A/N: Welcome to part two of five. Yay! So, I've fixed a few typos and minor errors in the last chapter in case it was bugging a few of you. I know it does me, so I thought I'd clear that all up.

Disclaimer: I do not own nor am I affiliated with Terminator in any way, shape or form... That I know of...

And we're off!

-- Week Two --

Derek hates the way the bracelets sit on their wrists. Made purely of scrap metal burnt down or found around the bunker, they're held tightly around the wearer's arm as to where only an extremely large amount of force could ever pry them off.

Drowned in the mud, the water seeps through the thin fabric covering his body and Derek feels the cheap aluminum digging into the rough skin on his fingers. He hisses through clenched teeth, blood seeping down his wrist and landing on the dead body underneath him.

"Jesus Christ..." he can hear Allison mutter under her breath, barely audible over the sound of the rain pounding it's way down from the sky, pinging and panging on every piece of machinery with the name "Skynet" stamped across it.

"You didn't have to come, so shut up."

"It was my fault," she says, hunkering down next to him and resting her hand gently on the small of his back. He's lying prone on the ground, both of his arms reaching down into a giant hole they'd just made in the earth.

"If you're gonna help, then help," he snaps at her, "...instead of acting like you want something."

The warm feeling on his back instantly disappears and it's replaced by a cruel suggestion. "Break his hand."

"What?"

She swears some more. "You think we're just given time here, Derek? You're pansying the hell around and we need that damn bracelet; we're screwed if they find it."

He rises up to his knees, his whole front slathered in dirt. "You do it then," he spits at her, pointing cruelly towards Brocik who's laid in his grave. "If you think you're just so fuck—"

"Fine," interrupts stiffly.

The next thing he knows, she lying down next to the grave, a sickening crunch reverberates through the air and the metal check-in bracelet is thrown at his feet.

---

He's doesn't understand why they even bothered burying him. Normally, they just throw the dead ones in the same burner that melts down the scraps after everything is gotten rid of and toss the ashes outside, mumbling a few words of goodbye. They don't make a big ceremony out of it, John does the tossing, thanks them for their service, and it's over and done real quickly. However, when Allison got back from her second round a few hours ago, the discovery of Joseph Brocik's death didn't go so smoothly. Continually, she blamed herself for his demise, saying how she could have done something or stayed to watch him. Derek cynically enlightened her to the fact that it would have been much easier to just leave him behind. He got a dirty look from that one.

Connor only let her bury him outside the bunker if Derek was in attendance and if she went between certain hours of the very early morning where Skynet patrol would be at its lowest possible point

So that's what they did.

Right now, Derek and Allison are sitting across from each other on opposite sides of the skinny, dimly lit hall that connects the main entrance of the bunker to the rest of the thing. For reasons that even he doesn't understand, Derek is never far away from the door. Possibly it's because he doesn't want to get trapped at the far end by the machines like a lone, empty square at the bottom of a Tetris game.

"I've known you for two days," he starts, fingering the encoding strap inside the check-in bracelet. He doesn't count the week that she was running around outside, dodging hellish entities to deliver messages scrawled down on something or other with charcoal.

"No. You've known me since the bombs fell," she says flatly. "You just never bothered to say anything or recognize my existence."

He narrows his brows. "Hypocrisy is not your strong point."

"Yeah, well."

"Anyways," he says, "in those two days...Hell, an hour ago—"

"What would you have done?" He doesn't answer. "Just let them find it? I know that if that was me, I'd be just like Brocik."

She doesn't elaborate, so he probes farther. "What do you mean?"

"If they want my bracelet, they're gonna have to rip it off my dead body."

"You're a lunatic."

"I am not."

At this, Derek sits back, his ass starting to get sore from being planted on the hard cement floor. He stretches out his legs, crossing them at the ankle and looks over the top of his feet to see Allison staring the bottom of his boots. "It's your fault they're muddy."

He studies her for a while. Three minutes, four minutes; he has no idea how long. Every part of him knows that if all the dirt, blood and Christ knows what else is scrubbed away, she'd be gorgeous. Her petite frame, those big brown eyes and the way her mouth turns up at the left corner as if she's pondering over whether to smile or not would all collaborate to create something unlike no other.

Derek watches her line of sight travel away from his footwear; it crawls over his legs and up his chest to meet up with his own eyes.

"You remind me of my dad."

He blinks. "Oh?"

"M'hmm."

Lord, that wasn't exactly what he was going for. "You remember him?"

"I do," she says, her voice having a sort of odd wave to it. Apparently, that wasn't the greatest of all questions to ask. "I can't really put what he looked like; I was really young, but I remember how he...felt." Her tone is soft, but grainy at the edges like she doesn't quite want to say anything about the subject. "I don't remember much from then, but I always had this ...feeling about being safe around him. Y'know?" At this, she goes back to looking at the bottom of his boots. "Secure."

Mumbling, barely audible, he says, "Must've been nice."

"Dunno why, but I've yet to have this feeling since a week ago." Allison shrugs. "When I was running around out there with the machines and the guys, when I was worrying about Brocik...I'd think of you and I'd feel safe."

"When I think of you, I wonder how you're gonna shock the hell out of me next," Derek says.

She gives him one of those smiles. "Oh, I'm full of surprises." With a grumble and a groan, she rises up on her feet with stiff knees. "I got probably half an hour left."

Tilting his neck a funny angle, he looks out the hole blown into the side of the bunker that forms a convenient window sort of apparatus to see dawn shoving its way up through the haze on the horizon. "More like half a second."

As if on cue, Robue and the other two show up around the corner and Derek has to stand up to make room for them to get through the hall. Acknowledging them with a curt nod, he asks if they have enough guns, medical supplies and food to get them to the next bunker. Robue hands Allison her pack, confirming that they have such things in order.

A few others bother to get up at the early hour to see off the Runners, thoughts running through their heads -- all pertaining to if they'd ever see them again.

Strangely, Derek clenches Brocik's bracelet in his sweaty grasp, desperately not wanting to add another's to the collection.

Allison turns, bringing her hand to her forehead in a mock solute. "Reese," she says, her eyes aglow and with a lopsided grin.

"Allie."

A/N: End of part two of five.