Chapter Two: "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before"
Spike Spiegel ducked behind the couch when a book was hurled at him. Carefully, he peered over the back of it at Faye Valentine, who searched for something else to throw. The woman definitely needed to learn to control her temper.
"I can't believe you're screwing me out of my share of that bounty, Spike!" Faye yelled. She found an empty plate beside Ed's computer and threw that at the back of the couch. "Half of that 2 million woolongs is mine! We agreed on an even split before we started!"
Ed cowered behind the couch with Ein. Somehow, she'd become caught in the crossfire - wrong place, wrong time kind of thing. Still, she'd never seen Faye this angry over any bounty before. A million woolongs was nothing compared to the last couple bounty-heads they'd snagged. She flinched when something shattered against the far wall. Her gaze shifted over to Spike crouched beside her.
"Faye-Faye's really mad, Spike," she sighed. She pressed her back against the couch as Faye threw another object.
"Come out! Or are you afraid to face me?"
"'Mad' is an understatement," Spike muttered. He glanced up when something thumped against the couch. "If you'd quit throwing crap, I'll consider it!" he shouted in response.
After a few seconds, the clattering on the opposite side of the room ceased. Spike and Ed exchanged a glance then, slowly, both rose to their feet. Ein whined as he peeked around the couch at the far end.
Faye, hands on her hips and a foot tapping impatiently against the floor, stood on the other side, glaring. Her hair was disheveled, and she was winded and sweaty from her all-out offensive. Her eyes narrowed even more as Spike raised his hands in surrender.
"Are you calm?"
"Calm?" She would've laughed if she weren't so pissed off at him. "I'm barely hanging onto 'in control' right now, Spike." She glanced at Ed as the girl climbed over the back of the couch. "I put in just as much time and effort as you did on Frank Connors. You agreed to 50 before we ever started. I held up my end of the bargain. Now. Give. Me. My. Money."
"You misunderstood me when we made that deal," he answered. He lowered his hands. "I never said that you were in for 50, no matter what. I said you had to provide useful information this time. Pistol whipping the guy doesn't earn you a million woolongs, Faye."
"You're a liar! You agreed!" Her hands balled into fists. "You didn't say anything about providing leads! You said as long as I fairly contributed, which I did, so you give me my half!"
Ed lifted her goggles as she looked from Faye to Spike. Sighing, she dropped them back down and continued to click away on her keyboard.
This was business as usual on the Bebop since they'd returned from Gunsmoke almost two years ago - Spike and Faye, continually at one another's throat. She kept out of the way while Jet negotiated the peace accords. Unfortunately, Jet had affairs to sort out on Ganymede, so for the last three days, they were alone. And a usual fight had escalated into this.
"Don't get mad at me because you didn't understand what I said," Spike shot back. He'd had enough of her psychotic female behavior for the month.
Growling, Faye snatched up the last book within her reach and flung it at his head. Spike didn't see it coming and when he did look up it was too late. The spine of the book cracked him nearly square in the nose. As his hands flew to his face, Faye leaped onto the couch and grabbed him by the jacket with both hands.
"Quit holding out on me!" she shouted as she violently shook him. If she had to, she would kick his ass and take the damn card. She'd earned the full two million by this point, in her opinion. "Give it to me!"
Spike's hands left his nose and clamped around each of Faye's wrists. "Just for that, you're not getting a single woolong!"
"I should've aimed somewhere other than your head! I keep forgetting it's empty!" She lost her balance as she fought to free herself from Spike's grip. She lurched forward. Her sudden movement caught Spike by surprise and he couldn't stop himself from falling backwards. With a loud thump, the two of them crashed hard onto the floor behind the couch.
Ein hopped onto the back of it and peered down at the two with a curious gaze then barked twice.
"Ow ..." Faye groaned as she pushed herself up. She then realized that she was on top of Spike, who was flat on his back and still dazed by their tumble. Her face lit up with a devious grin when she saw the card sticking out of the inner pocket of his jacket. She reached for it, but her grin disappeared as Spike seized her wrist.
