Cherry Darling didn't reach up.

After Wray died in her arms, Cherry could think only of his last words to her, the words he spoke through the blood choking his lungs. "Go to the ocean." It was his last wish for her, his last effort to guide her after he gave his life to save hers for the final time. The people escaping in the helicopter above her hadn't done much to help her; she would be surprised if anyone other than the blonde who had held her just a bit too tightly on JT's motorcycle even knew her name. The same blonde was the one holding out the rope, urging Cherry to trust in her, to trust in the rest of the group and whatever they had planned, wherever they were going- enough to discard Wray's words.

Wray might have been an asshole sometimes, and she might have thought he screwed her over a time or two, but he had never let their often adversarial history stop him from saving her life. His last thought was focused on what he believed would do that, and so Cherry stood on her remaining, shaky leg, blinking hard against the tears still blurring her vision and swallowing against the sobs choking her throat. As the zombies drew closer, she pulled herself aboard JT's cycle, now claimed as her own, and gunned the engine, speeding off at the fastest speed she could trust herself to drive in the night.

She was in Austin, Texas; the closest ocean was likely the gulf coast. That was about a half day drive on the cycle, and to Cherry, far too close for comfort to the zombie outbreak surrounding her. No, the ocean she set her mind to head for was the Pacific. She had always wanted to see California, and there was no time to waste getting there now.

On an average day on a cycle, with rest stops, sleep, and traffic to account for, Cherry could usually travel around 200 to 300 miles. On this journey, she topped 400 every time, traveling at about 70 miles an hour. She would have gone faster, but she was terrified of running out of gas in the middle of a desert or with too many zombies in her vicinity to safety refuel. She was afraid to stop long enough to sleep, afraid to stop for anything beyond absolute necessities. All in all, she stopped for gas less than ten times in the four days it took her to cross the California border and didn't dare to pee unless it was on one of the strictly necessary gas breaks. She raided a large, general store styled abandoned station, filling a cheap touristy backpack with bottles of water and protein bars, ammo and the dead owner's handgun. She followed road signs and the setting of the sun, constantly on the lookout for danger, whether by the living or undead versions of humanity.

By the time she crossed into California, Cherry was starting to surpass weariness into an exhaustion near collapse. She was swerving on the road, and although her mind had switched into primal survival mode over logical, sequenced thought days ago, she did vaguely notice that she hadn't seen signs of zombies or people on the run from them in what seemed like a state or two ago. She didn't take this as the definite truth. Nothing in life could be definite truth anymore except that Wray was dead, dead for her, when she had only just started to want a life with him again.

In her fatigue, she stopped her previously strict following of signs and found herself somehow driving up mountain roads. Wray had told her to go to the ocean, and this was still her plan, but although her mind vaguely recognized this, another part of her only noticed how nice it was to see no cars, no people, nothing but trees. Maybe here, she could pull into the woods somewhere and hide enough to rest, just for a little while, just until she could get reoriented. Maybe-

She had barely started to turn this idea over in her mind when she saw it. A house, large, homey looking, with a wrap around porch, up at the top of a winding driveway going uphill. Cherry slowed the cycle, then stopped it entirely, swaying in its seat as she blinked up at it, unsure at first if it was some kind of mirage she was conjuring up in stress induced delirium. But no, it was a house, and it stayed visible to her, even after she rubbed her eyes with grimy, blistered fists. At the end of the driveway was a gate, the sort that needed a code to be opened, and it appeared undisturbed.

Slowly, Cherry started the vehicle again, steering it at a much slower pace to the gate at the driveway's beginning. She parked the cycle and dismounted, blinking at the code with delayed comprehension. Of course, she couldn't begin to guess the correct numbers. She noticed then that there was a speaker installed and a screen- a camera? There was also a button that seemed to be an alert of some sort- maybe a way to ring the owner, to let them know that someone was there.

Cherry Darling had not had a real meal in over a week, had barely eaten at all and drank only what water she needed to keep herself in motion for the past four days. She had driven across the scorching sun in the fraying, tattered remnants of a bralet and a mini-skirt, and her pale skin was badly sunburned to the point of blisters. Her lips were cracked with dehydration, her long black hair hopelessly tangled and snarled from the wind and lack of washing or brushing, and her body had lost weight to the point of near emaciation, her ribs clearly visible, her cheekbones sharp and her eyes overly large in her face. She twitched and shook with equal parts exhaustion and anxiety as she reached a badly unsteady hand out to press the call button, speaking aloud in a raspy, dry voice for the first time in four days.

