I was originally going to make "Bare Feet" a one chapter story, but I really wanted to show Appledehli's side of the story during the time of the first chapter. Macintire has some stuff to say too, believe it or not ^_^ Anyway, I hope this clears things up (if there was any confusion in the first place), and the intro (in italics) is a scene from episode 24, "Hard Luck Woman." Please, enjoy, and review when you are finished. Thank you.

Bare Feet

Appledehli's Account

The ship came to a complete stop right before Spike and Appledehli. Ed's father emerged from the top of the ship, as she looked down on the faintly familiar man standing in front of the ship.

            Appledehli looked up at the curious child, and then with a wide grin, he exclaimed her name, "Françoise!"

            Ed topped her father's grin with an all out, ear to ear smirk, then jumped off the top of the ship, into her father's arms. After a minute or two of playfully throwing Ed around, they both walked over to the curious Jet and Spike, watching in awe.

            Ed introduced Appledehli. "This is father-person."

            "Father…?" Spike asked.

            "Your father?" Jet followed up.

            "She had such a thing?" Spike asked again.

            Ed looked at her father and introduced the two men. "This is Spike-person and Jet-person.

            "I see…" Appledehli said as he walked over to Spike, who had previously been fighting with him. He then smashed his head into Spike's, knocking him over flat on his back.

            "No father, good person," Ed corrected her father.

            "Oh? I see. Thank you for taking care of my son… or was it daughter? Oh well, it's all right either way." Appledehli placed a basket of eggs on Spike's body. "That's a token of my appreciation." Appledehli then turned to Ed, and asked, ""So, you wanna come with me?"

            "Huh?" Ed stared at her father. This seemed so sudden, she couldn't respond. They both stared at each other for a couple of seconds in pure silence.

            "Aaaaaah!" Macintyre exclaimed. Just then a meteor crashed onto the Earth in the distance.

            "Hurry, Michael-duck!" Appledehli exclaimed.

            "That's Macintyre!"

            "Wait!" Jet yelled.

            And with that, they were off. As they drove off, Appledehli could faintly hear Ed exclaim, "Father!" But with his mind on the current global situation, he thought nothing of it.

______________________   

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

Appledehli was just finishing excavating the latest meteorite site for Macintyre to input on the map in his computer.

"There, finished!"

Macintyre, with a grin, brought his tools over to the site and set them up. With the push of a few buttons on Appledehli's part, they both waited and watched the screen, as it uploaded the new information.

"NOW UPDATED!" flashed on the monitor.

"Another one down. This job never ends…" Macintyre said.

"That it doesn't, Makleberry, but we're both having fun, right?" Appledehli asked.

Macintyre sighed, and then began his next sentence with an all too familiar phrase. "It's Macintyre, sir… and I'm starting to wonder if what we're doing has any point."

"Eh? How do you figure, McDonald?" the clueless Appledehli asked.

"Macintyre!" He took a deep breath, wondering what it would take for him to remember his name. "The earth's population is down to a mere few million people, each huddled in their own protective glass dome, away from civilization. Meteors are crashing into the Earth every second of every day, we don't even get time to sleep. Don't you understand that they are never gonna stop falling? And that no one cares what the earth looks like any more?"

Appledehli stared blankly at Macintyre… blinked a few times, and responded. "You're not making any sense, Makidilly."

Macintyre wanted to scream, but instead just closed his eyes and clenched his fists.

"You don't know how important what we're doing is to society!" Appledehli said with a grin. "You should be grateful you're with me, this job is the most important thing in both of our lives!"

"More important than your daughter too, I assume…" Macintyre mumbled…

"What?" Appledehli asked.

"Nothing, Mr. Appledehli," Macintyre said as he took a puff of his cigarette.

"Hmm…" Appledehli gathered his excavating tools and placed them in the cart. "Hey, I wonder how my son… err… daughter… anyway, I wonder how she's doing."

Macintyre rolled his eyes. There was so much he wanted to say to Appledehli but couldn't, for fear of being left behind. "You've been talking about your daughter since I met you… months ago. You knew that you'd one day be reunited with her, but you just always seemed to put the search on hold. She's your own daughter for crying out loud! And then you finally meet her, by chance, and yet you lose her once again, due to meteor showers. If I were in your own shoes, I'd…"

"Macadamia!"

