Cherry pressed her lips together again at Sidney's question, closing her eyes. Even with her eyes closed, tears leaked through. She wept for a few more moments, head down, but gradually her body uncoiled a little at Sidney's stroking of her hair. She slowly lifted her head, meeting the other woman's eyes, and then clumsily unwrapped her left arm from around her left leg to grasp Sidney's hand.

"It's hard to remember it all clearly," she said quietly. "There were people who hadn't been bitten or turned by the zombies or the gas the government was releasing out on us. We were prisoners of the government a while, but we broke loose and had to- I had to- kill some of the soldiers. I had to," she said quickly, her voice rising. "He was a zombie, he was going to infect me, and he was trying to, to r-rape me. I had to. We…we got out, and then we, um, we were going to escape, someone had a helicopter. But…but Wray got attacked first. I couldn't save him. I couldn't take it back. He was going to change, I couldn't stop it. So I just…I couldn't get on the helicopter, not without him. Not with them. He had his cycle, and he told me to go to the ocean, and so…so I did. I tried. I'm not there yet."

Sidney felt a little surprised by the other woman uncurling her body and then grabbing her hand. It wasn't a threatening gesture, but it happened so suddenly that it caused Sidney pause for a moment before she gently grabbed her hand back and started to rub at her knuckles in an attempt to comfort.

"Cherry, you did the best you could during chaos," Sidney eventually said, squeezing her hand, and her words soften even more, "And, from personal experience? You can't always save everyone. No matter how badly you want to…"

As she spoke, Sidney's mind went to some of the people who died because of her, because of some sort of connection to her or because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time during someone else's tantrum. She shut her eyes and took a breath before opening them again. This was likely not the same as that, as Sidney's own experiences, but she felt that those words needed to be said all the same.

"And, I don't think I can speak for him, but if it were me… I'd rather you get the hell out of dodge than die trying to save me."

She still wasn't sure how many of the details she believed in, but it was obvious that Cherry had survived something horrible. She was reacting in many of the ways that Sidney had in the past and that others Sidney had tried to help had as well. She seemed terrified even now, as if she was sure the problem was going to somehow track her down and drag her back. She glanced at Cherry and tried to read her over, debating if she should ask the questions that she felt the urge to ask.

"The ocean. You're still a little ways away from it. But you can't travel like this… not safely. You need rest."

Cherry's eyes searched Sidney's, desperate for her understanding and compassion. Both emanated from the other woman in every gesture, every word and the tone of her voice, and she sniffed, her chest rising and falling shallowly as she tried to compose herself, latching onto Sidney's words.

"Personal experience? Did you…have you been through something like this? People dying, or…something so terrible it doesn't feel real?"

She was hitting the nail on the head without knowing it, of course. As Sidney continued to reassure her that Wray would have wanted Cherry to leave, to survive herself rather than die saving him, Cherry's lips trembled, a few more tears overflowing, and she nodded, still gripping Sidney's hand.

"I know. I know he would… I still feel so bad though. Like it should have been me. I already lost a leg, I didn't do as much to save people as him. I'm just a go-go dancer who stumbled through and happened to live. I don't know why, I don't understand the meaning behind it."

She nodded, clumsily unwrapping her arm from around her leg to let it lower down, rocking unsteadily with the movement. She wiped her face, turning to Sidney when she suggested resting.

"I am really tired," she said quietly. "I hate to be a pain, you've done so much already. But…could you help me get out and maybe find somewhere to sleep for a while?"

"Yes," Sidney answered while glancing at the other woman and nodding, her voice strained, her words much too soft as she attempted to answer Cherry's questions, "More than once. More than a few people each time. That's why I'm all the way out here."

Still. The "still" part goes unsaid, but it was heavy in her tone, in the vagueness of the answer. She lived far from other people and by herself, still.

"I understand that feeling, honest. But I'm sure you did plenty just by trying to survive. It's easy to beat yourself up in hindsight. Believe me. But in the moment you can only do what you can. There's no guidebook on how to handle life or death situations."

But when Cherry admitted that she was tired and asked for her to help her out of the tub and find somewhere to sleep for a while, Sidney nodded.

"You're not a pain, Cherry, haven't been for one second and of course I'll help you," Sidney said firmly, "I also grabbed some clothes for you to change into that should be more comfortable. Do you need help putting them on?"

