A/N: This one's kinda short, but hopefully it satisfies for the time being. The next one will be much longer, I promise.

Disclaimer: Can't say that I own Terminator Salvation. Well, I could, but I don't wanna get sued.

re·morse [ri máwrs]

n

1. guilt: a strong feeling of guilt and regret

2. pity: compassion or pity (archaic)

Resistance Base, the next day...

As usual, Marcus woke well before dawn. He ate a light breakfast of jerky and potato bread he'd stowed away in his footlocker, then spent a couple of hours doing push-ups, crunches, chin-ups, and jogging around the perimeter of the vast underground garage - not that his hydraulically powered "muscles" really needed the exercise. He did it mostly out of habit and to kill time, a routine he started back in prison. He didn't need to worry about going soft, but he did still sweat like any regular human being (the better to blend in, no doubt). A quick trip to the showers took care of that. By the time he returned, clean and dressed in his mechanic's coveralls, the rest of his fellow wrench jockeys had arrived.

Angelo, the head mechanic, handed out assignments. Several of them were two-man jobs. Marcus was surprised to get one of those, but was less so when he found out he was partnering with Milo. Milo was a jovial forty-something guy of uncertain ethnicity whose deceptively rangy physique concealed an impressive wiry strength. He was one of the few people in the whole compound who made an effort to be friendly towards Marcus.

"Hey there, Tin Man," Milo greeted cheerily, "Looks like it's me 'n' you today."

"Oh, joy," Marcus drawled, "I can hardly wait."

"That's the spirit! Angelo says we're gonna work on Lucille." Milo had a name for every vehicle in the motor pool, all of them female. He'd spend hours talking to them while he worked on them, muttering endearments or cajoling. If Marcus hadn't met Milo's wife, he'd swear the poor guy was never getting laid.

Marcus followed the slight man over to what looked like a bullet-riddled pile of scrap that had apparently been towed in while he was in the showers. "Holy shit."

"Yeah," Milo chuckled, "Patrol had a run-in with some T-600s. They all got outta there alive, if you can fuckin' believe it."

"Too bad Lucille can't say the same."

"Nah!" Milo scoffed, "She's a tough ol' broad. A little rebuilding, a little welding, and she'll be good as new. Won't ya, baby?" He patted the vehicle affectionately. It gave an ominous creak, like it was about to collapse in on itself.

Marcus waved a hand at it. "It's Swiss cheese, man!"

"Then she'll be easier for you to lift," Milo retorted. He jerked a thumb towards the car. "Have at it."

The motor pool had a limited number of working jacks, and they always went quickly. Not a problem when one partnered with a cyborg. Marcus planted his feet and gripped the underside of the frame, then slowly unbent his knees. Metal groaned in protest as the wrecked car's back end lifted. Milo scooted in with cinder blocks, which he arranged underneath the car. "'Kay, set her down."

Marcus eased the vehicle down until the blocks took the weight. Once he was sure it would hold, he let go of the undercarriage. They repeated the process at the front end until the car was successfully raised off the floor. There was a lot of work to do. The engine had to be repaired, parts patched up or replaced altogether. The shreds of rubber that were once tires were removed, as were the ruined seats. Steel plates had to be welded over the numerous bullet holes. The windshield needed to be replaced, if they could scrounge one up. If it were up to Marcus, Lucille would have been nothing but a source of spare parts, if that. But Milo had a lot of sentiment for the busted old car, and he had seniority. Besides, it wasn't like they had many options when it came to working vehicles.

The hours flew by to the sounds of clanks and bangs, the screams of power tools, curses and camaraderie, and under all that the barely-noticeable rock music emanating from the scavenged CD player. Marcus fell into the comforting rhythm of his work, hardly noticing the accumulated bruises and scrapes on his hands, or the engine grease and sweat that coated his skin. Before he knew it Angelo was calling a halt for lunch.

"Ya comin' to check out today's mystery meal?" Milo asked, as usual. And as usual, Marcus demurred. He wasn't interested in subjecting himself to the stares of the crowded mess hall. He wasn't hungry, anyway. Breakfast was about all his organic components really needed since he wasn't damaged.

"I'll just keep working," he said.

Milo shrugged and threw a casual wave as he followed the others out. Soon Marcus was the only soul left in the motor pool. Or so he thought.

"Hey."

He looked up to see Blair standing in the doorway. She was dressed in frayed jeans and a tattered sweater, her long hair tied back in a loose ponytail. She reached over to hit the stop button on the CD player, then approached Marcus at a casual stroll, thumbs hooked in the hip pockets of her jeans, stopping a few feet away from where he hunched over the vehicle's engine. Marcus straightened. "You're not flying today?"

