Author's Note: First of all, hello there and thank you for the lovely reviews up until now. I just wanted to say, about this chapter, that I had it all planned out in my head and I just hope it transferred into words well enough. Everyone is their own worst critic and all that. R&R! -Holly

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born." — Anais Nin

In the days following, Rick and the others began to process of cleaning up the courtyard and disposing of the dead walkers with multiple bonfires, the latter of which being no picnic. There were quite a lot of bodies and the stench of burning, rotting flesh was more than a little nauseating. The scarves wrapped around their faces to prevent having to breathe in that smell and that smoke only went so far. But, in the end, they got through it and moved on to the next task of bringing their vehicles up through each gate, up the yard, and into the courtyard for easier access for when they began going on runs or if they needed to bail in a hurry.

Maggie was getting better. She had color in her face again, but she had a tough road ahead of her to get used to doing things with only her right hand. She was just fortunate that she was already right-handed and didn't have to relearn how to do everything with her left, had she lost her right hand instead, like Merle; something of which brought an idea to Jo. Having seen firsthand and up close the contraption on the older Dixon brother's right arm, Jo had suggested something similar be somehow created for Maggie.

She was going to have a difficult time of trying to protect herself from here on out with only one hand, but a cap over her left stump with some sort of blade attached, like one of the extra machetes. Jo didn't know how something like that could be put together, but someone should be able to figure it out. If anything, at least it was a suggestion. No one else seemed to be offering up anything other than telling Maggie she would be fine and they would help her. There were talks of finding her a prosthetic arm, but how would that help her protect herself? A prosthetic arm would mostly be for show and it wouldn't even be properly fitted to her. It could end up doing more hurt than good. Jo was trying to think of the long run, in keeping Maggie alive if she was cornered and by herself, not about the vanity the younger woman might possibly be feeling over having one less arm.

When Jo had expressed as much, Lori had snipped at her, and Shane got on the defensive, acting more like Lori's personal watch dog rather than her lover, as he claimed they had Maggie's well-being covered and not to "worry her pretty little head" about it.

Pissed, because she was only trying to offer up practical suggestions and commentary about the situation, just to be shot down so flippantly by the pair, Jo stormed out of C Block. She wandered out through the communal area and out the door to the enter the courtyard, which was fine, because Rick, T-Dog, Andrea and Daryl were out there, cleaning up a bit more, and Jo had agreed to go along with Rick's favor of her not going out there alone.

She stood off to the side, finding a metal crate to sit down on while she watched the others moving about, wishing like hell that she could do more to help. She had attempted to do even just the minimal amount of physical labor that she knew she could handle without any strain to her body, but Daryl had swooped in and taken it over for her when he spotted whatever she was doing. He even joked with her to kick back and relax.

"All I need is a rocking chair and some sweet tea and then maybe I could," she had responded.

"Sweet tea sure as hell sounds great right about now," Daryl agreed.

Even though she was more or less banned from physical work around the courtyard or inside the prison, she did what she could in preparing food for everyone with the double induction cooktop they found stored in the cafeteria that the prisoners might've used at some point. It was a blessing because now they could heat up some food without the need for electricity or gas; the cooktop heated food by way of magnetic coils inside. Even though their cuisine was very limited, it was just a nice change of pace to be able to have warm food that wasn't prepared over a fire.

In regard to the courtyard again, it always seemed like there was someone outside at all times. Rick was still a bit concerned with the possibility of The Governor finding his way to the prison and coming after Jo, and possibly the group, although he didn't really voice that concern. Instead, he made the excuse that there should always be someone on watch in case of an "outside threat" or if a herd of walkers happened upon the fences. There were plenty of them to take different shifts, and whoever was on guard duty at the time would alert the group by banging a frying pan taken from the kitchen against the railing of the inner guard tower where watch took place. The frying pan seemed a little ridiculous, but the sound it generated could be heard from inside C Block if the others were their cells, asleep.

A few times over the first couple of weeks in the prison, Daryl, who had a tracker's eye, swore he saw someone lurking around the woods. When he was on watch, he had his crossbow with him, but he also had a rifle with a scope on it. Whenever he thought he swore he saw someone that wasn't a walker lurking around the outskirts of the woods, he grabbed the rifle and peered through the scope, but by the time his eyes adjusted, whatever had been there was gone; having slipped back into the woods, or maybe was never really there at all. Maybe it was the darkness of night playing tricks on his mind.

