Thanks for waiting patiently for this update. I've had various things happening the past few days that have been keeping me from updating too much and also because this chapter was pretty hard to write. It didn't want to get itself written and its also one of those dreaded filler chapters, hate to say it. Things will return to their normal dramatic selves next chapter :)

Once again, thanks to HermioneandMarcus for your continued support, as well as HumanDustbin for many PM'ing sessions. You guys keep me writing :)

- Nagiana


Favorite Line(s):

"You guys would live, Lori, because sometimes, that's all we can do in this world. We fight to survive and then we learn to enjoy the many little things and cherish the extremely rare big things that this shithole of a new world gives us."

"Honey, no offense, but you look exhausted!"

The sarcastic 'what-do-you-think' look that Tessa sent Lori at her friend's words, almost made Wren and Beth laugh. "I am exhausted, Lori! Breastfeeding two babies – getting up in the wee hours of the morning every day to breastfeed the said two babies . . ." She shook her head wearily as she ran her fingers through her long black hair. "Daryl stays up with me as much as he can when he notices that I'm awake, but he knows I hate it. He has his own duties with the group and he needs whatever strength he can get for those duties. I suppose it's his own way of helping me with something that he's powerless to help me with to begin with, but still . . ." Lori nodded.

"At least he stays up with you. At least you're not alone in this whole thing." She told her, her voice going quiet and Tessa turned an expressionless gaze up onto her friend.

"Are things still bad between you two?" She asked her and Lori hesitated in answering for a moment before eventually nodding.

"Yeah . . . he seemed to hate touching me before, but now . . . now, he won't even look at me." She spoke and Tessa, sensing there was something deeper (because there was always something deeper between Lori and Rick; nothing was ever cut and dry), smiled and turned a soft gaze onto Wren and Beth, who had been fawning over the freshly woken Danny and Aayla like two young girls would.

"Girls, would you mind go checking on the others for a moment? I have to talk with Lori about something. We'll be fine with the babies." She told them and they nodded and shot the other woman comforting smiles before departing the room. Lori watched them go before letting out a snort of a laugh, a grin appearing on her face moments later.

"I'm starting to understand why Daryl calls you Momma Bear sometimes." She told her and Tessa's eyebrows furrowed in slight confusion then.

"What do you mean?"

"They look up to you. Hell, every kid here looks towards you as a mother figure aside from your own children. You took Wren underneath your wing and persuaded Daryl to look after Seth even though he clearly despises doing it. Beth adores you too and she talks to you about more things than she ever does with Hershel or Maggie. Carl . . ." She trailed off then, reluctant to admit that Carl looked towards Tessa more as a motherly figure than he did his own mother and Tessa stubbornly shook her head.

"Lori, stop! I know from personal experience that raising a child in this world is as hellish as the world itself is! You can't raise a child to be completely innocent anymore – it cannot be done! Carl's a sweet kid, with a good heart and all his intentions stem from goodness – I like think, anyway," She shook her head. "Raising Danny and Aayla in this world is terrifying for me - I'll be the first to admit it. And sometimes at night, when Daryl holds one of them while I feed the other, just the look in his eyes I see when he gazes down at them I can use to tell that it's terrifying for him too. This is his first time ever raising a kid, much less in the middle of the walker apocalypse! At least I had training by raising Ethan first!"

"And you don't . . ." Lori trailed off then, unsure if she wanted to ask what she really wanted to ask, and Tessa waited patiently for her friend to continue. When she finally did, it was after she swallowed heavily and summoned enough courage to ask her. "You don't . . . regret them at all?"

The words fell like a lead weight between them and while Tessa knew that Lori didn't mean for them to stab at her – that they were simply the manifestations of the expectant mother's own fears - she couldn't help but allow them to feel that way. Slowly, Tessa shook her head. "No . . . never. I love Daryl, Lori, and I love his children. It was . . . yeah, the news was shocking in the beginning and it sounds so fucking insane, but by the time they were born, we really wanted them! Granted, we wanted them for different reasons, but we both wanted them all the same. Daryl wanted them because he had never been there for Ethan and this was something of a second chance for him. And I wanted them . . ." She trailed off then, thinking for a moment and when she spoke again, it was with a flippant shrug and a soft smile - a soft, loving smile that Lori wished to all Hell and back that she could get in her eyes whenever she talked about Rick now. "I wanted them simply because they were Daryl's." Lori nodded.

