Title: Rising
Fandom: Terminator Salvation
Rating: M - MA
Author's Note: The aim was to write a little wish fulfilment ficlet to tide me over while I struggled with a longer fic that's got caught on its own plotholes. It's been such a long time since I wrote any fanfiction but this film got me oddly fired up, which is unfortunate given the amount of technical jargon required. This is something I pretty much wrote while procrastinating in work but if nothing else I hope it adds to the burgeoning volumes of TS stories and maybe someone will read it and be inspired to write a better story.
Characters/Pairings: Marcus/Blair
Warnings: Movie spoilers
Summary: Something happens before Marcus is buried.
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Blair watched from afar as Barnes and the Reese kid dug a hole in the dusty earth.
She felt too numb to be of any use to them. She'd kissed Marcus goodbye then stood by as Kate cut the flesh from his chest and blow-torched her way though his chest plate to his throbbing heart. She would always regret having stuck around for it, hating that that was to be her last image of him, but she'd wanted to be there in the end, when the heart was removed, and his death became final.
The little kid, Star, sat beside Blair. She had wandered away from the tents once Marcus had been put to sleep, dragging the bewildered teenager with her. She had been the one to select a site in the shade of a spiky acacia tree where they could lay him to rest.
Death was no stranger to Blair. She couldn't recall the number of fellow pilots she'd said goodbye to over the past few years. She'd like to think she'd gotten better at letting go but it had been so long since someone had gotten inside her like Marcus. Seeing him haul John Connor out of Skynet central was the happiest sight she'd ever seen. To lose him so quickly, it left her feeling beaten and raw.
After a while the two boys stopped digging and sat themselves on the edge of hole, in shared and reverent silence. Despite Barnes' initial hatred of the machine that thought it was a man, he'd been quick to help Kyle in this most human of rituals – returning a soul to the earth.
It was many hours after the operation began that Kate Connor emerged from the tent, pulling her blood stained gloves and gown off. She wiped sweat from her brow and groaned as she stretched her back.
Barnes was first to leap up; keen to know the outcome of the operation.
Kate met his eyes and smiled tiredly. "It was a success. He didn't reject the heart."
It was a small comfort to know that Marcus's sacrifice would not be for nothing, that they would have their leader back to full health soon.
Kate looked over the group, lingering on the forlorn-looking Kyle Reese before meeting Blair's eyes.
"You can take the body, now."
Blair entered the tent where they'd left Marcus's body. A bloody sheet was draped over the gaping cavity in his chest. Blair pulled back the sheet a little to see his face.
In her mind dead bodies were usually paler, but Marcus looked as though he was sleeping. She hesitantly touched his brow, running her fingertips along his eyebrow and temple. Her thumb touched his lips. He was cold, not icy, but cold like his skin had been that night in the desert. She wanted to go back to that night and do it over. This time she would be direct with him. She would slide her hands under his clothes and feel every inch of skin and make him do the same. She would take every pleasure and comfort she could from him, and show no restraint or reserve. And she would lead him far from Connor and the war and the machines. Find them a forest to hide in.
She was interrupted from her daydream when Barnes entered, carrying a black body bag. He surprised her by gently asking if she needed more time.
She shook her head and held her hand out for the body-bag. Together they wrestled the weighty cadaver into the plastic wrapping then used a stretcher to carry it outside.
Star was standing by the grave, clutching a bouquet of tall desert grass in her little hand. Kyle sat beside her, his long legs dangling into the grave. They both stared at the black body bag as Blair and Barnes lowered it to the ground beside them.
Blair hadn't thought much about the kids Marcus had been so intent on rescuing from Skynet but she knew she would do everything in her power to watch over them from now on. Star had been so calm up to now, not speaking a word, though that seemed to be the norm for her. So it was somewhat unnerving when she froze, an expression of intense alertness on her otherwise passive face.
Kyle noticed and began to look around in alarm. "Something's …" He began.
The something that Star had been alerted to happened in an instant.
The body-bag jerked and convulsed, then a gut-wrenching howl emerged and limbs began to flail against the thick black plastic.
They were all too shocked to move, but Kyle was first to crawl closer and pull the zip down.
Barnes had his gun out and ready as Marcus sat up gasping and choking. Still in convulsions, his chest rocked as though trying to pump a heart that wasn't there. He scrambled out of the body bag in horror then cried out again as he saw the flap of flesh hanging off his chest, and the empty space where his heart used to be.
"Marcus, hey," Blair knelt in front him, but keeping a safe distance.
His hands shook as he tried to press the skin back onto his metal chest, a pained groan sounding in the back of his throat.
"Marcus." She tried again. This time his wild and panicked eyes met hers. His breathing was coming in choked hiccupping gasps.
"Kate!" Barnes barked.
"What is it?" Kate emerged from the tent. "Holy shit!" She was startled by the sight of Marcus's naked corpse now thoroughly animated, choking and shaking on the ground. "How it this even possible?"
Blair was still trying to get Marcus to calm down as Kate grabbed her shoulder to gracelessly lower her heavy body to the ground.
She tried to peer into his chest, but Marcus flinched away.
"Stop trying to breathe." She ordered him sternly. "There must have been some kind of back up power source."
Marcus eventually calmed, though still looking thoroughly shaken. "I'm supposed to be dead."
