TSCC fic: Scars You See, Scars You Don't (pg-13)
Title: Scars You See, Scars You Don’t
Author: sabaceanbabe
Beta: rodlox
Character/Pairing: Sarah/Kyle, Sarah/Derek, John/Riley, John/Allison, John/Kate
Rating: PG-13 (for language)
Word count: 2,955
Warnings: none
Summary: A scar is sometimes apparent only to the one who must bear it.
Disclaimer: The Terminator ‘verse belongs to James Cameron and Josh Friedman, not me. Sadly. ‘Cause if it did belong to me? The Sarah Connor Chronicles would still be in production and the last two movies would’ve made sense. What? I’m just sayin’…
Author Notes: Written for indiefic for the terminatorfic Valentine’s Day exchange. The prompt I used was “scars.” The pairing? Well, I couldn’t decide which of the ones she wanted that I wanted to do, so I did them all in kind of a 5-things/times format. :D
-------------------------------
Not every wound leaves behind a scar, a tangible reminder of its one-time presence, the injury minor, perhaps not even noticed, quickly and cleanly healed. Oftentimes a wound involves emotional trauma as well as physical, the result of a mistake or misstep or a deliberate attempt at harm. But even then there is not always a visible reminder. Some scars are apparent only to those who must bear them. Scars can become badges of honor or marks of shame. Ideally, whether a scar is visible to the world or borne only on the inside, it is a sign of a lesson learned. - Sarah Connor, recorded September 2009
-+X|X+-
I. Sarah/Kyle
Ropes of muscle stretched over too-prominent bones, skin marred by scars, most long since healed over. Kyle’s chest beneath her cheek was smooth, his heartbeat a steady thump-thump, faster than the rise and fall of his chest with each breath, but still slower than it had been when she’d first rested her head there.
She thought he was asleep, and that gave her the freedom to do as she wanted without embarrassment. He wasn’t her first, not that there had been that many, but still it had surprised her to learn that she was his. First, that is.
Slowly, lightly, but not so lightly as to tickle and wake him, Sarah traced the random patterns of the scars on his skin, puckered and painful looking. One was still an angry red, the outer edges raised and shiny, pitted in the center; it was almost like the impression her finger would make if she pushed it into hot wax. She laid her palm flat over the ugly mark, almost expecting it to be warmer than the smooth skin that surrounded it. Without thinking twice, she shifted, moved her hand away from the awful scar, and leaned in to place a gentle kiss on the ridges of scar tissue.
It wasn’t until she pulled back a little, glanced up toward his face, that Sarah realized he’d been awake all along, watching her, letting her do whatever she was going to do. He’d given no indication, not by a change in his breathing, not by a quickening of his pulse. Unnerved, she tried to push away from him and sit up, but Kyle stopped her, closing his fingers around her wrist.
“Don’t.” Just one word, no qualifier. Not “don’t stop,” not “don’t touch me,” just “don’t.”
“I… didn’t mean to wake you.” She wanted to pull her wrist from his grip, but she didn’t. Instead she held herself very still, as one might when faced with a wild and dangerous animal. What the hell is wrong with you, Sarah? You just fucked him and now you’re afraid of him?
“You didn’t wake me.” Kyle must have seen some of the growing fear in her eyes; his grip loosened, although he didn’t release her. “I meant, don’t stop what you were doing.” His eyes glittered in the splash of moonlight across the bed, slipping through the small gap between the curtains. “It… felt good.”
And just like that, the uncertainty in Kyle’s voice, the way he drew her hand back to the nasty scar on his chest, put Sarah at ease again. Since she no longer worried about waking him, she stroked the scar. “So much pain,” she whispered, repeating the words she’d said to him hours before.
“Not when you do that.” His voice sounded different and she looked up at him, saw the beginnings of a smile stretch his lips. Sarah smiled back and kissed the scar again.
“How did you get it?”
“I didn’t move fast enough.”
-+X|X+-
II. Sarah/Derek
She hadn’t gone to bed yet, too keyed up to bother. Instead, Sarah sat in the dark at the kitchen table, a cup of tea between her hands, long since cooled, and did her best to not think. It was a luxury she wouldn’t normally allow herself, but right now it was either turn her brain off for a little while or lose control of it entirely. Sleep would be better, but sleep was elusive.
