I initially intended this to be a solo, but something tells me this is going to be at least a short serial before it is finished.

**********

I'm a Texas girl, lived there most of my life. That's not to say that my life was easy, especially when I threw a wrench into the works; a week after I turned thirteen, I told my family that I was a girl, or that I should have been one, and that's when my life became a living hell. My father beat me quite badly, but I guess I was lucky in a sense, as there were no broken bones or other major injuries, just bruises all over my body.

Everyone in my family was tall, my father was 6'5", my mother was 6'2", my older sister was 6'7" and my younger brother was 6"3. I say was because all four of them died while they were heading to Dallas - Fort Worth to catch a flight to California six months ago.

After I spilled the beans about wanting to be a girl, I was never left alone and my father talked to others in the small town a few miles from our modest ranch. It seems they decided they would "fix me", and so I found myself in a camp with half a dozen adult males for three months that summer. I'm pretty sure I did just about all the chores there, and if I disagreed with anything at all, I'd find myself on the ground, having been hit by a rock hard fist from one of the six men. Any time I refused outright, the six of them laid a really nasty beating on me. At that time, I was already 5'9" tall, well on the way to my eventual full height of 6'5", but I was slender, and all of these men were much bigger and heavier.

The casual assaults continued throughout that summer, usually one person, but now and then the group would lay into me for the heck of it. To say that I was a mass of bruises by the end of that summer would be polite, I'm pretty sure they'd cracked some ribs, too.

After that summer, I didn't trust anyone in or near that town, being different in any way wasn't going to be tolerated there at all.

It took two years before I found out from my sister that our father had arranged the "camp" for me, to straighten me out once and for all. My sister became the only member of the family or community that I would trust at all from that time forward.

I stayed in school, graduating near the top of my class not quite two months after I turned eighteen, then left, heading for California.

The winter before I left, I had sent in my college applications, most of them in Texas, but I decided that I wanted to go to San Diego State University in California; after getting their acceptance letter, I responded, informing them I would be there before the fall session started.

I wanted to be marketable once I finished at SDSU, so I asked for the combined BS and MS for Accounting, I also did a BS in Marketing, added an Economics minor and as if that wasn't enough, I figured a Masters in Business Administration would help me as well.

I threw myself into my studies, worked my butt off every day, gained the BS in Marketing in two years, then focused on the MBA and the combined accounting. It took me just over six years to complete all my degrees and the Economics minor.

My sister, as I've said, was my one support, she helped me out while I was there, covering 3/4 of my tuition each year. I had to work part-time to cover the rest and the cost of my small one bedroom off campus apartment, which led in time to my one big hassle there.

Early in my second year, I decided that I couldn't hold back any more, and spoke with a guidance counsellor, then was sent to see someone outside the university, as they didn't have a specific LGBT program in place. It made my life rather frustrating, but I talked to the therapist every two weeks, and after about five or six months of regular chats, I was put on female hormones, something I'd wanted for many years.

The hassle I spoke of happened near the end of my third year there, I was returning to my small off-campus apartment from work when I was attacked by two very large males less than three blocks from home. I recognized both as being on the university's football team, both of them were slightly taller than me, but much, much heavier. They were hell bent on getting what they wanted, they had actually torn my sundress from collar to waist, then one of them discovered my male bits, and they started beating on me, intent on hurting me as much as possible.

I was lucky enough that someone on the other side of the street called the cops when they saw what was happening, even more so when the two jerks were hauled off of me by a bunch of males who were passing by. A woman who was with the group of males knelt next to me, and pulled the torn parts of the dress so that they covered me, then spoke quietly to me as we waited for the police to arrive.

I was so relieved that I wasn't being beaten that I broke down and cried, holding on to the woman's shoulders. She just held me, whispering that I would be okay, then asking if they had done anything sexual to me. I responded they hadn't, but had attacked me instead; when she asked why they did that, I whispered to her that I was undergoing therapy as a pre-operative transsexual.

