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Neo and Nestor came into the room later with Maribelle and Darcy. Darcy had flecks of blood all over her various piercings, and Maribelle had some in her kinky, bleached, honey blonde hair. Neo was all cleaned up, but he was covered in bruises. Nestor looked normal except for the fact that he was wearing grey, backroom sweatpants instead of his normal blue jeans. Neo cleared his throat and got our attention.

“Emery, Oliver, Roy, Joey, Bob, we’d like you to follow us to the back.” We all started to stand up except for Joey. Maribelle laughed.

“Honey, you’re allowed to leave for this. I won’t yell at you for being off of bed rest, this time.” Joey nodded and reached for Roy to help him up. They held hands for the entire way to the back.

Once we got to the back, I realized what it was. There were lots of beds and lots of supplies for birthing babies. Connie was sleeping in one of the beds to the right. Two carts were next to her. Darcy gestured for us to all sit on the bed to her left, we all stayed quiet as to not wake her. Darcy started talking as Maribelle and Nestor stepped to the side to talk about something else.

“Some of you may already know this, but this is Neo’s wife, Connie. She’s cool with us talking here, and we thought it would be better to get you guys to some fresh air. We do have to stay quiet though, Maribelle and I just had to perform a c-section without anesthesia. Poor Connie had to have a c-section without anesthesia. But, you do get to meet her beautiful twins. Meet Dawson and Prescott.” Darcy had walked around and brought the two carts over to the side of Connie’s bed where we were. Dawson had blonde hair like his mom, and Prescott got his mother’s fair complexion. Emery cooed at the tiny babies, they each were swaddled and looked very peaceful in their little carts. Bob even smiled at the sight of the little potatoes. Neo came back into the room, he was holding something in his arms, but I couldn’t tell what it was. Maribelle and Nestor came over to join us.

“Now, I have another little treat for you guys, but it does come with some bad news.” Neo turned to Emery and gestured for her to open her arms. Neo placed a sleeping Jack in Emery’s arms. She looked confused, and then grief flooded her features. One tear rolled down her cheek before she could wipe it away. Bob gasped and started sniveling again. My eyebrows scrunched together. What was wrong? Darcy came over to me and patted me on the shoulder.

“Oliver, I’m sorry. Rosie’s not with us anymore. Your friend, Margaret, was also found in some of the heaps.” It was my turn to cry. Darcy crouched down to hug me while I started to sob. I could hear Jack start to stir, Emery laughed and tried to play with him, but I could hear her voice crack. I opened my eyes and saw Connie sitting up. She looked as tired as the rest of us, and just as beaten up. Maribelle was taking her vitals, and Neo was brushing some hair out of her face. Nestor was behind them, sitting on the couch and staring at his hands. I stayed in Darcy’s arms for a little while, it almost felt like Rosie’s motherly affection, but not quite the same. I eventually pulled away from Darcy and told her thank you. She nodded and went over to talk to Maribelle. She wrapped her arms around Mairbelle’s waist and kissed her on the cheek from behind. Connie was holding Prescott now, and Neo had tears in his eyes as he cradled Dawson.

I turned to Emery, her face was blank as she rocked Jack back to sleep. I tapped her arm, and she looked at me. A million different things must have been going through her head at the moment, but I would have been a fool to try and talk to her about them then. I simply put my arm around her and helped her keep Jack’s head up.

Maribelle came over with Nestor to talk to us again. Rosie died keeping zombies out of the back entrance to the med ward. There had never been a door there because sometimes women just needed to get in, or the breeze helped them deal with the pain a bit. Maribelle made sure that Rosie died before turning. No one knew how Margaret died, but she was found all hacked up in a pit full of other rotting bodies. Maribelle cried telling us, and we all were a little teary as well. Jack had been given to Emery, Rosie had mentioned to Maribelle that if anything happened, she trusted Emery with Jack more than anyone. Darcy and Maribelle were willing to help out whenever needed, but Emery just asked for a crib to rest Jack in for our room.

