Yuletide Reveal! All My Uphill Clawing (Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles, het, NC-17)
Title: All My Uphill Clawing
Author: Pouncer
Fandom: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Rating: NC-17
Category: het, first time, angst
Pairing: Sarah Connor/Derek Reese
Spoilers through the end of the second season. The majority of the action takes place between 2x04 Alison from Palmdale and 2x05 Goodbye to All That.
Summary: Derek is harsher than Kyle, or maybe Kyle was only gentle with her. 2455 words.
For Eldee in Yuletide 2010.
As originally posted on the Archive of Our Own
All My Uphill Clawing
by Pouncer
"Come with me if you want to live."
It begins in terror and confusion, explosions and fire. Sarah cowers, knowing death nears, but instead a savior approaches and holds out his hand.
She never wants to let go.
* * *
After the factory, after she destroyed a Terminator and lost the man she loved, Sarah runs. She prepares, she plans, she begins to move and she hasn't stopped since.
Even a jump eight years into the future doesn't make her feel secure.
* * *
She sees a ghost over his shoulder from the moment he tells her his name. "Reese boys," summons his brother Kyle from her memory. Sarah thinks of John and his hunger for family and knows she cannot leave Derek Reese in prison, T-888 or not.
She has her own Terminator to put forth in battle.
* * *
Months later, a new house, and a hint to the meaning of three bloody dots takes them east on a trail of whispers and shadows.
John and Cameron stay back, despite Sarah's instinctive desire to keep her son close. He's chafing at her protection, and Cameron seems to have recovered from the explosion that reverted her to a killing machine instead of a protector. They'll be okay so long John doesn't bring any other strange girls home.
After the scare over Kacy's baby, still unborn but due soon, Sarah can't help but remember the reality of her pregnancy. How much she wished Kyle was there with her.
Derek is harsher than Kyle, or maybe Kyle was only gentle with her. She'd been so scared, her safe world tumbled around and not yet come to rest.
* * *
The road stretches before them, headlights illuminating yellow stripes on black pavement. The shadows of rumor hadn't survived investigation -- another dead end.
Sarah sits in the passenger seat of the SUV, gazing into the darkness. Desert sands would reach to the horizon if the sun were up. The terrain would be familiar, known and traversed and almost comfortable.
Night makes everything strange.
Kyle told her they laid low during the day, moved around at night. For all that Sarah's learned, she still can't twist her thinking to suit the war after Judgment Day.
The stars are brilliant, away from the glow of cities.
"We should stop." Derek breaks the silence, and Sarah's head jerks sideways, a twitch reaction engaged without thought.
"I want to get back to John," she says, automatically. Derek's wrists are silhouetted against the steering wheel, backlit by the dash. Tendons shift as he adjusts their course.
"John is fine. He or the metal would have called if something happened."
Sarah knows how much Derek hates Cameron, how little he trusts her. And normally Derek listens to Sarah's orders, no matter how much he objects or tries to talk her out of them. In the end, he obeys. This must be different.
"Are you tired?" she asks.
"I am tired," he says. "So are you." A glimpse of his eyes shows more lines than usual. "There was a sign for a motel, should be coming up soon. We'll stop."
Sarah thinks about arguing, but Derek isn't wrong about her fatigue.
* * *
The motel is kitschy, a throwback to the fifties with a neon sign advertising "Vacancy." They get one room, two beds, and raid the vending machine for snacks.
Sarah feels frustration bubbling up now that they're no longer moving. Another thread followed through a labyrinth, another blind alley that won't avert Judgment Day. She keeps thinking about the other times they've tried: Cyberdyne Systems, Andy Goode and the Turk. Thinks about the lives lost in those attempts.
Kyle's face swims up from the depths of her memory, so briefly known and yet so beloved. For years, he'd been her lodestar, guiding her actions as she raised John. She never doubted, never could doubt with her mother and friends dead along with the other women who shared her name.
Vivid flashes of the Terminator she destroyed sometimes overwhelm her, even as the actinic flare of blooming mushroom clouds lurk to terrify her more.
Derek carried their bags into the room, muscles lifting and releasing with ease. Now he rustles among the chip selection then pulls a bottle from his duffle.
"Drink?" he asks. It's vodka.
Sarah wants to forget.
"Sure," she replies, and goes to get ice.
* * *
Making conversation with Derek is always difficult. Sarah has lost the knack of easy banter, back and forth, unless she's waitressing, but talking with him makes her even more awkward.