When Rick was informed about these gut feelings Daryl was having, he had the archer come with him on a trek outside the prison grounds to slip into the woods and see if there was anything or anyone to be found. Footsteps were indeed found, and they seemed to be all over the place, but Daryl assured Rick they were from one person and not multiples. However, this person in question couldn't be found; only the remnants of a deer and a nearby fire that had been put out the night before.

This was enough to validate Rick's concerns, of which he eventually admitted to Daryl, which got Daryl going again about wanting to go to Woodbury to find his brother.

Rick shot the idea down.

Jo had been present when that interaction happened.

Well, not completely present. She had been up in the bridge over the courtyard, getting some fresh air when Daryl and Rick had been reentering from the yard and overheard them talking. And it wasn't like she was eavesdropping or anything. Had they been paying attention, they would've seen her standing up there, with her stomach even more noticeable than when they first arrived to the prison, and also their voices carried and echoed off the buildings.

"We've been here three weeks, and it's been about a month since Jo and Sophia got away from that place, since your brother helped them," Rick had been saying. "If your brother had escaped, I'm sure he would've tracked them down and possibly been able to find them here as well. But if he never got out, we can assume he's still alive and well, or he's dead; which, in that case, there ain't nothing we can do for him."

Daryl scoffed and threw his hands up in the air. "You shittin' me right now?" He turned back, getting up in Rick's face. "That Governor kept Jo locked up like a gerbil in some basement. Who's to say that bastard ain't done the same thing to Merle?"

Rick placed his hands on his hips and looked down at the ground. "I suppose that's an option, too."

"You said we'd go to Woodbury, that we'd find Merle. Were you just lyin' to me?" Daryl smacked his lips. "I could've been there and back by now."

"Or you could've been caught for snoopin' around and shot dead."

Daryl snickered. "Un-fucking-likely." He jabbed himself in the chest to make a point. "I know how to get around unseen and unheard. I've done it all my life."

Rick sighed. "I wasn't lying about going to Woodbury. Eventually, we'll get there. Now's just not the time yet," he insisted. "We're still trying to get this place settled, and we—"

"We have more weapons now; we got enough people to take on a scouting mission to that place. We could do it, Rick."

The leader shook his head. "What if something happens here while we're away? If we bring all our muscle with us — that's you, me, Shane, T-Dog, possibly Glenn, and Andrea can hold her own — that leaves the rest exposed. Sure, they know how to handle weapons; they know how to kill walkers, but the living? We can't risk bringing a fight back here. They all got something going against them right now. Dale and Hershel ain't exactly spring chickens, and we can't risk Hershel because he's the closest thing we have to a regular doctor. Carol's first priority will be to protect Sophia before anyone else. Lori…" Rick shrugged. "She can go either way, if we're being honest. Maggie's still recovering and in no position to fight anything or anyone off just yet. Sophia is obviously just a child, and Jo's about to pop in a month's time."

Jo perked at the mention of her name.

"We need more people, we need more time." Rick held his hand out and placed it on Daryl's shoulder. "I said we'd get to Woodbury, eventually, and that when we do it can't be half-cocked. We'll need to know how to get there, the ins and outs, the weak spots and strong points, who's on watch and when, how many people we'd be up against. There's too much to standing in our way right now and I know that might not sound ideal to you, and I understand you need to find your brother, whether he's still alive or not. I get that, I do. But we still need to just settle in here." Rick gestured wide at the prison, looking off to his right, and that's when he finally noticed Jo standing on the bridge and his train of thought momentarily went off track. He paused for a moment, holding her gaze and watching as she shyly waved her fingers at him, before returning said gaze to Daryl. "Where was I?"

"You were saying we're too busy playing house in this prison to care if my flesh and blood is still alive," Daryl retorted. "I get it."

The archer stormed off, heading inside to C Block.

When he was gone, Rick looked back upward toward Jo and slowly walked over to the bridge until he was almost standing underneath it. Squinting from the sunlight, he held his hand over his eyes.

