Between the Thorns

Chapter 7

Jean forced herself to eat. She asked for soup since it seemed like it might be the thing least likely to get caught in the thickness of her throat. The soup actually smelled good. Like ham and onion and whatever herbs that had been used to flavor it. But like everything she had eaten since her husband died, the beans just turned to sand in her mouth. Jean felt like it took her hours to chew the little bits of meat that were mixed in and when she swallowed them it felt like tiny rocks sliding down into her stomach.

Two weeks ago Jean fainted in her apartment. It frightened her daughters and cost her more points than she really had to waste for the iron pills that the doctor insisted she needed to start taking. She knew she had to be strong for her girls. And that meant eating. At least breakfast and dinner. Sometimes she skipped lunch in favor of a strong cup of coffee. But that had been a bad habit of hers even back before the turn. John used to try and make time to take her out to lunch at least once a week. Or sometimes he would order takeout and have it delivered to her at work. To make sure she was eating. Just one of the many little things she missed about him.

Negan's comment about her being empty inside is what really hurt. Jean didn't really care about the sex jokes. They were disgusting. She didn't enjoy crude comments about the size of her vagina being made but they hadn't felt like a knife stabbing straight into her heart. She felt like an empty shell of the person she used to be. And up until that moment she thought she had been doing a good job of hiding it. Jean thought people believed the brave face she had been putting on for them. For her girls. She waited until her daughters were asleep in their beds at night. She waited until she was completely alone. Then she cried herself to sleep. Every night for the last month. She kept waiting for the morning when she would wake up feeling better. But it never came. If she didn't have her girls to live for she would have slit her wrists by now. What hurt is that Negan knew that. Everyone knew it. She hadn't managed to hide her weakness from anyone.

"Gonna eat that?," Daryl asked. Jean's head snapped up. For a moment she looked at him like she had no idea who he was or how he got there. Then Jean dropped her spoon back into her bowl and pushed her whole tray across the table towards Daryl. She was torn between being grateful that he was so willing to finish her food so that it didn't go to waste and thinking that having Daryl around was going to make it that much harder for her to force herself to eat when she would rather curl up into a ball and sleep.

"Here mommy," Lily said as she handed her half full glass of milk towards the woman, "You can have the rest of my milk." Jean gave the girl a halfhearted smile. They didn't have any cows at the Sanctuary. There wasn't room for it. Unlike cheese that stayed good as it aged, milk had a tendency to sour. So fresh milk was considered a luxury. The girls only had glasses of it because Dwight had taken it from the kitchen and given it to them. A kind gesture of the type that had become less and less common from the man.

Jean didn't know what to think about Dwight. She and her husband had been close with him and Sherry back before everything went down between them and Negan. Dwight, Sherry, and Sherry's sister used to come over and visit with Jean while John was away. Dwight taught her girls how to play a hundred different card games. He was a good man. Until Negan burnt his face and started fucking his wife.

Now Jean wasn't sure how she felt about him. Dwight had taken on a whole new persona. One that didn't suit him. It was like he was walking around in someone else's burnt skin. Jean put on a fake smile to hide how empty she felt inside. She tried to fill the void by concentrating on her daughters. Dwight filled the hole inside himself by being cruel to others. Making them feel as bad as he felt. Jean didn't like it. And she was sure the man would end up deeply regretting his actions. In this life or the next.

"Thanks sweetie," Jean said, taking the glass from her daughter. The milk went down easier than the soup had. She was grateful to have something filling her belly and hoped that having something to eat might help her to sleep better. Maybe that small bit of comfort might hold off the nightmares that had been haunting her since the day Negan had knocked on the door to her apartment and told her John wasn't going to be coming home. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever again.

Daryl watched her while they ate. It was easy because she didn't look up much. Jean had her elbow up on the table, the side of her forehead resting on the base of her palm. Like she couldn't even hold her head up without help. Watching her eat was painful. She swallowed every bite like there was a hard lump in her throat. After watching her for what felt like hours, Daryl couldn't stand it anymore. He offered to take her food from her and eat it himself even though his stomach felt like it was already about to burst from taking in so much food at the same time.

His palm still hurt. And Daryl knew if he looked at it there would be four little moonshaped indentations where his fingernails cut into the meat of his hand. That was how much self control it took him not to punch Negan in his stupid laughing face for the second time. He hadn't liked the man's jokes. But what really pissed him off was how the man ignored the broken wounded look on Jean's face and kept right on laughing at her.

Daryl had never been good with words. He missed every one that he had lost, but in that moment Daryl felt the loss of Hershel Greene more keenly than the rest. Hershel always knew the right thing to say. Even when the situation was hopeless and terrible. The man had been a great comfort to Daryl after he lost his brother. Daryl wished Hershel was here now to comfort Jean and her girls. Instead she was stuck with him. A man that didn't even speak up to defend her when it was implied that she was nothing more than a hole to fill.

