Note: Alright….um, this is chapter four. Enjoy.

Chapter 4

"Hello Miss. Evans." A middle aged woman waved to the younger women at the opposite side of the street, and in return the younger women waved back in acknowledgment.

It was early afternoon when the community becomes lively with kids and teens wearing their school uniforms after a busy day at their schools. Parents with their children holding tightly onto their hands, vehicles going by at a slow speed as the crossing guards and children waits for their turn to cross.

The woman was very well known in this community. They knew her as being average, normal, and an ordinary young woman who had just brought a decent home four and a half years ago with the small bulge growing in her stomach. She; a single woman that worked at a nice restaurant as a waitress, independent, living on her own with no help needed.

This woman was known as Faye Evans. Beautiful, fragile, and graceful to the people who seen her on the streets. Any stranger would see her that way as well. But in truth, she's deceiving to the naked eye. She has a past that co-exist to be known as Faye Valentine and that she refuses to remember and desperately wishes to forget. The past is the past, and it is meant to stay there.

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"I should have told you guy's, if I told him, I thought...thought for sure he would leave and never come back. I'm...OH GOD, I-" Faye was choking on her own words as she began to have a slight panic attack with tears going down uncontrollably.

"Faye, what do you mean, what's wrong?" Jet asked now concerned to Faye's condition now. He did a quick jog toward her; he leaned down to be leveled with her and lifted up her chin with his mechanical hand.

Faye started to relax a bit more, enough for her throat to be a little clearer again. "Jet, I did something unforgivable, I did something I wasn't suppose to do, it- it's involving Spike, and he doesn't know about it."

"Faye?" Jet asked as he tried to hear what she was trying to say.

"It's been going on for two weeks now, that's why I left, I've been getting sick." She said more calm and emotionless than before.

"You left because you were sick?" Jet asked as if she was talking in riddles, which in his opinion, she was.

"No, I- was vomiting every morning, at first, I thought it was just the flu going around but it wouldn't go away. I went to go to see a doctor and he told me it wasn't the case." Tears began to go down her face again as she explained the truth.

"Faye, what are you talking about? What does this have to about him-" Jet asked but was interrupted by Faye's sudden outburst.

"I'm pregnant… Its there Jet."

The hall turned silent yet it seemed like all hell broke loose. Jet felt like the ground beneath him trembled and soon to be departed, but it was only the trembling of his body. Even though he had an artificial arm, it felt numb and painful like the rest of his body, everything in contrast seemed to collide into one another the moment the word 'pregnant' left her tongue.

"You're what?" Jet said quietly as if he didn't hear it the first time.

"The doctor said 'congratulations Miss. Valentine, but I believe you have a bun in the oven' he's so old fashion by using that kind of term but I understood it perfectly." She said with a bit of a snort at the remembrance of the old doctor.

Jet was baffled and couldn't believe that she would make such a wise crack joke at a moment like this and still had the tears running down her face.

"I- God Faye…How?- why? Wh-what…I still don't understand what this has to do with him."

Yes, still in this time of the century, Faye believed that all men were dense and will always be when it comes to logical terms. She slowly looked up into Jets ice blue eyes, unbelievably. If he couldn't understand in logic, maybe he can read her thoughts to understand it.

Jets eyes then got big at the realization of what Faye meant.

"Faye is it-"

"I donno."

Again, time stood still for the both of them and again, Jet is trying to figure out Faye's riddles. Why was it so difficult for him to understand? Faye looked down and rested her head onto her knees and soft mumbles of apologies were only heard from the broken woman in front of him. He stood at a stand still wandering of what to say, what to do, how to even cope to what was to happen next. Then in an instant, Faye shot her head up to look Jet strait in the eyes to look for anything, an understanding, forgiveness, anger, anything to make Jet to stop looking at her so helpless, weak, pitied for. The things she so desperately never wanted coming from them to her. It angered her. She knew what she had to do. Not only for that reason alone, but for the sake of the life she would need to lead for herself and now new child growing inside of her. Her gaze on Jet's eyes left as she got up to stand tall and began to walk away.

"Hey, where you going?" Jet asked suddenly realizing that Faye was headed to her room.

"I can't stay here Jet." Was her simple reply. Jet followed after her then right behind.

She took out her navy blue duffle bag from underneath the bed and threw random materials she owned into the bag. As she did this, Jet stood at the door way, trying to register all of what was going on. It was just moving way to fast for him.

