"Are you sure you wouldn't rather do something else?" I asked Marianne as she pulled into the hospital parking area. "It's probably going to be boring, or depressing."

My beautiful girlfriend gave me a warm smile, "Lexi if he accepts you then I'd love to meet your father. If he doesn't accept you then you'll probably not be staying long. So I'm not going to just drop you at the door and drive away."

"Anyways," she added as she pulled into an empty spot, "I don't know my way around here, I've never been to Canada before. I wouldn't know what to do or where to go. So we'll visit your father, and see where the day takes us from there."

I leaned over and gave her a kiss, then the two of us emerged from our rental car. I didn't know my way around the hospital, but there were plenty of colourful signs and an information desk.

A few minutes later we were on the right floor. There was a sort of central waiting area next to the elevators and the nurses' station, where they had a number of comfortable-looking chairs and a couple TVs quietly playing whatever daytime shows were popular nowadays. A couple patients and guests were already there, but there was plenty of seating available.

"I'll wait here for now," Marianne suggested. "If things go well with your father, come and get me. Or text me and I'll come to you."

"Thank you," I gave her a hug and kiss, then while she took a seat I got my bearings before heading off down one of the corridors. And a minute later I found my dad's room.

I hesitated just outside the door as I took a couple deep breaths. I knew this was going to be difficult, but I had a plan. It wasn't necessarily a great plan, but it felt good enough. My two main concerns were whether or not dad would believe it was really me, and if he did, would he want anything to do with me.

After wasting a few more seconds I finally braced myself then knocked lightly at the door as I entered the room.

It was a semi-private, so there were just two beds in the room. And luckily the second one was empty, so there wasn't anyone else to overhear our conversation.

Dad was in the bed nearest the window, he was sitting up at an angle and had his little private TV on. I faltered for a moment when I saw him though. It had only been four years, but he looked like he'd aged twenty since the last time I saw him.

His hair was thin, and what little of it there was had lost most of its colour. His face was pale, and his eyes dark and sunken. He was thin too, he looked like he'd lost a lot of weight in the last couple years.

I honestly didn't know if it was the cancer doing all that to him or if it was the treatments. Even though I worked in a hospital I did my best to avoid the patients and the medical stuff. I still knew my way around a lot of the terminology and applications though.

Dad had an IV drip in his left hand to keep him hydrated, there was also an infuser attached to provide him a steady supply of pain-killers. And he had a thin plastic tube looped over his ears and around under his nose to provide him with extra oxygen. There was a sensor clipped onto one of his fingers so the machine next to him could monitor his heart rate and oxygen saturation. He wasn't on an EKG so I figured he wasn't that bad yet, but if he was bad enough to be hospitalized then they probably didn't have high hopes for him.

Despite his physical condition he didn't seem depressed or down. He turned to look at me as I entered, and when I stopped towards the foot of his bed his eyes tracked up and down over my body. That was another indication that maybe he wasn't too bad yet. Like he was in good enough spirits to be checking out strange young women who walked into his room.

"Hello young lady," he greeted me. His voice was weaker than I remembered. "What can I do for you?"

I was sure he knew I wasn't a nurse or a doctor or anything like that. For one thing I wasn't dressed like staff, I was in sneakers, shorts, and a t-shirt. And I wasn't wearing any kind of badge or name tag or anything along those lines.

"Good morning," I replied, and I hoped the nervousness I was feeling didn't sound that bad in my voice. "May I speak with you for a bit?"

Dad nodded, "I don't get many guests here, and I'm always happy to talk to a pretty young lady. Do I know you from somewhere?"

"Yes," I replied. My heart was going a mile a minute as I continued, "We haven't seen each other in a little over four years though. This is going to be really difficult so I'm just going to come out and say it. I'm your daughter, I'm Lexi. I came out to you in April of twenty-twenty, I told you I was trans? We argued, and you ended up shipping me off to London to spend four weeks with my cousin Ian..."

Dad's expression started off confused, then his features hardened a bit like he was angry, but by the time I got to the end he looked pale and he'd relaxed back onto his pillows as he took a few fast deep breaths.

"It can't be," dad half-whispered. He was blinking tears out of his eyes as he stated sadly "My child is dead. There was an accident. They said my... They said my child fell in front of a subway."

He was still blinking away tears and fighting with his emotions, and it tugged at my heart to see that.

"No dad," I said in a soft voice as I shook my head. "There was a mix-up. It wasn't me, but I decided to let everyone think it was. I stayed in London, I went ahead with my transition there."

By that point there were tears on his cheeks, and he didn't bother to try and cover them up. He was still breathing hard, and he whispered "I thought you took your own life, because of me. I thought it was my fault you were gone..."

My heart was still racing, but it seemed like dad believed who I was. And more than that, he seemed happy to see me, happy to have me back. So I took a few steps closer, then gently wrapped my arms around him in a careful hug.

Dad raised his right arm up and hugged me back as he whispered "It's really you? You're ok? My... my daughter is alive?"

Hearing him say that made my heart skip a beat, like if he was ready to call me his daughter then he'd changed a lot since the last time we spoke.

