Disclaimer: Yeah, you know the drill. Not mine, lallalalaa, but I own 'this' plotline.

A/N: This is my latest creation. I've been wanting to put this up for a while. This chapter is dedicated to all the readers out there, and particularly to "Funky Nassau" to giving me my inspiration back.


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New Deep

Prologue: Guardian Angel


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You know, I used to be the back porch poet with a book of rhymes

Always open knowing all the time I'm probably
Never gonna find the perfect rhyme
For 'heavier things'


-New Deep

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I was there.

He thought for sure he was alone and the end, that the only woman in the world who loved him abandoned him in her own death. Or maybe he knew all along about the little charade I put up for him- as much as I tried to, I never understood the man. Both the demons and the angels he hid behind his dual color eyes were creatures I glimpsed in sudden spurts that I was never entirely prepared for. He was among the few people who could really throw me off kilter. In the beginning, I hated him for it. In the end, he became addictive.

Something about that explained why I was out there, putting my ass on the line one more time for that green-haired piece of crap.

I knelt down, and despite sensing the fact he needed to be in a hospital as soon as possible, I pulled a smoke out and lit it up. A few seconds one way or the other were never enough to make a difference to the bastard, even with blood pooling around his ankles. Especially with blood pooling around his ankles; it seemed to be a constant status with him. Moving the cigarette to the side of my mouth, words began to leak from my mouth.

"Guess who, Spike," I said, a touch sadly. "I bet you didn't know you had your own personal guardian fucking angel, did you? Asshole," I snarled at him, hands tender as I maneuvered him onto his back. I exhaled slowly, seeing the number of bullets that had cut careful little circles into his shirt. "Fuck you, Spike Spiegel," I whispered. "Make this harder on me, huh?"

Wetness splattered on the back of my hand, the one clutching his sleeve, and suddenly I was reminded of a child trying to wake her parent, asking their deaf ears why they wouldn't wake up. A shaking hand reached up and touched damp cheeks. I muttered a curse, feeling the line of tears increase until they formed two twin rivers that dripped and mingled with the blood below me.

"Shit," I cursed, split between whom to take my show of weakness out on- myself or 'him'.

The sound of sirens approaching jerked my head up and out of the clouds. Pretty soon the cops would be all over this place, labeling it "yet another gross inter-gang fight." How many people would have the slightest clue about the modern day 'Romeo and Juliet' that only just concluded its final act?

We couldn't be here when they arrived.

"Fuck you, Spike Spiegel," I repeated, slinging one of his arms around my small shoulders, and pushed up with my legs, maximizing the muscles I'd developed from bounty hunting and pure exercise. "You and that goddamn angel." The man was impossibly heavy for a woman built like me, even with all the toning I did to maintain my shape. And the sirens were growing closer every second; I felt the first chill at the thought of failure. There was nothing else but to keep half-dragging, half-carrying the unconscious man out of the area.

I gritted my teeth, and ground out, "You're only mortal, you know? I think you forget that when you see her." No need to mention who "she" was. Julia was the unspoken goddess of Spike's life, the point around which it all pivoted. "You saw fucking Heaven, didn't you?" I realized the arm around my shoulder was broken as it popped and crunched sickeningly. Weakness flooded through my limbs as my stomach flipped; gods, but the man could tear himself up.

Talk. Keep moving!  I wanted to cry out, for him, for me, for Julia. I wanted to stop running, from everything. I wanted to sob out all the grief I had ever experienced in this life, the double burden I felt at not having been able to keep him safe. Keep him on the Bebop.

"Heaven," I said, hiccupping slightly, "can't exist on earth. Fucking contradiction, dumbass. It either becomes hell or it flames out." I knew from experience. No one was kind or good in this universe; love and joy came with a price tag.

How much would I have to pay?

The wailing was getting ominously clearer. I could see my ship still sitting in the space I had carved out of the city with my lasers, drawing a crowd. I sighed: lucky me. Witnesses to attest to Faye Valentine's newest crime and latest addition to the already substantial bounty hanging over her neck like the guillotines of old. With regretful ease, I pulled my gun out and leveled it at a couple of young thugs rubbing their admiring hands all over my engine.

"Hi, handsomes," I began, putting up the sultry (although flushed) mask I always put up for the world, "Would you like to put the hood down and get your hands out of my Redtail, or am I gonna have to shoot them off like I'm gonna do for this guy?" Watching their puzzled faces steadily, I flicked by wrist down, leveling the gun's nozzle behind me and pulled the trigger. The jerkoff trying to fiddle with the back guns gave a shriek and ran off, clutching his hand against his chest.

That and the half-dead man hanging across my chest must have impressed them because after a couple of seconds I was in the air, the asshole draped across my lap, shouts of angry coppers hanging in my ears.