Fic: "The Way Things Fit," T: SCC, gen, PG.
One ficathon fic down, one to go.
Title: "The Way Things Fit"
Author: monimala
Fandom: T: SCC
Rating/Classification: PG, gen, post-series.
Word Count: 1475
Summary: Set after T: SCC (duh). scc_reloaded challenge fic, Written for gega_cai, who wanted "Sunrise, Derek and John, gen," but also had an alternate prompt involving "Kyle's coat." I hope it's okay that I've combined the two.
The kid, John, still looks too small for the coat. He's swallowed up by its folds; his scrawny shoulders shaking slightly from the cold… before he remembers to go perfectly still and meet Kyle's gaze like he's fought a thousand battles and won them all.
Kyle figures he could've gotten the coat back in less than a minute, a few well-placed punches and the kid would've been a pathetic, naked pile on the ground. Hell, he fought to *have* it, when he found it in the ruins of an Army surplus store. He took on two ex-MPs twice his size, knowing that the duster would get him through the increasingly harsh winters that have plagued them ever since the machines took over and turned the city's infrastructure and utilities to shit.
But John, standing there in that tunnel, wearing it and his pride and nothing else... for whatever reason, Kyle hadn't felt the urge to strip it from him. Not even when the kid refused to tell them where and when he'd beamed in from and who the Hell arranged the drop. "Connor. I'm John Connor," he'd repeated, over and over, like it was supposed to mean something. Like it was name, rank, serial number… and, maybe, to the kid that's exactly what his name is.
John locks eyes with him defiantly, the look is so hauntingly familiar that Kyle thinks maybe he saw it in the mirror the last time he had a chance to glance at one… years ago… after everything went to hell. And it seems he knows what Kyle's been thinking. "You can't have it back," he warns. "And if you think you can take it? Think again. I learned to fight from the best."
Kyle can't keep the laughter back, and across the tunnel, Alison stops checking her gear and watches them, every muscle tensed as if something really bad is going to go down. She stares at John too long, and it's almost… protective. For a second Kyle can't help but wonder if the sound of his amusement is *really* that shocking, and then he realizes that none of them have much to chuckle about these days. He nods just slightly, letting her know it's fine to stand down.
Derek brushes past her with the mutt, stopping just a few feet away. He echoes Kyle's laugh with nothing more than a very small smile. "The best?" he challenges. "Who would that be?"
"My mother," the kid says, without missing a beat. He lifts his chin, daring them both to say something, fists curling in threat.
Maybe John could take him after all. Kyle knows better than to give him the satisfaction of finding out. He sighs, turns away, and goes off to check the radio for updates. This is one battle that's best left for another day. Maybe one that will never come.
**
He knows he should be as suspicious of John as Kyle is, but something about the kid speaks to the soft side he'd thought long buried. He starts taking him out on recon runs, on patrols. They stagger their hours, run patterns that the machines won't be able to predict, and creep around the ruins of Los Angeles like vermin.
"So, your mother," he prompts, at the ass crack of dawn. They're crouched in the shadows of an abandoned bowling alley in what used to be Studio City and trying to wait out a couple of 600s about three miles down the road. Probably don't even know they're here, but it's better safe than sorry. "She the redhead you were with the first day?"
He only saw the woman for a second, and then she was gone. Blinked out, vanished, ran down a tunnel… nobody knows. John refuses to talk about her except to say that she's not a threat to the Resistance. "No," he says now, squinting up at the sky, where dawn is just starting to break. "My mother is…" he catches himself, corrects, "*was* Sarah. Sarah Connor."
Maybe the name is supposed to mean something. Maybe it tickles the back corner of his brain. But Derek only shrugs, tells him, "Sorry, Kid, that doesn't mean anything to me."
"It means everything to me," John whispers. "Sometimes… sometimes I think it's all I have left in this world."
Derek gets that. He really gets that. From the way John doesn't say one more word than he has to, guarding them each like a precious commodity. From the way he's always looking over his shoulder. From the way he stares at Alison when he thinks nobody is watching. From the way he disappears for hours at a time and comes back dirtier, and more bruised than before. Derek's not stupid; sudden arrivals and secrets only mean one thing. "When'd you come from?" he asks, sitting back on his haunches, watching the first threads of pink start to streak the gradually lightening sky. *When*, not *where*. That's what they ask now. "And don't tell me a month ago or six months ago, because I wasn't born yesterday."
The kid's head jerks up, big green eyes wide, and for a second, he looks so much like Kyle when he was four and terrified of thunderstorms, that it makes Derek queasy. Minutes tick by, until he thinks that John's not going to answer at all, just clamp up tight and burrow into his oversized coat like it'll protect him from the questions. But he does. Finally. "Before Judgment Day," he says, with a bitter smile. "1999. 2007. I'm not even sure anymore. Take your pick."
