So at 1am I'm listening to mugglenet podcasts from six months ago, reading some fan fiction, duh I have strange habits. And this idea has been itching at the back of my mind for some time now, to write my own fic. Tonight my mind decided to bombard me with numerous ideas for the story. So I'm pretty excited to start this fic. :D Anyways, for the future I'll tell you now that I'm not going to be one of those authors who updates everyday, though I hope when I do update it's going to be something you guys really enjoy. Anyways, let's begin shall we?

Disclaimer: Cowboy Bebop and basically every character in this fan fiction does not belong to me. I fear you lawyers, you don't need to reinforce that fear. So shoo… please? Also, the song Whiskey Lullaby, though not quoted anywhere in here, the title is not mine and the song is definitely not mine. Kthnxbye.

XxXxX

Vaquero

Session 1: Whiskey Lullaby

XxXxX

It would be ridiculously annoying for anyone else to hear the constant sounds of a dog running around a ship with his tags clinking as he moved, barking as he followed a girl that sang nonsensical songs. But the crew of the ship Bebop was used to days like this; they were just part of the free room and board. Well, mostly free.

A new sound erupted throughout the Bebop as Jet Black handed a piece of paper to Faye Valentine. "Come on, Faye, you couldn't have wasted all that money from the bounty already," growled Jet as he went back to his bonsais.

"It was three days ago! Why didn't you tell me right away I had to pay for that car?" shrieked Faye, infuriated not only because of the large number on the piece of paper Jet had handed to her, but because the shower was broken, again, and Jet said he wouldn't fix it until she paid for the police car she had smashed up on their last bounty.

"Because they didn't send me the invoice until today," answered Jet, his temper rising with Faye's.

Spike Spiegel awoke from his nap on the yellow couch in the main room to hear their angry voices down the hall. Damn, not again… He rolled over and tried to fall back asleep again.

Faye, fuming back in the doorway in front of Jet and his group of bonsai trees, decided to try a different tactic. She threw off her angry face and pulled on a calm one, putting on a rather charming smile. "Jet, I promise I'll pay you back soon. But a woman needs to keep clean. I'm not going to have that money right away and maybe not for another week or so. I'll give it to you soon, I promise, just please fix the shower?"

Jet exhaled sharply. "I don't know why I even put up with you, Faye, all you do is cost money!"

"Because I help you catch the bounties?" said Faye, her voice dripping with honey. Jet growled and nodded his head.

"Alright! Alright, I'll fix the shower. But you better pay me back. And if you don't, I'll make sure I get my money back somehow," muttered Jet, not looking at Faye but focusing on his bonsais. But Faye wasn't leaving. She tapped her barefoot against the floor, gripping her bathrobe impatiently. "What now?" asked Jet.

Faye nodded her head.

Jet rolled his eyes. "Fine, Faye, fine…" he muttered, standing up and walking past her.

"Thanks, Jet!" Faye called after him cheerfully. Jet didn't respond, but instead slunk into the bathroom. Faye chuckled to herself before walking into the living area where Spike was sprawled out on the couch, like usual. Faye went over to the fridge to find something to feed her while Jet was fixing the shower.

"Whatcha looking for?" asked Ed, seemingly popping out of nowhere behind Faye. Faye gasped, a little surprised, but then again she shouldn't have been, Faye smirked and turned back to the fridge.

"Something to eat," Faye said, rummaging through the fridge (it had gotten a lot fuller after their latest caught bounty). She grabbed a candy bar she had hidden in the back, pulled it out, and closed the fridge with her foot. She unwrapped the candy bar and began eating it.

Ed watched Faye hungrily and the young girl's stomach growled. "Haven't you eaten anything today, Ed? You're staring at my food too much," the older woman asked. Ed shook her head and Faye quirked an eyebrow. "Why haven't you eaten yet?"

"Ed isn't sure what to eat. She can't decide," the girl answered.

"Alright… do you want a candy bar, Ed?" The redhead thought for a moment and then nodded hungrily. "Just hold on a sec, let me get one for you…" she opened the fridge and dug through the back again to find the other candy bars she had put back there. None. She pulled her head out of the fridge, a little annoyed that somebody had eaten her carefully hidden food.

