Hi folks. It's been a while (and yeah now I post in english, if someone is interested to read that story in my first language, in french, just ask!).
Okay, so, little introduction, I guess? My name is Océane, I'm French, and I've been in the Black Sails fandom almost from the start, when the show was still on air. I have been a huge fan of Eleanor Guthrie and Charles Vane characters from the beginning and have been for years.
I've been a part of the fandom for a long time on Tumblr and Twitter and still am today. My personal account is lady-eleanor-vane ( ) , but I also have a side account entirely dedicated to Charles and Eleanor where I post gifs and others things on them, and where I also take requests. This tumblr is "missguthrievane" ( ).
I also have a Youtube channel where I edit a lot of things, and Black Sails and Charles and Eleanor are a HUGE part of it. My channel's name is MissEleanorVane : channel/UC0TbUWGMlrzm7XFg-4oChqQ
In short, you have there a poor wreck for these two for almost 8 years now. I've been writing about them for all these years as well, but for a long time I only wrote in French. It is only today that I think my English is good enough to translate what I write and because I am lucky to have English speaking friends who took the role of Beta reader for me and corrected my texts before I publish them (thanks to my girls Kitty and Maria there, and Alexia in the past 3), though I didn't make them read these notes so forgive me if there's any mistakes there XD
I already tried to translate, about a year ago, the first text I had ever written on them, the first OS in a series of several OS on them. But today I adjusted several thinks who was just weak in my text itself and I intend to edit it very soon with a corrected version. I saw that it had some attention, which makes me very happy, and I thank you very much for that :D For those who have read it, know that it will be updated in a corrected and adjusted version and that the next OS will arrive soon. It will be a series called "There's No Leaving It Behind" but each OS can still be read individually.
And now let's talk about THIS story. It's a story that I have had in mind for years and years. What if Eleanor had been pregnant with Charles by the time she was arrested and jailed in London? How would that have affected the story and her relationship with Charles and the rest of the characters? How would it have changed her outlook on England, civilization, and pirates if she had become a mother? So, this fanfiction will explore that. This is a headcanon that I have had for years, although this headcanon has gone through several versions in my head. I am thinking of writing another of these versions, but later.
Things start at the beginning of season 3, in her jail, so :)
A few things to clarify before starting the story:
- It will follow the cannon as closely as possible on several points, and totally ignore it for others.
- The character of Mary here has nothing to do with what we saw of her at the end of the show. I completely readjust her character the way I imagine her to be. However, as far as she is concerned, I would eventually also come to follow the historical events concerning her character. I saw the actress Phoebe Tonkin for her.
- The fanfiction is centered on the ship Vane/Eleanor, and they will always be the most important point of the story, nevertheless there's things who could possibly happen between Mary and Eleanor, and perhaps between Eleanor and Max, I do not know yet, but whatever happens, it will never go far enough to be truly categorized as romance. The Rogers/Eleanor ship will not appear or if it does appear, it will only be... well, like it appears in the show, abusive and sickening, but like Eleanor will be much less isolated and better surrounded, she will be less blind to this subject.
- Dwight Enys is a character from the "Poldark" series and books. So, you could consider this fanfiction as a crossover fanfiction but I don't really like to categorize it that way because I don't intend to explore the universe of Poldark at all, nor any of its other characters, they will be mentioned at best and you absolutely don't need to have seen the Poldark series or read the books to understand what will happens, Dwight will be introduced here as a new character, a friend of Eleanor, because damn, our girl really needs more friends.
- Sarah Rogers will be much more important in this fanfiction than in the original show. I saw Natalie Dormer for her, in the way she used to look in the show "The Tudors".
- If you read a lot of fanfictions about Vane and Eleanor, you might not have missed the incredible fanfictions "SAIL", "Empires" and "When The Sea Calls" by Lexy Romanova. You will find a lot of similarities between Lexy's stories and mine, especially the names of some characters (Caroline for Eleanor's mother, Agatha for the Maroon Queen, etc.) and some ideas. The reason behind this? Alexia (Lexy Romanova so) is one of my best friends, like a sister to me and we create most of these ideas together and we share them. I am also the one who originally chose the names of Caroline and Agatha, as she specifies in her own stories. Our stories will not be similar in every way either, far from it, we just share a lot of things so don't be surprised and don't scream about plagiarism, or it will be HER who will come to bite you. Lol. And, if you didn't read these fanfictions, WHY ARE YOU STILL THERE ? THEY ARE LITERALLY AMONG THE BEST FANFICTIONS WHO EXIST ON CHARLES AND ELEANOR, GO READ THEM!
- I will add tags and warnings as I go through the story, but for now, we're on violence, mentions of rape, not the best treatment for a pregnant woman, prison. If I ever forget a warning or something, don't hesitate to tell me.
- Charles Howard, Earl of Carlisle, was the Tower's true Constable in 1716.
- The title, "All Things Come To An End," comes from a song originally written for Anne Bonny by the singer Karliene, but this album made me think A LOT about Eleanor too. I invite you to listen to this wonderful album if you want good songs about piracy and Anne Bonny, these songs inspired me a lot for this story: playlist?list=PLlbw4GbOw5Du53gKQyaUjwCgEX5B8NYeR
Hope you will enjoy it! :)
It was stiflingly hot.
She blinked, staring at the sun above her, scorching, ruthless. Confused, it took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the sudden clarity that had blinded her, and she looked around. For the first few moments, the place seemed familiar to her, but she was unable to put a name on it. All she saw was a place she had known all her life, overrun by growling, noisy mobs, impatient, raging for something.
Then she realized it was Nassau.
A smile split her face as she looked around greedily. It was the main square on the island. She recognized the dyer in the adjacent street, the old wooden buildings worn by the salt of the sea, the nearby church steeple, the menacing and silent silhouette of the fort. She recognized the stray palm trees, she recognized the shops, the sweltering and humid tropical heat. She recognized the imposing mansion of the former governors of the island behind her.
She was at home. She didn't know how or why, but she had come home and she felt relief, elation wash over her. She was no longer in England. She was no longer in that cold, graying, dark cell. She was at home.
Then she realized that something was going on.
Her vision was not clear. Everything seemed cloudy, hazy around her, as if she had suddenly popped her head out of the water and her eyes were still struggling to adjust to the light. And above all, there was the crowd. About a hundred people in front of her, almost at her feet, turning their backs to her, staring at something in front of her that she was unable to see. She felt like it must have been someone being pulled by a cart, a man, kneeling, but she would have been unable to identify were screaming, clamoring for blood, throwing garbage and food in that direction. She closed her eyes, trying to clear her eyesight, and when she opened them again, seconds later, the sight before her had nothing to do with what it was seconds ago.