Let's just say the look this woman gave the two louts that had attacked me freaked them out, heck, it scared me, and I'm bigger than she was.

The police arrived and after talking with me and several of the folks who had been holding the jerks, they arrested the two of them, Mirandized them and dumped them in the back of the patrol car. One of the police officers was a woman, she asked me if I needed any help. I said yes, as I couldn't walk around with the dress as it was, and she called for another car to come and take me home. I informed the officers that, once I returned home and changed into something else, I would be happy to be checked at a medical centre for evidentiary purposes.

The same female officer nodded, saying she would make sure that I had an escort to the hospital and back, for my own safety. I couldn't see any reason to disagree, so I waited and when the second car arrived, I was taken home, where I changed, then to the hospital. The hospital was all right, they checked me out pretty thoroughly, including X-rays, before informing me that I could go home. It was now 2 AM.

In the end, the two jerks didn't have a prayer of getting away with it, they fought the case right to the end and lost. Since they had refused all chances to make any kind of deal, apparently because in their words I deserved what I had gotten and a whole lot worse, the judge came down hard on them and sentenced both to fifteen years in prison, with no parole for the first seven years.

They didn't like that at all, both of them went wild, attacking the bailiff and their lawyers. It took several minutes and five more bailiffs coming in there before the situation was under control. The judge shook his head, and added three sentences each of five years for the assaults on the original bailiff and the lawyers, then stated that the sentences would be consecutive, and minimum parole was now fifteen years.

Other than that one incident, my time at SDSU was spent in classes, studying, working or sleeping, any other activities were quite rare. The only break of any length I had during that time was when I went to Thailand for my SRS, paid for by my sister, may the gods bless her!

Well, that gives a basic history of my life up to the point where I finished my degrees. I managed to get a job with a small company in LA that was looking for someone with a knowledge of accounting and business administration, and I've been working there ever since.

As I said earlier, I lost my whole family six months ago, all of the grandparents had passed on within the last five to ten years; my parents had both been single children, so I was the only surviving member of my family. I had to sort out the funerals and a lot of other things. When my boss found out that my whole family had been killed, she gave me a one month leave to take care of everything, that helped a lot.

Since I returned to work after that leave, I've returned to my home town a few times to take care of family issues that came up.

Earlier this week, the lawyer I had hired to help sort out things after the funerals were done contacted me, saying he had found an account that belonged to my father, one that hadn't been listed in the will, and that the new account held just over $35 million US.

To say that I was stunned would be a major understatement, I immediately asked him if there was any info as to where the money originated. He replied that it seemed my father had held a fair number of shares in Microcrap, and had sold them the year before.

As it seemed that the sale had been legitimate, as the only surviving family member, it was all mine, money worries were a thing of the past.

**********

So here I was, back in my home town, tidying things up when I ran into one of my sister's friends. I actually knocked her down. Oops! I spent the next few minutes apologizing like mad before she finally said anything. "Hi, damn, you're big!" I giggled and agreed with her.

We wandered into a restaurant, sat and chatted over a couple of coffees. When she said that I looked familiar, I nodded; a few minutes later, she added that I reminded her of my sister, but that she knew the only surviving family member was the elder son.

When she said that, I shook my head and replied, "That's not quite the case. There was an elder son, but after some nasty things happened when he was a child, he left here at eighteen and headed to California to continue his education. California was mostly good for him, his studies progressed quite well, but he could no longer hold back his real self, so he transitioned there and graduated as a female."

She looked at me, asked "How would you know that?", then thought for a moment and added, "You were talking about yourself?"

"Yes, Becky, I was. One thing I'm glad of, I never had much facial hair, so passing even with my size wasn't all that difficult. I had one bad incident while I was there, I was beaten fairly badly, but the jerks involved ended up getting thirty years, fifteen without parole."

"Wow, that's a really stiff sentence. What caused that?" she asked. I then explained what happened in the court when they were sentenced.

She laughed. "That was a really stupid move on their part, attacking people right in the court."