Reese shifted on the couch in the living room, the sound no longer alien to her, simply blending into the night amidst the whir of the fan in the refrigerator, the creak of the bones of the house settling on its foundation, the song of the cricket that had taken up residence in the garage.
Derek Reese, soldier from the future, connected to her and to John in ways he couldn’t understand, no matter that he was Kyle’s brother. There was no softness in Derek Reese, no kindness, only violence, harsh and deadly even if contained. And yet he was still Kyle’s brother; she had no proof save his word, but she knew it was the truth.
She took a sip of room-temperature tea. A low moan drifted to her ears from the living room, followed by a muffled, “No.” The sound of something striking the coffee table brought her to her feet.
From the kitchen doorway through the dining room, Sarah saw Reese thrash around on the couch, locked in the grip of a nightmare. She hesitated, knowing that if she tried to wake him he’d likely lash out at her, but then he sat abruptly upright, looked around the dimly lit room with something like fear.
As Sarah watched, Reese swung his bare feet to the floor and scrubbed his hands over his face. He shook his head and stood and Sarah took a step backward into the kitchen. A moment later she heard him pad into the bathroom, his footsteps soon followed by the flush of the toilet. She expected him to return to the living room, but instead she heard the front door click softly shut.
On impulse, she followed, but before she reached the hallway, she turned back and opened the refrigerator, pulling out two bottles of beer. She couldn’t sleep and now, apparently, neither could Reese. A beer might help them both.
When she passed Cameron’s room, she glimpsed the Tin Miss through the open door, standing at the far window facing outward, a silent and motionless sentinel. She turned her head toward Sarah, made note of her presence before returning her attention to the night and Sarah moved on.
Under a sky that glittered with stars, Derek swayed slowly on a swing; his weight made the chains creak rhythmically with the movement. Sarah closed the door behind her, but didn’t immediately move to join him, watching him instead. His head was tilted back to look up at the stars. Moonlight limned his sleep-tousled hair in a silvery glow. The line of his back was tense.
“You can go back inside. I’m fine.”
Rather than leave, Sarah walked down the steps to the grass, continued to the swing set and took a seat on the second swing. The chains were cool and slightly damp against her skin. Derek looked over at her, but said nothing more and she offered him one of the unopened bottles.
He looked down at it, then back up at her. Reaching over, he took both from her hands and in one swift motion had the caps off both, using one on the other for leverage. Wordlessly, he handed one newly opened bottle back to her and then took a pull from his, looking back up at the stars. Sarah did the same, the beer foaming a bit at the back of her throat as she swallowed, relaxing for the first time that day, Derek by her side. For a brief span, she could pretend that all was right with the world.
-+X|X+-
III. John/Riley
“Riley.”
She looked up at the sound of her name, her eyes lighting on John. Not that there was anyone else around just then who could have spoken. Her head tilted to one side and her eyes narrowed, a small wrinkle forming between her brows. With an unconscious motion John had seen a hundred times, she pushed her long hair, dirtier and messier than he’d ever seen it, away from her face.
“Do I know you?”
“Uh…” Not the most eloquent reply John could have made, but no actual words seemed capable of pushing past the blockage that was his tongue.
Riley straightened from her crouch and turned to face John, her posture wary. His gaze flickered to the large canvas sack on the floor and Riley stepped between him and the sack, one hand behind her and he knew she was poised to grab the sack and run if he showed any sign of being a threat.
He held up his hands and grinned sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to startle you,” he began, but she didn’t let him continue.
“How do you know my name?”
Responses sped through his brain, considered and rejected in microseconds, until finally he settled on, “I guess I just heard someone talking to you?” Grinning at her again, he ran a hand up over his head down to the back of his neck. “That is your name, though, right? Riley?”
She still looked suspicious, but not quite as wary as a moment before. On impulse, John held out his hand. “I’m John. John Connor.”
Blinking rapidly, frowning, she stared at his hand. Smiling a bit nervously, John took a step closer, hand still outstretched. He was just about to drop it and move on when her eyes met his and she tentatively closed her fingers around his hand. John looked down at their joined hands, momentarily startled to see the unmarred smoothness of her wrist. He ran his thumb lightly across the soft skin.
