Chapter 19: "(When You Wake) You're Still In A Dream"

-

"Ed?" Faye entered the living area of the ship. She didn't see the kid right off but could hear her clicking away on her keyboard. "Where are you?"

"Here, Faye-Faye!" Ed tossed up her hands, revealing herself to the woman. She went back to clicking the keys, her goggled eyes remained riveted to the monitor.

"Did you find out where we are?" asked Faye as she leaned on the back of the couch, watching Ed do her magic on the computer. Even though she was happy to know they were in a familiar part of space, she was anxious about the time period. She was impressed they'd come this far ... but had Vash delivered the miracle he'd promised?

"In space!"

Faye rolled her eyes. "I know that much. Are we where we're supposed to be in time?"

"Just a sec. Ed's a-lookin'."

Sighing, Faye rested an elbow on the back of the couch and propped her chin in her hand. She gave a quick side glance when Jet and Spike entered the room. "The whiz kid hasn't figured out if we're in the right time period yet," she reported. Her fingers drummed against her chin as she kept her eyes on Ed's screen.

Jet moved to the opposite side of the table, arms folded across his chest as he looked down on Ed. "We're on our way to Mars," he said as Spike sat down on the arm of the couch, near Faye. "It'd be nice to know if we're going to find anything when we get there."

"The gates are working," Faye sighed. "Someone's got to be around, Jet."

"Ed found something!" The girl yanked off her goggles and turned to Faye and Spike behind her. "Know when we are."

"So?" Faye stood straight. "When?"

Holding the computer up so they could see her screen, Ed declared, "Bebop is in the year 2081!"

"2081!" Jet turned the computer so he could see the screen for himself. There it was, right in front of him, the day stamp on a recently issued bounty from the ISSP: May 21, 2081.

"Ten years!" Faye stared at Jet who still held the computer. "Are you sure? We've lost ... ten ... years?" After Jet nodded, she groaned and fell over the back of the sofa, head hanging an inch from the cushion as she closed her eyes. "Not again!" She pounded her fists into the couch. "He said he could get us back! He promised!"

"Vashy did!" Ed hopped onto the couch, leaning over as she tried to see the woman's face. "Faye-Faye? We're home!"

Spike remained silent, rather stunned. Not so much over the fact they'd regained any time but that they were a mere ten years off from where they should be. The world changed so much in one year, how much had it changed in a decade? Ten years. She's older. So is he. While I'm ... His gaze dropped to his hands. ... the same. He clenched them into fists. If they're even alive ... if she is ...

Faye let out a frustrated growl then stood straight, tossing her hair out of her face. "Ten friggin' years! This isn't fair! Why does this keep happening to me!"

"You're not the only one who lost a chunk of his life, Faye, so stop bitching," Spike coldly said, his eyes hard on the flustered woman.

"Spike - "

"Don't bother, Jet," Faye shortly cut in, glaring at Spike. "I'm leaving, anyway." She turned and headed out of the room, her jaw clenched tight. Maybe completely once we get to Mars.

Spike scoffed as Faye stormed out. "She thinks everything is about her."

"She's not the only one around here who believes that."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Think about it." After a few moments of waiting for it to dawn on Spike who he meant, he just shook his head then headed back to the bridge.

Ed peered up at Spike, raising an eyebrow. When he looked down on her, she turned to her computer, dropping the goggles over her eyes. Humming, she began to catch up on everything they'd missed in the last ten years.

"Ed?" Spike crouched down beside her on the floor, his hands clasped together in front of him, elbows resting on his knees.

"Aye?"

"Could you look up a few things for me?"

"What things?"

"People. Two of them."

She lifted her goggles as she turned to him. "Yep, yep. Ed can do it."

-

Two Weeks Later ...

Faye strolled into the bay where her ship, along with Spike's and Jet's, was in storage. It was quiet in here, as quiet as a place could get on the Bebop for all of the noise it made. She'd spent quite a bit of time here in the last two weeks, using it for reflection and contemplation. When she stayed in her quarters for too long, Jet showed up at her door, concerned. Here, she was out of her room and able to be alone.

She ran her fingers over the hull of her Red-Tail, looking up at it. She noticed flecks of red dirt on one of the landing gears. With a flick of her wrist, she brushed it away. The last remnants of Gunsmoke, proof that their adventure wasn't some bad dream, fluttered helplessly to the floor. With a sigh, she leaned against her ship, her eyes traveling around the bay. She used to consider this hunk of junk home. Not lately, though.

Since the day they'd returned, she and Spike had barely spoken four words to each other. He was more broody than before, too. He either sulked in the living area or he stared out of the window in some other part of the ship, with a complete absence of emotion in his eyes. She didn't know what the hell he was so torn up about - he'd only lost ten years of his life. She'd now lost sixty.

I sure look fabulous for an 83 year old, she thought with a weak smile.

The smile faded as she folded her arms across her stomach and tipped her head back so she could gaze up at the ceiling. Her mind went back to her sole quandary, the thing she'd wrestled with for two weeks: should she stay or should she go?

The loss of ten years was a benefit for her. Her creditors or anyone else wanting money from her more than likely wrote her off as dead. Then, she had no real idea what kind of Mars waited for them at the other end of the hypergate. Had it become as unlivable as Earth? From what Ed found on the Net, it didn't seem to be much different than before. Well, except for the fact that The Big Shot, the television show for bounty hunters, was no longer on the air. It was canceled not long after they'd disappeared.

Her mind wandered to the crew. Jet and Ed, she had no problem with. Spike ... Spike was the bad card in the hand she'd been dealt this time around. He'd never leave Jet. Unless it was about that damn Julia, he wouldn't. Other than that, he would remain.

