- Okay, I finally let my husband read this and he pointed out a few, rather embarrassing errors. Like the Swordfish doesn't have engines on the wings (oops! I just don't pay attention to that mechanical stuff!). So I fixed that, and a couple dumb spelling mistakes and reuploaded. So here you have a new part two! -Neg

Part Two: Before

That night had been strange, even for Faye, and she was well acquainted with strange. It had been preceded by a long, bad day. The only bounty they had caught in two months had escaped during the transfer and ISSP blamed them, refusing to pay the bounty. Jet of course had blamed Faye, who accused him in turn. By evening the sniping had stopped, replaced by an awful silence. Losing even a measly $80,000 woolongs was made worse by a lack of food and no reception on the TV. Faye had sat on the sofa, morosely pushing Jet's cooking around on her plate. They had exchanged several half-hearted barbs over the quality of the fare, but neither had their heart in it.

Already in a lousy mood, Faye had found herself thinking of the one thing, or person rather, that would make it worse: Spike. Since misery loved company Faye couldn't help but make sure Jet was just as miserable as she. "We've got a real party going on here!" Faye snapped sarcastically, walking to the window and lighting a cigarette. "Good thing Spike's not here to laugh at us." She had stared out into the space above Mars, waiting for the inevitable explosion and yelling match to begin. She needed some kind of fight, but it hadn't come. She focused on the reflection of the room behind her in the window and saw Jet disappearing through the doorway toward his bonsai room. Then she heard the door close; not slammed or banged, just closed.

'Well I can eat in peace now at least' Faye thought, slumping down on the sofa again. Abandoning the cigarette she picked up her chopsticks, but the food was even less appealing than it had been before. She had been the one to break the unspoken rule. Faye sighed and flopped her head back, letting the ceiling fan's slow rotations mesmerize her.

They had both been going in circles too, for weeks now. Some things were the same as always, like arguing over money. But other things had changed, since what happened. Jet used to be the tough one, the leader of their gang. Now the gang was broken up and Jet's tough-and-gruff attitude was gone as well. Oh, he tried still, but he didn't seem to find that same perverse pleasure in goading her that he used to. A few days after what had happened he had gone and gotten the Swordfish out of impound. He'd had it towed to the Bebop, saying "I'm too big to fly that toy of Spike's!" Faye later thought that maybe he just couldn't bring himself to get near the Swordfish and all its memories. Since then it had sat neglected in the hangar, pointedly ignored by both of them. In those first couple of weeks, while his leg was still healing, Jet spent most of his time on the comm with old ISSP buddies. Faye assumed he was trying to learn more about what happened, but she was too wrapped up in herself to care. She didn't want to know anything about it and she spent most of her time at the races just to make sure she didn't find out anything.

Despite that, every few days she would go look for the Bebop, telling herself it was just to make sure her stuff was okay. It was always at the docks on Mars, or in orbit. She'd go in and quietly check around the ship till she found signs of Jet. Sometimes she ran into him, and they exchanged a nod, or "You still here?" Most of the time though Jet was either locked up with his little trees, or out somewhere. She'd find something to eat, or something else to take, and leave again.

Things could have gone on like that, but after a couple weeks Jet finally caught Faye in the kitchen in the act of cracking the top on one of his beers. "I knew there was a rat sneaking around on board!" he snapped in a gravelly voice behind her.

Faye had nearly leaped out of her skin and spun around in surprise. She glared at Jet saying, "I'm checking on my stuff," and mentally kicked herself for sounding defensive. Jet just turned and limped out to the living area, calling back to Faye, "Then get the hell out of my stuff and come here. I've got a job for you."

So they'd gotten back in the cowboy business again, but their luck was just as bad as ever. Jet's leg was keeping him from getting in the action so he mostly did the planning and Faye had to go out for the hunt. But Faye was off her game. She'd gotten used to either working in a team with the others, or in competition with the others. Now she was by herself out there and Jet, instead of being a backseat driver like he used to, he just told her who to get and waited for her to come back. She'd come back empty-handed every time till today. The fiasco with the transfer and escape seemed to seal the end of her career as a bounty hunter.

