Hey there! Here's a quick note to clear up some plot-screwed-upped-ness, if you really like my fancy, schmancy, hyphenated fake word.
Ok so I know that the ending scene to CB didn't take place at the church. Well big deal. It you really care so much about plot continuality you shouldn't be reading Spike revival fics *watches people walk away* Doh!
Anywho... I wanted the scene in the church. Why? Well for reasons both revolving around symbolism and because I've been listening to Walk in the Rain an insane amount of times by even fangirl standards. I put a lot of thought into the settings for the climatic scenes in this story and I feel that the chapel works much better than a half-incinerated office building.
Oh yeah, I know it's been a while since I updated and I apologize hugely for that. At first it was writers block—I banged my head against the wall over and over but no ideas came (go figure…)
And then it was my writing time, which has been invaded by my new neighbor, and I just can't write wit him over my shoulder because I'm one of those self-conscious types.
Oh well, I hope you enjoy chapter 5—it was a long time coming but I still just don't know…
Chapter 5
Margaret felt the stinging sensation behind her eyes before she'd even completely woken up. It warned her of what had happened, so when she looked around to see the glowing flowers she wasn't surprised at all. Instead, panic took over. She didn't know how long she'd been sleeping but Dismer obviously already had a head start, and her chances of finding the target before he did were slim.
The poppies lay all over in full bloom, and the tiny, shinning spores floated up from the open petals towards the ceiling. They were hunting, and she'd have to follow.
"Shit," she hissed, standing up and brushing herself off. She'd just set her rose tinted glasses back on her nose when she noticed she wasn't alone.
"Bad word! Bad word!" scolded a girlish-boyish kid from right next to her. Margaret jumped in surprise as the child leapt at her, proclaiming, "Ed will wash your mouth out with soap!"
The child crashed right into her, slamming Margaret down onto her back with a wriggling mass of someone not quite human but definitely mammalian on her stomach. The poppies had cushioned her fall, and when the two hit the plants the blossoms puffed out an extra cloud of spores as if in defiance.
"Ooowww…."
Her protective glasses dislodged and her eyes already on the ceiling, Margaret could see the spores floating up and up—that was strange…they normally dispersed in all directions… The glowing particles grew brighter as they neared the ceiling, in the way that signaled a target lock, and she squinted to get a better look as the spores sifted through the cracks in the beams.
"Ed! Faye! Are you in there?" somebody called from the door, and the voice was soon followed by a bark.
"Ed is here!" said the thing on her stomach, and Margaret felt her lungs regain their full capacity as 'Ed' jumped off of her and rushed towards the voice.
Margaret got up as well, but kept her focus straight upward, watching the spores filter through the cracks in the paneled ceiling. Going straight up… that meant the target was either in an airship overhead, or…
"Where's Faye?" asked the voice near the door.
Faye? Margaret's head snapped downward as she recognized the target's name, and she looked toward the man and child conversing near the door. The courtyard visible behind them, she noted, was bathed in unnatural moonlight.
"Faye-Faye went upstairs to see noisy-person."
"Upstairs?" the man repeated as she shouted it at the same time. The guy looked over at Margaret in perplexed surprise.
But he didn't have time to ask make commentary, for she'd already made a beeline for the staircase.
~*~*~*~
"You know, Miss Valentine," the assassin said as if making conversation, "Even if it is my job, I don't believe killing should be ceremonial."
Faye only coughed in reply. More and more of the poppy spores swirled around her, on her, clinging to her skin, stinging her eyes, clouding her air with a suffocating perfume.
She couldn't breathe. And nearly worse, she was positive the radiating particles were getting into her blood, forcing it to heat.
"It would have been easier to just shoot your ship down back while it was en route…" the assassin continued. "But nooo…" he sounded annoyed as he kicked her side, forcing her off her stomach and facing him. Faye looked up at her potential killer, a tall man with brown spiky hair who wore a dark blue flight suit to match his ship. He looked annoyed with something but for some reason, she didn't believe she had much to do with it.
"Old fool insists we do it this way…" his eyes flicked to the window, where a newly formed Moon hovered just above them over the city, bright and full. "God, I hate calling cards…" the assassin muttered to himself before turning his attention to Faye.
She glared at him, fighting off the horrible urge to gag as the spores scratched at her wind pipe, all so she could die frowning at him if dieing had to be done.
His bushy eyebrows twisted up as he looked her up and down, smiling in approval. "Sorry honey," he said in faux drunken sincerity as he lowered his pistol to point at her chest. "I'd much rather date you than kill you."
"Then why don't you?" Faye had to try, although she doubted she could sound very seductive with the glowing pollen scaring her insides.
He laughed a laugh that could have once been charming. "Didn't I tell you? You don't have my price…"
The gun clicked, and his finger moved to the trigger. Faye wanted more than anything to close her eyes, to not have them open in the event she might catch sight of her own blood pulsing out of her, but they wouldn't shut. The pollen in the air stung her irises, and her eyes felt so dry from not blinking, but when faced by the shining black metal pointed at her…Like an intoxicating kind of horror, she just couldn't look away.
Hypnotizing, like the moon had been when she'd drawn her last breath all those years ago.
So Faye watched as he aimed his weapon easily at her, an assassin who'd obviously done his work so often it had become routine—a prostrate woman, very run-of-the-mill—and she watched as some blur of color collided with the man.
When the boom of the gunshot came, nothing hit her save a few scraps of ceiling falling down from where the bullet really landed.
At her eye level on the floor, she saw the assassin tangled up with some teenager wearing red, who was screaming obscenities and trying to punch him. But the man rose easily and shoved her down on the floor in front of Faye.
"Well look who's awake," he huffed, wiping off a streak of blood from his lip, left from the only one of the girl's punches which had landed.
He'd said 'look' but he really wasn't looking. His eyes were cast down as he fumbled though a pocket for something. Sunglasses. "Stay out of this Marg, you know I'll hurt you."
Faye made to stand up, knowing this might be her only chance to run while he was distracted. She'd have preferred to fight him, but unlike ~some~ lunkheads that would remain nameless, Faye knew when it was time to retreat. But between that kick in the side, which had been close enough to her stomach to knock the wind right out of her, and the spores in her lungs, when she'd finally stood straight she almost fell again from a coughing fit.
"Go screw yerself, Dismer!" the girl snapped back at the assassin. She looked around hastily, brown hair a blur with each turn of her head from left to right to left to right, and finally she spotted the katana. "I know you won't kill me!"
Despite herself, Faye shouted a warning as the teen picked up Vicious's sword and faced the killer apparently named Dismer. That sword wasn't meant for children. That sword was meant for a monster…
With idle eyes Faye watched the dawn light reflect off the blade and she found her mind wondering. Vicious had used a katana, the sword of the noble samurai….hadn't she learned that in school or something? Had honor among warriors died with earth's moon? Assassins and children battling each other…had something gone wrong during those fifty-four years she slept, or had humans always been this bad?
And who was this kid anyway—Marg, was it? Short for Margaret? This girl not much older than Ed had saved her—why?
Margaret was talking again—no, shouting again.
"And don't you dare tell me to stay out of this," a hand left the hilt of the katana and gestured at Faye. "I AM this, I'm the reason you're both here, so just—just screw yerself!"
Dismer laughed, and Margaret charged at him with the blade held out. But she stopped short when the click came again—she hadn't even made it half way to her target, and he had the gun out. But it was aimed past the girl, and at the woman.
Once again Faye found herself facing the barrel of Dismer's gun, and his cruelly good natured smile. But the smile was all—the playful eyes were now concealed by dark sunglasses.
Odd… the morning light shone too palely to see properly through tinted lenses, but not only was her assassin wearing them, that girl had worn them too, but she'd removed them.
"You're right Marg, I won't kill you—I need you," Dismer's smile widened. "But I'll kill her," he added, jerking the gun a little but keeping it trained on Faye. "And you need darlin' Miss Valentine, don't you? You don't know where the other target is I'll bet…"
Faye's fists clenched of their own accord. With a final strong cough to clear the pollen dust from her vocal chords, she let the frustration which had been building let loose. If she was going down, she wasn't going down in flames, but in fireworks.
"JUST WHAT THE HOLY HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!"
That felt just plain good. Before, she'd been reserved about cursing in a church, but no longer. Vicious was dead, gone to hell, the chapel with him. This building was nothing but a desecrated temple—who would worship here but Vicious to his fallen angels?
Her shouting hadn't fazed the two odd ones so she went on, her eyes remaining on the man holding the gun—obvious rule: never take your eyes off your enemy, your lover, your friend, and the one that knows your secrets…
Never take your eyes off a killer.
"You're hired to shoot me?" she queried the obvious, and Dismer smiled. "Well fine, at least tell me what the hell it is you guys are going on about before you do—Hey you!" she switched the direction of her interrogation to the girl, still shouting because it felt so damn right. "You need me, he said? You saved me—why?"
Margaret, who had the luxury of being able to look away from Dismer, turned her gaze on Faye, pushing the red lenses back over her eyes.
"And who's the other target?" Faye went on. Now that the questions had started, they wouldn't stop rolling off her tongue as she began to process things. The two of them, Dismer and Margaret—two people she'd just met and hadn't had a regular talk with—obviously knew something about her that she wasn't aware of. "Just what did I do exactly? What did I do to piss off your employer?" She would have liked to look the girl in the face, but that wasn't a current option. "And kid—who the hell are you?"
