“Hey, are you okay?” the contractor suddenly asked me. All three of them were staring at me now. I could feel my cheeks burning as I shook my head.

“I’m not sure. I’m not feeling well,” I trailed off.

“Nikki!” Marry shouted. Nikki stepped around the corner, laughing at something, but she suddenly stopped laughing when she saw everyone’s serious expressions. “You need to get Robin to the hospital.”

---

Following school Tuesday, we still had a couple of hours before tumbling classes, so Allison, Nikki and I along with a few volunteer cheerleaders, drove out to the old asylum.

Work had been progressing really well on the renovations inside. Outside it still looked like an imposing, run-down old building, which was exactly what we wanted it to look like. Inside though, even the owners hardly recognized it.

We had managed to clear out all the old debris, rotted ceiling tiles, and old furniture, and knocked down more than a few walls under the watchful eye of a hired contractor, to ensure we didn’t hit a load-bearing wall.

“Whoever designed this place,” the contractor commented at one point as Marry, Kris and I reentered carrying some supplies, “Didn’t work from any known architectural designs of the period. If I didn’t know better I’d say this place was a prison.”

“You’re not far off, but it was upgraded several times as well,” Kris commented. “The only thing about the building that’s original is the outer facade. Some of the rooms are the same dimensions as the original cells though.”

Marry chimed in, “They tried to sterilize and legitimize the asylum as a hospital back in the 1940s as well. New tile, new room designs, better locks...”

“More toxic paint,” Kris chuckled, holding up his paint scraper.

The man tilted his head slightly. “Yeah, you can say that again. We’re gonna have to get in here with an industrial strength vacuum just to make sure we get all the paint chips. Probably cover the building in plastic and fumigate it too just as a precaution.”

I tried to listen to the conversation, but to tell the truth, my mind was elsewhere. Through most of the day I’d been noticing some mild pain in my abdomen. It seemed to be getting worse though.

“Hey, are you okay?” the contractor suddenly asked me. All three of them were staring at me now. I could feel my cheeks burning as I shook my head.

“I’m not sure. I’m not feeling well,” I trailed off.

“Nikki!” Marry shouted. Nikki stepped around the corner, laughing at something, but she suddenly stopped laughing when she saw everyone’s serious expressions. “You need to get Robin to the hospital.”

“What?” she asked, dumbfounded, as she rushed over to me. I shook my head as Allison and Sasha came running.

“What’s going on?” Allison asked.

“It’s probably nothing,” I tried to reassure them. “But could someone drive me to the hospital and call Michelle?”

“I’ll make the call,” Allison answered. “Nikki, you drive.”

“You should take her car, Allison,” Sasha added as I found myself summarily escorted to the nearest exit. “Even if it is nothing, and she’s able to make it to practice tonight, she’s been working way too hard here. We’ll pick up the slack.”

Allison smiled as she nodded. “Thanks Sasha. We owe you a big one.”

“No you don’t,” Sasha answered seriously, but smiled and hugged me. “Just make sure you’re okay. That’s all that’s important.”

Nikki waited until I was in the passenger seat of her Mustang before asking, “How bad is it?”

“Honestly?” I answered quietly, “Feels like I’m going to pass out. It might be complications from the surgery. It’s in my lower abdomen.”

“What kind of pain? Is it sharp, dull, ache, stabbing?”

“Sharp I think, like a really bad cramp.”

Nikki slammed on the gas as soon as we had left the asylum behind. How she avoided running anyone over, or getting a ticket, I have no idea, but we quickly found ourselves at the hospital.

Michelle and Kelly were waiting with a wheelchair for me, but neither seemed particularly concerned.

“Hi Robin,” Michelle said cheerfully as she helped me to sit. “Don’t worry. This is just for your comfort.”

“My comfort?” I asked, a little stunned by her nonchalantness. She nodded, and I quickly found myself wheeled past the front desk and into an elevator. Kelly stayed behind to wait for Nikki and Ally.

“What’s wrong with me?” I asked. She simply grinned.

“Hopefully, nothing. But we’re going to do an ultrasound to see what’s going on in there.”

~oOo~

“What’s this?” I asked, as Kelly brought me a small paper cup containing two white pills, and a glass of water. Michelle, who had by now changed into a lab coat, looked positively giddy as she replied, “It’s Midol - teen formula. No caffeine.”

