"For what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another." -- Anatole France
"What's difficult is trying to decide what to tell you and what not to, but I guess I have a while before you're old enough to understand these tapes. They're more for me at this point, just so that I can get it straight.
"Should I tell you about your father?
"Boy, that's a-"
John reaches forward and presses rewind; he listens to the tape whir noisily back and then hits the chunky play button, "-tell you about your father."
There are other tapes, they're newer ones - ones from after he was gone. But he can't listen to those. Not yet. He's tried, he just can't. He'll have to soon, because he kind of doubts they're as pointless as this. As innocent as this.
Click. "- about your father."
And that's not the question anymore, anyway. Now it's 'should he tell his father about his son?' and, seriously, that's just not something he has the answer to. He hopes the other tapes will.
John knows how it's supposed to go: John Connor and Kyle Reese break out of Century Work Camp and the rest is history. Or the future. A little of both, whatever.
Problem is, he still hasn't come up with a good way – or even a bad way - to tell Derek that his brother will die, let alone tell Kyle himself. Where's Jerry Springer when you need him?
John told Derek a story: truth hidden under layers of metaphor and lies. The plot wasn't anything to write home about and the hard part is remembering what he said, because Derek isn't dropping it.
John's learning the hard way that he didn't get his tenacity solely from his mother; the Reese side pretty much lives and dies by 'hang in there, baby' as well.
Every time John's seen Derek there's been another question – or another variation on a question - trying to catch John off-guard. Witnesses, leading questions and outright lies. It's like a Very Special post-apocalyptic episode of Law & Order, except that he doesn't get a phone call.
He gets tapes instead. Twenty of them carefully stacked in a carrier, nine from before he was born and eleven from after he … left. He wonders why she stayed with tape; maybe the nostalgia hit was too tempting to pass up.
Click "- your father."
He ejects the voice of the woman he doesn't know, slips the tape labeled '1/11' into the Walkman and presses play.
-o-
"It's been two weeks since you left and I keep thinking I'm going to turn a corner and see you, or someone you sent. During the day I know it wouldn't make sense to send anyone back so close to the time you left. At night ... I don't know.
"I don't know why I'm even making this, you're never going to hear it. You're never going to hear it."
Twenty years ago, his mother laughs. It's cracked and tired – a little bitter - but it's a real laugh and he smiles. Maybe she was feeling pointless after all.
Since they got back with more supplies than anyone remembers seeing before, he's mostly been left alone except for Derek's random visits. The only two words Derek has said, when he's been answering questions instead of asking them, have both been no.
In retrospect, John guesses that asking if he could join the far patrol probably wasn't a good move. Demanding to be told where Allison was, that was probably worse.
He hasn't seen Kate since she re-stitched his shoulder, and they didn't speak beyond a terse list of symptoms and a terser list of instructions. He'd refused the anesthetic; it was a waste when the pain of being patched up was nothing compared to how much it had hurt when the T-600 had torn into him. The antibiotics, those he took and held onto so hard they began to powder in his hand.
He hasn't seen Kyle at all.
This tiny, soot-streaked workroom has become his very own – his very own what, that he's leaving open until Derek stops having the door watched. So it's John Connor, four walls, something like a floor – if he could see it under the boxes and junk - a Walkman and the spare parts he used to call Cameron.
He could look for her chip; he could spend years looking for her chip. And while he did it, every day, people would die when he could have stopped it. There's nothing he can do for her, and the power source would change things for these people in new and better ways.
He hasn't told them that and the guilt makes him angry. Angrier.
He brushes the dust from skin that has long-since knitted itself together and combs his fingers through her hair; his hand shakes and he pretends it's because of the weakness in his shoulder.
He brushes his palm over her eyelids to close them and pretends he can bring her back.
Maybe if he says the right words, or clicks his heels three times, or maybe if he just wants it enough.
The door opens and he's expecting Derek to start round eighteen; he doesn't bother to turn around until Cameron's voice says, "Why me?"
