Work Text:
In the vast, gleaming garage of the Capsule Corporation, the metallic noise of colliding tools and the hum of electrical circuits were the only beat of life in a dying world.
Bulma Briefs was hunched over her workbench.
She was building...something.
A new radar? A spare part for yet another destroyed vehicle? It didn't matter.
It was the only thing she could do, the only thing that kept her busy enough not to succumb to the terror that reigned outside, where metal monsters destroyed everything.
"If only that disease hadn't taken Goku away..." she murmured, clutching a screwdriver like a talisman.
The thought of her childhood friend, the hero who could make a difference, brought tears to her eyes.
She quickly wiped a salty drop with the back of her hand.
She couldn't keep her mind busy.
Goku's memories quickly turned into the image of another man: the love of her life, the proud and irascible Vegeta, who at that moment was in the middle of the battle with the rest of her friends.
The man she loved, the father of her child.
As if her thoughts had the power to evoke him, the armored garage door opened with a violent crash, breaking its silence.
Vegeta staggered in, his Saiyan armor stained with dust and blood, his left shoulder dripping with a dark crimson patch.
"Oh my God, Vegeta!" exclaimed Bulma, the screwdriver slipped out of her hand and fell with a dull rattle on the concrete floor.
She immediately ran to the wounded man.
"Let me check, sit down, now!"
With expert fingers, she helped him get rid of the heavy armor and the torn top of his blue battle suit.
She examined the wound: a deep cut but, fortunately, not lethal.
"It's a superficial wound, don't worry" he said, running a hand through his unruly black hair, his dark eyes fixed on an undefined point on the floor "Rather, I have bad news, woman"
Bulma froze, her concentrated expression as she bandaged his shoulder turned into a shadow of concern.
"Bad news? What's up?"
Vegeta didn't look at her.
His tone was unusually flat, devoid of the usual arrogance.
"I don't know how to tell you, so I'll get straight to the point" he said "All your friends...they were killed by the Androids"
Bulma's inner world split.
Her heart stopped for an eternity, and then resumed beating in a breathless and painful race against her ribs.
Tears began to form on the sides of her eyes, and a suffocating lump blocked her throat, making it difficult to even breathe.
"W-what? Tell me you're joking, please" she stammered, her voice almost a moan.
"The Namekian is dead too" he continued, without any apparent emotion "So the Dragon Balls are gone. They will never be able to come back to life"
Piccolo was dead.
The Dragon Balls...destroyed.
There was no longer the possibility of a happy ending, of bringing everyone back.
Reality crushed her.
"W-what about Krillin? And Tenshinhan?" she asked in a broken voice, clinging to a thread of hope.
"They are all dead, woman. Kakaroth's son and I are the only ones left"
"Poor little Gohan..." she whispered, letting herself fall on a metal stool "He had to witness this tragedy..."
She raised her eyes, full of tears, to the man.
"What...What are you going to do?"
Vegeta clenched his jaw.
"Tomorrow morning I will go back to face them"
His voice was firm, resolute.
"Are you crazy?! You just got back from a fight...you can't...you can't face them alone!" protested Bulma, clutching his wounded shoulders with trembling hands.
"They are all dead. I have no other choice"
"No! I forbid you!" she shouted, tears beginning to fall.
"Woman...I've already made my decision" he said, his adamantness back overbearing.
"Damn it, you'd better come back alive!" she exclaimed.
He didn't pay lip service, but gave her a slight smile.
That unusual, almost imperceptible smile that he reserved only for her.
"Don't you dare just smile!" she exclaimed, her sobs shaking his chest "Just promise me you'll come back!"
"I don't like to make promises I'm not sure I can keep, you know" he said with a tired sigh.
"I don't care! I need you to promise...even if you have to tell me a lie" she begged, hugging him with desperate strength.
Vegeta hesitated, then his pride bowed to her suffering.
"I promise"
She got up and kissed him with unprecedented passion and despair.
She wanted to feel him close, she wanted his warmth, his strong arms that held her.
It was the last spark of life in a world of death.
They undressed each other in a whirlwind of urgency and made love, there, on the cold and hard metal counter of the garage.
It was not their usual way of making love; This time it was desperate, raw, as if it were the last moment they would ever share, their last night.
"I love you" she whispered against his lips, tears and sweat mingling.
"I love you too" he replied, his voice deep and hoarse, whispering against her neck.
Those three words.
He had never told her.
She had always known it, but hearing it broke her heart.
They should have made her happy, but instead they desperately felt like a goodbye.
She held him close to her with all her strength until sleep overcame her, her eyelids heavy with tears and exhaustion.
When Bulma woke up the next morning, the cold metal of the counter made her wince.
He was already on his feet, in his beloved battle suit, and he was fastening his armor to his chest.
She got up quickly, her stomach contracted.
She embraced him from behind, squeezing him with all the strength she had, in a futile attempt to hold him back.
"Bulma..." he sighed.
"Please..." she whispered, her voice broken "Don't go..."
"I have to"
"I love you..." she whispered, loosening her grip and allowing him to turn to look at her.
He took her face in his hands, his rough palms contrasting with her soft skin, and rested his forehead against hers.
"I love you too" he whispered one last time.
"Will you promise you'll come back?" she asked, grabbing his wrists, begging.
He sighed, but his words came clear and firm.
"I promise"
It was a lie.
They both knew it.
As proud as he was, Vegeta recognized the overwhelming power of the Androids.
He was not at all sure that he could come back alive.
"Be careful" she said, stroking his cheek with a thumb.
"I will" he replied, stroking her hair "You take care of Trunks. Even if I don't..."
