Disclaimer: I don't own Cowboy Bebop or "Tommy", an album by The Who (which was my inspiration for this fic). By the way, the symbol "É", appeared by accident several times last chapter. The thing is, I write fics on a Mac and upload them on a Windows, so sometimes the symbols get screwed. I promise it won't happen again (please don't hurt me). Now, on with the fic, and thanks to the Blindy, Tearoses, and Maiden Genisis for your reviews!!!

Eyesight to the Blind

By FekketC

Edward stood at the door, staring in at the empty darkness. The door was open, a cold draft flowing in. No lights were on inside. Spike and Faye caught up, gasping for breath. "Ed, I told you not to run ahead," Faye said, annoyed, then looked up at the door. "Hey, it's open."

Spike shivered. "Something's wrong," he muttered under his breath, pushing past Edward to the door. He stepped inside, rapping his knuckles on the door. "Hello? Is anyone here?" he called.

A metal object flew out of the darkness, catching Spike in the stomach. He doubled over, coughing, clutching the edge of the door. The figure of an old woman emerged from the dark, holding another baseball bat. This one was wood, but she waved it threateningly in front of her like a club. "Go away," the woman growled. "Jonah and 'Rika want nothing of you people."

Faye held up her hands. "Woah, woah, we're not here to hurt them, we're from Hope's grandmother."

The woman narrowed her eyes. "That witch isn't Hope's grandmother!"

Spike stopped gasping and looked up at the woman. "She's not?"

Edward suddenly bounced forward, dissappearing into the other rooms. She returned a moment later, shaking her head. "The funny blind girl and her daddy are gone-gone," she said sadly. "All gone, all gone."

The woman lowered her bat and sat down on a couch. Her shoulders shook as tears began to flow. "They ran away. Afraid that you might come back." She sighed wearily. "The last month has been so strange..." Edward sat down on the floor to listen, and Faye relaxed slightly. Spike however, kept a wary eye on the bat in the woman's hand.

------

Session 2

Do you think it's alright?

------

"They never told me the details, but Hope had a kind of power. I'm not sure what it was, but I did know there were people after her. They wanted to use her power. One of them was an old woman, an old witch. Not the magic kind, the evil kind. She had been Hope's legal guardian, since her parents had been killed several years ago. When the woman found out about Hope's power, she abused her into using it. So Hope ran away when she was sixteen, and met Jonah. They ran around a while, got married and had little 'Rika. They moved in here after 'Rika was born. I became her nanny, sort of, while Hope and Jonah worked. Hope's a very common name, you see, so no one came looking for her."

The woman stopped for a moment and stared into space. "But she wasn't an ordinary woman. There was something about her... something..."

"Something that made you feel like you weren't alone anymore," Spike said softly.

The woman looked at him curiously, and nodded. "Yes, exactly like that." She placed a shaking hand over her own heart. "She left this kind of warm feeling in me after we met, like for a while I could forget the things... the things that had happened in the past..."

Faye wriggled impatiently. Next to blind people the thing she liked the least were long, sappy stories. "Get on with it," she demanded.

"A month ago, 'Rika came running into my apartment, crying and wailing. After I managed to calm her down she told me a big man had come and hurt Hope. I took her back to the apartment and saw Jonah standing there." She pointed to one corner of the room, where a faint red stain still coated the carpet and wall. "There was a bloodstain, but no body. Jonah never did tell me what he did with the body."

"And then what?" Spike asked.

"Jonah wandered about in shock for a few days, while little 'Rika stayed in her room and cried. I tried to clean up everything, but nothing would get rid of that..." She took a deep, shaking breath. "...stain. And worse, the two of them were so depressed, I couldn't cheer them up. So I left them alone to think things out. Then, just an hour ago, Jonah came to ask me to lock up for him. He and 'Rika had to leave in a hurry. He told me about you two," she said, nodding to Faye and Edward. "Told me to watch out in case you came."

Faye sighed. "Great. The bounty's skipped. What now?"

Edward thought a moment. "Edward will hack into the local gates, find Rika and her father-person."

