fic: Four reasons Alana Newman doesn't want to have children, and one reason she might.
Title: Four reasons Alana Newman doesn’t want to have children, and one reason she might.
Fandom: Street Legal
Pairings: Leon/Alana
Rating: PG
Word Count: 980
A/N: Another five things fic. Companion piece to “Helpless”.
One.
(Her mother.)
Alana doesn’t want to have children because of her mother. Their relationship was strained at best, and often described as tumultuous. They fought through her adolescence, they fought through her university years and into adulthood. Alana remembers the guilt, the anguish, the pain. She remembers the words that stung on both sides and the things she wishes she’d never said, and would most certainly have taken back given the chance.
Most of all, she remembers that they were not on speaking terms when she got the call saying her mother had died in her sleep. Not a day goes by that she doesn’t regret it.
Her mother told her, in the heat of an argument, that she would make a terrible mother, and that she felt sorry for any future children she would have. Of all of the hurtful things she’d said over the years, this one sticks out in Alana’s mind. She learned in time to compartmentalize most of the unkind words her mother spewed, but this one lurks in the back of her mind like a ghost, clouding her judgment whenever the subject comes up.
If her child were to feel half the resentment she felt towards her own mother growing, Alana wants no part of parenthood.
Two.
(Her job.)
As if her relationship with her mother wasn’t enough to turn her off of having kids forever, she sees enough children whose parents don’t love them paraded through her court room on a daily basis to fill a book. And with each child she witnesses, her heart breaks a little more. She was never under the impression that being a family court justice would be an easy job, but she never expected to feel the dead weight of responsibility over deciding a child’s fate.
(She does.)
She didn’t see it as a lawyer, and didn’t understand it before becoming a judge in family court. The kids are hurting, are broken in ways she could never imagine, by selfish parents unable or unwilling to care for them properly.
She asks herself how she’d be any different than they are if she were to bring a child into the world she wasn’t one hundred percent sure she wants. She always expected at some point some switch would flip inside of her and she’d feel the need to have a child. Friends and coworkers would discuss the ticking of their own biological clocks, and she’d nod politely and wait for hers to start.
(It hasn’t.)
Three.
(Her past.)
Then, there was the thing that she’d never told anyone. The abortion. The legality of abortion in Canada was still questionable when she had hers in her second year of law school. He had been her first serious boyfriend, but upon recognizing that she hadn’t had a period in two months, she also came to the realization that she didn’t like the guy enough to spend more time with him than a couple of consecutive hours, let alone give up her career to have a child with him at twenty-three.
She’d spent her entire life to this point striking down stereotype after stereotype about women; women in high school, women in university, women getting into law school, and she wasn’t about to give up all she’d worked for for a child she didn’t want and a man she didn’t like.
She never told him, nor anyone else about what she’d done. There was no one she could tell, no one she wanted to tell. Even now, she couldn’t bring herself to unburden herself by confiding in Leon. She knew, both then and now she’d made the right decision, but it had been such an easy decision to make that she wondered if there wasn’t something wrong with her. After all, she hadn’t thought twice, and certainly hadn’t regretted it for a single moment.
Four.
(She’s scared.)
Alana’s scared of being a parent, that’s the long and the short of it. She rationalizes it in a million ways, to herself and to others. The timing will never be right. She doesn’t want to give up her career, she doesn’t want their life to change, she doesn’t want their relationship to change. She’s completely and totally happy with her life the way things are right now.
Deep down however, it’s this paralysing fear. You can’t study to be a parent, you can’t bat your eyes and get it right. She's petrified that she’ll be bad at it, frightened she won’t love her son or daughter enough. Scared of losing Leon to a child she doesn’t know or love.
She’s knows full well that it’s selfish.
She can’t tell Leon - he’s managed to convince himself that she’ll be God’s gift to motherhood. It frustrates her to no end how he can never seem to grasp the possibility that she’ll fail at something. He’s her personal cheerleader. She knows otherwise. This? Is something she will not, cannot be good at. She just doesn’t have it in her.
(She hasn’t let it cross her mind that Leon doesn’t ever say things he doesn’t mean.)
One.
(Him.)
She never thought about having kids with her ex-husband. She didn’t think twice about an abortion. But every so often she finds herself day-dreaming about what life would be like if she and Leon had a family. She knows he’s great with kids, and in those brief moments, she lets herself believe that he could teach her to be too.
Alana wants to share more of herself with her husband than she’s ever felt the need to share with anyone before. She loves him, she wants to make him happy - would do anything for him and for their relationship.
She thinks that maybe, she wouldn’t mind giving up what they have if it could mean sharing something that special. Maybe.
