Flashback

It had been a year since Majin Buu had reeked havoc on the inhabitants of earth. The population had forgotten, The earth kept spinning – Unaware of the sacrifices made to protect it. Few remained who knew the truth of how close earth came to being extinguished from the galaxy. One of the few, sat outside the gravity room in Capsule Corps backyard. Her hand's gripping on a photo album tightly.

Bulma Briefs hadn't been able to bring herself to open it yet, afraid of the tears that would fall from doing so. She had been strong this last year, pushing her emotions deep down inside herself – To save the other's from seeing her fall apart. She had to be strong for her family.

Her fingers danced over the embossed lettering of the album, tracing each letter carefully. She knew she couldn't put this off any longer, She needed to allow herself to grieve. Breathing deeply, she opened the battered album to the middle, skipping all the earlier photos of her and Goku in their youth. The first photo she was confronted with was one of her holding a baby Trunks, she smiled, turning the pages until she found the one photo she knew she'd been longing to see the entire time. Seeing it again brought all kinds of memories bubbling to the surface, one's she thought she'd forgotten.

The entire group had met up at Goku and Chi Chi's house for Goten's birthday. He was so excited that everyone had made the trek out to the mountains just for him, especially that his best friend Trunks had been able to make it. Once the present's had been opened and the buffet table had been demolished by the hungry Saiyans, Chi Chi pulled out the camera to get some snaps of the festivities.

Bulma was having the time of her life, enjoying the relaxing atmosphere and being able to absorb it for once. There was no urgent work that needed to be done, There was no threat to earth, There was nothing to worry about. It was a rare moment of pure peace and she had the sudden urge to capture it.

“Hey Chi Chi, Let's get some group photos!”, She yelled loudly. She doubted Chi Chi would be able to hear her otherwise, the boys were having far too much fun chasing each other and making a racket.

“That's a great idea!”, Goku interjected, “We don't have any photos of all of us”.

Bulma clapped her hands together in excitement and started trying to round up the members of the group for the photo. Krillin, Tien and 18 were easy enough to convince to take part, but there were two members of the z fighters that would be more difficult. Piccolo and Vegeta.

“Alright Chi Chi, You take Piccolo, I'll take Vegeta”, Bulma whispered to her in passing. Bulma knew that Chi Chi was more than capable of dealing with the difficult Namekian, if anybody could make him do it, it would be her. Vegeta on the other hand, would be a tad more difficult, The Prince of All Saiyans did as he wished, not as he was bid.

She found him leaning against an oak tree, trying his best to ignore the festivities and look as gloomy as possible. Before she could even get the words out of her mouth, she had an answer.

“No”, He stated simply, crossing his arms across his chest and looking her dead in the eyes. Bulma was expecting this reaction, but pouted nonetheless, attempting to cast him her best begging eyes. He shook his head, smiling.

“No woman, That doesn't work on me”, He replied.

Bulma stamped her foot on the ground. She wanted to yell at him to stop being so stubborn, but what did she really expect from him? She knew who he was and asking him to do something like this was akin to asking him to wear a pink dress in his mind. It was all equally embarrassing to him. He was a warrior, warriors didn't pose for pictures. Despite knowing this, Bulma pressed on.

“Come on Vegeta, Don't be a killjoy!”, She whined.

“I'm not posing for some ridiculous memento”, He responded.

She needed to try a different approach if she was going to get him to do what she wanted. Vegeta saw the wheels in her mind ticking and became suspicious.

“Woman, no plan of your's will work. I will not be tricked into such feeble human customs”, He stated firmly.

Bulma battered her eyelashes, giving him a smirk and moving to kiss his cheek.

“I'll make it up to you later...”, She whispered. She knew he was giving in, no man could resist Bulma Briefs and her charm. She always got what she wanted in the end. Vegeta rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Fine woman, This dinner of your's better be good”, He grumbled, walking off towards the group.

Bulma stood in shock, looking after her naive husband. Dinner? He thought she was talking about bloody dinner!? Bulma couldn't cook, hell she'd burn Capsule Corp to the ground if she even attempted it.

Heading back over to the group, she jumped in place just in time for Chi Chi to set the camera on a timer. Everyone took their places as the camera flashed, etching the moment in time, The moment when all of them were finally together and happy, for the most part.

As soon as the picture was taken, Vegeta stalked off, back towards his tree. Chi Chi approached Bulma.

“How'd you get him to come for the photo?”, She asked. Bulma looked at her friend's wife with a comical expression.

“I told him I'd make it up to him later”, Bulma whispered. Chi Chi giggled, knowing exactly what Bulma had meant.

“Oh, I suppose he thinks you're making dinner then?”, She replied, still giggling. Bulma nodded.

“Ah, Saiyan men always think about food before anything else”, Chi Chi concluded.

The memories hurt, knowing that so many of the people in this photo had died trying to save the earth burned her soul. None of their names would mean anything to those walking on the streets or fluttering about their daily lives. Nothing. They were truly nothing to them. But to her they were everything.

She allowed herself to cry, for the first time in a year. The tears fell on the picture but it didn't matter. Bulma had finally let go of the grief that had been consuming her. The dragon had fixed almost everything that needed to be fixed, thing's were back to normal now. The grief needed to come before this chapter of her life could finally be closed.

She remained crying next to the gravity room, for an hour or two, before she was startled by a visitor.

“Woman, What's got you so upset?”, Vegeta questioned.

Bulma smiled up at her husband, shutting the photo album and standing.

“Nothing, Just getting over what happened last year, I never grieved for any of you”, She answered.

Vegeta crossed his arms and rolled his eyes.

“I will never under your human emotions, Everything is back to normal now, Put it behind you. You have more important things to think about now”, He stated. Bulma lifted an eyebrow. Had she forgotten something important today?

“Like what?”

Vegeta smirked, “Like Dinner”, He grabbed the photo album out of her hands and flicked to the photo she had been looking at before.

“You know, this is a horrible picture of me”.