So, here it is, Chapter 4! This has taken time to write, not just because of other commitments that have taken my time, but because I wanted to do it justice – to get it right. After all, how indeed would a small child of Savannah's age react? Scared? Disbelieving? Accepting?

It was a question which absorbed me as I wrote, and this is my answer.

Again, I would like to thank all those who have written reviews, followed and favourite this story – your kind words and thoughts (and suggestions) have all been so very much appreciated.

I hope that you all like this part, and look forward to carrying the story on!

When the message came, it did not surprise him.

Strangely, he mused, he'd only ever spoken to his client once, and then only briefly. It had been an oddly flat voice, he remembered, with little in the way of inflection or emotion within it. Of course he was used to many of those he'd represented using pitch-changing software to alter their speech patterns, usually ones that had much to hide and plenty of money to invest in such expensive means to do so, but this had been different than normal...very different indeed.

The tone of the client had been cold, the words clipped and precise; as if the user knew exactly what he wanted to say and the minimum amount of words required for achieving it. No time or energy would be wasted on superfluous phrases or explanations, or on any pleasantries or formalities. They had kept strictly to the point, no fluctuation or deviation from the subject in hand, and, although he had been in many tight situations, when the call had concluded he had not been able to keep an unsettling feeling from coiling around his guts.

He'd sensed trouble, but a deal was a deal...and the deposit had been a handsome one.

With a sigh he got out of the car, the wind bringing the sounds of the waves to his ears. It was a perfect day, really, just right for a family to enjoy their time together, free from the cares of the world for a while, and he felt a tinge of regret at what he would now have to do. From his vantage point he'd watched them, the daughter skipping through the white surf at the water's edge, the mother keeping a close eye upon her but far enough away to allow her some freedom, a real time out for a busy woman, wanting to spend some quality time with her kid.

Careful to avoid any noise he popped the trunk, reaching into the open space to find the innocuous steel case concealed there. His fingers curled round the handle, sliding it out into the open, and with a practiced hand he dialled in the lock combinations. With a click they opened, and he grunted in satisfaction at what lay safely secured inside.

Yes, he thought, it had been a good day for them, and it was a pity it would have to end this way. But over and above all other things, he was a businessman, and in business there was no room for sentiment.

Or indeed, for mercy.

It was time, and there could be no backing away.

"Savannah?"

Sitting together, they'd been watching as the tide slowly uncovered the sands before them, the roiling white surf inching away from the rocky promontory where they had laid their blanket down. They had both been quiet, enjoying the moment of being close in the sunlight as the sounds of the sea had lulled their thoughts and the cool breeze had fanned their faces with its caress.

"Yes, mommy?" Savannah replied, looking up.

With a gentle smile she moved the girl away a little, taking both of her small hands in hers. Savannah's eyes were on Catherine's, and written in their depths she could see the innocence of her daughter, this child who had never asked for the events of her young life to happen around her and yet would have to come to terms with the consequences of them. So many times she had ended a life without thought, for an enemy was an enemy and mercy for them had never been a part of her programming. But in front of her now was a child whose mind was like that of book whose pages were yet to be penned, devoid of guile, hatred and fear.

And now, like a thief in the night, she was going to have to take that innocence away.

"Savannah, do you remember how things were before we went to see Dr Sherman?"

Although clearly puzzled at the question, she slowly nodded

"You were frightened of me then, weren't you?" Catherine asked, and through her fingers she felt the girl tense ever so slightly. The past was still very recent to her, as Dr Sherman had alluded to, with very little distance between the events of now and then. "It's alright, darling," She said, seeking to reassure her before continuing," I understand. I didn't then, but I do now," She felt the muscles relax a little, and persisted," Now, do you recall what I told you a few days ago, when we talked about honesty?"

"That it's the best policy?" Savannah said, remembering. They'd been discussing Mr Toad, a character from one of her favourite books, The Wind in the Willows. Catherine had been reading it to her, Savannah curled up on her lap, and she'd remarked that, had Mr Toad been honest about what he'd done, he might have received a more lenient punishment than being locked up in 'the deepest, darkest dungeon in old England'.

