Chapter 16

Vegeta watched the exodus from Chishan's storage area, waiting until Bulma was within the single G confines of the Palace before announcing he had wasted enough time lounging about. He took off for the training cubicles in the military compound. Hoping that meant that the Heir's arrival wasn't imminent (although more likely it just meant Vegeta was bored), Zarbon headed toward his office and some neglected red tape he had put off to remain with the King. Halfway there a message came over the scouter. "Bulma wants Vegeta now, but he's left orders not to be disturbed until after his training session," Radditz's cross voice informed him. "She's getting hyper. In her condition, that's not good. Come calm her down."

Zarbon grimaced slightly. Even I'm getting tired of Radditz going on about what is and isn't good for Bulma 'in her condition.' "On my way," was what he said, changing direction toward the Royal wing of the Palace.

The Queen was in her personal quarters. Evidently the 'hyper' stage of her fit of anger had passed; indeed, Zarbon was struck by how still she was. There was a stern cast to her face. Her attractive features were rigid. "Of course he can't be bothered with me," she said, bitterly. "He can't stand to be on the same side of the planet with me right now, can he?" Zarbon started to protest that that wasn't exactly true, wondering if he should reveal that Vegeta had been monitoring her every move from a distance, but Bulma cut him off. "You'll do. You were here when it all happened. Tell me about the King's death."

Zarbon's heart fell to the top of his boots. Knowing it would be futile, he ventured a bluff. "Death? Vegeta's fine, Bulma, just busy at the moment. Unless humans have precognitive flashes and you're trying to tell me something..?"

"Do not be deliberately dense," the Queen said, an unusual bite and clarity to her words.

She sounded very regal—very like Vegeta when he was not about to tolerate any nonsense. She was some dangerous stage beyond her usual fits of temper, Zarbon realized, where it sometimes seemed as if she deliberately used volume to underscore her arguments. In this mood, she was as formidable in her own way as Vegeta himself.

"My Queen," he said, formally, "I will not speak of the late King. That must come from Vegeta himself."

"Then I suggest you find some way to get him here," said Bulma, "Now."

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Zarbon's obvious reluctance to discuss the previous King was a confirmation of Chi-chi's disturbing story. She did her best to mimic Vegeta at his most imperial. Successfully, it seemed, judging from how wide Zarbon's eyes got and how low he bowed before backing out of her presence.

Zarbon did pause as the doors slid open, an unusual twist of uncertainty across his face. "Bulma—try not to judge Vegeta too harshly. Vegeta's the most civilized of the species, but as a whole they are still little more than animals. What seems unnecessarily brutal to us is just a measure of fitness to them."

"No one," said Bulma, "decides how 'fit' my child is, Zarbon. Or if my child is fit."

An odd grimace chased across the liaison's face. He agrees with me, thought Bulma. If I decide I need to get out of here fast, he might help me. He's the one person Vegeta wouldn't kill for helping me. I hope. I don't know any more...

Folding her arms atop her stomach, Bulma waited for Vegeta, trying to think calming thoughts.

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"She knows everything," was Zarbon's stark pronouncement.

Scowling, Vegeta sent a ki ball flying in the direction of his liaison. It rippled through Zarbon's projected image before beginning to whip around the edges of the practice room in a circular pattern as Vegeta tried to build up momentum for the next attack on Bulma's ki-reflecting robot. "Don't be so dramatic, baka. What's for her to know? Even if that idiot Radditz has let her hear rumors about the old harem, it's not like I plan on reinstitu—".

"About your father."

What about my worthless father? wondered Vegeta as he eyed the ki sphere, beginning to work out possible trajectories for interception. "He's dead, baka."

"Pre-cise-ly," drawled Zarbon.

What does that matter? She knew he was going to die before I left Chikyuu, just not ... how... His concentration broken, he stared with startled comprehension at the holograph in his training cubicle. Zarbon shouted a warning. Vegeta's head snapped around just in time to catch a glimpse of something bright heading right for him. The ki sphere?!

