Des yeux qui font baiser les miens,
Un rire qui se perd sur sa bouche,
Voila le portrait sans retouche
De l'homme auquel j'appartiens…
---55:46:09---
There is this fact of life most of people choose to ignore. Everything we do has a consequence and affects us in a way that often times our simples minds cannot imagine. They say that everything you do comes back three times the effect your original action had, kind of like karma that follows you within this life. At the bare age of eighteen, a young boy was in fact all alone in this world. Spike hadn't been his name then, but the truth of the matter was that he could hardly remember his real name any longer. Life had dragged him into a world of power, honor, and above all ruthlessness, all because he had always had an ease for adapting to situations so effortlessly. That is how Spike Spiegel was born. That is how he picked up all his martial arts skills, his survival methods, his careless demeanor. So long ago, that young boy made a choice to end someone's life without questioning it. For the first time, he didn't kill for survival and to endure one more day of his miserable life. He did it because he could. Young Spiegel had done as he had been instructed by his superiors and so many lives followed after that.
So where were these survival skills now? Where was his goddamn careless demeanor? Had it all been swallowed by the hungry mouth of the karmic balance? He had been left at the cave of dark beasts waiting to devour him. Sure destiny had left him his usual weapons and his senses were still keen and young, but it was all dark. He couldn't see anywhere and his skills mattered none in this situation. The beasts had forced him against a cliff. He could feel the breeze rushing from below and all he could do was beg that they wouldn't push him closer and closer to the edge, because Spike Spiegel wouldn't fall to his death. Instead, he would dangle endlessly in the air without ever reaching the bottom. That is how his life was, without a black sudden end to it. Death wouldn't catch his fall, nothing would.
Celia, Jet, and Spike all sat idly in the lounge area staring at each other with concerned, yet helpless expressions. No one had anything to say. No one had anything to contribute. Faye had sat with them for a while waiting for Ed to come out and reveal some kind of miracle clue that the paper Alyssa sent them might hold. However, after having spotted Spike watching her several times, she had just got up and left for her room. She had every reason to despise him, he reasoned for her. After all, he was the cause of everything. He had returned into her life, caused absolute chaos, and now he had no idea how to stop it.
Time ticked away as they waited. Spike glanced down at his watch, one minute less for Faye Valentine. He had a sudden urge to throw up and immediately propped himself up ready to sprint for the bathroom, but stopped himself as the nausea washed away. Anxiety replaced it for now he had no choice but to think about everything that happened in the last 24 hours. Everything had unfurled so chaotically calculated that it made him sick to his stomach.
"Sit Spike, you're making me nervous," Jet muttered coldly, like a parent addressing their scorned child.
"I can't. We've been waiting for fifteen minutes. She should have something by now," Spike responded sternly. Jet sat up and lifted his chin up to face him.
"She'll come out when she's ready." He clenched his teeth and narrowed his stare, almost as if trying to control the urge to lunge at him.
"Maybe she's bluffing." Celia uttered with serious nervousness as more of an attempt at distraction than a suggestion.
"We're just wasting time." Spike muttered. He was tired of waiting, of being stared at like a scorned child, of everything. He was going to find a way to save her. He wasn't going to stand by and let her—
…There is no other way out Spike. You must choose.
No, he refused to even think about that. There had to be another way. He started to walk over towards the circular hallway when he felt Jet's large body behind him. His heavy cyborg hand turned Spike around and pushed him against the wall. With that one powerfully judging hand, he cornered him by his collar. Spike didn't fight it. He predicted each move with ease, but let the man have his way. When he glanced up to meet his old comrade's eyes, he wished he couldn't read the emotions of others anymore. He wished he didn't have that stupid keen sense anymore.
"I told you to sit the fuck down." Jet uttered slowly, emphasizing each word with poignant anger. Spike didn't respond, just simply stared, part of him scared of his partner for the first time in his life. Not of what he would do, but of what he was thinking. Jet was never one to judge, no matter how angry he got when you left him and no matter how crazy you were. He was a closet softie, always protecting those lost souls that came under his wing. "Don't you understand, we have no other choice?" He had this hurt and weak ring in his voice. Spike hated it. He had never seen Jet too vulnerable. Vulnerability made him more uncomfortable than anything.
"We're wasting the time away when we could be doing something, anything—I don't know."
