Unwanted: Kakarrot's Return

Unwanted



Chapter 8 - Kakarrot's Return


"You're alive-or else, I'm dead," Bulma found herself unconcerned with which reality it was, she was simply too enthralled by the sight of the man before her. "Oh, by the gods, it really is you, Kakarrot!" she threw her arms around him, pressing his equally wet body against hers. "I can not believe this," she felt warm tears streaming down her cheeks as she twisted her head, kissing every inch of his handsome face before pressing her lips to his, "How I have missed you," the desperation in her affections was clear proof of her declaration.


"I know how you feel." The awkwardness of his embrace was lost on Bulma, as she was too absorbed in the miracle standing before her. All that mattered was that by some twist of fate a man she loved had returned to her.


"Where have you been?" Bulma pulled away just long enough to look into his eyes. Circling his face in her palms, she barraged him with a series of questions, "How did you survive? Why did you not come to me sooner? Where have you been? Are you well? Have you-"


He smiled halfheartedly as he pulled her hands from his face and encaged them between his. Rubbing them together, he attempted to warm her frozen fingers. "I would not know where to begin, but this is not the place. We need to find shelter and get out of these wet clothes."


Nodding her consent to allow him a short reprieve from his explanation, she decided it would be best to find someplace warmer to have this discussion. Allowing him to help her rise to her feet, she watched as he whistled for his horse. Once the beast descended upon them, he took the cloak he had been earlier using to shield his face and wrapped it around her before helping her onto her mount. "I know of a place not far from here we may easily remain undetected while we have a chance to," he hesitated, searching for the right words, "get caught up."


Wrapping her arms securely around his waist, Bulma nodded a quick agreement. Time alone with him sounded like a godsend after her horrible afternoon with Nexus. And then who knows? She had been waiting all her life for this miracle. Everyone could now have what he or she wanted. She and Kakarrot could be together, and thanks to Nexus' failed abduction attempt, he and Vegeta could now have their war, and she would no longer have to live her life as a pawn-Vegeta! By the gods, she had almost forgotten of him!


Should she insist Kakarrot send word immediately of her safety, of his existence? By the gods, Vegeta's brother was still alive and he had no idea. She had to return home to tell him, but would he care? Yes, he would care, because this was perhaps more of a dream come true for him than it was for her. Kakarrot's existence meant that now Vegeta could have his annulment and become a libertine again, plus still have his war with the Tomabatsu fighting by his side. He would finally have his victory.


No, she had no reason to hurry her notification. Vegeta was about to be set free of an unwanted marriage and still get his glorious battle. He could wait while she had what would be no doubt be her only chance at a private moment with Kakarrot. After his reappearance is made known, his time would no doubt be fully occupied. And Vegeta-well, he probably was already making war plans, her disappearance only important for his feud with Nexus.


Ah! What did she care anyway? Her love had come back to her; she should be completely and utterly focused on him. Why did she care about Vegeta's indifference towards her!? He was no longer a concern of hers. Soon their marriage would be annulled and she could be with the man she had always wanted. She should be happy, but instead she felt hollow inside; and all the personal reflection would never allow her to admit why.


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"Bulma!" Vegeta called for his wife as he looked through the abandoned carriage that had been surrounded by five dead bodies, all men wearing the crest of the Nexusbatsu.


"It seems someone has beaten us to the Queen's rescue," Radditz decided as he began examining the tracks the group had left behind. Radditz had been known for his expertise in tracking. He once followed a legion of Nappabatsu, whom had a six-day head start, half across the planet just to get back a favorite sword that had been stolen from him in battle. He had not only retrieved his sword, but led his crew to an uncharted stronghold that had been a crucial marker in leading to Nappa's defeat. It was a trek that had earned him the respect of his king, and the honorable titles of elite and general he held to this day. "Here," he pointed to two thin lines that were no doubt indentations left by carriage wheels. "There must have been a second, because those marks continue along the path."


"So she is still with Nexus then?" Vegeta assumed the bastard had merely intercepted some resistance, but had not experienced a failure.


"Not necessarily," Radditz worked backwards in his investigating before coming across a footprint that caught his attention. "She must have escaped the carriage; these are a woman's tracks." The size and shape of the shoe prints a blatant proof. "She went this way," he led the elites into the forest, where he proceeded, with some difficultly, to track her all the way to an embankment. He pointed out a set of fresh hoof tracks that had followed not far behind, and then where the horse's imprints stopped, those of a man's boots started. "He began to follow her on foot until he met up with her here," Radditz looked nervously over the cliff. "Both their tracks appear to take them into the water."


