Sometimes Wonderland comes to you.

"So, Alice, how do you feel?"

"Like I'm about to fall down the rabbit hole, doctor" the young woman in front of me says.

"It's nothing to be afraid of," I say with what I hope is a comforting smile on my face. I've only done three of these procedures before, but I don't want to let her know that. Sure, there are things that can go wrong, but you never want your patient to know that. They're worried enough as it is.

"Will it work?"

I consider my answer carefully. How do you tell someone, especially someone like the individual in front of me, that this is still experimental technology?

Sure, it passed through FDA trials without a hitch, but even now I worry at the long term consequences. We've only had this for the past twenty years or so, and only perfected the 'no surgery' method around four years ago.

It still required cutting, but as the patient was able to walk out of the operating room under their own power, someone thought it cute to say it wasn't really surgery.

No, surgery is medieval compared to the changes this treatment does.

"So, have you experienced any issues with your gene therapy?"

She shakes her head at me, "but I expected…"

"Something more?" I say with a small smile. This is the fourth patient that expected something more from the therapy.

"Yes. Wasn't it supposed to change me?"

"It did change you. It made you compatible with all the new parts we'll be adding today."

"Compatible?"

"I know, in the past twenty years we've all but forgotten the concept of 'transplant rejection.'"

She looks at me like I've just invoked some magical formulae. I have to smile. Boyish good looks aside, I'm old enough to be the girl's grandfather. I remember when my job saw more deaths than miracles. I'm a transplant surgeon after all.

"Once upon a time people got organs from people who had died."

"They had dead organs put inside them?" Alice shuddered at the thought.

"No, the organs weren't dead, just the people they originally belonged to."

"How does that work?"

"Not as well as most people hoped when the technology was first created. We thought it would end suffering. It just created new types of suffering: the suffering of those people who didn't get an organ in time."

Alice cries a bit, and I hand her a tissue. She blots at the tears in her eyes. "Why didn't they just use this technology?"

I smile at her warmly. "because no one was smart enough to invent it yet."

"But…why didn't I change to fit my new genetic code?"

"Because your body was already formed. Sure, over the next seven years, some things will change. Maybe your hair color will lighten a bit, or your eye color will shift, but your body has already gone through puberty so your bone structure is set. It's not a magic potion, Alice."

"I wish it were. Then we wouldn't have to do this."

"And I'd be out of a job," I say with a cheeky grin. "Trust me, you'll be fine."

"Will I even be able to recognize myself?"

I show her the picture of her face we're working off of today. It floats above the monitor in full 3D. It's not different from who she is now, just softer. We'll be able to reshape her larynx from the inside, so her voice will change as well. She's requested that she be a contralto when we're done. It won't be that big a change from her current tenor range.

"Will I still be able to sing?"

"We don't know. It's one of those things that we're still working on. Then again, how much of singing is mental and how much is physical?"

She smiles a bit sadly at me.

"We could still do the old shaving technique. I'd have to bring in a plastic surgeon for that…"

"No," she says, "it's worth it to be able to speak naturally and normally in a different range. I will do that, right?"

"Yes," I say with a smile, "you'll get that."

"I'm going to look pretty," she says.

No, she'll be gorgeous, I think, but I don't say. My computer modeler is an artistic genius. He adds just enough asymmetry to make it look natural. Sure, there are plastic surgeons using these technologies that go for the ultra symmetry look, but I think they look more fake than the old techniques.

If there was any woman I could fall for at my age, it would be the one sitting in front of me now.

I banish the look of longing beginning to appear on my face, and the thought from my head.

"Any more questions, Alice?"

"When can we start?" she says.

"Soon. The nurse will be in soon to take you to prep where we'll put you under. There might be some discomfort after the procedure, but that should fade quickly. One last thing. Did you decide whether or not you wanted enhancement at the same time?"

She looks down at her breasts and then looks up at me, "Do you really think they need it?" she says with a coy smile. If I didn't know better I'd think she was flirting with me.

"They fit your frame," I say.

"Not what I asked, Richard."

