Disclaimer: I do not own Cowboy Bebop or any of its characters.
I Said Crazy
Fay quietly stepped past the two men, not really paying attention to the words they were exchanging.
"--brought me to the hospital-"
"You were unconscious for-"
"-stay here-"
"--back to normal."
She went back into her room, feeling slightly dazed. She wasn't angry, but she wasn't overjoyed at the sight of him either. She just felt...
Distracted.
Yes, she felt distracted. And maybe just a little angry, but only a little.
So he lived through it. I should have known. After all, how many times did he leave with the threat of never returning? Too many to keep track of, she thought.
Though, the last time he'd left, Faye had been most certain that she would never see him again. Then again, the last time he'd left, he had left behind a different person. A different Faye. Spike had not been able to see this new Faye. The Faye with a past.
Along with her memory came a different person. The real Faye. Or, was it just the old Faye? She still couldn't decide.
When she did this, think about herself, Faye could forget everything else around her. She would just close her eyes, concentrate, and time would pass quickly. This was how she had been surviving the past months. Just letting time pass her by.
She thought of her childhood: school, friends, her house.
It's all right, she told herself, I know who I was back then. I know who my family was, my friends. And I'll remember. No matter what, I'll remember.
Bang. Bang.
She awoke with a startle.
Gunshots! Someone's shooting a-
"Get out of you room and eat dinner!"
It was Jet, banging his spatula against the wall. His way of ringing the dinner bell.
Faye ran her hands through her hair, smoothing it out, while rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She realized that she had slept through the day.
Again. I sleep through every day.
She stopped at the doorway, startling herself. Spike was laying on the couch, staring at the ceiling fan spin. Jet was serving overcooked peppers. She waited for Ed and Ein to come running in, disrupting the seemingly calm atmosphere.
But they didn't.
Faye shook the thoughts from her head. There was too much on her mind at once, it made her dizzy and tired.
"Eat up!"
And so she ate, watching him without anyone noticing. Faye ate slowly. She wondered if Spike had noticed this. This must have been a first for him, also, seeing her eat slowly. She laughed.
"What's so funny?" demanded Jet.
"Nothing," she whispered.
She had too many strange thoughts in her head. Strange, crazy, and weird thoughts.
Does he know how I felt when I thought he died?
Chewing noisily and concentrating on his meal, Spike's profile was rugged and hard.
Can he see how I'm different now?
________________________
Now
And so there she was. Staring at the ace in her hands and being crazy. Only, no one but her knew how crazy she was inside.
How about if I just ran out and threw myself into the water? Trying to drown myself in that water you like to fish in?
His chest rose up and down slowly, rhythmically with his breath.
Or what if I dyed my hair blonde and had someone shoot me in the chest? Would you think of her? You would... wouldn't you?
And she had been so normal, before. She had tried so hard to overcome this, but now she was starting to get angry. She was starting to feel.
When she first saw him, it had been shock that overcame her senses. Now, she just felt annoyed. Very, very annoyed.
This is fun for you, I bet. Cause you're just such a fucking rebel, going off and getting yourself almost killed. You must think of yourself as some sort of tragic hero.
Spike was yawning now, stretching his arms out and sitting up.
Who the fuck do you think you are? Poor Spike. Poor Julia. Poor fucking you.
Lighting the cigarette in his mouth, he glanced up at her. Faye could feel him looking at her, but she concentrated on her hands. Her cards. Anything, but him.
"Want one?" he asked, holding out his crumpled pack. Faye barely acknowledged the offer.
"I quit." She slapped down the last card. She'd won. Solitaire was too easy.
"Really?"
"4 months, 12 days."
"I see."
4 months, 13 days since you'd left. Since I stole your hidden pack underneath the couch and smoked then all in one sitting.
"What's been going on around here? You been staying out of trouble?" he asked teasingly.
So this is how it's gonna be. You want me to be witty and biting and angry. Just so that you can be cool and calm and collected. Just so you can have the upper hand. Be the mature one.
