Chapter Three: The Real World Sucks
And this life sentence that I'm serving
I admit that I'm every bit deserving
But the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair
He heard the words come out of her mouth and his chest tightened. His fingers quickly found their way to her neck finding a pulse. He smirked.
"Always so dramatic romani" he says to himself.
"Spike person came to save the day!' Ed shouted climbing down from the fridge and somehow managed to dance around every shard of glass and latch herself onto him.
"You ok?" he asked giving her a once over after peeling her off him.
She nodded her head enthusiastically. He looked around at the destruction and knew there was no way a neighbor didn't hear the noise and it was only a matter of time before the cops were crawling all over this place.
"Alright I need your help Ed we don't have much time. I need you to get all Faye's stuff together so we can go" he says looking at the hacker.
Her eyes widened and she shook her head violently. "No no no Spike person. We do not touch Faye Faye's stuff she gets all scary!' she says wiggling her arms for emphasis.
Sighing he runs a hand through his hair. "Ed now is not the time to argue. Faye can be as mad as she wants once she's back on the bebop" he says sternly.
"Faye Faye is coming back to bebop? Does this mean Faye Faye will be happy?" She asks innocently.
He is stunned and glances back at the bloodied unconscious woman. What the hell has been going on? "Yea Ed Faye will be happy" he says trying to get the girl moving.
"Ed will help! Faye Faye already started packing Papa Jet said to" She says and runs down the hallway to where he assumes Faye's room is.
He bends down and picks her up frowning. She was definitely a lot heavier the last time he had to do this. He makes a mental note to ask Jet what the fuck is going on. Walking down the hall he can't help but notice how plain her apartment is. Like she made absolutely no effort to make it her own, which is nothing like her. Entering the room he sees Ed grabbing just about everything she can get her hands on and tossing it in the half empty suitcase on the floor. He smirks knowing how pissed she is going to be when she opens that suitcase. He places her on the bed and goes into the attached bathroom. Under the sink he finds a huge first aid kit and smirks. Then he opens the medicine cabinet looking for tweezers to pull the glass out of her and frowns. She has to have at least 8 different pill bottles. -what the fuck is she running a pharmacy- he angrily thinks. Shaking his head and knowing he's running out of time he heads back into the bedroom. He starts by pulling all the shards out of the bottom of her feet and cleaning out the wounds. Then he gently wraps them up knowing full well that she is going to have difficulties getting around for a little bit. He decided it will be Jet's job to baby her. He continues working on pulling out glass and bandaging her up.
"FAYE!" Jets deep voice booms through the apartment.
"Papa Jet!" Ed yells and he sighs waiting for the shit storm that's going to follow.
"Christ Spike what the hell happened?!" he yells entering the bedroom.
"Hey I saved her ass! You tell me what the fuck is going on! She weighs maybe 80 pounds soaking wet and she's running a fucking pharmacy out of her bathroom Jet!" he yells back.
Jet looks taken aback and walks into the bathroom. He can hear him picking up bottles and cursing under his breath. He walks back into the bedroom and runs a hand over his bald head looking his age for once.
"Christ Spike I don't know she don't talk to me anymore. She left the bebop and I'm lucky if she calls me once a month. I don't know how she got herself mixed up in this but I do know when she wakes up we're all in BIG trouble" he looks concerned as he looks her over.
"She's gonna need some stitches jet but that can wait till were back on Bebop. We don't have much time the cops are gonna be all over this place soon enough." He says picking her up again.
"Ed get your stuff time to go!" Jet barks picking up Faye's two suitcases.
They head up to the roof and Jet and Ed climb into the hammerhead while he climbs into his trusty swordfish and adjusts her on his lap. He nods to Jet and they take off heading towards the only home he's really ever had. He glances down at her and sees the bruises forming on her face and around her neck. His blood starts to boil. How the hell did she even get involved. He was letting her have her normal life. How the hell did she manage to screw it up. When he found out who was behind this he was going to make them pay.
She slowly started to stretch. Everything hurt. Fuck everything hurt bad. She was so confused. She opened her eyes trying to remember what the hell happened. She was in her room. No wait this was her room on Bebop not her apartment. How the hell did she get here. She looked down and she was wearing a tshirt and a pair of sweatpants. Both of which werent hers. But the smell of them it was so familiar. Where did she know that smell?
