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Jet had never exactly invited the collection of motley misfits he'd shared his home—the spaceship Bebop—with to move in. It had just sort of… happened. They’d each arrived out-of-the-blue. First Spike, then Ein, then Faye. And finally Ed, a child who had been living feral on Earth’s ruined surface, dodging rock showers, heatstroke, and the dangers posed by other humans to a lone ten-year-old with no-one around who would miss Ed if Ed disappeared. And none of them had left.
Until they did.
Faye was the first to go, then Ed, with Ein padding along at Ed’s side. Then Spike.
And then, one day, Ed and Ein came back. Just as suddenly as they had gone.
It was on a warm, late Martian spring afternoon. Eighteen months after Spike had set off to face Vicious one last time and never returned. Jet had moored the Bebop in a quiet backwater branch of the canal network criss-crossing the crater in which Tharsis City was located. He’d dragged an old wooden chair with a cracked seat up onto the deck so he could sit and enjoy the breeze on his face while he waited for Bob to call. His old colleague had promised to let him know as soon as the ballistics and forensics reports on the Jericho with a filed off serial number an apprentice gardener at the Mars Botanic Gardens had dug out of a flowerbed the previous week were complete.
He was dozing with yesterday’s newspaper lying across knees, and his phone and a half-drunk can of Pippu on the deck beside his chair. In his hypnopompic state he imagined he heard claws clicking on steel, and smiled at a memory of a little brown-and-white dog sitting patiently, holding out a paw, while he waited for Jet to dig out the smallest of his bonsai sheers to trim his claws.
“Ein,” he chuckled fondly, and opened his eyes.
In front of him sat a Pembroke Welsh corgi, its tongue lolling out as it gazed expectantly at him.
“Ein?!” He repeated, leaping up from the chair.
“And Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivruski IV!” Cried a voice behind him.
Jet turned to see a red-headed child leap from the roof of the bridge and land like a cat on all-fours on the deck.
“Ed! Why are you here?” Jet exclaimed, gathering Ed up in his arms and ruffling Ed’s hair.
Ed giggled and writhed until Jet set Ed down on the chair, where Ed immediately contorted Ed's body so that Ed was lying with Ed’s back across the seat, one leg draped over the chair’s back, the other bent underneath the seat with the foot hooked under a strut, and Ed’s head lolling off the side. Ed studied Jet from Ed’s upside-down vantage point with an intense gaze, before replying simply:
“It was time for Ed to come home.”
Jet brought his hand to his face and dabbed at the corner of his eye with the sweatband around his wrist while he fought to form words around the lump forming in his throat.
“W-welcome back,’ he stammered.
~~~~~
The Jericho turned out to be a false alarm—not Spike’s, but some other unfortunate soul’s.
Jet spent several days brooding after Bob's call, alternating between lying staring at the ceiling in bed or on the sofa, and sitting on one of the salvaged antique fold-down cinema seats installed by the Bebop's previous owner in his quarters, staring at his bonsais. All the time Ed and Ein sat like quiet shadows on the floor nearby, disturbing him only to shove him toward the galley every twelve hours or so and demanding he prepare food, and once Ed dragged him into the bathroom, turned on the shower and left, barricading the door until he’d washed and shaved.
Eventually the food ran out, and the necessary walk to the grocery store in the cool night air with Ein trotting beside him and Ed skipping ahead before doubling back every few feet was enough to clear the funk from Jet’s mind.
The next morning he rose early, fired up the Bebop’s engines, cast off the mooring ropes, and settled into the pilot seat on the bridge. He pressed a button activating the ship-wide intercom.
“Hey, Ed?”
A tinny voice crackled out of the overhead speaker. “Radical Edward is busy hacking into the ISSP expenses records and can’t come to the phone right now.”
Jet chuckled. “Are you really?”
“Ed is doing what Ed says Ed is doing. Ed is hacking into—”
“Yeah, yeah. ISSP expenses,” Jet cut in. “I know a place on Ganymede where they make the most amazing chocolate milkshakes. Do you want to try one?”
