Okay sorry I've been away for so long, I've been kinda busy, in the coming months my family and I are planning on moving so there is a lot of shit that we need to do, plus I felt as if I should pay my other story some more attention, so I updated that.
Now on a few notes I would like to say this up front, the only two reasons Cameron and Samantha have different appearances is because, A. If I didn't change their appearances then people would be asking why no one noticed the two of them, plus the air of mystery around Alex and John would not be possible. And B. I did it to establish that Samantha and Cameron are two SEPERATE characters. Got that? You guys think it's confusing that they have similar names... well if they looked the same and had the same name then I would spend all my time writing, Present Cameron this and Future Cameron that, and I was so not going to do that, so I had to make a choice.
For all of you that have something to say about the appearances, I just want you to know that even if I decided to go ahead with Cameron changing appearances it wont be until WAY later in the story. The last 7 chapters took place over a few days, and Cameron didn't change her name and appearance until just before the bombs fell, so yeah... you got time. And that's even if I decide to do it, I have to follow the path that I have set for my story, so as much as I appreciate your input I am officially telling each one of you to just drop the appearance thing. It's said and done and theirs nothing I can do about it, Samantha might be future Cameron, but Cameron is still Cameron, I can't have them both being present Cameron otherwise this would be impossible to follow so please drop it and focus on letting me know about other Positives or Negatives about my story,
As a final note on that, please do not offer up your suggestions about what you think I SHOULD do about the whole Samantha/Cameron appearance thing because, at this point I will ignore you, and probably get angry that you ignored me. So please just focus on advancing with the story, and don't worry about the appearances.
Okay... now that that's out of the way, please let me know what you think and please feel free to ask questions I'd be happy to share pretty much anything about my story, even what I plan for the future if anyone wants to know, otherwise I'm always open to criticism and advice. Please let me know what you think and I hope that I didn't come off as upset about the stuff in the above sections, I just don't wanna deal with me people complaining about appearances when they don't really matter. If I did offend you or appeared harsh please let me know and I will offer a full apology. I love all of you guys and I would hate to chase you away, i just felt I needed to vent, and I wanted to make sure that I didn't freak out on someone later, for bringing up something that irritates me, I'd rather you guys know my red buttons so that if you push them, I know you're looking for a fight. Anyway, let's begin!
Another, Insane Choice.
My brothers keeper.
John lay in his bed staring up at the ceiling, recalling some of the times that he and Riley just hid in his room. He smiled as he recalled how they just wanted to get away from it all, away from their lives, away from their families, away from the world itself. John grimaced as he thought about how good they were together, they both had secrets, and unlike the rest of John's family the two of them had the common decency to let those secrets remain secrets.
It made John happy to know that Riley never asked him why he was so 'weird', or why Cameron was such a 'freak' in comparison to normal people. Riley always just bit her tongue and took it in stride, though as he thought about her, and all the time he had spent with her, a nagging feeling returned to him.
This feeling would often rear it's head whenever he thought to much about the way Riley acted. There were things that she did or said, that he found odd, they didn't fit her character. John sat up and scratched his head as he thought more about it, two incidents stood out in his mind as the most intriguing, one was that time in Mexico when a man took a picture of him and she destroyed his camera, and the other was when his mother had told her, after visiting Riley's foster parents, that Riley had, screamed something about bleached skulls.
John let out a sigh as another interesting 'event' was brought to his attention, Riley never once asked about that time in Mexico, she never once pushed him for answers, or anything like that.
John ran both his hands over his head, he hated it when his brain got like this, it was trying to tell him something, something that was highly unlikely, and yet all sighs pointed to it. Could Riley have been from the future?
John let out another sigh as he looked up at the ceiling, he felt tears begin to well up in his eyes, as he thought to himself, "If you were from the future, then why didn't you tell me?" John allowed a few stray tears to fall from his eyes as he questioned her motives, "She obviously knew who I really was, so then why didn't she tell me? If she had just come out and said it, I could have..." John let the thought hang in the air for a second as his mind began to scold him.
"You've known all of this for a while now, so why didn't you do anything about it dumbass?" His mind berated him. "Why did she have to make the first move, you knew... deep down, so why didn't you do something?" He asked himself.
