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The field before him was not drenched in blood. Vegeta repeated to himself that the field before him was not drenched in blood.

The field before him was green with blowing grass and a flowing creek through the middle of it, the last remnant of the mighty river that had cut the valley between the mountains. On the cliff, Vegeta sat beneath the tall tree at the very edge of the rock face. The precipice was treacherous, ready to crumble off the rock and tumble to the valley. It also provided the best view, wide and expansive so that he saw miles and miles to the ocean in the far distance and the horizon spreading out of sight.

It reminded him of space. Cramped in his tiny pod, he'd watched the universe fly past, stars, galaxies, nebula all swirling around him. Adrift in the eddies of solar flares and comet tails, he could have blinked out of existence at any moment among the violent currents of space. His life had been empty but vast.

Here on earth, life felt just as cramped as his pod, but the grandeur and triumph was gone. There were no galaxies, only clouds, no meteor showers, only rain. When he'd slaughtered for Freiza, he had spent enough time on world to savor the novelty of rough winds, storms, and blazing heat, then returned to the pod with blood on his hands and fell into the silence of space travel.

No Saiyan had endured what he had, had grown up as he had. Children were rocketed out to distant planets while asleep, enjoyed a frenzied awakening of death, and then were picked up as little more than animal adults. The elite enjoyed education and growing to know their families, politics that would shape their culture. But Vegeta had lived as an elite with his family and understood the pain of losing them when others had not. He had lived with knowing his race had been destroyed and buried his emotions, his shame, under his captor's watchful sight. He had suffered the pain of death time after time.

All of that might not have affected him as it had if he had not endured long spans of time alone in absolute silence. Sound did not travel in space. In the pod, he had been frozen in waking stasis, locked in an impenetrable deprivation chamber. It did things to the mind. The rush of sensation upon the crashing and opening of a pod had driven lesser soldiers insane, and he endured it time and again thinking it normal.

He'd never told anyone that he knew full well the difference between sanity and madness. He occasionally felt madness creeping up on him and retreated to quiet fields and valleys where his only companion was the wind and rain. Alone, he would watch the sky change from clouds to stars, watch the sun fly by and ignore any curious warrior sent to check on him. The wind and rain became a drone that turned to silence as he drove back the insanity burning inside of him.

And so the field before him was not drenched in blood. Swords, ki bolts and other tools of his trade did not slice apart the soldiers on the red grass scattered amongst black scorch marks. There were no dead bodies, no laughter in the center of the killing field as he relished his victory with companions as maddened as he was.

Those days of heady excitement, drunk with death, eating his kill and nursing stinging wounds made by a few lucky warriors...they were gone, replaced by blunted numbness. This world offered no challenge, nothing but death and disappointment. He forced himself to bring to mind his son, so satisfyingly brilliant if naive. He could have been a great warrior...

So much could have been different. The silence began to grate on him, no longer a soothing drone but an annoying needle. He sighed and stood up. That was always the sign that it was time to go home. His mind craved some outside entertainment.

A familiar ki signature flashed towards him. He didn't bother looking. Trunks and Goten were practically joined at the hip now so that he was used to their signatures blending together, and as usual their ki was excited as they embarked on yet another adventure. Trunks had grown into the mirror of his future self, and Goten looked more like his father every day, but they had lost none of their childish exuberance. He waited for them to land and tilted his head in curiosity at the paper Trunks held.

"Papa, look!"

Vegeta took the slip of computer printout, careful not to crush it. Things on this world broke and tore so easily. The image was blurry, more shadows and grey highlights than a discernible shape. He tipped it one way, then another.

"I think it's a ship," Trunks said. "Mother doesn't agree, but look here. Doesn't that look like a fin? That would make these ovals here engines."

"Cool," Goten grinned, doing a spin in the air. "Real aliens."

Vegeta didn't remind him that he was standing in front of a real alien. He'd been dealing with Goten for years and had learned that the boy simply saw things differently than everyone else. Vegeta had raised him more than Goku, so of course Vegeta wasn't just human but family. For his part, Vegeta tolerated him like his son's favored and useful pet.

"Do you think it's a ship?" Trunks asked. "I was hoping you might recognize it."

"Hm." If anyone else had come to him with this, he wouldn't have spared more than a glance. But he brought it closer and held a glow of ki in his hand, backlighting the picture. Imagined it as a blur outside a rocketing space pod amidst swirls of glowing dust...

He smiled slowly and nodded more to himself than his son.

"All right!" Trunks yelled, leaping up in joy. "I knew it!"

Neither of them saw how the feral twist of Vegeta's smile. Oh yes, here was entertainment. He looked over the field one more time. The field was not drenched in blood. Not yet.

*

"How?"