She was still in Nassau. But the sun was gone, the heat too. Only a gray sky remained, the same sky the island always had before a storm. Even though it was still daylight, everything looked dark and gloomy, devoid of colors, with the exception of large British flags which suddenly seemed to have taken over the square. Everywhere she looked she saw them. Sudden cold crept into her then and she felt a dull fear wash over her. The crowd was still there, but now silent. Almost solemn. And instead of staring at the man dragged in his cart, it was her they were looking at with dead, empty eyes.
Death; there was nothing more than death in their eyes.
She looked over the people in front of her, recognising faces without being able to remember their names, and noticed that each of them held an English banner in their hands. They were like an ocean of blue, red, and white banners against a grim gray background. She felt cornered. Surrounded by people who were familiar to her, but who nevertheless seemed foreign.
And as she looked up, she finally saw him. The blurry figure that had been dragged in his cart. And who was now lying in front of her, his feet swaying in the air, a rope around his neck. The hanged man's body swayed, dead, and as her breath caught in her chest, she felt a scream rise in her. She could see the deceased's eyes staring at her, emotionless, just as dead as the rest of the crowd, but wide open. His gaze almost seemed to follow her and she began to scream as she finally recognized the face of the man in front of her. She screamed so hard her throat ached, until she had the impression that her scream was creeping into her head, ready to explode. She screamed again, again and again…
And she was still screaming the moment she woke up covered in a cold sweat in the rickety bunk of her cell. She suddenly rose, panicked and disorientated, her eyes searching the darkness for their bearings. A loud thud was heard on her door then, making her jump and bringing her back to reality as a voice growled from behind the wooden door of the cell.
"I swear if you don't shut yup, I'll shut you up myself, you fucking whore. I'd have something to put in that mouth so I couldn't hear you anymore."
Eleanor glared at the voice of the guard behind her cell and bit her tongue to refrain from saying something she might later regret. The Tower of London guards may never have executed any of their threats before, but she couldn't swear that would always be the case. Even though she only had a short time to live in these nightmarish places, she might as well not make matters worse.
She pulled herself up with difficulty to find herself sitting on the bunk, the thin blanket rough and dirty, bringing only a meager source of heat, sliding down her chest as she ran her hands over her face and collarbone, wiping away the sweat that had come over her as she slept. She found it rather ironic that she managed to sweat when she felt, every time she woke up in the middle of the night, the cold biting into her bones. After seven months she had stopped shaking, having almost got used to this hellish temperature, which only got worse when it started to rain, and which she had been certain to die of when winter had arrived and it had started to snow on the capital of London, forcing her to get up in the middle of the night to walk in a circle in her cell in order to stimulate her own heat enough to survive.
Eleanor had never seen snow before that harsh winter she had just come out of. It was incredibly depressing to have discovered this magnificent phenomenon of nature through the bars of a cell.
She felt her usual blasement come over her again now that she was awake and back to reality. Her reality now. It had only been a nightmare. Still the same nightmare, the one she had been having over and over for a few months. The more time passed, the more it seemed to accentuate and she would gladly have done without. It wasn't as if things weren't complicated enough like this already that her mind was having fun torturing her like this with images of Nassau and Charles Vane hanging in the middle of a crowd.
Feeling a shiver run through her, she attributed it to the cold as she rubbed her arms to warm herself a little, staring into the void in front of her. She had been subjected to violent nightmares in the past, but never to this extent. What she didn't understand was why, lately, she always woke up screaming at the spectacle in front of her. After all, in recent months, before this series of nightmares began, she had already dreamed of seeing Charles Vane hanged.
Several times, even. And at first, they were sweet dreams where she would wake up with a smile on her face, almost relaxed. It was a heartwarming image in her head, one she cherished. She had also dreamed that he would die under a musket shot. That he fell into the sea and drowned. That he found himself locked in that damned fort and the whole place embraced, carrying everything inside into a gigantic blaze that looked beautiful to her. Or her favorite, where he ended up crucifying on a cross, hanging in the middle of the courtyard of the fort, miserable, broken. Like her father had been.
During her first few months in the cell, she was sure that was the only thing that kept her going. Imagining how she could take revenge on him. Imagining how she could make him pay for what he did. How could she hurt him as much as he had hurt her. How to take something from her that was as meaningful as what he had taken from her. And the thought that by now he was probably on the loose, arguably causing even more chaos and death in his path, as she lay here, prisoner and locked up, left a bitter taste in her mouth. Despite herself, she would have preferred not to have heard of what was happening far away in the Caribbean, given the news she had heard, but she couldn't help but ask Dwight about finding information on Nassau, on Flint, on Hornigold, on Vane. On her old allies as much as on her enemies.
She had been both stunned and furious at what she had heard about them. Dwight hadn't been able to get the details, but she had heard that Captain Flint's visit to Charles Town to Governor Ash had ended in disaster. That the city had ended in ashes, destroyed under the cannon shots of Captain Flint AND Captain Vane as the corpse of Governor Ash was found in the city, amid the rubble and the torn bodies of the men, women and children who had been unfortunate enough to be there the moment Flint and Vane decided to strike. When she had heard this story for the first time, she had shook her head and declared that such a thing was impossible and part of her continued to be skeptical. Flint was as determined as she was to win this reconciliation with England. She had sacrificed everything to get him the chance to do this, so that he could bring Abigail Ash back to her father and secure a future for them all. She just couldn't imagine how things had turned out like this. And how Flint had gotten to be alongside Vane, anyway.
She had come to the conclusion that the stories that had crossed the oceans must have blended and mingled and must be lacking in accuracy. Their plan had undoubtedly failed - and she still felt a pain twist her stomach at the thought of everything she had lost and sacrificed for nothing - but there was no way things could have turned out the way Dwight had reported it to her. She just couldn't imagine Flint joining forces with Vane in order to raze an entire town.
And at the same time, could you have imagined that he could kill Mr. Gates? Could you have imagined that Charles would murder your own father in cold blood? Haven't you underestimated these two men, forgetting the lesson Scott had tried so hard to teach you: that these men, these pirates, were neither friends nor subjects, but nothing more than animals ready to unleash their fury at any time? Despite their differences which had led them to fight each other over the years, weren't Flint and Vane exactly the same kind of man?
