Always is Forever
 
 

The strange puttering it was doing would have to be removed. It was a sure sign that the machine was not completely fixed yet. She frowns biting the tip of the wrench in her hand. She has been working on this thing all morning. Something inside the motor is completely wrong.

Getting on the second step of her ladder, she reaches up with her hands to remove the metal tap from the machine. She brushes the sweat from her brow, some of the oil staining her palms messes her face.

Damn! She pushes some stray grey hair from her eyes. She bite her lips addressing the machine like a person. Listen you, I will fix you.

Suddenly, her hand drops the wrench, her eyes lose their focus, her eyesight blurs. The engine in front of her, suddenly becomes double. Like in a senseless dream. She reaches out in front of her to steady herself on the ladder.

Then it hits her.

Strong in her chest. In her heart. She looses her footing in the step, loosing her balance. It hits her again. This time she can't cry out, her breath gone. She reaches her hands to her chest.

My God...

She screams as her body hits the floor. Hard and solid in her back. She lays there, gasping, her chest heaving and burning. She tries to reach out, call for help.

Then it comes again, the heart attack stronger than before. The darkness is coming for her again. She is unable to move or speak, her tongue hard in her mouth. Her eyes stare out into the darkness.

Vejiita...

His concentration is broken by the sudden sharp pain in his heart.

Stopping in the middle of his exercise, he turns his head, looking for the source of the noise. He frowns. What is it? There is a heavy feeling in the air. All around him.

He stretches his arms in front of him, falling back into his fighting stance, ready to resume his training. He stops again. Something in the air once more. He thinks he heard someone calling his name-

Bulma!

He found her lying on her back, her chest heaving like a maddened race horse's yet, her heart hardly beating. Her once lavender hair messy, covering her face. Her eyes didn't look at him. He shook her shoulders slightly.

"Bulma," he called to her.

She moaned, her hands gripping his skin, her nails burying themselves on his arms. Her voice coarse, she tried to answer him.

He hushed her, his brows knitting together. He lifted her in his strong hands. Her small head dropped in his chest, her eyes closed. He could feel her life slowly leaving her body with every painful blood pump. Her soul fluttering away.

Hold on Woman, hold on.

She wakes to find that her clothes have been taken off and replaced by a doctor's robe, a sickling's robe, plastic and blue. Her face is covered by an air mask. She gasps as she see that she is hooked to a large machine by a dozen wires. She feels pain on her arms where the doctors have hooked her to the serum bag. She stares at the ceiling, at the white hospital roof.

He is sitting in the only other furniture in the room, apart from the machines. On a blue cushion chair, his head tilted over his chest, his arms folded like most of the time, over his chest. He has his eyes closed, but she can tell he is looking at her.

She wants to call out to him, but finds it impossible to speak. She lets herself sink into painful reality. And she is afraid. She looks back at Vejiita's form. She is human. He is not.

Bulma has never been a woman that pays attention to the way her life goes. Since she was small, she has given herself to taking life as it comes. Tossing herself at excitement, at danger and adventure. In search of romance and fun. At first, she had claimed that she needed a man in her life, meeting Yamucha, once the reason in her life. She soon discovered that she lacked patience and detachment to have him as a lover. Without wanting it so, he was the ever running around young romeo. He never meant to hurt her. It wasn't his fault that women found him so attractive. She had learned painfully that he was not the man for her. She had once believed it might have been Goku san, whom she'd seen grow before her eyes. She was wrong again.

She found her heart whispering that the man that would become her husband and father to her children, was to be a cruel vicious prince. The man that now sits in that blue chair, his head bowed, unlike other husbands. Other mates would be bent over their wives waiting for them to awake, tear stricken. He doesn't even bother to check her pulse. She closes her eyes a grinning. She knows he does know, has known even before the doctors had known.

Her childhood dream, asking the dragon for a boyfriend, had been a fantasy, a young woman's longing for the perfect man. Now, after forty years of living with Vejiita, she knows that it takes more than just one wish to get a man. Love comes by itself, not from a wish or a hunt.

He lifts his eyes to look at her. She pretends not to care, remains quiet, as if still asleep. Sure, she knows she isn't fooling his specially trained senses.

He shifts his crossed legs, and bows his head again. She smiles. Good old Vejiita. To pretend not care, to be immersed in deep thought rather than show his true feelings. He had shown more than he'd like to admit when he brought her here.

She smiles, her human wrinkles drawn back. Vejiita's wild hair is a bit unkept, years of living on earth have worn on him. She notices the casual clothes he wears, the tennis shoes on his feet, the wrinkled, sweaty shirt, the deep wrinkles in his mouth. Endless frowning has caused permanent creases to form on his forehead. There is white hair mingled between his dark Saiyan hair.

So unlike the young man she had met at Nameck sei. The father of her children. At first, even she had doubted that he'd be a good father to them. As time passed her family became what she wanted it to be. Normal, like the others. Vejiita had reared Trunks to be a great man, and Bra had grown to become a beautiful, smart lady. Both of them had become good warriors like their father wanted, and both of them had retained human senses like she wanted. Vejiita had not been the fondest parent or the most caring husband that she had read about in family magazines, but she has always known that he will never leave her. There he is when the inevitable is coming. When she is scared witless, in pain.

