Spike is such an uncooperative prick sometimes, isn't he? I mean, does he really think that he's helping anyone with his head stuck that far up his ass? Whatever, let's just get to the story and see what Faye has to say about it. Plenty, I'm sure.
*****
One More Try
Part 13
*****
"Oh, this one's pretty." I smiled as my finger stopped running down the list of names in the book I had found while out shopping for baby clothes. "Daelyn. What do you think?"
"That's a girl's name, right?" Spike was picking through the clothing I had brought back with a disapproving look on his face. "Do you even know if it's a girl or not?"
"Well, if it's your kid, I would rather it was a girl." I replied, returning to the names. "We'll need two names, I guess. One for if it's a boy and one for a girl. That's why I got gender neutral clothes."
"These are neutral?" Spike held up a yellow pastel sleeper. "This is so girly."
"Yeah, I'm sure that if any boy wears that, all the other babies will shun him for life." I snorted as I continued to scan the pages of names. "What if we named her Echo? That's pretty."
"It sounds like a name for someone who can't think for themselves." Spike opined, shaking his head over the pink bunnies embroidered on a white sleeper. "This is horrible. If it's our baby, you shouldn't be buying it crap like this without asking me."
"You didn't want to come shopping, remember?" I pointed out. "You said you were too busy taking a nap."
"Well…next time don't go without me." Spike considered a pair of tiny white socks, and unable to find anything wrong with them, put them on the table with everything else he'd pulled out of my bag.
"What about Faith?" I asked while he considered the little animals parading across the front of a baby blue bib.
"Sounds stupid." He replied. "It's too much like your name."
"What's wrong with my name?" I was immediately irate. "Anyway, you're one to talk, Spike."
"My name's cool." Spike snorted and tossed the bib down to continue rummaging through the bag. "How much did all of this cost?"
"It doesn't matter, Jet gave me the money himself and told me to spend as much as I needed." I replied. "At least one man on this ship is providing for the baby." I ignored Spike's indignant look to suggest another name. "What about Gail?"
"Sounds like an old woman's name." Spike replied, a hint of anger in his tone. So maybe he hadn't been upset by my shot at his name, but he didn't seem to think much of me pointing out how unhelpful he'd been with the baby so far."
"Well then you pick one, oh master authority of baby naming." I tossed him the book and began refolding the clothes and returning them to the half empty bag. Spike rolled his eyes before flipping through the book for a while as I continued to fold the new baby clothes.
"Whoa…let's name it Phoenix. That's a cool name." He suggested. I was speechless for a moment as I realized he was serious.
"No. We are not naming my baby Phoenix. That's a horrible name." I pulled the book back and began flipping through it again.
"What's wrong with it?" Spike grumbled as he set about pulling the clothes out of the bag again. "And it's my kid too. I should get to name it."
"All you've done so far is get me knocked up." I eyed him over the top of the page I was on. "That doesn't give you full naming rights." As he continued to grumble, I picked out a new name. "What about Lauren? That's a nice name."
"It's stupid." He replied automatically.
"You're only saying that because I shot down Phoenix, which I still say is stupid." I pursed my lips at him as he continued rummaging through the clothes. "And could you stop messing up those clothes? I just folded them."
"Whatever. Like the baby cares." Spike rolled his eyes as he continued pulling out garments and grumbling in disapproval. I reached out and slapped his hand sharply. "Ow! What was that for?"
"Stop being a pain in the ass!" I told him angrily, closing the book and using it to hit him again as he held up his hands to ward off my attack. "Just get out of the baby's things."
"I'm just checking them!" he insisted, trying to reach the bag again, but I hit his outstretched hand sharply with the paperback book. Jet joined us at that moment, looking ready to play the stern father as always.
"What's the problem out here?" he asked, looking from Spike to me and then to the bag of clothes.
"We're trying to think of baby names." I told him, holding up the book and trying my best for a look of complete innocence. "But Spike thinks all my ideas are stupid."
"Hey, Jet, isn't Phoenix a cool name?" Spike ignored me and sent his entreaty straight to the older man, who was still frowning at us both is disapproval.
"It sounds like a superhero or something." Jet opined unsurely after noting the glares that Spike and I were shooting each other. Spike made a sound of dejection before turning his angry glare to Jet.
"It's a cool name." He insisted. "Not like Faith or Echo."
