Work Text:
04.22AM
One of the downsides to being the fate-appointed saviour of humanity, Dani found, was the lack of opportunities for sleeping in.
There were few late starts in the Resistance, but plenty of late nights. And pre-dawn ops to oversee. And emergencies to be on-call for 24/7. And petty grievances to mediate.
And.
And.
And.
The head that wears the crown was indeed as heavy as they say. Usually with the weight of responsibility. For people. And choices. And mistakes. But sometimes the weight was simple human fatigue. A side effect of never being entirely off the clock.
Even with a network of administrative officers taking care of much of the day to day busywork, Dani still had an inordinate amount of work to do. That included her role as the 'face' of the Resistance. Soldiers and civilians alike looked to her for leadership, for inspiration, for guidance. Their sainted Commander, plucked from obscurity by fate's cruel hand and virtually drop-kicked into greatness.
Right now, greatness really wanted to be in bed. But duty had called at 4AM. Something about a surveillance drone. So she'd thrown on her rumpled uniform from earlier that day and headed over to 'Recon and Intel'. The live monitoring stations for the UAVs were tucked away behind a steel security door in an antechamber off the main hub. Inside it was dark and quiet, the chief lightsouce being the monitor screens and the floor lights that marked the emergency evac route. The room was bathed in the green-grey hue of the nightvision feeds, casting an eerie palor upon the faces of the drone operators. The ghosts of the graveyard shift.
The enveloping darkness coupled with the subtle hum of electric white noise wasn't helping Dani's tiredness any. She hoped the matter wouldn't require her presence for too long.
Dani hadn't been sleeping well lately. She was missing an essential element of her nightly routine. The other side of her bed had lain cool and un-rumpled for the last six weeks, ever since the head of the Advanced Infantry Special Operations unit had come to her with some promising intel and a list of names that read like an augmented fantasy football team.
Her late night listlessness sometimes found her haunting the communications hub, absorbing the warm pop and crackle of static and radio chatter until she started nodding off into the dregs of her coffee, at which point some comms jockey 'fresh outta Basic' would screw their courage to the sticking place and cautiously approach her to suggest she turn in.
She could give any number of plausible excuses to the rank and file for the dark circles under her eyes. They'd been pushing hard to reclaim territory to the west over the last couple of months, and she was readying an aid package for one of the unaffiliated outposts up north in the grip of an outbreak of cholera.
In truth they all knew that the biggest culprit was the undented pillow that lay next to hers, the blankets still tucked to regulation standard on the far side of the mattress.
She missed the presence of an almost-too-warm body next to hers, of the slow tide of breath on the back of her neck as she lay wrapped in a cocoon of soft skin and hard muscle. She longed for the comforting weight of reinforced bones that pressed her to the mattress just right...
"Commander?"
Dani mentally re-entered the room. She cleared her throat awkwardly before leaning toward the monitor manned by the shift leader.
"Sergeant Hvass. What am I looking at?"
"Overnight sector sweep in Nevada picked up some unusual activity. Surveillance drone spotted this an hour ago over Spanish Springs."
Hvass indicated the mass of vaguely humanoid blips that was systematically dismantling the rusted husks of cars and the weather beaten single storey huts that used to be homes.
Dani was suddenly very much awake. "That's..."
"A whole shitload of Red-Eye, Ma'am."
"What the hell are they doing all the way out there?"
"They appear to be gutting the place. Everything from rusted out sparkplugs to aluminum siding. I cross referenced this feed with one from three days ago, trying to nail down a timeline. See that big empty space on the right? Three days ago it was a trailer park. They just swarmed in and picked the place clean."
Hvass switched to another image, this time of the remains of some kind of large industrial campus, zeroing in on one particular building. "According to the old Google maps it's a bottling plant. Was a bottling plant. This appears to be where they're taking it all.'
"Strange place to set up a production line, given all these other options."
"That's what I thought. I'm working through every analytical tool we got installed on the bird to try and pick up anything useful, but I'm not having much luck at this range."
"Can't we get any closer?"
"Not without giving ourselves away, Ma'am. We're in the sweet spot here. If there were less of them, then maybe..."
