author's note: hey guys, sorry I didn't quite get this posted by Thursday, but I hope you enjoy! Thanks for reading!

XI. Star Eyes

There were certain things that Faye truly hated in this world: weak drinks, running out of cigarettes, shoddy blackjack dealers, the song "Yellow Submarine" (an Earth memory she would have gladly forgotten for all eternity), the smell of anchovies, and physical exercise. Maybe it was the aftereffects of whatever they had pumped her full of during her cryogenic sleep, but she didn't seem to need move her body around the way other people did. Sure, she might look a little bloated after eating all of her packets of dehydrated chocolate and salt during the times when she was stranded in the Redtail, but after a good night's sleep she always woke up svelte. Faye didn't have great luck in other aspects of her life, but at least she didn't have to go to the gym. Even in her previous life, she disliked exertion of any sort (well, maybe there was one exception to that rule, she thought wryly.) Needless to say, she really, really hated hiking.

Spike and Faye packed up their makeshift campsite shortly after Ed and Ein's startling reappearance, wadding up the blankets and tarp into hobo-style bags and slinging them over their shoulders. They struck out from the wrecked zipcraft as night was falling over the eerie moonscape. Faye had made it approximately ten seconds into the trek before her hip wound made walking impossible, and Spike heaved a beleaguered sigh and hoisted her onto his back. Ed and Ein danced merrily alongside the two of them, sprinting erratically in dizzying circles and chasing tumbleweeds.

"How much farther can it possibly be?" Faye groused into Spike's ear as they trudged through the Europa wilderness.

"Believe it or not, Faye, but I have absolutely no idea where the hell we are," Spike panted through clenched teeth. "But there's gotta be a town somewhere around here," he continued, pausing to yank Faye's legs more securely around his waist. She yelped in pain as he jostled her hip. Her bloodied leggings had dried into something that felt like stiff sandpaper, and they chafed against her irritated skin painfully with every step that Spike took.

"Watch it," she hissed, digging her nails into his collarbone. Spike cleared his throat and said nothing. The landscape looked bone-white under the glare of Jupiter's herds of moons, and the chilly air smelled faintly metallic.

"Ein wants a piggyback ride!" Ed sang, tripping over a rock as she walked. "And Ed! Ed wants one too!"

"Sorry, Ed, you only get one if you got shot," Faye grumbled.

"Ah, be nice to her," Spike said through a yawn. "She's just a kid. Hey, Ed, what were you doing on Callisto, anyways?"

"Ed was looking for Spike-person and Faye," she replied distantly. "Ed already told you. Ed found the tracker in your arm."

Spike nodded. "Yeah, but why were you on Callisto in the first place? How did you get there?"

Ed gazed thoughtfully at the night sky, the stars reflecting in her wide eyes.

"Ed has friends on Earth who ask her to run errands," she said. "But Callisto was fun! Lots of snow! Ed wanted to stay and play in the snow. Missed the return flight, played in the snow all night, everything was all right!" Ed finished, nodding succinctly. Her raucous red hair flapped against her ears, and in the past few months she had clearly experienced a growth spurt, leaving her a few inches taller and even ganglier and goofier than before. Faye muffled a laugh into Spike's back, feeling a sudden upwelling of affection for the strange girl.

They walked in silence for what felt like hours, the moonlight throwing their long shadows against the rocky prairie. Faye leaned against Spike's shoulder and felt her eyelids flutter with exhaustion. Just as she began to drift into a dream, Ed's frantic voice cut through the silence.

"Spike-person! Look! Lights!" Ed cried, pointing up ahead. Faye stirred and opened her scratchy eyelids as Spike ground to a halt. She squinted in the direction Ed pointed, and sure enough, the lights of a town gleamed in the distance.

"I think I can walk for a while," Faye told Spike, tapping his shoulder.

"If you say so," he replied, hunching down and letting her off. "Are you sure? Don't be a martyr."

Faye rolled her eyes, trying to conceal the throbbing pain that filled her hip the moment her foot touched the ground. "I'm fine. Worry about yourself."

Ed bolted ahead in excitement, and Spike turned to Faye with concern in his eyes.

"Seriously. We still have a ways to go. Are you sure you can handle walking? You don't look so hot." He wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they walked.