I'm shocked at her familiarity, but I don't let it show. I was winning poker before her parents were born. "No, they don't need a thing," I say. She beams a smile at me and I leave the room before I can get any further roped in.

I make some last minute checks on the computer models, verify there is nothing wrong with her blood work, and head down to the prep room. I spend a couple of minutes centering myself before going in to the OR.

I really like First Person Shooters, and I spend the time destroying pixilated aliens. It calms me like nothing I've tried before in my life, and I am relaxed when I go and scrub my hands. I say a silent prayer to my dead wife to continue looking over me before I enter the room where we will change Alice's life for the better.

We do the face first. I make the incision inside her mouth between her upper gum and teeth and begin to feed the snake in. I feel almost useless at this point, as the computer takes over and begins changing the underlying bone and musculature. We'll run it over the outside after the structure is done. It eats away bone and tissue before printing it back into place in a new structure. It starts at the top and works its way down.

For the first time I'm disturbed by the way the snake moves under her skin. Three other times I've had no problems whatsoever, but something about this one bothers me. It might be that she was beautiful in my mind before we did this, but I shake that thought aside.

"You like her, don't you," Clara says from the other side of Alice.

"No, I can't…"

"Not talking about what you can and can't do, Dr. Pierce. Talking about what is or isn't."

"She's only nineteen, Clara."

"And..?"

"I'm ninety."

"You don't look ninety."

"How old do I look, then, Clara? I look into a mirror and still see the years in my eyes."

"That fades when you look at our patient here. I could swear you were only twenty five."

I smile at the compliment.

"Why did you come back, Doctor?" Clara asks. She is as old as her looks. She's only thirty.

"Because I was bored." I say with my pat answer.

"I don't buy it. Not with the patients you see."

"Did you know that my Dianna was transgendered?"

She looks shocked, so I smile. "We didn't have the understanding or the procedures that everyone took for granted even twenty years ago. I wasn't gay, but I accepted her, penis and all. She never had surgery except for up top much later in life."

"I never knew. She looked so natural."

"That's right, she taught your nursing class ten years ago, didn't she?"

Clara nodded. I had to smile at her look of shock.

"Dianna taught me that there is so much more to a person than gender. Too often we forget that."

In the time we were talking, the snake had retracted fully, and I carefully rand the surface sculptor over Alice's face. "Gorgeous," I said quietly.

"How can you stand it?" she asks me.

"I've been forced to become a patient man over the course of my life. I just use self control."

Using the camera and an external ultrasound I position the snake in her larynx and activate the next part of the program. It reshapes everything fairly quickly and I'm retrieving it just as carefully as I put it in.

"Now for the fun part," I say with a smirk. I carefully remove her penis and scrotum and put them in the chemicals which will separate the cells out. I clamp the vessel at the incision site, as we'll be going back in through there soon enough.

As the layers of her penis begin to pull apart, I separate all the major cell types by hand. We've found it tends to work better than the automatics. Then I use the sculptor to reshape some of her leg muscle and skin. I take just a strip from each leg, the sculptor reforming skin behind it as I went. We'd need the tissue for later.

I go in and take a little bone tissue from her torso in front and back and on both sides. It doesn't narrow anything very much, but it will allow us to give her much wider hips in the end. It will even out.

By then her former penis was ready for use. I carefully make the incision through the pelvic region and into her abdominal cavity and feed the snake up into it. The last program is probably the most important.

It begins with ovaries as those are the deepest in her body. It crafts the area so that they rest there as if she'd always had them. From there it crafts everything that a woman could desire in her own body. The uterus causes a slight bulge on her flat tummy, but I doubt she will really mind. Then it is finishing out the cervix and pushing toward her pelvis. I hear the slight crack the program uses to tell us when the pelvis separates. Carla and I pull at her legs, opening the gap for the new material. We are careful to keep the gap centered on her torso.

Then the snake begins the painstaking process of crafting the vaginal canal and makes its way slowly until it just has the external labia to take care of. I use the sculptor carefully shaping this most important part of her. When I'm done, I feel like a voyeur and not a doctor.

I cover her up and begin to leave.

"Don't you want to congratulate her on becoming a woman?"