Dismer chuckled. "Wow, you talk a lot," he smiled a different sort of smile, and Faye almost choked on a mouthful of the rising spores as she realized where she'd seen the look before—almost—and it seemed so long ago.
Spike—
She'd been tied to the pillar, gun pressed to her head and Spike's gun aiming just over her shoulder at the man who's face she never saw before the bullet hit it.
And in his eyes…nothing.
And in his smile….had he smiled? Or had he just gone into that emotion-filled void without expression? Or perhaps it was expression without emotion… Somehow, she couldn't remember, but the casualness with which he'd been so brutal…
That explained it. That explained why she hadn't been afraid when the assassin pointed his pistol at her head. Dismer had an air of casual violence but he could never be a Vicious. He could never be a Spike.
And even if he did kill her on the spot, he could never be frightening.
Spike terrified her. He consoled her. He made her happy and infuriated and sometimes if not usually both at the same time.
But he could be so cruel so easily, and so nice just as well—he was so casual about it, Faye had to wonder, did that man really give a damn or was he belting out words at the appropriate or inappropriate time?
Spike always said he didn't care. Didn't care about the damages he caused, or the people put at risk when he went out on a hunt.
Didn't care, and yet when it could be done, Spike had forced the happy ending; his final failure hadn't been fair.
He'd always taken in the universe with such a quiet understanding that Faye had thought his avoidance of consequences was just bullshit.
She'd come to expect him to wave conflict aside so easily, but waving herself and Jet aside just as simply…she hadn't expected that…
When he'd left, she hadn't expected it to happen the way it had, and yet she'd felt no shock… why?
The child's voice brought her back to reality, and Faye realized she was still staring into the gun barrel, it's opening the void which had hypnotized her into thoughts of the Lunkhead.
"You said it yourself," Margaret bit out suddenly, barking at Dismer without regard to Faye's questions. "You won't kill me. So if you shoot her, I'll stab you."
The assassin laughed, and this time it actually sounded as if he found something funny. "You'll stab me? Marg!" that smile widened to show a row of white, straight teeth. "We both know that the direct approach isn't your style. Not like that, no, you wouldn't kill me that way." He tapped his glasses with his forefinger.
And this time it was the girl who smiled. "Maybe I wouldn't," she said coolly, then jerked her head once in a gesture towards the doorway. "But I bet ~he~ would."
Faye couldn't help it. She broke the eye contact from Dismer and his gun and looked towards where the room's attention lay—the center of the underworld's universe coming home to where he was worshiped and exiled…
"Spike!" Faye exclaimed. She knew she should have sounded relieved to see him, but instead she sounded as if he'd caught her by surprise while she was doing something wrong. Hand in the cookie jar, ace fallen from her sleeve, trespassing on his property.
And there he was, leaning casually against the doorframe and smirking so much better than the assassin could. Arm outstretched, his Jericho pointed at Faye's attacker, the gun looking like a natural part of his hand…
It was part of it, Faye decided. If Spike were to have objects instead of hands there would be a gun attached to one arm and a cigarette on the other.
His eyes flicked to Faye for an instant, then to Dismer before taking the room in in its entirety—and absorbing it completely, all eyes on him as if the man were everything.
Her previous thoughts returned to her, and Faye didn't know what to think for a moment. For a moment she wanted to throw her arms around him, for a moment she wanted to run away, for a moment she wanted to hide behind him and let him protect her, for a moment she wanted to tell him to mind his own damn business, for a moment she wanted to thank him for coming back—or slap him for leaving in the first place.
She wanted to beg him to come back.
She wanted to banish him forever.
She wanted him to speak, and he did.
"Women," he mused aloud, but not sounding angry although Faye knew he very well might be. The smile was there, and in his eyes… "Nothing but trouble."
~~~
Finding one person on Ganymede actually isn't as hard as some might think. Jet knew his target, Yolan Davis, would be planting poppies somewhere and that made things pretty easy.
Along with the weather projections (more like weather previews, actually, for climate control hardly ever broke down) most news stations would report the air quality, and when Jet saw that the allergy alert was quite abnormally high for the Trivera district, obviously two plus two equaled poppies.
And he was right.
An hour and a half after landing, Jet Black had his bounty cornered in an alleyway, hands straight up in the air, and begging for sympathy.
"You don't understand!" Yolan cried. He held a switchblade in his shaking right hand, but other than that, he didn't appear threatening at all. In fact, he was a blubbering child of a man, whose breakdown attitude completely betrayed his appearance of a guy nearly as muscular as Jet, and just as tall. "You have to let me go—one more city—I'll turn myself in!"
Jet found himself rolling his eyes. Sure, some bounties were whiny, but most weren't too pathetic. "Sorry fella, that's the way it goes," Jet told him, examining the bounty with a critical eye. "You sure don't seem like the serial killer type…"
Yolan froze, eyes still large, and gave a kind of goldfish expression. "Serial…But I didn't…" he started, then made a grab for his bright red hair with the hand that didn't hold the knife. "Oh God! Now I'm being blamed for him! Figures…I probably deserve it…"
Jet blinked. Now Mr. Davis was talking to himself. Jet wasn't used to being ignored by bounties, and he began to wonder if he should just run up and cuff the man, except with crazy people it was usually best to wait until they were subdued. Who knew when Yolan would remember he had a knife.
"God, oh God," the bounty continued to murmur, pacing back and fourth in what cramped space the alley had to offer. Shaking hands reached into the frayed jacket pocket, and Jet was ready to jump aside should a gun appear, but Yolan produced a crude roll of some drug or another instead.
The bounty hunter stood forgotten for the moment as Davis stuck the paper between his lips, absently rubbing a match against his coat as if that would cause a spark, all the whole muttering to somebody who wasn't there.
"I tried, Ben, I really tried. It wasn't my fault, I was only trying to do something for her and it got twisted around…"
Jet shifted in both discomfort and impatience. If only that man would stop jerking around so much, he could shoot the knife out of his hand and get this over with.
"They're gonna arrest me, Ben, whatdoIdo?"
They? Jet's eyebrows furrowed and lifted. Last time he checked, he was one person.
"I've got one left but they're gonna arrest me, Ben! You shouldn't have trusted me with her, I don't know what to do, he turned her into a monster, Ben, Marg's not your little sister anymore…"
"Marg?" Jet repeated, suddenly remembering that the girl had told him to mention her name.
The match Yolan had attempted to light finally snapped in half, and he quieted for a second or two to stare forlornly at the thing before allowing it to fall to the ground and join the rest of the litter. And as if that was all it had taken, he looked up at Jet with a morbid expression.
"Did you say something?" he asked, turning his head to the side and looking inquisitive, attempting to figure out Jet's presence and his own in the alley.
"Your friend Margaret," said Jet, holding his hands up to put the man at ease, but still keeping a finger on the trigger. "She's worried about you. Asked me to turn you in so you'd be protected in prison."
Yolan returned the statement with a sleepy stare, turning his head to the other side. "When…did you see her?"
"I gave her a lift to earth the other day," Jet explained, then repeated for emphasis, "She asked me to find you."
His bounty blinked in slow motion. "A lift…" he echoed in a mumble before his eyes widened, irises quickly becoming a spot framed by white. "You—you're from the Bebop?"
Jet started—this guy knew who he was? Perhaps Margaret had called him from the ship. "That's—"
"Faye Valentine's ship?" Yolan demanded, voice loud, eyes large, frozen enough to cease the trembling. "You're a friend of Faye Valentine?"
"Er—yes?" Jet tried to blink away his confusion, which of course didn't work. "How did—"
"I DIDN'T KILL HER—I SWEAR I DIDN'T KILL HER!" Yolan shouted. He threw the switchblade on the ground, and it landed with the handle sticking straight up in the air.
The poor man's breath sounded rushed, ready to hypervenolate. "Don't shoot me, please! I know you must want revenge but—" he fell to his knees in front but out of arms reach of Jet.
"I didn't do it, you gotta believe me."
Jet tried blinking again. Nope, still nothing. Running a hand through imaginary hair, he missed his bonsai already. He hadn't expected anything like this at all.
~*~*~
Everyone in the room could tell Dismer's options were limited. His gun was still aimed at Faye, and he had the choices of a) shooting Faye and getting shot by Spike, or b) shooting Spike and getting stabbed by Margaret—not a fatal wound of course, but he wasn't too keen on stabbing in general, and that would probably give Miss Valentine enough time to grab her own gun and shoot him.
Incidentally, he chose option c. He lifted his hands in mock-surrender, smiled, threw Miss Valentine a wink and after an "I'll see you soon", jumped out the circular hole that was once the stain glass window.
Spike had fired two shots, both missing, before the assassin disappeared over the ledge, however he didn't move to the window to try shooting as the man escaped. Spike shrugged, looked from Faye to Margaret holding the katana to Faye again.
"Women," he said again with a shake of his head as he holstered his gun. "That the guy who was after you?" he asked Faye.
"No," Faye replied with an overstated eye roll. "That was President Nixon."
Spike gave her a blank stare. "Who?"
"Never mind."
She'd already picked up her gun, which she'd dropped when caught by surprise, and was heading to the door. The Nixon thing had been the best attempt her frazzled mind could come up with to lighten up the mood, but of course that kind of crap could never hold water, and all she wanted was to get out.
But too late. Behind her came the unceremonial clang of the katana hitting the ground, a metallic hum hovering in the air for a second or two as both Faye and Spike immediately turned to face the source of the sound.
