Pretend the Smile

Pretend the Smile 

Disclaimers: Cowboy Bebop belongs to Sunrise and Bandai. 'Drops of Jupiter' (the song in this songfic) belongs to Train.

Warnings: OOCness, no plotline, development, anything. -_- This is just another one of my weird blurbs I write when I'm mood-swinging... but it features Faye!! Faye-Faye! ^_^ It may seem like a Spike x Faye fic here and there... even though it's not. o_O I abhor Spike x Faye fics (unless they're written very well with lots of reason with them justifying their relationship). Anyways...

Radishface

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"Why'd you run off?"

Faye lowered the magazine and frowned, looking at her toenails. Ed had painted them all different colors. She didn't answer. She didn't want to answer, and there was no reason for her to. She looked up blankly, tired of everything, sick of everything, empty inside and out. Spike looked at her, eyes narrowed, and she knew that at that moment, she wasn't wanted, she wasn't needed. She was just a nuiscance. Women and children and dogs were a nuiscance to Spike. She really didn't want to be an annoying thing. She had always been an annoying thing. Most men had valued her as a possession, a pretty thing.  

"I don't know." She replied, flipping through her magazine. "I guess I just didn't need this place anymore."

"Jet says you were testing us." Spike turned around and started down the hall.

"Maybe I was." Faye said quietly, thinking he couldn't hear, but he did.

"Why?"

"You ask too many questions." The corner of her mouth lifted slightly up in what appeared to be a smile. "Mind your own business."

"You tried to take the ship's money--"

"There wasn't that much in it."

Spike turned, shaking his head, a small, patronizing, amused smirk gracing his face. "You're just so--"

Faye didn't pay any attention. Her eyes wandered around the room, occassionally glancing at the limp magazine in her hands. The stench of the nail polish still lingered in the room, although not strong. Gren had said she was just testing her friends, seeing if they would come after her. He said it gently, without intimidation-- just stating an obvious fact. But Spike was leering at her, acting superior, and she knew that was just the way he was, that he'd never change in his attitude towards her.

[Now that she's back in the atmosphere
With drops of Jupiter in her hair, hey, hey
She acts like summer and walks like rain
Reminds me that there's time to change, hey, hey

Since the return from her stay on the moon
She listens like spring and she talks like June, hey, hey]

The person that had come after her was none other than Jet, the Bebop's father-figure, bonsai-groomer, and resident bell-peppers-and-beef chef. She had wondered why Spike didn't come. It wasn't as if she was hurt, because she wasn't hurt. Jet had shrugged, left her alone and went to the kitchen, calling out to her that some woman named 'Julia' was involved. Faye wondered who Julia was. Obviously she had to be quite a woman to catch Spike's attention like that.

She had been in the lounge room, with Ed painting her toenails, when Spike had returned, no bounty, no money, no nothing. He had worn an expression that was hopeful, and desolate, and something quivered behind those eyes, a raw emotion, that she had never seen. She wondered what had moved him so. Perhaps he had met with Vicious again. The last time, last time, he had encountered Vicious, he had the same, hopeless, determined expression etched on his face. And yet this time it was hopeful. Maybe he had found Julia.

Jet had greeted him with a slight smile, and Spike had returned the favor, and then he'd gone onto the deck, just to gaze out, look out, contemplate. Faye had watched him leave-- and then moments later he'd returned, taunting smile, joking voice, and superior facade set up again. But she hadn't recovered-- she couldn't resume being witty, foulmouthed, and mocking like Spike just yet. She remembered when she was lying down on the couch in Gren's apartment, looking up at the ceiling, a desperate part of her mind screaming for Spike and Jet to come looking for her, so she'd be reassured, so she'd feel like she was somebody and not just another possession, another item.

Humans are social creatures. But you can do pretty well on your own.

Was that really true? Was it true for the Romani, who wandered eons in space, looking for love? But you couldn't do well on your own. That was why they had solitary confinement as punishment. So people could think about talking to other people, laughing with other people, and regret whatever they had done. She didn't regret running away. At least Jet had come after her. Always good-natured, gruff, blunt, Jet. She really needed to thank him. But she couldn't because she wasn't the type of person to do that. Then again, maybe he knew how she felt. Maybe they didn't need the words.

