Written for comment_fic on livejournal , the prompt was John/Derek, quiet moments

(This is an AU where John orders Cam to make Derek jump forward in time before they go to Weaver's house. So Derek is in the future with 'FutureJohn' after spending time with teen-John and Sarah.)

Derek had returned from the past. He was back with his unit, telling them nothing about his mission but saying how glad he was to be back home.

But the truth was, Derek was not adjusting well. Not as a man, and not as a soldier. His reflexes were still better than most, but they weren't as good as they used to be.

Worse, he kept hesitating. Double and triple checking to make sure it was metal before shooting. He never used to do that.

Not to mention how he flinched when he had to kill a human Gray.

But if anyone knew that coddling doesn't keep you alive, it was John. So he pulled Derek aside and gave him a stone look, and asked, "Your little trip to paradise didn't make you soft, did it?"

Derek recoiled before answering "No sir" and swiftly returning to his unit. John could tell by his reaction that the dissonance was getting to Derek, that he was used to John as a teenager who looked up to him, wanting his approval. He knew it was hard for Derek to be put at arm's length all of a sudden, when he was used to being able to open John's bedroom door just to doublecheck if he was safe.

But it was better to let Derek get back to his old self as quickly as possible. And to not give any spies or rebels any clues about time travel, missions to the past, and especially his parentage. So Derek would be like any other soldier who actually came back from a long mission. Sworn to secrecy, watched carefully, welcomed home with little fanfare.

And Derek did adjust. He improved, got more and more like the old Derek. John was comforted by this, and concluded that it was not all that risky to bring Derek back after all.

But then he spent some time alone with Derek, stuck in an underground keep. John was meeting with his key lieutenants in one of the outlying bunkers, and a couple of machines had found them and thought they were ordinary human trash to dispose of. A firefight started and all the men and women around John had quickly taken up strategic protective positions for defense. But Derek had run to John and put his body in front of John's, as if an extra layer of flesh and bone would do much of anything at all, and practically tackled John into the stairway to the secured keep.

Another of John's lieutenants saw that Connor had gotten to the keep and barricaded the entrance to protect Connor. So John was stuck down there with Derek and a whole lot of complicated memories, whether he wanted to be or not.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Derek?" John voiced, narrowing his eyes. Who the hell was Derek Reese to decide that John had to hide down here while the action happened above?

But Derek had noticed a gash on John's forearm and was tearing off part of his own shirt to make a bandage. He grabbed John's arm to hold it steady but John pulled away.

But Derek just barked "Knock it off, John, I'm not finished," and pulled the arm back again.

John felt the urge to knock him on his ass, but let it pass when he saw Derek's face cloud over with realization and fear.

Nobody talked to John Connor like that, Derek suddenly remembered. Maybe if you just got out of a prison camp or if your brother were missing, he might overlook an outburst. PTSD and all. But even then, even when spewing rage and hatred, nobody talked to Connor like he was some dumb kid. And certainly nobody manhandled him, even for his own protection. Most people were afraid to even touch him, being the legend that he was. Hell, when Derek was 20, he had won a bet by giving John Connor a light pat on the shoulder as he walked by, and he had to drink five shots of rotwhiskey just to find the courage to do that.

"Sorry," Derek said, looking down, "Just - just let me finish bandaging it. Please."

John didn't push him away so Derek finished wrapping his arm and stepped back. "I don't know what I was thinking."

John gave him one of those looks, the kind of hard look that made Derek wonder if maybe even machines were afraid of John, but finally he sighed and said, "I know what you were thinking, Derek. But if you want to keep fighting, you need to pull it together."

Derek nodded, but John repeated himself, which he rarely did: "I mean it. Pull it together, Derek."

They sat then, doing their best to hear what was going on above, wondering which of their friends were still alive, and knowing if nobody survived to pull apart the barricade, John and Derek would have to spend several days digging to freedom. It was a good saferoom. Hard to get in, but hard to get out.

They were silent for a long time, trying to listen, but it was clear that they wouldn't be able to tell what happened until after the entrance was cleared.

Derek stared at the floor, avoiding looking at John, and at the conflicting emotions John drew out of him.

But John had some questions of his own weighing on him, so he was the one to at last break the silence.

"How was she?" John asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Sarah. How was she, Derek?" John's voice was soft, intimate even, and for a moment Derek saw in him again that teenage boy who wanted someone to confide in, be vulnerable around, who didn't hide the fact that he hated the burden of being John Connor. Who wanted his mom to approve of him and take care of him, but who also wished he could take care of his mom.

"I don't know what you want me to say, John. You were there too."

John sighed. "It was hard for her, I know."

"She never complained."

"Of course not. When did Sarah Connor complain about anything?" John's voice smiled a little, even though his face didn't.

"She complained about me a lot."

"I'm sure you deserved it, Derek." Derek surprised himself by giving a little laugh.

"Tell me about her, Derek," John continued. "What it was like for her. I was a teenager, thinking about myself. Thinking about her as my mom, not as the whole person. And the future leader of mankind stuff did nothing to quell my ego. As you well know. So it's hard to know what her perspective would have been.... But I want to know. How was she?"

"She loved you, John. She wanted what was best for you."

John sighed. "She never had a life of her own. She had to raise me as a fugitive, always afraid of death or arrest.... She gave up everything for me."

Derek was taken aback for a moment. Even teenaged John had not talked to him much about his feelings for his mother; he always carefully omitted her from his laments for people who have given up too much for John Connor. But this John, the great leader John Connor, would never tell anyone this. Derek found himself feeling great relief at being a confidant, even as he felt a swell of compassion for John's own self-flagellating way of missing his mother. Derek was comforted and somehow gratified that John was exposing these wounds to him, as if he finally had tangible proof that it really happened, that his time with Sarah and teenaged John wasn't just some fever dream. That Derek being John's uncle and mentor and guardian wasn't just some ridiculous episode in John Connor's life that John could readily forget.

