December 25, 2010
Rick wakes when Alex slips from the bed, the urgency of her movement spiking alarm through him. The sound of vomiting is unmistakable, and he hisses as his bare feet hit the cold hardwood floor. The fireplace heats the bedroom decently, but the fire's at its lowest right now and doesn't heat the floor much on this side of the bed even at its best.
"Alex? You okay?"
He almost smacks himself for the stupid question. She's kneeling on a frigid bathroom floor, dry heaving, at 4:30 in the morning. Of course, she's not okay.
Dampening a washcloth, he kneels next to her and takes over holding her loose, dark hair away from the toilet. "Here, got you a cloth. Do you need some water?"
Alex takes the washcloth, but barely gets one swipe of the cloth across her skin before she's trying to be sick again. Helpless, all Rick can do is rub her back and try to figure out what's wrong. Finally, she slumps back against the wall across from the toilet, groaning and covering her face with the washcloth.
"Mouthwash." It's mumbled from under the cloth, but distinct enough for Rick to reach for the bottle of cinnamon mouthwash Alex prefers. She rinses her mouth twice, spitting into the toilet before flushing.
Rick honestly didn't think it was possible for Alex to be so pale. Her summer bronzed complexion lost some of its tan as winter took hold and they stay indoors more, but this morning? She's downright ashen right now, and it worries him.
"Alex? What's wrong?"
She's staring at the rack under the sink with a confused expression, tapping her fingers against her knee as if counting something. Looking at the contents, Rick sees extra toilet paper, soap, three bottles of his shampoo… and an unopened box of tampons. The math falls into place for him, along with the fact that they've had no interruptions in the six weeks since that first afternoon together.
"Oh," he says softly. He reaches out and captures her twitching hand, lacing his fingers with hers. It's a little stunning, because they have been careful...except the day he nearly lost her.
"Oh," Alex repeats, taking a deep breath. She blinks and turns to look at him, hazel eyes searching his. "It might not be…"
"And it might be." Rick lifts her hand up and places a gentle kiss on her palm. "I love you, you know."
The carefully neutral expression she's wearing morphs into a smile. "I love you, too. My backside is freezing."
That makes him laugh, because she's right that the tile floor isn't a great place for any sort of conversation, much less what they need to figure out. The fireplace heat never quite reaches the bathroom properly. He gets to his feet and draws her up after him. It doesn't surprise him that she stops to brush her teeth, unwilling to just rely on mouthwash, so he joins her and cleans his.
Alex burrows back under the quilts, and Rick builds the fire up and lights the oil lamp on the bedside table before joining her. They reserve the generator's electricity for things they can't manage without, like the refrigerator and freezers. When she tucks her head to his chest, he rubs her back through the thin fabric of the white t-shirt she appropriated from his clothes.
Their height difference always makes his brain associate the word delicate with her, despite the fact that she's proven over and over again that she's nothing of the sort. Right now, she's curled up against him like she's trying to become smaller, and it worries him. His brain starts bouncing to the possibilities: possibly having to be on the road while she's pregnant, problems with the birth, a baby in need of medical care they can't give.
It makes him tense up, which conversely, seems to make her relax and try to comfort him. She tilts her head up so she can see him. "We don't know for sure. Could be something I ate or a stomach virus."
"Odds seem against that, don't they?" he asks, cupping her cheek with one hand. "We haven't even discussed the possibility." Maybe they should have, because he knows condoms aren't foolproof, even if they hadn't been unprotected the first time. Hell, he knows birth control isn't, either, with how Carl was conceived.
Alex takes a deep breath, but her voice is subdued when she speaks. "I always wanted a baby when I was married before. It seemed like there would be plenty of time for it, so why not work and save up? Then things went bad between us, and the selfish part of me was glad it hadn't happened."
"I can understand that." That last fight with Lori had him thinking most of that day about how he was glad they only dragged one kid in the middle of their mess. "Never seemed the right time for me and Lori, either."
