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Capsule Corp. was peacefully quiet as Bulma Briefs walked slowly and carefully down the hallway toward her son’s room. Trunks was sleeping restfully in her arms at the moment and Bulma smiled down at him. They had almost died a few weeks ago, something that made her heart squeeze painfully when she thought about it. But they were alive. He was alive and breathing softly in her arms.
She shifted him slightly so she could open the door to the nursery and flicked on the light. She smiled at the room that she had spent so many hours obsessing over. She had wanted it to be a place that Trunks could grow into and she felt she had done a pretty good job of it.
Right now, it might have been covered in baby toys and adorable little animal paintings along the wall, but those could be easily removed and replaced as Trunks grew and developed his own interests.
She briefly wondered if one of his interests would be fighting, but quickly pushed it out of her mind. It was peacetime now, Cell had been defeated. A new enemy would surely present itself at some point, but right now the only enemy she was trying to battle were the thoughts of loneliness.
They were safe, she reminded herself and stepped into the room to place him into his crib for the evening. She brushed aside his lavender hair and again marveled at his strong features. He would be handsome, she knew from the future version she had met, but also intelligent. He would be sweet and good. He would be all of the good parts of her, with his father’s strength and determination.
He let out a small coo and his arms stretched above his head, his small hands curling into fists. He settled into the mattress and turned his head away. When Bulma was sure he wasn’t going to wake, she turned to leave to spend some needed time taking care of herself. She couldn’t remember the last time that she had just watched a movie to watch a movie. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been able to focus on something other than the impending destruction of the Earth and possible ways she could be of help.
They were safe, she reminded herself again.
It still didn’t feel quite true.
Bulma had been trying not to feel the holes that gnawed in her heart but as she made her way back down the stair to the living room, her grief squeezed her lungs, her breath catching.
She was alone now.
One of her best friends was gone and she couldn’t remember the last time they had really talked.
And Vegeta… he’d abandoned her as soon as the future Trunks had returned to his own timeline. Abandoned her and Trunks like they were nothing.
He had said they were… she hadn’t believed him. She felt like a fool. Bulma knew that she wasn’t always the best judge of character, her penchant for fawning over and falling in love with bad boys evidence enough for her, but she thought she’d been something to him, felt something in the way he held her, in the way he sought her out during his time here.
When she’d collected herself a bit, she grabbed a pint of ice cream from the freezer, a spoon from the drawer of silverware, and made her way into the living room.
Immediately she turned the channel to a cheesy romantic comedy and helped herself to three spoonfuls of ice cream and tried to focus all of her thoughts on the beautiful actors on her screen.
The couple was arguing, gesturing wildly. And then he left.
Bulma felt the pain squeeze her heart again. Vegeta had never left during their arguments. He’d rise to meet her, to challenge her until they both felt like they were heard.
Never left. She giggled out loud as the warms tears pooled in her eyes. He isn’t fucking here, Bulma. He left. He probably wasn’t even on this planet anymore.
Bulma pushed her feelings away again. She couldn’t let herself feel his loss.
Trunks needed her. He needed her and Bulma knew that if she let herself stop and feel Vegeta’s absence, she would be consumed by grief.
She had told him she loved him. He had said nothing. She told herself that the way he pushed her onto the bed after, had kissed her harder was evidence that he had felt something about what she said. She had been wrong.
She was rarely wrong when it came to science, to building machinery with her hands. Calculations and the mechanics of a machine made sense. But feelings… weren’t science.
She sighed and scooped another bit of ice cream into her mouth. She refocused on the movie again.
The woman, Tara she thought her name might have been, had thrown herself back into her work after Linus’s departure.
“What kind of name is Linus? Girl, you’re better off without that.” She told the TV, stuffing another spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. “Although I’m one to talk. What kind of name is Vegeta? Linus is better than that.”
“No it’s not.” Said a gravelly voice from behind her.
Bulma froze, her heart beating faster. She took a deep breath, trying to gather herself before she turned around to face him.
She took another deep breath and dropped the spoon into the carton, leaning forward to set it on the table. A third breath and wiped her eyes. A fourth and stood, turning around to face him.
He was leaning against the back doors, his arms tightly crossed across his chest. He was filthy, covered in what looked like dirt and blood. His clothes were ripped, the skin exposed beneath looking like it was cut and bruised.
“You look like shit.” She said, copying his stance, her arms crossing over her chest. She let herself look at his face then, search for something, anything to tell her how he was feeling or what he was thinking.
She came up empty and she clenched her jaw in frustration.
