Dragon Ball Z 1. Crying is a No-No (Alpha, 17)

**Crying is a No-No**

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Anyone who knew the first thing about Bulma Briefs could tell you as much: she was a proud, self-sufficient woman.

As such, she was prone to screaming, abusing, manhandling and blackmailing people into doing her bidding.

One thing she was _not_ prone to doing was crying.

But make no mistake – while being who she was, Bulma Briefs was by no means made of stone. She was just as susceptible to feeling like crying as was the next person. However, she was also the type of woman who made it a point not to cry in front of her friends too easily. This is the reason why most of them, to this day, had only seen her tear up only in life or death situations or at the loss of a dear person. (Said person was usually subsequently brought back to life with the dragon balls, but nevertheless…)

The fact she rarely indulged in it didn't mean that Bulma never cried tears of frustration, indignation or sadness which had nothing to do with the loss of a close one though. Maybe it wouldn't seem so to the amateur onlooker but the blue-haired heiress was a very sensitive woman.

Whenever she needed to cry over something that upset her personally, though, she had made it a point to keep it to herself or between her and her parents at most. Ever since she had been a little girl, she had found the most comfort in crying on her mother's shoulder or in her father's gentle embrace.

As times changed and her life situation shifted, Bulma found herself involved with a person to whom tears were a weakness and something to be looked down upon. Not to mention that the man himself was the very epitome of pride and thus would never allow himself to be subjected to such weakness. To Bulma that meant that he most probably sneered upon anyone he saw succumbing to such a shameful act such as crying.

And while Bulma didn't give a damn what he thought about it when she was upset, it did matter to her for Vegeta to respect her. She had worked hard for months upon months to earn his tentative sort of admiration and unspoken respect and she would hate for her hard work to have been for naught.

Not to mention that she had quickly learnt through experience that Vegeta was the worst person to go to for comfort when extremely upset. The sight of her in tears seemed to make him squeamish or disgusted—which, to this day, she wasn't entirely certain—and he wasted no time in lingering in the same premise during such moments. And so, as an adult, whenever Bulma needed to cry, she isolated herself from her lover and her family and cried her heart out. She cried to herself until all she could feel was numbness.

The most curious thing about the Saiyan prince who shared a room and bed with her was that even though he looked down on her "show of weakness" at the height of it happening, he didn't seem to be completely averse to dealing with the aftermath. Whenever she was done crying herself dry and headed to their room to bury herself in a heap under the covers, upon his return Vegeta wouldn't say anything to her but would always find an excuse to put an arm around her waist and pull her to him as he stared vacantly at the ceiling.

The first time he'd done that, she'd broken down in tears again—because she was oversensitive after having cried so much and because it was the most touching gesture he had _ever_ done for her—but had quickly reined her emotions in as she sensed his mounting discomfort underneath her as he held her.

As time wore on and the years passed, experience taught Bulma that the most comforting place to be when she didn't feel well was in her lover's arms. Regardless of how infuriating he could be, or what he thought of her moments of weakness.

Because whenever he held her with tear streaks down her sides, he never breathed a single word to cross her and his touch was kinder than anything she had known her entire life.

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A/N: I am back to this fandom. Yeah, baby! And I bring some drabbles for the time being. They're actually a perversion of the idea of the "50 sentences" community on LJ. I just can't write an idea that comes to my mind in a single sentence, usually, and I needed something to start stretching my muse's fingers with in this fandom. So this challenge seemed a good place to start. But I decided I would make drabbles to the prompts instead of one-liners. One-liners are pretty much impossible to me anyway so… :D

**Chapter Prompt: Theme Set Alpha, #17.**

#17 (Tears) was originally #1 (Comfort) when I started and hadn't taken a good overall look at the prompt table. xd Because it fit the second prompt more, I left it as 17 instead of 1. xd

Hope you liked! I have about a dozen more of these, so let me know if you want me to share them too.


	2. Precious Treasures (Alpha, 2)

**Of Kisses and Precious Treasures**

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When she had been young, kissing a boy had been the highlight of any potential relationship she could've been in.

As such, she had paid explicit detail to any and every kiss she received, keeping a mental count and account of every single one of them. They had been like her precious treasures. Some of them were more memorable, some weren't, but they were all the same her precious memories.

When she grew up and her experience with men broadened to a wider spread of activities, Bulma came to forget what had been so special about kissing that had captivated her as much. She moved on to be enthralled by other things—much more interesting—that could be done by a man and woman.

Maybe that had been just the fact that she had spent her entire youth and early adolescence in a single relationship with just one man. She couldn't put her finger on quite the reason why. But when she shared her first kiss with Vegeta, she couldn't help but wonder how this action could be the same as what she'd been doing with Yamcha over a decade of her life before that. After all, the feelings and reactions such a simple show of intimacy begot in her were a world apart from what she had ever experienced with her former boyfriend.

She had reasoned with herself (for the sake of her slightly slipping sanity) that it was just the thrill of the new experience with a different person that had sparked such a fire in her. A kiss was just a damn kiss. There was no way _any_ man could affect her as much with just that!

And even though she had done a splendid job in assuring herself that was all it was, Bulma quickly found herself paying almost as explicit detail and being just as excited about every fleeting kiss she shared with the Saiyan prince as she had done with Yamcha in her adolescence.

She would be damned before she admitted it to the man himself (Dende knew that his ego was already barely fitting into the huge compound of Capsule Corporation quarters as it was) but she was eternally grateful to Vegeta for each and every single kiss he'd shared with her over their slowly budding bond in the years before the arrival of the artificial humans.

Because just a single, simple kiss from a proud Saiyan prince was enough to set her heart aflutter in a schoolgirl-like exhilaration very atypical of Bulma's thirty years of age.

Because all of Vegeta's kisses were her precious treasures.

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A/N: Since I have quite a few of these (and still many that I have yet to write), I decided to post them in the order in which I wrote them initially. Some have weaker impact than others—understandably so, I believe. So please excuse any "weak" chapters as best as you can. (Like this one, for example. :D)

**Chapter Prompt: Theme Set Alpha, #2: Kiss.**


	3. Soft (Alpha, 3)

**Soft**

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Being a proud and powerful warrior, Vegeta neither sought nor condoned softness of any kind.

He was built of strong, sinewy muscle. His stature was tall and proud, unyielding. His gaze was hard and penetrating. His mind was quick and razor-sharp. His words were scathing and crass, merciless. Every single aspect of his physique and character could be described as anything but soft.

Vegeta liked even his nourishment strong. He appreciated a meal consisting of a well-cooked meat more than anything. He liked his beverages strong, his meals sturdy. He rarely ever had the stomach for the sweet things the Briefs indulged in once in a while.

