Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Doubts ❯ Resolutions ( Chapter 10 )

Doubts: Chapter 10

While the heated argument between Bulma and Vegeta had temporarily broken up within the confines of the kitchen below them, two female children of Saiyan lineage were just getting started after a long bout of somber silence.

"I just knew this would happen."

Bra canted her head to one side, giving Pan a sour look. "You worry too much. It didn't turn out that bad."

"WHAT?!"

"Ok, maybe it could have gone a little better."

Pan looked furious. She was just about ready to strangle Bra. Her parents were going to ground her for life and then some. Worse yet, Bra had not yet even made the slightest attempt at fulfilling her end of the bargain they had made prior to the mess they were in now. "You," she said gravely, jutting a small index finger accusingly at Bra, "...you owe me a sparring match, and it's now or never. After Momma and Dad get back, they will never put us together in the same room again alone." She paused a moment, and then added swiftly, "...Which is fine with me!"

Bra raised one blue eyebrow, observing Pan owlishly. "What do you mean..? I thought we were friends!"

Pan was by far too angry at Bra to admit that now, so instead she spat, "We were friends. Get that? Were. Now I just want to get this sparring match you owe me over with."

A span of silence ticked by between them, before Bra curled her lower lip petulantly and crossed her short arms against her chest. "No."

"No??"

"You heard me."

"...But you said you would! And I did what you wanted, so now you have to do what I want!"

Bra shook her head cryptically, eyeing Pan with a faint, bitter amusement that someone of her age shouldn't be able to convey to others so plainly. "The plan didn't work out. Mommy and Daddy still don't like each other very much, and now we are in trouble. You should have driven a different way, not towards that funny little man."

Pan grew quiet, almost gravely so. She leaned a few inches closer to Bra, who had taken it upon herself to sit on the edge of her frilly bed like a princess on her throne while Pan had been regulated to stand on the floor. "Are you saying this is all my fault?"

"Uh-huh," Bra chirped, a little too cheery for the situation she had found herself in.

"Take it back!"

"Nuh-uh."

"That's it, you are so dead!" Pan lunged in Bra's general direction, arms outstretched. Bra obviously hadn't seen this coming, and so it was with a squeal of terror and surprise that she fell back on the soft expanse of her mattress, going supine. Her short legs still dangled off the edge of the bed, beginning from the backs of her knees on out. Pan landed with cat-like agility on top of Bra, glowering murderously down at the younger girl.

Bra glared defiantly up at Pan, her aqua eyes narrowing to twin slits of blue. "Get off of me, Pan!" The opposing force of her hands accompanied her protests as they pushed at Pan's chest. She was simply pushing, without putting too much effort into it. She seemed to believe that this alone would rid herself of her annoying houseguest.

Pan didn't budge. Putting her arms into a lock just above both of Bra's shoulders, on either side of her head, the black-haired girl simply scowled down at the blue-haired one. "We made a deal, and you have to finish your end of it. No matter what happened."

Bra tensed beneath Pan, her eyebrows knitted and jaw set stubbornly. Her gaze had gone shuttered, and for a moment Pan began to believe that she wouldn't ever get that match, unless it meant pounding Bra into the ground here and now... unless she took the easy way out and screamed for Bulma or Vegeta. Instead, Bra's grimly set expression began to morph. One corner of the young girl's mouth began to upturn, slanting the seam of her undefined lips one way. Her eyebrows remained furrowed, but now amusement chased across the dark blue depths of her eyes. Pan gasped audibly, for right before her seemed to be a young, feminine version of Vegeta. It was both disconcerting and interesting at the same time. "You wanna fight? Ok, you got it."

Before Pan had the time to contemplate Bra's quick change of heart, she found herself below Bra instead of vice-versa. Bra had taken the lesson the vagrant had given her about the use of surprise to heart. When Pan's guard had shifted for a second or two, Bra had taken the initiative to roll Pan beneath her. It meant using her uncanny speed, something humans failed to possess.

"What are you doing?!" Pan struggled to get up, using the backs of her elbows as a measure of support.

Bra wasted no time in grabbing Pan by the collar of her shirt, dragging her up to her eye level. "Fighting. Isn't that what you wanted?" Again, the bemusement in her high tenor nearly drained the color from Pan's face.

"Not like this! We are supposed to spar, not wrestle!"

Bulma's daughter appeared momentarily confused, and she released Pan. Pan fell backwards onto the bedspread with an 'oomph!' and spent the rest of her time there watching Bra wearily. "You mean this isn't sparring?"

"If you mean martial arts, no. Get off!"

"Party-pooper."

"Don't call me that!"

"Or what," Bra teased, "Are you going to hit me? If you do I'll tell Mommy."

"So? You are already in trouble anyways. If you go tattle to her she isn't going to like it. The last thing you want to do is make her madder. Now get off, you weigh a ton!"

