Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ The Prince and Princess Diaries ❯ Niwaka Zetsumei ( Chapter 30 )

Chapter Thirty: Niwaka Zetsumei (Sudden Death)

Bulma awoke up a few hours later from a fitful sleep, feeling the warmth of her husband next to her. She smiled dreamily, rolled over into his arms, and snuggled against the broad expanse of his chest.

She paled.

She could hear it. It was faint, but it was there, the terrifying sound that she had become accustomed to for the last week before his horrible attack.

His lungs were filing with liquid again. They were rattling with each breath. She could even tell that his breathing was shorter; she had been overjoyed to hear long, deep breaths and clear lungs every morning and night for the last three days.

But now the sickness seemed to have returned. Maybe I really am not the cure to saving him? Maybe it was something else, something he ate? Or maybe was he just experiencing a temporary reprieve?

She felt tears surge to her horror-filled eyes. What would she do if she really was not the cure? What if now, Vegeta really was going to die?

She shook him awake abruptly, almost violently so, and the moment his eyes fluttered open, he winced and grasped at his chest with his fist. He struggled to draw in a deep breath, and the air that came wheezing out slowly, painfully, only attested to the fact that he was yet again ill.

Vegeta stared at his still wife through their dimming bedroom, unable to form words in his mouth. She looked shocked, almost in a crazed, hysterical way, but she uttered not a sound. He could tell that she knew what was wrong, for she had been the one to awaken him. He knew she hear the liquid rattling in his lungs, he knew that she could almost feel his pain. His chest hurt, not unbearably so, but it still ached with what he wished was a long-forgotten pain.

Bulma caressed the firm barrier of his chest with a shaky finger, her hand somehow soothing the pain building in his lungs. He managed to draw in a deep breath as his wife pulled him up gently and settled him back against her upper body, and held him there as she trailed her fingers over his face, neck, shoulders, and torso. It was almost as if she was attempting to lull him back into a restive state, but he knew that he would not be able to sleep again. He had held so much hope in his hands, hope that had been killed with a swift kick to the gut.

He was going to die.

He felt several tears splatter against his skin, and looked up through the darkness to see tears slowly pouring down his wife's blank face. She looked deathly pale through the dim light, and her tears seemed to be ripping his very soul open with ragged claws. He could not imagine how scared, how frightened his wife was at the prospect of losing him. She had no clue what was in store for her after he died; she was not linked to the throne through blood, only marriage. Once he died, she would be forced to leave. And once she left, possibly back to Anausia-sei, her planet would be left unprotected. That had been one of the reasons Bulma had been forced to marry him, to protect Anausia-sei. He did not want to think of his wife living a hell after his death, all because their planet did not have the military strength to keep it from being taken over from other forces.

He turned around in her arms and pulled her against his chest, this time holding, protecting, and soothing her. She finally broke her frightening silence and sobbed against the cool skin of his shoulder, her hands clutching his arms as she fought for strength she did not have.

His face became grim as his arms tightened around his wife, letting her know that he never wanted to let her go. She continued to cry, her small frame shaking uncontrollably. He knew that she had thought just as much as him that he was going to live, that she had somehow saved him.

He stroked her hair gently and closed his eyes against both the emotional and physical pain. "I promise, Bulma...that nothing will ever happen to you, no matter what. I promise...."

*********

Bulma promptly forgot that the world existed for the next few days. She basically had herself and Vegeta locked in their suite, forcing all servants to bring them anything that was needed or wanted.

Her and Vegeta hardly ever left their bed, instead opting to spend any valuable time together that they possibly could. Instead of sleeping at night, they started taking short, fitful naps, so as to cut back on the time they wasted on sleeping.