"Did you hear all that?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

Rick looked down, placing his hands on his hips once more. "Am I wrong?" he asked, referring to everything he'd just said to Daryl. "I just don't think we're at that place yet where we can go balls to the wall against an actual town."

"You're not wrong," she confirmed, looking down at him as her fingers curled around the chain-link. "From what I got to know of Merle, he's a tough sonofabitch and if anyone tried to fight him or even kill him, I'm sure he went down swinging and took a few people with him. I don't think he's the type to let himself get locked up like I did. He's either still there and he's bidding his time, or he changed his mind and chose to stay of his own volition. I don't think he's dead and I don't think he left, because if he had left, and if he really is an amazing tracker, he'd have found us by now. I'm sure of it."

Rick nodded his head, looking back up at her again. "That's what I'm thinking, too."

Jo smirked. "Great minds think alike?"

He chuckled slightly. "Yeah, I guess so."

By the end of the next week, the group had been at the prison a full month with little to no incident, other than walkers they found that had slipped into the yard through a faulty section of fence, which Rick and Shane had been able to fix over the course of a day, and a few heated arguments here and there among the group and with the two remaining prisoners who were having a difficult time cleaning out Cell Block D, where Rick told them they could live as long as they kept their distance from everyone else.

The prisoners' names were Axel and Oscar, and Jo almost thought it was kismet. With her husband's name also having been Oscar and the fact that the group did need more manpower if the plan to eventually go to Woodbury ever saw the light of day.

Within that first month in the prison with the group, Jo had finally felt like she was part of their family and not just an interloper. She felt at ease to wander around, strike up conversations and open up about herself a little more. Her friendship with Andrea grew, but the initial friendship that had been budding with Lori seemed to come to an impasse. It was not for the sake of trying, either. Jo didn't understand why Lori had cooled off toward her in the last week or so until Andrea had explained in confidence that she believed Lori harbored a jealousy against Jo because of how friendly Jo had become with Rick.

It was true that Rick and Jo had become friends, spending most nights playing card games in the communal area after everyone had retired to their cells. Sometimes they just sat up to talk or walk around the courtyard together; talking about the plans and ideas Rick had for the prison and the group's future there. And Jo had grown to enjoy their talks and his ideas. He even listened intently as she offered up suggestions, too. It was much different than when she had been talking about the future of Woodbury with The Governor. She was fairly certain anything she had said to that man had fallen on deaf ears. She knew now he probably never gave a shit about the school and was only eyeing her up for personal reasons. With Rick, though, she didn't feel uncomfortable and she knew he cared about what she said. Everything he had promised he would try and do, with the exception of going to Woodbury just yet, he had followed through on.

He and a few others had taken a brief run a few days before to gather up more food and some new clothes for everyone to wear. They'd even found a cache of baby supplies at an abandoned daycare. Among the clothing items was a pair of maternity jeans Rick had discovered for Jo to wear, as well as a pair of lace up boots that were her size.

Jo was so grateful for it all, that she had thrown her arms around Rick's shoulders and hugged him tight. She even began to cry happy tears at receiving these simple things — mostly because her pregnancy hormones were at an all-time high. Rick had hugged her back, wrapping his arms around her back because, with her stomach, it was near impossible get his arms around her waist.

That might've been the moment Lori's feelings toward Jo changed. She had been present when that hug happened. Everyone was. Rick and the others he'd gone off with had brought everything they found inside the prison to the communal area for everyone to sort through and collect or store away for later.

Jo couldn't understand what Lori had to be jealous of. There was nothing going on between her and Rick. They were merely good friends, but even if there was, who was Lori to get jealous in the first place? She wasn't with Rick anymore and hadn't been for more than half a year, nearly almost a full year. She had chosen Shane over Rick when her marriage to the latter no longer felt worth saving. She'd made her choice and stuck to it.

But, whatever. Jo wasn't going to be bogged down by some petty, unwarranted jealousy. She chose to go about her days looking on the upside as best as she could and if Rick happened to join her wherever she happened to be and spend his downtime with her, she wasn't going to push him away because his ex was giving her stank eye all of the sudden.

This wasn't high school anymore. This was a post-apocalyptic world.

About two days into their first full month, Rick had approached Jo in her cell asking to finally take her to the infirmary to show her how it looked all cleaned up. She had previously been to it three weeks earlier after Rick and a few others had taken care of the walker situation and secured the area. It had been a complete mess; dark, dusty, and the air was stale from the doors having been kept locked up tight and there no air circulation inside the room.

