apocalypsos | Yup, another one ...

I keep trying to do the obscure ones, because everybody else seems to be doing Buffy and Alias and LOTR. This one's Terminator fic, so spoilers for T3.

An Old Hat at the Apocalypse Game

Just because you're supposed to survive one apocalypse doesn't mean you're supposed to survive them all.

It's all John Connor can think as he runs down a back street in L.A. clutching his broken arm to his side, dodging panicked bystanders and flying debris with every step. In his mind is another apocalypse, where he dives for cover in the meager safety of the first concrete basement he can, where it's over almost as soon as it's started and all he has to worry about is a nasty case of radiation sickness and rampaging robots trying to kill him at every turn.

That, he can handle. That, he's been prepared for on some level. But who the hell prepares for dozens of tornadoes destroying L.A. and oceans rising around the world?

The fact that he's prepared for nuclear annihilation and robot attack and not a little bad weather suddenly strikes him as hilariously funny, and he stops to sag against the outside of a trendy boutique, laughing against his better judgment. He laughs until his sides hurt, until he wonders if he's ever going to stop, and then a tractor trailer sweeps by on what passes for a light breeze today and takes three screaming women with it.

His laughter cuts off immediately, and it's back to running for his life.

"Jesus," he mutters, stumbling past a homeless man crushed by flying debris that was obviously gone as soon as it had killed him. John's seen worse, though, in real life and in his nightmares, and he ducks past before he can think too long on it.

A second later, a billboard sweeps past him, skirting against the ground so close to him it brushes frighteningly close to his broken arm, and John flinches to the side as it tumbles down the street like a plastic bag dancing in the wind.

Fear washes over him in a sudden wave, but he closes his eyes to picture bombs falling and people burning in a wave of intense radiation and he's back again.

A tornado, huge and roaring and spewing dust that chokes the air, plows down a nearby street, and John grabs onto his arm with his good hand and runs for the first intact building he can see, a somewhat faded veterinary hospital with a huge glass front. The glass would be a reason to avoid it if his options weren't extremely limited, but most of it looks like it's stone and cement blocks, and he races through the unlocked front door and into the relative safety of the back of the building before he can think twice.

Dogs yap loudly from somewhere inside, and John starts yanking open doors, because if the dogs are in a kennel and they're stll safe enough to bark like that, it says a lot about how much damage this place can take. He hears glass statter, and knows with the ensuing rush of wind that sucks the air from his lungs that it's the entire front that's broken away.

"Fuck the kennel," he says, and dives into the nearest room, pulling the door shut and locking it. The lock won't help all that much against the fury of a tornado that size, but whatever takes the edge of your nerves, he thinks.

"Over here! Hurry!"

The voice is feminine but strong, even with all the shit that's going on, and John's used to doing first and thinking second in stressful situations. He runs through another door into a back room with a few cages -- a spare kennel on busy days, he guesses -- and someone he can't see slams the door shut behind him and locks it. John shoves a huge cage in front of the door, his fingers trembling ominously as he does it.

No, he thinks harshly, and pictures the familiar nightmare of skulls crushed under the heels of armed Terminators. The trembling stops immediately.

"Are you okay?" he hears, and a moment later, deft hands skim his body searching for injuries. It hits him that some veterinarian checking him for broken bones during an apocalypse is the closest he's come to a doctor's visit in years, and he has to clench his broken arm to keep from laughing again. Whoever she is, even in all this darkness, she notices, and he can almost imagine her brow furrowing in annoyance. "I can't fix this now," she mutters, as if she's a harried ER doc who's got far worse patients to work on.

"I've dealt with worse," he says, but winces as the ground shakes under their feet. His eyes start to adjust to the darkness, and he sees light red hair drifting on the draft in the room and wide green eyes staring back at him. There's something strangely familiar, and he's still trying to place who the hell she is when the roof is sucked away.

With nothing else to grab onto, they both reach for the cage, and above them, the twister screams its fury. The two of them exchange a look, frightening but accepting of what they both know is coming, and suddenly a haunted light enters her eyes as she smiles. "Mike Kripky's basement," she says, and even though she almost whispers it, even past the drowning noise of the tornado, he can hear her.

A moment later, he realizes what she means and who she is, just in time for the first girl he ever kissed to be sucked up into the swirling monster above him.

John closes his eyes and pictures nukes destroying the cities and billions crumbling to dust in the fallout, and after letting the wave of acceptance and calm pass over him, John Connor does what he would have done if he'd recognized Kate Brewster on the street and lets go, following after her.