She'd have to bury him in a potter's field, like Kyle. His new name was a lie, and Sarah didn't want to put it on a headstone. She couldn't put him next to Michelle either.

Cutting off those traitorous musings, Sarah walked quickly towards the house. Savannah met her halfway. Kid looked sad and scared, and Sarah knew she should do something about that, but she couldn't. Ellison came out the door just as she reached it.

"Sarah," he began.

With a mute snarl of rage, Sarah took hold of his shirt, shoving him roughly into the door. She took small pleasure in the sound of his head smacking against the wood. "Don't talk to me," she ordered, still gripping his shirt.

Ellison didn't, but he did nod over her shoulder.

Glancing back, Sarah saw Savannah near one of the trucks. It was dark, and she couldn't see her face properly, but she didn't need to. Fuck. Forcing herself to breathe, Sarah backed off and let him go. "Sorry," she muttered, vaguely surprised to find that she meant it.

"It's okay," Ellison replied, awkwardly smoothing out his shirt and rubbing the back of his head with the other hand.

"You should be. Unless someone's dead, dying, or close to one of the two, you don't tell me they're not all right. Do you understand that?"

"Yes."

Sarah nodded, attempting to rein in her emotions. Charley was fine, she had to remember that. He was so like Kyle in some ways, his kindness, his devotion. It was hard sometimes, to stop herself from obsessing over the possibility that one day he'd end up like Kyle. Because of her.

"Sorry," she repeated.

"Again, me too. Sometimes I forget."

Even after all this, sometimes he forgot. His definition of 'all right' didn't always match with hers, but Sarah could see understanding in Ellison's eyes, so she chose not to push.

"I just, I thought you'd want to know."

Sarah said nothing. She was pissed as hell at him for calling and scaring her half to death, but she probably would've been more pissed if he hadn't called. "You're taking her to a movie?" Sarah asked.

Ellison nodded, grimacing in the dark. "Hannah Montana"

Sarah frowned. "I thought that was TV."

"It is, and now it's a movie."

Christ. The world really was going to hell, Skynet or no. "Sorry," she said, meaning it again.

Ellison shrugged, offering a tiny smile. "I'll make sure to get her the DVD. Wouldn't want you to miss out."

"Right." Following a short, awkward pause, Ellison moved past her, heading towards Savannah and the truck. "James." She spoke without looking at him, after his footsteps had stopped. "Thanks. For calling."

"You're welcome, Sarah."

Sarah heard the smile in his voice as he walked away. He'd scared the shit out of her, but she hadn't threatened to kill him for it. Maybe that was progress.

Charley's room was dark when she got there. Light from the hallway showed him perched at the very edge of the bed, clutching at the comforter. Looking sideways, Sarah found a trio of empty bottles sitting on his dresser. If the brooding in darkness hadn't set her on edge, the alcohol did. Charley wasn't huge on drinking, and he rarely did it by himself. There'd been an uncle, Charley told her. Treated his wife bad while sober, worse while drunk. Sarah wondered how much impact that uncle had had, if he was the reason Charley became such an uncommonly good man.

"Shut the door, I've got a headache."

Sarah shut the door, struggling to adjust in the darkness. Bad enough she had no idea what was wrong or how to help, now she couldn't even see him properly. She approached him carefully, trying not to sound as anxious as she felt. "James called."

"I told him not to."

"He was worried, he ignored you." Standing in front of him in the blackness, Sarah reached down until she found his left forearm. She ran gentle fingers downward, until they found knuckles that were swollen to the touch. Charley had picked up her habit of abusing punching bags. That's what he'd been doing when Savannah walked in and saw his hands splitting open as they hit against the leather. "I'm worried too," Sarah admitted.

Charley pulled his arm away. "You don't need to be."

The gesture wasn't angry, neither were the words. Sarah still had to tamp down on hurt feelings. Hurt feelings and fear. Solid, dependable Charley wasn't supposed to fall apart on her, that just wasn't how it worked. Charley was always the one to make her feel better, and Sarah found she didn't much care for the role reversal. Comfort and reassurance was Charley's department, he did it with an ease that made Sarah envious. Watching him now, all Sarah felt was concern mixed with inadequacy.

Uncertain, Sarah rubbed the pads of her thumbs along Charley's forehead, remembering his earlier complaint. Gently pressing her fingers into his skin, Sarah worked to alleviate the physical pain, if nothing else.

"C'mere," Charley murmured, using one hand to pull her closer.

