Disclaimer: I own none of these characters or the plot outside this story
This story is based off of "Allison from Palmdale" to fill in the blanks, but I actually wrote this after reading River2027's "Born to Fight" as a more positive alternative to what happens to Allison. This is my first published fanfiction, so be gentle. It's in response to DelusiveTSCC's "New Writer's Challenge."
It's post-BTR and ties in with the future scenes from AFP. John stays in the future long enough to gain a commanding position in the resistance and catch Skynet's attention, and Cameron is yet to be found.
I was originally going to leave it ambiguous as to whether the story was post-BTR or not, but it was suggested that I be specific.
Huge thank-you to both The1Russter and Lyaksandra for beta reading and editing.
Tell me what you think!
It started back when she met John Connor. The very moment their eyes made contact for the first time in that tunnel, where he was found naked, she noticed he was inexplicably drawn to her. Afterwards, she found herself falling for him. It didn't take long for the two of them to become involved with each other. However, she always noticed something was off about him, almost as if he felt guilty about something. He also seemed reluctant to engage in any form of intimacy with her.
Almost four months after they started their relationship, she demanded an explanation after he resisted her attempt at seduction. She recalls him taking a few deep breaths before launching into a story that took a few hours, including her questions: time travel, machines being sent back to hunt him and his mother, his attempts to stop the birth of Skynet and Judgment Day, and about a cyborg named Cameron. He explained that one day she was going to be captured and killed by a machine sent to replace her, because of her relationship with him. The explanation ended with him confessing that he should have ended their relationship by then in order to save her life, but he had been selfish, and she should decide whether or not to continue with the relationship knowing that it was very likely a death sentence.
In a daze, she told him that she needed some time alone to figure out what she wanted, and he replied that he wouldn't blame her if she distanced herself from him. Over the next two days, she avoided contact with him, trying to figure out what to do, and started coming to some realizations. On the night of the second day after he told his story, she made a decision and went to his room to wait for him. When John arrived, she told him that she didn't care if their relationship would kill her. She explained that he made her the happiest she'd been in her life since she lost everything on Judgment Day, and that she wouldn't have much reason to live without him in her life anyway. She went on to tell him that he should not feel guilty if death did catch up to her, because she made an informed decision. After her explanation, she started kissing him with intent, and this time John didn't pull away. That was the night she lost her virginity.
A few years later, she waits in the interrogation room for her machine doppelganger to return. She takes the time to reflect on the immense happiness she had with John, in spite of all the suffering and death from Skynet's war on humanity. She remembers the times that the stress of the war got to John and he broke down in her arms, she was there to give him comfort, to keep him steady in the face of adversity. In return, John made sure to make every moment they were together count, he gave her everything he had. For those years, life simply couldn't get any better.
A few tears fall from her eyes, and a smile briefly stretches across her face as she thinks of her little baby girl, the best gift a young woman marked for death could ever ask for.
When the machine in front of her discovers her lie, she realizes that the end has come. Feeling the metal's iron grasp closing around her throat, slowly forcing the life out of her, Allison Young has one last thought as her mind slips into darkness.
I have no regrets.