Cookie Jar (XO,UC,TR,Mature) 08.18 Complete

[vaifeal]

Title: Cookie Jar

Category: XO: Terminator/Roswell

Pairing: UC for Roswell CC for Terminator: Liz(Sarah)/Kyle Reese

Rating: Mature: language, violence and references to sex.

Disclaimer: I am no Cameron or Katims.

Summary: In a desperate bid to survive Skynet sent back a Terminator to kill Sarah Connor before her son could be conceived. With only a name and a city, they didn't know much about her. No one did.

A/N: Just a quick prologue. This isn't going to be the movie word for word, scene for scene but the concept's the same.

“And now this world is gonna hurt” Cookie Jar, Jack Johnson

Elizabeth Parker died at sixteen on the floor of her parents alien themed diner.

Everything she believed in. Every hope, dream, memory, faded under the knowledge that the world was a much wider place than she'd ever conceived. The pressure consumed her. Hurdled her off bridges and through the unbelievable. Her mind crippled itself in possibility. She'd screamed and raged and wondered how the hell she'd make it stop. All she wanted was to make it stop.

Then in the midst of the storm; there'd been peace.

At seventeen Sarah Connor walked away from everything she'd ever known.

The salty sweet smell of her parents diner. The dusty dry breeze that swept through Roswell at dusk, cleaning away and covering the days sins. The gentle rains that caressed the skin, an ancient silent lullaby meant only for her.

She walked away. Strong and silent without ever looking back.

There wasn't anything there for her anymore. Alex was dead. Maria couldn't understand why her friend couldn't just be. Michael hadn't ever wanted her as one of them. Isabel couldn't forgive her for breaking her brothers heart. Tess couldn't forgive her for being alive. Max, Max loved her in a way she couldn't bring herself to love him back.

And her parents, her parents looked at her and only saw stranger.

Sarah could have survived it all if not for that.

No, their baby girl had dwindled to a mere shadow of what she'd once been. Staying in Roswell, accepting that her happiness depended on a man who couldn't exist outside his suffering, that would have finished what that September gunman had started.

LA was the answer. Los Angeles. The city of lost angels. So big she'd be just another face in the crowd. So hectic she'd never get the chance to think. So unusual in its normality she couldn't help but belong.

In an apartment with a woman named Ginger who always finished the bread in her post-coital hunger and whose sex crazed boyfriend didn't mind that she never took off her headphones. At a job, as a waitress yet again now at Big Jeff's instead of the Crashdown. Going on dates that meant nothing. Sarah found her place.

It wasn't wonderful or special.

There was no redeeming value to her mediocrity.

And as much as it was exactly what she had wanted. She hated it for that.

[vaifeal]

*


Every day was the same.

She woke at 6:45. Her alarm went off at 7:00, shattering the calming silence that she'd lay in waiting for the day to begin. Every day she'd roll out of bed and spend exactly twenty minutes in the shower. Eight of them bathing. Twelve of them enjoying the warm spray dripping down her skin.

On the days she had work, she'd go to the kitchen to eat her bowl of Raisin Bran with skim milk then when she couldn't put off the coming day any longer, the jeans would be put on and her bag would be grabbed and she'd leave for yet another eight hour shift of serving food to people whose crassness made her cringe.

When her shift was mercifully over and her pink frilly uniform - which somehow managed to be more degrading than the teal one her father had picked – was finally pealed off, she'd go home. Eat diner. Watch television or hang out with Ginger. Go to bed. And start it all over again.

On the days she didn't have work she'd lay in bed for another hour, oblivious to the world around her. When she finally got up, the apartment would be filled with the sounds of Gingers readily failing attempts to make it to work on time.

Those days she'd take her time. She'd make a full breakfast reminiscent of what her father used to make her and in a fit of childish amusement, she'd watch cartoons.

As the hours rolled by, Sarah would do laundry or go for walks or sit in the library for hours reading books that university student dreaded but she devoured because despite everything that had happened, she still dreamed of lab coats and a life without aprons.

Occasionally, Ginger would talk her into going out or letting herself be set up on a date. Her roommate always picked the worse men to set her up with. But it amused her, so she went along with it. Most days' nothing in her life made her weep. Most days there were no chest crushing fits of melancholy.

There were times though when she'd have to shake her head away from thoughts of 'Liz Parker what have you done to your life' and to the mantra 'Sarah Connor you make do'.

She was having one of those days.

Except Big Jeff's was there to make it worse.

A beautiful May day and she had to go into work. She had to pull on the pink monstrosity that sent shivers of disgust trickling down her spine and deal with the afternoon lunch rush when her mind just didn't want to work.

Despite nearly a decade of waitress experience, Sarah was quite sure that she'd screwed up most of her orders or forgot to get what a table asked. She was fumbling.

Then a little boy had put ice cream in her pocket and some asshole had made a comment about it. So she'd spit in his barbecue beef without fries. His table didn't even tip eight percent.

They were going to hell.

Karma as well.

Even with all of that. The crappy tips. The crappier customers. It was just another day in the inspiring life of Sarah Connor.

Of course things had to shatter with once sentence blared across local news:

“Once again, Sarah Connor a 35 year old mother of two was brutally shot to death in her home this afternoon...”

**

The murder could have been a freakish coincidence. That Sarah Connor could have been at the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe the woman had left her front door open for some psycho to walk in. Maybe she had some secret life that had let danger into her home. The whole thing could be a huge coincidence. Yet another random murder in LA's not so holy streets. It could have had nothing to do with the Connor, Sarah J of 309 Calder Canyon Drive listed as the third Sarah Connor in the phone book.