We continued talking for a bit, then she mentioned that she had heard something about a boy being taken into the church for "correction". The way she said that word was odd; I asked if she meant something like the summer I went through when I was thirteen, she nodded.

"What I heard is that the boy has said he is a girl, and they intend to beat it out of him in the church, verbally and maybe physically."

I growled, my anger rising, and received startled looks from the three other people in the restaurant. "People still allow that shit to happen?"

When she nodded, I stood up, dropped a twenty on the table, and said, "I'm going to go and help that child in a moment. Bye."

I walked out of the restaurant, flipping my cell phone open, then called my lawyer and explained what I had just heard. After talking with him for a few minutes, I walked to my car, a cotton candy pink '58 Thunderbird my sister and I had rebuilt when I was seventeen. I dropped my purse and attache case in the back seat of the car, then relocked it and walked over to the church, entering through the side door.

When I was approached by one of the large group of men sitting in the main area of the church, I said that I had thought the pastor would be there alone and that I could talk to him later, then winked at the lone young boy before walking toward the front entrance.

He followed me out, we chatted for a few minutes, he gave his femme name as Lara, and I told him how to get to my car. "Just make sure you wait a few minutes, and be sure that they're all involved in the discussion before you sneak out to my car, okay?" He nodded and I left.

I had made sure before going in that my lawyer would contact a judge I had heard about down near Houston; this judge had a reputation for defending LGBT folks, and I had asked the lawyer to contact that judge and inform him I was bringing a child at high risk down there.

As I reached my car, my cell phone rang, I unlocked the car, sat in the driver's seat, then leaned back, grabbed my purse, pulled out the phone and answered the call, "Hello, this is Melissa Johansson, who is calling, please?"

"Hello, Miss Johansson, this is Judge Thibideau, your lawyer informed me of what you intend to do. I want to know why."

"Well, Judge, from what I heard from my sister's friend, the people in that church intend to force the child I'm rescuing to be a boy, even though that child knows deep within his own heart that he is truly female. My friend said they might even physically harm him in the process. Furthermore, I've been through something of this nature myself about a dozen years ago, I left home as soon as I could and transitioned."

"So you are telling me that if this child remains there, he is at high risk of at least serious emotional harm, and possibly physical?"

"Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying, this child cannot be safe here at all. Hence I want to bring the child to you."

"All right, bring the child here. You do understand that you are taking a very large risk yourself, young lady?"

"Judge, if you were here and in my position, would you leave that child here so they could do whatever they want to him, maybe kill him?"

"When you put it that way, no, I wouldn't. Children should be protected, not put in harm's way. Call me when you arrive here, please."

"I'll do that. And thank you, Judge."

"Don't thank me, just keep that child safe from harm."

**********

I ended up waiting for several minutes after the call had ended before I spotted Lara walking toward the car. She quickly looked around, then continued and upon reaching my car, opened the front passenger door, climbed in and put on her seat belt.

I took a quick look around myself, then carefully shifted away from the curb before doing a three point turn and heading east out of town.

I suppose the child was sorely stressed because she cried for some time before she relaxed and fell asleep. I should tell you now that Lara is ten years old, a bit small for a boy that age, and the longish hair lends a slightly feminine look to the overall appearance. Looks aren't everything, though, and I had heard from this child that he has known he should have been female since he was five years old.

The miles passed by under the wheels of my car, the child sleeping in the seat kept drawing my attention for brief moments. A little over two hours after we set out, I pulled into the lot of a coffee shop in Childress, I needed a bathroom break and a wake up call of sorts. I gently shook Lara, who woke a moment later, and suggested that it was a good time for a bathroom break. We entered the shop together.

I politely let the cashier know I'd be buying something once we had used the washrooms, she nodded and I went about my business. I noticed that Lara was in the stall next to mine, and we chatted quietly for a few minutes, then cleaned up before exiting the washroom.

I ordered a large coffee for myself, Lara asked for a medium tea, and we both picked a soup from the limited menu. I paid for everything, the drinks were handed to us, and the soup was ladled into bowls, then passed over the counter. We sat down at a table and ate our food.