The sword lay at the feet of Margaret, who was brushing the flakes of dried blood left over from the hilt off her palms. When she felt eyes on her, she looked up from her hands at the two adults, then down at the sword and up again. "Sorry," she muttered.
Faye, with a variety of anxious feelings twisting at her intestines, watched Spike's eyes as they ran over the katana, the blood, then trailed at an agonizingly slow pace to the dark stain on the rotted wood, and came to rest on the decaying body of Vicious.
He stared, silently, stoned-faced, eyes obviously seeing something invisible to normal people. It seemed he might stare forever, and Faye wouldn't put it past his abilities. Vaguely, she wondered if she was the only one who could feel the tension. The way Spike watched the body, as if any second now it might spring back to life, created some awful feeling of anticipation inside her, and in the silence she waited for what might happen next.
But as one silent second dragged on after another, Spike's position unchanged—the same way he watched the Bebop's ceiling fan, but more intense—Faye felt about ready to scream. It sort of felt like somebody had fired a gun at her, but instead of watching the bullet hit, she had to watch it travel towards her forever and ever.
Never hitting, but always about to, waiting in sick anticipation…
This had to end, she needed to get out. Faye opened her mouth to say his name, but inhaled too sharply, and only got out the "Sp—" before a choking fit of coughs overcame her. The forceful coughing it took to liberate her airway made her stomach double up, and she fell against the doorframe for support, and tried to focusing on keeping her lungs inside of her body.
The one silver lining was that she'd succeeded in breaking Spike's trance. Faye's eyes were watering now from the pollen irritation, but they caught the blurred, bluish image of him next to her.
"What's wrong with you, are you chocking on something?" he asked, giving her back a couple pats that were more harmful than helpful as they pushed the air she'd fought so hard for out of her lungs too quickly.
The glimmering spores in the air continued to cling to her, and those that didn't floated up in a shining train towards the moon-image in the Martian sky. Spike was finally starting to catch on that it was the flowers to blame for Faye's current condition, and she felt an arm sling across her back and hook onto her, pulling her into a standing position.
"Hurry up, come on," Spike urged her as they went down the stairs. "Before you have the mother of all asthma attacks."
Faye really didn't need that much encouragement. Just the thought of getting out of that chapel was enough to spur her on. Her watering eyes made the downstairs chamber a rush of yellow before she felt the crisp morning air around her. She fell onto the cool pavement in the courtyard and focused on breathing, yet basked in what relief she could feel.
She didn't see Spike's rather annoyed/confused stare, but she felt his hands brushing down her arms and shoulders roughly. "It's not coming off," Spike said, maybe to her, maybe just a general observation, she didn't know. "Puffs into the air, then clings right back to you."
Rubbing the crocodile tears from her eyes, Faye watched as he swiped his hand against the sleeve of her jacket. Sure enough, a thin, smoky cloud of spores flew into the air, before flying back down to catch on her skin once more. Some were illuminated, leaving her with a kind of glow.
Looking Spike up and down, she saw he was just fine and not sharing in her flower-power-problem in the least bit. Faye turned her attention to her sides when she heard sounds and found Ed and Ein, flanking her right and left, sniffing.
"Faye-Faye smells funny," Edward announced, helpfully stating the obvious. "And she's all lighted-plighted-smited uuuup!"
"Ed, now is not the time," said Spike. If Faye had been a malfunctioning machine, he'd have kicked her by now, having run out of other visible options. He reached out a hand and ruffed her hair, upsetting her headband and earning a noise of protest. Spike watched as the pollen flew out and then back into the purple strands, and was rather at a loss for ideas. "Did we ever buy a lint brush for Ein?"
Faye shot him a glare, then sneezed. Spike smirked in response, before continuing his observations. "It's not just your clothes, but your skin and hair—jeez, Faye, what did you fall into? You're like a damn magnet for this cra---AAAGGH!!"
All at once the group found themselves rather cold and especially wet.
"What the hell?!" Faye managed to croak out, looking over to see Margaret standing a few feet away holding a garden hose.
"Edward is sooooaaaaaked!"
Margaret gave Ed a quick glance before answering Faye with a gesture to the hose. "The pollen won't stick now," she explained. "But that's a temporary solution."
"Edward and Ein-doggy are cold!"
Spike grimaced as he shook his hands, flinging water all over, which Ein retaliated by shaking himself until Spike was more wet than before. "I hate pets," he growled, eyeing the kid and the proud woman just as suspiciously. His life had been taken over, and there wasn't much getting out of it. Defeated, he sighed and asked, "Well? What's the permanent solution?"
"Well…" she replied, twisting the nozzle to stop the flow of water. "You could leave the planet. The projection can't reach farther than the planet's gravity."
"Projection?" Faye repeated, her voice mostly returned. "What pro—wait a minute," she followed the glowing trail of spores up into the sky as she remembered the pollen's appearance coinciding with the moon's. "It's the flowers that are making that appear?!" she asked, eyes on the sliver orb in the sky. Mars's two actual moons had disappeared in the dawn, leaving the foreign doppelganger to hover over them on its own.
"Focus, Faye," Spike ordered. He had his jacket off now, and was wringing it out over a very disgruntled corgi, before jumping away from the return volley of water. "Don't you see the bigger problem?"
"Oh?" Faye lifted an eyebrow. "Bigger problem, and what would that be? Well I know there's an assassin after me for some reason I have no clue about, and even if I managed to kill him before he kills me if I don't find out who hired him then the assassins will keep coming. I was almost shot today, then choked by ~flowers~ that are going out of their way to ~attack~ me, I'm soaking wet and cold but if I try to dry off I'll be in the middle of some kinda allgeryfest, all of this defying every law of science—
Tell me, Lunkhead, WHAT'S THE BIGGER PROBLEM!?"
Spike was now trying to light a dripping cigarette, and he answered her still frowning at his lack of success. "You're ship's broken, you can't get off the planet."
Faye's eyes widened and the curses rolled off her tongue of their own accord. He was right, the Redtail could never make another run even if she managed to get it out of impound. That thing would take weeks to repair, and she didn't have the option of hanging around on Mars for that long.
"Your ship—"
"Impounded too. Not only did I leave the Swordfish unsupervised for days, but I landed it in a no parking zone," Spike interrupted, frowning at the ruined pack of smokes and tossing them on the ground for Ed to sniff at. "In fact, that baby has a surprising amount of tickets on it. I've been catching some local bounties, but I still need a bit more to foot the bill."
"Great," Faye tried to rub her headache away with her fingertips to her temples. No luck. "Juuuuust great."
"So I can assume you don't have the money to rent a ship? Cause I don't so don't bother asking."
She shook her head and made a face, and Spike laughed a little, causing Faye to shake her head even harder so her drenched hair would fling water at his smartass face. Sending her another smirk, he turned back to Margaret.
"Any other options?"
"Sure," she shrugged, crossing her arms. "Get rid of the source. Burn down the building, poppies with it."
Ed had been trying to rub the water out of her wild hair, which now looked like a dripping mop across her face. Parting the normally nonexistent bangs away from her eyes, she exchanged a look with Ein. "Nya?" she asked, for Spike-person and Faye-Faye had gotten quiet all of a sudden.
~*~*~*~
Jet wasn't having a nice day, so he swore the hopeful, happy-face branded message on the takeout bag was mocking him. He'd hoped that Davis would calm down in a more comforting environment, i.e. while eating, and would then be in some state of mind to give explanations.
Normally he'd never treat a bounty to a meal, but this was a special exception because Yolan had information Jet wanted and seemed far too out-of-it to bargain the good old fashioned way: with money.
"Now I don't blame you for Faye's—er--murder," Jet assured him in a patient voice. "But I need you to tell me who I should blame."
Really, he felt at a crossroads. On one hand, Yolan Davis was obviously unstable, and therefore any information he gave was subject to question. On the other hand, he hadn't heard from Faye in a while…
Jet was holding back an amount of worry large enough to surprise him. There had been a few unspoken rules on the Bebop concerning specific female crewmembers and bounties, that rule being: only turn your friends over to the ISSP in an absolute emergency and only if the sentence is less than six months. Under that line of closure, Poker Alice and Radical Edward had nested on his ship, and the times Jet had actually considered handing them over to the authorities were amazingly few and far between.
Still, if Faye had gotten herself into another mess, well, that wasn't his problem. But if somebody had actually killed her, than he'd want to know and he was going to get pissed.
"All I did was plant the poppies," Yolan pouted, working his chopsticks in the air. "He did everything else. I wouldn't've helped you see, but they took Marg hostage…"
"Okay, okay," Jet interrupted, holding up his hands. "You've skipped over my question, now tell me who the 'he' and the 'they' are and—"
"And you won't turn me in?"
"And I won't kick your ass before turning you in."
Yolan looked to his egg roll for sympathy, but found none. "I'd probably deserve it…" he muttered, and Jet laid a frustrated hand on his forehead in an attempt to make the headache leave. Perfect. How was he supposed to threaten a guy if the guy was asking for punishment?
"Now look," started Jet, allowing the force in his voice to its welcome return. "I could just shoot you right here—"
"Wait I've got a name!"
Jet smiled. Masochist maybe, but Yolan feared death as much as the next nonSpike guy.
"Well? What is it?"
With a kind of sad, puppy-like noise, the man scrunched in his seat and poked at the eggroll again. "The 'he' referred to a man named Dismer," said Yolan. "And the 'they' is Dismer and that man who has the key to Marg's collar—you saw the collar, didn't you?"
Jet nodded. "Key?"
