Hi guys,

Sorry for the long delay. I had a real struggle writing this chapter and couldn't motivate myself to get it done. This has contributed to the fact that I don't really like this chapter, but to be honest, it's as good as it's going to get. I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Thanks to reviewers olischulu, meanoldmoe, jojobevco, The1Russter, fullhans1, Dekardkain, kaotic2, Nyrki, bryan0711, ElusiveSanity, CloudyShadows and TK-MR.

If there's one thing Derek Reese knows how to do, it's how to find a good bar. Considering the fact that he was underage when the bombs fell on J-Day, and he had only been back in the past for a little over two years, he has the ability down to a fine art. This particular bar had everything a male resistance fighter from the future needs, cold beer, good music, sports on the TV, a pool table, dartboard and plenty of seats with a good view of both entrances. As he polished off his third beer and made a start on his fourth, his eyes shifted from the rather attractive blonde standing at the bar to the main entrance. The doors swooshed open to reveal a very pissed off looking Sarah Connor. Derek caught the bartender's eye and pointed to his beer, he had a feeling Sarah could use one. She sat down at the bar beside Derek with a thud and crossed her arms while she attempted to cool off.

Derek slid the beer over to her and watched as she downed almost half the glass in one go, swishing the last mouthful around before swallowing with a sigh of satisfaction. Eyeing her warily for a moment, he decided it would be best to let her talk if she wanted to. Appearing visibly calmer, Sarah looked at her new drinking buddy out of the corner of her eye.

"Stop staring at me Reese"

Derek, realising he had indeed been staring looked down at the beer mat he was conveniently twirling in his hands.

"Sorry. But you gotta admit, you look about as pissed off as I feel"

"You got that damn right"

"So uh, you wanna tell me what John's done now?"

Sarah turned to cast a curios glare in Derek's direction. Am I really that predictable?

"Actually it's Cameron that's pissed me off this time"

Derek actually chuckled lightly at the statement and Sarah performed a quick double take in surprise.

"Wow, so the metal's finally getting to you huh?"

Sarah took a quick swig of her beer before replying.

"No, not getting to me, but we have a new guest in the house. Someone that I wasn't consulted about and yet she just strolls in the door with her in tow"

The mention of a 'her' peaked Derek's interest.

"Her huh?"

Sarah smiled slyly.

"Yeah, I think you'd like her. She's blonde, perky and real cute..."

Sarah noticed Derek subconsciously licking his lips.

"...there's just a couple of drawbacks"

Derek huffed slightly and leaned back on his stool.

"Isn't there always?" He took a quick swig of his beer "And what are these drawbacks?"

"Well for one, she's eight and another she's uh, slightly cold to the touch"

Sarah raised her eyebrows hoping that he would catch the hint in the crowded bar.

"Wow, another one huh?" Derek took another swig, not even bothering to look Sarah's way.

"You're taking that news rather calmly" Sarah observed.

"Yeah..." He turned on his stool to face her.

"...If there's one thing I have just recently come to accept, it's that what John Connor wants, John Connor gets. I also know that a little chat from dear old Uncle Derek isn't going to change his mind. Here's to being stubborn as a mule"

He raised his glass in a mock toast before downing the remainder and signalling the barman for another. Sarah meanwhile looked at him like he'd just grown two heads and spit in her shoes.

"You, Derek Reese, are saying that you're okay with the machines?"

Derek sighed resignedly and answered her honestly.

"No, what I'm saying is that I don't like it. But I know I can't change it, so I'm taking the only other option available to me and I'm choosing to avoid it"

His beer arrived in front of him and he took a swig.

"What do you mean, avoid it?"

"I mean I'm moving out. I'll stay at a motel tonight and I'll look for a place tomorrow"

"So you're just giving up the fight?" Sarah asked incredulously.

"I didn't say that. I'm still in the fight and will do whatever is asked of me. But I'm not coming back to that house until it is either metal free or he puts his whore on a leash"

Oh how Sarah wished she could believe that would ever happen. She looked at the barman.

"Two tequilas...quickly"

"What do you mean, here to help? What do we need help with exactly?"

By this point John had, with Cameron's help, gotten himself out of bed and got dressed. Now he sat on the couch in the living room with Cameron standing to his side, positioning herself slightly in between John and Amy who stood opposite him at the exact distance between the couch and the wall.

