Disclaimer: The show, world, and characters featured in this story do not belong to me but to Sunrise Inc. The events of this particular story are of my own imagination and merely for entertainment for fellow fans. I do not profess them to be part of the canon.

Chapter I: "Im ascending..."

Spike stood there looking down at the fading soul of his former brother-in-arms. Those eyes never leaving his own mismatched ones as he struggled to breathe, blood pooling at the corner of his mouth. Vicious' hand was still firmly clinging to his katana—his only reliable life-line—ready to strike. He was never one to give up the fight. Spike could not identify the emotion that was invading his already dwindling senses. It started in his toes then moved to his fingers, making them twitch. He tried to shake it off, tried forming an iron fist with the hand not holding the gun that shot his ex-comrade down, but he found his fingers too weak to make it convincing.

"How does it feel?" asked Vicious in that gravely, dangerous tone that came as naturally as breathing—as killing. It was a voice that brought the cold chill of death breathing down the neck of all who were unlucky enough to hear it. You could never forget it. But to Spike it served only as a reminder of his life in the Syndicate; of the endless battle for survival; the pain of losing another friend to cold, hard metal; and of the longing for something more, something that could only exist in a fairy tale… in a dream.

"To finally kill you, you mean?" A dark and chill chuckle was the response Spike received.

"How does it feel… to be awake?" Vicious asked. Spike wasn't sure if the pain that shot through his body originated from the gaping wound to his gut provided by the still, yet perpetually lethal katana, or his heart. He wasn't sure how long he stood there, gazing into those frozen pools that saw only the present, saw only the task at hand. At one time, Spike would have looked into those eyes and saw his own reflecting back in them, that gleam that always expected the next fight and faced it without fear. But now, he felt only sadness, regret, and maybe even pity. Now, he was reminded only of a pair of eyes that would never again see the rising sun, the birds soaring into the vast unknown; eyes that were constantly looking towards the future and the endless possibilities it provided, refusing to look back at the past, and fighting to resist the present. These were eyes that existed in place far beyond the grasp and disappointments of reality. That was what he loved about her… about Julia. To most it was an ordinary name, one that could be matched with any pretty face passed on the street; ominous, Jet had called it. But to Spike it held all the unfulfilled promises of a life that almost was.

"Freedom," Spike said, picturing flowing gold hair the color of the sun as it reflects off a dove's wings, "It feels like freedom."

Vicious' lips thinned as his eyes, dark as a moonless night, hardened. "There's no such thing as freedom… not in this life, or the next." Spike couldn't help the small grin that pulled at the corner of his lips. Those words… he had said the same thing once in another life, in a bed whilst lying in the arms of a woman who stood between the oath he swore and the life he never thought he would desire with all of his being.

"Maybe… maybe not," Spike said as he loosened the grip on his gun, "Maybe you just need the courage to hope for it… to dream about it."

A watery chuckle escaped Vicious' mouth that was followed by coughing as the blood, which had undoubtedly flooded his lungs, tried to find an exit. "You sound… just like her. Always looking for an escape." His grip on the katana tightened, like a snake coiling, preparing to strike. "Hopes… dreams. Weakness, that's all they are."

"And that's why you're the one laying on the ground, soaking in a puddle of your own blood."

"And what future do you think awaits you?" Vicious snarled, hand still ready to strike. Spike felt a sudden pain course through his abdomen as a thick stream of blood seeped through his clothing. His arm flew to his stomach, clinging to his wound while gritting his teeth. He might be a knuckle head, but Spike was no idiot. He knew how deep the gash went and what it meant. "People like you and me… there's nothing for us, no place where we belong. What we need, what we want… we have to take it, or die trying. There is nothing else."

"And what were you reaching for, Vicious?" Spike questioned. He gazed into those dark pools; at the face of the man he would have taken a bullet for once upon a time. "All of those people that died… Lin, Shin, Annie… Julia. In the end not even she meant anything to you."

A smile crept onto Vicious' face then; one that was colder that the most bitter winter storm, more jagged than rocks waiting for you as you plummet to the sea surface, more sinister than the demons that haunt you even in your waking state. "What do you feel, Vicious?" The words escaped Spike's mouth before he had a chance to stop them.

"… Nothing. I feel nothing."

That was when Spike heard it—the sharp intake of breath and then the slow release of air as it exited Vicious' lungs for the last time. His eyes were open, always open, never losing their razor sharp edge. Even in death his aura suffocated the room, driving away all signs of life.

Spike released the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding; his muscles relaxed, the tension fading from his body. He felt his grip on the gun slacken until it eventually slipped between his blood soaked fingers and landed on the ground with a hard, metallic thud.

"Julia." Spike felt his heart drop as he realized how empty her name sounded now; like a phantom it echoed throughout the demolished room, escaping through the remains of the broken glass ceiling and into the wind. He looked up at the dark, early morning sky; though the moon was still visible, rays of golden sun were beginning to form, bringing with them the fresh, crisp morning air and all its promises of a new day.

"It's finally over." Spike suddenly felt tired; he felt it settle in his bones, his chest, his heart. He couldn't remember the last time he felt so drained, couldn't remember a time when he didn't have any fight left in him. Spike felt hollow, like he could float away with the breeze at any moment—a kite without a string or tail, like Annie had said.

