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The problem with sharing a ship with three other people, well, two people, a kid, and whatever Ein was supposed to be, was that nothing stayed yours for long.
Faye Valentine stood in the middle of the Bebop's galley, arms crossed, eye twitching. Her emergency pack of cigarettes, the good ones, imported from Mars, expensive as hell and hidden in the back of the freezer behind Jet's frozen vegetables, was missing.
More specifically, it was open. Half-empty. And sitting right there on the counter like it belonged to whoever the hell had decided to help themselves.
She picked up the pack, turning it over in her hands like she might find some clue as to the culprit's identity. The cardboard was slightly damp from condensation, and three cigarettes were missing from the neat row. Three. Not two, not four. Three cigarettes, taken with what she imagined was deliberate casualness, like whoever took them assumed she either wouldn't notice or wouldn't care.
They were wrong on both counts.
"Alright," she announced to the empty room, her voice echoing off the metal walls. "Which one of you assholes has a death wish?"
She waited, as if the galley itself might confess. The hum of the ship's systems was her only answer, that constant background drone that she'd grown so accustomed to that she only noticed it when she was angry enough to notice everything. Like now.
Faye set the cigarette pack down on the counter with exaggerated care, the kind of care that preceded violence. She'd paid good money for these. Well, she'd paid money, anyway. The specifics of how good that money was or where exactly it had come from were details best left unexamined. The point was, she'd made a transaction. These cigarettes were hers through the sacred bond of commercial exchange, and someone had violated that bond.
This was personal.
Spike wandered in, hands in his pockets, that insufferable lazy expression on his face like he'd just woken up from a nap and found the world exactly as boring as he'd left it. His hair was even more disheveled than usual, if that was possible, and he was wearing that same blue suit he always wore, the one that had probably been nice once but now just looked comfortably worn.
"Morning, Faye," he said, heading straight for the fridge without looking at her.
She rounded on him immediately, her hand shooting out to point at the cigarette pack like a prosecutor presenting evidence. "Did you touch my cigarettes?"
He glanced at the pack, then at her, one eyebrow raising in that way he had that made everything look like a joke he was in on and you weren't. "Your cigarettes?"
"Yes. My cigarettes. The ones that were hidden in the freezer. The ones that are now sitting here, open, on the counter."
"You mean the ones you borrowed from my stash last month?" He opened the fridge, peering inside with the hopeless optimism of someone who knew there was nothing good in there but checked anyway.
"That was different. You owed me for..." She stopped herself, trying to remember exactly what Spike had owed her for. There were so many debts floating around the Bebop, half of them imaginary, that it was hard to keep track. "It doesn't matter what you owed me for. These were mine. I paid for them. With actual woolongs. Real money."
"Congratulations on participating in the economy." Spike reached past her toward the pack on the counter.
Faye's hand slammed down on it first, her palm flat against the cardboard. "Don't even think about it."
They stood there for a moment, her hand on the cigarettes, his hand hovering in the air between them. She could smell the faint scent of his cologne, or whatever it was he used, mixed with the ever present odor of the ship, metal and recycled air and old coffee.
"Relax," Spike said finally, withdrawing his hand. "I haven't touched your precious cigarettes." He opened the fridge instead, pulling out leftover bell peppers that had definitely seen better days. They were starting to wrinkle, that sad way vegetables do when they're on the edge of going bad but aren't quite there yet. "But I did eat the last of that chocolate you hid in the vegetable crisper."
Faye felt her eye twitch again. "You WHAT?"
"Kidding." He flashed that crooked grin, the one that probably got him out of trouble more often than it should. "Probably Ed."
The chocolate thing was actually true, though Spike didn't know that. She'd stashed an expensive bar of dark chocolate, the real stuff from Earth, in the vegetable crisper because nobody on this ship ever ate vegetables unless Jet made them. It was the perfect hiding spot. Or it had been, until about three days ago when she'd gone to retrieve it and found only an empty wrapper with teeth marks that were definitely too small to be human.
But she couldn't think about that right now. The chocolate was a separate grievance, one she'd deal with later. Right now, she had to focus on the cigarettes.
"So if you didn't take them," she said, narrowing her eyes at Spike, "who did?"
He shrugged, examining a bell pepper with the critical eye of someone who'd eaten too many questionable meals. "Could be anyone. Could be no one. Could be the ship itself, finally gaining sentience and developing a nicotine addiction."
"Spike."
"Could be space pirates. Could be a very elaborate insurance scam. Could be—"
"Spike, I swear to god—"
As if summoned by the rising tension, or possibly by some sixth sense for chaos, Edward tumbled into the galley upside down, her legs hooked over the top of the doorframe. Her red hair hung down like a curtain, and her goggles sat askew on her forehead, somehow defying gravity.