Over on the table next to the couch were the wrappers. Lunkhead… of course he was the one who ate them… Faye growled under her breath. Ed was still staring at the candy bar in Faye's hand hungrily, practically drooling. "Whatever, kid, just eat this one," muttered Faye, handing the half-eaten candy bar to Ed. Ed pounced on the candy bar happily, sniffed it, and then ate it quickly. "And next time you're hungry, just eat something without thinking so hard about it."

"Aye-aye Faye-Faye!" cheered Ed loudly. She had already downed the candy bar and then began walking on her hands towards the fridge to get more food. Faye rolled her eyes, a smirk playing on her lips anyways, as she turned away from the silly girl, turning back towards the other side of the room, where Spike was still lying on the couch.

Stupid Lunkhead, has to eat my food, of course... Faye growled under her breath and walked over to the table. She stared down at the candy wrappers for a minute. She hadn't had much money left after "depositing" it at the casino when she had gotten the money from the small bounty they had collected, so she spent most of it buying cheaper snacks, a ton of candy bars included. Sweet food for a sweet girl, Faye had thought, carrying the bag full of sweets back to the ship, along with some other food stuff.

She reached down and began collecting up the wrappers, grumbling all the while about Spike not being able to eat his own food and having to eat hers. During her rant, Spike opened one eye to see Faye in her bathrobe collecting up the wrappers and carrying them over to the trash. "Oh hey, Faye," he said, smirking smugly, opening his second eye and sitting up on the couch. "Good choice of candy bar, they made a great snack before I took an afternoon nap." He could tell she was seething and found it all quite amusing.

"Spike, that was the last of my woolongs!" she exclaimed angrily. "I have so little left I probably can't even buy another damn candy bar!" She threw the candy bar wrappers into the trash forcefully. Behind her, sitting at the kitchen counter, was Ed eating some insta-noodles while Ein sat on the floor next to her chair. "Aye-aye-aye," muttered Ed as she crawled off her chair, deciding to retreat out of the room before a fully-blown shouting match ensued, Ein trailing behind her.

Spike raised an eyebrow and lost the smirk. "That's your fault for not handling your money better, Faye, and for not hiding your food in a better location." Faye's hands were balled up in fists, her face turning red as she grew more and more frustrated with the stupid cowboy on the couch by the second.

"Come on, Spike! It's not fair! We're supposed to be working together here, comrades remember?" Faye nodded her head, forcing a smile onto her face, forcing her voice to appear calm and cool. But her anger broke through. "Comrades don't eat each other's food without paying each other back for it!"

Sighing, Spike tilted his head backwards and played with a piece of fabric on the couch that was frayed with his right hand. "Alright, Faye, you want payment for those candy bars?" Faye nodded eagerly. "Well… I doubt it's a fair trade, but I'm in a generous mood. Unless Jet has found it and drank it himself, I've still got a full bottle of whiskey hiding behind the fridge. I guess it's yours, since I ate your candy bars." Faye looked at Spike, a bit confused. "Candy for booze, not what I'd call a fair trade, but call me a nice guy."

Faye shrugged and went back to the fridge and looked behind it. Nothing was there. Suddenly infuriated again, sure he had fooled her, she turned back at Spike to yell at him but Spike simply laughed, his regular self-assured smirk plastered onto his face. "It's under a floorboard, Faye," he told her before she could yell at him.

Shrugging, Faye got down onto her knees and pulled at a floorboard which instantly came up to reveal a nice bottle of booze. Surely she wouldn't be drinking it now, but perhaps she could save it for a special occasion when she didn't feel like going to a bar to get herself drunk but do it instead on the Bebop, in private maybe.

"Thanks," muttered Faye, leaving the room with the bottle in hand.

"Just don't drink it all on one occasion, that's some nice whiskey there! Don't waste it," called Spike after her as he stood up from the couch and began to stretch his muscles. Faye shrugged and continued out of the room and back towards her bedroom.

She lifted up her mattress and put the booze in the bedsprings, towards the end where her feet would be. She usually curled up a bit when she slept anyways, so it wouldn't get in her way. Plus, the middle of the night always seemed like the times she needed a drink most. Putting her mattress back down a fist rapped on her door. A less aggravated Jet Black was standing in it, though he still looked fairly annoyed with her.

"The shower is fixed, your highness," muttered Jet.

Faye gave him a small smile. "Thanks Jet." Jet seemed a bit surprised she didn't say something like "took you long enough" or "finally" but he just shrugged as she walked past him towards the bathroom. "Whatever," muttered Jet as he walked back to his bonsais.

