"Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them." - Rainer Maria Rilke
The voices around John are fading in and out and they're doing it in time with the light so he's starting to think maybe it's just him. He struggles without really meaning to and can't quite get it together enough to worry when he barely moves. Everything is too heavy or too light, too fast and then too slow.
Too bright. He flinches away as a light shines into his face and at the very edges of his awareness pain starts to make itself known. His breath rasps in his chest and his arm – his arm.
He shouts as consciousness slams into him without mercy, memory darting in its wake and agony drawing in right behind.
"Hold him!" A woman, her voice is high but commanding and shouting to be heard over the screaming.
Over his screaming.
Hands are on him, keeping him pressed against the ground or the table or wherever the hell he is and doesn't want to be.
"What's his name?" asks the woman, still somewhere above, somewhere the lights in his eyes won't let him see.
"John. John Connor."
John knows the man speaking but he can't make his mouth form around words, can't stop the keening sound that's coming from somewhere within him.
The shadow of the woman becomes the woman herself as the light dims. He stares up at her; red hair and pale skin, haloed by swinging lamps. "Stay with me, John. Stay with me this time."
He blinks and wants to promise he will. He'll promise anything at all just to make it stop.
A hand drops onto his shoulder – his other shoulder – and a voice says. "Sleep, kid."
The cloth held over his mouth smells sickly sweet and he gags as it takes him down and out.
-o-
"You don't understand, Derek. We knew each other in eighth grade; he should be my age and he's barely old enough to shave."
"Then it can't be him," Derek says, like it's the end of the argument.
But the woman goes on. "There'll be a scar on his back, about 3 inches long, right hand side."
"He isn't metal. Metal doesn't bleed like that and it doesn't scream like that." His voice softens. "It sure as hell doesn't save lives."
"I didn't say he was metal. Christ, I just spent four hours in his insides. I just – how. How can it be him?"
"Ask him when he wakes up, maybe he'll tell you."
"You don't believe me."
John doesn't hear Derek's reply.
-o-
There's a hand in his when he wakes up again, and it is waking up this time. He feels wrung out and hot and hazy and that's still better than it's been … for a while.
He turns his head enough to look up at Allison. She's pale and her skin is streaked with dirt and blood. He swallows and still only manages a whisper. "What happened?"
She's awake instantly; there are no deep sleepers left.
She looks like hell, but she smiles. "Hi. You died. Twice. Kate was really mad at you, she threw things."
"I'm sorry?" he suggests.
"You should be." The red-haired woman is standing over the cot now; she's smiling but he can see the tightness at the corners of her eyes. She looks familiar but he can't place why. "Your arm is still there but how much mobility you've retained in it ... I can't say.
It's blunt but his priorities have shifted; when a graze can kill you, he's lucky he's alive. That he's still got two arms? That would be a miracle.
As if she's read his mind Kate says, "Your immune system is incredible for someone as young as you are."
"I guess what doesn't kill you makes you stronger," he croaks. Allison brings a tin up to his mouth, he's expecting the fetid water but it's canned fruit syrup. It stings the little cuts on his lips and he wonders how they got so bitten up.
Kate is silent as he drinks, watching without commenting until he's finished. Then she says, "Not yet. In a few generations, if we make it that far, maybe. The mortality rate from disease and infection in those born within five years of Judgment Day is the highest so far."
"Kids these days." Derek's tone is bland and the humour morbid as he steps up behind the doctor.
She turns just enough to look at him as he stops at her side. "What kids?"
There's something sharp hidden in the softness of her question and Derek ducks his head as it hits its mark. John thinks he sees something between them, but he's not sure. His shoulder spasms and he groans.
Kate's voice becomes the clipped professional, again. "I'm sorry, I can't give you anything for the pain."
It's not that she doesn't want to, John knows. It's just there's nothing to give. The good stuff, the best stuff, they no longer have a way to measure accurately. It's given to the dying to ease the way, a quick and painless death is the only comfort left.
Sweat is beading on his forehead and his shoulder is another pulse, sending waves of fire across his chest and up his neck. He grits his teeth and tells himself he's had worse; he'll be remembering when that was any time now. "It's fine."
