The Second Time
By Silver Lady
Part 3
Vegeta opened his eyes. As coherent
thought slowly formed into his mind, he felt confused and could not understand
why he was lying naked on a hard, cold floor, until he heard Bulma's soft
breathing beside him and felt her warm skin against his. Ah, now he remembered.
The damned time machine. That his woman… that he wondered why she still
had not driven him nuts. Well, at least the incident contained something good.
He hadn´t seen her so randy in ages…
Just like the good old times, Vegeta thought as he smiled and reached
out to brush a hand on Bulma´s hair.
His hand froze in mid-air.
Bulma´s hair was short again, in that
stupid hairstyle that might look good on Trunks or Android 18, but at least in
Vegeta´s opinion, made his wife look much older than she really was. She
stirred slightly and smiled in her sleep, a slight line present at the corner
of her mouth.
She was no longer a girl. So...
He patted his rump. No more tail, just
the old, well-known scar. He glanced around, scanning the clothes lying
scattered around them. No more orange striped dress, Saiyan battle armor or the
rest of the parephenalia they were using as teenagers. Instead, present were
the simple house clothes the prince wore when he had entered the lab and a
plain, long dress he knew well. The effects of the time machine had lasted just
a few hours. Maybe because of the accident or because, despite their young
appearance, inwardly they were no longer the teenagers they once had been.
Willing or not, people changed along with the times. He was lucky that he had
changed for the better.
Shit. Now he would never know if he
could have become a Super TeenagerSaiyan. Before Kakarott. Everything because
she had pulled his tail and…
…And against his will, Vegeta's mouth
curled up into a smile at the thought of what had happened by next.
He shrugged his annoyance off. Feh.
Anyway, what good would the experience have done him? As he had said to Bulma, to
become a teenage Super Saiyan wouldn´t have made him able to surpass his rival.
In addition, although Vegeta never would admit it to himself, very deep down
something inside preferred that things remained as they were, in that eternal
and now friendly rivalry.
It was better this way. At least he
had his power back, and they had enjoyed their temporary youth.
Just at that moment, Bulma stirred a
little, finally starting to feel the coldness of the floor. Her eyes
slowly opened and she saw Vegeta standing with his back turned towards her as
he got dressed. She smiled, enjoying the view as he put his pants on. Then
something made her sit up abruptly and widen her eyes.
"You… you cut your tail
again?"
Vegeta stopped buttoning his shirt and
turned around. His face was still young, but now he had the features of a man,
not a boy´s.
"I'm not a masochist, although to
live with you and the brats might give anyone this impression. And, even if I
was, I'd prefer to kiss Kakarott's wife than to cut my own tail
off."
Bulma gasped and touched her own face,
then her short hair. She sighed in dissapointment:
"It was only for a few hours...
oh!" the scientist cut herself in the middle of the sentence because she
suddenly became conscious of her own nudity. The velocity at which she utilized
to gather her clothes and put them on could be registered in the Guinness Book
of World Records. Vegeta watched that sudden attack of modesty without any
reaction but a slight rise of one eyebrow.
"Well, at least we know it works,"
Bulma concluded as she smoothed the wrinkles of her long skirt, two pink spots
still present on her cheeks "Now I'll just have to figure out how to make
the effects permanent and..."
Once again she was cut off in the
middle of her speech. A shining, blinding ki blast sent her backwards,
followed by a rumble that shook the lab walls. After her eyes recovered enough
to see anything recognizable, she obseved Vegeta standing with his
arm extended and the palm of his hand turned towards what was once the time
machine. Now it was just a twisted pile of glass and metal, so melted that no
one could tell which was one and which was another.
"Nooo!!! What have you
done?!" Bulma's shock and outrage were so palpable that she
fell on her knees. Sometimes Vegeta was irritated about her
inventions when he thought they were taking her attention away from him, but he
never had laid a hand on any of her devices. Although Vegeta never said it
aloud, Bulma was quite aware of how much her husband respected and felt proud
of her work. She excelled in science as much as Vegeta excelled in fighting. So
this act of wanton destruction seemed completely cruel and senseless.
