capeandcowllogs | Good morning, welcome to strangeness...

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Good morning, welcome to strangeness...

WHO: Sarah and John Connor and one Kyle Reese
WHERE: St. George's
WHEN: This morning after last night's arrival.
WARNINGS: Connor family angst, which occasionally involves guns, but probably not this time.
SUMMARY: Sarah thinks the night before was just a horrible hallucination. John gets to tell her otherwise... and then Kyle shows up.
FORMAT: Parawhatever.

Sarah didn't really remember much from the day before, kidnapping the doctor, going to the motel, then... something happened. Something different, something... wrong. And as she drifted in and out of drug-hazed sleep, she tried to put it together but it fell apart every time. She'd had more lucid episodes on the drugs back in Pescadero.

As she slowly woke up, she realized she was in the hospital... again. The memory of telling Cameron no hospitals tried to bubble up, but that was wrong, wasn't it? Cameron was with John, and both of them were back in LA... weren't they?

She blinked her eyes a few times against the light and began to struggle to get up. She had to get out. Hospitals weren't safe.

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John was angry.

He wasn't angry at his mom - not exactly. He was angry at Cameron and his dad for not telling him right away. He was angry at Cameron for telling GLaDOS at the same time she decided to tell him, and he was angry in general, at the world. He was angry a lot, lately.

But the hospital was somewhere familiar and his mom needed him, so he stowed that anger for at least the moment. He went through the rooms, and found his mother exactly how he expected to - trying to get up and out.

It took him a moment to remember to breathe. It was just a disconnect, her here, her here and dad here and no Skynet. And it was a moment before he cleared his throat and moved to her side to put a hand on her shoulder.

"Mom."

"John?"

The confusion was probably plain on her face. How long had she been out? Where was she? Where was Derek who was supposed to have taken care of things in town, leaving John out of this mess.

She reached to grab at the IV in her arm, intending to rip it out, just as she had the day, two days before? She fought against the painkillers that were in her system, blissfully masking the pain, but making it difficult to think.

"I had clothes, see if they're here, we need to get out before the cops arrive."

He saw the confusion, and he moved to stop her before she could take out her own IV. She was weak enough that he could, and he sat down next to her bed, and looked around. Everything seemed in place. Everything seemed fine. At least as fine as things could be, considering the situation, and exactly where they were.

"No, mom, the cops aren't coming." He moved his hands to hers, and looked her in the eye. "No one is coming. We're okay, for now."

He didn't know how to tell her that dad was alive here. Real. Not a dream. Not a hallucination.

She held the gaze. He wasn't lying. She wasn't as good at telling when he was or wasn't anymore, but for something like this, she knew. Still...

"You're certain?"

She looked around the room, a single, and she couldn't see any guards through the glass cut-out in the door. The decor was different from the last hospital, the one she'd woken up in before.

"Where are we, did Derek bring me back to LA?"

John held onto her hands, every second just a little tighter. They didn't tell her. Another wave of anger washed over him. They didn't tell him, and they didn't tell her, and now he's expected to explain this entire mess like it's easy. They took the parts that were simple and left him with the mess that was Sarah afterwards.

"Yeah, I'm certain." He kept his eyes on hers and nodded. "They're not coming."

He took a breath, as if that could help him prepare. "We're not in LA. We're in a city that's this world's equivalent of New York." He took another breath. "You're not crazy," he told her, pressing his gaze on her.

"We're..." She got the impression that he was counting more than just her. "Cameron, last night..."

Sarah closed her eyes, trying to weave the disjointed memories together into something that was real. Trying to untangle her hallucinations of Kyle from what might have been a real Cameron the night before.

Wait...

"This 'world?' What are you talking about?"

And she gave him a look that clearly meant, "And I know I'm not crazy, what have I been telling you the last few weeks?"

Well, to be fair, she was crazy, about the damn dots, but John wasn't going to point that particular fact out. Instead he kept his mouth shut on the crazy thing. "Dad - Kyle - he brought you here. With Cameron. They decided I didn't need to know. Until this morning." There was enough irritation in his voice to power a city. Sarah would hear it, she would understand.

"This isn't...home. Like time travel? Only it's more like...world travel. This isn't our world."

She might hear the irritation, she might know what it meant - after all, no one knew better than her how much it annoyed John to be left out of the loop - and later she might ask more about the whole world concept - but for now there was just one problem.

"John, Kyle... your father's dead."

And God, did it hurt her to say that. It always hurt her to say that. John's entire life, it had hurt her to say that.

He knew that. He had known that his whole life, his whole life his father had been dead but now he wasn't, now he was here and now John knew him and loved him and didn't want him to go back to that world, their world, where he was dead and Skynet loomed.

"No, mom." He paused. "Mom, he's here. That's the thing. This place? It takes people from even...from even after they're dead."

"No." She said it in almost a whisper. It was impossible, fate wasn't that cruel, or that kind. Her head turned toward the door, looking for the familiar figure from her hallucinations... or the slightly different one from the night before.

But last night... "It wasn't real, it couldn't be..."

But the longer she was awake, the clearer the memories became. The woman, Kyle, dear God, Kyle...

John leaned down and pressed his forehead against hers, a gesture that was familiar, something he hadn't done in years, almost, or at least it felt that way since Sarkissian died. He had always loved his mom. He took care of her. He got angry with her but this, this he couldn't just take away from her.

"He...he has this way of making you feel like you need to do the right thing. This way of...letting you know what it is. He's a good man. And he talks about you, okay? He talks about your hair from back then eating the ozone."

John had never even seen a picture of his dad. "I have his eyes. You never told me that."

She took a shakey breath and closed her eyes. God, how long had it been since John been this close to her, since he'd let her be this close? The fact that he was doing it now..?

