Chapter Text
He makes it eighteen months that time, and then Queen Shard takes him aside and tells him that either he can go visit his crew, or she will personally break him and put him in his ship to go visit them. She the proceeds to beat his ass thoroughly up and down the training grounds, which brings home how strongly he needs to. Meanwhile, she might not be a strategist, but she can follow instructions. Anyway, everyone who is anyone knows they're winning. The challenge hasn't been to convince planets to side with him; it's been to avoid moving the front faster than the civilian supply trains can keep up.
So he goes home.
He at least sticks the landing, which is nice. Bulma comes out to meet him, asking about a million questions.
"No," he says. "It's fine. I was just getting - sloppy. It happens when you don't assign crews together. I wouldn't let any of my men fight like this, and my mother pointed out - "
"You have a mother?"
" - that in that case I should take myself out of the field. Of course I have a mother. Where did you think I came from, a tank?"
"I didn't really think about it," says Bulma. "Can I meet her?"
He thinks about it. It is, he knows, a very important Earth thing, that parents get to meet their children's matesprits. His mother is certainly curious enough. Rassik had actually been pretty amazing about that, explaining that his matesprit is the one who taught him this strategy stuff and telling nothing about how she can't even throw a punch. But then he runs into the part where he imagines Queen Shard meeting Bulma and finding out she can't throw a punch, and - eurgh. "No."
"Why not?"
"You are not - a very Saiyan matesprit."
"Hmm," says Bulma, sounding amused and fond: obviously she's not a Saiyan. "Are you staying long?"
"A couple of weeks," he says. "Why? Is there something important?"
"A couple of new things I thought you'd want to test, nothing urgent," she says. "I thought maybe we could have a get-together. We've decided to name ourselves Z-fighters, by the way."
"That's a stupid name."
"Stupider than Rassik?"
He doesn't really feel up to telling the myth of the original Rassik. Calling themselves the Z-fighters really isn't as stupid as the name some squads have chosen for themselves. He's thinking particularly of Lliae, who could have chosen not to name themselves after the most useless captive-and-then-dead love interest in any of the epic cycles. He can at least live with it. "I'm hungry."
"Of course you are," says Bulma. "There's instant in the kitchen, but if you take your shower first that will give the deliveries time to arrive."
The relative ki paucity of Earth food means he has to eat comically huge amounts of it. In terms of actual taste, it's much better than the grain-paste rations of the Klorforian empire, or the constant just-too-sweet of Triffle food. He can wait. "I'll shower."
Showers are just good hygienic practice. He hadn't learned about things like massaging shower heads until Earth, though. So he's feeling altogether more relaxed when he comes out, clean and damp and smelling faintly of whatever fruit or flower is in Bulma's latest cleansing fluid, and the food has indeed arrived. He sets to with gusto, and keeps eating until he's physically groaning and his ki reserves have been somewhat replenished. He was, after that, planning to spend some serious time with his matesprit, but doesn't get to because that's when the brat shows up.
"Seriously?" he asks.
"It was me or Kami," says the brat. "And you - wouldn't fight for Kami."
That is probably the best way of putting it, because it is, in fact, true. "Fine. What do you want?"
"Are we going to be dealing with another pair of Klorforians? Or any other enemies you've managed to make?"
" . . . no," he says.
"So you're here why?"
He gives up, partly because the brat needs to know this. "Because it's not healthy to never be around crew."
The brat blinks up at him. "What."
"And I hadn't seen any of you idiots in a year."
"No, seriously, what? How not healthy? Should my dad know about this?"
"Not physically unhealthy," he says, because otherwise the brat is just going to follow him around asking questions. "Just . . . doing things, taking battle risks, that are not acceptable for the supreme Saiyan commander."
"Oh," says the brat, backing down immediately. "Got it. Then, uh. Welcome back, and you should probably come train with us on the Lookout this Sunday. All of us, I mean. We meet up once every other week, spar a little, talk a little, eat a lot. Deal with any home-grown threats. It's a nice day out."
It is basically what any self-respecting crew does, although these days it's more geared toward protecting their planets. His crew, mostly human, would never have come up with it. "Piccolo."
"Mm," says the brat. "It's better. We were friends before, but not really a cohesive fighting force until you started training us. And Dad . . . Dad's better too." He turns to leave, supremely confident that Vegeta is not going to attack his back the minute it's turned.
