All Standard Disclaimers Apply!

Shotgun Part Three of Three:

I love my life and I'd never trade
Between what you and me had and the life I've made
She's here and she's real, but you were too
And every once in a while I think about you

I've been layin' here all night listenin' to the rain
Talkin' to my heart tryin' to explain
Why sometimes I catch myself
Wondering what might have been
Yes I do think about you every now and then

Garth Brooks, Every Now and Then.

Tears glittered along the length of her gun as Faye stood over his broken body dust swirling around her feet. Beads of sweat and blood grew along her skin, mingling down her pale arms and soaking into her clothes. The Mars red dirt in the air turned her tear tracks into muddy lines of red-brown dropping sharp from those Earth-green eyes.

Faye walked back onto the Bebop shuddering as the hiss of the hydraulic door slid down her back. Her boots fell sharp in the silence and her skin tingled in the dry air. Jet met her in the living room. "You okay?"

"Well enough." She brushed aside the ghosts that swam through her and focused on the arsenal that sat on the coffetable. "Is this everything?"

Jet nodded his head, "Everything that's left. Been a rough few weeks." Faye cocked half a grin.

"Yeah." Nimble fingers worked through the mass of guns and grenades on the table, half touches that told her just enough to know when and where to use this or that. "Ed!"

"Captain?" Ed rolled down the hall, computer held in the air by limbs that were far to bendy as far as Faye was concerned.

Faye watched with only the tiniest amount of wonder on her face as the girl tumbled down the stairs. "You got that location?"

"Oui, mon capitaine!" Orange hair flared around the edges of the computer as the girl's face disappeared behind it. "Vocation phocation give me a location!" the miscellaneous chant rose from the girl and light swirled on the wall behind her.

A moment later a slip of paper was in Faye's hand with a set of coridinance that she never expected to see again.

"Earth!" disbelief spread across Jet's face. "He's on Earth? There's nothing on Earth. And Spike's bounty's on Mars."

Faye stared at the page for another thirty seconds before looking up, "This is my old house," She said softly, "where I grew up."

"So this isn't about Spike at all is it?"

The fan blades turned slowly over their heads as Faye looked out the window at the endless space stretching all around the ship. "No."

Jet nodded, putting the pieces all together. Things were never simple with Faye, and this was no exception. "So we go get Spike."

"Yeah." Her voice was strained, touching nerves that Jet had forgotten.

Their ships rose into the vacuum within moments of each other as Ed landed the ship at the dock. They didn't tell her exactly what was going on, but she didn't mind. They never told anything to her.

Faye stared ahead, white knuckled and looking for the familiar pattern of rubble that marked her old house. They had a three day start on her, they had Spike, and now they had the only thing left of her childhood held hostage with his life. A growl crackled over the radio and Jet turned his thoughts to the girl in the Redtail's cockpit.

She'd been through a lot since she'd left his crew, gone through hell and more he was sure. She would have had to if Robbie Fulton had this much of a hook in her. His grip tightened painful around the wheel and his teeth ground together. She'd have her own show-down when they got where they were going. He'd already almost lost one of his crew, he didn't want to lose her.

"Jet!" Her voice flew down the line pulling him out of his thoughts, "When we land, find Spike and get him out. Who knows what Robbie's done to him, just make sure he gets out safe okay?"

"Sure Faye, but who's gonna watch out for you?" he felt the girl smile.

"Don't worry about me. Whatever happens, happens." The line went dead and she dropped out of his sight streaking towards the plot of land that was once her home. Red dirt filled the patches between the stones of foundation and walls and the fountain's empty basin out front.

Her hands trembled as she set the Redtail down, watching men stir through the dust storm she'd set in motion. Gun fire splattered the ground with blood, turning the dirt into a mud that clawed its way up her boots. She didn't mind the dead faces of Robbie's men as they stared up at her.

Jet set down just in time to see her move around a corner, dropping empty cartridges as she went.

Robbie stood alone in her bedroom, blocked by fragments of a wall, Spike in front of him, chained to a chair. Green hair was matted to Spike's skull, filled with dried blood and grit. They both heard the first screaming gun fire rocket across the sudden silence, and turned, anticipation mirrored on twin faces.

Faye walked through the barren waste, slowly, his men wouldn't kill her, couldn't really. Not when she was his.

