-nods- yup, I thought I'll take a little break and write an "one shot." Eh, I'm working on Casablanca's. I know the first few chapters seem discouraging, but I'm trying to shape it up. x]
This takes place during the episode: Real Folk Blues Part 1. It comes into accord during the time Spike uses cleaning and checking all the guns. A little reason as to why he knew Faye was back, and watching him from the doorway. [[please R&R]]
She Walks
Looking at the vast expanse of the torn up world, Spike spit the build up of toothpaste out of his mouth, while he stood on the deck of the BeBop. He remembered hearing the sound of something falling in Faye's room.
It didn't take long to discover that it wasn't something, but someone who had fell, judging by Faye screeching Ed's name. He could hear her running to the hanger, not her usual, graceful but leisure-like steps. A distant "souvenir" was noticeable. He knew Faye had taken off, but then again she always walked.
Jet appeared, clearly dumbfounded by the different change of scenery. "Hey, Spike, where the hell are we?!" It was amusing to see him look around trying to find some form of recognition.
"Isn't it Earth?"
"Earth?! Hey, this ship was headed for Mars! Why the hell are we on Earth all of a sudden?!" Jet looked around, as if the answer was right there. As if it was clearly written, as Faye's escapades and her reasons to leave . . . with all the money. But then again she walks, she doesn't run.
"Dunno." Playing clueless always worked.
"Shit, this isn't funny. While we're wasting time, our fugitive – It was the first big one in a while... In any case, why the hell are we on - ?" Time to cut in.
"Jet. The women are gone." I believe that's an answer in its own. His confused look could mean anything, maybe wondering what Ed had to do with it, or if the money was still in its crisp order inside the rusty, old safe.
Languidly, he extracted a limp cigarette from his mouth with his left hand, and snubbed it flat with the others lying pitifully in the ashtray. Spike reached across and picked up one of the many guns that laid haphazardly on the edge of the table. He looked into the cylinders, cleaning out the excess grease that had built up inside it. His mind strayed to the other day.
He could hear her return, he knew when she was there. He could feel it when she was close, it seemed her jasmine scent could float to an occupied room, he could hear her mood at that moment. It seemed dejected, but hopeful. She had something to be hopeful about, something that made her happy despite it all.
It wasn't the same happiness money could get her, that brief joy of accomplishing, this seemed to be something special. Maybe she finally realized something good, something worth the effort. I looked at her through half-closed eyes, at the way she looked at Jet in a silencing, sad way.
"Hey, you guys! What's with this course change without asking?! Our plans have all been screwed because of it! I don't appreciate you doing things on your own!" He just became quiet once he saw her face, and she went to her room in a solemn manner, I could hear it in her walk, and see it in her posture.
Something had happened, and all I could do was watch Ed show the mutt something. Man, I needed a cigarette.
"What's with them? What are they being so secretive about?"
In between searching my pockets for some cigs an indifferent reply left my mouth, "leave them alone."
Spike groped for the bottle of wine, while looking at his precious Jericho, finally his hand came in contact with something that felt like a bottle, picking it up, he brought it to his mouth. After a couple of swigs, he noticed the sharp, star yellow light making the green, wine bottle illuminate into a somber jade. Slowly he could see sad, stricken, emerald eyes form.
"Watch where you're going! Hey...?" Shinning emerald eyes looked at him, into him.
"Sorry..." she meekly whispered.
"Sorry?" Why would she say sorry? Sorry for bumping into him? Or sorry for entering his twisted life?
"I-I... I have to go..." And he watched her hurriedly walk, airily stumbling into her room, maybe this time she was walking for real? Maybe this was the last time he could take their intimate moments for granted? Maybe this was his last real hope of really finding out if he was alive, if he could move on?
He watched as she prepared to leave in the Red Tail, the same junky ship that was her real companion. The same bond between the Swordfish II and himself. Ed came onto the deck, and he heard their last ever interchange, before the Kid went to find where she belonged.
"Going out? Where are you going?" Ed smiled up at her, Faye knew the kid loved her.
"I finally remembered where I belong." Now the kid got confused, just like him, she believed Faye belonged on the BeBop, all of them together.
"Where you belong?" He wanted to hear where she belonged, also, because he was sure as hell believed it was on the BeBop where they've come to acknowledged her as a little more then a beautiful shrew.
"You have someone waiting for you too... You have somewhere you belong. You should go look for it, too. That's the best thing, you know..." and she flew away, like the wandering Romani she was.
But what she didn't understand was that he would be the one that would be waiting for her, if she left. Slowly she had overpowered his restless nights of a blued eyed, blonde angel, with passive slumbers of illuminated emeralds, and tousled purple locks of a fallen angel.
