True In All

Jay leaned back against the passenger door of the car, looking about at the scenery that passed them by. Rick started speaking into the radio, trying to get a hold of anyone that could hear them on the emergency channel. She glanced over at him quickly as he paused for a moment, giving a chance to anyone that may hear him and try to speak back before he began again.

"Broadcasting on emergency channel, we'll be approaching Atlanta on highway 85. Anybody reads, please respond," He said into the radio, taking his finger off the button and lowering it down as he kept his eyes on the road before him. It wasn't really other people that he was looking out for, but perhaps a place to find gas or a walker in the middle of the road. There was a better chance of hitting a Siberian tiger than finding someone wandering along the side of a road, alive.

"Rick-"

"Hello, hello, can anybody hear my voice?" Rick said into the radio, interrupting Jay before she had a chance to say anything. She stopped and looked down at her lap, understanding that since he had only woken the day prior that he probably still had a hope of other people hearing him. He still had hope. "Anybody out there, anybody hears me, please respond," Rick said more desperately, causing Jay's heart to ache. "Hello, can you hear me voice? Hello? Hello, can anybody hear me voice?" Rick asked through the radio.

"Here, I'll do it for a while," Jay finally offered, holding out her hand. Rick looked at her a moment, glancing down at her open hand before placing the radio into her palm. She nodded to him before raising the radio to her mouth. "Broadcasting on emergency channel," She starting, having already memorized what he had said from the amount of times that she had heard him say it. "We'll be approaching Atlanta on highway 85. If anyone reads, please respond." She looked over at Rick out of the corner of her eye as she spoke, seeing him nodding his head along with one she said.

She repeated the lines a couple of more times, getting no reply with every pause in between. Rick finally seemed to understand why she had tried to stop him from repeating it all the time and eventually placed a hand over the radio and lowered it away from her mouth.

"Let's take a break for a short while, a'right?"

"Alright," She agreed carefully, letting him take the radio and hook it back up against the dash. She leaned back in her seat and looked at the passing trees, the sun shining through the canvas above in small patches.

"So," Rick started, causing her to smirk to herself at the bland attempt to start a conversation, "This boyfriend of yours, why don't you tell me about him?" He asked carefully, glancing at her as he spoke. She didn't tense up like he had expected she would, so she was probably fine with the question.

"On any given day, you wouldn't like him," She said right away, grinning to herself. "People always used to say me 'what do you see in him, Jamie? He's a nasty ol' redneck!' but I always saw him differently than others. Yes, he swears, he's crude, most times he doesn't have manners, and sometimes he smells, but he's true in all he says and does." She wore a smile on her lips as she looked over to him, seeing Rick's surprise.

"Redneck?" He asked jokingly, seeing her smile broaden until he could clearly see a dimple on her cheek.

"Yea, he kinda is. Remember how I said the shirt I have is one of the few with sleeves? I wasn't joking. The rest are all either cut off or a muscle shirt of some kind," She explained, her mood brightening as she remembered the man that she was searching for. "He spent a lot of time outdoors, he loved to hunt and all that. I would buy him a pack of white wife beaters and the next time I saw them they'd be unrecognizable!"

"I know what you mean, my son Carl had a bad habit of always finding the one dirt patch in our backyard," Rick said with a smile of his own. "Lori would always say 'the stain'll come out, I can get the stain out' but we'd still have to go shopping for new clothes because all the ones he owned would have mud stains, grass stains, food stains."

"Oh, God, even if I could get the stains out, those shirts could not be salvaged. They were rank after he got back from hunting, or work. He did construction, so he would come home stinking like grease, or oil, it'd be all over his clothes and there was nothing I could do."

"What'd you do before all this?" Rick asked as he looked over to her, noticing the way that wrinkles appeared around her eyes when she smiled, her laugh lines were prominent from always being there. She must have smiled a lot in the past.

"Believe it or not, I was an architect," She answered, grinning in pride.

"Is that how the two of you met?" Rick asked, putting two and two together.

