TIMELINE: This really doesn't fit in, it's more of an AU fic based on my own twisted musings
ARCHIVE: Go ahead. Make my day. Seriously though, it's all good, just tell me first.
DISCLAIMER: Sadly, they don't belong to me. If they did, I wouldn't be waist-deep in college loans to support my education habit :-p
SUMMARY: Donna finds herself in a difficult situation and makes a choice that no woman should ever be forced to make.
SPOILERS: None. Canon sucks right now, so I'm deviating.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Feedback is your friend. Mine too. ;)

"Naturopathy and You"

Donna walked the three blocks to The Herb Box and was greeted by the smells of a garden. It smelled like the greenhouse at the University in Madison, where she had grown up. She could distinguish lavender, rose and jasmine scents easily and saw an extensive collection of scented incense in every scent she had ever seen. Towards the back of the store, sitting bored at a cash register, was a teenager with dreadlocked brown hair blowing a bubble gum bubble between her heavily lipsticked lips. Donna managed to evade the girl, but she soon realized that she was the only customer in the small retail establishment, so it was of no use. Donna found the blue and black cohosh rather easily, yet searched around the store unable to find pennyroyal. Finally, the cashier caught up with Donna.

"Can I help you, ma'am?" she said to Donna's turned back.
"I'm looking for pennyroyal. Does your store carry it? I've been looking all around this place."
"Yes, we do, but because it's a very powerful herb, we keep It behind the counter."

As the girl led Donna over to the counter, she wished very much that this store was like the drug store that had those self check-out counters. This was she could have avoided the teenager's gaze and questioning stare.

The girl went behind the counter and opened a drawer with a key. She poked through some bottles that sounded like they could be glass and finally emerged with a bottle of pennyroyal.

"Here ya go ma'am. Are you ready to check out now?""I think I am," Donna said as she took the two glass bottles of cohosh and put them on the counter. She also grabbed a bag of pumpkin seeds, one of her favorite treats from when she was a girl, and put them on the counter as well.

"I like pumpkin seeds too," the girl said to Donna with a smile. "Now, I have to ask, 'cause it's store policy, are you using these herbs as a medicinal remedy? If you are, we have the herbal medicine brochure for free that I have to give you. It basically tells you how to use these things to make any sort of medicine that you need."

"I do plan on using these for medicine, yes," Donna replied to the girl.

"Okay." The cashier slipped a brochure titled "Naturopathy and You" into Donna's brown paper bag. "Your total is $24.57," the girl said, as Donna paid for her items.

Donna left the store and its wonderful smells, making up her mind to return there for pumpkin seeds one of these days. She opened up her pumpkin seeds and began nibbling them, tasting the one at a time.

Pumpkin seeds made her think of her childhood—the seeds were always her favorite. Her father, when he was carving the family pumpkin for Halloween, would always make sure to save the pumpkin seeds for Donna and her mother would put them in the oven to bake them with a little bit of salt for flavor. Donna hadn't had pumpkin seeds in years. She sat on a bench outside the metro station knowing that the next red line in her direction wasn't coming for at least 10 minutes. She wondered if she was making the right choice as she looked into the bag and at the three shiny glass bottles of dried herbs.