She could only imagine what it looked like now. She knew Carol and Hershel had taken the reins in bringing the infirmary up to snuff so Jo had high hopes it would look wonderful.

With her lower back aching more than usual, Jo spotted Maggie on the way out of her cell, up and around, talking with Glenn. The younger woman smiled at Jo and waved with her right hand. She didn't have anything attached to her amputated left limb yet, but she had been healing remarkably well and was starting to get the hang of doing things with just one hand.

"I don't feel bad that I cut her arm off. I feel bad that I had to," Rick had said to Jo in the previous weeks. "I didn't think. I couldn't. It happened so quickly. We got her into the cafeteria and laid her down. I didn't even have time to tie my belt around her arm before I cut it off. She got bit just below her elbow and that walker took a bad chunk out. I had to cut the arm off higher because I didn't know how quickly the infection might've spread."

"You did the right thing," Jo had assured him. "It was either her arm or her life."

"That's pretty much what I said." He had looked at Jo then, appreciating that she understood his thought process.

That conversation had happened during Jo's first trip to the infirmary and now she was headed on her second.

Stepping out of C Block and into the communal area, the pair spotted Shane and Lori seated at one of the tables, finishing up some soup and, as usual, Lori didn't seem so happy to see Jo anymore, but Jo just didn't care. She was still polite. She still smiled a little hello, which Lori reciprocated as not to draw attention to herself and her unspoken issue.

"I'm gonna go take Jo to see the infirmary," Rick informed. "You got a handle on things here?"

Shane nodded, standing up. "Yeah, we're fine here. Ain't nothin' gonna go down we can't handle."

With a nod, Rick accepted this answer and patted Shane on the shoulder.

And that was something else that had changed.

Ever since Rick's friendship with Jo had blossomed, his anger over Shane and Lori seemed to dissipate a little more each day. Being resentful of them just didn't seem like worth his time and effort anymore.

Placing a hand upon the small of Jo's back, he led her out of the communal area and through the barred door at the opposite end of the room. They were quiet for part of the trip through the dark corridors, but Rick was armed with a flashlight, as well as his gun and his machete because it was better to be safe than sorry. There were white arrows spray-painted on the walls that had been put there by Glenn on their first run through, the day Maggie lost her arm, as a way of helping direct them back to their block of the prison. The corridors seemed a bit cleaner as well. There were no more dead bodies strewn here and there, and most forms of bodily secretions seemed gone, too.

Reaching the double doors to the infirmary, Rick opened one of them and let Jo in first.

"Ooh, wow, it really does look nice in here," she commented, holding both her hands at the sides her stomach. "I mean, I could eat off these floors."

Rick chuckled. "Well, I would hope you wouldn't want to."

Without bothering to turn back to look at him, she lifted her hands away from herself and ran her fingers along the countertop on the far wall. "I ate off a floor for six months. This room is a definite step up."

Standing back and watching her, he wondered how she had the strength to put what happened to her during the bulk of her pregnancy behind her. The conditions she was left to while away in, the fear she must've faced and whatever else it was The Governor had put her through that she still refused to talk about — it angered him on her behalf. Rick could, more or less, figure some things out. He could safely assume the specifics and the thought of it all practically made the blood in his veins boil. But there she was now, walking around the infirmary with a smile in her eyes. It made Rick forget for a little while that this was a prison they were living in and that the world outside was a shell of what it used to be and, more importantly, that the dead walked.

Jo stopped her pacing around, taking in every detail, and placed one hand back on her stomach. She turned her face away from Rick and hunched forward for a few moments. Exhaling a breath, she straightened her posture.

He tilted his head and took a step closer to her. "You alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," she replied, throwing a brief look over her shoulder at him.

As she walked around one of the examination beds off to the side, she placed her hands on top of the firm mattress top and stared off into space while her fingers began to curl and dig into the material.

Rick wasn't convinced.

"You're not looking fine." He walked up to her side and placed a hand on her shoulder. "You got a month to go still. Maybe you shouldn't be walking around so much. Maybe you should be on bedrest or something. I had a cousin who spent the last three months of her pregnancy on bedrest. She hated it, but it was necessary."

"I feel like all I do is sit or lay around," Jo remarked, lifting her eyes to his face. "I want to be able to help out more. I wanted to be able to help clean up the place, to do my part, but you banned me from manual labor like I'm an invalid. Even Maggie's been able to start helping out again and she's down an arm."

"It's for your own good, you know. Manual labor isn't what your body needs to be going through right now." Rick watched her face; the way she was biting her lips very tightly together and how her brow was furrowing. His eyes wandered back down to her hands which were white knuckling the edge of the examination bed. Her entire body seemed suddenly rigid. "See, you say you're fine, but you look like someone just punched you in the back."

Releasing a shaky breath, Jo tried to laugh. "It's so ironic."

"What is?"

"You telling me manual labor isn't what my body needs right now, but that's exactly what it's going through."

"Wait—what?"

"I thought, like an idiot, that if I ignored it, it would go away." She looked down at the bed and arched her back. "It just keeps coming back, worse than the previous times."

"Contractions?" Rick reached out and took Jo's hands in his, turning her to face him. "Jo, are you in labor right now?"

She nodded, looking as if she was embarrassed by the fact. She opened her mouth to verbally respond but her voice was swallowed up by the searing pain between her legs and around her lower back. The tiniest mewl escaped her throat and her legs buckled slightly.

"Why didn't you say something earlier?" he continued to ask, just as her fingers began to dig into his hands. He winced from the pain she was inflicting on him as a result of the much worse pain that she was experiencing.

"I didn't want to bother anyone. And I'm early," she admitted, tears beginning to sting her eyes. "I still have three or four more weeks to go. I can't give birth now. How will my baby survive being born premature?"

"We'll go get Hershel and he can take care of this."

As Rick began to lead Jo away from the bed, holding one of her hands in his, he used the other to open the door but the second he stepped out into the corridor. He began to lead her in the direction that continued on toward the Tombs or turned right and returned them toward C Block. They didn't get to make that right turn though when they were cut off by a large group of walkers that had found their way out of the Tombs.

"Shit!" he hissed.

"What?" Jo wondered, holding her stomach. She noticed exactly what a moment later.

Having been noticed by the ambling, hungry corpses and not wanting to risk Jo's safety, Rick instinctively ushered her behind him with both hands so that her body was blocked by his. Then, quickly, he turned around to lead her back toward the infirmary.

Once the doors were closed shut behind them, he leaned back against them so they wouldn't open and let the walkers spill in. "Shit, shit, shit," he muttered, looking around the room for something to keep the door closed since it only locked from the outside. Pointing over to the counter on the far wall he said, "Grab that stethoscope."

Waddling as quickly as possible through her contractions, Jo picked up the stethoscope and then waddled over to Rick, but had to toss them the rest of the way when a sharp and ugly contraction ripped through her cervix. He looked worriedly at her as he caught the stethoscope and struggled to keep his back against the doors which were beginning to be pushed in a little by the walkers out in the corridor. His feet were slipping on the smooth surface of the floor and he hated himself for having to suggest it, but he was out of options. He needed help.

"I know it's hard, Jo, and the pain is hurting, but I need you to help me keep these doors pushed closed while I tie these things around the door handles."

Lifting her head, Jo bit back on the pain as best as she could and waddled once more over to him. Outstretching her arms, she pressed them against one door while Rick managed the other while at the same time looping the stethoscope in and around the door handles.

"This better hold." Stepping back a little, he looked the doors up and down, and while they budged slightly, they stethoscope didn't give. However, there was no way of knowing just how long they would last for, so he needed a backup plan and went with grabbing the one chair in the infirmary and dragging it over. Propping the back underneath the handles, he was satisfied enough. "There."

Rick and Jo looked at each other with short-lived relief from the walkers when gunshots being fired echoed off the walls of the buildings outside.

"Shit, no," Rick cried out.

He was stuck behind a rock and a hard place. He had no idea what the gunfire was about and couldn't leave to go find out, and he also couldn't leave Jo while she was in labor. There was more of the group, hopefully safe enough and with enough weapons to protect themselves. Rick's only choice was to stay put with Jo and help her through this until they could get out and get to the others or the others could find them.

