Chapter Text
To say you had a normal life would be a lie. You were a part time bounty hunter, part time clinician. Being either of those things by themselves was a doozy, but being both made for some of the most interesting interactions. But watching a man fall from the window of a church with an explosion going off behind him had been one of the more confusing things you had seen. If not for the fact you were close to where he'd land, that man would have probably suffered from several broken bones and a cracked skull.
Saving the guy wasn't as graceful as it seemed in your head. No, after you had dropped your bag and ran closer to where he would land, the guy's body fell on top of you and sent you to the ground. Your arm went out in front of you instinctively to break your fall. You knew as soon as you hit the ground something broke. Wheezing as you tried to get the guy off your back, you felt pain shoot up the arm you had landed on. It had definitely broke, but you'd deal with it once you made sure the guy on top of you wasn't dead.
You managed to turn so you were sitting, the mystery man beside you. He had blood seeping through his shirt, most likely from taking a bullet. You sucked a breath in between your teeth, using your good hand to apply pressure to the wound. You managed to get your broken hand to his neck, checking to see if he was alive. Thankfully, he was, even if the beating of his heart was faint. He'd make it, you just needed to figure out where your bag had landed during the commotion of having a man fall on top of you.
"Okay, Mister. You better stay alive, I broke my arm to make sure you didn't die. It's only fair you live, y'know?" You glanced to the man's face before moving your hand off the wound so you could get your bag. You never went anywhere without your bag, it had medical supplies for almost every possible injury. You never knew when a fight would break out or when you need to keep someone alive to get the reward for the bounty put on them. It was better to be prepared.
"Alright, Mister. You aren't gonna die on my watch, so just hang tight." You smiled at the guy- you decided to dub him Guy -before taking a first aid kit out of your bag. You pulled out some scissors, cutting the part of his shirt that surrounded the wound. Your hand hurt like hell, but you were going to keep your "no patient dead" streak. You could hear someone rushing near you, but you had a patient to take care of now. Keeping hands steady, you used the scissors to remove the bullet. It wasn’t an ideal way to remove it, but it would work. “Alright, Guy. You’re gonna be fine. You’re lucky I’m such a good pillow, huh? You didn’t lose too much blood, at least…” You stopped talking to the unconscious man and grabbed a needle, alcohol swabs, and a numbing agent. “You are so lucky I have some of those dissolving stitches on me.”
You started to stitch Guy up, ignoring the sound of a gun being cocked. You didn’t even stop bandaging Guy as you felt said gun being pressed to your back. If you were going to die, you were going to do it having at least taken care of someone. It wasn’t like you had any reason to object to dying, either. But you had a job to do first.
“Get away from him or I’ll kill you.” The person with the gun to your back commanded you. Their voice as strained and a bit shaky. Guy must have been close to them.
“Can you hold off on shooting me for just a sec? I gotta make sure his bandages will stay, then you can shoot, sound fair?” You sighed. Guy would be getting free treatment, it seemed. “Alright, done. You know him? I could use some help getting him to a place he can get some rest, wanna keep my record clean of any dead people, ya’know?”
You grabbed your bag, slinging it over your shoulder as you grabbed the arm of Guy. The person who had the gun to your back shuffled back. They weren’t very good at keeping their threats. Hefting Guy’s arm over your shoulder, you turned to look at your could-be murderer.
“Would you mind helping me out? Come on, Miss, chin up. He’s alive, you don’t need to cry just yet, yeah?” You managed a smile. The woman in front of you finally seemed to realize you weren’t going to kill Guy and went to the other side of him. You let her guide you as you walked Guy.
“Why’d you patch him up? He doesn’t have any money.” The woman finally spoke up after we had walked a few blocks.
“As a doctor, I can’t leave some man to die. And as a bounty hunter, some man lying half-dead may have a pretty penny resting on his head. Either way, I couldn’t leave him to die. Are you a friend of his?” You glanced to the woman. Despite seeming a bit distressed, she managed a chuckle.
“It’s complicated. The name’s Faye Valentine, by the way. I think Spike might blow a fuse when he wakes up and sees another woman joined our gang.”
“Huh?”
“Well, having a doctor around could really help out. I think Jet’ll be happy that he won’t have to patch Spike up after a bounty. Plus, having another woman around would be great. And I gotta good feeling about you.” Miss Valentine turned toward the direction of a starship. The port of it was open, a man pacing at the entrance. You took more of Guy’s weight onto your shoulder. Your broken hand had gone from a sharp pain to a dull ache. You suspected it might have been a fracture instead of a break. You thanked whatever God there was that it wasn’t broken. “Never got your name by the way.”
“Oh. It’s y/n. I-”
“Faye, is that Spike?!” The man at the entrance yelled at Miss Valentine, whom of which nodded. The man came over right away, looking at you with something akin to disgust. “And just who might you be?”
Miss Valentine spoke up before you could. “This is y/n, and she’s our new doctor. Y/n, this is Jet. Now hurry up and get Spike inside, would ya?"
Guy (or Spike, as he seemed to be called) was lifted by the man who seemed to be called Jet. You followed Mister Jet, looking around you. It was spacious, a table and two couches in what looked to serve as a living room. It was far from quaint and even farther from luxurious. But it seemed livable, despite needing to be cleaned and disinfected. "Can you set him down and back away, please?"
Mister Jet looked at you as if he were surprised you could talk. He looked like he was about to say something snarky, but he simply nodded and set Mister Spike down. You went over to him and got on your knees. You grabbed a small flashlight from your bag and forced one of his eyes open. His eye was a copper brown, the pupil constricting. He wasn't brain dead, so that was good. You decided to check his other eye, just to make it even.
