The night passed and her labor progressed, but slowly. She didn't want to be in the truck, claiming to want to be in the open air, but John talked her into a tent, so that they could at least avoid smaller ground visitors who weren't scared off by the low moans. He sat with her through the night, rubbing her back, listening to her pain filled moans, wishing there was anything he could do. He urged her to rest, to try to sleep, but she could get no respite from the pain.

By the time morning began to creep into their enclosure, her contractions were still just three minutes apart and she was only a few centimeters dilated, as best as John could tell. This is why they needed to be near a hospital. He suggested that they do just that, the road behind them was more manageable, and they could be in a safe facility with drugs and proper medical care. She looked terrible and it terrified him.

"No drugs," she said. "Even if we were free to do as we liked, I would have chosen a midwife and natural childbirth."

He wanted to tell her how strong she was, and also how strong-headed she was. But this was obviously not the time or place.

Now that the sun was out, Monica could no longer stand the confines of the tent, and he helped her back to the spot beside the fire. Gibson opened up a can of fruit and passed out some granola bars for breakfast. No one seemed to be hungry. Monica kept shaking her head at food, but John insisted until she could pull herself out of her focused state for a little while. "You need to keep up your strength. You've hardly eaten in the last 24 hours."

Gibson had just crushed down the can and was about to drop it in the garbage sack when something very unexpected, but very much welcomed, came in to his field of perception.

"Someone's coming," he said, looking further down the road.

"Who?" asked John.

"I… I'm not sure. I…" Gibson was speechless for a while.

John was about ready to throw his wife and the boy into the truck and peel out of there. "Are we safe?"

"He… I think he's like me," said Gibson, his mouth slack as his mind tried to take such an event in. "He's looking for us. He knows we're in trouble."

Never, in all his 17 years, had he come across another human like himself. This man, however, did not speak English or Spanish, Gibson tried, and he was left to communicate with pure emotions, all the feelings that lay beneath the words. He wasn't very good at it, but he pressed images of Monica in labor into the man's mind, and felt him start to run in response. Gibson walked towards the end of the clearing, almost in a spell.

When he appeared from the brush, he stopped and took it all in. Two of them, a man and a woman obviously about to have a child. He knew their kind but had rarely interacted with them. And the man who stood before him, who didn't look a thing like him, but had the ability to speak without words. They, in turn, stared at him, a Mayan man, wearing very little in the heat of the jungle.

He spoke to the couple, but they did not understand his words, so he tried the young man again, and he nodded and spoke to the couple for him.

"I think he wants us to follow him. To his village. I think there's someone there who can help."

"We're still at least two miles away," said John. "Monica, do you think you can do this?"

"Walking is good," she managed to say. "Just don't let go of me."

John and Gibson threw everything into the truck and locked it up. They would come back for it later. They trekked slowly through the jungle, stopping every few minutes as Monica's contractions overcame her. It was another hour before they arrived at the village. The walking had done her good, and her contractions were now about a minute apart.

She could barely take in the fact that they had a welcoming committee. Nearly two dozen men and women had gathered to see the three strangers enter. A smiling woman with few teeth came towards them and took Monica's hand, patting it maternally.

"She's going to help you, Monica," said Gibson, who felt faint from the overwhelming amount of minds that were connecting with his, asking questions, throwing in images and ideas that he could barely keep straight. He turned it off, and realized that it was completely silent in the village, with only the sound of monkeys and birds in the air, and Monica's heavy breathing.

Monica looked at the woman and felt completely safe. The woman led her into a hut made of thin trees and a grass roof. John still held tight to her arm, and was ready to fight if they tried to make him leave. He wasn't going to miss the birth of his daughter. But surprisingly, the woman, and the three other women who followed, all seemed perfectly comfortable with his presence. One of them went about making tea, while the first woman they met took on the role of midwife, pulling out a grass mat and a little wooden stool, indicating to Monica that she should sit.

She pressed her belly all over, and seemed satisfied with the position of the baby, smiling at Monica with her toothless smile. When Monica's next contraction hit, she watched closely, and nodded when it was over. She asked her questions, but Monica shook her head, too exhausted to even try to understand. She looked to John, who called for Gibson, who stood outside the hut and refused to go in.

Gibson wanted to help with this delivery even less than he wanted to help them when they were in the middle of an argument. But John was too panicky to care, so he swallowed down the bile that was climbing up his throat, and spoke. "Water? Is there water? Oh god. That's disgusting." He sunk down on the ground and put his hands over his head. The things he could see and understand when he went listening made him never ever want to know more about childbirth.

John tried to explain to the woman that Monica's water hadn't broken, but the midwife didn't care to wait for the crude attempts at communicating. She began to pull at Monica's clothes until John helped her. The midwife wasted no time in starting the examination. The women stood around watching, but no one said anything. One went out and soon returned with a smooth stick, which the midwife stuck in the fire for a few minutes, then pulled out, whittled down, and smoothed into a dull point. Next thing Monica knew, two of the women hoisted her up, the midwife inserted the stick, her waters broke, and she was racked by another contraction. When it was over, the midwife felt inside, and nodded with approval.