"Umm, sure." Gabby slowly stepped into the room, never taking her eyes off Jet and
thinking about what he had just said.

Jet, on the other hand acted exactly the same as he did when he had noticed her: as
if nothing had happened. "Here," He said smiling and handing her a pair of small scissors.

"Make yourself useful."

She quickly sat down on the floor next to the table and began to snip away the dead
branches of the nearest tree. Was he talking about me? She thought again. No, if he was, thenhe would have at least seemed embarrassed or something. Must be someone else.
But....who? She frowned slightly, scolding herself for being stupid. She just got on the ship! She just met these people! She had no idea who their other friends were or what their social life was like. But....still. "she cooks too" kept running through her mind. She decided to let it go after being wrapped up in her thoughts made her nearly clip a large (for a bonsai tree) branch off. I'll think about it later, she thought.

She turned her head to look at Jet for a minute, and found that he was intently
staring at her.

"You're doing good." He said. "You know, I would never let anyone even go near my
trees, but like I said, you have the 'touch'.

"And like I said, I used to have lots of bonsai plants! Weren't you listening?"

Jet smiled again and they went back to silence as they continued to tend to their
bonsai.

Gabby went back to thinking a came upon her 'vow' to learn the crew's pasts. She
stole a quick look at Jet who was very absorbed in his tree. Would now be a good time?

Did she hear me? Jet was also thinking to himself. She sure as hell isn't acting
like it. Well, if she's willing to ignore it, than there is two choices: one, she didn't
hear him, and two she did hear him, but doesn't want to talk about it. Oh, well. He glanced
over at Gabby who had been staring at him, but quickly turned away.

Well, this is just a stupid game, Gabby thought.

"Jet?"

"Yeah?"

"Were you...(oh, never mind she thought. Just let it go)...ever a fisherman?"

"Huh? No! Why do you say that?"

"You said the Bebop was a fishing ship-"

"BEFORE I got it!"

"Oh."

"No, I was an officer in the ISSP, but that was a long time ago. Grew up on
Ganymede, actually."

"Really? That's interesting. Why are you a bounty hunter now?"

"Well, see there was an accident......"

He fingered his cybernetic arm, lost in thought.

"...Jet?"

He looked at her.

"Why don't you start from the beginning?"

Jet sighed. Gabby sensed, just as she had predicted, that Jet wasn't going to put up
a fight. She gave him a look of pure support.

"Well, like I said, I grew up on Ganymede, and joined the ISSP, and......fell in
love."

Gabby's eyes went wide in shock.

"Her name was Alisa. We lived together for a while, almost married, then one day I
came home and all there was was a watch and a note that says Sayonara on it."

Gabby breathed in and touched Jet's real arm, but he didn't seem to notice. The
worst part hadn't come yet.

"So I threw myself into my work and eventually got over her. Actually," He chuckled
softly. "It's thanks to Alisa that I became such a good officer, if I do say so myself.
But....I guess some people felt I was too good. Especially the syndicates. In fact, my own
partner on the force was one of those people, and he was in cahoots with a dangerous
syndicate. So one day when we were tracking down a member of that particular syndicate, I
didn't know then that Fad, that was his name, was involved in it, but all the same we were
tracking him down and I chased him down an alleyway to a docking area. A spotlight was
shined in my eyes and BAM!"

Gabby jumped slightly.

"Someone shot me in the arm and face. I survived, but only with the help of these
babies." He pointed to his metal arm and the small hardware under his right eye.

Jet was quiet for a minute, then went back to pruning his tree as Gabby quietly
stood up.

Oh my God. she thought. How could Jet have gone through that? Faye and Spike's
tragedies are written on their faces in red paint, but Jet.....he always seemed so good
natured. She couldn't help herself as she felt an overwhelming wave of sadness, and had to
bite her lip and blink her eyes rapidly to keep from crying.

Jet heard her suck in her breath in attempt to cover up a sob, and looked up at her.
He took one look at her face, and swiftly stood up and wrapped her in a hug, pressing her
head to his chest, patting her back and murmuring soothing words as she let her sadness and
rage come out in the form of hot tears that were beginning to make a damp spot on the front
of Jet's shirt. When her eyes were dry, Gabby twisted her head to look at up at Jet. He was
smiling down at her.

"Feel better?"

Gabby nodded her head shakily, when without warning, Jet brushed a strand of soft
brown hair from her face. In the far back recesses of Gabby's mind she heard a voice saying:
"Aha! So he was talking about me!"

Slowly, Jet leaned his face towards Gabby's as she unwittingly lifted her chin up.

He was about an inch from her face, when suddenly they both realized what they were
doing. Both of them stepped away from each other at the same time, blushing as they stammered to cover up what had just been on their minds.

"Got to water the trees." Jet almost tripped as he speedily backed up.

Gabby nodded careful not to look at Jet's face, let alone his lips.

"Uh, EEEDDDD! Want to bake some cookies?"

She shot out the door only to smash into Spike, who was standing in front of Faye to one side of the doorway.

"What are you guys doing?" Gabby demanded as she stood up, rubbing her bottom where she had landed.

"Erm, nothing!" Faye brilliantly replied. She looked sheepishly at the floor while Spike strolled down the hall whistling.

Gabby sighed and blushed as she realized what the two might have seen. She mumbled an apology and continued walking down the hall into the living area where Ed was hopping around with Ein at her heels singing "Cookie-wookie pookie-doo! Chocolate chip wait a bit! Yummy-yummy-woo!"

Still a bit shaken, Gabby smiled and beckoned to Ed to follow her into the kitchen.

"Come on, Ed. I take it you like chocolate chips."

"Yep! Yummy-"

"Ok, they're in the cabinet. You can have as many as you want, but leave enough for the cookies!"


A/N: I know what you're thinking, but NO! It's not over! Far from it actually... again again again, thank you to all TEN of my reviewers!! Wow! Double digits people! Love ya all :-)