As Much as I Ever Could, Part III

[hollycomb]

Yune rifles through Marcus' thoughts and memories like he's flipping his stubby fingers through the pages of a book, folding down the corners of interesting pages, making notes in the margins that sting like tattoos on Marcus' mind. At first he's mostly preoccupied with Kyle, making Marcus relive their first meeting, and the almost unbearable need to protect him. He remembers, hopeful inside the maze of whatever Yune is doing to him, probes and wires attached to his temples, that he did try to resist the pull to stay with Kyle. He tried to leave him, or at least thought about it, threatened to. But then the machines intervened.

He remembers Kyle sleeping on his shoulder in the Jeep. Marcus thought about shrugging him away and then just let him rest, listening to his periodic sighs and absorbing his nervous twitches, which always seemed to bring Kyle even closer to him. Star was asleep, too, her head in Kyle's lap, Kyle's arm looped around her protectively. The world was quiet for awhile as they drove through the desert, and it was the first time Marcus thought seriously about keeping Kyle and Star around for awhile, about helping them stay safe. It was the first time he noticed that underneath the grime Kyle's skin smelled so clean, something that couldn't be tainted. Yune marks this memory for further investigation, Marcus' body jerking painfully against his bonds, then moves on.

He makes Marcus remember what it was like to lose Kyle, first to see Kyle and Star flying through the air, then to fall from the transport when he failed to free them. It was worse than taking the injection when he'd reached the end of death row. It was failure and devastation like he'd never known, and why, when he had only met Kyle and Star the previous day? It's Yune who asks this question, and Marcus fights the answer that he wants to find. Whatever set it in motion, the way he felt about Kyle can't be measured, can't be traced like a straight or even a crooked line, from point A to point B. It veered into some new, untouchable territory when he lost Kyle, his feelings for Kyle skyrocketing into a force of celestial proportions, bigger than anything in this world. And he got Kyle back. The machines wanted Marcus to get Kyle killed, but Marcus overrode them. He saved him.

"Only so that you could destroy Connor by changing the course of history," Yune says, either aloud or in Marcus' mind, he can't tell. "They were probably more interested in this outcome, actually, so that they could test their technology."

I'm not technology, Marcus thinks. But he hasn't eaten in days and he's not hungry, not even thirsty.

Not only does he have no appetite and no hope of sleep, he has no privacy anymore: Yune dissects his most intimate memories of Kyle, pulling his emotions out like live wives, like throbbing veins, causing physical reactions, hot sweats, white-burning fury simmering under all of it. Yune maps out Marcus' reactions to Kyle by making him feel like he's back with him in their room at the base, like Kyle is warm and soft in his arms, panting, clinging to him, whispering Marcus' name in his ear as Marcus moves inside him. Marcus' hands are curled into fists at his side, his cock hard and pressing painfully against the restraint over his lap. He hates these phony reunions with Kyle, but he needs them, too, his eyes wet when they're gone.

"They've mapped the way humans need things like food and rest and replaced those things with only him," Yune says, touching his chin, staring at the monitors as Marcus pants on the table, recovering, his cock still leaking, angry-hard. "This is why you panicked when you lost him, why you felt as if you could tear steel with your hands if it meant getting him back. For you he is essential to survival."

"Then how the fuck did I go without him for three weeks when Connor sent me on the mission?" Marcus grinds out, determined to poke a hole in Yune's bullshit. "I didn't feel like I was dying just because he wasn't around."

"You had the promise of returning to him," Yune says. "It's more complicated than just seeing the boy. It's knowing that he's safe somewhere and eventually accessible to you that sustains you."

"Then why the fuck aren't I dying now?"

"It doesn't actually kill you not to be with him. It just makes you feel as if you'll die."

He's wrong about that; Marcus feels like he's already dead. He can't hide any part of his feelings for Kyle from Yune: they play before Marcus' eyes as they filter across Yune's data screens, every little laugh Kyle pressed to Marcus' neck, every secret look across the table during one of their card games in the rec room, everything he said: I saw a bird once. Marcus feels as if it's being stripped from him, as if Yune will take all of it away once he's amassed every shred.

Blair is there, too, Marcus' experiences with her rolled out like a rug that Yune walks all over. There's the day they met, the night when Marcus saved her from those assholes who attacked her, Blair's head against his shoulder, her arms around him when they fucked, her wild laugh when Marcus tried to braid her hair.

"That's a chink in your fucking armor, isn't it?" Marcus says to Yune as he's puzzling over these memories. "I fucked Blair before I did anything with Kyle. I was confused. Human."

"That can be explained simply enough," Yune says. "The machines made Kyle sacred to you -- above anything, you wanted to protect him. You tempered your desire for him by being with this woman -- you were trying to protect him from yourself. You didn't trust yourself to touch the boy until he was begging you to do it, telling you it was what he needed. You'd been programmed to want to make him happy, so of course you gave in when he asked outright."

"Why would they make me want to fuck him?" Marcus says, wanting to scream the question out, but he can't show Yune how efficiently all of this is destroying him, though he probably, almost definitely knows. "Why not just make me noble, some kind of protector Kyle would fall -- fall for --"

"Because then it would truly only be a crush for him! No, you had to elicit physical responses from the boy in order to seal his feelings for you, the kind of thing he would hold onto always, the kind of thing that would disrupt his future love for Sarah Connor even if you were long gone by then."

"Sarah Connor? John's daughter?" It's a crushing thought, the girl growing up beautiful, Kyle forgetting Marcus, pining for Sarah, by then an impressive soldier who would win her easily.

"No, no, Sarah Connor the first, John's mother. John wasn't mad when he told you that Kyle is meant to father him in the past. According to my research it is what happened -- at least in the original time line. Now John is withering away and who knows what will happen. It's exciting -- I wonder if we'll all lose our memories of him when he dies? The whole world will shift under our feet -- unless, of course, John succeeds in making Kyle forget you. He's got ten years to convince Kyle to fall in love with his mother instead."

Marcus flexes against the bonds, groaning with frustration that breaks against him like waves, beating him back, keeping him on the shore. It's agony, living inside this powerful body and not being able to move. Not being able to get to Kyle, to stop Connor and Yune and everyone who thinks they know him. Marcus is the only one who does. Marcus who has been inside him. But, God, Yune has been there, violated both of them by studying the memory. Marcus shudders and closes his eyes.

"Fucking kill me," he begs, for the first time. "You've got what you need."