His own attack struck Vegeta square on the breast bone, driving him through Zarbon's image, which dissolved in a shower of sparks. He was shoved deeper into the padded side of the room, where the ki sphere pinned him like an insect. Grunting and growling as he struggled against the pressure on his chest, Vegeta managed to turn his torso enough to slough the sphere off, into the wall. The resulting explosion spun him around, crashed him into the ki-reflecting robot as it hovered several feet off the ground. It squawked inelegantly and tilted away from the unexpected assault. Vegeta landed flat on his face on the hard floor, where he lay still long enough for the military observers in the main control room to be concerned about him. Finally, Vegeta twitched an arm, slowly pulled his legs underneath himself, and pushed up to his feet.

"Damn," commented the King, unemotionally.

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Her thoughts were like quicksilver. She couldn't hold on to any one for more than a few seconds. None of them were thoughts she wanted to hang on to: images of Earth as a charred cinder, images of a miniature Vegeta in swaddling clothes laughing that cruel Saiyan laugh as an indistinct figure burned to ashes in front of him. Battle to the death. It's how they do things here...

She was breathing slowly and evenly, working hard to stay calm for the baby. Her child had picked up on her distress. The baby was squirming and shifting and kicking hard enough to leave (she was sure) internal bruises. It's okay, sweetie, she tried to comfort it, briefly wishing she had some of Vegeta's mind powers. Even without telepathy, it finally seemed to work. The baby settled a bit, rather low in her abdomen, pressing against her spine. Flinching, Bulma groped for a chair and managed to sit before she lost all feeling in her legs. She found herself facing the open doors of one of the balconies. This view was a favorite of Vegeta's since it looked out over the capitol rather than the gardens. There was, she knew, a certain pride of ownership he felt toward his city. From her seated position she could only see the faint glow from the artificial illumination, not any of the spire-tipped buildings themselves. The light reflected dully off the dark night clouds.

The baby elbowed her again, practically (it felt) in the groin. Easy, kid, Bulma thought. He doesn't own me. He doesn't own you. As if the baby could hear her thoughts, it quieted again. Bulma winced, glad she was sitting down. The baby was certainly picking awkward positions to settle into tonight...

She heard the door to her private quarters slide open, the slap of approaching footsteps. "What is it, woman?" demanded her husband's voice.

He can't even look at me... "Could you come to where I can see you? Please," she added, trying hard to keep her voice even.

There was a sharp exhale. Vegeta strode around her chair, stopping in front to stare down his haughty nose at her. "What?"

She had not known what she was going to say, exactly, until she looked into those dark, dark eyes. "I'm not going to let you kill each other," she stated, flatly.

Unlike Zarbon, Vegeta did not pretend to misunderstand what she meant. For that, she was peculiarly grateful. "We won't kill each other, little human," said Vegeta, without inflection or heat or, really, much interest at all. "If the Heir is worthy, then only I die. That is my duty. That is the Heir's duty as well; to know when it is time for me to die."

"Who decides the Heir is worthy?"

"Don't be an idiot," snapped Vegeta with a hint of irritation, quickly masked. Good. He's on edge about this, too. "He's my brat. He will be worthy."

"Or she," corrected Bulma automatically.

"'He,'" repeated Vegeta, flatly. A hint of amusement filtered into his expression. "Unless you've been ingesting hormones."

"Oh, thanks loads, dammit. You know I wanted to wait to find out."

He snorted — the universal Saiyan answer to everything, thought Bulma crossly. She would have to make sure her child — her son, apparently — didn't pick up that particular habit. Or any that involved patricide. "Vegeta, this is insane. I will not have our child raised with the idea that he — or she — has to kill you one day in order to prove themselves."

"He has to be prepared early," insisted Vegeta harshly. "It has to be part of his every waking moment. I was prepared for my entire life, and I still almost—" He took in a breath, and spun away. "Why are we talking about this?" he snapped over one rigid shoulder. "That moment is decades away, woman. It might well happen after the span of your natural life. Which makes it no concern of yours, anyway."

Shocked to her core, He didn't want to go through with it? thought Bulma. He didn't. Vegeta... Oh, Vegeta. I'm so sorry.

