Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Stopping the Rain ❯ Homecoming ( Chapter 3 )

 

 

 

 

Spike winced as Faye shifted again to maneuver the controls of the Redtail. After getting the okay from the Doctor to move him they had both wedged into her transport and started back to the Bebop. The ship was right below them and to Spike he had never seen anything sweeter than that old heap. Faye hadn't really said much to him since she had left the room, and he was equal parts grateful and nervous. She usually wasn't this quiet unless she was planning something. Another quick flick of her wrist at the controls and she had opened the hangar and slid the Redtail into the dock. Without another word she had popped the hatch and hopped down to the ground. Spike was a bit slower to follow, holding his side as he attempted to climb down. He almost fell as he felt Faye's slim arms wrap around him and help him the rest of the way to the ground. Once he was steady she released her hold on him and went to get Jet's help. She stilled with her back to him when his voice rang out after her.

 

“Hey Faye…Thanks.”

 

Slowly she turned around with an indecipherable look on her angular face. With a curt nod in his direction, she broke the intense eye contact and left the hangar. Spike instantly slumped against the aircraft, not willing to show her how much pain he was really in. The several bullet wounds were nothing too new to him, but the almost complete evisceration was definitely causing some “slight discomfort.” Several minutes passed before Jet's booming voice rang out.

 

“Hey, boy do you look like shit.”

 

“You're aren't looking too bad yourself old man.” Spike shot back.

 

“Yeah I heard you got your self all shot up, but you don't seem too bad to me.” Jet leaned back and lit up a cigarette while appraising the bandage-covered sight before him.

 

“So you gonna help me out here or what?” Spike asked while making smoking motions with his fingers.

 

Laughing Jet lit up another and passed it to Spike. Slowly the two ambled back to the “living room” of sorts, Jet propping him up where necessary, where Spike slumped onto the couch in relief. He glanced around but didn't see a certain plum haired woman anywhere.

 

“She's in her room. Or the shower I'm guessing. She hasn't been here all week after all.” Jet said pointedly.

 

“And why would I care?” Spike asked as his head flopped back on the couch lip.

 

“Sure you don't.” Jet scoffed as he got up to go grab a beer from the fridge. “And this is my real arm.”

 

Both men froze when Faye walked into the room in a loose purple tank mini dress.

 

Stopping in the middle of the room she glanced back and forth between the silent pair. “Ok… what'd I miss?” She asked while she combed out her still damp hair.

 

“Nothing in the slightest.” Jet laughed as he watched Spike sneak peeks at Faye from behind drooped lids. “You going somewhere?”

 

“Yeah I'm going out. I'll be back later.” She tossed her brush on the table and sat to yank on a pair of thick-soled knee boots. Grabbing a thin leather jacket she left the room and the two men in it.

 

“Okay… so what's with the broad?” Spike asked almost as soon as Faye left. Before Jet could answer Faye came back in and shot a withering look at Spike.

 

“Can you not call me that? I've told you time and again baka…” She muttered as she again left.

 

Waiting for Jet's laughter to die down, Spike wondered what the hell was going on. He knew she was likely to change a little due to her memories coming back, but she was acting like an almost completely different person. The loud mouthed and quick-witted Faye was still definitely there, but it was now tempered by a softer personality. He had no doubt that she could still shoot and fly with the best of em' but it was somehow different. He was broken from his somewhat engrossing thoughts by Jet sitting in the chair opposite him.

 

“Yeah she's still Faye.” The older man chuckled, “Its great to see your face though.”

 

“Hey it doesn't matter to me one way or the other.” Spike winced as he reached for the pack of cigarettes someone had left on the table. Lighting up he noticed that the brand was all wrong for Jet, so he was smoking Faye's cigarettes. The thought made him smile a bit inside, she was likely to get pissed off and start acting more like the old Faye.

 

“Bell peppers and beef?” Jet asked as he moved to fix his specialty.

 

“Without the beef though…” Spike muttered in his general direction.

 

“Not this time my friend. Real meat and everything.” Jet called from the kitchen.

 

“You're kidding? What did you do, rob someone?” Spike snorted as he turned to lie down on the dingy yellow couch.

 

“No, and you'll never believe where it did come from.”

