Disclaimer: 'Buffy' and 'Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles' both belong to others. This story belongs to me.
Post BTVS, Season 7 & TSCC Season 2 episode 1.
Judgment Day: Skynet turns against humanity with its advent of nuclear strikes, followed by a relentless machine army, nearly destroying the Earth.
Scoobies': Repeated attacks against the Earth drain Earth's life force to practically nothing. Basic spells are all that is left of magic. A basic spell can incapacitate a person for days, too dangerous a risk when every person is needed for the war effort.
Skynet attacks humanity: After the first wave, the Potentials Willow activated through the Scythe gradually lost their power. Just, a loss of power and a gradual loss of Magic altogether drained away.
Fate found Buffy and Faith the Chosen Two again. Willow, due to her connection with the oldest, most protected part Earth, the Slayers' Scythe, and Buffy and Faith, themselves, discovered she still maintains a strained elemental earth connection, allowing them to perform low-draining spells without too many catastrophic results.
Giles, Buffy, Dawn, Xander, Willow, Faith, Andrew, and Robin find themselves running The Resistance against Skynet, with the Potentials hidden in secret around the world. Inevitably, during an attack on a Skynet bunker they discover John Connor's Resistance fighters, learning they are not fighting alone. They combine forces with Connor, and provide him and only those he trusts with Intel on Slayers and Magic and other information about the world, as it existed before. They also begin an exchange program, kept secret from Connor's larger military hierarchy for fear of Human Traitors. The two resistance groups now work together, with people from each resistance trading spots on a rotational basis.
Connor sent his Cameron into the past, to help John, and possibly his Mother and the others prevent Judgment Day. Time never stands still; his future self knew this. No Fate.
Present: Cameron's personality chip is damaged in an explosion, and this releases the lock on certain parts of her memory which Buffy, Connor, and Cameron herself, agreed would hinder her mission – because Sarah and John would not accept a Terminator that acted human. With the lock breaking free, Cameron can no longer act as only the emotionless Terminator, an existence filled with pretending. The situation is difficult for her because she he misses her John and her Buffy. Since the lock is broken, Cameron is forced to Pretend to still seem emotionless. Adding to the situation John, Sarah, and Derek don't trust her after she attacked John when her chip was damaged. Before the chip malfunction, John saw Cameron as more than a Terminator, now he is losing that and by doing so, he is dooming the future.
Plot- The Scoobies' and Connor's Resistance is fighting Skynet. John Connor wakens in his bed, and notices a note, written in his own handwriting:
"You're forgetting her - you're losing your humanity. SAVE HER."
Connor stares numbly at the note, wondering what it could mean or refer to, He hadn't forgot anything. A sharp pain exploded from his head. 'Oh god…. Cameron' Connor knows he must send someone back in time for Cameron, or everything will be lost. He decides to send Buffy.
She changes everything.
Prologue: Here comes Buffy
John
John Connor awoke in his bed deep in the base of the human resistance against skynet. He was covered in sweat haunted by a dream he could not remember. No matter how much he fought for sleep it eluded him always being beaten back by dark images he could not understand. With a grunt of frustration John moved from his bed to his desk, accepting sleep was no longer an option. The paperwork sitting on his desk unable to hold his attention, it turned to his family. His past and present families were extraordinarily different.
He went from a dysfunctional and cold family, to a dysfunctional loving family. In his past family mistakes were unacceptable, In his present the saying went ' We've all gone a little world endage crazy, what's a mistake or two.'
The differences were where it counted.
As Conner compared his two families he absent-mindedly pushed the paper work to the side. Revealing an aged paper with burned edges, the short writing filling the page.
You're forgetting her - you're losing your humanity. SAVE HER.
Connor stares numbly at the note, wondering what it could mean or refer to, He hadn't forgot anything. A sharp pain exploded from his head. 'Oh god…. Cameron'
John remembered Cameron's smile, Her innocent childlike questions. The pain that always filled Cameron's eyes when she was called Metal.
John remembered the inhuman acts he committed as a result of NO Cameron. He convinced a squad of men to go on a no-win suicide mission just to serve as a distraction.
"Oh god, they're all dead, they're all dead, and I didn't care." Connor gasped as the full impact of the incident truly sunk in. He crossed his arms across his gut.
"For the greater good, what a joke," he wheezed out a twisted laugh; sobs escaped his body causing him to fall off his chair as he curled into a ball, arms wrapped tightly around his knees, his knees tucked beneath his chin. The faces, and names, of all the souls he sent to their deaths in recent years repeatedly ran through his mind repeatedly 'I'm no better than Skynet.'
That thought spurred him, rocketing to his feet, and pulling his cloths on as quickly as possible. He grabbed the paper and ran through the door. He ended at Buffy's door and started banging on the door in desperation.
Buffy
" Huh, Dawn that had better not be you, sister or not you're dead?" Buffy yelled as she stumbled to the door.
"John, What the Hell?" Buffy called out as she pulled him into her room, noting his stricken expression. "It's past 3am, Slayers may not need as much sleep as everyone else but we do need some."
Buffy pushed john toward her bed noting he was more distressed than usual. Buffy walked over to the hot plate in the corner of her room and turned on the coffee machine, Her coffee addiction rearing its head.
No one spoke the only sound filling the room was coffee dripping into the pot. After silently pouring them both a mug, she returned and handed him one. John just stared into it.
They drank their Coffee in silence; Buffy knew her adopted brother would say something, eventually. What she didn't understand was why he seemed upset at what her reaction to whatever he was going to say was going to be.
