Chapter Eleven - Severance

"So, you're still here, huh?" Bulma cheekily teased. "Having second thoughts already?"

Just when he thought he'd had some time alone to think, Vegeta met her gaze with a scowl. 'Well that certainly didn't take long.'

"Not in the slightest." Vegeta retorted dully. "In fact, you've made it easier for me to take my leave."

Bulma irritably raised an eyebrow at him and kept to herself for a moment. To no surprise, the Saiyan was back to being an absolute jerk. Why was he still here, anyway? He had no issue with turning Rosemary into a miserable mess, but he stayed long enough for her to make it back downstairs? Was he expecting some kind of reaction or approval?

Or maybe, maybe, she wondered, he was regretting his decision.

"Oh please," She bitterly shot back. "You just wanted to see if Rosemary was alright after you broke her heart. You feel bad."

Vegeta stormed past her down the spacecraft entry ramp in an annoyed fury. He didn't need to be reminded of what he'd done, especially not by this woman. Besides, she couldn't possibly understand the circumstances, the motive behind his lifelong mission of true freedomand the costs at which he fought for it - there was no point in trying to speak as if it would make some kind of difference. It didn't seem to matter what he did, these humans would continue to pester him as if they actually wanted him around for some ridiculous reason.

"Keep assumptions to yourself if you know what's best." He suddenly sharpened his tone, shaking the ramp as he took less care to dampen the force of his heels as he marched. "You know nothing of me, clearly, and furthermore, nothing about Rosemary."

Bulma kept a cocky smirk towards the back of his head. Did he think she was born yesterday?

"Well, it's not exactly hard to tellthat you guys have something going on between you."

Vegeta came to an abrupt halt at the foot of the ramp, giving the platform another good rattle. 'Piss off, woman.'

"And just what are you implying?" He hissed back. "For someone who's been nothing but a spectator this entire time, you sure have a lot to say about things that don't concern you."

Bulma stubbornly narrowed his eyes on him. After putting him into check once again, the Saiyan was growing noticeably more heated now, which could only mean that Bulma was right. How cliche... An uptight evil alien prince from space had some feelings for a sweet and gentle lady that he'd made good friends with, and to add a twist to things, he occasionally alluded to the idea of a closer relationship through his actions yet but refused to acknowledge a change of heart.

Classic.

The concept could have come straight out of some old sappy romance novel, and she was more than willing to read along to figure out how it ended.

She folded her arms over her chest with a triumphant snicker. All this drama was making her want to prod him even further, and as risky as it may have been to do so, she took up the temptation with a devilish smile.

"I'm implying," She cockily sneered. "That you have a particular subset of emotions specifically for Rosemary." She took a couple more steps down the ramp in a haughty trot.
The more this woman talked, the more his blood boiled. He knew precisely where she was going with the conversation - such a petty concept, but his frustration truly arose from the fact that he knew there was a level of truth to it. Was it too much to ask for a decent comrade? Gods forbid that he be acquainted with someone that he didn't want to kill at the sound of their voice, one that he could actually tolerate ideas from and didn't mind keeping around. No, of course not, it just had to mean something...

And it did, admittedly. Rosemary was the only one that he'd legitimately trusted enough to have such a close working, personal relationship with, after all… But, introspection was never something he dabbled in, for good reason, and he preferred to leave the situation at that.
"And as a spectator," The woman bickered further. "It's easy to see that the way you interact with her is completely different to how you talk to us-"

This needed to stop before he punched something.

"Oh?! And just what would you-" He finally snapped back, then bit his tongue. Fool, that's exactly the kind of response this woman was looking for, and he'd just handed it to her on a fine platter. "Just- Leave me alone and tell me where I can find her, I'm beginning to feel like some mass destruction is in order."

"Alright, alright!" Bulma jumped to defend as she watched Vegeta continue to irritably grumble and simmer in rage. "I've been a bit mean, I'll leave you be. So you do have something going on, wow... Just let me help you out, really, it's not a huge deal."

Finally.

"Shut up," Vegeta spat in distaste. "No. I said that I would ensure that she is settled, and I am a man of my word." He quickly added. "Tell me where she is staying, I can't stand any more of this idle prattle."

Bulma pouted. This guy really wasn't budging, but at least he was making an effort for his friend's sake.

"Alright, fine. Geez, lighten up a little! No need to bite my head off, y'know, we're safe here."

After a rebellious huff, she held a pointed finger at the giant dome behind her.

