He seemed unconscious. He lay on his back; arms lying limp at his sides. The pool of crimson red had collected all around him.

Bulma and I both had a moment where we froze, unable to will ourselves to do anything.

A second or two later, Bulma snapped out of it. “Lift him onto the bed.”

I did as she commanded, still in shock.

The first thing she did was take off his pants.

I couldn’t bring myself to look, but she said there was an extra opening. She assumed it was where the babies would come out.

There was blood everywhere. And it was hot, it seemed. My face was covered with sweat, my palms sliding against each other freely.

Bulma did a third ultrasound, going back on her word that she would not do another.

As she counted the hearts, I held my breath. If the hearts were not pulsing, then that meant they were dead.

The thought of it was unbearable.

“I see three.” She said eventually in a distant tone of voice.

“Three?” I was confused. “You said four before.”

She shook her head. “There are only three now.”

It took a moment for this news to sink in. There were four… and now there are three…

Vegeta awoke minutes later with a start. “What happened?”

My head was in my hands as I sat in the very chair I had when I had received the news of the initial four. “There are three.” I said solemnly.

“What are three?” He was avoiding the answer. He knew what I was talking about, but he did not want to accept it.

“We lost one.” I told him.

He stared at me in disbelieve. He demanded to see the pictures.

Bulma turned the screen to him. There were indeed three beating hearts. The one that had been resting under his own heart beat no more.

With a shaky hand, he pointed to each one, counting. He counted four times before he would even bring himself to say it.

“It’s dead?” He asked.

Bulma nodded. “I’m sorry Vegeta.”

“Can you bring it back?” he asked, aware that his request was impossible, but unable to stop himself from asking.

“No, I’m sorry.” She said again. “There’s nothing I can do.”

He still did not want to believe her. “How can this happen? I’m older now; this can’t happen now.”

“Vegeta,” I said gently. “It’s gone.”

He shook his head. “It’s not ‘gone’, Kakorot.”

I stood up to hold him. “It is gone.”

“It’s not gone.” He insisted, allowing me to hug him.

I rested my chin on his head, tears falling from my eyes.

He was so sure that it was not gone. He was so sure that Bulma and I were deceiving him.

At the start of all this, he had not wanted to keep them; he had wanted to terminate them himself. But now, he was unable to even fathom that one of them had died before it even had a chance to live.

Before now, the thought of creating a baby had seemed unreal, like some kind of elaborate dream. But now that one was dead, I realized this was life. There was life inside him, which we had created together. They had lived, and eventually, they all would die; but they were life.

I broke down into a series of sobs. Vegeta stared blankly ahead of him, unmoved.

Bulma organized surgery to remove the lost infant. It had been a boy, as the doctors had told me.

I named it Urain, which meant ‘From Heaven’.

Vegeta seemed to have sunken into a deep depression. He had not left the bed since the surgery.

I had to force feed him on most days, and put supplements in his food so he would get all the nurturance he needed.

I sat next to the bed, trying to think of a way to get him to get up.

He lay on his side with the blanket pulled over his head. “I don’t want them anymore.” He said after a long while of silence.

I didn’t respond at first. “You don’t want them?”

“I don’t want to have these children, Kakorot. I don’t want to do anything ever again.”

“Vegeta, you don’t mean that.”

“Yes I do. I just want to lay here until I die.”

“You don’t mean that either. You don’t want to die.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you want these children just as much as I do. Don’t you want to see them grow up? Don’t you want to teach them everything they need to know about life? Don’t you want to see them get married and start their own families?”

He did not answer.

“Don’t you want to be a family?”

He pulled the cover off his head. His eyes were swollen from crying. “I don’t want to feel like this anymore.”

My heart broke for him, but there was little else I could do.

I left the room, deciding to seek outside help.

I could not think of anyone besides Bulma that could help. I didn’t really want to ask my lover’s soon-to-be ex-wife for more help, but I had no other option it seemed. I did not want him to die, by his own hand or otherwise.

I found her at home, which was odd. She was hardly ever at home, from what I knew. She seemed to be busying herself with work, trying to block everything out.

I got in with little effort, only having to jiggle the handle of the door and it opened. (After it broke off and fell to the floor. I guess I don’t know my own strength.)

When I entered the living room, she jumped, standing up quickly.

Puzzled, I stared at her for a long while. Then I realized what was wrong.

“You’re pregnant?”

There was a long pause. She seemed like she did not want to answer, but had no choice. “Yes.”

“How far along?”

“Three months.”

So that would mean that both of them got pregnant at the same time. She had always talked to Chi-Chi about having another baby, and that she might just ‘accidentally’ get pregnant behind Vegeta’s back; but she always said it jokingly. That must have been what she wanted to talk to him about during rut season when she couldn’t find him.

I had to sit down. I felt like I was going to vomit. I needed to take everything in.

She was pregnant. Vegeta was pregnant. That would equal four babies. But that would mean that one family would have to suffer.

“It’s a girl.” She told me, trying to snap me out of my haze.

I didn’t care what it was. I hated it before it was even born. It was going to complicate things.

When she saw I was not going to answer, she became her typical defensive self. “I was pregnant first.”

