My usual muse, of the SPN fanfic variety seems to have taken a sick day, same as me. Or possibly there just wasn't enough room for her in my head with all this congestion. Either way, TSCC has been great to watch while sick on the couch so a new muse emerged who demanded I pay a little tribute before I get back to my good buddy Castiel and his beautiful Winchester shaped accessories. Also...so nice to write from a female POV for a while...
AU. This takes off sort of in the last two episodes of the series. Personally, I think if the series were to keep going it'd be better if Derek didn't get shot in the head. So this is my little "what if". There's lots of shameless, shameless Sarah!angst and a little h/c. Just wanted some closure between her and Derek, so I made some, because I'm under the weather, so I'm treating myself to a new guilty pleasure.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Well...OK a cat and some books and a laptop, but nothing related to The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Other people get the profit there. I just pay homage.
...
It's been years since she set foot here last. Kyle's buried here somewhere, under some impersonal headstone with nothing but the date on it, and since the day he died, she hasn't thought about this place. There was no reason to; Kyle is a memory, something precious and translucent she keeps locked safely inside herself; something that has nothing to do with this field. With the same certainty, she knows she won't come back to this place for Charlie either.
Keep moving. It's basically the Connor family motto. They can't afford to become anchored, attached to anything or anyone solid. Sarah shivers a little as the wind kicks up. They can't even afford to be attached to each other anymore, she to John, or he to her. The part of her that knew she'd have to one day let John go his own way, had been buried fiercely by the part that fought just to keep him at her side on a daily basis. But she's going to die. She's going to leave him and she doesn't have a choice. Her body which she's pushed and trained and hardened almost as determinedly as her mind, towards the task of protecting her child, is finally set to betray her. It seems it's only a matter of time, and she can't be what immobilizes him. Stillness is tantamount to death, and John can't die because he stays still to take care of her. This was supposed to be where Charlie came in. Her chest tightens involuntarily and her eyes sting, but she knows she won't cry; isn't really sure when the last time she cried was. Charlie was supposed to be there for John. She trusted him. That list of people she trusted was short enough already, and now it's back down to her and John. They've come full circle, to the days when she took him and fled to the jungle.
"Mom."
John's voice breaks her out of her thoughts, and she follows his gaze up to the road. A familiar black truck appears around the bend in the road, and she feels her spine steel itself again. It isn't that she's surprised; she could have guessed that John would call Derek and Cameron. She isn't surprised, but it doesn't mean she's happy about it. She had begun to believe she'd found two dangerous but manageable guard dogs in Kyle's brother and the reprogrammed terminator, but time as usual proved all of her suspicions right. Neither can now be trusted.
"I called Cameron."
She just nods tersely. It can't be undone. Nothing she's going to say in the next two minutes before they get here isn't a warning she's tried to impart to her son a million times over already. It was a mistake to ever let them get dependent on anyone else, and not to Derek's credit in any way, but it irks her just that little bit more that it was specifically the machine that John called; called as if it were a human with some capability of loyalty or love, not programming and data always teetering on the edge of being exactly the thing they should be fighting to deactivate and incinerate.
The truck pulls to a stop and Cameron gets out of the driver's seat. There's no sign of Derek and Sarah isn't sure for a moment whether to be angry that he didn't come, or relieved at the possibility that he read her message loud and clear and isn't going to try to pretend she still trusts him near her son.
"This isn't the safe house," Cameron intones, surveying the landscape.
"No, it's not," John agrees quietly.
His look of relief at seeing the terminator again, the kind you get when seeing someone familiar in a tough time, makes Sarah's gut twist in warning in new and inventive ways.
John looks at the truck frowning, then back at Cameron, "Where's Derek?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know?" he demands.
"I've been unable to find him since he was taken away in a van two hours ago," Cameron supplies, "I was searching for the license plate, when you called. His capture no longer posed a security threat since the location we were given was a decoy."
Sarah has to work hard to remind herself that Cameron's a thing, and not capable of spite when the machine looks at her in a way, that if she were human, would have been pointedly. Sarah's not about to imbue her with that quality.
"You told me to come here and I did," the terminator finishes neatly.
"And you didn't think maybe Derek getting abducted was important to mention?"
"Not tactically, no," she informs him.
"She's right."
