As the night entered the small hours, she decided she might as well open her e-reader and wait for dawn, which was why she found herself waking from the faint memory of a dream as ever-elusive sleep had finally drawn her under.

Her cell was buzzing away next to her pillow.

“Ummmff?”

“Tiff? You awake? It’s Tyler”

“Wasn’t, but am now. Whadyawant?”

“Got a question for you”

“Get to it then”

“What are you doing for the holidays?”

“Same as always—trying not to get Mom pissed at me”

“Yeah, but really?”

“Really. Course, I mean more pissed”

She yawned, her jaws popping as she did so.

“What are you asking, or offering, or proposing?”

“Ah, Jamie’s idea. Real surprise. Her rents had a holiday booked, but her Dad’s been called in for some glitch or other, so they’ve got this holiday they can’t take, and, well, Jamie had a real genius idea. Found another deal, we can do both, one after the other”

“So where are you going?”

“That’s the thing, Tiff. It’s a holiday for two”

“Yeah, and?”

“So Jamie rang the hotel, and it’s a family room. Three beds, or one big one and a single. They said they’d be able to fit another person in”

“You already checked?”

“Jamie did. You want?”

“I think I’d like to know where, first”

“Course. Reykjavik”

“Where the heck is Reykjavik?”

“Iceland. Glaciers, geysers, Northern Lights! Just after Christmas, four nights”

Tiff snuggled a little deeper under the bedclothes, taking the cell with her.

“Okay… and the second bit? You know I have passport problems, Ty”

“I thought the court had agreed your name?”

“Yes, but they still put a fucking M in the passport!”

“Ah shit! That sucks the big one”

“Story of my life. Anyway, second part?”

“Ah, yeah, that’s the good bit. NYE, somewhere special”

“Where?”

“Jamie’s found a hotel, family room again, six nights, good price, sorta”

“Yes. But. Where?”

“How does London, England grab you?”

She was without words suddenly, but Tyler kept talking.

“So I said to my folks, what d’ya think, and they said they’d cover the London stay. Jamie and me, we’ve got to cover flights, and you, well: the London hotel charges for the room, only thing is breakfasts cost extra, so you’d be paying for your breakfasts and other meals, and the flights. Just say yes, Tiff!”

“My passport, remember?”

His voice dropped.

“Never dropped you, have we? All the shit you got, where were we?”

“Yes, and if some asshole border guard decides to be stupid?”

“Don’t think Iceland really gives a shit, and England, aren’t they all ‘You first, no you’?”

“Shit. Wake me up with an easy one, why don’t you?”

“Tiff?”

“Yeah?”

“Jamie will mail you the details. Please just say you’ll think about it?”

“Yeah, okay”

She cut the call, and lay for a while as memories of the shitfest that had been Thanksgiving washed over her and then, almost against her will, pulled herself out of bed, sitting in her cold studio as her laptop woke up even more slowly than she had. Iceland… Blue Lagoon. Geysir. Glacier all wheel drive rides. London… so many sights she had always wanted to see, but shit, and life, and fucking passport sex markers.

Almost on their own, her fingers started searching flights, and by the time she had opened the Norwegian Airlines home page, Jamie’s mail hit her inbox, with all the flight details.

Dates… places…

She woke once more, her laptop in sleep mode, the decision made. Five minutes later, she reached for her cell.

“Tyler?”

“No, Jamie”

“Please tell me you’re not shitting me, girl?”

“No shitting, Tiff. Still got your ski gear?”

“Yeah. No. Got that, but just booked flights”

“Iceland, or London as well?”

“Both”

“Yeah! Er, Tiff?”

“Yes?”

“You know, any shit, they got to come through me and Tyler?”

She felt the first sting of tears.

“Yeah, I do”

“Tiff? You crying, girl?”

“Sorry”

“No apologies, girl! What’s got this going?”

“Thanksgiving… my family…”

“I’d guessed”

They shared, as they always had, even Before, and Jamie was as solid and as sensible as ever, as the flood of damage tales poured out. Uncle, cousins, brother. Rejection, incomprehension and, in the end, only a few paces short of hatred, although the disgust was ever-present.

“Tiff?”

“Yeah?”

“We make this---no, start again! New Year, yeah? Resolution time! Onwards and upwards, this time. You with me? Never give up, never surrender?”