He startles and tries to hide it under pulling the sheet up Cameron's torso, and then he turns to look at Allison. "You're back."
It's not the most intelligent thing he's ever said – or the least, he's made a freaking career out of stupid moves – but it doesn't matter, Allison isn't really listening.
She's staring down at Cameron and she doesn't look much better than she did the last time he saw her, when she sat beside his palette, covered in blood. His blood, it turns out.
"It's me. Why is it me?" Allison's voice is low and controlled but he can hear the stutter.
John reaches out for her hand and she moves it away. He doesn't try again. "She's an infiltrator; it could have been anyone here."
"But it was me. Why is it me?"
"It would have picked someone close to... to the camp." John wants to apologize, but he's not sure what for. If he's sorry for one thing, he has to be sorry for everything. Anyway, he tried to get to her first, it's Derek's fault he didn't. "I'm sorry," he says anyway.
Allison's pupils are blown wide and the dim yellow light makes her skin pale and sickly looking. She reaches towards the table again, her fingers flex and the hand draws back. Finally her head raises enough to meet his eyes. "For what?"
"I don't know," he laughs a little.
She doesn't. "What are you going to do with it?"
"It's more advanced than anything else out there," nearly everything else out there, he adds mentally. "We know where they're going so we can figure out how they're going to get there. Trip them up, maybe even get the jump on them."
First she wouldn't look at him and now she won't look away. "What's its name?" she asks, too evenly.
John ducks his head and begins stacking the tapes again. "It doesn't have a name," he finally mutters.
When he's done she's still staring at him, and he thinks maybe he owes her some of the answers he doesn't owe Derek. Yet.
"Cameron," he says. "Her name's Cameron. Her chip was wiped and she was sent to protect me. She wasn't the first one, they've all …" He shakes his head. "Gone."
Allison's expression softens, just a little. "You want it back."
"It's … complicated," he tries.
"It's sick." Her expression twists and becomes ugly with very human disgust; John flinches.
"Yeah," he agrees, when she's slammed the door behind her. "It is."
He smoothes the sheet back over Cameron and sits.
Click, whir - click. "- hear it."
-o-
"It wasn't supposed to be like this. I never wanted this fo-"
John stops the tape when the door begins to open and pulls the buds from his ears, the last thing he needs is anyone getting too interested in what he's listening to. It's probably just someone checking that he hasn't built a robot army out of old oilcans and spit.
By the time the figure in black BDUs has edged his way around the pile of junk metal and the boxes of wire, John has a screwdriver in one hand and a cell phone in the other. It's pink with little hearts edged in glitter, and for a moment he forgets he has a visitor while he tries not to envision the little girl who lost it.
If he read off the SIM, he'd probably find a list of names. Old texts. All that's left of someone's life.
The stranger coughs and says, "I heard some guy made it rain food from heaven and took down metal with his bare hands. I think it's got to be bullshit. Guy like that, he'd have to be John Connor or something."
John's hand tightens around the cell phone until the plastic casing creaks; he knows that voice. He thinks he knows that voice. He looks up fast, like ripping off a band-aid, and takes in the thin, scarred face. "Bedell?"
"So it is you." Martin grins and after a moment John remembers to do the same; it's been a while, it feels strange. "You haven't changed. At all. And I don't even want to know."
"You're the first one. Have you seen- do you know-"
"Derek? Yeah, for a while now. I never said anything. I guess … what is there to say?"
John laughs, like rust flaking away; he stands and claps the other man on the shoulder. "It's good to see you, man. I mean, really, incredibly good."
Bedell's grin widens and he perches on the side of the workbench, completely ignoring the body on it except for a cursory look. "So I guess the whole fighting the future thing didn't work out so well."
John's smile fades. "Not really," he says and fights the urge to apologize again.
"That's the trouble with future, I guess: there's always more of it than you. But you know, right? You know what's going to happen?"
