WIP amnesty post III
Moving fandoms! To: TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES. After the show ended everyone pretty much thought about writing a post finale-season three what might have been fic. This was mine.
ghost of a future (8k~)
note: The future is not like John expected at all. Nobody knows him. It’s weird, especially since he expected them to.
prologue
The future is different from anything he had expected, and you know what, he had expected a lot. Derek (who doesn’t remember him, doesn’t know him. John Connor is no one here.) had mentioned the tunnels, so yeah, no surprise there, but he hadn’t expected the people plied on top of each other like rats in a maze, but in a way isn’t that exactly what they are? Vermin for the Terminators and Skynet to hunt? Cameron, yes, Cameron, because Allison is different (he needs to remember, memorise, accept that; different, flesh, bone. Mortal.) had mentioned the Metal, she had mentioned that he used some metal in the Resistance, but there’s none to be found here. (She’s Allison. A. Lli. Son. Not metal, not here. Allison.) Not to mention his Kyle Reese is alive and probably doesn’t carry a picture of Sarah Connor in his pocket, because John apparently doesn’t exist in this world.
Oh, yeah, it’s different all right.
Kyle, his dad, his dad to be? He doesn’t even know anymore, but yeah, out of some miracle or pity, Kyle doesn’t beat him to a pulp for wearing his coat. Apparently Derek has a sense of humour here. (And isn’t it fucking weird that the first thing he picked up after travelling trough time had been his father’s coat? How does that even happen? Seriously, how. the. fuck?)
Instead Kyle had looked at him like he had seen something in John and asked, “Who are you?”
“John Connor,” he had answered, because he is.
“Okay.” Kyle had nodded, turning to Derek, dismissing John. “Derek get him some clothes and don’t let him out of your sight. We need to move out, we’ll figure this out later.”
That had been it. That had been about two weeks ago and he was now in the Resistance. He’s human, of course he’s in the Resistance; it’s not a choice. And they had moved out of that tunnel into a set of whole new ones.
He remembers as they had moved out, Kyle-his dad- had looked back at him and tilted his head. Derek had stepped towards his brother-his dad- and they had whispered to each other, their eyes very carefully not looking at him.
They had whispered that they don’t trust him. He hadn’t even been in hearing range, but he knew that’s what they had said, shoulder hunched forward forming a small circle separating themselves form everyone else. He knew because he made the same face when he didn’t trust someone. Genetics, isn’t it a bitch?
That was two weeks ago and not all that much has change expect he has some clothes- the shirt’s too big and the army pants a little too short but he can’t be picky, he’s lucky and he knows it- and a gun. Still, this is nothing like he expected.
No, the future is not what John had expected at all.
It’s all a fucking mess. He doesn’t know why he’s so surprised.
*
There’s something about the kid, Derek thinks as he watches Rivera leads the kid away to outfit him with a gun and some clothes of his own. They don’t have much, but there’s always some scraps around and anything is better than freezing to death. He doesn’t miss the fact that Kyle still hasn’t asked for his coat back and the kid hasn’t taken it off. Derek watches John and can’t help but feel this itch in the back of his neck at how the kid moves in his brother’s coat. Actually, he can’t help but notice how the kid moves. He moves like a solider, not surprising in the world they live, but there’s something, something familiar in the way he moves, and Derek can’t place it. It bugs the shit out him.
He keeps his eyes on the area the kid left with Rivera until he senses someone walk up to him. “Hey, you in there?” He hears Allison says as she steps up to his side.
Giving her a glance, he looks back to the hole in the wall they use as a door. “Yeah, I’m here.” She nods but doesn’t do anything else for a full minute until she shifts her body, half turned towards him and signals with her head towards the back of the room.
“Kyle wants to go over the security details of the Point, he sent me over to get you.” She brushes some sweat off her cheek with the heel of her hand and blinks. She looks tired. He feels as if he should tell her to get some rest, but they all need rest and they never get enough, so he just nods instead.
“Okay, come on.”
Allison follows him, half a step back and to his left. Like always. “You know, there’s something weird about that John guy.”
Yeah, Alli, there is. He doesn’t say anything out loud.
*
They don’t trust him. He’s been in the future for three weeks and they don’t trust him. They don’t let him out of their sights, but they don’t trust him. They don’t let him out of their sights because they don’t trust him.
Apparently it’s wasn’t just from his mom that he has trusts issues from. Cleaning his gun, because they all carry guns, he tries to focus on the process but he’s all too aware of Cam-Allison standing by the door, talking to Rivera, (nice guy, actually pretends he doesn’t mind having John around) pretending not to watch him.
He’s pretending he doesn’t notice her watching him. She pretends back. They both know that it’s all just a game- cat and mouse, John’s just not sure which he is right now, so he keeps his eyes on his gun and forces his shoulders to relax. He keeps cleaning the barrel until her voice fills the room.
“Kate!” His head snaps up and see Ca-Allison’s face brightens up as somebody pushes through the soldiers and makes their way towards them. It hurts, he has to admit, to see Allison’s face that wide and smiling. Cameron only smiled when malfunctioning or lying and this type of smiling is just so real. Looking to see who managed that look on her face, he watches as a tallish woman with the darkest red hair he’s ever seen move through the room of soldiers like she owns them. She has to be in her mid or early thirties or forties and she’s as dirty as the rest of them, but there’s something about her. A presence, and be it hormones or whatever, she knocks his breath out. (If he was paying attention to the room, he’d realise she knocks everyone’s breath out.)
“Allison,” the woman smiles at Allison when she reaches her, a hand moving across the younger girl’s cheek before a quick hug occurs and the smile is gone like it was never there. “How are things going here?”
Allison’s eyes flit to him and he watches as she motions Kate, yeah that was her name, closer. Allison says something to Rivera, probably to watch him, and then Kate follows Allison through another hole - no doorways here either; Serrano Point is only slightly less run down than the tunnels - and they disappear from John’s sight.
The urge to follow them is so overwhelming he can taste it, but he bites his cheek and focuses on his gun like he hadn’t noticed the exchange at all.
The future fucking sucks.
*
When Kate’s comes down from the Peak Allison loves it, it’s amusing watching all the rooks trip over their at being in the presence of Kate Brewster. It’s even more amusing because Kate treats them all like the rooks they are. Nobody in the Resistance save Kyle, Derek and a handful of others have the scars that Kate carries around. None have the discipline. She wouldn’t either if it hadn’t been for Kate herself, who found Allison at nine and crying like a little punk, her arm broken and dislocated, and hanging limp at her side. She had knelt in front of Allison, told her it was all going to be okay and popped her shoulder back in place. To this day Allison doesn’t remember screaming so loudly in her life. She had been a weak kid.
After that, Allison had attached herself to Kate. Others did to over the years, but Allison was one of the few left that hadn’t a) dropped of over the course of the war or b) died. The Reese’s were the others.
When Kate had left her with them Allison had been angry, but Kate’s work was all about healing, the best med in Resistance and Allison, well, she didn’t have healing bone in her body. She was a good shot, a good fighter and best fucking liar they had. She’s more than a little proud of her skills set. Kate, Derek and Kyle were proud of them too.
Kate’s still the closest thing to home and family she has left and she loves it when they make it back to the Point long enough to spend a few nights with her and watch the rooks trip over their feet. As usually they all do, expect the new guy, who Allison has come to accept is weird as fuck.
He watches them though, with sharp eyes and set mouth. He watches them like he’s memorising them and Kate looks at him like a question needing some answering. Kyle and Derek are different. They see something in him, something that unnerves them. She only pays attention to him because Derek had told her to keep her eyes on him and she knows how to follow an order, but she doesn’t like it. He looks at her, he stares at her, and she doesn’t like it, it creeps her out and in the world she lives in that’s saying a mouthful.
Still, she follows orders and watches him watch her (them), because if his staring means anything it mean he’ll talk to her. That’s one thing she’s notice, this John guy, he has questions and she’s set to answer them with whatever answers Kyle tells her to give him.
*
Since Alli told her about the kid, she can’t help but notice him. Something prickles in the back of her mind. Something she can’t grab hold of.
John Connor.
Why is that name so familiar?
*
Kyle doesn’t like John. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t like this sixteen year old boy that appeared out of fucking nowhere wearing his coat. There’s no reason to not like him. The kid, Johh, is a good solider, almost as if trained all his life to be one, and is one hell of a shot. He’s quiet and follows the orders he gets, he stares at Allison more than Kyle or Derek are comfortable with, but every male stares at Allison more than he and Derek are ever comfortable with. When Kate told them all those years ago to “watch over her” they hadn’t expect for it to be an order that would last years, but it did and Allison is all but family now, but it took them months to get used to her. That’s part of the problem actually, because even though he doesn’t want to admit it, and against every reasonable bone in his body, Kyle trusts the kid already. He doesn’t know fucking why, but he does and that’s why Kyle doesn’t like John Connor.
There’s also no better reason to test him. “Hey, you. John.”
Every head turns to him, and John’s eyes are the widest. “Yes, sir?”
Good, solider, Kyle smirks. “Come here, time for you to earn your stripes.”
The kid, John, fumbles as he gets up, but walks to Kyle gun in place, shoulders set, eyes steady. “What do you want me to do?”
This kid has potential if nothing else.
*
Weaver has disappeared since he arrived. No contact, no nothing. He getting tired of waiting. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed do in this world, so he does the one thing is mother taught him above everything else:
Survive.
What else is there to do?
*
He’s played it quiet for three weeks, doing everything right, trying not to make them too curious, well, more curious, about him and it looks like it’s paid off. About time. His dad calls him and he moves towards the man he always wished to meet and now can’t believe he is.
“You’re going to come with me and my patrol to the Southside tunnels. Scouting mission, full recon, and we’re going to see how you do in the field.”
He nods, like he can do anything else, “Yes, sir.”
“Be ready at 0500, Connor. Time to see what you’re made of.” Kyle, his dad for fucks sakes, smiles at him like he’s expecting him to shit his pants or died tomorrow and John’s never felt a need to prove himself like he does in this moment. With his mom it had always been different, she knew he was going to be a great leader, military strategist, she had always expected him to succeed. He’s never been expected to fail and that’s what he sees in his father’s eyes in this moment. Expectation of failure.
Well, they’re going to see about that. After all, he’s John-fucking-Connor.
He hopes that will still mean something in this world nobody cares who he is.
*
“Kyle’s taking that John guy with us on patrol tomorrow.” Allison grins as she strokes the dog’s coat on the opposite wall. Her feet are stretched out in a V and mirror his.
Derek hates that grins, it’s an evil grin, one worthy of the cartoon villains of a childhood long past. “You look way to happy about that, Alli.”
She rolls her eyes, still grinning, “He stares at me, you know.” Her thumb and forefinger rub Tango’s ear and the bastard dog growls in pleasure, smug.
“Yeah, I noticed. Want me to shoot him?” He rests his head against the wall, his eyes trailing the lines of the lion’s head on the wall above her head. Hang in there, baby, he scoffs. He’s got the fucking thing burned into his brain so he lowers his eyes. Big mistake.
Allison is pretty, no doubt, so even covered in dirt and her smile is sweet and dangerous. “Would you?”
He laughs because there’s nothing else to do. “No, I wouldn’t shoot him, Alli.”
