A Glimmer of Hope

What Comes Next

Athena POV:

After our wedding, we had a big dinner with what Merle and Andrea had brought from Woodbury. It really was a lot nicer than any sort of celebration I could have ever imagined in the apocalypse. Our family had made it special for us, and it was such an amazing day. Glenn took a lot of pictures with his camera, using up the rest of his film. I told him not to do such a thing, to save it, but he said that it was worth it and he would definitely find more. I believed he would too, when he was set on something, he made it happen. Carol really showed off her resourceful cooking skills, she prepared the food, Andrea and Beth as her helping hands. Everything was so delicious, they had really outdone themselves. It was the closest thing I'd ever had to a feast and thankfully, I wasn't feeling sick today. That was the biggest blessing, I made it about 24 hours without getting sick, just feeling nauseous here and there.

That evening after dinner, we left with Andrea and Merle to have a few nights away together at the Woodbury apartment again as our Honeymoon. We spent the night ravaging one another into sexual ecstasy, sleeping later than normal the following day. That next morning, we had a big breakfast before we went to visit the doctor that Daryl had told me about. He had been a Pediatrician before the fall, from what Merle had been telling me at dinner last night, so he wasn't too far off from an OB/GYN. At least that's what I had told myself so I wasn't so nervous. I was thankful to have any sort of doctor around at all, truthfully. 

Daryl and I walked into the Doctor's office, just a few buildings down from the Welcome Center, and walked into the waiting area. It looked exactly like a doctor's office from before; they didn't have to use an old house or store, this office had remained intact. My mouth had fallen open at the thought of it. We walked past the chairs in the waiting room and approached the window; the sliding glass was open. There was a teenage girl sitting at the desk, trying to organize file folders. She looked up as Daryl casually cleared his throat. I lightly elbowed him in the ribs at his rudeness. "Wha'?" he asked with a mischievous smile. The young lady looked up with a nervous but warm smile.

"How can I help you?" She asked quietly, looking from Daryl to myself. I spoke up first, "I was hoping to see the doctor here? I just found out I'm pregnant." I said shyly. It really felt strange to say it out loud to a stranger. She nodded excitedly. "I love babies, you never get to see them anymore," she said absentmindedly while finding a form for me to fill out. She put them on a clipboard and handed it over to me. "Congratulations, take a seat and I'll let the doctor know you're here," she said with finality, walking away from her station. We walked over to sit down while we waited to be called to see the doctor. When I sat down, I looked over the form quickly but before I could finish, Daryl reached over, taking the clipboard out of my hands.

"Daryl! What the hell?" I asked in an annoyed whisper. He had his brow furrowed in concentration reading the questions on the form. "Why do they need to know all this shit?" he asked. I laughed at him softly. "What shit? I didn't really get to see it all before you took it away from me!" I said haughtily. His eyes grew wide and he stopped reading the form, handing it back to me. "Sorry, 'm just nervous," he said timidly. "You think I'm not?" I retorted. He pursed his lips together, putting his arm around my shoulders and pulling me toward him. "C'mere," he said as he did so. "Whatcha nervous about?" he asked me cautiously. 

I thought his question over for a moment as I looked down at the forms in front of me. I wanted to get my answer into the right words without sounding irrational, but there really was no rational way to say how I was feeling. I swallowed hard, and started filling out the forms. There really wasn't much to them. Most of it was about my family history. 

I kept filling them out quickly, when Daryl abruptly pulled the pen away from my hand. "Please, darlin', I wanna help ya but I can't if you won't talk ta me and tell me what's wrong," he said pleadingly. I looked at him with wide eyes and tilted my head up as if to say, 'Are you sure you want to hear this?' He knew what I was asking by the gestured and nodded to me, so I started to share with him what was wrong at rapid fire. "Well, I'm nervous we're going to go in there and he's going to tell us there's no heartbeat or we got a false positive and there isn't really a baby. Maybe the baby never got fertilized in my uterus and it's an ectopic pregnancy, OR something is wrong with me or the baby," I started to feel my heart race as I was saying it all out loud. I could feel tears stinging my eyes that I didn't want Daryl to see, so I stared back down at the form and finished filling it out quickly. I suddenly laughed out loud, causing the tears in my eyes to spill down my cheeks. I looked up at Daryl, who looked completely alarmed at my sudden change in mood, "Y'know what I was just thinkin'?" I asked him, a huge smile across my face from laughing. His eyes were still wide as he stared at me, shaking his head, "I don' think I could possibly know what yer thinking right now," he said carefully.