Published on Jul 17, 2004 11:59 am / 18 Chapter(s) / 27 Review(s)
Updated on Feb 26, 2005 10:23 am
After the defeat of Nappa's rebellion, Vegeta-sei is left war torn. To ensure peace, Vegeta must ally himself with Bulma, a woman who has vowed her eternal hatred for him. Will passion erupt between these two bitter souls or will a sin from Vegeta's past cause his love to be forever unwanted...
It had been five years since Vegeta laid eyes on the fair beauty before him. Many days he feared what the circumstances of their first encounter would be, not knowing how she would receive him after the horrid note they had last left each other on. But out of all the possible reasons that would force him to face her once more, this was the most pitiable. He had to return to her as a villain once more, only this time delivering the shattering news that the man she intended to marry had been killed in battle.
"I do not believe you," she turned her back to him, clearly willing his confession to be a lie. If only it was.
Reaching into his vest, Vegeta tightly closed his fist around the proof as he walked around her, not allowing the chance for her to ignore the truth. "Before Kakarrot and I split to lead each end of the two pronged assault on what was Nappa's fortress, he showed me a charm you had given him. Was I wrong in identifying this?" He opened his palm and stretched out the object. The dismayed look upon Bulma's face was verification enough that he had recognized it correctly.
Slowly reaching out to grasp her gift, she shakily reclaimed it. "He swore he would never be separated from it," she pulled the broken locket closer to her eyes, examining it, praying it was some terrible mistake. It was not. The mangled chain with broken locket was without a doubt the beautifully crafted token she had offered Kakarrot before his departure. Only now it was stained with dirt and blood, and the lock of hair she had given him was long gone. "He was so strong as a child, advanced far beyond his years, he could not be beaten..." she choked each word out as a steady stream of tears began to fall from her eyes. The sight of blood, likely Kakarrot's blood, on the jewel was too much to bear.
In a movement that was purely instinct, Vegeta reached out to catch the woman before she had a chance to collapse, her emotional state suddenly impeding her physical. He followed her sunken form to his knees, keeping one arm wrapped around her torso as he allowed her to bury her head against his chest while she sobbed for her lost fiancé.
Vegeta remained silent as the woman expelled her grief. What was he supposed to say? His brother had died an honorable death. He had lived to see the end of his enemy after fighting bravely for ten years. She should be proud, but pride was a cold comfort in the face of death. Pride did not keep you warm at night. It did not bring you companionship or softer emotions, like love. It would not ease her suffering, so he did the only thing he could at that moment. He allowed her to cry against him; a move he was certain he would regret, considering he was the last man on the planet she would ever want comfort from.
"How?" the hollow question was barely whispered. But he heard it, and minimally offered what he knew.
"Nexus. A lieutenant witnessed the two men clash, including the battle's end when Kakarrot was run through. Knowing my brother, I doubted the validity of the story, but after this was found," he gently touched her hand that held the locket, "My doubt faded. We are still looking for the body, but it will most likely take months before the dead are properly sorted and those who can be, are identified."
More tears. Surely the vision of her lover's corpse lost among a sea of battered and disembodied warriors was not the most pleasurable of images he could have offered, but she needed to know. He would not sugarcoat this for her; it was not in his nature. "A ceremonial burial is to be held in one week's time. I will escort you to my estate for the rite. After that-" he paused, it would be best to tell her the rest after Kakarrot's wake. Her emotional state was already volatile enough without knowing the life altering decision that had been made without her consult, "We will go from there."
The 'we' part of his declaration seemed to snap the fragile woman into some sort of rabid attention as she jerked her body away from his, as if suddenly realizing whom she had been speaking to. "I am not going anywhere with you," she rose to her feet and began taking steps away from him, tears still flowing from her eyes as she began to vent her rage. "How could he be dead, when there is still breath in your body?" the question was fortunately rhetorical, because if it had not been, Vegeta would have been unable to voice an answer. "You are the monster. Kakarrot was just an innocent, an honorable, gentle man who fought only with the purest of intentions. How could fate take him and not you? It should have been you," she suddenly lunged forward, pressing her hands against her visitor's chest, pushing him only a half-step back. "You are the one who deserves to die for all the crimes you have committed," another push, "you are the one who should suffer, you are the one who had nothing to live for," two more, and then she stopped, cold in her tracks, balling up her fists before taking a deep breath, "Get off of my grounds."
