Cowboy Bebop and its characters are not mine to own. They are a creation of Shinichiro Watanabe and Sunrise. This story is a creation of my own, and I hope you like it.
-----------------------------------------------------
Chapter Seven: Sunrise Suicide

Consciousness came slowly to Spike, as it always did. He had never found himself to be a morning person. Jet, however, had been a morning person, so Spike usually woke to coffee.
Faye, it turned out, was not a morning person either, and the only coffee to be had was at least a day old, cold, with an odd sheen on it, giving it the appearance of engine oil instead of something drinkable. Spike could tell that it would be a tremendously, stupendously long day. With an inhuman groan Spike stumbled groggily from the kitchen to the nearest horizontal surface, in this case the sofa, to continue sleeping until somehow coffee appeared. He failed to notice that his stomping around had brought Faye to the scene of the crime, still steaming from her hot shower. She watched bemusedly as Spike lurched towards the sofa single-mindedly, half awake.
"No coffee, lunkhead?"
"Hargmpf." Apparently words were impossible without the introduction of caffeine into his blood system. Spike was still in his pre-cognitive stages without coffee.
"I see. No, no, stay up," she said, seeing him turn towards the sofa again. "I guess I'll have to make some since you seem incapable."
Faye padded down the hallway, her hair up in a towel, her body wrapped in a ridiculously maternal looking dressing gown. After much coaxing she managed to get the coffee maker to produce the much-needed elixir of life. She sugared and milked a mug for herself before carrying a pitch black steaming cupful out to Spike, who had fallen asleep against the bulkhead. "My god, he sleeps like the dead," Faye mumbled to herself seeing him snoring contentedly. She attempted to push the mug of scalding liquid into his hands but they remained limp as he continued to snore. Unfazed, she dipped his index finger into the brew, the hot coffee jerking him awake.
Faye smiled. "Coffee's on."
Spike looked at her with unfocused eyes, a mixture of pain, shock and sleep clouding them. He blinked a few times then smiled and took the cup from her hands wordlessly before upending it and chugging the cup, his throat apparently unaware of the temperature.
He lowered the cup with a sigh of pleasure. "Ahhhh. You make a mean brew, Faye. Must be the cause for your bitter innards and bad attitude." He gave her a crooked smile and ducked as she cuffed the back of his head.
"Yea, real nice to see you're awake too, you asshole."
"Always a pleasure, milady." He bowed comically, making Faye giggle at the sight of the scrawny man in boxers and a T-shirt with serious bed-head bowing stiffly.
"So what're the plans for the day," she began, regaining her composure, "now that Jet's gone and ditched us?"
"I dunno," Spike said, easing his morning cigarette out of the pack and sucking on it thoughtfully before lighting it. "I guess we could go make some pocket cash to get food and cigarettes with."
--------------------------------------------

"Hee hee. If Mao didn't tell me you were spectacularly good at Jeet Kun Do I wouldn't think you'd be able to harm anyone. Especially with that head of hair. You look like you should be a pop star or something." The tall blonde woman giggled shyly at the thin young man who sat on the sofa of the dimly lit room slurping noodles with great fervor. He gave her a wide grin and a wink and set about finishing his bowl of food. Sitting back on the sofa he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and looked at her with raised eyebrow. She waved her hand in a gesture of acquiescence and he pulled a cigarette out and lit it artfully in a single fluid gesture. He studied her face. This must be the famed Julia that Mao had told him about. She seemed to be about the same age he was. He wondered what had brought her there.
Julia blushed at the intensity with which Spike stared at her. "Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like a piece of candy. It makes me nervous."
"I can't help it. I'm just wondering what a sweet looking young woman is doing in this den of dragons."
"Same thing you are. Making a living." She turned and started to walk to the door. "I'll tell Mao you're ready to see the elders."
"Thanks."
"Spike?"
"Yes?"
"I'm really not so sweet as I seem."
"I hope so." He gave her a lazy lopsided smile and blew a smoke ring in her direction before winking again. She giggled and walked out of the room blushing.
Life was turning out well.