Eleanor shook her head. It was no use torturing yourself with that kind of thinking. Not that she could do anything else in that cell, but it was irrelevant. Nothing was of real interest anymore. She would never have the answer to all of these questions. She would never see Flint again, nor Charles. She would never see Nassau or the Caribbean again. Two more miserable months, and she would see the end of the path at the end of a rope over the Thames. Much like Vane in her dream, she would be hanged in the midst of a crowd demanding her death and blood. And somewhere at the other end of the ocean, it was he and the others who would learn of her death. And who will certainly be happy about it. Probably as much as anyone who will witness her hanging.
Another howl echoed through the tower then and she looked up, staring at the wooden door in front of her. She could hear the guard stationed outside her quarters sigh in annoyance, but the cry alarmed her. It was a screaming woman. And it had been several days since they had taken Mary. She knew she was brash enough to endure the worst treatment the guards could give to their prisoners, probably the treatment they dreamed of inflicting on her as well, but she had learned to keep her thoughts to herself in order to spare herself. This was not the case with Mary, who persisted in spitting at the guards as much as she could. She had already tried to advise her to stop wrestling, but she knew she was wasting her time. Unlike her, Mary had not resigned herself to what awaited them. She still had hope. Eleanor wasn't sure whether to be impressed by her determination or to pity her.
She had described to her in detail what they did to her when they took her away to punish her for her rebellious behavior. The drowning simulations. The lashes. How they were having fun by burning her hands and soles. Her breasts they brutally grabbed, her crotch they had fun pinching. Mary was still chuckling that at least she hadn't been lying on one of the torture tables in the dungeons before being abused by a dozen guards, unlike what she had experienced in Kingston prisons. Eleanor, however, found it hard to see how the torture she suffered was a better fate. Thinking about it made her nauseous, although she could have attributed it to her condition. But she knew it wasn't. She had been vomiting and nauseous for several months now. Apart from those given to her by this place and what these men who called themselves civilized were capable of doing.
She guessed she admired Mary. Despite the abuse she suffered, she remained strong. Despite the torture she was going through, she still had hope. For Eleanor, it was a waste of time, but she could only respect that form of courage, and while she would gladly have kept her from getting into all this trouble if she could, but, it was something she had no control over. Mary was the master of her own destiny and if she wanted to provoke the English soldiers in her last moments of life, despite the consequences it would have for her, it was her choice. She wondered why things were dragging on so long for Mary, however. Her friendship was dear to her, but she hated to see her suffering drag on like this. Why not be done with her already? She knew why the king had to wait before hanging her. But she didn't know why they were dragging things out for Mary. Maybe because they hadn't managed to break her yet. Maybe because she was so unimportant that they had forgotten about her. But there were times, even though God knows she had no idea how she would hold out here without her, when she wished they were done and finally decided to hang her. At least she would then be at peace and no longer have to endure the tortures she inflicted on herself with her open rebellion. She felt like she was reliving what she had been through last year, when Max had been held up on the beach by Vane's crew. Forced to watch a woman she loved and respected suffer at the hands of men and their barbarity without being able to act. And there wouldn't be Anne Bonny this time around to offer a rescue opportunity.
She got up with difficulty, knowing that she wouldn't be able to sleep anymore, and dragged herself as best she could - god, she hated this weakness and this slowness that her body was imposing on her now - to the window where she observed the sleeping city in front of her. The size of London kept making her dizzy, she who was used to her little Nassau, and she tried to concentrate on it and ignore as best she could the screams of the woman. She was just praying it wasn't Mary. The scream was too distant and muffled for her to identify, but whatever was going on in these grim places, there was nothing she could do except hope that Dwight would drop by to see her the next day so she could ask him if he had any news from her friend.
God, how pitiful and grotesque her situation had become. When she thought back to where she was just a few months ago, running Nassau and a thriving business, and where she was now, it was a laughing matter. "Today you have everything you have ever wanted. I suppose we can only guess what tomorrow will bring", Max had told her one day. It sounded terribly ironic today. She wondered if Max would be happy about her death too. She didn't get a lot of regrets about what she was going to leave behind, but never being able to work things out with Max was part of it. No doubt she must have hated her too, after what she almost did to Rackham and Bonny before being arrested.
What would she say if she saw her today? She looked down at her stomach and felt the chest pain she had grown used to come back. If Max was part of her regrets, she wasn't the biggest one she had.
It had been a while since Eleanor had made her peace with herself with the thought of dying. When she had been arrested, she had struggled, she fighted, shouted, she had done everything to escape the fate she knew was waiting for her if she ever got on the Scarborough. But she had failed. "If you are not strong enough to protect yourself, Eleanor, then I am urging you to cease behaving as if you are." Charles's words had haunted her as she was forcibly dragged across the beach before being thrown into the rowboat that had taken her to the ship, where she ended up chained in the stall alongside a few other prisoners. They had haunted her as she struggled with her chains, feeling that weight on her wrists and ankles for the first time in her life, that weight that Charles and Max had told her so much about, before the young brown haired woman chained next to her exasperatedly tells her that she was wasting her time and energy and that there was nothing to be done. Mary. How ironic that their roles had been reversed by then. She wished Mary had accepted the truth as much as she had accepted it when she had forced it to look it in the face. There had been nothing to do except accept that it was over. That the sentence had fallen. That she had slowly, in the end, made her own path until that very moment when she had indeed found herself completely unable to protect herself.
If she had felt any fury, sorrow, regret and despair, it had all ended up buried in resignation. At least, for herself. It was what she had received for believing that she could play eternally above the laws of their world. It was what she had earned for running behind that illusory freedom that piracy had always seemed to promise her, that Nassau had always seemed to offer. That was what she had earned by being a pirate, even though she had defended herself from it in front of Underhill. Nothing more than death and misery, besides her father's corpse. Lamenting her choices, her mistakes or what she might have done differently didn't matter. The past could not be changed and the die was cast, and at this point, nothing and no one would come and save her. Her father was dead. Just like her mother. She already knew her family in Boston would let her die, ignoring any parental ties to her, if only to hold the face. And although Flint was her friend and ally, she also knew very well that he would never cross an ocean to try to help her, he couldn't have even if he wanted to. Scott didn't have that power either. And besides them, she no longer had anyone in Nassau who cared for her.
