Despite the Walker's personal tragedy, the discrimination did not stop. Kieren may have woken up, but he was ahead of the pack in his confidence – the sight of him made hands slide over children's eyes, made otherwise calm individuals cross the street, made OPEN signs flip CLOSED early.
He had never experienced anything like this in his prior life. It was raw and ugly and surprising, but what took the edge off was that most days, Jem insisted on accompanying him to and from errands – just in case. She was no longer packing, but she'd slap her HVF armband on over her jacket and tell people off on a whim for looking at Kieren sidelong. He was still her brother. He was her Kieren and that would never change, pooled arteries or pumping blood.
She was curious about the condition in a morbid way, and had a way of bursting forth with questions that intimidated her much shyer brother. He occasionally thought that she and Amy might get along, if they hadn't started off on such a bad foot. Two powerful personalities like Jem and Amy had the power to do anything, if fused right. He made a note to reintroduce the two when Amy came back, if she ever did.
She piped up with thoughts whenever she wanted to, just like Amy, and the similarity always brightened his day.
There were things you had to expect from Jemima, like the imminent stomping upon unbelievably painful details. She made sure to pepper him with strange questions while he worked at perfecting his new eating system.
They had designed it to save face in public and restore Kieren's habits back to normal as much as possible. Kieren would always order a small meal, as small as he could, and then tackle the meal very, very slowly. He would put small chunks in his mouth and chew, then politely bend down to spit it into a napkin. Halfway through the meal he would declare (for anyone in the vicinity to hear) that he was absolutely stuffed and couldn't do the rest and Jem would take it from there.
It had been shockingly useful. Once suspecting diners near them saw him putting food in his mouth they'd stop staring and go back to eating, apparently completely convinced that he was "safe".
Jem would do anything to lighten his mood. They went out to eat once a week.
Just like he and Rick used to, before he was shipped out.
After a month or so of this once-a-week routine, Jem started to pull away and Kieren filled up his new spare time with drawing. He missed their dates, regardless, but she fell oddly silent when he tried to bring it up.