DISCLAIMER: I do not own Cowboy Bebop. I will make a lot of references in this work, but do know that they are just mentions. I do not own them at all.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:I had this done in one sitting. I just had this idea that won't stop pestering my mind a while ago, so I knew I had to write this one. It was mostly inspired by Mai Yamane's song 'Blue', Cowboy Bebop's Mish-mash Blues (Episode XX), Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and a real 'lil bit of Homer's Iliad and Christopher Nolan's Inception.

Ladies and gentlemen, without any further ado...

Shakespeare's Valentine
by Releina Artemis Rockefeller

Jazz.

It's that genre of music that's all the craze in this time.

I really don't understand it at all.

Jazz is a millennium and almost half a century old.

So why do most people like it?

I hate it.

I absolutely do.

My comrades love it. Especially Jet. That old folk.

It's relaxing? Yes. Absolutely.

It's not like I haven't heard jazz, you know. Why would I hate something that I do not know? That's bullshit.

I could say that at least once in my life, I met a jazz player. I met him in a seedy bar in Calisto. His name was Grencia. He was…different. He was that spark of warmth in such a freezing planet.

When he played that sax, it was as if he was crooning for me. I'll never forget that man. If only I knew him long enough, I probably would've fallen for him. He was mysterious in a dangerous way.

I felt bad when I heard from my other comrade that he died. He died on his way to Titan.

Tragic.

Yes, speaking of which, do you know what tragedy is?

Probably not.

From the many people I've seen in this day and age, not so many are refined (in an educated way) to know so many classical things. They're so into this new-age science and technology madness. They care not to look back from where they came from.

Earth.

Now they just consider that planet as inhabitable and garbage. Weren't they the ones who did that to their home planet?

They were too ambitious to fly too far from the nest. And, like an eagle who reaches the peak of the skies, they look down and scowl. Pride.

I chuckled sarcastically. Since when did I become this deep? But it's all true.

Ungrateful bastards.

Another tragedy.

Don't judge me by how I look. Just because I dress inappropriately doesn't mean I'm not smart.

No.

It's quite contrary, really.

I nod at myself and smirk at my disposition.

I lived too long. I know so much.

…more than those of my time would ever know and will ever know.

I'm seasoned with the finest knowledge of the past of the human race, from where else? Earth, of course. Then, I'm served fresh with the zest of the knowledge of the present (or the future), from where? Well, everywhere I've been in this galaxy.

A time traveller? Yeah, you can put it that way.

…or a bird who was thrown off from her nest and was forced to fly on her own. Hopping from one nest to another, with no place to call home.

I'm alone.

Tragic.

Weren't we talking about that? Tragedy? Yes.

Tragedy could be defined as something morbid, something unfortunate, and something untoward. Some several centuries ago, tragedy had a simpler and somewhat elegant meaning. In the Renaissance Age, tragedy is this type of literature that has a sad ending to it—wherein after reading the story, you'll be having a 'heavy heart'. That's just that.

Whereas its total opposite is comedy, a type of literature that has a happy ending—wherein after reading the story, you'll feel 'light as a feather'.

And in those days, there was one man who was said to weave stories of the best of both worlds.

Do you know him?

No? Tsk. People these days are really hopeless. This is the disadvantage of the entire galaxy being accessible now.

His name is William Shakespeare! The Bard!

I sighed.

He had written so many pieces! A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Hamlet, The Twelfth Night, King Lear, The Merchant of Venice, and his greatest work yet—Romeo and Juliet.

I scowled. I wish I had cigarettes now and smoked away these thoughts.

A picture came into mind when I thought about Romeo and Juliet. Romeo had green hair and Juliet had golden hair.

Romeo and Juliet. The story of the star-crossed lovers.

A tragic tale of romance that became a favorite among millions of peoples even after several millennia later its completion. A real classic.

"Why is this tale so famous?" I once thought as a schoolgirl. I remember rolling my eyes in class when we were given the story as a reading assignment.

It was tragic. It was a story of a short-lived puppy love of two persons who cannot be together because of bad blood between their families—the Montagues and the Capulets. Love conquers all, they said. So Romeo and Juliet became together.

