Author's Note:
Nope, don't own Bebop. Don't hate Microsoft either, they were just convenient for this. If I understand Bebop's mythology correctly, Faye's supposed to go into cryogenic suspension in the very near future, so I wanted to use a company that's likely to still be around then and still have as much, or more, power over the tech industry as it has right now. Remember, it's all in fun :)

// \\

Faye sat at the end of the bar. Once again, she'd had it with Spike and Jet and Ed and Ein and the somewhat inadvertent circus that was life on Bebop. This bar on may have been famous for watering down its drinks, but it was also considered "hip" by travelers. That meant cowboys weren't exactly welcome and this would be the last place they'd come looking for her. It wasn't that she didn't want Spike to come looking for her, it was more that she didn't want him to find her just yet.

She stared into the drink she'd been nursing for the past few hours. The barkeep had long since given up trying to get small talk and more drink sales out of her. That was fine by her. Despite the din around her, if she wanted excitement, she'd be at a casino. Or racetrack. This trip was to think. At this particular moment, she was pondering her past and grasping to recall who she used to be before she awoke in that hospital.

// \\

As he stepped inside the doorway, he inwardly sighed. Truth be told, he hated this place. It was bright, noisy and, worst of all, trendy. It wasn't all bad, he told himself. Despite many hangers-on, he did indeed have a few good friends who often came here. He could count the barkeeper here among those good friends. He had to smile there. That was a bit complex, isn't it? Being younger than your great nephew. Of course, the apparent trendiness of cryogenics in the late twentieth century meant that there were many cases of that going around. But, with both blood and friendship between them, he always got better drinks than anyone else in the place. On the other hand, he was one of the few currently in the bar that knew what the word "modera-"

Impossible. His brain stopped mid-thought, and mid-step as he was looking around the room. Impossible. What he was seeing before him simply was not possible. There were two things that he was sure of concerning his past. The first was why he had been put into suspended animation in the first place. The second one, well, he had given up on ever seeing again. Not that it was a romance by any means. His memory told him that she wasn't exactly the romance type and he knew he wasn't either. It wasn't exactly a "soul mates" thing either, because that would also fall into the category of "romantic." "Just friends" might fit if it didn't have the connotation of denying romantic feelings that everyone who heard the words assumed actually existed. None of that, however, was going through his head at the moment. To be more accurate, nothing was going through his head as it had temporarily halted.

"Ey, Maru, you okay? Whatsa matter? Oh, that chick in the corner? She's a weird one, been there all night and hasn't said ten words to anybody except to get a drink, that's kind of weird don't you think for a place like this, huh, Maru? Maru?" Julie was even more annoying than normal. The only thing keeping it from becoming outright painful was the private joke that his name wasn't Maru. It was just a nickname he'd picked up many years ago. He didn't even choose it. Either way, no one seemed to realize that "Maru" wasn't someone's full name. Yet everyone here seemed to think it was, especially the waitresses like Julie.

// \\

Faye sighed. She'd had enough. It was tolerably loud when she came in here, but the din was steadily increasing. Spike & Jet both had a way of showing up at inopportune times anyway, so the longer she stayed here the more likely she was to be found. She caught the bartender talking with a rather loud group who'd just come in and decided to take the opportunity to slip behind the group and duck out.

// \\

"Maru" shook his head slightly at Julie's never ending stream of verbal bubbles and turned to the barkeeper hailing him.

"Ey, 'Maru', your usual?"

'Sure, 'Jim Bob'"

"How come you always call him that Maru? He's not Jim Bob! He's not even from Texas!"

Maru's eyebrow had to lift a notch higher than normally reserved for Julie. Her ignorance truly showed no bounds tonight. He started towards the end of the bar, formerly occupied by Faye.

