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It's About The Connection
Deslea R. Judd
Copyright 2010
Disclaimer: Characters and situations not mine. Expression
mine.
Fandom: Sarah Connor Chronicles
Spoilers/Timeframe: Everything to To The Lighthouse is fair
game.
Rating: Mature, I guess. Medium level sexual references - very
few actual words that would cause any problems with porn filters,
but I still wouldn't read it at work.
Characters/Keywords: Sarah/Derek, references to John/Cameron,
AU
Summary: With Charley, Jesse, and Riley gone, Sarah and Derek
rebuild their family.
Archive: Please ask.
More Fic: http://fiction.deslea.com
Note: This story goes alt universe from the end of To The
Lighthouse. (And boy, I love that I can do this in this fandom
without canon-breaking guilt. Thank you, time travel!)
"Why did you call me?" he asks.
Sarah doesn't answer. Just keeps looking down at the shallow
hole in the sand she dug with her own hands. He wants to ask her
what possessed her to dig Charley's grave so close to the water,
to shake her and ask if she wants his body unearthed by the tide
in a week's time, but he doesn't. Because he thinks there's a
reason, something about a time by the water in a passing flicker
of a normal life, and that she'll cry if she tells it, and he
doesn't want to see her cry.
"You ditched us. You could have just kept on going without us."
"Unfinished business," she says absently. She gets on her knees
and strokes Charley's face. As though memorising its contours.
The muscles in her throat flicker. Looking away, she begins to
scoop handfuls of sand over his body.
"What business?" He wonders if she lured him here to kill him
in revenge for Charley. She would never have risked coming here
if she'd trusted him not to let her down. And if he hadn't driven
her back to Charley, Charley would still be alive.
"I promised you I'd show you where Kyle was buried." A promise,
it seems, that had haunted her as she prepared to bury another of
John's fathers.
He doesn't know what to say to that.
The metal approaches. They have reached something of an accord,
at least for now, and when he turns around to direct it away, he
does it wordlessly and without malice.
"I can do that," it says in mild protest.
"You can," he says, "but you shouldn't. Humans need to bury
their dead. This is Sarah's."
It nods and returns to John's side, dropping down on the wooden
boards and dangling its feet over the side of the pier.
"Thank you," Sarah says. The edges of her mouth are turned down
in a grimace. It pains her to say it.
"De nada." He thinks that will piss her off less than "you're
welcome."
He watches her finish. He doesn't want to, but it's his penance
for what happened to Charley. Of all the deaths he has rendered,
this one was genuinely unnecessary. John said at the house that
what happened there was no one's fault, that it was over, and he
had allowed it. Allowed a sixteen year old kid to take the blame
off his shoulders, as if it could ever be so simple. He could
have mended the breach with Sarah before she left, but he didn't.
And now Charley is dead.
She covers his face last.
She sits there at the foot of his grave for a long time.
Doesn't protest when he sits down beside her.
"He loved the water," she says presently. "He lived in Maine
for a while. When we lived in West Fork, he always said how much
he missed the water."
"That's why you set him up here." He understands about the
grave now. She needed to bury him, but she wants him to be at
sea.
She nods, just once. "I thought it would help. I think it did."
He drapes his arm lightly around her shoulders. She gives a
small sigh of resignation, and then he feels her body soften
against him. "It might not count for much, but I'm sorry. For all
of it."
"I know that," she says with just a trace of impatience.
"But...it isn't enough, right?"
She pulls away from him and looks at him, and his heart sinks.
The metal breaks the moment, walking up to them with John, the
sunset blazing behind them. "We should go," it says, its voice
surprisingly kind. "If the T-888s were working with someone, and
they don't come back, they might send more." John nods to show
his agreement, but doesn't speak. He only looks down at Charley's
grave, then away.
"We should get a hotel," Derek says. His eyes meet Sarah's in
the sinking light, daring her to argue.
She doesn't. He is struck yet again by how hard Charley's death
has hit her. She hasn't lost the fight, but she is apparently
choosing her battles with care. Preserving her resources like an
animal that is wounded, but not mortally so. He thinks, though,
that the relentlessness will return with time, and he supposes
that's for the best.