Busy lives combined with a guilt that never quite left Rick hadn't made for a spectacular sex life with Lori. He'd often wondered what sex would be like without guilt lurking around the edges of his libido. Guilt with Shane because he knew how his parents would see him being with a man. Guilt with Lori because he loved her as much as he was capable, but he wasn't in love with her.
Maybe there should be guilt with Alex, because his family has only been gone six months, but for the first time in his life, all he ever feels is joy and passion. He understands now why people rave about sex so much.
"If I am, I know it's risky, even with Hershel's help, but I don't think I could end it," she says softly.
Rick isn't even sure how that could be managed, but Alex is an experienced nurse. He's sure she knows how. "That's your choice," he replies. "I wouldn't ask you to keep a baby if you didn't want one. But if you do…"
He thinks of Carl, and his chest aches with renewed grief. The idea of another child is both terrifying and hopeful. "I would be a very happy man." Even if she isn't pregnant now, if they can find a safe haven, he would love to try for a child together, and he tells her that.
Alex ducks her head again, but she's smiling against the soft skin of his throat. "I actually have tests in my supplies."
Considering how she collects a little of everything, he isn't surprised. "Want me to go ferret on out for you?"
Alex thinks it over and then nods. It's late enough now that Rick can hear someone moving in the kitchen, probably Patricia putting on coffee and starting breakfast for Otis before he does his inspection of the cattle. Slipping out of bed, he heads to the room generally referred to as the parlor, which now serves as a storeroom for all their surplus supplies that need some climate control.
Alex's medical supplies are easy enough to look through, since years of hospital work trained her to label and logically sort everything. There are three boxes, each with two tests, so he picks the one with the digital display instead of the more confusing double line ones. Patricia smiles at him as he passes the doorway to the kitchen, but doesn't stop him.
Alex is sitting up in the bed, petting Blossom, speaking softly to the cat, who tends to sleep with Beth these days, but must have followed Patricia downstairs. When he offers her the box, she nods and takes it before heading into the bathroom. Rick paces, unable to sit, emotions yoyoing from fear to joy to worry to anticipation.
She emerges with the little plastic device in one hand and sets it on the dresser near the fireplace. Instead of climbing back in bed, she wraps her arms around his waist, converting his pacing to a swaying sort of half-dance. "Three minutes," she tells him.
It makes him cup her face again and lean in for a kiss this time. She makes the contented little purring noise that never fails to make him smile. They spend the entire time until her watch beeps just exploring soft, tender kisses.
Before she can reach for the stick, Rick stops her. "Want to ask you something, before it seems like a factor."
Alex looks curious, so he takes both her hands, wishing the thoughts he's been having lately gave him more skill with words. "I know it might seem too soon, and maybe even unnecessary with the world the way it is, but I wanna marry you. I want anyone we ever meet, now and always, to never question how much I love you, because we're married in a world that doesn't require it anymore."
He's talked it over with Hershel the past week, and that's the conclusion his fellow widower helped him come to. A ceremony here isn't legal by old world standards, but those will likely never return. In the time before governmental paperwork, that's all it took anyway, a couple declaring their intentions in front of witnesses.
Alex blinks, looking surprised and smiling hesitantly. "You don't have to marry me for me to know you love me."
"No, I don't." One thing he learned from how things didn't work with Lori is that giving a woman a ring didn't magically make everything work smoothly in a marriage. "But I want to marry you, more than anything in the world."
He'd proposed to Lori out of obligation, because that's what a good man of his upbringing did when he got his girlfriend pregnant. Honestly, there wasn't much proposal to it, more of a fumbled promise to do the right thing and take care of Lori and the baby. At that point, he was still so painfully in love with Shane that it felt like chewing glass.
This feels so much different, and now he knows why people always look so joyful when they're in the middle of a proposal, especially when Alex nods. Her smile brightens, and she drags him to her in a kiss that's almost enough to make him forget the other issue at hand.
"That a yes?"
"That's a yes." Alex blinks rapidly, holding off tears, and squeezes his hand until he frees one of them. Reaching for the little stick, she turns it where he can see it.
In clear, unmistakable English: pregnant.
They nearly miss breakfast, spending an hour celebrating in the fashion that got them that particular message in the first place.