"Yes dad," I responded as I hugged him. "It's me. And I'm better than ok."

I finally straightened up again as I told him, "I have a good life, and a wonderful girlfriend. I graduated college and I have a good job now. Me and my girlfriend have a flat in London. I'm sorry I never wrote or called but... I thought you'd hate me. I didn't think you wanted to see me again."

My dad shook his head as he wiped some tears away, "Don't apologize. It's my fault, I'm sorry I pushed you away."

He looked me up and down again then grimaced, "You look beautiful. I had no idea they could..."

Dad's voice trailed off, while I bit my lip. That was the one part of my story that didn't stand up under scrutiny. My impossible magical transition wasn't the sort of thing I could explain to dad, or anyone else. I was mostly banking on him not knowing enough about what was possible, and not being curious enough to ask.

"Thanks dad," I replied quietly. "I know I've changed a lot but it's been four years. And I've been really lucky."

He smiled, "I'm glad. I'm happy for you Lexi. So tell me everything. There's a chair over there, pull up a seat. I want to hear what you're doing, what your life is like now. Tell me about your girlfriend."

I grinned, "Want to meet her? She's waiting out by the nurses' station."

Dad gave me a look, "Of course I want to meet her! Go get her, don't leave the poor girl hanging around a hospital by herself!"

"Ok dad," I smiled. "Be right back."

I found Marianne in one of the chairs, she was playing a game on her phone as I approached.

"You're smiling Lexi," she stated as she looked up at me. "I take it things went well?"

"Better than well," I nodded. "C'mon, he wants to meet you. If that's ok?"

She grinned as she got to her feet, "Of course it is! I've been looking forward to this for some time now."

When we got back to my dad's room I did the introductions, "Dad this is my girlfriend Marianne Durand. And Marianne, this is my dad Richard Harris."

"Bonjour mister Harris," Marianne greeting dad with a polite curtsey, though it wasn't as impressive since she was dressed casual like me, in shorts and a t-shirt. "It is an honour to meet you sir."

It took dad a second or two to recover, which made me smile. Marianne was pouring on the French charm, and her accent was a little thicker than normal as well. I had a feeling she was playing up the 'exotic French beauty' thing in an effort to impress him.

"The pleasure is all mine," dad finally responded.

There were two chairs in the room so I pulled them both over and the two of us sat down next to dad's bed. And the three of us spent the rest of the morning getting caught up. I told dad about my job as a medical technician at a London hospital, Marianne told him about her work teaching ancient history and doing research. And we both told him about some of our trips, to the Aegean and around the Mediterranean.

Dad was kind of blown away by all of that, and I could totally sympathize with him on that. Last time me and him saw each other I appeared to be a lazy nineteen year old guy with no ambition and no plans. Dad saw me as depressed, lonely and withdrawn, which I sort of was because of dysphoria and everything else. Now I was an attractive twenty-three year old woman, I had an ok career, and I was in a steady long-term relationship with a smart beautiful young woman.

There was one big subject we didn't mention, for obvious reasons. Neither Marianne or I said a word about Eva or demons or magic, or even anything about the supernatural. Our demon didn't even make an appearance, despite us being in a hospital where she'd have plenty of opportunity to feed.

After we finished sharing all our news, dad started telling us about his life after I was gone. And unfortunately things weren't anywhere so good for him.

After he got the news of my death he blamed himself. The only positive thing that came out of that was it sort of opened his eyes and he did some research into what it meant to be trans. Mainly he was trying to understand why it was so important that I'd take my own life over it, since he thought that's what happened. And he found out how much stress it caused kids when their parents refused to let them transition, which only made his guilt worse.

With me gone and dad blaming himself, his life sort of went on a downward slide. He didn't actively do anything harmful to himself, but maybe he ignored little aches and pains and maybe he didn't take care of himself as well as he should. So the cancer went unnoticed a lot longer than it would have in other circumstances, and when it was finally discovered it was already well advanced.

At that point I gave dad another hug, I apologized again for not contacting him.

"I didn't realize how much you were hurting after I was gone," I told him. "I thought you wouldn't want to see me again, after I became Lexi."

Dad shook his head, "Don't blame yourself. I'm the one who pushed you away, and after the things I said it's no wonder you didn't think I'd want to see you. Anyways you're back now Lexi, that's what matters."

I was about to respond when we were interrupted by a knock at the door.

One of the nurses came in, apparently it was time to check on dad and give him some meds and stuff. The nurse said it would take about ten minutes, so me and Marianne went back out to the waiting area near the nurses' station. We promised dad we'd be back though to continue our visit.

"He really seems happy to have you back," my girlfriend commented as we sat together near the elevator.

I nodded as I wiped my eyes again, "Yeah. I didn't realize how much he'd miss me. Or how much I missed him. Now I'm sorry I waited so long to come see him."

She pulled me into a hug, "Don't beat yourself up Lexi. You're here now, that's all that matters."

"Yeah," I nodded as I hugged her back. "Thanks Marianne. And thanks for being here with me."

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