Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Lullaby for the Shattered Soul ❯ A Family Tune ( Chapter 4 )

~Disclaimer:~ Hopefully you get it by now: I do not own Cowboy Bebop. But I do own Kirsche. Take her and I will beat you mercilessly with a stick.

A/N: Wow. I couldn't get this chapter to flow like I wanted, and after much revising I'm still not pleased with it. Oh well. Please, please REVIEW!

ALSO: I had read the whole `magic word' scene with Edward somewhere, and it was so cute I had to use it! Credit where credit is due.

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A Family Tune

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It was quite an effort to get the mulberry woman safely out of the cockpit, but after fifteen minutes of struggling Spike finally managed to carry her out of the hanger. She weighed more than her slender figure let on.

`Note to self: if you value your life, never let her hear you say that.' Spike rolled his eyes as he half carried-half dragged the mulberry woman through the hatch, heading into what Faye called the `lounge'.

The Bebop was originally an interplanetary trawler, designed to catch fish on Ganymede and transport them under refrigeration throughout the solar system. Later purchased by Jet, the large ship was retrofitted with a new high-powered communications system and larger engines to aid in bounty hunting.

The Bebop had been Spike and Jet's home base for all their operations, and also served as a home for those who have nowhere else to go (explaining Faye's convenient stays). Though the ship was large, the crew generally resided in the stern, as the rest of the ship mainly consisted of cargo holds and refrigeration units.

Jet and Faye were currently loafing around watching an old soap opera on the temporarily fixed vid-screen, raising their voices to argue over the actors onscreen.

"C'mon, Jet, just for a little while? Ganymede has some excellent casinos, it'd just be for a little while."

"No way. Knowing you, you'd gamble all our last woolongs away."

"But we don't have any woolongs."

"Exactly."

The sound airy sound of the hatch swinging open interrupted their argument, and both bounty hunters blinked blankly at Spike's rather dramatic entrance. Faye's jaw dropped and Jet's eyebrows shot up in surprise, both at a loss for words as the confusion sunk in.

The music from the television swelled in suspense, a woman had just found out the results of a pregnancy test. The camera zoomed in on each stunned face, eventually panning in on the face of the father. Jet cleared his throat uncomfortably, trying to break the tight silence as gently as possible.

`My my, isn't this awkward. . .' the older man thought, absently rubbing the back of his neck and trying hard not to stare at the pretty woman none-too-gracefully slumped in Spike's arms. Luckily for him, Spike broke the momentary tension with a trademark smirk.

"Miss me?"

"Gee, Spike, successful hunt? Men, so primitive. Don't tell me you resorted to Neanderthal traditions and whacked her over the head before dragging her back to your cave, eh, lunkhead?" Faye commented snidely. Spike merely shrugged, his brain snapping a comeback automatically.

"Nah, women are always trouble. But if I was going to bash someone over the head, don't worry, it'd be you, wench." His lips curled into a condescending smirk at her scowl.

"You try and I'll fill you full of holes, you poofy-haired jackass!"

It had always been thus with Spike and Faye. The shrew and the lunkhead. A snarl and a curse, always bickering like spoiled children. Thank God, Jet had always been the one who was levelheaded (sort of). Standing and drawing himself up to tower over the others, he peered down on them in an authoritative manor, giving both the shrew and the lunkhead a stern glare.

"Come on, you two! Grow up," he growled, rubbing his forehead tiredly. "We have bigger matters to deal with… Set her down here, Spike." The bearded man stood and motioned toward the lumpy old couch. His face was a mask of discomfort, but he managed to keep his voice even. "We'll fix her wounds for her."

Spike made a mental note not to make any comments about Jet's cooking for a while. Just as he had situated the woman on the flat cushions, a familiar young voice rang vociferously through the empty halls of the Bebop, and a head of bright red hair emerged from the kitchen.

"Spike-person's back!" the childish face squealed, dancing from the kitchen to wrap its arms around his legs. Spike gave Edward the same indifferent stare he had given her for the past year, hoping to deter her unwavering attention, but to no avail.

"Did Spike-person bring Edward a souvenir?"

"No, just this chick," Faye interjected, pointing to the cataleptic woman on the couch.

Releasing the long legs, Ed bounced up close to the couch, peering into the sleeping face of the mulberry woman with unbridled curiosity. Her wide amber eyes blinked twice as her mouth formed a little `o' of questioning.

"Edward has seen this lady-person before, Ed thinks so, yes! Lady-ma'am with hair of pink, Tomato tells Edward her Bebop link!"

Faye and Spike met bored glances and shrugged in unison. Ed was Ed. No use rattling your brain trying to figure her out. Pulling her goggles down over her eyes, Ed raced out of the lounge in search of her laptop, which she had dubbed "Tomato" while a plump little Welsh Corgi followed at her heels, barking in agreement. Edward's voice could be heard down the corridors as she hunted for Tomato.

"Let's go, Ein, Tomato HO!"

Jet shook his head before inspecting the mulberry woman's wounds carefully and with a professional air, gently peeling back her blood soaked sleeve and moving it over her shoulder so that he could better see the bullet hole. As he did so, the woman began to revive, screwing her eyes shut in pain and weakly tossing her head to the side. Faye approached the woman, leering at her with amusement dancing in her jade eyes.

