AN: Here we go, another short chapter.

The next chapter will come with a time jump (that will be marked) and will take us to a slightly different place in this story. I guess you could say this is laying some ground work.

Someone asked about the time period. These two chapters are set in the 1940's, though I'm not exact on the date. Again, some things may not be correct, but this is simply for entertainment value and should not be taken for fact.

Thank you all for your kind comments so far. I hope you continue to enjoy the story. As always, there's a good deal to work with and I'm excited to work with characterizations and a plot that I've never worked with before.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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Carol sat on the creaking, rattling bed that was her space in this home. One bed, one table, one small dresser…it summed up just about everything she had, but then she'd never had all that much.

She ran her hand over the swell of her belly.

Even though she knew it would never be so, she imagined sometimes what it would be like when she held the little one in her arms. She imagined his little face…his soft skin…the warm weight in her arms. She imagined what it would be like if she'd already been married and they could keep him…if he could be their pride and joy inside of a shameful mistake that she'd made.

She imagined, to kill the time while she waited out the final days for the pains to start to say that she'd ended her stay her, what it might be like…what it would be like when she was allowed to be the proud, loving mother that she longed to be.

She imagined dressing him up in his best clothes for Easter Sunday and showing him off like the doll that he would be. She imagined his first day of school and going to watch him play at sports where he'd be, no doubt, the best player on the team, far beyond his other teammates.

But he'd be humble and kind and he'd never rub it in anyone's face that he was better than them…because he would be a good boy. He would be her wonderful little boy.

Except…this baby would be someone else's wonderful little boy because she'd failed him and she'd fallen pregnant with him too early, too soon. She had nothing to offer him, so she had to hope that he would go to a family that could offer him everything that she couldn't…that he would go to a family that would recognize how wonderful he was and love him for it in all the ways that she would never be able to.

She talked to the child, even though he couldn't hear her. She told him why she was here…she told him why this was the best for him. She asked him to understand.

And she wrote, carefully and revising it time and time again, a letter that might explain it to him if he was ever given the chance to read it.

Ed had written her once, despite the fact that she'd written him every week since he'd left her there. She'd read the letter enough to make the edges of the paper soft and to wear the envelope as well.

It didn't say much. He loved her. His family was angry and disappointed. He still forgave her, but she would have a good deal of work to do to convince the Peletier family that she was worthy of their son…she would have a good deal of work to do to restore anything of a reputation that she'd ever had in their eyes, if it could be restored.

But Ed forgave her, and he would give her the chance to make up for it. He would give her the chance to prove that she deserved the faith that he put in her and she deserved his affections.

And she would earn back his trust…she would earn his love.

She only hoped that the child would forgive her for what she had to do…that one day he would know that she did it because it was best for him. It was best for them all.

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She could hear his cries, even over the pounding of her own blood in her ears…even through the cloud of pain that hadn't passed…she could hear him crying, and she could hear the cries already growing distant.

"I want to hold him…let me see him," Carol got out, but her words fell on deaf ears. "I want to see him…"

But she wouldn't see him because she had signed the papers not to see him. She wouldn't see him because it was best for her not to see him. There was no need, after all, to ever let your eyes fall on something that you would never have…something that you couldn't have.

Soon she couldn't even hear his cries any longer…the only cries that she could hear were those that were her own. She could hear those and the mumbled "comfort" offered by the nurses around her. She could hear the promises that it was for the best, the promises that the baby would be better off.

She could hear the whispered promises that she'd done what she should do, what she had to do.

Because even as her body still throbbed and cramped with the memory of him, the memory of the child that she'd known inside her for nine months but never known beyond that, he was gone from her.

It was better just to let him go.

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"He was phoned?" Carol asked, trying to keep her voice steady as she stood there, her suitcase off to the side and waiting on her.

"Yes Ms. McAlister," the nurse-receptionist said. "Three hours ago and then once an hour and a half ago."

The orderly who had come once, twice, three times to offer to take her bag out to the curb for her, came for what would be the final time. She was being evicted.

Somewhere there was a child that was three days old…somewhere there was a child that was never hers to begin with, a child that had been taken from her before she'd even had a chance to know it, a child she'd never even known completely because she'd known, from the time that she'd even been aware of his presence, that he would never be hers.

Because she loved a man who couldn't love the child. She loved a man who didn't want a bastard child born out wedlock…whether or not it was his child and he'd traded the child for his future wife's virginity.

She loved him and she'd given up the child because it was what she had to do. She had given up the child for his future and for hers.

And somewhere that child was headed toward his future while she was supposed to be waiting for the man that she loved to pick her up so that they could begin to pick up the pieces of their lives and start, properly married, with their life the way that it was supposed to be.

Except that Ed hadn't arrived yet.

"Was there an answer? Can someone ring again?" Carol asked.

"Ms. McAlister, may I call you a taxi?" The receptionist asked.

"He's coming…" Carol protested. "He just needed to know when to come and get me…I have a letter from him…he promised that he would come when it was time…he's coming…"

But seeing that he wasn't there yet, Carol began to grow upset, no matter how she tried to swallow it down.

The man who had hovered to take her bag out, finally did so, and she turned, hovering somewhere between the door and the desk where the woman who was growing tired of her and vexes was waiting for her to leave.

"Mrs. McAlister…let me call you a taxi? Your family? Some other kin that I can notify?" The woman's voice rang out.

Carol shook her head, still standing there.

There was no one to call.

She had no one to call. She only had the Peletier's to call…Ed would be the only one that was concerned with where she was or what had become of her after the "problem" had been "taken care of". There wasn't anyone else.

And somewhere there was a child that was going on to a better life…a child that she couldn't take care of, not when she needed someone else to take care of her. Not when she was counting on the man that she loved to come for her and take her home…counting on him to come and get her so that she could begin to make up to him what she had done.

But, she realized, he wasn't coming.

Carol shook her head again. She couldn't accept that he wasn't coming. He had to come. He had promised that he loved her. He had promised that he would come and would give her the chance to make up for the shame that she might have caused him, something that she would live with for the rest of her life.

She mumbled to the receptionist that there was no one else. She mumbled that she didn't want a taxi to be called, it wouldn't have anywhere to go.

She begged again that the woman ring…that she try to get ahold of Mr. Edward Peletier Sr. She would wait for him to come.

And she went out to sit beside her bag, her body not feeling like her own…her mind feeling even less so like her own.

She would wait there until he came, she had nothing else to do. She had nothing left in the world and she had nothing to offer anyone.

So she would simply have to wait.