Author's Note: I have been keeping tabs on the fate of T:TSCC, and I've known for a while it has been cancelled. My opinion is this: It is annoying, and the whole affair shows us all again why they shouldn't be trusted with television programmes. It is also brilliant, because it means I have no constraints on me. I can effectively go my own way with this.

This is good news for readers, because it means I'm thinking much more outside the box. Skynet cannot be the only source of badness. So... what can possible threaten our favourite Tin Miss? keep reading and find out. ;)

Rising To The Occasion

- People cannot comprehend how much you stand to lose in failure. That you are the instrument of a flawless design. And all of life may hang in the balance. A Hero learns quickly who can comprehend, and who merely stands in your way.

Mohinder Suresh, Nothing To Hide.

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It seems so strange. I was doing this all just yesterday, cleaning this power plant, but for me, it was so many months ago. Time travel can be quite confusing, I guess. Particularly if it is two-way. I have to admit, I wish it had been closer to the time me and Derek had to be at, in order to re-insert ourselves back into the time-line. All the waiting made it so much more difficult. Although last night pretty much killed me. It was so horrible, being in the house, seeing her. Not to mention the conversation... to want to say so much, to use the opportunity, and to have to let it pass.

And now, I am haunted by thoughts I have been trying so hard not to think about, to not remember her, because if I was to, I wouldn't be able to stop. And I can't allow myself to be distracted. Not when so many lives are at stake. But I can't go on like this. I don't know when, but I'll have to start seriously crying. Because last night was too much. Not to mention the dream...

I just have to get through this day. I just have to keep mopping this floor, and get home. Once home, I can find a way to start crying. It's all I want to do. Just curl up into a ball, and cry. I feel like I am... I guess if I was human, I would feel like I am dying. I can't allow myself to think, because if I start to think, then I'll just think think of all that's happened to me over the past few months. The pain of loss will be nothing compared to the joy I had in those times. Because the happiness will be to much to take. I have to stay unemotional, for the sake of the mission.

I look at the clock on the wall of the office I'm emptying the trash of. Time is dragging, and I still don't understand it. I think part of it is connected to my faulty systems. But the clock is confirming that my internal chronometer is still accurate. My perception is off. For some reason, this time it seems as if the Machine in me is working fine. It's the living girl that is affected. I guess I should be pleased, because it means I am not Metal any more. I can't feel happy when I have lost so much...

This job is boring. It is good that I will not have to do this day in and day out. I will have to make sure that I do well at school. I have to do what it takes to do the best I can in this world. I'm so glad I went to the trees outside our home before coming to the plant this morning. I needed to talk to someone. Especially after last night. There is so much pressure pressing against my chest, wanting to burst out. So much has happened to me – too much. It hurts, knowing the road ahead, and not being able to give out a simple warning, to say what's going to happen. Except I couldn't. I couldn't cause more damage to the universe. Time is so fragile, because of the Future War. This war is taking too many people, stealing good, caring individuals, and we need them. I need her. I can still remember the silkiness of her hair from the last time we slept together. I couldn't resist stroking it. She was so amazing. I should have had a lifetime with her. She should have have had a longer life. She deserved it. She earned it. She wasn't perfect. She was in over her head, just like the rest of us. But she held us together. Even though she knew what was coming, what fate had prepared for her, she still went ahead. After seeing her last night, I know how she knew that she was going to die horribly, alone.

She found out through me.

I caused a paradox.

Oh. it's time for my break. I walk out of the complex, and to a little corner I know of, because I have been hearing so many conversations. And I need to come here, to calm down. I press my back against the wall, and get out a cigarette. I'm feeling so very funky right now. And ever since that demon hybrid used me, I've been physically addicted to smoking. I strongly dislike the taste in my mouth. I don't like the smoke, or the smell. But my chip is using some of chemicals and the nicotine to enhance function. And it calms me down. None of this makes sense, and I'm alone in all of this. I can't talk to anyone about the changes in my body. No-one will understand. No-one.

"Your presence still lingers here, and it won't leave me alone," I sing out unexpectedly. Jane was singing it, completely drunk when Jack had triggered her heavily suppressed memories of Luke. I only know of him from the few thing she said about him, and the bits that appeared in her Blue-Green Book when it wanted me to talk about him with her. I didn't like to talk about him. His death was a massive trauma for her. Even though it had been years, and she was in love with me, she still loved him. I knew she had let go, and was in the present, but she still loved him.

"These wounds won't seem to heal, this pain is just to real, there's just too much that time cannot erase-"

"Hey, cool song."

I jump, dropping my cigarette onto the ground. I look at the middle-aged balding guy who has just appeared. He seems embarrassed.

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you," he apologises. I just shrug, and and tread on my cigarette. It is all I can do to keep back my tears.

"No harm, no foul," I say to him. I heard Derek say that to Jack in a conversation a couple of months back. Before the mission. Before the fight to destroy the Terma-Domes and the Clockwork Droids. Before Jane tricked us into the Cathedral, and sealed the doors, leaving her to the Machine that had broken through the room's ceiling, and proceeded to smash her head into the window. What she did was suicide. And I know that she knew it, and it scared her.