"Ed did not take Faye Faye's cigarettes!" she announced to the room at large. "Ed does not like the smoky smoke! Makes Ed's nose do the twitchy thing!"
She demonstrated by scrunching up her nose and sneezing dramatically, nearly losing her grip on the doorframe. Ein trotted in beneath her, looking up at his inverted companion with what might have been concern or might have been indifference. It was hard to tell with that dog.
"I didn't accuse you, Ed," Faye said, though the thought had crossed her mind. Ed got into everything, like some kind of hyperactive raccoon with computer skills.
"But Ed knows who did!" Edward dropped to the floor in a tangle of limbs, somehow landing on her feet despite the complete lack of coordination in her descent. "Ed saw! Ed sees everything! Ed is like the all seeing eye of the Bebop, watching, knowing, witnessing the crimes and misdemeanors of the crew!"
"Ed," Spike said tiredly, "get to the point."
"That was Jet person! Jet person was very grumpy this morning! Grumpier than usual! Like a grumpy bear who woke up on the wrong side of the grumpy bed in grumpy town!" Ed spun in a circle, her arms spread wide. "Jet person went stomp stomp stomp to the freezer, took Faye Faye's cigarettes, went stomp stomp stomp to the galley, opened them up, took three, and then sat and smoked them while looking at his bonsai trees and muttering about ungrateful crews and mounting expenses and the general decline of modern civilization!"
Faye's smile turned dangerous. "Is that so?"
"Ed's memory is very good! Photographic! Or maybe photographish! Ed remembers Jet person saying something about needing this more than that woman needs another vice. Ed thinks Jet person meant Faye Faye because Faye Faye is the only woman on the ship unless you count Ed but Ed is not a woman Ed is Ed!"
The righteous fury that had been building in Faye's chest crystallized into something sharp and focused. Jet. Of course it was Jet. Mr. Responsible. Mr. I Used To Be A Cop So I Have The Moral High Ground. Mr. These Are My Rules And Everyone Has To Follow Them Except When I Don't Want To.
She found him in the hangar, working on the Hammerhead's engine. The space smelled like machine oil and ozone, and tools were scattered across the floor in the organized chaos that Jet insisted was a system. He was bent over the engine compartment, his metal arm elbow deep in machinery, his human hand holding a wrench.
He didn't look up when she approached, just kept his attention on whatever he was doing to the poor engine. She could see the concentration on his face, that furrowed brow focus he got when he was trying to fix something that probably couldn't be fixed, at least not without parts they couldn't afford.
"Jet."
"Faye." His voice was distracted, distant. The wrench clinked against metal.
"Want to explain why you thought you could help yourself to my property?"
He was quiet for a moment, and she heard something click inside the engine. Then another click. Then a sound that was definitely not supposed to be a sound that an engine made, a sort of grinding wheeze that spoke of expensive problems in the near future.
"Your property?" He finally glanced up, his face smudged with grease, his expression somewhere between tired and annoyed. "That's rich, coming from someone who still owes me for six months of docking fees, not to mention the fuel costs, the food, the repairs to the Redtail after that stunt you pulled on Ganymede, the medical supplies you used up after that other stunt on Callisto, and the general wear and tear you inflict on this ship just by existing on it."
He straightened up, wiping his hands on a rag that was already so covered in grease that it probably made things dirtier rather than cleaner. His metal arm gleamed in the harsh hangar lights, a reminder of old stories he never told in full.
"Don't change the subject," Faye said, planting her feet. She knew this tactic. Jet loved to deflect by bringing up her debts, like he was some kind of cosmic accountant tallying up her sins.
"I'm not." He stood, crossing his arms to mirror her stance. They faced each other across the hangar floor, two stubborn people who'd spent too much time together in too small a space. "Every woolong you've earned on this ship has come from bounties we caught. Bounties that required my ship, my fuel, my equipment. Far as I'm concerned, everything on this ship is community property until you settle your debts."
"Community property?" Faye's voice went up an octave. "Then why do you throw a fit every time someone touches your bonsai trees? Why do you have that special coffee locked in your quarters? Why do you label your leftovers in the fridge like we're roommates in some college dormitory?"
"That's different. The bonsai are living things that require specific care. They're not just objects, they're organisms that depend on precise conditions. You can't just water them whenever you feel like it or move them around because you want the counter space."
"That's not the point and you know it."
"And the coffee," Jet continued, as if she hadn't spoken, "is special order from Earth. Do you know what that costs? Do you have any idea how hard it is to get real Blue Mountain coffee beans out here?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize we were running a luxury resort," Faye shot back. "Tell me, do those expensive coffee beans taste better when you're stealing other people's cigarettes to go with them?"
Jet's jaw tightened. She'd hit a nerve. Good.
