She's just a machine. She doesn't have a soul.

My own voice echoes back and forth in my head as we head back to the house. I'm still staring at the chip as I walk. A fact which is not unnoticed by my Uncle.

"You're too close to her John." He's clearly not happy about it.

"Yes." I hear my voice say. "I am."

Derek wasn't expecting that. He's stunned into silence.

She's just a machine. She doesn't have a soul.

But she does. I'm holding it in my hand. It's no less of a soul just because its made from software. What is a human soul made from, that it has more value?

I will not share these thoughts with my uncle.

"What was it like?" I ask her. I'm leaning over her and she smells human. How can she smell like a beautiful girl? "What did you see?"

"I saw everything." Her tone never changes, unless she's mimicking something. I wish I could believe she was just a machine. Just a machine in the way Cromartie is, like the T-1000 was...

She runs a hand slowly through her hair. "I should fix this."

I step away from her slowly. "Yeah. Um. Welcome back Cameron. I'm glad you're okay."

"Thank you."
I come into the living room and see Derek and my Mom sitting side by side at the table. One look is enough to tell me that they've been talking. Probably planning an intervention.

"Did it work?" my Mom asks me.

"I don't know, we didn't get into that yet." I tell them honestly.

Derek look at my Mom like I just proved a point.

"Sit down John." Wow, this must be serious, mom's actually being gentle.

I sit down across from them.

Mom is struggling to say this. It's almost amusing to watch. "John…" She says finally. "I understand why you want to trust her, and I understand how you can see her as more than… you're a young man, and she, her outside anyway, is very attar-"

Yeah. This isn't amusing any more.

"Let me stop you right there." I tell her. "When we were pulling the chip out, she told me, that it's not the first time I'd done it. And then I understood."

"Understood what?" Derek asked me.

"What a cold, calculating bastard I'm going to grow up to be." I tell them. The words are clear, honest, and powerful.

My mom is taken aback, and goes straight to worry. Self-pity is not something unusual for me. "John…"

"Mom, I love you, but shut up and listen." I tell her. This is the strangest feeling. It's electric, it's empowering. "I could have sent back any machine. I could have sent back another one like the big guy, but I chose her. And I did it, because it was the only way to get ready."

"What do you mean?"

"You were right mom. I am feeling things for her. Things I shouldn't. When my future self sent her, he knew I would. How could I not? She's not freaked out by my life, she's not scared off by the machines that hunt me, and she's harder to kill than the three of us put together. Everything in my life is because of those machines. How could I not see them as more than just robots?"

There's a measured silence. Derek is looking ready to kill somebody. Mom is looking almost embarrassed. "When... when you were ten years old, just before I went after Miles Dyson... I saw you with the Terminator, and I knew he'd do anything to stay with you, to look after you, to protect you. I remember thinking, that of all the would-be fathers that came and went over the years, a Terminator was the only one till then that measured up."

Derek is giving my mom that same look now. Welcome to the Connor family Derek.

But to my mom, I nod. "There you go. Cameron, she is powerful, she is graceful, and she knows what I will become better than you do. She is the odd-one-out, she is unprepared for the world she lives in, and she has trouble fitting when surrounded by people that look exactly like she should belong. She is my opposite number in almost every way."

"What does any of this have to do-"

"Derek, I'm not finished." I actually see Derek straighten his shoulders instinctively, and then I know. He's heard me speak this way before. Just like Cameron.

"Cameron is my guardian angel, but for all the things she knows, she is childlike about so many things, needing me to explain about the present, as she explains things about the future in turn. About the machines, about the war. And one day, unless Cameron gets herself blown up, torn apart, or otherwise we lose her, it will be too dangerous for us to keep her around. And when that day comes, I will terminate the machine myself. And I wont let the fact that she's beautiful stop me. And I won't let the fact that her whole purpose for being is to protect me, get in the way. And if my feelings for her are too strong, it'll be enough to harden me when I pull the plug on her. And twenty years from now, I'll know that I need that. I'll think back to what I was when this started, and know that I wasn't strong enough, and I will pick a beautiful, graceful, fascinating machine to be the one that makes me harder than nuclear nails. Then I'll be ready."

Mom is speechless. Not at the sentiment, because I know she agrees. She's speechless because my voice is pure steel. It's a tone she never expected me to have.

"So yes Mom, I am getting emotional over the machine." I tell her. "And Yes Derek, I am getting too close." I tell him. "I am, because I have to, and because when my future self sent her back, he knew I would. So mom, don't ever tell me to toughen myself up emotionally, and Derek, don't ever think I've taken my eye off the ball. I took care of that the second I realized what Cameron was, and that she was different to the others that came before. Because when I personally tear her down to her wires, and disassemble her, piece by piece, there won't be a war left that Skynet can throw at me, which I won't be ready to fight." I look at mom hard. "It won't be the first time someone we love dies to keep me safe a bit longer, for the sake of a war that hasn't started yet."

I can see my father's name form on her lips silently and something akin to sympathy lights her eyes.

I am now officially my mother's son.

And then I turn and walk away from them. Cameron is standing right behind me, but I do not flinch, I do not even acknowledge her presence. For a machine, she's incredibly light on her feet.

Cameron barely looks at me as I pass her, but I can feel her eyes follow me down the hallway.

When I get to my room I hear her speak to my mother and uncle. "Now he's John Connor."

I'm proud of myself. I make it all the way into my room before I break down and sob.

I never wanted to be General Connor. I never wanted any part of it, I never cared. Then Cameron came along. Yes, I am attracted to her. Yes, I am developing feelings for her, and yes, I find her absolutely fascinating. And that is how I will prepare. Because I am fascinated by her, and I want to know everything I can about her, and about how we met, and how she came to work for the resistance, and why I sent her back. All of a sudden I want to know, I want to know, just because it's her that will tell me. I want to know how I rose to lead. I want to know what tactics I used, I want to know how I win. And she won't tell me everything, because I forbade her to. And tonight I realized why. Why I ordered her not to share everything at once.

Because it was the only way to keep me asking.

I am fascinated by this machine. By how she moves, by how she thinks, by where she came from. And by who sent her. By my future self. What he's like, who his friend's are…

Only the enemy can tell you what the enemy will do. Only the enemy can tell you how the enemy will react. And when I need to have the answers to these questions, I will have them. And I will use the lessons she teaches me, to lead my demoralized, endangered race through the ashes of ruined earth, prepare them to fight, to win.

And ultimately, to blow Cameron and every single one of her kin from the face of the earth, with the fury of god's own thunder.

I held her soul in the palm of my hand tonight, and god forgive me, I was already thinking of ways to make use of that knowledge in battle.