Hey guys, another chapter in! I got this one in so fast, because your reviews encouraged me so much. I'm so happy to have gotten reviews this being my first fic on here. I'm going to try to be real good about updating at least once a week. About Julia, I haven't really specified her purpose. I'm kind of leaving it up for interpretation so far.

To my reviewers: thanks so much for the suggestions. As for Celia, she was kind of a last minute happening, and I can see where she's lacking a bit. I'm so glad you guys like Julia being in the story and don't worry, I will keep to this story and I'm actually going to have some serious dvd watching this weekend because I feel I need to get in touch with the bebop characters yet again :)

Disclaimer: this is the last one. You know I certainly do not own these wonderful characters, or anything cowboy bebop. :( Oh well, on with the story.

Breaking Point

---3---

Spike couldn't lie to himself. He had never heard that tone of voice from Faye. She had sounded so sad and sympathetic. It had been already a few hours since she had taken off with the Red Tail. He assumed she was probably going back to the Bebop, so he decided to venture inside her apartment. He jimmied her lock and slipped inside observing everything carefully. The flat resembled his except it had probably few square feet less than his place. She only had a bed and an armoire in the room and nothing in the kitchen. Her bed sheets were crumpled and he only found a few pieces of clothing hung in the closet. It made her seem so pathetic and it made him feel the same way.

"Faye-faye, what kind of living is this?" he asked the empty room. An object on the floor between the nightstand and the bed caught his attention. A small pill bottle lay there tilted on its side. He picked it up and read the label. The name on it read Perry Waas, take one to two pills at night for sleeping. He placed the bottle back in its discarded position. It was half-empty.

He moved towards the only window of the room. It didn't have a particularly nice view since it faced the wall of the building next to it. He looked out her window and observed that you could see the corner window of the sixth floor from the hotel across the street. He smiled to himself and left her apartment. A few moments later, he had checked into the Royale Hotel, corner room 618.

He sprawled himself over the large suite bed. He hadn't lain in covers this soft in so long. He glanced around the room flinching at the dinning room, couch, and kitchen it had, along with some fruit and bottled water on his night table. Spike had not expected the room to be an executive suite. What kind of hotels on the East end had executive suites anyway? He grumbled at his own boredom. If it weren't for the fact that his life lacked any kind of entertainment, he would not be stuck with a huge bill for this place.

I really am going insane. This is almost like stalking. He shrugged it off, if she wasn't so hard to follow around, he wouldn't have to go through all these measures. Though he did not want to admit it, by following Faye, Spike simply tried to grab on to whatever he could of the past and though he would bury it as deep as he could in his mind, his past was all he had left.

He waited around for hours until around one in the morning the lights in Faye's apartment came on. He kept his room dark and watched at an angle from his room window. The view from his window allowed him to see most of her apartment. He could see the bed, part of the armoire, the front door, and bit of the kitchen. He put on his headset recalling the chip he had placed under her night table. Her shoulders were slouched and her face expressed mere exhaustion. She dropped her keys and communicator on the bed and sat down at the end of the mattress. He heard her sigh exasperatedly. She let body fall on the bed, her head barely missing the communicator.

"This fucking sucks, Faye," she spoke softly, staring blankly at the ceiling. The ring of the communicator echoed in Spike's ears. Her sprawled arm reached for it and then clicked the incoming button.

"Hey Faye, I was thinking." Jet's voice emerged.

"What now? We just got done with the bounty and I'm exhausted. Stupid wank got away," she muttered bitterly.

"Not that. I was thinking that you should just stay in the Bebop from now on. I mean, it makes no sense to just keep looking." Faye sat up immediately.

"What do you mean? Just give up on it?" she asked with resignation.

"We waited for months and then looked for him thinking he may still be alive. Well, if he is then he can come back on his own. We shouldn't waste more of our time on him."

"I know about the PI Jet." There was a long pause.

"I think we should call it quits. There's this bounty in Ganymede." Jet paused.