"I do not!" Bra pouted. Despite this, she grudgingly hopped back, landing easily on the carpet. "You weigh more. You're older."

"Oh, be quiet," Pan grumbled as she sat upright, dusting the rumples from the sleeves of her shirt. "Now, are you going to spar with me or not?"

Bra sighed as she finally gave in. After all, she was bored and there was nothing else to do anyways. Playing dolls was redundant, especially after Bulma had made sure to remove every last toy from Bra's bedroom so the two girls could 'think about what they did wrong'. Besides this, Bra felt a certain stirring of... something... within her. She was disappointed and discouraged about the day's events, especially after having believed her scheme was foolproof. She wanted to take the annoyance she felt out on something, and it might as well have been her partner-in-crime. "Ok, fine. What do you want me to do?"

Pan visibly brightened, and shot Bra a beaming smile. "You really wanna learn? This is gonna be so much fun! I didn't think you would want to but--"

"Just tell me how," Bra cut in, becoming a little irked. "..Maybe I could use what you show me on Trunks..."

"Now you are the one going on about stuff. Just listen," Pan stated pointedly.

The teal-haired girl crossed her arms against her chest a second time and blew an errant bang from her face with a puff of agitated air from beneath pouted lips. "Fine."

"Ok, now this is how you start..." Pan put herself in a defensive stance, one foot ahead of the other in a line. Her hands were at the ready, just out in front of her face. "Copy me."

"That looks dumb!" Bra whined.

"Just do it," Pan insisted with draining patience, "It works. Dad showed me."

Bra got into position, mirroring the way Pan stood. Her disgust at the stance showed through her visage, causing the older girl to roll her dark eyes towards the ceiling. "I feel stupid," Bra mumbled.

"If you do it a lot, you don't feel so stupid anymore. I kinda felt that way too, when I first started."

Bra's interest was piqued, and she momentarily lost the look of revulsion on her face. "You did?"

"Yeah, but now it seems normal. Now, do you know how to kick?"

"I see Trunks and Daddy kicking all the time," Bra offered whimsically, "they always end up dirty and nasty afterward. Mommy even says so."

"That's not what I mean." Pan groaned inwardly, shaking her head to rid herself of an oncoming headache. "What I mean to say is... have you ever done it?"

Bra appeared to think about that for a heartbeat before answering the negative, "Nope."

"Then try. Try to kick me."

"Are you kidding?"

"No. Kick me."

"Ahh... ok..." Uncertainty fell upon Bra as she broke the defensive posture that Pan had insisted she stay in, and purposely crossed the short distance between herself and her friend. Without wasting any time, she snatched back one leg and kicked Pan in the shin with innocent force.

Pan's scream rebounded off the room as she lifted her new injury, hopping around the bedroom on one leg like a kangaroo with an amputation. She held her one leg close to her chest, all the while crying out a litany of 'Ow, ow, ow, ow...!'.

"Panny! Are you ok?" Bra followed close on Pan's heel, still considering the ebony-haired girl to be her friend even if it did happen to be a one-sided title. "You told me to kick you, and I did! Why are you acting so funny?!"

Pan clenched her eyes tightly together, forcing the next string of screams down into her vocal chords. "Jeez, you hurt me! You aren't supposed to just walk up to your sparring partner and kick them like that!! I wasn't expecting it!"

"Isn't it good to not let you expect it?"

Pan shot Bra a death glare. "If you go on kicking people like that, you will get laughed at! That's almost as bad as what Daddy calls a 'low blow', or whatever he means by that. I was expecting a round kick or something! Owwwie!"

"Oh." It was really the only answer that Bra could give the pained Pan as the older girl sat herself on the edge of Bra's bed to further soothe her wound. By the looks of it, Pan would have an awesome bruise come morning. She didn't believe anything was broken, thankfully.

"Hey, Bra?"

"What?"

"You kicked that creepy guy today, too. Why did you seem to hurt him more than me?"

"I just tapped you. I was trying to get away from him. He scared me."

"So... you just kicked him?" Pan blinked back her confusion as realization came to the forefront.

"Yeah, I just kicked him."

"Oh." Now it was Pan's turn to refrain from articulate speech... not that there was much articulation with children of their age group anyways. After some time had passed, Pan found the will to speak again. Asking slowly, she grated out, "Hey, you know what? If you work hard on that strength of yours, you would make a great fighter."

"You think?"

"Yeah, I do."

Bra smiled slowly, a gentle curve of the mouth. "Thanks, Pan."

"No problem." With a little groan and shift of the springs beneath her, Pan pushed herself onto the carpet with renewed resolve. "Let's finish this, while we still can." She put a little weight onto her offending leg, only surprised to find that it really didn't hurt all that much anymore. Sure, it still ached and gave her grievance, but she could at least walk and stand on it.

Bra gave her friend a skeptical look, turning a half circle around Pan before stopping. "Are you sure you still can?"

