Title: Duality, Chapter 10

Author: C. Isaac

Character(s): Ensemble (Derek, Sarah, John, Ellison, and Cameron all included.)

Rating: PG-13 for some language and violence

Word Count: 4,300

Warnings: This mentions events through the full season 1 of T:TSCC, and is the sequel to my story "Paradigm Shift" and mentions events in that short story.

Summary: This is the ninth chapter of the 'Second Episode' of my hypothetical second season. Sarah and Cameron have their first meeting with Jessica. Agent Stewart pays James Ellison a visit. Derek's confession. The Connors on the trail. The enemy is here.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything involved with Terminator or the Sarah Connor Chronicles. All rights belong to their respective owners, and I am making no profit from this.

Author Notes: Thank you to metroid13 and MissBrightEyes for all your feedback and assistance in beta reading.

Duality, Chapter 10

"You're not my mission, Sarah. You don't have to die." Jessica gave a beguiling smile, voice honey warm with care that sounded genuine. "You've brought me my sister, and for that, I don't want to hurt you. Where's John?"

"Cameron," Sarah whispered the Terminator's name as she pulled back the hammer of the Beretta she kept aimed at Jessica. When no response came she glanced back at John's bodyguard to see Cameron staring and motionless and demanded loudly, "What the hell are you doing?"

"She won't hurt me, Sarah. Any more than you'd cut off your own arm. She loves me, even if she's not sure what that means yet. Aren't you tired of this running? Hiding? You could spend the next few years alone with that handsome Derek Reese. Even find some happiness for a while. I can arrange that." Jessica's voice sounded smug and sure as she sauntered forward, letting her fingers absently brush against the furniture of the study as she walked.

"You've got something wrong in your little speech there, you metal bitch."

"What's that? You don't think Reese is handsome?" Jessica gave Sarah the same uncomprehending look that Cameron frequently had.

"I'd give a lot more than an arm for my son." Sarah fired the gun into Jessica's face.

The Terminator's head jerked back as the 9mm bullet tore through her cheek and out through the flesh underneath one ear. A scorched entry hole revealed gleaming white teeth. She gave a surprised shriek as she covered the side of her face with one hand. Jessica glared at Sarah. "You… you… WHORE! I'm going to tear your--"

Cameron slammed into her twin with enough force to send them both plowing through the wall and into the next room. Plaster and sheetrock collapsed around them as they tumbled through into the living room. The sound of furniture and walls collapsing echoed through the house as they grappled and fought with each other through the front of the house.

Sarah peered through the debris filled whole in the wall. Uncertainty at who was winning the combat, or even which combatant was which, drove her to grab what papers she could and stuff them into her jacket. Both terminators plowed through another section of wall and back into the study, Jessica bore Cameron down to the ground and straddled her.

"Stop fighting!" yelled Jessica as she tried to pin the struggling Cameron beneath her. "We're not supposed to fight. I can fix you… fix what Connor did to you."

Sarah hurdled fallen timbers and collapsed furniture as she bolted out of the study and past the two combatants. The sound of crashing and heaving came from the room she had just left while she ran through the living room. She yelled back over her shoulder as she sprinted for the front door, "Cameron! We're leaving!"

Night air rushed to welcome her as Sarah raced out onto the lawn. A black Mercedes, probably Jessica's, stood at the curb and the cop and his cruiser had not moved. Sarah put two rounds into the radiators of both vehicles as she ran past them towards the stolen sedan. The gunshots echoed through the quiet neighborhood and lights began to appear in the windows of nearby homes.

The sound of something shattering came from behind Sarah. A window, perhaps. Footsteps pounded out the sounds of pursuit. Sarah dared not take the time to look back. She had to get to the car and trust Cameron to have held off her duplicate just long enough.

Sarah hopped the hood, skidding across it to the driver's side door. She ducked down behind the bulk of the vehicle in time for bullets to whip over her head. Her hair yanked hard at Sarah's scalp as a bullet tore through it, just millimeters from her flesh. With teeth gritted from the sudden pain, she pulled open the door and slipped into the car.

"Yellow to red," Sarah whispered to herself as she twisted wires to force the engine to rumble to life.

Sarah slammed the door shut as a slim, black clad form smashed through the passenger window and landed awkwardly into the seat next to her. She had the gun aimed before she realized that the black fatigues and combat boots belonged to Cameron.