"Oh, but I haven't," Yune says. "Not by far."

Yune goes back further, shows Marcus the experiments that were done on him after his staged execution, makes him remember the pain that those scientists were humane enough to allow him to push so very far back into his subconscious that he hasn't gone anywhere near the memories since waking up again. It wasn't unlike what Yune is doing to him now, only it went on for years of sleepless agony as they replaced his skeleton with metal, bone by bone.

Backward again: prison, watching what happened to Andy, the helplessness, the guards who laughed, the burn in his body as Yune rolls back further, a juggernaut smashing down all of Marcus' fragile defenses. Marcus' face is soaked with tears by the time Yune scrolls back to the crash, Bobby lifeless in his arms, cracked glass everywhere, smell of burning rubber, Marcus can feel the blood, still hot, all over his hands --

Yune pulls the plug, muttering about Marcus' elevated heart rate.

"Why they left this human heart I might never understand!" he says, furious. "You're close to cardiac arrest -- this must have impeded their progress as well." He glares at Marcus as if he expects Marcus to explain. Marcus gasps for breath, his tears running into his mouth. He wills his heart to explode, to just let him die, but Yune seems to anticipate this, jamming a syringe into Marcus' neck with a grunt.

Yune infuses Marcus with happy memories to calm his heart rate: the first time he got drunk with Bobby, both of them laughing hard in the basement, Bobby telling Marcus he was his best friend. That first blow job, Penny Harper, the way her strawberry lip gloss tasted when it was tinged with the bitterness of Marcus' come, kissing her and whispering promises into her mouth with delirious gratitude, making her laugh. Farther still: his arms around his father's shoulders in the neighborhood pool, the sun on their backs, Bobby showing off, doing flips into the deep end. His mother: the memories are so faint, almost blurry. Peanut butter and banana sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Climbing into her bed and sniffling into her nightgown after a bad dream. Her hand stroking the back of his head, smoothing his hair down as she tells him that it's going to be okay.

There's only meaningless snatches of sense memory after that: the smell of grass clippings, the way the plastic peeled away from Kraft singles, Bobby helping him up onto the couch, the jangle of a television show theme song. Birds shrieking outside, waking him up in the morning. Bars made of wood instead of steel. Someone wiping his nose for him with a tissue. His mother's voice again, singing softly. He can't make out the words.

*

When Yune has accessed and analyzed all of Marcus' memories, diagrammed his emotions and strung him up like a puppet, he begins to manipulate his reactions to stimuli. First it's food and water: he'll make Marcus feel like he's starving to death, his stomach groaning with need, then he'll switch it off and dangle food over Marcus' lips, smiling when Marcus no longer knows what to do with it. Marcus' mind feels like something that doesn't belong to him, and he tries to run and hide from Yune's manipulations, the way he did in prison -- think of something else, just think of something else -- but he can't. Yune follows him into every secret storehouse of happiness and flushes him out, especially when Marcus tries desperately to think of Kyle, to remember what it felt like to hold him, kiss him, to just lie on the mattress in their room and press his nose against the tip of Kyle's, watching the way Kyle's eyes lit up with the simplest gesture of affection from Marcus. Yune knows these hiding places best of all. He scours them clean so that when Marcus tries to call up his memories he can't, not unless Yune wants him to.

Having Yune make him think about Kyle is worse than not being able to think of him at all. Yune finds the threads of memory that Marcus is still holding on to, the things he loved best, Kyle's voice when he first wakes up, the way he can talk to Star without words, the way he gets a little smug when Blair is around, that soft place between his neck and shoulder, the little curl growing over his forehead, the way his jaw sets when he's saying something righteous and dramatic about the war -- Yune takes it all away like he's uncurling Marcus' fingers from a ledge he's hanging on to. Sometimes it feels more like he's unwinding a vine that's grown around Marcus' metal bones, something real and alive that took root inside his mechanical frame. It burns when Yune takes these thing from him, sometimes one at a time and sometimes in batches that make Marcus scream with pain. When it's done, when he's still smoldering, he lies there trying to figure out why his nerves are jerking as if he's been flooded with electricity, why he feels like he's got to relearn how to breathe.

Sometimes he slips from Yune's hold for just a moment, when Yune is distracted, eating a sandwich over his keyboards. His thoughts come to him with jagged difficulty, his mind like a roller coaster that trundles unevenly over tracks that are rusty and full of gaps. He'll remember the fort where Kyle lived with Star at Griffith Observatory, fixing the radio, hearing Connor's voice, and the next thing he knows he's back in jail, trying to tell Andy about this boy he met in the future, unable to remember his name. He'll back away from Andy when he realizes that his eye color is wrong, or that his eyes aren't there at all, accusing him of being a robot. Then he's in the desert somewhere, alone, everything gone.

"Tell me how you feel about Kyle Reese," Yune says at the end of each session, holding a clipboard, making notes.

"No," Marcus says every time. He holds it in for as long as he can, the secret, small, confused scrap of nostalgic love for Kyle, who must be someone he invented, a fever dream like all the others. Still, he keeps it safe until Yune pries it out of him, making him groan with frustration and whimper like a kid when Yune pokes at it, lighting Marcus' senses on fire as he measures it with his probes.

"Stubborn," he'll say afterward, scolding Marcus as tears run down his face. Marcus doesn't cry, just can't stop his eyes from watering, as if something inside him has been split open to its liquid core, the warmth against his cheeks giving him the strength to hold on to some of it, to hoard it as Yune puts his tools away for the day.

He doesn't sleep, can't remember how. When Yune is gone he stares into the darkness of the room and searches his ransacked mind for anything it can hold on to. An Italian wedding party. He wasn't there, but he remembers sangria in plastic pitchers and a silk purse that somebody wanted to steal. Was it Bobby? He was always stealing things. Not maliciously, though. Marcus can't remember how he knew Bobby, but he remembers Bobby stealing a slap bracelet for him, and Fun Dip, and once he brought home a kitten he'd found by the dumpster behind that gas station. Gas station -- Marcus remembers running from one, the air shimmering with the choking smell of gasoline, everything blowing up, a monster whose footsteps shook the Earth. He clings to this memory desperately, but it cracks and then shatters to nothing before he can get a real foothold.