However, Juliet refused to marry Paris, so she drank a drug from Friar Lawrence that had placed her in a dead-like sleep. Her family thought she was dead, so she was placed in their crypt. Friar Lawrence sent a message to Romeo about the plan, that Juliet was feigning death, however, that message didn't reach Romeo. It was the news of Juliet's death that reached him. With this he plans to die beside his Juliet, so he buys poison from an apothecary…uhh, that's some sort of shady chemist slash pharmacist back in the day.

Upon reaching the Capulet crypt, Romeo saw Paris privately mourning over Juliet. A duel ensues between them and Romeo kills Paris. Anguished over thinking that Juliet was 'dead', Romeo drinks the poison he bought and dies beside her.

Juliet wakes up, but found Romeo dead beside her. She found the bottle of poison beside her. She wanted to drink the poison as well and join Romeo in the afterlife, but the bottle was empty. So instead, she took his dagger and stabbed herself, to be with Romeo in the life after death.

The end.

If you ask me, it's not a really good read. Their 'romance' was only about a week old. Sheesh. Some lovesick fools they are. The ending wasn't tragic. It was comedic. Hooray! Serves them right. They were too much in a rush. In my opinion, Romeo was thinking with his dick, not with his head. And Juliet? I absolutely have no idea where her brain is. Maybe it went ahead of her, six feet under.

Ugh. Fantastic.

…reminds me of a certain couple.

Spike…and Julia.

Spike was this lovesick Romeo pining for Julia, a cheating Juliet. And yeah, you could say that Vicious was Paris…with a fusion of Tybalt, I guess. Uhh, just because he's not as subtle as Paris, but rather, he was just as impulsive as Tybalt.

Julia was mysterious in a dangerous way. Yeah, like Gren, but she was more mysterious, making her more dangerous.

What I didn't like about her is that she was a two-timer. She was Vicious' girlfriend, and yet she was sleeping with Spike, her boyfriend's best friend. Of all people! Hell! I'd be as infuriated as Vicious! I totally understand why he's become this grim reaper of some sort.

And Spike? Spike was the lovesick fool. He didn't care to betray his best friend. He was blinded by his so-called love for Julia.

I rolled my eyes in pure sarcasm.

See? That's what killed him. His love for that woman.

I hated Julia. I hated her before I met her, and I only loathed her more after meeting her. But then again, she was someone I don't even know. So how could I hate someone I don't know?

It's bullshit. Because what she did was the highest bullshit of all time.

Call me a bitch, but I think I'm still in my right mind to think that whatever she did was wrong.

Spike didn't deserve to be a second option.

Spike didn't deserve to be abandoned.

He waited for her.

She didn't come.

Bullshit.

Yeah, that's what she did.

Julia was killed by one of Vicious' men. Of course, Spike wanted vengeance. Like how Romeo was upon knowing of Mercutio's death. Romeo set out to kill Tybalt. And Spike did it, just like that. Spike set out to kill Vicious.

I tried to stop him, but…

I laughed.

Lovesick fools like him are not rational beings. They don't think. They just act upon impulse. I presume, like Romeo, Spike thinks with his dick. Idiots.

Spike is an idiot. He's a lunkhead, after all.

While he may have killed Vicious, but I'm guessing he died as well.

Well, he took on the entire Red Dragon Syndicates by himself, and tried to kill the grim reaper, himself. I could conclude he died.

I don't know.

I'm not sure.

See, he didn't return for two months. Two whole fucking months. Two whole fucking miserable months.

Jet and I had already scanned the syndicates' headquarters, and there were no signs of him. All off the carcasses had been pulled out by the police. We asked each police station if his body was among those they found, they said yes. We asked where it was and if it was possible to claim it, they said 'no', because they were still doing some investigation.

According to Jet, the police's answers were vague. They said Spike's body was among those they found. They didn't say if it was put in a morgue or if they had him on hospital arrest if he was alive. This was the biggest crime and drugs syndicate in Mars we were talking about, so most definitely, police would be very careful and unclear of their answers.

Take it from Jet, he's an ex-cop.

