Okay hope you all like this talky bit I've written. So nervous to get these characters right. Hope you like it and drop me review if you do, even if you don't!

Chapter ten

Resilience

Murphy checked the rearview mirror to see if Rick was asleep. He seemed to be, his eyes were closed, his breathing seemed steady even if his brows had a harsh furrow to them. That eased his mind just a bit, glad that the man would be able to rest off a built of his exhaustion. Next thing he had to work on was getting him nourished again. That wasn't going to be easy seeing as more than half the supply he had anticipated had been stolen but he would figure something out. They needed Rick strong, healthy if they were going to take down this Governor. And taking down a man like that was the only thing on his mind,

"Wanna know what I was thinking about Conn?" Murphy asked, tossing a glance over to his brother who was slouched down in the passenger seat. He looked somewhat miserable but Murphy knew it had more to do with what had happened at the cabin than with anything else.

"Yeah?" Connor gave his attention over to Murphy, his elbow resting on his lifted knee. He was chewing on his fingernails, a habit he suddenly had now that they were out of cigarettes.

"Made me think of not back at the cabin. Remember that one time back home there was that one guy who tried to sneak his way into our house?" He knew it the moment he said it that he had said the right thing. He was painting over what had happened with something of a better memory, hoping it would be able to erase the scowl from off his face.

A smile made its way onto Connors face and he nodded. "How could I forget? I still feel bad for that man, came in for some money and left with a few broken bones."

Murphy chuckled. "Remember the police had a hard time wondering if they should arrest the guy for breaking in or arresting ma for assault."

They both laughed at that. The memory bringing them both out of the funk from earlier. Times has changed so much since then but they tried their hardest to keep alive some fragments, not wanting to disappear entirely,

"The priest forced ma to go to confession for that. Said that sort of beating was in no way merely self defense." Connor tried to keep the laugh going but he failed as the mood fell crashing around them.

"Conn?" He called out, his hand holding onto the wheel, his eyes out the windshield. "You think...you think ma got out? That she's out there surviving somewhere?"

"Thought we agreed not to mention that." Connor said, his voice lowering. All the previous humor from earlier was gone.

"Can't not."

"Listen. Ma is alive. She's alive and well. Probably killing these walkers with her bare hands." Connor assured him with serious eyes, darkened eyes that were nearly void of all hope.

Murphy glanced at his brother before looking back out to the road. "You're right."

Connor gave a nod and rested back against the seat. "Now I'm going to sleep. Wake me up when you me to take over."

Murphy gave his brother a nod and focused on driving. The road had darkened by now, the beach long behind them and the cool breeze that came off of it lost with it. He chewed on his lip, needing so badly to have another cigarette. A long time passed and Connor's snoring grew louder. Murphy glanced over at his brother before he remembered the last cigarette he had been too distracted to smoke. He dug into his pockets, his free hand resting firmly on the wheel. He withdrew the cigarette and set it on his lip. With a sigh of relief he reached over and took the electric lighter, burning the end and letting the smoke fill his lungs. It was almost glorious the way his whole body seemed to relax just then. He glanced at Connor again hoping he wouldn't get up and be angry at him for keeping this cigarette a secret. But Connor had smoked most of them anyways, seeing as he had nothing else really to do but smoke given his broken ankle. Murphy deserved this, this one was his.

"My dad always used to tell me smoking would kill you."

Rick's voice startled Murphy and he almost threw the cigarette out the window. He saw Rick laugh a little from the rear view and he set the cigarette back on his lip with a laugh of his own.

"Don't go scaring a man like that." Murphy said, taking a long pull off the cigarette.

Rick sat up from how he had been laying, looking over and checking on Judith. He still looked a mess, his eyes drawn and full of the permanent misery that was now apart of this man's character. He pulled off his jacket as he sat forward, draping it over his lap.

"Gets hotter when you're away from the coast, don't it?" Rick said, the hot wind coming in from the opened window.