Dani straightened with an air of decisiveness. "Legion's up to something. We need eyes inside that building."
She turned to Earl Tobin, her adjutant, "Earl, contact Fort Sears. I want to speak to the base commander ASAP."
"Yes, Commander."
"I'll be in my office."
*****
11.45AM
The words on the paper were starting to blur and bleed into eachother. She was also sure she'd just read the same sentence three times over.
She had been staring at the report for the last ten minutes, with her elbow planted on the desk, fist propping up her head at the temple. She figured she'd probably spent much of that time micro napping.
Dani blinked rapidly, then gave her head a brisk shake, trying to regain alertness. She needed to get up and move around. Maybe some fresh air would give her a second wind.
There was a sharp knock just as she was rising and Tobin poked his head into the room. "Commander. They've returned."
Oh, thank fuck.
*****
11.52AM
"If I could have your attention please! All those requiring medical attention please make themselves known to the two ladies in the red scrubs over on your right. The rest of you, if you'll go with these gentlemen here, they'll get you squared away."
Dani crossed the tarmac briskly, squinting as she emerged from the dim artificial light of the bunker entrance into bright yet hazy sunlight. She approached the hulking augmented form of Major Jackson Plummer as he issued instructions to a gaggle of refugees. Plummer had been promoted to the head of the Advanced Infantry Special Operations unit after William Hadrell perished in the south tunnel skirmish that very nearly claimed her own life. Like Hadrell before him, Plummer had been a giant of a man even before he'd 'earned his stripes'. Now Dani wagered his biceps were bigger than her head.
Plummer acknowledged her approach with a salute. "Intel was good, Commander. We brought back all thirty." He indicated the slowly dispersing crowd.
"Any wounded?" Dani enquired.
"A few cases of exposure, and some old breaks that'll need resetting. Most are just malnourished and a little shellshocked."
"And your team?"
"The usual wear and tear. Greenhorn here did an A1 job." He indicated a slight yet strong looking young woman, who stood from where she'd been rummaging through a medical kit. She aimed a quick salute and a polite 'Ma'am' in Dani's direction before addressing the Major.
"Uh...it's Greenbaum, sir."
"Not until you rack your first kill it's not," he chuckled, giving her a jovial pat on the back. Greenbaum nodded, accepting her fate as the rookie of the unit, and returned to her kit.
A loud metallic crash to Dani's right had her hand hovering over her sidearm instinctively. A quick assessment of the situation calmed her nerves. An inactive Rev-7 endoskeleton, loose limbed as a broken marionette, was lying in a heap where it had just been unceremoniously tossed. It had landed at the feet of an agitated looking tech underling.
"Jesus Christ, Harper! Be careful with that!"
Dani's eye's lit up as Grace Harper emerged from within the troop carrier. Her boots kicked up puffs of dust when she hopped down from the loading platform.
"Sorry." Grace's expression said she was anything but. Dani bit back a grin, then bit her lip as the supersoldier turned and easily hauled a massive crate down off the Dragonfly's loading platform, placing it on the tech lackey's low-bed trolley.
"Anything alive in there?" The techie gestured to the crate without looking up from his datapad.
"No active CPUs," Grace replied, thumping another, smaller crate down on top of the first, startling the techie who gave her a reproachful look.
Dani indicated for the Major to continue overseeing proceedings, then took a couple of steps towards the rear of the Dragonfly. "Captain Harper..."
"Ammo crates are on the left, but you'll have to wait til inventory's done." Grace turned around to face her, another crate in hand. "I know how pissy you guys get when th--"
The crate narrowly missed Grace's toes when she dropped it and stood to attention. "Sorry Commander." She did sound apologetic this time.
Dani's heart skipped at the way Grace's eyes softened as they met hers. Her stomach fluttered at the subtle way Grace looked her up and down. And she felt a pleasant ache somewhere even lower as the warrior's eyes briefly went from warm to hungry before she seemed to catch herself. Dani needed to end the charged moment before the other augments picked up on it. She knew they all knew about the two of them, but they were both professionals and this wasn't the place.
