Chapter Text
Of course, she’s skeptical when her husband brings home two complete strangers. Skeptical, but not surprised, because Alex has always been the trusting one, the optimistic one, even after everything they’ve seen, everything they’ve been through, which she supposes is part of why she loves him.
It’s not that Jimena wants to be distrusting or cynical, but she doesn’t have much of a choice. This thing that’s happened, this hell they’ve been thrust into, has just proved what she already expected about humanity for most of her adult life. Not just about other people but herself and Alex too. They’ve tried to be good, they really have, but lately, it seems like good and alive are mutually exclusive in this world. They’ve lied, they’ve stolen, they’ve left people behind, they’ve killed. They’ve done it all out of necessity and they’ve relished none of it, but it’s not much of a comfort.
Still, she lets them in, because Alex might be trusting, but he’s not stupid. She knows he wouldn’t have brought them if they didn’t have something they needed, something besides food.
There’s still good people, he’s told her, time and time again.
How do you know? Is always her response.
Because I do.
It's not a satisfactory answer, not in the least. It's the answer they give Liam whenever they really mean I don't know. But it's all he has right now. And she needs it. So she'll take it.
#
It’s the girl, Beth, that convinces her. If it had just been the man, Daryl, Jimena definitely would have given a firm no.
But Beth is scrawny, beat-up, and young, Jimena’s not sure if she’s even eighteen. Even though they look nothing alike, she makes her think of her younger cousin, Ana, whom she spent so much time with as a kid that she was really more of a sister. She has no idea what’s become of her cousin. The last time they spoke, Ana was at one of the ports in Old San Juan with her parents, attempting with thousands of others to flee the island by raft. The very last thing she said, specifically, was that she loved her and that she would call her when they were safe. Of course, that call never came.
Again, she’s nowhere near as trusting as her husband. But she wants to think that if it were Ana in this girl’s place, someone would have the kindness to take her in. So she accepts.
#
They’re from Georgia, she finds out at dinner. They had a group, set up in a prison, but it fell for reasons that remain vague. Beth grew up on a farm, and it’s the least surprising thing she learns about them. She immediately imagines her mucking stalls or shucking corn or whatever it is that farmgirls do. She is, despite everything, upbeat, kind in a way that Jimena didn’t think was possible to maintain these days. It’s this kindness that makes her act so kind herself, putting on a front of being more accepting than she really is, eager to know them for reasons besides self-preservation.
As they speak, she realizes with a sad pang that Beth doesn’t seem like the kind of girl who’d make it out here this long.
Meanwhile, Daryl hardly speaks at all. Jimena is nice, as she always is, but she doesn't trust him. He looks exactly like the kind of man they try to avoid, the kind who thrives in this world. He's surly, seems borderline-ungrateful, and she doesn't like the way he hovers over Beth. When Alex offers to show him around, Beth has to convince him to leave her.
Jimena asks if he gave her the split lip, but she says it was from a run-in with another group. She doesn't seem like she's lying. Still, she's suspicious. Her assumption is that they have a deal of some kind, he protects her in exchange for sex, something like that. But when she brings it up to Alex, he disagrees.
"It didn’t look like that," he says. "I followed them for about half an hour."
Always the optimist.
"And you believe their story?" She asks in hushed Spanish. "About the prison?"
"I don't see any reason not to," he says, pulling on his gloves, then lacing his boots.
She wants to agree with him. She envies him, the way he's always been able to stay hopeful, despite everything. Honestly, if it weren’t for him, she doesn't think she would've made it this far.
Not because she can't protect herself, not that. She may not have been in the military, but she's more than proficient with a knife, it was necessary where she grew up. No, she means that she would've given up far sooner if it weren’t for Alex. It's crossed her mind more than once if this world is worth living in, worth raising a child in. She's considered opting out, considered what would be the most painless way to do it, the most humane way to take Alex and Liam with her, which she's still ashamed to have even thought about. It's her husband's stubborn, relentless optimism that's kept her going, kept her searching for somewhere safe.
Even after everything they've been through, everything they've done, she can say with full certainty that he's one of the few good ones left in the world, maybe the only good one.
How someone can be as good as him in the face of all this horror, she has no idea. But it gives her a reason to keep going, so she doesn't question it.
#
She asks the next day, when it's just her, Beth, and Liam, sitting at the kitchen table and digesting their lunch.
“And you and Daryl then…”
“Oh, no,” Beth laughs, her eyes going wide as she realizes what she means. “No, it’s not like that.”
Jimena chews on the inside of her lip. Being a nurse, she’s gotten good at picking up on lies, a skill she hadn’t expected she’d need. Turns out, people lie a lot in emergency rooms. No, I walked into the door. No, he hasn’t had anything besides alcohol. Yes, I’m still taking my medicine.
And this stinks of a lie.
“Sorry,” she says, and smiled gently, hoping she hasn’t offended her. “I just saw you together, and I figured, I don’t know-”
“We’re just friends,” the girl insists. “Honestly, we barely even knew each other before everything happened. I mean, we knew each other, but we didn’t really talk, you know?”
Yeah, definitely a lie.
But instead of calling her out on it, she just shrugs. “It’s fine. I wasn’t judging or anything.”
Even though she's now confident that there was something between them, she doesn’t feel as worried as she had previously. While she still hasn’t been around them long, nothing of fear or intimidation rings between them. Daryl’s insistence on staying near her when they’d first arrived now seems more like protection than possession. And, if Beth is telling the truth about her split lip, it makes sense.
There's still the age difference, of course. Jimena has no idea how old Daryl is, but he has to be at least in his thirties. Beth is only eighteen. She’d be lying if she said it didn’t bother her a little bit. Eighteen is young, but it's not a kid, and honestly, she seems a lot more grown-up than eighteen. Jimena reminds herself that Alex is seven years older than her. She was twenty-one and he was twenty-eight when they met, at the wedding reception of a mutual friend. Not as significant of an age difference, not even close, but more than most between their friends and their partners. It’s never caused problems, never even felt like much of a difference, so she tries to be charitable. She tries to be like Alex and assumes the best.
#
At first, it was just some weird stories on the news. Jimena remembers whisperings of it at work, she remembers the sudden influx of inexplicable high fevers, she remembers her next-door neighbors complaining about tipos raros stalking the complex. Even the day after they arrived in Tennessee when they went to brunch with her brother and his partner, and on the TV behind their booth she saw a muted journalist reporting live from the aftermath of a horrific attack in which a homeless man had been disemboweled and eaten, she didn't make the connection.
Then again, how was she supposed to? What precedent did she have for this?
Even when they’re forced to accept that something is happening, something bad, she can’t explain it to herself, much less Liam when he begins to ask.
What’s wrong with them?
They’re sick.
With what?
We don’t know.
Are they going to get better?
We don’t know.
But why do they want to hurt us?
We don’t know that, either.
Are we going to get sick?
No.
How do you know?
We just do.