Hola! I am so, so, so deeply sorry this took so long! It's just... I had way too much on my plate. A new baby (plus my very active 3 year old girl), staying home for maternity leave with no computer access, and just, life... ah. I'm sorry. Shit just snowballed and I couldn't write for a long time because I felt "guilty" about not writing. Sorta silly, huh? I am truly sorry, readers, and I hope you enjoy this chapter. I'm already working on the next one and I promise it won't take nearly as long :)

Muffled noises, blurry vision, the salty taste of blood. Vegeta stumbled in pain, rolled against the wall and supported his back against it, struggling to breathe. He looked at Zarbon, the sword still tightly held in his right hand. Then Bulma. She was shivering.

The images before his eyes intermittently faded to black; Vegeta struggled to focus, to hold on to his sight. Fuck, it was so… hard and painful.

Zarbon's disgusting voice in the distance.

"Gods, woman, stop looking like an idiot and answer me! I will kill him if you don't!"

Of course he wasn't hurting her, but Zarbon couldn't miss the chance to stab that saiyan in the back with any excuse. The war against them had been going on for so long that it was the natural thing to do – exterminate them. Anywhere, in any way. And how Zarbon loathed them, that godforsaken race that were born to be killed before they exterminated everything.

Vegeta's knees weakened and barely conscious now, he slid against the wall until his body touched the ground, his hands trying to stop the gruesome, strong bleeding emerging from the wound. He needed to do something – defend himself! Defend her. Kill him! But the pain… his muscles weren't responding. His breath. It was all getting so heavy.

"I will kill this saiyan scum!" Zarbon roared.

"No. You better leave now before Frieza finds out what you're doing. R-runing aroud attacking his… war prisioners! You're out of your goddamn mind!"

The saiyan felt another piercing shot of pain as the green alien stabbed his shin, Bulma's small body pulling Zarbon away as she grabbed him by the neck.

"Fuck you, Zarbon! You won't fucking touch him!" She squealed, before he pushed her away violently and aimed for Vegeta's uncovered chest.

With uncanny determination, Bulma bounced back with the agility of a cat. The adrenaline in her body flowed wildly in her veins, her sensed sharpened and she felt not an ounce of fear – it made her brave and stupid. It didn't matter. She threw herself between the blade and the saiyan. The soft area between her left hip and her ribs was cut by the blade like butter.

What had she done? What had just happened? A taste of salt and iron invaded her mouth and she trembled, staring into Zarbon's eyes. She was frozen. Time stretched slowly. She felt panic and pain just crawling up her veins. The sharp sound of the blade was the last thing she heard.

Vegeta could hardly hear anything besides from an insistent, deafening hum on his ears, but between his blurry, intermittent sight he spotted Zarbon's shocked face as he fled the hallway as fast as he could. He felt Bulma's body lying heavily over his, the warmth of his blood and her blood reaching his hands and flooding the floor below his legs.

With whatever strength he had left in him, he spoke.

"B-blue cat!"

Silence in the corridor.

"BLUE FUCKING CAT!" He roared huskily.

A blue rug wobbled and with a poof, Puar materialized. He looked terrified.

"Bring the healer" Vegeta whispered, wincing, before everything faded to black.

A sharp yet unidentifiable pain spread through her stomach and her back as she regained consciousness. She clumsily took her hand to her forehead as she moved to sit up while the sight of Dende's concerned face greeted her.

"Are you alright, miss?"

She blinked, rubber her eyes. Where was she? There was dry, dark blood on her clothes, she was bandaged but the injury was gone. The bed was hard, the room was... dark, what time was it? The place was cold and frugal, nothing like Frieza's palace. And then it struck her.

She squealed, taking her hands to the place the wound used to be. "No! No, no, no! Zarbon! Please, no!"

"There is no one here but us and Puar."

Bulma couldn't think straight.

"Oh, no. No, no. Gods. My head. Please tell me I'm safe."

"You're safe"

The images of the attack replayed in her head. Zarbon. He had seen her with a saiyan and he hated them beyond the limits of reason: that's what he had been systematically trained to do. She knew he was no idiot – Frieza would ask questions if she turned out dead out of the blue, but it would be worse for the general if she spoke. Her head – it hurt so bad. Post traumatic stress, she told herself, trying to calm her body into quietness.

