Crocodile Rock

"But the years went by and the rock just died
Suzie went and left us for some foreign guy
Long nights crying by the record machine
dreaming of my Chevy and my old blue jeans
But they'll never kill the thrills we've got
burning up to the Crocodile Rock
Learning fast as the weeks went past
we really thought the Crocodile Rock would last"

"Crocodile Rock" – Elton John


It was a rare night that had bathed over the remote home at the end of a rural road. Though isolated by woods and nature trails half carved out by hunters and hikers. There was usually some commotion that plagued the dark starlit evenings in the handsome two story home. Usually the disturbances were normal, painfully domestic in some instances. Always an argument of who was right about some unimportant fact, a whoop from a video game tournament, and trash talk of a spirited poker game every Friday night. There was even from time to time, less then troubling, but more than healthy explosions of wrestling that usually only happened between a mother and son that looked more like siblings. Though hardly violent, the rolling around on the carpet, and aggressive battle of dominance of toned limbs was usually the settlement of an argument that the usual victor was more than likely on the wrong side of in terms of facts or science.

William Shakespeare had never and would never be the author of "The William Tell" in any reality. But as long as a beautiful warrior woman ended a shouting match with her child by wrestling him to the floor, demanding he say she is right while removing her shirt and threatening the pants, reality was less important. Might made right in the Connor household, and as long as it did Sarah Connor couldn't lose, even when she was wrong … which was usually the case.

But tonight was rare due to the unearthly silence that befell the sleeping house. Even on still nights the ambient chatter of John Connor and his cyborg companion in bed perforated the house comfortably. At all hours of the night a single innocent voice would break the churchly quiet to ask an inaudible question. When a powerful voice answered half agitated, and half asleep with its timber buzzing the upstairs walls quietly, it usually led to the white noise of two different voices committed to an hour conversation. The Q & A would always eventually end with a sleepy chuckle and the squeaks of a mattress were a young man's strong arms pulled the warmth of a svelte ballerina's body closer to return to sleep, while the cyborg placed her ear buds back in.

That was Derek Reese's nights now. Since the return of John and Cameron to the house, there hadn't been a night where he didn't hear the two of them from their room. The asshole in him could complain about it, but in honesty it didn't bother the former soldier at all. He had spent a good deal of his life sleeping in tunnels where there was more noise than a couple of morons in the same bed, acting like teenage girls at a sleep over. But in the end he preferred life over the constant silence. It was the voice of family, his family, and to have John under the same roof again brought the man a sense of peace and a grand satisfaction that he hadn't felt in so long. When he went to bed and heard them talking, he didn't have to hear the lonesome tomes of his own subconscious that found him alone in an empty home that he had thought he would be sharing.

This normal, however, was not the nights that Sarah Connor had ever been accustomed too. When Sarah had lived in this home, she had shared a bed with Derek. From the moment she wanted to be with him, she had never slept alone. Sarah Connor never went to bed without Derek Reese, even when Derek was not tired and she was. No matter how she had felt, Sarah would stay with him, or fall asleep next to him, waiting for the completion his task that kept him from their bed. Sometimes the two fell asleep curled up together on the couch. But that was when they were alone in the home when John and Cameron had moved out. Before that, when they had first returned from the future, Sarah had shared a room, a bed with John. It had been in transition while she worked out everything she had been feeling for Derek Reese in the sudden peace upon their lives.

It was those days being the reason that Sarah didn't want to sleep alone. She remembered the nights sitting up, waiting for John to come to bed while he and Cameron wasted the nights doing whatever they did while everyone slept. Her mind had always gone to dark places, and when she came downstairs she'd always find them with a deck of magic trick cards or playing chess. John didn't sleep at night, and when he did finally come to bed he'd just lay there. She remembered the many nights turning over and sneaking a peak at the familiar handsome stranger staring at the ceiling, a brooding nature carrying him miles away as he warmed the sheets. On the good nights and in the early days of their reunion, he'd watch her sleep caressing her as he did, or just watch her as she watched him. It was a mixture of sadness and longing for her when John held Sarah so close to him in those long hours before dawn. When her son had left, he had said he loved her, and when he returned she felt it in his arms. The comfortable nights when he held her like she was some great fragile treasure. In her mind she knew that John had lived through something so terrible that he retreated to Sarah night after night. Yet, she would be lying if she didn't admit she wished she could stay that way forever. Sarah Connor was human, and when someone loved you like that, especially Sarah, who spent much of her life convinced that no one ever would, it was addictive.