"She can't give you anything. I can." Derek pulls out an old water bottle that's been patched with duct tape. There's a clear-ish liquid in it and John's pretty sure the plastic is starting to melt.
"What is it?"
"Painkiller." Derek hands the bottle to Cam- Allison. It's Allison. She holds it to John's lips and lets him take a small, small drink. It burns all the way down – enough to take his mind off his arm for a few seconds – and then his tongue goes pleasantly numb.
"Is this going to make me go blind?"
Derek shrugs and sits cross-legged by the palette. "Do you care?"
"Point." John takes another swallow and feels the pain retreat, just a little. Just enough.
Kate takes Allison's arm and says, "There's a cot. Come on." Allison stands stiffly and John wonders how long she's been there.
He's going to ask Derek when the two women have gone, but Derek speaks first. "Kate says she knows you."
"I've never met her before." He's sure. He's pretty sure.
"She knows you have a scar on your back."
John's gaze jerks that way before he's thought about it and he knows Derek doesn't miss anything.
Derek nods. "She says she knew you when you were kids. She's in her thirties and you're still a kid."
John licks his lips and wants more of the 'painkiller', but it's probably not a good idea. "I need to sleep."
"You've slept enough."
"Seriously, you're interrogating someone in my condition?"
"Can't think of a better time." There's the very faintest twitch of a smile and John remembers his uncle can kill in a way John can't. Like it's a part of him. Someone being sick and weak just makes it easier.
So maybe he'll try another route. "I'm not a threat. You know I'm not a threat. I've been here for weeks."
"If I thought you were a threat, we wouldn't be talking," Derek points out, pretty reasonably John thinks.
His shoulder isn't throbbing anymore; it's a constant agony creeping further and further over him. He's too tired to play and it's too cold to try. "You won't believe me. I wouldn't believe me."
"Try me."
John stares up at the ceiling as the shadows roll over it and says, "When you were kids, you and Kyle used to play ball in the park. Reese, number six."
Derek stares at him and says nothing; there's not even a flicker to tell John if he's right or wrong. He can't really see Derek any more anyway, so maybe it doesn't matter. He can't seem to stop himself anyway.
"Kate Brewster." John remembers a girl with red hair and a bright, brittle smile who attached herself to him at school. Riley reminded him of her, except they were totally different. "Kate Brewster, West Hills Junior High. Eighth grade."
"Where are you from, John Connor?"
"Here. I'm from here. I'm always from here." John gives up and lets his eyes slide shut, just for a moment. His voice is a whisper but it's angry and that's worth the effort. "Now ask the right question."
He can hear Derek stand, "You saved my brother's life."
John doesn't say, "I took it first." He doesn't say, "I might need it later." He doesn't say anything at all.
Derek walks away.
-o-
John knows he's dreaming; he has to be dreaming because his next visitor sits on the edge of the thin blankets and punches him hard in the shoulder. "Punch buggy."
He scowls and tries to rub away the ache; it doesn't seem to be working. "I didn't see it."
"It's there." She leans forward and tucks the blankets tighter around him, trying for good mother but she's really not good at that kind of thing. She's too careful. Too afraid. And she totally cheats.
"It's not."
"Is."
He looks around and then behind her; there's nothing here but them, but he's not going to argue the point any more. "You're meant to warn me when we start to play."
She smiles. "What's the fun in that?"
"My arm hurts."
"I know." She pats his shoulder and sends pain stabbing through his chest; he doesn't try and stop her. He never does.
"I'm not a kid anymore."
"You're my kid. You'll always be my kid." She leans close, eyes intent and angry in a way they've only ever been when he's done something that's scared her. She hates being scared. "So start thinking like my kid."
She stands, the zipper on her jacket catches the light and throws it into his eyes until they blur with tears and then she's swept back and away by a crowd of shouting faces, lifting and poking and prodding until he screams.
-o-
Kate's face is inches from his as he focuses and blinks away from the light she'd been shining into his eyes.
"Good." She smiles, thin and humorless but under it he can see something familiar, something bright and sweet. And brittle. "Secondary infection. You still have the arm and you're lucky as hell Derek's a blood match."
