Fic: "Pull," 1/1, Sarah Connor Chronicles, PG.
angel_grace let me paste this at her as we watched One Tree Hill... which was kinda a bummer of an episode since there was no Jamie and the nanny is a slut and Nathan is a dope, but otherwise kinda awesome because Brooke is awesome. Seriously. I heart Sophia Bush and it's all Paris Hilton's fault that I can't have Brooke and Lucas. (Honorable mentions for saving the ep go to Quentin and Owen.)
In any case, Lena Headey is awesome, too, and I hope I have Sophia/Lena dreams tonight.
Title: "Pull" 1/1
Author: monimala
Fandom: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Rating/Classification: PG, Sarah, gen, angst
Disclaimer: Not my character, and not making a profit! Two lines are from the first movie.
Summary: 888 words. A tag for 1.5, "Queen's Gambit," that will probably be Jossed by 1.6. She always has to keep pushing, or it's someone else's blood they'll be cleaning up tomorrow.
She lifts herself up, counts "one" in her head even though she's been doing this for at least fifteen reps already. Her muscles strain and the bar chafes against her palms. One. Inside, John is cleaning blood off the kitchen counter, wiping away bits and pieces of his own DNA. She'd like to think that the crisis is over, but she knows better than that. It's just frozen in time, waiting to thaw.
By three (eighteen), Sarah's forearms are numb, but she doesn't care. The sweat is beading her skin, her tank top is soaked, but she keeps pushing. She always has to keep pushing, or it's someone else's blood they'll be cleaning up tomorrow.
Hers. John's. Charley's. *Charley*. Five (twenty) and she's remembering the look on his face when John led him into the kitchen… that completely devastated yet completely understanding look before he got out his kit and set to pumping Derek's heart back to life. Charley was never supposed to know, never supposed to see her again, and yet here he is, just twenty feet away in the bedroom that's farthest from the street.
"We may have to kill him," Cameron had said, in that dispassionate way of hers that gives her away as a Terminator every time. As they all hovered over Reese, working and forcing and pushing, she didn't even blink. She'd glanced back at the letter she'd left on the counter, announcing to no one in particular, "But it's all right. I still have paper for a note."
As if everything she needs to say to Charley can be encompassed in a eulogy, in a missive for the dead. Eight (twenty-three), and Sarah is out of breath. Her head hurts as much as her arms and her feet long to stay on the ground. Two more, she tells herself, two more and she'll quit. For now. Just frozen in time, waiting to thaw.
*"Pain can be controlled. You just disconnect it."*
When she's finished, she drops, and her knees buckle beneath her. She catches herself on her palms, in the dirt biting back tears from strain. From strain, damn it, not from anything else. Not from seeing one familiar face or feeling a whole body shudder of recognition even before she realized she was supposed to know another. Her past is everywhere. Her past is twenty feet behind her in the bedroom farthest from the street.
Cameron comes out to tell her that Charley has Derek stabilized and on a saline drip. She doesn't make a sound, but Sarah knows she's there before she looks. She has to. She has to know how they move, how they feign breathing and bleeding and feeling, even when they're here to help.
This is not my daughter, she thinks, uncharitably, suddenly hating that ruse, that cover they had to sell the school. She glances back at the bar that's still glistening from her assault on it. It's a wonder that the swing set hasn't snapped from her abuse. This is not my daughter, and inside that house there is only one man that matters.
Twenty-five repetitions and she still doesn't believe the second half of the mantra.
But Sarah keeps pushing. *"On your feet, soldier."* She keeps going.
And she walks back inside the house, squeezes John's shoulder and reminds him to do his *own* homework, as all normal mothers do after someone has nearly died in their kitchen. She moves to the back room, loosening her hair from the sweat-slick ponytail and wrapping the rubber band around her wrist as a reminder that *she* can't snap. She counts the steps in her head. One.
Before she gets to seven, to the doorway, all her hard-won preparation is for nothing because Charley has the jump on her. He slams her against the wall, bloodstained hands pressing into her shoulders, anything but understanding now that the immediate need to heal has past. "Why, Sarah? *Why*?"
It's the least of the questions he should be asking, but maybe it's the easiest. Maybe he doesn't want to know why John hasn't aged eight years. Maybe he doesn't want to know that she could kill him three different ways before she even bothers to answer.
"I need to check on him," she whispers, tilting her head, trying to avoid his eyes while staring into them all at the same time. He's older, but she's aged lifetimes.
She counts to five (ten) and he lets her go, sweet, funny Charley who curled up with her to watch The Tonight Show and always ate the broccoli out of her General Tso's because she hated it. She knows he was never going to hurt her, never going to force a reply.
Sarah shoulders past him and the breath she didn't even know she was holding whooshes out of her in relief as she sees Reese sprawled awkwardly, but *alive* on top of the sheets of the twin bed. His chest is rising and falling, the IV in his arm is sticking out at an odd angle, the saline bag flat on the nightstand beside him, but Kyle's brother is still here, still with them.
