Disclaimer: Ditto on chapters one and two and three and four and five and
six and seven.
A/N: Wave, fanfic people . . . last chapter . . .
Silk on Steel
Chapter Eight: Just for Forever
It was oddly quiet on the Bebop tonight.
It was really her fault, if you really thought about it. Jet was in bed, miserable with a head cold which he'd probably procured by running around in the rain for hours without a coat on. He'd gone grumbling off to bed about two hours ago, and despite the home-made chicken soup Faye had botched royally, she could still hear him up sniveling and coughing. For once in her life, Ed was actually attempting to be helpful and had retired to her room for a night of fun-filled surfing, RPing, and hacking on the Ethernet instead of keeping them all awake with her constant antics like normal. Ein was, for once, acting even remotely like a normal Welsh Corgi, and had decided to take a nice long snooze in the air vents, where he could stay nice and warm, just the perfect place for a pup-style snooze fest.
And then there was her, lying cocooned in the sheets on his bed, trying in this mad, twisted chaos of his essence to sort through the layers of her mind and dreams to a place where she could somehow move on and make it out alive.
And it didn't' help that it wasn't so damn quiet.
Faye sighed. She didn't like it much; she'd just gotten so used to constant chaos around here, and then it all changed on her again . . . suddenly the moroseness began to fall over her again.
How was she supposed to get through this? How did you get rid of a guy that just clung to your heart like glue? That goofy grin; that half bitch-ass; half cliché cop-flick, half bluesy jazz profile; that mop-slop-top hair; those mismatched eyes . . . and of course, who could forget that laugh. When Spike Spiegel laughed, it was like his joke on the whole world, especially on himself.
Faye could feel a little tear stray down her face, solitary and lonely. Would she ever, ever in a thousand years hear that laugh again?
Would she ever, ever in a thousand years truly feel alive again?
Trying her best to beat such thoughts out of her mind, she rolled over, facing the wall so none could see the war going on in her tired, clawed heart. None, of course, but anyone who even looked at her face.
And Faye began to sing a little song she knew . . .
"If I had the chance I'd whisk us away Leave this deadly dance On this dark holiday."
She kept on humming the tune, bar after bar, until they drifted away, away into the abyss in her heart that might someday heal again.
But the music didn't stop there. From somewhere that seemed far away, someone was singing, singing . . . singing so beautifully, so angelically, it was as if from other worlds. No longer were the words that of a lament, but of a lullaby. Suddenly, the whole world seemed a little bit softer, a little less violent, a little cruel.
Faye sighed deeply and began to close her eyes. It was all so beautiful. Why couldn't things be like this always? Everything would be so perfect . . . everything . . . perfect . . . perfect if just . . .
". . . if you were here . . ."
"Yes," she answered herself aloud, whispering, "you make it perfect . . . you make everything perfect . . ."
* * *
It was dark . . . frightening. With a sudden shock of pain, her hands hit cold hard metal, the blood pulsing in her fingertips, the surface slick with rain. Faye shook her head. Where we she? Curiously, she looked around. Last she knew, she was trying to fall asleep in his bed . . .
"Ohh!" she gasped, looking down at the street far below. It was so huge, so high . . . sure, she'd been on the tops of big buildings before, but somehow, this was different.
What was wrong with her? Something was terribly, terribly wrong here . . . but what? Where was she anyway?
And then, in the moonlight, rising into vision like a thing of hell . . .
A bright silver emblem: Sayora. . . the name echoed somewhere in her mind, over and over. The question: from where?
Server found. She let out a little cry, clamping her hands to her mouth before she could make another sound. Her knees collapsed and she fell to the floor, shaking.
This was the spot, the hollowed ground, her love had fallen upon. It was here, here he'd smoked his last cigarette, spoke his last words. Here was the place thought the thoughts, dreamt the dreams she would never, never know in a thousand years. On this ground, this ground . . . he had drawn his last breath.
~'Coward'~
In an indefinable dimension, she heard the word somewhere, breaking through space and time. Before her, a silhouette, a man standing brave and proud, a man so familiar . . . a black figure from above, floating down, down, down, a white demon, a master of the night . . . CRASH! In that singular millisecond, two brothers one, and then gone again . . . she sat glued in her spot, her eyes widened in utter awe, watching as silver blade flashing in the dark . . .