XxXxX

"Where are you going?"

She took another sip straight out of the bottle, ramming her head backwards against the wall repeatedly. Not so hard that it would give her a bump, but hard enough to make the pain in her head match the one in her heart… if it was about fifty times bigger.

"Why are you going?"

Sip, swallow, hit your head, and breathe. Sip, swallow, hit your head, and breathe.

"Look into my eyes, Faye."

What was it about eyes? Everyone always said eyes were the window to the soul, eyes always showed what someone was really thinking. She scoffed. Like she could ever have seen anything in Spike Spiegel's eyes. He was smart, never laid all his cards on the table, much less any cards.

"You're going to throw your life away like it was nothing?"

Why not? Of course, a drunken woman with a snapped-in-half heart wasn't the best judge of if suicide was a great option or not. She took another swig out of the bottle. It was nearly half-empty by now. The same whiskey he had given her. A fitting drink to fit the tone of the evening.

"I'm not going there to die…"

She hit her head awfully hard against the wall this time. The ramming and the booze weren't a good combination; she was beginning to feel a bit dizzy by then. The hallway was spinning, like the world was spinning around her. She didn't understand.

"…I'm going there to find out if I'm really alive."

"Life is not a fucking dream, Spike Spiegel," she muttered, waving her bottle madly around. "Wherever you are, wherever your grave is, just know that you're fucking alive whether or not you have a Julia around to prove it or not."

"You're drunk Faye," said a familiar voice. She looked up, her mouth hanging open dumbly, and as she fell backwards her world went black, but she couldn't feel her head hit the ground.

XxXxX

"Ya know smokin's bad for your health, doll," said a burly man, likely to be in his late twenties, maybe a few years older than the woman sitting in front of him. He had a mop of brown hair on his tanned scalp, the rest of his body to match. He wore clothes reminiscent of a biker's, torn at the edges, rough, worn by travel. He was exactly what she was looking for.

Faye Valentine, looking much like she had six months ago with the same hair, the same outfit, the same pale skin and the same vibrant green eyes, stared up at the man who had come over to chastise her. Well, it's good to know that Jet's information is still as reliable as ever, she thought to herself as she smiled at the man in front of her. She took a drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke up towards him with a small wink.

"There are things worse for my health in this galaxy, Rudolph Glassmeyer, like letting you run free throughout the galaxy," she said sweetly. The large man, Rudolph, looked a little taken back.

"You're a bounty hunter? I thought you worked here!" exclaimed Rudolph.

Faye scoffed. "No, sorry Rudolph, I'm not a whore like I'm sure you wanted. But I do have a little surprise for you," she said, her voice still sugarcoated and sounding as honey-filled and suave as ever. Just take a little step back, I'm sure you'll like this."

"Like hell I'll do anything you tell me to," scoffed Rudolph, staying still and crossing his arms in front of Faye.

"Good," said Faye quietly. "Because my friend behind you might not have liked it if you had stepped on his foot or something." Rudolph turned around abruptly, a grave mistake, and his face met Jet Black's rather dense and pain-inducing fake arm. Rudolph crumpled to the ground and Faye smirked, standing up and dropping her cigarette right by Rudolph's face. She stepped on it with her right foot and shot a little smirk at Rudolph, unconscious by this point.

"Sorry, nothing personal," she whispered.

Rudolph was a big man, an ex-wrestler on Mars who had been thrown into prison for rigging some of his matches so that he could possible kill his opponents without being blamed. Rudolph, however, wasn't very efficient and therefore was caught rather quickly in the act. He escaped from the prison a few weeks ago, rumored to have been a ploy of some small syndicate, looking for an assassin of his qualities. Rudolph was supposed to have been working for this small syndicate for the past few weeks since his break-out, but the police wasn't being bribed by this particular syndicate and didn't like that this syndicate happened to have taken a fancy to killing off a lot of the Mars police.

The syndicate had been caught in the midst of a murder three days ago and Rudolph escaped the planet, rumored to have fled to Venus. Jet's sources also told him what Rudolph looked like, that he wasn't extremely intelligent, and that he hated cigarette smoke.

An easy capture, he wasn't worth an extraordinary amount, but two million woolongs was two million woolongs. He was a dangerous guy with a history of violence, someone the police wanted gone.

