Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction / Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Once More, With Pirates ❯ Empty Spaces ( Chapter 26 )

A/N: This chapter, and the next one are tough. I'm trying to give Faye justice in this, and a lot of things will be coming out about her role in all this mess, as well as her feelings, and why she's been so… Un-Faye-like.

 

 

Empty Spaces

 

What shall we use; To fill the empty spaces; Where we used to talk? How shall I fill;
The final places? How should I complete the wall - Pink Floyd (The Wall)

 

By the time Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc came to the inescapable realization that the hot water wasn't in any danger of ever running out, his skin was scalded bright red, and his fingers had turned pruny. But at least he no longer felt slimy.

 

He sat on the edge of his bed in nothing but a towel, and tried not to think about the trial. But the silence had become deafening. Unnerving. He couldn't quite put a finger on why it was so disturbing, except that he just really didn't want to be alone with his thoughts.

 

He found himself thinking of Marie, and tried to shove that thought aside. She probably wasn't going to be speaking to him after the way he reacted to finding out she was a chimera. No, he corrected. Genetic manipulation here. It's not alchemy; it's technology. And it's not her fault.

 

He sighed and scrubbed at his face. Deanna said her father was from Earth, and her mother from Betazed. Both similar, but two different races, he reminded himself. Similar, but not quite the same biology. There are others here, too. Are they any different?

 

Genetics was something he picked up on as he grew up. It was part and parcel of being a farm boy. Animal husbandry. Breeding a horse to a donkey gave them a mule; with all the best properties of either species, but fewer of the problems. Combining plants to manipulate the best genetics, in order for crops to give a higher yield and survive common diseases, or be drought resistant was all a part of farming.

 

The only difference he could see was that manipulating people took away their choice and made them nothing more than a commodity. It was a fine line, he realized, between someone like Deanna being born of parents from two different worlds, and someone like Marie, who was the same, but created out of a desire for power, not love.

 

He shoved himself off the bed, and went to get dressed. He wasn't sure where Marie was. He wasn't even sure she was on the ship. But he wanted to at least try to locate her, and apologize. Even if it was all he could get out before she pounded him into a fine powder.

 

“Not that I don't deserve it,” he mumbled, as he headed through the common room to the door.

 

And promptly slammed face-first into it.

 

He stumbled back, and blinked. Then he took a cautious few steps toward it again, and it remained mulishly closed. A fine brow arched, and he tried to remember what he needed to say to get the computer to respond. “Computer, open the door.”

 

Silence.

 

“Shit,” he grumbled, and flopped down on the nearest seat. “Well, don't this just throw a bucket of ice water on the dogs.”

 

0o0o0

 

A couple hours, and several stiff drinks later, Havoc was slouched back on the couch, head back and staring out of the slanted port from the odd angle. He figured it didn't make much difference whether he was right side up, or upside down; it was space, and it all looked the same to him. He was at least grateful the food replicators were working, if nothing else was, but he'd so far put off eating anything. Drinking seemed to be a much more attractive activity at the moment.

 

He heard the sound of someone stumbling around in the other room, and the unmistakable sound of a shower starting. He raised his head, held his glass up in salute, and said, “Welcome back… whoever you are.” Then he downed it in one gulp.

 

A few minutes later, he heard the new occupant come out of the sleeping room, and pad toward the door. Without raising his head, he said, “Door don't work.”

 

He heard a muttered curse and a thump on the door, and the person moving back to the center of the room. “You could always drink,” Havoc said. He held up his glass, which was still empty. “Not that it does much good. But at least if you're drunk, you can pretend it didn't happen.”

 

“Jean?” Havoc recognized the voice as belonging to Hughes, and he slowly brought his head upright. The man was standing in the center of the main room, and looking at him oddly, almost like he was trying not to laugh. Havoc failed to see any humor in the situation himself, and scowled.

 

“You do know that you're drinking something called synthohol, right?”

 

“Yeah? What about it? Drunk is drunk right now. I'm not picky.”

 

Hughes chuckled then, and pulled a seat from the table. “You're not drunk. That's the point.”

 

Havoc arched a brow. “Eh? I feel pretty buzzed.”

 

Hughes sat down, and propped his elbows on the table. He shook his head, but couldn't stop grinning. “It's all in your head, Jean. Synthohol tastes like the real thing, but doesn't have the intoxicating effects.” He shrugged, and the grin became a sympathetic quirk of the lips. “Sorry to ruin it for you.”

 

Havoc leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. He stared down into the empty glass in silence a moment. “Damn,” he whispered.

 

He lightly bounced the glass in his hand a couple times, then hurled it with as much force as he could at the nearest wall. It shattered with a satisfying crash.

 

Hughes ducked instinctively, even though the glass came nowhere near him, and after a moment, smirked at Havoc. “Feel better?”

 

“Not really. No.” He looked over at Hughes, and scowled. “Might, if that had been Q's head.”

 

0o0o0

 

Faye's first warning that this was not going to be a typical testimony was the fact that Jet couldn't look her in the eyes as she crossed the `courtroom' to the platform. She could only remember one other time he did that; the day her whole world shattered in a million pieces.