// \\

Faye had managed to circle behind the group, and quick fingers even managed to grab a couple of wallets with no one, that's what she told herself. She glanced back towards the bar to make sure her absence wasn't noted yet. Perfect. A rather tall person stood directly between her and the barkeeper. No way her slight frame would be spotted around the newcomer's rather flowing coat. The newcomer had turned just enough towards where she had been sitting that she could see his face. Something was vaguely familiar about it, but she couldn't place where from. Of course, it could be that he looked vaguely like Vicious. Wait... towards where she had been sitting?

"Shit!"

Her expletive was echoed by both the barkeeper and Maru. His gaze had turned to follow where Maru was headed and noticed the seat formerly occupied by Faye.

"J.B., where'd she go?"

He still couldn't believe he'd cursed while on the job, let alone Maru hurling the same epithet, so he followed it up with another one. "Dammit, she was there just a second ago. Mar, what's your..."

Maru didn't hear the last of the phrase. He was already bolting for the door.

"Maruuu, what about your..."

"Just put her bill on mine, Julie!"

Julie sighed. "I wasn't asking about that." He was definitely a weird one. Always paid his tab though.

// \\

Outside in the chill air, he glanced about him looking for evidence of where she might have gone. Someone down the street on his left was picking up some spilled packages; that looked like as good a direction as any. Diving for his bike, he was in second before the bars properly secured him.

Two minutes later he actually caught sight of her. Despite her being rather fleet of foot, she hadn't been too hard to follow. She had left quite a trail of destruction behind her. But, if it was who he thought it was, it'd be just like her. He let his bike idle down so he could stay a decent distance behind her. That was one key difference between the replica he had built and the original; this one didn't mind being dropped below the 3k line.

// \\

Faye stopped to catch her breath and leaned against a pole. "I guess you should always pay your tab around here." Still, it didn't seem like the ordinary bar goon who'd been following her. She thought it was the guy who was talking to the barkeeper when she slipped out but she wasn't sure. It was hard to actually see the rider when there was so much cowling on his motorcycle. Her jaunt had brought her to the door of one of the local casinos, which was just fine by her. She checked around her to make sure no one was looking and slipped the cash from the wallets she'd grabbed. She headed into the casino, nonchalantly tossing the wallets into a dark corner of the entry on the way in.

A couple of hours later Faye finally managed to about break even. Well, she was still ahead of when she arrived in town, but not when you factored in the "extra" money she obtained. She was tired though. Determined to just get the inevitable over with, she headed over to the roulette table and put everything but enough for fuel to get back to the Bebop on the table.

A black-sleeved arm reached out from beside her and moved her bet one square. "I would recommend here instead."

Faye turned with typical fire in her eyes, only to see the one everyone had been calling "Maru".

"You...?"

"Ma'am, your winnings. Ma'am?"

"You should collect your chips."

"What? Oh. Um, thank you." Faye turned around to see an unexpectedly large stack of chips pushed in her direction. She was caught. No doubt about it. But all that over a tab? And if it was just over her bar tab, why let her win? Rival owner wanting to make sure he got his money? But then, how would... She turned back to her benefactor. "Um, about the bar tab from earlier, you see..." She flashed her smile for all it was worth. Apparently though, it didn't matter.

He had already turned towards the door, and looked back with a slightly blank stare. "Oh, that?Forget it. Don't own the bar, don't care. Join me for breakfast?"

Now it was definitely getting weird. She followed him towards the door anyways. When they stopped to cash in the chips at the door, she glanced outside to see that the sun was indeed rising. In the early morning light, she got her first decent look at her benefactor. Her first instinct, that he reminded her of Vicious, was still sticking. His build was similar to Spike's, but he carried himself more like Jet. Better hair than Spike. At least it wasn't green. But looking into his face, Faye wasn't sure. She felt like she should know him from somewhere, but she just didn't know where.

