A/N: Hey! ::takes a deep breath:: WOW, this took forever and a day to write, so I truly hope that you reward me with a REVIEW! ::hint hint nudge nudge:: heehee I really enjoyed writing this chapter, so I truly hope that you'll enjoy reading it just as much! Love ya bunches! ,
CH 5: Wilting Roses Part 2
"And what exactly do you hope to accomplish by killing me?"
Katerina frowned, her index finger perched precariously over the trigger. "I think you know the answer to that, Gren," she returned coolly, never removing her fixated gaze from her completely un-phased target. "You're a criminal and, quite frankly, I think that I'd be doing the universe a whole lot of good by wiping your existence from the face of this Godforsaken planet."
Gren smiled, then nodded. "How humanitarian of you! And just think, I don't even know the name of my soon-to-be murderess."
Katerina lowered her weapon only for a moment, then immediately returned it to its rightful position. If he thought that he would manipulate her by means of guilt, he had another think coming!
"Don't say another word," she warned, taking a cautious step forward. "I, Katerina Muscovitz, am in charge here....does that answer your question?"
Gren nodded. "Indeed, it does."
"Good...I want you to come with me to the ISSP," she continued, taking yet another step forward before roughly seizing him by the lapels of his button-down shirt. "Soon, Gren Eckener, everyone will know what a creep you are! A drug dealer...a crook...a murderer!"
He smirked, then shrugged his broad shoulders in resignation. "Would it help matters any if I said that I had no choice? Perhaps we can argue about this further over a nice shot of whiskey?"
"What are you trying to pull?! As far as I'm concerned, you're just trying to stall time!," Katerina spat, now only mere inches away from his face.
Gren closed his eyes and let out a small chuckle, conceding softly, "You're quite a woman, Miss Muscovitz...even more beautiful than those many years ago when I saw your tear-stained face gazing back dejectedly at my guilt-ridden soul. If there's one thing that you're going to believe tonight, please believe this: I did not kill your parents. I would never dream of hurting you, Katerina."
"Then why...?"
She paused, disconsolately allowing her firearm to slip forth from her grasp and down to the hardwood floor with a subtle clatter. Glancing back up at him with glistening violet irises, she continued in a shaky, yet resolute voice, "Gren, I...I think I'm ready for that drink right about now."
He smiled, then nodded. "Of course, Miss Muscovitz...just give me a second and I'll be right back."
Katerina turned to watch him leave, then unsteadily found herself staggering over to a nearby couch before gracelessly flopping down upon it. Burying her face within the sanction of her hands, she then curled herself up into the fetal position, allowing her lush chocolate-brown locks to fall across her forlorn facade like a curtain as an impenetrable aegis to all the world. If there was anything that she wanted at that very moment, it was to be hidden.
"Katerina?"
Making a pitiful noise from the back of her throat, she then sluggishly forced herself to sit up. Standing there before her was Gren, a warm smile upon his lips as he positioned the tray of whiskey directly before her.
"I figured that this is what you'd want...please help yourself," he urged, his smile only intensifying once his unstable guest shakily reached out and took one of the glasses from the tray.
"Thank you," Katerina mumbled, throwing her head back and downing the strong alcohol in one swig, the clear liquid creating a deliciously intoxicating burning sensation within her throat as she leaned back against the couch and sighed. "Aren't you going to sit down and stay a while, Mr. Eckener?"
Gren smirked at her joke, then set the tray down upon the coffee table before taking a glass of his own. "Of course," he acknowledged, raising his glass in a mock toast before downing it nearly as quickly as Katerina had, his mind slightly muddled as he sat himself down upon the chair opposite his guest.
"So do you always take in strangers like this?," Katerina suddenly questioned, her forefinger absently tracing the rim of her shot glass as she sent her comrade a rather amused glance. "After all, I wouldn't exactly say that we're exactly on the best of terms."
