Something To Remember Me By, 4/9. NC-17
Title: Something To Remember Me By
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Pairing: Kyle/Sarah
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Not mine! Characters you recognize belong to other people, and I own nothing even remotely related to this.
Notes: Written for the ever lovely and wonderful romanovasledger. :)
Summary: Of course Sarah had a life before Kyle appeared in it. It wasn't her fault that he didn't have one now that Genisys had been stopped. Now they had to figure out what to do with a brand new future, and Sarah was going to lead the way.
Previous chapters:
One - Uncanny Valley
Two - An Interesting Future
Three - Switch Off The Sun
Four - Choking On Thin Air
Sarah caught sight of Kyle on one of his construction jobs. It wasn't stalking, not exactly; she had errands to run, and his latest site was on the way to the library. She had books to return regarding GED testing, just so she wouldn't feel like a complete fool when she started taking college classes. There hadn't been any need for formal schooling before, after all, as it would just keep her away from Pops for eight or nine hours a day, and it wouldn't teach her any of the shit she had actually needed to know. She got all the rudimentary things she needed to know about academics, and taking the tests in the review books now told her that she wouldn't have done too badly if she had gone to high school.
Her other nineteen year old self had probably been a waitress just to pass the time between classes. Kyle hadn't known what she would have been if the terminator hadn't come for her the first time around in 1984. Would she have been an artist? A teacher? A nurse? Something soft and comforting and normal?
No point thinking about it, since that was a future that would never be.
Kyle was sitting next to two other beefy looking guys, black lined tattoos easily visible on their dark skin. Not gang symbols as far as she knew, but distance and a pulled down sleeve obscured most of the image. Most gang symbols would've been on the inside of the forearm or on the neck, easily visible and meant to intimidate. Though the two guys next to Kyle were heavy muscles and built, their expressions were friendly and welcoming. One gestured widely, stopping as he smiled, and Kyle laughed at whatever he said.
Wait, Kyle laughed?
She could get chuckles and wry smiles, but couldn't recall really making him laugh. She couldn't think of anything that she could do that would make him happy like that. He had never smiled or laughed that way when talking of his future. No, those were always grim, somber looks, flashes of fear and startled expressions when he realized he wasn't reliving it. He had comrades and fellow soldiers in his future, the past that would never happen. Had he ever had friends like these two had to be?
One tapped him on the back, and he didn't startle much. The man noticed it and nodded toward the mp3 player on the bench next to him. Kyle nodded and sighed wearily, then hooked the wire under his shirt, putting the earbuds into his ears. Another nod and short statement to the two men, then he touched the button on the player to make it start, and then he headed back to the main construction area. Break over, then.
These were good friends, then. They knew about how twitchy he could be, how chills could roll down his spine when he remembered something bad. Maybe they didn't know what caused his nightmares, why he occasionally shouted in terror at night, why she had to cradle him and rock him back to sleep, his tears hot on her skin. Without knowing the details, they still looked out for him in ways that they could, and it made her glad that he had found them.
As Sarah watched him work, he didn't talk much with anyone, even the two men that seemed to be his close friends. She frowned a little, wondering why he was keeping himself so distant when he didn't have to; plenty of the other construction workers talked or shouted at each other as they worked, joked and jibed with each other.
She could see tension in his shoulders. Was there something that was being triggered? Was he experiencing some horror all over again?
Clenching her hands into fists, she headed to the library. She couldn't help him with this, not here and now, and she couldn't stop him from remembering whatever horrors he had experienced. It had happened to him, even if it never would again, and she knew full well how some things never really left.
They all carried scars thanks to Skynet and Genisys.
Sarah lost herself in the stacks of the library, not sure what else to do with herself. There was nothing she wanted to read, nothing she wanted to learn, no point to this existence that she could see. The lack of planning for after Skynet's destruction was glaringly obvious now. She never made contingency plans, so she was adrift.
Well, college should fix that. Hopefully.