"Don't even think about it," he warned. As Faye moved to grab the card with her other hand, he caught that one by the wrist, too. Once he had both, he rolled her onto her back and pinned her wrists to the floor.
Desperately, she struggled to free herself. He had her at a disadvantage. Underneath all of his body weight, she couldn't move. Then another part of her didn't mind her predicament ... much. "Let go! Get off of me!"
He smiled slightly. "Say you're sorry."
"No!" The more she fought, the tighter he clamped his hands around her wrists. She felt her fingers going numb. "If you don't get off of me, Spike, I'm going to hurt you!"
He leaned closer and dropped his voice to almost a whisper. "That didn't sound like an 'I'm sorry' to me."
"GET OFF!"
Jet Black entered the room and came to an abrupt halt when he saw the state of the area. It looked as though a war had taken place while he was gone. Everything that wasn't nailed down was strewn all over. He sighed as he figured out what must've happened - Spike and Faye, naturally.
"Get the hell off of me!"
With a raised eyebrow, Jet regarded his two colleagues on the floor. He wasn't sure he even wanted to know the explanation behind this. He dropped the bag that was slung over his shoulder onto the floor. When it thumped, Spike and Faye looked in Jet's direction.
"I missed something,"he flatly greeted them.
Faye used the distraction as her chance to free one of her arms. Before Spike could stop her,she laid a nasty right cross to his jaw, throwing him into the back of the couch. Cursing under her breath, she crawled from underneath him then focused her attention on Jet.
"He's trying to screw me out of a million woolongs!" she declared, pointing an accusatory finger at Spike. "You were there! You heard what he said!"
Jet sighed heavily. I should've never come back, he thought. He shook his head. No. If I didn't come back, I'd have lost my ship.
"You misunderstood me!" Spike shot back as he rubbed his jaw with his fingers. His looked to Jet. "You could back me up on this at any time, you know."
And now Jet was firmly in the position he always was lately - stuck in the middle. After the trip he'd just had he wasn't in the mood for their childish bullshit. He stared at them for a few moments before he closed the distance between them then extended his left hand to Spike.
Confused, Spike glanced from the hand to Jet himself. "What?"
Jet wriggled his fingers. "The card. Give it to me."
"Why?"
"Just do it."
He eyed Jet with a certain amount of suspicion, then reached into his jacket pocket, removed the card and placed it into Jet's outstretched hand. "I don't know what's so difficult to understand about this," he mumbled. "I did most of the work."
As soon as the card was in his possession, Jet closed his hand into a fist. Spike and Faye watched in complete shock as the card was reduced to bits of plastic and microtechnology before their eyes. Casually, Jet overturned his fist, opened his hand and let the remnants of 2 million woolongs flutter to the floor.
"There," he said as he brushed his hands together. "Problem solved."
"What the hell is wrong with you!" Spike exclaimed when he finally found his voice. "That was 2 million woolongs, for Christ's Sake!"
Faye, however, was on her knees, leaned over and scooping up the remains into her hands. She watched the pieces trickle between her fingers and back to the floor. "I can't believe you did that," she blankly murmured. "It's gone ... all gone ... "
"Why did you do that?" Spike was on his feet now, in Jet's face.
Jet stared at his associate without pity. "You're not arguing over how to divide it anymore, are you?"
"No, because you destroyed it!" He pointed to the floor.
Faye sighed as she pressed two pieces together. "Maybe we could glue it?" she half-heartedly suggested.
"It's only fair!" Jet gestured to the room that the two of them had wrecked.
Spike stared, at a loss for words. Jet had trashed 2 million woolongs because he was pissed about a few broken plates and a mess on the floor? Maybe Faye wasn't the psychotic one on the ship after all.
"Jet! Spike! Big money bounty from Mars!" Ed called out, drawing the attention of the three adults.
Faye sat back on her heels, peering over the back of the couch at Ed. "What kind of money are we talking about here?"
"20 million woolongs!"
"20 MILLION?" Faye scrambled over the back of the couch and landed on the floor beside Ed. "Well, come on! Tell us what you have on this guy!"
"Not a guy, it's a girl!" Ed replied as she clicked through the rest of the offenses attributed to the bounty head.