She shook her head, though, and said, "No, we knew each other back when we were teenagers. Best friends, I guess you could say. We didn't actually date until two years ago. It was on my twenty sixth birthday, New Year's."

"New Years? Really?" Rick asked in shock, looking over to her. He knew a couple of people that were born on New Year's Day, but not many.

"Yep, I was born around noon, but it's still New Years day. There was one more person in that hospital born closer to midnight," She elaborated, grinning again. "My mother always used to tell me about how everyone was paying so much attention to me, like I was some sort of miracle, just because I was born on the first day of the year. When he found that out, he laughed and said 'at least I'll never forget your birthday!' And it's true, he never has."

"Lucky, I know a lot of people that get into trouble because of forgotten dates," Rick said with a smirk, thinking of himself and the few nasty mishaps that he'd had.

"Oh, he's forgotten important dates, just not that one!"

The car was filled with their relaxed laughter for a moment, but the vehicle was soon silent once more. It wasn't as tense as it had been before they spoke, but they weren't completely relaxed either. In the time that Jamie had been telling him about her boyfriend, they had both had a moment to forget about the fact that the world had gone to ruins. Now that they were silent again, they were forced to remember.

"You said," Rick started, getting her attention once again, "You said that he was different than the others, that he was true in all he said and did. What did you mean?" Rick asked carefully, looking briefly into his rear view mirror.

"He's never lied to me, if there's something he has to say, he says it. Even if it's harsh or rude; that's gotten him in trouble a couple of times, actually. But I love him for it, because there are so many people out there that'll hide behind lies, thinking their protecting you. He let me know every day how he felt, maybe in not so many words, but he would always make sure that I understood. He also didn't do things just for the hell of it, but for a reason. If he had to leave the apartment at three in the morning, there was always a damn good reason."

"That doesn't sound too good," Rick said, seeing that the statement had come out with a scowl. It wasn't just a made up scenario.

"Let's just say that I hate his brother," She answered easily. "But, enough about me and my love life, tell me about your wife, and your son," She said easily, turning to face him slightly in her seat, her back toward the passenger window. Flecks of sunlight hit her pulled back hair, making it look like glowing gold, a halo around her head.

"I wouldn't know where to start," Rick said as he looked toward the road, taking a careful turn when they hit a bend in the road. "Lori…is the woman that I never would have imagined being with. She's just too good for me, in so many ways. She's the perfect mother, always there whenever Carl needs her."

Jay could see the complete love and devotion on his face as he spoke, the lines of his face softening as he spoke of his family. "She sounds beautiful," She said softly, seeing his lips twitch into a smile.

"She is," He agreed immediately. "And not just on the inside, but the outside as well. Long brown hair, brown eyes, she's a bit shorter than you," Rick described as he looked over to Jay, seeing that she was smiling at him. She couldn't stop herself from grinning at the happiness that touched his face. "Carl took after her a lot, brown hair with that kind attitude. Everyone says he's got my temperament, but I don't quite see it."

Jamie laughed softly, "No one does. Everyone always told me I looked exactly like my mother did at this age, but I've seen photos and I don't see it!"

They were both smiling as they drove out of the trees and onto open road, fields surrounding on either side. A house appeared up the road, a farm from the looks of it. Jay squinted her eyes against the sun to try and see better, but it far away still she could barely make out any details.

"Hopefully they have fuel," Rick said as he looked down at the remainder of the gas they had, "We won't make it too much further on this tank." Jay looked over to the gauge inside the dash and saw that there wasn't even enough for another mile.

"We'll take a look inside. What if we can't find anything? Do we risk not finding another house before the car dies? It's a lot more dangerous on foot," She said as she began to tense up again.

"We'll just have to decide as we go along," Rick answered after a beat, seeing her nod out of his peripheral vision. They were pulling into the short drive of the home a few short minutes later, Rick immediately turning the ignition off before there was a chance of more gas going to waste. Jay opened the car door to stand up, looking around for any sign of walkers in the immediate area. Rick took that time to flip down the sun visor before him and pull free the family picture that he had brought with him. Jay didn't comment on his delayed time in exiting the car, knowing that he was taking a moment.