"Jet's been catching enough bounties. I haven't caught any." Spike watched as she stacked up her cards and laid them on the table. She seemed to have suddenly found her left thumb very interesting, picking and staring at it.
"In other words, nothing's really changed."
Oh, if you only knew. If you only knew just how wrong you are.
The Faye that Spike thought he left behind would have been sarcastic and dramatic. She would have yelled at him for what he had done that day. She would have tried to knock him out with a right hook.
But this Faye, the Faye he had returned to, was not her. The old Faye had cared for him deeply, and perhaps she still did, but her world no longer revolved around him and the others. She had herself to care about, and that was more than enough these days.
"Bounty hunting isn't my calling," she said, smiling, "it seems as though I was supposed to be a marine biologist."
"What?"
Faye looked at him evenly.
"Well, you see, before my family was killed and I was frozen for 50 years, I was studying marine biology. "
They could see the sarcasm dripping from her voice.
"Is that so?"
"Yeah."
Spike didn't know how he was supposed to react to that. He felt strange...she was so different. Like that time when she and Ed had returned to the Bebop after changing the ship's course to Earth. Jet had been scolding her, but she had just looked at him sadly. So heartbreakingly sadly. This was the way she looked now, he supposed.
That smell. The smell of that smoke... I remember it. It's your smell, Spike. I remember the way you smell.
"So you gonna go back and become a marine biologist, now?" He didn't sound mean, just mildly curious. As if he were asking if it was sunny outside.
"No."
If I left you wouldn't really care, huh? But what if I died? What if I left and then a meteor hit my ship and I died?
"Faye?"
"Yeah?" She was staring at the fan too now.
"I'm sorry about-"
"Don't."
His eyes widened slightly in surprise at her harsh tone.
Breathe, Faye. Just breathe. In and out.
"Whatever you were going to apologize for, I've forgotten about it. So there's no reason to say you're sorry."
"Faye, I-"
"Good night."
By the time Spike could get up from his seat she was already out of the room.
Thump. Thump.
Her heart felt as if it would leap out of her chest and splatter across the wall.
It's not the same, you idiot. Nothing is the same anymore. I don't know who I am. I don't know who I want to be. I don't know if anyone in the world will know me. I don't know if anyone will ever even want to know me...
________________________
It was dark. She could see swirly little intangible green things in the air if she blinked.
Who cares about Spike? He has nothing to do me.
I have nothing to do with him.
But she had watched his mouth move. His hands. His body.
Not in lust or infatuation, but in relief. He was really there, in the flesh. And she was glad for that, even if she was angry at herself over it.
She couldn't sleep. The crazy part of her mind was acting up again. The part that made her think things.. things she didn't want to ever think.
"I'm crazy," she whispered to herself as she got out of bed. Pulling her robe closer to her body, she made her way to the main room. There was still a cigarette left from the pack she had found underneath the couch, she'd saved it for an emergency.
Tonight was an emergency. A dead man had come back to life. If that didn't count as an emergency, she didn't know what did.
"Damn," she muttered as her hand found nothing in between the lining of the seats.
Click.
"Looking for this?"
Faye whipped around at the sound of his voice and silver zippo.
"I thought you quit," he continued, grinning at her from the doorway, lighting a cigarette.
"I did."
He nodded. She wasn't going to make this easy for him, he realized.
"Good thing you got it first, huh?" she asked quietly, her eyes averting his gaze.
"Yeah, I guess so."
What would you do if I died?
He slowly walked towards her.
Cause you know what I did when I thought you died?
Stopping an arm's length away from where she was standing, Spike rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, looking only the slightest bit uncomfortable.
I let go.
I just let it all go.
"I don't know what to say," he said quietly, "I'm back. And I don't know what else to say."
"There's nothing else to hear," Faye replied. She was delighted to hear how cold she sounded. So careless. So controlled.
And then his hand was on her arm, feeling all rough and warm. Shivers ran up and down her arms into her spine.