(But she’s not ready to tell him just yet.)
Fandom: Street Legal
Pairings: Leon/Alana
Rating: PG
Word Count: 980
A/N: Another five things fic. Companion piece to “Helpless”.
One.
(Her mother.)
Alana doesn’t want to have children because of her mother. Their relationship was strained at best, and often described as tumultuous. They fought through her adolescence, they fought through her university years and into adulthood. Alana remembers the guilt, the anguish, the pain. She remembers the words that stung on both sides and the things she wishes she’d never said, and would most certainly have taken back given the chance.
Most of all, she remembers that they were not on speaking terms when she got the call saying her mother had died in her sleep. Not a day goes by that she doesn’t regret it.
Her mother told her, in the heat of an argument, that she would make a terrible mother, and that she felt sorry for any future children she would have. Of all of the hurtful things she’d said over the years, this one sticks out in Alana’s mind. She learned in time to compartmentalize most of the unkind words her mother spewed, but this one lurks in the back of her mind like a ghost, clouding her judgment whenever the subject comes up.
If her child were to feel half the resentment she felt towards her own mother growing, Alana wants no part of parenthood.
Two.
(Her job.)
As if her relationship with her mother wasn’t enough to turn her off of having kids forever, she sees enough children whose parents don’t love them paraded through her court room on a daily basis to fill a book. And with each child she witnesses, her heart breaks a little more. She was never under the impression that being a family court justice would be an easy job, but she never expected to feel the dead weight of responsibility over deciding a child’s fate.
(She does.)
She didn’t see it as a lawyer, and didn’t understand it before becoming a judge in family court. The kids are hurting, are broken in ways she could never imagine, by selfish parents unable or unwilling to care for them properly.
She asks herself how she’d be any different than they are if she were to bring a child into the world she wasn’t one hundred percent sure she wants. She always expected at some point some switch would flip inside of her and she’d feel the need to have a child. Friends and coworkers would discuss the ticking of their own biological clocks, and she’d nod politely and wait for hers to start.
(It hasn’t.)
Three.
(Her past.)
Then, there was the thing that she’d never told anyone. The abortion. The legality of abortion in Canada was still questionable when she had hers in her second year of law school. He had been her first serious boyfriend, but upon recognizing that she hadn’t had a period in two months, she also came to the realization that she didn’t like the guy enough to spend more time with him than a couple of consecutive hours, let alone give up her career to have a child with him at twenty-three.
She’d spent her entire life to this point striking down stereotype after stereotype about women; women in high school, women in university, women getting into law school, and she wasn’t about to give up all she’d worked for for a child she didn’t want and a man she didn’t like.
She never told him, nor anyone else about what she’d done. There was no one she could tell, no one she wanted to tell. Even now, she couldn’t bring herself to unburden herself by confiding in Leon. She knew, both then and now she’d made the right decision, but it had been such an easy decision to make that she wondered if there wasn’t something wrong with her. After all, she hadn’t thought twice, and certainly hadn’t regretted it for a single moment.
Four.
(She’s scared.)
Alana’s scared of being a parent, that’s the long and the short of it. She rationalizes it in a million ways, to herself and to others. The timing will never be right. She doesn’t want to give up her career, she doesn’t want their life to change, she doesn’t want their relationship to change. She’s completely and totally happy with her life the way things are right now.
Deep down however, it’s this paralysing fear. You can’t study to be a parent, you can’t bat your eyes and get it right. She's petrified that she’ll be bad at it, frightened she won’t love her son or daughter enough. Scared of losing Leon to a child she doesn’t know or love.
She’s knows full well that it’s selfish.
She can’t tell Leon - he’s managed to convince himself that she’ll be God’s gift to motherhood. It frustrates her to no end how he can never seem to grasp the possibility that she’ll fail at something. He’s her personal cheerleader. She knows otherwise. This? Is something she will not, cannot be good at. She just doesn’t have it in her.
(She hasn’t let it cross her mind that Leon doesn’t ever say things he doesn’t mean.)
One.
(Him.)
She never thought about having kids with her ex-husband. She didn’t think twice about an abortion. But every so often she finds herself day-dreaming about what life would be like if she and Leon had a family. She knows he’s great with kids, and in those brief moments, she lets herself believe that he could teach her to be too.
Alana wants to share more of herself with her husband than she’s ever felt the need to share with anyone before. She loves him, she wants to make him happy - would do anything for him and for their relationship.
She thinks that maybe, she wouldn’t mind giving up what they have if it could mean sharing something that special. Maybe.
(But she’s not ready to tell him just yet.)