"Doesn't look like anybody's home," Jay said as he rose from the vehicle, popping the trunk before he got out. Rick took a moment to examine the house as well, no car in the drive and no garage in sight.

"Hello!" He called, closing his door and walking a few steps around the front of the vehicle. "Police officer out here!" He yelled, lilting his hat up to look up better. Jay leaned back to try and see around the side of the house better, but there didn't seem to have been any activity on the property for a while. The lawn was uncut and the bushes had grown untamed. "Can I borrow some gas?"

"Maybe take a look through the windows?" Jay suggested, glancing at him quickly. He nodded in response and stepped forward toward the house, Jay hanging back silently beside the door to the car. Rick stepped up to the house quickly, pulling his hat off before he got to the front door. He was able to glance inside from the glass window on the top half of the porch door, the sun that shown through the window illuminating most of the house.

He knocked a couple of times on the door to try and draw the attention of anyone inside, calling out again. There was still no answer and he moved over toward the window a couple of yards away. Leaning slightly to get a better look, he felt his stomach twist into knots as he looked in at the living room of the home. A man sat on the couch, the top of his head blown open with a gun in his hand. A woman lay on the floor at his feet, just as dead as her husband. Flies covered their bodies, moving around the room. Written in blood on the wall were the words GOD FORGIVE US.

Stepped back from the window, he quickly stepped down off the porch before he was sick, bending down to collect himself. Jay watched from the car, noticing the change in his demeanour immediately. She ran over when she saw that his face had gone sheet white, his breaths laboured like he's been running.

"Are you alright?" She asked carefully, placing a hand on his back. She didn't need to ask him to know what had gone on inside that house.

"They…they just gave up," He whispered, shaking his head as he looked at the dirt beneath their feet.

"A lot of people gave up, Rick," She said softly, leading him over to a stone table and bench that decorated the side yard under the shade of a tree. "There wasn't much else that people thought they could do. They didn't believe there was a way of escaping it and they didn't want to die painfully like so many others. They opted to have the choice of dying on their own, instead of having that choice made for them."

"But…it's not right. What if…what if they-" He stopped talking when he felt his stomach turn, place a hand over his mouth for a moment. Jay rubbed a hand on his back in comfort, looking away from him to give him a sense of privacy. She heard when he spat on the ground between his feet, trying to alleviate the nauseous feeling. Her attention was momentarily diverted when she spotted a fenced pasture behind the house.

"Rick, do you have anything against horses?" she asked suddenly, drawing the man's attention. He looked up at her with a strange stare, but when he noticed that she wasn't even looking at him he turned to look back to see what she was staring at. A beautiful Chesnutt stallion stood grazing, watching them carefully.

I'm not going to write much with this chapter, because I've already got the next one finished and will have that update for later. All I asked is for reviews, because they are wonderful to read no matter what. I actually have quite a few chapters finished(not yet edited) and if I get reviews, I'll have them out sooner… I've also decided to give a little sneak peak of the next chapter, too.

Chapter 4 – Instincts of Survival

"Make 'em count, jump off the right side of the tank, keep going in that direction. There's an alley in the street maybe…fifty yards. Be there." Rick paused as he looked over at Jamie, seeing that her body was still tense, but the new found hope had set the determination into her shoulders again. She still looked as petrified as a deer caught in the headlights, but she was doing her best to push it down. Blood was covering the white shirt he had found for her and was smudged on her face from when she had wiped at the sweat. Walker blood. She looked deadly, out of control.

"Hey, what's your name?" Rick asked through the radio quickly.

"Have you been listening, you're running out of time!"

"He's right," Jamie said as she pulled the sniped strap onto one shoulder, just encase she needed to use it. "We need to get moving." Collecting her bloodied hunting knife from the floor, she poised herself in a crouched stance as Rick got himself ready to pop the top of the tank and make a run for it. He shared one last quick look with Jamie before he hit the switch to open the top and stood, rising from the tank quickly.