Well... hello there. Surprised to see me? Yeah, me too. I'll leave a full note at the end. Happy reading :)
"Did you knock up my mother?!"
Derek was jolted awake and winced as the sudden motion popped something in his neck. He rubbed the body part in question as he gazed at his nephew in groggy confusion. "Hey glad to see you up and walking around… wait. What?"
"My mother," John growled as he took an uneasy step forward without help. "Is she pregnant?"
Derek glanced back and forth between his angry general and a smirking cyborg. "Um… I uh…"
"I'm going to go pull the car up front," Cameron interrupted. "They should be here soon, John, with your discharge papers." She kissed him on the cheek and walked out, but not before stopping at the door to wink at Derek from behind John's back.
"John," Derek started. He slowly stood up with his hands out in front of him, palms facing his nephew as if to block him from charging. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I promise I did not knock up your mother. Cameron just has a strange robot sense of humor." And payback, he thought to himself. "But hey, you're looking good, yeah?" He stuffed his hands in his pockets, hoping to seem calm and casual.
John looked down at himself, and sighed. Baggy sweat pants and a t-shirt that lately was a bit too loose on him wasn't his best look. "I look like a hobo, but I'm moving a lot better. Everything is healing up just fine." He shrugged and looked around the hospital room. He noticed for the first time his duffel bag packed full to bursting on his bed, and all of his belongings conspicuously missing from the various surfaces around the room, including the floor.
"I packed your stuff for you," Derek muttered. "I hope you don't mind. I was bored, and I figured it was just less time you had to spend in here."
"No, thank you. I appreciate it," John said genuinely. He scratched the longer than usual stubble on his cheek as he took a seat on the bed. "I'll be so glad to get the hell out of here. You know, I spent all my life running, hiding, hunting down Skynet. I hated it. I always wished for a normal life. But being in here, and not knowing what's going on, not being a part of things… that sucked. I thought I was going crazy, ya know? Two decades wanting nothing but to get away from it all, and suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to get back to it."
Derek took a long look at the man in front of him. He was a little thinner, and his hair was brushing the tops of his ears. He had dark circles under his eyes, and he was sitting a little sideways with his arm covering his stomach in a way that showed he wasn't quite pain-free yet. He looked so much like Kyle, it made his heart hurt. There wasn't anything he wouldn't do for this man, the son of his brother.
Before he could say anything, an orderly was knocking on the doorframe. "Hello… are you ready to bust out of this joint?"
John was surprised to see a rather large-built, clearly muscular man in the doorway, dressed in an ugly shade of burgundy scrubs over a white turtleneck. He was expecting one of the young girls he had seen pushing other patients around. Somehow the burgundy looked a lot better on them. "Uh, yeah. Definitely. I can go now?
The man nodded as he glanced over his papers. He asked John for his name and birthdate one last time before helping him into the wheelchair he had brought with him. "Sorry dude, hospital rules. We want to make sure you make it out of here in one piece, and that literally means pushing you out of here on wheels."
John shrugged, secretly glad he didn't have to walk the whole distance. "No problem. Cameron knows where to go?" he asked his uncle.
Derek merely raised an eyebrow as he shouldered the duffle bag. She knew where to go. She knew every last possible exit. As did he.
They walked (and rolled) down the long corridor towards the elevators, John asking to stop at the nurse's station to say goodbye to the friendly women who had taken care of him for several weeks. They finally made it to the scuffed up stainless steel doors and the orderly pressed the button down. "So what's your first meal going to be?"
"My what?" John asked.
"Your first meal," the orderly shrugged. "The first real food you're going to eat when you get out of here."
John's stomach growled as if on command. "I don't know," he responded honestly. "I haven't really thought about it. I've just been more excited about getting out of here and being free."
The elevator doors opened and John was glad to see it was empty. The orderly, whose name tag John spotted said Nathan, pulled him into the lift backwards. He waited for Derek to follow them in before hitting the button next to the little star. "I'm a spaghetti guy myself," Nathan said casually. "Ain't nothing like a big ol' plate of- "
The elevator suddenly stopped, and the lights went out.
The three men waited in silence for a moment. Nathan reached out and pressed several of the buttons on the panel, but nothing happened. No lights, no movement. Nothing.
