'FAYE-FAYE!'
The living area flashed momentarily into a splay of red hair as Ed threw herself into Faye's arms. Ein barked somewhere around her ankles and Faye laughed awkwardly, stepping back once Ed had released her.
'Good to see you again, Ed,' she smiled, patting the girl on the top of her head.
'Faye-Faye! Faye-Faye!' Ed chorused, the innocent joy on her face impossible to deplore.
Ed flapped around the room twice before plopping down on the floor in front of her computer, tapping merrily at the keys and gigging sporadically.
Just like always; it was as though she had never left.
Jet's aproned figure leaned out of the kitchen doorway, his inquiring expression shifting to one more welcoming.
'Good,' he grunted. 'I made too much, now there's another mouth to limit the leftovers.'
'I thought you were expecting me,' asked Faye shrewdly, making her way down the steel steps.
'Yeah, well, I couldn't be sure…'
He disappeared back into the kitchen, flinging a checked tea-towel over his shoulder as he went. Faye shook her head disparagingly and decided to go to the bathroom to freshen up.
Her feet followed the familiar route down the corridor towards the lavatory door. She stretched her arms up high as she walked, pushing her hands towards the ceiling and revelling momentarily in the extension of her spine – then stopped in her tracks.
The shower was on. She could hear the running water ricocheting off the porcelain and the person as they moved under its pressure, alternating hard and soft, loud and quiet. Somehow, immediately Faye knew it was Spike in there, naked, dripping, a few feet away. Possibilities of perhaps a woman of Jet's, a friend of Ed's floated through her mind and dissolved into overpowering certainty that he was back. It all made perfect sense… Jet had come to bring her back because he knew they had unfinished business, loose ends, that needed righting. Oh shit.
Faye backed away from the door until her back was pressed against the cool steel wall of the corridor. Then, suddenly fuming, she turned her back on the door, marched down the hall and threw open the kitchen door.
'Jet!' she barked.
Jet looked up lightly from the saucepan he was stirring, appearing totally unfazed.
'What?'
'What is he doing here?' she asked menacingly.
'Who?'
'Don't play stupid with me!'
'Oh, right, him,' nodded Jet, turning back to the saucepan. 'He got out of hospital earlier, didn't I tell you that's why I was cooking?'
'Must have slipped your mind,' Faye hissed tartly.
'Hm. Well, all he did on the way home was complain about hospital food so,' he shrugged, 'somehow he persuaded me into this.'
When Faye didn't respond, he looked over with an eyebrow raised.
'Why're you so worked up about it, eh?' he asked shrewdly.
'I'm not.'
He raised his other eyebrow and Faye grimaced, turning and slamming the kitchen door behind her.
She paced up and down the living area, her mind buzzing with apprehension and fury, until she resolved to flopping down dejectedly on the yellow couch.
So this was it, the inevitable come at last; the confrontation she had been churning over in her mind all these weeks that she had simultaneously resolved not to have was happening, or would be in ten minutes. Thank you, Jet, really. Faye curled her arm over her closed eyes and breathed through her nose, attempting to calm her nerves. A wild desire to run away gripped her momentarily, but she quashed any thought of leaving. She was not going to avoid this.
The very air itself felt electric with some pulsing energy that flowed only when he was around. Had he asked Jet to bring her back, or had Jet taken the initiative himself? Surely Jet wouldn't care enough to get involved… or maybe he was tired of the tension between his two colleagues. Yes, that made sense. After all, Jet had somewhat taken over the priority of bounty hunting since Spike had been incapacitated and Faye had been, well, wallowing in self-pity for the most part; perhaps he had acted to resolve the unspoken conflict between the two to return the workload into one mutually shared. But then again, Jet was perfectly capable of working on his own – he had been with Spike for three years before she met them, why would he desire her contribution now?
Maybe Spike had asked her to come back… But why? Did he have questions that needed answering? Desires to be fulfilled? Was he showering for a specific purpose?
Now you're getting carried away.
Faye rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms, attempting to wipe the image of Spike in the shower from her mind.
'Well, whaddya know?'
Faye froze where she lay, her breath caught in her throat, and lowered her hands to her side. When she looked over to the doorway, she didn't need to imagine Spike's naked figure for he was standing there in the flesh before her. Well, he wasn't completely naked, but the towel knotted around his hips did little to quell her sudden increased heartbeat. Water droplets clung to his skin, to his sculpted chest that was pricked by goosebumps, and swilled, still steaming, in the dips of his collarbone. The confrontation of Spike standing only a few feet away, his bare torso and muscular arms too alive to be real, rendered Faye momentarily speechless.
His painfully familiar crooked smile tortured her eyes as he padded down the steps to sit across from her on the other couch, rubbing a towel into his dripping hair as he did so.
'Long time no see, eh?' he smirked, shaking his fringe and sending water flying over onto Faye's arms.
'Hey, watch it!' she said, sitting up quickly to lean away.
Spike sat back with a lazy kind of elegance and crossed his ankles, taking a cigarette from a deck on the arm rest.
'D'you have a lighter?' he asked absently, and she tossed him one, eyeing him warily.
His chest expanded as he inhaled and only then did Faye allow her gaze to properly see and process the image before her. A long, thick, purple scar ran across Spike's torso from his shoulder to his hip bone; tiny pairs of pink dots told of multiple stitches and staples, and the shadow of yellow bruising whispered the remnants of internal bleeding. But his body was warm and soft, accentuated by the recent shower, and she felt a sudden rush of pleasure to see him despite all her internal battles of the previous days.
'You're looking better than I expected,' she said conversationally, lighting a cigarette for herself as the smell of Jet's cooking slowly permeated the living space.
'What were you expecting?'
'A corpse,' she shrugged, 'or maybe a vegetable.'
He grinned and exhaled.
'Maybe if you'd have come to see me in hospital, you would've realised otherwise.'
Faye opened her mouth to respond, but paused and closed it again. Spike's tone and expression revealed nothing but she couldn't help the feeling of shame colour her cheeks. Spike was right; how childish had she been, avoiding him because of her own delusions.
He raised an eyebrow, waiting for a response, but she was saved by Jet who ducked his head around the doorway.
'Faye, come help me with the plates – hey, Spike, are you planning on eating in a towel?'
'Give me a second.'
'Ed will help!' sang Ed, leaping to her feet and pushing her goggles up onto her head.
She clambered over the couch to slide the magazines and papers to the side of the table, ducking around Spike's stagnant figure to make space for the oncoming crockery.
Spike's subtle gaze followed Faye's back as she walked across the floor to the kitchen, his head tilted slightly to one side. There was a feeling, a lingering suspicion in the back of his mind, that something in her eyes had changed; something had shifted in the back of those pupils that was trying to tell send him a message.
Her aloof stride was at odds with her air of hesitancy and, as Spike got up to dress, he returned to pondering why she hadn't come to visit him in the hospital after that one day she had come. On that single occasion she had spoken so quietly and moved so anxiously that she could have been a stranger. But no, he told himself, as he pushed open the door to his sleeping quarters. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that the past stays just where it belongs. No more wondering what could have been.
They were new people now, open to new beginnings and fresh possibilities. Well, if there was one thing Spike knew, it was that he was raring to get out and resume his life after that brief spell of crippling inertia. The energy tingled in the tips of his fingers as he left his quarters, swaggering on the promise of a hot meal, an exchange of news, and the company of old comrades.