John sat in silence for a few moments trying to think of some sort of answer that would make him feel better but none came to mind. All he could do was think, "Riley is dead... maybe if you had done something, she wouldn't be."
Again John could think of nothing to comfort himself, nothing to change his own mind, he felt like shit. Riley was dead, and there was something that told him that he was somehow responsible. After a moment he buried his head in his hands and let out a few tears, he didn't let them fall for long though, as quickly as he let his sadness show, he buried it again.
Meanwhile
Sarah walked into the living room along with Derek, Cameron stood staring out the window and Alex was busy loading an air soft handgun.
Sarah made a face when she saw it and looked to Alex for an explanation.
Alex noticed her eying him and glanced up, "Time to start John's training."
"So you're gonna shoot him?" Sarah asked with distaste.
"Not a lot." Alex replied as he slapped the magazine in and stood.
"You're alright with this?" Sarah asked Cameron, thinking she'd be the one most against John getting shot at with anything.
"Even at close range that weapons would do little damage, the model he bought was the weakest they have, unless he shoots John in the eye, he will be fine." Cameron replied, Sarah made a face at her, so Cameron decided to add, "John needs to start training... if he doesn't then he'll die."
"You know it's only been three days since his girlfriend died?" Sarah asked as Alex cracked his neck and made for the stairs.
"Yep, and that's two days more, then he needs to mourn." Alex replied.
Sarah was about to say something when she noticed Derek give her a look. "What?" She asked as Alex began to ascend the stairs.
"Friends die every single day... he needs to learn to move on. A soldier needs to understand that, needs to be willing to accept death, and continued forward. We can't let him mope around all day, thinking about her, he's had plenty of time to mourn, more time then he himself would have allowed in the future." Derek informed her.
Sarah simply narrowed her eyes at him, and shook her head. Alex and Derek were right, but she still hated to admit it, and it didn't help that John was about to have this lesson beaten into him.
Back in John's room
John just sat in the middle of the bed, trying to find something to take his mind off Riley's death. The problem was whenever he stopped thinking about Riley, he started to think about Cameron, and what she was going to be to him one day. He had to wonder how that worked, as selfish as it sounded he could understand maybe her fulfilling his needs and a child was the end result, but how could they be husband and wife. Even if he did trust her, she still wasn't human, she couldn't feel love, and she didn't have any desires, physical or otherwise. The only thing Cameron 'wanted' was to fulfill her mission. How does she go from someone like that to a wife and mother?
John just shook his head, he had spent a lot of time thinking about it, though he hadn't chatted privately with Alex since their midnight stroll.
John was about to get up when suddenly his door flew open and something struck him in the center of the chest.
He quickly rolled off the bed as a slight pain echoed out from the center of his chest.
"Good morning sunshine! Time for your first lesson." He heard Alex say as he walked into the room.
"What the hell!" John shouted as he stood, though the second he did Alex raised what looked like a pistol and fired at him again. The pop wasn't very loud, and John quickly realized as the pellet slammed into his shoulder that it was an AirSoft gun.
"Time for training." Alex declared, as John recoiled slightly from the shot to his arm.
"What the fuck!" John growled, not at all in the mood for this. Alex quickly shot him again this time the shot hit his stomach, John grimaced slightly before finally snapping and charging forward.
John pushed the gun out of the way with one hand and cocked back his other to deliver a punch to Alex's face.
Just as John threw the punch Alex ducked it and wrapped his arms around John's torso picking him up. He quickly pulled him out into the hallway and pushed him into a wall. John pushed off the wall as Alex released him and threw a right cross at him, Alex easily dodged it, and quickly jabbed John in the gut knocking the wind out of him.
John doubled over and tried to regain his breath as Alex grabbed him by the shirt and began hauling him down the hallway and down the stairs.
As they made it to the bottom John noticed Cameron, Derek and Sarah staring at him. Cameron held a neutral expression, Derek looked like this was nothing new, while Sarah looked slightly pissed.
Alex quickly tossed John forward, he tried to catch himself but ultimately failed and stumbled to the floor.
"First rule, you never let your ass hit the floor until the fighting stops. If your ass is on the floor I'll assume your taking a break, and don't really care about anything going on around you. A true leader doesn't sit on his ass!" Alex stated in an authoritative manner. As he spoke he quickly shot John again.