When we were finished, we returned the bowls, then carried our drinks out to the car. Lara asked where we were.

"Childress, about an hour southeast of Amarillo. We've still got a lot of travelling to do, it could take all day to get to Houston."

"Why are we going there?" Lara asked.

"There is a judge down there that helps people like you, Lara, and he will ensure that you will stay safe while there."

"Is this judge going to keep me safe from what could have happened to me today? I heard what those men were saying, it wasn't nice!"

"He'll do his best to keep you safe, child, and so will I. Now how about we get back on the road?" I unlocked the car, watched as Lara scurried across the entire width of the front seat before sitting down and buckling herself in, then I did the same, started the car and resumed driving.

The hours passed in companionable chatter with one more stop for washrooms before we found ourselves approaching Houston. The Judge lived in the community named The Woodlands a bit north of Houston itself, I decided on a quick stop before meeting him.

The Woodlands Mall seemed a good place to stop, there would be restaurants and we could take our food down by the lake. Lara was agreeable, so I found a parking spot not far from the main entrance, we left the car, locked it and headed into the mall.

After finding the food court, we took a few minutes to decide what we wanted, I went for Chinese food, one meat, two veg and noodles while Lara opted for a burger, fries and a pop from the one shop offering such fare. After paying for the food, we headed out to the lake.

We had finished about half of our meals when Lara asked me to be quiet, she had heard something odd, she said it was someone crying. We both listened intently for a few minutes, then focused on a small patch of trees near the lake that seemed to be the origin of the crying.

Both of us walked toward that small cluster of trees wondering what on earth had happened. We entered the cluster, looked around in the slightly dimmer light, then noticed what appeared to be a little girl curled up on the ground crying, rocking back and forth, back and forth.

I handed Lara my cell phone, then slowly walked over to the little girl, knelt on the ground beside her and touched her very gently. I definitely wasn't prepared for her response, she screamed and kept on screaming for a minute or two before my voice got through to her. That was when it all became even weirder, she literally jumped into my arms, I could feel her whole body, including obvious male genitals. Oh, boy!

I held this small child in my arms, rocking back and forth for a moment, then quietly asked what had happened.

"Last... last night, I told Daddy I was a girl, he... he didn't like it, he hit me, then told me to go to bed. When I woke up today, he... he said we would be coming here today to... to meet some people in the mall. We went to a store at the far end, then in, and... and it got real bad!"

I shook my head, what were the odds that I would run into two young TG kids in one day, and be the only one who could help them? I looked over to Lara, then turned my attention back to the little one in my lap. "And what happened then?"

She then told me that she had found herself in a room filled with adult males, all but one of whom she recognized from church each Sunday, and that they tossed her from one to the next, punching her, slapping her, then sticking their things in her bottom and shoving in and out. She said that they kept passing her around, she remembered going around the circle of men at least twice before she passed out.

I asked her if she knew the names of any of the men, she nodded; when asked what their names were, she very carefully named them, one by one. As she did this, I had Lara pull a notepad from my purse and copy down the names the girl was reciting.

Once the girl had finished, I continued to rock her in my arms for a few minutes; she was so worn out that she soon fell asleep.

I asked Lara to pass me my phone, when I had it, I called the Judge.

"Hello, this is the Thibideau residence, Martin Thibideau speaking, who is calling, please?"

"Judge, this is Melissa Johansson. I have a very nasty complication sitting on my lap right now." I quickly gave him the details, the low whistle from him told me he was somewhat worried. I asked why, he said that most of those people were people he knew of at least casually. Every one of them had easy access to large amounts of money, and none of them were afraid of using their wealth to get whatever they wanted.

"That doesn't matter to me in the least, Judge, what matters is what they did to this child, they all deserve to rot in hell."

"Hmmm... if we could arrest them and freeze their accounts, that might prevent them from doing anything else while we deal with it. I'll need to speak with a friend or two in the court system here, plus a few police officers, but first things first, the child needs to be checked."

