Past Reflections

-Like I said, you make your choices, and you live with them. And in the end, you are those choices.

Major Kendra Shaw, Battlestar Galactica: Razor.

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This is a bad idea.

I know this, but I still have to do it. I have to see this. And it'll help Major Shaw understand what has been happening a little bit better. I can hear her shift about in the seat of the car we are in. she's getting very impatient now.

"So, why are we here? Because, as I understand it, we're a couple of days in the past."

"Less than that now. You took a long time repairing me." I turn to look at her quickly. "Did you take shifts? You three must have slept," I say, thinking about the kids at school. They would add another phrase. "Or something."

"Jack and Derek didn't. They didn't want to stop. They seemed very determined to save you," she says softly. I look at her, and smile slightly.

"I'd do the same for them." As I say it, I realise it's true. I would do just that. For them. I turn my head, and continue watching. Silence falls down between us again. I wish she'd accepted my offer of other clothes. She seems to me someone who was once an idealist, a dreamer, and the horror of the destruction of her civilisation changed her. Made her cold. I feel sorry for her. She's ended up making herself into a tool for warfare to the point I don't think she will never know how to be anything else any more. I've been thinking about it. Get through school, and go to college. Study Environmental Science. Become an Ecologist, or something. I've not thought it all through. Except that we will beat Skynet, and then we'll have to live lives that will be normal in comparison. And I want that. I'm focussing on that notion. I know that there's the danger that it could all be re-started by the technology in my body, but I don't want to be destroyed. I want to carry on living for as long as I can. Because I have to. For her. For the one who has made me feel this pain. Because she died, wanting me to carry on.

As much as I ache with loss, as much as I want to be with her, I know that I would rather be alive and with her, rather than dead and with her. Because life is where you can change things, make things better.

I get that now.

I see two men walking up to a Jeep that's parked up a little way up the street. I know that Jeep well. And the street. Me, Derek, John and Mom used to live in it. Major Shaw is shifting forward, clearly taking interest in the two men. She's studying their actions, of opening the driver's door illegally, and popping the hood to look at the engine. She starts to move.

"We should do something-" I grab her, and shove her back in the seat.

"We can't. These events are established. We can't do anything but watch," I tell her. She looks at me angrily, but stays put, muttering something about me being a frakking machine or something. I just watch them do their job, and go. The question I have is... how long after was it? How long did they then wait for the trap to be sprung?

I wonder if the bomb was meant for me?

After ten minutes, I see a familiar figure walk out of a house, and to the pavement. As the figure starts to cross the street to the Jeep, I hear a gasp from Shaw.

"That's you," she says in a loud whisper. She looks at me, serious and unloving in her stare. "Why are we watching-" I grip her jaw, and force her head to look at the events. I see myself get to the Jeep, and use the keys to open the door. I see Sarkissian and his goon walk away, glancing back every couple of seconds. Suddenly, the Jeep erupts into an explosion of flames, making Major Shaw jump, and me wince. I had no idea just how nasty the explosion had been. None. And it would have instantly killed anyone else. Shaw is opening the door, to go and help. I grab her and force her back into the seat.

"These are established events. They cannot be messed with," I tell her, hoping she'll understand this.

"But you need help!" she shouts. I shake my head.

"You can't give it to me, because you were never here originally. You're here now, because I wanted to watch. I needed to watch." She stops talking, and we just hear the sound of car alarms nearby blaring, awoken by the explosion. My ears hear the sound of metal objects being moved, and we both see the door to the Jeep get smashed off. A gasp comes from Major Shaw.

"Frak... there's a large lump of shrapnel in your head," she exclaims when she sees my past self emerge from the wreckage, a piece of metal embedded in the back of my past self's skull. My hand reaches to the back of my present skull, feeling the crack still there. I don't like that dent. I don't like the fact I could just sleep one time, and not wake up. And it'll be sooner, rather than later.