"But how do you want something you don't even . . ." She swallowed hard then, tears wetting her eyes. "Tess, how do you want the child of a man you don't even love?" Tessa turned a sharp gaze onto her but immediately softened it before Lori could think any different of it than it already was. She didn't exactly know how to take that and no matter how hard she tried to keep it from showing up in her eyes, she could still see that Lori saw it. Hell, Tessa couldn't even begin to say that she knew where Lori was coming from, because she didn't - she would never know where she was coming from, in fact. She loved Daryl – she adored him, even and it was plain as day that Daryl felt the same about her. She could not even begin to fathom how she could ever not love any one of the children he had given her. She ended up weakly shaking her head.

"Lori, I don't . . . honey, I don't know what to even begin to tell you about that!" She confessed to her, her eyes becoming sad as she reached forward and took her best friend's hand. Lori smiled a small smile and took it as Tessa ignored the slight twinge of pain that shot through her abdomen as she bent over a little quicker than she should have. She still ached and she still bled a little bit but she felt herself grow stronger every day. Hopefully she would be up walking around soon, for she felt useless just sitting there on the bunk in the guard office with her two newborn babies and only Beth and Wren for company until Daryl returned that night - whenever the Hell that was. Occasionally Lori, Carol and Maggie would come in to keep her company as well for a few hours, and Hershel and Ethan checked up on her on a daily basis when he wasn't out with Daryl. She wasn't lacking in any kind of friendship and company, but she was starting to get an itch of Cabin Fever, not being able to get up and do anything to keep her mind occupied.

Tessa turned a keen gaze onto Lori then – a keen gaze that everyone in the group was starting to associate when Tessa would start to turn from her Momma Bear mode, into her Den Mother mode. And if Lori was being honest, she had been happy to relinquish her former crown of Den Mother to her friend. Tessa had always been the stronger one of the two – she had survived the horrors of Merle Dixon, pulling a shard of Plexiglas out of her leg and then the birth of two twins. Tessa was going to survive this. The group needed a Den Mother who was guaranteed survival.

"Honey, is there . . . is there something else that's been bothering you - something other than Rick?" She asked her, her voice small and confidential and Lori nodded. Her eyes lingering on Danny and Aayla lying kicking and moving beside their mother in their loosely wrapped blankets and Tessa's eyes briefly flickered to them as well before moving them back onto Lori.

"It's . . . it's my baby. Tessa, I haven't felt anything! Whereas you were always complaining about Danny and Aayla moving and keeping you and Daryl up at night, I haven't experienced anything like that yet! I-I think I might have lost it . . ."

"You haven't felt it move . . . at all?" She asked her, her eyebrows arching in slight disbelief, and Lori nodded.

"Nothing . . . I've felt a whole lot of absolutely nothing. I haven't even felt any Braxton-Hicks, and at first I thought it was exhaustion – malnutrition – but then I kept seeing you and you were always gripping your sides and your belly because they would constantly be moving and I . . ." She shrugged weakly then. "And you were as exhausted and malnourished as I was and here I was, feeling nothing while you had all this movement going on!" She glanced at her. "If we're all infected, Tessa, then so is the baby. Danny and Aayla – they're infected too, you know this, right?" Tessa nodded solemnly.

"Yeah . . . yeah, I know. Daryl and I have talked about it." Lori nodded.

"Then you know that there is a distinct possibly that it could have died in the womb. What's if it's dead inside me? What if it rips me apart -?"

"Lori, stop!"