"What hospital would you recommend I take the child to for that?"

"Shriner's for Children, it's just off Main below Holcombe in Houston."

"All right, Judge, would you do me a big favour and meet us there, please? I might need your help to ensure the child is treated decently."

I handed the phone to Lara, then used the trunk of a nearby tree to help steady me as I slowly stood up, still holding the child in my other arm. Once I was fully upright, I started walking toward the mall, informing Lara as to where we would be going once we reached the car.

As we approached the car, I had Lara hand me my purse, then I handed the small child over to Lara, who held her carefully. I unlocked the car, helped Lara to get in, buckled her in, then went to my side and was soon ready to head to the hospital.

Lara was still holding the smaller child. I could see tears trickling down Lara's cheeks, I could understand those tears quite well myself. I made sure to stay within all posted speed limits as we drove to the hospital, then parked in the visitors lot before heading to the hospital doors.

As we were about to go inside, I heard someone calling my name, turned around and saw an older male striding toward us.

"I'm Melissa, I assume you're Judge Thibideau?"

"Correct, shall we take this little one in to be examined?" I nodded and we followed him into the hospital.

The Judge noticed a nurse walking our way, and as she passed by, he asked her where we needed to go and told her why. The look on the nurse's face was ominous, we were all glad that we were on the right side of the law; she pointed down a hallway and gave a room number.

We wandered down that hall, eventually found the room she had mentioned and entered. There were two doctors standing behind a desk, a nurse at a desk further inside the room, and a few smaller sized stretchers in spaces that had curtains hanging around them.

The Judge quickly informed the medical people of the situation, and the doctors promised prompt and gentle treatment of the child. The Judge also mentioned that it might be wise to let me stay with the child while the tests were being done, as the child had already bonded with me.

One of the doctors nodded, then directed me into one of the small rooms; I took the child from Lara and entered the room, carefully setting the child on the bed, then set my purse on a small table and settled down to wait. I assumed the Judge would wait with Lara outside.

**********

The tests took a few hours to do, the child cried now and then, but never uttered a word of complaint, not even when they checked her rectum.
After they had done that, she whispered to me that it hurt, but nowhere near as bad as what had happened before.

One of the doctors entered the space, along with the Judge and Lara. "We've done all the tests we can, it will likely be some time tomorrow before we'll have the results ready for you, Judge; if what you suspect is true, we should get enough evidence to nail them all."

"Call me when it's all ready, please, then I can get things moving on the legal front. Thanks for your help, Doctor."

When the doctor had left, the Judge suggested we all go to a nearby hotel, he would pay for it for now.

I shook my head and told him no, I had plenty of money and could easily afford a hotel room for a night or two.

He shrugged, nodded and said it might be a good idea if we stayed out of sight for a while, he would call us once charges were filed.

**********

We didn't have to go very far, I checked us into a room with two queen sized beds at the Houston Marriott Medical Center.

The two children spent a few minutes wandering around the room, then jumped on the bed and looked over at me. It was at least an hour or two past the little one's bedtime, but she seemed fairly awake and whined about needing something to eat. That caused me to remember that Lara and I had left our meals behind at the lake, we'd completely forgotten them with everything that had happened since then.

"Okay, then, how about we go out and find somewhere to eat? Or would you rather order in?"

Both of them started yelling that they wanted pizza, so I asked them what they wanted on theirs; once I had that info, I called the Pizza Hut I had seen earlier and ordered small pizzas for each of us, asking for them to be delivered to my room at the Marriott. I figured that they might want drinks and maybe other things to nibble on, too, so I ordered several cans of pop and orders of fries and garlic bread.

The food arrived about thirty minutes later, I paid for it and barely set it down before the kids were digging into everything.

**********

Once they had been sated, both children settled down and after climbing onto the bed, fell asleep next to each other. It took me a while longer to get to sleep, I was wondering just how I was going to cope with two children until things could be sorted out with the Judge.

I had no idea at all that things were only going to get even crazier when I finally succumbed to the sandman.

