Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: This is set after Judgment Day.
The Face of Death
He wanted to tell her she was right. In this moment, he wanted her to know that it happened just the way she said it would. Tears ran down each cheek and he smiled through the pain. Very soon he wouldn't be feeling anything, and he had mere seconds to celebrate his victory. Their victory. If he had the strength, he would laugh.
This was not the way he thought he would die.
But die he must, as he knew he would the moment he saw his killer's face. It was war after all. People died. Leaders died. Victory is never assured, but death is always a certainty. He knew that from the beginning, but he was John Connor and too many people and too many machines fought to prevent his death, even before he was born, as if his life had more meaning than others.
That was the great joke of it all. Life. She would have understood. She might have even laughed with him.
Of all her secrets, Allison Young was the last one she revealed. Lying on a table with her metal skull exposed, she asked him to forgive her and to turn her body to ash. Her chip was too damaged and she begged him, this time, to let her go. "Make the choice you should have made before. It's the right choice. Destroy my chip and let me go." He simply nodded and she smiled before she told him how he would die, how he would win the war. And just before he removed her chip for the last time, she closed her eyes and whispered, "Allison Young."
Two years and too many battles later, he saw the name on a list of new recruit soldiers. He never got the chance to meet her, but he thought about her every day afterward. And when he slept at night, he was sure he saw her face and not Cameron's in his dreams.
Now, with the smell of burnt flesh and hot metal in his nostrils, John Connor closed his eyes and imagined a world without machines. A world without the machine that was now crouching over his broken body and pulling at his arm as if to see just what would happen if it snapped completely off. He cried out in pain and the machine dropped his arm.
"Why have you closed your eyes?" The voice was familiar but cold and empty, and the question was not cruel or taunting. The metal simply wanted to understand.
"You're going to kill me. Just get it over with," he spat weakly.
The machine grabbed his arm again. "It would help me to understand."
"Fine," he breathed. "Fine. I just don't want to look at you, okay? I don't particularly want yours to be the last face I see on this earth. Okay?"
"Okay." But it was too late. John had opened his eyes and was looking into the face of his death. Death, it seemed, was just as much of a joke as life was, for Death leaned in close, cocked its head to the side and stared blankly into John's eyes. "Thank you for explaining."
John smiled and let the madman's laugh that was building inside him trickle out slowly at first and then rise to an all out cackle. It was pure pain and pure joy. He was dying, but he had won. Just like she said he would. Just like Allison Young had.
It took all his strength just to laugh, and he focused his eyes on his killer deciding that it was fitting that he should look into metal eyes when he died. The machine with the face of death looked on in wonder for a moment as if hesitating to finish the job.
"Close your eyes John Connor," it said putting its hand around John's throat and beginning to squeeze. John grinned and shook his head as he looked up at his own face – the face of death.
End.