Ed leans against the hard polyester seat. She only manages to close her eyes for a few seconds before restlessness makes her open them again. She doesn't think back to the girl with the wild spirit, or the one who wanted to follow the stars. Ed doesn't think about that little girl anymore. Instead, she focuses on the melancholy tune of the piano, and the perspiration forming on the glass of her drink.

The problem is that Ed does too much thinking these days. She thinks about things she could have said, and things that were probably better left unsaid. She thinks about Ein, and how she wishes she could hear his footsteps following her around. She thinks about the concept of family, and wishes she fully understood the concept before she left the Bebop in search of one.

Ed left the Bebop so many years ago to go search for just that - her family. Only, all she found was a scattered group of people didn't really know what to do with each other – or her. They weren't a bad lot, they were simply movers. If you turned around too long or wandered down a different alley, they wouldn't be waiting for you to catch up.

She shakes her head, What was I thinking?

Her thoughts automatically drift to Faye. Ed can still remember the words that made her leave: Edward, I finally remember where I belong. You have someone waiting for you too. There's somewhere that you belong, Edward. You should go and find out where. It's the best. Belonging is the very best thing there is.

Faye and Spike were chasing ghosts, and Ed- well, she just didn't know better.

Ed had never seen Faye so passionate about anything. It was almost as though Faye's passion passed into Ed with just one single glance. While Ed had always wanted to find her father, and her family, it was never her top priority. She had found the Bebop and they were more than enough for her.

Still, she left. She packed a backpack and walked away from the Bebop.

But did she have a choice? Things were changing on the Bebop; the dynamic between the group was shifting, and Ed didn't want to be there when everything changed. There was something in the air the days before she left- she felt it, and Ein did too. A storm was approaching, and it was going to hit the Bebop - it was going to hit hard.

With Faye regaining her memory and Spike so close to confronting his past, everything was going to change. It wasn't going to be the same ship anymore. Was it going to be home? Would Ed still have a place there? Everyone aboard that ship was haunted by a past they couldn't shake. When their past finally caught up to them, what would have happened to her?

Ed understood the feeling of being left behind, so she decided to leave first. She left to find a place that didn't exist, on the advice from a woman who never understood the meaning of the world complete. The truth of the matter was that Ed belonged on the Bebop – and she still likes to think that Faye belonged there, too.

She never found out if Faye ended up staying.

"If she did, she was a lot smarter than I was," Ed half mumbles.

Faye being smarter than anyone makes Ed smile. Not that anyone on the Bebop was particularly stupid, they were just blind. There was a mask preventing everyone from seeing what was right in front of them. Ed's mask prevented her from what Faye was giving her, in the only way Faye knew how.

While many people would not see the joy in such an act, Ed can fondly recall the nights when Faye was too exhausted to fight off her advances, and allow her to paint both her nails and toe nails. Ed remembers being so excited when Faye gave her the go ahead; she would run to her room, and pick out the first two colors that she saw - never stopping to make sure that the colors matched.

At first, Faye would demand that Ed get new colors. Eventually, Faye let Ed do what she wanted-but she would always redo them when Ed finished. Ed remembers one night when Faye allowed her to

"That's a good look for you Faye," Spike said, lazily leaning against her doorway.

Both Ed and Faye looked shocked, only Ed was beaming.

"You think so Spike-person?" Ed chirped, ecstatic that Spike had approved of her work.

He nodded. "Anything that covers Faye's face is good in my book."

Before Ed could say more, Faye let out a growl and threw the nearest book at Spike's face. He ducked and the book hit the wall. With a laugh he waved his hand and walked out of the room, only to be followed by a fuming Faye. Another war was about to start.

But those wars were over.

She would never hear another argument from those two again.

Ed finishes her drink, placing just enough woolong on the table. Ed rolls her shoulders and leave the bar, and the memories, behind.

Ed is greeted by the babysitter when she walks into her apartment. They exchanged casual conversation before the babysitter left, and Ed walks into her daughter's room. Though her daughter is sleeping, Ed sits on the edge of her bed.

"Let me tell you the story of a space cowboy," she whispers with a small smile. Light from the window illuminates her daughter's sleeping face. "Some say, he had the best crew the galaxy has ever seen." Ed's eyes always find the forgotten passion that dwindled as she grew older; all it took retelling the tales of the Bebop. Of course, the stories were always embellished and she played a greater role, but she never left out the most important part of the tale, the entire crew was there- together.

As with every tale, the beginning is steadily followed by an end. But Ed can never bring herself to tell the real ending of the story. She used to say that her daughter was too young to hear the truth, but eventually admitted that she was protecting herself from the pain of admitting in out loud.

The Bebop could never be reunited.

While she wasn't there to witness it, somehow she knew what happened to the crew. She kept the truth from herself for years – didn't look up records, never looked at what ships were docked on her planet. She let the crew go on living as long as she could, until one day, she succumbed. She located her crew and she remembered what it felt like to be empty.

They say that time always numbs pain, but Ed disagrees. She tries not to cry over a family that would never be. Instead, she focused on the family she had now. And as far as her daughter is concerned, the Bebop is still together; flying through space and catching bounties. Spike and Faye still fought. and Jet still pretended to ignore it all. And occasionally, on the rare nights when everyone was getting along, they would sit around the yellow coach, smoking their cigarettes, and wondering when Ed would come home.

For the record, this isn't my canon for Ed's future – at least, I hope it's not.