"I said I'm fine, okay?" Faye snapped, ducking away from his embrace and limping ahead of him.

They walked until every muscle in Faye's body screamed in protest. If she didn't get a drink soon, she was going to implode like a dying star. Slowly, slowly, slowly, the town grew closer. Spike's face was ashen and drawn with exhaustion, and he was lugging Ein along like an armful of furry lumber. The fat Corgi had simply given up a few miles ago and refused to budge another inch. Even Ed's boundless enthusiasm was waning; she dragged her feet and sang quiet sad songs in a secret language to herself.

Just when Faye had decided that maybe dying right here and now would be an acceptable alternative to walking one more step, they found themselves standing on the outskirts of a tiny mining town. Warehouses lined the bleak streets, floodlit by harsh fluorescent streetlights. The buildings were low and sloping, reinforced with metal walls designed to withstand brutal winters and radiation. A flickering neon 'VACANCY" sign hung over the doorway of one of the buildings. In silence, the three of them walked up to the doorway and paused, glancing at the heavy iron barricade over the door. A handwritten Sharpie sign reading 'RING BELL' was taped above a buzzer in the gate.

"Is this…a hotel?" Faye asked nervously. Ed hung back behind the adults, unnerved, but Spike shrugged.

"Worth a shot. It's not safe for us to be in this radiation for this long. You and I are probably okay, but it's not fair for Ed to be exposed to it."

Faye nodded, casting a guilty glance in Ed's direction.

"Besides, we need to sleep in real beds tonight, and you need a doctor, Faye. Listen, we'll tell them that Ed's our kid and we crashed our zipcraft on our way to our vacation on Venus. Got it?"

Ed saluted him and clicked her heels together. "Ahoy, matey!"

Faye gave Spike a disdainful look. "Spike, nobody will believe that we're old enough to have a kid Ed's age."

"Ed, how old are you, anyways?" Spike asked the girl. Ed gave a mystified shrug. "Eh, we'll just tell 'em she's got some kind of disorder that made her grow up too fast and she's actually a toddler," he continued.

Faye snorted. "Some kind of Benjamin Button thing. Like they're gonna believe that."

"What?" he asked distractedly, running a hand through his hair.

"Never mind," she told him, pressing the buzzer. The intercom crackled into life with a rush of static.

"Welcome to the Moonlight Inn," a voice rasped through the speakers. "How many?"

Spike hesitated. "Uh, three. And do you take dogs?"

"Nope," the voice replied, sounding bored.

"Oh, well, that's fine," Spike replied hurriedly, "just asking for a friend here," he said, opening his hobo-bag of tarp, shoving Ein inside of it and retying it, "but do you have a room for three people tonight?"

"Sure. Three thousand Woolongs per night. Show me the money up front, no guns, no funny business."

Spike scratched his head and leaned closer to the intercom.

"See, here's the thing…I'm traveling with my wife and my child" - Faye shot him an incredulous eye roll - "and you see, our zipcraft malfunctioned and crashed on our way to Venus, and my wife's been hurt. If there's any way we could just - "

"No money, no room," the voice droned. Ein gave a stifled yelp from inside the tarp wad and Faye patted him through the fabric anxiously.

Spike gritted his teeth. "I'll pawn a Jericho," he said. Faye's eyes widened. For a moment they heard nothing but static emitting from the speaker, and then the gate unlocked itself with a thunderous clunk and the thick door swung open.

"Get in quick and shut the door behind you," the voice instructed. Motioning for Faye and Ed to follow him, Spike sidled through the doorway and pulled it shut as soon as the other two were inside. They found themselves in a musty-smelling foyer lit by a single flickering lightbulb hanging from a wire. A heavyset woman wearing a filthy gray sweatshirt sat behind a desk, thumbing through a magazine. She looked up as they approached and pulled a key out of a drawer.

"Lemme see the gun," she instructed, gesturing towards Spike. Resignedly, he drew it from his pocket and set it on the desk. She gave it a quick once-over and nodded appraisingly, handing Spike the key.

"Room 37. Third floor, stairs are to the right. You can stay four nights and that's it. If the manager asks, you paid in full, got it?"

Spike nodded and pocketed the key. "Got it."