~~~~~
Six days later Jet and Ed were sitting in the window of a cozy cafe watching the hustle-and-bustle in the street outside. Ed slurped the last of Ed’s milkshake noisily through the straw, slid down off Ed’s chair, then galloped on all-fours to a door marked ‘TOILET FOR CUSTOMERS ONLY’ at the back of the cafe, drawing disapproving looks from a middle-aged couple nursing cups of coffee in the corner. Ed disappeared into the bathroom. The couple turned their disapproval onto Jet. The bounty hunter met their stares with his own cold, steady gaze, leaned back in his chair, and lit a cigarette. He continued staring the couple down, blowing plumes of smoke out of the corner of his mouth long after they'd averted their eyes, tutting, and began muttering to each other, just loud enough for Jet to overhear the odd snippet.
“…awful…no way to raise a child…the mother must be out-of-the-picture…shouldn’t be allowed to have a kid if he can’t even look after it…”
Jet was starting to get worried that Ed had spent rather a long time in the bathroom. He was about to go and knock on the door to check Ed was alright, when it opened and Ed emerged, walking slowly back to the table with Ed’s head hanging.
“What’s up?” Jet asked, brow furrowed with concern.
“Ed is sick,” Ed said quietly.
“What kind of sick?”
“Ed is bleeding. It won’t stop.”
“Where?”
Jet turned business-like as he he swept his eyes over Ed. He couldn’t see any blood, and Ed was showing no signs—yet—of going into shock.
Ed’s usually-ruddy cheeks flushed a brighter pink.
“Where?” Jet repeated, rising and placing a hand on Ed’s arm. “Tell me. If you’re bleeding out we may not have much time.”
“Down… here.” Ed mumbled, and gestured, indicating Ed’s crotch, eyes cast down to avoid Jet's gaze.
“Ah—haha!” Jet chuckled with relief. “You got your—” He glanced over to the couple in the corner, who were staring again, evidently enjoying the show. “—You got your period,” he whispered.
Ed stared blankly.
“Do you know what that means?” Jet prompted.
Ed shook Ed’s head.
“It means you’re—uh—becoming a woman,” Jet muttered, heat rising in his cheeks too.
He’d never anticipated the need to have a conversation like this, let alone in public. He drew his wallet from his pocket, placed a folded bill on the table, then took Ed’s arm and guided Ed toward the door.
“Come on. We’ll pick up a few supplies and I’ll explain it all when we’re back on the Bebop.”
The array of products in the ‘feminine hygiene’ aisle was more than a little overwhelming. With wings…without wings…maxi…applicator…non-applicator…different absorbency levels… Jet ended up chucking one of each into the basket and heading for the checkout before doubling back to grab a couple of bars of dark chocolate—Alisa had always asked him to pick up a bar on his way home when it was her ‘time of the month’.
~~~~~
“Every month?” Ed asked, eyes wide and mouth full of chocolate. Ed was sitting on the bottom step of the flight leading up from the Bebop’s living room to the main airlock, with Ed’s knees pulled up to Ed’s chest.
“Yep. Every month,” Jet confirmed.
Ed swallowed Ed’s mouthful of confectionary.
“Until Ed dies?”
“Not that long. For the next thirty-or-forty years.”
“Ed does not want to become a woman,” Ed declared, pulling at the bulky pad between Ed’s legs through Ed’s shorts.
“Well, there are hormones you can take if you’d rather be a man,” Jet suggested.
Ed made a disgusted face and crammed more chocolate into Ed’s mouth.
“Ed will stay Ed. No man. No woman. Ed.”
“Everyone grows up eventually. You’ll get used to it. And you’ll stay Ed, just a slightly different version of Ed,” Jet said gently.
“Ed will not get used to this!” Ed declared, shoving a hand down the front of Ed’s shorts and pulling out the offending pad. Ed tossed it down on the floor.
Ein waddled over, sniffed it, whined, and waddled off again to sit by his bowl.
