Disclaimer- Cowboy Bebop is not mine.
NOTE- THANKS LEXI FOR EVERYTHING!!
There Is No Pride In Love
Awakenings
Chapter two
The woman with the long black hair watched the rain cease, watched the car that took the purple haired woman away in a big hurry. She watched the man, Shin- the name foreign to her mind for the longest time yet so familiar- look around as if surprised to find the woman still breathing and alive with Rain nowhere in sight.
The thought of Rain made the woman's heart hurt, made her close her eyes and stand on the roof she was on, her black jeans dripping, her gray sweater clinging to her body. She opened her black eyes with a certain sorrow, a certain feeling she wished she didn't have for the murderer. Insecurity masking the feeling of protectiveness she felt towards the woman she had saved.
The gray clouds were clearing, the night sky shining with peaceful clearness as the moonlight glowed on her shoulders, her hair almost to her feet blowing softly in the wind, the black silk trench coat in her arms flowing as she turned from the street the car had flown down to get the woman medical attention as fast as four wheels could go.
She knew that sometime soon she'd be paying the woman whom she had just saved a visit. After all, the clouds had departed, but the calm before the real storm had only begun to settle. The storm coming was screaming to be known even in the silence of pride.
*****
I could say that I never understood why I lived, but that would be lying. I lived because had I not, Vicious would have won and I don't like to loose.
My heart seemed torn, thrashed, painfully alive as I drifted in the thoughts of my mind- ideas, memories that I tried to swim away from but instead found myself drowning with every struggled pull I tried to make.
All my life I drowned in memories...
All my life my past was a chain and collar that held me like a stray dog on a rope.
All my life... And my life wasn't even worth it anymore. My life was the past now. All I could wonder was, where the hell does that leave me?
I ached with a want, a need to know why my past lingered like a vapor trail behind me as I wandered with uncertainty. I screamed to understand why my death had to be part of a past thrown upon me without question, without reason, without answer.
I had never asked to live.
I had never asked to die.
I had never asked to loose so much inbetween.
I never asked to be so goddamn uncertain!
I could see her eyes watching me as I smiled through the blood, the hate, the deaths that I myself caused, still uncertain yet not caring about the questions then, only living, only seeing what I wanted to. She was my dream, she chased away the question 'what am I here for?' and replaced it with 'now I know why I am alive.' But I *never* asked for her to come in my life and yet now I couldn't imagine living without her anymore.
But now I found myself leaving her one more time and I had never asked for that decision either!
I never asked to be reborn into life again. No one ever asked me, no one cared, and neither did I. No, that wasn't true. I didn't *want* to care.
But I did.
And no one cared about that either.
And even then I was uncertain if anyone even heard me.
But I never asked for anything, so maybe that was why I got what I never wanted.
Now I was asking.
'Someone please understand and make me see the reason why.' Never mind that I didn't know what 'why' was, never mind that Julia should have been the answer, never mind everything in the past.
I asked why in the future because the past needed to be cut away.
'Why?'
******
'Why?' The question was simple but the one asking it wasn't supposed to be there.
But who was 'he'? And where the hell was she?
Darkness, that was where she was, and the only thing she could hold onto was the sound of his voice in her head. She grasped onto the echoes of the fading word afraid she was going to fade into the background and loose the only other presence there in the darkness where emptiness and loneliness threatened to throw her into oblivion.
'Why what?' She asked.
There was surprised silence as if the one who asked the question hadn't expected to be answered. Then, 'Why can't I throw the past away?' The words shattered a hidden link somewhere.
Then she was opening her senses and her world was recognizing the pain she only wished she knew how to ignore. Her head screamed, her bones in her right wrist and shoulder cried with unshed tears, and her ribs objected to the breaths her lungs took to keep her alive. Then jade eyes were opening to more than the pain but to a white room with rhythmic sounds of a heart monitor next to the pillow her purple hair was fanned across.
Moonlight shinned from a skylight window above her head and for more than a minute she stared up into the silver stars floating in a sea of sapphire velvet, finding some sort of peace. Then Jet's eyes flashed through her mind- the same color as the sky and she was suddenly sitting straight up in excruciating pain, tearing off the oxygen mask, kicking off the sheets, ripping away the wires, the heart monitor sounding an alarm as the readings lacked a heart to read.
Then her feet touched cold tile and her world was spinning with pain, noise, and the quick beatings of a heart pushing down panic and blood.
"Damnitt," she hissed, her eyes loosing focus for an instant, her knees bending under her, every movement shouting pain and screams. Her ribs felt like cracked glass, her shoulder and arms flailed with spasms, her head echoed sharp edges of needles through her mind as her voice uttered a small gasp.