Gren smirked, then bowed his head in agreement. "Let's just say that I only take in the interesting ones," he decided aloud after a moment, pouring himself another drink. "Want some more?" Katerina declined, so he continued earnestly, "You're truly one of the most interesting people that I've met in a long time....I don't know why, but I'm drawn to you."
Katerina couldn't help but laugh at that. "Well what can I say? The men just seem to fall at my feet," she teased, thus eliciting a warm smile from her comrade's lips.
"There's no doubt," he agreed, causing her to send him a curious glance.
"Why, Mr. Eckener...are you coming onto me?," Katerina demanded, batting her lashes in mock flirtation.
Gren smiled, then immediately shook his head, acknowledging softly, "On the contrary...I'm just mulling over the last few precious moments in life that I have left to live. Might as well make a beautiful woman feel better about herself in the process."
"What do you mean?!," Katerina squeaked, her grip tightening considerably about her shot glass to the point that she feared that it might break.
Gren smiled yet again, then shrugged before glancing up at the ceiling as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. "I've poisoned myself," he admitted, letting out a deep sigh before redirecting his gaze back towards his absolutely stunned comrade's. "I slipped some arsenic into my drink while I was in the kitchen because sooner or later I knew that I had to escape this madness. Vicious would just keep hunting me for the damned Red Eye and for the sole fact that I had feelings for Jul-"
"Who's Vicious?," Katerina interrupted, now directly on her feet. "Better yet, don't answer that...we've got to get you to a hospital!"
Gren immediately shook his head. "No...even if I wanted to, I'd be long dead before we ever made it there. Just take me to see Vicious...one last time."
"What?! I-"
"Please," he begged, his voice laden with a desperateness that touched his comrade deeply.
Sighing in resignation, Katerina nodded, then empathetically touched his shoulder. "Come on...show me the way."
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Bored and about to go completely out of her mind with wondering as to where the hell her fellow partners had gone off to, Faye continued to absently meander down along the restricted corridors of the Bebop, her mind anywhere but there as she soon found herself questioning why she even bothered having partners to begin with.
In the long run, they all seemed to run off and do whatever the hell they felt like, so what good did that do her? She longed for security and a firm, solid place to belong to, and the Bebop was most definitely the exact antithesis of her seemingly insatiable needs. So why, exactly did she stay? Oh, how she wished she knew.
Jet was annoying and so was the kid, the dog was just...there, Katerina was tolerable at times, and Spike...well, what about him? The man was an enigma within a damned enigma, it seemed, so she figured that it would do her no good to try and figure him out. She truly hated brain teasers, anyway, and Spike was surely the biggest one of all the universe.
Lighting a cigarette before leaning up against the wall, Faye exhaled a disgusted sigh filled with ribbons of smoke once she spotted Edward gamboling down along the hallway towards her at a ridiculously super-human speed. Good God, what kind of batteries did that kid run on?
"Faye-Faye! Faye-Faye!," the redhead exclaimed breathlessly upon spotting the older woman, "Lookie-lookie at what Ed found!"
Rolling her eyes and deciding to humor the child, Faye then leaned over in order to see what she had, only to gasp in utter astonishment at what she saw. "Spike's journal? Where did you get that?!," she demanded, seizing it from the stunned adolescent's grasp within a moment of absolute disbelief.
Edward blinked, then glanced down at her hands that had only moments before contained the lunkhead's most personal thoughts and confessions. "Give that back to Ed!," she begged, her brow furrowing slightly as she glared back up at her older comrade. "Ed found it first, Faye-Faye! No fair!"
"I know that, kid, but this wasn't meant for your eyes...mine, either, for that matter," Faye insisted, now in slight shock over the fact that she was actually protecting the lunkhead's privacy. "What I want for you to do is go and play with the dog, or something...I'm pretty sure that he's awful lonely since Jet's out looking for Kat."
Edward suddenly appeared to be rather sad, acknowledging softly, "Ed really misses Kit-Kat and Spike-person....they are coming back, aren't they?"
"Of course," Faye insisted, truly not knowing whom she needed to convince more; Edward or herself. "They'll be back before you know it, and it's been scientifically proven that time goes by a lot faster for those that actually do something while waiting, so quick....go find Ein!"