"What happened?" Derek asked nervously.
The orderly shook his head, but nobody saw it in the darkness. "I don't know. If we lost power, there's a back up generator that should have turned the emergency lights on at the very least.
"We need to get out of here," John whispered it almost silently, but his uncle heard him and had to agree. Derek felt his way to the crack in the doors and, holding his breath, pushed them open. It felt harder than it should have been, and he only managed about a foot. Nathan stepped beside him, and together they pushed the doors all the way open. A light turned on behind them as John shined his cell phone towards the opening.
"Shit, Derek…"
"I know!" his uncle answered sharply.
The three men stared at a cinderblock wall.
XXXX
Savannah sat in the middle of her bed with a doodle pad in front of her. Headphones in her ears played her favorite music from Cameron's iPod. "Welcome Home John" was drawn out in rainbow bubble letters on the paper. Special glitter crayons added a fancy touch. Finishing the last letter, she put the crayon back in the box and inspected her work.
"What do you think Snickers?"
The tabby cat's ears flicked upon hearing his name, but other than that, he gave no response. He was stretched out across the end of her bed, basking in the rays of sunshine beaming through the window. He was a surprise from John Henry. The last cat to have stuck around at the old house, he was brought for Savannah shortly after John got hurt.
She reached out to pet the soft white fur of his belly, causing the cat to stretch out even farther in pleasure. She could feel the rumble of purring and smiled, happy in the company of her old friend. She pulled out a purple crayon and decided the poster could use a few hearts and stars. Purple was Cameron's favorite color, and she thought it was appropriate to add that touch since Cameron had also been gone almost as long as John. It had been an awfully boring time alone with Sarah. The only upside was that Sarah had insisted she keep up her normal school and ballet routine. It gave her a chance to spend time with some of the new friends she had made.
Sarah had even let her go to Natalie's birthday slumber party last week. In fact, she had almost gotten in trouble for not telling Sarah about it. Sarah had found the invitation stuffed in the bottom of her backpack two nights before the big day. Savannah didn't think she'd ever be able to go, and instead of asking for permission and being disappointed - or yelled at for being impractical- she hid it and let it go. But Sarah was checking on her homework and found it. She didn't scold her for it. In fact, she sort of looked at her sadly as Savannah stared down at the kitchen table, picking at the wood grain with her fingers.
"Why didn't you tell me about this birthday party?" Sarah had asked.
Savannah shrugged and kept her eyes on the table. "I can't go anyway, so what's the point?" She knew she shouldn't have said it as soon as the words left her mouth. John got in trouble all the time for his attitude, and Cameron had even started calling her out on her own talking back, something Cameron claimed was becoming a bad habit picked up from her pretend adoptive father. So she waited quietly for the rebuke from Sarah, that never came.
Instead, Sarah stuck the colorful invitation to the refrigerator with a magnet. "I just wish you'd have given me more time to pick up a present. And you'll need a sleeping bag."
An older Savannah would have understood the very limited risk a party like that would impose. She would have also understood that Sarah really did just need a night alone to herself. Whatever it is that she did that night, Savannah hadn't a clue, and she didn't care. It was fun for her and that was all that mattered. For one night, it was almost like her life was normal.
"Hey! Snickers!" Savannah watched the cat suddenly leap off the bed and bolt into her open closet as the box of crayons was knocked to the floor, the sparkly crayons scattering everywhere.
"Why did you do that?" she whined as she pulled the headphones out of her ears. She huffed as she slid off her bed and knelt down to pick up the crayons. "You broke the red one!" She glared at the dark closet, unable to see where the cat was hiding in the shadows.
Heavy footsteps on the porch suddenly alerted her. Excitement bubbled inside as she raced to her window, glad to have the front-facing bedroom that looked out over the driveway. Expecting to see Derek's truck, she frowned when she spotted an old, white pickup she had never seen before.
She heard the screen door open and slam shut. She stood in place, listening intently for sounds from downstairs. Sarah was in the kitchen making dinner, but she didn't hear her voice. In fact, she didn't hear anything at all.
Finally she heard loud, slow footsteps make their way through the kitchen. They stopped at where she guessed would be the door to the basement. She could then tell the door was opened as she heard the ring of the little jingle bells she had hung from the doorknob for the cat to play with.