"A woman?" Spike sat on the arm of the couch as he leaned forward, trying to get a better look at the computer screen.
"What'd she do?" Jet asked as he came around on the opposite end of the couch.
"Extortion. Stole a lotta money from a big corporation on Mars," Ed answered. She continued to click the keys, reading the information on the screen via her goggles.
"Which one?"
"Phoenix Corporation."
Spike sat up straight. "Are you sure?"
Jet and Faye both looked to him. His entire manner had changed in an instant.
"Yep, yep!"
He knew that corporation. It was a front for the Red Dragon Syndicate, which also served as the headquarters for their ringleader - Vicious. This was the castle that his one-time brother had barricaded himself inside and from where he ruled his empire with an iron fist for over ten years.
"Spike?" Jet raised an eyebrow, the concern for the younger man in his voice. "What is it?"
"Ah! Found a picture! Ooo, pretty lady!" Ed's fingers came to a halt and she slowly lifted her goggles as she gaped at the computer screen. She knew this woman. Her gaze shifted up to Spike, an expression of confusion and sympathy on her face.
"What?" Faye glanced from the monitor to Ed, then Jet, who also regarded Spike with a sympathetic expression. "What's going on?" Her gaze shifted over to Spike. "Do you know her?"
Without even acknowledging he'd heard Faye's question, Spike rose to his feet, shoved his hands in his pockets and, with a bowed head, he shuffled out of the room.
Faye glared at Spike's retreating figure. "What's with Broody Boy?" she grumbled as she turned to Jet. She frowned when he just shook his head sadly in response. "Come on! I'm the only one here who's out of the loop."
Ed bit her lower lip as she glanced from the woman on the screen to the doorway Spike had passed through only a moment ago.
"Move." Faye shoved the girl aside as she leaned over to get a better look at the screen. Her scowl was replaced with surprise. Her eyebrows arched in confusion. "Julia?" Her jaw clenched then she turned on the couch, casting her own concerned look in the direction of the doorway. "But I ... I thought she was ... dead?"
In the darkened room, Spike gazed out of the window upon the bay in which the Bebop had been parked for the last three days. The lights from the city reflected off of the surface of the water and gave it the illusion of grand shimmer. He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets as he let out a long, heavy breath.
He'd worked so hard over the last two years to come to terms with the loss of the one thing he cared to remember from his past. He'd blocked the image of her from his mind and forced himself to accept the fact that he'd never see her again; at least, not in this world.
Opening his half-closed eyes, he pulled his hands from his pockets then drew his gun from the holster underneath his jacket. Holding it in both hands, his thumbs stroked the metal, which was semi-warm from his own body heat. His thoughts turned darker as the fingers of his right hand curled around the grip then he clicked the safety off.
More than a dozen times in the last two years, Spike stood in this very position - gun in hand - while he contemplated waking himself up from his own nightmare. He had little reason to remain a part of this dreamscape. Many times, he'd attempted to confront Vicious, but the level of security he'd put into place was impossible to penetrate. He couldn't just walk through the front door.
"You aren't doing what I think you are, are you?"
Jet's voice made Spike's head snap up and he turned around. The other man stood in the doorway; the light from the corridor silhouetted the ex-cop's frame and distinguished his bionic arm from the rest of his body by adding a glimmer not unlike the water in the bay to it. He clicked the safety back on.
"What do you think I'm doing?"
Jet approached, his features becoming clearer as he neared. He glanced at the gun in Spike's hand. "Man finds out there's a 20 million woolong bounty on his supposedly dead girlfriend, then stands alone in a dark room with his gun drawn ... what should I think?" He stopped a foot away from the other man. "I never took you as the kind to entertain such an idea. To die by your own hand."
"I died a long time ago, Jet." He gazed at the gun in his hand; his fingers gripped it tighter. He shook his head then looked out of the window again. "I thought that when I found her, I would be resurrected."
"So ... I've been working with a corpse for five years?" Jet bore no sarcasm or hint of humor in his tone. "I have to disagree with you there, Spike."
Spike scoffed, mildly amused. "You didn't know me before ... I was different. My purpose in life ... was death."
