Better Days

Chapter 267

Author's Note: Sweet Kitty you mentioned a shower scene? Jewel likes the way your mind works! Jes is going to be a trouble maker about giving up her gun. Seriously this is Jes we're talking about, do you expect anything less? Of course they're will be a chapter devoted to our Jicks! Or more, these two have NOT got enough time alone. Oh, it's almost time for Jewel to put random hair cut lady in her place! There are some scenes you see and immediately start figuring out what you're going to do. That is one of them! Please review.

Group POV:

Rick glanced at Jewel as everyone put there guns in a bin, both wondering if they were doing the right thing. Jewel had kept one of her guns in her boot, and had no intention on giving that one up. This place might be safe, but they couldn't be unguarded.

"They're still your guns. You can check them out whenever you go beyond the wall. But inside here, we store them for safety," Deanna told them.

Jes stood behind everyone, her hand still on her rifle. "Open the gate," she told them.

"Jes?" Jewel asked as she turned around.

"What are you doing?" Joey asked.

"You aren't willing to even give us a try?" Deanna asked. "We can go talk after this, let me prove to you that I'm not a bad person."

"Last time I was forced to give up my gun to live in a so called community, it was ran by a man who kept heads in a fish tank. So, I'm a little hesitant on handing over my weapons. We're free to leave, right? We aren't being held against our will? So, then open up the gate," Jes told her.

Summer sighed as she stood straight from against the wall. "You know you could have told us this before we gave up our guns, now I'm going to have to dig to find mine."

"You didn't think you were going out there alone did you?" Joey asked.

"I'm not asking anyone to come with me," Jes told them.

Jewel walked up to Jes. "Jes, you don't have to ask any of us for anything. You're scared, and it's more then giving up your gun. You think if you walk out of those gates, you can forget about us, you can keep doing what you've been doing, not having to care or have anyone else care about you. That's over Jes. This is what family looks like, this is what families do, they watch out for each other. You aren't going to be able to walk out those gates alone, no one is going to let you. You are to important to us, to me," she told her. "I wouldn't be here if you hadn't saved me, and Mika and Hope and I wouldn't be here if you hadn't saved us again. You are my family, my sister."

Rick nodded. "The choice is yours, but Joey and Summer are already willing to go with you, I'm sure they aren't the only ones."

Jes looked at the group as she took her rifle off and started taking off other weapons. "I really hate all of you. Well except for Hope and Judith, cause they can't talk," she told them.

Summer hugged her. "You know you love us," she told her.

"Not when you hug me, I don't," Jes told her as she watched Carol pretend not to be able to take off her weapon.

"I should have brought a bigger bin," the woman said as she struggled to push the heavy bin.

"Jes, I think it's time for you and I to have that talk now. Aaron and Phoebe will show you the houses. I'll have to finish some of these interviews tomorrow, there's a lot of you," Deanna said as she led some of the others away.

Rick, Summer, Carl, Jewel POV:

Rick and Jewel both looked at the three houses and then at Aaron and Phoebe. "All three of them?" Rick asked.

"At your disposal. I'd call dibs on the middle one, it's got more curb appeal," Aaron told them.

"Aaron," Phoebe said as she shook her head. "Originally it was just going to be two, but Aaron thought that maybe when you all got comfortable with us, that Rick and Jewel, you two would like a house for just your kids and you. These are three closest together, and we knew you'd want that," she told them.

" Listen, I know you're still feeling us out, but I'm glad you came. Anyway, Deanna's asked everyone to give you your space so they aren't all coming at you at once. Take your time. Explore. You need anything, you call me. I don't- we don't have phones. I- I meant... I'm four houses down," Aaron told them.

"And I'm a few houses down from him, in a converted house turned apartment building," Phoebe told them.

"Thank you," Carl and Summer both said,

Jewel nodded as she rubbed Hope's back. "Thanks," she told them as Phoebe and Aaron walked away.

Summer looked at the three houses and took a breath. "We should, go in right?"

Rick nodded. "Stay close," Rick told them as they walked in, all falling in normal positions. Rick and Jewel went one way, while Summer and Carl went the other.

Jewel glanced around at the normal surroundings and shook her head. She nodded toward a bassinet and a play pen. "They thought of everything," she told him.

"They are either good natured or this is a well orchestrated plan," Rick told her.

Jewel squeezed his arm as they walked into the kitchen and put her hand on a dazed Summer's back. "Lexi has Judith right?'

Summer nodded. "I plan on going over there, get the 'audition' out of the way," she told her. She turned her attention to Carl turning on the water in the kitchen sink. "Right after I take a shower. I can take a shower right? House this big has to have two or three bathrooms," she pointed out.

"We have two more houses if it doesn't," Carl pointed out.

"No one goes over to those two houses until one of us can go with you. Or Daryl, or anyone. We don't know if this is a trap," Rick told him.

"This place has electricity," Summer said. "I'm definitely Alice, and I've fallen down the rabbit hole," she said. "Before I wake up, I'm going to take a shower," she told them.

"I'm after you!" Carl yelled after her.

"I'm going to agree with Summer on this, before I wake up, I'm taking a shower," Jewel told Rick. "Let's go see if there's a bassinet upstairs for you Miss Hope," she told the baby. "Rick?" she asked as she turned to the stairs.

Rick nodded as he followed her upstairs.

Jes POV:

Jes leaned against the bookshelf and crossed her arms. "Go ahead and turn on the camera, that's why it's there right? To get this all on film, so you can rewatch it over and over, right?"