The time that they had when they were not sleeping they spent talking, eating, or even playing games. Whatever they were doing, they were nearly attached at the hip, and whenever they did venture forth from their room, it was to see them holding hands or in constant contact with each other. The princess was almost like a mother hen, protecting her husband and making sure everything was always satisfactory for him. Anyone who dared to approach she shooed away, or glared at them until they fled. She let it be known that they wanted to be left alone, no matter what.

Bulma went down to the scientific wing of the palace every day, sometimes two or three times if she felt the need. Her father had not slept for the past several days, along with Dr. Kanzaka, for they were trying to isolate whatever it was that had so-called "saved" Vegeta for those few brief days. Bulma did not understand it at all; they were not even sure what it was they were looking for, and it was taking too long to figure it out. They did not have the time. Bulma begged and prayed for them to save her husband, promising the world to whoever managed to find the cure.

Vegeta worsened slowly, but surely. His frame became frail and weak again, and his movements became limited. Yet again Bulma bathed, clothed, and fed him, and she watched as he sank into a fathomless pit of depression and despair.

After his depression set in, he hardly even talked to her, as if he wanted to distance himself from her to keep both of their pain at bay. However, she refused to allow this to happen. If he was going to die, then he was going to die by her side, no matter how much she shied away from the thought of it.

Bulma watched with sad eyes as her husband melted away before her eyes. When she tried to feed him, his body just repelled it. It was horrible to see him throwing up what little food he had managed to consume, and it was even worse because he was so unbelievably weak. It made her cry every time she saw him get sick and she watched his weak frame shake and tremble from the pain.

Soon she stopped feeding him, instead opting to have him fed through an intravenous needle. The doctors now fed him with sugars to keep him alive by not starving, but he still continued to lose weight at an alarming weight.

Sometimes, when she would do things to soothe him or make him feel better, she would just see him cry. It was not bawling his eyes out, but a few tears that would escape now and then. It was almost as if he had given up hope, and he knew that there was nothing left.

She gathered this from one of the times she'd had his head nestled in her lap and she had been brushing his hair, something that was enjoyable and relaxing to him. His weak hands had managed to fist at his side, his wrist bones horrifyingly pronounced. Two tears had managed to escape from the corners of his eyes, disappearing into his dark, flaming hair. She had not said anything, for she knew that his pride was gone.

Bulma noticed after a while that he started sleeping a lot more. At some points it scared her, for it seemed like he did not want to wake up. He would just lay there, barely breathing, but still alive. She let him rest, but she checked on him every half hour to make sure he was all right.

Until one day he did not wake up. She shook him, but not violently, afraid that she would split his skin. He made not movement. His eyelids did not even flutter. But he was somehow...alive.

She panicked. Why was he still asleep? Was he in an extremely deep sleep? Was he at a stage where he was about to die? What was wrong!?

She kissed him on his cool cheek quickly before she ran out of the room to find some help. The palace was always on alert for any time that she or Vegeta needed someone, and Bulma almost immediately bumped into an alien guard that was wandering the halls. Her skirts had been hampering her horribly, and she was eternally grateful as she stopped and asked him to get some help in a panicked, crazed voice. His eyes widened a fraction before he nodded and ran in the direction of the science wing, much faster than she.

She stood there dejectedly for a long time, knowing deep down that something was wrong. What it was, she would find out soon.

*********

Bulma found out only an hour later that Vegeta had slipped into a coma. They had told her that he was so far gone now, that there was no doubt in their minds that he would die in a matter of days.

She covered her face with her hands and cried. Her whole being trembled from her body to her soul. The pain filling her was unbearable, absolutely excruciating. It felt like someone had literally stuck their hand inside her and was slowly removing every part of her that had a connection to Vegeta: her heart, her soul, everything. The agony was so intolerable that she could not stand. She had to be carried to her room, their room, where Vegeta was now missing. She cried on his side of the bed, bawling her heart out, her cries echoing through the halls. One would think that she was being tortured if they heard the ghastly wails coming from the brokenhearted woman.

