FAITH IN HUMANITY
CINDERELLA

19th July 1983:

Rosie Octavius sat in the hospital waiting room, waiting for her husband to pick her up. It was white, brightly lit, sterile and cold, with no other human within reaching distance. She had never wanted to cry more in her entire life.

I'm so sorry, Mrs Octavius, but the facts must be made clear: giving birth to a child will kill you.

It was dark outside. It was midnight, after all. Rose stared out of the window, watching for a car, and then turned her attention back to the room. Otto probably had a good few more miles to drive. He wouldn't show up for a while yet.

She picked up a magazine from a coffee table, and used it to hide her face. She was certain she would soon burst into tears in the waiting room, and she wasn't sure what she would hate more: everybody noticing or nobody noticing.

A name caught her eye. She had just been scanning the magazine, taking nothing in at all, but at the sight of that name, her memory had given a jolt. She stared, trying to locate a time and place in her mind. She suceeded.

Emily Osborn, formerly Emily David. Rosie had gone to school with her. Been in the drama club with her, even. They hadn't been friends, only the vaguest of acquaintances- the last time Rosie had spoken to her, she had been engaged, apparently to somebody incredibly rich, who had bought her a diamond ring. Rosie thought she could remember that ring, somewhere in the back of her mind, and Emily's half-cheerful, half-wary expression.

And now she was dead. She'd left behind her husband and a two-year-old son.

It was odd and unpleasant reading about the death of somebody she had known, but the thought of the two-year-old son upset her the most. Poor kid would never even remember his mother. For one split second, her sorrow over that eclipsed the sorrow she felt for herself.

She put the magazine down. She remained on her seat, her destroyed plans for her future still flashing through her brain, until her husband came to take her home. She sat in the passenger seat, oblivious to his attempts to comfort her.

"Rosie," Otto said gently. "It'll be fine. We'll get through this."

"Yeah," Rosie said. Somehow, his trying to cheer her up was making things worse. "It's just...oh god...I really hoped..."

"I know."

Rosie was not religious: she hadn't been to church for years. And yet as the car rumbled on, she thought about the things she had learned as a child, and half prayed and half cursed, if such a thing was even possible.

Otto passed her a tissue. "It'll be alright, Rosie," he whispered.

"I know," she said wretchedly. "I know it will be. It's just...Otto...this sounds so horrible, but...I've got no faith in God, anymore."