“You quoting ‘Galaxy Quest’ at me?”

“Fucking A!”

“Shit, girl, you always know my buttons. Yeah. New year, okay. Make it better than the last one”

“And never alone, girl. Never”

Tiff closed that call as well, because the tears were clamouring for release, but Jamie was so right. Always there, always at her back, or in front of her, facing down the haters. Tyler had taken a few weeks to come onside, but once he had seen what he thought was the right and righteous path, he was just as solid. Why was she still frightened?

She was even more so when she arrived at JFK. Following the Thanksgiving disaster, she had lied to her family, claiming she was too ill to go home for Christmas, and then had a ‘problem’ with her cell, which actually meant simply ignoring all calls except those from her two friends. Baggage check-in brought a flat stare from the ground girl, but no comment, and she wasn’t selected for further examination at the security gate, so she was starting to relax. Gate. Boarding. Random fat man snoring next to her, even before the flight took off. People staring at her, or at least that was how she felt; even though she was wearing pants, her breasts and her hair were still enough to make the point. Put the headphones on, along with the sleep mask; kill the sound of his snoring, and try and calm the day terrors.

“You are all together?”

The Icelandic border guard was just as she had expected: blonde, fit, with eyes like chips from calving glaciers. Tyler answered for them.

“Yes, three of us”

“Why do you come to Iceland?”

“Because we hear it is beautiful, and we want to see the Northern Lights before we leave”

The border guard smiled.

“You might be lucky. Where do you go when you leave?”

“London, for New Year’s”

“Ah! I have never been. Friends, yes. It is a time of much drinking there. Do you drink?”

“Yes, we do”

“Then please remember the duty-free shop sells alcohol for you to import. Our prices are much higher than yours”

“Thank you”

“It is nothing. Tiffany?”

Her heartbeat ramped up.

“Yes?”

“Do not worry. We may all be Vikings, but we are now civilised ones. More so than many in your country, yes?”

All she could manage was a nod, and the man smiled.

“Enjoy your stay. Takk fyrir”

They had a taxi transfer to the hotel, the Leifur Eiriksson. The road was smooth and well-maintained, but the surroundings were like grey whipped cream, a massive pavement of pillow lava covered with drifts of snow, utterly unearthly in the surprisingly bright oblique sunlight. The hotel was right in front of the stunning cathedral, and check in was another lesson in Icelandic culture. A French couple were in front of them, and the man behind the desk switched to that language seamlessly. They were followed by a family from Norway, and that went the same way. The last person in front of them was a Danish woman, who smiled, spoke to the hotel man in her language, and was promptly answered in English. She was clearly unhappy, but the man simply smiled back at her, continued the process, and stuck to English. She muttered something, and he simply smiled yet again.
“Lifts are over there; have a nice day!”

Turning back to Tiff and her friends, he looked at the passports, smiled, and asked “What name is the booking under?”

Jamie answered, “Billington”

“Ah. I have made some changes there, if I remember correctly”

“Yes. My parents were booked, but Pop had to work, so they gave us the chance to come instead”

“How parents should be!”

Tiffany felt her guts twist, but tried her best to stay expressionless.

“May I see your passports?”

As Jamie handed them over, she started her distraction tactics.

“Could I ask, what was with the Danish woman?”

A cool look, then another smile.

“We were a Danish colony. We were not treated well. A very long story, but there remains a certain… coolness in our relationship. Tiffany?”

She felt the sweat in the palms of her hands. Yet another winning smile.

“We are a very modern society. Do not be worried, and welcome to our little world of fire and ice. May I recommend the Golden Circle tour? And do you swim?”

They all remembered the ads about the Blue Lagoon, and nodded.

“Then in the city is the Laugardalslaug pool. Heated by geothermal source, you can swim in the snow. No: not actually in snow, but in warm water with snow around you. Your room is number 205; the lift—elevator—is over there. Enjoy your stay!”

Into the room, bags dumped on the beds, and Tiffany found herself bent over the toilet wondering whether she was actually going to hurl.

“Tiff?”

“Yeah, Ty?”

“Safe now, okay? First meal is part of the package deal, here in the hotel. Want to go and see the cathedral before we eat? Get some air be good. Safe now, aren’t we?”

