Liam knew where his life was going, or so he thought until an incident at football practice turns into his worst nightmare. And the fun is only beginning.

I want to thank Maggie Finson and all the other authors for creating the Whateley Universe. This story is Fan-fiction and may not conform to Canon rules or timelines. I am only playing in their sandbox. I also want to thank Connected and my wife for all the editing work put in to turn my scratchings into a readable story.

Please note that all of the categories checked do not apply to all chapters.

I apologize for the delay in posting. I decided to do a last minute rewrite of a couple of scenes.

---

He woke and stirred, attracting the attention of the two men. “Feeling better?” Coach asked.

Lee realized he was lying down. He swung his feet to the floor and sat up; the sweet memory of the dream fading into unreality. Deep inside himself, just beyond the reach of easy consciousness, he remembered and knew it was more real than anything he had ever experienced. The room spun with his rapid movement. “Yeah, I guess. What did you do to me?”

“I gave you a quick sedative. You were losing control.” Doc replied. “With your regeneration, it will wear off completely in a few minutes.”

As the room came back into focus, Lee realized that he was in a much smaller room. He was sitting on the edge of a sofa in a very normal looking living room except that there were no windows. A flat screen TV on each wall showed what looked like different views of a forest. As he watched it absently a deer wandered across one of the screens. He looked around and saw coach and the Doc sitting in a pair of armchairs with drinks in their hands in front of a very realistic looking fireplace in which a fire burned steadily, giving off a gentle warmth. Lee knew, without knowing how, that it was a holographic fireplace. His dad had wanted to put one in his house, but was waiting for the price to come down.

Lee shook his head trying to clear it, trying desperately to hold onto the dream which was dimming, becoming less and less vivid by the second, except for an image of the woman and her final words to him.

What was Tuath de’ Danu? Somehow he did not want to share this dream, not yet, even though he knew it could be important. It was too personal. Besides, what if they thought he was crazy?.

He turned his thoughts to the conversation that had been underway before he had been drugged. “So there’s really nothing that can be done to prevent me becoming a girl?” he asked timidly despite the wool that seemed to fill his brain. He seemed more at peace with the idea. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the sedative or the dream or both.

“I’m sorry, Lee,” the coach said gently. “In fact, it may be worse that we expected. When you got excited a while ago, your magic kicked in subconsciously. It seems one of the things your glamour is capable of is making things grow beyond all expectations, how or why, we don’t know.”

The Doc leaned over the other side of his chair and picked up an enormous orchid covered in huge, beautiful, fragrant, lavender and white cattleya blossoms. The plant itself would have filled a bushel basket. “This was a mere seedling and would have fit into a teacup a few minutes before your outburst. It should have been years from blooming. Also, your magic flared again after you passed out, but this time it looked very different. For a few seconds, no one could touch you and you appeared to be moving rapidly away into nothingness, then you snapped back, as if nothing had happened, and that somehow again stimulated your BIT.” Coach hesitated, then reached down and picked put something else, a mirror. He silently handed it to Lee.

Lee slowly lifted the mirror and stared into it. His hair had gone from a nondescript brown to a rich dark chestnut color shot with bright golden streaks. It was also five or six inches longer than the short buzz cut he preferred. It was very full bodied and wavy covering his ears and collar. He lifted his hand and watched in the mirror as his fingers touched his hair. It was silky soft, thick and shiny, not like his normal hair at all, which had previously been coarse, stringy and dull. He ran his fingers though his new hair, not believing it was his.

He turned his attention to his face. At first, he saw nothing much different, but then he realized that his cheeks and chin were smooth, without any trace of the faint wisps of beard that had started to grow there, and no zits. Like most adolescents, he usually had one or two pimples, but now his skin was smooth and perfect. His lips appeared slightly fuller, too. His eyes might be a touch larger also, and possibly a little wider spaced, he thought, but it was hard to be sure. There was no question about the vibrant jewel-like emerald green that had replaced his original pale hazel eyes.

“Oh, crap!” He muttered, totally floored by the changes. Taken individually they were small, but together they were significant. Then he remembered his contacts. He looked frantically at the coach, who held out the colored contacts.

“They just popped out. Hopefully, they will still fit.” Coach said without being asked. Lee took them and put them in the case he took from his pocket.

He looked down at his body, but it looked the same to him although maybe a little slimmer through the chest and shoulders. It was hard to tell with his clothes on. Remembering what they had said about his BIT, he reached slowly down to his crotch. He was relieved to feel his junk still there. Guiltily, he jerked his hand back.

The coach chuckled, “It’s ok, I would check, too, if it was me. You haven’t changed that much except for your hair, a little bit around the face and you may be a little taller, but we weren’t expecting this much change for at least two or three months, maybe longer.”

Doc spoke up. “You should know that you are quite a bit stronger that you were before. You were lifting almost nine hundred pounds today, so you’re going to have to be very careful that you don’t hurt anyone. Also, your magic and regeneration potential both seem to be getting stronger. I’m going to update your MID today, but I’ll leave it as temporary because I want to go through this at least once more before finalizing it.”

Lee continued to study himself in the mirror. He looked relatively normal but somehow not the same. He realized he looked a little like a bad image of the son of the woman from his dream.

He reached for his new hair brushing it back where it had fell into his eyes, when suddenly his ear showed through the thick hair in the mirror. It was slightly pointed, a little larger and seemed to be just slightly further back than he expected. The changes again weren’t extreme but the top of his ear had a distinct point forming. He knew he would be freaking again, if not for the lingering effects of the sedative — or was it the lingering memory of her presence?

