Sitting on the bed with her legs crossed in front of her Dinah could hear nothing but the ticking of the clock, she knew it was only a matter of minutes before Edmund arrived, armed with a syringe of fertility drugs in the hopes that the little embryo inside of her would grow into a baby, his and Cassie's baby. A baby that Dinah would have to carry for 9 months, protect, nourish and then give away.
She had said goodbye twice before, the first time when Laura's heart had stopped beating inside of her and she had been forced to go through labor anyway. She remembered flashes of it, but they had medicated her heavily, something that even to this day she wasn't sure if she was grateful for or not.
Then when she was in Italy and a short-term romance with a British soldier who was on a quest to find himself had left her pregnant, terrified and alone she had called the only person she knew could and would help her, her father. In a matter of days Ross had managed to pull every cross Atlantic string he could and arranged for Dinah to stay in a convent on the outskirts of Puglia, a beautiful town with rolling hills and buildings older than most of America.
There, at 21 weeks pregnant Dinah had given birth to a tiny baby girl too fragile for the world. She had been alone then, with only Sister Mary to hold her hand and the sound of the wind rushing through the trees to distract her from everything she was feeling. She had been allowed to hold Rose, to love her and to apologise for all the promises she would never get to keep, before the tiny baby had been buried in a cemetery just yards from the convent's walls.
"What have I done," Dinah muttered under her breath, the reality of the impulsive move crashing down on her like a tidal wave threatening to wash her out to sea. "I don't think I can do this," she added, her hands shaking as she played nervously with the frayed white edge of her sleeve.
Dinah had been so lost in her memories of the past that she hadn't heard the knocking at first, it wasn't until she heard him call her name that she realized someone was trying to get her attention.
"Dinahmite, I know you're in there," he called, his voice not being the one she had expected to hear.
For a few seconds she considered her options, she could ignore him and hope he would go away, or she could let him in, humour him for a short while and then send him away.
"D. Dynamo. Dinahmite," Jonathan continued, his knocks coming in a rhythmic, almost musical pattern as she imagined him pounding along to some beat in his head.
Sighing she slowly shuffled towards the end of the bed, a sleepless night and lack of food causing her head to spin slightly as she finally placed her feet on the ground. Taking a few tentative steps, she pulled the door open, raising her eyebrows at him as he walked straight in and flopped down onto the bed.
"What's with the face," he asked, taking in the anger that lined her eyes.
"Hello Jonathan. Hello Dinah. Can I come in? Sure, come right in," she muttered as she walked towards the bed and sat down next to him.
Shaking his head Jonathan laughed as she continued to mutter something about privacy and respect under her breath, her eyes fixated on the wall opposite as if she could see something he could not.
"What are you doing here Jonathan?" Dinah finally asked, her words curt and to the point.
"I was bored," Jonathan shrugged. "Normal people are doing my head in so I thought we could have some fun together," he admitted, unable to put into words exactly what it was that had brought him to her door but there was something about Dinah that intrigued him, she wasn't like everyone else in town. She was exciting, sarcastic and at times a little dangerous that he felt himself drawn to her because being with her was like opening a door that was usually closed.
As he found himself watching her he realized just how explosive they could be together and the no strings, no emotions fun and havoc they could create, she could be the fire to his gasoline and Springfield would never know what had hit them … if only she could get over her all-consuming infatuation with his Uncle Eddie.
I'm busy," Dinah replied, standing up and moving over to the desk.
"Yeah, you look real busy," Jonathan observed as he watched her pour a glass of water.
Turning around, for a split second he thought she was going to hurl the glass at his head. "Look, I'm sorry you're bored, really I am, it must suck to have all of this spare time on your hands and no new disasters to create but I really do have things to do."
"Ok, ok," Jonathan relented, realizing that with the mood Dinah was in there would not be much fun happening today. "If you manage to pull yourself out of this funk you are in then you know where to find me," he added as he threw his jacket over his shoulder and sauntered out of the room.
Dinah didn't even turn to watch him leave, instead she kept her back to the door and waited until she heard the door slam shut before she sank down into the chair with a groan.
"Long night?" Edmund's voice asked, as Dinah jumped at the sound.
"How did you get in here?" Dinah wanted to know.
"That ingrate nephew of mine didn't shut the door properly, you should be more careful about the company you are keeping," he warned as he placed a bag down on the side.
Dinah twirled around in the chair to face him. "You don't get to have a say in who I do and do not hang around with," she reminded him.
"Maybe not yet," Edmund began, his voice low and his words carefully measured. "But if you are pregnant with my baby then rest assured that I will do everything in my power to keep him or her safe, and that means keeping you away from questionable company," he concluded as he opened up the bag he had put down just seconds earlier.
When Dinah didn't respond to his warning, he pulled a large vial of clear liquid from the bag. "Are you ready? I have it on good authority that I am actually pretty good at this, Cassie said she barely felt a thing."
Swallowing hard, Dinah's stomach rolled at the mention of the other woman's name as she was once again reminded that if this took, if after all of this there was a real baby inside of her and not just a concept idea that it wouldn't be her baby, that she would have to hand the baby over and then stand back and watch as he or she was raised by the woman who had already taken everything from her once before.
"Dinah," Edmund prompted when she did not respond. "Are you ready?"
She wanted to scream at him that she couldn't do this, that she had made a mistake and they needed to stop the ball from rolling further down the hill. But when she turned and saw the look of hope in his eyes and the smile on his lips, she couldn't do it. "I'm ready," she lied, mentally trying to convince herself that it would be ok, that this wouldn't be like it was with Laura or Rose because this baby was never hers to lose.
Wordlessly, Dinah got into position so that Edmund could inject her, her eyes watering over as she felt the needle go into her skin, not because of the pain, because of what it represented and the situation they could be creating, a situation that would end with Dinah losing everything once again.
Somewhere far away she could hear him talking, but the words were distorted and far away as if she was underwater trying to reach the surface. Her mind was lost in another time and another place and she tried to remember how it had come to this, how her life had become such a mess, but she couldn't, because try as she might Dinah could not pinpoint the moment it had all changed. Because ever since she had come to Springfield her life had gone from being one disaster to another with barely a moment's respite in between.
So much so that Dinah had learnt to separate her life into two categories: before Springfield and after Springfield. BS and AS that way it made it easier in her head to separate who she was from who she had become.
Dinah Morgan had dreams of what her life could become, she used to spend hours watching people either at the carnival or through the window of a van. She used to imagine what it would be like to be someone else, someone different, someone loved and wanted.
She would walk around the carnival after it had closed, collecting all of the left-over streamers and braid them together into a colorful skirt that she would tuck into her ripped jeans. When no one was looking she would twirl to music only she could hear imagining she was a ballerina, princess or astronaut.
When she was just 6 years old, she taught herself to read with nothing but a ripped book and flashlight as her guide. She had found the book in a dumpster whilst she was out playing one day, the colourful pages taunting her with words she couldn't understand. Determined to open the world of stories up she spent night after night learning how to sound them out, repeating each vowel and consonant carefully in her head until eventually they melted into words she could understand, words that created a picture of a life so different from hers, a childhood full of chocolate cake for breakfast and children splashing in muddy puddles.
The book was torn and broken, the last few pages missing to her forever, so Dinah learnt to create her own ending, each one becoming more and more fantastical than the one before it.
She went from being a fairy princess to an astronaut, a flower to a whale. And, when she closed her eyes and curled up in the top bunk of the van, she could be anything she wanted to be, anything but who she was.
Dinah Marler didn't have dreams, she was jaded, battered and broken by the world around her. She had loved and lost more times than she could count, and her heart couldn't take it anymore. She knew that, which was why a part of her knew that what she was doing was wrong and that it would most likely end in tears, but everything had been set in motion now and she was powerless to stop it.
After what seemed like forever Edmund finally left, but not after making her promise to lie down, rest and make sure that she did everything she could to make this work, to give him what he wanted.
Alone again Dinah followed his instructions and lay down on the bed, her hands subconsciously finding their way to her flat stomach where a new life may or may not be growing.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, not sure whether the words were meant for that little girl with dreams of the future or the baby that might never be.