Disclaimer: I don't own Dragonball Z.

A/N: This is a long overdue gift for Cavalier Prince, whose request as part of the DBZ fanfiction exchange on tumblr was 'Vegeta in an angsty situation—captured/needing to be saved, ill, being cared for after being injured, trying to recover from something terrible.'

I'm sorry about the delay – my life turned upside down again this April, but has slowly begun to right itself.

This fic – like many of mine – started as a oneshot, but it's grown too big for that. The second half (it will be a two-shot) is coming sometime in the near future, but I wanted to give you this now.

This is set in an AU version of the Dragonball universe, perhaps just before the Dragonball Z series picks up. Explanations will come throughout the story.

- Pic

Immunity

Part One

Space is cold, and so is he. Vegeta, the Prince of Saiyans, has always prided himself on his dark heart, in his lack of caring for any individual other than himself. Scenes of murder and bloodshed, of flesh bruised and bloodied, and stink of burning corpses in the air – these have been a constant in his life, and until now he has regretted nothing.

But as he slumps against the window of his space pod, his blood pooling on the floor, he is powerless to hold his conscience at bay any longer, and the thoughts that he has denied for so long come to choke him in his final moments.

He has fought for so long against Frieza's schemes. But he sees now that Frieza controlled him all along, moulded him into the man he has become, and every life that Vegeta took was another victory for his master.

His body shakes from shock. He cannot feel his right leg. His breathing is shallow. The end is nigh.

The pod hurtles towards the nearest planet. Bleeding out slowly, he knows this journey is in vain.

. . .

There has been no contact from the crew of Endeavour for more than two years. Bulma has given up on ever seeing them again, and so the siren that screams suddenly in the middle of the night shocks her more than it should. She pulls on the first clothes that she can find and sprints down the dilapidated hall, her torchlight bouncing off the walls around her.

At basement level, the siren is louder, ringing painfully in her ears. She presses her fingertip to the touchpad access, the old Capsule Corporation system chirping "Welcome Bulma," as she slides through the door.

She squints at the keyboard in the dark, and as her computer loads and the screen bathes her in blue light, the siren finally dies. A little piece of her heart dies along with it, because the ship plunging through Earth's atmosphere is not the Endeavour. Yamcha isn't back.

. . .

She doesn't know what to expect as she opens the door to the ship. It has taken her hours to reach it in the dark, flying one of her last working planes to the site she had calculated based on the data her satellite gathered.

Dawn breaks over her as she wrenches the front panel from its hinges, and she narrowly misses being crushed as the door falls to the ground.

The stench of blood is overpowering. What she finds is terrifying, shocking, and yet comforting at the same time. It is a man – alien, broken, and close to death – but a man no less, the first she has seen in person in five years.

. . .

His head is pounding. It makes it hard to think, as does his blurred vision. He recognises nothing in the unfamiliar room, other than that it appears to be an infirmary. There is a mask over his mouth and nose, and the cool taste of oxygen on his tongue.

He tries to sit, and finds he does not have the energy to manage even that task. Memories begin to resurface, flashback coming thick and fast now. Frieza's ship alight with flames, of his old master standing before him, horns bloodied as he gloats that his second form is much quicker than the first.

Frieza's hand wrapped firm around is ankle, the other over his thigh. A terrifying noise as his flesh tears apart, bones snapping like twigs.

Adrenaline floods his veins, and he hauls himself onto his elbows, tearing at the cover that hides his body from view. He stares at the space where his right leg should be, and screams.

. . .

She knows her patient has woken from the almighty howl he makes, and she can't help feeling afraid as she stalks down the hall towards the makeshift infirmary she has set up.

She finds him writhing on the ground, cursing in a foreign tongue, and no amount of yelling at him will calm him down. When he raises his hand towards her, his fingertips alight with the glow of ki, she skirts around him and jabs him with enough sedative to knock out a small elephant.

If she had any doubts about whether he was dangerous, they are gone now.

It takes all her might to haul him back up onto the bed. His head lolls back against the pillow, his eyelids fluttering despite the tranquilizer she's given him. Not for the first time, she wonders what the hell she's doing with this stranger from space.

