Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Seven Years ❯ Blue ( Chapter 2 )

She rolled over, and was still surprised to find Vegeta there. For some weeks now, he'd taken to staying in bed with her anytime they ended up having sex at night. Her mother, once she found out about it, decided it was cute; Bulma couldn't get past the strangeness of it. They rarely spoke—some sort of silence had fallen over Vegeta, and unlike the time before he fought Cell, when he had first ascended and strutted about unabashedly, the man seemed constantly pensive now, and frequently angry. Bulma had a strong suspicion it was related to Goku—but that was only based on the way Vegeta's eyes flashed any time she mentioned him.

 

The nights she didn't see him—which were, perhaps, fewer than either would be willing to admit—she was never sure where he slept. The bed in his guest room was often untouched; the kitchen was often left a mess; items from the coat rack were sometimes scrambled the next morning. Once, she'd woken up to find a chair in the kitchen thrown across the room and shattered to pieces, cracks along the wall, muddy bootmarks down the hall, Trunks' crib empty, the little boy dozing peacefully and unassumingly in one corner of an armchair, haphazardly wrapped up, and Vegeta nowhere to be found. But usually, on the nights she didn't see him—like the night before last—she woke up to the house exactly as it was but for the refrigerator—slightly emptier—and a kitchen chair—not completely pushed in.

 

Their exchanges had been cut back to nearly the way they had been before, but now there were more significant glances. It was a bit surprising to her, what Vegeta seemed to gather from a few seconds of their silence. He would disappear days before important events—company parties, birthdays, holidays—without explanation, and without having needed one before disappearing. Months ago she and the others—Son's friends—had met up for a small party that had become more somber than she'd hoped; Vegeta had disappeared then, too, and nobody was surprised by his absence. Only Gohan had asked about him, Piccolo listening from a distance. She'd invited Gohan over to visit again as he'd left the party—but he hadn't taken her up on it yet. The boy had seemed edgy, fidgeting with a pencil he kept tucked behind his ear or in his pocket, clutching at it occasionally. Nobody asked if he was still training; nobody had to. He seemed to make a point of keeping a textbook nearby. "I know Dad would want me to keep training," he'd said, as if quietly asking if he was required to honor his father's wishes.

 

That was back when the rain was unrelenting, perhaps answering the boy. It was sunnier now, though the change did not seem to affect Vegeta's mood.

 

"Are you going to come along today?" she was careful not to touch him as she twisted around beneath the covers to face him. It was still bizarre to her, that the bare skin of this alien was so accessible; stranger still that he was here, today. Had he forgotten? She caught him, sometimes, sleeping in an out-of-the-way room; for all his silence throughout the compound, it must have been what he spent most of his time doing. Perhaps he had slept past whatever important glance they might have shared, that would have conveyed this latest event. "Are you done sleeping all the time, yet?"

 

"Space is best slept through," he mumbled.

 

"Yeah, well, that's nice," she sat up, voice fiercer. "But this isn't space, it's your life. You know you've got this big old place that you asked me to work on for you, to do that whole 'training' thing you used to do? It's getting dusty. Get the hell up, and at least do something, Vegeta."

 

His eyes snapped open at his name, and curiosity flickered into them. "I don't think that's your decision to make," he answered in a rumble. "Besides, I get exercise enough."

 

"Oh, don't give me that," she flushed a little, although it was impossible to tell if it was only her growing anger or if she was actually flustered. "Can't you, I don't know, act a bit more high and mighty like you used to?" Her eyes narrowed. "I'm not so much into sharing a bed with a stranger." He clicked his tongue in disagreement—real or not, she couldn't tell—and even as her ire flared, she smirked. "Anyway, nobody else here is gonna want to sleep with a psycho murderer. Watch yourself or your exercise routine is going to have to change."

 

He rolled his eyes. "May have to anyway. It doesn't seem to be a very effective routine for you, at least." Bulma's eyes widened at the insult, and his lips pulled back over his teeth in a smirk. She burst out laughing, citing her obvious perfection between giggles. Vegeta realized what he was doing, and he considered lying back down and going to sleep on principle—how dare she stir him out of his silence like this?—but was distracted from the thought by Bulma's noisy fishing through the closet as she shook all of her that jiggled to the rhythm of some tune in her head, tossing clothes at Vegeta. Gradually, he came to realize that they were his. "Why are you so happy?" he accused, and as if to rub in her apparent glee she shimmied into pants that baffled the man.

 

"Oh, I guess you didn't hear," she seemed to ponder pulling back her hair, inspecting herself in the mirror. Her eyes darted to him in the mirror, and she saw that Vegeta was looking at her, too. "Chi-Chi and her baby are coming home from the hospital today!"