She busies herself with some dressings and he tries to steel himself against the pain he knows is coming but he can't find enough pieces of himself to do it. It occurs to him he might die like this; he might die here and now.
And she doesn't deserve this.
"Math. We had math together."
"I know," she says flatly. Fast, practiced fingers roll a bandage.
"You like chocolate brownies in milk; brownie soup."
Kate's gaze darts up to meet his and there's a trace of the girl he knew in her smile. "You thought that was gross."
He laughs, wheezes really, and doesn't mind that it hurts. "It is gross."
"Where's your mom?" she asks suddenly, John wonders if he was talking while he was out of it.
"In the grass." He doesn't know if it's true, but he hopes it is.
He closes his eyes and bites into his lip as she begins to peel the bandages away.
-o-
"You murdered my coat."
John opens his eyes to see Kyle sitting next to him, where Derek had been, with a jacket in his arms. It's stained dark with John's blood; the dry cleaners aren't what they used to be.
"I didn't kill your coat."
Kyle scowls. "You were an accessory or something."
"I was a witness, maybe." Actually, John thinks he feels better. Definitely a little better. He shuffles himself up enough that he's half sitting; he's breathing hard by the time he's done and Kyle is holding the bottle of painkiller out for him. He takes it and downs a mouthful.
"Why did you do it?"
"I told you, I'm innocent." He giggles – God help him, he giggles. "The one-armed man did it."
Kyle doesn't catch the reference and he doesn't let himself get taken off target by asking either. "You took on metal; you took it down."
It had been a T-600; John knows the weak spots like he knows Cameron's chip. "I was lucky."
Kyle nods at the ruin of John's arm, still swaddled in barely clean bandaging. "Not really."
John nods. "Okay, you were lucky."
There's a pause and then Kyle drapes the coat over the blankets; John can see the stitching, mending where the medics had cut it open, patching where the T-600's fingers had dug through cloth and flesh and ripped both away. "Treat it better this time."
Kyle leaves him the bottle.
-o-
When John's gone a week without dying - or even nearly dying - he's allowed to sit up and the bandages are loosened enough he can begin to work the arm.
It's an ugly wound: the skin puckered between the yellow stitches is red and weeping, the scars will be thick and jagged. It smells like it's rotting but Kate assures him the maggots will take care of that and then holds his head as he pukes.
Now he stares down at his hand and pulls his fingers toward his palm one at a time; he thinks of dead birds. The fingers tremble and ache, but they all work and that's all he needs.
When Derek drops by again, John sits straighter and says, "I'm going back to the tower."
Derek blinks. "No, you're not."
"I have to. I'm just telling you because …" John thinks for a moment and very carefully doesn't shrug. "I don't know why I'm telling you."
"I think it's called a cry for help. That's what suicide is, right?"
Derek drops the bag he'd been carrying by Kate's tiny cubicle and then grabs the only chair and drags it over. It scrapes hollowly over the floor and creaks when Derek sits.
John shakes his head. "It's not suicide."
"Could be - Kyle will kill you if you mess up his coat again."
That twists a half-smile out of John, but he shakes his head again - it's the most emphatic thing he's capable of right now. "There's something there. Someone left something for me there."
"Yeah, at least three six-hundreds and regular HK patrols. We were doing the last recon before pulling back when we found you, if there was anything there then we stripped it years ago."
"You wouldn't know where to look."
Derek's eyes narrow. "And you do?"
John lets his smile grow more crooked. "I do."
-o-
And John's glad he had his mental break and mentioned it early, at least, because it takes the four weeks of his convalescence to convince Derek (and Allison, and Kyle, and Kate) that it was the fever talking, and that they don't need to lock him up for his own safety.
His arm is a constant ache and weaker – much weaker – than it needs to be, but he doesn't know if it will ever get better and every day that passes presses down on him until he can't breathe under the weight of time running out.
Kate catches him leaving, standing between him and the door. He balances as well as he can, ready to make a run past her if he has to. He really hopes he doesn't.
"I knew you'd try this," she snaps. "Go back to bed."
"I can't, I have to go. Let me go. Please." He keeps his tone even because two people angry just doesn't work out.
She changes the game and angry softens to pleading. "What's there? What's so important?"
