Disclaimer: I don't own bebop :( I wish, but it's Watanabe's idea, and a bunch of other people hold the copyrights, so basically, it's not mine. Now on with the story.
Dec. 13 2005: ssg posted a BP soundtrack, in case you want to check it out, it's in my info page. It'll be up for only a few days, so get the songs while you can.
Breaking Point
---1---
He was supposed to have died. He had felt his life slipping through the cracks of his lips, his breath failing and his eyelids falling heavy into the darkness. So what happened?
"I saved you."
His heart stopped. The susurrus of that voice, the sweet tender tone that mellowed everything around him rang in his ears. His muscles tensed, every single part of him became paralyzed at the soft sound of her whisper. He thought he would never hear it again.
"It wasn't your time," her jaded glare poisoned him with a bitter sweetness. His hand reached towards her face, he wanted to brush the golden lock of hair that fell softly against her milky cheek.
Wait, he knew how this story ended. He could remember almost reaching Julia's door, thinking that he would die and he needed to see her again one more time. His body had given up just before his fist could pound if only once, but before he lost consciousness, he'd seen this wonderful light and Julia standing there, waiting for him. He thought he was dead. Then she nursed him and revived him, and the love he had for her was never the same again. It had been borne as obsession and now it became this pure affection, this necessity. Yes, he knew how this story ended. Wasn't she dead? He stirred and slowly opened his mouth in an attempt to say something to her.
"You shouldn't move." A different voice told him. His vision blurred slightly for a split second and when he opened his eyes again the person that watched carefully over him looked completely different. It wasn't Julia anymore. She pulled a lock of her shoulder-length chestnut hair behind her ear and began to examine him with her violet eyes. Her hands wandered about his head and chest checking the gauze and bandages. "I thought you would never wake up. You're kind of expensive to keep, you know." The woman had a few wrinkles scattered here and there on her eyes and creases around her mouth of probably endless of scowls she had given men like him. Men that got themselves all banged up for nothing. He couldn't even die properly.
"Who are you?" He managed to whisper and then gasped for breath. It hurt to talk, breathe, or think. His shins ached and his stomach felt like someone had blown a hole through it. The arms and legs felt as if they were forming a revolution against him, blood coiling in them, burning more by the minute.
"I used to be a salvation nurse. I saw you laying there dead, the Red Dragon coup, no? It seems more like you'll be needing pain killers. No worries, Mark from the local shop tips an attending at the hospital and he gets some meds and sells them. He owes me a favor, so I get them on special discount. You're lucky to be alive." She kept talking to him like that, her thoughts traveling from tangent to tangent. She reminded him of Annie oddly enough.
"Who are you?" It pained him to even open his mouth, but she hadn't answered his question.
"Oh damn, I'm sorry. I'm Celia." He nodded at her. She checked his IV and then prepped a needle she had set on the table next to him. She injected the liquid into his IV and he felt a slight tingling rush into his hand. He realized he had an oxygen mask over his mouth and patches all over his body.
"That should do it. Sorry about the ancient treatment, but I don't have the kind of money to afford better. You should be feeling better in no time. Okay, so you have to heal a whole lot, but you'll be fine soon enough." She paused for a moment smacking her lips. "You got anyone you want me to call?" He blinked several times, his brain slowly processing her question. His head rubbed on the pillow from side to side.
"No one," he answered and she eyed him carefully.
"Right then. You rest up."
Three months had passed since he first woke up and most of his wounds had already healed well enough for him to be on his own. Celia had left him only two days before then and told him that he would need to take care on his own. She was needed elsewhere, but she had left one month's rent paid until he found means to pay it or move elsewhere. Her somber purple eyes had focused on him, almost remorseful that she had to leave. The fridge and cupboards had been stocked so he wouldn't go hungry anytime soon before he healed completely. A tear began to fall down her cheek.
Spike tried asking her more than once why she had helped him. She would grunt, then scoff, either leave the room or change the subject. If he brought it up again, she would threaten to have him starve. After a few tries, he got the hint. He was an invalid—unable to move by his own will—most of the time, so who was he to argue with the woman?
"You take care now," she said before she left. "Don't go doing anything stupid and dying. I've worked too hard. You better live until you're eighty. You should stop smoking if you want to get there." She smacked the cigarette from his hand, but waited until she left to pick it up again.
"Celia," he called for her and then fumbled around for his words. It was a long time since he had said something like that. "Thanks," he said somberly. She shook her head at this and her lips curled to a smile. She left promising him she would be back in a month to visit and make sure he wasn't dead or something. "Thanks mom." Her eyes widened at this last comment and she shook her head at him, muttering under his breath that she should have left him there to bleed to death. He chuckled. His last three months had been full of sarcastic comments like that. Sometimes he wished that he could move so he could kick her out, but she became a comfort to him.
Days and weeks passed, and solitude replaced Celia as his obnoxious companion. He hadn't gone back to bounty hunting. He didn't want to remember anything about his past. He just became an errand boy for a local shop. A black market errand boy, nevertheless, the pay supported him well enough. His routine would be the same every day. Wake up, groan at the morning sun, brush teeth, wash face, get dressed, eat a fruit (it had become customary because of Celia), and head to Mireya's Delivery.
He had thought about contacting the Bebop just briefly, but he couldn't. He just couldn't.
He stared in the mirror on this particular morning, a Sunday, about ten. Weekends quickly became the time of the week to dread. He had time to remember he was still alive, still breathing, still alone. He glared at himself in the mirror focusing on his left mechanical eye. The eye that could see the past. His breathing raced with the unhappy thoughts of his mind.
You aren't supposed to be alive, Spiegel.
You killed your best friend.
