Dusk to Dawn

I wake in the night to the sound of my doorknob turning. It jerks me out of sleep, and for a moment I am disorientated and on guard, wondering where the hell I am, because Frieza never supplies accommodation like this. Then Bulma appears in the doorway, her long limbs glowing pale grey in the dim light, and everything snaps back into place. I am at Capsule Corporation, in a bed I can call my own. There is no danger here.

She hesitates in the doorway, her eyes searching the bed for me. Human eyes do not adapt well to the dark, I have found, and I watch as she looks blindly for my shape. This is different. Usually I am the one to seek her out in the dark, when I am too restless, and it has been too many days since our last encounter. She has never done this before.

"Vegeta?" Her voice is small and worried, and the smell of fear hits me.

"Woman." I sound strange to my own ears; there is concern in my voice that I did not intend to show. I hear her sigh with relief, and then she is stepping forward, leaving the door to click shut behind her. She walks slowly across the carpet to the bed, as if she's worried she'll trip on something. She is a fool; I am fastidious in my tidiness, and do not leave things strewn across the floor in the same way that she does. The smell of fear grows stronger, and I sit up, looking for injuries on her pale skin, but there is nothing. "The boy…"

"He's sleeping," she replies, her voice still small, almost broken. I pull back the covers and she slides in beside me, and for a moment I catch a glimpse of one high, round breast peeking out the top of her loose singlet before it is once more covered, this time by the blankets. It is a shock as she draws herself closer, pressing herself against my naked skin. She is icy and shivering, and her breath is shaky and cool against my chest. This frail thing is not the woman I am used to; there is no fire in her tonight, and I am concerned.

I am not usually one for cuddling, as she calls it, but I can hardly leave her in this state, and so I pull her closer again, wrapping my arms around her small body, raising my ki ever so slightly so that it surrounds her, warming her gooseflesh. She shudders again and then relaxes against me, her head on my right shoulder, one small leg propped over my own. I stroke her through the thin fabric of her shirt and underpants, up and down, feeling the tremors in her body subside slowly. I run my hands under her top, up her back, and she sighs once more, defrosting. What the hell has she been doing to get this cold?

"Bulma."

She presses into me, as if she is trying to burrow into my skin. "Hold me," she whispers.

I already am, and so I tighten my arms around her, ever so slightly. Tonight I am acutely aware of how breakable she is; she is so weak, weaker than most of the beings I have ever killed. The thought churns in my gut; I have bruised her before without realising, left marks of my grip on her hips, her arms, her thighs. I have spent my whole life perfecting the art of injuring, maiming, killing others. It is a shock to find that I am so utterly repulsed by the idea of hurting her in the slightest.

Somehow I doubt we will be having sex tonight. There is almost nothing sexual about this encounter, despite the fact that her breasts are squashed against my side, and her groin presses heavily against my thigh. Her hand trails down my chest, over my abdomen, and wraps itself around my cock. I'm not even hard, and yet she seems content, her heart rate slowing as her fingertips stroke softly, exploring. She shifts her head slightly to press her lips against my collarbone.

"I had a bad dream," she whispers, her voice tiny. "You were gone. It was horrible."

Ah, so that is it. I remain silent, unsure of what to say. The status of our relationship, as she calls it, is a contentious issue. She wants to play happy families. I have told her before that she has chosen the wrong man for the job; I am not some human male pushover. I am a Saiyan warrior; I do not settle. I have never settled.

It bothers me to no end that I am still here, on Earth, and yet I cannot find the will to leave. It is as if I am lost, and perhaps I am. My planet, my people, they are all dead. I am the last of my kind, unless you count Kakarot's two brats and my own son.

There is moisture on my chest, and I realise that Bulma is crying, silent tears streaming down her face to pool between us. She is shaking again, and her hand clutches at my shoulder, her nails digging into my skin. "It was as if you never existed," she says. "I ran around the house trying to find you, and you weren't there. I asked Mom where you were, where Trunks was, and she said 'Who's Trunks?' It was like you'd never come to Earth- nobody knew about you. They all thought I was crazy, that I'd imagined you up. Prince Vegeta never existed, our baby never existed. When I woke up I was so tempted to wake Trunks up, just to check that he was real. I don't know how long I stood over his cot for." She wraps herself further around me. "I had to see you."

"I exist. I am here." I do not like the image she has just painted. It is one of my fears, that when I am dead I will no longer be remembered, that my life will have been a waste; that I might as well have died along with all the others when I was a child. When I last left the Earth, when I finally became a Super Saiyan, people out there spoke of Frieza's death as if it were old news, as if the Colds hadn't terrorized the universe for hundreds of years. A Saiyan killed Frieza, they said. They didn't even know his name. Not once did I overhear my own name being spoken.

"For how long?" She sounds tired, exhausted in her very core. "I need you, Vegeta. We need you."

I think back to the time before I knew Bulma, and recoil from what I find. Bleak, endless, always fighting, always getting nowhere. The universe is a dark place, and I was part of that darkness, a monster of death and destruction and hatred. Bulma changed that. Determined, idiotic, brave woman that she is, she drew me out of that world, offered me warmth and shelter and her naïve opinion that the Earth is safe from it all, despite all that she knows about the universe. She offered me herself, and I took her eagerly.

I run my fingers through her hair, brush the curve of her ear, wipe the tears from her face. She looks up at me with wide eyes that pierce my cold heart. This is why I have not left the Earth, this is why I stay. Weak she may be, but her hold over me is stronger than ever, and I find myself wanting her, constantly. I am a torn man; my instincts scream at me that there will never be a place where I am content, where I am safe. I know all too well what dangers lurk out there. And yet here I am, tucked away in a bed with Bulma in my arms, and this feeling I have… I am calm.

"I'm not going anywhere." The words come out on their own accord, and for once I accept the fact that I am not willing to part with her.

"Good." She relaxes against me, the tension finally leaving her body. I hold her, tight, my face pressed against her hair, smelling her familiar scent as she grows limp and warm. This is different. We have never slept like this, together. I watch her, suddenly so at peace in my arms. She, like the boy, trusts me entirely, though I have done nothing to deserve it.

Bulma. Trunks. I recite their names until the sun rises, filling the room with light.

A/N: This one-shot could be considered a sequel of sorts to Decoding the Saiyan, although it doesn't have to be. I've been away for a couple of months with little access to technology (apart from my ipod), hence the lack of updates on my other fics. More should be coming soon. :)