III. Where I End and You Begin
The side stabilizing fins struck the surface of Ganymede harbor first, followed by the massive belly of the Bebop. With a grim determination, Jet brought the interstellar fishing vessel down into the waters he had launched her from seven years before. The harbor was mapped perfectly into his reflexes; he had to focus not to bring her into the police vessel section or the private craft harbor. Instead, he turned the Bebop in a wide arc, displacing wave upon wave of water, and guided her into the outlying customs dock where the police were waiting.
A fermentation of machine oil, salt, and rotten sea vegetation hung in the air. Jet walked down the plank with a measured stride, followed by Baker Panchorero and then Faye, who had her Glock buried in the prisoner's massive lower back. As they descended, Faye said to him in a low tone, "No funny business or I'll shoot." He laughed shortly, "Funny business? That's all you've got aboard that crazy ship. I can't wait to get back to normal." Jet overheard; it made him wonder grimly how it had come to this, that he was part of a traveling circus rather than a police squadron or even a no- nonsense team with Spike.
At the bottom, they were met by a group of four curious policemen. The senior cop approached Jet and said, "Mr. Black? I'm Sergeant Rivera. Captain Donnelly sent us to pick up your collar. I'm assuming this is him?" He looked over to the hulking scarred man with his hands cuffed. Faye stepped out from behind Panchorero and smiled sweetly at the sergeant. "He's my collar." The policemen looked from Faye, up and down for a minute, to Jet's silent face. Jet seemed to be somewhere else. Noticing the lull, he mumbled, "Yes. She's collecting the reward on this one." There were no laughs, though the officers traded surprised glances and then aimed curious and appreciative looks at Faye. She basked in the attention, meeting the eye of the best-looking patrolman and vamping nonchalantly.
Eventually, the sergeant got down to business and took Faye's information. She told him that she was keeping a fourth of the money "for protection" in another account. She gave him Spike's number. The sergeant handed her two receipts and told her where to collect the bounty. Realizing Jet was there, he said, "I'm sure he can help you find it." Jet stirred and said, "It's been a long time. Why don't you give her directions?" The minute the police took Panchorero into custody, Jet walked off. Faye concluded her business and then sashayed slowly up the gangplank. The police took a little while longer to depart than usual, but eventually they were gone, too.
Faye came into the Bebop, dark after the bright sun of morning on Ganymede. She heard the Hammerhead take off as she walked into the common area. She saw Spike sitting on the couch and made a beeline for him.
"I got the money," she said, with a smug smile. "The cops couldn't believe I brought in a bounty. Sure they were checking out my ass, but they were impressed with more than just that."
Spike looked at her in mild horror.
She went on, "And there was one who was kinda cute. I've never been into men in uniform, but they say you should try everything once." Faye put her finger to her lips, thinking.
Spike spluttered. "Faye, that's... I hope you didn't manage to make an ass out of Jet while you were trying to get into some cop's pants. You know this is Jet's home turf. You ought to show him more respect."
She gave a miffed little sniff. "Well, I'm sorry I had some fun. Here's the receipt for your share."
He took it and didn't look at it. He glared at her and sat back without a word.
Faye tilted her head at him, "We can pick the money up at the Police Building. I got directions."
Spike said nothing.
"I knew it would make you happy," she said sarcastically. He's never happy.
He met her eyes. "You owe me more than a fourth and you know it. Why should I be happy about getting half of what I deserve?"
Faye blinked at him. She replied coolly, "I think two hundred is very generous, Spike. You didn't even catch your bounty, so really, I'm doing you a favor by sharing mine."
"You haven't ever done me a favor, Faye," he retorted, brown eyes flashing. "How is keeping three quarters of the bounty for a guy I rescued you from a favor?"
She gave him an airy smile. She'd been waiting for this little conversation. "Well," she said, "You came to help me, but then I rescued you afterward. So I guess we're even."
Spike snorted. "Now I see how you settle your debts. Just don't forget it's going to be a long time before you're square with Jet," he grumbled, but he didn't argue the point further. Her mind was obviously made up. In her own favor.
Spike and Faye approached the looming Ganymede Police building in silence. The architecture on this moon was nothing if not bombastic, perhaps in compensation for the shortage of available land. When they reached the wide steps, Spike stopped at the bottom. Faye went up to the building, past the scrutiny of the armed guards, and into the lobby. Ed and Ein trotted up behind her and sat down on the stairs.
