justsookie | whatever you want is fine by me

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sarah connor

whatever you want is fine by me

There's an entirely new color palette that stretches across the sky when dusk settles. That's one of the surprising things to Sookie, that the sky should be able to switch without hardly a second thought, and that it doesn't hold any control of its own. The clouds are able to mar its appearance. The sun chooses when to spread its colors across. And even when they feel so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, even people are able to affect its color, the dust of coal making the sky look just a little dirtier than it did on the island, and maybe in that, Sookie feels just a little more at home.

A little more like they have some amount of control over their surroundings, even though it's ridiculous, and the sky here is nothing more than painted on by the magic that's inherent in the island.

She sits with her hat lowered over her eyes, the sun still hot where it casts over her skin, legs draping over the edge of the Compound roof. However changed her settings are, there's no doubt that sitting higher up and staring at everything below lends a sense of peace so rarely found on the island.

Gives her time to think.

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She's beginning to think that she's actually starting to go insane. It has to be one of the reasons why she feels so calm even though she's started to lose so many people in her life that there ought to be a war she can blame for it. Instead, she feels calm. She's even thinking about visiting the people she has left on the island in an attempt to be social.

She even feels energetic. Sarah doesn't want to get too optimistic, but maybe it's a sign that she's starting to heal. She's on her way to the Compound for new clothes when she sees the legs. She pauses, retreats back two steps, and shields her gaze. "...Sookie?"

Blinking out of her reverie— in all honesty, it's not like Sookie's thoughts have gone anywhere all that concrete anyway— Sookie glances down and manages a smile when she sees who's called out to her. It's always a bit difficult to gauge how Sarah's feeling on any given day, but Sookie allows herself a second or two of hope when it looks like Sarah's pushing herself forward with more fervor than usual. With a small wave of her hand, Sookie raises her chin, encouraging Sarah to make her way up to the roof.

"That would be me," she acknowledges with a nod, swinging her legs a little further in the way that she always used to as a child. "Feeling up to some time on the roof with yours truly?"

Sarah takes another look at the legs before she shakes her head, slightly amused at the simplicity and the enjoyment of the moment. It's something that she hasn't done in years, but that she'd like to do. It's something that she wishes she could accomplish. "How could I say no?" It takes her a bit to climb up, but inevitably she makes it to Sookie's side. She takes the seat next to her, but she keeps her legs drawn in, crossed together as she slouches and watches the people down below. "Are you here for the view or the mental vacation?"

Watching as Sarah makes her way up to the roof, Sookie finds that she can't help but smile. It's probably not as easy of a trip to make these days as it would have been before Sarah's treatment, but there's something about the steps that seems better, stronger than they've been in months. Disappearances have been so frequent lately that Sookie knows she's been mired in fear any number of times herself, but people are resilient, she thinks, and they learn to move on even in the most impossible of circumstances. That's how Sarah looks now. Capable of anything she sets her mind and heart to, and Sookie takes the time to etch that as strongly as she can into her memory.

"Both," she admits with a grin. "I think I'm here for both. Mostly the second one, but when you take a mental vacation, one of the best things to do is to take it where you're able to relax. A good view usually helps with that."

Her legs continue to dangle over the side, back and forth, back and forth.

Sarah's not sure that a good view has ever salvaged anything in her life, but then, she's also come to understand that life isn't about making yourself feel better. Sometimes, it's just doing what you have to do in order to secure the future. She peers over the edge carefully, thinking that it's not enough of a drop to do much harm, but she still finds herself running through escape plans.

There are some things she hasn't really been able to change. "Anything you're vacationing from, in particular?"

"The craziness of it, I guess. You know, just the way everything is on the island. I know that we just got a whole lot more area to play around with in this change, but it still feels like we're running around in circles and today, I didn't really want to be a part of that," Sookie considers, glancing up to where Sarah seems to be worried about the height of the building. Sookie supposes, glancing down herself, that it's a bit of a leap, but. Her hands are properly anchored. She'll be fine. They'll be fine.

"I don't know if that makes me a bad person," she adds, "but I feel like I spend so much time around people and I don't always get time to just think. I used to run for it all the time back home, because people meant a lot of noise and thoughts buzzing around, but I don't wave that red flag for myself here half as much."

"People, for me, meant that I was in the wrong place," Sarah says, giving Sookie a rueful smile, settling into an eased position where she can rest her chin in her palm. "At least, for the first ten years of John's life or so." Then, action had to be taken and Sarah had seen a nurse, a doctor, and a guard on a regular basis and no more than that.

She decides, now, that this is a good time to probe into something she's wanted to know more about. "What was it like, to hear the thoughts?" She wishes she'd had that ability. It would have made security easier to deal with.

"Well, I'm glad you're in the wrong place right now, then," Sookie offers in return, and try as she might, she can't seem to summon her standard, thousand-watt smile right now. But hopefully the quiet companionship is enough for Sarah, Sookie leaning forward to match Sarah's pose, before then allowing her head to fall against Sarah's shoulder. "Because I'm pretty sure I count as people. And I'd rather have you around."

Falling silent, Sookie takes a deep breath as she tries her best to call on old memories, slightly dusty for the way they've been hidden for a couple of years now.

