A/N:  I want to say thanks to Vegeta Otaku for helping me out with some ideas for this chapter

     There was something about outer space that repelled, yet fascinated at the same time.  It was dismal and appeared empty - like himself on first glance he suspected.  But the universe was unimaginably filled, even after everything the Kold empire had destroyed.  He suspected that he would never find a place to call his own.  The only place he'd ever called home was Vejiitasei.  There were other planets with high gravity, but did they look the same?  Did they have twin suns, golden during the day, deepening to a blood-red hue towards dusk?  Was their sky a pale yellow that faded to rusty orange and purple by night?  Would any place have trees as tall and grand as Vejiitasei?  He thought back to childhood, staring up at those massive trunks and towering boughs.  And the oceans.  Shimmering like liquid gold, and the fish, their scales seemingly made of diamond for they sparkled and reflected light like those stones which Zarbon had so loved to wear.
    It was an impossible quest, it seemed, to find somewhere remotely similar to his former home.  The endless void of space seemed more familiar now, and he hated it.
    He was drawn from his thoughts by his tail of all things.  He'd never had his tail removed and the newly-generated limb was a strange experience.  The nerves felt like they were tingling and his tail would begin to thrash about on its own as it was doing as he stared at it.
    He'd never realized how important it had been until it had been cut off.  Never had he felt such humiliation! The last link to his home, utterly destroyed. Perhaps the onna knew who had robbed him of it in the first place, but would she tell him?
    He snorted in derision.  She had better!  He thought angrily, he'd only saved her ass twice.  At least he thought so.  He wasn't sure what had happened the first time she'd gotten in a scrape with one of Frieza's men.  He'd only arrived just in time.  At least he thought so.  She didn't speak of it.  But then, he didn't expect her to.
    And besides, his tail was back.  Who cut it off really didn't matter that much, somehow he would get that information out of her.  The onna was infuriatingly talkative.  She was bound to let a few things slip.
    A sudden piercing scream tore him out of his reverie,  He leapt to his feet and was outside the bathroom door.  He could hear the onna's panicked screams and frantic hammering on the door.  He grasped the handle and surprisingly, it wouldn't budge.  Bulma screams grew louder and he frowned as he wrenched the door from its hinges.  Before he could drop the thick slab of metal, Bulma had leapt into his arms, half-mad with panic. And half-naked! He could feel her entire body quivering as she cleaved to him.  Her skin was amazingly soft and smooth.  He could feel hot tears rolling down his neck as she buried her face in his throat.  Oh shit.  He tried to ignore the sudden rush of desire and sought to discover what had sent her into such a pitiable state.  His eyes swept through the bathroom.  What the hell? He wondered in bewilderment.  He saw it, and jumped back about ten feet.
    "What is that?!" He cried, unable to hide his astonishment and disgust at the eight-legged horror that skittered across the floor towards them.
    "It's the biggest spider ever born!" Bulma fairly shrieked in his ear.  He winced at the pain caused by her high-pitched squealing.
    "Spider?" he murmured.  It was an unfamiliar being, and he was utterly repelled by it.  He couldn't say he hadn't seen disgusting insects before, but they hadn't been as big as this!  The largest bug he'd seen had only been a foot in length at the most.  Bulma sniffled and peered over his shoulder at the  creature still advancing as Vegeta backed away.
    "Kill it!" she cried.  "Step on it!" Vegeta laughed.
    "Step on it!? Are you insane? I'm barefoot!" He raised a hand and Bulma gasped as it began to glow with ki.
    "No Vegeta!  The ship!  You have to.. step on it or something!  Don't shoot it you'll breach the hull and we'll be sucked into space!"  Damn her for being right so often!  But he didn't want to touch it!  The spider creature suddenly crouched and leapt straight at them!  Bulma's panicked scream easily covered Vegeta's strangled gasp of alarm as he leapt back.