“If you asked me, I would.” She says, serious as a mouse. He looks over her dirty cheeks and down to where her hand hasn’t stop stroking Tango and knows she would. She would because she’s a solider and orders are orders. She’ll follow them to her death.
“I know,” he closes his eyes, sighing. There’s no sound besides the normal whispers of hell and people for a long while and then he hears shuffling, something is moving from across from him to right next to him. Allison. She moves to the patch of wall to his right and Tango squeezes in the space between them.
He falls asleep after her. Always does, after all he hasn’t had more than four hours any night since J-Day.
*
They’re leaving, a recon mission and then they’ll head to the Peak where she’ll join them in a week after she settles Lauren in. Kate watches as they pack up some minimal supplies and head out. She’s used to them leaving, and part of her always thinks it will be the last time she’ll see any of them. Sadly, she’s used to that too. In this world they live in it tends to be that way, but so far they’ve defied the odds. Kyle and Derek look back and nod, but say nothing, because until they lose each other they still have the most important person in the world to them. It’s not like that with everybody and when Allison bounds back and presses a dirty kiss to Kate’s cheek; Kate lets her.
“See you in hell.” Allison winks, heading back to the group.
“Not if I see you first.” Kate smiles sadly, hoping it’s not the last time, but resigned to the fact it might be.
Just as she turns around she hears one last thing, “Good-bye, Dr. Brewster.” At that last word, Kate turns sharply back to see the kid Kyle’s group adopted nod back at her.
Brewster. It’s just her last name; she’s heard it a million time, but… oh god. It’s a memory, a dusty and old memory, that she has to unwrap in her mind like an old photograph. A sofa, worn and brown; a basement full of kids and music; and a voice, clever and young, calling her name with a smirk.
Brewster.
Connor.
“John?” She whispers too late and they’re gone. It’s impossible.
*
John’s been in a war zone since he was born, but he’s never been on the side that was outnumbered so to say. Sure, the Terminators have always been stronger and faster and deadlier, but there’s had always been more humans. In the past. There had been more allies than enemies, and even though his mom had hated it, more often than not they normally had a Terminator on their side. Here, in this future, he feels outnumbered. Humans are out numbered, and for one brief second he has the blasphemous thought that his mother hadn’t trained him as well as they had both thought. Then, of course, he pulls the trigger and the T-888 goes down as Derek pulls him away. A barrage of bullets hits the machine and Ford rushes forward to destroy the head, the chip.
As Derek pulls him to his feet, reminding him to keep moving, John thinks his mother taught him just fine.
“Keep moving, Connor!” Derek presses his hand between John’s shoulder blades and pushes, hard.
He has been in war zone all his life, but now the safety net of Time, Uncle Bob or Cameron is long gone. All he has now is a gun, a father and uncle that don’t know or really care about him, and what his mother taught him. He’s just another solider under their command and they’re just testing him.
Flash grenades go off all around him but there’s no joy of success at the destruction of the terminator. Here one down is nothing to celebrate because there’s ten more waiting about fifty yards away and their group has to make sure they don’t grab their attention. The smell of burnt everything permeates the air, smoke is overwhelming and he coughs, blinking away the tears. These Terminators don’t have flesh like all the ones he’s encountered before in his life, they’re made of silver and wires and their eye socket burn red like fire. But they don’t care about him, they don’t care about John Connor, they just want to kill him like he’s any other human. Like he’s vermin and for the first time in this world John feels like nothing.
“You okay there, Connor?” He feels a body move in front of him and sees Ca-Allison’s large brown eyes roll over him as she moves past, letting Derek look him over.
“Kid looks a little worse for the wear, Reese.”
“Get back in formation, Young.” Derek snaps at her as he pushes John’s eyes open, checking his retinas.
“Just saying.” She laughs, a sound foreign and strange in this new world, and moves ahead shifting her rifle from her left shoulder to her right.
Derek pulls John’s face back towards him and make him meet his eyes. “You’ll be fine. Not bad, Connor. You might survive this after all.” He turns them back to the group and doesn’t even give John time to catch his breath. John follows, his eyes still stinging, because it’s war, there’s no time to breathe.
*
Kyle walks over to Derek, going down on his haunches as he watches as his brother gives Ford and Choi the run-down on tomorrow. “Hey, let’s talk.” He grins over the plans that Derek is drawing on the ground and Ford and Choi know a dismissal when they hear one and stand, nodding as they leave the two brothers alone.
“Sure, what’s up, little brother?” Derek grins. It’s that same grin that used to bug him as a kid; the one that means he already knows what Kyle is going to ask he’s just waiting for Kyle to get balls to do it.
Kyle rolls his eyes, “What’s with you and the kid?” He’s never had to beat around the bush with Derek, his brother appreciates the straight forward approach anyway.
“What do you mean?” Derek settles back against the wall, smirking.
“Fucking hell, Derek. You and the kid, don’t you think you’re watching him a little to carefully?”
“How do you know how carefully I’m watching him unless you’re watching him too?” The question is rhetorical, because even when Derek is not watching Kyle, he’s watching Kyle. Not for the first time in his life, or the last time, he’s sure, Kyle wants to hit his big brother.
“Fuck off. Now, are you going to keeping being an ass or talk to me?” Kyle drops back against the wall, letting his wrist fall over his knees.
“I’m watching him for the same reasons you are. There’s something about this kid. Something about the way he acts, the way he looks at us. You see it, so do I, so does Allison and so did Kate. We’re all picking up on it, so I figure,” Derek pauses, sighing, scratching his neck, “let the kid watch, let him think he’s getting close and then maybe we’ll find out what he’s hiding and why he’s hiding it. I also figured you weren’t going to do it since you’ve keeping your distance.”
Kyle wets his lips, wishing for water and sighs. “He makes me nervous, like I should care or something.”
“Trust him?”
“Yeah, and I don’t like it. Plus, don’t you think that he kinda looks-”
“Yeah, that’s creepy too.”
“Right,” Kyle shakes his head and looks back towards the opening where the rest of the team is taking their rest. “Well, we’ll see. Tell them we move out in 20.”
“Sure thing, Kyle.” Derek stands, dropping his hand on Kyle’s shoulder as he heads out. He follows his older brother with his eyes, thankful, not for the first time, he wasn’t alone in this war.
*
She’s been waiting for this day. She’s been waiting a long time.
*
Derek watches as everyone settles in for the night. Crystal Peak is only a five days away, but this last length of terrain they need to get through is the hardest. Rivera is patching up Choi who got a stray shrapnel lodged in her thigh and he almost wishes Kate was here, because she’s the best and he likes having the best on his team, but Kate stays at the base camps, rarely going out into the field anymore. Kate stays there because that’s where the people need her most. He still remember the first time he met her and she patched him up. Twenty-eight stitches across his ribs, no painkillers to speak of, and a piece of wood wrapped in cloth for him to bite on as she fixed him up. He’s pretty sure that’s the first time he fell in love with Kate Brewster, it happens once a month by now, but everybody in the Resistance is partly in love with Kate and Kate lives for them all. Walking the length of their shelter for the night he watches as Connor takes his gun apart and puts it back together, watching them; Ford is flirting with Alli, and Alli is amusing herself by pretending to flirt back. Kyle is still in the back, over thinking everything they have to do and Derek hopes that whatever is waiting for them at the Peak is worth this baby-sitting gig.
“Sir?” Derek hears from Connor and turns to face the kid. “Can I ask you something?” Connor motions him over and Derek head over, crouching in front of him, completely aware that Allison is following his every move.
“Yeah, what?”
“Who are we going to meet in Crystal Peak?”
Derek laughs, this kid doesn’t miss much. “Just the leader of this whole damn thing, kid.”
*
Allison was never taught to mind her words like a lot of parents do with their kids. Allison parents died long before they every taught her all the social conventions like think before you speak and if you have nothing nice to say don’t say anything at all, so Allison never learned to be polite and courteous and Kate, Kyle or Derek never cared to teach her. They taught her the important things like how to do a field dressing and how to take a tin can apart under heavy fire. Plus they like that she says whatever comes to her mind, they even like that she lies as much as she speaks the truth, because they’re the only ones that can tell the difference. It makes her a good solider in their eyes, because since they’re the only ones that know when she lies it makes her only loyal to them. It’s a nice safety net as it were.
At the moment, Kyle and Derek are talking over by the far wall and Allison grins to herself as she makes her way over to Connor. “Hey.”
He looks at her, eyes wide and flushing slightly. “Oh, um, hi. Allison.”
“So, who are you?” She drops to the ground by him, keeping her smile wide, her rifle laying neatly on her lap.
“What?” He blinks rapidly, clearly not expecting the question.
“Who. Are. You?”
He tenses his shoulders and blinks even more, “John. John Connor.”
“I know that. You’ve told everyone. I’m asking who are.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” He presses himself against the wall and Allison thinks he looks like those animal she barely remembers at the zoo her parents took her to once. Caged and worried. It’s kinda amusing.
“Sure you don’t.” She presses her palms to her knees, leaning forward studying his face. His pupils dilate and his hand tighten on the butt of his gun. Huh, interesting. “You know something, don’t you, John Connor?”
He swallows, never looking away from her eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I don’t like you, by the way. I don’t like the way you look at me.” She grins toothily. Kyle and Derek hate it, they always tell her it looks like she’s planning something. Sure most of time it’s not like they’re wrong, but still. “But they like you,” she motions to with her head to the two brothers, “they like you and until they tell me not to like you anymore, it doesn’t look like I have a choice in the matter. Get my meaning?”
“Yeah, I get it.” He nods, his Adam’s apple bobbing under his skin, his eyes doing that steely thing that she sees in the Reese boys. Hmm, very interesting.
“Good, so,” she stands, dusting off the ever present dirt on her pants, “next time don’t lie, it’s unbecoming of a solider.”
He glares at her and looks like he’s about to say something when she gets called back by Choi.
“Oh and John, I don’t know if anyone’s said it yet, but welcome to hell.” She walks away not bothering to look back. She doesn’t really care anyway.
*
John watches as Allison walk away suppressing the shiver that runs down his spine. She just read him in a way so different from Cameron, but it still creeps him out to see her speak and act like she does. Like she doesn’t know him and doesn’t care to know him. The worst bit of it is she does it with a smile, sweet and innocent, and he’s starting to think she’s a little insane, but that could just be an act. Because he’s noticed that too- Allison projects, she acts, she lies, and it’s all so seamless it looks like truth.
This, she, isn’t anything like he expected.
It’s all wrong.
And he doesn’t know how to make it right again.
All he knows is that Crystal Peak awaits and if things keep going the way they have been, it will be nothing like he expected.
*
Everything is getting closer.
**
Craved into the side of a mountain, Crystal Peak is a safe haven and the most important secret in the Resistance. An underground military bunker that doesn’t look like it can even house ten people. John soon realises how wrong that is. The entrance looks destroyed, and it probably was at one point, he amends mentally. There’s the remnants of a helicopter and a plane tangled together like they crashed and fell here together, twisting into one giant pile of metal. He thinks he sees the remains of a Terminator twisted in the wreckage. Kyle and Derek are up in front and Allison holding the rear with Ramirez, John, Ford and Choi are filling up the middle as they manoeuvre through the dark. When they reach the bulkhead door, Kyle moves forward quietly and Derek has them all cover him. There’s a panel at the side and John watches as Kyle moves towards it, opens it and presses the buttons there. They all wait for minute when they hear garbled words, Kyle speaks something into the panel and then on the left side a hatch opens. The bulkhead doors stay shut and John feels this all a bit anticlimactic.