Cherry's eyes widened as she looked Sidney over with new understanding. So this was why she was so accepting and accommodating of her. Sidney too had lost people in terrible ways, lived with the guilt and pain it brought to just get through each day. She nodded slowly, swallowing, and tried to accept Sidney's continued insisting on kind hospitality. She reached to brace herself against Sidney, arms around her neck, to try to stand and then let herself be lifted out of the tub. She nodded at her question about needing help.

"I could do more if I had my gun, but it feels weird to have it on in your house. Like, rude."

Sidney nodded when Cherry started to reach for her, moving quickly to do her part to lift the woman out of the tub, and gently placed her onto the closed toilet seat. Then she grabbed one of the clean towels but paused when Cherry started to speak.

"I can bring it up to you," Sidney offered, "let's just get you dry and comfortable. Then I'll go downstairs and get it, we can put it back on too." She looked at Cherry and then shook her head, "It's not rude. You need it, right?"

Cherry nodded, taking the towel and using it to dry herself. She flinched several times as the towel came in contact with blistered, scraped, and bruised skin and as her aching muscles continued to move, but she finished on her own and started to dry her hair.

"Yeah. Or something close to a prosthetic. Wray, he modified the gun for me, but I had a table leg for a leg first." She smiled sadly. "It was too long, but it was better than nothing."

Sidney hovered in the bathroom, trying to give Cherry some space as she toweled herself dry. She kept busy by getting things ready to treat her blisters and scrapes. As she was searching for bandages, she had turned towards her in time to see her sad smile.

"A table leg?" Sidney found herself asking, "That sounds… uncomfortable. How could you walk?" Sidney kneeled down and began to rub aloe and cream meant for sunburns on Cherry's skin. "What was he like?"

"I limped," Cherry chuckled a little. "Hobbled, really. It gave me splinters."

She bit her lip as Sidney rubbed the aloe and cream on her, the touch stinging at first, then slowly soothing her pain. Closing her eyes, she let her continue, her voice sad again as she answered.

"He was...he was sort of an asshole. We broke up once. But he was going to propose. He wanted to marry me, and I didn't know it. That was why he kept making a big thing of me taking his jacket. The ring was in there and I never knew."

She was talking in circles without quite realizing it, her voice slowing.

"Splinters?" Sidney winced as she heard that. "Do you want me to see if there's still any stuck to you? That could led to a nasty infection if we aren't careful…"

She finished with the aloe and cream and rinsed her hands, moves on to disinfecting and putting antibacterial cream on her cuts and scrapes.

"Sort of an asshole?" Sidney found herself asking with a confused expression, "What do you mean? How was he an asshole? That… you shouldn't be okay with that."

Cherry's eyes focused on Sidney, blinking, as though she had briefly forgotten she was there. She hesitated before nodding.

"I guess, yeah. It's hard for me to see the ends of the stump very well at this angle, I can't bend that way. Just...I know it's ugly without anything on it," she said, her tone almost an apology, but her expression was asking for lack of judgment she hadn't quite gotten past herself. She noticed the softness in Sidney's eyes and didn't think she would, but it was always possible to be surprised.

"He just...the way he would talk to me, the things he did sometimes. He wasn't very nice or gentle. He acted like I was a pain in the ass. Maybe I was, I don't know. But he cared. He must have, or he wouldn't have saved me twice. He could have let me die."

"He doesn't sound very nice," Sidney gently said, "if you have to describe someone like this, then they aren't nice." She finished bandaging Cherry before continuing.

"I don't know why I said that. I just… I dated someone once who wasn't very nice to me and I thought at one point maybe I was wrong, he cared, but was struggling to keep his patience with me. I thought that the problem was me, but then he and his best friend tried to murder me. I stupidly had let him…" she shook her head then continued, "Well, he tried to murder my dad. Almost came close with two of my friends. Oh, and murdered my best friend…"

She bit her lip in an attempt to keep her anger down. Billy had played her like a fiddle, so who could say what this man's motives were who Cherry was so deeply grieving. But then she felt shame at the surge of emotion. After all, it had been so long ago since that night. That party. And sometimes she still got angry. Sometimes she still cried about Tatum when a memory hit. She thought sometimes and has to stifle laughter about Randy when she realized something he might say to something she was watching or heard on the news. Between those memories and the hundreds of calls from women who described people who were hurting them in such simple, vague words, she couldn't help but blurt out her thoughts.

