RP: John (maybe Brian) Who: John Connor (maybe Brian Kinney) Where: The ranch, their house When: Saturday April 21, 2012 -- pre-dawn Summary: John does some thinking and brooding over an anniversary.
John had left Brian sleeping and slipped out of bed while the sun was just a faint glimmer on the horizon. It was still cold at night, but not as bitterly so as it had been and he could get away with dragging on jeans and sweatshirt before going outside. John wasn't really going far. Just up to the roof, really.
Back home, the house in the Hollywood hills he'd shared with his mother, Derek, and Cameron, when things got to be too much, when being John Connor was too much to deal with, he'd go out onto the back deck. There was no yard back there. Just a drop down the hill towards the main part of Silver Lake. Standing on the edge, one could see the entire L.A. basin spread out before him. At night, it was a galaxy of it's own, street lights and car lights and lights on the buildings all blending into one sandpainting of light. Then he'd look up and see those points mirrored in the stars and think about how many thousands of years it took for their light to reach him there.
When he wanted to feel small and unimportant, that was where he went.
There wasn't a city of eight million people here. Just the ranch, the desert, the dark shadow of mountains between them and nearest city. If he wanted, John could lay up there and count the constellations he couldn't see at home. Oh, L.A. had far more stars than New York had had. But, out here there was absolutely nothing to interfere.
But, he didn't want the stars this morning.
Judgement Day, one year past.
The people of his world, those that were left, would be living in tunnels below the ground. The same tunnels that had once carried their refuse to the sea were now their homes, their sanctuary from the machines that would come for them. There were no stars to see any more, no sun. The skies were hidden by the smoke, ash, and dust of nuclear destruction and a coming decade and a half of war.
And John was here. Living an almost idyllic life of training and research and clubbing. He had friends, mentors, a lover. Sure, he was still on the run. But, he'd always been on the run, since before he was born John Connor had been running from Skynet. Of course, only two people here even knew Connor was his real name. Everyone else still called him Baum. And Troy had reminded him a lot of Morris the other night. Despite the conversation and memories. It was always different talking to someone normal, someone who did all the things John had never been able to do.
Now, John was doing something the people of his world couldn't do.
He was watching the sun rise.
For a year now he'd been looking for the way home. And after a year they weren't much closer to finding it. There was time. A little. He hoped. The name John Connor wouldn't appear in history until several years into the war, until the beginning of the real resistance after years of surviving without hope.
That sun coming up over the eastern horizon was hope. Hope that John would be able to help his people the way he was supposed to do. Hope that his world would find a way to heal. Hope that they would find a way to send the people here to their own homes.
Though, he pushed the thought of what that meant for his relationship with Brian aside. When John went home, Brian wouldn't be with him. John wouldn't risk Brian by taking him to John's world and, John didn't think he could ever be happy, even spending his life with Brian, if he knew he'd done it at the expense of the people counting on him, if he threw away everything he'd spent his entire life working toward. It was the part he hadn't told Troy. The real reason he was perfectly happy spending all his free time with just Brian.
He was storing up the memories for when the day came he'd have to leave him.
It wasn't fair. It shouldn't have to always be a choice between duty and love. He shouldn't have to feel guilty, letting his people down by not being there to fight for them, because he'd managed to find a peace of happiness here he would never have there.
Wasn't this what his mother had wanted for him? To find peace instead of war? Was Sarah Connor still alive out there, somewhere? On some world in some dimension he couldn't see? Would she tell him he was being foolish, losing sight of the mission the way he had with Riley? Or would she be happier to know the machines weren't chasing him here?
Just the government.
And now he was the protected son all over again. One man dies and now John is too important.
Sighing, John tossed a red rock off the roof, something a bird or lizard must have dropped while gathering for their nests. He liked Vance, respected him, even understood his reasons and his position. But, it frustrated John. He was supposed to be more than this. He was supposed to do more. Trapped here, at least he had thought he had a chance to do something to protect these people when he couldn't protect his own. But, now he was the protected one all over again.
How was he supposed to fight alongside his people when no one ever let him fight at all?
The eastern sky was stained orange and gold now, the sun still making it's slow progress into the day. The desert was waking up around him, while the nocturnal creatures returned to their beds. It looked like the start of a beautiful, clear day.
Hope for a new day.
That was what he had to hold onto, what he had to remember to get him through until they found a way home.
Hope for his world, his family, and his love for the man sleeping in the house below, whatever the future held for all of them.