Goku stopped chopping wood for the pile, letting the ki fade from his hand, and looked up where Piccolo floated a few feet away. Chichi was out shopping with Videl and the house was empty, too quiet for Goku's liking. The birds singing nearby at least made him feel surrounded by living things.

"'How'?" he echoed, pretty sure he knew what Piccolo meant. There was no way the Namek didn't know about his affair. "Not why?"

"Not why," Piccolo shook his head. "I can understand that. You're the last two of your kind, you're the only one who can vaguely understand what goes through his head. And you can both cut loose with each other the way you can't with your wives. I understand why."

The same reasons Gohan visits you, Goku thought. For beings as powerful as they were, they sensed the flashes of ki no matter how they all tried to hide it. It was a little disconcerting to know when his sons were having sex, but at least Gohan tried to mask it and they all exercised a measure of discretion.

"But how?" Piccolo asked again. "You know what he's done. You know what he still is."

"Wait," Goku said. "That's not--"

"I admit he hides it well now," Piccolo said over him. "Everyone thinks it's just arrogance and him being a royal pain in the ass. But we've both seen him at his worst. We both know what he really feels."

Goku didn't answer.

"How can you stand him?" Piccolo asked. "All the anger and rage, it's all pent up inside of him. He's the same twisted bastard he's always been. He doesn't even respect you half the time."

"Most of the time, everyone treats me like I'm not that bright," Goku said. "It's not that bad."

Piccolo didn't reply. His frown only deepened as he waited for Goku to answer.

"How can I stand him?" Goku said to himself, considering it. Then he looked up with a smile. "You should ask Gohan."

Twisted bastard notwithstanding, Piccolo understood Goku's meaning. This wasn't the only Son who loved someone less than pure. He paused, turning Goku's reply over in his head.

"Gohan made me change," Piccolo said slowly, choosing his words. "But Goku...I didn't go through what he did. I was just an angry, mean dog. Vegeta was taken away from everything and abused for his whole life. That does things to you, things you can't change."

Goku nodded once. "I know. We both know it's there. But that's the reason I can stand it."

"Pity?" Piccolo snarled.

"Not pity," Goku said. "It's not...he trusts me. He trusts me. It's..."

The far away look in his eyes and the vague, wondering smile made it clear. Piccolo snorted once and turned around, his answer clear. Goku could stand Vegeta out of love. He now wondered what it was that kept Vegeta close to Goku. He didn't like any of the reasons he came up with--disdain, convenience, cruelty--and love? He'd believe that when he saw it.

Left behind, Goku watched him fly off in a huff. Piccolo would probably be in a funk for the whole day and take it out on his sparring partner.

"Poor Gohan," he chuckled.

Leaving the unchopped wood aside, he went inside the house and plucked a liter of soda from the refrigerator, popping the top and taking a long drink that emptied a third of the bottle. The house was still too quiet, and he looked around himself at everything inside.

He couldn't consider it his home, not really. Fragile furniture that broke if he sat down too hard, a table that would crumble at a touch. He was surprised the walls were still standing. Usually there were holes that had to be plastered because a careless sweep of the hand punched through the thin steel wall. It was why he spent so much of his day outside. The less time he was inside, the less likely he was to destroy something.

Then again... He went outside and sat down on the stump he used to split wood. Gohan spent his time either at his job or out with Piccolo. Goten never left Trunks' side, even to come home. It was easier now that he'd started high school to simply keep him over with the Briefs who let him study with the same tutors, but even so, the boys spent their time outside matching each other's skills.

Saiyans just weren't built for indoor living. He wondered how Vegeta handled sitting in a space pod for so long.

Soda finished, he incinerated the bottle and sat down to watch the sun slowly sinking to the horizon. He felt Vegeta's presence far across the valley, but neither of them acknowledged the other.

Why did he love Vegeta? Goku couldn't answer. If he had to give some kind of reason, it was probably the conflict in Vegeta's heart, the soft heartedness warring against the fear and rage beaten into him by Freiza. Vegeta would never fully exorcise his demons, but the struggle alone was enough.

Unspoken was also the fact that Vegeta had helped bring up Goten during the long years that Goku had been dead. Everyone had worried that Trunks would mirror his father's arrogance, but the boy's pride wasn't marred by self-doubt or abuse. Goten had never been in any danger in that family and still trusted everyone around him. To Goku, that was a sign that his faith wasn't misplaced.

To his surprise, Goku felt the boys flying towards the valley. He wondered what had them so excited that he could feel their exuberance from here, but they flew off with the prince a moment later.

Not long after that, the phone rang inside the kitchen. His head lifted as he listened to the answering machine click on, and then Bulma's excited voice came through.