"Oh, boy, oh, yay, Ed will go and play, hooray!," the redhead chortled erratically in response, leaping up into the air before making a mad dash for the commons.
Shaking her head with slight amusement, Faye smiled, then immediately remembered why she had tried to get rid of Edward so quickly in the first place.
Spike's journal.
Glancing down at the worn, leather-bound cover, she couldn't help but smirk as a sudden thought wedged its way within the cramped-up corners of her mind:
'To read or not to read? That is the question...'
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"Are you sure that it was this woman?," Jet demanded, impatiently tapping the photograph that he had placed down upon the bar table.
Regarding him with a brief glance, the bartender tended back to mopping the floor, then nodded. "Yeah...it's been about six months since I've last seen a woman in the flesh, and two years since I've seen one that good-looking. Trust me, pal, I wouldn't make a mistake like that!"
"Man, I sure wouldn't wanna live around here," Jet commented more to himself than to the other man, casting his gaze heavenward before he realized that the bartender was talking again.
"She sat over there, talking to Gren," he revealed, diligently mopping a certain spot on the floor before pausing to wipe his brow. "Julia used to sit in that same seat."
"Julia?," Jet reiterated, absolutely astounded that his comrade's old lover's name had appeared more than once in the same day.
The bartender nodded. "Yeah...about two years ago she wandered in out of the blue, then a month later she went off and just disappeared."
"Yeah?," Jet questioned, leaning forward with a new type of interest. "What kind of a girl was she, anyway?"
The bartender suddenly stopped mopping, a faint smile now upon his lips as he returned wistfully, "She was a real woman."
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These past few days have been so confusing for me...a feeling has awoken within my soul that takes me back to days that were better; to days that were with her. I hate myself right now, fore I've allowed the unthinkable to happen: I've been developing slight feelings for one of my fellow comrades as of late. It's wrong, I know, but every time I see her, I just...freeze. She's so much like Julia that it hurts just to be around her, so what should I do? Run away from all my fucking problems like before? Yeah...that would be like me, wouldn't it? I don't even deserve this girl; I'm a coward. I'm almost tempted to get down on my knees and pray for guidance, but I'm not that desperate for help.
-Spike
Faye continued to gaze down upon her comrade's journal entry in utter astonishment, her heart filled with a tremendous excitement once she realized that Spike had feelings for someone onboard the Bebop.
Could it be her? No...it had to be Katerina. She was not only beautiful, but very talented, as well. She could cook, clean, don socks...heck, she could do all of the womanly chores that Faye had never really applied herself to learning.
The whole truth of the matter was that Faye never liked to feel tied down, so even attempting to do all of the tasks that Katerina daily performed most certainly clipped her wings and prevented her from having her desired freedom. Besides, her breasts would probably get in the way somehow; they always got in the way.
"Faye?"
She looked up in utter astonishment, only to find her bald-headed comrade leaning solemnly against her doorway.
"Jet!," she exclaimed, suddenly alarmed, "What's happened?! Is Spike ok?!"
"How the hell should I know?," he groused, wiping the sweat from his brow before sending her a dirty look. "That troublesome prick's off somewhere that even I don't know, and now that I've checked out the blue apartment complex that Katerina was supposedly inside of, I've given up all hope. She...she wasn't there, and neither was Gren."
Faye blanched. "Who?"
"He apparently knows something about Julia and Vicious," Jet continued, a far-off look glazing over his pale blue eyes as he took off his coat and hat and folded them under one arm. "As for Katerina, I guess that she's wherever Gren is......or at least that's what the bartender told me."
Faye suddenly smirked, causing her comrade to give her a funny look.
"What the hell are you looking at me like that for?"
She shrugged. "Ooh, nothing, really...I've just got my reasons, is all."
With a bemused expression upon his face, Jet shook his head as he turned to leave, all the while praying that Spike and Katerina were safe from harm.