~'Is that a fact, Spiegel?'~
Somewhere in Faye Valentine's mind, an eyelash, weighted to a tear-drop, fell upon a mirror and shattered it.
What was happening here? Was she going to have to actually watch him die, watch him struggle with this white dragon for his lasting breath, watch the light flee from his eyes, pupils swell, body go limp . . . her mind came to a crashing halt.
"WHAT KIND OF WORLD IS IT?" she asked to the night.
Her answer would come sooner than she could have guessed.
"Not exactly your ballet, is it?" a voice behind her came. In an instant, the two shadow figures seemed to fade and slowly disappear into the rainy night air, becoming more and more like the air until they were nothing.
Faye whirled around, aghast. Who was that? A figure in the night . . . as her vision cleared, she let out a gasp.
There before her, was tall thin man, cigarette dangling carelessly from his mouth, a great mop of messy, bed-head like hair like a dark bush, brushing in the wind with his long coat fluttering around his lean, graceful form. And those eyes . . . it was so quiet out here, she could even hear his breath, like the waves on the shore . . .
"But . . . but how . . . how-" she stuttered, unable to speak.
"How could I be here when I'm gone?" he finished her sentence for her, crushing his cigarette under his feet. "Sorry. I hate to tell you this, but I'm not exactly sure. Heh," he laughed. "Funny . . ."
"What's funny?"
"I dunno. I guess . . . well . . ." Spike seemed to be having a hard time with words himself. His great beautiful eyes turned toward the sky, searching for some salvation he would never have.
"I guess I just never knew what I was doing, d'you know what I mean? I mean, we walk around, thinking we're the ones in charge, that we're the ones who know what's going on, like we're the kings of the world and everything's just going to up and change for us. But . . . what is our reality, really? If you really think about everything we don't know, everything that isn't in our hands, you have to start thinking . . . who's really running the show here?"
"Spike . . ."
"Mmm?" he asked.
"Why did you leave me?" her tear-and-rain washed eyes staring up at him for answers.
Spike sighed, looking down at her, she being so sad and small, like a little child. He took her in his arms, the rain running down the both of them.
"I'll never leave you . . ."
"But why did you have to?" she clutched closer in his arms, his calm, cool breath ruffling her soaking hair. "Why?"
"I'm always with you . . ." he whispered. "You'll never have to worry again . . ."
"Yeah right!" she suddenly shoved him away from her, an expression of pure rage on her face. "Yeah, you didn't leave me? Then what the hell is this?" she waved her arms around, indicating the surrounding desolateness. "What in hell do you call this?"
"Hey, c'mon now!" he insisted. "That isn't how it is at all. It's just-"
"Bullshit!" she exclaimed, kicking uselessly at the ground. "You gave everything up for this?!?"
Spike found himself wordless, and Faye didn't give him a chance.
"WHAT WAS IT WORTH?" the words rebounded over and over through the street, again and again.
Spike found he could say nothing to defend himself, and kept his eyes down. Faye stared angrily, folding her arms across her chest.
"Yeah. Just what I thought," she snarled.
Silence.
"So what IS here?" Faye snapped, looking around. "Isn't this sposed to be something at least?"
"She isn't."
Quickly, Faye turned on her heel and came to look at him.
"What?"
"You heard what I said," he repeated, taking a step toward her, warmly taking her in his arms. "She's not here. You mean more to me she is. You're more than anything. She doesn't have a place here. In fact, there's nobody here. There's only two people . . . only us . . ."
Faye looked up into his eyes, those eyes that had held hers for so long. Those eyes, those eyes . . . was she ever going to get over those eyes. Steel and flesh, yin and yang, two sides of the coin, two sacred brothers, one never to be complete without the other, in a war of death and yet in a song of harmony. But no matter what they really were to her, they were his eyes, the eyes of the man that had seen death again and again. They were the eyes of her love. Slowly, the two of them grew closer and closer . . . a kiss . . . a kiss that would last forever . . .
"Don't you ever leave me again," she whispered.
"I never did . . ."
Faye sighed, letting her body meld to his. If only they could stay here forever, to be suspended in this moment for the rest of forever. If only this heaven could be an eternity. If only . . .
If only in dreams.