"Why, Vegeta? Why? Didn't you
like me as a girl?" she asked, her voice broken and hurt.
Vegeta stood staring the smoking
remnants of the machine, not bothering to look at her.
"I couldn't have you risk
your life again with this contraption," he said simply.
"To risk my life?" Bulma
echoed in outrage. "How many times I have to repeat
that-was-an-accident!"
"Don't make a fool of
yourself!" Vegeta snarled as he finally turned to face her. "We were
lucky we've been turned into teenagers. But, what if we had turned into
newborns? What if instead of coming here I had went out to train and something
happened to you?"
"Nothing would happen! Don't you
trust in my competence?"
Vegeta ignored her last
speeches.
"You could have reverted back to
childhood... and I'm not a pedophile. Worse, you could get so old till you
turned into a mummy and could have been reduced to dust. And if that happened,
I couldn't wish you back because you would have died by natural death and left
me all alone!" he blurted out before thinking better.
As the implication of his last words
made their fast way in his mind, his face slowly went white.
"Err… I mean…" he stuttered
uncharacteristically, trying desperately to fix it. "… you would have left
me alone to take care of the brats on my own, and that´s not fair!" Vegeta
finally exploded, his face already crimson with the vexing situation.
Bulma nodded understandingly, as a
tear slid down her face. Vegeta never had admitted so openly how much he cared
about her, let alone that he feared to lose her. For Bulma, that was worth far
more than her youth or all the inventions she could build. The still ashamed
Saiyan, however, noticed the soft expression in her eyes and quickly changed
the subject before she opened her mouth and said something sickeningly
mushy.
"If you really wanted to get rid
from your crow feet, why didn't you request it from Shen-long?" he
demanded, his embarrassment making him sound harsher.
Just as he expected, the change in
Bulma´s attitude was instantaneous. The tenderness faded from her eyes and they
sparkled in anger, as she tapped her bare foot on the floor.
"Who's got rid of WHAT crow feet,
you boorish ape? I look much younger than any woman of my age! You Saiyans are
the freaks…"
Vegeta just gave her that ' who are
you trying to deceive' look. Defeated, but never admitting it, she regally
crossed her arms.
"All right, all right! Yes, of
course I thought about the dragonballs! That´s SOO obvious! But it´s easier
talking than doing it. You don't have a company to run and you don't have a
husband and a pair of children that can't breathe without my aid! I haven't got
the time or health to gather little balls spread all around the world!"
Vegeta´s expression remained
unchanged, save by one eyebrow slightly raised.
"And who told you they're
spreaded around the world?" he stated, more than asked.
"What do you mean?"
Instead responding he turned around,
yet not before Bulma could notice two famous red spots present on his cheeks.
Quickly, she walked towards the nearby metal cabinets, opened one of them and
grabbed the dragon radar from its shelf.
And she
gasped.
The radar signaled that there were
SEVEN dragonballs together...EXACTLY at the place they were standing!
"The dragonballs are here? But
how? Where?" she gazed around frantically, as if she expected that the
little starred spheres would jump out from a corner of the laboratory.
"In
the same place you found the first one."
Bulma stared
confusedly at her husband. The same place where she had found the first one?
Carefully, she concentrated on her memories of the last time they had used the dragonballs,
trying desperately to remember where they had found the first sphere… yet,
something whispered into her mind that wasn´t the right answer. She ventured a
look at Vegeta. It was enough to make her sure that he wouldn´t give her
another hints. Then, the voice whispered into her mind again and she looked
back at the melted thing that hours ago had been a machine and made them look
like they did so many years ago… It had worked so perfectly that Bulma even had
been wearing the same exact clothes she had been when she found Goku for the first time, on the road. When she started
that adventure, she never could imagine that a simple discovery in the attic
could change her life so much… in one boring, rainy day, when, having nothing
better to do, she had went to rummage through the old knickknacks of her family
just to find…
"The attic! They
are in the attic! But... how... You gathered the dragonballs and hid them up
there? Why?"