**********

I woke up just after 7 AM and listened to the birds outside the windows for a while before the children woke up. Once they were awake, we used the microwave to reheat the leftovers from the night before and pretty much just chilled out for the day. I discovered that I could access movies suitable for the children, so they were happily occupied for now while I sat there and worried about everything.

At 2:30 PM, Judge Thibedeau called, saying arrests were being made due to the medical evidence, and those people's bank accounts frozen. The Judge said it would likely be wise for us to stay where we were for another day, as a few people still hadn't been found. We had just finished eating our lunch, subs I had ordered to the specifications each child wanted; I ordered enough to see us through to the next morning.

On the news that evening, there was a story about a man being shot nearby; I hadn't heard anything, so had no idea it had happened. It turned out that the guy who had been shot and killed was one of the people on the list I'd gotten from the child the other day. When I mentioned it, she turned to me and said that he had gotten what he deserved, he would never hurt another child. Quite true, but somewhat callous, I thought.

We munched out on some of the subs through the day; we were all in bed by 10:30 PM, and sleeping soon after that.

**********

My phone ringing woke me up just before 7 AM the next morning. I grabbed it, looked at the time, then saw it was the judge's number.

"Hello, Judge, I wasn't expecting to be woken up. What's going on?"

"Well, Melissa, the police just arrested the last person on the list your young one gave us, and all accounts have been frozen. You should be safe to go out now if you wish, I'd like to meet with you this afternoon to discuss Lara's case. Is 2:30 PM fine? I'll be in chambers."

"That should be fine, Judge, and thanks for helping. I think we'll also need to discuss the second child. Location, please?"

She listened as the judge gave her the info she had requested, then turned when the younger child spoke, "My name is Tab-i-tha." She very carefully pronounced each part of the name, making sure she said it correctly, then giggled.

I laughed and asked if she would mind if I called her Tabby as a nickname; she said it was fine, but she didn't think she was a cat.

I almost fell down, I was laughing so hard; this child had been badly abused and yet she could crack a fairly good joke!

I informed the Judge of the name the younger child had chosen, he said he was writing it down to help him remember it.

The Judge then said he had one more bit of news, one of the people they had arrested was Tabby's father, it seems he had been one of the participants in the events in that shop at the mall. I then learned that Tabby's mother had succumbed to cancer two years ago.

"So her father is looking at a lot of prison time, and her mother is dead. Gods, what a mess? Have you found any relatives at all?"

"Not yet, I'll let you know if I do find out anything," he replied.

**********

Since I had been told that we should now be safe, I took the girls to the IHOP just off the Southwest Freeway; we spent a good hour or so in there enjoying a solid breakfast, all three of us were glad to be able to be out and about again.

As we were finishing our meals, my cell phone rang; it was my lawyer, I answered on the second ring.

"Hiya, Jeff, I'm sitting in an IHOP right now, what's up?"

"Melissa, have you been following the news there at all? Especially the child rape ring arrests over the last 24 hours?"

"I haven't actually been following it, but I do know what's been going on, why?"

"I heard just now that the child in the case is supposedly transgendered, I know how you feel about what happens to transgendered kids."

I sighed then answered him, "Jeff, that child is sitting in front of me right now. Lara is the one that followed me from the church in my home town the other day. Well, Lara and I found this child behind the Woodlands Mall, maybe an hour or so after the rapes/assaults."

"So how the heck did they catch all of these people so fast, Melissa? Especially as most of them are quite wealthy?" Jeff asked her.

"Jeff, that would be thanks to the Judge. We had Tabby tested at one of the Shriners hospitals here, the children's hospital, and when the results came back, the Judge used that information to order the arrests and to have the bank accounts of all the perps frozen. With them all being wealthy, he figured it would make them very high flight risks, so the courts shut down their bank accounts to make that impossible."

"So you're okay, and I gather you have two children with you? Lara and the one you called Tabby?"

"Yes, I'm meeting with the Judge in a few hours to figure out how we will be dealing with both of them."

