Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Waking from the Dream ❯ Chapter 1
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: Kita and Subu-chan 
It's cold at night on Mars--there's only one thing colder. The empty place left in her heart. Why couldn't she stop him?
Anime/Manga: Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Psychological / Romance / Sci-fi | Type: One Shot | Uploaded On: 01.17.2007 | Pages: 1 | Words: 910 | Visits: 1.2K | Status: Completed
It's cold at night on Mars--there's only one thing colder. The empty place left in her heart. Why couldn't she stop him?
Anime/Manga: Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Psychological / Romance / Sci-fi | Type: One Shot | Uploaded On: 01.17.2007 | Pages: 1 | Words: 910 | Visits: 1.2K | Status: Completed
Disclaimers Doth Apply. We don’t own Cowboy Bebop. Never Did. We claim only our imagination and the creepy guy sitting in the corner. A few too many drinks and an all night game of Munchkin and this is what you get the next morning. Scary, isn’t it?
WAKING FROM THE DREAM
She walks alone in the darkness of night on Mars. It’s cold in the midnight hour, but there is a still colder place in her heart. Her hands have not stopped shaking yet and she doubts they ever will. She couldn’t palm a card now to save her life. And she couldn’t stop him to save his life. The thought sends another pang through her battered heart and she shivers, drawing her shoulders in under the black trenchcoat that covers her slender frame. The coat is his, taken from the Bebop earlier this evening. His scent lingers in the folds, a ghost in the chill air.
She has been walking since the word came, hours spent in a state of numbed shock. She doesn’t know where she is or how she got here, nor does she care. It’s the same as the rest of her life. She is a woman without a past. He was a man with too much past, too many skeletons in the closet. The notion draws a snort of grim laughter. A good match, no? And he was the one who told her the past doesn’t matter. Her lips tremble, but not with laughter this time.
In one pocket of the too-long coat, there is a small weight. Long fingers, pale from the cold, curl once more around the familiar grip. She has done this more times than she can count, the touch of the cold metal both balm and bane. It is the same gun that failed to stop him. The scene flashes behind her eyes once more, like a movie that she can’t shut off. The smell of gunpowder. The taste of her own blood, salty and metallic, from where she bit her own lip in frustration. The sound of her own sobs drowned beneath the sharp reports of the gunshots. The small gun bucking in her hands as she fired wildly, knowing all the while she would not; could not hit him. His differently colored eyes, calm with the knowledge of his impending death. He had known too. Try as she might to stop him, she simply couldn’t.
She has contemplated using the gun on herself. In the numbness that settled in after his departure, she cleaned and reloaded it. There is even a round in the chamber. It would be so easy to just take the safety off.... It is a thought that not to long ago would be anathema to her. She had survived too much to contemplate death. Now... now she just doesn’t know.
The strains of a song filter through the cloud of misery swallowing her. It is an old song, from earth. From before. She remembers it. She can barely remember her life, but she can remember a song. Ironic.
There is a small shop to her right, still open despite the lateness of the hour. It is from here the music comes, haunting and low. Without her willing them to, her feet take her inside. Past a beaded curtain, an oil lamp makes shadows dance across a wooden floor. There is someone seated on a floor pillow, deep in the corner where the shadows are thickest. Green eyes glitter at her from the cat lounging in their lap.
“Welcome, Miss Valentine.” The voice is low, pitched to hide the speaker’s gender.
“Y-you know me?” The words hurt a throat that ached from swallowing tears.
“I know many people.”
“Who are you?”
“It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you not do what you have been contemplating.”
“How do you know what I’ve been thinking?” Guilt made the words sharper than she intended.
“You had come to love him. It is natural.” While she was still in shock, the speaker continued. “You forget. Death is only a temporary state of being. You died once and yet, here you are. Quite alive.”
“What do you mean?”
“There is much to be said for the evidence of one’s own eyes, Miss Valentine. Do not rely entirely on what others might tell you.”
“What? What are you telling me? I don’t understand!”
“Did you see his body yourself?”
