A/N- sorry about the last upload, something about it wasn't right. Hopefully I've gotten it right this time :) xx.

Songs used: Smother by Daughter

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"I want all that is not mine.

I want him but we're not right."

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Kate thinks, often, about how her life could've gone in a very different direction.

When she's bored enough, she goes back to the very beginning, to where things first started to go bad. She goes back to when Mama started getting her migraines, started spending her whole day in bed, alone, instead of with the congregation.

Kate hasn't set foot in a church in 6 months, and she wonders what her mama would think of her now.

She doesn't dwell on that, though. Kate's still a good girl, still says her prayers every night, still wears that cross around her neck.

It's hard to remember that far back, so Kate settles for remember six months ago, for taking the wheel earlier, for steering herself and her family far, far away from the Dew Drop Inn and any trace of the Gecko brothers. If she can, Kate tries to imagine that they hadn't gone on this trip at all.

She thinks about her senior year a lot, about the classes she'd signed up for but never gotten to attend, about the homecoming dress she'd buy, about the cute way Kyle would ask her. Her best friend, Stephanie, was already engaged by the time Daddy had decided to skip town. Kate hoped that, should she have stayed, Kyle would've proposed, too.

Daddy wouldn't have been thrilled, but he wouldn't have said anything. They married young in the south, he respected that. Kyle would start a Christian Rock band like he'd always talked about and Kate would finish up at the community college; being smart was always Scott's thing, anyways.

After she'd graduated they'd get a tiny apartment and a newer truck and they'd spend Sunday's at church with their family. She'd announce she was pregnant a few months after she'd gotten her associates, and their families would be elated. Kate never wanted to be much, no high aspirations or any of that. She wanted to be a mother. Better yet, she wanted to be her mother.

The baby would come in the heat of the summer just like Scott had, and her father would be pacing in the living room and Kyle would be clutching her hand. Her arms would shake as she held her child, but she would never drop him. The first one would be a boy. She'd always wanted a boy, someone who would protect his little sisters, and maybe even her one day.

()()()

Instead, she got this. Kate opens her eyes and see in the middle of the fucking desert.

(It's not a strange occurrence for her to cuss now, so much that she does it without thinking)

The sun is beating down on her face and she's sure she'll be sunburnt after this escapade. There's blood all around her fingernails and her Coors Light t shirt has a tear around its frayed edges. Her cutoffs are too short and she's coughing up dust and her breath smells like beer. She wonders how she got here. Not to this place, to this desert, but to this life.

Kate's got a big teal van parked beside her and she pulls herself up, bangs on the side of it. The door opens on its own. It's hotter in here than it was outside, and Kate questions how the occupant hasn't melted yet as she leans against the open door, nudging him with the toe of her boot.

"I can't believe you let me sleep in the desert," she laughed, rolling her eyes when she saw that he was awake. "I could've died, dammit."

"Yeah, well, you could've died in here, too." Seth sits up, itching the back of his head. "Fuck, I'll be surprised if we aren't dead."

"If we are, this isn't heaven." She snorted, fingering the cross she refused to take off.

"Did you have a good dream, Princess?" He smiled at her snakily, making no move to pull his shirt over his wife beater. "You only sleepwalk when you dream."

"I think I did," she nodded, climbing in the van and making her way to the passenger seat. "Only I can't remember a goddamn thing about it."

She located a bottle of water and, gross as it was, took a few swigs. It tasted like plastic, but it wasn't as terrible as some of the drinks Seth had had her try.

Seth crawled up beside her, giving her a kiss on the cheek before sliding the keys into the ignition. He fumbled with the air conditioning, wishing he'd stolen a car with a better one. In the end, they rolled down the windows.

"I'm sorry I got us lost last night, Kate." He sighed, truly apologetic for having her spend the night pulled by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. "On the bright side, we haven't run out of gas yet."

Kate rolled her eyes, reaching an arm out the window and knocking on the wood paneling that lined the van.

"You better not make me walk, Seth Gecko."

"I'll do my best, Kate Fuller."

She winced, but tried to hide it. Kate didn't know how to tell anyone this, but Kate Fuller didn't feel like Kate Fuller anymore.

She fumbles with the cross around her neck. If she's been to hell, that means there must be a heaven, too. She's just not so sure she deserves to go there anymore.

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"In the darkness, I will meet my creators

They will all agree that I'm a suffocator."