Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Silent Vow ❯ Living the Vow ( Chapter 3 )

Title: Silent Vow

Author: Killarri

Email: killarri@yahoo.com

Rating: R

Warnings: Language, violence, and major Yamcha bashing. This is a major AU! If you don't like AU's then run the other way now! hehehe

Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ. Akira Toriyama, Bird Studio, Toei Animation, Viz, FUNimation, and a whole bunch of other people that I do not know own it. This is merely fan work done out of love for the amazing characters that they created.

Special Thanks: Thanks a bunch to Abby for helping me get over my writer's block and betaing this fic. You're one in a million, Abby-chan! Also, thanks for your review of the last chapter Abby.

Silent Vow

Chapter Three: Living the Vow

"Bulma!"

The aqua-haired woman in question's head snapped up while her friend merely rolled her chocolate brown eyes. "Huh? Oh, sorry Chi," she mumbled, clearly embarrassed, one finger skimming the rim of the black mug filled to the brim with hot, delicious coffee. It was a well known fact that Chi Chi was a talented cook. Her homemade chicken dumplings were a favorite among her family and friends. In addition to her culinary talents, she made one mean cup of coffee.

"I asked if you slept well last night."

"Oh, I slept fine." Bulma reassured her, nonchalantly waving her good arm through the air.

Chi Chi's brows furrowed. "So what were those noises I heard from the guest room around three this morning?"

"If you must know," Bulma drawled, "I had to use the restroom. It took me a few tries to actually get in the wheelchair and wheel my ass to the bathroom." She sat back in her seat and crossed her arms against her chest. "Anything else you'd like to know, Mother?"

"Oh don't be like that Bulma." Chi Chi sighed. "I'm only concerned about you."

"I know, Chi. I know." She smiled, more for the sake of reassuring her concerned friend than from any actual desire to. "I'm fine, really."

Hah! I don't believe that for a second. Chi Chi thought, eyeing her friend shrewdly. Bulma had just been through a frightening ordeal. It would only be natural for her to carry mental scars, in addition to the physical ones left behind. Crying, rage, grief, any one of these would be considered normal for a woman in her situation, and none of which she had openly displayed since the ordeal began. She's completely ignoring it, Chi Chi mused, though she supposed denial could be expected also.

"You're not worried about Yamcha, are you?" She inquired with a deep frown. "Cause you've got the restraining order…"

Bulma shook her head, sipping on her coffee. And truthfully, she wasn't. The restraining order made it illegal for him to be within 1000 feet of her, and if that wasn't enough to ensure peace of mind, she was spending the long weeks of her recuperation with Goku and Chi Chi. Yamcha wasn't stupid enough to try something while she was living with a police officer, and even if he was, Goku wouldn't let anything happen to her. "I'm just surprised that he made bail," she confessed quietly.

"Yeah, I know!" Chi Chi exclaimed indignantly. "Where the hell did he get fifty thousand dollars from anyway?"

"I have no idea," Bulma sighed. Deciding a subject change was definitely in order, she smiled and inquired, "Have you told Goku about the baby yet?"

"No!" Chi Chi huffed loudly, "I haven't been able to spend more than five minutes alone with him in weeks!"

"I'm sorry," Bulma mumbled, suddenly feeling guilty for taking up so much of her friend's time.

Chi Chi saw the pain her comment had caused, and immediately regretted it, apologizing with a softer tone. "I'm sorry, Bulma. I didn't mean you."

"I could always just stay at home," she offered with a slight shrug.

"There's no one there to help you."

"So?"

A hard sigh. "Bulma, like it or not, you need someone to help you." A stern glare accompanied the admonishment, before it transformed into a wide grin, "Besides, we haven't spent this much time together since high school."

Bulma giggled slightly, reminded of their high school antics. "Yeah, you're right about that, but…" she trailed off, frowned, and then sighed, "you won't get any time alone with your husband for another month and a half if I'm here. What are you going to do? Put off telling him until after I leave? Hell, you'll probably be showing by then! As dense as he is sometimes, I think Goku would eventually figure it out."

"Well," Chi Chi began pensively, "you could go stay with Krillin and 18 for a day or two."

"And impose on them?"

"It's not imposing!" Chi Chi objected, angry at her for even thinking it. "Bulma, you're our friend. Friends are supposed to help each other; it's what we do, so don't think for a second that you're imposing on us because you're not."

"I'm sure we'll figure something out." Bulma offered before draining her mug of its contents. A mischievous smile crept unnoticed onto her face as she commented, "I'll bet five bucks that he faints when you tell him."

Chi Chi snorted, "Goku won't faint. He's too manly to do something like that."

"Please! This is the same man who BOLTS at the sight of a needle. Too manly, hah!"

"I'll take that bet!"

