Chapter Text
"I'm glad I met you, Faye."
"Same here." Faye got out of the cherry red sports car. She looked one more time at Julia, fingers lingering on the door. "Uh...have I met you somewhere before?" Not the smartest thing she ever said. Maybe she just didn't want the conversation to be over.
Julia visibly hesitated. She pulled her sunglasses out from her coat without looking back at Faye. "If you see Spike again...tell him I'll be waiting for him there."
Faye gasped, a hundred things racing through her mind.
Julia finally met her eye, possibly mistaking her silence for confusion. "That's it. He'll know what I me--"
Nope. Too little too late, sister. Faye was already seeing red. This lady might have been expecting some shrinking violet who would just stand there in shock before running back to Spike, but she expected wrong. Even as Julia was lifting her foot off the brake, Faye was already vaulting back into the car she just left.
Julia swerved. "What are you doing?!"
"So you need a bounty hunter, but I'm not good enough, huh?! It has to be Spike, huh? Of course it has to be Spike! Why does he get to have all the fun?"
"What? No! That's not why I--gah! Are you crazy? Get out of my car!"
"No! Not until you admit I'm as good a bounty hunter as he is!"
"I don't c--" Julia bit off the word and swore instead. "You know what? Fine!" She wrestled the car back under control. "You want to help? You get to help!"
***
"There was a woman. First time I'd found someone who was truly alive--at least, that's what I thought. She was...the part of me I'd lost somewhere along the way. The part that was missing. That I'd been longing for."
Jet turned to look at him, but Spike was done talking and just stared silently out the window, faraway little smile on his face. Jet struggled for words for a little while. Knew it was hard for Spike to open up like this. But he also knew it was always easier when it was just the two of them like this. He turned back and watched the view.
Spike got up eventually and wandered off.
"***
"I met Vicious when we were both teenagers." The car slid downtown, and Julia broke the silence. "He wasn't calling himself Vicious back then. Harold. Harry. No one names their kid Vicious. But he hated it even back then. Gave himself a new nickname and made everybody switch to it." She paused like she expected Faye to have something to say. But after a moment of silence, she continued as if she didn't totally realize she was still talking. "He was beautiful. I mean, he shone. He was so smart, sometimes it felt like he knew everything in the world...but he was never kind." Another pause until the words came again. "Never. Not even back then. There was this nest of squirrels outside his window and he used to..." She trailed off again and shook her head. "Anyway. He joined the syndicate, I dropped out of school, you know the story. My parents weren't happy, but...he was going to take care of me, right?"
Faye stayed uncharacteristically silent. She kept trying out words in her head, but none of them fit. Yeah, I know what you mean, I had my con artist too... She discarded them all. They turned down a side street.
"And you're still just a teenager, right? And you're in love, and it's romantic. And then somewhere along the line, you realize you're just another squirrel."
The gears clashed as she downshifted into first.
"You've always been the damn squirrel. You've just been too young and blind and in love to see it."
Faye shut her eyes.
Five minutes of silence later, Julia turned right down another intersection. "I need to get some things before we go."
"Okay." Faye's voice came out quieter than she intended it to be.
"And you can contact Spike."
***
Annie sat behind the counter with a magazine open in front of her. She had the radio on and the door ajar slightly. The store needed the fresh air. Smelled like rain was coming.
The bell hanging on the door jingled. She glanced up long enough to take in the two men in expensive black suits that screamed Syndicate, then quickly looked back down again. Nothing to worry about. The store was deep in Red Dragon territory. This happened all the time. They were looking for bullets, smokes, or candy. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Footsteps retreated slowly and carefully to the back of the store. She kept her eyes firmly fixed on the smiling model in her magazine and tried to control each breath; tried to make it sound like normal, like there was nothing wrong here. Everything was fine. She was calm. Everyone was calm. In a minute, they'd ask for a couple of packs of cigarettes, and she'd ring 'em up, and they'd go away.
She turned the page slowly and carefully without reading any of the text. She listened as they slowly made their way through the store, locating them with her ears as they moved.
One of them lingered in an aisle and a few seconds later a customer walked briskly out without buying anything.
So what if there were rumors? So what if the rumors might have even been true? So what if Vicious had tried to pull off a coup, and failed, and was now rotting in some lost cellar somewhere? So what if rumor had it that the Syndicate was mad and was now shooting everyone who ever smiled at him? So what if she sometimes threw those kids an extra pack of gum? So what?
If she didn't do the math they wouldn't see it on her face and everything would be fine...
One of them stepped up to the counter and tossed down a pack of ramen and some pork rinds. She breathed out. She reached out with the steadiest hand she could muster and started ringing him up. See? You're just a crazy old lady who worries too much. She even managed a (not visibly) relieved smile up at his face.
She heard the muffled bell of the front door and the sharp click of the lock.
***
"Look sharp, Spike! Your old friends are here for a visit!"
Spike looked up from cleaning his guns and angled his head to call back to Jet. "What friends? What the hell do they want?"
"The old friends that put this bullet in my leg and they're here to deliver a dang singing telegram!"
The ship shook from an explosion and Spike's brain finally lit up. He carefully put down the bits of gun in his hands and ran for the Swordfish.
Jet heard Spike's shoes clanging down the corridor and breathed a sigh of relief. Finally got his head out of the clouds, he thought to himself. Do him good to take out some anger on these goons, too.
