A/N: Wow, thanks for reading guys. Okay, day three, again mistakes...all me.

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI

7

Santana's driving. They were all in need of the switch - Quinn's hands having grown too shaky to maintain the wheel. It's nearly dusk, and Santana can see the sun creeping down below the trees in the horizon. They pass abandoned cars along the old roads as they cut through southern Illinois, easing right past a blood spattered "Welcome to Missouri!" road sign. They would be in Ohio by now if the situation hadn't grown quite so perilous, after over 24 hours on the run, they haven't been able to make contact with anyone. Most of the cell phone towers are done, as is the electricity in most of the southern belt. What information they do find, comes through Quinn and Santana's iPhones, which now work as shoddy iPod's. The batteries are dying, and they have to alternate, because using the satellite Internet feed is draining. They've managed to track a Sirius station still up and running, a Classic Vinyl's station that has dwindled into what has now become the prime news outlet on the satellite radio frequency. Rachel has it playing in the backseat, her eyes darting between the falling sun and the deserted road.

"More news…sorry, break - … Orlando, to Montpelier…West as Phoenix."

"You can't get that thing to transmit better, Berry?" Santana snaps from the drivers seat – there's no malice behind her words, but it doesn't stop the bite, she bites her tongue, stopping the deluge of angry insults, because none of this is Berry's fault. No matter how annoying she typically finds the girl to be.

"It's the connection on their side that's breaking up, Santana. We can't do anything about it…I'm sorry." And for fuck's sake, now Berry's crying – her eyes wide and glassy – she's trying hard to cover it up, and none of the tears actually fall. But fuck, if Santana didn't feel like an even bigger bitch before, she definitely does now.

8

"Have you heard anything about Brittany?"

"No."

And that's that, Santana won't let Quinn see her cry, not like this.

9

They've managed to hole themselves up in an old abandoned lumber warehouse on the outskirts of Oakville, Missouri. The car had to be ditched along the side of the road, the gas meter out. And they've been traveling on foot for the last eight hours or so, starved and exhausted. Quinn is hot, the heat stifling them all in a humid mask – she reaches for her shirt and rips it clean over her head, the sheen of sweat on her skin instantly cooling. Rachel sees her and her gaze lingers on soft, pale abdominals – a tiny freckle along one of Quinn's ribs – before following suit. Her v-neck falling to the dirty concrete, floating down through the air. Santana is quick to indulge the other two, removing everything except for her underwear, but not forgetting to let the taped knife stay strapped across her thigh, compliments of a recent Home Depot raid.

"You never know." She mutters, before falling down to the concrete and resting her back against the dirt.

"San, we can't just lay out here in plain sight, that's how people get killed."

"Fuck smart, I'm sweltering..."

None of them have discussed what's transpired in so many words, but they all feel it, underneath their skin and within their bones. How do you go back to normal after killing someone…something. By the time they'd left the hotel, hands shaking, stomach's churning, skin pale – blood spattered. There wasn't much to say, not that they could even say much at all. And Quinn often finds herself staring at her hands, the joints and tendons flexing beneath the skin – and she still can't believe that she's used them to take life. To rip it away… it makes her feel empty. She won't even let her mind wander to her daughter, almost three – Elizabeth Grace Corcoran will only be remembered in the peaceful silence of Quinn's steady mind, because the truth could be too painful…much too painful for any of them. She follows suit, and finds herself squatting down onto the dirty concrete, her dirty jeans torn at the knees and oil stained.

And there's Rachel, staring between the two of them with far away eyes. Her face is much harder than Quinn would like to admit – things like this change people, she supposes, a sigh escaping her lips as she extends a grimy hand.

"Come, sit."

Rachel stares her down, eyes silent – the color almost gone. She doesn't move. Her chest heaving, her breathing deep.

"Rachel, please…it's okay, it'll be okay."

