Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Harry Potter world or Terminator. Some dialogue borrowed from the second Terminator movie.
Ch. 1
One thing that she had never gotten use to was the humidity. The sweltering heat and moisture in the air always left cloths clinging to the body covering it with sticky sour sweat. Never letting you feel clean.
It was getting harder and harder to even remember what the cold felt like. What snow felt like. The tingle her nose got in the presence of frost. The chill of the wind whipping through her hair while running about playing in the newly fallen powder. Ice creeping up the windows of the castle.
The warm wood of her wand as she-
No. That was all gone.
The cool steal of a firearm was all she needed now. Not some long forgotten dream.
Her eyes flew open, sleep instantly gone as her body detected an unfamiliar weight pressing down on her chest. Trapping. Smothering. Confiding.
It was an arm.
Alert she slowly turned her head and noticed the body it was attached to.
Current lover number, whatever.
This one a member of the cartel, like most of the others around. Although a bit further up the food chain than the previous ones she had taken to her bed. It was easier to stay with the criminals, they lasted longer and were less willing to ask questions as long as she carried her weight. The rebels were always changing, each ready to martyr themselves for the cause and the government officials always wanting to make reports to superiors.
It was the way things worked down here and she needed to stay off the ever growing Grid.
She found someone she needed. Someone with some skill that John needed to know. If they needed some more persuasion, she wasn't opposed. They would shack up for a few months, and then she would move on.
Her heart had long grown cold for the need of a companion. She even could convince herself that the memory of Kyle could no longer make her cry.
What did that make her?
It didn't matter.
John was everything, their only hope. Her whole life. He would have all the training she could provide. Nothing would stop her. She had always been single minded with any goals she had, this was no different.
She would make him into a solider. Make him capable of the tasks he would one day face.
God. He was growing up so fast.
He began to crawl, then walk, then run. Always moving. Always asking questions she wasn't prepared to answer.
He was so curious. Just like she had been at that age.
She didn't want to lie, but how could she tell him the whole truth. Stories of his father, the hero were easy. Telling him of the destruction to come, a necessity.
Opening up about her childhood and a world of magic, impossible.
She had watched and waited for the signs. Anticipation and dread twisting her stomach as the years passed.
But nothing. It never came.
Her boy would never be a wizard. He had no magic.
It saddened her that they would never have that connection even if she wasn't really a witch anymore. At the same time she was relieved that one more complication could be avoided. Crossed timelines, sending John to school with a young Hermione and the impending rise of Voldemort didn't bare thinking about.
Awful things happened to wizards who meddled with time.
What would happen to her? What would her price be in all of this? Those questions haunted her in the early hours. Plaguing her with self-doubt.
Was this really for the best? Changing her boy into a solider for a cause he didn't really believe in. She was so harsh on him. She had to be.
He thought she was crazy with her stories of machines from the future.
Sometimes she could almost agree with him.
What happened to the girl who went through life with a plan for everything?
The rational creature who was logical and clearheaded. When had her nightmares begun to haunt her day?
Reality had slowly begun to slip away as the years passed. She was no longer cautious with her stories doom. The knowledge was shared with anyone in the area willing to hear. They whispered of her madness. The crazy gringa with her stories of the End Days.
What could she do? She had to at least try.
The day finally came when the heat became too much. She had made one too many enemies amongst the gun runners and the DEA was becoming an increasing risk to her many contacts. It was time to head back to the States before something happened.
Back to a simple life of a small time waitress just trying to make ends meat. A single-mom in one backwater town after another.
Always moving, always watching.
John began to realize his childhood wasn't a normal one.
Her days were tormented by the progress around her. The Information Age was here. Computers were becoming increasingly prevalent and she knew it wouldn't stop, remembered what the future held. Technology was on the rise.
It would keep rising with no stop. Build momentum. Crush them under a wave of programs and megabits bent on their destruction.
Every second of everyday drew them closer to the end. She couldn't let it happen. It had to stop. She had to stop it.
She had to try.
After all there was no fate, but what she made of it.