Chapter One
I feel the sharp spike in her fragile ki when the pain first hits her. I know instantly that stupid human male would be at my house within minutes. He keeps better tabs on her than I do, which pisses me off to no end.
I quickly leave the gravity machine after my three thousandth pushup, unsure of what I would find when I make it to her room. She has been resting a lot more the last week or so, for her back hurt and her feet were swollen. I would often find her napping in her�our�bed, her perfect, angelic face peaceful and free of pain. She has also increased the frequency in which she bathed to almost two or three times a day�she said it relaxed her (if she could even stand).
Since I rarely see her outside the room I have recently taken to sharing with her, at night is the time that we share any sort of intimacy. She has started relying heavily upon me to help her in the last month or so, considering that she needs me more now than she ever has. The last two months had become difficult for her, for carrying a half Saiya-jin child inside her delicate body was demanding and often caused her whole body to ache. I knew then and I know now that she is a very prideful woman, and it hurt that inhuman pride of hers to take maternity leave from her job and stay at home to rest and prepare for the imminent birth of our unplanned child. However much it hurt her to leave her job temporarily, I know that it hurts her even more to ask me to help her on occasion...she had never planned for any of this to happen, hell, neither of us did, but it just did.
I pass by her parents on my way up the stairs without so much as a word�although I imagine I should tell them to get ready or something just as asinine. Who knows...she�s already had several false alarms, but this time it feels different. I had felt the pain hit her by the way it had crippled her ki...thinking of it now, maybe I should hurry.
I run up the stairs, alerting her parents to the fact that something was amiss, for I never run or show any outward excitement in any form. I hear the old man call up the stairway, asking what is wrong, but I don�t answer.
I hear her say my name before I even make it to the door. The tearful, broken, pain-filled way in which she cries my name makes an odd, almost agonizing tug in my chest where my heart would have been if I had one.
I rip the door nearly off its hinges in an unexpected reaction to the tremble in her voice. The door to her luxurious bathroom is slightly ajar, a habit she has taken to since I had started staying with her in her room. She wanted and needed to know that I would be there if she should need me...like she needs me right now.
Steam bombards me as I throw the door back, and I search through the mist quickly to see where it is coming from. It�s the shower.
She calls my name again, softly this time, knowing that I am there in the bathroom from all the loud noise I had unintentionally made. She already has her arms raised and ready for me to pick her up when I find her on the floor of the showering stall. I take in the scene quickly; the water on the shower floor is slightly pinkish, meaning that she had bled slightly or still was. It almost looks like she had slipped and had fallen, but I can tell that the pain had come so hard and so fast that her legs had given out from beneath her.
I crawl into the showering space, uncaring of the hot water drenching me as I gather her tiny, curved frame into my arms and against my chest. She instantly curls her arms around her huge middle, frightened tears streaming down her flushed face, and I can see even through the steam the taught skin of her rounded belly. Her breathing is funny and her ki is chaotic, and I worry as I set her down long enough to wrap the fluffy white towel sitting on the sink around her trembling naked body.
�Vegeta,� she murmurs shakily, her whole frame quivering as I start to towel her off as best as I can. I have already lowered my ki to her level, but it�s hard to keep it the same with the way hers is fluctuating. I stop long enough to look down at her, seeing her sapphire eyes shimmering with pained tears and her lips an almost bloody red from biting them so hard. Was she scared or was she in that much pain?
We never really say much to each other, whether it is because she knows I don�t want to talk or because she understands that she will never hear what she wants to hear from me, I don�t know. We have always understood each other in an odd, unforeseen way. We can usually relate what we are feeling with our bodies, but right now, I have a suspicion she needs to talk.
�Thank you,� she says quietly, clutching the strength of my bare arms. At first I do not know what to say as I stand there in the steaming bathroom, holding her against me, the towel draped loosely around her shoulders...so I just nod.
She gives me the most pathetic smile I have ever seen...however, I cannot help but feel moved that this woman relies on me so very much. The last month she would ask me do the oddest things, and the unusual thing was that I complied with her wishes.
Don�t get me wrong, I have no notions of love, but I do have a feeling of responsibility. I was the one who had gotten her pregnant, and besides the fact that the child would be my heir, I had never planned to do anything with her besides have a fling with her. But in the last few months...something has happened. I feel like I need to take care of her. Like this pitiful human female has somehow gotten under my skin, and made me understand that this is my fault, so I have to take care of her now.
She was constantly taking medicine, measuring this or that, doing this or that, because not only was the woman obsessed with her health, but with her child�s as well. She has read so many ridiculous books that she has probably spent hundreds upon hundreds of Zen on them. She would go to classes with that old asshole boyfriend of hers, and would come home later that day and have me help her do some of them in the privacy of our bedroom.
How...odd they were.
She would often ask just for me to lie back against the headboard of her bed, so she could rest against my chest with her legs spread and her hands massaging the roundness of her pregnant belly. At first I was slightly appalled, but then I thought it was amusing to see her spreading her legs like that. She had nearly hit me the one time I said something about it, which had also been humorous.
Then there were the times that she would ask me to rub her back, which usually didn�t last long. I once heard her mentioning to one of her giggling friends that my backrubs were �orgasmic�. I think it�s comical how true that statement is.
I snap out of my thoughts when I feel her nuzzling my cheek with her own. It is a form of affection that is almost cat-like, rubbing our cheeks together like that. However, it is one thing I have always liked about her�she has more animal instincts than half the humans on this dismal planet, and she actually lets those instincts free without thought. Perhaps that is what attracts me to her.
She lets loose a feminine �mmm� sound that sounds like a throaty purr deep in her throat. It is a sound that I could never duplicate, but apparently she likes my husky growls just as well.
The pleasing, relaxing sound that I have come to enjoy from her is disrupted by a shocked, pained gasp, and she nearly collapses to the marble floor before I can catch her.
Her name rips its way out of my throat before I can stop it, perhaps showing more emotion than I had intended. �Bulma! What�?�
She gasps for air as she clutches her stomach, nearly curling in on herself to relieve the pain. �Owww...owww....�
It�s over almost as soon as it begins. She draws in a deep lungful of air, happy to be able to breathe again. I stare at her, not knowing what to do, confused and upset that I can't do anything.
I have never seen a woman in labor before, and although she tried to explain it to me as best as she could, I still don�t understand. She told me more of the things that could go wrong rather than would usually happen on average. She liked to tell me about how many women die in childbirth, and although the number is very few, she liked to exaggerate just to see the look on my face. Perhaps the look on my face is the only way she knows that I care about her in some abnormal, delusional way.
�I�m ok,� she says tearfully, but I know she�s lying. I pick her back up off the floor and bring her into our room. There I sit her on the bed we share, and look to her for what to do. She gives me another pathetic smile as she picks at the towel around her shoulders with her fingers.
�My...my things are packed in that bag over there,� she says, pointing in the corner where a black suitcase with the Capsule Corporation logo on it is sitting. I had watched her pack the bag just the other day, wondering if she was leaving me or if she had finally gone insane from her fanatical parents. She had laughed at the anxious look on my face and told me that she was just getting ready for the time when she would go into labor and needed to go to the hospital.
I nod and grab the suitcase, nearly tearing the handle off in the process. I set it down beside her, and look to her for what to do next. Damn this feeling of helplessness. Who knew I would react so badly to seeing her in pain? I thought I would just stand by idly and let her old human rat take care of her, but thinking of him touching her now makes me want to kill him. I can see the way she is looking at me, as if she needs me to be there for her, no one else. She needs me....
Fuck.