Sarah knows her son's going to hate her in that moment, almost as much as she hates agreeing with Cameron, but if Derek's interrogated, he'll have little to tell them besides the location of an empty safe house. If he's meant as bait, then they're smart not to take it. They can't risk it.
John looks at her surprise giving way to anger, "What the hell are you talking about?"
"We've got other priorities. The picture of the girl you found on the men that tried to kill you. We need to find out who she is and get to her before they do."
"Derek's family."
Sarah looks away.
"Mom," John's voice drops full of sudden emotion, "I'm not burying anyone else today."
Her own conflicting emotions about Derek Reese are ruthlessly shoved down, and she steels herself to help her son do the same.
"We need to keep to the mission. We have to stop Skynet. This girl obviously has something to do with it. John the mission is what matters." She can see him about to protest and adds, "Derek would agree."
It's a loaded punch, but after a minute of turbulent silence it has the desired effect. They get on the road, Cameron driving Derek's truck, and John silent beside her in the SUV. It doesn't take them long to find a match for the picture. Savannah Weaver. Daughter of Catherine Weaver of ZeiraCorp.
...
A couple of hours later, when she watches Cameron pitch a fellow terminator over the side of the Weaver's mansion, Sarah feels the niggling of doubt start to resurface that made her allow Cameron to stay with them in the first place. It's the sense of security in knowing that when ruthlessly efficient killing machines come after her son, there's an equally ruthlessly efficient one waiting to protect him. If only it were a trustworthy sense of security. She follows Cameron back into the house and John appears with the little girl. They run.
...
When they make it to the latest safe house with Savannah Weaver, John barely speaks to her. She's pretty sure where his mind is; on his uncle, but by this point, she's hoping John will have at least come to the same conclusion she has. By now, Derek has either been broken or killed. If broken, then they're getting a reprieve while someone goes on a wild goose chase to an empty safe house. If he's dead, it's because they've realized by now no one's coming for him, and they're not taking the bait. Emotions she's been ruthlessly shoving down all day, and what (if she could be reckless enough to acknowledge it) is probably guilt, are trying to rear their heads, but she reminds herself, at least for now, that Derek is...was... a soldier. This was supposed to be his mission, to protect John at any cost. The only thing that matters now, is figuring how much time they have until whoever has Derek comes after them next.
She looks up to see the small figure of Savannah Weaver being lead by the hand by Cameron, come back into the main part of the warehouse where they're holed up. It's such an innocent picture, the kind that almost makes her want to forget what Cameron is behind that pretty face. Almost. Sarah holds out her hand and the little girl comes reluctantly to her. Cameron lets her hand drop and watches Savannah inquisitively as she takes the paper and pens Sarah offers and goes to sit and draw. A colouring book would have been better, but Sarah distracted John at that age with less.
"Where's John?" she asks when the little girl's out of earshot.
"He said he wanted to be alone." Cameron looks away from Savannah's busy doodling, "He's upset about Derek."
"Did he say that?"
"No."
Sarah nods resignedly, "Did you find it?"
"Yes." Cameron pulls out the PDA, "The van Derek Reese was taken in is parked outside a warehouse across the city." The terminator pauses, "Warehouses appear to be popular places to hide illegal abductions."
Sarah raises an eyebrow, at the apparent comparison, and is about to ask if Cameron's found anything else useful on Savannah Weaver or Catherine Weaver, when Cameron gets distracted by something on the device in her hand.
'What is it?"
The terminator looks up from the device, "The PDA's being hacked."
"By who?" She does a quick eye check and sees Savannah now looking at them.
"I think I know."
Cameron turns and heads towards the office she and Savannah emerged from earlier, where Sarah's assuming John still is. Savannah runs and takes her outstretched hand and the three of them head for the office. Cameron flings open the door. Sitting on the dusty desk in the centre of the room is John's laptop, with the address Cameron pulled up moments before on the screen. They hear the sound of an engine seconds later and Cameron runs in its direction. Sarah scoops up Savannah and runs too, though slower encumbered and not a machine. She's just in time to see the SUV disappear out of the lot. Cameron chases it around a corner and out of sight. The fact that it's 12am saves them from the possibility of anyone seeing Cameron's superhuman display of speed, but at the moment, Sarah has bigger things on her mind, like her son running off after his uncle and straight into pointless danger. Damnit John.
She pulls out her cell, and dials his number.
"What do you think you're doing?" she growls when her son picks up.