The Liz Parker in her didn't believe that for a second.

She hadn't done anything to bring attention to herself. Sarah Connor was just a waitress. There was nothing extraordinary or exceptional about her. Her existence was defined by the complete normality of it. A Vespa and jeans, that's all there was.

It didn't stop her from abandoning the rest of her shift in favor of rushing home to an empty apartment. Her head buzzed with new plans, new ideas, new names. Carol Johnson: secretary, Denver CO. Emily Morris: dental assistant, Chicago IL. Mary Park: librarian, Baltimore MA.

So many choices.

Mechanically she shoved favorite clothes and memories into her old camp pack. Ginger would have to understand, not that it would matter. Sarah Connor would be scattered into the dust just as Liz Parker had been. A new woman would stand in her place.

There was a part of her that didn't want to leave. That's what made her wait, even after her bag was packed and she'd written her goodbye – which was more than her parents received.

“Hi there... fooled you, you're talking to a machine but don't be shy. It's ok. Machines need love too. So talk to it and Ginger, that's me, or Sarah will get back to you. Wait for the beep.”

Her fidgeting stopped momentarily. Fear paralyzing the movement. It was idiotic but she was out of practice. Had never thought she'd need to remember what it felt like to be hunted.

“This is Detective Hal Vukovich of the LAPD. I'm looking for Sarah Connor, please have her call the station at 555-7625 as soon as possible...”

She stopped listening.

Her decision was made for her.

If the police were involved, she didn't want to be. They'd figure out she didn't really exist as she was. They'd ask questions she wasn't willing to answer. Breathing deeply, Sarah stepped into the street and once again away from familiarity.

She abandoned her Vespa a mile away from where she lived and started walking to the Greyhound station, slowly dropping her old ID's and credit cards into the trash as she went along. There was no bringing Sarah Connor with her.

Ignoring a twinge of unease, she moved away from the flow of traffic. Before she could shake away the threads of an old life, a strong hand wrapped around her arm and she screamed.

*

[vaifeal]

It's short but since it's been a month since my last post I figured I had to get something up. I promise to TRY and post more regularly.


“Are you alright?”

Her heart pounding against her chest, Sarah smiled at the clearly exhausted young man who'd just stepped away from her, “Sorry, you just startled me is all.”

“You dropped this,” he held out one of the ID's she'd been getting rid of.

“Oh, thank you,” she gave him another smile as he walked away taking his haunted eyes with him.

When her heart calmed to the point it didn't feel like it was going to jump out of her chest, Sarah continued the short distance to the station still reviewing her options. She'd buy a ticket to the first bus that left for a destination more than five hours away. From there she'd get on another bus but there she'd choose one going the farthest.

Wherever she ended, she'd start from scratch. Create a whole identity from nothing. A couple of clicks on a keyboard, the right fingers greased, and it'd be like she'd never been someone else. This in between time was the worst. She was nothing: a figment.

The station was alive with life. People coming and going. Meeting loved ones or saying goodbye. There were no such thing as silence in these places. No questions either. A decent enough ID and you could go anywhere. A good enough gift of reading people and you could feel more at home in its dingy halls than at home.

Years ago she'd learned all that.

Take it in. React.

No thinking. No second guessing. No panicking. No time to let instincts rule. No assessing the situation. Just reaction. Strike out. Strike hard. Her dad had told her once to 'hit first, ask questions later'. Sarah had lived by that since.

As easily as she'd been created, Sarah Connor would be gone. Only a note left on the kitchen table would be left.

A ticket to Boulder later, she found herself sitting on the floor her head propped up by the wall. Her eyes shut against her surroundings as time played around her. Speeding and slowing as it saw fit. Ten minutes in a lifetime. An hour in a second. Time was arbitrary.

She could still hear the flow of the station. A mother berating her child for running around. An old woman grumbling about 'kid these days'.

Liz, was it even safe to use that name in her own head?

Sarah was both hyper aware and oblivious to her surroundings. A contradiction of feelings, just like she normally was. Content and restless. Happy and bored. Her state of norm would scare the shit out of most people. Most peoples state of norm scared the crap out of her. It was when things where the quietest that the fall always hurt the most.

Footsteps echoes off of cold linoleum. Her sleep dulled mind guessed that they were Doc Martins or of similar make. Heavy boots, either for fashion or construction. Either way they broke the monotonous drone of the station by introducing a new beat.

One slightly different. Slightly wrong.

It wasn't the boots. They were common enough. Sit in a Greyhound Station long enough and plenty of pairs would pass by. Not the best for long trips but certain types of people favored them. No, it wasn't the boots that made her sit up a little straighter. It was the footfall.

Loud. Demanding. Violent. Harsher than military but just as single-minded in its direction.

Light briefly flashed across her eyelids, bathing her irises in an eerie red glow, and screams shattered the peace into hundred of fragments. Without opening her eyes, Sarah dove to her side waiting for the brief sprinkling of cinder block dust to finish raining down her. Three shots where her head had been. That wasn't standard procedure for any organization she knew of.

She stared up at the man baring down on her. His face was a blank mask – no not a mask. A mask hid things. There was nothing to hide in those features. Just a cold serenity that didn't hint that the man was a heartbeat away from ending her pathetic little life.

A sociopath? No, even they showed something.

Bracing herself for whatever sensations accompanied death, she didn't expect or hear the succession of powerful shots that staggered the gigantic man then brought him down. Stunned at the sudden turn of events it took her a moment to propel herself to her feet and towards the door, her bag swinging wildly as she tried to get it on her back.