But she couldn't bear to let him die. It's been a long five years without physical contact with anyone, the past two made harder after she lost touch with the last of the Genesis explorers that were tasked with finding a new world. She hasn't seen any other survivors of the plague in all that time, though she hopes in her heart that there are some out there.

The man before her groans, and she gets to work changing his dressings. His body has already begun to heal, the rate far faster than that of a human. She's seen this kind of healing before on her old friend, Son Goku.

She's smart enough to put two and two together. Son-kun had always been a little strange, stronger than the rest, and in possession of a tail. Meeting this alien is like finding the missing piece to the puzzle that was Son-kun. This man has the same jet-black, gravity defying hair, the same coloured eyes, and the same skin that is both baby-smooth and tough as old boots. He has a lot more scars than Son-kun ever had – testament to a violent past – and his tail is now nothing but a short stump. She rolls him onto his side so she can change the dressing there.

She wonders how Goku came to be living on Earth as a baby. She may never know the answer, and she supposes it doesn't matter now, anyway.

Her patient tended to, she sets about tidying the small room, clearing the bloodied clothes she couldn't be bothered dealing with yesterday. She finds herself staring at the alien man, watching his laboured breathing. He's handsome, with high cheekbones and a strong jaw.

She sighs, slips the oxygen mask back over his face, and leaves him to rest.

. . .

The woman is here, in this room. She has been in his fever dreams for days, and it takes some time for him to realise that he is truly awake. She walks over to his bed, runs a cool hand over his forehead, and says something soft and oddly soothing.

Her language is like nothing he's ever heard before. He swats her hand away and says "Fuck off," and he knows she understands the meaning of his words, despite the language barrier.

She is a weakling. He watches her as she pulls back the blankets that cover him, her delicate fingers running over the bandages and stitches that hold him together.

She pauses, glancing at him before she lifts the sheet where his leg should be. He stares at the ceiling.

He can't bear to look at it.

. . .

She appears to be the only one living in this building. It is large; he's heard her footsteps echo from all directions, and can only assume that he's on a second or third floor. This room is windowless; nothing but dull grey walls and medical equipment surround him.

He knows they're not in space. He's spent enough time on spaceships to notice the difference between intergalactic travel and life on terra nullius.

His injuries are severe. His right leg is nothing more than a short stump, cut well above the knee. His tail is gone. Without either, his balance is off, and the drugs the woman has pumped into his system make it difficult to control his ki.

His old self would have killed if a doctor dared to drug him as she has done. Broken as he is, he finds he does not have the energy or will to challenge her.

Without his leg, he will never fight again.

. . .

He stares at the ceiling above him, and refuses to acknowledge her presence. She shifts around the room, all the while muttering under her breath in that native tongue that is as jarring as it is undecipherable. She pokes and prods at his body, small hands running over the stump where his leg used to be, and he has to dig his fingers into the mattress to stop himself from crushing those thin wrists of hers. He reminds himself that he is alive because of her. It is a bitter thought.

She tries to engage him in conversation, her bright blue eyes filled with concern, but he has no patience for her garbled language. He grunts and turns his back towards her. She sighs with disappointment, which only makes him want to throttle her more, and leaves.

. . .

She doesn't know his name, and it bothers her.

Eight days after she first saved him, the majority of his wounds have healed. Only the stump of his right leg remains tender, and she marvels once more at the speed of his recovery as she checks over him again.

It is his mental health that concerns her. He's a soldier – she knows that much – and the loss of his leg has left more than physical damage. He eats little – far less than he should, if she compares him to her memories of Goku – and ignores her presence. The language barrier is an issue; if she could talk to him, perhaps she could do more.

He doesn't like it when she touches him to tend to his wounds, and his dark eyes glare at her as she checks what remains of his leg. The tension in the air is palpable.

She wheels in a wheelchair, and tries to coax him into it, thinking fresh air will do him good. He refuses outright, and though she doesn't understand the words he spits at her, she knows he's offended. She shouts back, eight days of frustration and worry and nervousness spilling out.

"Just sit in the fucking chair!" she yells, and he lurches forward on his one good leg, grabbing at the wheelchair and throwing it into the opposing wall in one smooth motion. It smashes through the plaster as he wavers, keening forward until she catches him. She has him on the same strong painkillers she used to use on Goku, and it only takes a small shove to push him back onto the bed. He sits there, looking wretched, and refuses to meet her gaze.