But being as large as he was, Jet had a difficult time carrying the unconscious man back to the Bebop. Faye didn't bother offering to help, but then again Jet doubted that she be able to help all that much. Rudolph had to have been three or four times Faye's size. Jet had somehow found a way to carry the man without buckling under the weight, throwing him on his back like an oversized backpack. A very heavy oversized backpack. Jet was moving very slowly, which was fine for Faye as she pulled out another cigarette along the way, taking a drag on it every few steps, staring in front of her as she moved.

"Hopefully I knocked him out good enough so that he won't wake up while I carry him for the next day or so to make it back to the ship!" yelled Jet.

"Oh, relax Jet, you're doing fine," said Faye, rolling her eyes and cocking her head to look back at Jet. "Stop being such a baby. If I had brought the Redtail with me it would have drawn too much attention to me. The people in this area of Venus aren't used to seeing such nice ships like that." She gave Jet a little smile and turned back around to continue walking.

But there was something in her way. She was looking down the barrel of a gun. Shit.

"Hold it right there!" said a woman's voice, mostly calm, but the voice quivered slightly as well. Faye could tell that though the woman holding the gun looked rather used to holding the gun, she hadn't been in scenarios like this very often. Scenarios like trying to steal a bounty from another bounty hunter.

"Oh great," muttered Jet. "And miss, considering that you're even smaller than my friend here, how do you think you're going to carry this body yourself?"

The woman smiled. "I'll figure something out." The smile wasn't malicious or anything, it actually seemed rather friendly. She was a pretty woman, young too. She couldn't have been older than twenty with soft brown hair falling down to her chin. Her blue eyes were large and round, like a child's eyes upon seeing everything for the first time. She was wearing a simple outfit, a little ratty and old, her blue skirt torn along the edges. Surely she was bounty hunting because she needed the money. Of course, why else would someone take up bounty hunting as a career?

"Come on, honey, just leave us alone, alright? Go steal someone else's bounty," instructed Faye, taking another drag of her cigarette. The woman stared at the pair of them, examining them, probably thinking about whether or not it was worth it. Finally she decided it wasn't and lowered her gun.

The brown-haired woman nodded her head and flashed her friendly smile once again. "Sorry, I just needed a bounty and thought that since your partner there is basically collapsing under this guy's weight I could somehow take it for myself." She scratched her neck and laughed nervously. "Guess I didn't really think it through."

Faye examined the woman. Honestly she looked like a starving rat with her mousy hair and very frail looking body. Faye could tell that the woman's body would look a lot prettier if she had some meat on her bones, if she was wearing nicer clothes that weren't so torn up. "Do you even have a place to stay, honey?" asked Faye, quirking an eyebrow in curiosity.

The brunette shrugged. "I've got a house, yes, no food, but a bed."

For some reason Faye was feeling a little sympathetic for the woman. Any pretty woman that wasn't a total airhead and had nothing, well, Faye could hand them over to Jet to feed and clothe. Not like Faye could pay for that herself. "Hmm… why don't you come with us?"

The woman's beautiful blue eyes lit up. "Are you sure? I just tried to steal your bounty, remember."

Maybe in some twisted part of Faye's mind she was imagining this woman joining her and Jet on the ship. It had been so empty during the past six months without any dogs, kids, or lunkheads around to make any noise. It was just Faye and Jet, arguing, collecting bounties, eating silent dinners. In fact, neither had really honestly talked to the other since the first week after Spike had disappeared, probably dead, neither had any proof but it seemed like the odds were in favor of the guy with the fuzzy green hair having died. Faye had run off at first, gone on a bender, but Jet had insisted she stay on the ship.

Since when could Faye refuse a place to sleep and food to eat? Plus, Jet had never stolen her hidden stash of candy bars, and he would fix the shower for her when it broke.

And now there was this brunette. She was young, pretty, fairly innocent it seemed. She reminded Faye of herself before the accident. Causing trouble everywhere, but never intentionally. Now she was walking disaster, purposefully most of the time… and she liked it that way.

But this wasn't about Faye, well not intentionally, this was about the strange woman now eating at a table in the living area of the Bebop alongside Faye and Jet. Three people hadn't graced the table at once since Faye, Ed, and Ein had left. Unless, of course, that third person was an unconscious bounty. Rudolph was tied up against a pole near the staircase. Jet kept glancing over at the large man to make sure he didn't move.

