Holding tight to his trusty wooden staff, Morgan Jones paced along the inside wall of Alexandria, Virginia as the mid-afternoon sun baked the countryside and heightened the scent of rot and decay permeating the air. These walls had offered the promise of sanctuary once, but now they felt stifling, prison-like. Today Morgan wasn't sure if he was guarding the wall or trying to figure out a way to escape it.

Morgan had lost his wife and his son in the not so distant past, two gaping wounds in his psyche that still throbbed with an intensity that might never fade away, but he had never felt as alone as he did now, trapped inside these walls. He had put his faith in a man named Rick Grimes, just as Rick Grimes had once put his faith in him, and he was starting to wonder – no, starting to realize – that faith had been misplaced.

Rick was, after all, just a man, fallible and imperfect like Morgan. Rick might assert the confidence and self-assured demeanor necessary to be a leader in this new world that was rising from the ashes of the old one, but there were times when Morgan could see cracks in Rick's armor, times when he could see a man who was just as afraid and hurt and alone as everyone else these days.

The world, undoubtedly, was a cruel, unforgiving place. It always had been. Even before the world fell, before the dead began to walk the Earth and feast on the living, the world had been a cruel, unforgiving place. Morgan wasn't so naïve that he failed to see that.

What Morgan couldn't see, however, today at least, was hope. If survival was the only thing that mattered in this world and survival could only be found at the expense of others, almost always through violence, then man was no better than an animal and life was nothing more than a Hellish slog from the cradle to the grave.

All life is precious.

Violence – death – could not be the only answer to every question. Morgan believed man was better than that. He had come too far to revert back to his basest nature, to give in to the survival instinct that insisted everyone at odds with him in any way was an enemy to be eliminated with extreme prejudice. Why couldn't Rick see that too? Why couldn't anyone in Alexandria see that? That was really what troubled Morgan the most, the way these people had become desensitized to violence and death. Were they the good guys they believed they were, or were they just as lost and depraved as the scoundrels and scumbags whose paths they frequently crossed outside in the wild?

Morgan stopped his walk and stared up at the wall. A part of him wanted to unleash his inner conflict on that wall, to pound away at it with his wooden staff. But that would only create the kind of noise that would draw walkers to the wall, which was something no one wanted. For now his inner conflict would have to remain just that: inner.

"Morgan."

Morgan jumped, startled by the voice behind him. He didn't have to turn around to know that the voice belonged to Rick.

"You okay?"

Morgan took a deep breath. "Is anyone okay inside these walls? You know, I thought I would feel something like happiness or relief when Carol left. But I don't. I just feel . . . empty."

"I know you two didn't always see eye to eye, and I think I can understand that, even though I don't know all the specifics about what went down between you."

Morgan looked at Rick and nodded. He wasn't going to rehash his history with Carol now. It wasn't necessary.

"Something's bothering you," said Rick. "What is it?"

"This place. It isn't a haven or a sanctuary or the beginning of a new society, Rick. It's just like so many other places I've encountered since the world fell."

"This is the new reality, Morgan. This world we live in, it's kill or be killed."

Morgan shook his head, defiant. "No. It doesn't have to be that way."

"I disagree. I've seen what it's like out there. This is the best way. The only way."

"This isn't the world I want to live in."

"Then you won't. Not for long."

Morgan turned away from Rick and looked back at the wall. "You were a cop once, Rick. Surely you believed in the rule of law and order back then."

"Of course I did."

Morgan spun back and faced Rick. "Then why don't you believe in it now?"

"I still believe in law and order," said Rick. "But the rules have changed."

"No. The rules are what we make of them. We can't keep killing for no good reason at all, Rick. We need to give people an alternative, make them remember how things were once and how they can be again. We're at war and we don't have to be."

"We kill because we have to. I used to have a rule against killing the living, but I learned my lesson there. The living are more dangerous than the dead now."

Morgan shook his head again. "We can bring back the old rules. We can institute the old laws, the old way of doing things. I've been working on building a prison cell."

Rick smiled. "I've seen it, but I don't think that's going to work. How big do you think you can make your prison? It'll never be big enough."

"It doesn't have to be. It just needs to deter people from stealing and killing like they're doing now."

Rick patted his pistol, which was holstered on his belt. "I prefer my method of deterrence."

Morgan looked at the staff in his hands. "I know you do, Rick, but I think there's a better way."

"And how has that worked out for you so far?""

Morgan thought about the Wolves and the devastation they had caused in Alexandria. "It's still a work in progress," he said. "Rome wasn't built in a day."

"I think you and I have two different visions of this place and how it's going to be built."

"You're right, Rick. We do."

"If it comes down to it, I won't let you endanger me or my son. I think you understand that."

Morgan sighed. "You and I have been through a lot, together and apart, Rick. I think I can be candid with you. Lately I've been wondering if coming here was the right decision. I was worried that Carol might try to kill me, and even though I thought I would feel safer when she left, I don't. I'm not even happy that she left."

"I'll tell you the same thing I would have told Carol if given the chance. If you walk outside those gates you're never going to find a place better than this. You know that."

"That's what scares me the most, Rick."

Morgan looked back at the walls. Prison or sanctuary? He didn't know the answer, and in this still-new world he wasn't sure it made a difference anymore. All life is precious, indeed. He would do his part to spread that message, even if, for the time being, it seemed to be falling on deaf ears.

Rick patted Morgan on the shoulder. "Why don't you take a break? You're starting to look like you might be getting too hot out here."

Morgan looked down and wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "You're probably right, Rick. It's hard to let go, though. You start to feel like everything's going to fall apart the moment you step back or look away."

"Don't worry. We'll look out for you."

Morgan looked back at the wall. He saw two snipers keeping watch atop the wall about a hundred yards away to his right and two more keeping watch about a hundred yards to his left. He saw where the people of Alexandria had reinforced the wall in anticipation of an upcoming assault from the Saviors. He saw a world at war with itself, and he knew that pacing out here with a stick wasn't going to change anything, no matter how much he wanted it to. It was almost more than he could handle. He could see why Carol had run away from this place.

But that was Carol, not him. Her journey was her own. No matter how conflicted he felt, his journey had brought him here, for better or for worse. This was where he made his stand, where he offered the world all he had to offer. If the world rejected that, if the world decided that he was wrong, that all life wasn't precious, then so be it. If that happened, this was a world he wanted no part of anyway.

One way or another, Morgan would make his peace with this world. Soon.