Maribelle and Darcy helped us get set back up, Nestor stayed in the med ward to cover for Maribelle. I could tell that this was Maribelle’s first time getting away from the ward besides going to her apartment in a while. She and Darcy helped me build the crib while Emery sat with Bob and had him hold Jack. Jack was up and moving, he wanted to make sure that no one was crying. If he saw a tear, he would smack that tear until it went away. He smacked us a lot when we went past the twins’ room.

Sometime around 2 am, we all decided to try and sleep. Maribelle had plaited Darcy’s long, black hair into a nice braid, and Darcy had tried getting Maribelle to wear her faux leather jacket, once it was clear that despite shivering Maribelle wasn’t going to cave, Darcy elected that they go home first. We hugged them goodbye, and Emery thanked them for the crib.

“Honey, it’s no problem. And if you ever need help with the baby, we will be more than happy to. Bring him to the ward on Sunday too, he can stay with some of the other moms while we work.” Darcy added to Maribelle’s statement.

“Yeah, and if you two ever need a night to yourselves, Mari and I love watching babies.” I felt my cheeks turning bright red, Darcy only laughed. Emery let out an odd chuckle and ignored the statement.

Once they left, it was just Bob, Roy, Joey, Emery, and I.

Roy decided that he and Joey needed some sleep, so they followed Maribelle and Darcy back to the med ward. Bob gave Jack a kiss on the forehead and wished Emery and me goodnight. He left and closed the door behind him. The sound of the click was deafening in the quiet room. A quiet thud came from behind me, and I turned around to see what it was.

Emery was on the ground. She was curled up into a ball and shaking. I crouched down and tapped her on the arm three times.

“I’m going to pick you up and put you on the bed.” I whispered into her ear and she nodded. I scooped Emery up in my arms; I tried to set her gently on the bed. I pulled the covers over her and went into the closet to get some clothes. I found some for me and put them on, it was cramped since it was the door then the shelves, but I didn’t want to leave Emery alone long enough to go to the restrooms to change. I threw my dirty clothes into the hamper. The dry, clean, navy blue sweatshirt and light grey sweatpants felt soft against my skin. I picked out a green sweatshirt and the choice of black shorts and black sweatpants for Emery. Sometimes she wore shorts and other times she needed warmth from sweatpants.

I sat down on the bed next to her and tapped her arm three times.

“I’m going to take the covers back and try to have you sit up, ok?” Emery nodded. I grabbed the covers and pulled them back gently. She was still shaking, but she was less in a ball and more in a curved log. I grabbed her gently with my hands and sat her upright. Emery stared down at the bed. “Em, I got some clothes for you, do you want to put them on?” Emery nodded her head, but she made no move to take the clothes. “Do you need help, or for me to go away?” I could see Emery start to get frustrated. She moved her head like she was trying to get the words to spill out from her lips, but the seal of them was too tight for any to slip through. She looked up at me with tears welling up in her eyes. I’ve only seen Emery cry two times in my life, once when a kid was teasing her about her scars and then I beat the kid up, and once when I came out to her and she had to save me from myself. The tears started streaming down her face, and Emery fell into my chest. I wrapped my arms around her and let her shake. I cradled her head against me as she let all of her feelings pour out of her. Her hands curled into fists and banged limply against my front. I swayed sideways until she calmed down.

Emery eventually stopped crying, and she pulled away from me. She needed help getting her shirt and pants off, my embarrassment made her laugh. I stared at the ceiling the entire time. Her jeans were glued to her legs with God knows what, and I fell back when they finally came off. She laughed into a pillow as to try and not wake Jack. I just closed my eyes and tried not to think about how badly my head hurt. I probably had a concussion, hearing damage, a fucked up knee, and I needed to talk to Emery about some things that I had been failing to mention, but not tonight. Tonight was for accepting loss, not trying to fix other, selfish problems. Emery got her shorts and sweatshirt on, she beckoned me to come to bed, and I happily obliged. We had some Wet Ones in the room and used them to clean up as best we could, but Emery still smelled like cinnamon. Her hair was soft and spread all over the both of us. She wrapped her arms around me, and I held her close to my chest. I just wished that I could feel her through all of the layers I had. I wished that I could have done a lot of things that night, but once I saw that Emery fell asleep with a smile on her face, I was able to stop wishing and started to sleep too.