"I'd been told to get a cake. I didn't know until Derek told us, it was for John. For his birthday." I stop to think. "That's not true. John told me. When we were at the school trip." I stare at Major Shaw, scared. "I'd forgotten... my chip's been badly damaged." A tear crawls down my cheek. "What else have I forgotten? What else?" Shaw just exhales deeply. She turns to look at the past me, taking out the shard of metal out of my head, and look at it before tossing it aside.

"I'll keep looking into ways of repairing you."

I can hear it in her voice. Suspicion. Mistrust. But then, her civilisation was almost wiped out by machines. I think back with guilt, when all I was was just a machine. A stinking, disgusting machine. I don't want to think about those horrible times.

I still want to destroy Skynet. Not simply because it will devastate the whole planet, ruin the ecology, all that I hold dear, but to erase the existence of any Metal that could arise from Judgement Day. I'll never allow one to continue existence. Never. And I know that I'd enjoy immensely destroying any Metal that I come across from now on. Especially after they took my girlfriend from me.

They'll pay for that.

Big time.

My past self is now in our old house, killing that henchman of Sarkissian's, and the house will burn down. Oh. That's a point...

"We need to go now," I tell Major Shaw. She looks at me, confused. "We need to get away, before John and Mom get out of the house. Not to mention myself," I point out. We get out of the car, my Sonic Screwdriver locking the white car again, and activating the alarm. Wait... What the... I don't understand. I'm not giving any indication I'm aware, but I can sense a familiar presence. Something is watching us. But the last time I sensed it, though, was in eighteen eighty eight. Whatever was stalking us then is also stalking us in two thousand and seven. No. Me. It's the only thing that makes sense. And that makes me nervous. Because I know that what ever it is has the power to take me out. And that scares me. This isn't Metal... it's something more.

I grab Major Shaw's arm, and we both start to run, to get distance from the house. Not to mention try to lose the thing watching us. After a few blocks, we slow down, and Shaw catches her breath.

What now, though? What should we do? Wait... the church. We should be go there, so Major Shaw can get a better idea of how complicated the situation is for us all. Because Jane was right. This is a Time War. Not like the one that killed off the Lords of Time, the alien race from another universe, but still...

Suddenly, we pass a shop. One I just have to go in... I know that Major Shaw is confused by my actions, but I don't care.

When we enter the magic shop, my nose is assaulted by all the smells of incense and essential oils in the shop. And I can feel the power inside this place. All the items here, they are like a chorus in my mind, singing into my consciousness. I let myself open up to the energies surrounding me. This is how I know I'm not simply a machine. I can sense all of this, the energy around me, and since coming back from that garden, the scream of the universe. I could before hear the pain, but it was like a a muffled whisper, and I mostly filtered it out. Now, it's so much louder. And I know why. The energy that was healing Jane, back when we had first met, it had also hit me.

It has changed me on a deep, deep level. I know this, because I can feel it now.

And I'm still changing.

I know why I can feel the universe scream. It's my genetics. The organic part of me is now only part human, and it's only now that I get what my now dead girlfriend was trying to explain to me.

And that is a very nice cloak and dress over there. A sort of Medieval Gothic look to it. I want it. I don't care about how I can sense the universe, I want that dress. And the cloak. I'd live to wear that dress to school with my favourite jacket. It'd be tight.

But I can still feel the universe. I think it's slowly healing, because the Cathedral of time, the time and space craft that was built by the Lords of Time, has been cleansing and purifying the all the damage the Future War has been causing, because each time the Time Displacement technology is used, it tears at the fabric of this reality. I look at Major Shaw, to see if my explanations of the damage to the universe, and of the origins of the Cathedral are making sense. I can see her frown, staring at a crystal ball.

"Sounds like things a re totally frakked up around here," she says simply. I smile slightly at her.

"Yes. It's totally whack," I agree as I pay for the cloak and dress.