Author's note:

This is the third and final part of my Christmas story, continuing from where we left off in part two. You should have read part one and two for this to make any sense. And don't forget that the last two episodes of season 2 never happened here.

Cameron's Christmas
(part three)

Chapter One

The polished surface of the door stared back at the future saviour of mankind, beckoning him, daunting him. It had all been too good to be true. How could be have expected her to feel the same? How could he have expected her to stay with him, to watch over him, to guard him as he fell asleep, just because he had watched over her?
A chasm opened up inside him and he gulped, trying to force down the sudden ill feelings he had towards her. Feelings that made no sense whatsoever.
Cameron was only doing her duty after all, eliminating a security risk, ensuring his safety as always.
She's doing it for me…

Again and again he told himself that same line before he finally got into bed and pulled the sheets over himself. It was colder than before. The wind pressed against the windows, causing them to rattle. John shivered. The storm Cameron had anticipated had not broken loose yet. What if it were to turn into another blizzard? She would be out there all alone in that cold snow…
I should have gone with her…

Staring at the ceiling and praying that Cameron would really be careful, he eventually drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

The grandfather clock striking two made John sit bolt upright in bed. He poked his head out between the bed curtains and studied the clock.
Is it really only two o'clock?…

He couldn't make out the clock's hands because the room was too dark. The candles had gone out and it was dead quiet, apart from the loud ticking of the ancient timepiece. John thought he could see the pendulum swinging backwards and forwards on its relentless path. Squinting at it through the darkness, he could have sworn it resembled a hand. A metal hand balled into a fist made of pistons and levers.
Strange…

Shaking his head in disbelief and drawing the curtains, John climbed back under his blanket and closed his eyes with a contented sigh.
Suddenly he heard it. A muffled sound coming from somewhere outside his room. He strained his ears. It sounded like metal on metal, as if someone were beating a nightstick against the bars of a prison cell.
Growing louder and more pronounced the noise now became clearer. It sounded like footsteps. Metal feet on a metal floor.
Wonder what floor polish Mom's been using again…

The heavy footfalls gradually, yet purposefully approached the door to his room in equally measured steps. Then they halted. He could sense a presence behind the door, something vast, powerful, and yet strangely human.
Without warning, his bed curtains were yanked apart. An unearthly blue glow shone through the crack under the door as the knob was turned from the outside. Something was there, about to come in.
It must be Mom with the turkey…

The door burst open, crashing into the wall, bits of plaster spraying out in all directions, and covering John in fine white dust.
A bubble of blue light slowly floated into the room, hovering inches from the ground and bathing everything in its beautiful bluish-white glow. Crackling and hissing, it approached John who watched it breathlessly from the comfort of his bed.
With a crack of thunder, the bubble disrupted and the room was bathed in total blackness.

"Where are we?" John asked.

"In your room" Cameron said.

She opened her hand and revealed a tiny grain of dust, which glowed golden and lit up their faces. "That's all what's left of it."

"What is it?" John said curiously, as he studied the minute speck of light.

"Your phone. That's all what's left of it" she breathed. "Give me your hand."

He extended his hand and she carefully tipped the dust-like object into his palm.
"You'll have to give it a new name now."

John considered it for a while. There really wasn't much left to rename.
"Oh well" he shrugged, dropping the glowing grain onto the floor and stamping it out.
"No point in giving it a new name anymore now. Thanks all the same for fetching it for me."

He took her by the hand and led her over to the bed, stopping to light his bedside candle. He then lay down and pulled the blankets over himself. Cameron stood watching him with that scrutinizing habit of hers, her head slightly tilted.

"Did you change?" he inquired, noticing her pale blue sun dress.

"It's hot out" she simply said, slowly advancing on him and gracefully kneeling down on the edge of the bed beside him, placing her hands in her lap.

"Yeah" John confirmed. "It usually is out there in the bush. I told you to be careful."

"I was" she smiled, reaching behind herself and pulling out a straw hat and a pair of ridiculously large sunglasses from nowhere. "I didn't get another sunstroke."

"Good" he nodded appreciatively. "Because I wouldn't want to loose you again."

"We all loose people we love" Cameron stated sadly, regarding him with huge eyes full of remorse.

John was taken aback. "How would you know that?" he asked, not believing she would be able to understand the concept of loss, yet alone of love.

"We talk about it a lot in the future" she whispered, as she climbed over him, kneeling on either side of his hips.

"We do?" he asked unbelievingly.

"We do. We will."

John was still unconvinced. "But you never lost anyone."

"I lost you" she breathed, leaning towards him.

"Oh yeah, that's because I sent you back away from me, right?" he realized.