Faye scowled at the ceiling fan and sat up again. 'We're a damn sideshow here now!' she thought furiously. 'He needs to get off his ass and do some of the grunt work around here!' She looked toward the hallway Jet had disappeared into and caught herself wondering how he was doing. They never talked about what happened, still. She brooded on it and she watched Jet stew about it and both of them followed that one rule: Don't talk about Spike or what happened to him. Until Faye broke the rule of course.

"Well why do I give a shit anyway! I'm grieving too here! What about me?" she whined, slamming down her chopsticks. But even Faye cringed at the complete selfishness of her thoughts. She got up and stalked out of the room, away from Jet. Pacing back and forth some more, Faye debated with herself what to do, or if she should do anything at all. 'This has to stop! He can't do this to me!' she whined, inwardly this time. Jet was always the one who was supposed to know what to do, or not do. He always had before. He was just full of unsolicited advice before. 'Before! Before! Before! Before! Damn! Just say it Faye!' she screamed in her head. She slowly sat down on the top step and contemplated her amazing ability for self-delusion.

After a few moments that seemed like an eternity of self-pity, Faye realized that she could barely hear a distant, rhythmic banging. Curious, she got up to check it out. As she passed the kitchen, she noticed a line of bottles on the counter. 'So that's what's got him worked up tonight. The stupid man went and got hammered and now he can't hold his liquor!' Then Faye paused, staring at the bottles and tried to think of the last time she had seen Jet get drunk. He usually went out for his heavy drinking, and he could drink most hardened cowboys under the table and not show any effects. 'What's different now?' she wondered. Noticing one of the bottles still had some whiskey in it, she took it with her.

The door to the bonsai room was open again. Faye went into the rotating central passageway, listening carefully for the direction of the noise. It was coming from the hangar. She hesitated in the passageway for a couple rotations, then slugged the last of the whiskey, and finally went in.

At first Faye couldn't figure out what was going on. The only illumination was from the lights at the far end on either side of the bay doors. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, Faye finally made out a figure moving; Jet was beating the crap out of the Swordfish. He was concentrating his efforts on the joint where one of the wings folded. It was already nearly ripped off by the force of Jet's blows. His weapon was some piece of equipment that Faye could no longer identify from the damage it had suffered too.

"Damn Jet! What the hell are you doing!" she yelled stalking toward him. "Are you craa...zy?" Faye paused when she got a better look at Jet. He didn't look at her, but stopped swinging and just stood there next to the once shining red machine. If it wasn't for the metal left arm, she wouldn't have recognized him at all. The top of his jumpsuit was hanging from his waist and he had stripped off his shirt. He was breathing harshly and shining with sweat. Being shirtless seemed to accentuate the breadth of his shoulders. 'Maybe it's just the light in here,' Faye thought, but she couldn't take her eyes off his heavily muscled back. She knew she had seen him without a shirt before, but 'How did I miss that?'

"I dunno. I'm drunk." Jet declared gruffly and overly loud. He raised a hand to rub the top of his head. Seeing his habitual gesture of nervousness snapped Faye out of her appreciative reverie. Jet continued, "I got to thinking that maybe if he hadn't been able to fly this thing, then he never would have gone down there and then he wouldn't have...then he..."

His voice trailed off and Faye quietly finished for him, "Then nothing would have happened."

"I just had to make sure it wasn't going to happen again and I just started..." Jet shrugged, still staring up at the mangled engine, his arms hanging at his sides, his breathing normal again already. "It made sense at the time I guess. Kinda silly huh?"