No grand welcoming home for tired shoulders here, just a hatch opening and Derek shuffling them forward. As he swings his gun over his shoulder and grabs the first rung of the ladder leading down, he takes one last look into the world. The skyline is burning and the drones are circling in the air like metal bats from hell.
This isn’t Oz, Wonderland, or even Neverland. This world is the nightmare his mother tired to prevent. He swallows the bile in his throat at the disappointment he can guarantee she would feel towards him right now. Maybe he’s not the saviour she had hoped he’d be.
*
Inside the Peak, Derek and Kyle squeeze through the people and corridors, trying to ignore the eyes and whispers as usual. Clenching his jaw, Derek holds back the glare he wants to give them all. He hates their fucking status. He and Kyle have been one of the Resistance’s most reliable squads and with success comes fame. Derek hates fame. Kyle does too, but Kyle has always handled people better. Originally just a military bunker for VIPs, over the years tunnels have been dug under the surface of the mountain, extending its size and population. After Serrano Point, it’s the biggest underground and unofficial city craved out on the West Coast. As the push and grit their way through the maze that is the Peak, Derek hears people greeting them, he hears Allison holler back at some of the other squads, he glances back Susan, Ford’s wife, makes their way up to them and welcomes her husband back, tears and relief coating her face. Ford doesn’t break away from them, because they still have someone to see, but Derek looks away from the quick touches between husband and wife- private, quiet things that he has no business looking at.
Turning back towards Kyle who hasn’t stopped moving forward Derek sighs. He runs his hand across the back of his neck, rubbing the tension that knots up there. Relief fills him for a brief second, we made it back in one piece.
As Kyle turns the last corner before they reach the hub of the Peak, Derek looks back to make sure everyone is in line. They are, following like lost ducks, but all the company they gathered from the entrance drifts away now. No time to play. Kyle knocks on the metal door with the fading black letters that barely spell out P.O.T.U.S. anymore and they wait.
When it opens, a figure crowds the entrance. “Welcome back, Alpha Squad..
James Ellison greets them with no smile, his salt and pepper beard a familiar site.
Kyle doesn't quite smile back either. “Good to be home, sir.”
*
John freezes at the sight of man in front of him. It’s been god knows how many years, but really only a couple months for him and not even the deep wrinkles of age and scars of war can hide James Ellison. As Kyle talks John does nothing, listening frozen on the stop. Derek’s broad shoulders and Ramirez’s height keep him most out of Ellison’s view until finally an order breaks through the heart attack John’s sure he’s having.
“Connor, up front.” His dad orders and like some fucked up mythic parting, Derek, Choi, Ford, Allison and Ramirez move from where they surround him and step to the side. He reminds his legs to walk and swallow, making his up towards his dad and Ellison.
The minute he and Ellison lock eyes, he sees it. Ellison remembers him- his body tenses just a fraction more and there’s something in his eyes that flash before the warning: don’t say anything.
John gets the message and salutes, “Sir.”
“Reese, here, tells me you just appeared out of nowhere and have been making a place for yourself on his squad, Connor. Is that right?” Ellison voice is deep and so familiar it almost makes John want to cry. If Ellison is still here…, he lets the thought trail off because he can’t be thinking of these things, not when there’s so much death around him.
“I hope so, sir. They saved my ass.”
Ellison nods, “They do a good job at that. Kyle, Derek, come in for the debrief, and why don’t you all unpack and rest a while. Nice to meet you, Connor.”
John hears the dismissal and wants o fight against it. He can’t be kept out of the loop now, now that there’s someone from his past, someone that knows him, around. Someone he can talk to about everything he hasn’t been able to. And he almost does, protest, but then Ellison catches his eyes again and the message is loud and clear: wait.
As he and the other turn back towards the corridors, he hears someone from behind Ellison speak out, “Looks like the Reese boys are back. About time.” The voice is soft and feminine. John’s head snaps back faster than Kyle reloads his gun. He catches a glimpse of long, strawberry coloured hair and pale skin as the door closes and his brain flashes to pigtails and shoe laces.
Savannah Weaver.
Suddenly after weeks of being alone his hellish new world, John’s old world is raising back up for the ashes. For the first time in a long time there’s a taste of hope in his mouth.
*
Watching the door close after the Reeses step back out, Savannah turns towards the man that effectively raised her. “Dad? Was it him?” She’s not deaf and she remembers the face from her childhood. If John Connor has finally crossed paths with them everything is going to be different now.
Her father rubs his beard in a familiar action that she knows all too well means worry. “He looked just like he did the last time I saw him. Still a kid.” He gives a dry laugh and drops to the worn chair in front of her, “Looks like John Connor is back and he’s still a kid who doesn’t know what the hell he’s up against.”
Savannah quirks her lips, “I guess this changes the plan a little. Gotta tell her and Danny.”
“God help us all.” Her father presses his hand to the middle of chest, in a manner he thinks is discreet and would be if she didn’t know him so well, if she didn’t know about the St. George’s medal that rests there.
Savannah walks over and presses a kiss to his cheek, laughing. It’s almost seems like fate that John Connor has come back into their life, that is, if Savannah believed in fate.
*
It’s almost time.
*
Derek can’t help but notice the change in the kid. It’s not obvious on his face, but it’s in every movement he’s made since they left Ellison. The kid is walking straighter, the ever present slump of his shoulders - the defeat - has all but evaporated and there’s a new look in his eyes. It’s a look Derek knows well, it’s the look soldier’s get when they see reinforcements come into the battle.
Hope.
Hope for what, Derek doesn’t know, but believe him when he says he’s going to find out. Looking around to find Connor, he spots the kid standing by Choi not talking or listening as Choi and Ford shoot the breeze. He’s just staring into space with this far away look on his face. Normally, Derek would slap him upside the head and tell him to focus on where he is - stay sharp, Connor - but the Peak is the safest place on the West Coast and all soldiers deserve to take a breath. That, and Derek is grateful that Connor is lost in his thoughts, because it allow for him to study the kid.
Kyle hadn’t trusted the kid (or so his brother said) and Derek is starting to think Kyle might have been right. There are too many unanswered question surrounding Connor.
There a shit load of orphans in this new world, but Connor doesn’t act like any of them. He’s not in mourning for anyone, and in this world everyone is in mourning. For a friend, for family, for the world. Not John Connor.
The kid acts like he’s just passing through. Like he’s on a mission and waiting.
Maybe, Derek thinks, its time to ask what the hell John Connor is waiting for.
*
When Savannah and Ellison come in with the news, she laughs and leaves them behind. She would owe her brother money if money mattered anymore, as it is, she’ll just take the next night shift. The path to where they’ll be is empty as it gets in the Peak. Only a few soldiers scattered about, most of the catching as much scants amounts of uninterrupted sleep as they can. Everybody else is closer to the top, to where the Reese boys and the rest are probably holding court.
She and Danny had never been the type. It’s tougher for Danny to move around anyway, one leg cut of at the knee, so they stick closer to the bottom. Lighting a cigarette, a bad habit she picked up as she grew and manages to keep alive thanks to the well stocked bunker, she honestly couldn’t believe what Ellison had told her. John Connor, back. Apparently there is still something in the world that can surprise her. They’ll be happy, she thinks, knowing that they’ll take the new much easier than she had. Danny had always believed more than her anyway. Then again Blythe had always hated the Connors a bit more than her brother. He had even followed their father’s footsteps, as opposed to her, the lawyer. Becoming a computer engineer he also became a target. And the metal came. It always did.
She still remembers the day Sarah had burst through her house, looking for him. She would curse the day expect that day change her life. It saved her. She had followed Sarah Connor and survived the end of the world.
But she never believed what Sarah, Danny and even Ellison and Savannah did.
Blythe Dyson never believed John Connor would ever cross their paths again.
As the years passed they barely mentioned him, but they all remembered. Savannah, so young when Blythe first met her asked for him the longest before she stopped. The war changed them all and John Connor, the name, no longer meant hope.
(Not for all of them. Except Sarah.
Sarah never stopped believing. )
Shaking her head, Blythe knocks on the heavy metal door that houses the real and very secret leader of the Resistance. Sarah has never let her name become a myth. She’s too smart for that. She stays hidden, letting the Resistance be a force unto itself, silently guiding it, shaping it, making a force to fear. For her age Sarah still fights harder than half of the soldiers, but expect for being one of the oldest Resistance fighters in the Peak, she does not advertise herself. She just leads, letting The Connor name become a ghost, expect for the few that had been fighting in this war long before the bombs dropped. Like Sarah said, the minute the metal has a name, it’s the minute they have a target.
Sarah does not allow herself to become a target.
Sarah Connor is not a messiah. She does not let herself be. She keeps to the shadows, fighting slippery and deadly like a snake, waiting for her prey to become weak.
It’s why Blythe follows her.
“Come in.” Blythe hears from behind the door and pushes the heavy door open with a grunt.
Sarah is behind a worn desk, greying hair tided back into a tight ponytail. Danny is in his wheelchair and they have blue prints laid out. She and Danny look up at her.
“Yes?” Sarah questions when Blythe doesn’t give her reason for coming in right away.
Blythe leans against the door, taking a drag from her cigarette. “Looks like your kid is back.”
She would laugh at the faces they give her if they weren’t so grim.
*
“Where is he!” Sarah practically leaps up in her seat, moving to grasp Blythe by the shoulders. She’s sure her fingers are making crescent marks on the other woman’s skin, even through the material of her shirt.
She’s shaking, right down to her bones, because, god (and she doesn’t even believe in Him), John.
She never thought she would see him again. The shape of his face a distant memory that she only remembers in her dreams.
Her son.
Back.
It’s almost a cruel joke.
*
They lead him away from Kyle and Derek.
Both men look at him as he walks away from them. Neither look particularly sad; John doesn't know how he feels about that. There is a small, tight curl of hurt that wraps around his chest - nothing happened like it was supposed to - but he knows he gained their respect every day he didn't die. He was a solider to them and a good one.
It doesn't feel like enough, but John figures it has to be.
He doesn't see Allison as he walk away. Or Tango.
He figures that's best.
She never did warm up to him; she wasn't Cameron, she wasn't who he came here for. She was never going to be who left him.
It's best that they don't see each other as he walks away.
*
“There are only fourteen people who really know who is in charge of the Resistance, John. After today, you’ll be the fifteeth.” Savannah takes him by the shoulder and leads him away from Ellison. John looks over his shoulder and sees Ellison nod, he feels himself nod back and then the iron door closes behind him and Savannah.
He turns to the girl, no young woman of who the last memory he has is holding her in his arms as she clings to him in fear. God, he taught her to tie her shoes and now she’s leading him down the rabbit hole.
“John?” She stops when he falters in his steps, and lowers her chin to check the look in his eyes.
“This is insane.”
“I know, but come on, this is important for you.”
“It’s my mom, isn’t it? She leading the resistance now, because I skipped time.”
