Blanket Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. Original characters and plot are, however, the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is being made from this work.
A/N: Forgive OOCness I loaned out my Bebop DVDs and then came up with the idea for this. Its been months since I've actually watched an episode or the movie. Also, the intro is typical of many CB fics I've read, but it quickly branches away.

Goodbye to You
by Barbara C.

Part One

Empty corridors, cold gray steel and rusted metal pipes were all that accompanied the couple as they stood near an intersection. These corridors lead to everywhere and nowhere all at the same time; much like the conversation the two people were having.

"My memory finally came back," It was a statement; not meant to elicit emotion, or reaction as one might think it should. It was simply meant to inform. The woman who uttered the statement, however, stared hard at the wall rather than the person to whom she was speaking. Then again, his back was to her so it likely wouldn't have mattered anyway. "But nothing good came of it," she continued. "There was nothing left for me to return to." Her hands clenched tightly, the nails threatening to draw blood from the palm. The force of the emotion held within her was currently great enough to threaten such an act, but not enough to carry one out. "This was the only place I could go."

Whirling his direction, her volume increased as frantic emotions began to surface; emotions that were being held back by only a slim thread. "And now you're leaving, just like that!" she accused. "Why do you have to go?" The thread began to fray as tears welt up in her eyes and her voice began to quiver. "What are you going to do?! Just throw your life away? Like it was nothing?! Spike..."

Without a single glance back at the sobbing woman, the man finally spoke. "I'm not going there to die." He paused. "I'm going there to find out if I'm really alive. I have to do it, Faye." And that was it. That was all he had to say before walking away, never once bothering to look back.

She didn't know how to reply to his total disregard for his personal well being, as well as her damn emotional well being. His pretty words earlier about one eye seeing the past and the other seeing the present were bull. Complete bull! He had both eyes focused solely on his past, along with his stupid heart, and his idiot mind. Not on his future or his friends, and certainly not on Faye and what he was putting her through.

As he continued to walk away, toward a dead past, she found her answer and leveled her gun on his retreating back. He didn't hesitate, not even when the telltale click of the safety being removed echoed down the passageway.

The thread snapped.

BANG!

"Lunkhead," a woman muttered to no one in particular. "I should've done it. I could've…n't." Instead, she had fired the entire cartridge into the ceiling of the Bebop as Spike Spiegal walked away.

Taking a rather unladylike gulp from a glass of vintage Merlot to drown out the memories, the woman known to some of the less than reputable universe as Faye Valentine, choked. Slamming down the wineglass her eyes watered and she struggled for breath, drawing the attention of a passing waiter. After a few moments she was able to recover and wave off the young man. Glad the glass hadn't broken and caused a bigger scene; she began wiping the excess moisture from her eyes and wondered whether her dinner guest for the evening would think she had been crying.

That couldn't happen. It wouldn't happen.

Pulling a compact from her purse, she opened it and began repairing her face. The mascara problem was quickly taken care of and a fresh application of lipstick was seen to. Satisfied, she put the compact and cosmetics back in their place.

Sipping her drink this time, she thought about her dinner guest. She hadn't seen him in years. She set down the glass and let her eyes fall shut. Five years, eight months, and twenty-four days. She knew the numbers by heart, even as they grew. Whenever she thought about the numbers, it pained her that she remembered them so clearly and so precisely. Taking a deep breath she steeled herself. She couldn't let that get to her. She had to be strong.

Running a hand across the silken fabric of her dress, for the thousandth time, Faye reassessed herself and her surroundings. The dress wasn't cheap and neither was the restaurant. Then again neither were the crème de la crème of society. She knew he'd be uncomfortable and embarrassed in a upscale setting and she wasn't about to go back to bell peppers and beef, sans the beef, for old times sake so she had settled on a moderately elegant establishment with food to die for.

Her dark hair was combed straight so it fell down her back in waves; her long unruly bangs currently remained tucked behind dainty ears. She remembered the old shampoo commercials she had grown up with. If she had looked liked this back then, she would have been a star. As it was, so far this evening Faye received quite a few stares from admirers' but she was only worrying about one man tonight, leaving the others to be quickly forgotten.

Her dress helped the over all look tremendously. It was a classic Earth original. When she'd seen it at the boutique, she knew it wasn't a fake and could name the designer without even being told. For a moment, she had been transported back years to when her mother had hired the designer to create her cousin's wedding dress. This creation however, was no wedding dress; it was an elegant, yet unpretentious concoction of silk and lace. The simple lines of the pale aqua slip-dress were complimented by the darker teal lace overlay. Elegant, simple, and stunning, the saleswoman had told her. The woman had also informed Faye that the dress both balanced and enhanced her darker, more exotic features noting her hair and eyes. Faye smiled as she remembered her mother telling her cousin the same thing about the wedding dress once it had been finished. Her father on the other hand had just shrugged his shoulders and footed the bill, being her cousin's guardian at the time.

A wistful smile crossed Faye's features as she remembered the romance of it all. She had turned fourteen that year and had been asked to be the flower girl. Even though she complained she was too old for that duty, she accepted because she knew she wouldn't be in the wedding otherwise. Her cousin had been wildly in love with a young man she had met while going to the university and the summer wedding was going to be the talk of the town for some time. The whirlwind romance reminded Faye of the story her mother had told her about when she and Faye's father had met. Her mother had been a Japanese exchange student, her father an American business man, whom had fallen in love and they made a home half way between the worlds they had grown up in. Hawaii; famed for its coconuts, luaus, surfing, and Elvis Presley movies was where Faye had grown up. Not that anyone nowadays would remember who Elvis was.

