Chapter 2: It Really, Really Sucks

Found this on an old hard drive. =o Made a few fixes and such, but it's still part of the same story. No real plans for this story getting back into it, just writing with the end goal of girl/girlbot smoochies and re-writing some series/movie events when I get to them.

Keep everything coherent, yo.

My apologies for being gone from writing so long! I miss you, imagination. I miss you so much. We have been apart for so long that I was beginning to despair of us ever finding each other again.

But I'm back, to let you know, how to really shake it down.

Time to work it.

DISCLAIMER: Oh, and a big BTW for anyone in Cameron's robot army: His work is still not mine and I am not the John you are looking for. Nor is my typing in any way against your god skynet.

Minor mistake in the last chapter: I said 'forty-three years from now', when it should have been more like 'thirty-three years from now'. Oopsies! Will edit if I ever get any serious length in this story.

OoOoO

Sarah didn't know whether to laugh or cry. After several days of fighting on the run against a hostile terminator with a fembot on their side, completely uprooting her and her son's life for the second time in a week, breaking into a bank, and traveling a month into the past they had been forced to walk across town in the middle of the night for over three hours in completely ill-fitting shoes. Then, when they finally got the car and supplies from a so-called 'safe house', which was really just a dilapidated shed, and got a chance to to relax even the tiniest bit, the reserves she had been running on just seemed to give out. The last thing she remembered was grunting in annoyance as the seat belt cut into her injured shoulder. Now the sun was attacking her eyelids with icepicks of light. And what did her blood-shot eyes focus on first? That thrice-damned bank she felt like she had been re-birthed in the night before. Or was it a month from now?

Fucking time travel.

"Why are we back here?" She said. At least, that was what she had meant to say. It really came out sounding more like the croak of an inquisitive Hippo. Luckily, the tin can seemed to speak sleeping Hippo fluently and was able to answer.

"I am conducting a visual and electromagnetic scan of the area to make sure no other terminators have been here recently. I also want to double-check on the installation of the TDE and other equipment that our future-past selves will use to come back to this time period."

Hippo-grunt response.

"Earlier we had no quick means of escape and the both of you were in no condition to fight if there was a need. Also, terminators are forced to enter their 120-second standby mode for time-travel and shut down most of our systems to prevent any possible interference. It took much of our journey to complete a self-diagnostic and re-powering of all of my systems. I thought it prudent to verify everything while I am at full capacity."

Sarah didn't even bother to respond to that. A younger version of herself would be appalled for being so complacent in the presence of a terminator. But her older self was just astonished she was even awake enough for the conversation. She had let herself relax a little too much in the past year with Charlie Dixon. Her body just wasn't conditioned to handle that much stress anymore. She was so out of it that she didn't even protest when her head was gently lifted and nestled into a pillow. She just sighed gratefully for the shade that blocked the harsh sunlight and went right back to dreaming of electric sheep.

She never noticed the inhumanly vibrant blue eyes that seemed to linger on her sleep-softened face.

OoOoO

It was about midday when the sudden rocking of the car next woke her. After a disorienting moment of quick glances and foggy realizations, she shifted upright and hissed in sudden pain. Her shoulder was throbbing and her travel-swollen and blistered feet didn't feel much better. Cameron was in motion and out of the car before Sarah could fully take stock of the situation and give any orders.

She knew there was a petulant frown on her face and that only made her grumpier. Sarah hated not being in control and and the past few days were really setting an irritating trend in that regard. That annoying robot seemed to be on the ball with an answer for everything and a purpose in every step.

By the time time she checked on a still-sleeping John sprawled in the back seat, kicked off her horribly uncomfortable shoes and awkwardly massaged her aching feet, the robot-in-girls clothing was back. Ah, now it was time to establish the proper order of things and put the tin can back in its place.

Sarah had just opened her mouth and took in a deep breath to start an unholy rant when the most wonderful aroma hit her nose. It was coming from the large styrofoam cup that had been quickly, almost rudely, shoved into her face. She knew it was most likely another attempt to delay any questions and appease her anger, but she didn't care.

It was Coffee. Coffee from a gas station that probably had the consistency and strength of month-old motor oil, but it smelled simply heavenly at this point and she drank greedily. A small voice in the back of her mind made note of the disconcerting fact that it was made exactly the way she like it but that voice was quickly quashed as she devoured the pastry that had been dropped in her lap.

A second pastry, a finished flagon of coffee, and a generous handful of painkillers later and Sarah was again feeling something approaching human. John had woken up by now and consumed even more than she had, only taking in a liter of soda instead of coffee. If it weren't for the imminent danger that put them in this situation, she could almost get used to this type of treatment. By the time she and John had taken turns in the bathroom to freshen up, the nondescript late-model family sedan was gassed up and ready to hit the road again.

