Author's Note: This was revised multiple times, but at some point I guess you have to call it done and just post it.

Bulma lay awake in the dark. She'd heard the shower in Vegeta's room turn off a few minutes ago, and she had the feeling she'd be having a visit from him soon. He still refused to share a room with her, claiming that he couldn't get decent sleep due to her restless sleeping habits, although she maintained that the problem lay in his being a ridiculously light sleeper. However, as the minutes continued to pass she grew impatient. He moved so silently he could have been and gone from the nursery and she wouldn't know. Eventually she flicked the bed side light on. She didn't want to wait for someone who'd slunk away to his own bed without even saying goodnight, so she decided to see if he was coming or not.

She crossed the room and stopped in the open doorway of the nursery. Vegeta still stood before the crib looking down. She smiled and attempted to arrange herself in a sultry pose, though the effect was hampered somewhat by the stretch cotton nightshirt with a print of two cartoon bunny rabbits kissing on the front that Trunks had given to her for her birthday.

'You haven't forgotten about your other woman, have you?' she purred.

He didn't reply, or even move. Bulma frowned. Was he pissed off at her or something? Well, two could play at that game.

'Hey, Vegeta!' she said, marching over to him. That's when she was how tense the muscles in his naked back were, how he was trembling.

'Vegeta!'

Automatically she rushed to the edge of the crib and looked in, but Bra was sleeping soundly, her little chest rising and falling evenly, sucking on her thumb. 'What is it?' she said and looked up into his face, but as soon as she did he turned his head the other way so she couldn't see him. Oh shit! She thought to herself. Not this again! I thought he was past this!

She looked down and saw that his hands were clutching the top bar of a Saiyan-baby proof crib. Apparently it wasn't Saiyan adult proof; it was mangled around his hands. She slowly put her own hand over the back of his, and he let go of the bar and pulled his hands away from her to cover his face with them.

She hated when he pulled away from her like this, but it was how he was. Troubling thoughts and memories, powerful emotions – these things could plunge him into far away depths that he chose to travel alone. She wished he wouldn't, and for a few years now he hadn't.

'What is it this time?' she asked softly. 'A…a flashback or…?' She couldn't imagine what could set him off looking at his sleeping daughter. Or rather she could, but she refused to. She put her hand on his back and a shudder ran up his spine before he turned away from her, heading back out through her bedroom. He went straight towards the balcony doors and she trotted after him, at a loss for what to do to stop him.

'Vegeta…oh please, not again!'

He stopped in the door that he'd opened and half turned his face towards her. 'I'll be back.'

She let out a breath as he closed the door behind him, jumping into the sky still wearing only a bath towel. It was true; he'd always come back. How long would it be this time, she wondered? Hours? Days? A week? His record was six weeks, unless you counted the time he took Capsule 3 into space. In that case his record was a year.

'Oh please, don't do that again!'

She got into bed and tried not to worry. She tried not to get angry either. She'd really hoped she'd seen the end of these disappearing acts. She hated making excuses for Vegeta's absences to Trunks. She had been starting to hope she'd never have to do the same to Bra.

She couldn't sleep now. Her gut didn't twist with anxiety like it used to, but she couldn't relax either. Oh, Vegeta! She wished that even when he couldn't open up he'd at least not ditch her. After an hour or so of worrying, she gave in to the temptation to ease the tension in the least healthy way possible. She got up and went down the hall to one of the many spare bedrooms and opened the wardrobe. There on the top shelf, sealed in plastic so that Vegeta's nose couldn't sniff them out, were her emergency stash of cigarettes and a lighter. She went back to her bedroom and pulled on a cardigan, then slipped out her balcony doors to stand in the cool, still air. She pulled the zip lock bag open and savoured the rich smell of the tobacco that wafted out. She could go months without a cigarette, even years, and prided herself on her will power, but she'd always be a willing pushover for the dubious relief they gave. She was no so much an addict as helplessly in love with their deadly joys.

She only got as far as pulling one of the cigarettes to her lips before a rough voice cut down through the night sky and scared the living daylights out of her.

'Don't even think about it!'

She looked up the curve of the roof above her balcony but couldn't see him.

'Vegeta?'

She heard the sound of fabric and skin sliding against the metal cladding of the building and then he came into view, dropping to the balcony before her. The wrapping of his towel gave way and dropped to the floor and Bulma let her mouth twitch with amusement before she caught sight of his expression and her mirth swiftly evaporated again.

'You know I won't step foot in the room with you after you've been at those filthy things.'

Bulma shrugged as he took the packet and threw it out over the garden, then sent a bolt of chi after it to turn it to ash before it hit the ground. She didn't mind. She felt more than relieved that he was here (and slightly ashamed that he'd caught her out).