The flow of the crowd trying to escape was creating pandemonium. Hiding her escape but trapping her in its grip. Someone shoved her from behind, sending her staggering – yet again - into a neighbor. Her hand reached out for purchase so she wouldn't end up on the floor waiting to be trampled. Instead of cloth her fingers wrapped around steel and a hand grabbed her wrist.

High strung and taken off guard, she only faintly heard the words grated into her ear, “Come with me if you want to live.”

Newly familiar eyes tried to read her soul as their owner tugged her through the river of people. Dirty with the sickly look of a refugee, Sarah barely hesitated to follow him.

[vaifeal]

Ok, so I won't go into the craziness that has been my life for the last two months but I will tell you the current crisis. My Brand New laptop managed to pick up the blue screen of death so I've been trying to save thousands upon thousands of music and picture files, on top of the word files and adobe that I can't afford to lose. Good news: my brother is coming home today and he says that he can probably fix it or get the files off for me. This story is the one that has been giving me the most trouble but I have started writing for it again. You were going to get a post yesterday before the said blue screen. Luckily I have all my notes for this one hand written. By next week the latest I will get a new part up. Promise.

[vaifeal]

Sorry about the wait. Hopefully it won't happen again.

The sprint through the dark was exactly like she remembered it. That might not be something that changed. The same blanket of terror and headlong rush into the unknown, no that didn't ever change. How could it? No matter where it happened, those feelings where the same. She wished she didn't know that, couldn't compare what it was like in the different places she'd been.

Roswell. Las Crusas. Los Angeles.

Nameless places she'd learned to ignore.

But wishes about the past were useless. Only the future held any promise.

At the moment none of that mattered. She just concentrated on keeping her footing as this ragged harsh man pulled her behind him, leading her along as if she didn't get that running away from that house of a man who had impossibly managed to get up was paramount.

He'd gotten up. At least three shotgun shells to his chest, enough fire power to rip a normal human to shreds, and he'd gotten up. Even IF he'd been wearing a bullet-proof vest, which was unlikely given the blood that had stained his shirt, the impact alone should have kept him down for a while. But he had gotten up. Without staggering. Without a wince. Without any indication that logically he should been dead. Liz had seen some extraordinary things in her life but nothing like that. No one just got up from that.

Insistent hands tugged at hers where they were intertwined. Fingers threaded with fingers. Palm against palm. Two pulses beating in sync. His longer legs outpaced hers, the mid-calf length tan trench coat whipping around his feet brushing against her jeans at every step. He was keeping her close, closer than was strictly necessary, by slowing just enough that he wouldn't have to drag her along.

If they were standing still, he'd be close enough for her to feel the heat radiate off him.

Lungs burning, she tried to push her legs to go faster. She was in decent shape but not like she used to be. Sarah Conner was supposed to be the end of that. Why would somebody possibly want to kill her, the most ordinary girl in the world?

She really would like an answer to that.

The alley blurred along the edges. In a city so large, it was impossible to know every corner of it. This, this dank wet disgusting alley, she knew. She'd made it a point to know every possible escape route from the bus depot during her first few weeks. Old habits and all that.

Skidding to a stop, his weight dragging her forward despite her best effort, his hand came loose from hers. She could hear the monster rushing at them from behind. If they kept running straight, she knew where they'd end up. She also knew that if they went through the door on her right it would take them to the same place but quicker and with less time in the open.

She opened the door, “Trust me.”

**

Reese stared down at the girl that was going to birth and train the man that would save them all in wonder. He could see the source of it all there. John's features mixed with those of a stranger. He knew every detail of the face before him, had memorized it over hours looking at a picture that had been worn before he'd ever gotten it, but he didn't truly know the women behind them.

There was a steely resolve in the way she set her shoulders, edged with the desperation he'd recognize anywhere. It was the same as what he saw every time he looked in the mirror. Her eyes, now pressed together tightly as she rested her forehead against the dashboard, they shone with a wary intelligence when she glanced at him questions on the tip of her tongue. He could see the woman that she'd become in every action she'd taken since he'd grabbed her hand.

Which was why when she'd asked him to trust her, he had. For a split second decision he hadn't thought with his head.

“Who are you?” her voice was tense and bare. A thread away from going into shock but holding herself together in a way he hadn't expected.

“Kyle Reese, Sergeant/Tech-Com, DN38416. I've been assigned to protect you. You've been targeted for termination.”

Sarah nodded as if it was an obvious thing, “I'm -”

“Sarah Conner.”

She shook her head and laughed, “Can you explain what exactly that thing was?”

“It's a terminator,” her head shot up dark eyes bore into his asking for more information, “Cyber Dynamics Model 101. Part man, part machine. Underneath it's a hyperalloy combat chassis, microprocessor-controlled-”

“Microprocessor? Like in a computer? Wait, no, that's artificial intelligence. It's not possible. God, it would take-”

“Forty years for it to be developed.”

“You're from the future,” he nodded and waited for the outburst of disbelief that he expected. Time travel in these times was theoretical at best. Even in his times it had been a vague idea before the machines perfected it. She let out a breath and whispered under her breath. “Not again.”

Reese didn't think he was supposed to have heard that.

“The 600 series cyborgs had rubber skin. They were easy to spot but these are new. Outside it's living tissue. They look human. Sweat, bad breath, everything. I couldn't tell who he was until he moved on you.”

“And it wants me dead,” she said it with the resolve of a soldier and he felt himself moving deeper into feeling better left untouched. “Why? Why me of all the people on this stupid little planet?”

He told her about the war that would start not far into her future and the destruction that came with it, watching the play of resigned acceptance across her face. He painted a picture of mass destruction as he had lived it all derived from a computer program that someone in this time would develop: Skynet.