As an individual who was as particular about everything about him and around him being tough and durable, it made zero sense to Vegeta how he could've let such a frail, weak creature such as Bulma Briefs get underneath his skin.

For starters, she was his exact opposite in too many aspects to account for. Where he was stubborn to a fault, she was willing to compromise. Where he was violent and unforgiving in his speech, she was kind and soft-spoken, constantly trying to understand. Where his body was made of wired, tough muscle, she was all soft curves and alluring appeal.

Everything about her outward appearance screamed _soft_.

Of course, he had quickly learnt as he got closer acquainted with her, it would be a mistake to be led to believe everything about Bulma Briefs was softness. She was a spitfire of a woman, with a quick wit to match and a mouth that ran faster than some lesser men's minds could catch up with. She was driven and determined, striving to achieve her goals whenever she set them, regardless of what obstacles were put in her way.

Slowly, very slowly and gradually, even though he hadn't cared at the beginning for her at all, she had earned his respect and slight awe. From there, the sly minx had slowly wormed her way to his fancy until he had found himself one day involved at such an intimate level with her—body _and_ mind—that he could barely believe it himself.

It had made him soft. _She_ had made him soft.

And he would have none of it. Fed up with the weakness that was his wife and family, Vegeta had jumped at the opportunity to get a taste of his past coarseness, to forget all flimsy attachments that made him feel weak and pitiable.

He had taken the power Babidi offered him to satisfy his own selfish desires and needs, just like he had always done in the past. Just like he had always been used to doing. He had taken the power and nearly drowned himself in it, believing he was unbeatable, his strength unparalleled.

For the first time in years, he had been _soaring_, drunk on his power. He felt invincible, he _knew_ he was invincible. He had given Kakarot a run for his money and was convinced he would've won if they had only finished that fight.

When he fought with Buu though, his confidence flagged. None of his best attacks were having any effect whatsoever and the monster seemed to be no worse for wear regardless what he did. He, on the other hand, no matter how tough, seasoned and calloused, was still made of flesh and blood. He had stamina.

And it was quickly running out on him.

What was worse than his impotence was the fact that should he fail to stop the beast then, there would be no one left to stop it. Not with Kakarot out of commission and with no senzu beans to restore him to full battle potential.

And if no one could stop Buu, then he would most certainly destroy each and every single human, most probably along with the planet itself once he was done.

He'd do it for no other reason than the fact he simply _could_. Because it would serve as an amusing pastime for him, he'd kill them all.

Bulma and Trunks included.

And _that_ was something Vegeta would not stand for – not then, not ever. To hell with the voice that was traitorously whispering in his ear that he'd grown soft, that the reason he was rusty was that softness pouring out of his every fibre. To hell with him being soft and to hell with Majin Buu wanting to kill his family on a whim of boredom.

But most of all, to hell with Vegeta himself if he allowed such an outrageousness to happen as long as there was still breath in his lungs and strength in his muscles.

He may have grown soft over the years but as they had worn on, he'd begun begrudging it to himself less and less. Somewhere along the way, he'd stopped fighting Bulma's attempts at non-sexual intimacy. He'd stopped trying to pull away from her whenever she tried to fuss over him after a strenuous day of training. He'd stopped avoiding spending time with his son who surprised him more and more with his unbridled potential every day.

Maybe it was the sign of him having grown hopelessly soft the more time he had spent with the earthlings. But regardless of that, as Vegeta continued burning out his ki, his life's flame, till he could feel none left and oblivion approaching him, all he could think was how glad he was that he could at least use his life as a shield for the people he cared about.

While he burned away, along the last of his thoughts, the only "regrets" he could name, was that he would miss the softness of his wife's touch when he could no longer be with her.

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A/N: One of my personal favourites. Hope you liked as well.

**Chapter Prompt: Theme Set Alpha, #3: Soft.**


	4. Pain (Alpha, 4)

**Pain**

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Vegeta was no stranger to pain. It saturated his days, his very existence even. Especially back during the times when he had worked under Freeza.

Every day back then had been filled with a myriad type of pains: physical, psychical, emotional. During those times, he had acquired the larger part of the abundance of scars left on his body.

While he didn't mind the physical leftovers of the healed wounds, Vegeta did mind the effect the endless beatings and harsh training he had endured as a child had left on him. His severely stunted physical growth was, without a doubt, the largest and most annoying scar Freeza had left him to live with. (It irked Vegeta to no end having to lift his gaze to look into the face of some third-class dog. He was a prince! He was supposed to be the one who should be looked up to – figuratively and literally!)

Regardless of that though, Vegeta was grateful to the asshole for all the countless atrocities he had dished out to him. In bearing them, the prince had become stronger. He'd become accustomed to pain, to the feeling of discomfort. It had raised his tolerance to it and thus broadened his horizons in many ways.

For one, it made him prone to training until he was close to passing out. And while those training sessions were brutal and bordering on the insane in a sense perhaps, Vegeta knew for a fact that they were his signature way of getting stronger. He pushed and pushed and pushed his body until he hit the limits of what it could bear and beyond it. And, if he lived, he was a better man for it.

All in all, pain was something Vegeta was very intimately acquainted with.

It was also something he had been used to inflicting on others, during his time as a mercenary. He had enjoyed perversely the way his victims' faces twisted with agony while he tortured them for information or anything else. The sense of power inflicting pain on them had probably had part in twisting his personality and encouraged his arrogance, though the prince himself would never admit that out loud.

Pain was familiar. It was not comfortable in the conventional sense but it was something he knew well and was thus all right with – all right with enduring and all right with dishing out to others. It suited him perfectly in many senses.

What Vegeta had learnt through experience was that pain was something he did _not_ appreciate seeing Bulma in.

His dislike for that had begun back in the days when he had first come to be interested in the woman and it had only grown more intense the more he found himself caring for her. Whenever Vegeta saw his lover in pain, he felt so compelled to do something to stop it from affecting her that it almost drove him insane. When he'd first experienced this discomfort over another's suffering, he had found it so outrageous that he did the only thing he knew to do to handle such situations: he stormed out of the premises until the situation had passed.

Later though, as he came to terms with his caring for the frail, earthling woman, he usually demanded what was wrong with her and how it could be fixed.

Thankfully, most times it was nothing serious and it passed on its own soon enough. If it did not, Bulma consumed a small tablet (pain-killer, she had called it), which proceeded to lessen her pains not too long afterwards. The earthlings had many silly creations and contraptions (the earthlings he lived with even doubly so, if he had to be completely honest), but this pill in particular was definitely one of their rare strikes of brilliance, in the prince's not-so-humble opinion. He wouldn't be caught dead subjecting himself to using it but he was infinitely grateful that his significant other wasn't as tolerant to pain as he was and wasn't too slow in resorting to using the painkillers.