"Well you're not." Kate sighed. She slowed got herself back onto her feet. "A secondary power source didn't show up on our scans, who knows what else they have hidden on him."
"No!" Blair cried, instinctively moving protectively in front of him.
Kate continued despite the horrified expressions of her audience. "He could be a bomb or a tracker…"
"If he was a bomb, wouldn't he have gone off by now?" Kyle argued.
Kate shrugged. "It might not trigger until he gets facial recognition of John."
"I'm not..." Marcus began, but didn't finish, clearly uncertain as to whether he had any malevolent programming hidden within him.
Kate sighed, scrubbing her face. She'd been her feet for hours now, her lower back was throbbing, and the baby felt heavier than ever. "I need to get John back to base immediately. Barnes, you're second in command, it's your call."
"Barnes, please." Blair implored him.
Barnes gazed at the fearful-looking machine, looking long and hard before he spoke in his deep and soft baritone. "We could put him in the box til we get back to base." He inclined his head towards Blair's chopper.
The box he referred to was an armoured chest they used for transporting electronic munitions so that they wouldn't be detected by Skynet scans. It was a fair guess to suggest that if Skynet couldn't detect any electronic weaponry this way then neither could it track Marcus if he was concealed within.
Blair nodded, relieved. "Alright, let's do that."
"We're Oscar Mike in 5, people!" Barnes yelled, marching off to get them packed up and ready to go.
"Blair." Marcus grabbed her arm. "She's right. I don't what they might have left inside me…"
She smiled grimly, helping him up. "We'll figure it out."
"Welcome back." Kyle grinned widely as Star ran over to him, wrapping herself around his bare leg.
He suddenly felt rather self conscious, as his privates slapped against his thigh and the skin on his chest flapped free.
"Where are my clothes?"
By the time the tents were dismantled and packed away, Marcus was becoming acquainted with the box that would carry him to the Resistance base. Barnes had found his pants and boots and even rustled up a nearly new shirt for him, while Blair and Kyle had removed the contents of the box - mostly casing, spare wiring and detonators - and prepped the choppers for take off.
He looked down at it with grim acceptance. It was roughly four foot long, and maybe two and half wide, meaning he would have to pull his knees up to his chest to fit. Airless too – which meant not breathing, and trying not to drown in his sweat, which was something that still baffled him as to why Skynet had seen fit to leave him with that particularly wonderful human feature. But mostly it would be tight, uncomfortable and pitch black.
"How long will it take to get there?"
"About 4 hours." Blair told him, looking as anxious as he felt.
He scratched his chest. With all the activity getting the temporary camp packed up, there had been no one on hand to stitch up his chest. Barnes had gruffly agreed to seal it up with electrical tape for him, mumbling all the while about Blair owing him. The tape itched now, pulling at his skin, a constant reminder of what was he was now. He was uncomfortably reminded of his old boombox with the batteries held in with tape.
"Maybe they could put him under again?" Kyle suggested looking over at where Kate and the other field medic were loading John Connor onto Blair's helicopter. He was heavily bandaged and had an IV; various leads to portable heart monitors and EKGs connected to his body, as well as an oxygen mask over his mouth. It was strange for all three of them to see the once fierce and determined leader looking so damaged.
Blair walked over to Kate to catch her before she got up into the helicopter with him. She leaned close to make her request.
Kate pursed her lips, but limped back to where Marcus and Kyle were waiting by the box, her head turning every now and then to look back at her husband, as though worried he might awaken and not find her at his side.
"There isn't a lot of anaesthetic left over from the operation, I couldn't be certain it would last the whole journey." She sighed. "We know so little about how his physiology works. But I can try." She was rubbing her forehead tiredly again.
"I imagine medical supplies are hard to come by." Marcus decided the resistance had enough reasons to distrust him without him using up vital sedatives that would be needed another time, for a genuine injury. "It's alright, I'll do without."
He took a deep breath, and then another, as though readying himself for a dive. He stepped into the box, knelt down, and then turned to lie on his side. It was tight between his knees pressed up against one side and his back against the other, but he could shift minutely and move his knees closer to his chest if he needed to.
He looked up at Blair, Kyle and Kate frowning down at him.
He swallowed. "See you in four hours." He gave the nod and Blair swung the lid shut. It closed over him with a hiss, and then he listened to the locks clicking sealing him in. At first he heard nothing other than his own body shifting and his pointless breathing, and then he began to hear something else. A pulse, not like a human pulse of heart beating but quiet throb of a machine. His new heartbeat, he guessed with a huff.
Suddenly the box began to move. He was banged about as it was carried, presumably to the other helicopter. The movement stopped with a thump, and was then quiet.
It was incredibly disorientating to be moved about, but without light or sound he lost all sense of balance and direction.
After a while he could feel a vibration which he guessed to be the helicopter engine starting up. Soon he would be airborne, a thought that left him a little nauseous. He wondered if he would be better off trying to sleep or a least tune out all thought of what was happening outside the box.
He didn't recall having slept a minute since he'd woken to this nightmarish future a few days ago. He may not have even been capable of it anymore, why would a machine need to sleep?
As if to prove that thought wrong he let his eyes relax and consciously slowed his breathing. He tried to loosen his limbs allowing the motion to sway him, rather than disturb. After a while his mind wandered to thoughts of Blair, lying with her that night in the desert. And with that memory he was lulled into a kind of robot slumber.