“Come on, up and at ‘em!” Paul yelled as he banged on his son’s door, eliciting a tired groan from the twenty-year-old. “Just ‘cause football’s one step closer ta comin’ home, it doesn’t mean ya can lay around all day!”

“Yes, yes, okay,” the young man grunted through the door as he threw back the covers and sat upright, brushing his messy hair out of his face and shielding his eyes from the bright summer Sun.

“Same goes for you, Luke!” Paul yelled as he banged on his other son’s door.

“I’m already awake,” Luke replied with a tired yawn. “Aren’t I allowed to sleep in on my summer hols?”

“Ya wouldn’t be sleeping in if ya had a summer job ta go to!” Paul replied.

“Yeah, well, blame Covid for that, not me,” Luke retorted. “And my leg-“

“Has been out of that cast for weeks,” Paul interrupted. “It’s tha start of ya summer holiday, probably tha last proper one you’ll ever have while yas young enough to enjoy it. So get out there and enjoy it! I’m sure you and your broth-“

“Paul,” Sarah gently interrupted as she placed a hand on her husband’s shoulder.

“…Breakfast will be downstairs when you’re ready,” Paul mumbled, sighing before heading back downstairs as he got no response from either of his children.

Unbeknownst to Paul, the reason that neither of his children had left their rooms was because they were waiting for the other to go first — not out of politeness, but out a desire to not bump into each other.

Lucas’s ‘encounter’ with Kieran — or rather, Kiera — had taken place just two weeks earlier, with the academic year ending just one week afterward. While both Luke and Lucas were happy that the hard work of the year was over, neither was looking forward to the prospect of returning home, and to a lesser extent, neither was looking forward to the holiday either. Luke’s injured leg and Lucas’s anxiety about going out following the incident at Easter meant that despite Covid restrictions easing, neither had made any plans to leave the house in the few days since the summer break had started. And with both twins still trying to avoid the other, they spent virtually all of their day holed up in their rooms, whiling away their days by chatting online with their friends.

However, despite their seemingly endless free time, the twins had yet to properly talk to each other. In the two weeks since they’d been introduced, Aaron had been a great source of support and friendship to Lucas. They’d chatted most days, often into the late evening, and on occasion Aaron had been the one to initiate the conversation, simply out of a genuine desire to chew the fat with the conflicted young man. Similarly, Luke’s friendship with Anthony had gone from strength to strength. Despite the two trans men having little in common beyond their ‘status,’ with Anthony not being a football fan and Luke having only watched Star Wars once, each had been on hand to lend a comforting ear to the other as their transitions progressed, even after their return to their respective families for the summer break.

The extra assistance from their new friends proved to be very welcome for both twins, as contact with their older friends gradually dwindled as the academic year reached its conclusion. Despite Barnes’s permanent dismissal from the university’s football team, Luke’s slow recovery from his injury had left him unable to play, and following his decision to not return to the team for the following year, he’d found himself drifting further and further from the rest of the players. Similarly, Lucas’s detransition had seen him cut contact with the dance society to the point where he barely even spoke to Phoebe, despite her both being on the same course as the twins and only joining the society in the first place due to Lucas's, or rather, Lucy’s influence. Lucas didn’t even plan on travelling to Durham the following Saturday for the dance societies’ summer performance, such was his desire to isolate himself from his former friends. Gavin’s illness regularly flaring up and Susie spending more time in Teesside with her girlfriend Livvy — with whom the twins’ oldest friend had become increasingly serious — had left Luke and Lucas with none of their ‘original’ friends to keep them company throughout the summer… with one exception.

Ever since Lucas first met ‘Kiera,’ he had kept in contact with Kieran almost as frequently as he had with Aaron. Kieran would regularly — with Lucas’s consent, of course — send him photos of ‘Kiera’s latest outfits and make-up looks, and while Kieran continued to insist that he had no intention to fully transition, Lucas couldn’t help but be impressed at the looks that Kieran was creating — and he couldn’t help but feel an odd twinge of jealousy at the sight of Kieran in ‘Lucy’s clothes.

Lucas had saved on his phone photos of ‘Kiera’ wearing short dresses, long dresses, short skirts, pencil skirts, blouses and jumpsuits. Kieran had even sent Lucas a photo of ‘Kiera’ in ‘Lucy’s old blue one-piece swimsuit, and Lucas had marvelled at how Kieran’s ‘tuck’ had been almost perfect. While Lucas was happy to act as Kieran’s confidant, with the young man still reluctant to go out in public as ‘Kiera,’ it only made his own feelings all the more conflicted.

The conflict in his mind was only exacerbated that morning by the fact that as he waited for his brother to leave his room, Lucas was sat on his bed wearing one of ‘Lucy’s favourite denim miniskirts having earlier brushed his hair into ‘Lucy’s trademark bob style. Even though he hadn’t been on HRT for long, and his testosterone was already starting to reassert itself, Lucas didn’t feel like a boy wearing women’s clothes when he donned ‘Lucy’s attire — he felt like a woman, just as he had done during his first year and a half of university. However, every time the urge to dress as ‘Lucy’ gripped him — which was on a frequent, almost constant basis — he was reminded of the sneers ‘she’ received from people like Barnes, people like the twins’ grandparents, and the person who’d nearly killed ‘Lucy’ at Easter. Lucas faced an impossible choice — either live life as a constantly scared girl, or a constantly miserable boy….

“Lu- Lucas, I’m gonna grab a shower,” Luke yelled through Lucas’s door, unknowingly make his twin press his legs together and pull down the hem of his skirt.

“O- okay,” Lucas replied, consciously deepening his voice to avoid speaking in the feminine ‘Lucy’ voice that had become second nature during the eighteen months he’d used it. Sighing, Lucas slicked his hair back and exchanged his skirt for a slouchy pair of jeans before opening his bedroom door and heading down to the living room.

“He lives!” Paul said with a laugh as he looked up from his workstation. “Ya mam’s already gone out, so you’ll need to get your own breakfast, I’m afraid.”

“Okay,” Lucas replied with a shrug and a sigh as he headed into the kitchen.

“Have ya got any plans for today?” Paul asked. “And before ya say anything, no, sitting around in your room looking at your phone all day doesn’t count as a ‘plan.’ ”

“…Got nothing planned,” Lucas mumbled.

“Well let me put it ta ya this way,” Paul said with a sigh. “Plan something. It’s not that I don’t want yas under my feet all day, but like I said, ya won’t get a summer like this again while you’re still young enough ta enjoy it. And before you say the C word, there’s plenty of stuff that’s already reopened that ya can do. Give Susie a call, set something up for the day.”

“I think she’s hanging out with her girlfriend all day,” Lucas retorted.

“The more the merrier?” Paul said with a shrug. “It’s not like you’ll be a third wheel, how much romance can you get up ta on a Tuesday morning in Middlesbrough, anyway?”

“Depends on whether they’re vertical or horizontal,” Lucas mused out loud, earning a snort of laughter from his father.

“Well, I’m no expert on lesbians, so I won’t speculate there,” Paul chuckled. “What about Gav? Is he feeling any better?”

“Nah, I think the end of the semester really did a number on him,” Lucas replied.

“Well, you know who that leaves, then?” Paul asked, biting his lip as his other son descended the stairs wearing a Newcastle United replica jersey and a pair of jeans, his cropped hair still damp from his shower.

“Morning,” Luke mumbled, limping past his brother and father en route to the kitchen.

“…Morning, I guess,” Paul sighed, knowing instinctively that that was as talkative as his child was likely to get. “I’d appreciate it if ya didn’t put the TV on, I kinda need to concentrate here.”

“Why are you working in the lounge instead of the study, anyway?” Luke asked, avoiding his twin’s gaze as he sat down opposite him with his breakfast.

“ ’Cause the study’s 6 feet by 8 feet, has one tiny window and it’s the 30th of June,” Paul replied. “Learned THAT lesson last year. So if yas two want ta talk, you’ll need to sit a little closer to each other.” Luke and Lucas looked up and briefly met each other’s gaze, both knowing that when their father said ‘if’ he at least meant ‘when.’ However, despite the awkward silence, neither twin had anything to say to each other.