Suddenly, just as those thought drifted through her mind, something changed in the air. It took her a minute to realize what it was exactly.
The rain . . . she couldn't hear the rain. She could feel it, she could see it . . . but she couldn't' hear . . . What was going on here?
"What's wrong?" Spike asked.
"I don't know . . . what's happened to the rain? . . ."
"Ahhhh," he sighed lowly as. "I think I get it now. Our time's up."
"WHAT?" she couldn't help but raise her voice this time. "What are you talking about, our time up?"
"You're waking up," he smiled, snapping at her nose. "You never were a deep sleeper."
"No! What are you talking about?"
"You're going back home." Now, she couldn't feel the rain either. Spike himself was starting to fade, his colors a little less vibrant than they had been a minute before.
"But I thought I was going to stay here!" she clutched even closer to him. "I want to stay here forever!"
Silence.
"You know that can't be," he sighed. "This . . ." he waved his palm at everything. "You disappear from all this when you wake up. It's the rule around here."
Faye didn't speak. For several seconds, she simply stared at him. She didn't know what to say.
"When will I ever see you again? . . . When can I be with you again?"
Spike smiled that smile she had waited to see so long. He brushed a straggling piece of hair out of her eyes.
"Do you know how foxy you look when you cry?"
Faye gave no answer but to clutch his slowly disappearing body.
"Spike?" she whispered.
"Hmm?"
"Will you wait for me . . . always?"
He smiled again. Faye felt a small smile, yet with the tears, arising together. It was funny how you could smile and cry at the very same time, and yet, it seemed just right just now.
"Of course I will," he whispered back. "After all . . .it's just for forever . . ."
Forever. That was it. The kiss that would last forever . . . a love that would be forever . . . but she couldn't be forever. Faye suddenly realized what Jet had meant. In a sense, this here in her arms, that was forever. But then again, her life was in the real world. She would always have this forever to come back to someday. But until then life was life. That was how he would have wanted her to live it.
That was how he'd lived his.
He was fading more quickly now, slowly becoming lighter and lighter. She could still make out that one same smile, glittering pearl white in the gloom.
"All we seek and all we seem . . ."
"Is just a dream within a dream," she finished the line where he left it off.
"Yeah . . ."
With that, the remaining image of Spike Spiegel, the odd-eyed cowboy, disappeared from sight, winking out slowly, like the memory of morning dewdrops.
And she was alone again.
Slowly, she could feel the whole world beginning to collapse around her, her body beginning to float back into the stars toward the other reality . . .
"If I had the chance
I'd whisk us away . . ."
* * *
The dark was soft and easy, accepting her with warm, open arms. With halfway reluctant arms, she accepted it.
For a moment or two, she tried to pretend that it wasn't real, that she was still in his arms, still in that endless forever. But that did not last. She opened her eyes, sighing.
So now was the ending, and yet was the beginning. Just as a day was to end, a new one would always have to begin.
That was the way he would have said it. That was the he would have wanted her to do.
Yawning, she began looking around. He was still in here, wasn't he? It was an aura that just seemed to follow him all around, a certain sixth sense so you always knew he'd been around. You could feel him there, like a perfume, an incense that spoke of just one man.
And yet, she somehow felt a new aura in here. It was her own aura, an aura that said yet so clearly "This is the place the two of you lay, and this is the place you can always find your sanctuary."
But where that sanctuary was and where it might take her, she could only guess.
Yawning, she shifted in the covers, preparing to make back for her own room again. It was too lurid in here, memories and ghosts going about freely as they may. She was just getting herself out of bed when she suddenly noticed it.
It was just a common sort of thing; not the sort you usually pay attention to unless you were really looking for it. Still, she was surprised she hadn't seen it until now.
Just lying there on the table . . . one lonesome cigarette, fell short of his pack of brothers laying just a few feet away. It looked so lonesome just there . . . how long had it sat there, just waiting to be smoked, to feel the taste of a flame and never quite there.
Carefully, she looked it over. Strange . . .somewhat loose-leaf, outside stiff and compact, plain, no real trace of flavoring, the hard- core kind of cigarette . . . his cigarette.
Now she remembered. He'd pulled this one out to smoke it . . . but he'd never gotten to it. He'd left before he'd had a chance. He must have taken another pack with him when he left.