"You're going down, Suzie Homemaker." Bulma assured her extending her good hand out for a friendly handshake to seal the deal.

"We'll see who's going down, Barbie." The raven-haired woman responded in kind, as part of a ritual performed by the two friends since the early days of their friendship. Bulma had given her the nickname "Suzie Homemaker" because she was so much more domestically inclined than the wealthy, Capsule Corporation heiress. In turn, Chi Chi's nickname poked fun at Bulma's exotic, good looks.

The phone rang, disrupting the playful atmosphere in the kitchen, and Chi Chi rose from her chair and exited the room to answer it. Bulma sighed, eyeing her empty coffee cup apprehensively. Her gaze moved to the full coffee pot sitting on the counter, then down to the empty mug, and back several times before she sighed again. Decreased mobility really sucked, she decided. All she wanted was a cup of coffee and she couldn't even get up to get one. Hell, most of the time she couldn't even get into her wheelchair on her own!

I feel so useless, she thought, propping her head up on her chin. Her gaze moved from the coffee on her left side to the wheelchair on her right and this she eyed with a small frown. Did she really want to try getting into the chair, a task that was daunting when alone, just for a cup of coffee? Sighing, heavily this time, she cursed her ex-boyfriend in every language she could remember. Damn Yamcha! Look what you've done to me.

Although, in a way, not doing things for herself was like letting him win. He was gone and he still retained control of her life. Well no more, she assured herself, rising tentatively from her chair on a shaky right leg while using her left arm to brace the bulk of her weight on the table. Scooting the slipper clad foot forward only inches at a time, her progress was slow but steady, and once close enough to the wheelchair to grab it, she let go of the table, swinging her body around to the chair. Her right foot slipped out from underneath her, and she fell, bumping her head and both broken limbs on the hard, tiled floor. Biting her lip to silence the pained cry that surfaced, her eyes stung with oncoming tears, partly from pain but mostly from embarrassment. She lay there, staring at the ceiling for several minutes, feeling absolutely worthless.

And that's how Goku found her when he entered the kitchen, five steaming hot pizzas in hand, picked up on the way home from work. "Bulma!" He cried in a panic, setting the food on the table before lifting his best friend from the floor. "What happened?" He asked as he gently placed her in the wheelchair.

"I fell."

Goku rolled his eyes. "I see that smartass-″

"Better than a dumbass."

"-But what I want to know is what happened."

She grinned, suddenly feeling better and still undaunted in her task to ruffle his feathers, and replied playfully, "Gravity, that's what happened."

"Are you going to tell me what happened?" Goku asked as a mischievous smirk slid onto his face. "Or am I gonna have to tickle it out of you?"

Her blue eyes grew wide and she breathed, "You wouldn't." Bulma wasn't just ticklish, no super ticklish times ten was more like it. The lightest touch on practically any spot on her body was enough to send her into a fit of hysterical, side-splitting laughter. "Come on, you wouldn't tickle an injured woman, would you?" Using the best pouting face in her arsenal, she tried to dissuade him to no avail. His smirk grew wider until finally forming a smile before he pounced, mercilessly attacking her ribs and neck.

Bulma, completely unable to stop herself, broke out into laughter from the initial onslaught. "No" laughter "Goku" more laughter "stop" panting interspersed with laughter "please."

"Give up and I'll stop."

Stubbornly, she clamped her mouth shut letting only laughter escape her lips. Goku smiled, not really surprised by the refusal, preparing to break out his secret weapon, the most ticklish of ticklish spots on his friend's body, the soles of her feet. Kneeling in front of her, he quickly ripped off the house slipper. Bulma gasped, realizing his plan, and began kicking her foot wildly in an attempt to keep it away from him. After almost nailing his crotch a couple of times, Goku finally pinned her leg with one hand while the other began assaulting the underside of her foot.

Loud, hysterical laughter filled the room for several minutes, to the point where tears were forming in Bulma's eyes, but determination held strong and she still refused to utter a word. It wasn't until her sides began to hurt that she finally caved, shouting, "All right, I give up!"

Immediately the tickling ceased and Goku stood victorious, grinning from ear to ear. After giving her a moment to catch her breath, he mock glared at her, and demanded, "Spill."

"If you must know," she drawled in the same tone she'd used with Chi Chi earlier, "I tried to get into my chair to get a cup of coffee and fell. No big deal." Punctuating the statement, she gave a slight shrug before sticking her tongue out childishly. "That was a dirty trick, Goku. I have no way to get away from you."

Goku snorted and replied, "Like you could get away from me normally."

"I could!"

"Really?"

A curt nod. "I could put either food or a needle in your face."

He rolled his eyes, but refrained from commenting suddenly reminded of the food still left sitting out. Turning back towards the table, he noticed Vegeta casually leaning against the door frame. "Hey, have either of you two seen Chi Chi?" He asked, his gaze jumping from his cousin to his friend several times.