"Kid," he says.
The kid turns back.
He sighs. "You know I'm not a pedophile, right?"
The kid blinks at him, then blushes a bit. He doesn't hesitate to say, "I know you don't say mean things about Mr. Piccolo."
He snorts. "Of course not. Half the time a person's first moirail is one of their parents. That's fine. An adult can handle anything someone your age could throw at them."
The kid isn't stupid, so he gets it right away. "So all I have to do is beat you in a fight?"
" . . . no. You also have to be old enough that my skin doesn't crawl just thinking about it."
The kid gives him a long look before he shrugs and says, "Fair enough. Let me know when that is, okay?" He doesn't wait for an answer before turning to leave. This time, Vegeta lets him.
He goes back to his original plan of reacquainting himself with his matesprit. This lasts until she begins undressing, which is when he discovers that she is bleeding. He can smell it, and his first demand that she tell him who did it to her go entirely unheeded. "Oh my god," she says instead, and breaks out laughing.
"Woman! Stop laughing and let me protect you! Tell me: who dared to lay a hand on - "
"No one!" says Bulma, and goes off laughing again. She's obviously not going to be any help at all, so he tries getting her naked the rest of the way so he can at least find the wound. She's cooperative there, at least, but he runs into the immediate problem that despite the blood-scent getting stronger and stronger, there is no visible wound. "Oh my god, Vegeta, calm down," she says, and gasps a little. "I'm fine! I think - we may possibly have to talk a little more about the differences between Saiyans and humans."
The ensuing explanation completely kills the mood, but on the plus side, no one attacked her.
"I see," he says, when she finally stops talking. "That's - how does it not drive your men insane? Having a quadrant bleed that much?"
"It's natural," says Bulma. "And I'm pretty sure you have a better sense of smell than most humans."
"It is a stupid way to make a person!"
"What are you going to do, go complain to Kami?"
He stares at her. The idea idiotic for more than one reason, but starting with the fact that Kami hadn't made humans. Then the first laugh tries to come up out of him, somewhere in his chest, and he lets it because - there was no enemy, not here. Enemies don't get to come here. And then once he is laughing, she joins in. It takes them a while to wind down again.
"But really," she asks, eventually, "is it going to be a problem? You were - a bit wild."
He opens his mouth to reassure her automatically, then closes it again to think. Finally he says, "I think it will help if I can - see it. See that you're not injured, I mean."
Bulma blushes a brilliant red, but does allow it. Then they both get to discover that the Saiyan bloodlust that drives kismesissitudes can also, under these particular circumstances, drive a matespritship as well. After that, they curl up with each other, exhausted and sated. Bulma says, "I don't think it's going to be a problem."
The next day, during which they don't ever manage to get out of bed, proves her extremely right. They sleep almost the entire clock around after that, and then his stomach prods him to actually get up. It takes another ridiculous enormous meal and a shower before he feels ready to take on whatever new bullshit the Earth has for him.
Which, it turns out, is paperwork.
"What?" he says.
"I know Saiyans don't do things this way," says Bulma, "but humans do, and I want you properly on the family books as my - husband, matesprit, whatever you want to call it. For that to happen, you have to legally exist."
He grumbles, but he's not actually very upset that Bulma wants to do the thing properly. Permanently. So he goes with her to the office and talks to the fat black woman in the very severe suit about where he is from (planet Vegeta), why he wants to stay on Earth (his crew), and his unusual abilities (any- and everything related to ki fighting, apparently). Then he has to swear an oath to never do anything to hurt Earth and in fact help it when necessary, which he feels comfortable doing because he already has. They leave that building with a shiny new identity card, which proclaims him to be 'Vegeta Briefs,' human-style husband of Dr. Bulma Briefs.
It's nothing like the proper battle and feast that would accompany a Saiyan matespritfasting, or at least it isn't until Bulma takes him to a place she calls an all-you-can-eat buffet. The food is satisfying enough in its abundance. Then she takes him home and leads him, naked, into the pool, and everything is satisfyingly romantic for the rest of the evening.
The next day, she announces that she's found a way to push the argrav all the way to three hundred gs. She does this while cranking it as high as it goes. It pins him to the floor and all he can do is laugh and laugh and laugh, even though after a few minutes even just breathing in hurts. His matesprit is a madwoman, and he adores her so much.
She turns off the argrav six hours later, just when he's getting acceptable at standing up. "There is still time left to train!"