"Wait! Why? I don't understand. Where you going? Why are you going?" he said panicked. Faye was not in the state of mind to do anything, let alone, go anywhere. She was going insane.

She froze to what she was doing, hearing Jet asked those simple questions gave her a recap, a reminder of those simple questions she asked Spike just an hour ago. She hesitated and shook uncontrollably. She thought for a moment at what she was just doing at the moment. 'Am I becoming just like him? Just get up and leave, just like that. Am I abandoning them just for my selfish desires, just like him?' As if Jet was reading her own thoughts, he asked the questions that were just going through her head.

"Are you just gonna get up and leave? Faye, don't be like him. My leg is SHOT, there is NOTHING I have to offer you. We're BROKE and besides, your ship is crashed. NOT NOW FAYE! Not like him." He said breathlessly, almost shouting at her. It stayed silent as Jet watched Faye hunch her shoulders low. He was getting inpatient at Faye's silence and no response.

"You know what? FUCK IT! I DON'T GIVE A DAMN, LEAVE, but I swear Faye, you even dare to come back onto this ship-"

"Thanks Jet." She said a little above a whisper. Jet caught this and couldn't finish giving her a piece of his mind because the sudden shock and misunderstanding of Faye's 'thank you's'.

"I knew you could be such a softy some times. I'll miss you too." She said this as she turned around. She gave Jet a sad smile as Jet looked at her as if she really was loosing it.

"…But, I'm not like him. I'm not going to die, I'm going because-"

"Let me guess, your going to see if your truly al-"

"I want to live." She said as she finished her sentence.

Okay, that was not what Jet would have expected, but it did sound much better than 'see if I'm truly alive' crap. Faye continued on to her explanations of the sudden thoughts of leaving.

"I know who I am now or at least who I was. I know my past and now I need to get my future. I'm pregnant and this child, this child is mine. I don't want to give it up, I finally have something that I can call my own and I don't want this to be taken away from me, not again. I don't want to be alone again. This is going to be my family, this child is going to be mine, a-and suppose Spike does survive that battle, what then? He's gonna know, and he would want to get rid of it. Either way, either way he wouldn't want anything to do with it. He's gonna hate and resent me and he's gonna take it out on MY child.

Really, imagine Spike being the father figure, huh, imagine me being the mother figure, but at least I'm not abandoning anyone, I'm not being haunted about the past. I may not become the perfect mother, but I'm still going to love it, I'm neither going to let it be like me, especially nor any of them. Not only that , but come on Jet, we're a wreck, imagine raising a child on this ship. Bounty hunters, gambling, gamble on life, the smoke, no food. My child does not deserve this. Do you understand where I'm getting at?"

After her long monologue, it stayed silent once again. Faye looked at Jet pleadingly hoping he understood her actions. Jet hung his shoulders low, just like the way he felt. Low. He understood perfectly. He knew the consequences of having an infant on this ship. It would be a disaster. And even though Faye was putting Spike that low as hating her, and it is like him to demand that she has an abortion, which is obviously something she is not budging to do, when she has this child and if Spike 'did' survive, it wasn't Spike to put the blame and resentment on the child, but it would also be like him to not take responsibility for the child. More likely he would completely ignore that child and act as if it wasn't even his. Jet contemplated on this and thought what was to happen now.

"Fine, but Faye, can you at least wait until we get your ship up and running again, and until my leg is healed. I can, you know, get a couple of bounties for the money you would need when you bust out of here. If Spike does survive this, it's not like we need to tell him, keep it between us, but, if he doesn't, I'm asking you to stay here a bit longer then, alright?"

Faye smiled at this, she looked towards the bag she was ready to stuff with more things. She thought for a moment that she was being irrational. It was a good idea to stay, and it wasn't like she could go anywhere anyways.

"Alright, I'll stay."

ooo

Faye remembered this conversation, it's been over four years ago but she remembered it like it was just yesterday. If she has seen herself back then, she would see her in abhorrence, spit her out like she was trash. Nonetheless, she was grateful. Faye wouldn't where the fashion of a retro street walker. Now she wore actual clothes, she had regular dark blue jean pants, a khaki colored Laura clement Safari jacket with seaming front and back, tailored collar, and long sleeves with deep cuffs. And instead of the white boots she use to wear, now it was replaced by light brown ones. She also replaced the headband for a hair band to pull her hair back for now it grew several inches, but kept her bangs at the same length but now kept them down covering her temple. She looked simple, ordinary and was known as Faye Evans.

