Hey everyone! I know it had been a while but life, as usual, has been a little hectic. Work is finally starting to slow down so I will hopefully be writing more! The creative juices have been flowing with the help of my beautiful new, to me at least, Louis XV writing desk!

Anyway! I hope you all like this chapter, I really struggled with getting it to come out the way I envisioned it!

I want to thank the wonderful people who took the time to Review and Add my story! Keep them coming!

Happy reading!

~!DDM!~

"Des?"

I turned and gasped. There he was! Standing in his Resistance jacket and looking as confused as I felt.

"Marcus, is that really you?" I ran over to him, hugging him tightly and nearly knocking us both over in my enthusiasm.

He felt solid.

"I thought I was dead, didn't I die again?" He looked around the empty white void we were standing in, arms wrapped tightly around me. "Most people only die once you know, this is my what, second, third time giving it a try? Don't people usually say that the third time is the charm?"

"I guess you are just lucky that way." I laughed.

"Where are we?" He looked around at our blank surroundings again.

"I think that we are in your head." I said uncertainly, looking around as well. "It just as empty as I would have expected." he laughed at my attempt to lighten the weight of the anxiety I was feeling.

"Glad to finally know how you really feel about me."

"The others think you are 'rebooting', like a computer that has crashed. Do you feel any different?" I asked hopefully.

"I...I feel like I'm floating. Its kind of like I'm floating on the ocean in a storm and I keep getting tossed around by the waves. It's a weird feeling."

"Do you think you are waking up?" I asked, looking around the empty room for some kind of sign, maybe a big red light that indicated an 'Exit'.

"I don't know if I even want to wake up." he sighed. "I should have been dead a long time ago, you know that. I need to be punished, I deserve it."

I sighed sadly, knowing he really did feel like he didn't deserve the right to live.

"I think that after everything that we have been through since we woke up the first time, you have more than redeemed yourself for any past wrongs. Look at all the good things you have done, the people you have helped. Me, Kyle, Star, John...The Resistance never would have been able to gain the ground it did against Skynet if you hadn't promised to get John in. You can't hide form life just because you don't think you deserve to have one. Don't you think your brother would want you to live? Don't you think he would want you to find happiness?"

He sighed and pulled me closer.

"Why are you so good to me?" he asked softly.

"Because silly, you are family! And I refuse to let you wallow inside this empty place you call a brain!

"Hey!" he said in mock indignation, putting his hand over his heart as if I had wounded him.

"Besides, Blair misses you, I miss you, Kyle and Star miss you and I think even Barns might miss you a little." I laughed. "If you don't come back who is going to help me get through all of, Kyle's teenage mood swings? I think having to deal with them is going to be punishment enough for anything anyone has ever done wrong and I really, really don't want to have to deal with them alone." It was his turn to laugh.

"I don't know how to wake up." he said softly, hugging me close. I sighed and lay my head against him. I wondered how we were going to get out of here, seeing as the 'Exit' sign I had been looking for really didn't see fit to show up. We would get out of here, I refused to leave him now that there was the possibility of getting him back.

That was when I felt it. The odd feeling of the tide letting go of me, allowing me drift to the surface, my determination acting as a buoy.

"Follow me Marcus." I pulled him down to my level and pressed my forehead against his. "Follow me, my hero, my brother." Everything was fading.

I gasped for air, truly feeling as though I had truly been under water and fell backwards, landing sprawled out on my back. I heard several other gasps around me as I tried to pull myself together.

"Marcus!" I heard Blair's voice cry out from somewhere to my left. A bright light was shining in my eyes and I could hear Kate's voice saying my name over and over.

"Can you hear me Odessa?" she asked again.

"Yeah, yeah I can hear you." I mumbled, Barns helped me to my feet and I looked over to see that Marcus was slowly sitting up, looking around with a dazed look on his face. "Third time is a charm." I said to him, smiling, he just laughed.

"I want you both in the infirmary right now." Kate demanded. "I want to do a full physical and tests run, no excuses." she bustled out in all her pregnant glory.

"I'd do what she says if I were you." Barns warned as he helped Marcus up off the metal table he was laid out on. I am very glad they left his pants on when they put him in this room. Blair surprised me by coming over and wrapping an arm around my waist to help support me in case I needed it. She and I still were not all that close but we were making steady progress toward being friends, it will probably evolve more quickly now that neither of us have reason to mourn Marcus. We entered the medical room, one after the other and heard John's exasperated and surprised declaration.

"You have got to be kidding me!" he sounded like he wasn't sure if he wanted to be pissed off or to laugh. I walked over to check on the fluid drips he was still hooked up to but Kate intercepted me before I could reach him. Just because I wasn't exactly happy with him and his earlier scolding doesn't mean I didn't still care about his well being.

"Sit." she demanded, pointing to the cot beside John's. Marcus and I both sat on it and waited patiently for her to gather everything she needed. She was checking my blood pressure when a man I didn't recognize walked in, a laptop under one arm and cables in his other hand. The way he was staring at Marcus and I was really making me uncomfortable. I did my best to ignore him until he made it impossible by setting his laptop down beside me and started to hook his cables up to it, all the while glancing at us. I was officially freaked out when he took the lose end of a cable and reached out toward my head.

"What do you think you are doing?" I asked, scared of what his movements were implying.

"Who the hell are you?" Marcus demanded, grabbing the man's hand and stopping him from touching me.

"This is Chet, he is our resident Terminator program expert." Barns said from across the room. Chet was looking nervous now, glancing between us, Barns, and John.

"Nice to meet you Chet. Now what are you doing with those cables?" I asked, trying to remain polite.

"We, uh, we need to see if you are still transmitting." he mumbled nervously, wrist still gripped in Marcus' partially metal hand, the skin seemed to be slowly growing back and was almost half way down his hand now rather than exposing the metal all the way up to his wrist.

"I'm not." Marcus said instantly. "I ripped that thing off the back of my head when I was in Skynet central."

"I didn't know we could transmit anything anywhere." I said uneasily.

"It will just take a quick, easy test to find out. We would have done it sooner but we were ordered to wait until you were more calm and had settled in." Chet said quickly, glancing tellingly in John's direction. He seemed quite relieved now that Marcus had let go of him.

"Let me just check...uh...Marcus' connection first." he said uneasily. Marcus watched him closely as Chet circled around behind him. I watched as the tech pocked and prodded at the back of my brother's neck. After a few seconds he nodded and deemed Marcus 'untraceable'. Then he picked the cables back up and headed my way.

"Will it hurt?" I asked, eying the cables now in his hands.

"It shouldn't, no, you might feel a minor discomfort but nothing to bad. We have done this to other Terminators we managed to get a hold of without any problems." he was still to nervous to really sound reassuring.

"Is it really necessary?" Marcus asked.

"We need to know if you are a danger to people living here." Barns spoke up.

"What do I need to do?" I asked nervously.

"I need you to lay face down on the cot and move your hair away from the back of your neck." Chet instructed.

Marcus moved out of the way as I did as I was told. I felt better when he took one of my hands in his. I looked to the side and found John's gray-green eyes looking right back at me. He glanced briefly at the hand that was being held by Marcus before looking back at my face. A hand moved the hair away from my neck and I squeezed Marcus' hand, he squeezed back.

Something cool touched my neck and I took a deep breath to calm myself.