That was the way this night began.

After being saved by John and Cameron, they had brought Sarah back to the house till the morning. Though there was a guest bedroom, it wasn't furnished, and obviously Sarah Connor couldn't sleep with Derek any longer. Though seeing the last door down the hallway drew her toward it. Being barred from that bed, the soldier sleeping in there, it didn't feel right, it wasn't right. But Sarah had made her choice. So she had spent the night in John's room. She had expected resistance from him, their recent history filled with butting heads and hurt feelings, while his nights spent with Cameron together seemed important to both of them. Even now the pillow she laid her golden head on had the cyborg's distinctively sweet seductive smell. But surprisingly John relented only a moment. A switch had been flipped in him, seeing Sarah nearly turned to a hillbilly sex slave had made the man fiercely protective of his mother. From the moment she had stepped out of his and Cameron's shower and into the heavenly crisp and clean sheets of their bed, John had been there. She disappeared into his protective arms, holding her, guarding her every breath. She felt guilty about how safe she felt, and selfish of the warmth that snuggled to her. She was the protector not him. But she had drifted away all the same. In the final thoughts before sleep, a deep sorrow and a single tear staining Cameron's pillow reminded Sarah that this house she no longer lived in was her true home.

In the time the triad of Connors returned, to the time everyone went to bed, it was the little things that escaped all notice but to one about the lynch pin of the home. John Connor was looking out the window much more than usual. There was a long period in which he went quiet and when he looked at Sarah and Cameron there was suspicion in his eyes. Amongst all of the things that Cameron had noticed it was that John was clenching his fist more. He had residual aggression and a lasting darkness in his eyes. Inside he had touched the predator that helped him survive dusty battlefields and terrors hardly imaginable to those who didn't understand. He had taken up again this cold mantle to save his mother, but this dark specter hadn't left him.

Tonight there was something very wrong with John Connor.

In the dead of the dark hours of the new day Sarah shivered so hard that she awoke to the change of temperature. From the moment she had fallen asleep to the gentle chaste caresses of her long curling tresses, Sarah had been curled tightly to the warmth of her grown child behind her. But now that warmth was gone. She yawned sleepily, lazily reaching back for an arm to drape around her tightly, to return the added warmth that was missing.

"December 12th, 2029 … It's December, it's December … John, John Connor, First Lieutenant 132nd Cavalry."

A shaky and determined voice continued to repeat himself. The first thing the golden haired woman did was turn to find that she was alone under the covers. Her slender hand touched the indention left behind by the barrel chested man and felt the wetness where a bare upper body had begun to sweat. She could feel the dampness on the back of her thin tank top and the moister on the pale skin of her exposed lower back. In the corner of her eyes she saw something moving.

Sarah propped herself up on her elbows. "John?" She was frightened.

The tall man only several years her junior was pacing back and forth manically on Cameron and his rug. Emerald eyes the color of his scared mother was glassy and distant. His linebacker built upper body, covered in scars, was soaked in sweat, glistening in the dim starlight. His face was dampened as if he had gone for a run in the heat of the summer. Over and over again he repeated a date, his name, and ranking as if it was a totem to ward off some evil spirit.

Sarah called out to him. "John!" She had hoped the familiar sternness would catch his attention.

But to her voice he desperately shook his head. "Your mother is Sarah Connor … she's not here. She's not here." He said panicked.

"John Connor!" Sarah's voice was so hard it cracked. She had never seen him like this before. There had always been flashbacks to the war, but there was something different, tortured and manic about him this time.

"No!" He snapped at her. "You're not real … you're … not real." He put his hands over his ears as if to block Sarah's voice out.

The woman slipped out from underneath the covers, her bare legs shivering in the cold air filled with the stench of sweat. "John, John you're okay, It's me." She put a hand out to touch him. If she could just get her hands on him, she could let him feel her.

"Don't go near him."

Sarah was startled to see that Cameron had opened the door to the bedroom and was peering inside. It was however strange that the cyborg though animated stayed away from the doorway and out of John's vision. "Derek!" The girl called down the hall. Though Cameron remained passive, Sarah heard just the twinge of urgency in the way she called for the former soldier.

"What's happening to him?"

"You're not real … you're not real."

The teenage girl kept herself out of sight. "The fighting tonight, it triggered a trauma in John's subconscious. The adrenaline, plus the violence has fooled his brain into thinking that he's still in the future … and that all of this isn't real, a trap in the Psychofuge." She explained.

