tampered | [log || ongoing]

[log || ongoing]

When; Sunday 21st June [father's day curse]
Rating; PG-13 [ps: spoilers]
Characters; Holly Short [

captainshort] and John Connor [

resistfate]
Summary; What happens when you cross a three foot elf, the arrival of an injured soldier, and a city curse?
Log;

'No one is ever safe.'

It was a mantra he'd been forced to live by from the moment he was old enough to understand it. Perhaps even long before. So the moment he heard that quiet rustling sound in the distance, John had snapped back to alertness. Or as close as he could manage in his morphine addled state. His eyes were drawn to the figure at the end of his bed. The one that was now so familiar to him, despite them only having recently met.

Kyle Reese.

His father.

John spared the smallest of smiles to the teenager, his own hand relaxing its grip on the handle of the handgun hidden beneath his sheets. He'd been standing guard for what must've been hours now. There was a a silent moment, before John started to slowly lever himself upwards to slide back up the bed. Just enough that he could see the room without having to crane his neck. The bloodied bandages on his chest tugged tighter at the movement, and a few curse words hissed out through gritted teeth followed. He could vaguely hear talking in the background; undoubtedly Kyle saying something along the lines of him having to keep still. But John was already used to being injured- even if it wasn't post-surgery recovery -so he knew plenty enough about how far to push himself.

"Reese-" He paused, his voice slipping from the harsh tone of before and in to a softer one. A friendlier one. "Kyle. Go get some rest while you can. Send Barnes in." His eyes trailed after the boy as he stood up and made his way out of the room without another word.

Another few moments passed before John was settled back against the headboard, giving him the opportunity to look around. To look around and realise that they weren't back at their own base. They were somewhere new. Somewhere...clean. And equiped. Somewhere that looked remarkably like the hospitals he remembered before J-Day had come round.

"Kate?" He coughed, a hand jumping to his chest to press firmly over the wound. The other dropped back to the weapon once again, slipping the safety off. "Anyone out there?"

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"If you continue to call it 'the realm of make-believe,' then you won't hear it as the truth—no matter how many times I tell it to you," Holly replied firmly, returning his glare with a bit of her own. She didn't move but she did point at the window by the bed, one partially obscured by snow. In June. "Look outside. This is a city, I'm not making that up. It's run by deities and there are curses that hit every few days. I'm not even going to bother explaining those with you like this."

The captain sighed inaudibly. Normally she had so much patience for these sorts of things but she hadn't exactly had the most restful of weeks, what with that thing that crash-landed on Thursday and the freak midsummer snowfall that started over the weekend... Honestly, John, if she were a machine, could she look tired? But that weariness was smoothly covered up as Holly crosses the room, keeping watch on John's gun out of the corner of your eye.

"I'm not explaining this very well, I know. But if you're a new arrival, you should have... aha." Holly stopped by his bedside table where a familiar and standard communication device sat. She didn't touch it, just to prove she hadn't tampered with the thing but she did point. "This will hook you up to the local Network here. Search for a guide to the City; there should be several written by current and past citizens. Is that good enough for now?" And, because Holly can't resist adding a touch of dryness, "Am I allowed to know who I'm speaking to?"

"Look at this from my point of view, Captain." There was almost a sneer at her title. "You're expecting me to believe that I'm in another world with some kind of gods in charge here." His mind drifted to the Skynet sympathetic humans that existed. Those that Skynet coddled and used to try and gain ground against the rest of the human face. To them, the Terminators were almost seen as gods, and John was close to believing that things were the very same here.

It was even more of a reason for them to try and get out of there as soon as they could. But then, if that were the case, why hadn't she made a move against him yet? She'd had the opportunity when she'd first arrived, so it didn't make sense to wait.

He didn't turn to the window yet. Not while he was still unsure whether to believe Holly was a friend or an enemy. And especially not when she was starting to make her was across the room. When she moved to the bedside table though, he froze, however momentarily that lasted. He was openly staring now. Staring at the woman who…only seemed to reach the height of the table. Despite clearly standing right next to it. His gun twitched in his hand, and John found himself caught between aiming it again or leaving it where it was.

"What are you?" The last time he'd asked that-

Humans, honestly. They only saw what they wanted to see. And when when they finally did see it, they still were reluctant to believe it. "Shoot me," Holly said with a pointed glance, "and you'll have to talk to someone else who will give you the same explanation."