“That’s interesting.” Doc commented as he walked over and pulled back the hair to examine an ear. “You are definitely turning into one of the fairy races.”

“I’m not a fairy,” he said with a sense of confidence. He was going to say more, but stopped; to tell what he had experienced seemed like a violation. He remained silent.

“No, not gay,” the doc exclaimed obviously misinterpreting his remark. “It looks like you are turning into one of the fae races.

Lee didn’t bother to correct him. He wasn’t ready to share the dream, if you could call it that. Somehow he knew without an doubt that the woman was as real as he was, even if he wasn’t sure who or even what she was, but she understood what was happening to him.

The image in the mirror kept calling his attention back as if by staring at it, he could also understand what was happening. As he looked he began to notice other subtle changes. He realized that his neck seemed a little longer and slimmer. His Adam’s apple a little less pronounced. His nose turned up ever so slightly at the end. His chin was slightly rounder. In short, he already looked slightly girlier, and not just because of the hair.

He groaned. If the changes kept coming soon he would be the subject of ridicule as a sissy. Heck! these changes were probably enough. Suddenly, the groan became a chuckle and then a long hard belly gripping laugh. He went on laughing for several minutes.

The coach and Doc looked at him, probably wondering if they were going to have to sedate him again. That just made him laugh harder. When they moved toward him, he held up a hand and tried to bring the laughter under control.

“What’s so funny,” the coach asked, obviously wondering what Lee could possibly find so amusing in all of this.

Lee gasped a couple of times, still holding up his hand. Finally between chuckles, he explained that he had been worrying about being labelled as a sissy, when he finally grasped that, between the facts that he was getting pointy ears, turning into a girl and was a mutant, being branded a sissy was so far down in the noise that it just had to be funny.

The two men looked at each other dumbfounded for a moment, then they all broke into laughter together.

————

“We could stop and get you a haircut or even dyed, if you want,” Coach said sympathetically, as they drove home. The contacts had gone back in just fine even if they were infinitesimally smaller that his irises. Coach had revealed that he’d already told Lee’s parents about the suspected gender change.

“Naw, what’s the point? It’ll just grow back and then there’s all the other changes that are coming. I might as well just get used to them as they happen. Besides it covers the ears, for now at least. Since you’ve already spilled the beans about the gender change to my folks, I guess the only thing left is to tell my sisters. I wonder what they’ll make of that.”

“I suspect they’ll take it in stride. They will probably get a kick out of teaching you about being a girl.”

Lee groaned, thinking about one of his sister’s sleep-overs and their friends that he had spied on, watching them do make-overs and dressing each other up in different outfits and makeup. ‘Oh, Lord, what am I getting into!’ Then he laughed; remembering his earlier thoughts on keeping things in perspective. He would have to learn from someone, maybe better his sisters than his mother, at least for some things. That could be just too embarrassing.

“I think we can still blame the designer drug excuse for a while. It’s Friday today, you can say the drug caused your hair to grow really fast over the weekend. You can also tell your classmates your doctors think it may feminize you some until it wears off.”

“Oh! That’s not going to cause me any troubles at school, at all.” Lee muttered sarcastically.

The coach nodded, grinning wryly, knowing Lee was right, but surprised at the maturity and relative calm with which he was facing this. Coach wondered if he could do as well.

***************

October 12, 2007
That Afternoon

Lee hadn’t discussed his last trip to Doc Widget’s lab when he got home that afternoon, but went straight to his room. He half-heartedly tried to play GEO to keep his mind off things, and even though he was kicking booty all over the screen, he wasn’t really into it. All he could think about was the visit to Doc Widget’s and that strange dream. It was a dream, wasn’t it?

The more he thought about it, Doc and Coach’s pronouncement that he was going to become a girl scared the pee out of him. How could he? He knew nothing about being a girl.

He tried to imagine himself hanging out with the gaggles of giggling girls he saw every day in the hallways at school, gossiping about anything and anyone. He often wondered what went on between them with their whispered conversations and glances around at whoever was passing. He also wondered, like countless other men and boys at girls going to the bathroom in groups. Why? Maybe he’d find out, however, he doubted he would be accepted into their little groups.

He couldn’t even begin to think about doing things like cheerleading, or going shopping — dressing up in fancy clothes! Just contemplating such a thing made him start hyperventilating. What was he going to do? Even if he became a really good looking girl like coach thought he was going to be: that just made matters worse - didn’t it? He would be trying to fend off boys and their staring at him. He knew how he had looked at girls, but never had considered how those looks made them feel — until now. Soon, he would be the object of lustful thoughts, if he was lucky, and wasn’t run out of town or killed for being a mutant.

He bowed his head, gripping his crucifix. ‘Oh, Holy Mary, Mother of God, help me in my hour of need!’ He prayed silently. ‘I don’t want to be a girl! I really don’t, but if I must be a girl, please, please, help me accept it and be the best girl I can. Amen’.

Suddenly, tears were streaming down his cheeks, and he began sobbing. He threw himself on his bed and buried his face in the pillow to muffle his sobs. His dad wasn’t home from work yet, but he knew his sisters were just across the hall, and he didn’t want them coming to see what was wrong, not yet. For now, his misery was a private one.

Eventually, he cried himself to sleep. He didn’t notice when his sisters peeped in his door, their sad faces reflecting his own misery as his glamour broadcast his hopelessness, but in the end they simply closed the door and left him alone.