He had to keep calm when he interrupted Jet's visions of a merry dinner with the girls, with a choppy, "Faye went out." But to him it was a whole lot more then Faye "going out," it was his inability to really see if he was alive, by telling the danger-attracting woman he loved her.
To finally allow himself to stroke her moonbeam skin, like how she would tenderly stroke him while he recovered from his injuries. To have her gingerly touching him, as if not wanting to disturb the moment, the same ginger cautions she took while wrapping him up. But instead off keeping everything at a peaceful rest, his senses would go wild, violently thrashing to make some move or another. Though they created his eventual downfall in those sweet minutes he spent with Faye in a happy state.
He continued straightening out his guns, each one devoid of care. He finally found out what it was to be Faye, all alone, with a tugging in the heart yearning for the unknown string that pulled at it. Wanting someone, or something to stop the currents of loneliness that hit in tides like the ocean. He forgot how it felt to live alone, he had her for so long, to help dust out the cobwebs in his once withering life.
Indescribable feelings came with being lonely, a constant itch to run always bit you. Quite disturbing to think she lived with that feeling for everyday she spent awake from her cryogenic sleep.
His eyes skimmed over a newspaper, and memories seemed to jump out through the simple words that littered the page. "screwed plans because of babies?" from a babysitting add, projected the occurrence that happened early that day or late last night, it didn't matter because it happened nonetheless.
"Sheesh, that was the first time we screwed up so badly. We never had anything like that before when we were all alone. All told, they screwed up our plans right to the end. They really were like troublesome babies. I completely understand why you hate women and kids now." Jet had slumped, equally depressed as Spike, on the Loser's Bar's counter, mumbling grumpily.
As he finished that line, with Spike looking mutely at his glass tracing his fingers on the rim, they sensed someone watching them. Feeling danger lurking about, they ducked under the counter, barely missing the torrent of shots that flew like mad.
The attackers had killed the unsuspecting bartender, and he flopped down to the ground. Spike had reached out and took a sip of his drink, "Too much Vermouth." With that he gunned down some of the thugs.
"Who are they?" Jet asked confused to his only companion. A second later he grunted in pain, for a stray bullet lodged itself into his leg.
Spike saw a man run behind the counter towards him, wearing the Red Dragon symbol on his coat. "Lin?!"
He curtly replied, "I'm Shin, his younger brother . . ." his voice carried away as he shot some thugs down.
Slowly Spike's words were being formed, "Shin... That's right, you two were-" realization hit him. "If you change sides, you won't be able to return to the syndicate. What happened?" He helped Shin shoot some of the men that were advancing in one corner.
Shin answered over his shoulder. "Vicious is to be executed. He failed to pull off the coup, and has been put under restraints by the elders. You are in danger as well. And Miss Julia..."
Spike hurriedly questioned, "Julia is?"
"They're in the city of Tharsis. I'll hold them off here. Please go!"
"I'll owe you one, Shin!" With that, Jet and he had left Shin to shoot the rest of the men down.
The next add had something to do with a new doctor's practice willing to help everybody, homeless and all, with respect and affordable fees. Waves of his last doctor's visit entered his mind.
The old coot of a doctor, bent over Jet's leg, tending to the wound. Jet would grunt every once in a while during his lecture to Spike, when the doctor would play with the muscle too much in his leg. "I don't know what happened to the Red Dragon but it's not really your problem now, right? Vicious, Julia... To me, both those names sound nothing but ominous. Just like a magic spell that opens a door that shouldn't be opened. You're –" He writhed in pain as the bullet was pulled out of his leg.
Edgily, the doctor snapped a sharp, "Hold still."
"You are no longer a member of the syndicate . . ."
"I know"
Looking over at the doctor Jet mentioned, "You too... Forget everything, including the fact that we came here."
Grumbling, "What are you talking about? I'm just treating stray cats that wandered into the office. Stray cats that I can't ever get rid of..." On the ride home he had flashbacks of Julia.
Gliding over the column pieces, he saw in bold lines, "VID PHONE PORN ALLOWED TO MINORS? WHAT NEXT?" He tried getting in touch with Faye, he wanted her to be with him to give him that underlying tenderness she always tried hiding. He wanted her there, to be supportive of his decision to Tharsis, to help him show Tharsis he was alive. He found somebody that was alive.
"Where are you now?"
"What is it?" It was welcoming to hear her voice, and looking at her through the vid phone, without her using her silly antics or Poker Alice.
"I'm heading out to the city of Tharsis. You should head that way, too." He saw a look of confuse on her face.
"Why?"
"It's hard for Jet to get around on his own. Especially after getting shot in the leg. I'm telling ya to stop wandering around so much, and just come back." 'Cause I miss you.