Everything had changed in one moment. She wasn't sure about anything now – Zarbon would probably talk to Frieza, explain why he had attacked her, making up some evil excuse about how she was a traitor. How it needed to be done. Her position in this twisted chess game had changed, and she was scared and revolted to find out in what dark, threatening place she had fallen into now.

"Where is Zarbon?"

What would his next step be?

"I don't know anything about the situation or the people involved."

"Where's Vegeta?" Bulma asked as fear suddenly exploded from her heart -was he dead?- but couldn't help to whimper when she looked around, instinctively searching for him.

"Please don't... move like that" Dende shyly advised as Puar floated over his shoulder, curiously looking at Bulma's bandages.

"Where are we?"

"Servants' chambers."

She got up with Dende's help and pain spread through her muscles like broken glass. It was not the wound, that the namekian had magically healed; it was the fear. Her mother's fears, and Chi-Chi's fears. No one had ever laid a hand on her to hurt her before – not even her father! It was a mixture of shock and disgust that ran inside of her. She wasn't used to this – to feeling in danger, in real, physical danger. All the men she was seeing now, Frieza, Zarbon, the gladiators, the generals of the Emperor's court, they were all so used to living under the very real threat of death and violence and treason. And she wondered, why in the gods name was she really exposing herself to all this.

"Please, do you know if someone is after me, Dende?"

"I don't know anything." He stuttered, clearly the same response he had given a thousand times.

She swallowed with frustration and wanted him to share her sense of urgency. "Where's Vegeta?"

"I don't know anything".

"Please!" she begged "Please, I need to know. You found us, didn't you? Where is he? Is he alive?"

"I don't know"

Bulma stared hard into the namekian's eyes.

"Are you- are you afraid of me?"

He responded with silence. Her stomach turned.

Of course he was. She worked with fucking Frieza – and she knew, she knew but didn't dare to think about it, that everyone picked by the emperor to work with him was a monster.

She had designed weapons that helped this pointless war go on. Always, always turning the blind eye. She had no choice, she told herself, she couldn't refuse. Refusal would be read as treason. It was the Emperor who asked her. It was her life at stake, her mother's life. Someone else was making the decisions. She was just following orders. The prince was a war prisioner, a man without freedom – as powerful and strong as he could be, she was still the priviledged one. The one with a whole stablishment behind her. And know, she probably had got him killed. Over nothing.

She was a monster.

"Oh this is fucked up, Dende" She fell to her knees as she grabbed onto his green little trembling hands, "This is so fucked up. I don't know how things got fucked up like this." Her voice broke "I-I am a scholar. I don't know how it all got so fucked up. I shouldn't have messed with them, made myself visible… How could I collaborate with something I've hated all along?" Cynical little bitch, she told herself, guilty."Oh gods. He's dead, isn't he? Please, Dende, tell me. I swear to you, I'm not bad. I am not. I just need to know if he is alive."

Dende shot a look at Puar, who nodded.

"Yes. The prince is alive." He finally –timidly- replied.

Not all was lost. She had reached a turning point – redemption was possible. It would have a high cost. It would make her lose her privilege. But what she had gone through – it drenched her with perspective. Danger was real, not just for her, but for everyone under the rule of the sociopaths in charge.

Bulma squealed with joy as she jumped and squeezed him. "YES! Dende, thank you! Thank you for everything! Thank you so much for everything! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Bulma pulled apart from him, his baffled expression meeting her joyful eyes. "I will never forget this. Ever. And I swear to you, I will do something meaningful from now on. I will change this. This" she said, touching the cold stone ground, "I will change it. I will make things better." Adrenaline pumped into her heart, bliss overflowing her veins. "I promise I will chage everyhting."

"Are you serious?" Puar suddenly spoke up.

"Yes. I am"

"Please, miss Briefs, do not say these things unless you mean them." The cat frowned. "We… us, the opressed… are not used to people like you speaking to us like this and I know you mean well, but this is serious. What I have seen, I can't even put it into words."

