I had no idea how much time had passed between Agent Dobbs leaving and someone entering. I was staring out the window at the city beyond. I think I was saying goodbye. Even if the temporary guardian let me stay in the city for the week, I was pretty sure I’d be shipped off to some orphanage upstate, or to a group home outside the city.

“Hey…” Jen said tentatively as she slipped into the room, holding a tray of food in her free hand.

I didn’t reply at first. I couldn’t. I just let my gaze drift from the cityscape to her, watching as she pulled up a chair beside the bed and placed the tray on the little fold out table built into the hospital bed.

“Thought you could probably use something to eat.” She smiled uneasily, trying to cut the tension.

I looked down at the food: a lump of mashed potatoes, a glob of some kind of shredded chicken in gravy, and corn. It was all in its own neat little tray portion, and it all looked so… clinical. There was no heart or soul to this food. Not like the stuff Jen usually ‘served’ me in the neat little takeout containers in the dumpster behind her café.

As if she could read my mind, Jen placed a hand on my arm and said, “I know it’s not as good as the usual fare, but bear with it for now and I’ll make you something special tonight.”

That was enough to at least chip through the layer of numbness I had been feeling. “You’re… my guardian?” I asked dumbly. 

She smiled a little more easily and nodded. “Yeah. I found you passed out behind the café last night, and when I found out what was happening I couldn’t just leave you high and dry.”

“So you know…” I muttered. “I’m a… a…” The word burned as it came up, like bile: “regen.”

Her hand on my arm moved up to my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Yeah, but that’s not the worst thing in the world, hon. Besides, Agent Dobbs told me that there’s a good chance you could return to normal at the end of the event.”

“Yeah.” I didn’t believe my chances. I mean, I was already over 50%. That 55% told me that I’d already given up half my chance at staying me.

Jen licked her lips tentatively, and I could tell she was uneasy again. “So, um, why don’t you eat something and get some rest… Kat?”

My stomach dropped out at hearing her call me that. Any attempt I might have made at eating was gone, now. I just shook my head. “It’s Kit.” I lamely corrected her.

 “Hon, I’m sorry. I know this is going to be hard, but just for this week until the event is over you gotta play by their rules, or they’ll cart you off to a more heavy handed guardian that will force you to behave as they see fit.” The look on her face told me she wasn’t lying, and that she was just as worried about that outcome as I was.

I hung my head, staring at my lap. My empty lap. It was just… there… beneath the blanket. Beneath the hospital gown. The emptiness that told me I wasn’t biologically male anymore. That I was becoming something else - someone else. My mind flashed back to mom, to how different she became overnight. A total stranger. Would I even remember who I used to be when this week was over? 

“Oh, hon…” Jen said, standing from her chair and leaning over to hug me.

I hadn’t been hugged in years. Not a lot of people hug homeless kids. I was scared. My vision blurred, and I felt the wetness spill over my cheeks as tears flowed. Jen brought a hand up to guide my head to her shoulder, and I let her.

I cried harder than I had in a long time, and Jen held me tightly in her arms. 

==========

“You ready, Kat?” Jen asked, looking back at me.

I nodded. I’d been cleared for release around 6pm. It had taken another hour or so to get things together for my departure. The BGS had sent a change of clothes, since I could hardly leave in a backless hospital gown. It was just a gray pair of sweatpants and a gray t-shirt, but they were undeniably cut for girls, and the underwear they had sent along… I’d taken a few more minutes fighting back tears after I put them on. It was like a horrible admission of what was going on with my body.

“Okay.” She smiled and took my hand, leading me out of my hospital room and to the elevators. 

I barely followed along as we wove our way through hallways back out to the parking garage. She led me to a baby blue electric SUV, tossing my backpack in the backseat before holding the passenger door for me. I dropped into the seat, staring out the windshield blankly. 

She closed the door and then joined me on the driver’s side. “Buckle up hon.” She said, nodding at the seatbelt beside me as she fastened her own. 

I fumbled with it for a moment, then got it clicked into place. She smiled, and pushed a button to start the car. There was no rumble of an engine, and I found it sort of unsettling for a few reasons.

Firstly: I hadn’t ridden in a car in at least 3 years. 

Secondly: The car was silently gliding away from the life I knew, taking me to a new home - a temporary home, before I got shuffled into CPS custody for a few years at least.

Thirdly: I was a regen. The way the bucket seat cradled my lower body made that painfully obvious.

City blocks flew by outside the window, and I saw places I knew, including the breakfast place that I guess I wouldn’t be frequenting anymore. Another tear threatened to escape and I choked it back. I wasn’t going to cry again for a third time today. Fourth, if you counted the almost-crying with Dobbs. Dangit. I wiped at my eyes with my sleeve.

“Hey…” Jen said beside me, reaching out with one hand to pat my leg. The contact caused me to jump slightly and I quickly shifted my attention to her.

“Sorry,” she apologized. “It’ll be ok Kat. You’ll see. After this week you can change back to normal and it’ll be back to how it always was, if you want it to be.”