"All right, Melissa, please keep me informed, okay?"

"I'll do that, Jeff, talk to you soon. Bye." I then ended the call and put the phone in my purse.

I smiled at the two girls, we cleared the trays from the table, disposed of any garbage, leaving the trays on top of the bin, then left the IHOP.

**********

They say that things sometimes happen in threes, well, my third was about to happen, I just didn't know it. Seconds after we left the IHOP, there was some kind of accident on the eastbound freeway; what I saw was a car being wish-boned, I was pretty sure that the folks in the front of the car were probably dead. What freaked me out even more was seeing a child's car seat come flying from the wrecked car, right at me!

I put my arms up just in time, the impact as I grabbed the car seat dropped me to the ground on my butt; Lara snatched me by the belt and kept me from falling any further by placing her body behind mine. I carefully set the car seat down and rubbed my arms, that bloody hurt!

It seems several people had seen me catch the seat, and a crowd was gathering around us. Someone asked if I was okay.

I replied that I was fine, just not used to catching speeding objects, and a few people nearby laughed at my lame joke.

A few minutes later, an ambulance pulled up nearby and the paramedics walked over to me. They took a quick look at the child in the seat, then turned their attention to me, giving me a quick exam. One paramedic said, "You know that catch was caught on several cell phones?"

I shuddered, one thing I didn't need was to come under public scrutiny. "No, I didn't. Why did you even mention it?"

"Lady, before we arrived here, I heard one picture of it on Facebook had over 10k hits already, you're about to become very, very popular."

"Just what I don't need," I muttered to myself before I decided to look at the child in the seat beside me. The child was a slightly pretty looking boy, about four or five years old, a light-skinned black with wide honey brown eyes that would make any mom's heart melt, I know mine did.

"You have some serious luck, lady, you could have broken your arms catching that seat; all I could find was a big bruise on your abdomen, your arms are fine, although they might be sore for a while. You can take ordinary strength pain meds if you feel you need them."

**********

That catch will haunt me for the rest of my days, it was part of the lead story on the noon news. I had taken the children, including the one that had been in the car seat, back to the hotel to try to relax for a while before meeting the Judge in the courthouse.

We left the hotel about an hour before I was supposed to meet the Judge, I stopped at a Walmart and bought a two-seat stroller, figuring the little boy might need it at some point, and possibly Tabitha as well. We arrived at the courthouse with fifteen minutes to spare.

The little boy, who told me his name was Bobby, was happy to get in the stroller. Tabitha refused, she said she could walk just fine. As I knew what courtroom we needed to go to, I led the way to the elevators with Lara and Tabby following behind. I pressed the up button and we waited for a few minutes; when it arrived, the four of us entered, I hit the button for the third floor and the door closed.

It didn't take long to reach the third floor; when the door opened, we exited the elevator, looking around for a moment, then spotted a cleaner wandering around wiping everything. When I asked for directions to the courtroom, he pointed off to one side.

We walked down the way he had pointed, then noticed a sign listing courtrooms on that side of the floor, and found the one we wanted. I opened the door, noticed the room was empty except for one person, a male that looked somewhat familiar to me.

He turned around, and I laughed; it was no wonder he was familiar to me, it was my lawyer! He explained he had flown into Houston to be present for my meeting with the Judge, he felt that his being there might help as we tried to sort everything out.

He was quite surprised to see me with three children; when I explained how I had caught the third child, he laughed himself silly. He only stopped when Judge Thibideau came out from a room at the back of the courtroom, and called us into the other room, his chambers, I guess.

Once in there, I had to explain to the Judge about the third child; he was much more restrained, he only chuckled for a few minutes.

He then got down to business. "Well, Lara may be less at risk now, although I don't know if she would be safe at all. Her father was arrested by police in your county after getting into a fight in a bar last night; he assaulted a young man, injuring him pretty seriously, he broke one of the boy's arms, one of his legs and at least three ribs. The young man is in intensive care at the moment, and will likely fully recover."

