Liam sat still; staring at the table in front of him blankly as Ed peeled the bandages off his shoulder carefully. He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and sighed, then winced.

"Ouch."

Ed grimaced and dropped the bloody bandages on the table. "Sorry about that…" she murmured, inspecting the wound.

"S'okay," he replied softly, as Ed began to clean the wound with a damp cloth. The two were silent for a moment. "Ed?"

"Yeah?"

"If you knew I was Liam, why did you call me Spike?"

"…Habit I guess… I just saw someone with fluffy green hair and I immediately thought Spike. I only found out he was dead a few days ago."

"I see… Why did you send that virus to the Red Dragon after you went through the database?"

"What virus?" Liam turned his head and winced again.

"The one they told… Okay, maybe they were lying, but I was told you hacked the database and then left a virus that wiped 1/3 of the databanks."

"Oh that… I didn't do that. They did. After I had gotten all that info on you, they freaked out and deleted it, so that no one could show it to you. I guess that's why they wanted us dead… We knew Spike pretty well, and could probably cause problems, not to mention I knew too much and Faye and Jett were ISSP informers," Ed replied cheerfully. She put the cloth down on the table and picked up the disinfectant. "This is gonna hurt…" she warned. Liam nodded.

Ed waited a moment and then washed the wound with disinfectant. Liam hissed in pain, but didn't move. It was silent again as Ed began to re-bandage his shoulder.

"…What happened to you?"

"What do you mean?"

"The scars on your back and chest…"

"…I'd rather not talk about them."

"Sorry…"

The silence settled back in again.

"…So what's your real name?"

Ed blinked. "What?"

"You're real name. What is it?"

"…Ed."

Liam raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

"Well, I think my father used to call me Francis, but he had a memory like a sieve, so I'm just Ed."

"Oh."

"Why don't you go by Liam Spiegel?"

"Cos I don't want to be stuck in the shadow of a man I never knew. Though it seems that I can't avoid it, no matter what my last name is…"

"Oh, it's not so bad, is it? Spiegel is a very nice last name in my opinion," Ed told him, smiling.

"It probably wouldn't be so bad if I didn't look like him…" Liam muttered.

"All done," Ed told him. Liam glanced at his shoulder and then nodded his thanks to Ed. "Looking like Spike can't be all that bad… He wasn't an un-handsome person…" Ed replied carefully.

Liam smirked and raised an eyebrow. "You had a crush on him?"

Ed turned red and looked away from the seventeen-year-old. "No," she said quickly and stood up. "I was only thirteen when I knew Spike… He was twenty-seven and besides, we all could tell he had the hots for Faye." She crossed her arms haughtily looked out the window. Liam shook his head and finished his cigarette. Jett walked into the room and glanced from one person to the other.

"What's going on? You two have a fight?" he asked. Liam shrugged and Ed pursed her lips as she walked out of the room.

"So what's the plan?" Liam asked Jett as he stood up. Jett tossed him a brown T-shirt.

"We're going to Ganymede to see if we can find out exactly what Red Dragon is accusing you of…" Jett replied. Liam looked at the brown shirt in his hands and frowned.

"Where's my shirt?"

"Faye is trying to get the blood out of it… and fix the bullet hole in the shoulder."

"Oh," he said as he pulled the shirt carefully over his head. Liam winced as pain shot through his shoulder, but grit his teeth and finished pulling the rather large piece of clothing on. Jett stared at the shirt for a moment and raised an eyebrow.

"What?" Liam asked.

"…We're gonna need to find some other clothing for you… My stuff is way too big for you," Jett replied. Liam stared down at his chest and saw that the shirt was extremely baggy, probably due to the fact that Jett was built much larger than him.

"So why Ganymede?" Liam asked, ignoring the weird look he received from Faye as she sauntered into the room.

"I have contacts there and the bounty hunters tend to commune around Mars, Earth, and Venus more than Jupiter," Jett told him. "So it ought to be a bit safer for you to wander around on."

"I see," Liam answered as he sat back down on the couch. He put his legs up on the table and closed his eyes.

"Going to sleep?" Faye asked, sitting down opposite of him. Liam opened one eye and gazed at her sleepily.

"Not if I can help it. I tend to close my eyes when I'm thinking." Faye just glanced at Jett and the two sniggered. "What?"

"Nothing…" Jett said.

"You know, we could just find some of Spike's old clothes and disguise him," Faye chortled.

"That might actually work."

Liam opened both eyes slightly and glared at Faye through his half-opened eyelids. It was obvious he did not find his similarities to Spike amusing.

"No, I'm serious," Jett ventured. "Spike may be dead for about 12 years now, but it's not a really well-known fact. Unless you're Red Dragon, or you knew him really well. We could very easily pass Liam off as Spike, and could probably get a lot of info out of people that we couldn't normally get."

"It could work…" Faye contemplated. Liam closed his eyes again.

"No," he said simply.

"What?"

"I won't do it. The answer is no."

"Come on Liam, this is not the time to be choosy. We know you don't like being associated with Spike, but using your likeness to him could be a real advantage to getting info on your situation."

"What about my accent?"

"Well, you can't tell it's there most of the time, unless you really listen for it," Faye pointed out.

"Yeah, and you could wear sunglasses to hide your eyes. We'll just make up some bullshit story about the scar," Jett continued. Ed walked back into the room.

"It won't fool Red Dragon," Ed declared, sitting down near Faye.

"Why not?" Jett inquired. Ed opened Tomato on the table and shrugged.

"His hair is a lighter colour and his skin is a darker tone," she replied.

"What? I didn't even know that, how would they?" Jett argued.

"They're professionals, Jett. They're trained and paid to notice that sort of thing."

"What about on Ganymede? Do you think the Red Dragon operatives there would know that?"

"Maybe, maybe not. You never know when you'll run into someone who knew Spike, by reputation or in person. It may not be wide-spread that he's dead, but it's not exactly a secret either."

"She's got a point, Jett," Faye agreed.

"Fine. What do you think Liam? …Liam?"

"He's asleep…" Ed told them, glancing at the green-haired boy from over the top of her computer screen. Faye shook her head.

"I feel so bad," Faye said.

"Why?"

"Because I do nothing but see his similarities to Spike. We do nothing but compare him to someone he never met. It must be annoying for him."

"Probably," Jett replied. "He is rather like Spike though."

"Yeah, but he's still not Spike. He looks like Spike and moves like Spike and has a few of Spike's behaviours, but he's his own person. He's not Spike," Ed pointed out quietly.

"You're right… but it's still going to be really hard not to think of him as Spike…" Jett conceded.

***

AN: Kinda a short chapter. They'll get to Ganymede then the fun stuff starts. ^_^ I'm glad you guys like Liam. I wasn't really trying to pull a Spike comeback, but Liam tends to act like his dad, whether I want him to or not. ^^;; If anyone is interested, I have sketches of Ed at 24 and Liam on my domain right now. You can find them here:

http://ellone-loire.net/nevermore/art/liamsketch1.jpg

http://ellone-loire.net/nevermore/art/liamsketch2.jpg

http://ellone-loire.net/hitokirinome/artists/rhyein/edsketch.jpg

I also have some pics of Spike that I edited to look like Liam, if you're interested, email me @ rhyein@hotmail.com

-Rhyein