“Umm... Why would I need to take Midol?” I asked cautiously. I felt Nikki squeeze my hand as Michelle rotated the ultrasound monitor for me to see the images it had captured.

“Because what you’re experiencing aren’t complications, sweetie. They’re your reproductive organs kickstarting - growing pains, in other words.”

“What?!” I nearly shouted. It wasn’t as though I were upset at all: quite the opposite! I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“With Doctor Ketzowski’s and your mother and step-father’s permission, I’ve had you on a new clinical trial of a drug called Purplaxis. In simple terms, combined with surgical vaginoplasty and the implanting of preprogrammed stem cells, Purplaxis has reprogrammed your body to produce estrogen naturally.”

“But that doesn’t explain the cramps, Doc,” I answered, “Or that... um... patch of... Um...”

Michelle nodded reassuringly. “Uteran growth. If everything goes as planned, we won’t need to bring you in for another surgery. It looks like everything is growing and connecting as it should.”

“Wait a minute,” Nikki interrupted. “Are you telling me that Robin is... becoming a genetic female?!”

Michelle nodded again. “Exactly. Purplaxis isn’t a simple hormone replacement regimen. Scientists in Britain accidentally cracked the gender genome while attempting to develop a treatment for postmenopausal women.

“It’s the Holy Grail of gender research,” Kelly added. “It may be too late for girls like Michelle and I, but this is a whole new era for everyone else.”

I slowly swallowed the two pills, drank down the water, and lay back on the examination table.

“So, wait,” Nikki started again, “Does this mean she can have children? I mean, she could carry to term?”

I felt Michelle squeeze my other hand as Allison lay her hand on my shoulder. “In theory, yes. Robin is essentially patient Zero for human clinical trials, but all signs point to her being indistinguishable from a natal female. There will be some scar tissue inside, but frankly only her gynecologist should ever see it. And even that should heal in time, given her age.”

“I’m … a real girl,” I whispered. Nikki turned, leaning down to kiss me.

“You’ve always been a real girl,” she whispered. “It’s just science’s finally caught up with what we’ve known all along.”

I couldn’t help giggling as I wrapped her in a hug. Tears rolled down both our cheeks as I sat up, hugging her again, more tightly. I grabbed Allison’s hand and pulled her closer as well.

“I’m so happy for you,” she said through tears as she kissed my cheek.

“I can’t believe this is real. I feel like I’m going to just wake up any minute now.”

“This means you’re going to have to get ‘the talk’ from the girls’ perspective though,” Michelle added. I blushed, causing the girls to giggle.

“We’ll handle that,” Nicole answered.

“I always keep spare pads,” Allison added, which for some reason caused me to blush even more deeply.

Michelle smiled as she hugged me. “Take it easy if you can. It’s going to take you some time to adjust to these new feelings, but believe me, it’s something every natal female goes through. It’s just yours is coming a few years later. Luckily you’ve been on HRT long enough that you at least don’t have to go through puberty again,” she added teasingly.

“Thanks Michelle. I’m starting to feel better already. Do you think I’m okay for cheer tonight? It’s just a warm-up class, to gauge athletic levels. I promise to take it easy.” I slid down off the examination table and into Nikki and Allison’s waiting arms. Michelle squeezed my hand, motioning for us to follow her out after.

“You should be just fine. You won’t actually begin menstruation this month, but mark this date on your calendar for next month. I’m going to send you home with a bottle of Midol Teen. Take two in the morning as soon as you get up,” she instructed, as we reached the elevator.

“Why didn’t you tell me all this was going to happen before?” I asked. “I was led to believe you were just a med student. Now you tell me you’ve been working on a... a sex change drug?”

Michelle giggled under her breath as we stepped onto the elevator. “I’m sorry for the deception. I AM a med student, technically, but with some massive pharmaceutical backing. Further, Doctor Ketzowski felt that it would be best if you believed you were undergoing a normal operation because you were stressed out enough before. We wanted you to be able to recover in a comfortable, natural environment.”

Allison giggled a little. “Would you honestly have gotten any rest if you knew you had undergone a surgery to become a genetic girl?”

I had to shake my head at that. “Honestly? No, I wouldn’t. I’d have been anxious, excited, and terrified the entire time!”

