"Dimmer" A/N: The canon continues to squeal and gibber in pain.

KARMA: Dimmer

Faye stares at the tiny little hole. It's black around the edges, as though the bullet singed the skin during its passage, but the inside is all red and raw and closed together. She looks at her reflection. Nope. It won't do. That's going to leave a scar, and her favorite outfit might as well be a frame for it. She reties the bandage.

Sighing, she scrounges in her limited wardrobe for something else to wear. She finally settles for a blue tank top and a pair of white shorts. She frowns; it's so plain. So not her. She'll have to go shopping. Find something that is her that still covers up her suddenly unsightly midsection.

What would her mother think? She'd probably pass out if she saw it. Her mother. Her father. Rich people living the way Faye's only dreamed ever since she woke up—hot and cold running luxury, life grown inwards. Her existence before cold sleep was almost laughably complicated, her moments scheduled one after the other, all to maintain the standards rich people invent for themselves. The perfect life. The perfect daughter. Now the perfect daughter is marred.

At least I still have good legs, she thinks.

There's racket in the hangar, and she drifts there to see what's going on.

Jet's elbow-deep in the Swordfish. "What are you doing?" she asks. "The Swordfish isn't broken."

"I'm breaking it. Spike asked," Jet says in his not-in-the-mood-to-chat tone.

"Spike. Asked you. To break his ship." Faye says it slowly and it still doesn't make sense. She says so.

"Don't be nosy." Jet glares down at her. "And stay the hell clear of Spike, got it? Don't pester him."

Faye is about to tell Jet what Spike said to her, in the context of a "Why-should-I-ever-speak-to-that-asshole-again" rant, but thinks better of it. Something is up. The only way she'd get a clearer signal would be if Jet held up a sign. "What's going on? What's wrong with Spike? What are you doing?"

"I told you. I'm disabling the ships. You won't be able to take the Redtail out for awhile," Jet says. "Unless you want to take it now and come back in a couple of days."

"I don't have anywhere to go for a couple of days. I don't even have fuel for a couple of days. Jet, what the hell is going on? Answer me!"

"I don't know myself. And I thought I said not to ask." Jet turns back to the Swordfish's innards. He makes banging noises for a few minutes, but when Faye shows no signs of going away, he sighs and straightens up again. "Spike got hold of something. And now something's got hold of him. Get the picture?"

"Job's downer thing? But one dose isn't enough to...? No way. There's no way."

"It's enough if he's already got the taste for it. Saw it all the time when I was with ISSP." Jet turns back to the engine. "Spike doesn't get to know I told you this, savvy?"

"Sure, why would I say anything?" Faye says. "I still don't know what's going on."

"Then you're even dimmer than I thought. Now scram. I got a lot a work to do."

She wanders off, biting her thumbnail. If Spike's doing the junkie shuffle, it explains the super jitters he had earlier. Still, it's weird to know someone for over a year and not know something like that about him. Not that Spike is a bubbling font of self-revelation. Come to think of it, she knows next to nothing about either him or Jet.

Well, they don't know much about her either, so that's all right.

Still, must suck to be Spike right now. She really should follow Jet's advice and stay clear of him. That would be the smart thing to do.

I'll just find him and peek around the corner, she thinks, assuaging the good angel as the bad angel eggs her on. Won't even let him know I'm in the room. Just a glance to see if he's banging his head against the wall or doing anything else amusing, and then I'm gone. Besides, he owes me for being such an ass earlier, even if there were bugs under his skin.

Faye's good angel, no saint herself, acqueisces to this plan with a minimum of fuss.