Both of them are unmoored, washed out to sea and trying to find their way back to shore.
Derek sits with his back against the headboard of the bed closest to the door. His legs are stretched out, feet bare. His second toe is longer than his big toe, like Roman statues in the one art appreciation course she took before her world imploded.
Sarah stakes out the bed nearer the bathroom. The ice bucket and vodka are on the table in between them.
Tattoos climb like vines up Derek's arms.
She might as well ask. "What's it like for you? Back years and knowing what's coming?"
Derek snorts. "Strange. I was a teenager, when the bombs fell, so I kind of knew what we'd lost. Kyle," Derek pauses and drinks more vodka. He goes for straight over ice. His thumb rubs up and down against the condensation on the glass. "Kyle was too young to remember a lot of it. Or maybe kids are just more adaptable."
Sarah smiles a little ruefully. "John was adaptable, but he didn't like it." She swirls her drink, liquid rising up the glass toward the edge. "We moved a lot."
"Why?"
Sarah forgets that he doesn't know the whole story. Derek's only experienced months since Kyle travelled to the past. Every time Sarah looks at her son, she recalls days and years since his father died. So she tells Derek what happened -- bare outlines and omitting the love that blossomed -- but he deserves this story.
"He saved me," she concludes. "And I couldn't betray that gift by pretending it never happened. I had to prepare. Myself, John --" Sarah drinks more. Her muscles have loosened, her inhibitions lowered, but she's not even close to tipsy.
"And now you try to save the world," Derek says. She wishes she could read his tone, figure out if he's being ironic or sincere or doubtful. His face is smooth, his head tipped back revealing a long line of throat and a chin and jaw that are achingly familiar.
"And now we try to save the world," she says.
Time to sleep. She puts her glass down, then stands. Derek looks up, a quick glance he can't suppress. Combat nerves, Sarah thinks, and wants to put them aside, even if only for one moment. One hour, one night. No place is ever safe, but constant vigilance kills the soul as surely as the machines will slaughter mankind.
Derek's fingers reach out to encircle her wrist. Clocks must have stopped ticking. Sarah looks at the garish carpet, wants to pull away, but can't make herself move.
His fingers stroke the soft flesh inside her forearm. Sarah knows veins run along her bone, showing blue against pale skin.
"Yes or no?" Derek says, and Sarah realizes she doesn't want to say no. Crazy and irresponsible as this is, she wants to explore the ink that decorates him. She wants to find out how his toned muscles feel. She pivots to face him, leans down.
The kiss is savage. Heat flares between them with the intensity of phosphorus in air.
Sarah needs to get closer. She swings her leg around and straddles Derek. His hand comes to rest on her hips, and she places hers on his shoulders.
"God," he mutters. She bites at his lips.
The line of his clavicle draws her fingers. Sarah scratches through his t-shirt. More skin. She wants to feel the heat of him, the flesh and blood reality.
His arms raise obligingly, as do hers when he strips her tank top off. She leans back, scratches down his torso, pleased at the way his stomach tenses. Then he leans forward and uses teeth on her nipple, and all she can do is moan.
Her hips have started twitching, rubbing against the bulge at his groin. He's stroking her shoulders. Sarah tilts her weight back into Derek's hands, loses herself in sensation.
Shivers run up and down her spine. She wants more. Breaking away, Derek only needs her fingers to move to his jeans button to understand. "I'll do mine," he says. "You do yours. Faster."
It is. Sarah mouths at the characters running down his sternum. Her fingers drag against the raised scar tissue on the other side of his chest. Derek's hands are running up and down her side, cupping her ass, touching her everywhere he can reach.
Next she knows, he's flipped them, is kissing her again, and his fingers move between her legs. Sarah can't stop the jerk of her hips. "More," she says, and pants for air. Derek really does take direction well. When she applies pressure to his shoulders, he moves down immediately.
The feel of his tongue on her clitoris is heaven.
He's good with his body in other ways. She shouldn't be surprised he's good at this too. He licks and sucks and presses inside. All thought melts away.
The tension spirals higher and higher. Sarah's rolling her hips up, desperate for more. Her feet brace against the bed, knees flexed for more leverage. Derek's arm comes across her pelvis to hold her down, and the universe explodes.
He doesn't stop.
The noises she makes are too inchoate and broken to be moans.