Even though the golden haired woman understood less than half of what Cameron had said, she could still detect just a note of bitterness in the way the cyborg addressed her. Almost as if all of this was Sarah's fault. That only made John's mother more defensive and irrational. She took several steps closer to her son.

"It's me, John … come to me." She reached out to him.

"Sarah, don't." Cameron warned.

John seemed to cower away from his mother. He pressed his wrists to his ears, shrinking back against the wall. "It's December, 2029 … Connor, 132nd cavalry." He began anew squeezing his eyes shut. "My mother is not here … she's not here." A tear drop fell from his eye. The sight of the tear, broke Sarah's heart and she wanted to shed one herself. She loved her child till it broke her and all she wanted to do was hold him, to love him the way that had once made everything better in their hard lives. The memories of their younger days only drew her toward him more.

The girl in the satin night slip frowned as the mother got closer to her child. "Sarah!" She called after her.

"Don't tell me how to take care of my boy!" She snapped at the cyborg. She wasn't about to let the machine who spent so much time with him as it was, now dictate how he should be cared for. She might be the most prominent part of John's life now, but she wasn't Sarah. Cameron was just a machine and she didn't know the power of the human touch, the touch of someone who truly loved him.

A slender milky hand reached out, threading through soaked locks of messy dark hair. Her gentle maternal touch glided down, cupping the handsome man's stubbled cheek. She quietly shushed him, leaning in and nipping her nose against his. It had been years since she had done that, but it was something that only she had ever done. She'd hope to bring a familiarity of a love that Sarah had very recently accused him of forgetting. John's eyes snapped open at the affectionate touch. They were enraged.

Strong as iron, a large hand shot out and grabbed Sarah's pale throat. It was followed by a thick muscular leg sweeping out Sarah's balance. A loud thump on cold wood upstairs shook the crystal of a dining room chandelier when Sarah was slammed down back first by her son, held down by the throat. It felt as if a mountain had fallen on her. Her reaction was to grab at John's forearm or wrist, but the tall broad man's grip was like metal machinery.

"You're not her!" He raged as if he was possessed. His eyes shown with a spark of desperation in a crazed state as he throttled who he thought was a human traitor.

"Hey!"

Derek had finally arrived, his t-shirt only half on. He and Cameron sprang into action grappling with John as Sarah began to turn a deep shade of red. Finally it was the cyborg who was able to pry John's death grip from his own mother's throat. Sarah gasped loudly, turning over and finding her knees, the side of her face buried into the rug.

Memory cards and CDs on John's desk clattered to the floor when Cameron fell backward against a wall, holding John in her immovable arms from behind. The man struggled against her as he lashed out to get at Sarah who was coughing violently into the floor being held sturdily by the former soldier she still loved.

When he knew Sarah was okay, Derek finally spoke. "I was afraid this was going to happen." His hazel eyes looked as if he could skin the lily white hide off of Sarah. While the tank top and panty clad woman rubbed her throat, she watched the man take a knee in front of his nephew who was fighting a losing battle against Cameron.

CRACK!

Sweat droplets flew into the cold air as the sound of wet skin being struck echoed through the room. Without warning, Derek Reese had slapped John hard enough to leave a red mark on his chiseled face. With the pain came a halting shock to John's confused and panicked stream of consciousness. His green eyes looked glazed but now on the cusp of sobriety. "Let him go." Derek ordered Cameron. The girl seemed almost reluctant to do so as she slipped out from under her best friend and moved off to the side.

Derek took the younger man by the back of the neck, holding him face to face. "This is real!" He said determinedly. "All of this, all of us, is real!" He continued. Though there was desperation in the soldier's voice, there was also compassion and a love only found in those with the same blood. "The year is 2011. You're in your house, the house you bought for me and you're mom. The war is over … You're not in the Psychofuge!" He shook John hard once. "He's dead, kid!" he reminded him. "The professor's dead, you killed him, remember?" He shook him.

John blinked. "I … I beat him." he repeated as if the haze was starting to lift. Derek's deep hazel eyes were like a lighthouse to the lost ship of John's mind that drew him away from the storm and rocks "I … I tricked him … Battle of wits." He was coming around slowly. Shakily, the handsome young man reached out and grabbed Derek by the back of the neck the same way as if asking for confirmation that he was real.

"You sent him to hell." His uncle did just that.