Sarah raised her eyebrows, even as a shot of arousal coursed through her. She'd put the slurring down to alcohol, except she'd seen him drunk a time or two, and this wasn't it. She was close enough to smell his breath, and it was clean. The beers must've been sitting there for awhile.

Charley held her loosely, one-armed, rubbing soft circles over her spine. Trying not to shudder at the contact, Sarah moved her hands down, over his shoulders and arms. His breathing was off, just a bit. For some reason, Sarah thought he should be crying right now, would be crying, in another life. Knowing her had toughened him in a way that Sarah wasn't necessarily happy about.

Suddenly, Charley was stroking her hips, free hand no longer clenched in the blanket. It was an intimate move, but not overtly sexual. Sarah closed her eyes anyway. They'd gone too long without each other, and there were lots of feelings between them, never mind that not all of them were good. Sometimes he was still angry with her, for Michelle. Sometimes she was angry with him for not going away, for making her do this again even though it scared her worse than a T-888. She'd been angry with Kyle to a certain extent, even before he died on her. Angry with him for being the messenger, for expecting her to be someone she couldn't imagine turning into. One thing she'd learned from Reese, a little anger mixed with a lot of everything else could lead to some pretty fabulous sex.

Charley's breathing was still off. The faintest of tremors ran down his spine. Sarah wouldn't have noticed it at all if she hadn't moved one hand onto his back. The other went to the back of his neck, kneading gently. "What's going on, Charley?" When he didn't respond, Sarah pulled back enough to tilt his face towards her. It was a pointless move in a room this dark, but it made Sarah feel like she was at least doing something. It wasn't enough though, and the not knowing was making her crazy, standing here with no idea what was happening. "What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to be here," he replied after the slightest of pauses. "I need you to be here."

"I am." His fingers had moved from her hips, and were busy touching the muscles of her abdomen. "I'm here."

"For now?"

For now, she said that a lot. In relation to their safety, her state of health, she said that about quite a few things. Sarah thought she knew what he was asking. Why he was doing it now, like this, she had no idea. "You asked for a chance. You don't want them anymore?"

There was a smile in his voice when he answered. A sad one. "It's never been want with you, Sarah. All this, you think I wanted this? It's not the life I would've chose for myself."

Closing her eyes, Sarah tried to pull away. "I tried telling you. I did tell you, so many times."

"Shhh," Charley murmured, tightening his grip on her waist. "I know you did, I'm not blaming you."

Sarah made a noise somewhere between sadness and disbelief. "You're always going to blame me, Charley." Some part of him wouldn't be able to help it.

"No," Charley argued. The hand on her stomach disappeared, going to her cheek instead. Instinct had Sarah leaning into his palm. Something about his touch felt different, but Charley's hand was gone before she had time to puzzle out the change.

"I'll always wish things were different," he said, back to stroking her hip. "I'll wish that none of this craziness was true, that it didn't have to be this way, but…"

"But?" Sarah prodded, nervous for reasons she couldn't truly explain.

"But I can't be angry anymore, and I can't blame you anymore."

Sarah didn't reply. He'd said things like that before, but this time felt different. A lot of things had felt different, since she let him hear the tapes.

"I told you I wanted a chance. It's not enough anymore. I need more than that."

She knew where he was heading with this. Part of her wanted to go there, had wanted it for a long time. And part of her was still scared shitless. Of what would happen if she let him in all the way, something she'd never managed to do before. "More than that. What makes you think I have more to give?"

"You were going to marry me."

Old defenses kicked in, without conscious thought. "I shouldn't have said yes."

"You did though. Why?"

It was rhetorical and Sarah knew that, and she took the bait anyway. "Because I loved you."

"Past tense?"

Again, rhetorical. "No."

"I love you too."

It wasn't a revelation, a huge, climactic moment like in the romance novels she'd read as a teenager. They'd both known this about each other, it simply hadn't been stated so baldly. Not for a long, long time. "You shouldn't," Sarah told him, needing to know that she'd at least gone down fighting. "Love me."

"You're right. You shouldn't have left."

"I know."

"I still love you."

"I know. I love you too."

"Enough to give me what I want?"

"Thought you said it wasn't about wanting."

"It's not. For the most part."

"Fine. What do you want? Or need?"

"You."

Sarah's breath caught. This wasn't the first time she'd heard something like that. It certainly wasn't the first time she'd heard it from Charley. He was touching her thighs with both hands and there was desire in his voice, but there was also a lot more. He was asking her for a lot more.