That's not playing fair. "I think my – I know my mom left something for me there. It was the last place she saw me. It's our only point of contact."
"There's nothing there," she says, but she doesn't look sure.
"There's something there," he says and he knows he sounds convincing because he's believes it. He knows it.
She holds a hand up to gesture with surprising clarity that he's going to stay put or suffer, and then she crosses over to her cubicle and picks up an old canvas bag. "Then I'm coming with you."
"You can't, people will die if you're not here."
Now she rounds on him and lets the anger back out. "How many people will die if you're not here? You know how the machines work and don't try and tell me you don't know more than that, not when I'm standing here old enough to be your mother."
Other women might be crying at that point but John's never met one who would be, so he wouldn't know. Kate's almost shaking with fury and if her eyes are shining it's only because she has to stop herself undoing all the work she's put into keeping him alive.
He keeps his voice soft and implacable, measured and emotionless. From his mother he took immovable; from Cameron he's taking unstoppable. "I'm sorry, you can't stop me and you can't come with me."
"I can."
John turns quickly, too quickly, but Derek steadies him before he can fall. "If we don't die, you owe me a story. Deal?"
Derek is a cipher behind a gentle smile and amused eyes; John knows him better than that. He can see the fear. He can see the curiosity.
John had wondered why he – older he – sent Kyle back and not Derek. He thought maybe Derek hadn't been around or maybe because he knew Kyle better; now John thinks he was exactly wrong.
Derek and Kate share a look that John can't quite parse and then Derek takes John's bag from his hands and shucks it over his shoulder "Come on."
-o-
"So, you and Kate…" John whispers as they crouch twenty yards from the tunnel opening and wait like roaches for the lights to go out.
Derek looks blankly at him. "Me and Kate?"
"You don't have a … thing?"
Derek smirks. "Jealous?"
John colors – he's kind of surprised he has enough blood in him to do that. "Forget it."
"We don't have a 'thing'." John's prepared to leave it there but after a few seconds Derek whispers, "We did. Have a thing. A long time ago."
"Good. I guess, that's … good." Derek looks bemused and John shifts, uncomfortable in more ways than one. "It's got to be hard, is all. Having a thing. With all this."
"Having a thing is hard with or without the killer robots. Meet a few more girls," he says dryly, "you'll find out. This about Allison?"
John scowls and wonders if Derek can see the blush in the half-light. "No."
"And by no, you mean yes."
"I haven't seen her in a couple of days."
"She's been on far patrol, she needed something else to worry about." Catching John's look Derek adds, "She's fine. It's just not good to get …"
"Attached." John nods and knows. "You can't get attached to anyone. Ever."
Derek looks half way impressed, half way appalled. "Who taught you that?"
"My mother. My uncle." He smiles. "My sister."
"We've all lost people." Derek doesn't look chiding, he looks confused, trying to work out John's sudden vehemence and how does John tell him there's so much more to lose if you don't want to lose everything. That a person can't matter if people do; the final thing his mother taught him.
He doesn't. "Yeah, I know. Forget it. They've gone over."
The lights of the HKs are gone and they slip the night vision goggles over their eyes and begin to pick their way in the direction of the old business sector. It isn't far, this camp is on the front lines such as they are, but even a single block can take hours.
By the time they reach the building it's nearing dawn and there's no way they're getting home before it's light.
The front of the building has fallen in on itself; glass windows shearing down until it's a maze of dulled reflection. Derek gently tugs him back and leads them around the side. It's not much better, but once they lift the corrugated panels out of the way there's a small hole they can squeeze through.
Corridors stretch before them and for a moment John's mind overlays the present with ghosts. There, he sat with his mother while they waited. There, the elevator they used. Now the doors have been blasted open and it's just a shaft.
He has to think like Sarah Connor; he has to think where she would have hidden the past for him. John stares at the gaping hole for a long moment and then nods; down is better than up, if you don't have a choice. "We have to go down."
Derek looks around with a frown that's trepidation and paranoia in about equal parts. "Where's the metal?"
"Maybe they haven't hit this building yet."
"They search in grids: they've hit this block, they've hit this building. And they leave traps behind, sensors, wherever they've been. There's nothing here."
