Authors Notes - TFVW, this is another one of yours! Everyone else, watch this space cos you've made some excellent suggestions!

*** L&OSVU *** L&OSVU *** L&OSVU *** L&OSVU **

Illegitimate

"There are no illegitimate children - only illegitimate parents." ~Leon R. Yankwich

"You'll get rid it of it."

Serena shook her head, "I'll do nothing of the sort."

There was long, awkward silence. Her father just stared at her from the head of the table, unable to believe she was disagreeing with him, disobeying him, while her mother sat simpering to her left, not having the fortitude to speak up. So nothing new there.

"It," Serena said calmly, "is your grandchild. And my child. And I'm keeping it."

"It's a bastard."

She shook her head incredulously, "From inside my womb, she's calling you something quite similar." she turned to her mother, "Excuse me, I've lost my appetite." She pushed her chair back, got to her feet and without another word to either of them, walked out of the room.

She as she walked down the hall outside of the dining room she could hear them talking about her, and about her news, in hushed tones. Their response was no surprise to her. They'd not exactly been pillars of support following her rape 2 months earlier. Oh yeah, on the surface they'd been supportive, but she could tell how embarrassed they were about the whole thing. Her father hadn't looked her in the eyes since it happened.

Until tonight. When she dropped her bombshell.

God they were morons. So, yeah, it was a shock to them, but how did they think she felt? She was pregnant. With her rapists baby. She knew it was a long way from being an ideal situation, but what was she meant to do? Just get rid of it because it suited them… suited her even… what about the baby? Didn't it deserve the chance to live? To breathe?

She ended up out on the patio, rolling herself a joint. 'Mama' and 'Papa' weren't wild about the whole drugs thing but they could whistle. She wasn't big on the whole them being morons thing. She'd just got her joint rolled, lit and was inhaling deeply when her mother appeared.

"Serena." She said sharply, finally finding her voice now HE wasn't around, "Put that thing out."

She wasn't feeling cooperative, so turned to her mother and looked at her disparagingly, "No. It's the," she made speech marks in the air with her fingers, "swinging sixties, everyone's doing it."

"Everyone else isn't pregnant." Her mother came and sat beside her, "Everyone else isn't responsible for helpless baby growing inside them."

It was a pointless argument. A stupid upper middle class authoritarian argument. There was no proof that marijuana harmed babies. It was just a scare story. They'd be warning against drink and tobacco next. Besides which….

"What do you care? I thought you wanted her dead."

Her mother shook her head, "No. We just want you to be sure you're capable of dealing with this."

Serena got to her feet, not yet stoned enough to let her mothers words just wash over her, "Mama, I was raped. I coped with that. This -" she touched her stomach, "this will be a walk in the park."

"You coped?" Her mother looked at her questioningly, "Then why does your father have to draw black lines on the bottles in the liquor cabinet every time you visit? And why are you smoking that," she gestured to the joint in Serena's hand "poison? And why do I feel like I don't know my own daughter any more?"

She couldn't bring herself to answer her mothers questions, finding them rude and offensive and actually, deciding it would be best to hit them head on. Defensively. After all, she was the one under attack,

"I don't know. Ask me in 7 months when I'm the best mother in the world and can tell you exactly where you went wrong."

There was a long silence, a long break in the conversation and then her mother spoke again, "Fine. Or else, in 9 months times you can finally explain it to me when I end up holding your baby because you can't cope with the fact that she has his eyes."

Now that was a turn up. Not her mother's usual style at all. Obviously the knowledge that she was going to be the grandmother of an illegitimate little bastard had toughened her up. Pointlessly toughened her up mind you, because she was talking rubbish. It wasn't going to be like that. Not for Serena. And not for baby Olivia.

Olivia. She smiled at the very thought of it. The name meant 'peace' and that was what her daughter was going to be. Her way of finding peace after everything that happened to her. And, if she was a boy, she - sorry - he would be Oliver. Because that meant peace too. Either way she had it sussed.

She opened her mouth to explain that to her mother but to her surprise she'd already gone. Well, that just showed how much she cared about her daughter and grandchild. Charming.

She rolled another joint, started to smoke it, staring up at the sky, just imagining she and the day when she and her baby would be together. It was comforting thought, a nice thought. It was never going to be like her mother said. The baby would never look like him. God wouldn't do that to her.

She was in a good place. A happy place. And then her father's voice came crashing into it,

"Your mother told you I'd find you out here."

She looked at him. Coldly. Coolly. Stubbornly. She knew what he wanted and there was no way in hell she was going to change her mind. Apparently though, controlling bastard that he was, he was going to try.

"People will talk Serena."

She shrugged, because she didn't care. So what. She'd been given a baby, and even if, ok, she didn't exactly like the way it had gotten there, she wasn't going to let that fact get in her way just because other people didn't like it.

There was another awkward silence, as was becoming customary during conversations with her parents, and then, eventually he spoke to her again. She didn't answer straight away, unable to believe what she was hearing but when he repeated it a second time, there was no doubt in her mind.

"Did that man really do as you said? Or did you claim as such because you knew you were pregnant?".

"That man," She replied, near to tears suddenly, but still determined to say it, determined to ram the words down his throat, "RAPED me. How can you ask if I lied?"

He sighed, "Do you blame me? Considering the fact that you want to keep his child." she supposed he had a point actually, it wasn't an ideal set up, but all the same, she'd thought about it, long and hard. She knew what she wanted. She just had to convince him of that. And that was going to be harder than she thought.

"You're one of these flower power people." her father said, eyeing up her caftan that truth be known she'd taken to wearing since the rape because it was baggy, and disguised the curves that had got her into trouble in the first place, "You're involved in the women's liberation campaign. Surely you'd be at the front of the queue to get rid of a child you don't want?".

He definitely had a point there. Serena had been pro-choice before it had even been an fashionable. But that didn't mean she wanted it for herself. She forced herself to look at him, wanting to make him understand.

"Maybe I should be. But I can't papa." She put her hand on her stomach again, taking strength from it, from her baby, "My baby deserves the chance to live, no matter how hard it is for me. I won't make her pay for the sins of her father… I can't, no matter what you think. I'm sorry."