Granted, she might have been able to get a pardon if she had begged for it. If she had played the repentant, if she had pretended to regret her choices. But if she was bitter about the result of the work she had put in all these years, if she was bitter towards every pirate on that fucking island, an island that she missed so much, she categorically refused to apologize for what she had done because she knew that if it had to be done again, she would do everything exactly the same way. She had played the cards fate had given her at birth, and she had risen as few women in this world had. How many women could claim to have been able to reign for eight years on an island filled with pirates, each more barbaric than the last? To have led a market, lorded hundreds, even thousands of acts of piracy, as they had so loudly proclaimed at her trial? How many women in this world today have experienced such power? How many men? She certainly wasn't going to ask forgiveness for the greatest things she had accomplished in her life. She was not going to lower her head and submit, not going to play the card of the innocent woman who had been manipulated by men, because that was nothing at all who she was and she knew she was incapable of such a comedy. She had never been able to. Didn't they call her the Queen of Thieves? So that was what she was going to be to them, until the end.
"One day at a time, I suppose." She had a phantom smile when she saw the faces of the judges again when she had answered them that, at her semblance of a trial where they had dragged her about three months after her imprisonment in the tower, when she could still conceal her belly under her old black dress she had worn for her father's funeral, and which had accompanied her here.
No doubt Charles would have admired this choice on her part. The thought made her wince as the familiar wave of fury washed over her as it did every time she thought of him. She hated to prove him right. She had always hated it, but now more than ever. And after the fact that she had indeed been unable to protect herself, once again admitting that she looked like him was torture. She had readily admitted in the past that she had a lot in common with him. That she was like him. But she didn't want to be like him anymore. In nothing. That said, that was exactly what she was doing, what she couldn't help but do, and which was an act of sheer selfishness.
Because, who knows? If she begged for this grace, maybe she could get it. And thus have a chance to be able to raise her unborn child.
She leaned her forehead against the cold bars of the window, squeezing them until had white knuckles. She refused to lower her eyes again, but her left hand rested instinctively on her now rounded belly, and the main source of her current physical weakness, although her conditions of imprisonment were not to help her in any way. Neither she nor her baby. In truth, she even wondered how this baby got there. How her pregnancy could have come to such an advanced stage. She knew she had to thank Dwight in part, who had watched over her as much as possible. But he couldn't have worked miracles either and with the conditions in which she was being held, this child should have died early in her pregnancy. It was one of the reasons that had also prompted her to be so rebellious during her trial and to refuse to beg for a pardon. Never would she have believed that this child who had shared her body for some time would survive what they were going through. Yet it was still there. Stirring in her stomach, reminding her every day that the decisions she was making now, the meager decisions she could still make, would not only influence her own destiny, but also that of this being she did not know but who already depended entirely on her. And to think that she had been persuaded to lose it, at first. Hell, she had almost hoped to lose it. But he, or she, had resisted.
Stubborn, right? Like your mother. And like your father.
She still couldn't believe it had happened, though. There were times when this reality escaped her. That that… bastard of Charles Vane… had managed to do this to her before she got arrested.
How many times had she fucked him? Hundreds of times in these last years. If not more. True, she had always been cautious, but she knew full well that she was never safe from this happening in spite of everything. She had already had bitter proof of it, a long time ago. But so many years had passed that she had come to think that the incident she had experienced when she was 18 had perhaps rendered her sterile. She had always avoided thinking about it. Just as she had avoided thinking about what she had already experienced in relation to it. She never had time to dwell on it, anyway, and never really wanted to. She just never really dreamed of having children someday, just because she had always been in such an unstable situation that she would never have considered having a child under such conditions. And with Charles Vane for father? Even less. It was something they had always been on the same page, in truth. And one of the reasons she loved having him as a lover in the past. She knew he would never expect her, unlike many men, to give him a son or an heir. He just wasn't interested in it and it had worked out for her, because she would have refused to be under that kind of pressure. And on the other hand, she didn't expect him to propose to her. This simple idea had always made her laugh, it sounded so ridiculous. Neither one wanted this kind of life, and it suited them perfectly. That was one of the reasons she never told him about the incident that happened early in their relationship. Add to that the fact that it would have been of little point, considering how things turned out. She hated to think about it and preferred to avoid it as much as possible. And over the years without it happening again, she had just started to forget that it could still be a possibility between them.
When she had fucked with him in the tent after he agreed to ally with Flint, and before she found out what he had with Max, she hadn't taken any precautions, having lost the habit afterwards having had a woman for a lover for so long. Nothing had happened though, and it hadn't crossed her mind. It didn't either when she joined him in the fort. She would never have thought that this could happen, in fact. And she hated herself for it. She had been stupid and careless. She had taken for granted what had undoubtedly been just a game of luck and blissful chance. She could blame all the worries she had with Low, Flint, Charles and the consortium, but deep down, she had no excuse. She should have thought about this. She should have cared about this.
Fate was no less a beautiful bitch for getting her pregnant at that precise moment. When she had lost everything. When she dreamed of nothing more than to bury the man who had put this child inside her, and when she knew full well that he felt the same way for her.
She had become aware of her pregnancy quite late. She denied it at first. In the first few weeks at sea, she had been quickly ill, and had struggled with nausea and vomiting. It had been hell. She had thought it was seasickness. She had only rarely sailed in the past after all, although she had never been sick the few times she had boarded a ship, but come on who knows ? Perhaps she had changed at that level. But seasickness wasn't supposed to last forever and would go away after a few days. This was not the case. She had been ill the entire trip to London.
It was Mary who first suggested that she might be pregnant. This woman who painfully reminded her of Anne Bonny. Mary Read had been arrested on charges of piracy on the outskirts of Kingston, and as if it was rare to find a female pirate to hang, she had been entrusted to Captain Hume during a supply in the town so that she was, like Eleanor, brought back to London to be tried and hanged. Fate had wanted them to be tied up next to each other in the stall, and Mary had been able to enjoy the spectacle of her nausea and vomiting during the three weeks of sailing. At first, we couldn't say they liked each other. Mary had judged Eleanor at first glance as a wealthy lady who did not risk hanging seriously and whose presence among the prisoners was only a joke and she did not hide her contempt for her. As for Eleanor, after having listened to her speak ferociously for a few days, had understood with annoyance that she had here a sort of female version of Charles Vane, praising piracy as if it were the ultimate freedom to get it, and she had rolled her eyes more than once at her stupid speeches.
"Yes, we can say that your pirate life has made you so free, indeed", she sneered one day after a fiery speech from Mary to the other prisoners, looking at their chains in a meaningful way.
"Just because I was stupid enough to get caught," Mary muttered, kicking angrily into the void while glaring at her. "At least I can say that I was captured trying to protect my crew. What is your excuse?"