"H-hello? I-is anyone there?"

The first sign that someone had arrived at her front gate hadn't been the woman paging her or Sidney checking the camera, as she had the habit of doing throughout the day. It hadn't even been the sound of the motorcycle passing through. It had been her normally quiet and relaxed dog barking and fussing at the front door. She couldn't remember the last time that he had ever done that, if he ever had at all, before the sound of the motorcycle became increasingly louder and closer. She had tried to scold him, but she had stopped herself, reminding herself that if he was fussing then something was off. She then noticed the loud sound of a motorcycle engine coming up the driving or starting to before a soft, dry voice calling out if anyone was there from her intercom.

She gave her dog, who was now staring at the door intently, a mental "good boy" before turning towards her desk.

"Yes?" Sidney found herself eventually answering back to the unfamiliar voice. Her eyebrows were raising and her voice, while trying to stay pleasant enough, was guarded as she answered "May I ask what your business here is?"

She couldn't remember when someone she didn't know last found their way to the house. Typically the only people who ever showed up were Dewey, Gale. But they never needed to use the call button. They knew the code and usually called ahead of time or while on the road. She usually had to venture out if she needed to or wanted to see other people, though she still preferred having her privacy and her space. Not that she didn't have a couple of people, Stab fans, show up at her gate- and at least one ex-admirer do the same.

She glanced at the calendar near the intercom and her computer and frowned. She hadn't needed to see anyone in town - she had been talking tentatively with some people about publishing a book at some point. But things had been unusually quiet for a few days now. No calls from anyone that she still spoke to, nor from the people courting her from the publisher, and even work had been on the quieter side. The system had been offline for at least an hour now, so she was waiting for someone to reach out and let her know if it had been fixed or not. But it had been silent since the initial notification. There wasn't even any possible estimate for when it was expected to be back up and working.

But she wasn't really surprised by the publisher ghosting her. Sidney had been blunt about refusing to write any sort of "tell-all" about her own life. Gale's books had given the world more than enough than it needed to know about her. The movies had only made people decide to try digging for information on their own. She, if nothing else, wanted to be able to attempt to keep something, anything close to her chest. They hadn't taken it as gracefully as she would have expected, but that would have to be the price to pay to get her to consider a deal.

She quickly tosses her hair up into a messy ponytail and closes out the Word document that she had been using as a makeshift journal, not that she had managed to write much lately. That was something she had been told to do since starting therapy years ago, but she could only ever manage to write in spurts. Even then she always felt the urge to keep things vague or change minor details. Which defeats the purpose, she knows, but it still feels like there's so much that she isn't ready to say or write into the void.

Sidney then looks at her monitor and exits the screen for her journaling document, changing over to her security camera, and manages to get a good look at the woman at her front gate. She is instantly horrified by the stranger's appearance - it amazed her that she was even managing to remain upright on the motorcycle she had been riding on - which made her think of someone who was slowly dying. Her clothing was in tatters, her hair dirty and windswept and essentially sticking to itself, her skin sunburned and blistered to the point that Sidney couldn't help but wonder what exactly happened for her to get to this point. Then it hits her that the woman looked as if she hadn't been eating or eating enough for days, essentially starving, based on her sunken face and the fact her body looked.

How was she still sitting upright, never mind the fact that she managed to wander all the way here, to this secluded little corner of the state? She had been running - that much was obvious, you can always tell from the look in someone's eyes when they were running - but from what? From who? Sidney wants to look tough, serious, and stoic, but she can only look at the woman for a moment before letting an "oh my god" quietly sip out from under her breath.

Then she finds herself glancing down at her keyboard in thought. It was obvious that the woman was in trouble. If she wasn't already, she would be if she didn't get some rest and food. But then Sidney wonders why she would be in that kind of state. She was fleeing from something, but what? Was someone trying to hurt her? If so, then what were the odds of ending up here? Was it someone who-

Her thoughts cut off as she took another glimpse at the woman from the corner of her eyes.

"I should help, but what if she was dangerous?"

"What if this was a bad idea?"

"But she needs help."

"What if this is a trap?"

"There wasn't been another Ghostface since…"

"But if this woman needed help and I sent her away? Could I live with something happening to her because I didn't help?"

After a moment of having an internal debate, she took a shallow breath and hoped that what she was about to do wouldn't end up being (yet another) a massive mistake, and unlocked the gate with a hit of a button. Then she pulls a light sweater on and slips on the boots that she had worn to walk her dog in the early morning, looks at the camera, and nods.

