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The Girl lets out a gasp as she feels someone grab her shoulder. The hand drags her out of her hiding spot in Destroya’s eye and she hits the ground. Hard. It forces the breath out of her and she lays there for a moment, looking up at the person. Long, tangly white hair falls out of the hood that shades their eyes dark enough she can’t quite see their features.
She tries to huff out questions: What the hell? Why’d you do that? Who are you? But the person doesn’t listen.
“Come on. We have to get out out of here.”
They turn and start walking away, clearly expecting her to follow. She sits up. There’s something about them, the way they speak, maybe? Maybe it’s their voice. Yeah, that’s it, that fucking voice it’s–
“Cola?”
They stop. Then they just repeat themself: “Come on.”
She continues to watch them for a moment. Between going back to the V’s and following this stranger who refuses to identify themself (and may or may not be one of the family members she’d used to pray would find her), both options sound equally stupid but she gets up and follows the person anyway.
The stranger doesn't speak while they walk. After a while a run-down building starts to come into view. A Better Living “condemned” sign is standing outside, so far from civilization that there's no graffiti on it or nothing. Her cat claws its way up her leg and onto her backpack, glaring at the person from its place by her shoulder. They gesture for her to go first and follow her inside.
It was… cluttered to say the least. There was a worn out couch to her left, radio equipment on an old, wooden desk in the back right corner. Something under a tarp on a platform next to that, and lots of wood crates and boxes along the walls. She looks into one next to her. Lots of books. She hadn’t thought Cherri was much for reading.
She turns back to her host. He’d taken his hood off. Jacket, too. He wore a long-sleeved shirt under that, of course. She can't remember a time when she’d seen him in anything but long sleeves. She studies his face for a moment, so familiar and so strange all at the same time. The skin she can see is mottled with old sunburns, and his hair is thin from missing patches. Maybe she should feel relieved, or happy to see him, but it's just anger bubbling in her chest as he gives her a little smile.
“So it is you.”
He opens his mouth to say something, but before he can, she speaks again. “What the fuck? I haven’t seen you since I was fucking what? Six? And you’re gonna turn up out of nowhere now?”
His smile falters and he starts to say “It- It wasn’t safe. You were being wa-”
"Oh, yeah, because letting me run around the desert on my own for my whole fucking life is so safe, but- but what? The second I actually talk to someone, you show up and drag me away?”
“You followed m–”
“Oh, I’m sorry. You show up again right when I don’t want you around and all you can say is that oh, actually, I followed you? Shut the fuck up!”
He’s silent for a moment. “I’m sorry.”
She doesn’t reply. She knows she’s being childish and rude, but she wants to keep going. She wants to say everything and nothing, to punch him in his stupid fucking familiar face for everything he has and hasn't done, or maybe just run away again and hope this time he doesn't find her.
But she doesn't. She just sighs and sits down on one of the crates. Her cat’s playing with the fraying end of the tarp. She watches it for a moment, then turns back to Cherri.
Her voice is flat when she asks “What’s under that?”
Cherri stutters out “a project of mine?”
Here's one thing about Cherri Cola: when he stutters, he's lying. He'll think up all sorts of lies to cover the shit he does and tell it to you like it's the truth so if he's struggling to come up with something, it's almost certainly a lie about something he wasn't expecting you to ask about. Maybe, if they knew each other better, the Girl might've just let it slide. Maybe it wasn't some innocent project, but whatever it was wasn't her business anyway. But she hasn’t seen him in years and years and years, and she doesn’t trust him. So she gets up and starts toward it. Cherri tries to tell her to stop, to wait, please don’t--
She lets out a quiet gasp. Four mannequins. Each wearing almost all of the Fabulous Four’s outfits.
The room is dead quiet. Like hearing a pin drop, or however that saying goes. She feels frozen in place, like she'd stand here until the end of time staring at this-- this shrine, or whatever the hell it's supposed to be. She can feel the concern radiating off Cherri but all she can do is stare.