I feel like I'm in a confession booth. You wouldn't happen to be a priest, would you?

His azure eyes had just stared at hers, into hers, probing, searching, looking but not touching, reading her. She wondered how he knew-- how he could guess that she was only searching for reassurance, for the fact that people cared about her as much as she wanted to care for them, pretended to care for them. How did he know about everything, how could he read everything. Something in him spelled that he had experienced many things, lived to tell them, lived through them, always keeping that gentle smile on his face. His quiet spirit was never broken, not even when Vicious framed him and he was thrown in jail where they tested the drugs. Faye wished she could be like that-- to be confident, and have unconditional faith in people.

[Tell me did you sail across the sun
Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all faded
And that heaven is overrated

Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star
One without a permanent scar
And did you miss me while you were looking at yourself out there]

And she remembered the wall of pictures that Gren had thumbtacked to the wall, and in every single one of them, he had seemed so happy. She remembered the one where he was a small child in his mother's lap, and she remembered the one where he stood with his classmates, and she remembered the one where he was smiling, like he always was, and Vicious was behind him, turned away, a ghost of an image. And then, at that same moment, the phone rang, and his voice whispered, quietly, deadly, that he was waiting. She wondered what the connection was, why they were in touch.

He had come out of the shower and put a bathrobe on casually, as she couldn't move, shock paralyzing her. He had guided her to the sofa, and then proceeded to tell her how. How he had met Vicious, how he had gotten framed and thrown in jail, how he was going to die, how he wasn't scared, how he was scared. The glasses that had once been filled lay empty, or half-empty, useless, forgotten, and the radiator hummed in the corner to itself. She was cold, so cold. Neither Spike nor Jet had come for her yet. Why weren't they here yet?

He told her how he had loved that word to the point of tears. Comrade. 

How could anybody consider Vicious a friend, a comrade, she wouldn't know. She would never know, and it didn't matter to her. But it was the way Gren said it, the way he had said it with a seriousness in his eyes with the tears that wouldn't, couldn't come. He hadn't been looking at her when he said that. He had been looking at that picture up on the wall, with him smiling like a clown and Vicious in the back, pale and translucent and just another person. And Faye wondered if she loved that word as much as he did. She wondered if anybody else on this damned ship thought of it as more than a word, a definition, if they considered it an ideal to be upheld.

[Now that she's back from that soul vacation
Tracing her way through the constellation, hey, hey
She checks out Mozart while she does tae-bo
Reminds me that there's time to grow, hey, hey]

If they didn't, then she was just as alone, by herself, even if she stayed on the ship.

But if she stayed here, at least she could pretend that she had people who cared for her, wanted to know where she went if she went out, waited for her if she came back late. She could pretend that the ship was like a home for her, a refuge, a respite. And before, if she had been pretending, it had been very real. But that was before the word 'comrade' had been valued. She hadn't known anything then, and she knew now. That would affect the illusion of security that she created, wouldn't it? She wouldn't be able to return to that blissful game of make-believe and pretend anymore.

Ein trotted over, his collar jingling slightly, almost like sleigh bells. She didn't hate the dog, even though she pretended to. It was all a part of her facade, the elaborate mirage she had weaved by herself for herself. She pretended to hate Ein, she was in the 'clique' with Spike, because Spike pretended to hate it too. And then, they'd have something in common, even if it was just one little thing like pretending or not pretending to hate Ein and she could pretend that they were comrades, we're comrades, we get each other out of troubles, because we're comrades, right?

It was important that she remember this. That she remember how to draw a perfect picture and place herself in it, because this was the first time she had someplace to stay she could willingly call a home. Spike and Jet and Ed and Ein were the only people that had enforced this first dream-world of hers. She hadn't been so close, so dangerously, emotionally, close to people before. But that was only because she didn't have that memory. And there was that doubt-- that maybe, she had never had friends at all, because she couldn't bring herself to remember them. But that couldn't be. For everybody in the world, there would be at least one person that would love you for who you were.

[Now that she's back in the atmosphere
I'm afraid that she might think of me as plain ol' Jane
Told a story about a man who is too afraid to fly so he never did land]

And even if she wasn't in a dream-world, even if they all considered each other comrades and were willing to help each other...

