I wonder if this had been that girl’s weird way of staying with me forever, by twisting my wish? By making me look like her so that every time I look in the mirror I would see her for the rest of my life! And even my DNA had been changed looked like it had been added with some of hers as well. What the hell was I going to do, live like this as a girl for the rest of my life?

Chapter Two

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I woke up next in a hospital bed with a god-awful headache. I looked around and noticed I was in a room myself with a table and a couple of chairs. Sitting in one of them was a different police officer, a woman this time. I started to sit up a bit in the bed and she looked up from some papers she was writing on.

“If you hold on a second I will go and get a doctor.” She said as she gathered up the documents and left the room, but as she made her exit I noticed another police officer standing across the hall. What the hell is going on here?

I looked out the window and noticed it was still daylight, I looked around the room for a clock and found one on the television. 12:30 in the afternoon, did the police pick me up this morning? Is this even the same day? A couple of minutes later a doctor came into the room and stood next to the bed.

“How are you feeling?”

“My head hurts like a mother fucker.” I said in a feminine voice. My voice?

The doctor raised his eyebrow a little at this and I could tell he was trying hard not to smile at this. “I will get the nurse to bring you some pain-killers in a little while. You hit your head on a rock when you collapsed earlier this morning when the police found you” Ahhh so it was this morning “you might have a mild concussion, however you will probably get nothing worse than that headache. I am going to do a couple of tests and then the police wish to talk to you.”

Over the next twenty minutes he did the normal doctor things like shining a little light into my eye, checking my pulse and hitting my knee with a small hammer thing.

“Okay everything seems to be fine, but I would like to keep you in overnight. If you have any problems with your vision or memory please inform a nurse. I will be send in the police woman who was here earlier as she has some questions for you”. He left the room and shortly after the woman entered the room again walked over to my bed and sat in one of the chairs nearest it.

“Good to see you awake I’m PC Janice Allan” she smiled at me and held out her hand which I shook “and I have a couple of questions for you regarding the car and the clothes you were found in earlier this morning”.

“My car?” I replied a bit dumbly.

“Well you see that car was reported missing 3 months ago and the driver has also not been seen or heard of since that time. The clothes you were wearing match the ones that the missing person was last seen wearing, we even have a photo of him wearing the outfit on the day of his disappearance. I have here some equipment to take your finger prints if that is okay and then I will ask you some questions about yourself and how you came to be in possession of those items” She got some equipment from a black leather briefcase and had me place my fingerprints on some forms. After this was finished she opened a folder got out a pen and looked at me expectantly.

“So what is your name?”

“John MacIntyre” to this she just raised her eyebrows. “What?” I asked a bit sharply.

“Sorry you just don’t look much like a John to me.” she chuckled to herself “So John how long have you been having Hormone Replacement Therapy?” She flicked her pen towards me indicating she was talking about my obvious cleavage.

“I have never taken any hormones!” I almost shouted at her “I … I ... don’t know where these goddamn things came from, I just noticed them after that policeman knocked on the car window this morning.” Hell are they even real, maybe someone stuck fake boobs on my chest when I was passed out or something. I lifted my and touched one with a finger … yup definitely real this just gets weirder and weirder.

She lifted a photo from the folder and showed it to me. It was of me at the wedding with Robert in the bar of the hotel “Have you met this man before?” she asked.

“Only every time I looked in a mirror. That’s me of course! It was taken the wedding played at yesterday.” I replied.

“Well that ‘yesterday’ was over three months ago and I’m sorry to say this but you look nothing like this person in the photo.” I just stared at her a moment.

“Is there a mirror around here anywhere? … I ehh … want to see if there is any bruising from when I hit my head earlier” I asked quietly. “Sure there is one in the toilet.” She pointed at the door, when I got up and tottered a little around after standing up she helped me across the room by steadying me she stood at the door while I went inside to check my reflection.

It wasn’t quite what I expected. I was looking at her, the girl from that night which was supposedly 3 months ago. Sure I had my natural black hair that was longer now and came to below my shoulders, I had slightly different features from hers, which made me look like my sister Jenny. It was like a mix between that girl and her. I also looked 4 or 5 years younger, around the age she had been that night around the fire.