"That's right you don't know. You don't know anything. You don't know the hell kind of impact you had when you left. You don't know the hell kind of impact you had when you came back. You never know about anyone but yourself. You never give a shit about anyone but yourself." Jet's hand trembled and tightened around his neck as he spoke. "Well Spike, this is different. This isn't like the times you ran off, or she ran off and then you came back and everything was the same. There is no bounty to screw up, but the lives of your goddamn comrades, of the only people who have ever given a shit about you. Do you even understand that word? Do you care?"
Spike made no motion to answer the question. Instead, he cast his mismatched russet eyes down, not wanting to bear the powerless guilt of his partner.
"I shouldn't have let you on this ship. I shouldn't have allowed you to come back so easily. I shouldn't have let you near her. I shouldn't have let you go and kill yourself like that. I shouldn't have…" He spat ruefully, in spurts of air, addressing himself more than Spike.
"Jet," Spike glanced up and placed a hand on his arm. "You can't blame yourself for this one. It's not your fault. It won't solve anything if you blame it on yourself." Jet's arm was now visibly shaking and he seemed almost appalled by what Spike had just said. The heavy arm slowly pulled away and his face slowly fell perhaps out of shame or pure confusion at his own reaction. Jet stood paralyzed for a few seconds, his shoulders slumped, and his eyes pensively darted towards the ground. Then, he just walked away towards the room where he kept his bonsai.
Spike fully breathed out for the first time since Jet had gripped him. He glanced over at Celia, who had stood still witnessing the entire episode without saying a word. Her violet eyes focused on Spike with some somber and cynically reproachful expectancy that he would say something, but he had no idea what she wanted to hear.
"What do you want me to say Celia?" His voice was barely audible. She shook her head with a disapproving frown.
"Nothing, kid. Listen, I'm only going to bother with this, because I may be the only coherent voice in this whole damn ship now. So Spike, what are you going to do?"
What was he going to do? What the hell kind of question was that? Spike had no idea. He couldn't even think straight at the moment.
"I don't know yet."
"Which one would you choose?" Her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed anticipating the answer, almost ready to flinch at his choice.
"How can you ask me that?" Spike glared at her in disbelief.
"You better think about it." She placed her palm against her lips as if some horrible sound were about to escape her and she had just stopped it. Her eyes shifted to the side for a moment and then returned their focus on him. Her hand fell to her side. "I hope you love her. I hope she's that important to you. I hope that she's not going through this for nothing."
Spike didn't respond for a long while, and then shaking his head he replied. "I'm not going to make that choice ever. There is no way I can. I—I'm not going to lose Faye to someone like that, not for this, and certainly not for me." His thoughts came out jagged and with an incoherent determination backing them up. Then a feeling of bitter resignation followed. "Everything I lived for died that day and I should have died along with it." Celia just narrowed her eyes on him. She suddenly closed in on him and pushed her fist against his chest as if trying to hold his guilt inside, as if trying to prevent him from spilling himself on the ground.
"I told you once and I'll tell you again. I don't know much of a crap about your past nor do I care. All I know is that if you give up now, whoever is doing this wins. Hell, she's already won. You're already lost and traumatized, but guess what? You're going to go out there and save her. This isn't just your loss now or a vendetta against you, it's against all of us." Her voice undulated with anger.
What have you done? Faye's voice rang in his ears.
"Alyssa saved me. She's the one who found me and then called you to pick me up. She's the reason I'm alive. I'm alive so she can torture me." Spike's voice trembled, disgusted at his own life, disgusted at the irony of it all. Celia eyes widened and then narrowed with disbelief, not at his revelation like he thought.
"I have seen horrible things in my life. Things I wish I couldn't remember. Everyone has. You're different. One day you'll get it. I have faith in that." Celia's eyes shifted up and to left probably recalling an old memory too painful to express.
"What would you do then?" Unlike most men, he didn't think of comforting the old woman. It had never been his sort of thing to do that. Spike fought and analyzed people not comforted them.
Celia's raging violet eyes focused back on him. "I would find her. I would look for answers through her. And above all, I would be ready to make a choice."
Spike tore his gaze away from her demanding eyes. He heard her heavy sigh and then a few steps towards the hangar.
"I'm going to get out of here, before I get all sentimental." Then some more steps.
"Celia!" He called to her. "Get out of the city. It's—go to Tharsis or Olympus, just get out of Alba."