"It'll detach itself from her skin if this special kind of metal bar is inserted into one of the ports…I don't know really, I'm just repeating what he—Dismer—told me."
Jet nodded again. "Why did that man—do you have his name?"
Yolan shook his head. "I don't know his name and he put the collar on her because she's collateral—so I'll plant the poppies."
"So killing Faye has something to do with Opium?" Jet asked, frankly confused as to what one had to do with the other, seeing as the woman was neither a buyer, seller, nor addict of the stuff.
"NO NO NO!" Jet quickly jerked aside to avoid the chopsticks as they flew through the air, let loose as the jerky bounty pounded his fist against the table with each utterance of the same word. "This has nothing to do with Opium—it's—it's…."
Almost at once some sort of clarity shone in Yolan's glazed eyes as if he were seeing a light somewhere out of the room. "I just thought of something."
One eyebrow went up, and Jet gave a "What?" said in a gruff voice working hard at controlling his patience.
"You're a bounty hunter," the man pointed out. "You can't get money for me unless I'm alive."
Great. The bounty had just grown some new brain cells, that was bound to make things easier.
"What's your point?"
Mr. Davis smiled, or at least tried to. "If you want the information—then—then--," he certainly was new at this whole blackmail thing, "then you can't turn me in."
Jet, with a bored expression, held up his gun. "Do you really think you can get away?" he asked. "There are other bounties I could catch, worth more than you, and you're not on my good side right now, Yolan."
The shade of panic returned before hiding back under that severely fractured confidence. "Then you have to do me a favor."
Jet glared at him with steely eyes for as long as it took the sheen of sweat to cover his prey's forehead and begin to bead. Then he asked, voice low, "Did you see the murder?"
"What?"
"Faye's murder," Jet repeated slowly with that stern expression he saved for the most serious of occasions. "Did you see it? Do you know for sure if it was this Dismer that killed her—they who, and the where and the why. I want to hear a motive."
Yolan's jaw worked around his choice of word for a moment, before coming up with the same old thing that didn't give Jet nearly enough options.
"About that favor…"
~*~*~*~
"Hey Lunkhead!" Faye's call, combined with a small collision to his head, snapped Spike out of his daze. He looked down to see the new pack of cigarettes Faye had tossed at him, and as he rose from picking it up, he saw her taking a stick out of her own new pack, same brand he usually used.
"Since when do you smoke these?" he asked absently as he opened the pack and placed a cigarette in his mouth.
"I've taken yours before, brand doesn't make a difference to me," she replied. He heard the sound of her lighter igniting as she lit the cigarette between her lips. Stepping next to him, she held up the flame with a limp wrist and without looking. He accepted the light, and they stood in silence for some serene moments, feeding their addiction.
Spike's own lighter lay at the bottom of his inside jacket pocket, rendered useless for the moment out of necessity. There hadn't really been any way around it—well actually, they could've carjacked (well, shipjacked) somebody's zipcraft and have gotten off world, but that was too complicated. Or Faye could stay in a swimming pool or a bathtub somewhere until Jet could pick her up, but that would condemn him to a never-ending torrent of complaints.
Or he could've just let her choke on the damn pollen-things, but although he'd already threatened her with it more than once, he'd never actually do that.
So Spike had emptied out nearly all the lighter fluid onto a drier patch of poppies, leaving just enough fuel to spark the fire. And in less than ten minutes, the church was ablaze, the wooden floors and panels crumbling inside the frame of stones now turning soot-black.
When the girl had made the suggestion to burn the building, Faye had honestly expected Spike to magically come up with some alternate plan nobody else would've thought of. But he didn't. Whatever she'd expected him to do, she hadn't expected him to walk right up to the building and play arsonist to his own past, without a word not counting a tired, almost bored sigh.
But when the embers sparked to life and the flames began to dance, he'd stood still and watched. Transfixed. Like those times he'd stared out the Bebop's windows watching the black expanse of space, looking like a statue, eyes off somewhere…perhaps on Julia, perhaps just checking to see if his personal star still hung somewhere.
The dawn light and the orange fire cast on him from opposite directions, illuminating them all in a nearly paranormal glow as Spike stared into shadows, and Faye felt that nervousness she remembered when the man had forced her to stare into that dead eye of his and see nothing.
Something inside her, probably the maternal instinct which so far had only served to tolerate Ed, wanted to wrap an arm around him, or at least pat his shoulder in a non-boyish way, but that was no option.
So she watched him watch the blaze and wondered if he saw in the flames the cremation of his past, and maybe of himself. Not all of Spike seemed to have returned from the dead, and Faye couldn't help but look at the holocaust before her and wonder if that missing piece was burning away, or if the fire would set it free.
Wasn't freedom all he'd wanted?
She felt too sick to ask or answer that question. Dripping wet, she headed down the street to the 24hr mini-mart to pick up some smokes, and when she came back he was still staring…
Spike hadn't noticed Faye's absence until that smack in the head, which although an annoyance, had produced the cancer fruit he'd been craving. A bit of relaxation; all he could hope for at the moment, but his stomach muscles—covered in ragged pink scars still in mid-healing—refused to unclench and only then did he realize just how hungry and not-hungry he felt.
Faye stood next to him, watching the chapel fall in ashes, until her cigarette was finished. Spike heard the clap of her boot heel stamping out the butt, and felt her eyes examining him for a moment before she turned around, quietly mentioning something about finding Ed and interrogating that other girl.
In his mind he laughed, but it only showed up on his face as the same cynical smile. Faye, he could tell, was trying to be nice. She tiptoed around him as if he were glass, ready to shatter should his past be mentioned. He could feel her pity and unease, and he'd be dammed if he'd be outdone by a woman deserving far more pity than he'd ever give, or than she needed.
Time to go. Later, he'd check to make sure Mao's, Shin's, Lin's and Julia's graves in the next-door cemetery were all right, but for now it was time to go.
When he turned around he saw Faye sitting on the ground a ways away, Ed leaning against her sound asleep. She'd lit another cigarette and she smoked it with her eyes closed and extreme relief evident in her features. The firelight played across her body as if it, like every other man, liked it there, and Spike felt himself struck by the irony that their personal lives had intertwined yet again.
He'd always been more open to share things with Jet, but it was Faye who'd unlocked his skeletons without even trying. Mao's death had been bait for Spike, but Faye had been the one to become bait in Vicious's plans for a showdown. And then later that woman had ended up in the care of the same man Julia had found a year prior on Callisto. And even now…
That man had come after Faye, luring her in and throwing her down in Spike's graveyard. Now, she sat there trying to smoke it all away. He took out another cigarette in agreement with her methods. Yes, time to go.
"I don't suppose you thought to pick me up another lighter when you bought these," he said as he walked over to her. She gave a startled little jump which shook Ed awake.
"Nyaaa.." the girl purred, stretching and blinking. "Ed is tired, is Spike-person finished?"
Faye gave the child an icy glare of warning, which wasn't understood, but Spike shrugged and replied, "Not until I get a light," and for the second time that morning something hit him in the head.
That Margaret girl with the sunglasses (which gave off an eerie glare from the fire) had tossed a small, plastic disposable lighter at him. "I don't think it's got much life left, I found it on the street," she said as Spike succeeded in creating a flame after four tries.
He shrugged again. "That's that," he turned to Faye who was standing up and brushing the Ash and pollen from her clothes. The spores were now fading and although they tried to cling to her, they eventually floated to the ground. "Hotel's on 6th, you better shower, that stuff smells weird."
Faye glowered at him, attempting to mask a grin. "Thanks a lot, a lady always likes to hear that she smells weird."
"Who's a lady?"
"Lunkhead! You better pay for those cigarettes!"
He smirked at her outburst; same old Faye. It was then that the sirens from the fire engines could be heard, coming out from the man roads and growing steadily closer.
Time to go.
TBC…
FINALLY! This took me so long, but it's a big chappie which I hope will compensate for it's severe lateness—and I also hope it will compensate for the time it will take to get up the next chapter. I'm going out of town (actually out of country) for vacation and so this story won't be updated until august : ( HOWEVER, if you are a fan of my other CB fanfic, The Greatest Gatsby, that story will have one more chap up before I go on vaca
So through with the apologies and self promotion—now for notes about this chapter!
You're probably starting to notice that there are two points of focus in this story. Point 1 is the interaction between Spike and Faye which will end up closer although I'm trying to keep at a reasonable pace (reasonable being not too fast but not so slow you go, 'screw this' and read something else instead)
Hey! Pointless fact, on average CB fanfics have central romance scenes either around chapter 6 or 10 ( I don't know why, it's just pointless).
The other focus is of course the more action/intrigue/wtf?/plot-involved portion of this tale. I know it all seems pretty weird, but I like that. I detest predictable stories and a garuntee you that none of you can guess the ending to this (mainly because I haven't dropped any hints that go farther than mid-story yet, hehe).
At any rate, these two focuses will inevitably collide at times that may or may not support the sanity level or the characters (but hey, that's what makes it fun) so I hope that's sufficient grounds to forgive the annoyance of original characters Margaret and Yolan (Dismer is of course forgivable because he's the bad guy, and most stories need one).
The reason that this fic needs more characters is because if I didn't have them the story would be going plot then angst, plot then angst, whereas with the extras I can have plot and angst at the same time—look! No hands! Hehehe
Anywho… I'd really appreciate reviews, because if I didn't want reviews I could post my fanfics somewhere else that doesn't have a reviewing system, and although I have nothing against that I still crave feedback the same as any author.