She directly starts to ask, her voice soft but firm, "Do you need help? Getting up here? I can… if you can wait a minute... I can get my car and drive you up… the driveway is fairly steep."

Sidney then opened her desk drawer and started to pull out the handgun she kept there while she worked.

Cherry could hear a dog barking through the intercom before a woman's voice spoke through it. She startled, not having actually expected an answer to come, and certainly not so quickly. The woman sounded calm, healthy, and sane, all things that were in short supply where Cherry had just come from. This was enough to throw her, and she struggled to figure out to answer her. Four days of speaking to no one seemed to have sapped her memory partially of just how to have a conversation.

"Business….? I…I just wanted…I just need…"

She stopped, at a loss as to how to continue. Her original intention of going to the ocean, as Wray had told her to, had been derailed, and she truly had no business at all being up in the mountains, at this woman's residence. And yet, how could she leave now, when this could be a place of refuge, even temporarily?

Her cracked lips stayed parted while she tried to figure out what to say, what to do. She jumped again at the noise of the gate unlocking, her head swiveling, half expecting something or someone to leap out at her. It took several long seconds before she understood the gate had been unlocked. Clumsily she swung herself off of the motorcycle, staggering before steadying herself against its handlebar, and stumbled forward to push the gate open. She was surprised when the woman spoke to her again through the call box, but tried awkwardly to answer.

"I…I can come up."

The bike had made steeper and harder journeys than this driveway by a longshot. Cherry pulled herself back atop, starting it up again, and drove it the rest of the length of the driveway, parking a few feet from a vehicle she assumed to belong to the woman. She dismounted again, shakier now than before, and stood, waiting, grasping one strap of the backpack still slung over her stooped shoulders.

Sidney could only nod at Cherry's answer to her offer to drive down and take her up to the house. She found herself softly saying, "Okay. I'll be on the porch waiting for you. Do you need anything? I can try to grab it and have it ready… water, maybe?"

Then "Um, I just... sorry to ask but if you can't I can take care of it in a moment, could you make sure the gate is closed? I need to relock it. I can do it from here but only if it's closed."

The woman felt awful at having to ask when the other woman looked dead on her feet and ready to keel over.

When Sidney starts to hear the sound of the motorcycle engine growing closer, steadily and quickly closer to her front porch, she quickly goes to the kitchen and pulls a bottle of water out of her fridge and a couple of granola bars from the pantry. She then fishes one of her smaller first aid kits out of its designated spot in her kitchen and starts to the door with them. She then grabs the gun off of her desk and puts the snacks into her pocket before carefully opening the door, entering her codes first, and stepped out onto the porch.

The house was still in one piece. Chairs still sat on the porch along with small tables and a wind chime hanging. There was a cheap artist easel set up and a drying attempt at a painting and a couple flower pots. It would be obvious to Cherry once it comes into sight that this was a forgotten corner of the world. Almost like it was its own world. A slight breeze, birds chirping, and now a dog barking as he pushed past Sidney and going over to where her car was parked.

Then Sidney saw the woman and the motorcycle, and she dismounted after coming to a sudden stop with shaky legs and a backpack slung over her shoulder.

"Um, hello…" Sidney tried, but realized she sounded stupid.

She cautiously started to come closer, but something seemed off about the woman. Sidney looked her over and then it quickly became clear what that was. Her leg. It was a gun. Her leg was gone, but a gun or much, much more possible, something that looked like one, was there in its place.

She paused in place and tensed, unsure of how to react to the sight. She bit her lip and struggled to think of something to say or to ask, but she didn't know what to think. It couldn't be a real gun, right? Just a very stylized prosthetic leg. Probably something expensive or to fit a certain alternative fashion. But, maybe she was imagining it?

She blinked a few times but the sight didn't change. A woman with messy hair, tattered clothes (very revealing clothes), and a leg that was obviously some sort of prosthetic.

So Sidney stood half on her front step and half on the driveway, supplies in one arm, a gun in her other hand (she had never fully shook that habit even after all of these years and she, despite seeing a very desperate person in need of help, couldn't be entirely sure of her intentions either).

But Cherokee seemed alright with the stranger approaching, her more out of curiosity and friendliness than anything else. Not jumping but showing a lot of energy and circling her, sniffing.

Cherry's mind could not seem to grasp what the woman was offering to her. She was asking if she needed anything? What did she need? When had anyone, even Wray, last asked her if there was something she needed? How could she even begin to know what she needed, when the list was so very long? Cherry's life for the past week had not been about her needs, but about doing whatever it took to survive. That meant strict living in the moment, one precious second at a time. Even being asked what she needed felt like an enormous kindness, especially from a stranger, and what little moisture Cherry had left went to tearing up her eyes.