The gunshots continued and Rick sauntered over toward the high windows, running his hands through his hair as frustration took root within him. "This don't make sense," he began to pace, hating that he couldn't go help the others and feeling at a lost at how to help Jo at the same time, as well as just confused over the walkers. "We closed off the Tombs and all the other exits. They shouldn't have a way in this far."

"Was a door left unlocked?" Jo asked, gripping her stomach more and suddenly almost dropping down to her feet.

Without thinking any further on the others at the moment, Rick was at Jo's side in an instant. He helped her sit down on the floor so that she didn't fall and held the back of her head with one hand while he placed another on her stomach.

"You're gonna be okay, you hear me? We're gonna get through this," he insisted.

Their worries were increased when a loud alarm began to wail away inside the room and could be heard coming from out in the corridors and outside in general, as well.

"What the hell is going on?" Rick shouted, looking over his shoulder as if someone would be standing there to explain. Bringing his focus back to Jo, he nodded. "How far apart are your contractions? Have you been able to keep track?"

Jo shook her head. "They just started getting more and more frequent."

"Can't you take a guess?"

"Every five minutes or so, maybe."

"Shit."

"There's another thing," Jo said as Rick focused his attention completely on her and not on the irritating alarm. "I think my water broke this morning."

"You think?"

"I was going to the bathroom as it was, and it just felt…off. Like, too much came out, you know?" She winced; not in pain but in embarrassment. "It sounds gross, I know."

"Trust me, that ain't gross," he assured, looking over her shoulder and around the room for something. "I've been through Lori in labor before; granted I was at work at the time. Her father drove her to the hospital and I met them there, but I was there in the moments before, during and after the birth where it counted. I saw it all. And everything we've seen and had to do in this world nowadays, a little bathroom talk is the least of my worries."

Jo responded by crying out in full pain this time. She reached her hands out and gripped his arms tightly. "I'm scared," she admitted, breathlessly.

"Don't be," Rick said, pressing his forehead to hers. "You're strong. You will be fine. The only thing to be scared about are those things getting in here and they're not gonna, because I won't let them. Just…hopefully we can wait this out long enough till we can get you to Hershel or till Hershel can get to you."

Jo shook her head against Rick's. "I won't make it that long. I'm gonna—aahhh!" Her fingers dug even more into his arm and she tilted her head back. "Oh my god I feel like I'm being torn in two."

Rick sat back on the heels of his boots and looked her over as she began to writhe around in pain. "Shit," he muttered. "We're gonna have to do this here."

"Uhnnh…"

"I know," he muttered, licking his dry lips and looking around the room once more. "I'm sorry. This ain't exactly ideal."

"No, this just hurts like a bitch," she clarified as her body gave her a brief break in between contractions. She had one hand now keeping herself propped up while the other held onto her stomach and she was already tired from it all. "We'll need towels and water. I think we're good on something to cut the cord with." She gestured to his machete with a small chuckle.

"We ain't using that. I saw a pair of scissors on the counter." Holding his hands out to her, he waited a moment until she took them. "C'mere." Helping her up to her feet, he had her hold onto the exam bed and then stood back to assess the situation. "Uh, okay…I'm, um, gonna need to get your pants off and up on this bed."

Jo leaned her head down and began to laugh quite heartily despite everything going on; the contractions, the walkers, the gunfire, and that damned alarm. Everything.

"Shit, you're not even gonna buy me dinner first?" she teased.

Turning her head, she found he was smirking back at her. "You'll have to take a rain check."

"I'd say turn around while I do this, but you're about to see more of me than I was prepared for anyway, so what's the point, right?" she questioned, rhetorically, as she began to unbutton her maternity jeans. "Not to mention I just don't give a shit at this point."

As Jo shimmied out of her pants, Rick still felt the need to play the gentleman. He looked away and began to gather up the only towel he could find. The infirmary wasn't stocked enough with those sorts of things, which was unfortunate. There wasn't a bucket to fill with water but there was a bowl that seemed deep enough. The sink had water running to it, so he filled the bowl up; holding it in both hands with the towel draped over a shoulder as he turned back around to see Jo standing there naked from the waist down, but facing sideways to him so that all he really saw was the slight curve of her bare ass.

All things considered, it was a nice ass.

