"So this is the girl that used to be a boy?" Dad asked. Infuriatingly Dad had kept his promise. Over the last few weeks he'd been taking more time off. Working less unpaid over time and overall being a very attentive and awkward father. I'd be lying if I said I actually hated it. It was nice that he was showing that he cared and the lack of Dysphorus attacks recently meant there hadn't been any issues with hiding my ranger status. 

"Her name is Angie, and yeah she got clownfished. I don't know how accurate "used to be a boy" is." I explained. "She was in pretty rough shape before."

"And you are taking her out on a date tomorrow?"

"What of it?"

"Nothing just, you've grown up so fast." Dad said. 

"It's pretty normal for young adults to date, Dad."

"It's different when it's your own kid. You know how to treat a lady right, right? I'm not sure how etiquette works between women, but I'm assuming similar rules apply." 

"What are you talking about?"

"You know, being a gentleman, or gentlewoman, in this case. Holding the door open for her, things like that." He was embarrassing himself and he knew it. "I've been out of the dating market for a while but if you need to know anything I can try to help."

Those traditions had always seemed kind of antiquated to me. You are generally meant to be polite to people and a lot of it seemed very infantalising towards women. Like we can pull our own chairs out! Open our own doors! Yet the idea of sweeping Angie off her feet by being a gentlewoman appealed to me in a way that was hard to pin down. The date was meant to be casual. I wasn't taking her anywhere fancy, just a milkshake place, but if it goes well, I could keep learning into the butch angle. Maybe get Dad to take me to get a suit? Too much. We're still kids. Best to keep things low risk.

"I'll let you know…" 

"Is this your first date? I know I've been distant. How much encouragement do you need?" His earnest attempts at making up for lost time did hit me. I didn't like to admit it, but it made me smile. 

"It is. It should be fine though. I know her well. It'll just be like hanging out."

"Okay. Again I'm here if you want to talk about it."

I excused myself from the table. Blain and Stella had been encouraging me to ask her out since we saw her again in that stupidly gorgeous dress of hers. I wanted to give her time to adapt to her new body and gender. I wanted to let our feelings settle. Then one week turned into two, then into three and I guess she got tired of waiting. She asked me. Then panicked when it came down to trying to figure out where to go. It was all adorable and snapped me out of my procrastination.

Blain: You nervous?

Joanne: Obviously!

Blain: She's head over heels for you, dude. 

Joanne: I don't get why though. 

Blain: I may be gay but, even I can see that you are cool. I don't see what's confusing about that awkward little lesbian falling for the cool lesbian,

Joanne: I told you about what I said to her. 

Blain: Yes. And then you helped her accept that living as a woman was a real option for her. What's her name again Joanne? How did she get it? 

Blain was an ass sometimes, but in a good way. I was freaking out over nothing. She asked me out after all but, he really didn't have to remind me of my stupidity this hard.

Joanne: She said it was unrelated…

Blain: Dude, you are so easy to read.

Angie promised she didn't name herself Angelica because of a crush or anything. Apparently she just liked the name and Angel helped her think of it. I liked to believe she was telling the truth. I did not want to bear that responsibility. 

Joanne: Look.

Blain: What are you wearing tomorrow? Gonna dress up for her?

Joanne: Shut it, I'll kick you off the team.

Blain: I'm shaking in my boots, Jo.

Should I dress up? No. Not thinking about it or I'm going to just think it over until I pass out. 

Angie <3: We still on for tomorrow?

I had avoided showing her my phone. It was probably not the best idea to display how down bad I was. It might scare her. I'd already done enough of that.

Joanne: Yes! Do you want my Dad to pick you up or do you want to meet there?

It's such a silly cheesy thing to pick a gal up from her front door. I wanted to do it so bad. That was more of a thing for big moments though, right? Dad had planted these ideas in my head and it was eating away at me. Bleh. If I was going to do that I'd have to dress up, and red plaid flannel is an amazing look on me but it's not suitable for a fancy date and while I have dresses and other fancy clothes it'd probably be better for me to get something comfortable. What looks good that isn't just a mens suit? A pantsuit? Still too formal. Dress pants and white button up? Maybe? Maybe like a dashing pirate lesbian. I'd need to figure it out in future. At least Dad seems on board.

