I don't remember the episodes real well so I probably mixed the episode where Jesse poses as the social worker and the one where Cameron starts glitching with Riley dies episode. Also I'll probably disreguard the whole submarine episode except for Cam's part...Sorry but I detest Jesse almost as much as Riley.

Enjoy....

Somewhere in the Desert

Several hundreds of miles away, Derek and Sarah still apart from each other shivered. It was the feeling akin to someone walking on your grave.

The separation didn't last long as Derek spotted Sarah by the side of an abandoned pick-a-part place. "Sarah!" She was walking with a pronounced limp.

"Derek!"

It was such a happy moment that it didn't register how natural it felt. They clasped arms like comrades but it soon gave way to a hug. "Are you ok? I've been searching for you for two days."

"Two Days?" She clasped her hand to her head. "You've left John alone with the machine unsupervised for two days?" She punched him in the arm, "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I had no choice. I had to come looking for you. Besides as much as you want to complain, he's safest with her whether we want to admit or not," he helped her into truck. "Sarah, he would have never forgiven me if I didn't do everything in my power to bring you back."

"I had this nightmare…he was with her… it." Sarah looked at him helplessly, "would he be with her if he had the chance. Is it too late? John's in love with it already isn't he?"

Derek looked as pained as she, "probably from the moment they met but we can still change his fate." He changed the subject quickly no need for her to be dwelling on something they couldn't do anything about at least not at this moment. "I'll drive you back to the truck. I have something to take care of first and I'll meet you at the house." They rode in companionable misery until her truck came into view. He watched until she got in not leaving until he was sure Sarah was driving safely away.

He turned around and headed back to the dinner. Jesse was leaning up against her own vehicle. "Hey, handsome. I was wondering when you'd come back." She leaned in to kiss him but he backed up.

"No more bullshit, Jesse. I want to know what you're planning. I want to know why you've been taking such good care of Riley?" He crossed his arms showing off the Glock in his waistband.

"Alright, business first. Follow me to my place. I'll explain all but don't expect to like it." She didn't bother to see if he followed, starting her car and speeding away with a squeal of tires.

Derek rubbed his head. This time was supposed to be simple. Set up a base, find Andy Goode, eliminate him and possibly see his younger self and little brother play ball. 'Why do I feel like I'm about to betray John, then?' Kyle would have been disappointed but then Kyle had been much more noble than Derek had ever been. That was why Sarah loved his brother years after the fact and barely managed to share her bed with him.

"I'm about to lose everything, aren't I, Kyle." He said out loud but talking to Kyle was not comforting anymore.

Back at the Connor household, Cameron looked at him regret and sadness equally mixed in her eyes. "I did."

His eyes dropped to her hands which were resting on his. He slipped his hands out from under hers. "Did she suffer?" He had no idea why that was important to him, it wasn't like he had known her.

"We aren't built for cruelty."

"That's right. One for the Terminators. I forgot." John said sarcastically moving his body as far from hers as possible. He knew it was irrationally but he felt responsible for Allison's death just as he felt he had sullied Cameron somehow by making her talk about it.

She just sat there, nothing showing what his mere withdrawal was doing to her system. "I'm a Terminator, her death was immediate." The blank face returned.

"Was it necessary to kill her?" John forced himself to ask.

"No, she set me up for a trap. Like Laurie, like you did." Cameron said it with a conviction that defied him.

"I've never done anything." John began indignant.

"You will and I will still do what you say, because it's you that says it. Unconditionally John. No matter how you treat me or how you mistrust me. I will be always be thinking of you first. I believe that is what you call love. So what do you feel for me, now that you know?"

John didn't know what to feel. He was trying to be diplomatic, after all he loved Cameron but did he love her for her or because she looked like someone that he would fall in love with in the future? The double standard was not lost on him. He had worried about this exact same thing and yet she had proved to him that Future John and him were the same.

Cameron stepped backwards allowing the sheet to slide down her body. "Will you forgive me?"

His answer wasn't immediate and it hurt, "please leave my room. When I am sufficiently dressed I will tell you the rest."

John gathered his clothes not sure what he could say to make her understand his dilemma. He loved Cameron that would never change but he didn't want that tainted by their guilt. He had to know the whole reason for Allison Young. Only then could he really treat her like she deserved. "There's nothing to forgive you for Cam, but can I trust you? What else are you hiding about my future that affects my past?"