“I — umm, I’ll give you some peace and quiet, then,” Lucas said, finishing his coffee, grabbing his phone and heading back up the stairs to his room before his father had the chance to protest. Once Lucas was out of sight, Paul let out a long sigh and directed a stern, accusing glare at his other child.

“…What?” Luke asked between mouthfuls of his toast.

“Ya know ‘what,’ ” Paul snorted. “Am I gonna be treading on eggshells all summer whenever the two of yas are in the same room?”

“I — I Jus-” Luke stammered, before sighing. “She — HE needs some space right now.”

“Yas haven’t talked properly since Easter,” Paul said. “And right now yas both got nothing but ‘space.’ What ya don’t have is time. As I’ve said before and I’ll keep saying until it finally sinks in, this summer break ain’t gonna last forever. Don’t waste your precious time on this feud or whatever it is. Unless you plan on never talking to your brother ever again?”

“Well — no, of course not,” Luke replied. “I just — I just don’t know how to relate to — well, Lucas as ‘Lucas.’ ”

“Well, do any of your transgender friends from London have any siblings?” Paul asked. “Or that other kid you talk to, the Star Wars fanatic?”

“Nah, Anthony's an only child,” Luke replied. “Though I know that both of the blonde girls from London, Priya’s friends, they both have siblings as well. I think one of them’s from a really large family, in fact.”

“So plenty of people who know what it’s like when their sibling changes their gender?” Paul asked, fidgeting awkwardly as his son paused and frowned.

“…I doubt any of them have experience of a sibling DEtransitioning though,” Luke eventually retorted. “Or what it’s like when you’re trans yourself and your sibling changes their gender.”

“Except that you yourself have experience there,” Paul said.

“That doesn’t count,” Luke instantly retorted. “Because when we originally transitioned, we did it together. This — this is something Lucas is doing alone.”

“Who said he HAD ta do it alone, though?” Paul asked. “Him? You?” Paul wrung his hands nervously as Luke paused, but was unable to answer his question. “That’s what I thought.”

“This isn’t something you can force,” Luke mumbled.

“Is it something ya can leave forever, though?” Paul asked, sighing as Luke finished his breakfast before relaxing back into the sofa and taking his phone out of his pocket. “…Fair enough, then. I’d better get back ta my work as well. But remember what I said.”

“I will,” Luke reassured his father, even though he remained conflicted — he wanted more than nothing else to reconnect with his twin, he just wished he knew how to do so without making their already-fragile relationship even worse….

Nonetheless, after 45 minutes of enduring his father’s stares, Luke rose from his seat and hobbled back up the stairs, sighing as he paused outside his brother’s silent room. After a moment’s hesitation, Luke knocked on the door and turned the handle, only to jump back in alarm as he heard a loud ‘thump’ push the door back closed.

“Luce- Lucas?” Luke asked, gripped by a sudden moment of panic. “Are — are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Lucas replied in an almost anxious voice. “I just — umm, I just — I just need a bit of privacy, that’s all.”

“Oh,” Luke said, biting his lip. “Okay, then….” No point in trying to mend bridges when I’m getting a door slammed in my face both metaphorically AND literally, Luke thought to himself with a sigh as he returned to his own bedroom and flopped down on his bed.

What Luke didn’t know, though, was that the reason Lucas was reluctant to open his door was because he was dressed in the same denim skirt he’d worn earlier that morning, only he’d paired it with a plain black short-sleeved bodysuit he’d held back from his ‘donation’ to Kieran.

The twins spent most of the rest of the day in their rooms, only emerging (and in Lucas’s case, also changing) for meals and to greet their mother upon her return home. After dinner, Luke and Lucas returned to their respective rooms, both with their phones in their hands.

‘Haya, Ant?’ Luke typed, smiling at the use of their greeting, an in-joke that had developed between the two of them — ‘haya’ being both a homophone of ‘heya’ and an acronym for ‘hey, are you about?’

‘Heyo!’ Anthony replied mere seconds later. ‘What’s up?’

‘Hardly anything lol,’ Luke replied. ‘Stuck inside for another day in a row.’

‘That sucks,’ Anthony typed. ‘I'm looking at tickets for upcoming comic-cons but thanks to you-know-what it doesn't like there'll be any until the autumn.’

‘That sucks,’ Luke typed, even if he didn’t share his friend’s enthusiasm for the gathering in question. ‘Any famous names going to the ones in the autumn?’

‘Don't think any are confirmed yet,’ Anthony replied. ‘There’s usually at least one classic Doctor Who, though.’

‘I never really watched Doctor Who,’ Luke typed. ‘Our dad tried to get us into it when David Tennant played him, as he was a fan of it when he was younger, but it never really ‘clicked’ with me.’

‘The Whittaker/Chibnall era hasn’t been great, admittedly,’ Anthony typed. ‘You’ve got to admire what it represents, though — the character was male, is now female, and is probably going to be a guy again next. You’ve got to admire that as a transmasc guy — the main character of the longest-running sci-fi show of all time switching genders like it’s nothing?’

‘I guess,’ Luke typed. ‘We are criminally underrepresented on TV, that much is certain.’

‘Oh, definitely,’ Anthony typed as Luke found himself struggling to get engrossed in the conversation — not out of a dislike of his friend, but out of concern for Lucas’s earlier behaviour, and to a greater extent, the simple fact that talking to Anthony simply wasn’t the same as talking to Lucy — or even to Lucas.

What Luke didn’t know, though, was that as he was chatting with Anthony, his brother was video calling his ‘confidant’ in his room, albeit while keeping the camera above his neckline so as not to show his unchanged attire.

“Hey Lucas!” Aaron said with a warm smile. “Didn’t think I was gonna hear from you today, how’s things?”

“Same as always,” Lucas replied with a tired chuckle.

“That bad, eh?” Aaron asked with a smirk. “Well, I’m only too happy to spread a little happiness, heh. Even if I know for a fact I was your second choice after Kieran.”

“Oh — now there is no possible way you could know that,” Lucas snorted.

“Oh really?” Aaron asked smugly, before leaning to one side as Kieran suddenly appeared on screen, giving him a long kiss on his cheek before wrapping his arms around him. However, it wasn’t the gesture that caught Lucas’s attention the most, but rather the light purple polish on Kieran’s fingernails — and the tell-tale lacy straps peeking out from under his t-shirt.

“…Okay, so how long has THIS been a thing?” Lucas asked, trying to hide his conflicted feelings at the sight of the couple. While he was happy for his friends, he couldn’t help but feel like a third wheel in the conversation, and worried that if his two closest confidants were now a couple, they’d have less time for him when he needed them — a feeling that also caused a wave of guilt to wash over him.

“Only in the last week or so,” Kieran replied. “I was listening when you told me about Aaron, and, well, you added him on Facebook, so I checked out his profile, saw that he didn’t live a million miles away, I sent him a message, he sent one back and, well, here we are!”

“There you are,” Lucas chuckled, still unable to focus on anything other than Kieran’s feminine attire despite the feel of his own outfit on his skin. “It does seem a little odd that I introduce you to Aaron and yet you’re the one who gets to meet him first in the flesh, heh.”

“ ‘Flesh’ being the word,” Kieran teased, giggling as his boyfriend gave him a playful shove. “And is that a little jealousy I detect in your voice?”

“No,” Lucas said defensively, even though he knew he was lying — though what he was most jealous about was the fact that not only Kieran was able to openly dress femininely and not only feel happy about it, he was also able to dress that was around his boyfriend and be unconditionally accepted for it. Meanwhile, Lucas sat on his bed in ‘Lucy’s clothes and couldn't even begin to describe how he was feeling in his own skin.

“Well, either way, you won’t need to feel jealous for long,” Aaron said with a smile. “Guess who’s coming to Durham at the weekend?” Lucas smiled with surprise as the two men on the other side of the call grinned and squeaked excitedly.

“Wh- really?” Lucas asked.

“Obviously if Covid permits,” Kieran explained. “But Priya, Claudia and Phoebe have their big dance thing on Friday, and I promised them I’d be back for that, so I thought ‘what better way show my new squeeze off to everyone?’ Plus I was never going to NOT support the girls, heh.”

“And it’ll be a great opportunity for us to finally meet as well,” Aaron said with a smile that faltered after he saw the conflicted look on his friend’s face. “You — you are coming to the thing, aren’t you?”

