That Thursday, as Johnathan was about to see Grace off for the evening, he was surprised to see the rest of his family at the front door. Both his father and sister were dressed for business, Judith having a suitcase with her. It was, of course, a black designer suitcase with an elegant navy blue trim, because Judith wouldn’t use anything less cultured.

Meanwhile, his father simply bought new clothes wherever he went. Men’s fashion was rather... what was the term his father liked? Fungible. That was it. Dresses were more likely to be one of a kind, or at least a limited run. Thousand dollar suits were rather more interchangeable and less likely to be judged.

“Business trip?” Johnathan asked, just after his mother had given his father a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Indeed. Slightly short notice,” John III replied, annoyance in his voice.

“Ah, well, have fun in Nevada,” Johnathan said.

“Virginia, actually,” Judith replied. “We...”

She trailed off as she realised Grace was there. Family was one thing, but Grace was a bit too much of an outsider. It left Johnathan feeling a bit self conscious about how rude his family could be. Even if it was a matter of national security, which was even more important after the Emergency Council had taken control and all the other nonsense that had happened after that city in Canada got blown up.

It still didn’t have to make him feel any better about his family being rude to Grace. She was important to him, even if it wasn’t romantic just ye--

Grace took his hand. That shut down most of his higher brain functions.

“Well, we hope you’ll have a good time, and won’t be too long,” Grace said.

Still holding his hand.

Was that a romantic gesture?

Everyone else was noticing that she was holding his hand. Did they think it was a romantic gesture?

What was going on?

“There’s going to be hearings with Congress. It might be weeks,” his father said, with the usual tone of disdain he used for the elected portions of the government. “All because of those idiots at Bering... the company should be dismantled for parts.”

“You say that every time, dear,” Tecla said in a soft voice. “Also, you might have a private jet, but you still have a flight schedule to stick to. Get going.”

“Of course, dear,” John III said, before turning to Grace and Johnathan with a smug look in his eyes. “Have fun, you two.”

With that, he and Judith turned and left. Heading out to the front porch to wave their car off, Johnathan heard Grace mutter ‘weeks’ under her breath, sounding slightly disappointed. Before he could ask about why or what the hand-holding meant (questions to be asked when his mother wasn’t around) Grace excused herself, heading over to her car. 

It was rather mysterious.

---

Thanks to the confusion of the day before, Johnathan hadn’t changed into his workout clothes while he waited for Grace. He was going to try to get some answers out of her before any exercises. However, when she arrived his plan to hold firm ended up crumbling in confusion.

“Ah, good,” she said as he opened the door. “You’re wearin’ outdoor clothes. We need to go get you out for blood work.”

“Blood work?” he managed to mumble. 

“Yeah. You’re on those hormones right now, and it’s been almost a month. We need to check nothin’ funky is going on, c’mon,” she said, grabbing his hand.

“Funky?” 

He realised he’d never gotten around to actually looking up the potential side effects. Were those actually serious? There hadn’t been anything that he’d noticed, but maybe it was doing something more subtle. That seemed plausible. Organ failure was a slow process, wasn’t it? It was easy to not know until it was too late.

Filling with dread, he quietly followed Grace into her car. It was only as they were about to pull out of the driveway that a pair of security guards stepped forward to block them.

“What’s happening here? This departure wasn’t scheduled,” the one said.

“Um... it’s a date? I thought a little spontaneity would be romantic?” Grace replied.

It was hard to tell at the distance and with their sunglasses, but Johnathan was pretty sure the guards eyes were narrowing.

However, the word ‘date’ was taking most of his mental capacity. To the point he barely registered that the guards were questioning him. Right, they wanted to know if he was consenting to this.

“Yes. Definitely. It’s all good,” he said. “It’s not a kidnapping or even kidnapping adjacent.”

The words seemed to make Grace cringe slightly, leading him to realise it had been somewhat suspicious. Luckily the guards knew Johnathan fairly well and that awkward comments like that were normal enough for him. As such, they nodded and let the pair leave, after reminding Johnathan to contact home hourly.

“Dang. They keep you on a tight leash,” Grace muttered as they drove out the gate.

“Kidnapping risks are definitely a thing. Maybe not as much as my dad thinks they are, but a non-zero,” Johnathan replied. 

He let out a sigh as they zipped along the dry Arizona road. Dealing with his family could be quite frustrating sometimes.

Then he remembered the important matter. “You said this was a date? And you held my hand?”