    "Shit." He hissed.  His back was to the wall and at least two of its eyes were staring right at him.  He wanted to kill it, but how?  He felt like a pitiful coward, but the thing was sickening to look at.  He couldn't imagine touching it!  A shudder raced up his spine that mirrored Bulma's trembling.  He raised a small bit of ki and pointed one finger.  Just enough to kill the thing - then before he could fire it spat a long spray of liquid.  He felt it splash his leg and watched in amazement as the floor began to burn from the liquid trail.  He fired the small blast right between the two biggest eyes as it lurched forward again.  It fell to the ground and shuddered all over before it stiffened and lay quiet.
    He set Bulma on her feet and only then did his mind register the agonizing pain.  With a sharp gasp he fell on his butt, almost on his tail!  Bulma dropped to her knees and tried to pull him up.
    "What is it?"  For a moment, all her could do was stare at the silky white material covering Bulma's breasts as pain shot in jolts up and down his leg.  She checked him over for injuries and gasped in shock when she saw the angry red welts on his shin.  The bloody shorts had not covered any of the area that had been hit.  "How did this happen?" Bulma gasped.
    "It spit on me." Vegeta growled through clenched teeth.  She gently touched the smallest wound and his whole body jerked, a small groan of pain issuing from him.  She gasped as the skin pulled away from that faint touch and blood began to ooze freely.
    "Shit!" Bulma gasped.  "Come on.  Let's get up."  Vegeta took a deep breath and stood, but as he tried to take a step forward the pain caused him to stumble and nearly black out.  Bulma was pushing him up with all her strength, her small hands planted firmly on his chest.  She could see him struggling and a swift ache shot through her heart.  They half-stumbled over to the bed and fell onto the piled up covers in a heap.  He groaned and rolled onto his back at Bulma's request and she ran back to the bathroom carefully avoiding the smoldering spider carcass on the floor.  She found the first aid kit, disinfectant, towels and antibiotic cream and dashed back to Vegeta.
    He was sitting up, staring at the blood oozing down his leg with what could only be described as morbid fascination.  She stood riveted as he swiped some of the blood off of his shin and licked it off his finger.  Utterly vampiric he seemed, with those sharp canines she'd glimpsed earlier when he'd laughed at her. And the way he'd drank his own blood, she shuddered.  He was so unlike anyone she'd ever met.  And at times he scared her, like right now.  His eyes lifted and he studied her as well.  She was jolted from her daze by his piercing eyes.  Eyes that seemed to strip her bare to her soul leaving every fault and weakness exposed to his inscrutable gaze.  He was a mystery to her, one she wanted desperately to understand.
    She sat down beside him and took a clean, white wash cloth and soaked it in the peroxide.  She began to clean the wounds as gently as possible.  But Vegeta seemed to be blocking the pain out.  He had a very small frown and he appeared lost in thought.  She continued to dab at the three flaming scorches and the clotted blood wiped away to reveal angry little holes.  She winced as the peroxide cause the wounds to bubble, but Vegeta didn't seem to mind.  She would have been bawling.  She gently blew on his leg and noticed that he jumped visibly.
    "Sorry." She murmured, thinking it had somehow hurt him.  He said nothing.  She covered each gash with antibiotic cream and put gauze pads over them.  Then she taped them onto his virtually hairless leg.  But the lack of hair didn't surprise her.  Goku was the same way.  Must be a Saiyan thing, she mused.  "There.  Does it feel better?"  He blinked, coming out of his daze and peered down at his leg.
    "Yes." He admitted quietly, with a faint touch of awe in his voice.
    "Good." She said with a smile.  The smile instantly faded and she groaned, slapping her forehead.  Vegeta eyed her curiously, wondering what had changed her demeanor so quick.
    "What is it, onna?" he asked.  Bulma didn't miss the tone of his voice and for a moment she almost forgot the problem.  Kami, he sounded almost.. nice.
    "That." She pointed with a grimace of disgust at the dead spider.  Oh.  That.  He'd thought for a moment that she'd realized she was almost naked in front of him.  He surely had not forgotten.  Almost as if she sensed his thoughts she looked down at herself and her face turned crimson.      "I-I'll be right back." She murmured and scurried to the bathroom.
