I do not own Terminator.

And I can't let go of Michael Biehn yet. He just has too much heart.

No Fate

Nothing Left But

The short wheelchair ride to his bedside, two rooms over from hers, is excruciatingly slow, long.

Dizzying, sickening.

She sucks it down as much as she can, afraid if she shows any weakness, Big Nurse, okay well, she's not exactly Big Nurse, she's actually really sweet and kind so far as Sarah has met her but she's definitely in-charge and doing what she thinks is best for her patients, will take her back to her room without seeing Kyle.

And she has to see him, has to see that he's alive and not killed by the Terminator.

"Kyle-"

And he's there, he's in the bed . . .

"Oh, Kyle, thank God-"

. . . he's there and he's asleep and or maybe just pumped full of drugs but he's alive, he's breathing, and that fucker of a Terminator did not kill him in the factory.

And he's wrapped and bandaged and there's needles and tubes sticking out of him but he's alive.

"Kyle-"

And the nurse wheels her to his bedside and she reaches out for his hand laying on top of the white hospital blanket and she almost falls out of the wheelchair anyway, despite her best efforts-

"Ma'am-"

"I'm fine, I'm fine - Kyle -"

-and his hand feels warm or maybe hers are just cold and they're shaking but he's here and she's here touching him-

"I'm here, okay, I'm here and I need you to live, okay-"

And he's not responding, he's asleep, or maybe it's just a little twitch of the nose or the tiniest change in his breathing or a tremor in his fingers-

"I love you, Kyle-"

-but she feels like he knows she's there, like he can sense it or maybe she just wants to believe that but-

"I'm not going to leave you, Kyle, please come back to me-"

-it doesn't matter because he's alive and not dead and . . .

"I need you."

. . . she can figure out anything from this moment forward.

If he will just live.

"Sarah . . ."

Her heart stops at his barely audible murmur of her name.

"Kyle . . ."

And she has to force herself through her tears to be strong . . .

"It's okay. I'm here. Everything's fine."

. . . for him.

He blinks heavily, looks around in confusion.

"Where are we?"

She clasps his hand with both of hers.

"We're in the hospital."

She feels the nurse shift behind her and she knows she doesn't have much time.

"I don't know about you but I can't remember a thing since the attack at the police station, do you?"

She tries desperately to communicate with her eyes, figures it will be easier on both of them to plead memory loss than try to coraborate a story.

Please please please . . .

And he slowly nods, switches to shaking his head.

"Yeah . . . yeah . . . me too . . . just a blank . . ."

The nurse backs off and she breathes a shaky sigh of relief, daring the slightest of nods at Kyle.

"Well, let's just concentrate on getting you well so we can get out of here, huh?"

And she tries to sound casual.

"Nurse? Could he have some water please?"

There is a hesitation from the woman trying to figure them out.

"Yes. Of course."

And then . . .

"Mmm. Good."

. . . Kyle Reese gets his first drink . . .

"Thank you."

. . . of hospital tap water.

"Oh, you spilled a little. Here, I'll just . . ."

In a little paper cup.

She lets them takes her back to her room after a while.

Again they give her more sedative.

And again she sleeps.

When she wakes, she feels strong enough to hobble to the bathroom.

Nibble on crackers, the soup they bring her.

It makes her feel ill but she fights it down.

Now that Kyle is alive and not dead, now that he's woken up and talked to her, knew her, he's real and she's not crazy so that means everything else was real too-

Sarah Conner is able to dig down deep within her.

Find a resilience she never knew she had.

And get stronger.

So she can . . .

Kyle-

. . . live.

They load him up with all the vaccines he never had.

Antibiotics.

Painkillers for broken ribs, a dislocated finger.

All the lacerations and bruises and superficial and deep tissue damage the Terminator had done to him in that factory.

A cop comes in, attempts to question them both.

They stick with the amnesia story, Sarah gets the old news that her roommate and the new news that her mother were both slaughtered while she was running for her life and falling in love in a cheap motel room.

And she breaks, crying, and holds on to Kyle Reese.

It's all unimaginably terrible, it's all very heartbreaking.

Her entire life destroyed, gone, in the breath of three days.

All of it, burned to a crisp.

Like the very scorched earth Kyle Reese grew up on.

Thanks to CinderTheDragon and nancyl1313 for adding your support to this story!