She sleeps in the car.
He tells her to, because he wants to talk to her about where
they go from here - tonight, if possible - and he wants her
stronger than she is now. He wants them to stick together, but he
doesn't want her to feel like she didn't have a choice.
She doesn't argue, and she falls into an exhausted slumber.
John watches the countryside through the window. The metal sits
close to him, listening or talking to him softly at times. Derek
isn't sure how happy he is about that, but it seems to help John,
and he can't begrudge the kid the company tonight.
They cover three hundred miles and check in to a hotel just
after ten.
He isn't happy about giving John and Cameron a room of their
own, but he wants privacy to talk to Sarah. And he supposes
they've had no shortage of opportunities to do it already anyway,
if that's where it's going.
What was it Jesse said? *It's sick, is what it is. Imagine if
he spends the next twenty years with her, what he'll become.*
Well, maybe, he thinks (because thinking through the
possibilities is easier than thinking of Jesse). Or maybe he'll
get it out of his system. Or maybe he'll understand how they
tick. He more than anyone knows how many possibilities permeate
across time and how unpredictable they are. His job is to keep
his nephew alive, not engineer him into his personal idea of the
resistance leader. That one he has to trust to Sarah's training
and whatever it is that was inside John to begin with.
So he sends John off to the room next door with the metal in
tow, giving his shoulder a comforting squeeze, and refuses to
think any more about it.
With four hours sleep under her belt, Sarah is much more like
herself again. Still quiet, less feisty, but that faraway look is
gone. She wakes alert and evaluates her surroundings, assessing
the hotel room for exits when they go in. Okay, then.
She showers, but she's of no mind to sleep, it seems. She sits
there on the bed, hair slightly damp, knees pulled up in front of
her like a child, making room for him when he comes out of the
bathroom. He had wondered if she was going to make him sleep on
the floor, although they've shared hotel beds under more
argumentative circumstances than this. He drops down beside her.
"You should sleep," she says, flicking off the television,
extinguishing the light from the room. "You've done a lot of
driving."
"You're not sleepy?" he asks.
She shakes her head. "I slept in the car," she reminds him.
"So you did." He decides now is as good a time as any, and
changes the subject. "So, we need a new house."
Her eyes gleam as she turns to face him. Her shirt is startling
white in the dark. "Assuming I don't ditch you again, yes."
"Are you going to ditch me again?"
"I haven't decided."
Fair enough, he thinks. It could have been an outright no.
"Well, just in case, I'd really appreciate it if I could have a
room this time. A bed, even."
"You could have had one last time if you'd asked for it. It's
not like Cameron actually needs one. I suspect the problem was
more that you were spending too much time in Jesse's bedroom to
worry about ours."
Well, he deserved that, he thinks with a wryly amused sigh.
"Touche."
They fall silent for a while, but then her voice breaks the
silence. "Is there anyone else I need to know about, Derek?"
"Anyone else?" he repeats stupidly. "I don't follow."
"Anyone besides Kyle and Jesse. Anyone who was important. To
you. Ever."
He realises she means anyone as important as her and John.
Anyone he would do anything for. He could say no one, and it
would be true, but he realises there is another truth he owes her
before he can reasonably ask her to rebuild.
"My best friend," he says at last. "His name was Billy Wisher.
He helped build SkyNet. We agreed that I would come back and kill
him. You knew him as Andy Goode." Sarah draws in her breath in a
hiss. "And I changed things, but I didn't change them enough.
Billy died, Judgement Day still happened, and Jesse
was...different. And now there's no one. No one but you and
John."
"I'm sorry." The last word is clipped just short of its natural
end. She didn't mean to say it. Wisely, he accepts it with a nod,
but makes no comment.
After a while, he wonders aloud, "How long is it going to be
like this, Sarah? We used to be comfortable with each other."
"I don't know."
"Because if we are going to live together, we need to pull it
together. For John, at least. He lost a father today."
"If we live together," she agrees cautiously.
"Three's safer than two or one," he reminds her.