It’s not perfect. Each is missing something. Jet Star’s clothes are all torn up, Party Poison’s missing any sort of mask, with just a big black X painted over aer face, Kobra Kid’s got no shoes, and Fun Ghoul doesn’t have a shirt. The mannequins aren’t the right sizes either. Jet Star’s clothes hang off awkwardly while Fun Ghoul’s are so tight the Girl numbly wonders how Cherri managed to get them on. She thinks that they should probably seem familiar. The way Cola does, strange and sickeningly comforting at the same time but it all just feels cold and distant and surreal.
It feels like hours, taking in every little detail of the replicas. God, she hopes they're replicas. She doesn’t know what she’d do if they're real. Thinking that he had the time to track down their actual fucking clothes but not her... Maybe she'd cry. Maybe she'd tear him limb from limb. The anger she'd felt just minutes prior is gone. She doesn’t know what she feels, but a dry, humorless laugh bubbles up her throat.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Cola. I knew you were a freak, but what the hell is this?”
She turns, and Cherri looks somewhere between afraid and apologetic as he refuses to meet her eyes.
“Y’know, I’m starting to see why the Four never liked you. You had time to make all this shit but didn’t have the time to figure out where I was? Did you not wanna come looking or did you just not give a shit? And don’t try to say you couldn’t find me or-- or whatever fucking bullshit excuse you're gonna try to give me. I don't wanna hear it.”
“Look, I- I know it’s… hard to just be reminded of them out of nowhere. I miss them too, just-”
“Miss them? You think I miss them?!” She laughs again. “Missing them is the least of my problems! I hardly remember them! You can’t miss someone you can’t even remember! If you think that’s the biggest problem we have...”
She trails off. It's not entirely true. She does remember them, in a way. So maybe she doesn’t have clear memories, but she sure remembers how it felt to be with them. It felt like smiling until your face hurts, laughing ‘til you’re crying, like a warm cup of cocoa on a cold night, a story before bedtime, like a million and one nice things from when you were a kid. Warm and calm and safe and the exact fucking opposite of how she’s feeling right now.
She expects Cola to say something, start apologizing again or something. But he doesn’t. He's got this fucking look on his face, some ugly cross between disbelief and worry, and maybe something else too, but she doesn't wanna look at him long enough to figure out what it is.
“I fucking hate you." The air's crackling the way it always does when she gets upset. She starts to get louder as she goes on. "It should've been you. You let them commit fucking suicide! I don't know what fucking cover story you've got for that one, but whatever it is doesn't cut it. You let them go through with it! There wasn't even a good chance it'd work! If we did it over I'd be dead or worse, just 'cause I got lucky once doesn't mean it was okay! Did you ever fucking care about them? Did you ever care about me? What the hell kind of game are you playing, getting a bunch of fucking kids killed for no good reason?”
“I’m sorry.” That only makes her angrier. It comes out soft, scared, like a question. It’s fucking pathetic, what’s his problem? Is that all he has to say for himself? Is he not sure if he’s sorry? Is he only saying that cause he thinks it’s what she wants to hear?
She storms past him, her cat at her heels, and outside. The door slams behind her, hard enough to shake the rickety building to its crumbling foundation. Maybe if she slams the door hard enough the whole building'll collapse in on him and she won't have to deal with this shit anymore. She contemplates just running off and praying that the bastard doesn’t come looking, but instead she sits around the side of the building. She hopes that being out in the sun will be enough to keep him away. Fuck him. Fuck this.
Of course it isn’t. Nothing would ever stop him from doing what he wants, not even the Witch Herself. He’s at least given her time to cool off, because by the time she hears the door open and shut again she’s not angry anymore. Her anger sapped the energy from her and she sits there, listless in the heat. It takes him a moment to figure out where she went, but when he does he sits down next to her, keeping his distance but still close enough to seem caring. He’s wearing his jacket and that stupid hood again. She turns away.