There was a long stretch of silence that extended, momentarily, even to Bulma's mind. Vegeta stared out the balcony doors, his ramrod-straight back eloquent. Bulma gazed down at her hands, unconsciously stroking her bulging belly as something the baby did made flesh twitch and flutter.

"What are you going to do?" asked Vegeta, apparently addressing the distant spires of the capitol.

Do...? Chi-chi was thinking in terms of escape, Bulma knew, and to be honest it had crossed her mind as well. The urgency to do so was fading along with her shock. Now, she was overwhelmed with sympathy by the sheer waste of it all. No wonder Saiyans live for the present, if this is what they live with every day. But who says it has to be this way? It doesn't.

I'm rationalizing, Bulma acknowledged to herself, grimly. But still; a lot could happen in decades. She had saved Earth. She had saved a few dozen alien engineers. Perhaps she could save Vegeta from what he saw as his inevitable fate.

There was another ripple, a more painful one, this time extending fingers of agony across the small of her back as well. Bulma ground her teeth against an audible gasp. Dammit, kid, your father and I are in the midst of something important. Cut it out with the B-Hicks contractions. Can't you just give me heartburn at 3 a.m. instead of pestering me now? She glanced at her watch, absently noting the baby's fits and turns were oddly regular, about seven minutes apart.

Even in her current highly-charged emotional state, her logical mind worked. Once she noticed the pattern, she grasped what was happening.

"Vegeta."

Her husband turned his head slightly away from the balcony's clear doors, presenting her with a stony profile. Waiting for what I choose to do. I chose when I decided to come here, Vegeta. "Better get Chi-chi and the doctors," Bulma told him, calmly, "since I know you don't want to deal with this."

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There was evidently a lot of noise involved in this stage of human reproduction. And not just from Bulma, whose screams and oaths so disconcerted her guards that Radditz ordered all of them away from the royal quarters, standing in the outer chambers by himself with a sullen expression. The King's Guard had long since been dismissed; some of Bulma's utterances were definitely treasonous in nature, having to do with suggestions that the King's ancestry was less than pure. Despite Vegeta's indifference to her words, some of his Elites visibly bristled. Goku was also an early deserter as he dragged a protesting Gohan away, his own visage pasty. Vegeta stomped out of the room once, but was followed by a determined Chi-chi. The two stood in the semi-public hall outside the royal quarters and shouted at each other in that near-unintelligible rapid form of Standard the Earthers spoke under duress, which ended with the King, snarling obscenities in several Saiyan dialects, stomping back in. After that Zarbon restricted access to all areas within the King's wing of the palace, personally taking up a station outside the quarters.

This stage of human reproduction was also, evidently, time-consuming. The entire night passed without the Heir putting in an appearance. The binary stars were well into the morning sky before a flurry of activity within the chambers indicated some new crisis point was arriving. Radditz heard nothing from behind the closed doors of the Queen's chambers, but Zarbon suddenly went from a passive posture, eyes closed and arms folded as he leaned against the corridor wall, to near-frenzied activity, pacing and pivoting and, several times, appearing on the verge of charging past Radditz into the chambers which, right now, only held the Earth medical team, Bulma, Chi-chi and the King. Radditz casually moved to the entry way, partially blocking it, a silent warning to Zarbon that he was not to cross into the chambers without explicit orders. Zarbon regarded him with visible amusement, but chose to hold his peace and resumed pacing.

It was only a few minutes later that he stopped again. "Did you hear that?"

"Baka," snorted Radditz. "Of course not, you moron. Hear what?"

Vegeta stumbled out of the private quarters, past Radditz's station in the entry way to the Royal suite, into the hallway where Zarbon paced, and reeled past his gaping aide, resting his hands flat on the cool marble surface, gasping for air. For one black moment Zarbon feared the worst. He grabbed one of Vegeta's wrists—bonded warriors sometimes killed themselves, he knew, in the first shock of a mate's passing. But Vegeta ripped out with, "What do you think you doing?" his tone furious rather than ravaged, and Zarbon knew something else was wrong.