Funny, how things like that turned out . . . one solitary cigarette, destined to be the last on his lips . . . and never to have it. You would almost feel sorry for the thing. Left behind . . .
Kinda like her, if you thought about it long enough.
Suddenly, with a slow move to her pocket, she retrieved her lighter. What was the harm of just another smoke? She set it on her lips and lit the tip up.
What was it about this thing that seemed so special? The flavor was stale and bittersweet, just the kind that he smoked; straight like tobacco. There was just a way the flavor danced in her mouth, snapping at her taste buds. Funny . . . this was just the kind of thing he would love; tough, bittersweet, and at the same time, with that old-fashioned, boyish, cocky charm that no one could resist, so simple and yet so good.
Kinda like him, if you thought about it long enough.
Faye felt the fumes grilling through her lungs, taking it away from her lips to exhale in exhilaration. With calm eyes, she watched the smoke drift up and away from her lips, two little swirling snakes, one darker, one lighter, entwining around one another.
That was just the way it was. Two eyes, two faces, two Spikes . . . and they would both live insider her. There was the Yang Spike, Spike of the Light . . . this was the Spike Spiegel that would live in her heart forever, waiting for her in the eternalness. And there was Yin Spike, Spike of the Darkness . . . this was the Spike that had left her alone forever, the one who had died.
But couldn't it be that was the way it was supposed to be? Maybe that was it.
Maybe the world was just one big Yin Yang; one big balancing, unbalancing, whirling, twirling, glorious, terrible chaos, and everything, in this dimension and the others, was just the specks of dust caught in the current.
Maybe everything had to happen for some weird, unknown, nobody-can- even-imagine-it reason.
Maybe this was the way it was supposed to be after all.
And as Faye Valentine sat smoking an old stale cigarette and pondering the mysteries of the universe, but two words came to her.
"Goodnight . . . cowboy."
And just then, if you had listened very hard, very well, as Faye did, you might have heard what she heard.
A familiar voice, with a familiar figure, a familiar sigh, a familiar face, and familiar eyes . . .
"Bang."
But then, it might have just been the wind . . .
THE END
Wow . . . this fic is over. Someone please review it for me. I just have to know.
A/N: Wave, fanfic people . . . last chapter . . .
Silk on Steel
Chapter Eight: Just for Forever
It was oddly quiet on the Bebop tonight.
It was really her fault, if you really thought about it. Jet was in bed, miserable with a head cold which he'd probably procured by running around in the rain for hours without a coat on. He'd gone grumbling off to bed about two hours ago, and despite the home-made chicken soup Faye had botched royally, she could still hear him up sniveling and coughing. For once in her life, Ed was actually attempting to be helpful and had retired to her room for a night of fun-filled surfing, RPing, and hacking on the Ethernet instead of keeping them all awake with her constant antics like normal. Ein was, for once, acting even remotely like a normal Welsh Corgi, and had decided to take a nice long snooze in the air vents, where he could stay nice and warm, just the perfect place for a pup-style snooze fest.
And then there was her, lying cocooned in the sheets on his bed, trying in this mad, twisted chaos of his essence to sort through the layers of her mind and dreams to a place where she could somehow move on and make it out alive.
And it didn't' help that it wasn't so damn quiet.
Faye sighed. She didn't like it much; she'd just gotten so used to constant chaos around here, and then it all changed on her again . . . suddenly the moroseness began to fall over her again.
How was she supposed to get through this? How did you get rid of a guy that just clung to your heart like glue? That goofy grin; that half bitch-ass; half cliché cop-flick, half bluesy jazz profile; that mop-slop-top hair; those mismatched eyes . . . and of course, who could forget that laugh. When Spike Spiegel laughed, it was like his joke on the whole world, especially on himself.
Faye could feel a little tear stray down her face, solitary and lonely. Would she ever, ever in a thousand years hear that laugh again?
Would she ever, ever in a thousand years truly feel alive again?
Trying her best to beat such thoughts out of her mind, she rolled over, facing the wall so none could see the war going on in her tired, clawed heart. None, of course, but anyone who even looked at her face.
And Faye began to sing a little song she knew . . .
"If I had the chance I'd whisk us away Leave this deadly dance On this dark holiday."
