Jerk Chapter Three: White Noise

By Hakubi

Author's Note: After forever, I finally have the inspiration to write the third chapter of Jerk. Thank God I haven't gotten reviewers in this story who tell me "Get off ur f-ing daily life and update the story!" I hope I never shall. But now that Hakubi has her own computer (thanks Uncle Allen and Aunt Deb!), she should be able to work on stories at home without trouble. So faster updates!

Warnings: Spoilers for random parts of the series, including the final few episodes. So if you haven't watched the entire series, you have been fairly warned!

She's screaming again. Shouting at him for stealing her cigarettes. It's all she seems to do anymore, and all that she ever has done, for as long as Ed has been here. Faye-Faye and Spike person, always fighting and screaming and fucking.

Yes. Edward said fu-cking. Should Ed spell it out for you?

But it's all just noise now. Noise in the back of Edward's head, fuzzy and white like a little kitty. Ed doesn't hear them speaking anymore, only blah-blah-blah. And bark-bark from Ein. Jet goes blah-blah too. And they all wonder why Ed looks like a space cadet all the time.

Beep, beep, beep-boop beep!

Ed is R2-D2 now! Edward likes to download old holo-vids and watch them. Really old movies that were made before Earth's surface got all messed up. Like Star Wars, and Star Trek, and Lord of the Rings. Old movies with old themes that don't apply to the general society of space anymore. Ed is Aragorn now, to return to Gondor and become the High King as the bloodline of Arathorn demands. Ed is Captain Kirk, Ed is...

Edward is drooling.

Ed is only a kid, who couldn't be heard through all the noise. The white, fuzzely noise created by the other inhabitants of the Bebop. Ed is just a stupid, drooling juvenile who probably knows more about the Bebop, and everything than the crewmembers combined. Radical Edward, the best hacker in the entire known galaxy, was a little black silence in the sea of white fuzz.

Don't put Ed in bed, Jet!

E'd's not sleepy! Ed's just drowsy because it's so cold around Pluto. Ed wants to stay up and watch more holo-vids. Ed doesn't want to be treated like a kid, because Ed isn't a kid. Ed is more of an adult than anyone else here!

PUT ED DOWN!

Ed will bite you, Jet! Ed will! Don't test Ed's nasty temper or Ed will get you back! Just put Ed down, so that Ed can get back to being Ed.

Blood.

Ed told Jet she would bite him! And now Jet is making more fuzzies. The cursing fuzzies, like Ed's papa used to do when he got mad at Ed's mother. Ed is scared of cursing fuzzies. Ed will hide under the couch; she doesn't want to be hit, because hitting hurts. But Ed can't stay under the couch forever, because Spike-person drags her out. But Jet is just bandaging his hand, and pats Ed on the head so that she knows there are no hard feelings.

Goodbye, Bebop!

Ed isn't a kid anymore. Ed is a woman now, and everybody she knew is gone, replaced by people she doesn't want to know. Ed owns a business now, under the name Francois Wong. And...even though Ed is an adult now, she still hears the noise, but it's faded and balding.

A letter, for Radical Edward?

Ed's secretary almost threw it away, but Ed caught her. May had to give it, because Radical Edward is Miss Francois. Now go away, pretty May. Ed wants time to herself, to see who would send a letter addressed to Radical Edward. So go away, May, come back tomorrow to restart your day. It would be strange to Radical Edward, to see scribbled words on a page that don't make any noise. Ed, not Francois, is holding a letter from Jet. He wants to come visit her, to see what Ed has become, and to tell Ed what happened to Faye-Faye and Spike-person.

Radical Edward lives again as she checks the Bebop's location with her supercomputer.

Edward hates the Venus spaceport, because there are so many fuzzies. It makes Ed's ears want to bleed. Fuzzy white kitty, and old decrepit Ein in his basket, whining because he wants food. But Ed must wait for Jet, and so Ein has to wait too. Her hand is tapping the old controller, and her fingers push on the analog stick to make the Bebop sway as it docks in one of the far left ports. Jet is probably making cursing fuzzies for Ed, because she is playing.

Bad Ein! Ein doesn't pull on Ed's skirt!

Now Ed's skirt has a tear, all the way up to the knee. Ed's nice blue silk skirt from one of the Chinese-controlled settlements. Ed got it last Christmas from her then-boyfriend, Aiden. And Ein is whining again, but he has to be patient, like Francois is.

Jet!

Ed wants to run to him, but Francois won't let her. Ed really wants to jump on his back, to see what he would do. And it's not like Ed's not still light; Ed is still as slender as she ever was while she lived on the Bebop. But it would be mean to Jet, to jump on him when he doesn't recognize her, or seem to realize that she is standing in front of him until he sees Ein.

Jet doesn't quite believe that it's Ed standing in front of him, because Ed was so young.

Ed is still young, if you want to put it that way. After all, Ed is only twenty-six going on thirteen. Francois wants to take over, but this is Jet. He is not one of the people who works for Ed; he is Jet. And Jet means Bebop, which means Ed can be Ed and not stuffy Francois.

Jet and Ed and Ein are the only ones left of the noise now.

Ed is reading the report from the coroner, the one that Jet has been trying to send to her for over twelve years. Well, rather the two reports. One for Spike-person, and one for Faye-Faye. They say that Spike-person was murdered by the bad man called Vicious, right after Vicious murdered that Julia lady. And Faye committed suicide about six months later, in a tiny public bathroom on Ganymede while they were in between jobs. All the money that Faye owed Jet was inside a little box under her bed, along with some pictures of Spike-person, and even one or two of Ed. Poor Faye-Faye never got to find out what her past was, not completely. And Spike-person didn't get to die an old man.

Why...is Ed crying?

Why...when they never liked Ed? They always yelled, they never treated Ed like a person. Ed was just Ed, the hacker. Jet, though...Jet treated Ed like a person. Like a, a...Ed can't remember the word. Daughter-it's the word from Francois. And it's Francois, not Ed, who throws her arms around Jet to cry for the ones who were her family. Dysfunctional, but a family.

And Ed is fading for good into the noise as she surrenders her body to Francois. Surrenders her body to Aiden, whom she got back together with. Surrenders her body to the labor of children. A little girl.

"Faye."

And a little boy, too, who Aiden swears looks like those old pictures his partner keeps.

"Spike."

Edward is gone, no more pesky noise. No more haunting 'Radical' to add to the name she had as a kid. No more rumours.

So...why is Francois crying, when she has wanted to be free of Ed for so long?

Meh...I'm not terribly happy with this chapter. Review, please, NO FLAMES!