Better Days

Chapter 277

Author's Note: I was going to do a chapter before I did the confrontation, but I think you'd all throw paint balls at me. Jewel says the others can wait! I suffer from PTSD and suffered from undiagnosed post partum when I had my son, and the incident with the peaches in this chapter did happen to me (except mine was a can of mushrooms.) Please review.

Jewel's POV:

Jewel looked at Stacy as she adjusted Hope in her wrap and had the other hand on her hip, her knife being in a pouch concealed by her shirt. "I guess the end of the world doesn't change the fact that busy bodies stick there noses into things they know nothing about," she told her. "You want to know what happened to the last person who threatened to take my baby? To harm my children?" she questioned.

"Jewel, she didn't mean anything by it," Jessie told her.

Jewel shut her a look. "Shut up, I wasn't talking to you. I came in here to see if you all had any jars of baby food for Judith, and I heard all of you judging us for our children being armed."

"Not all of us, Jewel," Quinn told her.

Jewel nodded. "Well, it all blended in when this one said that you all should have taken the children. You don't have children do you Stacy? Or if you do, you're a piss poor mother, because any mother worth a grain of salt wouldn't threaten to take another mother's children. Say something, Stacy or cat got your tongue?"

"Aren't you all going to do anything?" Stacy asked.

"This isn't between them. You're lucky I didn't throw a knife in here and hit you square in the eyes, then walked in and got the food myself. If you knew me, you'd know that it's taking all the self control I have right now not to put you down where you stand. Because in my head those words are screaming 'threat, she's a danger to the kids.' Do you even have an inkling of what it's like out there? What kind of people are out there? God, you are so clueless thinking what's out there won't get in. You think we're bad? No, if we were bad, we would have came in shooting. I could tell you all about what the horrors are out there, but I'll just tell you about where I gave birth. Then if you want to judge me, be my guest," Jewel said as she picked up a glass jar of peaches. "There were signs, signs that promised sanctuary, signs that promised if you arrived, you survived. We all saw the signs, we were all separated, but we knew we'd all go there, if any of us survived, we'd go there. Mika and I survived a bus crash…..until that day, I didn't think she'd survive without the safety of the prison, but she…she's strong. I thought Summer, Carl, Rick, Judith, Daryl…all of them were dead. I was having labor pains, but I didn't want to tell Mika, but somehow…she knew, but she didn't say a word. We got near Terminus, and I was in full blown labor. A guy named Martin said he'd help us, that Terminus was safe, he called two women and the leader. Oh a charmer Gareth was, the kind that sent chills down your back when he spoke. So nice, so charming, but there was something off. Oh yeah they seemed real nice, I insisted Mika stay with me," she recalled as she kissed Hope's head and looked at the can of peaches.

Geraldine walked over to her. "Sweetheart, you don't have to tell us."

Phoebe nodded at Geraldine to step back and put a hand on Jewel's shoulder. "Yes she does Geraldine. It's the only way to get control of the demons, the ones that come with being out there, experiencing things, they stick with you, they haunt you. Denise said the only way to take back control, is to face them, to realize that you did what you had to do. Jewel, it's alright, you tell us what you need to tell us. Let it out, so it doesn't dig you deeper into the black whole of depression," she told the older woman as she touched Hope's head.

Jewel looked at her but didn't really register who she was and kept her focus on the jar in her hand. "I didn't know why type of people they were, I knew people were bad, but I didn't think they could be that…..I woke up to a crazy woman holding my newborn, calling her HER baby, telling my daughter that she'd be a better mother then me. They kept Mika, Hope and I in a room, were real nice. Jes got in, figured out what they were."

"From all you've been saying, they were just trying to help. Maybe one person was a little off," Stacy said.

"A little off? A LITTLE?" Jewel asked as she adjusted Hope as she fussed a little. "It's alright baby girl. The signs were a lie, a trap. We heard gun shots, and Jes said the rest of our people were there. I knew that I wouldn't make it, that Jes could get Mika and Hope out. They had rooms, rooms of belongings…..guns, clothes, teddy bears, watches…they took the belongings off there victims, divvied it up between them. One of them was going to take my son's hat, after they smashed his head in and slit his throat," Jewel told them as she closed her eyes. "You either become the butcher or the cattle, that's what Gareth said," she continued as she heard gasps. "They herded people into train cars, then they'd come and take people…." she said as she finally started to let the tears fall.

"You're not there," Quinn told her.

