Mirai Bulma sat on the edge of the roof with her long legs dangling out into the black night, swinging them back and forth in time with the wind. It didn’t seem as dangerous up here as she thought it might. The lighting was so high above her head that it seemed as if it were in another world completely, and the thunder didn’t seem to shake the earth with as much power as it did when she had been on the ground. The rain though, continued to fall in sheets, and she had long since been drenched. Her hair, which had been curled and styled earlier, was laying flat against her back and shoulders. The rain had soaked through it entirely, just as if she had dunked her head in water. Her clothing was soaked as well, but it didn’t bother her at all. Years and years ago, she might have balked at the rain, but she had seen too many things in life now to be concerned about a little bit of wetness. It was actually soothing in a way; she liked the feeling of the cool drops on her skin. It made her feel alive, and at the moment, that was something that she needed badly.

She didn’t cry, didn’t even let her eyes water --- she just bent her head back and let the rain fall on her face.

She had been through too much already to let herself cry over something like this. Her and Vejiita had a fight, so what? Over the course of just a few years, she had seen more death and horror than most people would see in two lifetimes. She had seen her city, her home, her life, crushed within just a matter of minutes. That night, when the moon came out and lit up the destroyed world before her, she had sobbed harder than she had ever cried before. She had thought that that was the limit; that nothing else could possibly happen to her. But she was wrong. Almost everyone that she had ever loved had been taken away from her --- slaughtered mercilessly. She had cried then, and she had a right to cry. It had been horrible. During those years, life was simply unbearable, unthinkable. It had all but killed her; it had certainly sobered her and made her grow up. This was nothing. This was absolutely nothing.

It was just one more cut, just one more insult. Just one more slap of pain to make her life complete. What would she be without suffering? How would she know how to live without living with depression and loneliness? Without that, she had nothing. She had lived so long in the bleak future world that she scarcely even recognized happiness and contentment anymore. Those things just simply didn’t exist in the future world --- not a deep, personal level anyway. Sure, she and ChiChi would go out and have fun together, but it never went more than the first layer of her heart --- the shallow, for-the-moment need to smile and laugh. The part of her that lay beneath that basic shallow need was much more complicated. There was nothing that could bring happiness to those shadows of her life. The damage had already been done. The sadness that lived in her heart would never die and would never be healed. It was simply a part of her; the most intrinsic, stable part of her. Without the pain, she was completely empty. Completely dead.

If Vejiita had lived, maybe that unhappiness wouldn’t have had a chance to grow, to take over her soul. If her world had been different and the jinzouningen hadn’t destroyed everything that she knew, then maybe she would be able to accept happiness. But he was dead, and the future world had died as well. There were no second chances --- she couldn’t go back and change things. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life wondering what it would have been like, or what kind of person she would have been. It wasn’t reasonable, it wasn’t healthy, and it wasn’t even possible.

She could stare at pictures of the Bulma of this world and listen to their stories, but it just wasn’t the same. She couldn’t connect her heart and her life with this Bulma. They were two totally different people. They might have looked similar: shiny turquoise hair, smooth skin, deep blue eyes….But inside, they were too very different people. The other Bulma didn’t have to live through the pain and suffering that she had gone through. The other Bulma didn’t know what it was like to lose the love of her life and raise their son on her own --- knowing all the while that that son would be the world’s only hope for deliverance from the jinzouningen. The other Bulma didn’t know anything about suffering.

Bitterly, she snarled up at the dark, stormy sky, and tasted the rain in her mouth. She didn’t know why she insisted on comparing herself to this other Bulma --- trying to be like her, to be as good as her. She had nothing to prove. She didn’t need to be constantly trying to show the world that she was better. As far as she was concerned, she was good enough as it was. She had lived through a lifetime of torture and pain, and come out of it all as a stronger person. Lately she had seemed a bit insecure, but that really wasn’t the person that she was inside. The only reason she had been insecure was because she kept thinking about the other Bulma. It just hadn’t been logical. It didn’t matter if the other Bulma was prettier, or smarter. It didn’t even matter that the other Bulma had everything she had ever wanted. They were two separate people with two separate lives.

