NOTE: Please check out my A/N at the end of this chapter…I have some very important stuff to tell you! That, and thanks to all of my completely AWESOME reviewers that have stuck by me! You ROCK!!!!!!!! :) Oh...and I realized that I haven't disclaimed Bebop EVER, so it's now officially disclaimed!!!!

CH 3: The Pocket Watch

"Hmm...you really need to get yourself a new dress, Miss Muscovitz. Perhaps Faye will give you one of hers."

Katerina regarded the balding man before her with a warm smile, then shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, don't even bother, Mr. Black. I'm perfectly fine with just re-washing this old thing."

"B-but the holes..."

"Nothing that a little sewing can't fix right up," she insisted, winking before returning to the pot of rice she was cooking on the stove. "Besides, I wouldn't want to wear anything that that woman owns since it'd make much more sense to walk around completely naked. At least that looks practical."

Jet couldn't help but laugh at this sudden declaration, then nod in agreement. "Although you do make an excellent point, I'd still feel much better if you weren't wearing something that's practically in rags. It gets really cold on here at night, and I don't think that that thing will serve you too well. In fact, I'll just go ahead and call the minx in here right now. Faye.....FAYE!!!"

"WHAT?!"

"GET IN HERE, NOW!!!"

There came a brief pause, then a torrent of stomping and cursing as the vixen made her grand entrance into the kitchen, her left eye twitching ever-so-slightly as she demanded in a tired, edgy voice, "What the hell do you want, Jet?! I've got my hands full as it is with Baker Pancherero, out there, so whatever it is that you want, make Spike do it!"

"Spike doesn't have a dress," he insisted, folding his brawny arms to show that he meant business. "Katerina, here, is in dire need of a new wardrobe, so I want you to help her out."

Faye drooped. "Oh, my freaking God! You have got to be kidding me! There is just no way in hell that I'm sharing my clothes with that bitch!"

"You're going to do it and you're going to like it!," Jet growled, immediately lunging forward to allow his full height to tower over her. "Katerina is our guest, so I suggest that you start showing some respect for her! She needs your help right now, so for the love of God, take a Midol!!!"

Faye flinched as if she had been slapped. What an insensitive asshole!

Grumbling profanities under her breath, Faye then spun around on her heel in order to go see what she had for their 'charming' little guest, Jet immediately sending Katerina an apologetic glance before leaning dispiritedly against the doorway of the kitchen and letting out a heavy sigh.

"I'm really sorry you had to see that...Faye can be so stubborn, sometimes," he mumbled, subconsciously mopping his brow as he watched the cheery brunette continue to cook as if nothing in the world could possibly phase her. "If there's anything else that you need, I'll-"

"Is there anything that you need, you mean," Katerina corrected, immediately stopping what she was doing so that she could turn and face him. "That pocket watch...you've been staring at it all morning. I also overheard your conversation with Donelly......Alisa must've meant a great deal to you."

Jet choked in utter astonishment upon realizing that his secret was out, his hand instinctively tightening about the silver time piece within his palm as he took a deep breath and cleared his throat, demanding rather shakily, "A-and what if it does? Is it really any of your business to begin with?"

"I suppose not," Katerina agreed, "but I just thought that maybe I could help."

"Only if you can mend a broken heart," Jet returned bitterly, his deep baritone soft and wistful as he bowed his head forward and sighed. "It's been years since I've pulled this damned thing out, yet for some odd reason I had the sudden compulsion to do so and remember all the wonders of my past; to remember her."

Katerina smiled sadly. "Love works in mysterious ways, Mr. Black. You can never truly predict what your heart will want next."

Jet looked up at her, then, and smiled an actual smile. "Please," he urged, "call me Jet."

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Grinning from ear-to-ear as he pocketed his now full debit card, Spike couldn't help but whistle a lively tune before exiting the ISSP station and out into the warm Ganymede air, an agitated grunt escaping his throat as he found Faye waiting there for him on the steps for her share of the bounty.

Suddenly breaking into an unexpected smirk, Faye commented slyly, "Sense of justice and duty, huh?"

"First time he's home in years...of course he's gonna go see her," Spike insisted, somehow instantly knowing what she meant.

Rolling her eyes at this, Faye admonished scornfully, "You know, he's kidding himself if he thinks that his old girlfriend's carrying a torch for him. I'm sure she's moved on to bigger, better men by now."