"They're up there. Does it matter
how?" Vegeta snarled, still with his back turned about her. Even the back
of his neck was red now.
Bulma smiled tenderly at him. As much
as he had changed, Vegeta still hated to be caught doing something good, let
alone to admit it.
"You... you 'borrowed' the radar
and brought them for me..."she muttered, her voice trembling
slightly. "Because you
knew... "
He growled.
"Don't be so delusional!
I...I just caught them because I have done with your ramblings and
babbling that you look like my mother! Getting excuses not to have sex
wearing your blasted button-necked nightgown, like Kakarot´s ugly old woman,
who probably had her sons through artificial insemination so as not to use the
thing between her legs!"
With that, he expected obviously that
Bulma would throw another of her tantrums, almost deafening with her screams as
usual, but even that was better than the terrible embarrassment that still made
his heart race. He expected in vain. After a long moment of silence, the prince
ventured a glance over his shoulder. Bulma was staring quietly at him, tears
threatening to spill from her eyes. Wonderful. Now he really had cocked it up.
"I… I am so sorry.
Really." Those atypical words left her lips as she slowly looked
down at her bare feet, her voice shaken.
"What?" Vegeta
expected to hear anything but that.
" I was very mean to you,
wasn´t I?" she started forcefully, that confession obviously costly
to her. "It´s not your fault if Saiyans… err… if you still look young and
I don´t. But… for a woman that was as beautiful as I used to be, is very hard
to admit that age… has come. When I was forty, I was so proud to not look no
more than thirty, but now…"
Vegeta impatiently cut off her
hesitant explanation.
"What the hell are you babbling
about?" he snapped out. Spurred by his rudeness, Bulma´s eyes looked up in
rage, loseing their broken expression.
"Don´t make a
fool of yourself!" she yelled back. "You know perfectly well what I´m
talking about! Here!" she pointed at the first lines in her face
"And here! You just said yourself that I have crow feet! And even
Goku called me old lady!"
"I didn´t… why, kiss my ass! Any woman would have wrinkles, smoking the
way you do and applying make up with a trowel!"
"So you admit it!" She knew
that Vegeta hated seeing people cry, but it didn´t matter anymore. He could
call her pathetic if he pleased, she no longer gave it damn. Turning around,
she raised both hands to cover her face.
"Go away! Get out here and go get some pretty young girls for you! I know
you want it, that´s what all men do. Saiyans or humans, you men are all
unsensitive monsters. You may go, I don´t mind."
Vegeta´s eyebrows rose in sudden
understanding. Of course. In Earth society, everything was disposable, including
people. Men chose a woman and married her swearing eternal love; however, as
soon as her grays appeared and breasts started sagging, she was replaced by
some girl with fresh beauty and smelling like diapers. Such mentality was easy
to understand; after all, Vegeta was also a man, and that kind of behavior
wasn´t exclusive of Earthlings. No wonder human females were so obsessed about
their appearances. Still, he felt slightly offended that Bulma could think he
would do such thing to her.
Vegeta had been born and raised in an
universe where the value of a warrior was in his power, not in his appearance.
Too many times he had blasted into dust morons that had underestimated him
because of his 'pretty face' or because he was 'shorty'. The same way, you
can´t measure the value of a mate by how big and firm her breasts were, or how
smooth and clean was, free of wrinkles. What about the years of patience, comprehension and
complicity you share together? That doesn´t count? Why would he replace his own
wife with some empty-headed, no brained little girl that never would know him
like Bulma did, that wouldn´t be able to give him scientific support and
probably would wince at a simple glare of his?
