It had all started with a parade.
With the Thanksgiving holiday coming up, Derek had begun by dreaming of the traditional holiday feast—roast turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie, green bean casserole—the works. But it hadn't been long before he started reminiscing about parades. The Macy's Thanksgiving parade. Before long, it had become an obsession—a boyhood dream he had never realized, a dream he now could fulfill for himself.
They hadn't know he could whine so incessantly, so long.
"Fine! Damnit, it's as if I have a three year old GIRL living in my house," Sarah growled, slamming her glass down on the kitchen table. "We'll go to New York for Thanksgiving," she grumbled, as she left the table.
They had taken the train—Cameron's metal skeleton and Derek's status as a fugitive made airplane travel impractical. And four long days later, three humans, with Cameron in tow, arrived in Penn Station in New York City. The humans were cranky, smelly and irritable, ready to kill each other.
Cameron didn't get cranky. And she always smelled the same—a mix of lavender smelling detergent and that oddly slightly minty sscent that had made John start to associate Colgate with sex. If she was at all irritated, it didn't show.
It was Wednesday night, and after they checked into their absurdly expensive hotel (that had only forced them to sell one diamond), they had gone out to get pizza at Patsy's before dutifully trooping up to the Upper West Side for the traditional midnight staging area party.
Even Sarah had found it difficult to stay grouchy in the midst of the family-friendly party atmosphere. As the balloonists finished attaching the riggings and inflating the giant Snoopy, Sponge Bob, and Spider-Man figures, the food vendors began selling grilled sausages, gyros, skewers, lemonade, hot cider—all of which Derek insisted on trying.
Gazing up at the many balloons, Cameron tugged at John's sleeve. "I don't understand. Humans find these balloons … fun?"
"Yeah, I guess," John shrugged, leaning close to make himself heard without shouting. He didn't need to bother, what with Cameron's sensitive hearing. But whatever excuse worked, he would take.
"Is it how big they are? Is bigger better? I heard the boys at schools say that size doesn't matter," she said, confusedly.
John choked, causing her to thump his back—a little too hard. Trying to change the subject, he said, "Hey, look! Curly fries!"
The parade had been everything a New York City event is. Crowded. Frantic. Chaotic. Fun. They mingled with the other tourists, and with the newly minted Manhattanites who had decided to stay in the city for the holiday weekend for novelty's sake.
Then it came. Sarah and John had missed one of the most central events in the country's history due to their time jump, and Sarah had felt they owed it to themselves to truly understand the reality of it. So they had hopped onto the W train and headed downtown. To a stop that had once had a different name.
Now the world knew it as Ground Zero.
From an empirical standpoint, it really wasn't much. A massive hole in the ground, not much different from dozens of others around New York City where new skyscrapers were about to materialize and reach for the skies.
But this one was different. Solemnity pervaded the air, and the emotional weight of this site was obvious to all who had come to remember, to seek understanding, to acknowledge. To grieve.
Derek uttered an obscenity. And then another. He closed his eyes, tears seeping through between his fingers as he buried his face in his hands. Witnessing Ground Zero—something he had never done before Judgment Day—had shattered his halcyon memories. In his mind, before Skynet had come online, all had been well, everyone had been happy, and the world had been at peace. Now he was forced to acknowledge that even his memories were unreliable. The world had never been an easy place, not in his lifetime.
Sarah look down in disbelief. For so long, she had focused on the threat to come, never realizing that there had been more than one of them. And she had wondered if they were missing the point in their single-minded focus on just one future, uncertain threat. Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the chain-link fence that surrounded what had once been the Twin Towers. She, too, closed her eyes.
John didn't know what to think. He knew that he was expected to someday lead men and women through devastation that exceeded this. But that had been an intellectual abstraction. This was real, and terrible and unfathomable. He wasn't sure how New York's Finest and New York's Bravest had coped. He wasn't sure he could have, but he resolved to live up to their example.
Cameron stared. If she ignored the sounds of the living city around her, if she limited her vision to just this immediate area, it was what had existed in her future everywhere. Yet this was not the future. It was now, and there was no Skynet. Humans had done this. She looked at Sarah. "This was a military installation?"
Wordlessly, Sarah shook her head.
"A government facility?" she asked Derek. He grunted in negation.
"A spy headquarters?" she asked John.
"No," John whispered. "It was just a building. A building where thousands of people merely went to work everyday, hoping to build a career and make things better for themselves and their families."
"Then why was this site attacked?" Cameron asked.
"Because," Sarah said. "Because Skynet is not the only source of evil in the world. It might not even be evil. It might just be a reflection of the evil that lives in men's hearts—only more efficient."
"I do not understand," Cameron said.
"Nobody does," Derek told her. He walked away. "I need to be alone," he called over his shoulder. "I'll see you guys back at the hotel."
After a while, Sarah had followed suit. "I need a drink," she told them. "Cameron, stay with John," she said. At Cameron's nod, Sarah walked away, clearly in search of the nearest dive bar.
That left Cameron and John.
"Is this what Thanksgiving is?" she asked him.
He shook his head. "No," he said.
"What is it?"
"It's a chance to take stock," he said, taking her hand in his as he slowly walked west toward Broadway. "To acknowledge that while things aren't perfect, that we all have things to be thankful for. To cherish each other."
Cameron looked at John. "I feel thankful," she told him.
"You?" John said, startled. "You feel thankful? For what?"
"I am thankful that you fought for me and did not burn me," she said seriously. "I am thankful that I have the chance to know you as you are now, and not just as you will become. To see what it is that you are all fighting to recapture in the future.
"I am thankful you are alive, and I am with you," she said, not looking at him. She leaned her head on his shoulder, a gesture that caused John's eyes to widen in surprise.
After a while, she asked, "John? What are you thankful for?"
He pulled her closer, hugging her with one arm tightly. "The same things you are, Cam. The same things you are."