A sharp intake of breath made him look up again. Her eyes were wide, but she didn’t pull away. For the first time it sank indelibly into John’s brain that this was not the Riley he knew. This Riley hadn’t tried to kill herself. Maybe this time, he could keep her safe.
-+X|X+-
IV. John/Allison
John was already out the door of the almost-closet he’d taken for his own, dust raining down on his head from a nearby explosion. In the corridor, a woman shoved past him, following the mass exodus of civilians deeper into the bunker where the walls were thicker, the reinforced ceilings less likely to collapse on their heads. Another explosion rumbled in the distance and the lights flickered. Something crashed to the ground behind him.
“John!”
At the sound of his name, he turned. And froze. His sense of time’s passing slowed to a crawl and the sounds of more explosions were muffled by the roaring in his ears.
Cameron stood in the doorway, blood trickling from a wound on her forehead into her right eye. She blinked it away in slow motion. Equally slowly, she raised her right hand; John’s eyes tracked the movement, locked onto the pistol she held aimed at him, at his head. Her lips moved, but her words made no sense. Frowning, she took a step toward him and then another and he stumbled backward until his back hit the opposite wall.
Another explosion, this one right overhead, and the lights went out. The only illumination came from a junction twenty feet away where lights plugged into a different generator still worked. John’s heart pumped adrenaline-filled blood in a rush through his veins as Cameron took yet another step toward him; he couldn’t pull his gaze away from the gun.
“John, you might need this?” she said, her tone simultaneously puzzled and annoyed. Abruptly, sound and sight washed over him in a flood as time resumed its normal pace.
Allison, living, breathing resistance fighter. Not Cameron, implacable, glitching Terminator.
With her free hand Allison swiped at the blood that still dripped into her eye. “What the fuck, John?” She shoved the butt of the weapon into his stomach. “Take the gun. We have to get moving.” Annoyed and in a hurry she might be, but she still kissed him, nipped at his lower lip before running toward the still-lit junction, pulling her own gun from her belt.
-+X|X+-
V. John/Kate
“Okay, let’s see what we have here.”
John looked up as a woman, her red hair pulled back into a no-nonsense ponytail, slung a bag to the ground and followed it down to crouch beside John. He started to shift closer to one wall to give her more room in the cramped setting, but she put a hand on his leg and said, “You’re fine where you are. I don’t want you moving until I know what I’m dealing with.”
She reached into her bag and pulled out a flashlight, then tilted John’s head this way and that, shining the light into his eyes. Satisfied with whatever she saw there, she switched off the light and returned it to her bag, leaving only the light from the bulbs hanging from wires overhead for whatever else she needed to do. Gently she turned his head toward the left for a closer look at the deep gash on his cheek and John studied her in turn.
Pale skin and green eyes, fine lines at their corners, John thought she might be anywhere from twenty-five to forty-five and that she looked vaguely familiar. Something about her reminded him of his mother and he wasn’t sure if that was creepy or comforting.
“This’ll need a stitch or two,” she informed him, frowning as she looked down at his shirt, her gaze drawn there when she’d leaned back and the overhead light had caught at the blood soaked into the folds of his black t-shirt. “No one mentioned you were seriously injured.”
“This? Why, ‘tis just a flesh wound,” he said in his best John Cleese imitation, which was completely ruined when the effort induced a coughing fit that ended in a low moan of pain. He wanted to curl in on himself, but knew that if he did he’d only cause himself even more pain. Instead, looking up at his red-haired doctor, he grinned at the odd look on her face. “Sorry. I guess it didn’t sound much like Monty Python.”
Grasping the hem of his shirt with one hand and John’s shoulder with the other, she pulled the shirt quickly over his head, pulling him toward her, his back away from the wall as she did so. “I don’t think I look much like the Black Knight, so that’s okay.” She maneuvered him gently until he was lying flat on the floor. She shouted over her shoulder, “Sayles! I need a bucket of clean water and some towels!”
A man ran over to them a moment later with two grayish towels and a small bucket. “Here you go, Kate.” When he saw the blood seeping from John’s stomach, he followed up with, “Do you need me to stay?” Even as he asked this, John heard a man yelling for Sayles; he thought it sounded like Derek, but it might have been Kyle. Feeling woozy, John closed his eyes and tried to keep the pain at bay.