"Anyways, on the other side of the building, Rosemary's place is the top floor. She spent a good amount of time crying and she's finally asleep, so please let the poor girl rest, she's all kinds of exhausted." She gave a sympathetic sigh, then frowned. "There's only two balconies so you have a fifty-fifty shot at finding her on the first try. Shouldn't be too difficult."

She turned away from the Saiyan, expecting him to take off immediately, but was proven wrong by surprise. Instead, he averted his eyes away in what she assumed was some kind of thought, but remained still.

He looked… sad. Worried, even. Should she say something else? She also worried about the new addition to the bunch moving forward, but she doubted that it'd make a difference in Vegeta's plan. A new lifestyle and - planet, at that -suddenly didn't seem as easy a thing to adjust to as she'd thought, and both of them were about to do it alone. It was ambitious of him, to say the least.

"Look, I know you're all 'tough guy' and whatnot, and I'd like to think she's going to be alright, but the truth is, I'm honestly not sure." She went on, her back still facing him. "You may be right that I don't know a whole lot about you guys, but I do know a little bit about heartbreak and she seems kinda… heartbroken."

Vegeta looked back to the back of her bright blue-haired head. He had his doubts - it was almost cruel, even for him, though he refused to acknowledge it, to leave an ally behind after the effort they just exhausted to get here. Frankly, he couldn't assure himself that everything would be fine if he left, but why? Why did the idea of leaving Rosemary suddenly hold such weight to his every decision, every movement? She was just another Saiyan, surely she would survive...

He'd been too attached. This wasn't the same affiliation or comradery he'd felt with Raditz or even his previous Advisor, Nappa. He didn't want to part with her, he couldn't be arsed about the others. It wasn't a matter of work that needed to get done, he just cared, and he hated it. Such emotions made everything unnecessarily complicated, and even worse, it gave him a weakness.

"Rosemary is not strong by any means, but she is incredibly resilient." He responded gloomily, stopping himself to think further before he said anything stupid and overly disclosing. "Too resilient, perhaps, it's arguably her defining quality." He crossed his arms in his usual gesture of confidence. "The very fact that she's alive and traversing this universe somehow only proves that she can persist through just about anything, it seems. This is no different."

He finally turned around with satisfaction and gazed at the infinitely vast sky above, ready to take flight.

"She will astonish you. That, I can say with confidence."

With that, he took a leap into the sky and flew towards the roof of Capsule Corp's main building.

Bulma's expression loosened as Vegeta's already small frame grew even smaller in the distance.

'Astonish, huh,' Bulma played back. 'Quite the vocabulary that guy's got... Maybe behind all that muscle he's got a decent brain… I hope he knows what he's doing.'

The obvious formality aside, these Saiyans made everything sound so casual despite the colourful words and formal etiquette. Even the concept of space seemed almost like a walk in the park to these people, yet to those on Earth, it was an unexplored, mysterious plane of existence. Death didn't seem to be a fear to them compared to the typical Earth lifestyle, in fact, in a way, it almost seemed welcomed - fitting of a so-called 'warrior race'. To think that she would get lonely being a mere city away from her partner, Yamcha, while he was playing a game of baseball on someone else's home turf - even being dead, he didn't seem so far away... But, these Saiyans spent their time apart on opposite sides of the universe, as if it was nothing, and reunited just as easily like it was all in a day's work.

The thought was enough to make her heart sink, and the world around her felt smaller and smaller the more she dwindled on it. Maybe Vegeta was right, she probably had no idea what she was dealing with in the grand scheme of things, there's an entire universe of things that she couldn't even begin to fathom.

Perspective really did matter.

Touching down on the rounded roof of the dome, Vegeta stepped over to the other side of the building and looked down, to find a balcony almost directly under him. He took a few more steps to slide off the steepened incline, but before he took the final jump, he paused again for what must have been the hundredth time for the day out of some sort of sudden doubt.

This was it, this was where he would make his farewell. Just like many farewells and less formal partings thanks to death and destruction, this would be just another on the books.

Wrong! His conscience screamed at him now, clutching onto whatever source of regret it could find.

'Would you quit being such a damn softie!' Vegeta mentally yelled back at it. 'Get it together!'

After a deep breath, he hopped off the roof and sprung down onto the ledge below as quietly as he could, hands smoothed over the clean floor as he came out of his crouch. Dazed by the polished balcony floor for a moment or two, he finally looked up to find a display that only made the encounter all the more difficult.