But now she had to change tack a little. Another explanation, but one not exactly rooted in the City. So she leaned against the wall by the window, arms crossed and away from her own weapon, for all the world looking like a human child with the expression of an adult beyond her years. Holly could be in her mid-twenties. Her mistmatched eyes hold more years than that. Accidentally or perhaps not so, Holly had her head angled in such a way that one pointed ear was visible.

"But yes," she continued evenly, "I expect you to believe that. Otherwise, how could you, a human, be talking to me—an elf? Hmm?" There, she said it. Holly didn't want to throw too much information at John at once, but he demanded it and who was she to deny it when he was pointing the gun?

"Look. You've got me at gunpoint, Mister. I haven't even drawn my weapon. Why do you think I have any reason to lie to you? And even if these were lies, you've got to admit, they're pretty awful ones. Way too far-fetched. Someone hoping to be believed would stick with something simpler, don't you think?"

"You aren't human. And if you aren't human, that makes you a machine." His words were slurred, this time through a combination of the confusion, pain, and the last of the drugs in his system. He was trying to make some kind of sense out of this. But there wasn't any he could find. Why would a machine just sit back and watch while their top two targets were sitting in a room with them? The only ones left on Skynet's named list.

But then, the past week hadn't been all that logical either. Skynet had taken chances that they shouldn't have, and because of that, he and Kyle were still alive. Of course, that didn't mean they'd gotten out without losses. His mind drifts to the entire unit full of dead soldiers. Resistance headquarters. Marcus Wright. But they were still here, and the future still had a chance.

The word 'elf' was something he knew he should remember. It was something from his childhood that sat as little more than a niggling feeling in the back of his mind. Something heard, stored, and forgotten.

"They run on a different kind of logic. For all I know, you're hoping to keep me off guard for another reason altogether." He turned to Kyle once again, his eyes narrowed, and gun re-trained back on Holly again. "If you know something about this, I suggest you talk. Now."

"Machine?"

That was definitely an unexpected conclusion. An unusual-looking human girl, sure. Plastic surgery, been there and heard that. Aliens? Sure, why not. But machine? There's no denying that the surprise in Holly's tone is genuine. There was no time for her to dwell on that for too long, though. Not with the gun back up again. She was really not doing too well with this. Her instructors from Academy would probably use footage of this scenario of what not to do when negotiating with an armed subject. Not as if it would be the first time she was used as an example, though.

"I'm as much flesh and bone as you are, sir," Holly stated sharply. She had straightened by now but her hands still hung empty at her sides, though they curled into fists in her frustration when John turned away from her to speak to an invisible third party. "And who are you talking to?" the elf finally asked, unable to contain it. If there was a curse happening today, that changed things. "There's no one else in here!"

"I'd make you prove it, but I've seen what they're capable of. I'm not falling for the same tricks twice." The existence of terminators with a combination of human organs and mechanical components was something he'd only learned about a few days previously. But it was something he wasn't ever going to forget. The shock of being called down to see the man that Blair had brought in, and finding out he was in fact Skynet's newest creation.

He wouldn't let himself be caught off-guard again.

Turning back to look at Holly again, John frowned, confused by her question. There had to be a reason she was ignoring the presence of the other soldier, and sooner or later, John would work out why. He wasn't going to flat out ask her. "What're you doing here?" A pause, and a small shift with the gun. "What do you want?"

Resisting the urge to rub her temples, the elf simply stood her ground and responded flatly, "What am I doing in the hospital? Visiting a friend, actually. He's not exactly doing well right now and I'm concerned. As for what I'm doing in your room..." She sighed, wondering the same same thing. "I heard you when I walked by it."

The captain paused, keeping her hands at her sides though her right itched to rest on her blaster just for the comfort of knowing it was there. She still didn't know his name but was mentally berating herself for not being able to remember it; she had definitely spoken to this man before. She wondered if there was anyone in the City already from his world, someone she could contact so they could deal with the situation more smoothly than she could. Clearly, the human was wary of trusting anyone outside of his unit. That much, Holly could tell. And right now, he thought a member of that unit was in this same room. Should she ask again?

"You're being very rude, you know," she eventually continued. "I've done nothing but answer your questions and you still haven't answered any of mine. Since you won't give me your name, let's start with the second one: who are you talking to?"