Faye didn't reply, but strode purposefully around to the other side of the Swordfish, picking up a piece of conduit from a shelf on the way. She stared intently at the other wing for a moment, then climbed up on a nearby generator and swung at it with all her might. The force of the contact surprised her. The stinging vibration of the metal surged through her arms making her cry out. She braced herself and swung again and again, getting into a rhythm. Without meaning to, she started screaming, "You...stupid...sonofa...bitch!" in time with each hit, and blinking back tears as she pounded away. "This...is all...your...fault!" Her arms were getting tired and she nearly lost her balance a couple times, but it just felt so damn good she couldn't stop. After a moment she realized that Jet had come around to her side and joined her in the wanton destruction. His more powerful blows, joined with hers, soon had this wing dangling as well. A final, combined hit made it detach completely and it crashed to the floor of the hanger, the sound echoing over and over in the confined space.

They both stood there panting from their exertions and staring at the twisted metal on the floor. Faye couldn't help herself and burst out giggling, then laughing so hard she dropped the conduit. Jet started laughing too, then hit the wall with an "Ooof!" when Faye lost her balance for good and toppled on top of him. They slid down the wall to the floor and Faye was so stunned for a moment that she couldn't move and Jet had to shove her off and lean over to get a look at her.

"You okay?" he asked, closely examining her face. Faye inexplicably found herself studying every part of his features. She couldn't remember the last time she had really looked at him, and certainly she had never been this close to him. Without any conscious thought, her hand came up and touched the place where a deep scar cut across Jet's right eye. Her finger traced along his broken eyebrow, then drifted down to the piece of metal underneath his eye. 'Is his eye real? Or is it a replacement like Spike's?' she wondered. Then the thought of Spike jolted her back to reality. She gasped when she realized she was touching Jet and snatched her hand back, holding it with her other hand against her chest. Looking down, she could see that actually she was touching him in all kinds of places. Their legs were still tangled together and Jet's hips were pressing on her thigh as he leaned over her. Looking back into his face, Faye realized that Jet's expression of horror probably mirrored her own. Finding herself in this position was a long-shot bet that even she would never have made.

Faye quickly looked away and managed to stand up with a minimum of contact with Jet. She looked at the remains of the red wing on the floor. It felt like they had done that a year ago. She glanced sideways at Jet. He had stood up as well and was looking at what they had done and rubbing the back of his head again. He was standing beside her, and so close that Faye knew he had already forgotten she was there or he would have moved away.

"A real piece of work there, huh?" Faye remarked wryly. She meant to return their mood to something more lighthearted. She had taken out two months of grief and despair on that machinery and now she felt drained, empty. It was a nice change to be free for a little while of all the emotion she had been carrying around since what happened. When Jet, startled by her voice, looked down at her, she could see that he was still far from emotionless. For an unguarded moment his eyes revealed the depths of guilt and loss he still wrestled with. 'What's got him so worked up tonight?' she wondered again. He spun around suddenly, heading for the door and Faye felt something twist inside her at the thought of him being alone with that pain. She knew that if their brief moment of destructive comradery hadn't helped him, then more drinking and solitude would certainly make things even worse.

"Jet, wait!" she called. She half-ran across the hangar to catch up and stepped in front of him. Jet kept on walking and Faye put both hands against his chest to try to stop him. 'He has to stop! This has to stop!' she thought desperately. 'I can't watch another one go!'

Jet stopped and looked down at her hands as if amazed that such small things could actually stop him. Faye took advantage of that moment to do the only other thing she could think of. She stood on tiptoe as she slid her hands up around his neck and pulled his head down to her own. She was kissing him then and for a second Jet stood frozen. Faye started to pull back, but then Jet's arms were around her, lifting her up and onto the table that was behind her. Afraid he was going to leave her there, she wrapped her legs around his hips and Jet deepened the kiss. Moments ago she had savored the feeling of emptiness. She had kissed Jet on the impulse to comfort him, she thought. Now she felt as if all of Jet's emotions were pouring into her through his kiss. Emotions that were transformed into a desire that was filling all the emptiness inside her. The rest was inevitable.