"Okay, just give me two days," she whispered and hung up. Faye stood up and left Spike's view for a while. He heard some shuffling and then running water and figured she must have been in the bathroom. Faye opened the small drawer of her night table and Spike flinched. What if she suspects something? She closed it back up forcefully and reached down between the bed and the night table. She had been searching for her sleeping pills. Spike sighed with relief. His drama almost ended before the scheduled time. He could hear small sounds of some kind and he tried adjusting the volume on his headset. The sobs became apparent to him. Faye Valentine was crying. She walked over to the armoire and began throwing everything out on the ground. She went over to her bed and threw her keys against the wall. She cried harder and picked up a small box lying on the ground. She pulled out a smoke and lit it. She breathed in the cancerous fumes and then puffed the air back out. The cigarette trembled in her hands, her whole body was shaking and her sobs transformed into cries. She crouched by the end of the bed holding her knees to her chest and resting her head on them. Spike took off his headset and threw it on the ground. He couldn't listen or watch any longer.

"You're not the only one who hurts." Her voice pierced through the darkness. "The mind of a man can quake when he sees unexpected weaknesses within him."

"Don't do this right now," Spike whispered bitterly lighting one of his cigarettes. The ethereal figure sat on the bed.

"Your past is not all you have left." She insisted.

"What is it that you want from me?" His tone was barely audible.

"To use your eye that looks into the past to look into the present instead. We couldn't be free because of that. We were always looking to the past for answers."

"What do you want me to say? That I see her like that and I think to myself, I want to know more about this woman. This woman who cries in the night and hides her pain so she won't hurt others. This woman who can be petty and bitchy just to hide her fears. A woman that isn't you." he paused. His voice had remained calm, but bitter. "Women, children and critters are trouble you know."

"You're a good man, Spike. No matter what you tell yourself. You're a good man." With those words, she vanished once again. He simply puffed out another cloud of smoke as the lights of Faye's room turned off.

Spike stared mindlessly at the morning rays peering through his window. He picked up his last cigarette and lit it. The cigarette box now lay on the ground empty, but might as well blame his compulsive need of nicotine on insomnia. He had another episode of his violent tremors that had lasted most of the night and the pills only met him halfway by stopping his body from vibrating unceasingly, but not the manic rush of thoughts that stampeded through his brain. The nicotine eased his mind from going into overload.

"I can't keep on like this. I'm not disgruntled enough to be a chain smoker," Spike muttered to himself and got up. He sighed with a comical frustrated expression on his face. He walked over to the window and saw Faye placing whatever belongings she had scattered all over the apartment into a black duffel bag. She grabbed the bottle of pills and threw them in the trashcan by the armoire. "I guess she's tired of depending on those things."

She walked towards the window and looked towards the sky. Faye Valentine seemed lost and alone. He knew what that felt like. He felt it right now. He recalled that day before he left. Her tears streamed hopelessly down her porcelain face. She had pleaded for him not to go. She remembered and had a past now, but it didn't matter. She had learned what he couldn't. Now that it was all in the past, that he had proved that he was alive, he still couldn't. Anger seeped into him, anger at himself.

She left the duffel bag on the bed and exited the apartment. He picked up his headset and put on his jacket. He went down the stairs and decided to follow Faye again around town. She couldn't go too far. After all, she had asked Jet for two days, who knows for what? Perhaps that gave her enough time to leave her apartment, perhaps she needed to let go. The same part of him that urged him to follow her also didn't want her to give up. Did he want to be found? No, not particularly. He wanted someone to keep on hoping for him, because he couldn't do it anymore.

She went inside a bar and he squirmed. It was barely nine in the morning and she was already fetching a drink. His stomach growled which persuaded him to try out the diner across the street from the bar. He ordered Belgium pancakes and a ham steak. The food didn't taste half bad, but his breakfast took a sour turn immediately as he watched a man holding a medium sized stick approaching Faye as she exited the bar. She waved him off, but he followed her. Spike quickly left the diner and ran across the street into an alley near them. He peered through the corner of the building and saw Faye finally turned around to face the man.

"I thought that if I ignored you for a while, you would go away. My mistake for thinking you were a dog."

"I like them feisty," the man stated gripping his stick with both hands.

"You really mean to pick a random fight with me?" She cocked a smile.