Then arms were carrying her back into bed, the shrieking sound of the heart monitor mercifully turned off. She rolled her head to look at the one holding her steady as he placed her easily under the covers. He was tall, dark with whisps of blonde hair over his tanned skin at his forehead. His eyes were all green intensity as he moved the wires she had ripped away and placed them in a bunch so he could identify where they went. His slight wired rimmed glasses added to the whole doctor look he was sporting with that odd off green shirt and pants and white coat that hung a little to long to the floor.
"Jet, I need to get to Jet," she said with grogginess and roughness that came with not talking for awhile. She felt pitiful, lanky, weak as he covered her with warm blankets that hugged her, trying to do what an embrace could.
"Mr. Black is right outside, Miss Valentine." The man proceeded to put her IV in. She tried to shake her arm away but it was useless, she may have commanded her body to do something but her body was in too much pain and shock from the last waves of it that it took no heed of what she *wanted* to do.
She needed Jet. She needed him by her side to give her confidence, to give her that feel of safety and protection that came with the fact that he was the only one who waited for her when she came home at the end of the day. He was the only one who cared... But their relationship wasn't *love*, at least not the kind that brought kisses in the middle of the night. Their ties came from a deep within sorrow over one man, over one dream that had passed but not before it had created their lives. What Jet and Faye had now was the sense of knowing one more person understood, one more person knew and would always know what that single man meant, gave, and took.
Spike... She was losing herself to her memories, ignoring the pain, the doctor that reconnected the cords, the sounds of a steady heart monitor, and the shooting star that past over her head. She barely noticed the pinch of a needle when a painkiller was shot through her system.
'What will you do? Throw away your life like it was nothing?' Her words, his image walking away. A sense of emptiness that told her life was cruel and he was unforgiving even until the end.
She shook her head. God, how many times did she have to burn that damn bridge? She closed her eyes, mumbling for Jet, longing for the relaxing feeling of his cool metallic hand touching hers with reassurance before memories chased her back into the darkness of her past.
His voice broke away the nightmares in her mind as her body stretched with pain that was fading with the help of the pain killer shot. "Ya got yourself in a real mess this time, kid." He stood beside the bed casually.
She opened her eyes and sneered at his blue intense starless orbs reaching to see what her reaction was. "I could have done worse." Her voice sounded distant, her throat scratching with dry fatigue.
For a moment his eyes lit with amusement as he shook his head that was still, more or less, bald on top. His beard and what was left of his hair had some grey streaks in it now, the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth deeper. She glanced down at the dusted jean jacket he wore now, his hawk symbol on the back in black. He wore a black dress shirt left open so the white T-shirt underneath could be partially seen where the fabric opened. Worn jeans covered his legs, brown work boots with steel tips donned his feet.
He sure looked a helluv alot different since Spike left.
"What happened, Faye?" His voice had gone serious and she turned to focus on his face that stood concerned.
What happened...?
She didn't want to remember...
Rain Falcon, he beat the shit out of me.
She could feel her wounds, felt them as they first cut her flesh as she remembered blow by blow how she received them. Rain, blood, a crimson smile... Pain, so much pain...
She shivered, touched her bandaged shoulder with her good hand, her wrist, her head, her throat... He had bitten her for crissakes!
She couldn't stop the shivers, the uncontrolled spasms of fear she scolded herself for feeling.
God those white eyes, those inhuman white eyes were all she could see, that inhuman breath of death was all she could smell. Then she was shaking, cursing herself for the fear, the utter pale shock that she'd been beaten, bruised, and cut without being able to protest the matter. She closed her eyes tight, bit back the fear, and pounded the bed with her bad hand, hoping that the pain that shot up her arm would take all the insecurities away. She ground her teeth and stared into Jet's eyes that had focused on her face with questioning depths.
"What's it look like? Mr. Falcon had a party beating the shit out of me," she said with a snicker that was more than bitter. Then she could feel that semi crazy, semi hysterical hit her. "I shot him in the friggen face! He still kept coming at me and..." She covered her face with her good hand. Tears, she could feel them moving down her bruised face. She remembered the confidence she had had when she had went after him all by herself, remembered the growing trust she felt when she first saw him. Mistakes, pointless mistakes on her part.
"Faye," Jet said touching her good shoulder. "You gotta calm down, kid."
She wiped the tears away and took a deep breath. She had to stop acting like a two year old, Rain was gone and she was...
Where the hell was she?
She looked around the white room, really looked. To her right was a white wall with a wooden door, on her left was a curtain cutting the whole room in half. A heart monitor beeped on the other side and for a second she had the impulse to draw the curtain aside- to see another person hurt just like her.
"You're in a hospital, Faye." Jet seemed to have read her mind. Yeah, no shit, she thought. She looked up at the skylight, the stars shining down at her as if they'd been watching over her ever since the clouds of rain cleared away.
"What hospital?" She tried to sit up but the drugs were really kicking in and she could feel herself slipping away from her body. She fell back against her pillow softly.