'You didn't go far this time,' she said, trying to say it lightly, but hearing the emotions wound up behind her words anyway.

Vegeta was still facing out over the grounds. 'I needed to think,' he said.

'What were you thinking?'

For a long time he said nothing. Bulma stared at his profile, her hopefulness turning into worry, then irritation. She held her tongue – she'd learnt that saying something cutting or sarcastic at a moment like this would only provoke him into an angry outburst and they'd argue instead of getting to the point.

'I was thinking…' he said eventually, 'that…I should not live at Capsule Corp anymore.'

Bulma was floored. She wasn't expecting that!

'What? Wait - no! Why?' Why was he saying such a thing? 'Vegeta, I don't believe you! Why would you want to move out? I thought things were okay between us right now! Better than okay!' She couldn't help the pain in her voice when she said what she'd thought had been true. 'I-I thought things were wonderful! I've been so happy! Haven't you been happy?'

He cringed at her words and curled his body over the top edge of the balcony and he tuned his face away again to hide his emotion.

'I've been…happy,' he admitted in a strangled voice.

'Well then, what's the problem?' she snapped back at him.

'The problem is…that I am not the type of man you want in the house, guarding your children. I told you years ago, I'm not a "family man," like you Earthlings say. I meant it and it's still true.'

She guessed from this that Vegeta was feeling bad about something, probably from his past, and doubting himself all over again. Bulma took a deep breath and regrouped her thoughts for battle. She was on familiar ground now – they'd had this argument many times before.

'Why?' she asked glibly. 'Were you looking down contemplating murdering our little girl in her cot?'

'No!' he said angrily. 'Be serious, Woman! As if I would ever do that!'

'Well then, I still don't see the problem. You can't tell me what type of man I do or don't want in the house.'

'Bulma!' he turned back to her at last, exasperation making him snarl and spit the words as he shouted them at her. 'You don't know who I am! You STILL don't know who I am! You listen but you don't understand, and half the time you won't even LISTEN! You refuse to see the person I've been, and I know you don't because I know you. If you could see the things in my head you wouldn't want to look me in the eye again, let alone have me in the house!'

'Lower your voice, Vegeta!' she hissed back at him angrily. 'You'll wake Bra! And how dare you say I don't know you! I fucking know you well enough after eighteen years, and I know I want you here! You've only given me reason to doubt that decision a few times, and not for years. And before you say it!' she raised her finger to head off his objection. 'Because I do know you so well, I can tell you're about to say that I don't know, or even want to know, everything you did when you worked for Frieza! And what I say to that is, so fucking what? I don't care who you ONCE were! I know you! I know you now! And I know that the man you are now is exactly the kind of husband and father I want in the house! Except for when you've got me worried you're going to take off in a cloud of unresolved guilt and self-loathing and never come back!'

He had lowered his eyes to the ground while she'd said her piece, and now he simmered silently, his shoulders slumped in defeat. She realised she'd hit the mark, rather too forcefully.

'I am not meant to be here,' he said eventually. 'Every day is a lie. I live the life of a better man – someone who has not forfeited his chance of a simple and happy life.'

'I wouldn't call your life simple,' she ventured, thinking of all the crazy things that had happened since Vegeta had come to live in her house.

'You know what I mean.'

'Well then, if we're going to allocate happiness by worthiness, maybe I should also be examining my share, do you think? What did I do to deserve this life? Nothing, other than have the luck to be born into my family. I got the looks of my mother and the brains of my father, and the inheritance of their fortune due to no virtue of my own. When I was growing up I was curious, easily bored, bad tempered, and a risk taker. Those traits could've gotten me killed, but instead I got you and my children, a hugely successful company and a satisfying career. I totally lucked out! Maybe we both did.' She lay her hand on his shoulder, trying to get him to look her in the eye. 'You say you forfeited your chances…You did once perhaps, but you've earned more chances. Shenron knew you weren't evil when you were wished back to life with all the other innocents on Earth. It wasn't a mistake that you came back. I wish you would forgive yourself. It doesn't matter who you were once upon a time. That person is dead. All that matters is what you do now.'

He heaved a sigh and then shivered.

'Come inside,' she said, pouncing on the moment. 'It's too cold tonight to stand around naked outside, navel gazing.'

'I'm not cold,' he said.

'But I am.'

He looked through the window at the bed but didn't move, so she wrapped herself around him and began gently pulling him back towards the open door.

'Please, Vegeta! Please come inside. I don't care what you did, I want you with me.'

He took a couple of reluctant steps and then grasped her to him, stopping them right in the doorway. She kissed his neck and his cheek and his ear; all she could reach while he was hiding his face in the crook of her neck.

'Don't!' he moaned, but she was merciless, running her fingers through his hair and stroking his back.