She nailed him with a malicious grin, "perhaps Derek is correct. I'm just your whore and nothing more."

John left her room and headed immediately to the shower. He turned on the water as hot as he could stand it. He stood underneath a scalding hot shower wanting to get rid of the guilt he felt. For Allison, for Martin Bedell, for his own father and the countless people that would die for him. "How can I judge her, if I am as bad as her? I kill them as effectively as if I had pulled the trigger myself."

He dressed, resumed his inner dialogue pacing across the living room while he impatiently waited. He wanted to hear the whole story. He wanted to know why he had a wife and a mistress? And why his wife was ok with that? What kind of man was he in the future? Did he have his own personal harem? Was that accepted because he was John Connor? If that that was accepted, what other atrocities were done in his name and at his command?

His cell rang, "Hello." Silence echoed along the line until he punching in the numbers. "Hey Mom, where you been? No. I'm fine. We've just been checking leads but nothing else. Riley came by but I was never left alone with her. Cameron…she's around."

At that instant Cameron came out wearing a red bra and purple underwear. Even after seeing her without a stitch of clothing on he still couldn't keep his eyes off her. She smirked at him but didn't stop until she reached the laundry room.

"John??"

"What…? I'm here. What did you say?" Sarah repeated that she would be home in less than an hour and that Derek was at the storage moving some stuff to the desert house.

"Ok, see you then." He hung up making his way to the laundry room. He stood in the doorway as she got dressed. A pair of tight blue jeans and black shirt later she turned and addressed him.

"I am the first of my kind. A unique model made strictly for infiltration. I was manufactured in 2025 to find and destroy the Human Resistance. My primary mission was killing John Connor." Cameron felt the tremor shake her arm, the only visible sign of her distress but John did not see as he was listening to her story.

She bypassed him and took up her usual spot by the window, John perched on the couch armrest. "John Connor was married to Katherine Brewster in 2025 and I was originally made to look like her. It was discovered by a select group of grays that Katherine was having an affair a few months later."

She wanted to hurt John with the information. "It was deemed impractical to duplicate Katherine. I was programmed with all known information of Connor. In 2026 it was found out that Connor had acquired a mistress. She spent all her time with him and she was deemed a secondary priority."

"Allison Young," John said.

"She was easy to capture by the grays. She was too friendly." It was an insult. "She was copied and my endoskeleton was completed to resemble her. Several weeks were spent studying all her movements. I was to set her free."

"Why?"

Cameron looked out the window avoiding John's gaze. "She would never make it back to Connor's base. The T-888 would kill her before she got far."

John knew her expressionless façade was just that, he had hurt her feelings but the cold way she described the murder was still unexpected. "You said you killed her."

"I did. She was caught escaping. That was not the plan. She also lied. A bracelet was needed to make it inside Connor' s camp. She sent me without it but when she was caught a fellow prisoner told us."

"So you killed her because she lied?" John incredulous that even then Cameron had been exhibiting signs of self awareness. 'Had that been what I - future me had seen - and why I had spared her.'

"I expressed a desire to meet John Connor. She said John Connor would not like to meet me." Cameron inwardly seethed even now it made her angry at Allison's refusal as if she was nothing. "She was not as nice as I concluded previously." Cameron said flatly . "She claimed that she would never help me get to John Connor…"

He waited for her to finish but she seemed locked up in the memory of the encounter. " I snapped her neck and told her corpse that she already had. I entered Connor's camp that night."

She had baited him, she was purposely being gruesome. She wanted him to be angry with her. "How did I find out you were not Allison?"

"Our intelligence was wrong. Allison had not been your mistress. She had been like a daughter to you. She was only four when she was found by Martin Bedell. She saw you and took to you. You apparently kept her around since lack of women along with large number of males had made some men turn to rape." John's disgust to what the future had turned what where supposed to be decent human beings, was plain on his face.

"I kept her to protect her." John thoughtfully looked at Cameron but her gaze was distant. "You tried to seduce me and I busted you."

"Yes, you busted me. I was deprogrammed and you kept me a prisoner. I did all the dangerous chores that no human could do. If I was damaged you repaired me and sent me back. You claimed it was my penance for killing Allison."

"So how did you become my whatever if I didn't like you?" John asked.

A small spark of personality re-emerged, "you liked me. You desired me. Your preferences don't change."

John ignored the veiled verbal slap, "then what?"