She turned her head to look at him, and suddenly she was smiling.

“Yeah, really! Better than I expected. Where’s this cathedral?”

He took her arm and led her to the window, through which she saw a stunning swoop of white stone.

“Other side of the street, Tiff!”

That was the start of a wonderful, if rather cold, evening. There was a choir singing in the cathedral, and their music left no need in them to understand the words, for it soared in and through the acoustics of the amazing building. Once sated, they returned to the hotel, which gave them ‘fish’n’chips’: amazingly tasty fish in ‘beer batter’, served with absolutely insipid fries. They followed that with a walk down to the seafront, where there were lights, and sculptures, and a solitary steam locomotive as a monument to the futility of trying to build railways on land forever spreading under the force of plate tectonics. There were bars. They looked at the prices, shuddered, and walked on.

Yes, they took the Golden Circle, visiting a titanic waterfall, and geysers, and the Parliament Plain, where it was possible to stand with one foot in Europe, the other in America, as the land slowly spread. They didn’t go to the Blue Lagoon, but did visit the suggested swimming pool, which was surreal, with duckboards laid over the snow to access steaming pools of warmth and delight.

Thankfully, they had separate cubicles to change in. The changing rooms had signs telling patrons EXACTLY where to wash before entering the pool.

Each evening, Tiffany wandered out to the cathedral to ascend the tower, looking out over the myriad lights of the city and settle into her own newly discovered world of peace, so that Tyler and Jamie might have some time and privacy to make love. She paid her debts. The air was literally Arctic, but there were faint flickers between the clouds, sometimes a hint of green in the sky, and for the first time in years, she felt at peace. How life could be, given the chance.

The climax of their stay was a night-time all wheel drive ‘safari’ onto a glacier. The truck ran on massively oversized wheels and very low pressure tyres and, in what was clearly a well-rehearsed move, the driver reseated a shed tyre by spraying butane gas into it and then lighting the stuff. Bang, and back in place. That was a jewel in her memory, one to be cherished forever. Tyler laughed, and ribbed the driver.

“You run those tyres low on purpose, man?”

“Ah, they work best like that on the snow, large wheels and low pressures. But…”

A broad grin, teeth flashing in the headlights.

“It amuses our guests, so we may help it to happen! Now, we park. I turn all lights out, and we wait. Meteo says we have open skies, so we hope, yes? Anyone have Brennivin?”

Tiff found her confidence lifting.

“What’s that?”

The driver, yet another gorgeous viking, smiled.

“We had prohibition here until 1984, and when it ended, our government said ‘Yes, you can have alcohol, but there must be no glamour’, so our akvavit, brennivin, was sold with a plain label. Of course, it became fashionable: Black Death? You have none, so it is fortunate that I have a bottle here! You all drink?”

He collected his bottle from the snow outside his door, and poured. They toasted, and drank, and he killed the lights, and curtains of colour came down across the sky and danced for them.

That was the moment when she really understood who she was, and accepted it. She found herself watching their driver, and wondering.

It was a wrench leaving Iceland, but she was so relaxed as the plane lifted from Keflavik(ur) that she almost forgot her family.

Of course, each of them had ended up with a litre bottle of ‘Black Death’ in their luggage, and this time they had managed to get seats together. The plane bore down over the Atlantic, and eventually odd Scottish islands started to show.

“How was it for you, girl?”

“You make it sound like having sex, Jamie”

“Yeah, well, that border guard, and that guy in the truck on the glacier, oh my!”

Tyler snorted.

“And me sitting right here?”

“Ain’t no law against window shopping!”

“Yeah, well, hope those windows stay shut”

She turned towards him, and there were a few moments as they confirmed that there were indeed no escaped window occupants. Tiff watched, a little ambivalent, as her two best friends showed who they were, and with, and incidentally made it clear how solitary she was.

That feeling was submerged as the plane flew down from Scotland and then across England, closer and closer to their next airport, and its border controls. The stewardess came down the aisle handing out what she called ‘landing cards’, and Tiff looked at hers in despair.

Name.
Sex.

Shit.

Tyler nudged her.

“Girl, we gonna stand in front of you. We hand all the passports over, keep the man talking, you just hand back. Tiff… you forgot, this morning? Razor? Looking a little shadowy”

Her confidence went down with the wheels.