Yune's attitude changes. He begins to seem bored, disappointed, frustrated. He snaps his fingers over Marcus' half-closed eyes and Marcus stares up at him. He's not sure what he's supposed to do. Some days he waits for the lethal injection. Others he thinks he must have gotten into a bad fight in the cafeteria line and waits to be hauled off to solitary confinement. Once he wakes up and asks Yune what the score is, then looks around for Bobby before remembering that Bobby had dropped out of school by the time Marcus made varsity. Yune groans and paces. Some days he leaves Marcus after just a few hours of questioning. No matter how briefly he stays, he always works in that last question, the one that Marcus knows how to answer even when he knows nothing else.

"Tell me how you feel about Kyle Reese."

"No."

"Why not? Yune finally says, sputtering. "Why not? Do you even know who Kyle Reese is?"

"No."

"Then perhaps you feel indifferent about this person who you do not know?"

"No."

"Do you know the meaning of the word indifferent?"

"Yes."

"Tell me."

"You don't care. Indifferent."

"And you are not indifferent toward Kyle Reese?"

"No."

"So what are the nature of your feelings about Kyle Reese?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know. But you know that you have them?"

"No."

"No? So you're telling me that you have no feelings toward him in particular?"

"No."

"No, you don't have feelings?"

"No."

"Answer 'yes' if this statement is accurate: You have no feelings at all toward Kyle Reese."

"No."

Yune throws his clipboard down and growls with anger, pulling both hands through his hair. Marcus stares at him. He's already forgotten what they were talking about. He just knows that he promised himself that he would answer these questions in a certain way, and that it means something, that it's important.

"There is something," Yune says, jabbing his finger at one of his monitors. "I can't wipe your entire memory unless I want to compromise the basic motor functions, speech patterns, ability to reason -- how did they do it? How did a machine comprehend the complexities of the human mind? It should have been simple -- it could only have been simple, if they were able to achieve it! And you're not lying to me, you don't know who he is, you couldn't --"

There's a knock on the door. Yune freezes.

"Open up." It's a man's voice. "It's Benny."

Yune groans, the tension draining from his face as he goes to answer the door. He pulls it open and a man is standing there. Marcus has seen him before. He doesn't know where or when, but when he looks at the man there's a little pulse of empty recognition that he's learned to trust.

"I told you never to come here!" Yune hisses. He's got his face poked out into the hall beyond the door as if he doesn't want the man to see inside the room. Marcus feels like he should do something, make a noise, but he doesn't know why, so he only lies there.

"You told me a lot of things," Benny says in a growl. There's a buzzing noise and Yune shouts as if he's in pain, then crumbles to the floor. Marcus' heart rate speeds up as Benny walks into the room. He's glaring at Marcus as if he wants to hurt him, too.

"Jesus," he says, looking Marcus over. "Blair was right."

"Blair," Marcus says. He thinks of the smell of the bathroom after his mother showered, and a model plane he had when he was in fifth grade.

"Yeah, Blair." Benny scoffs as he begins working on Marcus' restraints. "You can bet your ass I wouldn't be bothering with you if it wasn't for her. But -- goddamn -- I didn't think it was true, I thought they'd killed you like Connor said. What's he been doing to you?" Benny makes a face like he doesn't really want to know.

"You mean him?" Marcus asks. He looks at Dr. Yune. "He asks me about Kyle Reese."

"Yeah? If I never hear that name again it'll be too soon. He's a troublemaker. Tried to run away, Connor had to lock him up. Now he's playing nice because he and Blair have a 'plan.' Shit, my life would be a lot easier if I just gave up on her and started fucking one of the guys. Guess that didn't work out so well for you, though, did it? Welcome back to hell, I guess. Can you sit up?"

Marcus has to think about it for a moment, but as soon as he tries, it's easy. He flexes his arms and kicks his legs over the side of the table. He feels okay; Yune erased some of his pain receptors so that he'd stop complaining about his back. He said it was all in his mind, anyway, that he'd only feel pain connected with emotion. Marcus stares at Yune, who is still slumped on the ground.

"Is he dead?" Marcus asks.

"Hell no," Benny says. "Blair wants me to keep him alive so she can find out what exactly he did to you down here, maybe how to fix it. You look alright to me, though. Feel alright?"

"Yeah, I feel fine."

"Good. C'mon. They're waiting."

Marcus follows, stepping over Dr. Yune. It feels good to be free, and strange, a little frightening. Benny locks Yune in the lab and grabs Marcus' arm, leading him through a dark passageway that seems to be made of stone.

"I don't remember how I got here," Marcus says.

"Yeah, no shit, they knocked you out and then Connor put you in the compactor, or at least that was the story. Fuck knows how Yune got a hold of you. Connor will be very interested in finding out, that's for sure."

"Connor." The passageway they're moving through smells like a cave, and the walls are dripping with moisture. Marcus' mind is throbbing like a tired muscle, drowsy but determined.

"Not sure how he's going to react to seeing you," Benny says. "Did you really attack him? Kyle's sure you didn't, Blair says it could go either way."

"Attack who?"

"Connor."

Marcus thinks, tender green vines growing through him already, wrapping around his metal parts. Metal, right, he's made of metal. Which is why Connor hates him. Marcus remembers standing in water, being Baptized, his stepmother insisted -- but no, this was a different time. The vines cling tighter, thickening as he follows Benny through the winding tunnels. Connor was an old man in a wheelchair. Or not old -- dying. It was Marcus' fault.

"He thinks I tried to kill him," Marcus says. "Because of Kyle Reese."

"Because of Kyle Reese? What do you mean?"

"I don't know. Connor, he screamed at me. He didn't know Yune had me. I remember that. Yune is afraid of him."

"Yeah, well, he oughta be. This is treason, basically. Here, go up those stairs. I don't want to be the first one through the door if Connor's gotten wind of this little jail break."

Marcus does as Benny asked. He's not afraid. He knows the smell of this place. So many of his memories are irrelevant here -- his mother, his father, Bobby, all of them have been gone for a long time. This is more like a video game dungeon than the life he knew. He opens the door Benny indicated and finds himself in what looks like an old storage room. There's a boy holding a gun and a woman who is in the middle of tying her hair back in a long ponytail when Marcus comes through the door. They both freeze.

"Marcus!" the boy cries, his voice breaking. The woman claps both hands over her mouth and makes a shocked little noise.

"Keep it down!" Benny says, coming up the stairs behind Marcus.

The boy runs forward and throws his arms around Marcus, knocking the wind out of him. Marcus is surprised, but then he feels like he shouldn't be, his arms winding around the boy's waist as the boy trembles against him. He's making squeaked-out little noises like he's trying to hold something very heavy back, his face hidden against Marcus' neck. Marcus holds him close, shushing him and petting his hair as he looks to the woman, hoping she'll tell him what's going on. She just stares, her eyes wet with tears.