It was hours before her tears dried, and when they finally did, she just laid there in a state between exhaustion and not caring. She stared at his pillow, her hand resting on the indent where his head should have been.

I cannot believe that after all these years of hating my husband, that I have become so attached to him. I love him so much...I do not think I will be able to go on after he leaves. He is not even dead yet and it feels unbearable...it is so hard to breathe, so hard to move. It is like my whole body is aching, from the inside out. It seems as if my heart and soul have shut down, and my brain is barely functioning.

She closed her burning, tired eyes, trying to fight back another onslaught of tears. I need him so much...I never have wanted anything so much in my life. Vegeta is like my other half...I have never met anyone that completes me so well in every way. Just talking to him or seeing him give me that look of his gives me the most complete and utter joy. When I am not with him, it seems like a light has been snuffed out from me...I feel no happiness. I feel alone.

The burning tears spilled over her cheeks.

I am alone now.

Her husband was going to die. He was already dead, in the eyes of the scientists. He was just barely hanging on by a thread, and the only thing keeping him alive were the machines that he was hooked up to down in the science wing.

He is going to die.

The words echoed in her head, torturing her. Who, in their right mind, would ever think to lose their husband after barely even being married to him? Barely even getting to know him? To love him?

These thoughts and many other horrible images flashed through her head before she finally fell into an exhausted sleep, where she did not awake for many long hours.

*********

She could hear the machines even before she had stepped into the disturbingly white room. She could hear the beeping of the heart monitor; she could hear the loud whirr of the machines feeding and keeping him alive.

It was a different story however, when she actually saw it. When she finally managed to force herself into the room with a ginger step, her hand immediately covered her mouth to stifle a horrified gasp.

He was so white. He looked like...like a corpse. Tears overflowed from her constantly red eyes as she took another step into the room, her hand still stifling the cries that her mouth wanted to make. She felt a pain in her heart, something that she recognized as her heart breaking for the second time in twenty-four hours. She could not stand to see him like this.

He was tucked under a warm white blanket, both of his arms lying next to him, wrapped in bandages to stop the cuts that were lining them from bleeding. He had an oxygen mask covering his mouth and nose; he had several needles in his arms. There were things hooked up to his chest to measure his heart rate and breathing. She had been told by one of the doctors that if at any moment his heart or breathing stopped, an alarm would go off in the science lab. It gave her comfort knowing that at least someone would know at all times if he was...alive.

She stepped closer to the bed, terrified to get too near to him. She had been instructed that under any circumstances, not to touch him. His skin was too fragile, and would just split upon contact.

A sob managed to escape the hand still covering her mouth. Stepping closer to him, she could see all the damage that had been done to him from the doctors and nurses handling him. His skin was so paper thin, so delicate now. He had been bruised and cut so horribly...he had bandages all over him. Blood had managed to seep through several of the white cloths, making a stark contrast to the white of his skin and the sheets.

She stepped up closer to him, until she was next to his side. The shaking hand covering her mouth moved down to the bed, fluttering over the sheets until it stopped, hovering over his chest. It stopped there for a brief moment before it moved upward, once again stopping, this time over his mouth. She trembled as she daringly brushed her fingers over his pale, bloodless lips.

He did not move.

The tears came on harder, and she had to fight herself physically not to fall to the ground, curl up into a ball, and cry her eyes out.

She listened for a moment to the machine beeping to the rate of his heart. It was so slow...so sluggish. It just attested to the fact that Vegeta was barely hanging on. What was keeping him alive?

Her hand moved from his mouth to down his arm, where it stopped. She drew in her breath as she settled it over his hand, letting herself touch him one last time before she left. She stared at him hard, knowing that this might just possibly be the last time she saw him alive.

She closed her watering eyes and left the room, giving him one last glance before she blew him a kiss and whispered, "I love you, Vegeta."

She left, knowing exactly where she was headed.