"I'm going to get Derek. He's family!" John shoots back.
"John! He's-" she forces herself to take a breath. Lately, barking orders at her teenage son isn't as effective as she'd like, no matter how right she is in giving the order. She softens her voice and tries to sound a good deal calmer than she feels, "John they'll have killed him by now."
There's a pause.
"Maybe...but I'm taking that chance. I owe Derek that much."
He owes Derek? They don't owe him anything. Kyle's brother or no, they don't owe him any kind of family loyalty and sure as hell not any kind of guilt trip over Kyle's death or whatever part John thinks he had to play in Derek's suffering in the future.
"You don't owe him anything ,John. Besides... He wouldn't want this."
She tries desperately to appeal to whatever sense of Derek's honour as a soldier John may still think his uncle has, but begins to think she may have overplayed her hand when the line goes deadly quiet.
"John?...John!"
She hears his voice a few seconds later, firm and calm, with a steeliness she knows he's inherited from her, "Cameron's with me. We came to an...agreement. I'll be back in a couple hours. This is just something I have to do, so you're going to have to trust me," he adds.
"John!"
And then the line goes dead.
Stubbornness. It's something else he's inherited from her. It's not always a blessing.
...
For the next three hours, she has little choice but to stay where she is and keep an eye on Savannah Weaver. Between the pacing Sarah doesn't quite manage to stifle and the upset earlier in the night, the girl isn't in much in the mood to talk and eventually falls asleep on the ratty couch in the office.
When she finally sees headlights outside, she grabs her gun almost as an afterthought. It has to be John.
Cameron hops gracefully out of the passenger side and opens the large warehouse doors, and John parks the truck inside, and waits until Cameron has the door closed again to get out. Sarah's livid and relieved and livid some more but the mother in her wins out first.
"John?...Are you Okay?"
"I'm fine," he answers grimly, rounding to the back of the vehicle and opening one of the doors.
Cameron follows suit and together they reach in and manoeuvre a familiar unconscious form out of the back. Derek's wrapped in a grey blanket that does little to hide the ugly bruising covering his torso. Wherever Derek's shirt is, it's probably as bloody as the rest of him.
"Is he alive?"
Sarah's voice sounds a lot less steady than she would have liked.
"Yes," Cameron answers for them both, "He'll need medical attention."
There's an argument here waiting to happen, that needs to happen, but it'll have to wait until they get Derek situated. She goes and gets Savannah out of the first floor office and brings her up to the smaller one on the second floor. There's no couch, but luckily the little girl's small enough that two relatively comfy office chairs pushed together are big enough for a temporary bed. The arrival of a bloody and unconscious man hasn't done anything to soother the girl's fears, and Sarah does her best to calm her down, before she goes back down to the main office. Cameron's got the first aid kit out of the trunk and a few bottles of water lined up, and John's assessing the damage. Up close, Derek looks even worse if that's possible. She's seen him shot and dying, drowning in his own blood, but her stomach still turns at the sight of the professionally inflicted torture. John's carefully cleaning off Derek's face, the blood caked on thick from a deep gash in his forehead.
"His heart rate's increasing," Cameron informs them.
Derek's breathing becomes more laboured and erratic, his eyes flickering rapidly under the lids. He almost manages to curl into a more protective position but either pain or weakness stops him and he mutters something incoherent before slumping weakly into the couch cushions.
Sarah frowns. He's not dead. So broken it is.
"Cameron," she orders, "go keep an eye on Savannah."
John doesn't argue and Cameron goes to check on the girl.
"Were you followed?" She asks after a few seconds of silence save for Derek's shuddering breaths.
"No."
"Any loose ends?"
"No."
John reaches for a roll of bandages, "We should wrap his ribs. I think at least two are broken, maybe more."
She takes in the dark bruises spanning Derek's ribcage and nods. Part of her, a very large part, which she refuses to apologize for, still wishes he was still back at that warehouse.
"We should give him some morphine, I guess," she mutters going into the kit, not quite able to keep the edge from her voice, for the man who's yet again put her son's life in danger.
"I don't think that's a good idea," John disagrees quietly, carefully lifting Derek's limp arm, and showing her the underside.
In and around the familiar barcode tattoo she can see enough needle marks to make a junkie proud.
"I don't know what they were drugging him with."
She puts the syringe back and runs a tired hand through her hair.