"Sure, but not if you want to be presentable to see everyone tomorrow," she says. "And you did come here to see all of us."
She's right, so he showers and eats and follows here to bed. She's always a little colder than he thinks can possibly be comfortable, even though he knows humans don't run as hot. She doesn't seem to mind his tendency to try and blanket her, though she'll kick him off if she gets too warm. It's . . . really, really nice, actually, even when she's shoving him away with her icicle-toes.
She prods him awake early the next day, and they have breakfast before heading over to the lookout. He can feel the sparring going on long before they get there, and it thrills right up his spine: Kakarot is currently a super Saiyan. It is going to be a good day.
He isn't aware of how right he is, though, until they close enough and he can see that his crew, all of them, even Yamcha, are fighting Kakarot together. Keeping up with group training has paid off, because they're all a single coordinated team, working together to take Kakarot down. Yamcha hs caught up to where Tien used to be, and Tien is fighting a lot more tactically, not using his showy techniques as much but doing more damage when he does. So is Krillin, and a coordinated taiyoken/kienzan combination would be absolutely deadly to anyone who doesn't know to start dodging the instant Tien begins the flare. Chiaotzu, always good at ki manipulation, is putting up shields, which is something that almost no Saiyans ever have been able to do. They fold pretty easily, but buy time for other people. The way they're moving, he's pretty sure Piccolo or Kami or both are keeping an open telepathic channel. The kid -
The kid lines up what would've been a kill shot on his father, and Kakarot, the lunatic, laughs out loud in delight. He jumps in and punches the laugh right off his face.
It is a very good day. At the end of the first sparring match, he's left with the warm glow of the knowledge that if they had to, his crew actually could take Kakarot down. Given that most of the heroes of old could only do super Saiyan in giant ape form, he hasn't even the slightest doubt they'd be able to win against them, too. They'd go straight for the tail, and succeed at removing it, and after that taking them down wouldn't even be a challenge.
They break for lunch before the second match. He's ready to be pretty bored by it, until they start discussing it, breaking down the fight and sometimes lining up for a slow-motion sequence of alternative moves. He starts putting in his own suggestions, and no one even bats an eye.
At least not until he turns to Chiaotzu and asks, "Can you make - hungry shields?"
" . . . I'm not sure what one of those is," says Chiaotzu.
"Your shields crumple whenever a ki blast hitting them contains more ki than they have. A hungry shield eats ki blasts."
Chiaotzu's eyes go very wide. "No, I can't. I - I'll need to work on that."
Everyone keeps giving him sidelong looks, except Kakarot. Then again, only Kakarot, and maybe the kid if he's lucky, know that they are crew, blood-and-bone deep. No; forget that; the kid is probably the smartest one of them, there's no way he doesn't know. He isn't giving sidelong glances, either, like the idea of a shield that could eat ki is just another thing and not a nightmare to fighters like them in the hands of a master like Chiaotzu. He knows: it will be a nightmare, but only to their enemies.
After lunch they go again, and this time he's included in the psychic gestalt right from the start. It's not like a Saiyan crew, six people who know each other very well. It's more like being part of one person with six bodies, ideas offered and considered, weighed and chosen or discarded, almost as fast as thought. With him, they're able to take Kakarot - the greater part of them thinks of him as Goku - after forty sweaty minutes. They break again to dump water over their heads, and when he sits down, Kakarot sits next to him.
"You've gotten a lot better," he says.
"Yes well," he says, "unlike some people, I have been fighting a war."
"Did that," says Kakarot. "Won. But the problem with wars is, even when you win, a lot of innocent people on both sides still die. I decided it's better not to lie about things like that."
He can't argue: it's true. Still. "So, what? I should've just let the Klorforians keep on conquering and blowing up planets whenever it amused them?"
"Why not?" asks Kakarot. "You did."
"That's different!"
"How?"
He wants to say that he has a crew now. He wants to say that he understands about protecting his people, and it isn't . . . wrong. It's just not true. The person he was before he came to Earth didn't conquer and destroy worlds because it amused him; he'd done it because he hated the universe which had denied him everything worth having. It is different, now that he has a crew, but it's not because he didn't understand before why people might want to fight for their homes.
Anyway, he knows, the home he has now really doesn't need him to defend itself.
"I thought so," says Kakarot, as though he's proven a point.
