Chapter Two- A Numbing Guilt

There was a point where Sidney had craved silence. She had craved it when her mom's murder came to light within the press. She craved silence through the court-case, when the dazzling flashes of the camera had startled her, and countless microphones had been thrust forward to her face. The screams and shouts of reporters bellowing her name as she just tried to get into school had haunted her.

College had been a brief reprieve. She'd travelled over two thousand miles away, telling herself she wasn't running, but that instead it was a new start. Windsor College had the familiarity of Woodsboro with the likes of Randy and theatre, something she had always enjoyed. But then it started again. The attacks, the murders, the questions, the constant suspicion.

Even wiping her name off the face of the planet had not been enough.

Yet here she was, laid in the hospital bed. Sidney gently trailed her nails over her pale blue vest top, the pads of her fingers gently brushing against the jaggedness of the stitches holding her wound in place whilst it healed. It didn't hurt so sharply anymore, but it did ache.

A soft sigh escaped her and she turned her attention to the clock on the wall.

3am

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Many found the sound soothing, lulled in by the consistency of the rhythm and the slight twitch of the hand that directed the seconds. To Sidney, however, the sound was infuriating.

After what felt like years, she reached above her bed and pushed the buzzer for the attention of the nurses on night shift, and minutes later one entered with haste.

"Hi, Sidney." The warm smile of the woman instinctively made her relax. She hadn't even known she was still tense. Clarisse had been there in the aftermath of the final encounter with Jill. She had helped lift her up from the floor and tend to her gaping wound that had been split open in the struggle. Nearly a month later, and Clarisse had made sure she was there to tend to her through various shifts.

"Hi, Clarisse. Sorry to bother you, but I'm in a lot of pain and… Tylenol or aspirin just aren't cutting it." Sydney excused; her hand rested on her stomach for good measure.

Clarisse's smiling face turned to a look of concern as she grabbed the folder at the end of the bed and checked through her medication, scanning over the page as her eyes flew from left to right before she tapped her pen and smiled at her.

"I can give you some liquid morphine, honey. That will definitely stop the pain until morning, then we can get a Doctor to come take a look at how that wound is healing." She offered.

Sidney nodded gratefully in thanks, slowly sinking back into the pillows as she waited for Clarisse to return. It wasn't like she hadn't struggled with sleep before. All her life, she had woken up due to constant and repetitive night terrors. Not only that, but she struggled to fully engage in sleep. It was like she had one ear open for the creak of a door… or the footsteps silently approaching.

Just the thought of not fully having control of what was going to happen made Sidney feel clammy and nervous, but she took a deep breath and exhaled. She needed the sleep, and Hicks and Burke were patrolling the floor of the hospital like their lives depended on it.

That was the issue… it wasn't their lives that depended on it, it was hers.

When Clarisse returned with the morphine in a transparent pot, Sidney wasted no time in knocking it back like a shot of Patrón. If she thought too much about it, she wouldn't take it – and she'd learned from experience that exhaustion was just as lethal as the vulnerability that came with sleep.

The shuffling of hands grasping at the pull-cord of the blinds, accompanied by the sound of the slats being pulled to open alerted Sidney that she was not alone. The momentary panic that completely crushed her chest was settled when her bleary eyes focused, and she recognised the shade of blue that was a nurse's uniform in the room with her.

"Good morning Miss Prescott." A male nurse greeted, then checked the clock. "I suppose I should have waited a few minutes to say good afternoon instead!"

Sidney glanced at the clock that was still ticking incessantly, and she looked surprised when she realised that it was almost noon.

"I didn't realise I had slept for so long," Sidney replied slowly. The aftermath of the morphine was hitting her like a ton of bricks. A headache, dry mouth and a brain that felt it had been surrounded by cotton wool.

"Well your body is still recovering and clearly needed it." The nurse retorted chirpily, turning to face her before continuing. "Sheriff Riley is waiting to pay a visit, but I can always hold him off whilst you wake up properly."

"Thanks…" Sidney trailed off, resting her hand on her forehead and rubbing at her temples, as if trying to physically mould herself into consciousness.

Around twenty minutes or so later, Sidney was dressed in a baggy t-shirt and loose-fitting sweats that Gale had been kind enough to get for her. Not her usual attire but she needed garments that would not rub or irritate her stomach, and she wasn't one for just sitting in pyjamas all day.

After knocking and waiting for permission to enter, Dewey walked through to her room, decked out in official police uniform, though he removed his hat as soon as he saw Sidney waiting for him.

"Hicks mentioned you had a rough night." Dewey trailed off, taking a perch on the chair he had been sitting in the previous night.

Raising her eyebrow, Sidney sat up a little straighter and turned to face him fully, swinging her legs off of the bed carefully.

"I didn't realise that Hicks was in charge of overlooking my administered medication." She retorted, managing to keep a straight face as she watched Dewey become a little flustered.

"She cares about you, Sid. We all do and-"

"I know, Dewey." Sidney interrupted before he could start his spiel about her being a survivor and how many people were relieved that she had lived through yet another ordeal. Privately, she considered what the ratio was of people who were relieved to people who wish she'd been six feet under so that this would stop happening.

The silence between them was palpable for a few moments until Dewey shifted in the chair and cleared his throat.