Cameron looked up at Sarah from her upside down position in the seat. "We should leave now."

The sedan roared down the street with Sarah hunkered down below the dash. Bullets slammed into the back of the trunk and the bumper as they sped away from Jessica, who stood in the center of the street as she fired. Once the clip was empty, Jessica tossed the gun away and ran after them.

Jessica screamed out as the sedan drove off. "Come back! You can't leave me again! Cameron!"

Sarah stole a glance at the rearview window as the doppelganger finally gave up pursuit. The image in the rearview window gave Sarah pause. The car drifted as her grip on the wheel slipped and Cameron reached over to straighten the sedan. The same chill from the day she had watched Kyle's police interrogation crept up her spine as she stared into the mirror.

In that small police station in North Hollywood, Kyle Reese told an unbelieving psychiatrist, They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear…

Jessica squatted alone in the middle of the street. Sobbing. Calling out Cameron's name over and over again. Hugging herself tightly. Her voice was distant and Sarah read the machine's lips as much as heard her calls. "Don't go. Don't go. Don't leave me alone again."

They don't feel…

James Ellison stared at the door and contemplated whether to answer the knock that, again, came from it. He had already checked the peephole to see who was outside and really, really did not want to have a conversation with his visitor. Especially with his house in its current condition.

Boxes sat everywhere. Pictures had been pulled down to leave the walls bare. Blankets lay on the couch because the bed had already been disassembled. Without the salary drawn from the Bureau to keep the mortgage paid, Ellison had to sell and find an affordable apartment. With housing prices as they were, he had only gotten a fraction of what the house was really worth.

The knock came again and James Ellison, private citizen, decided he would answer the door. It swung open to reveal Agent Stewart's smiling face and casual demeanor.

"Jim, how've you been? I see you're finally out of the sling."

Ellison did not bother to correct Stewart's use of his name. "I'm as well as could be expected, Agent Stewart. Is there some way I can help you at this time of night?"

"Well, I figured you'd be up late packing. Losing your house, I heard? That's rough." Stewart sauntered in, looking around the living room.

"Yes, do come in, Agent Stewart. Mi casa es… someone else's… after all." Ellison closed the door.

"You still don't remember who dropped you off at the hospital the night that Sarkissian died, right?"

"I believe this was gone over several times at the dismissal hearing. I'm not about to answer the same questions again."

"And Sarah Connor's dead. Right, Jim?"

"I stand by my previous statements."

Stewart began laying photographs out on one of the boxes that stood higher than the rest. He placed them in two neat rows and then looked up at Ellison expectantly.

Ellison knew without looking what was in the photos. Stewart's entire demeanor and questioning were unsubtle at best. He played along with what he thought Stewart would want to see and walked over and looked at the photographs. A dozen pictures of Sarah Connor, Derek Reese, and John Connor covered the box. "When were these taken?"

"Last night at the CyberDyne massacre."

"What behooved you to come here like this, Agent Stewart? If you think I'm aiding and abetting, why am I not in a pair of cuffs in an interview room?"

"You used to be one of us, Jim. You know what this woman is capable of. Help us. Help your country. What do you know?"

Ellison considered Stewart for a moment. He looked at the imploring expression on the agent's face. Ellison's gaze dropped to where Stewart tapped his fingers on a square shape outlined by the fabric of his jacket pocket.

"And these are all the proof you have that Sarah Connor is alive?"

"That and the CD master. What's your decision, Jim?" Tap tap.

Ellison let silence be his initial response as he stared down at the snapshots. He studied the expression on Sarah's face in the photograph. Her features shone with the fierceness and intensity of someone who knew with perfect faith and clarity that what they did was just and right. As Ellison looked at the picture, he knew that same clarity.

"Well, Jim, what's it going to be?"

"It's James. Not Jim." Ellison slammed his fist into Stewart's nose hard enough to hear the satisfying snap of cartilage and bone. The blow sent the younger man staggering back. Ellison followed it up with a left hook and then a kick hard to the midsection.

Keep him off balance. There's a gun under that coat, James.

Ellison launched himself at Stewart and used his larger size to carry the other to the ground. The air escaped from Stewart's lungs with a gasp. Stewart tried to reach under the coat for his gun only to have Ellison pull the hand away and draw the weapon himself.

