I know I always promise to upload right away but I get so lazy.

Here you go its extra long. No promises on when I'll upload again.

Thanks for still following.

Enjoy....

Ok, so John knew he wasn't always the brightest. Not running when he was told to, pointing a gun at his only relatives to revive his personal terminator and then falling for said terminator uncaring whether it could love him or not were just some examples of his latest stupidities.

However it seemed that his future self had just upped the bar on dumb moves. Sending his father back a second time before he was supposed to after how things had turned out the last time was not one of his brighter ideas.

Cameron was still standing real close to Kyle and they were speaking in hushed tones. He certainly wasn't feeling the closeness between his father and his Cam either. God he was tired of all this time twisting. "What's gonna happen to my mother?" John asked breaking up the furious discussion.

John noticed the strange look that Kyle threw Cameron. 'What was going on between these two?'

Why was it that now that he realized how much he wanted her that all these other men began coming out of the woodwork. All he needed now was for Derek to claim his undying love for her to make his day complete.

"You came for mom?" John asked snapping his father from his staring contest with his beloved terminator.

Kyle looked between his son and Cameron. John looked exhausted and annoyed. Swallowing his concern Kyle proceeded to tell him of his mission. Telling his son everything but the part about Riley. That was for Derek's ears only. If his 'little sister' found out about it she'd kill the blonde for sure.

John felt Cameron take hold of his arm guiding him over to the couch. He was still in shock over what Kyle had just told him. 'Sarah, his mother was going to die within a few months? The cancer that had been shadowing her since the time jump finally taking her?'

He pulled from his morbid thoughts long enough to see that Cameron and Kyle were no longer in the living room. He recalled that his father had called her his little sister but the behavior she was showing was not in any way sibling like.

John snuck a glance towards the kitchen. Kyle had his hands on Cam's face holding her still. She was trying to shake her head but Kyle was furiously yelling at her. Cameron stopped struggling and leaned into the younger Reese's embrace.

Kyle for his part smoothed her hair until she raised her face to him.

The doorway to the kitchen was violently thrown open by Derek who was followed in by Sarah. Kyle and Cameron sprang apart before they could be seen. John was just about to get up but a plate of food materialized in front him. Cameron took another plate from his father while Kyle took a seat across him.

Knowing John as she did, Cameron was aware that he'd seen them. She also knew that he had questions and that no matter how much she wanted to, she would not be able to answer them. Kyle had pulled her aside only to tell her that they believed that some of the radiation that killed Sarah Connor came from close proximity to terminators. Especially thermite weapons.

Kyle relayed that his mission also involved several messages from General Connor. Only to be spoken to the specific recipient. Under no circumstance was the younger John to be told about them. Cameron's message was that Sarah was to not destroy any more terminator parts.

Cameron was to hide them and destroy them herself in two months and no earlier. She wasn't told why the specific time frame. Kyle then told her that John was to be exposed to her core afterwards, it would help him build resistance.

Cameron had warned Kyle that there was a 23.6 chance that it would harm John. It was then she had broken down. She was just regaining John's trust she did not want to keep more secrets from him.

Kyle had gripped her face forcing her eyes to him, "Cammi, I know you don't want to do this but if John time jumps like its predicted he will, the radiation in the future will kill him. You have to expose him to your core. That's an order."

"I can't. John's well being is my mission. I cannot compromise that." she had replied just as stubbornly.

"Do you love John, Cam? Because if you do, you'll follow his order."

Cameron had ceased struggling, she leaned into his embrace. "I'll follow orders."

Kyle stroked her hair and for a second she was transported to her original timeline. Back to 2027 and in the arms of her original love.

"I don't want to leave, John. Who will protect you?" she had asked him.

General Connor never ever let his emotions show which was why most people regarded him as some sort of god but he wasn't Connor here with her. Here he was just John, he let the mask of his responsibilities drop hugging her to him.

His large warm hand stroking her long dark hair. "I can protect myself Cam. I need you to protect me in the past."

"I acknowledge the command…but I don't have to like it." she had murmured into his coat.

"I don't expect you too."

She felt him kiss the top of her head and she looked up at him. "I love you, John Connor. I will always take care of you no matter what time I'm in."

Her vision blurred and Cameron wondered if her ocular connection had been damaged in the explosion. The dark green eyes of the General slowly became the green ones of his father, Kyle Reese. Whatever Kyle was going to say was interrupted by the arrival of his brother and Sarah.

They pulled away from each other and resumed filling plates. Kyle handed two to Cameron and she went into the living room. She handed one to John as Kyle made himself comfortable. She expertly cut the steak and stuffed a piece into John's mouth to keep him quiet.

The piece she popped into his mouth should have been the most heavenly morsel he had ever experienced but the idea that Cameron was once again keeping something from him turned it to ash in his mouth.