She went to her Muay Thai class and beat the everloving shit out of the bag under the watchful eye of her trainer, working the frustration out. It would be so much easier if she was a machine herself, if there wasn't that cloying hopelessness creeping along her spine, the fluttering of her heart and the pulsing fear that she wasn't good enough.
Panting, Sarah bent over after the class and tried to catch her breath. Her trainer appeared to be concerned, maybe because her technique was sloppy today. Too much emotion, not enough grace for the follow through. The burden of disappointment was heavy, but she could bear it. She had for so long that it was a familiar weight. It was almost comfortable to shoulder it again, to feel it settle back onto her skin.
While at work, she couldn't help but remember Kyle's concern about her safety there. She brushed it off most of the time, since the regulars knew her. Billy teased her here and there, and maybe Jack did, too. Then again, Jack flirted with everyone at the bar, drunk or sober, so there was no way to really take him seriously. Fred was almost as old as Pops looked, and just liked to joke around and feel like he had friends; Sarah knew there was no one at home for him in his apartment, not even a pet. Still, the old man was fiercely proud of the friends he made at the bar, and dutifully bought shots for birthdays and holidays and any special events in their lives, so she made it a point to remember Fred's birthday and buy him a shot in return. She knew how it went with gruff old men in bars by now. These guys weren't the ones that Kyle ever had to be concerned about.
Okay, maybe there were some people who ogled her a little too much. Or thought it was cute leaving their phone numbers as tips. Or would order a sex on the beach just because and leer at her. Since there was the bar in between them, at least she didn't get groped or have her ass slapped by one of those losers.
If any of that happened while Kyle was around, he looked apoplectic and damn near ready to murder the asshole. Sarah would have to flick her eyes at him in their prearranged back off signal, if only to keep him out of trouble. She could handle herself. This was something she knew by now. She looked young, but she felt far older than her years and never really recalled what it was like to be innocent.
"This isn't good for you," Kyle growled periodically on their walks home. "Those guys are dangerous, I've seen the type before."
"So have I," Sarah snapped in reply.
Sometimes she simply ignored what Kyle said, sometimes she would egg him on. In his more jealous moments, he would pin her to the wall of the apartment and kiss her breathless. Then he would strip her to the skin and tell her with his hands and lips and tongue how important she was to him. In those moments, she felt less like an idiot and more like someone who was loved and cherished and truly significant. It wasn't fate making her that way, it was because she actually mattered. She had a soul of her own.
But at the same time, she hung on to the job just to be contrary. She didn't want to be told what to do. No one could make her do anything. Even the fate proscribed to her wasn't coming to pass, because she was in control, dammit.
It took being followed by a creeper from the bar to make Sarah finally quit. She handled herself well with said creeper, knocking him out easily and quickly, leaving him in the alley he hoped to ambush her in. Just to be spiteful, she stole his wallet and chucked it in the garbage after stealing the cash. No point in letting it go to waste, and she could always donate it to a domestic violence center. How was that for irony?
"You are not required to obtain employment, Sarah Connor," Pops told her evenly once she got home. Her hair was in disarray, and she was short of breath despite the relatively short walk, so it had been impossible not to tell him and Kyle. "It was merely to pass the time."
"I knew it was a bad idea," Kyle grumbled.
"Oh?" Sarah asked, irritated. "Because I'm a little girl and can't handle myself? I asked for it?"
"No!" Kyle cried, affronted. "Because guys in bars are assholes and I can't be there with you all the time to watch your six!"
"I handled it."
"Tonight. But when there's more than one? You can't see behind you, you don't have eyes behind your head." He raked his hands through his hair in an agitated manner. "I can't... If anything happened to you, I don't know how I'd survive it."
"You're not my father," Sarah snarled. "That's how you're acting, you know that, right? Like you're the parent and I'm some dumbass kid that doesn't know any better. But I do know better, because machines fucking blew up my house and my parents and I stopped being a kid!"
Kyle gave her a stricken look. "No, it's not like that, Sarah. You're as strong as any soldier I ever fought with, but even we knew that we couldn't go it alone. You need someone at your back, you need protection to stay alive."