————

Lee’s sisters met his mom when she came in, hugging her and crying. “Lee’s so unhappy, Momma! Isn’t there anything we can do?”

Kathryn hugged them. “All we can do is be there for him. He’s got to deal with a lot of stuff right now, and while he will probably want and need your help later on, right now I doubt if he’s ready for it yet.”

His mother was shocked when she entered Lee’s room and saw his silken hair and girlish cast to his features. She knew, from what Coach had told them that there might be such changes, but it was so much sooner than she expected. She gently brushed his hair back from his face, looking at that very familiar face and yet somehow seeing him as she was still imagining Lee to be.

She gently woke him. He blinked several times then his eyes teared up again as she wrapped him in her loving arms. She smiled at him as she tenderly wiped the tear streaks from his face and hugged him to her bosom as he explained what had driven him to tears.

His Mom listened quietly until he was finished, then still holding him, did the only thing she could; reassuring him that she and his ‘father’ would always be there for him. That she loved him.

8:30 pm
Home

The family held another meeting that night after dinner. When they were all gathered in the living room, Lee described to them what he had learned, and most of what had happened. He even managed to do it without his voice breaking once. When Lee told the girls he was going to be turning into a girl, they squealed with joy, jumping up and down. Lee’s face blushed making it look like he was glowing. His eyes began to glisten with tears, but he blinked back the tears. He knew that his sisters loved him and meant well.

“Girls, that’s enough!” Kathleen’s voice broke in, sharp with reproach. “How would you feel if someone told you that you were going to turn into a boy!”

“Ewww!” They said in unison, looking suitably abashed. They hadn’t thought about what the changes would mean to Lee.

“We’re sorry, Lee.” Eve explained that she had always wanted a big sister and she hadn’t really thought about what it meant for him. “We’ll try to help, honest! We can show you things and explain girl stuff to you.”

Lee’s face turned an even brighter red at that thought. “Thanks? I guess.” The girls looked disappointed by his lackluster response. “I’m sorry. This is just all so weird.” He went over and hugged them.

The discussion went on for a long while. His sisters were admonished again to keep his secrets. Finally, there was nothing more to say, and he started up to his room to finish his homework.

However much Lee hated the thought of changing, he was grateful for the support of his family. He knew he would need it, although Lee noticed that his dad seemed a little distant, contributing little to the discussion. Since Tom was normally fairly taciturn, Lee didn’t give it too much thought or concern.

He still held back the images of his dream, if dream it was, from them.

Monday October 14th
At the office of Dr. Evelyn Sharpe

The trip to the doctor’s office was interesting if a little anticlimactic seen in retrospect. Dr. Sharpe had run him through the same battery of tests she had performed two months ago, plus an ultrasound of his abdomen to try and determine the cause of his stomach cramps. She turned the monitor away from him as she slid the cold mouse through the slimy gel coating his stomach.

His face had turned bright red as she palpated his testicles (quite clinically) and he got a involuntary erection. She smiled gently, “Don’t worry about it. It happens to nearly every male I’ve ever examined.”

“I need to take some blood, too. This may sting a little.” After locating a vein, she was having problem getting the needle into his arm. She bent the first needle. “That’s really strange, your skin is getting really tough, yet it feels so very soft.” She looked at him thoughtfully, “I don’t think you are going to have to worry much about casual scrapes and cuts though, if this is any indication.” She finally got a heavier gauge needle in and collected her sample. She turned her back, so he wouldn’t see her put it and the used equipment into a Level 3 bio-hazard bag.

She handed him three cups with lids, a package of disinfecting wipes, sealable plastic bags and a pair of rubber gloves. “I need a urine sample and a stool sample.”

“Yukkk! Really!” Lee was both embarrassed and disgusted at the prospect. He turned to go to the bathroom, then turned back. "What's the third one for?

"I need a semen sample, if you can manage it."

Lee wash blushing a neon red, both at being asked for the sample but also at the implication that he might not be able to. Truthfully, his last erection was over two weeks ago.

Once he delivered the samples, still blushing, Lee hemmed and hawed for a few seconds before, looking Dr. Sharpe in the eye. "Doctor, --", he hesitated then, blurted out what was on his mind. "Doctor, when you're finished with your tests on this, if there are any good sperm in that sample I just gave you, can you make arrangements for them to be frozen?" He stared at his feet as he said this.

Evelyn looked at him with dawning comprehension. "Lee, I have my doubts about the viability of any sperm in this sample, but sure," she said softly. Wondering what he had in mind, it filled her with apprehension, but she couldn't turn him down. She made a mental note to consult about this with Dr. Bennett. She shuffled the paperwork and put the samples in her lab refrigerator for now.

Getting back to his exam, she began weighing and measuring him, not just his height, but his feet, inseam, neck, distance between his eyes, the diameter of his irises, the girth of his thighs and arms, the length of his arms, his hands and fingers. She measured the width of his shoulders, and his chest, waist and hips. She even measured his aureola and nipples, which tickled almost unbearably. They seemed so sensitive.

Lee already knew that he was changing since none of his clothes fit right anymore, but the changes were more than he had expected. He was almost three inches taller than he had been in August when she first measured him, his inseam had increased from 28 inches to 31 and a half inches. He also had gained almost thirty-five pounds. That was the good news. The bad news was everything else. His neck was longer and thinner, and his shoulders narrower. His chest was only slightly smaller than it had been, but his waist had shrunk from 32 inches to 26 inches. His hips had increased from 32 inches to 34 inches, but it felt like more.

