Good Night Big Moon, Sweet Dreams Baby
The snow had been falling as gentle as a mother's touch through the dark New York streets of the early morning. The lights of Manhattan where slightly different tonight, most of it was due to the city's colorful cornucopia of Christmas decorations that had been hung and wrapped around small business windows and sidewalk lamps .
The chill and the clacking of shoes on the slippery snow covered walkways added a strange stillness to the row houses on the fringes of Central Park. Shadows of snowflakes glided across their doors and shutters by the glow of the streetlight hidden in the cobblestone walkway and obscured by the trees.
Walking past metal barred fences and windows, Sarah Connor noticed that lights were starting to come on in the kitchen and living room windows as she passed countless homemakers and early birds starting their morning regimen just before the chaos of the family morning or holiday travel.
Sarah tightened her long black pea coat around her slender body and held onto her beanie when a frigid gust rushed over her, blowing some crusted snow off her long black curls. It had been a hard shift at the diner and looking forward to a nice good hibernation for the rest of the weekend and through Christmas.
Walking passed a window she stopped a moment when she saw through the glass the figure of a teenage girl with long thick black hair dancing around her kitchen in her pajamas. In her arms a little baby was laughing and clapping as the girl sang. While she swayed her hips and checked on the pancakes, the baby stuck its head out over the mother's shoulder and looked out the window and spotted Sarah. It tilted its head at her in silent observation and then gave her a toothless grin. A sad smile tugged at the woman's lips and she continued on her way down the slippery street.
She remembered the way she used to dance with John when he was young. He would always be too little to remember those days when his teenage mother was relying on books and memories of her nannies idle chats on how to take care of him. He would never remember a time when all it took was the right song on the radio or on a record player and he would be was in her arms. She spun him around the room serenading him for no other reason but to make the baby giggle.
A tear ran down her cheek as she stood idly on the New York City side walk staring at Christmas lights that twinkled like the covered star fields above her head. He would never remember all those nights in her arms, never blush at the stories or glare at her nostalgic smiles.
John was gone now.
It broke Sarah's heart to think that her child would never come into her room with a cup of coffee and talk to her for the entire morning lounging in their night clothes. Never make room for her in bed when they had no heat in their apartment, because the furnace broke and they had no money to fix it.
Watching the skyline she remembered why she was here. John always wanted to see Christmas in New York. There had been several times that she had overheard him and Cameron discuss a road trip here this year. It seemed only right that they came, that she came. It was what he would've wanted.
When Sarah closed her eyes on the rest of the way back home she could imagine the phantom weight of a three year old sitting on her shoulders. He would be half awake but the snow would make him smile. He would stick out his tongue, trying to catch snowflakes or silently watch the colored lights taking in all the new sights. John was never too talkative in his younger years. Sarah thought something was wrong at first, but she learned later on that he was just trying to be like her.
When she finally reached number twenty one on Prescott she paused. The row house had a bare tree sticking out of the concrete and fenced off next to a narrow staircase leading to a heavy door at the top. She cleared her throat and cleaned off her eyes. The last thing she needed was for Cameron to see her cry.
Every time a single tear came out, the machine was there to watch her. She always had that curious yet guilty look on her face like she should be doing something. Sarah hated when she got that look in her eyes, because than she would begin to question her own beliefs. She would start to see her the way John did. She would start to see her as a person, not a machine, and not an incubator.
Cameron's pregnancy and how she felt about it came in waves. When she first learned of it, Sarah wasn't sure if it was real. She was angry with her for seducing her son, for letting his hormones get her into his bed. There was even a time when she thought that it might be some trick … machines don't have babies. Then after Sarah finally accepted that John was truly gone she found that she was glad for the pregnancy. Sarah had no pictures of John, nothing she could hold on to that was exclusively his. Now there was something that she could forever hold on to and love.
However it was no picnic living with a knocked up Terminator. The machine predictably had little regard for her safety or that of the babies despite the countless lectures about it. There was also the fact that the machine ate like a horse every six hours. Apparently the construction and the action to maintain the fetus and keep it alive inside a synthetic reproductive system was hard work and required many hormone supplements. Cameron had told her one night that the fetus was only for appearance's sake in emergency of blown cover and that she wasn't designed to actually carry it for a full term.
Sarah warned her before she went to bed that Cameron was only alive as long as the fetus was. If she harmed the baby or let it die, Cameron wouldn't be long for this world. The threat seemed to hurt the machine, as if somehow she was insulted that Sarah would need to threaten her for the baby's safety.
With a deep sigh the woman walked up the steps to the row house and extracted a key. The old squeaky door knob made her cringe as she pushed the door open. She had wanted to oil the damn thing, but Cameron told her that a squeaky door was the simplest yet most effective home invasion deterrent.
The inside was dark and shadowy as it usually was when she got home. Sarah began to worry just a little bit when she would come home to find her roommate alone sitting unmoving in the shadows. Of course she knew that Cameron could see in the dark and therefore didn't need the light for anything, but still Sarah couldn't help but feel that there was something deeply psychological about the machines state of mind, sitting alone in the dark.
"Cameron!"
Sarah discarded her jacket and pulled off her beanie, shaking her long hair free of snowflakes. There was no answer coming from the dark living room and kitchen down the hall. To her right she saw a dining room with a handsome table cluttered with gun parts.
"Cameron?" She called again untying her apron around her waist and tossing it on the entrance table along with her outerwear. She unbuttoned several buttons on her waitress uniform and sighed comfortably at the warmth in the apartment.
There was a thump from upstairs and the running of water from the bathroom sink. The woman counted that as odd, Cameron rarely went into the bathroom unless it was to shower. Sarah frowned and walked toward the stairs, placing a foot on the step, she was about to go up when she decided not to.
