Better Days

Chapter 324

Author's Note: Let's head back to Alexandria and check on Jewel before we have her go visit Rick, shall we? I think we shall. I wanted to tell you all, I am going to be going to the hospital for up to a 90 day stay with weekends off. It won't be til October (they were trying for next week but I couldn't do that) I will let you all know. I will be taking a note book and writing then when I can put it on the computer. And I will be watching the new season on Amazon! Review please.

Jewel and Carol's POV:

Jewel laid Hope down in her basinet after feeding and burped her and went into the bathroom. She looked at herself in the mirror and saw the eyes of the dead person looking back at her. Had they all been through to much to be able to hold onto some joy. She closed her eyes and put her hands on the side of the sink.

"Rick, it aint like it was before! Now if y'all want to live, if you want to survive, you got to fight for it! I'm talking about fighting for it, right here, right now," Shane's voice replayed in her head.

"He's going all Shane crazy, like at the barn…" Summer repeated in her brain.

"You still don't get it do you? None of you do!" Rick hissed at them. "We know what needs to be done and we do it. We're the ones who live. You just sit, and plan and hesitate. You just make excuses to let dangerous men like Pete live, while he could be planning to kill his family. You pretend to know what you're doing, but you don't. You wish things weren't the way they are, but they are. Nothing is going to change, so you need to change. Well you want to live? You want this place to stay standing? Your way of doing things are done. Things don't get better because you want them too. Starting right here, right now, we have to control who lives here," he told them.

Jewel grabbed a towel to wash the blood off her face as she heard a knock on the door. "Come in Carol."

"It could have been someone else," Carol told her as she walked into the room.

"But it wasn't, it was you," Jewel told her.

"Pete got you good, you're going to have hand marks on your neck for a bit. I'd suggest wearing a scarf, but I know you, you want them to see it, remember it," Carol told her as she tilted Jewel's chin to examine it.

"I do," Jewel answered. "I'm going to take Hope over to where they are keeping Rick over night and stay over there. Can you watch Judith?"

"You don't even have to ask. Did you know it was going to play out like that?" Carol questioned.

"We both know how Rick gets when his family is threatened, you better than anyone," Jewel told her as she sighed. "Summer told me that he went Shane Crazy, like at the barn. Have we really all gone that insane?"

"Maybe Shane had it right at the farm. Hershel and his family needed to see what was out there, and these people need to understand what's out there. I loved your little demonstration, but you should have got Jes to go get a walker and bring it in like Rick and Hershel did at the farm. That might have really got there attention," Carol told her.

"I wish I could say that was planned, but no it wasn't. The Dixon bullshit meter was off the chart, and I couldn't take one more moment of Deanna telling it her way. She needed to be called out, and I called her out. She's going to make this meeting all about Rick, she doesn't even give a damn if Pete continues, well I'm sorry but I'm not going to let that happen," Jewel told her.

Carol grinned. "I was hoping you would say that," she told her as she held out a gun. "Figured you'd need this."

Jewel pulled hers out of her boot. "I got my own. I couldn't come in here empty-handed….not after Terminus. Rick and I thought it was better not to let anyone know. Then I really wanted to give it a try, without weapons. But, Summer immediately got hurt because of twiddle dee and twiddle dumb. Then everything with Pete, and Deanna disagreeing with every single thing. And let's not forget the whole step ford wives' talking about taking my kids. Those are fighting words right there, I should have put a knife in one of there eyes and that would be one less idiot we'd have to deal with. One less body we'll have to bury. Deanna walking away like that….it broke the last piece of patience I had and I went off. Merle would be proud."

Carol laughed. "He would. I can watch Hope tonight along with Judith. I've got plenty of help."

"You know how hard it is to get Hope to take a bottle in the middle of the night," Jewel told her.

"Stubborn. Not sure where she got that from," Carol told her teasingly. "I sent Mar to check on Jessie, I didn't think it was a good idea to send the kids."

"I don't know what I was thinking," Jewel told her.

"You were coming down from an anger high. You Dixon's all have good hearts, but when you get ticked off, oxygen doesn't make it to your brain. But we still love you," Carol told her with a smile.

"Can you get a diaper bag ready for Hope and some extra blankets? I want to take a shower, and get some clothes ready for Rick," Jewel questioned her friend.

"Of course," Carol told her. She turned and looked at her. "How did it feel? Hitting Pete?"

Jewel looked at her. "It wasn't Pete I fighting…it was my father. And it felt pretty damn good. Just as good as taking an ax to Ed, I guess," she answered as she looked at her. They both exchanged nods as each went to do there tasks.