Her body turned from his, either having lost the will to argue, or too disgusted by his sight to stomach his further presence; perhaps both, but Vegeta was not about to heed her order. "It is not that simple, Bulma," he blocked her path. If this was going to be her attitude, then what little sympathy he held would be forgotten. "Look, I realize that you hate me, and perhaps that is justifiable-"
"Perhaps!?" she hissed indignantly, raising her fist as if to strike him, but he corrected himself before she could complete the blow.
"As I told you five years ago, I regret what I did, but damn it, I can not change it. We have to move on, and unfortunately Kakarrot's death means that we have to do so together." He was not certain if the shocked expression upon her face was the result of his rueful admission or his suggestion that they had to do anything together, but again, he had a feeling it was perhaps a bit of both. "Get changed, pack whatever you need for a few days stay, I will send for everything else later. We leave in an hour."
Her defiance was not altogether surprising, but that made it no less irritating. "Do not dare order me around as if I am yours to do with as you wish! The only way I will even consider following your wishes is if you explain to me what the hell Kakarrot's death has to do with us." Her lips trembled as she admitted her fiancé's state of being, but she seemed unwilling to show any more emotion before him, clearly still so untrusting after all these years.
"You are in no state of mind to deal with politics, my lady. Now do as I ask, and all of your questions will be answered after you have had a chance to digest what I have just told you." Of course it could not have been that easy.
"Politics?" a horror-struck expression fell upon her face; she clearly understood more than he had hoped she would. "Tell me now; I will not live in fear of what vile plot has been cooked up against my person."
"You need not live in fear, my lady, the plans that have been made are for your protection," it was a lie. Her protection was the last consideration in making the decision. But she would be safe; he owed it to her to see to that at the very least. "You have my word, once you are settled in at my newly reclaimed estate, you will be told all."
"Your word?" she snorted disbelievingly, "What good is your word? Only an honorable man can place any amount of assurance on merely his word, which means your word is just a little less trustworthy than that of a complete stranger." It was a direct hit, and she knew it. There were only two subjects that could ruffle his feathers: his honor, and his capability. She seemed to want there to be no mistaking that she still had not forgiven him for that night; she perhaps never would.
"Then you will just have to trust in my selfishness, because I will not tell you a damn thing until I am good and ready, so this conversation is a waste of our time. Now," he took a menacing step towards her, he did not want her to fear him again, but it seemed the damage was already done, so his forcing her submission in this matter would scarcely change her already impenetrable disgust, "go pack your things and then wait for me in my carriage outside."
"And if I refuse?"
He smirked as she dared to suggest defying him. How little she had learned these last five years. "Then I will put you bodily into my carriage and personally restrain you the entire ride, your choice." She clearly believed him, because she lifted her hand and slapped him hard across his face. He would have bet anything that was years of pent of rage in the making.
"I hate you," it seemed to echo through the room even after she was gone. He was not surprised to hear it. As forgiving a person as she was, he knew his actions had pushed her past her limits. But there was no changing that now; he had dug his own grave, he just never imagined having to lie in it so many years later.
During the carriage ride, a thick silence had been maintained. Bulma sat on the forward side, gazing out the left window, while Vegeta sat opposite her, his head down and eyes closed, seemingly very much in contemplation. But more likely, he did not have the courage to look at her after what he had done. For five all too short years he had kept his distance. Not surprisingly, he wanted to face what had happened between them no more than she did.
He had said he regretted his actions that night, but how could she believe him? He had bombarded her with a pack of lies that miserable evening. How was she to know fact from fiction with this man? Perhaps through the one promise he did keep, the one lie he told that ultimately he made a truth. He had stopped almost immediately all-unnecessary violence.
Kakarrot had always kept Bulma well informed about his brother. As much as it sickened her to know the better man, for some insane reason, looked up to his elder brother, she never halted his bantering. She had felt some sense of purpose, some sense of worth for that night, when Kakarrot had arrived back at her home a few short weeks later with the joyous news that her 'talk' with his elder brother must have done the trick because he was gradually making changes to his plans, changes that would spare lives.
It was joyous news, of course. And perhaps her abhorrence of Vegeta shifted to merely hate, a hate she had to perpetually hide from the world, but most especially from Kakarrot. For to admit her newly acquired dislike of the man, she would have to tell him what had happened that night, a secret she would take to the grave, if only fate would allow it.
