Before we dive too deeply into the story, I want to give everybody a few notes on my timeline. I started writing this story after watching Cowboy Bebop, so most of my dates come from the show and/or the Cowboy Bebop wiki. I found the show a little vague on dates, but maybe I just wasn't paying close attention. I've tried to keep as true to dates as I can, but I've found some conflicting dates in my "research" so some of this might not be completely canon. Also, I can't remember if it is ever explicitly mentioned in the show or not, but I was under the impression that Julia was a part of the Red Dragon Syndicate (but I got undercover agent type vibes) so I'm also working under that assumption-that she at least did some work for them at some point, and stayed with them longer than Spike did.

And, last note, I promise...this is where we meet an adult Ed ;) I played around with how to write her for quite a while, debating how much of her antics to keep. In the end, I hope I found a balance...

Session Two

"Faye Faye found Spike person! Say hi, Ein!" Leon jumped back as a red-headed girl a few years older than himself suddenly appeared in front of him, dangling upside down from the claw arm on the Hammerhead's nose. She held a wriggling Corgi in her arms, also upside down, and was waving one of its front paws.

The girl wore black shorts and a white crop top that hung lose around her shoulders, revealing a black sports bra. A pair of goggles hung around her neck. "Wait a minute." She scratched her chin and swung closer to Leon. "You're not Spike person! You're too young." She pouted. "Faye Faye, you found the wrong person!" She pointed an accusing finger at Faye.

"Nice to see you too, Ed," Faye said, hopping off the Hammerhead. Jet had landed the ship in the hangar of the much larger Bebop. "But you can hardly blame me when I followed intel Jet gave me."

"Ed?" Leon asked the new girl.

Ed looked back at him. "That's me!" She pointed a thumb at herself.

"But, you're a girl." Leon raised an eyebrow.

Ed laughed. "Ed knows that, silly." She let go of the claw arm and flipped to the Hammerhead's deck, landing on her feet. Leon noticed she didn't wear shoes. "So, what's your name, not-Spike-person?" Ed leaned forward, staring at Leon with big golden eyes. The Corgi stared at him too.

"Do none of you respect personal space on this ship?" he asked.

"Get used to it, kid," a deep voice said from behind him as a hand descended on his shoulder. "Faye and Ed are always up in your business, believe me."

"And what do you mean by that, Jet?" Faye asked from where she stood at the Hammerhead's nose, casually inspecting her pistol.

"It's just hard to get people to mind their own business in a ship so small." Jet shrugged, but even Leon caught his sarcasm. The older man hopped down to the hangar floor.

"It's not like you and I haven't been partners for almost twenty years." Faye rolled her eyes. "I hardly think there are secrets between us anymore."

"You know a secret." Ed leaned toward Leon and winked conspiratorially. "Don't you?" Ein wriggled in her grasp some more, whining softly. Without warning, she thrust the Corgi at Leon.

"What secret?" Leon barely managed to catch the squirming dog in his arms. Ein licked Leon's face. "I don't have any secrets," Leon sputtered. He felt suddenly vulnerable, even though he couldn't think of anything he had to hide.

"Your name," Ed reminded him.

"Oh, that," Leon laughed. "It's Leon." He scratched Ein behind the ears.

"Spiegel?" Ed asked.

"Um, no." Leon shook his head. "Leon Riley."

"Oh," Ed pouted. "Ed thought you might be the son of Spike person. You look just like him. Are you his evil twin?"

"No." Leon tilted his head and studied Ed. He wasn't sure what to make of her.

Ein squirmed again and Leon tried his best not to drop him. "You can let him go." Ed smiled. Leon put Ein down. The Corgi hopped off the Hammerhead and disappeared up a nearby staircase.

"DNA could tell us the truth," Ed returned to their conversation like they hadn't been interrupted. "How to make it talk, Ed wonders?" She tapped a finger against the side of her head in thought. "Ed knows!" she sang and cartwheeled off the ship. But she didn't explain what Ed knew. Leon was left scratching his head. The crew of the Bebop was certainly the most eclectic group of cowboys he had ever met.

"C'mon, kid, let's go inside. Just in case the Syndicate starts poking their nose where it doesn't belong," Faye said.

Leon looked down at her and nodded. It's not like he had anywhere else to go right now. And he'd rather take his chances against the Syndicate with a these cowboys than alone - even if they were a little crazy. He slipped off the Hammerhead's nose. "You really think they'll come snooping around here?" he asked. Jet and Ed had already walked up the staircase to the Bebop's main interior deck.

Faye shrugged. "They're Syndicate. Who knows? It's not exactly like the Bebop's hidden or anything. And if anybody recognized Jet's Hammerhead, then we're likely to get some visitors."

"What do you mean 'recognized Jet's Hammerhead'?" Leon demanded.

"Well, we're not strangers to the Red Dragon, especially after Spike wiped them out. They used to take hits at us too."

"Wiped them out? Used to take hits at you?" Leon muttered to himself. What was he getting into? Aloud he said, "You seemed pretty sure they were after me on the pier. Are you sure they weren't after you?"