Lara sighed, shook her head and spoke, "I don't want to ever go back there, I'd rather stay with Melissa here, I feel safe with her."

"And what about your mother? Is she not capable of taking care of you?" the Judge asked.

"I doubt it, sir, she spends all her time drowning her sorrows in alcohol, she hasn't been fully sober for over five years."

"Are there any other relatives, then?"

"No, sir, like Melissa here, both of my parents were single children, so no aunts, uncles, etc. The only grandparent still alive is in a care home, slowly dying from some cancer that spread through most of his body, doctors said he won't last three months."

"Hmmm... so no family to take you, that's not good. You say you would rather stay with Melissa? Even though you barely know her?"

"Yes, sir, she's the only person I know who has treated me with respect; as I said, I feel safe around her."

"How do you feel about that, Melissa?"

"If that's what Lara wants, I can deal with it. The only issue, I think, is that my job is in LA, not here."

"Would you be able to find similar work somewhere in Texas?"

"I should be able to; the truth is, I don't need to work. I recently found out I'm moderately wealthy, I just like working."

"So income isn't an issue, that will make things easier. Okay, that takes care of Lara, now on to Tabitha here. What I've discovered is that the last three living relatives she has are all in the prison system here, doing serious time, or will be in there soon thanks to recent events."

"Serious time? What do you mean?"

"Her father is looking at anywhere from fifteen years to fifty for what was done to Tabitha the other day. His two brothers were sentenced two years ago on the third strike premise after they committed an armed robbery of a supermarket in downtown Houston."

"Isn't third strike pretty much where they lock the cell and throw the keys away?"

"Something like that. Both were sentenced to twenty years for the armed robbery, they also received 25 years for murder two."

"So they won't be out at any time while Tabitha is growing up. What happens if she is left in the system here?"

"That is what concerns me, Melissa. Putting her into the foster care system will not ensure she ends up with people who understand what she is going through, and that could cause significant problems for her as she grows older, especially when she reaches puberty."

"So, for Tabitha's sake, it would be best if possible to avoid the whole foster system process?"

"I don't think so, Melissa. What I'm thinking is she seems fairly comfortable with you, you're already taking one, would two change things?"

I looked at Tabby, who had been sitting quietly beside Lara on a bench near the door. "No, I don't think it would."

The Judge nodded. "That takes care of the older two. Now we come to this one," he said, pointing at Bobby in the stroller. "He has three surviving grandparents, all three barely living from one day to the next on old age pension; none of them can afford to care for a child. In fact, a court officer has spoken to all three since the accident earlier, and they all said that they would be willing to sign him over into your care."

Melissa spluttered, "You can't be serious?"

The Judge nodded, a sober expression on his face. "I'm afraid so, Melissa. One of the grandparents said that anyone who would respond as fast as you did when you caught that car seat this morning is someone that they think would 'be more fit to care for a child than many a person I've seen over the years'. That was a quote. The other two grandparents agreed with her wholeheartedly. The choice is yours."

"If I don't take him, he would go into the foster system here, and who knows what might happen then. All right, I'll take him."

At this point, Jeff interrupted. "Melissa, I found three more accounts yesterday, totalling another $90 million US."

I looked over at him, stunned. What the heck was I going to do with $125 million US? "Where did that money come from, Jeff?"

"From what I could find, stocks and bonds he had traded over the years, he sold most of them off about a month before his death."

"So all of it is legitimate?"

"It looks that way, you'll have to pay inheritance taxes, but you should still have about 2/3 to 3/4 of the initial amount once that is sorted."

"Well, Judge, it looks like I don't have any financial worries, even with three children."

"Just take care of them as well as you can, Melissa, that's all you can do beyond teaching them how to be decent people themselves."

"So true, Judge, so true. It looks like we're going to be at the hotel for at least one more night."

"Unless you decide to stay here and look for a house somewhere in the Greater Houston area."

"Maybe, I'll think about it. Lara, Tabitha, time to go. Jeff, call me once the inheritance costs are sorted, and I'll sign for them at that time."