The doctor was a little bewildered by his weight gain since it looked like he was losing muscle mass, his muscles becoming less defined and smoother, even as he got stronger. When she calculated his body mass index though, it was significantly higher than it had been. HIs muscle and bone density were increasing.

His hands and feet also had both changed. His hands were longer and slimmer, while his feet had gotten longer and narrower. His ankles were becoming a little delicate looking.

She wouldn’t discuss any of his clinical results with him. She said she wanted to get all of the results back and look at them before coming to any conclusions, not that there was any doubt in Lee’s mind what the general outcome was going to be.

————

Lee’s mother asked, “Do you want to stop by the church on the way home. He thought about it for a few moments, “Yeah, I think I do.” The stop in the confessional bothered him a little, he didn’t feel right knowing he was going on telling lies about himself to others. It felt wrong. Father Kennedy listened patiently as Lee talked about all of his lies of commission and omission. Then Lee got to what was really bothering him.

“Father, — do you think that there might be — other —uhh — deities out there other than God?” He got out stumblingly, embarrassed to be asking such a question. “I mean lesser gods, of course!” He added quickly.

Father Kennedy didn’t answer for a long minute and Lee was half expecting an explosion from this man he had always thought of as gentle. Then softly, the priest asked in his soft Irish brogue, “Why do you ask?”

Lee turned red with embarrassment, “Because, I think I might have met one — in a dream when I was unconscious the other day.”

Lee told the priest what he had not told anyone else. Partially because he thought no one would believe him or think him crazy, which he was not sure he wasn’t. Partially he hadn’t said anything because it had felt so private, so personal, that he didn’t want to share it, and finally, because it felt wrong to this faithful boy of the church to consider that there might be other beings worthy of worship and adoration.

When he finished his confession, Father Kennedy was quiet for a long time. “My son, there are many lesser beings made by The Creator of All. Some less than man, and some greater. We would be fools to think that we know all of God’s mind and creation. You know of angels and other such creatures. Many of these are worthy of awe and reverence, but not worship. Others are to be despised such as demons and their temptations.

“But men worshiped other higher beings long before they found the true God, and even the church reluctantly admits that in some cases these deities may have had some basis in reality. However, I _seriously_ doubt you have actually met such a creature, in a dream or otherwise. One must be ever vigilant to the temptations of idolatry and false gods.

“However, having said that, I remember stories that my Nanna from the old country used to tell, that her Gran had told her. She believed that many beings belonging to the unseen races wandered Ireland in the early days. Some were said to be beings of power. I don’t know having never been there myself, but I do know that nothing happens or exists that is naught in God’s plan. Many and mysterious are the ways of God, and beyond the knowledge of men. If you meet this being again, make sure that it is not a devil sent to tempt you, but be open to the possibility that it is one of the greater parts of God’s plan, — as you may be yourself. Now don’t you be telling the bishop that I told you that.

“Say three rosaries and four Hail Marys, in penance for your lies and spend 1 hour a day for a week in contemplation of the mysteries that are God and his creations.” The priest closed the curtain over the confessional screen indicating that confession was over.

Father Kennedy really hadn’t helped him much, but Lee did remember the dream in greater detail after recounting it. At least Father Kennedy didn’t seem to think that the ‘woman’ was necessarily a demon or that Lee was damned; or worse that he was crazy. Lee wasn’t sure what he met in the dream, if it even was a dream, but the more he remembered, the more he was sure that the ‘woman’ was a real being. Very real, and he was somehow connected to her. He really, really did not know what to think about that.

————

Monday
October 21st

Lee’s mom took the measurements he had from the doctor’s visit and bought him some new clothes. There weren’t very many of them, as she knew they probably wouldn’t fit him very long.

He spent an hour Monday morning, trying to pick out something to wear that wouldn’t emphasize his changes and trying to get his hair to look like he hadn’t just come from a woman’s hair stylist, without much success. He showered and washed it thinking once it dried it would hang limply as usual, but noooo! Once it was dry and he had combed it, it looked full, wavy, and very shiny. Only the fact that the length was somewhat uneven took away from the impression that he had spent time styling it.

Lee screamed, “Mom! Help!”

————

When she came running in and saw him standing in front of the mirror with a comb in his hand and his bright glistening hair that any girl would be jealous of, she knew instantly what the problem was. “I guess that’s too girly for you, huh? Let’s see what we can do.”

She combed it and tried to change its look with hair spray and gel, but in the end there wasn’t much she could do.

“Lee, I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to hear this, but you simply have beautiful hair, and short of cutting it off, it’s always going to look beautiful. Shall I try and cut it?”

“No, that’s just going to show my ears. The hair is easier to explain, I guess.” He said with a sigh of resignation.

School on Monday was every bit as bad as he thought it would be. Every one immediately noticed his hair, his face and a couple even commented that he seemed taller. He brushed off as many people as possible with the explanation that was growing a bit threadbare by now, but he couldn’t dissuade his friends so easy.

“Hey, dude, what’s happened to you?” Chuck asked as soon as he saw him. “What’s with your hair? You’re not a redhead and you look like you’ve been to the beauty parlor with your sisters.”

Lee groaned to himself, and replied, “It’s a side effect of that damn drug. The good news is I’m finally getting taller,” trying to divert Chuck’s attention away from his more feminine changes. It didn’t work.

“I don’t know, dude. You kinda look like a girl, and I thought you had been getting a beard?”

“Yeah, well; that’s the bad news. The doctors say it may make me look a little girlish for a while.” The lies were beginning to trip off Lee’s tongue more easily every day, and he hated that too.