She's panting, her hands shaking from the fright of his violent outburst. She is tempted to leave, but something tells her that they are not done here today. Truth be told, she is desperate for company, and she's not willing to give up on the last sentient being on the planet.

"Bulma," she says, and points to her chest. He glances up at her, and she repeats herself. "Bulma. Bulma."

His fists clench and unclench, and she can see the thoughts turning in his mind.

"Vegeta," he says slowly, straightening in his seat and glaring at her defiantly. Even covered in bandages and wearing nothing but a hospital gown, he looks… regal.

"Vegeta," she repeats. He nods once, holding her gaze for a moment before he swings his left leg back on the bed and lies down. She stares at his back for a minute, and decides to leave him in peace.

. . .

Returning to Vegeta's ship is a calculated risk – her fuel reserves are running low, and she's reluctant to take any unnecessary trips. But she is determined to find out more about him, and the small pod he arrived in is her best bet.

She uses bots to roll the battered pod into the hull of her plane, screwing up her nose at the stench of his dried blood as it passes. A small white and red object rolls out of the door of the ship, and she rushes to pick it up before it is crushed under her senseless robots.

Unsurprisingly, it's caked in dried blood. She turns it between her hands, trying to work out what it could be used for. She laughs as she solves the mystery, holding it up to her face, though she doesn't let the dirty object touch her skin. She can see now where the rounded edge of the box fits just over the wearer's ear, the red glass pane – cracked and chipped – designed to fit over one's eye.

"It must be a communication device," she muses, excitement bubbling forth. This she can work with.

. . .

She toys with the idea of deciphering the written language on the device's eyepiece before she shows Vegeta, but she is too impatient, too eager to get some sort of working communication between them. Hand gestures and grunts only get you so far, and she figures he will be able to show her more about how the device works. She's a genius, but that doesn't mean she doesn't appreciate efficiency.

She catches him doing sit-ups on the infirmary floor – a good sign, given the fact that she has reduced his painkillers in the last two days – and flashes him a grin as she holds out the device. She's replaced the glass eyepiece and removed all traces of grime, and watches with pride as his eyebrows shoot up in surprise. He snatches the device from her hands and immediately begins to scroll through the functions. She sits cross-legged on the floor beside him, watching intently.

He holds the device close to his mouth, speaking in the same guttural language she has heard for the past two weeks. There is a pause, then a robotic "You went back to my ship."

She squeals with the sound of it, unable to hide her excitement. He's laughing at her, but she doesn't care.

"Yes!" she yells into the device. "I've brought your ship back with me. It's sitting outside!" She waits with bated breath as the device translates this, and watches as Vegeta grunts with understanding. He says something else into the translator.

"I'm sick of this fucking room," the translator says in an accented monotone. She roars with laughter, and clambers to her feet.

"Come on then," she tells him, offering him her hand. He hesitates, and refuses her offer. Instead he floats up off the floor, and she is left stunned as he levitates next to her.

"I should have known – of course you can fly!"

He snorts at her sarcasm before her words are even translated. A minute later the device delivers his retort; "I can now that you've stopped drugging me."

She rolls her eyes, leading the way and trusting that he will follow.

. . .

Using the scouter to translate is a tedious process that grates on his nerves. He reminds himself that it is better than having no knowledge of his surroundings, although he is disturbed by what he hears.

Bulma is the lone survivor of her race, or so it can be assumed. Her kind had little contact with extra-terrestrials prior to the plague that ravaged her planet, and the last of her friends left this world five years ago. She presumes them to be dead.

He asks her why she stayed behind, but she doesn't answer. He watches as she fights back tears, shaking her head as if she still can't believe her situation. He discovers that she was once the wealthiest woman on this planet. Now that wealth is worth nothing.

She asks about his injuries – "What caused this?" she says, gesturing to his missing leg, the stump hidden under the loose pants she has given him. He doesn't want to talk about it, and switches the scouter off. He's had enough of her inane chatter for today.

She gives him a pointed look, but doesn't press the issue. She leaves him sitting in what appears to be her living quarters, and he spends the afternoon staring out the window, reflecting on his situation.

What caused this?

Fucking Freiza.

. . .