The fact his possessiveness over his wife and his dislike for seeing her in any kind of discomfort growing stronger with the years, coupled with his absence throughout the entire process of Bulma's pregnancy with Trunks, left Vegeta completely unprepared for the ordeal that was the birth of his daughter.

Through the course of her pregnancy, Bulma had assured him that she was alright and that the child was a calm one, not too prone on terrorizing its mother with its incredible half-saiyan strength. Bulma had also told him that she'd been through a lot worse when she had been carrying Trunks—a piece of information that didn't sit quite well with Vegeta at all.

And even if the course of the pregnancy itself had been a bearable kind of thing, the birth itself was most certainly not.

For the first time in his life Vegeta felt something akin to pain himself at the sight of his agonizing wife. He had promised her he would be with her through it all this time around, that he'd do it right by her and his family. And he held true to that promise.

However, he was caught completely off-guard by how strenuous the task was proving to be for his wife. And, most certainly, regardless that it was her second time doing it and it was admittedly better than the first, half-saiyan childbirth was unkind to a non-warrior woman like Bulma.

Never before in his life had Vegeta witnessed the heiress being in such extreme pain for such a long time. When the child had finally started coming out, Bulma had fainted repeatedly over the excruciating pain of the experience, only to be woken up again by another sharp stab and another bout of agony.

And even though she had never spent a day of her life in a true warrior work-out, Vegeta had to admit he had been awed by the fighter spirit and the resilience of his small wife. Regardless of how painful and unbearable it got, Bulma ploughed on through with unflagging determination, set on bringing the child inside of her to the world.

Still, it had been brutal. It had been painful to even _watch_. What had been worse was that there had been nothing he could've done to help. All Vegeta _could_ do was stand next to her, holding her hand as she made feeble attempts to crushing his fingers in her death grip.

What had been the worst was the knowledge that he was at fault for her being there, writhing and passing out from the pain of childbirth. He had been the one who had made her a mother to another monstrously powerful by human standards infant.

For his part, Vegeta had never wanted to become a father around the time his son was conceived. He had had no mind or time to spare for such frivolities. All he could focus on was improving, getting stronger for the sake of being the one to defeat the artificial humans and finally avenging himself against that third-class failure.

When he had found out that he had indeed, unwittingly, fathered a son, he hadn't even spared the child and its mother so much as a glance before he had announced that he would take no part in taking care of the brat. He had no time or attention to spare for such nonsense as childrearing when his pride as a warrior and the fate of his life was at stake.

It was only later, much later, that he had grown to love his son. And he was sure he would grow to love this child soon enough as well.

At the moment of its birth though, he had only burning contempt for it (and frankly for himself, too) for hurting its mother so in the process of leaving her body.

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A/N: Another one of the stronger drabbles. I hope you enjoyed. I loved writing it, personally. C:

Also, a notice: a chapter or two from now, the rating of this story will go up to M, because of the appearance of some non-explicit adult situations. So make sure to set the filter to All because you won't find the fic from K to T anymore. :D

**Chapter Prompt: Theme Set Alpha, #4: Pain.**


	5. Prince of All Couch Potatoes (Alpha, 5)

**Prince of All Couch Potatoes**

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Although Bulma was infinitely grateful to the Z-fighters for having got rid of Cell and successfully averted another life or death crisis for the entire planet, she most certainly did not appreciate the state in which they returned her baby's father to her. Granted, she had been surprised that he had willingly come back to Capsule Corporation to begin with – he had always spoken with unhidden pleasure and impatience for the day when he would get rid of the androids and leave their "mud ball of a planet once and for all".

However, once he was back on the premises, she got a good idea why he had come back to begin with. It seemed that all of his will power had siphoned out of him. He didn't eat much, he didn't go out of his room unless he absolutely had to and God forbid that he should go and work up a sweat in the gravity simulator. And if that wasn't appalling enough as it was, he didn't even seem to be much in the mood of responding to any of her verbal baiting of him.

She had tried cheering him, baiting him, cajoling him, _begging_ him even to just go and spend some good few hours at his usual 450 G in the gravity room. He hadn't batted an eyelash her way before giving her his back and proceeding to ignore her for the rest of the day.

At first she had believed that it was just a phase he was going through. Something he needed to get out of his system. This was why at first she had given him his space, hoping that whatever this was, it would pass on its own.

But the days turned into weeks and soon it became a whole month since he'd been active in just about _any_ sense of that word. And Bulma's patience with the man had officially run out.

When none of her tactics of getting him back to his normal self seemed to work out though, she just threw her hands up for the time being and left him be. Thankfully, Mirai Trunks had decided to drop by to visit just then, making her baby's father's issues fall into the background of her mind.

Of course, Bulma wasn't a genius for nothing. And it most certainly did not take one to realize that this… depression (or whatever it could be called when it came to an individual as complex as Vegeta) of her once-lover was due to all the events that had transpired during the Cell games.

Bulma knew better than anyone else how hard Vegeta had trained in the three years before the androids had come. She had seen first-hand how he had spent countless upon countless hours every day of every week, striving hard to achieve the elusive power he so lusted after. He had spent more hours in the gravity room than his body could handle more often than not. He had trained himself raw and had more often than not passed out before stopping his training of his own accord.

At first she had thought him crazy for this. After all, what kind of idiot tried _so hard_? But as time wore on and he continued being just as driven—if not getting even more and more determined with every passing day—Bulma began to be awed by his dogged determination. She was impressed by how, despite his failure to achieve the goal he so desired, he kept trying again and again, until his body could no longer follow his spirit's bidding. If it had been her in his shoes, she wasn't certain she wouldn't have just dropped it all and moved on to another thing that was less elusive to her.

But not him. Not Vegeta. He never quit. He never wavered. He never faltered. He was proud and driven and wouldn't stop at anything to take what he wanted, whenever he wanted it.

That had been the thing about him that had first made her start taking notice of him. His determination and his resilience had drawn her to him. She had admired that about him fervently. She had respected and nobly envied him for it.

So having the person she had felt so strongly for suddenly come back to her home completely devoid of all that _fight_, all that spunk… Saying it was a let-down would be the understatement of the year.

But, still, Bulma had given him a chance to recover from that on his own. She gave him time to brood, to grieve over the fact that he had achieved none of the things he had wanted: he hadn't been able to destroy the androids, nor Cell; he hadn't been able to save his son from being shot down by the green atrocity; and worst of all, he wouldn't be able to have his revenge against Son-kun because the man had opted to stay dead.

Bulma understood that all those were huge blows to the Saiyan prince's already overlarge ego. She understood that these things had shaken him. She understood so she gave him time and space.