"What are you doing?" Zarbon returned. "Bulma accidentally grab your tail during labor or what? Is there a problem with the baby?"

Vegeta snarled, spinning around, placing his shoulders against the wall as if he were at bay. "The baby—! The brat's..." The young King stopped, as if overcome by some primitive emotion.

"I'll get the med-techs." Zarbon started down the hall.

"—human," Vegeta spat out like a curse.

Zarbon stopped as if he had run into a wall himself. He turned slowly. "Human?" he repeated, as if not quite believing his ears.

"Yes," snapped the King. "It's pale. It's got blue eyes. And hair! It's got blue hair! Limp blue hair!"

Zarbon looked down the hall away from the King, leaning back slightly as he checked around the corner, his brows knotted together.

"It's a freaking Earthling. I mean, it has a tail, but—"

Zarbon looked the other way, past the King, seeing the carefully-expressionless Radditz guarding the entrance to the Royal suite. His lips pursed slightly as he briefly surveyed the warrior with golden eyes narrowed; then his gaze turned back to the King, and his expression tightened.

"—but," Vegeta was continuing, "the next King of Vejiitasei is going to be some blue haired, pale-skinned, monstrosity of an ERK—"

With a series of smooth, controlled movements, Zarbon seized the King under his shoulders, lifted him a foot off the ground, and slammed him into the wall hard enough for cracks to fan out from the impact. Unhurt, Vegeta brought his hands around his liaison's forearms, staring at Zarbon as if the alien had lost his mind.

"You selfish little bastard!" Zarbon barked. "I don't care if it's protoplasm, you get back in there, you tell your wife she's done a fine job, you hold that baby like you care about it, and you look happy, or I swear it won't matter what your ki is these days, I'll find a way to make that drubbing I gave you in Cold's tournament look like a lovefest!" Zarbon slammed him against the wall again, for emphasis, then dropped the King and stood with his arms crossed, glowering. "Move it!" he shouted as Vegeta simply stood there, blinking.

Vegeta gave him another astonished look, opened his mouth, closed his mouth, then, scowling darkly, stalked around his liaison and headed back to the royal chambers. Exhaling sharply enough to blow strands of fine green hair around, Zarbon pivoted away, catching Radditz's gaze. "What are you looking at?" he demanded angrily.

"A dead man," said Radditz, faintly. "Hell, that's what I am if he remembers I stood here and let you do that!"

"And your little 3000 level ki was going to stop me how?" snarled Zarbon.

Radditz looked at him in amusement. "Aren't you the one who says there's always a chance?"

After a pause, Zarbon found his temper beginning to ease. "How about this; I won't mention it if you won't."

"Oh, I don't know. Would you be interested in granting a dying man's last request?"

"You have such a one-track mind," snapped Zarbon with a renewed flare of temper.

"Maybe it's not what you think," Radditz snapped back, as if annoyed that that had been brought into the conversation.

For a second, the tension was a physical thing between them. Then Zarbon turned his head away with a slight dismissive gesture — a very Saiyan way of offering an apology — and Radditz inhaled through his nose and exhaled gently through his mouth — very similar to how Zarbon himself usually released his tension. "Y'know, in my transformed state, I might actually be able to give you a bout now," Radditz remarked, casually, as if the charged scene had not occurred.

"Many Saiyan Elites surpass my highest ki in their transformed state," shrugged Zarbon. "They go oozaru so rarely, however, they have limited control. Just end up making themselves really big targets."

Radditz smiled, quietly. "You forget my off world service," he said. "I've gone oozaru hundreds of time, Zarbon. That makes me the only Elite Guard with fighting experience as an oozaru."

Zarbon smiled back, his eyes glinting. "We will have to try that sometime, then." Once again his gaze tracked by Radditz. "Did you hear that?"

The twist of his head indicated that Radditz had heard something unexpected — a high-pitched mewling noise, jerky and intermittent, as if breathing were a new experience. Turning, he saw that the door to the private quarters had not completely closed after Vegeta. Zarbon took advantage of Radditz's distraction to dash past him. Radditz caught up with him at the entrance to the Queen's bedchamber, too late to tackle him as the door slid open.