"They might be using false names," Spike said. "Or even disguises."

Edward grinned. "Edward will find them, don't worry."

Suddenly the bat was resting on Spike's shoulder. "You have to promise me," the old woman said quietly, "that you won't hurt them if you find them."

Spike carefully pushed the bat away from his head, which was beginning to ache from lack of sleep. "We promise." He frowned thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. "Though wether or not we're going to turn them in, I'm beginning to wonder."

"Forty million woolongs is worth looking into, Spike," Faye insisted.

"You'd turn in your own grandmother for a few woolongs," Spike muttered.

Faye made a face at him, then turned to Edward. "We'd better go, Ed." Edward nodded, looking around at the empty apartment one last time, before walking out the door. Faye followed her out, and Spike started to do the same, when he stopped and turned back to the red stain. Frowning he walked over to it, reached down and touched the carpet. He raised his hand to his face and sniffed it, and shook his head.

"What is it?" the woman asked impatienty.

"Nothing," Spike said, standing and turning away. "Nothing at all."

-------

Jet rubbed the sleep from his eyes and nodded. "Well, yeah, I guess we could do that," he said, switching on his computer. "Ed, you hack into the mainframe, and I'll search." Edward nodded, plugging her goggles into the Bebop computer and getting to work. It was a slow day and she was tired, so it took her about thirty seconds to hack in.

Wearily she stood, her head nodding. "Jet-person's clear to go." She fell backward onto the couch, her legs in the air, and promptly fell asleep.

Jet turned to the computer and thought for a moment. "Narrow it down to all flights in the last hour," Jet typed in, and was rewarded with a list of aproximately ten thousand people. "Now narrow it down to pairs." Five hundred pairs of people travelling together.

"Think you could specify travelling reason?" Spike suggested.

Jet shook his head. "Could be anything. Assuming they've taken disguises, and that 'escape' isn't an accepted reason." He smiled. "Narrow the pairs to a short person and tall person."

"What if he hid her in his coat, or in a bag?" Faye wondered. "Poor people tend to try to get out of paying more than they have to."

"A possibility," Jet said, nodding. He checked the list that had been brought up, but none of the hundred and eleven pairs could be who they were looking for. He spent the next few hours checking the lists, narrowing them down any way he could. Absolutely nothing. "Maybe they didn't take a gate," Jet muttered, exiting the database.

Spike looked up. He had nearly fallen asleep on the couch, but Edward's feet kept getting in his face. "You think they had a cruiser?"

"Might be," Jet said, ready for another nap. "Ed."

Edward sat up on the couch, her eyes still closed. Standing she walked forward and put on her goggles again, and after a few seconds took them back off. "Sleepy sleepy," she said quietly, going back to the couch and lying back down. In a moment it appeared as if she had never moved.

Jet looked at the screen. "She brought up Jonah's account?" he said, confused, then looked closer. "It's at zero. But recently a withdrawal was made... two million woolongs!!!"

Spike and Faye were suddenly standing next to him. "You've got to be kidding," Faye said, staring at the screen. "You're not kidding," she said slowly.

In a moment Jet was searching through hyperspace. He could do a good hacking himself, and not many cruisers went for under two million woolong. Soon he had a few leads, and narrowed them down quickly. "Three cruisers bought in the area in the last few hours, all the buyers caucasian men with beards and children. I'll look up the flight schedule of each one, and have you and Faye go after two. I'll take the third. Remember, just confirm that your target is in fact the bounty. We'll catch the guy all at once, as a team."

"There goes that teamwork thing again," Faye muttered, heading for the Redtail.

---------

Spike smiled slightly as he headed down the alley. He was still on Mars, but a different colony. This alley held the entrance to an esteemed bar and club. And near the front of the line was a man who fit Jonah's description. Beard, brown eyes, tall. "Hey," Spike said, nodding to the man.

The man looked up at him, one eyelid twitching. His clothes were dirty, and his breath smelled like rotten eggs. "Whadyou wan?"

"Nothing much," Spike said, shrugging. "Unless you'll come along quietly."