Hunter killers. Concentration camps. Starvation.

“But there was one man who taught us how to fight. He turned it all around, brought us back from the brink. We'd won. The defensive grid was smashed and the mainframes taken. Skynet was desperate. It had to wipeout his whole existence. His name is John Connor,

**

“...your son Sarah. Your unborn son.”

Liz studied the face of the man before her. Scared, hardened under years of suffering she couldn't imagine but would somehow live through. At least for a time. She believed him and she understood. As soon as the words passed through his lips she understood why this man had been the one to be sent back.

There was no need for hours spent spilling over large tomes of text or asking probing questions of experts in the field to wrap her mind around the potential of earth based technology. Liz got it because she was Sarah. In her simplest most pure form Liz was Sarah and Sarah was everything she'd pushed away in Roswell, too afraid not to meet everyone else's expectations.

No matter the complexity of the situation or how insane it sounded when spoken outloud, all she needed to understand was to look at Kyle. No, not even that. Even in those first moments when she'd taken his hand – rough, warm, safe - heard his voice – low, raw, urgent – and briefly me his gaze – pained, panicked, devoted – a part of her had instinctively known him. What woman wouldn't know when that men crashed into their life, his whole being screaming that he would die for her. Not because he'd been ordered to do it but because she was his HER.

Any Conner that entered this world would be a Reese too.

She pushed that thought, and the uncontrollable panic that accompanied it, away. It was neither the time nor the place to be considering such things. Her mind would conjure the impossible, soul mates and love, too delusioned by fictional men to accept reality.

“Why kill the others if it just wanted me?”

“Most of the official records were destroyed in the war. Skynet knew almost nothing about you. Your name, the city. That's it. Even John only knew so much. He always said that the only person to know the truth about you was his father.”

The laugh escaped her lips before she could tamper it. He didn't know what he was asking.

[vaifeal]

So SO SO sorry about the ridiculous delay. Real life has been a bitch. I had 15,000 words to write for class and now I am backpacking through Europe (before writing another 16,000). I brought my netbook with me to work on it but that hasn't worked out as well as planned the people I am traveling with keep using it whenever we have free time.

Piece of advice to anyone who wants to backpack with friends:

ANY trait that annoys you before you travel for long periods of time is amplified by a 1000.


Liz smiled at the woman behind the counter and squeezed Kyle's hand.

He hadn't wanted to abandon the car and maybe he had been right but it was more than likely that it had already been reported stolen, with both of their faces plastered on the evening news they couldn't afford the ensuing car chase. If they took the train at least they might make it out of the city safely, if only because the people in L.A. - like the people in almost every city – operated with a general apathy towards their neighbors that would work in the pairs favor.

Tired, haggard, dirty, and looking like they had been run over by a semi several times in quick succession, they fit in with the other commuters seemliness. If luck was on their side no overly obsessed or 'helpful' person would interfere.

Taking the tickets from the woman, she smiled weakly again before walking away. They had an hour before the 11:45 train to San Diego would pull into the station which left them plenty of time to obsess over the prospect of being caught unaware by the police or worse the Terminator. Liz hoped that when people looked at them all they saw was yet another overly affectionate couple heading out for a romantic get away.

She moved closer to the tense paranoid figure beside her.

It was what she wished they could be and for that she would pretend for as long as she could. Pretend and wish and let her heart draw pictures that her head knew would never materialize.

Pulling him down with her, she rested against the wall most of her weight leaning on Kyle. He was the only thing keeping her from turning around and facing the damn machine. She hated being chased. Too many bad memories of being chased and loosing. Looking over her shoulder to turn around and find that the enemy was right in front of her.

Her eyes drooped heavily and she rested her head on his shoulder feeling him simultaneously tense and relax against her. His whole being was warring against itself. He was outside the war zone he had come to know as his only home but his enemy was still out there, penetrating human society like it never had before.

Trying not to let the horrific images of the life he had had, the one he hadn't been born into yet, encroach she let her consciousness drift away.

_+_+_

When she woke up, it was to hands pulling her away from Kyle and no matter how hard she fought they wouldn't let go. Not at the hits to she landed or the pleas to just let them go.

The police had found them.

[vaifeal]

Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

Traxler has known when he'd gotten the call about the shooting in the Bus Station and had seen Sarah Connor fleeing the scene, that it would not be a simple case of protecting the young woman. He had been right. It had been chance that had led them to Connor and Reese on the platform. A passing officer had been suspicious of the shape under mans coat.

It was only later, after he had checked in with his supervisor did he recognize their faces from the news.

The break had been a lucky one.

Connor sat at the table on the other side of the glass, still rubbing her wrists from the cuffs they had been forced to use on her in order to bring her in. They'd been removed as soon as she had stopped thrashing but the damage had been done. She wouldn't trust them. Not when they offered her protection or when they said they were looking for the man that the security had shown to be the one trying to kill her. She'd just looked at him with her big brown eyes and asked him to let them go.

Let the next woman on a hit list and a crazy man leave. His whole career would be ruined.

She hadn't even reacted when they had told her that her roommate and her boyfriend had been murdered by the same man trying to kill Connor. Instead she had again asked her to let him go.

The only time she had let any emotion slip past her tight control was when they had let her watch the tape of the Doc talking to Reese. There had been belief there and loyalty and he had never seen anyone so terrified then when the mans crazed voice filtered into the room.

“You still don't get it. He'll find her. That's what he does. All he does. You can't stop him. He'll wade through you, reach down her throat, and pull her fucking heart out!”

