Sorry I haven't updated I was on vacation.

LaurenD--

Chapter Four

Spike landed back on the ship three days later to a very discontented Faye tapping her foot like a worried mother.

"Where have you been?" She demanded as he got out. His clothes were dirty, his hair rumpled and he smelled like he hadn't had a decent shower. He barely glanced at her before he looked away and closed himself up in the bathroom. As soon as he was out of sight and Faye was sure he was out of the hangar, Faye jumped up into Spike's seat and looked at the gas meter.

"Empty." She said leaning forward and tapping her finger on it. She sat back and put her feet on the dashboard. "You know, you don't always have to come back just because you run out of gas. You could come back because you want to once in a while." She told the air in the ship. She thought maybe it would relay her message for her.

"Where did you go?" Jet asked. Spike didn't answer. He sat there staring at something. Jet knew better than to ask again. If Spike didn't answer the first time, he sure as hell wasn't going to answer the second time. Besides, it was none of Jet's business and Jet knew it. He stood, slightly thrown by his Spike's ignorance. Jet looked like he wanted to say something and he teetered on the edge of spilling the words out. But he refrained and walked away, leaving Spike to ponder alone.

After a while, Jet came back, with his hands on his hips. He didn't sit. He said nothing for a long time. The silence in the air was screaming to be broken.

"Half the time I'm not sure why you come back." Jet told him. Then he waited another long while.

"You have every right to stay away and yet you come back to the worst thing in your life, the part of your life you hate the most. A bossy woman, a loud kid and a dog that's smarter than you. This isn't your ship and your not living for yourself, so tell me god damn it! Why the hell you keep coming back?"

Spike said nothing. Jet looked away. When Spike spoke his voice was scratchy and dry as though he hadn't spoken in a while.

"When they first came you wanted them gone. You wanted it back the old way. Now I can see it in your eyes that they have become just as much of your life as the old way."

"What?" But Spike did not repeat himself and Jet did not expect him to. "You didn't answer my question." He told Spike, still refusing to look at him.

"You already know the answer." Spike stood and left.

Jet did know the answer. He had felt it the day he lost his own love, Elisa. The day he knew they would never be together. He knew how it felt to love someone and have that love not be able to be returned. He knew Spike had nothing to go back to. His former life - the syndicate, Vicious, Julia... it was destroyed now. The syndicate had become different, even since before Spike had left. Vicious had become different, a cold-blooded killer desperate for the love of a woman that had not chosen him. And Julia...had she become different too? Had she changed? Julia had tried to run away from it all. She tried to leave, only wanting to be off on some distant planet loving each other. And that was all Spike had wanted in life too...that was all anyone could hope to want from a man...

Jet was forced to look at himself - to reflect on his own past life. Where had he been? Where had he desired to be now? Was he living like he pictured? Looking around, he knew this was not the ideal life he had envisioned. He had never dreamed of meeting Spike and deciding to become a bounty hunting team. Then again, when had he ever dreamed of leaving Elisa? Had he really planned to stay on Ganymede forever serving the ISSP his whole life? He shook his head. No. But maybe he wanted it to be different. Maybe he had imaged it to be slightly different one day. Loading a gun, drifting on some crater of a ship with a sarcastic woman and an immature kid was not his life. No, he had wanted to be in a green field somewhere far away from that, Elisa in his arms, grass brushing their skin...

Spike walked down the hallway faster then normal. His hands were clenched in tight fists, his left hand held Ed's laptop, in the crook of his arm, the man's briefcase and his right hand around his gun, ready to fire. He made it to his Swordfish without firing a shot and he found that it took a lot more self control then he'd originally thought. He got in without stopping. He didn't put on his seatbelt or even turn on his communicator screen. He got in, turned it on and took off. He was livid. He looked at the laptop. The hacker's code was Darlution. This, Spike had determined, was the place they would meet – if it was a place.

It took longer than he anticipated to get all the way to Callisto. He had his gun in his lap. He landed at a place he had only been once before.

He walked down the road, men jeering at his unknown face and stormed his way into the bar. He slammed his fist on the bar and the tender came over quickly.