"Uh?" the guy said, staring at Spike. "Whadyou talkin' about?"

"Pleased to meet you, Jonah Kuroki," Spike said, pulling out his gun.

"Daddy, daddy!" a voice cried. Suddenly a teenager was standing between Spike and the bounty. She was tall, with brown hair, blue eyes, and a voice like a valley girl. "What are you, like, doing with my dad?!"

Spike stepped back in surprise. "This is your daughter?!"

"Yeah," the man said, put a hand on her shoulder. "Cute, ain't she?"

The girl grinned at Spike. "You're pretty cute, youself, aren't ya? Wanna come have a drink?"

Spike shook his head nervously, backing away. "Sorry, I've got a... meeting to get to." He turned and walked quickly down the alley, searching his pocket for his communicator. "Jet? Jet, are you there?"

"Loud and clear."

"I'm going to get you for that one."

"Dead end?"

"Worse. Over and out."

---------

A drum began pounding right next to Faye, causing her to jump. "I hate carnivals," she said for the hundredth time, looking around at the gaily colored streets. "Why am I in Chinatown?!" she muttered, also for the hundredth time. "Do these people ever sleep?" More drums joined the first as the Dragon dance began. This dragon was ten people long, with two holding up its enormous head. It danced about in circles, the head looking around at everyone. Faye shivered at the huge eyes as their gaze passed over her. "Creepy," she muttered. "Well," she said with a sigh, "there won't be that many brown haired men with blind daughters in this city."

Suddenly, up ahead she noticed a man with brown hair cut the same way as the bounty's. She could only see his back, but he appeared to be carrying the black haired girl. Fyae decided, just in case, she'd better get a closer look. Just as she snuck up behind the man, he turned to smile at her. She instantly realized this wasn't the bounty, for several reasons. The face was off. This guy was wearing glasses. And rather than a little girl, he was carrying a black-haired marrionette who stared at her with glass eyes.

Faye sighed, turning away. "Hope Jet's found something," she muttered.

--------

Jet was in a grocery shop, in the frozen food isle. A light mist crept around the floor, chilling his feet. He pretended to be paying rapt attention to the frozen carrots, but in fact he was waiting for the bounty to come straight to him. Someone walked past behind him. He couldn't see who is was, but by the blurry reflection in the glass door of the freezer he was fairly tall. Jet glanced over his shoulder, and recognized the man from the picture he had seen. This was Jonah.

Someone else walked past, and bumped into his leg. "Excuse me," said a voice. Jet glanced down and saw the little girl from the picture, and was convinced further. He kept an eye on her as she ran forward, feeling in front of her until she found her father's leg. Jet reached into his pocket and pulled out his communicator. "Spike, I've found the-"

There was someone standing there, in the shadow of the snack isle. She was wearing a black cloak, the hood pulled over her head. He knew it was a woman from the width of her shoulders, by the shape of the hand that held the cloak in place. And as she raised her head Jet saw a pair of blue eyes so pale they looked like white orbs. Something reached into his mind at that moment, though like a caress or more like a strike, he couldn't tell. But suddenly he was collapsing backward onto the glass case. Blackness overcame him.

-----------

Spike shook his partner awake, slapping him on the face and shaking his shoulders. "Jet! You okay?"

Jet slowly came to. He was lying on the floor, surrounded by broken glass. Some of it was embedded in his hands.

"What the hell happened?" Spike asked. "You were just lying here like you'd had a heart attack."

"I found the bounty," Jet said, rubbing his head. "Then, there was this woman..."

Spike put one of Jet's arms over his shoulder, helping him to his feet. "Come on," he said. "Let's get those hands bandaged."

"At least now we'll have a lead," Faye said, walking up. She glared at Jet. "A sure lead."

Jet shook his head slightly as they walked out. "There's something going on below the surface," Jet muttered. "This could get more dangerous than we imagined."

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

Okeeyay, things are getting strange. Well, even I'm confused at this point. What's going on? You'll have to review to find out! *yelling at her Muses* WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU GUYS THINKING?!