Until next time!
Ok so I know that the ending scene to CB didn't take place at the church. Well big deal. It you really care so much about plot continuality you shouldn't be reading Spike revival fics *watches people walk away* Doh!
Anywho... I wanted the scene in the church. Why? Well for reasons both revolving around symbolism and because I've been listening to Walk in the Rain an insane amount of times by even fangirl standards. I put a lot of thought into the settings for the climatic scenes in this story and I feel that the chapel works much better than a half-incinerated office building.
Oh yeah, I know it's been a while since I updated and I apologize hugely for that. At first it was writers block—I banged my head against the wall over and over but no ideas came (go figure…)
And then it was my writing time, which has been invaded by my new neighbor, and I just can't write wit him over my shoulder because I'm one of those self-conscious types.
Oh well, I hope you enjoy chapter 5—it was a long time coming but I still just don't know…
Chapter 5
Margaret felt the stinging sensation behind her eyes before she'd even completely woken up. It warned her of what had happened, so when she looked around to see the glowing flowers she wasn't surprised at all. Instead, panic took over. She didn't know how long she'd been sleeping but Dismer obviously already had a head start, and her chances of finding the target before he did were slim.
The poppies lay all over in full bloom, and the tiny, shinning spores floated up from the open petals towards the ceiling. They were hunting, and she'd have to follow.
"Shit," she hissed, standing up and brushing herself off. She'd just set her rose tinted glasses back on her nose when she noticed she wasn't alone.
"Bad word! Bad word!" scolded a girlish-boyish kid from right next to her. Margaret jumped in surprise as the child leapt at her, proclaiming, "Ed will wash your mouth out with soap!"
The child crashed right into her, slamming Margaret down onto her back with a wriggling mass of someone not quite human but definitely mammalian on her stomach. The poppies had cushioned her fall, and when the two hit the plants the blossoms puffed out an extra cloud of spores as if in defiance.
"Ooowww…."
Her protective glasses dislodged and her eyes already on the ceiling, Margaret could see the spores floating up and up—that was strange…they normally dispersed in all directions… The glowing particles grew brighter as they neared the ceiling, in the way that signaled a target lock, and she squinted to get a better look as the spores sifted through the cracks in the beams.
"Ed! Faye! Are you in there?" somebody called from the door, and the voice was soon followed by a bark.
"Ed is here!" said the thing on her stomach, and Margaret felt her lungs regain their full capacity as 'Ed' jumped off of her and rushed towards the voice.
Margaret got up as well, but kept her focus straight upward, watching the spores filter through the cracks in the paneled ceiling. Going straight up… that meant the target was either in an airship overhead, or…
"Where's Faye?" asked the voice near the door.
Faye? Margaret's head snapped downward as she recognized the target's name, and she looked toward the man and child conversing near the door. The courtyard visible behind them, she noted, was bathed in unnatural moonlight.
"Faye-Faye went upstairs to see noisy-person."
"Upstairs?" the man repeated as she shouted it at the same time. The guy looked over at Margaret in perplexed surprise.
But he didn't have time to ask make commentary, for she'd already made a beeline for the staircase.
~*~*~*~
"You know, Miss Valentine," the assassin said as if making conversation, "Even if it is my job, I don't believe killing should be ceremonial."
Faye only coughed in reply. More and more of the poppy spores swirled around her, on her, clinging to her skin, stinging her eyes, clouding her air with a suffocating perfume.
She couldn't breathe. And nearly worse, she was positive the radiating particles were getting into her blood, forcing it to heat.
"It would have been easier to just shoot your ship down back while it was en route…" the assassin continued. "But nooo…" he sounded annoyed as he kicked her side, forcing her off her stomach and facing him. Faye looked up at her potential killer, a tall man with brown spiky hair who wore a dark blue flight suit to match his ship. He looked annoyed with something but for some reason, she didn't believe she had much to do with it.
"Old fool insists we do it this way…" his eyes flicked to the window, where a newly formed Moon hovered just above them over the city, bright and full. "God, I hate calling cards…" the assassin muttered to himself before turning his attention to Faye.
She glared at him, fighting off the horrible urge to gag as the spores scratched at her wind pipe, all so she could die frowning at him if dieing had to be done.
His bushy eyebrows twisted up as he looked her up and down, smiling in approval. "Sorry honey," he said in faux drunken sincerity as he lowered his pistol to point at her chest. "I'd much rather date you than kill you."
"Then why don't you?" Faye had to try, although she doubted she could sound very seductive with the glowing pollen scaring her insides.
He laughed a laugh that could have once been charming. "Didn't I tell you? You don't have my price…"
The gun clicked, and his finger moved to the trigger. Faye wanted more than anything to close her eyes, to not have them open in the event she might catch sight of her own blood pulsing out of her, but they wouldn't shut. The pollen in the air stung her irises, and her eyes felt so dry from not blinking, but when faced by the shining black metal pointed at her…Like an intoxicating kind of horror, she just couldn't look away.
Hypnotizing, like the moon had been when she'd drawn her last breath all those years ago.
So Faye watched as he aimed his weapon easily at her, an assassin who'd obviously done his work so often it had become routine—a prostrate woman, very run-of-the-mill—and she watched as some blur of color collided with the man.
When the boom of the gunshot came, nothing hit her save a few scraps of ceiling falling down from where the bullet really landed.
At her eye level on the floor, she saw the assassin tangled up with some teenager wearing red, who was screaming obscenities and trying to punch him. But the man rose easily and shoved her down on the floor in front of Faye.
"Well look who's awake," he huffed, wiping off a streak of blood from his lip, left from the only one of the girl's punches which had landed.
He'd said 'look' but he really wasn't looking. His eyes were cast down as he fumbled though a pocket for something. Sunglasses. "Stay out of this Marg, you know I'll hurt you."
Faye made to stand up, knowing this might be her only chance to run while he was distracted. She'd have preferred to fight him, but unlike ~some~ lunkheads that would remain nameless, Faye knew when it was time to retreat. But between that kick in the side, which had been close enough to her stomach to knock the wind right out of her, and the spores in her lungs, when she'd finally stood straight she almost fell again from a coughing fit.
"Go screw yerself, Dismer!" the girl snapped back at the assassin. She looked around hastily, brown hair a blur with each turn of her head from left to right to left to right, and finally she spotted the katana. "I know you won't kill me!"
Despite herself, Faye shouted a warning as the teen picked up Vicious's sword and faced the killer apparently named Dismer. That sword wasn't meant for children. That sword was meant for a monster…
With idle eyes Faye watched the dawn light reflect off the blade and she found her mind wondering. Vicious had used a katana, the sword of the noble samurai….hadn't she learned that in school or something? Had honor among warriors died with earth's moon? Assassins and children battling each other…had something gone wrong during those fifty-four years she slept, or had humans always been this bad?
And who was this kid anyway—Marg, was it? Short for Margaret? This girl not much older than Ed had saved her—why?
Margaret was talking again—no, shouting again.
"And don't you dare tell me to stay out of this," a hand left the hilt of the katana and gestured at Faye. "I AM this, I'm the reason you're both here, so just—just screw yerself!"
Dismer laughed, and Margaret charged at him with the blade held out. But she stopped short when the click came again—she hadn't even made it half way to her target, and he had the gun out. But it was aimed past the girl, and at the woman.
Once again Faye found herself facing the barrel of Dismer's gun, and his cruelly good natured smile. But the smile was all—the playful eyes were now concealed by dark sunglasses.
Odd… the morning light shone too palely to see properly through tinted lenses, but not only was her assassin wearing them, that girl had worn them too, but she'd removed them.
"You're right Marg, I won't kill you—I need you," Dismer's smile widened. "But I'll kill her," he added, jerking the gun a little but keeping it trained on Faye. "And you need darlin' Miss Valentine, don't you? You don't know where the other target is I'll bet…"
Faye's fists clenched of their own accord. With a final strong cough to clear the pollen dust from her vocal chords, she let the frustration which had been building let loose. If she was going down, she wasn't going down in flames, but in fireworks.
"JUST WHAT THE HOLY HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!"
That felt just plain good. Before, she'd been reserved about cursing in a church, but no longer. Vicious was dead, gone to hell, the chapel with him. This building was nothing but a desecrated temple—who would worship here but Vicious to his fallen angels?
Her shouting hadn't fazed the two odd ones so she went on, her eyes remaining on the man holding the gun—obvious rule: never take your eyes off your enemy, your lover, your friend, and the one that knows your secrets…
Never take your eyes off a killer.
"You're hired to shoot me?" she queried the obvious, and Dismer smiled. "Well fine, at least tell me what the hell it is you guys are going on about before you do—Hey you!" she switched the direction of her interrogation to the girl, still shouting because it felt so damn right. "You need me, he said? You saved me—why?"
Margaret, who had the luxury of being able to look away from Dismer, turned her gaze on Faye, pushing the red lenses back over her eyes.
"And who's the other target?" Faye went on. Now that the questions had started, they wouldn't stop rolling off her tongue as she began to process things. The two of them, Dismer and Margaret—two people she'd just met and hadn't had a regular talk with—obviously knew something about her that she wasn't aware of. "Just what did I do exactly? What did I do to piss off your employer?" She would have liked to look the girl in the face, but that wasn't a current option. "And kid—who the hell are you?"
Dismer chuckled. "Wow, you talk a lot," he smiled a different sort of smile, and Faye almost choked on a mouthful of the rising spores as she realized where she'd seen the look before—almost—and it seemed so long ago.