"Motherfucker!" John hissed as he quickly got to his feet.
".93 seconds!" Alex declared, John gave him a confused look when suddenly Alex charged forward and kicked John square in the chest, knocking him back down.
".93 seconds is all it takes for a T-888 to raise it's leg up and crush your fucking skull! You have .93 seconds to get your ass up!" Alex yelled at John as he shot him again.
"Fuck!" John growled as he shot back to his feet, in a second Alex was on him, he brought his arms up to block a right cross from Alex, though he didn't react fast enough to stop the gut punch that followed. John felt all of the air leave his body he crumbled to his knees, though did his best to stop himself from laying on the ground.
"You know Connor I got about just as many problems with you being on your knees then I do you sitting on your ass!" Alex shouted at him as he took a step back and shot him in the center of the chest. Alex had gone from being a laid back kinda guy to a real hard-ass in a flash, this was the guy who spent time fighting terminators. The laid back mysterious guy, must have been just a face.
"Go to hell, you son of a bitch!" John hissed angrily as he struggled back to his feet.
"Theirs only two reasons a man should be on his knees, to give another man head or too pray to god, and you haven't buttered me up enough for a blowjob so you must be asking the dear old lord to save your sorry ass!" Alex chastised him, sounding like a god damn drill instructor, as he shot him in the chest again.
Sarah stood and watched the spectacle, she was torn, the mother in her wanted to kick the shit out of Alex for what he was doing and saying to John, but the warrior in her knew that John needed to become better, he needed to grow stronger, and who better to train John Connor then someone who has openly admitted to being trained by John Connor.
John held his ground after that last shot, intent on not falling over, all of the thoughts about Riley, Cameron and the future, had vanished, right now it was just him and Alex, and he wasn't going to let Alex humiliate him.
John quickly charged forward and threw a right cross at Alex. Alex blocked the strike and went to deliver and upper cut, but John was able to back out of the way of the strike. "Good!" Alex praised him for dogging the strike.
The two continued like this for about twenty minutes, John may not have been the best fighter in the world, but what he did have was endurance, from all those years training with his mother. John kept up the fight, even though he knew he would eventually lose, as he fought, he became aware of something, something inside of himself telling him to win. He guessed it was pride. John was never an overly prideful person, though something about fighting in front of his family... and Cameron, made him want to win. He also realized as the fight went on that he wasn't just fighting Alex, he was fighting what would one day be his son. John had forgotten that little fact up until about halfway through the fight.
Finally the fight came to an end when Alex ducked one of John's strikes and quickly decked him across the face. John spun around once and fell too a knee, as his knee hit the floor he quickly braised himself for the shot that always followed, but it didn't come. He glanced up and instead of the gun, He saw Alex's hand outstretched to him, offering him help up.
John stared at his hand for a moment before taking it, and getting to his feet.
"You can't let them see it... that grief. You're John Connor, and you can't let others see those emotions." Alex told him, as he locked eyes with him.
"I know." John said with a huff. "It's just... hard."
"I understand... Look, you save your grief for the quite moments, when the battle ends, when the dust settles, that's when you let the tears out. You offer the fallen a few tears, and then you steel yourself. You lock it in here." Alex stated as he placed a hand over his heart. "... and you keep it with you, keep the ones you love with, but leave the grief at the door. Because the world and rest of humanity doesn't have time for it."
"Yeah..." John said with a nod and a downcast sigh.
"You're strong John... theirs nothing wrong with missing her, but you need to always remember that there are still people here, still people who need you. Riley is beyond pain now. The rest of us aren't." Alex added, as he gave John a strong pat on the back.
John let out another sigh and nodded, as he wiped some blood from his lip.
"We'll continue this lesson later." Alex stated after a moment and turned to walk over to the couch.
John stood in place for a few seconds staring off, before bringing a hand up to message his jaw. After a moment he glanced over at the others. Cameron stared at him with a neutral expression while Sarah and Derek both held opposite looks, Sarah looked worried but resigned, while Derek was smirking at him.
"What?" John asked his uncle.
"Bet that hurt." Derek commented after a moment.
"Yeah it did... you can fight him next time." John huffed in response as his mother stepped out of the room for a moment and returned with a first aid kit. She offered it to him. He quickly took it and began disinfecting a few of the deep cuts on his hand, from where he had punched Alex, which could only be described as like punching a brick wall.