"I swear, my back will never feel the same after today," muttered Jet.

Faye smirked. "It will just remind you that earning a bounty is more than hearing from your old I.S.S.P. pals and punching a guy in the face, it's a difficult job," she said, smirking even wider as Jet glared at her, growling slightly.

The third party giggled. "You two remind me of a brother and sister. Sort of like how my brother and I used to be, except it was the other way around. He was always teasing me, but it was always in good fun."

Faye, finished with her plate of vegetables (their luxurious dinner since they had yet to collect on Rudolph's bounty), pulled out a cigarette and a lighter, lit the cigarette and put away the lighter. As she exhaled, she asked the brunette, "What happened to your brother."

There was a pause of silence and suddenly Faye realized she had probably touched a soft spot. Oh whatever. Kid's gotta buck up if she's going to be serious in this business. "He died," the brunette said simply, with a tone of finality that neither Jet nor Faye asked any further questions.

Jet stared at her for a moment. "I don't think you ever told us your name or that we ever told you ours," he said, starting to pick up the dishes. The brunette handed him her empty plate with a small 'thanks.' "Anyways, I'm Jet Black, and this is Faye Valentine," Jet introduced the duo.

"Nice to officially meet you, I'm Stella. Stella Bonnaro," she told them, smiling.

Bonnaro… that sounds familiar, thought Faye. "Have I ever met you before, Stella?" she asked. "Your last name, well, it sounds really familiar."

"I don't remember you," said Stella shaking her head. "Maybe you knew my brother? Roco Bonnaro?"

Oh yeah. That rings a bell. He's the guy, that bounty on Venus, the one where I went after Picarro… oh what a failure that hunt was…

"I think we met him once," Jet thought aloud, trying to not poke into territory which might upset Stella. Having dealt with the plates, Jet walked back over to the table and sat down.

Faye was still smoking her cigarette, remembering that one bounty on Venus. They hadn't traveled to Venus too much when Spike… well, back then. "Yeah, he had a bounty on him once," said Faye casually, ignoring that she might be poking at Stella's brother a bit much. "I remember he got caught in that crossfire between us and Picarro's gang of thugs. I guess he turned on Picarro at the last minute, turning on a gang always leaves its consequences."

Example A: Spike Spiegel.

Jet and Stella both froze. Jet had a pained expression on his face, looking like he kind of wanted to strangle Faye. He knew better than to say too much about a dead person, but it seemed like Faye wasn't always so cautious about avoiding speaking about every dead loved one as she was cautious about avoiding speaking about Spike.

Stella didn't move. She was holding a mug of coffee she had had with the dinner rather tightly. Jet would have been afraid she would break it if Stella hadn't looked so frail and small. "You two… you're Spike's friends aren't you?" It was Faye's turn to freeze. She hadn't heard that name anywhere except in her own mind in six months. "He told me he traveled around with some friends from place to place. I had almost hoped Roco would travel with him. I thought Roco and Spike would have made great friends but then… Roco died. And Spike never came back. I never saw either of them."

Faye looked over at Stella. She didn't look like she was about to cry or anything, she just looked rather… sad. Her emotions weren't screaming sad, but if there was to be a Portrait Of A Sad Young Woman, Stella Bonnaro would have been the perfect candidate at that moment to have been featured in the portrait.

"What do you mean you never saw either of them?" asked Jet, not wanting to prod, but curious. Faye still really couldn't speak. Just the off-handed way that Stella had mentioned Spike… it wasn't something Faye was quite used to yet.

"I was affected by Venus-sickness in a way that made me blind," explained Stella. She didn't sound depressed speaking about the topic, quite the opposite she sounded rather interested in discussing the topic. Even enthusiastic, maybe? "I couldn't see. But then Roco got me some grey ash and they did the operation and so now I've been able to see for almost a year now."

The three of them sat in silence for a few minutes. Stella sipped her coffee every now and then, Jet played with his hands, and Faye just continued to stare off into the distance, taking a drag on her cigarette every now and then. Eventually she dropped it onto the ground and stepped on it with her boot, standing up in the process. Stella stood up too.

"Thank you for your hospitality," she said kindly. "Maybe I shouldn't be a bounty hunter, I'm not much in this line of business."