"Believe me." Bulma whispered "I will work to make things better. I am your ally. I will not forget that you helped me today and I don't expect you to do it without getting something in return." She stood up. "This can't go on anymore. We cannot live beneath a government that terrifies us, that takes prisoners and slaves and just misinforms about the soul-sucking war that's going on. I am terrified of Frieza, just like you are. But I swear to you I will use whatever power or influence I have to put an end to this. And saiyans… our army cannot massacre them! Why are we even on war against them? Nobody knows! It's all about Frieza's personal interests… our Empire lives to satisfy his own personal interests!" She put on her blood stained high heeled shoes with a huff. "I have to go to my house to see my mother. Someone might go looking for me there. I have to warn her. Would you please take me to the exit?"

"Take her" Dende said to Puar, as he signaled the door with his head.

Bulma smoothed her shredded dress and wondered how she'd managed to get to her house unnoticed. These shoes. She would have to get rid of them.

Night-time. She ran barefoot across a sleeping city, her heart beating wildly.

Her desperate voice followed as she slammed the door open. "MOM!"

The mansion was silent, but the lights were on. Could it be possible that they got there before she did? Please, no.

"Bulma, honey? You're back from your party?" Bunny spoke from the kitchen they had shared countless breakfasts in.

It was like the breath of life returned to Bulma's body again as she saw her mother appear under the warm lights, wearing the same robe she had had for years – the exact opposite for Mrs. Briefs, whose throat closed as she saw her daughter drenched in dry blood, feet covered in dust.

Bunny could barely speak. "Oh baby girl!"

"I'm alright!" The scholar said, rushing to wrap her mother in a tight hugh. "I'm ok, I promise. And I cannot explain things right now, but you have to leave the house right now."

"Wha-?"

"Go to our beach house. Stay there. It's not safe for you here anymore. People are after me. Please trust me, mom! You HAVE to go!"

"Oh, dear. You're scaring me. What happened to you?!"

"Mom, please! I'll be fine, but I need you to go. They'll be here any minute."

Bulma's watery eyes convinced Bunny of the urgency of her words. She had heard this all before…

"Just like your father" Bunny whispered quiet enough so Bulma wouldn't hear.

"Promise me you'll go now" The scientist said as she walked her mother to the door and signaled Tien, her mother's chef and yoga teacher, to bring a horse.

"Oh, Bulma, I've never fully understood you…But you are the smartest person I know and I trust you. Please, please take care of yourself. Please tell me you will go find me after all of this ends. I won't sleep until I see you again."

"Mama, I am so sorry about all of this. It's just- things got out of hand! I'll be safe, I promise. Now go. Tell all the slaves to go too. They're free. Just tell Tien to go with you. I'll pay him with everything I own if he keeps you safe!"

As she stepped out the door, Bunny turned to her daughter one more time, whispering. "Someone is in the house. I-I thought he was a friend of yours, that's why I let him in. Maybe you should come with me before he..."

Bulma's stomach dropped as she heard a footstep in the corridor and looked behind her.

Vegeta. Safe. As if nothing had happened.

"He is a friend" the blue haired woman said with a contained smile, kissing her mother's hand. "I love you"

"I love you, baby girl."

Bulma watched her mother walk away with Tien and then closed the front door with a sigh, resting her back against the cold wood and a single thought on her mind: I'm going to need an emergency sandwich to get through this. She closed her eyes for a brief moment trying to ignore how exhausted she was, but rapidly regained her posture. There was no time.

"Are you alright?" She asked seriously, as Vegeta stared back at her piercingly. He pretended to ignore the blood, the shredded dress, the silent traces of the wound that remained after Dende healed her. There was something about seeing her being touched -and hurt- by another man that lit a spark of unprecedented rage inside of him. It was burning him, unsettling him; such irrationality! He had replayed the attack countless times in his mind: he wasn't able to do anything to stop it. And he told himself, the rage only came from his wounded pride as a warrior, having being caught off guard by an enemy. That had to be it. It had nothing to do with her. Insane woman! She had even tried to stop that green freak, like she could do anything against a trained general... She had tried to protect him! The Prince of all Saiyans! Hadn't he had enough of this humiliation? Being displayed as a circus animal, treated like an object, attacked off guard by that Zarbon piece of shit.

"Am I alright?" He replied, narrowing his eyes, almost chuckling at the offensiveness of her question.