Savannah doesn’t answer him back, but John’s learned to read silence -- people say so much more when they don’t speak when you know what to look for -- and that’s answer enough. Savannah seems to have learned from the best, but so did he.
“She never stopped waiting for you.”
She opens the door.
*
On the other side of the rabbit hole, John holds his breath until he can’t anymore. There’s no going back, there was never any going back.
“Mom.” He chokes out when he first lays eyes on her. She looks so much older and yet still radiates the same strength. The lines on her face fill him with regret that she spent all these years waiting for him, but he’s seen what she’s done with the waiting. She’s created hope, however feeble it might be. She’s still the reason why everyone fights the metal. He can feel his eyes teat up and he doesn’t even care bacause it’s been so fucking long and she’s his mom. She’s the reason he’s who he is, she’s the reason why in another timeline people followed him.
“John,” she strides towards him, her steps as strong and sure as ever, and wraps him up in a hug that threatens to break his ribs. His arms go around her, holding on, and closes his eyes, pushing the tears back. Even older than he remembers and with a head full of grey she’s still the strongest person he knows- will ever know.
“Come on, we have world to save.” She says and he believes it.
After everything he’s realised: his name is the one everyone remembers but his mom is the reason why they do.
His mother is why the human race survives, because she raised him.
*
“If Skynet doesn’t know who you are, if they don’t care, they’ll never send someone back to kill you, and then we can send your father back anyway. Hopefully.” Danny says later. John can’t look away from his legs--someone else has paid the price of believing in John Connor. The feeling of guilt and shame in his chest is a familiar and unpleasant one.
The plan is a good one though.
It just might work.
*
BLAH BLAH BLAH MORE STUFF.
MORE STUFF.
ENDING.
*
epilogue????
When the war ends-when humans once again outnumber the metal- the legacy, the myth of John Connor still stands (as it was always meant to) but there’s another story told. One that will outlast him.
That story is the one of Sarah Connor, because without her there would be no John Connor in the first place. The world survives because of her. Because of her will to win a war the world thought it lost.
(When John Connor sent his father back to protect his mother and father him, he didn’t do it so he could live, he did it because of her. His mother.
A warrior.
John Connor sent his father back because he knew that without his mother, without what she taught him, he would never be able to win.)
In the end, the real end, the story of John Connor is the story of Sarah Connor.
The Mother of all Destiny, will be what they call her. Destiny, funny how she hated the word.
I AM NUMBER FOUR; i know, whattttttttttt? but six was the best thing in that film and she needed more and idk why calling this a WIP as technically it's finished. Actually both these fics could in theory get posted as "Done" but idk they don't feel right? But I'm not going really do anything more with them... so.
untitled (2k)
The road stretches out in front of her and the horizon is blurred with the midday sun. They've been on the road since the early morning and with every mile they put between them and Paradise, Ohio she feels some of the tension leave her shoulders. It won't ever been completely gone. It never has. It can't be, considering the knowledge she has. The purpose she has, but with every mile and every dead Mog, it's a little less than before. She wants to be out of Ohio, and fast. She can't help they think they should have set another on fire, that they left traces of themselves behind but it's stupid to go back. It's only forward from now on. To the next of the Nine.
Her companions thoughts are on the town and people the left behind, she can't fault them for that, yet, but her are only on the road in front of her and how fast she can cross the state line.
The honk from the car catches her attention and she spares a glance behind her. Sam, the human friend, is half out of the window waving her back. She sighs, slows, and directs her bike to the side so they can pull beside her. Four is staring straight ahead and doesn't look her way as Sam leans over him and shouts through the open window.
"Hey, I don't how alien digestive systems work, but I haven't eaten since dinner last night and I'm starving!"
She's grateful for her dark glasses so they can't see her roll her eyes.
This is why she didn't want him to tag along. He's young, he's inexperienced, and at the moment he's hungry. It doesn't matter that the mention of food makes her stomach turn over in a plead for food. Their digestive systems, if anything, are faster and more efficient than humans and she hasn't eaten in well over 17 hours. Saving the day takes up more time and energy that she would like.
"SO?" Sam yells over the sound of the truck and her bike. She looks over to him and Four. Four shrugs. A half movement letting the decision come down to her.
"Fine! Next place we see we'll stop!" She shouts back at them and reeves her engine to pull back in front.
The next place they find is a Burger King next to a gas station. As soon as they're parked she steps off her bike and absentmindedly taps her knuckles on the hood of the truck. Sam and Four climb out and she can see how tired they are. How they're holding their shoulders and the clenched hands in their hoodies. Frowning, she leans against the truck because she can feel it now. Change. The change in how her days will go from now on. Four is clearly grieving and she wonders how long it will take Sam to get homesick. She's no longer by herself and she thinks she might have preferred it.
"Hey, Sam," she says, motioning towards the truck. "How about you go and fill her up, and while you're at it see if they'll you a couple of gallons of petrol. We'll meet up inside."
Sam looks between her and Four frowning, but then nods, "Yeah, okay. Good idea. For the road."
Her smile is fake and they all know it, but nobody cares, "Yeah, for the road. Do you have enough money?"
"Shit!"
Four smiles at this.
And this is just another reason she didn't want to bring him along. They're not prepared for what fighting this on their own means. Shaking her head she reaches into one of her pockets and pulls out a small wad of bills and tosses it to Sam.
"Don't spend it all."
Sam nods and takes the keys from Four, hopping back into the truck. "Hey, get me a quarter pounder. Wait! Get me two." He says and heads off.
Four nods and they watch as Sam moves towards the gas station. They stand there in silence for a couple of seconds before Four sighs, a loud and tired sound, before moving towards the fast food restaurant. She falls into step beside him, pushing her glasses up her forehead and into her hair. The sun is bright overhead and they look like teenagers going to grab lunch, maybe people will think they skipped school, that they're friends, or a great deal of other things without ever guessing the truth behind the look in Four's eyes and why her shoulder hurts like a sonofabitch.
--
She's unwrapping her second burger and Four is on his third when Sam slides into the chair across from Four. He gives them both skeptical looks and then proceeds to devour his own food.
"Man, you two can eat." He mentions as she finishes her second burger and starts in on her portion of fries, extra large.
Four smirks, taking a long slurp from his milkshake, "Fast metabolisms."
Sam rolls his eyes, "Of course you do." He takes a huge bite out of burger and chews for a couple seconds before turning to her, "So where are we heading too?"
She looks over to Four and he meets her glance. He raises his eyebrows pointedly and she fights the urge to kick his chair. It must show on her face because Sam asks them if they have telepathy too.
"No, we don't." She pauses, thinking the idea over, "Well, I don't. Do you?"
Four shakes his head, "Nope. Kinda with Bernie Kosher, but it's not like I read his thoughts. I just sense what he senses."
"It's your bond, because he's your Chimera. One of the other Nine could have telepathy, or one of us could develop it. It'd be handy to have." Sam looks way too interested and Four just shifts in his seat. "Anyway, we're heading south."
"South?" Sam parrots.
Four gives her another look and they both know.
"South."
--
The first night on the road is uncomfortable to say the least. They're three teenagers and a dog and with very limited cash on their persons. Neither her and Four are eighteen yet, which means: they're going to have to make some new fake IDs soon, but until then they're both underage and without enough money for a motel. Gas is expensive and Sam bought three five gallon fuel jugs. They decide to find a deserted field -- thank you Ohio for having more than enough to choose from -- and park for the night. Sam fidgets for a good two minutes about the sleeping arrangements before she rolls her eyes and tell him they'll be taking shifts through the night. She'll take the first and then him and then Four. Neither boy argues and it serves her find this system of them listening to her.
The night is cold and there's a very old blanket that Sam brought with him. He curls up under it and then Bernie curls up against him. Sam falls asleep within minutes. She watches as the dog shifts his size from a medium sized beagle to what looks to be a St. Bernard and smirks. Smart chimera. He can give more body heat this way and Sam looks very small right now. Four looks fondly at his pet and pats his side.
"Good boy." He sits on Bernie's other side, his back against the truck, and looks at her.
She rolls her eyes and shifts from her perch on the trucks roof to look at him. "Yes?"
"I haven't said it yet, but thank you." He stretches one leg out and curls his arm around the other. "It's been a crazy few days and look, I know we'd be dead if you hadn't shown up."
It takes all her effort not to hop down next to him and squeeze his hand in sympathy, or even worse, hug him. She doesn't know who his Guard was, but while they clearly took care of him, they also kept him too defenceless. Four's powers are not without their merit but they're also very unfocused.
"No problem," she says, her lips twitching in a smile. "You didn't do so bad yourself."
"Thanks." He whispers and lays back on the truck bed, arms curled under his head.
She almost doesn't say it. Doesn't want to say it.
"We should take a few hours a day to train though. They'll be coming harder now."
He flicks his eyes towards her and like they did this morning; they stare at each other for a few seconds.
"Okay." He tilts his head back and closes his eyes, "Wake me instead of Sam. He should sleep."
This time she smiles, "I wasn't planning on waking him at any rate."
--
They drive for about a week and half without stoping. In Cincinnati they get new IDs -- well the boys do, she switches hers and now they're all twenty; funny how fast you grow up on the run. It's then in a diner in Jackson, Tennessee that they decide what city to set up in next. She and Four only have a vague idea of where they have to head to and south can mean so much. They can feel the others, stronger than they ever have before, and that feeling is pulling them south. Beyond that they do not what else to do. It's Sam that brings up the fact that they can't just stay on the road forever.
She could argue with him, but it's been a week on the long side and she's getting tired of only sharing the space of the truck with the boys. They've stayed at motels a few times, but mostly they drive and drive and drive. Even her bike is resting in the back of the truck at the moment as they switch diving duties. A destination would not be a bad thing. If anything it would be a goal to reach and that, at the moment, sounds like good thing. Four is still grieving and he gets quieter by the day.
"As long as it's far far away from Ohio, I guess it would not be the worst thing to set up somewhere until we know what to do next. Until we figure out what that feeling meant," she looks at Four, who frowns at her mention of Ohio, but that's why she did it anyway. He needs to understand. It's not safe there anymore. "Got any ideas?"
He looks at her and Sam and chuckles. She and Sam glance at each other, equally confused.
"Either you guys have very strange senses of humour, or you've snapped." Sam nudges Four and Four shakes his head, "What is it?"
Four shrugs and looks at her, "After we moved from Miami, I told people I was from Santa Fe."
The idea rolls around in her head as she ties her hair back, using the action as a distraction as she thinks about this. It's not a bad one. It's south, it's far from Paradise and neither of them had been there before. Most importantly of all, it's a destination. She's never been good wandering aimlessly, just good a wandering.
"Never been," she says and somehow they all know it's decided.
Sam snorts into his burger and rolls his eyes.
Levelling him with a look, she asks, "What now?"
"If you two wanted to be really ironic, you would just go straight for Roswell." He snickers and takes a bite out of his burger.
She and Four look at each other and after a beat they start to laugh. Then Sam starts to laugh too. It's the first time they've all laughed together.
Roswell. Wouldn't that be perfect?
An hour later they're back on the road, heading south, the road still too long in front of them, but there's purpose waiting for them at the end of it. And they're going to make it.