Spike froze, then, suddenly sympathizing with his older comrade before he turned around, a smug smile now upon his lips as he defended coolly, "And you're kidding yourself if you think every woman's like you. They're not, you know."

"What?! I-"

"Where's Kat?," he hurriedly cut in, truly not wanting to hear Faye's most-likely pitiful rebuttal. "Did you leave her all alone on the ship with that kid and her mutt?"

"You know I did. There's no way in hell that I'd bring that irritant along," Faye returned crisply, her arms folding neatly beneath her breasts as she held her head high. "If you're so freaking worried about her, why don't you just go back, already?"

Spike smirked. "Why, ya jealous?"

"I...," Faye faltered. "No, I....urgh, of course not! Quit being such a stupid ass and give me my money!"

"Why, so you can lose it all at the races?," Spike gibed dryly in return, his smirk still firmly in place as he handed over his debit card, which he instantly realized was very stupid.

Greedily snatching it from his finger tips, Faye then placed it within the interior of her boot and flashed him a bewitching smile, cooing sweetly in response, "It's always a pleasure to do business with you, Mr. Spiegel....have a nice day!"

With a careless flick of the wrist as her final good-bye, she spun around on her heel and sauntered off in the general direction of the Redtail, Spike raising an eyebrow once he noticed how she made extra care to switch her ass back and forth as much as humanly possible for all the male population in Ganymede to ogle.

Spike rolled his eyes.

Women.

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"Faye...I want to talk to you."

The violet-haired vixen snorted, then continued to apply generous amounts of suntan lotion to her bikini-clad body. "Well what if I don't want to talk to you?," she demanded, never meeting with her new comrade's gaze. "I've got much more important things to do than associate with low-life slags."

"What, sunbathing? How very important," Katerina scoffed, folding her arms neatly beneath her well-endowed bosom as she shot her an agitated look. "I know that you don't like me very much, Faye, and for that I'm sorry. Being a fellow woman, I was hoping that you'd understand that we need to stick together since it's just me and you against the men."

Faye rolled her eyes. "Sorry, but if you were hoping for me to just full-out embrace you and start inviting you to fun little shindigs where we gossip about hot guys, you're shitting yourself much more than I originally thought. If it's a friend you're after, go take your proposition to the kid; she could sure use a new friend besides that worthless mutt. I, on the other hand, need no one."

Katerina felt her stance stiffen, yet she made no sudden move to strike out at the obnoxiously smug woman before her. Instead, she nodded, agreeing miserably, "You're right.....I was foolish to think that you'd want to be my friend."

Faye was absolutely astounded. "What did you just say?"

"You have every right to hate me," Katerina continued, not even bothering to acknowledge her comrade's simple question. "I just waltzed in one day and took everything that you held dear away from you......your spot as the only femme fatale, your father-figure, your dignity, and last but not least, your time alone with your boyfriend."

Faye blanched. "What the hell are you talking about?! I have no boyfriend!"

"Oh...but I thought Spike..."

"In his dreams," she scoffed, trying her damndest to prevent her cheeks from turning any redder than they already were. "If there's anything else that you'd like to impose upon me, save it for another century. As of now, I'm officially not speaking to you!"

Katerina raised an eyebrow at her off-the-wall, childish behavior, then shrugged it off, acknowledging softly, "Very well....I suppose that I should go and find Jet, now. The poor man's in no condition to just be off on his own like this."

Faye balked at her comrade, then immediately shook her head. "And how do you propose that you're going to do that?," she demanded, removing her sunglasses to reveal her terribly smug countenance. "You don't have a zip craft, and even if you did, do you think you could even pilot it?"

"I could," Katerina decided. "I've always watched Asimov control ours, so surely it isn't that difficult. Do you think that Spike would mind if I borrowed his for a bit?"

Faye laughed loudly as if she had just heard a wonderful joke. "Are you kidding? That thing's his baby! If he caught you even touching it, he'd-"

"Great...tell him I'll hopefully be back before sundown," Katerina interjected, immediately racing out towards the off-red zip craft that was foolishly being stationed outside of the docking bay. A lone tool box was sitting conveniently nearby, so she figured that Spike was on some sort of break from tinkering with the mechanical monstrosity. Why he didn't just kick the stupid thing was absolutely beyond her; Asimov's ship always worked better when he kicked it.

Finally reaching the hulky beast and beginning to mount it, Katerina froze the moment that the ship's comm. link beeped furiously from behind, almost instantly followed by a crackly voice that demanded urgently, "Where's Jet?"

