Chapter Twelve:

All's Fair in Love and War

John and Riley received last place in the canoe race, due to the fact that they didn't even finish the race with the canoe. Despite the fact that they had to walk all the way back, John had noticed a change in Riley's behavior. Her 'carrots and apples' attitude seemed to be genuine now, not merely a cover for what lay underneath.

He still wasn't sure what exactly she was hiding underneath. He just knew that there was a secret that still existed. And he had a feeling it was important.

As soon as they arrived back with the other campers, Kyle Reese ran up to John, eagerly looking around and asking where Cameron was.

"She's grounded," John replied briskly, hoping Kyle would drop the subject. No such luck. Kyle followed him, eyes wide with disbelief.

"Cameron? Grounded? Why? What did she do?"

Jason overheard the one-way conversation and stepped in. "I'll tell you what," he said with an angry scowl. "She smashed my head into a table."

John hid a grin. At long last, Jason seemed to be over his crush on Cameron. Apparently the pain and terror she'd put him through last night had finally changed his mind about her.

Kyle, however, didn't seemed appalled at Cameron's behavior. Instead he grinned smugly. "Well, you probably deserved it…"

Jason took a threatening step towards the young boy, and Kyle ducked behind John who rolled his eyes, wondering when he had become the young camper's official protector. Jason seemed to be asking himself the same thing, smirking at John.

"Cute," he said. "Fine, protect the little punk, just like you protect your psycho adopted sister. You're all nuts."

He turned and stalked away and Kyle stepped back out from behind John. "He's very strange," Kyle stated.

John scoffed. You're one to talk. He managed to lose Kyle in the crowd of campers and hurried back to the main hall where he hoped Derek and Cameron were both still alive.

When he opened the door, he found them both in opposite corners of the room, staring at the other with a look of absolute hatred. Derek hastily stood up when John entered, stalking towards him.

His uncle sent a glare in Cameron's direction before turning to John. "The next time you leave me alone with her, someone's gonna die."

"It won't be me," Cameron replied stonily.

Derek looked stunned, and Cameron gave him a pleasant smile.

"Fooled you again," she said.

John cracked a smile. Derek glared at his nephew before turning and storming out the door.

When John left the main hall with Cameron, he was surprised to see Riley waiting outside on the steps, a cheerful smile on her face. "Hey, John! Where you headed?"

John hesitated, glancing over at Cameron uncomfortably. "Um, I don't really know. I think there might be another activity before dinner."

"Cool, so you wanna go do something? We could all chill in the game room."

For once, John was unsure of how to respond. Riley's forwardness had to be upsetting Cameron. Surely she couldn't think he and Riley were still a possibility, right?

A sudden thought struck him. What if it had been Kyle Reese coming up and asking to hang out with Cameron? Would he feel jealous then? Most definitely, despite the fact that he knew Cameron would never even give young Kyle the time of day. It didn't matter.

And it was the same with Riley, he realized. It didn't matter to Cameron that he wasn't really interested in Riley anymore. She probably felt jealousy just the same; and she couldn't understand it like he did.

He still liked Riley. He still wanted to be her friend, but it was better for everyone if they weren't. Better for him and Cameron, and even better for Riley herself. Friends of John Connor often ended up dead, and he didn't want to be responsible for the death of anyone else.

"I'm sorry, Riley," he said softly. "But I don't think this will work."

Riley's face fell instantly. "What?"

He pursed his lips. "You shouldn't be friends with me. It…it's just not a good idea."

Riley looked confused, rightfully so. After all, in the canoe race he had reluctantly agreed that they could be friends. She may never understand, he realized. But she would get over him eventually. And whatever her secret was, whether it was just the fact that she still loved him, or something bigger, he wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.

"I'm sorry," he said again. He left her standing there, her eyes wide with astonishment and hurt.

************

Sarah Connor stood in the kitchen… again. Seems like this is where I've spent all my time so far, she thought to herself still wasn't sure what to make of John and Cameron. John had continuously insisted that Cameron was different, and truth be told, Sarah hadn't seen any deception from Cameron besides what had been in her dream.

