"Lay Across the World and Explode Everything" by Amilyn (T)
Fandom: Terminator / Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles
Pairing: None
Length: ~4800 words
Author on LJ: amilyn
Author Website: FFN
Why this must be read: I only discovered the Terminator 'verse about a year ago, but Sarah Connor has quickly become one of my all-time favorite Awesome Action Ladies.* n this montage-style story, the author follows our heroine through her transformation between T1 and T2 (though with references here and there to TSCC elements). Amilyn does a beautiful job of showing both Sarah's complicated but often warm love for her son and her willingness to kick ass.
*I dream of crossovers where she shoots things alongside River Song. Or Zoe Washburn. Or both, I'm not picky.
Strong. She gripped the steering wheel. Strong would happen later.
For now, she had to learn how to fight, how to survive. Hell, she had to learn what to do to survive, and to survive she needed resources. She remembered heading into Mexico three months ago, wryly remembering how she'd once declared she'd never go there again. She and Mom had gone to Acapulco when she was sixteen, and they both got so sick they were two days late going home. They'd sworn it would never be worth risking that again.
But Mom was dead, and she was driving through the Chihuahua desert alone. A chuckle escaped her. She should be scared, and scared of more than throwing up. But she wasn't scared. Maybe this was what the beginning of "strong" felt like.
She'd made a start. Before she left L.A., the hardest-core gun shop guy had slipped an address into the back pocket of her jeans, copping a feel at the same time. The address was good, though, and Sarah spent her first three months in Mexico with a man who'd improved her shooting, taught her the beginnings of knife throwing, and, most important, gotten her enough contacts to get close to Enrique.
The desert streaked past, dry and monotonous. Behind her was the gas station, a little boy with a Polaroid, a storm. The unmarked road passed under her tires, hypnotic in its sameness. Midday found her turning onto a road that would not have been discernible from the rest of the desert were it not for the fence row lined with rattlesnake heads. The place screamed, "Warning! Keep out!"
While Sarah of Before would have screamed at the display, the snake heads made this seem exactly the kind of place she belonged.
Before she was even out of the car, four guns were leveled at her and the dog. She put her hands up, head down, and waited.
Hands slapped up and down her back, arms, legs, under her hair. The tallest man grasped her belly and wiggled it. He laughed. "She's clean," he called.
One of the men held up her .357, waggled it.
Salceda raised an eyebrow.
Sarah lowered her hands slowly, then reached out to the man in front of her. "Enrique Salceda?" His eyes narrowed. "I'm Sarah Connor, and I've come to learn from the best."
Lay Across the World and Explode Everything
Pairing: None
Length: ~4800 words
Author on LJ: amilyn
Author Website: FFN
Why this must be read: I only discovered the Terminator 'verse about a year ago, but Sarah Connor has quickly become one of my all-time favorite Awesome Action Ladies.* n this montage-style story, the author follows our heroine through her transformation between T1 and T2 (though with references here and there to TSCC elements). Amilyn does a beautiful job of showing both Sarah's complicated but often warm love for her son and her willingness to kick ass.
*I dream of crossovers where she shoots things alongside River Song. Or Zoe Washburn. Or both, I'm not picky.
Strong. She gripped the steering wheel. Strong would happen later.
For now, she had to learn how to fight, how to survive. Hell, she had to learn what to do to survive, and to survive she needed resources. She remembered heading into Mexico three months ago, wryly remembering how she'd once declared she'd never go there again. She and Mom had gone to Acapulco when she was sixteen, and they both got so sick they were two days late going home. They'd sworn it would never be worth risking that again.
But Mom was dead, and she was driving through the Chihuahua desert alone. A chuckle escaped her. She should be scared, and scared of more than throwing up. But she wasn't scared. Maybe this was what the beginning of "strong" felt like.
She'd made a start. Before she left L.A., the hardest-core gun shop guy had slipped an address into the back pocket of her jeans, copping a feel at the same time. The address was good, though, and Sarah spent her first three months in Mexico with a man who'd improved her shooting, taught her the beginnings of knife throwing, and, most important, gotten her enough contacts to get close to Enrique.
The desert streaked past, dry and monotonous. Behind her was the gas station, a little boy with a Polaroid, a storm. The unmarked road passed under her tires, hypnotic in its sameness. Midday found her turning onto a road that would not have been discernible from the rest of the desert were it not for the fence row lined with rattlesnake heads. The place screamed, "Warning! Keep out!"
While Sarah of Before would have screamed at the display, the snake heads made this seem exactly the kind of place she belonged.
Before she was even out of the car, four guns were leveled at her and the dog. She put her hands up, head down, and waited.
Hands slapped up and down her back, arms, legs, under her hair. The tallest man grasped her belly and wiggled it. He laughed. "She's clean," he called.
One of the men held up her .357, waggled it.
Salceda raised an eyebrow.
Sarah lowered her hands slowly, then reached out to the man in front of her. "Enrique Salceda?" His eyes narrowed. "I'm Sarah Connor, and I've come to learn from the best."
Lay Across the World and Explode Everything