CHAPTER ONE: The Prince's Heir
Vegeta sighed a desolate and anguished sigh. He loved Bulma more than he had loved his own father and mother, yet he wanted her, not a baby.
"I take it you're none too happy about this." Bulma said sadly, crying in the moonlight, the only thing that illuminated her pale, wet face.
"Er..." he mumbled, sitting next to her, yet feeling as isolated as ever and avoiding her painstaking looks. He felt so pathetic, but he had learned never to underestimate how Bulma could make him feel.
"Well, isn't that just peachy," she shot at him, getting angry and still weeping, "You sleep with me, then you get me pregnant, then you don't like it."
"I'm sorry." he replied lamely, feeling as though he was in a parallel dimension to her and her child. What was he talking about? Her child?! It was his too, and he tried to remind himself of this.
"So, you don't like it. Are you going to leave?" Bulma asked, wide-eyed and fearful of his possibly pessimistic answer. "Vegeta, you can't leave me, you can't... We love each other."
"SHUT UP A SECOND!" He boomed, holding his head in his powerful hands. "I NEED TO THINK!"
She slapped him sharply across his puzzled face, causing him to reel backwards somewhat.
"WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!"
"Work it out, Clouseau!" she screamed, bawling and running from his room in her flimsy nightwear.
Great, now she's mad at me, Vegeta thought callously to himself. What are you talking about, she has every right to be! You fell for her, you slept with her and now you're whimpering about it?! Where is your honour! The truth was, where Bulma was concerned, he had no honour, unless it was the honour of love.
His emotions tugged at him for a while, and he embraced them, and allowed them to mix around in his confused cranium and hopefully give him the room to come to some sort of conclusion. And even through all of his immense torrent of emotions, he couldn't help wondering just who Clouseau was.
Two flights up and along the corridor... "Are you OK, honey bear?" Bulma's mother called through the door of her bedroom.
Fuck! Bulma thought, trying inconspicuously trying to clear her throat and sound happier. "Yeah, I'm fine thanks Mum!" She shouted back. "Me and Vegeta had a little disagreement, but we'll sort it."
"Ok, your father and I heard yelling so he sent me to investigate, but if you are sure you're ok then we'll go back to sleep."
"Yeah, I'm great. Thanks!" Bulma said, very falsely cheerful.
"Fair enough. Good night honey!" her Mother shouted, and Bulma heard her disappear down the corridor.
Bulma's parents knew nothing of her pregnancy, which was just as well really, because if they had known the real reason for Bulma and Vegeta's spat, her father would have killed him, Saiyan or otherwise. Bulma wallowed in her pit of misery, sobbing uncontrollably again and becoming more and more livid every minute. She loved him, that she knew without a doubt. What difference did a child make! A hell of a difference, Bulma's senses informed her, A HELL OF A LOT. Perhaps she had overreacted somewhat down there... Then again, maybe she was perfectly justified in her argument-Vegeta shouldn't abandon their relationship because he got her pregnant! It was his responsibility just as much as it was hers. But Vegeta was hardly the paternal type. Her emotions wrestled with her conscious for several more hours, when she finally decided decided to go and confront/apologise/understand why the hell Vegeta had a problem with her all of a sudden.
Meanwhile, back in Vegeta's room
Shit, he thought. Shit, shit, shit.
Not only was Vegeta contemplating fatherhood and how to do a better job than his own dad had done with him, he was also wondering whether he wanted to stick around and find out. I mean, everyone already knows about us two, but this would just ice the cake completely and allow Kakarott to eat it in one gulp, Vegeta mused in his mind.
Two main emotions were pulling him apart. One was the desire to defend his pride and honour and run like hell, and the other was telling him not to abandon his girlfriend, which was just as dishonourable as staying with her.
And then there was the marriage issue. Would she expect him to get married? GREAT, he thought, yet another opportunity for Bulma to make me look homosexual. But the strange thing was, he didn't care how homosexual he looked if it was for her. If it was for anyone else, yeah, he'd kill them as good as snort derisively at them, but not her. Bulma was strangely different. He could talk to her. He could be himself. He could do anything, and their love would never diminish, or grow weaker. They had something special, something too special to throw away on a whim. And it was with this thought that Vegeta wiped his eyes and raced out of the his room's door to see Bulma.
