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"I Want To Believe You"

JULIA: It was raining that day as well...

SPIKE: You didn't come because of the rain?

JULIA: I was supposed to kill you. That day if I had killed you I would

       have been free.

SPIKE: So why didn't you? Why did you choose to be pursued?

JULIA: Why did you love me?

Julia puts down the gun and embraces Spike.

JULIA: Let's just run away somewhere.  Truly escape from this world and go

       where no one else is... Just the two of us...

He wanted to believe her. Believe that, years later, they might still have a chance to escape to freedom together. Build a life together out from under the shadow of the syndicate, using their bloodstained hands to make a home together somewhere no one knew their names…

But he wasn’t the same idealistic young man he’d been when he tried to make future plans with her so long ago. Madly in love, desperate to get away from everything he’d ever known except for her… he had been a fool, a loveblind fool. He had believed that she would show up, that despite her initial response and misgivings that she would choose to flee with him.

Killing him wouldn’t have made her free. They both knew that and it was slightly belittling to realize she might have thought him daft enough to consider it true. She could have easily joined him after he faked his own death - there was no gun to her head in that moment, no excuse to explain why she’d chosen to run on her own instead of at his side.

And to think she still didn’t understand his affection for her back then. When she had been the only light in his dark life, the spark of promise of something beautiful, the impetus he’d needed to realize there was more out there for both of them than to serve the syndicate and eventually be killed in the call of duty.

Her presence here now was wildly suspicious. Clearly she’d kept in contact with Shin - how else would he have known to warn him about the Van making a move on Vicious and Julia and Spike himself? Truthfully, had he even been a target? If they’d believed he was alive, then absolutely. But who had Vicious told after he’d made that discovery in the cathedral? Annie had thought Mao was mad for believing Spike was still alive, but he’d been right after all. Even Vicious might have been convinced he was dead, until Faye made the mistake of going after Mao’s bounty and they’d traced her ties to the Bebop and realized Spike was out there.

That disturbed him quite a bit. He’d gone over Faye’s ship after he was mobile again. He’d searched high and low for any sign of a tracking device and had come up empty. But there had to be something hidden somewhere. The fact that Vicious hadn’t bothered to chase them down immediately only spoke to the more imperative personal missions he’d had. By that point it was obvious that Spike had eluded notice for years and would likely endeavor to continue being a ghost to all who had known him before. He was hardly a threat to Vicious, who had apparently maintained the lofty aspirations Spike had heard hint of back when they were still partners.

Tearing down the Elders and placing himself at the head of a powerful syndicate… that was far more important to Vicious than slaying a weak man who he’d once held in high esteem.

The fact that it had taken the Elders so long to move against Vicious spoke of their own naivety. Even when Spike had been an enforcer, they had not trusted Vicious very far. For them to let him live to be such a threat was idiotic at best. And for them to immediately target Julia as well when they finally decided to eliminate Vicious? It begged the question of how they were able to find her with such ease and why they considered her so tied to Vicious still. It made no sense to simply kill everyone associated with one unruly member - that would only ensure the syndicate itself was gutted of capable members.

Clearly she was very much a part of Vicious’s plans.

And the way she’d managed to run into Faye of all people was highly suspect. Using Faye to get to him made him leery as well. It was cruel to toy with Faye in such a way given her obvious yet inconvenient feelings for him. Oh, she downplayed it as best she could, strove to force it far from her thoughts and heart, but Julia was well-versed in reading people. She would have been able to see the minute tells in Faye during whatever passed for conversation between the two. And then she’d sent her back to the ship, back to him, morose and disturbed and unable to keep from telling Spike what she had been told to relay to him.

Faye was too good a person, though she’d be the last one to think that of herself. But a spiteful woman would have never told him that message. She could have taken Julia’s plea to the grave and Spike would have never known.

Julia had assumed a lot about Faye’s character but in the end she had been judged accurately. And she had correctly deduced that the events unfolding on Tharsis - her own desperate attempt to reach out to him - would lead him straight back into her clutches. But to what end?

He could not believe she truly wanted to abscond with him at last. Could not believe that she thought he would just leave his friends to be murdered for the simple error of having been his partners in his post-syndicate life. Then again, her own knowledge of Spike was based largely on who he had been before. On the lovesick young man willing to betray everyone he’d known just to have a chance with the girl of his dreams.

He didn’t know what her plan was. Wasn’t sure if she was here to lead him to Vicious or the Elders or what. It was entirely possible that he was meant to be a sacrificial lamb that would give her a leg up in the eyes of the Van. Perhaps she expected him to face off against Vicious so one or both of them could be killed.

Her motives were questionable. Her presence before him filled him with distrust. Yet he could not keep from taking the next steps. He was tired of being someone’s plaything. Tired of being coerced to dance for someone else’s entertainment and end game. The bloodbath that was about to ensure was inevitable but he was going to take it to the very end in his own way. This would go down on his terms and maybe that meant he’d die too but… well, he’d died before a time or two, so why not make it official at last if it resulted in the syndicate’s demise?