Chapter Text
She saw him last.
She felt him first, hard, calloused fingers against the base of her neck, squeezing pressure points until everything faded to black.
She smelled him next, smoke and oil and ash, as she blinked back into consciousness, slumped against a pile of rubble.
Then she heard him, as he stepped back into the shadows, his katana scrapping over the stone floor.
“Spike. Where is he.”
Faye shook her head, trying to clear it. She’d been walking home from work when he grabbed her. She should’ve seen it coming, but all these months of quiet had made her sloppy.
“I don’t know,” she said. It was the truth.
She and Spike had sort of danced, sort of fought, and sort of said goodbye two months ago, and he’d been back and forth ever since. Shin was running things at the Dragon now, working harder than ever to bring it over to the more legitimate sides of business. They still did plenty of illegal activities, making and running Red Eye, and a few other smuggling ops, but now Shin was in so tight with the Tharsis government that he was basically untouchable. That made Faye feel better; Lola would be fine, if anything went wrong. But she doubted it would, because Shin was good at his job. Spike would’ve have trusted him with it, if he wasn’t.
Spike himself left pretty quickly, and Faye thought for those first few weeks he was gone that she’d never see him again. But he came back in the end, like he said he would. They settled into a routine after that—he would stop by when he was in town, and she wouldn’t ask how long he was planning to stay. It wasn’t perfect, but they never had been in the first place.
He’d left again, just a few days ago, so Faye honestly had no idea where he was now.
“Think he’ll come for you.”
Threat? Or casual conversation?
That’s when Faye noticed her hands weren’t tied. She wasn’t bound or gagged; there was nothing holding her here, save his menacing presence behind her.
Where is here, anyway?
She sat up and looked around, or, at least, she tried to, peering through the gloom. It took her a few moments, but then she got it. Of course he brought her here. It was only fitting.
The church, from so long ago, when he’d kidnapped her the first time. Spike had come to save her then, but she wasn’t so sure he’d come now.
Yet, this time, she felt totally at ease. He didn’t scare her anymore, not the way he used to. Whatever happens, happens. Spike had taught her that, and it was sticking. She wasn’t being held hostage, she realized. She was being hosted, brought here for a conversation, to keep him company while they waited.
But Spike was God knows where, so they could be waiting for a long time.
“He might,” she finally replied. “You sure know how to push his buttons.”
“He just likes to play the hero. I’m giving him another chance.”
Faye personally thought Spike was pretty far from heroic, but she guessed when you compared the two of them, Spike would come out on top. He at least killed people with a gun, instead of a sword.
She could hear that sword, scraping against the ground as he paced back and forth. Part of her wanted to talk with him, and part of her was content to just keep sitting on this chunk of rock, waiting until either Spike showed up or he got bored enough to let her go.
Though, there was another, wilder part of her that wondered what would happen if she just tried to walk out.
“I saw him. On Titan.”
His voice was closer now, rough as ever.
“Who? Spike?”
Maybe he had gone as crazy as people said. Maybe the rumors were true. Spike was with him the whole time on Titan, she knew. That’s how Spike got shot in the first place. She wondered if he showed up now, if he’d get shot again. With her fucking gun, probably, because he had taken that.
“No. Him.”
And then Faye understood. There was only one him. She almost said his name, but she remembered the threat from before, bloody hands on her throat and fiery hate in his eyes.
“Where?”
“His ship. He was in it.”
“How was he?”
“Dead.”
Well, she expected that. Gren had died long ago, probably even before he landed back on Titan.
“He told you about me.”
Another one of his damn pseudo-questions. She was tired of it.
“Yeah. Not much.”
“What did he say.”
She thought about it, trying to recall. It had been so long now, and everything he’d told her was surrounded by an aura of mystery. She only knew what she could interpret, and that, like she said, wasn’t much.
“He said you were comrades.”
“Comrades.” He spat out the word so bitterly, so scathingly it made Faye flinch. “But he kept this.”
This?
She heard his katana, scraping, closer and closer, until he finally emerged from the shadows to stand in front of her. She couldn’t help the way her breath caught in her throat.