She heard the door open and a man in a black trench coat came walking in. His brown hair swept over steel grey eyes and his face was a tight smile of seriousness. He stepped up next to Jet and shook hands with the older man before staring down at her.
"I see you're doing better, Miss Valentine." He smiled with bleak eyes.
"Who-"
"Faye, this is Shin, leader of the Red Dragons and you're in their hospital." Jet cut in swiftly as he knelt down and waited for her reaction.
For a moment she stared at Shin who waited patiently beside Jet, silver eyes expectant. When she turned to the skylight both men obviously had expected an outburst. But she smiled bitterly and closed her eyes, laughing at the ironic twist of fate. Funny, Spike died at their hands and she got to live by them.
She opened her eyes, stopped laughing.
They should have let me die, she thought.
She turned her head slowly to Shin. "Get out." Her voice was drawn, slow, rage-filled. Fire heated her eyes, her soul, her heart. Any effect the drug had on her was gone, pure emotion washed it from her system. She met Shin's eyes, pushed every amount of hatred she could into her own and sneered. "Get out!" she said more forcefully as he staggered back. Whatever he saw in her eyes had startled him. He bowed slightly after regaining his composure and left the room.
Faye sat up, the pain was back full force but she was too angry, too hateful to mind it. She turned to Jet who was saying her name, telling her that she needed to be sensible.
She wasn't really listening.
"Shut up, Jet." Why did she feel so betrayed?
He fell silent but stood with an angry sigh.
She removed the IV, ripped it out again and ripped off the wires. She didn't need any service from a part of Spike's past that had killed him.
"Faye, come on. Use your head. You need this hospital right now." Jet helped her to her feet even as she threw the rest of the cords away. Her purple hair fell over her face and she brushed it away.
"I'm fine, now, Jet. The worst part was getting beat up. The easy part is leaving." She wobbled to a chair in the corner where her clothes were folded on and cursed. They were torn, bloody, useless.
"I brought you new clothes." Jet sighed and rubbed his metal arm over her forehead. "Faye, would ya just listen?"
She shook her head and looked at him with tears, not of pain, not of hate, but of old wounds far worse than physical. "How could you!" She said with whispered horror. "They *killed* Spike! Jet, you let them take care of me and they *killed* Spike! I'd rather be dead than know someone who killed him took care of me!" She shook her head, struggled to gain composure. "God, Jet! How could you! Why didn't you take me away?" Red pain hit her.
He began to answer but she put up her hand. "Not now, give me my new clothes and just go. Get out of here." She looked up at him and he stared at her with an even temper.
"Faye, you don't understand. Rain will come after you again."
Faye shook her head, Rain was the last person she wanted to think about. "Go." She said the word with finality and Jet walked out of the room.
Faye touched the pillow on her bed and threw it. It hit the curtains beside her and she instinctively cursed. She sat down on the bed and stared at her bandaged hands then looked up at the skylight. Stars, they were so free, they lived among life just watching, fading, shining, being, dreaming- like him.
Spike, God he'd been dead for two years and she still hated him for leaving, still loved him for giving her a place to call home and people to call friends. Still admired his courage to face the past she didn't have, to understand the concepts of her life even when she didn't.
Jet came in through the door one more time with a bag. "I couldn't find your coat, probably because you had it with you so I brought you one of Spike's shirts to put over your shirt." He mumbled, she didn't really hear.
He set the bag down on the floor and walked out in silence.
She sat on the edge of the bed, hands trembling, throat choked with tears. She shook her head, took a deep breath, pushed her hair from her face and growled. It had been two years, two god damned years, and she still thought of Spike as if he had just walked out on her life yesterday.
She stood, couldn't stand the standing stillness of trying to avoid emotions that she never really thought about as something truly real until he left and proved that words could sting and feelings could kill. But she had gotten better, she had rebuilt the part of herself that died when he had left. And God, so many people had left her in her life. She just used every absence of a friend to learn to rebuild what was lost, used everything she learned to become stronger, but Spike's disappearance had affected her more than any good-bye. Maybe because he never said good-bye, just walked out the door that was so easy to go through without looking back to even wave.
Stupid idle thoughts that didn't matter- thoughts that didn't change anything so in turn became unimportant. But she had left that behind, she was sure she had anyway. But every time her mind could, it thought of him, though memories had become less frequent, regrets less recurring.
She could thank him for one thing- giving her a past with him. Who gave a damn if he had made life hell, became a competitor in everything she did, never mind he really could have cared less for a mushroom than what he cared for her, never mind all of it. Everything he was, did, said, or thought- it was her past now, part of *her*. Even if she could change that, she wouldn't.