"No. You didn't send me away" she replied, placing her hand over his heart.
"I came across time for you, John. I love you. I always have."

Cameron lowered her head over his, her curtain of silky hair obscuring everything from his view apart from her shining eyes and her moist, expectant lips so close to his.

Mmh, water lilies…

The house was dead quiet as Cameron reached the foot of the stairs. She didn't bother to turn on the hall lights; it was much easier to switch to night vision. And even if she was not about to admit it to herself, the darkness itself comforted her, hiding her tears from view as it did.

Not that there was anyone around to notice the lone cyborg with the tear-streaked face. The Connor family members were all asleep. Sarah in her bedroom, Derek probably in the spare room on his old couch and John…

A fresh tear trickled down her cheek as she remembered the look on John's face, concern and shock etched all over it as she had closed the door and just left him standing there. She hadn't wanted to leave him, but there was no other way she could have been able to achieve what she was about to do. It was complicated.

Just as she reached the front door she heard the sound of a car pulling into the drive. Cameron rushed into the kitchen and hurried over to the sink, yanking open the doors of the cupboard underneath and retrieving a gun from the concealed stash. She had completely forgotten about her own gun, the one she had thrown to John before she had shut down.
It must be somewhere in John's room…

Positioning herself a few feet away from the front door in the middle of the hall, Cameron stood stock still, her expression blank, waiting to greet the obvious intruder in her own special way.
She heard the car draw up outside, the sound of the engine being turned off, and then the crunching of footsteps in the snow.

Cameron tilted her head. Her HUD showed the pattern of the footsteps to match Sarah Connor's. But Sarah had gone to bed over an hour ago. And it could not be a Triple Eight impostor because its weight would have created a different audiometric pattern.

The gun in her hand shook slightly as she considered further damage to her system.
No. John was right. My system is operating at 100%. This must be Sarah…

The footsteps trailed off towards the garden shed, followed by the sound of muffled, yet raised voices. Then they returned at a slower pace, as if the person were carrying something, and headed for the porch.

The voice patterns match Derek Reese and Sarah Connor, Cameron concluded rather puzzled.

The beeping of the burglar alarm's panel and the following noise of a key being turned in the lock prompted Cameron to lower her gun. No Triple Eight would bother to unlock a door, if it were on a termination mission. She knew that herself.

The front door swung open and the hall light was switched on. After an initial shriek Sarah dropped an armful of Christmas presents all over the floor.

"What on earth are you doing here? Do you have to stand in the dark like a statue?" she spluttered, gasping for breath.

Then she noticed the damp streaks on the cyborg's cheeks and squinted at her, not believing her eyes.

"Is there anything wrong?" she asked, walking over to a still motionless Cameron, before adding on an afterthought "Where's John?"

"John has gone to bed" Cameron said irritably, and sounding quite distraught.

Her tone did not go unnoticed by Sarah. Raising an eyebrow, she considered the cyborg for a while, taking in the damp cheeks, the wide-eyed blank stare and the general state of melancholy that seemed to emanate from the machine.

"You two haven't been … quarrelling, have you?" she asked gently with the typical insight only a parent can have.

Cameron was surprised at Sarah's behaviour. When it was usually and understandably only John this and John that with her, she now seemed concerned not only about her son, but also about the cyborg girl standing in front of her with a rather forlorn air.

Not really knowing why she was doing it, Cameron strode over to the front door and closed it, before bending down and gathering up the haphazard pile of parcels.
"No" she said, not looking at Sarah. "We have not had a disagreement. It's just—"

She broke off and busied herself with placing the parcels on the sideboard where she remained standing, facing the wall. Sarah approached her and stood beside her, her primal maternal instincts in conflict with a deep conviction nurtured in long years of being on the run from metal.

Hesitantly, apprehensively, Sarah lightly placed her hand on Cameron's shoulder.
"What is it, Cameron?"

Evidently, carting a dysfunctional cyborg through the streets at Christmas, hearing her son spill out his heart to that same cyborg and sensing that the machine's care for her son was somehow a little more than a mere mission parameter, had fundamentally altered Sarah's attitude towards her.

Cameron slowly turned her head and stared in astonishment at the woman's hand resting on her shoulder. Sarah withdrew her hand and took a step backwards.
Turning around to face her, Cameron tilted her head while trying to read the woman's expression. To her own amazement, she found no trace of insincerity in Sarah's demeanour, only curiosity and, astounding enough, concern.

"I … I think I've hurt John" she said in a constricted voice.

Sarah's mouth flew open and she instantly changed her posture to a defensive one.
"You've what?" she asked incredulously, gaping at the cyborg.

