AN: As is obligatory of we poor fan fiction writers, I must confess: I own nothing original to Cowboy Bebop. The characters introduced as Sarah and 'the dark-skinned stranger' are exclusively mine. This is a rewrite of an older fic by the same name. Please be aware that the second chapter contains a vivid sex scene and is not suitable for anyone under the age of 17. Read at your own risk. Reviews are always sought after and welcome, so please feel free to let me know what you think. =D

Prologue – Life, Death, and Rebirth

"So, you were going to betray me?"

She shrugged a non-committal response.

"Did you really think you could just leave?"

"Vicious…"

"Keep dreaming, Julia. It's never going to happen."

"Are you going to kill him?"

"Yes… With your hands." The gun hit the table with a deafening finality. "Either you kill him, or you both die. Those are your only options."

Those words – and her decision to throw them out the window – sealed her fate. Unable to face the idea of killing the one man she'd truly loved, but unable to trust that they would ever make it out alive, the star-crossed blonde took what few things mattered to her and fled. She swore she'd never set foot on Mars again and abandoned the life she'd known for so long.

For years, she succeeded in hiding from both men who hunted after her. For years, she lived in something like peace. She knew better, however, than to believe this was some kind of freedom. She knew better than to think she would ever be truly rid of the memories that haunted her every sleeping moment.

No matter where she stayed (however briefly), her mornings were always the same. As were her evenings. As were periodic moments throughout the day. As were her dreams. She stalked through every room in her dingy accommodations. No room was left unchecked, no door unlocked, no window opened, no surface not scrutinized for even the barest inkling of an unwelcome intruder, an uninvited guest.

The habit had formed out of necessity, she told herself. In truth, it was a never-ending fear that one day, one unlucky morning, he would find her. No matter that she had survived on her own for many years. No matter that she had seen neither head nor hide of either male from whom she eluded notice. No matter that she had covered her tracks every step of the way. She knew better. She knew he could find her.

And thus, every morning, every evening, and whenever that fundamental doubt crept into her mind, she walked the same, careful, cautious path that she had taken every day since her last time on Mars. She would not be caught unaware again. She would not let him find her alone, vulnerable, unprepared.

When that fateful day came, when the moment her running had amounted for nothing more than sore feet, she knew the end was near. It didn't take the attempts on her life. It didn't take the rumors of a coup in the Red Dragon syndicate. These things were unimportant, inconsequential compared to the look in Spike's eyes when he set them on her for the first time since however long ago.

He was so calm when he looked at her, gun drawn, cocked, and aimed right for his heart. His eyes belied the betrayal he felt, but it was the betrayal of a thousand lifetimes ago, not that moment of reunion. He stood there, stoic, as she approached, the look on his face not conceding an inch of emotion.

"It was raining that day as well…"

They spoke for the first time, the baritone of his voice soothing in its familiarity. She shared her secrets, embracing him and begging him to run away with her like they always meant to. Then they were off. It was a race against time and truth, the last stretch to victory and freedom. The shots rang out to signal the start of the race and blood ran cold on a rain-stained gray rooftop. She died, as she'd always wanted to – held tightly in his arms.

Sweet, silent, blissful darkness took her and wrapped her in its embrace. Her freedom was secure. She was safe at long last. Soon, she knew, her dark-eyed Cowboy would join her in the darkness and nothing would part them ever again. Not Vicious, not the Red Dragon, nothing. For the first time in her life (ironic that it came only in death), she was truly happy.

It was the slow, steady, incessant beeping that first intruded on her tiny grasp of what she was content to believe was heaven. Silence had reigned in this place for what could have been forever. Now, a strangely familiar, starkly foreboding sound echoed in the darkness and brought with it flickers of light. Her body, something from which she'd convinced herself she was free, ached. Her head, a swirling mass of glowing color and returning familiarity, throbbed and every part of her unconsciousness told her to fight it. To stay here. To be free.

"Doctor! Doctor! She's coming 'round!"

With surprising ease, she sat up on her own, staring around at the faces of strangers and the room of white. She glanced at the first male to come barreling into the room. He was tall, dark-haired; his face was kind and he wore a long coat of sterile white. He smiled at her. She glared. He fell back and doubled over in pain when the knuckles of her curled first collided with his crotch. There were gasps and the newly woken blonde fitted the nurses and second doctor with the same violently angry expression.

"Why couldn't you have let me die?"

Once the head doctor had been treated for a sharp blow to the groin, the remaining staff explained to her that she'd been in a coma for six months. News hit that the new head of the Red Dragon Syndicate, a man who had slaughtered the leading Elders and taken over leadership, had been slain by a lone gunman who died in the effort. During the official investigation and clean up, she had been found, comatose but still alive.

Though hopeful for her recovery, the female had been completely unresponsive throughout the entire six months. No stimuli could rouse her from her potentially eternal slumber. The medical staff in charge of her care had been close to giving up hope that she'd ever come around. They had decided to take her off life support if she still had made no progress by the end of the next week.

Lucky girl, they called her.

If she didn't think they'd sedate her before she got far enough to be satisfied, she'd have knocked out each and every one of them.

After a week's worth of testing, she was discharged. She was thrust back out into a world she knew nothing about, a place where her freedom was guaranteed for the only ones who would have threatened it were dead. The Red Dragon Syndicate had disbanded into small, petty street gangs with no capable leader to unite them. She was truly, at long last, free to live her life at her leisure.

As she stared out at the busy street and crowded sidewalk of the Tarsus Memorial Hospital, she found herself unable to move. She had no direction left to her life. Once, she had lived to stay hidden from Vicious and Spike. Now, they were dead and she knew her life was nothing without them. What life did she have left now that her reason to live was gone?

A shudder crawled up her spine. Gone? Was he really… could he really be gone? Was it even possible for him to be dead? He had been the shadow that haunted her steps for more years than she wanted to remember. He was as much a part of her as her own beating heart. To imagine a world where one did not exist without the other was like imagining a world without night. It simply… couldn't be.

In that moment she knew. She knew the same fundamental truth she'd always known: Vicious would never let her live in peace. It didn't matter that others proclaimed him dead. It didn't matter that he hadn't been seen since his final showdown with the swimming bird of her dreams. No, none of it mattered.

After all, was she not proof that the dead do not always succumb to death? No, there could be no Julia without Vicious. The world had proven all too cruel for anything else to be true. Perhaps she was crazy. Perhaps she was paranoid. But in the depth of her soul, she knew he was alive somewhere.