“Umm — yeah, of course,” Lucas replied. I mean, I was supposed to be in it, after all, he thought to herself, biting his lip before continuing. “I’ll probably travel down on the day, like, with Luke, I mean.”

“We’ll be driving up,” Aaron said with a smile. “Would offer you a lift, but we are kinda coming from opposite directions, heh.”

“It’s okay, it’s not like Durham’s the other side of the world from me, heh,” Lucas replied. “It is a bit of a trek for Priya though, I’m kinda surprised she’s travelling up from London for it. Or even allowed to, heh.”

“From what she told me, she’s in the ballet performance as well,” Kieran explained. “I think she's hoping her sister might come up as well, depending on what restrictions are going to be like on the day. Hasn’t she told you this?”

“Umm, ah — no, we- we haven’t talked a lot this semester,” Lucas mumbled. “I haven’t even been to the dance society since — well….”

“…Ah,” Kieran mumbled as Lucas bit his lip, trying not to blush as he unwittingly lowered the mood of the conversation. “Well, anyway, it’ll be great to expand our ‘gang’ a little bit more, hehe!”

“You can never have too many friends, right?” Aaron asked with a smile. “And I’ve got you to thank, Lucas.”

“Well — not really,” Lucas mumbled.

“No, really, literally the only reason I met Kieran is because we’re both friends with you,” Aaron said.

“And the only reason I know Priya and the other girls is because we’re both friends with you,” Kieran said. “Well, admittedly, I met you through your brother first, but I’m still counting it, hehe! I kinda feel now that I’m closer to you than I am to Luke, if that makes sense.”

“…And now I’M the jealous one,” Aaron grumbled, playfully pouting before softening as Kieran gave him another kiss. “But seriously, I am looking forward to finally getting to meet you in the fl- in real life, heh. I’ve had enough screen time over the last fifteen months to last me a lifetime.”

“Who hasn’t?” Lucas asked, sighing as his friends smiled and nodded.

“Ugh, anyway, how are you, Lucas?” Aaron asked. “I know you must’ve called for a reason.”

“Ah — not if I’m interrupting anything,” Lucas replied with a smirk that made his friends roll their eyes.

“Nothing we can’t put off until later,” Kieran replied with a knowing wink. “How is everyone? How’s Luke?”

“Luke is — well, his leg’s definitely getting better,” Lucas replied. “He can manage the stairs now without much bother.” Lucas tried not to frown as his friends both nodded, all three knowing that wasn’t an answer to the actual question that Kieran posed, but knowing better than to probe further.

The five young men continued talking in their separate conversations until late into the night, long after their parents had gone to bed. Eventually, though, the calls ended and the twins headed to bed, though before he changed into his pyjamas, Lucas took a look at himself in his mirror, still dressed in ‘Lucy’s clothes.

He’d been wearing the bodysuit and the skirt all day, just as ‘Lucy’ often would, and by the end of the day, he barely even knew he was wearing them, it had become so ‘normal’ to him. Or rather, it was normal to him, just as it had been ‘normal’ to Lucy for the first eighteen months of ‘her’ university life. And yet, when he’d changed into ‘Lucas’s jeans and t-shirt, he’d felt self-conscious, almost like he was out of place, no matter how much he tried to put the feelings to the back of his mind.

Lucas felt uncomfortable discussing these feelings with Aaron — his experience was with detransitioning, not retransitioning, and he’d explicitly told Lucas that he always resisted the urge to dress in ‘Ariana’s clothes. And while Kieran would no doubt listen and understand, Lucas didn’t want to burden him as he continued to explore his own gender identity. The one person that Lucas knew for sure would understand his feelings — the only person Lucas had ever trusted with his deepest feelings — was his brother, but he knew that if Luke saw him dressed the way he was, it would get his hopes up that Lucas would start transitioning again and ‘Lucy’ would return. The biggest problem was that Lucas didn’t know for sure whether or not he wanted ‘Lucy’ to return either.

However, Lucas knew that he had to speak to someone, and urgently. With his next counsellor’s appointment not for another week and having no other option, Lucas snuck out of his room, still dressed in ‘Lucy’s clothes, and gently tapped on Luke’s bedroom door, bracing himself for his brother’s reaction — whatever that might be.

However, the only reaction he got from Luke was no reaction, as the other side of the door remained still and silent.

“Luke?” Lucas said softly as he tapped on the door again. “Have ya — have you got a sec?” When Lucas again received no reply, he let out a long sigh and returned to his own room, waiting no time in getting changed and ready for bed.

What Lucas didn’t see, though, was his brother quietly opening his bedroom door and seeing him walk away, dressed in his bodysuit and short skirt.

“Come on, rise and shine!” Paul yelled as he banged on Luke’s bedroom door, startling the young man and waking him up. “Ya only get 31 days of July, so you’d better enjoy them while ya can!”

“Yeah, yeah, okay, I’m awake,” Luke grumbled as he pulled on his thin dressing gown and limped downstairs, pausing when he saw his brother already sitting on the sofa, eating breakfast and dressed in the same jeans and t-shirt he'd worn the previous day.

“…Morning,” Lucas mumbled, almost blushing at the sight of his brother.

“Morning,” Luke said, sitting down opposite Lucas as he tried to process what he saw — or rather, what he thought he saw — the previous night.

Luke had been fast asleep when he was disturbed by a gentle tapping on his bedroom door. With his head still foggy and his leg aching, he’d limped to the door and opened it, pausing as he saw what he’d thought was his twin sister walking back to her bedroom. Confused, Luke had climbed back into bed and quickly fell asleep again, and the next thing he knew he was sitting in the back of his parents’ car, driving along the north-east coast of England with his sister in the back seat next to him, dressed just as he’d seen her moments earlier in her short denim skirt and tight black top. When Luke and Lucy began sliding down the stairs on their backsides — while still in their parents’ car — the young man had realised that he was dreaming. The fact that his leg had been fully mobile and pain-free was another clue, as Luke knew that you can’t feel pain in a dream — though that didn’t explain why his leg had ached when he’d got out of bed earlier….

“Right then,” Paul announced before an awkward silence had the chance to form. “Believe it or not, I actually have ta go into the office today to work, so will the two of yas be okay by yourselves?”

“…We’re twenty, it’s not like we need a babysitter,” Lucas mumbled- though he knew what his father really meant by his question, as did Luke.

“…We’ll be fine,” Luke mumbled, briefly locking eyes with his brother before turning his attention back to making his breakfast.

“Okay, fair enough,” Paul said with a shrug. “Yas both got my number if ya need me, I should be back for lunchtime. Which doesn’t mean I’m making yas both lunch, I’ll just be working from home from then.”

“Got it,” Luke said, outwardly projecting an image of indifference while on the inside, his anxiety levels were rapidly rising.

The twins remained silent as they ate their breakfast, Luke going over in his mind over and over how he wanted to start the conversation with his twin. Should he be casual? Should he build up to what he thought he saw? Should he just come out and directly confront Lucas about what he saw the previous night? As had always been the case, Luke’s main concern was to not make his fragile relationship with his twin even worse.

Regardless, Luke knew that he had an opportunity to mend the relationship with his twin, and he wasn’t about to waste it. After taking a deep breath, Luke looked across the room at his brother, who was deeply engrossed in his phone.

“H- hey, Lucas?” Luke asked, gripping the sofa to stop his hands from shaking.

“Hmm?” Lucas asked, only briefly looking up from his phone.

“Did you — umm, so you — can we talk?” Luke asked, biting his lip as his brother’s cheeks flushed.

“…Sure,” Lucas mumbled, despite his reluctance — especially after not having been able to talk to his brother the previous night.

“We, I mean, I — I don’t like, like, this,” Luke said. “I mean, me and you, we — what happened to us?”

“That idiot Barnes broke your leg and another idiot tried to kill me,” Lucas replied bluntly.

“Alright, let me rephrase,” Luke sighed. “What happened BETWEEN us? I mean, like, we’ve had setbacks before, but — but we never, you know, we never ended up like THIS.”

