Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Evil Angel ❯ worse with a hangover ( Chapter 2 )

Evil Angel 2/?

Disclaimers: I don't own Cowboy Bebop.. but I do kinda enjoy writing this story.

Warnings… I'm a pro-survival person myself. So this is set after the twenty-sixth ep.. if you don't want to be at all spoiled for the end of the series.. I suggest not reading this. And Julia is.. well, not an angel in this story, at least not the good kind.. she's more complicated here. There may well end up being some yaoi, and maybe even a Jet/Spike/Faye trio pairing. *thinks* I think that's all I need to warn about. Samples of my original stuff is at: www.onepinkrose.com (there is a yaoi themed romance novel there, just in case *smiles*)

Evil Angel 2/?

It didn't feel like the best thing to be doing with a hang over, taking the Bebop to an unmapped bio-dome on Mars, which they knew very well was a Red Dragon private reserve. The invitation had come less than twenty-four hours after Spike had left the Bebop, right after Ed and Ein had gotten back. Her ship seemed too loud by far considering the hangovers that had both Jet and Faye feeling like their heads had been closed off in a spacegate. The invitation hadn't taken anymore care for their headaches than Ed's questions had. It demanded they come immediately to the Martian coordinates given, to arrive immediately, but it promised they'd have Spike back, hinted that how soon they arrived would have an impact on how alive he would be when they got there.

Faye held a glass between to stocking covered knees and aimed the egg at the edge again. Last time, she'd missed and it her leg, not hard enough to break the egg either, but eggs were a slightly rare commodity.

"Faye Faye," Ed said cheerfully enough to make Faye's head hope that someone would blow it off, "Let Edward crack the egg! Okay?"

"Let her," Jet growled.

Faye rolled her eyes and held out the glass and egg. "Here! My head doesn't hurt anyway."

Ed took the glass and egg, remembering her father and not feeling nearly as cheerful as Faye thought she was. She knew there were things that adults knew that she didn't, but she felt older than she had when she'd gone off to look for her father and left the Bebop, understood now that family was more than blood, that where one belonged had to do with some other thing called a heart. She also knew what her friend Mpu had told her about this place, so she knew things the adults maybe didn't. She cracked the egg easily, and balanced the egg filled glass on her head for a moment, carrying it to Faye with both arms out like a plane. Maybe she'd never understand why people did things they did. "Needs pepper!"

Faye grabbed the glass just as it started to slip. "Idiot," she complained, "Don't you know how serious this is?" But holding glass, staring at the raw egg, she was wishing she had pepper, something.

"Edward knows this is serious," the girl caught up another egg and made a Spike hang over cure for Jet too, without the separating of white and yolk, without the pepper or chili sauce, so it wasn't really the same, but then none of them had seen Spike hung over that often. "Edward knows that Spike-person might die and Edward knows *her* head doesn't hurt."

"She's got us there," Jet acknowledged. "We stay calm. We give them what they want, get Spike, get out."

"Get Spike, get Spike!"

"Jet?"

Jet took the glass Ed was offering, then rubbed Faye's knee with the back of his hand. Ed tilted her head and seemed to think about that for a moment. Faye-Faye and Jet-person were ... Were being real nice to each other.

"Faye," Jet said, glaring at the glass, swirled the egg around, and Faye thought maybe his sideburns twitched. Then he shot the egg back, toasting to Spike, even if it wasn't going to cure his hangover.

"Shit, Jet." She hadn't flinched away from his touch, Edward noticed. "Let's just get in there, get out. I want Spike a live so I can kill him myself!"

They didn't notice she noticed though, as she was now walking back and forth on her hands, toes wiggling in the air, she didn't expect them to notice that she'd seen the change in them. "Go get Spike now!"

Faye turned from watching Jet pilot the Bebop to where Ed was still walking around on her hands. "Jet," Faye made a face, one eyebrow drawing down.

"The kid will be fine," he said, transmitting to the biodome's tower for permission to land. He thought it, but didn't add, that Ed could take care of herself better than Faye sometimes.

"Ed will be fine," Ed said, but she was playing up for them, acting silly on purpose. They would not notice what she was up to, not notice her own plans. The goggles on her head pulsed, letting her know that Mpu was impatient to have her attention again. The young, especially the brilliant young, always believe they can do anything.