Spike—
She'd been tied to the pillar, gun pressed to her head and Spike's gun aiming just over her shoulder at the man who's face she never saw before the bullet hit it.
And in his eyes…nothing.
And in his smile….had he smiled? Or had he just gone into that emotion-filled void without expression? Or perhaps it was expression without emotion… Somehow, she couldn't remember, but the casualness with which he'd been so brutal…
That explained it. That explained why she hadn't been afraid when the assassin pointed his pistol at her head. Dismer had an air of casual violence but he could never be a Vicious. He could never be a Spike.
And even if he did kill her on the spot, he could never be frightening.
Spike terrified her. He consoled her. He made her happy and infuriated and sometimes if not usually both at the same time.
But he could be so cruel so easily, and so nice just as well—he was so casual about it, Faye had to wonder, did that man really give a damn or was he belting out words at the appropriate or inappropriate time?
Spike always said he didn't care. Didn't care about the damages he caused, or the people put at risk when he went out on a hunt.
Didn't care, and yet when it could be done, Spike had forced the happy ending; his final failure hadn't been fair.
He'd always taken in the universe with such a quiet understanding that Faye had thought his avoidance of consequences was just bullshit.
She'd come to expect him to wave conflict aside so easily, but waving herself and Jet aside just as simply…she hadn't expected that…
When he'd left, she hadn't expected it to happen the way it had, and yet she'd felt no shock… why?
The child's voice brought her back to reality, and Faye realized she was still staring into the gun barrel, it's opening the void which had hypnotized her into thoughts of the Lunkhead.
"You said it yourself," Margaret bit out suddenly, barking at Dismer without regard to Faye's questions. "You won't kill me. So if you shoot her, I'll stab you."
The assassin laughed, and this time it actually sounded as if he found something funny. "You'll stab me? Marg!" that smile widened to show a row of white, straight teeth. "We both know that the direct approach isn't your style. Not like that, no, you wouldn't kill me that way." He tapped his glasses with his forefinger.
And this time it was the girl who smiled. "Maybe I wouldn't," she said coolly, then jerked her head once in a gesture towards the doorway. "But I bet ~he~ would."
Faye couldn't help it. She broke the eye contact from Dismer and his gun and looked towards where the room's attention lay—the center of the underworld's universe coming home to where he was worshiped and exiled…
"Spike!" Faye exclaimed. She knew she should have sounded relieved to see him, but instead she sounded as if he'd caught her by surprise while she was doing something wrong. Hand in the cookie jar, ace fallen from her sleeve, trespassing on his property.
And there he was, leaning casually against the doorframe and smirking so much better than the assassin could. Arm outstretched, his Jericho pointed at Faye's attacker, the gun looking like a natural part of his hand…
It was part of it, Faye decided. If Spike were to have objects instead of hands there would be a gun attached to one arm and a cigarette on the other.
His eyes flicked to Faye for an instant, then to Dismer before taking the room in in its entirety—and absorbing it completely, all eyes on him as if the man were everything.
Her previous thoughts returned to her, and Faye didn't know what to think for a moment. For a moment she wanted to throw her arms around him, for a moment she wanted to run away, for a moment she wanted to hide behind him and let him protect her, for a moment she wanted to tell him to mind his own damn business, for a moment she wanted to thank him for coming back—or slap him for leaving in the first place.
She wanted to beg him to come back.
She wanted to banish him forever.
She wanted him to speak, and he did.
"Women," he mused aloud, but not sounding angry although Faye knew he very well might be. The smile was there, and in his eyes… "Nothing but trouble."
~~~
Finding one person on Ganymede actually isn't as hard as some might think. Jet knew his target, Yolan Davis, would be planting poppies somewhere and that made things pretty easy.
Along with the weather projections (more like weather previews, actually, for climate control hardly ever broke down) most news stations would report the air quality, and when Jet saw that the allergy alert was quite abnormally high for the Trivera district, obviously two plus two equaled poppies.
And he was right.
An hour and a half after landing, Jet Black had his bounty cornered in an alleyway, hands straight up in the air, and begging for sympathy.
"You don't understand!" Yolan cried. He held a switchblade in his shaking right hand, but other than that, he didn't appear threatening at all. In fact, he was a blubbering child of a man, whose breakdown attitude completely betrayed his appearance of a guy nearly as muscular as Jet, and just as tall. "You have to let me go—one more city—I'll turn myself in!"
Jet found himself rolling his eyes. Sure, some bounties were whiny, but most weren't too pathetic. "Sorry fella, that's the way it goes," Jet told him, examining the bounty with a critical eye. "You sure don't seem like the serial killer type…"
Yolan froze, eyes still large, and gave a kind of goldfish expression. "Serial…But I didn't…" he started, then made a grab for his bright red hair with the hand that didn't hold the knife. "Oh God! Now I'm being blamed for him! Figures…I probably deserve it…"
Jet blinked. Now Mr. Davis was talking to himself. Jet wasn't used to being ignored by bounties, and he began to wonder if he should just run up and cuff the man, except with crazy people it was usually best to wait until they were subdued. Who knew when Yolan would remember he had a knife.
"God, oh God," the bounty continued to murmur, pacing back and fourth in what cramped space the alley had to offer. Shaking hands reached into the frayed jacket pocket, and Jet was ready to jump aside should a gun appear, but Yolan produced a crude roll of some drug or another instead.
The bounty hunter stood forgotten for the moment as Davis stuck the paper between his lips, absently rubbing a match against his coat as if that would cause a spark, all the whole muttering to somebody who wasn't there.
"I tried, Ben, I really tried. It wasn't my fault, I was only trying to do something for her and it got twisted around…"
Jet shifted in both discomfort and impatience. If only that man would stop jerking around so much, he could shoot the knife out of his hand and get this over with.
"They're gonna arrest me, Ben, whatdoIdo?"
They? Jet's eyebrows furrowed and lifted. Last time he checked, he was one person.
"I've got one left but they're gonna arrest me, Ben! You shouldn't have trusted me with her, I don't know what to do, he turned her into a monster, Ben, Marg's not your little sister anymore…"
"Marg?" Jet repeated, suddenly remembering that the girl had told him to mention her name.
The match Yolan had attempted to light finally snapped in half, and he quieted for a second or two to stare forlornly at the thing before allowing it to fall to the ground and join the rest of the litter. And as if that was all it had taken, he looked up at Jet with a morbid expression.
"Did you say something?" he asked, turning his head to the side and looking inquisitive, attempting to figure out Jet's presence and his own in the alley.
"Your friend Margaret," said Jet, holding his hands up to put the man at ease, but still keeping a finger on the trigger. "She's worried about you. Asked me to turn you in so you'd be protected in prison."
Yolan returned the statement with a sleepy stare, turning his head to the other side. "When…did you see her?"
"I gave her a lift to earth the other day," Jet explained, then repeated for emphasis, "She asked me to find you."
His bounty blinked in slow motion. "A lift…" he echoed in a mumble before his eyes widened, irises quickly becoming a spot framed by white. "You—you're from the Bebop?"
Jet started—this guy knew who he was? Perhaps Margaret had called him from the ship. "That's—"
"Faye Valentine's ship?" Yolan demanded, voice loud, eyes large, frozen enough to cease the trembling. "You're a friend of Faye Valentine?"
"Er—yes?" Jet tried to blink away his confusion, which of course didn't work. "How did—"
"I DIDN'T KILL HER—I SWEAR I DIDN'T KILL HER!" Yolan shouted. He threw the switchblade on the ground, and it landed with the handle sticking straight up in the air.
The poor man's breath sounded rushed, ready to hypervenolate. "Don't shoot me, please! I know you must want revenge but—" he fell to his knees in front but out of arms reach of Jet.
"I didn't do it, you gotta believe me."
Jet tried blinking again. Nope, still nothing. Running a hand through imaginary hair, he missed his bonsai already. He hadn't expected anything like this at all.
~*~*~
Everyone in the room could tell Dismer's options were limited. His gun was still aimed at Faye, and he had the choices of a) shooting Faye and getting shot by Spike, or b) shooting Spike and getting stabbed by Margaret—not a fatal wound of course, but he wasn't too keen on stabbing in general, and that would probably give Miss Valentine enough time to grab her own gun and shoot him.
Incidentally, he chose option c. He lifted his hands in mock-surrender, smiled, threw Miss Valentine a wink and after an "I'll see you soon", jumped out the circular hole that was once the stain glass window.
Spike had fired two shots, both missing, before the assassin disappeared over the ledge, however he didn't move to the window to try shooting as the man escaped. Spike shrugged, looked from Faye to Margaret holding the katana to Faye again.
"Women," he said again with a shake of his head as he holstered his gun. "That the guy who was after you?" he asked Faye.
"No," Faye replied with an overstated eye roll. "That was President Nixon."
Spike gave her a blank stare. "Who?"
"Never mind."
She'd already picked up her gun, which she'd dropped when caught by surprise, and was heading to the door. The Nixon thing had been the best attempt her frazzled mind could come up with to lighten up the mood, but of course that kind of crap could never hold water, and all she wanted was to get out.
But too late. Behind her came the unceremonial clang of the katana hitting the ground, a metallic hum hovering in the air for a second or two as both Faye and Spike immediately turned to face the source of the sound.
The sword lay at the feet of Margaret, who was brushing the flakes of dried blood left over from the hilt off her palms. When she felt eyes on her, she looked up from her hands at the two adults, then down at the sword and up again. "Sorry," she muttered.