Eventually, Sarah gasps for air, twitches away and onto her side, over-sensitized. She breathes, eyes closed. Derek moves behind her, caresses her arms with soothing motions. The heat of him is a furnace. His cock nestles into the crease where her ass meets her legs, hard and perfect.
Languor steals across her body for a few moments, but Sarah isn't done. Isn't sated. She turns over, kisses Derek while sliding her wetness along the length of his cock. Her hands pull him closer, and his groans are music. He palms her ass, and for a second she thinks about taking him like this, on their sides.
She does. Derek's head snaps back and his teeth bite at his bottom lip. Sarah draws her leg up to his ribs, pulses her hips teasingly. He feels incredible inside her. She clenches down, rocks shallowly, relishing the sounds from Derek's throat.
He pants, his mouth reaching forward. She makes sure this kiss is slow, almost gentle. He wants more, she knows. Wants to thrust fast and hard and fuck her.
That'll come later. When she's ready.
Sarah keeps him like that, trembling and desperate, until she feels desire rise again.
"Now," she says into his ear. "However you want me."
Derek keens, pulls back to look at her face, as if to confirm what she said. He leans forward, kisses her again, deep. He's stronger than she is, so she shouldn't be surprised at how quickly he moves. Her belly hits the sheets and her fingers flex. He folds her legs underneath her, lifts her, shoves back in. Sarah groans. This angle is more intense, or maybe it's the pace he sets, fast and hard.
Air cools her back, dries sweat on her neck, and all she can do is hang on.
Derek shifts more of his weight forward. He leans down to nibble at the juncture where her neck meets her shoulders, traces the line with his tongue. All the while, he's thrusting, rubbing against a place inside her that dissolves the world.
A soundtrack of the night would have broken moans, half-curses, calls for more in voices that are harsh and low.
His pace increases. Another orgasm breaks over Sarah, and she shudders as Derek fucks her through it. He finishes with rough lunges, then collapses on top of her.
She's lost in the aftermath, still shaking. Nerves fire randomly up and down her body.
After a timeless interval, they resettle. Sarah's too relaxed to protest when Derek holds her close, when he kisses the top of her head.
Sleep takes them both.
* * *
She dreams of Kyle. That shadowy motel room where he taught her how to make plastique and she catalogued the scars he earned fighting the machines. She'd been innocent then, weak and soft. It was a marvel that she'd survived after Kyle fell. In her dream, he doesn't. They triumph together and kiss over the wreck of the Terminator.
* * *
Possibilities in the night become bad ideas in the light of day.
She wakes and showers while Derek curls, still dozing, into the warmth of her vacant spot on the bed.
Dressed again, she gathers her things. He stirs and watches her with lazy eyes. The sheet is low on Derek's hips. He's gorgeous.
Physical hunger doesn't mean anything. Can't mean anything.
"This isn't going to happen again," Sarah tells Derek, then leaves the room with her bag.
* * *
Through all that happens after -- through surprise trips to Mexico, family counseling sessions with Dr. Sherman, Dakara System's scam, Alan Park's saga of metallurgy and his murder -- through it all Sarah won't give into passion again. Even when Kyle's spirit or at least her memory of him guides her through the agonizing fever dream while a bullet is lodged in her thigh, she won't let herself feel more than she has to. Pain can be endured. Emotions are fatal. Derek helps her there, guards John, and then life spirals into even more craziness.
Derek tells her the future has changed, knows it because Jesse "Wasn't my Jesse." They experienced different events and remember different people.
Sarah knew they could change the future. She kept it as a mantra sometimes: No fate but what we make for ourselves. Judgment Day was pushed back. She didn't die of cancer.
Nothing about their life is normal.
Except for the possibility of swift death. When Sarah finds Derek, a bullet hole above his eyes, she wants to weep but all her tears have already fallen and dried.
There isn't time. There's never enough time.
* * *
When John returns to her, a little harder, a little older in the face, wearing ill-fitting clothes and dirty from the tunnels of the future, he brings two others. Her eyes don't leave her son for long seconds, drinking in his presence.
One of the men moves sideways, and it is Derek. Alive and familiar.
The second man clears his throat, as if in startlement. She looks over. She sees Kyle.
- end -
Notes: Title from the Iron and Wine song The Trapeze Swinger. I'm so grateful for the excuse to revisit one of my favorite fictional universes, and to the efforts of my lovely beta readers, Auburn, Elishavah, and Plum.