She waited for him to say something, but he just stood there, looking at her. Bulma knew he wouldn’t be the first to break. He could outlast her in silence, no competition.
“I’m surprised you’re still on this mudball. Thought you’d left it the first moment you could.” She said, spitting as much venom into the words as she could.
He raised a hand and pointed his thumb behind him at something outside of the patio doors. “The ships been here this whole time.”
“But you haven’t.” She heard the hurt in her voice and clenched her jaw to stop betraying her feelings any further.
Vegeta said nothing again and Bulma sighed.
“If you’re here to get your stuff, just take it and leave. Take the space ship and just fucking go.” She felt the fight leave her and she turned back toward the TV, sitting back down on the couch. She tried to focus on the movie again and ignore his steps on the tile behind her.
But then he was standing in front of the TV and Bulma recognized the uncomfortable look on his face as embarrassment. She waited for him to say something. She would wait him out this time.
It took some moments and Bulma felt her resolve wavering again, but then he spoke.
“I’m not here to leave.” He said finally, his voice so quiet she barely heard it. He turned and pressed the power button of the TV and the silence in the room felt heavy. “I’ve come to ask if I can come home.”
Bulma’s mouth dropped open and she recognized what this was. He was giving her the power. The power to choose him, to keep him if she wanted to.
He called Capsule Corp. home.
“What?” She asked, wanting to make sure she really understood what was going on here.
He let out an irritated sigh. “Woman, I know you heard me.”
Bulma felt a thrill of power and smiled in a way she hoped looked cruel. She saw Vegeta’s eyes darken in a way that made her want to pull him to her, but she sat back and crossed her arms again.
“I left. The last time I left, you said that I wasn’t allowed back if I left you again. I want to know if I can come back.” His words were clipped and his jaw clenched and unclenched as he waited for her response. Bulma had never felt so powerful in her life and Bulma had felt powerful plenty in her lifetime.
She was a powerful woman, her genius and money granting her access to whatever she wanted. But this, this was power she had never had before: the power to control Vegeta.
“Why? Why would you want to come back to me? I mean nothing to you.”
“You mean…” he trailed off and looked away from her. Something like embarrassment crossed over his face and she smiled wider as a blush spread across his cheeks. “You mean something to me.” He grumbled.
“You hate the earth. Why would you want to stay here?” It was a serious question.
“I don’t hate you.” He spit and Bulma bit her lip from laughing. He saw it anyway and stomped over to where she sat. “Enough of this. Can I or can’t I?”
Anger flared and Bulma stood, her hands flying to her hips. “I don’t know! Are you going to leave me again? Will you leave every time something doesn’t go your way so you can go throw a temper tantrum and smash some rocks?”
“Probably!” He said, his voice louder as well, matching hers. His scowl deepened and he took a deep breath. “But I will always come back. You are—.” He stopped himself and grabbed her shoulders. “Bulma, you are important to me.”
It was the first time he’d ever said something like that to her and she felt the fight leave her. He smirked at what she assumed was the shocked look on her face.
Her indignant anger flared up again. She was important to him? Only now, that he had no one and nothing?
“You were going to let me die! You said that Trunks and I meant nothing to you.”
The only indication that what Bulma had said affected him was the slightest increase of pressure from the fingers on her shoulder. She narrowed her eyes at him, waiting him out for several long moments before he finally broke.
“I was a fool.” He closed his eyes and guided her down towards the couch. “I knew it when Trunks died. How foolish I’d been to pretend you both meant nothing to me. I was lucky that he saved you and the child.” His calm voice was only serving to make her angrier. She wanted to yell at him, argue with him, make him understand how much he had hurt her, but he wasn’t rising to her bait.
“Is this life of domesticity enough for you? Am I enough for you? Now that Goku’s gone, what do you have left?”
Vegeta let her go and crossed his arms against his chest, closing his eyes. “Someone will have to protect this mudball, as its inhabitants are terribly weak.”
Bulma let herself laugh at him this time. “You don’t care about the earth. You’re staying to protect me and Trunks.”
She saw his muscles tense and she knew she was right.
“Fine. You can stay.” She leaned forward and pressed the power button on the remote, grabbing the pint of ice cream as she sat back. She scooped a spoonful into her mouth and then offered it to Vegeta who had settled into the couch beside her, his arms still crossed over his chest.
He looked at the carton and hesitantly uncrossed his arms to reach for it. When he accepted it, she scooted a bit closer to him and let herself lean into his warmth.
They were safe, she reminded herself. This time, with Vegeta next to her, it felt true.