I Can't Explain

She tried to put her strange conversation out of her mind for the rest of the day, worried that she had imagined the whole thing or was hallucinating or something. She was also unconsciously avoiding Spike, not talking to him or looking at him throughout dinner, and then the rest of the time going into one of the rooms that didn’t have gravity for some low-resistance training to prepare herself for a fight in space; and then she read a book to kill time before bed. She was about halfway through one of her favorite books that she had read nearly a hundred times when she nodded off, the headphones from her mp3 player still pumping music into her ears, the book nearly slipping from her fingers as her arm slumped across her lap, the other dangling off the side of the couch she was laying on; Ein was asleep on the floor beside her and Ed took the opportunity to paint her toenails blue, green, purple, pink, and yellow. After about an hour Spike walks in and notices her, her legs slowly slipping to the floor while Ed carefully paints her little toenail on her left foot yellow as she sits on the floor. Ein is in danger of being squashed and Jessica’s book has fallen off her lap and lays on its back, open to the page she stopped at.

Spike shakes his head, amazed at how she can still sleep like that, and then shoos Ed away and carefully picks her up, grunting a little at how solid she is, she doesn’t look as though she weighs much, but her stature and build may cause some sort of illusion; she sighs a little, shifts her weight around, and Spike freezes, thinking she’s about to wake up. He’d been feeling pretty chagrined ever since she’d blown up in his face earlier, and had been looking for a way to make it up to her. He’d figured that the least he could do was take her to her room so she could get some decent sleep. He remembered how Faye had complained when they had cleaned out one of the storage rooms full of useless junk so Jessica could have a room; but she’d shut up when Jet had told her that if she was willing to help, like Jessica had, she would have a room too. Jessica even offered to share the room with her, but Faye would have none of that, said she’d rather sleep in the toilet than share a room with her. Jessica heard, but she took it in stride, said she’d heard worse when she’d had to share a room with her sister for ten years.

Spike wondered what her life had been like before it had changed so dramatically and a scientific glitch had landed her on the deck of the Bebop. She rarely talked about her family, except in passing, and he knew that she missed them, he heard her moving around sometimes at night, long after she had said she was going to bed, and in the morning she had dark circles under her eyes as if she hadn’t slept all night. He looked at her face as he carried he to her room; it looked so peaceful, but then a frown creased her forehead and she twitched, her arm reaching out as if to grab someone, her breath coming in little gasps as though she were running hard. He quickly put her onto her bed and went to get up, but her flailing hand caught his arm and refused to let go. Spike sighed and then shifted Jessica slightly, making room, and layed down beside her. She scooted closer and nestled her head under his chin and he smiled, relaxing and bringing his arms around behind her, holding her closer. He kicked off his shoes and tried, unsuccessfully to shrug out of his jacket, managed to get it stuck, then gave up after getting one arm out and just let it dangle off the edge of the bed. Jessica shifted some more and somehow managed to run her hand up his shirt and Spike felt his face grow warm and his heartbeat stutter. He felt that it’s going to be a pretty long night.