LEGAL STUFF: I don't own COWBOY BEBOP, though if my Powerball ticket ever comes in, I sure as hell will. This story is strictly for the enjoyment of fans.

Time to bring this baby home. I'm not sure if a lot of people like it, but I think enough of the right people do ... at least enough to keep me writing. I've really enjoyed writing this story and it's spawned enough ideas to keep me busy for awhile. So please READ & REVIEW! It's what keeps us writers going.

All feedback / reviews / suggestions / flames may be directed @ ckrisz@outgun.com

****NOTE*****

This chapter is far from done. I uploaded it onto FF.net just to try and see if I could get italics to work. It didn't, but when I was about to remove the chapter, it told me that if this was the last chapter of the story, it would remove the entire story! So I'm sorry to cut it off basically in the middle of the chapter, but it WILL be updated soon!

-------------------------------------------------

Jet squeezed the trigger. The enormous .50-caliber Barrett sniper rifle slammed him in the shoulder, and the jolt almost made him miss seeing the round hit a syndicate officer in the building across the street.

This is a big gun, he thought as the syndicate gunmen hit the floor. They had disappeared from his sight, but the Barrett could easily blast through the cheap brick and formacast that passed for the walls of the headquarters building. Jet didn't even bother to pop the infrared sight; he simply dropped the barrel down a few inches and began pumping .50-caliber shells through the area below the window. Men jumped up like rabbits, bolting for the door. Jet shot two more before the room emptied.

The big sniper rifle was one of several guns that Faye had already unloaded from Redtail when Jet had dropped Hammerhead down into the Orphis slums. He'd found her standing in an alley, two unconscious syndicate gunmen lying on the ground at her feet, and at least a dozen weapons laid out in front of her as she thumbed 9mm rounds into a magazine for her H&K submachine gun. The look on her face had stopped him from asking questions.

"You don't have to come," she'd said. "I'm going to go find a friend."


His eyes must have given him away. She hadn't smiled. "Not Spike. I don't know where he is. I'm going either way. You don't have to."

Why should he? What had she ever done for him? Jet dropped to his knees next to her and began helping her load up clips. Who the hell was this friend of hers? Someone else to get them all into who knows what kind of mess? "Where'd you get all this?"

"The friend I'm going after." Faye handed him a small hologram, her fingers slightly greasy from gun oil. "He's in the Syndicate building in downtown Orphis. Don't worry about the cops. They won't show because they'll assume it's Syndicate business." Jet looked at the hologram. Some kid with zits on his rosy cheeks. What the hell was going on?

Faye's voice was flat, almost empty. "I think it'll be better for you to be on the roof across, with the big gun. Don't shoot him." She slapped a clip into her submachine gun, the metallic clack ringing in Jet's mind. "Don't shoot me, either."

"Don't tell me how to do a job, woman." Jet stood and began bolting together the big sniper. His voice was rough, but he was thinking to himself that he had never, ever seen her like this before. "The ISSP ain't a charm school."

"And you're not very charming," she said, her lips cocking upwards slightly, and for some reason it almost made him smile.

"Hrmph," he grunted instead. "Depends on who you ask."

And now he was here, aiming down the Barrett's long barrel at the syndicate fools running around in their silly headquarters building. It was obvious they hadn't had any plan for this kind of thing. They weren't even ducking down, just gaping and running as Jet put carefully aimed .50-caliber rounds through desks, sheetrock, armor vests, and them. They were getting soft, he thought. Ever since they'd wiped out the White Tigers and took hold of Mars completely, they'd never had to face a challenge …

A few return rounds came whizzing back, bringing him back to the present; the brighter ones had pinpointed his position. Should have picked something lighter, Jet thought to himself as he hunched down and crawled fifteen meters to the opposite side of the rooftop. He put the Barrett down on its tripod and clicked the infrared sight open again. Globular shapes sprang into view, heads and bodies crouched behind windowpanes and furniture. He waited for shapes to move, enough to discern the hard, flat lines of weapons. Then he picked his targets and let loose: BRAK BRAK BRAK. Shapes shuddered, flopped, scrambled to run. The Barrett clicked empty as Jet put his last round through two walls and a syndicate gunman's belly.

