This chapter kind of comes out of left field. And then again, it doesn't. What do you guys think?

I honestly have not much to say this time. Enjoy the chapter!

Disclaimer: I do not own Cowboy Bebop.

Note: Chapter title is from Yoko Kanno's "The Singing Sea."

-- Kites Without Strings -- Part Thirteen: The World Spins Backward Every Day

By Gundam Girl

Julia was not as surprised as she thought she might be upon Vicious' return. And she had always known that he would return; it would take more than a war-bent moon to kill him off.

She now finished the act he had interrupted her in and turned on the lights; but the action felt separated from her body as though someone other than her had flipped up the switch. The dim electric glow beamed down on Vicious's pale hair, making it silver. His bangs fell over his forehead, shadowing his eyes. Julia thought they would never lighten even if the sun was reflected in them.

Wordlessly, she watched as Vicious withdrew his hand from her wrist. Almost immediately Julia felt several degrees warmer. Vicious moved to her table and held up a bottle of white wine.

"I thought we might celebrate," he told her, one corner of his mouth lifted upward in a smirk. Julia was wary when she couldn't tell if his good mood was genuine or not.

"I…of course," she said, forcing a smile, forcing herself to appear happy. "Welcome home." She stepped toward him and pressed to his chest, wishing as soon as she had that she had kept her distance. But the cause of this wish was a mystery. Vicious did nothing threatening. He merely settled his arms around her like one would around a large vase; firmly but with great care.

"Did they release all of the syndicate agents from duty?" she asked, looking up in an attempt to meet his eye but at the same time hoping he wouldn't do the same.

"No," he told her softly, keeping his gaze from her and on the wall behind her instead. "Just me."

Julia froze for a second, unable to even think. The idea made chills run up her back, but she managed to laugh. The sound was airy and full of disbelief. Fake. "Why did they do that?"

Vicious did look at her now, and the hard expression on his mystifyingly lax face gave Julia an unpleasant jolt. "You complain?"

"Don't be silly." She could have cursed because of how quickly she had replied. "I couldn't be gladder you're here. It's just odd."

"It is," said Vicious, "for men who aren't in with the Red Dragons." He pulled away from her, and Julia's heart pounded in his wake. "Wine?"

"Yes," she murmured, accepting the glass he filled and sipping from it slowly. She doubted it was poisoned; Vicious preferred more direct approaches. "Was it…" She wanted to talk, needed to fill the torturous silences with conversation – Vicious was looking at her in the way he had always looked at her before turning down the lights and the covers. "Was it dangerous on Titan?"

Vicious drew his glass from his lips. "What do you think?"

"I'm only asking…because you don't appear hurt." This was true. There were no wounds on any bit of flesh that Julia could see. She found this strange right away. People didn't go to wars and come back unscathed.

"I'm bruised," he said as though proving her wrong with his voice alone. "That's the physical." Julia was silent and he added, "But the emotional is different. I've seen death." He breathed out the three words like smoke. "And you never have."

When she had first met him, Julia would have protested, would have fought back and told him that she hadn't lived the protected life he thought she did, but she couldn't even imagine arguing with Vicious now. And besides, in this instance he was right. Julia had never seen a person die.

She thought of Spike and realized she had come close, however.

Julia's fingers immediately tightened on her wineglass. Spike!

She felt the chill settle over her and noticed that Vicious had set his hand on her taught one and slipped the glass from her grip. Setting it aside, he pulled her to him, and this time he embrace was unlike before. This one was fierce, more familiar to Julia than the careful one from a few minutes before. Vicious twined his fingers into the thick fall of her hair, pulled her head back and sealed his mouth to hers.

The kiss was nearly painful. Julia's eyes stayed open and wide as he plundered her lips, raking his teeth down her jaw and over her neck. She understood that Vicious was making the experience a bad one on purpose, and she also understood that were Spike to do the exact same thing, she would be reveling instead of forcing herself to stay in Vicious' arms. She wanted badly to push him away, but she couldn't and had never been able to.

Suddenly Vicious stopped his rough exploration and stepped back, breathing just the slightest bit abnormally. Julia's hands had balled into fists, and he noticed them before she could make herself relax. Vicious gave her the same confounding smirk.

