Note: As promised! I added a few lines before posting although it was written since friday, but I'm not on my own computer (oh, how I miss my beloved laptop) so there may be even more typos than usual, sorry!

I hope that FF will solve reviews, alerts and stuff problems because it's becoming really annoying. Their new system is already unnerving (I don't know for you, but I liked the old thing better), but if it doesn't work, it wasn't worth the change!

To reply to reviews quickly because I can't send private messages: I don't know how many chapters are left, this fic already went from 10-15 chapters planned when I started it, to 28 today, so I'd rather not estimate what's left, I'd probably be wrong. But it's not over yet, there's still a lot to come, this, I can say ^^
Oh, and just so you know, everything has been verified before being used in the fic, because I can't write anything that's not accurate, it's like with Lithium and all the medical side. So all the facts and informations are true concerning, well, just read, I won't give it away!

Matt
I wished I had had the money to go with him, although he never asked me to. I so wanted to see Mihael in Germany, hear him speak german, see how he acted where he came from.
No need to say I was bouncy the day he was coming back. Two weeks and I missed him like hell, although he had called me almost everyday. I had done nothing of my time while he was abroad, just surfed the web, chatted on the net, read articles. Yes, all about homosexuality. I was somehow obsessed with the topic.
I can't say that I wasn't hoping to change my mind, it would have made things so easier! But although watching gay sex movies didn't bother me anymore, it still didn't turn me on. There was no hope.

I also had spent a fair amount of time reviewing all the previous months in my head. I could even get angry at myself when I thought about how much of a fucktard I was before I met Mihael, and during the first months I knew him. I could realise how much I had changed, but how much he had changed too. Of course, I didn't know him for long, but he was so very far from the self assured, big headed blond with the cold look from our beginnings!
He still was somehow, if I thought about the club where he worked... when we weren't together, actually.
It made me realise that I may have changed him as much as he had changed me, but I couldn't be sure. It bothered me, because I didn't exactly know how he was with guys he dated, or friends, the short glance I had at the club with Zac Efron didn't tell much, nothing that happened at that moment was normal and I was half drunk, so I couldn't tell for sure.
But for me, he seemed to become so emotional sometimes, like he didn't know how to deal with my hesitations, and his own feelings. He looked clueless even if fortunately, he was collected enough to try to work things out with me. I bet he had way more qualities than I gave to his credit, although to me he already had a lot. He was patient, this I could now figure out, because he hadn't thrown me out of his apartment in the end, when we had our last fight, he coped with all my changes of mind, all my steps forward then backward...
Maybe he was as much of a teddybear inside than he was strong looking outside?
The thought made me laugh out loud.

When my phone rang and I saw that it was Mihael, I jumped off my seat. He was supposed to arrive at the airport in the evening and it was only 11am, maybe he had taken an early flight?

"Hey Mail..."
"Mihael! How is it going?" I was joyful, but not for long.
"I'm sorry, I know you had planned to pick me up at the airport, but I won't be coming back today... I hope I'm not telling you too late, I had to cancel my flight, I don't exactly know when I'll be back..."
"Oh..." I think I could have cried. But something was wrong, his voice was a bit different and he seemed tired. "Are you ok?" I asked, worried.
"No, I'm just sick, that's why I had to cancel, a bad cold, don't worry, I'll be fine, but I can't fly as long as I'm contagious..."
I could understand, of course, being miles high with a cold is not nice, but contagious? It meant it was kinda serious.
"Ok, please take care of you, I miss you..." the words passed my lips even before I could stop them.
"I miss you too... Mail..." He was about to say something but obviously stopped. Maybe it had sounded a little too much "lovetalk" and he was uncomfortable with this.
"I hope you'll be here soon, playing Tekken alone is not fun!" I tried to joke but the mood was sad for both of us.
"Don't worry, I'll come back to kick your ass soon." I could feel the smile in his words, and it comforted me a bit.
"Bye."
"Tchuss."
I liked it when he used german words, I could understand a few, and his accent was lovely.
I sighed. I wouldn't see him tonight, and the wait would be even harder now that I didn't even know when he'd come back. I wondered what he was about to say though.
I chuckled at the thought of our furious fights at Tekken 6. Kick my ass Mihael? I laughed. He could never beat me at any game.