 

“Ein came back and you cooked him?” The wiry man sighed as he ashed his cigarette.

 

“Nope. It's our little freeloader that covered it. Or I guess I should say former freeloader. She paid for all the parts on the Bebop too.” Jet returned to the room with the warmed plate of food and laid it on Spike's chest, where it immediately fell into his lap when he sat strait up in shock.

 

“You've got to be shittin' me!” He yelled before a groan escaped his lips and he gripped his torso in pain.

 

“Hey take it easy there! You trying to rip yourself open again?” Jet scolded as he took in the mess now in Spike's lap. He figured that he would just eat it strait from his lap once the shock wore off.

 

“She didn't go directly to the nearest track and blow all her money? And where did she get it in the first place!” Spike yelled, oblivious to the food all over him.

 

“No clue actually. She didn't have time to go out and get a bounty, and none have been that big in the last couple of weeks anyway. She's been by your bedside for the last week in the first place. Heard she paid for that too.” Jet crossed his arms and re-seated himself across from Spike.

 

“Yeah…” Spike trailed off as he scooped a bit off the food off of his lap and into his mouth. “What the hell is going on with her?”

 

“Wish I knew myself. Hope she hasn't gotten herself into anything, but knowing her that's most likely the case.”

 

“And she'll expect us to bail her out when the shit hits the fan no doubt…” Spike scoffed, making up his mind of where the sudden cash had come from.

 

“And we will, no doubt.” Jet stated, staring at Spike to gauge his reaction.

 

“No doubt.” Spike sighed as he finished off the rest of his food in companionable silence. Something was bothering him about the whole thing. Her attitude, the money, the actual caring about other people, that little dress that made her legs look even longer than her ridiculous shorts did. Not that he had noticed of course.

 

Jet got up to leave but before he got out of the room Spike had one more question. “Jet, why did she come? I get why you didn't, but I don't get why she did.”

 

“Honestly I'm not really sure. She was all worked up after you left, pacing around and cursing. Then she just took off. She called up about three hours later, from the clinic. The doc had just gotten you sewn up, but you were still out. What actually happened? She didn't say anything much except that she “Took care of it,” whatever the hell that means.” Jet returned again to his seat.

 

“Well from what I can remember, that means that she gunned down over twenty men by herself.” Spike lit another of Faye's cigarettes, exhaling slowly. What had that crazy chick been thinking? She could have gotten herself killed…

 

“Twenty? Jesus I knew she was one tough woman, but that's kind of insane isn't it?” Jet whistled.

 

“I still don't know exactly how she did it.” Spike ground out the cigarette.

 

“I dazzled them with my wit and good looks.” Faye put in dryly as she came into the room carrying two large paper bags.

 

Both men started as she dropped the bags heavily on the steel table in the back of the room. They sat frozen as she unloaded grocery item after grocery item into the refrigerator. Finishing up she slammed the door shut with the sole of her boot and tossed the bags into the trash. She then grabbed up a smaller white bag she had pulled from the larger ones, along with three beers. Unsnapping the mandarin collar from her jacket she tossed it across the railing before crossing the room and flopping on the couch next to Spike. She threw a beer to Jet before handing the other to Spike along with the white bag. She cracked open her own beer before noticing that they were still staring at her.

 

“What?”

 

“You ever seen a old movie called “The Tale of the Body Snatchers”?” Jet asked as he stopped staring at her and started staring at the beer can in his hand.

 

“What's the big deal? It's just beer, not like I gave you a whole other starship or something…” Faye muttered as she lit up a smoke from a pack in one of the large pockets in the front of her dress.

 

“Yeah, but it's not our beer, and you haven't drank all of it yet…” Jet continued while Spike just kept staring at her.

 

“So? Get over it. See what happens when a girl tries to be a little kind… I guess next time I just won't share.” She snorted in his general direction.

 

Trance finally broken Spike opened the bag she had handed him, a bit puzzled by what he found. There were at least four bottles of pills there, ranging from antibiotics to painkillers. He dumped the bag out on the table and lined them up.

 

“What's all this?”

 

“It's a puppy.” Faye deadpanned before snorting again. “It's your medicine idiot. What do you think?”

 

“You got me pills?” Spike asked in disbelief.

