Chapter Text
Her labor had started three hours ago. She’d been busy with doing the dishes in the mess hall when she’d felt the pains. She’d spent the rest of the work detail begging for the baby to be patient, to wait just a little bit longer. When her water broke she’d been on her way back to her quarters. It was only then that the guards had brought her to the delivery rooms.
There was one other woman going through the same thing a few beds away from her. The girl was screaming, too young to hold back. Not that Donna herself was all that much older.
Donna didn’t know much about being a mother, all she knew was the glimpses she’d caught from the families she’d served. But those glimpses were nothing compared to her reality.
The birth of a child should be something to celebrate. The parents should be bursting with joy. Looking at toys and cribs, paging through books with names and meanings, wondering which would be good enough. A mother’s first sight of her child should bring a smile to her lips and promises of hope for the future she’d wish for that child to have. There should be joy in the world, congratulations, and people should smile at the new life entering the world. The baby’s room should be filled with toys, and parents should be wondering which color to paint the nursery.
Donna didn’t have that hope, there was no joy that came with this birth. When her son was born, her eyes were full of tears. She held back her screams as she pushed her child out into the cold darkness of the delivery room. The old slave woman helping her with delivery cut the cord connecting her to the baby and Donna begged. “Please, just one moment,” she whispered, tears in her eyes. The woman hesitated just a second, and finally she gave in and let her hold her child, a kindness that would undoubtedly be paid for dearly. Donna didn’t know why she did so, but it meant the world to her. The old woman’s eyes kept darting back and forth, she looked over her shoulder so the supervisors wouldn’t notice, ready to take the baby away the second they came near. Donna lay there, holding the little boy as his beautiful green eyes stared up at her in wonder. She kept the child close just a moment longer. Part of her wanted to kill him, anything to save him from the fate that awaited him. But she couldn't. Instead she fed her son from her body. The small amount of milk she had to give him wouldn’t be enough to feed a kitten. But the little boy suckled her breast as if he were trying to cling on for as long as he was allowed to do so as if a part of him understood that this was all the love he would ever get.
He was so soft, so beautiful. She could see his father’s features in his face.
“Hush little baby, don’t you cry,” she sang, soft enough for no one but her son to hear her voice. “Mommy’s gonna sing you a lullaby. Everything's gonna be alright. The Lord's gonna answer your prayer tonight. “ She forced the words out, as they broke her heart for the lie she knew them for. ”Hush little baby, don't you cry. Mommy's gonna sing you a lullaby. Everything's gonna be alright. The Lord's gonna answer your prayer tonight.”
And she did pray. She prayed to a God that she knew wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t care, that her child would find hope. She prayed with the heart of a mother that he’d have a kind Master who cared for him. She prayed that though he would never have freedom, that at least there’d be joy and kindness for him in his life. That he would find someone to care for, good days to remember and keep him strong as he was pulled through the dark valleys of despair that ruled a slave’s life.
It was a desperate prayer that she knew wouldn’t be answered. But it was all she had left to give. She whispered a name in his ears, a private name that was just theirs, one he’d never remember but that he would carry whether he knew it or not. She wanted to fight when they tore the boy from her arms, but she was too broken to do so. She refused to turn over as she stared at the free women who picked up her child and rolled him up in a sack, warm enough so he wouldn’t die, but lacking any kind of affection.
They took him away, out of the room.
He was crying, first crying for her, then screaming in pain. There was nothing she could do to stop them from putting the mark on his face. They didn’t bring him back. Slaves weren’t mothers, her son wasn’t hers. Her boy belonged to the auction house that had bought her from her previous owners. Just merchandise making its way across the market.
She got sold the day after, given a night to recover before going on the market so she’d look her best. The woman who bought her wanted a nursemaid for her own baby.
And every time Donna fed the baby, sang to him and cared for him, she imagined her own little boy and despaired for him, terrified of the life that lay before him. Every once in a while she'd think back on those bright green eyes and wish she could have given him the mercy of death. But even that was beyond her power, so instead she let her tears fall on her face, wiping them away before her mistress could see them.
She was a slave, and so was he, and that was all there was to it.