However, he couldn't have taken five steps when he ran straight into Bulma down the corridor. "Damn- you alright?" he said, concerned, picking her up as gently as his Saiyan strength could manage.
"Well, if you mean am I alright about falling over, then yes, but if it's about anything else, then no," she responded, cool as ice. "Why would you care, anyway? I mean, I'm pregnant, so I'm nothing to you anymore, am I?" she added, staring him down. The fierce Super Saiyan's greatest weakness stood in front of him, and she stared him down with sheer drive and determination. And it was at precisely that moment that Vegeta knew the choice he had made only minutes ago was the right one, without doubt.
"So, do you want me to help you pack, or can the big, strong warrior do it himself?" she pondered sarcastically. "Because to live in the same house as you, yet being so far away from you would probably kill me."
"I don't plan on going anywhere, Bulma," he answered, trying not to display his weakness for her, but managing to fail miserably. "I'm staying right here, with you...as long as I don't have to watch the birth."
Bulma's eyes lit up and she hugged him like there was no tomorrow. "Deal," she said with a laugh, once she had found the strength to prise her lips from his warm, passionate kissing.
"So, you fancy briefing me on this human pregnancy thing?" Vegeta asked, attempting to show interest, and mustering up a little in the process.
"Tomorrow," she said in ecstacy, leading him into his room, and onto the bed. They both curled up, like a pair of contented cats who had just been given a bowl of milk, and fell asleep in each other's loving embrace.
THE NEXT DAY
Bulma awoke incredibly late the next morning. She was wide awake but ashamed at the time on the alarm clock next to Vegeta's bed. 11am. Well, today was the day she taught the hunk lying next to her about birth, and she was NOT looking forward to it. She knew he wasn't particularly bothered, but Bulma at least wanted to establish how much he actually did know. Which turned out to be very goddamn little.
When her mother had gone to visit an old shool pal, and her father had gone to a depressing press conference, she sat Vegeta down in the living room, and commenced her lesson with a great sense of foreboding. "Ok, I think we should start by establishing how much you know about human pregnancies," Bulma said, waiting for him to answer.
"That'll be precisely JACK SHIT then," he said with a chuckle, and Bulma giggled.
"Nothing at all?"
"Not a single, solid detail."
"That's ok, I can teach you," Bulma said optimistically, reaching into a nearby drawer and pulling out a notebook and biro. "Here," she called, throwing them to him, to which he caught them in a co-ordinated and graceful manner, "Make notes."
"You have GOT to be jok-"
"No, I'm not, Vegeta," she interrupted sharply, giving him a cold look, which melted him instantly. "If you are committed to me and this baby, you will WANT to make notes."
"Well, I am, so I guess I'll make notes," he said with a shrug, opening the notepad and removing the pen's lid.
God, he's so wonderfully kooky, Bulma pondered to herself wistfully, staring at him as he wrote a heading on the paper. She quickly turned her adoring gaze away when he looked up.
"Ok, are we gonna start?" he asked her, clicking his tongue.
"Yeah, sorry. Well, human pregnancy lasts an average of forty weeks, or nine months, depending on which way you want to view it."
"I'm nonplussed!" he muttered, as he hastily scribbled on the notepad.
"Is there a 'u' in forty?" he enquired, staring at her inquisitively. Bulma knew what Vegeta was attempting to do. He was trying to show that she mattered so much, he'd care about something as tiny and as whimsical as a spelling mistake to please her.
"No, don't think so," she told him, feeding his ego somewhat. "Ok, I am in month three, and this is called three months pregnant," she continued, going slowly for him to write all of this down.
"You realise you don't need to talk to me as you would to that cretin Kakarott," he mumbled vehemently, and she looked sternly at him. "What?" he said innocently. "He is a cretin, for fuck's sake! His IQ cannot be measured in positive numbers."
Bulma laughed richly. He had a very good point, Goku was even denser than Oolong, yet she never ceased to be impressed by his strategic and intelligent battle style. "True, I suppose," she said, succumbing to the truth with a sigh. "Right, let's carry on..."
"Sorry," he answered, poising his pen to continue his note-taking.