"I'll wait for your decision here, Spike. I'm not going anywhere." She simply said and walked out of the ship. He held his breath in, part of him unsure if he would ever see her again. Spike turned around sensing someone behind him. At the entrance of the main hallway stood Jet, leaning against the wall, with a sad determination in his eyes.
"You're right, we can't just sit by and let time waste away. We can't afford that." He stated dryly and then headed upstairs towards Faye's room. Spike followed him until about the foot of the stairs. He decided to wait for them there, perhaps afraid to face Faye for now. He knocked on her door several times to no avail. He shook his head, his brows furrowing in his comical expression of frustration while he muttered the words, "'ttaku, women." His pounds became louder. "Oi Faye, get the hell out here, so we can talk."
"Fine all right! No need to throw the goddamn door down." Faye's muffled voice emerged through the cold metal walls. For a moment, it was as if everything had returned to normal. Just for a moment though, because as Spike glanced down at his wrist, he saw the reality wasting away by the seconds.
"A heart transplant." Spike uttered proudly as if a brilliant light bulb had gone off just at the right time. Jet who sat across from him on the yellow couch simply stared idly at him.
"It's not safe. It takes months to genetically harvest and engineer and match and finding one would be impossible." Jet shook his head, grimacing at Spike's idea. Spike frowned, not such a brilliant light bulb after all.
"Well, we could to try to fry it. I don't know."
"It's not eggs Spike. You can't just fry it without," Jet paused glancing at Faye sitting at the stairs. Spike followed his eyes and every time he saw her like that it caused a pang in his chest that he wished would stop. Her head hung low and her emerald stare seemed lost somewhere deep in the stained walls of the Bebop. She probably wasn't even listening. He wondered what she was thinking, if she hated him. "Without killing her." Jet finished his sentence after assessing the fact that Faye Valentine was not listening to a word they were saying.
"Well, then what do you suggest? I mean you've been shooting down everything I've said." Spike grumbled not taking his eyes off Faye.
"That's because they're stupid ideas." Spike glanced at his partner who simply shook his head. Spike rose from his seat, his one good eye wild with frustration
"Well, we can't just sit around and…"
"Stop…" Faye's careful voice emerged. Spike flinched at the painful lull in her tone of voice. "Just stop it." Her tone changed to a more demanding one. Jet glanced her way with a melancholy expression on his face. Spike was afraid to turn his head and meet her gaze. He was afraid to look into those beautiful emerald eyes of hers and find feelings in her and himself he did not want to confront, especially not now. "I can't do this. I can't listen to this."
Spike frowned, so she had been listening after all. He finally mustered the courage to slowly turn his head her way. She sat still in the same manner, except her eyes were cast down. She suddenly grabbed onto the metal railings of the stairs and pulled herself up. She trudged the two steps left to the grounds and then turned left down the hall in the direction of the hangar.
Stop her, he told himself. Ignoring his illogical fears, he quickly ran to her and grabbed her—sternly, but not too forcefully—by the shoulders. She stopped, but didn't move or talk for what felt like an eternity. He couldn't say anything either. He had told himself to chase after her, but hadn't thought about what he would say to her.
"Don't touch me." The soft echo of her voice trembled against the walls. "Please, just don't touch me." Spike swallowed hard and slowly let her go.
"We need you here." His tone expressed no certain feeling, but just a monotonous emptiness that always pervaded around him no matter what the situation.
"What do you want from me?" She whispered after another long pause. Her shoulders tensed up. "Fuck it all. I can find the cure or whatever myself." She whipped herself around and emotionally raging emerald eyes met with two mismatched solemn ones. "I don't need you! I don't need anyone!" Her lips shuddered with every word. "I'll just find her and torture her until she tells me—tells me—and then…" Her voice broke and her head slumped. No Valentine pride to witness here, just a broken and confused woman trying to find her place in this old forsaken ship. In an impulse, his hand reached towards her chin and pulled her eyes back up to his. Her eyes were full with renegade tears and her face as frail as ever. A wry expression washed over Spike's face. He wished that he had never seen Faye Valentine as vulnerable as she looked, standing right here in front of him without any regard for her own pride.
"I said don't touch me." Her eyes heaved a fierce jade stare towards him and she slapped his hand away. "I don't want your pity or sympathy. That's not how it works Spike. You don't ever get to feel sorry for me. No one ever gets to feel sorry for Faye Valentine." She brought her hand up to his lips and pressed her palm against them. He shivered against her touch as it almost hurt to feel her near him. Her lips parted about to say something else, but the sudden below of a shout and several eager barks interrupted her.
