IV

Face Forward

Get right to the heart of matters

It's the heart that matters more

Morning came unwelcome. Neither one knew what to do, or where to go. Before, they had taken it one step at a time. This lead to that which led to this which brought them together, but what then? The two stood outside the apartment building, icy particles falling as they shuffled their feet in the snow.

Suddenly, Julia held out her hands.

"I want you to take me in." Julia said, offering her wrists to Faye.

"What are you talking about?"

"You said there was a bounty on my head." Julia replied, "Turn me in. I'm tired of running. I ran from Spike. I ran from Vicious. And I don't think I can run anymore." There was truth in her eyes. "I'm all worn out."

Faye opened her mouth to speak but no words came out.

"After I get out, I'll go to Vicious." She said firmly, "I'll face it all."

They didn't get far. Suddenly, a dark limo pulled up beside them. A man in syndicate attire stpped out, gun in hand, as other men sat heavily armed inside the vehicle. "Get inside."

Faye gasped shortly, but Julia, Julia remained calm. After all, she was expecting it. She hadn't bothered to cover her tracks, or even to hide. Vicious probably suspected Callisto the minute he discovered her absence.

So Julia calmly stepped into the vehicle. Graceful. Dignified.

Like a woman ready to die.

"Go, Faye." Julia said, from inside the back seat. "Go home."

"No, she goes too." The man said. "Orders from the top. Get in, both of you."

"She has no business with us!" Julia cried, but the man beside her jabbed her with the butt of his assault rifle, as Faye was shoved brutally into the backseat.

Faye bit her lip. She was afraid. Spike, Julia, Vicious. How did she manage to get dragged into it all? She thought about Jet. Jet hadn't had much of a place in recent events, yet she found herself suddenly thinking of him. All of a sudden, she felt rather selfish. She had done what Spike had done- left, with no regard for anyone else. And now he was alone, with a gimp leg, after all that he had done for her. She wondered what he was doing. Still tending to those plants? And he hadn't even tried to contact her. Her bracelet, lay cold upon her wrist. She had to only press and hold the button on the right to contact the Bebop, not that she would try to, but it was there.

Yet it hurt her a little bit to realize he hadn't even tried to find her.

Maybe he had finally given up.

Maybe he was tired of continually chasing her.

Maybe he had just let go.

"Julia." Vicious. His voice was raw. His eyes were cold. Glass eyes. The eyes of a snake. "Did you really think you could run?"

"Apparently." Julia replied.

"Take them both to the chamber."

Faye and Julia leant against the cold wall, arms chained above them, muscles aching. And Faye, she had never felt more forlorn or abandoned. She had been in many a bad situation, but chained in a stone cellar of a major crime syndicate next to her dead comrade's ex lover was a new one. And for the first time in her life, she couldn't run.

"Will they kill us?" Her voice was soft. Weak, like a butterfly with broke wings. Beautiful in it's own devastating way.

Julia paused, blond hair falling upon her angelic features. Perhaps she didn't know the answer, or perhps she didn't want to hear it. But finally, the woman spoke. "Yes."

Faye began to tremble, fragile limbs jarring across the cold stone. She looked around her, blood spattered upon dirty concrete, the stench of death and damp and darkness surrounding her. So this was where she would die. She wondered, how many others had died where she was? Would she be able to con her way out of this one? Would Vicious hop into bed with her in exchange for her life?

Suddenly she felt dirty. Cheap, worthless. She felt like the only thing she had ever accomplished was the ability to lie and cheat and piss people off. And in the last moments of her life, she wondered would even remember her. Jet obviously didn't give a shit anymore. She had no friends. No family. She wouldn't be "survived" by anyone, not anyone at all.

Honor. Why did her mind keep coming to that word? Was it because everyone around her seemed to have some? Perhaps that was why Jet put up with her and Spike for that long. Was it honor? Jet had lived a life of shame, once upon a time. Serving the dogs at the ISSP, their dirty secrets and pretty little secrets. And then his woman, the one he loved, left him rotting in filth, taking with her whatever dignity he had left. So Jet, Ronin that he was, desperately tried to regain his honor by protecting Faye and Spike, no matter how much they set him off. It was his duty. And she knew that when he finally left, he would die in peace and he would be remembered and survived and looked upon fondly, the honorable Black Dog, the protector.

