Participant Observation

By Starzki

A/N: A quick comment: I haven't read any of the mangas. I have read about them on a website and I saw that there was one about a reporter, but I don't even know where I would go to find a manga, even if I could afford them. So, while there might be similarities, it's only because I'm still going to school and I hang out with other students and researchers. I'm writing what I'm familiar with.

Also, this is the last introductory chapter. I promise! I thought I needed it and that I had all of these good ideas for it. But almost none of them ended up working out (I'll save them for later chapters). So I just ended this monster of a chapter so I can move on to the good stuff.

One more thing: A quick warning: Here be F-words.

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Building Rapport

Lisbeth moved onto the Bebop at the end of the week as planned without much incident. Jet busied himself with maintenance repairs as she cleaned out the old storage room, moved junk from one room to another, and scoured the floors and walls. Spike and Faye nonchalantly watched her out of the corners of their eyes, both ready with an excuse if she asked them to chip in and help her.

No longer dressed in the heighth of graduate school fashion, Lisbeth wore a baggy t-shirt, running pants, and kept her hair clipped into a loose bun on top of her head. It was a look that the Bebop would grow used to in the following weeks.

A thin sheen of sweat coated Lisbeth's face as she moved her boxes and piles of clothes into her new room. She had an amazingly enormous t-shirt collection that went everywhere with her. Most t-shirts advertised, advocated, or in other ways promoted women's soccer. She also lugged in 6 boxes of books. They quickly began a migration from her room. She had brought everything from classics by Sartre, Hardy, and Vonnegut to a lot of current and older popular mystery, crime, and horror novels. She apparently had a great appreciation for Stephen King. Academic journal articles and criminological texts also found themselves stacked high on every available flat surface. After her move in, it wasn't unusual for any of the bounty hunters to thumb through Camus's "The Stranger" after looking through King's "Gerald's Game" or "Psychology of Women Quarterly."

Lisbeth tried to make as few waves as she could in her move onto the Bebop. Her first night there, she distributed thank you gifts. She had managed to find Piyokos for Ed and a chew bone for Ein. She shared a bottle of Scotch with the adults on the ship. Half way through, Faye tried to get the others interested in a game of poker. Spike and Jet immediately declined. Lisbeth begged of, saying that she didn't know how to play.

"Oh, come on, Beth," charmed Faye. "I'll teach you. We won't even play for money the first few hands."

"Play for money? I don't think so," replied Lisbeth with a wary smile.

"Are you sure? Games of chance always favor beginners. Have you heard of beginners luck? It'll be fun and you could make some money." Faye was practically purring.

Lisbeth's smile grew wider. "Oh, darlin', I REALLY don't think so. You're talking to someone who has taken way too many statistics classes to believe in luck. I'm also one poor little girl. I like what little money I have where it is: with me."

Jet and Spike chuckled at the exchange. Spike said to Jet, "You're right. Beth IS pretty smart." Faye began to pout until Lisbeth poured her another drink.

"Me smart? Naw, I can just tell that Faye knows her way around a deck of cards. And I don't play any game that I think I can't win," Lisbeth said winking at the rest of the group.

After moving in, Lisbeth tried to settle into a routine that would bring her into contact with each cowboy she was studying at some point every day.

Lisbeth and Jet were the early risers. As Jet made the coffee, Lisbeth would shuffle in, glasses on, hair unbrushed and curly, and still in her pajamas (which usually were one of her t-shirts and some athletic shorts). Together, they would sip their coffee in silence, reading whatever was handy. The quiet was comfortable and they enjoyed each other's company.

After coffee, Lisbeth would get ready to face her day by changing into her "day" t-shirt and a pair of jeans. After brushing and putting in her contacts, if the Bebop was docked somewhere, she would take Ein out for a walk. She had unofficially adopted care for him. She made sure he was fed real dog food and she wasn't shy about pooper scooping. Ein was thankful for the consistency.

Next, Lisbeth would drop in on Ed. Lisbeth was quickly blown away by how intelligent Ed was about everything. Ed, on the other hand, was pleased to have an audience to show off for. But Ed would often quickly lose interest and become distracted. The young girl would wander off to where Lisbeth couldn't (or wouldn't) follow. Airshafts, for example, were completely out of the question, even if Lisbeth could fit in one.

