I'm baaaack!
S6E07:
"Wow, that was quick." 10K said when he made it back to Kaya's room where he'd left Bailey, "Maybe you were right and I shouldn't have given you that extra piece of bread."
She turned to him with an unamused expression on her face as she let go of the bottom of her shirt and a pillow fell out.
"You're really going to still love me when I look like that?" she asked him as she sat back down on the edge of the bed. He chuckled and shook his head as he shut the door and approached her. He sat down beside her and she leaned into him.
"Why would I not love you?" he asked and she only shrugged nuzzling further into his shoulder like she was embarrassed now.
"I'm starting to get ridiculous." She muttered into his jacket, "I was hoping the crazy hormones wouldn't kick in for a few more months."
He chuckled holding her tighter, "Bailey, you're making a miracle, you're actually making a new life and you're doing it without even trying."
She shifted and looked up at him, "I never thought about it like that."
He sighed, "I know I've been annoying you –"
"It's okay. You mean well."
He turned and kissed the top of her head, "I'm not trying to make you feel useless, it's just. . . I know you're not fragile or weak, but the baby is. And the reason I don't want you to have to load trucks or fight zombies or stock shelves is because I think your body is using so much energy already making our baby."
They sat quietly for a long moment before Bailey spoke up, "I know, it's just, this is an adjustment for me, and. . . just sitting back and letting you take care of me is going to be an adjustment too."
He rubbed up and down her arm soothingly, "So Kaya is getting the truck and they're loading up the medicine. She wants to stay behind and catch up with some old friends and make arraignments for when her, Nana, CZ and JZ can maybe move back here. Meanwhile we're going to walk Addy to Heartland, it's not far and if you think it'd be too much you can stay here with Kaya and catch up with us later." He explained.
She nodded against him, "I think I might take another nap." She said before yawning, "But wake me so I can come with you. I want to make sure Addy gets home okay."
He nodded, "Okay. I'm going to go take a walk around, I've never seen Pacifica before. Unless you need me here?"
She yawned again and shook her head laying back on a pillow and curling up. He got up and pulled a blanket over her before he closed the door behind him and left the dorm building. He'd never been on a college campus before, even Pre-Z he hadn't been sure whether or not he would have gone to one, or if his Pa would have been able to afford it. Then again there was a lot of financial aid back then and Pa would have done anything he had to if college had been something Tommy had really wanted to do.
When he got to the library he could see the black marks on the bricks from the bombing but inside he could see people walking around. He headed in to see if they might need help since Henry had said repair was still a work in progress. When he walked in it smelled like a library, the scent of paper and ink of the school's probably hundred year old collection that Pacifica had kept adding to. It looked better than he had expected it to, some halls were still dark and had tape in big X's marking it unsafe to go in but the open rooms had been restored and had their own small bookshelves that had some books and some folders of loose pages that had been recovered. The tables all had small stacks divided up by category as he walked by and his mind wandered to Bailey. She had wanted to be a writer Pre-Z, she would have been sitting in a library like this one going through dozens of books a semester, he smiled thinking even back then she probably had kept that same notebook close to her at all times.
He looked closer at the titles of the stacks on one of the tables, one was nothing but history on Rome, another pile was classics like Steinbeck and Shakespeare. One sat off by itself, the edges of the pages were black from the bombing but it looked like it had held together well. He grabbed it and sat down propping up his leg to rest the book against his thigh while his one hand flipped through the pages. The people working on sorting the collection didn't seem to mind him being there and one of them caught a glimpse of the cover as they shelved books near him.
"Oh congratulations man." He said with a smile as Tommy turned to him knowing he'd been caught reading one of those, 'What to Expect' books.
"Thanks." He replied warily, not used to that reaction yet.
"First one?" the Talker asked judging from the book.
"Yeah."
"Just a tip, don't let your wife see the pictures in there until she's keeping down food." he advised and 10K gave a short chuckle.
"Thanks." He said as the guy left to get more books to put away and 10K looked back at chapter one while that word bounced around in his head: wife.
«»
A little later 10K returned to Bailey's room to find the bed empty but he could hear yacking. He found Bailey in the connected bathroom on the floor with her hand resting on her forehead. He knelt beside her and she jumped a bit having been in too much discomfort to notice him come in. He brushed all her hair over one shoulder then grabbed all of it in his hand before twisting his wrist a few times and wrapping it all around his fingers in a bun holding it out of her face. When he looked at her she had an expression of shock.
"You just did that with one hand. I can't even pull my own hair up with one hand."
"I do everything with one hand." He pointed out making her chuckle but it soon died as her face changed to dread just before she leaned over the bowl again and heaved. He used his stump and forearm to rub her back soothingly until it stopped. It didn't last long, her stomach was mostly empty now and had nothing more to give.