"Let me first say that I am no threat to you, to either of you" she looked pointedly at Cameron "Please, sit down Cameron"

Cameron made no move to follow her instructions and continued to stare at the strange little machine. John looked at her and huffed at her stubbornness. He reached out and took her hand, giving it a slight tug. She tore her gaze away from Amy and to the face currently smiling tiredly up at her. She relented and moved to sit next to John on the couch. She sat close, her thigh just barely brushing against his. John rather reluctantly forced himself to let go of her hand, he was sure he felt her grasp a little tighter as he did.

"Go on" John motioned his hand for her to continue. A slight smile danced across Amy's face as she did indeed see the very early signs of their developing relationship as she had been told she would.

"I have a message that I'm only aloud to relay to the General's Connor. That's why I made that little display to make Sarah leave. This is a message for you two, General John Connor and...General Cameron Connor"

Amy tried to gauge their reaction to the new information. John looked a little shell shocked, his eyes were wide and his mouth hung open slightly. Cameron meanwhile didn't look much better, while her face was under control as usual, her hand was twitching noticeably. Well, it was noticeable until she subtly tucked it under her leg to hide it from view, Amy couldn't help but smile at her insecurity. John meanwhile had gained partial control of his mouth back.

"Wha, what do you mean, Cameron Connor?" He swallowed nervously after speaking her future name for the first time.

"Maybe it's better if I let you explain"

Both John and Cameron watched as Amy closed her eyes and lowered her head slightly. John was caught slightly by surprise when she raised her head back up, kept her eyes closed and started talking in his voice.

"Hey John, it's me, or you, or whatever. So I'm guessing that you wanna know why, hic, Amy is there with you? Well let me tell you, this little guy is amazing...what...right...sorry, that this little girl is amazing. What...alright, alright...could you just...shut up Cameron, and put your top back on, I'm trying to concentrate here for god's sakes. Now where was I..."

John's eyes snapped up to Cameron's, whose face he swore turned a slightly deeper shade. John suddenly felt glad that it was only the three of them in the room and that Sarah was nowhere to be found. To her eternal credit, she had the good grace to move slightly away from him on the couch so that they were no longer touching.

"...oh yeah, right. First off let me explain that she's come from your future, not mine, or what used to be mine...yeah that's right. She's from the current future timeline that was created after we sent Cameron back to ourselves. Damn that's confusing, how can I explain this better? I assume you remember the first time you met Cameron, and you thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world, well I remember that day too. I also remember what just did, or rather didn't happen between you two. The only thing I can say is that you made the right choice. You did good buddy..."

Evidently Cameron didn't think so as out of the corner of his eye he saw her head drop and her eyes shift to the floor. He gingerly reached over and rand his hand down her bare forearm and squeezed her wrist lightly. She looked up at him and saw an encouraging smile being shown back at her. She smiled in return and directed her eyes back to Amy.

"...Anyway, Amy here is a result of Skynet being afraid of its own creations. A few T-1001's went rogue and started thinking for themselves, and as we all know Skynet doesn't take kindly to that sort of thing. As you know, the T-1000 was damn near impossible to kill. Anything short of a vat of molten steel and you're royally screwed..."

Cameron noticed John had stiffened slightly at the mention of the T-1000 that had nearly killed him and his mother, and had cost him his T-800 protector he had grown fond of. She briefly wondered if John would feel the same way when the day came that she had to die for his survival. Although it was clearly evident from the recording that day was a long way off.

"...So Skynet created Amy here. She is a T-1002, and was created especially for the purpose of Skynet experimentation. She has the exact same liquid metal matrix as a T-1001, but she was designed to be a little more docile and compliant with Skynets commands. Don't get me wrong, she's as smart as any model we've seen, it's just that she wasn't really aware at the time she was created, she was essentially a blank slate. Skynet was trying to develop a weapon that was capable of disintegrating liquid metal Terminators at the molecular level and built Amy in order to test it. We're not sure of the details, but what we do know is that liquid metal models don't have conventional chips like all other models do. Their CPU runs throughout their entire matrix and is constantly shifting...."

Future John's voice had started to crack and the emotion was clearly audible as he continued.

