Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from Cowboy Bebop

"Where are you, Faye?" Jet called from the living room.

He'd seen the Redtail in the docking bay and expected Faye to be in the living room trimming her nails, or smoking as per usual. He peeked into the bathroom and found nobody there. Not taking a shower? He sniffed the air. Not putting on another coat of nail polish either.

"OI!"

Nobody home, I guess. He shrugged to himself, welcoming the time to unwind. Whistling a tune to himself, he proceeded past Spike's room to do his usual bonsai-trimming when he found the door was open.

"Faye?"

She was in the midst of shutting Spike's bureau in a panic. She hadn't expected Jet to pop his head in around the corner. Her face was flushed as if she'd been reading Spike's diary. Or looking at something personal she shouldn't have. Jet thought, his eyes narrowing on the guilty party.

"What were you doing?" he asked her suspiciously.

"Why should I be up to something?" she demanded contritely, plunking her hands on her hips and mustering up a very cute and alluring pout she seemed to reserve for him. As if she could get anything past me. "I don't know where I put my lighter so I was looking for one."

Jet was still at the doorway. Never in the last year had he dared to open this door. At least, not without a metal detector or a fumigator. Daring a step past the forbidden boundary, his left heel followed his left toe, and was joined with the other foot.

"How many times have you been in here?" he asked her in a hushed tone.

"You needn't talk as if you're at a fu…" Faye stopped herself before she said 'funeral'. "fucking library!"

Despite her angry tone, there was something in her eyes. She looked relieved, secretly elated by something she found. She was almost brimming with an inner happiness. Like she found the secret entrance to Fort Knox under her pillow.

Jet looked past her to the pile of laundry carelessly tossed in the corner of Spike's room. It's like he expected to come back. And then Jet shook his head, correcting himself for being so naive. Then again, what's a pile of laundry when your lover's dead and your worst enemy wants your head on a platter?

And then he felt Faye brush past him, claiming some excuse to take a shower.

Hearing the bathroom door slam, he opened the drawer Faye hastily shut. It wasn't a picture of Julia, as he expected for somebody so in love with her. Didn't they supply cameras at the crime syndicate? It was a picture some crazy hippy tourist had taken of the Bebop crew. This HAS to be what Faye was looking at. Jet surmised, smirking at the fingerprints her hot little hands had left along the corners of the picture.

They were in Ganymede, sun shining, waters sparkling… you couldn't tell that the fishing docks were reeking ESPECIALLY well on a good, hot day like that or that the crew were still in the midst of arguing over who got to sit where or how. They all looked picture perfect. Even the kid. And the dog, well, animals always look cute in pictures. Except sea-rats.

Spike was leaning forward in the Swordfish's cockpit with that cocky grin on his face, as if to say "You gonna take that picture or what, man?". Ed was perched on the tail backwards, bent over double so her head was peeking from between her knees. Jet, of course not given to family portraits had demurely chosen the back of the picture. He had to admit he looked really good. Maybe I should pose for pictures more often. And then he had to laugh when he looked at Faye. Ever the one to take the foreground (and compete with Spike for it), she had chosen to lean back against the cockpit, legs provocatively splayed, body twisted so she could encircle Spike with her arms.

It was just any other day on the Bebop, but this picture heightened every distinctly attractive facet of their personalities. For one flash, they all seemed like a very unique, special bunch of people enjoying a spectacularly sunny day.

He replaced the picture in the drawer with a heavy sigh. A rumpled, half-smoked cigarette pack lay on the bureau top.

A man like Spike always leaves loose ends behind him, because there's nothing here to make him stay.

Except for Julia, Spike was NOT the kind of man to romanticize or be involved with other people in his life. It was like he'd known all along that it was only a matter of time before he'd have left the Bebop for good.

But then, why did he keep that picture? Was it because he didn't really want to go, or because he became more attached to them than he'd let himself believe?

Wishful thinking. Jet scolded himself, shaking his head before that thought firmly lodged itself in his mind.

He left the room before he got any more sentimental. While it was a nice surprise to find a 'family' portrait hidden away in Spike's drawer, it was another to rationalize the inside of Spike's head. Giving the bonsais a break from his grueling pruning sessions, he decided to get back to preparing dinner.

Craving a cigarette, he tipped one to his lips and picked up Faye's lighter lying openly on the table by the yellow sofa.

"Don't know where you put it, my ass." He said to nobody in particular.