--------------------------------------------
"Ed thinks that the Hammerhead needs to be more comfy and sleep-able on."
"Oh hush, Ed, we're nearly to Ganymede. Two more gate jumps after this one and we'll be there."
"Does that mean that Ein and me get dinner soon?" Ein yapped, either affirming the imperative nature of food, or cringing at Ed's grammar. Jet wasn't sure.
"Ein and I. Grammar, Ed. Grammar is important if you plan on speaking in the first person." Jet couldn't believe he was discussing grammar with an insane eighteen-year-old.
Ed brushed the remark off. "But is there food?"
Jet chuckled at Ed's persistence, and the picture of an unlikely trio they made. "Sure. If you promise to try and work on that grammar."
"Hooray! I'll try!"

Jet smiled to himself as he stared out the cockpit window as the streaks of hyperspace flowed by, and dipped into a reverie, thinking about his decisions of the past few days. He hoped he could sort everything out in time to find Petria and get back to the Bebop before Spike and Faye killed each other, or worse, started getting along. But as he thought about it more, he realized he didn't care. The Bebop was a repository for all the memories people tried to escape from. It was the ship he used to get away from his former life as an ISSP detective. It was the ship that both Spike and Faye had used to start new lives. This was Jet's chance to regain his past, instead of trying to escape into a bleak and uncertain future. Spike had done his best to reclaim his, as had Faye. This was Jet's chance to succeed where they had failed. His chance to regain a future with Petria. He sighed mournfully as he remembered times when happiness could be taken for granted.

Petria. What an otherworldly being she had been to him. He was the embodiment of gumshoe when they'd met; smart and earnest, but a little clumsy and naive. She had a catlike grace and a sense of detachedness towards the world around them that he found fascinating, but she was still immersed totally in her work, no matter how ethereal she seemed to get. She showed him the ways of the world and he gave her compassion, trust, stability, and love. Those were things rare to find in members of a secret police force. They had been perfect together. He helped keep her in the real world, and she helped him to find his sense of playfulness. Since she had left he'd lost it for the most part. Ed's loud mumbling in her sleep about wontons jerked him out of his daydream. He smiled ruefully. Well, at least he had found someone else to show him how to find his playful side again.

After yawning and rubbing his eyes for a few seconds, Jet looked up to see the Ganymede hyperspace gate grow larger in the Hammerhead's view field. Home at last. Jet shook his head. Bebop had been home for so long it was hard to think of it as anything other than his permanent home. But an Old Earth saying drifted into his head, "Home is where the heart is." And he had most definitely left his heart on Ganymede. Twice in fact.

The Hammerhead rattled and shook as it passed through the gate, automatically slowing to enter the tollbooth. Jet read the balance on his money card with a worried frown. "Ed, we're not going to have much food. I haven't got a lot of woolongs to spend on us. Well, if things get too bad I can always go pick up that bartender in Blue Crow that claimed he had a bounty on his head. Probably the poor bastard's wife." The surface of Ganymede grew nearer with each passing moment, and with it, Jet felt a mixed sense of hope and dread. Here is my last chance.

--------------------------------------------

Author's Notes: Whoo. Sorry that took so long, guys. I guess I'm less productive during my vacations than I thought I was. I'm still not quite sure where I'm going with this, so as I try and decide the plot direction, chapters might take a little longer to be produced. . .just a pre-emptive warning.

Odd little coincidence happened while writing this. During my bouts of writer's block I worked on an essay for a humanities class I'm taking. We're reading Roman Myths. . . and as I start to transcribe from notebook to computer Jet's conversation with Ed about approaching the Ganymede gate . . .I look down at my book, only to see the myth about Ganymede. Heh.

Well kids, thanks for the reviews, thanks to my luvverly beta reader Lady Athena, and until next time . .

Cheers!

Malia