The chaos of the lobby area was clear for Jet to see. He was impressed. Never thought she had it in her, he thought. To charge the Syndicate in its own lair, even taken off guard ... Who was this friend who she was doing this for? Who the hell was that kid?

Long, black sedans and bulky airtrucks began making their way around the corner. Men spilled from them, rifles and pistols swinging towards phantom targets. Some bright boy had called for reinforcements.

Redtail, on autopilot, turned to face them. Jet smiled as the Nambus sang and heavy armor-piercing shells reached out to gut the first car, spinning its debris in fiery pinwheels over the block. Another car blew apart as Redtail swept the north intersection.

Jet winced as two bullets snapped above his ear. He braced the .50-caliber and centered it on the nearest sedan, watching two more pull up behind it. The men crouching below had seen him, were already spraying wild fire up at the rooftop as he began picking his targets. Two men broke from the crowd and sprinted towards the door of his building. They were catching on uncomfortably fast.

Redtail's guns clicked empty, and the monofighter's autopilot sent it swinging upwards and away. The carcasses of four cars and twice as many men burned and bled in its wake, but already more were pulling up as the syndicate began to rouse itself from the depths of the city.

Hurry Faye, Jet thought as he centered on the first runner. BRAK. Cowboys aren't made for last stands.

--------------------------------------------------

"What?"

Spike lifted the Jericho from Faye's shoulder. He was looking at her quizzically.

Faye looked back at him, open-mouthed.

"I thought I snuck up on you, but you said my name," Spike said, a crooked grin on his face as he pushed past her. "You're not as oblivious as usual."

Did I say his name ... ?

"But you're as lunkheaded as ever! Where were you?" Faye shouted. She felt a sudden surge of familiar anger, looking at that damn smug look on his face. The anger was reassuring. It helped to wash away the strange, clammy churning in her gut that had come as soon as his voice had touched her. Was it relief? Something else?

What the hell … ?

"Did you see my father?" It was that skinny girl, braids swinging and a pistol in her hand, coming up the stairs behind Spike. "Did he come here?" The look on her face was of pure desperation.

"He went that way---" Faye looked back down the hall and saw Spike already disappearing around the corner.

"BAKA!" The word exploded from both women, and they looked at each other for a moment, surprise written on their faces.

Faye smiled, and so did the skinny girl. When she did that, her face seemed to drop a mask, and several years. She looked very pretty, Faye realized. I never realized she'd be so young …

"My name's Faye," she said as they moved down the hall.

"I know, he told me," answered the girl. "He talked a lot about you."

Lornette almost missed the look of shock on Faye's face. Spike hasn't changed at all, she thought. He never really did know much about women.

"I'm Lornette."

Faye started and looked at the girl again. Lornette? She wasn't Julia? Spike never mentioned any Lornette, neither did Jet ... Who was she?

Faye stopped thinking and went first, elbowing past the younger woman as they turned the corner. Another stairwell opened before them. As Faye began to climb warily, a Red Dragon goon bounced down the stairs towards her. Lornette and Faye both swung to aim, but he was already unconscious; an arm bent back on itself and his head rebounding off the concrete as he landed at Faye's feet told the story.


"Hey, watch it!" Faye shouted as she went over the drooling gangster. Spike stuck his head back to look at them.

"Get back! I'll handle this!" His voice was strained. He'd been hit once in the left arm, and blood leaked down his sleeve.

Faye snarled back at him and went up the stairs three at a time, Lornette a half step behind her. That idiot had gone and gotten shot again!

A door clicked at the top of the landing; Spike whirled, his Jericho rising. His first shot blasted high as a mustachioed syndicate man appeared, paired Ingram machinepistols in his hands. Spike was already throwing himself to the side, but it was too late; the Ingrams would fill the whole stairwell with bullets.