"I didn't steal anything. I borrowed them. There's a difference."
"Borrowing implies you were going to give them back! Borrowing implies permission! What you did was theft! Plain and simple theft!"
"You want to talk about theft?" Jet's voice rose to match hers. "Let's talk about the bottle of whiskey that went missing from my quarters last month. Let's talk about the time you took the Redtail without asking and came back with the fuel tank empty. Let's talk about—"
"I'm talking about cigarettes, Jet! Cigarettes that I bought with my own money and hid specifically so that nobody would take them!"
"Your own money." Jet laughed, but there was no humor in it. "That's a good one. Your own money. The money you earned on bounties you caught on my ship using my resources while eating my food and sleeping under my roof."
"It's not a roof, it's a ceiling, and it's barely a ceiling at that! Half the panels are missing and the other half are held up by prayers and duct tape!"
Spike leaned against the doorway, apparently having followed her from the galley. He was still holding those sad bell peppers, and he was watching the argument unfold with obvious amusement, like it was dinner theater and he had front row seats.
"You know," he said, his voice cutting through their argument, "for two adults, you both sound like you're fighting over toys in a sandbox."
"Stay out of this, Spike," they said in unison, then glared at each other for having spoken at the same time.
"Wouldn't dream of getting involved." He lit a cigarette, one of his own, Faye noted bitterly, and blew smoke toward the ceiling. The smoke curled in the air, caught in the circulating ventilation. "Though I gotta say, Jet, you could've just asked."
"She would've said no," Jet replied flatly.
"Obviously! They were mine!" Faye threw her hands up. "That's the whole point! They were mine and you took them without asking! How is this complicated?"
"Nothing on this ship is just yours," Jet said, and his voice had gone quiet now, which was somehow worse than when he was yelling. "That's not how this works. We're a crew. Everything is shared. That's the deal."
"That's not the deal! The deal is we work together to catch bounties! The deal is not you get to rifle through my stuff whenever you want!"
"Your stuff." Jet shook his head. "You've been here what, a year? And in that year, you've contributed maybe a tenth of what you've taken. You live here rent free, you eat food you didn't buy, you use equipment you didn't maintain, and you have the nerve to talk to me about property rights?"
The words hit harder than Faye wanted to admit. Because he wasn't entirely wrong, was he? She'd been keeping a mental tally of her own debts, and while she liked to tell herself she was close to even, the truth was she probably wasn't. The truth was she'd been coasting, taking advantage of Jet's reluctant generosity and Spike's indifference, living in the spaces between their expectations.
But that didn't give him the right to take her cigarettes.
"You know what?" she said, her voice tight. "Fine. You're right. I owe you money. I owe you lots of money. But that doesn't mean you get to steal from me. That's not how debts work. You don't get to just take whatever you want as payment. That's not being a creditor, that's being a thief."
"I took three cigarettes, Faye. Three. It's not like I cleaned you out."
"It's the principle of the thing!"
"The principle." Jet's laugh was bitter. "You want to talk about principles? Let's talk about the principle of pulling your weight. Let's talk about the principle of contributing to the household. Let's talk about—"
Ed cartwheeled into the hangar, because of course she did. Ein trotted behind her, his nails clicking on the metal floor. The dog looked supremely unbothered by the argument happening around him, which was pretty much Ein's default state.
"Ed has a solution!" she announced, landing in a crouch between Faye and Jet like some kind of bizarre mediator. "Ed has thought about this very carefully for the last thirty seconds and Ed has determined the optimal outcome for all parties!"
"Nobody asked you, Ed," Faye snapped, immediately feeling guilty. It wasn't Ed's fault that Jet was a thief and Spike was useless and this whole situation was ridiculous.
But Ed, being Ed, was completely undeterred by Faye's tone. "Ed proposes a trade! A fair and equitable trade that will satisfy both parties and restore balance to the Bebop! Faye Faye gets Jet person's special coffee beans, and Jet person gets to keep three cigarettes! Everyone wins! It's like economics but with more goodwill!"
"Those are Blue Mountain beans," Jet said flatly, his arms still crossed. "You can pry them from my cold, dead hands."
"That can be arranged," Faye replied sweetly.
They stared each other down, neither willing to budge. The tension stretched between them, ridiculous and petty and somehow feeling monumental in the cramped space of the hangar. This was stupid. She knew it was stupid. Jet probably knew it was stupid. But neither of them could back down now because backing down would mean admitting defeat, and defeat was unacceptable.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Faye wondered when she'd become this person. When had she started caring so much about three cigarettes? When had she started picking fights over principle instead of just letting things go?
But she knew the answer. She'd always been this person. Even back before the accident, before the debt, before she woke up with no memories and a bill for fifty million woolongs, she'd probably been exactly like this. Stubborn. Prideful. Unable to let go of a slight even when letting go would be easier.