'You don't even want to go,' she told him. 'You're not going anywhere, so come inside.'

'Damn your arrogance, Woman, thinking you know me backwards and forwards,' he growled, but it sounded like more capitulation to her than a denial.

'Am I wrong?'

He sighed, lifted her off her feet and walked them back inside before dropping her on the bed and hauling her into the middle of it, which was all the answer she got. She caught sight of his defeated expression before he wrapped himself over her, his face pressed to the front of her nightdress and his arms tight around her waist, and knew his dark mood was not yet over.

She stroked his hair down, to get the tickling mass out of her face more than anything, but he seemed to relax his grasp on her a little, so she continued; digging her fingers in deeper until her fingertips ran along his scalp and triggered all those muscles tense from scowling and anger and whatever other stress Vegeta put himself through almost every minute of the day. He sighed deeply and shuddered a little. She might've thought he was crying, but she knew him better than that. She could count on one hand the number of times he'd shed tears in all their time together, and still have fingers to spare. His voice was quite even when he finally spoke.

'Only you have ever done that to me.'

'Poor boy,' she said, knowing better now than to ask something stupid, like 'Didn't your mother stroke your hair?' He wasn't even sure who his mother had been, and had no fond memories of the prime candidate. Her comment made him chuckle though; a short and dark snort of humour.

'You are perverse, do you know that?' he said.

'Apparently so.' She continued her ministrations until he got up, crossed to the open balcony door and closed it. Then he returned to her, pulling the comforter over them and nestled beside her, closing his eyes. She breathed a sigh of relief. The worst was over.

ooo

Vegeta woke again to the sound of Bulma mumbling in her sleep and wriggling furiously against him. His heart was still pounding from the dream he'd been jolted from. He attempted to hold her still by wrapping his arms around her, but she went rigid and cried 'Soapsuds!' and he let her go, the absurdity of it knocking him out of his fear for a moment and making him smile. It was too much to expect that he be allowed some decent sleep in Bulma's bed. His mate's brilliant mind didn't stop in her sleep, but he had to wonder what went on in here to make her shout 'soapsuds'. His smile died when he contemplated his own dream again.

He'd been flying through the underground of Frieza's city with Bulma in his arms, then up across the plaza into the pod bay. He killed the technicians and she clambered in the door and ran to him.

'Vegeta, I don't want to die!' she said to him with tears in her eyes.

'Bulma, I'm never going to let that happen,' he'd told her, but dread filled his stomach and chest because he knew how this dream ended. He couldn't do that to her – how could he have before? She threw her arms around him and kissed him and he kissed her back desperately, pulling her to the floor. The concrete melted away and became the turquoise grass of a lakeside meadow on old planet Namek. They rolled around in it, shedding clothes, the fear of the previous moment retreating into a background unease under the orange sun and green sky. Bulma was astride him in her underwear and stood up, laughing. With a flourish she unclasped her bra and strutted away from him, dropping her panties as she went.

'Time for a swim, lover boy?' she said suggestively over her shoulder.

'No, Bulma, there is no time! I have to get you out of here,' he told her, but she dived into the green water anyway. He scrambled to his feet and looked around in panic. Somewhere out here was Frieza, and he didn't have his scouter on him to tell where. Then he realised that it didn't matter. He could feel Frieza's dark, volatile energy creeping up behind him, rolling over him in oppressive waves. The scent of the ruby liqueur filled his nose. Zarbon shot from the water holding Bulma who writhed and screamed.

'Vegeta!' snapped the sibilant voice behind him. 'You never learn, do you? You're just going to have to kill this one too! Don't make me tell you again!'

'No!' he shouted. 'I will not kill her!

But he had awoken.

He looked down on his sleeping mate, relieved the dream hadn't been real. He'd choose death before he let her be killed. After all, he didn't think he could live without her now. He'd been a fool earlier to suggest he could give up living as her mate. It was stupid, really. The melodrama of the gesture was faintly embarrassing to him now. It didn't change that he felt undeserving of his happiness. He just knew he'd never willingly let go of her, or his children.

He gathered her to him, feeling suddenly lonely to be awake while she was asleep, and kissed her forehead, then softly, her lips. To his surprise she kissed him back in her sleep, and he lingered over her, brushing his tongue over her lips experimentally.

'Mmm,' she said and wrapped a clumsy arm around his neck and kissed him deeply in return. What was she dreaming of now, he wondered? Skinny-dipping on Namek? He wanted the real her to dispel the dream. He let the kiss go on and on, Bulma growing more and more ardent in her movements, pressing herself to him and wrapping both arms around him though she still hadn't opened her eyes. He ran a hand up under her nightshirt and she moaned out of all proportion with the action. Whatever she was dreaming, it must be good, he thought to himself, slightly jealous that he was not there with her. He decided to play with her until she joined him on this side of consciousness.