"I know you," Marcus says to the woman. "I think."

"Oh, God!" She sobs once, covering her face again. Benny walks over to her and puts a hand on her shoulder. "He doesn't -- you don't remember us?"

"Yes, I do." Marcus squeezes the boy, who stopped has breathing. He lets his breath out in a rush against Marcus' neck, choking on it, his hands fisted so tightly in Marcus' t-shirt that one of the sleeves starts to rip. Marcus feels as if the boy is about to explode, and he's ready to hold him together. He knows this boy, he does. He loves him, even. That was what Yune kept wanting Marcus to say, but he never would. He kept this one thing, wouldn't let Yune have it, and it was smart of him, just as important as he thought it would be, because the rest is growing out of it already: he remembers the woman across the room, ash across her eyes like war paint, her laugh like Christmas lights.

"Marcus," the boy whispers. His tears are hot on Marcus' neck, making him think of the only comfort he had when he was strapped to Yune's table. Anger winds its way through him, a fat vine crawling up his ribs, but he pushes it away for now.

"Kyle," he says, softly, just loud enough for the boy to hear, because he trusts this boy with that name, because it's his name, this is Kyle, this is the boy Yune plucked out of Marcus' mind with the finest tweezers he had. They were not fine enough.

"I thought you were dead." Kyle is trembling so hard. Marcus remembers kissing him, the way Kyle shook and looked up at him with tears in his eyes. Needing him. Kyle needs him. Nothing else matters. He kisses Kyle's temple, strokes his back. Yune told him it was the machines who made him feel like this, but he took those parts away. Something else is growing over the components Yune shut down, all of it sprouting from the tiny seed Marcus snatched back from Yune every time he thought he'd extracted it, bark hardening over the vines as they sprout branches with bright leaves, every one of them a memory of Kyle. It's nothing a machine could make.

"Hey," the woman says, walking over to them. She's Blair, and Marcus has never seen her cry, though she once got close, when they were sitting by that stream. Marcus is going to get away from here and take all of them with him: Kyle, Blair, even Benny. He's going to take anyone who wants to leave this place.

Kyle puts his arm around Blair, pulling her in to let her hug Marcus, too. She clutches at him and laughs, a little sadly, but he still likes the sound of it.

"Connor told us he'd destroyed you," she says. She steps back and wipes at her eyes. "Kyle found stuff in Yune's lab, I wanted to believe it, but I was afraid to hope --"

"We should go," Benny says. "Before Yune wakes up. He might have some kind of alarm rigged up in there. At least some of Connor's men have got to be working with him."

"Right." Blair steadies herself, taking a deep breath. She pats Marcus' cheek. "Look at you," she says. "Not a scratch on you."

"What did he do to you?" Kyle asks, the words tumbling out of him at full volume, equal parts angry and heartbroken. "Did he hurt you? Has your skin just grown back? Has he been hurting you the whole time?"

"I'm fine," Marcus says. He kisses the crown of Kyle's head. "You saved me. Now let's get out of here."

Kyle stares up at Marcus, disbelieving, sniffling. He looks older than Marcus expected, but maybe his memory is still a little faulty, kind of fuzzy. This Kyle seems like a man. Marcus was so used to thinking of him as a boy.

"How long was I down there?" Marcus asks.

"Two months," Kyle says. "So much has happened. I know you didn't really try to kill Connor. What -- why did he --"

"Because of you," Marcus says. "He thinks you're his father. He sends you into the past, you meet his mother, get her pregnant. He's crazy. Is he still alive?"

"Connor -- yeah. Jesus." Kyle pushes his hair off of his forehead. He's the most spectacular thing Marcus has ever seen in his life, and it's kind of hard to not be touching him, so he slides a hand onto Kyle's shoulder.

"What's wrong?" Blair asks.

"It's just -- stuff Yune said to me, stuff that didn't make sense, weird jokes." Kyle shakes his head, pinching his eyes shut. "I think Yune thought I was Connor's father, too."

"None of this makes any sense!" Benny says, groaning. "You people are fucking killing me, can we please go now?"

They make their way through the halls of the base quietly, keeping close to the walls. Like Kyle, the base seems different, but Marcus can't trust his memories, and maybe it was always this way. Too still. Waiting for something.

"Kyle and I have been disarming the mines outside," Blair whispers as they track through the mostly unused areas that house boiler rooms and scrap heaps overflowing with destroyed machines. "We've cut a path out, just stay close once we get out there, follow us. If we're taking fire things are going to get tricky, but I don't think anyone saw this coming. Virginia got out already, with a Jeep, Star's with her. They're waiting for us on the south end, but we'll have to get you over those mines first."

"Virginia?" Marcus says. He struggles for the memory. "The old lady?"

"That's right." Blair smirks. "Turns out she was pretty high up in the military when things went to shit. Interesting lady. You'll get to know her. Benny, did you unlock the supply room?"

"'Course."

"Good. We'll stock up there before we move out." Blair lifts a bag that she's carrying. Kyle has two of them, and he passes one to Marcus.

"I'm getting food, Blair's getting ammo," he whispers. "You go for medical supplies. Benny will keep watch at the door."

"So you guys are leaving?" Marcus says, glancing at Blair. "Just like that?"

"Well, we're taking you with us," Kyle says, sounding confused, and very young again for a moment. "Don't worry."

Blair smiles. "It's time," she says. "You were right."

They gather the supplies in the near-dark of the supply room, and Marcus can hear Kyle's breath as he puts handfuls of jerky into his bag, nervous and determined. Marcus wants to pick Kyle up, tuck him against his chest and carry him out of here, but that's not what Kyle needs from him now. Kyle is the one who saved Marcus this time; he's changed, and it's good. He's grown up. As he stuffs bandages and antibiotics into his bag, Marcus allows himself to wonder if Kyle will eventually stop needing anything from him at all, if he'll turn into the man Connor expects him to be, someone who will father children and take his place in history. For the first time since he learned what he is, Marcus thinks about the fact that this body won't age. Kyle's will.

"Hey." Kyle claps a hand on Marcus' shoulder, making him jump.

"Don't sneak up on me," Marcus says. He touches Kyle's face, and strokes his cheek just once. Marcus will have to watch him grow old. He'll have to care for Kyle on his death bed, when all of their friends have already gone. And that's the best case scenario. By then, Kyle might have found someone else, someone real, who he'd prefer to have at his side as his eyes close forever. A wife. A son.