I looked down at my body and saw those breasts again, “oh SHIT!” I just noticed something, or should I say hadn’t noticed something when I walked to the toilet. I lifted up the bottom of my hospital gown and looked down. Sure enough there was something quite obvious missing from my pubic area. Lets just say this caused another mental Blue Screen of Death.

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When I next awoke I was back in the bed. The room was empty but it was now night outside I looked at the clock and it said 11:48pm. I also noticed that I was bloody starving, heh I guess I had an excuse if I hadn’t eaten for 3 months! So I rang the buzzer for the nurse and asked her if there was anything I could get to eat.

After fifteen minutes an orderly was allowed into my room and handed me a tray with a typical hospital meal. I guess beggars can’t be choosers though, and after I ate it all I left the tray on one of the bedside tables. Since there wasn’t much else to do I went to sleep.

The next morning I awoke and looked blearily around the room and she was there again. “Morning Janice” I said to her.
“Good morning sleepyhead, you gave me quite a scare yesterday I can tell you” She smiled at me. I gave myself a scare when I looked down there more like! “Well you certainly seem to be somewhat of an enigma, the fingerprints you provided me with yesterday didn’t match anyone in our criminal database. However remembering what you said yesterday on a whim I asked them to compare your prints to our missing person. And … well they matched.” The last sentence she said looking a bit puzzled.

“Would it be alright if the doctors take some blood samples? We want to compare your DNA with some samples we retrieved from the residence of John Macintyre”

I nodded “Anything we can do to clear up this mess the better”.

“So can you tell me where and what you have been doing for the last 3 months or so? From the day of the wedding until now.” I told her my entire story. When I told her of the mist she just looked a bit disbelieving. She looked at me a bit oddly when I told her of the strange girl I had met, who I now look like. I mentioned that to her.

“Sorry about that. But when we were looking into the missing person report of John Macintyre we also looked into the weather report for the region as part of standard procedure, nothing was mentioned about any mist. However maybe it was a localised phenomenon. The other thing you mentioned was the girl’s name. When I was in school I completed a report for my history class, it was about celtic gods and mythology. A name of one of the goddesses was Brá¬ghde.”

“Are you saying that I met a goddess in a cow field and she turned me into a girl as some kind of sick joke?” And then I did something I hadn’t done since I was a kid, I started to cry.

“No, not really.” She kind of half shrugged “I was just telling you where the name comes from.” She came and sat on the bed beside me, handed me some tissues and put her arm around me to trying to calm me down. I just sobbed for a good hour or so.

I won’t go too many details of what happened for the next couple of days, since NHS hospital life isn’t exactly what you would call exciting. The doctors kept took a couple of blood samples and then I was introduced to the horrors and humiliation of an OB/GYN exam.

It was after those couple of days I was visited again by Janice “How are you doing today John?” I raised my eyebrow at her, this was the first time she had called me by my first name “We have some news about the blood samples you took a couple of days ago. However I will get one of the hospital specialists to explain it to you.” She went to the door and let in a white coat, he had greying hair and I would have guessed he was around fifty years old.

“Good afternoon Miss MacIntyre I am Dr Anstruther” he shook my hand and smiled at me “We have some interesting news about regarding your DNA tests. It seems that the two samples do not match completely, however we are now in no doubt that you are who you say you are.” I looked a bit confused he pulled out a sheet and handed it to me and continued, “This sheet shows DNA results from tests performed on your blood samples and as you can see on the sheet they are quite similar. On the left hand side we have the samples taken from your residence and on the right are results taken from your blood sample provided two days ago.”

“The first obvious thing is that everything on the left hand side is the same on the right, and apart from the fact that your genes have inexplicably mutated from XY to XX you are the same person as if you had just been born female. However as you can see on the right hand side you also have some ‘extra’ genetic information. This coupled with the fact that your fingerprints match indicate that you have undergone some kind of change over the past few months which not only affected your physical appearance but your DNA as well.”