Maybe Kyle was right. Maybe she was basing her real-time reactions on nothing more than a bad dream.

She was vaguely aware of Cameron entering the kitchen but purposely ignored her, picking up a knife and slicing into a chunk of ham. The last time she had spoken with Cameron, it had been with anger and spite, but if the cyborg had come for an apology, she wasn't going to get one.

"Do you want to know why I make pancakes for John?" Cameron spoke up. Sarah wasn't sure where the question had come from.

"Because I died?" she guessed.

"Partially," Cameron agreed. "John hated pancakes, was sick of them, much like he is now. After your death, he started asking me to make them again. Because they reminded him of you."

Sarah stopped cutting the ham and looked up at the cyborg. Cameron's face was expressionless, unreadable.

"He still keeps a copy of the Wizard of Oz in his room," she said quietly. "Sometimes he takes it out late at night and reads it, in Spanish, just like you used to do. He has nightmares often. Many times he wakes up in the middle of the night, crying and screaming your name."

Sarah wasn't sure she wanted to know how Cameron knew what happened in John's room at night. She swallowed hard, unable to keep from asking, "How do you know this?"

"He and I talk about it a lot."

Sarah couldn't read anything else on Cameron's face. That was what she hated about the machines. They could conceal their emotions effortlessly. Emotions they shouldn't have.

"What are you to him, in the future?" she dared to ask.

Cameron's eyes burned with intensity. "I'm everything."

I'll kill you…stay away from my son! Sarah clenched her fists, hand curling around the knife, fighting the urge to turn and plunge it into Cameron's chest, not that it would do much good.

Cameron wasn't finished. "But you were everything first," she added. "He loves you. He just needs you to believe in him."

That stopped Sarah in her tracks. "What? I…I believe in him. I'd die for him."

"We all would die for him," Cameron countered. "Only some of us believe in him completely, trust him, have confidence that he'll make the right decisions, become the savior he's meant to be. Even you and Derek don't trust him. He can tell. He needs you to believe in him."

Sarah looked away. "I know." She desperately wanted to trust John, but he also had to prove himself trustworthy. And how would he do that? she asked herself. By ditching Cameron? Would killing his ally actually make John trustworthy? Maybe it was Sarah who needed to learn to trust…

"I'm not trying to replace you," Cameron stated. "No one can ever replace his mother. He needs your love too."

Sarah bit her lip, remaining silent until Cameron turned around and left the kitchen. Only then did she let out a slow, shaky breath and sink to the floor.

No one could deny that Cameron cared for John, in her own weird cyborg kind of way. The thing that irritated Sarah was not the machine's supposed emotions, but that John cared for her too, loved her even. That much had been clear when he'd held a gun to his own mother in defense of that thing, despite the fact that Cameron had just tried to kill him.

Accepted, trusted, believed in…When is the time for me to live my life? And then, Cameron's words: he needs you to trust him, to have faith in him. She could almost see John's heartbroken, pleading face; hear his tortured voice…

Believe in me, Mom.

But Sarah didn't think she could. Because trusting John right now meant trusting Cameron as well. And that was something she didn't think she was ready to do, no matter how much John tried to convince her otherwise.

************

Riley had been so sure she was getting to John. Flirting hadn't worked, so she'd tried simply begging for friendship. John had seemed to agree, reluctantly at first, but once he was back with Cameron, it seemed that all her hard work had been for nothing. Because for John, everything centered on Cameron; John would do anything to please Cameron. The machine could ask John to jump off a cliff and he'd probably do it.

But John's behavior only confirmed Jesse's explanation… that Cameron was manipulating John into a position where she could ask him to do anything and he would do it. Where she would be in control of the war, not him. Where John's devotion and loyalty to one of them would make him a traitor to the human race. It only served to make Riley even more determined to save him from that fate.

John definitely wasn't making it easy for her. Their dinner group from the last few nights had nearly fallen apart. Jason kept clear of Cameron, and John had steered clear of Riley. He and his cyborg girlfriend had sat alone at another table, leaving Riley with Jessica and that nerdy kid Kyle.