"Yune thought they made me just for you," Marcus says, whispering as Kyle draws closer. Blair and Benny are on the other side of the room, bickering about the logistics of the escape.

"Just for me," Kyle says, grinning. "Okay."

"No, I mean -- he thought they programmed me to want you. To want to make you happy. To need it like food and water."

Kyle's grin fades, and he shakes his head. He looks over his shoulder at Blair and Benny, who seem to be making up now, hands on each other's chests. Kyle leans up to put his lips against Marcus' ear, and Marcus' eyes fall shut as he breathes in the smell of him, his hand sliding around Kyle's skinny waist.

"Somebody made me need you like food and water, too," Kyle whispers. "When you were gone -- I thought I would die."

Marcus kisses Kyle's forehead. Kyle doesn't understand, or maybe he doesn't care. If someone told Marcus that Kyle was programmed to want him, to need him like this, close and warm, a thrill shooting down Marcus' spine at the softest touch of Kyle's lips, Marcus wouldn't mind. As long as he can have this. If he's a machine that was built for Kyle he'll happily spend his life doing whatever Kyle needs him to, when Kyle is taller and sturdier, when he softens again with old age. When his bones are so brittle that he can't walk, Marcus will carry him. When Kyle dies, Marcus will turn himself off like a switch, retiring as Kyle's beloved possession, no longer needed. He doesn't care why he wants all of this and nothing more. Kyle is reason enough.

When they're finished in the supply room they come to the back exit that Benny has left unlocked and sneak through, keeping close to the outer wall of the base so that the sentries in the four towers that look down over the base won't see them. The sun hurts Marcus' eyes, until he remembers what Dr. Yune told him. He only has to be in pain when he chooses to, emotional responses telling him that things should hurt. It hurts to see the sun because it's been so goddamn long. Months, Kyle said. Marcus' hands close into fists.

"What about Yune?" he whispers to Benny. "I want him dead."

"Connor will kill him, don't worry," Benny says. "We can't risk making a commotion before we get out of here."

Marcus grunts in annoyance, and Kyle reaches over to squeeze his arm, as if he wants to kill Yune just as badly as Marcus does. Benny had better be right about the way Connor will handle Yune's betrayal. Even if he does kill Yune, Yune's research will still exist unless Connor smashes his monitors to bits as well. Marcus doesn't like the idea that his memories are being stored on someone's hard drive, but he supposes he'd better get used to it. Yune is certainly not the only one on this planet with Marcus' brain at least partially downloaded. Yune is just the only one who's seen the things Marcus did with Kyle in their room, those moments that are sacred to Marcus above all others. Though maybe he didn't really see them at all, since he couldn't figure out how to take them away.

They head for the Jeep, trying to stay in the shadows as night begins to fall, the brilliance of the sinking sun hopefully blinding the gunners in their towers. Marcus stays close to Kyle and keeps his head down.

They don't even make it twenty feet from the wall before they hear a gun being cocked up on the tower. Marcus is ready to run, but everyone freezes when they hear Connor's voice.

"Really? You thought it would be this easy? I'm hurt."

Marcus turns to see Connor standing at the top of the wall that overlooks the mine field, a gun trained on them, men with raised weapons flanking him. Connor looks strong again, color in his cheeks and shoulders squared for a fight. Marcus steps in front of Kyle and Connor's face changes.

"What -- what the fuck." Connor frowns. "You're supposed to be scrap metal."

"Your men have their own agendas," Marcus shouts back. "You should have asked to see my body."

"Benny, you son of a bitch," Connor says, his arm shaking as he moves the gun toward Benny.

"It wasn't him!" Blair says. "It was Dr. Yune! He had a secret workshop down in the basement -- he's locked down there now, you can question him, listen, John, we're leaving peacefully --"

"Peacefully? Really? If you take Reese away from here I die. You saw what I was like before I separated them. You don't understand, Williams --"

"You can't make me stay!" Kyle shouts. "I knew you were lying, I knew Marcus didn't really attack you, he'd never --"

"Kyle, he's a machine!" Connor screams. "I'm your family! Sarah, my daughter, she's your family! I can't explain how -- or, I can, if you'll let me -- but, please, my daughter will die if you go --"

"She won't!" Kyle shouts. "You think I'm going to be your father because you send me back in time? What proof do you have? You were only sick before because of your heart, now you're better --"

"I'm only better because you thought he was dead! And my proof -- I have my mother's word. I believe her. She told me Kyle Reese was my father. Dr. Yune tested your DNA after you first arrived here --"

"Yune was a lunatic!" Kyle screams. "And maybe I was your father before, in some other time line, maybe even at some point in this one, but you know it's not going to happen now, and you're still there, you're still standing --"

"Only because there's still hope! Please, Kyle, stay, help me, I'll explain everything, you'll understand --"

"Is everyone here a fucking idiot?" Benny shouts, and that quiets both of them. Benny is panting, holding Blair's arm tightly. "I -- I mean, Connor, you think this kid's going to be your father because that's what your mother told you? That Kyle Reese was your father?"

"I trust her," Connor says, glaring at Benny. "She wouldn't have lied to me."

"Well, Jesus Christ! I'm not saying she would have, Connor. She got, you know, in a family way, by a guy named Kyle Reese. Fuck, is -- is nobody else here seeing the solution?" Benny is laughing in nervous outbursts, looking around at Marcus and the others.

"The solution is to keep Kyle here," Connor says, lifting his gun again. "Come on, Kyle. I've got your little friend. Star. She's in the base, waiting for you. Just come with me and I'll explain everything."

"Fuck you!" Kyle screams. "Let her go!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Benny says, laughing again. "People. Everybody. Connor. You can pick your fucking father from any of your guys! He doesn't have to be Kyle Reese! Am I -- am I out of my mind or does he just have to tell your mother that his name is Kyle Reese?"

Nobody says anything for awhile after that. Connor's shoulders are moving with his heavy breaths, and Marcus is still positioned in front of Kyle. Blair laughs a little and jostles Benny's shoulder.

"You're right," she says softly. "You're right."