Deanna looked at her and sat down. "I watch people, I pride myself on being able to get a read on people. I think you do too. I think you are used to caring about everyone else but yourself. You look for faults all around, keep an eye out for danger. That's why you came over that gate, to show us we were wrong. You were already protecting us, and you didn't even know it."

"I was protecting my family. I didn't care about any of you in here. If you want to live behind these walls wearing rose colored glasses, then be it. Maybe you really thought you were safe from the boogyman, that he couldn't get in. I don't envy you for not being out there, I actually pity you," Jes told Deanna.

"Why is that?" Deanna asks.

Jes gave a smirk. "Out there, you're either strong or your ruthless. If you're weak, you die or you have someone looking out for you. But if you really want to survive, really have the desire, you change, you adapt. I throw a dummy over your wall, prove to you all easy it is to get over those walls, and you still ask for our guns. Your first call should have been asking me what type of defenses you need to put up, what you need to do to learn to defend yourself. You're brain should have immediately went to protecting what you have here, and grateful that we're here."

"We are grateful that you're here. But we don't know you any more that you know us. But, I want to know all of you, I want to learn what you have to teach us. But it takes a little bit of trust. I haven't asked Jewel and Rick this, but I feel like you won't brush me off. What happened to you all out there?" Deanna asked.

Jes looked at her. "Things that you couldn't imagine. Things that you wouldn't believe if I told you."

"Jewel said that you saved her, is that how you met the group?" Deanna asked.

Jes sat down and looked her straight in the eyes. "You want to push this? Fine, but you aren't going to like what you hear, you aren't going to believe people can be so evil. I was in a town with walls, called Woodbury. I was with Joey and Jewel's other brother Merle.. He was there before I came. Michonne came later. The man who ran it, called himself the Governor. He was a sweet talking, charismatic talker. The type of man that could make you drink the Kool Aid and make you believe that it was all your idea. He told you that you could leave, just walk out the gates, you're able to take your guns whenever. But if you did, he'd send guards after you, to kill you and bring the head back to you. Jewel, Glenn and Maggie got captured, and since it's all about transparency, it was Merle who caught them. He was a different man then he was when he died. They wouldn't give up where the rest of the group were, Merle beat Glenn almost to death. The Governor beat Jewel almost to death, ordered me and Joey and David's dad to take her to the pits and bring back her head. I made the decision that her life was worth saving, that if I was going to get back to her people, to get Glenn and Maggie back to there families. So, I went out far enough, I shot Mason and took Jewel back to where she belonged. Michonne had got to the prison, she had been shot, but she told the group what she had seen. We went back to Woodbury, we got Maggie and Glenn out. But Daryl was captured, and put in the rings to fight against Merle, his own brother and the walkers," Jes stopped and looked at her face. "Oh, did I forget to mention that for entertainment, the Governor had gladiator type fights with Walkers? Let me tell you, that was fun," she said. "Michonne had cut out one of his eye. We got them out, we attacked Woodbury and the Governor was bent on taking down and killing everyone of us. Merle came back, and that wasn't a happy reunion, but things worked out, later. Joey ran away from the first battle, only thing that saved his life. The so called soldiers that the Governor recruited, they got scared, they retreated. You don't retreat, not from the Governor. Well, he shot them all down, in the middle of the road. There was one survivor, who had hid in the truck. We took in the people from Woodbury, only survivor is Mika. Michonne and I went out and looked for him for months, eight months. I know was eight months because Hope was a little celebration gift for us defeating the Governor. We didn't find him. Then one day after we were still reeling from a flue that killed a lot of us, the one eyed monster knocked on our front door with a tank. Said he'd let us all live, but he wanted his new group of followers to have the prison. They had Michonne, Joey and a good man named Hershel, Maggie and Beth's father, captured. Rick he didn't want to give up the prison, Jewel was almost ready to give birth, people were sick, and we knew that he was lying. His tongue could come notarized and I wouldn't have believed it. He cut Hershel's head off with a sword….and then ordered his people to take the prison. We all scattered, we all were separated, but the one thing we all had in common was find each other. There were signs leading to sanctuary, all those who arrive survive. They were butcher's, cannibals' and Jewel and Mika was in there with a newborn. Merle and I knew that the rest of us would be coming, we had to wait. But I couldn't leave Mika and Jewel and the baby in there alone. So I went in. Then Beth and eventually Carol was being held at a hospital in Grady ran by crazy cops who would literally kill the strong and make the weak work off debts but those debts were never paid. That's where we found Noah. So, those are the kind of people that are out there, and much worse. A lot worse. Living behind these walls, the security of them, they've made you weak. They've made you feel safe," Jes told her.

"I'm sorry about your losses, I'm sorry about what you had to go through," Deanna told her. "You loved Merle, didn't you?"

Jes looked at her. "Merle and I didn't do love, we both felt like it wasn't for people like us. That we weren't deserving of it. He was a friend, we understood each other, and occasionally we knocked boots," she said. "Hey it's all about transparency right?" she asked with a smirk. "So you ready to kick me out of here? I don't fit in with your perfect idea for this place?"

"You'd like that to much, Jes. You'd love for me to give you a reason to just leave. Jewel was right, you're scared of the feelings' your feeling toward them. So no Jes, you're stuck with me, stuck with all of us," Deanna told her.

Jes looked at her. "Great," she said as she got up. "Glad we had this enlightening conversation," she said as she walked out.

Author's Note: I think Rick and Jewel needs a chapter alone hence the reason no shower scene yet! Review please.