As she reminisced, the house band, a rather good jazz band by the sound of them, struck up a beat knocking the dark haired woman from her daydreams. She took a sip from her wine as she thought to herself. She wasn't a big fan of jazz. Spike on the other hand...and her father. Her father had loved the stuff. She drifted off again wondering how the two men would have gotten along if they had ever met. She almost laughed at the thought; in fact, she did manage a chuckle. Spike would have pissed the old man off with some oblique comment and her father would have…

Faye wasn't quite sure what her father would have done. He wasn't the type that got into tiffs or tussles. She groaned as the thought of her word usage. "And professional life bleeds into the rest of the mess I'd like to call a life," she muttered. Writers, you can't live with 'em, you can't live without 'em. Of course, she thought, the same could be said of men, dogs, children, and criminals.

She glanced at the time on a delicate silver watch that wrapped around her right wrist and then sipped again from her Merlot. Good year. She'd have to remember this place and maybe put it in her next book. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out a small notepad and a pen and scratched a few notes onto the lined pages. She was a throwback; literally, she liked to think, having been cryogenically frozen for all those years. Faye wrote all her stories and notes onto paper and boxed the ideas away for rainy days rather than inputting everything onto computers where someone, like Edward, could hack them. She had gotten into the habit when she took a creative writing class several months after leaving the Bebop.

She hadn't known what to do with her life and spent most of her time drinking her funds away when she remembered, again, what it was she had wanted to do with her life. She had wanted to teach. She had always wanted to help people and teaching was the best way to do that. Of course, the time after cryo had changed her. Faye knew that the "new" her wouldn't be able to deal with kids, or adults for that matter. Teaching was completely out of the question, but maybe if she took a few classes she might reconnect with other things that interested her; besides cheerleading.

Two years later, Memories was on the bestseller list. A year after that Serenade surpassed its predecessor in time spent on the list and even made it to the number two spot. With encouragement from her professor, V. Prescott had become a breakout bestselling novelist of gritty crime dramas. No one knew who exactly V. Prescott was, so they likely wouldn't connect the "V" with Faye Valentine, pain-in-the-ass cowgirl. Faye had returned to using her real name, Prescott, once she had left the Bebop, rather than using some word a quack doctor had been fond of. She felt it gave her a sense of anonymity. Faye further encouraged this idea by telling her agent not to print any pictures of her, give out her full name, or do interviews; to give an added depth of mystery to the books and her literary persona, she told the man.

Most of the reason for the secrecy dealt with the fact that she didn't know who or if people were still after her, that she wanted to keep the name Prescott clean and clear of the crap that the name Valentine had piled up. Also, if anyone she remotely knew in that past life read her books and made some of the loose connections she had written about to the real life people and crimes then she might have to pay out and she wasn't about to have that happen. So, for now, most of the literary world didn't know if V. Prescott was male or female, young or old, or anything really. There were plenty of rumors circulating though, of course those dwindled with book signings, but the chances of being identified were still so very slim and the book signings were fairly rare occurrences that Faye didn't worry too often about problems cropping up.

She chuckled to herself as she thought about what the others who had been on the Bebop would think about their literary counterparts. The characters were recurring, down on their luck bounty hunters. Fortunately she was creative enough to ensure the characters were very loosely based on the people she knew. Descriptions, ages, relationships, even genders had changed even she sometimes forgot about the loose basis because the characters had developed themselves so well and so differently from their original counterparts.

Her smile faded. Better than real life. Real life couldn't be scripted out for happily ever after. Real life came barreling straight at you and if you didn't like what it had to give you, it would shove it down your throat, whether you wanted it or not. Shaking her head to rid herself of bad memories, Faye took another sip of her wine and thought about the three book deal she had just signed to. Rather lucrative and better than that, she had the outlines for all but the third completed.

She wondered what her guest would say about such a deal. He'd probably ask her what scam she was running, but she knew better. With a new name came a new life and she had long ago left that road of self destruction. It had been nearly six years since she'd seen him last. How had he changed after all this time? Brushing back a long lock of dark hair with her fingers, she wondered if he'd notice the changes in her as well. Not just the cosmetic ones, but the fact that somewhere along the way she'd grown up. Did his smile still comfort? Did her pet peeves about him still exist? Had he found someone to replace her? Easily or not? In that life, she scowled, everything could be easily replaced. No, she corrected, they'd only thought everything could be replaced, because they'd taken everything for granted.

Taking another sip of her wine, she brushed away the cobwebs of thought and listened again to the band. The song was old, from sometime in the mid 20th century; it was an upbeat classic which drew her attention away from where her thoughts had been. A distraction, exactly what she had needed. Now if only her dinner guest would show. Gazing at the delicate silver watch wrapped around her wrist, she tapped her foot impatiently then went back to noting things about the restaurant and its patrons. Soon again, she was consumed with thoughts on how the old crew of the Bebop would act in a swanky establishment like this and who their bounty might be. These thoughts led to what her characters might think or do. And she let them take hold as her focus on her surroundings waned and soon she was staring off into space.

"Is this seat taken," a voice broke through her thoughts.

Looking up at the familiar face, she revealed a stunning and authentic smile, which somewhat startled the man. He wasn't used to receiving genuine emotions from her, much less smiles. Then again he hadn't seen her in over five years. People change. He had.

"Hello, Jet."

Yup, it's good ol' Jet. Now, the question is what can good ol' Jet do for lil' ol' Faye? Read on, review if you'd like, I know I'd like. :)

I chose Hawaii as Faye's home because I couldn't identify the landmarks in the flashbacks. Knowing the setting is Asian, but having watched them in English...a mid-Pacific location made sense. (I've since been told its Singapore, but have decided tinkering a little might dig me a hole I can't crawl out of, so Hawaii will remain.)