R4
Pregnant
By Rosehill
Chapter 2
The day after was Sunday and Jedda decided to go to a hospital to get information. It was going to be tricky: she was a famous person after all, and she didn't want her face to appear on the news. She browsed her wardrobe and found a pink, flowery summer dress she had never worn before, flip-flops and sunglasses. It looked very different from her usual black clothes.
"I look like a careless girly girl, now," she said while tying her hair up. "Kitha, you're going to stay here. People will know who I am at once if they see you with me."
So she took the bus to that hospital. She was hoping to see no one around but unfortunately, there were many people brandishing signs and shouting.
"Stop killing babies!" a big man shouted while throwing a leaflet at her.
Jedda stepped back. She wasn't afraid of ice robots or wild beasts but those people were utterly scary.
"I'm not killing anybody," she answered. I actually saved dozen of lives up to now. Don't shout at me.
"Don't enter that place!" a woman cried. "They'll convince you to kill your innocent baby! It's already a human being! It has feelings! Don't kill it!"
Jedda stepped back. Being a good fighter, she wasn't afraid of those extremists. She was just worried about them snatching her sunglasses and identifying her as the Phantom's daughter. So she stepped back and she went into a small café. She was going to wait.
She ordered a lemon tea and started reading a book she had brought. One hour passed and those people were still shouting and waving their signs. She sighed and decided to have a look at the leaflet. There was a poem on the front:
Month One: Mommy, I am only 8 inches long, but I have all my organs. I love the sound of your voice. Every time I hear it, I wave my arms and legs. The sound of your heart beat is my favorite lullaby.
Jedda frowned. Eight inches? At one month? Was it a human embryo or a whale? And how could it have all its organs and hear clearly at only one month? The person who had written that piece of glurge had never opened a biology book ever.
Everything else was of that type.
If Flash Gordon's mother had aborted, the universe wouldn't be a safe place…
Hello? If Ming the Merciless's mother had aborted, the universe would be a way better place!
Most women feel depressed after an abortion, they all get breast cancer and womb perforations…
This had never been scientifically proved.
Raising a baby after a rape will make you feel much better…
Jedda slammed the leaflet against the window. How could human beings say such revolting stuff? Telling a rape survivor how she was supposed to feel? That was disgusting!
So she went back home, nauseated. No, she was not going to enter that hospital, definitely not. She had to find another place, somewhere she wouldn't be judged about her choices. But where?
The young Defender didn't sleep much that night. She kept making nightmares about anti-choice activists tying her to a wall and writing "property" on her belly.
The day after, Jedda remembered something from her childhood. Being raised by a single father, she had never talked much about sexual things with him. However, Soala, the Bandar medicine woman, had filled that role. She had told her about periods and growing breasts but she had also told her things most girls never hear.
Sometimes a pregnant woman gets a bad spirit in her body. She seems to be pregnant but it's just a demon soul inside her. So we older women take her to the red tree and make her eat the leaves. Then we all sing and pray. When the woman loses blood, it means that the bad spirit is gone and it's a joy for us all…
"Thank you, Soala," Jedda whispered. "You were describing me a pregnancy gone wrong and an abortion! I just have to go back to Bengala and find the red tree you showed me when I was twelve. I'll do that!"
Luckily, the adult Defenders were all away that day. All of them, except her father. She tried to look innocent and sometimes she would jump when he was addressing her. Of course he wouldn't approve of what she was going to do. But it was her body, after all!
Then she had a doubt. She hid in her room and she concentrated, trying hard to feel her embryo's presence. Having telepathic powers, she could communicate with all animals and with humans who were blood related or had magical abilities. And she could hear…
Nothing. It couldn't feel or think yet, just like she expected. Kitha had more soul that this tiny bunch of cells. So it wouldn't be a bad thing. Anyway, half of pregnancies aborted spontaneously before the second month, didn't they?
The day went smoothly and she pretended to go to bed. She wrote a note saying that she was thinking of her dead mother and had to go to her graveyard in Bengala, and she put it onto her bed, just in case. It was a stupid excuse, but it was the best she could think of. Then she went down to the hangar and jumped into a jet. Kitha followed her, apparently sensing that she was about to do something important.
Chapters
Jedda relays startling news to Rick.
Seeking information, Jedda visits a hospital, and has a more jarring experience than expected.
Jedda returns to her homeland.
The finale, set several years later.
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