The Fate We Made
The Fate We Made
Marcus Wright hugged his wife to his chest as they stood together looking out at the haze-shrouded ruins that had been the largest Skynet command complex in the world. Los Angeles had been the first hub they’d destroyed, the first city reclaimed by the Resistance from Skynet’s control. Three days ago the last city had been reclaimed. The Cairo compound had been guarded by hundreds of HK’s and Terminators, plasma cannons and more killing machines that the Resistance had never even heard of prior to the battle. Skynet had fought hard to defend its last command hub. The weeks-long siege of the Cairo hub had killed thousands of Resistance soldiers. Even John Connor hadn’t walked away from the last battle. As he’d been issuing orders for the final advance a T-850 that Connor had though reprogrammed and turned to their side had assassinated him.
Blair rested her head on Marcus’ shoulder and whispered up to him, reminding him that they would have to go soon to be there for the funeral. Kate Connor wanted them both to be there. They needed to change into something more respectable; for one thing Marcus needed pants. They also had to pick up the kids from Allison Young, the lieutenant who’d volunteered to baby-sit today.
Marcus let Blair out of his arms to get dressed. He sat on their bed while she showered, contemplating the recent events as he heard the water running. Their shower wasn’t big enough for them to share and clean themselves at the same time. By the time he got his turn in the shower his mind was far away, lost in memory. As he reminisced he could hear Blair humming a sad song she remembered from her mother as she arranged her hair and painted on her battle makeup, the wide red stripe from temple to temple. He dried off and pulled on the almost-crisp new uniform Blair had produced for him to wear to Connor’s funeral, not even really seeing it. His mind was going over the time he’d known John Connor, all the things they’d been through together.
**** Connor’s Second Chance and A Stolen Heart ****
When Blair stopped humming to put on her lipstick, another thing along with the war paint and toothpaste that Marcus no longer bothered wondering where she got from, the quiet in their little room left Marcus listening to his own breathing and the pulse of his heart. He’d offered that heart to Connor nearly 15 years ago only for the medics to tell him it was impossible. Skynet hadn’t been content to put his human heart into a cyborg body; it’d upgraded his heart as well. The upgrades made his heart too bulky, not to mention too strong, for Connor to survive a transplant.
If he focused, Marcus could still sift through the parts of the Skynet database that he’d downloaded into his mind during his confrontation with Skynet in the guise of Serena Kogan. He still knew the exact location of the cloning laboratory where Skynet had developed the technology that allowed them to make his cyborg body. Once Blair had him woken up after the surgeons declared the transplant impossible he’d told Kate about the lab and lead a team to seize control of it.
Marcus’ mouth twisted with a grimace as he remembered the fight to take the lab from the Terminators guarding it. He’d been wrestling with a T-600 when Barnes had fired his RPG at it. For Connor’s sake Marcus had let Barnes get away with trying to kill him that time. He’d been more interested in taking down the other machines and keeping Blair safe.
The gurgling sound of the shower tank refilling reminded him of the tanks of synthetic blood and other fluids that had bubbled and swirled in the Skynet medical lab. His fingers twitched slightly, recalling the complex string of commands he had used to make the lab’s automated systems sample Connor’s DNA once the Blackhawk had lifted the dying man to the lab. More commands had set the machines to work building Connor a new heart while the surgeons siphoned off enough of the synthetic blood to replace what Connor had lost.
Skynet hadn’t had time between Marcus’s rejection of its demands and its destruction to deactivate his security clearances. With full access to the lab’s computers, Marcus had been able to direct Kate’s surgical team through the long process of hooking Connor up to jury-rigged life support systems until the replacement heart was ready for implantation.
“Marcus? You ready?” Blair’s voice broke into his reverie.
“Yeah, just my boots. One minute.” He absently kissed her neck, knowing that she’d have his head if he smeared her war paint.
**** Wedding Rings and Combat Boots and Her Machine Gun Man ****
His freshly polished boots in place, he was dressed but for his ring. Marcus slid the gold band onto his finger and a faint smile tugged at his lips. Blair hadn’t told him where she’d found two wedding rings and he’d never asked. When Marcus let out a soft chuckle at the memory of his engagement and wedding, Blair looked up at him.