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"They're not here," Katerina concluded, warily surveying the rooftop that she and Gren had recently landed upon. "I thought you said that you were selling Red Eye to Vicious....you didn't lie to me again, did you?"
Gren smiled weakly; the poison was working a lot faster than he had originally anticipated.
Boosting himself up so that he could crawl out from behind the one-man pilot seat that Katerina was currently occupying, he then hopped out of the zip craft's cockpit and motioned for her to follow.
"I don't bite," he assured her upon noticing her distrusting face, holding out his arms so that he could help his comrade down and to the ground.
Completely ignoring his assistance, altogether, Katerina leapt out of the seat of the pod-like craft and to her feet with the grace of a cat, her gaze hard and accusing as she spat out venomously in response, "Keep your friendly hands to yourself, Mr. Eckener! You haven't even told me whether or not this is a wild good chase, so why should I even trust you with the simple task of helping me out of your zip craft?!"
"Touche'," Gren agreed, bestowing her with a humble bow before grasping onto the hull of his ship to prevent himself from toppling over.
Immediately taking note of this, Katerina frantically rushed over to his side and forced him to place his left arm about her neck, her arms slipping about his slender waist in order to support him before she whispered spitefully into his ear, "You do realize that I'm only helping you because you're dying, right?"
Gren smirked. "Of course...why else would you be so considerate towards me, Katerina? I am, after all, the one that killed your parents......remember?"
She stiffened. "Don't push me, Gren...I could just load your sorry rear back onto the zip craft and prevent you from seeing your little friend, you know."
"But you won't...you're just as eager to see him as I am," he insisted, daringly reaching out and touching a lock of her soft, lush brown hair. "I see it in your eyes, Katerina, and yet it's completely understandable. Everyone longs to uncover the mystery of Vicious."
Katerina couldn't help but gasp at that last statement; she was now truly afraid. Was there any truth to his name, or was it all just some ridiculous cover-up to strike fear into the hearts of those that opposed him?
Whatever it was, she couldn't help but pray that Gren wasn't killed by this man. Although he was already well on his way to pushing up daisies, she much preferred to see the young man die of his own hand opposed to someone else's. That, at least, provided a little bit of dignity.
Reaching up and grasping Gren's invading hand within her own, Katerina managed to bestow him with a small smile, her heart heavy as she demanded fearfully, "Why do you want to see Vicious before you die, Gren? Is it that important?"
He nodded solemnly. "You may not understand it, Katerina, but as long as my burning questions go unanswered I will die a very unhappy man."
"Gren..."
He stepped away from her, his blue eyes practically burning holes into her violet ones as he turned and unsteadily began to hobble forward. "Vicious," he called, his voice echoing dully amidst the cool Jupiter breeze, "are you here? I'm waiting for you! Come and get me!"
In response to his shouts, a flock of crows scuttled over to the edge of the building and frantically took off, a massive cloud of black dissipating off into the horizon before a hazy figure suddenly appeared out from behind the completely oblivious couple.
"I am here, Gren," the figure remarked coolly, Katerina crying out upon seeing the silvery-haired phantasm before them, a young Asian man with piercing green eyes obediently at his side like a well-trained puppy.
"Vicious," Gren returned darkly, a look of pain and bewilderment glinting across his cerulean blue orbs as he regarded his old comrade with a subtle nod of the head. "You sold me down the river back on Titan and....and I want to know why."
The silvery-haired man merely smirked in return, adoringly caressing the hilt of his katana before revealing coldly, "Why, in order to do that, my dear Gren, I'm afraid that I would have to kill you."
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BOOM!
Spike gasped, his two-toned eyes widening in utter astonishment upon spotting a cloud of billowing smoke emanating forth from the rooftop of a neighboring building.
Frantically discarding his cigarette off to the side and into a shallow snow bank, he hoisted himself up into the cockpit of the Swordfish II and prepared for take-off.
As much as he hated to admit it, his search for Julia would have to wait; there were far more serious problems ahead.
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"GET DOWN!!!"