John looked winded and worn, almost like an old man after reliving the worst moments of his life. The younger man nodded and both soldiers released one another. Derek leaned back on his knee with a long sigh of relief. John bumped his head purposely on the bedroom wall with a deep breath. "Battle of wits … I won." John repeated. His eyes closed as he regained himself as one might after a terrible nightmare. Reese turned back to the cyborg waiting on the wings of the scene and nodded. He got up to his feet rubbing the back of his neck, retreating to attend Sarah. Meanwhile Cameron slipped to her knees to replace him.

Deep breaths rose and contracted from a large chest, while John kept his eyes closed. Sensing a new but familiar presence he slowly opened them. If there was a look that could be described for someone whose heart had stopped, it would fit John Connor's face when he saw Cameron. The sight of the beautiful girl roused him. "Cameron?" he asked cautiously. In sight of the cyborg, he seemed like a man in the middle of the desert. After so many mirages he only dared to hope that this oasis was real or forever surrender to the death that stalked him across a wasteland he had already escaped. Quietly he reached a shaky hand out toward her face. Seeing the emotions challenging his motor control, the cyborg took the large wandering hand and gently placed it against her smooth cheek. The contact of her cool skin on his hot and clammy palm made him sputter a sob when he finally came to grips of the reality he had temporarily checked out of. Without hesitation he pressed her to him, his arms enveloping her into a tight embrace as a drowning man would a lifesaver. There were no words of comfort, just a sympathetic frown to her face as he buried his in her hair. Her arms wrapped around his neck, holding tightly the large muscular frame that sobbed out every horror ever living within it since John Connor had left everything behind in search of her.

Every time John was faced with an episode and overcame it, he relived the worst moments of his life. And yet he always survived them time and time again so he could reunited with the cyborg he traveled through every circle of hell to find over and over again.

Eventually after several powerfully emotional minutes, John had gained control of himself. There were lines on his face, the stress aging him artificially. He looked almost barely conscious when he emerged from the crook of the teen's neck. The girl wiped away the tears on John's cheeks with both slender hands, framing his face with them. For a beat they shared a quiet gaze before John wearily placed his forehead against Cameron's.

"Get him a shot of whiskey." Derek advised to the two of them. "And if he tries to go out tomorrow, stop him." He sighed while rubbing his soul patch stressfully. The cyborg nodded. Finding her feet, she effortlessly took John with her. They looped his arm around her shoulder, slowly helping him shuffle out of their bedroom.

Seeing that John had returned back to the present, Sarah moved to assist in a maternal instinct that came primal to her. "I'll pour it." She called after the two of them. There was a cold menace in the way Cameron slowly turned her head. Sarah Connor was halted by the iciest of deadly looks she had ever seen a machine give.

"I don't need your help." She said bluntly. "You've done enough for one night." There was no emotion in her voice just liquid venom that had frozen and was lobbed at the golden haired mother like darts. The woman stood in offended shock as she watched the girl efficiently help John with an effortless finesse into the darkened hallway.

There was something deeply infuriating about the entitlement that the machine had to Sarah's son as they disappeared. Never before had she dreamed much less seen how deeply attached John had become to the cyborg till this very moment. A part of her felt angry, disturbed by the sight she saw. Sarah had wanted to view it as a sickness, an addiction. But she knew where that type of thinking got her. It was part of the reason that John wouldn't speak to his mother for weeks at a time. But mostly what hurt Sarah was not that John attacked her. But in the aftermath she didn't even seem to register to him. Somehow she lived in a world in which the touch of a machine meant more to her boy, than her own. Her touch, her love in his confused state only angered him as it did in reality. For the first time Sarah Connor was pondering if she had truly lost her boy.

"What the hell do you think you were trying to prove back there?"

When Sarah turned back, she came face to face with the same annoyed expression from Derek Reese that always pressed all of Sarah's buttons. There was something about the way Derek talked to her when he was mad or frustrated that never failed to make Sarah feel like she was the stupidest person on the planet. She met that condescension with an angry indifference and uncaring. Sarah Connor would do what she wanted when she wanted, no matter how stupid it was and regardless of how Derek Reese felt about it. It always ended in Sarah doing the dumb thing, usually with Derek right behind her, he'd be right, and she'd just get them out of it in the nick of time so that the circle could continue. But tonight there was something more than an annoyance to Derek. He was flat out angry with Sarah in a way that everyone was.

To all of it Sarah just stubbornly shook her head. "Don't start, Derek." She huffed, crossing her arms and looking away petulantly.

"You know better than going near him when he's like that." He lectured anyway. "He was confused and would attack anyone that wasn't a face he recognized from the future!" he reminded her with frustration.