Vegeta does not say the first dozen things that come to mind. Instead he says, "I'm not that person anymore. I don't - I choose not to be. And I could not have left the Kloforian Empire alone."
Kakarot says, "Huh." Then he smiles. "Good to have you, Vegeta. Oh, sweet ice tea!"
It's not a graceful exit, and the tea is ridiculously over-sugared, but he's grateful anyway. If they'd kept talking any longer, he's pretty sure he would have made a black pass, and then the kid would have had to come over and do something about it and - no. Just no.
The third bout involves Mr. Popo, and fuck but Mr. Popo is a beast. It's a mess even with him and Kakarot on the same side. They lose after only about ten minutes, Mr. Popo walking back to his blanket with an air of someone who has done them a supreme favor.
But then, three of them come back stronger after every defeat, so he did do them a huge favor.
After that there is another break, during which Kami comes over and fixes up the worst of the broken bones. He catches Piccolo's eye and says, "Can you do this too, green man?"
"In a theoretical sense."
"You should learn."
Piccolo glares at him, but otherwise pointedly doesn't justify that statement with a response. He isn't worried; Piccolo is smart enough that the tactical value of a battle healer will outweigh any other considerations in the end. He settles back down.
There are a bunch of one-on-one cool-down fights after that, people pairing up by ability: Krillin and Yamcha, Tien and Piccolo, and Chiaotzu and the kid. That last one is a bit surprising until he sees that they aren't so much fighting as the kid is drilling Chiaotzu in math while throwing punches and kicks at him. He doesn't ask. Tien and Piccolo are fighting, but it's more about fine ki manipulation than physical brawling, so it's less interesting to watch.
"Are we going to fight too?" asks Kakarot, from right behind him.
He backflips automatically to get out of range before realizing who it is. "Don't do me any favors," he sneers.
"Aww, come on," whines Kakarot. "It's no fair when I fight them, and Mr. Popo will only do one fight a month max."
"And this is my problem how?"
"But it's boring! I'm bored."
"There's a war you could be fighting."
"No," says Kakarot, going from petulant child to serious warrior so quickly it almost gives him whiplash. Neither side is a lie, is the thing. Kakarot doesn't, not to himself and not to anyone else, either.
"Fine. Then don't fight on the front. Come train with my warriors instead. They're all dying to meet you anyway. They'll love losing to a super Saiyan." Kakarot looks, if anything, conflicted by this. "You can do that teleporting thing, so you can even come home at night."
" . . . I'll ask Chi-chi," says Kakarot.
It comes to him all in a warm glow that he has the better matesprit. Bulma doesn't try to stop him from fighting; she'd gotten him out of bed and driven them here today, after all. She just makes sure he has what he needs. A training room that pushes him to ridiculous lengths just to stand up. An extra hidden weapon, in case he needs to blow a planet and even five minutes' warning in the local ki fields would be too much. His crew.
"You could teach us the teleporting thing, too, you know," he says.
"I've tried! Kami is the only one who even partway understands. It's . . . it involves pulling yourself apart."
He can believe that. Most people, rational people who don't have brain damage, rightly find the idea of pulling yourself apart a little bit alarming. He does, and he's been doing nothing else practically since the first time he heard of Earth. Still. It won't get easier putting it off. "Try me."
So they don't end up sparring, and he has to cut the lesson short when it looks like the kid might wander over. But it's fine; he is frustrated, sure, and Kakarot is there, but he is an adult and capable of not snapping at the idiots in his life for things that aren't their fault. He isn't capable of - unbuilding - himself, not all at once the way Kakarot does. He suspects the species that invented this has to be some kind of hive-mind collective, which can literally take itself to pieces.
After that, it's time to do things for Kami. Or rather, they plan out doing things for Kami, in the sense that he looks after the Earth and these days that involves sending one or the other of them to have a quiet word with anyone who looks like they're going to be trouble. Piccolo the Demon King is apparently particularly good at it. He's not planning to stay this time, but he still comes over and listens. This will be his planet too, after all.
Then it's . . . crew time, he supposes. Time when they're just talking together, not about anything in particular, just being together. Tien and Piccolo talk about geography, of all things, and Chiaotzu goes to sit with Bulma. He doesn't really participate, but he stays close enough to hear and stretches out on one of the tatami mats.
