ficwize | FIC: Good Night, Sleep Tight

Title: Good Night, Sleep Tight
Fandom: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Prompt: Bed Bugs as requested by

sailorswift
Warnings: Slight spoilers for the third movie (which may not apply any longer) and the very beginning of the series.
Rating: Gen
Summary: When John was a baby, Sarah used to sing him to sleep. And then he grew up.
Pairings: Sarah and John Connor
Disclaimer: I don't own the fandom.
A/N: Written for June!challenge Day 20 at

fic_on_demand.

As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated.

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When John was a baby, Sarah used to sing him to sleep. Rocking him in her arms, she would sing more and more quietly, until she was only humming as his sweet baby breaths puffed against her shoulder. Lying him down, she would stare at him with a wonder that had nothing to do with the knowledge that one day he would save the world and everything to do with the fact that he had ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes and a tiny nose and two tiny eyes. Sometimes, Sarah would stare at him until she fell asleep in the nursery, a shot gun in easy reach and a German Shepherd asleep under the crib.

When John grew older, she took him shopping for bed linens, indulging his desire to have Superman sheets out of an unspeakable relief that he didn't ask for Transformer sheets. He was too big for her to rock to sleep with a lullaby, so she told him stories instead. Stories of time travel and brave soldiers who came back to the past to protect people. She didn't mention the machines or the reason that people needed protecting until he was older, but there was still a shotgun and still a dog in the room.

When John was five, he began to have nightmares and his crying would rouse Sarah from even the deepest of sleep to rush to his side, automatically grabbing for the handgun, listening for any intruders. He would sob into her side, telling her about his dreams - monsters in the closet, monsters under the bed. She would climb into his bed next to him, her feet sticking out from the side, and hold him until he quit crying. Petting his hair, she hummed the same lullaby and deliberately didn't tell him about monsters in his future.

When John outgrew the nightmares, Sarah ran out of excuses to sing to him. Instead, she started wishing him a good night from the doorway. "Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite." He would giggle every time and this slice of normalcy in her world, which was otherwise marked by survival training, AK-47s, and the constant overwhelming fear that she would lose her son before his time, warmed her heart.

Years later, Sarah lay dying in a hospital bed, consumed by cancer that she had been unable to have treated. John, trying his best to hide the tears in his eyes, sat in the chair next to the bed. He was older now, battle-tested and hardened. Some of his fingers and toes had been broken. His nose was crooked from one too many close calls. His eyes no longer sparkled with mirth and innocence. There were no guns and no dogs in the hospital and there was no illusion of safety. The monsters were real and Judgment Day was coming. They both knew that.

The disease made it hard for Sarah to rest. The medicine supposedly curing it made it hard for her to do anything else. John held her hand, humming quietly and she recognized the lullaby she used to sing to him. Finally, he leaned over and kissed her cheek.

"Goodnight, mom."

Reaching up weakly, she caught his hand. "Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite."

"You either," John whispered. He stood and went to the door, pausing to look back at her. "I'll see you in the morning." Sarah nodded, knowing that there wouldn't be another morning for them. Her baby boy was all grown up, and bed bugs were the least of his problems now.