"I'll be back later," he told her, reaching for his coat and heading toward the door. "I've another visit to make tonight."

Julia felt an icy hand clench her gut, but at least her voice came out steadily. "Mr. Yenrai?" she tried, hoping with her entire heart that she was right, or close.

"Hardly." Vicious turned the knob and opened the door with all the authority of the apartment's owner, when in fact he was an intruder here. "What kind of friend would I be if I came back to town and didn't tell Spike right away?"

No! Unable to contain all of her panic, Julia practically sprang forward and took Vicious hands. "Can't you see him tomorrow?" She could scarcely hear her own voice over her ferociously beating heart. Her face growing paler with each second, she lifted a hand to his neck, parting the collar of his coat with her assuredly cold fingers. Vicious's flesh was no warmer. "You just came home," she added, hoping her voice was softer than it was to her own ears. "I've missed you."

Julia saw something flash across Vicious's eyes, and part of her knew that she had made a wrong decision. Her time with Spike had given her confidence; she'd forgotten that Vicious always caught people in their lies.

His hand came up to grasp hers with unnecessary force. "Later," he responded, pressing his lips to her knuckles. The word, to Julia, seemed more like a threat than a promise. He dropped her hand and Julia drew it close to her chest. Vicious shut the door behind him – the click of it made Julia think of decisiveness, which was no doubt something Vicious had.

She rushed to the phone and hurriedly began to dial Spike's apartment number. When she made it to the fourth digit, she stopped. Vicious had intelligence that could trace her calls. She might even be listening to hers and Spike's lines right now in his car.

The receiver dropped, bobbing twice, three times at the end of the stretching cord. Julia sank to the floor, pressing her forehead to the wall and letting her sobs rack her body. Her tears left small dark spots on the wood…on the back of her quaking hands.

o0o

Spike's apartment was pitch-black. He hadn't been active very much since it hurt to move a single muscle. He had tried to watch television and had made an attempt to read, but both activities strained his working eye – he could only hope that with time his body would overcome that particular weakness.

So now he lay on the couch in the same position he had five hours earlier when Julia had left him there. He hadn't bothered with turning on any lights; the night had come and filled his apartment with darkness. Shadows roamed the floor and walls while spots of car headlights from the street below blazed over and off of him.

He wasn't tired. Sleeping was another concept that currently escaped him, and he now stared out of the glass doors that slid open to the balcony of his home.

Across his apartment building was a skyscraper that was secretly owned by the Red Dragon Syndicate. Mostly guard agents were stationed there because Spike was only one of many fellow agents living in this building. But tonight there was a figure who was most certainly no ordinary agent.

His body was a shadow painted against the light that poured out from the open terrace doors behind him. Around the chin-length hair was a faint silver glimmer and Spike's courage weakened upon seeing it. Below, a police car sped by, its sirens wailing out a warning. The light was flashing and was reflected upon the dozens of windows in the surrounding buildings.

Vicious's face was cast in a demonic glow of crimson for three seconds at most before it was once again plunged into darkness.

Spike could have sworn that he'd seen his fellow syndicate member smile. But it had been a smile like he had never seen before.

Suddenly Vicious turned away from him and walked back inside. Spike knew right away that he was coming over and would find him here, disgustingly vulnerable. The injured man struggled to sit up and get to his feet, crossing to the door to turn up the light switch there. By the time he got halfway back to the couch, he was panting and was forced to clutch the edge of his dinette for support.

Looking at the drawer built into the structure, he opened it and pulled out a .44 caliber handgun, reaching to tuck it into the waistline of his pants—

Spike froze. He realized that he was arming himself against Vicious, someone he'd spent years as closest friends with. The idea seemed both reasonable and preposterous all at once. But there was no denying the facts; Vicious was not someone to be taken lightly.

He made sure the gun was tucked in well, then hid it under the hem of the T-shirt he wore.

He waited all of five minutes before the quiet knock came. Taking a deep breath for his strength as well as his mind, Spike staggered forward and managed to open the door. Vicious's face was now fully visible in the well-lit hallway. Spike pulled out a smile while he opened the door the rest of the way to invite his former friend in.

"So you managed to survive after all," he said, glad his tone was dry with wit he didn't really felt he had.

