Keith only gave a quick curtesy knock before he barged into their room and flopped across the foot of the bed, almost landing on their feet. Marcus wiggled his feet at Keith's shoulders and Keith waved an arm at him to get him to stop. Obligingly, they set their books down to give him their full attention. Apparently, Lance had been giving him lessons on how to be Dramatic. Or he was just following Lance's theatrics just to be a little shit, like usual. He wasn't sitting beside her, facing away like he usually was when he was truly upset. Although, he hadn't ever done this before, so Rosalina was unsure where this conversation was going to go.

"What's wrong?" Rosalina asked, trying to be neutral. No need to freak out yet, right?

"You still like Pidge even though they're non-binary, right?"

It had been a few weeks since Pidge had come out to their parents. So far, they had only needed to stay at the McClain house that one week, but Rosalina made sure they knew the invitation was always open, no matter what time they needed to come over. Rosalina knew that Christmas was sure to raise tensions, and she made sure that Pidge knew that they wouldn't be intruding if they needed to come on Christmas, either. She'd even made them promise that they would call her immediately if they were uncomfortable or didn't want to be around their family because they weren't being respectful.

"Yes?" Rosalina replied, shrugging at Marcus when he raised an eyebrow at her. "Why do you ask?"

"Would you care if one of your own kids was trans, too?" Keith asked instead of replying, carefully not looking at them. He fingered the edge of the blanket, folding it back and forth and watching it intently.

Huh. Not how she thought he would come out to them, if she were being honest.

"Well," she answered slowly. "I would care because—" she hesitated, wondering if she should be just a vague or if she should low-key call him out, then continued, "because they're my child and I always want to help my child be happy and support them the best that I can. So, yes, I would care. But I wouldn't be mad or upset or anything."

Keith didn't respond for a moment, instead focusing intensely on fiddling with the blanket. Rosalina and Marcus let him—it was clear he was struggling with what words he wanted to use. But that was okay. He could take as much time as he needed. She was also glad that they had had that talk with Shiro and Adam and they had been more than helpful on explaining how they could be supportive if Keith ever did come out as trans.

If this was Keith coming out as trans.

"Cool." Keith stared determinately at the blanket, then popped up and turned to face them, sitting cross-legged and staring intently at them, fingers tapping aggressively on his knees. His violet-gray eyes never wavered, but there was a sort of steadfast determination behind them. "I'm trans."

"Thank you for telling us," Marcus said before she could start weeping. He was grinning brightly at Keith, like this was the happiest news he had ever heard.

Damn it, now she was crying. But she was laughing, too, as she brushed her tears away. Keith looked mildly horrified at her reaction but she sniffed and said, "I'm not upset, honey. These are happy tears. I'm so happy you confided in us and—" She screeched when Lance popped up from the side of her bed to hand her a tissue. "What the cheese, Lance!"

Lance, the little shit, was cackling. "Keith wanted me in here for moral support."

"When did you even get in here?"

"I crawled in after Keith."

She took the tissue from Lance to blow her nose. She playfully swatted at Lance as he crawled onto her bed to go sit by Keith. "I guess this saves having to call a partial family meeting."

Marcus cleared his throat. "So... So what can we do? To best support you? Do you want us to use different pronouns? A different name? Make you an appointment for—for hormones?"

"Uhm." Keith hunched his shoulders and gave a tiny shrug. Lance was quick to wrap an arm around him. "I—I think—I dunno, yet. I'm not, like, dysphoric or anything? I don't think I want to be on hormones, yet. And I think I'm a girl, so—so could you, uhm." Keith gave them a shy smile. "Can you use female pronouns for me, please? Uhm. But just at home and with Hunk and Pidge and Shiro and Adam. I... don't think I'm ready to be out in public like that, yet."

"We'll try our best," Rosalina promised. "Do you want us to let the rest of the family know?"

Keith adamantly shook his—her head. "I don't think I'm ready for—for like, extended family to know yet. Uhm. But my—my siblings can know." She had a shy, proud smile as she said siblings, and Rosalina's heart stuttered when she remembered that Keith hadn't had siblings prior to just a few months ago. And now she had five. "Uhm. I haven't decided on a name, yet."