He dragged her down the bed so that her nightshirt rucked up about her armpits and knelt between her legs, looking down on the landscape of her sleeping body. Where first? He ran his hands up the insides of her thighs, spreading them wider, and even that made her gasp. He could feel the thrumming of her excited pulse beneath her skin and feel the warmth of it increasing, and her scent…it kindled a matching desire in himself, but somehow it all just made him feel lonelier and sadder.

He bent down to lay his cheek against her abdomen and said her name softly – wanting her to wake but not wanting to wake her. She only sighed.

He crouched over her body and dragged his face over the pale skin, belly to ribs to breasts, filling his nose and mouth with her scent and softness. She shuddered and put her arms around him to pull him up for another kiss. She arched against him, greedy for more, ready, it seemed, for anything, and wiggled her hips, trying to get him to join with her already.

'Vegeta,' she spoke at last, begging in a little voice. 'Please, please…!'

The begging was gratifying, but he was still shocked.

'So soon?' he asked.

'Yes! It's just…' Her eyes were open, but half-lidded with lust and her lips plump and parted. She looked beautiful and carnal and innocent all at once. 'I want you so bad, Vegeta,' she said, and he was not convinced at all that she was fully awake, but her breathy words curled around his ego and squeezed it, sending an urgent message down his spine to his groin. He was catching up to her fast.

He eased himself into her, feeling just how eager she was; so warm, wet and welcoming, he thought he would melt against her at her groan of satisfaction. She rocked underneath him, setting a drawn out pace that revelled in the almost unbearable sensation, clutching him tight, her unselfconscious noises of pleasure pulling him after her as she edged towards her climax. I do this to her, some deep, primitive part of himself preened to itself. I make my woman feel this good!

When she came he was right behind her, adding his own gasps to hers, and for a second all thoughts were expunged from his mind and there was only this; this moment that he threw control to the wind and just felt.

And then inexplicably and horribly he was thrown back into the moment after he'd shamed himself with the Nimbrian girl on the floor of the pod bay. His heart, pounding from his orgasm, went on hammering in fear as the memory intruded on this happy moment and crushed it beneath the weight of his regret. His body tensed, telling him to flee, and he bit his tongue against the urge to cry I'm sorry, I'm sorry!

How had a mere memory done that? He'd been fairly successful in not thinking of that time for so long, and now it spontaneously erupted in his dreams and spoiled the intimacy between himself and his mate. Had he picked the top off a scab that would now ooze unpleasant memories for who knew how long? He was suddenly, irrationally, afraid that it would never stop weeping again.

'Wow,' Bulma said, laughing into his ear.

He lifted his head and looked down at his mate, feeling suddenly a thousand miles away from her. Even after eighteen years, an enormous abyss of experience separated them, and in it lay all the things he hadn't told her and she didn't want to know. It was quite likely that he was the only person still alive that remembered the events that troubled him. He was alone with his memories, and the weight of bearing them alone was growing intolerable.

ooo

Bulma's laugh faded as she made out Vegeta's stricken expression in the dim moonlight coming through the windows.

'So you are awake then?' he asked in a gruff voice.

'Yes. Though I'm not really sure when my dream ended and reality began,' she replied.

'It must've been quite a dream.'

'It was,' she said with a chuckle, and then she frowned. 'Is everything okay?'

'Yes,' he said leadenly, and rolled off her, leaving her cold with no comforter and her nightshirt wrapped around her shoulders. The weight of worry settled on her heart again. It looked as if whatever was troubling Vegeta earlier still had hold of him. She wriggled around to sort herself out, struggling to haul the comforter over herself again, as Vegeta was lying on top of it. He got off the bed to let her have it and then headed towards the door.

'I'm going to bed,' he said.

'No!' she said. 'Not yet! Come back!'

'I would like to get some sleep tonight,' he said acidly.

'You don't need to go rushing off like that. A girl could get her feelings hurt.'

He crossed his arms and scowled down at her.

'Come here,' she commanded.

'Woman, you don't tell me what to do,' he said flatly.

'Well, don't force me to order you around then!'

'What?' he said, apparently struggling with that logic.

'I know what I mean! Vegeta, please! Come back to bed.'

Sighing, he turned back and flopped back down on the bed next to her, on his stomach, his face turned away from her. She sat up and contemplated his stern profile. He wasn't angry at her was he? No, she decided. He couldn't be.

She stroked her fingers through the hair on the back of his head again, as this had worked so well before. 'Tell me what's wrong,' she said.

'Why? You don't want to know.'

'I think I do.'

He didn't say anything for a while, but she could see his jaw flexing as he tried to master whatever emotion he struggled with.

'You were wrong earlier,' he said eventually.

