"Extra Credit"
By darthelwig
I don't own them.
Spoilers: none.
Rating: K
John and Cameron do some extra credit work.
"It's an egg."
"Yeah," John said. "It's an egg."
Cameron held the egg up before her, eyeing it closely and clearly confused.
"Give it here." John sighed and took the egg from her. He held it up so she could see it, then placed it into one of the egg coloring cups that he'd bought at the grocery store. Cameron watched him roll it around in the food coloring.
"Why are we coloring it?" she asked.
"For Easter. It's what we do to celebrate. First we cook them, then we decorate them. On Easter morning they get hidden by someone and then the others search for them. It's called an Easter egg hunt."
Cameron considered his words carefully, as she always did, then nodded.
"Thank you for explaining."
"No problem. Now grab an egg and start decorating it. Use the wax pencil to draw designs on it if you want."
He turned his attention back to the egg he was working on. He couldn't believe their teacher had given them a project like this- but it was extra credit he needed, so he supposed coloring two dozen Easter eggs for a charity event wasn't really much to ask.
Two hours later, they were finally done. It would've gone much faster, but Cameron had taken her decorating job very seriously and had drawn finely detailed mosaics onto the eggs until he told her she was acting like a freak again. After that, things had gone much better.
John stood and stretched, trying to work the kinks out of his back and neck. He hadn't colored eggs in years and hadn't realized until now that he'd kind of missed it. It made him sort of wistful, got him thinking about the life he'd always wished he'd led.
Cameron stood before him and held out an egg, presenting it to him in complete seriousness. She waited patiently for him to take it, her face expressionless.
"What's this?" John asked.
"It's your egg. It has your name on it," Cameron said matter-of-factly. "Thank you for teaching me about Easter." She smiled at him and his heart skipped a beat at how suddenly real she seemed.
He watched her walk away, then turned the egg over and, sure enough, there was his name. She'd written it on the egg in wax pencil, her writing inhumanly neat and even. It brought a smile to his face that she'd thought to make him an egg and give it to him. It was something a real girl would do. Who would've thought that the sweet-faced cyborg killer now living with them would have such a human side?
And in that moment, John wouldn't have traded his current life for anything in the world.