“No, you go ahead. We should be fine on our own.”
John heard the shuffle of boots in dirt and debris and then the sound of water dripping. A moment later, Kate carefully washed the blood from his stomach, where a T-101 had shot him a couple of hours ago. Lucky for him he’d been the only one in his team injured and they were able to get him back here where he could receive something that at least resembled medical attention. He’d heard the closest thing they had to a doctor was a former veterinarian; he guessed that must be his Kate. She rinsed out the towel and began to wipe the blood from his face.
It took him a few seconds to realize it when she stopped. It took him another second or two to open his eyes. Kate knelt beside him, stared down at him, her head blocking out enough of the overhead light that he didn’t immediately have to close his eyes against it. Because she was backlit, he couldn’t read the expression on her face.
“Problem?” he asked. It worried him that she didn’t answer right away. Nor did she move. And there was the bleeding that may have slowed, but it hadn’t stopped. “Kate?”
“John Connor,” she whispered. “It’s not possible…”
He blinked, surprised. “Do you know me?” He’d been here for weeks and no one had ever heard of John Connor.
“That’s your name? John Connor?”
“Yeah, I’m John Connor.”
Kate shook her head almost violently, sending her ponytail flying, whispered something else too low for John to hear.
“I’m sorry?” he asked as she rooted around in her bag.
Pausing, she glanced up at him. “I said it must have been your father.” She looked back down, began to pull things - knife, needle, thread, a small bottle of some clear liquid - from the bag. “I think I knew your father, back before Judgment Day. We went to high school together.”
Something cold and high octane splashed over his wounded stomach and John’s muscles spasmed, his back arched and he grabbed instinctively for the nearest thing at hand - Kate’s knee. Kate Brewster’s knee.
The last time he’d touched her knee had been in Mike Kripke’s basement. For Kate, it had been thirty years ago; for John, only a couple. He’d jumped over most of the years Kate had lived through. She knew him, but she didn’t know him. And he couldn’t explain.
As the pain dissipated somewhat, he looked up at Kate, watched her thread the needle and then soak that, too, in the alcohol. “Yeah,” he said, closing his eyes again. “You must’ve known my father.”
Author: sabaceanbabe
Beta: rodlox
Character/Pairing: Sarah/Kyle, Sarah/Derek, John/Riley, John/Allison, John/Kate
Rating: PG-13 (for language)
Word count: 2,955
Warnings: none
Summary: A scar is sometimes apparent only to the one who must bear it.
Disclaimer: The Terminator ‘verse belongs to James Cameron and Josh Friedman, not me. Sadly. ‘Cause if it did belong to me? The Sarah Connor Chronicles would still be in production and the last two movies would’ve made sense. What? I’m just sayin’…
Author Notes: Written for indiefic for the terminatorfic Valentine’s Day exchange. The prompt I used was “scars.” The pairing? Well, I couldn’t decide which of the ones she wanted that I wanted to do, so I did them all in kind of a 5-things/times format. :D
-------------------------------
Not every wound leaves behind a scar, a tangible reminder of its one-time presence, the injury minor, perhaps not even noticed, quickly and cleanly healed. Oftentimes a wound involves emotional trauma as well as physical, the result of a mistake or misstep or a deliberate attempt at harm. But even then there is not always a visible reminder. Some scars are apparent only to those who must bear them. Scars can become badges of honor or marks of shame. Ideally, whether a scar is visible to the world or borne only on the inside, it is a sign of a lesson learned. - Sarah Connor, recorded September 2009
-+X|X+-
I. Sarah/Kyle
Ropes of muscle stretched over too-prominent bones, skin marred by scars, most long since healed over. Kyle’s chest beneath her cheek was smooth, his heartbeat a steady thump-thump, faster than the rise and fall of his chest with each breath, but still slower than it had been when she’d first rested her head there.
She thought he was asleep, and that gave her the freedom to do as she wanted without embarrassment. He wasn’t her first, not that there had been that many, but still it had surprised her to learn that she was his. First, that is.
