Whether it was the nerves or the drugs that made his hands keep shaking, he didn't know. Every other breath launched his heart into his throat, and it was a wonder he hadn't passed out already. His dilated pupils, gradually normalizing as his time conscious increased, remained focused on the road ahead, cracks in the asphalt disappearing due to the speed and merging into a uniform grey. His thoughts similarly seemed to run faster than the world, every synapse morphing into one impression, one image. If his legs worked, they would be twitching and bouncing nervously, but he made use instead of his unsteady, at least mobile, fingers, absently tumbling acoin between them.
Rocky grew concerned after five minutes had passed with no cognitive movements from his passenger. Ever since by chance, he had found records that the 3-manned fishing vessel"Bebop" happened to be docked only a few miles from the hospital, Spike had been in another world. One glance at his glazed-over irises convinced him to intervene, and he pulled over to the shoulder of the road. The homogeneous grey expanse was suddenly impeded with previously unnoticed canyons in the road, jarring Spike's vision and forcing his thoughts to turn to more immediate matters. Wincing as he blinked, his dried eyes grateful for the break, he turned to face his veritable savior.
"Spike, are you sure you're ready for this?" His words were soft, moreso than usual, and his eyes held concern.
"I just don't know what to say…to her…" Spike's gaze drifted back to the windshield, focusing on the glass pane itself, the peach and russet hues of the setting sun beyond the distant silhouette of the shoreline blurring into a watercolor landscape and soothing his frayed nerves.
"I'm sure you'll think of something." Rocky grinned confidently at him, feeling for all the world grateful that he had done the right thing in keeping this man alive. Spike took one glance at his genuine complacency and relaxed. He owed him everything, and resolved to not let a bout of shyness ruin his second chance at living. A ghost of a nervous smile flitted across his features as he sank back into thought, contented for the time being. Whilst he pondered a certain jade-eyed beauty, unnoticed, the horizon grew steadily closer to his vantage point, and eventually, unnoticed, the asphalt through the windowpane turned to wooden planks. A looming shadow crept across the vehicle as Rocky parked the car adjacent to the pier.
Spike was gently nudged out of his thoughts as Rocky shot him the same anxious smile, like a kid getting ready to race his self-constructed soap box racer down a hill. He reached for the door handle as he heard the one to his left open and shut, but his hand began to tremble again, and felt as though he had full-grown albatrosses fluttering around in his stomach. He had yet to raise his eyes from the dashboard.
A slow soft popping sound echoed through his foggy mind, and soon he felt the fresh breeze of the false Martian sea hitting his clammy skin. Taking a deep, deliberate breath, he placed his right hand, palm to palm, trustingly into Rocky's outstretched one, and braced his body to stand. Straining his useable muscles, he raised his body off the passenger seat and locked his legs into a standing position. His eyes were aimed at the edge of the wooden pier, unwilling to face the giant metal structure obscuring the sun.
Swallowing the lumps in his throat and breathing deeply, he leaned against the car, feeling the door close behind him, and accepted the metal crutches offered to him. Sufficiently anchored to the ground, he looked up.
The metal was heterogeneously alternating between old rusted panels and shiny new titanium, the newer material blatantly used as patches here and there, like on a well-used rubber inner tube. His eyes ranged over the hull, until they reached one feature. At his eye-level, he read five letters, carefully spray-painted in royal blue through a stencil, and he couldn't help but wonder if that particular update had been her idea. He wondered if she herself had been the one to paint it there, and from that thought branched out to wondering what exactly had happened when he was asleep…had she found another man? It wasn't as though he had established a claim on her in the first place, anyway. Was she still the same stubborn bitch she used to be? Did she still wear that skimpy yellow outfit…?
The outlines of the letters blurred and grew misty, as his eyes grew wet with tears, but that one nonsensical, ridiculous word burned itself into his memory, and he realized that he had really woken up, that he was really alive, and he was finally back where he was supposed to be. The Bebop.
Straightening his back and nonchalantly swiping his tears away with the back of his hand, he steadied himself on his crutches.
"Shall we go and say hi then?" Spike smiled genuinely for the first time since he had awoken, leaving all (well, most) traces of nervousness behind him, and attempted to start moving himself the few yards to the ship, deciding it would be easier to have Rocky escort him, and keep him upright. It drove him crazy that he had become so helpless and weak, but even those disabilities couldn't keep him from getting on that vessel, no matter what it took.
Once he reached the back deck, following several painstakingly slow shuffling steps, Spike carefully positioned his crutches' rubber bottoms across the inch-wide gap between the dock and the ship. He waved Rocky away for a moment, preferring to use his own power and will to walk back onto the ship. Two seconds later, he smiled as he felt his movements sway, matching the tide. Rocky hopped over the gap and helped Spike shuffle over to the hatch, sepia with rust, yet daunting in the metallic strength it seemed to exude.
"Well?" Rocky nudged him gently from behind, keeping in mind that a normal nudge would knock him off-balance.
Spike slowly formed a fist, and raised his hand, knuckles parallel to the door, and closed his eyes, preparing himself to walk (as well as he could) back into his old life. He was just about to connect with the worn metal, when it fell away from his hand, swinging inward to reveal a girl, now in her mid-teens, with a long red ponytail and bare feet.
"SPIKE-SPIIIIIIIIKE!" If Rocky hadn't been standing behind him, he would have toppled over to the ground as she launched herself at him, seemingly unaware of either her increase in weight, or his weakness. He let out an "oof" and stumbled backwards, dropping his crutches and leaning all his and Ed's weight on the poor man behind him, laughing.
"Ed?...ED?...Who's there?" A disembodied voice, familiarly gruff echoed through the portal as its owner grew closer to it, and Spike froze as he spotted, for the first time in years, his old partner.
Jet came forward and helped to peel the girl off, Rocky bending down to retrieve his crutches for him. He smiled and shook his just-about-bald head, not taking his eyes off the noticeably scrawnier, yet still strikingly unchanged man in front of him.
"You going to let us in, or are we just going to stand out here all day?" They shared a glance for a moment, and their long-time friendship was recovered in an instant. Jet stepped forward and enveloped Spike in a relieved, friendly hug, pulling back with a bemusedly puzzled expression.
"Wha...wh...how?" Spike shifted his weight between his crutches, becoming somewhat anxious since the one person he still had to see was yet to be found.
"Coma. I'll go into details later, but...where is she?" Jet grinned knowingly, although he was still confused as hell, and nodded.
"Front deck."
"Thanks." He turned, and Rocky walked over to him.
"Are you sure you"
"I'll be fine." Spike flashed him as confident a smile as he could conjure, his nerves, mostly subdued, surfacing rapidly as his heart jumped back into his throat. Rocky turned back to Jet and Ed, introducing himself and satisfying some of their curiosity for the time being. Before Spike could get too far though, Ed shouted back to him.
"Spike-person, did you have fun being dead?"
He turned back to her, an amused smile on his face, and shook his head.
"No, it was too lonely being dead. I'm much happier here, alive."
"Go on Spike, we'll leave you alone." Jet gestured forward, and Spike obliged him, shuffling to the other side of the room, and through the doorway. He made his way to the hatch to the larger deck of the ship, feeling the cold metal of the handle as he slowly put weight on it.
He heard the soft click of the mechanisms in the hatch, and steeled his nerves enough to gently pull it towards him, anticipation building in his gut so much he closed his eyes before the door was fully breached. He felt a warmth on his face, the dying rays of the sun, and held his breath. The ocean breeze coaxed him tenderly forward, and his eyes opened.