If in one of previous chapters John vas acting childish, then in this chapter it's Cameron's turn to react unexpectedly. When judging her reactions, please, bear in mind, that she discovered her emotions just a short time ago and she still has problems understanding them and acting correctly upon feeling something new. Therefore her reactions might sometimes seem extreme, especially to someone who grew up with accepting and understanding emotions – to humans.
Chapter 11 – The Waiting
Cameron was gliding perfectly down the slope. She was still staying with her group, but because she was the last in the queue she could choose her own line and thus enjoyed her new skill of snowboarding even more. Suddenly she saw a group of snowboarders, standing at the edge of the slope and noticed how one of them elegantly came to a stop in the row. She instantly recognized his clothing, what was no wonder, for she chose those clothes yesterday. John! Her inexistent heart was instantly full of happiness. I finally found him! She was just about to wave her hand and call out for him as she saw Andrea crashing into him, hugging him and John hugging her back. In the same instant they kissed.
Cameron felt like the world would have collapsed on her. Her mind froze and her whole body locked in the stiff stupor. She couldn't believe her eyes; she couldn't believe she just witnessed John kissing Andrea. She failed to form any coherent thought but one: John is kissing Andrea! He doesn't want to be with me, he wants to be with a human girl! After a second, an eternity for a terminator, she got out of her stupor and only just managed to prevent crashing into a tree on the other side of the slope. She continued down the slope, but her eyes could only see one scene: John kissing Andrea. Suddenly all her hopes collapsed, suddenly she felt the whole burden of her machine existence coming crashing down on her. She felt stupid for having hoped for anything more than what was hers to have: being a tool; a tool to be used and discarded after the use. I'm just a machine. He doesn't see me as a girl; he has a human girl now. In that moment she didn't know what to do. She couldn't self terminate, but she didn't know how to go on. In the last days she began to believe that there could be happiness for her together with John and now these dreams were taken away from her with a cruel swing of the destiny's magic wand. Would she be able to continue guarding him? She didn't know. She needed time to think it over. She knew however, that she was obviously just a little machine, reaching for the stars but crashed mercilessly to the ground in recognition of her own foolish dreams. She was a machine and she would never be anything more. She wasn't allowed to become more. She might have thought that she knew how to fight for John, how to protect him from greedy girls' claws, but in this moment she forgot everything.
Her face lost all expression and life in her eyes vanished as if it had never been displayed in them at all. In a second she turned into a cold machine, machine not capable of anything else but following her programming. And yet, she didn't fall victim to her Skynet programming again. She forcefully overrode it and wrote a new, old, mission: "Protect John Connor at any cost. Protect him from afar." That's what she would do in the endless days to come. Everything else was lost. But … her emotions were still there, and even though she forcefully tried to suppress them, to push them into background, she failed, for they suddenly burst up again and took over her logic. Suddenly her vision blurred, her eyes watered in an instant and tears began to fall. She stopped in the middle of the slope and for a second she stood there helplessly, lost. Then she turned to look at the forest apart the slope and pointed herself into it. In few seconds her small frame, gracefully gliding into the forest vanished between the thick trees and only a small trail her snowboard left behind, spoke of the disappearance of a certain cyborg girl, who was dreaming of becoming more than just machine but was denied her dreams and now sought refuge in the thick, dark forest.
John was absolutely furious. He found it difficult to believe what Andrea told him about her conversation with Sarah, but after he managed to get his rage under control and looked into Andrea's distraught face, he was ready to believe her. Not that his anger diminished; no, he just directed it towards different persons. Andrea was no longer the one on the receiving end - this position was now reserved for his mother and Derek. Two persons, whom he, apart from Cameron, trusted the most, were plotting against him and his Cameron. He couldn't understand how they were capable of something like that. Sure, he knew that they both had significant problems accepting Cameron, but still… He shook his head in disbelief and sighed angrily.
"John?" Andrea's meek voice from nearby woke him from his stupor. He turned to look at her and as he saw her scrunched face, still tearful eyes, looking at him with fear, he couldn't help but smile bitterly. "What?"
"Are you mad at me?" Her voice was quivering slightly and it was obvious that she deeply regretted her action. It was clear that she realized how terribly wrong she had been, how misled and she was trying her best to show her remorse and convince John that she wouldn't try anything more.
