(Untitled)

[stayastranger]

It wasn't that Sarah ever completely forgot that she had been a spy; it was that, from time to time, she needed to remind herself she still was. The instincts never died and she continued her private routines, kept in shape and kept the secrets she needed to in order to protect the people she loved, but there would be moments in her day, more than

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[knowthyexits]

Sarah's been scouting out places to sleep. She's still healing, but she can make it so the limp doesn't restrict her and now she has to set to a task. Even if John isn't here, she needs to protect him with her life, which means that she needs to find some kind of base in society and figure out the whispers of the place.

When she walks past the recreation room, she stops in her tracks when the screen pulls her in. Footage? Not of here, though. But of somewhere and Sarah's been looking for footage to figure out how she got here and how she stops herself from being followed while she finds her way out. She watches it loop, but the woman in front of it doesn't seem to be turning it off. "Are you sure you want to watch that again?" Sarah calls out, voice even and quiet.

[stayastranger]

Sarah's breath catches in her throat as she looks up and over her shoulder, tensing instinctively. She notices herself doing it and, just as fast, adjusts, drawing in on herself, hands twisting nervously together, eyes widening.

"I don't even know what it is," she says, a hitch in her voice, bewildered. At least it's quieter here in the rec center, but she doesn't even know how this is possible, the television console too old to have the right technology. It's this place. "I guess I thought it might start making sense if I let it run." Even as she says it, she steps forward to fumble at the camera, finding the switch to turn it off with visibly shaking hands. She perfected the lost and innocent look long ago.

[knowthyexits]

Sarah advances to try and help taking it down. One little trick to being a by-product of a time jump means that she understands things a lot older than she should. "I'm still surprised every time I pass this place," she admits, leaning over to slowly remember how to thread the film and to take it out once it's off. "These old things seem to have stood the test of time here." She peers up through the machine at the other woman, wondering what that film was.

[stayastranger]

Looking up, expression faintly grateful for the change in subject, Sarah nods. As much as she would like to fling the camera to the floor and destroy every last trace of that night, stamp on the tape within until there's nothing left of it, the violent outburst would do nothing to serve the image she's weaving of a girl upset and confused. Instead she holds it against her with one hand as she collapses the tripod.

"Even though the place itself is new," she says, nodding, an attempt at politeness, the effort to speak evenly audible. "It just... showed up last year. It's so... This whole place..."

[knowthyexits]

"Is strange?" Sarah offers her own version of that sentence, completing it the best way she knows how. Sarah's lived with strange, she is strange and she still can't find any sense in this place, but that's okay if she can't find any metal either. She's not looking forward to the day when this temporary peace ends. "Are you okay?" she asks, glad to have something to focus on that isn't physical pain or the emotional wound that's slowly growing as each day passes and she doesn't know where John is.

[stayastranger]

Sarah nods, a small, self-effacing smile on her lips - strange is such a small word for this place, but there's none better - but it fades and she shakes her head instead. "I'm fine," she says, glancing back at the blank screen, "I'm... I'll be fine. Just, that video, it... looked real." It's unnerving, seeing someone die like that, whether through the eyes of a civilian or a first kill. Even talking to this woman she doesn't know, focused on preserving her cover, Sarah can't stop seeing it, cycling through her mind. "I'm sorry, I don't even know you and I'm... I'm Sarah."

[knowthyexits]

"Funny, so am I." She quirks the corner of her lips up at that. "Sarah Baum," she introduces herself with a nod of her head, saying a name that's been hers ever since she went from 1999 to 2007. "That video looked pretty disturbing," she agrees, her arms crossed tightly over her torso as she looks at the other woman. "Was that woman a clone? I've heard people talking about them..." And Sarah isn't sure she trusts that to be on the level, not with Skynet's ability to build machines in the image of people.

[stayastranger]

"I - I don't know," Sarah says, that stricken look crossing her face again, gaze never wavering. Looking away tends to be a tell, one she's erased from her physical vocabulary. "She must have been. I've never even held a gun, I hate them." It's distressing, to be sure, though probably, she figures, more confusing than hurtful when it comes to the cover; it can't possibly hurt as much as knowing she did pull that trigger.

[knowthyexits]

And here Sarah is wishing that she'd managed to bring her gun with her. She barely recalls, but she thinks that Felicia must have taken it. She's slowly piecing together everything that happened and she remembers Reese and another man and Felicia...

"What is it you do, Sarah?" she asks, not wanting to pry, but not wanting to walk away without learning anything more.

[stayastranger]

She clutches the camera down near her waist, and this time, when she tries for a smile, she pulls it off. It's shaky, but there. "Not much anymore," she admits. "I work in the IPD office. Filing and things like that. Have you been here long?" The work isn't as useful as she'd once thought it might be, but it fills time and she's come to find she doesn't really mind it.

[knowthyexits]

"Not very," Sarah admits, still honest and knowing that the more she tells the truth, the less likely she is to forget things. "I wound up near the beach and I've been trying to get my footing ever since. Some days are better than others," she admits warily, rubbing a hand up and down her bicep slowly. "Don't suppose you could walk me through some history of this place?"

[stayastranger]

The question is unexpected, but Sarah feels she understands. She's felt so lost here, too, no acting necessary, seizing at anything that could help her figure the place out and understand it. If she can help someone else and forget she saw this in the process, she's glad to, even if she's only projecting.

"Of course," she says. "What I know, at least, I'd be glad to. There are people who got here as long as... almost five year ago now, I think, but there were people here before that, all gone when they got here. We don't know who they were, but that seems to be how everything got here."

[knowthyexits]

"Five years?" Sarah asks, shock slowly claiming her expression. It's not that the length of time scares her so much as the short history. "So there's no record of this place or the people here before that? What year is it now?" she asks. She's asked others, but she wants several opinions because people seem to be coming from all over. That, to her, says there has to be some time displacement machines working around here somewhere.

[stayastranger]

"2010. I think. It was 2008 when I got here," Sarah says, "and that was a year and a half ago, but 2010 seems to be the consensus. As for records... there are journals." Her voices goes up at the end, half a question, but there's a quality to her of hopefulness, wanting to please, to be useful. "They're mostly scientific, I think - observations about the plants, the animals, the dinosaurs and all. I'm not sure if there's anything else. "

[knowthyexits]

So Sarah's managed to skip through time again. Only two years this time around which is less troubling, but still just as puzzling because she can't remember what happened and that doesn't bode well. "2008 for me, too. November," she provides, as if that's somehow going to help when she doubts that it'll do much at all. "I guess I'm just concerned about the history," she admits. "I don't like not knowing."

She glances up at the other Sarah for a moment, trying to figure out if she's telling too much, but she hasn't given away anything too personal.

[stayastranger]

"October," Sarah offers with a small, sympathetic smile, nodding. "I know what you mean. The not knowing is difficult. It's so easy to feel so lost here without any answers. But the people are really so wonderful." It's the only selling point this place has that she can cop to, anyway. Even if, for her, it's mostly the same people as she had at home, she has something different here, something better.