She kept on humming the tune, bar after bar, until they drifted away, away into the abyss in her heart that might someday heal again.
But the music didn't stop there. From somewhere that seemed far away, someone was singing, singing . . . singing so beautifully, so angelically, it was as if from other worlds. No longer were the words that of a lament, but of a lullaby. Suddenly, the whole world seemed a little bit softer, a little less violent, a little cruel.
Faye sighed deeply and began to close her eyes. It was all so beautiful. Why couldn't things be like this always? Everything would be so perfect . . . everything . . . perfect . . . perfect if just . . .
". . . if you were here . . ."
"Yes," she answered herself aloud, whispering, "you make it perfect . . . you make everything perfect . . ."
* * *
It was dark . . . frightening. With a sudden shock of pain, her hands hit cold hard metal, the blood pulsing in her fingertips, the surface slick with rain. Faye shook her head. Where we she? Curiously, she looked around. Last she knew, she was trying to fall asleep in his bed . . .
"Ohh!" she gasped, looking down at the street far below. It was so huge, so high . . . sure, she'd been on the tops of big buildings before, but somehow, this was different.
What was wrong with her? Something was terribly, terribly wrong here . . . but what? Where was she anyway?
And then, in the moonlight, rising into vision like a thing of hell . . .
A bright silver emblem: Sayora. . . the name echoed somewhere in her mind, over and over. The question: from where?
Server found. She let out a little cry, clamping her hands to her mouth before she could make another sound. Her knees collapsed and she fell to the floor, shaking.
This was the spot, the hollowed ground, her love had fallen upon. It was here, here he'd smoked his last cigarette, spoke his last words. Here was the place thought the thoughts, dreamt the dreams she would never, never know in a thousand years. On this ground, this ground . . . he had drawn his last breath.
~'Coward'~
In an indefinable dimension, she heard the word somewhere, breaking through space and time. Before her, a silhouette, a man standing brave and proud, a man so familiar . . . a black figure from above, floating down, down, down, a white demon, a master of the night . . . CRASH! In that singular millisecond, two brothers one, and then gone again . . . she sat glued in her spot, her eyes widened in utter awe, watching as silver blade flashing in the dark . . .
~'Is that a fact, Spiegel?'~
Somewhere in Faye Valentine's mind, an eyelash, weighted to a tear-drop, fell upon a mirror and shattered it.
What was happening here? Was she going to have to actually watch him die, watch him struggle with this white dragon for his lasting breath, watch the light flee from his eyes, pupils swell, body go limp . . . her mind came to a crashing halt.
"WHAT KIND OF WORLD IS IT?" she asked to the night.
Her answer would come sooner than she could have guessed.
"Not exactly your ballet, is it?" a voice behind her came. In an instant, the two shadow figures seemed to fade and slowly disappear into the rainy night air, becoming more and more like the air until they were nothing.
Faye whirled around, aghast. Who was that? A figure in the night . . . as her vision cleared, she let out a gasp.
There before her, was tall thin man, cigarette dangling carelessly from his mouth, a great mop of messy, bed-head like hair like a dark bush, brushing in the wind with his long coat fluttering around his lean, graceful form. And those eyes . . . it was so quiet out here, she could even hear his breath, like the waves on the shore . . .
"But . . . but how . . . how-" she stuttered, unable to speak.
"How could I be here when I'm gone?" he finished her sentence for her, crushing his cigarette under his feet. "Sorry. I hate to tell you this, but I'm not exactly sure. Heh," he laughed. "Funny . . ."
"What's funny?"
"I dunno. I guess . . . well . . ." Spike seemed to be having a hard time with words himself. His great beautiful eyes turned toward the sky, searching for some salvation he would never have.
"I guess I just never knew what I was doing, d'you know what I mean? I mean, we walk around, thinking we're the ones in charge, that we're the ones who know what's going on, like we're the kings of the world and everything's just going to up and change for us. But . . . what is our reality, really? If you really think about everything we don't know, everything that isn't in our hands, you have to start thinking . . . who's really running the show here?"
"Spike . . ."
"Mmm?" he asked.
"Why did you leave me?" her tear-and-rain washed eyes staring up at him for answers.
Spike sighed, looking down at her, she being so sad and small, like a little child. He took her in his arms, the rain running down the both of them.
"I'll never leave you . . ."
