On the Bebop

Days or Weeks Later...

The enclosed space of the toilet had been the first place Faye had been locked up when she initially arrived here on the Bebop. It hadn't been much of a jail cell and she'd broken out with ease. Since becoming a regular feature on the ship she had learned it was grossly and affectionately referred to as the Stink Stall because it was the easiest bathroom to access from the kitchen, living area, and hers and Spike's rooms. The other bathroom, closer to Jet and Ed's quarters and with the bathtub and shower, was typically utilized for the cleaning facilities whereas the one-holer here in the heart of the vessel was where hung over cowboys came to puke or shit.

Since recently getting into the indulgence of smoking cannabis, Faye had realized all three of them had turned the bathroom into the Stink Stall for another reason. Faye felt everyone could agree that having the small space reek of pot was much better than the way it otherwise usually smelled. And while sometimes she craved burning a joint while relaxing in the bathtub in the other bathroom...she also didn't want to unnecessarily cloud up a shared space that Ed sometimes resided in.

Smoking anything was something Faye tried to keep a decent distance from the young hacker. She, Jet, and Spike all smoked like chimneys but that was something they had all chosen as idiotic adults and wasn't something she wanted Ed to emulate them with. Cannabis was considerably better, all things considered, but she still preferred to keep it from the youngest member of the team whenever possible.

Although Ed had been gone for weeks now Faye still wasn't able to think of the girl as gone. It gave her a mixture of guilt and regret and anxiety whenever she thought about her role in Ed's departure, which was actually what had brought her to blaze in the tiny toilet today.

The door slid open unexpectedly to reveal Spike standing on the other side, one hand in a pocket and the other lowering from accessing the door entrance. He grinned at her as she squawked indignantly.

"Ever heard of knocking, you ass! This is a toilet and it is OCCUPIED!" She was glad she hadn't been actually using the toilet in addition to smoking in the small cubicle.

"Calm down, Faye," Spike drawled, stepping up into the tight space. His standing presence threatened to dominate over her to a degree she was uncomfortable with, so she scrambled to her feet as well. The door slid shut again as Spike casually closed it. "Came here for the hot box," He told her with a smirk and a wink.

It was a combination of the smoke she'd already inhaled working on her mind and the way his words came off entirely wrong. She was snorting with laughter, head bowing towards his chest, choking a little on the hit she'd just taken before he spoke. She felt him reach for the joint she held and didn't resist as he brought it - holding her hand like it was some sort of roach holder - to his lips to draw deeply on the doobie. She watched the cocksure attitude melt off his face as he continued to puff on the joint for a bit. It was always mesmerizing to watch Spike and Jet when the high first started to hit them. They got straight up goofy, like teenagers fucking around with bud and unable to handle their shit. It amused her to no end.

Their stressed features would relax. Frowns dissolving. Eyes lightening. Mouth growing slack. Sometimes a smile would curl at their lips. Their reaction time slowed just a touch. Potentially enough to matter in a life-or-death situation, though they'd yet to be in one of those while stoned. But maybe it wouldn't be an issue. Between Jet's ISSP training and Spike's time working for the Syndicate, their reflexes would probably react to danger on an instinctive level. Still, none of them smoked before heading out to work and none of them smoked while on the job. It remained one of those celebratory pleasures after a job well done, or a way to pass the time more peacefully when they were between bounties and just lazing about the ship.

His presence in the small bathroom was clouding up her mind just as much as the joint was. Speaking of. She raised the joint to her own lips again, which apparently meant bringing Spike's hand along for the ride because he hadn't released her hand yet.

One of her favorite things to do when smoking ganja was to take a deep hit and then open her mouth to let the smoke slowly escape on its own. Watching the curls and whorls and wisps waft up from her tongue and into the sky. Well, rise to the metal ceiling of this room currently.

Spike's gaze had followed the haze as it left her mouth, momentarily hiding her features behind its nearly opaque thickness, and eddied around the ceiling. Together they shifted their eyes back down, locking briefly in a shared moment of mutual content, and then fell further to the joint between her fingers which were still wrapped up in his gentle grip.

He brought her hand to his lips again to pull on the joint. Cocked his eyebrow up and gave her a closed mouth grin before proceeding to blow a series of smoke rings.