John swallowed it with difficulty and he wondered if Cameron knew what she was doing to him.

Kyle ate with them and somehow all four of them decided to vegetate on the couch. It seemed that Kyle was as enamored of television as his young son and older brother. Sarah could only stomach so many action movies before she decided to turn in.

Kyle was more than content to just channel surf but John wanted to spend time with his father. Though he had come to see Derek in a sorta father type light having the real thing in front of him was not an opportunity he was going to squander.

"How old are you?"

Kyle surprised stopped surfing leaving the channel on the knife show. "I'm 22."

"I'm 16."

"That is incorrect you are 24 but due to the time lag, you appear 16." Cameron corrected settling herself at John's feet.

"Thanks, Cam." John shook his head at the female before continuing his line of questioning. "How do you know Cameron?"

An uncomfortable silence seemed to hang in the room. "He knew Allison Young. Didn't you baby brother." Derek taunted from the doorway. A fresh beer in his hand.

"Cameron was reprogrammed by Connor and I was assigned to watch her. If she went rogue I was to eliminate her." Kyle shifted his gaze to a smirking Derek.

"Kyle was meant to terminate me but I saved his life and I was promoted to Connor's bodyguard."

"That's not all you were promoted to…" Derek mumbled.

"Stop it, Derek. Just stop." Kyle snapped at him.

"Why are you protecting it? Why don't you tell John the truth. Why don't you tell him that she ruined his life, that because of her good men died. That a young girl died because of her. Why don't you tell him that she was sent by Skynet to be his metal whore." Derek snapped.

Derek's right cheek exploded with pain making him almost see stars. "No, John." Cameron shouted pulling the enraged Connor of his uncle. "Stop."

"He has no right Cam. No right to call you that." John snarled landing another blow to his uncle's mouth spraying the floor with blood.

"He is right." Cameron said pulling John gently off of the elder Reese.

"What?"

"He is right. I was sent by Skynet to seduce and kill John Connor, leader of the human resistance. I was with him because of my protocol. I did not love him until many years later when he freed me from it."

John reeled back from her and for maybe the first time he understood what his mother had been saying all along. She was just a machine. She could not and would not love him, she would always be Skynet first and his second.

"John. Why are you looking at me that way." she asked her head inclined in that pose that always charmed him. It didn't do the trick this time. 'How long had they studied him? How much of his preferences were part of her infiltration?'

Everything she had come to be was programmed and done for his benefit because he found it cute. He sounded whiny to his own ears but he couldn't stop wondering why he couldn't be loved for he was and not for who he was going to be. 'How many times had she compared him to his future counterpart and found him lacking?'

She manipulated his feelings and he'd let her. "John, I am with you by choice."

"Are you Cam. Are you really? If I ask you to do something will you do it regardless of how you feel."

"Please explain." Cameron replied.

"Give me your necklace." John demanded extending his hand out for the trinket at her throat.

"John this doesn't prove anything. She is just…" Kyle began.

"Be quiet Kyle, let him see what she really is." Derek said wiping blood off his face.

"I don't want to. It's mine." Cameron said holding her hand protectively over it.

"If you love me then you don't need to keep that. I can get you a better one. I gave you a diamond, remember?" John asked stepping closer to her.

"Yes, a diamond is a girl's best friend. I still have it."

"Then give me the necklace." John tried again.

"Why?"

"Cameron…give it to me." John bridged the gap between them. One hand sliding over her nape. "I don't want you to wear it. You are mine." he whispered undoing the clasp.

"I have always been yours. I will always be yours but I cannot allow you to take it." with rapid movements she untangled herself from John and redid the clasp. "Future John has never cared what I wear. He knows that I only serve one. You are not that John." Cameron replied.

"I was a little bit closer to being him tonight though, wasn't I Cameron? I almost had you just like he did. Were you comparing me to him? Did it process in your chip how close my touch was to his?"

Kyle and Derek stared at John in horror. Though Kyle figured his horror was different from Derek's. The weight of the duties that his son carried made him want to cry. This was exactly why he had been sent back to stop this John from being the uncaring man they all had come to expect.

Always the peace maker Kyle rose and placed himself between the two teens. "This will not solve anything. That John no longer exists. The timelines are altered anytime someone new comes through. There's no need to fight about it."

"Sure defend the metal. You always have. Even after it almost killed Connor." Derek interrupted, "how close were you to Allison, Kyle. Or maybe I should ask how close you were to her?" Derek asked pointing disgustedly to the now frozen Cameron.

"She was like a sister. You know that." Kyle snapped.

"Was she? I recall you mumbling in your sleep how soft her skin was for a machine." Derek replied not seeing the darkness overcoming his nephew's features. "You spent several months with her in training while Connor was in Century. Was she ordered to be with you?"