She hadn't answered that. Because she had had no response. No excuses. She had been caught by an old enemy she should have seen coming, an enemy she had underestimated, forgotten and made her pay for her neglect. When she looked at the last events leading up to her arrest, she readily cursed Vane or Hornigold, even Flint, but in the end, the one she cursed the most was herself. She couldn't help but feel that she was now paying for all the missteps, all the errors in judgment she had made. She had simply failed, and she had to live with that fact. Living with the fact that in the end, her father was probably right about her. She hadn't succeeded. Hadn't been able to do what a son might have done for him. A son wouldn't have let his lover kill him, for example.
Despite their initial animosity, by spending entire days together, she and Mary had come to tolerate each other, and at least their conversation had a semblance of interest and had the gift of reminding her a little of the kind of conversations that she might have in Nassau, the other prisoners being pirates who seemed to find it much more interesting to stare at them lewdly than to make conversation with them, and a few slaves who did not speak their language. Also, they were the only two women on board. Even though they didn't like each other, they soon learned that female solidarity here wouldn't be too much, surrounded by men who either looked at them or with perverse desire or with contempt and disgust.
In those long days to suffer the Scarborough's worst moves at sea, she had also found herself thinking about what Vane had told her about being a slave and wearing chains. On what Max had told her about her worst times when she was still enslaved, remembered the punishments inflicted on slaves who belonged to her father, remembered Mr. Scott's docility before they took control of the island, remembered little Madi and how they had become close, she spared her yet another punishment. Their words tangled in her head, and she instinctively rubbed her wrists, still feeling the ghost of the weight of the chains on them and she had only known them for a few weeks. She couldn't imagine what it was like to feel that weight for years. During an entire life. She understood some of their words better now.
Will my child end up a slave, too, once I'm gone and they take it away? Will she or him end up with the weight of chains around its wrists like its father before?
She closed her eyes, fighting the wave of despair that washed over her at the thought. It wouldn't. She knew that kid wouldn't have an easy life. That what awaited it would be the orphanage, possibly the convent if it was a girl. And just the possibility made her feel like it was slowly killing her from within. But they had no reason to enslave her child.
Because they need a reason to enslave anyone? Its white skin certainly won't protect it. Charles is proof of that.
Eleanor finally looked down at her stomach and let her other hand fall on it. It must have been sleeping, she hadn't felt it move for several hours. Or it was finally dead, as she had expected from the start. As soon as she had come to terms with the idea that this baby wasn't a bad dream, she had tried not to get emotionally attached to it, despite the emotional tidal wave that had hit her when reality had imposed itself on her. She had struggled with her own feelings about this being. She didn't want to love it. Hell, she didn't even want to acknowledge its existence. Because she knew she was going to lose it, one way or another. Either it would die inside her before she could even see it breathe, as the first one did years ago, or they would rip it out of her arms when she barely put it in the world and then drag her to her gallows. She couldn't love it.
Yet, as she stroked it through her skin, she felt that pain tear her heart apart and she felt tears in her eyes come back as she thought of the future she was going to give this little one. A miserable future where it would be forever doomed for being the child of what they called the Queen of Thieves. Thank goodness they didn't know the father's identity, which would only have made matters worse. It didn't matter that she was going to be hanged anytime soon. Never mind that it was certainly fate that awaited Charles as well. Neither she nor he would ever really pay for their crimes. It was this child who was going to pay for them. Civilization would make it pay for it by humiliating it, by denigrating the respect that every human being should have at birth, by belittling it all its life, by reminding it every day that it did not deserve its place among them, that it had no place among them, because he or she was and always will be only a bastard born of pirates. This kid would pay its whole life for having the misfortune of being born to criminal parents and there was nothing she could do to change that. She was helpless.
Why ? Why now ? Why are you so clinging to life? You don't want to be born into this world. Even less if you're a girl. You don't want to see what men can do.
She took a deep breath, fighting back tears. At no time had she cried for her own plight. But she had to cry for this baby that was stuck inside her. When she had been still in the ship's hold, captive, when they had almost arrived in London, she had surprised Mary who was staring at her strangely, her large green eyes staring at her with narrowed eyelids, as if she suddenly became an enigma to which she absolutely had to find the solution. She was tired, so tired, her illness having drained her of all energy, the meager rations of stale bread and dubious-colored water they received did nothing to help her regain her strength, the meager sleep on the wet and swaying wood of the boat only worsening her condition, not to mention the kicks they sometimes received from the guards when they slept, for the pleasure of disturbing the little sleep that they managed to scratch here and there. Each time she bit her tongue until she bled to keep from exploding with rage at the treatment they were inflicting on them, swallowed the bitterness of the humiliation and had finally felt Mary's gaze one evening, after being awakened by yet another blow. She had struggled to get up, her whole body protesting against every move, and for the umpteenth time, she had seen Mary staring at her. Exasperated, she ended up squealing at her "Can I find out what the fuck is your problem at the end?"
"Your breasts," Mary had mumbled, frowning, her eyes fixed on her chest. "They are not the same."
If there was one answer Eleanor hadn't expected, it was this one. She had opened her eyes sharply, before looking at Mary as if she had lost her mind and exclaiming:
"We're prisoners on a ship that takes us to a city that wants nothing more than our death, and the only thing that has caught your attention so far is my breasts?"
"They don't look bad," Mary had justified herself, shrugging her shoulders, looking jaded.
I must be dreaming, she had told herself, shaking her head in disbelief.
"Thank you, I guess", she mumbled, emitting a mocking laugh.
"What do I want to do other than look at you in that rat hole?" She growled, shaking her chains angrily. "You are always more pleasing to the eye than the moldy tuna species in front of us. And I'm telling you that your breasts haven't been the same since we left. They have changed. Bigger."
"Of course, the food they serve us here is so rich that I gained so much weight in the space of three weeks that my chest has doubled in size" Eleanor had laughed, rolling her eyes.
"Don't pretend you're dumber than you are, blondie girl" Mary had retorted, completely unaware of Eleanor's ironic tone. "Didn't put on any weight. I think I'm starting to understand why you're still sick. You have a little one in the drawer."
It had just taken that stupid sentence, worded even more stupidly, for Eleanor's world to stop spinning for a few minutes and she felt like the last things that still used to make sense around her just collapsed. Just that stupid phrase so that fear would take over her completely, when she was able so far to had kept her head high and cold. Just that stupid phrase to destroy the fews certainty she still had. As if God took pleasure in giving her one last magnificent middle finger.