Vegeta had taken a long
time to realize how much Bulma was aging because, as late Mrs. Briefs used to
say, the women of their family start showing age very late. Perhaps he had
needed to pay much more attention to notice it, if it wasn´t for the changes in
Bulma´s behavior. The reality and its implications had been a shock for him. He
didn´t knew exactly how long Saiyans lived; they were usually short-lived
because of their routine of violence and battles, so he never heard that some
Saiyan had died of aging. Also the idea of remaining alive after all his
beloved ones had gone was terrifying for this man who had changed so much.
That´s why he had secretly gathered the dragonballs, to at least have Bulma at
his side a while longer. He was born and lived half part of his life in
loneliness. He didn´t want to die alone, too.
But how could he tell all
that to his whiny, moronic wife? How to make her understand without looking a
fool and damaging his pride?
Then, a crazy
idea shot through his mind.
"Do you like green
apples?" he asked, the question practically leaving his mouth by itself.
"What?"
Bulma raised her head in confusion and shock. Vegeta himself almost couldn´t
believe that he had said that, for he felt like Kakarot was talking though his
mouth. Too much influence, he thought. But he hadn´t gotten any better ideas.
"I hate green
apples," he added alsoin. "They´re hard, acidic and tasteless."
"What in the
world are you talking about?" she blurted out in annoyance. Ignoring her,
Vegeta carried on.
"There are tasty
exceptions, I admit," he smirked slightly. "like the apple I just ate
an hour ago. But they never have the same taste as a mature fruit does."
Bulma frowned a bit. She
finally
"Are you
calling me apple?" she snapped defensively.
"Hm… a pear
would be more fitting. Earth fruits are delicious… but there´s something
annoying about them."
"And what is it?" she folded her arms and rolled her eyes.
"You have to
peel the skin off them before eating."
Bulma felt a strange cold breeze
brushing her legs as she heard the sound of something being torn off. She looked
at Vegeta: apparently he hadn't moved from his place, but from his hand there
dangled a long of cloth that looked strangely familiar.
"Much better. I had almost
forgotten that you have legs," he said, grinning mischievously.
Bulma looked down and gasped in
shock. Her skirt, that reached her ankles now was above her thighs, barely
covering her still firm backside.
"Aah!" she yelled and
pulled the dress down. "What did you just do, you pevert? Allrighgt, this
dress is not new or I wouldn´t use it in the lab, but it was
expensive!"
"No wonder, with the amount of
cloth it took. Only the skirt is enough to build a tent! Let's
continue?"
"No! Wait..."she started,
but RIIIIP!!! Vegeta already had torn off the sleeves.
"Stop! Please stop that!"she
searched for shelter behind a chair, but Vegeta appeared behind and tore off in
two what was left of her dress. Bulma was now wearing a slip, bra and
panties. She angrily pounded on his chest:
"You... you bastard!
Perverted! Hadn't you enough before? "Bulma clutched at his shirt in her
anger, before she could notice what she was doing. Riiipp!! She found herself
holding the front part of his shirt.
Vegeta looked like the
Incredible Hulk, the remnants of his shirt hanging from his shoulders, a grin
of pure amusement on his face. He snickered as he shrugged off the tatters and
gave a step forward.
"That was impressive,
woman. I thought you have forgotten this sort of stuff. Let me help you."
With that, he tore off his own pants to stand in front of her wearing only a
pair of underwear.
Bulma backed away, clutching her
hands at her baby-doll.
"No... Don't you dare to rip
anything else off, are you listening? I´ll call the police!"
Vegeta´s ample
forehead wrinkled as hefrowned, his patience definitely finished.
"I had enough of
that!" he burst out. "What else do I have to do to prove it to you?
Your skull is even thicker than Kakarot´s! What´s good into looking younger if
deep INSIDE you remain as chaste as an old nun? I thought I could get
my wife back like she was before, but now I see that I´m
wrong." With that, he whirled around and stomped towards the door.