<><><><><>zzZZzz<><>&l t;><><>

The main operating theater in Little Beijing served many purposes, some of which required an audience. This procedure had an audience of one at the moment, just one beautiful blond woman. It had taken nearly half an hour from the end of the fight to move Spike into stasis. Those had been moments of reorganization for Julia. Once he was into stasis it had taken another three hours to gently transport him around the world, to Little Beijing. The initial exam and assessment had taken another hour and a half and by then she was sure of what she wanted to do. The video clip and invitations had gone out to both the Bebop and Edward's computer. The mission to save Spike's life was still in progress when the door to the balcony theater opened and her half-willing guests were ushered in.

She barely turned away from the man in the center of the medical team below, but surveyed his friends even still. The woman, her lady behind the door, not beautiful, but stunning none the less. It seemed nearly obscene to Julia that this woman should arrive wearing one of Spike's jackets, move to the glass keeping the operating area sterile, and press her palms against the smooth surface. The color drained from that, perhaps more beautiful than Julia had thought, face. There was not a cowboy, or gambler, but a woman with a young heart.

Julia hated her suddenly, hated her with the effective articulate hate of a bred aristocrat. Faye was clumsy, foolish, but she was also all the things that Julia had pretended to be to steal Spike's heart and soul. Standing beside each other, they both stared down at Spike. He lay, arms out to either side, bound to supports and supporting several lines in. A respirator was taped firmly between his lips, a suction line down his nose, hair sweaty and pasted to his pale face. Only yellow disinfectant wash covered his body, blue covered trays around the opening in his abdomen, and a doctor on either side, working directly with parts of his body that were never ever meant to be exposed to light, bright artificial or not. "Oh Spike!" Faye yelled, angry, frustrated, desperate to make something put things right. "Spike."

"He is unconscious," Julia said, drippingly condescending, as if she were speaking to a hated young relative. "Do you know how much effort and expense it has taken to repair this disemboweled man?"

Jet snorted, or gagged, the side of one fist pressing against his chest, as if he could settle some emotion, sensation by just pushing it down, and this drew Julia's attention to him. So tall and broad, tall and dark, a storybook sheriff with black hair and a soul that was a white hat beyond doubt. It was the look in those eyes though, eyes that studied Spike's defenseless body with a knowing compassion, an indomitable protectiveness that went beyond family, into a kind of love that Julia didn't think she even wanted to understand. Jet loved Spike more than he loved himself. It made her feel smaller, somehow. "He is a peasant," she said, turning her back on the unconditional longing in the big man. "On the streets of Mars City he could have been nothing more than a boy-whore. Didn't you arrest a few of those when you were a police officer, Mr. Black."

"Not Spike," Jet said, the side of his face twitching, and Julia knew she'd struck him deeply. "How can you talk about him like that? He loves you."

"Oh yes, I see," she said, using a mannerism picked up in the early part of her grand plan, as she brushed golden blond hair back from her face before turning to smile at Jet, so sweet and innocent, the smile of a safe angel. This smile held, perfect and guiltless for a moment, then darkened, one eyebrow arching. "My name is Julia Sung Sai. My family's blood has roots in the Sung Dynasty. We survived and even flourished in the People's Republic, and my ancestors' blood cemented this Syndicate before here was a Mars City. My grandfather died in the last purge and I have purged those who turned against him. " She turned back to watch her doctors, watch them heal the only person she'd ever truly cared about, as she tried to pretend that all that made her heart human wasn't breaking apart like forgotten imperial pottery. "It is only by my sufferance that this peasant breaths, so be aware of your words."

A red light blinked just a fraction of a breath before a warning beep sounded. The medical team scurried, the lead doctor looking even paler as she grabbed a long syringe from the stand of tools next to her, broke the protective cover from the needle and jammed it straight into Spike's chest, shoving the plunger down, the slight blue fluid into his body, which arched against the restraints holding him.

They stood there, all four of them, pressed to the glass, Chinese princess and peasants and there wasn't any real difference between any of them, until the monitor that showed Spike's heart beat slowly started again. The doctor signaled for new gloves and an aide removed the bloody gloves, uses a sterile wipe to dry her hands, then put new gloves on. She went back to work on the opening in Spike's belly and Faye thought that maybe it looked like she was going to close him now.

"Are they going to finish now?" She asked, turning to look at Julia, and their eyes locked. Julia was taller than she, and so Faye was looking up just a little. The Imperial facade had cracked and tears trailed down that beautiful face. "You love him too."