"Katherine took pity. She said you were bitter and that no good could come of you treating me like a slave. She began to treat me like a person. She named me Cameron. It was the name she would have named her little girl if she had not lost her child."

"My child? Was it my child?" John needed to know why his wife was not his wife and his slave had become his very reason for being.

"No, it was her lover's. Your marriage was a lie. She did it to keep to herself. As your wife she had respect. I could not be raped as I was a machine and you had given me orders to defend myself if need be."

"I see, what about us? How did that happen?" He was still puzzled how their lives had become entangled.

"I saved your father. You assigned me bodyguard duty. I never sleep, I heard your nightmares. Katherine woke up and went to the Medical Bay to get you something to help you sleep." She answered his question before he ask it. "You had not slept in three days. You began to hallucinate."

"What happened when Katherine left?" he was so afraid to ask. He wondered if now that he knew all this if he would refuse to have her near him in his future. Even with everything she had told him, he doubted it.

"I sat on the bed and hugged you as she did. You hugged me back and kissed me. She caught us kissing."

"She wasn't mad?" John was surprised, he didn't think he would be that generous if it had been his wife and someone else.

"She expected it. She saw how you looked at me. She did not want to be your wife."

John's hurt look nearly undid her then but she had to keep it together. This would end badly. She had already failed her original mission. "She loved you like a brother. She said I could love you like a woman."

John's hurting green eyes made him seem even younger than his already sixteen years. "Just like that, she left me to you? Did I love her?"

"No. you were married to the Resistance. I was an escape but later you began experimenting with my chip and realized how intricate my Neuronet was." Cameron spotted the black truck coming up the drive and wrapped up the conversation. "John changed as I did…I cannot tell you more. Your mother is home."

Sarah approached the walk not surprise to see the machine looking out at her. She nodded to it and Cameron left the house out the side door and disappeared into the shed. Sarah found her son sitting on at the table hacking on his computer.

"Mom." he got up but her posture was stiff. "What happened?"

"Nothing, just tired. Is Derek back yet?" she asked letting her self drop wearily on his chair.

"Not yet."

"Good, we leave in a hour. I found another Kaliba connection. A company named Zeiracorp headed by a Catherine Weaver." she ruffled his short hair and went to her room.

That day was spent with catching up with what had happened while they had been gone. Sarah had caught John sneaking glances at Cameron several times but the girl remained oblivious. Sometime between dinner she abruptly left the table and the house soon after.

"What's with Tin Miss?"

"I don't know." John shrugged grabbing his jacket he too disappeared.

He knew where she was going but he had to see to Riley and the mysterious woman. He went to the apartment complex and pressed the button not saying a word. The door opened and he stepped through making sure to keep to the shadows.

He followed the staircase coming to a corridor with an emergency exit at the end. He hid just at the corner and dialed Riley's number. She answered but told him she couldn't talk she was crazy busy with homework. John responded sympathetically and bade her good bye.

Half and hour later, Riley appeared running up the stairs. The door opened and the woman with the dark brown hair peaked out. She grabbed Riley roughly by the shoulder and slammed the door.

John inched closer to the apartment. He knocked on the door next to it but nobody answered. He took a look picking set from his coat and quickly made his way inside. He checked the place for people but seeing nothing he slowly waited for his eyesight to adjust to the darkened room.

He picked his way carefully until he hit the bathroom. He figured this was the thinnest part of the wall so he pressed his ear to it and listened. Cameron's revelations had chipped off a bit of him but nothing could prepare him for the argument going on next door.

"I can't do this anymore. I can't." Riley was crying.

"Stupid girl. You have no choice. This is your mission, I brought you to paradise. You have no other purpose but this. She cannot control him. You're pretty, work on him." Jesse encouraged.

"I can't. Don't you understand. He loves her." Riley shouted and John heard the clear sound of flesh hitting flesh.

"It. Not her. It. He is young and foolish and she is a pretty girl but he has no idea what kind of monster it will turn him into. Think Riley, talking to her is the equivalent of talking to John. That doesn't bother you in the least?" Jesse explained clearly attempting to reason with the hysterical girl.

"I'm not a soldier. He keeps us all alive. Isn't that what matters?" Riley asked softly crying.

"He sends good men to die for her, because of her. Have you no ambition? Don't you want to be the Mrs. John Connor. Never have to eat tunnel rats again. Maybe even have some clothes that aren't ragged. A shower and all those lovely things you've become accustomed to here?"