"I wish there was more I could do." He said feeling useless. And the guilt of not being able to do more for her hit him hard, "I wish I could suffer for you somehow."
"I know." she said leaning into him as she caught her breath, "You're sweet."
He waited a moment, rubbing her back before he asked, "Think you're ready to go back to bed?"
She sighed, "I don't think I'll make it. I just. . . have a feeling it's not over yet. I'll probably just sleep here on the floor."
"Can I get you anything? Water, or. . . "
"Just a pillow and a blanket would be good."
He made sure she was steady enough to stay upright on her own before he left her there. When he came back he had two pillows in his hand and several blankets thrown over the crook of his right elbow.
"What's all that?" she asked knowing it was too much for just her.
"Well I'm not going to let the mother of my child sleep on the bathroom floor by herself." he said setting the pillows down as he got on his knees and started laying out the blankets.
"Tommy you don't have to –" she began, still resting her head in her hand as her elbow sat on the toilet seat.
"I want to." He said, "We're in this together."
She couldn't help but smile as he finished putting their makeshift bed together. When he was done she laid with her back to his chest while he rubbed her stomach as she dozed off to sleep.
«»
They had only stayed at Pacifica for a couple more hours collecting their supplies before they began their walk to Heartland. All in all the trip there hadn't been too bad. They'd ran into a few more snow zombies but no group so large they couldn't handle it.
Heartland looked so different in the winter compared to the last time they'd seen it. The fields of wheat were now gone and replaced with rolling white hills of perfect snow. It was hard for Bailey not to think back to her childhood when her family would go sledding on their days off from school. She wondered if life would ever be safe enough for that again. If in a few years she and Tommy could take their little one out to play in the snow and sled without worrying about hordes of zombies. They were lucky that up north they didn't get the swarms like the south did and she never wanted to hear the phrase 'Zunami' ever again.
It had started to flurry while they'd been walking and just as they got to the hill that looked down on the town the storm really picked up and it soon became difficult to see anything in front of them, the blizzard was so intense. 10K stayed close to Bailey as they walked, he'd shouldered his rifle long ago so he could stuff his hand into his pocket not wanting to get frostbite and lose a few more fingers or the only hand he had left. His antler he'd woven in the bend of Bailey's elbow so he wouldn't lose her in the storm.
"We have to be close by now!" Murphy shouted over the frigid wind and even with his bright red skin he was nearly impossible to see. They continued to trudge along hoping they came across something that told them they were going the right way, though it was possible they'd stumbled off the road and could have gotten turned around at this point. Each step made 10K feel colder and he could feel Bailey shivering next to him. The snow built up along their feet making it harder to walk and eventually Bailey stumbled and dropped to her knee.
"Come on Bailey, it can't be much farther." He said crouching down to her and helping her stand in the snow.
"10K!" he heard someone shout and he turned and saw someone jogging through the snow to get to them. When they got closer he could see it was Finn, being a Talker the cold didn't seem to be affecting him as much as it did them, though he still wore a thicker plaid coat made of wool, and he did seem very uncomfortable in the severe weather.
"10K!" he called again sounding out of breath, "Kaya, contacted us from Pacifica to keep an eye out for you guys. When the storm blew in we weren't sure if we'd find you." He turned and pointed, "We're all in the barn, you can use it for shelter."
"Oh thank God." He sighed before shouting ahead, "Addy! Murphy!"
"This way!" Finn waved them over and they all headed for the barn.
«»
The warmth that hit them the second they stepped through the door brought a wave of relief over all of them. The rest of Finn's Talker farmhands were there along with a few new human workers who had volunteered or chosen to move to Heartland after hearing what happened during Estes' schemes. They all knew how vital it was to get the bizkit flour processed and sent out so a fair amount of people had chosen to pitch in. Luckily the barn they were in was large enough to comfortably house all of them as their group made their way to an empty stall and sat down in the hay. There was a blanket over the side wall of the stall and 10K grabbed it before Murphy could as he threw it over Bailey who still looked frozen. The end of her nose and her cheeks were red from frostnip and she looked at him gratefully when he gave her the blanket. She scooted closer to him and snuggled into his side, throwing some of the blanket over him too.
"When Kaya contacted us saying you guys were out there we got worried we'd never find you." Finn explained as he and Addy came over and he wrapped an arm around Addy's waist as she brushed the last stubborn flurries from his brown hair.
"Oh, you would have seen us eventually." Murphy said grouchy, "When we stumbled out of the storm as ice zombies."
Finn gave a sigh, "Yeah, we've been seeing more of those too. Maybe starved Talkers. Maybe travelers who weren't prepared for these conditions. Either way. . . " he trailed off with a sad shake of his head.
"Well we really owe you one." 10K said from his place beside Bailey as he rubbed up and down her side trying to warm her up quicker with the friction.
"Well, speaking of owing –" Addy began but Finn cut her off.
