Author's Note: I strongly recommend reading the first story, Blues in the Night, if you have never read it (It will make little sense when I bring up a reference). This is the long awaited sequel, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Cowboy Bebop. This work is for purely entertainment purposes. Any original characters are mine.

Did You Ever Seen A Dream Walking?

By roxyravette

Chapter 1

Only if the Bounty is Big Enough

It felt so good to be back. The Bebop was the same as if she had never even left. It seemed as if every creak of the old ship had welcomed her return. It felt like home. Faye smiled inwardly.

"Never thought I'd call this rust bucket home." she mused.  Faye stretched on the length of the yellow couch, enjoying its lumps and dusty smell. If she'd been asked months ago what she thought of as home, Faye had no doubt that she would have ignored the question. But now she'd moved on after seeing the destruction of her old residence on Earth. She realized home never really was a place; just somewhere you felt like you belonged. It gave new meaning to 'Home is where the heart is'. Faye turned over on her back and stared up at the ceiling. The fan swung slowly, its constant clicking the only sound in the room. It occurred to Faye that the Bebop was different despite its familiarity and newfound hominess. There was an unnerving sense of peace and quiet. Faye felt a sudden pang of sadness as she realized why. She missed the little brown skinned heathen and her annoying mutt. Ed and Ein, the inseparable and annoyingly cute duo. For a minute, Faye wondered where they were. She frowned and pushed the thought away. Even though they had been gone for a while, it was still too quiet.

"Where the hell is everybody?!" she yelled, interrupting the disturbing silence. When the echo of her own voice died down, the stillness returned more unsettling than ever. Faye got up and headed for the fridge. She opened it to find the shelves bare of anything edible. Faye sighed and closed it. She just remembered that Jet had gone to get some food and dig up the latest on a couple of bounty heads. Hopefully he'd would bring in some useful information or she'd have to go out on her own again. Lately she'd been sticking to small bounties but their lacking of money was starting to show. Just today they didn't have enough money to fuel up, much less pay the docking fees for Earth. Jet had to take the Hammerhead instead but that had been over four hours ago.

"Where is he?" she wondered as she looked at the time. "He should have been back by now." Jet's absence was explained but where was Spike? Feeling a streak of mischief, she went to see what he was up to. She made her way to his room and stopped at his closed door. She knocked tentatively before she pushed open the door to reveal nothing but an empty room. She closed the door in disgust and walked towards the front of the ship. To her surprise, she heard the sound of labored breathing and silent footfalls coming from the room with viewing window. Faye peeked into the room and was startled to see Spike finishing up his warm-up. Faye watched him in the darkness and was entranced by his graceful moves. In the dim light she could see a sheet of perspiration covering his body. Suddenly without warning, Spike doubled over, grimacing in pain. Faye sighed and flicked on the lights.

"I could have sworn that the doctor said something about that, now what was it?" Faye wondered aloud. Spike stared in surprise at her sudden appearance. "Oh I remember! He said, 'Don't do any workouts unless you feel the absolute need to bleed to death.'" Spike frowned at her mockery.

"There's no reason to be sarcastic, Faye." Spike chided, gulping in air. Faye shrugged and walked past him to look out the glass. Spike gave her a hateful look when she made no move to help him. He got up on his own.

"You know," he started. "Sometimes I don't know whose nagging is worse, yours or Jet's." Faye gave a small noise that sounded vaguely like she was hurt. Spike smirked and grabbed a nearby towel and sat heavily on the floor of the ship. Outside of the glass, Faye could see the enormous celestial body that was Earth. Numerous asteroids and other debris floated in the zero gravity that was space. Behind her, Faye could hear the painfully labored breathings and could almost feel them within her own chest.

