Disclaimer: Don't own Cowboy Bebop or its characters, Shinichiro Watanabe does.

Heaven

The thick foam pad of the couch moulded easily to the contours of his back as he stretched himself and stared absently at the ceiling. The poor excuse of a fan rotated haphazardly around its' axis and he wouldn't be too surprised if the thing somehow unhinged itself and came flying down to chop someone's head off. Beneath that was the metal piping and other doodackies that fed different parts of the ship with whatever fuels, gases or electricity that it needed in order for it to run as smoothly as possible.

He allowed his eyes to trace a few of them before giving up and just closed his eyes to shut it out. It was an easy enough of a task to do, but blocking out the rest of the ruckus that was ricocheting throughout the Bebop was harder. Distantly he could hear Ein barking at whatever it was that Ed was trying to do and above all that was Faye's yelling. Sometimes he wished he was deaf so that he wouldn't have to hear all this nonsense. It seemed like it was just yesterday that it had only been Jet and himself on the fishing trawler.

There had never been much to worry about except for finding the bounty so they had enough money to buy food, fuel and whatever else they needed to get by. Now? Now they seemed to have collected enough stragglers – one of them being very high-maintenance – to last him a life time. But most of the time it wasn't all bad. At least there was some entertainment value to be had when Ed went rummaging in Faye's room and would appear looking like a space clown.

Breathing out a sigh he opened his eyes and stared listlessly at the ceiling. The yelling had quieted to something that didn't hurt his ears quite as much and if he could be bothered to summon the energy to crane his head forward, he would most likely be met with the sight of a disgruntled Faye trying to talk reason into Ed. He snorted. As if that would actually work. He had tried and came away more baffled than when he had just watched the girl prance around bonelessly singing about pi.

Without his knowing it, his eyes had inadvertently gravitated back to tracing the maze of pipes. He briefly wondered why he didn't just get up and do something slightly more productive than lying around like a log but the answer came immediately. He had done everything he could think of, including thoroughly scrubbing the outside of the Swordfish and adding a layer of wax, and still he was left with nothing to do. Space travel may be faster now that the gates have been build, but it still wasn't fast enough for his liking.

They were currently stuck between planets and it had been only three days. There was still twenty-four hours more to go and he was on the verge of pulling his hair out. He could, of course, try to convince Faye to play a game of poker or something along those lines, but it would be a pointless venture. The incongruous woman would cheat her way through it and he would see through her tricks, which would lead her trying harder and so on and so forth. Over all, the outcome didn't look good and something might go kablooy because they were trying to one up each other.

There was also the possibility of watching Faye swindle her way through Jet's possessions. Though he doubted Jet would fall for that again. The last time it had happened it took a very long time to convince the woman to give back – loan – what she had gained, and the whole mutated food/alien fiasco made him shudder.

Sighing a little, he turned onto his side and found himself staring blankly at Ein. The dog cocked its head to the side inquisitively and he was tempted to tell the canine to go bother someone else.

It shouldn't surprise him, really, to find that very little – if anything – changed on the Bebop. The Milky Way could tip itself upside down and he would still probably find Faye meticulously painting her toe nails, Jet fastidiously pruning his bonzai and Ed being Ed. A pocket dimension that allowed him to separate himself from the rest of the chaos out there, and the only refuge he had from his past.

People talked about finding a little slice of heaven, but he was sure they didn't have this in mind. Hell, he wasn't even expecting to find heaven.

But whatever this was, it would do for now.