Disclaimer: They're not mine. Really. They're Aaron Sorkin's, if you can believe that. I'm serious!

Spoilers: Maybe mild ones for Dead Irish Poets.

And what do most women lead, lives of noisy fulfillment? – Susan, Desperate Housewives

Unbroken Road

By Lizka

It's one-fifty in the morning, and she can't sleep. She doesn't know why.

Ask anyone who knows Mrs. Dr. Steven Feldman and they'll tell you that she is a fulfilled woman. Does she not, after all, have a handsome, rich and successful husband? Is she not just a few credits short of acquiring her teacher's license? If more people knew; they'd sing about how - in just eight months - she'll take on the most rewarding task of all: motherhood.

Yes, Donna has it all.

She's tall and slim, and her hair is naturally blonde. Her skin is the envy of every woman in her book club. She has her education, she'll have her child, she'll have her career, and despite political differences, she most certainly has her man. They joke (she jokes) that between his conservative sensibilities and her liberal compassion, they'll raise a balanced and well-rounded, fair-haired child to set the world on fire. They laugh (she laughs) that maybe their unborn child should run for President in forty years.

She has everything she could possibly want, and there's absolutely no reason why Donna should lie awake at night. She's content. Her future lies ahead of her like an unbroken road, stretching to the horizon. She and Steve will have three or four children. She'll have a distinguished career teaching the Honours English program that her own teacher, Molly Marillo, had set up. Steve will be one of the most respected doctors in Madison, and when they're both retired, they'll go somewhere warm where he can play golf all day and she can work on the book that she always wanted to write. Their house will go to their eldest (a boy for sure) and their grandkids will visit them during the holidays.

Donna can see all this in her mind's eye and wonders why it doesn't make her as happy as it should. It's not that she doesn't want her future children or grandchildren, because she wants as many as she can afford. She knows that teaching is a noble profession and that her former teachers are proud of her. She's even sure of her love for Steve, even though it's becoming more and more difficult to remember the reasons why.

It's not something that she can explain, at least not coherently. It doesn't exactly feel like something's missing, but it does somehow feel like there should be something more.

It doesn't make sense, not even in privacy of her mind.

Click.

It is now two AM. If she doesn't go to sleep now, she won't be able to catch President Bartlet's speech. Pulling her blankets around her, she tries to think of other things, like what to name her child – "Josiah" sounded good – and how she'll grab the first important-looking White House staffer and ask exactly why she was a Canadian for a month.

Citizenship issues aside, Donna does have it all.

She'll have her education.

She'll have her job.

She'll have her child.

She'll have her man for the next fifty years or so.

She's happy.

Really.