You won't do this to me again! The thought hit Faye before she even knew it was there.

A smile of triumph was breaking out on the gunman's face. It froze as Faye's bullet went in his right eye and out the back of his head. The man's fingers flexed and sprayed a futile burst of fire into the door as he convulsed. Spike was already stepping over his body into the hallway beyond, his mind skipping over what had just happened.

I missed. How did I ... how did she do that?

Spike's gun flashed across the three men coming down the hall, their eyes barely registering him before the bullets hit.

I should be dead.

They were going down, dying, as he sprinted past.

That woman ...

-----------------------------------------

Ho Nam slid down the wall, the revolver dead in his hand. Gods, it was heavy. He let it slip down until it was flat against the floor, pointed straight ahead. But he still held it, his finger tight against the trigger, his palm sticking to the grip with the blood that had slipped down his arm.

He'd taken a 5.56mm uranium-tipped round in the chest from a rifleman whom he had shot a second late. It had gone in and out of him, straight as truth, and he'd staggered and almost fallen. Wasn't that what you were looking for, old man?

Vicious' men had set up in the top floor offices. Dead men had been scattered in clumps near the windows---a sniper? He'd come out of the last stairwell, blood licking warmly down his side and four rounds in the revolver, no time for questions.

Three of them were left in the wreck of a conference room, an older bearded one with a bowie knife raised above some squalling boy tied to a chair. Ho Nam's first bullet had gone high. His second blew the knife away along with the hand that held it.

One of them still had a pistol. Two shots had blown Ho Nam out of the doorway and dropped him where he lay now.

Ho Nam could see them through shades of grey and white. The man whose hand he'd shot off was down on the floor, screaming, and another one was trying to help him. Unless you've got a mobile surgical unit, boy, give it up …

The one who'd shot him was coming closer. A blond boy, willow-cheeked and with eyes as innocent as summer rain. One of Vicious' hand-picked elite, he could tell by the red fringe of his trenchcoat---this boy was one of those who would shoot without blinking, be it man, woman or child. The new generation. The smile was cold as the boy raised his pistol.

But Ho Nam still had his gun, too.

His second bullet ripped along the floor and into the boy's foot. His mouth opened, but no sound came out that Ho Nam could hear. Still young, Ho Nam thought as he put the last bullet through the boy's head. Funny, now he couldn't even hear his own shots.

He could barely make out the man who'd been helping the bleeding, handless one. Dark-skinned, with blue streaks in his hair. He'd picked up the boy's pistol and was aiming it. God, why wasn't there any pain? Ho Nam could feel bullets going into his ribs, his bones breaking under their blows. His body was twisting, he could feel the blood coming out of him, but the pain stayed away. For years he'd lived with pain, pain from wounds, pain from hate, but now … Well, it is what I wanted.

He saw with his eyes as the two men stepped over him, heading down the hall. Do I look so dead already?

He could see them, but another figure was looming behind him. That made no sense. The wall was there. But so was Vicious, not Vicious as he was now, but Vicious when all the boys still called him that as a joke, a light-haired boy who never fought anyone without a reason, who defended the weaklings and retarded ones and who spent hours caring for a dying old woman in a room without light. Refugees from Earth---she'd caught some sort of disease there, and they'd come to Mars for medical treatment back in the days when Mars still allowed immigrants in for reasons like that. He'd just been a runner and a lookout then; soft-hearted Mao gave him enough to keep him and his grandmother out of the food lines. But her treatment would have needed millions, and the Red Dragon wasn't a charity even if Mao had wanted it to be. They'd been looking to expand, and there was only way to do that.

Ho Nam remembered ... God, how well the boy had moved! He'd been fast and strong even then, great speed and better reflexes. He didn't bend over for the common trash that had ruled East Tharsis back then. Ho Nam had sent him to Master Wong with a promise to look after his grandmother, and he'd kept his word. Moved her out of the dim shack they'd been living in to a Refugee Settlement Authority dorm, given her painkillers. Vicious had come back from his training whipcord-lean, the new strength burning in him. When he'd seen his grandmother lying on clean sheets, in a room with electricity and running water, his eyes had changed. Ho Nam had known that the boy was theirs.