"I don't really want to get involved." Jet answered after a moment. "It's your baby, you guys name it."
"We would if Spike would stop with the dumb suggestions." I stated firmly, stuffing the last of the baby clothes back in their bag. "I'm going to take a nap. I'm tired of this." I shot Spike an extra glare just for daring to argue with me when I obviously knew so much more about babies. I mean, I obviously didn't have any experience, but neither did he and he never read any books about it.
"Your suggestions are the bad ones!" he snapped at me as I picked up the bag and left. I wasn't in the mood for prolonged conversations with that man, and I hadn't been for some time now. I was eight months pregnant, and it struck me that things with Spike weren't really that much different than they had been before I was pregnant. I guess I'd been hoping the baby would be the push that he needed to learn to love me, but it seemed to me that nothing could make that man love me. Well…I had thought that he was in love with me, but now I wasn't sure. After all, I'd confessed to him and everything, and now it seemed to be a silent understanding between us that we would never mention that and would continue to act like it hadn't happened. Oh well, at least he seemed to show some interest in the baby now, for better or for worse. Phoenix…yeah right.
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"June." I scooped the ice cream into my mouth and sighed happily. Now that I was so close to being due, everyone on the ship was spoiling me rotten. Jet kept buying me special food, whatever I wanted. Ed was at my beck and call, ready to do the tiniest task that might make me more comfortable and take away from the aches and pains I was experiencing. Spike, however…
"Stupid. Why name a baby after a month it's not even born in?" Spike shot down every name suggestion I handed him. It was really irritating. Although every now and then I could get him to fetch and carry for me, but I was much more concerned about the fact that my baby was due in two weeks and it was currently not named.
"Kara." I continued to enjoy my ice cream, trying not to let his obnoxious attitude get to me. I was pretty close to just deciding the names on my own and Spike Spiegel be damned.
"Stupid." He didn't even bother to explain why the name was stupid. He still hadn't made any suggestions after that first one. Phoenix…what was wrong with him? No wonder we couldn't agree on anything.
"What if I pick the girl name and you pick the boy name, and then we don't have to argue about it. There's an even chance of the baby being named what one of us wants." I spoke up again after a while.
"I want it to be a good name." He insisted. "And I don't want you just naming it something random because I didn't get a boy or something like that."
"The baby doesn't pick it's gender." I told him irritably. "Neither do I." I added, just to clarify.
"We should both agree on the name, that's all I'm saying." He told me after a while. "If we're going to share the baby, that's only fair."
"Okay, I get what you're saying." I nodded, closing the book. This was hopeless, but at least I had ice cream. I wondered vaguely if Ed would mind rubbing my feet. They were awfully sore. "I just think that we're never going to agree on a name. It's just…we think too differently. That's why we can never get along in the first place for longer than five minutes at a time." There was a long pause and I realized that what I had said broke into the territory of our relationship, a place that I had really rather we stayed away from.
"We're not that bad." Spike opined after a while. Apparently he had decided that the new topic was perfectly alright, even though I was already starting to feel a blush building up. I hated unrequited love. "I mean, we fight sometimes, but it's never really serious."
"What about the time that you thought I stole your shoes and you changed the Bebop access code so that I couldn't get back onto the ship for three days before I broke your jamming signal and got Jet to let me in?" I reminded him. "Or the time that you were mad at me scratching your Swordfish so you stole the ignition switch to the Red Tail?"
"Oh man…that was so funny." Spike chuckled, leaning back on the couch as I stirred the melting remains of my ice cream around the bowl. "But anyway, you deserved that. I was just getting revenge."
"Oh really? The thing with the Swordfish was an accident and you know it." I pointed out. "And I hadn't even touched your shoes. You left them in the main room and Jet put them in the front storage room."
"It was still funny when you had to follow us for three days, freaking out because you had no food and couldn't get in." Spike smiled at the memory. He was such an ass. "And anyway, those were just pranks. They don't mean that we can't get along at all."
"We're arguing right now, Spike." I told him drily.
"That's just because you're wrong and won't admit it." Spike answered after a pause. "And this isn't that bad of a fight."
"For us." I clarified. "It's true, Spike. We fight all the time, and most of it starts over something stupid. We just can't get along."