As soon as they heard Ed's shriek, Faye, Spike, and Jet rushed into the circular hallway to find the kid. They found her, eyes wide clenching the paper in her hands with satisfied smile of her face. "Ed understands now!"
"Good god Ed, finally." Jet muttered. His face contorted with frustration and then eased with some relief.
"So what the hell does that all mean?" Spike rubbed the side of his head and stole a glance at Faye's direction. She had her eyes focused on the kid, both brows crumpled with worry and anticipation. He shook his head and turned his attention back to Ed. He needed to focus. The shrew would be fine, just fine.
"It's an encoded manual on the components of the chippu-chippu inside Faye-faye." Ed blabbered the answer while drooling with excitement.
"I told you not to call me that." Faye grumbled.
"It works using a signal to send to the bomb, but it needs something else in order for it to work." Ed ignore her and continued on.
"Something else?" Jet questioned her, she might as well be talking in riddles.
"An antenna to receive the signal and send it off silly! Faye-faye is the transmitter, but not the sensor. The signals are given off in petawaves, which ping," She said this while causing her whole body to vibrate at the ping, "off the sensor, and sends the signal to the bomb."
"So if we find the sensor we can stop the bomb?" Spike asked with some giddy anticipation.
"Uhh," Ed hesitated, her eyebrows suddenly frowning. "The sensor is usually built into the bomb."
"But we can find the bomb and do something about it. Anything!" Faye interjected. "So what are you waiting for Ed? Go find the signal or whatever!"
Ed smiled wide. "It'll take Ed some time." Then she ran off muttering to herself, "Discern waves, track signal, narrow the field, close on the ping…" Then down she plopped by her tomato, and Ein by her. She placed her goggles on and some headphones on Ein. The dog flinched, but then simply resigned himself to laying by his human companion.
"Oi Ed? What's with Ein and the headphones?" Jet asked while scratching his head.
"Maybe Ein can hear the pings when Ed can't."
"There's a chance then, a good chance." Spike muttered, mostly to himself, but he caught the attention of Faye who turned to him with unreadable eyes.
"Yeah, just maybe there is chance." She pointed to the digital watch on his wrist. He lifted it up and suddenly she just waved at him and shook her head. She didn't want to know after all.
"It would help if we could find her." Spike suggested, lowering his arm to his side. He didn't want to look at it either. "We should have put a trace on all the incoming calls."
"Oops!" Ed shouted suddenly. "Ed completely forgot! Ed places a trace on all calls to the Bebop, Jet asked to."
"I did?" Jet's brows furrowed, then a confused smile.
"You're getting senile Jet." Spike muttered with a smirk. Maybe Fate was staring to come on his side once again.
He glanced over at her as she walked, a bit presumptuously, by his side along 27th street. Ed had traced Alyssa's call and the computer had narrowed the location to be 27th and Rouge, right smack in the middle of the French district. Jet had also taken off, after receiving some message from his one of his connections in ISSP. Spike hadn't the time to ask him about it since he practically had to chase after Faye as soon as Ed told them the address of the call. Not wanting to confront her, Spike resigned to simply following quietly after her and kept his thoughts and objections to himself. As they both trudged the colder streets of the French Riviera, he would occasionally shift his eyes to the side and catch her determined sparkling eyes with that casual sort of pompous walk of hers.
She hadn't objected to his company either. It seemed that for the most part she had resorted to just accepting the necessity of his presence. However, her expression revealed no annoyance or even anger with his being there. No, Faye Valentine was focused on their target and on the task at hand. Something he should have been doing as well. As he watched her, he saw her eyes suddenly overcome with a pensive glare.
"Why won't you tell me Spike?" She asked with a simple tone as if it were a mere question on the current weather. "Is it that bad? Is it so bad that you can't tell me?" Under the monotonous mask her voice wore, he heard the pain so clearly it deafened him.
"It's not that Faye. Alyssa is demented and I…" He paused not really knowing what he was even trying to say.
"Why is she after you so badly?" She whispered, her eyes still focused on the view ahead of them.
"I killed her father ten years ago in cold blood." He stated plainly. Faye glanced over at him, her eyes somewhat wide. He wasn't sure whether she was surprised at what he had done or his cool detachment from the statement.
"An assassination job for the syndicate?"