Tonight the special event was campfire songs, karaoke style. Riley had rolled her eyes in disgust at hearing the news, but the more she thought about it, the more she began to form a plan around the idea. Guys loved girls who could sing, right? Maybe? She imagined the dating process in the future was more than a little different than back here. Maybe, if she sang well enough, she could capture John's attention once more. Or at least get him to talk to her again.

She was grasping at straws, she knew. But the straws were all she had left.

When the karaoke campfire night actually started, Riley scanned the crowd, spotting John and Cameron sitting together, close by the fire. Kyle had been the first in line, singing some incredibly off-pitch, extremely cheesy love song, his gaze directed at Cameron the entire time.

The machine never looked up once.

Kyle returned to his seat, dejected. Riley waited for a few other people to go ahead of her. They were decent singers as far as she could tell. Her musical taste was somewhat limited to what she'd heard on iPods during the long drive to Canada.

She didn't know how her own voice sounded. She'd never tried to sing before. No one sang in the future; many who were born after Judgment Day didn't even know what music was. There was no cause for singing. No joy.

But when she stepped up to sing at the campfire, she held all of the campers' attentions. All of the guys seemed entranced by her and her voice.

Except one.

The one that mattered most.

John Connor wasn't even looking at her, wasn't even paying attention. He was speaking quietly to Cameron. As usual. Riley felt a pang of hurt. Had she screwed up so badly in Canada? Why had she ever allowed that metal tin can to win? Sure it had been the honorable thing to do, but it had gotten her punished by Jesse. By the time she'd gotten back in the game, John had been too far gone.

As she stepped down and made her way back to her seat, she caught the tail end of John and Cameron's conversation.

"Why do some people sing and others just sit?"

"It's karaoke," John explained without any sign of annoyance at the obvious question. "Not everyone is able to sing…or sing well."

"What determines if they are able to sing well?"

"It's just something they're born with," John replied.

"Can I sing?"

"I don't know. You wanna get up and try?"

Cameron took a look at all the people and her gaze turned back to John. "No."

He laughed lightly. "Stage fright? It's okay. I'm not going up either."

"You can't sing?"

John chuckled dryly. "You don't want to hear me sing."

"Maybe I do."

John stared at her for a moment. "Well, maybe I'll let you hear the massacre later. I doubt anyone else wants to hear it."

"I do," Riley piped up. John jumped, startled at her sudden appearance. "You know any love songs, John? To sing to your girlfriend."

John's face tightened and she could almost sense the fear coming from him. Did he think she knew his dirty little secret?

"Assuming she is your girlfriend now," Riley added easily. "And not just your brain-dead adopted sister."

His face relaxed ever so slightly. It was almost unnoticeable, but she'd been studying him for far too long not to catch it. Cameron was staring at her silently. Could the cyborg tell she was lying?

Instead Cameron smiled. Riley instantly felt suspicious. It seemed forced, even for a machine. "You sing better than all the people sitting down."

Riley cocked an eyebrow. "Thanks I guess. It's a rare gift. Not everyone can sing, you know."

"I know. John told me."

"Did he?" Riley feigned interest. If John wasn't going to be charmed, Riley was going to have to play hardball. "Most of these kids couldn't carry a tune to save their lives. It's like John and I used to say, people suck."

John's face instantly stiffened. Good, he remembered. "What?" she prodded. "You don't remember Mexico? The Honeymoon Suite?"

She noticed Cameron glance away. If she hadn't known the girl was a machine, she could have sworn Cameron actually felt the sting of Riley's jab.

John felt it too. His lip curled and he stated in a dangerous, low tone, "Riley, stop."

"What?" she demanded, unafraid in the slightest. "You didn't enjoy yourself? I know I did."

John's hand twitched, the same way Jesse's did whenever she was about to land a blow. Riley flinched out of reflex, but John didn't move to strike. Instead he turned to Cameron.

"Cameron, no," he said strongly. "Nothing happened. I should never have gone. It was a mistake."

Mistake. Riley winced. The hurt was there, though she knew she'd brought this on herself. The confused John she'd known in Mexico and even Canada was gone. John Baum was gone. Now she was looking at John Connor. And this John knew what he wanted, what he had, what he'd fight for.

She was going to fail again.