The coffee table was barren except for an ashtray and the television, the couch across from her was empty, Ein was quietly snoring in the corner as usual, Ed was in another corner, hacking into god-knows-what on that computer of hers, humming softly to herself, a wide grin, as usual, painted on her face. She could smell the scent of the food being cooked in the kitchen, and knew that Spike was up on the control deck at the moment.

Jet was the only one who had come for her. He had told her that Spike had only went down to Blue Crow because a woman named 'Julia' had been involved. Faye wondered again, what kind of woman Julia was. Her name was very ordinary, just like her own name was very ordinary-- Faye Valentine. What would happen if the name 'Julia' surfaced on Ed's search engine again? Would Spike leave to go look for her? Would he desert just like this time? Was Julia more important than the Bebop? Surely not.

But somewhere deep inside her mind, even though she didn't want to admit it, acknowledge it, a tiny, sad voice said 'yes.'

[Tell me did the wind sweep you off your feet
Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day

And head back to the Milky Way
And tell me, did Venus blow your mind
Was it everything you wanted to find
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there]

"Ed?" She suddenly asked. "What are you doing?"

She was scared that Ed would find 'Julia' again. She was afraid that Spike would leave her and everybody, just when she was starting to get used to him and his prescence. It had become a part of her now, a part of her daily routine and her daily life and she couldn't bear to have it leave so soon. If Jet was left without a partner, he probably wouldn't need her or Ed or Ein anymore because he wouldn't want to be a cowboy anymore. And then she'd be a Romani again, a wandering gypsie, searching the galaxies for eons and eons just so that one person would accept her for her and keep her around without pushing her away. She'd be a vagabond again, without a home, without a place to come back to...

"Ed is playing a computer game." Ed reponded in a matter-of-fact-way, not turning to look at her, thoughroughly engrossed in her game. "Ed is winning."

[Can you imagine no love, pride, deep-fried chicken
Your best friend always sticking up for you even when I know you're wrong
Can you imagine no first dance, freeze dried romance five-hour phone conversation
The best soy latte that you ever had . . . and me]

She needed the reassurance again. But she didn't need it. She knew the answers. All of them were splayed out in front of her. All she needed to do was read people like the way people read her. It was that easy. And then she wouldn't need to be reassured. She wouldn't be so insecure about herself...

"Faye." Jet had stuck his head out the doorframe of the kitchen. "Tell Ed and Ein the dinner's ready."

"Ed hears everything~" Ed said, arms flailing up and down. "Ed knows all~"

Jet chuckled, half-heartedly, because he couldn't put up his facade as well as Spike and Faye could.

 

"I'll go get the blockhead." She said, standing up, setting her magazine down on the coffeetable, not caring whether she lost her spot or not. "He's in the control room, right?"

"As usual." Jet said, scratching his bald head. "That's a first."

"First for what?" She asked, almost innocently.

"You going to get Spike for dinner."

"There's a first time for everything." Faye replied, and sauntered past the kitchen.

[Tell me did the wind sweep you off your feet
Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day
And head back toward the Milky Way]

Spike was there by the window, looking out, his hand clutching the metal frame. His head turned slightly as he heard her come in and he painted his customary smirk on, turning to look at her.

She mirrored him, lips curling up in a half-smile, loose stance, relaxed, putting a hand on her hips. It was all fake, it wasn't real, couldn't be real just yet, because they needed more time. But it was that common thread that tied them together and made them comrades, they were both pretending, smiling, empty shells, and the real selves were locked up tightly, still thinking, still hopeful, and yet not at the same time.  

The wide expanse of Jupiter and it's many moons stretched out on the other side of the window, where reality lay within reach, where they had arrived from.

"Hey, blockhead…" She said softly, forcing a bit of a leer into her voice, the usual type of ridicule.

"Yeah?" Spike answered back, in a matter-of-fact tone, a tone that said he already knew what she was going to say to him.

[Tell me did you sail across the sun
Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all faded
And that heaven is overrated

Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star
One without a permanent scar
And did you miss me while you were looking at yourself out there]

"Dinner's ready."

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- owari -