"As you were, Captain. If you could stop by my office once you're done here, I have something I'd like your input on."
God, she hadn't meant for that to sound so...obvious.
"Of course," Grace replied with a knowing smirk.
Dani turned away, nodded a quick goodbye to the Major, and marched back towards the safety of the bunker.
*****
Grace tried to be inconspicuous as her eyes followed Dani's retreating form, lingering on the perfect curve of her backside.
God, she'd missed her.
She bent down to retrieve the dropped crate and hauled it over to the waiting trolley.
Twenty minutes later, the Major called everybody to him.
"Now listen up. Once you're all done here you've been granted furlough for the next ninety-six hours. Spend it wisely. You'll then report for light duty around the base until you're issued new orders. Check in at Personnel for papers and passes. Harper, you can go off to your briefing now."
"Don't you mean de-briefing, Sir?" A voice came from somewhere within the group.
A chorus of boisterous laughter erupted behind Grace as she set off. She turned and flipped them all off with both hands, a shit-eating grin plastered firmly across her face. She was met with whoops and cheers, the sound of a good natured ball-breaking between comrades.
Major Plummer reeled the playful energy in. They needed to take stock, get the Dragonfly locked down, and get underground ASAP. There'd be plenty of time to play sillybuggers later.
"Collier, if you've got time to run your mouth you've got time to run inventory. Get to it."
"Sir."
*****
12.28PM
Dani's back connected with the wall with a controlled thump that was out of step with the frenzied energy between the two women. The rush of her own pulse in her ears rendered inaudible the little mewls of desperation she was making as she clutched tightly at fistfuls of honey gold hair.
They were ravenous for eachother, driven by the long separation, and relief at the soldier's safe return. Dani had her legs locked tight around the taller woman's waist as she began to roll her pelvis in a slow, hard grind, caught between the need to ease the ache at her core and the desire to stoke it even higher.
She maintained her self control for a while, until her lover began a strategic assault on the sensitive patch of skin just below her ear, a spot that drove Dani absolutely crazy. She pulled at the hair she was grasping until the two of them were face to face.
"If you're not inside me in the next thirty seconds..." she husked hotly into Grace's mouth, swallowing the groan she received in response.
Grace spun them quickly away from the wall and set Dani down on the edge of the desk. She pulled back enough to give herself enough room to work Dani's belt open, mouth hot and hungry at her throat.
She was going to combust. She was go--
"Shit!" Grace suddenly pulled her lips away from Dani's neck and stood up straight, her face angled towards the ceiling .
It took a moment for confusion to push through the carnal haze in Dani's brain.
"What? What is it?" she enquired, concerned at the sudden disengagement. Had she hurt Grace somehow? Had she been hiding an injury from the mission?
She gently coaxed Grace's face back into view.
Grace huffed and looked towards the office door, her mouth set in an agitated line. "Three...two...one--"
--The door burst open and a human hurricane by the name of Sarah Connor blew in.
"Hey Dani, R&D think they got someth--oh, fer fuck's sake."
Busted.
Grace growled at the interloper, "You ever heard of knocking?"
Sarah snorted and raised a sardonic eyebrow. "Have you ever heard of keeping it in your pants on company time?"
"Isn't there a crypt somewhere you should be keeping?" Grace's eyes were narrowed in Sarah's direction.
The older woman looked almost impressed. "Isn't that reference a little before your time?" A pause. "Like your girlfriend?"
Dani audibly gasped in mock offense at Sarah's expert coup de grace. She was well versed in the game they were all currently playing. Though Grace's irritation at the interruption was no doubt genuine (not to mention Sarah's desire to bleach her eyeballs), the barbs being slung were all for show.
Okay, mostly for show.
Sarah, clearly considering herself the victor of this round, pulled a battered hand rolled cigarette from behind her ear and placed it between lips curled in self-satisfaction.
"Hey! No fumar aquí. Conoces las reglas, Sarah" Dani pointed a chastising finger in Sarah's direction and quickly hopped down from the desk. She frowned at the cigarette as Sarah shrugged and slipped it into the breast pocket of her shirt.
