a/n: Sorry, didn't mean to give the impression that the story was over. I just wanted to say that I have no specific plans for the story, but I do kind of like it, so I will continue it as long as I have ideas I suppose.

I'm kind of lost lately, I'm not sure what to do. Daily I open notebooks and programs to write, and like a dried old spigot, nothing flows. I'm trying, although I am at a loss how to recapture the momentum and imagination I'd started this with. Wish me luck that I regain my focus, and soon.

Chapter 10

Vegeta scowled at the television as he swallowed another spoonful of breakfast. The museum visit had only upped the level of personal chaos in his life. The photographer he'd ignored had unleashed a maelstrom of who knows what when the images had been released. He'd originally hoped for a single shot, just enough to deter other men from attempting to move in on the woman he was calling his. Instead the proverbial pendulum had swung too far the other way, he himself was now the center of the media focus. For a third week running now he'd been a popular subject in the local and international gossip pages.

It hadn't been all that insufferable, the photos had garnered a more ardent response from Bulma then when she'd caught him training the boy the first time. He slept a happy man each night, finding more new experiences with the blue haired woman. It only helped that with each report on the images his ego was stroked with unexpected flattering.

The story had only taken off when an anonymous source had declared him to be a long-time resident of Capsule Corp. and to be involved in many of the top secret projects that went on under the private roof of the Briefs family. From there it seemed to be a story that wouldn't die, continually popping up until he was tired of seeing himself and the boy in print. It was no longer a deterrent for other males as much as it was a beacon for females and an invitation to the media to inquire further into his relationship with the woman and the boy.

{}{}{}{}{}

One morning when the only person at the breakfast table was himself Mrs Briefs pushed a thick piece of paper across the tabletop to him, it was face down and one edge was perforated.

"I found this while I was cleaning. I suppose it just never got filed with the city." She giggled and smiled in that way of hers before walking off.

He flipped the document and read its face. Certificate of the Magistrate, Proof of Marriage it proclaimed in fancy script. There were two spaces for signatures, the space for a witness signature already filled with a bubbly signature full of rounded letters. He stared at it for a long time, memorizing the lettering and placement of the text. The parchment was dated almost 2 years prior.

Licking jam off his thumb he found a pen on the countertop. On one of the proclaimed lines he carefully put nib to paper and slowly stroked the lines to spell his name. When he laid down the pen he was surprised to see that his palms were sweating. Looking it over he felt weighted down, this was not something to undertake lightly. He and the paper vanished from the kitchen.

Quietly, even if he could not hear over his own beating heart, he moved along to the woman's messy lab. On her desk and into a pile of papers he slipped the certificate. He scrawled a few notes on some revised prints for bots before vacating the room. Successfully having hidden the document in the last place the woman would discover it, he congratulated himself on his cleverness while he pondered his next steps.

{}{}{}{}{}

It was a Tuesday morning and Vegeta was bringing the boy inside from the Gravity Room. They'd travelled through the rain to enter the house, and now were both sporting clinging fat droplets of water. It'd take the boy a fair bit of time to walk all the way to the back door. As predicted the Woman and her dame flitted over, endlessly concerned over the boy's health and wellbeing. The child was far too coddled to get sick, yet the idea that he could become ill was enough to send the pair into a nattering mess. As they fawned and worried over the infant Vegeta sat himself down to eat. The boy sat in his mother's lap to his chagrin.

The corner of the Prince's lip turned up slightly when she began feeding him by hand. The endless cooing and butchered language called 'baby talk' was infuriating. The boy would not develop properly without the right guidance. As he cleaned off his stacked fork and chewed he thought to himself how favourable for the boy it was that he'd graciously stayed on this puny planet.

"Stop that!" He snapped, the simpering grated on his nerves. The boy had been stubborn like his mother today, holding his arms on his hips like her and saying "no" to everything. The child had a rebellious streak.

He got her attention alright, along with a sharp glare and narrowed eyes. He never barked at her like this, at least not unless he was purposefully provoking her over her work or his training. This to Bulma did not have the same feel.

"Stop what?" She questioned evenly and continued to pass carrots and vegetables to Trunks' waiting mouth. Vegeta's pupils are dilated and his jaw is firm as he clenches his teeth.

"Feeding him." He sucks in a breath, "coddling." He says it with some finality. The boy shouldn't be rewarded with special attention for being difficult all morning.

Bulma looks down to the boy in her lap, she enjoys her time with him, the close relationship they have. It makes her feel wonderful as a mother most times when her boy asks for her, or succeeds at a task while in her care. Trunks is fine in her lap she decides, besides she won't be able to sit like this with him for long. She was going to enjoy it. "No." She says firmly.

"He is learning to be weak and defiant."

"Trunks won't be my baby for long. He's already speaking!" She reminded him of the boy's small, but growing vocabulary.

Neither notice that as they argue that Trunks was pulling a tray of bright red cherry tomatoes and a bowl of gravy to the edge of the table.

"Let the boy feed himself." He was being careful, hoping to gradually convince the woman to release the emotional hold she had on the boy. While his ultimate desire was for the boy to sit on his own and feed himself, this was not a battle that could be won by argument.

"Here Trunskie, eat this." She held a softened carrot to his lips, oblivious to newly re-arranged table top.

"Stop it Vegeta! He is fine. I want to feed him." Her voice dropped lower, "he takes after you more and more every day you know."

Trunks, bored with his parents conversation filled his small hand with a fistful of gravy and drug it dripping towards his mouth. Amused with the warmth he pull the bowl closer until something stopped its fall over the edge. The child scowled a matching frown at his father when his fun was ruined.

