Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Syndrome ❯ For the longest time ( Chapter 10 )

Two weeks. Two weeks he had been in this situational hell. He'd broken his crutches the second day of his forced confinement (only on account of his sleeping through the first day after the surgery) - although broken wasn't exactly the right word for it. Tied them into a pretzel and threw them out the window would be more accurate. Levitating from the couch to the bathroom wasn't difficult, but the disorientation from the pain medication resulted in Vegeta occasionally finding himself floating horizontally, wondering why the couch was nailed to the wall.

 

Then there were his… caretakers. Mrs. Briefs, surprisingly enough, wasn't terribly difficult to put up with - she had spent a large amount of her time in the kitchen cooking him homemade chicken soup and watching her soap operas on the television in that room. Occasionally he would hear her yelling things about affairs and illegitimate children and doors that a person shouldn't go through. Bulma, however, was another story. She was always around - always! If she wasn't typing away at her laptop or reading one of her ridiculous books, she was nagging at him, “All right, Vegeta? Need anything, Vegeta? Did you take your medication, Vegeta?”

 

Naturally, he was at his wit's end. He did not like being coddled. He did not like being fussed over. He did not like being forbidden to leave the couch. He did not like the fact that every time Bulma leaned over to speak to him he got a perfect view of her cleavage and was heartily intrigued. He did not like it one bit.

 

And what was worse, every so often, she would draw him into conversation. Small barbs, interspersed with softly witty comments and vague inquiries into his psychological well-being. The first two he didn't mind, being used to her taunts and witticisms, but the third was akin to snooping, and it was a fell person indeed who took advantage of the Prince of Saiyan's medically loosened tongue.

 

They were discussing vestigial organs at the moment. Apparently humans didn't use their tail bones anymore, what a shame. “The appendix is the same way,” she explained. “Say, whatever happened to yours?”

 

“It's none of your business,” he ground out. This was the fourth time she'd innocuously demanded details, and he was about ready to give in. Give in to his urge to kill her. Messily.

 

Bulma, sensing a confession, continued her prodding. “Come on, I already know a little, why don't you just give me the whole story?”

“Can you accept that there are certain parts of my life that I don't want to talk about? Or have you at all know about?”

 

She leaned back into her chair and played with the book in her hands. “I thought talking about it might help, Vegeta. That's what we do on this planet.”

 

“Oh, you and your planet. You and your effing planet!”

 

Indignant, “What's that supposed to mean?”

 

Vegeta finally felt the full effects of his latest darvoset, with just enough time before he nodded off to curl up a bit into the side of the couch, and mutter petulantly, “Go away.”

 

When the dark curtain of a drug-induced slumber finally pulled back again, Vegeta came to a decision. No more of this torture.

 

“Oh Vegeta dear, you're awake!” Chirped the blonde woman as she walked into the living room. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

 

“Yes, actually,” he replied, pulling himself into a sitting position against the arm of the couch. “Stock the gravity room with two weeks' worth of food and water, and gas it up.”

 

“Well sure, I'll take care of it! Now you just lie there and relax while I go get that done. Would you like some more chicken soup while you're awake? And some pastries?”

 

He smirked. “Sure.”

 

Bulma would kill him for this; as if she could. He could see it now - she would rant and rave at him over the video phone until he smashed it again. Then she would pout the entire time he was gone, only to ignore him upon his return and complain loudly about his food intake. For an escape from this torture, he could handle that bit of petulance on her part.

 

He did not take his pain medication that hour. Nor did he take the next required dose four hours later when Bulma tried to shove it down his throat; he kept the pill in his mouth till it dissolved, and when she wasn't looking, spit it into his cup of ginger ale. Clear-headed once again, Vegeta waited until after midnight to float himself off of the couch and outside to the gravity room. Firing up the engines was a painfully loud but blessedly short necessity, and by the time Bulma and her family ran outside to discover the cause of the noise, he was already lifting off and, moments later, shooting through the atmosphere.

 

Not five minutes had passed before he felt another presence in the spaceship. He spun around to face his adversary, trying not to let the pain from his knee show in his face. “Kakarott! What the hell do you think you're doing?”

 

“I could ask the same of you, Vegeta,” the other replied calmly, his good-natured persona unable to fully mask his intelligence. “Where ya goin'?”

 

“Away!”

 

Goku took a step forward, and paused at the other's warning glare. “Bulma's worried, says you're not thinking straight because of the drugs you're on.”

 

“I haven't taken them all day, tell her to mind her own business!”

 

“You could tell her yourself if you hadn't smashed the video phone.”

 

“I didn't smash it, I turned it off.”

 

The questions were never-ending! “She wants to know why you're leaving when you still need to recover.”

 

“I can heal on my own, Kakarott, I've done it a thousand times before, I don't need that nosy woman fussing over me as if I were a child! I will do this on my own! Now get

out!”

 

Knowing this was not a battle he could win, Goku shrugged. “Okay, well, she gave me some books for you in case you get bored. See ya later!”

 

The air shimmered, and Goku vanished without a trace, save for the three books resting on the floor. Resisting the urge to burn them and roast hot dogs over the flames (mainly because Mrs. Briefs hadn't packed any hot dogs), Vegeta instead picked them up to put them someplace out of the way. The title caught his eye. “The Lord of the Rings. Interesting.”