She'll make sure of it. It's her mission. She will not fail it.
(crossposted)
ghost of a future (8k~)
note: The future is not like John expected at all. Nobody knows him. It’s weird, especially since he expected them to.
prologue
The future is different from anything he had expected, and you know what, he had expected a lot. Derek (who doesn’t remember him, doesn’t know him. John Connor is no one here.) had mentioned the tunnels, so yeah, no surprise there, but he hadn’t expected the people plied on top of each other like rats in a maze, but in a way isn’t that exactly what they are? Vermin for the Terminators and Skynet to hunt? Cameron, yes, Cameron, because Allison is different (he needs to remember, memorise, accept that; different, flesh, bone. Mortal.) had mentioned the Metal, she had mentioned that he used some metal in the Resistance, but there’s none to be found here. (She’s Allison. A. Lli. Son. Not metal, not here. Allison.) Not to mention his Kyle Reese is alive and probably doesn’t carry a picture of Sarah Connor in his pocket, because John apparently doesn’t exist in this world.
Oh, yeah, it’s different all right.
Kyle, his dad, his dad to be? He doesn’t even know anymore, but yeah, out of some miracle or pity, Kyle doesn’t beat him to a pulp for wearing his coat. Apparently Derek has a sense of humour here. (And isn’t it fucking weird that the first thing he picked up after travelling trough time had been his father’s coat? How does that even happen? Seriously, how. the. fuck?)
Instead Kyle had looked at him like he had seen something in John and asked, “Who are you?”
“John Connor,” he had answered, because he is.
“Okay.” Kyle had nodded, turning to Derek, dismissing John. “Derek get him some clothes and don’t let him out of your sight. We need to move out, we’ll figure this out later.”
That had been it. That had been about two weeks ago and he was now in the Resistance. He’s human, of course he’s in the Resistance; it’s not a choice. And they had moved out of that tunnel into a set of whole new ones.
He remembers as they had moved out, Kyle-his dad- had looked back at him and tilted his head. Derek had stepped towards his brother-his dad- and they had whispered to each other, their eyes very carefully not looking at him.
They had whispered that they don’t trust him. He hadn’t even been in hearing range, but he knew that’s what they had said, shoulder hunched forward forming a small circle separating themselves form everyone else. He knew because he made the same face when he didn’t trust someone. Genetics, isn’t it a bitch?
That was two weeks ago and not all that much has change expect he has some clothes- the shirt’s too big and the army pants a little too short but he can’t be picky, he’s lucky and he knows it- and a gun. Still, this is nothing like he expected.
No, the future is not what John had expected at all.
It’s all a fucking mess. He doesn’t know why he’s so surprised.
*
There’s something about the kid, Derek thinks as he watches Rivera leads the kid away to outfit him with a gun and some clothes of his own. They don’t have much, but there’s always some scraps around and anything is better than freezing to death. He doesn’t miss the fact that Kyle still hasn’t asked for his coat back and the kid hasn’t taken it off. Derek watches John and can’t help but feel this itch in the back of his neck at how the kid moves in his brother’s coat. Actually, he can’t help but notice how the kid moves. He moves like a solider, not surprising in the world they live, but there’s something, something familiar in the way he moves, and Derek can’t place it. It bugs the shit out him.
He keeps his eyes on the area the kid left with Rivera until he senses someone walk up to him. “Hey, you in there?” He hears Allison says as she steps up to his side.
Giving her a glance, he looks back to the hole in the wall they use as a door. “Yeah, I’m here.” She nods but doesn’t do anything else for a full minute until she shifts her body, half turned towards him and signals with her head towards the back of the room.
“Kyle wants to go over the security details of the Point, he sent me over to get you.” She brushes some sweat off her cheek with the heel of her hand and blinks. She looks tired. He feels as if he should tell her to get some rest, but they all need rest and they never get enough, so he just nods instead.
“Okay, come on.”
Allison follows him, half a step back and to his left. Like always. “You know, there’s something weird about that John guy.”
Yeah, Alli, there is. He doesn’t say anything out loud.
*
They don’t trust him. He’s been in the future for three weeks and they don’t trust him. They don’t let him out of their sights, but they don’t trust him. They don’t let him out of their sights because they don’t trust him.
Apparently it’s wasn’t just from his mom that he has trusts issues from. Cleaning his gun, because they all carry guns, he tries to focus on the process but he’s all too aware of Cam-Allison standing by the door, talking to Rivera, (nice guy, actually pretends he doesn’t mind having John around) pretending not to watch him.
He’s pretending he doesn’t notice her watching him. She pretends back. They both know that it’s all just a game- cat and mouse, John’s just not sure which he is right now, so he keeps his eyes on his gun and forces his shoulders to relax. He keeps cleaning the barrel until her voice fills the room.
“Kate!” His head snaps up and see Ca-Allison’s face brightens up as somebody pushes through the soldiers and makes their way towards them. It hurts, he has to admit, to see Allison’s face that wide and smiling. Cameron only smiled when malfunctioning or lying and this type of smiling is just so real. Looking to see who managed that look on her face, he watches as a tallish woman with the darkest red hair he’s ever seen move through the room of soldiers like she owns them. She has to be in her mid or early thirties or forties and she’s as dirty as the rest of them, but there’s something about her. A presence, and be it hormones or whatever, she knocks his breath out. (If he was paying attention to the room, he’d realise she knocks everyone’s breath out.)
“Allison,” the woman smiles at Allison when she reaches her, a hand moving across the younger girl’s cheek before a quick hug occurs and the smile is gone like it was never there. “How are things going here?”
Allison’s eyes flit to him and he watches as she motions Kate, yeah that was her name, closer. Allison says something to Rivera, probably to watch him, and then Kate follows Allison through another hole - no doorways here either; Serrano Point is only slightly less run down than the tunnels - and they disappear from John’s sight.
The urge to follow them is so overwhelming he can taste it, but he bites his cheek and focuses on his gun like he hadn’t noticed the exchange at all.
The future fucking sucks.
*
When Kate’s comes down from the Peak Allison loves it, it’s amusing watching all the rooks trip over their at being in the presence of Kate Brewster. It’s even more amusing because Kate treats them all like the rooks they are. Nobody in the Resistance save Kyle, Derek and a handful of others have the scars that Kate carries around. None have the discipline. She wouldn’t either if it hadn’t been for Kate herself, who found Allison at nine and crying like a little punk, her arm broken and dislocated, and hanging limp at her side. She had knelt in front of Allison, told her it was all going to be okay and popped her shoulder back in place. To this day Allison doesn’t remember screaming so loudly in her life. She had been a weak kid.
After that, Allison had attached herself to Kate. Others did to over the years, but Allison was one of the few left that hadn’t a) dropped of over the course of the war or b) died. The Reese’s were the others.
When Kate had left her with them Allison had been angry, but Kate’s work was all about healing, the best med in Resistance and Allison, well, she didn’t have healing bone in her body. She was a good shot, a good fighter and best fucking liar they had. She’s more than a little proud of her skills set. Kate, Derek and Kyle were proud of them too.
Kate’s still the closest thing to home and family she has left and she loves it when they make it back to the Point long enough to spend a few nights with her and watch the rooks trip over their feet. As usually they all do, expect the new guy, who Allison has come to accept is weird as fuck.
He watches them though, with sharp eyes and set mouth. He watches them like he’s memorising them and Kate looks at him like a question needing some answering. Kyle and Derek are different. They see something in him, something that unnerves them. She only pays attention to him because Derek had told her to keep her eyes on him and she knows how to follow an order, but she doesn’t like it. He looks at her, he stares at her, and she doesn’t like it, it creeps her out and in the world she lives in that’s saying a mouthful.
Still, she follows orders and watches him watch her (them), because if his staring means anything it mean he’ll talk to her. That’s one thing she’s notice, this John guy, he has questions and she’s set to answer them with whatever answers Kyle tells her to give him.
*
Since Alli told her about the kid, she can’t help but notice him. Something prickles in the back of her mind. Something she can’t grab hold of.
John Connor.
Why is that name so familiar?
*
Kyle doesn’t like John. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t like this sixteen year old boy that appeared out of fucking nowhere wearing his coat. There’s no reason to not like him. The kid, Johh, is a good solider, almost as if trained all his life to be one, and is one hell of a shot. He’s quiet and follows the orders he gets, he stares at Allison more than Kyle or Derek are comfortable with, but every male stares at Allison more than he and Derek are ever comfortable with. When Kate told them all those years ago to “watch over her” they hadn’t expect for it to be an order that would last years, but it did and Allison is all but family now, but it took them months to get used to her. That’s part of the problem actually, because even though he doesn’t want to admit it, and against every reasonable bone in his body, Kyle trusts the kid already. He doesn’t know fucking why, but he does and that’s why Kyle doesn’t like John Connor.
There’s also no better reason to test him. “Hey, you. John.”
Every head turns to him, and John’s eyes are the widest. “Yes, sir?”
Good, solider, Kyle smirks. “Come here, time for you to earn your stripes.”
The kid, John, fumbles as he gets up, but walks to Kyle gun in place, shoulders set, eyes steady. “What do you want me to do?”
This kid has potential if nothing else.
*
Weaver has disappeared since he arrived. No contact, no nothing. He getting tired of waiting. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed do in this world, so he does the one thing is mother taught him above everything else:
Survive.
What else is there to do?
*
He’s played it quiet for three weeks, doing everything right, trying not to make them too curious, well, more curious, about him and it looks like it’s paid off. About time. His dad calls him and he moves towards the man he always wished to meet and now can’t believe he is.
“You’re going to come with me and my patrol to the Southside tunnels. Scouting mission, full recon, and we’re going to see how you do in the field.”
He nods, like he can do anything else, “Yes, sir.”
“Be ready at 0500, Connor. Time to see what you’re made of.” Kyle, his dad for fucks sakes, smiles at him like he’s expecting him to shit his pants or died tomorrow and John’s never felt a need to prove himself like he does in this moment. With his mom it had always been different, she knew he was going to be a great leader, military strategist, she had always expected him to succeed. He’s never been expected to fail and that’s what he sees in his father’s eyes in this moment. Expectation of failure.
Well, they’re going to see about that. After all, he’s John-fucking-Connor.
He hopes that will still mean something in this world nobody cares who he is.
*
“Kyle’s taking that John guy with us on patrol tomorrow.” Allison grins as she strokes the dog’s coat on the opposite wall. Her feet are stretched out in a V and mirror his.
Derek hates that grins, it’s an evil grin, one worthy of the cartoon villains of a childhood long past. “You look way to happy about that, Alli.”
She rolls her eyes, still grinning, “He stares at me, you know.” Her thumb and forefinger rub Tango’s ear and the bastard dog growls in pleasure, smug.
“Yeah, I noticed. Want me to shoot him?” He rests his head against the wall, his eyes trailing the lines of the lion’s head on the wall above her head. Hang in there, baby, he scoffs. He’s got the fucking thing burned into his brain so he lowers his eyes. Big mistake.
Allison is pretty, no doubt, so even covered in dirt and her smile is sweet and dangerous. “Would you?”
He laughs because there’s nothing else to do. “No, I wouldn’t shoot him, Alli.”