"What do you want from me?" Spike asked, sounding impatient. She looked up at him, her heart beating erratically.
What do I want?!
I want to scratch your eyes out. I want you screaming my name. I want to breathe you into my body. I want your hands all over me. I want to slit your throat. I want you to disappear. I want you inside of me. I want you to care. I want you. I wan-
"The Faye you used to know isn't here anymore," she said softly, "I'm a different woman. Sorry."
She didn't know why she felt as if she had to apologize to him, but it was like she was giving him a message. A message of farewell from the old Faye to the returned Spike.
"You look different."
"Do I?"
"Your hair is a little longer, and your face..."
"My face?" she asked.
"Yeah, your face is different."
His long fingers brushed back strands of her violet hair. Her eyes so dark, they looked black.
"You make me feel weird."
Spike's smile widened at her admission.
"Weird? What do you mean?"
I feel like the ground is sinking and the sky is crashing down. I feel high, but I couldn't be any lower. You make me forget how to breathe.
"I don't know...just weird, is all."
He didn't suddenly realize that Faye was a beautiful woman. He'd always know this. But, at this moment, right now, her face was so beautiful it was starting to hurt him.
"I look like her right now, don't I?" She regretted the words before she even said them aloud, but she kept going, "all sad and lost. That's how she looked, I remember."
His hand froze on her face.
"There's a reason why they say romantics are hopeless, Spike," she heard herself speak but couldn't believe it.
"Me? A romantic?" he tried to laugh but it just sounded all wrong.
"Yes. You."
Her eyes were starting to bother him. They were looking right at him, but not at him. He vaguely wondered if this was how other people felt when they looked into his eyes.
"I remember your smell," Faye said, "cigarettes and heaven."
Then he really did laugh.
"Cigarettes and heaven, huh? You're making me blush, Faye." he said wryly as his hand dropped back to his side.
"I didn't mean it that way."
"Then how did you mean it?"
"I don't know," she answered truthfully, "I just know how you smell."
The air around them was crackling. Tension so thick you could cut it with a knife.
"She's not here, anymore," he faltered, "Julia."
Faye wondered if he knew what he was saying. Spike had always been so careful about what he revealed to others.
"Neither is Faye Valentine," she told him, "she isn't here anymore, either."
What was this ache he felt? It felt so foreign, so unwelcomed. It started in the pit of his stomach and was working its way all over.
Guilt.
This sad, broken woman was who she was because of him.
"Faye, I didn't know that you would turn like this. I-"
She was laughing. He frowned.
"You are the most self-important, arrogant man to have ever lived, Spike Spiegel."
"What?"
"Don't worry about me. I'm fine. It's just a little hard for me, sometimes, you know. After all, you're not the only person in this world to have lost someone they loved."
I'm an idiot, he realized, she lost her whole family and all her friends when her memory came back.
"Sorry. Look, Faye, I-"
"Your smell."
She was standing right in front of him now. Spike looked down and stared at the top of her head.
"You're smell," she repeated, "it makes me feel strange. Like...I'm floating in it."
It was like a dream. Real, but not.
"Uh..Faye?"
The crazy part of her was acting out, she thought giddily, but she didn't care. She traced an imaginary line from the top of his jawline, down his neck, and stopped at his collarbone.
"I want to kiss you there."
He had to strain his ears to hear her now, but he had heard her. Spike cleared his throat, his mouth suddenly felt like a desert. And there was ringing in his ear that seemed to appear out of nowhere. His mouth opened to speak, but nothing came out.
And then she leaned in, slowly. Her lips brushed against the skin where her fingertips had been. Once, twice.
"Faye," he said, his voice low.
What am I doing? she screamed in her mind.
And then his arms were around her. Holding her. Enveloping her into a safe haven of warmth and sanity.
Oh, she thought, so this is why he makes me feel strange.
Because I feel sane.
And crazy at the same time.
"Faye."