"I'm sure," she said. "Because I'm definitely not Spike Spiegel. But c'mon, if you've got questions, ask them upstairs with everybody. We've got questions for you too."

Leon followed Faye out of the hanger wondering what kind of questions the crew of the Bebop had for him.

"Damn, he does look just like him." Jet stared at Leon. The crew of the Bebop was assembled in the living room, sitting around the coffee table. Leon had taken off his trench coat and sat on the couch, coat folded over the back. He wore a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, the buttons open at the neck, and dark slacks. Faye and Jet sat in chairs across from him and Ed lounged in the floor, Ein nestled between her legs.

"Told you so," Faye said.

"Uh-huh!" Ed agreed, looking over at him from a computer screen balanced on her up-drawn knee. Leon squirmed under all the scrutiny. Jet set a medical kit on the coffee table in front of him.

"No, really, I'm fine," Leon said as Jet pulled out bottles of ointment and a few bandages.

Jet gave him a look Leon felt like he had a lot of practice with. "If you don't clean those up, they'll hurt more."

"Besides, you don't want to end up with whisker scars, do you?" Faye asked.

"Whisker scars?" Leon frowned. "They don't look like whiskers." He ran a hand over his cheeks again. One scratch was longer than the other, and higher. But Jet was right - they did sting.

"It won't take long," Jet said, up-ending a bottle of brownish liquid over a clean cloth. Once the cloth was damp, he set the bottle aside and came to kneel in front of Leon. Leon looked down at the older man with a little apprehension.

"Is that going to sting?" he asked.

Jet smiled, but there was something sad in his gaze. "He would've asked that too," he said, putting the cloth on Leon's face. Leon grunted as the cloth touched his cuts. It stung alright. He held still as Jet washed the blood off his face and cleaned up the two cuts. When he finished cleaning them, he applied an adhesive bandage to each one. Leon wrinkled his nose at the strange feeling of the bandages on each cheek.

"That's going to hurt when I have to pull them off, old man," he said when Jet sat back in his own chair across the table from Leon.

"Small price to pay to keep your good looks, kid," Faye said, studying her nails.

Leon sighed and pulled a cigarette out of his pocket, sticking it between his teeth. He grabbed his lighter and flicked it with his thumb, then stopped as he noticed every single member of the Bebop staring at him.

"What?" he asked, frozen with the lighter halfway to his cigarette. "Is it this?" he gestured to the cigarette.

Ed shook her head emphatically.

"Who are you?" Jet asked.

"Um." Leon looked uncertainly between the three faces staring at him. "I already told you, my name's Leon."

"How old are you?" Jet asked.

"Nineteen," Leon said slowly, lighter and cigarette forgotten.

"He's tooo yooounngg," Ed said.

"And he doesn't have a cybernetic eye. I checked," Faye said.

Leon snuffed the lighter. "I'm too young for what?" he demanded. "And why would I have a cybernetic eye? Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on on this ship? Why does everybody think I'm someone else today?!"

Jet and Faye gave each other a long look. Ed stared off into space like she suddenly found the passing dust motes intensely interesting.

Jet sighed and ran a hand over his head. "It's a long story, kid."

Leon flicked the lighter again and lit his cigarette this time. "I'm listening."

Faye motioned for Jet to explain.

"So, I guess this story starts about twenty years ago. I met an ex-Syndicate man in a bar. A man trying to drown his sorrows in the bottle. A man trying to forget a life he escaped by the skin of his teeth. A man in a dream. That man was Spike. And we became partners."

Leon exhaled a long curl of smoke. It drifted lazily under the slowly spinning ceiling fan.

Jet continued. "We were bounty hunters. Cowboys, if you will. It gave Spike purpose again, chasing after bounties. And we were doing pretty good for ourselves too. We found Ein," Jet gestured at the corgi, "on a bounty run when someone tried to steal him and sell him to a pet shop. Then we picked up Faye after she tried to double-cross us and never left."

"Hey!" Faye interrupted.

"You asked me to tell the story." Jet gave her a glare. Faye shut up.

"And then we picked up Ed after Faye tried to double-cross Ed. But something about a full ship wasn't enough for Spike. He was still living in a dream, facing demons of the past that none of us knew about. And one day those demons broke out of the dream and got into the real world. Spike had to confront them. So he did. But…" Jet took a deep breath. "He never came back to us."

Leon took a long draw on the cigarette and let the smoke seep out his nose. "So that was the Syndicate then, right? The demons?"

"Yes." Jet nodded.

"And Spike...didn't make it?" he asked quietly.

Jet nodded again.

"So, where do I fit into this story?"

"Like everyone keeps telling you, you look just like Spike," Jet said. "You act like him too. Even smoke like him."

Leon pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and looked at it for a long moment. "How can I be so like a man I've never met though? I don't even know what Spike looks like."

Ed pulled her computer onto the floor in front of her and started typing furiously on her keyboard.

Jet shrugged. "I don't know. But you look enough like him that you've got the Dragon fooled."

"So I found out today. Now I guess I've got to worry about them on my tail while I try to track bounties." Leon put his head on the back of the couch and stared up at the fan. "This is hopeless."