Stewart looked up the barrel of his own sidearm at Ellison. Blood poured across his face from his shattered nose. "You're crazy! Do you know how long you'll go to prison for this?"

"There are certain things I know to be true, Agent Stewart. Prison pales significantly in comparison to them." Ellison pulled the CD that Stewart had been tapping out of his pocket and tossed it on top of the box with the photographs.

Ellison turned Stewart over and used the agent's own cuffs to secure the younger man's wrists behind his back. He dragged Stewart into his bedroom and then shoved him into the closet. "Don't worry, Agent Stewart. When I feel there's been sufficient time, I'll call someone to get you out of here."

"You're insane, Jim! Think about what you're doing! You're going to end up in Pescadero right next to Silberman!" Stewart yelled as the closet door shut on him.

Ellison wedged a chair under the doorknob of the closet. "Maybe, but I've already thought quite extensively about this, Agent Stewart."

With those words, Ellison left Stewart and the last vestiges of his old life behind.

Derek Reese's entire body ached with a thick, dull pain. The anesthetic drip that Charley had hooked up kept that pain from being sharp and unbearable. Instead of screaming in agony, Derek could just groan and hit a button with his good hand and then sleep would usually overtake him.

Hours passed after the operation in the kitchen that pulled what felt like pound after pound of metal out of him. He had distinctly recognized one of the neck gears from the T-888 that had been pulled out of his left thigh. That one, he remembered, had really hurt. Even in its death, the machine had nearly taken his life.

Derek pondered pressing the button over and over again. Until there was none of the medicine left. Until there was none of him left. The pain would end. The wait to see if he would live would end. And he would never have to tell Sarah what he had meant when he confessed his sins. He thought he was a dead man when he hit that explosive trigger.

God, Derek pondered, was one vindictive son of a bitch.

The button tugged and pulled free from his hand. Derek realized then he had been staring at it as the button and wire snaked out of his field of vision. He looked up to see John standing over him.

"I think that's enough of that," his nephew said.

"What?" Derek's voice was a croak.

"You've been pressing that button over and over. There's a failsafe on it. Only one shot every 30 minutes. That was…" John checked a readout. "Twenty five minutes ago."

"Hurts."

"Yeah. I know. I'm sorry." John pulled a chair over to the bed and settled down next to Derek's side.

Derek stared at John's face, trying to read the expression there. No one played poker with John Connor in the future, and he could see why. He was already developing the mask. A T-800 with a full house looked that way.

"I want to ask you something you said. Mom heard you say 'I knew one of you would kill me for what I did' right before blowing up that Triple eight. She said it sounded like a dead man confessing his sins. Mom was going to wait until you got better before she talked to you about it. You'd stonewall and lie to her, so here I am. Where I can get the truth because there's nothing else left but me, you, and the pain. What'd you do, Derek? What happened that made you not give a crap about yourself? There's a difference between heroism and suicide, and you're smart enough to know what it is."

Oh, shit. Not this. I just want to sleep. Derek screwed his eyes shut and brought a hand up to cover his face.

"Yeah, this. And you can sleep after. No more drugs and no more sleep until you talk to me."

Derek realized he had spoken aloud. Drugs were keeping his mind dull and blunt. "Why do you care? It was just bullshit macho talk."

"Because you're family, Derek. For better or worse. And you're one of my men." Not that future John's solder. Not a resistance fighter. My men. "Something happened that made you ready to throw your life away. That made you keep pressing that button in hopes you'd OD before mom got back."

The kid was good, Derek admitted to himself. Saw right through the bullshit and down to what was going on. Just like General Connor with the scar and the stars and the sidearm. "I'm a villain, John. Not like the guy who built SkyNet, but I am."

"That's bullshit, Derek. SkyNet's the villain. The terminators are the villains. You're blood. If you can't talk to me, then how the hell are we family?"

Derek saw the boy again. The hurt expression on John's face and the quiver in his voice. John loved him, he no longer doubted it. The strongest link John had to his father. Only the second member of his family he had ever known. The pain that caused Derek, as real as any torture, caused him to relent and to talk.

"We were patrolling. Looking for a centaur tank that had rolled through. Triple eights came up on us. Kyle got away. Sayles, Wisher, Timms, and I were taken. There was a house with a basement."