"She went to answer the phone around 10 minutes ago." Bulma explained quietly. She felt nervous around Goku's handsome cousin, though she wasn't sure why. It wasn't like she was afraid of him or anything; besides being her best friend's cousin, he was also a police officer. It wasn't fear that made her heart rate quicken whenever he was near but instead maybe attraction? Her nervousness increased tenfold at the thought and biting her lower lip out of habit, she intently studied the design in the wooden table.

This was something she just didn't need right now. She was only a few days out of an abusive relationship and pining away for her friend's cousin would only add more stress to her recovery. Men are off-limits, she reminded herself sternly. She'd played the relationship game and been burned. She was throwing in the towel, at least for a while. A sort of quasi-retirement. Someday, she would be back out there, club hopping until two o'clock in the morning with her single friends. Just not anytime in the foreseeable future.

Bulma blinked, startled out of her thoughts, as a plate with two delicious looking slices of cheese pizza appeared on the table in front of her. She looked up and smiled at Goku, grateful that he-like always-made sure to get her favorite kind, even though no one else liked plain, cheese pizza.

Just as Goku and Vegeta sat down to eat, Chi Chi hurried into the room. "Sorry that took so long," she said, getting her own plate of food before taking the empty seat next to her husband. "It was 18."

"Really? How's she doing?"

"She's good. Apparently 17 is unemployed, yet again, but her parents refused to let him move back in this time so he's occupying her couch and eating all of her food."

"Again?" Bulma asked. 18's twin brother was always switching jobs and was frequently unemployed, sometimes for months. He was basically a bum, moving in with different relatives or friends who really didn't have the heart to refuse him. The fact that his own parents refused to have him this time was surprising especially considering they'd already let him move back in six or seven times since high school. "How'd he lose this one?"

"Like he always does, he got fired for being late or not showing up."

Bulma snorted derisively. "Figures."

"How's Krillin doing?" Goku asked. It had been entirely too long since he'd seen his short, bald best guy friend. They'd seen each other on brief occasions within the past few months, but they hadn't had a guy's night out in over a year. Everyone was just too busy to get together often; Bulma with C.C., Krillin with law school and raising a child-a beautiful infant girl named Marron-and his wife, 18, was always working crazy shifts, like he had to do sometimes for his precinct.

"Good, I guess. She said he's getting really sick of being in school."

Goku laughed, "Yeah, I bet so." It was Krillin's final year though, and he had a nice job waiting in the West City District Attorney's office once he got through school and passed the Bar.

"I'm going back." Bulma announced quietly, now done with her pizza and pushing the crusts around on her plate. "To get my Master's."

"Really?" Chi Chi asked, a little hurt that Bulma hadn't told her something like that before.

"Yeah." Bulma shrugged, "I figure why not. I'll have to lighten my duties at C.C. for a while, but Dad's been really supportive of me."

"Well I think it's great!" Goku chimed in enthusiastically, raising his cola filled class to her before downing the contents. "Oh hey Chi, I picked up some movies on the way home too."

"Let me guess," the raven haired woman began, rising from the table to clear the dishes, "you got a shoot-'em-up one."

"No, I got a shoot-'em-up one and…." He paused for emphasis and finished with a wide grin, "a chick flick."

"Well, I vote for the chick flick. I guess you two vote for the other one?" Chi Chi asked, eyeing her husband and his cousin. Goku nodded while Vegeta just shrugged nonchalantly. "What about you Bulma?"

Bulma looked up from the table top when she heard her name. "Huh?"

"Chick flick or testosterone driven movie with no plot?"

Honestly neither sounded very entertaining to Bulma at the moment. Her limbs ached, her head hurt, and nothing sounded more appealing than the blissful oblivion than sleep and she told them so. Chi Chi mock-pouted and offered to help to her bed, but she politely declined insisting that she could do it. So after bidding the three a good night, Bulma lightly tapped the lever on her automatic wheelchair and carefully navigated it through the tiny hallway to the guest room she was currently occupying. She didn't bother to change clothes, being too tired to put up with the hassle. She was only wearing sweat pants and a t-shirt anyway. So she gently maneuvered herself into the bed, taking great care around her broken bones, and once settled under the covers, she sighed once and immediately fell into a troubled, yet undisturbed sleep.

AN: I beg a thousand pardons for taking so long to update! I just had a really bad case of writer's block and it just would not go away. I know this chapter was kind of boring, but it's one of those necessary transitional ones. Things will start to heat up next chapter though, I promise. As always, comments are always appreciated. Flames are funny and serve to boost my review count, so if you wanna do that, go for it.

Next time: Chi Chi uses cunning and stealth to get what she wants (well not exactly ^_~) and Bulma learns a bit about Goku's handsome cousin.