"Aye." Murphy nodded, his eyes remaining on the road ahead of him.

Silence went on and Rick looked out the window, the settled dark outside the window somehow calming to his aching soul. After what had happened at the beach house, he needed all the comfort he could find. And this moment now, his daughter safe at his side, was the most peaceful thing he had had in awhile. She was still alive and it didn't even matter that every part of his body screamed out for more rest. She was alive, he had made sure of that. She was there for another day. Another day for her to live in.

He wondered if this was selfish. To make such an innocent being live on in this destroyed and aching world. To allow her to survive despite the plague of death that haunted their every footstep. Was it selfish to make that decision? Selfish to let her live knowing the life he had been through? Knowing the death that Carl had been fated to. They were all infected. That was all of their fates sooner or later.

"Where were you when this broke out?" Murphy asked in a low voice, letting out another breath of smoke as he threw a glance towards Connor.

"Hospital. I'd been in a coma." It felt like a million years ago and yet the fear still crept up on him like he had felt it yesterday. Had it ever gone away? That perpetual fear that had become a tattooed fixture in the hollowness of his life?

"And you woke up to all this?" The surprise couldn't be held back from Murphy's features. He could barely imagine the fear that must be injected into that sort of thing. Waking up from a coma to a world gone to ash.

Rick nodded, his expression muted as the images ran through his head again. He had always tried not to think of that time. Of Morgan, of the fear that had been replaced by relief when he had found Lori and Carl again. He never wanted to think of it because that only meant that he had found them again, that they hadn't remained lost and the guilt wouldn't hound him all over again. What would have happened had he never found them? Would they still be alive now?

"And you?" Rick lifted his blue eyes to meet Murphy's in the rear view. Curiosity filled his gaze.

"Me and my brother, we just got out of prison." He played on the words broken out, because that had been the actual story. "We were overwhelmed with too much excitement and then one day, going out to see the Sox play, everything just fell apart. Outbreak swept the city. But we never lost each other. Think that's the main key to all this, sticking together." He couldn't have stopped himself, the words came out to quickly.

Rick nodded, not taking it the way Murphy feared although it had been a stab to his guilt ridden heart. Sticking together, grouping together, that's what mattered. And they had stuck with him. And they had died.

"Y'think it'll ever end?"

"Pray everyday to the Lord that it will." Murphy replied with a nod and a reassuring glint in his eyes. "When that little princess of yours grows up, this world's going back to normal."

Rick smiled a little, his eyes struggling to see past the ignorance of those words. This world wasn't ever going to go back. He couldn't bear to think that way because hope always died and he couldn't survive losing something else.

"Yeah?" He asked, trying to give the impression of a smile. "What do y'think she'll be doing?"

Murphy thought a little, satisfied that he got something of an expression from Rick other than the hardness of his withering away. "Think she'd make a good cop. Locking away the bad guys."

Rick smiled a little despite the pain that tugged at the insides of his heart. "Funny. I was a cop." he muttered, touching to his jacket's pocket and feeling the outline of his badge inside. Why had he kept it? He had told Lori he was putting it away, Carl had dropped it outside the prison. He wasn't the law anymore. he was a curse, the kind of curse that only brought death.

"Well then she'll be just like her father." Murphy smiled one last time as he flicked what was left of the cigarette out the window.

Rick sighed as he rested his head back and looked out the window. He looked down Judith and the fear of Murphy's words came back to him. He hoped she wasn't like him. She was his only blessing and he was the curse that trailed death with it everywhere. He looked up at Murphy in the rear view. He had meant to reassure him, had meant to give him some kind of solace but all he was faced with was the bitter truth of judgement. Murphy had Daryl's face, refusing him peace from the massacre he had been accountable for at the prison. He had Daryl's face and he had the words that was enough to tear him apart over and over again. He would give the world if he could just get one time when peace was undeniably his.