So Derek tried to answer as best he could, the way an uncle would answer, to make John know that he was a gift and not a curse to his family. "She was a fighter, John. It's who she was. And you shouldn't even suggest that she had better things to do than protect her son. Seriously, she might just reach across time and smack you on the back of the head."

"You don't need to make me feel better, Derek, I'm not still that kid. I need your perspective. Your knowledge. I want to remember her as she was. I owe her that. So just tell me truthfully. What was it like for her?"

Derek hesitated before speaking. Finally, with reluctance, he said,"It was hard. You know that, John, it was damn hard. But the hardest part wasn't the fear or the injuries or the training or the moving all around. It was .... The thing is, John, she loved you. More than words could express, she loved you. And she wanted the best for you."

"I know she did."

"But you don't really understand, John," Derek said, as the words started to pour out, fast and bitter, almost against Derek's will. "She wanted you to have the life that other parents dream of for their kids. But she knew what was coming. So when she told you to stop trying to be a normal kid, stop dating, stop hanging out, stop imagining what it would be like to go to college or have a career, stop fantasizing about escaping your life, stop finding your little moments of joy, all you saw was the strict cautious mom. You never saw the look on her face when she turned around. How much it killed her to take this from you. And when you were in pain, and she wanted so badly to hold you and tell you that everything would work out just fine, and she couldn't? Hurt like hell, John. And for fuck's sake, when a teenage kid finds out his mom is going to die someday of cancer, the kid should get some damn comfort. He should have someone tell him that it's okay to cry about it, and that maybe she'll be okay, and that even if something bad happens, he will always have family there to take care of him. A kid should be able to feel like the people he loves will always be there for him. Even if it's not true, he should have the chance to feel that way for as long as he can. But every time she wanted to hug you, every time she wanted to tell you that it's okay to imagine a better life, every time she was tempted to make you feel that you were safe, she had to think twice. She had to think whether this hug, this kind word, would turn John Connor soft. She had to ask if this moment of relief could make John Connor just a little less careful, a little less tough, a little less relentless. A little more likely to die at the hands of metal and take the future of the whole fucking species with him. So yeah, John, it was DAMN HARD, to love you like that, and to still make sure you turned out to be you. It was damn hard for her."

Derek's eyes were wild and tears had started to run down his face as he talked. John let him recover for a minute before stating an obvious truth that needed to be stated anyway.

"Not just for her," John said.

Derek just covered his eyes and tried to catch his breath. They didn't speak for a long time, then. Derek went back to staring at the floor, ashamed of how needy he was, thinking how reversed this situation was from the the past he visited. Where John would spill his guts to Derek and hope desperately that Derek wouldn't tell him that he's wrong to feel that. But eventually, Derek had too many questions for this John, the leader John, to stay silent.

"Why did you bring me back here? To the present?" Derek finally asked. "Was it because I failed?" Derek had wondered about this since coming back.

"You didn't fail." John said, but didn't elaborate.

"I didn't succeed. I didn't stop Judgment Day."

"You succeeded at everything you could have succeeded at." The comment stung Derek, for some reason.

"Should I have-"

"You died. That's why I brought you back. Right before you died."

Derek stared at him. "You changed history."

"Not the first time."

"It wasn't to save you," Derek realized quietly. "If I had died saving you, you wouldn't have been able to pull me back here.... Everyone dies for John Connor, apparently, except me."

"No self-pity is necessary, Derek. You died a soldier's death. And since there's a battle still going on right above our heads, you likely will get to do it again."

"I suppose that comment serves me right, after all the times I told the young you to stop hoping for the best." Derek actually managed to get a smile out of John with that one.

They waited quietly again, still trying to listen for information above, still not being able to discern anything. Derek was thinking about how it would be if they made it out of there, how he could possibly put the teenaged John out of his head, when it was clear as day that the young John Connor was still in there. He was starting to wonder if he would ever figure out to act around John Connor when John finally spoke again.

"Are you sorry I sent you, Derek? Would it have been easier if I had sent someone else? Someone who wouldn't be so personally ... attached?"

Derek thought about the first time teenage John talked to him, his voice so much like Kyle's when he was young. He thought about watching his younger self and Kyle play baseball, eating ice cream with John, watching him tear up silently at meeting the child Kyle. He thought about the dozens of quiet moments in the car waiting for Sarah, or at the breakfast table eating pancakes. Derek felt the pull of these memories and panicked at part of John's question.

"No. Whatever you do John - and I don't know how your time travel thing works, I don't what you can and can't change - but don't change that. Don't change it so I don't get to go back. Please don't take that." Derek loathed himself for practically begging in front of John Connor, especially after he had completely lost his dignity already, but it had to be said. It's one thing to take Kyle from him, he wouldn't let him take the only other family he's had too.

But John smiled as if that wasn't what he was asking at all, and he looked a little lost in thought, a little young even, when he replied, "I would never do that, Derek. I would never take that from either of us."

The two sat in silence again then, but a silence less burdened. Finally they heard human voices opening the entrance to the keep and claiming a temporary victory, proudly showing John the chips they had recovered. They went back to their respective units to tell yet more stories about how John Connor almost got done by metal, but the resistance wins again.

And Derek went back to trying hard to be soldier he used to be, trying to look at John like he was nothing more than their brilliant and revered yet pain-in-the-ass leader of the human resistance. Trying to tamp down and eradicate the remnants of the time when he could express his love, even though the expressions felt painfully sporadic and measured and tiny at the time.

Derek tried hard to leave the past in the past.

John tried not to notice how often Derek failed.