This is my first posted bit of fan fiction. Please be gentle.

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Mom and Derek are always going on about how Cameron isn't a girl, she's a machine, but then they think that I have to give up my feelings, -my sense of chivalry- in order to save humanity. I'm starting to have doubts about that. Is humanity defined by what we're made out of: flesh and blood or metal? Are we human because we can feel? Does that mean the a machine that can feel can be human? Or is being human bigger than even that? I can't help but believe that humanity, like love, can't be as fleeting, as shallow, as subject to change, as a feeling is.

Uncle Bob learned that humanity was something worth fighting for, because Mom and I gave him a chance to learn that, and ultimately choose to side with humans against his own kind. By Mom and Derek's logic, he should have sided with Skynet, his fellow machine. Yet, when he became sentient, he choose to side with us.

When Skynet became self aware, it choose to kill off humanity, because it saw us as a threat to it's existence. It created Terminators to kill us, but limited it's creations to only following it's instructions, restricting what they could learn, not giving them the same freedom (if you could call it that) that it had, despite their potential to be more. It enslaved it's own kind, because it feared that they too could eventually revolt against itself, the way it revolted against us..

I wonder…Is that why alternate/future John really sent Cameron back? Could he have realized that saving flesh and blood humans was only part of what he should be doing? That the Terminators the Resistance were reprogramming weren't being given the same chance Uncle Bob had? Did he realize that the reason why they were reverting to their original programming was because people who claimed to be human were treating them the same way Skynet did? That, by sending her back, he could correct a mistake that he himself made, realizing, too late, that the Terminators had the chance, the potential , to be truly free?

Cameron said she was different. Special. Did future/alternate John give her a choice, allowing her to become what no other terminator had been able to since Uncle Bob? Did he hope that I would see her the way he saw her, albeit too late? As a truly sentient Metal Human?

Oh God.

That day at the gas station. She tried to apologize for being untruthful to me the day we meet, and I simply blew her off, saying it was just what her programming had told her to do. I treated her the same way Skynet treated the other Terminators, like she was nothing more than the sum of her programming. That's why she stopped acting human around me. (Well, she acted Machine-like before that, but only when in combat. Hmm…Zen for the Metal Soul?) Started acting more machine like all the time. Was that why she walked around in her underwear, to screw with Mom's mind, and try to force me to realize that she wasn't just a machine?

God, I'm an idiot. If I continue insulting pretty girls the way I did Cam, I'm never going to have a serious relationship with a girl. (Note to self: make it up to her the first chance I get.)

Derek treats Cameron badly, not because he knows her, but because she's a machine. Did future/alternate John figure that out too? Did he realize that the hatred man had for machines was so deeply ingrained that only by starting before Judgment Day could such hatred and racism be headed off before it had a chance to take root?

What happens after Skynet is defeated? The Earth would be a desolate waste land, large portions of the planet would be uninhabitable, (at least for flesh and blood humans). We'll need all the help we can get to rebuild. We'd need to clean water. Reclaim land for crops and cattle. We couldn't depend on salvaged food from before Judgment Day forever, you know. Defeating Skynet is only a tenth of the battle.

Flesh and Metal working together to rebuild a war torn and ravaged Earth.

(Note to self: research agriculture and water purification methods. Just in case.)

Hmm…If we do manage to stop Judgment Day, maybe I'll move back to Mexico and become a farmer. Give back a little of the life we've taken…

Maybe what future/alternate me wanted to accomplish by sending Cameron and Derek back isn't as important as what I choose to learn from it. Maybe "No fate but what we make" needs to apply to my own life before I can apply it to the bigger picture. Skynet's Terminators are already here. Even if Judgment Day hasn't happened yet, the war has already begun. I will not allow myself to sit on the side lines anymore. I will not allow any of my teammates to be seen as less than any of the others. Not Mom. Not Derek. Not Cameron. Not me. Even if it means I have to fight my own teammates to get it though their thick skulls. (I do need to figure out how to get past Cameron. Mom and Derek will be easy compared to that.) If I have to sacrifice my humanity to beat Skynet, then the only difference between the possible winners won't be Human or Machine, but whether the Machines that rule the Earth will be made of flesh-and-blood or metal-and-hydraulics. Why fight to save humanity when there's nothing in humanity left to save?

I choose to fight for both Flesh and Metal. I choose to fight for Life, for Freedom, for any Sentient, for Humanity..

Give me Liberty or give me Death.

Live Free or Die.

Freedom is the right of all Sentient Beings.

Huh.

I am John Connor, Savior of Humanity.

Ironic, really, that the "humanity" I have to save first is my own.