Sarah Powell awoke from a coveted night of sleep before her final exam in AP Chemistry the way most people would be expected to rise when their doorbell goes off in the dead of night: Unhappily. She sat up in curiosity, her body still heavy with sleep as she waited deliriously for another ring to assure her that there was a good reason she was awake at such an ungodly hour. She picked up the alarm clock beside her bed and glared down angrily at the fuzzy red numbers blinking on the screen. 2:57. Sarah's chest tightened at seeing the time flash unapologetically across the clock, fearing that she would not be able to fall back asleep in time, when the doorbell rang again, almost forgotten, and her back went stiff with shock.

Sarah cautiously climbed out of bed and crept a few feet over to her closed bedroom door. Her hand hovered over the knob as awaited another sound with baited breath, imagining what kind of horrible occurrence would come of her opening the door so late at night. The ringing came again, a single chime echoing throughout her home, before it suddenly became a cacophonous melody that stuttered and shrieked through the house, the noise hardly even pausing between rings. She gasped in terror and jumped backwards, scrambling to locate her pajama bottoms on the darkened bedroom floor, for she would not be caught dead answering the door in only her camisole and Wonder Woman underwear. She found them half tucked under her bed and began to pull them on in a hurry as the obnoxious ringing persisted. She had one leg in and struggled to keep her balance as she tried to pull the other on, but instead stepped on the fabric clumsily and toppled to the floor with a thump. Eventually she managed to finish getting dressed and stormed out of her room, grabbing a hair tie and her glasses from off the nightstand as she went.

The figure was visible through the opaque windows on either side of her front door, an irregularly shaped shadow of a human in the patterned glass. The doorbell continued to ring, and she could see the figure's hand moving to continuously press the button outside her door. She sprinted down the stairs angrily, a fury of curses on her tongue as she unbolted and swung open the front door. The anger vanished from her face along with the ringing of the bell as she stood in her doorway, staring with utter surprise at the man slouching on her front porch.

"M'ask you something." Shane slurred, resting an arm against the doorframe above her head. He leaned down and blinked at her a of couple times, his eyes bleary and pink. "You wanna go get tacos?"

Sarah stared at him wordlessly. He looked exactly as he did on the television show, exactly like the actor who portrayed him. His shirt was wrinkled and untucked, the crumpled yellow Kentucky Police Department emblem dully reflecting the light of her porch lamps. A belt was buckled around his khaki cargo pants, accessorized with a gun holster and leather sheath that he thumbed patiently as he stared at her. Sarah fumbled with her glasses a bit before placing them on her nose, squinting closely at his face in disbelief. He didn't bother to move back and instead hiccupped in her face, causing her to draw away at the poignant smell of alcohol.

"Are you drunk?" She asked in hushed skepticism.

"You can drive, right?" He asked, brushing off her question as he stepped inside the house.

She backed up until her feet hit the staircase behind the door, stumbled a bit, and fell onto the second step. She thought about running because that was usually her plan of action when she was terrified of anything, but the prospect of him possibly chasing her, however drunk he was, frightened her more, and it wasn't as if she was any good at running; she couldn't even run the mile at her high school in the required amount of time. He stared at her as she cowered on the staircase for a moment as he scratched his head, and continued to walk off down her hallway aimlessly, not bothering to shut the door behind him. Sarah gripped her head in her hands for a minute and smacked her fists against her temples in an effort to possibly rouse herself from whatever subconscious mindfuck was happening, completely bewildered, but shook herself out of it when she heard her kitchen cabinets opening and shutting noisily. She closed and relocked the front door quickly before racing down the hall after him. He was standing in her kitchen, face buried in the cabinets above her oven. She looked to the clock on the counter beside her and saw the digital numbers blinking back the time at her: 3:13. It blinked again. 3:14.

"What are you doing?" She questioned in aggravation.

"Lookin' for your car keys." He answered cheerily, like it should have been obvious.

"No. What are you doing here? In my house? At three in the morning?"

She picked up the clock and waved it at him for emphasis, but he only shrugged at it passively.

"Oh, tacos." He added, smiling at the mention. "I'm here for tacos."

He slammed another cabinet door shut loudly, and Sarah cringed. She walked over to the small rack by her garage door and lifted her keys off of it.

"Hey, stop that. My keys aren't in there. They're right here, quit slamming things." She shouted at him, jangling the keys to get his attention.

"How…was I s'posed to know where y'all keep things?" He asked touchily.

He leaned against her counter and rolled his tongue in his mouth, waiting for her to say something. Sarah gave him a wide stare and flung her face into her hands, expecting him to be gone when she looked back up, since she was fully convinced that this whole ordeal was a strange lucid dream she was having. She kept her eyes closed as she quickly tied her hair back with the hair tie, but when she opened her eyes he was still drunkenly waiting in her kitchen for tacos.

"Is this real?" She whispered to him quietly. She tried again and placed her hands over her face, opening and closing her fingers over the sight of him, but each time she peeked between her fingers, he would still be there.

"I'm really hungry."

"I don't care. I can't take you to go get tacos, are you outta your mind?" She laughed at his offhanded response. "It is…god, it is close to three thirty on the night before final exams, and you want me to take you out to get tacos?"

"Uh-huh."

"I don't have time for this! I need to sleep."

"Well, the sooner you shut up and take me, the faster you'll get back to sleep." He replied with a silly assurance.

She was quiet for a moment as she stared at him, shaking her head. "I can't believe I'm doing this." She mumbled to herself as she picked her keys up off the counter.

He jumped up from the countertop with a smile and ran towards her, grabbing her by the arm excitedly as he opened the garage door.

"Wait, wait, I'm not ready!"

"It's fine, come on!"

"No, no, I'm not even wearing shoes. I'm…I'm not even wearing a bra!" She panicked, whispering the last part harshly in embarrassment.

"It's okay, you don't need either of those things, come on let's go."