Kakarrot had probed many times, wondering why she had suddenly refused all audiences with his brother. Not that Vegeta ever once came desiring to see her, but she had made certain the few times the bastard had returned to her home, that she had left to visit a friend, or was locked away in her room with some fabricated illness. Bulma wanted no part of his highness ever again, and she naively believed marrying Kakarrot would help her do that, help her to move on, to forget. But now, as with every other prospect that had ever come to pass in her life, it was gone. Kakarrot was gone. Her hopes of a future with a man she loved forever dashed, while now she was being forced to follow the orders of a man she despised, the man who had ruined her, a man whose fate she had never again wanted intertwined with her own.
~*~
The moment she realized he had been drinking, she should have turned away. But her stubborn nature would not allow the retreat. He had finally gone too far. Just days before his arrival at the estate of her late father, for the one-week he had taken each year to unwind while his younger brother took the helm of the battle, Bulma had learned of his latest abominable transgression.
He had ordered a village of elderly men, women, and children to be executed after it had been discovered that they was supplying weapons, uniforms, and intelligence for Nappa's forces. Now, perhaps she was an idealist, but sinking to Nappa's level, no longer having any regard for the people who have unfairly been forced to choose sides in this global display of machismo, completely disordered the lines of good and evil, right and wrong. Vegeta was no longer adhering to the honor code her father had died fighting to uphold, and she would not stand for it anymore.
"We need to talk," she hid the anger in her voice as she closed his chamber's door behind her. She wanted to have a reasonable conversation with him; she had hoped she could get through to him where Kakarrot had failed. She was wrong.
"Bulma?" he sounded genuinely stunned as he walked out of the shadows into the ample moonlight from the window behind him. To her uncomfortable realization, she eyed his bare chest glistening under the translucent shower. His skin looked so smooth, so soft that for a brief, improper moment, she wanted to touch him. "Do you have any idea how indecent it is to enter into a man's chambers in the dead of the night? Not to mention, dangerous." His voice had a feline purr to it as he approached her. The bottle he had been drinking from, no longer in his hand. "Tell me, what is so pressing that you had to see me under such tempting circumstances."
She had not been sure what 'tempting' meant, but something about the way his eyes roamed over her nightgown clad body made her want to check to make certain she was still in fact protected by the fabric. "I want you to stop all the senseless killing," she sidestepped him as she walked towards the night table by his bed. Bending over slightly to rest the candles she had been holding to illuminate the dark, unwelcoming room, she straightened to feel the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Twisting her head to the side, she saw his masculine figure hovering behind her, not more than an inch away. "I heard about the village you most recently slaughtered, you are becoming no better than Nappa."
She had hoped the comparison would spark some outrage in him, anything besides this eerie silence that forced her to focus on the sound of his slightly labored breathing. "You have developed nicely over the years, do you know that?" he finally offered, clearly unconcerned with her purpose for seeking him out. Enraged by his choice to brush her off, she spun around to release a string of curses at the ignorant bastard, but before she could whisper a word, she realized the error in her decision to face him. He was closer than she had thought, her chest brushed right up against his, and before she had a chance to gasp in indignation, her calves where trapped against his bed, his arm locking around her waist, eliminating any escape.
"So innocent," his voice reverberated in his throat as he pressed his entire length against hers, his nose groping through her hair, as if trying to inhale the scent of her every strand.
"Vegeta, stop it!" she had pressed against his chest with all her might. Aside from his improper forwardness, something seemed to be caught between them, something long and stiff that was painfully digging into her pelvis.
Partially heeding her plea, he halted his attentions to her hair, but made no move to release her. "Do you have any idea how long it has been since I have had the chance to bask in the warmth of a woman's flesh?" His free hand encircled her face, and then slowly glided down to her cleavage line. Drawing his finger along the seam until he reached her shoulder, he gently pulled the fabric down, exposing some of her milky skin, but discontinuing before revealing a breast.
"Stop it," her voice held less conviction than it had the first time. She did not understand why his touch made her skin burn in the most mind numbingly blissful ways. Lifting her arm to cover her exposed skin, her movement was broken as her hand brushed against his naked chest, the warm, strapping chest she had been incongruously admiring just moments ago. As if she were a puppet being controlled by a puppeteer, she flattened her hand against his skin...
