A/N: Wow! I had no idea that this story would become so popular all of a sudden! Thanks a TON to all you people who fave'd me and my story. It's sooo gratifying to log into my inbox and see that I have 10 people who liked my story! Thank you again!
Oh yeah, and I recently got a comment begging me not to have Arnold die in the end…*smirks* You'll just have to wait and see!
I'm thinking of cutting the story short. I'll admit it, I'm impatient to get to the ending! LOL! What do you guys think?
Summary: Our motley gang travels south to Enrique's house. Sarah Connor notices the growing bond between the T-101 and Jess, and doesn't know what to do.
Disclaimer: *coughs* I believe I have mentioned what I would do if I owned Arnold Schwarzenegger…
They stopped about fifty miles away from the garage at a tiny diner, the engine complaining loudly and emitting clouds of steam. Sarah swore loudly, kicking the tires, but the T-101 got calmly out of the car and yanked open the hood. Jess got out as well and leaned against the hood.
"Hey, Mom, can you buy us some food?" Jess shouted. Sarah glared at her daughter.
"In case you haven't noticed, they don't exactly allow inmates to have money." Sarah snapped. Jess dug the wad of bills out of her pocket and handed a twenty to her mother, who promptly claimed the entire stack of bills.
"Hey!" Jess complained. Sarah pocketed the money and glowered at her only child.
"Where did you get all this?" she asked. Jess scowled, burning a hole in the ground with her chilly blue eyes.
"I hacked the ATM back at home," she admitted finally, crossing her arms defiantly. Sarah sighed and went inside the small diner to get some food. Jess turned to the Terminator, who was carefully pouring some liquid into the engine.
"So you can fix it, right?" she asked. He glanced at her.
"Yes." he said. Behind him, two young children were shooting each other with fake guns, arguing loudly about who shot who. Jess caught his look, a mixture of sadness and expectation.
"We're not gonna make it, are we? Humans, I mean." Jess asked. The Terminator tossed the empty bottle aside and devoted his full attention to the pretty girl in front of him.
"It is in your nature to destroy each other," he stated. She sighed and watched the young boys as they were being dragged away by their mother.
"Yeah, I know. Major drag, huh." Jess said quietly. She realized how close she was to the Terminator, how much of his masculine scent she could inhale. It was a familiar smell of leather, grease, gasoline and gunpowder. A distinctly warlike smell, one that she discovered she liked.
Sarah came out of the diner with two Styrofoam boxes and saw the moment that passed between them. They were standing elbow to elbow, looking at each other with a fiery passion. Sarah cleared her throat loudly, and Jess jumped. She threw her mother an annoyed glance, then got back into the car.
They sat in the car, munching fries and burgers as the Terminator drove. Jess slurped her drunk loudly, rattling the ice cubes in her bottle. Then she flicked on the radio, expertly twisting the dial to a rock 'n' roll station. Sarah pinched the bridge of her nose. It was going to be a very long drive indeed. To offset this, she better cut to the chase.
"How does Skynet get built?" she asked the T-101.
"By a man named Miles Dyson. He is the originator of Skynet."
Sarah sat up. "How much do you know about him?" she demanded. The Terminator swiveled to pierce her with his hard eyes.
"I have detailed files." he said. Sarah clenched her fists, cutting half-moons into her palms.
"Tell me everything," she snapped. "Where he lives, what he looks like…everything."
OoooOoooO
The dusty road leading into the Mojave desert was full of dead roadrunners and potholes. The T-101 navigated the potholes fine, but he didn't seem to care about the carcasses of the little birds. Sarah winced every time she heard the sickening crunch of the car rolling over yet another dead body. It reminded her that she was riding along with a murdering machine, the same machine who had killed Kyle, the same machine…
Unfortunately, the same machine her daughter was in love with.
Speaking of Jess, Sarah noticed she seemed perfectly at ease. Her creamy white legs were propped up against the dashboard, and her eyes were closed, her dark lashes curled comfortably against her flushed cheeks. Her dark hair was covering one of her eyes, and cutting a clean line across her jaw. She was very pretty. Sarah found it hard to believe they had only been traveling for three days. Three days ago, she was in Maximum security. Three days ago, the T-101 had been killing innocent humans out on the battlefield. Three days ago, Jess was a normal unhappy teenager.