Seatbelt sign, along with all the usual stuff about blinds, trays and upright seats, and then the plane was dropping through cloud into rain. Over a highway, buildings around them, more planes parked at stands, and then the thump of landing followed by the roar of the jets as they slowed, before turning onto the taxiway.

“Welcome to London Gatwick airport. The local time is eleven fifty AM and the temperature outside is five degrees Celsius. Please leave seatbelts fastened until the aircraft has come to a complete halt and the sign has been extinguished. We thank you for choosing Norwegian, and hope to see you again soon”

They left the plane by way of an airbridge, rain lashing the little windows, and somehow the air blowing in through the gaps around the walkway felt colder than anything Iceland had thrown at her. Everything felt damp, until they were in the terminal and starting what turned out to be a long and tedious walk.

The queue was almost as bad as it had been the only time she had flown to LAX, and seemed to consist mostly of Chinese people, several of them holding up umbrellas or little flags. They shuffled forward inch by inch, foot by foot, while the flag/umbrella people scurried from desk to desk as clearly exasperated Border Guards repeated comments like, “Yes! I know you are travelling to the United Kingdom, but WHY are you travelling here”, to be answered almost always with the word “Trip!”. She spotted at least one put his head in his hands, and suddenly felt the need to bolt. There was a restroom back past the queue, and she could hide in there, surely?

“Tiff. Not now, kay? Nearly there. Me and Ty will front them, you just hang behind us. Let me talk. Give me your passport and the card”

They were at a little gateway through a glass wall. A hard-faced woman in a dark uniform was staring at them.

“Are you all together? Come forward together if you are”

Ty and Jamie stood side by side at the desk, Tiff following orders behind them, and looking down through her hair. This was what she had dreaded.

“Passports and landing cards, please. Thank you… What is the purpose of your visit to the UK, and please, do NOT say either ‘travel’ or ‘trip’, if you don’t mind”

Jamie went into full-on saccharine airhead.

“Hi! We’re here for New Year’s, here in London…”

“You’re not in London. This is not London”

“Oh, well we are staying in London, for New Year’s. Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben! We were in Iceland, and that was cool”

“It would be. Ice is cool. How long are you staying?”

“Six nights. Something called a Premier Inn, near Waterloo Station?”

“I know it. Mr Billington?”

Ty looked up.

“Yes?”

“Your landing card. May I suggest you compare it to your passport? The calendar does not have thirty months. We helpfully mark the boxes DDMMYYYY to avoid confusion. Also, your nationality is as recorded in your passport, and there is no such nationality as ‘African-American’. Similarly, Ms Reilly, unless you have another passport you are not Irish, nor Italian. ‘American’ or ‘USA’ will be correct”

Tyler looked up in surprise.

“In the States, we always say that”

“Thankfully, this isn’t the States. Welcome to the rest of the world”

The Border Guard suddenly grinned, humanity breaking free, as she stamped two passports and matching cards, handing the passports back.

“Tiffany Schwartz? Can you step forward please. Look at me…”

The Guard held the passport up to compare face and photo, and Tiff really needed to be in that restroom, with the door locked. This was what she had been dreading.

“Ms Schwartz, you have managed to complete your landing card almost correctly, unlike your two friends. First visit to the United Kingdom?”

She stammered out a shaky “Yes”

“Well, for some reason you have ticked the box for male on your landing card”

“Yes. My passport says---”

“I have your passport here. It’s clearly a mistake. Would you like me to correct your landing card?”

Tiff found herself staring at the woman, who was simply waiting, eyebrows slightly raised.

“Can you do that?”

The Guard picked up a pen, scribbled across the ‘M’ and ticked ‘F’, before showing Tiff the altered card.

“Yes, I can. That better?”

She had a security pass hanging on a lanyard round her neck, and she pulled it forward a little.

“Oh, for god’s sake, look at me! And this”

On her lanyard was a small pin, in horizontal stripes of blue, pink and white.

Tiff’s eyes went from the pin to the Guard’s face, which now bore a gentle smile.

“Yes, me too. You’ve been terrified, haven’t you?”

Tiff nodded, jerkily, and the Guard’s face turned to look at Tyler and Jamie in turn.