 

Vegeta's eyebrow twitched. He'd known about it, of course, in the vaguest of ways, but—

 

"'Course that's all because I told her that this time she really shouldn't risk it, and just have surgery like she should've with Gohan—and damn, does that woman put up a fight—but I talked her into it. Anyway, of course she insisted we not go see her until she was well again—"

 

Of course she did—he'd heard every agonizingly loud moment of the conversation from the next room, as Bulma all but screamed into the phone. Even Chi-Chi's words had come across clearly to his side of the wall.

 

"—don't even know what she's named him yet!" she finished speaking, scrutinizing Vegeta. "So are you coming?" she held a shirt out to him.

 

He gave her a long stare. "Kakarrot's offspring," he mumbled. "Why should I show up for that?"

 

Bulma shrugged. "It's a nice thing to do." She smiled a little. "Babies that aren't my responsibility are so adorable!" Trunks seemed to protest from his crib, making cranky noises as he awoke. Vegeta was unconvinced—and she wasn't surprised, given the reasons she'd provided to him. "Besides," Bulma added, in an attempt to amend this, "you can compare the kid to Trunks. You know, maybe your son will be stronger than Son's!"

 

"Of course he will!" Vegeta spat, pulling the pants on.

 

"I haven't seen you train him yet," she joked, winking, but regretted it instantly at the expression that overtook the man's face. "I'm kidding, y'know. He just had his first birthday, for goodness' sake!"

 

"Old enough," he shrugged, and glanced toward the child, who frowned at him. "He's spoiled."

 

"Of course," Bulma smiled, fastening a bracelet around her wrist. "His mother is the richest, most beautiful woman on the planet!"

 

"I wouldn't say—" he started, and was immediately silenced by some once-foreign, paralyzing force that came from her eyes. He wondered why it was this Earthling who could always draw him into speaking, and this Earthling who could always silence him. It was worrisome, her complete disregard for his power. He had once hurt her—and, he would admit to no one, much more than he had meant to—certain that like so many of the other Earthlings she knew, she had a power that she was hiding, still, so stubborn was she. She didn't—her power was her words or her voice, or whatever made him argue with everything she said until her eyes demanded his silence.

 

"Just put the shirt on and—and shave. You know, it was awfully scratchy last—"

 

He rolled his eyes and was gone, and Bulma heard water running from the bathroom. She heard faint echoes of words he'd left behind him when he'd left faster than the speed of sound, grumbles of "not for you" and "was going to anyway."

 

 

...

 

 

"I decided to name him Goten. He...looks just like..." Chi-Chi smiled, half in tears, as she held the baby for the others to see. They crowded around the newborn, who glanced at them all curiously, shyly.

 

"Sure does," Kuririn agreed, a little flustered himself. "Tail and all!"

 

"Are you going to get it removed?" Bulma tilted her head. "Probably it'd be better sooner than later..."

 

Chi-Chi nodded, but stroked it a little as she did so. "It would likely be for the best. Goku got along without it okay, after all...Gohan, too." The young man smiled a little, nodding in agreement as he held a finger out for his little brother to grab onto. The boy clutched at it and used his tail to draw Gohan's arm closer, finally biting down on his finger.

 

Gohan yelped. "He's already got teeth!"

 

"So did you, when you were born," Chi-Chi smiled, and then glanced at Bulma, who nodded to confirm that she had experienced the same. The woman's eyes momentarily traced a path to Vegeta, who was dividing his attention between her and the child she held from the distance at which he stood. He was the only living Saiyajin, now—Chi-Chi shuddered at the thought of asking him questions, if this or that that her first son had gone through would happen to her second as well. His gaze bored into her with questions of its own, though she could not discern them.

 

"I wonder if he'll grow up to study as hard as his brother," Bulma winked at the boy as he glanced at the bite marks on his finger. After she heard herself ask it, she regretted it—its implicit wondering of whether the boy would train, instead, as Goku would have doubtlessly preferred for Gohan. Hoping to diffuse the tension, she asked Chi-Chi quickly, with all the glibness she could manage, "When's the study routine start?"

 

"Oh, I don't know," she sighed. "I feel like I'm getting too old to enforce that. I sort of hope he's more like..." the woman trailed off, trying not too look at Gohan as she realized what she was saying. "Anyway, I'm so happy you all came. Gohan, could you take him for a minute? I just need to get a glass of water and open the kitchen window...it's getting warm in here." Handing baby Goten to Gohan, she slipped out of the room. Bulma turned to Vegeta to ask him about—but he wasn't there.

 

"You," he mouthed at Chi-Chi from the kitchen, arms crossed as he stood in front of the sink. She gasped a little, taken aback, and he spoke again before she could gather her wits. "My son will be stronger than both of your brats."

 

Biting back a sigh of relief, she crossed her arms, turning her nose up as she paced over to the cabinet and pulled a glass out. "I doubt it. Goku's their father, after all."