She looked down at her hands, and brushed away the small pool of rain that had been gathering in her palm. It made it easier for her to think of the other Bulma as just another person; just someone that she had never met and never had any connection to. That meant that her undeniable attraction to Vejiita was normal --- even expected. When she looked at him, she wasn’t actually seeing her dead husband, she was simply seeing someone that was similar to him. It wasn’t so wrong that way; it wasn’t such a horrible crime to be attracted to a man that looked exactly like the husband that she had lost. It meant that the two of them weren’t held back by circumstances and timeline boundaries. They were free to act on whatever impulses were waiting in their hearts.

But, she thought hesitantly, do I feel any attraction from him? Is it possible that he might view me in this same light --- as a completely different woman from his wife? If so, then that means that we might be able to start over. We might be able to have a second chance after all.

Certainly, she had felt a little bit of tension between the two of them. She could tell that when he looked at her, he enjoyed what he saw. Her body might not be as supple and smooth as it used to be, but she still had a nice figure. She knew that she was a beautiful woman --- even her in old age. It wasn’t what Vejiita was used to now, but it was still good enough to catch his glance. If she really wanted to make him hers again, she knew that she had the power to do it. It was sickening for her to think about it, but it would be easy to take advantage of his position as a widower. His wife had just died. The Saiya-jin prince was lonely and confused, and it made him a perfect target for manipulation. She knew that if she tried hard enough, she could have him again.

But she didn’t want it to be that way. She didn’t want him to fall for her because she looked exactly like the wife that he had lost; she didn’t want him to love her because he was lonely and needed someone to fill the gap. If she was going to have Vejiita in her life again, she wanted it to be because he loved her. Because he was attracted to her. Not because he saw a glimmer of his dead wife somewhere in her eyes. If they were going to be together again, she wanted it to be real. She wanted it to feel every bit as real as it had so many years ago, when they first fell for each other.

Vejiita waited in the shadows that the rain and the darkness had provided, standing tall and unmoving as the rain continued to fall down on him. She had gone up to the roof; part of him had already known that she was headed in that direction. He had followed her anyway, not even knowing why, and now he was beginning to regret his decision. He was completely soaked; every single part of his body was uncomfortably wet, including all of the parts that he didn’t even think the rain would be able to reach. Still, he stood his ground and watched her with unblinking eyes, not even caring when the water began to drip down his eyebrows and blur his vision. He could not see her clearly through the sheets of rain the thickening darkness, but with every flash of lightning, he was rewarded with a quick glimpse of her.

The most basic male part of him immediately noticed the way that the wet material of her shirt clung to her skin, and the fact that she was arching her back up to press her face up towards the sky, up towards the rain. It was so familiar, so achingly familiar to the night so long ago that he and Bulma first kissed. So familiar in fact, that it was hard for him to separate the two different women, and a very large part of him wanted to rush forward and roughly take her in his arms again. They had been up on the roof, exactly like this, with a storm exactly like this raging in the background. He remembered how good it had felt to finally be able to touch her; to finally be able to run his hands along that smooth skin that he had admired. She had been softer than he imagined, and surprisingly --- much more agreeable as well. She hadn’t pushed him away and rejected him, hadn’t looked disgusted when he stepped forward to brush the wet hair out of her eyes.

She had accepted him, and with one simple gesture of taking his hand and holding it in hers, she ended an entire lifetime of bitterness and anger. Right there on that rooftop, she had managed to turn the key slightly on the lock that caged his soul.

The very weakest part inside of him thought that he might never be completely whole again unless he had her. That weakest part quaked at the sight of Mirai Bulma sitting there, looking so much like the woman that he had been his mate. He wanted to feel what he had felt with her again; wanted his soul to feel as though it had been released and yet, still held tightly at the same time. Bulma had made him feel that way; she had been the only one to ever make him feel that way. At the time, he had thought that he didn’t need that --- he thought that those feelings in his heart for her with nothing but a sign of weakness, and something that needed to be ignored and pushed away. But now that she was gone, he was beginning to realize those feelings had been the best source of strength and power that he had ever stumbled upon.

But he would keep all of these things to himself, of course. He may have changed over the years, but he would never be able to admit something like that. Bulma might have been his mate, but it just wasn’t necessary for her to know how deep his feelings for her ran, or how strong they were.

That didn’t mean that he was able to survive without them, though. These past few months had proven that without Bulma, he wasn’t quite sure how to act or what to do. It wasn’t just the fact that he had been left with two brats that he had no clue how to raise, and an empty bed, it was just that fact that he missed her. He tried to make it seem as though he just didn’t want to deal with it all; as if he were the tough Saiya-jin warrior who didn’t want to be bothered with trivial things such as family. But the truth was, he didn’t mind his family at all….He just wished that she was there to be a part of it.