“You two were trying, which is great, but no, we still look at each of you properly. You timed tour flight badly today. Massive queues, all tour groups, all with the landing cards completed by the courier, every single one here for ‘travel’ or ‘trip’, every single job described as ‘employed’, ‘worker’ or ‘staff’. We sort of lose the will to live after two or three hours of that, so sorry if I came across a bit sharp. What are your plans?”

Ty took over.

“You saying you’re trans? Like Tiff?”

“Yes. Absolutely”

“But… That’s a wedding ring, engagement too”

“One normally precedes the other. Bit like Day precedes Month in dates, unless there are different customs where you come from”

Jamie shook her head.

“Do you normally tease people like this?”

The Guard shook her own head.

“Only when I spot someone I think needs it. How are you feeling now, Ms Schwartz?”

“A bit shaky still”

“I could give you somewhere to sit down if you like, but I think it would be better for you just to chat for a while. That suit?”

“Yeah…”

“Right. Now, that London. How are you getting there?”

“Ty was saying we could call an Uber”

“Only if you want to spend all your fun money in one hit. Take a Southern train, change at Clapham, straight to Waterloo. Short walk. You’re right next to the London Eye and across the bridge from Big Ben. Statue there you should look at, you and Ms Reilly here. Boudica, or Boadicea, as the Roman’s called her. Strong woman, just like you two. Watch yourselves around Trafalgar Square, if that’s where you’re going for the celebrations: big pickpocket problem. After New Year? Plans?”

Tiff was feeling more confident with each second.

“Ty wants to see the Imperial War Museum”

“Good choice. I’d go to the Natural History and see the dinosaurs. You into military history, Mr Billington?”

Ty held his hand out.

“Call me Ty. Yes, I am”

They shook, and there was another grin.

“Stephanie. Then a day trip to Portsmouth, if the trains are running, and see the Historic Ships. Also, pop down to Brighton. It’s the UK rainbow city, and I normally…”

She was writing quickly, a couple of pub names, and there was another grin.

“Not for the easily shocked, some of these! Now, to get to the station…”

She gave them sharp and very clear directions.

“Tiffany, if I may? Can I say something personal?”

Tyler rumbled that she had been pretty personal already, and Jamie slapped his arm. Tiff nodded to the Guard.

“Go ahead”

“Coming out is not an easy thing. I don’t know what your home life is like, but I had… Look. You have come all the way from America, on a passport with a wrong letter in it, and you are clearly terrified, but you are still here. Good friends help, but the courage is all yours. Don’t lose that strength, and life can be good”

Jamie held up a hand.

“Can I be personal now?”

The grin flashed back into place.

“You can, but I might tell you to mind your own, eh? Go on”

“What was it you were just about to say?”

‘Stephanie’ looked down at her desk for a few seconds.

“I once met the wrong people at airport security, in another country. It wasn’t nice”

Tiff’s breath hissed in.

“What happened?”

“I was almost searched… Two men. But I had someone with me. Broke his hand punching one of them. I do NOT recommend that as a tactic, by the way!”

Ty pointed at her rings, and she simply nodded.

“Always there for me. Always will be. Can you do that for your friend?”

There was a train, it had seats, and it was on time. The change at Clapham Junction was a breeze, their hotel was indeed only a short walk, and as the rain eased, Big Ben and the Eye became even more dominant of the skyline seen from their room.

“Tiff?”

“Yeah, Ty?”

“How you feeling now?”

“Think I’m still in shock, Ty. I mean, I thought she was going to rip you a new one, then start on me. She was… She was a frightening woman, or she could be if she wanted to be”

Jamie chipped in.

“I think you’re right, but she was tired more than anything. She… shit, Tiff, it was like she went all gooey as soon as she saw you, but had to hide it? Once she knew you were like her?”

“Yeah… Guys? Can I be a bit of a misery tonight? This place does food, and we’ve had a long day, and I’ve been running on nerves most of it. Could we just, you know, stay in tonight?”

Ty nodded.

“Yeah. Going to be the big one tomorrow, and I want to do that walk she suggested, James Park? Finishes near Trafalgar, so we can walk, get something to eat, then be ready for the countdown. That sound good?”

