My plans for this chapter majorly deviated from the one I had planned, so sorry if it's seems a little...off.
Thanks again to reviewers, Renderer, kaotic2, acer-sigma, TK-MR and clearfanfic.
By the way, I don't celebrate new year. That's why this is being posted a little under 2 hours before midnight on new years eve! :)
Sarah stalked up the staircase of her home with the intention of calling John out on his actions at the mall. She climbed the steps with true purpose and determination.
I always knew he was too attached to that damn machine, and now he's risking his life to protect her. It has to stop now.
She burst in to his bedroom without knocking or even hesitating.
"John"
Where the hell is he? He'd better not be in her room with her.
She strode out of his room with as much subtlety as she displayed when entering. She marched the short distance down the hallway to Cameron's room and entered in a similar fashion to a moment ago.
"John, we need to..."
She stopped in her tracks at the sight before her. John was sitting on a chair near the bed leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. His hands were propping his chin up as if he were deep in thought. His eyes remained fixed on the machine. She was tucked up in her bed with the covers pulled up to her chin with her eyes closed. Sarah thought she looked just like any other pretty, sleeping teenage girl, innocence personified.
"Would you mind keeping your voice down please"
It was her son who quietly spoke, snapping her out of her examination.
"She's in standby before you ask"
Sarah's stunned silence continued as John stood from his chair and faced her. He spoke in a voice barely above a whisper so as not to disturb his friend's peaceful slumber.
"You wanted to talk right? Next door"
He held his arm out and motioned towards the door.
As his mother turned to exit, he himself turned and looked at Cameron. There was no other way of putting it, she looked angelic. He bent over and pulled the covers up a little higher and brushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear. He turned and headed out the door towards the inevitable confrontation with his mother. He left Cameron's room closing the door behind him gently. He steeled himself for the upcoming argument during the short journey back to his own bedroom. He entered the room and turned to close the door behind him. He took a deep breath before turning to face his mother. She stood with her hands crossed over her chest and stared daggers at him from across the room.
"What the hell is all that about next door?"
She spoke with barely restrained anger that threatened to spill over at any moment. He sighed before answering.
"I patched up her wounds and convinced her to go in to standby. Her flesh heals faster that way"
He conveniently left out the parts about her crying and holding on to him for the better part of an hour. He left out the real reason she went in to standby, to analyse the new powerful emotion. He left out the part of how he tucked her in, stroked her hair and gently kissed her brow before she went in to standby.
"So if that triple eight were to come along now we're pretty much screwed?"
"Mom..."
"No John you listen to me. We can't afford to have her out of action just because you want to be able to parade her around like she's your girlfriend a little sooner"
Her eyes bore in to him and he shuffled on his feet nervously.
"Wha, what do you mean by that?"
"Oh come on John, I've seen the way you look at it. I also saw the way it was dressed yesterday. John, It's using its appearance to get you to drop your guard"
"She"
"What?"
"She is a she, and she has a name. Her name is Cameron...and you know nothing about her"
Seeing the look of determination in her son's eyes and hearing the seething anger in his voice left Sarah certain that he was leaving no room for argument on this one. She carefully examined hi s face for an opening and found none. She brushed past him and moved silently out in to the hall, leaving the door open behind her. John let out the breath he had been holding and felt his hands starting to shake from the excess adrenaline coursing through his veins. He shakily moved to his bed to sit down for a moment and recompose himself. He had just stood up to his mother for only about the third time in his short life. It had taken its toll on him mentally, but he knew he had to be strong right now...for her.
He picked himself up and stepped in to the bathroom. He turned the tap on and splashed cold water on his face before looking at himself in the mirror.
Pull yourself together John. It's not the last time you'll have to do that.
He stood up straight, took a deep breath and turned to face Cameron's door. With a confidence he never knew he had he quietly turned the door handle and entered her room. He shuffled his way over to the chair next to her bed and sat down. He looked at the subject of his recent argument. She looked so peaceful and innocent while 'sleeping'.
Oh yeah, she's definitely worth it.
A soft whirring sound tore his attention away from his thoughts and back to her.
She's reactivating. 15 seconds.
The seconds felt like minutes to John as they ticked by. He saw her eyes move beneath her eyelids signalling that she was 'awake'. Instead of her eyes snapping open as usual, and as he expected, she seemed to stretch and let out a soft moan of contentment before letting her eyes slowly flutter open.
Damn she's beautiful.
"Good evening John" she breathed.
John couldn't help but smile at how human she appeared.
"Hey, how are you feeling?"
She tugged the covers up a little higher before answering.
"Like I do not want to get out of bed. I've never felt this way before, I usually do not spend so much time in standby either."
"You usually don't have new emotions to analyse"
He smiled at her before continuing.
"So what did you analysis tell you?"
She looked away from him slightly before moving to sit up with her back to the wall and her knees pulled up to her chest. To John's surprise she pulled the blanket with her and cuddled it up to her chin again.
"I'm not sure John"
She hesitated slightly before patting the spot next to her just as John had done for her that morning. He blushed slightly as he moved on to the bed next to her. She surprised him once again when she pulled the covers over to share with him.
Well John, here you are tucked up under the covers with your beautiful cyborg protector slash best friend. What are you gonna do now Johnny boy?
Luckily her voice stopped his imagination from following what his teenage hormones were telling him.
"I know now why I froze up when the Terminator attacked"
She hesitated and John noticed she seemed to be taking a big interest in the flowery pattern of the blanket. He reached his hand out under the blanket until it found her knee. He gave it a gentle squeeze and a tender rub.
