t:scc fic!: weary under the cotton covers of bedtime;
john/cameron;
pg;
a/n: this was quite a challenge for me, as it's hard to put words for a cyborg who has no emotions. but with a little redoing here and there, i think it worked out! :D
she finds it hard to look back on missions. to look back at the future, to see the world in a midst of brown, yellow and red. scraps on the floor. men with guns, children screaming, their eyes bulging out of confusion and fear. and yet, she finds it awkwardly interesting. human behavior was one aspect she could never learn, she heard them saying again and again. because she didn't have a soul.
soul:
"you're clothes are washed."
he doesn't look at her as he places the folded t-shirts on the bed softly, his back angled as he is doing so. the lights bounce around his shiny sneakers, as he tries to find something desperately to hold onto- the musky smell of the dusty cupboards, the stark contrast between his black shirt and the painted walls of the square room. she pauses, thinking of how to form the correct words:
"thank you," she finally gives an unbalanced smile, wasted with no emotion behind it. she knows that it's fake, and so does he. turning around, he sighs, his arm reaching for the golden knob of solitude and escape. at that moment, she feels something mechanical in her steel bones, twisting, a creak, a knob out of place, and her hands suddenly find themselves around his.
"what?" he is tired. his eyes are drooping, but not out of the tired tired, but the other tired; the tiredness of being sad. there is a frown hidden under the straight face. it is almost as if John Connor is frantically trying to pull himself together patch by patch. she breaks apart immediately, frightened at herself and by what she has seen.
"it is nothing. thank you," she repeats, but this time with no smile. repeating oneself was merely a reinforcement, not something happy. yet she is sure that she had felt something, a spark there. it must have been the faded memories of what John from the future had done to her. she could not remember what he did. she was a destroyer one moment, and a protector the next. however, the fact did not change that she was a machine. she was looked down upon humans, and she looked down upon them. it was that way every time. except John Connor. she at first stared at her re-creator in confusion and hatred. but when he had looked at her, it was out of compassion, and not fear. was it love? love was a strong emotion that got people killed and angry. love was a bad emotion; impulsive. but many humans grasped that feeling and hung onto it because they had a soul, as Sarah had stated. that word again.
-but she is crying and she wants to stop him from shedding tears that she does not understand. the roundness of those salt water drops are horrifying; a beam of golden light shedding from underneath those beads of sadness.
a memory that is not hers peeks into her eyes, and she finds an old video of a mother embracing her little boy who is crying. the mother croons and whispers facetious things into the boy's ear, and his crying stops. she too, finds this interesting, and thus goes forward again, her arms open and wide, ready to hold the boy's irregular figure in front of her.
instead, John pulls herforward, close to his warm body. usually she would have taken this as a response of aggression and an override would have been made to push John away so as to not harm him, but she fails again, confused. his breath tingles, and she bathes in his scent of sweat and blood, the scent of a future that will come one day. the future in which she was born- no, built in. his hands scramble for her touch as one clasps her hair and the other cups her face. she finds herself looking directly at those childish eyes again. they are not John the future's eyes, but rather that of a teenager who is afraid. curious, she lays there, not stirring, not moving, and perhaps not even breathing.
"why are you? why are you- why can't you just; don't you get it?" his voice is discordant, unpleasant, screaming. she winces as the sounds drum into her ear, creating a little pain- but she does not move. she wants to know more about this soul. a response tugs at her throat; but she does not answer.
John weeps silently, his tears large and small. his hand loosens on her hair; he begins to move away, releasing the strength from his arms. but she does not let him. she only holds on, her hands curled around his, still looking deep into his eyes. now they are only sad. before there was a spark of angry in them, but now there is just loneliness and John wants to be alone.
"don't go," she tells him, because if he were to go her mission would fail and she would not be able to understand the soul. John stops pulling away, back straight and shoulders aligned. she thinks she hears a whimper almost from there, a sigh escaping from his lips-
and then it all slides and melts away: humanity, missions, future, destruction- those words seem to glaze with no meaning, as he turns around and effortlessly places his lips on hers. a warning of emotional imbalance appears in the back of her mind as his fingers slide over her cheeks and his tongue dips back and forth into her warm mouth. heavy breathing is the only thing she hears now, and instead of looking at his face, she is looking at herself, eyes closed. the warning is blaring loudly now, and it's only a matter of time before it overrides her conscious and she will push him away, but for now it's enough. she is still curious, but in a different sort of manner. her arms wrap around his torso as she kisses him back. for the light bounces off them now.
[insert; warning overriding intermembrane system- unusual balance of emotional activity; default action: evade]
then it is all gone- warmth, electricity, and she is not Cameron anymore but another cyborg, one sent to protect the future messiah of earth. she pulls away, her eyes dark. the mission hovers over their heads like a vulture; form empty, immovable eyes bleak and piecing with death.
it is only before John leaves hurriedly that she decides to place the memory into the category of happiness and not research. she will look back on it one day, when all of this is gone and her final mission is complete. she remembers the promise from future to the John Connor; that they will see each other after the end, one last time. the light will be glowing golden instead of bloody red again, and they will forget broken bonds of human and machine, and that they will be forged anew from then onward. until then, she will fight.
fight to the finish.