John tried very hard to suppress a grin. Andrea suddenly resembled a ten year old girl, caught in flagranti in some forbidden activity. The self confident, slightly annoying and spoiled teenager was gone, as if she never would have existed at all. Her big blue eyes gazed wetly at him, fearing the worst. He really couldn't be seriously mad at her. She was just trying to hit on a boy she liked and had even been encouraged in doing so by his own mother. At the thought of Sarah, he gritted his teeth again. Andrea suddenly looked even more frightened. He instantly understood that she misinterpreted his open display of his anger as being directed towards her, so he hurried to reassure her: "No, Andrea, I'm not really mad at you. Well, yes, I am a little, but I see that it wasn't exactly your fault. Hell, my mother can be very persuasive if she wants to and she probably did her best to assure you how I would be in a terrible need of a girlfriend. So, no, not really, but I'm not thrilled either. I hope you understand it."
Andrea felt relieved that he obviously wasn't angry with her anymore and sighed with a small, sad smile: "I'm really sorry. I didn't know. If I knew that you and Cameron …"
She couldn't finish, for John's eyebrows wandered in heights of his forehead: "I never said I were with Cameron …"
Now it was Andrea's turn to grin at him: "John, you are soooo bad at hiding your heart. And Cameron isn't much better. I saw it yesterday, but after the talk to your mother I simply ignored it. I should trust my instincts better. You two can't hide that you're in love, really. You may not be in a relationship, but it's more than obvious that you're in love."
John was little taken aback by her statement. Damn! We haven't even admitted it to each other yet and here we are – someone who knows us for one day sees it. Jesus! If Andrea could see it, than mom … He didn't finish the thought as he suddenly realized that he had probably been fooling himself how good he was at hiding his feelings for Cameron. He opened his mouth to answer, but no sound came out. Andrea was right and he couldn't deny it. He couldn't deny his feelings for Cameron any more. He couldn't lie to himself or the others.
"Don't try to deny it. It's written all over your face. Really!" Andrea smiled at him.
John finally managed to smile back. "If you say so."
Suddenly Andrea tipped her head down the slope: "Go and find her! I can see that you're counting seconds before you see her again."
John looked at her surprised: "How … I don't …" He stuttered and forgot what he wanted to say.
"Exactly! Go on, moron!" Andrea grinned at him.
"Yes, ma'am!" Answered John mockingly and started down the slope, completely ignoring the group with which he spent last two and a half hours. The course didn't matter anymore; all he wanted was to find Cameron, to be with her. He wasn't sure what he will do after he'll find her. He'll probably freeze and hide his true feelings just like every time he was with her, but still … he wanted to be with her!
Cameron was slowly gliding through the forest, far away from the slope. She could still hear the voices of people on the slope, but only because her hearing was many times better than human. A human wouldn't hear anything. She still couldn't get the picture of John, kissing Andrea, out of her mind. Tears dropped from her eyes, but she didn't do anything to stop them or wipe them away. She felt like everything inside her would crumple in a small heap of misery and sharp pain spread inside her chest. How can I feel such pain? I'm not human and yet I feel this pain, just like humans do. At least I think it is … like it's described in the books and movies.
She finally stopped in the middle of the forest, far from any living soul and sat down. Lethargically she dropped her head into her hands and began to sob.
John was literally racing down the slope. He wanted to get to the ski lift station as soon as possible to wait for Cameron there. He grinned in anticipation of her face when she'd see him there, waiting for her. He ignored the fact that he was much faster than his capabilities would actually allow him to be and so he came to pay the price for the ignorant overestimating of his skill. He missed a quite large heap of snow, probably caused by a group, making a turn on the same spot and crashed directly into it. Oh yes, he felt it, but it has already been way too late! He noticed it as he was already flying headfirst down the slope with eyes wide open in horror and recognition that he'll be hitting the ground in less than a second. His arms flailed in a futile effort to at least slightly stabilize his flight, but the trajectory of his unwanted flight insertion has been fixed from the start and there was nothing he could possibly do to avoid his destiny. Everything that goes up comes down. One way or another. All he could do was to count down the nanoseconds until the inevitable crash and to cover his face with hands. Split second after he brought his hands in front of his face, he crashed down. As his body made contact with the snow, a thought flashed through his mind that the snow wasn't as soft as it looked that it was in fact as hard as concrete. He grunted and felt how his chest constricted and air was forcefully pushed out of his lungs. Before he could do anything, he plowed through the snow with arms in front of his head and hoped he would stop any time soon without hurting or even injuring himself. The possibility of crashing against a tree was quite significant and he tightly squeezed his eyes shut, hoping foolishly that he would avoid a crash by seeing nothing.