Faye, with a variety of anxious feelings twisting at her intestines, watched Spike's eyes as they ran over the katana, the blood, then trailed at an agonizingly slow pace to the dark stain on the rotted wood, and came to rest on the decaying body of Vicious.
He stared, silently, stoned-faced, eyes obviously seeing something invisible to normal people. It seemed he might stare forever, and Faye wouldn't put it past his abilities. Vaguely, she wondered if she was the only one who could feel the tension. The way Spike watched the body, as if any second now it might spring back to life, created some awful feeling of anticipation inside her, and in the silence she waited for what might happen next.
But as one silent second dragged on after another, Spike's position unchanged—the same way he watched the Bebop's ceiling fan, but more intense—Faye felt about ready to scream. It sort of felt like somebody had fired a gun at her, but instead of watching the bullet hit, she had to watch it travel towards her forever and ever.
Never hitting, but always about to, waiting in sick anticipation…
This had to end, she needed to get out. Faye opened her mouth to say his name, but inhaled too sharply, and only got out the "Sp—" before a choking fit of coughs overcame her. The forceful coughing it took to liberate her airway made her stomach double up, and she fell against the doorframe for support, and tried to focusing on keeping her lungs inside of her body.
The one silver lining was that she'd succeeded in breaking Spike's trance. Faye's eyes were watering now from the pollen irritation, but they caught the blurred, bluish image of him next to her.
"What's wrong with you, are you chocking on something?" he asked, giving her back a couple pats that were more harmful than helpful as they pushed the air she'd fought so hard for out of her lungs too quickly.
The glimmering spores in the air continued to cling to her, and those that didn't floated up in a shining train towards the moon-image in the Martian sky. Spike was finally starting to catch on that it was the flowers to blame for Faye's current condition, and she felt an arm sling across her back and hook onto her, pulling her into a standing position.
"Hurry up, come on," Spike urged her as they went down the stairs. "Before you have the mother of all asthma attacks."
Faye really didn't need that much encouragement. Just the thought of getting out of that chapel was enough to spur her on. Her watering eyes made the downstairs chamber a rush of yellow before she felt the crisp morning air around her. She fell onto the cool pavement in the courtyard and focused on breathing, yet basked in what relief she could feel.
She didn't see Spike's rather annoyed/confused stare, but she felt his hands brushing down her arms and shoulders roughly. "It's not coming off," Spike said, maybe to her, maybe just a general observation, she didn't know. "Puffs into the air, then clings right back to you."
Rubbing the crocodile tears from her eyes, Faye watched as he swiped his hand against the sleeve of her jacket. Sure enough, a thin, smoky cloud of spores flew into the air, before flying back down to catch on her skin once more. Some were illuminated, leaving her with a kind of glow.
Looking Spike up and down, she saw he was just fine and not sharing in her flower-power-problem in the least bit. Faye turned her attention to her sides when she heard sounds and found Ed and Ein, flanking her right and left, sniffing.
"Faye-Faye smells funny," Edward announced, helpfully stating the obvious. "And she's all lighted-plighted-smited uuuup!"
"Ed, now is not the time," said Spike. If Faye had been a malfunctioning machine, he'd have kicked her by now, having run out of other visible options. He reached out a hand and ruffed her hair, upsetting her headband and earning a noise of protest. Spike watched as the pollen flew out and then back into the purple strands, and was rather at a loss for ideas. "Did we ever buy a lint brush for Ein?"
Faye shot him a glare, then sneezed. Spike smirked in response, before continuing his observations. "It's not just your clothes, but your skin and hair—jeez, Faye, what did you fall into? You're like a damn magnet for this cra---AAAGGH!!"
All at once the group found themselves rather cold and especially wet.
"What the hell?!" Faye managed to croak out, looking over to see Margaret standing a few feet away holding a garden hose.
"Edward is sooooaaaaaked!"
Margaret gave Ed a quick glance before answering Faye with a gesture to the hose. "The pollen won't stick now," she explained. "But that's a temporary solution."
"Edward and Ein-doggy are cold!"
Spike grimaced as he shook his hands, flinging water all over, which Ein retaliated by shaking himself until Spike was more wet than before. "I hate pets," he growled, eyeing the kid and the proud woman just as suspiciously. His life had been taken over, and there wasn't much getting out of it. Defeated, he sighed and asked, "Well? What's the permanent solution?"
"Well…" she replied, twisting the nozzle to stop the flow of water. "You could leave the planet. The projection can't reach farther than the planet's gravity."
"Projection?" Faye repeated, her voice mostly returned. "What pro—wait a minute," she followed the glowing trail of spores up into the sky as she remembered the pollen's appearance coinciding with the moon's. "It's the flowers that are making that appear?!" she asked, eyes on the sliver orb in the sky. Mars's two actual moons had disappeared in the dawn, leaving the foreign doppelganger to hover over them on its own.
"Focus, Faye," Spike ordered. He had his jacket off now, and was wringing it out over a very disgruntled corgi, before jumping away from the return volley of water. "Don't you see the bigger problem?"
"Oh?" Faye lifted an eyebrow. "Bigger problem, and what would that be? Well I know there's an assassin after me for some reason I have no clue about, and even if I managed to kill him before he kills me if I don't find out who hired him then the assassins will keep coming. I was almost shot today, then choked by ~flowers~ that are going out of their way to ~attack~ me, I'm soaking wet and cold but if I try to dry off I'll be in the middle of some kinda allgeryfest, all of this defying every law of science—
Tell me, Lunkhead, WHAT'S THE BIGGER PROBLEM!?"
Spike was now trying to light a dripping cigarette, and he answered her still frowning at his lack of success. "You're ship's broken, you can't get off the planet."
Faye's eyes widened and the curses rolled off her tongue of their own accord. He was right, the Redtail could never make another run even if she managed to get it out of impound. That thing would take weeks to repair, and she didn't have the option of hanging around on Mars for that long.
"Your ship—"
"Impounded too. Not only did I leave the Swordfish unsupervised for days, but I landed it in a no parking zone," Spike interrupted, frowning at the ruined pack of smokes and tossing them on the ground for Ed to sniff at. "In fact, that baby has a surprising amount of tickets on it. I've been catching some local bounties, but I still need a bit more to foot the bill."
"Great," Faye tried to rub her headache away with her fingertips to her temples. No luck. "Juuuuust great."
"So I can assume you don't have the money to rent a ship? Cause I don't so don't bother asking."
She shook her head and made a face, and Spike laughed a little, causing Faye to shake her head even harder so her drenched hair would fling water at his smartass face. Sending her another smirk, he turned back to Margaret.
"Any other options?"
"Sure," she shrugged, crossing her arms. "Get rid of the source. Burn down the building, poppies with it."
Ed had been trying to rub the water out of her wild hair, which now looked like a dripping mop across her face. Parting the normally nonexistent bangs away from her eyes, she exchanged a look with Ein. "Nya?" she asked, for Spike-person and Faye-Faye had gotten quiet all of a sudden.
~*~*~*~
Jet wasn't having a nice day, so he swore the hopeful, happy-face branded message on the takeout bag was mocking him. He'd hoped that Davis would calm down in a more comforting environment, i.e. while eating, and would then be in some state of mind to give explanations.
Normally he'd never treat a bounty to a meal, but this was a special exception because Yolan had information Jet wanted and seemed far too out-of-it to bargain the good old fashioned way: with money.
"Now I don't blame you for Faye's—er--murder," Jet assured him in a patient voice. "But I need you to tell me who I should blame."
Really, he felt at a crossroads. On one hand, Yolan Davis was obviously unstable, and therefore any information he gave was subject to question. On the other hand, he hadn't heard from Faye in a while…
Jet was holding back an amount of worry large enough to surprise him. There had been a few unspoken rules on the Bebop concerning specific female crewmembers and bounties, that rule being: only turn your friends over to the ISSP in an absolute emergency and only if the sentence is less than six months. Under that line of closure, Poker Alice and Radical Edward had nested on his ship, and the times Jet had actually considered handing them over to the authorities were amazingly few and far between.
Still, if Faye had gotten herself into another mess, well, that wasn't his problem. But if somebody had actually killed her, than he'd want to know and he was going to get pissed.
"All I did was plant the poppies," Yolan pouted, working his chopsticks in the air. "He did everything else. I wouldn't've helped you see, but they took Marg hostage…"
"Okay, okay," Jet interrupted, holding up his hands. "You've skipped over my question, now tell me who the 'he' and the 'they' are and—"
"And you won't turn me in?"
"And I won't kick your ass before turning you in."
Yolan looked to his egg roll for sympathy, but found none. "I'd probably deserve it…" he muttered, and Jet laid a frustrated hand on his forehead in an attempt to make the headache leave. Perfect. How was he supposed to threaten a guy if the guy was asking for punishment?
"Now look," started Jet, allowing the force in his voice to its welcome return. "I could just shoot you right here—"
"Wait I've got a name!"
Jet smiled. Masochist maybe, but Yolan feared death as much as the next nonSpike guy.
"Well? What is it?"
With a kind of sad, puppy-like noise, the man scrunched in his seat and poked at the eggroll again. "The 'he' referred to a man named Dismer," said Yolan. "And the 'they' is Dismer and that man who has the key to Marg's collar—you saw the collar, didn't you?"
Jet nodded. "Key?"
