Daryl pays attention, and so he follows, more or less. He's clever though uneducated (one of those "missed opportunity" intellects), and his biggest pitfall in this impromptu lecture is a failure to care about the topic. Which would sound heartless if he said so, given everything, and so he keeps it to himself.

Above his paygrade, is all. Above all of theirs, he thinks. That Reid cares says a lot about him, a lot of good about him, but Daryl can't put his faith in things like broad turnaround chances. Just himself, and sometimes, other people. He looks at the younger man, and pats Judith's back as she reaches a chubby hand out to paw at the edge of his vest and its chunky seam. Not for the first time, he's stricken with the intrusive thought of what she might look like, resurrected by the sickness. If something happened to her, or if it was just nothing, the crushing but completely human curse of crib death. Maybe the world will right itself before she's old enough to form memories of the way it is right now, or maybe they just have to make this new world livable for the next generation on their own.

"Dunno if it's a virus," he says after a while. "They didn't at the CDC, anyway. We were there in Atlanta before it blew. The last doc in there showed us the work he had left."

Been ages since he thought about it. The memories are glassy, hyper-real, distorted from the trauma sandwich of it all and the fact that he'd had way too much to drink the entire duration of that stay, but they're still there. Even the bits he doesn't understand.

"Can't hurt to keel looking, though. I guess. That one of your degrees? You a doctor doctor, too?"