So far the adoption process wasn't going so well. Avalon's biological parents wouldn't sign away their parental rights unless Avalon agreed to surrender 'their' child once it was born. They had no problem giving up their daughter, but they wanted the baby. Avalon was not going to let that happen, and neither would Sara.

Sara hadn't actually met Avalon's parents in person. All communication with them so far has been done through lawyers. But from what she had heard from Avalon, Sara already knew that she wouldn't like them.

It had been about three months of mitigation, trying to get Avalon's parents to sign away their parental rights, Sara decided it was time for her to talk to them face to face. No communication between lawyers. Just parent to parent.

Right off the bat, the conversation didn't go well. For one, Sara didn't make the best first impression given what she said, but Rowan and Iridessa were pretty unreasonable. They were now dead set on getting Avalon back. Or at least drawing out the custody battle until Avalon delivers her baby in about two and a half months.

"Why are you being like this when it's clearly not what Avi wants?" Sara asked

"This is MY family!" Rowan yelled, "You don't mess with my family!"

Sara took a breath to maintain her composure, "Just do her a favor. Do one thing right for her and sign away your rights."

"We could do that." Rowan uttered, "But if we do, then we'll lose our baby."

Sara scoffed, horrified by what she heard, "Oh my gosh. This isn't about Avi at all. You could care less about her. All you want is the baby. The one you put inside of her when you raped her. Not once, not twice, but for three months."

She remembered how disgusted she felt when Avalon confessed to her 'it didn't happen on the first time'. Meaning that the teen didn't get pregnant the first time her father raped her. It had taken almost three months before the pregnancy test showed a positive result.

"Call it what you want, but Avalon's a big girl. She made an agreement. She can't back out of it now." Rowan explained, "Just let her come home, and this can all be over."

"Not a chance. I will fight for her. To protect her and her child."

Rowan shook his head as he just gave a devious smile, "Suit yourself. Don't be surprised when you lose in court."

"I won't lose." Sara said, with the same amount of confidence as Rowan.

She knew that Avalon didn't want to go to the police. She would talk to the girl again about that, but even if she did get the teen to agree, she would still try out Plan A. There were two other ideas that Sara had thought about during the argument with Rowan. One was a less than preferable option and would only be enacted if Plan A didn't pan out.

Meanwhile back on the waverider, Avalon was sitting in the lounge room just a few steps up from the bridge. She was nervous about how the confrontation with Sara and her parents would go. She knew how her parents were and she knows how Sara is. How protective and determined she is. Her parents are determined too, but for a different reason. Sara's fighting for her - for Avi - and while her parents are also fighting for her, it's for a different reason. They are only interested in the child growing inside of her. Sara is fighting for both her and the baby. To keep them both safe.

Avalon's worried about more than just the confrontation. She's also concerned about court - because it's looking like that's where things are going - even if the judge listens to what she wants and grants it, she may still have to give the baby over to her parents when it's born. This has troubled her even more so, since two months ago when Gideon informed her that she was having a girl. She worries about how her father will treat this little girl given what he was able to do to her.

All of a sudden, Avalon had some dark thoughts going through her head. Thoughts about how to keep her sister-daughter out of the hands of her father - their father.

'What if I tell my parents that I lost the baby?' She thought

If she told them that, they would definitely have to sign away their parental rights. After all, they weren't interested in her, they just wanted the baby.

Logically, Avalon knew that wouldn't work because it would just make her parents fight harder for her thinking they could try again to have another baby. No matter what she told them, they would always fight either for her or for the baby - their daughter.

Avalon sighed. As much as she didn't want to send her father to jail, it was looking like that was the way things would have to go. However, what would stop her mother from claiming she didn't know about the deal Avalon had made with her father and what he had done to her. It would be Avalon's word against her mother's - a she said, she said scenario.

"You okay?" Nate asked as he walked over to Avalon, sitting down in the chair across from her.

Avalon shook her head, "No. I'm scared. I'm afraid to lose this baby to my father, and there's nothing I can do. Even if I report him to the police and they throw him in jail for rape, my mother could still potentially get custody of me and the baby."

"Sara wouldn't let that happen."

Avalon gave a sigh, "She may not have a choice. I have no way to prove that I actually made a deal with my father, or even that my mother knew about it. What reason would she have had to not trust my father around me. He had never so much as raised a hand to me. He was the gentlest man I knew. Even when he forced himself inside of me, he was gentle."

This is why Avalon is so conflicted about what to do about her father and why she really doesn't want to send him to jail. She still thinks he's a gentle man, even after what he did to her. As much as she hated him, a part of her still loved him and always would. He was her daddy, and she was his 'Ace' as he had called her.

"Avi." Nate breathed out, "You need to call it what it was. It was rape, no matter how gentle he was, it was still rape. And incest. He's your father. He never should have forced you to make a deal to give him and your mother a child. He never should have put that on you."

The teen gave a small nod, but she didn't say anything. All she could think about was all the good memories of her father, about the loving and gentle man that he had been.

"I love you, and I'm going to protect you." Nate promised, "You and your daughter. We all will."

She sighed, "You know, I don't know if that's how I feel."

"What?"

"I love this baby, but I don't really know how I'm supposed to feel." Avalon admitted, "Am I supposed to feel like her sister or her mother?"

Nate gazed at the teen sympathetically, "It's up to you. You feel however you want. If you want to raise that baby as your sister, you can. But if you want to be her mother, that's okay too. That child is growing inside of you. Not your mother."

Avalon smiled, "Thanks, Nate. I love you too."

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoy. Comments are greatly appreciated.

What would you like to see happen next?