"I'm not a soldier."
"Sarah-"
Her expression didn't change. "This isn't healthy, Reese."
"Kyle Reese is devoted to your well-being," Pops told Sarah.
"Stay out of it, Pops."
"It is in your best interest to make use of all allies," Pops replied.
"Yeah," Kyle echoed, nodding at Pops. "You can handle yourself as well as any soldier I fought with. But you only have so many resources, and they can be overwhelmed."
"I'm not a soldier!"
"That's why I worry!" Kyle responded desperately.
"I took care of myself before you got here. I'm not helpless. I'm not some damsel in distress like you were told I'd be. I will never be that kind of girl."
"And I love that about you-"
"You love stories told to you by someone that turned out to be a psychopathic madman!" Sarah screeched, eyes wide with disbelief.
Kyle looked so hurt by that, Sarah almost regretted her words. Almost.
"He used you, Reese," Sarah continued mercilessly. "He manipulated you. Manipulated everyone. Tried to do the same with me, and I'm his mother. What the hell kind of savior makes friends with the guy that he has to send back to die without even letting him know it was a suicide mission?"
"I'm not having this conversation," Kyle told her, voice cold.
"No, you need to hear it," Sarah said.
Kyle attempted to brush past her, jaw firm, but a nod from Sarah had Pops grasping his shoulder to keep him in place. "You must listen to Sarah Connor," he told Kyle.
But Kyle shook his head. "I lived it. I know what happened, I know John was a good man. What you saw wasn't the John I knew. He was infected by Skynet."
"The John you knew still sent you here to die."
"Our missions always carry risk-"
"Which makes him no better than the machines," Sarah continued.
His glower was fierce, and something in Sarah quailed at breaking his illusions this way. Was she a horrible person for doing this? Probably, but she'd never pretended to be a saint. Kyle just saw her that way.
"Sacrificing people for the greater good, just because you can, just because you convinced people that you're right-"
"John knew the machines were coming. He saved us from Judgment Day, brought us out of the work camps, prevented genocide. We'd do anything for him-"
"That's my point, Reese. You'd do anything, even die, just because he said so, just because he would say it's right. You have no real choice in it!"
"Of course I chose for myself!"
"Oh, come on, Reese. You'd lay down your life for John. You need to follow orders so badly and don't know what to do if you're not told."
Yanking himself away from Pops, Kyle glared at Sarah. "That's low. Don't bring what we do-"
"It's everything, Reese. You were a soldier. You took orders-"
"It was war, Sarah."
"And we're not at war now, Reese. You keep acting like you are."
"You're the same way. Like all the warriors I trained with."
"We're not at war. Stand down, Reese."
"I can't!"
"We're not at war," Sarah repeated. "We're done. We're done. John may have been a good leader, but he was a shitty person and he wasn't your friend. Friends don't set each other up to die."
Something painful was in Kyle's gaze. "It wasn't like that."
"You died within two days of coming back. He would've known that. I would've told him. So he knew you didn't survive it. We had two days in that other reality, Reese. You might not have known it, but he did. He sent you on a suicide mission without telling you that it was. That's fucked up."
Pops gave Sarah a disapproving look. "This is nonproductive."
"John was fucked up and selfish, and an all around shitty human being. I'm glad he's gone, because I don't want him around you anymore. I don't want him telling you to do stupid ass shit. I might tell you what to do, but I don't expect you to put yourself at risk. I don't expect you to die for me. I don't want you to die for me. And I hate that you would without question."
"I would because I love you!"
"Because he made you! It wasn't your choice!"
"Of course it was!"
"He manipulated you into it!"
"No!" Kyle's gaze was intense, making Sarah feel terrible for starting this conversation. "I love you. He didn't make me love you. It happened here-"
"You idolized me before you even met me," Sarah interrupted, ignoring Pops' disapproving scowl at her. "You fell in love with the idea of me, not me. You can't love someone you don't know, and I'm not the kind of girl men want to keep. I'm good for a fuck, I know that. I'm no mother Mary with a halo."