Lori trailed off when her friend's firm voice interrupted her and when she turned her wet eyes onto Tessa, she saw the firm strength shining behind them and she suddenly wanted to fall into her arms and sob. Sometimes, Lori felt like Tessa was the only one left in the group who still cared about her – who cared about whether she died or what she did. Tessa was her only cheerleader and she felt like she was also the only one who she could talk to and she would listen. Not Rick, who would look at her in thinly veiled disgust or anyone else who was too exhausted to listen. When Lori needed someone to lean on – someone to talk to – Tessa always made the time, no matter what situation they were in (except of course, if the situation in question could kill them).

Tessa shook her head. "Lori, I thought like that too – honestly, I did! It bothered the Hell out of Daryl for a while too, and finally, just to shut me up one night, he promised me that if anything like that happened, then he wouldn't hesitate to put a bullet in my or our child's head," She shook her head. "He resented me so much for making him promise that - you have no idea, Lori! He refused to touch me for days afterwards and when he finally did, he made me promise never to ask him to do something like that again because he would never have the strength to do it!" Lori nodded and sniffed, drying some of her tears.

"Okay, then, say that it lives," She spoke, halfway ignoring Tessa's words and Tessa sent her a pleading look as Lori continued blithely on. "And I die during childbirth which could really, honestly happen, you know this!" She told her and Tessa shook her head, her voice firm.

"Lori, that's not going to happen -!"

Lori nodded, interrupting her friend. "And why the Hell could it not, Tess? Why not? Is it because you lived?" She shook her head and gave a dry, humorless laugh. "You're stronger than me, Tess - we've already come to this fact many times - it's why Daryl relies on you so much for the strength he might not have at times. You survived because Daryl was there for you, you refused to die and because of some fluke stroke of luck, something managed to not happen during the birth. But really, how many women died during childbirth before modern medicine?" She looked down then, feeling fresh tears appear in her eyes then. "If I come back . . . what if I attack it? What if I attack you, or Rick or Carl? If I do – if there is any chance that I can, then Tess, you or Daryl needs to put me down immediately! You don't hesitate, you understand? Me, the baby . . ." She trailed off then as more tears appeared in her eyes. "If we're walkers . . . you don't hesitate and you don't try to save us, okay? If you can't do it, then get Daryl to do it. I'm not you and the baby is not his," She told her. "He would do it easily - gladly, almost!"

Tessa sat there for the entire time Lori was speaking, a mournful look in her tear-filled eyes now. Their hands were gripping each other's so tightly that it was starting to hurt a little bit and when Tessa blinked back the tears that threatened to spill over her cheeks, she finally nodded. Lori swallowed hard and shook her head.

"Hell, I don't know, it might have been better if . . ." She trailed off and Tessa's voice when she spoke was quiet and tear-filled.

"If what, honey?"

"If I never made it off the farm . . ." She spoke and Tessa immediately recoiled slightly.

"Lori, you're exhausted and terrified! You don't know what you are saying!" Lori nodded.

"Yeah, that's true," She freely admitted before turning a slightly more expressionless gaze onto her friend. "But my son can't stand me – not the way that Ethan loves and adores you. And my husband, after what I put him through, he . . ." She trailed off again, her eyes filling with tears even more and Tessa immediately knew where she was going with this next point. "He wishes that I was you instead of me - the woman he married. He sees how well your holding this group together – how jealous he is of the love your son holds for you – the utter blind loyalty and love that you have for Daryl and he . . ." She gave a shrug. "He wants that. He wants things that I cannot give him and I hate myself for that! And I have to admit that I can't help but be jealous of you too! Daryl loves and he worships you and he would fight through every circle of Hell for you and your children and Rick . . ." She trailed off, shrugging weakly, and Tessa shook her head again.

"Lori, we've all made mistakes. But we've survived them and things have been that way all winter – ever since we left the farm, in fact! He's just as exhausted as everyone else is and when you remember the fact that he's also the leader of this group . . ." She trailed off and sighed before beginning again. "When things start going better and you give birth and you give him his child, things will change, I promise!"