“And by ‘this,’ you mean…?” Lucas asked as he felt his body grow more and more tense — and, despite his best efforts, his anger levels toward his brother rising. It’s not that Lucas wanted to be angry toward his brother — quite the opposite, he missed being able to talk to him just as much as he sensed that Luke did. However, he wasn’t prepared to work through the issues just yet, not when he had his own issues with his identity to deal with.

Then again, as Lucas was forced to concede to himself, in the almost three months since he started detransitioning, he hadn’t become any more ready to talk to Luke — if anything, the opposite was more true….

“I mean ‘us barely talking,’ ” Luke replied, trying not to let his own anger overtake him. This was a bad idea… the young trans man ruefully thought to himself.

“We’re talking now, aren’t we?” Lucas asked.

“You call this ‘talking?’ ” Luke snorted, grimacing as Lucas rose from his seat and headed toward the stairs. “Luce — Lucas, wait, please, I — I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped. I didn’t want to snap, really.”

“Then what do you want, exactly?” Lucas asked.

“I want what I hope you want,” Luke replied. “I want us to go back to the way we were.” Lucas bit his lip as he pondered his twin’s response — he badly wanted the same thing, but he couldn’t be sure that Luke wanted it on the same terms that he did.

“…And why now?” Lucas asked.

“Well, because we — we’re gonna be stuck at home together for the next three months,” Luke replied. “Ya never know if or when Boris is gonna lock us all down again. And because I — I missed, you know, ‘us.’ And I-” Luke let out a long sigh as he realised that even a lie of omission was more than he wanted to say — or rather, not say — to the person he cared about the most. “I — I thought I saw you last night, after I’d gone to bed. I mean, I — I thought I saw, like, ‘Lucy.’ You — you dressed as ‘Lucy,’ like.”

“…So when you say ‘go back to the way things were,’ you mean ‘as brother and sister,’ right?” Lucas asked angrily.

“Well, um, I-” Luke stammered.

“Because you’ve never once given the impression that you accepted me as your brother,” Lucas continued. “I never once got the feeling that we could be ‘bros,’ when THAT’s what I want the most.”

“…If that’s what you really want,” Luke asked softly, “why were you wearing a skirt last night?” Luke bit his lip as his twin paused, before turning to face him with tears trickling down his cheeks.

“I don’t know,” Lucas moaned, falling into his brother’s arms for a long, badly needed hug.

The twins held each other for the next few minutes, not exchanging any words before Luke led his distraught brother toward the sofa, sitting with him as he slowly calmed himself down.

“…For what it’s worth, I don’t care — well, don’t mind, anyway, whether you’re my sister or my brother,” Luke whispered. “Whatever we do, we do together, but that doesn’t mean we have to do, like, exactly the same thing all the time, does it?”

“I suppose not,” Lucas mumbled. “But I — ugh. I dunno, I — yeah.” Luke bit his lip as he tried to wait patiently for his twin to find the words that eluded him. However, there was one question that preyed on his mind.

“Why do you — why do you even still own a skirt, anyway?” Luke asked. “I thought ya gave everything to Kieran when you — well…?”

“I — I didn’t donate everything,” Lucas replied. “A few things, like, things that meant a lot, like, in terms of sentimental value, I — I kept them just because, you know?”

“And a plain denim skirt is one of those things?” Luke asked.

“It’s comfortable,” Lucas mumbled with an uncertain shrug, before letting out a long sigh. “Especially as I wore it for fourteen hours yesterday…” Luke smiled sympathetically as his brother wept again, letting him calm himself down before continuing.

“Have y- have you talked to Dr Adams about this?” Luke asked. “Or, like, your new friend Aaron?”

“My next appointment with Dr Adams isn’t for ages,” Lucas sighed. “As for Aaron — ugh. How am I meant to tell him about this? He’ll think I rejected him, just like you th-”

“You thought that I thought that you were rejecting me,” Luke interrupted. “But I — ugh. Okay, maybe — maybe I did think that at first, I dunno. I was injured, I was in pain, I was feeling sorry for myself… I dunno. But ya shouldn’t have thought that — ugh. Ya should have talked to me sooner, ya know?”

“That’s what I tried to do last night,” Lucas sighed. “When I was, well, ‘as Lucy.’ I knocked on your door but you were asleep, so I — I dunno.”

“Ya did wake me up,” Luke said. “It just takes me ages-”

“-To get to the door, yeah,” Lucas sighed. “I’d have realised that if I’d been a little, well…”

“More awake?” Luke asked, smiling as his twin chuckled.

“Something like that,” Lucas whispered, smiling as he and his brother relaxed back onto the sofa and rested their heads together.

“So,” Luke sighed. “What is it — what are you gonna do, like? Go back to being ‘Lucy?’ Stay as ‘Lucas’ but be ‘Lucy’ only sometimes? Forget about ‘Lucy’ altogether? Whatever it is you choose, you’ll have my support. Because whatever we do, we do together, and by that I mean, ‘we’ll always have each other’s back.’ Aye?”

“Aye,” Lucas said with a smile. “Always. As for me, though… I dunno. Heh, any advice?”

“Do what makes you happiest,” Luke replied with a shrug.

“What if ‘what makes me happiest’ is also what makes me most scared?” Lucas asked. “Ugh, not much or a choice, is it? Misery or fear?”

“…Yeah, that’s not a question I’m really qualified to answer,” Luke replied with a sigh. “But people like us shouldn’t have to feel afraid for being who we are. Proud, yes, definitely. Happy? Absolutely. But afraid? I suppose I get it, there’ll always be dickheads like Barnes or that twat on the Metro. But there’ll always be people like Susie, Gav, Kieran, Anthony, Aaron, your friends from the dance society… and from what I can tell, we’re definitely in the majority, despite the ‘best’ efforts of Harry Potter woman or that orange-faced orangutan in America.”

“But that could just be because we only, like, interact with people who we know support trans rights,” Lucas retorted.

“Why should we be forced to interact with people who don’t support us?” Luke asked. “If they’re not at the very least gonna let us live and let live, then they don’t deserve a nanosecond of my time. I mean, take your friend Laura, for one thing. What happened to her was about as bad as it gets, and she’d have every right to live in fear, but instead she surrounded herself with friends who she knows all love her. Or Dina, you know, the Scottish girl they just added to the Angels? Disowned by her family who wasted no time in dragging her name through the mud.”

“Yeah, citing two bona fide supermodels isn’t the convincing argument you think it is,” Lucy sighed. “You saw that dress Laura was showing off in that video call we had at Easter. I’d look ridiculous in it….”

“You’re not that much taller or, well, ‘wider’ than Laura,” Luke retorted. “And she’s as thin as a toothpick, for god’s sake. And I shouldn’t be commenting on your looks anyway, you’re my sis- my twin.”

“…You think of me as your sister, then?” Lucas asked.

“Surely what’s most important is how you think of yourself,” Luke whispered, smiling as Lucas nodded and gave him another long, loving hug.

“You’re right,” Lucas whispered. “And I — I’m going to need some time before I know that for certain, heh. But I — I think I’m going to, you know, slip into something more comfortable in the meantime.”

A few hours later, Luke relaxed on the sofa, resting his leg on the coffee table when he was suddenly startled by the front door opening.

“It’s only me,” Paul said, smiling as he threw a Subway sandwich at his son. “Figured yas wouldn’t have made lunch yet so I thought I’d treat ya, now that Subway’s actually open again.”

“Thanks,” Lucas said, unwrapping his treat and taking a big bite out of it.

“Where’s your brother?” Paul asked. “Upstairs in his room, glued to his phone?”

“Not — not quite,” Luke replied, biting his lip nervously as the kitchen door opened and a tall figure appeared dressed in a floaty tank top and a short denim skirt, their hair styled into an elegant bob.

“…Lucy?” Paul asked, trying to contain his emotions at the sight of his daughter.

“…For now,” Lucy replied. “I — I don’t know if it’s permanent yet, I kind need to find out for myself, well-” Lucy stopped talking as her father gave her a long, loving hug, which Lucy returned as she slowly wept on his shoulder.

The same thing happened when Sarah returned home later that afternoon, after first being surprised by the return of the daughter she’d thought was gone for good, before welcoming her back with open arms and embracing her. The family spent the rest of the evening gathered around the television, rarely talking, but not needing to — for the first time in months, they once again felt like a real family.