"Is that the only reason?" she challenges.
"Of course not. We're family." Shadows of guilt are still
there, but he feels creeping exasperation, as well.
"Okay," she says at last. "Let's say we do stick together. For
the sake of argument. Where do we go from here? Just how the hell
are we all supposed to come through everything that's happened?"
Solemn now, he says, "Because we have to. We will because we
have to."
"How, Derek?" she snaps, suddenly defiant. "I don't know how.
And don't tell me you do, because I know you don't."
On no other impulse than to convey how much he wants it, he
grasps her arms, tugging her against him. "No, I don't, but I'm
not letting go of our family without a fight," he says in a low
voice. Her lips fall open slightly in surprise and he realises
how close she is, and then other impulses follow. Heat rises in
him, and he releases her arms like he's been burned. Trying to
forget the curve of her breast against his body and the slope of
her neck angled away from him, white and exquisite in the dark,
and the warmth of her *breath*-
She stays close. He isn't surprised. She isn't one to give
ground. "You're *not* trying to seduce me the night Charley
died." Her voice is lightly scornful, but there is something
more, some disquiet underneath. He thinks that beneath her words,
she knows him better than that.
He flushes, but he doesn't deny what she saw in him. What she
felt. If he lies to her tonight, he'll lose her. "It's not about
that," he says. "It's about pulling the threads back together."
He pulls away a little, giving up the ground so she doesn't have
to. "I'm not going to beg," he says after a moment. "And if you
know another way, I'm listening. But I want us to rebuild."
He can see her in the dim light from the parking lot, shining
in between tacky curtains that don't quite cover the window. He
thinks he's gotten soft - a year ago this room would have seemed
like paradise. Now it's just a tacky hotel room. And she's as
uncertain as a girl contemplating her first time - Sarah, who has
hooked up with guerrillas and gun runners and people smugglers
(and the occasional nice-guy paramedic).
He gets it, though. That was different. That was utility. This
is about her family. She's weighing up whether he's in or out.
Whether she can afford to trust - as much as there is ever trust
in Sarah Connor's world. He is oddly touched that she is even
considering it. Sarah is not a woman in the habit of giving
second chances.
"It could get complicated," she says at last.
"It could," he agrees, "but it doesn't have to. Not that I
don't want..." he trails off from this unpromising line of
discussion. "You know," he finishes lamely. "But it's not about
that. It's like...like how people do it when they've been
together a long time. It's about the connection."
"That's true," she says after a moment. "Or at least it could
work that way. It really depends, though, on whether there are
any other agendas."
"Like what?"
"Kyle," she says, beginning to tick them off on her fingers.
"Jesse. Charley. Andy. Riley. Yours and Jesse's baby. There's a
lot of bodies between us, you know."
He doesn't ask how she knows about the baby. "Not to mention
that you're still getting over Charley and I'm still getting over
Jesse."
She inclines her head slightly. "That too."
"You tell me, Sarah. You had those times with Charley - I know
you did. Were there no agendas?"
She thinks about it, silhouetted in the dark. "No," she says
after a moment, "there were agendas. Kyle was there in the
background, I guess. And I loved him, but I also loved being
normal. And being taken care of. Not by everyone, but by him. And
he liked taking care of me."
"I know he did. He was a good guy." And he was. What happened
to Charley Dixon was a damn shame. "But it still worked, didn't
it? Even with the agendas?"
"Yeah, it worked."
"Well, we're a bit of an old married couple, don't you think?
Lots of bickering and no sex."
She laughs at that. Laughs right out loud. He can count the
times he's heard her really laugh on one hand. "Don't you dare
think for one second that we're going to stop bickering."
He laughs too. It's such a *normal* moment that he decides to
risk it. Leans in, and stays there, casually poised. Letting her
decide.
She leans in too, and kisses him warmly, her mouth formed into
a small smile. It is their first kiss, but it isn't a first kiss
really. It's the casually fond kiss of a longtime wife.