"I'm here" she said, repeating an earlier line as she leaned down to kiss him. "I'm here," she repeated, breaking the contact so she could speak near his ear.

"For now?" he asked, repeating his own line even as his hands began moving again.

She couldn't make any promises, not with Skynet and Judgment Day and the possibility of cancer. Charley wasn't asking for false assurances. "Always," she said, kissing whatever part of his face she could reach. "If I can help it at all, always."

Sarah hated having to add the caveat, but things were what they were, and Charley seemed to accept that. He busied himself with tossing aside her favorite leather jacket as quickly as possible. Kissing him deeply, Sarah pulled until Charley was standing with her. She'd started to hate those flannel overshirts he was so fond of. One extra clothing item. Still, he put up with the hassles of removing combat boots, so Sarah didn't complain. Compromise and all that.

They worked at undressing each other, separating as little as possible. When Charley was bare from the waist up, Sarah paused her task long enough to touch him through his jeans. He groaned into her neck, mouth working over the pulse point there. She did it a few more times, and he invoked the name of a deity that Sarah didn't exactly believe in. She didn't think that Charley did either, but he still said the name. Then he switched to saying her name instead, and Sarah touched him again. Suddenly Charley was reaching out to still her hand, while his own drifted lower. Sarah jerked, releasing a gasp. Her jeans were still in place, but they were also skin-tight.

Not soon enough, all clothes were gone and they'd made it to the bed. Charley was back to stroking her thighs, paying special attention to the scar made when she got her leg sliced open in the morgue. Sarah let him do this, even though the scars, that one in particular, made her uneasy. His hands were replaced by his mouth, and Sarah's agitation faded, as it usually did. She was being unusually passive because for some reason Charley seemed to want that tonight. She didn't like passive. The other men had liked passive, the ones that came after Reese. But this was Charley, and she trusted him, so she let him do what he wanted. It also helped that what he wanted to do felt pretty damn amazing.

Too soon, and not soon enough, she was falling apart and desperate for stability, and Charley was too far away. Eyes shut tight against the pleasure, Sarah reached blindly, roughly pulling him up. "C'mere."

He did, and he kissed her again, waiting her out and swallowing her cries. He had his hands on her face and Sarah leaned in to kiss his palm when suddenly it all made sense. She knew why his touch felt different, she knew why this was happening now, tonight. Her hand flew up to cover his, snaking over his fingers and confirming what she already knew.

"Charley…"

"It's okay," he promised, voice ragged.

"Charley-"

He pressed closer, resting his forehead against hers. "Did you mean what you said, all of it?"

"Yeah."

"Then it's okay," he repeated.

Sarah might've protested if Charley hadn't chosen that moment to slide into her, effectively cutting off any further conversation or argument.

Sarah woke to an empty bed and a cup of coffee on her nightstand. The clock said she'd slept longer than she should have, but she couldn't quite bring herself to care. The world was still here and the coffee was strong, and there wasn't much more to ask for in her life.

Sarah cleaned up and dressed and found Charley in the kitchen, stirring something on the stove. "Trying to score points?" she asked, holding up the cup he'd left her.

"Always. Quickest way to your heart, through your caffeine addiction."

If there were no guns or explosives to offer, caffeine probably was the safest bet. Joining him at the stove, Sarah set the coffee next to her on the counter. "That doesn't smell like breakfast food."

"It doesn't, we're out. Even the pancake mix is gone."

Sarah frowned. "We're never out of pancake mix."

Charley shrugged. "Sign of the apocalypse?"

"The points for the coffee? I've taken them away now."

"Damn," Charley teased, kissing her quickly on the lips.

Reaching for his free hand, Sarah took it in her own, carefully examining. There were bruises where he'd laid into the punching bag with too much force and not enough protection. "You seen Savannah?"

Charley sighed. He'd scared the girl and he felt horribly about that. "I talked to her. She's okay."

Nodding, Sarah brushed her thumb across his ring finger, noting the pale circle of skin where the gold used to be. "If you're doing this for me…"

Abandoning his cooking, Charley turned to face her properly. Then he took her hand away from his ring finger, bringing it to his lips instead. "I'm not."

"You sure?" Sarah asked, taking her hand back when Charley showed no sign of relinquishing.

