Bad: Chapter 13
"Walking down the unlit hallway of life
There's hope I know
There's an angel she follows me close
She touches my shoulder"
- Sun Kil Moon
Faye slammed her fist on the coffee table.
"I'm going to throw this fucking thing out the goddamn window."
"We don't have windows."
"Shut up."
She was parked in front of the computer as she had been for nearly an hour, attempting to do what both Jet and Spike had also failed to accomplish. She ran her hands roughly down her face, stretching her eyelids disturbingly, holding them there as she contemplated.
"Who the fuck do we know that plays music?" she said through her hands.
"We can just hire somebody," Spike said, cracking open a can of soda. The noise irritated Faye even further.
Solving Edward's passcode was proving far more difficult than they'd anticipated. Perhaps that shouldn't have been a surprise, but unraveling the mystery up to this point had been trying enough that there was a sense that this part would be easy.
The keypad was arranged with letters Faye had been able to identify as those of piano, recalling the mostly unused upright that had been in her childhood bedroom, keys marked with the letters CDEFGAB for beginners.
To Spike, the passcode was clearly the Kookaburra song. He couldn't specifically recall, but he assumed the group's shared memory of it must have originated with Edward. Her tendency to babble led to their collective tendency to ignore a large portion of what she said, transforming it more into ambient noise than words. Jet had managed to find the sheet music, but it appeared none of them could read it correctly. Spike had tried for at least two hours today, while Jet had nearly torn all of his remaining hair out working on it all day yesterday.
"We can't be this dumb."
Jet glanced at Spike who looked back, a small smile creeping over his lips.
"Hey, I saw that, you assholes!"
Jet noticed how little hostility there had been between the two men of late. He couldn't quite put his finger on what had changed, but maybe nothing had. Maybe it was just the healing process running its course. The pink vertical line on Spike's mouth where his lip had split when Jet punched him was beginning to fade, and Jet mused that perhaps when it was fully gone, then too would be Spike's grief.
"We have four days to get our shit together. This is serious."
"Didn't you spend most of yesterday laying around with a hangover?"
Faye made a face. "I guess I'll keep that two million for myself then."
Neither man had any rebuttal.
"That's what I thought."
"You know, we could have nabbed that guy without you having to get piss drunk."
"Really, gimpy?"
Spike's recent physical endeavors had put significant of strain on his bad leg, leaving him with an ugly limp yet again. While was washing dishes yesterday, Jet had groaned when he'd caught a glimpse of Spike limping past the kitchen, thinking of all the physical therapy they would have to redo and all of the childish bellyaching he'd have to put up with along the way.
Spike's eyes narrowed into slits and he rubbed his thigh but said nothing.
Jet broke in, his instinct as the pack leader heightening, certain that these two dogs would soon be trying to rip out each others throats.
"I know a guy on Mars. He plays at a piano bar. We can take it to him. We gotta start heading that direction anyway."
It hung there, the feeling of foreboding.
All of them had been very lucky up until this point in their lives. Despite all of their unscrupulous dealings and associations, they'd always been able to fly under the radar of Johnny Law. It was almost surreal, having this new worry thrust upon them. They weren't the good guys per se, but under ordinary circumstances, as bounty hunters, they were protected as entities of the system.
Both Faye and Jet seemed to realize Spike's discomfort with his own fate and averted their eyes.
He rose from his seat and began to leave, pulling his leg behind him.
"I'll keep trying," Faye volunteered.
He stopped. "I'll be in my room."
The odor of dead flowers wafted up through the air, mixing with the smell of rain.
Her hand grasped his bicep, and he looked down, noticing her nails were painted bright red. The coppery scent of blood flashed in his mind.
"Do you want to leave?"
"No." He said. "Never."
They were slow-dancing in the graveyard. Night had fallen some time ago. A fine mist was hanging around them.
"If you stay, you'll die."
"I've dealt with that before."
She looked up at him, her icy blue eyes so striking against her golden hair. She didn't cry. He'd never seen her cry.
"I wish you were happy."
"I've never been happy. Except with you."
"You're a good man, Spike. That's why I loved you."
He hugged her to him, desperately gripping her, knowing she was soon to depart. He looked down and saw the grave they were dancing on was marked with her name.
He began to cry.