"How are you still getting your hands on cigarettes twenty years after the end of the world anyway?" she asked.
"Let's just say, those hydroponics boys can't bluff for shit," Sarah said.
"Don't pull that face, Dani. We're not talking some massive black market operation here, just a couple of plants they keep as a hobby in their common room. Leftovers from one of their little science experiments apparently. Something about organic pesticides."
Dani filed that revelation away for later. She had enough on her plate already, and now that included a whopping great side order of sexual frustration.
She rubbed at her forehead and took a breath to centre herself. "You said something about R&D?"
Sarah made a 'get outta here' gesture to Grace. "Scram, Wondergirl. This shit's above your paygrade."
Dani nodded when Grace looked to her for confirmation. Their reunion would have to wait a little longer. "We'll continue this later," she sighed, and pressed a consoling palm to the centre of the soldier's chest.
"How about you go down to the mess and get something to eat?" she added, "You must be sick to death of field rations by now. I assume the Major informed you that I'm standing you all down for the next few days, so go relax okay? Grab a shower. Take a nap. You look tired."
"So do you." The pad of a finger brushed gently across the darkened skin beneath her eyes.
She bit her lip and leaned in towards the taller woman, gazing up at her through her lowered lashes "Well, something tells me I'll be sleeping well tonight."
"Oh, I'll make sure of it," Grace crooned with a rogueish smirk before she went in for a final soft, lingering kiss that had Dani wishing the day could just be over already. But duty called, and she needed to screw her Commander head back on. Still, she dismissed Grace with a playful pat on the backside as she nodded towards the door, pointedly ignoring Sarah's grimace at the display. "Get outta here, soldier."
Grace gave a sloppy salute to the Commander followed by a nod to the interloper. "Ma'am. Sarah." As she made to walk past, Sarah stopped her with a firm hand on the shoulder. "Glad you made it home in one piece, kid".
"Glad to see you're still breathin', old timer."
Dani knew it was coming from the mischievous glint in Grace's eye. Even Sarah's battle-honed reflexes were no match for the enhanced speed of an augment. Grace shot in and pressed a quick, firm kiss to the top of Sarah's head before darting out of the office as the older woman batted and hissed at her like an ornery old alleycat.
Dani shook her head in affectionate consternation at the pair of them. The two people she loved most in the world.
"Asshole," Sarah muttered. She turned back to Dani, "We goin' or what?"
Dani pulled her uniform back into some semblance of order, and made an attempt at taming her hair, before she accepted defeat and pulled it into a simple ponytail. Now looking appropriately Commanderish, she gestured for Sarah to precede her through the office doorway.
"So what did they find?"
"I'll let the nerd herd fill you in. Wouldn't wanna deprive 'em of their big reveal."
"That's awfully magnanimous of you, Sarah."
Sarah snorted. "Not really. Just couldn't make heads or tails of a damned word they said."
Dani's melodic laugh echoed around the two of them as they approached a short set of metal steps at the end of the corridor. At the bottom Sarah pulled up short.
"Look, Dani. You're not seriously gonna bust my poker buddies are you? It really is small scale, personal use level shit."
Dani appeared to contemplate for a moment. "As you say, it's not interfering with their work or taking up space needed for the crops. It'd be hypocritical of me anyway. You've seen my stash of Corporal Esposito's Bathtub Tequila."
"I've drained your stash of Corporal Esposito's Bathtub Tequila. Many times."
"Exactly. So no, I won't reprimand anyone for now. Just tell them to be discreet."
They continued walking, pushing simultaneously through a wide set of double doors into another, much busier, corridor where numerous salutes and nods of acknowledgement were exchanged as people became aware of the Commander's presence.
"See, and that's why everybody likes you, kid. You don't break people's balls over petty shit. You let them have their vices. Within reason. It's why they're so loyal."
"What, because I look the other way while they smoke and drink?"
"Among other things. It's good for morale, Dani. Lets folks blow off steam in a way that doesn't remind em they're at war. Y'know, you could do with something like that yourself."
"I already have an outlet," Dani protested.
"Hah! If it was anybody other than Suicide Blonde I might agree with you."
"I was talking about the tequila. And what do you mean?"