"Yeah, my not so glorious days." He replied and she made some noise of agreement as she shifted her eyes back on the path ahead. They crossed another block and she stopped and pointed.
"There it is." A simple two-story old downtown style building loomed over the two. It was brick red and the entrance small, tight and dark. All the apartments on the second floor had small window sills which some had dangling plants and small pots of flowers on there.
"Now we need to figure out which one." Spike muttered while studying the quaint little building. He gripped on his Jericho and took a deep breath.
"Hold on Gorgio, that's the easy part." She walked over to the side of the building near the fire escape stairs. "It's a bright and cool day on Alba, now who wouldn't want their windows open?" He watched her examine the building and then move around back, where the building faced yet another apartment complex back to back. Faye smiled and tapped her index finger on her nose and then pointed up towards a window. "There."
Spike smirked. "Second floor, covered window, empty sill, and at the back of the building. That was highly predictable wasn't it?"
They headed inside the complex and found the small apartment to be numbered 208. Faye took out her gun and Spike followed suit with his Jericho. Spike knocked swiftly on the door as they both stood on each side of the entrance. Nothing came, no sounds, no steps, no anything. Faye brought her ear against the door and after a few seconds she shook her head.
"There's no one in there."
"I'll go in first," Spike stated and aimed his gun at the doorknob.
"Wait! Are you insane, let's tell the whole building we're here," Faye whispered forcefully with a menacing glare.
"We don't have time for this." Spike was getting annoyed with her already.
"Hold on." She took her bracelet and twisted it revealing a tiny set of buttons. With the tip of her nails, she carefully pulled out what seemed to be a pin. She slid it into the doorknob until the pin glowed a red hue, then he heard a click and she smiled. "I love old doorknobs."
For moment he thought that it was just like old times. They were simply chasing a bounty and had to put their differences aside to bring some cash in, nothing else. This had nothing to do with them. It made what he was about to see all the more surreal.
He slowly turned the knob and let the door crack open. The dim light coming from the hall crept into the dark apartment and Spike stealthily stepped inside while holding his breath. He heard Faye soft steps behind him as she went off the right side to inspect and after a few seconds his eyes finally adjusted to the darkness. As he glanced to his right, he could see Faye scouting out the kitchen and dining room gun pointed out into the air.
"There's no one here Faye," he told her with disappointed relief. He turned to the living room and spotted a large screen with static snow projected on it.
"What the hell is that?" Faye muttered as she neared Spike. His hand scanned the wall for some switch to turn the lights on and feeling little bump, he pressed on it and light flooded the room. The first thing he heard after that was a gasp from Faye followed by a "shit." The moment his eyes scanned the room he realized where her reaction had come from and suddenly, the room had felt ten times more comforting in the darkness.
Pictures crowded the white walls of the living room. It might have been dozens of them, he couldn't really tell. He focused his attention primarily on the contents of the photos. Pictures of the Bebop, Ed, Jet, his old apartment, his Swordfish II, and random shots of him on the street were on one section. However, the next section is what made his eyelids tremble and his throat run dry. She had a picture of Julia's body on her wall, and so many of Faye and couple of Faye and him. The one that caught him was Faye and Spike dancing on the wooden floor of the Toulousse. He felt his tremors rising in him but he fought them back. Hesitantly, he glanced over at Faye who seemed stunned by the entire display. Her lips had parted and her eyes had widened as far they could go.
"What?" She managed to half-utter through another gasp. She slowly walked over the only furniture in the living room area, a large table with the screen sitting on top, a computer, and some machinery she didn't recognize as well as more pictures and some documents laying on top of the computer's keyboard. There were more pictures of him on top of the table, one of his parents, which he could barely recognize any longer, as well as one of Natalie. It was a picture of Natalie curled up in a corner, gray eyes wide with fear. He moved something and the screen went black with the white letters of "press enter" displaying against the dark background. Faye pushed the papers away from the keyboard and they scattered on the ground. She hesitantly lowered her finger and pressed on the enter key.
A hazy picture of Natalie came on, sitting down on a blue couch in a small apartment. She held a gun in her hand and her eyes were staring blankly at nothing in particular. On the corner of the screen were black numbers counting down by the seconds, at 00:20:05.