David, Joey and Axels' POV:

Axel looked over to where Deanna was instructing some of her people to do something and noticed that two of them were heading to the building where Rick was being held. "I'm getting a real bad feeling about what that meeting was about," he told the other two men.

"I think we need to go find out," David told them as he straightened up. "Deanna, what's going on?" he asked as he caught up to her.

Deanna sighed. "I just want to keep this town safe. I know you all don't believe that, but I do. Rick is a threat."

"Deanna, what did you tell them to do?" Axel asked.

"I don't have to explain my actions to you," Deanna told them as she started walking away.

Joey went to block her. "Deanna, you should have figured out by now you can't give us the same bullshit you give to your people and we just accept it. We saw you send two men to where Rick is being held. Now, to me that is very worrisome."

"To all of us, it is," David answered.

"Are you planning on hauling him out and exile him without even having this meeting of yours?" Axel questioned as he crossed his arms.

"Can't any of you trust me?" Deanna questioned.

"No," all three answered.

"It takes a lot for us to trust people, and right now, you haven't earned it. None of us are scared to go and beat up those two you sent over. I mean, I feel threatened for Rick," David told her.

Joey raised his voice a little as he noticed others watching him. "Transparency Deanna, live by what you preach. What did you tell those men?"

Axel glanced at her. "You know we aren't going to let this go, so it's just easier if you tell us what exactly you told them."

Deanna sighed. "I told them to guard Rick. They are going to stay outside."

"So which one of us is guarding Pete?" Axel asked.

Deanna looked at them. "Pete doesn't need guarding."

The three of them stared at her before Quinn approached with Geraldine. "Deanna please tell me that my ears are deceiving me," Geraldine told the younger woman.

"If you heard her say that she has two of your people guarding Rick yet Pete doesn't need guarding, then you're ears are hearing just fine," Joey told her.

"Which if you ask me is ass backwards, considering Rick only hit Pete and that was because he put his hands on Jewel," Axel told them.

"He held a gun to all of us. A gun that he wasn't supposed to have," Deanna reminded them.

"You gave him no other choice," Quinn told her, as she looked at her mother. "He came in here with his family, all of them, and you just expected them all to forget the horrors out there. You just expected them to forget they almost became hamburger patties," she told her as she looked guiltily at the three. "Sorry."

"It's the truth, plus David wasn't with the group yet," Axel told her.

"Are you agreeing with them?" Deanna asked.

"She's agreeing with what's right," Geraldine told her. "I happen to agree with her. If I had just almost became dinner, and I had a baby born in there, I think I would have kept a gun too."

Joey glanced at David and Axel. "Your own daughter is disagreeing with the way you run this place, how does that make you feel?" he asked.

"Or are you trying to plan on making that our fault too?" Axel questioned.

Quinn held up her hand. "Stop," she told the three men. "Mom, I'm just trying to do the fair thing right now. Either remove Tobin and Carter from standing guard on Rick or put David and Abraham to guard Pete. You want this to be a fair society, then you don't get to pick and chose the rules you want to follow, you do what's fair. And this meeting you want to have about throwing Rick out? Then I suggest you have one on throwing Pete out, and that one needs to be first. You asked us to ignore him hitting Jessie and his kids, and we foolishly did because he was our only real doctor. But we also ignored the fact that he was a pompous ass that was always drunk. I would have rather died then let that man operate on me. We got lucky that he didn't kill any of us. Now he's not only doctor, is he mom? No he's not. We have a battle tested surgeon with more experience in her little finger then Pete has. You see Rick and his group as monsters, I see them as saviors. Now mom, are you going to tell Carter and Tobin they can stop standing guard? Or are you going to assign two other people to stand guard over Pete. I'll happily do it," Quinn challenged her.

"Your daughter is as stubborn as you are," Geraldine told her. "So you know that she isn't going to step down anytime soon."

"Fine, they don't have to guard Rick," Deanna told her as she walked away.

"You didn't have to do that. The last thing any of us want is to split a family apart," Axel told her.

"I've stood quietly aside to long," Quinn told them. "I happen to be on your side, and if that means standing up to my mother, then that's exactly what I'm going to do. We are supposed to be a group, all of us. Alexandria and your group. We need to work together or we're not going to make it. I'm willing to stand by you all, against my mother, even if you all don't trust me. I'm going to do what is best to keep my family safe. I know you can understand that," she told them as she walked away.

"Quinn's a good egg, Deanna raised her to be as stubborn as she is," Geraldine told them as she walked away.