"Shut up," Julia said, crude, more the woman who'd posed as someone else for so many years. "Just shut up. Do you know the story of the lady or the tiger?"

Edward slipped her goggles off, and shoved them into her pocket before responding, no one really saw, or paid any attention to her, or the very small computer in the pocket of her coat. "Edward knows the story! Are you the princess then? Will you give Spike to the tiger or the lady? I don't think Spike can fight a tiger right now!"

"A tiger?" Faye's eyes were wide, her fists doubled, "What tiger?"

Julia laughed then, a sweet musical laugh of a voice trained to be beautiful. "I was rather thinking that I would chose the door with the lady, or rather, the man and the woman. It is decreed that Spike Spiegel has to die."

Jet nearly snarled and somehow, half way done with this, Julia felt comforted by their protectiveness of him, and slightly satisfied by how irritating they were. "Understand me, I do not want him dead. I want to give him his life, but he is a powerful figure in this organization. He has many followers who would fight for him, even four years after he faked his own death, they would rally to him. I cannot allow opposition. This will be the new Sung dynasty and a low born peasant from the streets of Mars City is not allowed to be a threat."

Jet felt a fatalistic cloud press down on him. It wasn't always possible to really get away from the past. "Just give him to us. We'll go out to the asteroid belt, become miners. You ain't never going to see us again."

"I was rather hoping you might feel that way. Spike must never come back to Mars or Earth, not Venus, he must disappear. I am going to make him disappear."

"Please," Faye said, knowing it would be hopeless, but unable to really stop herself. "Don't hurt him."

Julia's laugh sounded a little hysterical, perhaps. "I intend to free him from pain, and you each may have a reward for your service. Mr. Black, the Bebop is being refitted as we speak, your records changed. You never left the ISSP. You never worked with Spike Spiegel. You are now on a highly classified mission for the ISSP, in the outer asteroid belts. You will continue to hunt bounties, just as you please, you will be the sheriff of the asteroids. I can have a little silver star made for you, if you want."

Jet's glare was priceless to Julia, just priceless. "I don't work for the ISSP."

"No. You work for the Red Dragon Syndicate. Do you have a problem with that, Mr. Black?" She asked and looked meaningfully back at Spike, noting the bruising around his chest, where the injection had been given.

"No," Jet ground out.

"And you, Miss Valentine," Julia said, taking great pleasure in being the Wizard of Oz and handing out unwanted gifts to those who saw behind the veil, "Your family was not quite without value. As the sole survivor of your line, I have arranged for assets held by the government to be transferred to you. This has liquidated your debts as well as allowing for a moderate income. You will no longer gamble with money, for your assets are meant to support more than yourself." It wasn't necessary to add a threat. The threat was implied and worse that could probably be verbalized in any case.

"What about me? Are you going to threaten me too?" Edward asked, face pressed to the glass now, as she watched what they did with Spike.

Now, Edward was a bit of a loss to Julia. Assets were not meant to be wasted. When she'd signaled the girl, she'd meant to bring her into the Red Dragon, to tell her that Julia had loved Spike, and now Ed needed to help protect Julia, to study and grow stronger in computer skills, to avenge Spike, Faye, and Jet's deaths. Now, she would have to let the little hacker go with them. Julia hated to waste real talent. "I have no threats for you, Edward. Of all, I respect you the most. I wish only to give you a new computer, to supply you with all the tools you'll need to study what you love. All I ask is that you take good care of Spike for me." Julia leaned over a bit to look right in Edward's eyes and smiled tentatively, as if asking for Edward's approval.

Edward's eyes went wide, blinking in surprise. "Edward is grateful and will take good good care of Spike-person!"

"That is all I ask," Julia said, wondering if Faye were throwing daggers at her back. A little dissent in the ranks was always good for control. "What do you think, Edward-san? Do you think Spike loves Jet or Faye?"

Edward tilted her head, one finger tapping against her cheek. "Edward thinks that Spike likes them both and wouldn't want to make either unhappy."

"Really?" That was news to Julia, that Spike might actually be attracted to either of these peasants. The image of him waking up in Jet's strong arms burned like an acid down her soul. Spike liked men as well as women, she knew that well from who she'd had to seduce him away from at the start. Which would be the top, Spike or Jet, she wondered and found herself grinding her teeth. It was one thing to give her lover to the lady, another for him to like it. What was the point of power, if you couldn't change your mind?