And Quinn watches her eyes, all empty and pained. And Rachel begins a slow gait, falling down into Quinn's arms, and the blonde cradles her to her chest. Almost all skin touching from the waist up in the heat, and she can feel that small body shuddering beneath her fingertips, almost cracking from the weight of her grief.

"My Dads…Quinn, my parents."

And Quinn notices that Santana has rolled over onto her side, providing the two of them a small ounce of privacy in this old abandoned warehouse, despite the close proximity of their bodies.

"I know sweetheart…shh, I know."

GRANITE CITY, MISSOURI

10

Rachel thinks she sees a shooting star somewhere up there in the night sky, out of her periphery she spots a stray Tabby, weaving in and around abandoned dumpsters and rotting garbage – left to decompose along the side of the bins. No one told her that the post apocalyptic world would smell so bad. She shifts her eyes forward again, on the empty Schnucks Grocery outlet. The parking lot is semi-deserted save for the occasional abandoned trashed vehicle. There are bodies left in some of them, half-eaten, or just dead. Rachel smells them too as she follows behind Santana Lopez and up to the wide glassy double doors.

This particular Shnucks has already been broking into, but it won't hurt to look for non-perishable and canned food items while they're here. She can feel Quinn's fingers clutching into the back of her ratty t-shirt, keeping lookout behind them as they move forward as a unit. Rachel clenches her eyes shut when Santana beams a torch into the darkness, scouring the location, as her boot covered feet rustle over glass and left behind goods. They soon find themselves by the checker aisles. Some of the stacks having been left abandoned are tilted, food splayed out across the aisles, jars of tomato sauce and peaches…the vegetable and fruit aisles full of fruit flies and the seedlings of maggots.

"It smells terrible in here." She shrieks around the collar of her shirt. She feels a hand reach over, gripping her by the cheeks, covering her mouth. And it's Santana – eyes wide in the darkness.

"Shut the fuck up, midget. Get over it, and shut UP."

Rachel nods between a swallow. She feels Quinn's fingers pat her back soothingly, rubbing back and forth as her fingers clench. The three of them amble forward through the aisles collecting whatever can be salvaged. Cans of soup, and pasta boxes. Quinn finds some knives and pockets them, Santana heads for the beverage aisle looking for water. It's a few moments before Santana returns with her goods, and Rachel is sure she's about to suffocate around the smell of rotting food – until she opens her mouth in shock – the darker haired brunette strutting up the aisle in her immediate field of vision. Santana must have forgotten about the water, because all Rachel sees in her arms are bottles…and bottles of alcohol. And she's pretty sure, that despite it being the end of the world as she knows it…they're all still underage.

"Look what Auntie 'Tana found." She grins, her arms almost collapsing from the weight of the handles she's juggling.

"Holy shit, where'd you find that?"

"Aisle 3, motherfuckers."

And before Rachel can hold her back, Quinn is sneaking off and around the corner, only to return back a few minutes later with almost as much if not more alcohol in her hands than Santana had carried.

"This is ILLEGAL."

"This is me not giving a fuck." Santana rebuts, and soon she's sitting her pretty little behind on the linoleum floor and popping open a bottle of Absolut Peach, taking a hefty swig.

"Fuck, that was a mistake… Berry make yourself useful and find some juice or something, aisle four."

And Rachel just sees Quinn laughing – and she hasn't seen that smile in much too long – and so in a daze she agrees, if only to see Quinn smiling like that again. By the time she returns, Quinn is nursing a bottle of Jameson and you wonder how the two of them have managed to drink this stuff straight like this.

"Here, Berry, join the Apocalypse party." And Santana is handing over a six pack of Twisted Tea, a slow grin on her face. Rachel has the gall to be outraged…because fuck it, she wants a bottle too if she's going to be a delinquent with the likes of these two, and Santana just laughs at her. All teeth and dark eyes.

"I want a big bottle, too." She pouts. Santana pats the six pack of Tea with a satisfied smirk.