"That's not how I see you," Kyle growled fiercely. "You protect people you care about. You survive. That's all worthwhile." He grasped Sarah's arms. "You're perfect, Sarah. You're everything I ever wanted. You, not stories. Not the Sarah I thought I was going to meet, but you."
"Oh, please," Sarah scoffed, an angry edge to her voice. "You think I'm any kind of good? You went back in time wanting to fuck your best friend's mother? Do you think that's healthy? Do you think he really gave a shit about you or do you think maybe he just wanted to be sure that he was born?!"
"Both of you need to participate in local activities," Pops declared in the stunned silence. "Both of you need to spend time outside of this home."
"We don't know anyone outside of work, Pops," Sarah told him, irritated.
"Exactly. Humans are social creatures. You don't have the friend community you used to."
"My friends were gangbangers, Pops."
"And Kyle Reese's were soldiers." Pops appeared unconcerned by Sarah's incredulous statement. "Similar function, if unnecessary for our current living parameters. You both need companions to suit your current situation, likely none that live here."
"Are you saying we need new friends?" Kyle sputtered.
"Affirmative."
"This entire conversation is surreal," Sarah grumbled.
"Fuck this," Kyle muttered. "I'm going to bed. Alone."
"I'm not fucking you tonight anyway," Sarah told him, grimacing. "That's just gross now."
That was probably too far, and she regretted it the instant she said it.
Kyle gave her a look that could have blistered paint as he left the room. Maybe if he slammed the bedroom door, Sarah could have told herself he pissed her off, too. But he closed and locked the door quietly, making her feel like a cruel, heartless bitch.
"Oh, God, I fucked up," Sarah groaned miserably, taking a step backward and turning away.
Pops nodded at her. "Affirmative."
"Do you think he'll forgive me?" she asked in a small voice.
"He loves you."
"That's not a yes."
"That's also not a no."
Sarah could pop the lock with a nail. She could walk in, beg forgiveness for being a bitch, could try to make it up to him somehow. Or she could leave him alone, letting him lick his wounds in private overnight. That was a coward's way out, and likely would hurt him even more, though. He might think she didn't care for him at all.
Well, shit. She didn't like either option. But she'd never run from anything before, even her own fate as she railed against it.
She grabbed a long nail from Pops' toolbox and popped the lock to the bedroom door. Kyle was inside, perched on the end of the bed, head in hands, leaning over, looking miserable. He didn't even look up as she came in and knelt on the floor in front of him.
"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I'm a bitch. I'm not nice. I'm not a good person, not really. Not how you think I am. John probably got his douchebaggery from me, not you. You're the good one between the two of us."
Kyle looked up and dropped his hands into his lap. "What are we doing, Sarah? Do we need to fight so much that we'll turn on each other when there's no one left?"
"I don't know," Sarah whispered. "But John wasn't good for you. Maybe he cared, I don't know. But it was still an awful thing to do. He was still a shitty friend."
"He was all I knew, Sarah."
"And I knew people who'd knife each other or shoot up their stuff if they said the wrong thing. Yeah, they'd protect each other from other gangs, but they were also pretty damn selfish. So I guess we're in the same boat. I don't know how to be normal. That girl died the moment that the machines killed my parents."
"I don't know what normal is," Kyle replied tonelessly. "The guys I work with don't seem to care."
Sarah got off her knees and wrapped her arms around him. After a moment, Kyle embraced her tightly. "If you don't care, then I won't either."
She was his home. He belonged with her, even when mad at her, and she was going to have to learn to consider his feelings outside the bedroom, too. They weren't just roommates that fucked sometimes, after all. Whatever they were, it mattered. It was important.
"I do love you," Kyle whispered into her neck. "You. Not the stories I heard, but you. You're amazing, Sarah. You're not the bitch you think you are."
Yes, she was. She didn't deserve him.
Maybe it was time she tried to be the Sarah he thought she was. Maybe then she would deserve him.
