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[not_that_spike]

"Okay, check it out." He's never been big on the whole shut your eyes and don't open them until I say so thing. For one, it's annoying as hell and for another, who can stand it anyhow? But still, this was kind of worth a little bit of surprise.

In Beth's arms, Junior's eyes go wide and she lets out a perfect "ooh." As if in all her year and a half of wisdom, she remembers this place? He doubts it; they've been to a hell of a lot of places in her short lifetime and not all by choice. But this place is kind of cool: it's far enough outside Paris so not very many people just happen by but they can still be in the city in just under twenty minutes at a leisurely walking pace. One thing he's noticed on this trip is that it's the cities where people have congregated, and out of necessity. When half a planet's population just drops dead, it leaves a lot of empty space. Outskirts that used to be convenient when everyone drove are now considered too far out, a pain in the ass, dangerous. Even with bicycles, people want to be where other people are and he kind of can't blame them. There's safety in numbers: call it a tribal mentality or whatever, but the human population as a whole has reverted back to that in a lot of ways.

One bounty hunter displaced in time and space happens to think that's just about perfect: it means he's got fifteen or twenty minutes of space between him and most visitors and if he's here, he can take off that cloak and just be himself. Spend some quality time with his woman and their little aijou and not have to worry about someone knocking at the door to take a census or any of that shit. And this place... well, it's pretty cool. Like a lot of once-valuable (and now largely useless) properties outside Paris it's built of stone, which keeps it warm in the winter and cool in the summer. It's all on one floor which means no stairs to navigate with a sleeping Junior, and almost all of the windows are still intact. The setup's cozy too: there's a working kitchen, two bedrooms right next to each other, living room or parlor or whatever the fuck the French call those salles, and a bathroom.

With a working toilet.

They passed by this place on their trek into Paris however long ago it was -- months now -- and he took notice of it then but never figured they'd be sticking around long-term enough to warrant a return trip. But now that it looks like they'll be here for a while, why the hell not? They have to live somewhere, and he'd just as soon it be a place where he can actually take off the damn cloak once in a while.

"I may just be a humble bounty hunter, ma'am, but I think I'm going in for a new career as a real estate agent." There's even a yard -- overgrown and its stone walls in need of a bunch of repair work -- where they could grow... uh... tobacco. Yeah, that's it. And fly off into the sunset in their personal spacecraft-built-for-three some day. "What do you think? Too far from the bright city lights?"

Shit, he could even smoke here... if he could get his hands on any cigs.

Comments

[not_that_spike]

"Let's go with Beth, Junior. We don't need to stand here in a closet and smoke. No point in turning the place into a chimney." He looks down at little Beth in his arms and his heart just fucking melts: she's such a little sweetheart. Yeah, whatever it takes to stay part of things with her. If it means giving up what's behind that closet door... well, he already made that decision a while ago and he might have a few regrets, but they're only little and insignificant ones. He's already asked and answered the bigger questions for himself: hell, he thought he was dead when he first got to the bar anyway, but time's proved differently and he's glad about that.

Following Beth back into the living room is one of the easier decisions he's ever made, and he kicks that closet door closed behind them.

"No smoking for you, Beth Junior." There are wooden chairs here; he takes a seat on one of those and watches Beth move so seamlessly around the place. He can see them here -- if it's what she wants.

"You know, Slim, if you'd rather find a place in the city..."

Yeah, he knows, it means living in that cloak again. But if that's what it takes... not that he's entirely selfless, but out here he doesn't have much of a choice, does he. The word on the street is that Yorick was able to wander around Paris relatively unmolested after the Israeli army went home, so there's no reason he can't do the same thing.

Even if he would make the ugliest girl in Paris... and he takes a little bit of comfort in that fact, too.

[stbethadettes]

In the middle of fishing the cigarettes out of her bag, she pauses and turns back toward him long enough to give him a very pointed look.

Not lacking in affection, but it gets her opinion across.

"I certainly wouldn't."

In twenty minutes, she can walk to within a few blocks of the apartment building they've been living in since they got to Paris. She'll be walking a lot, but she'd be walking no matter where they lived and she's beyond used to it by this point.

They're convenient to the city without being right in the heart of things. There's privacy out here. Spike's guaranteed to attract attention anywhere -- just like Yorick -- but since the Israeli chicks have cleared out, nobody else seems to have stepped up to take their place.

In fact, the women of Paris, for the most part, seem to be pretty damn accepting of Yorick.