She found herself staring at the curtain in front of her, seeing a certain glow of night sky behind the thin white sheet. For all she had been through, past and present, she just wanted to forget it all, lose herself in something that didn't include thinking, crying, hurting, pretending, or hating.
Before she knew what she was doing she was walking past the curtain and staring straight out a window that held the lights of both heaven and earth. Bright golden lights clashed with silver- buildings reaching to the night that stared at the streets below that sparkled with streetlights, cars, and people. She walked to the window, the heart monitor of the person in the bed beside her touching her heart as if the rhythmic sounds were her own heartbeats. She smiled at the reflection she saw when she stared into the window. She touched a pale face, transparent, bruises mixing with colored lights. Green eyes filled with something like fire but lost in darker depths, white bandages wrapped her forehead, purple hair falling over them like a waterfall.
That was Faye, and she wished it wasn't. She hardly recognized the person who looked back at her, and maybe that was what stung her the most- the fact that she could smile and not know why it sent shivers down her spine when she knew she should be feeling the emotions a simple upturn of her mouth represented. She was alive, wasn't that worth more than a smile?
She turned away from the window, cold with sudden chills. She should be grateful she was alive, grateful the Red Dragons saved her, grateful Jet even came to see her, help her, support her. She should have been relieved, happy, everything in between because she'd lived through death. She should have felt warmed by her own smile... She should have been so many things and she wasn't.
She turned her face to stare into the darkness of the one sleeping in the bed in front of her. Tears blurred her vision for an instant, the green lights of the machines around a pillowed head screaming to her eyes. She was confused, so tired of trying to understand everything. But, she calmed herself, she was moving on, had been ever since she watched him leave. It was just times when she was depressed that he ever came up to put salt on her wounds with memories. She shook her head, wiped her tears away- the hell with ghosts and old wounds. The hell with the hate, the hurt, the hell with everything. She *was* moving on...
Her wounds screamed to her, reality coming back to her, laughing at her for ignoring it while lost in the total blackness of her thoughts. Her head yelled out, wounds, scratches, and every broken bone making her gasp as she stumbled over to the bed of the other patient. She grasped the sheets as she tried to catch her breath, gasped to wince with everything in her that held back the screams, the tears.
There was movement as the one in the bed moved as if sensing her struggle and the heart monitor's rhythm picked up as the person began to wake up. She tried to turn her head but a spasm in her leg made her cry out in pain.
The person in the bed was probably going to be pissed for her having disrupted their sleep, and knowing her luck he or she was probably a Red Dragon assassin who was going to kill her for her mistake. Just what she needed another worry...
"Damn," she muttered as she shut her eyes tight and tried to wait out the cramp riding up her thigh.
Then there was a gruff voice, a voice that seemed like it hadn't been used for the longest time. It was so soft that Faye wasn't sure she heard anything. But then it came again and the pain in her leg suddenly didn't matter.
She looked up with shock at what she was thinking...
"Faye," Spike said again before he passed out.
*****
Rain Falcon walked into his apartment cursing the woman who had stolen his prey from right under his nose.
"You've got to stop this, Rain!" She had shouted, black eyes smoldering with emotion. He hated to see her hate him, but she had most certainly had when she had stared him straight in the eyes, threatening him with powers, abilities that he knew were stronger than his own.
"Stop what?" He had asked with choked rage.
"Stop the hurting!" She had cried, tears mixing with the rain on her face.
He had hurt so much, he knew he had. Once he would have cared.
He didn't now.
"I like to hurt!" He yelled back with a sneer. "I don't like to loose my prey!" Snarls of hate, snarls of contempt.
"I was your prey once," she had said, voice cast down.
"You were the only one who got away," he had said back, the feeling of power washed away by tiredness. He hated to think he still loved her, still wanted her even though his reason for killing the women was because he couldn't kill her. But no, the reason he killed was because he wanted to, *needed* to more than he needed to have sex, or drink himself to death. It *bothered* him that he couldn't kill her even though he *wanted* to, *needed* to. It bothered him that she made him want to change what he wanted and needed to fit her needs, needs that had once been mutual until his had changed.
The cuts on his face had healed by the time he had escaped back to his apartment, though his coat was ripped to shreds, bullet holes decorating it. Blood, his, hers, was all over him, and thanks to the dark no one had noticed.
The woman with the green eyes flashed through his mind and he snarled. He may have let one woman go but he would not let another. Whoever the purple haired woman was, he was going to finish what he left undone. And so help him, he'd kill anyone who stood in his way.
The woman with long black hair flashed through his mind and he punched the nearest wall sending cracks up to the ceiling.
"Alexa," he whispered hoarsely.
And if she got in the way of killing the purple haired woman...
If she got in the way he'd finally have an excuse to kill her...
A/N- so ok, I know its short but I kinda only have an email typing machine, not a computer, so it had to be short. Thank you Lexi for posting this for me. Sorry that it took so long... I've been away working... More soon!!
