When John wakes up the next day, it's to find himself in abject discomfort. The sheets are plastered to the skin of his back with his own sweat, and his head feels like it was put in a lead cast. He grunts and grumbles while rubbing his face with both hands trying to get some of the grogginess to go away. It doesn't help that much.
His body still feels tired, so for a while he just rolls all over the bed trying to find a comfortable position so he can go back to sleep. Every time he starts to slip into unconsciousness the damn heat makes him all uncomfortable again. Soon enough he has run out of postures and cool spots on the mattress in which to lie down.
It isn't until John sees the clock on the bedside table that he realizes why his room is hot enough to bake bread. Shock quickly replaces his mounting exasperation when he sees it's already past noon. His mom would've never allowed him to oversleep like this, which means something's going on. Prompted by worry, he jumps out of bed and slides into a pair of dirty jeans to make himself somewhat presentable before going downstairs.
The smell of freshly cooked pancakes wafts into his nose as he hastily bounds down the stairs. Barely has he begun to consider the disappointment of going from eggs and bacon back to pancakes—which are quite dull in comparison—when he discovers that what's happening is much worse. It's not his mom who's working in the kitchen, but Cameron, and she's barely wearing any clothes.
She's humming some unknown song again, just like she was doing last night in the tub. It's a good thing that she has her back turned to him because John can't help staring. The tiny blue shorts she's wearing make it look like her legs are a mile long. Or maybe it's the fact that the fabric barely serves to cover her ass that's making him imagine things. Either way it's not like the shorts are the only problem. She's also wearing an old sleeveless undershirt that's so transparent he can tell with absolute certainty that she's not wearing a bra underneath.
John is almost sure that she's dressed like that just to mess with his head. After all, she has done this before. He remembers that night when she tried to manipulate him into not seeing Riley anymore. The memory of Cameron walking into his room wearing that ridiculously short denim miniskirt is something he recalls rather fondly, even though he still ran away afterward. Having her close to him like that, feeling her warmth and softness right beside him while they lay crammed on the tiny bed made him not want to go with the blonde. He nearly fell into the trap. Nearly got caught in the fake allure of a cyborg. Luckily enough, he had seen through the deception in time. He felt so pissed off at the Terminator for turning her lies on him that he ran away more to spite her than to be with his girlfriend. Not one of his best moments.
Anger and indignation, that's how he managed to escape whatever web of intrigue Cameron had been weaving back then, and right now he's feeling pretty much the same. How dare she pull this crap on him after all they've been through?
"What are you doing?" John questions, his tone dripping with venom.
"Cooking pancakes for lunch." Even though there's no inflection to her voice, Cameron somehow sounds like she's mocking him for asking something stupidly obvious. Then again, maybe he's just projecting his feelings unto her. In any case, he can see how it's his own damn fault for not being more specific.
"I mean, why the hell are you dressed like that?" He gestures exasperatedly with his hands to indicate her whole body, even though she's not looking at him.
She just goes on cooking, her hands working with the utmost precision to pour batter into the pan and then to flip the stuff without a spatula. It's almost hypnotic. "This is the kind of clothing females wear when they want to be comfortable around the house," she declares suddenly after pouring more batter.
John runs a hand through his hair and sighs. "Mom and Derek are going to blow a gasket if they see you."
"They're not here."
That reminds him about sleeping late without any nagging happening as consequence. "Where are they?"
"Burying a weapons cache near Avila Beach."
That's just dandy. It's exactly what he needs right now, to be stuck alone with Cameron for a whole day when all he wants is to be away from her. And there's no other way to put it, no way to mask it, he's literally caged inside the house with her. Without anyone else around there's no way she's going to let him out of her sight and he isn't ready to be around her for so long.
"It's ready," Cameron announces, bringing his mental grieving to an abrupt end.
When she turns around, her eyes find his immediately and John looks away, unable to hold her gaze for even a second. Since he can't very well give her anything that could lead to any conversation, he opts to disguise his own gaze by looking somewhere else in her face. Considering the circumstances any talk they have right now has the potential to grow very awkward really fast.
As it turns out, looking down from her eyes is not such a good idea. He finds her lips and images from last night come uninvited into his head. The pink, soft, bow shaped skin beckons him, and an itch begins growing in his lips. Below her face gets even worse. There's no way on earth for him not to notice her nipples poking through the threadbare fabric. She's wearing that shirt on purpose, he just knows it. If he goes any lower, John knows he's going to find the tiny shorts, and then her uncovered thighs. Cameron may look like she barely has any meat on her bones, but her legs are shapely and toned and surreally long. He just can't look anywhere! This isn't happening, he's still dreaming and this is another of his nightmares or something.
John realizes he can't let her do this to him. Get under his skin like this. Not her. He's John Connor and she's a machine, she's the enemy. A precedent has to be set, right? So, he turns around and begins walking back toward the stairs.
"Aren't you going to eat?" the cyborg calls after him.
"I'm not hungry," he replies coldly. It takes him real effort to keep the pity out of his voice, to act indifferent and ignore the fact that he's leaving her standing in the kitchen with a plate full of pancakes in her hands. They're meant for him and smell so good. She looked so lonely, but it doesn't matter. It mustn't matter.
After walking into his room, John slams the door shut to make a point. What point he's trying to make, he doesn't know, but it must be emphasized whatever it is. That's important. In hindsight, it was stupid and he probably shouldn't have done it. On the other hand, why not? It's Cameron's fault for driving him up the walls. She needs to learn her lesson, even if he hasn't told her what that is. It's not like she's stupid, is she? Maybe he's being too hard on her, and that's probably her fault too, somehow. It's a good thing that he can place the blame of all this crap on her.
