DISCLAIMER: Dragonball Z was created by Akira Toriyama.
And I should have said this in chapter one, "Oh, Me" is a Nirvana song…
I think.
Bulma yawned for the fifth time in about three minutes and decided
it was time to call it a night. She made her way to her room and
carefully peeked into Vegeta's as she passed. No sign that he'd even
been there. She sighed as she trudged back to her room.
An unwelcome thought suddenly flashed through her mind and she remembered
that horrible night a few weeks ago. A shudder raced through her
as she recalled Vegeta attacking not only Gohan but ChiChi as well.
She remembered the look she'd seen on Vegeta's face. One she'd never
seen since. Absolute and perfect fury. Unrestrained madness.
She had never been so scared in her life. She'd been amazed that
she hadn't peed in her pants right then. She remembered Vegeta choking
the life out of ChiChi and the rabid growls coming from his throat.
Then Gohan was there attacking with insane anger for such a young boy.
She was almost as shocked as Vegeta when Gohan spit in his face.
She knew what was coming and ran for the phone. She called security
and remembered screaming 'Help us!' over and over into the phone.
Suddenly the room was filled to capacity with the human guards that
watched the gates and compound. They each jumped on Vegeta and Gohan
who were still locked in a vicious battle that hadn't left the ground.
She was glad for that. The security gave her enough time to run to
the medical wing and find every tranquilizer available. When she
got back she was amazed to see that Gohan had Vegeta in a head-lock and
the rest of the guards were almost succeeding in holding him down.
But the worst part was the utter madness in Vegeta's face, and the
enraged shrieks and curses coming from his mouth. She quickly jabbed
him with one needle and injected all the fluid, then repeated the process
seventeen more times. She watched his eyes grow dim and he almost
relaxed, but then he began to struggle again, kicking and squirming.
"Stop Vegeta! Just stop!" she screamed. He didn't hear
her, or just ignored her and continued to writhe. Gohan was losing
his grip and most of the guards were struggling just to hold on.
But she still had at least ten more needles already filled. She stabbed
Vegeta with each as quickly as she could and the guards helped her empty
the contents of the syringes. Almost instantly Vegeta relaxed and
mumbled something in his nearly-dead language. It was rare that she
heard it and there was a collective sigh of relief as his eyes closed and
his breathing slowed. She raked her fingers through her hair and
pulled the empty needles from his flesh.
Bulma slowly stood and realized she was shaking.
"ChiChi!" she gasped. Gohan was already at her side. ChiChi
was still out of breath and there were ugly bruises on her throat.
"Can I get you some ice?" she asked gently. ChiChi glared at
Bulma.
"You see?" ChiChi rasped and coughed. "What have I told you?"
her voice grew stronger and rose in volume. "I can't believe you
let that bastard stay here Bulma, are you going to do something about this?"
"What can I do?" Bulma cried.
"Umm.. Miss Briefs?" one of the guards began. "Perhaps
you should call the police. Bulma and ChiChi both laughed bitterly.
"Thank you for you help but I won't be needing anything else."
Bulma replied coolly to the confused guard. When many of the security
opened their mouth to protest Bulma shot them an angry glare. "If
you think the police can handle him any better, your wrong. Now please."
They each shrugged and turned to leave, some muttering under their breath.
ChiChi pulled herself to her feet.
"I'm holding you personally responsible for this Buruma. You
allow him to stay here." Bulma gasped.
"What?! You started this whole thing! If you wouldn't have said
anything to him in the first place NONE of this would have happened!"
ChiChi flushed in anger.
"But everything I said is true and you know it! Goku is dead
because of his stupid pride!" she yelled. Bulma felt her anger
rising to match ChiChi's. she would be damned if she would take the
fall for this. She knew Vegeta had overreacted, but ChiChi had to
open her big mouth in the first place.
"Well I think what Vegeta said about you is true too! You an
overbearing, possessive bitch! You practically forced Goku to marry
you in the first place!" she received a hard slap in the face.
The force of it knocked her onto her ass and she fell on top of Vegeta.
When her ears stopped ringing she could hear Gohan:
"Bulma are you all right? Mom! Why did you hit her?"
She felt Gohan give her a light shake and she pushed his hands away and
quickly rose, her hand touching her throbbing cheek.
"Get out." She hissed glaring at ChiChi. ChiChi sniffed, her
nose in the air, and turned to leave. "Gohan, you welcome anytime."
She said, smiling at the morose young boy.
"Ok Bulma-san. See you later."
"Gohan, let's go." ChiChi barked before storming out.
Bulma plopped down next to the unconscious Saiyan and a tear slipped
down her stinging cheek. Why had she said those things? Why did she
defend Vegeta? He was a monster. How could she sit here next to him,
even if he was passed out. She turned around to stare down at his
face. He eyes widened. He looked a lot younger when he was asleep,
he looked cute even. The more she stared the more she noticed how
good-looking Vegeta really was. It was hard to see sometimes when
he looked at you like he'd rather see you dead than have to talk to you.
"You just tried to kill ChiChi. Why am I thinking this?"
she mumbled to him. "Why do I always stick my neck out for you?"