That wasn't what he needed to be focusing on at the moment, though.

Setting the bowl and the towel down on a metal pulley cart, he dragged it over to the bed and then stepped up behind Jo. "Can you get up on the bed?"

"Not by myself, sorry," she whined as another contraction began to claim her.

"Don't be sorry. This isn't your fault."

Wrapping an arm around her back, Rick bent at the knees and placed his other arm behind under her legs. With some effort, he picked her up, bridal-style and set her down on the exam bed; releasing a labored breath afterward. He then moved around to the end of the bed where she kept her legs closed tight. Gripping her calves in his hands, he looked over her stomach at her and how she was trying not to push, but really wanted to.

"You're gonna have to open your legs," he said sheepishly. They both knew it was meant genuinely so he could help her deliver her child, but he still somehow felt like a pervert.

Jo nodded. "Right." In doing so, she tilted her head back and closed her eyes, feeling just as awkward as he did, but knowing it was necessary.

Rick looked between her legs and then looked back up at her, panicking on the inside because he wasn't sure what exactly to do next. Unlike Carl's birth, which had been by C-section, Jo was about to deliver naturally and so he didn't even have a firsthand account of what had to happen, except what he knew from movies and TV shows. But even that wasn't much to go by.

"Alrght…" he trailed, moving his hands up to her knees. "Uh…push."

And she did, with great pleasure. All that pent up pain and not doing anything about it until now was aggravating, both mentally and physically. She arched forward, leaning her chin down to her chest and gripping the sides of her stomach. Pushing was this wonderful release, albeit just as painful as the contractions. After all, she was trying to push a watermelon out of something the size of an orange. As she kept on at it, Rick remained there, keeping an eye on everything south of the border and coaxing her on; telling her she could do it, and reiterating how strong she was. After a few minutes, though, she had to stop.

Resting her head back against the incline of the bed's head rest, Jo looked up toward the ceiling as the alarms came to a stop. "Oh, thank god. That was annoying."

"I wish I knew what they meant and who set them off," Rick remarked, lifting his eyes away up toward her face.

"And how," she added.

"And why." Placing a hand on top of her stomach, he gave her a soothing rub to coax her onward again. "Alright, c'mon, you're just about there, I think. Push."

Leaning back up, Jo placed her hand over Rick's and the pair made eye contact as she strained and pushed. She got red in the face and she felt as if she was dying. She began to scream and cry out, partly in pain and partly in sheer determination.

But, again, she had to take a brief break.

"Rick?"

"Yeah?"

"I had asked Andrea to be my midwife and help Hershel with this originally," she began to say. "And I asked her that if I died or if the baby died, for her to put us down, either way it went. She agreed to it and I need you to do the same for me."

Rick shook his head. "No," he said, almost angrily. "No one is dying here today, you understand me?" When she didn't reply, he asked again, "You understand me?"

"Yes," she nodded, holding his eye. "But I need you to promise me you will do what needs to be done if things don't go the way we want them to. When she didn't reply, he asked again, "You understand me?"

"Yes," she nodded, holding his eye; her voice shaky. "But I need you to promise me you will do what needs to be done if things don't go the way we want them to. Do you understand me?"

Pursing his lips and his nostrils flaring a bit, he felt that by agreeing to her terms he was admitting some sort of defeat and allowing the idea of her dying and her baby dying to be a possibility. And something changed then for him. He didn't want her to die, and obviously not her child, and not just because she was his friend. He couldn't fully understand it yet, but there was more to their friendship and she was beginning to mean more and more to him each day. And he couldn't lose her.

"I understand," he caved.

"Good. Thank you."

"Now push like you mean it," he growled.

When she did, she screamed out in pain, but he kept his hand in place on her stomach, which she still held onto.

"Fucking push!" he shouted, wanting to motivate her so that the thought of giving up and dying on him was nothing more than a thought and not a reality.

"I am!" she shouted back at him.

"Not good enough," he informed. He needed her angry. He needed her to fight, because up until now, even though it had been painful for her and she had been pushing, it just seemed half-hearted to him. "You need to give it everything you got. You need to fight and bring this little ball of hope into the world, you hear me?" He looked down, seeing the child's head and smiled, but continued his coaching. "You can do this, because you're a fighter, and the best fighters win."