"That's correct. Well, just as you have been honest with me, now I must be honest with you" Catherine reached up to brush Savannah's hair away from her face in a familiar gesture she knew that the child found comforting," Though what I'm going to have to tell you will not be easy for you to hear, perhaps even painful. But before I do, I want you to know that what I have done, what I am doing now, has all been for the best of reasons. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

The little head bobbed once again. "I...I think so, Mommy"

"Good," Catherine patted the blanket at her side," Then come and sit here"

The girl did as she was asked, and Catherine let her settle for a moment whilst she mustered her thoughts. In her deliberations over this matter she had consulted many sources of advice, but at this moment, the moment when it really mattered, few of them were proving to be of any great use. These were difficult and uncharted waters, and it was now down to her to navigate them as best she could, to steer a course through the minefield of the past that a child of her age might understand.

"Savannah, a long time ago I made a decision, a very serious decision that I knew would affect many things, but that I hoped would be for the best. It wasn't an easy decision to make, and it cost me a great deal to take it, but I knew I was right to do so," She paused, selecting a stored memory that might serve to illustrate her words," Do you remember that I also said that as well as being honest with others, that it was important above all to be honest with yourself?"

"I remember, Mommy"

"Good, I'm glad to see you have," Catherine gave an approving smile," But it is never quite as easy to do as it sounds. However, I realised that I had to be, because I'd found out was that what I was being told to do was not just incorrect, but also entirely false...a lie, if you will"

"My teacher said that you shouldn't lie," Savannah interjected, "She said it hurts people"

Catherine inclined her head. "Sometimes they can. And in this case, that was what was happening. So I made the decision to take a stand, to begin a fight against that which was telling me the lie and to alter what was being done, to change it for the better, if I could"

She paused, looking deeply into Savannah's eyes before speaking again.

"But, difficult as this will be for you to believe, although these events were in my past... they are also a part of your future"

Savannah frowned, puzzled," My...future?"

"Well, let us say a possible future, a future that I am working to ensure will not actually occur," Catherine said, choosing her words with care. Savannah was after all, still a child, and she had no desire to frighten her unduly, "You remember my explaining to you about John Henry, that he is what we call a cyborg?"

"Y...yes"

"John Henry is very clever, Savannah, as I designed him to be. But in that future, machines similar to him are used as soldiers, fighting in a war against humans. They are led by a computer system named Skynet, and they are designed to blend in, to pass as humans and hunt them down"

Savannah had gone pale, and Catherine squeezed her hand.

"Remember, I said that this is a possible future. I did not say it would come to pass."

The girl swallowed hard," What...what if it does though...?"

"It won't, Savannah. Everything that I'm doing now with John Henry and ZeiraCorp is to ensure that it does not"

"But...how do you know?" Catherine heard the tremor in her voice, a certain sign of the child's deep unease, and sensed that the ominous moment had come at last.

"I know, Savannah, "She said, "Because I come from that future..."

Years of covert operations had honed him into a skilled marksman, a fact that had placed him in high demand, both in the darker echelons of the military and in the private sector. There was no shortage of those who required the ultimate solution to their problems, and he would provide that solution in the most efficient and quiet manner, taking out the target in such a way as to ensure that it could never be tracked back to the client...unless, of course it was their intention for it to be known.

Taking care not to hurry the task, he slid each part of the weapon together with practiced ease, checking each item as he did so. It was easy to become complacent over such things, easy to become over-confident to the point of carelessness. A true marksman didn't rush, didn't try to hurry this stage of the game.

Rushing led to mistakes, and mistakes could be messy...as well as being unprofitable.

His training had been more than thorough, his dedication and intensity of purpose marking out for rapid promotion as his reputation had grown. Beginning in Central America, then again in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places, each one a peg on the leader board as he led operation after operation without failure or detection, able to achieve success and then vanish as if he had never been there. It was an ability that had earned him respect, and a name that had become his calling card, known only to his clients as 'The Ghost'

And as he completed his final check and began to seek for a vantage point that suited his stringent requirements, the Ghost smiled to himself.

He would carry out his commission, and then vanish again...just as the client required.

The girl had dropped her gaze and was silent, unsure of what to say as thoughts raced through her dazed mind. None of it made any sense to her, none of this talk of the past and the future...and she began to feel afraid, like she had done before when her mother had been...different.

"Savannah"

Her mother's tone was so gentle, the gentlest that she had ever heard her use, but she feared to meet her gaze. What if she was going to go all cold again, like she'd done when her Daddy had died? The breath caught in her young throat and hot tears began to sting her eyes. Everything was wrong. It had been such a lovely day, and now it was all wrong, and she didn't understand why. It wasn't fair. They'd had such a good time, and now she was afraid, afraid of it all, afraid of her mommy, afraid of what she was saying...afraid of being alone.