Disclaimer: One day Skynet will kill us all, and I'll blame James Cameron and Josh Friedman.
Author: Pouncer
Fandom: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Rating: NC-17
Category: het, first time, angst
Pairing: Sarah Connor/Derek Reese
Spoilers through the end of the second season. The majority of the action takes place between 2x04 Alison from Palmdale and 2x05 Goodbye to All That.
Summary: Derek is harsher than Kyle, or maybe Kyle was only gentle with her. 2455 words.
For Eldee in Yuletide 2010.
As originally posted on the Archive of Our Own
All My Uphill Clawing
by Pouncer
"Come with me if you want to live."
It begins in terror and confusion, explosions and fire. Sarah cowers, knowing death nears, but instead a savior approaches and holds out his hand.
She never wants to let go.
* * *
After the factory, after she destroyed a Terminator and lost the man she loved, Sarah runs. She prepares, she plans, she begins to move and she hasn't stopped since.
Even a jump eight years into the future doesn't make her feel secure.
* * *
She sees a ghost over his shoulder from the moment he tells her his name. "Reese boys," summons his brother Kyle from her memory. Sarah thinks of John and his hunger for family and knows she cannot leave Derek Reese in prison, T-888 or not.
She has her own Terminator to put forth in battle.
* * *
Months later, a new house, and a hint to the meaning of three bloody dots takes them east on a trail of whispers and shadows.
John and Cameron stay back, despite Sarah's instinctive desire to keep her son close. He's chafing at her protection, and Cameron seems to have recovered from the explosion that reverted her to a killing machine instead of a protector. They'll be okay so long John doesn't bring any other strange girls home.
After the scare over Kacy's baby, still unborn but due soon, Sarah can't help but remember the reality of her pregnancy. How much she wished Kyle was there with her.
Derek is harsher than Kyle, or maybe Kyle was only gentle with her. She'd been so scared, her safe world tumbled around and not yet come to rest.
* * *
The road stretches before them, headlights illuminating yellow stripes on black pavement. The shadows of rumor hadn't survived investigation -- another dead end.
Sarah sits in the passenger seat of the SUV, gazing into the darkness. Desert sands would reach to the horizon if the sun were up. The terrain would be familiar, known and traversed and almost comfortable.
Night makes everything strange.
Kyle told her they laid low during the day, moved around at night. For all that Sarah's learned, she still can't twist her thinking to suit the war after Judgment Day.
The stars are brilliant, away from the glow of cities.
"We should stop." Derek breaks the silence, and Sarah's head jerks sideways, a twitch reaction engaged without thought.
"I want to get back to John," she says, automatically. Derek's wrists are silhouetted against the steering wheel, backlit by the dash. Tendons shift as he adjusts their course.
"John is fine. He or the metal would have called if something happened."
Sarah knows how much Derek hates Cameron, how little he trusts her. And normally Derek listens to Sarah's orders, no matter how much he objects or tries to talk her out of them. In the end, he obeys. This must be different.
"Are you tired?" she asks.
"I am tired," he says. "So are you." A glimpse of his eyes shows more lines than usual. "There was a sign for a motel, should be coming up soon. We'll stop."
Sarah thinks about arguing, but Derek isn't wrong about her fatigue.
* * *
The motel is kitschy, a throwback to the fifties with a neon sign advertising "Vacancy." They get one room, two beds, and raid the vending machine for snacks.
Sarah feels frustration bubbling up now that they're no longer moving. Another thread followed through a labyrinth, another blind alley that won't avert Judgment Day. She keeps thinking about the other times they've tried: Cyberdyne Systems, Andy Goode and the Turk. Thinks about the lives lost in those attempts.
Kyle's face swims up from the depths of her memory, so briefly known and yet so beloved. For years, he'd been her lodestar, guiding her actions as she raised John. She never doubted, never could doubt with her mother and friends dead along with the other women who shared her name.
Vivid flashes of the Terminator she destroyed sometimes overwhelm her, even as the actinic flare of blooming mushroom clouds lurk to terrify her more.
Derek carried their bags into the room, muscles lifting and releasing with ease. Now he rustles among the chip selection then pulls a bottle from his duffle.
"Drink?" he asks. It's vodka.
Sarah wants to forget.
"Sure," she replies, and goes to get ice.
* * *
Making conversation with Derek is always difficult. Sarah has lost the knack of easy banter, back and forth, unless she's waitressing, but talking with him makes her even more awkward.
Both of them are unmoored, washed out to sea and trying to find their way back to shore.
Derek sits with his back against the headboard of the bed closest to the door. His legs are stretched out, feet bare. His second toe is longer than his big toe, like Roman statues in the one art appreciation course she took before her world imploded.
Sarah stakes out the bed nearer the bathroom. The ice bucket and vodka are on the table in between them.
Tattoos climb like vines up Derek's arms.
She might as well ask. "What's it like for you? Back years and knowing what's coming?"
Derek snorts. "Strange. I was a teenager, when the bombs fell, so I kind of knew what we'd lost. Kyle," Derek pauses and drinks more vodka. He goes for straight over ice. His thumb rubs up and down against the condensation on the glass. "Kyle was too young to remember a lot of it. Or maybe kids are just more adaptable."
Sarah smiles a little ruefully. "John was adaptable, but he didn't like it." She swirls her drink, liquid rising up the glass toward the edge. "We moved a lot."
"Why?"
Sarah forgets that he doesn't know the whole story. Derek's only experienced months since Kyle travelled to the past. Every time Sarah looks at her son, she recalls days and years since his father died. So she tells Derek what happened -- bare outlines and omitting the love that blossomed -- but he deserves this story.
"He saved me," she concludes. "And I couldn't betray that gift by pretending it never happened. I had to prepare. Myself, John --" Sarah drinks more. Her muscles have loosened, her inhibitions lowered, but she's not even close to tipsy.
"And now you try to save the world," Derek says. She wishes she could read his tone, figure out if he's being ironic or sincere or doubtful. His face is smooth, his head tipped back revealing a long line of throat and a chin and jaw that are achingly familiar.
"And now we try to save the world," she says.
Time to sleep. She puts her glass down, then stands. Derek looks up, a quick glance he can't suppress. Combat nerves, Sarah thinks, and wants to put them aside, even if only for one moment. One hour, one night. No place is ever safe, but constant vigilance kills the soul as surely as the machines will slaughter mankind.
Derek's fingers reach out to encircle her wrist. Clocks must have stopped ticking. Sarah looks at the garish carpet, wants to pull away, but can't make herself move.
His fingers stroke the soft flesh inside her forearm. Sarah knows veins run along her bone, showing blue against pale skin.
"Yes or no?" Derek says, and Sarah realizes she doesn't want to say no. Crazy and irresponsible as this is, she wants to explore the ink that decorates him. She wants to find out how his toned muscles feel. She pivots to face him, leans down.
The kiss is savage. Heat flares between them with the intensity of phosphorus in air.
Sarah needs to get closer. She swings her leg around and straddles Derek. His hand comes to rest on her hips, and she places hers on his shoulders.
"God," he mutters. She bites at his lips.
The line of his clavicle draws her fingers. Sarah scratches through his t-shirt. More skin. She wants to feel the heat of him, the flesh and blood reality.
His arms raise obligingly, as do hers when he strips her tank top off. She leans back, scratches down his torso, pleased at the way his stomach tenses. Then he leans forward and uses teeth on her nipple, and all she can do is moan.
Her hips have started twitching, rubbing against the bulge at his groin. He's stroking her shoulders. Sarah tilts her weight back into Derek's hands, loses herself in sensation.
Shivers run up and down her spine. She wants more. Breaking away, Derek only needs her fingers to move to his jeans button to understand. "I'll do mine," he says. "You do yours. Faster."
It is. Sarah mouths at the characters running down his sternum. Her fingers drag against the raised scar tissue on the other side of his chest. Derek's hands are running up and down her side, cupping her ass, touching her everywhere he can reach.
Next she knows, he's flipped them, is kissing her again, and his fingers move between her legs. Sarah can't stop the jerk of her hips. "More," she says, and pants for air. Derek really does take direction well. When she applies pressure to his shoulders, he moves down immediately.
The feel of his tongue on her clitoris is heaven.
He's good with his body in other ways. She shouldn't be surprised he's good at this too. He licks and sucks and presses inside. All thought melts away.
The tension spirals higher and higher. Sarah's rolling her hips up, desperate for more. Her feet brace against the bed, knees flexed for more leverage. Derek's arm comes across her pelvis to hold her down, and the universe explodes.
He doesn't stop.
The noises she makes are too inchoate and broken to be moans.
Eventually, Sarah gasps for air, twitches away and onto her side, over-sensitized. She breathes, eyes closed. Derek moves behind her, caresses her arms with soothing motions. The heat of him is a furnace. His cock nestles into the crease where her ass meets her legs, hard and perfect.
Languor steals across her body for a few moments, but Sarah isn't done. Isn't sated. She turns over, kisses Derek while sliding her wetness along the length of his cock. Her hands pull him closer, and his groans are music. He palms her ass, and for a second she thinks about taking him like this, on their sides.
She does. Derek's head snaps back and his teeth bite at his bottom lip. Sarah draws her leg up to his ribs, pulses her hips teasingly. He feels incredible inside her. She clenches down, rocks shallowly, relishing the sounds from Derek's throat.
He pants, his mouth reaching forward. She makes sure this kiss is slow, almost gentle. He wants more, she knows. Wants to thrust fast and hard and fuck her.
That'll come later. When she's ready.
Sarah keeps him like that, trembling and desperate, until she feels desire rise again.
"Now," she says into his ear. "However you want me."
Derek keens, pulls back to look at her face, as if to confirm what she said. He leans forward, kisses her again, deep. He's stronger than she is, so she shouldn't be surprised at how quickly he moves. Her belly hits the sheets and her fingers flex. He folds her legs underneath her, lifts her, shoves back in. Sarah groans. This angle is more intense, or maybe it's the pace he sets, fast and hard.
Air cools her back, dries sweat on her neck, and all she can do is hang on.
Derek shifts more of his weight forward. He leans down to nibble at the juncture where her neck meets her shoulders, traces the line with his tongue. All the while, he's thrusting, rubbing against a place inside her that dissolves the world.
A soundtrack of the night would have broken moans, half-curses, calls for more in voices that are harsh and low.
His pace increases. Another orgasm breaks over Sarah, and she shudders as Derek fucks her through it. He finishes with rough lunges, then collapses on top of her.
She's lost in the aftermath, still shaking. Nerves fire randomly up and down her body.
After a timeless interval, they resettle. Sarah's too relaxed to protest when Derek holds her close, when he kisses the top of her head.
Sleep takes them both.
* * *
She dreams of Kyle. That shadowy motel room where he taught her how to make plastique and she catalogued the scars he earned fighting the machines. She'd been innocent then, weak and soft. It was a marvel that she'd survived after Kyle fell. In her dream, he doesn't. They triumph together and kiss over the wreck of the Terminator.
* * *
Possibilities in the night become bad ideas in the light of day.
She wakes and showers while Derek curls, still dozing, into the warmth of her vacant spot on the bed.
Dressed again, she gathers her things. He stirs and watches her with lazy eyes. The sheet is low on Derek's hips. He's gorgeous.
Physical hunger doesn't mean anything. Can't mean anything.
"This isn't going to happen again," Sarah tells Derek, then leaves the room with her bag.
* * *
Through all that happens after -- through surprise trips to Mexico, family counseling sessions with Dr. Sherman, Dakara System's scam, Alan Park's saga of metallurgy and his murder -- through it all Sarah won't give into passion again. Even when Kyle's spirit or at least her memory of him guides her through the agonizing fever dream while a bullet is lodged in her thigh, she won't let herself feel more than she has to. Pain can be endured. Emotions are fatal. Derek helps her there, guards John, and then life spirals into even more craziness.
Derek tells her the future has changed, knows it because Jesse "Wasn't my Jesse." They experienced different events and remember different people.
Sarah knew they could change the future. She kept it as a mantra sometimes: No fate but what we make for ourselves. Judgment Day was pushed back. She didn't die of cancer.
Nothing about their life is normal.
Except for the possibility of swift death. When Sarah finds Derek, a bullet hole above his eyes, she wants to weep but all her tears have already fallen and dried.
There isn't time. There's never enough time.
* * *
When John returns to her, a little harder, a little older in the face, wearing ill-fitting clothes and dirty from the tunnels of the future, he brings two others. Her eyes don't leave her son for long seconds, drinking in his presence.
One of the men moves sideways, and it is Derek. Alive and familiar.
The second man clears his throat, as if in startlement. She looks over. She sees Kyle.
- end -
Notes: Title from the Iron and Wine song The Trapeze Swinger. I'm so grateful for the excuse to revisit one of my favorite fictional universes, and to the efforts of my lovely beta readers, Auburn, Elishavah, and Plum.
Disclaimer: One day Skynet will kill us all, and I'll blame James Cameron and Josh Friedman.