As if to welcome him, the large glass doors to her bedroom had been left wide open, leaving the elegant white drapes that hung from them to drift ever so gently in the cool air. There, right before him, she was - Rosemary was asleep and left untroubled in her new home, snoozing away in a sizeable bed that he could only assume she'd already made a good relationship with.

He knew it for sure now, he wasn't as ready for this as he'd been trying to let on.

She was at peace, perhaps for the first time in a decade or two, without a stir under the sheets or wrinkle on her face. The image hit him with a wall of nostalgia, transporting him back the many years it had been since the both of them enjoyed the luxuries of the palace - and just like the occasional incident where he'd walk in on her catching a quick nap between shifts and meetings, Rosemary chose to smother herself in a giant blanket and an excessive amount of pillows like a child.

He couldn't help but utter a tiny snicker.

The woman certainly indulged with sleep when she could, and today was no exception, it seemed. During her waking hours, she was on her best behaviour - making the best attempt she could do be as perfectly prim and proper as possible, yet as she slept, she was the most disorganized, graceless woman he could ever come across.

Despite whatever she'd been up to until now, her youth still shone through in her complexion unlike his, not a scar or scratch in sight aside from the one he only knew that existed on her currently covered backside. He wanted to savour this moment before he made his departure, but did he dare to move closer to observe her more? Once asleep, it was difficult to wake her, if memory came to serve…

That was, unless a bad dream decided to present itself, of course.

For a brief moment, he wondered if Rosemary still had those horrific dreams - she had mentioned on Namek that she'd had one that led to saving his life, but was it a fluke or were such visions still regular occurrences? He supposed that he'd have to honour her for it later since he dismissed it in such a rut.

He'd been unexpectedly blushing, and the flesh of his face was warm enough to give him a quick flash. After a deep breath and exhale, he shuddered it off, and pressed on.

'Enough of this pointless dawdling.' He scolded himself lightly, advancing towards her massive bed to have a closer look at her and her room. He was growing more unsure of everything the longer he stood there - it all seemed too tranquil, too right. What if this was all nothing more than a hideously cruel dream?

It was possible, likely as well. He was never this fortunate, after all.

He curled his hands into fists with a doubtful grimace. Must it always lead to the same question?

'Why is it that no matter how many times I've seen her as of late,' He dejectedly mulled over. 'That I see her face, hear her voice, that I question the very reality I'm in?'

At that very moment, Rosemary nuzzled her cheek into one of her pillows with a muffled moan of delight.

At the first sound of movement, Vegeta froze.

He immediately checked to see if she had opened her eyes. Narrowing his eyes to confirm, his heart quickened, and his breaths were short with suspense. What would she think of him, standing there, strangely entranced by watching her sleep? That one would be a difficult situation to explain.

He gave it another few seconds, holding his breath to detect even the smallest of sounds to be absolutely sure. Nothing came, to his relief, and she continued to snooze away with steady, relaxed sighs.

He let out a heavy exhale. This woman was causing him so much torment. So much ache and humiliation, and yet, he couldn't just walk away from it. Her presence excited him, the past day or two had been some, if not the most stressful yet dramatically electrifying days of his life.

'Unbelievable.' He protested to himself with a quiet grumble. 'I'm beginning to grow delusional if I'm so shaken by such… emotional pressure.'

Perhaps it was best to take his leave now that he'd interrupted his pointless ruminating yet again.

He took his first step towards turning around, and stopped again. Where would he go after this?

Unable to answer, his hands tightly curled at his sides. It didn't matter for now, he just needed to go first. He knew this. He'd done this countless times before.

Taking another step to wheel around and depart Rosemary's new home, and for the first time in what must have been ages, the lids of his eyes quivered with an overwhelming sting of guilt.

'What are you doing?!' Another voice screamed from within him, loud and clear enough to make him wince. He looked around suspiciously, hoping that whatever it could have been wasn't audible - the last thing he needed was for Rosemary to wake up and see him there.

His eyes drifted towards the opening towards the balcony where he'd came in, and he'd found it.

He'd found... himself.

Standing in the doorway, in a familiar Saiyan garb, was his adolescent self, looking back at him through heavy streams of tears and tightened fists.

Arms crossed and eyes narrowed, the elder Vegeta questionably took a final step to face him.

'Certainly, I haven't gone insane.' He'd told his younger counterpart. 'Tell me, why do I see you here, now?'

The young prince stormed towards him in a rage, his flowing red cape flowing neatly behind him. He somewhat missed that cape, and remembered his disappointment towards being discouraged to wear it once he was under the Frieza Force's control.