After an unspoken pause where Vegeta and Radditz looked at one another, both contemplating the worst, they, with the accompanying elites, scrambled down the rocky hillside to investigate the shore surrounding the lake. It did not take long before Radditz picked up the trail once more. "Here, the man's foot prints continue here." He immediately noted that he saw no trace of Bulma's foot prints, leading him to believe that if she made it out of the water, it was not under her own power. "Yes, he set her here." He noted two circular indentations, approximated the size of a man's knees placed directly in front of a larger, less definite imprint, no doubt where he had placed Bulma.


"No sign of a struggle, so she was either unconscious, or did not fear her company." He followed the path to where he began to see two sets of tracks, one male and one female, collide with that of the horse prints he had recognized from earlier. "I would wager it was the latter. She walked with him to his horse, after which they took off in that direction." He pointed east. "Perhaps she had been frightened by the stranger, resulting in her tumble into the lake, but after he had a chance to explain that he was perhaps a mercenary seeking the reward you placed for her return, she went quietly. Perhaps she is already back at the castle, Sire." He wanted to be positive, but Vegeta was under no such inclination.


"Or perhaps she had tried to escape Nexus and when he followed after her she took a tumble into the water and after he pulled her out he bound her hands, forcing her to accompany him without protest." He was simply not an optimistic man by nature; he expected the worst from everything and everyone he encountered.


"But why would he go after her alone, Sire? Why would the second carriage take off without him? Riding horseback with her would be much too dangerous; anyone could spot them. Not to mention this fails to explain why the only dead bodies we found were that of Nexus' crew. Whatever opposition he met must have bested him. Yes, I am much more disposed to believe someone had foiled Nexus' plans."


Vegeta did not respond for some time as he allowed himself a closer view of the tracks beside the lake. Radditz had been right about one thing, his wife had not fought her captor at this point. They had been close to one another, too close. "Bring the horses, we follow their tracks." He was going to get to the bottom of this, then he was going to reclaim his wife, and after that, he was going to keep her tied to his side if that is the only way he can guarantee her safety.


And may the gods help any man who dares to get in his way.


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"Thank you," Bulma smiled as her lifelong friend wrapped a warm blanket around her shoulders. After their frigid trek on horseback to the secluded inn they had found just before frostbite was ready to kick in, the heat of the fire she now sat comfortably in front of was the first relief she had felt in what seemed like hours.


"You should really take those off, to give them a chance to dry," he nodded, clumsily gesturing towards her wet cloths. "I promise not to look," he shot her a half smile before turning his back to her. Just as she remembered him, bashful only when in came to intimacies.


Heeding his advice, she did as he asked, removing her coat and riding suit to lie out over a chair to dry. Once she finished undressing all but her undergarments, she wrapped the blanket he had offered her back around her body, covering all her bare skin before reclaiming her seat on the floor by the fire. "Done," she finished with a half smile that faded the minute she turned back to see she had not been the only one undressing. Her former fiancé was now bare from the waist up, his boots removed, leaving him only dressed in his fitted black trousers.


Bulma might have felt a blush creep across her cheeks at the uncomfortable situation, but the sight of her companion's scarred chest as he turned back to face her thoroughly disturbed her attention. "What happened to you?" Her eyes stayed glued to the blade-sized scar that lay center on his left ribcage. As he walked over to her, taking a seat in front of her before the fire, she instinctively reached out to touch the mark. Once he was settled, her fingertips lightly grazed the blemish, "tell me."


Kakarrot remained silent for some time before he reached up and removed her probing fingers from his chest, a not surprising look of discontent upon his face. "This was part of the reason I have failed to alert you of my existence, this is the other," he lowered his head, while lifting her hand to touch another scar, this one on the back of his head. After giving her a few minutes to examine the mark, he lifted his gaze back up to meet hers. "My mind, my memory was not what it should have been after my battle with Nexus. I would not know where to begin telling the entire story, what happened the day of Nappa's defeat. What I recall is not completely clear, but when I awoke some days later, in the care of a nearby family of generous villagers, I had no idea who I was, or how I cam to be injured."


