knowthyexits | (no subject)

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It's difficult to avoid the clinic when she has a doctor at her disposal and she needs to verify that her treatment hasn't gone on a collision course to nowhere. She's made her appointment and is now hovering around the clinic as she waits for Rory to get in, her head bent low. She's treated her wrist by herself, patched up the wounds as best as she can, but it's not her physical being that she's concerned about.

An entire restaurant's worth of people heard her being called Sarah Connor.

There's not much wiggle room when it comes to escaping that accusation. She might as well abandon her alias, at this point, because her worst fears have come to pass and there's nowhere that she can run. She could go to the second island, but she needs to treat the cancer and it's difficult to do that, there. It's terrifying, but there's a chance that Sarah may need to suck it up, face her fears, and simply live as the woman she actually is.

She adjusts her hold on her forearm, deciding to leave that particularly delightful existential crisis for later, when she's not waiting for the ramifications of the attack to come falling down around her ears.

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"So," I say, walking into the clinic, a smirk on my face that holds barely concealed warmth. I heard things, bits and pieces. Mostly that some kind of robot tried to kill her, and The Winchester got in the way.

"There's a big fuckin' hole in my diner. Heard you might know somethin' 'bout that."

She's sheepish, immediately. There are some avenues of her life that she's never intended to mix with the secrets that she has in her past, but that doesn't mean the two necessarily stay separate. Especially not when machines come searching. She readjusts her hold on her wrist and manages a small smile, lips pressed together. "Is it shaped like me?" she can't help but joke darkly.

It's almost a heady sensation. She knows she's been found out and that there's no use hiding. It's terrifying, but there it is.

"This isn't a fuckin' cartoon," I snort, leaning against the table she's sitting on.

I know how secretive she is, and whatever happens seems like it's blown her life wide open, so I'm almost afraid to ask, but, "You okay?"

"I've had better days," she admits, giving Neil a brief smile that's gone as soon as it's appeared. "I'm sorry about your restaurant," she says, genuine in that much. "I think maybe you probably don't want me around anymore." It's what tends to happen. She's dismissed because too much trouble seems to haunt her every step. "If that's the case, I'd understand."

Edited 2011-07-29 02:00 (UTC)

He had directly disobeyed her. Cook hadn’t gone to the clinic, not during the battle or after. His first thought after the dust had settled hadn’t been the blood seeping from his shoulder. It had been of Freddie. So he had gone home, and that had been a wise fucking decision.

Still sore all over, in his arm, in his head, in his heart, Cook approaches the clinic with some measure of caution. It’s attached to the IPD office after all, and while he enjoys giving Sheriff Keith a hard time, today’s not the day to have the favor returned. But, while the wound’s stopped bleeding, he’s not sure it’s going to close and heal on its own. He needs five minutes with a doctor, like it or not.

And, like it or not, looks like he has to get through Sarah to get there. “Long time, no see,” he opens wryly, like they weren’t getting sweaty and bloody together just yesterday.

She glances up at him, the equivalent of a stone wall on her face. She's not sure she feels comfortable around anyone, right now, but especially the people that got hurt in the crossfire -- because of her. She can't take her eyes off of the wound and the guilt only magnifies now. She draws herself in tighter and wants to be anywhere but there.

She doesn't even know what to say. Considering how long she's spent fighting this war, she's still shy of explanations and verbal palliatives. "You look like shit," she accuses.

Word travels fast, especially when it’s word that some kind of psychotic man-monster type has attacked one of your patients and, at minimum, has thrown her through the wall of a bar. He’s not sure what he’s getting into exactly, taking Sarah on as his patient, but at least she’s there to see him when he heads over to the clinic. It could be worse. She could be the type that hides. Cancer patients aren’t always the best of patients.

“How are you feeling?” Rory asks before he’s even to her side. “You’re standing,” he observes. “That’s.. good. That's a good sign.”

Sarah manages a terse smile, but she avoids eye contact with Rory. The guilt of getting other people hurt has yet to wear off and it's her first concern. "How many people have checked in with injuries related to the fight?" she demands, clutching her wrist tighter to try and abate the pain, for now.

"Who the fuck told you that?" I say with a snort, giving her a disbelieving look. "Seriously, Sarah, if I got rid of everybody who had bad shit happen around them, the diner'd be fuckin' empty. And I'd have no fuckin' friends."

Sarah gives him a look that says this is unprecedented. She doesn't even know what to do with this information except gape at him for a moment longer than usual. "I put people in danger," she says, as if needing to remind him of what she's done. "I ruined your restaurant."

And she does believe that she has done this. After all, the machine had come for Sarah Connor.

"Whatever the fuck that was after you, they're the ones that put people in danger," I say, confused why I even need to remind her of that. I wasn't there to see it, but from everything I've heard... from everything I know about her... I just can't believe that she let any of this happen knowingly.

"Look, Sarah, I'm not gonna start turnin' out my friends 'cause something from home comes after 'em. I don't... I don't really understand why you think I would."

