Dangerous Bond

Chapter 44 : Plan in action

Goku woke at a ridiculous in the morning, yawning to himself and rubbing his eyes.

'Hey,' He thought looking around the room, 'Where am I? Oh wait, I'm meant to be...!'

He leapt to his feet, waiting for the zillion cameras he was sure were watching him stick their heads out of hiding places as thunder shook the building and Bulma came after him with a sledge hammer. Fortunately for Goku, none of the above happened and he let himself settle down again.

'At least nothing happened to Vegeta...' He thought to himself, afraid of what Bulma would do if something had.

He glanced over at the prince's bed, mostly hiden by darkness, for comfirmation. What he saw instead didn't really fit that catagory... A dark stain had discoloured the sheets and for the first time Goku realised there was a metallic tint to the air that normally came with blood...

"Hey, Vegeta?" He said to the darkness, creeping forward and flipping on the light.

The Saiya-jin no Ouji was unconcious again, blood dripping out of his mouth and soaking into the white sheets he lay on. Goku flinched, it wasn't that much blood, but it meant something was wrong. Which meant he could get in trouble and, more importantly, Vegeta die from...

Down in the lab Bulma sat staring at the duplicating machine with an empty gaze. In her head she was with all her family and friends, none of them sick and dying, and they were all congratulating her on her wedding. Vegeta was stood off from the rest like always, giving people the come-any-closer-and-I'll-kill-you look to everyone in the general vacinity. Bulma smiled as, in her head, Kiyashi got up and went over to her brother and the two started to talk about something. It was so good to see them standing there, so good she didn't want to go back to reality, a reality where she was watching a little silver box to make sure nothing went wrong with a complex and fragile process. Also so good that she wasn't paying attention to the signals her bond she sending her.

Finaly she snapped out of her reverie, the characters 21 HRs coming into focus. Luckily for Goku he had given Vegeat enough ki to wake him up by this time, otherwise he would have been in serious trouble.

"Why the Hell are you here, Kakarot?" Vegeta wanted to know as he sat up, wiping the blood from the side of his mouth without realising what it was.

He was feeling lightheaded from the alien ki in his body and could barely even get his brain to work long enough to figure out that, yes, this was Kakarot and, yes, he was in his room. HIS room.

"Bulma told me to." Son-kun replied smartly, "She wants me to make sure you don't die while she's watching the replicaten."

"Replicator." Vegeta corrected irritably, trying to stop the buzzing in his ears.

'Where'd she get a replicator? What the Hell is going on around here? And why does it stink of iron in here?!'

He looked back down at the sheets beneath him, eyes meeting with the red, illuminated by the light Kakarot had turned on. Just to make sure he lifted u0p the hand he had used to wipe the blood away from his face and licked it slowly.

'Damn.'

'~Damn? What's damned? Vegeta, are you OK up there?~' Bulma's worried voice inquired.

'~Everything's... fine.~' He lied.

'~Oh, okay. Everything's fine down here too.~' Downstairs Bulma blinked, '~Hey wait, you're awake? And not in pain? Did Son-kun give you some of his ki by any chance?~'

Vegeta thought about this. Taking the light-headedness and strange lack of pain he guessed that, yes, that was the case.

'~He has.~'

Bulma bit her lip, Vegeta must not know what that entailed.

'~Um, okay then. You rest now, right?~'

His disaproving grunt replied, but other than that he made no arguement. Bulma wasn't quite in the same state of mind.

'Oh damn!' She thought, 'That means it's bad already! And we've still got 20 1/2 hours left to go!'

'It's no a bad thing!' The more optimist part of her mind argued, 'It means that you were right and that ki can help hold off the illness. It also means that Goku can stop him from going under again!'

'Yeah, think of it that way.' She ordered herself, 'It isn't that bad at all. Everything's good. Everything could not be better. Quit worrying, the antidote WILL be ready in time. It WILL.'

And it certainly seemed that way. Vegeta didn't go unconcious again thanks to a much wider awake Goku and all went well with the replicator. Midnight saw Bulma standing in front of the machine, forcefully holding herself down so she couldn't do a stupid victory dance. The box was counting down seconds now, down all the way to 2... With a ting the replicator was finished and Bulma pulled out the test-tubes filled with poisen-goop before handing them to the three remaining scientists.

"It should take about half an hour to create the antidote." The red haired scientist told her, unable to stop herself smiling. Hey, it was good that those two didn't have to die.

"We'll come and tell you when it's ready."

Up in the house part of CC Vegeta was sweating profusely, his bloodshot eyes squeezed shut against the pain that was ravaging his body. No matter how much ki Goku poured into the prince nothing seemed to change, if anything he was getting worse. If Goku had been with them on the Harathokin ship he would have known that he was reaching the stage Kiyashi had been in after the overdose but all he knew was that this was not good.

"Hey! Guess what?" Bulma said happily, coming into the room, "In twenty-five minutes the antidote will be..."

She cut off her sentance upon seeing Vegeta, just starting to twitch and writhe in the pain that was shooting through him.

"Kami NO!" She yelled, running up to the bedside and wiping some of his sweat from his forehead with a shaky hand, "Goku! Can't you do something?"

"I'm trying..." The super warrior promised her, "Honestly, I am, but it's not working!"

"Use more ki!" She ordered desperately.

"But Bulma..."

"I don't care what excuse you have! USE IT!" She yelled, running off to the bathroom to get a towel and run it under cold water.

Goku sighed but he could see her point. Vegeta looked like he was reaching breaking point.

"If you were awake you'd either love this or hate it." He told the ailing Saiya-jin no Ouji... And let his Super Saiya-jin level run into him.

When Bulma got back she found Goku holding onto the bedside table for dear life, ki drained so badly he could barely stand. But what really caught her attention was Vegeta himself, still twitching and whimpering uncontrolably, but with yellow hair. She stared and approached him cautiously with the towel. Seeing that he didn't lash out far enough to catch her one, Bulma reached over and placed the moist towel on his forehead. The optimistic part of her mind was saying that he looked cute blonde, but she shut that information up for later. A later that there WOULD be.

'~It's going to be alright now.~' She told him soothingly, knowing full well how much he'd hate to have her say that to him if he were awake, '~The antidote will be ready in... uh, fifteen minutes. You can last that long, right?~'

Goku watched the two shakily, the silver bond that ran between them perfectly visable to his eyes. He could also see that Bulma was talking to Vegeta through their link by the aqua coloured ki seeping down her end but didn't see any reply. What could he expect? The guy was currently fighting off death! As dire as the situation currently was, Goku couldn't help but smile. Trunks hadn't been lying then. On an after-thought he focused his attention on Bulma, checking to see if she had double ki. She didn't. He shrugged, no problem, there was still a little over a year before the androids came anyway.

After fourteen pain-staking minutes there was a knock on the door and the red haired woman stepped in.

"The antidote is ready, we just have to move him now..." She gave the blonde-haired Vegeta a weird glance before gesturing for someone else to come in.

"Would it be too much if I helped?" Yamcha asked, cringing away from Bulma least she attack him.

"Of course you can help." Bulma said cooly, "Just carry him downstairs."

She pulled back to reveal one Super Saiya-jin Vegeta. Yamcha stared, blinked, gulped and stared some more. Then he clenched his fists and nodded, perhaps he could redeem himself a little?

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws