Unintended

Little puffs of fog appeared around the mouth and nose of the cold little huddled figure on the side of the road. Her long dark hair was coarsely matted around her head and the small blue cap did nothing to hide her mass of curls. Her stained pink shirt was a size to small for her five year old body and her filthy blue jeans, that hadn't seen a good washing for ages, made her look like a child from some kind of post apocalyptic movie. Her brown eyes, framed with thick black lashes, looked back toward the house.

The lights were still on at the house. She didn't want to go back inside while they were awake; he was inside. The woman was also inside and even though she was nice to the little girl when he was gone, he wasn't gone right now, and she was mean when he was home. The tiny girl didn't want to name either of them; sometimes people came when their names were said, and she didn't want to see them; that's why she was outside.

At one time the child had thought that the woman would help her, but she didn't. She didn't make him stop and that is how she knew that the woman was really mean too.

When the lady in the suit was supposed to come over, the man and the woman gave her a bath, combed her hair out, and put clean clothes on her. They cleaned their house, and gave her good food; the guy still gave her the dark spots that hurt, he just put them where her clothes could make people not see them. Still though, if it could be like that all the time, she thought it was possible that she could be happy here.

The child counted the days between visits from the lady in the suit, and she wouldn't be here for many days. The only other time the tiny dark haired waif was happy was when the guy from the lights came. That was actually when she was happiest.

The little girl found the blanket and small pillow she kept outside and cuddled up next to the house, scooting her back up against the house after she rolled up in the blanket. One of the large foundation blocks that the house sat on had a groove in it that was perfect to lay up against, and snuggle in to... she was tired, and she didn't think that the man and the woman were going to sleep anytime soon so she decided to stay outside.

"Tabitha, have Hank and Henri left you outside again?" came a soft voice beside her head.

Before Tabitha opened her eyes, she took a small breath in, smelling to see who was talking. It wasn't the man or the woman from the house, they smelled bad; they always smelled like that stuff they drank.

One brown eye opened a small slit so she could see who it was, but she didn't want them to know she was awake, so she kept her breathing long and shallow; whoever it was would think she was still sleeping. Through that small opening, her eye could see a very bright light down the street a little ways. When she saw that she took another deeper breath to smell at the person again. It was him! It was the man from the lights! She didn't know how he could be there just after not being there, but she didn't care; maybe she had just fallen asleep for a moment or two.

Tabitha jumped up and hugged him; she was feeling giddy and silly but she kept her joy to a grin, and didn't jump and caper about. She knew how to be quiet, the people in the house behind her had taught her.

A woman's voice came from behind the man from the lights, "Alrith, what have you here? A rescue? We aren't supposed to interfere with the ones that we aren't working with."

"Eriss, this is one of ours. Her parents died in a car accident a couple of years ago. I make the occasional stop to come and check on her. There has been a lot of time spent on this one's lineage and I don't want to see all of it go to waste. The people here, whose job it is to care for her, have failed. Her health is failing, she has lost weight, she is pale, and her heartbeat is strained, but she is very intelligent. I would say that the experiments on this line have been successful. We need to find this one a better home," all of this was said quietly of course, Hank and Henri must not hear them. The only thing worse than scaring a very intelligent human, was scaring a very "stupid" one; they tended to shoot back more.

"Alrith, where are her Keepers? This one may be a success, but it isn't your success to have. Her Keepers should be told, then we move on," Eriss said.

Alrith became upset. "Her Keepers... that is a very good point, Eriss. Where are her Keepers? Since I have checked on her all this year, I have never detected another one of us here." Alrith appeared stressed when he added "She needs to be moved, and moved now!"

The dirty smudge faced little girl didn't understand much of what they said, but it was clear it was about her. What she did not know was what she needed to do to be able to go with them, stay with them, and not come back here. Tabitha had seen things die. Bugs. Dogs. Squirrels. Cars hit them, and then they went to sleep and they didn't wake up. Tabitha thought often of sleeping forever; she was tired.

Eriss looked at the girl that had tugged at the heart of Alrith. Alrith wasn't known to care much for the humans that they had watched for so long no matter how successful their line was.

"Alrith, was your DNA used in her creation?" Eriss asked quietly.

Alrith gave a short simple reply, "Yes."

Eriss said "Pick her up. We will take her with us."

Alrith scooped her up in his arms, and started back to the ship. Elatedly Tabitha snuggled into Alrith's arms and thought about how much better this felt than the foundation block of the house... Tabitha fell peacefully asleep.