Disclaimer: Cowboy Bebop and its characters and plotlines and such do not belong to me and I claim no ownership. I just enjoy toying with the possibilities.

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Past

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Her eyes opened slowly. The room was dark, there was a dim light spilling from one direction, she noticed, as if from a corridor. There was a glowing effect elsewhere in the room, just enough to make the lit cigarette Spike Spiegel was smoking burn all the more brightly in the room.

He noticed she had woken up. She had just noticed him. Their eyes locked briefly, but Faye couldn't tell anything from his look. She rarely could. She simply began to pick herself up, realizing how heavy her body felt at that moment. She leaned on her hands on one side as she moved herself into a half-sitting position and spoke casually as she tried to remember what had happened and where she was.

"Oh, it's you," she acknowledged Spike, but there was no animosity, merely recognition. "Long time, no see, huh?" she added as she began glancing around the dim room. Bodies with no physical sign of death dotted the area and cables and cords covered much of the floor. A tower of television sets were set off a little ways, and several more were around on the walls and in other smaller piles on the floor.

"Where are we?" Faye finally asked, her vision growing clearer, less fuzzy from that post-sleep effect eyes often picked up for a minute or two before functioning again after a period of time.

Spike, though he had been looking at Faye since she first stirred, seemed to notice she was actually there for the first time. His even pattern of smoking stopped briefly as he glanced down at her. He was sitting on what appeared to be another television set mound. He smirked after a moment and chuckled deeply.

Faye couldn't help herself. Despite her often at odds relationship with Spike, she found herself feeling more comfortable than she had in a while. Spike had a tendency to always look too casual for a situation, which often angered Faye, she couldn't entirely remember this situation, therefore, his casualness was more of a cause to put her at ease than anything else.

Then what had happened drifted back to her. She had pretended to be a member of Scratch to acquire the hefty bounty on their leader. Once alone in their complex, she had managed to find her way to this room, this room full of televisions. They had turned on, she had turned away, but she had fallen asleep before she could take a step towards the exit of the room.

But Spike was fine. Something must've happened. Faye's smile slipped from her face as she realized that something had to have happened, but at least she was awake now.

"What did you do?" she asked him. "What happened?"

Spike had talked to Jet briefly, but hadn't paid close attention to the details of what he was saying. As far as he could tell, some vegetable kid had dreamt up Londes, but Ed and Jet had found the kid and stopped him from projecting the cult leader. Spike wasn't one for eloquence and explained this to Faye easily enough in terms similar to the ones just listed.

"Oh. Huh." And then it was silent for a while. Only the drags on the cigarettes were heard. Faye watched Spike smoke for a little while, mostly watching the flickering light of the cigarette as it dimmed and brightened before she realized just how much she longed for a cigarette.

Unfortunately, her cigarettes hadn't been on her. The weird pajama-like outfit the Scratch followers wore, and Faye had camouflaged herself with, had no pockets in it, and Faye hadn't thought of her cigarettes at the time, just her gun. But it had been hours, certainly, now and she really needed a drag. She looked longingly at Spike's cigarette for a moment before he noticed her gaze. It seemed as if he had been staring off into nothing for a while.

Normally there would be a brief period of banter between the two in which Faye would either whine Spike's ear off for a cig or else she would try and con him out of one, which often ended with Spike just giving one up, or kicking her out to find her own cigarettes. This usually didn't change even when Faye was fresh out. Oftentimes, she'd have to go and sneak some from Jet's pack, or, on occasion, ask him politely and receive. The many different techniques Faye used to get cigarettes from other people could have filled a very long list, but this was not her usual way of getting one.

Spike wasn't sure what exactly compelled him to pull out his cigarette pack and offer a smoke to Faye. In some way, he realized that when he came across her in this place, when she awoke, she looked so much different than she normally did. And when she was sleeping. Gone was the usual make-up overdose and the contortion of emotion in her face, and here was a human being. Maybe it was this sudden compassion towards Faye that compelled him. Maybe this was his way of showing that he recognized her.

Whatever the reason, Faye took the cigarette happily, despite her initial surprise. Spike rummaged in his pocket and pulled out his lighter, flicking it open for Faye's use. Cigarette pursed between her lips, she leaned forward and lit the device, taking a nice, slow drag that filled her lungs in a most soothing manner.

The silence continued for a moment or two, broken only by an uncharacteristic gentle "thank you" from Faye.

Neither was sure if anything should be said, but the silence felt too heavy for Faye to leave it be and even Spike could internally acknowledge that he wish some sort of background noise had been going on, something more than a steady rhythm of inhaling and exhaling. They could have left, leaving seemed to be the best option, really, but neither moved. Faye still felt heavy and tired and Spike had mentally decided that once his cigarette was finished, they'd go. He might feel ready to leave this madhouse by then.

