Disclaimer: I don't own anyone from the original Cars or Cars 2 movies.

...

Sally closed the files drawer in front of her with an angry bang. She was so depressed that she wasn't doing a very good job at work, and that was stressing her out. She was afraid of losing her job, although, truth be told, she was considering finding a different city to move to. She enjoyed being a lawyer, but being a lawyer in L.A. was so hectic, she was barely able to keep up with her work. However, if she was fired before she could quit, that wouldn't look good on her resumé and make getting a new job much harder.

Sally finished up her work, and it was about seven at night before she was done. Almost in tears of frustration, she drove out of the office and looked down the street in the direction of her house. She was there so long that someone actually honked at her to move. Well, the noise may not have been directed at her - cars were always honking at each other in Los Angles. Sally thought for a second before she did something that would change her forever.

She turned and drove away.

Sally kept driving through the night. She drove down freeways, highways, and back roads. By morning, she had no idea where the heck she was, but she didn't care.

At least, she didn't care until she heard a POP! and felt something running freely throughout her engine.

Sally's eyes widened in panic. Her radiator had broke!

"Oh, crap," she muttered. "That's not good, that is SO not good..."

Her engine hissed, and steam started to float out of under her hood.

"Oh, gosh, please no..." she groaned as she pulled over. Sally's eyes darted everywhere, looking for any sign of another car, but as far as she could tell, she was in the middle of nowhere, except for the Interstate down the side of the mountain. Her engine was starting to get too hot...

The only thing she saw was a run-down sort of motel. She pulled herself over by it, and was almost to the entrance before the heat in her engine swelled unbearably and the world went dark. Her last thought was, "I should never have done this. Now, I'm going to die in the middle of nowhere."

...

She woke up a few hours later, wondering if she was dead, a bright light shining directly in her eyes. Sally winced and blinked. The light seemed less harsh as her eyes reopened, and she was able to see.

Parked in front of her was a dark blue Hudson Hornet. Well, actually, he was under her - she was on a car lift. She yelped in surprise and looked around. Sally seemed to be in a clinic, but she had no idea how she had come to be there. The last thing she remembered was breaking down on a dusty road in the middle of nowhere.

"Um, hi?" Sally said to the Hudson Hornet. "Where - where am I?" She bit her lower lip, afraid he would say that she had died. She was okay with death in general, but in life, she had never had a chance to be truly happy.

"Radiator Springs," he replied in a gravelly voice. Oh. So she wasn't dead. She still had a shot at being happy in life. That was good.

"Where's that?"

"Carburetor County."

"Uh, okay. Who are you?"

He looked a little apprehensive for some reason as he replied, "Doc Hudson, but just call me Doc."

Sally nodded. "Well, I'm Sally Carrera. Why am I here?"

"You broke down at the Wheels Well Motel, or at least that's what it used to be. Your radiator broke and your engine overheated. Mater found you and towed you here to be fixed up," he explained as he rolled over to a spot underneath Sally. She cringed, - what else is a woman going to do when a random male goes under her? - but he came back out a second later as the lift came down.

"Thanks," Sally said gratefully. She tentatively rolled off the lift, half-expecting her engine to start smoking again, but her engine was fine. She sighed in relief before turning to face Doc. "How much do I owe you?"

"Nothing, it's fine," Doc grunted. Her eyes widened a bit. She had been expecting him to say, well, a lot, but he had saved her life for and apparently he had done it FOR FREE?

"Wait, what?" Sally asked lamely.

"It's fine, you don't owe me anything," Doc repeated.

"Are you sure? I mean, you saved my life," Sally argued. She wasn't exactly eager to cough up a few hundred dollars, but she also didn't want this guy to have fixed her up for nothing.

"Really, Miss Carrera, it's fine," he insisted. Sally studied him for a moment. As a lawyer, she was good at sizing people up, and with only a few minutes, she would know their basic personalities. Her gut was telling her that Doc wasn't going to give up on his side of the argument. Defeated, Sally dipped her hood into a nod. Doc grunted in satisfaction before saying, "Good. Now, I suggest you get some gas at Flo's before leaving."

"Okay. Well, thank you so much, Doc," she said, smiling. He gave her a small smile on return before turning away, cuing her to leave.

She drove out the door, looking for 'Flo's'. It seemed to be about noon, and the town was baking under the hot desert sun. Sally saw a gas station and drove over, feeling a little self-conscious as the few cars there looked over at her. She forced a smile on her face.

"Hi," she said as she pulled in. A chorus of greetings responded to her. As a she hit the lever to fill up her tank, a rusty tow-truck drove up to her.

"Feelin' alrigh'?" he asked. "I'm Mater, like in 'tuh-Mater', just without the 'tuh'."

His statement threw her off a little, but she recovered quickly. "Hi, Mater, I'm Sally Carrera."

He nodded as more cars came up and introduced themselves. Everyone seemed nice, but a little lonely. There was a sort of defeated feel in the air. Sally's tank filled up, but she wasn't in a hurry - she stayed to talk to the people of Radiator Springs. She drove around a bit, and she found herself becoming enchanted with the almost-abandoned town. As she saw more and more of it, and learned of it's past, it's heyday, she started to want to see it like that. Sally wanted to fix the town, return it to it's old glory.

And that's what she did.

Sally stayed in Radiator Springs. She ordered things online and fixed up the Cozy Cone Motel. She dreamed of fixing Wheels Well, the place where she had broken down. She had driven up there the day after she landed in the tiny town, and totally fallen in love with the breathe-taking view. However, she would have to wait to fix the motel there - it was too expensive and the work would take several cars. The townsfolk seemed to want to help, but they had already given up. They swore that the town would never stand another chance, not with the Interstate. Sally didn't believe that. She wait for a chance to fix up the town and get them back on the map.

Sally never gave up, even though it sometimes seemed impossible. At least, it seemed impossible until almost half a year after she had found Radiator Springs, when a racecar named Lightning McQueen raced into the town.