'About what?'

'When you said that the person I once was is dead. He's not dead. He's me. I can't get away from it, or forget what I did forever.'

She stopped her stroking, her hand resting on the back of his head. She guessed she hadn't thought of it this way. She might not care what kind of person he'd once been, but he still did, obviously.

'I remember what I did,' he continued, 'and why, and how I thought and felt about it. I might be different, but I'm still me. I'm still he. And you aren't interested in hearing all that "he" did.'

'I know what kinds of things you did,' she said. 'I've heard enough from you to guess the rest. Prying for more would just be…' What? Voyeuristic? Unpleasant? 'What would the point be? Let sleeping dogs lie.'

'You never pry about my past.'

'I listen to whatever you have to tell me.'

'Meanwhile, I can see you wanting to run screaming from the words. I can practically hear the wheels of your mind spinning, trying to justify and dismiss everything I've done as forgivable. And so I haven't told you the worst.'

Bulma blushed with guilt. She knew it was true. She liked her bad man, but she hated hearing just how bad he'd been. Knowing the details made it too true for her. It made her question herself. It was too painful and upsetting and she was too cowardly to test her love like that. But now she realised that Vegeta didn't have any ignorance to hide behind. He couldn't turn away or glance over the details of what he'd done like she could, and it was eating at him.

'I thought most of the shitty things you did didn't bother you. That's what you told me.'

'Most of it doesn't. Maybe a lot of what doesn't should. But then there are other things…'

What things? What things could Vegeta find more distressing than the memories of genocides and executions he'd carried out? Bulma felt the urge to turn away from the thought again, to run screaming as he'd rightly accused her of, but she willed herself to hold tight.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'You're right. I'd prefer not to know.' She hesitated over what she said next. 'If you really need to talk about something that happened, you can tell me. But if it doesn't need to be said…if it doesn't need to be me you tell…' He pulled away from her, shirking her hand, and she realised how weak that sounded. 'No, wait!' she said, back-pedalling. 'Vegeta, tell me what's bothering you, please!'

'I don't wish to tell anyone,' he said into the mattress, 'least of all you, because I wish it had never happened! I'm afraid that if I tell you, you'll really see me for what I am and you'll throw me out of the house yourself.'

'Then, why would you tell me at all?'

'Because I also…hope that you won't.'

Bulma felt alarm tingle from the tips of her fingers and toes to her heart even as it squeezed with sympathy for her husband. Most of the time he was so self-contained and full of swagger that even she could forget sometimes that he still needed acceptance like any other person. She knew he didn't care if everyone hated him, just as long as she and her family didn't, and that tiny niche in the universe was important to him. She hadn't realised that all this time she'd been denying some part of him inclusion in their little world. Oh fuck, she cursed, realising that if she wanted to be truly fair to him, she would have to hear this out.

She crossed her fingers, scrunched up her face and prayed to Kami as she said, 'I won't. Now tell me.'

He said nothing for a long moment, and then he propped himself up on his elbows, and when he spoke he kept his eyes on his hands, and fidgeted, running one thumb over the palm of his other hand compulsively.

Bulma imagined his old white gloves still in place. He didn't wear them anymore, but she suspected he missed their comforting presence at times.

'You once asked me about other women,' he started uncertainly. 'If there had been any before I met you.'

'I remember,' she replied. Already this conversation had taken a different path than she expected. Her dread doubled. 'You told me that there'd only been a few before me. Nothing of importance…'

He snorted grimly. 'Not how you meant, anyway. There were only three times, and three females I'd ever lain with before you. The first two really did mean nothing. They were just…' He stopped himself and gritted his teeth before going on. 'They were just prostitutes that took my money and that was that. Raditz was a fan of…' he waved his hand, dismissing all of "that".

Bulma held down her shudder. She had always suspected that something of that kind had happened. His tales about Raditz and Nappa certainly suggested he was no stranger to brothels, but still, it was icky to think of her husband paying for sex. It was just so skeevy. And then she realised that this fact was, of course, not the point of the story.

'And what about the third woman?'

'Not a woman, a girl. Girls. It's really about three girls.'

Bulma gasped in confusion and shock. 'Three girls? How - how old?'

'I don't know. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen? About the same age as I was at the time.'

'Okay then,' she said, relaxing again. 'Tell me about the three girls.'

ooo

He told her a tale, sketching it out first with bald words, and then filling it in with details at Bulma's prompting and questioning. He shook as he told it, and she shook too. Reading between the lines, Bulma heard a tale about a youth spent in fear and loneliness under cruel and hateful surrogate parents, with only the flame of his own stubborn belief in himself as a Saiyan to warm him. That and his pride in a job well done. Even now she could hear in the words he chose that the "repossession job" on Nimbus 3 was a moment of achievement for him. She found her own reaction swinging jarringly from natural pride for her husband's precociousness to revulsion at the blasé description of the death and destruction he'd been so good at dealing.