“Uh... yeah. Sorry. I mean, you are a good... a good mate. But, uh... yesterday was more just--listen, I know it’s bad, with how your family is. You do all sorts of classified stuff, but, I’m... I’m nosy. It’s my nature,” she said. “So I thought it would let me be a little nosier. And then I panicked with the security dipst--guards.”

“Oh,” Johnathan said, deflating at the news.

“Hey. Hey. It’s not you, alright Johnny? You’re ace--well, not ace ace... or maybe you are? Are you?” she asked.

“What?”

“Ok. That’s probably a no,” she mumbled, turning her attention back to the road. “What I mean to say is that I don’t date clients. As a rule... but you might be makin’ me rethink that rule.”

“I... I am?” Johnathan asked.

“Maybe,” Grace replied.

“Maybe is better than I expected,” Johnathan replied.

That got a nod out of her. Along with her mumbling ‘eggs’ for some incomprehensible reason. Maybe she was thinking about her groceries? She probably did eat a lot of those.

Either way, she flipped on the radio at that point, it set to a foreign language of some sort. It sounded sort of middle-eastern to Johnathan’s ear, but, then again, Greece was right beside the Middle East, wasn’t it? And Xanthopolous was a very Greek name. So that all made sense.

The music was good. That he knew for sure. So he leaned back and enjoyed the tunes as they slipped from desert to mountain forests and then into the outer suburbs of Flagstaff. Eventually, they pulled into an office park, and then up to a remarkably nondescript building. There were a few signs, but the building they ended up getting out and heading over to was labeled with the sign ‘Bloodtech’. It was slightly intimidating in its generic-ness, but also very to the point. He supposed clarity was smart in corporate branding.

Stepping inside, they found the waiting room empty at the moment, a lone lab technician sitting behind a counter. She was wearing a mask and indicated for him and Grace to do the same.

“Oh. I’ve had my shots,” Johnathan replied. “The full exo-suite.”

“Nice,” Grace said. “I still haven’t gotten the Issiod’rian vax...”

“That keeps you from getting sick, but not from being a carrier. We have immunocompromised patients. Please mask up,” the technician said, having a bit of an accent. Johnathan couldn’t place it and it was fairly soft.

Not wanting to argue with a surly technician, Johnathan gave in, pulling the mask over his face. The technician then asked for paperwork and payment, which Grace handled. Where she’d gotten the papers, he didn’t know, but she seemed to have everything under control. The technician still made them wait a few minutes, before calling Johnathan up and directing him to a back room. 

It was as clinically sterile looking as the front area, which was a good thing. The only markings on the white walls were signs to mark the three rooms (he was sent to number 2) and a sign stating that the back door was used for exiting. Which seemed inconvenient if you had people waiting for you. Grace had apparently known and told him she’d be waiting in the car, though. 

He had to sit for another minute or two, hearing one of the other doors open and then seeing a fairly tall black-haired man in a hoodie walk out. Apparently he wasn’t the only patient after all. A second technician, also masked up, walked into his room shortly after the man passed by. She had blonde hair, but a pretty decent tan. 

“So, like, is this your first time?” she asked with a valley girl accent so strong he had to wonder if she was faking it. Still, it went with the blonde hair and tan.

“Um, probably? I might have had some blood drawn as a kid?” he replied. “I’ve had plenty of jabs for vaccines, though.”

“Ah. It’s, like, totally actually less painful than a vaccine. We’re not just, like, stabbing a muscle like they do... but it does, like, last longer,” she explained, before wrapping some sort of rubber thingy around his arm.

“Like, keep still,” she said, before jabbing him. 

Looking away, he still felt like it was rather unpleasant. Especially with how long it took the woman to fill up two vials. 

Pulling the vial out, she slapped a cotton swab down before saying, “Be a good girl and, like, hold that down for me.”

Johnathan was quick to obey, only letting go for the woman to put tape over it and then head off, telling him he was free to go. It was only after he was at the exit that he realised it wasn’t normal for him to be called a ‘good girl’. Sure, Grace did it from time to time out of a force of habit, and he’d felt guilty about the way she would apologise afterwards, so he’d told her it was fine. That was a special situation, though. Unless the blood clinic mostly had female clients?

Or... pausing to stare as his masked up reflection in one of the windows on the outside of the building, he realised just how feminine covering most of his face made him look. With his messy medium length hair... he had always somewhat had his mother’s eyes. 

Staring at the reflection longer, it was starting to feel very strange indeed. It seemed like staring at a girl’s face. Confused by the whole experience, he took the mask off, and was surprised to find the effect only slightly lessened. 