“By the way from the notes here from your physical examinations state that you are completely female. This means that sometime within the next month you should experience your first period and by all indications should be fully capable of becoming pregnant and delivering a healthy child”. ‘Oh great’ I thought, “Because of this you should also think about things such as female contraception”. He must have noticed my look of horror.

“I’m just saying this as a precaution of course, you are a young lady and of an age to drink alcohol so it may be best for you to think about this before hand rather than regret it afterwards, I can write you a prescription for you to start on the female contraceptive pill as soon as you leave the hospital which should be some time tomorrow”.

I gulped “Okay” I said rather weakly.

I wonder if this had been that girl’s weird way of staying with me forever, by twisting my wish? By making me look like her so that every time I look in the mirror I would see her for the rest of my life! And even my DNA had been changed looked like it had been added with some of hers as well. What the hell was I going to do, live like this as a girl for the rest of my life? Mind you it can’t be too bad if half the population does it. But then again if I’m a girl now then guys will be trying to get in my pants, I shuddered just thinking about it … I guess that means I will be a lesbian. Mum always wanted grandchildren but I’m sure she won’t mind if it’s not me that has them. Jenny might be the best choice of us three kids to pop out a couple of bairns out for her to spoil, and there is always my brother Paul.

* Note: ‘Bairn’ Scottish word for small children.

Paul and Jenny are twins and were born two years before me, which makes them 26 years old. Paul is out in Iraq at the moment serving with his unit the RSDG* as a gunner on a Challenger 2 tank, although he should have around 4 months left of his tour … well 1 month now if they aren’t lying about me going ‘missing’ for 3 months. He’s a typical guys guy I guess and we had always gotten along, even if I was more academic than he was with me going to university to study computing and him throwing himself into more physical pursuits such as football and rugby while at school and then leaving school to join the army when he finished.

* Note: Royal Scots Dragoon Guards

Sure I had been a bit more heavyset round the middle than him but he always tried to encourage me to work out with him, though I usually went to the gym alone so that I wouldn’t have to watch him do all the exercises with ease while I had to struggle to keep up with him. ‘I’m a bit thinner than him now though’ I thought to myself as I looked down at my flat stomach.

When Janice pulled me out of my thoughts Dr Anstruther had already left the room “We have enough information that proves your identity. So we will be there should be no problem having your documents such as your Birth Certificate, Drivers License and Passport updated. Can you please fill out the following forms” she handed me a sheaf of papers headed with Gender Recognition Panel, whoopee I thought I love filling out forms “usually these are used by Transgender people who choose to live as the opposite gender to which they were born. We will provide you with documentation to send in with your form regarding your unique situation.”

“We have informed your family that you have been found and your mother will be here in an hour or so, Your sister has told us that she will be in to visit you when she finishes work at 5pm. You should get some rest before then, I will try to explain, this to your mother before she comes in to see you but …” she trailed off and just shrugged “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen your test results either”. She left me to my own thoughts.

‘How the hell am I going to explain this to mum, never mind the rest of the family?’ I thought glumly. But I decided it best not to think much about it and tried to sleep a little.

Shouting in the hallway awaked me. “GET OUT OF MY WAY! I want to see my son!” Ah shit she was here, I wonder if there is anywhere I can hide until she’s gone. I could hear Janice asking her to calm down, that she had to know some things before she saw me. Damn right she did and that would save me some trouble.

Suddenly she stormed through the door into my room. Damn it! She is too stubborn and doesn’t listen to anybody even the police, bloody typical. She looked at me and just blinked, I must have looked scared because she looked apologetic as she said, “I’m sorry hen*, I musta gotten the wrong room.”

* Note: ‘Hen’ is a term used to refer to younger women, usually by older men or women. The masculine form of this would to call a young man ‘Son’ regardless of them being related or not.

As she turned to leave I squeaked “Mum!” she spun around and stared coldly at me.

She looked at me for ten seconds and then around the room “What kind of joke is this?!” she said shouting motioning towards a piece of paper attached to the my bed with her son’s name on it. I couldn’t hold it back, and started to cry.

Mothering instincts must have taken control of her because she came and sat on the side of my bed and just wrapped me in her arms. “There, there dearie. It’s all right, don’t cry I’m sorry for shouting. I’m just pissed off at the police. They told me I could see my son, I haven’t seen him for months now and I’m just worried about him.”