“If you asked me, I would.” She says, serious as a mouse. He looks over her dirty cheeks and down to where her hand hasn’t stop stroking Tango and knows she would. She would because she’s a solider and orders are orders. She’ll follow them to her death.
“I know,” he closes his eyes, sighing. There’s no sound besides the normal whispers of hell and people for a long while and then he hears shuffling, something is moving from across from him to right next to him. Allison. She moves to the patch of wall to his right and Tango squeezes in the space between them.
He falls asleep after her. Always does, after all he hasn’t had more than four hours any night since J-Day.
*
They’re leaving, a recon mission and then they’ll head to the Peak where she’ll join them in a week after she settles Lauren in. Kate watches as they pack up some minimal supplies and head out. She’s used to them leaving, and part of her always thinks it will be the last time she’ll see any of them. Sadly, she’s used to that too. In this world they live in it tends to be that way, but so far they’ve defied the odds. Kyle and Derek look back and nod, but say nothing, because until they lose each other they still have the most important person in the world to them. It’s not like that with everybody and when Allison bounds back and presses a dirty kiss to Kate’s cheek; Kate lets her.
“See you in hell.” Allison winks, heading back to the group.
“Not if I see you first.” Kate smiles sadly, hoping it’s not the last time, but resigned to the fact it might be.
Just as she turns around she hears one last thing, “Good-bye, Dr. Brewster.” At that last word, Kate turns sharply back to see the kid Kyle’s group adopted nod back at her.
Brewster. It’s just her last name; she’s heard it a million time, but… oh god. It’s a memory, a dusty and old memory, that she has to unwrap in her mind like an old photograph. A sofa, worn and brown; a basement full of kids and music; and a voice, clever and young, calling her name with a smirk.
Brewster.
Connor.
“John?” She whispers too late and they’re gone. It’s impossible.
*
John’s been in a war zone since he was born, but he’s never been on the side that was outnumbered so to say. Sure, the Terminators have always been stronger and faster and deadlier, but there’s had always been more humans. In the past. There had been more allies than enemies, and even though his mom had hated it, more often than not they normally had a Terminator on their side. Here, in this future, he feels outnumbered. Humans are out numbered, and for one brief second he has the blasphemous thought that his mother hadn’t trained him as well as they had both thought. Then, of course, he pulls the trigger and the T-888 goes down as Derek pulls him away. A barrage of bullets hits the machine and Ford rushes forward to destroy the head, the chip.
As Derek pulls him to his feet, reminding him to keep moving, John thinks his mother taught him just fine.
“Keep moving, Connor!” Derek presses his hand between John’s shoulder blades and pushes, hard.
He has been in war zone all his life, but now the safety net of Time, Uncle Bob or Cameron is long gone. All he has now is a gun, a father and uncle that don’t know or really care about him, and what his mother taught him. He’s just another solider under their command and they’re just testing him.
Flash grenades go off all around him but there’s no joy of success at the destruction of the terminator. Here one down is nothing to celebrate because there’s ten more waiting about fifty yards away and their group has to make sure they don’t grab their attention. The smell of burnt everything permeates the air, smoke is overwhelming and he coughs, blinking away the tears. These Terminators don’t have flesh like all the ones he’s encountered before in his life, they’re made of silver and wires and their eye socket burn red like fire. But they don’t care about him, they don’t care about John Connor, they just want to kill him like he’s any other human. Like he’s vermin and for the first time in this world John feels like nothing.
“You okay there, Connor?” He feels a body move in front of him and sees Ca-Allison’s large brown eyes roll over him as she moves past, letting Derek look him over.
“Kid looks a little worse for the wear, Reese.”
“Get back in formation, Young.” Derek snaps at her as he pushes John’s eyes open, checking his retinas.
“Just saying.” She laughs, a sound foreign and strange in this new world, and moves ahead shifting her rifle from her left shoulder to her right.
Derek pulls John’s face back towards him and make him meet his eyes. “You’ll be fine. Not bad, Connor. You might survive this after all.” He turns them back to the group and doesn’t even give John time to catch his breath. John follows, his eyes still stinging, because it’s war, there’s no time to breathe.
*
Kyle walks over to Derek, going down on his haunches as he watches as his brother gives Ford and Choi the run-down on tomorrow. “Hey, let’s talk.” He grins over the plans that Derek is drawing on the ground and Ford and Choi know a dismissal when they hear one and stand, nodding as they leave the two brothers alone.
“Sure, what’s up, little brother?” Derek grins. It’s that same grin that used to bug him as a kid; the one that means he already knows what Kyle is going to ask he’s just waiting for Kyle to get balls to do it.
Kyle rolls his eyes, “What’s with you and the kid?” He’s never had to beat around the bush with Derek, his brother appreciates the straight forward approach anyway.
“What do you mean?” Derek settles back against the wall, smirking.
“Fucking hell, Derek. You and the kid, don’t you think you’re watching him a little to carefully?”
“How do you know how carefully I’m watching him unless you’re watching him too?” The question is rhetorical, because even when Derek is not watching Kyle, he’s watching Kyle. Not for the first time in his life, or the last time, he’s sure, Kyle wants to hit his big brother.
“Fuck off. Now, are you going to keeping being an ass or talk to me?” Kyle drops back against the wall, letting his wrist fall over his knees.
“I’m watching him for the same reasons you are. There’s something about this kid. Something about the way he acts, the way he looks at us. You see it, so do I, so does Allison and so did Kate. We’re all picking up on it, so I figure,” Derek pauses, sighing, scratching his neck, “let the kid watch, let him think he’s getting close and then maybe we’ll find out what he’s hiding and why he’s hiding it. I also figured you weren’t going to do it since you’ve keeping your distance.”
Kyle wets his lips, wishing for water and sighs. “He makes me nervous, like I should care or something.”
“Trust him?”
“Yeah, and I don’t like it. Plus, don’t you think that he kinda looks-”
“Yeah, that’s creepy too.”
“Right,” Kyle shakes his head and looks back towards the opening where the rest of the team is taking their rest. “Well, we’ll see. Tell them we move out in 20.”
“Sure thing, Kyle.” Derek stands, dropping his hand on Kyle’s shoulder as he heads out. He follows his older brother with his eyes, thankful, not for the first time, he wasn’t alone in this war.
*
She’s been waiting for this day. She’s been waiting a long time.
*
Derek watches as everyone settles in for the night. Crystal Peak is only a five days away, but this last length of terrain they need to get through is the hardest. Rivera is patching up Choi who got a stray shrapnel lodged in her thigh and he almost wishes Kate was here, because she’s the best and he likes having the best on his team, but Kate stays at the base camps, rarely going out into the field anymore. Kate stays there because that’s where the people need her most. He still remember the first time he met her and she patched him up. Twenty-eight stitches across his ribs, no painkillers to speak of, and a piece of wood wrapped in cloth for him to bite on as she fixed him up. He’s pretty sure that’s the first time he fell in love with Kate Brewster, it happens once a month by now, but everybody in the Resistance is partly in love with Kate and Kate lives for them all. Walking the length of their shelter for the night he watches as Connor takes his gun apart and puts it back together, watching them; Ford is flirting with Alli, and Alli is amusing herself by pretending to flirt back. Kyle is still in the back, over thinking everything they have to do and Derek hopes that whatever is waiting for them at the Peak is worth this baby-sitting gig.
“Sir?” Derek hears from Connor and turns to face the kid. “Can I ask you something?” Connor motions him over and Derek head over, crouching in front of him, completely aware that Allison is following his every move.
“Yeah, what?”
“Who are we going to meet in Crystal Peak?”
Derek laughs, this kid doesn’t miss much. “Just the leader of this whole damn thing, kid.”
*
Allison was never taught to mind her words like a lot of parents do with their kids. Allison parents died long before they every taught her all the social conventions like think before you speak and if you have nothing nice to say don’t say anything at all, so Allison never learned to be polite and courteous and Kate, Kyle or Derek never cared to teach her. They taught her the important things like how to do a field dressing and how to take a tin can apart under heavy fire. Plus they like that she says whatever comes to her mind, they even like that she lies as much as she speaks the truth, because they’re the only ones that can tell the difference. It makes her a good solider in their eyes, because since they’re the only ones that know when she lies it makes her only loyal to them. It’s a nice safety net as it were.
At the moment, Kyle and Derek are talking over by the far wall and Allison grins to herself as she makes her way over to Connor. “Hey.”
He looks at her, eyes wide and flushing slightly. “Oh, um, hi. Allison.”
“So, who are you?” She drops to the ground by him, keeping her smile wide, her rifle laying neatly on her lap.
“What?” He blinks rapidly, clearly not expecting the question.
“Who. Are. You?”
He tenses his shoulders and blinks even more, “John. John Connor.”
“I know that. You’ve told everyone. I’m asking who are.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” He presses himself against the wall and Allison thinks he looks like those animal she barely remembers at the zoo her parents took her to once. Caged and worried. It’s kinda amusing.
“Sure you don’t.” She presses her palms to her knees, leaning forward studying his face. His pupils dilate and his hand tighten on the butt of his gun. Huh, interesting. “You know something, don’t you, John Connor?”
He swallows, never looking away from her eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I don’t like you, by the way. I don’t like the way you look at me.” She grins toothily. Kyle and Derek hate it, they always tell her it looks like she’s planning something. Sure most of time it’s not like they’re wrong, but still. “But they like you,” she motions to with her head to the two brothers, “they like you and until they tell me not to like you anymore, it doesn’t look like I have a choice in the matter. Get my meaning?”
“Yeah, I get it.” He nods, his Adam’s apple bobbing under his skin, his eyes doing that steely thing that she sees in the Reese boys. Hmm, very interesting.
“Good, so,” she stands, dusting off the ever present dirt on her pants, “next time don’t lie, it’s unbecoming of a solider.”
He glares at her and looks like he’s about to say something when she gets called back by Choi.
“Oh and John, I don’t know if anyone’s said it yet, but welcome to hell.” She walks away not bothering to look back. She doesn’t really care anyway.
*
John watches as Allison walk away suppressing the shiver that runs down his spine. She just read him in a way so different from Cameron, but it still creeps him out to see her speak and act like she does. Like she doesn’t know him and doesn’t care to know him. The worst bit of it is she does it with a smile, sweet and innocent, and he’s starting to think she’s a little insane, but that could just be an act. Because he’s noticed that too- Allison projects, she acts, she lies, and it’s all so seamless it looks like truth.
This, she, isn’t anything like he expected.
It’s all wrong.
And he doesn’t know how to make it right again.
All he knows is that Crystal Peak awaits and if things keep going the way they have been, it will be nothing like he expected.
*
Everything is getting closer.
**
Craved into the side of a mountain, Crystal Peak is a safe haven and the most important secret in the Resistance. An underground military bunker that doesn’t look like it can even house ten people. John soon realises how wrong that is. The entrance looks destroyed, and it probably was at one point, he amends mentally. There’s the remnants of a helicopter and a plane tangled together like they crashed and fell here together, twisting into one giant pile of metal. He thinks he sees the remains of a Terminator twisted in the wreckage. Kyle and Derek are up in front and Allison holding the rear with Ramirez, John, Ford and Choi are filling up the middle as they manoeuvre through the dark. When they reach the bulkhead door, Kyle moves forward quietly and Derek has them all cover him. There’s a panel at the side and John watches as Kyle moves towards it, opens it and presses the buttons there. They all wait for minute when they hear garbled words, Kyle speaks something into the panel and then on the left side a hatch opens. The bulkhead doors stay shut and John feels this all a bit anticlimactic.