“Yeah. Better than you getting infected and ruining all the doctors fine stitch work.” Faye rolled her eyes as she finished off her beer.

 

“Faye, what did happen with the Red Dragons?” Jet interrupted what could potentially become a yelling match between the two.

 

“Huh?” Faye cocked her head at him in mid lighting of her cigarette.

 

“Red Dragons… ya know, the major syndicate… scary guys, lots of guns?” Jet prodded in annoyance. This new Faye was saving him tons of money, but wasn't good on his heart. If she started doing anything else nice he just might keel over.

 

“Yeah, what about them, they don't exist any more.” She stated matter of factly as she finally managed to touch the flame to the end of her smoke.

 

“Well how did you get Spike out of there? How did you even get in there in the first place?” The older man asked.

 

“Oh, well our super smart guy here blew a hole in the roof. So I came in that way.” Faye shrugged and laid her head back on the couch. The little nap at the doctors didn't do anything for the extreme fatigue. She felt like she could sleep for a year, which she just might.

 

“You came in from the roof? How?” Spike looked at her calm face and closed eyes, completely mystified.

 

“Ran a cable down and took it from there. God why are you two bakas so worried about this? It's taken care of, what I didn't take care of I'm sure someone else did.” Her eyes slowly slid open, but remained focused on the ceiling.

 

“So you slid down a cable like some sort of secret operative, shot up a bunch of Dragons and it's no big deal? Woman do you have rocks for brains? What kind of plan was that?” Jet bellowed at her.

 

Green eyes leveled on his and she quirked a smile at him, shocking him into silence. “There wasn't exactly a plan. I saw an explosion. I know how fuzzy loves to blow stuff up, so I decided that was as good a place as any to start. So I dropped in and took care of what Spike didn't already. I still don't see what the problem is!”

 

Spike turned to her again and decided to let his most pressing question wait until later.

 

Faye hopped up off of the couch, stretching her arms over her head. “I'm going to go to bed now, Jet can you wake me up before we leave so I can load up on some stuff?”

 

Jet nodded at her then turned to where Spike was watching her leave the room from the corner of his eye. “See something you like there?”

 

“I don't have any idea what you're talking about.”

 

Laughing to himself Jet stood, intent on finishing the last of the repairs to the Bebop. Spike's voice stopped him though.

 

“Hey Jet, we goin' somewhere?”

 

“Earth. She says that there is business she has to attend to there, and offered to pay for travel expenses.” Jet shrugged. He had been awake for the entire time Faye had been changing, and it still shocked the hell out of him. He couldn't even begin to imagine what Spike was thinking. He left him to his thoughts as he ambled down the hallway and back towards the engine room.

 

 

 

 

+++++

 

 

 

Back on the yellow couch Spike was still staring after Jet. Last time Faye had wanted to go to earth they had just woken up there, completely off course, and completely out of both fuel and food. He was starting to wonder about that body snatcher thing. A soft clump to his right announced Faye's return. She hopped under the rail and reached onto the table in front of him to snag her cigarettes, leaving one pack where they lay. Just as she was starting to pull away, Spike's hand shot out and grabbed her wrist.

 

“Spike?” Faye asked, her voice wavering slightly.

 

“So why'd you do it?” He asked, not looking at her.

 

“Huh?”

 

“Why did you come for me? You could have easily been killed, and I never asked you to play knight in shining armor.” Looking up, his mismatched eyes locked with her own green ones, both shining with emotions neither understood.

 

“Yeah, but didn't I already answer this question?”

 

“Not really. So why did you really come? And don't feed me some bullshit answer either.” He let go of her wrist, still feeling the warmth of her skin on his.

 

“Does it really matter?” Faye asked, her eyes still locked with his.

 

“To a point, yeah. So what was it? Felt the need to go out for an evening ride and just happened to come across my little situation? What's the deal Faye?” His eyes flickered across her face before returning to her eyes. She remained silent for a moment before turning away from him and starting to leave the room again without a word.

 

“Faye?”

 

Faye stopped with her back still to Spike, unwilling to turn and look at him. “Because you needed help. And because some things you shouldn't have to do on your own, whether or not you want to. One day you'll figure that out.”

 

She left the man sitting in the room even more confused than before.