That of course, wouldn't make sense, because outside of the Bebop the only people that she knew were her creditors. He didn't seem like the normal kind of debt collector. He obviously wasn't hiding a weapon under that long coat. Plus the word "goon" normally came to mind when she thought of the ones that had "visited" her. He also didn't fall into the "Andy" class, either. Definitely did not seem the self-absorbed type. Could be a bounty hunter, but she wasn't aware of any of her creditors putting bounties on her head. Yet.

They stepped out onto the street. Definitely out of place amid the myriad taxi cabs and limos was the black motorcycle from earlier. Maru walked up to it and pulled the handle bars up to allow access to the reverse-leaning seat.

"There's a relic if I've ever seen one. Almost as bad as a friend of mine's ship."

"Really? I'll have to meet him..." His voice trailed off at the sound of an approaching engine. He sighed. "Here we go again. Don't they ever give up? Well, care for some high speed driving?"

Faye was already halfway on the bike, and stopped at an odd angle to ask him what he meant when gunfire ripped the plaster above their heads. Satisfied with the answer, Faye finished plunking herself into the rear seat of the contraption. Maru was in front of her barely a second later and a helmet was plunked on her head.

A head and shoulders appeared in front of the bike. "So Maru, finally caught up with you. I gotta hand it to you, you're one tough son of a bitch to catch!" The thug started to shake his head in amazement at his astounding apprehension abilities. Started to, because the instant he closed his eyes, Maru ripped open the throttle on the bike. The machine happily lurched forward and neatly caught the would-be captor square in the crotch with a headlamp. They rocketed forward with a now-crying thug still attached to the windshield. A hard lean going out of the casino's driveway shrugged him off into the shrubbery, much to the plant's chagrin.

Faye could see enough ahead of her to know there were four or five coming straight at them. Looking behind, she saw another six or seven, plus the first one was stumbling out of the bushes now.

"Don't you have a gun?"

"Why?" he responded, as he grabbed another gear and shot straight through the oncoming bikers, leaving a wake of flailing bodies and wheels behind them. Above her, Faye heard the roar of an approaching ship. Catching a glimpse in his mirrors, she saw it was about the size of the Bebop, but more nimble. That meant their chances of out running it were nil. This didn't seem to worry the occupant of the front seat, however.

// \\

"Hey, all you 300 million bounty hunters out there! How y'all doin'?"

"Welcome to Big Shots!"

"Check out who we got today! He's a computer hacker from Earth! 6 BILLION wulongs!"

"Has Radical Edward gone loose again?"

"Nope, this is a new guy! Never before heard of! Supposedly, dis guy pulled off a REALLY big hack on some major computer company, costing them even more moo-lah than they've put out on this guy!"

Even Ein was paying attention at this point.

"6 Billion? For a hacker? Jet, do I need to get my hearing checked?"

Jet punched keys on his terminal while Ed flapped her arms into the air, staring at her screen. "Nope, it actually seems legit. Not much info on this 'Maru' guy though. Hey, Ed, you got anything?"

"Maru~~~u Maru~~~~~~~~~~~~~~u! Edward knows Maru!"

"What!?" chorused from both sides of the room as Ein barked a similar question

"Maru's the name of a hacker on earth from before Edward was born! Nobody ever nabbed hi~m!"

Jet's trademark groan echoed across the room. "Come on, Ed, you know you can't put a bounty on a dead man!"

"Ed will look anyways. Ed will only find things to agree with him though!"

bark

// \\

Getting shot at was something Faye was used to. Dangerous situations were something she was used to. Traveling at very high rates of speed was something she routinely did in her own ship. But even being in miscellaneous convertibles during her time in life hadn't prepared her for what she'd just gone through. David outran the ship pursing them shortly after it came into sight of them. Had she not been hanging on for dear life at the breakneck pace he was running through the streets, as well as almost blacking out several times, she would have learned much more about him. However, all that she could remember at this point was his first name. He was already off the bike, coat and helmet hanging off nearby hooks, and she was still in the back seat, both slightly stunned at having survived his driving and slightly numbed to reality at the moment.

"Hey, you okay?"

