Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Break of Dawn ❯ Chapter 2

Chapter Two.

Disclaimer: Don't own Cowboy Bebop. Please R&R. I also know there are gaping holes in narrative. It's 2 am and I'm falling ASLEEP!!

"Was I out for a while?" Spike asked as the woman helped him out of bed. He tripped when he tried to settle on his feet, but the woman surprised him by how effortlessly she supported him.

"You've been slipping in and out of consciousness these past six months. Sometimes I thought I would lose you for good." The woman said this with the world renown fear of a doctor unable to revive a patient. He almost felt sorry for worrying her, but the flash of worry in her eyes were quickly replaced with a wave of relief. "Once I actually did, but it wasn't because your vital signs stopped functioning."

She stopped as if thinking of a funny incident. "You actually picked yourself up out of bed, walked past my nursing staff and stood out in the streets, gazing up at the sky.

"Even while you were sleep-walking, you managed to pull out all the IV drips without one single tear to your arteries."

"Pulling IV drips out of my arms is second nature to me now. I've been in and out of emergency more times than I know." He smiled slightly, feeling comforted and calm in this woman's presence. "I didn't say anything embarrassing, did I?"

"Only that you left something at home." She said, a mischievous glint in her eye.

"What?" he asked, enticed by the humour twitching at her lips.

"You were standing there with your backside hanging out in the middle of the city's inner sanctum. When you said you'd left something at home, I asked "What?" to which my nurse Beatrice answered, "His pants."

"Your midsection is a long way from being healed." She warned him lightly when the effort of laughing only rewarded him with a new wave of pain. "I've opened you up so many times, I should have just installed a zip across your belly."

At the mention of his wounds, she became agitated again. "If you'll wait, I'll wheel you…" she stopped, obviously frustrated. And then downright angry with something. "Jesus…"

"Are you alright?"

"I was going to offer you a wheel through the park, as if this hellhole was the great neighbourhood it was in my childhood."

"Speaking of neighbourhoods," he interjected, marveling at how quickly her emotions sped from one moment to the next. "Where am I?"

"I'll give you three guesses." She replied simply, leaving him to lean against the bed railing and moving towards the window where she opened it. The light that had bathed her in that pale nimbus earlier was NOT sunlight as he had assumed before, but was the blazing neon light from the building almost ten feet away. From what he could see, there was a poor, holographic illusion of a night-sky above the dingy, gray buildings crammed haphazardly together because of the uneven ground. Some buildings were literally carved from the rock that had enveloped mass cities when the moon split. "Even though I was only a child, I remember the various projects the government set up here. Projects to maintain the illusion that Los Angelos used to be on the surface of the earth. Parks, rivers…" and then she looked up at the `sky'. An imitation of Orion's belt stood steadfast while Ursa major was flickering like a broken tv set. "But an illusion is too much to manage when there are other stable planets to colonize."

She realized that he hadn't said a word, and turned to see whether he was still on his feet.

His face was very still. So still she thought he had died standing up. And then she realized a cruel, ironic smile had stretched his soft lips. The change in his gentle demeanour wasn't as startling as the morbid eagerness in his voice.

"How kind of the Chuan Tsu clan to extend their hospitality."

Before she could reply, a petite nurse had appeared in the doorway. Her high-pitched voice cut through the thick, imminent silence like a knife in hot butter. She appeared startled to see their comatose patient up on his feet. "Mercedes, there's a call for you."

"Thank you, Grace." Mercedes replied, putting her hands into her pockets. "We'll talk later." She looked at Spike apologetically before she turned to leave.

"I assume I'm under watched guard then?"

"They wouldn't have asked for my services only to put you through the blender." She said to comfort him.

He startled her again when he just shrugged and stretched his arms languidly over his head. "It's not a problem." He plunked himself back onto the bed and lit himself a cigarette. Mercedes squinted at the familiar cigarette brand he was holding, automatically felt her pockets and realized he had just pinched her cigarettes! He noticed her look of chagrin.

"oh…" he said, a look of innocent aplomb on his face. "I was only testing out my reflexes. Would you like these back?"

Still not done with crime syndicates. He swore, fighting against the pain in his midsection as he launched a series of punches in the air followed by a roundhouse kick. Pain seared up his left hip to his armpit, but he only gritted his teeth and finished the flow of movements that brought him to stillness. Peace. Quiet.

Home.

Spike stopped in mid punch, rubbing a fist across his mouth. The word hit him with a pang of longing. Not that he ever took a drag from his cigarette without longing for something; Julia, for instance. Or his original eye, and the man that was him before he lost it.

The longing he felt for `home' was new.

The feeling was as palpable as Jet's `bell peppers with beef' without the beef. It was as clear-sounding as Faye's high-pitched scream when the shower ran out of hot water. As shocking as Ed's orange hair. As silent but pervasive as Ein.

Greedy. He chided himself mockingly. Wasn't it enough to take down the Red Dragon syndicate on his lonesome, avenge his true love's death, AND kill his best-friend cum nemesis? Now he had to come back from the dead with the full intention of bulldozing his way back into the lives of two people he had to turn his back on. And maybe chase that crazy kid and her mutt-companion down.

The question of whether he had a right to or not was irrelevant. He was alive, and he wanted them to know it.

The pain up his side had ceased, he was breathing in shallow pants as the ramifications of his thought process had hit him: He was alive.

"Must be the morphine." He reasoned, taking a breath and settling himself on the bed. He'd been half dead for so long, he wasn't really prepared for fully alive just yet.

Maybe after this cigarette.