He'd taken him aside, a hand on his shoulder like the father the boy had never known. He explained what being a sworn brother of the Red Dragon meant. He asked if the boy was ready to swear the thirty-six oaths, to live and die by the code. Vicious just looked at him, eyes full of gratitude. Ho Nam and some of the brothers from Tharsis had administered the ceremony, and Vicious had spoken the words with all the fury of the convert. At the end of the ceremony, Ho Nam had looked him in the eye, his hand on his shoulder, but harder now, fingers digging into flesh to make sure the boy was paying attention. He'd reached into his jacket and pulled out a pistol ... Gods, he could still see it now. He'd handed it to Vicious, and their eyes locked. "You've said the vows, brother," he'd said, and watched as that last word hit. "Now go prove them."

I gave him that gun, Ho Nam thought. I killed myself, Mao, all the others, on that day.

But then the memories fled, as quickly as they had appeared. The only thing behind him was a wall, and the blood that was clotting against his back. Now it was starting to hurt. He laughed and spat blood up onto his chin. Maybe death didn't allow your memories to follow you, he thought. Thank God.

Gunshots, muffled yells and the sounds of bodies falling. Footsteps. It sounded so far away, he thought. Who knows, maybe I'm in hell already …

"Dieh!"

---------------------------------------------------------------

The man with no hand looked up as the door to the stairs swung open. His eyes bulged as Spike put a bullet through his forehead, dodging to the side as the man supporting him fired.

"Faye! Look---" Faye's Glock boomed twice, spinning the last gunman around. He collapsed against the wall, coughing through a ruined throat.

Faye came up the stairs and saw Spike kneeling before Ho Nam. Blood fanned the wall behind the older man and matted his suit jacket. She knew it wouldn't be long.

"Faye!"

She ran to the doorway up ahead and saw Tylor, strapped to a chair with a black eye and a bruise spreading across his face. "Kid, you okay?"

Tylor smiled through broken, bloody lips. "Faye ... your friends play rough."

Friends? No, they're not ... they're just people I met.

Faye saw a bowie knife attached to a human hand in the corner of the room. She screwed up her face and went to pry the fingers apart.

Tylor waited as Faye retrieved the knife. He remembered feeling sorry, not scared, when the Red Dragon head had been about to cut his throat. He was sorry to have dragged Faye into this mess, sorry not to have put up a fight when the Red Dragon 49s had put the gun to his head, sorry to have even made that damn birthday cake. It was weird, how feeling sorry could blot out fear. But then that old man had appeared the doorway, saving his life ... and now he was going to feel sorry for the old man, as well.

"Dieh! No, please ... Please open your eyes. Open your eyes!" Lornette's voice was low, harsh, desperate. "You open your eyes, dammit!"

Spike stood as she cradled her father. He looked down at the man who'd help train him, who'd helped to raise him. Broken, shot, bleeding ... dying.

So this is what it'll be like.

Ho Nam's eyes fluttered open. He looked around, the blood crusting his face making him look like the ghost of a Sioux warrior, painted for battle. But his eyes were dim, lost.

"Mace?"

"Father, it's me ... Lornette." She pried the revolver from his hand, gripped his fingers.

"Lornette ... my daughter ..."

"Yes, yes. I'm your daughter, I love you, do you hear me? Just hold on. Spike! Call the ambulance! Now!" Her words were sharp, direct, commanding---everything a leader's voice was supposed to be. Spike could almost hear her father's ghost in her voice.

Ho Nam worked his fingers desperately, breaking free of her grasp. He grabbed the collar of her shirt, pulling her face down away from Spike. "Lor--Lornette .... Listen ... Na---no revenge ... not for me ... No revenge. I ... I order it ..."

"Dieh ..."

Ho Nam coughed wildly, convulsing. Lornette grabbed him, holding him tight, fresh tears staining her face.