"Huh." You got closer to Mister Spike's face. His other eye was an odd color, almost red. The pupil hadn't constricted right away when the light had shown on it, which was odd. You stared at his eye a bit longer. He didn't have heterochromia, Martians never had the genetics to cause it. And he didn't seem to suffer from eye injury. Perhaps he had a procedure done to his eye. It wasn't uncommon to come across people who had been experimented on, so the possibility that he had been one of those people wasn't impossible. You would have to ask him about it when he was done resting.
"Soooo, Jet. Can y/n stay with us?" Miss Valentine spoke up. You turned your light off and slid it into your bag. You pulled out some elastic bandage and metal clips, starting to take care of your fractured wrist. As you wrapped your hand, you could hear Mister Jet sighed in exasperation.
“Faye, we got enough mouths to feed. You don’t exactly help with how much you bring in. You seem to forget we. Are. Broke. Bringing more people on can-”
“I can pay for rent and utilities while I stay, if you really need a doctor.” You stood up, slipping the bandages into your bag once more. Miss Valentine stared at you, her arms crossed over her chest. Mister Jet stood with his hands in his pockets, showing you had his attention. “I don’t mind paying for a place to live. If staying with you guys means more opportunities to catch a bounty, I’m all for it. I have about nine thousand woolongs on me, would that be enough to start out? I can go higher over time if need be.”
No one said anything for a moment. Mister Jet finally spoke up, a smile on his face, “Maybe we could replace Faye with you. Nine hundred for rent is fine, but we’ll have to find a room for you. And you said something about bounty? Real big coincidence you ended up here.”
“Why’s that?” You tilted your head.
“All of us are bounty hunters.”
Miss Valentine let you borrow some of her clothes. She didn’t have very much that was your style, but you were happy with it nonetheless. She had lent you a pair of navy blue shorts and a red shirt that were both a bit short in your opinion. The shirt buttoned up, so you were thankful for that, at least. “Why are all your clothes so…. Revealing?”
“Good looks are the best way to distract a man while you cheat him during poker.” Miss Valentine glanced up at you after you finished changing. She was easy to get along with, surprisingly. She looked like she would explode when you asked her if you could borrow something to wear. You hadn’t minded letting her give you fashion tips or trying to get you to wear a matching latex set. She was having fun after what must have been a stressful day, so you let her indulge.
“Really? I haven’t worn something this revealing in forever. Reminds me of the stuff they used to wear like, sixty years ago.” You looked around the room. There wasn’t much, nothing really grounding Miss Valentine to her environment. Not that you could tell, at least.
“What can I say? I’m an old-timer." Miss Valentine had a tight smile on her face. You sighed, sitting next to her and prayed you wouldn’t make things awkward.
“Miss Valentine, as a doctor, I worry about others’ mental health and their state of mind. If you ever need to talk, I’m more than willing to listen. You don’t have to talk right now, since you and I barely know each other, it could make you uncomfortable. But when and if you do need to talk, let me know. I’m your doctor now, just remember that. Alright?” You smiled to her, hoping you didn’t sound invasive. You wanted her to be comfortable with talking to you, it was your duty as a health specialist to make sure people were healthy physically, internally, and mentally.
“So you’re my shrink now?” Miss Valentine looked at you, her face showing all kinds of doubt.
“Only if you feel comfortable enough with it, then yes. If not, I’ll stick to patching up wounds and whatnot.”
She went silent. You didn’t push her for an answer, you understood she needed time to think. After all, you knew kindness could be an underlying threat. It was hard to believe someone wanted to help you because they wanted to nowadays. It was rare, unlike how it had once been. People would help others without asking for payment, things like that used to happen all the time. But since Earth wasn’t the only place for criminals to hide out now, crime rates jumped at an alarming rate. People would create and distribute drugs, kill their rivals, scam people with lower income, and they could get away with it so easily. So kindness from strangers had been more uncommon due to it.
“So I don’t gotta talk to you if I don’t want to?” Miss Valentine looked at you. Behind her tough attitude she seemed to have with Mister Jet, she looked so fragile. It was a cliche thing to think, but it was the best way to describe it.
“Nope. If you don’t wanna talk, that’s fine.”
Miss Valentine nodded slowly. “Alright… I think I’d like to talk with you sometime. But not now, you look like an absolute wreck. You should go sleep, y/n. We’re stopping on Mars tomorrow, so you’ll need some shut eye. And call me Faye, you make me sound like a boring housewife."
You nodded, leaving Miss Faye by herself as you walked out. You probably did look horrible, you hadn’t slept in almost two days. Sighing, you walked out to where Mister Spike was. He hadn’t woken up yet, but that was to be expected. You moved his feet and sat down. Ein was occupying the other couch, and you had no idea if he had even been washed at all. So you played it safe and sat next to Mister Spike’s feet.
You let out a sigh, closing your eyes as you hummed to yourself. It was odd to think that your life had been completely changed just because you happened to be in the right place at the right time. If it wasn’t for Mister Spike almost dying, you probably would be downtown in some shabby motel while waiting for a bounty to show up near you. But Mister Spike hadn’t died, and here you were.
“I’m glad Mister Jet had gone back and killed the man who had done this. I’m sure that he just saved a lot of trouble in the future,” You thought to yourself. You opened your eyes, looking to Mister Spike. His face as dirtied and a bit scratched up, but he looked handsome despite it. He was fairly attractive, if you were being honest. Looking at him without having to evaluate his problems made you realize you might have found Mister Spike perhaps just a little attractive. “Wonderful. I totally needed to deal with something like this now.”
You sighed before closing your eyes and resuming your humming. You drifted off after what seemed like an hour, oblivious to the fact Spike listened to every note you had hummed. Both of you laid in silence, the only sounds coming from the Bebop and your soft breathing.