By QueenSaiyajin
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragonball Z or any of its characters, and am writing this fanfic purely for entertainment purposes.
TIMELINE: This story takes place immediately after the first Brolly movie, during the ten days before the Cell Games begin.
Vegeta flew wildly in the direction of his mortal enemy’s ki, battling the most horrific images his imagination could conjure. His woman in Kakarot’s arms, engaged in intimacies that had been theirs alone, as Kakarot defiled her in every way possible. The agony rose to his throat, and he screamed in anguish as his ki flared bright as a supernova. He forced the visions down as he concentrated on something far less painful, something that would give him the only satisfaction he would ever feel again.
Killing Kakarot. A final flash from afar would be far too merciful, with less honor than befitted his vengeance. No, Kakarot would know the same pain that Vegeta was feeling right now. With his bare hands he would rip him to shreds, tearing out his heart just as they had torn out his. He’d never revealed the depth of his love, but Kakarot would know the extent of his wrath.
And Bulma… would this be the proof she needed, he thought bitterly? Would seeing him lose his mind finally convince her that he’d already lost his heart and soul to her long ago? He wanted desperately to hate her for what she had done to him, to despise her as much as he despised himself. But it was precisely because he knew that he had driven her to this that he could not hate her. On the contrary, his love for her had become such an integral part of his being that he was terrified at the thought of losing her.
A sudden burst of ki flowed towards him and he knew his prey was near. He wondered absently if Bulma would hate him for killing her lover. But it didn’t really matter, did it? It would feel too good….
Bulma held on tightly to her son as he flew towards his father’s ki. She’d told him what had transpired, and he’d assured her that he’d prevent anyone from getting hurt. She looked up at his face now, serious and determined like Vegeta’s, but with a tinge of worry in the blue eyes that were hers. “Do you feel any better?” she asked him as she noticed that the color had returned to his face.
“A lot,” he said. “Gramps came into my room after he examined my blood sample. He said it’s some kind of retrovirus that’s only attacking the Saiyan components in our blood. The human antibodies are fighting it off.”
“That’s why your father and Goku are in worse shape,” she surmised, the scientist in her taking over for a moment. “Then we should be able to cure them using a serum from your blood, and Gohan’s—“
“Let’s find them, first,” Trunks said grimly. Suddenly he cocked his head to the side as if he had sensed something. “There,” he told her, and went off in the direction of the energies he had felt.
Vegeta, please, listen to me… she implored silently through their bond. But as she closed her eyes and strained to feel him, her being was suddenly overwhelmed by the assault of his emotions, a confused brew of rage and agony that threatened to make her cry out in pain. How could he feel this and still breath? How could she ever break through his anguish and fury and bring him back from the madness that she could feel him slowly falling into?
“Mom, are you okay?” Trunks asked, looking at her strangely. Had her face revealed the horror of what she had felt?
“Yes…but we’d better hurry.”
Vegeta stopped mid-air as the ki he had been tracking began to make a descent. It was but a few miles from the Son home, and Vegeta realized at once that Kakarot must have sensed him coming. Not once letting down his guard, he slowly set down, singeing the grass with each step that he took towards his victim.
“Kakarot!!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice echoing in the mountains.
A figure stepped from the shadows, glaring at him with a ferocious look that seemed strange on that clown, making him look much more like his brother Raditz. “You have a problem, Vegeta?” he challenged.
“Yes! The fact that you’re still alive!” he growled, slamming his fist into his enemy’s face so hard that it sent the other man flying into a tree. Before Kakarot could recover, Vegeta had grabbed him by the neck with both hands, choking him with a grip that would have snapped a human’s neck.
“Vegeta, stop!”
His woman’s cry caught him off guard, long enough for Kakarot to burst into Super Saiyan and throw him across the field.
“Vegeta!” She ran to him, mocking him with what he once would have believed was real concern on her face.
“What’s the matter, woman?” he taunted her bitterly, as he brought himself to his feet. “Are you worried that I’ll make your lover’s death as painful as he deserves!?”
“He’s not my lover, you big jerk!” she had the nerve to chastise him. “Nothing happened between us. I swear to you!”
“She’s telling the truth, Dad!” His son ran up to him. That explained at least how Bulma had gotten here. Why had she come here?
“Leave this place now, boy,” Vegeta ordered him. “And take your mother with you. This is none of your concern.”
“Dad, nothing is going on between Mom and Goku—“
Vegeta looked at him, suddenly feeling sorry for the young man who had failed to see the truth. “Doesn’t it all make sense to you now? Think about it. She didn’t send you back in time to save me, did she, Trunks? It was to save Kakarot. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was fucking her in your time, too—“
“Vegeta, how dare you talk like that to our son!” Bulma was yelling.
He looked at her for a long moment, struggling to hold on to the anger rather than betray his pain to her. “If he really is my son,” he said sharply.
“You stupid son of a bitch, Vegeta! Stop it, right now!” Why were there tears in her eyes?
“I don’t care how sick and deluded you are,” Trunks said, stepping up to him in sudden anger. “I’m not going to let you talk about my mom that way!”
“I’m not sick,” he spat.
“Yes you are! We all are! And I’m not going to let you and Goku kill each other!”
He smirked, as out of the corner of his eye he saw Kakarot walking towards him. “Don’t worry, Trunks. Only one of us will die tonight.”
He raised a hand, hurling a blue ball of ki directly at the other Saiyan’s face. Faster than the speed of light Kakarot disappeared—damn that Instant Transmission!—reappearing less than two feet in front of him, a sneer on his face. “If it isn’t the Prince of all assholes,” he mocked, surprising Vegeta even as he enraged him.