*

Inside her lab, Bulma sat at her computer watching an image on the screen shift and twist. Behind her, Trunks and Goten looked over her shoulder and Vegeta paced back and forth as much as he could between the walls and tables. He kept his head lowered and stared at the ground, doing his best to ignore the glaring florescent lights and the flickering screens around the room. The machines whirred and hummed, and in the windowless room he felt a distinct similarity between this lab and the chambers of a space ship. At least the scorch marks on the ceiling gave him something to look at, the result of Bulma or Trunks' more experimental inventions exploding.

"Well?" Vegeta demanded.

Her slow technology was enough to give him a headache. On Frieza's ship, they would have had results instantly, with armaments and soldiers standing by, ready for the command to attack. Frieza would have...he growled and kept pacing. Frieza would have tortured him to satisfy his boredom.

"I still can't get a clear picture of it," she said, working out refractive angles by hand with a pen. Long rows of numbers
filled the page, but each one she tried only shifted the blur around.

"I told you, it's probably shielded from your pathetic monitors."

She snarled and whirled in her chair, knocking Goten into Trunks, who was used to her mood swings and reacted in time to catch him. "If you already know what this is, why not share it with the people you're complaining at?"

"I want to be certain first."

"It looks like a ship," Trunks said, tracing the outline on the screen with his finger. "See? Here's the stern, the aft..."

"It's even got fins," Goten said. "It looks cool."

As brilliant as your father, Vegeta thought sarcastically, but with Bulma nearby he didn't say it. "Forget trying to tell what it is. Is there any way to tell if that's the only one?"

"Well," Bulma swiveled her chair to face the screen again. "We've got motion detectors to look for potential planet killing asteroids, but there's usually so little data it won't report for days or weeks."

"Try it."

"Okay, if you say so." She opened a new menu. "Osmond's due for a download anyway."

"Osmond?" Goten asked.

"Outer System Motion Detection Device," Bulma said. "Here we go. It's starting to download."

A strong ki signature made Vegeta stop pacing and glance at the lab door. Had they called the others? Certainly not for such a little thing as a picture that might be rocks and dust. He crossed his arms and turned away from the door. He might not have come if he'd known the moron was on his way, not with the rest of them here. Even the way he knocked was annoying, a chipper tap tap to overcompensate so he didn't break the door down.

"Bulma," Goku called. "It's us. Can we come in?"

"Yeah, just be careful. It's tight in here and--" Bulma dropped her pen and gaped at the screen. "Oh my God."

While Goku and Gohan entered, edging around the gray machinery taller than themselves, Trunks leaned close to the monitor, hovering over his mother. Vegeta leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.

"Let me guess," he said. "A hundred objects detected?"

"Just about." Trunks turned and looked at his father. "Papa? How did you know?"

"Because while these computers are inferior, I know exactly what that shape is. Their numbers just confirm it." He took a deep breath and raised his head, staring at a scorch mark on the ceiling. "It's a Budoven ship, probably a scouter."

"Budoven?" Gohan asked.

Goku tilted his head. "Is that bad?"

"Oh yes," Vegeta said. "They've must've noticed Earth by now. Those ships are the bulk of their fleet."

"But what do they want?" Gohan asked.

Bulma frowned. "I guess it's too much to hope that they'll be friendly."

"'Friendly'?" Vegeta glanced at the blurry shape again. "They are worse than Frieza ever was."

Goku straightened. "They're stronger?"

"I said worse, not stronger. Frieza's crew merely purged all intelligent life from certain planets for rich clients. The Budoven destroy every planet they discover, harvesting anything organic for food and taking all minerals and resources for fuel and raw materials for their ships. Once the planet's dead, they move on to the next world."

"How do you know about them?" Trunks asked.

Vegeta hesitated. His son still didn't know what he was capable of, and he never liked to discuss his planet killing days in front of the boy. Trunks looked up to him. After all these years and the horrible disillusionment of Trunks from the future, that sense of filial worship was alien and utterly fragile to him. He only managed to understand it from his view of his own father. Even after the king's failure to save the planet or stop Freiza, Vegeta couldn't help but lionize his memory. Like fathers, like sons.

"I've fought them before," he explained. "Once in awhile, they'd beat us to a planet. There are several colonies of Budoven roaming the universe. No matter how many you destroy, there's always another cluster in another galaxy."

Gohan met Bulma's eyes. "How soon'll they be here?"

"Well..." She faced the computer and opened another screen. "I spotted this a couple of hours ago...and going at that speed..."

"Five hours," Vegeta said. "Give or take."

Bulma nodded.

"Five...?" Gohan looked at his father. "That's hardly any time to get ready."

"Yeah," Goku said. "We'd better round everyone up and--"

"No," Vegeta said. "You won't be fighting."