They started up the dimly lit stairwell, Faye dragging her wounded leg behind her with every step. Ed bounded in front of the adults, her spirit renewed at the prospect of sleeping in a bed.

Spike unlocked the door and suppressed a groan. The room was small and dingy, with only one double bed in the middle of the brown carpet. A narrow window was obscured by moth-eaten lace curtains, and the wallpaper was a claustrophobic shade of violet. Faye peered over his shoulder and swore under her breath, but Ed squealed with delight and darted between the two of them. She leapt onto the bed, turning somersaults and jumping into handstands as the mattress squeaked.

"Guess we're bunking up tonight," Spike muttered as he untied the tarp and dumped Ein unceremoniously onto the carpet. Faye collapsed onto the bed with her arms over her face, shoving Ed aside as the girl landed in a heap onto the pillows, giggling maniacally. Spike opened the rusted mini fridge and pulled out a bar of chocolate, a tiny bottle of gin and a can of soda. He twisted open the gin and drank half of it in one swallow before handing it over to Faye, who knocked it back instantly and tossed the empty bottle onto the nightstand. Breaking the chocolate in half, he handed the biggest chunk to Ed and split the second into two smaller pieces for himself and Faye to share.

"Dinner is served," he told the girls as they inhaled the chocolate. The three of them shared the can of flat soda, too thirsty to speak as they gulped it down. Ein whined at their feet and stared balefully at the chocolate wrapper. Spike raised his eyebrows at the Corgi.

"No chocolate for dogs, Ein. I thought you were smart."

Spike found a grimy remote and turned on the outdated television, leaning back on the pillows next to Faye as she lay on her side with her eyes shut. As he flicked through the channels of low-budget Europa soap operas and newscasts in Russian and public access announcements about the signs of radiation poisoning, Ed traipsed into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Spike frowned.

"Do you remember her ever taking a shower on the Bebop?" he asked Faye. She made a noncommittal noise and pulled the comforter over her legs. Ed's nonsense singing rang out over the sound of the running water.

"What's your deal?" he asked, lowering his voice. "We made it, didn't we?"

Faye pretended to sleep. Spike shrugged and turned up the volume on a Ganymede game show, trying his hardest not to imagine how good a cigarette would taste at this exact moment.

Sometime in the middle of the night, Spike awoke with a start, wedged into the corner of the bed by Ed's sprawling limbs and Ein's slobbery snores. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw Faye curled up in the windowsill, peering through the lace curtains at the moonlit street below. He eased himself out of bed and crossed the room.

"Can't sleep?"

Faye jumped slightly as he spoke and made a shushing gesture, pointing towards Ed.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you." He pulled the room's sole chair over to the windowsill and sat in it backwards, leaning his chin on the chair's back and facing Faye.

"So do you wanna explain why you're so mad at me?" he asked quietly.

"I'm not mad at you."

"Sure seems like it," he said lightly. "Why won't you talk to me?"

She was quiet for a moment, her green eyes luminous in the moonlight.

"It's just that…"

Spike waited, listening to the rhythmic snuffles and snorts of their roommates.

"I just…don't like being second best to anyone," she finished. Spike froze, an uncomfortable weight settling in his stomach.

"What are you talking about?"

Faye scoffed. "You know exactly who I'm talking about."

"I really don't," he replied tersely.

"Come on, Spike. I'm talking about Julia," she said, her voice rising. Ed stirred in her sleep, and they both watched as the girl rolled over and began to snore once more.

"I…why are you bringing her up right - "

"I'm not interested in being her replacement," she said, a dark shadow crossing her face.

Spike fell silent, feeling his heart thud against his rib cage. He had wondered when this would come up. Time to show his cards.

"Do you know what I thought about when I woke up?" he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

"What, this morning? Breakfast, probably, or cigarettes, or - "

"No. When I woke up from the coma, or whatever it was. After I went to kill Vicious."

He paused and looked at his bare feet, collecting his thoughts.

"I thought about you, Faye." He could feel his palms sweating. "I…I thought about when you took care of me all of those times on the Bebop. I thought I could hear you singing." He paused, sneaking a glance at her face. She frowned and continued to stare out of the window.

"You said my singing was out of tune," she mumbled.