    Damn it.  Vegeta thought with a rueful smile.  He had hoped she wouldn't notice.  Besides why did she care?  She been in that state of undress for awhile now, what made her suddenly so shy?  And how had she made those ugly wounds stop hurting so fast?  And without the regeneration tank?  He was disrupted from his thoughts by the sound of the water running.  She was showering.   The thought brought a vivid mental picture and he groaned again as the thought instantly aroused him.
    "Damn it!" He snapped.  This was so unfair!  Why did he have to be trapped in a space pod with a hot prude?  He growled angrily, his hand grasping a handful of hair and tugging lightly.  And why did he want her so bad?  She was a weak human!  She still had slight bruises on her face from Dora! He sighed, the argument was always the same, but now it sounded half-hearted.  And it was.  Why did he try to lie to himself?  It was pointless and he knew it yet he still persisted on trying to make himself think something else.  But then he'd been doing it for a long time, or at least, trying to.
    He had almost convinced himself that what he'd been doing for Frieza had been a favor to everyone.  The weak deserved death, even though they'd never done anything to him.  He threw his hands up in disgust.
    Coward.  He thought bitterly.  Scared of a girl with virtually no ki.  But it was the power she could wield over him.  He'd fallen victim to it before when he was much younger and far more foolish.  And the end result of that relationship- if what they'd had could be called such- had been a square shot in the pills as far as Vegeta was concerned.  And he felt that slicing his throat would be preferable.  Better to die a failure than a pussy -whipped failure.
    The last thing he needed was another person who had the power to hurt him.  Physically, she couldn't do a thing. Unless she caught him off-guard.   Besides, physical pain was something Vegeta was very used to.  No matter how intense.  He had been beaten to death, after all.  But she could hurt him in other ways…
    Pure disgust rippled across his face.  There was only one thing that was worse.
    Betrayal.
    No.  Being stupid enough to trust someone.  The only way someone could betray you was if you trusted them in some way..  He wouldn't be stupid enough to do that again.  He closed his eyes tight as if attempting to banish the memories that tried to be recognized.
    No!  I'm just going to get pissed off and for what? He mentally chided.   Still, memory returned as his mind always took a delight in torturing him. With a bitter sigh he fell back on he soft pillows and blankets.  How old had he been when he'd been fool enough to care for someone?  Seventeen? The corner of his mouth slid up when he reflected back on his younger self.  What an angry little bastard he'd been.  The human onna thought he was scary now?  He almost laughed.  Back then he was lashing out at everyone he could.  His mouth had been incredible.  Loud and quite creative.  His vocabulary of disgusting things to say was not as vast as it had once been.  Several times he'd managed to disgust people so much that they completely forgot what they meant to harass him about in the first place.  He scared people away before they ever saw him fight.  Sometimes intimidating people with his mere personality had its own rewards.   And he liked it that way.
    But then one day Radditz had informed his prince of a girl who was just like him.  Kila was her name. As scary as the thought seemed, he was definitely curious.  And a few weeks later, they met.
It had been fate, cruel evil fate had brought them together that day.  And at once he liked her.  Even though he tried not to.  She had been a cute girl, a year younger than he.  But she was more unstable than the Saiyan no Ouji, which he often found surprising.  Her temper would escalate radically, but Vegeta didn't care at the time.  She was in his power, she could do nothing to hurt him.  He was far superior to her in every aspect, there was no way she could ever bend him to her will.
    But as the months passed in deep space there were less planets to purge.  The only thing to do was train and fuck.  Which they did every chance they got.  In the beginning.  As the months wore on they saw each other less and less and Vegeta couldn't figure out why.  And he also couldn't really figure out why it bothered him.
    It was then, perhaps that he'd realized that he'd grown accustomed to the things he'd gained from their affair.  He'd liked having someone to talk to when he was bored.  Especially someone who agreed with him often.  He'd liked having somewhere to go, someone to fuck.  It had been nice..
    But then he had sought her out after not seeing her for a week and found her in the arms of another man.  He killed her lover and walked away,  savoring her screamed curses. 

    He thought he'd be happy after that.  But he wasn't.  Another year passed and he realized that he still hated her as much as he ever did, if not more.  And it bothered him.  She wasn't worth his anger or his hate.  All she deserved was a miserable lonely existence.  But he got her deserved fate instead.