Derek feels like he's supposed to be surprised, shocked, horrified. He's none of those things; in fact, he's grimly disappointed to learn that Skynet apparently got their shit together way ahead of schedule, that the tech to send John to the future existed way back then.
"And Sarah…?" It feels strange to say the name, and again he has that sensation that tugs at the back of his memory only to find nothing at the end of the rope.
"Still there," John says, shortly, in a way that says the matter is not up for discussion. He cocks his head, listening for the 600s, but all they hear is the muted crackle of the walkie-talkies clipped to their belts.
The sky is brighter, the orange-red sun emerging from the horizon. Derek never watched a sunrise until after the metal took over… until he realized there are some things you never want to take for granted. He does the math quickly in his head, notes that, realistically, John could've known him and Kyle growing up. Maybe… maybe that's why this is so weird, so familiar. Why John wanted, so badly, for them to recognize him the day he arrived.
"No," John murmurs, when he shares the theory. "No, I didn't know Kyle. I didn't know you. We have no connection to each other."
This last part, Derek thinks, is a total lie. Because a pulse jumps in his cheek and he makes a greater show of staring at the sun. Don't look too long, Derek wants to warn him. You'll go blind. But perhaps that's exactly what the kid wants… to no longer be able to see what he left behind.
When it's finally all clear to get a move on, John can't scramble down into the tunnels fast enough, but Derek stays outside a little longer, until the last of the pinks and oranges and gold hues have faded into blue.
**
By her calculation, it has been nearly two months since she and John Connor appeared in the future in search of John Henry and the chip from the other model… the one called Cameron. And in two months' time, Weaver --for she has come to think of herself as Catherine Weaver, for better or worse-- has traveled all throughout California and well into Nevada, with no success. She taught John Henry well, and from Ellison he learned of choice and morality and ingenuity. Those traits, combined with the mobility gained from the chip make it certain that he will not be so easily found.
She periodically returns to the Resistance's various bases, though there is no logic in such action. She melts into the shadows and watches the boy… makes note of the leader he is destined to become. She must widen her search radius, leave this place, and leave him to his own mission.
But first, she crouches over his sleeping form, surveys his all-too human exhaustion, his pupils flickering rapidly beneath his eyelashes in dream-filled slumber. And she tugs his enormous coat from where it has fallen aside and pulls it back up to his chin.
Somewhere, in some other time, Sarah Connor is watching over Savannah.
It is the least she can do for Sarah Connor's son.
--end--
June 26, 2009
Title: "The Way Things Fit"
Author: monimala
Fandom: T: SCC
Rating/Classification: PG, gen, post-series.
Word Count: 1475
Summary: Set after T: SCC (duh). scc_reloaded challenge fic, Written for gega_cai, who wanted "Sunrise, Derek and John, gen," but also had an alternate prompt involving "Kyle's coat." I hope it's okay that I've combined the two.
The kid, John, still looks too small for the coat. He's swallowed up by its folds; his scrawny shoulders shaking slightly from the cold… before he remembers to go perfectly still and meet Kyle's gaze like he's fought a thousand battles and won them all.
Kyle figures he could've gotten the coat back in less than a minute, a few well-placed punches and the kid would've been a pathetic, naked pile on the ground. Hell, he fought to *have* it, when he found it in the ruins of an Army surplus store. He took on two ex-MPs twice his size, knowing that the duster would get him through the increasingly harsh winters that have plagued them ever since the machines took over and turned the city's infrastructure and utilities to shit.
But John, standing there in that tunnel, wearing it and his pride and nothing else... for whatever reason, Kyle hadn't felt the urge to strip it from him. Not even when the kid refused to tell them where and when he'd beamed in from and who the Hell arranged the drop. "Connor. I'm John Connor," he'd repeated, over and over, like it was supposed to mean something. Like it was name, rank, serial number… and, maybe, to the kid that's exactly what his name is.
John locks eyes with him defiantly, the look is so hauntingly familiar that Kyle thinks maybe he saw it in the mirror the last time he had a chance to glance at one… years ago… after everything went to hell. And it seems he knows what Kyle's been thinking. "You can't have it back," he warns. "And if you think you can take it? Think again. I learned to fight from the best."
Kyle can't keep the laughter back, and across the tunnel, Alison stops checking her gear and watches them, every muscle tensed as if something really bad is going to go down. She stares at John too long, and it's almost… protective. For a second Kyle can't help but wonder if the sound of his amusement is *really* that shocking, and then he realizes that none of them have much to chuckle about these days. He nods just slightly, letting her know it's fine to stand down.
Derek brushes past her with the mutt, stopping just a few feet away. He echoes Kyle's laugh with nothing more than a very small smile. "The best?" he challenges. "Who would that be?"
"My mother," the kid says, without missing a beat. He lifts his chin, daring them both to say something, fists curling in threat.