"I --" Connor shakes his head. "No, I --"

"Give us one reason why that wouldn't work!" Blair shouts. "You feel strong now, don't you? And Kate told you all along that it was your heart, I'm sure, I saw her monitoring what you ate, taking your blood pressure -- you were just recovering from the injury you got at Skynet! Sarah was healthy the whole time, and why wouldn't she have suffered along with you if it was Kyle's -- potential romantic disinterest in your mother --"

"She's right, John," Kate says, appearing suddenly from the door that Marcus and the others left through. She's got Star with her, and Virginia. Kyle kneels down and Star runs into his arms, hugging his neck.

"Kate," John says tightly. "Get back inside."

"I don't take orders from you anymore," she says, coming to stand beside Marcus. She touches his shoulder, her lips trembling. "I thought he'd killed you for nothing," she says, her voice soft. "I'm so sorry. He made me think our daughter would die -- and he did think that, he really believed it. Please, forgive us."

"It's fine," Marcus says, stepping back. "Just let us go."

"You're not going anywhere!" John shouts. "If Kyle feels like he needs to leave -- I -- I can't stop him. But you're dangerous. We've got no idea what's going on inside your head, what the machines put there --"

"And it's none of your fucking business!" Marcus screams, so forcefully that everyone takes a step away from him. His heart is pounding and the muscles in his neck are tight with rage. "Haven't I proven myself? What more do I need to do? I could have destroyed your entire base by now if that's what they'd programmed me to do. Why would they make me wait? They're not as creative as you give them credit for. It's you, you're the fucking mastermind behind all of this twisted scheming and time travel bullshit. Let go of whatever your mother told you about her future. It's all changed. We're changing it every day."

Connor stares, his weapon lowered, his hand twitching at his side. The men behind him have brought down their guns as well. They're looking at Connor differently now.

"Let them go now, John," Kate says. "Or Sarah and I will go with them."

Connor gives his wife a wounded look, then shifts his gaze to Kyle. He shakes his head, tapping his gun against his leg.

"You're fools," he says, the cracks in his voice betraying his uncertainty. "You're following one of them. A machine is leading you away from here, and you're following."

"He's not a machine," Kyle says. His voice is rough from screaming, and he's staring Connor down like he's not afraid. Marcus puts his hand on Kyle's shoulder and turns to go.

And that's how they leave. Following Marcus. Without looking back.

*

Marcus drives while the others sleep, and when the sun breaks the horizon after a long night of heading north, he feels like he did when he was driving in the desert, Kyle asleep on his shoulder, Star asleep in Kyle's lap. It's much colder here, and they're not alone anymore -- Blair and Benny are huddled together under a blanket in the back, Virginia asleep under her own blanket beside them. Kyle is the first one to wake up, making that little noise that Marcus has missed more than sunlight, shuffling a bit under his blanket and pushing his cold nose against Marcus' throat.

"Where are we?" he asks. He's warm, blinking sleepily. Marcus will never leave his side again. He forgot what this was like, this calm, the peaceful harmony that hums through his hybrid systems when he's close to Kyle.

"Don't know," Marcus says. "But we've got to be closing in on the Canadian border here pretty soon." He nudges Kyle with his elbow. "I guess we'll know when we see birds."

Kyle grins and moans a little, shifting closer to Marcus, his arm still around Star, who's fast asleep.

"Have you had to use that yet?" Kyle asks, nodding to the gun on the dash.

"Nope," Marcus says. "I think almost all the machines on the west coast were concentrated at Skynet headquarters when the shit went down, considering that you and Connor were there at the time. They all got called there since you two were their priority targets."

"How do you know?" Kyle asks, sitting up a little.

Marcus points to his temple. "It's all in here," he says. "I never really knew how to access it, but they plugged me into their super computer and they didn't exactly wipe my mind after they'd shown me everything. Something about what Yune was doing to me must have unlocked it. It's weird -- I feel like my thought process is different now, like it's all laid out and I can access everything, like going through really well-organized filing cabinets. Before it was more like -- everything was stacked up, one thing on top of another, and if I tried to sort through it the stacks would collapse and I'd get too frustrated to keep trying to find what I was looking for."

Kyle is staring at Marcus with a little frown of concentration, as if he's trying to figure this out. Marcus laughs and kisses his forehead.

"So you've got an advantage," Kyle says. "You know some things about how they operate."

"Yeah, I think so," Marcus says. He's got no use for sleep unless he can curl around Kyle for a battery recharge, so he's been up all night trying to put some things together in his head. Kyle grins and leans onto Marcus' shoulder again.

"Go back to sleep," Marcus says when Kyle yawns. "I'll wake you up if I see any birds."

"Nah," Kyle says. "I'll stay up and keep you company."

"Alright. You can tell me what I missed for the last two months, I guess."

"No." Kyle clutches at Marcus' arm and closes his eyes against Marcus' shoulder. "I don't want to think about that yet. I just got you back. It still feels like I might be dreaming."

"You're not dreaming. And I won't leave you again. It was stupid, going to Connor like that. I should have suspected something."

"But how could you? How were we supposed to know that he thought I was his father, that he was dying because I wouldn't love his mother?" Kyle scoffs. "It's crazy."

"He's not a bad guy," Marcus says. He's felt weirdly charitable since escaping from Yune's lab. "He thought his daughter was in danger. He saw me as a robot who was going after his family. I guess he'd had enough of that by now."

"You're not a robot," Kyle says, muttering. His fingers close more tightly around Marcus' bicep.

"You know what?" Marcus sniffs out a laugh. "I don't care if I am. Maybe I'm even glad. I can keep you all safe with what I know, and with how I'm constructed. I can help you get food and I won't need to eat it. I can keep watch while you're sleeping. I like it. It suits me, I think."

"Being a robot?" Kyle is grinning up at him like it's a joke. He'll never see Marcus that way.

"Yeah. Being a robot has made me a better man."

"What did Yune do to you?" Kyle asks, touching Marcus' neck as if he's looking for tiny cuts.

"I think he made me stronger," Marcus says. "By accident."

"Well, still I hope Connor kills him."

"Me, too," Marcus says, his charitable attitude not extending to Yune.

He drives on as the sun rises higher, Kyle drifting in and out of sleep and the others rousing periodically to ask where they are, as if there are any road signs that will tell them. They stop in what might have been Washington state for a bathroom break, Marcus watching the road while the others wander into the woods to take care of business. He turns to check on Kyle and sees him pouring some antibacterial ointment onto Star's hands, smiling at her sweetly as she rubs her palms together. He would have been a good father. Maybe he still will be, for Star.

"Hey," Blair says, walking over with her hands in the back pockets of her pants. "How're you holding up?"