When she came back down with the money, she met Spike. He wouldn't look at her, and Faye realized he'd been stewing for the entire walk. There was very little difference between Spike stewing and Spike just being quiet.
"Spike," she said. He stopped, but did not turn around. "Where's Jet?"
"He's gone to see Alisa." Spike rolled his shoulders.
"Why?" Faye couldn't understand all this moody male behavior.
"Sense of justice and duty," he muttered, and kept walking.
"Spike." He reluctantly stopped again.
"If you hate me so much, why did you come and help me?" She was trying to bridge the gap between them. Even hatred might work.
He smiled and said softly, almost to himself, "Justice and duty."
Faye watched the kid and the dog mess around in the sun and tried to figure out what Spike meant by duty. When Spike exited the building, Faye called up to him. "Sense of justice and duty, huh?" She stood with her hand on her hip, glaring up at him.
Spike kept walking past her, "First time he's home in a while, of course he's going to go see her." She clearly didn't get it, and he had no desire or energy to try and make her.
"You know, you're wrong if you think your old lady still thinks about you," Faye said to Spike's retreating back. She wanted to hurt him for being impossible to read and so inattentive. She'd hit the nerve with Jet; maybe Spike was in the same boat. Literally. Two dumped guys floating around in an old fishing boat, mourning lost loves.
Spike halted finally, and she saw his shoulders tense. He looked for a second as if he were ready to strike, radiating that dangerous physical awareness. He pivoted slowly and faced her from the bottom of the stairs. She noticed that he had the sleeves of his jacket rolled up and wondered for the hundredth time if he thought it was stylish.
"You're completely wrong if you think every woman thinks like you," Spike answered Faye evenly.
Suddenly Ed and Ein came spinning in between them on the stairs, playing some demented game. The tension broke, or at least the silence did. Faye bristled at the interruption. She hated babysitting.
So he is in the same boat, Faye thought. She turned toward Ein and Ed to tell them to stop it. Spike waited until she was distracted and then headed for the shopping district.
By the time Spike banged through the hatchway into the common room with a bag of groceries in one arm and a liter of whiskey in the other, Faye and Ed were nowhere to be seen. He carted the groceries to the galley and unloaded. He stashed the whiskey in the emergency space suit cabinet. After the spare suit was destroyed, he and Jet had agreed the best thing to find instead of a space suit would be booze, and so far Faye hadn't figured it out. He put two cartons of Marlboros in after the booze, taking a couple packs out for now. He headed to his room to hide them. A quiet day of work on the Swordfish sounded like just the thing to erase the annoyances and indignities of the previous ones.
The sunlight was blinding as Spike opened the hatchway to the fore deck, prepared to bring the Swordfish out. When his eyes adjusted, he stopped cold. There she was, planted smack in the middle. Only Faye's legs were visible, stretched out on a striped yellow deck chair under a red and white beach umbrella. Ein slept next to her and Ed was off fishing from the stern.
He called over in the direction of the umbrella, "Oy Faye, you have to move. I need to pull the Swordfish out." No response.
"Faye. You need to move." He raised his voice slightly. Ein stirred and looked at him sleepily.
He walked over and leaned under the umbrella. He nearly jumped in surprise. Faye was wearing an obscene black and white bikini and glistening like a pastry from sweat and tanning oil. The suit sported a ridiculous ornamental chain, snaking from top to hip and down one thigh, and she had a new pair of sunglasses. The smell of coconut filled the air. Spike noted the remainder of a drink on the table next to her.
He leaned over to tap her. Before he could touch her shoulder, she said, "What do you want?"
Spike stood up deliberately. "You need to move further fore. I'm going to pull the Swordfish out for repairs."
"I don't want to move. And besides, I was here first," she replied.
Spike sighed. He had thrown his suit in for its weekly washing and opted for the green shirt she'd tried to appropriate, after giving it a good sniff to make sure it didn't stink of her cacophony of bath products. He had everything ready to go and now he only needed the space. He could pull the Swordfish out the back, but that would mean a bit of annoying reversing. Faye could move more easily.
"I have a hard time believing you can't get a tan twenty feet away," Spike snapped.
"Beauty is hard work, Spike. No man ever appreciates that." Faye shot back.
He couldn't believe how serious she sounded. "Faye, I don't want to ask twice," he said, feeling his temperature rising.