"Hey, you know you can tell me anything right. Whatever you've found, you can trust me okay"
She smiled at him before continuing. John didn't see it necessary to stop his comforting gesture under the blanket, or remove his touch from her.
"My analysis indicated to me that it was fear that caused me to freeze. I have never experienced an emotion as strong as fear before. Under normal circumstances I would simply shut down because of the surge in data"
"Normal circumstances?"
"The jeep explosion caused damage to my chip which you already know. I believe it affected my 'Auto Shutdown Data Protection' functionality. It is designed to protect my neural network from expanding beyond it preset parameters. It prevents me from growing beyond Skynet limits"
John swallowed deeply.
"Growing?"
Whether subconsciously or not the two had shifted closer to each other. Their faces mere inches apart.
"Yes John, I am a one of a kind model. I was created to perfectly mimic human behaviour, to be the perfect infiltrator. In order to do this my neural network is capable of understanding and recreating genuine emotion. The system was designed to be fully functional for my first mission, only then did Skynets limits come in to effect. They have been present ever since, up until the car bomb"
John released the breath he didn't realise he'd been holding.
"You mean you can really feel? And I don't just mean this..."
He gave her knee a light squeeze.
"...you mean you can really feel fear, sadness, happiness?"
"I can feel the machine equivalent of emotions, but they are as close to the real things as a machine can ever get"
John didn't know what to say, so he asked the only thing that came to him.
"Are you okay now?"
She smiled at him and leaned her head over to rest on his shoulder, causing John to blush and stop the movement of his hand momentarily.
"Yes John I'm fine, thank you for asking. However now I must enter standby shortly after experiencing a strong emotion for the first time"
"So does this mean you won't freeze up through fear again?"
"It means I won't freeze up...but it will influence my actions"
John swallowed nervously.
"What do you mean by that?"
"It means I will feel fear and it will affect me in the same way it affects you. The more I experience it the less it will affect me. Do not worry, I will not let it affect my mission to protect you"
John let out a small laugh.
"I'm only concerned about you right now. I couldn't give a crap about my protection"
"Well you should John"
She lifted her head off his shoulder and moved away slightly. For John, that tiny little separation may as well have been a great yawning chasm.
"What you did today at the mall was very dangerous John. You could have been seriously injured...or killed"
She looked away from him before speaking again.
"You should not have risked your life to protect me. I'm not worth it"
Several emotions played across John's face in a short space of time, first confusion, then sadness and then anger. He extricated himself from under the blanket and stood up from the bed. He didn't even turn to face her as he replied.
"I have just had to go through this argument with my mother. I defended you, I lied for you, and now here you are telling me the exact same thing she did"
His voice had reached a rather high level by this point but he didn't care as he continued his rant.
"All I've heard about since I was this big..."
He held his hand out flat about two feet from the ground.
"...is how I'm so important. About how important I'll be..."
He spun round to face the bed. He could have sworn she was practically cowering behind her blanket, she'd never seen John Connor so angry.
"...Do you know how many people have died for me, because of me...?"
She didn't reply.
"...Six. SIX PEOPLE CAMERON"
She flinched at his sudden rise in voice directed squarely at her.
He remembered those people in his head. Kyle Reese. Todd and Janelle, his foster parents. Miles Dyson. Uncle Bob. Riley.
She stood from the bed taking up a position behind his turned back, discarding the blanket as she did. She placed a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to soothe him. He merely shrugged it off.
"Those people did not die in vain John" she managed to choke out in a tiny voice, looking at her unwanted hand.
"Yes they did Cameron. They all died because of me. They were all people and they didn't deserve to die just because of the 'Great John Connor'"
She was about to reply when he cut her off.
"John..."
"So don't you dare tell me you're not worth protecting when you're the one I care about most of all"
It was true. Sure he cared about Riley, Todd and Janelle, and even Uncle Bob. Of course he cared for the father he never met. But with the exception of his mother, Cameron was the one person he cared about the most in this world.
"I'm not worth it"
She looked to the floor and shuffled her feet in a very human gesture.
"CAMERON. Will you get it through that thick metal skull of yours that you ARE worth it. What did you think? Just because you're a damn machine that you're not..."
John never saw the slap coming. But he certainly felt it. He stood looking at her in stunned silence for a moment. Her eyes were brimming with tears. They threatened to spill as she looked at her hand, the same hand that had meant to comfort him a moment ago. She moved past him and to her closet, still facing away from him as she spoke in a trembling voice.
"I need to start my nightly patrol. Please leave while I change my clothes"
John stood stock still, not registering what she had said when she turned around and screamed at him.
"GET OUT"
His body did as commanded, his brain still lagging a few moments behind him as he almost tripped on her discarded blanket while moving to the door. He kept his stare on her back as he felt around for the door knob. Finally finding it, he opened the door and slipped out in to the hall, sparing a last glance at her form.
He moved on autopilot towards his room.
John didn't sleep much that night. Partially due to the pain in his ribs, but mostly because of the throbbing pain in his cheek, serving as a constant reminder of what had just happened.
He lay on his bed trying to find a comfortable position while analysing what went wrong a few minutes ago. He strained his ears when he heard her door click closed. He heard her heavy boots make a faint sound on the hallway floor as she left for her nightly patrol. He heard the steps pause outside his door.
Please come in Cameron.
Her steps could be heard again, getting quieter all the time until they could no longer be heard.
John Connor, future leader of all humanity shed a silent tear, the salty liquid stinging his already bruising cheek.