The table rocked a little to the left, pulling both Daryl and Jean out of whatever personal thoughts they had become lost in. A man Daryl didn't recognize had slapped his meaty palms down on the surface of the table and was staring at Jean's older daughter with an unsettling smile on his face. Daryl noticed the change in Jean's body posture immediately. She was no longer the frail broken woman that couldn't even swallow her food without gagging on it. Instead she reminded him of a mother bear. Fierce and ready to protect her cubs.

"Jus' wanted to tell you I was real sorry to hear 'bout what happened to yer pop," the man drawled. He was short but stocky. And dirtier than the rest of the people around him. There was a filthy ring of dirt around the collar of his shirt. It was the end of the world. Showers and baths were not always the first priority. Daryl understood that. But when water was readily available for bathing most people chose to take advantage of it. This man clearly did not. A thick pair of glasses were perched on the bridge of his nose that made his beady eyes appear larger than they were. He was licking his lips as he started at Jean's daughters. There was something in his eyes that led to the assumtion that he wasn't quite right in the head.

"Get away from my girls," Jean hollered at the man. She rose to her feet and pointed in the direction she expected the man to take. Which at the moment was any direction that led him away from her. When the man didn't move Jean spoke to her girls instead. "Rose. Lily. Get up, we are leaving NOW." Daryl took that as a signal. He got to his feet as well, bumping the table and spilling the bowl that contained the rest of Jean's soup onto the plastic tray she had been using.

"Your hair looks real pretty like that," the man told Jean's older daughter, ignoring the woman's loud request that he remove himself from her presence. If speaking to the girl after her mother told time to leave wasn't bad enough the man reached one fat meaty paw over and lifted one of Rose's long braids of hair up between his fingers. The girl jerked away from him, pulling her own hair hard enough that she yelped in pain.

Daryl clenched his fists. He might have to take crap from Negan. And Dwight. But he didn't have to take any from this fat pervert. He was already charging forward when he felt a hand settle flat against his chest. The hand belonged to the blonde woman from the mechanic garage. She shook her head at him before turning to deal with the man that was harassing Jean and her girls.

"Move it the fuck along Larry," she hollered. Placing herself between the man and Jean's older girl, the woman prodded the stocky man with the butt of her gun when he didn't back up fast enough. "You've been told before," she reminded the man.

"Was jus' talking to 'er," the man protested.

"She ain't old enough for you to be talking to her," the blonde woman hollered, driving the butt of her gun into the man's gut hard enough to make the air woof out of his lungs. "You've been warned about that shit before," she added. By this time a few men at the surrounding tables had stood up and were voicing their irritation with the man. Fuckin' pervert! Better stay the fuck away from her daughters and mine! This guy needs his fuckin' ass kicked!

A few of the other armed guards stepped in to back the blonde woman up. It was unclear to Daryl if they were concerned for Jean and her girls or if they just didn't want a huge fight breaking out. Either way Larry was not so gently encouraged to remove himself from the cafeteria. Daryl was unsure of how he should feel about what happened. He had convinced himself that he was surrounded by animals and murderers. But he was quickly coming to the realization that the people here were just like people anywhere. Some were assholes but most of the rest of them were alright.

"Y'all alright?," the blonde woman asked, turning back towards Jean and her daughters. Jean had gathered the girls into her arms. Her younger daughter's face was buried into her mother's side.

"We're okay," Jean assured the woman before thanking her. "Thank you Laura."

Laura motioned to another guard before pointing to the mess on the table. "Clean that up," she told the man, "I'm going to take them home." Daryl expected the man to object at being given such a menial task but he simply swung his gun onto his back and began to gather up the used dishes together. Jean and her girls were quickly whisked from the cafeteria. They headed for their apartment in a hurry. Daryl ended up walking with the blonde woman from the garage who he now knew had a name, Laura. She wasn't really pretty or ugly. Just an average looking woman with dark blonde hair and a silver ring through one side of her nose. She was a little on the muscular side for a girl but other than that nothing about her stood out.

"John should have shot that guy," she mumbled under her breath. Daryl glanced towards the blonde woman, hoping she might elaborate on her statement. After a moment she did. "Somehow people found out that Jean's older girl wasn't her husband's actual daughter," Laura explained quietly. "She had Rose before they met and they had Lily together. Not really a big deal. Until Larry tried to buy her. Said that if John wanted to get rid of the kid he would take her off his hands." The woman paused and glanced at Daryl to gauge his reaction. He looked sufficiently disgusted with the story so Laura continued on. "John beat his ass and got him sent out to the west outpost. Larry creeped people out anyway so most were happy to see him go. Guess he's holding a grudge."