Scene 1: John's Perspective
Title: Echoes
Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to the Terminator franchise other than this work. It is not intended for financial gain.
A/N: This is my first attempt at writing something other than a one-shot. This chapter was originally intended to be longer. But it looks like the series is going to use plot devices similar to what I have in mind. I'm worried that will kill my desire to write this so I decided to post it sooner. Hopefully, having it posted will encourage me to finish it.
Chapter 1: Foreshadowing? What's that?
'I should have just gone home.' John thought for easily the tenth time that day. While slowly making his way through the crowded food court, he couldn't help but wonder:
How had his day turned out like this?
All he wanted was to spend some time out of the house, clear his head. Nothing too rebellious; lord knows he'd done far more reckless things. Despite his modest hopes, today had been a total bust. And by now he had a nice long lecture waiting for him at home. He really should have stayed home.
But home had become a very boring place.
It had been two months since they'd lost the Turk's trail. Two months without any new information. Two months spent running down every other lead, no matter unlikely they seemed. Two months without a shootout, a building to break into, or even a security guard to lie to. All in all, two months of relative peace.
And if it didn't end soon his mother was going right back into the nuthouse.
It turns out patience is not one of Sarah Connor's virtues. Granted, having the knowledge of the apocalypse hanging over your head would drive any normal person up the wall. Factor in her control issues…powder keg didn't do it justice.
Not having a target to work towards was really getting to her. At first she'd gotten by with checking all their supplies: guns, money, and first aid. Then she moved on to reexamining their contingency plans in case of: a) police officers, b) robots from the future, c) robots from the future pretending to be police officers, or d) police officers pretending to be robots from the future.
Some of her plans were just weird, even by Connor standards.
A week ago she decided to improve their (John's) eating habits. Yesterday, she started looking over his homework.
Maybe he could get the padded cell next to hers.
So a distraction, any distraction, sounded like a good idea. With no real plan, they'd gone to the mall. And when Morris suggested seeing a movie it seemed like a stroke of genius. Any random movie would do. He could kill a few hours not thinking about the coming apocalypse or overbearing mothers.
So naturally, the random movie had involved machines waging war against humanity.
Who says the universe doesn't have a sense of humor?
But 90 minutes of watching humans fight for survival wasn't the end of it. Morris, who apparently loved the whole series, wouldn't shut up about it. He'd refused to shut up about it for the past half hour.
Taking his seat, John's eyes drifted to his cyborg protector. What had she thought of the movie? She'd probably give him a full list of tactical errors when they got home. He hoped she'd wait till they got home.
He also hoped Morris was done talking about that damn movie.
"I still can't believe you've never seen it before." Morris shook his head. "You guys are so lucky this theatre brought it back."
Could you buy aspirin in a food court?
Morris grinned at them, oblivious to John's annoyance. "So what did you guys think? Awesome, right?"
John just shrugged his shoulders. He hadn't cared for the movie and he certainly didn't want to talk about it. But Morris' attention, like usual, was directed at Cameron.
Cameron, whose attention was focused on the sea of potential threats. No one could accuse a terminator of not taking their job seriously.
"Cam?" John gently prompted.
Cameron halted her scan of the immediate area to glance briefly at Morris.
"The ending is sad," was the soft, matter-of-fact response. John would have grinned, typical Cameron. He would have grinned but she didn't return to her visual sweep. Instead, she turned to John and locked her eyes with his.
"The protagonist dies." She offered as an explanation. And she wasn't talking to Morris at all.
Silence. For the first time all afternoon. John shifted uneasily. Why did she keep staring at him like that? Why did he keep staring back? In the back of his mind he knew they were acting odd, knew it had gone on too long.
Even Morris seemed to sense… something between them. "Ah…everything okay?"
"It's fine." John all but snapped at him.
John tried to ignore the sudden stab of guilt. His current mood wasn't Morris' fault. It didn't even have anything to do with that stupid movie, not really. Lately, it just felt like everything was catching up to him. Skynet, the Turk, his whole life, had him stressed out.
Genetics were a bitch.
John didn't want to take his frustration out on Morris. But hearing him talk about war as entertainment, reveling in the violence and destruction… Still, Morris was his friend and he couldn't just bail on him.
Morris gave a nervous laugh. "The ending was the best part! I mean… of course he dies. But it had everything… explosions, high body count, and that last fight scene!"
To hell with Morris.
They were leaving.
John looked for the closest exit, waiting for Cameron to let the conversation drop. She'd barely said a word all day. John suspected she'd only sat through the movie to stay close to him. Except she didn't let the conversation drop. Instead, as she often did, she tilted her head to the side and looked to John for an explanation.
John. Because Derek rarely spoke to her. Because Sarah just wanted her to obey.
Despite his growing headache, John wanted to help her understand. "Without the war he wouldn't have mattered. People don't want to see their heroes become ordinary. They'd rather see them die at their peak."
"Yes! Exactly," Morris nodded, "Your brother gets it."
"Thank you for explaining."
Morris shot John an exasperated look before stuffing more fries into his mouth.
It was as good an opportunity as any.
John glanced at Cameron, "We should head back." Grabbing his empty water bottle, John headed towards the nearest trashcan.
A panicked Morris barely swallowed before continuing, determined to enlighten his best friend's very attractive sister. How often were humans and machines locked in a struggle for survival? Well, not counting all those other movies.
"Besides, he had to die. He was practically their messiah. That's what they do." Morris smiled hopefully at the brunette.
Silence was Cameron's only response, her eyes never leaving John.
A/N: I bet everyone can guess which movie they saw. It's not important to the story I just wanted to use the parallels. Constructive criticism is always appreciated. Particularly: the flow of the story, character portrayal, etc.