"It's bullshit Erica, she's trying to fuck with you." She muttered and Spike recalled that Jet had told him Natalie's real name was Erica Fullop. She sat there still, her shifted to the gun, and gulped down a hard and anxious swallow. "Jesus." She put the gun down on the coffee table in front of her and then rubbed her face. At that time, she still seemed like the Natalie he had met at the bar, not the cop, not the dead body he saw in the evidence photos. He could almost hear her mellow voice singing in the back of his mind.
Quand il me prend dans ses bras
Il me parle tout bas,
Je vois la vie en rose.
She glanced down at the small watch on her wrist and let out an exasperated sigh.
"Thirteen hours. I was out thirteen hours, she could have done anything to me in that time. Fuck." Suddenly she stopped and glanced from side to side and around her apartment. She tore open her comm. and lamps and everything she could get her hands on. She finally collapsed on her knees breathing heavily, the room around her like chaos a storm left behind. "Can you hear me you sadistic bitch? Is that how you found out shit about me? Did you bug the place?"
Il me dit des mots d'amour,
Des mots de tous les jours,
Et ca me fait quelque chose.
She propelled herself up and spun slowly with arms outstretched to the sides. "You want to blow up this building? And I'm the trigger huh? Bullshit. Like hell I am. I don't believe you." She hissed spitefully. "I've dealt with these bombs before, you know that. I know how they work and this is…" She swallowed the last word. "Impossible." She spat it back out in a whisper.
"Impossible," she repeated bringing her hand to her mouth as tears threatened to spill over the corners of her eyes. She ran her hands through her face and then shed her light black jacket. Near the kitchen, she opened the door to small room and went inside. Minutes later the drumming of water spilling from a showerhead could be heard.
The screen blinked black and the time on the screen shed a little over ten minutes. Now it counted down from 00:05:03.
Il est entre dans mon coeur
Une part de bonheur
Dont je connais la cause.
His eyes fell upon the top of the tank top she was now sporting. Fresh red marks stemmed out from underneath the low collar. He recalled the nail marks in the evidence photos. Spike held his breath as he watched Natalie pace around in her destroyed living room area. When visible to the camera angle, her eyes would shift sporadically from side to side probably trying to find answer when there were none. Then she just stopped moving and stood stiff for a few seconds with her hanging low.
"She's not bluffing." She uttered suddenly as if for the first time the realization had hit her. "I can feel it, inside me, because the signal is getting stronger. That's why you picked me, because I knew. I knew about it. I knew you wouldn't be lying." Tears began streaming down her cheeks. "You gave me 30 minutes to decide knowing I couldn't call in the squad, we would never disarm it in time. We would never evacuate in time and I wouldn't believe you in time." Her voice broke as she let out a choked cry.
C'est lui pour moi. Moi pour lui
Dans la vie,
Il me l'a dit, l'a jure pour la vie
"Jesus," She sniffed and glanced up. A desperate look plagued her eyes. "It's too late for anything now, Erica." She suddenly gasped and gripped her chest. "It's getting closer." She sat back down on her couch and focused on the gun still sitting on the coffee table. Her trembling hands reached for it, and she cradled it in her palms for a few seconds. She began to stand up but gasped almost stumbling down.
She lifted her head up high and pressed the gun barrel against her chest. Her lips shuddered along with her trembling hands. She closed her eyes and bit her lower lip. Taking in a deep breath, her eyes fluttered open once again, the look of inevitability burned in them.
Et des que je l'apercois
Alors je sens en moi
Mon coeur qui bat…
"To…" She held the gun tight with both hands and steadied it. "To God I commend my soul." A small pause followed this time, and then she cocked the gun. "Lord, save my soul."
The shot rang out and her body fell backwards. Her corpse hit the ground with a thud and the screen went blank.
Spike closed his eyes. The room spun around him and the walls around him warped into a blur. He placed his hand upon his mouth afraid he would the nausea would cause him to throw up.
"I don't want die like that." Faye's soft whisper shocked his senses from the spinning sensation. His eyes flew open and he turned his head to the side to glance at her. She gripped both her arms by the elbows, cradling herself while her head hung low.
"I'm…" He stopped himself before the apology could escape him. He touched his neck and forehead, he felt feverish and needed a cigarette badly, maybe even a drink too.
A loud slam echoed from behind them. He quickly whipped around with his handgun aimed out towards the door. Faye had spun around with gun in hand as well. The both glared fiercely at the two large bodies that emerged into the living room. Spike recognized the two men standing before them with black pistols aimed and ready. They were Alyssa's muscle men that he had seen that time he first met her at the French bar. This was a good thing. Spike felt like he needed to kill something, and there was nothing better than lackeys to satisfy the urge.