"I know!" She snarled at him.

"You've put your and John's lives in danger, you're the reason he's lost himself tonight, and now you could've gotten your neck snapped tonight … And all for what, Sarah?!" He asked with beyond angry indignation.

Sarah knew and yet said nothing. "Go to hell!" She bared her teeth at the man. She didn't need to explain herself to him or to anyone. She had done what she thought was right. There was a chance of a new Cyberdyne that led her to the woods. She wanted to help John tonight, to stop him from hurting, and to love him the only way she knew how.

"Do you honestly think that this one-up game your trying to play with the metal is worth alienating John?" Derek Reese was never shy or pulled punches when it came to honesty. It was why he was the hardest man Sarah ever had to live with, and also why she loved him so very much.

Sarah rounded on the man. "Did you see what happened tonight?" She asked. "Look at them, Reese! She's got him wrapped around her finger! Doesn't that bother you?!" There was a hiss in Sarah's voice.

To her rant he just shook his head. There was a sudden sorrow that hadn't gone unnoticed. It seemed that they had gotten to a fundamental flaw in their own relationship. "Oh course it bothers me. But it's not my call anymore, if it ever was, Sarah." He shrugged.

"It's not right." She argued.

"He's his own man!" He countered. "He makes his own decisions." Derek growled. "And the metal makes him happy …" There was exasperation in his voice. "God help me, I don't know how, but she does. I'm not going to be the Son of a Bitch who ruins that, not after everything we've all been through." There was dogged determination that didn't shock Sarah. Both saw, but neither wanted to address the "we" that excluded the only one in the family who had never seen the horror of a battlefield or given a savage war cry before rushing into a hand to hand melee against incredible odds. Sensing the hurt inside Sarah, Derek just shook his head flustered and frustrated with all the things that plagued this family.

When he saw the vulnerability within green eyes, it usually drew him toward her. But tonight it just struck him with the fruitlessness of a life that no longer existed, a life she had rejected for the various reasons that fueled this argument. In one sentence she had highlighted the reasons that no one wanted her around anymore. "Ahhh …" He waved her off with a shake of his head moving to leave her alone in John and Cameron's room.

"Derek?"

"What?"

"What's a Psychofuge?"

The former officer stopped in the doorway. He bowed his head and cleared his throat, turning back to face Sarah. He was in the moment willing to tell her just what it was. To unearth all the horrors and pain that John had scabbed only for Sarah to pick away with her stupidly selfish decisions. But when he saw her he stopped. Her dyed golden hair was illuminated in the moonlight, her skin glimmering. Sarah Connor never wanted to be known as attractive, there were other things that were more important to her. Sometimes she did things to snuff her features, she had wanted to be taken seriously by the people she surrounded herself with. But in the light shimmering from John and Cameron's window, Derek Reese had never seen her look more beautiful. His mind leapt, as it often did in these moments, to Kyle. This was his Sarah Connor, not Derek's. His Sarah was the warrior, the protector, the woman who loved someone till she fell to pieces and would die for them. This woman wasn't that, this woman was who Kyle imagined her to be. In the moonlight she was an angel. The man thought of his brother and for the sake of the love he bared he just shook his head.

"I love you too much, Sarah."

It was his only answer to her question when he left the room.


Author's Notes

A little more serious than usual with this story, but I think it's needed to understand exactly what the rift between Sarah and basically everyone who's not Charlie Dixon is. That being John and everyone have not moved on with their lives and Sarah is angry that they haven't.

Hypocrisy? Well it is Sarah.

This is also the first reveal at what John is dealing with and why he needs Cameron. I've hinted before that John is not alright, and might never be.

Yes, I know what the Psychofuge is and I know what happened between John and "The Professor" whoever he might be. It's not really important to the story, other than to be ambiguous battle of wits. But if you're interested I might give more in the future, but if not, it's served its purpose for this chapter.

In terms of the metaphor of the song "Crocodile Rock" Suzy is Sarah not John. This being told through the prospective of John and Derek in which Sarah really had left them for a foreign guy, being that Charlie is an outsider to the family and the life they (and we as fans) have all become accustom to them living.

What you don't know is that the last chapter, this chapter, and the chapter that will eventually be coming down the line are all sections of one chapter that I had planned months ago. The problem is that much like last chapter, this one has been sitting in the archives for a while. But since I've had a lack of motivation to write all of the sections, rather than letting it get lost I'll just post it all one at a time as I write them.

Next chapter will be funny I promise.