She then dismissed the possibility altogether. She couldn't be pregnant. It just couldn't happen now. Not with him, not after what had happened between them. By the time she had started to envision this idea in her head, she hadn't visualized this baby as a child, but as a part of him, a piece of him that had crept into her and settled there to not move anymore. She had then had images that crossed her mind that she had hated, or at least hated how it made her feel. She had seen herself in Nassau, in her office, with a little blond head on her knees, looking up those big blue/green eyes that she had always seen in him to look at her with an innocent and playful smile as she taught to this kid all she knew about trading, only to then see it run into the bay of the island in order to gaze impatiently out to the ocean as Charles's ship appeared on the horizon, excited and happy with the idea of seeing its father who had just returned from hunting. She had seen him as a father. It had only lasted a few seconds. A few seconds when she had almost forgotten. Forgot what happened in this fort. Forgot the corpse of her father crucifying, forgot this stupid letter. A few seconds when she had returned to those moments of peace that she had known, at times, with him. And when the memories returned, the beauty of the sight had hurt as much as it did when she discovered Richard Guthrie's body left to her attention. Because she knew it would never happen. That they had lost that possibility, that dream, the moment she closed that door on him in the tunnels of the fort.
Eleanor had cursed Mary and told her to stop talking nonsense, but in the days that followed, the last of their trip, she hadn't given up and kept provoking her about it, forcing her to think about it every fucking day, every fucking hour. She had asked her when she had bled for the last time, and she hadn't answered, but in her head, she was aware that she had no memory of when the last bleeding was. She kept asking her who the baby's father was, and every time she asked that question, she felt a pain in her stomach, like a blow. Each time, she replied that she was not pregnant. Until Mary snickered implicitly
"I bet you don't even know who the father is, that's why you don't want to answer."
"I know perfectly well who the father is," Eleanor had snapped back, refraining from moaning in frustration.
At this point, she was almost begging the ship to dock so she wouldn't have to endure her questions.
"Oh yes ? But, it is strange, I thought you weren't pregnant?" Mary had mocked innocently with a smirk.
Eleanor had sworn and sent her to hell once again, causing her to laugh and for a split second she had been flabbergasted that this girl was able to just laugh, joke and mock as they walked straight to the death. The further their way to London, the more resignation and despondency had come over her, but Mary had never changed her behavior. Because of that, she couldn't keep herself from being annoyed that she was laughing at her expense. After all, if it was all that was to amuse her before death…
When they had been dragged to the Tower of London by the soldiers, with Captain Hume strutting like a pan in front of her, showing off his catch, Eleanor had looked around in astonishment as she was discovering a city of a size she could never imagine - she had always heard that London was huge, but seeing it for real was something that made her dizzy, having known Nassau almost all her life - and at the end of their road, a silhouette had waited for them at the entrance of the tower, this grim tower of several centuries, having already seen thousands of prisoners flocking. This figure was that of a man with grizzled hair, dressed in a clearly high-ranking Royal Navy outfit, with cool gray eyes that stared at them as if Mary, her and the rest of the prisoners were nothing other than vermin. She had ignored them at first, staring at the huge ancient stone castle that stood in front of her, which she had heard about in history and other legends, and which would be her prison now.
She and the rest of the inmates had been taken to a sort of dungeon barely lit by torches and then chained to the wall, and a few big jumps of icy water had been thrown in their faces in an attempt to "clean up the vermin", as the general had declared in a disgusted tone, looking down on them while some hitted the most recalcitrant. Eleanor had remained still, spitting out the water that had entered her mouth, shivering in the cold of this cell, of this country, so unlike anything she had ever known in Nassau. But she had been unable to look down when one of the guards stared at her, silently ordering her to submit. She had lifted her chin and put all the contempt she could possibly have in her gaze.
Maybe he'll hit me too if I'm sassy enough. Maybe he'll hit me until I feel all the blood between my legs again and this problem is sorted out.
It was what she had thought, what she had almost prayed for as the guard began to walk towards her, the moment the dungeon door sharply opened again, ushering in the captain Hume and another man, which stopped the guard in his tracks.
The newcomer looked barely older than her, with honey-colored hair and a face she might have described as gentle and quiet charming under other circumstances, but which was here disfigured with disgust and disapproval, not against her and the rest of the prisoners this time, but against the men who held them chained, dirty and exhausted in their hands while the soldiers showed no kindness to them. His gaze had passed on her and on Mary, who had already been beaten several times for insulting the guard who had chained her to the wall and he had shook his head almost incredulously.
"I find it hard to understand how such treatment of women can be tolerated, General," he whispered grimly to the general he had joined without looking away from Eleanor and Mary.
"Dr. Enys. They are not women; they are pirates", the general had replied coldly, giving them a disdainful glance. "The only thing they deserve is the rope. If the procedure didn't force me into all this comedy, I would hang them myself on the spot."
"And you have no idea the extent of the vileness of the crimes of these pirates, General Arton" Captain Hume exclaimed. "It's not just a thief that I'm bringing you here, but nothing less than their queen."
Eleanor then looked up at this general and held his gaze. She had made sure to put all the arrogance she had acquired over the years working around real pirates in her gaze in order to show this man that if he thought he was above her in any way, he was sorely mistaken. And if she had failed to provoke the guard, she might have a better chance with him. She had tried to ignore Captain Hume's words about her. The only thing this man wanted was the prestige and glory that Hornigold had promised him when handing her over to him. General Arton had noticed her gaze and she had the impression, by the stern and contented expression he displayed in advance, that he was going to do something but the man with honey hair had sighed heavily and asked to take care of the women first.
She was thus untied and found herself a few minutes later locked in a damp room adjoining the dungeon with this man, who had turned out to be a doctor. Dr. Dwight Enys, charged here with making sure that the prisoners did not bring with them any disease that could infect the whole tower and possibly cause an epidemic in the capital.
"Which is infinitely stupid, given where you come from, it is much more likely that you are naturally immune to any form of disease or virus that you could take with you and which would be fatal to us" he mumbled, examining her with a sympathetic smile. "And so I would be unable to detect it with the naked eye."
He had asked her permission every time he had to touch her to auscultate her, whether it was her mouth, her ears, her eyes, and had shown her a gentleness and a respect that she did not expect to receive in this sinister place. After these weeks at sea being treated like nothing more than shit, something had broken inside her from just receiving those sweet looks and consideration. Then she found herself whispering in a voice so low and faint that she barely recognized the sound of her own voice:
"Is it… is it possible that I am pregnant?"