“Precisely,” said Michelle with a confident smile. “I can’t wait to publish our findings. Of course you’ll still be listed as Patient Zero to protect your identity and stealth status, but as far as the rest of the world is concerned, you’re as genetic as anyone else, with just a birth abnormality.”

I had to laugh. “For the longest time I’ve been telling people I had a birth defect. Now I have a doctor’s backing on that.”

~oOo~

When I arrived at the gym only a few other girls’ cars sat in the parking lot, and none of them were present, so I walked into the locker room to dress out for practice. After pulling on my sports bra and fuchsia gym shorts, I sat down to lace up my sneakers. Nikki gave Allison a ride home, and I called Kris and Marry from the hospital to let them know I was okay, so now I just had to focus on cheer.

Ordinarily I’d worn a loose t-shirt over my sports bra like Katelyn, but I’d begun to notice lately more and more that the other girls, during non-intensive training, preferred to wear just their sports bras. Mine covered more than most bikini tops, and thanks to staying in shape over the last year, my midriff was, while not washboard, at least flat and trim, so I decided to try it without the shirt.

As I stood to leave, the door opened. Sasha, Chelsea, and Stacy stepped through, and all three had serious expressions on their faces until they saw me. I suddenly found myself surrounded as they hugged me and asked me what had happened.

“I’m so glad you’re okay!” Sasha concluded though. “I mean, you are okay right?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I’m great. It was just, um...” I blushed furiously, but had resolved to tell them the truth. “It was just a really severe menstrual cramp.”

“Oh God, it’s not a cyst is it?” Stacy asked seriously. It was farthest from the response I expected, but somehow made me feel better. At least they didn’t laugh at me for not knowing
what a cramp felt like.

I shook my head. “No. My gyno did an ultrasound to make sure everything was okay.”

“Your gyno?” Sasha asked. “But you said you thought it was complications?”

I nodded again. “Yeah. I had surgery over the summer to correct a birth abnormality that had to do with my ovaries. It’s a long and really gross story. But I’m okay now. She gave me some Midol, and I’m feeling better already.”

It was now or never. I sat back down again as they started to change. At first they didn’t even notice, as Stacy commented, “I’m glad you’re okay. The way Sasha talked, it sounded pretty serious.”

Sasha stuck out her tongue. “Well Marry did tell Nikki to take her to the hospital. I didn’t know her G was there,” she answered with a giggle. She glanced back at me with a sheepish smile, but paused. She was midway through pulling on her sports bra, and I couldn’t help laughing. She pulled her bra into place and sprinted over to sit beside me. “You’re still here!”

“Yes,” I answered, trying to keep a straight face.

“But I thought...”

“Like I said, everything’s okay now,” I answered, and grinned, just waiting for it.

She squealed. “OH MY GOD!” She wrapped me in a hug, giggling loudly as Stacy and Chelsea ran over, apparently only just realizing the same thing.

As if on cue, Jennifer stepped through the door. “Oh, hey Robin,” she commented casually, as though I’d always belonged there, as she began to undress at her locker. “Sorry I couldn’t make it to the asylum tonight, but Ally called and told me what happened. What’d Michelle say?”

My evening progressed pretty normally from there. Jenn and I got some stretching done, and played a couple of rounds of one-on-one while we waited for more girls to arrive. We were right in the middle of helping some girls new to the cheer tumbling program, teaching them to stretch when I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, that Coach Greer seemed to be watching me.

“Excuse me a second?” I asked. The girl quickly nodded. “Just keep practicing that stretch. Hold it for another five-count and then release it slowly, and do the same for the other leg,” I called over my shoulder as I raced over to see what was going on.

“Everything okay?” I asked. Coach Greer smiled as she shook her head.

“I expect you girls to tell me when there’s a problem, Robin.”

I blinked, confused. “Um, problem?”

“You were in the hospital not an hour ago?” she asked, folding her arms, patiently waiting for an answer.

“Oh! That! No, it’s not what it seems. I’m okay, really! I just thought it was something more than it was. I’m okay now, really,” I tried to remain calm, but just that she had asked made me unbelievably nervous.

She grinned. “Yes, I know. Actually I was more impressed with the fact you’re even here. Sasha told me you were nearly doubled over in pain when you left, and then I come here to find you instructing the freshmen?”

