Disclaimer: I don't own AMC's The Walking Dead or any of its characters, wishful thinking aside.
Authors Note #1: Because Boah is a ship that deserves all the love. This is inspired by the promo for 5x09 where Noah tells Rick about how Beth was planning to come with him to Richmond, Virginia. *Consider this a re-write on the ending of "Slabtown" where Noah and Beth made it out of Grady and headed to Virginia. Because we need a happy ending, okay? This particular story is set a couple of years post "Slabtown."
Warnings: *Contains: adult content, hurt/comfort, a titch of angst, season five spoilers up to but not necessarily including 5x09, references and clear allusions to consenting young adult sexual relations, reference to the usual emotional trauma, pregnancy and unexpected love and bonding along the way.
Sing with me (till your lungs give out)
She was at the window watching the sunrise - spine curving and belly out, hands firm on the small of her back – when she heard him stir. She smiled, watching the barest hint of her own reflection in the freshly scrubbed pane as he fish-tailed around in the sheets. Sleepy and softly indignant, just like he always was when he realized she wasn't there.
"Mornin' sleepy-head," she hummed, careful to keep her voice down as the weak light started filtering through the trees. Peeking happily over the walls of the Shirewilt Estates – flirting with the boarded up gates, tangled razor wire and the studded wooden spikes they'd slowly started using to shore up the weak spots.
"Mornin', yourself," he rasped, rubbing his eyes, chest bare and enticing as he propped himself up on his elbows. Thin sheet rucked – innocent and oh so alluring - around his navel, bunching in all the right places. "How long have you been up?"
"Long enough," she countered, wincing a bit as another pang from her aching back made itself known. She thumbed the curve of her belly, smiling a bit as the baby responded. Brushing the swell of her bellybutton tiredly as she wondered what the next few months would bring.
He came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her middle and nosing into the crick of her neck as she scritch-scritched her nails through his short hair. Watching the world wake as the new life they'd created kicked tentatively inside her.
He snuffled a laugh into her skin, watching her belly move. Snorting a bit when he ended up blowing an accidental raspberry, making exaggerated noises of distress that made her smile as he spat out a couple strands of her blonde hair. "Junior still workin' on his kick-boxing routine, huh?"
She rolled her eyes, letting the sill take a portion of their weight as a shower of white-wash flaked up underneath her hands. Tolerating the pressure for a few minutes before she pushed off with her hands and let him keep them both upright. "I still think it's a boy."
"Girl," Noah insisted with a smile, sassing right back as he steered her towards the bed and sat her down. Making sure she was comfortable, propped up by a small mountain of pillows against the headboard before hunting around for a pair of pants. Shuffling around their bedroom in off-centered circles before getting down on his hands and knees and peering under the bed.
"Could still be twins, you know," he pointed out, voice echoing strangely from where he'd shoved at least half of himself under the mattress. Hissing at the chill of the hardwood against bed-warmed skin as he made a triumphant noise and pulled out his prize. "Hard to tell when you're so tiny."
"Not so tiny anymore," she said ruefully, barely able to see her toes over her bump as she eyed the limp, dusty looking jeans critically, wrinkling her nose in a way that made him sigh in silent agreement. Balling it up and tossing it over his shoulder in the direction of the laundry bin before slithering back into the sheets to join her.
"You're kidding right?" he snorted, wriggling around so that they were still touching despite the pile of pillows supporting her sore back. "You're beautiful. Like, the definition of good things coming in small packages, you know?"
"Charmer," she accused, playful as she laced their fingers together. Eventually settling them on the rise of her belly as she stared up at the ceiling, exhausted but somehow still wide awake.
"For you?" he hummed, lids drooping, still tired from his double shift guarding the gates. Pausing for a moment before he recognized the sound of a screen door creaking as someone made for the makeshift outhouses a block or so over. "You know it."
She didn't realize she'd fallen asleep until she found herself blinking awake, maybe an hour or two later – the baby turnin' restlessly, kicking and squirming - as Noah dozed beside her. A mess of pillow creases and soft snores as she smiled fondly.
There was a water stain on the right hand corner of the room.
The hint of sun-faded floral from where the wallpaper was peeling underneath the sill.
She hadn't swept in days and already the dust-bunnies were multiplying.
It made her think about how much she missed something as simple as a vacuum.
She found she had a lot of time to think these days.
And not just because of the baby. Life here was different than on the road – on the run – it was peaceable, steady, better. It was a community, small in size, but when everyone pulled their weight they had more than enough down time than most of them knew what to do with.