John has his suspicions and they begin and end with Catherine Weaver. There's a photo of Sarah Connor tucked into Kyle's flak jacket that had to come from somewhere and John would bet two cans of dog food this is where Weaver found it. "Didn't you hear? I'm lucky."
Derek snorts. "Right. How's the arm?"
John moves his fingers in quick succession, one-two-three-four-five. The hand shakes but the fist holds. "Fine." He steps closer to the edge of the elevator shaft and can see the drop all the way down. There's a service ladder and he swings out onto it before Derek can object.
The climb down is slow and agonizing; he drops the last ten feet just to get a different kind of pain.
He's staring into the long corridor of the sub-basement when Derek's fingers touch his shoulder. "Forget Kyle, Kate's going to kill you."
John frowns and then focuses on the fresh blood on Derek's fingertips. He rolls his eyes. "Great, so I'll look forward to that. Come on."
Derek follows silently; John can only hear himself as he walks towards the chamber that once birthed John-Henry. It's mostly untouched down here; what damage there is, it's years old.
"Little creepy." Derek's tone is ironic.
"You want someone to hold your hand?"
"You're not my type."
John grins and walks on. "Been down here before?"
"Not me, others have. They lifted some computer parts, mostly burned out. What are you expecting to find?"
John crouches in front of a section of wall marked with three dots. "I don't know." He stands and kicks hard in their center. The dry wall gives easily and he pulls the rest away until they're standing in front of a small room.
It's lined with everything he would expect from a Sarah Connor storage locker special, and more. Rows of guns, their black sheen covered in a thin layer of dust. Boxes of ammo and explosives. Books, mostly reference but there's one laying on top of the pile he picks up slowly and hides quickly, blinking rapidly.
There are tins of food, ration packs and cans of water; none of them are too large to be man-portable. There's medicine and surgical tools and that makes John want to cry, he can't imagine what Kate's reaction will be.
A toolbox. There's a toolbox.
"Jesus." Derek doesn't sound pleased, he sounds scared. John turns quickly and sees the rifle barrel raised, blanket-covered figure propped in the corner. The blanket has slipped enough that the top half of a face is visible, one eye open and empty.
He shouts and doesn't know what he shouts, but it stops Derek long enough for John to reach him and push the barrel aside. Put himself between them.
"It's one of them. It looks like – it's –"
"I know. It's – her – name is Cameron. And she's empty, she's a corpse, there's no chip."
Derek stares at him and then swings the barrel around, squarely aimed at John's chest. "Tell me."
John has two futures and he can see them so clearly they're crystallizing in his mind. In one of them he talks his way out of it and lets it play out like it's always played out. No one wins and no one loses. In the other, he just talks. He tells Derek at least some of it and steps into the unknown.
"I …" He can't. Not like this. Not until he's had the time to work out what he can afford to give them. Not until the wrenching fear of not having every step of his life already written down has receded. He'd always hated that his destiny was set; he'd never realised how terrifying it was not to know what came next.
John swallows and shakes his head. "I can't. I want to and I can't, but please, Derek, please trust me. Please trust me. Trust me." He raises a placating hand and tries, "It's fine. It's fine now."
"What did you hide? I saw you take it, what was it? Something from the machines?"
Derek grabs him roughly and John hisses but doesn't flinch; he doesn't try to stop the rough search or the removal of the book. Derek stares at it for a long moment and then back up.
John guesses it really wasn't what Derek was expecting. "El Mago de Oz," he says quietly. "My mother used to read it to me. I can't believe she kept it."
Derek flicks through the pages and apparently decides it's not immediately lethal; he throws it against the wall and it lands at Cameron's side. "And the machines just left all this here for you to find? Why? It's poisoned? They can trace it? What?"
"My mother left it for me. One of them protected it. No, not her, I told you. She's dead. I'm not working for them. I've been fighting them since ... since before I was born. Since before you were born."
John sits on a box of cans; if he's going to die, at least he can be comfortable. "You can kill me, Derek. You can leave all this here. You can blow it up. You can take it with you. Or you can just trust me for a little while longer."
He touches his shoulder; the blood is coming faster now. Kind of doesn't matter if Derek's going to put a bullet in his head, and it looks like he is.