"Finally up sleeping beauty" he says sarcastically.
Her head snaps around and all she can do is gawk. This can't be he's dead. DEAD! Either she is having one fucked up dream or she's dead and the gods just want to torture her. Either was highly likely but Spike being alive that was not a possibility.
"What's a matter romani cat got your tongue" he says clearly trying to get a rise out of her.
She tries to talk but it comes out as a hoarse croak and he hand grabs her throat. Its tender to the touch and she glances at the mirror seeing deep dark purple bruises wrapping around her neck. He seems to stiffen when she saw them. She glares at him and points at the door hoping he would understand that she wants him to get the fuck out.
"What you didn't miss me?" he asks teasing.
Tears well up in the corner of her eyes and she just continues to point at the door blinking them away. Miss him. He has to be fucking delusional. She was devastated by the loss of him. Then to go a whole year without even knowing he was alive. Then it hits her. Was she the only one who didn't know. Think back Ed said she had called person. Isn't that the nickname she gave to him and if Ed knew then that meant. Jet knew too. No one told her. No one felt it was important enough to tell her. She felt so betrayed. Didn't they see her drowning in the grief. Weren't they always so worried. No one cared. Her arm dropped to her side and she just rolled over with her back to him letting the tears silently run down her cheeks.
"Faye?" He questions from where he's standing.
She doesn't move doesn't respond just lays there. She hears him shuffle in his spot clearly uncomfortable.
"Look Faye I told them not to tell you. You had a normal life. You could finally be happy" he says.
Anger coursed through her veins. No not anger, Hatred. She hated him. How dare he feel like he had any right to make any decisions about her life. Not after he took off the way he did. Running head first towards death. She was so angry she didn't notice she was shaking.
"Faye are you ok?" he asks and she completely ignored the concern in his voice. No it wasn't concern it was indifference and it just fueled her hatred.
She grabbed the closest thing to her which happened to be a glass full of water and chucked it as hard as she could at his head. He just managed to dodge it not expecting that reaction from her. It hit the metal wall and shattered. He stood there looking at her seething form. She was so angry she just wanted to hit him over and over again. He wanted to die that was fine she was more than willing to help him out. Then he did the most infuriating thing possible. He smirked. Smirked! She was going to kill him where were her guns she was going to blow a hole through that stupid fluffy head of his.
"Good to have you back Faye. Get some rest we'll talk tomorrow" he says turning and walking out of the room.
She flopped back onto the bed and layed there looking at the ceiling. She hated him so much. She was so mad. Furious. Then a smile slowly spread across her face. She had her lunkhead back. She was still going to murder him but she couldn't help the feeling of joy that was slowly spreading through her. Life was strange and most of the time it sucked but today even though she had the crap beat out of her she was happy. Today the real world wasn't so bad.
Jet was standing in the hallway when he exited the room. He looked at the old man who was clearly stressing.
"How mad is she?" he asked.
"Well she threw a glass at my head" he says shrugging his shoulders.
Jet sighs and runs a hand over his head. "She is only going to be more pissed when we tell her what is actually going on"
He shrugs again. He doesn't know how she got messed up in this he did everything he could to make sure nothing could be traced back to her. But he did know he would get her out of this mess. He wasn't going to let anyone hurt her again. He sighed and started walking to his favorite spot in the ship.
"We need to talk about this Spike!" Jet yells at his retreating back.
"We can talk tomorrow" he says without turning around.
He sits on the bench and stares out at the vast expanse of space in front of him. The only image that kept flashing through his head was the cuts that littered her porcelain skin and the blackish blue marks that marred her neck. It made his blood boil that someone dare lay a hand on her. If it weren't for the fact that she had next to no time left he would have beat the guy into submission. That's what he wanted to do and it angered him that he didn't get to make that guy pay for what he did to her. Without even realising it his anger has spurred him in a very intense workout. He didn't realize it until he felt the sweat run down the side of his face. He shook his head and tried to get a grip on himself. He always had a soft spot for her. He knew that but this time around he was getting enraged by the mere thought of someone harming her. This was only going to cause trouble and he finally settled on the fact that the real world sucked.