He wakes up to the kid patting him gently on the shoulder, while Krillin and Yamcha hang back. The lookout is always sunny because it's above the clouds, and surprisingly non-freezing despite being above the clouds. It's late afternoon now, the sun falling away toward the horizon, and it's going to get cold soon. He hasn't slept that well in, possibly, ever.
"I'm awake," he says, sitting up and giving the three of them a flat look.
"Good. Mom arrived with dinner, and um. She wants to talk to you especially." He pauses, then adds very seriously, "You're not allowed to hurt her."
"Why would I want to hurt her?"
The kid gives him a searching look. "Is this a Saiyan thing? Because here on Earth, people tend to predict future actions based on past actions, and you blew up a couple of cities."
"When I didn't know you were my crew, sure."
"Humans don't have crews. You almost helped defend the Earth that one time and you built a nice bathhouse, so now Mom doesn't hate you; but she hasn't forgotten, either."
"Understood."
It's with some trepidation that he seats himself next to Chi-chi, even so. She is crew which means he isn't going to hurt her, but the kid has a point: Chi-chi is not a Saiyan, and won't react in sensible ways. "You wanted to talk."
"Not really," says Chi-chi. "But I'm going to say some things, because you need to hear them."
"Okay?"
Chi-chi nods, clearly steeling herself for this. "I did sit down with Mr. Piccolo and listen to him try to explain how Saiyans regard love. It wasn't very clear, but Gohan has explained a little more since, so I almost understand. You have a specific relationship for being an asshole to people, and otherwise you keep the fighting out of your nice relationships."
"Unless someone is flipping quadrants," he says, more or less just to be contrary.
"Even then. If there's fighting, it flips red to black."
"Yes," he says. It's not strictly true, but it is the ideal.
"And you're supposed to have five different people you're married to at once. I'm mean, not married but . . . "
"Yes," he says, mostly to spare them both the awkwardness of her trying to put it into human words.
Chi-chi nods. "Humans don't."
He waits for her to finish, but she doesn't say anything else, so that seems to be it. "Yes?" he tries.
"You are married to Dr. Briefs." It takes him a moment to realize she means Bulma. "Human married, not Saiyan . . . "
"Matespritfasted," he supplies.
"Which means you have to keep to human rules. You don't go off behind her back getting a black rival, I don't care if that's how you people do things! Goku made a promise to me and he's kept it, so I know you can. And you will." The 'or I will break you goes completely unvoiced. He hears it anyway.
His reactions all pile up together, 'but you don't care about conciliatory relationships, even though they are as strong?' colliding with, 'yes, but Kakarot has brain damage,' colliding with, 'of course I wouldn't!' because only assholes fill empty quadrants without consulting their filled ones first. Then it occurs to him that she's acting very defensive of someone who, as far as he's aware, is only a friend. That's the thought that makes it to his mouth. "Are you - her moirail?"
"No!" she almost shouts, and everyone turns to look at them. She colors furiously and continues in an angry whisper, but he's already figured it out: of course she isn't, because - "Humans don't have moirails!"
"Yes. You don't have crews and you don't have moirails. Why do you even care?"
"Dr. Briefs was a good friend to me, even when she didn't have to be."
Of course she did, he doesn't say. She's crew. But she isn't. The group of people he's been thinking of as his crew aren't, not really, not in any sense other than Kakarot chose them. They're working on an entirely different set of rules and obligations. One of those obligations must have just demanded that Chi-chi protect her - friend - from a threat that, he now understands, isn't that she expects him to deliberately hurt his matesprit so much as she thinks he'll do it anyway by not understanding human norms. He can't even say she was wrong to point it out to him.
"I understand," he says. And, "I think I'm going to have to - talk. To your son."
He can see her getting ready to be angry, and - it wasn't like the kid had been subtle.
"No! I already told him he's too young." Chi-chi expression goes startled. "But he's lived here his whole life and can explain your rules in a way that makes sense. I hope."
Chi-chi looks mollified. "It's not like Piccolo is any good at it . . . " she allows, obviously thinking about all the people in their little group and deciding, one after the other, that they're not the right person. The kid is, unfortunately, the best choice by virtue of being the only choice. "All right. You can go now."
He's never been so thoroughly dismissed in his life, and that includes the time he spent working for Frieza. But he takes the exit anyway, because the alternative is much, much worse.
"What was that about?" asks Bulma, when he sits down next to her.
