The November snow was falling on the little child and her attacker. Blood had splattered on the light dusting of snow that surrounded the child. Bruises and cuts were all over the tiny her body. Each bruise had been put there in anger. Punches from a father who couldn't stand to have a sissy for a son. Slaps from a mother, who abhorred the abomination that her son wanted to be. But when she had fled the home, for fear that her life would be ended, her punishment hadn't ended. Wearing a tattered dress, one borrowed from a cousin, she was chased by her grandfather, who wasn't going to be any better then her parents.

Even as she lay in the snow, waiting for death to claim her, she could hear the man swearing at her, as he plunged his knife into her small body. The threats to kill her, to rape her and teach her what freaks like her would get. Each blow brought her closer to wishing for death. But it was a shout in the alley that saved her life. Her attacker stopped and then he got up and ran off. She wanted to get to her feet and get away before her grandfather returned, but her legs weren't listening to what she told them, neither were her arms. So she lay on the ground, sure that she was going to be claimed by Satan, for daring to wear girls clothes, like the preacher of the church her parents went to, her own grandfather, would tell her all the time.

Death never found her. Instead, a new sensation was felt as a small pin-prick of warmth on her cheek, and there was a blur of speaking. She couldn't make out the words at first, but through the blood soaked haze that covered her eyes, she saw what she felt was an angel. A woman in a white blouse, but with a light blue coat about her was touching her. There was more then just a touch to the cheeks, but her body was so sore and weak, she wasn't sure where they were touching her, or what was being done. “Come on sweetie, stay with us. Don't give up now.” The voice said. A man dropped to his knees and he began touching the girl, she could feel slight pressure from his hands below her waist.

“I called, the ambulance should be here in a few minutes. The cops have the man's license plate number.”

The child couldn't keep her eyes open any longer, and darkness over took her.

She woke in the hospital a couple of days later to the surprise and joy of a nurse, who leaned out the doorway. The first thing the little child noticed was a dull ache all over her little body. From her head to her feet, every part of her seemed to hurt. The nurse stepped back in and she was followed by an older woman. Both looked revealed as they went to the girls bed.

“Hello.” The older woman said. “I'm Doctor Fuller. This young lady is Nurse Polly Barnes. How do you feel?”

“I'm sore.” The child said as she lay there. Her voice cracked and her throat was parched. “Can I have water?”

“In a moment. First we need to make sure nothing is wrong. We need to stress that you do not get out of the bed. You need to heal fully.” The Doctor said as the nurse pulled out a blood pressure cuff. The Doctor pulled out her stethoscope.

As the Doctor listened to the little child's breathing, two more people walked in, one in a cops uniform and another had a clipboard and both looked important.

“Now this is Grace Packard, she is with the children services and this is Officer William Douglas.” The Doctor said as she made the introductions.

“Hello. We just have a few questions. The most important is, what is your name?” The woman with the clipboard asked.

“Luke.” The little girl said, not wanting to lie to a cop. But something in her wanted to speak up. She was tired of living under her parents rule, even though she was afraid of what could happen. “No. My name is Lisa, but my parents said it was Luke.” Something about being away from her parents gave her the strength to speak out, something she had never done before, not even at school. It could have been the drugs giving her the strength, by masking her common sense to keep such a secret hidden. But she was tired of hiding her secret feelings. A part of her knew that her parents could get in trouble, at least she hoped they would. And she spoke from her heart when she said her next statement. “I hate being Luke. I should have never been Luke in the first place. Mom and Dad hated Lisa, but they hated Luke too..”

“Okay. Tell me Lisa, what is your last name and do you know how you got here to the hospital?”

“Wells.” Lisa replied as a nurse started to take her vitals. “And I left the house when Mommy and Daddy started to beat me. They hate me. My Grandfather followed me from the house and he beat me up too.”

“Lisa, did they do more then beat you?”

The more she talked, the more she wanted to admit and she was enjoying the dulled sensation the drugs were giving her. “No. But Grandpa threatened to. He's also the preacher of the church Dad makes me go to. He found me in a dress and he started to beat me, then he stabbed me. He said he should rape me too, so I knew what it felt like to be a freak.” Lisa looked to the Doctor as a question popped into her mind. “What happened to the Angels?”

“Angels?” The Doctor asked.

“Yes. They found me and they stayed with me. They called the ambulance. I heard them say that.”

“The Reeds.” The social worker answered.

“Ah. No, they weren't Angels, but they sure act like they are. The Reeds are a couple were coming out of a nearby store when they saw your attack.” The cop replied. “They're good people so they had to help you.”

“They are here, if you'd like to meet them.”

“Could I?”

“Well, relax in the bed and we'll go get them.”

The doctor stopped the social worker and the cop as they left the room. Once the door was shut, she looked to the social worker. “Okay, that kinda of answers a question we were faced with.”

“What question?”

“When we had the kid on the operating table, we found something, but we also had to make a rush decision. Something that led us to checking her medical records.”