"She was always a woman. Now, no one can argue."

I leave the OR unable to be there when she wakes.

***
In the year since I completed that operation, I've been unable to forget that remarkable woman. She visits me in my dreams and I take cold showers to banish those dreams. I don't seek her out like I want to. It tears me apart inside, but I was born in a different age, and doctors just don't treat their patients like that.

"Richard?"

I continue to look into my drink, sure that the voice is a hallucination. It sounds exactly like I imagined her voice would sound like after the surgery.

"Dr. Richard Pierce?"

I look up then and see her, "Hello, Alice. How are you?" I look at her hand and see a ring there. I knew that she'd find someone. It still stabs me in the gut, and I can feel my smile become a bit forced.

"I can still sing, or I should say I can finally sing."

At my confused look she just laughs. It's music to my ears and I wish she could be mine. I push that thought aside. She was never meant to be mine.

"I got a recording contract. In fact, I'm performing here tonight. My drummer is missing and I was out here looking for him."

"Sorry to hear that. Wish I could help." I say.

"You don't play do you?"

I try to look away, but not before I begin to smile.

"You play the drums? What don't you do, Richard?"

"Fall for the right girl, apparently," I say before I can stop myself. I'm looking at her ring. I figure it's safe enough now to let her know a bit how I feel.

"Oh, this thing? It's fake. I use it to keep away the more insistent fans."

I feel my mouth open a bit into an 'oh' of surprise.

"So, you've fallen for me a bit, have you?"

Gone out the window is my self control. I'm in it up to my neck and all I can do is nod and blush. "I'm sorry. It's unprofessional of me. I need to leave."

"Unprofessional?"

"I'm your doctor."

"You were my doctor a year ago. Tonight you're a handsome guy I'd like to know better. So, are you willing to play drums with us?"

"I don't know the songs."

"I think you might. You were the one who inspired my music choices after all."

She hands me a set list, and I realize a lot of my favorites are on the list. I must have mentioned them during the time that we spent together getting her models and everything prepped. I smile a bit.

Out of nowhere she kisses me full on the lips.

"Thank you for doing this," she says with a small smile.

To thank her I kiss her back. I can feel her respond to me, but I break it off before it can go too far.

"Why'd you stop?" she asks me.

"I don't do PDA," I say with a smirk.

We get onstage and I help her to perform. She is amazing, and the audience agrees with me. We're kissing and getting into a bit of necking in her dressing room when I let slip, "Will you marry me?"

Immediately I regret saying it, but the look in her eyes changes my mind on the subject. She is crying, but the smile on her face tells a different story. These are tears of joy.

"Of course I will."

***
We're married in the spring. I get to see firsthand how well the procedure works. It was as if we were made for each other. Her body fits mine perfectly. I don't think either of us is prepared when she gets pregnant the first time.

I spent my entire first marriage without needing to worry about it, and Alice, my beautiful Alice, spent most of her life trapped in her male body.

I go through the classes with her, and her body swells over time with the little life growing inside of her. Our first child is a boy and we name him Reuben. I'm old fashioned and Alice likes it.

After that we're more careful, or I should say more deliberate. Alice loves the affirmation that being pregnant gives her, and I love the joy that our children bring into our lives.

We have four children before both of us decide that it's enough.

As I watch her sitting with our little ones, I realize that sometimes even the smallest idea can have the biggest repercussions. This one thing that people have dreamed about for so long wasn't solved by a scalpel but by a computer.

She calls me over and I join my family. My computer family that is oh so real to me. I kiss her tenderly and laugh at the gagging sounds coming from Reuben.

"Someday, Reuben, you'll find a girl that makes you as happy as your mother makes me," I say with a smile.

"But, I'm a girl," Reuben says. It's news to us, but I smile at her.

"Well, then someday you'll make some man just as happy as your mommy makes me."

"Why do these statements always come back to me?" Alice says with a little smile.

"Because you are the center of my universe," I say with a grin, and she answers me back with a little grin of her own.

Alone, none of us are perfect, but I think if you find the right person, then together you can be. And if you're really lucky, then living happily ever after will come to you without even trying.