"Differences between Saiyans and humans," he says. That seems to satisfy her, at any rate.
Dinner is, as he is beginning to understand is the norm when Chi-chi cooks, both excellent and plentiful. He is feeling full, not just physically but also in his ki, when they get back in the capsule aircraft to head home. "That was - good," he says, to Bulma, during the ride.
"Being with friends? Yeah. Even Saiyans can't fight all the time."
"Most can," he says. "I could, if I had a few of you with me. We assign crews together, and it's fine. You saw Rassik."
Bulma smiles. "I remember. Trying hard to be good, even when they don't know what good is. Very Saiyan, of course."
"They are one of my most effective units," he says.
"A little condescending towards anyone who doesn't like to fight with their fists, though."
He can't really argue that. He had been, too. He hadn't understood there was any other way of fighting.
It's dark and the stars are shining coldly when they get home, and he sleeps again, entirely at ease beside his matesprit-wife.
In the morning, he pops the junk capsule.
It had started off as a joke, almost. He had a thousand of the things, and once emptied and filled with more ki-concentrated foods, they were incredibly useful for moving supplies around. That was what most of them were still being used for now. But after the first battle of Jenshi, his men had found a . . . something. None of them knew what it was or what it was supposed to do, and obviously it couldn't do it with a blast hole clear through it. There had been some pretty hefty shields around it, too, and that had made him think of Bulma's new armor, so on whim he'd capsuled it. That began the junk capsule. Whenever anyone found some weird bit of tech that they didn't know how to use and their more technologically-inclined allies couldn't figure out, it went in the junk capsule.
Bulma looks over the pile of apparently random junk, then back at him. "Explain."
"I don't know what any of it does. None of our techs can figure it out, but they aren't the smartest person I know."
She looks at it some more. "Vegeta," she says, finally, so he looks her in the eyes. "Did you bring me a present?"
Her expression and her tone are unreadable. "If you don't like it - " he begins, then stops because she just sealed her lips over his. It's fast, just a peck, before she steps back.
"I love it," she says. "Thank you."
"I'll let you - "
"You will eat an absolutely enormous breakfast," says Bulma. "And then you'll go train. I will set an alarm so neither of us forgets to eat lunch, and another for dinner, and you won't train after dinner. We can go to bed instead."
"You want to go to bed right after dinner, woman? What are we, senile?"
"Bed," says Bulma, eyes bright, and he suddenly can't wait. She laughs. "Yeah. Come on you. Let's go eat."
She bleeds for a total of six days. He doesn't spend as much time training as he had planned, and what he does is mostly because Bulma is, in her way, as brutal as he is and won't let him stay in bed once he's exhausted her but not himself. Mostly, she takes naps, but inevitably they talk, in the times between.
"Tell me a story," says Bulma. Her eyes are closed and she looks close to sleep.
"What, like a bedtime story?" he asks. He's never been a father, and anyway, Saiyan warriors don't coddle their children like humans do.
"If you like," says Bulma. "Or a story that fighters tell each other. Or a secret story that you're never told anyone."
That one springs to the tip of his tongue, unbidden, but - this is Bulma. She never does anything for only one reason. "Why?"
"We're married, and you love me, but you don't know anything about me! And I know just as much about you."
"I know the important things."
She smiles softly, a secret smile just for him. "Flatterer."
He sighs, but, well, what was the point of being forced to memorize the whole epic cycle if not this? So he begins, "Speak to me, O ancestors, of Queen Solin first of her name: of her exile, and the trials she found there; and also of her quadrants, hated and held dear - "
"That is not a Saiyan story!" interrupts Bulma, eyes coming open all at once.
"Of course it's a Saiyan story, weren't you listening? It's about the first Queen Sol - "
"Saiyans don't write poetry! And they don't write poetry in dactylic hexameter!"
"Oh," he says. "No. This was written after, by Queen Solin's moirail, so her memory wouldn't be forgotten. He was a Triffle."
" . . . oh," says Bulma. "Okay. Go on."
That sets the tone for pretty much the whole thing. Bulma has no idea of proper etiquette for listening to an epic, so she keeps interrupting. Half the time it's to ask questions, and half the time it's to make some comment on this or that adventure she'd had with Kakarot or Yamcha or another of their cr - her friends. A few times it's to get him to stop talking at all, either because food has arrived and she will insist on wearing clothes to greet the servants, or because she's recovered enough that they can do something else instead. It's one of the shorter poems in the cycle, really only setting up the things that come later, and it's not supposed to take more than a few hours. It ends up taking all day.