“Marcus?” She didn’t find much funny today. Normally she was the one with the sense of humor.
“Remembering our wedding. I was thinking of Connor’s face when you came up the aisle in combat boots, carrying that damn bouquet of weeds.”
“There were daisies in it too.” Blair gave him a mock reproachful look before she too chuckled. She pressed her head against his shoulder for a moment, eyes closed. His gloved hand squeezed her shoulder gently. The skin had eventually grown back on his left hand, but it didn’t look quite right and so he’d taken to wearing the glove when other folks were around. Blair never cared.
“He could have at least stopped laughing during the ceremony. I almost punched him” Blair muttered, focusing on the memory.
“Well, he might have been quiet if you hadn’t made that poor old minister stop in the middle of the vows to remind her you weren’t going to obey me.”
She snorted into his shoulder. Suddenly she stiffened and looked up at him, face very controlled. He felt himself tense in response; that was never a good expression to see on Blair.
“Barnes is here. I heard from Sayles that he came in on the last flight from Kansas. I don’t want any trouble today, Marcus. Promise me.” Her eyes were hard and her hand gripped his hard enough that you’d think she was the one with steel instead of bones.
The day after their wedding Barnes and some of his friends had taken issue with Blair while she was out inspecting a shipment of spare parts from a friendly scavenger camp. She’d ended up with a broken arm and three cracked ribs, all for getting married to a machine.
“Blair -“ Marcus started, but Blair cut him off.
“I mean it, Wright. If I need anyone maimed, I’ll do it myself and I’ll do it tomorrow. It was very sweet of you to pay them back for me while I was in the infirmary, but I don’t need it now and Connor deserves more respect.”
“If he hadn’t pulled me off Barnes, there wouldn’t be a problem at all.” Marcus grumbled but then nodded in response to Blair’s demands.
“You wouldn’t have killed him.”
“No?”
“Nope. Connor couldn’t have pulled you off anyone if you didn’t let him, Machine Gun Man. You were just roughing him up a bit.” Blair had taken to calling him that after she found out from Kyle about the Alice in Chains song.
Marcus put Barnes out of his mind. Blair could have taken care of Barnes even before the vicious bastard had earned himself a permanent limp and a shattered, useless arm.
**** Wait Half An Hour For Good News ****
Allison flashed her bright smile at Blair and Marcus when they stopped by her post at the improvised school to pick up the two Connor kids and their own pair. Kate had asked Blair to get Robby and Sarah for her; she needed some time with John to herself. Tyler and Korinna, named for Marcus’s brother and Blair’s mother, were almost as distraught as the Connor twins at John Connor’s death. They’d called him Uncle John since they’d been old enough to talk and had spent as much time with the Connors as with their parents or the Reese brothers. The youngest Connor, the year-old Kyle, wasn’t coming to the service; his mother had said he was too young to understand. Allison would take care of him during the funeral.
While Allison chased down the four kids they’d come to fetch out of the herd, Marcus grinned at the memory of the last time Connor had taken a shot at him, about a year ago.
“Thinking about Connor again?” Blair whispered up to him, a small smile on her face.
“Remembering when he tried to shoot me for waiting half an hour to tell him Kate was pregnant with Kyle.” Marcus’s slow half-smile crept across his face as he watched the Connor kids giving Allison a workout.
“You deserved it. Kate wanted you to tell him that before you stormed that storage compound, not in the middle of the fire fight with half a dozen T-600’s.”
“Then Connor either shouldn’t have told me that I had to wait thirty minutes before giving him any good news or he should have been wearing his flak jacket that day. I didn’t make that rule.”
Blair slapped his belly playfully, grinning. “You know he wasn’t serious. I still can’t believe you did that. But you did bruise three of his ribs when he congratulated us on Tyler.”
“I told him I was sorry about that.”
“You weren’t though; you thought it was funny.” Blair eyed him, half accusing, half amused herself.
