Note: This is not the last chapter of the daily updates! I couldn't write on saturday, because I'm currently 400km away from home and was busy partying XD
But on sunday (yesterday) I could add some paragraphs to 28 posted yesterday and 29 below, wrote 30 and 31. So daily updates will go on until wednesday, more if I write today, which is very likely. I can cram between 2 and 4 chapters a day so let's see where this leads us ^^

Oh, and one thing was obvious in your reviews for the previous chapter: none of you want Mihael to have a sex change. You know that the next chapters are already written, and that I'm not one to change my mind on a plot according to reviews. But if you know me a bit as an author, well, you know I only root for MattxMello as guys and that my plots do U-turns very often just because I don't like predictable stuff. So read on! (not to give anything away, but I know what it is to fear for the next events in a fic, so I wanted to reassure you, if I was a reader of this fic and not the author, I'd probably have already tracked down the author, hung him/her by the feet and whipped him/her to death... XD)


Mello
Fuck. Shit. Fucking damn shit. The question I had dreaded for weeks. Of course he would have noticed at some point.
I was trying to make this last until September, when I'd be finally back, because it was impossible for me to come back now. I had begun a long process and things weren't yet settled in the US for the suite of what I had begun.
It was a surprise, and I couldn't ruin it. First. And second, I didn't want to have the opportunity to change my mind, it had already been hard to take the decision.
Because taking the decision to change something you like in the first place is not something easy.

I was trying to become the girl Mail would love. Because even if I never had a problem with being a guy, never thought I should have been a girl, I was gay, ok, but I was ok with that. I wasn't transsexual, well, I had a problem with the obstacle between Mail and me as a couple. So if I had to make the sacrifice of what I was for him to love me fully, then I'd do it. It wasn't such a big deal, after all. Or at least, that's what I tried to tell myself everyday when I vomited under the effect of hormones.

But although I was doing all of this so he could finally have me as he wished, facing the truth of what I was doing for real, with him, telling him, was just way more stressing than I thought. It's when I realised that although I was doing this for myself (I was aware that it was to serve my interests better, to be with the one I loved, I couldn't say I was doing it for him, let's be realistic), to let him know now was meaning that he'd give his advice, and even if I had persuaded myself until now that he would jump of joy and we'd have our happy ever after once I'd be back, it wasn't so easy. What if he finally decided that he wouldn't like a fake girl as a girlfriend?
Let's be realistic once again, even if I went to the end of the process, I'd never feel feminine. It's not like I had issues with my gender, I wasn't a woman trapped in a guy's body, I had the body that suited my gender and I loved it.

That's why taking the decision had been difficult. It was crazy, unreasonable, I knew it. It was like getting a nose job when mine was perfectly shaped, or dying my hair black although I liked being a true blond. I was going against everything I was, and I wasn't letting rational thoughts get in the way: no, I wouldn't regret it, no, Mail would not freak out and no I shouldn't tell him first, yes, we'd be together forever, there was no possibility that we broke up once we were together when I'd be a chick...
I was impulsive, and this time I think I was exploding my own limits.

As soon as I had arrived in Berlin, I had taken an appointment with a psychiatric centre for gender change. Where I learnt that I would need to have regular visits with a psychiatrist during 2 to 7 years to make sure I really wanted to become a woman, then I would get a hormonal treatment for life, and I could get surgery if I wanted to complete the process after a few more years. I didn't have those years, I had until September.
I briefly considered travelling to a country where it was easier, and quicker, to get a gender change, but it would still take a few months because you needed to get hormones change your biology before getting surgery, even without the long psychiatric process, and the cost... fuck!
I needed at least to begin the treatment. Mail would wait for me, right? I could get surgery the next year, at least I planned to...
In my mind, if it hadn't taken all these years, I wasn't even bothered by the act I would have had to play in front of psychiatrists. I knew I could do it, lying is something I can do, I could convince anyone of anything, I'm that good. So even if I didn't really hate my male body except for the fact Mail didn't like it, I could pull out the most heart wrenching story possible about how feminine I felt inside and needed to get this horrible outgrowth removed.