"That's what I asked" Bulma spoke defiantly, involuntarily raising one of her delicate eyebrows.

"You see, human, the only part of me that got hurt during that little event was my pride."

She scoffed at his defensiveness. "Boy, don't you get tired of bluffing?"

He groaned below his breath, "I swear, if I ever see that son of a bitch again, I'll rip his fucking spine out from his mouth."

The predatory fire in his eyes sent electricity down her legs. A saiyan. She was suddenly shockingly aware that she was in front of a saiyan. A dangerous, violent saiyan. A knot of atavistic fears invaded her, almost paralyzed her, but she stood her ground. It was so hard to find trustworthy information on saiyans – they were probably the most important part of Frieza's foreign policy's affairs, the most feared war enemy, but there was so little known about them, other than a bunch of fearful stereotypes fed by coarse pamphlets delivered to the people by the state itself. Barbaric monkeys, blood-drinking savages, enemies of beauty and knowledge – that was all everyone repeated mindlessly; the slogans, after years of repetition, had become a sort of stone-engraved set of undeniable truths.

Snap out of it, Bulma.

It was impossible for him to miss the change in her expression: she had become tense, defensive. He didn't want that, he didn't want to fight her, not even to challenge her. He didn't know what he wanted from her, really – and it unsettled him. Deep down, he moved back and forth between attempting to overpower her, somehow, to get revenge from the day they met, and the undeniable desire to acknowledge her bravery, to bond with her, to give her something in return for what she had done to save him. It was burning him inside - the second option was winning. He had come to her house to find her. See for his own eyes that she had survived, the gorgeous girl that had stood in the way of a General. For him! Someone she should despise, and for good reasons.

But words came out so wrong.

"Why did you save me? I didn't ask for it!" He sounded angry. He wasn't. He was overwhelmed with unmanageable stress and overflowing emotions, something that as a soldier, he hadn't experienced in years.

She frowned. "Whoa, I'm going to stop you right there, mister! Now this is just rude. Coming into my house for some reason, probably eating the emergency sandwich I left in the kitchen, and not even thanking me for trying to save your life? Rude, Vegeta!"

"That sandwich was for you? It was bigger than your head!"

"You- oh- really- damn- just- ah, fuck you!"

"I thought I was your friend now" Vegeta remarked mockingly.

"What?"

"You said to your mother, 'he is a friend'. What's wrong with your short-term memory?"

"You didn't destroy my house and were polite to my mother, so yeah, I think so." Her eyes lightened up and she smiled, a gesture that relieved him in the most surprising way.

They shared a brief, silent moment of complicity.

So this is nice.

"Fuck! I almost forgot we have to get out of here!" Bulma snapped, taking his hand and yanking him towards her. "We better run, pal!" Bulma dashed down the corridor without letting him go.

He didn't stop her. "I am not your pal, you uncontrollable human!"

She turned to him as they ran up the stairs and there was that sparkly look again, like she was struggling to control her laughter.

"Wait, are you offended because I called you a friend in front of my mother?"

"Didn't you just hear me? We are NOT friends! I'm the Prince of all Saiyans, for crying out-"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I should've introduced you the proper way" She replied with a mockingly affected tone. "Mother, the Prince of all Saiyans, and also, the best one night stand of my life!"Bulma winked at him. She was the biggest flirt he had met and he liked it.

He swallowed hard, then scoffed.

"Oh please."

"Now tell me: why are you here?" Bulma said, burying her head inside her closet, looking for some clean clothes and for the love of the gods, comfortable shoes!

He walked slowly around the room, tail swinging softly - marble walls, red, soft carpets, a huge impressionist painting of a supernova on the wall. Shelves and shelves of uncountable books, a large desk covered in blueprints, a whole wall adapted as a chalkboard. So different from what he had been forced into these lasts months… so different from the armed, stoic walls of the castle he had grown up in. Machinery prototypes delicately hanging from the walls, swirling as the hot summer wind touched them gently. She was, after all, what she claimed to be – a privileged intellectual. But why on Earth would Zarbon harm such an important asset for Frieza's war plan? He was an idiot, obviously.

"Today is my day of freedom, remember? Staying anywhere near Frieza's castle or the arena would've been idiotic."