Thank you to all those who have reviewed. It made my day.
I Said Crazy
Fay quietly stepped past the two men, not really paying attention to the words they were exchanging.
"--brought me to the hospital-"
"You were unconscious for-"
"-stay here-"
"--back to normal."
She went back into her room, feeling slightly dazed. She wasn't angry, but she wasn't overjoyed at the sight of him either. She just felt...
Distracted.
Yes, she felt distracted. And maybe just a little angry, but only a little.
So he lived through it. I should have known. After all, how many times did he leave with the threat of never returning? Too many to keep track of, she thought.
Though, the last time he'd left, Faye had been most certain that she would never see him again. Then again, the last time he'd left, he had left behind a different person. A different Faye. Spike had not been able to see this new Faye. The Faye with a past.
Along with her memory came a different person. The real Faye. Or, was it just the old Faye? She still couldn't decide.
When she did this, think about herself, Faye could forget everything else around her. She would just close her eyes, concentrate, and time would pass quickly. This was how she had been surviving the past months. Just letting time pass her by.
She thought of her childhood: school, friends, her house.
It's all right, she told herself, I know who I was back then. I know who my family was, my friends. And I'll remember. No matter what, I'll remember.
Bang. Bang.
She awoke with a startle.
Gunshots! Someone's shooting a-
"Get out of you room and eat dinner!"
It was Jet, banging his spatula against the wall. His way of ringing the dinner bell.
Faye ran her hands through her hair, smoothing it out, while rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She realized that she had slept through the day.
Again. I sleep through every day.
She stopped at the doorway, startling herself. Spike was laying on the couch, staring at the ceiling fan spin. Jet was serving overcooked peppers. She waited for Ed and Ein to come running in, disrupting the seemingly calm atmosphere.
But they didn't.
Faye shook the thoughts from her head. There was too much on her mind at once, it made her dizzy and tired.
"Eat up!"
And so she ate, watching him without anyone noticing. Faye ate slowly. She wondered if Spike had noticed this. This must have been a first for him, also, seeing her eat slowly. She laughed.
"What's so funny?" demanded Jet.
"Nothing," she whispered.
She had too many strange thoughts in her head. Strange, crazy, and weird thoughts.
Does he know how I felt when I thought he died?
Chewing noisily and concentrating on his meal, Spike's profile was rugged and hard.
Can he see how I'm different now?
________________________
Now
And so there she was. Staring at the ace in her hands and being crazy. Only, no one but her knew how crazy she was inside.
How about if I just ran out and threw myself into the water? Trying to drown myself in that water you like to fish in?
His chest rose up and down slowly, rhythmically with his breath.
Or what if I dyed my hair blonde and had someone shoot me in the chest? Would you think of her? You would... wouldn't you?
And she had been so normal, before. She had tried so hard to overcome this, but now she was starting to get angry. She was starting to feel.
When she first saw him, it had been shock that overcame her senses. Now, she just felt annoyed. Very, very annoyed.
This is fun for you, I bet. Cause you're just such a fucking rebel, going off and getting yourself almost killed. You must think of yourself as some sort of tragic hero.
Spike was yawning now, stretching his arms out and sitting up.
Who the fuck do you think you are? Poor Spike. Poor Julia. Poor fucking you.
Lighting the cigarette in his mouth, he glanced up at her. Faye could feel him looking at her, but she concentrated on her hands. Her cards. Anything, but him.
"Want one?" he asked, holding out his crumpled pack. Faye barely acknowledged the offer.
"I quit." She slapped down the last card. She'd won. Solitaire was too easy.
"Really?"
"4 months, 12 days."
"I see."
4 months, 13 days since you'd left. Since I stole your hidden pack underneath the couch and smoked then all in one sitting.
"What's been going on around here? You been staying out of trouble?" he asked teasingly.
So this is how it's gonna be. You want me to be witty and biting and angry. Just so that you can be cool and calm and collected. Just so you can have the upper hand. Be the mature one.
