[For Reese, Catherine, Charlie]

[skybot_snd]

He'd been in hibernation for a long time; longer than he ever had been. Possibly a full day, since there was light outside when he slowly drifted into wakefulness. There was light and it hurt, and he put his arm over his face, covering his eyes and shutting them tightly, trying to lessen the shock of it.

He was lying in a bed, curled up against the

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[9mmshotglass]

She had a sling. Reese knew that. She also knew sometimes she'd ooze through the bandages and straight through the nightshift she wore. She moved. She'd been moving for awhile, quietly telling a doctor (which one; blonde, brown hair, somewhere in between, she wasn't sure -- she promised, promised not to run...she was okay) she was going to see Austin. It took her a long, long time to work her way to the holding cell.

He was in a cage.

She was in. Inside. For a long moment she almost fell and her fingers found the edge of something solid and then she was sitting on the floor with the taste of his name on her lips. She wanted to touch him, to tell him everything was going to be fine (again) but she lay her cheek on the edge of the bed and just murmured uselessly.

[skybot_snd]

He'd stayed motionless for a while, not noting the passage of time. Not thinking. Disconnected. As disconnected as he could be without going... there.

He needed to stay, but just barely.

It was quiet, and it was almost... alright.

But then there was motion, and sound, and something connected with the side of his bed.

His eyes snapped open, and he was on his feet a second later, a surge of adrenaline shooting through his body because Reese was being stupid again, and somebody had been stupider by letting her walk to the cell.

She was hurt.

"Goddammit, Reese. What are you doing?" his voice was quiet but pressing, urgent. He kneeled down in front of her, trying to calculate a method of getting her onto the bed, which wasn't as straightforward in her condition, and with his arm in a sling. "Why aren't you in the clinic?"

[9mmshotglass]

"I'm not in the damned clinic because I came to see you, moron." There wasn't a shred of rancor, just the irritability that suggested he was just as stupid for thinking she was gonna stay away. "Kept trying to get my ass in here but I got stopped. Kinda pissed me off."

She closed her eyes for exactly two seconds and then rose carefully (with a great deal of difficulty) as she could before sitting on the edge of the bed, which she patted gently.

"Come sit with me. You gotta know some things, most of all, that you're still family. And I care what happens to you. And I forgive you."

[skybot_snd]

For a moment after she'd answered, he was breathing relief, because maybe she was broken, but she was still there. She was still Reese. She just needed to talk to the psychiatrists, to fix her issues, to be better. She needed it far more than he did, though he knew she'd also resist it more.

"You need to lean on something," he instructed as he sat down at her side, reaching out to guide her closer to the wall. She was using up too much energy keeping herself steady; energy she didn't have.

Then he tried to process what she'd said. He knew she meant it, even if he didn't understand why, still didn't understand why she didn't want to kill him.

"I'm sorry." She'd forgiven him but he had to say it. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you. I left because I didn't want to hurt you. I didn't-" but he couldn't really talk anymore, things didn't work out well when he talked too much, and he had to focus on breathing again, he wasn't breathing steadily, and his eyes stung

[pieta_md]

Catherine's knuckles hit the doorframe gently. "Hello there," she said, and with a quiet snap of her fingers to keep Valentine at the door (she liked the dog to be along when she gathered information), came inside. The truth was that despite however often anyone warned her about the people she was treating, about visiting Marv or Faith or the little girl with the teeth, she wasn't afraid anymore. Fear was counterproductive, even when you were dealing with a terminator.

"My name is Catherine, and I work with the psych department here," she said. "I've come to see how you're doing."

[skybot_snd]

Since Reese had left, he'd just been sitting there, being still. There was little else he could be, or needed to be.

He glanced up at the sound of the door opening, first making a visual scan of the woman, then of the dog. He was no longer instinctively wary of the species - they hadn't reacted negatively to him in this form - so he simply offered it a brief analytical glance before looking up again.

"I'm Austin," he replied, though he assumed she knew that already. Usually the answer to a 'how are you doing' query was brief and not entirely truthful, but Catherine probably required something more specific. "I don't know how to accurately define my condition. But please don't sedate me again." It hadn't hurt, or been particularly disruptive, not at the state he'd been in, but he generally resented any kind of unnatural interference with his body.

[pieta_md]

"As long as you don't do anything that requires me to sedate you, I won't," she said truthfully. "I operate on a platform of doing the least to restrict a patient's freedom as possible, but that's as long as it's safe to do so. But you're here because you injured someone, and it's not the first time we've had an incident like this here."

Catherine smiled quietly. "Not with you, of course. But because there's a precedent, safety is important. Do you feel like you're going to hurt anyone again?"

[skybot_snd]

"So this isn't the first time you've dealt with an insane terminator?" he raised his brow slightly. He didn't honestly consider himself insane, and the attempt at humor was entirely misplaced, but he didn't want to think directly back to injuring Reese, not right now, and this was enough of a momentary distraction. "That's good."

He looked away to consider her question. There were many interpretations to it, but she probably meant it in a specific manner, regarding potential violent incidents in the near-future. "I don't see why I would hurt anybody. I have no reason to."

[zenish_moment]

Crews had heard that the island had a jail. He'd also heard that it was tiny and more or less kept as a formality, but at the end of the day it was a jail, and one of his friends was being held in it.

For stabbing another one of his friends. In a moment that he knows is pure insanity, Charlie can't help thinking that part of this mess could have been prevented if Reese had been carrying a papaya.

When he finally gets up the courage to visit, Crews is not carrying a papaya. He is carrying Sarah, the panther cub he is currently babysitting. The cat is lolling in his arms, quite content, and he steels himself.

"Hi Austin."

[skybot_snd]

It had been a long day. The kind of day that could easily contain an entire existence. Maybe it had.

Reese had told him that she forgave him. That he was still family. Then she had said she'd be leaving home.

And if he wasn't technically insane, he was pretty sure he was close enough.

And maybe he was equally close to human, too. Maybe it was the same thing

[zenish_moment]

With a sigh Crews set Sarah down before he settled himself on the floor as well, back against the wall opposite the terminator, one kneee drawn up. The cat nuzzled him a moment before she began the prowl across the room (cell, he was in a cell he was) to her master.

Austin looked like a total wreck, but Crews knew there was no sense in pointing that out. There was, however, still sense in answering a direct question from a terminator, no matter how bad off it was. He closed his eyes and breathed.

"I don't want to hurt you," he replied quietly. "I'm not sure what I want right now but hurting you isn't it." He opened his eyes again and the corners of his mouth turned up just a fraction, a bare, sad smile. "You tired of people offerng to help yet?"

[skybot_snd]

He nodded at Charlie's words - there might have been relief, but he was too tired to sense it thoroughly - and repositioned himself to make it more comfortable for Sarah to climb onto him. She was obviously tired from the walk, but still managed to direct an affectionate bite to his wrist before settling down. He knew she'd meant it, because it hurt.

"I don't mind help." He could have probably used it earlier, before he'd - his breathing became flat again and he shut his eyes to level it, to focus and stop from going back. It had happened already. He couldn't change it. He could only try to fix things, to get better. He opened his eyes. "But Reese needs it more than I do