"My fault, Lornette ... I---I'm sorry ..."

He shuddered once and his eyes lost focus. Spike looked away.

Faye looked up as she cut Tylor loose, saw the look on Spike's face. Blood, she thought. He has blood in his eyes, and I can't ...

He must have sensed her looking at him. He met her face for a moment, and she thought he was going to say something.

Instead his Jericho was up, so fast it was a dark blur. Spike put two shots into the head of the first syndicate man up the stairs, and pieces of it sprayed the line of men behind him.

Spike advanced down the hall, firing into the next man down the line. A machine pistol chattered, spitting rounds back, but another man went down. Faye came up beside Spike, ignoring the bullets, her Glock up. They stood side by side for a moment, their guns firing into their enemies---and then the syndicate men broke and ran.

Spike let the clip fall from the Jericho and tucked it under his bleeding left arm, not trusting his hand to hold it. He reached for another clip and met Faye's hand already inside his coat. Their fingers touched.

Spike looked at her, shock replacing fury in his eyes. "H---hey, what ..."

Faye cocked a crooked smile at him as she pulled a grenade from his vest pocket. She held his eyes as she pulled the pin free with her teeth and spat it out. "Look out, cowboy."

She lobbed the grenade high, arcing towards the open stairwell. As it left her hand, a

shape appeared in the doorway, gun raised.

"Faye!"

The gunshot rang as Spike slammed into her, his tall frame smashing them both to the floor. The shock of the impact knocked the wind from her for a moment, and her eyes bulged as Spike lay atop her. What was he doing---

A scream from the doorway and the grenade blew, shocking her senses again. It took her a few seconds to clear her head and realize that Spike was still on top of her.

"H-hey, get off---"

Blood, warm and wet, dripped onto her belly. He grunted, struggling to lift himself. More blood.

"Stop it!" Faye put a hand on his shoulder.

He rolled off her and crumpled on the floor, one hand pressing against the exit wound in his upper chest. His face was twisted in pain.

"Oh God, you idiot!" Faye instinctively pressed down on his wound. Blood welled up around her fingers, sticking cloyingly to her skin. "Dammit! You always get shot!"

Tylor was at her side. He'd found a first aid kit somewhere. Faye looked up for a moment and saw that Lornette had covered Ho Nam's body with the torn cloak of one of the dead Red Dragons. The girl approached, the tracks of her tears still fresh and her father's gun in her hand. Tylor was opening a swab-on anesthetic.

"No, use the compress first." Lornette took off her short denim jacket. "Stop the bleeding." Her voice was as flat and unshakeable as stone. Faye had look hard to see that her hands trembling.

Spike had fainted, but Faye could still feel his heart beating. Please hold on, she thought. She remembered the time when he had fallen from the cathedral, his body soaring almost in slow motion as brick and glass exploded around him. She'd run through falling debris and fire, her hands still cuffed behind her back in that ridiculous evening dress, to kneel at his side and shout his name. Why did I do that? I didn't know him then.

More blood came, and Spike's body shook.

I don't know him now.

He grunted hard as Faye ripped open his shirt and pressed the white pad down onto his wound. The compress sealed itself down and began automatically dispensing a mix of coagulants, antibiotics, and painkillers into Spike's system. Faye and Tylor turned him over and did the same for the exit wound in left shoulder. The bleeding had stopped by the time Faye finished winding gauze around his shoulder and chest.

"He's still alive," Tylor said in relief as she finished. "He should be okay. I've seen guys make it through worse on Titan."

Faye sat up. She looked at the two of them kneeling at Spike's side. Just kids, she thought.

"Okay, Lornette, Tylor, I need your help. Let's move him back away from here." As they began to pick Spike's limp body up from the floor, Faye dialed her comm. Time for Plan B.

"Faye-faye!"

"Ed, let's do it. You're sure you can go ahead and steer everything at once?"

"Ed already put in the autopilot programs!" Ed's elastic face seemed to contort into a new, wider, grin. "All smoothie!"

"Is Redtail reloaded?"