NOTE- THANKS LEXI FOR EVERYTHING!!
There Is No Pride In Love
Awakenings
Chapter two
The woman with the long black hair watched the rain cease, watched the car that took the purple haired woman away in a big hurry. She watched the man, Shin- the name foreign to her mind for the longest time yet so familiar- look around as if surprised to find the woman still breathing and alive with Rain nowhere in sight.
The thought of Rain made the woman's heart hurt, made her close her eyes and stand on the roof she was on, her black jeans dripping, her gray sweater clinging to her body. She opened her black eyes with a certain sorrow, a certain feeling she wished she didn't have for the murderer. Insecurity masking the feeling of protectiveness she felt towards the woman she had saved.
The gray clouds were clearing, the night sky shining with peaceful clearness as the moonlight glowed on her shoulders, her hair almost to her feet blowing softly in the wind, the black silk trench coat in her arms flowing as she turned from the street the car had flown down to get the woman medical attention as fast as four wheels could go.
She knew that sometime soon she'd be paying the woman whom she had just saved a visit. After all, the clouds had departed, but the calm before the real storm had only begun to settle. The storm coming was screaming to be known even in the silence of pride.
*****
I could say that I never understood why I lived, but that would be lying. I lived because had I not, Vicious would have won and I don't like to loose.
My heart seemed torn, thrashed, painfully alive as I drifted in the thoughts of my mind- ideas, memories that I tried to swim away from but instead found myself drowning with every struggled pull I tried to make.
All my life I drowned in memories...
All my life my past was a chain and collar that held me like a stray dog on a rope.
All my life... And my life wasn't even worth it anymore. My life was the past now. All I could wonder was, where the hell does that leave me?
I ached with a want, a need to know why my past lingered like a vapor trail behind me as I wandered with uncertainty. I screamed to understand why my death had to be part of a past thrown upon me without question, without reason, without answer.
I had never asked to live.
I had never asked to die.
I had never asked to loose so much inbetween.
I never asked to be so goddamn uncertain!
I could see her eyes watching me as I smiled through the blood, the hate, the deaths that I myself caused, still uncertain yet not caring about the questions then, only living, only seeing what I wanted to. She was my dream, she chased away the question 'what am I here for?' and replaced it with 'now I know why I am alive.' But I *never* asked for her to come in my life and yet now I couldn't imagine living without her anymore.
But now I found myself leaving her one more time and I had never asked for that decision either!
I never asked to be reborn into life again. No one ever asked me, no one cared, and neither did I. No, that wasn't true. I didn't *want* to care.
But I did.
And no one cared about that either.
And even then I was uncertain if anyone even heard me.
But I never asked for anything, so maybe that was why I got what I never wanted.
Now I was asking.
'Someone please understand and make me see the reason why.' Never mind that I didn't know what 'why' was, never mind that Julia should have been the answer, never mind everything in the past.
I asked why in the future because the past needed to be cut away.
'Why?'
******
'Why?' The question was simple but the one asking it wasn't supposed to be there.
But who was 'he'? And where the hell was she?
Darkness, that was where she was, and the only thing she could hold onto was the sound of his voice in her head. She grasped onto the echoes of the fading word afraid she was going to fade into the background and loose the only other presence there in the darkness where emptiness and loneliness threatened to throw her into oblivion.
'Why what?' She asked.
There was surprised silence as if the one who asked the question hadn't expected to be answered. Then, 'Why can't I throw the past away?' The words shattered a hidden link somewhere.
Then she was opening her senses and her world was recognizing the pain she only wished she knew how to ignore. Her head screamed, her bones in her right wrist and shoulder cried with unshed tears, and her ribs objected to the breaths her lungs took to keep her alive. Then jade eyes were opening to more than the pain but to a white room with rhythmic sounds of a heart monitor next to the pillow her purple hair was fanned across.
Moonlight shinned from a skylight window above her head and for more than a minute she stared up into the silver stars floating in a sea of sapphire velvet, finding some sort of peace. Then Jet's eyes flashed through her mind- the same color as the sky and she was suddenly sitting straight up in excruciating pain, tearing off the oxygen mask, kicking off the sheets, ripping away the wires, the heart monitor sounding an alarm as the readings lacked a heart to read.
Then her feet touched cold tile and her world was spinning with pain, noise, and the quick beatings of a heart pushing down panic and blood.
"Damnitt," she hissed, her eyes loosing focus for an instant, her knees bending under her, every movement shouting pain and screams. Her ribs felt like cracked glass, her shoulder and arms flailed with spasms, her head echoed sharp edges of needles through her mind as her voice uttered a small gasp.