"…Huh?"

Appledehli looked up to the sky. "Do you ever wonder what my child is up to?"

Macintyre stared at his cigarette for a little while. "What kind of question is that?"

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That night, which was really early the next morning, the duo decided to take a short break, something that was a rare occurrence during their time together. A rather large tent was set up for them both as they tried their hardest to get some rest. This gave Appledehli some time to think, for once.

"Françoise… huh… I wonder where you are. You just keep wandering off, without a care in the world! Heh… but that's the way you always were. Still, I'd like to see you again… I'd like for you to join me, because… we never get to spend time together. You're my child, for crying out loud! It seems that whenever I search for you, I can't find you. Then you wander in, and wander back out without my knowledge. If only I knew where you were. Françoise… I…"

CRASH!

Another meteorite had fallen to the ground.

"Macinto! Wake up! Time to get going!"

"But… it's the middle of the night… come on, give it a rest…"

"Rest is for amateurs! We're pros, remember!? Let's get going!" He grabbed Macintyre by the arm and dragged him out of the tent. Together they packed up all of their belongings, jumped in the cart and were on their way again.

"What was I thinking about?" Appledehli thought to himself. "Oh yeah, another few meteors and I get a promotion!"

Appledehli drove the cart towards the site of the collision, which was a rather long distance. In the back seat, Macintyre was fast asleep. There was enough time for the sun to gradually rise as they reached the crater.

"Wow!" Appledehli jumped out of the cart. "Look at the size of this one, MacDaddy!"

Macintyre rubbed his eyes… "It's… Macintyre." He managed to crawl out of the cart and drag his sleepy body to the crater. He stared at it for a minute, rubbed his forehead, then fell to his back, sleeping again.

"Heheh, well I'M not gonna waste any time!" He took out his pick and began excavating. "Come on, Mclynn! Times a wasting, I'm gonna need all the help I can get with this sucker!"

Macintyre woke up from his extremely brief nap, and crawled closer to the crater to get a better look at Appledehli.

"Eh… Excuse me, Mr. Appledehli… but I really think we both could use some rest."

Appledehli, still hacking away, didn't take the time to look back at Macintyre, but said anyway, "Rest! Rest is for-…"

"Amateurs… I know. That's not the point." They both stared at each other for a minute or so. "Listen, we're both human, doesn't that count for something!?" They stared at each other some more.

"Fine, go set up the tent."

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"Tea, Mr. Appledehli?" Macintyre brought a pot over to him.

"Why thank you. Egg, Mr. Maclock?"

Macintyre stared at the basket of eggs Appledehli held in front of him. "…No."

"Okay, your loss!" He cracked an egg open and sucked the insides out.

Just then, Macintyre saw a shadow out of the corner of his eye. He quickly turned his head to the side to see the silhouette jump inside the crater. There was a smaller creature following it.

"Uh… what was that?" Macintyre asked Appledehli.

"Huh?" Appledehli separated his mouth from his teacup and turned his head to the direction that Macintyre was looking at. "Excavators… trying to beat us to the punch? I'll have to put a stop to that."

He walked over to the crater to see what, or who, was inside. To his surprise, he saw his own daughter, Ed, inside the crater.

"Françoise, is that you!?"
Ed turned around to face the voice. She seemed very surprised to realize that it was her father that was calling her name.

 "Eeeee!" Ed exclaimed as she climbed the incredibly steep crater to hug her father.

"Hey there! Ho hoo!" He embraced Edward like he thought a father would normally do.

"…Father…"

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In the nearby tent, Appledehli, Ed and Macintyre were all drinking tea, as they took a break from excavation.

"So, what have you been up to?" Appledehli asked Ed.

"Ed has been on a looong journey! Bebop, Jet, Faye-Faye, Spike…"

The last name hit an unusual chord with Appledehli. "Spike… is that the guy who tried to beat me up? Heh, I sure showed him, right, Macinroe?"

He sighed again. "It's Macintyre, sir…"

"Eh whatever."

"And here is my bestest friend!" Ed grabbed Ein, and lifted him up above her head. "Hello, Ein! Say hello to father!" She propped Ein so that he would be facing Ed's father.

"Woof!"
"Is that a dog?" Appledehli asked. If there was one thing that he didn't like, it was creatures. Especially dogs.