Jet smiled at the young girl. Young, innocent, she wasn't the type to be a bounty hunter. But, then again, her brother was dead. Any girl, especially one like Stella who seemed to have been very close to her brother, would be affected by that and make a career change to a more interesting path.

Stella said thank you to both Faye and Jet again and exited the ship.

"Now there's just the matter of collecting the bounty on Rudolph," said Jet, looking over to the staircase where the huge man was still tied to the pole, still unconscious.

"Jeez, Jet, you must have really hit him hard; he's still out of it," said Faye, smirking.

"This arm comes in handy for some things," said Jet, grasping his fake arm with his real one proudly. "Now, come on, let's call in the local police station so that maybe they can come by and pick him up themselves. I don't feel much like carrying him… what's that smell?"

Jet had crinkled his nose, smelling something weird and rather disgusting onboard the ship. "What the hell is that smell?"

Faye noticed it too then, her smirk turned into a disgusted sneer. "Oh god, what is that?"

Suddenly they were both overcome with coughing fits. Don't tell me… "Stella," muttered Faye under her breath before dissolving into more coughs. "So much for that innocent, young girl, she's gassed the place!" exclaimed Faye, coughing all throughout the sentence.

Jet was coughing too hard to reply properly. Soon enough they both collapsed onto the ground, unconscious just like Rudolph.

Stella walked back onto the ship, wearing a gas mask and looking over at Rudolph. He looks like he'll last long enough for me to bring him in… Stella headed towards him, but first made a detour. She reached down into Faye's red sweater's pocket and pulled out the key to the Redtail.

"Sorry," said Stella to the unconscious forms, her voice muffled by the gas mask. "But I have to do what I have to do sometimes. And I need this money." She gave Jet and Faye sympathetic looks before dragging Rudolph's body throughout the ship, hitting the ex-wrestler's head on quite a few things before making it to the hangar. Then she realized what a small ship the Redtail was.

Deciding it was safe to pull off her gas mask, Stella did so. "How the heck am I going to fit this guy into that?" she muttered to herself.

She managed it somehow.

XxXxX

Jet and Faye came around a few hours later. Everything was how they had left it, except that Rudolph was missing and when Faye went to check on her Redtail and Jet's Hammerhead, there was a note and a small stack of cash in the Redtail, right next to the key Stella had stolen from Faye.

Sorry, but I hope you two don't hate me for what need drove me to do.

Maybe you can join me for a drink at a local bar tonight?

I'm not much of a heavy drinker, but you two seemed so nice – Faye scoffed slightly

Meet me at The Yellow Tail around eight.

I'll understand if you don't show up.

-Stella

Faye stared at the note. She had to admire the woman's means. And she still had morals, imagine that. She was nobler than Faye and possibly cleverer too. Faye had always thought the vixen approach was the best, but perhaps the innocent lamp routine worked just as well sometimes. She'd have to remember to stop being so friendly to sweet strangers in the future.

The money was a hundred thousand woolongs. A twentieth of the entire bounty, but still enough money to buy some food and fuel. Faye would keep the money to herself… she wasn't as noble as Stella and she knew this and didn't care. Tucking the note in her pocket, Faye checked the time on the Redtail. Ten of eight. She smirked. Jet would know she'd be back if he came in here and saw that the Redtail was gone.

Faye never stayed gone for long. There was nowhere else to go, just the Bebop. She'd always find her way home… right there, in the second room on the right, sleeping on the bed with a half-empty whiskey bottle hidden under it.

XxXxX

Stella was sitting at a small table in the corner of the bar. It was a quiet place, for a bar, and not very crowded. The bartender was downing one of his own drinks while chatting with a few patrons sitting at the bar. There were a few groups of people scattered throughout the bar, but none too rowdy. And then there were a few lonely drunks. And then there was Stella, spotting Faye and smiling.

"I'm glad you came, even if I did steal your bounty," the younger woman said, gesturing for Faye to sit down.

Faye shook her head. "Let's just say I have a little respect for some people who can con me. I liked your methods. Some might say you were playing us for chumps and you were, but it's not like I've never done anything that's made my enemy look like a chump before."

Stella laughed softly, and Faye did as well. She pulled out a cigarette to smoke, offered one to Stella, but the brunette refused. Faye shrugged and lit her own cigarette. She took a moment to take a long drag before looking over at Stella. "So are we going to order some drinks?"

