Hey, I finally have another chapter! Go me! Okay, well I guess I won't detain you any longer. Read up, folks.

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Faye sat lazily on the beaten yellow couch, listening to the distant echoes of voices from the other side of the ship. Spike and Jet again. She moaned and stretched. They'd been in there shouting for an hour after they'd managed to lose that ISGS ship. Mysterious, but nothing more dangerous than a dozen other conflicts they'd been involved in.

She sighed heavily and inspected her nails. At least things were back to normal. Kind of.

There was an air of tenseness on the Bebop, and had been ever since Spike had called out of the blue. Gah, Spike. She was definitely not in the mood to ponder her feelings on that topic.

That moment, the man in question came storming into the room, looking pouty and slightly off-balance.

"Get off my couch, Faye."

"Since when was it yours, Lunkhead?"

"Since forever! Now move your ass!" He growled.

"No, I think I'll stay here just to—Spike!"

She had been preparing a nice and stinging comeback when Spike had to up and pass out onto the floor. She ran over to him, more worried than the rational side of her mind thought necessary, and slapped him lightly. No response. With a grunt of effort, she hoisted him up and dragged him over to the couch, muttering.

"This is one hell of an evil way to get me to give him the couch."

Faye dropped Spike with an uncharacteristically large amount of care onto the couch and rushed to the kitchen to get some cold water and a washcloth.

"The way he was fighting back there made me practically forget that he's got one hell of a bad cold." She murmured as she returned to the room, checking him for any sign of movement. She dabbed the wet cloth along his hairline, then down his cheek to his jawbone to his neck.

Never would've paid this much attention to him a few months ago. She thought absently, and it was true. All she'd done when he was sick or injured before was either beat him with pillows or take his oranges. And then there was that one time when they'd both gotten the flu from Jet…

She smiled at the memory until her attention was diverted to slight movement from Spike.

He opened his eyes blearily and squinted up at her, his memories slowly coming together.

"I'm…mad at you," He said distantly. "Aren't I?"

Faye sniffed. "Why should I tell you that if you don't even know what you're supposed to be mad at me about?"

Spike shrugged, or made the equivalent motion of a shrug by a man lying prone on a couch with several injuries. He attempted to sit up but Faye pushed him back down.

"Anyway, it was stupid of you to waste all of your energy fighting with Jet. You're sick, remember?" She scolded, feeling like a nagging mother.

"Yeah, yeah." Spike muttered but didn't resist as she checked his bandages and generally fussed over him.

"Well at least you didn't mess anything up too bad," she concluded as she finished her examination. "But out of curiosity, just how bad did you mess up the Hammerhead?"

Spike grinned fondly. "Ah, pretty bad. Most of that yelling was just him fuming and pouting about all the repairs he'll have to do."

Faye chuckled and stood up. "Interesting. Usually it's me who has to endure that. Nice to see the tables turned for once." She removed her headband, ran her hand through her hair and was about to replace it when Spike spoke.

"Don't. It looks better that way."

Faye's eyes widened in shock and mild disbelief. She was momentarily flattered that he actually paid attention to how she looked but quickly regained composure.

"Oh, so says Mr. Fashion." She smirked but didn't put the headband back on. Sitting down on the table, she watched Spike out of the corners of her eyes. "So, do you have any idea who those guys in the white ship were?"

Spike looked momentarily distant. "I did kind of feel like I recognized it when I saw it, but I'm drawing a blank. Is there a reason you think I should know who they were? I just assumed that it was just some other bounty hunter or ISSP officer or corrupt corporation that you two managed to piss off in the course of tracking a bounty."

Faye opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again abruptly. She'd been about to tell him about the conversation with Dr. Atkinson until she thought better of it. Spike's had enough to deal with. I'll wait until he's better before I tell him.

Spike stared at her expectantly. "Well…?"

Faye snapped out of her thoughtful reverie, and to her own private horror, felt her cheeks color. "Oh, ehm…I don't really know. I was just wondering. You were really fighting with a vengeance back there, it seemed." She committed mental suicide as she felt herself add a ditzy giggle onto the end of this brilliant statement.

Spike pushed himself up on one elbow and looked at her quizzically. "Faye, are you sick or something? It seems like you're acting really weird."

She turned away abruptly. She had, indeed, done some in-depth analysis of her life during the time Spike had been "dead" but she was sure as hell not gonna unearth it all now, especially not in front of the dead man himself.

"I'm fine," she said steadily. "It's just a little too much excitement for me all at once. I'll see you tomorrow."

And with that, she exited the room. Spikes eyes stared after her even after she left, his mind pondering carefully. Despite how "normal" everything looked here on the surface, something had definitely changed. Something had taken the people he had known so well he could predict every other word that came out of their mouths and turned them into almost complete strangers. Even Ed—Ed for Christ's sake!—probably the most predictably unpredictable person in the galaxy was not who she used to be.

He started as he felt something cold and wet nudging his palm. He looked down to see Ein grinning up at him with his tongue hanging out and wagging his tail. Spike smiled. Alright, so almost everyone changed.

Have I changed? Spike asked himself, turning his reflection inside. This, he knew, was a daring act, one which he hadn't even attempted to do since his encounter with Vicious and…Julia's death. There were monsters within himself that it was painful and sometimes damaging to face. Spike shut his eyes and wiped all of the images that lingered in his conscious mind from existence. Jet, righteous anger barely concealing pride and satisfaction at his return, Faye with her foreign and newly acquired far-away lonely look framed by strands of shiny black hair, Ed with a certain level of innocence no longer dwelling in her open eyes, and Ein, trusting and wise beyond the normal capabilities of a dog, smiling despite the problems of the world.

Spike removed it all from his mind and dived deep. Deep into the memories he hadn't touched since the moment they happened. Memories too dark for his mind, and heart, to bear…