author's note:

Ionia J. - Thanks for the critique. I understand your point. This story was actually completely written before Born to Fight, so I think I've gotten better as I go along. Yes, it is going somewhere. The finale stuff gets pretty action packed, but mostly it's just a comedy/drama story. Anyway, thanks again for the review.

Mathlover15 - Thanks for reviewing. Jesse actually shows up again in this chapter.

formytots0128 - Ha ha, I know, I love bringing in Sarah's cooking abilities (or lack thereof) and also the pancake references that kept coming up in the series.

acer-sigma - Nice analysis. You've hit the nail on the head with that review.

Lifesfullest21 - Don't worry, John and Cameron are eventually going to kiss. And there IS a horseback ride later on as well.

Chapter Eight:

There is No Fate

John Connor lay on his bunk silently, listening to the owls hooting in the night. He wasn't going sleep; he'd already made the conscious decision. There was no way he could sleep without dreaming about Cameron, without having the awful nightmare again, without waking up screaming her name in terror.

In a roomful of campers, he couldn't trust what he'd reveal in his sleep.

He sat up in bed, suddenly hopeful. Cameron didn't sleep either. Would she be on patrol? Would she meet him outside? His face fell. No, he'd told her she had to pretend to sleep. It'd cause too many problems if one of her bunkmates woke up and found her missing. He closed his eyes briefly, wondering if she was lying in her own bunk, just like he was. What was she thinking about? If she could dream, would she dream about him?

He carefully slid out from under the covers, grabbed his jacket, and quietly opened the door. He didn't know exactly where he was going. Maybe there would be some leftover spaghetti in the kitchen…

John turned the corner and ran straight into Cameron, his heart leaping into his throat. "Geez! What are you doing out here?" he demanded, as his breathing returned to normal. "Aren't you supposed to be pretending to sleep?"

"I have to keep an eye on you," she replied calmly. "Which means I must run my patrol since I cannot enter your cabin."

John nodded, sticking his hands in his pockets. He glanced back at the cabin. No one was stirring which meant that, thankfully, Derek hadn't heard him get up. He looked back at Cameron. He'd always wondered what she did on her patrols. Maybe now was his chance to find out.

"Need some company?"

Cameron cocked her head studying him before replying, "Yes." He smiled. In the past, she would have answered differently. After all, she didn't need company at all. But she could want it. They started walking down the path behind the cabins.

"You can't sleep," Cameron said. It was a statement, not a question.

John shrugged. "Just don't want to."

"Because of your nightmares."

John looked away. "Yeah."

Cameron stopped walking and sat down on a bench near the lake. "Tell me about them."

John shook his head, jaw tightening. There was absolutely no way he would talk about it. "I don't want to."

"You shouldn't keep things inside," Cameron said. "Dr. Sherman told me that."

She remained seated, looking at him expectantly, and he instantly knew she wasn't going to give up until he did what she wanted.

John sighed, relenting. "Fine. It was about you."

He waited to see her reaction. She cast her eyes downward. "Do I go bad again?" she asked softly. "Do I kill you?"

He felt the shock form on his face. "What? No, no, nothing like that." He hesitated. "You…you die."

"I can't die," Cameron pointed out. "Not in the way you understand death."

"You die to me," he shot back. "In my dream, Cromartie comes back and he's even smarter than he was before. He knows the only way to destroy you is to remove your chip. So that's what he does. He disables you, removes your chip and crushes it."

Cameron was silent for a moment. "He can learn a lot from my chip. He can learn your identity, the list of targets, your hideouts."

"I know."

Cameron stared up at him with a new intensity. "I need you to do something for me."

John frowned, not sure what to expect. "Sure. Anything."

"I'm not capable of self-termination."

"Suicide?" John questioned. Why would she be telling him that?

"I can't kill myself, especially if Cromartie would take out my chip," she paused and looked up at him. "But you can."

John's eyes widened and he felt the blood drain from his face. She hadn't actually suggested that, had she? His breath caught in his throat but he managed to whisper, "Why would I want to kill you?"

"You may have to someday," she replied calmly, too calm for someone discussing their own termination. "If that ever happens, if he ever takes my chip and you can't get it back, you have to destroy it."