Mostly she found herself thinking about the good things - the good times. Things that made her laugh rather than cry, only to make her cry anyways because of laughing when the memories got the better of her. She shook her head as Noah rasped softly beside her. Pregnancy hormones. Or maybe just life. She'd never tried too hard to put a label on it. Not when she could page back through her journals and re-experience all those old emotions like they were new again. Understanding herself better than she had when she'd written them.
But sometimes she couldn't help but linger on the other stuff. Things that made her cringe and flood red with second hand embarrassment. Things that twisted, cold and heavy in the very pit of her as she remember them – crystal clear and unfading – seeming to get worse every time she was forced to confront them.
"You're pregnant. How could you do that?"
"Uh, I really don't have a choice."
"You think it'll make a difference?"
"Of course it will. You eat something."
She closed her eyes, blinking back an unexpected sheen of tears. Throat tightening as she stared resolutely at the inside of her eyelids. Lord, how could she have said those awful things? Lori's face- God, she was awful. She had felt so hopeless back then, Shawn, Mama, Otis, the deaths had seemed never ending. She remembered how angry she'd been, thinking of how selfish someone could be to bring a baby into the world. It had been a cruelty she hadn't been able to justify.
And now, look at her.
Having ironically come full circle in spite of it all.
She wondered what Lori would have said if she were still here. God, she wished she was. She wanted them all back, especially now. Lori. Patricia, Mama, all of them. Some days she was sick with it. Pacing and biting down on her own tongue as her brain unhelpfully recited everything that could go wrong. Every piece of medical equipment the little makeshift clinic didn't have.
What if it was twins? What if something happened? What if they were too big? What if they had to cut them out of her? What if the baby came early? What if Noah wasn't there when it was time? What if it turned out stillborn and they couldn't get it out fast enough? What if-
"You're thinking about it again."
She nearly jumped a mile, startled when Noah nosed close and broke the silence. Blinking sleepily but clearly eying her now as he smoothed a hand – soothing and bed-warm – up and down her arm. Tone playfully accusing but concerned all the same. The familiarity of the moment almost gave her Déjà vu.
"You always tense up when you worry."
If she'd had the heart to spare she might have smiled, still riding the lingering swells of nausea as he continued his gentle touches. Eventually shoving the pillows off to the side in favor of pulling her into his lap, sitting up against the headboard and supporting her as she let herself be gathered close – safe.
He knew her so well.
He'd had a knack for it from the beginning if she was being honest.
Even when they were close to starving, ducking through suburbs and tangled undergrowth, trying to avoid the worst of the herds, he'd helped her with the signs. Her little shout outs to the universe. She wanted to leave a marker, something that Daryl and the others could see and figure out where she'd gone. She papered the road outside of Atlanta with them, scrawling her sister's name, Glenn's, Carol's, Rick's. Still high on their escape, she wasn't about to give up hope. She told them she was safe. That she'd found someone. That she was heading north east. Away from the city. That she was heading to Virginia and how to find her if when they came looking.
The odds were so low she doubted there was even a fraction of a number to put beside them, but he'd known without having to ask that it was something she had to do. And despite his hurts he'd never once complained. Not even he probably should have.
He knew what she'd lost.
What she was leaving behind.
Weeks passed. Noah's leg healed. They found cars to boot here and there. They took turns on watch and communicated silently when it was too cold to sleep alone. She learned to fit into the curves and grooves of him and he learned the choruses to all her favourite songs. They talked about everything. Their lives, families, hopes, dreams. What they missed, what they didn't. He told her about his brothers and she told him about Shawn and Maggie. About every single one of them, from the farm to the prison. Weaving together a shared history that only grew richer as the days spanned into weeks and they crossed the state line into the Carolinas. Until finally - close to a month later - they collapsed below the Welcome to Virginia sign, shivering and laughing for the sheer exhausted joy of it as the wind whistled down the deserted highway.
It wasn't hard to figure out how friendship had eventually turned into more.
The spark had always been there.
You just had to take the risk that it could be turned into flame.
And it had.
The first time had been right out in the open. Camped out on someone's second story deck in North Carolina during the heat of mid-summer. She remembered the stars more than anything. The way they'd shone bright overhead, dropping a muted highlight across tangled limbs and sweat-slicked skin as he'd collapsed on top of her, winded and riding out the last of his pleasure as she came down slowly, rubbing idle circles across his back as her bottom lip stung, pleasantly achy from where she'd bitten it when he'd leaned down and-
Honestly, neither of them had looked back since.
She rubbed her hand over her belly – aimless but slightly more settled this time as Noah's hand joined hers. Tangling their fingers together over the swell as silence reigned. Thoughtful and resolute.
The father of her child.
