Miracle

A Cowboy Bebop One-shot

Author's Note: I don't own Cowboy Bebop. I PROMISE it has a happy ending, so please stick with it. This story is a one-shot with a complete ending unless there is some untoward demand for more.

Suggested Atmospheric Musical Selections: "Sandalwood," by Lisa Loeb, Rufus Wainwright's, "Hallelujah" (from Shrek), and finally, "Secret Smile" by Semisonic. If done in that order, the effect is quite amazing... Happy reading.

There is no such thing as miracles.

The café was soaked in sunshine, the attitude tired because of the heat. Everyone's eyelids were half-closed in an attempt to block out the heat as the sun passed directly over them. The space was quiet except for the voices, dark except for the sun, and bright except for the lethargy. The sand, dust, and sun had saturated everything into a dull yellow color: the people, the tables, the time, the temperaments. The only blotch of vivid hue or emotion could be seen in the purple hair of the shapely woman seated with her two companions.

She looked over the pictures sluggishly yet carefully, selecting and processing each photograph with the utmost precision. She slowly turned a page, her hands caressing the difference between the glossiness of the pictures and the rough textures of the page that separated them. Her fingers lingered longer on the tall man with a half-absent, half-mocking smile than on any other in the book, and her eyelids often close in the attempt to keep their moistness enclosed.

One of her companions, a large, thick, strong man with a heaviness about his eyes reached over the tiny table to grasp her arm in a sort of comforting gesture. His eyes were the easiest to read--laden with hardly concealed father-like concern toward the woman across the table. A t his touch, her face fell into her arms, which slid limply to the table in what seemed like a mixture of giving up and not wanting to show it. The little girl's eyes flashed with concern over her friend, but not knowing what to do in such a situation, she merely averted her eyes as she sipped her drink and let her hand drop to pet the squat dog under the table. The girl wasn't as oblivious as everyone thought she was, yet she didn't know, in her uncared for heart and undeveloped social sense, what to do with such intensity of feeling.

Suddenly, without warning, the purple-tressed woman stood, and with the complete absence of tears or sign thereof, said, "Let's go. Whatever bounty was supposed to be here obviously isn't." The group rose, and the older man set some money on the table for their drinks.

They left the yellow and the dust for a climate better suited to sorrow. The woman clutched the album with white knuckles, refusing to look forward, refusing to look backward.

She was doing it again. It was stupid, really. She kept flipping through the book she had put together, a book with many pictures of lost memories and scribblings of captions from a dying purple pen. Her writing looked torn in that pen. She had scribbled things out, rewrote things, thought again, and scribbled things out. What was left was the memory, and everything that spurred it. She stared at the picture until the one brown eye of the tall man seemed to bore into her very soul, then she threw the book to the floor and let out an agonized scream, collapsing on to her bed for what seemed like the umpteenth time in the last year. When would she get over this? The others had practiced acceptance, why couldn't she?

The older man came into the room, looked in, and slowly sank down into a sitting position by her feet on the bed. She felt like she should tell him he was uninvited, that he should leave, that she didn't need anyone, but she couldn't talk because of the lump in her throat. At least, that is what she tried to convince herself was the reason.

"Jet..." she murmured, almost unintelligibly.

"I know, I'm not wanted. Come here."

She didn't want to. She told herself she didn't want to. She did it anyway, though. What is more, she came so close that she could feel their thighs touching as she slumped into a sitting position next to him. She needed the physical affirmation of his existence, as much as she tried to put up the front that such sentiments disgusted her.

After all this time, he knew what to do. Wrapping her in an embrace that seemed reminiscent of a lost fatherhood, he held her. It was difficult for him to do it, but he felt that today, on the anniversary, he could at least do this much for her. His ship and its little crew of misfits had become his life, and even though he would never admit it, his family and home. He had his ship before them, but a place where you live is just a place until those you care about stay with you. He could feel her pulling away, so he got up and left her alone. It was probably what she wanted, anyway. Whether it was what she needed. he knew that the only thing she had ever truly needed disappeared a year ago today.

She felt drunk, she felt misunderstood, she felt helpless, she felt...energized. Fuck it. Time to leave.

She was in her ship and out of the Bebop before Jet or Ed could realize what she had frantically yelled as she ran past them. She wore green because...why was she wearing green? Didn't he once tell her that she looked good in green? Matched her eyes? Maybe...that was a dream. Dreams never come true. Miracles never happen. Fuck dreams. Fuck miracles.

