fractured | inspectorboxer and anklebones

The clock had stopped.

Cameron frowned at the alarm clock beside their bed, the glowing red numbers that hadn't changed since she and Sarah had fallen into an exhausted slumber the night before. She tried to remember if they had been the same the night before that and couldn't. Nor could she decide what time they should read. It was morning outside, the birds were singing, and from downstairs she could smell coffee brewing. Sarah was up.

The puzzle of the clock took second place to getting dressed and descending into the kitchen. Sarah was cooking breakfast, and Savannah and John sat at the table, their backpacks ready at their feet, so it was still early. Sarah greeted Cameron with a welcoming smile and a kiss, curling her fingers around the back of her neck and drawing her in where the heat of the stove mingled with the warmth of her touch.

"Morning," she murmured, ignoring Savannah's wrinkled nose and exclamation of disgust at such an open display of affection between her mothers. John rolled his eyes but otherwise didn’t comment, bolting the last of his pancakes and hoisting his backpack over his shoulder.

"Coming, little sister?" He tousled Savannah's hair affectionately, and she mimed a swat at him, missing as he leaned back out of her range, not without tweaking one of her braids.

"I'll get you, John Connor!" she threatened, leaving her own breakfast to follow him out the back door, her pink and black bag bouncing against her back. The bright silver name tag snapped to the zipper caught Cameron's eye. Savannah Connor, she read before the door slammed shut.

"Don't forget your helmets," Sarah called after them, sighing for the sudden emptiness of her kitchen and the uneaten pancakes in the pan. "More for us," she decided, serving up two plates and handing Cameron a cup of coffee.

Cameron ate her breakfast slowly, unsure as to why the moment felt both familiar and strange at the same time. This was their life, wasn't it? Sarah sat across from her, absorbed in the newspaper the way she was every morning, but her foot rested against Cameron's under the table, pulling her away from her musings. Sudden hunger for the other woman made Cameron forget her disquiet. She rose from the table and went around it to stand behind Sarah. At her touch, Sarah craned her head back with a smile and Cameron bent to cover that willing mouth with her own.

They pushed the plates aside and made love on the tabletop with the sunlight warm on their skin. Cameron devoured her lover with the appetite of one who has been starved. She didn’t understand what drove her, only that it felt like years instead of hours since she had last held Sarah in her arms.

Afterwards, Sarah kissed away the suspicion of tears from Cameron's eyes without remarking on them, and led her upstairs where their bed proved a far more pleasant place to spend the morning.

This time when Cameron roused she didn’t bother to look at the clock. Sarah was still drowsing, so she left her with a soft kiss pressed to her temple and made her way downstairs to clean up the breakfast dishes. Silence wrapped the house save for the sound of running water and the quiet clinking of dishes. Wondering when John and Savannah would return, Cameron glanced up at the clock on the wall and was puzzled to see it reading the same time as the clock upstairs. The second hand wasn't moving, but Cameron heard a quiet ticking, as if from a clock in another room.

Drying her hands, she followed the sound, but none of the clocks she found were working. Time, it seemed, had stopped. Cameron shook off that fancy, distracted by the sound of the back door opening and John and Savannah's cheerful voices calling out that they were home.

Sarah had come downstairs and they all sat down in the kitchen over a plate of cookies and the news of the day. Savannah was bubbling with enthusiasm for a new project at school, and John had a test the next day that he wasn't ready for. The conversation sounded familiar, as if it was something Cameron had heard before, almost like a script they had all practiced, but she didn’t question it, too caught up in the swell of happiness that lasted well into the evening when she helped Savannah with her homework and watched a movie with Sarah and John after the little girl had been sent to bed.

They snuggled on the couch, Sarah resting against Cameron's chest, while John lounged in the armchair on the other side of the room. Cameron had little attention for the movie, focusing every ounce of her being on the feeling of Sarah in her arms, trying to save it up, as if it might vanish if her concentration wavered.

They went to bed when the credits rolled, John grousing about how little sleep he was going to get once he'd put in a few hours of studying, and Sarah lecturing him good naturedly about managing his time better.

Their bed was warm and welcoming, and they used their time well, falling into an exhausted sleep long after night had slipped over into morning.

