Practice Will Eventually Make Perfect

Part I
by: Danielle : - )

5/29/99

I actually wrote this whole part today- I am so proud of myself. I guess I have to work at the golf course to write anything good (well, okay, anything at all...). Anyway, on to the good stuff *g*... What do you think of the Synopsis? It's the first time I've written anything like it and I'd like to know if it was a good or stupid way to do it, so e-mail me your thoughts!

Disclaimer: I started this story and the idea long before the 3rd season finale (started it on 8-16-98 to be exact), so don't come griping to me that I stole all this stuff from the finale. Cuz I didn't.  If you recognize the characters, that probably means they belong to NBC and "The Pretender". If not then they're mine.

Warning: This fic contains serious subject matter (namely miscarriages and stillbirths) with lots of angst. So you probably shouldn't read it if you're sensitive to those subjects. 

~~~~~

"Push!" Mr. Raines commanded from the foot of the table.

"I can't." Deanna gasped in exhaustion.

"You have to." He growled. "It's almost here."

The fifteen year old took a couple of deep breaths as she willed her body to put forth a little more energy. She had already been in labor for almost 18 hours. The baby had been in tough shape before labor had even started, and by now no one expected it to be alive. It was almost three months early, so even if it had been a quick, easy labor, there wasn't really a chance of survival. Only one person in the crowded delivery room thought the baby was alive- Deanna.

As everyone talked about a stillbirth, Deanna was thinking, No. My baby won't die. It can't, not after all I've gone through in this Hellhole. God wouldn't kill my baby on top of everything else. My baby's alive, and after it's born they'll let us go. The thought of raising the baby had been the only thing that kept Deanna alive during the extremely rough conception and pregnancy.

Deanna felt a sudden whoosh as the baby came out feetfirst. She struggled into a semi-sitting position despite the shackles keeping her wrists to the bed.

"It's a girl." Raines said. "Dead."

Deanna barely felt the needle in her arm as she stared at him in horror. "You're lying." she whispered.

"It's dead." he said as a nurse took the baby out of the room.

Deanna thought she heard him say something about better luck next time, but her world grew dark before she could make meaning of the words.

Hours later, in the middle of the night, Deanna woke up in her room. She could feel a horrendous ache between her legs. The sensation reminded her that she had had the baby, and that it was a girl. She was also dead.

"No... no.. no nono." Deanna began to sob. The sobs intensified despite the pain it caused and made the bed shake and hit the wall. Suddenly she felt comforting arms wrap around her. Not caring who they belonged to, Deanna clung on. She cried and yelled at her creator for two hours. Only then did she look at her comforter. It was a young man with a compassionate face.

"Who are you?" she wanted to know so she could thank him. He told her.

"Thank you Angelo." she said gratefully. "Can you stay with me?"

He gave her a look that she could interpret only as meaning 'I'm going no where until you tell me I can.' So he sat with her for several hours while she stared unseeingly at the wall.

They both heard a key move in the lock, but neither moved.

Raines walked in followed by Ralph. Raines' eyes narrowed at the sight of Angelo still holding Deanna's hand.

"Angelo- go back to your space." the old man wheezed.

Seeing him hold his ground and remembering his earlier look, Deanna told her watchful guardian that it was okay for him to leave. He quickly headed out the door.

The two men examined Deanna in her room and then left. Neither had said a word to her.

After that, Deanna was left alone until dinner. She didn't have an appetite and not even Raines' threats could give her one.

That night, Angelo came back. By then, Deanna was so exhausted that she slept the whole night through. Angelo was still there in the morning, but he left before Raines came. Except for another brief, silent examination, she was left alone.

This went on for a week. After that life went back to normal. Well, as normal as life could be at the Centre after you lost your baby.

Deanna kept expecting to be told she could leave. After all, her baby had died so she obviously wasn't capable of bearing this child Raines so desperately wanted. They were just waiting for her to recover some more.

With that in mind, Deanna ate even if she wasn't hungry and exercised as much as her small room allowed even though it hurt. Angelo still stopped by nightly, but now he left after she fell asleep.

It wasn't until almost a month after the stillbirth that Deanna began to realize that she wasn't going to be set free. And worse still, she thought they were planning on impregnating her again.

Everything that was now happening was the same as that which had occurred in the month before her first artificial insemination. Now that Deanna had seen these clues, she lay awake at night with dread.

She was panicking, trying to figure out what to do- how to stop it. I'd rather die then go through this again, she decided.

So when her period came two weeks later, she feigned horrible cramps every day. They gave her pills for them- one pill two times a day. They seemed reluctant to push it up to two at a time, no matter how much Deanna begged.

She figured they'd inseminate her on the fifth day of her cycle like they had last time. By the end of the fourth day, she had saved up eight pills in the bottom of her pillowcase. She wasn't exactly sure what they were, but she knew they were stronger than anything she could have gotten at home.

That night she pretended to be asleep when she heard Angelo moving towards her in the air vents. She knew he had a special knack at picking up on people's feelings and she didn't want him to guess her plan. She didn't think he'd go along with it. She heard him come into the room and look at her. Once he went back in the vents, she counted to 1000 before she got out of bed.

She collected the small gray capsules and went into the bathroom to fill a glass of water. She took the pills two at a time and in five minutes she was back in bed. It only took ten more minutes for her to start feeling sleepy, and in ten more she was dead to the world.

To be continued...