Dr. Enys froze as he examined her right ear and his face slowly turned to his, looking grave. For some reason, there had been something about this man that then made her want to cry and tell him how terrified the idea terrified her. How much she prayed, right now, for him to say no to her. Let him reassure her and assure her that it was not possible, that Mary was wrong, that what she felt inside her right now was also cheating on her and that she was alone in her body. That she had not taken an innocent soul to her miserable destiny. He slowly put down the bizarre wooden instrument he had used to examine her and eyed her indecipherably before declaring:
"It's always a possibility, if you've recently shared your bed with a man. Do you think you are carrying a child?"
She had been unable to answer, shaking her head as she looked away, and he must have sensed her distress because he hadn't asked the question again, but had started asking her the same ones Mary had asked her on the ship, formulated in a much more complex way. And as she answered a muffled "yes" to most of his questions, he pulled back and stared at her before asking her permission to examine her chest and stomach to be sure. She had reluctantly agreed, but he was so professional and impersonal in his gestures that she ultimately felt no embarrassment as she showed him her bare upper body. She had seen doctors in Nassau before, but had never needed them to touch private parts of her body until now. After only a few moments of palpating her belly and observing her breasts, making her jump at the contact she had lost the habit of, he told her to get dressed and she put on her old black dress that she had worn to bury her father, now dirty, wet and smelly, and he watched her as he leaned on an old worn wooden table in front of her before declaring looking her in the eyes:
"I'm afraid you got it right. You are definitely pregnant."
Eleanor had laughed lightly at this confirmation of what deep down she already knew, but the laugh echoes of despair and Dr. Enys understood it perfectly. She had thought that, under other circumstances, he would have confirmed that to her with a big smile and congratulated her, but both of them here knew that meant. From then on, though, she had ceased to deny the obvious.
To her surprise, however, she then saw this man, this Dr. Enys weighing heavily in the scales about her fate as he broke the news to the General Arton and Captain Hume and as dismay and frustration filled the eyes of these despicable men and the general coldly declared that he needed to speak to the Constable of the Tower, she realized what it meant to her too. She knew enough about British law to know that; it was forbidden to hang a pregnant woman. Mary knew it too and winked at her as she was taken to her cell while Eleanor was led to Charles Howard, Earl of Carlisle and Constable of the Tower. She had discovered in her office one of these high-ranking men whom she had despised so much for years, and who now reminded her terribly of her father, and she found herself held in place as three men debated her future and her life without her being able to intervene. She had tried to speak, but had been ordered to shut up, and when she tried again, she had ended up gagged. She had been forced to swallow her fury as these men debated what was going to happen with her body, her life, her child.
They had to respect the law and postpone her trial and hanging until the child had come into the world, but this had delighted neither the general nor the constable, and especially not Captain Hume, who was trying to take it upon himself but who seemed to realize that the prestige he thought he had gained by bringing the Queen of Thieves to London was not going to be recognized anytime soon, and at least it did give Eleanor some satisfaction.
"There are ways to get rid of that kind of inconvenience," he protested, looking Eleanor upside down with a vague expression of disgust. "A way that would allow us to let the trial begin immediately."
"God, do you hear yourself?" Dr. Enys exclaimed indignantly. "We are talking about a human life, none of us have any rights over it."
"If that can be categorized as human life, Dr. Enys," General Arton snorted dismissively. "Considering where this woman comes from, seeing what she is, there's no doubt that the progenitor of this thing she's wearing must be one of these pirates of Nassau. It may be best to get rid of the bad seed before allowing it time to ripen. God knows we have enough criminals in our kingdom like this."
"We cannot in any way condemn the child for the crimes of its mother or those of its father, nor to assume that this child will necessarily be in the image of its parents", had replied coldly Dr. Enys, fixing the general in the eyes. "You want to speak about God, General Arton? By having recourse to one of these "ways", as you say, you will act directly against His laws and know it, as a doctor, I will give neither my support nor my approval to what I consider to be like a cold-blooded assassination, in addition to a betrayal of the laws of His Majesty and that of our Lord."
"Come on, come on, Dr. Enys, there's no point to come yet to such big words," Earl Howard had interjected soothingly. "We won't go that far. Given the... notoriety of this young woman, I should definitely speak to His Majesty about this, but I think we can benefit from dragging her trial out. If she is really what you say, Captain Hume, there is no doubt that the spectacle of her condemnation will cause a sensation, and the more we play on the waiting, the more it will excite and enthuse the people. We can use the coming months to stage a huge trial up to the… Queen of Thieves and once she is delivered from her child, the real trial can truly take place. The people of London will love this spectacle and the King will be especially grateful to you, Captain."
Dr. Enys had made a sound of disgust as he turned away but had nothing to add as General Arton appeared to consider the idea. Eleanor, meanwhile, clenched her fists so hard she felt her fingernails dig into her skin, spilling some blood on the precious velvet rugs of the rich office. She had wanted to scream. She felt like stepping back ten years ago, when her father still referred to her as something he planned to marry as soon as possible in order to get rid of her. As if she was indeed not a human being but just a pile of flesh and meat that men could dispose of as they please. Outside, however, she was silent, numb, not that yelling at her gag would have been of any use. While at this point in time she wasn't sure she wanted this child, she knew she didn't want these men to play any role in what was to happen to her. It was up to her to choose.
But she was at their mercy, whether she liked it or not, whether humiliation and frustration burned her from within or not, there was nothing she could do to influence her destiny. She probably couldn't even provoke the guards to cause the child's death anymore, now that everyone was aware of her situation. The freedom to choose had been taken away from her. And that was one of the worst feelings ever. She who had been in charge of her life for so long, who had fought for it, was now reduced to having to comply with the whims of these old bastards with old ideas who barely saw her as a person.
None of these arguments seemed to satisfy or convince Captain Hume, who began to stare at her in frustration, but General Arton finally shrugged before remarking:
"This is unlikely to last until this bastard is born. I saw strong and healthy prisoners succumb to life in the Tower. I doubt this problem will drag on beyond a few months and from there the usual procedure can be resumed."
"You don't plan to leave her here, right?" Dr. Enys had lost his temper. "Of course the child will not hold this place in the cold and humidity, with the violence of your men! This Tower is not conducive to the survival of anyone and certainly not to that of a pregnant woman! Miss Guthrie must imperatively be transmitted to a prison more suited to her condition or, ideally, to a convent, until the pregnancy comes to an end."