Laughter swirled the shadows around her and suddenly she was outside again, seated on a cold bench by one of the ever-present canals. She is chilled inside the coat. There is a painful crick in her neck and her mouth tastes like something has died there. A half-empty bottle of amber liquid was clutched loosely in her right hand. Had she dreamed that?!
Music echoes softly in the night. An old song, but one she remembers well. Faye Valentine rises to her feet and walks alone into the night on Mars. It’s cold in the midnight hour, but there is a warm spot of hope growing in her heart.
WAKING FROM THE DREAM
She walks alone in the darkness of night on Mars. It’s cold in the midnight hour, but there is a still colder place in her heart. Her hands have not stopped shaking yet and she doubts they ever will. She couldn’t palm a card now to save her life. And she couldn’t stop him to save his life. The thought sends another pang through her battered heart and she shivers, drawing her shoulders in under the black trenchcoat that covers her slender frame. The coat is his, taken from the Bebop earlier this evening. His scent lingers in the folds, a ghost in the chill air.
She has been walking since the word came, hours spent in a state of numbed shock. She doesn’t know where she is or how she got here, nor does she care. It’s the same as the rest of her life. She is a woman without a past. He was a man with too much past, too many skeletons in the closet. The notion draws a snort of grim laughter. A good match, no? And he was the one who told her the past doesn’t matter. Her lips tremble, but not with laughter this time.
In one pocket of the too-long coat, there is a small weight. Long fingers, pale from the cold, curl once more around the familiar grip. She has done this more times than she can count, the touch of the cold metal both balm and bane. It is the same gun that failed to stop him. The scene flashes behind her eyes once more, like a movie that she can’t shut off. The smell of gunpowder. The taste of her own blood, salty and metallic, from where she bit her own lip in frustration. The sound of her own sobs drowned beneath the sharp reports of the gunshots. The small gun bucking in her hands as she fired wildly, knowing all the while she would not; could not hit him. His differently colored eyes, calm with the knowledge of his impending death. He had known too. Try as she might to stop him, she simply couldn’t.
She has contemplated using the gun on herself. In the numbness that settled in after his departure, she cleaned and reloaded it. There is even a round in the chamber. It would be so easy to just take the safety off.... It is a thought that not to long ago would be anathema to her. She had survived too much to contemplate death. Now... now she just doesn’t know.
The strains of a song filter through the cloud of misery swallowing her. It is an old song, from earth. From before. She remembers it. She can barely remember her life, but she can remember a song. Ironic.
There is a small shop to her right, still open despite the lateness of the hour. It is from here the music comes, haunting and low. Without her willing them to, her feet take her inside. Past a beaded curtain, an oil lamp makes shadows dance across a wooden floor. There is someone seated on a floor pillow, deep in the corner where the shadows are thickest. Green eyes glitter at her from the cat lounging in their lap.
“Welcome, Miss Valentine.” The voice is low, pitched to hide the speaker’s gender.
“Y-you know me?” The words hurt a throat that ached from swallowing tears.
“I know many people.”
“Who are you?”
“It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you not do what you have been contemplating.”
“How do you know what I’ve been thinking?” Guilt made the words sharper than she intended.
“You had come to love him. It is natural.” While she was still in shock, the speaker continued. “You forget. Death is only a temporary state of being. You died once and yet, here you are. Quite alive.”
“What do you mean?”
“There is much to be said for the evidence of one’s own eyes, Miss Valentine. Do not rely entirely on what others might tell you.”
“What? What are you telling me? I don’t understand!”
“Did you see his body yourself?”
Laughter swirled the shadows around her and suddenly she was outside again, seated on a cold bench by one of the ever-present canals. She is chilled inside the coat. There is a painful crick in her neck and her mouth tastes like something has died there. A half-empty bottle of amber liquid was clutched loosely in her right hand. Had she dreamed that?!
Music echoes softly in the night. An old song, but one she remembers well. Faye Valentine rises to her feet and walks alone into the night on Mars. It’s cold in the midnight hour, but there is a warm spot of hope growing in her heart.