Katerina faltered. "Uh...he went off somewhere on some personal errands. Why?"

"Your his partner, right?"

She nodded with slight hesitation. "Uh, yes...yes, I am."

"Well I've got some information on a new bounty head," the voice continued in a hushed monotone. "This isn't public, yet, but his name's Rhint Celonias...a thug who operates down at the port of Marvis. Last night he got a run-in with a money guy named Law Rentzuo, another low-life scam artist. The guy's dead."

Katerina raised an eyebrow. "And should this be of some importance to me or Jet?"

"Yeah......Rhint's Alisa's boyfriend. I just figured you'd wanna know."

"Oh!," Katerina exclaimed, immediately hauling herself up and into the cockpit. "I've got to warn Jet! Thank you so very much, Mr. Donelly!"

"No problem."

Switching the comm. link off with the flick of her forefinger, Katerina then strapped herself into the pod and glanced fixedly around at the blinking buttons on the console.

"Hmm...well here's the key," she thought aloud, picking it up from underneath the floor mat before carefully inserting it into the ignition. "A rather foolish place to keep such a thing, but whatcha gonna do?"

Turning the key so that the engines roared to life, Katerina roughly stepped on the gas, her heart leaping up into her throat once the Swordfish II blasted off of the ramp and up into the clear blue skies of Ganymede like a miniature rocket, her eyes widening once she glanced behind her and noticed a masculine figure with fluffy green hair frantically waving his arms and jumping up and down with the hopes of getting her to stop.

She smiled warmly. "Sorry, Spike, but this chick's gotta split."

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"Excuse me…could you please tell me where La Fin is?"

The old man that had been addressed looked up at Katerina with utmost curiosity, his brow crinkling sufficiently as he took a drag from his half-used cigarette and nodded. "Ay, madam....take a right after ya finish walkin' down 'dis street. Ya can't miss it."

"Thank you very much," Katerina acknowledged, nodding politely in his direction before placing five woolongs within the palm of his hand. "Take care, sir."

Absolutely flabbergasted by her generosity, the old man went to thank her, but Katerina had already gone, her long, luxurious brown locks flowing gracefully behind her in the wind as she paused to take off her high-heeled shoes so that she could walk more comfortably.

Smiling to herself, Katerina then realized that the recent men in her life both had big noses; a very good sign.

As a child of ten years old, she had decided that she very much disliked her small button nose, so, in result, she had declared that she would only fall in love with men that had larger noses than her own so that they would be well-balanced.

Silly though it was, Katerina realized that she always tended to fall for men with rather large noses, Asimov most certainly being no exception. Her nose had definitely grown since her childhood, yet that didn't stop her from wanting to be 'well-balanced'.

Jet definitely had a bigger nose than Spike, but did that really even matter? She had already promised herself that she wouldn't fall for either one of them, so, to her slight reluctance, she realized that she had to stop comparing and contrasting the men to the absurd standards of her early childhood fantasies.

Finally taking her eyes off of her tired bare feet and glancing upward, Katerina let out a delighted gasp upon realizing that she had finally reached La Fin.

Hastening over toward the small, shoddy building on long legs, Katerina frowned as a small piece of white paper tacked onto the door suddenly came into view.

"Gone fishing," she read breathlessly aloud, "well what sort of a note is that to leave? This is a business, is it not?"

Terribly disappointed that she had not found Rhint, Alisa, or Jet, Katerina slowly turned around in order to make her leave, a loud 'crash' coming from the Ganymede wharf freezing her directly in her tracks.

"Jet," she gasped, now blindly racing towards the direction of the terrible noise with the hopes of finding her comrade safe and sound. Oh, why did it seem that everyone that she cared about was involved in some sort of dangerous expedition? Sheesh. Talk about non-stop drama.

Immediately spotting Jet's hulky figure in the distance, Katerina forced herself to move faster, the skirts of her burgundy dress tangling about her legs and making her running all the more difficult as she tucked her shoes under one arm and cupped her hand over her mouth. "Jet!," she hollered, practically breathless from her over-exertion, "Leave Rhint and Alisa be! They could be armed!"

Jet, however, didn't even appear to be listening, his stony features hard and completely unwavering as he continued to stand there before his beloved Alisa like a lovelorn fool.

"Jet!," Katerina tried again, "please listen to me! Rhint's a bounty head!"

Finally turning to face her, her balding comrade gave her a pained look, then nodded. "I already know, Katerina. Spike called to let me know since you apparently stole his zip craft and our bounty information."