Cameron immediately realized her mistake.
"No, not like that. I would never… I would die before I'd hurt my John" she blurted out.
"I mean, I think I've upset him, caused him discomfort or … pain?"

She glanced at Sarah quizzically, as if she was unsure if she had used the right words.
Sarah responded with an unfathomable look, her eyebrows knitted together, as she let Cameron's words sink in.

"What did you just say there?" she inquired pensively, regarding the cyborg like someone being confronted with undeniable evidence.

"I said I think I've caused him pain. Was that bad to say?"

Sarah started to laugh. She couldn't help it. The innocent look on the cyborg's questioning face, the way she had just openly claimed John as hers, it was all too much for her.
Shaking her head and tittering, she leant on the sideboard for support. Cameron pouted.

"No" Sarah wheezed. "That was not bad to say. I'm sorry, Cameron."
She forced the laughter back down.
"How can you be so sure that he is your John?"

"He makes me feel better and I make him feel better" Cameron announced, meticulously going through the wrapped up parcels she had placed on the sideboard and inspecting them.
I wonder if one of them is for me…

Sighing, Sarah reached out and pulled the parcels towards her and away from Cameron. She then stacked them in her arms and carried them into the dining room, where she placed them under the Christmas tree. Cameron heard her muttering to herself from next door.

"Children. They're all the same. Can't wait until morning."

Acknowledging that it had been a wise decision in the first place to move the presents from under the tree to the garden shed for the rest of the day, and twitching slightly after realizing what she had just said, Sarah returned to the hall.

"How can he make you feel better?" she inquired, leaning against the door frame and genuinely curious as to what a terminator would mean by feeling better.
"In what sense?"

"Better than I'd feel without him" Cameron replied curtly.

Feeling a little put in her place, Sarah uneasily twiddled the zip of her jacket in her fingers.
"I'd better get on with those Christmas tree lights. What were you up to down here anyway?" she asked, remembering that Cameron had been standing in the hall when she had arrived, as if ready to go out.

"I was going to get John's mobile. Leaving it on the common could be a security risk" she said mechanically.

Lying to Sarah made her feel uncomfortable, too. She stiffened, recalling the promise she had made not to lie to John anymore. And she remembered John's obvious dislike of her going out on her own in the cold again.

"You're too late" Sarah declared smugly, sauntering up to the cyborg. Reaching inside her pocket she withdrew John's mobile and threw it to her, a triumphant grin on her face.

Cameron caught it and stared at it transfixed before she gazed at Sarah with a baffled expression.

"I thought you might insist on doing something like that and knowing my son, he would never agree to let you go back there. So I went myself. All I had to do was follow John's footsteps and the marks you left in the snow" Sarah announced proudly before adding softly "I would guess that to be the reason why you two are … upset."

Sarah couldn't believe she was actually having this conversation. Realizing that she was in fact taking the cyborg's feelings into consideration was just a little too weird for her. All those years she had been drumming it into her son that the machines cannot be reasoned with, cannot be trusted and don't have feelings. This was all too much.

"Sarah?"

Cameron's voice brought her out of her reverie. She looked expectantly at the cyborg, nodding at her to continue.

"I lied to you. And to John. I'm sorry. And you were right, that is why he is upset with me. I told him I was going to retrieve his mobile…"

She paused, glancing down at the floor, searching for the right words and thinking about how bizarre it was to be having this conversation with John's mother.

Sarah waited patiently for a while for her to continue. Seeing the hesitation on Cameron's part, she eventually decided the cyborg might be in the need of some reassurance.

"And you would have been right in doing so" she confirmed, eying Cameron's tracksuit and adding "Even though I would have found your choice of clothes a little odd. So where were you planning to go, instead?"

"I was going to make John's Christmas present."

Sarah's jaw dropped.
"Come again?" she said, not believing her ears.

"I was going to make John's Christmas present" Cameron repeated, pointing towards the door. "Here, in the shed. I would never have gone back to the common when he told me not to."

Her face fell and she gazed at Sarah with sad eyes. "He should have known that."

Feeling a little unnerved at the baleful look she was receiving from the cyborg, Sarah decided it was time to teach Cameron a few basics of a teenage couple's behaviour.
I'm actually having this conversation with a machine. I must be loosing it…

"Cameron" she addressed her, not really knowing how to begin. "Misunderstandings do happen. You two have known each other for over a year now, that should help a bit, but you need to know that teenagers often react, well, defiantly if they don't get what they want. And John is only a teenager, you mustn't forget that."

Cameron merely stared unblinkingly at Sarah as she continued.