Shrieking, Katerina dove off and to the side before hiding behind the safety of a nearby smoke stack, yet another bomb going off and sending debris flying every which way as she covered her head and got down low to the ground.
Sending Gren a grateful glance for the well-needed warning, she then retrieved her firearm from within her thigh-holster and leveled it out toward the unfolding battle site before her.
Whatever was going to happen, she was determined not to let Gren go through with it alone.
"We fought that bloody war together....we were comrades," Gren suddenly choked out, his brows knitting tightly together into a pained expression as he kept his firearm trained firmly on Vicious' skull. "We risked everything out there on Titan. I looked up to you...I believed in you."
Vicious stiffened. "There is nothing to believe in...surely even you know that."
His gaze hardening due to feeling the impact of his comrade's spoken betrayal like a knife through the heart, Gren pulled back on the trigger and fired three rounds into the air, praying with all his might that they would hit their mark.
Vicious easily evaded the shots with the stealth and agility that he naturally possessed, but the fourth shot completely caught him off-guard.
"Vicious-sama...look out!!!," his young Asian accomplice exclaimed, immediately throwing himself in front of his mentor without even giving it a second thought.
Stiffening, Gren solemnly watched on as the bullet made its mark within the young Asian's chest, copious bursts of scarlet expelling forth from the mortal wound as the foolish man took in his final breath.
Not even the least bit moved by this act of martyrdom, Vicious glanced up towards an oncoming zip craft, his steely eyes narrowing with recognition.
Spike...
Deciding that it was well time to go, Gren beckoned to Katerina urging, "Quickly! Go find someplace safe to take cover....I'll need to settle my differences in the air!"
Nodding, she uneasily parted from his side and wedged herself in-between two smoke stacks, her violet irises twinkling with fear as she watched Vicious and her comrade each board their own zip crafts and prepare for take-off.
Shielding her face against the gusts of wind that were now buffeting her entire body, Katerina glanced back up in order to find both men airborne, a newcomer raining ammunition down upon Vicious' zip craft without even the slightest hint of mercy.
"Spike!," she exclaimed, absolutely disbelieving her eyes. What was he doing there, and how did he know Vicious?
Spike, meanwhile, continued to irascibly pilot his zip craft, showering blast after blast of ammunition down upon his hated nemesis before taking a wide turn, shouting acidly over his shoulder, "Vicious! Lin died protecting you! His soul is lost!"
"Don't you get it?! He wasn't protecting me...he was protecting the order!," Vicious growled, pulling his craft around into a perfect 180 so that he was now hot on the Swordfish II's trail.
Grinning once he realized that victory would soon be his, he placed his thumb over the detonator for the missile cannons, only to immediately jerk forward. He had been hit!
Glaring spitefully back over his shoulder at Gren, Vicious swerved his zip craft around and began the tiresome chase of cat and mouse, his last nerve truly about to snap.
Once he had aligned Gren's small pod-like ship within his sights, he immediately slammed his fist down upon the artillery button, commenting coldly under his breath, "You're in the way."
Gasping, Gren felt his craft jolt forward due to the tremendous damage that his adversary's missiles had created, his head swimming due to the poison within his system and the noxious fumes that were leaking in through the cockpit as he dazedly tried to pull it together.
Coughing into his awaiting hand, he watched on miserably as Spike and Vicious continued to battle it out like two moths drawn to the flame, his eyes suddenly rolling back in his head once he limply dropped forward and collapsed upon the controls within a severe state of shock.
"GREN!!!," Katerina exclaimed, just now egressing the front entrance to the building that they had been a top only moments before, her heart pounding within her chest once she helplessly watched her comrade crash down into a shallow snow bank, the Swordfish II not far behind.
"Hey!," Spike gasped, immediately hauling himself up and out of the cockpit before dropping down heavily into the snow, "Don't die, Gren! I need for you to be alive! HEY!"
Absolutely outraged by her comrade's behavior, Katerina raced over to the site of the accident as quickly as her long legs could possibly carry her, shouting angrily, "You leave him alone, Spike Spiegel! Let him die in peace!!!"