Shaking her head, she moved through the hall into the spacious living room and toward their tall Christmas tree. It was a plastic one, fake and artificial, a Terminator tree. Cameron hadn't liked her calling it that. Reaching back she plugged the lights in and watched the living room light up with a myriad of colors that made Sarah smile just a little bit. The girls had put it up a couple weeks ago while watching an animated special on television. Sarah had been very sad at such an empty home she was making with the machine, but it wouldn't be for long. Soon there would be a baby in her life again, and Sarah Connor was a full believer that a baby even in the belly had to be surrounded by a good environment.
Most nights Sarah would make Cameron get into bed with her and she would read fairy tales and other books to the baby bump, her hand on Cameron's belly throughout. Cameron had frowned at the action, but when Sarah told her that babies can recognize voices in the womb, the girl maybe took it a little too much to heart. Sarah had been an embarrassed observer of many one sided conversations the cyborg had with the fetus in public places and clothing stores in Manhattan.
From the stairs the sound of steps squealing caught the woman's attention but she didn't turn around to face them. She just tilted her head at the tree.
"I thought I told you to turn the tree on before I got home … I like looking at the lights." She called to the figure behind her. There was no answer as the sound of bare feet padded ever closer to her. Sarah rolled her eyes. "And don't walk around barefoot, you might be able to withstand the cold, but the baby can't." She nagged with a sigh.
Suddenly she could smell the thick whiff of blood heavy in the air behind her. She sniffed out loud, thinking that she was imagining it, but it was there, almost as if she was snorting iron. Then she heard it, the soft familiar sound of tiny cuing of a little voice. Sarah whirled on a dime about facing where she was standing.
Cameron looked almost haunting in the soft glow of the lights. The girl looked deathly pale and bloodless, Sarah almost felt the need to pinch her cheek for some blush. Her dark ringlets fell to her lower back off setting with the silken night gown she wore that fit snuggly to her. There was a frightened chill that went up the waitress's back at the almost ghostly lady in white look the young beauty gave off. The girl gave Sarah a look of innocence as she looked down in to her arms where she cradled something squirming.
Quietly she stepped forward into the light and showed Sarah what she was holding. The new born looked pink and squishy as he cued softly. His head was soft and covered with thick black curls that made Sarah gasp and sniffle at the sight of him.
"His name is Ryan …" Cameron gently passed the squirmy baby in her arms to Sarah who had been scared only hours ago that she wouldn't remember how to take care of a baby. But with some long unused reflexed she took the little baby boy in her arms expertly.
A rush of love came over Sarah as she held him close. She sniffled loudly as tears suddenly came to her eyes for reasons she couldn't comprehend. The baby looked much like his mother, her nose, her cheek bones, but the strength that was in his golden brown eyes was familiar almost like a part of her soul. When the baby looked at her, it made a soft sound and reached his tiny little hands under chin, and for a moment Sarah had John back.
"He's one of the most perfect things I've ever seen." She looked up in tears at the girl who watched the baby with distant eyes, yet there was some sad longing in them that the woman swore she was imagining.
Cameron gave the child one last look. "He's hungry" She said distantly.
Sarah looked down at her chest. She had gone through a sympathetic pregnancy for the last couple of months, she had joked that she was the skinniest pregnant women on the planet, Cameron didn't laugh. Her cheeks flushed a little when she felt herself lactate, which obviously the machine saw somehow.
"It's been awhile … but I think I remember how to do it." She smiled back down at the baby who kicked his little feet, his eyes closed and making little noises.
But she got no reply from the machine. She looked up to find that Cameron had long since walked away. Sarah glared for a moment before finding the baby again. She smiled softly and rocked him back and forth.
"Hi … we haven't been properly introduced." She said walked toward the couch. "My name is Sarah … your daddy was my baby … which makes you part mine as well." Sarah sniffed again. "That makes me your grandmother …" the statement made her look at the tree and laugh because the absurdity of it. "I can't believe it, I've traveled eight years in the future stopped Judgment Day at 27 and now a grandmother at 33." The baby made an amused sound.
She looked back down with a toothy grin at the baby. "I might not be your mom … but we'll always be together and when you're old enough, I'll tell you about your dad." She began to strip out of her uniform with one hand.
In the shadows of the hallway Cameron watched Sarah pull down the top of her uniform to her waist, but her eyes were on the baby in her arm. A single tear fell down her cheek as she watched the two of them.
"I couldn't protect you, John … but I can protect him."
She took her jacket off the peg and walked out the door. She thought it would be the last time she would be a part of her child's life.
Author's Notes
Another "Because the Night" related one shot … I think I'm just writing what I feel like. Kind of ignoring my structured stories, no real reason, Just feel like writing some of these little shorts. The slow family moments sort of makes me happy to write.
This story was referred to by Sarah when she and John were talking in bed in one of the final chapters of the story. Ryan was born in a bathtub in Sarah and Cameron's house.
As for the Sarah stripping for breast feeding … Cameron can't breast feed so that's how that went down. Also I'm going to be seriously honest here. In all the times that I've helped girls out of their bras it never seemed all that comfortable for them pulling down one cup when it came to your standard bra. So knowing nothing about breast feeding babies I figured that Sarah would probably have to go topless for this current feeding. It's all logistical I guess.
If there is anyone out there who knows if that's accurate than let me know.
To people who don't know, John is not dead. He, Derek, and Future!Ryan are prisoners in a Mexican tower fortress.
Title is from the Michelle Branch song "Crazy Ride" which is really a touching song.
R&R