Riley laughed it was dry and humorless. "Be the next Katherine. To know my husband rather sleep with a piece of metal than me. Hear the whispers and rumors that he shares his bed with it while I sleep in another room?"

"That wouldn't happen you'd be changing the future." Jesse argued.

"What makes you so sure? She could always appear later, she could just kill me and then what? He'd still fall for her and I would have died for nothing and you would gain nothing."

"Try again Riley, just once more. I promise that if this time it doesn't work out, I'll leave you in peace." John imagined that Jesse was probably hugging Riley and murmuring fake promises. He felt the bile rise in the back of his throat.

Cameron had tried to warn him but he'd been too stubborn and full of himself to listen. Riley was trouble no Riley was in trouble and she'd nearly managed her mission of breaking him up from Cameron. He'd almost lost her just because some of his soldiers hated her and had sent someone to stroke his ego and blind him to the truth.

He eased out of the apartment and made it to the library in record time. John ran out of the truck and knocked on the door. It swung open and the woman from the last time answered. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, I'm looking for Cameron."

The woman led him through closing the door behind him. He walked through the main corridor and came upon several staircases. The woman motioned to the left one. Gratefully he ran up it desperate to see her. He turned the corner and found a labyrinth of shelves.

He spotted the empty wheelchair in the corner and a blue denim jacket hooked on its handles. He caught his breath from his run but it whooshed out of him just as quickly as he caught sight of a swinging leg encased in a black combat boot.

"Cut, here? I don't know about this Cammi." Eric said holding the blade of the box cutter to her scalp.

"It's okay, Eric. You do this a lot." she said curling her own hand around his and pressing down hard.

A thin rivulet of blood coated his hand and he yelped in surprise. "Geez, did I hurt you?"

She squeezed his hand encouragingly, "keep pressing and form a semi circle an inch to the left."

Eric followed her instructions all the while completely blind to their audience. "Now what?"

"You'll see my port covering. Open it but don't remove the chip."

He did as she asked staring into the silver surface that protected Cameron's personality. "So I do this a lot? Am I any good at it." he asked tentatively running his finger around the circumference of the port.

Cameron's whole body shivered. "You do this a lot and are almost as good as John. You cut a much smoother circle." she explained.

"I aim to please. So this radiation will ensure that I stay in remission?" Eric asked

"Yes, you are important to the Resistance and to John's army."

Eric had been sitting on a higher table to reach Cameron's head. He scooted back and she placed her head on his lap. He closed the port and gently patted the skin down. "Am I important to just them?"

She looked up directly into the blue eyes of the man that would not only help her become more aware but the one who would weaken her Neuronet in an effort to help her grow as a person instead of a machine. "You are very important to me, Eric Michaels."

John tiptoed backwards down the stairs until he could safely leave the building without being noticed. She had said that same line to him once upon a time, when everything between them had been simpler. 'It's ok, John you do this all the time.' His stinging eyes didn't stop him from starting the truck and heading straight home. He entered the kitchen with Derek and his mother both looking at him with concern. He menally shrugged it off.

"Where's the robot?" Derek asked nonchalantly leaning back on his chair.

"I don't know. I'm not her babysitter." John snapped.

"Wonder where she's at and what she does when she's gone for so long?" Derek mused.

"About the same thing you must do when you're gone for days at a time." John countered.

"A little defensive this morning? What you guys have a nice cozy romantic holiday?" Derek taunted. "Did you give her oil as a present, maybe a gun to shoot your stupid brains when she flips her switch?"

"Enough. Stop it." Sarah shouted. Seeing the bulging veins in Derek's and John's foreheads as they prepared to no doubt got to blows over the breakfast table. "Derek make yourself useful and get groceries." Sarah ordered throwing him money and the truck keys.

"Sure, keep denying it Sarah. Pretend he isn't in love with a piece of tin."

John sat down at the table eyeing his mother. She didn't make a move just sat there staring right back at him. "I had a very interesting conversation with Riley's case worker today."

John scratched at the table with his nail his mood was all ready sour from seeing Cameron so chummy with the future Tech guy, his mother's tone was not helping. "Did you?"

"Apparently Riley flipped out on her parents. Yelling something about bleached skulls and Judgment Day and the end of the world in some huge nuclear holocaust." Sarah's mouth thinned directing the question at the sullen boy at the table. "Any idea where she might have gotten that?"

