Bulma looked down at the seven orbs at her feet. No matter how many times she had seen it before, there was still something awe inspiring as they pulsed with their combined power. The moment her family had waited so long for had finally arrived, and in just a few minutes, all the damage could be wished away.
The woman swallowed her saliva nervously. An almost inexplicable fear had finally caught her, fear that the wish would not be enough to truly fix all of her problems. Fear that the dragon lacked the power needed. Fear that her family was damned to be forever broken.
"Hey, guys?" she softly asked. "I know this sounds rude since I just made you all get the dragon balls, but…if you don't mind…"
She did not need to finish her sentence. Her friends all understood. All of them had been wondering the same things she had, and while they were all curious to see how it would turn out, they understood that it was a family matter first, and that added presences had the potential to be nothing more than added stress. Each one of them wished her good luck and departed, the last of them leaving just as the sun was preparing to set.
Trunks, his head bowed slightly, glanced at his mother through his bangs. He was quickly closing the height gap between them, and the change in physical perspective sometimes seemed to bring a regression in emotional perspective. "Mom?"
"Yeah?" Bulma listened to him, but her eyes remained on the pulsing glow of the dragon balls.
"What if this doesn't work?"
Both of his parents seemed to stand a little straighter, a feat that many would have thought impossible with Vegeta's previous posture. "It'll work," Bulma assured.
"You don't know that," Trunks countered. "We thought it worked before, but we were wrong. What if we're wrong now?"
"So what if we are?"
The three family members turned to find Bulma's parents standing behind them. Her mother, ever the spirit of joy and confidence, offered a simple smile. "It's not the end of the world."
Bulma shook her head slightly. "Mom, I'm not sure this is the best time…"
"Don't argue with your mother," Dr. Briefs intervened. When his daughter sent him a look, the old man shrugged and pointed out, "Has anyone ever won an argument against this woman? It seems to me that you might as well just go with it."
Trunks lowered his eyes to the ground. "It's not that easy, Grandpa," he said. "If the dragon can't fix this, I don't know what'll happen."
"You don't know what'll happen anyway," the blonde chirped. "No one does. We can't see the future ever, so why should now be any different?"
Subtly leaning over, Vegeta softly told his wife, "It is unnerving when she starts making sense on some level."
"You're not alone with that," Bulma agreed. "But, and I can't believe I'm saying this about my mother, she's making a good point."
"If magic were needed to make a family," Bunni giggled, "we never would have become a family in the first place. The dragon balls didn't start this family in the first place. Why worry about them this much now?"
Bulma gawked. "Where the hell was this insight three months ago?"
Bunni giggled, her hand delicately in front of her mouth. "Oh sweetie, I've been saying it all along. You just never listen to me."
"Be that as it may," Dr. Briefs intervened, clearing his throat, "you worked very hard to organize this, Bulma. Make your wish."
The heiress glanced sideways toward her Saiyan. "I have a question for you."
"Why are you telling me that instead of just asking the damn question?" he asked, his annoyance clear.
While normally she would have rolled her eyes, Bulma felt a somber sense around her. "I was wondering what you would think about asking the dragon if he could turn back time to the day of the accident so we could stop any of this from happening."
Trunks' head snapped up. "Yes!" he cried. "Ask! If we can do that, it would be perfect! Everything will be just as it was…"
"Until the accident none of us are aware of happens and the ordeal begins anew," his father interrupted. "Even if it was possible, something I highly doubt, simply rewinding only serves for the events that have played out to happen again. Nothing would change."
"But what if one of us remembered?" Bulma asked. "If only one of us knows what's going to happen, then…" She did not finish the thought. Even as she was saying it, she could see the fault in the logic. If one of them was burdened with the memories of what happened, the same tension would exist between them. The only difference would be that one of them would not know why the other was suddenly different.
A twittering laugh came from behind them. "I could remember."
Bulma glanced at her mother. "Mom, I can't ask you to do that."
"Why not?" the blonde asked. "You keep telling me that nothing bothers me, and you're right when you do. If it won't bother me, what's the problem?"
It was a tempting offer. One person able to warn them, able to stop a terrible family tragedy, all by stopping one single event from happening? It seemed ideal. But only a few seconds later, Bulma was shaking her head. "That won't work."
"Why not?" Trunks angrily asked. "It's at least worth asking!"
"Is it?" the heiress countered. "Didn't someone in this family try this technique already? Travel to the past, warn that something's going to happen, and end up accidentally ending with an alternate timeline that gets saved while his own stayed miserable?"
"But it's still worth asking!" Trunks insisted. "If we can do it…"
"We cannot prove that we, specifically, would be the recipients of that knowledge," Vegeta pointed out. "There is a chance that we would be left right where we are."