'You know as well as I do that you're making a huge mistake!' He shouted over to him. 'Foolish coward! How could you even think about leaving her like this?! You just found her again! You have unfinished business here!'

Vegeta grit his teeth in spite. He wasn't wrong, by any means, but he'd already suffered plenty over it and he'd had just about enough.

'You and I are two very different people.' He snapped back. His patience was growing achingly thin. 'The years have not treated us well. What you may have been considered competent with, I'm now ill-equipped for.'

The teen threw a fierce punch to Vegeta's gut with a furious growl, but to no avail, nothing was felt against his stiff frame. As if to compensate, however, he'd felt every bit of the emotion behind it, the grief and longing for closure, and once again, his eyes began to burn.

There was no escape from it - today wasn't going to end without pain. And so, he allowed a tear or two to indulge the kid.

'As if by some miracle, by fate, you have another chance to fix this, and you're just going to throw it away?! We worked endlessly for even the smallest opportunity to have this again! Frieza is gone! We are free! We won.' The teen clutched at his face and sobbed through harsh breaths. 'What if something happens, or she dies... I can't believe you're doing this… I can't believe you're letting her go-'

Ah, this again.

'That's where you're simply not in alignment with me!' Vegeta went on, hatefully clenching his eyes shut. 'And you're a figment of my conscience? You should already know what it is I want! You should know what I plan to do! Care to handle it for me, if you're so concerned?!'

Eyes fearfully wide, his youthful self crossed his arms and stubbornly glared up at him from under his nose, opting to remain silent in defeat.

Vegeta refused to look down and acknowledge him - he knew he was right, after all.

'I didn't think so.' He snarled. 'May I remind you that it's because of you that this is such a mess? Not so hostile now, are you? Begone, guilt.'

Vegeta briskly walked through his adversary and stopped in the doorway to the balcony. His heart pounded heavily within his chest, his very flesh tingled with anger, and every step towards departure seemed harder to make - his feet felt as if they were anchored to the spotless floor. For some unknown reason, yelling at himself as a separate person seemed to be far more effective way of coming to terms with his thoughts. He refused to acknowledge his emotions until he'd left, he'd sworn it, but his head hadn't been as clear as it had been in quite some time. He was guilty, among other feelings on the list that he wished he hadn't been dealing with - self inflicted anger, grief, humiliation, denial, and shame.

He looked out to the clear sky above for some kind of insight, and allowed a few heavy breaths to calm down. Such a palette of emotions was bound to be a regular occurence until he confronted the weight of what he was leaving in the room behind him.

'I need to handle it properly.' He pleaded to himself, dawdling in the doorway even further. 'Now is not the time.'

What that meant to him, however, drew nothing but blanks - even in his adolescence, a time of far stronger empathy, compassion, and patience, he failed to figure out how exactly he should face this sort of thing despite a far more concrete structure of customs to guide him along. He was still the prince, and he clung to his title for what little meaning it had left.

He hopped onto the balcony rail and stood tall above the cityscape below. The high-rise buildings towered above the roads below, an approach he wasn't a stranger to but remained foreign. Was it a matter of limited space? High population density? Perhaps both. On the topic of population, he could spot several lines of civilians below in the distance, bustling around in organized files to allow... strange personal crafts to proceed through them. His weary gaze stayed on them for a moment to observe. Could these people not fly? Travelling on foot seemed severely suboptimal.

For him, an elite warrior, perhaps. For what would have been considered as a peasant, a low class Saiyan, maybe not.

'This new civilization will be good for her.' He pitifully attempted to assure himself. 'She won't be considered a weakling among this species by any means, but she's not at a level where she is an obvious abnormality, either.'

Just then, a gentle humming noise approached him. Eyeing the sky briefly in curiosity, he spotted a jet plane on its way to it's destination, slowly crawling across the endless field of blue above.

Finally, one of his questions, while many remained unanswered, had a solution.

'Yes, her mind will be free to roam here.' He firmly went on, 'She'll have plenty to learn about and discover, as she's always wanted. I can grow to be content with that.'

His words were finally regaining their strength within him now. It was finally time to carry on with his own agenda of training, rest, and, to his dread - heavy thought, self-searching and careful planning.

'I look forward to seeing the empowered, cunning and dangerous thing of beauty she will return to be. But for now, this is farewell.'

. . .