    Afraid of another similar situation, Vegeta withdrew more and more.  And if his quietness wasn't a good enough indication of his desire to be alone, then he said it well enough with his fists.
    Anger was getting harder and harder to provoke in the young Saiyan.  He closed himself off from his emotions by ignoring them as if they didn't exist.  And then when he was pushed too far he would explode in a violent fury that rarely left survivors.
    Frieza seemed to sense when he was near his limit each time, for Vegeta found himself on  several purging missions in a row when he was close to having what Frieza termed his "Little tantrums".
    But they were anything but little.  Several times Nappa and Radditz had been forced to find aid from Frieza in stopping Vegeta's furies before he destroyed himself with his own power.  Without fail, Zarbon would arrive and put Vegeta into a coma.  Radditz and Nappa were against anything involving Zarbon, but he made sure he didn't kill the Saiyan no Ouji, and the elder two Saiyans didn't have the strength to stop Vegeta or the will to make him listen to reason.
    No one did.  When he hit that plateau of rage he couldn't be talked down.  Everything that angered him came bursting out in a blinding explosion of ki.  And when it was all over, even after the regeneration tank, Vegeta was exhausted for at least a few days.
    He wasn't anywhere near that level of rage now.  He despised Kakarotto and Frieza.  He hoped they were both floating in dead space in bits and pieces.  But that wasn't really on his mind so much.  As far as he knew they were both dead.  He was bitter about the idea, but not completely infuriated.  He was even more bitter that Frieza had ended his life.  But he had expected it to happen for years and years, even more so after he had disobeyed Frieza and went in search of the accursed Dragon balls.
    And he hated the fact that he'd asked Kakarotto to finish Frieza in his stead.  Had he known someone would actually wish him back to life, he'd have kept his mouth shut.  He also hated not knowing how the fight had ended, if it even had.  He sighed wearily.  Being angry all the time was like breathing it seemed.  When was the last time he'd been even slightly content?  A picture of the onna standing outside the regeneration tank came to him suddenly and he shivered.
    That had not been what he'd expected to think of.  And it was the only thing that was really causing him stress at the moment.  This hateful attraction to the onna… Bulma.  The attraction he dearly wished he didn't have.  The thought was altogether horrifying.
    He'd liked what he'd had with Kila.  They really didn't care about each other but they had a very sexual relationship.  That was all it was.  Sex.  No more, no less.  But for some reason he didn't think the onna would agree to something like that.
    "GAAH!" he snapped, throwing his hands up. What the hell am I thinking?  She is way too fragile and why do I even want to?  I'm just horny or something! He mentally berated.  The water from the shower stopped and Vegeta realized he would have to get rid of the spider carcass before she got out of the bathroom.
    Why should I? He thought.  She's the big baby that's scared of it.  He shook his head as he shot several low-powered blasts at the remains turning them to ashes.  He did find it repulsive, might as well get rid of it.

    Bulma emerged from the shower clad in the one clean towel in the bathroom.  She realized that he father had made nothing for washing laundry.  If she wanted clean towels, or any clean clothes for that matter, she'd have to wash them with shampoo in the bathtub and let them drip dry.    It sounded like too much work to her.  She at least had to have clean underwear though, she thought with a sigh.  Maybe she should have taken some servo-bots with her. She looked at the small digital clock by the bed.  6 pm.  She didn't even know what time she'd woken up at.  She remembered the discussion she and Vegeta had had before the whole spider incident:
    "I can't imagine what that would be like." Bulma marveled.  "To be stronger than anyone, and so young too!" She noticed the odd look that Vegeta shot her and her awe turned quickly to unease when she saw fury alight in his eyes.
    "Yeah, look what it got me!" he snapped bitterly.  He turned back to the window and said nothing more.
    Was he still angry about that?  He didn't look angry.  In fact he was straight staring at her with an odd look in his eyes.
