(A/N: This is a little project I decided to start because I love Cowboy Bebop. It includes a bunch of fairly short stories based within the series in which the Bebop crew goes through they're little shenanigans. We'll be starting off with one I've titled "Sweet Child O' Mine" and below is the first part. Hope you enjoy.)
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Cowboy Bebop: The Lost Sessions
(Disclaimer: Cowboy Bebop is property of Shinichiro Watanabe and Sunrise.)
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Sweet Child O' Mine: Part 1
"Come back here, you!" Spike growled, leaping over a fruit cart, sending oranges pouring into the streets, much to the peddler's dismay. Spike ignored the stream of curse words being shouted from behind him. The man had probably already been irritated since the prey had shoved him rather hard in his desperation to escape.
The man looked back, seeing that the long-limbed cowboy was only a few feet behind, and turned a corner. "Boss! Boss!" He cried, and as Spike also turned the corner, he had to quickly duck in an alley to avoid being turned into Swiss cheese by the gunfire being fired in his direction. He climbed up the fire-escape of the building and onto the roof where he began firing his own bullets back at them.
Typical. Mobsters never worked alone… but this was good news, definitely. If he brought in all of them, they would be rolling in Woolongs… and they could have bell peppers and beef for dinner… with beef!
He had to get them. He had to do it.
Do it for the beef! He thought, mouth watering.
Coming down from the roof on the opposite side of the building he leaped onto one of the bosses, attacking them like some ravenous animal, hands and feet swinging wildly yet gracefully through the air. They all seemed a little surprised that a man as gangly as he could achieve such amazing movements.
Everyone was a swirl of faces and colors as Spike whirled around, nailing the one he had been chasing in the jaw with his foot. The man spit out blood and a couple of teeth.
"Retreat!" One of them yelled, and they all took off in a messy chase. Spike was only behind by a few seconds or so, falling just a little bit further behind as they threw their belongings at thim.
He heard a young voice yell out, "NO!" from the group, but he wasn't concerned with what they might throw at him next. There would be beef in his dinner tonight, damn it.
And then he saw… that couldn't have been what he thought it was, right?
Well, whether it was or wasn't, he was tripping over it before he had the chance to find out, rolling over the sidewalk, all limbs, like a deer that had just been struck by a vehicle.
When he managed to stop stumbling around like an idiot, he found the most horrible thing had happened.
They had gotten away.
"WAAAH!"
He raised an eyebrow, turning his head.
Strike that. Now, the most horrible thing had just happened.
He had tripped over a baby. They had thrown a baby on the ground. It was too much to take in all at once, so he just stared at the crying child for a few minutes. The kid couldn't have been more than a year and a half… though Spike couldn't really guess age by looking at kids. He hung out with them so seldom, after all.
Finally registering that the child was in fact real and not some illusion, he crawled over to it, eyeing it as if it was a bomb about to go off.
The baby was surprisingly uninjured. Lucky kid… well, as lucky as a kid that had been thrown on the ground by mobsters could be.
The child's crying subsided, and now it was staring at him the same way he was staring at it.
"Uh…" Spike said.
"Wuh…" The baby replied, blinking it's large green eyes at him. There was a small mass of ringlets of blonde hair on top of its head, and it was wearing green striped romper.
Spike looked around, looking to see if maybe it's mother was around. No one. Not even a dog.
He lifted the child up by reaching under it's arms. It was a little creepy the way it was staring at him like that…
"Where's your mom?" He asked awkwardly.
"Muh."
Apparently, it was a stupid question.
"Spike, Spike, come in. Where the hell are you?" A rather annoyed female voice hollered through his two-way. "Spike!"
He groaned, snagging the two-way from his belt, while leaning the kid against his neck. "I'm here, Faye," He grumbled.
"Did you catch him?"
"No, I didn't."
"Well, where did he go?"
"I don't know," He complained. "He and his buddies tripped me and ran off."
"Tripped you? So graceful of you, Spike," Faye mocked. He could practically hear her smirking. "I though you were some sort of Kung Fu expert or something."
Spike tightened his jaw. "Well, I--"
Faye leaned back from her two-way as she heard Spike suddenly start shouting, "HEY! SHIT! YOU HURLED ON MY JACKET!"
"Huh?" Faye blinked.
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"Wow! It's a ba-a-a-aby!" Edward exclaimed as soon as Faye and Spike had returned to the Bebop. "Sooo cute!"
"Yeah, whatever," Spike said flatly.
"Is it yours?" Ed asked, smiling brightly.
"NO!" He shouted, as if it was the most appalling thing she could accuse him of.