“Dude, that’s terrible. How long?” Chuck seemed genuinely concerned, but then his tone changed harshly. “Dude, that’s what messing around with mutants will get you. You should never have trusted one. They’re all alike - bad news!”

Lee mentally cringed as he heard this. He never expected Chuck to be so vehement about mutants. Answering Chuck’s question, Lee mumbled, “We don’t know how long.”

“Is it done changing you?” Chuck’s concern for his friend was back in his voice.

“We don’t know. The best answer they could give me was maybe, but probably not.”

“Damn, mutants! We ought to gather them all up and lock them away where they can’t hurt decent people.”

“What about the heroes, who help people?” Lee tried to turn his friend’s anger away from all mutants.

“I’m telling you, you can’t trust any of them. They’re all reckless, egotistical goons out to distract good people from the threat they represent.” Chuck seemed to be getting more angry, and louder. An awkward silence descended between them. Chuck seemed to grow more uncomfortable the longer they stood there. “Look, good luck with this, but I’ve got to get to class.” Then he turned and hurried off down the hall. Lee wasn’t sure whether he was hurrying to class or to get away from him.

Other people Lee met that day were less understanding. A lot weren’t interested in his story, they only saw a guy who was starting to look like a girl. Fag, queer, sissy, tranny and similar epitaphs floated in the air behind him as he walked the halls all day long.

Even a lot of his football buddies seemed to want to keep their distance, as if what was happening to him would rub off either physically or socially on them. The kids who went to the Tazwell Evangelical Church of Genetic Purity were more vocal and vehement in their opinions. Lee was accosted several times by them during the day.

“You’re an abomination in the eyes of the Lord, trafficking with mutants. You deserve whatever happens to you. Your soul is forfeit for your iniquities.” They harassed him off and on all day with that and other similar statements, often quoting what sounded like bible verses, but weren’t out of any Bible Lee recognized. They weren’t interested in any reasons or excuses, just that he had trafficked with the hated mutants. Lee wondered what they would do if they knew the truth.

His teachers and the administration were officially ignoring his changes for now, but Lee wondered how long that would last. He caught a couple of his teachers staring at his hair and face when they thought he wasn’t looking, and Ms Long, his English teacher, looked at him with obvious disapproval and disdain. He steered clear of Coach most of the time, since he didn’t want to implicate him, although he had slipped into Coach's office once to decompress and complain about how people were treating him.

Coach listened and sympathized with him. After Lee left, Coach fumed and then called a lawyer friend of his to lay the groundwork for a harassment lawsuit, if needed. The threat of that would at least stop the worst of the abuses by staff, since even a lawsuit the school won would be expensive.

At least Lee didn’t have to take gym thanks to Dr. Sharpe. He didn’t want to think about letting people see him without his protective covering of clothes.

Finally, the day was over. Lee hadn’t seen Jim today, as he was off on a trip with his father. After Chuck’s reactions though, Lee wasn’t all that unhappy about that. He didn’t know if he could stand it if Jim felt the same way.

Since Lee was back in school, he was now going to the dojo after he got out of classes. His strength seemed to be increasing almost daily, so the sensei had him mostly working on his katas and sparring with the sensei himself to teach him control. The physical exercise at least released some of the tension, and combined with the meditation, put him in a slightly better humor.

But by the time he got home, Lee was tired and still depressed. He went straight up to his room. After a lackluster session of GEO, Lee had curled up on his bed staring at the wall. His guts were cramping again and he didn’t know why; although he suspected that he wouldn’t like the answer when he found out.

How - how had his life gone to crap so fast? Two months ago, he knew who he was and what he wanted. Now he felt he was on a runaway roller coaster careening out of control. He didn’t even feel good enough to cry about it.

————

He was half asleep when his mother came up to get him for supper. Her heart ached for her child as she looked and saw him curled in a fetal position on his bed.

“How you are doing, darling.” she asked brushing his long hair away from his face.

He looked up at her with the most forlorn face she had ever seen. It wrenched at her to see her boy so unhappy. She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him to her breast.

“I don’t know if I can do this, Mom.” he mumbled into her shoulder. “How am I supposed to be something I’m not?”

“Oh, baby! You can do it. You are still the same person you’ve always been. You’re just going to look a little different that’s all. You’ve always been so strong, never giving up. Look how hard you worked to get on the team.” She realized this was the wrong thing to say, even as the words came out of her mouth.

Lee jerked in her arms. “But I didn’t get on the team, though, did I?” He said bitterly. “I’ll never be on the team now, will I? I had plans, plans of what I was going to do with my life! Now they are all so much crap.”

“What am I supposed to do now, huh? Be a cheerleader and jump around bouncing my tits; find a boyfriend; get pregnant - like you did, and start pumping out babies?!”

Kathleen was shocked at the vehemence of his words. The words designed to hurt her only showed her how much her son was hurting. She pulled him back to her bosom, cradling his head against her shoulder.

“Lee, I can’t tell you this is going to be easy. It’s won’t, but I will always be here for you. I will do everything I can to help. It’s probably not as bad as you think right now. I’ve done alright as a woman and even enjoyed it most of the time. I know that all you know right now is how to be a boy, but it’s not that hard, just different.” She pushed Lee to arms length and looked into his eyes, combing her fingers through the hair hanging over his face. “Now, why don’t you tell me what happened today to put you into this funk.”