Luke and Lucy both headed to bed just after 11pm, though as they gave each other a goodnight hug, Luke said something that inadvertently punctured Lucy’s ‘bubble’ and brought her crashing back down to reality.

“So… when are you going to tell the others about this?” Luke asked. “Like, Aaron, Susie and the others?”

“Ah, umm,” Lucy stammered. “I kinda — kinda haven’t thought that far ahead yet, heh. That reminds me, I need to email Dr Adams too to see if she can fit me in any sooner. Umm, when I — when I do, like, talk to Dr Adams, and all the others, umm, would — would you-”

“Yes, of course I will,” Luke interrupted with a smile. “Ya know you don’t need to ask that, heh.”

“Thanks,” Lucy whispered, exchanging another hug with her brother before heading into her bedroom, changing into her pyjamas and collapsing into bed, the excitement of the day quickly sending her to the land of nod.

The following morning, the brightness of the rising Sun slowly woke Lucy from a dreamless sleep. The young trans woman looked around her room, momentarily alarmed and confused by the presence of her favourite skirt on top of her laundry pile, out in the open instead of hidden away in its drawer, before the memories of the previous day came flooding back to her.

While Lucy still felt a certain level of indecision regarding her identity and her future, she also felt a sense of relief, of contentment — partly because of the fact that she knew she had the freedom to explore her identity at her leisure, but mostly at the fact that she and Luke had fully reconciled. For Lucy, her brother’s reaction to her detransition had been the worst aspect of the previous three months, and while she knew he needed time to adjust to the situation himself — he had suffered transphobic violence as well, after all — without him to confide in she’d felt like she’d been stuck in quicksand. However, with Luke as her co-pilot once again, she felt like she was flying, regardless of whether her destiny was to be ‘Lucy’ or ‘Lucas.’ Her brother would always be there for her, just as she would be for him.

“Morning, stereotypical teenaged girl,” Paul teased from his workstation as Lucy descended the stairs to the living room dressed in a loose, floral tank top and a flared black skirt, her face not made up but clean of any facial stubble and her hair immaculately styled in her preferred bob.

“I thought we established yesterday that I was twenty, and therefore not a teenager anymore?” Lucy retorted.

“Certainly helping the stereotype THERE,” Paul snorted. “Ya brother’s already up, he headed out about twenty minutes ago, said he was craving ice cream, so he went to the Co-Op to get some Magnums or something. Incidentally, ice cream before 10am is another sign of being a stereotypical teenager. How about you? Got anything planned for today, now that you’re — well…”

“A girl again?” Lucy asked.

“The words I was looking for were ‘looking and feeling freer,’ ” Paul retorted. “Though you’ll probably tell me they’re tha same thing, heh.”

“Well… kind of,” Lucy said as she headed through to the kitchen. “I mean, I — I don’t know for certain that I’m gonna, like, be a girl forever, if that makes sense. But I don’t want to not be a girl, if — if that makes any more sense?”

“…Just as long as it makes sense to you,” Paul said. “I’ll be okay just ‘keeping up’ for now, same goes for your mam. It’s your life, you’ve got to live it tha way ya see fit, not according to our rules or anyone else’s.”

“Thanks, dad,” Lucy whispered, wiping away a tear from her eye.

“Well, like ya keep banging on about, ya are twenty now,” Paul said with a shrug. “Another year and you’ll have graduated, you’ll be starting a new job mixing stuff together or whatever it is chemists do, heh. And on that topic, while you’ve got a free Summer, have-”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Lucy chuckled as she sat down with her breakfast. “And actually…” Paul chuckled and rolled his eyes as Lucy took her phone out of her pocket and began scrolling.

“Maybe I should start saying ‘typical twenty-year-old’ instead of ‘typical teenager,’ ” the middle-aged man chuckled. “Gonna be fun in the future when people born around the turn of the millennium are holding their Zimmer frames in one hand and scrolling on their phones with the other.”

“Oh please, as if Zimmer frames WON’T have built-in screens,” Lucy retorted. “And for the record, I sent an email to my counsellor yesterday asking if she can fit me in at any point today, and she… yep.” Paul looked on with bemusement as his daughter suddenly began wolfing down her breakfast in between typing a response to the message on her phone.

“…Guessing she can fit ya in this morning, then?” Paul chuckled.

“In about fifteen minutes,” Lucy replied. “When Luke gets back, could you tell him to come up to my room, please? He doesn’t need to knock, he can just come on in.”

“Sure, I’ll pass that along,” Paul replied, smiling at the newfound aura of confidence that seemed to radiate from Lucy — but more so the fact that his children were finally starting to put whatever issues they had behind them.

A short while later, Lucy returned to her bedroom, and after hastily fixing her hair and make-up, she sat down cross-legged on her bed with her laptop open and ready for her call — though she still had to take a couple of deep breaths to calm her nerves when the call came through.

“Good morning,” Dr Adams said as her image appeared on Lucy’s screen, her face not betraying any feelings of surprise she might have felt at the sight of the young woman.

“H- hi,” Lucy replied with a nervous wave. “So — umm….”

“How — how would you like me to address you during this meeting?” Dr Adams asked in a professional voice that instantly put the young woman at ease.

“As — as ‘Lucy,’ please,” the young woman replied with a smile. “My pronouns are ‘she’ and ‘her.’ ”

“Lucy it is,” Dr Adams said. “You did mention on your email that you needed to talk to me urgently, and as your university email is still in the name of ‘Lucy’ I didn’t think anything more of it at the time, but it’s fairly obvious now why you need to talk with me.”

“Yeah,” Lucy said, chuckling at how natural it felt to again be speaking with a feminine voice. “I’ve — heh. I’ve been thinking about this, well, thinking and ‘acting’ for a while. I’ve, like, dressed like this for several days now — in private, like — and after talking to Luke yesterday I decided, well, to ‘come back out,’ if that makes sense.”

“So this wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction, but something you’ve been thinking about for some time?” Dr Adams asked.

“Weeks,” Lucy replied with a sigh. “I started having, like, ‘regrets’ almost immediately after I started to be ‘Lucas.’ At the time I didn’t think it was enough to not detransition, but as time’s gone on, it’s grown, well, stronger, if that makes sense.”

“Of course,” Dr Adams said softly. “It is, of course, rare for people to detransition and later retransition, but it’s far from unheard of, and you’re definitely not the only person I’ve ever spoken to who has done so. The important question is: do you believe that you will remain as Lucy permanently? Not just for the foreseeable future, but always?” Lucy bit her lip as she pondered the answer to her question, but her train of thought was interrupted when her bedroom door opened and her brother plopped down on the bed next to her with an ice cream bar in his mouth.

“Hi Dr Adams,” Luke said between mouthfuls of his frozen treat. “Hey Luce. Plenty of Magnums downstairs in the freezer when you want one, figured you wouldn’t want to eat while you’re talking.”

“Thanks,” Lucy whispered, happy to see her brother but agitated that her train of thought had been interrupted.

“Are you okay to continue?” Dr Adams asked, Lucy correctly guessing that the subtext of her question was ‘are you happy to discuss this in front of your brother?’

“I’m okay,” Lucy replied without hesitation, smiling and giving her brother’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I don’t need to hide anything from Luke. As for your question… I hope so. But I — heh. Who knows what the future will hold, right? At first, I thought I wanted to be ‘Lucy’ permanently. Then I thought I wanted to be ‘Lucas’ permanently. But now, I — I kinda ‘want to want’ to be a woman, if that makes any sense?”

“A lot more than you might think,” Dr Adams replied. “It’s only natural to feel uncertain about your future at a time like that, especially when you’re still getting over the trauma of what happened in April.”

“Yeah,” Lucy whispered, blinking back tears at the memory of the assault.

“Still, at least those bastards are now rotting in prison, where they belong,” Luke snarled.

“Regardless,” Dr Adams continued while nodding to signal her agreement with the young man, “retransitioning is still a big step, and especially when you have this uncertainty, it’s one that must be taken carefully and not simply rushed into. Essentially, we have to treat this as ‘square one,’ and as such, I am reluctant to put you back onto HRT at this time.”

“What?” Luke asked indignantly. “Is that fair?”