**

Reese managed easy enough to take out the man watching him and remove the restraints binding his hands. With the electricity shut down and the air filled with gunfire it felt as if he was back in his own time. Every moment a struggle to stay a live. Every breathe holding the possibility of being the last.

He had always operated under the assumption that he was already a dead man. They all had. It was easier that way. Parents expected their children to stop coming home. Children let themselves forget the people who had brought them into the world. Few were willing to forge lasting bonds with others who were as close to the verge of death as they were.

John Connor had been one of the few that had held onto hope as fiercely as he fought for all their lives. It was him that taught Kyle, and so many like him, to open themselves up to possibility. For Kyle, it had been a picture of Sarah that had done it.

It had been easier to think of her than someone who was still alive.

But she was with him now, smaller in real life than what he had anticipated but alive and warm and more than he thought he could reasonably handle. Once again he wondered why John had let him, of all the soldiers available, be sent back.

The building shook as if a bomb went off, parts of the ceiling falling crashing loudly to the floor. Kyle made his way down the hall looking for Sarah. She was strong, she would survive until he found her. He turned a corner and met with the barrel of a shotgun. For a moment he considered the option that he had finally met his end before the weapon dropped.

“Kyle.”

**

Liz shook the plaster from her hair and pulled the woolly fleece she had been wearing for the last two days closer around her body. It had been her fathers, the last day she had been at the Crashdown she had taken it as a momento. A way to always feel him around her. She had loved her father and this was the only thing she had left of him.

The only thing she had left period. Somewhere between Union Station and running from the Terminator at police headquarters, her bag – the bag that had survived everything that had happened since her initiation into the Abyss – had been lost.

Her pictures, her journal, her life in a half dozen objects, was gone.

Now she really was nobody.

She looked across at Kyle. He was worse off than she was, covered in a film of dust from the rubble they'd run from – one day she would have to thank Max for that particular trick – and an open wound on his arm. She should bandage it for him. It wasn't like she didn't know how. A first aid class a million lifetimes ago had taught her that much.

“Are you cold?”

Liz met his eyes and felt a rush of anger. No son of hers should have been stupid enough to send Reese back. It didn't matter how bad the future might be, no one was meant to mess with time. No one. Instead of using intelligent thought, her kid created a paradox. A future that needed John Connor to save it. A John Connor that needed a man not born yet to spawn him.

“No,” she took a deep breath and tried to calm her frayed nerves. “What's my son like?”

“He's tall, about my height.”

“That's good. Poor kid would hate me if he was stuck at 5'3”.”

He half smiled and she couldn't returning the gesture. Her now steady hands made quick work of his bullet wound, “He has your eyes.”

She wanted to say that it was a shame because Reese had beautiful hazel eyes but that would give too much away. Despite having traveled through time, she highly doubted that he would find it easy to accept that he was the father of the man he had followed into battle.

Guys were weird that way.

“Is he a good man?”

“You trust him. He's got a strength. I'd die for John Connor.”

“At least I know I'll get that much right,” she held his gaze trying to let him know how much she needed the answer to her next question. “Are you sure you've got the right woman?”

“Yes.”

“How? Huh, how do you know?”

“John -”

“Ah yes, John,” she knew she shouldn't be taking this out on Kyle. He was doing his job. Keeping her alive. And she knew she was the right person. Every time she touched him she knew she was going to be the woman that birthed a legend. “The savior, right? The man to beat Skynet. Let's see how well John knew his mother.”

“Sarah -”

“My name's not Sarah!” it felt good to admit that.

Rough hands grabbed her and turned her away from the exit of the overpass, “You are Sarah Connor. You taught your son to fight, to organize from when he was a kid. You - ”

Liz shrugged him off, “My name is Elizabeth Parker. I was born in Roswell, New Mexico to Jeff and Nancy Parker.”

“Sarah...”

“Liz,” she said it fiercely, needing to own her name. “Sarah Connor died when she was 12 years old in the back seat of her parent's mini van when it spun into an eighteen wheeler.”

He looked as if she had just destroyed everything he had ever believed. She knew she shouldn't be doing this to him. In no way was it deserved but in this whole mess, she needed for him to choose her, to be with her: Liz Parker not the just the web of stories that created Sarah Connor.

Facing him with all the determination she could muster, she hoped that she hadn't just ruined what might possibly have been the best thing to enter her life.

“It is easier to erase a death than it is to create a life out of nothing so I became Sarah Connor,” he still wouldn't look at her and she felt her heartbreak a little with every second that passed. “Kyle.”

It was plea. It was a promise. It was everything she had to offer which was everything she had left.

Maybe he wasn't just Sarah Connor's. Maybe he could be Liz Parker's too. Her grandma Claudia's words echoed in her ears: 'There is no fate but what we make'.

He could be her fate.

Please.

“Liz,” it was said with an underlying strength that let her know that the different name didn't matter but with the air of someone testing something familiar. She was still the woman he knew.

She laughed, let out a breath she'd been holding, and pulled his head down; starting something neither of them wanted to finish.

[vaifeal]

It was the third motel in four days but it was the first night he had slept through. He'd gone without the nightmares and without propelling himself out of bed searching for cover. There wasn't any reflex to search for a weapon when anyone in the next room had so much as coughed. Kyle hadn't jerked awake whenever she had shifted in her sleep. She hadn't had to placate him at the moment of waking with a jumbled mix of truth and lies.

You're safe. Lie.

I'm here. Truth.

It's over. Lie.

I won't leave. Truth.

Liz's fingers lightly skipped over the stark white of the scars littering his chest. It looked like he'd been a child's personal doodle pad. A line here, a circle there. No order. No reason. The skin of their arms was nearly the same color, both darkened by the sun but underneath she was still darker. It was the Navajo in her blood. A heritage she would pass on to their son. Along with the touch of an alien and robots from the future.