 

"What—are you going to train this new whelp?"

 

"What if I am?" she planted her hands on her hips, the glass almost cracking in her grip as she clutched it. "It's none of your business, anyway. Get out of my way!"

 

"The insolence of the women on this planet," he muttered, moving before her voice could grow any louder—just enough for her to reach the sink and fill her glass without touching him.

 

"What do you want?" She considered shoving against him, to get him to move farther away, but the thought of physical contact with the man was frightening to her. So far, she had gotten by just fine assuming that he was made of nothing but stone; if she shoved him, she would have to realize that he was flesh, too.

 

He took a deep breath through his nose, quietly, inaudibly over the rushing water from the sink. "Nothing."

 

Chi-Chi's scowl deepened. "You lying bastard. You'd better not kidnap my baby!"

 

"Why would I?" he snapped, moments from slamming a fist across her for suggesting such a thing. She had been a warrior at some point, he'd heard—could she not see the way his fist twitched with itching to demonstrate his offense? She slammed the full glass onto the counter and stuffed her arms across her chest, looking him squarely in the eye.

 

He thought of training with his own son—this little Trunks, imagined watching him become the man who had returned to the future not long ago. Had that Trunks ever known his father? Surely not for long... Maybe this Trunks would be better of for it. Stronger. Prouder. It seemed a worthy enough goal, so long as it did not interfere with his own training—

 

Training, which he had not done since Goku's death, and the death and revival of his own son. It hadn't been a priority, somehow; short of the child with no control over his power, he was the strongest being around. Goku would never be back—he'd have no way of comparing their power. Was he getting stronger, in the afterlife?

 

"Mother?" Gohan peeked his head in. "Is everything okay?" He bit his lip as he noticed Vegeta, who turned away from the both of them. After a moment's silence, the prince marched past Gohan, out of the kitchen and back into the main room. Kuririn was holding baby Goten, tickling his feet.

 

"Are you and Eighteen..." Bulma started, and Kuririn blushed a little.

 

"I don't know," he laughed nervously. "Things are weird right now. She's always around, but she never talks to me."

 

"I know the feeling," she sighed, and laughed when Trunks nearly tumbled out of her arms trying to tug at Goten's hair. "Good luck to you."

 

"And you...I guess," he eyed Vegeta warily as he entered the room and took station as far as he could be from anyone in the room. The short man leaned in close. "Has he been, you know, even meaner since the whole thing?"

She shook her head. "Just angrier, I think. Really quiet, really angry."

 

"Yikes," he adjusted his hold on Goten as the boy squirmed around to face Trunks, waving an accusing hand in his direction.

 

"But he's been kind of—subdued about it."

 

"Isn't that scarier?" He nearly leapt out of his skin as Goten's tail fastened itself around his arm so that the boy could balanced himself precariously, reaching with ever more determination toward Trunks.

 

"I guess."

 

"I don't get you two," he shook his head, but his attention seemed to drift as he mused. "Then again, maybe more than I did before..."

 

Vegeta's eyes darted between them as they conversed, and occasionally he listened for other goings-on—the other visitors conversing nearby, and Gohan and Chi-Chi in the other room. Trunks was stronger than Goten, certainly—and he wondered how the woman could possibly train her son as well as a Saiyajin could. Or would she send him off with the Namekian? It would be wasted Saiyajin blood, certainly, if this boy did not attain at least reasonable power. Was it inevitable, if he resembled his father so?

 

As his own son grew up, Vegeta knew that this boy would grow, too—would they know each other? Would they fight as their fathers had? This newest half-Saiyajin was certainly calmer than Trunks, his face with all the sweetness and curiosity Goku had ever held; that is, all the sweetness and curiosity of a child—whether he would remain that way was another question. Trunks often thrashed about, wailing war cries, and Vegeta was proud of that. This boy seemed content with his surroundings—just investigating them, except for that of his most intense interest—Trunks—who he seemed to be harassing with relative success.

 

Vaguely, he wondered if he would have stayed at all, had he not met what his son could be in the future. But then, there was nowhere else to go—perhaps it was inevitable.

 

Goten shifted his target from Trunks' hair to Bulma's, and the woman was laughing as Trunks seemed to become jealous and tried to swat the other child away. Vegeta felt a pang of jealousy, too—over what, he did not know. He heard footsteps leave the kitchen, and as she walked past Vegeta, Chi-Chi paused. "By the way, you're wrong," she muttered, before proceeding forward and scooping Goten out of Kuririn's arms. Vegeta shifted his gaze away from her, closing his eyes as if to ignore her, and the last thing that he saw before his lids pressed shut was Trunks' eyes piercing into his.

 

Whatever mysterious power Bulma's eyes held, the boy's must have held it too.