"No. I know what might happen, some of the time," he stares down at the cell in his hand and then carefully puts it back on the junk pile.
"But they don't know about you, do they?" Bedell asks quietly.
John swallows. "You didn't-"
"What do I know? I just figured, if they did, you wouldn't be in here playing least wanted. But they know something isn't right, enough people heard Kate saying she knew you from years back. She's denying it now."
John looks back, surprised enough to let the surprise show. "She is?"
"She's buying you time, Connor. You brought good things and no ones got hurt, but getting Derek to let you keep that?" Bedell nods down at the body next to him. "That's losing you friends and they aren't going to wait outside the door forever. What did you tell Derek?"
"I said my mom knew this was coming and she trained me, that there was a bright light back in the 90s and suddenly I'm here. I told him Cameron just turned up one day. What would you have said?"
"I don't know, but I'd work it out because pretty soon they won't be taking old plots from the X-Files for an answer," says Bedell, more bemused than reassured.
"Maybe it should be you." John takes a breath and pitches his tone to sound as reasonable as he can. "I'm not supposed to be here, not like this. I don't know enough. I don't know anything. I can help you. You could-"
"No. It's you. It's got to be you," Badell cuts him off without even pretending to play dumb; John remembers when that was a good thing. It doesn't feel so good now.
"Why? Why is it me? It's been me before - I don't see us winning, do you? So maybe it's time for a new Messiah."
He's said too much and he braces himself against the questions, but Bedell only looks at him levelly and then says, "Back before, you looked like you knew it all." He shakes his head; wryness cut with the morbid amusement everyone keeps around them like a comforter. "Pretty cool."
John shrugs a shoulder and then shrugs both, just because he can now. "Yeah, well, things change."
"Or maybe things just look different from twenty years away. You knew enough to be scared and you were trying like hell not to show it."
"Okay, so nothing changes," John laughs quietly.
Bedell only smiles. "You have to keep doing that. In here, you can be scared to death just like the rest of us, but out there you have to be something else for just long enough to fool them. You reminded them they can keep fighting, now you have to give them a way to do it."
"It could be you," John whispers. "Please let it be you, just this time."
The whisper withers between them.
"It can't be me, I'm not John Connor. But I'm going to do you a favor."
John watches him warily; he doesn't like Bedell's expression even a little bit. "What?"
"I'm going to leave and I'm not going to come back again. Whatever happens … happens. And if I'm not there when you kick metal ass all the way back to the stone ages, then I'll know there was a reason."
"I can't do this," John tries, but it doesn't look like Bedell's any more inclined to believe him than anyone else has been.
"You already did, Connor. You already did." Bedell cuffs him lightly on the side of the head and grins. As he leaves, he calls back over his shoulder, loud enough to be heard by anyone in the corridor, "Yes, sir. I'm on it."
John guesses it's his last gift.
He sits where Bedell sat and stares down at the sheet covering Cameron's torso. When the shapes under it blur and cease to have meaning, he pulls it away. The blade of his knife slips easily through the outer skin and he ignores the red fluid that wells up.
He pushes his hand through and up until he can touch the casing of the power unit; it's cold. Without looking up the frame, he withdraws his hand and crosses over to the door.
There's a woman standing outside it, there's been someone out there since they got back. Guarding or watching, he's still not sure and he doesn't really care anymore. He nods to her. "Where's Derek Reese?"
He'd guessed she was in her thirties, but when she speaks she sounds younger. "He'll be in command."
"I'll go … " he closes his eyes, finds what he needs and then opens them with a faint, detached smile. "Tell him to get over here, please."
"I'm not your-" his guard begins with a scowl.
He holds up a hand to stop her. "Would you like power? To charge those rifles, maybe? Keep the infirmary lights on? Hey, maybe we could even run some defenses, how would that be?" He waits for that to register and then repeats, "Go and tell Reese to get over here. Now."