"So she can find a way to escape?" Captain Hume sneered with an almost indulgent laughter for the young doctor. "You don't know who this woman is, Dr. Enys. Put her among the nuns and she will find a way to bribe the abbess in less than a few weeks."
You don't know me any more than these men do, Hume. I would have only needed a few days.
"I don't care who she is. No woman expecting a child should be left in such a place. You will just succeed in killing them both! She must imperatively be taken elsewhere."
"I'm afraid we can't go that far either, Dr. Enys," the Constable sighed, shaking his head. "Believe me, I sympathize with her situation, as you do, but she remains accused of piracy. Since it has been ordered by Parliament that she be imprisoned in the Tower, I cannot authorize a transfer to another prison or a convent."
Dr. Enys looked like she was about to protest again but she made sure to meet his gaze then and nod her head quietly to stop him. She was grateful to him for what he was trying to do for her, even though he didn't know her, but he was walking straight towards a wall and at that moment there was a part of her that was praying that the predictions of these men are correct. Who prayed that this baby would die. It seemed a more charitable fate to it than she would have to offer if it survived. The doctor frowned, looking confused and frustrated, but sighed heavily again as he stared at the ground for a few seconds before looking up at Earl Howard and declaring with determination:
"So I expressly ask your permission to grant me regular visits to make sure that Miss Guthrie's pregnancy is going as smoothly as possible in view of her conditions. I am well aware that she is a criminal and that she will have no right to preferential treatment, but I ask you to take into account the safety and well-being of this innocent child and to let me come to its help."
By this time, Eleanor had hated Dwight. He seemed determined to make this thing in her stomach survive, and why? Why did he want this baby so badly to come into the world when there was nothing for it in this world, that it was literally going to be born in the worst prison in the whole country? What a wonderful start in the life she would give to this child. Didn't he understand that it was better for this baby to disappear?
This was how she had felt at the time, when the Earl had agreed to allow the doctor to visit her regularly to ensure that her condition remained stable, much to the chagrin of Captain Hume and of General Arton. She had been cold and silent during Dwight's first visits, as she had generally been since her imprisonment in the tower. She had only started talking when she realized that her child had a high chance of survival, which pleased the doctor. Started speaking when she felt her stomach start to stir and her desire to see this child go away began to fade away as well.
She still struggled with the idea of seeing this child as a whole being. Fighting questions she would normally have asked herself. Whether it was a girl or a boy. If it would look like her. Or if it would rather take from Charles. The vast majority of the time, she just tried not to think of that child, but the more the months had passed, the more her belly had swelled, the more it had turned out to be impossible. There were times when she just thought about it and about nothing else.
She then realized that the woman's screaming had finally stopped. She threw a vague look at the door. If she believed in God, she might have prayed that Mary was not dead at this time. But she had never really succeeded in having faith. As a child, she would fall asleep during Mass sermons, catching her father's contemptuous gaze on her, not angry or disappointed, but simply annoyed that her daughter was embarrassing him once again. However, if she wasn't sure about the religions of her world, she liked to think that there was still something after death. That everything we did before we died was not for nothing. That her mother was somewhere. And that she would join her soon.
The images of her dream returned to her mind, that dream she had been having over and over again for some time and then she realized that those dreams had started the moment this baby had really taken shape. As if this child was trying to instill in her the guilt of wishing for its father's death. She rolled her eyes at the thought. It was ridiculous. The nightmares might have been related to her pregnancy, but it was only her, her own mind, certainly not the baby. Maybe it was just her conscience trying to remind her that Charles Vane was no longer just the man she had once fucked, maybe loved too, nor was he just the murderer of her father or this bloodthirsty pirate known for his barbaric acts. Given the way things were going, he was also going to be the father of her child. The only child she would ever have. No matter what conflicting feelings it aroused in her, the one thing she was really going to leave behind, her only real legacy would be something that would forever bind her to Charles Vane, which she would always share with him.
And she hated it. Goddam, she hated it more than anything in her current situation. Things were a lot easier when she just had to focus on the hate. On the pain, the still open and raw wound inflicted by his actions. She wanted to keep seeing him like that. She didn't want to think of him that way. She didn't want to see him like that.
And why would she have to, after all? In the end, despite the blood ties, he would never really be the father of this child. The Constable had made the decision to keep the announcement of her pregnancy a secret from the world, perhaps so as not to arouse the sympathy of a few noble ladies or other good Christian causes who might then try to come to her aid. When she died, her child might have been named after her, but she doubted that this information would travel to the Caribbean. Charles will never know about the existence of this child. In many ways, this little one's father would be as dead as his mother will be. He would never be a part of its life.
Even if he did learn it, in the end, what would that change about it? He didn't want any of that. He didn't want children, no family life, no responsibility. He won't do anything for the kid. Even if he were to learn it one day. He will be even worse than my own father. Nothing more than a ghost.
Eleanor felt a tear escape her and watched it fall on her rounded belly. At the same time, she felt a vague movement inside her as the baby stirred for the first time in several hours and she held her breath. She would never get used to it. No one had ever described to her what it was like. Maybe because it was impossible to put words into it. It mesmerized her every time as she felt the small limbs move under her skin. She knew that if she took off her robe, she might be able to see the shape of a foot or a hand pressing against her skin, but she did not do so. It had the gift of breaking her every time. She just gently stroked the spot where she felt it, in an instinctive gesture to appease it, or perhaps show it that its mother was there. She could talk, but it was something she couldn't do. She just couldn't, so she doubted the baby was sensitive to the sound of her voice. But those light caresses she allowed herself at times… it must have felt them. Usually, when it got agitated too much, it calmed it down. Sometimes.
She was probably stupid. Stupid not to make more of the little time she had with this child. Stupid to keep it out of the way even though it was inside her, stupid even sometimes denying its existence when it kicked her regularly. Stupid for not just giving the little affection she could never give to it, since she would be gone soon. More tears spilled from her eyes again and like every time when it comes to the baby, she let the tears fall, let grief and despair wash over her, just for a few seconds, and she closed her eyes, leaning against the wall of her cell, stifling a moan.
I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry, my little one. So sorry for being unable to give yourself the affection you deserve, knowing that I am already forced to deprive you of that for the rest of your life. I'm sorry I made this succession of bad choices that have brought me to this cell, where you will be born, when you could have been born in Nassau. At home. I am so sorry that I chose a man who will never have any desire to have a child in his life to be your father. I'm sorry to condemn you to a life where you have no father or mother to support you.
I am so sorry.