“I — I understand,” Lucy said, musing on how her brother seemed more upset than she did, but concluding that Luke’s anger was purely out of concern for her wellbeing.

“HRT does cause significant changes to your body chemistry,” Dr Adams explained calmly. “I’m sure you’ve felt the difference in your body over the last ten months, Luke.”

“Well — aye a bit,” Luke replied as he scratched at the thin, wispy hairs growing on his face.

“The seven months that you were on HRT, Lucy, weren’t enough to cause permanent or irreversible changes physically,” Dr Adams said. “But they will have caused a change mentally, in particular to your emotional balance. Coming off of HRT will have had that same effect, and I need to know that you’ve found an ‘equilibrium,’ both physically and mentally, before we can proceed any further. As chemistry students, I’m sure you can appreciate not wanting to make a volatile situation potentially any worse.”

“I don’t feel ‘volatile,’” Lucy retorted.

“I believe you,” Dr Adams said sincerely. “But I also believed you when you said you had no intention of being ‘Lucy’ ever again. This is not a criticism, Lucy. Obviously, you need to do what is best for you. But I have a duty of care to you regarding your treatment, and I need to ensure that what I prescribe is unambiguously what’s best for you going forward.”

“…In other words, you want to make sure I don’t show any signs of detransitioning again before giving me back my HRT,” Lucy sighed.

“Like I said: ‘finding an equilibrium,’ ” Dr Adams said. “There are also a few steps I need you to take before I consider prescribing HRT again. Like I said: square one.”

“Please tell me Luce isn’t going to have to come out to our grandparents again,” Luke sighed as his sister shivered at the prospect.

“No,” Dr Adams said, smiling at the twins’ collective relief. “From what you’ve told me about your last two encounters with them, I know that confronting them would do you both far more harm than good. As far as I’m concerned, they’re now a non-issue. But I am going to need you to tell your friends AND return to university full-time as Lucy.”

“Already on the agenda,” Lucy said with a proud smile, though her brother remained unhappy.

“So she’s not going to get HRT for the whole of the summer break?” Luke asked.

“Luke, it’s okay,” Lucy said, giving her brother’s hand a gentle squeeze. “I figured this would happen. I’m still on the same path, it’ll just take me a little longer, that’s all.”

“Also,” Dr Adams said, taking a deep breath before continuing. “I’d like you to go to a Metro station.” The middle-aged woman paused to let the advice sinking, smiling sympathetically as the colour drained from the faces of both twins.

“…Oh,” Lucy mumbled.

“Is that — is that really necessary?” Luke asked.

“I’m not suggesting that you go alone,” Dr Adams said. “Or even to the same Metro station you went to in April. But I need to know that if I do prescribe HRT — or rather, when I prescribe it — that you’ll be living a normal life like you were before, and that you won’t simply remain shut in your room all day, afraid to go out. Especially with Covid restrictions starting to lift now.”

“I — I see,” Lucy whispered as her thoughts continued to race.

Logically, she knew that her attackers were behind bars and wouldn’t be able to hurt her again, and that if she’d been in the Metro station at any other time, they wouldn’t even have been there. Lucy also knew that the same applied to every other Metro station, or any other public place she wanted to go, but she also knew that at anytime and anyplace, violent transphobes like her attackers COULD be present. However, Lucy was determined not to live her life in fear. She didn’t just want to be a woman, she WAS a woman. And she knew that part of being a woman — whether trans or cis — was overcoming the fear of misogynistic so-called 'alpha males,' even before taking transphobia into account.

“…Okay,” Lucy said with a determined nod. “If that’s a condition, then that’s what I’ll do. Today, even.”

“Wh- are you sure?” Luke asked.

“I refuse to let fear control my life,” Lucy said in a firm, almost angry voice. “I deserve to be proud of who I am. Heh, ironic, isn’t it? Morons like Rowling insisting that trans women are the threat. I bet she wouldn’t have the guts to say that to me face to face.”

“Well, never mind about her,” Dr Adams said with a quiet chuckle. “It is good to see you’ve got your confidence back. If you don’t mind me saying, as ‘Lucas’ you always seemed listless, as though your life lacked a direction or a ‘goal,’ but looking at you now, for want of a better way of putting it, you definitely seem to have a much firmer ‘grip’ on your life.”

“I do feel more — more certain about things,” Lucy said. “I mean, over the last couple of days, when compared to before. But there — there’s still a lot of — well, I’m still unsure about a lot of things.”

“It’s absolutely understandable,” Dr Adams said softly as Lucy tried not to blush at her babbling. “You may think that the path ahead of you is one you’ve walked before, and while some things may be familiar, there will be some things that you’ll find very different than when you first came out.”

“I figured as much,” Lucy sighed.

“Luckily, Lucy’s got someone she can walk down that path with,” Luke said, placing a comforting arm around his sister’s shoulder. “Even if it’s, like, only metaphorically, whatever we do, we do together. Right?”

“Right,” Lucy said with a happy grin. “Always.”

The twins spent the next 45 minutes discussing the situation with their counsellor, listening to her advice and making notes of the steps and exercises that she recommended to Lucy as the young trans woman restarted her journey. Despite the fact that HRT was still some way away for Lucy, she ended the call with a smile and a newfound sense of optimism, which wasn’t even so much as blunted when her brother reminded her of the promise that she’d made at the start of the call.

“…You still want to head out?” Luke asked softly as the call ended. “On — on the Metro, I mean. Maybe take a trip to the city centre, grab lunch, maybe head to CeX and see if there are any cheap DVDs we can watch later?”

“…Sure,” Lucy replied with a shrug, trying to appear casual even as the anxiety of the situation began to grip her. The idea of facing her fear had been exciting. The reality of actually doing so, though, was another matter entirely. “As long — if your leg’s, umm, okay and-”

“My leg’s fine,” Luke insisted. “Relatively fine, anyway. Are you?”

“Of course,” Lucy replied, getting off her bed to fix her make-up and pick out a pair of shoes to wear, before pausing and sighing as she felt her brother’s stare bore into the back of her skull. “…A bit. Maybe. Ugh, I — I dunno. I mean, I don’t WANT to be afraid, and that counts for something, right?”

“I suppose,” Luke shrugged. “And I get wanting to get it over and done with quickly, be we have got all summer, ya know?”

“Well — sort-of,” Lucy replied. “We’ve got all summer for everything else on the list, but only 24 hours until the dance society’s show in Durham tomorrow, which I am 100% gonna be there for.”

“…What, onstage?” Luke asked, smirking as his sister gave him a playful shove.

“If I knew the choreography, sure,” Lucy chuckled. “But seriously, I — well, like Dr Adams said, there’s no point in doing this if I’m gonna be a shut-in, is there?”

“I’m not gonna argue that you shouldn’t be loud and proud,” Luke chuckled as he took his phone out of his pocket and composed a text. “So… city centre, then?” Lucy bit her lip as she pondered her answer. A part of her would always be fearful whenever she left her house, as while the physical injuries from her assault had long since healed, the mental trauma would continue to linger, possibly forever. For the previous three months, Lucy had allowed the mental trauma to defeat her, to control her, to consume her. But she was tired of letting it win. As she reminded herself, cis women had to live with the same kind of fear every day, and if they could live their lives to the fullest, then so could Lucy. The time had come for her to fight back. The time had finally come for her to win.

“Let’s do this,” Lucy said, smiling as she pulled on her summer jacket and led her brother downstairs. “Dad? We’re heading out for a bit, won’t be back for lunch. Want us to bring you anything back?”

“The ice cream didn’t fill ya, then?” Paul teased, smiling supportively as he saw the nervous, yet determined look in his daughter’s eyes. “I’ll be fine. You two go out and most importantly, have fun!”

“We will,” Luke said, placing a supportive hand on his sister’s back as they left the house.

With every step that Lucy took toward the nearby Metro station, she grew more and more nervous as her memories of Easter came flooding back. She couldn’t not picture the look of pure hatred in her attackers’ eyes, or the sounds of their yells, or the feeling of fear as she laid dangling over the edge of the platform… but those memories were quickly pushed to one side when she and Luke arrived at the Metro station and were greeted by two unexpected faces. Not the two thugs who had hurt her on that day, but the two friends who had stood by her on that day and every day since, both of whom clearly sported wide grins behind their masks.