"Then why are you in love with me?" Spike's rebuttal obviously didn't have a lot of thought behind it, because as soon as the words left his mouth he looked like he'd just choked on something especially nasty that Jet had made for dinner. I didn't feel much better than he looked, but after a long while, I set my bowl aside and shrugged.
"I don't really know." I told him. "It's how I feel about you. It doesn't have to make sense."
"Nothing about you makes sense." He sighed and moved off the couch. At first I thought he was leaving, but he just picked up the bowl and took it to the kitchen for me. I blinked at him in surprise as he came back and sat on the table where my feet were propped up.
"Why'd you do that?" I asked him after a while. Was he being nice to me again? He was so hard to understand sometimes.
"Just helping out." He moved my feet with one hand, shifting his position so they were in his lap. He carefully removed the sock from my right foot and began to rub it slowly. "I was just thinking…I mean, everyone's taking care of you lately except me. And it's my kid."
"You don't have to…" I trailed off. His hands just felt so good and my feet were so sore.
"I want to." He told me, looking up and smiling at me briefly. It was an apologetic grin. "I'm sorry that I can't be what you want me to be, Faye. But I'll try my best to do what I can for you. I just can't…do that."
"I know." I sighed sadly. Somehow, I didn't really care that he was giving me a foot massage anymore. I didn't care that it felt amazing and that he was doing it without being asked or told. He was only doing it because he pitied me, and I hated that. I hated that I was so weak that he could see it. I was so weak that he felt sorry for me, even though Spike rarely felt sorry for anyone that I knew of.
"I told Jet. About what you told me." Spike told me after a long silence. I was strangely calm about the admission. "I'm sorry, but I didn't know what to do."
"He already knew, I think." I told him. "What'd he say? Rub my feet and all shall be forgiven?"
"He thinks…he said that I shouldn't be hung up on the past." Spike told me. "He said that if I gave you a chance, you could make it stop hurting."
"Jet thinks too much of me." I snorted, chuckling slightly.
"He said that you're the best person to fix what's wrong with me." Spike continued.
"I wouldn't know where to begin." I told him. "I'm not that sort of a woman. I'm not amazing, or even ordinary. I'm just me. I may know that you miss Julia, but there's nothing I can do about it. Jet needs to stop trying to be a matchmaker." I concluded.
"It's not your fault that I miss her." Spike assured me. "I'd miss her no matter what, I think. Jet's been in love before. He should know what it's like to be left behind."
"Yeah, but his girl didn't die." I pointed out, sighing slightly. "It's different, you know?"
"I wonder sometimes," Spike set down the foot he'd been working on and moved to the other. "What if I'd stayed away from Julia? I mean, she was my best friend's girlfriend, and I know that for a long time, even though I thought a lot of her, I would have never tried anything because of Vicious. We'd been friends for so long."
"What made you change your mind?" I asked him.
"A moment of weakness, I guess." He shrugged, glancing up again. "I think maybe…if I hadn't done anything with Julia, things would be different. I wouldn't have had to leave the syndicate, and maybe Vicious wouldn't have gotten so out of control. He was a lot nicer before all that, you know. I think losing his girl and his best friend just…"
"But if all that hadn't happened, would it really have been better?" I asked him. "You were in love with Julia, and if you couldn't have her it would just make you bitter. Just having those feelings, Vicious and you would have to come to odds eventually, and isn't it better knowing that she loved you too? At least you got the experience of being with her."
"I just can't help thinking that if nothing had happened, I might have missed her less." He told me.
"I don't think so." I answered, smiling sadly. "If you left, do you think I'd miss you less just because you don't love me?"
"I don't know…" Spike was very intent on my foot, obviously a bit embarrassed, but hey, he'd brought it up in the first place.
"Will you tell me something?" I decided to ask him a question that had been bothering me now that he was disconcerted and less likely to lie. "Honestly, I know you hate kids, so I was wondering…do you really want this baby?"
"You want it." He answered after an uncomfortable silence. He put down my other foot and moved back onto the couch, pulling out his cigarettes and then putting them back in his pocket after glancing directly at my stomach. He didn't usually smoke around me anymore, and I wondered if he was still smoking when I wasn't around. He had no real reason to quit, so I supposed that he must. I still craved the burning, acrid taste on my tongue, as odd as that might sound to anyone who's never smoked before.
"That's not what I asked you." I told him, blinking patiently as I waited for an answer.