Watching the Saiyan finally take off from Rosemary's balcony, Bulma shuffled back into her apartment with a frown. He really was taking his time to remove himself from her, as if to try and do so with as little remorse and damage as possible.

Whatever worked, she supposed.

All she could do now was speculate over it. She guessed that Rosemary would have plenty of backstory on him to fill her in on to shed some light on the many questions she still asked herself about the Saiyan prince - he couldn't possibly be cold and standoffish all the time.

She plopped herself down on the sofa in the family room and gave a brief glance over to a clock on the far wall. A bright blue 2:13pm, it read. It had been a whole hour since she'd left Rosemary to finally catch some shut-eye. She began to ponder if Saiyans slept as often as Rosemary had been lately... From her observations, Vegeta didn't need much rest at all, and neither did Goku, really. Even Gohan has a good deal of energy, but Rosemary looked to tire easily and quickly.

'It's still a bit early to go check on her…' She debated with herself.

She paused. Didn't she have something she should have been doing?

She pursed her lips to think. Snooping on Vegeta got her distracted, but whatever the deal was between him and Rosemary was too intriguing to pass up on.

'Oh, right! I said I'd have clothes for her when she got up, I guess I should get on that in case she's not a heavy sleeper… Maybe some stuff so she can wash up, and ideas of things to talk about to cheer her up...'

Her gut interrupted her thoughts with an angry grumble. The thought of eating had escaped her since she got back - making sure all the new people that surrounded her now were comfortable and settled was, naturally, her number one priority.

But Rosemary was different. Unlike all the Namekians she'd welcomed, Rosemary was a woman and needed to be cared for as such.

Her eyes slid down to the coffee table in front of her, cluttered with bowls of wrapped candies and mints, along with a bountiful tray of sweets that her mother had likely pulled from the oven earlier that day.

She let out an exhausted sigh, and grabbed an oatmeal cookie from the platter.

"Oh man, and we've got another Saiyan on our hands… I should tell Mom to get cooking sooner than later…"

. . .

"Well, Your Highness," She'd called out to the stale air between them. "I must say, I'm genuinely surprised that you came back."

The prince seemed proud of himself for some reason as he came closer, finally coming to a halt a few steps away to cross his arms and display his timeless, confident stance. Such confidence certainly stuck with him for the years to come after, as she would later discover...

"You shouldn't be," He shot back with a frown. "I said I would, after all, and I'm a man of my word."

He took another step toward her with a gentle, outstretched hand.

"That being said, come with me, to the Palace."

Her eyes widened. He wasn't just joking about the whole ordeal? Bringing a low-class Saiyan into the presence of royalty hadn't sounded like a good idea so far.

She held her hands out in harmless retaliation.

"Um, with all due respect, s-sir," Rosemary responded in a tremble. "I appreciate the sentiment, I do, I guess I just... have a heavy doubt that this will go the way you're expecting it to."

Vegeta gave a daring smirk to rebut.

"Perhaps, but you don't know the people in my company, either."

She blinked hard. Was that… a challenge?

Rosemary shrugged. She assumed she would have an edge in conversation thanks to her upbringing, but he clearly had his own ways of persuasion, and his words were strangely assertive, but effective. King Vegeta was a fearsome ruler, she knew it well, but in front of her was his son, convinced that she would be met with some kind of compassion - it confused her, given the stories her own father had told her from the days of his work in the palace.

"Well, you got me there." She sighed and nervously stumbled towards him. "Alright, well, I suppose I don't have much of a choice in the matter when I have the Prince of Saiyans before me…"

Vegeta chuckled. His ego really was a weakness of his. "That's more like it."

He turned away from her, ready to lead her back to his home.

"You make it seem like I'm doing this without some sort of plan."

Rosemary stared blankly at the back of his head. That was the assumption up until now, admittedly.

"...Care to find out?"

Little did she know at the time that following him that day would change the course of her entire life.

She took a seat on her new bed and stared at the small area of floor of her a new room within the Palace walls.

'This... is my room..?'

The day had gone by like a whirlwind, everything happened so quickly that she could hardly make sense of it all. Nothing went as she'd expected, despite her insistent efforts, and now all of a sudden, she had a new home, a job, but to her largest surprise, a purpose, for what felt like the first time in her life. She wasn't just a random girl living off the land in some deserted corner of the planet anymore, but for some reason she couldn't help but miss the idea now.

She couldn't help but prod herself with questions. Did she want this? Was all of this change something that she should welcome?