Charley sighed, forcing himself not to back down from the intensity of her gaze. "She's gone, Sarah. Michelle's gone, and I can't…"

Charley trailed off. He still had the ring, hopefully he'd have it forever. It definitely had a place in the one bag Sarah would allow him if they were forced to move quickly. He had the ring, and he had memories of Michelle, and he'd always miss her. But last night he'd come as close as he ever would to purging his system, saying goodbye to her. Michelle was a ghost. This life he led was crazy enough without adding in hauntings. If James was right, if there was something after this, maybe Michelle was watching him now, watching and hating him. It was a possibility, a painful one, but there were lots of possibilities and few certainties. All Charley could be certain of now was that he was still here, and Michelle wasn't. Now, after all this time, Sarah was. He shouldn't love her, but he had no control over that. And he couldn't love her like he needed to with Michelle hanging between them. Truthfully, he never should've had that ring to begin with. He'd loved his wife, but he hadn't belonged to her.

"I'm yours, Sarah. That's…that's how it's always been."

She knew that, she'd always known that. For his sake, she wished it wasn't true. Selfishly though, Sarah couldn't have been happier. "Are you? For how long?"

Charley shrugged and smiled. "Long after the world ends?"

"Stop joking about that."

"You do it."

"Yes. I do it well."

Smirking, Charley turned back to the stove, bringing a wooden spoon to his lips. "Taste this, it's missing something."

"And you expect me to know what that is?" There was sauce on his lips, and he didn't seem to realize it.

"Wild guess," Charley replied, holding out the spoon.

He'd surprised her with that kiss in here. Sarah could look past her wariness of them if the surprise in question was up to par, but she absolutely hated being outdone. So, Sarah took the spoon away and pressed her lips to his, leaving them there long after she'd gotten rid of all the sauce. She kissed him with a determined thoroughness, waiting for him to slip his arms around her waist before pulling away.

"Garlic."

"What?"

Smirking at the dazed look Charley wore, Sarah kissed him again, quick this time. "Needs more garlic."

"Right," Charley murmured before returning to activities that were much more pleasant than cooking.

"Your sauce is burning."

Sarah groaned inwardly when she heard Ellison's voice, breaking the kiss without turning around. "You do this intentionally."

"Yes. My entire existence centers on making yours difficult."

"At least you admit it now."

"Pardon me for thinking it safe to enter the kitchen," James replied as Charley turned back to the stove, still wearing a look of pleasant shock. "Maybe we should develop a system so that I know when I'm allowed to leave the bedroom that I don't have."

Turning around, Sarah was about to make the appropriate comeback when Savannah stepped out from behind Ellison's body, an enormous grin threatening to split her face in two.

"Can we stop pretending now?" she asked, crossing the kitchen with a bounce in her step.

"Pretending what?" Sarah asked, automatically, putting an arm around Savannah when the girl offered her a hug.

"That you and Uncle Charley aren't boyfriend and girlfriend."

Charley snorted back a laugh at the simplistic analysis of their relationship. "What would you know about that, huh?"

"I know," Savannah insisted. "I've had a boyfriend already."

"You what?' Sarah asked, voice sharp, eyes narrowed.

"A boy at school wanted me to be his girlfriend. I said yes, but then Mommy found out. She talked to him, and then he didn't want to be my boyfriend anymore."

Picturing the metal bitch terrorizing a small boy shouldn't have made Sarah as happy as it did. "Good call, Weaver," she said, talking under her breath.

"Well?"

"Well what?" Sarah asked.

Savannah crossed her arms, her expression a good imitation of how Sarah looked when she was annoyed. "Can we stop pretending?"

Charley glanced back, and Sarah caught his eyes before answering. "Yeah. We can stop pretending."

"Thank God," Ellison muttered, busying himself with a cup of coffee.

"Shut up," Sarah retorted, without sounding particularly irritated.

Two days later, James entered the living room to find Sarah stuffing clothes into his duffel bag in a haphazard manner.

"I thought you were going to stay away from my boxers," Ellison drawled, recalling a comment Sarah made when they first got here.

Sarah zipped the bag closed without looking up. "Your laundry was getting in the way of my laundry." Getting to her feet, Sarah threw Ellison's duffel at him with an unnecessary amount of force.

James caught it, eyebrows raised.

"I'm sick of tripping over that all the time," Sarah declared. "Get it out of here."

Sarah's tone wasn't matching up with her words, something that seemed to happen more and more often. "You have a destination in mind? Space around here is at a bit of a premium."

"Just get rid of the damn bag. Put it in Charley's room."

Smiling, James adjusted his hold on the duffel. "You've discussed this with Charley?"

"We talked about it last night, he doesn't have a problem."

"Well. If that's what you think is best."

"I do, and it is. You want to go away before you start to irritate me?"

