Chapter 12: Solsbury Hill
Today
I don't need a replacement
I'll tell them what the smile on my face meant
My heart going boom boom boom
"Hey," I said, "You can keep my things, they've come to take me home."
"Uh...Jet?" Faye poked her head in the lounge area of the Bebop.
"What?" he said as he snipped a renegade branch from a Bonsai.
"I um, well..."
"Spit it out, woman," he said as he opened his shears to clip another twig.
"I found something today you might find interesting," she said as she pulled Spike into the doorway.
Jet snapped the shears closed and managed to cut the entire top off the Bonsai. He stared at his fallen comrade, and by that he meant the tree. Then he looked back up at Spike.
"He's really standing there, right?" he said to Faye. "I'm not wigging out?"
Faye shook her head.
Jet squinted at him in the same way Faye did. "So you mean...the whole time?"
Spike nodded.
"THE WHOLE TIME?!? That was you, wasn't it? That British weirdo in the warehouse."
"I swear I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Fuck you!"
"Hey! You two sold my ship!" Spike shot back. It wasn't really relevant but he was still a little pissed off about that and he had no other argument.
"You're mad cause we sold a dead man's ship?" Jet asked him.
"You know how much I liked that ship," Spike sniffed half-heartedly. "It was just disrespectful, is all."
"That's it," Jet grumbled as he stood up and began shoving Spike out of the Bebop. "The day Spike Spiegel yells at me for being unsentimental is the day this partnership is officially dissolved." He gave him one last toss out the hatch and slammed it shut behind him.
Jet turned to face Faye. "The whole fucking time," he repeated.
Faye did not say a word as she leaned herself against the wall, butt hanging out of her mouth. She didn't need to say anything. The prodigal son had returned. Jet shook his head, thinking what a huge idiot he was, and re-opened the hatch. Spike was still standing there waiting, hands in his pockets, as if he expected him to do so. "There's some extra rice on the stove," Jet grumbled, a look of utter defeat on his face.
Spike smiled a lazy, crooked smile and ambled into the Bebop. He shoveled some rice out of the pot, plopped his boots up on the table and began to eat.
"All is not forgiven, you know," Faye pointed out.
"I know."
"You're in for a good month of hell from us," Jet agreed.
"I wouldn't have it any other way."
"Starting with dish duty for the rest of the month," Faye said with her hand on her hip.
"And the ship needs repainting," Jet added.
"And I could use my name sewn into all my underwear."
"All right," Spike rolled his eyes. "Anything else?"
The three of them locked eyes, and they knew they were building a moment that none of them would forget. One eye sees the past, one eye sees the present. And Spike had his friends to keep an eye on his future.
"Yeah, one more thing," Jet grumbled, but he was staring at the floor.
"What's that?"
"You pull this again, I'll break your head."
"Don't worry."