Oh my gosh…can it be? The Big Chapter, as a friend of mine calls it. It's the definite major turning point in the fic, and although I still don't know how long it's going to be, this does mean the foreshadowing of the end. Please enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Cowboy Bebop.

Note: The chapter title is from "Adieu" by Yoko Kanno.

The Bride of Note: This is a revised version of this chapter. For those of you who caught the first posting, it isn't really necessary to read it again, since I just fixed some errors and added in a bit more description, but if you feel like a re-read, go for it!

-- Kites Without Strings -- Part Eight: My Love For You

By Gundam Girl

The two people closest to Vicious left the spaceport together. It would have been ridiculous not to, and, to a certain extent, childish. Running away didn't suit either of them. Running away from each other…that was ridiculous, too.

Spike was the first to say anything, just as they were coming out of the port. "So." Not Goethe, but hey. A guy does what he can.

"So." Julia obviously couldn't do any better. She turned back to look at the glass doors. "He's gone off to war." A small smile came to her lips. "I must be the girl back home."

"Nah. You're not the type." Fishing around in his trench coat for a lighter and a cigarette, Spike admitted he just didn't want her to be the type. Retrieving the much-desired objects, he lit up and nearly sighed as the nicotine entered his system. Damn, if Vicious didn't make him nervous lately.

Julia's eyes sharpened at his words. "But I'm the type who'd kiss another guy while she was dating someone, right?"

Fuck. He nearly burned his finger on the end of his cigarette. He fumbled for words as the lighter dropped to the street. "God. Julia." She wasn't furious anymore, he realized as her eyes fell to where his tool had landed. She was just hurt now. "I'm sorry for that night. I really, really am." He wished he wasn't, but there wasn't much more he could do about it than he could do about Earth being a wasteland. "I just thought…" What had he been thinking again? Her hard, blue stare made it difficult to remember. It came to him like a light turning on. "I thought we needed to…to end…it."

"End what, Spike?" Annoyance coated her voice like bad-tasting medicine. He liked her laughter better. "End dancing and jazz songs and accidental kisses?"

"Accidental." He rocked back on his heels, contemplating the word. "Is that what they were?"

"It's what they had to be. What are you doing?" she demanded while he held out a hand and a taxi slid up in front of them.

"Taking you home," he replied, opening the door and pulling her into the car with him.

"I don't want to go home," she protested as he reached for her hands. What she wanted to do was take a walk and think, while the air was cool enough to clear her brain. It looked like it might rain soon.

"Tough," he retorted, dragging her into the taxi. Reaching over, he closed them in, and then grabbed her by her shoulders and hauled her against him. His lips fell to hers like rain to pavement, hard and soft at the same time. She struggled for a few moments, fighting off his kiss, fighting off him…until she couldn't fight anything and simply slackened against him.

Spike pulled back only to give instructions to the driver for Julia's apartment building. Then his eyes turned back to hers, ruby to sapphire. "We need to talk."

His firm voice left no room for argument. But they took their space. Spike tried to keep up with his already half-burned cigarette. Julia couldn't quite get herself to stop trembling.

---

Fifteen minutes later, they were on the landing of the apartment. Julia wished her fingers would settle as she slid the key into the lock and opened her door. Spike followed her in and half-slammed it behind him. Her heart tripped when she heard the definite click as he locked them inside.

"Well?" Spike said.

Julia only arched a brow at him. "Weren't you the one who insisted we talk?" She sat in a kitchen chair, worried her legs would give out. His eyes were just the slightest bit intimidating. She was afraid he would say something she didn't want to hear – or worse, something she did.

He raised his hands and raked all ten fingers through his hair. "He's gone now."

"We've established that," she said briefly. "Are you hoping to cash in now?"

"Goddamn it, Julia! I'm not hoping for a thing!" Frustrated more than he could remember ever being, mostly because he could help but hope, he huffed out a breath. "I didn't want to hurt you the other night. I thought I was doing something right."

"You've got a real fucked-up sense of judgment, don't you, Spiegel?" She almost, almost wanted to slap him again and refresh the nearly faded scratch marks on his face. "There're so many other women to toy with. Why me?"

"It isn't like I want you on purpose." After saying so and realizing how dumb that sounded, he almost slapped himself.

She was a little confused but hid it well. "So then you do think those kisses were accidental after all?"