“Everyone thinks I’m queer, weird, or act like I’m contagious, and I still mostly look like a boy. They don’t even know that I’m a mutant yet or that I’m going to turn into a girl or any of this. Even Chuck’s acting weird around me, implying that it’s my fault for having anything to do with a mutant. What’s he going to think when he finds out I _am_ a mutant?”

“Honey, I don’t pretend to know all that you’re going through, but I know this, if any of these ‘friends’ of yours are really friends, they’ll come around. I’m not so old that I don’t remember what high school was like. Teenagers are highly social creatures and can be very harsh when something upsets the order of their little world. Truth is, though, most social groups don’t initially react well to anything that upsets the group order, but, — once things settle down and a new order is established, it’ll get better.”

“But how can it settle, Mom? I’m just going to keep changing and it’s going to get worse! I’d be better off dead!” he blurted out, staring past her at the floor.

She shook him sharply to get his attention. “Lee, stop this! It’s alright to feel a little sorry for yourself, but you’ll never be better off dead. If all your friends abandon you, you’ll still be better off alive. You can make new friends and new plans. What do you think it would do to your sisters, if you died; to me; or your father! Now snap out of it. You had a bad day. You’ll have others. You would even if you weren’t a mutant. Do you think you’re the only one who's ever despaired!?” She paused for a moment as her words slowly seemed to change the expression on Lee’s face to something a little less dire. She reached out and caressed his head, and said gently. “Now come on. Go wash up and let’s go eat dinner before it gets stone cold.”

Lee did as she asked. He did feel a little better, maybe it was just the emotional purging, but he guessed probably he just needed his mother to tell him it was going to be alright. He hadn’t thought about needing his mother since he had started to grow into a man. Now he suspected he was going to need her a lot more in the coming months than he’d ever needed her. He also made a mental note to update his journal before bed.

———-

Tuesday was better, a little better anyway. Many of the kids at school had moved on to something or someone else. His changes weren’t so drastic yet.

A few of those who had been most vehement about his changes continued to taunt him. Chuck remained a little standoffish, but they talked some about everyday things. By the end of the day, Lee felt pretty much like most high school kids, — a little drawn and quartered but nothing he couldn’t live with. He wondered how long it would be before his changes would make it impossible to feel even this good after a day at school. By the end of classes on Friday, he was old news. Oh, a few people like Randy and his buddies were still hassling him verbally because they could, and the evangelical kids acted like he was contaminated, verbally harassing him whenever they saw him, but nothing too major. Lee was becoming inured to their scorn.

Lee wondered if it would always be like that, a surge of problems as he changed then dying off to an annoyance. Somehow, he doubted it, as much as he might wish it to be true.

Saturday
October 25th
Home

Lee had returned from yet another, distressing shopping trip with his mom. There had been too many of those lately. Now five foot nine and a half inches, he’d shot up a little over five inches since his manifestation started and was thrilled to finally be catching up with and even passing some of his classmates. He would have been even more thrilled, if it wasn’t accompanied by other changes to his physique. His waist continued to shrink while his hips were slowly widening. Although his waist and hip changes weren’t grossly obvious as yet, the height increase kinda masked those changes. There was no getting around the fact that his body was slowly looking more and more like a girl’s, however. Only the careful choice of clothes was masking it.

The most distressing part of it was most of his increase in height seemed to be concentrated in his legs and neck, giving him long slender legs that would have looked great on any girl he knew, but unfortunately they were on him. This, coupled with the changes to his waist and hips, meant the jeans he was wearing were girl’s jeans. His neck now looked like Audrey Hepburn’s. He was ineffectually trying to hide it by wearing turtleneck sweaters to school. His mother didn’t have the heart to tell him, they made him look more feminine even if they were boy’s sweaters. She had been taking him to Cookeville for shopping, both to save at the outlet shops there and to spare Lee the embarrassment of shopping locally where he might be seen by people who knew him.

However, this latest trip was just to the local mall to get him some new sneakers, the second pair he’d outgrown in the last month. His feet and hands seemed to be growing out of proportion to the rest of his body, and the worst part of it was his growth was making him clumsy. He had always been athletic and well coordinated, with a fine sense of balance, if not large in stature. They had been some of his greatest strengths, now he could trip walking across the living room floor. He’d just gone up to his room when the doorbell rang. He could hear his mom inviting Jim in before he could tell her not to. He hadn’t been expecting Jim to be back from his trip until Monday.

Lee and Jim hadn’t exactly been avoiding each other. However, with Lee’s busy extra-curricular schedule, starting school late, and being off the football team, neither of them had been able to spend any real time with the other for several weeks. They had mostly just been saying hi in passing at school. They talked frequently on the phone, but Lee was worried what Jim would think when he saw him.

He rushed to get downstairs. In his hurry, he managed to stumble on the top step and went head over heels down the stairs. He instinctively grabbed at one of the spindles supporting the railing but with his new strength, all he succeeded in doing was breaking the spindle and hurting his wrist. He ended up in a pile at the bottom of the stairs, dazed. Jim and his mother rushed over to him. By the time they got to him he was recovering his wits.

“Lee, are you all right, man?” Jim asked as he and his mother were reaching for him.

“Yeah, I think so,” He was hurting but it didn’t seem too bad - until he put his hand down to get up and screamed. He had either sprained or broken his wrist.

“Stay there!” His mother yelled as he grabbed his wrist in his other hand. “Are you hurt anywhere else?” Concern was written across both their faces.

Lee tentatively began straightening his other limbs and moving body parts. “No, I don’t think so, just my wrist.” His wrist was visibly swelling as they watched.