*********

Bulma observed her father in the lab, wanting to help him out, but knowing that her scientifically uneducated female brain was incapable. Her father had taken another fresh blood sample from her only moments earlier, and was now injecting the virus into it; his hope was that he could specifically watch what was killing the virus, if anything was, and if something just possibly was, he could pinpoint it, extract it, and somehow produce it in mass quantity. If that happened, they could create the vaccine that was needed to kill the virus, and they could dispense it out to all of the Saiya-jins at the camps off-planet.

Dr. Kanzaka was doing something similar just a desk away, except with a different alien's blood. The suspense was killing her, the silence completely unbearable. They were both moving so slow, so precautious, that Bulma almost screamed at the insanity that was gnawing at her. She needed to know: was her husband going to be saved?

Almost at the same time her father and the doctor stood, shouting to the ceiling. Bulma stood up; her hands clasped in front of her and hope blossoming in her chest. Could it be? Could it just be?!

Her father hugged her, and displaying much more strength than she thought he had, swung her around in a circle, and then set her down. She stood there flustered for a moment, and then hurried over to where her father and the doctor were standing together, talking excitedly. She felt the hysteria build...she did not know what was going on. She had to know! This was Vegeta's life they held in their hands...every second counted.

"Did you see it? I could not believe my eyes...the antibodies in her blood came to life and completely massacred the virus...it was dead almost instantly. The virus had no chance at all!"

"Yes! And the same with this alien's blood as well! It just completely decimated it!" Dr. Kanzaka turned to Bulma, who was looking like a desperate, wild woman. He set a calming hand on her arm. "You were right all along when you said what we are looking for to kill the virus might be right under our noses, Bulma. You, my dear, have just saved your husband's life."

Bulma nearly melted. Her red eyes burned with tears once again, but did not last long. She hugged her father and the head scientist, not believing anything that had just happened. She thanked the gods; she thanked anyone who was listening, just to let them know that she truly appreciated what had just been restored to her.

"Now...now all we have to do is somehow separate the antibodies from the blood, and make a lot of it. There needs to be millions upon millions of vaccines made...but first and foremost...we need one made for Prince Vegeta."

Bulma felt like heaven had finally listened to her. Her husband was going to be saved. They could give him the cure, and he would come out of his coma. As soon as he started getting better, they could stick him in a regeneration tank and heal all his cuts and bruises and speed up the time it would take his lungs and body to heal from the virus attacking him.

Vegeta is going to be all right.

She let out a shuddering breath and tried to contain herself, but it was almost too much. After living so long with the knowledge that her husband, the man she loved, was going to die, she almost could not bear the fact that he was going to be all right.

She covered her face with her hands and stood there for a while, listening to the buzz of her father and the doctor as they ran around the lab, yelling that they had finally found the cure. It seemed like it had taken years...when it fact it had only been a matter of months. She could not believe that they had found the cure, for she knew that things like this usually took years...decades even. Now all she had to worry about was them getting it to-

A loud, blaring alarm suddenly went off. All of the blood in her face drained, for she knew, she just knew what it was.

All of the excited activity in the lab died for a brief second before everyone went absolutely nuts. Her world blurred around her as every single scientist and doctor ran from the lab to the room where her husband was resting.

Oh no....

Vegeta's heart had stopped. She felt a hand grab roughly onto her upper arm and she was dragged into the room where her husband was laying, the heart machine giving off its alarm. Several doctors were crowded around him, two nurses trying to revive him.

The sound of the alarm did not stop.

Bulma stood there for what seemed forever, her world blurring into slow motion. She heard the cries and yells of the doctors and nurses, listened to them as she watched them try unsuccessfully to save her husband, the prince of their planet, their only hope.

Time ticked by.

It was too late.

They had been too late with finding a cure for Vegeta.

He was dead.

Her eyes rolled back into her head and she fell to the floor, her world already black before she hit with a loud thud.

The sound of the alarm was still blaring in the background.