John shook his head back and forth slowly, taking a stunned step backwards. "No…"

"You can't let him get the information I hold," she replied reasonably. "He'll be able to find you. He'll know about the real Kyle Reese, your father. He'll send someone to terminate him, to terminate you."

John scowled. "Stop trying to protect me. I won't do it."

"John, you have to. It'll mean life or death."

"Don't ask me to do that," he snarled.

Cameron backed off at the fierce anger in his tone. "It's just hypothetical."

"I don't care," he replied stubbornly. "I won't do it."

"John, please, promise me."

He hesitated at the pleading tone in her voice. She'd never asked him for anything, never pleaded for anything since the day he had her pinned between two trucks, begging for him to spare her life. He slowly walked over and sat down next to her on the bench. "I can't. I've already made you a promise."

Her face betrayed her confusion. "What?"

"I promised I'd always bring you back."

Cameron stared at him. "That's not logical…"

"Maybe not," John agreed. "But it's human."

They both remained silent for the longest time, John's words still hanging in the air. Cameron seemed resigned now, accepting the fact that he would never kill her, not even if his life depended on it.

After a while, she convinced him to return to his cabin, insisted that he needed rest for tomorrow's activities. He'd protested, which only made her even more adamant.

She all but shoved him into his room, walking beside him to his bunk, which was thankfully right near the door, and making sure he laid down. There was the small fear in the back of his mind that Derek would wake up. And finding Cameron inside the cabin would definitely be grounds for getting them both kicked out of the camp.

He still wasn't sure if he'd be able to sleep. But he realized that with Cameron here, he was safe.

Sarah's words rose hauntingly in his mind. No one is ever safe.

Maybe not, he told the voice in this head. But in that moment, with Cameron standing dutifully above him, he felt pretty close.

He drifted off to sleep almost immediately, her presence creating a peace in him that he rarely felt anymore.

And he didn't have a nightmare that night.

**********

John stood in line for breakfast, passing his mother who had resumed her usual position behind the counter, scooping food onto the trays. "You were out late last night," she remarked when John came past.

John barely responded. How could she know? Had Derek noticed him sneaking out and just not said anything?

"John, we don't know when that Terminator is coming for Kyle," Sarah cautioned. "You have to be careful."

John felt the lecture coming on. "Mom, I was fine," he insisted with a heavy sigh. "Cameron was with me."

To Sarah, that was even worse.

He didn't care. What she thought no longer mattered. If she couldn't trust him, why should he trust her?

Sarah must have seen the change in his face, because her brow furrowed in confusion at his coldness. John didn't say another word to her, simply slapped a pancake onto his plate and disappeared into the breakfast crowd.

**********

Derek Reese stabbed his knife into the table in Jesse's cabin, chipping away part of the wood. He'd taken a chance coming here. If Sarah, John, or Cameron had seen him leaving the campground – even if Jesse's hideout was a simple cabin just outside Camp Jabez – he knew his family would have questions, questions he wasn't ready to answer.

Jesse came back into the room, but Derek didn't meet her gaze. This whole plan seemed wrong somehow, like he was violating John's wishes. Why couldn't he trust John Connor, the leader of mankind, to make the right decisions?

"Derek?" Jesse questioned, looking at him curiously. "You don't seem sure."

"I just…" Derek shook his head, driving the knife into the table once more. "I feel like I'm betraying him."

"You're not," Jesse insisted strongly. "You're trying to help him, to save him."

Derek still refused to look up her, continuing to cut away at the wood. Jesse chewed on her lip thoughtfully before coming to sit across from him at the table.

"You really don't get it do you, Derek? She's taken over the entire resistance. The machines are running the war, not the humans."

Derek finally looked up, seeing a passionate hatred in her eyes. "I went to deliver a message to John Connor and you know what she says?" Jesse's voice was filled with bitterness and loathing. "'Telling me is the same as telling John.' That's what she tells me. She goes everywhere with him. She's with him everywhere. Twenty four seven."

She paused, letting Derek take in the implications of that. He frowned. Twenty four seven. "Wait, are you saying…"

"You know what she calls herself in the future?" Jesse spat. "Her name?"