However, when more than a month had passed, Mirai Trunks had gone home and Vegeta still continued being weird, Bulma had quite had it. She had often heard her employees talking amongst themselves in Capsule Corporation about how they wished their husbands would stop being such couch potatoes and start doing something for them. Listening to these women, she had sighed tiredly, wishing for his sake that Vegeta could be a bit more like those men – God knew he needed to slow down a bit from that hectic regiment he had put himself into.

Now, however, Bulma was sorry she had ever thought in such a way. She was ready to do just about anything just for the sake of getting that man off his ass and into the training room again.

Walking past the living room on her course towards the spacious Capsule Corporation kitchen, she found with slight surprise that Vegeta was seated on one of the large couches in the premise, surfing through channels on the television. From the way he was posed and the vacant look on his face, she could tell he was most probably not registering any of what he was looking at. Seeing that made her stop dead in her tracks, putting her hands on her hips as she surveyed him critically.

"Don't you think that's enough moping? I think as much should last you a lifetime."

When her jab at him wasn't even deigned worthy of acknowledging from his highness, Bulma felt a sharp stab of annoyance.

"How long are you planning on pretending to be part of the furnishing, Vegeta? This is getting seriously ridiculous!" She all but shrieked and all it earned her was a glare from the addressed man.

As if his lack of coherent response wasn't bad enough, the glare he had aimed at her had none of its usual ferocity in it.

"What is wrong with you?! Aren't you going to say anything back? Where are the smart-ass retorts and the no-nonsense attitude?" When he still continued ignoring her, she felt fuelled to press on. "I get that you're cranky over the fact that you didn't get your chance to face off with Son-kun. But don't you think that is enough about now? Or did most of your personality die along with him during that fight?"

_That_, at least, seemed to ruffle his feathers some. At least that's the impression she got when he growled at her and threw her an evil look. Sadly, the glare had also lost most of its edge.

"Don't talk about things you know nothing of, woman! It's none of your business what I do with my time or myself!"

"I guess that's true. But excuse me for feeling cheated when instead of getting back the same man who went off to fight, I get a shadow replica of him with none of his defining qualities even present anymore." She crossed her arms over her chest, miffed.

Vegeta snorted. Even if he had intended it to sound like a sneer, it sounded more like a self-lament than anything else.

"You talk and make it sound like you knew me, woman, but you knew absolutely nothing about me to begin with. So spare me the sermon and go screech to someone who will care to give a listen."

At that Bulma couldn't help feeling a painful jolt. It made her flag a little in her determination to poke at him until he got a move on. Yes, he was absolutely right – she knew basically nothing about him. She had born his son and yet she knew barely anything about him, the real him. And how could she? He had never let her in; he had never relied on her. And that hurt. It hurt because another reason she had taken interest in him was the fact that he always seemed so lonely, so solitary; it had pained her to see him like that. She wanted to give him a place to feel at peace at. She had shared her family with him, hoping it would be enough to start fixing those lonesome tendencies of his.

But all of that had only ended as wishful thinking. She had thought she had made some progress in that sense only to see that none had really been made with that comment of his just then.

"Be that as it might, anyone can notice that you are barely eating anything lately, Vegeta. You don't train, you don't go out, you don't argue, you don't eat. All you do all day of every day is brood. How is _that_ helping you, pray tell?" she sniped back, ignoring the hurt from his previous comment from showing on her face or in her voice.

As if she wasn't already angry enough, he had to go ahead and piss her off even further. After her outburst he merely got up from his seat on the couch, walked past her without sparing her a glance and made a straight line for the stairs that led to his room.

Bulma stared wide-eyed at him, absolutely livid.

"Are you just going to walk out on me now? Without even saying anything?" She could no longer see his silhouette up the stairs anymore. "_Vegeta!_"

Her shout was met with the loud slam of a door somewhere up the stairs.

In the living room of her home, Bulma was left alone to massage the bridge of her nose as she fumed to herself.

* * *

After her last verbal run-in with Vegeta that had left her seething with rage for days, Bulma had decided to just leave him be. She couldn't be bothered to care anymore, really. He could grow a root out of his ass and rot away doing nothing for all eternity for all she cared.

Having made that decision, it was must easier to ignore the man and focus on the things that did still matter to Bulma. Like her lovely son, who was at the age when it felt like he was growing up with every minute.

Bulma was completely engrossed playing with said son when her mother walked into the living room, a tiny worried frown on her usually carefree features.

"Bulma dear, what do you think is wrong with that handsome boy Vegeta?" The elder woman didn't notice her daughter's brows narrow at the mention of the saiyan's name. "I tried to offer to make him something more to his taste for lunch but he didn't want to hear any of it. He insisted he could reheat some of the leftovers from last night himself and chased me out of kitchen." Bunny touched a hand to her cheek thoughtfully. "How odd…"

Bulma snorted dismissively, putting a bit too much vigour into building the tower with the cubes she was playing with her son with.

"Mom, don't bother with that guy anymore! He's absolutely hopeless! Let him starve for all he's worth. It's not like he even does _anything_ to make him need that much nourishment to begin with."

She had spoken loudly enough to ascertain that the saiyan prince would hear her for sure. She realized as nothing came from the kitchen sound-wise that her jab had been lost on that man once again. Not that she cared. She was done trying to make him get himself together.

Thankfully, the phone rang just in that moment, derailing her train of thought. She picked herself up and went to get it, oblivious to her boy looking curiously after her as she bounced off.

Not even five minutes later, she burst through the kitchen door, almost taking down the frame along with it. Her sudden arrival and the urgency twisting her face made the unperturbed saiyan quirk a questioning brow her way. She looked slightly dishevelled from her hurry and more than slightly out of breath.

"Vegeta!" the blue-haired woman rasped out, taking a step into the kitchen! "Come!"

When he didn't comply with her command, she went over to him and grabbed him by the wrist, dragging him into the living room.

"Look!" she said, pointing at Trunks.

The boy was now wobbly standing on his two feet, reaching out a hand to stabilize himself against the couch every other step as he made his first attempts at walking.

Vegeta's brow rose even further in his impassivity.

"What?" he demanded, giving Bulma a questioning look. She stared incredulously at him, unsure what exactly he was saying.

"He's walking on his own!" she pointed out, ecstatic.

"And?" Vegeta demanded again unimpressed, crossing his arms over his chest with a huff.

_That_ was what she had been so eager to show him? The things that made these two earthling women excited were just simply beyond him sometimes.

"What do you mean, "And"?! Our son is _walking_ on his own! He's walking!" she exulted, clasping her hands to her cheeks. "Oh, I'm so happy and proud! My little boy is growing up! Before you know it, he will be all handsome and strong like Trunks from the future!"

Completely unfazed by Bulma's unbridled maternal gushing, Vegeta cocked a confused eyebrow at the child and his grandmother together on the ground.