"Does it matter anymore what I want?" Spike asked me, a bit defensive. "I mean, even if I said that didn't want it, would that change the fact that it's coming and you're keeping it?"
"No, of course not." I answered without hesitation. "But I don't want you to feel like you have to raise this kid and you're being forced into it by me or something."
"No offense, Faye," Spike chuckled slightly. "But I kinda doubt that you could force me to raise a kid, no matter what you did."
"You know what I mean." I rolled my eyes at him. "I just wanted to know if you want this at all. Because whether or not you do, I appreciate the fact that you've promised to help, but I want you to know that you aren't obligated. You aren't the one who chose to keep it."
"We've been through this." Spike grumbled, still evading the question.
"Well then, do you want it?" I asked him, refusing to back away.
"Okay, look." He turned to me, his level gaze boring into my own eyes. "When you first told me, I wanted the baby to disappear. I wanted to go to sleep, wake up, and have you walking around totally not pregnant. I thought…there was no way I was ready to be a father, and I sure as hell didn't think you were going to be any kind of mother. But then…things started to get more serious, and I couldn't keep lying to myself about it. And by then, it didn't bother me so much. Then I caught myself worrying about you straining yourself or hurting yourself or something happening to the baby. So I guess…you could say that I let the idea grow on me, and now I want the kid. I mean, I'm sitting here helping you with names, right?"
"That means a lot to me, Spike." I told him honestly. "Seriously, I've been worried ever since I found out that you wouldn't want anything to do with this baby, and I'd hate for it to grow up without any sort of father. Although, there is always Jet." At this comment, Spike made a face that forced me to burst into laughter, it was so utterly priceless. "Oh, don't get upset or anything. I just meant that he's such a father figure already that he'd have no problem with one more kid running around the ship."
"Whatever." Spike was sullen now, and I felt a little foolish for even mentioning Jet.
"Hey…are you busy tomorrow?" I asked him after deciding that no matter how he tried to make me feel guilty, him getting jealous of Jet was just amusing.
"Not really. You need something?" Spike arched an eyebrow, and I got the impression that he was hoping I would ask him for some sort of help so that he could reaffirm his place as the father.
"Well, I have to go in for a prenatal exam." I told him, rubbing my stomach. "They're a bit more often now that I'm so close…I was wondering if you wanted to come along. They take an ultrasound and you can see pictures of the baby…it's kind of cool, actually."
"That sounds…nice." Spike told me after a pause, smiling slightly and placing one hand on my stomach. I placed my own hand over his and slid them both to where I could feel the baby moving inside of me. It was an odd feeling that I had grown accustomed to, but it was clear from the amazed look on Spike's face that he had never felt something like this before.
"You can feel it, can't you?" I asked him, unable to chase away the smile that tugged up on the corners of my lips.
"Does that hurt?" he asked after a little while, still staring with rapt attention at the spot where he was feeling the movement of his child inside of me. "I mean…it feels like it's kicking."
"It is, but it doesn't really hurt. It feels…odd, but it's nice once you get used to it." I explained. "Every now and then, it'll hit me just right and it feels like someone just punched me really nice, but most of the time…it's pretty gentle." I watched him for a few more moments before getting an idea and speaking up again. "You can listen, if you want. Ed thinks it's pretty entertaining."
"Listen?" Spike looked up then, and I thought that maybe I had crossed some invisible line, asking him to get closer than he'd like. "Just…press my ear there?" His eyes still held the excitement that let me know my idea struck him as a good one despite my worries.
"That's the idea." I nodded, and after shifting his position, Spike pressed his ear to my round, distended belly, making me feel warm and embarrassed all at the same time. He had one hand on my stomach still with the palm flat and the fingers splayed so that his touch reached all the way to where my stomach met my side and curved around to my back. Something about the touch felt so natural and so full of warmth at the same time that I felt my blush grow worse than before. "Can you hear it?"
"It's weird." He told me after a while, not moving away from my stomach. "Doesn't it feel like we're a family?"
"We are, in a way." I answered, glad that he couldn't see how red my cheeks were. We stayed like that until I fell asleep, at which point I assume that Spike carried me to my room, because the next morning, I woke up in my bed. But the thing I really noticed first was that there was no one there beside me. I'd never thought of how empty the bed was, but now it seemed unbearable.
*****
The End (Of Part 13, That Is)