Vicious snorted softly and entered the apartment, closing the door behind him. Spike's hand was braced just under the light switch against the wall, and Vicious didn't hurry to create more space between them. "Of course I survived," he said quietly in the same way he would have before Spike's world had been turned upside down. "I presume you expected nothing less?"

"Nothing," Spike agreed, feeling his calf muscles quiver slightly with the task of standing up. "No one could outshoot you except for me." Dropping his gaze a bit, he saw out of his left eyes that Vicious had his katana strapped to his belt – the sheath protruded a bit from the edge of his black trench coat. "Didn't waste any time in getting back in uniform I see."

"I've never been one to waste time. That hasn't changed." Vicious studied Spike's bandaged eye with an icy smirk. "But apparently your knack for coming out of things unscathed has gone to seed."

Spike grinned, unable to help it. "Bastard caught me while I was leaving. Tore my cornea right out. The eye's new."

Vicious remained silent for a moment as though thinking: "So you've only half your sight. Having it fully before obviously did nothing to help you see your mistakes." He held up a hand and grasped Spike's arm. "I'll help you."

The grip with which the pale-haired man held the other man's limb nearly alarmed Spike. There was a threat on the tips of his fingers that Spike should have known would be there but had been too hopeful to anticipate. "Thanks," he grunted. He had no choice but to accept the assistance back to the couch.

Once Spike was settled, Vicious seated himself in an armchair opposite the sofa. "I presume the sting went well, despite its unfavorable results for you?"

"Sure it did," Spike said, his tone arrogant but purposely relaxed. "I lead it. But I still don't like doing it. You're better at it than I am."

"So it may be," replied Vicious, hardly louder than a murmur. "You wouldn't have been hurt at least, had I been there."

"No, I guess I wouldn't have." Spike believed this as well; Vicious had saved him from close calls innumerable times. Without Vicious, he would be dead already and he couldn't simply ignore that.

"How did Julia take my absence?"

Spike tensed – he had known that they would come to this but he had thought it would take more time and would certainly not be so easily asked. "She varied," he said. This at the very least was the truth. "She was worried." This was as well, except that her worry had been for Spike and not for Vicious.

"She often does, doesn't she? Women have a right to," the katana user added. He made sure Spike's eyes stayed level with his; red against black, fire against wood that refused to burn. "They worry as men fear."

Spike had lost his smile, and the edges of his mouth were now pulled taut and firm. His jaw could have been the angles of stone for all the softness it had. "So far," he muttered darkly, "I haven't had any reason to fear."

Vicious noted that Spike was holding his breath, waiting for the response that would mark his doom. He smiled. "That's right. Do you know why, Spike?"

Spike inhaled slowly, his chest rising in a bracing way.

"I'm the only one who can keep you alive," confided Vicious. His eyes gleamed in the lamplight with something esoteric about them. "And I'm the only one who can kill you."

The two men sat, studying each other with guarded expressions. The fingers of Spike's right hand twitched. He was quick, and it would be easier to draw a gun from his pants than it would be to draw a sword from its sheath…

Vicious blinked – his eyes stopped gleaming. "Don't you think so?"

Spike forced himself to grin. The action hurt, and he thought his lips might crack from the lack of self-truth, but he did it. "Seems that way. At least I managed not to die."

"Yes." Vicious stood up. "I must go. I will have to report to Mao tomorrow. He will need to know which of his men are back."

"They sent more than a few of you back?" Because he thought it might make Vicious feel a bit more friendly, Spike let it show that he was impressed.

Vicious showed himself to the door and opened it while Spike watched him from his spot on the couch. "No. The only person who got off that planet was me. The others, I suspect, will quickly die."

Spike stared.

Vicious smirked.

The door shut, leaving the injured man alone in his apartment to listen to the sound of Vicious' footsteps fade into the space beyond the door.

Spike began to shake; he wasn't afraid. Not yet. But that was encroaching. Right now he trembled from cold, the utter physical chill Vicious had left behind him. It felt like some kind of frozen Hell.

"Julia…"

Two things suddenly became very clear to Spike. One was that Vicious had absolutely no intention of letting him or Julia to continue living. The other was that Spike had absolutely no intention of allowing either of them to die.

And it was time he proved that to himself and the woman he loved.

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