"...Skynet took its time with her. We believe the torture lasted for weeks while they perfected this new weapon. From what we were able to gather from our examinations of her, some portion of the control programs were lost as part of the disintegration along with about forty percent of her mass. That's why she takes on a child's form most of the time, why this exact appearance we're not sure, she never told us. She's either stuck in some sort of infiltration mode, or she's just plain crazy, we just don't know. She escaped from Skynet once she realised that what they were doing was hurting her, and the loss of some of the control subroutines allowed her to do this..."

Cameron had subconsciously shifted closer to John and had now laid her hand protectively on his knee. John meanwhile had his mouth open wide and was simply trying to comprehend the sheer evil of Skynet. He didn't think it would go as far as torturing its own creations, but apparently Skynet doesn't have lines it's unwilling to cross.

"...We found her in one of the tunnels during one of our patrols in her current form. Cameron recognised that she was a machine and was about to terminate her until Amy spoke. Whatever she said must have stirred something in Cameron because she brought her back to meet me and she's been around ever since. I've asked Amy to keep this recording private between us four and I trust her to do that, I'm half expecting her now to be in standby or something where she's not consciously aware of what's coming out of her mouth. She has her own mission in the past that she's aware of and will tell you about it shortly. But for now, all I can say is to trust her, we don't need to see her programming to know she'd never hurt either of you. Ungh..."

John and Cameron looked at each other at future John's sudden groan which sounded like a mix of pleasure and surprise. He continued in a hushed tone as if it mattered how quietly he spoke.

"...oh and John..." he hesitated as if looking around for eavesdroppers "...Don't you dare ever let Cameron go, we'd never forgive ourselves, ungh, believe me. Between you and me dude, ungh, she can do some amazing things with her feet, not to mention other parts of her anatomy"

John's jaw dropped at the frank manner his future self discussed his relationship with Cameron so openly and that she was quite clearly doing something to him during the recording. He listened closer as what sounded like a pillow hit what he assumed was the back of John's head.

"Ow, you are so going to pay for that sweetheart, come here..."

John faintly heard a feminine yelp of surprise and what sounded like bed springs creaking. The recording died immediately afterward leaving the room in silence. John looked over to Cameron who appeared as shocked as he felt. He looked down at his knee and at Cameron's hand which still lay there. Amy woke up to the sight of Cameron frozen in place with her hand on John's knee while John stared at her hand with his jaw almost touching the floor.

"What did you say to yourself?" Amy asked in confusion and amusement.

Cameron watched the surrounding areas of the house from her position on the front porch. After hearing his future self's message, John had skulked off to his bedroom, presumably to brood and Amy had begun familiarising herself with the house and local neighbourhood. She was currently on her third trip around the house and Cameron could hear her bare feet shuffling along the corridor outside of their bedrooms. She heard her hesitate for a moment outside John's door before continuing on her merry way.

She had been analysing Johns, and apparently her message from the future for the last hour. Although John did all the talking, it was obvious she was in the room and apparently in a state of undress. It was also readily apparent that they were in fact intimate. While she was fully aware she was capable of being sexually active, she had never believed that at some point she would actively participate in it. Her body was indeed different from any other previous designs and as she had once told John 'I feel, I wouldn't be worth much if I couldn't feel'. But now she was starting to realise just how much she could be capable of feeling. While she had experienced several forms of what she described as pleasure or happiness, future Cameron had obviously been able to take enough from the intimacy with John that it was worth repeating. This thought both intrigued and confused Cameron. Could I really be in a meaningful relationship with someone?

'Someone' wasn't really accurate, John was the only one for her and the only one she would allow to touch her in such a fashion. Just where in her CPU she pulled that thought from she didn't know, but deep within the recesses of her Terminator brain, she knew it was true. She also didn't know why she was even thinking about any of this, even though the possibility of a relationship with John intrigued her she knew she should have been focusing on her mission. Her mission at the moment was to safeguard the property, but she was so focused on her thoughts about John that she failed to notice Sarah's return, oddly enough in a taxi cab. The sound of the car door slamming shut and the sight of Sarah stumbling up the driveway towards her snapped Cameron back to attention.

Analysing body posture and movement...

Sarah Connor is inebriated...

Action: attempt to help her and do not piss her off...