"When the hell did I get so old?" he mused to himself, "Faye is older than me but that's never stopped her from being a pain in the ass." The thought of Faye brought another wave of pain crashing over him, one that yanked and scratched as his heartstrings. His throat began to burn, making it near impossible to swallow the lump that had suddenly formed there.

A weak smile tugged at the corner of Spike's lips. "What the hell am I doing," Spike thought, "getting sentimental over a woman with more drama and attitude in her left pinky than the population of Mars put together? Not to mention the free-loading, nagging, showmanship, and natural ability to make the simplest of tasks complicated."

"Where are you going," she had asked with a gun pointed to his head, "why are you going?"

He had never seen her like that before: scared. It wasn't in her eyes, no, she would never allow herself to be that transparent. It was in her voice. She tried to hide it, tried to sound angry, but Spike had heard her angry before—this was different.

"My memory finally came back, but… nothing good came of it." Her breathing started coming in quick, harsh-sounding bursts. He could hear Faye try to fight it off, knowing how much she hated appearing vulnerable. "There was no place for me to return to. This was the only place I could go… And now you're leaving, just like that!"

That was it… her breaking point. Spike would never forget the echo that filled the familiar corridors of the Bebop, reverberating through the spaceship-turned-home that their little makeshift family had inhabited.

"Why do you have to go? … Where are you going?" Her voice had gone quiet then, going full circle and asking those same questions again that had been circling through his own head. "What are you going to do? Just throw your life away like it was nothing?!"

That was when Spike knew the answer to her questions and to his own. What was more shocking was Spike realized he had known the answer all along.

"I'm not going there to die… I'm going to find out if I'm really alive."

That was the last thing Spike said to her as he walked down the hallway, away from the life that had magically formed around him without his notice, a parade of bullets ricocheting off the ceiling as Faye fired her gun above her head. He could still hear her muffled sobs ghosting behind him.

Spike's trembling hand reached into the pocket of his overcoat, drawing out the cigarette he had been saving. As he raised it to his mouth, placing it between his dry, cracked lips, Spike couldn't help but chuckle at its bent form. "Guess I'm not the only one that got banged up." He patted down his jacket and pants, looking for a lighter but having no luck. "Damn…" Spike muttered as he released a sigh. "I must've left it with Jet back on the ship."

Spike found himself smiling again as he pictured the balding, mechanical-armed man sitting in his room bickering to himself about ship repairs while trimming his bonsai trees. Jet was his partner, his comrade… his friend? That's right… they had been friends, all of them. Jet, Faye, Ed, even that dumb dog, Ein. At least, they had been. Ed had taken off, with Ein following in step right behind her. She was searching for something, just like the rest of them: Jet for purpose, Faye for her memories, Ed for a home, and himself… proof, or maybe reassurance.

Spike let himself only briefly travel down the path of "what if's." What if he had stayed with Faye and Jet? Would they have tried to find Ed and Ein? Would the five of them have continued to travel the cosmos searching for bounties?

A sharp pain shooting through his wound jerked Spike's thoughts back to the present as he inhaled with a sharp hiss, arm wrapping around his wound again in another feeble attempt to hold himself together. "There's nothing for it now," Spike stated matter-of-factly. "Don't wanna end up like that man in Jet's story thinking about the past right at the end, now do I?"

The end. Spike felt another loose, careless smile pull at his face as he turned away from the open, unseeing eyes of Vicious. "The end means only one thing," Spike thought to himself as he headed towards the elevator, footsteps echoing in the lifeless room. "Freedom."

Spike had set Vicious free, just as he promised he would, and now it was time for Vicious to live up to his word. "But not before I show those bastards waiting below that their leader is dead."

The ride down the elevator was long, but the walk to the top of the lobby staircase felt like a lifetime as his legs, barely able to hold their own, shook beneath the weight of his limp body. The blood was escaping his wound much faster by now. Spike was surprised he hadn't passed out on the ride down. His arm still gripping his gut, Spike stared down into the faces of the armed men; they all stood in silence, too frozen to even lift their guns. The shock of the realization of Vicious being defeated had left them completely unnerved. They watched as this tall, lanky, fuzzy haired man with his face looking towards the ground walked slowly and unevenly down the steps.

Every step brought white hot pain coursing through Spike's body. But he had to keep going, had to show them—needed to show them—that he was alive, that he had fought for his freedom.

As he continued to drag his feet, Spike reached a step not quite at the bottom, but low enough that they all could see him. As he reached this spot—this one particular step—Spike almost immediately decided that he wanted it to be his last. He wasn't sure why. Maybe because he had the freedom to choose now.

"It's all a… a dream." Those were Julia's last words as she gazed into his mismatched eyes; he was unsure if she was looking into his right, the real eye, or the left, the fake one. Was she looking towards the present, or the past? Maybe both… maybe they both are the same. Maybe it all is a dream.

"I don't wanna look back at the past anymore," Spike decided, a smile on his face. He closed his left eye, the one that never let him forget, and raised his head. He looked out on the scene in front of him with only his right eye, wanting only to see the reality he currently faced. Death.

Spike raised the arm not holding his wound and formed a gun with his pointer finger and thumb, aiming at nothing, and yet everything, before him.

"Bang."