After few seconds, but to him it looked like an eternity, he finally came to stop at the edge of the slope, without hitting anything else. He remained unmoving for a second, trying to determine if he was uninjured and after he realized that nothing, apart from his pride, had been damaged, he sighed relieved and rose his head to look where he landed. After a quick scan of his surroundings he felt enormously relieved that no one paid attention to his failed attempt to fly and he tried to get up as quick as he could. Once he was sitting on his lower back again, he began to wipe off the snow, which covered him almost completely. A minute later, he was looking decent again and it was almost impossible to determine that just a minute ago he was lying headfirst in the snow. Gee, good that Cameron's not here. She'd probably flip out seeing me trying to fly like a bird. He grinned at the thought, stood up and started downhill to the ski lift again.
After the short flight insertion which went terribly wrong, he decided to be a little more careful and didn't push it too much. It was definitely a wise decision and he made it to the ski lift without any further accidents. He positioned himself beside the entry ramp so that Cameron couldn't miss him. He smiled to himself in anticipation of seeing her again. They have been separated for less than three hours and yet he felt like it was an eternity since they parted here.
While he was waiting, his thoughts wandered to the plot, his mother and Derek were trying to pull through and his face darkened considerably. He wasn't so furious as before, but he still didn't know how he'd react, should he meet them now. He'd probably lose it and would throw them everything directly in their faces. He realized that it was good he would have some time to cool down before meeting them. The voice of reason and logic tried to explain to him that they were probably doing what they thought was best for him. Screw the best! I only wanted them to leave Cameron be and not to interfere with us. But no, they had to go and try ruining everything! He realized that the more he thought of this matter, the more he'd be enraged. So he forcefully averted his thoughts from his mother and uncle and tried to think of Cameron. I wonder if she's already as good as she said she'd be. I bet she's driving her trainer crazy. He giggled softly at this thought, but as he saw the strange looks, the passer-bys gave him he suppressed it and smiled apologetically to the older woman, who was staring disapprovingly at him. After she shook her head in disguise, turned and went away, he grinned after her.
He concentrated on what was going on around him. His eyes rested on the slope, only occasionally they swept the area around the ski lift. Well, if I just missed them, it might take quite a long time for them to get back down. He sighed and leaned against the railing around the entry area of the ski lift, feeling how his anxiety grew with each passing minute.
After almost half an hour, he became quite agitated, because there was no sign of Cameron or her group. His eyes gradually began to frantically search the slope and he tried his best to see as far as possible. After two additional minutes, he finally saw a group of snowboarders, descending slowly. However, they were still too far for him to see if this really was Cameron's group or not.
He began to fidget, not even feeling cold for having been standing here for over half an hour; he was so eager to see if Cameron was finally coming. The group came closer and he silently cursed when he realized that he didn't know anyone form the group aside from Cameron and Tim. And he couldn't see anyone of them.
Finally the group came close enough so that he could clearly recognize the faces and after a second he saw Tim, staying at the end of the line. His eyebrows furrowed as he tried to find Cameron, just to realize, she was not with the group. Suddenly he began to worry what could have happened to her, why was she not with her group. But before he could flip out in began to worry, he forced himself to wait for Tim to come down.
The group slowly passed him and as Tim noticed him, he smiled strained: "Hi, John."
"Where's Cameron?" John blurted out, without even trying to be polite.
"I have no idea. She vanished the last time we came down. I asked the trainer if she told him anything, but she didn't tell him anything either. He just said that she was probably on her own, since she got even better than him." Tim's voice was little strained, but John didn't pay any attention to him. His heart constricted at Tim's words.
"Come on! How could you simply leave her and continue the course? Where's the trainer?" He turned around and craned his neck to see if the trainer was somewhere near. He spotted him at the entrance, counting the attendants of his group. John purposefully strode towards him and as he approached him, he asked with not exactly good masked anger: "Where's Cameron? How could you leave her alone?"
The trainer looked into John's eyes surprised and gulped. He had had some bad consciousness for not having looked after Cameron even before, but now, as John approached him angrily, the gnawing feeling grew exponentially: "She obviously left the group. We talked before and she said she'd like to try on her own, so I believed she really did it. After the last run, after we noticed her absence, I instructed my friend here," he rose his hand to point at the attendant at the ski lift, "to watch if she'd appear and I took the group uphill to see if she would be anywhere on the slope. But none of us saw her. Therefore I believed that she already left the group." It was obvious that he was feeling guilty for not searching thoroughly for her.