"It's them." The man with light brown hair, the taller of the two, spoke.
"Drop your weapons." The second man commanded.
"Yeah right." Faye responded and stiffened her grip on the gun.
The taller man raised his aim and pointed his gun at her head. Faye didn't even flinch, but the situation was already making Spike nervous. He had a nasty twist in his gut.
"Now, now, boys. No need to get violent." Her sultry cynical voice plagued the air around them. Spike gripped his gun so hard that if he had enough strength in him he would have already shattered it in half. His eyes shifted towards the entrance. Alyssa walked through the door and came forward into view. A sad sadistic expression governed her face.
"Alyssa!" Faye hissed and shifted her aim towards her.
"A cup of tea?" She offered cynically.
"You!" Spike shouted, but that's all the sound he could manage.
"Do you like my display? I heard you watching one of my home movies." The smirk that snuck on her lips sickened Spike.
"You had no right to bring her into this. No fucking right."
"Who? Faye?" She asked with an amused expression. "I wasn't the one who brought her into this Spike." Her tone became stern.
"What good will it do you to kill me, Alyssa? Hmm? What twisted sick shit will it fulfill?"
"Oh Faye, you and I are the same. Victims of the world around us and of this man." She laughed. She stretched her arms out and yawned. "I'm beat. I should go take a nap." She uttered so casually and turned around.
"No, you're going to tell me how to stop it." Faye shouted and then a gunshot ripped through the air towards Alyssa. The bullet had missed, plunging into the wall, and Spike couldn't tell whether it had been a warning shot or an eager accident. However, the shot had been motive enough to trigger the two large men to shoot at them. Luckily Spike had knocked the gun out of one of them, while Faye flipped the table on its side and dodged the rest of the flying bullets behind it.
"Faye shoot the gun out of his hand!" Spike shouted while dodging another punch from the largest of the two men.
"I know!" Her heard her respond and then a shot followed by a loud groan. "Spike, take care of this. I'm going after her."
Spike's eyes widened. He punched the man, then shot him in the chest and turned to Faye who had sprinted towards the door. The other man was about to grab her, when Spike kicked him back. The man lunged for Spike, but the lanky man simply moved to the side and then elbowed him on the back. As soon as the man landed, Spike had his Jericho pressed against the side of his head.
"Don't move. Just tell me, where the fuck is she going?" He demanded from the groaning man, but received no answer. Spike had no time for this.
"Just shoot." The man said pulling himself up. Spike groaned and hit the man on the back of his neck with the handle of his gun.
Spike ran down the stairs after Faye. He knew Alyssa wouldn't hurt her, it would ruin her plans. But Faye might kill her and they may need her later on if they can't find another way to stop it. He thought back to Natalie's face as she pulled the trigger. He couldn't let Faye die like that. No one deserved to die like that.
He finally emerged into the street, and he glanced from side to side. In the distance, he spotted Faye running back towards him.
"I don't know where the hell she went. She just disappeared. Fuck!"
Spike suddenly felt his breath stop short as he could sense someone around them. He whipped around and saw the man he had knocked out aiming the gun at Faye, finger about to pull the trigger. Spike shot him in that instant, and the man's renegade bullet rang towards the sky.
Spike stared at the dead body for a few seconds and then glanced towards Faye. She stood there still, arms dangling off to her sides, with her gun loosely in one hand. Her emerald orbs reflected little if any emotion. She turned to him suddenly, eyes vibrant with agony.
"Thanks." She muttered just as the bellow of sirens echoed through the streets.
"Yeah." He responded, choked up in some sensation he could not explain. Perhaps it was utter fear or anxiety or maybe it was his body slowly numbing to the core. Was it the shock of the shrew actually thanking him for once? No, it was the irony behind it. His mind finally found words to express the feeling reverberating in him.
Why the hell would you thank me if I'm reason you're going to die?
Thanks so much for all your reviews. I was totally honored to know that so many people thought the chapter was good. :D I also did take all suggestions into consideration and I hope that it is reflected in this new chapter. Thanks for reading you guys. I was especially happy to see that some of the Bebop writers I admire like my story.
Kind of a slow chapter, but it picks up again on the next one. It might take me a while to get it written because it's going to be an extra hard chapter.
Lyrics from "La Vie en Rose"