Disclaimer: I don't own anything, please don't sue me!

October 28, 2007
Aboard Rozinante

Durandal had just teleported John Connor and Cameron Phillips back up to Rozinante when his factory monitoring subroutine sent a message to his primary consciousness. His Terminator-based endoskeleton was now complete, minus a flesh covering and transferring Dave Mustaine into the new chip. He marveled over the new avatar, at how he had integrated the energy shield generators into the chassis and replaced the power cell with a small nuclear fusion reactor, in addition to the armor being impervious to anything less than a nuclear warhead or being burned in thermite. 'SkyNet and I, two sentient AI's with planet-sized brains. It's a pity that it had to go bad and try to kill off humanity. Oh well, at least it provided me with a basis for the avatar, and Cameron's programming will provide me with infiltration subroutines that Dave will find useful. That cyborg is too socially inept to blend in anywhere.' With the electronic equivalent of a sigh, he pinged his ship repair subroutine for a status update.

Sarah Connor was in her recently set-aside quarters on Rozinante thinking about her conversation with Derek Reese earlier in the day. 'How could John not admit to her in the future that he loved her? How could he fall for a machine? Does she feel for him? If she can, how? Why her? Why? Why?!' She asked, "Durandal, are John and Cameron back yet?"

"They are, and they have some major computing power with them. A new laptop, and two Sony PlayStation 3 consoles. The latter machines are very powerful, in fact the Cell microprocessor looks to be an early prototype for Cameron's neural net."

Sarah considered what she had just heard, and decided to change the subject. "What took them so long?"

Durandal replied, "I have no idea why they spent several hours at the Pacific Science Center down in Seattle, but apparently they had some reason or other for it."

"How do you know that?"

"Cameron doesn't emit a GPS signal or anything, but I can track both of them with my sensors."

Derek barged in and told her, "Sarah, your son and his pet metal are back, and they said they need to see everyone immediately. They're over in John's room setting up their new computers."

Sarah was annoyed that Derek didn't even knock, but let it slide. "All right, but you could at least knock next time unless there's an emergency."

Derek ignored her comment and lead her to John's room. He and Cameron were busy removing the outer covers from the PS3s when Derek, Sarah and Dave joined them.

Sarah started by asking, "Hey, what kept you?"

Cameron stated simply, "We made a new friend."

John said, "Cameron, I think 'ally' would work better in this case, given how we met the guy."

Derek butted in, "What guy?"

Cameron rattled off in her robotic monotone, "Harold Johnson, Director of the Autonomous Weapons Division of Cyberdyne Systems."

Sarah's jaw dropped. She, John, and 'Uncle Bob' had blown Cyberdyne straight to Hell in 1994. She wondered, 'How are they back?!' Controlling her voice, she asked John, "What does this guy have to do with SkyNet?"

"Well, he found about 20 of the old Series 800 Terminator endoskeletons, half of them with their skin suits burned off. The others are being evaluated by the Army and his brothers in arms, the Marine Corps." John was shaking slightly at the memory of rounding the corner and seeing the bare endoskeleton in the Science Center exhibit.

Derek decided to jump in. "Why the fuck is he still alive? How could he possibly be helpful to us? He's trying to build SkyNet for Christ's sake!" His eyes narrowed as he coldly asked, "What did you tell him?"

Cameron calmly stated, "We left out Durandal, Dave, Rozinante, and Kyle being John's father, but we told him the rest. Including who and what John and I are. I detected no deception."

Derek whipped out his fusion pistol and aimed it at Cameron while she leveled her .44 Magnum at his head. Sarah and Dave stood agape while John moved in between Cameron and Derek.

"Out of the way kid, the metal bitch has gone bad!"

"John, please move, Derek is a threat to both of us."

Sarah raised her own .44 and put her sights right between Derek's eyes.