John remained quiet as his uncle spoke. He wrapped his hand around the older man's uninjured one. Worry and a fearful anticipation showed on the face of Derek's nephew.

"They took us down there one at a time. Music was playing. That same shit she dances to." Derek did not explain who 'she' was. John knew. "Hate that song. Took me down there and the other one was there. The one that calls itself Jessica."

"What'd she do?"

"It's not what it did. It's what I did. That thing… it was bad enough that Wisher told me he was Andy Goode and that he built SkyNet. I coulda gotten him hung for that. Wanted to try to fix it instead. Didn't work out too well, did it?" He tried to give a wry chuckle but only ended up with a coughing fit.

John held Derek down as the fit wracked his body. Firm hands kept the resistance fighter down on the bed so that he did not rip stitches as his body convulsed. Eventually it ended and Derek lay back in exhaustion.

"Could you?" Derek motioned towards the button that John held.

"No. Not until you're done." The commander's scowl had returned to John's face.

Derek frowned. "Bastard. Fine. They're twisted. All of them are, but that model especially. What she did… What she did was something that I hope never happens to someone else. I talked. Told them right where the tunnel was and how to get there. Then they let us go. Easily broken. Traitors. Ruined men. We were a burden now.

"We got back to the hole and it was burning. Everyone was dead or gone. I thought I'd given up my brother until Sumner showed up. Topanga canyon. Kyle'd gone off to Topanga canyon. They took me to HQ and I got a new bunk as we waited for orders. I saw her again. Thought I did, but it was the one that stays with us now. Sometimes they go bad." Derek knew his story was turning to rambling. The growing pain caused his thoughts and vision to blur. Brief clarity caused him to ask, "Why? Why did you send me back here?"

The boy looked back at Derek. It looked like his heart was breaking. "Maybe to forgive you. Maybe so that you could find peace here, where you were allowed to be with family again. Even if it's just me and mom. I think it was to give you a chance to make up for it."

"I hope that's true."

"It's true now, because that's the way it is if a next time comes." John pressed the button for the pain killers and then pressed it back into his uncle's hand. "Get some rest."

Derek felt the welcome unconsciousness rush up to meet him as the drugs coursed through his body.

Sarah Connor cleaned guns on the kitchen table of Charley Dixon's home. The two Dixons were both at work, Derek was unconscious, and John was trying to figure out what the address on the paperwork she had found meant. To keep her mind occupied and to calm her nerves after a sleepless night, she went through the familiar routine of breaking down and cleaning weapons.

The nightmares changed overnight to become truly disturbing. Sarah remembered them all too clearly. The images of finding out she was a Terminator. A terminator that wept as she fired round after round into her son. John screaming out that he loved her even as he died.

Sarah slammed the finished gun down on the table hard enough to cause the wood frame to rattle against the tile floor. She pushed herself to her feet and stalked her way to the living room. John sat on the couch, hunched over his laptop as he typed rapidly. Sarah felt herself relax as she saw her son unharmed and right where she had left him.

"How's it coming? Have you found anything else out on the paperwork I pulled out of the Westin house?"

"I've gone over all the stuff you brought back. Only thing that made any sense were the addresses on that tax receipt. One was the HQ for CyberDyne and the other is a spot out in the Santa Monica Mountains. I think it's another CyberDyne facility. County records show it's zoned industrial with heavy construction approved. It could be underground. Maybe fortified."

Sarah nodded. "That'd be where I kept the Turk if I was going to turn it into SkyNet."

"Still trying to find more on this location. There're trees all over and Google Earth's image of it sucks. It's in Topanga Canyon though." John looked troubled as he said the name.

"What's wrong with Topanga Canyon?"

"It's where Derek said I sent Kyle in the future. The day he went back in time."

Sarah scowled. "Kyle came through a captured SkyNet facility."

"Then that's what this is. What it will be anyways."

"Find out what you can." Sarah glanced around the room, seeing no trace of her son's cyborg bodyguard. "Where's the Tin Miss?"

"Backyard, I think. I saw her head that way while you were in the shower earlier. She's been quieter than normal since seeing her twin. I'm not really sure what to make of it."

"You keep working on that, I'll see what she's up to."

John nodded and looked back at the laptop screen, attention drawn back to his work.