"Honey, you are really a mind-bender, do you know that?" Spike sank in another of the chairs. He felt like he was spending a lot of time in this room lately. "The thing is," he continued more calmly, "is that I don't just want you because you're there. I think I—"

"Oh, Spike, I don't want to know!" she cried, backing the chair out and moving to her feet. "I can't know! I can't!" She half-stumbled from the weight of her own emotions being thrust onto her.

He refrained from going after her just yet, ordering himself to stay in his seat, but followed her with his eyes as she went to the sink and turned away from him. She stared out the window. There were tears in her voice, and Spike ached madly from hearing them. "Please," she whispered to him, "don't tell me. Don't let me know. I was happy only a few weeks ago, Spike. I was happy with Vicious."

That statement made him cold. His fists bunched on top of her table. "I'm sorry I'm the person that changed that."

"Not just you." Her right hand rested lightly on her left forearm over the sleeve of the purple cotton sweater she wore. "A lot of things," she murmured in her scarlet-rose-petals-to-cold-cement voice.

Now he did stand up. The strange difference in her tone had him wary, like a cat with its spine arched. "What things?"

He saw her tense as she felt him draw near, and she whipped around. "Don't."

He paused when he was standing less than a foot in front of her, towering over her while she looked up at him with a defiant expression. But behind the determination in her eyes was deep and troubling sadness.

Spike softened his own voice. "What is it? What's wrong?"

She shook her head, tears just beginning to shimmer. "Spike…"

"What did I do wrong?"

That, and the genuine concern in his voice, broke her. She folded her arms across her stomach and leaned back against the sink, sobbing with her eyes squeezed shut, fighting to breathe through the pain. It didn't take long, though, for Spike's arms to come around her, to hold all of her, her torture included, and to take it to himself.

"Julia," he murmured into her hair. The sound of her crying ripped at his heart like well-sharpened claws. "Tell me. Tell me why you're…"

She clung to him like a person drowning clings to rock in the middle of the river. Like she was dying and he was the only thing that could ever save her.

Maybe he was.

"I'm so scared," she breathed out shakily, her tears wetting the front of his shirt. "So scared, Spike. I'm—"

"Shhh." He rubbed her back in soothing circles, his fingers twining in and out of her long, lustrous hair. "Scared," he echoed softly. "Why? What is it you're scared of?" He was sure he'd never spoken so gently to anyone before. He felt like he was holding something delicate and glass and that if he dropped it, she would surely shatter. She looked up and he could see himself in her eyes. His hands slid over her shoulders and down her arms, seeking her own.

She cried out when his fingers glided over her left forearm. Alarmed, he jerked his hands away, but when she calmed, he slowly closed his fingers over her wrist and grasped at the edge of her sleeve.

"Spike, please," she whispered, tugging slightly, knowing it was futile. He held on, and he slowly brought the sleeve up to her elbow. His eye narrowed dangerously when he saw the bruise, large and graying over her soft, pale skin. His eyes darted up to hers, and she gasped slightly.

His tone was short and clipped. "It was him."

Her face went to the side, staring at the vase of flowers on the table. He brought his free hand up and gripped her chin, turning her eyes back to him. "Julia."

Julia's face crumbled again, but this time she didn't cry and just looked at him with near-agony. "Spike, please don't think on it too much."

"Don't think on it? Julia, Vicious has fucking hurt you!" He pointed at the bruise. "Look at this!"

"I do!" she shouted at him. "I do look at it! Every morning I check to see which parts of my body I have to hide today!" She pulled away from him, stepped back. "What am I supposed to do, Spike? Write a complaint form to the syndicate and ask that they get their captain a counselor so he stops being so tough when he fucks his girlfriend?" She let out a cold laugh that held no humor. "You guys might not let me in an actual battle, but I get my fair share of injuries."

Spike was stunned into silence. Gray light from the overcast sky fell over them, as dreary as her words. "Julia… I didn't know…"

"That's why I'm doubting, Spike. I treat her the best I possibly can."

"That bastard," Spike muttered to himself rather than to her.

"I guess so," she whispered in response. When their eyes met again, she felt desperate. "Spike, you can't tell him that I told you about this. He'll—"

Before she could even think about finishing her sentence, he was there, pressing her to him with more emotion than she had ever felt from anyone before. Vicious held her tightly, always, but it was always to possess, to control. What she felt coming from Spike was a need to ease and to comfort.

Her heart constricted. "Oh…please. Don't do this," she murmured, her hands involuntarily curling into the back of his shirt. "Please don't, Spike."