Marcus gave a non-committal shrug. She was right, it had been funny, but he wasn’t going to tell her she was right. Telling Blair she was right was as bad as telling that to Connor. Both of them just swelled up with it for days. Kate and Marcus both had often mentioned that Blair and John were lucky to have them around, otherwise the other soldiers would have shot them both dead for their egos years ago. In fair turn about, neither Blair nor Connor ever admitted that their spouses were correct about that.
Once they had the four children properly dressed, cleaned and in tow, Blair and Marcus joined the stream of soldiers and civilians heading for the funeral. John Connor would be the first man in over twenty years to be buried in a full service with this many mourners attending in uniforms and what now passed for finery instead of body armor. No one was carrying weapons. They didn’t need them, thanks to the leadership and inspiration of the man whose life they were gathered to honor.
Taking his place in the front row of assembled guests, Marcus found himself standing next to Derek Reese, Kyle’s older brother. The taller man eyed Marcus for a moment before nodding slightly. Derek hated metal with an almost psychotic fervor, but he had accepted Marcus on Kyle’s word.
**** Laid to Rest ****
Marcus supposed that the service had been nice. He hadn’t listened to a thing anyone had said. He’d known ahead of time what the ones he cared about would say. He’d watched their faces and their eyes while their words washed over him. During the service he hadn’t once felt his throat tighten with grief or his eyes water up with tears. Later, he’d probably feel something. He’d watched as friends and comrades told stories about how John Connor saved them personally and saved humanity itself.
After the service was over, Marcus joined Derek Reese, Daniel Dyson and General Perry. With the deaths of the last two decades they were the ones who had been closest to Connor still left alive. Blair had taken the children with her, leaving a grieving Kate Connor to her self for a few precious hours. John himself had found the glade they’d be burying him in, he’d mentioned to Kate that he wanted to be put to rest in a place with trees if they couldn’t find the cemetery where his father’s remains laid. They had never found Kyle’s grave in the blasted ruins of LA so they were putting Connor to earth in this green place, where it was almost as if the nuclear Judgment Day had never happened. All four men took shovels and started to dig in the soft earth.
Marcus could have done it himself in a fraction of the time it took to let the others help, but he wouldn’t take this away from them. They needed to do this as much as he did. He did pick up the coffin for them and set it in the cradle they’d lower it with, but all four men shared the work of lowering it into the grave. All four shared the work of filling the grave back in. Derek Reese, Connor’s uncle although there were only three people alive that knew it, was the one who planted the stone at the head of the grave when they were finished.
After the others left, Marcus remained by John Connor’s grave. He read the headstone they’d carved for the leader of the Human Resistance. It wasn’t elaborate and the carving was pretty crude. It didn’t matter.
John Connor
1985 - 2032
There Is No Fate But What We Make
Marcus sat down beside the stone and looked up at the sky where a few clouds drifted past the sun.
“Normally guys who try to kill me end up dead, Connor. You tried harder than most and you’re still the first one I’m sorry about. When it came down to it, you believed that I was still a man, despite what they did to me. You treated me like a man and you trusted me. I know they can take care of themselves, but I’m going to look out for Kate and Robby and Sarah. You took care of my kids for me when I couldn’t. It’s only fair.”
Wright paused and looked down at the headstone. He didn’t even know if he believed in God or an afterlife. He hadn’t really bothered to think about it before he died the first time. He hadn’t seen anything while he was dead. After he came back, he still didn’t know. Still, it felt right talking to Connor.
“You did a good job, Connor. Tell Kyle that I’m keeping an eye on Derek and Star for him.”
He stopped again. Should he give a message for his brother? Or even for Serena Kogan, who he’d traded his body to for a kiss? Slowly, he shook his head. He wouldn’t trouble them. Serena, at least, Marcus was sure was at peace. She’d fought her own private war against death until the bitter end and managed to give him the second chance she’d talked about, even if he doubted this was what she’d had in mind. His brother was probably resting well too after thirty years. John and Kyle he still owed something to.
“You gave me my second chance, John Connor. I’ll make sure your family gets theirs, if they need it. Same for Kyle. Rest easy.”
Marcus got up and gave the stone one final look before he turned and started back towards the base. He had people to watch out for. He couldn’t do that while sitting by a grave.