He called me again everyday after that, four days in a row, but his voice was weirder each time, and it didn't sound like the voice of someone who has a cold, so I was starting to worry, mostly because I had the impression that Mihael was lying to me and trying to find excuses not to come back. Ah, I was becoming paranoid now...

But when he stopped calling me everyday, I really began to be sick with anxiety.
I had no news the next day, but I didn't want to call, first because it would cost me an arm and I didn't have the money, and because I didn't want to harass him. Did he find a boyfriend? Was he beginning to regret coming to the USA? Would he come back? Was he mad at me?
After four days he finally called, and truth is, if he hadn't I would have done it, no matter the cost.
We didn't talk long, he sounded awfully tired, and now I was worried for a totally different reason.
"Mihael, is your disease serious?" I asked bluntly, unable to contain myself.
"Kinda. It will take some time before I get better, but don't worry ok, it's not that bad, I'm just a bit tired..."
"I can hear it... you would tell me if there was something else, right?"
"Mail, don't worry that much, I'll be back, I promise, it's not as bad as it sounds, and I want to see you too much not to come back." He reassured me on one point, but I was still sick with worry concerning his health. His voice was different, like higher pitched, and so strained...
"I wish I could do something..." What could I say?
"Just hearing your voice is already much, believe me..." Ok, now it really sounded like it was bad.
"Mihael, if something goes really wrong, tell me and I'll fly to Germany, don't let me in ignorance, ok?"
"Hey, I'm not gonna die, ok? It's nothing that bad." he chuckled but it was so forced I couldn't believe him.

I laid on my bed all night, unable to sleep, after that conversation. Early, around 6am, something came to my mind: I could probably search the web for any epidemy in Germany, maybe I would find out what Mihael had and see by myself how long it would take for him to be better?
But after scrolling pages and pages, jumping from one to another, I didn't find anything. There was no epidemy in Germany at the moment, so I began to type his symptoms and the first page that appeared in Google sent me throwing up in the bathroom. It was about AIDS.
I called him straight away.

"Mail, are you crazy? You don't have the money to make such a call, let me call you back!"
Mihael practically hung up to my nose. Seconds seemed hours before my cell rang as he called me back.
"Mail, what's wrong?"
"What's wrong? Mihael, you, what's wrong? You're not telling me much about your disease and I was searching the web and I found that page about AIDS and..." I talked so fast that I didn't even catch my breath.
"AIDS? Are you crazy Mail? Of course I don't have AIDS! I protect myself, in case you doubted it, I'm not stupid! Or to the least, I protected myself when I still had a sex life..." It was a poor attempt at a joke, but it made me feel worse, because it just reminded me of our situation.
And this voice, it was probably the line, but he sounded so different... I wanted to see him, hear his real voice, I would probably even hug him, damn, I missed him!
"I'm sorry, I think I'm getting paranoid. See what your absence do to me." My own poor attempt at a joke, but his reply somehow showed me some of the Mihael I knew.
"Yeah, I'm that awesome, I know, once you tasted the candy, you're addicted." Even his laughter was different.

After that day, one full week passed before he called, and we were already in august. My mum was trying everyday to cheer me up, to drag me outside of my room, but I had no energy, no will to do anything. Even she didn't understand the state I was putting myself in for a friend.
Mihael sounded better on the phone, less tired, but his voice was still irritating me to no end because I couldn't get his original voice, it was distorted by the line and it just reminded me how far away he was.

One more week before he called, and this time, I knew something was not normal. I even suspected that he lied to me. It couldn't be the phone changing his voice like this, it was even higher pitched than the previous time he had called me.
Then I got an email, three days after his call. He was telling me that from now on he'd send me emails because he would probably not be able to call me anymore. He said something about changing the lines in his parents' house, but I didn't believe him. He could call me from his cell phone, or call from a public phone. I didn't question him about this though, although I regretted it afterward.

Strangely, by email he was much more talkative and cheerful. Which comforted me in the certitude that the problem came from his voice, that he didn't want me to hear.
I traced his IP, but the little idea I had proved to be wrong. I had thought that maybe he wasn't in Germany or something, but the IP was located in the area where he was supposed to be so there was no doubt about that fact. Wrong direction. Ah, too many spy movies, he wasn't in a lost country where the lines were so bad that they deformed voices that much, or something like that... It was really setting my brain into overdrive.