She glanced over to a small stand that sat beside her bed. On it, she'd chosen to put a large, thick and tattered book. Yes, she begged to make a trip back to her camp to retrieve it, along with the other books that accompanied it. A day like this absolutely required an entry within it, but where would she start? There was so much to cover - How did she end up inside the royal household, with work as well? Would she enjoy it? What did it mean for her future?

She needed to record her thoughts while they were fresh, but had no words to note.

Hesitant at first, she took the book into her hands with care, slid off her new, clean, white boots and shifted up towards the head of her bed. She curled up comfortably with her pillows and skeptically placed the worn mass in her lap. Decades of history and knowledge lay before her - the only way of remembering her father and his legacy, and she'd made it her personal duty to keep the pages going.

Yet, despite the persistent plea of her conscience, the vast feeling of uncertainty left her stumped. Instead, she carefully pried open the pages, flipped to the first blank page she could find, and stared at it in a blank daze.

Time had become lost upon her, and before she knew it, there was a brief knock at the door, which then opened. Lifting her head away from the yellowed pages, she found herself looking over to the prince, of all people, with yet another prideful smile.

"I see you're getting situated."

She didn't smile nor frown. He wasn't wrong, but the word had a more conclusive connotation than she was willing to give it at the moment.

"I suppose."

The smile disappeared from his face in an instant with a small, challenging tilt of his head, and his arms curled into their signature fold.
"Oh? Everything not going smoothly?"

She slid her gaze to the doorframe. The words were still lost upon her, but it wasn't his fault.

"It's a lot for me to take in at once, is all. I am simply jarred, but know that I am grateful among all of this, Your Highness."

"Vegeta." A sharper tone cut through the room. "It will sort itself out in due time." He tilted his head towards the exterior of her room. "Come. There's still something left I want us to tend to."

"So, what exactly are we doing here?" She'd asked, stopping in the archway to the palace's giant dining hall. "I doubt there's still staff working at this hour."

"Ah, you've got a lot to learn yet." Vegeta laughed. "Give it a week and then we'll talk, but for now…"

Vegeta scurried through a door on their right, leaving her anxiously confused. The surprises hadn't been finished for the day, apparently.

She could hear some brief quarreling from the kitchen through a passthrough along the wall. What could possibly keep the cooks around this late? She was willing to bet that even the soldiers had been dismissed for the day!

With an arm behind his back, Vegeta returned. Using his other arm, he led her to the far head of the table, where his father typically sat during dinner, and gestured her to the seat beside it.

"Have a seat."

Rosemary mindlessly obliged.

Revealing his other arm, he sat a small saucer with a slice of some sickeningly sweet cake in front of her and observed her for a response. She could smell it's thick, dense layers of icing just looking at it.

She returned his glance, unsure of what exactly to say. She understood the sentiment, at least.

"What?" Vegeta nudged. "Obviously, I didn't forget."

"No no, that's not it." Rosemary rushed in. "You're being very… generous. Is that the word I want? Seriously, I don't take the Royal Family to be the gracious and kind type, to be frank."

Vegeta frowned.

"Under normal circumstances, you're right. I can't afford to be this generous to everyone. Consider it a fluke."

Rosemary's hands found their way to the edges of the grandish table and came together in an inquisitive gesture.

"Well, now I suppose I ask this," Rosemary intercepted. "Why me? What have I done to earn all of this? In a matter of hours, you have changed my life, but for what? Surely, it wasn't out of the goodness of your heart."

Vegeta raised a brow.

"How do I put this in a way that fits…" Vegeta pondered, looking off to the side. "Ah, yes, that works. Everyone that surrounds me, works for me. Nurses, guards, tutors, cooks, they cater to my every need, because that is their job. They care for me because they have to, but it is not genuine, nor does it have to be. It is unsatisfying, and at times, depressing."

Rosemary blinked. "So what does giving me, yet another job within your home, accomplish differently?"

Vegeta held up a finger as-a-matter-of-factly.

"I was not forced to meet you, I did so on my own terms. It was a new experience for me, and I happened to like it."

Rosemary twiddled her thumbs. "I apologize, but I'm not sure I follow…"

"Put simply, I want a friend." Vegeta quickly slid in. "Someone that isn't necessarily required to do everything I say, but around enough that you're not a stranger."

Rosemary's heart jumped. Incredible, this boy was willing to go through such lengths for something so simple, almost trivial…

Vegeta sighed.

"Great. Now I've reduced myself to a total sap." He mumbled.