Slowly, lightly, but not so lightly as to tickle and wake him, Sarah traced the random patterns of the scars on his skin, puckered and painful looking. One was still an angry red, the outer edges raised and shiny, pitted in the center; it was almost like the impression her finger would make if she pushed it into hot wax. She laid her palm flat over the ugly mark, almost expecting it to be warmer than the smooth skin that surrounded it. Without thinking twice, she shifted, moved her hand away from the awful scar, and leaned in to place a gentle kiss on the ridges of scar tissue.
It wasn’t until she pulled back a little, glanced up toward his face, that Sarah realized he’d been awake all along, watching her, letting her do whatever she was going to do. He’d given no indication, not by a change in his breathing, not by a quickening of his pulse. Unnerved, she tried to push away from him and sit up, but Kyle stopped her, closing his fingers around her wrist.
“Don’t.” Just one word, no qualifier. Not “don’t stop,” not “don’t touch me,” just “don’t.”
“I… didn’t mean to wake you.” She wanted to pull her wrist from his grip, but she didn’t. Instead she held herself very still, as one might when faced with a wild and dangerous animal. What the hell is wrong with you, Sarah? You just fucked him and now you’re afraid of him?
“You didn’t wake me.” Kyle must have seen some of the growing fear in her eyes; his grip loosened, although he didn’t release her. “I meant, don’t stop what you were doing.” His eyes glittered in the splash of moonlight across the bed, slipping through the small gap between the curtains. “It… felt good.”
And just like that, the uncertainty in Kyle’s voice, the way he drew her hand back to the nasty scar on his chest, put Sarah at ease again. Since she no longer worried about waking him, she stroked the scar. “So much pain,” she whispered, repeating the words she’d said to him hours before.
“Not when you do that.” His voice sounded different and she looked up at him, saw the beginnings of a smile stretch his lips. Sarah smiled back and kissed the scar again.
“How did you get it?”
“I didn’t move fast enough.”
-+X|X+-
II. Sarah/Derek
She hadn’t gone to bed yet, too keyed up to bother. Instead, Sarah sat in the dark at the kitchen table, a cup of tea between her hands, long since cooled, and did her best to not think. It was a luxury she wouldn’t normally allow herself, but right now it was either turn her brain off for a little while or lose control of it entirely. Sleep would be better, but sleep was elusive.
Reese shifted on the couch in the living room, the sound no longer alien to her, simply blending into the night amidst the whir of the fan in the refrigerator, the creak of the bones of the house settling on its foundation, the song of the cricket that had taken up residence in the garage.
Derek Reese, soldier from the future, connected to her and to John in ways he couldn’t understand, no matter that he was Kyle’s brother. There was no softness in Derek Reese, no kindness, only violence, harsh and deadly even if contained. And yet he was still Kyle’s brother; she had no proof save his word, but she knew it was the truth.
She took a sip of room-temperature tea. A low moan drifted to her ears from the living room, followed by a muffled, “No.” The sound of something striking the coffee table brought her to her feet.
From the kitchen doorway through the dining room, Sarah saw Reese thrash around on the couch, locked in the grip of a nightmare. She hesitated, knowing that if she tried to wake him he’d likely lash out at her, but then he sat abruptly upright, looked around the dimly lit room with something like fear.
As Sarah watched, Reese swung his bare feet to the floor and scrubbed his hands over his face. He shook his head and stood and Sarah took a step backward into the kitchen. A moment later she heard him pad into the bathroom, his footsteps soon followed by the flush of the toilet. She expected him to return to the living room, but instead she heard the front door click softly shut.
On impulse, she followed, but before she reached the hallway, she turned back and opened the refrigerator, pulling out two bottles of beer. She couldn’t sleep and now, apparently, neither could Reese. A beer might help them both.
When she passed Cameron’s room, she glimpsed the Tin Miss through the open door, standing at the far window facing outward, a silent and motionless sentinel. She turned her head toward Sarah, made note of her presence before returning her attention to the night and Sarah moved on.
Under a sky that glittered with stars, Derek swayed slowly on a swing; his weight made the chains creak rhythmically with the movement. Sarah closed the door behind her, but didn’t immediately move to join him, watching him instead. His head was tilted back to look up at the stars. Moonlight limned his sleep-tousled hair in a silvery glow. The line of his back was tense.
“You can go back inside. I’m fine.”
