"The baby's coming."
Panic surged through Louis's body when he heard those three words, making him shake on the spot. His eyes went wide, staring blankly at Violet. The blonde rolled her eyes and pushed Louis toward the admin building. From inside, Louis could hear faint screams.
"Is that Clementine?"
"Yeah, turns out childbirth is not such a joyride after all," Violet snapped. They rushed into the building and headed straight for the music room, where another scream echoed.
They pushed the doors open and Louis spotted his wife lying on the floor, a thick blanket beneath her. Her legs were spread out, a blanket covering them all the way to her feet, and her face was almost completely red. Ruby was kneeling in front of Clem, telling her to breathe in and out, which was probably just stressing the pregnant woman even more. Tenn and Willy were on the sidelines, both of them holding bandages and a small blanket, too awestruck to move.
She laid eyes on Louis, her eyes tinged with fear. When she beckoned him over, he obliged, kneeling beside her and taking her hand. "Hey baby, I'm here, don't worry."
"She's not supposed to be here yet, Louis," she breathed, her voice cracking. "It's too soon!"
"I know, baby, I know," Louis said, kissing her hand. "But I know you're strong. This baby's coming safe and sound."
He nodded at her, and she pursed her lips in response. She didn't look too convinced. Another contraction hit her then, and she hunched over in pain. Ruby placed her hands on Clem's knees, gently reminding her to breathe.
"We shouldn't have come here," Clem gasped, looking up at Louis. "We should have listened to Eleanor and stay put at Richmond."
"A little late for that, honey," Louis joked, earning a punch from Clementine. Don't joke with a pregnant woman, Louis.
AJ was standing by the door, awkwardly shuffling his feet. He stared at Clem as she breathed heavily, squeezing Louis's hand tightly. "I'm glad you're okay, AJ," she breathed out. She attempted a smile at her adoptive son but trembled when a surge of pain shot through her spine.
"It's alright, I'm here," Louis assured her again, nodding. He turned to AJ and smile. "Hey, kiddo, would you bring Clem here some water?"
The boy nodded vigorously and rushed out of the room, closing the door behind him. Louis watched in horror as Clem heaved ragged breaths, her eyes closed. Ruby kneeled in front of Clem, giving the couple a reassuring smile. Lifting the blanket at her feet, she nodded at Clem.
"We're almost ready to start pushing," she announced, checking her wristwatch.
"What are you, checking what time it is?" Louis asked frantically, his mind racing a thousand miles an hour.
"I'm checking how close together the contractions are, dummy," Ruby corrected, showing them her watch. "I read on a few maternity books that, when contractions are two minutes apart or less, it's almost go time."
"Alright," Clem said, propping herself up on her elbows and breathing heavily in the process. "When should I-"
She was cut off as another contraction tore through her body. Clem let out an agonizing scream, making Louis shudder. What can I even do now? he kept asking himself, looking around frantically. Just before he could ask Ruby about it, AJ burst through the door with a water bottle and a towel.
"Aasim said this would work," he said, handing Louis the bottle and Ruby the towel.
The freckled man took it and uncapped it, gently tipping its contents into Clem's mouth, who drank it eagerly. Every few seconds, he repeated the process, receiving thankful smiles from Clem in return. Ruby soaked the towel with the bottle and pressed it gently against Clem's forehead. The redhead turned to AJ and winked at him.
"Thank you, AJ," she said. "That was very helpful."
AJ beamed at Clem, who offered him a tired smile. Willy and Tenn approached AJ, Tenn placing a comforting hand on AJ's shoulder. Ruby was still telling Clem to breathe, while she obliged begrudgingly. The redhead turned to Willy and Tenn and frowned.
"Anyone who isn't the father or adopted son, please get outta here," she ordered, with a tone that left little room for argument.
The two boys rushed out of the room, leaving the foursome alone. Another scream escaped Clementine, making Louis and AJ both frown. Her eyes widened as her hands ran over her swollen belly. Louis could clearly see where the baby was kicking, her skin stretching beneath her slender fingers.
She grabbed Louis by the collar, pulling him down to her level. Her voice was soft and shaky as she said, "Louis, I'm scared."