***
***
To Chapter Five - Laying A New Foundation
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Pairing: Kyle/Sarah
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Not mine! Characters you recognize belong to other people, and I own nothing even remotely related to this.
Notes: Written for the ever lovely and wonderful romanovasledger. :)
Summary: Of course Sarah had a life before Kyle appeared in it. It wasn't her fault that he didn't have one now that Genisys had been stopped. Now they had to figure out what to do with a brand new future, and Sarah was going to lead the way.
Previous chapters:
One - Uncanny Valley
Two - An Interesting Future
Three - Switch Off The Sun
Four - Choking On Thin Air
Sarah caught sight of Kyle on one of his construction jobs. It wasn't stalking, not exactly; she had errands to run, and his latest site was on the way to the library. She had books to return regarding GED testing, just so she wouldn't feel like a complete fool when she started taking college classes. There hadn't been any need for formal schooling before, after all, as it would just keep her away from Pops for eight or nine hours a day, and it wouldn't teach her any of the shit she had actually needed to know. She got all the rudimentary things she needed to know about academics, and taking the tests in the review books now told her that she wouldn't have done too badly if she had gone to high school.
Her other nineteen year old self had probably been a waitress just to pass the time between classes. Kyle hadn't known what she would have been if the terminator hadn't come for her the first time around in 1984. Would she have been an artist? A teacher? A nurse? Something soft and comforting and normal?
No point thinking about it, since that was a future that would never be.
Kyle was sitting next to two other beefy looking guys, black lined tattoos easily visible on their dark skin. Not gang symbols as far as she knew, but distance and a pulled down sleeve obscured most of the image. Most gang symbols would've been on the inside of the forearm or on the neck, easily visible and meant to intimidate. Though the two guys next to Kyle were heavy muscles and built, their expressions were friendly and welcoming. One gestured widely, stopping as he smiled, and Kyle laughed at whatever he said.
Wait, Kyle laughed?
She could get chuckles and wry smiles, but couldn't recall really making him laugh. She couldn't think of anything that she could do that would make him happy like that. He had never smiled or laughed that way when talking of his future. No, those were always grim, somber looks, flashes of fear and startled expressions when he realized he wasn't reliving it. He had comrades and fellow soldiers in his future, the past that would never happen. Had he ever had friends like these two had to be?
One tapped him on the back, and he didn't startle much. The man noticed it and nodded toward the mp3 player on the bench next to him. Kyle nodded and sighed wearily, then hooked the wire under his shirt, putting the earbuds into his ears. Another nod and short statement to the two men, then he touched the button on the player to make it start, and then he headed back to the main construction area. Break over, then.
These were good friends, then. They knew about how twitchy he could be, how chills could roll down his spine when he remembered something bad. Maybe they didn't know what caused his nightmares, why he occasionally shouted in terror at night, why she had to cradle him and rock him back to sleep, his tears hot on her skin. Without knowing the details, they still looked out for him in ways that they could, and it made her glad that he had found them.
As Sarah watched him work, he didn't talk much with anyone, even the two men that seemed to be his close friends. She frowned a little, wondering why he was keeping himself so distant when he didn't have to; plenty of the other construction workers talked or shouted at each other as they worked, joked and jibed with each other.
She could see tension in his shoulders. Was there something that was being triggered? Was he experiencing some horror all over again?
Clenching her hands into fists, she headed to the library. She couldn't help him with this, not here and now, and she couldn't stop him from remembering whatever horrors he had experienced. It had happened to him, even if it never would again, and she knew full well how some things never really left.
They all carried scars thanks to Skynet and Genisys.
Sarah lost herself in the stacks of the library, not sure what else to do with herself. There was nothing she wanted to read, nothing she wanted to learn, no point to this existence that she could see. The lack of planning for after Skynet's destruction was glaringly obvious now. She never made contingency plans, so she was adrift.
Well, college should fix that. Hopefully.