But we didn't stop there. Jet and I hopped from one hospital to another around Mars. No signs of any lunkhead at all.

Then again, Jet said, if Spike was on hospital arrest, even the hospital where he's in won't speak about him. It's confidential.

I asked Jet how long this confidential information should be sealed. He said, three months or so. But we could do follow-ups.

Then again, after the follow-ups, police declared Spike dead.

Jet tried to console me, he said it's what sometimes police would say to stop civilians from pestering them.

But I do think he's dead. Thanks for trying, Jet. You could've been my 'new dad'. Thanks for keeping up.

For those two months when Spike was gone, I wasn't myself. I was like a robot on autopilot. I would eat, smoke, bathe, drink, sleep, I also did some bounty hunting, but I also can't stop thinking about that lunkhead. I regularly cried myself to sleep.

Because I was a lovesick fool, as well.

It wasn't only my past that troubles me, but my love for Spike, as well.

Yes, I love him.

I love him so much.

I love him so much it hurts.

It hurts because I know he can't love me back.

It hurts because I know that he won't come back. He'd rather die and join his Julia in the afterlife, or rot in hell with her, rather than be alive without her.

Tragedy.

Romeo and Juliet.

And yeah, you may call me Echo. You know, from the Iliad?

Please don't tell me you don't know the Iliad. Please just…

For the love of God! Really? Jesus Christ!

Echo is this idiot of a mountain nymph who was in love with Narcissus, an idiot of a man who was in love with himself.

What the fuck is that, huh? In love with yourself? Bullshit. I mean, yeah, I'd look at myself in the mirror for hours and just adore how I look, but I'm not that low to love myself in a romantic kind of way! Crap.

Anyway.

Echo could never have Narcissus. She was madly in love with him, but she could only love him from afar. Narcissus could never love her.

Yeah, that's how I am with Spike. I'm Echo, in love with Romeo, not Narcissus, but Romeo.

Wow. What a way to do a crossover of a myth and a tragedy. What a classic.

Tragic.

But as I said, I'm a time traveller. I can take this upon myself. I want to stop thinking of Romeo. I want to be just how I was when I woke up—a shell. I'm alive but I have no past, no present, no future.

Yes, everything was better back then—no past, no Bebop, no Spike.

Nothing.

I just lived for the heck of it.

I looked up and saw the blue sky. The wind blew and I took a deep breath. I couldn't feel a thing. I'm here, sitting limply on a wheelchair, in a white hospital gown, waiting outside on the hospital's rooftop with some sort of device on my head to record my last thoughts. I heard it's called the Alpha Catch.

What's going on, you say?

I told you, I'm taking this upon myself.

I decided to get back the life I once had—the life as a shell.

I told Jet the other day that I was leaving to go back to how I once lived. He was furious, of course.

But I told him that I wasn't like Spike. I wasn't going somewhere to die. I wasn't part of their team in the first place. They didn't even want me in the team in the beginning. So… it's been great meeting them, but I have to go, I said.

Jet asked me where I was going. I just told him, "Easy come, easy go. See you, space cowboy. Some place, some time."

He yelled and cursed. He didn't open the hatch for me. The hell I care.

I always blasted that forsaken thing, anyway. So that's how I made my escape. A grand exit, if you'll ask me. A befitting exit for me, Poker Alice.

I opened a compartment on the Red Tail's dashboard and got a pair of plies. I knew where my MONO system's cords where. So, I clipped away the cords for communication and the universal positioning system. I also left my portable communicator back at the Bebop. That way, Jet can't track me.

I know where I'm going anyway.

I headed here, to Mars. I went here, in this hospital.

I knew the right doctor to look for. I did my homework for this mission.

I wanted to forget everything. I wanted to erase my memories. Everything—my past, my identity, the Bebop…Spike.

I felt a tear roll down my face. Excuse me. Sorry, I can't wipe it off. I can't feel my arms or my legs. I can't move any part of my body. Just now, I can't move my neck, so my head is left looking up at the sky.

What do you think I was doing in those two months when Spike was gone? I was saving up a fortune for this.

