Lost

It's a long goddamn trip back to the Swordfish. He can't call it a walk because it's hardly that: call it outrunning the Syndicate for the first three miles, anyhow, until it's safe to stop using the rooftops and fire escapes. Back and forth, back and forth, until the sound of gunfire and cars on the prowl quiets down, until it's safe to go back to street level

(and try every door along the way: open, dammit, open to where I want to be, not to where I am)

and way the hell away from everything else, way the hell away from the cemetery

(Annie, Julia, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I had to leave you both behind)

and back to a hidden place on the outskirts of the city. It's hard to hide a ship like the Swordfish, but he knows where and how to do it. This is home territory

(no, no, somewhere up there's home: take a left turn at the end of the universe and you'll find it, find Beth)

and he knows it well. Once he's near the Swordfish, he sits out of sight under a low tree and just breathes. In, out, in, out.

Annie's dead. Julia's dead. Beth is...

(fuck you, universe, I haven't cried since I was ten, I'm not crying now)

...gone, like she never existed. One door, two doors, three doors, a thousand doors: there's no secret garden, no magical wardrobe. Just the City of Tharsis, Mars, 2071, in the rain. No goddamn door is going to take him back to the woman he craves, the one who taught him to overcome his fear of falling.

It feels like hours later

(every minute without you is a fucking eternity: I'm so damn worried about you even though there's not a thing I can do about it)

that he finally stands, satisfied they're not waiting for him

(you weren't the damn target and you know it, asshole)

and opens the door to the Swordfish. There's no joy in flying her back to the Bebop, though.

Not this time.