Angie <3: My mum can pick me up, don't worry about me <3.

I was ninety percent sure she'd become more aware of the fact I have a crush on her. I'd been wrong about her teasing me before but it was starting to become just straight up flirting. She wore a new dress that Stella had helped her pick out and when she noticed I wasn't able to talk she asked if I was alright with a stupidly cute smile on her face. That was her teasing me right? At least I now had tricks of my own.

It was nice being a normal teenager for a while.

—

Since becoming a ranger I'd learnt a lot about things like friendships, emotions, myself and just about everything else. Unsurprisingly, I guess talking to people means you get to know them. Since accepting that I might just stay as a girl I'd also learnt a lot about Joanne. 

Before everything I thought she was cool, calm and collected and that is still the case a lot of the time. She somehow managed to get me to focus on fighting Gender Vendor despite going through a lot of dysphoria herself and feeling guilty (I was still struggling to figure out why, despite her apologizing multiple times for it.). I got to see her softer side when she tried to comfort me after the Cuttle Copier fight and even while obviously being out of her depth, she managed to keep me upright and tell me what I needed to hear. Since transforming though she showed me a new side to her that only made my crush on her ten times worse. She was incredibly uncool when it came to girls she liked. 

My self esteem still wasn't great, that doesn't fix itself immediately, but Joanne's feelings were so clear that despite that issue I could tell. I didn't get it. She was a leader, a dedicated martial artist, and a fantastic friend and for some reason she liked me. An-ex boy who still didn't know all the proper terms to describe her own identity. Worse, she didn't stop liking me as time went on. Which meant I had to actually work on myself because there is no way in hell I am going to let her stoop to my level. I needed to bring myself up to hers.  

And that's a lot of pressure on a former husk such as myself. I'd barely been alive before this! Every second I was around someone I felt like I was poisoning them with my presence. That'd only kind of stopped because I was making myself useful to the team. If I trained enough I'd at least work as a meat shield. They wanted me to be more than that. I wanted to be more than that.

Four weeks had passed and I'd still not figured it out though. Making lists of things I liked doing, liked wearing or listening to always felt inadequate. That's not what makes up a person right? It felt like a start but not much more. It made me question why Joanne continued liking me. The guy I'd been wasn't really anything. He was a doormat. What had changed when he became me? That was probably the secret, but I struggled to see any major differences aside from the fact I wanted to be alive and he didn't.

What was I going to wear? Joanne obviously liked the dresses I'd been wearing. Half of the clothes budget we'd been given went to getting them. I felt like a stereotype. Obviously not all girls wore dresses and make up but I couldn't resist their sirens call. Maybe I could get away with wearing the sunflower dress again. She liked that one. The lack of sleeves showed off my biceps which still had some definition to them despite my overall shrinking, girls liked that kind of thing right? 

Was it wrong that I wanted to show off a bit? Joanne being uncool when it came to crushing on me was something I liked. It was exhilarating to see how she'd react to new clothes, or to the occasional compliment or tease. It took a bit to build enough confidence to do it intentionally but I was starting to get there. I'm not going to let myself feel guilty for wanting to get a reaction from her.

Angie: Stelllaaaaaaaaaaa

Stella: Angelicaaaaaaaaa

Angie: Does this look good?

Stella had been invaluable in reminding me when I was overthinking. 

Stella: You got a cardigan to go with it?

Angie: No, but it's going to be warm. 

Stella: And if it gets cold you are gonna steal her jacket?

I'd not thought about something like that. Anything she wore would be big on me now, huh? I could also cuddle her for warmth. I was going to die if I kept thinking about this. The idea of cuddling up next to her, drinking milkshakes. Heck. 

Stella: You okay?

Angie: Yeah. Yeah. I'm fine.

Stella: You are down bad.

Angie: Shut it.

She wasn't wrong. The thought of wearing her jacket did things to me. Silly cheesy movies have given me so many ideas. 

Angie: Do you think she'll think I'm cute?

Stella: She'd think you were cute in a potato sack. 

Angie: This is better than a potato sack though, right? I want to wow her.

Stella: Yes, it's better than a potato sack and yes it will wow her.

Angie: Thank you, Stella. 