John was going to hate her.

Kyle shifted in his sleep pulling her closer so that they were pressed together, skin against skin. A sensation she would never tire of. Her stomach growled, filling the room with a low rumble and letting her know that it was time for breakfast.

That was another thing that she had to work with him on. She understood that in the apocalyptic future he hailed from there was very little food to be had and as such he was more than used to having to maintain himself on a small meal per day but in her time, Liz liked food. At one point in her life she had even been called a foodie.

She slipped from his arms and walked to the fridge, intent on finishing the Chinese food she had talked him into the night before. Kyle had enjoyed it, like he had enjoyed most of the food that they had eaten since he'd pulled her out of harms way. There was no question that it was better than the rations that he had had at home before it wasn't that hard to be an improvement.

It was the smallest of things to give him a meal most children in her time were familiar with but it was all she could do for him while they were still running. Liz couldn't show him what it was like to have a safe home to return to every night. She couldn't let him experience life as it was before the war nor could she show him the thousand and one tiny ways that life was celebrated everyday.

They were distant memories for and ones they couldn't afford to dig up with the Terminator on their trail.

The lo mein container was cold in her hand but she didn't bother to heat it up. Cold noodles were actually pretty good and the sound of the microwave would wake Kyle up. He deserved to sleep as long as he could. Liz pulled on one of the shirts they'd picked up from the store and settled into the chair the shabby place was outfitted with.

After finishing the noodles she crawled back into bed, her body more than aware that it was still very early, and let her hand drift to her stomach. They hadn't been careful every time. Adrenaline and want had at times overruled intelligent thought, undermining the need for protection. She wondered if John was in there, small and faint and so very vulnerable to the whims of his mother. That thought alone scared her more than any she had had before.

_+_


The grease from the car engine had worked its way up his hand to his forearm and elbow, simultaneously hiding and accentuating the play of lean muscles beneath the skin. Outside of his eyes, which could pin her to a spot without meaning to and which showed everything he felt at any given moment, Kyle's arms were her favorite feature.

Strong and consistent, even when they shook under the pressure they remained steady.

She shook her head to escape thoughts of symbolism and deeper meanings. That was all nonsense. Those things meant nothing as long as they were only thoughts passing through one mind. They had no place in her skull. There were more important things in the world.

“Let's go inside,” as much as others would take that as an invitation to something decidedly adult, Liz knew that - despite his battle hardened nature – Kyle was an innocent and the protector in him did not like leaving her outside by herself.

“You go in and take a shower. I'll follow in a minute,” shallow thoughts of literary ploys had no place in her head because the world was screaming in their place. Kyle didn't budge and she gave him the universal annoyed woman look. “Go take a shower. I'll be right in.”

“Liz.”

“Kyle.”

Finally he caved, not because of her but because he could read the signs of her son in the line of her jaw and the way her eyes narrow in irritation, in command. He loved her, she knew that much to be true but there were times when she could believe that he was torn between seeing the woman he had thought she was, seeing John – the man he would give life to and have his life saved in return, and seeing who she really was.

She turned back to the small book that she had been careful to hide from him and let her hand wander, words and illustrations poured from the foreign part inside her that she had long since stop trying to disconnect, a series of warnings that would only, could only, ever be seen by John Connor. It was the least Liz could leave for her son.

_+_


“I've been thinking,” jumped up onto the kitchen counter and continued to munch on the hot dogs she had prepared for dinner. “There's so much I can show. We could drive out to the desert and spend the night. You, me, a campfire, and the stars. You'll never see anything as beautiful as the desert at sunrise. Or the ocean, we keep driving right past the Pacific without stopping but, even if it's only once, you need to put your feet in those freezing waters. We could go to New York, take you to the Atlantic and let you wander one of the most famous cities in the world. I could buy you a dirty water dog-”

“A dirty water dog?” Kyle leaned against the counter next to her, his face full of confusion at the moniker. He hadn't known what a hot dog was until she had brought the package back to the motel.

Liz pulled him so that he was nestled between her thighs and smiled at him, “Yep, a dirty water dog with the works. Sauerkraut, sweet onions, mustard. You'll love it. I want to show you everything you've ever missed because of this stupid war Kyle. I want to teach you the billions of little ways life can be more than surviving.”

“My whole life has been combat.”

She had known that was true, it was etched in everything he did but hearing him say the words made her want to promise that war would never touch him again. It wasn't in her power to ensure those things, she was only responsible for bringing another life into the conflict. An innocent. Their child. How was she supposed to bring a child into this?

“It can be over for you,” as long as they ran as far and as fast as they could and never stopped. As long as they never rested, the Terminator would never find them.

“That's not possible.”

“I know but I still want it to be true. For you and for me,” she let out a sharp humorless laugh and wrapped her arms around him in a pathetic attempt to protect him from some unseen enemy in the distance. Their peace was coming to an end. She knew it as certainly as she knew that years ago Max had changed her life in a heartbeat. “I'm tired of this war and it hasn't even really started yet. All it will cause is pain. So much pain.”

“Pain can be controlled,” Kyle pulled as far away from her as she would allow him. The walls he'd built around himself, that he had slowly relaxed over the time they had been together, slammed back into place. “You disconnect it.”

“And so you feel nothing.”

The words ripped from her without her consent. They weren't true. Locking things away made them feel more intense. Made what emotion escaped through the cracks more acute. It was why he loved her like he couldn't breathe without her and why she loved him like he was a precious part of her she has lost far too long ago.