"Where are we going?" Sarah asked as the car slipped back on to the highway. Abrupt attempts to wrestle things back under her control when she had no idea what was going on hadn't worked. She needed information more than anything right now and the tin miss hadn't steered her wrong yet. The grudging thanks from her contented stomach and refilled caffeine stream didn't hurt.

"I am not fully programmed with the location of all the resistance safe-houses. I only am aware of the ones nearest to the school, bank, and one other in San Francisco. There we should be able to meet with a resistance member and formulate a future plan of action."

"Wait." John said, entering the conversation for the first time. "Why don't you have the full details. I would figure future me would give you everything in order to keep me and my mom safe."

Sarah could almost have sworn that the terminator rolled her eyes at the question.

"It is always best to compartmentalize the information to prevent the enemy from getting too much. So if a captured soldier is forced to talk through interrogation, nothing much can be gained from him. We know what they may have so we can use extracted information against them when they try to capitalize on it. Even the future John does not know everything, and neither do I. When I was... converted..." She paused momentarily. In a human it would have been construed as an attempt to fortify one's emotions. Sarah wondered why the Terminator would have needed to. "I was only given the minimum amount of information needed to complete my mission. I did not even know where you were located in Nebraska. I had to search for you."

Something tickled at the back of Sarah's brain.

"What is your mission?" Sarah queried. It was a very straightforward question, so why was the tin miss hesitating?

"My Primary mission is to ensure the safety of John and Sarah Connor."

Short and to the point answer. It should have been exactly what it was, but that moment of hesitation told Sarah there was more to it than that. Either this Terminator was too well programmed with human emotions or she was reading too much into it. One way to find out.

"Is there anything else to your primary mission?" Sarah continued.

"No, there is not." The Terminator's face un-tightened a little bit. Hah! That looks like relief.

"What are your non-primary missions?"

A re-tightening of the face along with an extra bit of rigidness to the body. Aha! Tension! Reluctance! It felt odd to be able to 'sense' emotions from a Terminator, but this model was obviously much more advanced than previous ones when it came to infiltration. All those subtle clues looked almost natural.

"In regards to John Connor, my secondary mission is to help educate and prepare him for the coming war."

More hesitation.

"And me?" Sarah asked.

"I was not programmed with any specific missions in Regards to Sarah Connor other than to keep her safe..."

"But?"

This was almost fun for Sarah. It was obvious by now that this terminator was unable to directly lie to either of them, but it was just as obvious that her people skills weren't perfect as Sarah was easily able to tell when she was trying to hide something. Almost fun, because the sound of straining metal coming from underneath the Terminator's fingers was a little disconcerting.

"But... right before I was sent back, Future John asked me to: 'Take care of my mother.'" That last bit from Future John was said with an aged, gravelly voice that reminded Sarah rather strongly of Kyle Reese. It was quite likely a perfect imitation of the voice of Future John, but even though it was a little creepy coming from a petite brunette girl, that was not the most disturbing thing. Cameron's face apparently was also imitating the face Future John had made at the time. And in the middle of the message her stern features adopted what could only be called a 'suggestive' smirk.

Sarah felt a tingle zing up her spine. A furtive glance back at John's face showed that he didn't catch the innuendo, but she certainly did. From the little cues the Tin Miss had been giving off, Cameron seemed to get at least part of the gist...

"What's wrong with that? " John asked.

If a terminator could ever get exasperated, it would look a little like Cameron right now. An unnecessary sigh, a slight hanging of the head, and a rather cute little frown.

"I prefer that my orders be very simple, direct, and to the point. The suggestion he gave me was not an order, a directive, or even a favor. It was a completely open-ended phrase subject to a great deal of interpretation and possible misunderstanding. I have never had such ambiguous directions before and it is... frustrating." Cameron's voice actually rose slightly in what could only be described as a 'stressed manner' and the car's steering wheel was no longer perfectly round, but she quickly loosened her grip and her whole body became more rigid and automated.

... and maybe not. Sarah blew out a tiny breath of relief. 'I am just reading too much into things. All those odd glances and looks of interest? Just curiosity and attempts to figure things out. The heavy handed attempts to see to her comfort and take any burden off of her shoulders? Just a robot's computer brain taking some vague instructions literally.'

That's all it was. It couldn't possibly be anything else... Right?

A/N: 5 years between chapters... Pretty quick turnaround if I do say so myself! =D I kid, I kid. Basically, I had a bit of an accident that crushed my fingers and destroyed my laptop. So no stories for a long time and I thought everything I had written was lost. I only recently discovered a backup in an obscure folder on an external hard drive and it gave me hope again. So I started writing, which came to this as well as about 10 other stories of varying length. Here is to hoping I can keep up with things!