"You don't have to be scared, baby," he said, taking the hand that held his collar and squeezing it. "I'll be here every step of the way."
"What if she's not right?" Clem asked, her brows knit tightly. "What if something's going wrong right now? Christa went through the same thing when Omid died, and the baby… We couldn't save it, Lou. I can't lose this baby too. I just can't."
"I know, honey. I know. We won't let that happen to our baby, alright? Ruby here will do everything she can to deliver little Ruth safely into the world."
"I swear to god, if you don't drop the name Ruth, I'll strangle you with the umbilical cord and let you turn," she warned, her eyes slanted.
Louis chuckled nervously, scratching the back of his neck. "Alright, Ruth is off the table. But the sentiment still stands."
"I just hope you're right."
"Just focus that hope on pushing as hard as you can," Ruby called from ahead of her, startling her. "AJ, could you-"
She was cut off by Aasim bursting through the doors, his bow in hand. Seeing the look of panic in his friend's face, Louis stood up abruptly, knocking over the empty water bottle. "What happened?" he said.
"Walkers," Aasim said simply. "Tons of them. They must have been drawn by…" he stopped when Clem glared at him from the floor, shaking his head. "Not important, we need your help."
Louis looked back and forth between Clem and Aasim, trying to make a decision. When he took too long, Ruby made it for him, pushing him out of the room with her fiancé.
"Go deal with them walkers. AJ and I will take it from here," she said, shoving them outside.
Louis looked back at Clem, who was frowning at him through the crack in the door behind Ruby. "I'll be back in no time!" he promised.
As the door slammed shut in front of him, he turned to see Aasim readying an arrow on his bow. He leaned down and grabbed Chairles off the floor, following his friend through the hallways and out into the courtyard. Walkers were piling onto the barred gate, their bony arms outstretched in search of prey. The hinges were creaking under the weight of the undead, dust falling to the ground around them.
Willy stood a few yards away from the gate, holding a machete in his hands, ready to slash and dice. Where he had gotten that from, Louis didn't know, but he wasn't going to question it. At least a dozen walkers were pressed against the gate, loud growls and moans filling the afternoon air. Louis surveyed the area, looking for solutions.
There were too many to face head-on and charge into them. The gate wouldn't hold them forever, its old rusty hinges already on the verge of collapsing. He raised Chairles over his head and called to Tenn, whose eyes went wide.
"Tenn, I need you to open the gate!" he said, the gurgling of the walkers almost drowning out his shout.
"WHAT?" exclaimed Aasim, looking to his right at Louis as if he was crazy. "Are you trying to get us all killed?"
"Look at them, Aasim," he said, pointing at the gate with Chairles. "We can't take them all outside, and that door ain't holding all day. Might as well keep our door healthy before the smelly patrol does it in for us."
Aasim looked back at the walkers with a frown and sighed when he could find no other alternatives. He nodded at Tenn, who approached the gate warily and released the latch on the right side, letting it drop to the ground. As the gate creaked open, Tenn rushed back to the admin building's door. Louis straightened up as the undead finally got the door open, piling onto each other to reach their live prey.
He ordered Aasim to take the left side, and Willy to take the right. "We'll split them up, make them more manageable!"
"Are you sure seven on one is manageable?" Willy called out as one of the walkers got too close to him and he slashed his weapon, slicing its head in half. He looked down at the bloody blade, chuckling as he used it to perforate another walker's eye.
Louis braced himself for the first customer: a male walker with a blue overall and a very questionable fashion sense. "Batter up, fuckface!" he said, swinging his chair leg wildly and hearing the crunching sound of the walker's head being ripped from its rightful place. Behind that fallen walker, five more sauntered toward him, their white eyes fixed on the freckled man.
He dashed to the left, jumping over an overturned table. As two of the walkers tried to reach him over it, He swung Chairles again and caught the edge of one of their heads, blood spurting onto the wooden table. On the left side of the courtyard, Aasim shot yet another arrow into the head of an overweight walker, its body falling to the ground with a thump.