"I remember when I first explained everything to John," Sarah's voice took on that far away quality that emerged whenever she spoke about her son.
"He couldn't get his head round the idea that a single person would ultimately be responsible for saving the entire human race. Sure, he was just a kid at the time, but it made me realise...he was right. How can anybody fathom something that big, that important? We don't even know how many people are still left out there, but it's still just...it's too much. So you have to narrow your focus, see a million faces in the eyes of one. To you, Grace is the war. You look at her and you see everything you stand to lose. Everything you've already lost. She's the reason you fight. And if the only way to save her is to save everybody else? Then that's what you're gonna do."
"I fight for you too."
"Yeah, don't I know it. I didn't expect to survive Judgement Day let alone make it to eighty. Think my borrowed time's on borrowed time at this point."
"I'm surprised your liver made it to eighty," Dani quipped, giving her oldest friend an affectionate shoulder bump.
"And don't you talk like you're ready for the scrap heap, chica. You can still kick the ass of almost anybody here. And nobody knows more about fighting terminators than you. After everything that happened, I wouldn't have made it without you. Grace sacrificed herself all those years ago knowing she was leaving me in the best possible hands. She respected you."
"Wish her doppelganger would," Sarah groused.
Dani scoffed. "Grace loves you."
"In a 'love me, love my dog' way maybe. Come on kid. Let's go see if those nerds have good news."
*****
2.45PM
"Come in."
Tobin entered, a mug in one hand, a scrap of paper in the other. He placed his bounty before her.
"Coffee. And another communication from Fort Sears."
The promise of a caffeine injection perked Dani up considerably. She pulled the steaming mug to her as she read over the message.
"Can you send a memo to Major Plummer? Conference call with Major Suleiman, in my office, at 1800."
"Yes, Commander."
*****
3.20PM
Dani had only meant to stop by briefly to discuss making some additions to the curriculum. Naturally she ended up getting dragged into the kindergarten class on her way out.
"Pleeeeaaassse?" came a chorus of little voices.
"Okay, okay." Dani chuckled at the sea of precocious faces. "Go and pick out a book"...
*****
5.45PM
The three of them sat at a table amidst a sea of bodies, a thousand simultaneous conversations blending into a warm drone punctuated with laughter and the scrape of cutlery.
"I still can't believe you actually did it," Sarah guffawed around the last inch of a lit cigarette.
Dani was more lenient about letting her mentor light up in the mess hall, as long as she was seated close to one of the extractor fans. She was conscious of the health and sensibilities of others on base, but she also wasn't gonna send an eighty year old, badass tho she was, above ground and into possible danger just for the sake of a quick nicotine hit.
"You told him I would," Grace shrugged. "We needed to establish authority in order to affect a successful extraction. He pushed the issue."
"So you pushed him out of a window." Sarah raised her mug in salute. "Dan the Asshole. Where'd you ship him off to anyway, Dani? Please tell me Alaska."
"Close. Seattle."
"Jesus, kid. The guy was bad, but I dunno if he was Seattle bad"
"It wasn't like that. They were short on engineers, and he was more than qualified."
The alarm on Dani's watch sounded. It was 5.50pm. She wiped her mouth with the paper towel playing understudy for a napkin and rose from the table.
"Sorry to eat and run chicas, but I have a meeting. Gotta go before Earl sends out a search party." She stretched as tall as she was able to shake off the cobwebs, and couldn't help the yawn that accompanied the motion.
Grace rose and indicated with a slight jerk of her head for Dani to join her a couple of paces away from the table. "You sure you're okay?"
"Just have to power through the next few hours. And then we can finally be alone." She said, leaning conspiratorially into Grace's space in order to keep from being overheard.
"Y'know, I don't know which I'm more excited about. Getting you out of those clothes or getting to sleep in your arms."
The expression, and blush, on Grace's face reminded Dani of the cartoons she watched as a child, when the object of affection gave the hero a smooch on the cheek and they went totally dopey. The word 'twitterpated' came to mind...though she couldn't recall where she'd heard it.
*****
6.15PM
"This is an intelligence gathering operation only at this stage."