"But why did you have to?" she clutched closer in his arms, his calm, cool breath ruffling her soaking hair. "Why?"
"I'm always with you . . ." he whispered. "You'll never have to worry again . . ."
"Yeah right!" she suddenly shoved him away from her, an expression of pure rage on her face. "Yeah, you didn't leave me? Then what the hell is this?" she waved her arms around, indicating the surrounding desolateness. "What in hell do you call this?"
"Hey, c'mon now!" he insisted. "That isn't how it is at all. It's just-"
"Bullshit!" she exclaimed, kicking uselessly at the ground. "You gave everything up for this?!?"
Spike found himself wordless, and Faye didn't give him a chance.
"WHAT WAS IT WORTH?" the words rebounded over and over through the street, again and again.
Spike found he could say nothing to defend himself, and kept his eyes down. Faye stared angrily, folding her arms across her chest.
"Yeah. Just what I thought," she snarled.
Silence.
"So what IS here?" Faye snapped, looking around. "Isn't this sposed to be something at least?"
"She isn't."
Quickly, Faye turned on her heel and came to look at him.
"What?"
"You heard what I said," he repeated, taking a step toward her, warmly taking her in his arms. "She's not here. You mean more to me she is. You're more than anything. She doesn't have a place here. In fact, there's nobody here. There's only two people . . . only us . . ."
Faye looked up into his eyes, those eyes that had held hers for so long. Those eyes, those eyes . . . was she ever going to get over those eyes. Steel and flesh, yin and yang, two sides of the coin, two sacred brothers, one never to be complete without the other, in a war of death and yet in a song of harmony. But no matter what they really were to her, they were his eyes, the eyes of the man that had seen death again and again. They were the eyes of her love. Slowly, the two of them grew closer and closer . . . a kiss . . . a kiss that would last forever . . .
"Don't you ever leave me again," she whispered.
"I never did . . ."
Faye sighed, letting her body meld to his. If only they could stay here forever, to be suspended in this moment for the rest of forever. If only this heaven could be an eternity. If only . . .
If only in dreams.
Suddenly, just as those thought drifted through her mind, something changed in the air. It took her a minute to realize what it was exactly.
The rain . . . she couldn't hear the rain. She could feel it, she could see it . . . but she couldn't' hear . . . What was going on here?
"What's wrong?" Spike asked.
"I don't know . . . what's happened to the rain? . . ."
"Ahhhh," he sighed lowly as. "I think I get it now. Our time's up."
"WHAT?" she couldn't help but raise her voice this time. "What are you talking about, our time up?"
"You're waking up," he smiled, snapping at her nose. "You never were a deep sleeper."
"No! What are you talking about?"
"You're going back home." Now, she couldn't feel the rain either. Spike himself was starting to fade, his colors a little less vibrant than they had been a minute before.
"But I thought I was going to stay here!" she clutched even closer to him. "I want to stay here forever!"
Silence.
"You know that can't be," he sighed. "This . . ." he waved his palm at everything. "You disappear from all this when you wake up. It's the rule around here."
Faye didn't speak. For several seconds, she simply stared at him. She didn't know what to say.
"When will I ever see you again? . . . When can I be with you again?"
Spike smiled that smile she had waited to see so long. He brushed a straggling piece of hair out of her eyes.
"Do you know how foxy you look when you cry?"
Faye gave no answer but to clutch his slowly disappearing body.
"Spike?" she whispered.
"Hmm?"
"Will you wait for me . . . always?"
He smiled again. Faye felt a small smile, yet with the tears, arising together. It was funny how you could smile and cry at the very same time, and yet, it seemed just right just now.
"Of course I will," he whispered back. "After all . . .it's just for forever . . ."
Forever. That was it. The kiss that would last forever . . . a love that would be forever . . . but she couldn't be forever. Faye suddenly realized what Jet had meant. In a sense, this here in her arms, that was forever. But then again, her life was in the real world. She would always have this forever to come back to someday. But until then life was life. That was how he would have wanted her to live it.
That was how he'd lived his.
He was fading more quickly now, slowly becoming lighter and lighter. She could still make out that one same smile, glittering pearl white in the gloom.
"All we seek and all we seem . . ."
"Is just a dream within a dream," she finished the line where he left it off.