That night, I turned our last conversations again and again in my head, trying to understand what was the problem, what made his voice change, and the internet came to my help once again.
No, he couldn't have vocal chords cancer, could he?

I was so miserably dragging my feet from the kitchen to my room after I fetched something to eat, around 4pm the next day, that my mother forced me to sit in the living room with her and talked to me.
I broke down. I told her everything. Absolutely everything, minus the sexual parts. It was too much to bear alone, and worry was making me so sick!

"Mail, why didn't you ask him directly about his voice, if you think it did change that much?"
"Probably because I'm scared of the answer..."
"Honey, he's your friend, and obviously the bond you have with him is very strong, so whatever it is, he may need your support, if it is something bad. He may not tell you not to worry you, but he keeps on contacting you, he didn't cut communication, so it says something. If he didn't want to talk to you, he would have stopped calling, and wouldn't have sent you emails, bu he does these things, he still cares, and maybe he's trying to alert you without saying it, he may have his pride."
"I guess so... Mum, do you think I'm abnormal? Do you think it's insane to be in love with someone's personality but not to be attracted to him because he's not of the right gender?"
"I understand what you mean Sweetheart, and I don't think you're abnormal, you're just confused... I'm sure you'll figure things out someday, it's just a bit fresh in your mind right now, but answers will come in time, believe me. But I don't believe there's a right gender, Mail. I think you want to be attracted by him so you would make him happy, and that if he was a girl, of course he'd be your girlfriend, maybe you're really changing, maybe not, only you know."
She stopped for a gulp of her coffee. Was she meaning that I was slowly turning gay even if I didn't realise it?
"But apart from vocal chords cancer, there's something else I'm thinking about, Hun."
I was on my feet, palms flat on the table, as soon as she had finished her sentence: "What? Tell me please!" I was on the verge of explosion.
"Have you never thought that after what you told him, Mihael could decide to... change his gender? He seems to love you very deeply, and considering the state you're in these days, I can only understand how deep it runs, if you are in such a state yourself. That's what I'm thinking of."

This solution had never occurred to me. It was so enormous! I just couldn't imagine Mihael doing that. I mean, he likes being a guy, he never showed any sexual identity problem, ok, he's gay, but he's a very male homosexual. He looks gay, but he's a macho. No, my mind couldn't process this solution. Im-po-ssi-ble. He likes his dick too much.
And you don't just transform into a woman in a few weeks with a little surgery? I hoped not...
I began to google those clues, and the IP tracking at least comforted me about the fact that he hadn't gone in Morocco or Tunisia for a gender change surgery, countries where laws were less strict about that kind of things. Because as long as he was in Germany, or any country of that kind, he couldn't do such a thing with a snap of fingers, it was way more complicated. It was a crazy idea my mum just had, it just couldn't be the truth.

But two minutes later, I was calling him. Uncaring for the fact that it was around midnight in Germany. Fortunately, calling on his cell phone, I would not wake up everyone there.
He didn't pick up the call, and I got his answering machine. Fuck. I couldn't leave a message, what to say? Hey Mihael, it's Mail, I just wanted to know if you cut your dick off, call me back. Lame...
But when he called me back a few seconds after I had hung up, my heart jumped out of my chest.
"Mail?" he simply said, and there was worry in his voice. I thought he'd yell at me for waking him up in the middle of the night but he seemed truly worried.
"I'm sorry, I didn't think about what time it was before calling, I had an urgent question and... fuck, I'm really sorry, it was stupid."
"Hey, it's ok, I wasn't sleeping, and anyway, it wouldn't have been a problem, you can call me anytime..."
Wow. Was I really talking to Mihael? For a brief second, I wondered if the voice change meant I hadn't talked to Mihael the whole time but to someone acting like he was Mihael, but that was purely stupid.

"Mihael, I noticed your voice had changed, and I want to know exactly what's going on. I'm worried sick Mihael, tell me, please. Whatever it is, I'm your friend, and I'm by your side."
Mihael stayed silent for a few seconds and then he hung up.