"If these numbers are accurate, Commander, anybody we send in would be at tremendous risk. Tremendous risk. If we launch a full scale assault we can clear out the machine presence and--"
"There are too many unknowns, Major. This isn't normal machine behaviour. If they're building something in there, a weapon or...something else, we can't risk them deploying it against a major force. If we're going in, we're going in prepared."
*****
9.25PM
"I have the cargo manifests for the relief convoy, Commander." The logistics officer stood in the doorway, a file clutched in her hands.
Dani looked up from where she was tidying her desk. "Thank you, Sergeant. Leave them on the desk if you'd be so kind. I'll sign off on them tomorrow."
"Yes, Ma'am. Have a good evening, Ma'am."
Oh she intended to. "And you, Sergeant."
*****
12.04AM
"...fuuuuck."
Dani's head fell limply to the pillow. Grace watched as her lover briefly tried to blink her eyes back in to focus before giving up and slinging a boneless arm over them, her other hand finding the sweat-slick hair at the base of Grace's skull and nesting. She scratched softly through the damp strands, pulling Grace's head down to rest against her sternum, where she nuzzled and mouthed at Dani's heated skin.
Grace was careful not to put all her weight on the smaller woman as their breathing slowed and then synchronised. Dani insisted she could handle it, that the give in the mattress buoyed enough of the soldier's augmented skeleton that she wouldn't be smothered. Grace wasn't entirely convinced, but had found a compromise that worked for both of them, essentially half-lying just her upper body against Dani's.
After some time spent basking in the afterglow, Grace stirred. She placed a final kiss upon Dani's chest before manoeuvring to a sitting position at the edge of the bed. She then got up and ambled to the bathroom. It was very basic. Utilitarian. Just a toilet, shower, and a small sink with a medicine cabinet recessed into the wall above it.
She grabbed the glass beside the sink and filled it. The water held the vaguest scent of chlorine from processing. An electrolyte tab was dropped into the glass and left to dissolve as Grace pulled a ready-made syringe and a handful of pills from within the cabinet. She flicked the cap from the hypodermic with a well-practiced thumb, and plunged it into the meat of her thigh before evenly depressing the plunger.
After disposing of the syringe she washed her hands, splashed her face, and combed her damp fingers through her love-tussled hair. She took stock of herself in the bathroom mirror as she let her blood cool. Her cheeks and chest bore the remains of a rosy flush and her eyes were bright and soft with satiation.
"Dani, you want water?" Grace called, before washing the pills down with the now bubbly, faintly pink liquid in the glass. Her answer was a wordless groan, indicating the negative, that had her grinning as she rinsed the glass and returned to the bed.
Dani still had her arm thrown across her eyes. She'd managed to pull the blanket up to cover her hips at least. Grace could see the beginnings of goosebumps where Dani was still exposed. Pulling the blanket higher was obviously too big an ask for the exhausted Commander.
"Sleepy?"
"Mmm." Dani already sounded half gone.
Grace crawled in beside her, rearranged the blankets to provide optimum coverage in the cool air, and opened her arms. "Come."
"I don't think I have another one in me," Dani giggled, punch drunk on a potent oxytocin-melatonin cocktail.
"Come here," Grace chuckled and gathered the sleepy woman to her. She pressed a gentle kiss to Dani's forehead, and her thoughts turned to the deal she'd quietly made with Tobin earlier that evening. If he could see to it that the Commander wasn't disturbed before noon, Grace would go out and bag him some fresh wild boar meat and a bottle of 'Bootlegger's Special Reserve', a potent herb-based moonshine that tasted like the bastard child of paint stripper and cough syrup. It was gross, but it got the job done if you were looking for temporary oblivion. Tobin was one of only two people she knew who professed to actually liking the foul brew. The other being Sarah. Obviously. It was a simple enough job to fulfill on her end, and god knows Dani needed a break, even if only for a few extra hours.
The woman in question stirred in Grace's arms, muttering something barely coherent about security reports. Grace hushed her softly and snuggled in, listening as her lover's breathing once again took on the gentle cadence of sleep.
Mission accomplished.