Then arms were carrying her back into bed, the shrieking sound of the heart monitor mercifully turned off. She rolled her head to look at the one holding her steady as he placed her easily under the covers. He was tall, dark with whisps of blonde hair over his tanned skin at his forehead. His eyes were all green intensity as he moved the wires she had ripped away and placed them in a bunch so he could identify where they went. His slight wired rimmed glasses added to the whole doctor look he was sporting with that odd off green shirt and pants and white coat that hung a little to long to the floor.
"Jet, I need to get to Jet," she said with grogginess and roughness that came with not talking for awhile. She felt pitiful, lanky, weak as he covered her with warm blankets that hugged her, trying to do what an embrace could.
"Mr. Black is right outside, Miss Valentine." The man proceeded to put her IV in. She tried to shake her arm away but it was useless, she may have commanded her body to do something but her body was in too much pain and shock from the last waves of it that it took no heed of what she *wanted* to do.
She needed Jet. She needed him by her side to give her confidence, to give her that feel of safety and protection that came with the fact that he was the only one who waited for her when she came home at the end of the day. He was the only one who cared... But their relationship wasn't *love*, at least not the kind that brought kisses in the middle of the night. Their ties came from a deep within sorrow over one man, over one dream that had passed but not before it had created their lives. What Jet and Faye had now was the sense of knowing one more person understood, one more person knew and would always know what that single man meant, gave, and took.
Spike... She was losing herself to her memories, ignoring the pain, the doctor that reconnected the cords, the sounds of a steady heart monitor, and the shooting star that past over her head. She barely noticed the pinch of a needle when a painkiller was shot through her system.
'What will you do? Throw away your life like it was nothing?' Her words, his image walking away. A sense of emptiness that told her life was cruel and he was unforgiving even until the end.
She shook her head. God, how many times did she have to burn that damn bridge? She closed her eyes, mumbling for Jet, longing for the relaxing feeling of his cool metallic hand touching hers with reassurance before memories chased her back into the darkness of her past.
His voice broke away the nightmares in her mind as her body stretched with pain that was fading with the help of the pain killer shot. "Ya got yourself in a real mess this time, kid." He stood beside the bed casually.
She opened her eyes and sneered at his blue intense starless orbs reaching to see what her reaction was. "I could have done worse." Her voice sounded distant, her throat scratching with dry fatigue.
For a moment his eyes lit with amusement as he shook his head that was still, more or less, bald on top. His beard and what was left of his hair had some grey streaks in it now, the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth deeper. She glanced down at the dusted jean jacket he wore now, his hawk symbol on the back in black. He wore a black dress shirt left open so the white T-shirt underneath could be partially seen where the fabric opened. Worn jeans covered his legs, brown work boots with steel tips donned his feet.
He sure looked a helluv alot different since Spike left.
"What happened, Faye?" His voice had gone serious and she turned to focus on his face that stood concerned.
What happened...?
She didn't want to remember...
Rain Falcon, he beat the shit out of me.
She could feel her wounds, felt them as they first cut her flesh as she remembered blow by blow how she received them. Rain, blood, a crimson smile... Pain, so much pain...
She shivered, touched her bandaged shoulder with her good hand, her wrist, her head, her throat... He had bitten her for crissakes!
She couldn't stop the shivers, the uncontrolled spasms of fear she scolded herself for feeling.
God those white eyes, those inhuman white eyes were all she could see, that inhuman breath of death was all she could smell. Then she was shaking, cursing herself for the fear, the utter pale shock that she'd been beaten, bruised, and cut without being able to protest the matter. She closed her eyes tight, bit back the fear, and pounded the bed with her bad hand, hoping that the pain that shot up her arm would take all the insecurities away. She ground her teeth and stared into Jet's eyes that had focused on her face with questioning depths.
"What's it look like? Mr. Falcon had a party beating the shit out of me," she said with a snicker that was more than bitter. Then she could feel that semi crazy, semi hysterical hit her. "I shot him in the friggen face! He still kept coming at me and..." She covered her face with her good hand. Tears, she could feel them moving down her bruised face. She remembered the confidence she had had when she had went after him all by herself, remembered the growing trust she felt when she first saw him. Mistakes, pointless mistakes on her part.
"Faye," Jet said touching her good shoulder. "You gotta calm down, kid."
She wiped the tears away and took a deep breath. She had to stop acting like a two year old, Rain was gone and she was...
Where the hell was she?
She looked around the white room, really looked. To her right was a white wall with a wooden door, on her left was a curtain cutting the whole room in half. A heart monitor beeped on the other side and for a second she had the impulse to draw the curtain aside- to see another person hurt just like her.
"You're in a hospital, Faye." Jet seemed to have read her mind. Yeah, no shit, she thought. She looked up at the skylight, the stars shining down at her as if they'd been watching over her ever since the clouds of rain cleared away.
"What hospital?" She tried to sit up but the drugs were really kicking in and she could feel herself slipping away from her body. She fell back against her pillow softly.