“Err, well, she asked for advice so Jenn and I offered to help.”

“You realize what you’re doing is the kind of thing a Captain would do, right?”

I quickly shook my head. “No ma’am. We’re a team. We help each other out. I don’t need a C on my uniform for that.”

“Well, if you change your mind, please let me know, okay? I would love to have you as our co-captain this year, with someone like Chelsea or Stacy, one of the girls who’s been through football season before.” She smiled as she placed her hands on my shoulders and hugged me.

“I know you’re going through a lot though,” she added. “As your Den Mother and as your coach, I won’t ask you to do anything you don’t feel up to doing, but with the renovations on the asylum finished-”

“Wait, finished? When I left we still had to strip off the paint before we could let the younger girls go inside.”

Coach Greer shook her head. She motioned for me to follow her, leading me back to her office. She took her purse from a locked desk drawer, and from that produced a piece of paper. “I took the liberty of having some of the paint chips analyzed. There’s no trace of lead. Apparently the place was repainted one last time before it closed for good.”

I stared, wide-eyed, at the report. “Do Kris and Marry know about this?”

“They do. I called to let them know before coming over here. I only just found out myself, but this means that this weekend we can start decorating ahead of schedule.”

“That’s great!” I cheered happily. “That’s going to be a LOT less stress for me to deal with. I’m thinking of swapping Anatomy and Physiology for AP Chem. If I do that I can get Nikki to take AP chem with me, and we can study together and make even more free time for me.”

“Ew. I honestly could never take A and P when I was in high school. I hear they use a lot of computer models now though.”

“Yeah, but even a simulated dead frog is still gross,” I answered, as we started back for the main gym again.

Coach Greer blew her whistle to get everyone’s attention. Once everyone had settled, and I had taken my place again, she said, “Okay ladies, let’s get started. First year orientation, over here. The rest of you, over there. You’re already warmed up so I’ll join you in a moment. Tracy, Robin, Sasha, you’re with me.”

“Uh... Okay,” I answered, blinking. Sasha and Tracy just shrugged and followed Coach Greer, pulling me along gently in the process.

“That’s what happens when you try too hard,” Sasha whispered playfully. “You show initiative, and you show you know what you’re doing, and you’re rewarded for it.” She winked.

Tracy giggled. “Don’t scare her Sasha. She probably just wants us to demonstrate a stunt.”

~oOo~

After class, I desperately needed a shower. I had never showered with anyone before, and while I really wanted to show my teammates that I was okay, normal, and one of them. Steam billowed from around the tile half-wall leading to the shower area, and I stood just beyond it, wrapped in nothing but a towel.

For all that I really wanted to do this for them, I was terrified. Suddenly I felt a soft hand on my shoulder. It was Claudia, the freshman Jenn and I helped out at the start of practice. She smiled up at me.

“I heard you’ve never showered with others before either?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I had a … birth defect that I was really embarrassed about, but I had it surgically removed. But now I’m terrified of going in there.” I sighed, and I could feel my cheeks burning brightly. Claudia nodded.

“I know how you feel. Everyone in my family has small breasts, and I’m practically flat-chested. I was like, so scared they were going to laugh at me.”

“Were?” I asked. She nodded.

“Yeah. Jenn told me what you’ve been through, how you spent an entire basketball season and then cheer in the Spring, showering alone. It kind of made me feel better about myself though.” She paused to frown. “Don’t... take that the wrong way. I just mean that it made my situation feel a lot less scary.”

“Unite to move forward,” I said thoughtfully.

“Wha?” she asked, blinking.

“Well, the actual proverb is...” As I struggled to remember, Jenn stepped out of the shower with her towel wrapped around her, her wet hair stuck to her back.

“Pupukahi i holomua,” she said casually. “It means that we work together to progress.”

“I like Hakuna Matata better,” Claudia giggled. “Come on, Spirit. We’ll face this together.”

Jennifer giggled. “Truthfully there’s so much steam in there, you can’t see anything anyway. You’ll be fine.”

I nodded, and glanced at Claudia. “May as well get it over with. Try it to end the panic.”

“Another proverb?” Claudia asked, following me. I paused to nod. “Yeah. Jenn’s full of them.”

“E ho'a'o no i pau kuhihewa,” Jenn replied over her shoulder as Claudia and I disappeared into the steam.