"Jet's been catching enough bounties. I haven't caught any." Spike watched as she stacked up her cards and laid them on the table. She seemed to have suddenly found her left thumb very interesting, picking and staring at it.
"In other words, nothing's really changed."
Oh, if you only knew. If you only knew just how wrong you are.
The Faye that Spike thought he left behind would have been sarcastic and dramatic. She would have yelled at him for what he had done that day. She would have tried to knock him out with a right hook.
But this Faye, the Faye he had returned to, was not her. The old Faye had cared for him deeply, and perhaps she still did, but her world no longer revolved around him and the others. She had herself to care about, and that was more than enough these days.
"Bounty hunting isn't my calling," she said, smiling, "it seems as though I was supposed to be a marine biologist."
"What?"
Faye looked at him evenly.
"Well, you see, before my family was killed and I was frozen for 50 years, I was studying marine biology. "
They could see the sarcasm dripping from her voice.
"Is that so?"
"Yeah."
Spike didn't know how he was supposed to react to that. He felt strange...she was so different. Like that time when she and Ed had returned to the Bebop after changing the ship's course to Earth. Jet had been scolding her, but she had just looked at him sadly. So heartbreakingly sadly. This was the way she looked now, he supposed.
That smell. The smell of that smoke... I remember it. It's your smell, Spike. I remember the way you smell.
"So you gonna go back and become a marine biologist, now?" He didn't sound mean, just mildly curious. As if he were asking if it was sunny outside.
"No."
If I left you wouldn't really care, huh? But what if I died? What if I left and then a meteor hit my ship and I died?
"Faye?"
"Yeah?" She was staring at the fan too now.
"I'm sorry about-"
"Don't."
His eyes widened slightly in surprise at her harsh tone.
Breathe, Faye. Just breathe. In and out.
"Whatever you were going to apologize for, I've forgotten about it. So there's no reason to say you're sorry."
"Faye, I-"
"Good night."
By the time Spike could get up from his seat she was already out of the room.
Thump. Thump.
Her heart felt as if it would leap out of her chest and splatter across the wall.
It's not the same, you idiot. Nothing is the same anymore. I don't know who I am. I don't know who I want to be. I don't know if anyone in the world will know me. I don't know if anyone will ever even want to know me...
________________________
It was dark. She could see swirly little intangible green things in the air if she blinked.
Who cares about Spike? He has nothing to do me.
I have nothing to do with him.
But she had watched his mouth move. His hands. His body.
Not in lust or infatuation, but in relief. He was really there, in the flesh. And she was glad for that, even if she was angry at herself over it.
She couldn't sleep. The crazy part of her mind was acting up again. The part that made her think things.. things she didn't want to ever think.
"I'm crazy," she whispered to herself as she got out of bed. Pulling her robe closer to her body, she made her way to the main room. There was still a cigarette left from the pack she had found underneath the couch, she'd saved it for an emergency.
Tonight was an emergency. A dead man had come back to life. If that didn't count as an emergency, she didn't know what did.
"Damn," she muttered as her hand found nothing in between the lining of the seats.
Click.
"Looking for this?"
Faye whipped around at the sound of his voice and silver zippo.
"I thought you quit," he continued, grinning at her from the doorway, lighting a cigarette.
"I did."
He nodded. She wasn't going to make this easy for him, he realized.
"Good thing you got it first, huh?" she asked quietly, her eyes averting his gaze.
"Yeah, I guess so."
What would you do if I died?
He slowly walked towards her.
Cause you know what I did when I thought you died?
Stopping an arm's length away from where she was standing, Spike rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, looking only the slightest bit uncomfortable.
I let go.
I just let it all go.
"I don't know what to say," he said quietly, "I'm back. And I don't know what else to say."
"There's nothing else to hear," Faye replied. She was delighted to hear how cold she sounded. So careless. So controlled.
And then his hand was on her arm, feeling all rough and warm. Shivers ran up and down her arms into her spine.