"Hey, you all right?" she asked good-naturedly. Spike snorted. Jet sighed in annoyance. The mulberry woman squinted up at the motley trio, blinking in confusion. She sat up, wincing as pain shot through her bloodied arm.

"This probably goes without saying, but where the hell am I?"

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

One long explanation later, the crew of the Bebop carefully interrogated the mulberry woman. Why had she been on Callisto? She was hiding. From who? The men chasing her. What did those men want, anyways?

The woman snorted and muttered, "Sorry, classified."

Faye grinned and sat back on the horribly discolored couch, watching the berry-haired woman inquisitively. "Okay, here's an easy one: who are you?"

"Kirsche. My name is Kirsche. It's German for `cherry'. I'm from Mars, I think. Can't remember, but I think that's where I was born, or maybe it was Ganymede," the mulberry woman told them. Faye had to admit; the woman sure looked like a cherry, what with the handfuls of pink curls bouncing on her shoulders and what not.

Jet frowned. Kirsche. The name sounded so familiar, but he couldn't quite remember where he had heard it. It was vaguely on the tip of his tongue, but just out of reach. But the mulberry woman had no intention of pausing in her verbal tirade so he mentally dismissed it. Damn, women love to hear themselves talk, don't they?

Jet had carefully stitched the two bullet holes back together, but Kirsche's shirt was so stiff with dried blood that she had to take it off. Faye had offered to let Kirsche borrow one of her tops, but Kirsche politely declined. The rather revealing and provocative clothes that Faye owned really weren't much better than sitting around in her bra.

Luckily, Spike gave her one of his old shirts to wear. It was a few sizes too big and came down to her knees, but Kirsche smiled and thanked him profusely, turning up the yellow collar like she had seen Spike wear his.

As she chatted happily with the rest of the Bebop crew, Spike began to realize what a huge contrast there was between the mulberry woman and his Julia. It almost made him feel. . . disappointed.

Sure, they had the same face and carried themselves with the same cool, confident air, but Kirsche was much more bouncy and cheery, with a child-like innocence that reminded him of Edward. He chuckled humorlessly at that. She wielded a gun with almost as much skill and deadly accuracy as he. Hmph, some innocent child.

Julia had an unmistakable dangerous elegance, with a lilting laugh saved for special occasions. He had been remembering little details like that ever since he had met the pianist, and he found himself thinking of her more than he had in the past three years.

Edward unceremoniously popped in from time to time. Her first encounter with Kirsche was rather amusing, if Spike could say so himself. With a glazed look covering her tan face, Edward zoomed into the lounge, arms out in front of her and making car noises. "Vrrrrooooom!"

The red-headed kid had quickly latched onto one of the pianist's muscular calves, resting her chin on the woman's knees and looking up with enormous amber eyes. "Kirsche-person, hi!" So she had been listening in on the conversation.

"That's Ed," Jet indicated the girl attached to her legs. Kirsche gave Ed a nervous smile, her face a mask of confusion.

"Who? Ed?"

"Me. Ed is me!" Edward grinned broadly, squeezing Kirsche's legs tightly. Kirsche tried to lift a limb out of the kid's grasp, but Edward held on happily. The mulberry woman patted the top of the kid's head tentatively, loosing the circulation in her feet.

"Hey Ed, do you mind letting go?"

"Magic word," Edward told her. Kirsche blinked in confusion, before Jet explained that the kid just wanted her to say `please'. Kirsche gave Edward a playfully critical look, hands on her hips in mock irritation.

"What are you, the manor's police?"

Edward smiled at that. "Yes! Edward is the manor's police!"

She removed one hand from the woman's legs and brought it to her mouth as if she were talking into a walkie-talkie. "Chhrrrt! Magic word! Chhrrrt!"

"Please release my legs. They've fallen asleep."

Ed came back several times throughout the evening, sometimes with Tomato on her head and sometimes carrying a very annoyed Ein by his back paws and once with a bowl of what three weeks ago used to be mashed potatoes. Not long after Ed had finished off the greening bowl of mush, a strangled gurgle broke through the conversation and Kirsche patted her stomach, blushing slightly.

"Heh heh, guess it's been a while since I've eaten anything halfway decent. . ." she mumbled in embarrassment, trying desperately to drown out her loudly protesting stomach.

"Funny, same here. . ." Faye sent Jet a glare. Jet ignored it and rose from his seat and stomped off towards the kitchen, mumbling something along the lines of `unappreciative brats. . . I make dinner. . . see if you get any. . .'

Spike coughed to choke back a snicker, instead turning his attention back to Kirsche. She was tossing her head slightly in the way only women can, making her hair sway curiously. Her hair was something else; an elegant mane of wild curls everywhere, spiraling and bouncing, shiny and soft looking. He started to wonder what color it was without the dye.

"Your hair's not naturally pink, is it?"

He immediately mentally kicked himself. Well, that didn't come out right. What a stupid thing to ask! Apparently Kirsche thought so too, as she raised an eyebrow at him in amusement. Absently tossing her mulberry curls over her shoulders and brushing her bangs out of her eyes, she spoke, unable to hide the laughter behind her voice.

"No. Is your hair naturally. . . Uh. . . fluffy?" Faye laughed aloud and gave the piano player an approving grin.

"I like her already."