"Yup yup! Edward's faaaavorite companion! Aren't you, Ein?"

"I see…" He struggled to come up with a reason why Ed didn't need a dog. "You know, Françoise, if we're gonna be running around all day, we can't be carrying a dog around. That would just slow us down."

 "Oh but Ein is resourceful! Ein is a data-…"

"We just can't have it." In his mind he knew he would regret snapping at Edward, however he felt very strongly about his opinion on animals. "I'm sorry Françoise, but you're gonna have to let Ein go."

"…Let Ein go?" Ed looked at Ein. "Edward's only friend?"

Appledehli tried his hardest to try and regain some love that he had lost many years ago. "You have me now! What more could you ask for? I know I couldn't ask for more…"

Ed continued to stare at Ein.

"Ein and Ed need some rest." Ed grabbed Ein and walked out of the tent, and fell to the ground. She curled up, and tried to fall asleep.

Macintyre, who had witnessed the entire ordeal, took the cigarette from his mouth to ask Appledehli a question. "You know, you're risking your relationship with your daughter over a silly mutt. If I were you, I would take the dog in order to keep the daughter if that's what it takes."

"Grr… I just don't like dogs. They're mean to me."

Macintyre gave the look of death to Appledehli. "Mean… to you?"

"And plus, they really are a pain to look after! Even more so than you! Ahahahaha!"

"Hmm…" Macintyre looked over to Edward, who was tossing and turning, then said to himself, "…you're gonna lose her…"

The time passed, and they all eventually fell asleep.

______________________   

"TIME TO WAKE UP!" Appledehli hollered in her ear.

"Ack!" Edward exclaimed as she jumped to her feet.

"Come on, Françoise! We've got a big day ahead of us! We've got to search for new land formations in the earth! Come on, not a second to lose!" Just then a comet came hurdling to the ground in the distance. "There's our first target! Let's go!" He grabbed his things and began to run. "Come on, Macintosh!"

"It's Macintyre!"

"Edward can track the comets on the computer!" Edward pulled out her strange contraption and began typing on its keys. Her fingers moved at the speed of light. "Right here, here and here! Hehehe!"

Appledehli and Macintyre stood in bewilderment at what Ed was doing…

"Aw come on, Ed! You can't trust computers! Besides, you have no idea what you're doing. Come on, let's go find that meteor!"

"…Bebop always needed Edward's help…"

"Yes, but you don't need to be with those lowlifes anymore. You're with me now, Edward! Your flesh and blood! This is where you belong!" Appledehli panicked as he tried to pick up the missing pieces.

"This is not where Edward belongs! Edward belongs with the people that need Edward!" she screamed, almost hysterical. "Edward belongs with the people that care for Edward! Edward belongs with the people that don't ever forget her!" Edward slowly lifted her head. "Edward… doesn't belong here."

"…Edward… I'm your father…"

"…You're not my father… you're my father person. Goodbye." Edward grabbed her things in one arm, and grabbed Ein in the other, and ran away… again.

"…you're gonna lose her…"

Appledehli stared at Ed as she ran closer and closer to the horizon.

"You lost her," Macintyre said.

He continued to stare until she disappeared.

"Eh… I'll find her. In the end, I always do, right? Heh… oh well. Time to get back to work. Let's go."

Macintyre clenched his teacup… "No…"

"What?" Appledehli questioned as he turned around. "Come on, Macinster, we've got a lot of work to do!"

"It's MACINTYRE! And you know what? You won't find her! Because she always finds you! She gave up everything just to find you, and you ward her off as if she was just a stray cat! You'll probably never see her again!"

"This isn't funny! We've got a lot of work to do!"

"GAH! That's why you'll never see her again! All this time I've been with you, that was the only thing on your mind. And you know what? That's why you'll never see me again!" He grabbed his bag and walked in the same direction that Ed was walking in, hopefully never to see Appledehli again.

"…Macintyre?"

He turned his head. "Thanks." Then continued walking.

As of this moment in time, Appledehli had nothing. Everything he knew in life was gone, from his only daughter, to his only acquaintance. Macintyre left, in hopes that Appledehli would realize what he had lost, and come to his senses.

Instead, he gathered his tools, and went to the next excavation site.