So with a little help of the black market and not-so-legal ways, I managed to get the treatment, at a cost that emptied half of my bank account in Germany (and believe me, I had more than twenty thousands Euros on it...)
I still needed to settle ways to get the treatment once I'd be back in California, my contact in Berlin was working things out but it was taking time and his own contact there announced two months before I could get on his list of customers, he couldn't get enough treatment for me before September since he had difficulties to get the chemicals cross the customs illegally, and he had other customers to serve first. And of course, it was out of question for me to take the medics with me when I'd take the plane back to California, I'd be arrested.
And without proof that I was followed by the gender change centre or something similar and legal, and serious, then I'd have big problems. As a gay, going in jail was nothing I dreamt of, believe me. I'm not fond of picking up the soap.

I had dreaded that I wasn't buying a real hormonal treatment since it was all illegal, and I was kinda paranoid about every symptom the first days, I could as well be taking amphetamines, acid, vitamins, or a placebo. But nothing except symptoms close to what I imagine were ones of a pregnancy began: nausea, throwing up, dizziness, tiredness, abnormal hunger, irritated mood... At least I could feel womanly. Great.

So, the treatment made me sick as hell. It got slightly better after the first month, although I kept on throwing up and get hungry all the time, but when my voice had changed so much that it sounded way more feminine than previously, I had to tell Mail I would send him emails and find a lie to explain why I wouldn't call, things were becoming too obvious. But Mail didn't buy the lie, it was too bad to be swallowed anyway. Proof is, he called me on my cell tonight. I could have called myself, from my cell, if the home lines were being changed, and he probably knew it even if he didn't say a word about it when I lied to him.

Thus when he asked me the question I dreaded so much, I couldn't find the words to reply. So I cut the call.
He called me again, and left a message on my answering machine.
"Mihael, answer me, please! You won't make me believe that everything's fine after hanging up like this. If you don't tell me, I'll find out by myself even if I have to fly to Germany."
I was unable to call him. He left a second message, when I ignored his call again.
"I'm not kidding Mihael, I'm reserving a flight while I'm talking to you right now, I'm leaving tomorrow at 9am, and you'd better have your explanations ready because I'll be ready to hear anything you have to say."
Oh fuck, I loved him, it was beyond words. I know he was serious, he'd fly here just for me even if he didn't have the money, putting himself in a pretty bad situation. And moreover, all he wanted was to know what was wrong, whatever it was, making it clear that he'd accept anything, he just worried for me...

I don't know if it was the hormones, but I began to cry like a fucking chick. Well, at least I started to act like one...
At his third call, I replied. I couldn't ignore him anymore, I was beginning to fear that he thought I didn't want to talk to him anymore, and never called again.
"Mihael... damn, what's so bad that you can't tell me? Please... don't let me like this, not knowing what's wrong with the person that counts the most for me..."
Whether he was trying to buy me or not, I knew he was sincere even if the choice of words was probably not innocent.
"Mail..." I sobbed pathetically.
"Mihael, fuck, don't cry, hey... shit, I wish I was next to you right now, it's so damn frustrating to be far away when you're in that state!"
I knew that if I tried to talk, I would break down in cries, so I just sniffled even more pathetically.
"Mihael, talk to me. I don't care that you sob, cry or whatever sound you make. Just talk to me, there's nothing to be ashamed of."
His voice was so comforting, so tender. I couldn't ignore his pleas, I owed him an answer.

"I'll be back in September Mail, and I'll be your girlfriend."

Matt
I opened my mouth, closed it, opened it again, I think I was starting to lack air. That couldn't mean what I thought it meant!
My mother was right. It couldn't be true, he hadn't done that! But what if she was right? No, it's just not possible.
I was blunt but I had no other way to spit it out, shock taking me over completely, various scenarios and horrible bloody images of surgery coming to my mind:
"Mihael, don't tell me that you got surgery?"
"No, of course not!"
Holy shit, at least this was excluded of the picture... I breathed again, partially relieved.
"Then what? Explain to me, I don't understand then, how could you be my girlfriend?"
It was beyond my understanding, we were not just talking about cross dressing, he wouldn't be crying for that, and avoiding talking to me! And the voice change wouldn't be explained then.
That's when my mind registered that Mihael was crying.
Mihael didn't cry! That was just so out of character!

