[b]Jessalyn - Baton Rouge House - Abram, Leah, Samantha[/b]

Jess cocked her head curiously when Samantha mentioned finding something upstairs. She couldn't imagine anything she was specifially be happy about except something that would benefit her baby.
She cuddled Ben, who was just starting to wake up, and followed the girls into the house. When she saw the room, she gasped and went still, staring with wide eyes. Slowly she entered, almost afraid to breathe in case it was a dream. A baby's room... toys and clothes... diapers and teething rings... even a rolling walker and a crib.
Tears sprang to her eyes, she smiled and looked at Samantha. "I'm sorry, I love it I really do. It's just that last baby room I saw was... the baby had been..." she shut her eyes as if to shut out the memory. Hurrying forward, she laid a slightly fussing Ben down on a padded rocking chair and began going through the clothes. She was crying happily and was sure the others thought she had gone mental.
"It's like a miracle!" she exclaimed, holding up the clothes and wiping her eyes. "Clothes! Actual clothes! And diapers! No more scraps of cloth. I can actually put my baby in real diapers."

Ever since he was born Jessalyn had felt guilty for not giving him the things she wanted to give him. That he had to wear an old tied shirt for clothes and had to use scraps of cloth for makeshift diapers, that she had no toys for him to play with or cuddle, no supplies of any kind.
But here she had everything she could possibly need for him. Why had no one taken these things? Raiders or drifters? Why had these things that were useless to others but priceless to her left behind?

Suddenly she stopped smiling. Jess leaned back and looked at Samantha bewildered. "What kind of a person am I?" she asked, shocked at herself. "Am I really celebrating because someone's children are likely dead? How can I be happy about someone else's tragedy?"
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[b]Heather - Hank's Group - Aaliyah[/b]

Heather listened as Aaliyah spoke. She knew the younger girl was trying to help, and she knew that the girl actually believed everything she was saying.
"It's nice that you care," she said after a moment. "But the others don't, so don't speak for them. Especially our fearless leader," she added bitterly. "He has made quite clear he wants nothing to do with me."

She rubbed her face to stop herself from screaming, raging or both. "I assumed everyone knew," she said quietly. "It doesn't make any difference now. You might as well know so you can be disgusted as well. You should at least know so that you can stop wishing it upon yourself."

Heather went to the car and sat in the seat, waiting for Aaliyah to join her so that they would be out of earshot of the others. "We were attacked," she said, staring off into space as the memories came back. "A group of scavengers we thought were looking to rob us, but it was more then that. They were..." she sighed, not really wanting to say it. "They were... they were cannibals Aaliyah. Crazed hillbilly lunatics who wanted to eat us. But not before they had their 'fun' with me..." she looked down, not wanting to see the disgust in the younger girl's eyes. "They held me down and attacked me. They molested me and attempted to rape me. Hank tried to fight them, but they hurt him badly. There was nothing he could do. If Floyd hadn't appeared when he had..." she didn't even finish the thought. She cleared her suddenly dry throat and looked at the sky, still not wanting to meet Aaliyah's eyes. A few stray tears fell down her cheeks. "He has barely talked to me since, and only then to basically tell me to leave him alone. He wants nothing to do with me. And the others?" she scoffed. "They just whisper about me, like I'm some kind of wounded animal that they are trying to decide whether to shoot or not. Maybe that would be best. Put me out of my misery, you know? I could have gotten through this. I could have. With him. But now..." she shook her head. "Now I'm broken and he is moving on, ignoring the pieces."