 

She knew when Spike walked off to meet Vicious for the last time that he wouldn't be back. She thought she'd already shed her tears and mourned as she watched him fade into the darkened corridor. Her grief had begun when he didn't look back; didn't even flinch when she fired her gun over her head, deafening herself, and everyone on the ship with the explosive echoes of her hurt.

 

But there had been a small shred of hope.

 

That was painfully destroyed later with the sound of a rough voice, thick with suppressed emotion, as Jet uttered only two words. Confirming, solidifying… making it all too real.

 

The faces of the others there set alarm bells off within her, as well. The dark-eyed and exotic Mustang, who never allowed his thoughts to show on his face; was now looking up at the dais behind her with raw disgust and cold fury. Riker, who appeared so open, was hooded except for the tell-tale tension in his jaw. The killer, Scar, whose red eyes burned with passion and hatred, was now looking at her with a mixture of sadness and… shame.

 

She'd only been introduced to these people, she never spoke to them. They were unconnected to her. All of this was unconnected to her.

 

All of this had to do with something that had happened to Jet and Spike when she was nowhere around. Something she knew almost nothing about, because before Spike could tell her, they'd been rudely yanked from their own universe, and deposited in a burned out building with killers, aliens, androids, and two children that rivaled Edward with the level of strangeness that surrounded them.

 

And it was all too much for her to digest at once.

 

It overwhelmed her, and she really, really hated the feeling of being overwhelmed. It meant she wasn't in control. And that feeling silenced her usual penchant for letting all and sundry know when she was in a foul mood.

 

The silence was safer, though. Because if she gave voice to her confusion, she was afraid it would devour her, and there would be nothing left of Faye Valentine. So she chose to wear her isolation like a cloak, hiding her. Protecting her.

 

She knew she was worrying Jet. She could see it in the way he looked at her. She just didn't know how to tell him. She didn't think Spike had even noticed, though. He's too busy with that short blonde kid, she thought bitterly; and instantly wondered why that should bother her at all.

 

She glanced down at the small woman in the hard chair, as she walked past; and the woman looked back at her, unflinching. She wanted to hate this stranger. This cause of all the strife her friends, and the people they knew, were now dealing with. She wanted to hate her, but she couldn't. What the woman had supposedly done was unconnected to Faye. She didn't yank her from her small life and throw her into this mess.

 

That honor belonged to the entity sitting on the dais behind her.

 

Faye never looked at him. She didn't dare. The first time she saw Q, she thought he was a joke. A show-off, and a spoiled brat. He could do a few tricks, but she was confident that the three people she considered friends… family… would figure out what his game was.

 

But an instant after she attempted to wrap her brain around the incongruousness of a small child's voice coming from a huge suit of armor, that armor was shattered by a mere touch, and Faye suddenly knew what real fear was. That the armor was put back together, and the child within was as whole as he'd been before, only compounded that fear. The entity could do anything he wanted to her, and she would not be able to fight back, even a little bit. He could do anything he wanted to any of them, and nothing, not even the impressive technology on the Enterprise, would make a difference. All of them were completely, and utterly helpless.

 

Scar gestured her up onto the platform, and quietly advised her that she couldn't lie; she couldn't hesitate while being questioned and her hand was in that black box. He explained how it worked, but she barely heard him. She got the gist of it, though. It was enough.

 

A sick, sinking feeling settled into the pit of her stomach when she realized that it was a cold-blooded serial killer who was showing something akin to compassion and remorse for what she was about to go through.

 

She took a deep breath and slipped her right hand into the box. It made her shudder briefly, but she could tolerate it.

 

At least I'm not tits-deep in Ship Creek again, she thought. Her lips quirked slightly at the memory. And it doesn't smell like fish ass. She blinked, and wondered where that memory had come from. It had been over six months since she'd had to tackle a runaway bounty in the rancid silt and mud of the Alaskan creek. Just before she nearly died in an attempt to save a man she had barely begun to accept was dead.

 

I'd do it again, she thought, and looked up at the three men who were waiting patiently for her; she stopped at Jet, and his eyes finally met hers. There was a smoldering quality to them that only one who knew him well would be able to pick up on. I'd do it for both of them.

 

She only knew that Spike and Jet were involved in this somehow. She just didn't know how. If this Q wants the unvarnished truth, then so be it, she thought to Jet, as she straightened, and cocked a brow. It might not be what he wants, though.

 

He nodded imperceptibly, as though he heard her. He understood. He knew the look. And she knew his.

 

“Let's get this bullshit over with,” she said. “I have better things to do with my time.”

 

Q chuckled low from the dais behind her. The sound chilled her, and caused her to start. She had almost… almost forgotten he was there. She felt a tiny needle jab into the top of her hand, and she hissed as a burning sensation crawled up her arm to her shoulder.

 

“Feisty, aren't you?” Q said from behind her. “Well, Commander Riker, you should enjoy questioning her. I'd say she'll provide quite a challenge.”

 

Faye started to turn with a retort on her lips, but the movement came to an abrupt halt as the resultant shift of her right hand triggered several tiny burning needle jabs into hand, wrist, and partway up her arm. Tears sprung unbidden to her eyes, and she bit down on a cry.

 

“Faye,” Jet said softly, and she faced him. Only when she was back in position, did the needles release her. But the burning didn't end.

 

“Why am I even here?” she asked.