"Ask that question again once you've knocked those back, lightweight."

And Rachel frowns, lifting a small bottle out of the cardboard container. If she's going to do it, she's going to do it right, she decides – uncapping the bottle. Her first taste is sweet, and warm – the drinks having been un-chilled for quite some time now. But damn...it's good. And she knows, that maybe – this wasn't such a bad idea after all.

11

Quinn's pretty sure she's hammered. But she smiles through the blur, and the fallen things in the darkness of the abandoned grocery store. She feels Santana laughing into her shoulder, hands gripped onto a fresh bottle of Patron…and Quinn steals it from her, taking a hearty gulp. Fuck if Tequila is a terrible decision, it tastes magical.

"Okay, Okay." She slurs, dropping the bottle forcefully to the tile and watching it's contents splash out of the lid.

"Rachel, are you drinking, yet?" She mumbles around a smile. And there's Rachel, leaning against the shelf across the narrow aisle, wide smile brimming her face as she knocks back the last of the sixth bottle of Twisted Tea in her carton.

"I told you Satan, I'm not a lightweight, I want the good stuff now Carlos." Rachel trills around a slur, her tongue loose as she leans forward on her palms, shoving Santana in the shoulder. Santana manages a grunt before kicking over an unopened bottle of Burnett's Watermelon.

"Don't call me Carlos, Berry-juice. That's fucking disrespectful." Santana slurs darkly before unscrewing her bottle of Tequila and knocking back another shot's worth.

"Why?" Rachel inquires, before opening her own bottle and taking a dainty sip – a grimace on her face before she knocks it back for a shot. Quinn has to stop her from drinking the stuff like water, laughing as she brings the bottle down and out of Rachel's sloppy little hands.

"Because, Carlos isn't here to defend himself, Little Big Planet."

"Isn't that a video game?" Quinn asks, biting her bottom lip as she scoots over to Rachel's side, their bodies hot.

"Fuck no, it's a fucking TV show, Fabray…duh. Little People, Big World, that's Rachel's extended family."

"That's not what you said though."

"Yea it is."

"No it isn't."

"Yes, the fuck it is Q."

"No the fuck not, S."

"You tryin' to start shit with me right now?"

"And what if I am?"

"I could beat your ass, Wonder bread "

"Wonder bread is gross." Quinn pauses, thinking about the processed bread. Her head spinning around a laugh as she falls across Rachel's lap to look up into those dark eyes. Rachel is looking down at her now, the bottle still clutched between one of her hands, as she hums softly. Something unintelligible as her free hand comes down to smack Quinn in the face.

"Owwww…" Quinn whines, and Rachel does it again while she laughs goofily.

"I was trying to stroke your cheek romantically, because that is what is usually portrayed in romantic films, but my distance and space bodily correlations must be off because of the drunk-ness."

"What the fuck?" Santana mumbles, before slumping over onto her back to stare at one of the ceiling vents.

Quinn clutches onto her nose with wobbly hands, her teeth biting her bottom lip as she stares up at the still grinning Rachel. Maybe it's the alcohol, maybe it's their shared impending doom, but Quinn can't stop the word vomit, and soon enough it's too late to care.

"You're beautiful, you're like…you're my star. My North Star." She slurs.

"Huh?" Rachel mumbles, her face falling down to stare at Quinn's from a distance of about two inches.

"Whenever I'm lost, I can just look up and follow you home.." She whispers, those hazel eyes suddenly glassy, and wet and before Quinn can realize the gravity of the words she's just whispered, there are lips crashing down on hers sloppily from above. Rachel tastes like Watermelon and Iced Tea, and Quinn has a feeling that maybe this is the best memory that she'll ever have before she dies…

Of Rachel, losing herself to her, the two of them completely lost within one another in the darkness of an abandoned Grocery Store.

From nearby, Santana snores peacefully against faded linoleum.