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femgenficathon2010-07-29 06:49 pm
chaila.livejournal.com) wrote in femgenficathon2010-07-29 06:49 pm
Mold a figure of me (TSCC, Felicia Burnett, PG-13)
Title: Mold a figure of me
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chaila43
Fandom: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Includes discussion of canonical domestic abuse.
Prompt:
120)
You and I
Have so much love,
That it
Burns like a fire,
In which we bake a lump of clay
Molded into a figure of you
And a figure of me.
Then we take both of them,
And break them into pieces,
And mix the pieces with water,
And mold again a figure of you,
And a figure of me.
I am in your clay.
You are in my clay.
-- Kuan Tao-Sheng (1262-1319), Chinese painter, calligrapher and poet of the Yuan Dynasty.
Summary: Mix the pieces with water and mold again a figure of you and a figure of me. The most convincing lies have a thread of truth in them. Dr. Felicia Burnett in sort of a post-ep to 2x14 “The Good Wound.” ~ 1300 words.
Notes: Many thanks tobeccatoria for the very helpful beta!
***
I. A figure of me
The first thing Felicia finds out that Sarah was telling the truth about is that they think Sarah shot Alvan. They bring her coffee, his friends and colleagues, and ask her if she’s okay. They say that they are sorry and that they understand it’s been a difficult day. Some of them probably even mean it. They use quiet, respectful tones when they ask her what happened. At first, anyway.
Felicia knows about lying, lying to explain away bruises and scars, brief, sudden absences from work and avoidance of friends. For five years, she lied to everyone about Alvan. She lied to her mother, to her sister, and to her friends. The lies were such cliches, walking into doors and accidents at the gym, but they believed her. At least they pretended to. She’s not even sure what made her tell Sarah, except perhaps some kind of desperate hope that Sarah hadn’t been lying to her all day, that the final truth from her repaid the reciprocal truths from Sarah and cemented the exchange. Once she tells the truth to Sarah, she doesn’t want to lie anymore.
She tells the police she shot Alvan, because it’s the truth. Neither her hands nor her voice quiver when she repeats the half made-up story she first told Sarah. She calmly tells them he pointed a gun at her and threatened to kill her, and that it wasn’t the first time. Felicia knows the most convincing lies have a thread of truth woven into them. This one is a lie only in time and place. Yet it is not the parts that are the lie that these men, the police, refuse to believe—the time and place—it is the parts that are true. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
After that, the respectful tones mostly vanish, replaced by condescending ones that occasionally cross over into outright hostility. They eventually say they don’t expect to file any charges against her and she recognizes this for lack of belief it is. “The ballistics don't match,” is what they tell her to her face, his friends and colleagues, but she knows that has to be a lie. “Good guy” is what they say to each other in the hallway, “good police.” Another lie. “Confused” and “traumatic experience” are what they say when they leave the interrogation room, like she can’t hear them. “Hysterical,” they agree in whispers, though her eyes are dry and her voice remains level when she gives the same version of the story in answer to their repeated questions.
Before they let her leave, they ask her again about the dark-haired woman with the bullet in her leg. They are still convinced that Sarah did this but they have nothing to go on. They don't even have a name.
“No,” says Felicia, as if she really does regret her answer, managing to keep the defiance hidden beneath the quiver in her lip that she manufactures for their benefit. The most convincing lies have a thread of truth in them. “She refused to tell me her name.”
There are follow-up interviews over the next few weeks, but no charges are ever filed in the death of Alvan McKinley.
A few months later, Felicia signs up for a self-defense class. Not because she is still afraid, she’s not, and not even because she’s still angry, though she is. She does it because she thinks it will feel good to be in control of her body, to stand up and say no and feel strength in it. It does. Several months after that, when she sees a notice at the gym for a basic gun safety class and remembers the way her hands trembled around the cold steel as she tried to protect herself and Sarah, it comes naturally to sign up for that too. It’s no longer about Alvan, it’s about her, and maybe still a little bit about Sarah, and the recognizable story Sarah told her.
II. A figure of you
The bombs fall and Felicia finds out that doctors who can aim a gun are in short supply.