In the past month she has fallen into a strange routine with her handsome alien guest. Each morning they eat together in silence, not bothering to use the scouter to translate for them. Hand gestures suffice – 'pass me the salt' looks the same no matter where you come from. They save their talking for the evening, though the conversations never last longer than five minutes. He is a private man, and he hasn't shared much about his past with her at all, other than that he is a Prince, and the last of his kind.

She's pleased to see his appetite increasing. She leaves him to his own devices for a large part of each day; often she heads out on supply runs, or works in the basement, fixing bots and other bits of equipment. She knows he spends his day snooping around the place – she wouldn't be surprised if he's looked around the whole Capsule Corp compound at this point. Mobility isn't an issue for him given his ability to fly, but she knows his injury bothers him a great deal.

There has been something about him that bothers her, though, and it's only when she gets around to looking at the armour he arrived in that she realises what it is. Sweat breaks out on her palms as she quickly brings up her recordings of her contact with Yamcha and the rest of the Endeavour crew. It takes her ten minutes to find the snippet she is looking for, taken from one of their last conversations.

"I'm just worried, because we're coming into the Planet Trade Organisation's domain," Yamcha says on the video. She cringes as she hears her own voice reply.

"The what?"

"The Planet Trade Organisation – the PTO. It's run by a guy named Frieza. His soldiers are everywhere around here – really rough guys, evil guys, you know? They all wear the same standard armour – chest plates over a spandex suit. They purge planets for a living – clear them of inhabitants using ki blasts, so they can sell the planet on to another group of people."

"That's disgusting!"

"Yeah. And we haven't found any planet that's willing to take in refugees from Earth. I don't think the concept of refugees even exists out here."

"Shit," she says to herself, switching off the recording. "Holy fuck."

She can't be one hundred percent sure until she asks him, but it's likely that Vegeta was one of these soldiers. Perhaps that's why he's here – to purge the planet. If so the job has already been done for him. It took only five days for the mystery virus to sweep the world and kill almost every Earthling on the planet. She was lucky enough to have the means to develop a vaccine that saved both her and some of her friends, but it was too late for the others, the disease moving faster than they could act.

She had chosen to stay – to collect the dragonballs and wish everything away – and what an idiotic decision that had been. Kami had died, struck down by the same illness, and the dragonballs had perished with him.

It was the fastest spreading plague in all of human history.

For years she has avoided dwelling on this point – what happened could not be changed, and there is no point in reflecting on 'what ifs'. But a cold chill runs down her spine as she begins to question the origins of the disease.

"They purge planets for a living… so they can sell the planet on to another group of people."

Her breathing is shallow as she runs up the stairs, her hands shaking. She has to know.

. . .

"Vegeta!"

The woman's voice shrieks down the hall, and he turns in his chair as it hits an even higher note. "VEGETA!"

She storms into the living room, her face hard with fury, and throws the scouter at him. She's practically spitting as he switches the translator on.

"Do you work for the Planet Trade Organisation? Are you here to purge this planet? Did you use biological weapons against my people? Are you here to kill me?"

The questions are almost too fast for him to process, and he holds up a hand to shush her as the translator repeats all that she's saying.

"Did Frieza kill my people?"

There are tears running down her face, and her cheeks flush red. She sinks to the ground before him, her blue hair swinging forward to hide her face from view.

"Did you kill them?"

"No."

She understands that word, and her shoulders relax before the translator even gives her the answer in her own language. She sobs quietly, and avoids eye contact as the energy drains out of her.

"I did work for Frieza," he admits. She stills, like prey caught in a trap. "Frieza did this to me," he adds, gesturing to his leg, "but Earth was not one of Frieza's targets, and the plague you speak of was not his work."

She is silent for a long time. He watches her process this new information, her teeth worrying away at her bottom lip. Finally she looks up at him.

"Why did Frieza do that to you?"

Shame and anger coil cold in his gut. He can still taste the blood of his last battle in his mouth, can still hear Frieza's mocking words.

"Because I tried to defeat him."

"Why?"

He narrows his eyes at her. "Why does that matter to you? Do you think I had some noble reason for destroying Frieza? No. I have only ever wanted revenge. He destroyed my planet and my people. He pressed me into his service. I am a Prince, not a slave!" he bellows, and she jumps, shifting backwards. She's afraid of him. Good.

"You purged planets."