Maybe that was why she fit in here. Maybe that was why the Bebop had become something like home, even though she'd never admit it out loud. They were all stubborn here. They all held grudges. They all clung to their small territories with the desperation of people who'd lost bigger things.
"You two realize we're broke, right?" Spike's voice cut through her thoughts. "Like, completely broke. We've got maybe enough fuel to make one more jump, the Redtail needs repairs that are going to cost more than we have, and we're eating bell peppers and mystery meat for dinner tonight. Again. For the third night in a row."
He held up the sad vegetables as evidence. One of them had definitely gone soft.
Faye didn't break eye contact with Jet. "Your point?"
"My point is maybe save the territory wars for when we actually have territory worth fighting over." Spike took a long drag from his cigarette. "Just a thought."
There was a long pause. The hum of the ship seemed louder somehow, filling the silence. Faye's jaw worked, pride warring with the uncomfortable truth of Spike's words. She could see the slight deflation in Jet's shoulders too, the way his arms loosened just a fraction.
They were broke. They were always broke. And here they were fighting over three cigarettes like it was the most important thing in the world.
But maybe that was the point. Maybe when you didn't have anything else, when you were floating through space in a barely functional ship chasing bounties that never paid enough, maybe three cigarettes did become the most important thing in the world. Maybe that was all you had left to fight for.
"Fine," Faye said finally, forcing the word out. "Keep the cigarettes. But you owe me."
"Add it to your tab," Jet replied, and there might have been the ghost of a smile on his face. Might have been. It was hard to tell.
She turned on her heel, heading back toward her room, her footsteps echoing on the metal floors. Behind her, she heard Ed whisper loudly, "Does this mean Faye Faye won't poison Jet person's coffee?"
"Edward," Jet's voice carried a warning, but Faye could hear the exhaustion in it.
"Ed is just asking! For scientific purposes! Ed likes to gather data on interpersonal crew dynamics and potential homicide attempts! It's educational!"
Faye allowed herself a small smile as she walked away. She'd already been planning to borrow Jet's coffee beans tomorrow anyway. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him, and after this little stunt with her cigarettes, she figured turnabout was fair play.
She'd probably take his good whiskey too, the stuff he kept hidden behind the water filtration system in his quarters like she didn't know it was there. She'd known about that hiding spot for months. Everyone knew about everyone's hiding spots on this ship. That was just how it worked when you lived in such close quarters.
The Bebop wasn't big enough for secrets, but it was big enough for grudges.
As she reached her room, Faye heard the sound of Jet and Spike talking in the hangar, their voices low and indistinct. Then Ed's higher voice, chattering about something incomprehensible. Then Ein barked, just once, a simple statement of existence.
Despite everything, despite the anger and the pettiness and the ridiculous argument over cigarettes she couldn't afford to replace, Faye felt something warm settle in her chest. Something she refused to name, something that felt dangerously close to belonging.
She closed her door and sat on her bed, pulling out the half empty pack of cigarettes from her pocket. She'd grabbed them on her way out of the galley, unwilling to leave them for Jet to take the rest. She lit one, inhaling deeply, tasting the expensive tobacco and her own stubbornness.
Tomorrow she'd steal Jet's coffee. Tomorrow they'd probably fight about something else equally stupid. Tomorrow Spike would make some comment about how they were all dysfunctional disasters, and Ed would say something weird, and Ein would just be Ein.
Tomorrow would be exactly like today, which was exactly like yesterday.
And somehow, impossibly, that was fine.
After all, on the Bebop, nothing stayed yours for long. But that went both ways. Jet's coffee wouldn't stay his for long either. His whiskey would migrate to her room by the end of the week. Spike's cigarettes would mysteriously disappear whenever she ran out of her own. The cycle would continue, petty theft and petty revenge and petty arguments about principles that maybe didn't matter as much as they seemed to in the moment.
Petty? Maybe. Probably. Definitely.
But it was the principle of the thing.
And sometimes, when you were broke and lost and floating through space with nothing but a bounty hunting license and a ship held together by willpower, principles were all you had left.
Faye took another drag from her cigarette and stared at the ceiling of her room, counting the rust spots she'd memorized months ago. Somewhere in the ship, she could hear Ed singing off key. Somewhere else, Jet was probably back to fixing that engine. And Spike was probably taking a nap, because that's what Spike did when things got uncomfortable.
They were a mess. They were all messes, individually and collectively. But they were messes together, and that had to count for something.
She stubbed out her cigarette in the makeshift ashtray on her nightstand and lay back on her bed, staring at those rust spots and thinking about coffee beans and whiskey and the elaborate revenge she was already planning.
Tomorrow, she decided, she'd steal four things instead of two.
It was the principle of the thing.