"No, Addy, it's okay."
"You were just telling me how you wished you had a bit more help." She said in a hushed voice but not quiet enough that they didn't hear her.
"Everything okay?" Bailey asked.
"It's nothing." Finn said.
"Finn." Addy said and he turned to her, the two shared a long look before he let out a deep breath and turned back to them.
"The snow came on so fast that we didn't have enough time to get all the farm equipment in the other barn." He turned to Addy, "All I was saying was if I had a few more people we would have gotten it done in time, it's no big deal really." He turned back to them, "I didn't mean –"
"It's okay, we can help out once the storm clears." Bailey said and 10K nodded though Murphy just rolled his eyes.
Finn looked grateful and Addy gave him a look like she was silently saying 'told you so'. "Thanks, I could use the extra hands-" he glanced at 10K, "Sorry, wrong phrasing."
10K just gave a shrug a lot of his sensitivity to his missing hand having gone away a while ago. Bailey snuggled into him again as they curled up in the hay and the blanket while Finn and Addy went to make sure everyone else in the barn was all set. One of the women made her way over to Finn and handed him something wrapped in a handkerchief, he smiled and accepted it and joined them again and handed it to Bailey.
"Alma, wanted me to give this to you. It's just some crackers and cheese we make from the goat milk from Old Frontera." He explained, "Kaya mentioned you were expecting." He smiled.
"Thank you." She replied touched by the gift.
"Why does she get cheese?" Murphy complained.
"Well are you expecting a child?" Finn asked and Addy snickered behind him.
Murphy held his head up high like he was superior to them and said, "I happen to be The Murphy."
"That still doesn't put your needs above those of a pregnant woman in my book." Finn replied and Murphy looked aggravated and left making his way into the hayloft muttering to himself; obviously looking for somewhere private to complain where no one would tell him he was wrong or being selfish.
"I've been thinking. . ." Bailey said when she and Tommy were alone and warm under the blanket. "We should come up with something to call the baby other than 'it', at least until we know if it's a boy or a girl."
"Is there a way to tell that without an ultrasound?" he asked and she shrugged.
"Probably not, which means we really should come up with some kind of nickname in the meantime."
"Okay. . . how about. . . baby sniper?" he asked trying to come up with something on the spot and not too stupid.
"Ehh." Bailey said scrunching up her nose.
"Okay, or, little ass kicker?"
She bit her lip, "Maybe. . . "
He thought for a minute, he thought about 5K, he'd picked his nickname after his own but at the same time 10K didn't want anything too similar or it would always remind him of the kid and he'd just get sad. "How about Little K?"
"Little K?"
"Yeah like, I'm 10K and there already was a 5K so the number thing has kinda been done already. And it works because the baby's little anyway so –
"Little K." Bailey said again and he watched her expression as she smiled, "I like it."
He smiled back at her and rested his hand on her stomach under the blanket, he wasn't sure if it was his imagination making it up because he was so excited but he swore he felt the smallest bump starting to form just under her skin.
"Okay baby, you have your first official nickname." He said and Bailey gave a chuckle before kissing his check and snuggling into his shoulder again.
«»
The snow hadn't stopped until the next morning. There was an extra chill in the air but the farm did look beautiful with the fresh snow topping the hills. 10K went to help the others move the larger equipment, tractors, attached mowers and trailers and things like that while Bailey helped get smaller things like shovels, rakes and hoes, things that only the wooden handles were showing above the snow. She worked with the woman, Alma, who had given Finn the cheese for her and the pair of them got through their work quickly.
While she was carrying a few tools into the barn she realized there was one person who she hadn't seen helping. She rolled her eyes and headed up to the hayloft finding Murphy lounging around. He'd made a bed out of some hay bales and was chewing on a piece between his lips. Bailey marched over and pulled the straw from his mouth making him open his eyes and sit up.
"Hey!" he complained.
"Get up." She snapped.
"You are not the boss of me."
"Everyone else is helping get the farm equipment back inside so the snow and ice doesn't damage it for next season when they need to plant and harvest more flour."
"Not my problem." He shrugged and went to lie down again but Bailey brought her foot up and kicked over the hay sending Murphy rolling across the floor of the loft.
"If they can't make flour, then Ma can't bake bizkits back in Limbo. Without bizkits Limbo has nothing."
"Limbo has booze, music and hot women and that's enough for me."
Bailey crossed her arms and something in her expression said she was about to win the argument. "Doc told me what happened when that one Talker won all of your bizkit supply. When Limbo runs out of bizkits all you get are starving Talkers who are too hungry to gamble and you're right back at nothing."
Murphy looked up at her with a glare before standing and fixing his jacket. "You're a pain in my ass Hawthorne."
She smirked in reply and they made it out the barn and into the snow. As they were trudging back to the others a scream broke through the peaceful morning.