"Don't just assume that I'm coming back! You've got to be kidding! I have a place to go back to!" It looked like she was trying to prove that to herself.
With a last look into his rusty eyes, which bore her to come back, to come back home, she shut off the connection.
Who was he kidding? Well, he was kidding himself, and maybe that led to rest of the crew, who knew? His last conversation with Jet led him to be uncertain of who he was talking about.
"Does it still hurt?" The old man looked miserable hobbling on his crutches. Of course, he must've had worse, but he wasn't the fountain of youth.
"Do you know a story that goes like this? A man injured his leg during a hunt. In the middle of the savanna with no means to treat the wound, the leg rots, and death approaches. The man got onto the airplane that finally arrived and there he sees a land of pure white below him. The place glistening in the light was the summit of a snow-covered mountain. The name of the mountain was Kilimanjaro. The man thinks 'That was where he was headed...'
"And?" This story had no meaning so far, and if he were that guy in the story, he would've smoked his pack out before dying.
"I hate this story. Men only think about the past right before their death, as if they were searching frantically for proof that they were alive. Turn back. You told me when we first met that you were a man who had already died once. Just forget the past, okay?"
We both just looked down to Mars' surface from the lonely control room. At first, I was sure I was speaking about Julia.
"There was a woman. For the first time in my life I saw a woman that was truly alive. That's what I believed. She was a piece of me I had lost. She is my other half that I had longed for."
I could feel Jet's stare, and I bet he was racking his ISSP Black Dog mind for the missing link. Most likely, for how I fell for the shrew, and as if I went back to dreaming, I thought I saw her ship approaching the Bebop.
"She's back," I voiced out loud.
"Hm? Who?" And I knew, I was just dreaming it all up, she wouldn't return.
And I've been in here since then. If she really was here, I doubt I would be in this workshop, for fifteen minutes, without her, and her attempts to start up a good conversation. Her attempts to fit in a bunch of riff-raffs, when they wouldn't accept her before.
As I began loading the bullets into my Jericho, I never let it stay empty, I smelled Jasmine. I smelled it waft into the door, slowly intoxicating more then the wine in the bottle in front of me could ever. I became relaxed, and sure enough I could hear her walk.
It was graceful, quite quiet, and her heals just made a rhythmic pulse. And from the bottle, I could see her in its jaded depths, leaning in the doorway. She tried forming words, but nothing came out. Her eyes looked longing. Where they longing for me . . . or just longing for what to say? I wouldn't mind if they were both tied together.
She looked down, and I spoke, "You have something? You look like you have some information."
A grin appeared, and slowly I could see a ghost of Poker Alice flickering, "How much will you pay for it?"
With a simple look, "I don't have any money."
With a jolt, the BeBop jerked us to our closest bearings. I would've held onto Faye, but she already had the door to hold on to.
I was agitated, but remained calm. "You sure came back at the worst time..."
"Weren't you the one who called me here?" Yea I did, and it hurt to see her sad, aching eyes.
It all clicked together. "Or... maybe they followed you here? Oh, well. It was gonna happen sooner or later." I got up, and began walking swiftly to my ship. I could hear her running behind me.
"WAIT!" I couldn't stop, I couldn't face reality, the prospect of being alive with "the woman I met," the same woman who I knew was alive and simply not another character in a hideous plot of a nightmare.
She still ran after me, I knew she was going to hurt like I did when I left for good. Maybe if I faced this last thing, I could come back. Coming back was always an opportunity.
"Wait a minute!" I stopped after I was securely sitting in the Swordfish
"I don't have any money."
She looked at me with one last, piercing glance, "She said she'll be waiting there. She said you'd understand."
Play dumb, Spike. "I don't get it."
Now it was emerald depths of bluntness, and recognition of a moment, "It was from a woman named Julia. Someone was after her... They were chasing her..."
"Jet, I can go at any time." Maybe it would be better if I left now, and saved Faye the emotional crap, until I returned severed from the bitter, torn friendship, the dangerous, blonde angel, and ever looming Red Dragon.
I took off. Looking to my right, I could see Faye left too, even with a busted right thruster. It made me proud watching her maneuver pretty well, and shooting at the damn Syndicate planes. No doubt, she wanted to show them her excellent shooting skills.
We defended our home, our sanctuary, and as I was about to come in with Faye, and congratulate her, Jet came over the Vid phone.
"Spike, can you still fly? Don't worry about us. Just go! Go grasp that thing you had lost. GO!" He yelled at my hesitation. I didn't know what I lost now that I had them. But I did know if I went after a seemingly dream, called Julia, I would've really lost something. And that would be being alive with Faye.
A dream, or being alive? I flew away into the stars, knowing I needed to first settle some scores.
FIN