"I understand that you had to make up a story to get him off your back. And that's what's troubling him, since you two have been a bit like a double act lately. Don't worry, it'll all be over in the morning. You'll be … back to normal."

With that, Sarah turned and headed for the dining room, shaking her head at what she had just said and to whom. She was never going to admit to anybody, least of all to Cameron, that she actually agreed on what the cyborg had come up with.
I know you make him feel better and I can see he makes you feel better.
I am loosing it…

"Oh, and Cameron—" Sarah called from the threshold, just as Cameron was about to leave the house, making her stop at the front door and turn.

"Yes?" she inquired, facing the woman attentively.

"I just hope he doesn't make you … unhappy … one day" Sarah said tonelessly, leaning against the doorframe again and suddenly looking rather weary.

"Why would John make me unhappy? He makes me feel better."

Cameron's head-tilt made Sarah roll her eyes and sigh.
And my son finds that annoying habit of hers cute…

She looked intensely at the machine standing on the opposite side of the room.
"Because humans also lie. And things change. People change. Your relationship is still young, you wouldn't understand that now, but things change over time. Not always, but sometimes.
I just—"

Sarah broke off and took a deep breath, feeling a lump rising in her throat.
"I just hope you won't be unhappy someday and—"

A muffled sob escaped Sarah's lips as she fought not to loose her composure.
"—hurt my son."

Cameron opened her mouth in shock. It shook her that Sarah obviously still believed her to be a threat to John. She would never hurt him, not even if he lied to her.

You lied to me…

She remembered how easily Alison's neck had snapped. She remembered the sudden unaccounted for sensation of rage taking hold of her system, causing her fingers to close around the soft flesh.

You lied to me…

She remembered closing her fingers around a blonde girl's neck. She remembered John busying her out of the girl's parents' house, leaving the blonde gasping for breath on the floor. She still could not account for the loss of memory for that day, nor for how she had obtained her favourite necklace.
I have never been to Echo Park…

"No."

Cameron shook her head. That was all in the past. She was fixed now and she was able to override her programming. She would never hurt her John.
She remembered feeling distressed the day she had killed the pigeon in the chimney.

The bird experienced an involuntary movement of my fingers…

She remembered John repairing the damage to her arm, the concern in his eyes, his understanding as she had shown him the spare parts she had secretly kept hidden away.
She remembered him rushing over to her as she lay in the snow. She remembered his words.

I love you, Cameron, and you love me…

"No. I will never hurt my John. I swear."

Cameron defiantly folded her arms and stood to her fullest height, staring a trembling Sarah in the eyes before turning and opening the front door. Keeping hold of the doorknob, she paused and turned around once more.

"Sarah?"

"Yeah?" came the woman's tired reply.

"Remember the day I went bad?"

Immediately attentive again, Sarah took a step towards the cyborg and folded her arms in front of her chest, nodding slowly.
"Yes. I remember that."

"Remember I told you not to let him bring me back if I go bad again?"

"Uh-huh."

"If I ever go bad again, John knows what to do."

After having stared at each other for quite a while, woman and cyborg both nodded, some invisible form of understanding apparently having passed between them.

"Fine" Sarah said. "Go and do your present thing. I'll put up the lights and then I'm off to bed."

Just as she was about to leave for the dining room while Cameron remained watching her, a shout from outside made them turn.

"These are the right ones" Derek announced, climbing the stairs to the porch and brandishing a box of electric lights. "I already told you yours are duff."

Sarah immediately stomped over to the door and squared up to him, scowling.
"You kindly informed me that I had got some with the wrong plug" she hissed. "So? What's the big deal? I'm capable of changing a plug, Derek."

Derek entered the house and placed the box on the sideboard.
"So you say. But if you'd have read the small print you'd have noticed that they're also the wrong voltage. You got done with some European crap. D'you wanna fry that tree?"

Deciding not to correct Derek on some of the fundamental properties of electricity, Cameron merely studied the two humans' interaction with interest, her head turning from side to side as if she were watching a tennis match.

"Fine" Sarah bellowed, throwing hers arms up in the air.
"You put your lights on, then, wise guy. I'm off to bed. Woe betide anyone, should I hear the slightest sound."

With that, Sarah left them standing there and headed for the stairs. Cameron listened until the sounds of Sarah's boots clomping along the upstairs landing died away as she entered the bathroom.
Derek ran his hand over the back of his neck and sighed. Ignoring Cameron he picked up his box of lights and made his way across the hall to the dining room, muttering under his breath.
Women. Should have kept me mouth shut…

Listening to Derek quietly ranting on about Krauts and knotted up cables in the next room, Cameron stepped out onto the porch and descended the steps, heading for the shed.