Bulma´s cheeks drained
of all blood at this lecture. Then, as quickly as it had gone, the blood went
back to colour them in red. Vegeta´s lecture had crashed down on her like a
bomb, but what really marked her attention was that 'to you'. Hurrying
forward, she could reach Vegeta before he went through the door and touched his
shoulder.
"Huh... you didn´t understand me. I wasn´t pushing you away. It´s
just..."
Vegeta stopped at her
touch, but didn´t look at her. Still, she could see he spied her through the
corner of his eye, awaiting the repost. Forcing a smile, she struggled to
continue.
"Well...
uh...since you gathered the spheres, shouldn´t we summon Shen-long at first? To
make me more... presentable?" she finished with a wink.
Vegeta stared at her
for a long moment over his shoulder, like he was considering if he should stay
or go. Finally, he turned around and towards her, his face unexpressive.
"I´m not going to
have Shen-long seeing what belongs only to me," he stated, staring at her
curves under the see-through piece of silk, before turning his head to look at
a spot on the floor, where a stain of dry blood was visible.
It was a quick glance,
but it was enough to demolish all the rest of the woman´s resistance. She
didn´t complain when Vegeta tugged the slip to pull her towards him, almost
tearing the delicate silk. For her surprise, he didn´t tear the piece of cloth
off, just untied the laces that kept it hanging on her shoulders. The baby-doll
smoothly slid from her body to land silently at her feet, sending a shiver
through her spine, and Bulma wrapped her arms on Vegeta´s shoulder. She tensed
a bit when he removed her bra, but soon forgot all her uncomfortableness when
he bent and kissed her nipple, cupping a breast still firm, even if not like a
girl´s .
As he slid off her
panties, she took advantage of the opportunity to slip a hand into his
underwear and tease a very well known spot she liked so much.
"Hmm... muuch better than
that long tail… I couldn´t lick it so well."
She felt Vegeta tensing in her
arms and something hard brushing her thigh almost immediately. Both stepped
back to look down, already knowing what they would see. They glanced up to meet
each other´s eyes and smiled.
"Do you really believe that
an old woman would make me hard like this?" Vegeta asked.
As respost, Bulma just made
"hmm" and reached out to grab the hem of his underwear. With a
quick, move, she yanked and tore it off, freeing Vegeta´s erection and
leaving him completely naked.
The Saiyan prince stood gaping
at her for a moment, as he didn´t believe he finally had his old Bulma back,
just the way she used to be. Then, in a swift gesture, he took her in his arms
and they rushed out of the laboratory, both naked and blissful, leaving
tattered clothes, shames, uncertainties and unjustified jealousies, along with
a pile of melted metal.
EPILOGUE
Many, many hours later...
Tiptoeing, Bulma
entered the room and smiled lovingly at the man sleeping on their bed. The
sheet had been pushed aside, exposing completely the sculpted body that could
belong to a Greek god, if his legs weren´t a little short for the Greek
standards. For Bulma, however, he was the own Beauty incarnated.
Shrugging off her robe, she
stood naked in front of the mirror of her wardrobe. Happily, she slightly shook
her head, making her now long again hair wave, and admiring her curves and her
fresh, smooth wrinkle-free skin. No girl, no old lady. She was aged 21 now.
All right, to know how much she
was loved and still desired even when a woman of fifty was a gift. But…
she couldn´t waste those dragonballs after Vegeta had troubled himself to get
them, could she?
As silently as possible, she sneaked
towards the bed, and laid besides her loving husband, pulling the sheet over
them carefully.
"I know you´re sick of hearing me
say this, but I love you so, so much…" she whispered to herself, before
falling asleep.
A slow smile tugged at the corners of
Vegeta´s mouth. As slowly and carefully as Bulma had done before, he reached
out and pulled her sleeping body towards him, until she lay against his
chest.
Trunks and Bra wouldn´t come back
until Monday. He and Bulma would have a great Sunday together.
The End.