"Are you alright John?" Sarah asked as she watched her son clean his bleeding knuckles.
"Yeah... I'm fine." John said with smirk. Rarely had John ever had his ass so thoroughly kicked before, and yet, for some reason he felt as if he had accomplished something. It felt like he had just finished a long days work and it was time to go home.
Sarah looked at him for a moment before looking over at Alex. He looked up at her for a moment before smiling, "You wanna go next?"
"Yeah, sure." Sarah replied sarcastically as she turned to leave.
Alex simply offered a pouting smile as she left and laid back on the couch.
"So... how do you feel?" Derek asked, as he walked over to John.
"Is it wrong to say that somehow I feel like more of a man." John asked with a smirk.
"Nope. Guys tend to feel like that after a good ass kicking." Derek answered with a smile as he gave him a pat on the back.
John winced in pain and glared up at his uncle who only let out a dry chuckle in reply before turning to leave.
Later
John stood out in the shed, checking the tools, making sure they were all there. His mother was still adamant about switching houses and now that John knew who his future Mrs Connor was, he had zero arguments for her.
"What are you doing?" He suddenly heard Cameron's voice. John spun around and saw her standing at the doorway.
"Just checking to see if all the tools are here. I'd hate to have to tear the house apart looking for them." John answered.
"Oh... thank you for explaining." Cameron thanked him.
"Hey Cameron?" John asked after a moment.
"What?" Cameron asked.
John thought about how to say this. He felt that he needed to bring this whole her being his future wife thing to her attention, seeing as how it kinda concerned her. "I've been putting a whole lot of thought into who my future wife is... and I think I figured it out."
"...and?" Cameron asked taking a few steps toward him.
"Well... I don't know what to do about it. It kinda came as a shock to me, when I figured it out." John stated with a scratch of his head.
"I know." Cameron said after a moment.
"You know?" John asked, slightly confused.
"Yes." Cameron answered, with a tilt of her head.
"Wait you know who it is, or you know I've been trying to figure out what to do about it?" John asked, even more confused.
"Both." Cameron answered.
"Oh..." Was all John said as his gaze fell to the floor, and he scratched his head.
"What?" Cameron asked, noticing him becoming very lethargic all of a sudden.
"How did you know?" John finally asked.
"I overheard you." Cameron answered honestly.
"You were eavesdropping?" John asked.
"No... but I can hear anything, anyone says in the house." Cameron replied.
John stared at her for a moment, before letting out a sigh, he now felt like an idiot, of course she could hear anything in the house. "Why didn't you say anything?" John finally inquired, with a scratch of his head.
"What is there to say. In the end, whether or not you choose to pursue that path is up to you. Alex is confirmation that I can in fact bear children, so I do not see a problem with serving as your mate, seeing as how, I am capable. In the end though, you are the one who will have to choose..." Cameron explained, as she explained she noticed him giving her a look, almost like she had stated something incorrectly.
"Cameron, this isn't just my choice. I mean we're talking about both of our futures, this is something that both of us have to come to a decision about, whether or not to pursue a relationship. I need to decided whether I want to be your husband or not, and you need to decide whether you want to be my wife." John corrected her with a shake of his head.
"Your wife..." Cameron stated in a low whisper, her gaze had dropped to the floor.
"What?" John asked noticing as a look of frustration took up residence on Cameron's face.
"I need to go." Cameron stated suddenly, and turned to walk towards the house. John stared after her for a moment, though as he watched her walk away he noticed her arm spasm a few times as she walked. John stood confused for a few moments before shaking his head a deciding to return to work.
A moment after she vanished into the house, John let out a sigh and decided to just leave the conversation alone for a little while. He and Cameron had plenty of time to work out what they wanted to do. For now, moving was a priority. John quickly returned to work, inspecting tools, doing his absolute best to follow Alex's advice and leave his feelings of grief for Riley, alone. It was tough, but John understood why Alex had told him what he did, he probably had to do this often in the future. In the war against the machines, there isn't a lot of time to weep for the fallen, most of the time, you're probably to busy fighting for the living...
Okay, so that's it for chap. 8. remember what I said and please let me know what you think. Till next time!