Playback-Drabble 1
Started as a little one shot after the Season Finale, specifically episodes 108 and 109, exploded into something more then I'd bargained for, lol. might continue little drabbles together in chapter format, and as the episodes continue, exploring different perspectives of different scenes. Won't be naming them, so only true watchers of the show will know which scene is being narrated. Feedback much appreciated.
John gently put the micro processor back into it's casing on the side of Cameron's head. Look at him, treating her like a person. Forgetting 'she' was an 'it' and almost stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the fact. But it was there, clear as day.
She was a robot.
He pressed the flap of skin he'd cut to get at the piece firmly back in place. It was then that his hands felt how soft her hair was. How delicate and vulnerable she seemed, laid out on the bed, in the gentle lamplight.
Nothing like the machine she was in reality. She was…beautiful. And once upon a time, John had believed Terminators could never be beautiful.
His hand lingered over her hair, slipping some away from her face and stroking it down, looking into her eyes. Empty, lifeless eyes, if for the next 60 seconds, but beautiful eyes.
What was he doing?
She gave a jerk, and he jerked his hand away in unison, supporting himself with that hand on her other side. She looked up at him, the eyes slightly more animated, studying his face and trying to understand the incomprehensible behind it.
He sat back, pulled his arm away, getting slightly warm at what the scene would've looked like had his mom come in.
"So…what was it like…What did you see?" he asked calmly, a small smile on his face as she continued to look at him with a blank stare of innocence, maybe trying to understand that flash of something in John's eyes that he never bothered to hide from her, maybe because he knew she could never understand it.
"I saw everything." she said matter of factly, still staring, coaxing the answer to the forefront of her laboriously constructed synthetic mind. For someone…or something with all the answers, this simple one escaped her.
They sat in silence, staring into each others eyes for some time, John willing that extra spark of life to flare up in hers, and she, an eager to learn machine, trying to learn just what it was John Connor was thinking.
She'd never guess he was thinking about her.
Fire and Brimstone- Drabble 2
"Mom?" John asked, frightened as they walked slowly through the kitchen, Sarah with her gun raised and ready. The explosion had set off neighboring car alarms and the whine wasn't kind to their ears.
The soft and eager sound of flames hissed behind all.
They reached the door. John's head whipped around the front of the house, trying to see who it was Cameron must be fighting now, and what had set off the explosion. But no one was to be seen, except a lone man walking away, almost beyond eye distance now.
He never looked back. Sarah started up the block but John caught her shoulder.
"Oh God…Mom…Cameron!" he could barely take a breath as he stared at the wreckage of their car, immersed in flame, and there was no doubt Cameron had been inside it when it had erupted.
John was shocked to find tears rush to his eyes, the familiar burn he'd felt so many times before rushed forward and slid down his cheeks, unashamed and unafraid.
But then, as they watched, dejected shadows overlooking a massacre, something caught the light within the flames.
Something metallic.
John walked blindly closer to the wreck, eyes bleary with tears but hands outstretched in hope. Sarah pulled him back as she had before. He stood awkwardly watching…waiting…hoping.
The endoskeleton was extremely light reflective, the shine from the flames and sun blinding both John and Sarah.
Sarah's mind immediately flashed to her nightmare, of so long ago it seemed. She hastily pulled John behind her, and held out her gun. If the explosion had altered Cameron's functions, she had to go, no matter what John might scream and plead. He was in no place to judge. She knew that now. And with a hint of disgust she acknowledged the truth. Her son was falling in love with a robot.
The skeleton turned, and Sarah observed it was smaller, more streamlined, and more human like in nature then the one from her nightmare. But this made it all the more frightening.
"Cameron! Cameron! Please!" John shouted from behind Sarah, calling almost in vain.
The shining skeleton turned, and Cameron's face and familiar eyes met them. Half her cheek was torn away by the explosion, and she had several cuts and lesions across most of her forehead and shoulders. The rest of her had been burned clear away.
"There was thermite in the igniter fluid. I smelled it the minute after The key sparked the ignition in the vehicle. Whomever did this planned to destroy me, not you."
She said all this calmly, with a tinny crackle to her voice. The voice transmitter had most likely been damaged as well.
John had recovered himself significantly and he came from behind Sarah, who was still alert if not as defensive as before.
"C-can we find the parts you need? Rebuild you, I mean? Replace skin and all that? Just tell me what I need, I'll get it, I promise." he babbled worriedly, reaching out a hand to touch the metal embedded just under her grazed cheek.
"Don't touch!" she snapped, whipping her head away. "The flames have heated my alloy to unbearable temperatures. Unless you want to lose that finger, I'd stay away."
John's heart thudded wildly in his chest, and he dropped his hand, happy to have all five fingers still attached.
"Yes, all the materials required for my repair are available and easily obtained, with my faculties." she answered his question while walking up to the front door, all the pistons and gears in her legs and arms working energetically to get her there, now exposed for all to see.
"Who did this?" Sarah finally managed to ask, her hand slowly returning the pistol to it's hip holster as they all went back inside, the shock of seeing Cameron blown half to bits now over and other methods of thinking taking over.
"Short man, in his 40's most likely with a 5 o'clock shadow and grey eyes. Walked away from the site but not before looking back at me."
"You got all this from what, 5 seconds of seeing him?" John asked, slightly impressed.
Cameron smiled slightly, which looked oddly grotesque now considering half her upper lip was missing. Her tinny voice crackled even more. "I have a playback function. It's very useful."