She went to her Muay Thai class and beat the everloving shit out of the bag under the watchful eye of her trainer, working the frustration out. It would be so much easier if she was a machine herself, if there wasn't that cloying hopelessness creeping along her spine, the fluttering of her heart and the pulsing fear that she wasn't good enough.
Panting, Sarah bent over after the class and tried to catch her breath. Her trainer appeared to be concerned, maybe because her technique was sloppy today. Too much emotion, not enough grace for the follow through. The burden of disappointment was heavy, but she could bear it. She had for so long that it was a familiar weight. It was almost comfortable to shoulder it again, to feel it settle back onto her skin.
While at work, she couldn't help but remember Kyle's concern about her safety there. She brushed it off most of the time, since the regulars knew her. Billy teased her here and there, and maybe Jack did, too. Then again, Jack flirted with everyone at the bar, drunk or sober, so there was no way to really take him seriously. Fred was almost as old as Pops looked, and just liked to joke around and feel like he had friends; Sarah knew there was no one at home for him in his apartment, not even a pet. Still, the old man was fiercely proud of the friends he made at the bar, and dutifully bought shots for birthdays and holidays and any special events in their lives, so she made it a point to remember Fred's birthday and buy him a shot in return. She knew how it went with gruff old men in bars by now. These guys weren't the ones that Kyle ever had to be concerned about.
Okay, maybe there were some people who ogled her a little too much. Or thought it was cute leaving their phone numbers as tips. Or would order a sex on the beach just because and leer at her. Since there was the bar in between them, at least she didn't get groped or have her ass slapped by one of those losers.
If any of that happened while Kyle was around, he looked apoplectic and damn near ready to murder the asshole. Sarah would have to flick her eyes at him in their prearranged back off signal, if only to keep him out of trouble. She could handle herself. This was something she knew by now. She looked young, but she felt far older than her years and never really recalled what it was like to be innocent.
"This isn't good for you," Kyle growled periodically on their walks home. "Those guys are dangerous, I've seen the type before."
"So have I," Sarah snapped in reply.
Sometimes she simply ignored what Kyle said, sometimes she would egg him on. In his more jealous moments, he would pin her to the wall of the apartment and kiss her breathless. Then he would strip her to the skin and tell her with his hands and lips and tongue how important she was to him. In those moments, she felt less like an idiot and more like someone who was loved and cherished and truly significant. It wasn't fate making her that way, it was because she actually mattered. She had a soul of her own.
But at the same time, she hung on to the job just to be contrary. She didn't want to be told what to do. No one could make her do anything. Even the fate proscribed to her wasn't coming to pass, because she was in control, dammit.
It took being followed by a creeper from the bar to make Sarah finally quit. She handled herself well with said creeper, knocking him out easily and quickly, leaving him in the alley he hoped to ambush her in. Just to be spiteful, she stole his wallet and chucked it in the garbage after stealing the cash. No point in letting it go to waste, and she could always donate it to a domestic violence center. How was that for irony?
"You are not required to obtain employment, Sarah Connor," Pops told her evenly once she got home. Her hair was in disarray, and she was short of breath despite the relatively short walk, so it had been impossible not to tell him and Kyle. "It was merely to pass the time."
"I knew it was a bad idea," Kyle grumbled.
"Oh?" Sarah asked, irritated. "Because I'm a little girl and can't handle myself? I asked for it?"
"No!" Kyle cried, affronted. "Because guys in bars are assholes and I can't be there with you all the time to watch your six!"
"I handled it."
"Tonight. But when there's more than one? You can't see behind you, you don't have eyes behind your head." He raked his hands through his hair in an agitated manner. "I can't... If anything happened to you, I don't know how I'd survive it."
"You're not my father," Sarah snarled. "That's how you're acting, you know that, right? Like you're the parent and I'm some dumbass kid that doesn't know any better. But I do know better, because machines fucking blew up my house and my parents and I stopped being a kid!"
Kyle gave her a stricken look. "No, it's not like that, Sarah. You're as strong as any soldier I ever fought with, but even we knew that we couldn't go it alone. You need someone at your back, you need protection to stay alive."