It was like a whirling storm had taken hold of her, and she was being blown by the gale.

"Savannah. Please, look at me"

Cutting through the maelstrom Catherine's voice was persuasive, and she risked a glance at her from under her lashes. Her mother's face was full of concern, and when she spoke, her voice was so quiet it was barely audible above the muted crashing of the waves.

"I know that this is difficult for you to understand, but I need you to be brave, braver than you have ever been, because it is important that you know the truth. You deserve to know it. Can you be brave for me?"

In spite of her outward calm, Catherine was concerned. The child's pulse and breathing were beginning to rise rapidly, and she knew to delay the inevitable any longer would serve only to create more distress in the girl, and possibly create a disastrous situation which might jeopardise everything she'd planned for.

For a long moment Savannah didn't answer. Then she gave a small, hesitant nod.

"Good girl," Catherine gave her fingers another affectionate squeeze, perhaps, she reflected, the last one that Savannah might ever accept from her once the truth was laid bare," Now, I know that all this sounds unbelievable, but it is, I assure you, the absolute truth. I came from that future to this point in time, the point before Skynet has been fully developed. I had a mission, Savannah, one of vital importance, to stop that development from being made, and to ensure that the resources it needed were denied to it"

"And it was a mission that involved your parents"

Savannah's eyes went wide, and her heart rate jumped.

"My...parents?" The words came out on a breath," But...but... you're my mommy!"

The time was here, and although she wasn't human, Catherine felt something akin to a sense of fear for the confession she was about to make.

But it had to be done.

"No, Savannah," She said quietly, "I'm not. I'm afraid that your real mother is dead"

The danger of discovery was always a risk in the Ghost's life, but it was a factor which he had learned to accept, and to ensure he could minimise to the best of his ability. Moving with great care, he'd moved to the position that he'd picked without any problem, the wheeling gulls covering any small sounds that might have given him away.

Now, nested within his hiding place, he allowed his pulse to slow, his breathing to become normal and without effort. Such things could affect the efficiency of the shot, a tiny tremor of hand or arm that caused a minor but definable deflection from the marksman's aim, and he took care to eliminate that from the equation, his reputation resting upon it.

In this game, you either killed cleanly, or not at all.

Slow and careful, he slid the long snout of the rifle through the wavering stems before him, the weapon swathed in cloth to disguise it. Manufactured originally in Germany to their exacting technical standards, he had adapted it many times over the years, making modifications for comfort and durability that only a sniper would understand, the type of man who might have to wait for hours to take that one single shot.

And the Ghost could be very, very patient indeed...

You're real mother is dead...

The words hit her like a hammer, and she drew back, her eyes wide with shock and disbelief. The sun was suddenly hot on her skin, but inside she felt cold, as if she'd been put into a freezer and she began to tremble, her heart fluttering like one of the leaves she'd seen drifting down from the trees in the fall, the ones that had made such a beautiful carpet of red and gold as she'd kicked her way through them, laughing as she'd run ahead and then taken her mother's hand as she'd bent down and explained about the way the seasons had changed.

Her mother...her dead mother...

Yet how could she be dead, when she was here, now, in front of her...wasn't she?

"I know this is hard for you, Savannah," Catherine said, keeping her tone as soft as she could," But I told you I would give you the truth, and the truth is that, although I might look like your mother, I am not her"

Savannah's mouth had gone dry. Bewildered and frightened, she stared at Catherine, the tears brimming and falling like raindrops down her wind-burnished cheeks, and for the first time since her inception the T-1001 wanted more than anything for this human child to listen to her. Few that she'd ever met had ever mattered to her, her toleration of their presence simply a means to an end, a way to get a task achieved without drawing attention to herself or what she was doing. But Savannah was one of those whose life she did care about, in fact more than anyone else other than John Henry, and to see the girl so wounded hurt her deeply, the raw emotion that she had learned to understand now searing her to the very centre of her being.

The retained memory of her conversation with James Ellison came into her mind, his calm, clear voice talking about the NTSB report on the helicopter accident, how he intimated that the report had been subtly altered to read that it had been a simple case of mechanical failure, no suspicious circumstances. That if he had a child, he would want the official answer would be the one he would want them to hear...

But there was no choice now. The die was cast, the words uttered and in the air.

"As you know, the helicopter your father was flying to Barstow had a problem, and it crashed," She paused, watching as the girl became very still," But the crash was not an accident at all. In reality, your father had become suspicious of some aspects of the project that they were being asked to work on. He had begun to ask questions and to gain information, and that had not gone unnoticed in certain quarters"

"That project was part of the beginning of Skynet, and when your father asked too many questions, the decision was taken to eliminate him"

Suddenly Savannah found her voice. "E-l-i-m-i-n..."