"What's the big deal about walking? So what? Your brat can finally stand on his own two feet—quite the achievement, considering everyone can do as much…"

And that had been it. The last straw. The proverbial last drop that made the dam break.

It was the last comment that severed Bulma's already limited patience with her baby's father.

"I have just _had_ it with you and your constant moodiness, mister!" she shouted at Vegeta, making him cringe at her volume. "If you want to spend the whole of your life wallowing in self-pity, that's fine by me! It's your life and you don't want me as part of it, so it's none of my business. Fine! I get that you want to have nothing with your son's life either, even though he is the most precious thing in the world and I bet he is the best thing that _you_ have ever done in your entire existence. If you don't want to be a part of his life, that's fine; don't be. _But_!"

She lifted her index finger in his face, making Vegeta blink several times at it before focusing on her face again.

"I will _not_ stand for you undermining his accomplishments, no matter how little and insignificant they may seem to you! He is a tiny person and even the mundane, ordinary things that come to you or I naturally are quite the feat for him! So even if you don't want to be his father, you will be _polite_ and be supportive when he needs you to be, understand?!"

Somewhere along her rant, Bulma had proceeded to poke Vegeta in the chest with the offensive index finger she had shoved in his face before. At her clearly imperious tone and her bossy demeanour, Vegeta couldn't help a sharp jab of annoyance he hadn't felt in a long time rise in him.

"Don't you try bossing me around, you puny human woman! I am the prince of all Saiyans! I could level this whole area with just a flick of my wrist if I damn well pleased, so I will not stand for you talking in such blatant disrespect to me!"

"I am starting to doubt whether you could actually hold true to such a threat," Bulma retorted snidely, crossing her arms over her chest with a huff.

"What did you just say?" Vegeta demanded, livid.

"Oh my," Bunny murmured into the hand she had brought to her mouth, watching the exchange with Trunks in her embrace.

"The only thing you seem to be a prince of lately is the prince of all couch potatoes. Warrior race, my ass. I wonder if you can even remember how to raise your ki anymore."

Vegeta's blue aura was slowly growing brighter and brighter around him in intensity in his mounting ire. His fists were clenched and shaking by his sides and his teeth were tightly clenched as he exerted an impressive effort not to unleash his destructive force.

"Should I level this city just to put that statement of yours to the test? Maybe then you would learn how to speak to me in an appropriate manner, you insolent woman."

"Go ahead then, kill us all! That's what you were supposedly good at, right? When you first came to Earth, you were a force to be reckoned with. It took the combined effort of Son-kun, Gohan, Krillin and Yajirobe to finally stop you. You were fierce, you were unstoppable. Look at yourself now!"

Vegeta flinched unwittingly at that. His spiking ki settled down as his confusion set in. She had begun riling him up by antagonizing him and then suddenly, she was flattering him? At least that was the only way he could perceive what she had just told him about his first encounter with the earthlings.

"You have no drive in you, you have no fight left. You are nothing like the Vegeta I fell in love with. Maybe I never knew you to begin with; you were right about that much. But I knew enough to be able to tell that the shell of a man in front of me right now can't even hold a candle to the man I used to admire and whose child I had."

When she was done talking, she stared defiantly into his face, her cerulean eyes blazing. He looked into her face confused, as though he was seeing her for the first time. He was still having a hard time wrapping his mind around what exactly she was saying and why it felt to him like whatever it was, it mattered so hugely to him. They just kept staring at each other for a long time, Vegeta's mind racing over garbled ideas. She had left him to sort his thoughts to himself for such a long time that when she finally spoke again, he felt slightly disoriented.

"Well?" she demanded, shifting her weight to her other foot.

"Well what?"

"Weren't you supposed to unleash your fury upon the disrespectful earthlings in the area, starting with this place? We're waiting." Bunny thought it was truly unwise of her daughter to aim such destruction-encouraging phrases at a man who used to be the slayer of worlds. But the younger woman seemed completely unfazed. Her gaze was unyielding as she stared down the man in question expectantly.

And, to her mother's surprise, instead of reacting violently to her raised provocation like she was sure he would, Vegeta just huffed and crossed his arms over his broad chest as he eyed Bulma levelly.

"Why are you in such a rush to die, woman?"

"I'm not. I'm also not the one who seems to think they need to prove something to someone here. And, unlike you, I still have plenty to live for. Can you say the same, Vegeta?"

Her question caught him off-guard; mainly because it was something he had been asking and asking himself for weeks now. What did he have left? No planet, no race, no goal, no rival, no any kind of guiding light in life anymore. For the first time ever, Vegeta felt completely free. And he didn't know what he was supposed to do with such aimless freedom. What was he supposed to strive for in peaceful times when he had no tyrant to avenge himself against?

Seeing the struggle on his face, Bulma heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes.

"In the timeline Trunks came from, his only comrade had been Gohan. He had taught him everything. I guess we could have him do the same for my son as well, since his father can't seem to be bothered to even want to train his own child when he gets old enough to do it."

At that claim, Vegeta's temper flared instantaneously again.

"No spawn of Kakarot's will be doing any such thing with _my_ son. Not as long as I am here," he growled out ferociously, his brows narrowing dangerously over his eyes. Bulma gave him a condescending look.

"What will it matter whether you're here or not if you can't even use the gravity machine anymore?" She huffed and stuck her nose higher in the air, eyeing him dubiously. "For all I know, you have probably already forgotten how to use the damn thing."

They had another little unspoken stand-off, glaring daggers at each other before they both huffed and turned their backs on each other. Vegeta stormed off with a colourful string of curses under his breath, vowing to show the audacious woman that he was not a man to be taken lightly.

Bunny looked with confused eyes into her grandson's imploring childish gaze as he babbled nonsense in his baby-tongue.

"Hmm, I don't know, dear Trunks, but I think we just witnessed something important happening here," the blonde stated, even though she would be hard pressed to name it if asked directly.

Unknowingly to anyone at the time, the exchange between the two would serve as one of the founding blocks to the process of them becoming a real family.

* * *

A/N: I didn't particularly like this chapter when I wrote it. Seemed like a good idea but it somehow went wrong along the way? I don't know. This is how it is, though. To start with, the prompt was really, really hard for me to connect with this family. O.o So… yeah, this is how it is. :D

**Chapter Prompt: Theme Set Alpha, #5: Potatoes.**


	6. Rain (Alpha, 6)

This is a Mirai timeline story. Just to avoid any confusion.

* * *

**Rain**

* * *

The unimpressive scenery flew past him, failing to impress Vegeta as he passed by it at an unusually slow speed. He went slowly as he was going nowhere in particular.

Lately it was getting harder and harder to find any sense of purpose or to set any particular goal for himself. What with all the events that had transpired. (Though if he had to be completely honest, there was only one event in particular that had bothered him as hugely.)