“Now THIS I had to see with my own eyes!” Susie squeaked excitedly as she ran toward the tall transgender girl and gave her a long, tight hug.

“L- let me get my mask on first!” Lucy giggled as she briefly struggled, before returning Susie’s hug.

“Ah, screw Covid,” Susie snorted. “THIS is worth celebrating.”

“Absolutely, 100% worth getting out of bed for, heh!” Gavin said, tired but excited as he wheeled himself toward Lucy and gave her a hug of his own.

“Ah — God, yeah,” Lucy sighed sadly. “Sorry if I’ve, like, got you out of-”

“Don’t apologise!” Gavin interrupted with a giggle. “Honestly, just seeing you back to normal is already making me feel better, heh.”

“ ‘Normal,’ heh,” Lucy chuckled.

“Well this IS normal as far as I’m concerned,” Gavin retorted. “I never knew ‘the old Luke,’ remember?”

“Well, I DID know ‘the old Luke,’ and this is definitely back to ‘normal’ as far as I’m concerned,” Susie said, making Lucy blush as she and Luke pulled on their masks.

“Thanks, guys,” Lucy whispered emotionally.

“So… what’s the plan for today?” Gavin asked as Susie took control of his wheelchair.

“Head into the town centre, have lunch, live loud, be proud,” Lucy replied.

“Sounds perfect,” Susie said with a smile as the four friends headed down to the train platform, feeling no fear as long as they were all together.

Luke, Lucy, Susie and Gavin spent the whole afternoon in Newcastle city centre, enjoying lunch, doing some window shopping and some more ‘regular’ shopping, and simply spending time in each other’s company. Throughout the whole day, Lucy felt nothing other than unconditional love both for and from her friends, and when the time came to go back home, Lucy found it hard to suppress her tears, even though she knew she would be seeing her friends again less than 24 hours later, and even though the person she cared about the most would never be more than a few feet away, even after they both returned home.

“…So I’m assuming as it took yas three hours ta eat lunch, ya both aren’t hungry?” Paul said with a chuckle, diverting his attention away from the television as his children walked through the front door.

“Ah — yeah, we kinda lost track of time,” Lucy said, blushing with guilt. “Sorry….”

“What are ya apologising for?” Paul said with a loud snort of laughter. “I’ve literally been telling yas to go out and enjoy your summer, if anything, you’re back too early! As such, you’ll be getting yas own dinners tonight. When you’ve finished unpacking your suitcases, anyway!” The twins rolled their eyes as their father gestured to the shopping bags in their hands.

“If you must know, all I bought was a couple of DVDs and a PS4 game from CeX,” Luke retorted.

“And for me a — umm, a few essentials…” Lucy said, trying not to blush harder at the presence of the make-up, new pairs of tights and new packet of thongs in her bag.

“Nothing I need ta know about,” Paul shrugged. “You’re both adults, you’re both entitled to yas private lives. Speaking of which, when are yas heading out tomorrow for ya thing in Durham?”

“Umm, probably around 9am,” Luke replied.

“Students leaving the house at 9am in the summer holidays?” Paul teased, laughing even harder as his children simultaneously rolled their eyes. “I’m just kidding, ya both know that. Go on, put your stuff away, your mam will be back soon. Oh, and how are Susie and Gavin?”

“…How did you know we met up with them?” Luke asked.

“Because, believe it or not, I actually do remember being twenty once,” Paul replied with a smirk. “God, that’d have been what, 1993? Feels like yesterday ta me, probably ancient history ta both of yas.”

“…Yeah,” Lucy said, fidgeting awkwardly. “Can we put our shopping away now, please?”

“Go on,” Paul laughed, waving his children away and mirroring their smile.

After Sarah’s return, the family spent the evening on the sofa watching television, though both twins opted for an early night ahead of the following day’s travels. However, as tired as she was, Lucy struggled to fall asleep, though this was less due to anxiety about travelling, and more to do with the excitement of finally being able to reintroduce herself to her friends….

Regardless, both twins were woken by their alarms at 8 o’clock the following morning, and after quickly showering, eating breakfast and getting dressed, they headed to the nearby Metro station and were soon on their way toward Newcastle station for the next leg of their trip. As she sat on the train, Lucy tried her hardest not to feel self-conscious. Her outfit choice of a clingy long-sleeved grey bodysuit, a tartan miniskirt, a pair of thin tights and her recently repaired wedge heeled shoes had been deliberate — she’d wanted to prove to the world that she, as a woman, would not be afraid to be visible]. However, she’d wanted to prove that same thing to herself just as much. She knew there would be a risk associated with presenting herself to the world as she really was, and she wanted to face it head-on, no matter the consequences — because as far as she was concerned, nothing could be worse than living with the fear that had consumed her for the previous three months. Lucy was forced to concede to herself, though, that that wasn’t entirely true….

Regardless, the trip to Durham passed without incident, and the twins, along with Gavin and Susie, who had joined them on the train, were soon making their way through the city that had become like a second home to them. It took little time for them to reach their destination, a park just outside the city centre. They quickly found the makeshift stage that was to be the focal point of the event, and Lucy bit her lip nervously as she saw two men holding hands and waiting for the event to start — two men she knew she needed to talk to, but didn’t know how they would react to what she had to say. However, she was emboldened by the knowledge if they were truly her friends, they would accept her just as they were.

As it turned out, though, not only was Lucy’s anxiety unfounded, the talk that she'd rehearsed in her mind was entirely unnecessary.

“Hey Luke, Gav, Susie,” Kieran said with a wide grin as he turned around to greet the four Geordies. “Hey LUCY. Long time no see, hehe!”

“H- hi Kieran,” Lucy said as she fidgeted nervously. “H- hi Aaron.”

“Hi Lucy,” Aaron said, crossing his arms and maintaining a neutral expression, before a loud, happy giggle broke through. “You are looking GREAT!”

“Wh- really?” Lucy asked. “You — you’re not, like, angry?”

“Why should I be angry?” Aaron asked with an incredulous snort of laughter. “What, because transitioning didn’t work out for me, no one else should be allowed to? What kind of raging narcissist do you take me for?”

“…Sorry,” Lucy mumbled, her cheeks blushing even as she smirked at her friend’s joke.

“And don’t apologise either!” Aaron playfully chastised. “If you’re transitioning again and you’re happy, I think that’s fucking great. I really do.”

“Me too,” Kieran said softly. “Though we — we may have been tipped off ahead of time, hehe!” Lucy smirked as Kieran and Aaron looked accusingly at her brother, who rolled his eyes and snorted with laughter.

“…What?” Luke asked. “I knew they were coming up today, I thought I’d message Kieran to tell him and save him from making two trips.”

“ ‘Two’ trips?” Lucy asked.

“The boot of Aaron’s car is filled with four plastic tubs worth of clothes and shoes,” Kieran explained. “YOUR clothes and shoes.”

“Wh- but I gave them to you?” Lucy retorted.

“And as I told you, as far as I’m concerned, it was only ever an extended loan,” Kieran replied. “They were only ever Lucy’s clothes, and as Lucy is now standing in front of me, she gets to have them back.”

“Besides, it’s not like ‘Kiera’ hasn’t already been building ‘her’ wardrobe,” Aaron teased as he shared a gentle kiss with his boyfriend.

“…Thank you,” Lucy whispered. “That — that would be great, heh. Though if there’s anything you particularly want to keep, just say it and it’s yours. I owe you for ‘looking after it for me,’ heh.”

“Thank you,” Kieran said with a warm smile. “And I will actually take you up on that offer, heh. Not least because I am kinda wearing that pink and white striped bodysuit of yours underneath this, heh!” Lucy giggled and blushed as Kieran gestured to his casual jeans and t-shirt, before slowly lifting his t-shirt to show off the clingy striped garment underneath it.

“…That was always too small on me anyway,” Lucy giggled. “But thank you, it really does mean a lot, and I — I hope we can stay friends, Aaron, even if I have ‘crossed back,’ heh.”

“I would love nothing more, really,” Aaron said in a soft, gentle voice. “Even if I don’t know anything about REtransitioning, I’ll always be on hand to help if you ever need anything. All you ever need to do is ask.”