Rather than leave, Sarah walked down the steps to the grass, continued to the swing set and took a seat on the second swing. The chains were cool and slightly damp against her skin. Derek looked over at her, but said nothing more and she offered him one of the unopened bottles.
He looked down at it, then back up at her. Reaching over, he took both from her hands and in one swift motion had the caps off both, using one on the other for leverage. Wordlessly, he handed one newly opened bottle back to her and then took a pull from his, looking back up at the stars. Sarah did the same, the beer foaming a bit at the back of her throat as she swallowed, relaxing for the first time that day, Derek by her side. For a brief span, she could pretend that all was right with the world.
-+X|X+-
III. John/Riley
“Riley.”
She looked up at the sound of her name, her eyes lighting on John. Not that there was anyone else around just then who could have spoken. Her head tilted to one side and her eyes narrowed, a small wrinkle forming between her brows. With an unconscious motion John had seen a hundred times, she pushed her long hair, dirtier and messier than he’d ever seen it, away from her face.
“Do I know you?”
“Uh…” Not the most eloquent reply John could have made, but no actual words seemed capable of pushing past the blockage that was his tongue.
Riley straightened from her crouch and turned to face John, her posture wary. His gaze flickered to the large canvas sack on the floor and Riley stepped between him and the sack, one hand behind her and he knew she was poised to grab the sack and run if he showed any sign of being a threat.
He held up his hands and grinned sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to startle you,” he began, but she didn’t let him continue.
“How do you know my name?”
Responses sped through his brain, considered and rejected in microseconds, until finally he settled on, “I guess I just heard someone talking to you?” Grinning at her again, he ran a hand up over his head down to the back of his neck. “That is your name, though, right? Riley?”
She still looked suspicious, but not quite as wary as a moment before. On impulse, John held out his hand. “I’m John. John Connor.”
Blinking rapidly, frowning, she stared at his hand. Smiling a bit nervously, John took a step closer, hand still outstretched. He was just about to drop it and move on when her eyes met his and she tentatively closed her fingers around his hand. John looked down at their joined hands, momentarily startled to see the unmarred smoothness of her wrist. He ran his thumb lightly across the soft skin.
A sharp intake of breath made him look up again. Her eyes were wide, but she didn’t pull away. For the first time it sank indelibly into John’s brain that this was not the Riley he knew. This Riley hadn’t tried to kill herself. Maybe this time, he could keep her safe.
-+X|X+-
IV. John/Allison
John was already out the door of the almost-closet he’d taken for his own, dust raining down on his head from a nearby explosion. In the corridor, a woman shoved past him, following the mass exodus of civilians deeper into the bunker where the walls were thicker, the reinforced ceilings less likely to collapse on their heads. Another explosion rumbled in the distance and the lights flickered. Something crashed to the ground behind him.
“John!”
At the sound of his name, he turned. And froze. His sense of time’s passing slowed to a crawl and the sounds of more explosions were muffled by the roaring in his ears.
Cameron stood in the doorway, blood trickling from a wound on her forehead into her right eye. She blinked it away in slow motion. Equally slowly, she raised her right hand; John’s eyes tracked the movement, locked onto the pistol she held aimed at him, at his head. Her lips moved, but her words made no sense. Frowning, she took a step toward him and then another and he stumbled backward until his back hit the opposite wall.
Another explosion, this one right overhead, and the lights went out. The only illumination came from a junction twenty feet away where lights plugged into a different generator still worked. John’s heart pumped adrenaline-filled blood in a rush through his veins as Cameron took yet another step toward him; he couldn’t pull his gaze away from the gun.
“John, you might need this?” she said, her tone simultaneously puzzled and annoyed. Abruptly, sound and sight washed over him in a flood as time resumed its normal pace.
Allison, living, breathing resistance fighter. Not Cameron, implacable, glitching Terminator.
With her free hand Allison swiped at the blood that still dripped into her eye. “What the fuck, John?” She shoved the butt of the weapon into his stomach. “Take the gun. We have to get moving.” Annoyed and in a hurry she might be, but she still kissed him, nipped at his lower lip before running toward the still-lit junction, pulling her own gun from her belt.
-+X|X+-
V. John/Kate
“Okay, let’s see what we have here.”