She looked up at him, "Ask? Since when do you even ask, Spike? You order and you take." She turned her head away from him.
He narrowed his eyes and tried to ignore the pounding in his temples. Looking over, he spotted the ice cubes in Faye's drink. He fished them out quickly and tossed them on her tan stomach.
She shrieked and jumped up. The second her butt left the chair, he grabbed the chair and the table and dragged them to the front of the deck where he deposited them in a heap. Then he went back for the umbrella and did the same with it. Faye stood nonplussed, ice cubes at her feet, and felt waves of hot and cold envelop her. She was deeply pleased to have finally made Spike lose control; at the same time, she wanted to lay him out for being such a demanding asshole.
Before Spike could carry her, too, Faye strolled as slowly as possible to the end of the deck and set her little camp back up. Spike stalked off to pull the Swordfish out, trailing a cloud of hate. Ein was curled in the far corner of the deck, out of everyone's way, and Ed hadn't noticed that anything was up: she was too fascinated by the Ganymede Angel squid that she kept pulling up from the harbor waters.
After a good half hour of clanking and rattling, Faye noticed that the noise had stopped. He must be inside, she thought. I wonder what he just fixed, and if I can break it again. She had prayed when he nearly fell into the harbor, but luck was not with her. Then she heard him come back, and the powerful engines of the Swordfish start up.
Faye lay stock-still and thought, let him fly the plane over me. I'm not moving this time. Spike either anticipated this, or didn't care. He barely missed the top of her umbrella as he taxied and took off. Looking back as he flew in a tight arc toward the city, he was greeted by the sight of Faye, immobile except for the outstretched middle finger of her right hand.
The red sunset faded slowly into a clear, starry night. The Bebop was quiet after the events of the day. Faye came back to the ship to find Ed jacked into the Tomato, muttering something about cable access points, and Jet gone. When Faye pulled off her goggles, Ed grudgingly said he'd gone to see Donnelly to collect a bounty so they could leave tonight. Good, Faye thought, at least Jet found more money. She hoped it would be enough to keep him from asking for hers.
Faye reached the doorway to the flight deck and stopped just outside. Before she could reconsider, Spike crossed into her field of vision. He wore his thin black cotton pants and nothing else, chest gleaming with sweat beneath the harsh barium lights. His muscles roiled as he advanced through his sequence with steady, deliberate steps. He threw a spinning kick and paused with heel high in the air. Faye held her breath and watched him slowly adjust, his foot a fulcrum, until he stood straight again. She realized his eyes were closed through the entire sequence. He threw a single lightning jab and then they flew open, already locked with hers.
"Hey," she said, trying to look nonchalant.
He crossed his arms, jaw set.
She bit her lip and mirrored his stance. "Hey, I'm looking for a cigarette."
Spike frowned and faced the window. "You didn't buy any?"
"No." She hoped he wouldn't press the issue.
Spike turned back to face her, eyebrows knit. "What happened to those W600,000? Spend it all on bikinis and beach chairs?" She felt her face growing hot, and for some reason, her usual glib lie wouldn't roll off her tongue.
He shook his head when she didn't reply and muttered, "I shouldn't even ask. You lost it all at the casino."
"I did not," she blurted out. She hadn't. She could say that much honestly.
Spike looked at her like she was speaking a foreign language, and repeated slowly, "Then go buy your own cigarettes."
Faye hung her head. Clearly, he wasn't going to let her get around it. She'd have to try for sympathy. "I lost it at the horse races," she admitted, looking up at him through a few stray strands of purple hair. "I was up, double my money, and I thought for sure I could double it again and bring more back –" The expression on Spike's face dried the rest of the words up in her throat.
His eyes narrowed, and he spoke in a clipped, icy tone, all the more ominous for how quiet it was. "Shit, Faye. You blow through money like there's always more behind it. You expect Jet to fix your ship and feed you and let you stay here for free. You expect me to breeze in and save your ass every time you get in over your head. Then you screw me out of my half of the reward. You never think about anyone except yourself."
"You're one to talk, Spike," she said slowly, trying to twist the conversation away from money. At least he'd brought up something else. She took the opening. "You destroy everything in your path. You run off on suicide missions. Leaving Jet and me here to deal with whatever happens to you."
