Chapter Nine
"Time out" John called to Cameron, plastered up against a tree trunk after she had pelted snowball after snowball at him not missing a single throw.
He had only managed to hit her once. 'Got you again' he had shouted, as she had just stood there, his snowball hitting her in the chest once more. Little did he know Cameron had only allowed his first throw to hit her so she could assess the threat level of a snowball impact on John Connor before scooping up her own in record time and relentlessly firing away at him.
Ugh, must've been first time lucky…
"I surrender. You win" he panted, taking off his sodden scarf and gloves and stuffing them in the pockets of his coat.
Cameron refrained from hurling her last snowball at a thoroughly soaked John and walked up to him to help brush the melting chunks of snow out from under his collar.
"Thanks" John said, shivering slightly and wishing he had not insisted they go out and that he had not tried to catch Cameron off guard in the first place with his sudden snowball attack while still in their garden. He could now have been sitting comfortably warm and dry with her in the house waiting for Sarah and Derek to return from their last minute recon or whatever they were doing.
We could have been watching a film or something. Scrooge maybe…
Instead, he was wet to the bones and they'd have to head back home and sneak into the house for him to change. Woe betide him should his mother see him in this state. John hoped against hope Sarah and Derek weren't back yet.
To his astonishment, Cameron was also quite soaked, not from being hit by John but from dodging his every aim and sometimes having thrown herself to the ground avoiding his snowballs.
"Are you sure you're not cold?" John asked eying her slightly paler than usual skin and noticing the ice crystals hanging from her hair.
"I feel cold, but it's not uncomfortable" Cameron replied before smiling at him and adding "That was fun John. But you need to practise projectile evasion more thoroughly. I did not miss you once."
John merely stared at her not quite sure if she was serious or pulling his leg, thinking if it were the latter then she really had developed quite a wicked sense of humour. He grinned at her, took her hand in his and gave it a brief squeeze before saying "Yeah, you're right, but it was fun, all the same."
The touch of his hand created another surge throughout her system but this time it did not startle her.
It felt … pleasant.
Relishing in the feeling she was experiencing, Cameron blissfully recalled her initial surprise followed by an overpowering sense of relief as John had suddenly smiled, walked up to her and briefly hugged her right out of the blue after their slight misunderstanding in the garden. Having been so taken aback she had just stood there like a statue while he'd had his arms around her.
She had so not expected this. Cameron had actually expected him to shun her forever because of the scary robot trick she'd played on him. The chasm of loss that had opened up inside her at the very thought had profoundly shaken her.
John had instantly noticed her distress. He'd realised he had overreacted, too. It had only been her way of retaliation for his ambush, after all. Or her idea of a joke. She could not know that she had trodden on a nerve.
Someday, John had decided, he would have to tell her about his nightmares.
They had walked for half an hour through gleaming white, undisturbed streets to the nearby common for their snowball fight, so that Sarah and Derek couldn't spoil it for them should they return early. Cameron had insisted they come here. She did not want the day ruined for John by him getting a severe telling off from Sarah, which would have been inevitable had Sarah come across a drenched John engaged in a snowball fight with his terminator protector in the front garden.
The open countryside stretching out before them was slightly hilly, the vista of snow-covered meadows only being obscured by a few scattered houses on the city perimeter, a vacant lot here and there and one or two copses on the horizon where the woods began. It was barely early evening but nevertheless darkness fell quite suddenly in these slightly remote parts without the glare of city lights to compensate, especially in winter.
"We'd better head back. You know what Mom's like, she'll go ballistic if we're not home before dark."
Glancing up at the sky and uneasily contemplating the rapidly onsetting twilight, John imagined the rants yet to come and quickened his pace, Cameron at his side. She had switched to night vision and was warning John about ditches and other things that could be potentially harmful to her charge. A waxing crescent moon had risen and the first stars shone in the ever darkening sky. It was getting colder, all the more so for a dripping John who was starting to shiver and an equally soaked cyborg not at all unfazed by her already frozen stiff clothing. Her mini skirt had become as hard as a board and her leather jacket was beginning to stick to her arms.
"You were right, John."
"What about?"
"I feel cold."
This was something else John mentally added to his list of things he wanted to do for Cameron: He never wanted her to feel cold again.
"What are you doing?" Cameron asked, noticing him unbuttoning his coat and taking it off.
"Here, you can have my coat. It's not that cold, I can bear it" he said through chattering teeth holding out the dripping garment for her.
Cameron eyed him in utter amazement, still not used to John being this caring towards her. She had grown accustomed to being shouted at, totally ignored or treated like a more sophisticated toaster by the Connor/Reese family. It was only John who had treated her differently right from the start. Even though he had made the occasional dig at her in the past about being a machine, he had always valued her opinion and heeded to her word.