Katerina blushed. "W-well, I-"

"Enough!," Alisa suddenly exclaimed, her hands trembling as she withdrew a firearm from within her coat pocket and aimed it squarely at her ex. "This ends here, Jet! If you want Rhint, you'll have to get through me, first!"

Jet's hard features softened. "Alisa..."

BANG!

A stray bullet grazed his boot.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Again, Jet found himself with Lady Luck on his side as Alisa misfired repeatedly all about his tall and hulky figure, his sky blue eyes appearing to be pained and bewildered all at the same time as he looked her shaking figure over with severe empathy.

"You were just like this back then, too," she revealed tearfully, causing him to stiffen on impulse. "You decided everything, and yet......you were always right. When I was there with you, I never had to do anything by myself. All I had to do was hang onto your arm like a child without a care in the world...I wanted to live my own life and make my own decisions, even if that turned out to be one huge terrible mistake."

Jet watched on with a deep solemnity as Alisa allowed her firearm to slowly slip between her fingers and strike the ground with a subtle clatter, her sobs soft and surprisingly controlled as she slumped down to her knees and bowed her head forward in utter despair.

Seeing this as his chance to escape, Rhint immediately staggered up to his feet and broke into a run, but Jet effortlessly caught him by his shirt collar and yanked him back to his rightful position.

"Please let me go!," he begged, "I-I don't wanna go to prison! Let go! Please! Please, let me go!"

Frowning, Jet finally just struck him square across the jaw with the hopes of easing the young man's hysteria, Katerina and Alisa watching on in absolute astonishment as he muttered, "You'll survive this......be strong and take care of her for me."

Rhint nodded and forced a meager smile, yet it never truly reached his eyes.

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"So what are you going to do, now?"

Alisa smiled sadly. "Well I won't be on the run, anymore....I'll just wait here in my tavern for Rhint to return to me."

"If it helps, I don't think you'll be waiting very long. Time never stands still, you know," Jet revealed, smiling warmly as his ex turned around to face him with a genuine smile of her own.

To her absolute surprise, however, he was already leaving, Katerina wrapped supportively about his left arm as he gave her a polite wave good-bye with his right.

Placing his free hand into his pocket, he suddenly stopped, Katerina giving him a questioning glance as he withdrew his pocket watch and brought it out to glisten within the soft rays of the full moon above.

Smiling, he then removed himself from his comrade's comforting embrace and hurled the time piece out and into the wharf, a light-hearted whistle escaping his lips as he then turned and continued on his merry way as if nothing had ever happened in the first place.

Katerina smiled warmly. Something deep inside told her that he was going to be alright, after all.

THE IMPORTANT NOTE:

First of all, I am retiring, as many of you already know, so please, please, PLEASE leave reviews to make my retirement a good one!!! I've often felt that I should just abandon all my unfinished work since no one really seems to read them, anymore, but I felt that I was being selfish, so I AM willing to finish, but only if you let me know how I'm doing along the way! Thanks! Now for the MAIN note, lol:

As you may have noticed, this chapter was based on an actual episode in the series. I had decided long ago that I would rewrite the series by showing how Katerina would change everything, but don't worry, I will NOT make it word-for-word or exactly like it is in the series. In fact, this chapter is probably the closest to the series that it ever will get. Please tell me if there are any characters from the episodes that you'd like to see brought up, again! I personally liked VT a lot, so I think I'll bring her back in sometime. Secondly, the pairings have already been decided based on your votes and my own personal perception. What was reflected in this chapter may make you think that Kat will end up with Jet, but hmm, WILL she? Or will she be with Spike? Or will HE be with Faye? Hmmm. The whole point is that I'm trying to string you along and keep you guessing the whole way, so basically my goal is to keep you clueless until the very end. My warning to you is that the ending WILL be bittersweet like in the actual series, so don't be expecting fluffy clouds and fuzzy pink bunnies; that's just NOT going to happen. I, personally, suck at writing happy endings and I truly don't want to strip Bebop of its mind-blowingly sad mood-set at the end, so the mood will stay. I think you'll like the ending, though…..at least I do. :) Stay tuned for the next chapter! I'm skipping the whole Toys in the Attic dealie and going on to Jupiter Jazz, which is going to be SO much fun to write, btw. X-D Thanks for everything and please, please review! It's what makes me keep writing!!!!!!!

-Kendra Luehr