She snorted at his need to show her up with party tricks.

There came a sudden pounding on the door.

Spike immediately dropped Faye's hand and moved to wrap his arms protectively around her shoulders just as Faye herself ducked her face towards his chest and pressed against his front in an instinctive move to make herself small. Awaiting an attack but not subject to one, they both seemed to simultaneously register that the sound was only a knock just as Jet's voice shouting "open up!" rang through the door.

Spike obligingly opened it only to spill out onto the floor with Faye crashing down on top of him - he hadn't realized he'd been leaning his weight onto the door before opening it.

Meanwhile, outside, Jet automatically stepped back when the door slid open and tumbled the stoned pair out into the corridor.

He sighed at his crewmates' antics and stepped over the jumble of limbs and laughter. Pausing in the doorway he reached out to swipe the joint from where it still rested between Faye's fingers on the arm she'd managed to keep upraised during the tumble.

"Gimme that incense," Jet grumbled, stepping all the way into the bathroom and closing the door firmly on the nonsense on the floor outside.

xxx

Faye was reclined now on the couch by herself. She wasn't sure where her comrades were and was high enough to not have the slightest interest in finding out.

Instead, she watched the fan blades spinning slowly above her and pondered the nature of words and the impact of emotion and the general tangle of human nature.

She wasn't sure if she'd ever heard the words from any of her comrades. It wasn't something that needed to be spoken at any rate. Words were full of artifice - designed to make you think or feel a certain way based on what the speaker desired. Words were empty or useless for the most part. Hell, the majority of the shit she herself spouted was either complete bullshit or only what she wanted others to hear in order to lead them to the conclusions she wanted. So, she disregarded words for the most part. It was easier to ignore the things actually said when you were able to understand the intent underneath it all.

When she told Jet to take care she was telling him she loved him.

When she told Ed to pay more attention to her surroundings she was telling her she loved her.

When she told Spike she'd back him up she was telling him she loved him.

It was the gestures that gave away their affection for one another.

It was buying an extra pack of smokes because you knew someone was running low.

It was covering the tab when you could because they'd get you back when you were broke.

It was looking out for one another when chasing bounties or just going about the day-to-day.

It was Jet's cooking for them. It was Ed's devotion to their exploits. It was Spike's contrived nonchalance as he moved about the ship, sometimes helping with repairs, sometimes offering up souvenirs, sometimes sharing his workout space with her and helping her improve her hand-to-hand combat skills. It was the way she herself would grab the whiskey Jet preferred or some new sharp bonsai shears when she was out shopping. The way she allowed Ed to paint her toes. The way she played caretaker to Spike after Jet or Doc had stitched up and bandaged up his broken body.

The way sometimes - when feeling particularly generous and kindhearted - they all tried to save hot water for the next occupant of the bathroom.

It was always there. Unspoken, but so obviously present.

Faye didn't think it was what most families experienced. She'd seen enough tv shows, read enough manga and books, heard enough songs and observed enough intimate moments between people here and there from Earth to Pluto and everywhere in between. Family was always shown as people dramatically baring their hearts to one another, which she strongly doubted was actually as prevalent in real life as it was portrayed to be. Even in her own jumbled memories of her past, the emotions that were invoked weren't the same type of love that she felt here and now.

The innocence and the safety that had been so much a part of her youth… the affection for her parents and her friends… none of that felt quite as real and quite as deep as what she had with these other people on the Bebop. But despite that she still couldn't comprehend the emotional vulnerability conjured up in movies where people were driven to verbally express their feelings. It just wasn't really how life worked.

When they were all on the same page, they were an incredible team. Whether it was through Ed's hacking skills, Jet's seemingly endless array of contacts, Spike's various strengths - fighting, flying, giving nothing away - or her own seductive efforts, they could easily make the universe their oyster if they just were able to maintain on that level. They each brought plenty to the table and when working together things often played out masterfully.

But all too often she and Spike would clash over something insignificant. Ed would get distracted from her task. Jet would be fed some dead end leads. Or else the bounty was sometimes able to get the drop on them and they'd flounder for a bit before being able to pull their shit together and bring things to a satisfying conclusion. Their daily lives were a rollercoaster of finding their stride, getting knocked off course, and coming back together to survive if nothing else.

