'So, who's on the hot list?' asked Spike, as he picked up his chopsticks. 'Jet? Anyone up on Big Shot?'

'Well, a few no-namers to say the least,' replied Jet, but he paused, lowering his chopsticks slightly as though steeling himself. 'But there are some on the down low you might be interested in.'

'Oh yeah?'

'Red Dragon's not over –'

'What?!' said Spike loudly. 'But Vicious and The Van are dead!' Then his face darkened. 'Let me guess, small fry trying to keep it going?'

'Mm,' nodded Jet gravely.

'They just never quit, do they…'

Spike shook his head exasperatedly as he ate, and after his first mouthful of the sautéed beef his expression lifted somewhat and he began to wolf down his plate.

'What kind of "small fry" are we talking here?' asked Faye. 'I thought Spike got all of the important ones, or did you miss a few along the way?' she teased, and Spike, his mouth full, could only narrow his eyes at her.

'Well, word from Bob is that a new base has been attempted by a bunch of young gangsters wanting big money,' shrugged Jet. 'Probably trafficking drugs, or making the shit.'

'Where?' demanded Spike, after a tremendous swallow. 'I'll get the lot of those goddamn kids, I thought this was over with.'

'Someone's eager,' muttered Faye, flicking a slice of beef into her mouth.

'Hey, you would be too if you'd been strapped to a gurney for two weeks,' said Spike defensively, pointing his chopsticks at her. 'Where are they based?'

'Bob wasn't sure, or he didn't particularly want to tell me –'

'Why not?' said Faye.

'A cop wouldn't want a whole bunch of bounty hunters knowing about this,' said Spike, before Jet could answer. 'That'd only make the syndicate grow again if word got out.'

'He was complaining about an increase in small-time drug pushers on Callisto which is a pretty good indicator,' mused Jet, picking through his rice for any hidden pieces of beef. 'They've gotta get their drugs from somewhere.'

'Red-Eye?'

'Mhm.'

'Callisto it is, then,' said Spike with satisfaction, rubbing his hands together before attacking his dish again.

Faye got to her feet and stacked Jet, Ed's and her own empty plates to take into the kitchen for cleaning, scraping Ed's leftovers into Ein's bowl as she went. Ed flopped back onto the couch, rubbing her full tummy with satisfaction. Ein lifted his head from Jet's knee and scrabbled frantically across the floor to his bowl.

When Faye got into the little kitchen, she dropped the plates into the sink and leaned against the bench, running her fingers through her hair. She was immensely glad to have a job to do, to have some occupation to take her mind off Spike. Normality was resuming again – this was good – and they would be behaving as work partners again – which was also good. But if they were working together on the same bountyhead, which they were, that meant they would have to be in close proximity to one another. She couldn't deny it: this fact was also very, very good.

She turned on the tap and squeezed detergent into the jet, watching the soap suds blossom just like her thoughts. She allowed her mind to wander back to that sight of Spike, so warm and wet, his very skin steaming and basically begging to be touched… Imagine if he had have stared at her with a blazing yet tender look in his eyes, strode forward with all the purpose of a man intent on fulfilling a passion he was unable to endure, taken her into his arms and –

'Hey, Jet says there's leftovers,' said Spike, inclining his head around the doorway and holding out his plate.

Faye swung around in shock as though hiding something tangible, but she quickly righted herself and remembered that her thoughts were only just that – thoughts.

'There's some on the bench,' she said somewhat glumly, indicating a tin behind her.

Spike slouched into the tiny kitchen and stepped behind her, his arm incidentally brushing her backside as he went to dig some more rice onto his plate, totally unaware of Faye's suddenly erratic heartbeat and hyper-intense awareness of how close their bodies were.

'So,' said Spike, and something in his voice made her look around to see him leaning casually against the bench beside her. A smirk lingered on his lips as he picked this time less intently at his food. 'Jet said you'd disappeared off the face of Mars for a week. He thought you'd gone back to Earth and gotten a day job.'

'A day job?' she repeated with disdain, focussing back upon the dishes. 'Does that sound likely to you?'

'No, that's why I'm asking.'

'What do you care what I did while you were in hospital?'

'If you hadn't given us the slip completely, why did you never visit me?' he said, sounding a little less teasing now and more genuinely curious. The sincerity in his tone unnerved her as Faye became aware that anything she said would be taken seriously, not jokingly, from hereon in.

'Did Ed ever come visit you?' she asked shrewdly, more to avoid the question than out of real interest.

'Well, no,' he admitted, 'but she and I aren't so close, if I recall correctly what you said to me before I went to see Vicious.'

Shit, he remembers! Faye had hoped and hoped that Spike would ignore their parting words, how she had begged him not to leave because she needed him to be alive and in her life to feel complete. Shit shit shit!

'I'm surprised you remember,' she replied, with a shaky laugh. 'After everything that happened that night, that conversation seems pretty insignificant.'

'Yeah, well I thought about it a lot in hospital,' said Spike pensively. 'There wasn't much to do, mind you, but regardless. That's why I'm confused.'

He shrugged and she heard the sound of his chopsticks scraping the bottom of the tin plate.

'Confused about what?' she ventured, not sure if she wanted to know the answer.

'If you didn't want me to leave so badly, why didn't you want to come back once you found out I was alive?'

Faye dropped the steel wool into the sink and stood up straight to face him. He was looking over at her with an inquisitive eye, but there was a hint of softness in it as though he had some terrifyingly accurate suspicion. The desire to tell the truth gripped her where she stood and yet her mouth refused to spill out the confession.

'Why do you think I'm here?' she said quietly, refusing any pain to show. 'What I said before hasn't changed.' She hesitated, then, looking straight up into his eyes as though staring into the sun, she said, 'I'm glad you're here. That's all.'

'You're glad I'm alive,' he repeated, with a disbelieving laugh. 'Well, I guess that's something…'

'You were expecting something different?' she challenged stubbornly.

'I wasn't expecting anything,' he said simply, scooping the last bit of rice into his mouth. 'Maybe a bit more honesty. That's all.'

He grinned widely, showing bits of rice stuck between his teeth as he put his plate down beside the sink, and sauntered off with his hands in his pockets.