“Whats that?”

“Well, it stems back to when Lisa was a baby.....”

“So that's the whole story on the child’s past.” The social worker told Karen and her husband, Gerald Reed. They had decided to cover the story once more, for the Reed's benefit. “We're only telling you this, in case you wish to pull your request to be the foster parents. Not many people would deal with this and to just surprise someone with this could wind the child up in the same predicament.”

“No. We'll gladly take that little angel.” Karen said with a shake of her head. “You know my past. You know how close to Lisa's story mine is.”

“I know, Karen. I just had to tell you.”

“We'll do you one better.” Gerald said. “What if we adopt her?”

“Well, adoptions will take over two years for a child in the system.” The worker told them.

“Darn it. That's a big thing for a child in her situation. She'll be under the fear of going back to those people who had her before.” Karen stated.

“What if we get the parents to sign off on an adoption?” Gerald asked.

“Well, if they both agreed, but would they?” The worker answered back.

“Well, they are looking at child abuse, right? That's got to be a few years for what they did. And then after that, they won't be able to have children for a while. And the grandparents can't claim her, not since three are dead and the only living grandparent is in jail for trying to kill her as well.”

“Well, how about for now, we let you talk to Lisa. She wants to meet you. We can work on the fine print when we're done.” The worker replied.

As the Reeds walked in, Lisa looked away from the television that was on the wall, and her first thought was that Mrs. Reed still looked like an angel. From her flowing long blonde hair, her smiling face and tender look. Her husband looked just as friendly.

“Hello Lisa.” Karen Reed said.

“Hello Ma'am.” The child replied. “Are you the angel?”

“No.” Karen chuckled. “I'm no angel, just a concerned citizen that found a wonderful little girl who needed my help.”

“You're beautiful like an Angel should be.” Lisa replied.

“I bet when you have healed, you'll look just as beautiful.”

“Thanks.” Lisa smiled at her, a move that caused the bruises on her face to hurt.

“Lisa, the reason we don't want to let out of bed to do much is because we had a scare with one of your lungs. It collapsed in the attack and we need to keep you in the bed till you get better, okay?” The doctor said and the little child nodded. “We also found out something very interesting. Tell me, Lisa, have you always felt like a little girl?” When she made no move, the doctor smiled and patted her hand. “You can speak freely in this room. No one in here will hurt you at all.”

It took a couple more minutes for her to finally answer. The bravado she had felt earlier was gone now. She didn't want to seem like a liar to the Angels. None of the adults bothered her in that time, as they could see the fear of being hurt on her face. Finally as Karen caressed her hands, she answered. “Yeah. I've always wanted to be a girl.” Lisa said with a nod of her head.

“That's very good.” The Doctor said with a smile. She pulled over a chair and sat down on it. “One of your wounds looks like the man who attacked you tried to cut off your boy parts. It was that wound that led us to a very important discovery. We ran tests to make sure, but we found a uterus and ovaries in you.”

“What's that?” Lisa asked.

“Did you ever take sex ed in school?” The Doctor asked.

“No. Mom did my school stuff at home. They said strangers can't teach children because they'd attack sissies like me.”

“Ah....” The social worker said with a nod. She had seen a few cases in her time with the social services where religious people home-schooled their children and abused them in the process.

“Okay, bear with me and I'll tell you what it all means.” The Doctor began a quick intro into the male and female sexual reproduction organs. Twenty minutes later, the little girl was blushing and trying to understand everything they had said. Finally the doctor pointed to her belly. “When we have to operate on you, we pulled your records when we found the ovaries and uterus. It looks like a doctor sewed up your vagina when you were an infant, because you were born inter-sexed. That's a person that has both sets of sexual organs.

Gerald and Karen came over to the bed and the little girl looked at them, then at the social worker. “So, I'm a real girl?”

“Real as I am.” Karen said with a smile.

“Me too.” The nurse added.

“There's more.” The doctor told her. “Usually with your age, your parents would have a say on things. But we were fighting time and the wound the man caused didn't give us a lot of choices. See, your penis was cut. Luckily, the Reed's kept you from bleeding out, but....well, we went ahead and just changed you into a girl. We had to reopen your vagina. Had you stayed as a boy, your penis would never have reached a normal length for a male. We took a leap of faith and sometimes it doesn't pay off in the end, but this time it did.”

“So when I get older I can have babies?” Lisa asked the Doctor.

“I....Well, we will have to watch you as you grow up and make sure there are the hormones, but I'd say the chance is good that you will.”

“Cool.” The little girl replied. As she had been sitting there, she noticed that her eyelids were getting heavy and the adults saw it too.

“Lisa, would you be upset if I stayed with you for a while?” Karen asked.

“No. But I'm kinda tired.”

“I don't care. I'll sit here with you and make sure you get your sleep, okay?”

“Okay.” Lisa replied and her eyes closed, then opened up again, but before anyone could get her attention, they were closing again.

