Jasmine's P.O.V

I could hardly believe the sight before me. A scene I'd seen so many times – my Grand-father Silas turning up unexpectedly, standing grinning in the doorstep, hair slicked back as if he was still a top journalist even though he'd been retired for decades, carrying a small bag of which I assumed the contents were intellectual books and chess pieces. However seeing this no longer brought me joy – far from it. I felt physically sick just looking at him, like I should run to the bathroom but my legs refused to move. My whole body did.

I could tell from the tension in the room that everyone else felt the same, probably with the exception of Silas himself – I hated referring to him as "Granddad" anymore, however Bart managed a slight movement to reach for my hand, giving it a squeeze. He was looking directly at me, the concern in his eyes overwhelming, but for once I couldn't make Bart my sole focus. He seemed to share the thought as his eyes wondered towards his cousin, who Silas had locked in the cellar underneath the pub for weeks on end with the intention to kill her as soon as Bobby was born.

"You alright Merc?" He asked shakily even though she was clearly the opposite. She couldn't even summon herself to nod in response.

"YOU STAY AWAY FROM HER ALRIGHT!"

The situation had trapped me in such a dazey state, it took me a while to register the northern accent of my boyfriend, right up against Silas's face, his voice roaring at a volume I hadn't known it was possible to reach.

"Both of them", he added, still almost yelling but stepping back and composing himself slightly. "Jas and Mercy". He shook his head. "All of them".

"I beg your pardon", Silas replied mockingly. "But that is no way to speak to your elders".

The weirdest thing was that I didn't even know how I felt. This man had killed my mother and a part of me did contain a strong hatred towards him, but he was also the man that had sat me on his knee and read me bedtime stories even when I was probably too old for them, the man that I'd felt able to tell anything. The only adult in the family who had seemed to just get it. I'd loved him so much and if my time in Hollyoaks had taught me anything it was that you couldn't turn your feelings off that easily.

Maybe it would have been easier if I'd gone to his trial – gotten some closure. As it was, I hadn't seen him since November the previous year, in this very flat, when I'd walked in on his confession to Riley, him begging for forgiveness, the police racing to take him away. I'd tried not to think about him, to occupy my mind with other things – my new life in California, my fresh start. But the past has a way of catching up on you.

"Jasmine?"

Granddad – Silas, Jas, Silas – was now staring at me intently, as if he couldn't believe his eyes. He wasn't the only one. All of the conversation, if you could call it that, since I beg your pardon, I'd missed as I'd been too deep in my thoughts, but now I was snapped back to reality.

"Yeah". It was a pathetic reply but it was the only one I had.

"Jasmine".

Bart grabbed him by his collar as he repeated my name.

"I said stay away from her alright?"

"Bart stop it!" I could hear my voice going up a pitch, quavering as I struggled to hold back the tears. I wasn't sure why I wanted to cry – whether it was fright towards the serial killer in my living room, concern for the safety of myself and my loved ones, the past being dragged up once again, Bart getting so annoyed – it was probably just a rush of emotion triggered by the shock of what was happening.

"I'm calling the police", Mitzeee informed us all shakily as she made her way over to the landline phone.

"Please", my grandfather begged, desperation in his voice, in his eyes. "Just give me ten minutes".

"Or what?" Mitzeee challenged, not looking anywhere near as strong as she was probably trying to. "Or I'll end up in a graveyard next to India Longford? I'm sure that would do wonders for your sentence".

"Just ten minutes", he repeated, looking on the verge. "You're my family". He looked at Bart and Mercedes with a vengeance. "With the exception of the McQueen's", he added. "Mercedes. You're looking better than the last time I saw you. Ah, and Bart – back now Jasmine wants to be a girl I see. I wonder if it would be the same if she were still Jason". He stroked his chin. "Questions questions".

"Fuck off", Bart told him, looking about to burst into tears, his tough guy act out of the window.

"Let him have his ten minutes", I said. "I want to know what he's got to say".

Everyone stared at me in shock as I walked over to the front door and closed it, gesturing to Silas to sit down. No-one moved except for him and myself.

"You're Jasmine again", he repeated as he sat down, shaking his head in disbelief. "I always thought you were sure".

I sat on the opposite sofa, he reached his hand out to my knee. It was just a small, light touch but it made me want to scrub my whole body thoroughly with soap.

"It must have been such a hard decision", he told me, the look in his eyes that of my caring Granddad and not of some-one capable of murder.

"It was", I agreed, realising tears were cascading down my face. "I needed you".

It was true – all the way through my transition back to Jasmine, he and Bart had been the two people I'd wanted by me the most. The people who would've known what to say. I couldn't talk to Dad. The first time he'd found out about my confusion had been when he saw me running out of a hospital room thirty minutes before I was due to have the procedure to turn me into Jason completely.