“Listen… I… I know you’re mad at me. Really, really mad at me. I’m sure I’d feel the same if I was in your situation.” He pauses. “I know you don't wanna hear it, but I think it's important you know that we tried. We all tried, we did everything we could to reason with them. Er, well… D and Pony did the reasoning. I layed into them for how fucking stupid they were being. Told ‘em all about themselves, called them all sorts of shitty things. Told ‘em they were grown, that if they wanted to get themselves killed then they could get off the fucking highway, and that I’d be around when they wanted to use their heads.
“I was scared. I was too full of myself to admit it then, but I’d known Ponyboy and Jet and Kobra since they were littler than you. And even after all that time, I didn’t know how to handle them looking up to me. I didn’t know what they wanted me to be, or how to do it. It pissed me off. Because I cared enough to want to be that person for them, and I still couldn’t figure it out." Another pause, like he's waiting for her to reply.
"We tried to find you, too. We did everything we could figure out where you went. Told people to call in if they saw you every day. We got a good amount of tips, but by the time someone got out there you'd be gone. We actually met with one little girl who someone thought was you, but she wasn’t. It was a needle in a haystack situation, and you were so little that anything could’ve happened to you. You might’ve already been adopted by some other family, or kidnapped and taken where we’d never find you, or just lost in the static where no one would recognize you as that kid we were looking for.
"I don't think you'll wanna hear this either, but I want you to know that I still love you. And I’m so, so sorry. For all of it. I really don’t have the words to even begin to describe how sorry I am. And I wish things were different. I wish I had all day, or all year or- or however long we need to try to fix things and I wish… I wish a lot of things.” Another sigh. “I understand if you don’t want to see me again. I’ll understand no matter what you want. But no matter what I need you to know that I love you, and D loves you and Pony loves you and we always have and that’ll never change.”
He looks away and rubs at his eyes. He takes a deep, shaky breath. Twenty minutes ago that might’ve started the Girl yelling at him again, how dare he cry about it when it’s his own damn fault? But right now she doesn’t care. She picks at a loose thread on the hem of her jacket, a private excuse to avoid looking at him, to avoid having to give a response.
“I have something I need to go do. I would really like it if you stayed here and we could talk when I get back, but I know that’s not likely so I wanted to give you this now. I’m not sure how you’re doing on supplies but I’m sure you’ll be able to put this to use eventually.”
He takes a bag off his lap as he finishes speaking and sets it next to her. She gives him a wary look but opens it anyway. Inside there’s food and water, enough for her and her cat for at least a week (maybe two if she rationed it right), a full first aid kit, a change of clothes, a bunch carbon coins and bills. Again she doesn’t know what to say as she looks between the bag and Cherri like it’s all some sort of trick.
Cherri gives her a sad smile and gets up, pulling his hood back on. He starts to walk off.
“Wait.”
He turns back to face her again.
"I'm... sorry." The words are bitter on her tongue. She fucking hates apologizing to him of all people, but she knows enough to know that whatever you're feeling on the inside, you probably shouldn't tell people to their face that you wished they were dead. Especially your own family. "I didn't mean that stuff. About it should've been you and everything. That was fucked up of me."
"It's alright." He looks between her and the way he was going, the way they'd come from. "You're welcome to join me if you'd like. It'd be nice to... to have some time together, if you'd want that."
Between going with him and staying at this crumbling house he called a... station, she guessed? Going with him didn't sound so bad, actually. She gets to her feet and he waits for her to catch up. If he notices how she stays close to his side the whole walk back, he doesn't mention it. And for as much as she'd spent the last few years hating the thought of ever seeing her once-family again, it didn't feel too bad to see Cherri again. She didn't forgive them, any of them, and maybe Cherri didn't really forgive her either, but maybe they could start over. New beginnings, or something to that effect.