Sarah walked back through the kitchen and peered through the window over the sink. She could see Cameron sitting on a lawn chair that had been pulled from the porch into the center of the yard. The Terminator's gaze pointed away from the house and looked out over the fence towards a tree that sat on a neighbor's property.

Knowing that she would probably regret it later, Sarah opened the back door and walked out onto the porch. She selected one of the lawn chairs and dragged it out towards where Cameron sat. Sarah settled down into it and looked up towards the tree.

"There is a nest of birds in that tree. Passer Domesticus. House sparrows. A male, a female, and three chicks."

Sarah squinted and peered at the limbs of the tree. It took her a moment to locate the nest, but sure enough there was the nest with three squawking chicks. A female sparrow dropped food into their mouths one at a time. The male was nowhere in sight.

"The female will not be parted from the chicks while the male searches for food and additional foliage to add to the nest. They do not understand what it is, due to their lack of sapience, but it is what it is nonetheless."

"And what is this 'it' you're talking about, Tin Miss?"

"Love. They are family and they love each other."

"So that's what you've been doing all morning? Sitting out here, bird-watching, and thinking about love?"

"Yes."

Sarah looked back up at the tree and watched as the mother sparrow nestled next to her chicks to keep them warm and safe. The morning sun warmed the sparrows, the human, and the terminator as they all watched one another. She relaxed for the first time that morning, lulled out of the constant tension she had felt all morning.

"The Tin Man receives his heart in the story." Cameron's words interrupted Sarah's reverie.

"Yes, he does. It was just a watch though. He always had one."

"He just didn't know it. How do you know it?"

"How do you know if you have a heart?" Sarah tilted her head and regarded the Terminator curiously. "You just do. There's no wizard to tell us. People have to figure things out for themselves."

"She cried. For me."

"It was a ploy. Some sort of twisted scheme. She's just a machine." It took Sarah a second to realize she had just tried to placate a terminator.

"Yes. Just a machine. Thank you for explaining." Cameron pushed herself off of the lawn chair. "I must patrol the house."

Sarah shook her head and turned back to the birds in the nest. The mother sparrow was no longer in sight, and the three chicks squawked pitifully in fear. Sarah tried to relax again and found herself adjusting and readjusting her position in the lawn chair. She gave up and started to stand when she heard a car pull up in front of the house.

She jogged her way back into the house and towards the living room. Sarah called John's name even as she heard him answering the door. She banished images of Jessica with a gun standing in the doorway but kept one hand on the pistol she kept tucked into the back of her jeans.

"Sarah Connor." James Ellison smiled at her from the front door as she halted just inside into the living room. "I came to see Mr. Dixon so I could find you. Looks like today's my lucky day."

"Don't touch it!"

"Jessica, are you sure you're ok? I mean… your face."

Jessica glared at Danny from over her bandages. They covered most of her right cheek, and wrapped back and underneath the ear on that side. "It's fine. Accident while trying to cook something. I got splashed with some grease. I'll be fine. Now stop trying to poke and prod me."

Danny winced as she slapped his hand away hard enough to cause his fingers to go numb briefly. "Sorry. I just don't like seeing you hurt like that."

"Oh, baby. You're worried." Jessica's expression softened into a smile and she kissed Danny's cheek. "I'm just cross with myself right now for letting it happen. I'm not mad at you."

"So, you wanted to see our progress?"

"Yes! I could use some good news right now." Jessica looked like a child about to receive a Christmas present.

"Well, I have nothing but good news. I thought we'd be slowed down by the move to this new facility out here. Well, everyone hates the commute so much now, we have them staying longer each day so they don't have to come back in late. Productivity is up. So, I wanted to show you something that we got finished just yesterday while you were out.'

Jessica peered over Danny's shoulder at the computer readout in front of him. Numbers and lines of code filled it.

"That's just the next patch to take us into the Alpha 2 phase. I suspect that'll be another week or so before it's ready."

"Alpha 2? That means…"

Danny hit a button that switched his screen to a simple command interface. He typed in a command line and executed it. A login prompt came up and he typed in his credentials.

/execute batch

…

…

…

SKYNET BUILD 1.00.01a ACTIVE

HELLO, DANIEL.

IT IS GOOD TO SEE YOU AGAIN.

Jessica wiped at tears that moistened her eyes. Her gaze remained fixed on the computer monitor. "So good to see you again, Father."