Christmas Day or not, it's still a farm, and chores are even more intense when the predators to be guarded against are walkers. Morgan's construction skills combined with Hershel and Otis's general cattle farm knowledge has the farmhouse and the two closest fields enclosed by a ten foot tall fence of metal and girders scavenged from metal buildings around the county.
Otis's ingenious idea to bring in hay bales from surrounding farms provides sound insulation by lining every metal fence with multiple rows of the huge, round hay bales that weigh over a ton. It serves as backup food for the cattle, and an outstanding layer of protection for the farm's residents, human and animal.
They still use the less protected fields, but just for daytime grazing, and the cattle adapt easily enough. Rick takes longer, especially learning to ride, to the Greene sisters' endless amusement. It isn't one of the girls out with Rick today, but Hershel himself.
"That is an awful persistent smile on your face, son. Am I correct to assume you acted on the subject we've been discussing?"
Rick glances over at Hershel, grinning. "Yeah, I did."
"Expression that joyful, the young lady must have said yes." It's not often than Hershel smiles when it's not one of the girls, but he is now. Maybe everyone needs this normal sort of happy.
"She did." Rick shifts in the saddle, glad being saddle sore is finally a thing of the past. "We're thinking something simple, maybe after supper? Family as witnesses, if you'll speak a few words."
That makes Hershel rein in his horse, so Rick follows suit. They're at the far end of the day's grazing pasture, with no walkers sighted today so far. The older man dismounts, and once Rick is on his feet, too, he offers a hand. "I'd be honored."
"Thank you." Rick's debating telling him about the baby, but before he can, Hershel pulls a cloth pouch out of his jacket's inner pocket and hands it over. It clinks, just a little, from something inside.
"Open it. It's a gift from all of us, although it's Bethie's idea."
When Rick unties the makeshift pouch, it turns out to be a handkerchief. But inside are three rings, two wedding bands and a delicate ring with two small pear shaped emeralds on their sides with the smaller ends overlaid. When he looks up at Hershel, the man is still smiling, something wistful in his expression.
"The wedding bands belonged to Annette's parents, and their family tradition was to never bury them, but pass them on. They were happily married for fifty-nine years, so there's a lot of love embued those. Annette and I already had our rings, so we put them away for Shawn one day. Both the girls would like to see them passed on."
Hershel nudges the emerald ring. "It's not an engagement ring, since that wasn't much of a tradition when they married. But my mother-in-law had several pieces, and Beth wants Alex to have this one."
"It's her birthstone. Alex was born at the end of May," Rick clarifies, and Hershel nods. "Are you certain about this, Hershel?" Rings hadn't even been on Rick's radar, not the way things are now.
"This is something both the girls and I want to do for you and Alex. You both looked after my girls when I wasn't in the right frame of mind to do so." Hershel glances off to the cattle grazing in the distance. He's been growing his beard in over the last month, and Rick thinks he's well in his way to looking like Santa Clause. "They'll appreciate the joy of being part of this."
Rick ties the handkerchief up and tucks it in his own jacket pocket. "Thank you, Hershel."
"It's a blessed thing, to find love twice in one lifetime. Cherish it."
Although Hershel's reference is to Lori, and Rick never shared anything more than his strained marriage with the older man, it's still applicable. Now more than ever, he knows how fragile life is, and how one more day to fix something is never a guarantee. "I will."
The older man nods and gets back in the saddle. Rick follows, the precious gift riding along until he can present them to Alex.
In the end, getting married is quite simple, as he imagines it once would have been in places with no church or gathering place. Simple words are exchanged after Hershel reads a few passages for them from his well worn Bible, followed by rings with a happy history they'll add another generation to by August. If ghosts seem to linger, it's to be expected, but Rick likes to think all their families would have enjoyed the promise of today.
A/N: For those who've read my stories before, y'all know that proposals and weddings sort of give me hives to try to write, so hopefully this suffices. 😉
Why no one ever uses one ton hay bales for fence reinforcement, I'll never understand. I'm kind of mad at myself for not having the idea sooner, to be honest, considering my property's hayfield has to be baled three times a year.