Finally, Connor took a deep breath. "Buffy, don't hate me –"
"Don't be –"
"– And please just listen to what I am saying before you say anything."
Buffy nodded and squeezed his hand, indicating her support.
"I'm…somehow losing myself, Buffy. You remember the mission I sent Cameron on?"
Buffy nodded again. "Yes, of course. Why?"
" Buff, I did something, and I don't want you to hate me, I really couldn't stand it if you did."
Buffy laughed, curling into Connor's side, her mug now empty and on the floor next to the bed.
"Idiot you're my brother, I could never hate you; I might be disappointed, but I will still love you just like I always will love Dawn. So, just tell me." Buffy said with confidence.
Connor wrapped his arm around Buffy as he told her his feelings about the resistance lately, which included how he hadn't really cared that he had been sending people to their deaths. He told her about forgetting Cameron, and the handwritten note to himself.
"That's why I'm here – something's gone wrong with Cameron's mission I'm losing my ability to Trust and that is bad for both our groups.
Buffy grabbed her pillow and held it as she collapsed into Connor's lap. She felt him stroke her shoulder length hair as she processed.
Connor whispered. "I came here because I need someone to go back and stop what is happening, to ensure that whatever is causing me to forget the lessons you and Cam taught me is stopped. Someone who will make sure I don't lose who I am and who I absolutely trust, and who Cameron trusts, since she is already in the past."
"Me, it just leaves me," Buffy said as she pulled herself up with reluctance; she needed to go. She needed to leave them all behind – Conner, the Potentials, the remaining Scoobies; she felt numb towards the situation. 'I'm leaving everyone and everything behind" she thought to herself She knew eventually it would hit and devastate her but for now she needed a clear head.
"Yes, I don't want you to go; I don't want to lose my little sister-"
"You're the eldest, now?" Buffy teased as she headed into the bathroom to change.
"I don't want to lose my sister," Connor paced the length of the room as Buffy stripped and changed. " I'm terrified if you don't go back soon, I won't be the brother you know and love anymore."
Buffy exited the bathroom and stared at john as his last words suck in. Connor looked away from Buffy then, as if she would reject him. 'Silly boy, didn't he know better by now?' She adopted him into her family, and declared him her brother, and she wasn't ever going to change her mind; she hoped that fear of his would disappear and be carried away by the wind like vampire ashes soon.
Buffy stood in front of Connor and pulled his face towards her, one hand on each side, so she could look into his eyes and impart the intensity behind the truth of what she was about to say.
"John, the day I met you, I instantly loved, and wanted to protect you – just like Dawn. You are my brother just as Dawn is my sister; I love you both so much and would do anything for you. Just like when I told Dawn, when she doubted she was my sister, it is Summers' blood running through your veins – just like all the Scoobies', and we will always be your family. Love like that can bend and stretch but never break. You and Dawn, and Scoobies, are in my heart and will never leave it. If someone in the past is messing with your head and with my Cameron they are going to pay dearly. Understood? "
Buffy held Connor, staring into his eyes until she saw that he finally understood; he nodded, his eyes filling with tears that Buffy knew he wouldn't let fall. She then pulled him into one of her patented hugs which while almost crushing you made you feel surrounded by love, and stayed like that for a while till an explosion caused them to pull apart. An alarm sounded, signaling the base under attack.
"The Wards are down," Buffy yelled over the alarm.
"We have to go NOW," Connor replied.
Buffy started grabbing supplies and putting them together. They discovered with magic how to bring a small bag of items through time displacement.
John opened the door and checked it was clear he signaled to Buffy. 'Where is everyone?'
They made it safely to the center of the base, where the time machine was located. John started the machine and entered a date for 2007, while Buffy cast the spell on the bag, then nearly fell from the exertion before Connor caught her. Buffy turned in his arms and curled into his taller frame, sadness filling her heart.
John tightened his arms around her, sighing before speaking. "You'll need to contact Cameron out of sight from my mom. Maybe you can get a job as a counselor at my and Cameron's school, like you were at Sunnydale."
"I know it will be hard, but you can't tell my past self who you are, Sis. You just need to get close to me somehow, and do what you do best – make people see the truth, show them the good in the world, and in everyone." John pulled back and looked down at his sister "Don't get discouraged by how I act. Mom made me grow up too fast and hard to the world, and I'm going to need you to break that shell." Connor kissed Buffy's forehead and pushed her towards the platform.
Buffy nodded and stood on the platform there were no instructions left to give and he knew how much she loved him all that was left to do was say goodbye. Buffy lifted her hand, kissed it as the machine started and waved at john. John waved back.
Buffy disappeared in a ball of blue electricity.
"Be safe sis," John whispered as an explosion occurred and the door blasted open a terminator entered and shot john on sight. In his dying moments the only thought in John's mind was that the future was safe in Buffy and Cameron's hands.
As Buffy appeared naked, in the past, at night, she realized she felt something odd as she traveled through the Time machine. Whatever it was, she now seemed around seventeen rather than thirty-five. Then again, she'd looked about seventeen well into her twenties.
She still had all her memories, and still knew what she needed to do.
"Guess I'll enroll in school again; so much for applying for a job in one. Great, High School, again. At least this time it's not the Hell Mouth!" Buffy muttered.
********SO what do you think, should I continue? My muse responds to reviews… So Read and Review please!
Dear readers for the previous note and prologue alone my beta was Innogen; I am now searching for a new beta because of creative differences. I am searching for a new beta so if you want to be my beta please leave a comment or message me. I really want to continue this story so if want to be my beta and have beta'd stories before please send me a list of the stories. I am not as picky as this note portrays. This is my creative outlet; I want to have fun with it.