~*~
"Is something wrong?" Vegeta's husky voice startled her from her memory as she looked across the carriage to see him gazing down at her in an expression akin to concern.
"I am fine." She looked down to realize she had been tightly pulling a handkerchief so tautly that her knuckles were a ghostly shade of white, the memory clearly as uncomfortable to relive even now that five years had passed. "Considering I have just learned my fiancé is dead, and his black sheep of a brother has abducted me from my home where I should have been left to properly grieve, I would imagine I am handling the situation quite well."
He gave a brisk nod as if he had not heard her insult and turned his head towards the right window, slouching in his seat as he crossed his arms, taking a deep breath before speaking somberly, "This will be easier for the both of us if you try to be civil."
"Civil?" Who the hell was he to ask for civility after all the uncivil acts he had committed over the last ten years!? "Do you honestly believe any such courtesy can lie between two enemies?"
"You think we are enemies?" He swung his head back towards her, the paled expression upon his face clearly proving that for the first time he finally realized how deeply her resentment ran. "You hate me that much, to base your entire opinion of me on my worst act? You used to be so forgiving." He seemed stunned, had he not realized the emotional damage he had inflicted upon an impressionable sixteen-year-old?
"Yes, well," she choked out a harsh chuckle, "I used to be a lot of things." The true meaning of her comment was not in the least lost on him. He knew what he had selfishly taken from her, but he clearly had no intentions of addressing it now after so many years. Probably for the best, since she wanted no part in reliving the most life altering night of her existence.
The impenetrable silence that followed her comment lasted for the rest of the journey. When they finally arrived, Vegeta had guided his guest to a private room where she was allowed some time to wash up before dinner. Only then did he promise he would reveal his true purpose in bringing her to his home, and the most likely unpleasant effects it would have on her life. She could only pray his reason for bringing her here had nothing to do with, as she feared, the centripetal force of karma.
"How the fuck am I supposed to tell her, Radditz?" The last in a short line of generals who had survived the war, Radditz, had been appointed Vegeta's personal advisor. The elder man had been most insistent upon the necessity Vegeta was now going to have to lay upon Bulma at dinner tonight.
"You have no choice, Vegeta. With Seripa's newly discovered allegiance to Nexus, it is imperative you marry her daughter and solidify proper alliances with the Tomabatsu before we have another war on our hands, one in which we do not have the manpower to fight and win right now. So trust me when I tell you that whatever little spat the two of you had in the past, it pales in comparison to what will happen if Nexus marries Bulma as Seripa has been planning."
"That stupid bitch should have been killed long ago!" Vegeta slammed his hand upon the desk before him. "I will never understand what Toma saw in her."
"We have to move fast, of course," Radditz continued with little note for his king's outburst. "Seripa will begin to get suspicious if we keep Bulma here a minute longer than is necessary for your brother's funeral. So your marriage has to be agreed upon and unified within a matter of days. You have to make Bulma understand the gravity of the situation," which Radditz assumed could not be as difficult as his king was implying. Regardless of whatever transgression Bulma held Vegeta in contempt for, Nexus killed her love. Surely when choosing between the two evils, Vegeta would be the lesser.
"And what if I can not? She hates me, Radditz. Not dislike, hate, and to be frank, I am not much more excited about the prospect of marrying her, myself. My brother's grave is still fresh. I will take much heat for this." Scandal, this would result in nothing short of scandal. He will be seen as a coldhearted fiend who helped himself to his dead brother's fiancé even before the man's body was found. Though Vegeta was not a man to care for maintaining a proper image, he knew Bulma was. She would only hate him more for this, if that were even possible.
"As with every scandal, its endurance will not be for long," the advisor insisted. "Not that I think this will create a great one. Most of your people are so wrapped up in putting their lives back together they do not care about your affairs. As long as you keep them out of another war, you will become as revered as your father. Marrying Bulma will ensure it."
Rising from his seat, Vegeta walked towards the exit, stopping only momentarily to grab his cape. Properly adjusting it to fall evenly down his back, Vegeta offered a difficult admission. "I will speak with her, explain the severity of the situation, and again demand her hand in marriage, but Radditz," he cleared his throat, turning around to face the advisor as he warned adamantly, "If she says no, I will not force her, not again." Those last two words were inaudible as Vegeta turned and exited the room. So lost in his musings, the king failed to hear Radditz's bewildered question.
"What do you mean, demand that she marry you again?"
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