"And then you changed. You don't have to die in order to be reborn."
Spike lifted an eyebrow as he looked to Jet. "You haven't been talking to those Jehovah's Witnesses again, have you?"
Jet briefly narrowed his eyes. Always, Spike had to make a goddamn joke when it was a time to be serious. "When you left them, that was your resurrection. You don't need her to bring you back. You did that for yourself."
He shook his head. Jet couldn't understand. This was something else entirely. Instead of continuing the discussion, he slipped his gun into its holster.
"What does it mean?" Jet asked after a minute of dead silence between them. He accepted the cigarette and light offered to him. He took a drag as he watched Spike light up his own. "Who did it and why?"
"It's a message." Spike snapped his lighter shut and tucked it back into the inner pocket of his jacket. "From Vicious." He met Jet's curious gaze. "He knows I'm alive."
"Why place a bounty on her?"
"His sadistic way of twisting the knife, I suppose," he muttered. He exhaled a cloud of smoke as he shifted his attention back to the window. "He knew I would see it."
"So he's baiting you?"
"He's giving me a choice. Disappear again or end up like her."
"Why would he give you a choice?"
Spike took a long drag from his cigarette then removed it from his mouth. He studied the smoldering end of it before he answered. "It's not really a choice when he already knows which decision I'll make."
Jet's brow furrowed once he figured out what Spike meant. For a moment, he considered punching Spike in the face. Yet that probably wouldn't knock any sense into him, so why waste the energy? "A chance at life is handed to you, you just don't shirk it. I told you two years ago that killing him won't change anything."
"I remember," he quietly replied. He remembered that day in the alley, when he'd finally caught up with Paul Saverem, and that little girl of his - what was her name? Ramona - who turned out to be his guardian angel. He clearly recalled her face as she begged Spike to spare her father's life.
'No excuse is good enough to snuff out the divine spark of another human being'.
Vash's words echoed through his mind as he contemplated on whether or not to kill the man or grant him his life. No, it was more than contemplation; it was a struggle. Then, in that moment, Spike believed Vash's words. Now, Paul Saverem was who knew where in the universe and living happily with his family.
"You can live your life here, Spike," Jet continued when Spike made no indication he would speak any further. "Despite the property damage and the cost of taping you up after an ass kicking, you're a pretty useful guy." He half-smiled when a scowl appeared on Spike's face. "Besides ... I'd probably miss you after a while. Not much. But enough for it to irritate me."
"Mmm." He nodded a bit as he took the last drag on the cigarette. "Anything's better than being stuck all alone with Faye forever, I suppose." He looked at Jet with an actual smile on his face now.
Jet laughed. "Yeah. You have a point." He shook his head, still grinning. "I wonder what she'd say if she heard that?"
"Why don't we ask her?" Spike turned slightly and called out over his shoulder, "Can you hear everything out there, Faye?"
Outside of the doorway, the woman gasped in surprise then narrowed her eyes before she stepped into their view. "I heard enough," she snapped at the two grinning men. Her hands rested on her hips. "And maybe I wouldn't want to be stuck all alone with you, Jet. Did you ever think of that?"
He gave a dismissive wave of his hand. "You're free to leave whenever you want," he casually replied. "Nothing's holding you here."
Slowly, her expression changed from one of anger to sadness. Her gaze shifted from Jet to Spike, who'd gone back to staring out of the window. She never could figure out how she was able to love a person and hate him so goddamn much at the same time. But that's what it was with Spike. Why didn't he ever see? The little things went unnoticed. Even if she did something drastic, she doubted he would notice that, either.
"The both of you can kiss my ass," she muttered then headed down the corridor.
Jet lifted his eyebrows. "What's her problem?"
"Who knows? She's Faye." Spike snuffed out the cigarette on the windowsill then looked to his colleague. "Are you finished here?" He was eager to leave. Too much time spent in one spot made him antsy these days.
Jet nodded. "Any place in particular you wanted to go?"
"Anywhere but Earth, Jet. Anywhere but Earth."
End Chapter 2
Song Title Used: "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" - The Smiths