The last time she saw him, he’d been walking off the Bebop, tailing Spike like a shadow, silent and somber and smooth.
He was nothing like that now.
His eyes were red, the bruises under them a deep, dark purple that no amount of sleep could remove. He was pulled taut, ready to snap. She could see his hand, where it gripped the katana, shaking with tension, with whatever the hell was tearing him apart inside. His hair was wild, his clothes torn, and his skin was deathly pale, like he hadn’t seen the sun in months. Maybe he hadn’t.
He used to look intimidating. Now Vicious looked utterly unhinged.
He shoved a trembling hand, the one not holding his katana, in her face, and she saw what he was referring to. She almost gasped again, because it was something she’d seen before. And she realized, in the next breath, that this is what Vicious had been holding, after Titan.
It was the photo.
From Gren’s apartment, the one that tipped her off, the one she’d seen right before Vicious had called and she’d ambushed Gren in the shower. And then, of course, she’d learned his secret, his life story.
All because of this damn picture. Gren smirking at the camera, Vicious glowering in the background. Ripped down the middle, taped back together. She wondered what that said about Gren, about their relationship. How Vicious interpreted it, when he saw it.
“Where…where did you find that?” she asked, voice thick around the lump in her throat. It made her blood run cold, the thought of Vicious ransacking Gren’s apartment.
“He was holding it.”
Not his apartment then. His ship. On Titan. Gren was holding it, as he died. Gren was holding it, and then he died.
“Why did he keep it.”
Faye blinked up at him, eyes wide.
“Why did he keep it,” he repeated.
She shook her head. She didn’t know. She’d never known, not really. If Vicious couldn’t figure it out, then no one could. Only Gren had the answer, and he was dead.
“Why did he keep it!” he shouted suddenly, his voice like broken glass.
But all she could do was shake her head. “I don’t know. He never said.”
Vicious slammed the photo into the wall above her, snarling. He was breathing harshly now, and she could see his body shaking. She wondered when he’d slept last. Or eaten. Or anything really, besides lived on spite and hate and a thirst for revenge.
That’s why she was here now, she supposed. He wanted revenge.
But on who? For what?
It couldn’t be Spike, not anymore. All their past was dead and gone, buried in some secret place beside Julia’s body.
It wasn’t her. If it was, she’d already be dead.
Gren, maybe. He’d haunted Vicious long enough, even when Vicious was too cruel to feel it. But now, he was starting to see the ghosts, creeping in at the edges of his vision and invading the darker corners of his mind.
She wondered what he’d dreamt about, when he was in the coma. If Gren ever came to him, asked him things, the way he did to her. Things like, ‘why didn’t you stop me?’ and ‘have you forgotten me?’
‘Don’t forget me.’
“Don’t forget him.”
Faye was shocked to hear herself speak. Vicious regarded her with those awful, cold eyes. They weren’t so cold now, not with so much unchecked emotion in them. Anger, hate, fear.
Regret.
Forget or regret?
“How can I,” Vicious said slowly, “when I close my eyes, and he’s the only thing I can fucking see.”
He shook his head, backing away tiredly, glancing down at the picture again and whispering to himself.
“Why did he keep it.”
Faye stood up gingerly, waiting to see if he would react. But Vicious didn’t even notice her. He was looking at the photo, as it was slowly crushed within his trembling hand.
“Why did he keep it.”
Faye took one careful step, then another. Still nothing. Then she took another, and another, and another, until she was walking normally, the exit in her sights. She didn’t bother to try and get her gun. It was just a gun.
Whatever was happening to Vicious was much more than that.
She was at the doors now, could feel the light misting of rain on her face. She glanced back, just once.
Vicious was on his knees now, silver hair illuminated by the broken stained glass window, katana shining just as bright. His head was bowed, eyes fixed on the picture, like if he looked away, he’d die.
Faye took a breath, squaring her shoulders, before stepping out of the church and leaving him, leaving Gren, leaving all of it, finally, finally, behind her.
The whisper followed her, just once, riding softly on the wind, through the rain.
“Why did he keep it.”