Derek shrugged. "Cameron?"

"Cameron Connor."

Derek felt his mouth go dry and he managed to choke out, "What?"

"They're married, Derek. John Connor is married to the machine. And you tell me that's not twisted. You tell me you can accept that."

Derek felt his stomach twist, felt sick, revolted. "Married?" he choked out.

"Well, not technically," Jesse admitted. "There's no preacher, no marriage license, but of course, we don't really have a law in the future, do we? In all essence, they're married, in every way."

Derek's mind was racing into overtime. That was it… the final injustice, the final thing Cameron had done to completely turn John. He had to stop her, stop the machine. John Connor was going to be corrupted. Jesse was right. "I can't let that happen."

"That's why we need to do something about it," Jesse replied.

Derek's eyes clouded in blind rage. "I'll kill her."

Jesse shook her head, just like Sarah had. "Not yet. You can't kill her, Derek. He has to make that decision for himself. No, we need to continue with the plan."

"The plan isn't working," Derek protested, rising to his feet. "John hasn't given Riley a second glance. And, truth be told, Riley hasn't been giving it her all. She's been nervous around Cameron, and with good reason. But John's not supposed to know that reason. Neither is Cameron."

"Give Riley a chance, Derek," Jesse advised. "She can get to him. She's done it before."

Derek snorted, yanking his jacket from the back of his chair. "Yeah, I know. She's been toying with his emotions from the start, right?" He pulled the cabin door open, turning around to face Jesse once more. "But you know what the problem is? So has Cameron."

Jesse watched him quietly as he slammed the door shut on his way out. Her eyes trailed to the table, where Derek's knife had been cutting into the wood. For the first time, she realized he had not been unconsciously chipping away at the table. He'd been carving letters into the surface, a phrase she'd heard many times from both him and John Connor.

NO FATE.

*********

Since Camp Jabez was primarily a horse camp, the day's activities required taking care of the horses the campers would be riding at the end of the week. The counselor said that being near the horses now would get the animals used to the campers for the end of camp trail ride.

John snorted. What they really wanted was just someone to do the chores. And he really wasn't looking forward to how the horses would react to his cyborg protector. Dogs certainly hated her. Could all animals tell human from metal? Could they also tell hostile ones from friendly? Enrique's dogs hadn't gone wild when John had brought Uncle Bob there. Maybe there was a chance other animals would react the same way.

Each of the horses were tied up outside to a post, waiting for a hose-down and a bucket of oats. As he and Cameron approached one of their designated horses, it began to whinny and snort, stamping its feet in reaction to Cameron's presence. She paused at the entrance, shooting John a weary look.

"It doesn't like me."

John slowly crept up to the horse, trying to soothe it with his voice. "It's alright, calm down…"

He gently patted the horse on the head, continuing to whisper to it. The horse kept a wary eye on Cameron, but it finally complied, no longer reacting violently towards Cameron. John stroked its side.

"I know what she is," he whispered. "She won't hurt you." He glanced over at Cameron. "Come here. Slowly."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Cameron responded.

"Just trust me."

He could feel the horse's muscles stiffen beneath his fingers as Cameron slowly approached, coming to stand directly behind John, who kept stroking the horse and talking to it soothingly.

He looked at Cameron out of the corner of his eye. "Put your hand on mine," he said to her in a soft voice.

John kept his hand on the horse and Cameron slowly put hers on top. John's breath caught in his throat for a moment as he felt her touch.

"Now slowly slide it off onto the horse," he said. He could have sworn her face looked reluctant, but she moved her hand from on top of his to the horse's side. The creature didn't react, and John breathed a sigh of relief.

"It's not making noise," Cameron stated.

"It can feel the warmth, you feel human," he said with a smile. "Horses are smart. It senses that you're not here to harm him."

"Why can't humans?" Cameron asked.

John furrowed his brow. "What do you mean?"

"Like Sarah and Derek," Cameron responded. "Why can't they understand I'm not here to harm you?"

If only it were that simple. John felt his heart break for her. His poor cyborg protector who wanted nothing more than to be there for him and be accepted by his family. He pursed his lips and shook his head slowly.

"I honestly don't know."