No grand welcoming home for tired shoulders here, just a hatch opening and Derek shuffling them forward. As he swings his gun over his shoulder and grabs the first rung of the ladder leading down, he takes one last look into the world. The skyline is burning and the drones are circling in the air like metal bats from hell.
This isn’t Oz, Wonderland, or even Neverland. This world is the nightmare his mother tired to prevent. He swallows the bile in his throat at the disappointment he can guarantee she would feel towards him right now. Maybe he’s not the saviour she had hoped he’d be.
*
Inside the Peak, Derek and Kyle squeeze through the people and corridors, trying to ignore the eyes and whispers as usual. Clenching his jaw, Derek holds back the glare he wants to give them all. He hates their fucking status. He and Kyle have been one of the Resistance’s most reliable squads and with success comes fame. Derek hates fame. Kyle does too, but Kyle has always handled people better. Originally just a military bunker for VIPs, over the years tunnels have been dug under the surface of the mountain, extending its size and population. After Serrano Point, it’s the biggest underground and unofficial city craved out on the West Coast. As the push and grit their way through the maze that is the Peak, Derek hears people greeting them, he hears Allison holler back at some of the other squads, he glances back Susan, Ford’s wife, makes their way up to them and welcomes her husband back, tears and relief coating her face. Ford doesn’t break away from them, because they still have someone to see, but Derek looks away from the quick touches between husband and wife- private, quiet things that he has no business looking at.
Turning back towards Kyle who hasn’t stopped moving forward Derek sighs. He runs his hand across the back of his neck, rubbing the tension that knots up there. Relief fills him for a brief second, we made it back in one piece.
As Kyle turns the last corner before they reach the hub of the Peak, Derek looks back to make sure everyone is in line. They are, following like lost ducks, but all the company they gathered from the entrance drifts away now. No time to play. Kyle knocks on the metal door with the fading black letters that barely spell out P.O.T.U.S. anymore and they wait.
When it opens, a figure crowds the entrance. “Welcome back, Alpha Squad..
James Ellison greets them with no smile, his salt and pepper beard a familiar site.
Kyle doesn't quite smile back either. “Good to be home, sir.”
*
John freezes at the sight of man in front of him. It’s been god knows how many years, but really only a couple months for him and not even the deep wrinkles of age and scars of war can hide James Ellison. As Kyle talks John does nothing, listening frozen on the stop. Derek’s broad shoulders and Ramirez’s height keep him most out of Ellison’s view until finally an order breaks through the heart attack John’s sure he’s having.
“Connor, up front.” His dad orders and like some fucked up mythic parting, Derek, Choi, Ford, Allison and Ramirez move from where they surround him and step to the side. He reminds his legs to walk and swallow, making his up towards his dad and Ellison.
The minute he and Ellison lock eyes, he sees it. Ellison remembers him- his body tenses just a fraction more and there’s something in his eyes that flash before the warning: don’t say anything.
John gets the message and salutes, “Sir.”
“Reese, here, tells me you just appeared out of nowhere and have been making a place for yourself on his squad, Connor. Is that right?” Ellison voice is deep and so familiar it almost makes John want to cry. If Ellison is still here…, he lets the thought trail off because he can’t be thinking of these things, not when there’s so much death around him.
“I hope so, sir. They saved my ass.”
Ellison nods, “They do a good job at that. Kyle, Derek, come in for the debrief, and why don’t you all unpack and rest a while. Nice to meet you, Connor.”
John hears the dismissal and wants o fight against it. He can’t be kept out of the loop now, now that there’s someone from his past, someone that knows him, around. Someone he can talk to about everything he hasn’t been able to. And he almost does, protest, but then Ellison catches his eyes again and the message is loud and clear: wait.
As he and the other turn back towards the corridors, he hears someone from behind Ellison speak out, “Looks like the Reese boys are back. About time.” The voice is soft and feminine. John’s head snaps back faster than Kyle reloads his gun. He catches a glimpse of long, strawberry coloured hair and pale skin as the door closes and his brain flashes to pigtails and shoe laces.
Savannah Weaver.
Suddenly after weeks of being alone his hellish new world, John’s old world is raising back up for the ashes. For the first time in a long time there’s a taste of hope in his mouth.
*
Watching the door close after the Reeses step back out, Savannah turns towards the man that effectively raised her. “Dad? Was it him?” She’s not deaf and she remembers the face from her childhood. If John Connor has finally crossed paths with them everything is going to be different now.
Her father rubs his beard in a familiar action that she knows all too well means worry. “He looked just like he did the last time I saw him. Still a kid.” He gives a dry laugh and drops to the worn chair in front of her, “Looks like John Connor is back and he’s still a kid who doesn’t know what the hell he’s up against.”
Savannah quirks her lips, “I guess this changes the plan a little. Gotta tell her and Danny.”
“God help us all.” Her father presses his hand to the middle of chest, in a manner he thinks is discreet and would be if she didn’t know him so well, if she didn’t know about the St. George’s medal that rests there.
Savannah walks over and presses a kiss to his cheek, laughing. It’s almost seems like fate that John Connor has come back into their life, that is, if Savannah believed in fate.
*
It’s almost time.
*
Derek can’t help but notice the change in the kid. It’s not obvious on his face, but it’s in every movement he’s made since they left Ellison. The kid is walking straighter, the ever present slump of his shoulders - the defeat - has all but evaporated and there’s a new look in his eyes. It’s a look Derek knows well, it’s the look soldier’s get when they see reinforcements come into the battle.
Hope.
Hope for what, Derek doesn’t know, but believe him when he says he’s going to find out. Looking around to find Connor, he spots the kid standing by Choi not talking or listening as Choi and Ford shoot the breeze. He’s just staring into space with this far away look on his face. Normally, Derek would slap him upside the head and tell him to focus on where he is - stay sharp, Connor - but the Peak is the safest place on the West Coast and all soldiers deserve to take a breath. That, and Derek is grateful that Connor is lost in his thoughts, because it allow for him to study the kid.
Kyle hadn’t trusted the kid (or so his brother said) and Derek is starting to think Kyle might have been right. There are too many unanswered question surrounding Connor.
There a shit load of orphans in this new world, but Connor doesn’t act like any of them. He’s not in mourning for anyone, and in this world everyone is in mourning. For a friend, for family, for the world. Not John Connor.
The kid acts like he’s just passing through. Like he’s on a mission and waiting.
Maybe, Derek thinks, its time to ask what the hell John Connor is waiting for.
*
When Savannah and Ellison come in with the news, she laughs and leaves them behind. She would owe her brother money if money mattered anymore, as it is, she’ll just take the next night shift. The path to where they’ll be is empty as it gets in the Peak. Only a few soldiers scattered about, most of the catching as much scants amounts of uninterrupted sleep as they can. Everybody else is closer to the top, to where the Reese boys and the rest are probably holding court.
She and Danny had never been the type. It’s tougher for Danny to move around anyway, one leg cut of at the knee, so they stick closer to the bottom. Lighting a cigarette, a bad habit she picked up as she grew and manages to keep alive thanks to the well stocked bunker, she honestly couldn’t believe what Ellison had told her. John Connor, back. Apparently there is still something in the world that can surprise her. They’ll be happy, she thinks, knowing that they’ll take the new much easier than she had. Danny had always believed more than her anyway. Then again Blythe had always hated the Connors a bit more than her brother. He had even followed their father’s footsteps, as opposed to her, the lawyer. Becoming a computer engineer he also became a target. And the metal came. It always did.
She still remembers the day Sarah had burst through her house, looking for him. She would curse the day expect that day change her life. It saved her. She had followed Sarah Connor and survived the end of the world.
But she never believed what Sarah, Danny and even Ellison and Savannah did.
Blythe Dyson never believed John Connor would ever cross their paths again.
As the years passed they barely mentioned him, but they all remembered. Savannah, so young when Blythe first met her asked for him the longest before she stopped. The war changed them all and John Connor, the name, no longer meant hope.
(Not for all of them. Except Sarah.
Sarah never stopped believing. )
Shaking her head, Blythe knocks on the heavy metal door that houses the real and very secret leader of the Resistance. Sarah has never let her name become a myth. She’s too smart for that. She stays hidden, letting the Resistance be a force unto itself, silently guiding it, shaping it, making a force to fear. For her age Sarah still fights harder than half of the soldiers, but expect for being one of the oldest Resistance fighters in the Peak, she does not advertise herself. She just leads, letting The Connor name become a ghost, expect for the few that had been fighting in this war long before the bombs dropped. Like Sarah said, the minute the metal has a name, it’s the minute they have a target.
Sarah does not allow herself to become a target.
Sarah Connor is not a messiah. She does not let herself be. She keeps to the shadows, fighting slippery and deadly like a snake, waiting for her prey to become weak.
It’s why Blythe follows her.
“Come in.” Blythe hears from behind the door and pushes the heavy door open with a grunt.
Sarah is behind a worn desk, greying hair tided back into a tight ponytail. Danny is in his wheelchair and they have blue prints laid out. She and Danny look up at her.
“Yes?” Sarah questions when Blythe doesn’t give her reason for coming in right away.
Blythe leans against the door, taking a drag from her cigarette. “Looks like your kid is back.”
She would laugh at the faces they give her if they weren’t so grim.
*
“Where is he!” Sarah practically leaps up in her seat, moving to grasp Blythe by the shoulders. She’s sure her fingers are making crescent marks on the other woman’s skin, even through the material of her shirt.
She’s shaking, right down to her bones, because, god (and she doesn’t even believe in Him), John.
She never thought she would see him again. The shape of his face a distant memory that she only remembers in her dreams.
Her son.
Back.
It’s almost a cruel joke.
*
They lead him away from Kyle and Derek.
Both men look at him as he walks away from them. Neither look particularly sad; John doesn't know how he feels about that. There is a small, tight curl of hurt that wraps around his chest - nothing happened like it was supposed to - but he knows he gained their respect every day he didn't die. He was a solider to them and a good one.
It doesn't feel like enough, but John figures it has to be.
He doesn't see Allison as he walk away. Or Tango.
He figures that's best.
She never did warm up to him; she wasn't Cameron, she wasn't who he came here for. She was never going to be who left him.
It's best that they don't see each other as he walks away.
*
“There are only fourteen people who really know who is in charge of the Resistance, John. After today, you’ll be the fifteeth.” Savannah takes him by the shoulder and leads him away from Ellison. John looks over his shoulder and sees Ellison nod, he feels himself nod back and then the iron door closes behind him and Savannah.
He turns to the girl, no young woman of who the last memory he has is holding her in his arms as she clings to him in fear. God, he taught her to tie her shoes and now she’s leading him down the rabbit hole.
“John?” She stops when he falters in his steps, and lowers her chin to check the look in his eyes.
“This is insane.”
“I know, but come on, this is important for you.”
“It’s my mom, isn’t it? She leading the resistance now, because I skipped time.”
