she was surprised to see that the lights were on in the room and she
could hear his voice,

"-Got to be simplified so that we can translate it to source code. You see
the problem."

Bulma smiled, understanding that great minds thought alike. Her father had
been unable to let the matter rest himself and had also come down to work early.
She could see through a gap in the drawn blinds that the older man was doing his
theatrical pacing as he explained the problems. Doing an astonished double take,
she saw that he wasn't alone and there was only one person on Earth with that
hairstyle; and he wasn't a native.

Vegeta was examining the schematic that had everyone so confused. He picked
up a pen and said to Dr. Briefs, "If I alter the code key, will that help
simplify things?"

Bulma's knees threatened to buckle and spill her into the corridor as
realization set in.

"That might work," Dr. Briefs said in a relieved tone of voice. "Once that
is entered, it just may translate all of the computations previously added into
our database over to workable code."

"Idiots. You're all idiots," Vegeta muttered as he flipped the design over
and began to quickly scrawl out mathematical data. "I've simplified these plans
so many times as it is that I doubt the damn thing will even work as it was
intended."

"I'll just be happy to see it work at all."

"Humans. The next thing I design for you will be a better toilet. Maybe
THAT you'll under-"

"It was YOU?!" Bulma screeched as she threw open the door. "You're the
designer of this chip we've all been slaving over?"

"Shit," the Saiyan grumbled and cast a cold glare at the older man. He
threw the pen to the floor and pushed Bulma aside as he made a hasty retreat.

"Wait one goddamned minute, Vegeta!" she yelled while in pursuit. "You've
got some explaining to do! Why are-"

He flicked a finger in her direction and fired a small ki blast that
exploded directly in front of her and blew out a section of the floor. He
flashed her a look of pure warning before rounding the corner to leave the
building. Rushing back to the office, she found her father sitting on the edge
of the desk like a little boy who had been caught doing something wrong. "I wish
you could have waited until he had finished writing down the information," he
said morosely.

"Dad, what's going on? Did Vegeta really draw those schematics?"

"Yes, Bulma. He did."

Wounded, she asked urgently, "Why all the secrecy? Why did you lie and say
it was-"

"It wasn't my idea," he assured her. "It was part of the arrangement."

"I don't-"

"Have you had your morning coffee yet?" he cut in as he led her out of the
room. "Because I haven't and we could both really use one right about now."

Not long after, Bulma and her father went to the main lab where they began
to talk. At first all she wanted to do was ask questions that had very little to
do with what had just happened in the office and were more of an attempt to
sooth her wounded pride. She finally shut up long enough to let him explain.

"I saw his potential when he first gave me the designs for the training
drones that he now uses in the simulator," he began.

"Those weren't yours?"

He shook his head. "Vegeta apparently used them in training exercises when
he was a small boy. He took one apart out of boredom. Bulma, that was over
twenty years ago and yet the blueprints he drew for me were exact right down to
the measurements. I'd never seen anything quite like that before. I asked him if
he had any other designs committed to memory."

When her father fell into stunned silence, Bulma offered, "I'm betting he
did."

He gave a quick nod. "That communications chip is only the tip of the
iceberg. Being a Saiyan he examined every piece of technology that his employer
took in from other worlds. It was just a thing to do between missions, little
more than a hobby and that's part of the current problem."

"I don't get it. What could possibly be wrong with such a wonderful gift?"

"Like I said, this is information he gathered while working for that Frieza
fellow. He can't even say that creature's name without sputtering. To make
matters worse, being a prince he considers the designing of these designs to be
a low caste occupation that's beneath him. He didn't want you or anyone else to
know that he's working for me, Bulma. This is how we arranged for him to have
some finances here on Earth, but he's terribly ashamed."

"Him and his goddamned pride," she muttered. She got to her feet and
wandered over to the table and its accumulation of papers that her and everyone
else in the lab had been buzzing over for the past week. Her terse exchange with
Vegeta in the corridor that day or so ago came back to haunt her and her cheeks
burned with shame. The Saiyan had arrived at Capsule Corp. with nothing but the
clothes on his back. She should have realized that he would never willingly
accept a handout like the Briefs family was offering without paying a price.

You surprised me again, she thought irritably but she was smiling when she
looked up at her father. He didn't return the look. Part of it was probably the
thought of losing the Saiyan's cooperation but it wasn't all. "I promise that I
won't tell anybody about this. I'll never understand the secrecy but at least I
can respect it."

"It's not me you should be reassuring," he said quietly.

She turned towards the door. "I'll go track him down-"

"No, Bulma. Let him be. I feel bad enough that I woke him. Give him a
chance to calm before you talk with him. He's hot-tempered, that one."

You don't know the half of it, she thought privately but she could see his
point. "Okay, dad. You're right. I'll give him his space."

The relief on Dr. Briefs face was answer enough.

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Chapter Four: Unable to cope with Bulma's knowledge of his secret, Vegeta runs
away to parts unknown. It's up to Bulma to track him down before he...dies?