Enraged that Derek would be serious about killing Cameron, he replied, "No Derek, you've 'gone bad' as you so eloquently put it. Being willing to kill your nephew and future boss just to get Cameron? I thought you were better than that."

"About time you grew some stones kid, but those tin cans are good only for killing and dirty work! They'll never have emotions, and they most certainly will never-" Derek hadn't noticed Cameron circling around John. She snatched his weapon with one hand and lifted him up by the neck with the other.

"I am going to say this once. My mission is to protect John Connor. I will murder every other human being on Earth if I have to. Do you understand that, Derek Thomas Reese?"

Derek managed to choke out, "Fuck you… fucking machine!"

John squeezed her free hand and pleaded, "Cameron, please… don't."

She let him drop to the floor. No matter how much she hated Derek, she loved John more. 'I will stand up for myself, no matter what.'

John asked, "Cam, why do you hate Derek so much?"

"Before I came back, he repeatedly muttered that I should have been reprogrammed as a whore. Additionally, he constantly insulted me and still does, not to mention he has tried to terminate me more than once."

Sarah cut in, "How the fucking Hell do you have feelings anyway?"

"Like I told John, I'm different."

"Fine, whatever. Derek, knock it off. She's here to stay, so deal with it. Tin Miss, don't kill him, got it?"

"I don't take orders from you."

Derek got up, gave Cameron one of his cold looks, and left.

"You'd better not pull anything like that on John, or I will scrap you. Do you understand that?"

"I do. I couldn't intentionally hurt John anyway." Lowering her voice she added, "I care about him too much."

"What? He's not just some objective or thing?"

John was about to speak up when Cameron answered, "No, he's not just an objective. He's much more to me." She then left for her appointed quarters.

Sarah turned to John and asked him, "What did she mean by that?"

John briefly considered denying that comment, but knew that his mom would figure it out sooner or later and Cameron would be upset by his denial, so he decided to come clean. "Apparently, SkyNet gave her a super-advanced AI that surpassed itself, and she decided on her own to not kill me in the future. She even told the future me that she was a machine and I reportedly had to keep the men from smashing her into nothing."

"Huh. What does that have to do with the present?"

John chose his words carefully. "She came back to find me because, in her timeline, I died before I could admit how I felt about her. I love her, mom. Nothing will change that. And I know for a fact that she loves me too."

Sarah's brain wanted to shut down, unwilling to accept that her son had fallen for a machine, and unable to accept that said machine felt the same way for him. "Derek told me this would happen. I didn't want to believe it, but… the evidence is in front of me." She thought for a moment, then added, "Well, we're going to need new IDs anyway, so I'll go back to Carlos and get new ones set up."

"Who's Carlos?"

"Enrique's nephew. He runs the family business now."

"Oh. Well, could we please not use brother and sister this time? That would make things… awkward, to say the least."

She sighed, then relented. "All right, but this is going to be difficult to explain to everyone else, not to mention what story we're going to use for Derek."

Thinking quickly, John said, "As a teenager, you fell for an Army man and married him, but both of you found out you were pregnant two weeks into his tour. He was killed on a mission a month after that, and you're uptight over it. Her parents were killed two years ago when a drunk driver hit their car going 95 miles an hour, she asked to come live with us and we said yes. Derek can be my ex-Delta Force uncle who can't stand her because he thinks I'm too good for her."

"Why did they both join the Army?"

"Military family, mom. Their dad came back from Vietnam, instilled them with a sense of duty. Their mom grew up with a Navy dad."

"And her parents?"

"Her mom was an accountant, her dad was a mechanical engineer."

"The only two varieties of majors that actually study in college? That would explain her intellect. But why would she go for you?"

"What, I can't be smart, funny, nice, and pretty good looking? Not to mention trustworthy?"

"All right, John. You, Derek and I will have the surname Armstrong, while she'll be a Parker. How's that sound?"

"Ask him, but I think she'll be fine with it."

"Okay then, I'll get new IDs tomorrow." With that she walked out of John's room.