Evidently this stage of human reproduction required a lot of people. It was hard to see Bulma through the horde of Earth techs. The Queen was propped up in the bed, her blue hair plastered and stringy with sweat, clutching a squirming blanket in her arms. Chi-chi sat next to her on the bed, making absurd noises and even more absurd faces in the blanket's general direction.

At the head of the bed, Vegeta stood with his royal nose in the air, looking completely...peeved. His gaze crossed Zarbon's. Zarbon made a slight move as if to retreat but, after that one glower, Vegeta pointedly turned his head away, studiously ignoring him. I'm in for weeks of the silent treatment, Zarbon thought without regret.

"Trunks," Bulma murmured as she looked down at her son's chubby, wrinkled face. "Trunks."

"Woman, what are you babbling about?"

"His name," said Bulma. "'Trunks.'"

"Don't be absurd."

"There's nothing absurd about 'Trunks,'" Bulma flared. "It's my dad's name! You have a problem with that?"

How like them not to have settled on something so basic as a name. He felt heat at his back; Radditz was edging closer. Casually, Zarbon tucked his arms in and leaned one of his broad shoulders against the door's edge, keeping the sliding panel in its recessed compartment. Radditz peeked over Zarbon's shoulder.

"The next King of Vejiitasei is not going to be named after that odd-smelling old man that sired you," decreed Vegeta, loftily. "His name is Vegeta, of course."

"You are in so much trouble if Vegeta sees you," Zarbon muttered out of the side of his mouth.

"Maybe he won't want to be the next King of Vejiitasei! Maybe he'll want to be the next President of the Capsule Corporation!"

"Eh, who wants to live forever?" Radditz said quietly.

Zarbon smirked at that, but there was a softer cast to his face than usual as he caught glimpses of the baby's extremities — a waving foot here, grasping fingers there, the impression of an undulating brown tail. He had to fight a strong urge to go embrace Vegeta, but while the King tolerated greater familiarity from him since the death of his father — if ignoring the occasional hand on the shoulder instead of ki-blasting him could be called "tolerating" — now was not a good time. Apart from Vegeta's uncertain temper, it wouldn't be proper with this many people present.

Bulma, not pausing one second in her squabble with Vegeta, hitched the baby higher in her arms. The tiny fingers clutched her blue hair. She winced, then yelped, then screamed, and the quarrel halted as Vegeta was forced to pry his son's too-strong new-born digits away. "You better not do anything like that when you're nursing, kid," Bulma told the baby crossly.

"We may want to start him with some weapons training right away," commented Zarbon, amused. "He looks like he has a good grip."

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He viewed the scene from somewhere outside of himself—or, perhaps, from somewhere inside of himself that was buried so deep it felt like it didn't belong to him at all. The entire scene, from the scrambling Earth med-techs to the odd sounds Kakarott's mate was making at the Heir to the weird noises the Heir himself occasionally made, possessed a dream-like quality that didn't seem entirely real. He stared down at the pale, tiny fingers that he had wrenched away from Bulma's hair. Or maybe this is a nightmare...

There is danger in this, thought Vegeta. The brat's mother was unpredictable at best; the brat likely would be as well. What if it — he — didn't follow the path all previous Saiyans Heirs of the last millennium had mapped out for them? The House of Vejiitasei had survived the split and the civil war, all those years ago; surely it could survive one wayward pale-skinned brat.

He looked at the baby, at the baby's mother. A bare flick of a smile crossed his mouth as he gazed at the two, gone so quickly that, if Bulma had not happened to glance right at him, she would have missed it entirely. He replaced it with one of his best sneers. His little human was not fooled. The weary cast to her face remained, but some subtle darkness to her expression cleared. She stuck her tongue out at him before returning her attention to the pale thing in her arms. Vegeta tilted his head toward the little assassin just as his son's new-born tail twined gently around Bulma's forearm. In spite of himself, the King of Vejiitasei relaxed into a grin.

Feh. Am I not Saiyan? Danger is what we live for.

End of Part One (although there are epilogs)