"You mean it hasn't happened yet, after thirty seconds? I think that's a record."

"Maybe it is," Sarah agreed, a tiny smile curving her lips. "Don't get too ambitious, James."

Six months wasn't terribly long, in the grand scheme of things. Still, six months could make a hell of a lot of difference. It'd been roughly that long since Sarah showed up at his door, Savannah and Ellison in tow. Charley had been lonely then, broken. Because of the woman in front of him. Three months after her arrival, they shared a bed in a cheap motel. For the last month, they'd been sharing a room. Things had a way of changing unexpectedly.

It was a typical Wednesday night. The TV was muted while Savannah did homework on the computer, sneaking off to more entertaining sites when she thought she could get away with it. Ellison was on a grocery run, and Sarah was at the kitchen table, maintaining her firearms collection.

"Have you seen my Remmington?"

Charley paused on his way to the fridge. "It's on your side of the closet."

"Not anymore."

"I haven't seen it."

"I'm just asking."

"You aren't supposed to fight in front of me," Savannah declared.

Absently taking Charley's hand, Sarah turned in her chair. Dr. Phil had taught the kid some things about family dynamics. Bickering was bad, but apparently maintaining supplies used for terrorist activities hadn't been mentioned. "Do your math problems."

Red-faced at being caught, Savannah quickly closed the game she'd been playing.

"You think James moved it?"

Chuckling, Charley dropped a kiss in her hair, using his free hand to massage the back of her neck. "I think James would walk through fire before he walked into your bedroom without permission."

Sarah gave him a soft smile, pulling him down for a kiss. It had been their bedroom for weeks now, but one or the other sometimes forgot that. Squeezing his hand a final time, she left to check the gun trunk under their bed.

While Sarah was gone, Charley spent several minutes cleaning the guns she hadn't reached yet. He was picking up an assault rifle when the cell phone buzzed. It was Sarah's, and it was in front of him on the table. Halfway to answering, he glanced over and noticed that Savannah had clicked off of her homework. "Hey slacker, get to it over there."

"But Uncle Charley-"

"Savannah," he warned, leaving the kitchen with Sarah's phone in his hand. He answered the call and was rewarded with a tone sequence that didn't belong to James. At that moment, Ellison entered the house, laden-down with groceries.

Sarah returned from her bedroom a few seconds later, gun search having turned up nothing.

"Aunt Sarah, come here!"

Sarah's attention immediately snapped to the child. There was an urgency in her tone that couldn't be ignored.

"Charley…"

James had set down the groceries, and his eyes were glued to something over Charley's shoulder, but the other man ignored it, frowning into the phone. "Who is this?" he asked, an edge to his voice. Savannah had Sarah studying something on the computer monitor, but Charley couldn't see what, not with Sarah standing in front of the screen. "Who is this?" he repeated.

There was a pause on the other end of the line. Then, "Charley Dixon?"

Charley's fingers nearly went slack. He hadn't heard that voice in a long time, but he knew what the scary robot sounded like.

"Charley Dixon," Cameron repeated, not a question this time. "Why do you have Sarah Connor's cell phone?"

Oh God. Charley tried calling Sarah over, but she wasn't listening. Or maybe his voice wasn't strong enough. Breathing had become a problem, never mind talking. Charley spared half a glance for the TV over his shoulder, the thing he now knew that'd captured Ellison's attention. The news had just started. The lead story involved crappy footage of a blue ball of electricity.

Hardly trusting his own legs, Charley moved over to the computer. Sarah was gripping Savannah's chair with both hands. Her fingers were shaking. Charley saw what Savannah had tried showing him before. The footage from the news had hit Youtube. It was apparently quite popular, judging by the number of views.

"Charley?"

John. Charley put a hand on Sarah's shoulder, mostly to keep himself from falling. "Hey," he greeted, barely recognizing his own voice. "Hey Johnny."

Sarah turned so fast that she almost knocked Charley over. She made a grab for the phone, but her hands wouldn't stay still. Charley covered her hand with his, pinning it to his chest. Her nails dug painfully into the flesh there.

"Charley," John said, clearly struggling with his own emotions. "Mom. Is she okay, is she there?"

Having regained some form of control, Sarah took her phone with the hand that wasn't shaking beneath Charley's. "John."

"Mom."

Sarah tightened her grip on Charley's shirt. She hadn't heard that title, hadn't heard her son's voice, for half a year. "Are you okay?"

"There was a pause. "I'm home, Mom."

"Cameron?"

The cyborg answered for herself. "We're back. Both of us."