All you lived for died back then. Died. You went to see if you were alive, and you aren't, you are dead!
Cracks slithered from the impact of his knuckles against the mirror. He slumped his face forward. He had applied full force to the punch and now he just held it there, breathing hard, contemplating his existence. It had been his time to die, why was he alive? His ears became alert at the sound of his front door opening. He pulled out the gun from his pants. The gun had become his inseparable companion even in the washroom. He breathed in and with a kick the bathroom door flew open, his gun aiming straight in front of him. The sad mismatched brown eyes widened, gaping at the figure standing before him.
She cocked her head to the side. Her emerald gems staring at him with a soft expression in them. Her white milky skin glowed in the dim light of the apartment. She smiled at him, her red lips tight together, a sympathetic smile. She wore long black lose fit black pants with a maroon turtleneck shirt tucked in and held neatly in her pants by a black belt. She rolled up her long sleeves to her elbows and then ran her hand through her long wavy golden hair.
Julia.
"It's ironic," she murmured glancing to the side. Her eyes still held sympathy in them.
"How? You were dead. I saw you. I know you were." He managed to blurt out like a manic trying to gather his speedy thoughts. She glared straight at him with somber eyes.
"I know. I am dead."
"What?"
"It's ironic. You, contemplating your existence." Her voice remained calm, but serious. "I think that's why I'm here."
"No." He soughed. "No! You're dead."
"I think we've established that." She said without a hint of sarcasm, but worry instead. "Is your hand all right?" He lowered the gun and glanced down at his knuckles realizing how bruised they were, and the some of the cuts causing rivulets around his fist and toward the gun.
"I'm fine." At least, his hand would survive, but his sanity was a different story.
"It'll get swollen if you don't put ice on it." She insisted. He placed the gun on his night table and sat down on the bed holding his face in his uninjured hand.
"You're not real." His body shook violently.
"I am to you," she said. He didn't look up at her, but simply brought his legs up on the bed and curled there.
"It's just a dream."
"Isn't it all?" Her voice echoed from wall to wall. He brought his hands to his ears as tears welled up in his eyes.
"Stop it," he commanded. "Stop!"
"This has been too much for you already," she said, her voice fading out on the last words. His eyes shot up and found nothing there. They shifted to every part of the room, but it was empty once again. He closed his eyes tightly as tears streamed down his cold face. He remembered her body falling backwards in the air. Her hair fluttering then she just slumped on the floor. He ran to her. He had held her so gently like a porcelain doll with cracks about to break. Her emeralds had peered at him for a second, and her lips had asked if it was a dream.
"Yes, it's all a bad dream." He thought aloud. His mind watching her die over and over again. His body writhed in the bed, shaking violently to the point he could barely hold himself together. He reached for his gun, the tremor in his hand almost causing him to drop it. He gripped it tightly and slowly brought it to his mouth. His sobs made him choke several times and the tears streamed freely down his sallow face.
Spike Spiegel was scared. Hopelessly scared enough to want to die.
His front door gently creaked open and Celia came in holding a brown bag in her arms.
"Spike? Your front door was open," she said still not noticing Spike in the darkness. He didn't pull out the gun from his mouth, but instead watched the large woman shut the door and comment on how dark the place was until she turned around and saw him. Her aghast expression didn't stir him, but instead compelled him to cock the gun and place his finger on the trigger. Celia dropped her bag and stepped closer to him, her face contorting into anger.
"Don't even think it," she whispered, the urgent anger seeping in her eyes. Spike refused to look into her violet eyes anymore and instead closed them. His body still shook out of control and so did his hand holding his life. "I did not spend seven months nursing you back to life so you could do this." Her powerful tone made him shrink back a bit. She grabbed his hand gently and he wanted to pull the trigger at that instant, but couldn't. He saw Julia's face and heard her voice saying "I saved you." He couldn't do it. Celia carefully pulled out the gun from his mouth and pried the gun from his fingers. She took out the barrel and threw it against the wall. Spike's brown eyes focused on her with aggravation and hopelessness at the same time.
"I didn't ask for you to save me." He gasped out his trembling lips. "I didn't ask to be alive!"
"I didn't save you. People don't choose to die and they don't choose to stay alive. But they do. That's life, so get the fuck over it! I didn't save you, because you stayed alive. There's a part of you that wants to live, that needs to live." He closed his eyes again barely listening to her words.
"I saw her. She stood in front of me as if she was alive. But she's dead. She told me. Something is very wrong with me." He opened his eyes staring at Celia. Celia shook her head then went to her bag to and grabbed a small bottle out.
"Here, take two of these every time you're shaking like this." She took out two pills and placed the bottle on his night table. She handed him the two pills and his trembling hand received them and popped them immediately into his mouth. They squirmed down his esophagus and a few minutes later the trembling episode had ceased.
"I'm going crazy." He whispered.
"No, you're not," she responded coldly. "That's a sorry excuse for keeping the room so dark and damp. I came to visit you and see how you receive me. God, I hate it when I'm right. It was all over your face—the chickenshit death wish to die." Spike hadn't heard her curse before. She had been sarcastic and cynical to him, always with a quick response, but now she was angry. She was shaken and startled, and she visibly hated him for it. She busied herself in the kitchen for a while, completely ignoring him, and he didn't want to break the silence. After a while, he couldn't help it anymore. It smelled good and he remembered one of those things that told him he was alive. Hunger.
"What are you making?" he asked.
"Bell peppers and beef," she answered after a quick grunt, but her tone had been light enough that he knew she had already forgiven him
"Real beef?" he said with a chuckle. She nodded and he laughed heartily.
Life loved to play ironic tricks on him.