John takes the roll of bandages in one hand and looks for a place to grip Derek to prop him up that won't cause too much further pain or damage. Between the two of them they manage to get his ribs wrapped and secured, and John splints two of Derek's fingers that are, broken and swelling.
"He didn't break," John mutters after a moment.
Sarah sighs, as much as her son wants to believe it, the sight of Derek alone would suggest otherwise.
"We heard one of the guys in the warehouse. He was just about to shoot Derek when we got there. He was giving him one last chance to give them something, and Derek didn't. I thought you should know that."
His words hit her deep, somewhere right around the emotion she's been shoving down, and keeping in check all day, but whatever she would have answered, is cut off by Cameron's return.
"She's crying."
"Savannah?" Sarah asks, finding her voice again.
"Yes."
The highly intelligent computer in front of her looks completely at a loss. Childcare apparently isn't a terminator speciality. Although, she thinks wryly, sometimes she wonders how much of a Sarah Connor speciality it is.
"You go John," she tells him, managing a humourless smile at his uncertainty, "I don't have much luck with her either."
He gets up and casts a last unsure look back at Derek's prone form.
"I'll take care of things here," she assures him, and after a moment he turns and leaves with Cameron.
Sarah sits back exhaustedly on the desk and rubs her sore gritty eyes. If what John's saying is true- No, she corrects herself she has to believe he wouldn't lie about this. He would go out and recklessly try to get back someone he cares about, but John's still capable of being realistic. But it means facing the fact that Derek's loyalty might not be as compromised as she thought. It also means that he just suffered hours of gruelling torture to guard information that wasn't even true, to guard the lie she'd told him unwilling to trust him to make the necessary sacrifices.
Derek's breath hitches and his lips move slowly haltingly, the words barely above a rasping whisper.
"Derek?..." she ventures.
When it's apparent that he's still not exactly coherent, she leans in closer to try to make out the words. It's difficult, considering his bottom lip's cracked and swollen from his having bit through it, but what she does make out makes her heart fist its way involuntarily into her throat.
"...Reese, Derek...Lieutenant...01...014...4..3..."
His voice is weak and hoarse as he struggles through the mantra of name, rank, serial number.
Her hand finds its way to his brow and he flinches away from the gentle touch. His skin's clammy and feverish under her fingers. Carefully, she soaks a clean cloth and puts it there in place of her hand.
"Reese,Derek...Lieutenant..."
"Easy, Derek," she mutters, wiping away the lingering blood and perspiration.
"0...1...01...4..."
She presses the cloth to his split lip that's started bleeding anew. It halts his weak progress and she lets her other hand smooth back his damp hair.
"That's enough of that," she murmurs.
His brow furrows in a mixture of pain and confusion and she runs the cool cloth gently down his neck, keeping one hand resting lightly over his brow. His lashes flicker as he struggles to open impossibly heavy eyelids. A cough shakes his battered frame and he winces. At last, he manages to open his bleary eyes. They roam uncertainly for feverish moment, before settling on her face at last. She sees fear and a dizzy lack of recognition there, and he gasps and struggles weakly.
"Reese," She cups his face with both hands forcing him to focus on her, "It's Okay, you're safe now."
Stripped of that ever-vigilant coldness she's used to seeing, his gaze is so soft, so vulnerable. It steals her breath.
He swallows thickly, grimacing at the rawness of his throat, "...Sarah?..."
"Yeah," she nods but finds her hands won't move.
"...John Okay?..."
"Yeah," she repeats, barely a whisper.
His eyes slip closed and she thinks for a moment he's passed out again, when his voice, hoarse and breathless startles her, "I didn't...I didn't tell them...didn't tell them anything..."
"I know," she murmurs.
So many things are starting to break through the carefully erected strategic walls in her mind, and she takes a shaky breath trying to clear her head. Only when she feels Derek's fingers weakly come to rest along the backs of hers, does she realize she's still gently cupping his face.
"Everything's gonna be okay..." he murmurs, eyes still closed.
She should let go. The soldier in her is telling her to let go, to run, to move. But she doesn't. He's holding her still, and she lets him.
...
And there it is. Perhaps a little AU, but I always love a good doomed relationship, romantic or not, and I had to see this one get patched up some. Drop a review if it tickles your fancy. Who knows? Maybe we have some guilty pleasures in common?
~Amazon