"It was all some kid's dream then?" Faye finally said, as if she had been thinking about it all along. It had been in the back of her mind. She hadn't been thinking of anything too particular, but the whole scenario seemed far too surreal yet. Once she left this building, it might feel properly real, she thought.

"Yeah, just a dream," Spike muttered, more to himself than to Faye. It ran through him, the concept of so much perceived reality being a plain dream fresh in his mind. It was always fresh in his mind. And sometimes it obsessed his mind.

Faye watched Spike, thinking about the way he lived, wondering all the things Spike himself was considering. The way he carried himself and acted as if he didn't care if he lived or died.

"You think it might all be a dream, don't you?" Faye asked, unaware she had spoken it aloud for a moment or two. She hadn't realized how confrontational her voice had sounded either until a very faded echo beat around the walls. Spike glanced over at Faye, unconcerned, and this somehow strengthened Faye's resolve to pursue the topic, though she normally didn't bother talking with Spike about anything deep. But the way it caught Spike - she knew he looked unconcerned, but she also knew Spike well enough to know he was more than he acted – made Faye know she had caught on to something.

"You might wake up one day, the day you finally die in the dream, because a pinch doesn't do it, and you'll be back where you started, but it'll all go differently," Faye continued, but Spike's expression didn't change. Faye's eyes narrowed as she continued, and decided she'd have to provoke him if she wanted to hear anything. She wasn't even sure she wanted to hear anything, but her curiosity was peaked too high now, and the temptation to pursue was too strong. "Maybe you hope you'll wake up instead a couple years back, that Jet and Ed and Ein and I never happened, the Bebop never happened, this whole bounty hunter gig never happened, and you'll be back in whatever that time was you had with Julia."

Faye knew that would catch a reaction, and she was right. Spike never spoke of Julia. Faye knew her purpose for Spike, though, through second-hand information from Jet and Gren. She knew that this Julia was the only thing Spike ever reacted to beyond shallow reaction anymore.

Spike should have suspected Faye had heard of Julia by now. After all this time, it only made sense. It didn't stop him from getting caught off-guard. His cigarette fell to the ground in his surprise and Spike frowned at it after recovering himself from the look of half-fear and half-anger he shot at Faye. The floor was hardly clean and Spike didn't much feel like smoking whatever was left of it, so instead he stood up and stamped out the remaining bit with his shoe tip.

"Let's go," Spike announced, making right on his pledge to leave once he was done with his cigarette. But Faye hadn't moved and she had no intention of moving. She was still dragging on her cigarette, his cigarette really, trying not to look smug, but covering it with genuine curiosity.

Spike sighed. He knew he wasn't going to win whatever sort of game Faye was trying to play. He was tempted to do what he knew infuriated her the most, and shrug off her comment, and speak as casually as he ever did, but she had already seen his guard fall for that second before, and maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't hurt to actually talk to Faye Valentine for once.

"Yeah, I suppose I do believe that," Spike finally admitted, shrugging slightly and considering digging out another cigarette. But then he'd want to finish that one too, and he'd rather keep this exchange short. "Everyone believes in something or other, and I happen to think that there might be a future broader than the one I have in front of me right now. Maybe if you had a past, you might wonder if there was a point where you fell asleep and everything changed for the worse."

He hadn't intended for his words to be harsh, but Faye felt them, sharp as a knife, cut through her. And Faye was much worse than Spike at keeping up her guard. It fell so completely that Faye was sure she felt her lip tremble in pain. Just like she had hit the softest part of Spike by mentioning Julia, Spike had thrown her past, or lack thereof, right in her face. She had complained about not knowing who she was before, but never in a serious manner, as that was unlike Faye. But even that was evidence enough that it was something that hurt her.

Spike seemed to realize what he had said and kicked himself mentally. He had been so frustrated with her game that he had changed the rules and had prodded Faye hard enough to make her bleed. He hadn't intended to do that and really, he felt bad about it.

Leaning towards her a little, he said, "Look, Faye, that just slipped out; I didn't mean to-"

"I don't care what you didn't mean to!" Faye exclaimed, her characteristic anger blowing up at Spike. She had choked down any tears of pain, but her face had reddened noticeably and she was standing up now, so that she could properly jab Spike in the chest with her finger as she yelled at him. "That was low, Spike, low even for you, who doesn't seem to understand human decency, much less practice it. Maybe I don't have a past, but maybe that means something. Maybe looking at you is a message to me, telling me that obsessing over it will not do me any good. The past is past, Spike, but at least I won't die over mine!"

Spike didn't know what to say to that. She was right, though he hated to admit it and didn't plan on admitting it aloud to her. He wasn't sure he deserved this wrath from her, but he honestly didn't care all too much. This was Faye; she'd blow up at him and get over it in a few minutes. She'd simmer on their way back to the Bebop, maybe be rude to him for the rest of the day, but there would be no lasting damage. There never was. There was just Spike and Faye and their odd relationship.