He brings his hands up to her face...her hair. Careful not to
go too fast. He doesn't want it hot and furious like it was with
Jesse, and he suspects she doesn't either. Hot and furious can
take over your mind, your sense, and it can burn out fast. He
doesn't want either of those things to happen. Not with her.
So he goes slow and warm. Slipping his hands into her hair,
twining it through restless fingers. Gentle, yes, but with
lightly restrained ferocity, too. He's fighting for her, fighting
for John, and the blood rises and courses through him, flooding
him with wave after wave of need. He leans over her, drawing her
up, hissing against her mouth as she fits her body to his.
"Not so bad?" he whispers.
She shakes her head. "Not so bad."
This time he kisses her thoroughly. Her body softens for just a
moment with a sigh, her eyes drift closed, but then her curiosity
overtakes her. Her response is eager, her mouth exploring him as
new terrain. And in that fleeting moment when she melts against
him, that's when he knows he does want her, really want her after
all - and maybe he always did.
Her kiss grows stronger. Taking the lead. Following her cues,
he holds her tighter, wrapping his arms around her, searching the
toned planes of her back with splayed out hands - first over her
shirt, then sliding up beneath it. She gasps a little as his
palms travel her sides, brushing the swell of her breasts then
moving away.
"Reese," she pleads, and he doesn't argue with her about it. He
doesn't think it's as simple as confusing the two brothers
anymore. It's about what she is and a glimmer of what she was all
those years ago. The girl who could still let people in.
"I'm here," he says. "I won't let you down again." Answering
the plea beneath the plea.
She rests her forehead against his. "I really do want to
believe that."
"I don't have anyone else anymore, Sarah. Just you and John. If
you can't trust me, trust that you're the only reasons I have
left."
She doesn't answer, but she pulls him close. Puts her arms
around his shoulders. Kisses the side of his neck with unexpected
tenderness. When she pulls back, he sees her eyes glittering in
the moonlight. He's hit a nerve.
"Get over here," she says with studied lightness. Tugs his
shirt up and over his head.
"Yes, ma'am." He tugs her close against him again. Loves the
feel of her body snug against his. Perfect fit. Like they were
made for each other.
This kiss is stronger. Her breath is ragged as she searches
him, feeds on him. He thinks she might come just from what
they're doing with their mouths. It's more urgent, more
passionate than he's ever known. From someone else it might have
been too much, but from Sarah it's exactly right. Her hands
clutch at his back, kneading him, urging him on. He feels for her
shirt opening, thankful that there are buttons and they needn't
stop what they're doing to get it off her. He can't bring himself
to break the connection.
He had thought, reasonably enough, that she would be an alpha
type, but she stretches out beneath him and tugs him down with
her. Well, he's seen that too, in soldiers just as tough as Sarah
Connor. Sometimes that's the only surrender they can ever accept.
So he follows, covering her, filling her vision. She rewards
him with a gasp into his mouth, an arch so that her breasts press
against his chest, and he knows he was right. The idea that
hard-as-nuclear-nails Sarah Connor wants him to fill her, not
only body but soul and sight and consciousness too, makes him
harder and hotter than hell. The friction against his jeans is
delicious...excruciating.
"Reese," she gasps out, fumbling at his belt. "God dammit, get
this thing off."
He laughs at that. Surrender, maybe, but she's still Sarah
Connor. Amused, he wriggles out of his jeans and pants and kicks
them away. "I notice you're still wearing your knickers."
"I notice you're not doing anything to remedy the situation,"
she snaps, but there is amusement in her voice, too. "If you're
going to fuck me, you're going to have to keep up." Fuck me, his
mind echoes insanely. Sarah Connor wants me to fuck her. Oh. My.
God.
Urgently, he slides his fingers into her panties. Allows them
to brush her (she gives a satisfying hiss) but draws them back,
dragging the fabric down over her hips. She finishes the job,
kicking her knickers off with a sound of annoyance.
He begins to trail his lips down her throat, towards her
breasts, but she brings him up short. "Now, Reese," she says,
soft and implacable.
He protests, "I want to-" but she cuts him off.
"Another time," she says. "Come and be with me."
He can't tell what's going on in her mind, but he complies.
