A/N: DA has apparently given me a burst of creativity. There will be 4 other chapters coming in the future. Please read and review.

Disclaimer: I don't own DA. If I did, this story wouldn't even be necessary.

Anna stared up at the ceiling. She had been staring at the same spot for what seemed like hours. She sent up another prayer for sleep to come, but as more minutes slowly ticked past, she resigned herself to another sleepless night. These sleepless nights were nothing new for her. She had had fitful nights of sleep when John had gone to London after his mother died, when he had followed Vera, when he was at the public house. But she had never been so sleepless as she was this night. How could she sleep when she knew that her John was over in York Prison, waiting for the trial that would decide his fate?

Deciding that she had had quite enough of the ceiling, Anna rolled onto her side and stared at the bed where Gwen and Ethel had slept. It was then that she turned to her other care. In the week following John's arrest, she had watched warily for the beginning of her course. She wasn't naïve. Like any good farm girl, Anna knew where babies came from. When it did come, Anna hadn't known whether to mourn the lost possibility or fervently thank god for it. She still didn't know.

When she had visited him last week, she had been glad of the loss. John's face was lined with care, each day etching a bit more into his face. She could see how much it hurt to see her in the gloom and squalor of the prison. She could not even begin to imagine how hurt he would be if he saw her belly swell, thinking that he had branded her as the wife of a murderer and consigned her to bring up a child on her own. She knew that it would have broken him.

Then there were nights like this night, where the loss weighed heavily on her. Tonight, she wished that she could place her hand on her belly and feel a child. At this bleak hour, she wished that she could have just a piece of him, a wee babe with his eyes, his smile. She felt she might be able to face tomorrow more bravely if the possibility remained.

Anna shivered and hugged herself. Even after all of these months, she could still recall John's touch on her hair, her cheek, her hip. She longed for her bed to hold her husband.

Outside, a lark started singing its morning song. 'Dawn has finally come,' she thought, 'what does it hold?'