It was then that Jet entered, hearing Spike's shouting and Edward's high-pitched giggling. The old ex-cop's eyes weren't too old to immediately take notice of their new little "guest."
"What the hell?" He exclaimed, eyes wide. "Wh… what… Where did… I… you…"
Spike turned his two-tone eyes towards Jet. "The bounty got away, but left this behind." He held it out to Jet, so that the kid could stare at someone else for a few seconds.
"He… left a baby?" Jet asked, at a loss.
"Yeah, he and his little buddies pretty much threw it at me. I didn't really know what to do with it, so I brought it back here. Figured you could do something." He plopped the baby into Jet's hands. "Stupid kid heaved on my jacket. I hate kids."
"That horrible jacket looks better with vomit on it," Faye told him.
Spike made a noise at the back of his throat, but didn't let the irritation pour out from his lips. "So, what do we do with it?" He asked.
"We'll search missing persons," Jet told them, nodding to Edward who cart-wheeled her way over to the computer to search the database. "Maybe they kidnapped it."
"Searching, load bar, people are far, far, away today," Edward sang as she typed. "Blonde hair, green eyes, lost baby anybody?"
Faye took a seat on the couch, crossing her legs. "It's a miracle you didn't crush that kid with your enormous feet, Spike."
"I'm just surprised you didn't eat it before we got back to the ship," Spike responded bitterly.
"BOOM!" Edward exclaimed. "All failed! No match! No match! Oh, no one knows you're missing!"
"WHAT?!" They all cried.
"That's impossible!" Spike yelled.
"Now, hold on now," Jet told them, calming them a bit. "Maybe it hasn't been missing for 24 hours. It has to be missing for 24 hours before they'll put it in the database."
"So, what do we do?" Spike asked.
"You don't think that those mobster guys killed its mom, do you?"
"Well, we can either wait and see what comes up in missing persons, or…" Jet started.
"We can go after those guys and ask them where he belongs," Faye replied.
"Either way, that's gonna take some time," Spike mentioned.
"Time is an illusion! Lunchtime doubly so!" Edward shouted, falling off the table. They heard Ein yelp from where she'd landed on him.
"So, what, we're stuck with it?" Faye asked.
"It' seems that's the case, yes," Jet nodded, holding the child up so that he could get a better look at it. It was a pretty little child, definitely. That cherubic face would melt the hearts of any woman… well, any woman except for Faye "the Vulture" Valentine.
Spike groaned. "What? But we've already got Ed on the ship, and she's a handful on her own!"
"Edward is present! Edward loves presents!" Edward cheered, popping up from her spot on the floor.
"Why don't we just drop it off somewhere and leave it to someone else?" Faye said flatly. "None of us are qualified to raise some baby. Just hand it over to an orphanage or a church or something. They take babies, right?"
"This kid might still have a family out there!" Jet growled. "We can't just leave it in the hands of the government! Do you know how badly orphans are treated?"
"Living with nuns are worse," Spike replied, already slouched back on the couch, picking dirt out of his nails with a toothpick.
"Who cares? It's not like it's our kid," Faye said stubbornly, crossing her arms to try and finalize her point.
"I can't believe a woman could be so heartless," Jet hissed.
"I can," Spike added in his two cents.
"Anyway," Jet cut back in after being interrupted, "I'm not going to do that. I'll get it back to its parents, safe and sound."
"Awwww," Spike and Faye both groaned.
"C'mon, Jet, we can't keep it here," Spike said. "Kids cost way too much money."
"Yeah, and all they do is complain all the time," Faye added in.
Jet looked the two of them over for a moment. "Expensive? Whiny? Sounds a lot like a couple of shipmates I know."
Spike and Faye glanced at each other and then back at Jet.
Ed leaped onto the table. "Ed thinks it's a fun idea, Jet person! Edward always wanted a sibling!"
"We're not a family," Spike complained.
"Jet person can be Papa! Jet Papa, is the baby a lass or a laddie?" Edward asked.
"Huh… I wonder," Jet mumbled. "I guess we'll just have to check."
"Well, this is a fun turn of events," Spike said sarcastically.
"You're the one who brought it here."
"It's a boy! Congratulations!" Edward exclaimed, making a lap around the room. "Edward will call you Pippi! Pippi, Pippi!"
Spike sighed. "Well… I'm sure we'll find the parents. Parents like kids, so they'll want it back, right?"
"Did your parents like you?" Faye asked.
"Not particularly."
"Let's hope it doesn't have parents like yours."
"For once I agree with you."