Purposely ignoring her orders, Spike took Gren by the shoulders and roughly began to shake him, urging frantically, "Goddammit, wake up! I need to find Julia...please tell me where she is!"
Upon overhearing that ominous name, Gren's eyes immediately snapped open, his blurred gaze resting upon the frenetic countenance of a young man as he tried his damndest to register what on earth had just happened to him.
"Julia...," he rasped, clutching onto Spike's arm before heaving yet another gut-busting cough into his awaiting hand. Upon pulling his arm back, however, both men came to immediately notice the splotch of blood that was now resting upon Gren's palm.
"Oh, shit! You've got an internal injury!," Spike exclaimed, frantically checking all of his pockets for his comm. link. "Oh, shit! Where did I put that damned thing?!"
"Leave him alone!," Katerina begged yet again, now close enough to touch them. Dropping down and to her knees, she immediately pulled Gren into her lap and cradled his head before stroking his long, deep blue hair, tears filling her eyes as she continued breathlessly, "Please, Spike...this man has already been through so much; why do you wish to prolong his agony by adding your burden to his already troubled soul?"
"He knows where Julia is...he has to tell me!," Spike insisted, now seeing red as his sudden hatred towards the woman before him only mounted in its intensity. "If you don't shove off and mind your own friggin' business, Katerina, I won't be held responsible for my own actions!"
Katerina bowed her head, then nodded. "So be it, Spike...I know now that this man couldn't possibly have killed my parents, so I am completely willing to stay with him as long as he needs me; sustaining injury or not."
"Kat..."
"Please," she begged, protectively cradling Gren's head against her bosom, "leave him alone."
Spike gritted his teeth. What was it with him and women? Were they automatically all out to get him, or did he just happen to be a walking sign that screamed, 'Hey, look! I'm a doormat! Walk all over me!'?
Stupid wench.
Before Spike could tell her off, however, Gren let out a small groan, then cast his glistening gaze up towards Katerina's tear-stained face, choking out lethargically, "Kater...ina......I-I thought that...you should...know who k-killed your......parents."
She gasped. "Gren! What are you saying?! Someone you know killed my parents?!"
He nodded weakly.
Briefly exchanging a shocked glance with Spike, Katerina then took Gren by the hand, giving it a gentle squeeze before urging sweetly, "Please don't tell me unless you really think that I should know, Gren. If you were the one who did it, after all, I just don't think that I could handle-"
"No," he rasped, gargling on his own words, "i-it wasn't me, Katerina....I......I saw..."
"What?," she pressed, quite urgent, now. "What did you see?!"
Gren closed his eyes, then groaned. "It was...it was him, he..."
"WHO?!"
"Please," he suddenly begged, weakly grasping at her wrist, "load me back into the pod. I-I want to go to Titan......one last time."
"Titan?!," Spike exclaimed, completely taken aback. "Even if you tried, you'd never make it there in your present condition!"
Gren smiled, a dreamy, far-off look washing over his soft features as he let out a small chuckle. "You're right," he agreed, "but since I am to die, I at least want to die well on my way."
"B-but my parents...," Katerina tried again, faltering once she caught the pleading look in his eyes. They were so blue....so sad....
Bowing her head forward, she finally decided that it could wait, her legs rubbery and unstable as she got up off of her knees in order to help Spike lift Gren up into the pod.
Smiling gratefully at the two, Gren leaned back in his pilot's chair, sighing peacefully as they strapped him into place and prepared to shut the pod.
"This is my final voyage," he announced, his warm gaze resting fondly upon Katerina. "Thank you for making the last of my life so enjoyable."
Katerina smiled tearfully, then took his cold, limp hand within her own. "Believe me," she insisted, "the pleasure has been all mine."
Smiling in return, Gren closed his eyes and sighed as she let go of his hand and stepped back, Spike shutting the pod before a loud 'whoosh' of air escaped the craft once the surrounding bubble sealed up and around their comrade's rigid form.
Katerina suddenly stopped smiling, fore she knew he was dead.