"Not a surprise," Bulma found it easy to be sympathetic, it was hard not to when the mere knowledge of his existence brought such great a sense of joy to her heart. "Your head injury clearly was severe, I have heard of memory loss being a result of such. But you are better now, your recollection complete, ne?"


She tried not to be alarmed by the hesitant note in his voice as he answered, but she could not help but hope for a more promising response. "This past year I have been retracing my steps, trying desperately to remember who I was. It has not been easy, but gradually, in pieces of memories, it all came back to me, including my obligations to you." He paused and reached in his pants' pocket, "We were in love, engaged to be wed. You gave me this," to Bulma's shock, he pulled out the long strip of her blue locks that she had cut and braided for him as a keepsake. "The villagers who found me told me I was clutching it with all the will power I had left in my body. I knew it had to be of some importance. The more I saw it, the more I held it, took in the lingering feminine scent, I slowly began to remember you, remember us."


If her heart could have pounded its way out of her chest, it may have at that moment. "Oh Kakarrot," she touched the braid. She should have believed him when he told her he would never be parted from her. She should have not trusted Vegeta when he showed her the destroyed locket.


"I-I was planning on marrying you, Bulma. We were engaged." It took her a moment to depart from her silent musing as she heard his hesitant voice again. She was more than ready to listen intently, but in a matter of moments, the bliss had been shattered by a quick realization.


"Oh, gods, you do not know," she closed her eyes suddenly feeling horribly guilty. "Kakarrot, so much has happened in your absence, I thought you were dead, I-I had felt so hopeless, I never for a minute though-"


"Bulma, calm down, just tell me what is wrong." She felt his grip on her tighten, a concerned look engulfing his face, making her hideous confession all the more painful.


"Oh Kakarrot," her eyes watered, why did it always have to be like this for her? Just when hope welled inside her, foreshadowing a chance at true happiness, it had to be swiftly broken by reality. "I-I can not marry you immediately, because I'm-I'm bound to another." Kakarrot blinked, unfazed by her statement. She should have noticed. "I had to wed, in name at least, to protect my people-your people from war. Nexus was aligned with my mother to take over what remained of the Vegeta and Tomabatsu; I had no choice, so I had to-"


"Vegeta," he whispered the name with an eerie coldness. After swallowing and clearing his throat, Kakarrot briskly admitted, "I know you married him just months after my believed death." Retracted his embrace, the tall man pushed himself to his feet. Pacing the room a few times, he clenched and then relaxed his fists before asking, "Has he been treating you well?" It was an odd question to hear, especially since her immediate reaction was one of indignation. Why would he doubt his brother's attentions to her? Regardless of their soiled past, a past Kakarrot had no knowledge of, Vegeta had been a perfect gentleman, much to her surprise, in their marriage. And after her violent encounter with Nexus, she felt all the more grateful for the lesser of two hells she had been living in these past two years.


"He has been good to me and only now can I recognize just how good; but none of that matters anymore, because now that you are back we can be together." She lifted the free hand that had not been holding the blanket to her chest and circled his face. The disheartened frown that was dented upon his lips immediately ignited her concern. "What's wrong? If you are worried about my union with Vegeta, do not be; it can easily be annulled. Hell, he already had the papers written up; he would probably jump at the chance to get rid of m-"


"It's not that," Kakarrot slowly circled the hand that rested upon his face and pulled it down to his lips for a protracted kiss. "Never mind, it's nothing," he extended a smile across his lips; it oddly looked forced.


"Kakarrot, are you sure-" A loud crashing noise halted Bulma's question. Someone was breaking down the door. Positioning Bulma behind him, Kakarrot prepared to protect his former fiancé, until they abruptly realized their intruders were not the enemy, at least not an overt one.


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"Ka-Kak-ka-rot?" Vegeta's sword hit the ground seconds after he broke into the room, a small group of guards crowding around him. The king's eyes immediately fell upon the very much alive figure of his brother. For what seemed liked hours, no one seemed able to find his or her voice until Vegeta's eyes shifted from Kakarrot's to that of his scantily garbed wife. "Get out," the low-pitched order resounded through the room; the elites whom had been hunting with their king knew a forewarning order when they heard one. In a matter of seconds the room was cleared out, leaving behind only family.


"Brother," Kakarrot was the first to initiate a dialogue as he stepped away from Bulma, who by this point had turned bodily away from her husband, not even offering the courtesy of looking upon him.


