Like father, Like daughter

Soggy cigarettes

"My desire for revenge, the bitterness, repression of everything,
- Leila Miccolis,
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Hemera sat on one of the pews holding Judy while everyone ate. She wasn't hungry, so she bounced the cheery baby on her knee.

"I grabbed you some canned pineapples" she was starting to get used to his soft voice.

"Oh I'm not very hungry, thank you though." She quickly brushed off the gesture.

"Eat the damn pineapples." He almost demanded. Something in her made her wanna listen. "Well since you asked so nicely." She muttered, rolling her eyes, putting Judy in her makeshift crib.

He smiled at his small victory as she ate a piece out of the can. "Happy?" She mocked.
"Ecstatic" his smile becoming contagious causing one to break across her own face.
"You have a beautiful smile." Carl blurted,
She looked up at him surprised, and by the look on his face, he surprised himself.
"Sorry that was weir-"
"Thank you" she cut his rant short, with a grin. Carls features calmed in relief happy she wasn't weirded out by his comment.
"Id like to make a toast" her fathers thick accent cutting through the light air.

Here we go again, she thought to herself.

"To surviving, everyone in this room is a survivor." Oh, I stand corrected.
"But is surviving all you want to do? Wake up and survive?" Never mind.
She tuned out the conversation, for the sake of her sanity.
As the background noise faded, her mind strayed to a slightly less cheery topic.

She wondered if her mother was still alive, her dad never talked about her, but from the stories her grandmother had told her, she was wild. Her grandmother had said she had a fire to her, something in the way she carried herself. Something she had said also resided inside Hemera.
Hemera never felt like it did, growing up she had been quite the quiet child.

I know, surprising right?

But as she got older she still didn't see where her grandmother was coming from.
Yeah, she was fiery, but how could she relate herself to a woman she never really knew?

Sudden cheering broke her out of her trance as she flinched at the sudden outburst from the rest of the group.
She's really gotta start paying more attention, cause it seems she's missed something important once more.

After dinner, she had snuck out of the building and sat against the exterior wall of the church with a cigarette between her lips.
"You know that'll kill you right?"
She flinched at the unexpected guest.

"Well, so will this world, so what the hell." She shrugged while speaking to the man.
Daryl's dirty hands reached for the somewhat wet box of cigarettes, taking one out of the container.
He rolled the soggy stick of tobacco between his fingers, pondering his options.
He could either tell her father, or he could try and teach her a valuable lesson.
"You're right, what the hell." He agreed lighting the stick up with her hot pink lighter.
He chose the latter.

"What're ya doing out 'ere?" The man spoke as he blew the smoke out of his mouth.

She softly shrugged, not knowing how to talk to the older, and quite intimidating man.

"You know, my mom burnt our house down with a cigarette once." Daryl randomly spoke.

"No I—uh—didn't know that, but please elaborate?"
She cocked an eyebrow, stubbing the cigarette out with her boot, turning her full attention back to Daryl.

"When I was younger, younger than you, the neighborhood kids all had bikes and my family was too poor for one, so I always had to run to catch up with em" he stopped for a second to take another drag of the cigarette in between his lips.

"Well, one day, there was a fire truck in our neighborhood, all the neighborhood boys had biked after it to go see what all the commotion was bout. By the time I had actually made it to the fire truck, I realized it was parked outside of my house. My mom was a smoker and sometimes smoked in bed, well on this particular day, I guess she just forgot to put it out." He stopped talking, but Hemera got the gist of what he was saying.

She later on realized, while she was laying in the dark room full of pews, he had lost his mother in that fire, and he was trying to relate to her. And she really did appreciate it, because no one had ever tried to connect with her like that.

"Did you tell me that to get me to stop smoking? cause it may or may not have worked." She questioned softly as she stood and handed the box to the man.

Daryl cracked a little smile, so small she barely noticed it.

"Well aren't you a smart one?" He joked

She had made her way to the door, stopping when Daryl spoke up.

"By the way, try and be nice to Carl. He's had a bit of a hard life, and I can tell he's taken a liking to you." At that, she smiled and softly nodded, finishing her trek inside.

She sat down on a pew next to Carl contently."You okay?" He asked as she had been gone for about half an hour.

And for the first time in a while, she was.
"Never better." She softly smiled, getting the same smile in return from the brunette boy.

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I really like this chapter, so i hope you enjoyed!!