“It wasn’t enough for you, was it Kakarot?!” he accused, knowing the moment of truth had come. “To have robbed me of my destiny—my honor--“
“A man who would treat a woman as you do has no honor!” Kakarot spat back at him.
“She was everything to me!” he cried, ramming his fist into that smug face. Over and over he pummeled his fists into Kakarot’s body as if it were a punching bag, until blood began to flow from the Saiyan’s wounds. Kakarot was fighting him back now, matching blow for blow. As if in a dream he could hear his woman screaming for them to stop, but the nightmare that had descended upon him would not let him relent. Only once he had killed Kakarot could this all be set to rest, only then would she be his and his alone once more…
Bulma watched helplessly as Vegeta and Goku pounded each other into bloody pulps, exchanging blows in a furious frenzy that her eyes could barely follow. Alien fever and primal instincts had driven both men to the brink of insanity, as they attacked each other with more ferocity than she had ever seen in either of them. Through her bond with Vegeta she could feel his pain, both physical and emotional, as he lashed out at Goku for all his transgressions, both real and imagined. And Goku had taken on a fierce countenance that was unnatural for him, as he met her husband’s attacks with a frightening ease. Goku was the stronger of the two—she knew that—but Vegeta’s rage had empowered him. In horror she watched as they began to throw each other into the cliff side, shaking the ground with each impact, leaving craters in their wake. Trunks was trying to stop them, but to no avail. Both men were beyond all reason as they fell, and rose again, each time with less strength but greater determination than before.
Trunks went flying through the air as he tried once more to get between them, becoming instead the victim of their blows. Still exhausted himself, from his bout with the fever, he collapsed on the ground near her, close to losing consciousness. “Trunks!” she cried, running to him.
“I’m…sorry, Mom,” he managed.
In horror she looked up to see the fatal stance both men had taken as they stood facing each other from a distance. Goku was drawing his hands together in an all-too-familiar pose, as Vegeta raised his arms up to call forth the last of his energy for his finishing move.
“Ka…Me…..”
“Goku, no!!! Don’t do it! Please!” Tears started to stream from her eyes as she realized what he meant to do.
She looked desperately at Vegeta, who was beginning to draw his hands together to combine the awesome energy between them. “FINAL…”
“Ha…Me…”
“NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
She moved without thinking, her instincts telling her the only way she could avert the tragedy that was about to unfold. She leapt at Vegeta, throwing her arms around his neck, clutching at him desperately both to stop him from attacking and to shield him from the blow that Goku meant to kill him.
Vegeta’s eyes opened wide in surprise as she lunged at him, and the fearsome power that he had held at his fingertips was swept back into his body as he caught her in his arms.
“HA!”
Goku’s reactions had not been so quick. Or perhaps he had been so consumed by the fever that he didn’t care. Bulma buried her head in her husband’s chest, bracing herself for what was to come, her only thought a prayer that her body would absorb enough of the blast so that Vegeta would live…
The heat of the Kamehameha wave dissipated into the cool chill of air as Vegeta flew up and away from the attack. In shock, she looked down below at the mountain that was blown into rubble by Goku’s blast. She shuddered as she realized that neither of them would have survived that.
“Foolish woman,” he chastised, but his voice betrayed just how shaken he was. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. He knew. And as she looked into his eyes, she saw none of the fury that had been there. “I had to get your attention somehow,” she said softly.
He sighed deeply, looking as if he would cry with relief. “You have it now,” he replied.
“Then trust me,” she said slowly. “And see what’s in my heart…”
He nodded slowly as their lips crushed together in a joy of being alive together. And as she felt his mind open to hers, she let him see all that was there. The incident on the terrace, where betrayal had never once entered her mind or her heart. The struggle of the past few hours, as the fever had swept through their house, their family…
Vegeta kissed her hungrily, drawing in her taste, her warmth, even as their minds interlaced. To his shame he saw all as she had lived it, and knew that he had wrongly accused her. She had never betrayed him. She never would. How foolish he had been not to believe her!
But then there was more, so much more! Her worry over their
sons, and the illness that had consumed them. Gods, I gave it to the
baby…
He’s alright now… she promised him, hearing his guilt. And he saw their precious son through her eyes, happy and healthy once more…
Then, as her consciousness streamed into his, he saw her alone, crying over him, wondering if he had abandoned her for good this time… And the memory flowed into countless others, a myriad of painful images of abandonment, insecurity, uncertainty and loneliness. She loved him so much it hurt, and he treated her as if she were nothing…Why was it so hard to say that he loved her? Why did he act as if she were nothing more to him that a---
“Oh, Bulma, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…” he said in a hushed whisper as he hugged her tightly to him, clinging to her for dear life. “I’m so…sorry…” His voice broke with emotion as the cleansing tears fell from his eyes. He didn’t care. They were nearly in the clouds, and no one could see but her. And she needed to see. She needed to know what she meant to him.
“I do,” she said, reading his thoughts, looking into his eyes and smiling through the tears that he wasn’t sure were hers or his own. “I do now.”
But he knew that it wasn’t enough. He had to give her what she needed. What she deserved.
“I love you,” he said passionately, unabashed. Then, as her beautiful eyes opened wide in delight, he knew it was right and said it again, this time with even more emotion, if that were possible. “I love you.”
“And I love you, Vegeta,” she said with a tender smile. “So, so much…”
He kissed her again. “Let’s go home.”