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"Bang."

And then he fell to the ground. His body was numb now. He was on the verge of death and he didn't care. The memory of the woman he had so desperately held on to these past years was dead and gone, just as the woman herself was. His adversary, the one that caused all this mess in the first place was dead as well. He was done.

Had he not been in such terrible pain and had he been less exhausted, physically and emotionally, Spike could have let loose a good bark of laughter at his last thoughts. He'd been through so much these past years. He'd been shot in the head, he'd fallen out of a Cathedral's glass window, he'd been shot again multiple times, he'd been bitten by a strange mutated piece of food and was nearly poisoned to death, and he'd crashed to earth from space in a rickety old space ship that was not space-worthy at all. But the one thing that was going to kill him was a few slices from a katana. The indestructible Spike Spiegel was destructible. You just had to find the right place. His weak underbelly so to speak.

But he didn't regret it. He'd finally taken Jet's advice and faced his past. He'd tied up all his loose ends and was going to fade away into the black along with them. A vision flashed in his mind of the sky full of stars. Slowly, one of the stars began to fade away, and when it was gone, so was his vision and steam of consciousness.

Or was it?

He'd seen this before. The cold machinery suturing the lacerations on his body. The green liquid that had the miraculous healing power to hide scars. This wasn't heaven and this wasn't hell. This wasn't even purgatory. This was treatment. Expensive treatment. Treatment that a simple bounty hunter could not afford.

He slowly slid his eyes to the side of the glass tank, looking out through the distortion of the water. He could make out figures huddled together, some in white lab coats, others in dark trench coats, making note of his healing progress.

Had he been able to heave a sigh in the liquid, he would have. He was finished dealing with his problems, but instead of having a peaceful rest afterwards, he continued to exist. He didn't go out in a glorious burning flame. Instead, he was still alive, only a dim glow in the vast expanse of space. That wasn't his star that had gone out. It was Vicious'.

His wounds didn't take very long to heal at all. It was mainly blood loss that had brought him to the verge of death. He was ready to be removed from the tank and placed in a hospital bed to fully recover in a short time.

He'd been lying in his bed asleep for about three hours before one of the nurses came in to inform him he had a visitor. It was a tall, thin man with dark hair and an equally dark trench coat. His eyes were thin and cruel, obviously a member of the Red Dragon Syndicate.

"You're very lucky to be alive Mr. Spiegel," the man said.

"Says you," Spike said, wincing. Healed as he was, he was still in a bit of pain. "Why am I here?"

"We found you," the man continued. "Almost dead on the steps. We saved you. Got you here in no time."

"Why did you save me?" Spike asked. "I killed your leader. You had every right to let me die. Or is this going to turn into some horrible torture session?"

"Vicious wasn't our leader," the man replied. "Vicious killed our leaders."

So the men he saw before he passed out weren't Vicious' after all. Vicious hadn't been as powerful as he made people believe he was. He kept the illusion up by making his hits count. If someone could kill the leaders of the syndicate, he was obviously the most powerful man there. Genius.

"So I killed Vicious," Spike continued. "I got rid of the thorn in your side. Don't I deserve a rest?"

"You do," the man said. "That's why you're resting up here. Once you're fully healed, you'll have about 2 weeks leisure time. Then its back to business."

Spike raised an eyebrow, no mean feat in the weakened condition he was in.

"What do you mean back to business?"

The man gave a wry smile.

"You wouldn't have heard would you?" he chuckled. "You, Mr. Spiegel are the newly elected leader of the Red Dragon Syndicate."

If Spike could have yelled, he would have.

"What do you mean, I'm the leader?" he snarled, his voice dangerous even coming from someone in his condition.

"Everyone knew the leaders preferred you over most of the members of the syndicate," the man said. "You upheld their ideas. Even when you left, you did so honorably and the elders appreciated that. We all heard that you died, but when we found out you still lived, and not only that, killed the man that killed our leaders, you seemed the obvious choice."

"I'm not even in the syndicate anymore," Spike groaned. "You said so yourself."

"We have no one else to turn to at the moment," the man explained. "Vicious made sure of that."

"Sounds like a personal problem to me," Spike huffed. "Fix it yourself."

The man gave another chuckle.

"They said you'd be like that," he said. "You have your two weeks to decide if you will take the position or not."

Spike was alone in the room again. Alone with his thoughts. He had been prepared to die. Now he was faced with all this on his plate. Spike was pissed. What was the point of facing his past if his past wouldn't go away once confronted? It'd have been better off had he not come at all. God damn it all. God damn the Bebop. God damn the Elders. God damn Vicious. And God damn Julia.

Julia.

She was the reason he'd gone back. He needed to see her. She wanted to see him. After all this time, he still loved her. He tried to run away from it, run away from the betrayal, but in the end he came running back. He had had a chance to start over again, to stay on the Bebop. Maybe even find a way to heal his broken heart. After all, Faye had seemed interested. She wasn't as classy as Julia, but she had grown on him in a certain way. But instead, he had run back to Julia and the Syndicate. Run back to what he had known before the change in his life.

In the end, that had turned out for the better, so to speak. His loose ends were tied up. He no longer had to feel the burden of that still on his shoulders. He was free. And now he wasn't so sure that running back to what he once knew wasn't going to be a bad decision after all. As the leader of the Syndicate, he could change it. They'd still be dealing in illegal things, something that never bothered him to begin with, but the Syndicate would be run better. No one would want to cross a Syndicate whose leader couldn't die.

Yes, maybe this was the thing to do. He'd take his two weeks to think about it some more, but he was almost certain this was the course he would take.

Of course, a tiny voice inside of him, which was quickly suppressed, told him that he was doing the same thing. Running away from his past. His past as a bounty hunter. His past on the Bebop. The only place no one had ever betrayed him (aside from Faye occasionally, but she always came back). The only place he could truly call home after he'd been left for dead.

But he'd deal with that another day. For now, he was ready to take his place as the new head of the Red Dragon Syndicate.

Authors Note: Blergh, sorry if its crap. I shouldn't write when I'm exhausted. I'm not sure if this is the idea I had in my head or not, but this is what came out. Hope you liked it.