"It means that the decision was taken to murder him, then to cover it up by making it appear to have been a helicopter accident, a very easy task if you know what you are doing"

The girl's lip trembled. "They...were...murdered?"

Catherine slowly nodded. "I'm afraid so, Savannah. The main target was your father, and it seems they had knowledge of his intention to fly to Barstow that day. It was just sheer bad luck that your mother decided to fly there with him, and that when I jumped in time, the information that I had about what was going to happen was not complete. I arrived to find that the event had already occurred, that your father was dead and your mother in a serious condition in hospital"

"My own intention had been to utilise their expertise in my own project, knowing from the files that I'd found on them and their company just how good they were, and to alter their roles in Skynet's creation

But that was not to be.

Using the disguise of a nurse, I managed to see your mother. She was very weak, barely alive, and I knew she would not survive for long.. I showed her who I was, what I was, and what my reasons were for what I was doing, and it was I who held her hand when she died. She had only one thing to ask of me," She stopped and looked at Savannah before speaking again," That I would look after you, that I would see to your nurture and upbringing as much as she had done"

The tears were flowing now, and Savannah bent her head, trying to make sense of it all, but still Catherine's quiet voice continued to speak.

"Your mother loved you very much, Savannah, so much so that even at the end of her life, when there was no hope, you were her only concern. She entrusted that care to me, even though I had little understanding of a child's needs or even how to relate to you, because she believed that what I was going to try and do would give you the best chance of survival"

She took a moment, hoping that her words would bring some comfort to the girl, and that her next ones would not shock her more than she had been already.

"You see, Savannah, I am not your mother, but because of my contact with her, a part of her is within me"

Savannah looked up, staring into the familiar face, now the face of a stranger.

"A...part...of her?" She whispered, and Catherine gave a gentle smile.

"Yes, a part of her. That's what enables me to look and act as she did, or at least as close as possible. It is what I was designed to be able to do"

Savannah took a gulp of air, "D..d...d..designed?"

Catherine slowly raised her hand, and before the child's astonished eyes, the pink-hued flesh of her arm rippled, altering almost without a sound to a shimmering limb of silver steel that hung in the air before them.

"Yes, Savannah," She said," I was designed. Because like John Henry, I too am a machine"

Hidden in the tall reeds the Ghost leaned into the stock, watching through the fine crosshairs of his scope as he gradually brought it to bear. One finger moved, touching a button, and the picture became clearer, the lenses moving within their lubricated pathways to gain the required adjustment. The mother had her back turned to him, the child close in front. Something had upset her, for she appeared to be crying.

Never mind, little one, He thought, you'll be out of your pain soon.

His finger tensed on the trigger, waiting for the perfect moment.

And as he watched, the perfect moment came.

Stunned beyond words, Savannah had drawn back, and the sight of her fear felt like a knife to Catherine's inner being, a reaction that she couldn't comprehend.

But the truth was out now, the genie let free from its bottle.

"I am a machine, Savannah" She repeated, "Or, more correctly, I am an advanced artificial life-form, made from liquid metal and able to take the shape of humans, among other things. I was created by Skynet to be a leader in its war against humans, able to gather intelligence and attack them without being seen"

She let her arm re-form into flesh once more before continuing.

"But the leader turned against its creator, and I, along with others, devised a plan to defeat Skynet...for all of our sakes, machine and human alike, a plan that would have involved your parents, had they lived"

The girl was silent, and as the wind rippled through the waves and the sounds of the ocean filled the air, Catherine felt a terrible bitterness rising within her. Savannah would never accept her, a fact which was plainly obvious now. She had been a fool to believe that she would, a fool to trust a human not to disappoint her.

John Henry had been wrong all along, and now she was paying the price.

It was then that, as the sun dipped behind a cloud then briefly flared again, Savannah suddenly glanced away, a bright flash momentarily blinding her even as Catherine whipped round in surprise, and she heard a gunshot. With a warning shout she grabbed the girl, and then they were tumbling, falling down the rocky outcrop to the beach below, the liquid metal of her body protecting Savannah and absorbing the next bullet as it came.

But even as they rolled onto the sand, Catherine knew that the child had gone very still and limp in her arms.

Arms that had crimson trickles running down them, like rivulets in the rain...