Tears of the Angels

The air hung dirty and dingy on the streets lit poorly with street lamps. People littered the pavement as the evening rush began home to their dirty apartments. The rain fell heavily on the people held out with only top hats, newspapers and various colorful umbrellas. The only person the rain had been allowed to soak, much to their displeasure was Faye. She made her way up the avenue, holding her pale arms tight in her hands as she searched for dry, warm sanctuary. The water wasted no time in soaking her skin to the bone, making her clothes damn near clear and her hair plastered to her face. Her lipstick had long been gone, falling with the first few drops of sun dew and her makeup was a long ago memory. She can't remember the last time she slept in a bed and not in a the one seat of her wonderfully cramped ship. And she couldn't even make out where she had been going. All she knew was that for the moment, she had to survive. For if and when Spike came.

Suddenly an object came fiercely across her midsection, and her she pulled back in pain, screaming and cursing sharply. The streets were flooded with people and when she looked back to see who it was that cut her this badly. The only thing she saw was a closed umbrella sticking out from a man who had decided that just maybe he would like to get wet tonight. Angrily, she turned back to him, determined to give him a piece of her mind, when fatigue overwhelmed her and she fell weakly to her knees. It had been a while since her last meal. It was 3 woolongs ago. The money she had saved on her own account was gone now. Disappeared some 5 days ago. And she lived on only what she could steal, which wasn't much. Maybe an apple here, a tangerine there. The fruit vendors were really the only ones that never pursued her. The meat vendors weren't so nice, and if she had managed to steal a cut of meat it would be miles before she lost him, and she honestly didn't have the strength for that now.

She allowed her right arm to fall from her human pretzel form and slide across her stomach. Lifting her hand up to her face, she saw a large mass of blood, dripping of her fingers as the rain continued to fall. Suddenly she began to feel the toxic rain slipping into her wound and she hissed angrily and stood up quickly, determined to get out of the rain, and to nurse her poor body. Stumbling she made her way up the boulevard, drawing attention from people, their angry curses at her, and proposal of help falling on deaf and half conscious ears as she continued walking. He arm was across her midsection holding tight to her cut, her other arm hung free, her body slumped in a painful and malnourished manner. Somehow she managed to make her way up an alley, and climb into the window of an abandoned building, getting a few more cuts before she settled painful on the wooden floor.

The room was a faint pink, the shade of those pale roses she always seen women receiving. It was bare, except a chandelier that had obviously been used for on the richest of family before being left to fend for it's own in this poor house. She would need supplies if she was to survive the night, so she decided to move and search for things that would aid her, before she could no longer move. On hands and knees she made her way to the kitchen, to search for some sorta of food, possibly recently left behind, even if it was a bit rotten it would be good. Wouldn't be the first and last time she ate something like that.

The kitchen was an inviting bright yellow, like the rays of warm golden sunshine, and was home to two boarded windows, probably viewing nothing more than the other apartment's bricks. There as an old white refrigerator that had been left running, promising not so spoiled food and possibly a place to hold any that she managed to steal in the future. Crawling slowly, Faye made her way over to and opened the fridge. Her face fell and her stomach grumbled at the sight of nothing more than a box of arm and hammer. Had the orange box been nontoxic Faye would have even ate that, but rather than kill herself faster she decided for the slow painful approach and she slowly made her way to the brown cabinets she had ignored upon entering the room. She opened them slowly, afraid of what she would find and what she wouldn't find. Well, she found something to sustain her but it had been the food she most despised. Yuck... corned beef. She always hated it, and memories of her shoveling it in as a child flashed back to her as she reached her free arm up to pull them down. She was going to hate this, but it was food right? She didn't bother looking for the expiration date. Even if it had expired she would eat it. Too weak to go looking for real food and too unconcerned to care. Besides, Corned beef is good for at least 5 years after the expiration date…heh, the more you know.

She had 5 cans of the stuff, and an expired bottle of water, good, she would be able to get her strength back, and get some real food over the next day or so. Everything was working out perfectly for her now. She waddled back into the main room, rolling and holding all 5 cans and the bottle of water as she best she could with one arm. Now for a bed. Shouldn't be hard. Everyone always left their old mattresses in the home right? She made her way into the next door she saw, leading into one of the bedrooms. The sight had caused her body to hurl slightly and she fell to her knees weak and disturbed by the sight. There was blood everywhere, except on the mattress and the outline of a dead body somewhere near the window. It had taken her longer than she imagined to pull herself together. It wasn't like she had never seen blood before. Hell she bled, Spike bled, and the people she killed bled. She had probably seen enough running blood to create 5 or 6 new adults, with extra to spare. But this… this was sick. It looked as if the manner the person was killed was unmercifully. Dragged and splattered across the lace chiffon curtains, hurled against the wall, and slammed into the floor. Had she anything on her stomach she would have hurled. The sight and smell, more than enough sickening to discontent any person. Taking in a deep breathe before she stood, she slowly walked over to the mattress, and pulled the twin sized object off the bed, and dragged it out of the room, careful not to get any blood on it. She pulled it into the main room and settled it under the chandelier, besides her food and water.