“Try a different one, then,” Jet offered, careful to keep his frustration from showing in his tone.
Ed got up and walked stiffly over to the sofa, where a plastic bag sat. Ed rummaged, pulled out a thinner pad encased in a plastic wrapper, and held it up for Jet’s approval. He nodded like he knew the difference between it and the one Ed had just thrown on the floor.
“Why does Ed have to bleed every month anyway?” Ed demanded, placing Ed’s balled fists on Ed’s hips.
Jet scratched the back of his head and glanced around the living room, searching in vain for a way out of the conversation.
“Well… It’s so you can have a baby when the time comes,” he said.
“Ed does not want to have a baby! Ed is Ed!” Ed shouted, stomping Ed’s foot.
Jet sighed. He really wasn’t prepared for this.
Scowling like the millions of years of human evolution that had led to Ed having to suffer the inconvenience and indignity of menstruation had somehow been caused by Jet just to spite Ed personally, Ed returned Ed’s attention to the plastic-wrapped pad scrunched in Ed’s hand, hitched Ed’s thumbs under the waistband of Ed’s shorts, and began to pull them down.
“Not here. In the bathroom please, Ed. We do stuff like this it in private, remember?" Jet hastily reminded Ed. "And pick up your trash, on your way,” he added, prodding the used pad on the floor with the toe of his boot.
Ed’s scowl intensified, but at a glare from the bounty hunter, Ed bent and picked up the pad.
Jet sighed as he watched Ed lope off down the corridor. Guiding a child as unique as Ed through puberty was going to be a challenge. And it looked like the job had somehow fallen to him.
~~~~~
Jet threw an arm over his eyes to shield them from the sudden brightness blaring from the striplight over his bed.
“Wassup?” He asked, blearily.
“Ed’s stomach hurts,” came a voice from the doorway.
“It’s just cramps, Ed. Go back to bed,” Jet mumbled, and rolled onto his side.
“It hurts,” Ed repeated, taking a few steps into the room.
“You’re going to get cramps sometimes. It’s part of—y’know—this growing up business. You’ve got to deal with it. Now, go back to bed,” Jet repeated. He pulled the duvet over his head.
“Ed’s stomach hurts and Ed doesn’t want to sleep in a bed.” Ed’s voice was closer now and Ed’s tone petulant.
Jet sighed and pushed the duvet off his head. Ed was standing beside the bed, staring down at him with a look on Ed’s face he knew from experience meant Ed would persist until Ed got what Ed wanted. He decided his best strategy was to pick only the battles he had a chance of winning.
“Fine. Sleep on the floor. I’ve got plenty of time to teach you to sleep in Faye’s old bed anyway. Just switch the light off first.”
Ed didn’t say anything in response to the instruction, but did as Jet asked and switched the light off. Jet curled himself into a foetal position and closed his eyes, vowing to ignore and all further interruptions for the rest of the night.
He was just drifting off again when a voice by his ear asked, “Can Ed sleep here tonight?”
“Whatever,” Jet mumbled, too tired to argue.
He shuffled over to one side of the bed to make room for Ed, who climbed in and nestled against his chest. Behind him, Ein scrambled up onto the bed too, turned a few circles, and curled up against his lower back. After a moment’s hesitation, Jet pulled his tank top back down where it had ridden up exposing his stomach. He tucked it into his boxers and slung his arm over Ed’s shoulders, pulling Ed closer. Ed was too old for them to be doing this, Jet knew. But, he reasoned, Ed hadn’t had any parent figures around to co-sleep with when Ed had been the appropriate age for it.
Parent figures… Parents… Parent… Jet mulled the words over in his mind.
Am I a parent now…? He asked himself.
The evidence suggested he was.
He let out a long, slow sigh, and noticed his jaw muscles had relaxed for the first time in—How long? Months…? A year…? Longer?
He smiled to himself and buried his face in the top of Ed’s unruly nest of hair, pressing a kiss there.
“Goodnight, Edward,” he murmured.
Ed’s reply was a soft snore.