"Yeah, but no more cheap moves like that, ok? Just do what I say."

Bra slumped her shoulders, but a true, genuine smile lit her face. "Ok."

__________________________________________________________________ ____________

Capsule Corporation, master bedroom...

Bulma lay on her stomach atop the bed in her bedroom, face thrust into one of the overstuffed pillows at the head of the mattress. She felt miserable and hollow inside. The fiasco with the girls, tempered with the ill-at-ease relationship she had been having with Vegeta lately had left her at a loss. In her younger years, she often found herself brought to tears by Vegeta's lack of consideration, or apparent use of. As time went on, she developed a certain understanding of the Saiyan's true personality. He liked to hide certain emotions... namely all of them... except anger, indifference and disgust. It was rare he showed her or anyone something else, although she could say for a fact that she was usually on the receiving end of those he kept locked up. For that she was glad, and even selfishly aware, but lately she had just seemed to become 'everyone else' in his eyes again. It just wasn't fair, even after all those years of work she had put into him...

Sighing, the president of Capsule Corporation despondently reached for the novel she had left lying facedown on the nightstand. She could help but to see the irony in its position and hers. She abandoned it during the day, even going so much to forget about it until nighttime, when she would pick it up again and read into it. In a way, this was how Vegeta also acted around her at times. To be compared to a dusty old novel was bad enough, but her own situational mire and the combination of this new parallel sent her into another fit of sobs. She didn't think she could take it anymore. So strong... or so she thought. Her binding was breaking, after so many years of wear and tear.

Throughout her crying fits, Bulma failed to notice a new yet recurring visitor to her bedroom. A dark silhouette outlined by a flame of spiky black hair stood in the open doorway, arms crossed. Vegeta stared down at Bulma with a mixture of apathy and inconclusive thought.

"What are you doing, woman?" he ground out.

Bulma lifted her head from her currently soggy pillow, angling body to see Vegeta better. Strands of wet hair barred her vision at certain points, giving her a partial view of his scowl. "N-Nothing. J-Just going to s-sleep." Her broken words couldn't even come out normally enough to fake her emotional state. How pathetic was she? The thought sent another wave of sobs bursting to the surface.

"It doesn't look that way to me." Something tangible underlined his words, although she was far too messed up to define it.

"What does it matter what it looks like? Just leave me alone. That should be easy for you." Her anguish threaded through her voice, and she no longer tried to suppress it. What was the point? He might even laugh at her for all of this whimpering, just like in the old days. After the way he acted recently, she wouldn't put it past him.

Vegeta crossed the room, and knelt by the bed. Making sure to send the door flying shut on his way over, he took up one of the blue-eyed scientist's hands in his own. He didn't say much, just continually frowned down upon her.

His move caught her unaware. Sweeping back a curtain of hair from her face with her freehand, Bulma struggled to make out his expression through the tears in her eyes. Even though his face couldn't have been more than a foot or so away now, she was having great difficulty in understanding what she saw there. Anger, yes. Frustration, yes. Loneliness, possibly. Comfort? Perhaps... although she could be imagining the latter. If she was, then why was he holding her hand? "Vegeta?" His name was a whispered word, the secret password.

His eyes jerked up from the ground, leveling off to her own. Azure intermingled with coal, and they seemed to strike a truce. He had understood, all along, that he had been difficult. And she... she now could see that she could have let up on him a little more now and again. He had never meant to cause her pain, he would never wish to do so. In her failure to fully realize this, she had only deepened her own sorrow to the point that she had actually believed that there was nothing worth going ahead for, expect the children.

The children.

Yes, his eyes told her. He loved his kids, he always would. Couldn't she see that he was not one to admit that? Didn't she know by now who he truly was?

Yes, she knew. She knew but sometimes seemed to believe that she had forgotten. But it was there all along.

Bulma sniffed, letting the hand not held tight by his to reach across and caress the sharp contours of his cheek. She loved him, and would continue to say it even if he never did. Besides, she already knew how he felt for her by his actions. She really didn't need much more.

"Bulma, I..." His dark whisper permeated her thoughts, giving the world a white lining.

The hand on his cheek traveled to his lips, effectively stopping him from saying much more. "I know. So am I."

He smiled, a rare hint of affection for her showing through his blank mask. He shut off the gap between them, capturing her lips in a deep kiss. Joining her on the bed, he wrapped his arms snugly around her as she reached to turn off the reading lamp on the nightstand.

"I love you."

"Never doubt that," he finished and reciprocated before words were no longer necessary between the two of them.

THE END

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A/N: Well, there it is... the 10th and final chapter to Doubts. It's done now! Yay! Sorry it took so long to get that up there.. school and work have be running around in circles. I hope you liked the ending, and since Doubts is officially over, I can concentrate fully on Event Horizon, my B&V get-together. Consider the first chapter I have up to be a 'teaser', if you will.

As always, please R&R!