AN: I've upped the rating due to some suggestive language. Please take heed.


Bad: Chapter 20

"And nightbirds sing you
An empty tune
In an empty house
In an empty room
In an empty moment
All the nightbirds sing
We were supposed to rise above
But we sink
Into the ocean"

- Ryan Adams


After Faye had departed, Spike stood out on the deck for a long while, not quite yet wanting to return to the common area where he assumed he would again become befuddled and agitated. Not that that was entirely different than what he was feeling right now. Still, the blow Faye had dealt him was fresh enough that it was not yet totally wearisome to think about, whereas this thing with Edward was beyond exhausted.

Two cigarettes later, he passed back into the shady hangar, turning the corner to the control board, and slammed his fist down on the button to close the loading gate.

Why couldn't one single thing in his life be uncomplicated? Surely this was how he'd come upon his mantra about women, children, and pets in the first place. They were all entirely too unpredictable.

He climbed the stairs back up to the main corridor, hoping Jet would accept a two-minute status check and let him off with that. Much to his surprise, when Spike entered the common area and began to assure Jet that he'd dealt with Faye, Jet only grunted in reply, clearly brushing him off in favor of focusing singularly on the as yet unchanged communication portal.

He attempted to shrug it off, aware of Jet's tendency to worry terribly, but still it was unnerving.

For lack of anything better to do, he headed to his room to change into his training pants, deciding to try out some physical therapy of his own. For some reason he was very bothered by the idea of limping into this meeting with the ISSP. Either because it was a concession of weakness or of wrongdoing; he hadn't yet figured out which.

He made it halfway through his normal workout routine before he found himself too fatigued to continue. He threw himself at the workout bench that was now a permanent fixture on the bridge. Puffing lightly, he sat with his head dropped, elbows on his knees, his arms crossed at the wrist, hands dangling limply.

This had all happened way too fast. But then, that was sort of his way. Perhaps if he spent a little more time considering the consequences of his actions he wouldn't be an ex-syndicate hood with a fake eye, scraping by on next to nothing, with certain doom lingering in his near future. And maybe Julia wouldn't have had to die.

He reached up and massaged his eyelid, feeling the overly firm implant underneath.

The future. It was never a concept he'd been terribly keen on. It seemed to him that people who spent a lot of time planning for their future were often too scared to live in the present; that their hope for what their life might be left them with acute anxiety about those hopes being disappointed.

But much like the past, the future had caught up with him. Now he was forced to think about it, what he wanted out of it, what he hoped it might be. It was horribly draining.

Maybe it was best for Faye to leave. Then he wouldn't have to feeling guilty about hurting her feelings more than he already had.

She had a solid poker face, but he knew all of her tells by now. He'd seen the trace of melancholy in her features brought on by his tactless remark. It bothered him for a number of reasons, chiefly because he truly hadn't meant to upset her. Heretofore, she appeared to be genuinely resistant of his charms. How was he to know his self-preserving artifice would elicit such a response?

He wiped away the quickly cooling sweat from the back of his neck.

Even more unnerving was the twinge of victory he felt at seeing tremble in her lips and the flicker of vulnerability in her eyes. If he could hurt her then that could only mean she wasn't quite as immune as she wanted him to believe. The mere fact that this thought had occurred to him, that he'd felt some excitement at the prospect that there was something inside her to be exploited, that was what disturbed him most of all.

Just how far was he willing to allow this to go? He wanted her, yes, and despite his better judgment, he could admit that he liked her. Actually, he liked her a lot—he always had, but that was beside the point. The point was that when she wasn't trying to grift him, she was annoying the ever-loving piss out of him somehow. Certainly, there were moments in between that reached beyond that, especially of late. Moments of genuine, albeit mostly accidental companionship and understanding. When she'd confronted him in that corridor, something in him had wanted to tell her about his past. Not just anyone. Her. She was perhaps the only person in his life that could understand the bitterness and confusion and all the other feelings he'd tried so long to outrun, if only because she had never been successful in outrunning them herself.

He had a desire that only she seemed capable of satisfying, but beyond that, he couldn't really say what she meant to him. She was a friend, a real friend, and that alone was a lot.

His hands began to tingle almost painfully as he began to recall the sensations of their encounter. The feeling of his palms cradling her face and neck, her firm yet fragile shoulders, her warm mouth, the ache of his own body as he moved inside her. Her knowing smile, the one where she bit the corner of her bottom lip, as she undid the buckle of his belt.

He stood quickly, trying to shake off the thrall of his own senses, and moved to stand before the glass windows that lined the bridge, the coolness of the night emanating from them. If he didn't look too far one direction or the other, Spike could almost fool himself into believing that the dark ocean was surrounding him on all sides. There was something both freeing and terrifying by the prospect.

No, she had to stay. Maybe he was crazy, but the future seemed dimmer without her around.


As soon as she emerged from the trees, Edward could hear the steady chirping of her Tomato. She was over 100 yards away from the plane, but the vast openness of the desert carried the sound far and wide.

Her excitement was immediate, and she tore toward the jet at a dead sprint, leaving Ein to follow her in surprised terror.

She had no idea what would be awaiting her there, but that in and of itself was reason enough for such enthusiasm. Their sabbatical had been pleasant and restful, but was also lacking in some much needed color. She'd always been able to entertain herself, but something about her days on the Bebop had left her with a feeling of unsatisfied anticipation—a desire for adventure beyond what her travels was able to provide. The stimuli that came with solving puzzles and riddles as a bounty hunter had yet to be replicated in her new life.

She practically vaulted into the belly of the jet, throwing herself up the rungs of the ladder she'd constructed from thick, woody vines.

Could it be her father was seeking her out at last?

She could see lights stirring under the thin blanket she used to conceal her Tomato whenever she ventured out. She threw it aside, a swirl of shimmering dust trailing the fabric as it sailed sublimely into the shadowy chamber where the ravens nested.

INCOMING REQUEST
HOSTNAME: BEBOP
PORT: 100
SESSION DURATION: 02H 05M 11S
GRANT ACCESS: Y / N

This was…unexpected.

Edward moved in to study the prompt further, almost unable to believe her eyes. Something here was amiss.

Upon moving onto the ship, it didn't take long for her to figure out that the Bebop's system was more than a little outdated. The old fishing boat has been brilliantly fashioned into a fairly modern interplanetary aircraft, but most of its protocols operated on software builds that were developed before she could even type.

Not long after she had overhauled the security protocols, she began to develop a truly stable, private communication portal which would allow her to network with the Bebop securely no matter where she was. It was a pretty straightforward process with one exception: trace transmissions could still be picked up through digital-to-analog converters. For close proximity communication, this was not likely to be an issue— D-to-A converters were few and far between these days, especially in populated regions. However, long range communication would surely be intercepted by at least one converter, should anyone be listening, as the transmissions were far more likely to pass through a more remote region somewhere between the origin and destination.

She'd never finished developing the system, because, well…she'd never really planned on leaving. The issue at hand was that she'd never mentioned its existence to anyone. Their normal communication portal was secure enough for everyday use. After all, they were just bounty hunters.

This request was, therefore, quite troubling.

She looked back and forth between the screen and Ein, who was looking up at her with a strangely hominal expression.

Her mouth twisted curiously as she considered the situation further.

She quickly struck 'N' on the keyboard, provoking a short, sudden whimper from Ein.

ACCESS DENIED