Warnings: None


Queen of this Backwater Moon

Chapter 01:

"Home Again"


A study in contrast, their reunion came as gradually as their parting had come swift.

Faye found Ed, though to hear Faye tell it, the finding happened the other way 'round. In truth, Faye got lonely, but of course she'd never admit as much aloud. It turns out home isn't the place where you're born. It's somewhere else, somewhere alongside people who give a damn—not in the shadows of unfeeling ruins in a familiar clime. Faye tracked Ed down, and Ed allowed Faye-Faye to stay with her and the Data Dog on an ever-changing, pockmarked earth.

Ein cuddled with them both—but mostly with Ed. Some things never change.

Most things, really.

Which meant it came as no surprise when the Radical Edward found herself wishing for the steady presence of one Jet Black… especially when Faye-Faye forgot her manners and threatened to kick both her and Ein out of their shared tent for the oh-so-minor sin of using the wire of a favorite bra for an antenna. "Ping-ping-ping, helloooo old friend!" went the signal as it danced its merry way amongst the stars, and three weeks later the Bebop skimmed the waters of the malleable earth with a spray of diamond foam.

Jet had missed the girls—and the damn dog, though like Faye, he'd ever admit it out loud.

Same way not a single one of them talked about the other stray dog who still hadn't wandered home.

Jet tried not to think about that stray dog too much. Tried not to dwell on where the dog had gone, the haunted look in this eyes as he went to face his final demons, that stance that said the roaming dog didn't intend to return home once he'd done what he needed to do. Traces of that dog haunted the Bebop. A cigarette butt here, a dirty shirt left draped over the back of a chair there. Jet's gaze slid over them as if they did not exist, though developing such dispassion took care and time.

Faye eyed them when she passed, too, and she said nothing. But she stared out the windows and into the black as though to read the dog's face in the stars, to trace his features in the ghostly remnants of a vanished specter, unmentionable and untouchable. When Ed reached for his things, tried to build a little shrine to the stray dog's memory, Faye snarled at her to leave those memories alone.

Ed shrank back, eyes downcast, but she obeyed—and soon her eyes skipped over the abandoned possessions, too.

Which is why it made sense that not a single one of them believed it when the Swordfish II appeared, patched and limping, just beyond the edge of the starboard wing.

Chipped red paint, engine hanging by a thread, the ship sputtered across the dark horizon like a shred of long forgotten dream. Ed watched it from cockpit with a gasp and an "oh" of awe. Beside her, Jet's mouth dropped open. Faye hid her trembling lips behind a hand. Ein's fur stood up, and then he barked once, twice, three times. The spell broke as one dog greeted the other, and at Ed's burble of glee there came a sputter of static over the ship's communicator.

"Hey, stranger," came Spike's voice, hoarse and strained but real. "Room for one more?"

Jet's jaw clicked shut. His eyes watered, and his fists clenched at his sides.

Tears beaded in Faye's eyes, too, but she banished them with snarl and a hurled insult.

Ed whooped with joy, and when no one was looking, Ein pressed the button that opened the Bebop's hangar.

Just like that, the stray dog had come home—and the Bebop truly became their home once more.


Notes:

Little side project I'm going to be working on in my spare time. There's not enough Jet/OC in this world; hopefully this can balance the scales. Next chapter we start in media res with the bounty they get after. Wanted this first chapter to cover how they all found each other again to ground us in the story's timeline. Stay tuned for more, and thanks!