Just Enough by Fade131

Disclaimer: I don't own Cowboy Bebop. …gods, that's depressing…

Summary: Valentine's Day morning for Julia isn't what she wants it to be.

Author's Notes: I wrote this in school, so it is very short. It was just an idea in my head, that Julia's Valentine's Day wouldn't be what she wanted to be, and that she wouldn't really see it as a holiday. Dedicated to Spikeu; Happy Valentine's Day, love…

3

The sun peaks through the curtains, illuminating Julia's face. She frowns in her sleep before blinking her eyes open. Pushing the covers off, she pulls a thin robe on over her silk nightgown and opens the curtains entirely. In the kitchen, she puts the kettle on the stove for her tea, ignoring the vase on the table that holds ten lovely roses with a card propped against it. Her only lingering thought is that they hadn't been there when she went to sleep.

Her tea is bitter at the first sip, and she lets it cool on the table, staring blankly at the card: addressed in round, perfect letters, Julia. She hesitates, unsure if she wants to read it, already knowing who it is from. She breaks the seal on the back with her thumbnail – a red wax dragon – and pulls out what she assumes is a card. She's wrong; it's a picture of the two of them together, Vicious and Julia – she's kissing his cheek, she doesn't remember doing it – and the back says, simply, Happy Valentine's Day.

She leaves it upside down on the table and dumps out her tea, then changes the water in the vase. She goes to her room and changes into her clothes. Jeans with a tear in the knee, a white blouse, a blue jacket – not hers, definitely not hers; he left it draped on a chair in her room and it still smelled of smoke and metal and vanilla and him.

She sits down at the table again, hugging the jacket tight around her, staring at the roses. They really are pretty, but she doesn't appreciate them. She turns the picture over. He is handsome – devastatingly so – but he isn't the person she wants to see. It is the picture, she thinks vaguely. Without the picture, they would just be ten beautiful roses, but with it, they are another link to him. Getting up, she slips the picture into a folder on the counter, and then turns back to the flowers. They look the same; not what she wanted, but what she expected. Someone knocks on the door.

She ignores it at first. Vicious doesn't knock; who else could it be? But they keep knocking. She goes to the door and stares at it, hand hovering over the doorknob. She doesn't know who it is. The knocking stops. Julia opens the door, not expecting the person in question to tumble in and nearly fall – Spike had been leaning on the door. His clothes are rumpled and his hair is, as always, a mess, but he grins at her.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Julia," he says, extracting an only slightly crushed pink carnation from his coat – she knew he had more than one. She takes it; she can't help but smile, it's perfect. He leans down and kisses her, gently, passionately, grinning inwardly as she melts into his arms. "I love you, Julia," he whispers when they part. "Nothing will ever change that."

She pulls him down for another kiss, warmer this time, sweeter. When they stop again for air, she smiles, running her fingers lovingly through his unruly green hair. "I love you, too, Spikeu. Always."

He smiles back. One last kiss and he's gone again. Julia takes the roses out of the vase and puts the carnation in it instead. It looks right to Julia, humming to herself as she picks every last blood red petal off the roses. She opens the window and drops them, a flurry of red silk hearts, onto the street below. One, she thinks, is just enough for me.

3

Happy Valentine's Day...love, Julia