It’s a long time before she makes the connection to Sarah, not until she sees the picture a young soldier she treats for a gunshot wound clutches in his hand. Shot in the leg during a scouting mission, he comes perilously close to bleeding out before they get him to her. It’s shortly after they’ve discovered that there are humans who appear to be working for the machines voluntarily. The machines aim for the head or chest and rarely miss. Now there are more near-misses, more soldiers who almost bleed to death. They are low on blood, as they always are now, and they don’t have any of this soldier’s type. She’s sent a medic to find a donor, but that’s a long shot.
She has just finished removing the bullet from his leg and the soldier is still unconscious when she notices the photo in his hand. The face of the woman is younger than Sarah’s was and the picture is crumpled and faded, but Felicia recognizes her immediately. Her legs feel unsteady and suddenly there isn’t enough air in the room. A second man bursts through the door.
Impossibly, he looks younger than he did more than a decade earlier. His face has faded from her memory over the years in a way that Sarah’s hasn’t, but still, underneath the youth and the scruff and the grime, she recognizes the man that Sarah called Reese. He gives no indication of recognition, his eyes focused only on the younger man still on the operating table. She can’t find her voice to order him out. She’s bandaged the wound and it’s not like anything down here is as sterile as it needs to be
“How is he?” he demands, rushing over to the operating table. He feels for a pulse and begins to inspect her work. Medical training varies greatly after J-Day and second-guessing of the doctors and medics by the resistance fighters is common, but it always annoys her.
She pushes him away from the table and finds her voice. “Who are you?”
“Derek,” he says shortly, finally looking at her but still displaying no recognition. “Derek Reese. That’s my brother Kyle.”
“Reese,” she says, “Kyle Reese.”
He nods and moves back in to look down at Kyle. Her mind reels, trying to weave the threads together, but she can’t. “I managed to get the bullet out,” she explains, “but he needs blood.”
Derek immediately sits, removes his jacket and begins rolling up his sleeve. Everyone is familiar with the procedure for giving blood. She gets out what she needs to confirm that he’s the right type.
“Girlfriend? Wife? Anybody who needs to know what happened?” she asks as she draws his blood, indicating the picture still clutched in Kyle’s clenched fist.
“You’d think, the way he carries that thing around,” Derek scoffs. “No. He’s never even met her. It’s John’s mother, John Connor.”
Sarah Connor is not a name she knows here and the name John Connor refers only to a newly arrived teenager from no one knows where who has an uncanny knack with the internal workings of the metal, who is either their best hope or the most visible signal of their inevitable defeat, depending on who you ask.
“Is she here?” Felicia asks lightly.
“Connor says he doesn’t know where she is.”
Two Reese brothers and a son named John. It fits perfectly, but it doesn’t fit at all. This wounded soldier is a boy, he can’t be older than his early twenties. He cannot possibly have been the father of Sarah’s child over a decade ago. This man sitting here talking to her cannot be the same Reese who came for Sarah after the surgery. But there are too many threads of truth for it to have been wholly a lie.
Author:
chaila43 Fandom: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Includes discussion of canonical domestic abuse.
Prompt:
120)
You and I
Have so much love,
That it
Burns like a fire,
In which we bake a lump of clay
Molded into a figure of you
And a figure of me.
Then we take both of them,
And break them into pieces,
And mix the pieces with water,
And mold again a figure of you,
And a figure of me.
I am in your clay.
You are in my clay.
-- Kuan Tao-Sheng (1262-1319), Chinese painter, calligrapher and poet of the Yuan Dynasty.
Summary: Mix the pieces with water and mold again a figure of you and a figure of me. The most convincing lies have a thread of truth in them. Dr. Felicia Burnett in sort of a post-ep to 2x14 “The Good Wound.” ~ 1300 words.
Notes: Many thanks to
beccatoria for the very helpful beta! ***
I. A figure of me
The first thing Felicia finds out that Sarah was telling the truth about is that they think Sarah shot Alvan. They bring her coffee, his friends and colleagues, and ask her if she’s okay. They say that they are sorry and that they understand it’s been a difficult day. Some of them probably even mean it. They use quiet, respectful tones when they ask her what happened. At first, anyway.