Vegeta pulled the bowl back across the table, having stood in the process, it took a moment for him to remove the napkin from his lap. Around the table he came, plucking the boy out of his mother's lap and quickly sat him in the tall chair he was supposed to use. He snatched a small dish from the cupboards, astonishing Bulma that he even knew the location of such things.

The porcelain dish was filled with meat he shredded, then he added the much wanted gravy and a few tomatoes before setting the odd concoction down in front of the boy. Trunks pounced on the dish pushing handfuls of the mixture towards his mouth.

Bulma shot the olderr man a strange look, while Vegeta was as active as a parent as she'd ever hoped, he rarely intervened in the boy's day to day care. It was always training that most concerned him now that he'd started the process.

"The dish-" She started, but his angry glare made her close her mouth mid-sentence.

Exhaling through his nose Vegeta sat back down to finish his own interrupted meal, this time avoiding the gravy. The boy was making slurping noises, happily sucking on a sauce covered tomato.

"He could choke." She whined.

"He is saiyan. Leave him be." He huffed and again tried to put a forkful of food into his own mouth.

"But he's only a child." She argued back. When the first warm splash of gravy landed down the v-neck of Bulma's t-shirt she shifted her attention from the argument immediately. Leaving her own meal barely touched she stood to clean herself and the gravy-throwing culprit off with a cloth. The child fussed and whined, pushing his mother's hands away as she interrupted him. After the third high pitched shriek rattled Vegeta's eardrums he stalked around the table, tossed the cloth, and pushed her back into her chair and slid her and her meal far from the boy.

"Eat!" He pointed at her plate before turning to give her his back.

Standing tall over the brat he glared down at him, "enough." Came the growl out of his mouth. His son just stared up at him silently, one hand frozen buried in the remainder of his meal. On days like today the daily monotony of Earth life grated his nerves, exasterbating the frustration he felt from interacting with the woman and child. The increasing pumps of his heart and the ache in the base of his neck made him crave the silent crushing pressure of the Gravity Room, solace and reprieve from the daily annoyances of Earth life. Today was a struggle to remember why he'd stayed, the child annoyed him, the woman frustrated him, and it seemed there was to be no peace from the idiocy that plagued the planet. Suddenly disgusted with the situation, he gave one final look to the boy and swept out of the room.

Meditation only fed the irrational anger that begun brewing at the table. He stood from the tiled Gravity Room floor and ran his hands over his face. He paced around the oval room, and past the control panel now on an exterior wall. The idea to turn the machine on had crossed his mind, but something halted his finger from depressing the start button, it nagged at him in the back of his mind until he rammed him palm down to start the generator. His anger worked against him until his body burned with lactic acid and marinated in sweat.

It pissed him off to know that she was still awake so late in the evening. He wanted the solitude and the familiarity of a hot shower in the upstairs bathroom. The numbing weight of downwards pressing gravity would be replaced by the hot pelt of flowing water and it would be exquisite. As he entered he refused to spare the woman a glance, even if his highly attuned peripheral vision picked up her semi-reclined form on the bed scribbling in a notebook.

After the pleasurable experience of languishing in the hot tiled room he came out with damp hair and droplets on his skin. The bed had fresh sheets, and the coverlet had also changed. As he sat on the edge of the mattress he used the towel around his neck one last time to wipe away the straggling droplets on his shoulders and back. He was surprised by the touch on his shoulder, and the other on his ribs both pulling him backwards until he complied with an internal sigh. It would be easier to just wait this out, then it would be to fight it.

She pressed her warm inner thighs around his outer ones and her arms snaked around his torso until he could feel the cool fabric between his back and her breasts touch his skin, a hug. She said absolutely nothing but continued to slide herself against his skin. He couldn't remember how, but she'd convinced him to lay down, face pressed on one side into a pillow. Her hands smoothed over his skin, up and down his spine, then in circles, like she did with the boy, it was nice. The pressure increased and her fingers pressed and worked at his neck and shouldertops. He didn't remember much after the methodical rubbing started, it dazed him, and alleviated the ache he'd be unaware of in his upper back. As time passed the tension seemed to release until everything felt heavy, warm, and comfortable. Her hands gave him a few more soft squeezes before they leave him and he registers the click of the reading lamp turning off.

In dappled morning light he doesn't want to open his eyes, he wishes to remain in this state of relaxing limbo, and perhaps even attempt to return to sleep. He stretches his arms out, palm coming to rest on the soft mound of a breast, nipple fitting in the space between his fingers. Automatically he gave it a light squeeze, enjoying the feeling of the pebbling flesh beneath his touch. Either he woke the woman, or she was already awake because she rolled onto her stomach, elbows supporting her torso. From his pillow with half-lidded eyes he observes her behind dark lashes. Her pink lips were parted ever so slightly as she stretched under the sheets, highlighting the heart shape of her rear and the arch in her back. Wordlessly he turned on his side to observe her, tugging back the sheets discreetly to expose the attractive lines of her naked body.

When she moved to climb out of the warm bed he snatched her back, arms around her middle, nose in the nape of her neck as he held her back to his chest. She tensed briefly before relaxing and smiling at warm puffs of his breath. The contracting of the muscles under his forearms pulled his stomach to clench in sync; the reaction always came whenever she tensed at his touch, and it vanished as quickly with a euphoric release when she did not flinch at his touch. He gave in to the comfort of the moment and inhaled, then exhaled until nothing but the amalgam of her filled his senses. There was a permanency in the moment, and a part of him sampled and saved it, while another whispered to him that he'd always been destined for this.