I wiped my eyes with some tissues she handed me “Mum … It’s me John” I said to her.

She held me out at arms length and looked me up and down “Well you kinda look like mah daughter Jen but you don’t look anything like mah son John.” She said kindly and I could see the edge of her mouth twitching a little trying to fight back a smile at the thought of this young girl pretending to be her son. “Why don’t you tell me why you seem to believe you are my son, or if you want who put you up to saying all these things”.

So I told her my story and when I finished she just whistled “Well that’s a tall tale if ever I heard one” she laughed. Bah evil woman!

“Fine if you don’t believe me, ask me questions that only I … your son would know the answers to.” I said sharply to her giving her a glare.

Her eyes lit up at the thought of proving me a liar. “Fine then … when my son was very young we bought him a puppet of a hedgehog, what was its name?”

“Humphrey” I could see the impact of that into her brain as she flinched, ‘YES! Critical strike’ I thought to myself.

We continued on in the same vain for the next hour, her asking me questions about holidays, accidents and funny incidents from when I was a kid. We went over how I had ended up with a broken nose, the time when I fell out of a tree leaving a scar on my forehead just below the hairline, the hospital visit for eating strange berries from a bush in the garden. It was kinda fun actually, I was a walking talking train wreck when I was a kid.

By the end of it she was crying, “What’s wrong mum?” and now it was my turn to hug her. “What happened to you John? You just disappeared and now you come back like this … did you want to be a woman or something, are you gay?” she said with a little quiver in her voice. Now I don’t want you thinking my mother is homophobic but then again I don’t blame her for being a little scared for the safety of one of her children because of the way the world treats people for being different.

“NO!” I shouted at her, I think she looked a little shocked at that, I motioned down indicating my new body “I didn’t want any of this, I don’t know why it happened! As I told you I just woke up and this had happened. I know you thought I never dated enough girls, and that you wanted to see me married off but that’s just how I was ya know? I was waiting for the right girl, maybe I would never find her, maybe I was a little bit too passive in my approach to finding relationships but it’s not because I was gay or anything!”. She looked a bit like a puppy that had just been hit with a newspaper for peeing on the carpet heh, but now I felt sorry for shouting at her … damned conscience.

We sat in silence for a while “So what should I call you now? I can hardly go around calling you John when you look like this” she giggled.

“I dunno what were you gonna call me if I was born a girl?” I asked.

“Hmmm I think we were thinking of calling you Caitlin Mary MacIntyre, what do you think?” She smiled at me.

“I like it” as I smiled at her.

“So do you mind having another daughter now?” I asked biting my lower lip.

“Ach of course I don’t mind, you have a lot to learn about being a woman though. Things like makeup, clothes, periods and how to handle men”. When I started to protest and say that I didn’t want to know how to handle men at all. She said “No honey, I mean how to flirt, how not to flirt, how to get rid of a mans unwanted attention and how to protect yourself if they try to force themselves on you.” ‘Ahh, that could be useful’ I thought to myself and shuddered.

“Maybe your sister would be the best to help you though, I’m getting a bit old now to go clubbin with you till 2 am. And me being there might scare off all the nice men” I just felt like rolling my eyes when she said this, how can she expect me to go from a guy liking girls to being a girl liking guys at the drop of a hat?

I heard my mums phone go off, she pulled it from her purse “Damn forgot to turn it off, but speak of the devil.” She pressed a button “Hi Jen, finished work already?” She listened for a while “Follow the signs for ward E and we are in Room 216 second floor” pause “Okay, see you in twenty. Bye”

“Well Jens about to meet her little sister!” Mum grinned.

“Do you think she will be okay with it?”

“Yeah I’m sure she will be okay, I mean you were always closer to Paul than her. And she has always wanted a sister, and now she’s got one whether she likes it or not”

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End of Chapter 02

As before please comment :) I don't know when I will be able to post the next chapter because of work and I'm trying to get a mortgage for a new flat *yay* Need to move into in before I get evicted from my current flat in January >_< (no i wasn't naughty!)

Dwi