Cherry blinked, looking down at Sidney with some startlement. She shook her head, denying Sidney's concerns.

"But that's just how men are, Sidney," she said, as if she were teaching Sidney a simple fact of life. "They're all assholes. It just differs on how much of one each of them is. It doesn't always mean they don't care. They just don't know how to show it."

She listened gravely as Sidney continued to tend to her, explaining her own reasoning and experiences. Cherry's eyes fill with compassion, and she reaches a hand out to cup Sidney's face, tilting it up to meet her eyes. She lets go of her, but not before stroking her hair tenderly back behind her ear.

"I'm so sorry," she murmured. "That's terrible. I had some exes that beat me pretty badly, but no one but the soldiers and zombies tried to kill me. You're a lovely person, it should never have happened to you. I'm so sorry about your friends. I don't have any friends, really. Except maybe Wray, a little. But he was different. He saved me, he didn't try to kill me."

"No, that can't be right," Sidney started. "Derek wasn't an asshole. He knew how to show that he cared."

He had. He could be a little on the overbearing side sometimes, at least more attentive that she was used to, but he hadn't ever been an asshole to her. He had cared. He had respected her space and her demands for it, even when it hurt him. He had trusted her. She just hadn't trusted him when she should have trusted him back.

"Not all- maybe enough of them," Sidney admitted with a sad tone, her gaze directed away, "But not all of them. You deserve better, none of this should have happened to you either."

Then she added, "I had two other times where someone tried to kill me too."

Cherry's eyes narrowed slightly as she leaned towards Sidney, reaching again to touch her face. Her hand lingered this time.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She was cold now in her mostly naked state, starting to shiver a little; she had little body fat left to keep her warm from the air conditioning in Sidney's house. She wrapped the towel around herself with her other hand more securely.

Sidney hadn't even realized that Cherry's eyes had narrowed until she felt her hand on her face again causing her to turn to face the other woman. She noticed Cherry starting to shiver, and her face fell. She quickly grabbed the t-shirt and boxer shorts and handed Cherry the shirt first.

"Let's worry about you right now," Sidney answered, guarded, but her tone still soft. "I can deal with my own issues for a while longer."

"But you don't have to," Cherry insisted, her voice equally soft. "You've been really kind, helping me. Listening to me. The least I can do is listen to you."

She slid the shirt on; it was baggy in a way that was comfortable. Her underwear was still damp, but she dried it the best she could before slipping on the shorts, balancing on her hands and wriggling to pull them up. She was still shaking a little when she finished.

"If you bring the gun I can walk on my own. You're sure it's okay if I sleep a while? And it's safe?"

"Yeah, let me go get it," Sidney said, jumping to her feet. "And it's fine. It's safe here. No one comes here unless I know them, and only three people have the code to get in on their own. They wouldn't it give out to anyone either."

She left out of the bathroom and went down to the living room where the gun sat near the couch. Sidney carefully picked it up and carried it up the stairs and into the bathroom, handing it to Cherry.

Sidney realized that she still couldn't talk about it. She had tried in therapy once or twice, but the words always came out wrong, too vague, missing the gravity of those situations. Maybe she still made the points she wanted to make, but it didn't ever feel like she was understood. She wondered if it had just been too long since she decided to hide herself to be able to say much about it now. She supposed that was what writing was for.

Cherry wasn't as worried about people so much as zombies. She frowned, anxious about them climbing over the gate rather than worrying about the code, breaking the doors or windows down of Sidney's house. She was relieved when Sidney returned with her gun. She was careful to check the safety before reattaching it, feeling better and more secure when she was able to stand on her own. Now clean, cooled down, and with water in her system, she stood staring at herself in the bathroom mirror. She still didn't look like herself, but she was a few steps closer to recognizable.

"Do you have an extra toothbrush I can use?" She asked. "Sorry, I'm sure my breath is awful."

Sidney nodded in response to Cherry's request and began to dig through her medicine cabinet, pulling out toothpaste and a toothbrush still in the package.