“It's better that way.”

“Kyle,” Liz grabbed him again, using her thighs to keep him from escaping as she cradled his head in her hands. His body betrayed the desire to walk away and let the conversation fade into nothing. She wouldn't let him. Not now, not ever.

“John Connor,” he said the name of their son so formally she wondered if she should tell him that no other man would touch her. No other man would be the father of any child she created. If only to give him something in life to hold on to. Creation instead of destruction, “gave me a picture of you once. I never knew why. It was very old. Torn. Faded. You were young, like you are now. You weren't smiling, just a little sad. I always wondered what you were thinking at that second. I memorized every line, every curve.” A picture. All he'd had was a picture. His fingers skimmed her features as if he were tracing that picture and for a moment she was terrified: What would happen when he learned he had all of her? “Sarah, I came across time for you. I love you. I always have.”

There was a plea written across his features, to forgive him for not being able to hide it away. A promise to never love anything as much as he loved her. She wondered if anyone had ever told him that he was worth the return of every sentiment he was giving her.

Liz pulled his head down, crushing his lips to her. She poured everything into the kiss, pausing occasionally to let him know, “I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you...”

[vaifeal]

Finally, its DONE!! Now, if only I could say the same about my dissertation. I really must get on top of that.

The next day she'd learn that the woman at the check in desk had recognized them from the news and had called the police which in turn had tipped off the Terminator but in the moment, with Kyle desperately fighting to get free, she was at once simultaneously broken hearted that they had been so close to escaping and terrified that they wouldn't make it through the confrontation.

An old contact had gotten them a new set of documents - drivers licenses, birth certificates, passports – and then had hugged her like he would never see her again. He probably wouldn't. They'd left the motel with new identities and a little bit of hope. So close to the Mexican border and oblivion, she'd smiled at Kyle as they'd started to drive out of town.

Almost free.

She couldn't understand how she had gone from that to once again struggling to survive. Her blood screamed and her muscles protested as Liz tried to drag Kyle from the destroyed pick up. The Terminator had come out of nowhere, striking the front of the car with a Humvee sending both vehicles into uncontrolled spins before their pick up had flipped off the road.

“Liz,” Kyle was looking past her even as he tried to pull his leg free from where it was pinned. The Terminator had punched out the door of the destroyed car, its metal skull was exposed and its red eye was glowing eerily in the dark. Wrapping her arms around him, she gripped the fleece she had let him wear – her fathers, and heaved. Half his body came free. “No.”

Turning to see what he was protesting, the scream didn't get past her lips as the hand wrapped around her throat and lifted her off her feet. Kyle was yelling her name in the background and she could feel the small tremors from the .45 she'd taken from her contact as they impacted with the machine but still it held her hovering a foot in the air.

Mechanical fingers tightened around her throat as she ineffectually tried to pry the fingers free, her legs kicking at it trying to make it drop her. Red eyes burned into hers as she brought her hand to grab the wrist even as black hovered at the edge of her vision. She could feel it when the alien in her finally reacted. It coursed up her skin, burning her from the inside out. The machine cocked its head in curiosity at the green lines dancing across her features before it was knocked clear of her.

Her legs couldn't hold her and she crumpled to the ground, coughing as she brought too much oxygen into her lungs. Fighting to keep back the foreign power and trying to stabilize the tremors shaking her form from too much adrenaline in her body, she didn't struggle against the hands that pulled her to her feet and started dragging her down the road.

Kyle would want to know what had happened, she would tell him when they were free of the Terminator. Glancing back against her will she saw a booted leg twitch and began to run in earnest. They were both injured, Kyle was partially dragging the leg that had been pinned while she could feel the blood drip down her arm from where it had been shredded both by the glass from the accident and from her hard landing when she'd been released.

None of that mattered. All they could do was hope there was another car or somewhere they could hide out. Of all the places to be attacked, it had happened in one of the worst areas. There were no residential houses filled with people who would call the police, creating enough chaos that they could slip away. That also meant there were not many cars on the road and so late at night it was unlikely that another vehicle would pass them. There was what looked like an abandoned factory two blocks up, Liz crossed her fingers and prayed that there was something in it that could help them.

The percussive boom of a shot fired filled the air a second before she heard Kyle cry out, his weight falling forwards through the door he'd managed to open. She slammed the door behind them barricading it as best as she could, once again wishing that Max had given her more than wishy washy visions of the future and unpredictable blasts.

They were in an office of some sort, computers lined the walls and desks. Whatever the factory was it was not abandoned. Kyle had pulled himself over to a wall full of switches that he began turning on bringing the building alive with the sounds of metal against metal. Liz began pulling desk drawers open in search of a weapon, anything but was only met with personal junk. She turned to the metal door along the wall and pulled it open to reveal what was basically a large fuse box.

Mind alight with possibilities, she began to pull out fuses and cross wires while racing against the Terminator in its quest to tear the door apart. With a shout she finished to find Kyle slumped against the wall. His chest was barely rising with every shallow breath.

Twenty

“Come on Kyle, get up,” she pulled against his weight moving him just enough to expose a puddle of blood on the floor.

“I can't.”

Ten

He needed to get to a hospital. He needed stitches and surgery, things she couldn't give him but she needed him to move or they'd both die, “Yes you can. Now get up!”

Five

His body fought to keep itself from collapsing on top of her as he allowed her to drag him to his feet. They made it out of the office and into one of the rows of machines before the explosion she'd rigged went off. The office burned and factory went still, the lights flickering then going out as they both held their breath in anticipation of heavy boots falling on wire grating.

