"Takedown" A/N: This is me, writing the Author's Note before writing the section. I just want everyone to know that what will happen in this is as much of a mystery to me as it is to you. I'm just going to sit here, chain-smoke, and type, and see whether or not McAfee comes out of this alive. Hell, I don't even know if the Swordfish makes it back to the Bebop in one piece.

I find it interesting how earlier stuff is becoming important/significant. The section "Metal Origami," for example, was just some weird thing I tossed out there because I could, but now it seems planned. Regardless of what happens, the Hammerhead is still gonna have to tow the Bebop somewhere. God, I love writing.

Fun random fact: in "Jamming With Edward," the crew manifest reads as following:

Spike Spigel (spelling in case) (M)

Jet Black

Faye Valentine (F)

Ein (dog)

... now how come Jet ain't go no gender, huh?

KARMA: Takedown

Faye grabs McAfee's ankle just before the diamond thief slips out of the open hatch into deep space.

"Watch—" Spike never completes his warning. McAfee's other foot lashes out and connects. Faye collides with Spike, who grabs her instinctively. He slams against the bulkhead behind him. Ow, shit. But Faye distracts him from the fresh pain in his bruised back. She holds her waist, her face twisted.

"What's wrong?"

"Like she knows I'm shot, just keeps hitting the same spot over and over," Faye gasps. "Ow."

Spike puts her against the bulkhead and floats past her. "Suck it up. She's getting away."

"Thanks for your concern," Faye snaps. The pain is gone from her voice, as he expected. Anger is the best restorative for Faye Valentine.

"Plenty of time for that later," he says. He grabs the edge of the hatch, and glances back at her. "You coming or not?"

Without waiting for her answer, he propels himself out into nothing.

And finds himself face to face with McAfee.

Her helmet reflects his, the autobot, Jupiter, all distorted and swirled together, but behind its glass, he gets his first good look at her. Her long, narrow eyes are black, like the shell of a beetle or an oil puddle, communicating nothing, reflecting everything. Spike sees himself in them, both his physical body and who he used to be.

For a minute, he pities her. Living alone, going from bot to bot, emptying bins, fencing the dust or using it as a weapon, but alone, silent, spinning, arms and legs splayed like a starfish in the middle of a vast emptiness. It's familiar and it's sad.

But then she shoves him, rocketing him back against the metal of the autobot, and Spike's moment of sensitivity ends. He jumps off the metal and closes with her, both of them tumbling end-over-end as he tries to wrap his hands around her neck. If he can kayoe her, this will all be over.

Then Faye is there, launching herself into the fight with the passion of a lioness. Her momentum knocks them away from the autobot.

"Goddammit, Faye—" If Jet can't reach them in the Hammerhead, then Faye has just killed all three of them. Without something metal nearby to lock their magnetic soles onto, they will continue to drift on the same trajectory into space until the universe decides to give up the ghost.

But McAfee raises her modded gun and shoots. A shining wire with a magnet at the end surges from the barrel and attaches itself to the autobot's hull. Spike grabs her leg, feels Faye's arms encircle his waist, and their momentum is checked with a jerk. The line holds.

Faye's nails prick his skin through the thin fabric of his suit as she climbs up his body. "She's still mine," she says.

Spike shrugs as much as he can while hanging on for dear life. "Go for it."

McAfee kicks at them both with her free leg. They spiral on their frail tether. Spike has a sudden image of Faye flung off by centripetal force, so he puts his arm around her leg, anchoring her as she punches McAfee.

McAfee can't let go of the gun now. Every punch is an opportunity for her to go drifting off into the void. With Spike on one leg, she has only one arm and the opposing leg to work with. Still, Faye's punches aren't enough to put her down, and she plunges one hand into a pocket of her suit.

Diamond dust. If McAfee rubs it onto Faye, her suit will give, the pressure inside expanding outwards through the microtears, and Faye will die.

Shit. Spike lets go, taking the chance that one of the bountyhead's kicks will connect and push him away.

"Don't let her touch you!" He holds McAfee's shin in one hand, slams the edge of the other as hard as he can on the back of her knee. Tendons sheer from bone. Well, that must hurt like a bitch. In space, no one can hear you scream, but the woman's head kicks up and back, her back bows in agony.

Her fist opens, releasing glittering dust. It sparkles in a cloud around her blue glove. The sight mesmerizes him: the cloud, black space, the blue palm, and beyond it, the remnants of the Redtail twinkling in the reflected light of Jupiter.

McAfee's fingers, clenched around the butt of her gun, go limp. The gun floats a bare millimeter from her palm. Faye snatches it, her other arm around McAfee's neck in a sleeper hold.

"She's—" Faye is out of breath. "I think she's out."

"Well, she wasn't out the last time, so my advice is to keep squeezing," Spike says grimly. He pulls himself up McAfee's body and carefully turns her pockets inside out, releasing more diamond dust.

The bountyhead's body is limp as a rag. Faye gingerly takes her arm away from her neck, but she shows no signs of reviving. She's out, kayoed. Faye whoops in triumph, a valkyrie cry that rings in his ears.

The Swordfish. He opens a channel to the Bebop. "Jet. My ship?"

"She made it. The autobots stopped firing when you two got McAfee outside." Jet's gruff voice is warm with relief. "I'm coming to pick you up."

Spike exhales. Something unknots in his stomach. He calls the Swordfish II a hunk of junk and a piece of scrap, but that ship is part of him—probably the best part, at that.

Faye turns her head and smiles at him. Her eyes shine: adrenaline, relief and exultation, and something else, something indefinable that's only for him.

Spike smiles back.

Post-Writing It A/N: Goddammit, I will never be able to wean myself off of happy endings. I really wanted McAfee to die, but I just couldn't figure out a way to make it happen. (In my HEAD, she was going to get chopped up by the autobot's separator unit, but every scenario for how she would end up there seemed terminally lame). As for the Swordfish making it, well... I wasn't really in the mood to destroy one of my favorite anime mecha.