The hotel food wasn’t great, but it was there in the building and not a hike away, and they had both beer and wine, and nobody was carding them. Jamie had whispered, “Eighteen for liquor in this country, Tiff”, and so they had sampled some Belgian Stella rather than the
Draft Bud on offer, as well as some apple ciders, and sleep was not long in taking all three down.

Dawn, and sunlight, and a very full day. The museum was close to their hotel, and fascinating in ways Tiff hadn’t expected, and a bus ride took them to Buckingham Palace, which seemed smaller than she had. St James’s Park was a beautiful walk, and that arrived almost at the bridge across from their Premier Inn. Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, all fell to their cameras. There was a pub, up past the guards in armour Stephanie had mentioned, and it did food about the same quality as the hotel, but cheaper, and it served dozens of different beers. In the end, they couldn’t get into Trafalgar Square, as the crowds were unbelievable, but they ended up outside the pub on Whitehall, with a decent view up to Nelson’s Column.

There was noise, incredible amounts of it. There was a countdown, and there were cheers, and people lip-locked, including Jamie and Ty, who both shared a cheek-kiss and hug with Tiff as the euphoria burst through the fear.

Strong woman. That’s what and who she was.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Can’t see her, Ty”

“She might have moved, Jayjay. Might not work here no more. Been a few years. You see her, Tiff?”

“No… hang on, being waved at”

The Border Guard this time was a man in his fifties, in a tactical vest carrying a collapsed steel nightstick, handcuffs and a number of other pieces of equipment. His nose was spectacularly broken.

“What’s the relationship?”

Tyler was still leading the answers.

“Husband, wife, best friend”

“Any reason why the three of you didn’t go through the e-gates? That’s where American passport-holders should normally go”

“Er, we were hoping to speak to someone”

The Guard stared at them.

“Well, I somehow don’t think this is a claim… It isn’t, is it?”

“Claim? Oh! You mean asylum? No! I mean, we got some people near us can drive us mad, but no, ain’t that bad. What it is, we were looking for one of your other Border Guards. She was really nice to us years back. We wanted to say hi”

“You got a name?”

“Stephanie?”

“Dark-haired or red-haired?”

Ty looked at Jamie, who answered for him.

“Sort of red”

“You serious about her being nice to you? The Smiling Assassin?”

He quickly waved a hand.

“Na, she’s not like that. Nickname from when she used to play rugby. Sweet as sweet, our Steph. She is on today, but doing Customs work today. Want me to shout her?”

He put a hand to his radio, and it was Tiff’s turn to wave a hand.

“No, thanks. We’d like to surprise her, if we can”

The Guard was staring at Tiff, in a way that had become far too familiar over the years, but it was followed by a smile.

“I think I know who you are, love. New Year’s Eve, about eight years ago?”

Tiff nodded, and he grinned.

“She was really chuffed at that. Said you came in like a little mouse, hiding behind your friends—these them?”

Tiff nodded.

“Yeah, she says, you two trying to dance around in front of this one, answering all the questions for her, and she saw who you were right away. Made her day—chance to be nice to someone”

Tiff shook her head.

“She scared me, at first”

The man laughed.

“Trust me, she’s good at that!”

“But that wasn’t what she was doing. We caught her on a bad day, I think, and she just put all that to one side, gave us so much kindness. I was…”

He interrupted her, waving away her words.

“she told us, love. You were terrified, like you said. She can’t ignore that. Never could. Look: go upstairs, get your bags. You’ll find her in the Green Channel”

He waved them past, calling “And be lucky, all of you!”

Their bags were already on the luggage carousel, and the sign for ‘green’ was unmissable. A familiar figure was standing by the entrance, chatting to a bear of a man with a damaged ear. Tiff led the way.

“Excuse me… Stephanie?”

“Do I know you?”

Tiff handed her passport to the woman.

“If you have a look, I did what you did. Took me a little more than a ball-point pen, though”

Recognition rose in her eyes like a new dawn.

“God, yes! Welcome back, girl! This is, this is, Dave: remember me saying about the girl, her friends trying to hide her, back when we had landing cards?”

The bear’s eyes went wide.

“These them?”

“Yup! And… Tyler? Jamie?”

Two nods.

“How long are you here for?”

“Three weeks”

That sly grin crossed Stephanie’s face again.

“What are you up to this weekend, and do you like dancing?”