Sarah finally broke the silence. "Pull in here." she commanded. The Terminator complied, swerving hard and parking neatly in the dirt driveway. It was the only house - if it could be called that - for miles. It was a rickety trailer, dented severely and in desperate need of a good wash. A burned-out helicopter frame was perched lopsidedly next to it, and piles of junk were scattered around. Sarah motioned for the Terminator to stay here, and got out of the car. Everything was quiet, except for a tumbleweed blowing lazily across the empty terrain. She pulled out the handgun and waited.
A swarthy man jumped out from behind the burned out helicopter, wielding a semi-automatic. Sarah aimed the gun at him and the T-101 was out of the car in a flash, flipping the gun and pointing it squarely at the short man's chest. The swarthy Mexican's eyes widened, and he held the gun in the air.
"You're pretty jumpy, Connor," he growled in a thick Mexican accent. Sarah held her hand up to stop the Terminator from blowing a hole in his head.
"Así que usted es, Enrique. Estamos en problemas."* Sarah said.
Enrique smiled and hugged Sarah fiercely. "I've seen you on the news, all the cops are goin' nuts!" he said, grinning broadly. Sarah smiled for the first time since they had run away.
"Hey, big Jess! How you doin'?" Enrique asked. Jess smiled at him.
"What's up, Enrique?" she asked. Enrique eyed the Terminator ruefully.
"Who's your big friend?" he asked. Jess nudged the Terminator.
"He's cool, Enrique. This is Uncle Bob." Jess said smiling pleasantly. Enrique lifted an eyebrow.
"Uncle Bob? O-okay." he said. He called for a bottle of tequila, and a dark haired woman ran for it. Sarah and Enrique continued talking in rapid Spanish. The T-101, raised a hefty eyebrow at Jess. For him, this was extremely expressive.
"Uncle Bob?" he asked. Jess shrugged carelessly.
The woman came back and handed to bottle to Enrique. He swigged the burning liquid gratefully and offered it to the T-101, who shook his head slowly. Sarah grabbed the bottle and sipped it, feeling the harsh liquid trickle down her throat and warm her belly.
"Enrique, I need guns, food, and one of your trucks," she said. Enrique made to drink from the bottle again, nodding eagerly. Sarah stopped him. "Now, Enrique."
Sarah turned sharply to the T-101 and Jess. "You two, you're on weapons duty. The locker is over there, behind the trailer." she said, pointing. It was clear she wanted to be left alone so she could talk to Enrique. Jess noticed this and sighed, but tugged on the T-101's arm anyway.
"C'mon, let's go," she said, leading him over to an innocent-looking patch of ground. A rusty chain trailed along the earth subtly, and Jess tapped it with her foot. "It's under here," she said. Promptly, the Terminator seized the chain and pulled hard, revealing a narrow underground locker.
He went down first, scanning for any signs of a threat, but the only things down here were guns.
Lots of guns, as it turned out.
He helped Jess down from the ladder, and she scooted ahead, pulling off dusty sheets, revealing more and more weapons. "There's one benefit to my mom," she said, laughing. "She always plans ahead."
The T-101 found a grenade launcher and checked it for ammo. It was fully loaded. "Excellent." he growled approvingly. Jess fingered an M-16, sighting along the barrel. He noticed how easily she handled the weapon, flipping it expertly to check for ammo. She caught his glance and shrugged.
"I grew up like this, so I think it's normal," she said in answer to his questioning glance. "Riding around in helicopters…you know, stuff like that." she saw him go over to a tarp-covered mini gun. He hefted it, positioning it carefully in his muscular arms. Jess laughed.
"It's definitely you," she said with a smile. A lopsided smile quirked the corner of his mouth, and Jess nudged his shoulder. "C'mon, Lugnut, let's go upstairs at give this junk to Mom."
0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0
Enrique was fiddling with the engine of a beige truck, cursing in both Spanish and English. Sarah came over to him. He glanced up at her approach and chewed his bottom lip. "This is my best truck," he said. "But it's missing a starboard motor. You got time to fix it?"
"Yeah," Sarah said. "We're not crossing the border until nightfall. I'll have…Uncle Bob get right on it."
He shrugged, tossing aside a grease-stained hanky. "Let him try, then," he challenged. "It's pretty difficult."