"Well, it was, but…at first I thought I was dead, but then I thought I heard you and your terrible singing and…I wanted to be alive. So I woke up and pulled the tube out of my throat."

Faye glared at him, but something in her face seemed to soften. Spike took a deep breath.

"Listen, Faye…I'm no good at this kind of stuff. But what I'm trying to say is that I didn't have to come back to this life. I could have easily stayed away forever. And I didn't come back to find Jet, or Ed, or Ein…you know that."

"You hid from me for months."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"You ran away from me on the street."

"…Yeah. I'm sorry - "

"You let me get kidnapped!"

Spike winced. "Okay, that was definitely a bad one, but - "

"And you left me on the Bebop. If you wanted to be with me, why did you leave me there?" Faye asked, her voice cracking on the final word. A tear ran down her pale face. She let it drip onto the windowsill, and Spike was lost for words at last.

He got to his feet and put his arms around her, pressing his face into her soft neck. She sat perfectly still, not returning his embrace but not pushing him away either.

"Never leave me again," she whispered fiercely. Spike nodded and held her closer, kissing the hollow of her sharp collarbone. He closed his eyes and slumped against her warm body.

"Do you know how many nights I spent with Julia?" he murmured. He felt her shake her head, her chin brushing his hair. "Five. Five lousy nights, and she was my best friend's girlfriend."

"Really? Five nights?"

"Yeah. Pretty pathetic, isn't it? I couldn't even bring myself to tell Vicious, man-to-man. He caught us together before I grew the balls to do it. Of course, Vicious turned out to be a real piece of shit, but that's another story."

"Yeah, well, he wasn't exactly a gentleman to me either, if you recall," Faye muttered.

"Right…sorry about that, too," Spike said, kissing her neck. She shivered and wrapped her arms around him. "But at any rate, for what it's worth, Julia…didn't love me, I think."

"But you loved her. Don't lie."

"I thought I did. I used to."

"And then what?" Faye asked.

"I think you know the answer."

She pulled away and looked him squarely in the eye.

"And then what?" she repeated.

"Oh…it's a long story. Some chick beat me at blackjack," he said. Faye made an exasperated sound, but her lower lip trembled and another tear rolled down her face. Spike wiped it away with a finger and kissed her for a long moment in the moonlight. She rested her head on his shoulder, and as Spike turned his head to reposition himself in a more comfortable way, he found himself face-to-face with Ed standing two inches away from them. He stifled a yell and leapt to his feet.

"Ed - Jesus Christ - how long have you been standing there?" Faye gasped. Ed smiled sleepily and rubbed her eyes, her red hair plastered to one side of her head and sticking straight up on the other.

"Ed heard Faye-Faye talking and woke up. Are you fighting?" Ed asked, scratching her knee with her other foot and gazing blearily at them.

"No, Ed, go back to bed," Spike said reassuringly. "We're just chatting. We'll keep it down."

Ed nodded drowsily and curled up on the corner of the bed like a cat, resting her head on Ein's furry middle. Spike breathed deeply through his nose as his heart rate returned to normal. Faye got to her feet, pulling a pained face as she tested the weight on her injured leg.

"You can take the bed and get some sleep," Spike told her, sitting back onto the chair.

"You sure?" Faye asked, sliding under the covers and pushing Ein aside with her foot.

"Yeah, we can trade off in the morning," Spike said, stretching his long arms overhead and leaning backwards.

Faye chuckled as she adjusted the pillows.

"What's so funny?" Spike asked with his eyes closed.

"Oh, I dunno," Faye said, her eyelids lowering, "I just had a memory of hearing my parents arguing while I was supposed to be in bed. Kinda feels like we're a weird little family on vacation somewhere."

Before Spike could think of a suitable reply, Faye was asleep. He dozed off in the uncomfortable chair, jerking awake every so often to massage the crick in his neck. After twenty minutes of fighting sleep, he gave up and slid under the blankets next to Faye. He pictured Jet's reaction if he were to see the group of them squashed into one bed and snorted.

Right before his thoughts drifted into slumber like dandelion fluff scattered in the wind, he had a sudden and vivid mental image of himself cradling something small in his arms. The image wove through his dreams as he slept.