Stella: I need to get some English work done, so I gotta go. You have fun on your date tomorrow.

Angie: Goodnight!!!

Outfit was sorted then. Now I needed to make a plan on how to act. Something that was difficult because I still didn't know what she saw in me. Planning something like that seemed like it could be counter productive without that information. What if I misread what she liked about me and I wasn't what she wanted anymore? I didn't really have much going for me aside from my looks. 

Joanne doesn't really know how to deal with stuff so maybe I need to be forward? Make it so she knows she can say whatever she wants to me. That I am interested and like her. It can't hurt. She has been so embarrassed whenever she lets something gay slip from her mouth that she didn't mean to. I could make it clear that I like it when she does that.

—

Angie looked gorgeous sitting at the cafe table. If someone had told me a month ago that this was Goldie, I probably would have laughed at them. If someone told me I was going on a date with a girl that looked like her, I would call them an asshole and a liar because she seemed so out of my league. 

Her hair was only down to her jaw, but it had clearly been styled by a professional (or Stella), she was wearing a gold necklace, probably from her Mum that went with the floral dress she was wearing really well and made me feel underdressed in my red leather jacket, plain shirt and jeans.

She looked around nervously before finally spotting me, which made me realise I had been staring for like thirty seconds, thankfully she hadn't noticed until then and I could pretend to be cool as I walked up to her and sat down. 

"Been waiting long?" I asked. I was going to nail this. It may have been my first date but it was hers too, meaning I just had to keep myself confident.

"Only a few minutes. It doesn't excuse you leaving me waiting while you gawk though,"she teased. Dang…

"Can you ignore that you saw that?"

"Nope. It was cute." If I hadn't watched her grow into the girl in front of me, I would have assumed she'd been replaced by a doppelganger again. 

It should be illegal to tease me when I'm trying to be cool.

"You could have let me know you saw me!" 

"I could have." She smiled devilishly and ugh. That look on her face scared me. I think. Is it fear that's making my heart race? Gotta be. Only explanation.

"Shut up, Goldielocks."

"Make me," she said, poking her tongue out. 

Was it wrong to kiss her on the first date? We had been flirting for a while and she had said the most homoerotically charged thing one could say. 

"If you say that again. I will make you." I said leaning in over the table. Now she was turning red. Perfect.

"Make me," she squeaked. 

"Lean forward then."

Angie leaned in. I gave her a gentle caress and then a light kiss on the lips. Any more than that right now was probably too intense way too early. Especially for her; pulling away revealed her face was a gorgeous shade of crimson. I wasn't sure she intended to get this far and it finally let me wrestle some control back from her.

"Is that what you wanted, Angel?"

"Maybe…" she teased.

That just made me want to go further. She wanted to kiss me. She was waiting for it. Is there anything better than that? No. There wasn't.

"You are so mean." I said. 

"You left me waiting."

"Since when did you get so confident?" I sneered and she laughed at me. Laughed at me.

"When I realised you weren't going to make a move." She said it with a sing-songy mocking tone that made me want to screech.

"Look I…" 

"And it's not really confidence, I don't think. My leg hasn't stopped bouncing since we got here and I'm relying on you to not hate me for anything stupid I say," she rambled. The sing songiness left her voice as she kept going.

"It's ok–"

"I also didn't expect you to get flirty that quickly, and I really wanted to reciprocate and we kissed and it was good."

"It was good." I said.

"Do you like it when I'm forward like this?" She asked. It wasn't fair. She was looking at me with the cutest puppy dog eyes on the planet and I was weak. How the hell am I meant to survive when she says things like that?

"I just didn't expect it."

"I'm sorry"

"It's not a bad thing." If anything it's too good. I want to take it slow. I want to slowly figure things out with her and this behaviour made me want to just take her out somewhere fancier. Kiss her more. Hold her hands. It's too early for all of that though. We were just going to have to figure it out as we went.

Things were going well at least. We talked for an hour about school (she was a bit behind in a few classes. A study group might be in order.), about if we were going to go to uni (she didn't know if she was going to. She hadn't had time to think it through), about clothes, about the food, you know. Date stuff. Until the ground shook, we heard a scream and we had to jump right into the action.

I was going to kill that crab.