"Okay Jason, you just need to drink this", Charlene, a nurse I was by now used to, smiled as she handed me a small plastic cup containing the drugs that would put me out for the duration of my sex change operation. I looked down at my chest – it wasn't strapped down as it needed to be worked on during the procedure. For years I'd strapped it down as hard as I could, until there was almost no feeling in my entire upper body. It had seemed ugly – the amount of times I'd considered just cutting them off before coming to my senses were countless. However over the past few months I'd found myself questioning my opinions on my body and had tried out dressing as a girl in the privacy of my room on multiple occasions. As I looked down at my unbinded chest now, all I could think of were the things that myself and others had said about my gender in the past.

"Jasmine's gone Mum – I'm Jason now. I can't go back, and even if I could - I don't want to".

"Do you think I chose to be like this? Don't you think I could stop feeling like this if I could?"

"How would kissing you make megay? You're a girl! All this, it's not who you really are, and deep down you knowthat Jasmine!"

"Jasmine didn't leave you, Bart. She just … never really existed".

I felt tears building up in confusion as the words of the past whizzed through my brain to the vision of my now visibly female body. I'd been so wrapped up in convincing everyone I was still intent on becoming a boy that I'd pushed my own views to the side, hadn't sorted out my head. As soon as I'd started to have doubts I'd known that if anyone were to discover that I'd be forced back into being Jasmine Costello, having many a frilly dress and make-up set thrown my way. Everyone would be ecstatic. And I wasn't sure that was what I wanted yet. I wanted time to sort things out. But I hadn't used the time to do that, and now here I was, lying in a hospital bed about to change into a boy.

"You know all about the procedure?" Charlene double-checked, more because she had to than anything else – she knew how many times I'd been talked through it.

"Yep".

"Any last minute questions?"

I shook my head vigorously, desperately trying to shake the voices of doubt from my head and swallowed the drugs in one gulp, just wanting everything to be over. The thought of not being able to go back now was terrifying and I just wanted to go to sleep and block it all out as soon as possible.

"Okay well we'll wait until your asleep then get you into the theatre, then we're good to go", another nurse I didn't recognise told me. "You'll finally get what you've always wanted".

"Be who-ever you need to be", Anita Roy's words sprang into my mind. "Boy or girl. But you're going to need to decide".

I didn't know what I wanted. But I knew for certain that I was in no state to go ahead with something this definitive.

"I'm so sorry", I spat out in a rush as I jolted out of the room, bursting open the door and legging it down the corridor. I had no idea of where I was or where I was going but I just needed to run.

"Jason?"

My Dad's voice came from behind, sounding concerned. I ignored it and continued running. I heard the sound of him chasing after me.

"Son? What's happened? Have they done something? Jason?"

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" I yelled, flinging myself into a near bathroom and locking the door. I didn't know what I wanted him to call me – I wasn't sure I wanted to be called Jasmine either, I didn't know what I wanted. All I knew was that I wanted to be the one who made the choice. I didn't want others defining my gender for me.

As I collapsed to the floor, the drugs starting to kick in, tears streaming down my face, there were only two faces in my mind. Bart and Silas.

First I saw a car approaching, it's speed high – it seemed the perfect opportunity. I flung myself in front of it until the glass of the front window shattered and cut into my face as I was pushed to the ground.

I heard gasps, a car door opening, hurried footsteps, then felt a hand around me.

"Jas?" Bart's voice was unmistakable – he sounded broken. Past the point of tears. It was in that moment, that one word, that I learnt how much he really cared. I kept thinking about how much he missed Jasmine, how much it killed him knowing that she was never coming back.

Then I saw my Grandad, coming into my room, sitting down, and being the first person to accept me as Jason, telling me that he'd always noticed I was different, more masculine that most other girls, and that he'd support me. I wanted him now more than ever, no matter what he'd done – he'd know what to say, what to do. But he wasn't there, and he never would be again. As I fell asleep the image implanted in my mind was the sight I'd seen that night in October – my mother's lifeless body.

"You weren't there", I repeated, wiping my eyes and cursing myself for crying over this monster.

"I'm so sorry Jasmine", he told me honestly.

"And what about all those girls? Are you sorry about them too?"

I never got an answer to that question. The next thing I knew Silas was at the opposite end of the room, getting a knife out of his pocket and holding it to Mitzeee's throat.

"You think I didn't notice that, don't you? You secretly reaching for your phone, I presume to call the police. I'm surprised you found a pocket to fit your phone into with the little amount of material you wear", he scoffed. "But you're not cleverer than me, Anne. Never make the mistake of thinking that you are".

Mitzeee didn't say anything, just moved her head to the side, facing away from him as she cried.

"GET THE FUCK OFF HER!" Riley enraged, making his way towards Silas.

"Now now Riley – what did I always teach you? Patience is a virtue", Silas replied, edging the knife closer to Mitzeee. "But sometimes, Anne, there's simply no time to wait about. You just have to get straight to the good bit".