Through the next few weeks, the Reed's kept their visits up, assured in the fact that they would be receiving Lisa when she was well enough to leave the hospital. Karen spent long hours at the hospital, getting to know the young child. Nightly, when Gerald would show up to pick up his wife, he would stay for an hour and talk with the little girl.

It was the evening of Christmas eve and Lisa was to be released from the hospital. She had been dreading the departure, for fear her parents got her back. She knew she was supposed to go with the Reeds, but there was a fear in the back of her mind that things would go wrong.

As she sat in the room, looking through the gifts that the Reeds had left her, dolls and dresses mostly. She loved the dolls and wanted to wear several of the dresses, but she was sure that once she left, she would never see them again. As she thought about it, her parents had forced her to be a boy once before, what would stop them this time.

Even with Karen at her bedside each day, the fear lingered. As the doctors were giving her the final chuck up, Gerald came into the hospital room, a huge smile on his face. She could see the sun had mostly set outside and the streetlights were glowing in the distance.

“Lisa, I have news for you.” He told her as he went to her bedside. The social worker walked in after him.

“What?” The little girl asked, afraid of what he was going to tell her. The fear that she would go back to her parents, or to someone else from the church was causing the girl to shake. She didn't know it, but she had started to cry.

“Lisa, calm yourself.” The social worker said as all of them stopped at her bedside. “In past month, The Reed's have met with your parents several times and finally we managed to get them to sign off on something. As you know, the Reeds were going to be your foster parents. They had already done the classes and their house was checked out. They were just going to foster parent you.”

Karen bent down and wiped away a couple of her tears. “Now, we should have told you sooner, but we wanted to make sure the courts would go with us on this. But will you let us be your parents? We have a nice home on the outskirts of town. You will have a room, all to yourself. One with pink walls, unless you hate pink...”

“Parents?” Lisa asked, confused as to how that would work out. “Like my actual parents? No one will take me away?”

Gerald held out a piece of paper and showed it to the little girl. “This is an adoption paper. We went to the courts and did some other legal stuff.” She said. “As of today, you are our daughter. Not our foster daughter, but our daughter. We'll also work on getting your name changed.”

“Daughter?” Lisa asked, trying out the word and enjoying how it felt. “Daughter.”

“Daughter.” The Social worker stated with a nod.

“So, will you let us be your parents?” Gerald asked.

Lisa smiled at them and nodded. “Yes!” Gerald pulled her into a gentle hug, and Karen joined them.

“Well then. I'm sure you three would like to get out of here. So we just have a few more papers to have you sign and we can get you out of here.” The doctor told them.

“Lisa, we would like to know. Have you ever gone to church?” Karen asked Lisa.

“Mom and Dad would force me to go to one. The preacher was Dad's dad and he was a bad man. He kept saying everyone was going to hell. He would tell me I was bad. That I was evil for wearing dresses. He would say that everything was bad...Dad had him there the night they hurt me. He got mad when I ran. He said that God said bad children should be punished and that's why he hurt me.....You don't go there, do you?”

Karen shook her head and patted Lisa's hand. “No. We go to a good church with loving people who supported us in adopting you. Many of these gifts came from some of them and many more are waiting for you at out house, for you to open on Christmas day. The reason we asked, is we go on Sundays and we would love it if our daughter could join us each week.”

“We can talk about it later.” Gerald said as he pulled out a large box. “But we thought you would like to wear a nice dress home. This one is from my parents. They are your grandparents now.”

Lisa looked at the box, then at the surrounding adults to get confirmation that she could open it, then she tugged pulled the bow down the box and lifted the lid to find a white dress, with pink roses on a sash, plus shoes that were her size. “If you would like to go, we can help you put this on and we'd love to introduce our beautiful daughter to our parents. They were thinking of coming over for Christmas dinner. Would you be up for that?”

“Okay.” Lisa replied, but she was busy looking over the dress and not paying attention to the conversation anymore. She had never thought she would have a dress this pretty and it be all for her.

As they loaded her into the car that the Reeds owned, Lisa relaxed in the back seat as a couple of the nurses helped load the clothes she had received as a present into the trunk. As she watched them, they still looked like Angels. Both were kind and had taken to her without a single problem

Ten minutes later, as Gerald pulled out of the hospital, Lisa began to cry. Karen turned to see her better. “What's wrong, Lisa? Are you hurting? Are you having troubles breathing?”

“No, I don't hurt much....It's...its just that you and Mister Reed have done so much for me the past month, with the toys and stuff...and its too late to give you a present.” Lisa wiped at her eyes, but she noticed Karen was smiling, and she could see a smile on Gerald's face in the mirror.

“Baby, you don't have to get us anything. You are the best present that anyone could have given us.” Karen told her. “We've always wanted a child and now we have a beautiful daughter.”

It's a bit small, but I hope you enjoyed the story. I wanted to do more, but kept running into writer blocks.