"Y..yeah... do you... always drive like that?"

"Um, why would I? I'm not always running from people trying to take me back to the grave."

"Where've I heard that line before?"

"Hmm?"

"Forget it. You got anything to drink in this place, or just tools?" Faye looked around the garage. It's walls were covered with tools and computer parts. A nearby bench was covered in what had to have been thirty or forty separate projects. What at one point was a nice couch had a blanket and manuals draped over it. She stretched, working blood back into her extremities enough to dismount from the bike. "You know," she muttered, "maybe you have more in common with Ed than both Spike and Jet."

"You know, if you keep talking to yourself like that, people are going to think you're crazy." He proffered her a glassful of Scotch. She raised an eyebrow.

"What, you're not thinking this is my entire house, are ya? Or are you asking yourself how I would appreciate Scotch after driving like that?"

"Both, actually. You seem to spend a lot of time out here."

"People don't realize how quickly code can be written when it's natural to you. I don't mind that. Gives me time for hobbies. So. You never told me what you go by."

"That's an odd way to put it. Valentine. Faye Valentine."

"Agent 006? Or 008? 7?" He laughed at the look she gave him. "It's definitely you, though." The smile faded. "I think the more important question might be, do you recognize me yet?"

The question verbalized what she'd been thinking for a while. Did she really know him? He seemed familiar, but she also couldn't say that she'd ever met him before in her life. Well, at least, the life she knew after waking up. That fact meant she had to have her guard up in any situation remotely similar to this one. When she had first awakened a similar situation had ingrained her need for caution in these moments. David slid open a door and the walked into the next room. What she walked into was a quite normal-looking living room, especially when compared to the madness of the workshop they had just come from. He walked over to a cabinet and withdrew a binder. He looked at the blank, black cover for a few seconds, then smiled and handed it to her.

"You'll have to forgive the presentation. Scrapbooking isn't exactly something I'm good at." Before she could open it, he laid his hand back on the cover. "Before you open this, you should know one thing. There is a bounty on my head, over some of the things that there are pictures of in here. Considering how many bounty hunters there are out there, I leave it up to you once you finish looking through this whether you claim the bounty on my head before someone else does."

He withdrew his hand and she opened the binder. He was right about not being able to scrapbook. None of the pictures were captioned. But that really didn't matter. Every picture contained either David, herself or both. Elementary school, middle school, high school, banquets. In some of the pictures, it looked as if they were a couple, but in others they were clearly both paired off with someone else in the same frame. Towards the back of the binder, there seemed to be more pictures of just one or the other instead of both together. When she reached the end of the binder, she realized she had been standing the entire time. She set the album on the coffee table and sat down on the couch. David refilled her glass and sat down in the chair opposite the table from her.

"I guess at this point I should fill in as many gaps as I can. Unfortunately, Faye, I still don't know what your original name was. I do remember that your initials are still correct. I remember that you started out a year older than me, but you went into hibernation a year before I was forced to. From what I can tell, we came out at about the same time. Apparently, we had been housed at the same facility the entire time and the doctor decided to run one big scam.

"Because of the suspended animation, some of my memories were damaged just as yours were. Apparently, advances in the science during the year between us managed to reduce some of the damage the suspension process caused. Many, many details are still blurry, however. This is what I do know.

"We met about halfway through elementary school and ended up sticking together pretty much until hibernation. But the pictures could tell you that. From what little I can remember and what I've been able to root out of old letters, we seemed to be the typical 'non-dating' couple. We out on 'real' dates a coupla times, but for the most part were more siblings than lovers. After graduation things shifted some. I still have no idea what you ended up doing after high school. I ended up at a company called Microsoft." Faye's expression clearly stated that she didn't recognize the name.

// \\

"Microsoft was the biggest computer company on the planet!"

"Ed, all of this still doesn't help us figure out who our Maru is. So you've figured out that that the original Maru was this guy David Buell, and that he got tied up in the changing of power at this company Microsoft." Jet's patience was clearing wearing thin.