Nowadays all he did was just meander through the Capsule Corporation compound aimlessly, not really in a mood to vent his frustrations in the gravity chamber. He had already failed to achieve one of his greatest goals in life—defeating the wretched bastard who had destroyed his people and robbed him of his pride before decimating his heart—and, frankly, he saw no point in trying harder to achieve anything else lately.

Not with Kakarot dead.

Somehow that tiny little detail had succeeded to excellently cripple any and all incentive the Saiyan prince may have had to do anything. He didn't feel like training anymore. He didn't feel much like becoming the legendary for he would have no proper opponent to test it on afterwards. There was no one to stop him if he damn well pleased to incinerate the entire planet even, and yet he couldn't bring himself to care enough to do it. Nothing mattered much to him any longer.

Feeling like a caged animal on Capsule Corporation grounds, he had begun to take these little expeditions of his across the globe more often lately. He flew and flew and flew, the wind blowing past him and ruffling his tall onyx spikes of hair, as he sped towards nowhere. He flew and flew and flew until he tired of that as well, usually landing somewhere in the middle of nothing. There he spent a good several hours thinking about how things had fucked up so royally for him over the course of so little time. When that activity lost its appeal as well, he always went back to Capsule Corporation where there was a sense of quiet, unspoken gloom hanging over all of its inhabitants.

It was insufferable. No one really said anything but he could feel it poignantly hanging in the air of the premises where Bulma and her family were – his human hosts were stricken by a profound sense of loss and grief that he could neither commiserate with nor cared to stay around for.

With Kakarot dead, his purpose for staying on Earth was kind of defeated. And what with his housemates being more than he was willing to handle lately, Vegeta was beginning to think that maybe it was high time that he returned to space: at least there he would feel the numbing sense of familiarity and calming emptiness.

The fleeting thought became a solid decision the more he mulled it over. There was no worth in his staying on this mud ball of a planet anymore, just as there was no use dealing with any of the earthlings it was home to. The thought of being a free man, conquering worlds as his own and beginning to rise to power as a ruler over the universe didn't have the same appeal it used to but at least he found some sense of worth in trying out for it.

When the rain began to pelt on him, Vegeta's mind was already made.

He was going to leave Earth as soon as the woman and her old man could ready him a spaceship to go off with. The saiyan was more than certain the female and her parents would be more than pleased to be rid of him – after all, he was a wildcard and a potential hazard to their lives.

It was early evening when Vegeta landed on the backyard lawn of the Capsule Corporation compound. He was so busy making a mental list of necessities for his departure that he almost completely disregarded the figure a bit further away from him. However, when it moved, it drew his attention.

The prince's brows narrowed in confusion.

"Woman, what in the _hell_ are you doing there?" he demanded sourly, crossing his arms over his chest.

He regarded the earthling's hunched back facing him and her upturned head as it stared into the sky above. She made no move to acknowledge him for a while which made him stomp over to stand in front of her now, fully intending to reiterate his demand much more forcefully than before.

His will to do so siphoned out of him when he saw the broken expression on the heiress' face. Although he rarely passed up the chance to remind Bulma of her physical weakness, he had been quite awed on many occasions by her mental strength. She may not have had the brawn, but she most certainly had the guts. And that was one of the reasons why he had ever given her his time of day to begin with.

Seeing her like this though… It wasn't right. It didn't feel right to see a woman as strong reduced to such a state. It tore at him just looking at her, sitting there, pitifully staring at nothing in particular.

When she turned her gaze to finally fix it on him, he visibly flinched. Gone completely was her usual fervour, to be replaced with a look of sorrow so deep it would've probably played upon his heart strings if he'd only had such. She looked so lost and helpless, sitting there on the grass next to her abandoned project, her hands hanging limply by her sides. From the way her clothes were soaked to the bone it was easy to tell she had been out a while and hadn't moved to find shelter at all since the rain had begun.

And as the droplets of the rain cascaded down to her face they mixed perfectly with the droplets falling from her eyes, masking her act of weakness perfectly.

She stared at him with her wide, imploring empty eyes for what felt like an eternity. And even though seeing her like this disconcerted him to no end, he found himself unable to tear his eyes away from her form in the grass, so powerless she almost seemed lifeless.

"Vegeta," she rasped out then, trying to speak for the first time since his arrival.

Had she only just now noticed his presence, he couldn't help but wonder when she did.

"He… He's…" The dry sobs raked her body. She shook with the effort of suppressing them but the saiyan could see she was fighting a losing battle. "He's _gone_…"

She said—_could_ say—nothing more as her voice broke. She needed to say nothing further anyway because Vegeta knew perfectly well whom she meant.

He turned his gaze away from her, unable to maintain the contact anymore as his own ghosts rose to haunt him once more.

The woman seated at his feet was shaking, her body almost convulsing with the intensity of her sobs. Her tears fell down her sides unbridled and unnoticed as they mixed with the rain, which was chilling her to the bone.

The proud Saiyan prince turned his eyes away from her, feeling distinctly uncomfortable in the situation he currently found himself in. What he found even more vexing than being out of his element was that there was nothing he could bring himself to say in this situation. Any commentary he could make would be along the lines of offensive at the very least and yet… For the first time since he could remember, he just couldn't bring himself to be, well, _himself_. He didn't want to say something highly inappropriate or scathing to the pitiful human. He didn't feel like verbally beating her down further when she was already as low as she could get spiritually.

When he turned on his heel to leave her to her own devices though, he found himself unable to do so. The small hand that had grabbed him by a fistful of his jeans barred him from doing so. The man cocked a confused brow at the appendage on his pants' leg. He looked at Bulma questioningly but she said nothing, nor did she look at him. Her gaze was pinned to his feet, her short fringe hiding her face from view.

Was she serious? Did she expect him to comfort her perhaps? Was she utterly insane? And, even if she expected no comfort from him—she'd have to be completely crazy to expect otherwise—why was she making him endure this… this ridiculous situation? What in the world possessed her to believe that he would suffer through this stupidity? And for the sake of what exactly?

The questions chased each other in his head, each one making him more annoyed than the other, wearing his patience thin. Staying outside in the rain with a woman gone mad with grief was not one of his priorities – not then, not ever. He was more eager than he'd ever been to just pry her fingers off of his clothes and walk back inside, not to take a glance back at her again.

He crossed his arms over his chest in a miffed way, eyeing her with a sneer on his features. He was just about ready to tell her that if she wanted to whine and snivel to someone, he was the worst person to do it to. But then he caught sight of her heart-wrenching expression again. He also noticed that the hand on his jeans leg was shaking with emotion.

He stayed standing there for what felt like forever. After a fierce mental debate, Vegeta heaved a defeated sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose with his hand.

He stepped away from her hand holding his clothing garment easily. Before the woman could voice her protest though, he sat down on the wet grass next to her instead of leaving like she had thought he would.