“You sure, man?” Jim asked, “that was quite a tumble you took there.”

“Yeah, I’ve got a bit of a headache and a few other aches, but apart from my wrist, the rest just seems to be bruises.”

His mother on one side with Jim grabbing his other arm, they got him to his feet and the couch. He winced as they jarred his wrist.

“I think I should call Dr. Sharpe,“ Mom added, concern heavy in her voice. “You may have broken it.”

“No, I think it’ll be alright.” Lee said with the surety of every teenager who didn’t want another person to be privy to his clumsiness.

“Lee, I don’t know, man.” Jim looked at his wrist which was still swelling rapidly. “Your mom’s right, you may have broken it.”

“Nah, I think it’s just a sprain. I just need to wrap it and put an icepack on it.” The wrist was already starting to feel a little better. He knew it might be broken, but he also knew his regenerator power was already busy starting to fix it. He wanted to get it wrapped and out of sight before it revealed his regeneration to Jim’s eyes. He gave his mom a pleading look and jerked his head toward Jim.

Evidently realizing what he trying to convey, she sighed, giving him a look that mothers have given their children since time immemorial. Shaking her head, she went off to grab an Ace bandage. She came back and handed it to Jim, who, as an athlete himself, knew how to wrap an injured joint, while she went to prepare the icepack.

Lee hissed as Jim began to wrap the wrist. It was still plenty tender even as it started healing. As Jim finished wrapping it, Lee’s mother brought the ice pack and placed it gently on the injured arm, then she left them.

They sat there, an awkward silence between them for several minutes. Lee fidgeted, messing with his arm to keep from looking at Jim.

“So that drug has done all this to you?” Skepticism evident in Jim’s voice.

Lee looked up and began his, by now, well practiced spiel about the drug and what the doctors said. The lies tripping glibly off his tongue.

“Lee!” Jim interrupted sharply. “This is me you’re talking to, I’ve known you since we were both in training pants. I know you well enough to know when you’re lying, too!”

Lee sat there dumbfounded. He knew a lot of kids at school didn’t really believe his story, but their disbelief was limited and was more for the sake of having something to taunt him with. Jim was really the first one to openly call his bluff.

Lee sat there for a moment with his mouth open. He tried to think of something to salvage the situation, but nothing came to mind.

“It must be the drug,” he began feebly.

“Bull hockey! No drug is doing this. What’s really going on?” He paused waiting for Lee say something. When he didn’t, Jim took the bull by the horns. “You manifested, didn’t you?

Lee just sat there dumbfounded. Finally, he nodded, not trusting himself to hold back his tears, if he said anything.

“I thought so,” Jim said softly. “It’s okay. I had already kinda figured it out. I ran into Chuck on the way over here, and he told me about some your changes.”

“Oh, no! Chuck knows too?” Lee could feel the moisture welling up in his eyes.”

“No, no.” Jim laughed. “He hasn’t got a clue. He was trying to talk me into going hunting for this devisor that gave you the bum drug. He wants to beat him up. No, I figured it out on my own. — You see,” he paused for a long moment, “I manifested back in the summer, too.”

Lee looked like a fish gulping for air. Finally, “You did what?”

“I manifested as a mutant.” Jim said firmly.

“What did it do to you? You look the same, just a little more buff.”

“Not much, but that’s where Dad and I have been. We went to Atlanta to visit the Guardians, so I could get tested. Turns out, I’m what they call a Package Deal Psychic, or PDP-3 they said. I also may be a level 2 empath, which is not usually part of the package, and also possibly a fairly low level exemplar; making me a little stronger and bulking me up. Though with PDPs, it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference. They said my powers might get stronger as I learned to use them. I also got at least a little boost in other mental capabilities. You know memory, problem solving, that sort of thing.”

Lee was getting rather tired of feeling like he’d been hit between the eyes with a two by four. Jim was a mutant, too? “How long have you known?”

“Well, I’ve suspected for about three months. At first, mom and dad just thought I was going through a growth spurt, but then things started happening. Like I’d answer a question from one of them before they asked it, or once I told Dad to turn down a different street to get home, but of course he didn’t. Then two blocks later when a girl in a Porsche came out of a side street and clipped his fender, he gave me a really strange look. Bitch had the audacity to try and blame Dad for the damage to her Porsche, too. But two weeks ago was the clincher, Mom caught me moving chess pieces around the board without touching them, and the rest as they say is history.”

Lee was both delighted to have someone else who he could talk to about this but at the same time he was more than a little jealous. Why couldn’t his changes have buffed him up as a boy. Why did it have to turn him into a stupid girl?

—————

Lee’s Mom smiled from where she stood just around the corner. Marge, Jim’s mother had already told her about Jim as she had told her about Lee. Just as Jim was Lee’s best friend, Marge was hers. She was glad Lee might no longer feel so much like he was going through this alone.

—————

“So what’s it doing to you?” Jim asked.

“How long have you known about me?” Lee tried to change the subject, as he blushed. ‘How do you tell your best friend that you’re turning into a girl?’

“I’ve suspected since that day at practice, I guess. I mean I never saw anything, much less anyone, move that fast, and the purple rabbit was kind of a give away” Jim grinned.

“What purple rabbit?” He’s got a nice smile, Lee thought, then mentally did a rewind. What did I just think, I’ve never thought that about a guy’s smile before. He groaned to himself. This had to be a fluke. Yeah, he’s got a nice smile, but that’s no big deal. Lots of guy must have thought something like that before, he tried to tell himself.