It was hard to believe that a little more than two months ago, Spike had been written off as dead and she was once again going solo. But being alone had its price. No sooner had she struck out on her own, trouble followed and his name was Reic. He'd been an old lover and had found her to claim a personal bounty. It was then when she found Spike surprisingly. He'd been suffering from amnesia when they found each other. He had pulled numerous remarkable feats all to save her from an insane madman with a determination to collect her bounty. He'd been shot, skewered, and near death after the whole conflict had been resolved. Faye shook her head as images flashed through her head. Reic's mad gray eyes, Spike's trademark grin, Spike's mangled form lying in debris, and Reic still form lying on the pavement after a three story drop. She shuddered at the thought. She owed Spike so much for the personal hell she'd put him through during the whole incident. But he never asked for anything back and since then their relationship had become a little odd. She didn't know what they were to each other but respect for the other was there. When they fought, now a rare occurrence, it was different. Their feelings had become a sort of mutual thing.

"Penny for you thoughts?" Spike asked, interrupting her reflection. Startled, Faye looked at him to see him with a pensive expression on his features. Faye turned back to the window.

"Don't you mean woolong?" Faye replied. Spike stood up, leaving the towel where he sat and walked over to the glass.

"Well, I am a little short on woolongs at the moment, but I do have a penny." he said as her reached behind her ear and pulled out the antique coin. Faye looked at Spike, then at the coin, then back up at Spike.

"Aren't we a little to old to be playing magic tricks?" she started doubtfully. "Besides, you can't possibly be serious."

"Oh but I am," he said smoothly. "You intrigue me Ms. Valentine." Faye stiffened as his arm laid over her shoulders. The warmth and contact of his skin against hers sent shivers down her spine. No doubt Spike felt her shivers because he pulled her closer. Faye felt the heat creep up her face and was thankful that her face was turned away.

"You really should take it easy." she said, trying to ignore his arm.. "You'll end up in the hospital for sure this time."  Spike snorted and all at once the moment was ruined.

"I can't stand bed rest." he said as he removed his arm. He walked over and picked up his towel.

"Where are you going?" Faye asked.

"I'm going to take a shower." he replied.  "I smell horrible." Faye smiled impishly.

"Please and do us all a favor." she yelled to his back. Spike turned around and threw his sweaty towel at her. Faye caught it but by the time she readied the wadded up towel he was gone. Faye frowned in annoyance and draped the sweaty cloth over her shoulder. Impulsively, she almost sniffed it. She knew it would smell of sweat, but underneath the musk of sweat would be him, a unique spicy smell that was only Spike. Faye sighed and started walking back to the kitchen area of the ship.

She didn't deny that she felt an attraction to him and sometimes, when she wasn't deluding herself, she could see that he felt the same way. It wasn't his looks and definitely not his personality that attracted her to him, but perhaps the mutual sufferings they had both undergone and shared. Yet their situation was so complicated. She felt that there was some kind of friendship between them but there were times when things she said, did or even things he saw would remind him of his past. He hadn't entirely let go of it or Julia. Julia was dead, yet she still continued to haunt his footsteps. A women long gone still had her cold dead hands around Spike's heart, barely allowing anyone else to gain a handhold. Faye hated her for that. Faye sighed again as she reached the couch and plopped down on it. She needed to quit thinking about it. There was next to nothing that she could do about the situation.

As soon as she settled back down on the couch, she heard the familiar footsteps coming from the hanger. She sat up to face a very pissed off looking Jet. Faye didn't even bat an eye as he slammed the bags of groceries on the table across from her and sat down heavily in the chair. He whipped out a cigarette and stared at her, smoking away. Faye smiled to herself.

"He must have had a hard time," she thought. She knew better to voice that though. Faye gave him a look of mild annoyance and took it upon herself to rummage through the bags.

"That's all there is." Jet said gruffly. "Don't eat it all."  Faye looked up from the bag, deciding whether of not he meant what he said.

"I'm guessing you didn't find anything?" she said changing the subject. Jet's eyebrow twitched and Faye could almost hear him grinding his teeth together. "Oh, sore subject."