"But…but…" Trunks was feeling desperate. "We have to try! We have to make things the way they were!"
Slowly, a smile began to form on Bulma's face. "You know what, sweetie?" she softly said. "I think that's been our problem the whole time. We've constantly been trying to go backwards with this. We've all wanted to make it magically go away. But life never goes backwards, does it? It only goes forward." She looked up at her husband. "Things have been rough. Hell, I don't deny that at times, things have been downright bad. But in a weird way, I think this whole thing is only going to make us stronger. Even after everything that's happened, look at us. We're all here. We're all a family. Strained, stressed, or outright insane, we never gave up on each other. If nothing else, I'll get my memories back. That'll help things be smoother around here. But Mom's right. Magic didn't make this family. And we don't need it to stay one. No matter what, we'll be together. We're a family."
Vegeta quirked an eyebrow at his wife. "Turning your own question on you, where the hell was this insight months ago?"
"Beats the hell out of me," the heiress admitted. "Anyway, let's do this. I've got memories to get back!"
/
"Mom, where's the…"
"In the third drawer of your dresser."
Trunks paused in the hallway. "I didn't even tell you what I was looking for."
"Look there," she challenged. "Tell me I'm wrong."
The nine year old walked back into his room, opened the drawer, and pulled out his handheld gaming console. "How the hell did she do that?"
"Because each time you've ever 'lost' it," his mother called out from down the hall, "it's actually because your grandmother straightened up your room and put it right where you told her it belongs. And watch your language."
Trunks turned his head and loudly returned with, "We wished back your memories. How did your hearing get better with it?"
"It didn't," she shouted back. "I'm just better at anticipating what you're going to say."
"I'll say," Trunks snorted. It had been two weeks since the wish had been made, and it had been odd since then. They all figured out fairly quickly that asking for all of her memories to be returned had not been the best way to phrase the wish. Everything that Bulma Briefs had ever noticed in her life was at her immediate beck and call, a blessing with good memories and a curse for anyone who had ever made an error in front of her.
It had, however, proven extremely beneficial in her quest to take power back in her company. Her knowledge of what her staff had been working on was complete, even without looking through her files. Arguments that she had been struggling with before the memory return were made with more force than any of her opponents could have anticipated. Bulma Briefs was back, and she was joyously dominating all of them.
The nine year old walked into his mother's home office. "So, when are you going to stop remembering everything?" he asked. "I mean, you're not really going to remember everything forever and ever, right? Because I've got to be honest, it's still freaking me out a little."
"Oh, you mean like the time…"
"Mom!"
The heiress laughed. "Look, I have no idea how this is going to play out," she honestly told her son. "My best guess is that eventually my mind is going to do the same thing that everyone's mind does. It'll pick out the stuff deemed important, hang on to that, and ditch the crap that doesn't matter, like every outfit I ever wore in third grade."
"You happen to have a day I can mark on a calendar for when that's going to happen?" the boy asked with an eye roll.
His mother smirked at him. "Did I have one the last time you asked?"
"MOM!"
"What, I'm not allowed to have a little fun?" she asked with a laugh. "I told you that it's as weird for me as it is for you. I might as well have a little fun with it before it drives me absolutely crazy."
Trunks crossed his arms and huffed, "Too late."
But his mother just smiled and said, "I knew you were going to say that."
The boy threw his arms up in frustration. "That's it, I'm out of here!"
Bulma laughed as her son retreated. She had not been lying when she had told him that it was an extremely odd situation for her to be in, but unlike she had been two weeks earlier, she found herself overall happy with it. If nothing else, it was fun to screw with the minds of everyone in her life. That did not mean that it was not without its drawbacks. Being able to remember every little thing sometimes did feel like it was driving her mad. Everything reminded her of something, and focusing had gotten extremely difficult at times. And it had thrown her relationships for a bit of a loop. The entirety of the early parts of her relationship with her husband were clear in her mind, and several parts of that had been less than pleasant. Baba had shown her parts of it, but even that had paled in comparison to the arsenal of information the heiress possessed.
However, more than just the bad memories had returned to her. True, they had endured a somewhat painful beginning, but a decade of growth as a pair was perfectly preserved in her mind. Unfortunately, something had been compulsively urging her to mention that to her husband on a near daily basis, and he did not seem to appreciate that. It had gotten to the point where when she began to mention anything even remotely along those lines, he quickly turned around and left the room. Oddly enough, Bulma was starting to enjoy the daily ritual. She was strongly considering adding it to their other traditions. Coffee in the morning, arguments before lunch, and family dinner of insanity were all well and good, but new traditions could be fun!
"Okay, back to work," she mused to herself. After all, there was still a substantial amount of work that had to get done for the corporation.