She shook her head. A sad fact of the Resistance: there were more pilots than there were functional planes or helicopters. Fliers worked in rotating shifts. It was either that or ground most of them permanently, and no pilot worth her salt would willingly give up her wings altogether.

"Nope. I'm helping out at the fields today." The "fields" referred to the garden tubs where the Resistance raised food crops, mostly potatoes. Marcus noticed the dirt embedded under her fingernails.

He set aside the socket wrench he'd been using and picked up a grease rag to wipe the grime off his hands, or at least spread it around. "What's up?"

"I wanted to finish our conversation from last night."

Marcus's expression turned weary. "I'm working right now."

"It's lunch. You can spare a few minutes."

"Doesn't mean I want to."

Her lips thinned. "Fine, keep working."

Marcus picked up the wrench and leaned under the hood, his gaze studiously focused on the engine in front of him.

"And I'll do all the talking," Blair added.

Marcus sighed.

"You're not the only one who did shit before the machines. You're not the only one with regrets-"

"For Christ's sake," he groaned, "You were, what, fifteen? Sixteen back then? Newsflash, teens do stupid shit all the time. It's practically an obligation."

"I'm not talking about clubbing with a fake ID or stealing somebody's car to go joyriding," Blair argued.

Marcus looked at her, a disdainful smirk on his face. "So what'd you do that was so goddamn awful?"

Blair gazed at him levelly. "I killed a kid."

Stunned silence, then, "What?"

Blair leaned her back against a neighboring vehicle, eyes fixed on the worn toes of her boots. "Me and my friends, we were pretty wild, y'know. Smoking weed in the girl's bathroom, shoplifting, that kinda thing. Mostly we just hung out, smoked cigarettes and talked a lotta bullshit about the rich guys we were gonna marry." She shrugged. "Anyway, one of my friends had this kid brother, Craig. He had Down's Syndrome. He was always trying to tag along. Most of my friends ignored him or thought he was funny. I hated him. Everything about him disgusted me. His stumpy body, his weird face, the way he talked. He made my skin crawl. But no matter how many times I yelled at him, he always came back. Thinking back on it, I guess he might've had a crush on one of us."

"Maybe you," Marcus said.

Blair swallowed. "Maybe."

Seconds passed without a word. Marcus tentatively broke the silence. "What happened, Blair?"

"We were going to see a movie," Blair continued, still staring down at her shoes, "And Craig, like always, invited himself along. He kept yelling out the name of this kids movie he wanted to see over and over, he just wouldn't shut up. We were shouting at him to be quiet, but he wouldn't. I snapped. I started screaming at him and shoving him, calling him retard and a fucking pain in the ass. 'I hate you, you goddamned freak!' And my friends were laughing and Craig was starting to cry, 'Sorry, Blair. I'm sorry,' while the snot was running out of his nose." The words starting coming out faster and Blair fidgeted in agitation. "Everybody said it was an accident, but I saw the truck coming down the street, I saw it and...I pushed..."

She finally lifted her head and looked at Marcus. He saw in her eyes all the guilt and sorrow she'd borne for half her life. "I don't want your understanding, or your pity," she said, throwing his words back at him in a steady voice, even as a couple of tears escaped her eyes and left twin trails down her cheeks, "But you need to know that you don't have the monopoly on regret. I feel it every time I remember the confused look on Craig's face just before that truck hit him. I was never held accountable for it. I never even spent a day in juvie because fucking Judgment Day happened. But even if I did, I know it wouldn't be enough. Nothing would ever be enough."

She closed the distance between them, her expression hard. "But that sure as hell doesn't mean I'm gonna stop trying. Every day, everything I do, if it's the right thing, I do it. No matter how hard it is, I always do what I know is right. I don't give up. I don't push people who care about me away. And that makes living with what I did a little bit easier."

Marcus pursed his lips and shook his head. His eyes were sad and sympathetic. "Blair...I'm not you. Taking the righteous path or whatever you wanna call it, that's your way of doing penance." He indicated their surroundings. "This is my way."

"Isolating yourself," Blair said in an accusatory tone, "Giving up."

"No," he answered calmly, "If I was giving up I wouldn't have stayed. Being here, seeing you every day, but not...not letting myself get close to you. It hurts me more than I know how to say." He let out a humorless laugh and shrugged. "But that's my punishment."

"That's great," she said dully, "Except you're not the only one hurting from your punishment." With that, she turned and stormed out of the motor pool, leaving Marcus alone. It wasn't until she rounded a corner and found a small, dark space to squeeze into that she finally let the sobs escape. Talking about Craig had been harder than she expected, and she sure as hell didn't think it'd be easy. And even so, Marcus still maintained an invisible wall between them. Blair knew staying and talking about it any more wouldn't do much good, especially since she wasn't sure she could've held it together much longer. She would just have to wait a while and hope it all sank in. That it made a difference.