I shook my head. “...Even if I stay myself, they’ll still toss me into the system.”

Jen smiled sadly. “I wouldn’t let that happen, hon. I’d say you ran away or something before I let them tangle you up in the system.”

That made me feel a little better, at least. I felt the faint beginnings of a smile pick up at the corners of my mouth. The car passed a few more blocks into an area of the city I didn’t frequent as often as my more industrial haunts, but I still knew it well enough. Jen pulled into another parking garage, swiping a pass of some kind at the booth and then following it up to a parking spot marked 11B.

She fetched my backpack from the back seat and handed it to me as I climbed out of the car. “Thanks.” I took it and slung it over my shoulders. They’d of course emptied it of all my acquired clothing - which wasn’t much, really. Two pairs of jeans, two pairs of shorts, and three shirts, plus my winter jacket. It was enough to get by with only the occasional replacement over the last three years.

Now the bag had… feminine clothing. I couldn't think about that now. The elevator up to floor 11  was a lot nicer than the hospital elevator. It didn’t have that clinical whitewashed feel with all kinds of posters reminding you to cover your mouth when you cough, to sneeze into your arm, and about the dangers of HIV. No, this one had a nice warm interior with fake wood paneling on the lower part of the wall, with soft cream color above that, and a friendly looking painting of a cat in an elevator. I smiled at it. 

Ding

The doors opened to a hallway that was similarly homey, and I wondered just what kind of apartment complex this was. A nice one, as it turned out. Based on the size of the apartment (Jen called it a condo - I have no idea what the difference is) and the view of the city, I knew this place had to be pretty expensive.

“Okay, so welcome to your home for the next week or so.” She smiled, and proceeded to give me the grand tour.

The decor of the apartment could only really be described as ‘nerdy’. All kinds of gaming and pop culture references abounded in the form of decorations, paintings, and posters. My current favorite was the umbrella stand by the door that said ‘It’s dangerous to go alone… take this!’ and had a couple umbrellas and a foam sword in it. That made me laugh.

The bathroom was a massive step up from my usual fare - which is to say subway station bathrooms. I could hardly remember the last time I had actually taken a bath that didn’t involve a sink.

“It’s… it’s really nice.” I said honestly as we left the bathroom and continued down the hallway. 

“My room is just ahead there at the end of the hall.” she said, motioning at the door there. “But here… is yours.” She stopped and opened another door, gesturing into a room.

It was absolutely filled with boxes and just tons of miscellaneous stuff. Still, there was a bed under there somewhere, I could tell, and some other sparse furniture around.

“This is my guest room. I never really use it for anything, so uh, it kinda became storage.” She smiled nervously at me. “Don’t worry, we’ll get it all cleaned up for you. Kind of last minute notice, you know?”

I just stared in awe at the room. “It’s… mine?” I asked.

Jen just smiled and wrapped her arm around my waist, giving me a squeeze - I was about a head taller than her, my wiry 6’ self being easily pulled in. “Sure is, hon.” She chuckled. “Now… I’m sure you probably want to get comfortable, so go ahead and grab a shower - I’ll put a fresh set of clothes out for you, and get something for dinner. Any requests?”

The idea of showering didn’t really appeal at the moment, not with that… thing… down there. But I was really hungry. “Pizza.” I said, the first thing that came to mind.

She smiled. “Any preferred toppings?” 

I shook my head. “You don’t really get to be picky when you eat out of the trash.” I said with a shrug. 

“Fair… But you’re not eating out of the trash now, hon. So, do you have any favorites?”

“Um… Ham and pineapple?” I said. It got thrown out most often at pizza joints. So it was what I had the most experience with.

She blinked and stared for a moment. “No way… someone else that likes Hawaiian pizza? A girl after my own heart.” She winked, pulling out her phone to get started ordering. 

A girl. I sighed and adjusted my bag. Right. The Bureau’s rules.

“Go ahead and grab a shower hon,” Jen motioned at the bathroom. “It’ll probably be about half an hour until it gets here anyway.”

I nodded, hooking my thumbs under the straps of my backpack. “Kay,” I headed for the bathroom, flipping on the lightswitch and closing the door behind me.

If you don’t see your reflection very often, it can be easy to kinda forget how you look from time to time. Seeing the weather-worn stringbean guy in the mirror (…well, not technically a ‘guy’ anymore…) with long unkempt hair and an accumulation of facial scruff that hadn’t been cut since it started growing last year, I hardly recognized it as myself.

I raised a hand to touch the mirror, and my reflection did the same. I looked so thin. It was kind of scary. I always assumed I was doing great - I mean I had food, I had a friend, I rarely got beat up by other people on the street, and I had a place to call my own - sure it was just an old abandoned maintenance shed, but it was mine, you know?

My reflection cried - dangit. I wiped my eyes quickly, and turned away from the reflection. It took a minute to figure out how to work the shower, but eventually I had a steady stream of hot water flowing. I took a deep breath, and with determination slipped out of my new clothes and into the shower.