I finally met the doctor I was looking for, and I'm glad his name wasn't Bacchus. I'm also glad that he didn't have a nephew named Whitney, and an assistant named Miss Manley. I know that this doctor was legit.

He was a psychiatrist slash neurologist. Of course, medical technology is so advanced these days, scientists were able to make a procedure and a drug that could induce retrograde amnesia. He was one of the few people authorized to do such procedure. And man, I'm telling you, my savings were vacuumed just for this.

Right now, I'm just waiting for the first drug to take effect. It's supposed to make me numb. They're going to hook me up with different IV drugs later, you know, some cocktail concoction for this procedure. Then, they'll be sending several small electric shocks to my brain. They said that the drugs will sting and will sting more once the shocks are administered, so they had to give me anesthesia.

But why am I not in the operating room, you say?

Well, one is that the procedure wasn't really invasive. And secondly, the doctor said it was part of his standard protocol to record thru the Alpha Catch the last memories of his patients who undergo this procedure. I was really against it at first, but hey, doctor's orders. So after injecting a pretty damn strong anesthesia, he asked a nurse to put me on a wheelchair and roll me out here on the hospital rooftop and leave me alone, so I could think of my last thoughts.

According to him, I will wake up and I won't remember a thing.

I mean, I will remember how to talk and function. I will remember knowing how to do a few things, but I will not remember any other memory aside from those.

It was his duty to tell me my name, my age, where I was, and what happened to me. He'll tell me that I requested for this procedure, and he will not, however, tell me why, as it may trigger remembering what I wanted to forget. And he told me triggers are going to be very painful. Nauseous painful, like that. Like getting a complete hell of a bitch of a hangover.

He said that some of the patients that he had before requested their Alpha Catch's record of their last memory in order to somewhat remember or trigger remembering memories. They decided to no longer run from whatever it was they wanted to hide from.

Sorry, I don't want to hide. I just want to vanish, but exist simultaneously.

I told him to burn this record after he's done with it. He laughed at me and said that he can't do that. Like his previous patients, they also want to forget terribly, but he simply can't burn the last memory of his patients before they get the amnesia they wanted.

The hell I care.

Note to self, I should not and I will not request this Alpha Catch recording. Thank you.

Ahh, where the hell is that nurse? What's taking her so long? My muscles must be screaming at my nerves to work. I've been looking at the sky for far too long, I must be having cramps. But like I said, I can't feel a thing, and I can't move.

The sky is blue.

There's something about blue.

…yeah, Gren's story is kinda blue, like Callisto. I feel sorta blue. Spike's suit is blue. Uhm, okay.

I hate blue.

My thoughts are so random, huh? Like jazz without a music sheet.

Bebop.

Yeah, my thoughts are like bebop.

Easy, bluesy, anything goes.

I'm crying. I can't feel the tears but my eyes are watering up.

This'll be the last time I'm going to remember everything that has happened to me. When I wake up tomorrow, it'll be all over. It'll all be new. I'll start all over again.

…like a phoenix that burns as it dies, and is reborn in its ashes.

This'll be the last time I'll be able to think of how tragic my life has been.

I'm a time traveller. I cheated my death by sleeping for decades. I woke up into a surreal world. It's like a dream.

In the words of Spike, "I'm doing this to see if I really am alive."

For him, life is just a never-ending dream.

Yeah, I think so, too. I live in a nightmare.

But Spike, you never woke up.

…but I will, Spike. I will wake up.

And when I do, I won't remember you.

You're my dream, Spike. And when I open my eyes, I will never remember you, no matter how hard I try. You're just a dream.

You will remain a dream, one I will forget as soon as I wake up.

Inwardly, I am both smiling and crying.

You think this doesn't hurt me one bit? The hell it does. It hurts more than you'll ever know.

I have a past, but that doesn't matter, because my home is gone. I have no home. I have no friends. I have no family.

I fell in love, but he can't love me back. He's stuck in a dream and died in that dream. This is like a movie I've seen when I was in my first year in college, Inception. A real classic. But what we have right now is worse than Inception. You're the one who knows about how dreams work, but you never ever woke up.