She made a face at him through the pain. "Oh, shut up already."

Reaching for her knees, she gripped onto them and pulled herself up a bit for support to help push harder. Rick's hands went between her legs and she watched how he smiled and began to reach for her child.

"Keep going, Jo. You're doing great."

"Oh, fuck," she groaned loudly.

"Careful now. You don't want the first thing your child hears is you swearing like a sailor," he teased.

"If that's the worst thing I have to worry about for my child, then I'm okay with that," she replied, trying not to squirm so much at the odd sensation of her baby being birthed. There was no way anyone could have prepared her for that feeling.

"One more push."

With one last go, Jo let out a strained cry and then lay back against the exam bed as Rick let out a laugh of success. Jo had felt her child completely leave her body and she released a sigh of relief. The hard part was over, more or less.

Peering down between her still opened legs, she watch as Rick maneuvered his hands around and then quickly held them up to revealed her baby, all red in the face and covered with her fluids, and adorable as all hell. He then lowered the baby and turned it over and rubbed its back to get it to breathe and they both waited with bated breath, no pun intended.

As tears of joy stung her eyes at such a beautiful sound, Jo lifted her gaze to Rick. "What is it?"

"It's a girl," he announced, smiling at her. Wrapping the baby up in the towel, he lifted her up and rested her down on Jo's chest while he busied himself with cutting the umbilical cord.

"She's beautiful," Jo remarked as tears spilled down her cheeks while smiling brightly.

"Just like her mama," Rick commented.

He pulled the pulley cart closer to the exam bed and then lifted off his T-shirt. He needed something to clean her baby off with since the towel was being used to swaddle the little girl. He placed his shirt into the water bowl and then wrung it out as much as possible before trying to clean the baby off as best as he could.

"If she'd been a boy I was gonna name her Rick," Jo said while pressing her lips to her daughter's head and just reveling in holding her in her arms.

"Bullshit."

"I'm serious," she insisted. "I hadn't had a definite name picked out until about ten minutes ago. With how much you've helped me since you found Sophia and me, everything you've done, including bringing my child into the world, it seemed only right."

Rick looked shy at her, as if he didn't know how to take a compliment. Ever. "Don't tell me you're still gonna call her Rick."

Jo laughed. "Well, I did used to enjoy watching Ricki Lake."

"Don't you dare," he bemoaned with a smile.

When Jo began to wince in pain again, Rick's eyes widened and he hurried back to the end of the exam bed, leaving Jo to resume cleaning off her child.

"Are you having twins?" he wondered.

"No, she's too big for more me to have been carrying to babies. It's just the afterbirth," she insisted, pushing once more.

It wasn't exactly a lovely situation, but it was a natural part of life and Rick was such a good sport in taking care of everything and cleaning her up after her baby was taken care of. He refilled the water in the bowl a few times and rinsed out his shirt as much as possible, but ended up chucking the shirt away in the end. There was no point in trying to save it.

After a while, he helped Jo into her underwear and jeans again, he helped her slowly off the exam table and looked at the duo with such adoration in his blue eyes for them. Standing close, he placed a hand on the small of Jo's back, giving a soothing rub to it because he knew she was still aching from everything. He was also admiring the little girl, sticking a finger into her tiny, clamped fist and smiling when her little eyes fluttered open and closed a few times at him.

"Why, I think this one is trying to flirt with me," he joked.

"Well, she's having a good, first day. The first person she saw is the handsome man who brought her into the world," Jo quipped, smiling some more.

"So, what're you gonna name her?"

Jo shrugged. "I dunno."

"She's a miracle," he stated. "All this death in the world and here's this new little life, bringing hope with her. Makes me feel like it doesn't have to be so bad out there, you know? Like, things can get better. I mean, they have to; for her and the others like her — the ones being raised in this world or who have yet to arrive."

Jo's smile began to grow so bright while she looked from Rick, down to her daughter and back again.

Sensing her eyes on her, Rick looked away from the baby girl and locked gazes with the new mother. "What?" he wondered with a curious smile of his own.

"Hope."

"I don't follow."

"Her name," Jo replied. "Her name is Hope."

"Hope," Rick repeated, looking down at the child. "It fits perfectly."

"Yeah," she agreed. "And now you can say you brought Hope into the world."