Written for comment_fic on livejournal
Prompt was "Were you dreaming? I don't dream at all. I have nightmares."
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Sarah learned to watch John closely when he was young. No one but the two of them mattered, and her eagle eye always on him.
It was strange now, getting used to having more than John to keep her eye on. They weren't as used to her gaze, and they seemed to notice it.
But she was damn sure going to keep her eye on them. Cameron and Derek. She trusted neither, not really. Knew they were both built to kill first, think second. Knew that there was damage there. Unpredictability.
Knew that they were gathering information on John, that they were desperately curious to see this younger him, being so rapt by the John of the future. And she didn't like them watching John so closely.
And they knew it. Saw the distrust in her eyes and her actions. So they said less and less to her.
But sometimes she could still see what was going on in their endlessly complicated heads. When they talked to each other, Sarah would watch, listen, and almost remember what it was like to feel like you really knew the people around you.
Cameron would pester Derek at the kitchen table sometimes. He always looked like he wanted to kill her, but she was less scared of him than she was of Sarah for some reason.
"You were loud," Cameron said to him one day, halting his sloppy gobble of cereal.
"What?"
"Your screams. Last night. Were you dreaming?"
And Derek gave that wild-eyed look, the one that said he was hopelessly, desperately lost, the one that made Sarah want to reach out and hold him but only while keeping a gun to his head, just in case.
But Cam just repeated, "Were you dreaming?"
Derek answered, "I don't dream at all. I have nightmares." Sarah raised an eyebrow, curious at his sudden admission.
But Cam said, "A nightmare is a dream. It's a type of dream."
Derek hesitated, then said, "A dream... can also mean something you hope for."
And Sarah understood then that Derek's honesty hadn't been for the sake of the machine. It was because he knew Sarah was listening.
But Cameron seemed satisfied nonetheless. "Thank you for explaining."
Sarah felt a wash of compassion for Derek which she carefully prevented from spreading across her face. But there was also some part of her that almost wanted to smile.
The machine who tries to understand what hopelessness means. The soldier who tells his enemies about his dreams.
The "daughter" who was wasn't a daughter at all. And the stranger, the soldier, who was actually her brother. More or less.
There was only one person from the future who Sarah really trusted, and she had never had the chance to learn to live with him. But as long as she could keep her eye on these two, these slightly kinder remnants of the more terrifying beings they used to be ... she would let them stay.