But a fear struck Faye very hard as soon as she had finished speaking. Spike had left to go after Vicious and Julia and all the elements of his past before and would do it again… until he died, or awoke as he believed. This hurt Faye more. Were Jet and Ed and Ein and the Bebop not worth leaving the past behind for? Was she not worth leaving the past behind for? Jet had done it; the perfect opposite and complement to Spike. But that was even stronger an indication that Spike would leave all this for his past.

Would Faye? She hadn't thought about it until this moment. She had never considered regaining her past in this manner, this idea of having to confront it. It frightened her and intrigued her all the same. She didn't want to leave the Bebop, she thought.

For all she complained, it was a home. But if she had a different home, would she give the Bebop up? She liked the Bebop for more than a home. She liked the crew and the lazy business of bounty hunting. It was a life she had grown accustomed to and she found her time aboard the ship to be the best in the past three or four years she could remember.

Spike would give it up, though. And somehow, Faye remembered what Gren had told her, all that time ago, and how thoughts of him made her heart clench in sadness for a good man lost. He had told her that she had left the Bebop, abandoned her crewmates, before they could abandon her. And she realized, with this, that she would give up the Bebop for a different home, if only to be the first to do so, knowing that she couldn't stand if Spike left first.

Faye and Spike stood there, doing almost nothing, for the minute it took for Faye to contemplate all of this. Her cigarette had been habitually smoked, but aside from that, Faye's focus had been internal, on these surfacing thoughts.

Spike watched her as she finally looked up at him. She looked almost… scared. That same look on her face when she'd been sleeping only half an hour or so before. But she also looked like Faye. She had been thinking, he knew, and she had reached her conclusion, whatever it was. Spike just wanted to leave this place, wanted to get back to the Bebop and sleep, get away from all these dreams, and wait for Faye to return to normal.

She had finally realized how attached she had become to Spike. All of the Bebop was important to her in ways she would never admit, but this determination to abandon Spike before she could be abandoned by him, knowing that he would because she wasn't important enough, struck her hard. She staggered physically, and held herself steady against the television set mound Spike had been sitting on before. She was afraid of losing him, and that scared her, that attachment scared Faye, because she didn't want attachment; she didn't want to worry about someone else, but that was all she had done since she joined the Bebop… and it was somehow fulfilling. She had had more purpose. She had been expected to be somewhere by people who might actually count on her. And she had wondered if Spike might live, despite his apparent careless look at death.

Maybe she was still woozy, but something compelled Faye to let her cigarette fall to the floor, forgotten in lieu of something else: throwing herself at Spike was beyond her and she wasn't aware she had even done it until she felt an awkward pair of arms enclose her. It was a hug.

Spike hadn't expected this, especially since it was so unlike Faye to show any real emotion (she was too like him sometimes that it surprised even him), but he found himself not minding her being so real. Maybe it was her synthetic behavior that made Spike think she acted like a prepared actor, like a machine with several different options, but unchanging ones, artificial ones. It was almost relieving to see Faye Valentine show some sort of human emotion. Knowing how alike they sometimes were, it reminded Spike that he was not devoid of feeling either.

He embraced the gesture and let her hug him while he hugged her back; it was tight, but not rib-cracking. Faye didn't feel weaker for the motion, and instead stronger: strong enough to drop her façade for a moment and do what she had wanted to do. And she wanted to be close to Spike.

It lasted for a few minutes. They rocked side to side, slowly, neither speaking, neither making any noise but breathing, forgetting where they were, what this meant, what came next. What was important was embracing what they had right then, right there.

And then it ended, and the warmth of each other faded from Spike and Faye and with a simple look of respect and acknowledgement, and maybe even care, the two bounty hunters left the gloomy room and headed back to the lives they were living… for now.

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I have always maintained that I feel the real Spike/Faye tension is most prominent after Session 20: Pierrot le Fou and Session 23: Brain Scratch, although they are very different tensions, as you may be able to tell from my two very different fics concerning the two situations. Until I wrote this fic, I thought the tentions would be very similar, but considering the location of Brain Scratch and how it takes place right before the last three episodes, those three conclusion episodes of Cowboy Bebop, I realized that anything taking place immediately after Brain Scratch should lead more into Hard Luck Woman and The Real Folk Blues Pts. 1 and 2, and I felt like this did a pretty good job.

Also, I think this hug is more intimate than that lil romp I gave them in my other fic.

Anyways, I hope that you've enjoyed this fic; leave a review to tell me what you thought. I hope I did the characters justice (I still maintain that Spike is a lunkhead to write), and the series proud. Adios, cowboys.