When I wake up from this nightmare, I will no longer feel all of this pain. No. I'd rather be in pain because I'm an empty shell, rather than be in pain because of these memories that burden my shoulders.

Tragedy?

Comedy?

A dream?

Jazz?

Bebop?

Blue?

Dark.

Empty.

Reality.

This is a dark, empty reality.

"Miss Valentine, the anesthesia has taken effect," I hear the nurse say. I closed my eyes as the wind caressed my face again. The nurse spoke once more, "Please finish with your last thoughts for the Alpha Catch recording now. Then, you may open your eyes and blink twice so you could tell me that you're ready, and I'll be taking you back to the doctor's clinic so we could start with the next procedure. I'll be just right here, waiting. Whenever you're ready, Miss Valentine."

Blink twice? The fuck? Closing my eyes had been a real task just now. She's asking me to blink twice? What the hell?

Oh well, anyway, even if I won't want this last record of my thoughts, I still want to end it in a good way. Touché. Hey Shakespeare? We should meet. Let's do a movie and have Christopher Nolan direct it.

I'm Faye Valentine. That's not my real last name. I know my real surname, but for the sake of it, I won't use it anymore. I was born on August 14, 1994. I lived in Earth, in a country called Singapore. I was a daughter of a wealthy couple there. In 2014, my family decided to live in Mars, but when we were on our way there, that's when the Gate accident happened. I made it barely alive, but the injuries I sustained were beyond what the medical technology could repair back then. So I was put into cold sleep instead.

I woke up 54 years later with no knowledge of my past. I was like that for three years, until I boarded a fishing ship named Bebop, and met Jet Black, an ex-cop; Ein, a 'data dog', and; Spike Spiegel, an ex-syndicate. Jet and Spike were bounty hunters. I decided to join their misadventures and later on, we were joined by a weird girl named Edward, a genius hacker.

Unfortunately, I fell in love with Spike, but he was in love with Julia, his ex-best friend's girlfriend. He never saw me the way I saw him. He was special to me. He means a lot. So when he set out to avenge Julia's death and faced off with Vicious, I was devastated.

So here I am. Wanting to erase everything and just go back to being a shell.

Where's your Messiah? Umert de ca'ptus.
Where's your Messiah? Umert de ca'ptus.

That's a line from a song entitled 'Blue' by an artist named Mai Yamane. The song had some sort of a local Martian dialect to it.

"Where's my Messiah? I cannot be saved," I whispered with all my effort.

That's how I translated it to myself.

"Miss Valentine?" The nurse said in a quizzical voice. She probably heard me whisper.

Messiah? Right now, My messiah is me. I'm my own savior. I will redeem myself.

"Veni. Vidi. Vici," I whispered again.

I came. I saw. I conquered. So they say.

I loved and lost.

My life's story is a tragedy. No happy endings. If only Shakespeare could be reincarnated and write about this. I'm sure it'll be better than Romeo and Juliet, or anything else that he had written.

What could be a good title? Hmm. Valentine. Valentine sounds nice. Shakespeare's Valentine— a tragic tale of a woman seeking reality, while taking asylum in a dream.

This is just a dream. I will wake up.

And when I wake up, it'll all be over.

I will live again.

No pain, but I might be lonely.

Then again, I always was. I'm alone.

So, that's it folks! This has been Faye Valentine, Poker Alice, Queen of Hearts.

…a Romani gypsy. Time traveller extraordinaire.

See you space cowboys!

Oh, and hey Spike? You stupid lunkhead. I love you.

…you're gonna carry that weight.

Faye opened her eyes with much effort and tearfully looked at the nurse.

Faye blinked twice.

…Easy come, easy go. Take it easy, cowgirl.

A/N:Yes, it is possible to induce amnesia. Trust me, I'm a psychology graduate. And I made sure to consult my books first. Hahaha! So yeah, certain drugs can induce amnesia, and electroconvulsive therapy can also induce it. ;]

Anyway, I decided to end it that way, just in case. I'm not sure yet if I should continue this or not.

So do tell me. End or continue? Tell me what you think about it by submitting a review.

Forever grateful,
Releina Artemis