"All go, Faye-faye!"

"Don't forget to call ISSP. Tell Jet you're coming, too."

"Roger-dodger!"

Faye flipped the comm. off. Tylor was fiddling with the sights on Ho Nam's gun while Lornette tended to Spike in the far corner. Does she really need to be leaning that close to him?

Tylor handed the revolver to Lornette. "There, they should be okay now." He saw Faye looking at them. "So, Faye, what are we going to do?"

"We're going to sit tight."

-----------------------------------------------

Jet flung the last two grenades down the staircase and ran for it. Screams and gunshots chased him as he dived over the doorway's threshold onto the roof.

He shook his head for a moment, grunting as his body whined about the strain he was putting on it once again. Getting too old.

But it only took him a half-second to roll to his feet and spin into a crouching position by the stairwell. Twisted metal and what was left of someone's torso lay in his vision. Smoke, cordite, and the smell of death wafted up at him.

Two men stumbled into view a second later, both carrying assault rifles. They were aggressive enough, Jet gave them that ... but there wasn't any reason to walk into the fumes and confusion so soon. He shot the first one above the nose and watched the body slump against the second syndicate man, throwing off his aim. A burst of fire stitched the stairway's ceiling as Jet snapped the second man's head back with the last bullet in his magazine.

He ejected the Walther's clip and reached into his pocket. Last one, he thought grimly as he slotted it and jacked the slide.

Why had he trusted that woman's crazy plan anyway? It all depended on her somehow getting up the stairs in one piece and in enough time to both free the hostage and keep the syndicate from finding and killing the sniper giving her cover, namely him. Pretty much everything after that was up to a 13-year-old kid who may or may not have fallen asleep already.

It made him grin. He wondered what Bob and the old salts at the ISSP would make of this when they found his body shot to pieces on some godforsaken rooftop in a backwater canal city. The Black Dog, the most feared cop on Ganymede, trusting his life to a woman who lived by lying and a child who was probably half-insane.

He chanced a look down the stairs again. Someone was babbling in pidgin Cantonese. Another voice cut in: "What are you saying?"

Jet grinned. He aimed the Walther at a spot on the far wall. He waited for more babbling to come. He'd seen Faye pull this trick once on a bounty who'd had a thermo grenade and had been threatening to blow himself up ...

He fired twice. The spang! of the ricochet was drowned out by a panicked yell. Jet smiled and ducked away as return fire came blindly back up the stairwell.

Well, that would hold them for another minute or two. Two minutes and fourteen bullets between himself and the end.

Hmmm, Jet mused. Maybe just a tad over-dramatic ...

The scream of engines cut him off mid-thought.

Bebop dropped out the sky like a giant brown meteor, the noise of its passage ripping across Orphis City in a bald shriek of agony. Dammit, she wasn't made to go that fast---

Ed must have heard him, because Bebop began to level off at a thousand meters. The engines screeched as the old fishing boat's airbrakes kicked in and began to spin down towards Red Dragon headquarters.

Jet felt a surprised relief as he punched Ed's code into the comm. "Ed! Go ahead and drop Hammerhead!"

He could barely hear the hacker's diminutive squeal: "Okey-dokey!"

Both Redtail and Hammerhead seemed to fall out of the Bebop's hanger. Jet gaped, then sighed as both monopods leveled and accelerated towards him. Redtail peeled back and began a strafing run at the syndicate cars lining the street below, while Hammerhead dropped into a low braking turn over Jet's building.

The syndicate men got up the stairs just in time to see Jet close the canopy and lift off. They fired futile shots, then ran for it as Hammerhead's plasma engines burned the rooftop black.

Jet swung Hammerhead around to face the syndicate headquarters. "Faye!" he shouted into the comm. "Where---" He saw her then, waving in the window.

Her voice was scratchy over the comm., almost as if she'd been crying. "Roof's blocked off. Stairway's full of them, we can't get past."

Jet grunted. He'd known something like that was going to happen … With those two, it always did.

"We'll make do!"