She couldn't deny it didn't have a nice ring to it.
"Do you ever think about it?" she started, pausing long enough that he stirred. Sensing his eyes on her as she stared resolutely at the ceiling. Knowing as well as breathing that she wouldn't be able to finish if she looked at him.
"About what?" he parroted, leaning back against the headboard, knobbly knees nearly taking out the side table where she kept her journals, stretchin' exaggeratedly. Yawning into her hair and playing with the mussed up strands as he waited for her to gather her thoughts.
"About what would have happened if I said no… If I hadn't come?"
She closed her eyes, listening to the sheets rustle – restless and tense as he let out a long breath through his nose. Only half regretting saying it out loud. She knew she shouldn't dwell on it, but lately it was all she could think about. She'd made one single decision – something paper-thin and based on circumstance and the emotion of the moment – and it had changed her life.
The series of slim chances and improbable events that had come together to make that outcome possible frightened her. It felt like a hole in one from five miles away. Impossible and surreal even though everything around her told her otherwise. Even now it felt…unstable somehow. Like the dream was just too good to be true – to be hers.
"I don't like to think about it, to be honest," he replied after a moment, bridging the silence as the fingers in her hair started moving again. Unraveling her messy braid in favor of teasing out the strands. Combing it with his fingers until she was practically purring.
"But you have," she observed, less of a question than a statement as she tipped back her head, wanting to see his face as he paused, thin fingers buried in corn silk yellow as she tried to figure out what he was thinking.
"How can't I?" he shot back, gentle but pointed, shaking his head like he wasn't quite sure what she was getting at. "With everything that's happened? We've been so lucky. It's hard it believe sometimes."
"Good things come to good people," she murmured. Remembering something Daddy used to say about karma and the 'whole what goes around comes around' thing as he snorted beside her.
"It's not just that," Noah returned, chin resting on the top of her head as they looked out the window, watching the new light filter through the trees. "It's-well…after my dad…for a long time I didn't think much good could come out of the world. The way it is now. I thought I'd either be mopping floors till things finally fell apart at Grady or out here somewhere, probably dead."
"Dawn said a lot of things, more than you ever heard. And worse, she had me half believing some of them. That it didn't get better than this – than Grady – that there wasn't nothin' out here. Nothing beyond suffering and starving. Nothing but fighting for each and every inch you got and struggling to hold onto even that."
"But they were wrong," Noah bit out, determined now. Grip tightening fractionally around her hair before softening again, petting apologetically as she covered his hand with her own. Biting down on the words that threatened to spill forth – fighting the instinctual need to sooth as the muscles in his chest rippled and tensed against her back. Forcing herself to still and just breath in the scent of him as her thin shirt pulled awkwardly at the curve of her belly.
"Thing is, even if all this hadn't worked out. Even if we'd gotten here and the place was just…gone. As long as you were here, with me, well, there's nowhere else I'd rather be."
It wasn't until later, as she watched her face ripple and change in the mirror, that she let herself truly feel it. Uncertain of what to do with the happy tears as she sat on the toilet seat and smiled. For the first time she let herself bask in it. The surety and love that had colored each word. Every perfect part of him. He felt it. Just like she did. It might have started on a whim. On a slim chance and no small bit of luck. But they'd built it up. What they had. They'd built it up and defied everything – everyone – that'd told them different.
They'd made it work.
And like a house that slowly becomes a home, they'd come into their own.
They were strong.
Their love was strong.
They'd made it.
Her smile was tremulous as she levered herself off the lid and to her feet. Using the sink to steady herself as her reflection looked back at her, pale but somehow still glowing pink with happiness. She inhaled, smelling breakfast frying downstairs. Imagining Noah trying to navigate around his mother, teasing her as she huffed and clucked, forcing her to take a break while he whipped up something that would probably end up half burnt, but that they'd eat all the same – if only to keep that pleased expression on his face.
It was time to usher out the old ghosts.
There was a part of her that still had hope.
Hope that someday she'd see Maggie again.
Hope that they could all be together again, safe - happy.
But if she'd learned anything during the past few years, it was when you made it this far, well, you had to keep on living. You couldn't stay in the past. That wasn't the point of starting over. You had to own every moment you had. And the truth was, the memories of some of those old ghosts were just too choking to keep beside you.
She had a feeling they wouldn't begrudge her that.
Not her family.
A/N #2: Thank you for reading. Reviews and constructive critiquing are love! – This story is now complete.
Reference: I feel like this should just be tattooed across my left butt cheek or something, but once again, huge thank you to gunslingerdixon for the dialogue from season two between Lori and Beth at the Greene Farm, regarding Lori's pregnancy.