"So Microsoft sets this guy up to take a fall. He realizes it, and disappears by going into suspended animation. That lets the statute of limitations run out on him. If he sets back anything of a nest egg before going in, it'll have ripened to nice maturity by now. He thaws out, disappears into the masses and has the money to never be heard from again."

"Spi~Spi!" Ed leaped across the living area to hug Spike around the head for grasping her thought. Of course, she failed to calculate that this would send him crashing to the floor with her wrapped around his head.

Jet managed not to laugh, and pointed out the flaw in the theory. "But if the statute ran out, then why is there a bounty? And why so much?"

// \\

"I don't have an answer for that one yet, Faye. The statute did run out, a little over two years ago." He walked over to a terminal near the wall and punched up some screens. "Why it's so much, I can easily explain. It's had the same accrual time that my accounts did. I tried to pick slow-grow rates for my investments back then to keep from attracting attention when I didn't do anything with them for half a century, but the gate crash threw the market into such a tizzy that I ended up way higher than I should have been otherwise. Your comm device is beeping."

"Huh? Oh!"

"Faye! We got a big one!"

"Um, now's not..." She felt David take her hand and pull the comm device around toward him.

"Greetings! So're you Spike? or Jet? Let me send Edward some co-ordinates... hang on a second. Here, Faye, you can catch him up on some of the fun we've had recently."

"WHAT THE HELL'S GOING ON HERE? FAYE!!!"

"Um, Jet, that's 'Maru'."

"What? You caught him already!"

"No, um, listen... let me call you back." She clicked off the comm signal before Jet could retort. David turned around to see Faye on the verge of tears. "You can't just turn yourself in..."

He might not have remembered her name, but he did remember that her logic centers were, well, a little weaker than his. "Faye. We have to choose. You can bring me in, the easy way, where I have a chance at figuring out what's going on. My other option is to keep fighting for my life with these goons until I figure out what's going on."

David slid the cabinet where he got the album sideways, revealing a rather healthy weapons cache. He withdrew a couple of MP5's and tossed one to Faye. He slapped the bolt on his. "The second way would indeed be hella fun. Especially after all the Quake I've played. However, it's been a long time. It'd be good to hang out and knock some heads together again. Either way, we'll probably need these to get you back to your craft. The choice is yours, Faye. I leave the decision to you. What's it gonna be?"

// \\

"Edward has numbers! Faye~Faye and Maru~~u are on their way to the meeting site!"

"Right. Spike, you ready?"

"Let's do this." Spike resumed his habit of whistling a slow tune while sitting in Swordfish waiting for something to happen.

"Edward has found something!"

"Later Ed!"

"O~~~~kie Do~kie!"

// \\

Shells ripped through the air; white hot shell casings were starting small fires here and there along the prarie. Faye realized halfway through her circle of the area that David actually held more firepower on Kaneda than she was sitting on. His spinning around down there actually caused a memory to surface... one of herself and David playing some sort of game of tag with handgun-like toys. She couldn't remember any more details than that, but she really should focus on fighting right now. She popped another couple of rounds into one of their aerial pursuers sending him spiraling in flames into two other nearby fighters.

"Wa~hoo! Good one, Faye!" David punctuated his transmission by emitting a stream of chaingun fire into the goons surrounding him on the ground. He was having way too much fun with this, she thought. "Looks like the cavalry's here!"

Glancing at her screen, she saw Bebop was indeed finally arriving. She spun to face it and caught a glimpse of Swordfish II launching. She flipped open the comm channel. "Spike! We gotta get him outta there!"

"Faye, you always were the worrier. Jet, you in on this channel too? Let Ed drive for a minute."

A chorus of disbelief echoed through the channel, with a muffled yippee coming from somewhere behind Jet. What everyone forgot was that David had given them a very precise trajectory to follow once they got here. Now, he just had to do his part. After a few moments of instability, Edward got the Bebop settled on the necessary course.