"I'm not a soldier."
"Sarah-"
Her expression didn't change. "This isn't healthy, Reese."
"Kyle Reese is devoted to your well-being," Pops told Sarah.
"Stay out of it, Pops."
"It is in your best interest to make use of all allies," Pops replied.
"Yeah," Kyle echoed, nodding at Pops. "You can handle yourself as well as any soldier I fought with. But you only have so many resources, and they can be overwhelmed."
"I'm not a soldier!"
"That's why I worry!" Kyle responded desperately.
"I took care of myself before you got here. I'm not helpless. I'm not some damsel in distress like you were told I'd be. I will never be that kind of girl."
"And I love that about you-"
"You love stories told to you by someone that turned out to be a psychopathic madman!" Sarah screeched, eyes wide with disbelief.
Kyle looked so hurt by that, Sarah almost regretted her words. Almost.
"He used you, Reese," Sarah continued mercilessly. "He manipulated you. Manipulated everyone. Tried to do the same with me, and I'm his mother. What the hell kind of savior makes friends with the guy that he has to send back to die without even letting him know it was a suicide mission?"
"I'm not having this conversation," Kyle told her, voice cold.
"No, you need to hear it," Sarah said.
Kyle attempted to brush past her, jaw firm, but a nod from Sarah had Pops grasping his shoulder to keep him in place. "You must listen to Sarah Connor," he told Kyle.
But Kyle shook his head. "I lived it. I know what happened, I know John was a good man. What you saw wasn't the John I knew. He was infected by Skynet."
"The John you knew still sent you here to die."
"Our missions always carry risk-"
"Which makes him no better than the machines," Sarah continued.
His glower was fierce, and something in Sarah quailed at breaking his illusions this way. Was she a horrible person for doing this? Probably, but she'd never pretended to be a saint. Kyle just saw her that way.
"Sacrificing people for the greater good, just because you can, just because you convinced people that you're right-"
"John knew the machines were coming. He saved us from Judgment Day, brought us out of the work camps, prevented genocide. We'd do anything for him-"
"That's my point, Reese. You'd do anything, even die, just because he said so, just because he would say it's right. You have no real choice in it!"
"Of course I chose for myself!"
"Oh, come on, Reese. You'd lay down your life for John. You need to follow orders so badly and don't know what to do if you're not told."
Yanking himself away from Pops, Kyle glared at Sarah. "That's low. Don't bring what we do-"
"It's everything, Reese. You were a soldier. You took orders-"
"It was war, Sarah."
"And we're not at war now, Reese. You keep acting like you are."
"You're the same way. Like all the warriors I trained with."
"We're not at war. Stand down, Reese."
"I can't!"
"We're not at war," Sarah repeated. "We're done. We're done. John may have been a good leader, but he was a shitty person and he wasn't your friend. Friends don't set each other up to die."
Something painful was in Kyle's gaze. "It wasn't like that."
"You died within two days of coming back. He would've known that. I would've told him. So he knew you didn't survive it. We had two days in that other reality, Reese. You might not have known it, but he did. He sent you on a suicide mission without telling you that it was. That's fucked up."
Pops gave Sarah a disapproving look. "This is nonproductive."
"John was fucked up and selfish, and an all around shitty human being. I'm glad he's gone, because I don't want him around you anymore. I don't want him telling you to do stupid ass shit. I might tell you what to do, but I don't expect you to put yourself at risk. I don't expect you to die for me. I don't want you to die for me. And I hate that you would without question."
"I would because I love you!"
"Because he made you! It wasn't your choice!"
"Of course it was!"
"He manipulated you into it!"
"No!" Kyle's gaze was intense, making Sarah feel terrible for starting this conversation. "I love you. He didn't make me love you. It happened here-"
"You idolized me before you even met me," Sarah interrupted, ignoring Pops' disapproving scowl at her. "You fell in love with the idea of me, not me. You can't love someone you don't know, and I'm not the kind of girl men want to keep. I'm good for a fuck, I know that. I'm no mother Mary with a halo."