And Spike. Dirty blood ran through his veins, the blood of a beast. He killed and watched those he killed suffer. He lived a life of shame and maybe one day he realized that with every bullet he fired he destroyed a part of himself, until Julia came rolling along with everything he had ever lost along the way. And then she killed him. So there was the man who had died once before, died shamefully because he could not face his fate. And Faye finally understood why he had to go. Why he left them. He had to die, he had to face what he had fled from, he had to regain his honor.

But what about her? In the last moments of her life, how could she regain honor? She felt worthless. Worthless. But as she thought about it more, she realized that maybe dying was a good thing. Perhaps she could start over in the next life. She would be worth just as much in death as she would be in life. If she were to live through this, where would she go? What would she do? She didn't have a home.

"Faye." Julia spoke, her voice heavy. "You know I won't live through this. But you can."

"I don't want to."

"You have to."

"I have nowhere to go."

"Faye." Julia smiled to herself, a sad but beautiful smile, "Sometimes it's too late before people realize that where you belong isn't defined by a house, or a comfort, or even a memory...it's not where you are, it's who you are with. Do you understand?"

Faye just stared at her.

Julia's words had hit her hard, as if somebody had managed to turn on the light in a darkened room, or even as if somebody had hit her very hard with a large brick. For as long as she could remember, she believed that if she could remember where she came from, if she could find that stupid "water-sploosh," as Ed so delicately put it, if she could find even the dust and rubble of what was once a house, she would find home and she would be complete.

It wasn't that she didn't feel comfortable on the Bebop. It wasn't that she didn't work well with the people on it, if only on special occaisions. It was that she never really regarded it as a i home. /i It was a giant hunk of steel and computer that she managed to con her way into, only to discover that the people on it were complete jerks- generous jerks,- but jerks nonetheless, that happened to own food and guns. So she settled down, because it was better than sleeping under a bridge or becoming a drug addicted prostitute. It wasn't a home. It was simply an option. A temporary place to set up camp until she found out where she truly belonged.

Suddenly, the Bebop had become her past and suddenly she missed it.

They say you can never go back to the times when you were truly loved.

Faye saw Spike's eyes as he watched her, letting her cheat at blackjack until he had lost all his chips. Faye saw Jet against the hot stove of the Bebop, cooking up some culinary marvel that was generally ramen. She saw Spike, Jet, Ed, Ein and herself chasing each other around the main living area of the Bebop, each trying to kill one another over some piece of inconsequential bullshit. She heard the way Ed affectionately called her "Faye-Faye," and remembered the time she drew eyebrows on Ein with a jet black magic marker. She remembered conning Jet out of his clothes and possessions in a rigged game of dies, and she remembered the slack jawed Spike draped over the yellow couch, too hung over to yell at her for eating his food or stealing his cigarettes. She remembered being able to smoke with Spike on the deck of the ship, staring out into the vermillion Mars sunset, dropping cogarette ashes into each other's beer, and laughing when one of them forgot and took a sip. She remembered those rare beautiful moments with Ed painting her toenails, Spike smoking on the couch, Jet flipping through channels on the TV, and all four of them totally... getting each other.

They starved each other.

They covered each other.

They beat each other up.

And maybe, just maybe, they loved each other.

"I'm sorry." Julia said softly, an echoing whisper that flew loudly across the room. Faye didn't know who or what she was apologizing to, and so she remained silent.

Hours passed. The two women, chained roughly against the wall, lost all sense of time and place. Moments turned to hours, and Faye and Julia remained lost in memories and regret, the only sound throughout the chamber feathered breathing.

Minds wandering.

"Vicious has requested your presence in his company." Two syndicate agents stepped into the chamber, voices somber yet startling. "It is in your best interests not to resist." They stepped over, footsteps screaming, to unlock the shackles that pinned the women to the concrete wall. Their rough wrists brushed against thin arms, as the locks clicked Faye could feel the cold metal of a gun's barrel against her bare skin. She crumpled to the ground, weak, but Julia stayed calm. Composed, as if this were all natural. As if it had happened a million times before.

Julia glanced at Faye, a ferocious glint in her silver eyes, and her lips tilted upwards in a splintered smile. So Faye smiled back, narrowed her eyes, and shoved her cold fist into the mans gut, wrenching the gun out of his fingers. She shoved the butt of the weapon into his face and watched him crumple to the ground, unconscious. Turning to Julia, she could see that she had done more or less the same.

"I thought you said you were going to face him." Faye glanced at Julia, grinning.

"I didn't mean to drag you into it." Julia replied, eyes scanning the room, nostalgia setting in. "I know the way."