Vegeta suddenly shifted underneath her and moaned. She turned around
and scooted back. He looked like he was going to wake. Bulma
was stunned. She'd given him enough tranquilizers to kill a horse
or an elephant. He groaned again, his eyelids fluttered and she could
see his eyes rolling in his head. She leaned over and not-so-gently
slapped his cheek. His eyes shot open and sat up like a puppet controlled
by a drunk puppeteer. He groaned something in Saiyan or whatever
it was called and tried to stand. When he realized he couldn't he
began to crawl taking no notice of Bulma. She grabbed his elbow and
tried to pull him to his feet. He flinched as if he hadn't even been
aware she was there and glared at her with dim eyes. But he allowed
her to help him up. She had to help him walk all the way to his room
and to his bed. But he suddenly wrenched away inside and staggered
to the bathroom. Once inside he slammed the door and fell to his
knees. Bulma heard him coughing and she frowned. What was he
doing? Then she heard a splash of liquid hitting liquid.
"Oh shit." She groaned. He was throwing up. She realized
her error right away, she had almost given him enough to make him overdose.
But if he threw up enough maybe he would be alright. She quickly
walked out of the room. The sound of him vomiting was starting to
make her gag.
She went to the kitchen and searched for some ginger-ale. Her
mother always gave her that to drink when she was sick. There was
none.
"Shit!" she cursed again. She ran to her room and grabbed her
keys and purse.
She stopped at the door as she grabbed her capsule case. She
searched through until she found her car and ran out the door flinging
it as she ran. Her car popped up and she jumped in and headed to
the only 24 hour store in the area.
Why was she doing this? She was so confused. The whole
day was a nightmare. Vegeta was puking his guts out because she'd
given him too much sedative to keep him from killing ChiChi, and ChiChi
hated her because she didn't have the heart (or the strength) to kick Vegeta
out. Not like she could at the moment anyway. That would be
beyond cruel.
Why had she just thrown away a good friendship for him? What
reason was there? He hated her, didn't he? She had noticed
that he hadn't been as mean to her as usual in the past few weeks.
They're fights were more like teasing matches. And she had to admit,
she liked him. She enjoyed fighting with him when he didn't get personal.
When Yamcha was still around he was vicious and she still didn't know why.
She knew damn well that he hated Yamcha, but ever since they'd broken
up, he had calmed down on his insults. Or at least, they weren't
as cruel. And she was glad for that. But it still didn't make
sense as to why he wasn't half as cruel now. Had he resented the
fact that she was dating Yamcha? She knew he hated him, but why did
he blame her? It was a stupid question. He looked down at her
for going out with Yamcha, and she knew it.
She pulled into the parking lot and quickly went inside. She
bought three two-liters of Ginger-ale, quickly paid and got back in her
car and sped off towards home.
Vegeta was passed out in the bathroom. Thankfully he'd opened
a window so it didn't reek of vomit. But he was still lying on the
floor.
"Vegeta." She called loudly, slapping his cheek. Nothing happened.
He was out. "Damn it." She couldn't drag him to bed.
Even if she got him over there she definitely couldn't get him in bed.
She went into his room and pulled the comforter and pillow off and brought
it into the bathroom. "Don't puke on this." She said. She threw
the comforter on top of him and lifted his head to shove the pillow underneath.
She stood and looked down at him. She smiled softly. "He's
going to hate me tomorrow.."
She hadn't spoken to ChiChi since. And not Vegeta either.
The next day she'd had a business trip that would last a week and she made
sure her mother took care of all his meals. She knew she was wasting
her breath, her mother loved Vegeta and would die before she let him go
hungry. When she got back she didn't make a point to talk to him
like she sometimes did. She was still a little scared of him.
It had been one thing when he'd been totally passed out after the incident,
but when she got back from the business trip she dreaded seeing him.
She just couldn't get the thought of him choking the shit out of ChiChi
out of her head. And it wasn't very hard to avoid him anyway.
She went on mad shopping sprees. And for some reason she ended
up buying a lot of clothes for him and leaving them in his room with no
explanation. She couldn't even find a reason to do it other than
the fact that he had virtually no decent clothes other than what he trained
him. And she had noticed that he hadn't been training half as much
as he used to. But she never bothered to ask why.
She didn't really care. Well, she did, but she didn't want to
ask. When she saw him she turned around and went the other way.
She had been doing so for a solid week after her business trip. Then
one day he spotted her and she quickly did an about-face but before she
could take another step he was in her face. She immediately flinched
much to his surprise and screamed: "Get the hell away from me!" much
to her surprise he cried:
""I don't remember! Tell me what I did! I can't remember!"
the argument that followed surprised her. She had heard of people
who had horrible tempers just "seeing red", going crazy, and not
remembering any of it. And by the look of anguish on his face she
believed he'd done the same. But it still scared her. But she
understood what had happened better and resolved never to cross the line
with him.
And she even got some surprising information. Vegeta had actually
been upset that she'd avoided him. After hearing that, she really
didn't know what to think.
He didn't like her avoiding him. It was almost as shocking as
if he'd said he actually LIKED her. It was insane.
She had actually teased him about missing her. But his explanation
had left her confused. Her avoiding him reminded him of.. things.
Whatever that meant.
Something was going on with him. She sighed. She was only
giving herself more questions to think about. She had to talk to
him. Hopefully he'd be home soon.
TBC…