They'll manage here.

Pulling out the pack of cigarettes, she smiles at him. "It'll be the nicest place I've ever had."

Except for maybe their home at the House of Arch, but that's kind of in a class of its own.

[not_that_spike]

"Shit, it'll be the nicest place I've ever had too." Aside from Tom and Door's house, but that's magic so it doesn't count. It's better than any of the places his parents moved him to; better than the Dragons boarding house; better than his crappy apartment in Tharsis; better than the Bebop, even. And because it's going to be one of the nicest places he's ever had, he'll trade her a clean-up session later for a smoke now: those things are treats and he's pretty damn sure the last time he had one was way before the shit hit the fan with Alter and the Israeli army. It might even have been back at the House of Arch last time they were there.

How 'bout that.

As Beth unwraps the cellophane from around the pack -- shit, they won't even be stale cigarettes, and what a treat that is -- and hands him one, he gives Junior a kiss and sets her in Beth's arms. Yeah, she's got to have the nanobots too, but he doesn't really want to smoke right in her face or anything. Fishing in his pockets for his lighter -- it's the one thing he always carries with him beside his gun -- he steps back, opens a dusty window, and lights that smoke. It tastes like the proverbial million Woolongs, but he's got one ear trained on the noises going on outside. Right now they're all natural: wind rustling, the occasional something falling out of a tree or whatever, but no people sounds and definitely no approaching Israeli army sounds.

That's good. He's glad that little chapter is over. He's not much of a caveman type, but he can protect his Beths at this place.

Yeah.

He still thinks that loving Beth's the best thing he's ever done. Nothing else he's ever accomplished in his life can hold a candle to all of this.

[stbethadettes]

"Hi, sweetheart." She can't help but smile when Junior's little arms wrap around her neck hold on tight. Wrapping her hands around her daughter's sides, she tickles until the hold on her neck loosens and then raises her up into the air until she giggles and swings her back down, holding her less than a foot off the ground.

(It's definitely time to get a haircut.)

Little Beth would get a kick out of riding with her hotshot pilot of a surrogate father, no question in her mind about it.

The two of them are practically cheek-to-cheek when she turns to Spike, watching him smoke by the open window with no small amount of appreciation in her eyes.

He's probably even leaner than he was when they first met at the bar, but there's still nothing she'd like more than to tug him toward her by the goddamn skinny tie he hasn't worn regularly since he got stuck out here with her and spend a couple of good hours cataloging every minute physical difference she can notice about him.

It'd be practically therapeutic.

But until she gets the chance, she... kind of loves him more than ever, and she knows it.

"Is it as good as you'd imagined?"

She can almost live vicariously just by watching him.

Almost.

[not_that_spike]

"Close." There's something that would make it a hell of a lot better, and that's if she was right here in his arms. But this will do. For someone who's smoked since he was... what, fifteen? this is the longest he's gone without it. Funny how a guy can think he can't possibly get along without his favorite crutch only to find out it doesn't matter so much after all.

Especially when a better crutch comes along, and that... is how he feels about Beth and Junior.

"But yeah, I think I could get used to it all over again."

It's a sweet little moment, seeing Junior's face pressed up against Beth's like that

(click)

and it isn't so damn hard to commit that scene to memory, even when the thought of a way back home sitting in the back of the closet keeps nagging at his thoughts. Fuck it: whatever happens happens and they'll either go sometime or they won't, and it'll only happen for a good enough reason and he knows it. He also knows that being out here's changed him, probably forever if not for the better. For a lack of a better way to phrase it, he's been on forced pilgrimages before but this... well, shit: he has the best damn reasons in the whole world to keep putting one foot in front of the other and wake up every morning, and they're both here in this room with him. Everything else is just circumstance but Beth and Junior... they're his family and he's had precious little of that his whole life and isn't ready to give it up.

Nope, the bar can wait. This is what counts. One smoke ring hits its target and floats lazily through another before he turns toward Beth and holds out the lit cigarette to her. And he smiles, because he's about to say something he hasn't had much of a chance to say the past year.

"Want some?"

[stbethadettes]

That's the guy she fell for in the first place, all subtle smiles and idle smoke rings and casual come-ons and that easy willingness to share his cigarettes with her.

"I don't think I could turn down an offer like that."

With one arm safely wrapped around Beth Junior, she reaches for the cigarette, and her fingers aren't too shy to linger against his longer than they need to.