"It's okay," she said as she handed them to her. "Here. Take these. I'm going to go and get the guest room ready. I'll be right down the hall."

Cherry's eyes lit up at the sight of the toothbrush. It was such a simple thing, but for Cherry, each small gesture of being able to cleanse and care for herself made her feel more human and whole. She thanked Sidney, taking the toothbrush and holding it like something precious before beginning to thoroughly brush her teeth and tongue. She repeated the routine several times before finally spitting and rinsing, amazed at how much better she felt just being cleaned and bandaged and patched. The only real issue now was the enormous wave of exhaustion that hit her. She was normally pretty steady at walking on her prosthetic, but she swayed a little now as she followed where Sidney had disappeared to the guest room, holding onto the wall of the door to balance.

"Thank you again," she said softly as she waited to be invited in, suddenly shy about taking over an entire room of this house- even if the woman had already given her clothing and mostly seen her and touched her naked body, this felt like a whole next level of intrusion. "Really. This…this means a lot."

The room was smaller than the master bedroom but still decently sized. There were a couple of small windows, one looking out onto countless trees, and the other could give one the glimpse of the gate and driveway. The walls were a light yellow color, the floors wooden and covered by a medium sized rug that lay in front of a wooden dresser covered in framed pictures. There was towards the wall a bed that looked freshly made up, with clean sheets and a dark blue comforter. It was a room that was obviously never used, but Sidney did try to keep it clean. The doorway looked almost hidden by the wall outside.

"The mattress might be a bit harder than you want," Sidney explained, "But it's near the stairs and it feels like its own little section of the house, and you can see to the driveway a little better from here…"

She went to the closet and pulled out a couple more throw blankets, setting them on top of the comforters. Then she walked over to Cherry and offered her hand, a silent offer to help her to the bed if she was tired.

"If this bed isn't very comfortable," she added, "you can take mine. I just thought this was a more private spot, and you seem worried about the place being safe. I remember being able to tell if I heard a car from here. You might feel more comfortable in room like this."

But she was caught off guard by the other woman's soft thanks. Sidney could only manage, "You don't need to thank me."

The room was far better than Cherry was accustomed to. Most of her life she had lived in broken down trailers, sketchy motel rooms, and cheap apartments, none very high quality. She blinked at the room, startled that it was so nice, even in a house as pretty as Sidney's. She looked up at Sidney, uncertain.

"This is where you want me to sleep? You're sure?"

She wasn't worried about the mattress and said so, laughing shortly.

"I've been sleeping for two hours at a stretch on my cycle. This is heaven."

She took Sidney's offered hand, letting her guide her to the bed and lifting the covers back. Cherry settled in the bed with a sigh of deep content and exhaustion, her eyes closing immediately.

"Yes I do," she muttered, eyes still closed. "Have to thank you. Thanks."

She was starting to drift off within moments.

"Yeah? Why wouldn't I be sure?" Sidney asked with a smile, "You can sleep here. I wouldn't have made the bed up if it wasn't okay… don't worry about it. You can stay until you want to go. It's fine, honest."

Once Cherry was settled in the bed and sleeping soundly, Sidney carefully walked out of the room with soft steps and went downstairs to the living room. She noticed nothing had changed with technical issues for work, so then she went into the kitchen and began to make a fresh pot of coffee. She wondered about Cherry's story as she pulled a mug out and listened to the coffee maker brewing. Maybe she should see if there's anything being reported that might answer some of her questions once she had her coffee made.

For the next few hours Cherry slept heavily, not moving a muscle, dead to the world. Her body was very much in need of the rest, and she reveled in it, her breathing even and measured as she rested in what felt like a cloud of luxury after so long living in bare survival mode. Sleeping in an actual bed with an air conditioned room, blankets, pillows, and clean, comfortable clothes felt like a literal dream come true, and for a few hours, she had no dreams at all.

It didn't last. Eventually the nightmares hit, full of exploding cars and gas tanks, bloodied, mutilated bodies riddled with bite marks, melting bodies and dying victims- and zombies. Always the zombies, chasing after her, scrabbling at her with sharp dirty nails. Holding her down. Flecking her with their foul breathed spittle, mouth open wide, ready to bite as Cherry screamed. She fought back, flailing and bucking, kicking and punching, but her gun was missing, she was weak, and then all the zombies were gone and it was only her and Wray. She threw herself at him, so relieved to see him alive and well, calling out his name, blurting out her love for him, and Wray hugged her back, holding her close, murmuring her name…

Just before he shoved her down to the ground and straddled her, his skin bubbling over with zombie boils and sores. His mouth opened wide, and he leaned in, biting down hard at each thigh, so that blood spurted forth.