"Pretty well, considering."

"Considering, yeah. You scared me for a minute back there, when you didn't seem like you knew who I was."

"I knew. I was just disoriented."

"Did Yune fuck with your brain? Kyle told me that was Yune's area of semi-expertise."

"He tried to. I don't think he really knew what he was doing."

"Jesus."

"Don't worry. I'm alright."

Blair shakes her head and looks at the others. None of them have gone far, Kyle and Star already climbing back into the Jeep.

"I can't believe Benny was willing to help us," Blair says as she watches him head back toward the Jeep, rubbing sleep from his eyes. "He was always one of Connor's guys. And the way he talked to Connor before we left! He had a good point, really."

"Something going on between you and him?" Marcus asks.

"Why?" Blair grins brilliantly. "You jealous?"

Marcus drives until they run out of fuel. They're in the woods somewhere, probably in Canada, not far from the ocean. Marcus can smell the salt in the air, mixed with the damp scent of the dripping trees. They load up their things, even Star carrying a bag of provisions, Marcus trying not to laugh when Benny attempts to compete with the amount of weight that Marcus can carry.

"Thanks," Marcus says to Benny as they walk, breathless through the woods, looking for something; they'll know it when they see it. Benny gives him a sideways glance.

"I did it for Blair," he says.

Marcus looks over his shoulder at Blair, who is talking with Virginia about some study she read a million years ago that said that desperate groups like this one were more likely to survive if they had a few women among them. Kyle is walking at Blair's shoulder, not listening, holding Star's hand. He smiles at Marcus when he sees him looking back.

"Shit," Marcus says, turning around. "I never thought I'd want this."

"What?" Benny asks.

"People depending on me."

"Maybe you just hadn't found the right people."

They come to a residential street that's been abandoned for a long time. It's mostly untouched, but when they choose the largest house, at the end of a secluded cul-de-sac, the remains of the previous owners are inside, the bones of two people who curled up by their fireplace together as they died. Marcus and Benny bury them in the yard, near the lake that the house overlooks, while the others clean and scavenge, settling in.

"This place is so dead, it might be off the machines' radar," Marcus says. "I'm not finding anything on it in my database."

"Your database?" Benny says with a scoff.

Marcus grins. "Yeah," he says. "That's what I'm calling it. The information that the machines installed in my mind. I don't want to feel bad about it anymore. It's a tool, we can use it to help us."

"Whatever you say, R2-D2," Benny says. He leans on his shovel to catch his breath. "Whatever you say."

Above them, the sun is already beginning to wane. Maybe it's winter; the days have seemed short. By the time they've buried the former owners the sun is settling dramatically over the lake, cold rolling in off the water. They stand around the graves and Virginia says a few words of thanks to the owners for the use of their home, as if they consented. Marcus does get the feeling, somehow, that they wouldn't have minded, that their lingering spirits are good. Kyle shivers when a strong wind begins to blow through the trees around the lake, and Marcus pulls him into his arms, wrapping the flaps of his coat around Kyle's shoulders.

As darkness falls outside, they make a fire in the fireplace before doing a sweep of the house's supplies. There are candles, matches, tools for cutting wood in the attached shed, supplies that Marcus can use to make a generator, the blueprints for the machine rolling out easily from his filing cabinet mind. There's also a well-stocked liquor cabinet, which Blair and Benny examine enthusiastically. They pour tastings of scotch and rum and black currant liquor for Kyle, laughing at his wincing reactions. Kyle likes the pineapple-flavored vodka the best, and drinks it from a crystal glass, lying against Marcus' side on the sofa. The cushions have been beaten clean on the back deck by Blair and Star, and it feels pretty good, pretty comfortable, especially with Kyle bouncing with laughter against him.

"Benny and I will take the first watch tonight," Blair says.

"What, so you can get wasted in private?" Marcus says, smirking.

"We will most definitely not get wasted until the morning," Blair says, and Benny laughs, looking at her with such adoration that Marcus has to cover his face, embarrassed by it, only because he knows he must look at Kyle that way.

There are two bedrooms on the house's main level and another one down in the large finished basement. Virginia and Star sleep by the fire and Marcus and Kyle take the bedroom that seems to have once been the master. They flip the dust off the sheets and look around the room as their eyes adjust to the moonlight.

"I'm drunk," Kyle says, stumbling against the bed with a laugh. "I think."

"You want to get some sleep?" Marcus asks. He gestures to the fireplace near the sliding glass doors that lead out to the back porch. "I could make a fire for you."

"No, no, no," Kyle says, shaking his head emphatically, sitting on the bed now. "Come here. Marcus, oh. Come here."

And Marcus is programmed, one way or another, to give Kyle everything he wants, so he goes to the bed, falls onto him, and lets Kyle push a long, satisfied sigh into his mouth.

"Oh, God," Kyle whispers, trembling under Marcus' weight. "Yeah."

It's not like the first time, peaceful and transcendent. It's a frantic mess of what they've both needed for two months, thinking they'd never see the other again, and Kyle seems to have learned to curse in the intervening time, because he grinds his words out with real conviction, growling them into Marcus' ear - fuck me, fuck me hard, shit, yeah, right there, fuck - and Marcus comes into him like a goddamn avalanche when he hears those words streaming from Kyle's swollen, candy-pink lips. Kyle's come is all over Marcus' chest already, and Marcus smears it over himself with his hand, bringing one finger down for Kyle's tongue, to let him taste it. Kyle licks his finger clean, laughing deliriously, pale skin shining in the moonlight through the windows over the bed.

"Fall asleep inside me," Kyle says. "Please."

Marcus is so ready to sleep, even if he doesn't need it anymore, and the idea of sleeping while still inside Kyle makes him whimper. Kyle laughs a little, cooing sympathetically, petting Marcus' cheeks. Marcus just spills down onto him, trying to breathe evenly as Kyle shifts onto his side and yanks the blankets up over them.

"Let's wake up in a few hours and do it again," Kyle whispers, sounding kind of worried, like he thinks he'll lose Marcus again in the aftermath. Marcus nods against Kyle's forehead, unwilling to open his eyes, ready to sleep like this, still inside Kyle's wet, open body, unable to remember what the air smells like when it doesn't smell like Kyle's skin.

"There was something I was going to say," Marcus says when his hand is spread across Kyle's face, his body half-surrendered to the only sleep he knows, the kind that comes when Kyle is all around him like this.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I - something about - how I'll never leave you - even when you're an old man."