Now, she needed a bathroom. The last time she went had been earlier that morning and was not far from where vicious dogs had made their territory, barking at her the entire time. Sighing she opened the last door in the one bedroom apartment and had indeed found a bathroom. It was dirty dingy, but at least the last time it had been occupied, it was clean, meaning not too much of a mess. Quickly she squatted over the toilet seat and happily removed her waste before washing her hands in the sink, under the dirty water, as she watched the water turn clear. Good! Clear running water, maybe she could even get a shower in! She turned to the shower, and sure enough it was clean, except for the mildew and mold that had been hiding and growing on the cracks. But of course, nothing she had never encountered before. She reached for the knob to turn on the water but a severe pain on her stomach caused her to stumbled back, knocking the breath out of her and causing her to bump her head on the tiles by the toilet. She howled in pain as she felt a brand new cut form on her skull, and blood drip quickly from it, sending tiny rivers of drops flowing down the tile. She hissed angrily, and her hand instinctively went up to the cut and inspected it. Hmm, nothing bad, only on inch across, how deep, she didn't know, but she wouldn't find out either. Standing, slowly, she rested her arm on the bathroom sink, the white of the ceramic slowly mixing with the aqua of the tile. If she didn't hurry she was gonna knock out in the bathroom. She needed something soft to rest her sleepy head on so it would be best if she fell asleep on the mattress she dragged into the main room, rather than on the hard dirty bathroom floor. With on last heave ho, she pushed herself off the sink making the mirror above it open slightly. Oh yes! She forgot! Pain medicine might be in there! She opened it the rest of the way and found much to her happiness, two medical kits and a bottle of expired aspirin. Wondrous. She would get off really well in this place huh? Grabbing all three items she limped into the next room, her stomach causing her more than enough pain to take down an entire army.

She settled on the mattress, and pulled a can of corned beef to her. A smile spread across her face until she realized that it was indeed a can, and she didn't have a can opener. She cursed and spit angrily, until she threw the can onto the floor and shot it. Sure enough it opened heat rising from the side where the smoke spilt from it, and she happily ran for it, and pulled the hot can into her lap. Digging her fingers inside, she pulled and ate as much of the warm mess as she could, her stomach shuddering with bliss as the contents filled and massaged her stomach muscles. She sighed and laughed as she placed her lips over the bullet holes and sucked the contents of the can clean, satisfied and for once in a long while, full. All right. Now, for her wounds.

She settled back on her mattress, her body suddenly pumped with energy as she pulled the medical kit on her lap and began leafing through the contents. Band-Aids, gazes, ace bandage, ahah! Needle and thread! Just what she needed. The gash on her stomach was at least 7 inches long and the blood had yet to let up. She needed to get it closed quickly before she died from blood loss, in this dirty old place, and there was no telling how long it would take for her body to be found, yuck! She threaded the needle, and settled herself, before she began getting to work. She slid the needle into her skin hissing at first, and kicking herself for not sterilizing it with her lighter. Small droplets of blood formed where she had made the puncture wound but she paid it no mind. She sowed across her large gash, to the other side, and plunged the needle in as she cried over the tiny pain. She pulled it tight, making the cut close and bright flashes of light flash before her eyes. Tears began falling from her red and swollen cheeks as she continued poking and sewing her poor body closed. It took a long time before she was fully closed the bleeding down to only a few drops every so often. She sewed the back of her head closed as best she could, and dropped the needle from her fingers. She wished she could tell how many stitches she used to close each. It always gave her peace when the doctors told her, oh no not as much as I thought she would always say, even though she really didn't know how many it took, or for that matter how they counted it. Sighing to herself, she settled on the mattress and laid down easily, hoping to give her body a little rest before she began foresting again for necessities.

The mattress a lot softer than she expected or maybe that's because her body was a lot weaker than she expected. She had probably lost a pint of blood throughout the day, and there was no telling how much more she would lose. She felt weak, tired, and drained. Her skin was still soaked from the rain and her body a slight bit warmer than she remembered. Ahh yes, Aspirin right. She reached her hand across the floor, and pulled two aspirin from the bottle, before she downed them, and opened her bottle of water and took a sip. Ahh, sustenance. When she woke up, she doubted she would feel anything and hopefully her blood would thicken after the aspirin did its purpose. She laid for a few moments, on her mattress reading the bottle of the aspirin, before she turned and looked at the chandelier, her entire body facing upwards. It was so pretty. Like sparkling rain drops, falling during a beautiful sunrise. She remembered mornings like that. Mornings like that at her home, when she was alive with her parents and her family. The beach was always nearby so the water evaporated quickly, and fell in sun showers because the sun had always been out. She remembered dancing and laughing with her mom, her dad supplying the music on his trumpet as they belted out tunes to their favorite songs. Her mother danced in her pink sundress laughing and dancing with while she tapped the tambourine, jumping in her shorts and T-shirt. Sometimes her friends came, sometimes they didn't. But they always had fun that day. A family ritual for Saturdays, so they can spend time together. And yet, now, they were long gone, died some decades ago, while she sat frozen in a box. Her parents the ones who birthed her left her here all alone in this terrible world. Look at where she was now. Lying on a dirty mattress, soaked to the bone, and sewn up by herself. The last time she had showered had been too long ago to remember, and the last time she had a decent meal was just as long ago.