And he explained to me, everything, from his first visit at the centre, to the black market, which earned him a scolding, I mean, who knows what could have been in pills from the black market, it could as well have been drugs or poison!
I could feel in his voice that he wanted my approval. And I was unable to tell anything about that. I didn't know what to think. Except that he was really loving me for doing all this. I was flattered, but I wasn't sure I liked the idea. Oh, I know he was partially acting egoistically, he wanted to be with me, it wasn't just to please me, but as much as he tried to make it sound like he did it for himself, trying not to involve me, as the badass he wanted to look like, that takes his own decisions and stuff, I knew him better than that.
He knew the risks, not only the fact he could have gotten false pills, but the fact he was putting his health in the balance, and I knew that he respected himself enough not to jump with a blindfold in such a process. Everything screamed of unwise decisions, taken under the influence of pain. Affective pain. And it was a pain I was inflicting him, because of what I said, what I did. If I had simply told him I had tried but I really wasn't attracted to him, then he wouldn't have done that. I should have never told him that I was in love with the female Mihael.
It was cruel and I was seeing it only now, when it was too late.

I was happy that he had told me everything. We ended up on Skype for the rest of the night. Now that he wasn't afraid to talk to me anymore, he accepted any way to talk to me, and a free live chat was better than the phone, I could have him for the whole night.
Or at least what was the night for him. I sent him to sleep at some point because I could hear he was tired. This treatment seemed to be really hard on him and I was still worried so I wanted him to have some sleep so things wouldn't get worse.

It was time for me to sleep too, when we closed the connexion, it was night for me too now.
I drifted to dreamland very fast, the tension being relieved, I caught up with all the sleepless nights I had had during the previous weeks. I only woke up at 2pm the next day.

I immediately talked to my mother at breakfast. The face she made... she was horrified.
"Oh my little fox! That's so horrible! What he's going through just for you, you can't let him do that!"
I stared at her, I didn't get what she meant. Ok, I wasn't sure I liked the idea, although it would solve our problems of course, but if Mihael wanted to do it, why should I stop him?
"Honey, do you understand that he will never be the same after that? I'm not talking about gender only, but everything that makes Mihael who he is! You said yourself that he liked being a boy, he can't change his gender just because you could only love him if he was a girl! He may regret it someday, and what if doesn't work out, you two?"
She was right, and she had voiced everything that was confusedly turning in my head since I had learnt the truth.

I know he didn't want me to feel guilty, but I didn't buy the 'I do it for me, not because of you, I'm clever enough to know what I'm doing and not get influenced by anyone'.
Feeling guilty, I could ask him to stop. And if I had a responsibility, then it would mean he was indeed doing it because of me, and then, it was saying something about his true motivations, calling into question the nature of the gender change itself. Because I knew he didn't want this change, no matter what he said.
And asking him to stop something he didn't really wanna do, well... I guess it would be difficult for him to go on with the change. And it would bring us back to the starting point, with no solution to our problem.

But it was obvious we had a bigger problem now.
I knew I had to make Mihael stop the treatment, and get his ass back here.
I didn't want him to change. I didn't want to risk that he lost an ounce of his personality, I didn't want him to regret doing this later because he didn't really want it and I was sure of it.
Damn, who knew what hormones would do to him as a person? It was a serious matter but I couldn't help but tell myself that Mihael under oestrogens, with his temper, was something the world shouldn't experience.
It dawned on me that more than the change due to hormones on his personality, what could change it the most was regret. Getting rid of his masculinity, since he loved being a man, would more than certainly act on him like depression, hatred of his feminised body, and in the end, he could even hate me for being the catalyst of what he would have done to himself.

I went back to my mother a while later.
She was of good advice and she would probably help me to find the words to get Mihael to stop this shit.
We sat on our old couch, and where I expected her to simply say things to me that were true and obvious, the kind of things that you don't think about by yourself, but of which you say afterwards 'Damn! Why didn't I think about that in the first place?', she told me that it was something impossible over the phone, that it was difficult to know whether he would stop or not, and that it was a serious matter that I had to solve in person since I was at the origin of it, that I owed that to Mihael. Not really knowing where this was leading me, I was completely taken aback when she persuaded my father, then made me promise to work with him at the garage as soon as I'd be back, until the beginning of classes for my second year in university, so he could take extra customers to pay for my flight, and had me reserve a flight to Berlin a few hours later.
I was a bit uneasy, considering my parents' financial situation, but my mother used the fact that I passed my exams brilliantly to convince my father. I don't know why, but she seemed to root for Mihael more than I expected. She looked anxious that I could lose him, almost as much as me...