She bit her lip and clenched her fists as he described his abduction of the pink haired Nimbrian, afraid he would reveal some reprehensible act that she would never be able to forgive him for. Tears pricked her eyes when he told her about the girl sucking her thumb in hypersleep, and how Bra doing the same had pushed this all to the front of his mind. Her heart was warmed by his attempt to save her, only to be shocked again by what Frieza had forced him to do to her.

The story grew darker and the tension tighter as he went on. She imagined the city she'd never been to, the cell that he had lived in for years, and felt their imaginary walls closing in on her with Frieza's deadly disapproval and Zarbon's horrific dominating. When he told her about his dream and the plan it inspired - to save another girl in the stead of the first - she understood the impulse entirely, though he seemed unsure still of what made him do it.

'It was foolish,' he said.

'It was brave,' she retorted. 'You were proving that Frieza and Zarbon didn't control every aspect of you. That they couldn't stop you doing something good if you wanted to.'

'I thought I was proving that they didn't own me entirely, but in the end I only proved to myself that they did.'

Bulma bit her nails as he told her about the rescue, but then flushed with vicarious mortification as he haltingly told her what happened in the pod bay control room. He held his face cradled in his hands as he forced himself to keep saying the words, and Bulma felt herself awash in such a strange brew of emotions – distaste, anger and embarrassment for him, sympathy for both him and the girl, and bizarrely, jealousy that he'd had anything to do with another woman, and that she still made him feel so much after all this time.

When he got to the part where he'd sent the pod into space, Vegeta was silent for a long time. He sniffed before he spoke again, and Bulma wondered if he actually was crying this time. Her own face was streaked with tears.

'Did I rape her?' he asked.

Everything in her cringed from the word. She wanted to shout no, not you! You could never do such a thing! But that wasn't the truth. 'I - I don't know. You'd have to ask her. Only she knows.'

'She said I didn't at the time. That she'd wanted it too. As I held her life in the balance.'

Bulma paused, trying to imagine the scene from his description of the long-ago memories. Had the girl been too scared of Vegeta to stop him? Had she changed her mind? What had she even intended in the first place? These were missing answers they would never know. Vegeta was not faultless though, that was clear. 'It sounds like you were…inelegant. Inexperienced. Inconsiderate. Lonely. Desperate for affection. I don't know what that all adds up to,' she said.

'You make me sound so helpless.'

'Don't you think you were? You were just a kid. You know, even when you first came to live here, there were still some ways in which you were like a child.'

Vegeta swivelled his head to glare at her with one reddened eye.

'I'm not insulting you,' she insisted. 'I mean, I was childish too, in other ways. I know that. But I don't think that you had had all the things in your life that you needed to finish growing up.'

'Like what?'

'Like…love.'

'Oh, I might've known you'd trot out the dewy-eyed crap.'

'Hey!' she scolded. 'Don't be like that! We both know you love, and that you value love. You were starving for it even when you didn't know what it was, so don't mock it.'

'Hmph,' he grunted, but didn't deny it.

She didn't know why the killing of millions never bothered him, but the thought that he might've overpowered a girl did. Or the killing of the first girl, who would have died anyway. If he'd thoughtlessly incinerated them during the purge their deaths would never have bothered him. Did it violate his honour code – the same code that had no quibble with killing every man woman, and child to order? He had chosen to connect himself to these girls. Did they fall under some other clause then? Was that why he'd never harmed her or her family? When she'd asked him to come live at Capsule Corporation it had been on nothing more than a hunch that he held such honour.

The rest of the story was a downward spiral into justified paranoia. Zarbon's midnight gift of the "keepsake" made her feel sick. By the time Vegeta got to the part where he was called to Freiza's throne room she had a much better understanding of both Zarbon and Frieza, and she was shaking in anticipation of the ending before it finally arrived, just as chilling as she had feared. Vegeta's voice was thick and angry as he declared himself an unmitigated monster for killing the sister when he knew it to be wrong, and for how he did it eagerly to save himself and felt nothing at all. He stopped there, at the lowest point of the story, with the unlucky girl's skin crisping in the furnace and he finally earning a reluctant endorsement from Zarbon. Vegeta hid his face again while Bulma cried for the boy he'd once been.

She wondered what was worse – the way he could easily talk about the wholesale murder of a planet of people as he had at the beginning, or the difficulty he had even now trying to say why he had tried to save the first two girls or what he'd felt about any of them. But she could see the guilt all around and thick upon his heart. He was a better man, which was why the memory hurt him so.

She reached out and touched his face.

'Vegeta, I'm so sorry.'

