She wasn't sure what made her come back. Leaving when Spike did had seemed like the right decision at the time. She was Faye Valentine. She didn't need anyone or anything. If that damned fool wanted to go out and get himself killed for some broad, what did she care? She walked out of the Bebop that day, intent on leaving and never coming back. She didn't need anyone. She could collect bounties just fine all on her own.
A week after walking away, Faye Valentine found herself staring at the Bebop across a loaded dock on Ganymede. She walked towards it, her body slowly shifting from a steady walk into a run. Jet didn't even seem surprised to look up and see her standing above him, hands pressed against her ribs as she panted for breath. He only murmured in that gravelly tone of his, "You'd be able to run without heaving like a dog if you quit smoking," before snuffing out his own smoke and ducking back into the ship.
Faye didn't know what made her follow. The Bebop was the same and yet... not. Without Ed and her damned dog, it was a hell of a lot quieter. That was for sure. Without Spike... Faye didn't want to think about that. Jet didn't talk much. He spent a lot of time with his plants and Faye spent a lot of time smoking cigarettes and staring at the stars. They went after enough minor bounties to keep them in cigarettes, food, and the occasional bottle of booze that Jet would slip back into his quarters with. Faye knew better to bug him on his drinking nights. She didn't bug him much at all anymore.
A month after her return, a month of uneasy silences and half-hearted work, Ed put through a signal to the ship. They didn't talk about it much, but landed on Earth and picked Ed up from the orphanage. In typical Ed fashion, she didn't explain how she ended up back in the orphanage or where her father was. Neither Jet nor Faye pressed too hard for answers. Instead, things seemed to fall back into the same patterns they had formed before. Except for the hole in their tidy little quartet that everyone thought about and no one would speak of.
Faye lifted herself off the chair and padded through the ship to Jet's room. He sat on a stool, hunched over a tiny tree and snipping a tiny piece. She leaned in the doorway to watch. After snipping, he'd ease back, frown at the bonsai tree, and then snip something else. She wondered if he knew how ridiculous he looked with those tiny scissors in his huge hands. Once, she might have said as much. Now, without knowing where she stood, Faye wasn't sure what was over the line and what was not.
"She deserves some sort of life, Faye. Something more than what she's had." Jet's voice startled Faye and she flinched a little. He kept snipping at his plant as he spoke, "I've screwed up a lot of things in my life. I'm done screwing up. You and me... well, we ain't anyone's picture of a perfect family, but we're all she's got. For some reason, she likes you. You're about as warm as an ice cube, but she likes you."
"Thanks for the compliment." Faye tried to sound sarcastic, but knew she was failing miserably at it.
Jet set the scissors aside and placed the plant back on the shelf. He stood and faced her, staring for just a minute before moving for the door and making as if to squeeze past her. Faye shrunk away when he drew near and averted her eyes. Jet stopped in the doorway, standing only inches away. "If you're gonna take off again, do it now. Before any of us can get used to this. I'm tired of my friends running out on me."
Faye looked up. Jet's expression was grim and there was the faintest look of resigned sadness in his eyes. "I'm not going anywhere, Jet."
"Good." Jet nodded and moved away, ambling down the hall as he muttered, "Gotta make some food. I bet the kid is getting hungry."
Faye leaned back against the wall and watched Jet walk away. She wasn't sure what he wanted from her. She was no motherly type. Not by a long shot. Once she had humored herself with playing big sister to Ed, but it was just a diversion between schemes. Maybe now she could play the role for real. Discovering her family home destroyed, discovering the life she had once nothing but dust between her fingers, losing Spike... it was enough to make a girl crave a little stability.
Stability? Ha. As if there ever really was such a thing. But what could it hurt to stick around for a little bit? She had nothing better to do, nowhere else to go. Besides, Ed could be really cute when she wasn't being annoying as hell. What could it hurt to stay? Just temporarily, of course.
Everything was temporary. Even family.