The disrespect irrationally stole Vegeta's attention away from his resurrected brother for far too long before he managed to conjure a response, "So you're alive." It was a simple statement of the facts before he, through clenched teeth, demanded an explanation for such a miracle. After receiving an abridged version of what Kakarrot had just before told Bulma, Vegeta found himself a little too bitterly hissing, "and so you decided to mark your grand return from the dead by playing the part of a hero. Well done," he clapped his hands twice in mock adoration. He was not certain what made him despise the sight of his brother so intensely. They had parted on, at worst, indifferent terms. Though they had typical brotherly spats, animosity was never prevalent between them. And yet seeing his brother alive and well made him want to pull his sword and run it through the man's chest, sending him back to the peaceful death everyone believed him to be enjoying.


"The timing was coincidence. I was passing through a village not far from here on my way to your castle, intending to make my existence known when I heard word that Bulma had been abducted. Not long before that I had noticed two foreign carriages making haste through the woodlands, it occurred to me that they may have been Nexus' crew, and so I set off to catch up with them."


"And single handedly defeated Nexus and his entire band," Vegeta interrupted sardonically, clearly unimpressed with his brother's feat-or perhaps too awed.


"I only meant to distract them long enough for Bulma to escape," Kakarrot continued as if he had not heard his kin's bitter disruption. "Once Nexus came out to face me, I waited until I saw Bulma was clear of the scene before following after her. My focus was not to kill Nexus; Bulma's safety was higher on my list of priorities."


"Of course it was," The king sounded almost as if he were suppressing a laugh. "And then let me guess, after you made sure she was safe, you brought her back here so she could more privately express her gratitude." That time he managed to gain his wife's attention as he heard a low groan of offense echo from her throat. He would have savored her indignation had he not suddenly been pinned by his throat against the door behind him.


"We fell into a lake; we could have frozen to death." Vegeta could not remember ever seeing his brother grit his teeth as he was currently doing so. Gods, if he was reacting like this to a petty insult, he could not imagine what his reaction would be if he knew... "We were just letting our clothes dry, so spare us your vindictive comments. The lady has been through hell today, no thanks to your wonderful protection. She has done nothing to earn such disrespect from you."


Ah, a double hit, first accusing him of incompetence in his position of husband and second acting as her rightful protector. The nerve! He was her husband! Not his absentee brother! Where was he when Bulma had to face her mother's betrayal? The forced marriage to Nexus? The possibility of losing her kingdom to the son of her father's murderer? Where was Kakarrot when she was forced to bind herself to a man she hated? Where was he when she broke down countless times, weeping for the happiness she would never again know? "You are right, my dear brother," The term was used with anything but the affection it should have been. "My wife deserves my sympathies for what she has been through today, as you deserve my respect for safely returning her to me. So why do you not leave me to offer them while you find comfort in another room tonight. Perhaps with Radditz, you two were the best of friends once, ne? Why not rekindle that camaraderie while my wife and I discuss all that has been going on."


Kakarrot took a few steps back, his grip on his brother long having ceased as a perplexed look covered his face, as if he was trying to comprehend what his brother was communicating to him. The moment it hit him, Vegeta all too boastfully delighted in it. "Bulma, do you want me to leave?" the prodigal turned away from his brother and walked back towards the silent third party in the room. With the stiff twist of her head she locked eyes with the concerned man and then nodded slowly, "It's alright; Vegeta and I have a few things we need to discuss, so by tomorrow everything will be made right for us." She grasped Kakarrot's hand, and in a gesture that invoked a groan of disgust from her husband, she kissed the bruised appendage softly.


"Bulma," Kakarrot moved closer, trying to make private his words to her, "You do not need to feel intimidated by him-"


"You heard her, Kakarrot. She told you to leave. Get out." The boisterous voice of his brother stopped the younger man at the beginning of his confession. Though he looked ready to protest, a quiet nudge from Bulma for him to leave finally sent him warily from the room without another word.


As soon as the door clicked shut and the married couple were left alone, their eyes locked in a mutually unspoken warning. They both knew what was to come, another battle in their war for marital supremacy. Each had acquired enough ammunition in the last few hours to make their fight one of attrition, but both knew such a strategy would serve no purpose in this instance. When blue and ebony orbs clashed in a silent bombardment of thoughts and emotions, words became irrelevant, and all each could think of was how this moment might be one of their last together.


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