Mirror Cracks And So It Goes
"Where did it go wrong?" she whispers with head bowed to examine white linoleum. The blood on her boots dried hours ago, and the pattern the heavy splatters make on the cracked leather jeer at her from the floor. "What happened to make things turn out this way?"

Jet sighs, head leaned back to examine the white ceiling. The shadows that flicker from the fluorescent light bulbs and the swaying motion of the most recent earthquake show him memories he does not want to see. "Damned if I know."

The shaking of the building ceases, and the hallway is bustling with hospital staff once more. They scuff past in pristine whites and ornamental red crosses, but do not give a glance to the friends of a man who is likely to die. They haven't the time for that.

The door to the room they are focused on, even when not, opens and lets out a doctor with blood on his hands and a surgical mask hanging around his neck. His eyes sparkle with mirth, and the grey of his hair glints in the flickering light. "He'll live."

The black dog relaxes his shoulders, and gives a smile to the entire room.

The unfrozen woman from another time stares off into space, and thinks "What now?"

Softly, Bola
Spike sees blond hair waving when he opens his eyes, and the ache in his chest increases ten-fold when they finally focus on the nurse who is not her. The poor girl, she makes a surprised sound and runs out of the room, probably in reaction to his croaking, but he does not find it in him to care.

What is the point, now?

The bed frame rattles, and he wonders briefly what is going on to warrant the ground crying out in pain so loudly. Is it bombs, from the now decimated Red Dragons? Or is it thunder, raining down upon the earth in such a way that it scares man and beast alike?

A large crack appears in the window, and the rattling gets stronger, gets more coherent and loud and ready to kill all who oppose it. Stitches pull all over his flesh as he tenses, and then the exhaustion takes him, and his vision fades, as it is wont to do.

Hurried footsteps approach as he lets his eyelids droop, and he sees purple hair attack him before he gives up the ghost and welcomes oblivion.

Come Undone
Two weeks, and everything is far from normal. There is no androgynous girl spinning around the abandoned hallways, there is no dog yipping in tune to commercials as a replacement for begging for food, and there are no bounty hunters yelling and shouting and being partners for each other.

There is only silence, the soft utterance of instructions for getting more funds to pay the docking fee, or the food bill, or the bribe money to be paid to the less-known and less-skilled hacker who is looking for the little girl with all of his resources. There is sometimes the crackle of the television, instructing poor hapless souls who watch what to purchase and where to go. There is sometimes movement from the broken doll of a bounty hunter's bedroom, a sound of scissors in the refuge of a dog who has lost his teeth, strong coughing from the dug out and made into a living zombie but not form of a man who has lost all will to live.

And then it changes, with one note to deny docking in a planet, and the breaking of sorrow for one mongrel, one harpy, one mummy walking. They all shout and scream, at one another at the dockworker at the space around them. They are so angry, that they want to kill each other, and are not far from doing so.

Spike points a finger at Jet, and accuses him of burning the food for a sick person, and Jet retaliates with the fact that he had to endure the crying and whining of a certain unnamed man who does not know when to back out, and when to just die and let die.

Faye screeches at them to stop fighting, that she has had enough of this stupid ship and this rotten food and this horrible company, but stops short and laughs and laughs and laughs.

She has snapped, something inside her pulled taught and broken, and all the two men can do is stare reproachfully and eventually laugh with her.

But now is not the time for that, because the dockworker’s supervisor comes on the open connection, and tells them that they can dock now, someone has left and there is room for them.

Jet steers the ship into port, and Faye smiles at Spike in a deranged way. Things are far from normal, and they will probably never be restored.

But at least there are some things that will stay the same.

Arclight
"Do you think the lead will be correct, this time?"

"Probably not."

They lean against the wall of the hanger, and share a cigarette between them. It has been six months, and things are back to normal, but not really. There is still no sound in the ship; there is still no movement unless absolutely necessary.

He lets a cloud of smoke escape his lungs, and passes the cancer stick back to her. The fog it creates blocks out the brilliance of the sun, and he takes a moment to just look at it, and wonder.

"What if it is correct," she starts, inhaling like an addict and exhaling like one too, "what if he brings her back right now. What then?"

Sunlight is strong again, and his vision sparkles with bursts that could be scarring, but could not too. "Then we get back into space, and start for that bounty again."

A dry hacking cough escapes her young lungs, and the heel of her palm crushes the cigarette. "That will happen if she is found or not, huh?"

Jet's ship is on the horizon, and it swerves as if the man who is driving it is drunk. So he did find her. Or the dog. Or both.

Faye leans back even more against the warm metal, and smiles. "When we get this bounty, I'm heading for the race tracks."

Spike mimics her motions, and lets his arm rest against hers. "When we get this bounty, I'm eating some real food."

The ship looms overhead, and starts to land.