Disclaimer: Not a single one of these characters, implied or stated, belongs to me. They belong to brilliant writers who created them, and in their genius, committed them to paper.

Summary: Derek Reese watches the monster who haunts his dreams do something of which he does not think terminators capable.

Author's Note: This is a very brief, even more brief than I had intended, story following the events of "The Demon Hand."


It was the sound of the music that drew him. Those beautiful, horrible notes that haunted him while he slept. He had been certain he would never hear the tune again outside the nightmares involving a terminator in a dark basement.

He wasn't there anymore. No one knew what he'd told. At least that was how it had been until he found her here.

Again.

This thing seemed to follow Connor in every time. His metal shadow.

Now here he stood, looking into the mostly closed door of the bedroom Sarah and John Connor let a monster occupy.

It was dancing.

Not because it had to mimic in order to gain information. Not because it thought others were watching and her behavior would result in them perceiving it as something other than the thing it was.

They didn't make terminators to dance. They made them to kill.

Connor was possessive of this one. He and everyone else knew it. He had thought that the reason for Connor's safeguarding was that he had been responsible for reprogramming the damned thing. Yet here he was, nineteen years from when Connor had reprogrammed his little pet, and he still protected it.

Like it was human.

His head shook, eyes becoming blurred as tears filled them.

She was dancing. God help him, she was dancing. She was dancing for no other reason than the most simple, human excuse.

She wanted to.