"Watch out!" Aasim called to Louis when one of them took hold of his arm, pulling him to it. Louis was trapped in a death grip with one of the walkers while his left hand battled with two others, swinging Chairles wildly.
"Aasim!" he exclaimed, groaning with the effort of staying on his feet.
Just before the walker that had its grip on his arm was about to take a bite out of his hand, he heard something whiz past his head, landing with a thud on the side of its head. Louis's head whipped to his left, spotting Aasim aiming his bow in his direction and lower it just in time to get rid of yet another one with his hunting knife.
He stepped back and ducked beneath the arms of a skinny female walker. He stumbled his way to Aasim, crushing the skull of a walker whose arm was reaching for Aasim's hair. "Little too close for comfort, don't you think?" he teased. They exchanged a nod, turning to see barely three walkers coming their way. Aasim shot an arrow at the one on the far left, leaving Louis to practice his batting on the one on the right. Its head flew clean off, landing on the ground and splashing the grass blades with a red tinge.
Aasim dispatched of the last one with his knife, using Clementine's trick of kicking their knees from underneath them. On the other side of the courtyard, Willy was removing his machete from the last walker, which seemed to have gotten stuck as it crashed onto the boy. Louis rushed to his side, heaving the undead off of Willy.
Louis offered his hand to the boy, who graciously took it. He surveyed the courtyard, counting at least fifteen corpses littering the ground. Aasim helped Tenn close up the gate, securing the latch before more walkers could make their way to them. Louis was about to say something to Aasim when a guttural scream tore through the air.
"That's Clementine!" he exclaimed, breaking into a sprint. He burst through the admin building's door, turning to the right. As he got to the double doors at the end of the corridor, he spotted AJ sitting against the wall to the left, absently spinning the chamber of his gun. Louis started turning the knob, but AJ stopped him.
"No, don't."
"Why not?" Louis asked, frowning.
"Ruby said she needs space," AJ explained, setting down the revolver. "She said the baby's taking a little longer than expected and…" he furrowed his brows and tried to recall his earlier conversation, "and to tell you that Clem's just fine."
Louis huffed in annoyance as yet another scream tore through the room, chilling him to his very bones. He leaned against the opposite wall to AJ, sliding down to the ground. He should be the one in there helping her. The pair said nothing as they waited. AJ kept playing with his gun, the intense clicking breaking the silence that ensued in between Clementine's cries.
"AJ, cut it out," snapped Louis, closing his eyes. AJ stopped, looking up at Louis with wide eyes. "It's getting on my nerves."
"Sorry."
After that, they resorted to silently enduring Clementine's screams, praying to any god that would listen that she would be alright. C'mon Clem, I know you can do it, he thought, taking deep breaths to calm his unsteady heart.
He thought about the day he'd found out he would be a father. Clem had been feeling under the weather, and he'd given her space to clear her head. It hadn't occurred to him that she'd run off and go on a near-suicide mission, but the prize she brought back was more than he could have ever asked for. A small plastic stick had been tucked away in the pocket of her jacket, and one of those cheesy greeting cards from the shopping malls.
"Congratulations, you're gonna be a daddy." She's gone out of her way to get a card from that rundown mall just for his amusement. Seven months later, here they were. He was about to actually become a father, despite his previously fervent belief that he'd never be any good at it. I guess you didn't screw me over that badly, huh, dad? He laid his head back on the wall, his eyes heavy. When had been the last time he slept?
At one point, Omar turned the corner and approached both AJ and him with two bowls. He shook Louis's shoulder, startling the man awake. Louis took the bowl warily, looking up at the chef.
"How long have we been here?" he asked incredulously. Couldn't have been more than twenty minutes, right?
"About four hours," Omar informed him with a raised eyebrow. Louis's eyes shot wide open, blinking rapidly. He shot up, almost spilling the bowl's contents onto himself, and looked at the door. It was then that he noticed Clementine was still screaming on the other side.
"Did Ruby say what's going on?" he asked Omar.
"She's been holed in there since you fell asleep," Omar informed Louis, shaking his head slowly. "AJ tried to get in an hour ago, but Ruby kicked him out again."
"There was a lot of blood," AJ commented, staring blankly at the contents of his bowl, stirring it absently.