"How do I do that? How do you know that?" She asked her, her voice full of emotion. "He hates me, Tess. I see it, you see it - everyone sees it! He's too good of a man to say it, but I know he means it. I know and because of what I did with Shane, I put that knife in his hand and I can't stand living with that fact! I know that he wants my best friend instead of me – my best friend who would never give him the time of day because she is head-over-heels in love with the man she's already got, so please, Tess, tell me - how do I become you?"

Tessa fully recoiled at those words and immediately when she had spoken them, Lori must have realized what she said, for a stricken look appeared on her face. "I'm so sorry, Tess, I shouldn't have said that . . ." She broke down crying then and Tessa pursed her lips as she slowly, carefully moved to the edge of the bed, where she took her sobbing friend in her arms. She supposed she was a saint (that's what Daryl called her, anyways, whenever she would relate these conversations back to him) for not holding anything that Lori told her against her, but she knew her friend was just talking out of the fear and jealousy and the other poisoning emotions that had no good, healthy place inside her.

"You know who doesn't give a shit about all that?" She asked her and Lori shook her head as she moved partially out of Tessa's embrace. "This baby . . ." Her hand moved to Lori's stomach and her friend couldn't help but let out a grin and a laugh. Tessa smiled. "You want me to send for Hershel . . .? So that we can know that this baby is alright and then put this behind us?" She asked her and Lori continued to smile a small smile and nod.

"I don't know what I would ever do without you, Tess. Hell, I don't know what this entire group would do without you and Daryl." She told her and Tessa smiled.

"You guys would live, Lori, because sometimes, that's all we can do in this world. We fight to survive and then we learn to enjoy the many little things and cherish the extremely rare big things that this shithole of a new world gives us."


"There are ma two girls! And ma little boy too!"

Daryl grinned as Tessa slowly left the Guard Office, Aayla in her arms as Wren trailed slowly behind her carrying Danny. Hershel had told her that she could start getting up and walking around but to take it extremely easy at first. That meant absolutely no heavy lifting and to take as many long breaks in-between movements as she could. They had heard the commotion downstairs and went to see them off – the ones that were going to explore the rest of the prison, anyway, looking for that fabled armory, cafeteria and infirmary. Tessa couldn't help but return the grin as Daryl bounded up the stairs to meet her halfway so that she wouldn't have to risk the supposed dangers of the said stairs. Lori exited from the cell she was sharing with Carl as Daryl's hand moved to cradle her hip. He planted a loving kiss on the corner of her mouth and Tessa couldn't help but give a little laugh at the motion.

"You guys are about to leave?" She asked him and he nodded in reply, however, at the look of slight hesitation on her face, he adopted a soft look and moved to hold her close for a moment.

"I love ya guys and we'll be back as soon as we can, I promise." He told her and Tessa nodded.

"I know . . . you always do." She told him and he replied with a smile as he placed another loving kiss on her lips before planting the same on Danny and Aayla's foreheads. Over his shoulder, Tessa could see the slightly awkward look that Rick and Lori shared over the second-floor balcony and for a moment, Tessa clung to Daryl, making it seem like a moment of temporarily weakness so that he would support her for just a moment longer, instead of coming right out and saying that it was her being a tad insecure.

"You guys be careful out there, okay? You don't know what's out there." She told him and Daryl nodded slowly, his face expressionless but his eyes searching as he silently but quickly ran them over her face. His heart twisted when he saw how different she looked compared to how she used to. Her thick ebony hair was pulled back into a messy bun behind her head and her eyes were still exhaustion ringed and slightly sunken. Her normally vibrant olive-colored skin was slightly pale but Hershel assured him that all that would go away the more she started healing and regaining her strength and that pretty soon, she'd be back to the same glowing woman he knew and loved.

"We will, don't worry. Ethan and Seth are stayin' here too with Carl. I didn' think it would be good for ya to worry for tha both of us." She knew he meant him and Ethan and Tessa smiled gratefully and nodded.

"Thank you, baby . . ." She whispered to him and Daryl smiled a small smile and nodded as he hugged her close for a moment. When he slowly pulled away, he brushed his hands against the soft, downy heads of his children and then left through the gate after the rest of the group after ruffling Ethan's hair like he always did.

Life would never be the same afterwards.