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"Well that's just great, you two! You both run off and neither of you can drag in Gren for his bounty?!"
"It wasn't our fault! Gren poisoned himself!," Katerina insisted, looking to Spike for help. He merely gave a helpless shrug in return, so she sighed, continuing harshly, "Look, Jet, even if we had caught him, I seriously don't think that I would have allowed you to turn him in. Gren was a good man with a good heart."
Jet snorted. "So I see that he got to you....not a very bright idea to get affectionate with a bounty."
"I didn't even know he was a bounty until it was too late!," Katerina shot back, slamming her fist down onto the coffee table in-between them within a moment of sheer rage. "You're such a prick, Jet! And here I was, actually worried of what you'd think about me for running away from my problems! Grah, you're all such assholes!"
Jet blanched upon her sudden outburst, Spike merely smoking in contentment alongside him while Katerina seized her winter coat from off of the arm of the chair that she had been sitting upon and stormed out of the commons within a fit of untamed rage.
Still seething like a kettle about to burst, Katerina stalked into the main controls room, only to have her high-heels' incessant clip-clopping cease upon spotting a familiar figure curled up on the floor within the luminous glow of the stars.
"Faye?," she questioned, taking an uneasy step forward, "i-is that you?"
The vixen gave a dull nod of the head, never removing her glistening gaze from the celestial view before her. "Have a seat," she urged, thus catching her comrade completely by surprise.
Needless to say, Katerina hadn't expected such a kind gesture from her anger-prone partner.
"Thank you," she acknowledged, seating herself down onto the cold metal floor beside the violet-haired seductress. "Something bothering you? You aren't nearly as chipper as you were the last time we talked."
Faye couldn't help but smile at that. She knew it was a stab at her rather bitchy attitude as of late, yet she didn't care. She was far too wrapped up in her own personal problems to even give a damn about anyone or anything else.
"Silent tonight, are we? Well, that's ok...I'll just do all the talking," Katerina decided aloud, bestowing her comrade with a winning smile as she drew her legs up against her chest and sighed. "You know," she continued, "I truly hope that you're not mad at me for something that I'm not even aware of having done. We are the only women on this ship, you know, and we women have to stick together."
Faye smirked. "Wow, the guys must've really pissed you off...what'd they do this time?"
Katerina shrugged, folding her hands within her lap before gazing out at the stars. "I don't really know," she admitted, "but I think that I'm actually mad at myself. You see, I wanted to show them that I could take care of myself by running away, but that kinda back-fired, huh?"
"Yeah," Faye agreed, laughing, "if I'm not being too bold, that is."
"No...I really did make a mess of things," Katerina agreed, dejectedly smoothing out the wrinkles to her burgundy-colored dress. "If anything, I think that I only further proved my weakness to the guys. I wanted them to think of me as this strong-willed woman that answers to no one and lives by her own rules, but now...well, I guess that I'll just have to remain being the dull woman that cooks and nags."
Faye smirked, announcing with mock apology, "Sorry to burst your bubble, Kat, but the full-time job of nagging has already been taken. You can fill in for the position of the sympathizing monger, however."
Katerina laughed loudly. "Agreed...as long as we play this ball game as girls versus boys from now on."
"Alright," Faye acknowledged, holding out her hand for the other woman to shake.
Katerina immediately took it within her grasp and they pleasurably sealed the deal, laughing at the whole prospect of twisting the men into doing whatever it was that they so desired.
'Hmm,' Faye thought, absently twisting a lock of violet about her finger as she curiously watched her new friend from out of the corner of her eye, 'maybe having another female onboard won't be so bad, after all.'
A/N: ::coughs:: Weell, don't get too excited about them 'bonding', since the very next chapter they will be right back where they started once the LEMON comes into play. I'm not sure whether I should post that part of the chapter on here, yet, since I haven't even written it yet, but we'll see. I haven't been getting many reviews, lately, so PLEASE, for the love of all that is holy, REVIEW!!!!!! Lol Thankies.