She heard the door open and a man in a black trench coat came walking in. His brown hair swept over steel grey eyes and his face was a tight smile of seriousness. He stepped up next to Jet and shook hands with the older man before staring down at her.
"I see you're doing better, Miss Valentine." He smiled with bleak eyes.
"Who-"
"Faye, this is Shin, leader of the Red Dragons and you're in their hospital." Jet cut in swiftly as he knelt down and waited for her reaction.
For a moment she stared at Shin who waited patiently beside Jet, silver eyes expectant. When she turned to the skylight both men obviously had expected an outburst. But she smiled bitterly and closed her eyes, laughing at the ironic twist of fate. Funny, Spike died at their hands and she got to live by them.
She opened her eyes, stopped laughing.
They should have let me die, she thought.
She turned her head slowly to Shin. "Get out." Her voice was drawn, slow, rage-filled. Fire heated her eyes, her soul, her heart. Any effect the drug had on her was gone, pure emotion washed it from her system. She met Shin's eyes, pushed every amount of hatred she could into her own and sneered. "Get out!" she said more forcefully as he staggered back. Whatever he saw in her eyes had startled him. He bowed slightly after regaining his composure and left the room.
Faye sat up, the pain was back full force but she was too angry, too hateful to mind it. She turned to Jet who was saying her name, telling her that she needed to be sensible.
She wasn't really listening.
"Shut up, Jet." Why did she feel so betrayed?
He fell silent but stood with an angry sigh.
She removed the IV, ripped it out again and ripped off the wires. She didn't need any service from a part of Spike's past that had killed him.
"Faye, come on. Use your head. You need this hospital right now." Jet helped her to her feet even as she threw the rest of the cords away. Her purple hair fell over her face and she brushed it away.
"I'm fine, now, Jet. The worst part was getting beat up. The easy part is leaving." She wobbled to a chair in the corner where her clothes were folded on and cursed. They were torn, bloody, useless.
"I brought you new clothes." Jet sighed and rubbed his metal arm over her forehead. "Faye, would ya just listen?"
She shook her head and looked at him with tears, not of pain, not of hate, but of old wounds far worse than physical. "How could you!" She said with whispered horror. "They *killed* Spike! Jet, you let them take care of me and they *killed* Spike! I'd rather be dead than know someone who killed him took care of me!" She shook her head, struggled to gain composure. "God, Jet! How could you! Why didn't you take me away?" Red pain hit her.
He began to answer but she put up her hand. "Not now, give me my new clothes and just go. Get out of here." She looked up at him and he stared at her with an even temper.
"Faye, you don't understand. Rain will come after you again."
Faye shook her head, Rain was the last person she wanted to think about. "Go." She said the word with finality and Jet walked out of the room.
Faye touched the pillow on her bed and threw it. It hit the curtains beside her and she instinctively cursed. She sat down on the bed and stared at her bandaged hands then looked up at the skylight. Stars, they were so free, they lived among life just watching, fading, shining, being, dreaming- like him.
Spike, God he'd been dead for two years and she still hated him for leaving, still loved him for giving her a place to call home and people to call friends. Still admired his courage to face the past she didn't have, to understand the concepts of her life even when she didn't.
Jet came in through the door one more time with a bag. "I couldn't find your coat, probably because you had it with you so I brought you one of Spike's shirts to put over your shirt." He mumbled, she didn't really hear.
He set the bag down on the floor and walked out in silence.
She sat on the edge of the bed, hands trembling, throat choked with tears. She shook her head, took a deep breath, pushed her hair from her face and growled. It had been two years, two god damned years, and she still thought of Spike as if he had just walked out on her life yesterday.
She stood, couldn't stand the standing stillness of trying to avoid emotions that she never really thought about as something truly real until he left and proved that words could sting and feelings could kill. But she had gotten better, she had rebuilt the part of herself that died when he had left. And God, so many people had left her in her life. She just used every absence of a friend to learn to rebuild what was lost, used everything she learned to become stronger, but Spike's disappearance had affected her more than any good-bye. Maybe because he never said good-bye, just walked out the door that was so easy to go through without looking back to even wave.
Stupid idle thoughts that didn't matter- thoughts that didn't change anything so in turn became unimportant. But she had left that behind, she was sure she had anyway. But every time her mind could, it thought of him, though memories had become less frequent, regrets less recurring.
She could thank him for one thing- giving her a past with him. Who gave a damn if he had made life hell, became a competitor in everything she did, never mind he really could have cared less for a mushroom than what he cared for her, never mind all of it. Everything he was, did, said, or thought- it was her past now, part of *her*. Even if she could change that, she wouldn't.
She found herself staring at the curtain in front of her, seeing a certain glow of night sky behind the thin white sheet. For all she had been through, past and present, she just wanted to forget it all, lose herself in something that didn't include thinking, crying, hurting, pretending, or hating.