He was facing away from her as he turned to look up at the clouds above as well, one arm propped up on his bent knee while his other leg was stretched out in front of him.

As he did so, Vegeta wondered if maybe the rain hadn't chilled him a bit more than he was willing to believe. After all, temporary insanity is the only reason he could think to attribute to his current actions.

Before he could ponder when exactly had his insanity begun, he felt the weight and heat of Bulma's body resting against his back. He took a look at her over his shoulder briefly before turning his head up to the sky again, refusing to acknowledge her presence any further.

He stayed like that, unmoving and unspeaking, until her voice was hoarse with her crying. He stayed until the tremors stopped shaking her form. He stayed until she cried her eyes dry under the rain. He stayed because she only calmed after she had cried herself to sleep or unconsciousness—which of the two he wasn't quite certain.

Once he was sure she was out cold for the time being, Vegeta exhaled in defeat again. He turned around carefully, putting his arms around the frail human woman almost tenderly as he picked her up from the ground. He rose to his feet slowly and carried off the drenched, unconscious Bulma towards her room.

At that point, he was absolutely sure he must've lost his mind somewhere along the way. Not just for humouring her throughout this fiasco. But mostly because of the fact that he had actually found her completely unguarded, grief-ridden expression breath-taking and thought just for a moment just how exquisite this odd creature was in her sorrow.

As Vegeta entered the Capsule Corporation building, he took a fleeting look at the woman in his arms and he knew.

He knew that he would have to put off going back out in space for the time being.

* * *

A/N: I liked writing this one, so you guys probably won't like it. It took me an eternity to come up with a story for this prompt for some reason. Even though I can think of two or three times that Vegeta has wallowed in self-pity or seethed with fury under the rain, I wanted it to be something about both of them. Thus, my continued trying until I came up with this. Hope you like.

**Chapter Prompt: Theme Set Alpha, #6: Rain**.


	7. Comfort (Alpha, 1)

**Comfort**

* * *

Vegeta exhaled slowly through his nose, a rare feeling of near-contentment overcoming him. It had been a very productive training day for him, even if attaining his ascension was still a feat beyond him. No matter – he wasn't exactly in a dead rush to get there as long as he could feel his power swelling. The rest would come naturally, he thought to himself with a complacent smirk.

After a much needed shower when he was done exerting his power for the day, he ventured downstairs towards the kitchen. He was on a prowl for something edible as a snack as a little reward for his hard work for the day.

As it was well into the wee hours of the morning, the prince hadn't expected anyone else to be up. His surprise was considerable when he found the television set to be on in the living room, bathing in light the form of one of Vegeta's housemates.

He raised a confused brow at Bulma's back but couldn't be bothered enough to stop and actually demand what she was doing up so late. It wasn't like he really cared anyway, so he saw no need in wasting his breath.

The woman seemed no more eager than he was to start a conversation with him. She seemed entirely too focused on whatever nonsense she was watching while she was stuffing her face with some food article he couldn't recognize. Shrugging a shoulder, Vegeta decided to prioritize his current state of starvation higher than a mental account of what Bulma was and was not doing.

The saiyan spent a considerable amount of time in the spacious Capsule Corporation kitchen. This was quite understandable when one took into account the fact that what counted by him as a "small snack" could be evaluated by normal people's standards as a small feast. Warming up that much food in the microwave oven and then devouring it did require a certain amount of technical time.

When he was done putting away his many dishes into the sink, he noticed that the dim light from the television was still on in the living room. Having sated his most pressing need, the prince now found himself much more curious about what was keeping his brainy housemate awake.

Walking back into the premise she occupied, he was a bit taken aback by the fact she was sitting in the exact same position she had been in when he first passed by her. This made him cock a curious eyebrow at her, his arms crossing themselves over his toned chest as he scrutinized her profile.

"What are you doing still up?" The way he asked was more of a demand than a question. The imperiousness of his tone didn't seem to make much of an impact on the impassive woman though.

"I'm burying my misery under copious amounts of ice cream while watching action flicks with shamelessly huge budgets," Bulma responded almost mechanically, chomping down on a spoonful of this "ice cream" thing of hers. She elaborated no further, as though his presence was not nearly enough to busy her attention any further than it already had.

Having just finished his snack, Vegeta found this food article of hers suddenly very appealing. Another thing that had caught his attention was the sound of a huge explosion coming from the television. It had drawn his eyes to it and made him witness a rather flashy on-screen combustion of a large truck. The chain car wreck it caused afterwards and the ensuing chase between the main characters and the villains made Vegeta hover next to the couch Bulma was sitting on.

He had always found humans' ideas for "entertainment" ludicrous. He failed to see exactly what enjoyment seeing weaklings pretending to be who they weren't while doing things they couldn't in their actual, pitiful lives while watched by billions of other weaklings in front of their television sets could be "fun". The whole concept of "movies" was entirely lost on him.

Action movies though, however unrealistic the spread of the fire and its magnitude, did tickle Vegeta's fancy just slightly. At least it was enough to make him pause and give it a second glance.

Noticing that, Bulma eyed the saiyan out of the corner of her eye for a while. Then she heaved a sigh. She honestly didn't want him to—she'd been counting on Vegeta already being asleep when she'd come to stuff her face with ice cream—but she guessed it couldn't be helped.

"Vegeta, why don't you stop hovering and just sit down? You're distracting me from my movie."

On any other day, the man would've snapped at her for the way she was addressing him and insinuating that he had interest in things that he most certainly had none in. Or some other nonsense of the sort. She was fully prepared to hear the tirade after her suggestion to him and braced to hear it with chagrin.

She was more than a bit surprised when it never came. Instead, the Saiyan just grunted in a sort of noncommittal concurrence and plopped down next to her. His gaze stayed glued to the screen the entire time.

The reason Bulma had been less than thrilled when he had first descended the stairs was that she was in no mood to deal with him and his princely tendency to annoy her to no end. She had just had the most disastrous date with her boyfriend in a long time; a date which had ended on a very sour note when she'd let loose her frustrations on the man responsible for them.

So, finding herself once again single and very much upset with that fact, Bulma had decided to do the one thing that always took her mind off of the things that bothered her. Naturally, that one thing being binge-eating ice cream while watching a good action flick or two. She wanted to do just that and not be bothered, nor talked to while she proceeded to do so. Thus her vexation with the fact her housemate was still awake and invading her space for wallowing in self-pity over the bleakness of her love life.

When he didn't seem up to dishing out his usual wide range of insults and offensive remarks about anything and everything he could think of, focusing instead on the movie with quiet interest, Bulma found the aloof man's company to be not half bad indeed. In fact, ever since she had found his presence to be much less intimidating after the whole Namek fiasco, Bulma had always found Vegeta to be a rather fascinating individual. Well, maybe "fascinating" was a poor choice of word to describe him but the man most certainly succeeded in distracting her, regardless of the situation.