He heard her sigh deeply.

"Come on, tell me rea-"

"I wanted to make sure you had survived." The saiyan replied in a sudden outburst of sincerity. "After all, I do have a sense of honor, believe it or not."

With clean clothes and shoes in her hands, she kneeled down, her back to him. Every muscle in her body ached.

"I could just fly away, you know? No one is ever watching me. They barely restrain me. Or I could fight my way off. Fuck, I've killed so many men in my life its turned meaningless now. I am a Saiyan warrior, I thrive on it! The sense of victory in battle! Do you know the one thing keeping me here, Bulma?" The moment she heard her name, she turned to look at him. He was leaning his back against her desk, gazing at the supernova hanging on her wall. "It's Frieza. Ginyu's freaks are tough, but it might be done… Frieza, however…" His eyes darkened, his fists tightened "I know that whatever I might do to anger him, he'll take it out on my people. On the weakling I have for a brother. On my entire race. My kingdom... like he did with my father. Frieza is a bloodthirsty maniac. He is un-fucking-stoppable. I cannot imagine what it's like to live under that psychopath's rule."

She was sweating. The dry blood started melting in her hands. Post traumatic stress…

"Don't leave the house. Zarbon is a worthless coward so he will send some of his weakling minions to do the job for him. I'll be glad to take care of that."

"Do you mean it?"

"I do. But don't flatter yourself – I'm only doing it because I enjoy crushing worthless scum like them."

She couldn't believe what she had just heard, but exhaustion prevented her from feeling anything but relief. Slowly standing up, she stumbled towards him. It was even comical to see him there, next to her disorganized books and her blueprints.

"I'm sorry we had such a messy start, Vegeta."

"It doesn't matter." With a finger, he touched one of her blue strands, thickly covered in blood. "The only thing that's messy here is this place. And your face. You look like you slaughtered a battalion."

She scoffed. "That must be a compliment coming from you."

"I compliment no one" He replied coarsely. "Much less one of Frieza's lackeys."

Bulma frowned.

"I know things, I am good at learning. At designing." She said, taking a hand to her face, trying to wipe out the trace of blood on her cheeks. "But fuck, I am not a sociopath. I can't stand the guilt that working for Frieza brings me" It was like she spoke without any intention of shaping her words or concealing the painful truth. "Listen. I know that this war serves only Frieza himself to everyone else's detriment. Saiyans, namekians –who Frieza is exploiting in the name of international debt- us, people of the Cold Empire, we're fucked too. He tries to make excuses for this war: politics, ideology, the supposed danger and threat that you saiyans represent. It's bullshit. It's all about him, Frieza, the person. The purple-lipped sadist who probably gets off on this slaughtering vacation he calls a war! But there's got to be more…"

There was something more. She dropped the clothes she was holding and placed her hands on the saiyan's muscular shoulders.

"You."

"What?"

"He fears you, right? What you are and what you might become!" Bulma asked with growing intensity. "You are like his golden prisoner. He shows off how he captured the saiyan prince; he has you on display every other day on the arena. You are the finest element of the saiyan civilization. He is using that as a testing platform! How couldn't I see it before?"

"What are you saiying? What exactly is he testing?"

"Cyborgs! Seventeen, the one you destroyed today!"

"Impossible" Vegeta replied smugly, shaking his head. "That pitiful machine didn't have a chance against me!"

"You're right, it didn't. But they're running tests, studying your every move until they develop a prototype that can fight you and all saiyans."

It made sense and it was terrifying. Rage, frustration, everything spread through his veins like fire. Every move that sociopath made was deeply calculated.

"Fuck! That bastard! Every time I fight in his goddamn arena I am giving him information! Frieza, that motherfucker!"

"Hey, look at me" She moved her hands up to his face and to her surprise, he set his eyes on hers once again. Heat was radiating from his skin – anger, excitement, the residual adrenaline from the previous events that had him alert as a hunter. "Listen. There must be something Frieza knows about you that fuels his obsession against saiyans, right? What is that?"

"Why should I tell you, of all people?" He growled below his breath, a brief spark of mistrust settling between his lungs.

"After all the shit that went down, you came to my house, Vegeta. You trust me!"