"Is there something I can get for you?"

"Tell me where Darlution is." Spike demanded.

"Alley down off of 98th Terrace." Said the man, looking at him strangely. Spike turned and left the man standing there. He walked quickly down the roads that lead him there, the briefcase's handle wet with sweat and his gun sliding in and out of his grasp. He found 98th Terrace and walked slower along it, dodging in and out of the shadows. He saw a gap in the wall he was walking along. A small, spray-painted sign told him this was the place to be. As he turned down the alley, he saw that it was filled with people. Most, if not all of them were men, large tattooed men. They all sported guns, glinting in the dark. Their voices rumbled together to make a kind of ripple in the air's pattern... It was the black market up close. He saw the trade of guns and he could smell the spice of drugs plugging his nostrils... He moved through the crowd, unnoticed. His eyes were darting back and forth and behind him. The alley seemed never ending, just a long tunnel for trade of illegal items, not that Callisto needed a secret place for its black market since most of the I.S.S.P. rarely ever set foot there for fear of their own lives. Spike's green hair stood out in the dark crowd. He shouldered the wall again, sliding along it like a snake looking for its prey. Spike saw him. Against a far wall, hand in his jacket. Spike reached for his own gun but as soon as he did, the vast population of the crowd around him, did too. They were all ready for him in case Spike were to turn on them or ready for a bullet to go astray on their friend so they would be ready for attack but Spike didn't stop. He held the gun out and a path cleared of people for his bullet to shoot straight into the man. He took it, making sure it didn't hit the man directly in the heart so he would have time to explain about his deals. The man stood the pain a second time. Spike's gun lowered. The men around him went back to their deals, hands still on the triggers of their guns.

Spike walked to him and threw the briefcase at him which opened at it hit the wall. It was filled with paper, newspaper clippings and photographs.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Spike asked him, his voice raspy.

"I'm Vicious's most loyal friend." The man said loudly. Spike gritted his teeth together.

"Why? What did Vicious ever do for you?"

"He was my most loyal friend."

"Vicious used you." Spike told him. "Vicious used you so he could get what he wanted. Vicious was never your friend."

"And you're saying he was once your friend?" Spike kicked the man hard in the ribs so that he flew back against the stone wall. Some of the men were watching now.

"Fumihiko, you know that you're worth a lot. I could turn you in and get a lot of money for your head and to see you safely behind bars. But you know something? I'd rather watch you burn." Spike took out a cigarette from his top pocket and lit it. He inhaled deeply and blew the smoke in the man's face. "I'd rather know you died screaming somewhere in a pit of hell. You killed her because Vicious was murdered- because Vicious got he deserved and you didn't want her to live if Vicious couldn't. Vicious had no friends." And Spike unloaded his gun into the man's head and chest. He didn't make sure he was dead this time but took the lighter and lit his clothes on fire. Spike stood back to watch. The photos were burning with him. They were all of her and Vicious. Spike tasted the blood in his mouth as he watched the man's flesh melt and froth. A grin flared across his face. An uneasy feeling settled itself inside his chest. He walked away, through the crowd of men, leaving the man to rot. He had avenged her - it was over. There wasn't purpose left in life.

Spike's footsteps returned. Their eyes met as Spike appeared in the doorway.

"The answer-" Spike looked away. "Doesn't seem like you."

"Nor you."

"But it holds truth." Jet told him.

"Incomprehensibility. Not truth. Love's bounty is high. No one can seem to capture it for long."

"Then I will never expect you back." Spike caught his eye again. "And, yes, I'll take care of Faye and Ed and Ein on the day you don't come back, even if I don't want to."

And he did.

It was raining. A rose in the rain washed next to a tombstone. It wanted to die for its beauty had gone and it had nothing left to live for.

The rain soaked his clothes to his skin. His hair was in his eyes as was the rain's clear drops. Just below where he stood, someone on the sidewalk thirty feet below could make out the tips of his shoes protruding over the edge. He saw the ruby rose through the gray world so far below. He held his arms out, his body protesting the liberation.

And he felt it, the wind in his face, closing his eyes, he saw the face of the woman he once loved who reminded him of the morning air...