Jess crawled underneath the truck with the Terminator. His gaze was intent, focused, driven. It was so familiar that Jess felt comforted by it, and settled herself down in the dirt. "You know a lot about engines," she said.
"I have a detailed file on the mechanics of a automobile." he said. Jess lay back in the dirt, toying with a socket wrench.
"Yeah….there was this one guy that Mom dated for a bit. Most of the guys she shacked up with were geeks, but there was this one guy who was okay. He taught me a little bit about engines." Jess said.
"Hold here." the Terminator commanded. Jess held the bolt in place as he tightened it securely.
"She wants to get back at Dyson, you know. For killing Kyle. She still loves him I guess." Jess said, turning over onto her belly so she could watch her mother. Sarah was sitting on a picnic table, smoking a cigarette and loading M-16's.
"It's weird…they only spent one night together. I hear her crying about it sometimes. She denies it totally, of course, like she's got something stuck in her eye." Jess said quietly. The T-101 turned to her, puzzlement etched on his handsome face.
"Why do you cry?" he asked. Jess was a little taken aback. It was the first time he had asked her a question, and not the other way around. She shrugged.
"You mean people?" she asked.
"Yeah." he said. Another first. The T-101 usually didn't use words like 'yeah'. He must have picked it up from me, Jess realized. It made him more likeable and more…human.
"I don't know," she said. "We just cry. You know, when it hurts?"
The Terminator thought about it for a minute, then rolled out from underneath the car. Jess followed his example, dusting off her hands and rubbing the dust out of her eyelashes.
"Pain causes it?" He questioned. Jess thought about it, cocking her head to the side. A dark slant of hair swung across her cheek, and the T-101 wished she would do it again. She really was quite pretty.
"No…well, not exactly. It's when there's nothing wrong with you, but you cry anyway. Get it?" Jess asked, knowing she had explained this badly. The Terminator reached in through the car window and turned on the engine, hearing it cough reluctantly into life.
"No." he growled. The car jumped suddenly, and the engine caught. Jess pummeled the air excitedly.
"All right, my man!" she cried, punching him playfully on the shoulder. "Gimmie five!" she said, holding her hand out.
He stared at her. Jess rolled her eyes.
"Hold you hand out like this," she said, and he did so. She slapped it. "Like that, see? Now you do me, give me five!" Jess held out her hand. He slapped it - hard. She winced, shook her hand to dissipate the pain then laughed it off. "Uh, okay, now up high!"
She taught him all sorts of tricks, unaware then Sarah was watching the two of them. Sarah paused in her mechanical loading of the weapons and watched Jess and the T-101 interact. There was no denying it - Jess was madly, wildly, unequivocally in love with the machine. And, even though it was hard to read, it looked like the Terminator loved her back.
Watching Jess with the Terminator, it was all suddenly so clear. It was the perfect husband - the perfect father, the perfect boyfriend, whatever you want to call it. It would never turn away from her at night, never say it was too busy to hold her when she cried, or to join in her laughter. Of all the would-be partners Jess had dated over the years, this thing, this machine was the best thing. In an insane world, it was the sanest choice.
She made up her mind then, as soon as she saw what happened.
Jess punched the T-101 playfully on the shoulder again, and as soon as she did so, he caught he around the waist, pulling her close to him. Jess made no move to break free, just stayed still as a stone, her blue eyes wide. They were alone in their own little world, just staring deep into one another's eyes. He brushed his lips across hers lightly, tenderly, gently, and Jess melted. Her icy exterior that she had built up to show anyone who came close to her dissolved as soon as he kissed her. She closed her eyes and tilted her jaw, deepening the kiss further, raising one hand to cup his rugged jaw line, pulling him closer to her.
Sarah's heart did something strange when she saw her daughter kiss him. Her first instinct was to shoot him, and indeed, she raised the M-16 she was holding just a fraction. Then she remembered. This is how Kyle and she must have looked. Such an unlikely pair, so different, from two different worlds and times. But they didn't care.
She stood up and went over to the little green Volkswagen, jumping into the drivers seat and tearing off down the dusty driveway. Sarah glanced in the rearview mirror, and searched for them. She couldn't see the pair, but she doubted that they would notice her absence until a long time later. They had each other.