Disclaimer - I don't own Cowboy Bebop…. Damn you Watanabe… damn you…

A/N: This might be the quickest I've ever gotten out another chapter. Go me! I've been getting some comments of Julia's attitude. So I wanted to take this time to really let you know what's going on up in my head. My story is AU. We have the characters in their… semi-natural state. Julia, in the series, was never really explored. I like to think she had a sense of humor. A "Spike-from-Buffy-the-Vampire-Slayer" kind of sense of humor. That's probably really off, but this Julia is really a lot of fun to write for. I mean… if you're in the mafia… you have to have a sick sense of humor. I imagine she's got a little of Spike and Vicious in her… no pun intended. She's probably a real bitch when she wants to be, but I imagine her as being able to poke fun at things. So I'm probably really off, as I said before, but I just thought I'd let you know why I made Julia the way I did

AND NOW…. Finally…. We get to the story

Dedication: To Elise, my rock, who gives me the strength and courage to do anything.

Dedication Number 2: To perhaps the coolest reviewer… Life is But a Dream2000, who reviews anything and everything I do. Who ever you are, you are too freaking cool

Deceptions

She always thought hell was supposed to be hot. Like… burn your skin hot. Flames leaping all around her. And Satan would be sitting on a gold throne and he would be laughing. And all around her would be murderers, thieves, the demon-ish things you saw on Sci-fi movies, and accountants.

Why accountants? She never knew. She just always heard stories about how hell would have accountants. Poor, poor accountants. Doomed to do math forever. She was never good at math. Once she had heard all the hell stories, she was glad she never gotten into accounting.

She always figured she'd go to hell. Never doubted it, in fact. Figured she'd live her life until she was killed, and then she'd go to that fiery pit of unpleasantness. But it didn't turn out that way.

She was in hell… oh yes. But not the traditional hell that people preach about. She was rather disappointed that flames weren't licking her skin. She was disappointed that Satan wasn't standing over her yelling at her to move faster, work harder…

Instead, hell was a jail cell. A dark, damp, dusty, smelled of mold, blood and shit jail cell. She wasn't even alone in it. She had company. Man… you'd think in hell, she could at least be by herself. But no. She figured that Satan was playing a joke on her. Ha, ha, look at you now, He was laughing. She could just imagine him.

She shook her head. She had been in this cell too long. She was hallucinating.

"Julia?"

She looked up at Faye. She couldn't find her in the darkness.

"What?" she answered. The pictures of fire and brimstone fled her mind for the moment.

"I was just making sure you were alive."

Julia smiled and shook her head. "Yeah… not dead yet."

The cell door opened. Julia and Faye squinted at the light. The guard came in, grabbed Julia, and walked out.

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"Déjà vu, much?" Spike asked once Julia was tied to a chair in the middle of the examination room.

"Hm… yeah a bit. You know, you could've redecorated the place. Replaced this ugly grey concrete with some nice wallpaper."

"Blood's easier to wash off concrete." Vicious replied.

Julia nodded. "Good answer." Julia smiled. "You know what's funny?"

"Nothing?" Spike guessed, mocking her.

"Well that, and you guys still want a code from me. It's crazy."

"Yeah, Julia, pretty crazy." Vicious said in a lazy tone, as if she were insane and he was just humoring her.

"And you wanna know what's hilarious?"

"What."

"I'm still not gonna give it to you!" Julia broke out in hysterical laughter. Spike and Vicious watched her as if she had a disease. Julia stopped her laughter and looked at the two.

"Oh man… what a laugh. You guys actually think I'm gonna give it to you."

"Don't think we won't kill you."

Julia's face turned to stone. "You won't kill me."

"You forget who you're dealing with." Vicious warned with a snarl.

"No, I know exactly who I'm dealing with." Julia retorted, eyes narrowing. "I'm dealing with a bunch of fucking punks. You'll keep me alive so I'll tell you the code. And I can't tell you the code when I'm dead."

Vicious watched her in silence, knowing she was right. "Just tell us Julia. If you do, we won't have to torture you."

Julia shot Vicious a determined look. "Bring on the fucking pain."

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Faye never knew how much she didn't like being locked up in a cell. Until now. She never thought that she would have to go in one. Cells were for criminals and bad people. The kind of people she locked away. Kind of ironic that that Police officer was locked up and the bad guys were still out there…. doing bad.

She joined the Police to do good. She never had one of those life-altering moments in which she vowed she would do good. She felt that the world was a piece of shit… and maybe she could help clean it up a bit. Yes, life was unfair. But as a police officer, she would make it fair.

A lot of good she was doing from a jail cell. Julia had been gone for a while. Faye wondered if she had been killed. She doubted it. Julia had some kind of code they needed. They thought they had her caught. It was probably Julia playing cat and mouse with them….

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A loud smack filled the room. Julia's blood flew from her mouth onto the walls. She let the blood run down her shin to her already bloodstained clothes.

"It's amazing you're not dead yet." Vicious commented, massaging the hand that had just hit Julia.

Julia answered him by spitting a wad of blood out of her mouth. It landed by his shoe and Vicious grimaced.

"Still not a lady, are you Julia?" Vicious glared at her, getting some satisfaction, knowing that she was in an excruciatingly large amount of pain.

All she could do was give him a murderous glare.

Vicious sighed. "We're not going to get anymore out of her tonight. Take her back."

The guards took Julia by the arms and dragged her out the door.

Once the door closed, Vicious whirled around and faced Spike. "What's your bright fucking idea now?" he seethed. "She's right you know. We can't kill her until she gives us the code. We are back at square fucking one."

"Calm down Vicious."

"Calm down? Calm down?" Vicious got inches away from Spike's unruffled face. "You want me to calm down, when our plan could go down the tubes?"

Vicious backed away and started to pace. "And then your little girlfriend turns out to be a police officer."

"You suspected that, Vicious." Spike reminded him. "We've prepared for this."

"They'll look for her."

"They won't find her." Spike replied.

Vicious smirked. "You're right." Vicious heaved a great sigh. "So now that leaves Julia." He turned to face Spike. "What are we going to do with Julia?"

"You leave her to me."

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Short Chapter, I know, but so much is gonna happen, It would make this one too long… so. … yeah.

Anyways, thanks for reading!

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