This took so long to get out, and my cat broke my laptop. Go figure.

Chapter 8: Face the guilt

Derek slowly walked over Sarah after John and Mike left the building, and then held her shoulder trying to comfort her. The two most important people in their lives were hurting and there was nothing they could do. The color was coming back into her cheeks and Charlie unhooked the needles and tubes and passed out the band-aids.

"Well, there nothing else I can do here." Charlie held a bottle of pain killers to Derek. "One every four hours for pain."

"Dixon, I'm…" Derek grasped at the words he wanted to say but settled with, "Thank you, Mike's good but you saved her life."

"I'll be back in morning to check on her." Charlie slung the strap of his bag over his shoulder. He and Derek exchanged a nod. Derek knew there were no hard feelings between the two, though it got rocky after Charlie's wife died. Every so often the fight would bring Charlie back into their screwed up little lives. Whether it was to sew Derek back together again or to follow a lead Charlie stumbled across. "Keep an eye on Johnny, he…"

"I know." That was all Sarah had to say. She saw the pain in his eyes just as clearly as everyone else could. It was the first time she heard him worry about losing himself into the legend of what he would become, instead of running from it. Yes, there was something about the girl, but Sarah didn't know if she liked it.

"You look beat." Derek released his hold on her and they moved from the table toward the kitchen counter. Sarah nodded thinking back to the number of times her heart stopped today. First, when John called her saying that a machine was chasing them. Second, when the gunfire started in the background of the same phone call, after that it whole afternoon seemed like one massive heart attack. "I should get you to a bed before you collapse."

"Not until we know they're both okay?" Sarah's eyes moved back to the unconscious girl laid out on the table, looking completely helpless. Nothing she could do right now would help either of them. They both needed time to recover for different reasons, physical and emotional.

"The boys and I gotta know," Rico came into the semi-empty kitchen speaking to Derek, but he eyes kept glancing over to Sarah, "He really Connor? Are they the Connors?"

"Why would you think that man?" Derek stared down the younger man, clearly not happy with him.

"Don't try to feed me some bull. After the shit I saw today and that that little rant of his, I think I know what's up."

"Rico, as usual, you're talking out of your ass." Derek folded his arms across his chest.

"Don't feed me some line of crap. I know the score. He's Connor now act like a decent human being for once in your life and tell us the truth." Rico was trying to stay calm. "I've have a really long day, and you're starting to piss me off."

"What does it matter?" Derek spoke in even clear tones that betrayed to anyone who knew him exactly how pissed off he was. "The name's Baum and you better not forget that. Call him anything else and I'll personally put your ass down for not keeping your mouth shut."

Before Rico could breathe another word, another man about Derek's age came into the kitchen calling his name. The tone of his Texas draw spoke volumes about how fed up the other men in the house felt about Rico's attitude. "Ben needs you go out with him tonight, in case they spilt up again." He waited until Rico walked out the room before he held his hand out for Derek to shake. "You must be Derek, name's Tex. I know real creative nickname, but what y'all expect from a pack of tunnel rats."

"Have we met before?" Derek picked his brain trying to find the connection.

"No, but Kat ran with my unit for a bit. Hell of a filly, that girl, talked about her big brother a lot." Tex chuckled to himself. "Mostly I think in was to keep the skirt chasers at a respectable distance. So I took it on myself to keep the little lady out of trouble." He tipped a nonexistent hat in Sarah's direction. "Ma'am"

"Rico was a little fuzzy about you guys where doing here."

"That kid's is basically numb from the neck up. We're here to build up a framework for Tech Com to grow into. You know round up stock piles for things that we'll need." Tex shoved his hand into the back pockets of his jeans. "You wanting to take Kat home with y'all tonight, cause I'm sure the doc's gonna keep an eye on her?"

Derek glanced at the table where Kat's hadn't moved a muscle, then to Sarah asking the question with his eyes. He was torn. Sarah had given a lot of blood and would be more comfortable at home, but what if Kat's stiches pulled out or any one of million things that could go wrong. Plus she's didn't have a bed there and sleeping on the sofa didn't look comfortable with her injuries.

When Derek didn't answer right away, Tex powered on. "We could move her to my room. Only got a mattress on the floor, but it's next to bathroom, not far down the hall and it's clean. I'll sleep on the couch if that the case and make sure none of the boys mess with her if you're worried."

Mike's walked in the back door with a cigarette smoke still clinging to him. He threw a crumpled empty pack into the trash as he walked by to check on Kat. He picked up her wrist and counted her pulse as his watch ticked off the seconds. "She's doing better. Heartbeat's strong, but I wouldn't suggest moving her across town."

Tex traded an 'I told you look' with Derek. "She'll be fine here overnight, but we don't have enough space to put everybody up."

"Okay, we'll head back up in the morning." Sarah answered for Derek. She knew better than to ask about John, but had a feeling he would want to stay where ever Kat was tonight. "John can stay too?"

Mike answered. "Sure thing."

After a few more minutes of working out the finer details of the sleeping arrangements and moving Kat off the table and into Tex's room, without waking her, Derek and Sarah left the safe house and headed home to get some shut eye. But as Derek drove the Bronco home his mind was on other matters.

As an adopted older brother, any guy that showed any feeling toward Kat became an automatic enemy of the state as far as he was concerned, but John, his nephew, was displaying more than friendly emotions. He had no idea where to lay his loyalties. Sure, John was a good kid and shaping into a decent guy, but Kat for all her rough and tortured upbringing had no real experience with matters of the heart.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." Sarah quietly spoke as she stared out into the night. Derek shot her a questioning look across the cab. "I saw it too."

That was all that needed to said. They drove the rest of the way home silence worrying about barely legal adults they left behind.