After about half an hour, Bulma had become extremely impressed at his attention span at what must have seemed to him like a lecture. Wow, she thought, as she paused for his to jot something about trimesters down, maybe he really does care! Of course he does, she argued with herself, it was just the initial shock that took him over and muddled up his emotions to such extremes. Yet, however much she told herself, she was still nagged by a little bit of doubt.
At around 12.30, Bulma's mother strolled in from her meeting with her friend and the couple dissipated their lesson quickly, and raced upstairs to discuss their talk.
"Are you not phased by this at all?" She queried of him, as they reclined on his bed.
"Why do you ask that?" he wondered of her, looking at her softly.
"Well, you seem, so, so 'CALM' about this pregnancy stuff-after you'd gotten over the initial shock," she added, half frowning at him.
"Yeah, I'm sorry about that," he put in quickly, giving her a kiss affectionately. "I kinda became a bit er, uncertain when you told me."
"No shit," she whispered to herself, although Vegeta's supreme hearing, it was as clear as a whistle. He tried not to smile.
"Do you wanna come somewhere?" he asked her with interest.
"Yeah, I'd love to... as long as you're going!"
He grinned. "Well, as much as I'd love to make you climb all the way up, you're not really in any condition to," he informed her, smirking, which got him a playful slap from her.
FIVE MINUTES LATER
"Are you aware that I have vertigo?" Bulma inquired anxiously, and Vegeta shook his head dismissively as they took off from his window, her in his powerful arms.
"If you really want to get to this place, you'll endure it!" Vegeta yelled, as they soared over West City.
"Wow, this is incredible!" she shouted, as he showed her the sights of the city by afternoon. They crusaded effortlessly through the seemingly endless sky, not a care in the world.
"So, where are we going Vegeta?" She wondered inquisitively, finding her vertigo didn't bother her when she felt as safe as she did in Vegeta's warm and solid grip.
"You'll see," he replied mysteriously, as they flew out of the city.
"Ok."
They flew effortlessly through the nearby mountain ranges, and Vegeta dipped down into the chasms of the Valleys to give Bulma a unique perspective of the places she could only see by helicopter under normal circumstances. Bulma gasped in wonder at the beautiful rock formations from the firm embrace of the man she loved so. Well, she was a scientist, and geology fascinated her.
"Sorry, but we've gotta get out of these boulders if we are going to get there," he told her, and he rose higher and higher until they were cleanly out of the cliffs.
"Whoa, this is amazing. Truly amazing," she whispered, although her partner heard her of course.
"I can teach you how to fly, if you'd like," Vegeta informed her. He felt at times that his life's ambition was to make her happy, in whatever way possible, a mission that had gone out of the window in his several painful hours of unnecessary torment he had put himself through for no reason that very morning. He had to make up for his earlier arrogance.
Oh my God, he mused to himself, that was so unlike me. Since when the hell have I cared about impressing others, so why now, all of a sudden?! Simple answer to that really, Vegeta, he told himself. Because you're in love, and it changes people, or so that stupid Earth saying goes.
"REALLY!" Bulma shrieked excitedly, derailing his train of thought abruptly.
"Yeah, it's relatively easy actually," he replied. "Do you have a problem with us picking up speed? It's just that we'll never get there otherwise."
"No, go as fast as you like, as long as you're positive you can keep hold of me," she said with a wry smile.
They sped off from the canyons, and soon came to the sea, with its beautiful blue hue and the gleaming reflection of the high midday sun.
"Oh shit!" Vegeta cried, as he spotted a cruise ship nearby.
"I'm guessing we shouldn't really fly past that boat full of tourists," Bulma estimated, rhetorically.
"Yeah, I agree... Any suggestions?"
"Only one-aim a energy ball in that direction, and hopefully we can speed by them unnoticed."
Vegeta looked at her, gone out.
"What?!" she asked, amused. "You got any better ideas?"
"Good point," he muttered, and he raised his hand as much as he could while still keeping a firm hold on Bulma, and shot off a ball of ki on the opposite side of the ship than the side they were about to fly past. It exploded in the middle of the ocean, and all the passengers rushed to the opposite side to see what the commotion was all about.
"Nice one!" he complimented her-a very rare occurence indeed from the Saiyan Prince-and threw on a burst of speed, and was out of human eyesight's range within seconds.
"So, I guess I'm not that thick after all," she gloated, as they kissed away from all distraction, only thinking of how perfect the other was.