Before she knew what she was doing she was walking past the curtain and staring straight out a window that held the lights of both heaven and earth. Bright golden lights clashed with silver- buildings reaching to the night that stared at the streets below that sparkled with streetlights, cars, and people. She walked to the window, the heart monitor of the person in the bed beside her touching her heart as if the rhythmic sounds were her own heartbeats. She smiled at the reflection she saw when she stared into the window. She touched a pale face, transparent, bruises mixing with colored lights. Green eyes filled with something like fire but lost in darker depths, white bandages wrapped her forehead, purple hair falling over them like a waterfall.
That was Faye, and she wished it wasn't. She hardly recognized the person who looked back at her, and maybe that was what stung her the most- the fact that she could smile and not know why it sent shivers down her spine when she knew she should be feeling the emotions a simple upturn of her mouth represented. She was alive, wasn't that worth more than a smile?
She turned away from the window, cold with sudden chills. She should be grateful she was alive, grateful the Red Dragons saved her, grateful Jet even came to see her, help her, support her. She should have been relieved, happy, everything in between because she'd lived through death. She should have felt warmed by her own smile... She should have been so many things and she wasn't.
She turned her face to stare into the darkness of the one sleeping in the bed in front of her. Tears blurred her vision for an instant, the green lights of the machines around a pillowed head screaming to her eyes. She was confused, so tired of trying to understand everything. But, she calmed herself, she was moving on, had been ever since she watched him leave. It was just times when she was depressed that he ever came up to put salt on her wounds with memories. She shook her head, wiped her tears away- the hell with ghosts and old wounds. The hell with the hate, the hurt, the hell with everything. She *was* moving on...
Her wounds screamed to her, reality coming back to her, laughing at her for ignoring it while lost in the total blackness of her thoughts. Her head yelled out, wounds, scratches, and every broken bone making her gasp as she stumbled over to the bed of the other patient. She grasped the sheets as she tried to catch her breath, gasped to wince with everything in her that held back the screams, the tears.
There was movement as the one in the bed moved as if sensing her struggle and the heart monitor's rhythm picked up as the person began to wake up. She tried to turn her head but a spasm in her leg made her cry out in pain.
The person in the bed was probably going to be pissed for her having disrupted their sleep, and knowing her luck he or she was probably a Red Dragon assassin who was going to kill her for her mistake. Just what she needed another worry...
"Damn," she muttered as she shut her eyes tight and tried to wait out the cramp riding up her thigh.
Then there was a gruff voice, a voice that seemed like it hadn't been used for the longest time. It was so soft that Faye wasn't sure she heard anything. But then it came again and the pain in her leg suddenly didn't matter.
She looked up with shock at what she was thinking...
"Faye," Spike said again before he passed out.
*****
Rain Falcon walked into his apartment cursing the woman who had stolen his prey from right under his nose.
"You've got to stop this, Rain!" She had shouted, black eyes smoldering with emotion. He hated to see her hate him, but she had most certainly had when she had stared him straight in the eyes, threatening him with powers, abilities that he knew were stronger than his own.
"Stop what?" He had asked with choked rage.
"Stop the hurting!" She had cried, tears mixing with the rain on her face.
He had hurt so much, he knew he had. Once he would have cared.
He didn't now.
"I like to hurt!" He yelled back with a sneer. "I don't like to loose my prey!" Snarls of hate, snarls of contempt.
"I was your prey once," she had said, voice cast down.
"You were the only one who got away," he had said back, the feeling of power washed away by tiredness. He hated to think he still loved her, still wanted her even though his reason for killing the women was because he couldn't kill her. But no, the reason he killed was because he wanted to, *needed* to more than he needed to have sex, or drink himself to death. It *bothered* him that he couldn't kill her even though he *wanted* to, *needed* to. It bothered him that she made him want to change what he wanted and needed to fit her needs, needs that had once been mutual until his had changed.
The cuts on his face had healed by the time he had escaped back to his apartment, though his coat was ripped to shreds, bullet holes decorating it. Blood, his, hers, was all over him, and thanks to the dark no one had noticed.
The woman with the green eyes flashed through his mind and he snarled. He may have let one woman go but he would not let another. Whoever the purple haired woman was, he was going to finish what he left undone. And so help him, he'd kill anyone who stood in his way.
The woman with long black hair flashed through his mind and he punched the nearest wall sending cracks up to the ceiling.
"Alexa," he whispered hoarsely.
And if she got in the way of killing the purple haired woman...
If she got in the way he'd finally have an excuse to kill her...
A/N- so ok, I know its short but I kinda only have an email typing machine, not a computer, so it had to be short. Thank you Lexi for posting this for me. Sorry that it took so long... I've been away working... More soon!!