    "Is something wrong?" she asked.  "Does your leg still hurt?"  he shook his head and looked away, his jaw clenching.  While his head was turned, Bulma snagged her cotton robe and dropped the towel.  She quickly threw her robe on tying the sash tight.  She searched through her capsules and popping one open to pull out a silky white pair of panties.  She glanced over her shoulder to see if Vegeta was looking.
    He wasn't.  In fact he had one hand covering his eyes and she could see a vein standing out on his throat.
    Interesting.  She quickly pulled her panties on.   She padded across the floor to the bed where he sat.  she laid her hand on his shoulder but was unprepared for his reaction.  He immediately flinched away, his head whipping around to face her.  For a moment she was sure she'd seen fear flash briefly through his eyes.  She held her hands up in a gesture of peace.  He visibly relaxed, his expression grew clouded and he looked away towards the two small portholes in the hull.  She sat down next to him.  He shot her a suspicious glance before returning his gaze to the tiny stars that swept past.
    "What's wrong Vegeta?  Are you sure your leg is ok?  Those wounds looked pretty gross." She saw him frown and he turned to regard her with confusion.
    "Why do you care?"  she frowned.  Why didn't he trust her?  Like she could actually hurt him.
    "Because.  You've saved me twice.  Actually three times." she said, indicating the black scorch on the floor.  "You haven't done anything to hurt me physically, and I-"
    "What does that mean?" he cut in.  "What did I do?" he said his eyes narrowed.  She blinked.
    "N-nothing, really!" she stammered.  He'd said a few careless words and had hurt her feelings, but that was fine with her as long as he didn't kill her.
    "Don't lie to me." He said, his voice flat and unnerving.
    "W-well, you said some mean things, but as long as you don't kill me-"
    "I'm not going to kill you!" he snapped, his face slightly pink.  "Why would I bother to save your ass if I wanted you dead?"
    "I know Vegeta.  I know you can't fly the ship." She said calmly, trying to be the voice of reason.
    "I could fly the ship if I wanted to-!" he stopped abruptly, his face definitely pink.  Bulma's eyes nearly popped out of her skull.
    "Then-" her throat closed. Vegeta turned his back to her, but she noticed his tail lashing angrily.  What did he mean?  What in Kami's name was he saying?!   Did he accidentally admit that he didn't want to be rid of her?  That he maybe even somewhat liked her?  She had to say something!  His face was getting redder by the second, but he was still there.  She had to say something.
    "Does that mean you don't hate me anymore?" she asked, trying not to sound to hopeful and failing entirely.  He tilted his head in her direction.
    "Why would you think that I hate you?"  Ha.  She almost laughed.
    "Well, you haven't exactly made me feel like I'm worth more than a tool.  Although you did save me, but I always assumed you did it because you couldn't fly the ship.  I'm not saying you should act all nice because I know at least that that's not the type of person you are.  But you could acknowledge me as a person, regardless of my strength.  I know you were raised to believe that strength is most important, and I know you believe that.  But I don't." she sighed.  "Forget it.  It doesn't matter."   By the time she had stopped speaking he had turned around to face her again, a puzzled look on his face.  "The only other reason you could value me is because I am a girl and we're alone together."  She felt, rather than saw him stiffen.  She gazed at his face and was surprised to see that he looked angry and uncomfortable at the same time.  She sighed.  She had hit the nail on the head it seemed and it appeared that Vegeta knew it.  Although he had avoided watching her undress.  And she knew many who would not pass up that chance.  Had it been out of respect?  No.  He didn't respect her in the least.
    "Shut up." He snapped glaring at her.  "Have I ever tried to take advantage of that?"  she frowned.  He hadn't so that meant two things: either he wanted to and was apprehensive about attempting for fear of rejection.  Or there was a whole other reason that he valued her for.  That last thought led her nowhere.  Or he was gay.  She almost smiled at the thought.  Naah..
    "Well I can't figure it out then.  Or you.  I wish I could.  Why don't you hate me Vegeta?"  she asked softly, lifting her head to gaze into his eyes, which she couldn't help but notice that they were full of barely-veiled emotion.
    "I don't know!" he cried.
 
 

TBC…
 
 

A/N: Don't be mad people.  I had to end it there.