Kyle laughs as if this is ridiculous, like he'll never really be an old man. So: even at the fiery seat of the apocalypse, where everyone grows up too fast, teenagers feel this way.

"I'll never leave you, either," Kyle says, not getting it at all, what Marcus is promising.

"Oh - did you ever see the Wizard of Oz?" Marcus asks.

"The what?"

"Right - you haven't seen any movies. Okay. When I was a kid, and I mean really little, five years old at the most, my mother showed me this movie, The Wizard of Oz, and Dorothy, she's so worried about the Tin Man, or, well, her and the Scarecrow both are, but it was the Tin Man who always got to me, the way she oiled his joints and was so excited when he could move again. Fuck, it was a love story. I think, when I was a kid, I wanted them to be together, even before I knew what that meant."

"I've got no idea what you're talking about," Kyle says, laughing and kissing Marcus' face. Marcus has mostly slipped out of him now, but they're both scooting closer, trying to hang on to the last slippery inches of their connection.

"Are you warm enough?" Marcus asks, tucking the blankets around Kyle's shoulders. "Are you sure you don't want me to build a fire?"

"I don't need one," Kyle says. "You're like a furnace." He presses his hand over Marcus' heartbeat. "So warm."

Marcus knows that Kyle is trying to tell him that he feels human, that the warmth of his skin is proof of something, but Marcus would rather believe that he's willed himself to be this warm, more than any human body could manage, that he can take better care of Kyle for what he is, a machine designed to want him and to be wanted by him. Kyle will never want to believe this, and it doesn't really matter what's true, where the seams of Marcus' humanity intersect with the gifts the machines gave him. All that matters is that when their bodies finally slide slickly apart under the blankets, they're still tied together, Kyle with his bright eyes and bird bones, Marcus with metal ribs that close around internal combustion, his synthetic freckles: they were designed to fit together, and here they are at the end of the world, Marcus' legs locked in behind Kyle's knees, Kyle's hands pulling Marcus' arms tighter around his chest, their bodies like a peace between the two forces in this war, one impossible thing blooming in a world where they can only dare to hope that they are not the last of their kind.

Marcus dreams for the first time in his robot body, and it doesn't feel like a dream, just like a vision of the future. In the dream, thirty years have passed, and Kyle is still just a bit smaller than Marcus, but so much older now, friendly wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, his soft curls going thin. They've built a whole village in the forest by the lake, and Connor's operation is still going strong, too, conquering the east coast. The world is changing again, becoming quieter. Marcus and Kyle live in a house made of wood and stone that Marcus built for Kyle with his bare hands in the space of fifteen hours. Marcus is always getting better and better at building things, at being efficient and error-less, and sometimes when he looks at Kyle he knows that it is frightening him, this progress.

After the work day and before the community dinner, they lie in their bed together while the sun goes down outside. The bed is another thing Marcus built for Kyle, who doesn't need Marcus the same way he did when he was a teenager, when Marcus could make Kyle so happy with just his body, his hands, his mouth and his whispered words. Kyle is only forty-seven years old and still wants what Marcus can do to him in bed sometimes, still says I need you now, oh after some long days spent building houses for the people who stream into this community from others, but more often Kyle is tired and just wants to be held, falling into sleep so much more quickly than he used to, back when he wanted Marcus to tell him the plots of old movies while their noses pressed together on the pillow. Marcus sometimes panics with the need to make Kyle happy, to give him things, so he makes bed frames and houses and new weapons, anything that he thinks Kyle might need.

"You are so fucking beautiful," Kyle whispers, stroking Marcus' unchanged face while they lie in bed together, Kyle's body heavy and tired, his skin damp with sweat. Kyle is still beautiful to Marcus, better every day, but he just laughs now when Marcus says so.

"What will you do when I'm gone?" Kyle asks, with the worried little frown that calls up Marcus' memories of Kyle at seventeen, when Kyle was always struggling to be taken seriously.

"I'll come with you," Marcus says. "To wherever you're going."

"Marcus."

"You can't tell me I'm not allowed to try. You're my soul, and I've got to go where my soul goes, right?"

Kyle presses soft kisses to Marcus' cheeks, as if Marcus is the young, vulnerable thing who needs to be comforted. It's true that Marcus at least looks younger than Kyle these days, and sometimes he feels it, too, as if Kyle has been privy to certain life lessons that Marcus will never understand.

"It would be a waste," Kyle says. "You lying in a grave with me. You should stay here, where you can help other people."

"But they only - I was designed to want to be with you. I don't know how to do anything else."

"Will you quit it with that shit? You were designed as a weapon for Skynet, and you learned how to be something else. Fuck, I'm the one who taught you how, so don't take that away from me. But I want to teach you, before it's too late, that you don't have to chain yourself to me like this."

"What if I want to?"

Kyle shakes his head, his blue eyes filling with tears that don't spill. They just gather at the corners, glittering, making Marcus think of the way Kyle's eyes used to get when he laughed hard enough to cry.

"No," Kyle says. "God. I want to leave this place knowing that you'll still be here. That you'll remember me and - I don't know. That you'll help some other stupid kid hold on to his gun."

"I don't want to help anyone but you."

Kyle groans and rolls onto his back. Marcus thinks he's happy, secretly, and that's why he keeps insisting, because sometimes he knows what Kyle needs even when Kyle doesn't.

"You're gonna want me there when you're dead," Marcus says, putting his chin on Kyle's shoulder. "Wherever you're going, you're gonna want me there."

"Can't argue that," Kyle says, sounding defeated. Marcus wishes Kyle wouldn't think about this, not yet, when he's got maybe thirty more years here, in this life, where Marcus knows exactly what he is. He's not sure where he'll fit in once Kyle reaches whatever afterlife he's destined for, probably something involving downy white wings and golden harps.

Then he wakes up, and Kyle is still so young, asleep in his arms as dawn breaks through the windows. Marcus wonders if this is the afterlife, the real paradise that Kyle was always headed for, but as he slides out of bed and dresses to chop wood for the fire, he decides that it doesn't matter, like the blur between his mechanical and human self. It doesn't matter if this is heaven or still the waning hell of the post-apocalypse. They're here together. If Marcus' mind has one base line of reasoning, that's it: is Kyle here? Yes. He goes out into the cold morning knowing this, needing nothing more.

///

the end.

Theme song: Genesis 30:3

also, the Frank Sinatra song!: Strangers in the Night

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