She takes a moment, here, to pause. "Because no one's ever done that for me," she says simply, devoid of much emotion in her voice even though it means the world to her. She's sick, possibly dying, and now she's been revealed to everyone as to what she truly is -- a danger.

Neil's saying she can still have a place? She's not sure where to even begin with that. "That might not be the last thing that comes for me."

"Yeah, and you smell like fucking roses," he counters, unperturbed, grin unshaken. As far as Cook is concerned, the universe was made to shit on him. That it shits on Sarah too is only an aftereffect, a coincidence, the ripple from a splash striking shore. He doesn't think of this as her fault any more than it's his, and it's never really his fault.

"Some," Rory replies, noncommittal. Everything's so lax around here, circumstances letting him act like a doctor sometimes instead of a lowly nurse, but he doesn't feel comfortable throwing out too much of other people's medical information. Plus, he doesn't know the exact number and Sarah could have seen for herself how many other people got hurt better than Rory would know.

"But they're not here right now. You are." He takes note of how she's cradling her wrist with a considering press of his lips. Nodding towards the open door of the clinic, he directs her towards a seat. "Let's take a look at your arm, yeah?"

She offers out her arm slightly, as if a mild gesture, but the fight has yet to go out of her and she'll ask again in a little while, when the topic has shifted. "I think I broke the wrist," she says, averting her eyes to keep them lowered to the ground. "But, I don't know what the damage done was. I figured, I figured a full check-up wouldn't hurt."

"I call it my after-fight fragrance," she informs him, drawing out the words slowly. She's tired and she hurts and she has no idea if the fight has made her any worse or affected the drugs. What happens if there's internal damage? "How are you?" she asks, looking to where the knife had been jammed in only a day back.

"Well he did throw you through a wall, or so I hear," Rory observes. Gingerly, he takes hold of her arm, testing for breaks, assessing the extent of the injury. He's gentle but confident in this regard, not hesitating or balking from causing her mild pain.

"Looks like a straight-forward break," he determines. "And like you or someone else has already reset it." He glances up from his examination of her arm, a question in his eyes that he doesn't voice. Most people don't do that. Most people go sobbing for a doctor because a break hurts too much or because they don't have enough medical knowledge to reset it properly. Rory already had the impression that Sarah is tough; now he thinks maybe he underestimated her a little.

"We'll put a splint on it and you should be fine. As long as you don't overwork it." There's a mild warning in his voice, but Rory's not one for intimidation. "How's the rest of you? Any particularly painful areas?" he asks as he starts to check over the bruises he can see.

"Whatever it is, it's alluring," he replies, grinning with all the cheeky attitude he can muster. Even for the circumstances, that's a lot.

"I've been better. Been worse," Cook answer. One shoulder lifts high in a shrug, but he winces as the other one barely moves an inch. "This thing's killing my air of nonchalance, but I'll survive somehow."

She manages to keep a straight face when he says the accusing words about her wrist having already been reset. it's habit to fix herself after a fight and if not for the cancer, she wouldn't have come in to see Rory at all. "I hurt," she admits. "I haven't taken a beating like in some time," she goes on, reluctantly.

She knows that a full physical is coming due anytime, which means he'll see the scars. It's always only a matter of time.

She tips her head to the side, barely even thinking about scolding him for the comment, but it does pass her mind. Guilt pushes through her at the sight of it and she hates herself as much as she ever does for putting people in danger. "You shouldn't have had to get in the middle of things. It was my fight."

"Implying that, at some point in time, you were taking a beating like that, what, frequently?" He's not angry at Sarah; Rory keeps his tone mild. But he is annoyed at the world for making it so easy for people like Sarah, like Amy, like the Doctor to get themselves hurt. There's nothing wrong with being tough and head strong. There shouldn't be. But there was enough trouble in the world without people finding ways to get into it.

"I didn't have to do anything, love," he says. It's a cool response and his face betrays little, but underneath there's a softness to his tone. Can't have Sarah thinking he cares about her all that much, now can he? But he doesn't not like her either.

"Your fight or not, looked like fun. Was only in it 'cause I was bored. Haven't had a brawl in ages. And that was a proper bar fight."

More than anything, it ate me up that I hadn't been there. A fucking terminator had actually appeared out of thin air, attacked Sarah in broad daylight, and I'd been off somewhere else, doing fuck knows what.

I'd missed it, and that thing had almost killed her.

Mouth pressed in a line, I watched her from the clinic doorway. My hands twitched at my sides with an itch to touch her, but my feet wouldn't let go, so I just fucking stood there, as useless as I'd been to her since the first day we'd met.

"Where I come from, I'm pretty sure that's called a murder attempt. I'm not sure I want to even know the life you left behind," she admits, slightly worried that Cook hasn't been leading the most glamorous of lives. "You should see a doctor or someone. Make sure I haven't irrevocably fucked you up."

Sarah lowers her head for a moment. She has a choice. She can lie to him like she always lies. She can pretend that she's a battered woman as she did with Ellie. She could do what she did with George and avoid the issue. After the attack, she's not sure she ought to be doing that. "I had no choice," is what she inevitably says.

"You're going to need to do a full exam, at some point. It's easier to explain if you see the scars."

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