"What do you want from me?" Spike asked, sounding impatient. She looked up at him, her heart beating erratically.
What do I want?!
I want to scratch your eyes out. I want you screaming my name. I want to breathe you into my body. I want your hands all over me. I want to slit your throat. I want you to disappear. I want you inside of me. I want you to care. I want you. I wan-
"The Faye you used to know isn't here anymore," she said softly, "I'm a different woman. Sorry."
She didn't know why she felt as if she had to apologize to him, but it was like she was giving him a message. A message of farewell from the old Faye to the returned Spike.
"You look different."
"Do I?"
"Your hair is a little longer, and your face..."
"My face?" she asked.
"Yeah, your face is different."
His long fingers brushed back strands of her violet hair. Her eyes so dark, they looked black.
"You make me feel weird."
Spike's smile widened at her admission.
"Weird? What do you mean?"
I feel like the ground is sinking and the sky is crashing down. I feel high, but I couldn't be any lower. You make me forget how to breathe.
"I don't know...just weird, is all."
He didn't suddenly realize that Faye was a beautiful woman. He'd always know this. But, at this moment, right now, her face was so beautiful it was starting to hurt him.
"I look like her right now, don't I?" She regretted the words before she even said them aloud, but she kept going, "all sad and lost. That's how she looked, I remember."
His hand froze on her face.
"There's a reason why they say romantics are hopeless, Spike," she heard herself speak but couldn't believe it.
"Me? A romantic?" he tried to laugh but it just sounded all wrong.
"Yes. You."
Her eyes were starting to bother him. They were looking right at him, but not at him. He vaguely wondered if this was how other people felt when they looked into his eyes.
"I remember your smell," Faye said, "cigarettes and heaven."
Then he really did laugh.
"Cigarettes and heaven, huh? You're making me blush, Faye." he said wryly as his hand dropped back to his side.
"I didn't mean it that way."
"Then how did you mean it?"
"I don't know," she answered truthfully, "I just know how you smell."
The air around them was crackling. Tension so thick you could cut it with a knife.
"She's not here, anymore," he faltered, "Julia."
Faye wondered if he knew what he was saying. Spike had always been so careful about what he revealed to others.
"Neither is Faye Valentine," she told him, "she isn't here anymore, either."
What was this ache he felt? It felt so foreign, so unwelcomed. It started in the pit of his stomach and was working its way all over.
Guilt.
This sad, broken woman was who she was because of him.
"Faye, I didn't know that you would turn like this. I-"
She was laughing. He frowned.
"You are the most self-important, arrogant man to have ever lived, Spike Spiegel."
"What?"
"Don't worry about me. I'm fine. It's just a little hard for me, sometimes, you know. After all, you're not the only person in this world to have lost someone they loved."
I'm an idiot, he realized, she lost her whole family and all her friends when her memory came back.
"Sorry. Look, Faye, I-"
"Your smell."
She was standing right in front of him now. Spike looked down and stared at the top of her head.
"You're smell," she repeated, "it makes me feel strange. Like...I'm floating in it."
It was like a dream. Real, but not.
"Uh..Faye?"
The crazy part of her was acting out, she thought giddily, but she didn't care. She traced an imaginary line from the top of his jawline, down his neck, and stopped at his collarbone.
"I want to kiss you there."
He had to strain his ears to hear her now, but he had heard her. Spike cleared his throat, his mouth suddenly felt like a desert. And there was ringing in his ear that seemed to appear out of nowhere. His mouth opened to speak, but nothing came out.
And then she leaned in, slowly. Her lips brushed against the skin where her fingertips had been. Once, twice.
"Faye," he said, his voice low.
What am I doing? she screamed in her mind.
And then his arms were around her. Holding her. Enveloping her into a safe haven of warmth and sanity.
Oh, she thought, so this is why he makes me feel strange.
Because I feel sane.
And crazy at the same time.
"Faye."
Thank you to all those who have reviewed. It made my day.