She pauses, uncertain, and he uses the moment to back into the workroom and close the door. He can do this. He can be John Connor for long enough.
Click-whir. Click. "-for you."
-o-
"It's been a month now. Weaver gave Ellison control of the company. We've been going through everything, but I'm not sure there's anything here that will help you. The archives on John-Henry are incomplete and the team who worked on him are all on extended vacation. Turns out they have been since the project started, so we're not going to track them down unless we dredge the river. But we'll try.
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but if the Tin Miss was working with the data, we'd know a lot more. There's too much here to process and you know me and computers.
"Savannah has figured out that her mom isn't coming back, I think. Ellison keeps trying but she's not speaking to him. She's sleeping in your room, your old room, now. It's … it's good she's sleeping at all.
"Anyway. Send us back another tin can. One of the liquid ones, if you can."
It's kind of funny, John thinks, that his mom is letting him in more with two-decade-old tapes than she ever has before. Maybe it's because the end of the world was never the worst thing that could happen for her; maybe it's easier now she'll never have to watch him die.
It's even funnier she's putting in orders for termination units. He wonders what she's still not telling him, because sure as hell she doesn't just want a walking talking processor.
Derek doesn't knock, it's a thing. John tracks his progress by the occasional curse as his uncle is ambushed by falling boxes. John doesn't look up from the cell he's taken apart, he's decided that's a thing now too.
Half a minute and a lot of swearing later, Derek makes it to the clear spot in front of the workbench. "You okay? You need Kate?"
And now he's glad he didn't look up, because he's all set for a fight but Derek's gone right for the kill with his concern.
John tries to make his expression as impassive as possible and then, finally, raises his head. "I'm fine. I wanted to talk to you about putting power down below."
"We can't, the heat signature would be-."
"Not if it's shielded. The T-600's power unit isn't, it runs hot – that's why I asked you to dump it as far out as possible; it was slowly irradiating the bunker. This model is safe. They needed it to be safe so it could stay undetected."
Derek cants his head. "That's why you wanted it bought back?"
"Right," John lies. "I didn't want to say anything until I was sure."
Derek looks a little angry, but mostly he looks relieved. "You should have said something, we thought-"
"I don't care what you thought," John lies again and wonders if he's pushed it too far.
Derek just nods, completely discounting John's arrogance; John still hasn't met anyone who can compartmentalize quite like his uncle. "Okay. What do you need?"
"Three or four people, they don't need to be Techs but they do need to do exactly what I tell them or we won't have to worry about the machines killing us."
Derek nods again and then says, "Martin's gone."
"I know. I sent him. You don't need to know more than that."
Now Derek's jaw does flex – Bedells's a friend, he doesn't get discounted. John softens his tone. "If it works out, I'll fill you in."
Derek watches John work on the cell for a few seconds and then asks, "What changed?"
The cell phone gives up the SIM card and John weighs it in his hand - a little life, too light to feel. "Do you believe in destiny? Fate?"
"Some big book up in the sky?" Derek frowns slightly. "No."
"My mom thinks – thought – there's no fate but what we make."
"What do you think?"
"I think I can tell you the future. I think I can tell you how this ends."
Derek looks doubtful, "Are you going to?"
"No," John curls his fingers around the SIM for a moment and then drops it into the pile to be melted down. "As long as you think I can't, maybe we have a chance."
When Derek has gone to find three or four people who are suicidal enough to try jury-rigging a mini nuclear power plant, John presses play and picks up his knife again.
He slices away a pound of synthetic meat at a time; strip by strip, down to the metal.
"It's Fall and I moved on. I had to move on. It's two-thousand nine and we're a little way south of Santa Ana. Savannah has started school here. I didn't know what to tell her, but I didn't know what to tell you either and that still worked out, right?
"She's a smart kid. I think once she gets a little training and stops seeing killer robots everywhere, she'll be okay.
"I miss you, John. I love you and we're still trying."
Click. "- still trying."