John could see that same strange look of earlier spread over his father's face. The same look was present on Cameron's face. She tried to cover it up with her usual blank look but he had caught it and it made him furious.

"Did I reprogram you for that?" John asked shoving Kyle to the side and advancing on Cameron. The female shifted her gaze from the startled Reese to the seething Connor.

"I was to do whatever insured Kyle Reese's survival."

"So did that include you screwing him? How many times did you "insure his survival?" John wanted to stop himself but he was so tired of the lies. Not just hers but his father's and his mother's and Derek's and now even apparently himself. Everybody expected him to be this savior but they kept protecting him.

They kept encasing him in this ridiculous bubble of ignorance. "Did you enjoy it? Did you do it for me because I asked you to?" he heard his voice crack just a little bit but he wanted to know.

"My John… you would never force me to do anything that brought me discomfort." She remarked sliding her hands over his jaw. "I would do anything you ask, John. Anything at all as long as you want me."

All three men gaped at her. Her tone spoke of her devotion, of her love for him. John closed his eyes. The feel of her fingertips caressing his face were pure torture. Torture that he was willing to submit to if she could love him.

"You are what I am designed for," she replied removing her hands off him as she strode to the door and stepped out onto the porch.

She shattered his heart with that one sentence. She was designed for him by something that had been hunting him all his life. Something that ultimately would steal his mother and father and kill any hope of a human connection. He would not allow her to use him anymore.

The door closed behind her and they would all bet that she would still be doing perimeter checks no matter what John though of her. Kyle and Derek stood silent as John turned his suddenly cold green eyes on the Reese boys. "John…" Kyle began.

"I want you to tell me about Allison Young. What's her relationship to Cameron." John growled. "I want to know why I am so attached to her in the future and how to stop it from happening. It is a machine, I'm not. I don't want her near me."

Derek should have been happy but the look on his nephew's face was exactly like his when he had found out what had happened to Kyle. Dark, angry and bitter. Derek had just realized why he needed to take out Jesse. If she succeeded there would be no need for John Connor.

The John Connor he was seeing would turn into an empty angry man. A man that would let people die and not care. He would not be their salvation, he would damm them all. He would become an even bigger bastard that he had been in the future.

Derek left Kyle and John in search of Cameron. He needed to talk to her. He needed to see what it was that she had that kept his nephew human. He understood now. Cameron had not turned him into a machine, she had kept him from becoming one but thanks to Jesse's misinformation and her sending Riley back they had further screwed up the young general. He would detest machines and humans alike.

He, Derek Reese, had helped turn his only remaining relative into what they had been fighting. Skynet had won and he had done nothing to prevent it.

Ten Minutes Earlier

Kyle and John were enthused with a sci-fi movie and discussing it to geek proportions. Derek left them to it but he snapped a mental picture of his baby brother and his son talking like teenage boys. Derek spotted Sarah outside, he had to admit she looked much softer in the moonlight.

"Couldn't sleep?"

"I can't shake the nightmares. I keep seeing that man, the one I shot." Sarah rubbed her eyes.

"Sarah, you have to get some sleep. You gonna start having hallucinations and you can't help John if you start falling apart on him."

Sarah walked off the porch and towards the shed. Derek followed her. "Derek, I already have been. I saw Kyle before he showed up. I saw him in the hospital. I saw him instead of you."

Derek looked towards the house. He saw Cameron scanning them but he shook his head at her and she vanished back into the house. "Why don't we go back to the warehouse." he suggested.

"There's nothing left. It was all consumed in the fire."

"Maybe not. Think, you know the guy's name. John can hack into the system and find the employee records. Then we can see if we can locate a home address. We can talk to the family and see what they know. At the very least it might get rid of the nightmares." Derek could see her thinking it over.

"Ok, but we all go. I don't trust the metal alone with John." Sarah finally answered.

"I'll get the guns ready and meet you here in the morning." Derek said heading to the house.

"Kyle is leaving isn't he?." Sarah asked but it was more of a statement than anything else.

"He leaves at first light. He's on his way to meet you."

Back in the house the shopping channel was still on not that anybody paid it any mind. The earlier confrontation between John and Cameron had left the former angry as hell and the latter glued to the window ignoring the occupants of the room.

Since Derek had returned with Cameron, neither he or John had enjoyed each other's company. Both had been trapped in a personal hell of their own making while she stood guard. Kyle knew that it was just insecurity rearing its ugly head but the guilt still weighed on him. He had caused this new rift between his son and Cameron and Derek was making it worse by forcing them to be near each other.

Yes, he had been in love with Allison and then Cameron. However he had seen how much both had adored Connor. Especially so in Cameron's case. He had thought it was just what she had to do but when Connor had been taken captive she'd obliterated several T-800's to try to get him.