She finally reached her destination after a couple of blocks of walking from her house to now a playground with children running and playing on the jungle gym. The chain linked fence was the only thing separating Faye from entering into that playground. She gazed at the children playing with each other trying to look for one child in particular. As she fixed her eyes to that one child making a sand castle near the swing set with the other children, the child looked up to Faye as if he expected her to be there and waved to her with a smile on his face knowing that she was there to see him. Faye clung to the fence gripping it as she smiled with her mouth moving saying a 'hi'.

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"Oh hello Miss. Evans, I'm glad we could have this meeting today." The women extended her hand out to Faye for a greeting.

"Yes of course." Faye was then escorted to take a seat at one of the many small round tables that was presented to her.

"I called you in here today because I'm concerned about your son and his behavior."

"Behavior?" Faye asked unbelievingly.

"Your son is a very bright boy, very smart and he seems to take the role as a leader, but your son is also very rebellious. I tell him to clean up his messes, to participate in doing something, and then I tell him to go into his timeouts, but your son will either completely ignore or he would throw a bit of a tantrum if he's been told to do something."

"Well of course, he is only four years old, that's what they do." Faye said with a higher tone before when she walked in.

"Yes I understand that clearly, it's just that Darius, how can I say this, he's an unpleasant child and he needs to be disciplined. That's what concerns me as well. Is everything doing okay at home? Is he given good enough attention, does his father spend time with him?"

When the word 'father' was said, Faye put her head down. She didn't know how to explain it, actually, she didn't want to explain it to this crank woman right here, but its probably the reasons why her son was acting this way in his class the first place.

"Yeah everything's fine at home, he's a good boy at home, but considering the father, well you see, he's never had one. Darius' father died before he was born and he really doesn't have a 'father figure' to look up to."

"I see, I've dealt with children like him before and known many single working parents like yourself, even ones that had one of their parents deceased, it is hard for both the parent and especially the child to go through that kind of trauma, but when it comes to those matters, I recommend that you see a counselor or any kind of help."

The teacher really did seem concerned. It's what Faye didn't like, this woman was getting into her own personal business, and forget about seeing the counselor's, if any word got out about her past, it would cause a lot of trouble.

She always knew that her son was going to go through this kind of manner. Its not that Darius would hate the other kids, it was more envying them, to see that they had two parents and he always wandered why he only had one. Faye remembered him asking her that question once before. It was not something to be discussed, not yet at least. She eventually told him that his father had died before he was born, but she could never tell him as why that is, let alone of exactly who he was. It was a very touchy subject, and she would wait until he was old enough to understand. The behavior he had in class surprised her a little, but at the same time, it was to be expected. It did however, scared her to know that her son was influencing some of the other children to pick up his actions and this is what caught her attention as to way she was meeting with this teacher in the first place.

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"Strongest cheapest liquor you got." Spike said as he sat down at the bar.

The bar in particular didn't look half bad, it definitely looked better than the one he went into yesterday morning. Then again, Venus was known to have the best alcohol beverages so it was common here to have decent bars. This one in particular was dark but had a cozy feeling to it, soft rhythm and blues were being played at the back of the bar and instead of old geezers, there were some young people in there just having themselves a good time. At the center of the bar, were nice furnished pool tables as smoke danced above them from the majority of men having themselves a good smoke. It gave Spike the small long forgotten memory of the past, to be so young and naïve. Now being at the age of thirty-two, he felt old and aliened there. Maybe it was the better idea to go to another bar.

Spike then relaxed a bit after seeing a man about his age, maybe a bit younger, enter the bar to sit next to him. The man seemed to know the environment quite well, seeing that the bartender already prepared the drink for the man without him ordering the type of drink he wanted.

"Hey Cassius, what brings you in today?" The bartender greeted the man.

The man just shrugged his shoulders as signifying that it was like every other day of his life.

"Bad day?" The bartender said as he gave him his drink.

"Nah, just tiresome. I've been running around making errands all day so I just thought to take a break and stop by in here." He said this as he took his drink to his hands.

"Damn, your boss on your ass again."

"Yeah, he's been freakin' out since the R.D.s are up n' runnin again."

"So I heard the rumors. Any info about the new leader, you know since the last one was assassinated by that suicidal massacre?"

"As of yet, nah, not really. All I know is that the new leader has been getting new recruits, along with the some that survived back in order. I donno who the new leader is but I gotta give him credit. He does have guts to try bringing the new Red Dragons up n' runnin again."