She didn't know where she was going, only that she was going and that she wasn't coming back until...until she found what she was looking for. Yeah, that sounded good, good and dramatic. Melodramatic. Whatever. She landed her ship on a planet that came into view, thinking it looked vaguely familiar but not really caring. It called to her because of the green. She was wearing green. Fuck green. She landed, her mind still heavy with the haze of thought, her heart still weighted with the burden of her tears.

As she reached the ground, she noticed the deep rich greens of the forest breeze surrounding her, tempting her. She followed it into the forest: deeper, deeper, deeper. She didn't care if she was lost, for wasn't she lost already? When one is already lost, one does not care much if one is further lost, only that one will eventually be found. She desperately wished to be found.

The forest suddenly broke into a clearing that went all the way down to an expansive, azure sea. She could hear the ocean waves in the distance calling to her, trying to tell her something. She turned her head inland, and through a set of formal gardens was a mansion, a large, dreamy, mist-clad mansion. Dreams aren't real, they aren't true, and miracles never happen. Yet, here was the mansion, and it was the mansion from her dreams. The wind from the forest, the waves from the sea, the earth-laden path in front of her...everything pointed to this place.

She furtively walked forward, her stride becoming more determined with each step. This house held some sort of key for her...she remembered...she remembered nothing. She just felt. She climbed the steps, hurrying as she made it from one step to the next, hoping that...hoping what? If she didn't think then there weren't questions to answer. Having climbed all the steps she found herself at the top of a large, curved, white stairwell with a single door in front of her. She could see the sunset pouring through the edges of the door--dare she open it? Somehow... The door was opened without another thought.

The wooden door opened to reveal a murkily lit café. Everything about it was brown. The sleek, oak booths, the bar with its shiny brown seats, the door that closed behind her. There was an unearthly sort of music playing, a melody that is soon lost even if written down. There was a man behind the bar. In fact, there were many people there. None of the paid much attention to her, too busy drinking their brown drinks. The only thing breaking the color were the beams of the light cascading through the slatted venetian blinds. It was golden...she knew she didn't have much time.

She searched around frantically looking for someone, anyone, who would recognize her. All of the faces seemed blank, and none looked at her. She searched and searched until her eyes were frantic from the monotony of the brown, and she had to escape. She ran through the doors now bathing squares of the room in their golden light, and ran to the corner of the balcony, collapsing, fighting back tears. She had had her chance, and somehow, somehow she had failed. Her arms scraped against the roughness of the balcony as she sank further into her pity.

Every day before the true sunset, there is a fifteen minutes period in which all of the world is turned golden. In those fifteen minutes, the saturation of beauty is enough to overwhelm, and it is the time of honesty, of truth, of openness. It is the only time provided for miracles. That is, if you believe in them.

Someone approached her, from behind, but she didn't have the strength to stand. When the footsteps stopped and didn't go away again, she managed to open her tired eyes. She looked through the columns of the balcony to see the ocean...the golden ocean. She was able to stand.

He watched her as her gaze went to the ocean, then as her body uncrumpled and she stood, turning around to face him. Her hair shone a brighter purple highlighted with gold, and her eyes had melted into a limpid green and gold mixture. She had never looked so lovely. He was glad she had made it. He knew she would.

And then he kissed her. Kissed her as she stood there shocked and frozen, her eyes wanting to cry, her hands wanting to hold, and yet... Their lips broke apart.

"Faye...I'm back," he murmured.

"You were never really gone, Spike" she replied, her body so full of her emotions that they practically threatened to break the dam of her skin and burst out.

"You look good in green. It matches your eyes."

Faye's lips turned upward and revealed her first real smile in over a year. When he kissed her a second time, she responded, and he smiled. She smiled. They smiled.

Perhaps miracles aren't true. Perhaps dreams aren't real. Fate, though... Fate is something that cannot be led astray-and cannot be seen or heard or named. Like a dream, like a miracle, like...love.

Author's Note: This story actually was mostly based on a dream I had. I was Faye and I experienced most of this through her eyes. I tried to portray it as vividly as I saw it, but I don't think I will ever do it justice. Some things were added because I had to make the story coherent...but mostly it is the same. I am glad that they are happy together.

Have a lovely life.

--madeleine starr