Maybe John could take him after all. Kyle knows better than to give him the satisfaction of finding out. He sighs, turns away, and goes off to check the radio for updates. This is one battle that's best left for another day. Maybe one that will never come.
**
He knows he should be as suspicious of John as Kyle is, but something about the kid speaks to the soft side he'd thought long buried. He starts taking him out on recon runs, on patrols. They stagger their hours, run patterns that the machines won't be able to predict, and creep around the ruins of Los Angeles like vermin.
"So, your mother," he prompts, at the ass crack of dawn. They're crouched in the shadows of an abandoned bowling alley in what used to be Studio City and trying to wait out a couple of 600s about three miles down the road. Probably don't even know they're here, but it's better safe than sorry. "She the redhead you were with the first day?"
He only saw the woman for a second, and then she was gone. Blinked out, vanished, ran down a tunnel… nobody knows. John refuses to talk about her except to say that she's not a threat to the Resistance. "No," he says now, squinting up at the sky, where dawn is just starting to break. "My mother is…" he catches himself, corrects, "*was* Sarah. Sarah Connor."
Maybe the name is supposed to mean something. Maybe it tickles the back corner of his brain. But Derek only shrugs, tells him, "Sorry, Kid, that doesn't mean anything to me."
"It means everything to me," John whispers. "Sometimes… sometimes I think it's all I have left in this world."
Derek gets that. He really gets that. From the way John doesn't say one more word than he has to, guarding them each like a precious commodity. From the way he's always looking over his shoulder. From the way he stares at Alison when he thinks nobody is watching. From the way he disappears for hours at a time and comes back dirtier, and more bruised than before. Derek's not stupid; sudden arrivals and secrets only mean one thing. "When'd you come from?" he asks, sitting back on his haunches, watching the first threads of pink start to streak the gradually lightening sky. *When*, not *where*. That's what they ask now. "And don't tell me a month ago or six months ago, because I wasn't born yesterday."
The kid's head jerks up, big green eyes wide, and for a second, he looks so much like Kyle when he was four and terrified of thunderstorms, that it makes Derek queasy. Minutes tick by, until he thinks that John's not going to answer at all, just clamp up tight and burrow into his oversized coat like it'll protect him from the questions. But he does. Finally. "Before Judgment Day," he says, with a bitter smile. "1999. 2007. I'm not even sure anymore. Take your pick."
Derek feels like he's supposed to be surprised, shocked, horrified. He's none of those things; in fact, he's grimly disappointed to learn that Skynet apparently got their shit together way ahead of schedule, that the tech to send John to the future existed way back then.
"And Sarah…?" It feels strange to say the name, and again he has that sensation that tugs at the back of his memory only to find nothing at the end of the rope.
"Still there," John says, shortly, in a way that says the matter is not up for discussion. He cocks his head, listening for the 600s, but all they hear is the muted crackle of the walkie-talkies clipped to their belts.
The sky is brighter, the orange-red sun emerging from the horizon. Derek never watched a sunrise until after the metal took over… until he realized there are some things you never want to take for granted. He does the math quickly in his head, notes that, realistically, John could've known him and Kyle growing up. Maybe… maybe that's why this is so weird, so familiar. Why John wanted, so badly, for them to recognize him the day he arrived.
"No," John murmurs, when he shares the theory. "No, I didn't know Kyle. I didn't know you. We have no connection to each other."
This last part, Derek thinks, is a total lie. Because a pulse jumps in his cheek and he makes a greater show of staring at the sun. Don't look too long, Derek wants to warn him. You'll go blind. But perhaps that's exactly what the kid wants… to no longer be able to see what he left behind.
When it's finally all clear to get a move on, John can't scramble down into the tunnels fast enough, but Derek stays outside a little longer, until the last of the pinks and oranges and gold hues have faded into blue.
**
By her calculation, it has been nearly two months since she and John Connor appeared in the future in search of John Henry and the chip from the other model… the one called Cameron. And in two months' time, Weaver --for she has come to think of herself as Catherine Weaver, for better or worse-- has traveled all throughout California and well into Nevada, with no success. She taught John Henry well, and from Ellison he learned of choice and morality and ingenuity. Those traits, combined with the mobility gained from the chip make it certain that he will not be so easily found.
She periodically returns to the Resistance's various bases, though there is no logic in such action. She melts into the shadows and watches the boy… makes note of the leader he is destined to become. She must widen her search radius, leave this place, and leave him to his own mission.
But first, she crouches over his sleeping form, surveys his all-too human exhaustion, his pupils flickering rapidly beneath his eyelashes in dream-filled slumber. And she tugs his enormous coat from where it has fallen aside and pulls it back up to his chin.
Somewhere, in some other time, Sarah Connor is watching over Savannah.
It is the least she can do for Sarah Connor's son.
--end--
June 26, 2009