She didn't want to die.

"What were you singing, anyway?" he asks. I certainly seem to have made him curious.

"It's a song that my girlfriend listened to when she wanted to remember a guy who she had been with." my voice is about to break with emotion. I pause a second.

"They were in a car crash. She survived, he didn't."

"Jeez... that's harsh. At least she has you now-"

"She's dead. Killed in Action." I just have to interrupt him.

"Everyone's song end at some point," he murmurs. I can tell he's trying to change the subject.

I need to have something in my hands to play with. I get out a familiar cylindrical object, and feel pain stab my chest some more. I remember when I first found it, when me and Jane had first found the Cathedral of Time. She'd called it that for me, because I was seeing everything as a fairy-tale at the time. She never did tell me what its original name is. She did once refer to the Cathedral as Time and Relative Dimension In Space, though. I can remember picking up the Sonic Screwdriver in my hand, and how it felt like it was a part of me.

It still does.

"Odd thing you have there." His vocal patterns indicate he's desperately trying to change the subject. I give him a lop-sided smile, despite my sadness.

"It is. Found it once." I check the time. "I need to get back," I say, when I see I'll be late back if I don't run. I quickly grab a pen from his pocket, and write on his hand the name of the song, and the band name. I hand him back the pen before I start to run back to my work-shift.

"Hey, thanks," he calls after me. I keep running, giving him a thumbs up as I rush away. I barely get back to my shift in time. Which is a good thing, given my supervisor wants me now to clean up a spill in a main corridor. I simply nod to her and go away to clean it. It's better than sticking my middle finger up at her, which is what I feel like doing. I feel in a bad mood suddenly for some strange reason. And I have stomach cramps. I think. I've used the relevant system diagnostic to assess my organics. The problem is that my diagnostic is telling me to not warn the tadpoles. Either this is a coded alert I no longer understand, or it is malfunctioning. Or maybe there are tadpoles out to get me.

It just proves that my day sucks. Big time.

I just get started mopping when I hear in the distance someone running. Sounds like Mom. Yes, now the footsteps are closer, I can tell it's Mom.

"Greenway. He's been replaced by Machine." I keep on mopping, trying to work out what to do. He is very senior. It's going to be very difficult to eliminate the replacement. There are too many security cameras about. But we can't do nothing...

"Did you hear me? Greenway has control of the plant, and he's a Machine." Keep mopping. There is an answer to this, I just have to find it...

"Hey!" I feel her hand pull at my shoulder with vigorous force. I stare at her, eye to eye.

"You alive in there?" stay calm. Don't show emotion. Not in front of her. Mom wouldn't understand. I'll have to tell her the truth. Anything else will make things worse.

"I'm thinking about what to do." I manage to keep my voice fairly neutral, though I cannot help but shout to try and be heard over the noise of the machinery. She looks at me, sceptical confusion reigning over her face.

"Since when do you do that?" I cannot work out is she's asking me a question, demanding an answer from me, or trying to work out what is going on with me. What? Oh... an alarm. I have a feeling this is a very bad situation development... I see a small group of men rushing past us. Definitely bad...

"What's going on?" Mom shouts at the men. One of them bothers to respond to her.

"Turbine building! One of the valves' sprung a leak!" He shouts back at her. Of course... replace Greenway, and then cause the reactor to meltdown, causing a Skynet victory. I should have thought of this eventuality... his death is my fault. Mine. I feel fear paralyse my muscles, seize up my servos... I don't want to die. I don't.

"Go fix it!" She shouts at me. My food processing system feels like hurling up all the food inside it. I am scared. More scared than when we were being ordered to surrender in the factory. More scared than I've ever been. And yet, never more sure of my response.

Everyone's song ends. But not today. Not today. Because I refuse to let it happen.

In the time it takes for a human heartbeat, I have stared at my fear, and have walked away from Mom, the legendary Sarah Connor, dropping the mop in the process. I wait until she's run back to the control centre before I break out into a run, desperate to get to the reactor core. A couple of guards see me, and move to intercept me. But I'm prepared for this eventuality. I whip out of my pocket a slightly battered black leather wallet, and open up its blank insides for them to see.

"Health and Safety! Undercover Division!" I scream at them, not stopping. Of course, the whole thing is heavily glamourised, so they are seeing whatever I want them to see. Where do need to go? It is a good thing I uploaded schematics for the layout of the whole power plant. And I've managed to get calculated the most direct route. I just need to quicken my pace-

Oh.

Oh...

There is a security door in front of me. And I only made one copy of the security pass needed to get through this... And Mom has it... my eyes gaze over the lock device. A small smile creeps over my face. I can pick this lock...

I get out the familiar cylindrical device out of my pocket. Which setting? Yes... That'll do it... The end is extending out, the end glowing bright blue. The whirring sound increases in pitch as it alternates between frequencies. And... there. I grab the door as the security system allows me through. I put my Sonic Screwdriver back into my pocket and rush into the next room. Oh. They... Okay, ignore it. I have to ignore the barrels of radioactive material. If I was fully human, I would probably be deeply panicking now... Okay, keep running. I have to get there. Have to...

There. There is the valve. I just hope I can close it in time...