Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Little Matchstick Girl ❯ Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Do not own Cowboy Bebop

 

She had lost her quarry. Yet Again. There was nothing much for it but to go home, she supposed, shooting off her gun into the air in frustration. As if in response, the sky began to break into a drowning rainshower. She kept her eyes squelched against the dampening cold as she made her way out of the alleyway.

 

She found herself on a main street. Pulling her red sweater over her shoulders, she kept trudging through the rain where others ran under cover or bought newspapers to shield their heads.

 

While she didn't like self-pity in others, she sure as hell WANTED to crack a big, childish tantrum in the middle of this glistening Alva city.

 

And as if the bustling city didn't only serve to remind her of her own poverty, but the sight of red roses being sold at every street corner reminded her of something else.

 

“Happy Valentine's Day darling!!” a tall luscious blonde gasped as she stepped underneath her boyfriend's umbrella.

 

“What a day!!” he yelled into the rain, smiling down at her lovingly as he wrapped his free arm around her. Tucking half her body under his grey trench-coat, they melted into each other before they ducked into a high-class restaurant. Black Jack's glowed in golden light against the black backdrop.

 

Faye watched with barely concealed malice, feeling the sharp edge of loneliness pierce her fresh wound. A dozen epithets filled her mind instead of a dozen roses.

 

“I'm afraid you must be lost, miss.” The manager of Black Jack's had come out into the rain. Eyeing her clothes and her blank look, he continued, “The red-light district is on the other side of town.”

 

Concern for the image of his restaurant than any real concern for her welfare prodded him to cover her with a suit-jacket. “Don't worry about returning it. Just go away.” He added with a shudder before he returned inside where he continued to glare at her indignantly.

 

Annoyed, Faye was about to light a cigarette and lean her butt-cheeks on the glass when her eyes caught the wide-eyed gaze of a little girl in the window. She was in the middle of a Valentine's dinner with her parents when she caught sight of Faye in her skimpy outfit.

 

The bold-as-brass, self-modeled Faye Valentine had suddenly receded under the girl's inquisitive gaze, and she was left asking herself: What must she be thinking?

 

She saw herself as the little girl sharing the same sort of meal with her parents in Singapore, a city much like this one. In the glass reflection, she saw the bedraggled, shrewish whore everybody else took her for.

 

In dread, she noticed her mother turn to see Faye and come to the same conclusion as the manager. She watched the apprehension turn to shock as she placed a hand on the girl's face to shield her eyes while her father stared at Faye derisively.

 

I used to be like her.

 

And then she observed that everybody else had turned to look at her, some were tittering behind their hands, others sneering and derisive.

 

I used to be her.

 

But she could never find the little girl in her again. No matter how many memories she had of her childhood, she was never going to be anybody but Faye Valentine. She was always going to live in deficit. Regret and loss.

 

Spike was wrong. She thought, staring at her innocent counterpart. I have no future. Feeling a sob rise in her throat, Faye set off running.

 

She ran on and on, not caring who she bumped into. By the time she realized, she had lost her way into the heart of Alva City, surrounded by nightmarish heart-shaped balloons, fluffy white teddy bears, couples. People who belonged.

 

Her mask was falling, and she just couldn't care anymore as she stood in the middle of Capital Square and let the tears fall. Not the first time she'd admitted how lonely she was, but the very first time she'd finally said: “Enough.”

 

She winced as she remembered pleading with Spike to stay with them. Such childish dreams she thought as her words all came down to one thing: We can live happily ever after. Don't go.

 

The end of a fantasy roller-coaster ride pretending nobody could hurt her if she was tough and hard-as-nails had come. She couldn't live in suspended animation anymore, pretending that nothing in real-life mattered if you never paid it any respect or attention.

 

Feeling her sobs ebb away, she decided to find her way home.

 

 

“What the hell???” Jet screamed as he followed a puddle of tracks from the hangar to Faye's room. “HEY!!!” he banged on her door. “I just cleaned the floor yesterday!!!”

 

No answer. Typical, Jet thought. “Does this mean you lost a bounty, AGAIN?”

 

Silence. Damn woman's probably asleep. He concluded, spotting a wet suit-jacket draped over the back of the yellow couch. Why couldn't she learn to put things in the laundry??? “I'm not your fucking maid, you know!!!” he yelled into the silence, trudging off to the laundry where he continued to vent his frustrations by wringing the jacket.

 

Probably dry-cleaning only too. He growled low, stuffing the jacket into the drier regardless. “I should really just go back to living in Ganymede, it's less work scrubbing barnacles off the side of a ship than taking care of a self-centred shrew!!” he yelled again.

 

Oh shit, did I check the pockets?? He asked himself in dismay, opening the catch and checking. He really hated it when forgotten Kleenex covered his newly washed clothes in a coat of teeny-tiny staticky balls.

 

He found a lottery ticket, just damp around the edges. Placing it in his back pocket for safe-keeping, he stuffed the jacket back in.

 

Feeling for a cup of hot tea after a rain-soaked day, he turned the corner to find himself face to face with Faye.

 

“Jesus!!!” he swore, patting his chest. It wasn't so much the fact that she had just appeared out of nowhere that frightened him as much as he had mistaken the lackluster woman for someone else.

 

“Tea?” she asked him, her voice tired. As if she'd just finished crying. Jet observed. She had evidently taken her makeup off, but that hadn't explained her pallor, or her listlessness as she moved about the kitchenette.

 

“The last bounty will give us another couple of days, Faye.” Jet murmured consolingly, sighing into his hand.

 

“It's not that.” She whispered, methodically placing teacups onto a tray instead of a couple of mugs like she was more apt to doing. Must be something she used to do when she was younger. Jet surmised as he watched her prepare the tea tray as if she'd done it a thousand times. She didn't seem to notice the difference.