"What, that's it?" asks Bulma, when it's over and Queen Solin and her matesprit both die, leaving behind her moirail and kismesis and co-auspiticee and the auspistice who betrayed them all. "Rocks fall, everyone dies?"
"Not all stories have happy endings," he says. He knows this to be more true than most. Then, more to curtail the inevitable questions than because he is curious, he says, "Now it's your turn. Tell me a story."
She tells him the story of how she met Kakarot, and their - first - quest for the dragon balls. She is a terrible storyteller and everything keeps coming out-of-order, garbled. On the other hand, she doesn't mind at all when he interrupts to ask questions or remind her that they've been in bed all day and it's night now and maybe they should at some point actually sleep. She just starts up again in the morning. It's a terrible mess anyway, no clear quadrants and the events so random that he's sure she's just telling him things that happened.
He is still outraged when he hears that the pig wasted the dragon's wish on undergarments.
"He was preventing Pilaf from using it!" she protests.
"Yes, I know, but he could have wished for something useful! One of your pellet-weapons, or something!"
" . . . okay, you've got me there," says Bulma.
"What did you even want to wish for?"
"Nothing."
"What."
Bulma sighs. "I mean, I told anyone who asked that I wanted to wish for a perfect boyfriend, but really, no one's perfect. I think I just wanted to ask the dragon how the wish-granting worked." She stops, then adds almost contemplatively, " . . . which I suppose might've just wished me to the Lookout, so Kami could have told me 'no' decades ago."
He snorts. "Wouldn't've worked. You'd just keep going by to try taking samples from the Pillar."
"You know, I would have," says Bulma. "At least until Mr. Popo told me not to."
"Is that why you don't?"
"Well. He gave me a piece of what he claims is chunk of Pillar material, but I'm pretty sure is a rock-shaped quantum singularity. I can't even get a consistent mass reading on it!"
"So . . . magic," he says.
"Magic," says Bulma with no small amount of disgust.
He laughs.
Later, Bulma literally shoves him into the argrav capsule so she can finally start playing with the junk capsule junk. He appreciates it, really, but she's going to send him off with the new capsule so he can train whenever he likes. He can only see her, see any of his idiots, here on Earth.
Then, about twenty minutes in, a wall of the capsule turns into a screen and Bulma says, "Is this working?"
"Yes," he says, guarded.
"Good! We were a little worried the LC display would crack when the gravity is up that high."
"You didn't test it?"
"The worst thing that would happen was the grav field would top out at four hundred seven gravities, which is still an improvement from your point of view."
"Why four hundred seven?"
"Four thousand meters per second squared," says Bulma, which, he does not even want to know. "I thought this way we'd be able to talk and I can get some work done. Tell me a story."
Over the course of a couple of days, while he works out walking, jogging in place and planks and push-ups, he recites the next poem of the cycle. Bulma responds by telling him about the second quest for the dragon balls, a bit over a year after the first and after Goku finally got a teacher. For all Roshi is a terrible person, he's also a human who had figured out how to do ki attacks on his own, so he's not completely useless. Goku had still been in the lag phase, before he hit his exponential power growth, and foundations are always good. He listens with a strategist's ear, learning about the different types of people who inhabit Earth.
The day after that, Piccolo comes to visit. He pauses, and then says, "Green man."
Piccolo tisks, and says, "I hear I have you to thank for the argument Goku is currently having with Chi-chi."
"They fight?" he asks. As far as he knew, the wonder couple were perfect matesprits. Who, of course, do fight, but only for fun.
Piccolo rolls his eyes. "The rest of us are smart enough to stay out of it, but Gohan can't. He's leaning in behind you, so probably Chi-chi is going to relent."
"Annnd you came to tell me this why?"
"We're going to be quadrant corners eventually," says Piccolo, pronouncing the words as though they're alien science. "I'd like to figure out what that means right now, instead of in the middle of the next crisis."
He can't deny it's a good idea. "What's to figure? I don't like you, you don't like me, but we can tolerate each other for the sake o - "
"You don't tolerate us, Vegeta," says Piccolo patiently. "Please at least try to remember: I've been in your head." Just like he's been in Piccolo's. It's a weird place, because Namekian tentacles are sense organs and Piccolo can get a rough empathic impression just from standing close enough to someone.