Savannah doesn’t answer him back, but John’s learned to read silence -- people say so much more when they don’t speak when you know what to look for -- and that’s answer enough. Savannah seems to have learned from the best, but so did he.
“She never stopped waiting for you.”
She opens the door.
*
On the other side of the rabbit hole, John holds his breath until he can’t anymore. There’s no going back, there was never any going back.
“Mom.” He chokes out when he first lays eyes on her. She looks so much older and yet still radiates the same strength. The lines on her face fill him with regret that she spent all these years waiting for him, but he’s seen what she’s done with the waiting. She’s created hope, however feeble it might be. She’s still the reason why everyone fights the metal. He can feel his eyes teat up and he doesn’t even care bacause it’s been so fucking long and she’s his mom. She’s the reason he’s who he is, she’s the reason why in another timeline people followed him.
“John,” she strides towards him, her steps as strong and sure as ever, and wraps him up in a hug that threatens to break his ribs. His arms go around her, holding on, and closes his eyes, pushing the tears back. Even older than he remembers and with a head full of grey she’s still the strongest person he knows- will ever know.
“Come on, we have world to save.” She says and he believes it.
After everything he’s realised: his name is the one everyone remembers but his mom is the reason why they do.
His mother is why the human race survives, because she raised him.
*
“If Skynet doesn’t know who you are, if they don’t care, they’ll never send someone back to kill you, and then we can send your father back anyway. Hopefully.” Danny says later. John can’t look away from his legs--someone else has paid the price of believing in John Connor. The feeling of guilt and shame in his chest is a familiar and unpleasant one.
The plan is a good one though.
It just might work.
*
BLAH BLAH BLAH MORE STUFF.
MORE STUFF.
ENDING.
*
epilogue????
When the war ends-when humans once again outnumber the metal- the legacy, the myth of John Connor still stands (as it was always meant to) but there’s another story told. One that will outlast him.
That story is the one of Sarah Connor, because without her there would be no John Connor in the first place. The world survives because of her. Because of her will to win a war the world thought it lost.
(When John Connor sent his father back to protect his mother and father him, he didn’t do it so he could live, he did it because of her. His mother.
A warrior.
John Connor sent his father back because he knew that without his mother, without what she taught him, he would never be able to win.)
In the end, the real end, the story of John Connor is the story of Sarah Connor.
The Mother of all Destiny, will be what they call her. Destiny, funny how she hated the word.
I AM NUMBER FOUR; i know, whattttttttttt? but six was the best thing in that film and she needed more and idk why calling this a WIP as technically it's finished. Actually both these fics could in theory get posted as "Done" but idk they don't feel right? But I'm not going really do anything more with them... so.
untitled (2k)
The road stretches out in front of her and the horizon is blurred with the midday sun. They've been on the road since the early morning and with every mile they put between them and Paradise, Ohio she feels some of the tension leave her shoulders. It won't ever been completely gone. It never has. It can't be, considering the knowledge she has. The purpose she has, but with every mile and every dead Mog, it's a little less than before. She wants to be out of Ohio, and fast. She can't help they think they should have set another on fire, that they left traces of themselves behind but it's stupid to go back. It's only forward from now on. To the next of the Nine.
Her companions thoughts are on the town and people the left behind, she can't fault them for that, yet, but her are only on the road in front of her and how fast she can cross the state line.
The honk from the car catches her attention and she spares a glance behind her. Sam, the human friend, is half out of the window waving her back. She sighs, slows, and directs her bike to the side so they can pull beside her. Four is staring straight ahead and doesn't look her way as Sam leans over him and shouts through the open window.
"Hey, I don't how alien digestive systems work, but I haven't eaten since dinner last night and I'm starving!"
She's grateful for her dark glasses so they can't see her roll her eyes.
This is why she didn't want him to tag along. He's young, he's inexperienced, and at the moment he's hungry. It doesn't matter that the mention of food makes her stomach turn over in a plead for food. Their digestive systems, if anything, are faster and more efficient than humans and she hasn't eaten in well over 17 hours. Saving the day takes up more time and energy that she would like.
"SO?" Sam yells over the sound of the truck and her bike. She looks over to him and Four. Four shrugs. A half movement letting the decision come down to her.
"Fine! Next place we see we'll stop!" She shouts back at them and reeves her engine to pull back in front.
The next place they find is a Burger King next to a gas station. As soon as they're parked she steps off her bike and absentmindedly taps her knuckles on the hood of the truck. Sam and Four climb out and she can see how tired they are. How they're holding their shoulders and the clenched hands in their hoodies. Frowning, she leans against the truck because she can feel it now. Change. The change in how her days will go from now on. Four is clearly grieving and she wonders how long it will take Sam to get homesick. She's no longer by herself and she thinks she might have preferred it.
"Hey, Sam," she says, motioning towards the truck. "How about you go and fill her up, and while you're at it see if they'll you a couple of gallons of petrol. We'll meet up inside."
Sam looks between her and Four frowning, but then nods, "Yeah, okay. Good idea. For the road."
Her smile is fake and they all know it, but nobody cares, "Yeah, for the road. Do you have enough money?"
"Shit!"
Four smiles at this.
And this is just another reason she didn't want to bring him along. They're not prepared for what fighting this on their own means. Shaking her head she reaches into one of her pockets and pulls out a small wad of bills and tosses it to Sam.
"Don't spend it all."
Sam nods and takes the keys from Four, hopping back into the truck. "Hey, get me a quarter pounder. Wait! Get me two." He says and heads off.
Four nods and they watch as Sam moves towards the gas station. They stand there in silence for a couple of seconds before Four sighs, a loud and tired sound, before moving towards the fast food restaurant. She falls into step beside him, pushing her glasses up her forehead and into her hair. The sun is bright overhead and they look like teenagers going to grab lunch, maybe people will think they skipped school, that they're friends, or a great deal of other things without ever guessing the truth behind the look in Four's eyes and why her shoulder hurts like a sonofabitch.
--
She's unwrapping her second burger and Four is on his third when Sam slides into the chair across from Four. He gives them both skeptical looks and then proceeds to devour his own food.
"Man, you two can eat." He mentions as she finishes her second burger and starts in on her portion of fries, extra large.
Four smirks, taking a long slurp from his milkshake, "Fast metabolisms."
Sam rolls his eyes, "Of course you do." He takes a huge bite out of burger and chews for a couple seconds before turning to her, "So where are we heading too?"
She looks over to Four and he meets her glance. He raises his eyebrows pointedly and she fights the urge to kick his chair. It must show on her face because Sam asks them if they have telepathy too.
"No, we don't." She pauses, thinking the idea over, "Well, I don't. Do you?"
Four shakes his head, "Nope. Kinda with Bernie Kosher, but it's not like I read his thoughts. I just sense what he senses."
"It's your bond, because he's your Chimera. One of the other Nine could have telepathy, or one of us could develop it. It'd be handy to have." Sam looks way too interested and Four just shifts in his seat. "Anyway, we're heading south."
"South?" Sam parrots.
Four gives her another look and they both know.
"South."
--
The first night on the road is uncomfortable to say the least. They're three teenagers and a dog and with very limited cash on their persons. Neither her and Four are eighteen yet, which means: they're going to have to make some new fake IDs soon, but until then they're both underage and without enough money for a motel. Gas is expensive and Sam bought three five gallon fuel jugs. They decide to find a deserted field -- thank you Ohio for having more than enough to choose from -- and park for the night. Sam fidgets for a good two minutes about the sleeping arrangements before she rolls her eyes and tell him they'll be taking shifts through the night. She'll take the first and then him and then Four. Neither boy argues and it serves her find this system of them listening to her.
The night is cold and there's a very old blanket that Sam brought with him. He curls up under it and then Bernie curls up against him. Sam falls asleep within minutes. She watches as the dog shifts his size from a medium sized beagle to what looks to be a St. Bernard and smirks. Smart chimera. He can give more body heat this way and Sam looks very small right now. Four looks fondly at his pet and pats his side.
"Good boy." He sits on Bernie's other side, his back against the truck, and looks at her.
She rolls her eyes and shifts from her perch on the trucks roof to look at him. "Yes?"
"I haven't said it yet, but thank you." He stretches one leg out and curls his arm around the other. "It's been a crazy few days and look, I know we'd be dead if you hadn't shown up."
It takes all her effort not to hop down next to him and squeeze his hand in sympathy, or even worse, hug him. She doesn't know who his Guard was, but while they clearly took care of him, they also kept him too defenceless. Four's powers are not without their merit but they're also very unfocused.
"No problem," she says, her lips twitching in a smile. "You didn't do so bad yourself."
"Thanks." He whispers and lays back on the truck bed, arms curled under his head.
She almost doesn't say it. Doesn't want to say it.
"We should take a few hours a day to train though. They'll be coming harder now."
He flicks his eyes towards her and like they did this morning; they stare at each other for a few seconds.
"Okay." He tilts his head back and closes his eyes, "Wake me instead of Sam. He should sleep."
This time she smiles, "I wasn't planning on waking him at any rate."
--
They drive for about a week and half without stoping. In Cincinnati they get new IDs -- well the boys do, she switches hers and now they're all twenty; funny how fast you grow up on the run. It's then in a diner in Jackson, Tennessee that they decide what city to set up in next. She and Four only have a vague idea of where they have to head to and south can mean so much. They can feel the others, stronger than they ever have before, and that feeling is pulling them south. Beyond that they do not what else to do. It's Sam that brings up the fact that they can't just stay on the road forever.
She could argue with him, but it's been a week on the long side and she's getting tired of only sharing the space of the truck with the boys. They've stayed at motels a few times, but mostly they drive and drive and drive. Even her bike is resting in the back of the truck at the moment as they switch diving duties. A destination would not be a bad thing. If anything it would be a goal to reach and that, at the moment, sounds like good thing. Four is still grieving and he gets quieter by the day.
"As long as it's far far away from Ohio, I guess it would not be the worst thing to set up somewhere until we know what to do next. Until we figure out what that feeling meant," she looks at Four, who frowns at her mention of Ohio, but that's why she did it anyway. He needs to understand. It's not safe there anymore. "Got any ideas?"
He looks at her and Sam and chuckles. She and Sam glance at each other, equally confused.
"Either you guys have very strange senses of humour, or you've snapped." Sam nudges Four and Four shakes his head, "What is it?"
Four shrugs and looks at her, "After we moved from Miami, I told people I was from Santa Fe."
The idea rolls around in her head as she ties her hair back, using the action as a distraction as she thinks about this. It's not a bad one. It's south, it's far from Paradise and neither of them had been there before. Most importantly of all, it's a destination. She's never been good wandering aimlessly, just good a wandering.
"Never been," she says and somehow they all know it's decided.
Sam snorts into his burger and rolls his eyes.
Levelling him with a look, she asks, "What now?"
"If you two wanted to be really ironic, you would just go straight for Roswell." He snickers and takes a bite out of his burger.
She and Four look at each other and after a beat they start to laugh. Then Sam starts to laugh too. It's the first time they've all laughed together.
Roswell. Wouldn't that be perfect?
An hour later they're back on the road, heading south, the road still too long in front of them, but there's purpose waiting for them at the end of it. And they're going to make it.
She'll make sure of it. It's her mission. She will not fail it.
(crossposted)