Her heart began to pound. Where was Sarah? Why didn't she hear her downstairs? Whose truck was that? She looked around her room as if searching for the answers. Her eyes stopped on the closet door, still slightly ajar.
Snickers had run. Something had obviously scared him. She was listening to her music. What if she didn't here something bad happen? What if the person downstairs was a bad guy? What if it was a metal?
Tears started welling up in Savannah's eyes. Pure terror started pumping adrenaline through her veins. The muffled sound of something crashing deep in the basement scared her even more. What should she do? She needed someone. She wanted Cameron.
Cameron. Suddenly, months upon months of training started playing in her mind. Back then, it was all just pretend. But Cameron told her that without a doubt, she would need to use her skills some day. It didn't seem real then, but it was certainly real now. Just like a child trained to dial 9-1-1 in an emergency, Savannah was trained to evade and escape.
She quickly, yet silently, made her way to her bedroom door, making sure to avoid every squeaky floorboard. She closed it as quietly as she could and locked the door. From there, she scurried back to the bed where from underneath she pulled out a black backpack. She stuffed her favorite doll, the red-headed Rebecca that looked so much like her, into the main pocket with the various other items already pre-packed and zipped it closed, the doll's upper body sticking out the top. She waited a moment, listening for any other noises, but couldn't decipher the muffled sounds. She shouldered the backpack and, taking a deep breath, she walked over to her window and opened it as quietly as she could. It opened easier than it should have. The old windows had all been scrubbed and greased by Cameron, in preparation to be used as emergency exits. Just in case. They had practiced this particular exit many times before.
No screen blocked her way. Insects were a minor price to pay for the safety of a fast exit. Savannah carefully stepped out of the window onto the porch roof. Walking to the edge, she got down on her knees and, backwards, dropped her right foot until she found her footing in a lattice hole. Even that was thoroughly planned and reinforced.
From there, she quickly and efficiently made her way down to the ground, jumping off at the last couple of feet. She squatted down, back up against the side of the house and looked around.
What she spotted on the porch made her heart stop.
Sarah lay on the floor, unmoving. Her linen shirt was soaked with blood.
Without thinking, Savannah ran around to the front of the porch and climbed the steps as quickly as she could. She nearly slid over to Sarah as she dropped to her knees. In a panic, she grabbed the woman by her shoulders and shook her as hard as she dared, considering the amount of blood now pooling around them.
"Sarah!" she pleaded, her voice dangerously just above a whisper. "Sarah, please, wake up!"
There was no response. Her eyelids didn't even flutter. Tears streamed uncontrollably down the young girl's face as she looked around in desparation. They had no neighbors. There were never any passing cars. They were secluded.
And she was alone.
Loud footsteps snapped her head back to the front door. The heavy door had been left wide open, and she could see straight into the kitchen through the screen door. In the middle of the kitchen stood a large man dressed in a police officer's uniform. The man was staring right back at her.
Without wasting another moment, Savannah pushed herself back up to her feet, turned, and ran off the porch, leaving a still and silent Sarah behind.
Her feet carried her as fast as they could. She knew where to go. Knew how to hide. Except this time, it wasn't a game. It was getting dark. And she was alone.
The trees of the forest were right up ahead. Another thirty yards and she could disappear into the shadows. She felt it before she heard it. The gunshot echoed loudly through the trees, causing a flock of birds to fly out in a dark cloud of furiously flapping wings. The force of the shot sent her falling forward, knocking the wind out of her as she hit the ground hard.
A/N: Soooooo I hope you enjoyed! I didn't plan to abandon this for so long. Things just sort of happened that way. To understand, I started this little adventure about 7 years ago. Back then, I was a nerdy college student with no life. Now, I have a family and a career. My free time has been drastically reprioritized since starting Irony. But some things never change though. I'm still an uber nerd, just ask my husband. That's why I've been using my Spring Break (the perks of being a teacher who chronically procrastinates grading papers) to give you all a brand new chapter. Though I have to say, turning the images in my mind into words is a lot freaking harder when I'm this out of practice! A lot of you have been PMing me afraid I had abandoned it forever. I promise, I will finish this story. And I appreciate every last one of you who still comes back to read my little story, even those who don't leave a review. I see you. ;)