"No, I have a message for you, Faye Valentine." Faye tilted her head with a slight pang of annoyance and dread washing over her face.

"Yeah, and who would you be? A collector?" She licked her lips. He kept smacking the black stick against one hand.

"No, I've come bearing a message from an old friend. Spike Spiegel." He stated and lunged at her. Her eyes widened and she barely snapped out of the shock to dodge his attack. She pulled out her gun to shoot at him, but he quickly ran into the alley. She put away her gun and ran after him. A few moments passed and she came back out with a combination of a lost, confused, and angry look on her face. She marched off kicking a can lying on the floor and muttering curses under her breath.

Spike's attention deviated from Faye as he heard a few creaks coming from above him. He glanced up seeing the man in the roof. He climbed down the fire exit on the side of the building and Spike pulled out a cigarette and patiently waited for him below.

"You know, you shouldn't slander, it's not nice, especially using someone else's name for your dirty games." Spike told the man as he watched him jump down to the ground. He puffed out a cloud of smoke and let his cigarette fall on the ground before putting it out with the ball of his foot.

"Who the hell are you?" The man asked him gripping his stick with both hands and teeth clenched ready to fight him.

"You have got to be kidding," Spike said shocked that the man who had just used his name didn't even know who he was. The man ripped his stick in two revealing two sharp blades at each end. Spike smirked as the man lunged at him with the blades and Spike simply danced around his attacks. Spike finally landed his right fist on the man's face and kicked both blades out of his hands. He then kicked him in the stomach. He gripped the man by the hair and bent down to face him. "Who sent you?" Spike demanded.

"No one," the man gasped out.

"Wrong answer." Spike jammed the side of his face against the wall. The man spit out blood. "Who sent you?"

"I got an envelope with 100,000 woolongs, her picture, and note saying to relay that message to her in an impolite way. It said if I did it I would find one hundred more in my mailbox."

"Of course." Spike muttered and let go of the man. Someone knew he was alive and well. This changed his perspective on everything. He left the man bleeding there and headed towards his apartment. He didn't know who would go after him like this, but he needed to think of a plan. He recalled Faye's crying the night before. He sighed to himself. Great, even dead I get women troubles.

What would he do now?

He finally made it back to his apartment where the emptiness awaited him. He remembered Faye's emerald orbs welled up with tears. He remembered Julia's worn, but relieved expression as she died. He remembered Jet cooking bell peppers with beef without the beef and sitting alone with his partner eating the eggs leaving two portions for Ed and Faye.

"I have to go back," he told her as her presence became predominant again. He turned around and faced her. She nodded at him. "Besides, they seem hopeless without me." He smirked.

He heard several knocks on his door. A few hours had passed and he already had most of his stuff packed, not that he had a lot. He went to open the door and found Celia trying to catch her breath. He invited her in and poured her a glass of water. She sat down on the stool by the kitchen counter.

"I heard from Griss that you're going now." Celia said after taking a gulp of water.

"Yeah, it turns out I have unfinished business after all."

"Hmm, the woman?"

"That man keeps nothing secret, does he?" His eye was twitching.

"Not from me, he doesn't." She winked and drank another sip of water. "I, for one, am glad. The name Joe didn't suit you. This lifestyle didn't suit you. You're not one to hide and scurry away into the shadows, are you Spike?" Her violet orbs focused on him and he felt himself a bit tense as if she were trying to dig deep to find answers he, himself, did not know. "You leaving today?" He nodded and she smiled, her violet eyes had suddenly brightened up with curiosity. "All right, if you need me you know where to find me." She sipped the last bit of water and headed for the door. Before she closed it behind her, she glanced at him one more time. "By the way, Griss asks that you return what you borrowed." She grinned and left.

Spike grabbed his small sack and placed it on his shoulders. He glanced back at the cold flat before leaving and after a pause, he closed the door behind him. Gathering all of his courage and conviction, he headed towards the pier where he knew Jet would be waiting for Faye. His instincts had been right. The old fishing ship floated in the water, parked on the pier. He jumped from the dock near the Bebop onto the hangar. He took in a deep breath and entered the ship.

Welcome back, cowboy.