Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Coin ❯ Memories ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: Do I even need to bother with this? *sigh* I don't own Cowboy Bebop. I don't own the characters. I don't make any money off this. Sue me, I dare you. You might get a horribly malfunctioned computer out of the deal, and some cds. Not enough to make it worthwhile, I assure you.

I don't know if there will be more to this one. I never know. Always best to read my stuff in order, but this one, as of chapter 2 *could* stand alone. I don't know about after chapter 2. There is other stuff on this floating about in my head, but I don't know if I can get it up here anytime soon. We shall see. Until then, here. Chapters one and two. R/R as you will.

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1. Memories Pace. Pace. Sit. Smoke. Pace. Smoke. Sit. Smoke. Pace.

Over and over, filling so much time, that he couldn't remember how long it had been. Little room. Metal walls. Pace, smoke. Sit, smoke. Smoke, pace. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Spike ran his fingers though his fluffy, green hair, and slumped against the wall. His mind wandered. He thought of what he'd lost, the life before he'd died. The life after he'd died, before he died the second time. He thought little of now. There was no now to him, really. He thought of Jet, and the Bebop. He thought of the kid, and the critter. He thought of the purple haired girl with the attitude. Mostly he thought of the blonde girl; the dead girl. Mostly, he thought about Vicious.

He could remember everything, right up until the end. And he just couldn't place why he hadn't just...gone. Why he'd come back. Vicious had to have died. He didn't miss. Vicious wouldn't have fallen if he'd missed the shot. If Vicious hadn't died, Spike knew he wouldn't have either. He couldn't figure out which one of them had breached contract; both stars should have faded away into the Great Spirit, but instead, they had fallen. And they were left to wander with only one thing that would end it- Both of their deaths. Spike knew Vicious couldn't be far. They could never be far from one another. They were like two sides of a coin, neither pure evil, neither pure good, but still a completion of one another. There was no separating them completely.

Spike was reminded of the last time he'd seen a star fall. Well, the last one that mattered to him in any way. The one that had heightened his resolve to destroy Vicious; had heightend his belief that Vicious was not the same man he had once known. That Vicious no longer had any capacity to care about anyone but himself. Grencia Mars Eliijah Guo Eckener. A name he would never forget. A bounty he'd been able to turn in, had he tried, but had instead, set him on a course to the stars to be consumed by the Space Lion. Spike had seen that star fall, and it had hit him in a way death had never hit him before. Gren had known Julia. Gren had known Vicious. Gren had been something that he had never experienced before, and would never experience again. And that face, as he'd programmed the ship to take the purple haired man with the sad, haunted eyes, to Titan...That face. It was still in his dreams, sometimes. Spike wondered sometimes if he'd made it. Then shook his head, knowing the man's condition had been far too severe...

Several tears escaped Spike's eyes. He was remembering. Remembering everything.... Gren, the man stronger in spirit than he appeared. Jet, the partner he'd shared the Bebop with for years. Ein and Ed. The critter and the kid that he'd grown to care for, despite his best efforts to despise them. Faye, the purple haired girl with the attitude. The girl he thought he might have been able to care for, if it weren't for Julia. If it weren't for the fact that he didn't even know what caring was, some days. If it weren't for the fact that the only reason he still lived was to destroy Vicious. He remembered, and he wondered. He wondered what had happened to them after he'd left. He'd heard Faye tell him not to go, but couldn't have stopped had he wanted to. And he didn't want to. "I'm not going to die. I'm going to see if I'm alive or not." he'd told her. He already knew the answer. Already knew he'd been living in a dream since he'd left, just waiting. Waiting to wake up. Waiting to live. Or to die. It didn't matter.

He remembered the last words he'd heard from Jet. The story...

Do you know a story that goes like this? A man injured his leg during

a hunt. In the middle of the savanna with no means to treat the wound,

the leg rots, and death approaches. The man got onto the airplane that

finally arrived and there he sees a land of pure white below him. The

place glistening in the light was the summit of a snow-covered

mountain. The name of the mountain was Kilimanjaro. The man thinks

"That was where he was headed..."

He remembered his impatience. Remembered not really caring what Jet was saying, but his mind had filed it away anyway, as though it were important. Remembered Jet saying he hated the story; remembered Jet telling him, in his own way, not to go.

Men only think about the past right before their

death, as if they were searching frantically for proof that they were

alive. Turn back. You told me when we first met that you were a man

who had already died once. Just forget the past, okay?

He remembered what he'd told Jet. His way of explaining that he had to go. That he had no other choice. That he feared, in the only way he knew how, that he was already dead, and that it didn't matter.

There was a woman. For the first time in my life I saw a woman that

was truly alive. That's what I believed. She was a piece of me I had

lost. She is my other half that I had longed for.

He remembered going back. Remembered finding Julia. He remembered her gun, and the rain, and the memories bled together. Spike's good eye stayed closed. The other one opened. The fake one.

One eye sees the past.....

Everything bled together. He didn't seem to notice the blood seeping from the fake eye. Red tears.

You will cry red tears....