ATTN: Okay so I've had the Majin Buu saga on my mind a lot lately. It's kind of the first place where we see Vegeta genuinely start to show his love for his family, and from a development standpoint it's a huge milestone for him.

In this chapter I wrote what I think his first real conversation with Bulma was like after the whole ordeal was over. Still family-ish, but mainly centered around BxV. Inspired by the song "Say Something" by A Great Big World, since I think the lyrics are perfect for Bulma's feelings after it. I hope you all like it and as always, thank you so much for the support!

VI.

Say Something

Rated: T [language]

The first time they speak is weeks after the entire ordeal is over and long after Trunks is tucked away safely into his bed, asleep and oblivious to the dark clouds rolling in around their home. The two are alone in the dark in their kitchen. Vegeta has yet to move a muscle since the end of dinner, perched in a dining chair by the table while Bulma is over at the sink, scrubbing the dishes in silence.

Silence seems to be their new norm and Vegeta is angry with himself that he can't even bring himself to enjoy it. How many times has he asked for this? For once in his life the woman isn't jabbering on about trivial things or prodding him to share. Ever since the night he had told her, Bulma had only spoken to him in short sentences, one-word answers when they would suffice. Instead of comfortable lulls in conversation, the gaps were deep and barren and cold. He knows why she's doing it, and as much as it irritates him, he cannot exactly say that she does not have the right. Not after he had told her how he had willingly handed over his sanity.

For a long time the only sound that fills the shadowy room is the sound of the scouring pad scraping against the cast-iron skillets and the occasional stream of water from the faucet. It is as if each scratch-scratch of her scrubbing grates on his patience, but he vehemently keeps his lips sealed shut.

Bulma stares down at the suds floating on the top of the water and how they shimmer in the moonlight that streams in through the kitchen window. It's a full moon out tonight, and the celestial happening tightens a clamp in her chest. It is something she has come to associate with the man sitting behind her and the few precious moments that he has ever let that mask of his fall. Bulma takes in a shaky breath as she mechanically scrubs circles into the pan in her hands. She turns on the faucet. Rinses it. Places it into the drying rack. Picks up a glass. Returns with a sponge to continue.

The tension makes everything aggravating and sluggish, as if she's fighting to run through water. With each passing moment the silence grows heavier. It seems to have a direct correlation with the gravity in the room, because as the minutes drag on it becomes more and more difficult for Bulma to keep lifting her arms.

The sound of the chair's legs scraping across the tiled floor rings out like a gunshot. Bulma slams the glass in her hands down on the counter with such force that it nearly shatters. Her voice is low, and in the one word she utters there is more emotion than in anything she has said in days.

"Why?"

Vegeta pauses in the doorway but does not answer her, nor does he look back. His hand is on the doorframe, and Bulma can faintly hear the wood splintering beneath his grip. His silence adds kerosene to her growing fury. She is the first to turn around, and her voice is as hard as stone when she demands again,

"Why?"

The muscles of his back flex and tense and the doorframe groans and splinters. Bulma's voice nearly cracks. "Answer me, damn it!"

Vegeta whirls around, onyx eyes now blistering coals. "Why what?" He spits and Bulma flinches back as if burned by the acid in his tone. She recovers and stomps her foot forward, fists balled so tightly that her fingernails pinch at the skin of her palms.

"You know what," She says. "Don't you dare act like you don't."

"What? If you're so upset about it woman, have the guts to say it." Vegeta sneers. "Go ahead. Say how I killed all those people. How I lost my damned mind from the power. How disgusting you find me now. How much of a monster I am."

"You gave us up!" Bulma cries. Her face is flushed and her eyes sting with tears that only burn more at his cruel mockery. "And for what, Vegeta? What did he offer you that was so damn enticing?"

Vegeta snarls as Bulma's voice grows louder. "Well, what was it? Was it strength? Fame? Power?" Her eyes grow cold at the unconscious flash of guilt that lights in his eyes and she straightens up. "Of course. Power. That's all that's ever mattered to you, isn't it? Beating Goku."

Vegeta is strung tight like a catapult and ready to snap at the sound of his rival's name. The spite in Bulma's voice pierces him like bullets and it's maddening. Her nerve and her ignorance enrage him. How dare she? How dare she speak of these matters as if she understands them? As if she is intimately acquainted with the feelings of worthlessness and rejection. Failure is something he doubts that she has ever experienced in her life and it repulses him. Resentment towards this weak, stupid human female burns hot in his gut and it makes his words loaded.

"Shut up!" He roars. "You know nothing of how I feel, you pretentious, spoiled bitch!"

Bulma staggers back as if slapped, tears streaking down her face at his scathing tone. He takes a step closer to her, reveling in her pain. The sight of her shaking uproots a deeply seeded desire to destroy, to hurt. Berating her does nothing to soothe his wounded pride, but it helps to numb the stinging of his ego.