"Don't worry about that, kiddo, that's normal," Louis assured him. Was that normal? his mind was screaming at him, demanding an immediate answer. Why would you tell him it's normal, you idiot?!
AJ nodded slowly and went back to his soup, sipping on the edge of the spoon. Another scream ensued from inside the music room, this one much fainter. AJ and Louis exchanged a look for a moment before Omar left them to their devices, promising he'd be back to check on them.
Louis sipped his soup hungrily, realizing just then how hungry he really was. He gulped down its contents, sighing in contentment as he set the bowl on the floor beside him. In front of him, AJ had already finished his meal and was staring intently at his adoptive father.
"Penny for your thoughts, little man?"
"What?" AJ blinked.
"It means, what's on your mind?" AJ cocked his head, looking down at the hardwood floor pensively.
"Louis," AJ said. His eyes found Louis's, and his hands were joined on his lap. "Is Clem gonna die?"
The freckled man blinked rapidly, taken aback by the question. It was the question he had been dreading to ask himself, lest he find out the gruesome answer on his own accord. He looked up at AJ with a frown.
"Of course not, little man," he told him, his tone a little harsher than he'd meant it to be. "Why would you ask that?"
"Well, my mom died when she had me," AJ explained, shrugging. "Don't you think it will be the same with this baby?"
"Clem told me about Rebecca, AJ," Louis said, shaking his head. "This is completely different. They were in the middle of winter; freezing their asses off, with no supplies to even hold themselves together. This time"
"Yeah, but what if she doesn't make it?" As if confirming his suspicions, Clementine's next scream was one of the fiercest, her voice already going raw.
Work with me a little, would you? Louis sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Trust me, AJ, this baby is only changing things for good. Nothing is happening to Clementine, I'll make sure of that."
"You can't promise tha-"
They were interrupted when a new, different cry broke through the silence that had enveloped them without them noticing. This one was different than the last ones. It was high pitched, to the point where it was almost deafening. Louis and AJ stared at each other for a moment, their eyes wide. A soft clicking noise was heard beside them, and Ruby poked her head through the crack in the door.
"Louis, would you mind coming inside?" she said, unable to contain the smile that tugged at her lips.
"Can I come in?" AJ asked excitedly, jumping on the balls of his feet to get a good look over her shoulder. Ruby pursed her lips, shaking her head slowly.
"Clem's very tired right now," she informed him, her voice soft. "For now, it's just the father."
Pouting AJ crossed his arms. Louis promised he'd let him in soon and followed Ruby inside. The atmosphere inside the music room had flipped around drastically. The evening sun still shone through the high window to the right, filling the room with a beautiful orange and yellow hue. Louis could see dust particles floating peacefully through the stronger rays of sunlight, bathing the music room.
"I'll give you some time," he heard Ruby say as the redhead retreated from the room and closed the door behind her.
On the large couch beside the piano, Louis spotted Clementine lying back against the armrest. She had bags under her eyes and her face was pale. Despite how tired she looked, Louis had never seen such a beaming smile adorning his wife's lips. Not even at our wedding, he thought cheekily. Her hair was matted with sweat, most of her curls sticking to her forehead.
His eyes lowered until they found what they were looking for. In her arms, Clementine was holding a bundle of blankets, which resembled a small pink burrito. Really, a burrito? he chastised himself. He stepped forward slowly, afraid he might startle the bundle with the creaking of the floorboards. As he got closer, he spotted a tiny face tucked away in between that mess of blankets.
The baby's nose was wrinkled, her eyes still closed. She had thankfully stopped crying, but her mouth was still slightly open. Her skin was a light shade of copper, contrasting with the pale pink of the blankets. Over her small head was a tuft of curly brown hair. Louis kneeled down beside Clem without a word, his eyes glued to the baby in her arms. He sat down beside her on the couch to get a better look, his eyes watering at the beautiful sight in front of him.
"It's a girl," he heard Clementine whisper from his left.
"She's…" he said, looking for words that might begin to describe the feelings he was experiencing. Beautiful? Gorgeous? Wonderful? All those words were good, he thought, but they fell short when he compared them to what his eyes were seeing. He almost felt compelled to make up a new word just to describe her. After a few seconds, he gave up on finding the right one and settled for, "perfect."
