A/N: Wow, it's been a long time since my last update! Sorry for the wait, but real life has just been kicking my butt lately (and my muse has been taking a rather inconvenient vacation). This chapter takes place in the season two premiere, where Cameron's hard wiring was reset back to where her "primary mission" was once again set to terminate John after the Jeep explosion.
Bromine: used in flame retardants- extinguishing flames- Cameron in the Jeep after it exploded
-o0o-
Sarah smells the explosion before she sees it. She knows all too well the smell of melting metal and burnt plastic. Of explosive residue and crumbling ash. Of destruction and devastation.
Her eyes take in the destroyed Jeep as she runs outside with John trailing right behind her. Flames lick the sides of the obliterated vehicle and pieces of burnt rubber litter the street as the crowd of people begins to form around the car, forming the telltale circle of awe and astonishment around the scene.
But it's something else in the Jeep that grabs Sarah's attention. A hand, protruding grotesquely out the side of the window, half covered in flesh and half exposed for what's underneath. Gleaming silver coltan.
"Cameron!" She hears her son cry beside her and he dashes out ahead of her before she can stop him. She cries for him to stop, for now she sees the hand twitch back to life and the pieces of rubble tossed to the side as the girl rises impossibly from the wreckage.
"John, no!" Sarah's voice fills the street as she watches Cameron's head cock to the side the way she'd seen all the other machines do countless times. It was the way they observed their victim before they made their move to assassinate.
But John realizes this too, just as Cameron makes her move. He escapes her grip just in time and Sarah meets him as he dashes back to her, gripping his arm hard enough to bruise. She half drags him along as they begin to flee from their former ally. "You run John!" Sarah pants angrily at her son, whom she shoves ahead of her as Cameron's footsteps thunder behind them. "You run for your life, and don't you dare look back!"