Then, Lisbeth would try to find Faye. If Faye was going out for the day, Lisbeth would go with her. If Faye stayed in, Lisbeth would try to make conversation. Initially, Faye was very resistant to the constant presence. She had gotten used to being ignored and was easily annoyed by Lisbeth constantly hanging around.

This was especially true when Lisbeth would follow Faye uninvited. Near the end of Lisbeth's first week there, Faye took off in the Redtail to go bet at the racetrack. Lisbeth followed in her own starship, the Starling. Faye's luck ran foul early and often that day and she lost a lot of money. Her temper was an ugly purple that even strangers could see and most tried to stay out of her way as she stormed out of the park. While Lisbeth hadn't bet anything and hadn't lost any of her money, she was worried that she was about to lose Faye's participation in her project. Faye was closed off and Lisbeth could not see an inroad to get onto Faye's good side. Therefore, Lisbeth, stormed out after Faye in an equally sour mood, mad at herself for failing to build the necessary rapport.

In the parking lot, the women walked past two young men wearing shirts with Greek lettering that announced their fraternity affiliation. They were roosting on the hood of a recent-model sports car. Neither Faye nor Lisbeth noticed the men; they looked like every other frat boy at the track trying to develop a gambling addiction. They were lost in their own dark reveries, trying to come up with strategies to recoup their respective losses.

"Oooh, fuckin' hot chicks 10 o'clock, bro," one frat boy said loudly to the other in the typically tired vernacular of frat guys.

As both men smirked at the women, Lisbeth gave them an icy stare and Faye flipped them the bird without breaking stride.

"Oooh, feisty. We like it when you've got some fight in you," said the same young man, hopping down off of his car closely followed by his mute friend.

Faye sighed in frustration and turned around to face the two fraternity boys, her pose uninviting, unafraid, annoyed, and defiant.

"Looks like she's ready to play. How 'bout it, babe? You, me, your friend, and my friend. Or just you and me and Damon here."

Faye rolled her eyes and balled up her hands into fists. She realized that she had forgotten her gloves and could see this would all end with her breaking a fingernail. Lisbeth sidled up to Faye, equally annoyed at the boys, and lightly touched her elbow saying, "C'mon, let's just go."

"Look, bitch, you can just run along home, then. We'll just take Miss Sexpot here and show her a little fun." The guys began to snicker and high-five each other.

Lisbeth slowly turned her attention to the two young men. She leveled her dark eyes at each of them in turn. Both men felt cut off at the knees by the sharpness of her glare. She said slowly and quietly, "I bet your 'fun' IS little. Why don't you two little boys just run along home and annoy some sorority girls or something?"

Faye saw the cooling effect Lisbeth's words were having. The guys seemed to have grown smaller, shrunk a few inches. But neither was willing back down, refusing to accept that they had been shot down so quickly and easily. The frat guy who had been doing the talking mustered up whatever courage or testosterone was left in him and did his best to recoup. He turned back to Faye, gave her what he considered his most charming smile, but only made eye contact with her chest, and said, "Look, my back seat folds down…" Even his unspeaking friend winced.

Faye and Lisbeth's expressions did not change, but Lisbeth thought that she saw Faye's hand inch towards the gun she had secreted in her jacket pocket. "Look here, Scooter," said Lisbeth in an icy tone that smoked with contempt, "I can tell you that I definitely wouldn't waste a second on you." She regarded them in the same way she would look at something she had just scraped off the bottom of her shoe. "I don't know what makes you think that someone twice as gorgeous as me would have anything to do with you."

Lisbeth squared off her stance, ready for any reaction. She lowered her chin and glared up at the men from under her eyebrows with unflinching challenge. After the way her day had gone, she would have been up for a fight. When the corners of her mouth began to turn up into a wicked, confident grin, both young men visibly deflated, losing their original bravado.

Faye was a little impressed by Lisbeth. Faye had felt that they probably could have just skipped the talking and gone right into the ass kicking, but only because she had never seen talking so effective in taking the wind out of jerks' sails.

The men exchanged a quick glance that asked the other if these girls meant serious business. The frat boy with the power of speech opened his mouth to say something else, but Faye cut him off in her best condescending tone, "If what you're about to say is not an apology, neither of us wants to hear it."

Faye crossed her arms, settled all of her weight onto her jutting right hip, and projected all of the defiant attitude she could muster into her glare. She didn't spare a glance to Lisbeth because she trusted that they were in this together, that Lisbeth would back her up.