He missed her so badly that he wasn’t even thinking straight. He missed her so badly that when another flash of lightning came, and he saw Mirai Bulma sitting there on the ledge of the roof, he couldn’t help himself from stepping forward. He couldn’t stop himself from walking towards her, couldn’t make his heart stop beating so hard in his chest. All he knew was that there was an empty space inside of him that would never be filled unless he had Bulma in his arms again.

In an effort to keep her mind off of Vejiita, Mirai Bulma concentrated on her work. As she stared up at the rain, closing her eyes to feel the drops caress her skin, she thought about the jinzouningen. The surgery had been scheduled to happen in two days; she had called in one of the best surgeons in all of East Capitol City to assist her in the operation. She had left out most of the details about the situation, but she knew that this doctor could be trusted. Hopefully, by the time the surgery was over, all traces of Dr. Gero’s experimentation would be out of the jinzouningen’s bodies. On the very deepest level, they would be whole again; they would be human again. From that point on, they would just need to heal and get rest. And when they finally recuperated from the operation, they would be just as healthy and normal as any other living being.

There was a lot of pressure riding on her, though. She had to complete all of her research before the surgery date, and she would have to make sure that all of her information was solidly correct. There was absolutely no room for error on this mission --- none whatsoever. She wasn’t just playing around with some new Capsule Corporation gadget or experimenting with a new invention, she was holding the lives of two beings in her hands. And the jinzouningen were not her only concern --- she had their family to deal with as well. There was no doubt in her mind that Kuririn would be back. He would want to stay with his wife and make sure that she was safe. And that meant that Mirai Bulma had Kuririn’s heart in her hands as well.

If something happened --- if anything went wrong, it would all be her fault.

She still had her eyes closed, breathing deep and forcing her body to relax, when she heard the sound. She had been listening to the rhythm of the rain the entire time, concentrating on the patterns of drops and rumbles of thunder; it had all fallen into a consistent melody, never stopping or slowing, always moving and flowing and falling. But the sound that she heard was not a part of the melody that had been tracing its way back and forth in her mind. This sound was quieter, more erratic, more human. Her eyes snapped open. Footsteps.

She already knew who was standing behind her. She didn’t even need to turn around. She could feel Vejiita’s presence just as clearly as she could feel the rain on her skin. Immediately, she was struck by a strong sense of familiarity and love; a love that had been dead for so long that she had almost forgotten it existed. It had happened this way before. She had been here on this roof, and he had come up behind her quietly, seeming to appear out of the rain like a ghost. And it was the exact same way now.

She turned to see him as he stepped through the sheet of rain and stared at her with dark, intense eyes, his arms already crossed over his chest. In the darkness of the night and the storm, he was shadowy and handsome, and so familiar that it brought tears to her eyes. He looked so much like the man that she had fallen in love with so long ago, so much like her dead husband, that she could scarcely even breathe. Vejiita, this moment, everything. It was almost like she had been transported back in time, back to the exact moment when she knew that she loved him; the moment when she knew that he was what she had been waiting for all of her life. As if he were pulling on an invisible rope, he slowly drew her towards him. Without even knowing why, she pushed herself up and stood facing him, taking a moment to brush the long, soaking strands of turquoise away from her face.

She stared, not even daring to breathe, as he approached her through the rain.

When he was so close to her that she could see the flecks of light in his eye, and smell the rain on his skin, he stopped walking. They stared at each other for a very long time, and somehow in Bulma’s heart, she knew that they were both staring at the ghosts from their pasts. A feeling of love ran through her just as deep and clear as it had always been before, but it wasn’t real. None of it felt real. It was just like the memory that had played itself over and over in her mind a thousand times before, but it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like the love that she remembered. It didn’t feel like anything at all.

Still, she waited for the kiss. They were so close that she could practically taste already, and her skin tingled with the anticipation of his touch. She had been longing to feel it for so long, had been waiting and hoping to feel this way once again. The stronger part of her knew that it wasn’t right --- knew that she was only fooling herself. But the larger part of her, the one that needed Vejiita more than anything else in life, simply ached for him to hold her. As the rain continued to fall down around them, she became aware of the fact that her heart had begun to beat in time with it. The melody of the storm that she had found earlier now including the raging of emotion within her own heart and soul.