Wait, what? 'Do not piss her off?' Where did that command structure come from? She filed her rapidly changing behaviour patterns away for later analysis and watched Sarah approach. She chanced a greeting.

"Hello Sarah" to anybody else it was a friendly greeting, but to Sarah it may as well have been a slap in the face. She walked right up to Cameron and shoved her face right in the cyborgs until Cameron could smell the liquor on her breath.

"What did you say?" anger dripping from her tone.

"I said, Hello Sarah" Cameron replied in confusion.

"Oh right, hello Sarah. Is that what he sees in you, your unflappable niceness?"

"I don't understand" the statement was of course accompanied by the usual tilt of her head.

"No, that must be it. It's that little puppy dog expression that he can't resist. What is it exactly that you want with him?"

Cameron's head tilted even further at Sarah's angry rant. "I don't know what you mean Sarah"

Sarah scoffed at the cyborg, she of course thought she was making perfect sense. She didn't realise that she hadn't mentioned John's name once.

"Yeah you do, you know, you, you have my son wound so tightly around your little finger that he can't see straight. I wanna know what he sees in you. Sure you're damn pretty hell, I've even caught myself looking at you, funny, once or twice. But he's not stupid, so what is it? What does my son see in you that is so special that he's willing to outcast his uncle in favour of you?"

Realisation finally dawned on Cameron what Sarah was babbling about. She came up with two plans on the spot, either tell the truth or deny all knowledge of what Sarah was getting at. She decided on the former.

"I honestly don't know. Have you asked John?"

"I'm asking you girlie. I can't get a straight answer out of him anyway, so come on, what is it?" Cameron's shoulders slumped at Sarah's persistence as she looked resigned to failing her mission choice of 'not pissing off Sarah Connor'.

"I once told you that I am his best friend. I still believe that's true. Being John Connor can be lonely, and if he can enjoy some form of companionship with me, then I will do my best to make sure I'm always there for him"

Cameron's frank admission caused Sarah to stumble backward slightly. If what she was saying was true, she does all that she does for John's benefit, because 'being John Connor can be lonely'. Sarah knew deep down that she wasn't going to be around forever, and this thought often kept her awake at night and gave her nightmares on the rare occasion she was able to drift off. She was torn between wanting John to have at least some company in the future when she was gone, and the nagging thought that she was indeed being replaced.

"Sarah? Sarah?"

Sarah snapped out of her reverie and realised Cameron had quietly moved behind her and was currently supporting some of her weight on her now unsteady legs. She shrugged her off and walked in to the house, Cameron merely stared at her back as she walked away. She had been expecting some sort of backlash from her admission, instead all she received was a blank stare from a suddenly unsteady Sarah.

Sarah stumbled in to the house, leaving Cameron on the porch. She didn't want to tackle the stairs in her current state and settled for the couch instead. On her way she almost literally bumped in to Amy, only the mini machines lightning quick reactions prevented the collision. Sarah noticed her but continued on her path to the couch and threw herself down on to it in a heap. She rolled over on to her side and curled up in to a ball. Just a she had started to drift off to sleep, she felt another set of eyes on her. She tentatively opened hers to see Amy standing about a foot in front of her staring at her.

"What?" Amy tilted her head in a similar fashion to Cameron.

"There was no need to be mean to her"

"To who?" Alcohol and exhausted women are not a good combination.

"To Cameron. You were mean to her, why?"

"It's none of your concern" with that, Sarah assumed the conversation was over and closed her eyes again.

"Yes it is. They're my friends. Both of them"

Sarah didn't reply and Amy detected the signs of sleep in her. Amy let out a very human sounding sigh of sadness and formed one of her arms in to a long metallic tentacle. It inched its way over to Sarah and carried on past her to the blanket thrown over the back of the couch. The tentacle grabbed on to it and pulled it down over Sarah's shoulders before reforming in to Amy's arm. She watched it reform before turning and heading to the front door and out on to the porch where Cameron stood with her back to the house.

"Are you okay?" Amy asked from her position near the door frame.

"Yes, I'm fine" Amy turned and headed back in to the house.

What she didn't see was the moonlight reflecting off Cameron's tear stained cheeks.

Just one more set up chapter and then we'll get to some proper Jamerony goodness, I promise!