This made Spike gaze at his drink in his hands as he overheard the conversation that was going on between the two men. He wondered if this 'rumor' was true or not. Spike took a sly glance over to the man that was named 'Cassius'. He looked about the age of twenty-seven, about the same height as Spike was, his hair dark black/burgundy color and long enough to touch his shoulders. The man was dressed very well. He had one of those expensive tuxedos, which more likely prove that he was a business man. But to Spike's interest, he wondered what kind of business man is he, if his boss is going haywire about a 'rumor'. Spike contemplated on this, and the only answers he could come up with was that this man was probably part of the syndicate himself, or he's part of a rival syndicate to the Red Dragons.

"…So what is it you need to do now Cassius?" The bartender asked as he cleaned a random glass.

"Ne? Oh I'm just gonna finish these reports and hand them in." Cassius rose up from the bar stool and tucked the papers into his suit case.

"The R.D.s?"

"Yeah." Cassius then looked over to Spike's direction to give him an acknowledging smile. It was a devious grin in Spike's perception.

As Spike looked back up to him, it was a long glance. For what ever reason this man seemed quite familiar, as if he's seen him before but where was still a mystery to him.

'I may have not remembered that face, but that grin is definitely familiar. Yeah, he's definitely works at the Red Dragon's.' Spike thought as he raised his glass to him back to his acknowledgment.

"See ya later Cass." The bartender set the glass down as Cassius left the bar. Spike's eyes followed the man out. He was a suspicious character to Spike but that was to be thought about later. Spike then remembered that he had a bounty hunt today. An assignment he promised Jet he would get today for the food that week. Spike got up to leave the bar and leaving behind the tip to the bartender as he waved back at Spike for the thanks.

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The walk back home for Faye and Darius was quiet as she held on to his hand. Darius had his head bowed down low as if he knew that he was in trouble. But the look in Faye's face, she was more sadden by this than mad at him about it. She couldn't help but feel sorry for her son. He was one without a father. Someone he needs, and looking up to 'only' a mother wasn't the best for a boy to grow into a better man. Over the years, Faye considered if she should start dating, but the thought was shoved aside quickly. Dating was something that she didn't want, or not interested in. She had a hard time trusting any man anyways because every man that she's encountered ends up leaving and abandoning her and she didn't want her son to ever have that kind of experience as she did.

As they past a vender that was selling ice cream and other tasting goods at the park across the street, Darius looked up to his mother with pleading eyes if he can go have some. As Faye looked back down to her son, knowing what he wanted, she couldn't help but get that shuddering shiver going up her spine. Those eyes, those piercing transfixed eyes still hypnotized her, just the same way his father has done to her so long ago.

He had many of his father's features but as far as appearance goes, he had a lot of her own. He had those strait silky light violet locks that was cut into that semi-symmetrical bowl shaped haircut and soft pale, yet, healthy ivory skin color. He took on the traits of his father's very handsome looks and though at the age Darius was at, he only had a pudgy little nose but Faye could already tell that he would have that long arched nose, just like his father's was. As personality goes, yes he did have a bit of a temper like her own, but still kept a restraint content look in him. And when it came to stubbornness and determination, well he picked that up from both of them.

"A'ma, can I have some ice cream?" Darius said as he looked to his mother.

"Hm? Oh of course Darcy." She said this in a sweet motherly tone. She held onto his hand as they crossed to the other side of the street.

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They sat at the bench as Darius struggled to lick up the remaining of his ice cream as it melted and slid down his fingers. Faye had to smile at her son's childish clumsiness, and then a thought came to her. She worried for her son's acts from his school. If anything she didn't want her child to pick up from his father, was his bearings. She was already half worried that her son is a natural born leader and influences many of the other kids to follow, she was happy for him, but it still scared her that he was going to pick up to where his father left off.

As he finished his ice cream, he smiled up to her, the same smile that he has gotten from his father. His face was covered from the remaining rock-road that he has eaten. Faye though, only gave him a sad smile. She put her arm around his shoulder and kissed his crown. Indeed, she really worried for her son.

Note: Wow, I finished...crapy ending. I am so disappointed in myself though, I've worked on part of this story during my Writing class during a lecture. Sorry, I didn't proof read it either and I promise, of there is any editing, I swear I'll fix them.

And yaeh, Darius is at only the age of four, and that would mean that he's to young for grade school, so I put him more into a head start child care kind of school. Thanks for reading, and I gotta go, (I'm a minute late to Math class.)