"You were just walking by, and you thought you'd come in and check on a 'complete stranger'?" The airquotes were obviously there, even if he didn't make them with his fingers. There was no need. As far as John was concerned, it was still some kind of setup. They just hadn't made the reasoning any clearer in the time he'd been there. Why would someone keep him alive and then stick to such a ridiculous story for as long as Holly was?

"Nobody survives long being 'nice'." The words slipped out distractedly. 'Nice' was something that only existed in the relative safety of your own base. 'Nice' only lasted for those few brief moments in which your role slipped away, leaving the human underneath. It wasn't something for a soldier, and doubly so for a leader. "And I have nothing to say to you." He glanced to Kyle, his face set this time, despite the teenagers' insistence on him answering Holly's question.

He turned back again. "If you're really who you say you are, you'll move out of the way and let me leave."

"With you in this condition? I don't think so."

This time, Holly did move, and with surprising speed. She crossed to the door so that she was between him and it, even though she knew it wouldn't exactly look like a good thing. John should be at least somewhat proficient in reading body language. Holly didn't look defensive, not even threatening; she just stood there, looking him over, gauging whether him even standing was a good idea. She strongly suspected it wasn't.

"And no," she added, hand rested on her hip in a way that was too natural to be mechanical. Too much like any irritated female. "I'm not doing this to 'keep you' here. It's for your own safety. You hardly look like you're dressed for the winter and if you haven't noticed yet, it's snowing outside and it's in the middle of June."

Holly did rub her temples then. But then she narrowed her mismatched eyes at him, blue and hazel more than a little annoyed. "But yeah, I thought I'd come in and check. In case you needed help? This is a hospital, after all. And I did offer to call a doctor earlier."

"I'm fine. I don't need your help. So leave." His expression was deadly serious; more so than before. She had made a move to try and keep him trapped where he was, and it was an action that was inexcusable if she truly wasn't a machine. All humans knew that having a clear way out was what kept them alive if the machines came searching. And now she was stood directly in the way.

"I don't need anything. Except you. Gone." He gave a quick motion to the door with his gun, catching the eye of the soldier who stood silently near by. Once they were alone again, Kyle was next on the list. For disobeying orders. For standing by and simply watching. For ever letting her inside in the first place. But they were points that would be made in the privacy of a closed off room. Not in front of a complete stranger.

Possible machine. She was a possible machine. He needed to remember that.

He took a deep breath, steeling himself once more, and waiting. Staring. Looking for a sign of what her next move would be.

"What are the odds," asked Holly after a moment's silence, "of you being up to standing or even walking out of here? If you don't mind me saying so, you look like hell."

Human turns of phrase. If she didn't have a gun pointed at her, the elf would be amused at how much she had picked up from her time in the City. But this wasn't going anywhere. It's not like she didn't try. But whatever, stubborn human men. Knowing and dealing with Niko Leandros hadn't made handling things like this any easier. Then again, at least Niko listened to reason—er, most of the time.

Holly sighed, scooping up her helmet and tucking it under her arm again. "... Alright, fine. I tried. But if you get lost out there... call me or something. You know my name. Though I still don't know yours."

It was another question he refused to answer. While he knew he wasn't in any fit state to be moving around- hell, he knew he shouldn't even be sitting up right now -John wasn't going to admit to any of that around this stranger. This stranger who sounded exactly like Kate, and yet looked less like her with each passing moment. For the time being, he was willing to attribute that to his tiredness. To his injury. But that had to be pushed aside in favour of safety once again.

"I wont need your help." And that was all he said before casting one more glare at the silent soldier. "Thank you." It was an obvious dismissal as opposed to there being any form of gratitude in his voice. Perhaps, at a later date, that may change. But for the time being, he was willing to leave it as just that.

He'd had enough.

Holly didn't like not having the last word, but she bit back the urge to claim it now. This wasn't the time for her customary stubbornness, not in place of putting a new arrival's mind at general ease. Obviously she wasn't very successful at that, but at least she kept him from waving a gun at someone else. There was that, after all.

But the tone of voice he put to his parting words set her teeth on edge. She didn't say it, but. Oh, he did not have the right to dismiss her like she was under his command. Human men, honestly.

"Keep it in mind, anyway," Holly replied coolly. "Captain Short. In case you've forgotten."

With that, the elf turned on her heel and departed the room, but not before dropping a hint to the nursing staff to keep an eye on the fellow down the hall.

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