The conservatory that once held her mother's piano stood empty, barely framed by broken stones, "What exactly where you planning to accomplish here Faye?" His blue eyes stared at her across the distance. "What were you expecting me to do? Did you expect a fire-fight? A stand-off?"

Dust blew across her shoes and Faye's red lips turned into a well practiced scowl. "You die. I win. That's what I'm expecting."

Robbie laughed. "Not at all darlin', I've already won." His hand flashed, gun burdened, in the sun and Faye's green eyes widened.

A bullet ripped through her, tearing through two years of training and practicing and gym time. Her abs screamed, and vomit touched her lips as pain tore through her system like lightening.

Darkness crept up the edges of her vision as Robbie strolled towards her. "See love," his voice whispered above the summer heat as he turned her face to him, "I'm the monster that still haunts your dreams. I'm the man that killed your lover oh those many years ago. I'm every man that ever hurt you. I'm the devil, and this is your hell." Blood sprayed from her mouth and nose as his fist connected.

Faye scrambled backwards, arm dipping, hand clenching around the stock of her gun. Hate burned the bile out of her mouth, pain and sweat cleaned out her system. It didn't matter what had happened to Spike, he was alive, she was dead. The End.

Gunshot cooking the summer air between them and her body jerked backwards, bullet whistling past her head. This couldn't be the end.

Green eyes flashed, hard edged in the ringing. Violence and harm. And in the end it was him that taught her to rage.

Her arm came up unbidden and her finger clenched around the trigger.

Muscle shredded in Robbie's chest as the tiny piece of metal and her hate ripped into him. Gasping breath and Faye watched him topple to the side. He fell and she went after him. His face got lost in her shadow as she stood over him, crushing his fingers into his gun and the ground below it. Faye crouched, the blue jeans over her knee dirty red as it hovered over his chest. Everything in her screamed at her to murder him slowly. Take him apart piece by piece like he'd done to her.

The glimmer of her knife blade flashed across a hundred feet and she slice open his shirt.

"Faye. Please." Terror filled his eyes as he stared up at her, "You can help me. You can still save me Faye. I was good to you. You know I was." His voice strained through the pain inside her head.

Cold laughter dripped off her lips, "You were never good to me Robbie." Her eyes caught the light and he watched her kill him. "You stole everything from me, including my family." His skin was willing under her knife blade and crimson rushed to fill the grooves she left in his ribs. "And if I ever got anything from you, it was the knowledge that some people deserve to burn for all eternity in hell." Her lips arched up into a wicked smile. She pressed the knife in a little deeper, "I win Robbie. You're dead, and I win."

Robbie's eyes opened wide as she pressed her free hand over his mouth, stifling his screaming and cutting off the last trace of air that he could get. "Goodbye Robert." She leaned in close and whispered, "May the Devil take your soul." Tears rolled down the angle face and she watched his eyes go wide with terror and then empty into death.

Faye stood, trembling, and dropped her knife into the red dirt. A cut stood next to three others on his chest, tick marks, triumph, domination. He was gone. Tears grew and fell from her eyes, splattering against the gun in her hand, standing like dew for half a moment then rolling across the dusty barrel.

Steam rose from the hard packed dirt as sweet slow rain fell in giant droplets from the gunmetal sky. It was finished. And emptiness fell through her head, dragging through her memories, settling old battles and killing old demons.

Finished. She couldn't bring herself to look down at him and know that he was dead. She couldn't find her footing, slip sideways into chaos.

Gentle fingers wrapped around her wrist and she looked up, soft eyes met hers and smiled. It was done. That demon was in the ground and she was free. Her memories scattered suddenly, floating back to days on that beaten old fishing boat.

"Spike." His name whispered into the breeze. His body was beaten and bloody, clothes tattered and face a mess of bruises as her fingers traced his cheek. "You're not dead?"

"Neither are you." Faye smiled.

"Yeah."

He wetted his lips, tip of his pink tongue flashing against his lips. Her chewed off fingernails danced across his arm and she moved into his arms, "Kiss me." She demanded and he laughed.

His eyes looked like Mars-red dirt in the photo; hers stood out Earth-green against the soft paleness of her skin. They were standing close together, almost turned back to back, cigarettes smoldering in their fingers as she leaned her head against his shoulder. Their wedding bands gleamed in the Ganymede sunlight and a smug smirked tugged at Faye's lips.