Jet was already in panic mode. If David missed his mark or if Edward punched in the wrong number, Bebop would probably go straight into a nearby high rise. Spike & Faye started laying some cover fire for him. The thought crossed David's mind that, he'd never found the top speed his bike Kaneda could do. One final spin put his final path in front of him. A burst of chain gun and a couple of rockets cleared out a rather large hole he easily plowed through.

"Time to go on a diet." He blasted through the hole he'd made, reached down, and flipped a toggle. Small concussions sounded from both sides of the bike as the weapons popped off and started beeping. Five seconds later they exploded in the faces of his would-be pursuers. To be honest, in all the time he'd spent on this bike, he was having problems keeping up with the gear changes right now. Good thing he hadn't bothered to remove the shift light from the instrument pod. He left the grass for the pavement of his final run. The bike gathered speed at the change and headed up the incline. The Bebop slid into position in front a few seconds before he hit the end of the jump. Perfect. One last gun of the engine, one last shift into the last gear, and suddenly he was airborne.

It was a rather melodramatic moment. In sheer shock, it seemed, everyone forgot where triggers and throttles were. Spike dropped his cigarette. Two of the goons collided on the ground below.

One of the fighters, however, managed to keep his head on and opened fire, trying to hit the bike mid-air. Faye thought the shots went wide but watched in horror as the bike suddenly rolled in the air and exploded in flames. Screaming in anger and frustration she banked her small craft sharply and pummeling the opposing craft with a maelstrom of gunfire.

// \\

Faye leaned against the railing of the bebop as it gently rocked in the waters of the bay. It'd been two weeks since the dog fight which killed David, or Maru, or whatever he wanted to be called. She still wasn't entirely convinced that they shared history together but at the same time didn't have any reason to doubt it. She didn't know which upset her more, that what might have been an old friend died, or that she had lost one more connection to her past.

"Hey, Faye!" Jet's baritone sounded across the ship. "Package for you!"

"What, another postage due like last time?"

"Nope, prepaid. Pretty big too."

"Whatever, just put it below. I'll get to it later." She called over her shoulder, heading back into the ship.

Faye's attitude towards the package changed when she saw just how large the box was that Jet was lugging into the crew's lounge area. She hurriedly shoved him aside as soon as he set it down and punched in opening codes on the box's control panel.

The rest of the crew leaned around Faye as she opened the box, their curiosity as great as her own. On top of a pile of weapons and ammunition was an old-fashioned envelope. Maybe it was her current state of mind, but for the first time in her life Faye opted to read the letter before playing with the toys. She walked quietly away from the rest of the group and read while they took stock of the box's contents.

Faye,

Amazing how during a magic show, everybody watches the big fireballs and completely misses how the magician gets out of the box, isn't it? Time for the whole truth, I guess. The whole incident with Microsoft after Gates retired did happen, and honestly, I had no part in it, though I was a convenient scapegoat. It also had nothing to do with the bounty that was on my head. Truth is, my computer skills are still way behind the times. The bounty was placed by an up-and-coming syndicate that wants to compete with the Red Dragons. That is indeed the former bounty's funds they put up for my bounty. Turns out I'm very good at modifying weapons, and that's why they want me out of the picture. But, enough boring crap. You never did care for it anyways. Have fun with the toys.

See you space cowgirl.

// \\

Closing Thoughts:

This obviously isn't the first thing I've posted, but I think it was the one of the first I started. Just never got around to finishing it. This wasn't the original ending I was working towards, but I think I like it better. Had originally intended to have him safely land on the Bebop, but I wanted to end it gracefully in such a way that I wasn't going directly against the canon. Down that path lay madness if I'd have kept going with the story. Besides, I think it's more "Bebop" to end it this way.

Oh, and I'm not too big a fan of how I wrote out Edward's lines, but that was how the manga seemed to be doing it, so... < shrug >