Jet fired Hammerhead's grappling hook into the room next to Faye's. The heavy metal arm crashed through walls and window. He cranked the hook back in and cleared an even larger hole in the building's side.

"Get ready! Ed! Get Redtail over here! Cover us!"

Jet was so busy maneuvering Hammerhead towards the new hole in the headquarters building that he almost didn't hear her shout, "You can't be serious!"

"Do you want to stay and talk it over with them?"

That shut her up. Already he could see the teenager from Faye's picture framed in the hole, gesturing to him. As Jet angled closer, Faye and some teenage girl he didn't know dragged … Spike!

"Goddamn women!"

Hammerhead's broad, flat nose scraped against the side of building as Jet fought to keep the old mono-tug level. The teenage girl leaped down gracefully and reached back to cradle Spike against her as Faye lowered his semi-unconscious body down. Jet popped the canopy and the girl half-dragged, half-carried Spike to the cockpit.

"He's shot in the chest, but not bad! Just shock and blood loss!" She shouted to be heard over Hammerhead's engines. She lowered him into Hammerhead's cockpit and Jet flipped the canopy down again. It was a tight fit, but Jet's mind was too worried about the bandage across Spike's chest to notice.

"Ed! Get Redtail over there!" He waited for the girl to jump back up into the building before he swung Hammerhead away. Riflemen in the streets below were already firing at Redtail as the monofighter broke off. Faye and the kids would be sitting ducks for them as they tried to get into Redtail.

Jet snarled. This crazy plan's come too far to fail now! He dropped Hammerhead almost to street level and buzzed the gunmen below. Bullets thudded into Hammerhead's armor as he passed over them, but the heat of the engines and the intimidating closeness of the tug's massive hull sent most of them scurrying for cover.

"Jet, we---we're ready!"

He almost laughed. Faye sounded more cramped than he was. He could imagine trying to jam two teenagers and Faye into Redtail's small cockpit. Redtail staggered and swayed as it ascended towards Bebop's docking bay.

"Ed! Quit jamming the Army's frequencies and get the ISSP Tacticals in here. Remember, play the bioterror disc!" It had been Faye's idea to draw the ISSP Special Operations troopers in at the last moment, both to cover their escape and give the Red Dragon enough of a hassle to keep them from blockading Orphis. She'd suggested letting Ed pose as a terrorist group as she hacked her way into the ISSP mainframe, leaving enough clues for the ISSP to track her to an empty apartment building right across from the syndicate headquarters in Orphis.

"ISSP Tacticals on-the-WAY!"

Jet spared a glance at Spike next to him. How many times has it been, now? How many times are you going to try and kill yourself and expect me to clean up the mess?

Though, come to think of it, at least he didn't have to play nursemaid anymore for that idiot. Ever since Faye had come aboard, she'd taken over caring for Spike …

------------------------------------------------

The lights were on. He could even feel them through his eyelids. Damn, they're bright. Why so bright?

Spike tried to put his left hand over his eyes. Odd. His arm wasn't working. He sighed and moved his right arm. A jagged pain refracted through up and down his ribs, and he almost moaned. But he forced the arm up anyway, edging through the agony and gritting his teeth, until his hand was over his eyes.

The pain subsided as he stopped moving. Spike sighed in relief.

Footsteps. "You idiot!" Faye.

Spike didn't try to answer. He knew what was coming.


"You're going to tear your stitches, lunkhead. Those bandages are in place for a reason, don't you know? I guess you don't care that I wasted two hours stitching you up, then wrapping you. Like always." He could feel her getting closer, sitting down on the couch opposite him and leaning towards him.

Why couldn't she leave him alone?

"You know, some people would thank me for doing this kind of thing every time they got themselves hurt."

Spike could see her with that sardonic who-cares look on her face, mocking him. I should never have taken that bullet for her. Just let it hit her, then see if she still complains …

Normally that thought would have stayed in his head, that and the irritation. But for some reason, it was already gone. He remembered the bullet blowing through him, the heat and pain, and his last thought before passing out: Did it hit her?