Her knees buckle, but this time she doesn't fall. Her palms don't graze the dirt.
Sarah lifts herself up. Like she always does. Like she has to.
--end--
February 12, 2008
In any case, Lena Headey is awesome, too, and I hope I have Sophia/Lena dreams tonight.
Title: "Pull" 1/1
Author: monimala
Fandom: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Rating/Classification: PG, Sarah, gen, angst
Disclaimer: Not my character, and not making a profit! Two lines are from the first movie.
Summary: 888 words. A tag for 1.5, "Queen's Gambit," that will probably be Jossed by 1.6. She always has to keep pushing, or it's someone else's blood they'll be cleaning up tomorrow.
She lifts herself up, counts "one" in her head even though she's been doing this for at least fifteen reps already. Her muscles strain and the bar chafes against her palms. One. Inside, John is cleaning blood off the kitchen counter, wiping away bits and pieces of his own DNA. She'd like to think that the crisis is over, but she knows better than that. It's just frozen in time, waiting to thaw.
By three (eighteen), Sarah's forearms are numb, but she doesn't care. The sweat is beading her skin, her tank top is soaked, but she keeps pushing. She always has to keep pushing, or it's someone else's blood they'll be cleaning up tomorrow.
Hers. John's. Charley's. *Charley*. Five (twenty) and she's remembering the look on his face when John led him into the kitchen… that completely devastated yet completely understanding look before he got out his kit and set to pumping Derek's heart back to life. Charley was never supposed to know, never supposed to see her again, and yet here he is, just twenty feet away in the bedroom that's farthest from the street.
"We may have to kill him," Cameron had said, in that dispassionate way of hers that gives her away as a Terminator every time. As they all hovered over Reese, working and forcing and pushing, she didn't even blink. She'd glanced back at the letter she'd left on the counter, announcing to no one in particular, "But it's all right. I still have paper for a note."
As if everything she needs to say to Charley can be encompassed in a eulogy, in a missive for the dead. Eight (twenty-three), and Sarah is out of breath. Her head hurts as much as her arms and her feet long to stay on the ground. Two more, she tells herself, two more and she'll quit. For now. Just frozen in time, waiting to thaw.
*"Pain can be controlled. You just disconnect it."*
When she's finished, she drops, and her knees buckle beneath her. She catches herself on her palms, in the dirt biting back tears from strain. From strain, damn it, not from anything else. Not from seeing one familiar face or feeling a whole body shudder of recognition even before she realized she was supposed to know another. Her past is everywhere. Her past is twenty feet behind her in the bedroom farthest from the street.
Cameron comes out to tell her that Charley has Derek stabilized and on a saline drip. She doesn't make a sound, but Sarah knows she's there before she looks. She has to. She has to know how they move, how they feign breathing and bleeding and feeling, even when they're here to help.
This is not my daughter, she thinks, uncharitably, suddenly hating that ruse, that cover they had to sell the school. She glances back at the bar that's still glistening from her assault on it. It's a wonder that the swing set hasn't snapped from her abuse. This is not my daughter, and inside that house there is only one man that matters.
Twenty-five repetitions and she still doesn't believe the second half of the mantra.
But Sarah keeps pushing. *"On your feet, soldier."* She keeps going.
And she walks back inside the house, squeezes John's shoulder and reminds him to do his *own* homework, as all normal mothers do after someone has nearly died in their kitchen. She moves to the back room, loosening her hair from the sweat-slick ponytail and wrapping the rubber band around her wrist as a reminder that *she* can't snap. She counts the steps in her head. One.
Before she gets to seven, to the doorway, all her hard-won preparation is for nothing because Charley has the jump on her. He slams her against the wall, bloodstained hands pressing into her shoulders, anything but understanding now that the immediate need to heal has past. "Why, Sarah? *Why*?"
It's the least of the questions he should be asking, but maybe it's the easiest. Maybe he doesn't want to know why John hasn't aged eight years. Maybe he doesn't want to know that she could kill him three different ways before she even bothers to answer.
"I need to check on him," she whispers, tilting her head, trying to avoid his eyes while staring into them all at the same time. He's older, but she's aged lifetimes.
She counts to five (ten) and he lets her go, sweet, funny Charley who curled up with her to watch The Tonight Show and always ate the broccoli out of her General Tso's because she hated it. She knows he was never going to hurt her, never going to force a reply.
Sarah shoulders past him and the breath she didn't even know she was holding whooshes out of her in relief as she sees Reese sprawled awkwardly, but *alive* on top of the sheets of the twin bed. His chest is rising and falling, the IV in his arm is sticking out at an odd angle, the saline bag flat on the nightstand beside him, but Kyle's brother is still here, still with them.
Her knees buckle, but this time she doesn't fall. Her palms don't graze the dirt.
Sarah lifts herself up. Like she always does. Like she has to.
--end--
February 12, 2008