He has seen death many times, his father and mother, his whole planet. He has been the deliverer of death countless of times with his own hands.

Bulma shakes her head. Her mind is working nuts on her. She looks down at her wrinkled hands. Forty years.

She is old and he still looks the same. His face is harder, his jaw set deeper, his skin drawn like that of a rustic man. He is older, looking much like most earth men. Yet, he is still so young compared to her. Like a whisper next to her. She smiles. She knows she is crying. The machine next to her begins to make noise. The heart beat scale rises and lowers, making a pattern. It is her turn to die.

She is scared.

He lifts his head as the machine began to beep. The doctor had said to call him when that happened. His lips curl. The pattern began to take an abnormal slope again. He looks at her face on the pillow. He stares deep into her eyes, those scared human eyes.

He sat by her all night. Even when the doctors said he had to go home. He had slept by her, watching her as the nurses tended her the earthling way. Watching as wires were hooked up to her nose and mouth. He had waited for her to open her eyes and find him.

In silence, he watches her. Her hands lying on the covers are so thin, her blue eyes stare at him from inside dark hollow pits, her mouth drawn back, her lips dry and cracked. He closes his eyes smiling.

Bulma, still the same strong woman.

She hasn't changed at all. From the bold young woman he had met in Nameck sei, to the mechanic that she became desperate to save her world from Cell, the friend of his enemy, to his wife. His companion.

He clenches his fists. She smiles at him from under her gas mask.

He had called all her friends. Goku san, Yamucha, Kurilin, Videl and Gohan, Goten and his wife. He had contacted his son and daughter. Had tried to reach as many of her friends as he could without leaving her side for long. They had not arrived yet. He is sure she will want to say goodbye. A human's last farewell to their friends.

He doesn't have to lie to himself.

He stands from his chair. She smiles at him from the pillow. He comes to stand beside her bed side.

She knows what he is going to say before he even speaks. She shakes her head as he says it. He goes on nonetheless, aware that he sounds like a foolish husband. Like a human holding on to what they prize the most: hope.

"No, Vejiita, " she says. Her voice muffled under the gas mask. " I wouldn't want you to use the Dragon Balls on me. Do not ask Shenlong to use it's magic on me."

He looks at her silently. Her blue eyes gleam bravely. He can tell that it hurts to talk. He smirks at her proud words.

"I would like to die normally, " she finishes.

Her hand claw the bed covers nervously. Vejiita stares at her thin fingers, at her red nail polish. He nods.

"I've seen you die five times so far, " she said. There is a small irony in her voice. "Now, you'll see me die one time, the first time, the only time, like an ordinary human."

He smiles wryly. He digs his hands deeper into the pockets of his faded jeans.

"I was always brought back to life,"

"Humans aren't,"

She smiles as he bows his head. There is a slight blush on his cheeks, his mouth set tight. She notices the way his eyes blink rapidly. She closes her eyes, focusing her blurry eyesight. He took her hand, firmly squeezing hers. He can feel a tight knot in his throat. Her hands close around his. He leans closer to her, looking at her face, at her blue eyes, at her grey hair. He presses his lips tightly. She looks so miserable, so old, with all those wires and tubes and mask. Her, his wife and rightful queen of Vejiita sei.

He runs his fingers softly on her face. She feels his hot, shaking hand tracing her face and hair.

He heard the machine start to work faster, then slower, the beats further apart and slower each time. His lips part. He feels her slip from him. Her life line stretching, her eyes watching him, slowly loosing vitality, her soft smile growing faint. Slipping from him... slowly slipping from him... frail... mortal... human...

He releases the strings from her mask, removing it from her face. She protests weakly, but he doesn't listen. He removes the wires hanging from her nose, from her lips. He pushes them back, yanks them from her face. She moans softly, but he still doesn't listen. She looks deep into his eyes, at his face. Her vision is blurred by her free falling tears.

Vejiita kneels over her, holding her face, his other hand resting on her breasts, near her heart. He wants to say something, to break the barrier that has separated his human wife and him. He feels the words die in his hurting throat. Her features blur as tears well in his eyes. The second real tears he has shed.

"I love you, Bulma,"

She smiles weakly squeezing his hand on her chest. He called her by her name, not woman, like he always did. She smiles through her tears. She wants to embarrass him by pointing it out, but she can't talk enough to say all that. She coughs.

"I know,"

He holds her gaze for a long time. I've loved you all this time. You've known, haven't you Bulma? That's why I never went away, why I returned to you and never left. You've loved me all this time even though I've never been the perfect man you wanted. He feels her slip once more, her eyes flutter on their sockets.

"... Vejiita ..."

She reaches to caress his face.

And dies.

He gasps, reaching down to press her to his chest, a heart racking sob escaping him. He wants to stop her from leaving him. He chokes, his tears falling freely. His body shakes with his sobs. He holds her body, pressing it to his chest.

... Bulma ...

He gasps as a strong hand grips his shoulder. He turns to face the person there. Son Goku nods at him, silently. Goku understands the pain the Prince is feeling. He respects his pride.

Vejiita looks back at Bulma's smiling face in the pillow. Goku follows his stare.

Goku smiles softly at Vejiita as the man turns towards him again.

Not hiding his tears, the Prince of the Saiya jin smiles back.