It was a combination of excitement, desperation, dependence, and faith. Faith in her allies. Dependence on the others to play their part well even as they depended equally on her abilities. The desperation and excitement of days with not enough to eat followed by spurts of adrenaline and fast-paced action which could lead to days of gluttony and relaxation if they had success.

It fueled Faye's competing lusts - one for slacking off and one for getting her heart racing. It kept her from ever being too bored or too lonely. Living on the edge, firing from the hip, risking life and limb to help take down monsters and therefore keep the galaxy a somewhat safer place. How noble and grandiose!

She had loved Westerns when she was a child. That was a memory that had come back in full, with all the odd nostalgia and yearning that she had felt in her youth. Something about the implied code of honor, the fun and provocative clothing of the shameless ladies, the effortless cool that exuded from the hard-eyed sharp-shooters who were often above or apart from the law but who did their utmost to handle the villain anyway.

Perhaps that had all subconsciously had a part in her evolution into a bounty hunting cowboy today.

Being outside of the law yet still respecting most of society's rules. Being able to contribute to maintaining the security of vulnerable lives without needing to become part of the corrupt police force. Even her memories all seemed to indicate that cops had been forever corrupt, regardless of what the year was or how well humans had expanded to take over the stars.

At any rate, they didn't often use the words in Westerns either. It was just something that was apparent and understood. That reliance on camaraderie - the trust that your friends would show up when needed and back you up when you were in trouble. That love that was an undercurrent to the jokes, the heckling, the interplay of the leading characters and their comrades. The understanding that nothing needed to be said because… it just… was.

Love.

A home.

A place to belong and people to belong with - by choice, not by force or because of blood relation. Like what she had found - had helped to create - here on the Bebop.

For the longest time, Faye had not felt truly a part of the Bebop crew. She had weasled her way onto the ship and had a tendency to run off whenever was convenient. Abandon before being abandoned. After all, she knew she had not been particularly welcome at first even if Spike and Jet let her stay without much fuss. It had been months of push-and-shove, dash off then return bold as brass. She had been loath to let her guard down after being duped and betrayed when she first was brought back to consciousness after the accident. The universe was a perilous place.

But every time she left, she somehow wound up back. Whether at Spike's behest, to look after an injured Jet so he himself could run off on a suicidal syndicate takedown, or because she'd run out of food or fuel and needed assistance, or just because she let her own feet return her to the familiar ship out of a lack of anywhere else to go. It hadn't been until she encouraged Ed to leave, until she and Jet and the Bebop were put at risk from the Syndicate simply for associating with Spike, until Spike had recklessly gone to throw his life away - except he hadn't, not really, and truthfully she knew that hadn't been his intention anyway. It hadn't been until it all fell apart that she had realized how well it had all worked when they were together.

Therefore it had been a balm to her heart when life began to return to normalcy - or what passed for normalcy in this futuristic day and age.

The Doc had called from Mars.

Thanks to the heads-up from Jet, he had been able to intercede when the ISSP and medical crews had converged on the ruins of the Red Dragon Syndicate. There was more to it than that, of course. She herself had taken Jet's smashed up Hammerhead and gone to make a scene and cause a distraction so the good doctor could succeed in his mission. Spike Spiegel had once more disappeared from public knowledge and any potential criminal charges from his destructive actions. Although if you asked Faye they should have paid Spike for the damage he caused because it was going to put a severe damper on any Syndicate activity for a while and it was highly unlikely that the Red Dragons would ever rise to prominence again.

It had been a full week before Doc considered Spike stable enough to be returned to the Bebop. It was a lean time for all three of them for several weeks after that because even once he was out of the woods, Spike was nowhere near recovered enough to jump back into bounty hunting, much to his cranky displeasure. With Spike mostly incapacitated and Jet himself still recovering from his own serious leg injury, most of the actual chasing of bounties was done by Faye with only minimal sedentary backup. It was a tedious and dangerous way to make a living.

Though even those strange strained weeks had offered her some amusement here and there.