I wondered what she was getting at. Was she trying to point out ‘first come, first serve’? … No pun intended.

I didn’t want to get into an argument, so I let the subject drop to the back of my mind, where it could eat at me for the next few months.

“Vegeta’s depressed.”

She gave me an unsympathetic look. “He’s always something.”

“But this time it’s not because he’s in a bad mood. He won’t come out of bed, and he won’t eat unless I make him.”

Her expression changed when she heard he wasn’t eating. We both knew it was because of loosing Urain, but we did not know how to help him.

“Around when Trunks was little, I used to put mood medication in his food.” She announced. “The medicine worked for a while. His mood swings were a lot easier on him, and he didn’t get upset over everything.”

I told her I didn’t want to deceive him. Anything that I did, I wanted him to know exactly what I was doing and why.

As she thought, she fingered her stomach absently. I didn’t point out to her that Vegeta did the same thing.

She sighed. “I don’t know what else to tell you. Unless he comes here and lets me look at him, there is nothing I can do. Just make sure he eats enough, and don’t leave him alone for a long time.”

She didn’t seem all that worried about him. She told me all this like it was normal every-day advice.

“And Goku,” She said before I had the change to leave, “Please don’t tell Vegeta. I don’t want him to worry.”

I didn’t see a reason for Vegeta to worry about her, but I promised her I would not tell him anyway.

I realized that I should get back to Vegeta. He was probably wondering where I was anyway.

Another month came and went.

Vegeta did get over his depression, but only to a point where he would get out of bed and eat.

We didn’t talk much anymore. He seemed too distant to talk to about even little things.

I longed to snap him out of this rut he was in, but I didn’t know how. He was like an emotional time bomb, just waiting for something that would send him into oblivion.

His detachment began to takes its toll on me. I began to wonder if I really wanted to spend the rest of my life with this man. He had been my rival at one point. I began to question if he wanted to spend his life with me. Then I wanted to know what it was about me that made him separate himself from me like this.

Eventually, I could not deal with these thoughts anymore. I needed to force him to talk to me.

“Vegeta,” I said firmly, getting his attention.

“What?” He asked softly, almost like he had no energy.

“We need to talk.”

His concentration began to dwindle. “I don’t want to talk.”

I sat next to him on the couch. “I don’t care what you want. You’ve been like this for a month now. I understand that you’re upset, but you can’t live like this for the rest of your life. You need to get over this before you do something to hurt us all.” By ‘us all’ I specifically meant out unborn children.

He gave me a blank look. I began to wonder if he had heard me. I was prepared to repeat myself, but he started talking. “Do you want to leave?”

This question puzzled me. “Leave?”

“Do you want to father these children?”

I hesitated, but only because I didn’t understand why he was asking me this. “Yes; I am their father.”

He nodded, as if to agree that this was true, but nothing more than that. “You don’t want to leave?”

I shook my head. “Of course not. I want to be their father.” I repeated.

His head cocked to the left, eyes wide and completely dead. “Will you father them because you want to, or will you father them because you feel obligated to?”

This question struck a nerve. “...because I… I want to…” I shook my head. He had gained control over the conversation. “Vegeta, I love you. I need to know that you love me too.”

His head straightened. He didn’t seem to think hard before he answered. “I don’t know what love is.”

I sighed. He was being difficult. “Can’t you just give me a straight answer?”

He took a second more before he answered. “Yes.”

I was not convinced, but I could do nothing more to make him prove it. “So if you love me, then why are you pushing me away?”

There was a long moment of silence. He looked away from me after a few moments, trying to recollect his thoughts.

“I don’t know.” He said, eyes darting back to mine. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know…?”

His thumb and middle finger came to rub at his eyes. “I don’t understand half the things I do. I don’t know why I can’t allow you to get to close. I don’t know why I’m in a bad mood all the time. I don’t know why I can’t get over this guilt that’s plagued me for so long. I don’t know why I can’t just let go. I don’t know why I can’t just let things be as they are; or why I need an answer to everything. I just don’t know.” His hand had long since dropped form his face. His eyes were shiny with tears.

His answer surprised me. I felt so lost. All this time I had been mad at him for not getting back on track, and in reality, he had been conflicted with much deeper issues than I originally thought.

“I don’t want you to leave.” He blurted. “But I don’t want to keep you here.”

I cupped his face. “I’m not going to leave, Vegeta.”

He allowed his tears to fall without tending to them, letting them pool in my hand.

“You’re going to have to trust me when I say I won’t leave you.” I kissed him gently, my hand dropping for his face.

His fingers laced with my own, my other hand sweeping against the curve of his abdomen.

All of a sudden I felt something pound against my palm.

The kiss broke soon after, confusion all over my face. “What was that?”

“Kicking.” He answered simply. He pulled up his shirt half-way.

Tiny hands and feet could be clearly seen pressing against his stomach. They were so odd to watch; so alien to anything I’d ever seen.

He put his shirt back down and grabbed me back into a passionate kiss.

I was aware that he was not interest in sex that night. Neither was I, so it worked out perfectly.

I was content with just lying next to him; smelling his hair and feeling the movement within him. We both knew that it would not be long now.