"That's okay," said Marcus. "Just let us know if you do decide you want us to use a different name."

Keith nodded, still smiling shyly. Then she popped forward to pull them into a hug. Lance was quick to join with a gleeful laugh, tackling them all with a whoop.

On the last day of school before break a few days later, the gang all came over to her house and invaded her living room. As Keith had said weeks ago, the breakup hadn't affected their friend group any. Keith and Hunk weren't bitter at each other, and Keith was even teasing Hunk about this other girl he had started liking (and was, apparently, the primary reason they had broken up).

"When are you going to ask her out?" Rosalina heard Keith ask, coming back from her room from dropping her bag off. Rosalina followed after. She wasn't nosy. Heaven's no! She just... wanted to ask if they wanted snacks!

"I don't want her to feel like she's a rebound or something!" Hunk cried, biting at his nails.

"Gimme her number," Keith demanded, hand held out. "I'll ask her out for you."

"No!"

Rosalina cleared her throat. The four teenagers looked up at her expectantly. "Do you guys—sorry. Uhm. Does anyone want snacks? Drinks?"

Keith offered to help her bring the requested food and beverages to the living room. "You know," she said nonchalantly. "Pidge and I don't care if you say 'guys'. We know you mean it in a non-gendered way."

Rosalina heaved a sigh of relief. Thank goodness! She was so afraid of messing up or hurting her due to incompetence or negligence. "Thank you for letting me know. And let me know if I do mess up, okay? Your dad and I are still learning, but we're trying."

"I know." Keith gave her a smile. "Thanks. A lot. I really appreciate it."

Rosalina pressed a kiss to her cheek. "Anything for you."

"Still waiting on that pony."

"You said that unicorn was close enough!"

Keith cackled and raced out of the kitchen with the snacks.

All in all, telling her kids and grandkids didn't go as badly as she thought it would have. They broke the news at the next Sunday dinner, and Rosalina announced that Keith had something to say before they started eating.

"Uhm." She ducked her head when the attention was turned to her. "I'm—I'm a girl, now. So. Uhm, please use female pronouns and stuff. I haven't decided on a new name, yet." She cleared her throat and looked up at her siblings and niece and nephew. "And, uhm. I'm not ready to tell people, yet, so it stays with everyone at the table, okay?"

Rachel, sitting next to Keith, placed a hand over hers. "Gotcha, sis. Thank you for telling us."

Keith grinned. Everyone pretended that they didn't see her tearing up.

"Rowan," Keith said, umprompted, the Saturday before Christmas.

"What's that, dear?" Rosalina asked, sliding a plate in front of her husband.

"Please call me Rowan." Keith—Rowan, now, Rosalina supposed—tapped her fork against the table. "But—but just to the group who knows. I'm not—I'm not ready."

"That's fine, dear." Rosalina kissed her temple and sat down. "What do you say you and I go on a shopping trip after Christmas?" she asked as evenly as she could. "Get you some new clothes?"

"I—I don't need—I still have plenty of—"

"You don't have much 'girl' clothes, though, do you?" Rosalina knew she didn't. "If you don't want any, I won't make you. But I'm offering to get you new clothes if you want."

Keith—Rowan bit her lip, playing with the syrup on her plate. Lance was amazingly quiet, watching her. Hopefully Lance wasn't going to be jealous that they were showing Rowan more attention than to him. "That's a lot of money, though."

"Christmas present," was Marcus' reply.

Rowan shrugged. "I'll... think about it."

Rosalina dropped it. If she didn't want to go, she wouldn't make her, but... She was hoping they could go.

Luckily, she had an answer by the end of the day.

"Only if Lance can come, too," Rowan said, sitting beside her in bed. "I don't want him to feel left out."

"Of course," Rosalina replied. "I'm sure he'll have a better idea of fashion than the both of us put together."

Rowan grinned. "Probably." And with a smile, she bid them goodnight.