"Hang In There, Slayer" by Jedi Buttercup (Teen)
Fandom: Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles / Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Pairing: Buffy Summers/John Connor
Length: 1900 words
Author on LJ jedibuttercup
Author Website: Jedi Buttercup
Why this must be read: John Connor has a fair amount in common with Buffy Summers when you think about it--an un-asked for destiny, a responsibility to save the world, a mentor who blurs the role between parent and everything else, and a tendency to fall for the 'enemy.' In this fic, we get a glance into what Buffy's life might be like, if she'd survived Judgement Day and fell in with the Reese brothers and Connor's inner circle. It's het but not particularly shippy--this pair is kindred spirits more than lovers, and the focus here is more on the good fight and the toll it takes on people who have been fighting for too long and still have miles to go.
When Judgment Day arrives on April 21, 2011, John Connor-- who has always known himself to be the future savior of mankind-- is twenty-seven years old and has spent his entire life in preparation for this moment. Buffy Summers-- former savior of mankind, who'd finally begun to settle into her retirement-- has just turned thirty and has never heard his name.
That changes over the weeks and months to come. When the machine mind of Skynet turned on its creators, half the world's population was erased in an orgy of nuclear destruction; it takes time for survivors to begin reconnecting, reaching hands to one another amid the haunted rubble of their fallen civilization, but as they do the name of Connor spreads over the airwaves like a virus. Somewhere out there, someone is fighting back, and such news carries hope.
She doesn't meet him face to face until three years later, when the stubborn eighteen-year-old working with her survivor's group talks her into crashing Connor's thirtieth birthday celebration. They normally keep a pretty low profile-- Buffy has enough on her hands trying to protect those gathered with her in the L.A. tunnel system, never mind the rest of the world-- but the Reese boys have often been the only thing keeping her alive in this world instead of just living since her ill-timed trip to California cut her off from everyone she's ever loved. Derek and his kid brother remind her a little bit of Dawn, torn from childhood too soon and thrust into a world of death and privation; so if he wants to meet his hero, his hero he will meet. It's the least she can do.
It does not occur to Buffy that Derek (like Xander before him) is still young enough to hold his heroes on pedestals, and not understand the urge to simply connect, no strings attached, with a compatible warm body. Connor-- always Connor even to her, never John-- has a well-known thing for strong women, and a hint of desperate hunger in the depths of his eyes; she knows that hunger, intimately, and indulges it with him in a back room at the party without a second thought.
She isn't, by any stretch of the imagination, Connor's one true love; his eyes tend to linger on darker hair and more curvaceous forms. He isn't hers, either; her heart has long since fallen to dust. But they both understand the burdens of leadership, and expect no more of each other than the other has to give. Buffy hunts with his pack more and more often over the following months, leaving a resentful Derek and the other two Slayers in her group behind to guard their less capable charges, and is one of Connor's acknowledged lieutenants within the year.
He never tells her why his mother trained him so hard for a role in life no normal person could ever have seen coming; she never tells him the true origins of her strength, speed, and experience. (There are no vampires or demons left for visual aids, after all; their survivors all fled this dimension like rats from a sinking ship). Neither of them is metal, and that is all that matters.
Hang In There, Slayer
Pairing: Buffy Summers/John Connor
Length: 1900 words
Author on LJ jedibuttercup
Author Website: Jedi Buttercup
Why this must be read: John Connor has a fair amount in common with Buffy Summers when you think about it--an un-asked for destiny, a responsibility to save the world, a mentor who blurs the role between parent and everything else, and a tendency to fall for the 'enemy.' In this fic, we get a glance into what Buffy's life might be like, if she'd survived Judgement Day and fell in with the Reese brothers and Connor's inner circle. It's het but not particularly shippy--this pair is kindred spirits more than lovers, and the focus here is more on the good fight and the toll it takes on people who have been fighting for too long and still have miles to go.
When Judgment Day arrives on April 21, 2011, John Connor-- who has always known himself to be the future savior of mankind-- is twenty-seven years old and has spent his entire life in preparation for this moment. Buffy Summers-- former savior of mankind, who'd finally begun to settle into her retirement-- has just turned thirty and has never heard his name.
That changes over the weeks and months to come. When the machine mind of Skynet turned on its creators, half the world's population was erased in an orgy of nuclear destruction; it takes time for survivors to begin reconnecting, reaching hands to one another amid the haunted rubble of their fallen civilization, but as they do the name of Connor spreads over the airwaves like a virus. Somewhere out there, someone is fighting back, and such news carries hope.
She doesn't meet him face to face until three years later, when the stubborn eighteen-year-old working with her survivor's group talks her into crashing Connor's thirtieth birthday celebration. They normally keep a pretty low profile-- Buffy has enough on her hands trying to protect those gathered with her in the L.A. tunnel system, never mind the rest of the world-- but the Reese boys have often been the only thing keeping her alive in this world instead of just living since her ill-timed trip to California cut her off from everyone she's ever loved. Derek and his kid brother remind her a little bit of Dawn, torn from childhood too soon and thrust into a world of death and privation; so if he wants to meet his hero, his hero he will meet. It's the least she can do.
It does not occur to Buffy that Derek (like Xander before him) is still young enough to hold his heroes on pedestals, and not understand the urge to simply connect, no strings attached, with a compatible warm body. Connor-- always Connor even to her, never John-- has a well-known thing for strong women, and a hint of desperate hunger in the depths of his eyes; she knows that hunger, intimately, and indulges it with him in a back room at the party without a second thought.
She isn't, by any stretch of the imagination, Connor's one true love; his eyes tend to linger on darker hair and more curvaceous forms. He isn't hers, either; her heart has long since fallen to dust. But they both understand the burdens of leadership, and expect no more of each other than the other has to give. Buffy hunts with his pack more and more often over the following months, leaving a resentful Derek and the other two Slayers in her group behind to guard their less capable charges, and is one of Connor's acknowledged lieutenants within the year.
He never tells her why his mother trained him so hard for a role in life no normal person could ever have seen coming; she never tells him the true origins of her strength, speed, and experience. (There are no vampires or demons left for visual aids, after all; their survivors all fled this dimension like rats from a sinking ship). Neither of them is metal, and that is all that matters.
Hang In There, Slayer