It's just a quick lungful of smoke and a longer, almost luxurious exhale -- soke! is the word on little Beth's lips while she watches -- aimed away from the little girl holding on to her so tightly.

She walks right up to the window beside him before she gives the cigarette back, and when she does, she takes a cue from him. Just as he did to her once upon a time when he had broken ribs, she raises her hand to her cheek and taps her index finger against it in open invitation.

[not_that_spike]

Like he can resist that. There's so much unspoken intent in way he leans in to steal that kiss right off Beth's cheek that it's nothing short of shameful. At the same time, it's everything at once: he loves her and loves her and loves her, and then he has to laugh -- out loud and everything -- when Beth Junior mimics the tap to her own little cheek.

Yeah, she gets a kiss too. He may be a hell of a stubborn S.O.B., but deep down inside there's this part of him that just about no one gets to see. Jet saw it... maybe once or twice. Faye never did. Julia... well, she was a different story altogether. But Beth? She gets to know all about it, all about all of him.

"Kiss," says Junior with a little bit of delight. "Now peek-a-boo?"

He knew she was smart. "Soon, toughest kickboxer in the west. Soon." He kind of wonders how long it'll be until he can make the walk from here to downtown Paris or downtown to here without the cloak. He hopes that happens soon too. But first he's going to finish this cigarette, damn it, because it's been so long since he was able to just stand around and smoke one. He's... not a selfless person. He's never been a selfless person: there's a hell of a good personal reason behind all the things he does. Sometimes, over the course of the years, it's been no fear of death making all his decisions, or maybe even a little bit of a death wish doing it for him. Sometimes it's been apathy. Sometimes it's been wondering if it was all just a big fucking dream, and the more things he does, the more chance he has of waking up and figuring it out.

So yeah, staying out here with Beth and Junior instead of crawling through that small door and back into the bar isn't something he's doing out of the goodness of his heart; there are plenty of people who'll say he doesn't have any of that. The truth is he's here because it's where he wants to be. Because he's already lost the one person who meant more to him than anyone else in the world, and he had to lose her three fucking times and it never got any easier and... he's not doing it again. In fact, he'll do pretty much anything to keep from losing Beth.

When the cigarette's done and ground out underfoot, he nods to Junior. "Now it's time, cowgirl. Ready?" He gives his own Beth one more kiss -- on the lips this time -- before putting on that cloak again. That whole concept of things being both blessing and curse flits through his mind and threatens to lodge there before he reminds himself his favorite deadly sin is the sin of overanalysis.

"Spi all gone." Junior's pronouncement would be a lot more solemn if it wasn't followed by a huge yawn and the telltale heavy eyelids indicating it's probably nap time. It's just one of those things he'd convinced himself he'd never ever know about, but now takes as a matter of course.

"If it wouldn't look ridiculous, Slim, I'd push the carriage back."

At least they have a carriage.

[stbethadettes]

She smiles as Junior leans against her sleepily. "It's tougher than that to get rid of a good bounty hunter, sweetheart."

Maybe there is a little bit of pride in her voice. She can't help it. As far as she's been concerned, it's never really been her place to be proud of Spike.

But she is anyway.

"It's okay," she directs to where Spike disappeared, slinging the straps of the diaper bag over her shoulder and letting little Beth nestle her head in the crook of her neck. "I don't mind pushing the carriage. But if we ever want people to think this house is haunted, I'm leaving the work to you."

[not_that_spike]

"It'd be a hell of a way to keep people away."

Beneath the cloak, there's a huge fucking grin on his face. He runs a little checklist in his mind: get locks for the door, fix those broken windows, get clean linens. Hell, get cleaning supplies and fuck if he knows why that sounds like it might be fun for a change, but anything beside living in this cloak is going to be fun for a change.

What he's most looking forward to are quiet evenings here with Beth and Junior... and nights with Beth again when the little one's asleep. Yeah, that'll be nice: it's been a long time since he hasn't had to sleep with one eye open, listening for stray sounds that mean cover the fuck up and be quiet.

Yeah. He's looking forward to nights just like that. This place isn't Venus and it's not the House of Arch, but they'll make it theirs. As they step outside and shut the door behind them, Junior's eyes close hard and he decides what the hell, no one can see him anyway: he leans over and kisses both Beths invisibly, then falls into step next to Slim for the walk back to the city.

He's pretty sure Hero will be interested in hearing about what they found in that closet.