Jewel didn't respond as she continued. "They hadn't met a group like us. We're stronger together then alone and those idiots signed there death warrants when they put us all in the same train car. They were lining them up like a herd of cattle," Jewel said with a bitter laugh. "Little did we know….," she said as she shook her head. "Rick, Daryl, Michonne, Mar, Axel, Lexi and Carl. Of course, Gareth didn't call them by names, no, they, we, were nothing but animals to them. Claire was angry that Hope wasn't with me. She was asking where her daughter, her daughter, can you imagine?" she asked as she turned to look at Stacy. "She was going to take her, my baby, raise her as her own. She had already renamed her. Then, I saw Gareth pointing a gun at my son's head, threatening Rick that he'd shoot him if he didn't go inside the train car. I pulled away from Claire, stood in front of Carl, looked down a barrel of a gun, telling Gareth he wasn't going to shoot me, not without knowing where Hope, Jes and Mika were. Like I was ever going to tell him. I would have died first, we all would have. My other children were safe at the moment, Carl and Lexi weren't. When we got in the train car, we found the rest of us. I didn't know if Summer or Judith were alive. But we had to get out of there, we had to survive, we had to live. We were making weapons, out of anything we could, then they threw tear gas into the train car. When I woke up, Rick, Daryl, Glenn and Bob, poor Bob, were on there knees…..with four other people that I didn't know, from another train car.. They'd batch there heads in with a baseball bat…..then slice there throats. I tried to close my eyes….I didn't want to see it…but Clarisse had a gun to my head, and made me watch. She said she wanted to bleed me out, but they'd need me the first year of Hope's life. I promised her that she was going to die that day, and Dixon's don't break promises," she said. "Gareth's voice, his smug, annoying voice," she said as she held a tighter grip on the jar as she spoke. "Telling Bob that you can't go back, laughing at Rick, demanding to know what he had buried in in a bag outside the gate. Claire told me that I would be the first to be bled out if she had a choice. Right as they got to Glenn, an explosion came. Caught them off guard, caught us off guard. Gareth was still so smug, told his butchers' that he wanted them on the drying racks in two hours. The distraction, it gave us the time we needed to escape. I was able to get Claire unaware, she started to tell me that I didn't need to do it. I didn't even let her finish begging, I knew she couldn't live. She was a threat, a parasite that couldn't live. Summer had managed to sneak in, got weapons, we walked out….to a…" she closed her eyes momentarily. "I've been hunting all my life, I knew what it was….and it wasn't animals they were eating. It was human beings. It was….the worst thing I've ever seen. I couldn't imagine people being that bad. We got our people out, but we left some of them alive," she said as she squeezed the jar so hard that it broke in her hand but she didn't even notice. "They found us, they caught Bob, they cut his leg off, ate it right in front of him. Claire's father, he was waiting for me. My brother Merle….he died protecting me," she said as she turned and looked at Stacy who had the decency to look ashamed. "So, you see that I'm a little touchy about someone saying that they should take my children. We aren't the enemy, we're still good people…..but we've walked through hell and we're still standing," she told her. She looked at her hand that was still closed around the jar. "Hell's bells," she said.

Phoebe looked at Emily. "Go find Rick, or someone from her group. Get Ronnie the doctor," she told her.

"Or get Pete," Jessie said.

Phoebe looked at Jessie then back at Emily. "Bring Ronnie."

Emily looked at her. "I don't know anyone in her group," she stammered wiping the tears away from her eyes.

"Use your brain child, if you don't recognize someone, it's a pretty good guess that they are part of her family," Noreen said as she approached her. "Sweetheart, we need to look at that hand. Quinn can hold that precious angel, and I give you my word that she isn't going to move out of your sight. I know you don't have any reason to believe us, not after what you heard," she said as she shot a look at Stacy. "But you don't want to accidentally cut Hope. You don't want to get glass on her. You'd do anything to protect her, we all know that. I am a mother, I know what that is like. I left my husband in the middle of the night with four sons who were all under the age of six, with nothing but the clothes on my back because I caught him hitting my oldest boy. I'd do anything to find out if my other three sons were still alive, and if anyone was hurting them, I'd kill them. So, believe me when I say, that I will hurt anyone who threatens this precious angel. Quinn's a mother too, she'll protect her with all her might. You know you were the reason Phoebe approached you all. So please, let us help you."

Jewel looked hesitant as she slightly nodded. "Alright," she answered as Quinn approached her.

"Come here baby girl, mommy is going to be alright, yes," Quinn said as she sat down beside Jewel. "I'm sorry you had to go through that. I'm sorry that anything that was said in here made you relive that. You'll find that Geraldine and Noreen both are forces to be reckoned with when someone hurts someone they care about. You've just been adopted," she told Jewel.

"Stacy go gather some canned fruit, it's the least you can do," Geraldine told her as she watched her sister with Jewel.