"More than you know, kid," Faye said.

He looked up at Faye. "Hey! That's not helping."

"Faye's right. The Dragon won't stop at today," Jet agreed. "They'll hunt you till they find you, or worse."

"Or worse?" Leon asked.

"Bang, bang, bang, end comes quick," Ed said. "Or maybe not so quick. Sometimes they start with fingers instead. Or toes." She shuddered like that was worse than death.

Leon flexed his right hand reflexively. He could finally feel his fingers again. "Ok, I get the idea. They won't give up. So, I just prove I'm not Spike."

"It's not quite that easy with the Syndicate," Faye said. "If they decide that you'll work as a stand-in for Spike, it won't matter what you prove. They'll go after you anyway, just to repair their damaged sense of pride."

"Especially if they can convince the other Syndicates that you're Spike," Jet added.

Leon paled. "Why me?" he moaned, dropping his head into his hands. "I'm just a kid. Wouldn't the other Syndicates figure out I'm not old enough to be Spike?"

"Perhaps," Faye shrugged. "But they can play you off as Spike's son and the result will be the same."

"Spike-person's son!" Ed said, grinning. "See, Leo?" She flipped the computer around. Leon looked up and did a double take. He was staring at an older version of himself - the same unruly brown hair, same warm brown eyes, same cocky grin. He didn't know what to say. He would mistake himself for Spike too sans 10 years or so.

"Ed!" Faye exclaimed. "Where did you get that picture?"

"Off his cowboy's license," Ed said.

"Yeah, but Spike never had a son," Jet said, scratching his head. "Least not that he mentioned." He looked hard at Faye.

Faye held her hands up. "What are you looking at me for?"

"Well, you are the only woman on the ship," Jet said.

"Ed's a woman too!" Faye stood up and pointed at Ed. Ed smiled.

"Ed's too young, Faye!"

"Uh-huh." Faye put her hands on her hips. "And just when do you propose I had a baby when I was on your ship the entire freaking time I knew Spike?"

It was Jet's turn to hold up his hands. "I wasn't proposing that, exactly," he said.

"Then what were you proposing?" Faye demanded.

"Hang on, hang on," Leon interrupted. "Faye's clearly not my mom. They told me at the orphanage her name was Julia."

"WHAT?" Jet exclaimed at the same time that Faye yelled "Julia?!"

Leon shrank under the sudden intense stares. "That's what I was told," he said quietly.

"No, it can't be!" Faye said, putting a hand to her head.

"That bastard!" Jet growled. "He never told me he had a son!"

"You know, you're the second person to say that today," Leon told Jet. "But um, what does the name Julia mean to you guys?"

"Spike used to talk about Julia-girl a lot," Ed said. "I think he loved her."

"That's an understatement," Faye muttered.

"Wait, so what you're saying is -" Leon paused. "No, there's no way," he shook his head, trailing smoke back and forth in front of his face. "There are a million Julia's in the galaxy. There's no way that my mom just happened to be that Julia."

"Then how do you explain your uncanny resemblance to Spike?" Faye asked, crossing her arms.

Leon shook his head. "I don't know."

"Where were you born, kid?" Jet asked.

Leon shrugged. "Mars, I guess."

"You guess?" Faye asked.

"Well, I was brought to an orphanage on Mars as a baby and left there by my mother. So, I guess I was born there."

"You were raised in an orphanage?" Jet asked.

"Yeah," Leon said. "I never knew my father. When I got older, the nuns there told me that I'd been dropped off at the door by my mother who said she couldn't take care of me because it was too dangerous. She told the nuns my name was Leon, but she never told anyone my father's name and she didn't give me a surname. The nuns called me Riley because that was in the tag of the coat she brought me wrapped in."

"So you could be the son of Spike-person!" Ed crowed triumphantly.

"I guess so." Leon sat back on the couch. It was a lot to consider in an afternoon.

"The timing would just about work out, too," Jet mused.

"Is there any way to prove it?" Faye asked.

"DNA," Ed sang, waving her hands in the air. "It's all in the blooooood."

"Lord knows Spike shed enough of it," Jet said. "But where are we supposed to get a sample of Spike's blood, Ed?"

"We don't need his blood. Drool will work too," she said brightly.

"Drool? I'll check his pillow," Faye said dryly. "It's been fifteen years, Ed. It's not like we can just find this stuff lying around."

"Ed knows that. Faye Faye just isn't thinking straight."

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" Faye stomped her foot.

Ed giggled, tapping a finger against her nose.

Leon sat on the couch with his head in his hands, a thin trail of smoke curling between his splayed fingers.

"You ok, kid?" Jet asked.

Leon looked up between stray brown curls. "Yeah, I think so. I'm just…" he paused and snuffed his cigarette in the ashtray on the coffee table. "It's a lot to take in. I just found out I might have a history beyond an orphanage, but a Syndicate wants me dead for it...I can't even leave the planet. Not in my ship at any rate. She won't make it far in space. She's not big enough."

The crew was silent for a long moment.

"Well," Jet finally said, "you could join us, kid."