"Kirby is doing well. They're thinking of moving her out of ICU and further down the ward. Less monitoring." Dewey informed her, then quickly corrected "Twenty-four hour police watch, of course. But in a more stable position health-wise."

"Are the police necessary anymore?" Sidney asked. It wasn't that she wasn't grateful that there were people around who were armed and vigilant, but it did make her feel like something else was going on. "Jill and Charlie are both dead, surely that's the end of it?"

"Where have I heard that one before?" Dewey quipped, his own eyebrow raised in response to Sidney's statement. "It's just as much for us as it is for you and Kirby. Just so there's no…" He hesitated for a brief moment. "Backlash. People see stories like this and their imaginations run wild and they do stupid things. We just want to keep you away from all that."

Sidney nodded in response to Dewey's reasoning. What he said was perfectly justified, and as said before, she certainly wasn't about to decline the extra protection. Jill and Charlie might have been dead, but the aftermath of what they had done would linger permanently.

"Was she awake when you went to see her?" Sidney asked, reaching out for her glass of water and taking her usual painkillers.

"I haven't been to see her yet- I just looked through the window of the room on my way up here and got talking to one of the ICU staff." Dewey explained, straightening up slightly. "Are you sure you want to be the one to explain? I'll be there in case you need support."

He knew that offer would fall on deaf ears though. In the whole time that he had known Sidney Prescott, she had never needed support to do anything. The term had been thrown around in the tabloids a lot. Survivor. But there was no better word to describe her. He had conversed with Gale many times about how she could still be a living, breathing person instead of being in a state of catatonic fear- and they were still no closer to working it out.

"I owe her that much. I left her alone in that basement knowing she was dealing with the killer. She wouldn't be in this state if it wasn't for me."

"Sid," Dewey sighed. They had been through this statement so many times, and no matter how much he told her that Kirby's injuries weren't Sidney's fault, she still didn't entertain the idea. "Whether you were there or not, Kirby could still have been injured. You acted on instinct and went to find Jill," he trailed off as Sidney scoffed.

"And what a great plan that was. Meanwhile, Kirby was being murdered when I went to save someone who didn't need saving at all." The bitterness in Sidney's tone was palpable, and Dewey knew not to try and comfort her again. He had learnt that after many years, Sidney was her own harshest critic.

"You can't save everyone, Sidney." He eventually spoke, once the silence had grown too uncomfortable to bear.

"But I can try."

After forming a brief plan over what she was going to say, then realising that the concept of trying to come up with a script to explain how her friends had tried to murder her was completely and utterly ridiculous, Sidney had decided to play it by ear. That was assuming that Kirby wanted to talk to her because she wouldn't blame the young woman at all if she didn't want to hear a word of it.

The walk to ICU seemed longer and more daunting, trepidation and a deep sense of nausea coming in waves with each step. Although Sidney had learnt to maintain a straight and expressionless face in times of adversity, inside her nerves were twisting and the light headache she had put down to too much sleep from the morphine was now developing into a full-blown throb.

Standing outside of Kirby's room, Sidney watched the sheet that covered Kirby's body rise and fall as the girl slept. It was something, she had decided, that many people took for granted. The simple, yet beautiful art of inhaling and exhaling. Living was a luxury that she had nearly lost so many times- and part of her didn't want to disturb Kirby from her slumber.

"She's asleep. Maybe we should come back." Sidney stated softly, not tearing her eyes away from the figure that looked so small and frail in such a large hospital bed, the steady hum from the machines telling everyone near that there was nothing to worry about medically. Even when Sidney had said it, she hadn't really believed that coming back was really an option, but she pushed on- not quite knowing why. "She's going to have to live with this for the rest of her life, a few more hours of peace…" she trailed off this time, because she knew she was talking absolute trash.

"She has to wake up sometime, Sid. Now is as good a time as any." Dewey gently prompted, avoiding the lecture and official business route, because he knew that Sidney understood that the sooner Kirby knew about this, the sooner she could start putting her life back together.

Nodding slowly, Sidney shifted herself away from the window and grasped the metal handle of the door, her mind briefly flashing back to the dream she had encountered when she had napped the previous afternoon. However, she swallowed her fears and anxiety and pushed the door open, gently letting herself in as Dewey followed her closely behind.

Although Kirby was indeed alive, judging by the machines bleeping and her chest wavering under the sheets, Sidney couldn't ignore how awful she looked. For someone who had been in an induced coma, she looked exhausted. Her previously golden skin looked grey and taut, her stylish blonde chop was matted with blood still and unkempt. The nurses had tried their best, but Kirby looked half dead, and that really did startle Sidney.

Looking at Dewey unsurely, Sydney reached out to give the woman's hand a gentle squeeze and shake, hoping that she wouldn't startle her too much.

To her relief, a slow groan escaped Kirby's cracked lips and her eyes flickered open, a little easier than when she had first come out of the coma at her own accord.

"It's good to see you awake, Kirby." Sidney told her, gently squeezing her hand again. "Stupid question, but how are you feeling?"

Kirby seemed to pause, as if considering her answer as her eyes shifted from Sidney to Dewey, before they settled back onto Sidney.

"Like I've been gutted."

And despite everything, all the worry about going into details of what was going to be the most horrific night of Kirby's life… Sidney smiled. Something told her that this girl was going to be alright.