Settles down between her thighs, twining his fingers with hers on
the pillow. Their mouths move together delicately, their hips
rock against each other, and after a few moments, their bodies
find their own way together. He moves with her in shallow
strokes. Just enough to be good for them both, no more. Not
wanting to pull away from her any more than he has to.
There is something minimalist, almost austere about it that
appeals to him. Making love to Jesse was restless - it was all
about doing, and the more frenetic, the more variety, the better.
It was good, but this is different. This is *being*. He's never
done anything like this before. It takes his breath away. *She*
takes his breath away.
He doesn't understand how they can go from laughter at her
fumbling with his belt, to the white heat of realising that Sarah
fucking Connor wants him, to this terrifying and exhilarating
excavation of his soul in the space of seconds. Can't comprehend
how they can all occupy the same moment in time.
"What?" she whispers. He feels the heat and the salt rising in
his face and realises his eyes are glittering with tears.
He gropes for words and can't find the ones he needs. "It's
about the connection." Utterly inadequate to explain it, but
they're all he can manage.
She tugs him down against her. "Reese," she says. Kisses him
tenderly as the wonder releases its hold on him, just a little.
Falls back as he takes the lead, kissing her lips and her throat.
Her body rises and stiffens as he drinks in the heady taste of
her mouth, and he grasps her hip and presses her against him as
he follows her, still kissing her thoroughly, their joining
almost an afterthought. Silent shudders rip though them both,
transmitted back and forth between them at the core.
It isn't until they finish that they make a sound, when their
joining falls away. She makes a small sound of loss, and he
hisses and draws her closer, resting his forehead against hers.
"I'm not going to ditch you, Reese," she whispers.
"I'm not going to let you down again, Sarah," he whispers back.
Nodding, she kisses him tenderly, just once, holding his face
between her palms.
Releasing him, she touches him gently a couple of times on the
chest. Understanding, he rolls off her onto his side.
They stay there like that for a while, him leaning over her a
little to stroke her face or her hair or her throat. She traces
his lower lip with her thumb, a little smile playing around the
corners of her mouth.
He remembers the promise he made to himself, to be truthful
with her tonight. He isn't sure how to say it, or whether he's
ready to say it, or whether she's ready to hear it. But...
"I felt things, Sarah," he whispers. "When we...things I didn't
know I felt." He watches her expression, expecting it to darken
into a look of concern, and he rushes on, "I didn't lie to you.
About my intentions. But...Sarah..." he stops short. Realising
that she doesn't look concerned at all.
Sarah touches her fingers to his lips. "That's why we did this,
isn't it? To reconnect?" He nods, unable to trust himself to
speak. "You just didn't think it would work on you, too."
Unbelievably, she sounds almost amused.
"Too?" he echoes. He realises too late that he's crossed a
line.
"Another time," she says. "Come and be with me, Reese."
So he settles against her, cradling her like something
precious, and there are no more words until morning.
In the morning, what words there are, are pedestrian and
mundane (although more than a little erotic, at least to start
with). Touch me, Reese. Do that, Reese. Oh, God, Reese, harder.
Then, a little later, could you pass the maple syrup, Reese. John
notices the name and raises an eyebrow at that.
So there are no declarations of love. Part of him is relieved.
Not because he doesn't feel it - he does - but because they have
more pressing matters to deal with. Like finding a house. And
figuring out all over again where he fits in.
"There are no four bedroom houses for rent in this district,"
the metal announces, looking up from the newspaper.
"Three bedrooms will be fine," Sarah says, not looking up from
her pancakes. "Derek and I only need one." Derek winces and finds
interesting things to look at under his fingernails.
John looks back and forth between them. "Oh, *man*," he says in
disgust. "Mom, did you *have* to? I mean - the same day that
Charley - oh, *shit*," he breaks off, and storms out the door.
"I'll go," he says, and follows before Sarah can argue.
He finds John sitting on a retaining wall just a few feet from
their door. So much for the grand exit, he thinks with an
interior grin.
"Are you sleeping with the metal?" he asks, genuinely curious,
as he sits down at John's side.