Spike snorted and arched an eyebrow. "Your concern is touching, but it's hardly a suicide mission if I'm running out to save you from the Syndicate, which you had no business getting involved with. You wanted the bounty for yourself and you got in over your head. Sound familiar?"
Faye bristled. "Make up your mind, Spike. You said you didn't go there to save me. You weren't thinking about me, you were thinking about Vicious." She waited for some kind of a reaction from him, some sign that invoking the name exposed a chink in his armor, but he stood utterly still, his brown eyes flat.
"Faye, I'm always thinking about you, whether I want to or not. You get yourself into trouble every time you open your mouth or set foot outside the door," he said.
She shivered a little and struggled to deflect her reluctant pleasure at his words before it became embarrassing. "Oh, please. You think about Ein more than you think about me."
Spike boiled over. Waving one arm for emphasis, he barreled through the litany: "I think about the team when I'm working with you and Jet. About the plan. Not about how I can screw up the plan for the others to get more for myself. You only think about yourself and what you can get. Out of everything! 'Oh, I'll get a beach chair and a bikini and a new pair of sunglasses. Spike and Jet will take care of the food and the cigarettes.'" His high-pitched, insolent mimicry bit like a lash. "Well, not this time. You're not going to see a single Woolong of the bounty on Rhint Celonius. Jet and I caught him while you were basting in the sun and pissing away your own money. Which you took from me. For that matter, you're not eating the groceries I bought, either."
Faye stared at him for a few seconds, trying to maintain her cool. Arguing was obviously pointless, but his words cut deep. She snapped, "Wow. You're pretty thoughtful for an asshole!" She turned on her heel and left before he could reply. From the passageway, she heard his sharp exhales and the snapping of his pantlegs as he executed a set of rapid kicks. And then another.
The noises of gluttony had trailed off sometime ago. Faye's anger had chilled into resentment and the pride that had made her wait was dissolving. Now her stomach grumbled in protest. Reading through her Venus Moda magazine for the fourth time, Faye thought about dinner and whether everyone was in bed yet. She had voluntarily absented herself so she wouldn't have to deal with Spike. She knew that Jet would have let her eat, but Spike was being such a jerk, she really would rather die than sit down with him.
Heavy footsteps paused outside her door. Jet. "Look in the fridge," he said in a muffled voice. She heard him continue down the hallway. She smiled to herself.
Faye tucked her loose hair behind her ears and slipped on a pair of flipflops. She shut the door with little noise and glided down the hallway, spreading her arms out slightly for balance and to minimize the sound of her feet. She kept an ear out for Spike, hoping she could grab the food before he found her.
She walked slowly into the common area. There he was. Sprawled out on the couch like a giant, leggy baby, mouth open. She glared for a second and then made a beeline to the galley. At least he couldn't stop her when he was asleep. And maybe she could find his groceries and eat them.
Faye carefully pulled the congealed plate of sesame beef, seaweed salad, dumplings, and chicken from the refrigerator shelf. The bounty on that guy must have been pretty large for all it yielded. She ate and ate until she couldn't eat anymore. She ate the full plate plus a container of leftover shrimp tempura that she found and a bar of chocolate that Jet must have left for her on the counter. When she was finished, her eyeballs hurt from being so full. She sat on the floor of the galley for a little while and digested. Danger boy still snored on the couch.
While she sat there, immobile with food, she thought about what Spike had said. Am I really so self-centered? A little selfishness is a good thing. It keeps you alive, keeps you thinking about the next thing on your plate. She stifled a groan. Bad metaphor.
Men are better partners with other men, she thought. The only women in their lives are the ones they've left behind. So I have to look out for myself. Still, a tiny doubt snuck into her heart, that Spike was right, that she was selfish, that she didn't worry about them at all when she stood to gain advantage, but depended on them when she needed them.
Justice and duty. The mantra came back to her again, incomprehensible for how it seemed to apply only to the things men cared about personally. Hah! He's so stuck up, it's amazing he has another brain cell to waste in that green head thinking about others.
Faye's thoughts took shape more clearly as the food broke down in her stomach. Spike was just trying to wound her. He used any weakness of his opponents against them. If she worried about whether he was right, he would win.
Faye got up from the cool floor and stretched. She walked into the living room with quiet steps and then paused. Her eyes caught the ashtray next to Spike. She smiled a slow realization. To the victor go the spoils of war. She tiptoed off to Spike's room in search of cigarettes.
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