When she'd bummed a smoke from one of the musicians at a bar on TJ. Spike had tracked her down that night - one of the first times Jet let the other man out into the wild. Most of their bounties recently were such small fries that she hadn't needed any backup. They'd give themselves up immediately or she'd knock them out with a punch, and even the few that turned out to be runners never got further than just outside the door where they'd smash into the immovable wall that was Jet Black.

Spike had been an obnoxious combination of irritable and irritating so Faye had skipped out immediately after they'd cashed in the bounty. She ducked into the dingiest hole in the wall she could find on the first block of bars from the docks and had been pleasantly surprised to discover live music being played.

The band was good - upbeat and full of energy - even if she couldn't understand the lyrics being sung. And they were so friendly! It was obvious they were regulars and had fans in the crowd. The players moved around on their break greeting people they knew and gaily meeting the folks they didn't. The atmosphere was jovial and was doing wonders to boost her mood.

It was when Faye dipped outside for a smoke during the band's second set break that she found herself being introduced to one of the guitarists and the drummer. They were all somewhat young and clearly full of themselves in that brash yet adorable way men tended to be when they discovered they had a skill that could bring them fame and fortune. Or at least might help their cause with the ladies.

She made all the proper murmurings of someone duly impressed and begged a cigarette from the pair, only to get a single good drag before it was plucked from her lips by a newcomer to the back alley. Her eyes opened wide as the smoke hit her lungs and truly registered and she turned towards Spike, coughing as she did.

It was funny to watch as he too realized what they were smoking as he took the hit. Inhale, eyebrows elevate, hold it...hold it...slow exhale. And then the smile that crept helplessly across his lips as he caught her eyes watching him. She giggled immediately.

"Oh is that how it is," Spike remarked, Faye's pilfered marijuana cigarette still between his lips, drawing deeply in again after he spoke.

She'd only had three drinks so far so her aim and timing weren't significantly affected yet, but she did still stumble slightly as she tried to reclaim the smoke from Spike.

"Ay! No worries, mami!" The guitarist called to her with a laugh. "We got more we can share tonight yeah? Come dance for us and we party together til dawn, yeah?"

The drummer was holding out another joint in her direction, already lit and inviting. Faye reached for it automatically even as she looked at Spike, a dazed sort of smile dawning on her face. He was looking back at her while taking another deep pull on that smoke and he shrugged in response to her wordless inquiry.

"Jet," She exclaimed after taking a long hit on the new joint from the drummer. "Let's get him down here. Let's go dancing!"

Chuckling, Spike pulled out his comm. "With that leg and my gut you might be the only one cutting a rug, Romani," He replied, turning slightly away to talk into the comm as Jet answered.

Faye can barely even recall the rest of that evening. Laughter, shots of liquor, more smoke breaks with the band, and yes she danced. She remembers a short stout woman dragging Jet out onto the floor to dance several times - the ex-cop nearly tripping over his own feet from the lady's exuberance and his own increasingly unsteady intoxication. She thinks she might even remember Spike dancing at one point. Dancing with her? It is all a blur of joy. Cut loose from her inhibitions, unable to conjure dark thoughts or acknowledge any sadness. She felt weightless, untethered, like possibilities stretched out in every direction. She thinks she recalls Spike's hands on her hips, sliding up and down her sides - giving her something to anchor her to reality.

They had secured a pretty good pot hookup and had a remarkably good time. After the bar had closed down, the band, along with some of their devoted young fans and the Bebop trio, had wandered the streets like vagabonds until they all gathered at the docks for the sunrise - which the band greeted with an encore performance until at last Jet and Spike had begged off and each guy had taken one of Faye's arms to lead her back home.

It had been the first time they'd all let themselves unwind and just go with the flow with no worries. No bounties, no enemies, nothing but music and merriment. An experience that Faye hadn't realized they were all so desperately in need of. Maybe even something to consider doing on a more regular basis in fact.

There was only one thing that still had her down these days. Well, technically two.

Faye was stoned as shit and feeling shameless and sappy and sentimental. She had no problem admitting - to herself if no one else - that she very much missed the presence of Edward and Ein in her life and on the ship.

Closing her eyes to slip into a nap, Faye spared a moment to hope the duo might find their way back to the Bebop someday soon...

xxx

Smoke 'em if you've got 'em, Space Cowboy!