T:tSCC: "For Thou Art With Me" (1/?)

[alixtii]

Title: For Thou Art With Me (1/?) Fandom: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Pairings: John/Savannah, John/Cameron Summary: As Savannah grows up and explores her sexuality, John must come to terms with his own desires. Psalm 23-verse, timeline "Girls in Their Summer Clothes," sometime in between Unfulfilled and The Funeral of Sarah Connor. For Thou Art With Me (1/?) John was halfway through his breakfast--a poptart and a bowl of cereal--when Savannah entered the kitchen through the back door, returned from her morning run, still breathing heavy. She was dressed in a green sports bra and black tight athletic shorts, and it took an act of will--several acts of will--to keep from being distracted by her heaving chest, the freckled skin of her bared midriff, the curve of the spandex as it hugged her ass. Already her body displayed in full the evidence of what he had known since she was nine years old, for he had seen her when she was (will be? would be?) twenty-four: that she will grow up to be a very attractive woman. She is not that woman now--she is young, sixteen not twenty-four, a girl not a woman, and it shows--but it would be the falsest of lies to say he desires her any less for her youth. If anything, he desires her more, for there are ways in which he knows this Savannah much more intimately, if not Biblically, then that other Savannah with whom his time had been so fleetingly brief. "Hey, John," she said as she entered. She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before stealing his poptart and taking a bite. "Hey," he answered, trying to focus on his cereal. "I need to take a shower," Savannah announced, wiping sweat from her brow. "Care to join me?" she asked, perkily hopeful. "Savannah," John cautioned, trying to channel "stern parent" in his voice to the best of his ability. Savannah just rolled her eyes, not in the least intimidated, as she made her way out of the kitchen. Then, as if suddenly changing her mind, she turned back to John. "Come on," she said, exasperated. "Every single future we've seen since you've been back, the two of us have been together. You know you're gonna give in eventually." "The only fate--" "--is what we make, blah, blah, blah," Savannah finished. "The thing is, this is the fate I want to make, and as much as you might to try to hide it, John Connor, I'm pretty sure it's the one you want too." She walked back towards him; with him sitting on the stool at the kitchen table, they were looking at each other more or less eye-to-eye. "Look me in the eye and tell me that you don't." And damn it, he couldn't, not when even now he was hard with desire, and she knew it, had been his foster sister for too long for him to be able to hide it from her. "It's not that," he said at last. "Then what?" she asked. "Sarah and Cameron are off on one of their SkyNet-hunting trips, Mr. Ellison is a hundred miles away at ZeiraCorp. No one needs to know but you and me." "Mom left me in charge," John protested, trying to keep his voice evem to sound reasonable. "Technically, Mr. Ellison is my guardian," Savannah pointed out. "You and Sarah are just my kidnappers." Technically, they weren't, not any more, since Mr. Ellison knew she was with John and Sarah and approved, if with reservations. (Although if he had been aware of this conversation. . . .) It was John's job to act in loco parentis for him, for Sarah, for the T-1001 that had taken Catherine Waver's name. But John was too caught up in the moment to argue technicalities. "So you want to add rapist to the list?" Savannah just rolled her eyes again. "I'm sixteen, John. I'm above the age of consent, and--" "--and in the other timeline you were running the Resistance at sixteen. Yes, I know. Well, this isn't the other timeline." They'd had this conversation enough times for him to already know how it ran. "So how long so do I have to wait?" Savannah asked. "Until I'm eighteen? Twenty-one? How old she was? Until Judgment Day? What if it never comes?" "Then that'd be a good thing." John looked away, refusing to answer beyond that. Savannah just exhaled loudly, exasperated. "I'll be in the shower," she repeated, then marched off. John just stared at his cereal bowl as she stirred the leftover milk with his spoon. When was he going to make Savannah (and himself) stop waiting? The problem was, he didn't know the answer. He knew it wasn't fair to Savannah. But then, none of this was, forcing her to fill the shoes of that other Savannah which John had loved and lost, who had run the Resistance in his absence. She should be free to live and love on her own terms. But that was the one thing John could never give her, just as Sarah--hard as she may have tried--was never able to give it to John. So, acknowledging that they did not live in the best of all possible worlds (of that, John had never been in doubt) why was he making her wait? John didn't know, except that he knew it was too soon. He sighed as she put his bowl in his sink. Sarah and Cameron returned the next day, and maybe they be able to handle her. He knew he couldn't.
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