Story [Terminator: SCC] Stripped 1/1

TITLE: Stripped
AUTHOR: Juliet3:16
FANDOM: Terminator: Sarah Conner Chronicles
RATING: PG
CATEGORY: VIGNETTE
SPOILERS: Terminator movies 1 and 2 obviously. Vague spoilers for the beginning of the Series.
SUMMARY: Sarah's thoughts as her worst nightmare comes back to life. Challenge response to the following quote at the Quote_Inspired LJ community:
DISCLAIMER: Terminator and it's various properties belong to Fox. I make no money off this.

"The world is not kind to idealists... and those who fight the Good Fight don't always win.

In order to make this work I split the quote in two. The first part of the quote is the first sentence in the story and the final part is the last sentence in the story.


My deadline was November 28th.
DISTRIBUTION: FF.NET, WWOMB. Anywhere else, please ask



Stripped.

Time is not kind to idealists.

I learned that very long ago; the night I got pregnant with John. When I found the love of my life and lost him all in one night.

The night the original Terminator tried to kill me and prevent John from ever being conceived.

That night and subsequent nights thereafter, the idealist that I was before, was stolen from me. Stripped away. Everything that I had been before that night, worn away until there was nothing more than a hard shell. Fighting to protect her child and prepare him for the future that was to come.

Then came the second attack on John, as a young boy almost in to his teens. With that came a different type of protector. The revelation that a machine can sometimes transcend its - his programming and be more than just the sum of his parts. That night at Cyberdyne industries I saw the face that I had hated; that haunted my dreams for so long, sacrifice himself and possibly prevent himself from ever being made in order to save not just me and John, but the entire planet as well.

It had an effect on me just as much as the original Terminator had.

Slowly, as the years went on, some of the idealist that I once was started coming back. I began to hope. Hope that the future that I had dreaded for so long, would not come to pass. That John would not have to have the burden of being the savior of the human race on his shoulders. That the world had been saved.

But then..... They came back.

The horrifying nightmare that I had lived with for so long had returned with a vengeance. This time, John has a new defender. A female Terminator designed to blend in better with John's surroundings.

But that safety is gone. I feel myself slowly starting to feel stripped of the security I had started to feel these past precious few years. Starting to step into that warrior role again. Prepare John again for a frightening future even as we once again try to fight to prevent it.

This is war.

And those who fight the Good Fight don't always win.