Was he on too much estrogen?

The idea of that, or stopping entirely, worried him. He felt so much better with that little boost of the low dosage. 

Well, the effects couldn’t have been that strong. After all, Grace was apparently somewhat interested in him. Plus, his family hadn’t said anything just yet. They would notice if he was turning into a girl in front of them or something, right?

Yeah. Obviously.

Valley girl just probably needed glasses but wasn’t wearing them out of vanity or something.

Confidence restored, Johnathan continued along his way, finding Grace waiting by the car, doing some stretches. As dedicated to fitness as always. She asked how he was feeling, to which he made a non-committal sort of shrug. The process hadn’t been pleasant, but it also hadn’t left him with any lasting suffering. 

Apparently that was a good enough response for Grace, who then opened the car door for him to get in. She then rounded the front, hopping into the driver’s seat before leaning over to pop open the glove compartment. The move left him more than a little flustered after all of the mixed signals she’d been giving so far.

A moment later she’d pulled out a chocolate bar and handed it to him. One of the fancier proper chocolate types, rather than the likes of a Four Musketeers or an Almond Delight.

“Dark chocolate. Lots of iron. Good for replacin’ blood,” she explained.

“Thanks,” he replied, opening it up and breaking off some squares as they drove.

He wasn’t quite sure where they were going, but that didn’t matter all that much to him. Getting to spend time with Grace, especially without being run ragged through exercises, was something Johnathan had no intention of complaining about. Still, there was another matter on his mind.

“Should I get a haircut?” he asked, wondering if that was why the lab technician had mistaken him for a girl.

It was something that had been an issue when he was younger, and his father’s solution had always been a trip to the barber’s shop. Even if Johnathan had never really personally minded being mistaken for a girl, his father had objected for him. The end result having hammered home that it was simply not proper.

“Do you want a haircut?” Grace asked, her tone more or less neutral.

Maybe she sounded a little curious, but she didn’t seem to have strong feelings either way. Which probably made sense. She was a woman with short hair. Clearly a man with long hair didn’t really surprise her much.

“I don’t know,” Johnathan replied, watching the suburbs zip past for a little longer.

Then he remembered he needed to text home, to keep security abreast of his condition. There was a little wiggle room, but if he was much more than ten minutes late on the hour he’d get an angry phone call. It was always best to avoid that, so he sent a generic [Everything’s good]. 

It took only a couple more minutes for them to reach their apparent destination: a small diner style restaurant called Mo’s Burgers. It seemed quiet, which made sense. They were a bit early for dinner. 

“C’mon. I promised a date, so I should at least buy you dinner,” Grace said, getting out of the car.

A bit surprised at the location she chose, he followed her out. “I didn’t think you’d go to a burger joint...”

“Oh?” she asked, looking at him like he’d just said he was surprised the sky was blue.

“Y’know. Being vegetarian and all that,” he said.

Grace blinked. “Right. Yeah. That--I guess you’d think that. Makes sense, really. Yeah... but Mo’s got... got some great falafel burgers that are totally veggie.”

Nodding, he found it a bit interesting how Grace’s Australian accent interacted with her pronunciation of falafels. He then followed her into the diner, where the man behind the counter seemed thrilled to see Grace--followed by him doing a double take at seeing Johnathan behind her.

A reminder of how out of Johnathan’s league she was, clearly. Not that he’d really needed the reminder.

“Grace!” the man then called out with a slight hesitation on remembering her name. “I didn’t expect you to bring a client.”

Johnathan was reasonably certain he was Middle Eastern, though he couldn’t say anything more specific than that.

“What can I say, Mo? Johnny’s good fun to be around, and deserved a day off. I’ll run him twice as ragged tomorrow,” Grace said with a grin that left Johnathan slightly nervous.

It sounded like a genuine statement of how things would go. 

Trying to keep his mind off any fears regarding that, Johnathan tried to focus on the menu. Everything looked very good. There weren’t any options with bacon, but he could live with that, as much as he liked it on a burger. 

Grace ended up ordering a falafel and halloumi burger which seemed to surprise Mo. Johnathan went a bit safer and just had a cheeseburger.

---

To Johnathan’s surprise, Grace received a text about the results of his blood work on the drive home. It seemed very prompt, but he was glad to know everything was apparently as expected. 

Actually getting out of the car and saying goodbye, Johnathan was rather disappointed. He wanted to spend more time with Grace, but didn’t really have an excuse to make her stay.