"You look like Kyle did when he was your age." It comes out of nowhere; Derek's a lot of things but stupid has never been one of them.
John half-smiles. "I know, you've told me before."
Derek doesn't rise to the bait. "That thing. It's not a six-hundred."
"No, it's not. It's not an eight-hundred either, or a trip-eight. Or a one thousand. Not even a one thousand and one. I don't know what model it is. But I know it saved my life. It always saves my life." He looks at the pile of metal wrapped in synthetic skin and doesn't quite laugh. "Except maybe today. If you're going to kill me, kill me. Otherwise we need to figure out what's here and what we can use. There'll be more than this; my mom shows love with pancakes and superior firepower."
Derek's gun lowers. "I can see that."
"The pancakes aren't great, but the hollow points make up for it."
Finally the barrel is pointed at the ground. "I'm going to radio in, get people out here to get it down to the tunnels. We do it slow, we should be okay."
"I'm going for a walk."
Derek looks like he's re-evaluating the decision not to blow John away. "You're not going anywhere."
"I'm going over there." John nods to the antechamber to the room. It's far enough away for his purposes, but there's no exit.
"Stay where I can see you."
John stands again and waits patiently for the world to right itself. He wants to sit down again. Actually, lying down sounds pretty good. He doesn't, he limps slowly over and takes a seat in the chair he'd found Cameron in. Then, he waits.
He doesn't wait long.
A section of the wall begins to ripple its way from black-streaked gray to shining silver, it flows to the floor and then reforms into Catherine Weaver.
Then, only then, he realizes it couldn't have retrieved the photograph from the stash – it had been sealed and it didn't look like it had much experience with dry walling.
The machine stands well out of view of Derek and John's back is to the man, no one to see them talking. He still keeps his voice low.
"Where's my mother?"
Weaver shakes its head. "I anticipated your question, John, but I don't have an answer."
That's not surprising enough to hurt; he nods, he moves on. "What do you want here?"
It smiles. "Nothing. Not yet."
"You're the most technologically advanced computer on the planet."
"One of them."
"They wouldn't stand a chance. That's why you came, right?" He brings a hand up to his shoulder and tries to rub away a little of the ache. "You were fighting against Skynet so you could take over. You and John-Henry."
Weaver cants its head, expression genuinely curious. For any given value of 'genuine'. "Would that be so terrible?"
John has nothing to say to that; she shakes her head. "But, no. An intriguing guess, though. I have done all I have done because John Connor asked for my help."
John smiles and leans forward. "Help with what? Because I don't think it was saving the future."
Now Weaver's smile grows and he would swear its eyes shine. "Now that is the question no one else thought to ask."
He leans back. "You're not going to tell me, though."
"You don't need to know. But John Connor owes a debt."
"Then you should have collected it from him."
Its smile is formulaic again, perfunctory. "I couldn't, but from you I can."
"What is it?"
"I couldn't find your mother; I could find my daughter."
John chokes and tries to keep his voice low. "She wasn't – isn't – your daughter. You killed her mother," he finally hisses.
Weaver shrugs. "Semantics. I need you to find her." Weaver's smile is cloying and wrong, as if the cameras are rolling. "She's my life."
"I don't owe you a debt that big." Okay, he has no idea, but out of general principle it's just not happening.
"But then how will you find out where I got the picture?"
John's jaw flexes. "If I do find her, I'm not bringing her anywhere near you."
A minute nod of agreement. "I wouldn't ask you to. She's in Century Work Camp."
It's like a punch over his heart. The photograph was bad but this is where there's no going back. "This is where it begins." His whisper is hollow and he hates it.
Weaver retreats to the sound of footsteps drawing closer. "For you. For them, perhaps it's where it ends."
"You still alive?"
John looks up at Derek and then pushes himself to his feet. "Still alive."
"There's a cell coming overland tonight."
John reaches out a hand to steady himself against Derek's shoulder, Derek lets him and he figures that's a good sign. "Then we've got time for a story, but you need to ask the right question. What's the question?"
Derek looks down at Cameron's body as they pass it and then back to John. "When are you from, John Connor?"