The three demi-Saiyans started protesting, but the prince paid no attention to them. As he made a move to leave, Goku stepped forward and put his hand on the other Saiyan's shoulder.

"Vegeta, even if you're in the thick of things, we'll still need everyone to keep this fight contained. If the Budoven are really that strong--"

"I told you, they aren't strong." Vegeta shrugged off Goku's hand. "They're only dangerous because there are so damn many of them. They're like this planet's locusts. They have no world, only a fleet. They devour anything in their path and then move on. When I last faced them, they usually kept a thousand of their own on each ship."

"A mobile species," Bulma said to herself. She picked up her notepad and took down everything Vegeta had said in shorthand.

"That means we could be up against millions of them," Gohan said. "If we're gonna drive them off, we'll need everyone."

"There's no driving them off," Vegeta said. "Once they land, you either kill them or they kill you."

A moment passed. They were all used to how casually Vegeta treated life and his relish for fighting, but his manner was completely different now. Goku's optimism made it easy to forget sometimes how brutal a fight could be. Vegeta's cold and businesslike tone made the sense of death seem that much more real.

"All of them?" Goten asked. "There are thousands of ships. That's gotta be thousands of people."

The Saiyan prince nodded. "That's why I'm going to do this alone."

"But..." Goku tried to imagine what a million bodies on top of each other looked like and shook his head, clearing the image away. "Wait. You had Raditz and Nappa to help you before."

Vegeta stared into Goku's eyes. "As if you could do this. Can you honestly tell me that you wouldn't break down while you're killing a million people?"

"But Vegeta, you can't--" Goku said.

"Idiot. I could since I was three years old."

"That isn't what I meant and you know it," Goku said, frowning. He felt a brush against the back of his mind, his mate's growing irritation and a warning snarl whispering through his brain. He responded in kind only to feel Vegeta close off again, and Goku's frown deepened.

To everyone else, it seemed like a staring contest. When the silence stretched on, Gohan gave his disgust free rein.

"Is that why you want to fight alone?" Gohan asked, glaring at Vegeta. "You miss killing?"

Vegeta shook his head. "No one else here is capable of doing this, except maybe the androids."

"Vegeta, no," Goku said, growling in annoyance. "You'll need help. It's too much on one person."

Scoffing openly, Vegeta half-smiled. "If you want to try to contain the fight so it doesn't spill over into a city, feel free to try. I only wanted to warn you to stay away from the main fight." His smirk grew into a grin. "Don't worry, if you want there'll still be plenty of Budoven for you to kill."

Leaving them with that thought, Vegeta walked out of the lab and down the hall. A few seconds later, Goku materialized in front of him so that he walked right into his chest and stumbled back a step, hissing.

"Dammit, Kakarrot, quit doing that!"

"Isn't there a way to do this without killing an entire species?" Goku asked. "I mean, one or two bad guys is bad enough, but a million people..."

"Don't think of them as a million people," Vegeta said, trying to walk around him and growling when Goku stepped back in his way again. "Think of them as a million 'bad guys'. That's all they are."

"But it doesn't feel right."

The Saiyan prince growled under his breath. "I've told you before, fool, don't listen to your feelings. They'll get you killed."

"And I told you I always listen to them. This isn't some game where you can just turn off your feelings." He put both hands on Vegeta's shoulders now, softening his voice to a whisper. "And despite how you act, I know you don't want to do this either, not really."

Vegeta closed his eyes. Damn the side effects of mating. The faint blurring of their emotions was always light, but still substantial enough to give Goku a taste of his feelings. Usually it was fine, even a comfort that he wouldn't admit to, but that kind of vulnerability had a price.

"That's why I have to," he said. "It is a game, nothing personal, no feelings, just business. You can't understand that. Doing this would probably break you."

He lay one hand on Goku's, not moving or pushing away. Goku was so close, he could feel the warmth of his body only inches away. His voice faded to a whisper and he wouldn't meet Goku's gaze. When forced to honestly explain his weaknesses, he found he could never look into Goku's eyes. His pride wouldn't allow it.

"I've seen broken soldiers who can't fight anymore," he said. "I won't let that happen to you."

"Won't you at least have someone help you?" Goku whispered. "If not me, then someone?"

Help? The prince of all Saiyans needed no help. He growled his displeasure.

"Do what you will," he said, smacking Goku's hands off before walking down the hall. "Just stay out of my way."

Without another word, Goku watched him until he disappeared around a corner. He lowered his head and tried to imagine what a slaughter like Vegeta planned would look like. Certainly to the prince this would just be another purging, even easier perhaps, but to Goku, thinking about Vegeta killing without remorse wounded him like a vicious ki blast. That wasn't Vegeta, not anymore. At least he wanted to believe that.