CB: Dealer's Hand, -III-
I never realized how empty the ship was when no one else was on it. After Ed and Ein left, and it was just Spike and me for so long again after Faye took off, I sort of got used to it. Just the two of us.
And there was a lot less to think about, when it was just the two of us. But I knew, somehow, that it couldn't stay that way. As much as Spike would like to play the lone cowboy, he's not. Not old enough, not hurt enough for that.
But then, I guess I'm not either. I might not see the same things in Faye as he does, but at the same time, I needed her around, as much as I needed Ed and Ein. There's what seems like an old picture of the five of us, now, in my bonsai room. It sits just behind the middle shelf, where only I can see it.
Spike doesn't go in there, and Faye never did unless something was wrong. Or unless she had something to tell me. She doesn't now. Can't.
I never realized how different all of us were. How far apart we really were from one another, until now.
Spike climbs through the hatch onto the bridge.
"We've got to go back to Mars," he says.
"We don't have to do anything."
He steps over to the window. "Remember when you said that you had something that you had to take care of… Alisa, that was her name."
"Leave her out of this." I glare at him. "Faye's your problem. You spent months trying to make her my problem. Now that she's yours, suddenly it's our responsibility to take my ship and go deal with it?"
"You're leaving her out of it now." He doesn't look up at me, instead he lays a hand across the back of my seat, which is empty for the moment.
I can almost see her leaning there with a saucy expression and her legs crossed. The heels of her boots are on the console.
The image, in its familiarity, is disturbing.
I frown.
"I didn't say that."
He trails his hand along the seat, and finally turns to look at me. His eyes are serious, honest.
"She wasn't my idea. And she wasn't yours." He grins. "That's the thing about women like Faye, Jette. You don't plan for them. They happen into your life like some self-important stray animal that you're not quite sure needs you, and you end up not letting them go."
I fold my arms, still not quite convinced. "And you going to Mars and getting your ass blown off has what to do with your stray-animal theory about Faye?"
"I'm not going to get my ass blown off, Jette."
"You're not immortal, you know."
"I've only ever met one person who thought they were, Jette." His face sobers and his eyes tell me it all, and I remember.
That kid… Wen.
Spike never said what happened to the kid, except that he died. And that means he was just being cocky about not being able to die, about escaping time. No one can escape time.
Spike seems to, a lot, lives through things he oughtn't be able to…
"A little too sure," Spike affirms, seeing that I have understood. "I know what I am and what I am not. And I am not what the Red Dragons are looking for."
"They seem to think otherwise."
"They are mistaken."
"Faye's one of them, you know. She might not look it, or act like it, but she is. At heart. Her father was one back before she was cryogenically frozen. That sort of thing has never been cheap, you know."
"I'll believe that when I see it."
The grin is back on his face. The impossible, helpless grin. He wears it whenever he's doing something that amuses him. Death seems to amuse him sometimes, and I thought he had nothing left to live for, but now… now I'm not so sure.
"Now will you take me to Mars, or do I have to go alone?"
"I'll take you to Mars."