"That's not how I see you," Kyle growled fiercely. "You protect people you care about. You survive. That's all worthwhile." He grasped Sarah's arms. "You're perfect, Sarah. You're everything I ever wanted. You, not stories. Not the Sarah I thought I was going to meet, but you."
"Oh, please," Sarah scoffed, an angry edge to her voice. "You think I'm any kind of good? You went back in time wanting to fuck your best friend's mother? Do you think that's healthy? Do you think he really gave a shit about you or do you think maybe he just wanted to be sure that he was born?!"
"Both of you need to participate in local activities," Pops declared in the stunned silence. "Both of you need to spend time outside of this home."
"We don't know anyone outside of work, Pops," Sarah told him, irritated.
"Exactly. Humans are social creatures. You don't have the friend community you used to."
"My friends were gangbangers, Pops."
"And Kyle Reese's were soldiers." Pops appeared unconcerned by Sarah's incredulous statement. "Similar function, if unnecessary for our current living parameters. You both need companions to suit your current situation, likely none that live here."
"Are you saying we need new friends?" Kyle sputtered.
"Affirmative."
"This entire conversation is surreal," Sarah grumbled.
"Fuck this," Kyle muttered. "I'm going to bed. Alone."
"I'm not fucking you tonight anyway," Sarah told him, grimacing. "That's just gross now."
That was probably too far, and she regretted it the instant she said it.
Kyle gave her a look that could have blistered paint as he left the room. Maybe if he slammed the bedroom door, Sarah could have told herself he pissed her off, too. But he closed and locked the door quietly, making her feel like a cruel, heartless bitch.
"Oh, God, I fucked up," Sarah groaned miserably, taking a step backward and turning away.
Pops nodded at her. "Affirmative."
"Do you think he'll forgive me?" she asked in a small voice.
"He loves you."
"That's not a yes."
"That's also not a no."
Sarah could pop the lock with a nail. She could walk in, beg forgiveness for being a bitch, could try to make it up to him somehow. Or she could leave him alone, letting him lick his wounds in private overnight. That was a coward's way out, and likely would hurt him even more, though. He might think she didn't care for him at all.
Well, shit. She didn't like either option. But she'd never run from anything before, even her own fate as she railed against it.
She grabbed a long nail from Pops' toolbox and popped the lock to the bedroom door. Kyle was inside, perched on the end of the bed, head in hands, leaning over, looking miserable. He didn't even look up as she came in and knelt on the floor in front of him.
"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I'm a bitch. I'm not nice. I'm not a good person, not really. Not how you think I am. John probably got his douchebaggery from me, not you. You're the good one between the two of us."
Kyle looked up and dropped his hands into his lap. "What are we doing, Sarah? Do we need to fight so much that we'll turn on each other when there's no one left?"
"I don't know," Sarah whispered. "But John wasn't good for you. Maybe he cared, I don't know. But it was still an awful thing to do. He was still a shitty friend."
"He was all I knew, Sarah."
"And I knew people who'd knife each other or shoot up their stuff if they said the wrong thing. Yeah, they'd protect each other from other gangs, but they were also pretty damn selfish. So I guess we're in the same boat. I don't know how to be normal. That girl died the moment that the machines killed my parents."
"I don't know what normal is," Kyle replied tonelessly. "The guys I work with don't seem to care."
Sarah got off her knees and wrapped her arms around him. After a moment, Kyle embraced her tightly. "If you don't care, then I won't either."
She was his home. He belonged with her, even when mad at her, and she was going to have to learn to consider his feelings outside the bedroom, too. They weren't just roommates that fucked sometimes, after all. Whatever they were, it mattered. It was important.
"I do love you," Kyle whispered into her neck. "You. Not the stories I heard, but you. You're amazing, Sarah. You're not the bitch you think you are."
Yes, she was. She didn't deserve him.
Maybe it was time she tried to be the Sarah he thought she was. Maybe then she would deserve him.
***
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To Chapter Five - Laying A New Foundation