It was only when Connor's authority was passed to Derek in the general's absence that she had followed Derek's orders to keep him safe. His relationship or any thought of it died when he asked her to oblige him. Kyle had only been 16 at the time and Cam was the only girl around the camp twenty four-seven.

"Stay here. You tin. Protect him, Connor's orders." Derek shouted as he ran to join the rescue effort to take back the General. Cameron had sat by the door with double plasma guns in her grip.

"You must be Cameron. I've heard lots about you." Kyle began only to be interrupted by Cameron's voice duplication.

"That's the metal bitch that is always around Connor…Do you think he screws that thing….I'd rather take my chances with the tunnel rats…She follows him everywhere…metal whore…" the voices and insults were varied but Kyle got her point.

"It is not a good idea to be seen near me. John trusts me but he is John. You are only Kyle, you could be hurt." she explained. "That would displease John."

Kyle nodded his head but still sat next to her, "John trusts you. I trust you. Thanks for saving my life."

"The T-800 was in my way."

He laughed, "You're supposed to say you're welcome."

She tilted her head quizzically and Kyle found it sexy but in a vulnerable kind of way, which was odd as she was more indestructible than him. "You're welcome. Thank you for explaining."

He didn't know why he did what he did. It was probably a combination of thinking he was going to die down here alone with nothing but a terminator and his teenage hormones at work. " You're welcome." he said leaning in and kissing her softly. She didn't respond but he didn't care he just wanted some comfort. He pressed a little bit harder as he wrapped his arms around her.

She slowly lifted her arms and enveloped him. He tilted her face and tried again. This time she kissed back but it was childish. Sadly that was not what Derek had seen. "What the fuck…" Kyle's whole body was wrenched back and away from Cameron. Derek let loose a few rounds into her chassis and she staggered back slamming into the wall.

She raised her guns and Derek dropped over Kyle. The shot wheezed over their heads and exploded the head of the T-800 directly behind them. "You're welcome," she said walking over them and out into the compound. The sound of rounds hitting more metal echoed around them.

Kyle shoved Derek off him, "Thank you, Cameron."

He shook the memory off him. He didn't particularly care that his older brother hated her. He always would but he had hoped there would be some grudging respect. John, this John needed her and that was something that neither Sarah or Derek would be able to change.

He was too busy scanning John to care that Derek had left again. That he was on the swing sitting alongside Sarah. That she was resting her weary body against his or how he scooped her up and brought her into the house and into her room before locking himself up in his.

All that was in the future not his past. All that mattered was his son. It still gave him a headache when he tried to unravel that he was younger than his own son by a few years. The savior of humanity was currently sleeping with his head pillowed on the armrest of the couch and drooling a little bit. He kept twisting in what could only be the grip of a nightmare. Every now and then Cameron's name left his lips.

Sensing her presence Kyle turned and regarded Cameron. "He is at his most peaceful when he sleeps. John never looked like that for long were I come from," she related. She neared the sleeping boy and smoothed down his sweaty hair. In a few moments he was still and his breathing deepened.

"He doesn't at all since you've been gone." Kyle said moving quietly so as not to wake the young man. "He missed you when you left."

Kyle smiled gently taking her left hand. "Your servos are compromised. I've been observing you. The explosion is draining you isn't it?"

"Yes, the explosion damaged me. I cannot be fixed."

"Does John know? Have you told him about Allison?" Kyle asked feeling her hand twitch in his own.

"John does not need to know. He barely trusts me. He is still angry with me."

"He loves you."

"John is enamored of this body. He isn't responding to me anymore. He desires me but he does not love me." Cameron stated it factually but Kyle had been around her long enough to detect even the smallest hint of emotion in her response. 'Had his warning come too late?'

"Cammi, I leave at first light. You must get through to him. He cannot become who he's meant to be if remains angry and distrustful of you. You cannot fail in this."

"I will not fail." Cameron replied.

The light of morning was slowly creeping through the heavy curtains. Kyle and Cameron stood in it and looked at each other. Kyle slowly leaned his face to Cameron's. "My last mission from the General."

It was a quick press of his lips to hers. "I love you Cameron."

Cameron did not respond, she just stood there as Kyle Reese took his bag and walked out fully immersed in the daylight. He took a car that had not been in the driveway earlier as Cameron - Unit TOK-715 kept vigil by her usual window, she watched as he drove off.

She watched until he was nothing but a glimpse in the distance. "Goodbye Kyle. I love him too."

John lay there no longer asleep. He heard what his father had told her. He heard what she said as she stayed glued to the window. And though he was sure they were talking about his future self he couldn't help but feel emptiness. 'How much had she loved future John? How much did she love present John and how much of her love for present John was due to her memories of future John?'