“Thank you,” Lucy whispered, wiping a tear from her eye. “And if, like, you ever want someone to show you around Newcastle….”

“…You’ve got four friends ready and willing,” Luke said, giving his sister’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Now if you don’t mind, I think we should try to find some seats somewhere before my leg swells up like a balloon again.”

“You go ahead,” Lucy said. “I kinda — kinda need to say hi to a few other people first.”

“WE kinda need to,” Susie corrected her friend. “Girls only thing. Sorry, boys!” Lucy giggled as her brother and their male friends all playfully jeered, before she followed Susie toward the temporary changing area that had been set up at the side of the park.

“You ready?” Susie asked her friend, who took a deep breath and nodded. “I — I wanna go in first, just to, like, let them know they’re gonna get a surprise, heh!”

“Sure,” Lucy whispered, trying not to fidget as she waited. While she was confident that her friends would be happy for her, there was no guarantee — she had left them in the lurch when she'd abruptly quit the street dance class. However, when Susie emerged from the changing room, followed by their friends, Lucy realised that all of her fears had been groundless.

“Oh my god, Lucy!” Priya squeaked as she rushed toward the tall trans girl and gave her a tight hug. “Is it — is it really you? I mean, is this — are you back for good?”

“Back for good, aye,” Lucy replied, squeaking excitedly as Claudia and Phoebe — dressed in the same casual jeans and tank top costume as their friend — joined in with the group hug.

“This is SO cool,” Phoebe said, trembling with excitement at the sight of her friend. “I genuinely thought that you — well, never mind, here you are, hehe!”

“And here YOU are too!” Lucy replied to the American girl. “I thought you were flying back home for summer? Or are you a convert to the land of hope and glory and fish and chips?” The assembled women all giggled as the blonde American woman rolled her eyes.

“I’m flying back on Monday,” Phoebe replied. “But I’ll be back for our third year, don’t worry about that! But there’s no way I was gonna miss this, hehe!”

“I think we’ve made a dancer out of Miss Adams, hehe!” Priya giggled, before looking at Lucy and fidgeting awkwardly. “And I — I get that this might be the last thing you want to think about right now, Lucy, and you don’t have to answer right away, but-”

“Yes, obviously I’m gonna be back at dance society next year!” Lucy squeaked, triggering another excited group hug. “Assuming you’ll have me, of course?”

“Well, duh!” Priya giggled. “Especially as I’m the one in charge of it next year!”

“Like she ever wouldn’t be?” Claudia teased, giggling as she earned a playful shove from the Bengali woman. “And assuming that all of this hugging doesn’t trigger yet another wave of Covid.”

“Meh, we all did lateral flows this morning, didn’t we?” Lucy asked, triggering another mass giggle. “But seriously, I — I’m looking forward to, like, making up for lost time, picking up from where I left off, all those sorts of things. And that includes with you guy- sorry, you GIRLS, hehe!”

“US girls,” Susie corrected her friend.

“Oh?” Priya asked smugly. “Does that mean I can interest you in one of these costumes, Miss Parker?”

“Does it bollocks,” Susie replied, earning a laugh from all five women as Lucy mused on how she’d never felt more relaxed in her whole life — or more accepted. For the first time in what felt like forever, she’d found somewhere where she didn’t just fit in, but was welcomed as truly one of the group — or better yet, one of the girls. Even though there was only one year of university left for the five women, Lucy swore to herself that she would make the effort to remain friends with all four of them, regardless of whether they lived near, like Susie, or as far away as Priya or even Phoebe.

Lucy also mused on how her friendship with Priya in particular afforded her access to an even greater community of potential friends, with one in particular occupying the tall trans girl’s thoughts as she and Susie followed the dance troupe to the stage area.

“Hey, Priya,” Lucy said, nervously hesitating despite her best efforts and new-found confidence. “Did — I thought I heard that your sister and Laura were coming up today?”

“Ah — no, sadly,” Priya replied with a sigh. “They thought about it and were planning to, but it’s too far to come with Covid still around and everything. They’ll be watching the livestream, though, and I know they’ll be thrilled to hear about you — umm, when you decide to tell them, of course.”

“I don’t mind you breaking the news for me,” Lucy said with a shrug. “Or being invited into the big group chats, hehe! Especially as I — I kinda need you to, like, pass on a request, like, a favour to Laura, if you don’t mind?”

“Of course,” Priya replied. “What do you want me to ask her?” Lucy bit her lip and smiled — it was something she’d thought about for a long time….

Four days later, the Miller family gathered in their living room for an evening meal quite unlike their regular TV dinners. The normal coffee table and sofas had been pushed to one side to make way for a borrowed dining table and chairs. Luke and Paul had dressed up in smart shirts, trousers and ties and even Sarah had donned an elegant black dress for the occasion. The undoubted star of the show, though, was Lucy, who turned the heads of her family as she descended the stairs dressed in a near-identical copy of the tight, strapless grey minidress she’d seen her friend Laura model three months earlier. She’d paired the dress with a pair of glossy pantyhose, matching pumps with a three-inch stiletto heel, her favourite necklace and bangle and gold studs in her newly pierced ears. Her bob cut framed her immaculately made-up face, which radiated with a confidence Lucy had never before felt in her life.

“You — you look beautiful, Lucy,” Paul whispered emotionally as he held out a chair for his daughter to sit in.

“Thanks, dad,” Lucy whispered, believing for the very first time that she truly was beautiful, and was truly worthy of the title of ‘woman.’

After the meal, the twins returned to Luke’s room, where the young man was eager to discard his shoes and his tie, while Lucy remained in her special dress, wanting to savour the feelings of femininity for as long as she could, even though she knew that they never had to end.

“I won’t lie, this meal was a great idea,” Luke said with a smirk. “Even if this shirt is a little tight. Or rather, my ‘special vest’ is a little tight, heh.”

“You were looking forward to going ‘bare chested,’ I know,” Lucy sighed.

“Fucking Covid,” Luke snorted. “Maybe next summer, I dunno. Ehh… sorry, Luce, kinda insensitive of me to whine about a delay to my operation when you’ve had to, like, start back from square one.”

“I don’t mind,” Lucy shrugged. “Just ‘cause we’re not side by side anymore, it doesn’t mean we’re not in this together, does it?”

“Whatever we do, we do together,” Luke said with a smile.

“Always,” Lucy whispered. “And it’s not just us, heh. I really do need to get on and get that gift for Kieran, something to thank him for keeping all my stuff safe during the ‘Lucas months.’ ”

“The bodysuit, two skirts and a dress that you let him keep weren’t enough?” Luke teased, giggling as his sister blushed. “And technically ya kinda got him Aaron, too! As ‘gifts’ go, that was a pretty big one.”

“No argument here,” Lucy giggled. “They do make a cute couple, though.”

“Aye, for sure,” Luke chuckled. “But it makes ya wonder, doesn’t it?”

“Wonder what?” Lucy asked.

“Well, Kieran and Aaron have got together,” Luke replied. “Susie and Livvy are getting serious, Priya and Claudia both have long-term boyfriends and even Phoebe and Gav have been on dates since the new year. Meanwhile, the two of us are stuck here — and I don’t mean anything by this, you are and always will be the most important person in my life, but-”

“The only meaningful relationship we have is with each other?” Lucy interrupted. “It’s okay, I kinda feel the same way, heh. Sometimes I do wonder if there’s anyone who’d want to date a nearly six-foot-tall woman who’s had more than one spell of being a man and is still ‘anatomically incomplete.’ ”

“Same, but for a short guy whose boobs keep aching,” Luke said with a snort of laughter. “Still, we are only twenty, it’s not like we need to rush it, I guess.”

“True,” Lucy mused. “But there is only one year of university left. Well, assuming we don’t do a Masters, or….”

“…Or what?” Luke asked.

“Ah — nothing, just a random thought,” Lucy mused. “But you’re not wrong. Though there has to be someone out there for both of us, surely?”

“You’d think,” Luke mused. “But either way, relationship or not, whatever we do, we do together, right?”

“Aye,” Lucy said, smiling as she caught a glimpse of herself in her brother’s mirror and assured herself that anyone would be lucky to have her as their girlfriend — or, indeed, their sister. “Always.”