/
Bulma checked herself out in the mirror. She had spent almost an hour getting the room perfectly ready. It was not the first time she had planned romance with her husband since her memory had completely returned. It was not even the first time since the accident. But she wanted something special on that particular evening. If her calculations were accurate, and they always were, she had four minutes until her husband, sweaty from his workout, entered their bedroom. Normally he would go straight to the shower, and while he was a very strict creature of habit who had only recently settled back in to his old schedule, she was fairly certain she could convince him to engage in other activities before getting clean. It had happened more than once before.
Immediately at her predicted time, the door opened and her husband entered. "Hello, gorgeous," she purred.
Vegeta paused as he entered the room. Clearly she had gone through a considerable amount of effort to set up the room for amorous activities. There were carefully placed candles giving perfect lighting, the sheets were a variety that had proven to be a favorite of the couple during long bouts, and the blackout curtains were pulled across the balcony. It was obvious that she was ready for the long haul. With a sly look on his face, he approached his wife and kissed her. "I'll be out shortly."
"Oh, do you really need to?" she asked, biting his lower lip. "You're just going to get all sweaty again, after all."
Her husband smirked as he pulled back. "That would be more tempting were it not the same logic our son uses to avoid bathing whenever possible."
"I was hoping you wouldn't remember that," she mock pouted.
"You needed a wish to help you remember things," he taunted her. "I do it fine on my own. Now if you'll stop pouting for five minutes, I will be back."
Bulma huffed and crossed her arms as she flopped onto the bed. "You know," she called out as her husband disappeared into the bathroom, "it's not unheard of for you to postpone a shower in the name of sex." Although even she could admit that ninety percent of the time, he would postpone sex for five minutes to get hours' worth of sweat off of himself first. There was no denying that the man was a clean freak.
That did not mean that Bulma was not disappointed with that choice. After spending an our just working on the room, waiting five more minutes, knowing he was just on the other side of the door, naked, with hot water pouring over his tight, muscled body…
"Oh, the hell with this," she announced, getting to her feet and heading for the bathroom door. "We'll just do a little pre-show warm up…"
/
"You know, I can remember every time we've ever had sex," Bulma panted, wiping sweat from her brow, "and you still manage to blow me away every time."
Her prince simply smirked and placed his hands behind his head. Her statement was hardly news to him, but that did not mean that he and his ego did not enjoy hearing it.
Bulma rolled over, laying her ear against his chest and smiling as she listened to his strong, steady heartbeat. "So, as you know, life has been crazy lately."
Sitting up slightly, Vegeta looked down at her and asked, "Is there a particular reason you felt now was a good time for stating that?"
"Actually, yes. Yes, there is." Gently, she placed a hand on his chest and guided him back down to the bed. "For one, you have a tendency to listen better after sex, so if I'm telling you something other than let's have sex, this is the time to tell it to you." She nuzzled against him, smirking as she noticed his heart rate increase slightly. "You know, I could be really evil right now and make you guess what it is." Her smile only got wider when he growled beneath her. "See? I knew you were going to do that!"
"Woman…" he warned.
"Okay, okay," she laughed. "Tell you what, I'll see if you can figure it out." With a happy sigh she pulled herself slightly higher on his chest, then pulled his hands onto her body. "I have faith that if you just lay here with me and hold me, you'll be able to get it all on your own."
The prince narrowed his eyes. "Woman, what the hell are you…" His sentence stopped suddenly, as did his hand.
With a smirk, Bulma propped herself up on her elbow. "I knew you'd get it." She leaned forward and planted a long, slow kiss on his lips. "I took the test this morning, and it was pretty damn clear. We're about to have another source of chaos in our lives." She kissed him again, her lips still on his as she asked, "Are you up for the challenge?"
Maintaining the kiss, he challenged back, "For a woman who claims to remember everything, you seem to be completely missing memories of how it went when we had the first one."
"Oh, I remember," she replied, swinging her legs onto either side of his lap, her mouth still kissing him as she did so. "But since we don't have impending doom hanging over our heads, and you and I are, you know, talking to each other, I have a hunch it'll go smoother this time."
"You're insane."
"That's why you're still here with me."
She had a point there. "You do not seriously expect this to go without incident."
"Of course not." She ran her fingers through his hair, her nails settling on the back of his head. "That's why I didn't say that life was going to get easy. I said that it was getting chaotic."
He pulled her tightly against his body. "I suppose a little chaos could be tolerable."
Leaning in, she kissed his neck. "Are you kidding me?" she chuckled through her kisses. "A little chaos is not 'tolerable' for us. A little chaos is normal. That's what we built our life on, and I, for one, choose to embrace it." She pulled back and smiled at him. "Life's always in chaos as you move forward. That's the fun of it. And I will never, ever forget that."