"It was like... I don't know. Like being in the middle of a really crowded street with everyone on their phones. Or, like, watching those movies where you hear people narrating on either side of a situation, which can be hilarious, or it can be just sad," ponders Sookie. "And some people didn't really think in words so much as images, or sounds and smells? So that'd get even more confusing."

Sarah reaches up out of habit with John, sliding her fingers through Sookie's hair gently, brushing her thumb in light circles like she used to do when he was smaller. It's something that she thought she'd forgotten, but muscle memory is more powerful than she thought. "I'm glad we never met when you could still read minds, then," she says ruefully. "The smells up here," she teases. "Horrifying."

The dreams were worse, though. She's grateful that she isn't pinning that on Sookie. She's more than grateful that she's not a burden to people the way she used to be. "Do you miss it?"

For all the times that Sookie feels like Sarah's been more of a sister to her than anything else, right now there's a soft reminder of the way that her mother used to be, back in the day. That's a touch that Sookie thinks women just can't find until they've had kids of their own, but it draws a slight smile to Sookie's lips as she relaxes, grinning at the joke. "Sadly, I think my regular nose has already caught up on the smells of the west. I won't be dodging those, powers or no," she says.

Pressing her lips together thinly, Sookie pulls herself back up again, waving her legs a couple of times more.

"I think I'm missing that power more lately, yes," she says, nodding slowly to herself. "I just felt like I understood people more, could predict next steps. Brace myself for life. I don't really have that ability anymore."

"You seem to do a fine job without it," Sarah observes, given that she's always been envious of Sookie for her seeming ability to leapfrog past the worst of it all and find something positive in life. Sarah's never been that sort of woman and she's only regretted it a few times: now, on the island, it's begun to happen with more frequency. "At least, you do, to me. You seem invincible."

Laughing in disbelief, Sookie shakes her head, wrapping her arm more securely around Sarah's shoulders and pulling her close. Pressing a kiss to Sarah's cheek, Sookie lets her temple settle down against Sarah's shoulder, exhaling deeply. "No, I'm... so far from invincible, Sarah, really. I think that you're the stronger one between us by far. I haven't— I haven't seen the kind of things you have, so it's not really that nothing can me, it's that I haven't had the world coming down on my shoulders," she murmurs. "And even now, I get really tired sometimes. It's not always. I try to be like my gran and see the bright side of things, but that doesn't work all the time."

"You're stronger because you stay positive," Sarah says, feeling it with all her soul and believing it beyond that. "For everything that I've seen and fought, I've let it bring me down. I've let it turn me into a paranoid hermit who can't trust anyone. You, though," Sarah wraps her arm around Sookie and pulls her into a hug. "You shine through everything and you give other people hope, even when you're tired. You're bright. You're strong."

"You trust me, don't you?" Sookie points out with a wry grin, stamping down the temptation to point out that in all honesty, Sookie isn't sure how positive of a person she is. It's one thing to smile at people who deserve it. It's another thing entirely to actually feel that smile through and through. Then again, Sookie reminds herself, there's certainly some amount of optimism to be found in the active effort she makes to invest in the lives of everyone around her. They're all still worth getting to know.

Maybe that counts as faith in some small subset of humanity.

"Besides, I don't think you're actually that much of a hermit around here," she adds. "I manage to pull you out often enough, and when I buckle down, it's you who's there for me. I'm only strong because you're there to fall back on, I guess. Only that makes it sound like I'm using you."

"I've been used for years," Sarah notes dryly, given that her life has been rollicking along a roller coaster that she'd never chosen: one that still kept her guessing as to what fate she'd be asked to participate in next. No matter how much she insisted that there was no fate but what they made, things happened that made her doubt that. "And I trust you a hundred percent. If the war was still on, I'd make you my first lieutenant."

"Well, I'd rather not add to the many years of overuse," Sookie declares, trying to keep her tone positive and optimistic, strong and independent, everything that she's learned from the women she respects most in her life. "So make sure not to go easy on me. Not that it's a bad thing to lean on others now and again, but really now, if any place teaches us that we can't always do that, it's this island."

It's a bit more cynical than her usual words, but maybe, Sookie thinks, maybe that's just time taking its toll. Still, she turns with a smile, leaning in to press a peck to Sarah's cheek.

"I love you so much, you know that?"

"I love you too." The words are careful and measured, but no less meant. She's strong when she has to be and loyal to a fault when she finds the people that she knows she has to protect. Sookie makes her feel strong and loyal, brave and human. It's been a long time since she felt like that on the island (without Cal, Cook, Columbus, Wichita, all of them) and without John. "More than you know, Sookie. More than you know."

She wasn't sure whether or not to expect for the words to be returned, so when Sookie hears Sarah's reply, she pulls away just slightly, gazing over with a fond smile. It's strange— when she thinks carefully about their relationship all the way back to its beginning, she's pretty sure that it's never wavered. For all their arguments, the single detail that's never been in question is whether or not the two of them would be there for each other. The thought flips Sookie's stomach once, then twice, before she shifts to give Sarah a fuller hug, tight and lingering.

"I'm so glad you're here."

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whatever you want is fine by me

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