She didn't quite process the stranger's request for her to close the gate until she was already up the driveway, but it didn't matter; she had shut it automatically herself, trying to put even a small barrier between herself and possible approaching zombies or ill tending humans.

As Cherry stood beside her cycle, she stared at the house, really starting to take in the details of just how well kept it was. No bullet holes, no burnt areas from explosions or fires, no furniture thrown about or broken glass from pictures off the walls. Everything was neat and clean, no blood or bodily fluids in sight, and Cherry wondered as she blinked several times if this was some sort of fever dream, a hallucination, or even if she was in fact asleep. Or maybe…

Had she died? Was this pretty place out in the middle of nowhere, with this kind, attractive woman around her own age ready to help and attend to her, what came after death?

"Is this real?" she blurted, her voice still hoarse. "Am I alive? Or is this…is this some kind of heaven?"

The dog was what pushed her over the edge. A beautiful, fluffy golden retriever, snuffing and close enough to touch. Cherry reached out with a trembling hand, her fingers brushing soft fur, and when it pushed its wet nose against her hand, a tear broke loose. If this wasn't real, she wanted it to be.

Reluctantly her eyes shifted up to the woman standing across from her on the steps of her porch, realizing that she was holding a water bottle, a first aid kit, and a gun. Cherry stilled, dropping her hand away from the dog, and put both hands up, trying to keep them from shaking but unable to make them stop. At this point, her body was near enough to giving out that it was impossible to keep herself fully still.

"I don't want to hurt you," she told her. "This is your home, and it looks like you've kept yourself safe. I don't want to take that from you. I just…I don't want to take anything from you. I just…I just want to take a little while to rest. Please, can I just have a little time to do that? I don't have to go inside, I don't have to take anything from you. Just don't shoot, and let me lay down somewhere in your yard, and I'll go. I promise."

Sidney couldn't help but notice Cherry's reaction to her question and she couldn't help but frown, her eyes looking a little heartbroken at the woman's response. It was like she had never been asked something so simple. Was she trying to not cry?

Cherokee was thrilled that Cherry was paying him any sort of attention and began to fuss more. He eventually stopped in front of her and let her pet him. He pressed up to her, something he did for Sidney when her anxiety was spiking and causing her severe discomfort, something he kept doing even after Cherry moved her hand away suddenly and held both her hands up. He looked at Sidney, then back at Cherry, unalarmed, but didn't move away.

Sidney watched Cherry's reaction to her dog, her dog's reaction to Cherry (who he was now pressing against with all his might), and then Cherry reacting to her appearance. At the woman's shaking hands suddenly raising in the air and her cautiously, insistently saying that she didn't want to hurt her and explaining that she knew and understood that this was her home and she had obviously managed to keep it safe, Sidney could only raise her eyebrow.

"Wait, I don't want to hurt you either… I just… I've… it's a long story, but it's nothing against you. I just don't get people here very often, especially…"

Not strangers. Not anyone who just showed up and looking as if they were on death's door. Only the few people she trusted ever showed up, and they usually told her when they were coming and knew the codes to get in.

"You don't need to lie down in my yard…" Sidney backed up onto her porch and slowly set the gun in her hand down, holding her free hand up. "Please come in. I won't hurt you if you don't try to hurt me. I get the feeling you would be thinking the same thing in my shoes. Please come in. It's more comfortable, and you look dead on your feet."

Sidney had never been in this situation before, and she wasn't sure how to proceed. She looked at Cherry with soft eyes. "It's okay. It's safe here. I'm sorry I scared you… I promise I won't hurt you. You need help, please let me help you."

Cherry's chest rose and fell with her shallow breaths, her ribcage sharply visible with each as she kept her eyes fixed on Sidney. As Cherokee leaned against her, nuzzling her exposed right leg, Cherry pressed her lips into a thin line, her throat choked up with the simple pleasure of the sweetness of an animal's gentle attentiveness. She couldn't remember the last time she had experienced this, and it felt like almost too much, paired with the woman's earlier question of her needs. He leaned against her, but rather than adding too much pressure on Cherry, it felt like he was grounding her, helping her stay upright.

Cherry listened carefully to the woman's response to her, trying to determine if there was any trickery or double meanings behind them. She looked sincere, even kind, but Cherry had been wrong in her instincts many times before. Still, she could afford little else but to trust her, given her circumstances.