"Yeah . . ."
With that, the remaining image of Spike Spiegel, the odd-eyed cowboy, disappeared from sight, winking out slowly, like the memory of morning dewdrops.
And she was alone again.
Slowly, she could feel the whole world beginning to collapse around her, her body beginning to float back into the stars toward the other reality . . .
"If I had the chance
I'd whisk us away . . ."
* * *
The dark was soft and easy, accepting her with warm, open arms. With halfway reluctant arms, she accepted it.
For a moment or two, she tried to pretend that it wasn't real, that she was still in his arms, still in that endless forever. But that did not last. She opened her eyes, sighing.
So now was the ending, and yet was the beginning. Just as a day was to end, a new one would always have to begin.
That was the way he would have said it. That was the he would have wanted her to do.
Yawning, she began looking around. He was still in here, wasn't he? It was an aura that just seemed to follow him all around, a certain sixth sense so you always knew he'd been around. You could feel him there, like a perfume, an incense that spoke of just one man.
And yet, she somehow felt a new aura in here. It was her own aura, an aura that said yet so clearly "This is the place the two of you lay, and this is the place you can always find your sanctuary."
But where that sanctuary was and where it might take her, she could only guess.
Yawning, she shifted in the covers, preparing to make back for her own room again. It was too lurid in here, memories and ghosts going about freely as they may. She was just getting herself out of bed when she suddenly noticed it.
It was just a common sort of thing; not the sort you usually pay attention to unless you were really looking for it. Still, she was surprised she hadn't seen it until now.
Just lying there on the table . . . one lonesome cigarette, fell short of his pack of brothers laying just a few feet away. It looked so lonesome just there . . . how long had it sat there, just waiting to be smoked, to feel the taste of a flame and never quite there.
Carefully, she looked it over. Strange . . .somewhat loose-leaf, outside stiff and compact, plain, no real trace of flavoring, the hard- core kind of cigarette . . . his cigarette.
Now she remembered. He'd pulled this one out to smoke it . . . but he'd never gotten to it. He'd left before he'd had a chance. He must have taken another pack with him when he left.
Funny, how things like that turned out . . . one solitary cigarette, destined to be the last on his lips . . . and never to have it. You would almost feel sorry for the thing. Left behind . . .
Kinda like her, if you thought about it long enough.
Suddenly, with a slow move to her pocket, she retrieved her lighter. What was the harm of just another smoke? She set it on her lips and lit the tip up.
What was it about this thing that seemed so special? The flavor was stale and bittersweet, just the kind that he smoked; straight like tobacco. There was just a way the flavor danced in her mouth, snapping at her taste buds. Funny . . . this was just the kind of thing he would love; tough, bittersweet, and at the same time, with that old-fashioned, boyish, cocky charm that no one could resist, so simple and yet so good.
Kinda like him, if you thought about it long enough.
Faye felt the fumes grilling through her lungs, taking it away from her lips to exhale in exhilaration. With calm eyes, she watched the smoke drift up and away from her lips, two little swirling snakes, one darker, one lighter, entwining around one another.
That was just the way it was. Two eyes, two faces, two Spikes . . . and they would both live insider her. There was the Yang Spike, Spike of the Light . . . this was the Spike Spiegel that would live in her heart forever, waiting for her in the eternalness. And there was Yin Spike, Spike of the Darkness . . . this was the Spike that had left her alone forever, the one who had died.
But couldn't it be that was the way it was supposed to be? Maybe that was it.
Maybe the world was just one big Yin Yang; one big balancing, unbalancing, whirling, twirling, glorious, terrible chaos, and everything, in this dimension and the others, was just the specks of dust caught in the current.
Maybe everything had to happen for some weird, unknown, nobody-can- even-imagine-it reason.
Maybe this was the way it was supposed to be after all.
And as Faye Valentine sat smoking an old stale cigarette and pondering the mysteries of the universe, but two words came to her.
"Goodnight . . . cowboy."
And just then, if you had listened very hard, very well, as Faye did, you might have heard what she heard.
A familiar voice, with a familiar figure, a familiar sigh, a familiar face, and familiar eyes . . .
"Bang."
But then, it might have just been the wind . . .
THE END
Wow . . . this fic is over. Someone please review it for me. I just have to know.