Chapter 2: Lost and Found

"Faye!" Spike's bellow resounded through ship. "Faye! Where the hell are you?!"

Jet appeared in the door to the living room where Spike was currently seething. "What's all the shouting for?"

Spike took a measured breath. "Oh, nothing. I just need to find Faye." He paused dramatically. "So I can throttle her." His eyebrow twitched.

Jet nodded and backed into the hallway slowly so as not to startle the wild beast that was his partner.

"Faye!" Spike returned to his previous mantra.

Faye appeared in the door Jet had recently vacated. "What?!" She was clad only in a bath towel. "In case you can't tell from my fashionable attire, I'm kind of busy."

Spike gave her a deceptively calm smile. "Faye, can you think of any reason I might be a wee bit perturbed?"

Faye placed a delicate finger to her chin and acquired an expression of intense concentration. "Nope. Can't think of anything." She turned and started back toward the bathroom.

Spike's face was a study in exasperation. "They were my last pack, Faye. I don't have money for anymore."

She turned back to him and placed a hand on one hip. "It was just a pack of cigarettes."

The green haired bounty hunter was dramatic. "My last pack." He enunciated each word with force. "I don't have any more."

"Aw. Is poor little Spikey going into withdrawl?" Faye chuckled and turned once again.

"Faye." Spike growled and stalked across the room in her direction. "Are there any left?" He stopped less than a foot from the half-naked woman.

She turned around and smirked up at him, completely unintimidated. "Maybe."

Spike's anger fell away as he registered the sultry look he was receiving. "Maybe?"

"Mm-hm." She was looking up at him from behind lowered lashes. "And maybe if you're good I'll find one for you." She paused, licking her lips. "Right after I finish my shower." With that she turned on her heel and moved down the hall to the bathroom.

Spike didn't move from the place he'd been standing. After several moments, he expressed himself the only way he felt fitting. "Gah!" He threw his hands up in the air and flopped down on the couch to plot his revenge.

Jet poked his head in. "Is it safe yet?"

Spike glared at the former ISSP officer. "Did you need something?"

Over the past few months Jet had watched this scenario play out regularly in a variety of forms. "Just wondering if I could start dinner or if I should come back after World War IV was over."

Spike was readying a reply when a beeping sound emitted from the communications console.

Both men glanced at it as a voice emerged, garbled slightly by interference. "Bebop, can you hear me?"

Jet swiftly moved to the com unit. "This is Bebop. Who'm I talking to?"

"Hey, Jet. It's Andy. I could really use some help." Her voice held a carefully controlled note of panic.

Jet glanced at Spike as he joined him by the com unit. "What's going on?"

She laughed uneasily. "A lot. Mind if I come aboard to discuss it?"

"Come on in." The two men made their way to the hangar to wait for their friend to land.

Andy laboriously climbed down from her ship and turned to face her benefactors. Their eyes were bugging out of their respective heads. She laughed. "I'm pregnant, not mutated."

Jet shook his head as though to clear it. "Wow. I mean, congratulations."

Andy grinned. "Thank you."

Spike recovered. "What's going on, Andy? It sounded like you were in trouble."

She looked sheepish. "About that, I seem to have gotten myself into a bit of a jam."

Jet raised an eyebrow. "How so?"

Andy sighed. "Can we go in the living room? I'd really like to sit down." She suddenly looked very tired.

"Of course." Jet led the way down the hall.

Faye was dressed now and standing beside the couch. "Andy!" Faye grinned as she took in her friend's current condition. "Congratulations!" She leaped across the room and pulled the other woman into a big hug.

"Thank you. It's good to see you too." Andy's smile grew impossibly wider.

"What brings you to our little corner of the universe?" Faye was still grinning broadly.

Andy found a seat on the nearby couch. "About that, I've managed to get myself into a spot of trouble."

"We got that." Spike's voice was dry.

"Ok, the condensed version is this guy named Hawthorn is trying to kill me so I can't have this baby. He wants to kill Lucas and take over but he can't do that successfully if Lucas has an heir." She pointed to her stomach. "As you can see, his heir is on the way."

"Andy is going to be a mommy-mommy!" Ed bounced into the room at high speed, attracting everyone's attention. Ein followed sedately behind the adolescent juggernaut.

"Yes, Ed." Faye answered before directing her gaze back to the expectant mother. "You were saying?"

"That pretty well does it actually. Lucas doesn't know any of this. He doesn't even know where I am."

Jet's brow wrinkled. "You didn't tell him before you left?"

Andy shook her head. "There wasn't time. Hawthorn and his flunky were on my tail. It was dumb luck I found you guys."

"Did you just say, "flunky?"' Spike asked, incredulous.

"What? You have a problem with her word choice?" Faye threw back.

"Who uses the word "flunky?"'

"Apparently, Andy does." Faye and Spike exchanged a heated glare that bordered somewhere between hostile and hot.

Andy followed their exchange as though it were a tennis match, head moving back and forth to follow the ball. As they glared, she turned to Jet. "Do they do this often?"

Jet sighed. "All the time."

Andy studied the silent staring competition for a moment longer before rendering her opinion. "You two should just get a room and get it over with."

The glare focused on her now. She winced. "Those evil looks should really be registered as lethal weapons."

"Andy-person is funny!" Ed shrieked, laughing. She twirled in a circle and chased Ein around the couch once before following the mutt out of the living room.

As was the norm, Ed's bizarre behavior served to deflate the rising tension of any given situation. Jet shook his head. "I don't know how she gets it, but I swear that girl uses drugs."

"Strong ones." Spike added, shoving hands into pockets and lounging in the unoccupied chair opposite Andy.

"If you ask me, she needs her dosage adjusted." Andy glanced in the direction the hyperactive teen had disappeared in. "Severely."

"Those weren't the type of drugs I was referring to." Jet chuckled.

"Still."

"Back to the problem at hand." Faye announced, getting the group back on track. "This guy is trying to kill you and the baby and Lucas doesn't have a clue, right?"

"That's pretty much it." Andy confirmed.

"It seems to me the next course of action should be to inform Lucas of the situation." Jet folded his arms across his chest. "He could be in danger. You did say they were going to try to kill him."

Andy nodded. "If we hurry, we might be able to beat them to him. They were still on the planet when I took off."

"Let's go." Jet started for the bridge.

"Ay-ay, Captain." Andy returned with a mock salute. "I think I'm going to take a nap." She glanced between Faye and Spike and gave a sly grin. "Don't you kids do anything I wouldn't do."

"That leaves a lot of area to cover." Spike tossed at the now reclining woman as he stood from his chair and headed in the direction of the hallway.

Faye grinned. "He's just grumpy because the pregnant woman is getting more action then he is."

Andy laughed. "Thanks, Faye. It's nice to have people to count on."

She nodded. "Yes, it is."

tbc(please, please, please review-I'm begging, really)