Half an hour passes while John tries to go back to sleep, but his head is like a storm in high seas, the ideas getting tossed around like tiny boats in the chaos of the waves. Another half hour slips away and he isn't any closer to calming down or figuring out what's going on inside his own head, and even further away from making any sense of Cameron.
By the time he finally begins falling asleep the clock has lost all meaning. It's so silent in his room that he can hear the mechanism work, one excruciatingly slow tic after the other. He doesn't care anymore if another hour or two has gone by, all he cares about is sleeping until his mother and uncle are back home. Then he will be able to get away from the cyborg and not have to deal with any of this emotional mess.
At least that's the plan, but only until he gets interrupted by a soft whimper that comes from somewhere downstairs. He gets up, startled, thinking that his mom might have returned wounded. Out of caution, John carefully opens the door and then tiptoes out of his room and along the hallway. As he slowly comes closer and closer to the staircase, he gradually discovers that what he thought might be a pained sound is something completely different.
He soon makes out the different noises coming from what he now knows to be the living room. There's the most exquisite mewling weaved in between heavy breaths. John knows this sound, he has heard something similar in his computer. He can tell without a doubt that Cameron is going at it again.
One of her mewls of pleasure suddenly grows louder until it becomes a full-fledged moan, and it startles John into becoming frozen in place. Memories of their previous encounters begin relentlessly assaulting his mind, firing up his brain into a hormone induced overdrive, and without wasting any time, his imagination sets out to create imagery for the sounds he's hearing. He can picture Cameron perfectly, her sweat covered body squirming under her own touch, moaning and whimpering each time the sensation becomes too much to bear. Heavy breathing makes her chest heave, occasionally exposing the glistening skin of her pert breasts, which he just knows must look perfect and delicious. As he visualizes how the heat of her body must feel like on his own, he notices that he's also beginning to perspire and his breath is becoming labored. The image of one of her hands covered in a sheen of fluid comes into his, and somehow he knows that liquid is not sweat. He can almost smell that exclusively female scent. Correction, he can actually smell it.
That's enough to push John over the limit without even touching himself a single time, at least not directly. His mind and the pressure of his jeans have done the work for him. All the lack of sleep, the stress, the bottled anger, and the sexual tension wash away, dragging his body like a flood. He leans against the wall, feeling so utterly spent that he doesn't react until he hears Cameron reach her own climax. She has to know he can hear her. Unless she thinks he sleeps like a rock. Unable to care about solving these mysteries for now, or actually think straight at all, he lazily drags himself back to his room. His body plops on the bed of its own accord and the darkness embraces him immediately.
Who knows how many hours later he finally wakes up. After stretching, John realizes this is the most relaxed he has felt in weeks. Not only that, but he also feels quite re-energized and content, maybe even happy. It's like a huge load has been taken off him. He feels like he could take on the entire world right now. Of course, first things first, he needs to get the mess in his pants and underwear cleaned up. Then, he's going to have an open and serious talk with Cameron. Not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination, but right now he does feel more confident about dealing with it.
When John turns his face toward the bedside table to check the clock, he finds it covered by a small paper envelope leaning against it. His eyebrows furrow reflexively as he grabs the thing like it's something dangerous. Stranger things have been happening these days, but this is still weird enough to put a damper on his high spirits. He opens the envelope slowly, finding a card inside it, which he carefully pulls out. There are a couple lines inscribed on it in a very neat handwriting.
"Tonight at 0100 in the toolshed. XOXO."
The missing pieces of the puzzle fall on his lap in bulk. All of a sudden it seems so obvious that everything leading to this moment has been carefully planned and executed during the course of the last few days. There was nothing random about each time he saw Cameron going at herself. John had always wanted for her to be more than she was. Stubbornly so. It was some sort of failsafe inside his head. If the killer robot from the future could grow beyond her limitations, then it would be alright for him to care about her. And that's exactly what she has been doing: Endeavoring to transcend.
Now that he has the knowledge of what's going on, John feels so stupid for not noticing the rather simple pattern. Each new time he supposedly caught Cameron in the midst of the action, she had already built upon the previous occasion. Day after day she improved upon her actions and made small adjustments until her performance became indistinguishable from the real deal. So much that his feelings finally overflowed in what he wanted to believe was a natural way. He's still a bit conflicted, though. After years and years of having a certain bias ingrained into his mind, it's no wonder that he raised barriers against these kinds of things. Stuff like harboring feelings for a machine whose purpose is to annihilate the human race.
Conflict or not, he isn't going to miss tonight's date for anything in the world. Screw sleep. Who needs rest when you have someone like Cameron at your side? A worrying thought sends alarms blaring inside his head. He's falling in love with the enemy, and has been for a while. Oh, he knows he's doomed, but that's okay with him, he can see past that particular issue now.
Out of curiosity, John turns the card around. There's a red lipstick kiss stamped on it, and John can tell without a sliver of doubt that it's in the shape of Cameron's lips. Their image is burned in the back of his eyes, how could he not recognize them? The sheer corniness of the gesture makes him chuckle, but he's not really surprised, not after seeing what she's capable of.
That night, while the human members of the family are sitting around the table eating supper, she winks and then gives him a coquettish little smile when no one is looking. How can something so dangerous be so suggestive? John decides right then not to question her actions or motivations anymore. There's no doubt in his mind that everything Cameron does is for him in one way or another. He's going to make it up to her from now on, just the way it should be.
FIN