He finally looked up at her in bemusement. 'What are you sorry for?'

'That you had to go through that.'

He snorted. 'Yes, I had to go through that. Still, I got a better deal out of it than three Nimbrian girls, don't you think?'

'You liked them. You felt sorry for them,' she offered him.

'Maybe. Maybe that was a part of it. But that was not all.'

'That was why you didn't want them to die. It's why you're still so upset about it now. Even when you were killing so many you still had part of you that had compassion.'

'But I killed them anyway, the first and the third. I even thought about killing the second once she knew who I was.'

'But you didn't. And you had no choice but to kill those two girls.'

He shook his head. 'That's what I thought at the time, but I always had a choice. I could have refused Frieza and let him do with me what he would. I could have run away. Maybe he would've caught me, but I might have lived my whole life quietly on the other side of the galaxy. It's a big place. But I didn't even try. I didn't want to. I put cold revenge and my own glory ahead of everyone who died at my hands, not just those girls. I didn't care about the price anyone else paid for my own convenience.'

'You didn't know any other way.'

'Even if I didn't, does that excuse it? It's not like I didn't know killing people was wrong. I just didn't care. A lot of the time I even enjoyed it.'

Bulma felt a wave of horror wash through her, leaving her feeling nauseas.

'Don't tell me I'm blameless for that,' he challenged her, and Bulma had no return. It wasn't like his complicity in Frieza's wholesale murder hadn't been hinted at before. He'd even claimed outright to have enjoyed it, long ago, when they were still getting to know each other and he was trying to shock her. She hadn't totally taken him seriously back then, or if she had, she'd revised her stance as she unearthed the good in the man and fell for him. But to have him say it now, so baldly…Now she knew he was serious. How could she have gone so long with her eyes purposely shut on that aspect of who he was? She realised that she'd been so desperate to justify her affection for him, her love for the man he was becoming, that she'd blurred in her mind the worst of what he told her about himself. She felt like a fool. A self-deceiving fool. And she felt afraid of the man next to her for the first time in years.

Is there something wrong with me that I fell in love with a man like that? she asked herself. What if he got up tomorrow and decided he'd like to watch a city burn again, blow up kindergartens and mow down citizens as they ran from him? But then she reminded herself that he was not that man now. She'd bet on a dark horse and maybe she'd been wrong about just how remote the chances were, but she'd still been on the money – he was a man worth a thousand men – a million! There was no one she'd rather have in the universe!

She steadied herself. He would never harm her or their children (at least, not seriously and not outside of the gravity room). He might kill to protect them, but she was sure that that was the only reason he would kill these days.

'Okay, you win,' she said. 'You used to be evil. Maybe nearly completely evil. Used to be.'

'No. I was completely evil once I'd killed that third girl.'

'Don't be silly,' she told him. 'You'd have died if you defied Frieza.'

'So? I would die for you.' He didn't need to say that he already had. She grasped his hands and squeezed them. She didn't want to say it, but his remorse was the only silver lining of his story.

'I know. But you barely knew those girls. You were young; you were scared. A teenager doesn't make decisions like that. Now your older and wiser, and you're judging that boy by your standards now.' She sighed and then smiled slightly. 'And let's not forget that if you'd have been killed I'd have never have met you. Earth would probably have been destroyed.'

'Earth would probably have been completely safe and anonymous if I'd never come along.'

'You don't know that! Maybe we'd have been next on Frieza's hit list? And the androids or Cell would probably have wiped us out.'

'It doesn't matter anyway. Even if I had a hand in saving this mudball, what's one planet of lives compared to hundreds of planets? I'm damned.'

Bulma frowned. She didn't like to think she lived in a universe that damned her husband, when he no longer deserved it, and refused to believe that she did. 'What makes you think it works that way, mister? It's not your past but your present, is what I've always been told! You did a lot of evil shit, but you changed. That's what counts. What you do now. Anyway, have you forgotten – you saved the whole fucking universe from Buu! If you and the Z fighters hadn't stopped him he would have consumed everything! Shenron brought you back to life when he resurrected everyone without evil in their heart! You're…you're a good man now.'

He grunted. 'That makes no sense. I was no better than any other soldier in Frieza's army, and a damn sight worse than most. If they'd come to Earth and turned their lives around would you he holding their hands now telling them they're good men? Instead they're all dead and in Hell where I put them. What you're saying is that opportunity and time can buy forgiveness and happiness. That leaves redemption up to chance.'

'You also need the heart to take the opportunity when it comes to you. You took it. You had heart. You said you felt nothing when you killed the third girl. I don't think that's true. You felt it, but to survive you packed it away until it was finally safe to feel again.'

He rolled his eyes. 'Did every evil person rotting away their Eternity in Hell get a chance?'