Days passed like this, each as alike as beads on a string. Some afternoons they played in the backyard with Savannah after school, others were spent inside, but always they were together, and the stillness of the clocks bothered Cameron less and less. She learned to ignore the ticking she couldn't find a source for, and the lack of variety to their days, even the fact that neither she nor Sarah ever went further from the house than the backyard. The front door was a barrier no one talked about. Only Savannah and John passed in and out, and only through the back.

But why should she want to leave? Everything Cameron wanted and needed was here. Here she would never be alone again.

When had she been alone?

The question was out of place. Cameron was peeling potatoes into the sink, helping Sarah prepare dinner while they waited for the kids to get home, and something, some reflection of the knife in the silver sink, caught her eye, fracturing for just an instant the domestic moment.
 
The knife slipped, dancing a cruel path through the palm of her hand and away, leaving pain and blood in its wake. Cameron dropped it into the sink, shivering at the silver now stained with red.  Metal and blood... he sight stirred a memory, and the throbbing of her hand became the ticking of a watch, the steady marching of time going inexorably forward, carrying her where? When?

Cameron looked down at her hand, seeing only flesh and blood, and not understanding why that was wrong, but knowing it was so.

Sarah covered the wound with a towel and an exclamation of sympathy, and Cameron let her dab away the blood, standing while Sarah rummaged through the cupboards for a box of bandages and understanding that this too was wrong. There should have been a well stocked first aid kit in every room.

There should have been guns... computers... John and Savannah... where were they? Who was watching over them? She had to get back to them!

She had to get back... but to where?

“Cameron?” Sarah entreated, but even that was wrong. She was too gentle, too soft, with all of the sharp corners rounded away. Cameron had banished all of the pain from her memories, cobbling them together to make something as beautiful as it was false.

She raised her hand, searching for the metal that should be there beneath the torn skin, but of her true nature she found no trace. This was not her body, this wasn't her life. It was what she had sometimes wished her life could have been.

Caught between an illusion that offered her peace and a reality that had nearly destroyed her, Cameron stepped away from Sarah’s comforting hands, though the hurt in the other woman’s eyes was almost enough to hold her there.

“I have to go,” she explained, though her voice wavered and verged on breaking, a more human weakness than she was used to displaying. “I have to go back to you.”

“I’m right here.” Sarah’s voice held only safety from hurt, only comfort. She tried to take Cameron’s hand again but the glamour had been well and truly broken. Cameron longed to give in, to forget again where she was, and what she had sought, but it was not Sarah in front of her, it was only what she remembered of Sarah, and not even all of that.

She’d sought to take the pain out of her lover’s life as well as her own, but what was left was a shallow thing, a picture without substance. Cameron had accepted long ago that pleasure had no depth without pain. If she blocked one she denied the other. She had endured bullets in order to have what they had had together, and she would not make a mockery of that sacrifice now. She would not allow Sarah’s place in her heart to be taken by nothing more than a reflection.

“I’m sorry,” Cameron managed, not sure if she was apologizing to herself or to Sarah, nor even if they were truly separate, here in her mind.

She had to get out.

Whirling, Cameron bolted for the front door, ignoring Sarah’s cry to stop, to come back, to stay. The handle gave easily under her fingers, and Cameron knew she left a smear of blood on the brass knob, but she gave no thought for it, bracing herself only for her return to her body and the power plant she had fled.

She fell out the door and into the back yard, landing on her hands and knees in the grass.

The gate was closed behind her when she looked, the latch firmly shut. Hanging her head between her arms Cameron knew real fear. It was a loop. This house and this yard were the sanctuary she had fled to when she had locked out the world, not realizing that she had locked herself in as well. In her grief she had made them real, and now she didn’t know how to unmake them.

Sarah hadn’t followed her. For that Cameron was grateful. She was alone in the yard, with only the ever present sound of the birds and the wind in the grass for company.

Almost.

It was there when she stopped listening for it, the quiet but insistent ticking of a watch in this place without time. A phantom weight around her neck, as if from a thin chain, had Cameron grasping at the air, but the pocket watch wasn’t there. Cameron hadn’t allowed time to follow her here, but some part of her knew it passed. Some part of her was still awake. 