"It'll detach itself from her skin if this special kind of metal bar is inserted into one of the ports…I don't know really, I'm just repeating what he—Dismer—told me."
Jet nodded again. "Why did that man—do you have his name?"
Yolan shook his head. "I don't know his name and he put the collar on her because she's collateral—so I'll plant the poppies."
"So killing Faye has something to do with Opium?" Jet asked, frankly confused as to what one had to do with the other, seeing as the woman was neither a buyer, seller, nor addict of the stuff.
"NO NO NO!" Jet quickly jerked aside to avoid the chopsticks as they flew through the air, let loose as the jerky bounty pounded his fist against the table with each utterance of the same word. "This has nothing to do with Opium—it's—it's…."
Almost at once some sort of clarity shone in Yolan's glazed eyes as if he were seeing a light somewhere out of the room. "I just thought of something."
One eyebrow went up, and Jet gave a "What?" said in a gruff voice working hard at controlling his patience.
"You're a bounty hunter," the man pointed out. "You can't get money for me unless I'm alive."
Great. The bounty had just grown some new brain cells, that was bound to make things easier.
"What's your point?"
Mr. Davis smiled, or at least tried to. "If you want the information—then—then--," he certainly was new at this whole blackmail thing, "then you can't turn me in."
Jet, with a bored expression, held up his gun. "Do you really think you can get away?" he asked. "There are other bounties I could catch, worth more than you, and you're not on my good side right now, Yolan."
The shade of panic returned before hiding back under that severely fractured confidence. "Then you have to do me a favor."
Jet glared at him with steely eyes for as long as it took the sheen of sweat to cover his prey's forehead and begin to bead. Then he asked, voice low, "Did you see the murder?"
"What?"
"Faye's murder," Jet repeated slowly with that stern expression he saved for the most serious of occasions. "Did you see it? Do you know for sure if it was this Dismer that killed her—they who, and the where and the why. I want to hear a motive."
Yolan's jaw worked around his choice of word for a moment, before coming up with the same old thing that didn't give Jet nearly enough options.
"About that favor…"
~*~*~*~
"Hey Lunkhead!" Faye's call, combined with a small collision to his head, snapped Spike out of his daze. He looked down to see the new pack of cigarettes Faye had tossed at him, and as he rose from picking it up, he saw her taking a stick out of her own new pack, same brand he usually used.
"Since when do you smoke these?" he asked absently as he opened the pack and placed a cigarette in his mouth.
"I've taken yours before, brand doesn't make a difference to me," she replied. He heard the sound of her lighter igniting as she lit the cigarette between her lips. Stepping next to him, she held up the flame with a limp wrist and without looking. He accepted the light, and they stood in silence for some serene moments, feeding their addiction.
Spike's own lighter lay at the bottom of his inside jacket pocket, rendered useless for the moment out of necessity. There hadn't really been any way around it—well actually, they could've carjacked (well, shipjacked) somebody's zipcraft and have gotten off world, but that was too complicated. Or Faye could stay in a swimming pool or a bathtub somewhere until Jet could pick her up, but that would condemn him to a never-ending torrent of complaints.
Or he could've just let her choke on the damn pollen-things, but although he'd already threatened her with it more than once, he'd never actually do that.
So Spike had emptied out nearly all the lighter fluid onto a drier patch of poppies, leaving just enough fuel to spark the fire. And in less than ten minutes, the church was ablaze, the wooden floors and panels crumbling inside the frame of stones now turning soot-black.
When the girl had made the suggestion to burn the building, Faye had honestly expected Spike to magically come up with some alternate plan nobody else would've thought of. But he didn't. Whatever she'd expected him to do, she hadn't expected him to walk right up to the building and play arsonist to his own past, without a word not counting a tired, almost bored sigh.
But when the embers sparked to life and the flames began to dance, he'd stood still and watched. Transfixed. Like those times he'd stared out the Bebop's windows watching the black expanse of space, looking like a statue, eyes off somewhere…perhaps on Julia, perhaps just checking to see if his personal star still hung somewhere.
The dawn light and the orange fire cast on him from opposite directions, illuminating them all in a nearly paranormal glow as Spike stared into shadows, and Faye felt that nervousness she remembered when the man had forced her to stare into that dead eye of his and see nothing.
Something inside her, probably the maternal instinct which so far had only served to tolerate Ed, wanted to wrap an arm around him, or at least pat his shoulder in a non-boyish way, but that was no option.
So she watched him watch the blaze and wondered if he saw in the flames the cremation of his past, and maybe of himself. Not all of Spike seemed to have returned from the dead, and Faye couldn't help but look at the holocaust before her and wonder if that missing piece was burning away, or if the fire would set it free.
Wasn't freedom all he'd wanted?
She felt too sick to ask or answer that question. Dripping wet, she headed down the street to the 24hr mini-mart to pick up some smokes, and when she came back he was still staring…
Spike hadn't noticed Faye's absence until that smack in the head, which although an annoyance, had produced the cancer fruit he'd been craving. A bit of relaxation; all he could hope for at the moment, but his stomach muscles—covered in ragged pink scars still in mid-healing—refused to unclench and only then did he realize just how hungry and not-hungry he felt.
Faye stood next to him, watching the chapel fall in ashes, until her cigarette was finished. Spike heard the clap of her boot heel stamping out the butt, and felt her eyes examining him for a moment before she turned around, quietly mentioning something about finding Ed and interrogating that other girl.
In his mind he laughed, but it only showed up on his face as the same cynical smile. Faye, he could tell, was trying to be nice. She tiptoed around him as if he were glass, ready to shatter should his past be mentioned. He could feel her pity and unease, and he'd be dammed if he'd be outdone by a woman deserving far more pity than he'd ever give, or than she needed.
Time to go. Later, he'd check to make sure Mao's, Shin's, Lin's and Julia's graves in the next-door cemetery were all right, but for now it was time to go.
When he turned around he saw Faye sitting on the ground a ways away, Ed leaning against her sound asleep. She'd lit another cigarette and she smoked it with her eyes closed and extreme relief evident in her features. The firelight played across her body as if it, like every other man, liked it there, and Spike felt himself struck by the irony that their personal lives had intertwined yet again.
He'd always been more open to share things with Jet, but it was Faye who'd unlocked his skeletons without even trying. Mao's death had been bait for Spike, but Faye had been the one to become bait in Vicious's plans for a showdown. And then later that woman had ended up in the care of the same man Julia had found a year prior on Callisto. And even now…
That man had come after Faye, luring her in and throwing her down in Spike's graveyard. Now, she sat there trying to smoke it all away. He took out another cigarette in agreement with her methods. Yes, time to go.
"I don't suppose you thought to pick me up another lighter when you bought these," he said as he walked over to her. She gave a startled little jump which shook Ed awake.
"Nyaaa.." the girl purred, stretching and blinking. "Ed is tired, is Spike-person finished?"
Faye gave the child an icy glare of warning, which wasn't understood, but Spike shrugged and replied, "Not until I get a light," and for the second time that morning something hit him in the head.
That Margaret girl with the sunglasses (which gave off an eerie glare from the fire) had tossed a small, plastic disposable lighter at him. "I don't think it's got much life left, I found it on the street," she said as Spike succeeded in creating a flame after four tries.
He shrugged again. "That's that," he turned to Faye who was standing up and brushing the Ash and pollen from her clothes. The spores were now fading and although they tried to cling to her, they eventually floated to the ground. "Hotel's on 6th, you better shower, that stuff smells weird."
Faye glowered at him, attempting to mask a grin. "Thanks a lot, a lady always likes to hear that she smells weird."
"Who's a lady?"
"Lunkhead! You better pay for those cigarettes!"
He smirked at her outburst; same old Faye. It was then that the sirens from the fire engines could be heard, coming out from the man roads and growing steadily closer.
Time to go.
TBC…
FINALLY! This took me so long, but it's a big chappie which I hope will compensate for it's severe lateness—and I also hope it will compensate for the time it will take to get up the next chapter. I'm going out of town (actually out of country) for vacation and so this story won't be updated until august : ( HOWEVER, if you are a fan of my other CB fanfic, The Greatest Gatsby, that story will have one more chap up before I go on vaca
So through with the apologies and self promotion—now for notes about this chapter!
You're probably starting to notice that there are two points of focus in this story. Point 1 is the interaction between Spike and Faye which will end up closer although I'm trying to keep at a reasonable pace (reasonable being not too fast but not so slow you go, 'screw this' and read something else instead)
Hey! Pointless fact, on average CB fanfics have central romance scenes either around chapter 6 or 10 ( I don't know why, it's just pointless).
The other focus is of course the more action/intrigue/wtf?/plot-involved portion of this tale. I know it all seems pretty weird, but I like that. I detest predictable stories and a garuntee you that none of you can guess the ending to this (mainly because I haven't dropped any hints that go farther than mid-story yet, hehe).
At any rate, these two focuses will inevitably collide at times that may or may not support the sanity level or the characters (but hey, that's what makes it fun) so I hope that's sufficient grounds to forgive the annoyance of original characters Margaret and Yolan (Dismer is of course forgivable because he's the bad guy, and most stories need one).
The reason that this fic needs more characters is because if I didn't have them the story would be going plot then angst, plot then angst, whereas with the extras I can have plot and angst at the same time—look! No hands! Hehehe
Anywho… I'd really appreciate reviews, because if I didn't want reviews I could post my fanfics somewhere else that doesn't have a reviewing system, and although I have nothing against that I still crave feedback the same as any author.
Until next time!