The back up generator kicked on with a growl that made both of them jump and several of the smaller machines turned on. Click. Click. Click. Click. Her heart stopped before slamming against her ribs, Kyle's hold on her tightened.

Humans have very strong fight or flight responses, Liz's instincts had always leaned more towards fight even as her mind demanded a reasonable review of the circumstances to determine the course to take. Standing in the dark clutching at Kyle, she intellectually knew that they would not be able to go against the Terminator with Kyle injured. Nor could they run.

She had to leave him behind.

Tugging him down the aisle, her eyes scanned the machinery until she found the recessed crevasse that she needed. He didn't have the strength to fight her as she lowered him into the ground and pulled several boxes closer to him so that someone standing wouldn't be able to see where he was hiding.

“You need to stay here.”

He grabbed her hand and kept her from leaving even as he struggled to make himself heard, “No. Liz... not... safe. ”

“I'm just going to find a way out,” Liar. They wouldn't survive if she was only going to do that. “I'll be right back. I promise.”

She kissed him softly and made sure he couldn't be seen. For a moment she hesitated, unwilling to leave him alone unguarded and unprotected. He had been sent back in time to ensure she lived but it would break her if he died. Pushing away any thoughts of Kyle, injured and bleeding, in the small recess under some machine she couldn't guess at the function of, she started running.

Down the aisle. Left. Right. Right. Left. She scanned everything she passed looking for something to stop an artificially intelligent machine from forty years in the future. A future where her adult middle aged son would be leading the survivors of humanity against machines. The sound of an explosion had her take two steps back towards where she'd left Kyle before she could stop herself.

It could've just been an aftershock from the overload she'd caused. The thought was impossible to swallow but going back would help neither of them.
a
She closed her eyes exhaled and continued her search until she came upon what could only be described as a large crusher like the ones used at junk yards. Overhead there was even a magnetic crane used to move large metal items. Making a quick decision she climbed up to the control console where she ripped off the bottom panel and pulled out the wires. Doing these things were easier when the only thing that needed to be changed was a line of programming.

The sound of clanking and scraping along grating strengthen her resolve rather than sent her into blind terror. It was dragging its leg the same way Kyle had. She clenched her jaw and popped out from where she was hiding, “Over here you fucking bastard.”

It saw her and started making its way towards her. The stuff of nightmares. Liz kept it several paces away as she backed up until she was struggling to climb up the wire rope she'd left behind. It walked right into the spot she had been right as she swung her legs over.

With a look of pure disgust she flipped the first switch she needed and watched the Terminator fight against the reversed polarity of the magnet crane. It wasn't strong enough to break the force of a magnet that when working as it should was made to hold objects many tons in weight.

“You're terminated,” she slammed her hand down on one of the buttons and watched the the door to the crusher shut and the walls move in. The Terminator tried to follow where she had gotten out but couldn't gain purchase as she untied her rope.

All too soon the crusher had destroyed it.

Not allowing herself to feel the relief that would cripple her she ran down aisle after aisle until she found where she had left Kyle. The formally pristine machines were twisted and jagged, half a fire extinguisher was embedded in the floor. From what remained she'd guess that he had set the explosion off. Stupid self-sacrificing man.

Finally feeling the fear, pain, and panic of the night on top of a almost days before Liz started climbing over the wreckage, ignoring the way the heated edges would burn her skin and leave her bleeding.

“KYLE!!”

Sweat dripped down her back and chest, dirt stuck to her. She looked as he had that first day he had grabbed her hand. It was the arms she found first, the rest of him followed as she pulled the debris away. He was alive. Barely.

“Kyle!” cradling his head in her lap she quickly checked him over and pressed her hand against the worst one. The bullet wound. There was less blood flowing from it now but he had already lost too much. He was so pale.

Hazel eyes opened and dry lips moved. He tried once then again but still barely any sound came out “Lov y.”

Kyle stopped breathing.

His heart beat once but not again.

“No! No! No! No! Kyle!” She laid him down fully, tilted his head back, and like she'd been taught gave him two test breathes to check to see if his airway was open.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten...

**

It felt like it had been hours by the time the emergency response people finally arrived.

Police, firefighters, and the paramedics she had so desperately needed. Apparently there had been an alarm system in place. The police came in first, systematically working their way through the factory looking for intruders but only finding the pair of them.

Liz with body wrapped around a bloody corpse.

He still felt warm.

Someone called for the paramedic.

“Miss,” hands pulled her and she tightened her grip on Kyle. “Miss, you need to let us work on him. Miss please.”

She kissed the scar on Kyle's chin then his lips one last time and let them pull her away. Even as they moved her away from him and began checking her for injuries she kept her eyes on his form. They wouldn't be able to bring him back. He was gone.

That didn't stop her from hoping.

As they guided her to the ambulance and away from the scene of them moving Kyle into the body bad, she wrapped herself in the cloak of Sarah Connor and let what remained of Elizabeth Parker die with Kyle Reese.

**

Sarah settled her hand on her swollen belly and smiled as John kicked it.

After eight months she still couldn't believe that there was a baby growing inside of her. She understood the hows and whys but it was amazing. There was a human being inside her. Everything she did, he did. Nutrition, protection, he needed her for everything.

Kyle would have been just as marveled as she was. He would have laid his head on her the swell and listened to their sons strong heartbeat thump away. He would have felt every kick the boy dealt to her poor insides. There were many of those.

John was a fighter.

Smiling sadly to herself, Sarah closed the journal she had been working on for her son and walked into the small house. When the war came, she'd be ready. They both would be.

We've all got the blood on our hands. We only receive what we demand. And if we want hell then hells what we'll have – Cookie Jar, Jack Johnson

FIN