She knew what she had to do.

Closing her eyes, Cameron focused her entire being on the sound, letting it draw her up and lead her forward. She had searched for it before, but with her own illusion in front of her she hadn’t been able to find the path. It was there now beneath her feet, a road she followed from the depths of her mind, moving outwards, not towards light, but pain. She sought to reclaim that which she had rejected, knowing that until she did she would never be whole.

Distantly she heard Sarah call out to her, joined by Savannah’s pleading wail, but she went onwards. Went on until her limbs were heavy around her and the air she breathed lifted a ribcage long stilled. Her body was stiff, cold, and Cameron automatically sent a command through her systems to warm it, feeling the power core in her chest respond as smoothly as if she had been offline for only a moment.

Cameron opened her eyes; blinking away the film of disuse and something else... she sat up slowly, almost unable to comprehend the layer of dust that cloaked her. Running a hand over her arm she brushed it away, revealing not the metal that had been there when she had fled, but skin, new and whole. She had healed while she slept.

But how long had it been?

It took only a moment to consult her systems, and the answer filled Cameron with an aching regret. She had spent nearly a year lying insensible. A year while her time machine had stood untended and unguarded. The wiring would be gnawed by rodents and the delicate internal workings clogged with the same dust that had fallen to coat her body.

Cameron almost wanted to give up and lay back down, but having rejected that escape once, she could not go back to it. There was no way home but forward. With shaking hands, Cameron picked up the watch that had brought her back, and hung it around her neck once more.

She would try again, and this time she would not fail. 

*****

She’d checked everything.

Every bolt. Every weld. Ever calculation.

Then she’d checked them again. And again.

And again.

This time it would be different. This time it would work. It had to. Cameron didn’t know if it was possible for her to go insane, but if she failed again, she knew she would find out. She didn’t dare think that she could be just a few short hours away from holding Sarah again. For now there was only the time machine. Only the mechanisms that had to function to make it work. If she looked beyond them, the fear of what she could lose became so great she could barely move.

Hand shaking, Cameron bushed the button, listening with laser intensity as electricity hummed through the time machine, spinning it up and bringing it online. One by one, green lights lit across the board, confirming what all her senses and calculations were telling her. She was going home, or she was going to die trying.

A snap cracked through the air as the first wisps of the time bubble began to form, twisting and curling, reaching upward and inward to form the ball of power that would cocoon her for her journey. Satisfied with the readings from the board, Cameron stepped away from it, her hand reaching out to snare Savannah’s stuffed giraffe with one hand, her other curling over the watch around her neck.

You could take nothing with you, Cameron knew, but she was going to hold on to the parts of the past for as long as she could. They had saved her, grounded her, and she didn’t want to turn them loose until time and technology made her.

Stepping inside the bubble, she felt the fine hairs on her arms rise in reaction. Electricity began to arc from the walls, from the floor. The engines grew louder. Spun faster.

Cameron closed her eyes and did something she had never done before.

She prayed.

****

A damp chill settled on her bare shoulders as she slowly stood, the scent of ozone and burning asphalt filling her nostrils with her first harsh breath of the present. Cameron looked around, hearing the faint sounds of traffic in the distance. Nearby, a neon sign buzzed and sputtered in the early morning hours of the coming dawn. Signs of life. Signs she wasn’t alone. Rather than reassure her, the knowledge nearly made her weak in the knees.

The hand at her chest uncurled, empty now of everything but the hope she was afraid to feel. Cameron staggered forward a step, climbing out of the slight crater the time bubble had created on its arrival. All was relatively quiet, no indication that her violent arrival was detected or had alerted anyone in anyway. The years keeping her and Sarah apart were gone in the blink of an eye. Now only miles separated them, and Cameron set out with fierce determination for some clothes and a car to take her home.

****

Soft and cold, the sand slid between her toes as she stepped off the asphalt and made her way down the familiar path.

Cameron blinked, wondering when she had decided to come here. She had charted a course for the house, and was in route when some part of her she couldn’t explain had caused her to detour. She drove on instinct, unsurprised when she arrived at the beach.

