Somewhere - somewhen - it hadn't happened like this.
Murphy had never believed in alternate universes. He was Catholic, after all, and such things just seemed a bit too close to blasphemy for comfort. But here he was, lying flat on his back with his life flashing before his eyes, and for some reason it wasn't his life. It was more like... like the life he'd always wanted. Like the life he'd tried to make for himself and for Connor, and for Da. A happy life.
A different life.
Somewhere, they had gone home to Ireland after the Yakavetta trial, instead of moving on to New York and taking down drug dealer after drug dealer until the police started catching on and they had to move again. Somewhere, Da hadn't been killed in a gunfight. Somewhere, Connor hadn't lost an eye. Somewhere Murphy hadn't been shot through his ribs and been hospitalized for two weeks.
Somewhere,they had married childhood sweethearts, and lived next door to one another. Somewhere, side by side, they had watched their children grow. Somewhere they had aged together into crotchety old men. Somewhere, they had died of old age on the same night because they never could bear to be apart.
Somewhere, there had been a happy ending.
And right now Murphy didn't have the energy left to disbelieve it. It was too real, too comforting, too right. It gave him hope to think that, somewhere, they weren't dying like this, gunned down by the very men who were supposed to protect the innocents.
Reaching to his right, his fingers found Connor's hand and clasped it tightly.
"Murph?" His brother's voice was raspy, ending in an odd gurgle that had to be the sound of blood in his lungs.
"Aye?"
"'m glad you're 'ere."
Murphy's smile widened at that. "'Course 'm 'ere, you fuckwit. 've always been 'ere. 'm always gonna be 'ere. We're together. For always." He felt Connor's hand twitch, and then his twin's grip went limp; turning his head ever so slightly, Murphy could see that Connor's chest had stopped its miniscule rise and fall, and the man's eyes were still and closed.
Pressing back the howl of anguish trying to rise in his throat, Murphy leaned toward his brother and whispered, "Somewhere, we lived happily ever after."
Smecker cried when he heard the news. Not outright - he had more composure than that, at least in front of his coworkers at the Bureau. But inside, his heart was breaking as he examined the evidence from the police shootout.
They had been found together, in an alley several blocks from the scene of the police shootout, both dead of several gun wounds. In the photographs, they lay side by side, Connor's left hand clutched tightly in Murphy's right. Together, Smecker thought. Always together. There never could be one without the other.
He looked at the picture of their hands, traced the curves of their tattoos with one fingertip. "I guess Truth and Justice really are dead, now," he murmured to himself... and at that, he really did begin to cry.