John looked up as a woman, her red hair pulled back into a no-nonsense ponytail, slung a bag to the ground and followed it down to crouch beside John. He started to shift closer to one wall to give her more room in the cramped setting, but she put a hand on his leg and said, “You’re fine where you are. I don’t want you moving until I know what I’m dealing with.”
She reached into her bag and pulled out a flashlight, then tilted John’s head this way and that, shining the light into his eyes. Satisfied with whatever she saw there, she switched off the light and returned it to her bag, leaving only the light from the bulbs hanging from wires overhead for whatever else she needed to do. Gently she turned his head toward the left for a closer look at the deep gash on his cheek and John studied her in turn.
Pale skin and green eyes, fine lines at their corners, John thought she might be anywhere from twenty-five to forty-five and that she looked vaguely familiar. Something about her reminded him of his mother and he wasn’t sure if that was creepy or comforting.
“This’ll need a stitch or two,” she informed him, frowning as she looked down at his shirt, her gaze drawn there when she’d leaned back and the overhead light had caught at the blood soaked into the folds of his black t-shirt. “No one mentioned you were seriously injured.”
“This? Why, ‘tis just a flesh wound,” he said in his best John Cleese imitation, which was completely ruined when the effort induced a coughing fit that ended in a low moan of pain. He wanted to curl in on himself, but knew that if he did he’d only cause himself even more pain. Instead, looking up at his red-haired doctor, he grinned at the odd look on her face. “Sorry. I guess it didn’t sound much like Monty Python.”
Grasping the hem of his shirt with one hand and John’s shoulder with the other, she pulled the shirt quickly over his head, pulling him toward her, his back away from the wall as she did so. “I don’t think I look much like the Black Knight, so that’s okay.” She maneuvered him gently until he was lying flat on the floor. She shouted over her shoulder, “Sayles! I need a bucket of clean water and some towels!”
A man ran over to them a moment later with two grayish towels and a small bucket. “Here you go, Kate.” When he saw the blood seeping from John’s stomach, he followed up with, “Do you need me to stay?” Even as he asked this, John heard a man yelling for Sayles; he thought it sounded like Derek, but it might have been Kyle. Feeling woozy, John closed his eyes and tried to keep the pain at bay.
“No, you go ahead. We should be fine on our own.”
John heard the shuffle of boots in dirt and debris and then the sound of water dripping. A moment later, Kate carefully washed the blood from his stomach, where a T-101 had shot him a couple of hours ago. Lucky for him he’d been the only one in his team injured and they were able to get him back here where he could receive something that at least resembled medical attention. He’d heard the closest thing they had to a doctor was a former veterinarian; he guessed that must be his Kate. She rinsed out the towel and began to wipe the blood from his face.
It took him a few seconds to realize it when she stopped. It took him another second or two to open his eyes. Kate knelt beside him, stared down at him, her head blocking out enough of the overhead light that he didn’t immediately have to close his eyes against it. Because she was backlit, he couldn’t read the expression on her face.
“Problem?” he asked. It worried him that she didn’t answer right away. Nor did she move. And there was the bleeding that may have slowed, but it hadn’t stopped. “Kate?”
“John Connor,” she whispered. “It’s not possible…”
He blinked, surprised. “Do you know me?” He’d been here for weeks and no one had ever heard of John Connor.
“That’s your name? John Connor?”
“Yeah, I’m John Connor.”
Kate shook her head almost violently, sending her ponytail flying, whispered something else too low for John to hear.
“I’m sorry?” he asked as she rooted around in her bag.
Pausing, she glanced up at him. “I said it must have been your father.” She looked back down, began to pull things - knife, needle, thread, a small bottle of some clear liquid - from the bag. “I think I knew your father, back before Judgment Day. We went to high school together.”
Something cold and high octane splashed over his wounded stomach and John’s muscles spasmed, his back arched and he grabbed instinctively for the nearest thing at hand - Kate’s knee. Kate Brewster’s knee.
The last time he’d touched her knee had been in Mike Kripke’s basement. For Kate, it had been thirty years ago; for John, only a couple. He’d jumped over most of the years Kate had lived through. She knew him, but she didn’t know him. And he couldn’t explain.
As the pain dissipated somewhat, he looked up at Kate, watched her thread the needle and then soak that, too, in the alcohol. “Yeah,” he said, closing his eyes again. “You must’ve known my father.”