A light on his instrument board flicked on and Spike's voice filtered through. "Ready to go, Jet!"
"Hold on a minute!" He pulled the Bebop away from a flurry of incoming missiles and punched the bay doors open. "Go!"
The Swordfish blew out of the main ship straight into a cloud of enemies firing on them. Spike course-corrected and rolled sideways, shooting two lines of holes into a fighter's wing as he sped away. He fired another burst into the cluster of ships, drawing their attention away from the less agile trawler. They might have been able to land shots on the Bebop, but the Swordfish danced through the sudden rain of gunfire and right through the center of the flock, taking down two and scattering the rest. "Hey Jet? I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this is our business now!"
Jet growled in answer and banked the ship away from the Swordfish, trying to shake off some of the Syndicate. Several ships broke off from their attack and followed him. Jet bit off what might have been a louder yell as a double tremor ran through the ship.
"What was that?"
"Nothing." Jet winced and rubbed his leg. It did not like getting jarred like that. But the damned meat was just going to have to hurt. He couldn't spare it any attention now. He turned left and hoped it threw at least some of them off their aim.
Spike managed to pick off the two that were harrying the Bebop, but had to break away as three more ships started firing at him. He swung the Swordfish around and slid it sideways through another group of ships, surprising his pursuers enough to cause a collision. He let out a deep, controlled breath. Like water. He let everything but the battle temporarily fall out of his mind.
***
"Okay, so where does Spike come into all of this mess?"
"It's complicated." Julia glanced in her rearview mirror. She didn't see anyone following her, but it was hard to say for sure.
Faye chuckled. "I'm sure it is, honey."
Julia cast a glance sideways, trying to decide how to take that. She turned back to the road as she answered. "Lover. Friend. Knight in shining armor. Devil. Maniac. Attempted savior. Affair. Bait. Pick a card, any card."
Faye considered, then mimed pulling a card out of thin air. "Affair."
Julia shrugged. "I was with him at the same time as Vicious. We lied about it. Had to, if we didn't want to get ripped to pieces. Literally."
"Huh. I'm trying to picture Spike actually...you know, with a woman." Faye paused. "Even on a date."
"Maybe he's changed." Julia shrugged again. "I know I have."
"Like, the most romantic thing I've ever seen him do was to not try to steal someone's food for once."
"He brought me roses." Julia smiled, remembering. "He always brought me roses. He said that I made him feel alive again. He said he never understood how people could love the world until he met me."
"I once saw him sneeze really hard into his plate and then finish eating like nothing happened."
"I--" Julia stopped and wrinkled her nose at Faye. "Wait, really?"
Faye nodded and scrunched up her face in disgust. "It was one of those super gross gooey sneezes, too."
"...So, uh, anyway. He used to leave love notes at this one convenience store for me. The owner used to pass them along." She nodded as they passed the store only to pull into a parking lot further down the road. "So one, I want to get some supplies if I'm going to be on the run again for a while. Food and bullets and the like. And two, it's the...second perfect place to leave a message for him."
Faye waited for Julia to get out of the car--she was not getting left behind--and then caught up with her. She shivered and pulled her arms tight against her chest. The rain that had been brewing for ages was finally starting to fall, and it was cold. "Okay, so what's the first perfect place?"
Julia ducked a smile. "Who knows? You might still get to see it."
"Okay, fine, mystery girl." She grinned and pulled another card from the air. "Devil."
Julia couldn't help but smile wider. There was just something about this woman that pulled it out of her. "Well...did he tell you that he was a rising star in the Red Dragon syndicate?"
"Uh, no." Faye stopped at the door of the convenience store. "But from what Gren told me...I guess it makes sense." She leaned against the plate glass window with her arms crossed. "So you and Vicious and Spike...all of you are so tangled up together." She said softly, really looking at Julia.
"Yeah. It's a whole mess. I wish...hm." Julia frowned as she unsuccessfully tried the door. "Annie's never closed this early in the day."
Faye turned to the window she was leaning on and peered between the blinds.
***
The Swordfish took down three ships in close succession, then a fourth. There were only a few left. They divided themselves into two groups: the better pilots chased after Spike, and the slower fighters continued to bomb the bigger ship.
Jet brushed sweat off his temple as yet another series of holes got blown into the hull. He'd lost track of how many that was, but it was going to take a hell of a repair job later. That is, if they managed to stay up in the sky. The battle looked like it was on the wane, but there was no point in getting cocky. He accelerated slightly, but the heavy fire continued.
Spike dodged between ships, one eye on the Bebop. He swung violently to one side and the two guided missiles behind him each found a new target. Two explosions, four ships left. They could do this.
A loud bang echoed through the Bebop and an alarm rose from Jet's controls. "Damn it," he muttered to himself. Louder, he called out "Spike, I'm going to try and land!"
"What?! Are you crazy?" One more down, three to go. "You'll be a sitting duck!" Spike swooped down and picked off another ship. Two left, and they were obviously getting tired. He swooped sideways in between them to draw their attention away from the trawler.
Jet started angling the ship for an easy descent. Spike could take it from there. "Crazy? You know it. Always have been, always will." Right now he had a rapidly dwindling supply of air and the continued ability to float. One more shot and he might lose either. Or both.
One left. Spike looked out of the corner of his eye. The big ship wasn't handling right, and they both knew it. "Shit."
"Yeah."
***
Somewhere, a bird exploded and everything went to hell.