So many don't's. Spike's hand gripped her hand, so gently, and lightly pulled her head away from his shoulder so he could look at her. "Don't what?"

Her grip tightened, and her eyes were wide as they looked into his. Her voice was soft. "Don't make me fall in love with you."

He felt like he might burst. Spike Speigel had never fallen in love before; not unless you counted a young woman named Alicia Verera, but that had been in seventh grade. But it took no elevated use of brainpower to ascertain that was what he felt for Julia.

Love, fierce, deep love that kindled down deep inside him like a fire lit and spreading quickly. And protectiveness.

Protectiveness from Vicious. From his best friend.

The thought startled him. "Julia." Her eyes were like twin knives stabbing his heart, he thought, the pain in them the blunt edge. Suddenly, he didn't give a damn about Vicious. If the war on Titan didn't kill him, then Spike would as soon as the asshole got back. But for now…

His lips came down hard on hers, and without control, he pulled the hem of her sweater out of her black pants. Julia returned the gesture eagerly by shoving his coat from his shoulders, leaving it to fall in a mass of heavy material on the floor. Their kiss lasted as long as it could, until they had fumbled their way into her bedroom and were tugging at each other's shirts.

Soon, both were completely divested of any clothing. They fell back onto her low bed, and, realizing not a moment too soon just how they were going about this, Spike worked to gentle his grip on her, to slow his kisses and his hands.

Her eyes were questioning as he rose above her.

"I'm not going to do whatever it is he does to you," he told her firmly. His fingers drifted over the nape of her neck. Heat spike through both of them, but he forced the desire to soften. "I'm going to do better."

He fell to her side on the mattress and pulled her close to him. "I'm going to love you, Julia." When he kissed her again, he tasted her tears.

And Julia believed him.

---

Vicious walked from the shuttle onto the unfamiliar ground of Titan. His eyes calculated the area; blue sky, dry air, sand the hell everywhere. There was a mighty mass of men crowding the surrounding meters, conversing, some of them joking, some of them just telling each other how pissed off they were to be here.

He still wasn't sure how he felt about being here himself. Not that it mattered. But for all he knew, there could be a bust going on right now, and instead of taking out drug lords, he was going to be trained to kill some stupid rebels on an equally stupid spit of land.

He made his mind settle. He was an appreciated member of the Red Dragon Syndicate, after all, not a little whining fourteen year-old whose girlfriend had just dumped him for the school basketball star.

Oh no, his girlfriend had gone for his best friend instead.

"Shit-hole, isn't it?"

Vicious turned and gave a quick study of the man that had spoken to him. Tall, fair skin, long hair the color of violets, eyes that looked fresh and had probably seen a lot more than the average observer could possibly tell. But Vicious wasn't average.

"That's what you looked like you were thinking," the man went on in his friendly voice. "It's probably what half the guys here are thinking."

Vicious stopped looking at him, uninterested. "What are you thinking?" he asked in his own dreary tones. The guy probably saw the desert wasteland as a world for delicious possibilities and adventure. Hippie.

"Me? It's really a shit-hole. But I don't care." He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "Got nothin' better to do anyway."

It was either a brave or stupid man who signed up for a war for the hell of it. Vicious wasn't entirely sure which one this guy was yet. "You came because you're bored?"

His eyes seemed to lose a bit of their gleam. "I came 'cause I needed to get away."

From where? Vicious didn't ask. He didn't care enough to; that was what he told himself.

"I'm a saxophone player," he went on, looking at his untied bootlace. He was probably considering tying it, but said instead, "What do you do?"

"Kill people," said Vicious promptly.

"Oh, really?" He shrugged again. Being so tall, he looked strange doing so. "That's not original."

That statement annoyed the syndicate captain a little. "Did you say your name?" Vicious asked in a harsh tone. With luck, this airhead would leave him alone soon if they made the proper introductions.

"God, no, I didn't. Sorry. Manners aren't really my strong point," the purple-headed man apologized. "I'm Gren. Actually, my name's really long and dumb-sounding, so I won't get into it. You?"

"Vicious." He turned his silver eyes to Gren. "Maybe you should remember it, in case I have to kill you."

Undaunted, Gren only extended a hand. "Maybe I will."

Mechanically, Vicious shook and turned away, walking toward a sign-in post. Strange, saxophone-playing, moron. He got the feeling he'd just made his first acquaintance of war.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Review please!