"No, I didn't find anything," he said heavily. "And on top of that, something strange is going on." Faye reached in the bag and pulled out an apple.

"Like what?" she asked taking a bite. Jet reached in the bag and pulled out a can of beer.

"Some high tech computer virus is crashing all the systems on Earth." he said as he popped the top. "It's one big ass mess down there."

"I'm sure they'll fix whatever problem there is." Faye said around a bite of apple. Jet swallowed some of his drink.

"That's not all." he continued sullenly, wiping his mouth. "The police are looking for someone named Radical Edward who started the infection." Faye stopped munching on her apple and gave Jet her serious look.

"Radical Edward?" she repeated the name. "As in Ed? As in our Ed?" Jet nodded and leaned over to flick the computer terminal on top of the table on. The latest bounties came up and the first was Radical Edward. Faye read the info, which really wasn't much. The so called "White Rabbit Virus" infected the mail first and spread to other computers, eventually causing a crash on all terminals, from personal laptops to the supercomputers that controlled nearly every aspect of outer space life. As Faye read down to the bottom, she could see that there were actually three separate bounties. One for the capture of the hacker, one for the destruction of the virus, and another for both, a grand total of eight million woolongs. Faye regarded Jet's preoccupied expression.

"It can't be." she said almost to herself. "Why?"

"I don't know," he shrugged. "But that money would be helpful." Faye stood up abruptly, the apple forgotten.

"You aren't actually thinking of claiming that bounty." she asked him doubtfully. "This is Ed you're thinking about capturing." Jet eyes flamed and his voice rose.

"Why not! We need the money." His livid face was so foreign to her. "Besides we get more money if we just destroy the virus." Faye's face tightened in anger.

"Yeah, but you get even more money if you bring in Ed as well!" she fired back at him "This is unlike you, Jet." Faye stared at Jet's blank face with disgust as he made no comment.

"Well?" Jet eyes hardened and continued to stay silent. Faye frowned and grabbing her red jacket, made for the hanger.

"Wait Faye!" Jet yelled as he took hold of her wrist. Faye met him with a fuming look. "You don't even have some sort of plan."

"Plan?" asked a voice. "What's going on?" Faye broke her stare with Jet to face a clueless looking Spike. He wore his usual outfit, minus the jacket however. She could tell that his hair was still damp from the shower but focused her thoughts elsewhere. She turned back to Jet and snatched her hand back, rubbing her wrists as she gave him a dirty look.

"I was going to Earth to get Ed." she responded evenly. Her eyes rested on Jet. "There's a bounty on her and I want to keep her away from greedy bounty hunters like him!" Jet barked a short laugh.

"If that's not the pot calling the kettle black, I don't know what is." Spike looked between the two with sidelong glances.

"Uh, What's going on?" he asked confused. Jet quickly summed up the problem on Earth and the bounty on Ed.

"Well, why no just get Ed, make her create an anti-virus and destroy the one that's causing all the problems." Spike remarked logically. "It's money, albeit a little less, but enough to last." Faye crossed her arms and turned away.

"I refuse to believe that Ed is doing this." she said at last. "But is she can create the anti-virus, we might as well try for the bounty." Jet grinned triumphantly.

"Spoken like a true glutton for money."

"Shut up." she shot over her shoulder. Jet laid out the details of the plan as Spike and Faye listened, but distantly, Faye thought that this little bounty hunting excursion was going to turn into something bigger…a lot bigger.

A/N

So there's the first chapter of  Did You ever See A Dream Walking. I'm pretty satisfied with it. Trust me mucho accion in the next chapter. I actually wanted this one to be a little longer but if I continued it'd be way to long.  Hopefully my old readers are still alive somewhere but you can enjoy this sort of by itself. Anyway, look for the next Chapter 2…Never Follow the White Rabbit…it promises a crapload of drama and fun. R and R.