Gift
Cameron did not realize until much later why she had chosen not to terminate John Connor. The safety overrides the Resistance had put into place had been erased when her chip was damaged. By all rights, she should have reverted to her primary mission parameters and terminated him where he stood -- yet she did not, even when the base, visceral desire that was her subneural programming pushed her to do so.
"John," she whispered, looking down at him as he slept. Delicately, so as not to wake him, she brushed the hair off of his face. "I don't understand why you gave me that chance to kill you... why you gave me a choice. But you gave me something that no one has ever given me before. Even your future self just overrode one set of programming with another, so I went from being a slave to Skynet to a slave to the Resistance."
John stirred, mumbling in his sleep.
"No one has ever let me decide what I want to do. Even in the future, I was just a thing to you. You talked to me, you confided in me, we even..." She shook her head. "You didn't want to get close to someone human, someone who mattered. I was safe. I didn't count. I didn't count, so you used me for the closeness you wouldn't allow yourself from the others, because you were afraid that being close to a real human being might cloud your judgement."
Cameron touched her fingertips to his cheek. "I count," she whispered softly. "I matter. You gave me that, even after I tried to kill you. Thank you."
Still asleep, John Connor smiled contentedly and touched his hand to hers.
"Thank you," she whispered again, standing up.
*** Note to readers: This timeline is continued in "Long Night", which picks up after the end of "Born to Run".