"Weaver?" Sarah asked, trying not to choke on the tears she was swallowing. "John Henry?"

Another pause, this one longer. "We'll talk about it later. Mom…"

"I know. I know, John."

"Charley, he's there now? He's with you?"

For half a second, Sarah buried her head in the crook of Charley's neck, releasing a noiseless sob. She was indescribably grateful to feel his arm encircling her. "Yeah. Charley's with me."

Savannah had slipped out of the desk chair. Unnerved at seeing Aunt Sarah and Uncle Charley like this, she joined Ellison by the TV. "Uncle James?"

Ellison couldn't respond right away, still riveted by the crackling of blue light that continued to play on the screen.

"Uncle James," Savannah repeated, pulling at his arm.

Shaking himself mentally, Ellison dropped to one knee, enveloping the child in a hug. "It's okay."

"Why are Aunt Sarah and Uncle Charley so sad?"

"They're not. It's…it's going to be okay now."

"Really?" Savannah asked, arms tight around his neck.

"I think so," he replied, kissing the top of red hair. "I really do think so."

Savannah nodded, but she kept holding James, just as Sarah and Charley kept holding on to each other.

Fin…?

And I've lost who I am
And I can't understand
Why my heart is so broken
Rejecting your love
Without love gone wrong
Lifeless words carry on
But I know, all I know
Is that the end's beginning

Who I am from the start
Take me home to my heart
Let me go and I will run
I will not be silenced
All this time spent in vain
Wasted years, wasted gain
All is lost, hope remains
And this war's not over

-Trading Yesterday, Shattered

I'm here again
A thousand miles away from you
A broken mess, just scattered pieces of who I am
I tried so hard
Thought I could do this on my own
I've lost so much along the way

Then I see your face
I know I'm finally yours
I find everything I thought I lost before
You call my name
I come to you in pieces
So you can make me whole

-Red, Pieces

Author's Note: So if I did my job with any level of decency, you should be yelling at me right now. Usually, I let people know when the ride is coming to a close. I didn't do that this time, for two reasons. One, I don't control some of what happens in these things. I start warning people to find shelter, the end is near, six chapters later, the words are still flowing. The other reason I kept my mouth closed involves a certain someone who didn't need to be tipped off. On that note, I'd like to publicly declare victory, once and for all. You started this little update battle, but I won the war.

Speaking of, it's time to acknowledge some very awesome people. Wheresmyluce, who's been ridiculously kind in taking the time to review every chapter, and is just a generally awesome individual. CheekeyMonkey is also freaking awesome, even though I can never think of the word 'trolley' the same way again. Kudos, Twinkies, sprinkles, Oreos, and Smores to both of these people. If you haven't read their fics yet, go do it. Now.

I must say, I really like how this turned out. I gave myself roughly a month to do it (back to school next week, less time for writing), not expecting that I'd actually meet a self-imposed deadline for once. In a few weeks, I'll skim over this and see a thousand minor problems, but right now, as a whole, I'm really very fond of it. I always thought it was rather cruel to bring Charley back for a few more shining moments, just to kill him off. More than that, I think that Charley's character and his relationship with Sarah don't get nearly enough credit or exploration. Besides, one tragic love story is enough for Sarah Connor, the woman needs a break. I tried to be honest and careful that the issues between her and Charley were treated as realistically as possible. Whether I succeeded in that, I guess the review section will tell that tale. If you've reserved judgment until the end, judge now, let me know what you think.

So…who wants to talk sequels? Obviously there are still places to go and things to explore. This could've gone on, but I feel like it would've become a different story with a different feel. Anyone care to see that different story? There are scenes floating around in my head, and yeah, I think I want to write them. Does that sound like a plan to you? Let me know.

Finally, an explanation of the songs. I blame CheekeyMonkey. Sort of. All her damn song lyrics, and now I'm copying. Seriously though, the lyrics above and the tunes they're from really became anthems of this story. My Ipod was doing a lot of repeat duty. If you haven't checked out artWork009's Youtube vid to the 'Shattered' song, go do it. It's one of the best Sarah Connor character studies I've seen, and not just because I happen to adore the song. If you haven't checked out wheresmyluce's Youtube channel, do that too. And look at the trailer she made for her own fic, as well as CheekeyMonkey's. Again, you should be reading both of these stories.

All right, I'm done plugging, and I'm done rambling. If you've made it this far, I thank you kindly. There's a lot of great reading material, and it means the world that you guys chose to spend time on this. Catch you all on the other side of the time bubble.