 

* * *

 

Deep in orbit nine days later, Vegeta floated over to the window with his TV dinner and watched the clouds on the Earth slowly shift and change. The wisps of white floating over emerald and blue instilled a rare sense of peace within him; it was at this time that he was able to honestly reflect on these past few weeks.

 

When he first agreed to the surgery, he'd had more nightmares, more twisted flashbacks of his time with Frieza that he had, until then, more or less managed to repress. A fear grew at the back of his mind that this new foray into the medical world would only give those nighttime terrors more material to work with. That, though physically healed, emotionally he'd be worse off than ever before. But… that wasn't the case, in the end.

 

Since he'd gotten off the pain drugs and their resultant drowsiness, he'd slept peacefully. There was no Frieza, no Dr. Taber, no anesthesiologist haunting his dreams. The only conclusion he could come up with was that this experience, far from adding more power to his past pains, had… healed him, somehow.

 

So absurd, he reflected. That such a small experience could change things so much.

 

He'd encountered kindness. Respect. Not because he was the Prince of all Saiyans and deserved every bit of respect possible and then some, thank you very much. But because he was a living being, and that in itself meant that the medical staff were going to be doing everything in their power to make him comfortable, and heal him. That was all it took - being simply a person.

 

He'd journeyed into an unfamiliar world. And somewhere along the way, twenty years of indignation, humiliation, and rage had cooled. Of course, he still hated Frieza with a passion that rivaled the fires of Hell (and the dead bastard knew it). He still had the all-encompassing urge to kick Kakarrot's ass into the next dimension, then brag about it for, oh, say, a century and a half at least. But now, in-between training, eating, and suppressing a fantasy or two about a certain blue-haired woman, he could sleep without dreams. Without fear.

 

Vegeta decided that, should he ever actually go through with his plan to raze the planet to the ground, he would give Western Capital General Hospital a wide berth.

 

When he could walk without pain in 100x the Earth's gravity, Vegeta decided it was time to return to Capsule Corp and complete his training on solid ground. He checked the computer navigation system, engaged the thrusters, closed all the cupboards, and re-entered the planet's atmosphere right around lunchtime, approximately thirteen days after leaving.

 

He landed in the backyard some fifteen minutes later, in the same place the room had been before, judging from the shallow depression in the ground and the yellowing of the grass. Grabbing the duffel bag filled with very dirty laundry and other such necessities, he lowered the ramp and walked into the sunshine with no sign of a limp.

 

The family was having a barbecue. Dr. Briefs noted the return of their errant houseguest by muttering, “Oh, Vegeta's back,” and tossing five more hamburgers on the grill.

 

Bulma left her book on the patio table and stalked up to Vegeta, stopping directly in his path, her face already turning red. A few feet away from her, he, too, halted, and waited.

 

“That was stupid,” she began, her voice high and loud, obviously referring to his decision to blast out of the atmosphere whilst high on pain medication.

 

“It worked,” he replied gruffly.

 

“It was still stupid.”

 

He smirked. “I was right, and you're just pissed off.”

 

Her arms flew out and grabbed him by the collar. He barely even noticed the slight tug. “I'm pissed off because you almost got yourself killed!”

 

Pushing her hands away, nonchalant. “So it's the situation you're angry at, not me in particular.”

 

“Who are you to give a lecture on anger?”

 

“Why must you always invent things to be angry at?”

 

“I repeat, who are you to give a lecture on anger, Mister Kakarot-Must-Die?”

 

“Who are you to fuss over me and tell me what to do and, thus, attempt to control me? Huh? Why the hell do you think I left if not because of you?”

 

At this, Bulma's lips trembled. She pressed them together in a thin line, stuck her nose proudly into the air, and stalked back into the house. The slamming of the door was the only further indication of her feelings at the moment - the glass in the door had shattered brilliantly.

 

Vegeta grabbed the hamburger Dr. Briefs offered him a moment later, and, paying little attention, took an enormous bite. He chewed for a moment, and then an odd look crossed his face before he spat it out in disgust. “Old man! You're supposed to cook the meat before you serve it!”

 

“Sorry Vegeta,” Bulma's father said. “My mistake.”

 

* * *

 

“Point for me.”

 

Bulma jumped at the sound of Vegeta's voice in her doorway, stared at him for a second, then burst out laughing. “How moronic. I see someone is feeling better. How's the knee?”

 

He scowled at the question.

 

“I'm not fussing over you, I just want to know if your little stunt really did work, honestly.”

 

He would've crossed his arms were they not in that position already. “It was not a “little

stunt,” as you so annoyingly put it.”

 

“Fine, it was a very large stunt.” She looked at him for a moment, as if considering the sight before her, sighed, and returned to her paperwork spread out on the desk in front of her.

 

“First to thirty, wasn't it?” He continued.

 

She groaned and put her head down on the desk, tossing her pen away. “Vegeta, must you start this already? I've been pissed off at you for the past two weeks. I understand your reasons for leaving but I'm still holding on to some residual anger, can't you just leave off for a while? ”

 

“No,” he returned immediately. “I am the prince of all Saiyans. But, more importantly, I won the battle of wits, which means you have to give me whatever I ask for.”

 

Another groan. “Fine, what do you want?”

 

“You know what I want,” he said softly, staring at her hungrily.

 

She returned his stare, smiling shyly, then reached for the phone. “Twelve Sicilian pizzas, coming right up.”

 

“Remember, no mushrooms!”