Tears came to her eyes and she angrily brushed them away, and rolled to her side, trying to erase her memory of what her life had been, or for that matter, where she was now. She curled into a ball, her stomach stitched pulled tight, almost to the breaking point. Tears rolled down her face and she would have wiped those away as well, except her body had suddenly her body had become paralyzed. And she couldn't move her arms and her legs. Suddenly she went into a panic. Oh my god, I can't move, someone help me… please, help me… Spike. Suddenly she realized that that word was the only one to slip from her mind and fall onto her lips. Her reaction was nothing shot of a snort. Spike… hah. He wouldn't be here to save her, was probably happy she wasn't there, hogging the money and beef from him. He didn't care about her, didn't care where she was or how she was fairing. If he did... He would have come. When she was at the motel, waiting in those disgusting conditions for him to come and bring her back. She waited days, tears falling from her eyes, her connections open with the Bebop. But he never did show up. She waited two whole days, and left at dusk, slipping away into the night, tears and pain etched on her face. Since then, everything's gone down hill for her. She closed the connection, got robbed a few times, got into a lot of bar fights, and was forced to fight for whatever drink and food she wanted. It had been a long time since she had a cigarette, her body constantly shaking from a need of nicotine in her system. Her skin had taken on a life of its own, turning from her normal skin tone to a chalky sickly white that looked almost as if she were a few minutes within the end of her life. She had seen death a few times, tasted it, and danced with it, almost as if she were personally invited to a ball, and was to be a guest of honor, but this… this was scary. She was laying, in the house of a dead man, lying on a mattress starving and faint of blood and nutrition. There was no way to find her, no way to know where she was, well, except for one person. Spike. She reached her hand to her side and flicked the device on her bracelet, emitting a signal for where she was. She hoped that it could get a signal, and be sent to the Bebop where ever it was. And she hopped that Spike would come, and bring her home. She needed him, her life depended on it. If he didn't love her, and didn't return for her, she would die. But if he loved her, and showed her his love, then maybe… just maybe, she would survive. So it all came down to this huh? He loves me, he loves me not. She would find out for sure know. Now that revenge had been hers, and not that she had caused yet another mess of things, she would see if he could get past his pride… to love her, or if she would die by his very hands. Do you love her Spike? Or don't you?

Faye's eyes began to close, sickness and weakness taking over her, her body slowly shutting down. Just before her eyes closed fully, a shadow crossed her face, and she opened them quickly again. She searched frantically for what had made the large and vast shadow. She looked finally spotted the tall shadow of a rat, her fears doubling over and finally calming. A rat, heh, a rat had made it. Probably from the light of a window, nothing...right? Yeah… there was nothing more than that rat. A grin slid across her lips before she allowed herself to succumb to sleep, and finally, she fell sleep, but only after hearing a faint laugh from somewhere deep inside the building.

Hey Spike, we got a reading on Faye just now.

Faye Faye! Whoooaaaaa Faye faye! Whoooaaaa-ow! Spike person!

Where is she?

The lower district Mars. It appears to be the far east, with all the deserted buildings. You remember where the Mad Dog No Good killed his last victim some 2 years ago.

Yeah.

That's where she is.

That's all I wanted to know. I'll bring her back Jet.

Hey Spike.

Yeah?

Becareful. He may still be at large after all this time.

It's not me you have to worry about…It's him. I'll be back soon with her Jet. Heh… that's promise.

Jet nodded to his partner as he dashed out the room. His thoughts on wether they would both make it out of there alive. Or if… it would be too late for one, if not both.

A/N: Hello there my dears! Here is your next chapter! I hope you all are pleased. I woke up this morning feeling sick, and I was really surprised when I sat down to the computer and wrote this, lol. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing it, and let me know what you think. Will Spike find her nd bring her home, or will the signal be lost before he gets there? Will she move again, impatient for him, or will she stay put? Was the shadow really a rat? And if it wasn't, will Spike and Faye make it out alive or die together in that terribly house. We'll see! So update, speak to me, and we'll see wat really happens! Enjoy! Carolina