But could she?

-

Down in the living area, Spike sat on the couch, his cigarette burning as it hung loosely between two fingers, his gaze locked on the images on Ed's computer monitor. The day they'd returned, he'd asked the girl to use her skills to locate two people - Julia and Vicious. As he stared at the results of that search, he rather regretted doing so.

Julia. The picture was exactly like the one he carried in his memory. Her beautiful face, her mysterious eyes, everything about the woman who'd haunted him for three years looked back at him from the screen, just as he remembered her. Underneath that phantasm, in bold red letters, was a single word: DECEASED.

According to the reports filed by the ISSP, she was murdered, on Earth, not long after the Bebop had vanished. Murdered. The authorities attributed it to one of the Syndicates, but they didn't know which one. He did, though. While he was trapped on that goddamn desert world in the future, Vicious dealt him one final blow. The worst. After almost two weeks of finding out the only woman he'd ever truly loved was dead, he still couldn't accept it.

This existence he found himself trapped in, it couldn't be a waking nightmare. This was Hell. A place of eternal torture with no hope for escape. In a dream, even in a nightmare, a person had the comfort of knowing it would soon end. Not in Hell. Not here.

His hand reached out and clicked one of the keys. Julia's face was replaced by Vicious' - a ten years aged Vicious'. He still had those cold, lifeless eyes. No amount of physical change could alter that feature about a man he'd once called a brother.

Unlike Julia, his enemy fared much better during his absence. A hostile takeover staged by Vicious placed him in charge of the Red Dragons. After a decade under Vicious' control, the Syndicate grew more powerful than they'd ever been in previous years. Other Syndicates crumbled. It was only a matter of time before he was an unopposed force in the criminal underworld.

He took a drag off of the cigarette which had mostly burned itself to ash in the last five minutes. Even though circumstances beyond his control had taken him out of the game, he blamed himself for the current state of affairs. For Vicious' stranglehold on everyone around him, for Julia's death, for all of it. Revenge, a cold, calculating revenge, was in order. One that would not only destroy Vicious but his whole goddamn empire.

Jet stopped in the doorway and kept silent when he saw what Spike was up to in there. He shook his head then watched the young man take another drag off his cigarette. Two weeks this had been going on. As though staring at the monitor would change anything. Dwelling on the past, forgetting the present even existed, that was Spike's specialty.

"If you're hungry - "he began as he stepped into the room.

"I'm not," Spike interrupted. He punched another button and Vicious disappeared from the screen. He glanced over his shoulder. "Is that it?"

Jet leaned against a railing, looking down on Spike. "You haven't eaten much in the last two weeks. You can't go on like this."

Spike flicked the ashes into the ashtray beside Ed's computer. "You're going to do something about it?" he asked, a certain amount of amusement in his voice.

"Starving yourself to death won't bring her back."

"I don't plan on dying, Jet, so you can stop worrying." He ground out the cigarette and laid back on the couch, closing his eyes.

"Killing him won't change it, either."

"No. But it'll make me feel better." In truth, it wouldn't do anything for how he felt. It just needed to be done. His hands folded together and he rested them on his stomach. "You remind me of Vash these days. All of this non-violence bullshit."

"Maybe it's not bullshit, Spike."

"We're not on his backwater planet. We're in our world now." His eyes opened and stared at the ceiling above. "Ours is an existence without mercy or compassion. You'd better readjust yourself or you'll end up just as dead as she is."

"No."

He sat up, looking back to Jet. "No, what?"

"If anyone here will end up dead, it's you." Jet turned and left the room. If Spike wanted to continue on his downward spiral to self-destruction, he wouldn't get in the way. Everyone made their own choices in life. Spike had the right to make his, even if they were the wrong ones.

Spike stared at the doorway for a minute after Jet had left. Jet Black had changed on Gunsmoke, that much was certain. Vash's influence remained, strongly affecting his reactions to everything. If the old Jet didn't return, he'd be useless as a partner. At least, before their trip, he could trust Jet with his life. Nowadays, he wasn't so sure.

Faye stopped suddenly after she'd entered the room from the other corridor. She wanted to run before Spike saw her. Too late. Her hesitation gave him the chance to look over the back of the couch. Her gaze averted and she hurried through the room, headed for the door Jet had just passed through.

"How do you do it?"

She froze in the doorway when she heard Spike's question. A hand rested on the doorframe, then she dared to look over her shoulder at him. "Do what?" she asked, keeping her voice low. She'd attempted cold but that hadn't worked. The expression on his face automatically softened some of her anger towards him.

"Losing a piece of your life." He paused, the image of Julia's face pushing its way back into his conscious mind. The pain was almost too much to bear. His life was easier before her, before she'd made him care about something. "How do you deal with that?"

Her gaze drifted away from him and settled on the floor as she thought on his query. She couldn't remember her family, that made it easier. As for the loss of time, the absence of memory was also a plus. She'd carved out a niche for herself in three years, made a life that she could remember, found a place to belong, and then stupidly fell in love with the wrong man.

She lifted her head, her eyes meeting his again. "I just move on, Spike," she softly answered. Swallowing, she felt the lump in her throat growing. She managed to get out of the room before the tears fell. After taking ten labored steps, she leaned against the wall for support.

I can't stay here, she thought as she wiped her fingers over her eyes, sweeping away the tears before they could fall to the floor. I can't ... I can't ... Her eyes closed as she rested her head against the cool metal of the wall. I can't leave, either ... for all of the reasons that I can't stay ...

-

More To Come ...

Song Title Used: "(When You Wake) You're Still In A Dream" by My Bloody Valentine