After the Jaguar I learned to move silently. Who: Sarah Connor, Cameron What: Late night chats. When: Post Kirk/Cameron Dancing Log. Where: The Connor Residence Ratings/Warnings: PG-13 to be safe. Status: Complete!
Sarah's day had started yesterday at around 8am. They'd only had a day to move in, and she'd barely had enough time to inspect the new place before they were unpacking their truck.
Not that the Connors ever had much to move - Sarah preferred to travel light, a holdout from her days backpacking and training in Central America. The kids had been brought up to follow suit, whether they liked it or not. But the last time they'd settled down, they'd managed to acquire a few things that no one wanted to part with.
It was the first time she'd split a place with time to pack.
There were a few kitchen things. Sarah's favorite coffee mug and griddle pan, various plastic dishes. A few duffles full of clothing, one box each for the two kids, and a box for Sarah. Hers was the heaviest, if you didn't count John's computer. It was filled to the brim with books.
Still, they'd spent the morning moving in the 5 or 6 boxes they had. And then Sarah had discovered the gigantic pink vagina on the wall, along with its blue companion, the badly painted penis, and various other words that didn't need to be painted on her goddamned walls.
Paint, she'd mumbled, while steering them all back out of the house, We're going to need a lot of paint. John and Cameron had been sent off to their respective schools to figure out registration, and she'd painted the entire damn house. It was good exercise, anyway, and a nice distraction.
But that had been before the sleepless night getting the house settled, the couple of trips to various stores to get the kids settled, and the shift she'd worked to get her job and insurance settled. By the end of the second day, all she'd wanted to do was curl up on her bed and die.
Unfortunately, sleep wasn't something that came easily to Sarah. Both of the kids were out, and she was never good at sleeping peacefully when they weren't home. Even if one of them might as well be a man now and the other one was old enough to take care of herself.
So she laid on her bed, curled up but not sleeping, and stared at her freshly painted wall. No Vaginas were bleeding through the paint. She considered that a victory. She'd noticed the few bullet holes, too, of course. Those were easily covered up and painted over, but it made her wonder just how safe a neighborhood they'd moved to.
Her hand reached under her pillow and fingered the gun there briefly. The sound of Cameron entering the room almost startled her enough to pull the thing out from under there. But it was only Cameron, and she cracked a joke as she removed her hand from underneath her pillow, "You're so silent sometimes that I swear you could kill us all in our sleep and we'd never know."
Cameron smiled in the darkness. She'd been out most of the night, and the experience had made her realize she needed a bike.
She was no longer in high school, but the music school and Orchestra were both several miles away. It was a long walk. The club had been even longer. The man she'd met there had offered her a ride, but she'd refused. Well, she'd refused the ride in the car, anyway. The other ride she'd accepted.
Still, now wasn't the time to ask for a bike, "After the Jaguar I learned to move silently."
She sat on the bed, and then laid down on her side, facing Sarah. She used to do this when she was little, and it was something she still did when something particularly emotional had happened. Part of her wished it could be John.
"I can't believe you still remember that," Sarah whispered, with a bit of a grin. That was years ago. More than 12. Sarah shook her head and cuddled in a bit with Cameron. The girl was also notoriously bad at sleeping, and they'd often spent nights up late talking about this or that.
Sarah'd spent most of the younger girl's life either on patrol, learning to shoot and fight, or working 2 jobs to keep them all afloat. Late nights chatting with her had become a way to catch up on what the hell her kids were up to. That, and sometimes she even managed to talk Cameron to sleep.
"It was traumatizing. It was my fault," The girl replied. She saw nothing inappropriate about this - the closeness made her feel like she hadn't missed out on a lot as a child. Even if she'd adjusted better than John had.
"There was so much blood, and I had to change John's diapers because you had an infection. I was four. So I learned to be silent."
"The thing's teeth weren't in your leg," Sarah pointed out, with a bit of an amused look on her face. You knew you were over the experience of a Jaguar chewing on you when you could talk about it like it was one gigantic joke.
“John’s diapers,” Cameron insisted. She tilted her head, raising her eyebrows to emphasize her point.
That was neither here nor there, and she was only half serious about the trauma of changing John’s diapers. She shifted, tucking her head in against Sarah’s arm, “Will we stay here longer?”
It was hard to tell when Cameron was joking or serious, and Sarah had been about to raise a hand and tell her she'd won this round. Instead, she hugged that arm around Cameron and chewed on her lip a bit, "I don't know. I hope so. I know you both wanted to settle down for a while."
It was up to her, of course, but she couldn't explain why it was that she sometimes just picked them up and moved them. Itchy feet, maybe. There was the one time that she'd had to shoot someone, but that only accounted for one of the many times they'd moved.
John more than Cameron. She adapted easier, but the new orchestra seemed like a good fit for her. Music, art, it was one of the only things she was passionate about. Cameron closed her eyes, "We won't unpack for awhile."
She hardly ever completely unpacked any more.
"I unpacked all of my things." That was probably as close to a reassurance as it got. She was willing to put enough roots down here to have unpacked all of her books and put them on a shelf in the living room, in fact.
"I'm not going to pick us up and move us tomorrow, Cameron. You two just got settled into school. I've got a nice job here..." Sarah trailed off and patted Cameron's back a bit, "I know I've screwed both of your lives up. I'm going to try not to screw this up."
Cameron lifted her head, staring at Sarah for a moment, "You really did, Sarah?" Her voice was filled with a bit of wonder. That was a huge deal. The physical contact with her back snapped her out of it, and she laid her head back down, "I found a nice club. You should try it some time. You have no social life."
The look Sarah gave her in response to that remark was one that implied that Cameron really had to be joking. There was no other explanation for it. She couldn't even imagine herself going to a club. That was something she did when she was... well, young and stupid, really.
And the last time she'd been in one she'd been shot at, so there was that, too. She winced slightly, but covered it over with a bit of a knowing smirk, "Did you meet any cute guys there?"
Cameron was glad the room was dark, “Yes.”
Sarah grinned, "Did you dance with them?"
“One. He danced with me. I stepped on his toes.” Cameron’s smile was ghostly in the dim light. He’d reminded her of John. She wished it had been.
"I'm sure he forgave you for that," Sarah's grin softened into a warm smile, and she cuddled in closer to Cameron, like she was some confidant instead of whatever kind of mother figure she was, normally.