There was another breath and then another and she she spoke, her voice was a hell of a lot steadier than she felt. Everything hurt at the moment, her soul hurt. God, Kyle...

"You get so much from him. So much that..." It hurts sometimes. "So much."

She whispered next, almost inaudible over the ambient noise of the hospital and their breathing. "He's alive. Your father's alive."

Saying it wasn't making it any easier to believe.

John gave her another moment, just one more second before he pulled away, feeling just a little awkward. "Yeah. He's alive." He stood and paced a second, and sat back down, hunkering over a little. He heard the words Sarah didn't say. The pain that she felt that he couldn't fix, and the old anger with her, it was still there, harsh and brutal even though he could put it aside. He would feel it again when she was better, he knew.

"He's alive," John repeated. "He's probably downstairs right now. I could call him, if you want."

Teenagers. She spared John the ghost of a smile as he moved back. Detente for the moment between mother and son, she'd take what she could at the moment.

"He's alive." Perhaps if she said it enough times it would feel like less of a lie, a cheat, another cruel trick perpetuated by her mind. Her own private punishment for not being smarter about Ed, about not being good enough to find out what that warehouse was without killing someone. For not preventing the death that was on John's head.

"I..." Yes, she wanted to say "yes." The part of her that died with Kyle that day, that never stopped being eighteen and in love was screaming "yes". But the rational part, the reasoning part, wants, needs more time to come to grips with what's happening before she has the proof standing in front of her.

"Tell me the rest, about this place, where it is, how we got here, then... then we can call him." Then maybe she'll be ready to accept it.

He nodded, and took a moment, and processed everything. "So this place...this porter thing was built, and it took people from other worlds to come here and fix this one. And so we're all here...and we all got some kind of ability we didn't have at home. Like superheroes or something, I guess." He took another moment.

"I know it doesn't make any sense. But I'm not making it up." He stopped again, and took a breath. "I live with dad and this guy, George, and...mom, there's no Skynet here."

Her mind started to process, trying not to buckle under the sheer... impossibility of it all. Because even in her life, everything she'd seen and done, this was... beyond comprehension. But there were steps to take, intel to gather, and after sixteen years, the habits were automatic. "Who runs it, where is it?" By implication - How do we make it send us home and/or kill it?

But there was one thing that she thought she'd heard wrong. "Powers? What do you mean, powers?"

Her mind neatly skipped over the the part about Kyle, but there would eventually be questions about this George person. Many questions.

It was a lot to take in, even for people used to time travel and robots. "Well...um." He paused. "The porter runs it. From what I can tell, there's no way to destroy it or get rid of it - people have tried, I guess you can ask on the Network about it." But John didn't want to go home. Not when home meant Skynet and no dad and no GLaDOS and the reality that Riley was dead, and that his mother had left him with Charlie.

"And by powers...I mean...powers. There's no easy way to explain it. Everyone gets something different. Cameron always knows where I am. Dad can...see the future, sort of." He neatly left out his powers, but he knew the question was coming.

"The porter, you mean like an AI? Like Skynet?" So there wasn't a Skynet, but there was an AI. Perfect. Just perfect.

And Cameron... "Cameron always knows where you are? John... what if she..." Sarah rubbed at her eyes. This was bad. Very bad.

"Do you have something? Some... power?" Something that he could protect himself with.

Jesus, she was talking about this like it was real.

John took a moment and nodded. "Something like that, but it's not like Skynet. I think it's run by someone. I don't think it's a real AI." A lie, and a good one, but he couldn't have his mom rushing out to destroy things, not when the porter wasn't passive. He'd learn about it, in time.

And he nodded again. "I know, mom." He didn't know how he was going to explain it, to show it. "Okay, you have to...not freak out." He knew she could stay calm, but there was no guarantee, not when he turned to look at the TV, and turned it on.

The screen showed a soap opera for a second, something cheesy, and he trained his eyes on it, and the screen blinked. "Hey," he said, quietly.

The screen scrolled the network, quickly, and ran his loading programs.

::H E L L O J O H N::

"Load up the wireless scan of the house."

An image loaded of the house, and flickered around the outsider perimeter.

He turned back to look at Sarah. "...I control machines."

Somehow she didn't quite believe that. But she schooled her expression and added it to the rapidly growing list of things to do. Find guns, find money and ID's, find out about the AI.

Not freak out..? That was never a good sign, but she didn't say anything and simply raised an eyebrow... and stared. "You... control... machines."

That... Sarah leaned back against the pillows, closing her eyes again. For a brief moment, she clung to the idea that this was all the drugs that were still in her system.

Oh, and one more thing, "Where's Derek?" Not that that wouldn't possibly cause more problems than it solved, but it was worth asking.

John's lips pursed into a scowl for a second. He knew that look on his mother's face, but his dad could handle some of this. Kyle had to have that ability. He had to be able to do something.

"I control machines," he repeated, earnestly.

"Not here," he finally told her. "He hasn't come here yet."

Edited 2010-01-02 06:57 (UTC)

"Yet..." She kept her eyes closed, her son could control machines, Kyle was alive and could see the future... which in retrospect, probably explained why he'd been there... and she'd treated him like he didn't exist. Jesus.

"John..." She opened her eyes, fixing her gaze on him deadly serious. "You're safe, right?"

John kept quiet for another moment before he looked down at her, his eyes equally serious.

"Mom. I'm never safe, am I?"

She gave him a soft chuckle. "You remembered." She reached out to lightly touch his face, withdrawing quickly - she knew she was probably pushing it at this point.

"What else do I need to know?"

He moved away without thinking about it. It was an automatic gesture, something that he just did without thinking about it. Her fingers brushed his face, but that was all.

"Once you get out, I'll arrange everything, all right? And your comm, you're going to need it to get on the Network."

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