Without a word, Clem moved her arms slowly upwards and placed the bundle in Louis's arms. The freckled man gasped when he felt the seemingly weightless baby in his hands. He looked down at her, unable to contain his smile. Would he ever be able to wipe it off his face? He doubted it.
"Hey there," he breathed, his lower lip quivering as his baby shook her head, attempting to open her eyes. After a few attempts, she succeeded and looked up at Louis with a set of beautiful grey eyes. "I'm your daddy," he whispered.
"She looks so real," Louis breathed, marveling at the baby in his arms, afraid to move his fingers lest she break in his grasp. Clem gave him a weird look, and he shook his head. "You know what I mean. She's beautiful."
"I know, isn't she?" Clem said, her voice hoarse after hours of excruciating pain.
"Are her eyes supposed to be that way?" he asked, tilting his head as he inspected the deep grey that seemed to cover the baby's entire irises.
"Eleanor warned me that's what all babies' eyes look like," she explained. She ran a thumb over the baby's cheek, the softest of graces over her smooth skin. "But I reckon she'll have your eyes."
"What, these old things?" Louis teased, gesturing to his brown eyes. "Nah, my baby is having my wife's beautiful golden eyes, and that's my final decision."
"That's sweet," Clem replied, taking her eyes off the baby for the first time to look at Louis. He leaned in, careful not to crush the baby between them, and planted a soft kiss on her forehead. "We still don't have a name for her," she reminded him.
"That's right," he said, nodding. He looked into the baby's eyes, slanting his own. "I don't think any of the names we thought of fits, do you?"
"No, you're right," she agreed, shaking her head.
"You know, when I was out there fending off the smelly patrol," he said, earning a chuckle from his wife. "I thought of something Ruby said."
"And what's that?" Clem asked, smiling when she noticed her husband was rocking the baby back and forth in a soft rhythm. The baby's eyes started dropping slowly until her breathing became steady.
"When she told you to push, she said 'focus that hope on pushing as hard as you can'," he attempted Ruby's southern accent rather atrociously, shaking his head. "Anyway, it got me thinking. What about Hope?"
"Hope?"
"For the baby," he said, looking down at her. "Hope Everett." He couldn't stop tears from trickling down his eyes when he said it. It just felt right.
"Hmm, I like it," she said with a grin, similar tears filling her own eyes. "But it's missing something."
"How so?"
"What about Leslie for a middle name?" she asked, a smile tugging at her lips as her husband did a double take.
"You – You'd do that for me?"
"I know you loved your mom," she replied, looking down at little Hope. "And if she were here, I know she'd be proud of her son. I think this is as good a tribute as any."
Louis's lips shook, unspoken words trapped between them. He looked down at his daughter with the utmost adoration in his eyes, doing his best to keep his composure.
"Hope Leslie Everett," he repeated, letting the name roll off his tongue sweetly. "My little Sunshine. How does that sound, huh?"
The baby's lips contorted into what they could only assume was the beginnings of a smile, and they looked at each other. It was decided, then. He returned Hope to her mother, setting her as gently as humanly possible in Clem's arms. He stood up, taking the opportunity to kiss Clem's forehead once more, and walked over to the music room's door. Looking back at Clem with a wink, he opened it and beckoned AJ over.
The boy entered the room excitedly, looking around in search of Clem's baby. When he spotted Clem, he rushed to her. Before he could crash into her, Louis grabbed the back of his collar and pulled him back, shaking his head.
"Clem's very tired, kiddo," he warned the boy. "And the baby's very fragile. You gotta treat her extremely gently, alright.
"Okay," AJ said, nodding. He leaned in and inspected the bundle in Clem's arms, raising both eyebrows. "She looks like a monster," he commented.
Hiding the pained expression that wanted to take over his features, Louis chuckled and kneeled beside AJ.
"Nah, that's your sister," he corrected.
"My sister?"
"Yeah," Clem assured him, nodding vigorously. "AJ. I want you to meet Hope Leslie Everett."