'I don't know. Maybe they did, but they wouldn't take it. Or maybe they didn't and you're just lucky you lived long enough to change.'

He gave a mirthless bark of laugher. 'That sounds more like it. I only survived my first death by mistake after all.'

Bulma smiled as she remembered what she'd said when she'd seen that Vegeta had been wished back to Earth from Namek along with herself, Gohan and all the Nameks. What's he doing here? We didn't mean to bring him back!

'Perhaps you were spared…destined for greater things,' she said, laying her head against his shoulder. She wrapped one arm around his back and squeezed him, and he turned to face her, leaving his defensive, hunched position at last.

'By who?' he asked, his voice half hopeful and half mocking.

'By a higher power, I guess. The Kaioshin, maybe?'

He shook his head and let go of the hope. 'I don't think my destiny is controlled by that pack of clowns. They couldn't plan a tea party, let alone my destiny.'

'Well, maybe there's a higher power than the Kaioshin? Where do they get their orders from? Their power?'

'I don't know. For all I know it's just those boneheads in charge of the whole universe. No, I don't believe my destiny is written by anyone else. Only I control it.'

'Only you? Not luck? Not chance?' She stroked his face. 'Are you responsible for every random event that happens to you? Every unkind thing that others have done to you? Every happy thing? Every sad thing? Everything that forces your hand to make a decision you didn't want to make?'

He stared back at her, his black gaze wavering on he edge of hope again, and she suddenly felt him so far away, even though he lay right next to her. Her heart cried out silently to him, calling him back to her, and after long moments he returned, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tight, not letting go. That's how she fell asleep again eventually – forehead to forehead, limbs entangled with her husband.

ooo

Vegeta woke again, this time from no dream at all. One of Bulma's hands fluttered softly against his waist and he knew he'd have to move if he was going to sleep again. Gently he detached himself from her and covered her with the comforter, then stood at the bedside looking down at her, a warm aching in his chest. It felt good to have shared that piece of himself with her. It was such a strange urge to confess. He'd wanted her to know, but at the same time, even now he was dismayed that she did. But what made him feel lightest of all was that she hadn't pushed him away. She'd been upset, but she'd accepted it. Of course, she'd thought up every excuse under the sun to lighten the load of his responsibility, as he'd known she would. He didn't buy it by a long shot, nor would he blame luck and chance overmuch for the choices he'd made in the past, but it didn't seem to matter. She knew and she still wanted him.

Fate, chance or self-determination - he didn't know how he got here, but he was glad he had.

He wandered back through the nursery, reluctant tonight to leave her or his daughter alone, even if he was desperate to shut his eyes for some proper sleep. His bedroom was only on the other side of the nursery, but tonight that seemed too far.

He moved the high-backed nursing chair close to the door between Bulma's room and the nursery. From here he could see both Bulma sprawled on her bed and Bra, who now slept in a crouched position with her cheek pressed to the crib mattress. He wrapped himself in the angora throw rug he found folded on the chair and sank into the plump cushioning, bringing his legs up to sit cross-legged. It had low armrests and it rocked, and the feel of it faintly reminded him of a space pod; a comforting thought.

From nowhere a name came to his lips; a name he thought he'd forgotten.

'Chia…'

Suddenly in his mind's eye he could see her clearly, pink and plump and looking at him with trust in her big, violet eyes. He could see all of them – Acai; golden, beautiful and naked, smiling and crying at the same time, and Goji; tormented and desperate, her last hope in Vegeta shining out of her young face.

'I'm sorry!' he croaked. To his mortification his throat clogged and his eyes blurred with the tears he hadn't let himself shed all night. He gave up and let them come. No one was going to see. But now they didn't come with the burning pain of furious shame and self-recrimination he'd felt before. They were tears of only grief, and then after a while, even that eased.

He fell asleep to the sound of Bra's gentle snoring.

Author's Note: And so here is the end! Let me know your thoughts. I can let you know mine in return! Do you think that Bulma is overly indulgent towards Vegeta? Do you think that, as a fan, you might be too? I have my own opinion on him and my own feelings towards the character. Feel free to ask me questions. It's always interesting to see the words you've written be interpreted by someone else and thrown back at you. Sometimes the readers don't see what I see. Sometimes I realise I haven't written what I thought I'd written.

Another thanks to Adli for her help! It still shames me that someone who learnt English as a second language is better at punctuation in English than I am. Also I hope I didn't break any grammatical rules in my final revision of this chapter that I did AFTER Adli had done her beta magic on it.

Okay, I shall shift my focus back to Never Ever Land now. New chapter coming for that quite soon. And if you've never read any of my work other than this story, but you liked it, I recommend reading Broken Down Universe as the closest thing of mine to the tone of this story. It is more of an action/sci-fi/romantic drama AU though.