"No, no, I understand, I do." Rosemary rushed in. "It's just… Wow. Of anyone that walks this planet, you've chosen me. The odds are as slim as a miracle, it's… hard to wrap my head around."

The scene grew dark, and before another one could show, Rosemary opened her eyes, blinked once, and allowed fresh tears to slide down her cheeks.

It wasn't one of her fondest memories, but it held its own importance to her. She hadn't been conditioned to the environments of the palace at the time, she was still informal and... dull. Quizzical, and a severe skeptic. Thinking back to how she had addressed him that day, the idea of being somewhat standoffish was humiliating.

After a moment of embarrassment towards the fact, she went on to rack her mind about the prince further. If he were even close to the friend he'd wanted her to be, he wouldn't have left her in such a critical time, would he?

She gave her head a firm shake, disgusted that she'd even thought up such a thing.

"Time does that."

'No!' Her mind sharply protested. 'He said it was temporary! I… I need to assure myself that this is temporary…'

She sat up in bed and buried her face in trembling hands to weep. The question kept coming back no matter the situation it seemed - Why her? Of all people to take such a dangerous and tragic journey through this universe, why did it have to be her? Just when everything was beginning to fall back into place, the remnants of what she'd known was good, what was right, were stripped from her yet again. Why couldn't she just live like a normal Saiyan girl? Why did this have to be so complicated?

Just like the many years it had been since she set foot into the Palace for the first time, she slid to the side of her bed, dipped her legs over the edge, and stared mindlessly at the pale coloured, carpeted floor.

'Would it have been simpler if my life wasn't spared?'

After another minute of empty gawking, she blinked hard and repulsively wrinkled her nose. Where were such dark thoughts coming from? She wasn't always like this, was she?

She let out a heavy sigh and looked out the doorway of the balcony in front of her - she'd lost all sense of time, but Earth's sky was generous enough to indicate that the sun was setting with intense, deep hues of orange and red. She couldn't remember the last planet she'd been on that showed the same sample of colours, the soft gradient of the sky was enough to soothe her spirits as she lost herself in it's vast openness.

As if to entice her, she took to her feet, and made a few steps forward to examine the horizon further. The carpet's thick fibers tickled the soles of her feet and broke her train of thought, causing her to look down at herself and wiggle her toes.

"Fourteen years." She finally spoke. "Fourteen years it's been since I last felt the touch of a rug or carpet on my feet." She dragged a foot along the lavender coloured threads, watching as the fibers switched from a light hue to a slightly darker one as she brought her foot back and forth across the floor. "I never thought I'd find myself so intrigued by such a thing, but here I am gawking at my own feet as if I've never seen them before in my life."

She proceeded towards the balcony once again, captivated by the wide expanding view of the city below her. Her feet protested against her movements as the carpet ended and the cold stone tile of the balcony floor greeted them with a sharp chill, but she pressed on.

"It's lovely..." The words slid out as she took everything in - the high rise buildings, the twinkling street lights, the bustling people walking around in the distance. Everything was so fascinatingly foreign.

"So this is my new home, hmm…" She pensively spoke out to the air. "I suppose I could grow to enjoy this."

Her heart sank with the perplexing strike of deja vu - there was only one other instance in her lifetime that she'd felt this way. The idea of starting anew didn't seem as intimidating this time around, yet it didn't seem as if it would be any easier for her, either. It wasn't truly home without inner peace. She wasn't familiar with anyone around her, leaving her with an unsettling discomfort of uncertainty and a severe lack of confidence in her safety that she wasn't sure how she would curb just yet. If Vegeta had stayed around, this transition could have been such a breeze… He could have helped her regain a sense of stability, he could have eased her worries with his insistent direction, he could have advised her.

But, he left. He was gone, whatever that meant.

"It's temporary." She scolded herself again. "He'll be back. He's as lost as I am right now, and he's quite the introvert."

There was a faint, short knock at the front door to the apartment, followed by the familiar sound of it sliding open.

She turned around to see what had joined her presence, to find Bulma's head cheerily peeking into her new bedroom.

"Oh, hey, you're up!" She called over with a small chuckle. "You were out for a while, I bet you had a good sleep."

Still groggy, Rosemary looked over to her bed, unmade and sloppy. How long had it been, anyway? She didn't know anything about Earth's clock - how many hours were in a day? A week? Did Earth even have weeks? She could tell that there was a sun, but were there moons as well, and how many?

As if to alert her, her scattered mental rambling came to a halt.