"If you want something, sure, though I'll probably stick to a soda," said Stella. "I've never been one to hold my liquor well."

Faye chuckled. "I'm sure I'll drink enough for the both of us." She hailed a woman to come over and bring them back a soda and a whiskey.

"Whiskey?" asked Stella.

"Yeah, whiskey," repeated Faye as the woman walked away to get their drinks. She returned within moments, interrupting only silence. Faye picked up her glass. "To making a living out of back-handed schemes and playing the justice thing in a different key," she toasted. Stella smiled and clinked her glass to Faye's. Both took small sips of their drink. Faye's second sip was basically sucking down a third of the glass while Stella continued to take small sips.

Stella watched Faye. "I take it there's something behind that drink with you," said Stella.

Faye had tried to appear perfectly normal while drinking, but Stella… she could read more than looks. It was a little creepy, a little amazing. Of course, Stella had had to live for years without sight. Faye doubted she relied on it that much.

"Maybe someday I'll tell you," replied Faye with a smile.

The music in the bar changed from a rowdy country tune to a soft tune as if it were coming from a music box. It sounded so familiar to Faye, eerie and yet sweet at the same time. She had heard this before, she knew she had. That tune, just something about it… it went well with the whiskey.

"I had a music box that played this song once," said Stella smiling, staring at her soda glass. "Roco gave it to me."

Faye looked back at Stella. "It's a beautiful song."

The two women sat in the bar together, sipping their drinks until the song ended and their glasses were empty. Then they left as a rock 'n roll song started up, walking out side by side. Faye waved good-bye to Stella and began walking back to her Redtail before an idea popped in her mind and she turned around.

"Hey… how about you join up with me and Jet?" suggested Faye. "It'd be fun working with you instead of against you."

Stella considered the offer for a moment. "Maybe someday. I'm sure I'll run into you guys again, somewhere. Especially now that I have some money for transportation to other planets considering I'm no longer broke." She smiled at Faye. "Good-bye. Tell Jet I'm sorry, will you?"

"Sure." Stella walked away as Venus grew darker and darker. Faye smiled to herself, the taste of whiskey still fresh in her mouth as she watched the silhouette of the young woman vanish as it turned a corner. Faye crawled into the Redtail and was about to sit down when she found herself nearly sitting on a beautiful box. Carved on it was "To Stella." Faye opened it and a lilting tune broke through the quiet confines of the Redtail.

Julia…

Faye closed the music box immediately. That was the song. It was fitting that the woman Julia had been just like the song. An eerie but beautiful melody… ordinary but extraordinary. Faye set the music box aside, not even caring how Stella had managed to get it onto the ship.

That night, the whiskey bottle under the bed met its new companion, a beautiful blue box… but when it opened, it opened something Faye wouldn't have minded keeping shut for the rest of her life.

Either under the bed was getting too crowded to let Faye sleep peacefully, or else she was a little troubled from the day's events.

"You two… you're Spike's friends aren't you?"

Yeah… I guess you could have said that. Pity, dead men don't have real friends, just a trail of broken hearts left behind.

XxXxX

Interesting way to open the fic? Well, I'm very interested in re-introducing a lot of old characters, rather than creating a whole array of new ones. I'm sure there will be plenty of new characters as we go along as well.

Anyways, I have no clue how long this is going to be, but I expect it to be as long as I want it to be. I have a few ideas for a few future sessions. As for if we'll see Ed and Ein again? Definitely. I'm not sure whether or not they'll rejoin the crew, but we'll definitely see them. And Spike? Well, I still haven't decided if I'm going to have him live or not. And please, don't bombard me asking me to do one thing or the other. I'll choose what's happened to Spike on my own.

Reviews are always appreciated (duh) so I'd love it if you'd leave a review saying what you thought. Concrit is always welcome, flames are never welcome. For future reference I will probably be posting in my livejournal (my homepage on my author's page) updates on when the next chapter will come. I'm expecting it to not be too far in the future, a month tops I'd say. I've also got fics in other fandoms I'm working on so I can't just focus on this one, sawries guys.

Last of all, I really hope you enjoyed reading this and I hope you want more and will like the more when it comes! Until next time, listen to awesome music, watch more Cowboy Bebop (it's good for the system), and catch some sleep in-between!