She had quieted down. What was she doing now?

Faye looked around, making sure that neither Ed nor Ein was lurking about. Jet was still fixing Redtail from the hits it had taken down in Orphis; Tylor and Lornette had both volunteered to help him. Tylor was already trying to talk Jet into buying recalibrated caseless ammunition for them and a plasma turret for the Bebop. She remembered his whiny little voice, pointing out the advantages of plasma weaponry on ships versus cheaper Gatling cannon, the swelling bruises on his face dulling his enthusiasm not at all. The kid was a gun nut, but there was steel under the zits and the nervous laugh.

When she was sure there wasn't anyone under the couch, Faye leaned over Spike. She looked down at him, almost backing out on what she had planned to do. Why now? Gods, you're so stupid. Just stop right now, just go back and do what you always do, make fun of him, say he's a mummy or tell him to get out of the way the next time …

Spike felt her above him. He felt a sort of panic boiling up in his stomach, and moved his arm to look at her. What was she---

"Thank you."

The whisper hit Spike like a runaway truck. Surprise ran through his whole body. WHAT did she say?

What happened then was worse. Her eyes were fixed on him, and he looked into them, really looked into them, for the first time. They were beautiful eyes, he realized; deep emerald that would suck any man in before he even knew he was lost. But what Spike was seeing in them was beyond color, beyond appearances.

Sincerity. She really meant what she was saying. How many times could you say that about Faye? She'd lied, cheated, scammed her way across the solar system ... but not now. Those eyes---God, they were beautiful!---weren't lying now.

And there was something else there, a certain something ...

Look away. Go for your cigarette like you always do. Just get her to stop looking at you like that.

Faye could see the shock from her words, and for some reason it bothered her that he would be so surprised. But she didn't move. She just kept looking at him, into those odd eyes, with one just slightly darker than the other. When she looked into them, she felt something strange welling up from her gut, something she couldn't quite name. It was insistent, inevitable; a fiery warmth that came from the pit of her stomach and spilled into every part of her body. It melted her fears until there wasn't anything left but emotion, a heat so powerful it almost made her dizzy with the pure pleasurable force of it.

Her gaze was naked now, she knew. Her eyes shone with that feeling and she didn't look down or away from him as she always had before. She wasn't afraid anymore. The knowledge kept her there; the knowledge that he had taken the bullet meant for her, had called her name as he did it … her name.

"Faye."

His voice was throaty from not having spoken, but it wasn't what touched her then. It was his eyes, the deepness within them, that were meeting hers. They didn't waver; they didn't blink or look away.

There was … something …

"Hey Faye! I need your lighter!"

Tylor's voice was as earnest and clumsily loud as usual. He ran into the room, carrying the cake box with him. He saw Faye get up from her position near Spike and look away from him. For a second, Tylor thought that she was angry---no, furious.

But her voice was light, energetic, almost relieved, as she took out her lighter and handed it to him. "Hey, here you go. What's it for?"

"That kid, whatshername, I think Ed? She found some candles and I thought we could, you know, for Mr. Black." He set the cake box on the table and flipped it open. "See, it's really not that bad. I think especially since he came in and did all that, you know, back in Orphis, he really deserves this cake. It's his birthday, after all, ya know. Ed said that Mr. Black really likes his birthdays." He scratched his head for a moment. "At least I think she did."

Spike listened to the kid prattle on, lighting the candles and almost burning himself. What was it then, that thing … I know I felt something. Did she sense it too? Did she know … ?

Faye nodded blindly as Tylor talked, giving him a blank smile. All the anger, its heat so different from what she'd felt, had dissipated. Only a cold flush in her spine, a cold something … what was it? Disappointment? Relief? What had been warming her before?

Well … I know I felt something. It was probably just me …

---------------------------------------------------------

Okay, I hope people liked this chapter. I've been thinking of taking it away from the series storyline and moving it into serious Spike/Faye territory. Please REVIEW! Tell me if this is worth doing!