"No Shades of Gray" A/N: I'm basing Spike's past on his advice to Azimov in "Asteroid Blues," but also on a flashback shot in "Ballad of Fallen Angels," which shows a vase of roses, a puddle of Red Eye, a vial of Red Eye, and a hypospray on a table. Also, there's a flashback shot that shows Spike in a gunfight, and from his POV the screen has the same grainy, jumpy look as it did during Azimov's POV in "Asteroid Blues."

In later episodes, it's repeatedly shown that the Red Dragons deal heavily in Red Eye. I'm assuming they buy so much of it for internal use, though they could be schlepping it off to other buyers for a profit. From "Asteroid Blues," the high off Red Eye appears to be unfun in the extreme (I get seasick just watching it), so I figure no one would put themselves through that except people who neeed to kill other people to stay alive, AKA assassins, gunmen, and murderers—and Spike seems to have experience with the come-down.

KARMA: No Shades of Gray

She's gone before he wakes, though he thinks he hears her zipcraft flying from the hangar as he stirs.

Spike reaches for a cigarette, wincing from the pull of the stitches holding his insides together, and lights it. After he smokes half of it, he feels prepared to rise. He ignores the twinges from various muscles sore from yesterday's workout as he gets out of bed.

Getting dressed is an adventure in biomechanics, as it always is when he's injured. How to pull this on, step into that, zip this and buckle that, all while babying this joint or that muscle or that long-ass tear that doesn't want to move? Answer: you either don't get dressed or you don't baby the poor busted muscles. Today Spike goes with B, but there were days in the past, especially before the Bebop became wall-to-wall curious females, when he went with A.

He shakes his head and almost laughs, remembering Ed's horrifying tendency to stick her head into doors at the worst possible moments. Not an ounce of sexual feeling in the critter—at least he hoped to God not, the stuff of nightmares right there—but she was a feral girl-child without shame.

Jet's whistling in the kitchen, which means Faye's either in one of her rare good moods or buzzed off somewhere. "Where's the woman?" Spike asks, yawning as he enters. Then he catches the complex scent of good coffee, the kind that needs to be perked in a machine with a basket and grounds and everything, and freezes. "What, she pipe a millionaire or something?"

"Faye's out on a bounty right now," Jet says.

"Why didn't you wake me?" he asks, shooting a glare at his partner. The mugs are kept in an upper cabinet and as he reaches to open the door he gasps and flinches. Something inside still isn't right. Spike suspects this not-rightness is going to be with him for awhile, if not forever.

Jet sees it. "That's why," he says. "Grab a cup of coffee, buddy, and siddown."

"You're backing her up, right?"

Jet scowls and brandishes a communicator. "What do you think I am?"

"Someone who thinks he can rely on Faye," Spike says glumly, but he pours his coffee without spilling too much of it and lounges across from Jet with his feet on the table. "Tell me about it."

"Not much to tell. Smuggler sending wenches up the river. Big bounty. Big enough to break out the Colombian."

"A prostitution ring?" Spike laughs, takes a swig of coffee, and laughs again, almost choking on the mouthful. "So you've got Faye tramped up even more than usual, swishing her tail somewhere."

"Not that kind of wench," Jet says. His good humor dims a bit. "This guy's scum. Little kids."

"Aw, shit." He'd seen too much of that when he was in the Red Dragons. It was one of the reasons he'd wanted out so goddamn bad. Well, that, Julia, Vicious, and the fact that being a junkie had gotten seriously old. "You think she can hack it?"

"She was pretty bent, but I managed to get it through her thick skull that if she does her job right for once, she can break up the whole ring. Still, there's a pretty good chance she'll just shoot the guy in the ballsack." Jet takes a sip of coffee. "And if she does, I won't blame her."

Spike grimaces. "I'm pissed about missing this one," he says. "You know, it's so rare to get a bounty head where you don't feel the least bit bad about ruining his whole day. Fuck." He lights a new cigarette off the butt of his old one. "And that kinda thing, they got guards crawling over guards keeping the cargo under control and the fuzz out of the picture. Faye's not long on finesse."

For a moment, they sit with their coffee and their lit cigarettes, Jet's communicator between them like a small, ugly centerpiece.

Then Spike's feet thump to the floor. He swallows the rest of his coffee in two long gulps and puts the mug down. His movements are measured but emphatic, and the metal mug clicks sharply on the table.

Jet sighs resignedly. "You're going?"

"Yeah. I can't just sit around." He slouches, sticking his hands in his pockets. "Where'd you put my gear, Jet?"