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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That Sarah could walk at all was more critical to me at that moment than that she'd put aside her stubbornness long enough to seek treatment for whatever that thing had done to her. I didn't move from the doorway, but my eyes swept critically from her head to toes to assess what I could.

"Remind me to give you a cookie later."

She eyes him from her seat, trying to take in what little hints she could about his demeanor and his behavior towards her, keeping an impassive expression on her own face, even though she is downright terrified of about five things at once, right now. "Are you planning on just standing there all day?"

"Not all day, no," I replied with a sardonic smirk, and made it a point to then slouch against the door frame as if staying there had been what I'd intended all along.

"What do the doctors have to say?"

She rolls her eyes when he pointedly remains, to the degree that she grabs hold of the bed with her good hand and uses the leverage to foist herself up, taking a few steps in his direction. She holds up the bad hand, shrugging. "Broken," she says, gesturing to her neck. "Strangled. Bruises." It's easy to pretend that this is a checklist, that she can remove herself from it.

"Rory's running scans to see if it's affected the cancer," she says, arms crossed over her torso as she comes to a stop three feet from him.

Instinct told me to step back as Sarah moved closer, but stubbornness told me to stay put. As could be expected, I didn't move. I thrust my hands into the pockets of my jeans as a preemptive measure.

"I'm glad you're okay," I said, and the words nearly stuck in my throat. She wasn't okay. Might never be okay again, and there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it.

Now that she's made her stubborn stand, she instantly feels awkward and regrets taking the steps forward. She looks up at him, feeling like she's awash in a sea and useless for all that she knows how to swim. She's going to drown in it, in this feeling, and she can't seem to stop herself. "Are you? You've been going down into that city. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I brusquely replied as I resolutely avoided her gaze. "I was made for shit like that." In the most literal sense. Made for much worse, if you wanted to get technical.

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay," I added, and flicked a brief glance to Sarah before I pulled my hands from my pockets and took a step back out of the doorway, as if to leave.

"Cal, what are you doing?" she demands, her tone sharp. She's not in the mood for this bullshit. She hurts, she's feeling open for the whole island to see her for the very first time, and she's sick of dodging around the issue. "What are you doing to yourself?"

That prompted a laugh, throaty and long, my eyes turned toward the ceiling like whatever fucking gods looked down on us might join me in my bitter amusement. They would have been the ones that put me there, after all.

"What am I doing to myself," I repeated, and laughed again. "What am I doing to myself." I leveled a suddenly sober gaze at Sarah. "I'm doing what I have to do. You need to understand that now, and stick it firm in that stubborn brain of yours, because it isn't going to change. My whole life is about doing what I have to do, and it will always be that way. I know you know how that works."

She doesn't allow herself to flinch. She studies him, as much as she's ever been able to, and comes up with less than she'd like. It itches just below her skin to never be able to get as much from him as she wants. For a woman who'd given up on feeling this way about men, Cal's come out of nowhere to get under her skin. "Mine's not. Not anymore," is all she has to say. "It's over, Cal. No more aliases. No more hiding in plain sight. Everyone knows who I am, now," she gets out, as difficult as it is to say. "That was chosen for me yesterday."

"Great. I'm glad for you, I'm glad you finally realized how fucking pointless that was," I replied, and the sentiment was true despite the bitter way I'd presented it. "I'm not glad that you had to almost die to get over it, but whatever. Someone made the choice for you. There isn't a choice for me, Sarah. There's just reality. It is dangerous for me to be with anyone, full stop, and sometimes that means I have to walk out the fucking door when I'd rather stay. That's just the way it is."

She stares him down, unable to read through his words. It's not new. She's become accustomed to the way he talks about his life like there's a dark pall hanging over it, but she's never understood why. She's as much in danger as he is, as far as she can tell and it's not easy, but she still works, she still makes tentative friendships, and she still, occasionally, stays.

Not that Charley should thank her for that considering the outcome she had brought with her decision, but she'd chosen her emotions over pragmatism and even John had noticed how happy she'd been.

"Fine," she says with a nod of her head. "Then here's the deal, Caliban Leandros, the most difficult man I've met. And that's saying something coming from me, considering how difficult I am," she points out, gripping the bed with her good hand. "I'm not getting any younger. My life isn't getting any safer. You're dangerous. I accept that because you accepted that my life isn't easy, but god, am I tired of being pushed away. I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going to anyone," she clarifies, with heavy emphasis on the word. "So when you're ready to stop walking away, I'm going to be here. You take your reality as it comes," she says, genuinely understanding that if he thinks he needs to do this, then he needs to.

It's been how she's had to operate for years.

"I won't stop loving you," she informs him patiently. "And I won't hide the fact that yes, if you weren't so intent on convincing me how crucial it is that you run away, there's parts of you I want to know better. Do I think you're going to come around?" She gives a helpless smile (aware of the depressing reality they live in), shrugging her shoulders. "If I'm Sarah Connor now, for all the world to see, and I'm going to be attacked anyway, then I'm tired of not saying what I should. You can walk out that fucking door, but you're going to do it knowing that I love you and I will be here and that I will fight anything," she finishes, with an edge of stubborn determination.

All of that would have been really moving, I'm sure, if she hadn't been so completely misinterpreting the issue. I guess it still was, that she bothered to say all that to my face, but more than anything, I just felt fucking frustrated.

"Sarah," I sighed, and scrubbed both hands over my face. Fine, if she wanted to play at being blunt, I could do that. It was like second nature. "I'm not standing here all torn up, crying on the inside because I don't know how to let people in. I'm not pushing you away because I'm afraid to be vulnerable, or whatever Lifetime movie bullshit you've conjured up in your head. I'm pushing you away because I am a dude, I have a dick, I will want to fuck you with it, and putting my sperm in anybody is a really bad idea. Okay? It's got nothing to do with feelings or not being held enough as a kid or whatever the fuck. It's pragmatism."

I pointed at her. "And now that you know, you can go form a club with Sookie, who did the same fucking thing you're doing now, which was the same fucking thing George did to me back home. I don't like it but I can't help it, and it's just the way it is."

"I'm sorry, this is all about sex?" she echoes, giving him an incredulous look that borders half on being severely pissed off. She shakes her head, trying to get the surprise to fade away because this is not what she was expecting the issue to be about. "Look, I get pragmatism. I do. And I'm not saying you need to come around. I'm just saying that if you ever need anything, I'll be there. I'll be better at helping if you need a second person to wield a gun, but I'd...I'd try if it was anything else."

That said, though, she needs to put some distance between them herself. She'd though...well, she'd thought it was about more than just...she doesn't even want to think about it.

It wasn't about sex, not really, the sex just happened to be the really inconvenient part. Surely she had to understand that for a guy my age, it was better to have the distance there than to let something develop and then try to resist. That was just dangerous, and I wasn't going to do it.

I sighed. "I know all that, Sarah. I've known that for a long time. I'm just telling you why I act like I don't know what the fuck I want, that's all."

"Okay," she says in reply, giving him a look of understanding. "Cal, okay," she promises, because if nothing else, she wants him to know that. "Look, I've lived through too much shit to get too emotional about this," she admits. "But better said than festering. So, okay, and I'm glad you're okay and I'm fine. I'll be fine," she corrects herself because right now, she's not.

She's injured and she has to pick a chemo treatment and she's lost the safety net of her cover, but she'll be fine. She has to be because it's the only thing she's ever known in perseverance.

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