Spike woke with a jolt, a noise coming from his throat. He sat up in bed, remembering his dream vividly. Depression washed over him, and in this moment he was certain beyond any doubt that no good would ever come to him again.
He breathed heavily, trying to will away the images, but even more tortured memories began to surface. Their first kiss. He'd never been so happy. He walked home with a skip in his step, any guilt or worry be damned. The time they'd driven along the coast and her scarf blew away, and he parked the car and scaled half an oceanside cliff in the dark to retrieve it.
Why, oh, why hadn't she just come with him when he'd asked? Surely there had to be a way, even with Vicious' awful plan. Why hadn't she come for him?
He'd been sitting in a bar, trying to kill his thoughts of her, and then there was Jet. He thought Spike was funny. Bounty hunting was never even something that would have occurred to him to take up without Jet's suggestion.
The twisted path of his life was winding itself around his neck, choking him.
He began to panic. How was it possible that he was the only person still left alive who knew her? That if he were to die, it would be as though she never existed? Shouldn't everyone know that she was loved and she was missed?
He lay back down, feeling his mania, aware of his irrationality. His eyes were wet with unshed tears and he wondered why he couldn't cry for her.
Faye woke lying face down on the sofa, the television playing dully in the background. She roused herself slowly, blinking, confused about how she'd gotten here in the first place.
She lifted her head a little, sensing a presence. Spike was sitting in the chair to the left of the sofa, staring intently into the screen—watching some Asian movie about a guy with rice all over his face, talking about how the rice was like his father and mother.
Feeling vulnerable, she worried she may have been drooling, as she tended to do when sleeping on the couch. Or worse, snoring. She reached up to touch her cheek, testing for any residue.
"You weren't drooling. But you were snoring."
She pushed herself up into a sitting position, legs bent underneath her, scowling and reaching up to pat down her untamed hair.
"I was not."
"Oh, yes, you were. And talking, too."
Her blood ran cold. She had too many secrets too feel comfortable with that knowledge. She hated the idea that anyone could have access to her unfiltered thoughts.
"What did I say?"
"I don't know. Some shit about dog racing."
Phew. Safe.
She smiled fondly to herself, "I'm always chasing it, even in my sleep. I always dream about my losses."
The irony of her statement was not lost on Spike.
He'd been unable to get back to sleep following his nightmare. His heart felt hollow and cold, and there was an image in his mind of him being at the bottom of an empty stone well, the blue light of the moon miles away.
He watched in his periphery as she combed her fingernails through her hair, lifting it from her pale, slender neck and pulling it into a high ponytail, her bangs falling over her forehead, brushing her temple.
"What time is?" she yawned.
"About six," he guessed.
"Did we land?"
"Around four. Jet just went to bed."
She rose from the couch, stretching her arms above her head, lost in her large sweatshirt. "Wanna smoke?"
"Sure." He rose, the pain in his leg immediate.
She picked up her cigarettes from the coffee table, watching him.
"Need help?"
"Nah, I'm fine."
"You can hang onto me if you want."
He looked at her for a long moment. There were times when she seemed so…disarmed, so decent. It almost irritated him how shattered her personality could be. You never really knew which Faye you were dealing with.
Despite his better judgment, he nodded.
She came to stand beside him, and he put his hand on her shoulder, allowing her to lead him out to the flight deck, guiding him in very much the same way she had done nearly two months ago when he first returned to the ship. He realized as they walked through the silent corridors how differently he had felt then. Despite the depression that had been prompted by his nightmare, he had a feeling of greater wholeness now, something to help combat the sadness that had threatened to crush him completely before.
He'd never wanted to lose that feeling of deep sorrow, believing that by allowing himself to overcome it, he was choosing to lose her forever. But time wore on, it seemed, and now he knew he never wanted to feel that way again.
Faye pushed open the hangar door, and together they stepped out onto the deck. He released her shoulder and leaned against the larger loading gate doors, struck with a feeling of peace and nostalgia at the incense of the morning dew and ocean air.
They each lit a cigarette, watching as the dawn stars faded into the blue nothingness of sunrise.
A/N: I'd originally intended to write a very brisk twenty chapter story that was mostly dialogue (as evidenced in the the earlier chapters), but this thing is sorta growing a life of its own. I hope it's not moving too slowly for you guys. We've got two big chapters coming up.
