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The sky is brown and smells like dirt and ashes baking too long under the sun. The other soldiers have been lighting fires for hours in anticipation of John's death, and the smoke stings Blair's eyes, makes it had to breathe.
She holds Marcus' hand, his fingers tucked into hers.
"Are you ready?" Kate asks Marcus, pulling over a table with dull instruments and placing a hand against his chest.
Marcus closes his eyes instead of answering. They don't have drugs to spare for human-machine hybrids. Kate doesn't offer them, and Marcus doesn't ask for them, but he jerks when the knife enters his chest, the metal blade slicing through the skin to the bright metal beneath, dark red blood streaking down his chest, creating little rivers, a starburst.
"You were a good man," Blair breathes against Marcus' ear, because there is nothing else to say. She tightens her hand until it numbs her fingers, hurts her and him, until it'd damage a normal human.
She doesn't tell him that she'll miss him, she doesn't tell him that he's only one of many she's lost, and she doesn't tell him that of all the people that are gone, she'll miss him the most.
Blair can feel when Marcus dies, his arm jerking against hers and then fingers going still, the muscles relaxing, his too soft hands unfolding. For the first time, she understands the idea of death as peace. His entire body is quiet and still, like a sleeping child, and she grabs his metal hand and presses it against her cheek.
The day John lives, rises like the Messiah from death, the sky is blue and smells like hope and fire.
* * *
Blair stays awake until the early morning, listening to the breathing around her -- snores, the bitten off screams from nightmares, and the rustle of bodies unaccustomed to peace, even in sleep. It's nearly dawn when she gets up. Her footfalls quiet as she weaves between people.
When she gets to the tent, John is sleeping, his eyes moving under his eyelids and his body tense. She stares at him for a few minutes before moving down, her cheek against his shirt, her ear against his chest. Just for a moment, not long enough for him to wake or someone to find her, but for a moment, she hears Marcus.
Minutes later she's back in the tent, and when she finally falls asleep, it's to the beating of a too strong heart.
* * *
"You gonna keep it?" Blair pushes her hair back, and goes back to looking through one of the bullet holes in the building, her eyes searching for movement, for light.
"'Course not," Kyle says after a moment and tucks it back into his pocket, showing care that she rarely sees him have with anyone or anything that's not Star.
When they get back to base, Kyle disappears, and when Blair sees him next, it's hours later. Everyone is outside, sitting around the fires, laughter rising and falling along with calls of "bullshit" when guys try to claim that they've taken out two terminators with a pistol.
"You get it back to him?" Blair passes the rotgut over to him. The fire flickers across his face, and he looks different somehow.
"He told me to keep it." Kyle takes a long drink and passes it on. "Has he ever told you about Sarah?"
"His mom, right?" Kyle nods. "I've heard a few stories."
Kyle opens his mouth to say something, but then Star is there fitting herself into his lap, and Kyle just shakes his head, clears his throat, and tells the story of how Star killed a terminator with a car.
* * *
It's been three years, but when Blair comes she kisses Kyle so she doesn't say Marcus, and when he shakes apart under her, his mouth pressed to her neck, she hears, "Sarah."
end.