There was just something about him that she couldn't quite put her finger on. He was infuriating almost one hundred per cent of the time. When he wasn't using all of his wit trying to annoy her or pester her, the sheer fact that he was displaying a different kind of behaviour ended up derailing her train of thought from whatever she was doing just as successfully, if not even more so.

The case right at that moment was no different. Bulma found endlessly curious the fact that he was "subjecting" himself firstly to her company and then to the "silly notions of entertainment petty humans had".

Unimaginable was her intrigue when at a bit later point into their movie watching together he demanded as to why one character did this and then later why another didn't take a more logical course of action that could've spared him a lot of grief.

The heiress almost found herself laughing at Vegeta's reaction when she explained that, if the character had done so, the movie would be left without a plot twist and that would defeat the purpose of the whole thing. The prince had shaken his head disapprovingly and started muttering to himself something about silly humans and making no sense.

Soon enough, Bulma realized that she had spent a lot more time gauging at Vegeta's reactions to the movie than the actual thing itself. That wasn't really all that big of a deal since she had already seen the movie before. The fact she had completely forgotten that she had been upset did not elude her notice though.

The woman smiled warmly at the prince's strong profile when he shook his head at another illogical action the main character performed under his onyx gaze's scrutiny. She shifted her own eyes down to the pint of ice cream in her lap – her comfort food that was slowly melting off as it lay there almost forgotten for a while.

She then offered some to her companion in a wordless gesture. He spared her merely a glance before taking the proffered item and digging into it while pinning his gaze back to the screen once again.

That night was the first time since Bulma had invited the alien to stay over in her house that she was glad she had done so.

It was very rare that she found something more effective as comfort after a bad break up than her usual ice cream-action movie combination. The fact that she found it in the presence of a certain prince served to only fuel her curiosity in the man himself.

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A/N: One of the weakest parts, in my opinion. Don't know if you guys will agree or not. But I liked the notion anyway. Hope you enjoyed too. ^.^

**Chapter Prompt: Theme Set Alpha, #1: Comfort.**


	8. Defining Happiness (Alpha, 8)

**Defining Happiness**

* * *

Contrary to what was probably popular belief, Vegeta wasn't emotionally ignorant. The fact he was emotionally inept and that he didn't have the capacity for a large array of emotions didn't mean that he couldn't recognize them in others. It didn't take a genius to be able to differentiate compassion, love, devotion and so on from the way people acted and the expressions they showed.

Vegeta could recognize pretty much all the emotions that the people around him were capable of exhibiting. However, that didn't mean he was capable of emulating them himself.

He knew what compassion looked like but he didn't possess any of it. He knew the feeling of attachment well but he doubted he would ever be capable of experiencing the deeper forms of it.

Happiness was another emotion that was very easily discernible, even by those of lesser intelligence. Despite the ease with which you can tell it apart though, Vegeta found that one particularly tricky.

At first glance, one might believe that happiness is something the Saiyan prince should be able to grasp. After all, he was a very driven and ambitious man. Accomplishing his goals should be tantamount to the greatest happiness in the world.

And while that should've been true, the notion didn't exactly hold out in reality.

This was due to the fact that, for Vegeta, happiness was supposed to be an emotion defined by its purity. Exactly because it was not in any way entangled with any malignant motives or violent prerequisites, it was a light and cleansing emotion.

For that reason, Vegeta knew himself forever incapable of feeling such a thing. After all, for him, there was always an ulterior motive to pleasure in any shape or size. He felt triumphant after a good fight, but he did because of the fact he'd dominated another, not just for the sheer victory itself. Accomplishing a goal meant that he was getting better and better, closer to being able to finally overpower Kakarot. Being with Bulma brought him carnal pleasure and dragging her with him into the deepest throes of ecstasy merely gave him fuel for his self-complacency. His son's achievements did him proud, of course, but pride was not happiness. Pride was what he'd lived with his whole life, and something he'd found anew during the time his son had been growing up in front of his eyes.

Vegeta could see his wife and son's faces twist with happiness every so often and those were the only times he'd ever come to being close to experiencing it himself. It was odd, really, because nothing he'd ever done in his life before that had brought him anywhere near that feeling. And yet the simplest thing as having them grin at him could push him just a little bit closer to it.

Of course, being who he is, those moments are fleeting for Vegeta. They come and go, because emotions as pure and cleansing as happiness didn't feel at home within his dark, twisted heart. He was too scarred, too warped from years of solitude to be able to experience that for too long a time.

Once, Bulma had asked him why she'd never seen him smile. She'd asked him just after another heated coupling session of theirs in the bed they had been sharing for a couple of years, and it was her immaculate timing that only ascertained her status as a genius in his mind. She had chosen it perfectly because she knew well that it was only during those moments of post-coital after glory with her in bed that he would ever come even close to opening up to her.

He'd shared his thoughts on happiness with her then, his thoughts on the twistedness of his personality. She'd listened raptly, not interrupting him even once until he finished talking, enraptured by the rare moment of honesty and eloquence on his part. He'd told her that he didn't think he was suited for happiness anyway and that was probably why he couldn't feel it.

Bulma had hummed thoughtfully and turned on her stomach to look at him.

"I think you're wrong," she had surmised at last, smiling when he quirked his brow at her. "I don't think any of those things you said are real reasons why you never felt happy about anything. Well, defining happiness to begin with is a pretty complex matter in itself but…"

She'd paused, touching a hand to his cheek in a caress so doting and endearing that even he could tell of all the things her gentle touch spoke volumes of that she would never put in words.

"I think that there just hasn't been anything in your life yet that has made you feel that way." She'd smiled in a way that he would remember from then on, till his dying day. "The thing that will make you feel happy—I hope that we'll be able to find it together."

Several years later, while holding the tiny new born baby that was his daughter, with his wife and son cooing her over his shoulders, Vegeta finally found the one thing that could bring him happiness.

It had been there for a long time and it had been stirring for a while. But the harbinger of it had been the arrival of the last piece that completed it – his baby girl.

Vegeta wasn't the kind of person one would generally believe to be capable of being "happy", at least according to the definition he gave to the word.

But if there was one thing in the universe that could make him feel that way, it was the time he spent with his family who adored him, despite his myriad flaws and faults.

* * *

A/N: Sure has been a while since I posted here. It's been even longer since I wrote anything for this series. It's a good thing that I still have some drabbles in store for it to continue posting even if I'm not producing anything for now. xD

This one is one of the stronger ones. It's definitely a personal favourite of mine for now. I hope you liked it, too!


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Dragon Ball Z, Family, Romance