"Do you understand what it is like to fail over and over again? What it is like to know that no matter what you do, or how hard you train, or how badly you want it, that it will never be enough?" He demands, his own voice growing steadily louder until it seems like the room is shaking from its might. "You are exactly like him; everything comes effortlessly, never having to try, given to you on a silver platter. You understand nothing about failure! Nothing at all!

So you ask me what I traded for you and the boy. Do you truly want to know?" Vegeta bites out, voice frigid. "I gained the ability to be who I was again! Ruthless and callous and all-powerful! None of this emotional bullshit that you seem so fond of forcing down my throat. When I let Babidi take control of me I could finally defeat Kakarot! I was powerful because when I turned Majin nothing mattered! Not you, not the boy, not this pathetic planet—"

She slaps him, hard. As expected, his cheek is as sturdy as steel and while Bulma may be the one who gets bruised from the strike, seeing the look of shock on his features helps to heal her pain. But the shock is only momentary before it melts into pure rage. He opens his mouth to scream at her but Bulma beats him to it, and the resentment in her voice makes his shrivel in his throat.

"You think I don't know anything about failure?" Bulma asks quietly, but the night is still enough around them that Vegeta has no trouble hearing it at all. Her head is bowed with her shoulders bent and shaking, hand still raised and beginning to purple from the force of her blow. "That I don't know what it's like to try my hardest and still have it all thrown back in my face?"

Her eyes are fierce when she finally looks him in the face again. Tears stream steadily down her face and he gives her credit for holding his smoldering gaze. Bulma's hand in the air clenches into a fist and she bites her lip to hide the obvious pain it causes her. It only seems to fuel her further.

"Vegeta, I love you. I have for a long time and I still do, even after learning just how much of a bastard you truly are."

Her strike cannot possibly have had any hope of hurting him, but for some reason the words make the warm imprint of her hand on his cheek sting.

"I've done everything I can. I welcomed you in where everyone else would have been happy to see you rot in the gutter. I stood up for you, defended you against every ill word people would speak about you because hey, everyone deserves a second chance, right?" She gives a snipped laugh, but it is humorless and bitter. The sound is wrong coming from her.

"I tried to talk to you. Learn more about you. I tried to get to know you and understand you. Not as a warrior or as a threat, but as a person. Something you probably haven't even considered yourself for quite some time. I cared for you. I loved you. I would have given anything, done anything, been anything for you." Bulma chokes back a sob, covering her mouth with her shaking fist. It's beginning to swell and throb and she is positive that it's broken, but it is only one of many, many broken things within her right now.

"But no matter what I say or what I do, no matter how much I love you, nothing is going to get through to you, is it?" She sounds tired and defeated, something that Vegeta has never associated with her before. All at once Bulma curls in upon herself, wrapping her arms around her shoulders and withering away like a dying flower. Her eyes are rimmed with red and she doesn't bother trying to mask the deep sense of betrayal she feels.

"Tell me, Vegeta. Was it worth it? Was it worth giving up your home and the family that loves you? Was it really that easy to throw me away? To throw Trunks away?"

The shame is so all-consuming that it crushes his lungs. Vegeta turns his head away and bites his tongue so hard it draws blood. What is he supposed to say? Yes; yes it was that easy to throw them away like garbage? That in that one moment his pride and envy were so terribly blinding that he had eagerly jumped on the chance like a starving animal thrown a scrap of meat? That Babidi's offer was so enticing, so deliciously filled with promises of power and glory that he was willing to give up the only two people who have ever truly mattered?

Bulma cannot contain the agony that his hesitation causes her. She is so desperate to hear him deny these accusations that she's begging him. She's crying and shaking, ready to shatter into a million irreparable pieces and she's not sure that she can keep herself together much longer.

"Say something!"

But he can't, because there is nothing to say. There is nothing that he could possibly say that could justify his actions or bring sense to his decision. Shame makes any words he has sound hollow, and the guilt constricts his throat so tightly that it's difficult to breathe. Never in his life has he felt more worthless than he does in this second. He feels Trunks' ki fluttering calmly in sleep upstairs, blissfully ignorant to his beloved father's cutting betrayal.

He needs to hit something. He needs to smash and destroy and decimate but these instincts bring back flashbacks of when he shot so carelessly into the crowd at the tournament. He had killed innocents with ease, but what was so sickening now was that the woman standing in front of him and the child slumbering above him were there. In that moment he could have killed them and he would not have cared. Self-contempt washes over him with nauseating intensity, and he no longer has the will to meet Bulma's eyes.

So he turns away from her without uttering a single word. Because he doesn't trust himself to speak, and he doesn't deserve to have her hear his pathetic excuses. Vegeta has never deserved any of what he has, and he has never felt more undeserving than the moment he passes through the doorway and down the darkened halls, followed only by her shuddering sobs as she collapses into his discarded chair and mourns their loss in the dark.