It's an accusation, not a question, and he doesn't shy away from giving her an answer. This woman has lived on a sheltered planet all her life; no wonder her friends have all perished in space – they don't have a clue about how the universe works.

"Of course I purged planets. I've killed billions. I would kill more, if I still had my leg."

She shakes her head – in dismay, he supposes – and rises to her feet. He assumes she is going to leave – fresh tears are rolling down her cheeks – but she turns back to face him once more.

"But you say Frieza didn't cause the plague. You weren't part of this?"

He wonders why she needs the reassurance. "I had no part in this. Frieza doesn't believe in using biological weapons – he prefers to use fighters." He pauses, watching her shallow breathing. She's dangerously pale. "His brother Cooler has been known to use disease as a method of clearing planets."

Her eyes roll back, and he barely catches her before she crashes to the ground. It's only a quick faint, and by the time he lays her out on the seat she's coming to. He leaves her there, and flies out the nearest window.

He hadn't considered Cooler to be behind the plague on this planet, but it is a possibility too likely to ignore. If Cooler did release the disease Bulma has talked so much about…

He shakes his head, a growl bubbling up his throat. Fucking Colds!

. . .

She has no appetite, and hasn't bothered to set the bots to cook dinner. It grows dark around her as she remains lying on the sofa, but she doesn't have the energy to move.

"I've killed billions. I would kill more, if I still had my leg."

She swallows back bile, rubbing her puffy eyes. She feels sick to her stomach. She had begun to like Vegeta, to trust him. She enjoyed his company. He was all that she had left.

She had begun to think, too, of how she could help him. Biomechatronics was the answer; Dr. Gero had been the pioneer in that field before he died. She'd considered taking a trip out to his old lab to see what she could find. Perhaps she could build him a functional leg. She knew that fighters prevented injury by encasing their limbs with ki; there was a way, she was sure, to make a leg just as strong as his flesh and bone.

She could make him whole.

"I would kill more, if I still had my leg."

She covers her eyes, taking in a shaky breath. He has a functioning ship. If she fixes him, he could leave.

She doesn't want that.

. . .

He searches through the abandoned city, flying low over the streets in the epicentre of town. If Cooler, or anyone else, used biological warfare, he would find it here.

Human remains litter the streets; white bones strewn all over the place, picked clean by animals long ago. It's evidence of how bad the epidemic became; on planets such as this one the infrastructure simply fails as the numbers of those dying increases exponentially. With full hospitals and failing staff, people end up dying where they have fallen, no one left to care for them.

It is, he thinks, the worst way to die. Frieza has always craved bloodshed, some sick part of him taking joy in the torture of innocents. He would never lower himself to the use of viruses, even if it meant an increase in profit.

He swoops lower as he spots something white glinting in the light of the setting sun. It's what he's been searching for; a tiny ball with Standard writing on the side. He hovers in the air, reading the fine print on the label.

Live virus. Deadly.

A shiver runs down his spine to where his tail used to be, and he's tempted to drop the virus bomb, but the woman has assured him that he is now immune to the disease, as is she. "It's the first thing I did when I got you back here," she told him. "I've tested your blood; you have full immunity."

Full immunity doesn't mean shit, now that he's found this. Cooler's troops can't be far away – five years is more than enough time between a virus drop and reclamation of the land. This is a valuable planet – he's seen it enough from the air to know how many good resources they have here, relatively unspoilt by the previous inhabitants. Any newcomers will need a vaccination against the clearing virus, but that will be easily arranged. This planet will sell for a hefty price.

For the millionth time, he curses the Colds, and all the havoc they have wrought on this universe.

. . .

He brings both the scouter and the virus bomb to breakfast the next morning. Bulma has not yet set the bots to cook for them, and he places the small bomb casing in front of her on the white table top.

"It's from Cooler," he tells her. "It explains how your kind fell so quickly – these would have been released in every populated area. The viruses are designed to attack the evolved lifeforms on a planet."

She stares at the bomb before her, and the only sound in the room is the constant tick of the clock.

"Cooler will be coming for this planet soon," he tells her. "If you want to live, you must leave."

She turns her eyes towards him, her pretty face set in a hard expression. "How do I know I can trust you?" she asks him though the translator.

"You don't," he replies. "But what other choice do you have?"