Felicia knows about lying, lying to explain away bruises and scars, brief, sudden absences from work and avoidance of friends. For five years, she lied to everyone about Alvan. She lied to her mother, to her sister, and to her friends. The lies were such cliches, walking into doors and accidents at the gym, but they believed her. At least they pretended to. She’s not even sure what made her tell Sarah, except perhaps some kind of desperate hope that Sarah hadn’t been lying to her all day, that the final truth from her repaid the reciprocal truths from Sarah and cemented the exchange. Once she tells the truth to Sarah, she doesn’t want to lie anymore.
She tells the police she shot Alvan, because it’s the truth. Neither her hands nor her voice quiver when she repeats the half made-up story she first told Sarah. She calmly tells them he pointed a gun at her and threatened to kill her, and that it wasn’t the first time. Felicia knows the most convincing lies have a thread of truth woven into them. This one is a lie only in time and place. Yet it is not the parts that are the lie that these men, the police, refuse to believe—the time and place—it is the parts that are true. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
After that, the respectful tones mostly vanish, replaced by condescending ones that occasionally cross over into outright hostility. They eventually say they don’t expect to file any charges against her and she recognizes this for lack of belief it is. “The ballistics don't match,” is what they tell her to her face, his friends and colleagues, but she knows that has to be a lie. “Good guy” is what they say to each other in the hallway, “good police.” Another lie. “Confused” and “traumatic experience” are what they say when they leave the interrogation room, like she can’t hear them. “Hysterical,” they agree in whispers, though her eyes are dry and her voice remains level when she gives the same version of the story in answer to their repeated questions.
Before they let her leave, they ask her again about the dark-haired woman with the bullet in her leg. They are still convinced that Sarah did this but they have nothing to go on. They don't even have a name.
“No,” says Felicia, as if she really does regret her answer, managing to keep the defiance hidden beneath the quiver in her lip that she manufactures for their benefit. The most convincing lies have a thread of truth in them. “She refused to tell me her name.”
There are follow-up interviews over the next few weeks, but no charges are ever filed in the death of Alvan McKinley.
A few months later, Felicia signs up for a self-defense class. Not because she is still afraid, she’s not, and not even because she’s still angry, though she is. She does it because she thinks it will feel good to be in control of her body, to stand up and say no and feel strength in it. It does. Several months after that, when she sees a notice at the gym for a basic gun safety class and remembers the way her hands trembled around the cold steel as she tried to protect herself and Sarah, it comes naturally to sign up for that too. It’s no longer about Alvan, it’s about her, and maybe still a little bit about Sarah, and the recognizable story Sarah told her.
II. A figure of you
The bombs fall and Felicia finds out that doctors who can aim a gun are in short supply.
It’s a long time before she makes the connection to Sarah, not until she sees the picture a young soldier she treats for a gunshot wound clutches in his hand. Shot in the leg during a scouting mission, he comes perilously close to bleeding out before they get him to her. It’s shortly after they’ve discovered that there are humans who appear to be working for the machines voluntarily. The machines aim for the head or chest and rarely miss. Now there are more near-misses, more soldiers who almost bleed to death. They are low on blood, as they always are now, and they don’t have any of this soldier’s type. She’s sent a medic to find a donor, but that’s a long shot.
She has just finished removing the bullet from his leg and the soldier is still unconscious when she notices the photo in his hand. The face of the woman is younger than Sarah’s was and the picture is crumpled and faded, but Felicia recognizes her immediately. Her legs feel unsteady and suddenly there isn’t enough air in the room. A second man bursts through the door.
Impossibly, he looks younger than he did more than a decade earlier. His face has faded from her memory over the years in a way that Sarah’s hasn’t, but still, underneath the youth and the scruff and the grime, she recognizes the man that Sarah called Reese. He gives no indication of recognition, his eyes focused only on the younger man still on the operating table. She can’t find her voice to order him out. She’s bandaged the wound and it’s not like anything down here is as sterile as it needs to be
“How is he?” he demands, rushing over to the operating table. He feels for a pulse and begins to inspect her work. Medical training varies greatly after J-Day and second-guessing of the doctors and medics by the resistance fighters is common, but it always annoys her.
She pushes him away from the table and finds her voice. “Who are you?”