There was no reason for Sarah to be at the beach house, and yet Cameron couldn’t seem to turn around and go back to the car. Her steps took her closer and closer, around the rocks as the waves rolled up on shore and gently kissed her feet. Everything felt like another dream, another construct she had created for herself to escape her reality, and Cameron listened for the ticking of the watch to lure her back, but there was only the sound of the ocean.

Cameron went still when she saw the single light burning in the house. A jolt went through her systems, feeling as if they had all suddenly awakened after being dormant for too long. Her pace increased, and when she saw the lone figure on the deck, watching the moonlit waves, Cameron started running.

Sarah turned her head, whether sensing her presence or detecting footfalls in the sand, Cameron wasn’t sure. She only knew the lines of that familiar body were straightening as Sarah caught sight of her. Even at that distance, Cameron heard her lover whisper her name.

Then Sarah was moving, clambering down the steps and moving to intercept her. Cameron couldn’t run fast enough to eliminate the distance between them. She needed the space gone. She needed to feel Sarah, smell Sarah, needed to hear that voice whispering in her ear. When Sarah’s arms finally came around her, Cameron felt something inside her shatter at the same moment she experienced her first taste of real peace in two years.

“About time, girlie,” Sarah breathed, a gentle laugh escaping her as she clung to Cameron with abandon.  

“Please be real,” Cameron pleaded, holding Sarah too tight but unable to let go.

Sarah leaned back, cupping Cameron’s face in her palms as she studied her lover’s features. “What else would I be?” Sarah asked, the faint smile still curving her mouth.

Cameron reached out, running her fingers down Sarah’s cheek, her whole body trembling. Sarah’s smile slowly faded as her green eyes sharpened with concern. “Cameron,” she said gently, reaching up to clasp Cameron’s hand and bring it to her chest.

“How do I know this is real?” Cameron met Sarah’s worried gaze, not sure whether to believe her lover was truly there or not. They had never shared this moment, this was new, different, but was it real or her fractured mind playing more tricks on her? Cameron didn’t know, and that truth scared her.

Sarah stared at her, her internal struggle to find the right words, to understand what was wrong, clearly conveyed on her features. “Cameron...” she said again.

“Every night, I would dream about you. About this moment. How do I know this is real? How do I know this isn’t another dream? Just my mind’s way of coping with a reality I can’t take?”

Cameron heard Sarah’s sharp intake of breath before she felt the return of Sarah’s wind-chilled touch on her cheek. “How long were you gone?” Sarah whispered.

“Two years, forty three days, sixteen hours, and seventeen minutes.”

Sarah’s throat rippled around a rough swallow. “How did you...?”

“I built my own time machine. It was the only way. I had to come back to you.” She’d barely finished the sentence before she was wrapped up in Sarah’s arms again, feeling her lover’s warm breath against the curve of her neck. Cameron breathed her in, savoring the sensations even if they weren’t real. Sarah was solid and warm. She smelled like the ocean and oranges.

“I’m real,” Sarah murmured against Cameron’s skin. “I’m real. This is real, and I’m never letting you go again.”

Cameron clung to her, feeling tears brimming in her eyes. “Do you swear?” She felt Sarah’s grip on her tighten almost convulsively.

“I swear,” Sarah promised with an intensity Cameron had never heard her use before. So much about this moment seemed new. It was nothing like the reunion she imagined time and time again. The smells. The feelings. Her own emotions. She had expected to feel euphoric when she had Sarah in her arms again. Not terrified.

“This is real,” Cameron realized, her voice catching on a sob. Suddenly too overcome, Cameron sank to her knees, dragging Sarah with her. But true to the other woman’s word, Sarah didn’t let go.

“This is real,” Sarah said again, leaning back just enough to brush the hair from Cameron’s eyes. “You’re home.”

“Home,” Cameron mouthed. “I’m home.” The kiss that followed was soft and gentle and the most real and right thing Cameron had ever felt. The years apart became the bad dream as her present became the only reality Cameron could accept.

“Welcome home, Tin Miss,” Sarah teased carefully, finally feeling the hint of a smile forming on Cameron’s lips as they brushed against her own once more.

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