"Then why do we need to talk? You're part of my crew, end of discussion."
"Uh-huh," says Piccolo. "Kami's on the galactic deity database, but having read a book entry on Saiyans doesn't really tell us that much. What do quadrant corners do?"
"Conspire to keep the quadrant in question, usually."
"Keep them?"
"It not like you can force someone to feel anything for you," he says, uncomfortable. "Keep them."
"So you mean just continue to be an idiot, as far as Goku is concerned," says Piccolo.
He glares at the Namekian, but the issue is that knowing it's impossible doesn't actually make the feelings go away. "The liver wants what it wants."
" . . . does that mean anything, in Saiyan? Because it's just kind of creepy to me."
He sighs. If nothing else, Piccolo is making a strong point regarding different alien cultures. "The heart is for matesprits; the liver is for kismeses. Anyway, I don't really see . . . look. We don't have to be friends, or anything stupid like that."
"Okay," says Piccolo. "What if I want to be?"
"What."
"Because Saiyans might work just as well with people they strongly hate, but Namekians don't. And you don't hate me, not in the kill-me way and not in the black way. Why shouldn't we try for friends?"
"I don't even know you!"
"Whose fault is that?" asks Piccolo. "We . . . did go looking, you know, Kami and I. There is nothing specifically about you, but given the timeline it doesn't look like you could have had a particularly nice life up until now. I appreciate that you took the time to turn us into an effective team; in return, I would like to help integrate you into it, Earth-friendship-style. Having Earth friends is difficult, but on the whole I've found it worth the effort."
He is left speechless.
"Anyway. It's up to you. Take some time, think about it. You don't have to jump in all at once. I didn't."
"How did you?" he asks. "Decide to have Earth friends?"
"It was less a decision, and more self-preservation. We had to work together to defeat you and Nappa, and then I got to spend a few months in the company of those idiots while we were all dead and training under King Kai. I had to do some work to get them - mostly Yamcha - to stop leaking angst all over the place, and humans will bond with literally anything, up to and including rocks, so by the time I was alive again I was an ally. And then Gohan kept training with me, so now we're friends."
"Humans will bond with rocks?"
"Draw a stupid face on one and give it to Bulma," dares Piccolo.
The whole experience has the surreal quality of waking up one day to discover he's suddenly a giant insect or something, but he does draw a face on a rock and hand it to Bulma later that day. She looks at it, then at him, then at it again. "Er . . . thanks?" she says. He counts it a total failure until he walks into the lab a couple of days later - Bulma asked him to do some ki glassing and it is a decent focus exercise - to find Bulma shouting insults at the rock.
"You . . . know that's just a rock, right?" he says. "I drew the face myself."
"Yes," says Bulma. "But Mr. Mica is a decent enough programming duck, and he doesn't run away and refuse to work with me anymore when I shout at him, so he's still better than half of my lab assistants - did you need anything?"
"No."
The rest of his vacation - Bulma calls it shore leave - finishes along much the same lines. He eats and trains, and Bulma eats and does science to things, and they spend a lot of time talking while they do it. She's practical, his matesprit, and they work through some strategic and logistical problems that have been dogging the war effort. He finishes reciting the epic cycle, even with all of her questions. It's . . . he enjoys it, for the most part, even if he progresses more slowly than he would if he were focused exclusively on training.
It won't work in the long run, he knows: he's not a human and can't have his matesprit and his moirail be the same person. He explains this to Bulma, and asks that she talk to the kid about it while he's gone.
"His name is Gohan," says Bulma.
"I am not going to call any person 'cooked food,'" he says.
"Good grief," says Bulma.
In the short run, though, it is a lot of fantastic sex and good conversations and better sleep. They get to know each other properly, as people. He teaches her to throw a punch and manipulate her own ki at least enough to dodge; she teaches him vector math, so he can lay in a stellar course by hand if he has to. As they eat and sleep and talk some more, they build a place for him here, on this world.
It's still small and fragile when he gets back into his ship, though. Or rather, onto his new ship, the one with five hundred gravities. It has food and fuel and enough capsules to blow a medium-sized planetoid: all the gifts Bulma can give him. Everyone shows up to see him off, too, even old Master Roshi and the kid. He hasn't quite earned them, not yet, and there's still a war to finish, but at least he knows what his happy ending is going to look like.