John breathed heavily. He knew that the trainer made a mistake, but he obviously did try to find Cameron, however, with another 11 members of the group it wasn't exactly easy to leave them somewhere and start a search. "So, what were you planning to do next? Nothing? Forget that you lost one attendant of your course?" His voice dripped with venom.
"I was going to report her missing just after I got everyone on the ski lift." The trainer tried very hard to focus on John's angry eyes while trying to explain his intentions.
"That won't be necessary. I'll go find her. If you can't … I can. And I will." John's voice was resolute, his eyes revealed his absolute determination that he'd do anything possible to find Cameron. "But I wouldn't come near me if I were you!" He knew that it was no use threatening the trainer but his tongue was again faster than his brain and after the words slipped his tongue he already regretted saying them. But he wouldn't admit it to the trainer, so he kept his penetrating gaze at the trainer and hid his slight embarrassment very well.
The trained nodded and finally remembered to ask: "Who are you? Are you related to Cameron?"
John opened his mouth to answer him, but was cut off by Tim: "He's her friend. She lives together with him and his mother as adopted daughter."
John turned to Tim and cast him a withering look, speaking volumes. "I don't think that it's up to you to explain the things which are not yours to explain." He spat out poisonously. How dare this Tim answer for me? He turned back to the trainer: "Not exactly the truth, but it's close enough."
The trainer just nodded in silence, noticing the hostility, emanating from John as he looked at Tim. These two are having some heavy issues in which I really don't want to get involved. "So, you're going to look for her?" He asked John almost hopefully and as John nodded in response, he added: "I just wanted to tell you: she got unbelievable good in snowboarding. She just might be the best boarder on the slope and you'll probably have some problems catching up with her."
Despite his worries and anger John felt how his lips began to smile. That's my girl! I knew she'd be the best. She always is. He nodded wordlessly to the trainer and turned to walk back to his board but stopped at Tim's side and leaned towards his ear: "I know what you're trying to do, Tim. Don't! Don't try to do anything, don't even think about it! She's way out of your league."
Tim smiled at him sheepishly. John's reaction showed him without any doubts that his interest in Cameron was definitely not the one someone should have in his adopted sister. He began to ask himself if Derek really told him the truth about the relationship between Cameron and John. Somehow John's, not to even speak of Cameron's, reaction made him clear that they both harbored deep feelings for each other, feelings which outgrew the sibling's relationship by far. They maybe weren't aware of them yet, but the affection was unmistakably there. "I won't. I see that I've been living in some false conviction concerning your relationship. Believe me … Cameron made it quite clear that she wouldn't want to give in to my efforts. Unmistakably clear." He grinned at the memory how he landed on his butt after trying to kiss her.
John looked at him surprised. It was obvious that Tim wasn't acting or pretending. After he saw Tim's grinning face, his anger calmed down significantly and he grinned back: "She did something to you, didn't she? You were trying something that she didn't like and she made it unmistakably clear to you that she's not the one to be played with."
Tim nodded grinning: "Yep. I landed hard on my ass and got to see her angry scowling face. You know … she looks even more adorable when she's really pissed off."
John grinned wider and nodded: "That she does. That she does." Then he became serious again: "I have to find her."
Tim also turned serious again. He was worried about Cameron's disappearance too, but didn't think he was good enough on the snowboard to go searching for her, so he did feel relieved as he saw John's determination to find her. "Good luck. I hope you find her soon. I hope there're no hard feelings between us? I'd really like to hang out with you two some more." He asked almost hopefully.
John looked indecisive for a second, but answered: "We'll see about that. Right now I'm not in a mood to see you or your sister anytime soon. But … we can stay in touch and we'll see later." Without losing any more words, he turned and went for his board.
Cameron hasn't moved for more than half an hour. She felt cold; she knew that if she were human, she'd probably already freeze. But being what she was, she only knew that her body temperature was dropping rapidly, without having any significant influence on her. Her face in her hands, her thoughts a sheer chaos of emotions, her eyes dry because she'd already shed all the tears, she still couldn't believe what she'd seen. She knew that she couldn't hide here in the forest forever, but at the moment she didn't feel ready to face John or anyone else. Not yet.
TBC