 

Suddenly she sighed, wiping a tired hand across her forehead. Plunking both her hands along the side of the kettle in apparent defeat, she told him to watch the kettle.

 

Pushing past him, he heard the bathroom door slam shut.

 

Interesting. Jet thought, taking her cue by the kettle. After it was done, he settled himself by the computer, prepared to look up some more bounties when he remembered the lottery ticket in his back pocket.

 

Faye didn't come out until he had drunk the whole teapot. He left her to sit numbly on the yellow coach as he boiled another pot of tea.

 

“Is this about Spike?” He called from the kitchen, leaning against the doorway so he could see her.

 

At the mention of Spike, she tossed her head to the side.

 

“Not everything is about Spike.” She objected vehemently, jerking her oversized shirt over her knees.

 

Jet had realized long ago that Faye had lost her fiery spark ever since Spike left. Her successful bounties were few and far in between, her aim was shoddy, she was walking without knowing where she was going… It wasn't just a matter of grief, she just wasn't cut out for bounty-hunting anymore and everything about her but her mind knew it.

 

“He went back to confront his real-life, Faye.” Jet said later as he poured her another cup of tea. “Maybe we should take a page from his book and go back to ours.”

 

“Oh? And who do you think will take a woman with no education? How many hours will I have to wait tables before I can get rid of the massive debt on my head? How do you think I'll enjoy sitting around the old-folks home with my buddies from high-school??” she said bitterly. “I have no future, Jet.”

 

“You're just being stubborn.”

 

“I have no future!” she yelled at him, slamming the cup of tea on the table. “What DON'T you get??? I've already thought about how I could… start a normal life… but I can't with this massive debt over my head… no education… no real work experience…” I'd have to start all over again, alone… Alien… And then she started sobbing. “And if Spike went back to his so-called real-life, then what the fuck were we to him, huh?? Just some nightmare?? Something, some people to pass away the time in purgatory with??”

 

Jet continued to sip his tea as if she hadn't said anything. Faye sneered, “Typical middle-aged passive-aggressive…”

 

Except for jerking his head up and leveling his gaze with hers, he betrayed no sign of ire. “If he stayed with us, what the hell do you think the syndicate would do? Let him go on his merry way? If they didn't stop at killing Julia, they would have certainly come after US as a way to get to Spike!!”

 

“We meant nothing to Spike!!!” She yelled at him, goading him into yelling back at her. Anything to break this immense grief in her chest. Believing that the sore loser didn't give one iota of compassion or respect for her or either of them meant she could forget him. Put him in the OUT slot, flush him down the toilet, stuff him in the blender… She wanted to hear Jet say Spike was worthless so she could believe it too and fucking move on!

 

Reading the myriad of emotions flitting across her eyes, Jet chuckled despite the heavy atmosphere. For all the callous, selfish and unfeeling things she did, he knew her just as well as he knew Spike: That in matters of emotion they were both just hot air. This time, though, he decided to call her on it: “Now you're just being childish.”

 

His easy paternal smile and the twinkle in his eye almost coaxed a smile from Faye. She forgot how easily the old man could see through her these days.

 

Leaning back, she sighed, rubbing at the corner of her eye. After a vast silence, she threw her pride away and asked innocently, “We meant something to him, then?”

 

Jet was immediately struck by the need in her voice, the little girl she used to be that he could only nod. His eyes affirming the one thing she had wanted to hear from Spike the most. He didn't care to voice the fact that she had still missed one important thing: Spike had died to protect them from Vicious as much as he needed to confront his past.

 

Thankfully, she only continued drawing invisible circles along her leg as she hiccupped.

 

“Here's something that'll cheer you up.” Jet remembered suddenly, tossing the lottery ticket he'd found earlier in the suit pocket.

 

“Is this mine?” Faye asked, looking confused.

 

“You brought the suit jacket home, right?”

 

“Hmph. Something like that.” She sneered derisively, preparing to rip the ticket into shreds. With her luck, it was probably worth nothing.

 

“Don't want to rip up a ticket that's worth 300 billion woolongs*, do you?”

 

“This is not the time to be jerking my leg, old man.” She warned, quelling the excitement rising in her chest.

 

“I'm not.” He replied, flipping the computer screen to the day's winning numbers.

 

She had to check the details 10 times before she'd let herself believe her luck.

 

LUCK. She sat there transfixed by the word that had eluded her so many times.

 

Waiting for her to break out into raucous joy, Jet's anticipation wilted as he realized that she was most likely in state of shock. Shrugging to himself, he continued to the kitchen to prepare their meal.

 

“Decided what you're going to do with your winnings?” he asked later when he returned with their meal. The overcooked red pepper seemed ridiculously unhealthy now when she held 10 lifetimes of fortune in her slim hand. And she began to smile.

 

A wicked little smile, coupled with a vengeful lift in her delicate eyebrow.

 

“We're going out to eat.” She replied, picking up the suit jacket and draping it over her shoulder. “And I know the exact place.”

 

Leaving Jet in the living room, she suddenly realized that he could have easily swindled her out of the winning ticket. Even after telling her about it, he didn't bother asking for a share, or even a repayment of debts. He just sat there, smiling indulgently at her good (if not accidental) fortune.

 

She knew he was a huge sap, but she didn't realize just how much until now.

And so she did something she had never done before: “Thank you.”

 

To Jet, the sound of two simple words never felt more absolving since he'd taken on the rest of his motley crew. Sensing himself on the verge of ridiculous joy, he scrubbed hard at his balding head and mumbled: “Happy Valentine's Day.”

 

* Author's note: I know it's terribly sloppy NOT to understand the basic currency system of Cowboy Bebop, but just assume the number is First Prize of any big lottery win.