She hadn't tidied her bed.

Her sheets were a mess.

She had company.

After the realization had set in, she ran back inside with panicked eyes and scurried over to her bedside in shame. With a quick scoop of her arms, the giant blanket picked itself up and reached out to the corners of the mattress, while the pillows gently hovered in place. Once she was content with it, she finally placed the pillows back down with a gentle poof of air.

"P-Please forgive me for that!" Rosemary frantically pleaded with a succession of bows. "I-I wasn't expecting you so soon."

Bulma entered the room with a half-hearted smile. The poor girl was probably used to drills and some kind of strict routine - it was going to take a while to ease her into a more relaxed lifestyle.

"All good, I kinda snuck in on you." Bulma reassured her, finally entering the room and took to Rosemary's side. She slid a hand into her pocket and pulled out a tiny blue and white capsule. "But now for why I'm here! Check this out."

She tossed the capsule onto the smoothed over blanket, and as it made contact, it popped open with a tuft of smoke and a loud pop.

Rosemary jumped at the sound and cowered away with a small whimper.

Bulma rushed over to her side to calm her down.

"Oh, shoot, I forgot you haven't seen these before, I'm sorry!" She pleaded, stroking Rosemary's arm. "It's not an explosive or anything, I swear. Actually, it's a neat little gadget that people use a lot around here."

Relieved, Rosemary exhaled.

"S-Sorry, I'm just on such high alert right now…" She shyly slid in, then leaned in to observe further. As the smoke dissipated, she was mindlessly staring at a neat pile of various coloured dresses sitting on her bed.

Odd, she didn't remember Bulma bringing anything large in with her.

She blinked a few times before she had processed it all to completion, then curiously dove for the bed in wonder to examine the clothes, peculiarly lifting the edges of skirts and sleeves among the stack for some explanation.

"W-Wait just a minute! How did these come out of that?!" She gasped.

Bulma let out a hearty laugh.

"Oh, nothing really, just some of the finest technology the world has to offer." She teased with a wink, receiving a look of wonder from Rosemary in return. Right, right, she gets excited about technology and abstract concepts. She was supposed to be starting small. 'Geez, I really gotta steer the conversation…'

She grabbed the two half-shells of the capsule, snapped them back together, and shoved it back into a pocket of her cargo jacket. "Thats a chat for later, though. Anyway, it took me a bit to think about what outfits might suit you, so I did a big cleanout of my closet and put aside everything I could think of." She approached the bedside and smoothed her fingers over her dresses, somewhat saddened that she was parting with them for now. "The truth is, I don't think I can go wrong with just about anything I throw at you! You've got such a nice figure, but you're so darn cute and shy sometimes that I just had to go with these. I bet you'll look really sweet in them!"

Rosemary's gaze slid off to the bedroom door. She wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a compliment.

"I, um... I suppose I'm glad that you've taken some kind of liking to my caution." She awkwardly responded.

Bulma put a strong hand on Rosemary's shoulder.

"Hey." She honed her tone just a smidge. "I know this is all new to you, and it's gonna take some time to loosen up. I get it, I do, and I've got your back, okay?"

Rosemary silently looked up Bulma's chin and gave a single but skeptical nod.

"Alright, well, before we try any of this stuff on, let's get you washed up and clean. I bet that probably sounds great right about now, huh?"

A warm smile crept it's way to Rosemary's face. Ah, now this was something she could get behind. Yes, a good, vigourous, thorough power scrub sounded fantastic. Her hair had been stiff with grease, and the skin under her suit was noticeably caked in dirt and grime. Imagine, having her own bathroom again - she could bathe every day if she saw it fit.

She let out a dreamy sigh. She never thought she'd see the day.

"Mmm." She moaned in acknowledgement. "It does."

Bulma was already waving another capsule around in excitement. "Wanna take a guess as to what's in this one?"

Rosemary headed towards the bathroom and stopped in the doorway of her room with a small grin. She had to admit, she was starting to feel a little better now that she knew that a shower was coming. "You've given me far too many hints for that."

Surprised but excited Bulma accepted the response and giddily tagged along.

"That's the spirit, now we're getting somewhere!"

She looked back at the sprawl of clothes on the bed with a small frown. She felt like a kid that was being forced to share her toys with someone, even though she knew that the majority of the dresses in the pile were ones she'd never worn, and if she had, they weren't frequented.

'She will astonish you.'

'It'll be worth it.' She told herself. 'I bet there's way more than meets the eye.'