The guys just looked stunned. Lisbeth fluttered her hand at them, dismissing them as if they were annoying toddlers. "Shoo. Off with you, now." Almost synchronized, she and Faye spun haughtily on their heels and walked away.

When they were out of earshot of the guys, Faye smiled broadly at Lisbeth. "That was almost fun," she said. "Where did you learn to hand guys their asses to them like that, Beth?"

"I learned from the best. In undergrad, some of my friends were sorority girls." She chuckled. "We played soccer together. It was funny. They could be SO mean." Lisbeth smiled at her memories and continued, " I also somehow got involved with a frat guy for a while. His 'brothers' all just annoyed the hell out of me. So, I had a lot of practice. I got good at being bitchy," she smiled back at Faye and shrugged innocently.

Faye laughed. "And here I thought you were this nice, quiet, shy schoolgirl."

Lisbeth laughed sarcastically. "I haven't been nice since high school. That's probably why I hated it so much. Guys like that would have scared me to death. In college, I learned how to not be Beth-the-Doormat and I haven't really been nice since."

Faye nodded. "I was nice, too. But I couldn't afford to stay nice, you know?"

Lisbeth caught Faye's eye and smiled, but this time the smile was sad. "Yeah, I kinda do," she said quietly.

The two women reached their starships and made their way back to the Bebop. While the confrontation with the frat boys was never brought up again, Faye found that she was comfortable around Lisbeth, that she didn't mind her presence so much any more. She was easy to talk to and a good listener and they enjoyed one another's biting sarcasm and snarkiness. After that day, there was never any more question of Faye backing out of the project.

In the mid to late afternoon, Lisbeth would try to find Spike. It was easier than she expected. First of all, he didn't care at all when she hung out. He just accepted that she would be around. Secondly, they shared an extreme passion for napping. They divided the couch in half and would both snooze in front of the TV. Lisbeth was an almost acrobatic napper in the positions she could sleep in. If she slept on her back, she would do so with both arms flung over her head. If she was on her side, she slept with her right hand glued to her forehead, fingers tangled in her hair. Spike found it endearingly strange and wondered if she was having reoccurring dreams about being mugged or doing calculus.

One afternoon, Jet walked into the common room to find Ed spread eagle on the floor next to an equally incapacitated Ein. Spike was on the couch, on his back, with one arm over his face and both legs draped over the back of the couch. Lisbeth was taking up the other half, legs folded in and resting on her chest, head pillowed on the arm of the couch, and arms thrown over her head and dangling down the side of the couch. For a second, Jet thought he had stumbled into the aftermath of a massacre or a bizarre suicide pact. But then Ein snored and Ed muttered, "But it's MY turn to play with the autoclave," in her sleep. Jet left shaking his head. No one woke.

Lisbeth spent much of her awake time with Spike in much the same way she did with Jet. They didn't talk much at first, but they both got a kick out of one another and liked to hear what the other had to say. They mostly watched television or read quietly. If Spike went to do some repairs on the Swordfish, she would watch and help where she could.

Lisbeth took the late afternoons and early evenings for herself. She would often jog outside or try and do some bastardized form of yoga inside if they weren't docked. Afterwards, she spent time organizing her files, writing up notes, and reviewing and labeling the previous day's recordings. She would take that time to work at her computer. She would explore the net, write, or just play games well into the night.

Things between Lisbeth and the other members of the Bebop were not always so easy-going. Although she didn't smoke, Lisbeth was equally as orally fixated as the rest of the crew. She would noisily snap and pop her gum or chew on her nails absent mindedly. Lisbeth was also slightly obsessive compulsive about her room. Certain things could only go in certain places. She wasn't a neat freak, but she became visibly distressed if someone kicked shoes into the wrong corner or if her piles of articles became disturbed. Her corner of the ship was also officially non-smoking. Furthermore, Lisbeth had a small stubborn streak. She wouldn't give an inch if she thought that she was right. An ardent feminist, she would not abide any disparaging remarks made about women in her presence, whether they were made by the guys or by Faye. But, as people do, Lisbeth and the cowboys she studied learned to pick their battles around one another. Lisbeth settled in quicker than anyone had expected.

With her basic routine in place and with the crew of the Bebop used to and accepting of her presence, Lisbeth felt that she was ready to begin in earnest.

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And do I. --S