She was right… she was so fucking right. That woman had fire and wit and she was the perfect ally. Goddamn it.

"An old saiyan legend speaks of a mystical warrior that has an overwhelming amount of power. The energy and strength the Super Saiyan has is so great that it can only be achieved in a transformed state. It is something that hasn't happened in a thousand years, but your little Emperor is paranoid, Bulma. He is determined to exterminate each and every one of us to prevent it from happening."

"Super Saiyan? How is that transformation achieved?"

"I don't know. All I know is that reaching Super Saiyan form is the only way of defeating that son of a bitch once and for all! I promise, if I ever get my hands on him, I'll show him the tortures of Hell!"

"There has to be a way."

"We don't even know if it's real."

"It has to be real. Frieza might be paranoid, but he wouldn't be moving an entire army for nothing! It all makes sense now. All the money spent, the propaganda…"

"There is no way!"

"I will do my research. Trust me. If it is real, there has to be a way."

Deep down, he also knew there had to be. He had dreamt about becoming the legendary Super Saiyan for years – he had recklessly trained, almost killed himself for it. Then war came, and he blamed himself for not fulfilling the destiny he had self-imposed. Why would she have so much faith in him? She seemed so convinced that her words kindled something inside of him: an urge to seek for the Super Saiyan once again. It was like he was breathing and alive once more – not out of rage, but out of a sense of duty and honor. She made him feel that for the first time in a long time, a spark that had long been buried under Frieza's heavy torture had awoken.

There was a way, but how? What power did he have to find the Super Saiyan? He had tried to the point where he almost lost his sanity for nothing!

"You know it!" Bulma said with burning conviction. "I know it! Fucking Frieza knows it!"

"I don't know, dammit!" His reply was violent and pure.

She didn't back down.

"It is you, prince"

He grabbed her tightly by the waist and kissed her deeply, at a loss for words. The room went silent as the sun started rising between the mountains, bathing them with the morning light.

"Sun rays travel 149,597,871 kilometers to make my room glow in the morning, don't you tell me there isn't a way for you to become the Super Saiyan." Bulma added softly.

"Stubborn human" He whispered against her lips, "No respect for my authority…"

She kissed him again until the sun was out, the pain she felt gently leaving her body into the morning light.

Vegeta laid on her bed, an arm covering his eyes from the morning glow while the tip of his tail grazed the floor gently.

She spoke to him from her bathroom.

"Still nothing?"

"No"

"The blood takes forever to come off. Gross. And my dress is ruined. How do you get used to this? This is really gross."

The saiyan growled something unintelligible in response.

"Are you sure no one is downstairs?"

"Yes, woman, I am sure." He replied, annoyed.

"Are you sure-sure?"

"Yes, dammit!"

"You have a crappy temper, has anyone told you that?"

"No. Any subject who disrespected me would've been executed with a ceremonial axe and then thrown to the Red River, tainted by the blood of our enemies!"

"Pff. Fascist."

He struggled to refrain a smile.

Then he felt it: movement below. Someone had entered the house, finally. It had taken forever for Zarbon's minions to get there – such a sloppy execution. He got up slowly, anticipation tingling on his fingers.

"Your friends finally came by" Vegeta whispered, sliding against the wall towards the corridor.

Bulma got out from the bathroom, standing in his way. She was covered only by a towel, still dripping wet.

"Oh I got something for those bastards! They won't know what hit them!" She said, placing a hand on Vegeta's chest to stop him.

He blushed intensely. "No, you are not flashing them, you… temptress!"

"What? No, Vegeta! Although I got to admit that is a logical assumption, due to our particular history. Listen, I built a bomb."

"You built a WHAT?" His eyes widened.

"It's just for emergencies." Bulma explained, rushing to her bed and searching for it with her arm under it. "I assembled it some days ago, you know, for cases like this. I knew shit would hit the fan someday."

"It's under your fucking bed?! I was just lying there!"

"Yeah, it's right next my emergency chocolates."

Vegeta stared at her with incredulity, speechless.

"See?" She proudly reached for a small, round, metallic object with a red intermittent light on, her smile lighting the room.

"Holy fuck!" Damn right Frieza had chosen her for a reason. It became clear to him now.

She winked an eye at him. "Yeah science, bitch!"