"Don't say it, please" she interrupted him, shaking her head "Can you kiss me?"
He nodded and kissed her.
She desperately wrapped her arms around his neck, savoring the softness and warmth of his lips, imprinting the sensation in her memory.
She detached only when she ran out of oxygen.
"Stay safe and don't leave this house for any reason in the world, okay?" he said.
She nodded, a last, feeble promise.
"Trunks and I will be safe"
She watched him fly away, a tiny spot in the immensity of the livid sky.
"Come home, my love" she whispered to the wind.
***
Hours passed.
Endless hours, punctuated only by the soft sobs of her six-month-old baby, Trunks, whom Bulma held tightly in her arms.
She paced back and forth in the Capsule Corporation lounge, a whirlwind of anxiety.
"Honey, you'll see that everything will be fine" said Dr. Briefs, trying to calm his daughter.
"Vegeta is such a strong boy" added Panchy, Bulma's mother, with her usual light smile "I'm sure he'll be back in a moment"
Just then, the sliding doors opened, revealing a terrifying image.
"Gohan!" exclaimed Bulma, the blood freezing in her veins.
The boy was covered in wounds and blood, and against his shoulder, like a dead weight, was Vegeta, unconscious.
"W-what happened?" she asked, running towards them.
"The Androids..." Gohan said, his voice was a thread.
"Why doesn't he wake up?" asked Bulma, her eyes fixed on her beloved.
"Bulma...I'm sorry...it's all my fault...he protected me from the Androids and..." stammered Gohan, trembling, and then leaned Vegeta with his back against the polished marble floor of the living room.
Bulma's eyes widened in silent horror when she finally saw his chest: there was a large hole on his chest, the dark, thick blood that didn't stop gushing out, as well as the blood staining his temple and the corners of his mouth.
She left Trunks with her mother and knelt in front of his body.
"Vegeta? Vegeta, can you hear me? Please wake up!" she said desperately.
She placed a trembling hand on his face and groaned as she felt his icy skin to the touch.
Only now she realize how much his skin, usually tanned, was now cadaverous white.
She sobbed at the sight.
"No...please..."
"I'm sorry, Bulma..." Gohan said, looking down, unable to bear the woman's pain.
"He was here...only yesterday I held him in my arms..." she whispered.
She continued to caress his face, then buried her head against his lifeless body, the sobs tearing her throat.
She had no more words, only a cosmic pain.
All she could do was mourn her lost love.
He was gone.
And with him, her last hope.
Bulma's world had fallen into a thousand irretrievable pieces.
***
A few days later, the sky was leaden and heavy.
Bulma was sitting motionless in a chair in the vast garden of the Capsule Corporation.
She wore a long black dress that wrapped around her body and a small veil of the same color covered her pale face.
In front of her, with a lost gaze, burned the funeral pyre, the orange flames that consumed his remains.
She was clutching a small brown box in her hands, containing the ashes of her beloved.
She was clutching that box so tightly that her knuckles were white, the physical pain almost a relief from her inner torment.
She ignored everything and everyone: her mother crying in Dr. Briefs' arms, little Gohan looking at the flames with a guilt-free look, and even Trunks crying softly in Chi-Chi's arms.
Nothing mattered anymore, now that he was gone.
She clutched the box to her chest and the sobs resumed.
Her life no longer had meaning.
How had she lived before meeting him? How could she continue now?
She missed him like air.
Her bed was too big, cold, and bare without his muscular body next to her.
She gasped slightly when she felt a hand rest on her shoulder.
She looked up, meeting her father's sweet and worried eyes.
"Dad..."
He sat down next to her.
"Honey..."
"How am I supposed to go on now?" she whispered, her eyes still fixed on the box "I...I no longer remember what my life was like before him, and I don't want to experience it. We should have gotten married, maybe have another child...we should have lived happily ever after"
"I know that what happened seems like a tragedy to you..." her father tried to say.
"It's a tragedy!" interrupted Bulma, her voice was a hoarse growl "My boyfriend, the love of my life, the father of my child...is dead!"
"But he left you with something very important to look after" Dr. Briefs said, looking at his grandson in the distance "Trunks"
"I can't even look at him" said Bulma, looking down at him "He looks so much like him. Every time I look at him, I only see him"
"Is that why you neglected him these days?" asked her father, gently.
Bulma did not answer.
It was true.
Since Vegeta had died, she had avoided her son.
It was stronger than her.
That same sulky expression...every time she saw him, her heart broke and burst into tears.
"I know it feels like the end of the world now, Bulma. But I just want to remind you that you have a reason to keep going. His legacy. Trunks"
Later, late at night, Bulma took the time to transfer the ashes of her love.
She couldn't keep it in a simple cardboard box.
The glorious Prince of the Saiyans deserved better.
She placed the refined urn on the bedside table next to her bed.
It was of a white and blue ceramic, colors that vaguely recalled his beloved battle suit.
"It suits you" she whispered, caressing the smooth, cold surface.
She didn't feel ready to bury him yet, nor did she know what to engrave on his grave.
For now, the urn would remain with her.
She approached the crib next to her bed and looked at Trunks sleeping.
She knelt down, her eyes watering for the umpteenth time.
He was the same as his father even in his sleep.
She caressed his cheek.
"My poor baby..." she whispered.
Her poor Trunks was forced to grow up without a father.
Vegeta was not a man who showed affection in a conventional way, but Bulma knew that he loved his son.
She'd caught him watching him sleep so many times, and she'd even seen him smile at him once.
There had been those small, precious moments that Trunks would never remember.
Her father's words came back to her.
She tightened the bars of the crib.
"I'll take care of you" she whispered to the sleeping baby "For him"