Cameron had liked this form of closeness between them. Unfortunately, it had all taken a wrong turning after the explosion. John had done everything he could think of to try and forget her proclamation, even if it meant distancing himself from her. Deep down though John knew he had failed miserably. He would never forget her pleas and tears, yet alone her words.
I love you John and you love me.
An unfamiliar and powerful feeling welled up inside him, making him have to fight down the urge to hold Cameron in his arms and never let her go as he placed his coat over her shoulders, earning himself one of those sad half smiles he so adored, yet had tried so hard to ignore for the past few months.
"You shouldn't, John. You will catch a cold like this, whereas I can't."
"No, I won't. Please, Cameron, keep it on. For me."
"Why?"
Because I never want you to feel cold again.
"Um … because … look, let's hurry up a bit, okay?"
She was still staring at him with that longing expression John hadn't seen for a long time until today. Or hadn't chosen to see. At a slight loss for words and a little embarrassed by his inner turmoil he made himself focus on something other than the cyborg next to him, currently the blame for his heart missing a beat.
Glancing skywards he noticed the stars shining brightly above them in the meanwhile crystal clear winter night.
"Look. There's Orion. That's Rigel and the reddish one over there's Betelgeuse. You can even see M42 down there off the belt if you strain your eyes a little."
Star gazing with a terminator. Bang went his normal life and John wasn't upset about it in the slightest anymore.
"And there just off the shoulder of Orion …"
He trailed off noticing that Cameron was no longer beside him. She had suddenly stopped dead in her tracks and was pointing her gun at him, a look of panic on her face.
John instinctively dropped to the ground before she threw her gun towards him. It landed in the snow in front of him making him look up at her in utter confusion.
"John, take my gun. Something is wrong."
He picked up the gun, hastily got to his feet and stuck it in his waistband feeling guilty and upset with himself for actually having thought for one fleeting moment that she had gone bad again. That she was going to kill him.
Cameron stood stock still, staring at him wide-eyed, as he rushed over to her, concern evident on his face. He drew the gun scanning their surroundings.
Shit! 'Know your exits, John' and here I am in open ground. All I need now is a bull's-eye T-shirt. Mom'll kill me.
"What's wrong, Cameron? I don't see anything, there's no one there."
"I'm sorry John. You need to go. You need to get back to the house. Now."
"What? Wait, what about you? What do you mean?"
Dumbfounded, John looked at her still panic-stricken expression wandering what on earth was wrong with her when, without warning, she suddenly toppled over like a log. He only just managed to catch her, her not insignificant weight causing his legs to give way, and they both landed in a heap in the snow, Cameron half on top of him. John scrambled out from under her, his hands now numb with cold, and immediately set about trying to turn her over on her back which was no easy task whatsoever, her weighing far more than the average girl.
Having finally managed to lay a totally unresponsive Cameron on her back, John wiped the snow and ice from her face. She just stared up into his eyes looking as if she were about to cry.
"What's happening with you? Wha … what can I do?" his voice caught as John started to panic.
A lone tear trickled down her cheek as she forced a brief smile for him.
"Today was a nice day, John. Thank you. I've seen the shoulder of Orion. All those moments will be lost … in time … like tears in the snow. I don't want to go!"
Her head jerked once as if in a spasm of a fit of some kind and then she lay still. Perfectly still, her eyes wide open reflecting Orion.
Overhead, a shower of meteorites scribbled omens in the sky.
…
End of part one
Author's note & quotes:
This story will be continued in Cameron's Christmas pt.2, which is halfway done and which I will release as soon as I have finished it. Thank you for reading.
The character of Judge Dredd appears in the comic/annual 2000AD and belongs to Fleetway/IPC Magazines Ltd.
The original idea of Derek giving Cameron a can of WD40 for Christmas belongs - as far as I know - to the fanfiction Author River2027 and is used in her wonderful short story Christmas with the Connors, which actually inspired me to write a small three-page story for my own amusement last December and which then eventually turned into this.
The phrase It was very well done. The hesitancy. The careful flattery is a direct quote from JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince. Don't ask me what page, I've never read it, only listened to the audio books. I just love that line...
The character of Calrissian appears in Star Wars and belongs to Mr. Lucas.
The phrase "I believe in you, Cameron. Do you believe in me or I am alone in this hall of dreams?" is taken from the song beloved by VNV nation.
Cameron's "last words" are loosely taken from the motion picture Blade Runner - right at the end where the cyborg saves Harrison Ford - and belong to Warner Bros.
The main characters in this story unfortunately belong to Twentieth Century Fox.