00000

When John came back into the house he noticed two things, Kat just laying on the table anymore and mike and another man were the only ones in the house with her. Even then it was only a passing worry, for what he had gathered from Mike outside he had her back.

Still, it was a good thing that Rico was gone. John didn't like him at all, just the way he acted made punching him seem like a good idea. Must be some dormant macho thing about Rico flirting with HIS girl. Who wasn't even his anyway.

Fated lovers and all that crap, it was enough to make him want to bang his head against the wall. He didn't know what to think about the bomb that Mike had been kind enough to drop on him an hour ago. He didn't move from where he was sat since the medic left him to his thought in the shed out back.

A few weeks ago John was okay with his crappy existence. He figured like his mother, he would just end up alone since when someone got close they got hurt. He couldn't keep doing that to innocent people. Life any where near the Connor household meant war. And it pulled everyone into the crossfire.

Like Kat. 'Your not even old enough to drink, but here's the love of your life, go and enjoy her before she's dies.' John's thoughts were reeling, trying to make it make sense. It still wasn't working. He finally wandered back in the safe house since staring at the metal panels and made up the shed wasn't helping.

There he stood in the kitchen staring at the table at Kat suffered on, when one of the guys John glimpsed earlier came strolling straight for the icebox. He when pulled two beers out, and held one out to John. Again he shook he head.

"Now, where I come from if you're old enough to fight metal you're old enough knock back a few beers." The guy twisted the tops off both bottles and held one back out to John again. "Well, if you don't drink it you're a wasting good beer and that's down right insulting."

He managed a smile at that one, and took the offered bottle. The guy left kitchen as John tilted the bottle up. Following whoever back through the door he came from, John found himself in a living room that was a shining example of a man cave. Big screen TV, a couple battered chairs and couches for sitting, but every other flat surface was covered in pizza and take-out boxes.

"Hey John," Mike was sitting in a chair, an unlit smoke behind his ear, with his feet on what might was been a table as he pointed to man stretched lengthwise on the sofa. "You meet Tex? He's a real life southern belle."

"Watch your mouth Yank, or I'll close it for you." Tex drawled never taking his eyes from the game on screen. "They left maybe a half hour ago if you're wandering where your folks got off to. Be back in the morn, until then you have to hang with two butts from the future."

John settled down and watched the game for a while, enjoying the two friends, he guessed from the way they teased back and forth, constantly dig at each other. Every so often Mike would get up and check on the patient as he stated the first time he left the room, or Tex would go back into the kitchen to retrieve more bottles. John stopped after two when he started to relax.

After a late dinner of leftover pizza, the TV was turned off, John given a blanket and Mike left to check on Kat one more time before heading to his room. A few minutes later Mike called for someone to bring a pill bottle from the kitchen counter. He took the excuse to check on Kat, retrieved the painkillers and headed to the sick room.

Kat was still laying on her back, but the tank top that she had been wearing was replaced with a baggy T-shirt and her color was looking loads better since the last time he saw her. As an added bonus, Kat's eyes were open, sleepy but open.

Mike took the pill bottle, and handed one to Kat who dry swallowed it without a second thought. After a few questions and a quick poking and prodding, Mike left saying that Kat would indeed live through the night. That left the two alone with a lot unsaid in the room. Kat went first.

"That's the second time you done this."

"Done what?"

"Rescued me at the last minute when I was ready to nobly sacrifice myself." She stared up at the ceiling as she spoke. "Don't get me wrong, being alive is great. But maybe next time you can get there before I can't walk away under my own power."

He couldn't help but chuckle. "I say don't get into life threatening situations, but I'll see what I can do."

"That's all I ask." The silence crept back in again. He turned to walk out and try to get some sleep on the couch, but Kat called him back. "Can you do me a favor?"

John took a few steps toward the mattress she was sleeping on. "Sure."

She didn't answer at first, seeming to be searching for the right words. "Could you stay with me tonight? It's too quite. After everything today, I don't think I could take that too."

The reason he told himself as he sat down on the mattress with his back against the wall was guilt. He felt horribly about the warehouse and this would in some small measure make up of that. "Do you want me to stay all night or just until you fall asleep?" he didn't know which he was hoping for.

"Don't care. It just that back, I guess we could call it home, it never got this quiet. People moving around, whispering to each other. The term dead still got literal quick." Kat wiggled under the covers trying not to move her leg. "It's been hard sleeping back at the house, but now I just want to hear another person breathing."

He was trying to make up for almost getting her killed, and Kat just want him to sit and breathe. Well, if that's what she wanted. John pulled off his boots and settled back down on the mattress wondering if he should talk or just sit in silence. More time to think about Mike's words.

"You're awfully quite." Kat's turned her face toward his, trying to read his thoughts in his eyes, not getting anywhere. It wasn't any different than before, Kat knew something was bothering John but she could never could figure out exactly what. "This wasn't your fault you know."

"I shouldn't have left you." Kat knew that tone in his voice; something was bugging him big time.

"You thought I was right behind you, and I should have been. It's my fault I got grabbed, or Rico's for leading the metal to us in the first place." Kat willed her words to reach out him in that space she hated for him to be lost in. The head space that caused him so much pain. She had seen him fall into so many times. "Anyone's but yours, because you saved me."

"You were halfway to saving yourself." Kat didn't knew that wasn't true, the metal would have held her there until she bled out or snapped her as soon as the boys left the building, either way left on her own her number had come up.

"John," Kat held the pause until his met hers in the shadows of the room, "you saved my life, no ifs, ands, or buts. Please try to see that."

"But…"

"No buts, live with it." Kat wouldn't let him finished that sentence again. There would be enough death to lie at his feet in time, but this was a bright and shiny moment. "Just lie down and get some sleep. We'll talk about how guilty you feel in the morning."