So over the summer I bought Cowboy Bebop and kind of went gaga over it. I've been meaning to write fanfic for it for ages, specifically this fanfic, but hadn't yet found the time. I've been chipping away at this for quite a while now, despite how short it is. I don't think I'll ever write more Bebop fanfic, I just can't quite find more words than these to add to what's already been done in the series. In my opinion, fanfic is for filling in the gaps you see in something. Or that you see gaps and decide they must be filled. And I kind of don't have that opinion of Bebop, there's almost nothing more I'd like to add to it. The most I could do, really, was cobble together these 1200 or so words. So yeah.

Without further ado,

Enjoy!

He sat at that table because she was lovely, and the only dealer who wasn't blonde. It was easier to not think about Julia when the women weren't blonde. He could deal with flirting with women like…Dolly. It wasn't her real name of course, names in casinos never did belong to faces. As the night went on, and they alternately cheated each other like old friends, Spike daydreamed that he didn't have a lover and an enemy on Mars—that he could flirt like he meant it and see if she did the same.

When he left the table, she followed—there was a hunted look to her eyes that resonated with Spike, but the daydream had ended when he'd stood up from the table. He hadn't thought, in the weeks following that night, that somehow she would get so attached to the Bebop—to him. There was no reason for it, he rarely appealed to women like Faye. He was aloof, lackadaisical, needy and uncaring all at the same time, and that infuriated women like Faye. Women like Julia, who were used to far worse habits and personalities, seemed the best suited to handling him.

Despite their odd attraction to each other, they still fought like cats and dogs. Faye was open with her aggression where if Julia had ever shown it, it was veiled. But there was a weirdly positive difference between Faye and Julia: whenever Faye failed to come through, Spike wasn't thrown into a crippling depression. It was novel, being able to function afterwards.

The novelty had worn off, however, when she failed to come through at stopping him from going to fight Vicious. He could do it, would be able to kill Vicious, because she wouldn't shoot him to make him stay—some part of him that had survived Julia's death, the part that had wanted to flirt earnestly with her the first day he met her, that part wished she would have shot out his knee or something. Made him stay, but Faye was Faye—she fell through when it meant the most to him.

"Bang." He could have shot them up, but it would have cost his life. Spike settled for letting himself fall, falling like he'd imagined falling if Faye had actually shot him. Boneless, but willing. Bleeding out was far more peaceful than getting himself shot up. He'd be pretty for Faye to cry over, like Julia was pretty for him.

Later, when he was half out of it from pain and blood-loss, Spike was just conscious enough to make out that the Red Dragons had their hands on him. They swept him off the crater he and Vicious had made of the rooftop. Someone's voice murmured anxiously, a one-sided conversation asking for the doctor. A guy, who had been on his team, years ago, held Spike's shoulders and craned his head so that he could make eye-contact with him.

"You're gonna be okay, Spike, just hang in there."

The next time up was up and down was down, he was in the private hospital the Red Dragons kept for their people. A familiar head, attached to a slouched body wrapped in bandages. Lynn? Spike kept quiet, exploring his body with twitches and flicks. Checking if his limbs were bound, testing whether he could feel his toes. Mostly what he found out was that while the Dragons hadn't strapped him down, they'd left his leg on a slow-heal rather than the quicker patch that his bullet wounds had been treated with. The gash was deep enough that Spike wouldn't be running off on this particular pair of legs any time soon. He was effectively trapped.

He was, however, just strong enough to scrabble at a letter addressed to him at his bedside table.

They kept your carcass alive because you killed Vicious, they're going to keep you as his replacement. At least for a while. They've reached the consensus that it's generally useless to try to make you stay, but they do want to keep you here.

I'm sorry about Julia.

-Lynn

Spike huffed a soft, jaded laugh to himself—Red Dragons were famous for taking a bullet and living long enough for someone to patch them up. Lynn hadn't even taken very many bullets, either, it was unsurprising that he'd been saved. Although something jealous stirred in Spike's chest that Lynn was not only free to move about, but wasn't bedridden either. Being trapped deep inside the Dragons' hospital was not exactly where he pictured his ideal convalescence time—a plastic yellow couch had been his recovery room for the past several years.

And instead of an assassin's bodyguard for a bedside companion, Spike found himself wishing for Jet, or Faye. Green eyes, darker than emeralds, shooting furtive looks at him to make sure he was still breathing as deft, dainty hands cheated their way through solitaire. A shiny—did Jet polish it?—head bent over a temporarily relocated bonsai, gruff and sweet murmurings directed at the plant. Or hell, another painful huff of a laugh escaped him, he'd be content with that red-headed hacker-gymnast and the mutt—providing Jet had somehow found them from where they'd wandered off to.

His mouth turned to a pout at the thought that the Bebop crew had disintegrated in mere hours before he had gone off to die.

"Miffed at something?" Lynn's eyes were only just barely open, only just barely out of his doze. Spike flopped his head away from his companion in injury, sulking that he was trapped in the Syndicate once again.

"Does anyone know that I'm alive?"

"We did send word that your old crew didn't have to run anymore, that the fighting between yourself and Vicious had been settled. That no one would be coming after them. I assumed that was what you wanted. I took care that they weren't informed you were alive, however." Spike flopped his head over to face Lynn, resigned to his fate for the time being.

"Yeah. That's fine—Listen, about them…Faye Valentine, you've got info on her right?"

Lynn nodded once.

"Well, the Red Dragons can handle 300 million woolong, yeah?"

"You want us to pay off her debts? Those are estimated at 293 million at the moment, Spike."

"Oh? Well, maybe it wasn't all going to casinos then…Huh. Well, can they? Can we?"

"Yes, the Red Dragons can easily pay that sum. If that's what you want. How should I notify her?"

"Bring her in, don't tell her about the debts though and don't let on that you roped me into leading the Syndicate. And then I need you to go looking for Jet Black, on the Bebop, and bring him in too. Hell, don't send anyone out looking for her until you get him, just in case she's on the Bebop too."

"And tell him what to get him running here?"

"That the tiger striped cat apparently hasn't even met the white cat yet. Got it?" Lynn gave him a weird look, but didn't question him. Instead he reached over and pressed the button on Spike's morphine drip.

"Yes, sir." Spike shot him a brief smirk despite the sudden drowse he felt.

The next time he woke up, things were right. There was a dark haired woman curled up next to him on the bed, and a balding man sat at his bedside where Lynn used to be. There was no dog, and no kid, but Spike would find those two soon enough.

Things were going to be alright. Whatever happened from now on—the Syndicate in-fighting, whatever he had with Faye, the bad way he'd left Jet and the Bebop, all of it—it would happen. And that was okay.

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