"Nope." he answered even more sullenly.

"John, please tell me you weren't dumb enough to tell her the truth." she placed her hands on the table looking every inch of her thirty something years. "I just want to know the truth."

John slammed his hand on the table, "I already told you. I haven't told her anything."

"I wish I could believe you." Sarah said sadly.

"Why can't you? You always did before. Or are you too busy listening to Derek?" John snapped, "I get you're lonely but Derek? Come on."

"You watch your mouth. I'm still your mother." she said and the fierce mythical Sarah Connor emerged. "This has nothing to do with Derek. This has to do with the fact that this woman came to the house and could put you on the radar. That she knows stuff that could only be known to someone who has seen or has been told of the war with Skynet. Riley is a risk John. You know very well what will happen if Tin Miss finds out about it. I don't think I have to tell you."

"I'm not stupid, mom. I know. I swear I haven't said anything." John was pleading with her to believe him but Sarah couldn't believe him so blindly. She had seen how much he had changed and she knew it deep in her bones that John and Cameron had been together in ways that would surely make Kyle spin in his grave. "I really wish I could John but I can't."

"Then there's nothing to talk about."

Cameron arrived not a few moments later and John went to his room. 'Something had happened but what could she do if he refused to see the truth. That they didn't know love. They could only pretend.'

Cameron pulled up and began her usual routines. She was strolling the property line when she came upon a pigeon. It was trapped in something. Sarah had told her not to kill any birds so Cameron untangled it and lifted it up bumping it slightly with her palm to get it to fly.

The pigeon cooed and turned it head to train its beady eye on her. The bird sensed that something was not quite right and began to panic. Cameron attempted to soothe it and would have succeeded had it not been for the sight of John walking back and forth on the porch.

Judging by the look on his face he was talking to Riley. She raised her audio levels and caught the end of his goodbye, "I'll see you in twenty minutes. No just come here." 'Why couldn't she leave him in peace? Why couldn't he see how bad she was for him, why did he insist on hurting her. I can't be anything more John. I can't.'

She shook her head as the sudden surge nearly knocked her to the ground and without meaning to her hand twitched violently crushing the poor animal in her hand. Dismayed Cameron moved out of sight of John and behind the house. She buried the bird and she felt real fear.

With her capabilities unleashed she was supposed to be able to be more human not make her more defective. If John found out would he think she was trying to kill him again. She couldn't bear to see that look of disappointment cross his face again.

She hurried to the shed and quietly closed the door. Riley had just showed up so John would be occupied. Cameron was actually glad the girl had showed now at least she had a way to look at herself without any interruptions or awkward questions. She picked up her phone and called Eric.

He answered on the first ring, though he sounded grumpy. "I was sleeping, Cammi."

"You were at work a few hours ago." Cameron replied as if this was a perfect explanation.

"Double shift, remember? And I cut up my pretty friend and she turned out to be a robot. That's a lot to deal with in one day. Don't you think?" he said now totally awake.

"Yes, a lot to deal with. Thank you for explaining."

"So since this isn't a social call, why'd you call? Anything wrong, anything with John?"

"John is safe, I'm having trouble with my servos. They are malfunctioning. My hand closed by itself."

Eric thought for a second trying to remember that the girl on the line was not in fact a real girl. "Why don't you have John look at it. He's better at this. I just started my training, I don't know enough to help."

"I'm afraid…he won't want me if I am defective." Cameron confessed.

Eric could picture her sitting in by herself talking to a complete novice and being terrified that the man that she loved above all else would find her defective. He personally thought that if John could ever think that of Cameron that he didn't deserve her. Savior of humanity or not.

"Ok. Cut at the wrist, make it a long vertical cut to at least your elbow. Peel back the skin and check the parts where your ligaments would be." he coached, "Do you have reference to the human body such as a book handy?"

"I have detailed drawings in my database."

"Use those, I'll see what I kind find out with prosthetic limbs. I know its not the same but it might help." Eric gave her a few more instructions and she hung up.

She did as directed cutting into her arm carefully. She wondered if this was what Riley had felt when she tried her unsuccessful termination. Using her fingers she pried the skin open and laid it out flat on the table. She checked between the small spaces of her pistons as Eric had instructed.

She was so engrossed in her arm that she did not hear the door creak open. "What are you doing?"