“Earth to Lee, Earth to Lee, arrcch, Come in Lee.” Jim covered his mouth with his cupped hand to imitate talking into a mike.

Lee blushed more furiously at being caught woolgathering about Jim, of course, Jim couldn’t know that. Or could he? Lee had been reading up on mutants of all kinds since manifesting. As a PDP, Lee knew Jim would have some telepathic abilities, it was mainly a question of how much and could he use it yet? Lee’s face was now probably radiating into the far infrared.

“Purple rabbit?” Lee desperately again tried to change the subject, but his traitorous mind couldn’t stop thinking about that damn cute smile. Cute! Cute! He did not just think that. Again!

Fortunately, Jim seemed to be oblivious to Lee’s thoughts or discomfort.

“Yep, purple rabbit. I don’t think anyone else saw it before it scampered under the bleachers, but I did. You some kind of magic user?”

“Yeah, I guess. I seem to have an affinity to magic. Cantrip thinks I might be fairly powerful someday.”

“Who’s Cantrip?”

She’s the wizard/witch I’ve been studying magic under. You know, so my powers don’t get out of control. They seem to think I could go into burnout pretty easy if I don’t learn to control using it.” Lee replied before thinking about the implications of what he was saying.

“Who’s they?” Jim queried.

Realizing what he’d said, Lee grimaced, “Oh, just some people who have been trying to help me get a handle on this mess. I can’t tell you who, I kinda promised to keep their names secret.”

“That’s alright. Don’t worry about it, I shouldn’t have asked. It’s hard keeping all this stuff secret, isn’t it? It’s too bad mutants like us have to hide just to live.” Jim said a little morosely. He looked at Lee’s face and head.

“So what else did it do to you? I mean you look a little different, kind of — softer and what’s with the hair?” Jim looked at him thoughtfully.

Lee started blushing again. Ignoring Jim’s last statement, Lee went into his power ratings from the new MID he’d picked up at Doc’s the last time.

“Well, according to my testing results, I’m wizard 3 or 4. Mostly I test out as a 3, but I seem to be able to do some things that only a 4 or higher should be able to do. I’m an Exemplar 4 or will be when my BIT finishes with me. I’m a devisor 2, a gadgeteer 4, and I am a regenerator 3+, but they weren’t equipped to test for anything higher.”

“Woh, dude! That’s a wicked set of powers. Anything else?”

“Well, I’ve been growing like a weed. When I was tested they said I had the balance and reflexes of a cat, but with this latest growth spurt, I’ve gotten more than a little clumsy. Hopefully, that will pass. All my senses are heightened at least somewhat; my memory is near perfect and my problem solving is better, kinda like yours; ——— and I’m turning into a girl.” Lee mumbled at the end.

“You’re WHAT?!”

The look on Jim’s face would have been priceless if they had been discussing anything, or better yet anyone else. Lee was blushing down to his socks. He was staring at the floor afraid to look at Jim.

“Did you just say you were changing into a girl?” Jim asked more softly, but still the incredulity dripping from his voice was quickly making Lee regret telling him. Oh, well, another friend gone, maybe at least I can keep him from telling anyone else, since I know he’s a mutant.

“Yeeaah, that’s what I said.” Tears were glistening in his eyes again.

“Wow, — that’s rough, man, errr, girl.” Jim shook his head sympathetically.

Lee snuck a glance up through his eyelashes to see if Jim making fun of him. It didn’t look like he was, it looked like he was really trying to accept Lee’s changes without judgement, but he was obviously still thunderstruck.

What Lee failed to realize was just how cute, feminine, and coquettish glancing up at Jim through his eyelashes made him look. The tears beginning to steak his face completed the look.

———-

Jim gulped as Lee gave a very credible whipped puppy look. He half expected Lee to whimper. _Wow, this was going to hard to deal with, for both of us,_ he thought.

Two things had been constants in Jim’s life up until now. One was his family, and the other had been his best friend and partner in crime, Lee. Lee, who was a boy, not this vulnerable girlish-looking creature here with him now.

He sat back sharply on the sofa, staring blankly at Lee. He had thought he had it rough finding out he was a mutant, but, wow! This was radical.

Suddenly, he was seeing all the changes in Lee that he hadn’t really paid attention to before. Looking beyond the hair and face, and feeling with his new empathy power, he realized for the first time that the person in front of him was not the same Lee he’d always known. The irrepressible confidence that had always been a part of Lee was — not gone exactly, but different. There was an element of fear and uncertainty that he had never known in his friend. The determination to carry through was still there, but it was mixed with confusion and fright.

Jim didn’t blame him. Jim knew he would be terrified; they would probably find him curled in a corner peeling the wallpaper off with his teeth. No, he didn’t blame Lee. Jim admired him. Lee was facing this the best he knew how, just like he had always done everything.

He looked at Lee again, seeing more of the small physical changes that his mind had edited out before, and his own powers now fully engaged, he realized that Lee was further along toward becoming a girl, than probably even Lee realized. Jim’s heart, like billions of males before him, was melting at the tears leaking from Lee’s eyes. He wanted to do something — anything to stop them.

Jim scooted closer to his friend who was in so much pain, and did something he would have never thought of doing before today. He put his arm around Lee’s shoulder and pulled him into a gentle tentative hug.

———

Lee sagged into the crook of Jim’s arm without thinking about what he was doing, and relaxed for the first time really since he had found out what was happening. His best friend had accepted him. A long tremulous sigh escaped his lips. Maybe he could take whatever else the world threw at him.