“I haven’t been gone that long have I? I mean for you to miss me already… I’m truly touched, Kit…” John jokingly addressed her, to put her at ease. Kit just smiled and kept quiet. She needed to take it all in for a bit. “It took a couple months to find everything, but I think I got it all Doc. You should be able to get that still up and running again. Doc here makes the best you ever had, at least I think he does. To tell you the truth I can’t really remember, not even sure if I so much as touched the stuff before.”

“Looks like I made it back a little early then,” said a new voice. It belonged to a young looking Asian man, only now entering the room. He wore a coat full of knives, and had tattoos covering the majority of his exposed skin.

“Eddy,” John said, as he greeted the man.

“John, good to see you, how long has it been?” Eddy asked.

“About two and a half months.” John replied.

“Almost five for me,” Eddy said back. “Too long really.”

“Too long,” John agreed.

“If you boys are finished holding each others fancy parts. We got a new lady here, you should introduce yourself. John’s new ward… just brought her in.” Doc said, in a manner intended to remind John that she’d just arrived.

“No kidding, John you shouldn’t have, its not even my birthday… is it?” Eddy jested as he approached. “Eddy, Although Doc likes to call me Dead Eye, on account of I never miss what I set my sights to. Although, with you around, I might have a hard time focusing on anything else.”

“I’m sure… you can call me Kit, I guess,” Kit responded, trying to hold back a smile. Eddy seemed to be around her age after all, as near as she could tell, and he was far from bad looking. He might even be considered charming in a playful sort of way.

“John named you, didn’t he?” Eddy asked.

“Yeah… I guess,” Kit answered.

“Yeah, he’s always going on about his lost little kittens… you know, his kids. But that’s cool. It’s nice to have someone watching after you a bit.”

“Which one of those is your… you know…” Kit started.

“My Time Piece?” Eddy finished.

“Yeah, that’s what John called it,” she confirmed.

“I see you been talking to Doc. He can be hard to follow the way he uses different words for things,” Eddy began.

“No, not really. I just wasn’t sure what you called it,” Kit explained.

“The rest of us use Time Piece. To keep things simple,” Eddy continued. “But none of them. Most of the knives I started out with have been lost and replaced already. But the truth is, I’m a little different. I bet they didn’t tell you that a Time Piece isn’t always something you hold onto… mines not actually something you can lose so easily. See mines been etched into my body. These Tattoos must have took hours, days, weeks, maybe even months to finish,” Eddy pulled off his overcoat and vest, to show that the tattoos covered his entire body, more or less. Kit couldn’t help but notice he seemed pretty fit. “They must have been important to me, to go through all that… or maybe I’m just a real bad ass. Anyway, its like I’m wearing my life story right here on my skin. I don’t know what it means, but there it is. Actually, I like to imagine what the story behind each one was, when I have time to myself. It keeps my mind occupied at least.”

“I’d like to hear them,” Kit stated. Just then the door opened again.

“Sure, I’ll tell you later,” Eddy promised.

“Rose. Welcome home,” Doc said.

“Doc… John… Eddy… and who’s this young flower, you boys trying to replace me? After what, a few months?” Rose toyed with them, fishing for an introduction.

“Nothing like that Rose. How could we possibly replace you?” John asked, assuringly.

“No worries Rose. These two ‘ll never stop fighting over you,” Eddy said, as he threw his backpack on the table for the Doc to peruse. “This one’s just something John picked up to win me over. A change of pace from the trash he usually hauls in here.”

“Oh, that hurt,” John responded, with his hands turned up. “And I thought you liked Doc’s booze… Rose, this is Kit. I’m looking after her until she gets her head around it all. She’s a good kid, at least that’s what I decided.”

“I see you’re trying to spoil another one,” Rose teased. “But what if she doesn’t wanna be a good kid. You see the way she’s looking at Eddy… In fact I think she’s giving me a few looks too. How about it? Do you wanna be a good girl?”

“Rose… she’s practically a new born,” John responded sternly, and perhaps with a touch of parental concern.

“Just cause her mind doesn’t remember, it doesn’t mean her body’s forgotten. You remember your first time don’t you John. She might not know what to do with it, but she’s feeling something, I can see that much… I can practically smell it on her,” Rose insisted.

“I’m sure it wasn’t my first time, Rose,” John replied.

“You know I don’t mean it that way, I’m certainly not complaining or anything,” Rose said with a mischievous grin.

“Wait… smell what? I’m not sure what the two of you are going on about.” Kit asked.

“I’m sure John wants to keep it that way,” Rose replied.

“Now look what you’ve started,” John said in a quiet but disapproving manner.

“Don’t worry about those two,” Eddy assured her. “There’s plenty of time here, to ease your way into everything you don’t know and all the things you’ve forgotten.”

“So long as you don’t go jumping bout, or wandering round too far,” Doc reminded them. “This place is only safe, because we haven’t really done anything to draw attention to it, like gathering resources from around here. That’s important see… if we don’t interact with folk, or mess with things what’s supposed to be used by others, then it’s almost like we’re not even really here. Cause otherwise we might get unwelcome visitors, and have to go find a new place to rest our heads.”

“Like you said before,” Kit remarked, to show that she had been listening.

“Yep, like I said before,” Doc said with an approving nod.