“Derek,” he says shortly, finally looking at her but still displaying no recognition. “Derek Reese. That’s my brother Kyle.”
“Reese,” she says, “Kyle Reese.”
He nods and moves back in to look down at Kyle. Her mind reels, trying to weave the threads together, but she can’t. “I managed to get the bullet out,” she explains, “but he needs blood.”
Derek immediately sits, removes his jacket and begins rolling up his sleeve. Everyone is familiar with the procedure for giving blood. She gets out what she needs to confirm that he’s the right type.
“Girlfriend? Wife? Anybody who needs to know what happened?” she asks as she draws his blood, indicating the picture still clutched in Kyle’s clenched fist.
“You’d think, the way he carries that thing around,” Derek scoffs. “No. He’s never even met her. It’s John’s mother, John Connor.”
Sarah Connor is not a name she knows here and the name John Connor refers only to a newly arrived teenager from no one knows where who has an uncanny knack with the internal workings of the metal, who is either their best hope or the most visible signal of their inevitable defeat, depending on who you ask.
“Is she here?” Felicia asks lightly.
“Connor says he doesn’t know where she is.”
Two Reese brothers and a son named John. It fits perfectly, but it doesn’t fit at all. This wounded soldier is a boy, he can’t be older than his early twenties. He cannot possibly have been the father of Sarah’s child over a decade ago. This man sitting here talking to her cannot be the same Reese who came for Sarah after the surgery. But there are too many threads of truth for it to have been wholly a lie.
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I like that you end the story in a place where I'm sure she'll keep puzzling it out, and probably come up with, as one of her imaginings, the actual truth, though she'll never know for sure that one was right.
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And, of course, the lies that are really true, and the truths that everyone believes are lies. Felicia begins to mirror Sarah there - but in cold, realworld inversion. Her life story is similarly unbelievable, similarly only admitted in lies that are nonetheless still true.
In short: layers. ;)
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similarly only admitted in lies that are nonetheless still true
That's exactly what I was going for and exactly what I find so fascinating. Oh truth and lies and things they admit to each other. I heart them. LAYERS!
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Plus, supporting character joy!
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Ack, I love this. I love how you weave bits of the horrid, horrid reality of how the police would treat Felicia, especially since he was one of their own. I love how it's Sarah's interaction with her that motivates her to get the skills she needs to survive J-Day. I just really love this. :D
And to quote Kathryn Janeway, "Time travel. It gives me a headache."
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It gives me a headache tooooo. I tried very hard to be vague on timelines. Heh. :)
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TSCC has such a goldmine of supporting and guest characters, they're all so memorable and you flesh them out wonderfully. This thing that connects every one of them, the way Sarah knows the whole truth and just *cannot* be honest with them every time she dragged her into her world. Like the wife of that man she had to kill, and the priest who helped her in prison. But it still doesn't stop them from trying to do the right thing, and I love how you portray Felicia's coming out even stronger and inspired in herself after all that had happened.
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It really, really does. I just love the way those characters even get more honesty from Sarah, though only in this very roundabout way and they never know it. I think Felicia is the character in the entire show that Sarah was probably the most *emotionally* honest with, but only because she had this barrier of a lie to hide behind, and Felicia will never know it. And I love the idea that those characters are changed by their interactions with Sarah, and that those changes *matter* in the future. A butterfly flapping its wings, and all that. :) Thanks for reading!
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“Hysterical,” they agree in whispers, though her eyes are dry and her voice remains level when she gives the same version of the story in answer to their repeated questions.
Oh, ouch. This rings painfully true, especially since it's been in my mind because of recent articles on overturned convictions and how powerful denial is.
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And yeah, ouch. I'm sort of glad that rang true, cause I feared I was veering a bit too far towards Lecturing.
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for the record, do you really think Ellison is an innocent bystander? I see him as a different kind of foil. well, when I CAN actually see him. ;)
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Re: Ellison, I think he's actually got a very long arc, so while I wouldn't classify him as innocent bystander for very long, I do think that's how he starts out and gets drawn in. Perhaps a better way to say it would have been that he's always the outsider, without a known future role and without all the information. I do think he's rather the attempt to answer the question of what the hell you do after you meet Sarah Connor and find out the apocalypse is coming.