Cherry was unaware at first that she was awake when she screamed, eyes open wide but not seeing or taking in anything around her. She didn't remember where she was, how she had come to be there, and when her vision cleared up enough for her to see the interior of the guest room, her mind was stricken with confusion. As her stomach cramped up, and she looked down, seeing a quickly growing pool of blood spreading over the sheets at her crotch, she realized that at least one part of the dream was real- she was bleeding. Newly terrified, her scream intensified in pitch.

Some time passed in relative quiet. Sidney changed her clothes, stepping into the laundry room as her machine still brewed a fresh pot of coffee, and pulled on an oversized navy sweatpants and a tank top. She realized that the status of the system needing to take calls was still up in the air and decided that she had a day off. As she grabbed her coffee, she carefully stepped into the living room where Cherokee had decided to sleep near the stairs, obviously aware that Cherry was upstairs, and turned on the television.

Sidney sipped her coffee as she began to flip through different channels, finding mostly reruns and old movies, until she found a news report talking about mass riots and a new illness in Texas. The details seemed vague and as if people were panicking because of the illness. She wondered if that was what Cherry had been so panicked about.

The symptoms, in Sidney's opinion, had sounded particularly nasty and gruesome in the report she listened to. But before she could get much farther into listening to the newscaster, there was a bloodcurdling scream from the upstairs.

At Cherry's screaming, Sidney immediately jumped to her feet, not even thinking - just moving, it was like second nature to just react these days - and ran up the stairs, taking what felt like two at a time before she almost skidded on her now socked feet into the bedroom.

"Cherry?" the woman called out. "What's wrong? Cherry?"

She took careful steps into the room, her hands up to show Cherry that she was unarmed, not here to hurt her, someone safe. To Cherry, Sidney probably looked a tad more disheveled than she had a short time ago, her hair starting to slip out of her ponytail. She had switched into comfortable clothes when she realized that there was the very real chance that they wouldn't be able to fix the issues that would allow her to work, that she may not have to worry about work for a while. She wore a hoodie that she pulled out of the laundry that was much too big and needed to roll her sleeves up twice for her hands to be seen.

"You're bleeding," she blurted, wincing at how obvious that statement was, as she gently tried to brush strands of Cherry's hair that were sticking to her forehead and covering her face. "Here, let's go to the bathroom and get you cleaned up and something for the pain," Sidney said, offering her hand to her, "Up we go?"

Cherry had yet to really understand or remember what was happening to her, where she was, or who Sidney was. She heard the woman in the doorway of the unfamiliar bedroom calling out her name, and she looked familiar, but she couldn't remember her name or even how she knew her in her state of hysteria. She continued to cry out shrilly, her screams dying down to gasping, tearful breaths interrupted by occasional sharp outbursts of wordless noises of fear. When the woman came closer to her, gently brushing back her hair, Cherry flinched, expecting to be grabbed, bitten, hit, but instead she was touched gently, spoken to with just as much tenderness as she had been touched with.

Cherry tried to gather control of herself, managing to stop herself from any further outbursts even as tears continued to streak down her face. It was a dream- it had been a dream? But then how was she bleeding, why did she hurt? Even the woman, though she obviously wasn't a zombie and hadn't hurt or intended to hurt her- now, anyway- had said she was bleeding.

"W-where are they?" she stuttered, taking Sidney's hand but not moving to try to get off the bed or reach for her gun. "The, the zombies...did, did they bite you too?"

Beyond any concerns of modesty now, she started to pull down the shorts Sidney had leant her to sleep in and her own dirty underwear, searching with great concern for where she had been bitten. She couldn't see any fresh injuries at her thighs or crotch- in fact, she seemed to be bleeding from her vagina. This only further confused her. Was this her period? She hadn't had a period in a few months now- why was it so heavy?

Then it hit her.

"Oh fuck…oh fuck, no, no..."