He can see that John hadn't expected that. Any other time, he
would have denied it, but instead, he looks at Derek head on and
says defiantly, "Yes. Got something to say about it?"
"No. Your mother will say plenty, and I don't necessarily
disagree with her, but no. Not today."
John stares at him. He definitely hadn't expected that.
Derek seizes the advantage. "Did you...you know...last night?"
Looking warily at him, John gives a single, slow nod. Wondering
where he's going with this.
"Then you can understand, maybe, some of the ways that people
use sex to heal rifts and wounds. There's no disrespect for
Charley here, John. She loved him."
"She's using you? And you're letting her? Is that what you're
saying?"
"No. I'm saying we both needed things, all sorts of things.
Comfort and forgiveness mainly. And more than anything, we needed
to reconnect. We needed to pull it back together, for ourselves
and for you. Sex doesn't make a bad relationship better, but it
can make a hurt relationship better. And we're all any of us have
left."
"You love her?" John asks.
"Yeah, kid, I do."
"Does she love you?"
He thinks of the amused way she said, *You just didn't think it
would work on you, too.* "I think so." He looks out at the row of
tiny cars queued on the road in the distance. "Does the metal
love you?"
"She's capable of preference and feelings. Feelings that are
not explained by her programming or her physical infrastructure.
She doesn't have much of an endocrine system - but she feels
emotion when we...you know. It frightens her. She has no frame of
reference for it." Derek turns and stares at him. Stricken and
alarmed by the parallels with the night before. Unthinkable that
metal could feel love the way he loved Sarah last night.
Oblivious, John goes on, "And her name is Cameron."
"Sorry." He sighs. "You've got to tell your mom about Cameron,"
he says, stressing the name, "because I'm sure as shit not
keeping that secret from her. My life won't be worth living."
John gives a little sideways smirk. Kyle's smirk. "Mine might
not be, either, but okay." He shifts uncomfortably on the wall,
and says, "I don't have a problem with you, Derek. It was
just...you know. The timing."
"I get it, John. It's okay." He almost called John *kid* again,
but then he realised they were discussing their respective sex
lives - however delicately worded - his with John's mother and
John's with a machine. He decides not to call him that anymore.
Too damn weird.
"We should go back," John says, glancing back at their room.
"Cameron is probably quizzing Mom about human pair bonding in
highly inappropriate terms."
They go back, and Cameron isn't quizzing Sarah at all. Cameron
is reading the newspaper again, and Sarah is watching her, a look
of fear on her face. Derek realises that Sarah already knows
about John and Cameron, that she's known for a while...and that
she's scared this is the time she'll lose John for good.
John goes over and gives Sarah a light peck on the cheek.
"Sorry, Mom," he says cheerfully. "Say, is that a spare pancake?"
Derek guesses that's teenagerspeak for "We're okay."
"Well," he says, clearing his throat, "check-out is at ten.
John, Cameron, you should go and pack. Househunting, remember."
They leave, and he sees their hands link in that last moment
before the door swings closed.
When he turns, Sarah is looking at him. Eyes gleaming. "How did
you do that?" she wonders.
"I had a delicate, but alarmingly adult discussion with him
about our mutual sex lives. I told him he has to tell you about
Cameron, by the way. You might want to act surprised." She hisses
and shivers a little in distaste.
"Thank you," she says. "You were right - he does need us both.
Even now that he's old enough - supposedly old enough - to have a
sex life of his own."
"Maybe especially now. And especially when it's with metal."
"Yes," she agrees. She takes his hand and tugs him closer.
"Reese..."
He allows himself to be pulled against her. Traces his fingers
down her arm. "Yeah?"
"Check-out is still a little while yet. We have time."
His only answer is to slide his arms around her, slipping his
fingers through her hair.
"Reese?" There are sudden tears beading at her long, delicate
eyelashes. "I feel...I want..."
"Another time," he whispers. "Come and be with me, Sarah."
The words don't come for either of them that day, or the next,
or for a long time after. But he finds his place beside her, and
that's enough for them all.
END