Title: Wish
Characters: John Connor
Rating: PG
Timeline: Current season
Story Type: Drabble
Spoilers: If you watch the show, you're fine.
Short summary:: He hates the guilt that coils in the pit of his stomach, making bile rise up in the back of his throat. It's because of him.
He hears his mother cry sometimes during the night, the walls usually paper thin in the old, run down houses they rent for weeks or a few months at a time, resting between their never ending runs. He hates the guilt that coils in the pit of his stomach, making bile rise up in the back of his throat. It's because of him.
No matter how many times his mother assured him that it isn't his fault, John knows it's a lie. He's always known. His fault that they tried to kill her so long ago. His fault she ended up in the institution. His fault that they run, that they live in fear.
His fault that he hears her cry in the middle of the night.
He's kicked his sheets to the end of the bed. They're not his. They're old and faded and scratchy with an ugly yellow print and stains he doesn't want to know about. He misses those two years in the first place he could really call home. His own sheets that smelled like Tide and something distinctly comfortable. His own, normal comforter and sheets, matching blues and neatly made bed. Sheets that were worn in and made of soft cotton. Nothing like the ugly sheets he has now.
Cameron pauses in front of his door. Her slight whirring is more evident in the quiet house. He waits, listening, and then she slowly moves away, continuing her guard duties. He wonders what it's like in the future. How he's like. She said that he had many friends but he isn't sure how much he believes her. Are they only his friends because he has to protect them?
He hopes he never has to find out.
Friends… he hasn't had real friends ever, if he thinks long and hard about it. He can never share his secrets like he should with a best friend. Can never, ever, tell anyone that he's the new messiah. The title makes him shake his head. He's no religious figure but sometimes his mother makes it sound like the people in the future think he is.
He never really thought about how strange their life was when he was little, before his mother was taken away. Moving around, seeing the country. It was so cool. But then it was lost. Then he found out and it made him sick. Made him scared and confused.
He wants to be four again.
He wants to go to a school dance. He wants to go on a normal date and get farther than second base with a pretty girl with soft hair that smells like, well, a girl, and supple skin and perfect lips. He wants to play baseball or basketball, maybe even football or soccer. He wants to get in trouble. He wants to get suspended and more detentions than he could ever count. He wants to try pot in the basement of someone's house with people making out everywhere and getting drunk and breaking things, the bass from the music pounding in time with his heartbeats.
Most of all, he wants his mother to stop crying.