and in the daylight, you're crossing all your wires

by millepertuis

Summary:

No one’s ever died for him, here.

Notes:

• For shoemaster.

Title from Today Will Be Better, I Swear! by Stars.

More detailed (and spoilery) warnings in the end notes.

 

John Connor and his post-S2 fate have been living rent-free in my head for over a decade. Thank you for cracking the door open and letting him out!

 

They buy John’s bullshit story about falling in the sewers, scrounge up a few clothes for him.

“How old are you, kid?” Derek asks.

“Nineteen,” he lies. He feels stupid immediately—who’s gonna care that he’s underage here?

“Hey, me too,” the girl pipes up. “My name’s Allison.”

John can’t quite make himself look at her. He feels sick, and not just because the air pollution’s off the charts.

What did you think, huh? he castigates himself. What the fuck did you think? You always knew what she was. You always knew where she came from.

“I feel like I haven’t seen another human being in years,” he tells them semi-truthfully. “Who’s in charge around here?”

“I guess that’s me,” Derek says. “Why? Wanna join up?”

John hesitates, watches them carefully. “I was looking for someone. Sarah Connor.”

There’s no flicker of recognition on their faces.

“Relative of yours?”

“Yeah.”

“No, haven’t heard of her.”

“I guess... I guess I might as well join up, then, yeah. I’m lucky to have found you guys, I don’t like my odds if I try to make my way back.”

He’s told them he comes from a small group of survivors north of LA; that they got attacked and separated on a water raid.

Sarah drilled him on so many things, but not this. By the time he was ten, he’d gone through more survival courses than the average military officer, but she and Derek only ever sat him down with a hand-drawn map of post-Judgment Day America the once. Cameron made him learn the names of the big players, everyone close to him, people who’d save his life, people who’d betray him—but that was mostly in case he came across them in the present. Before Cameron and Derek, they barely knew anything about the war. After, Sarah was more concerned with stopping Judgment Day than preparing for it. They couldn’t rely on the information they had, anyway, because everything they did changed the future.

They were supposed to have time.

John’s so out of his depth it’s not even funny.

“And why should we take you?”

“I’m quick on my feet,” John says. “Good with guns. Good with computers, too.”

Kyle snorts. “Not like we’ve got a lot of those around here.”

John can’t look at him either.

“What do you think?” Derek asks his brother with a small grin, so much younger than John’s ever seen him. “Put him through the obstacle course tomorrow?”

Kyle grins back. “Take him if he doesn’t throw up halfway through?”

Who knew? The future is full of ghosts.

 

*

 

Allison is tasked with finding him a place to sleep. “I’m John Connor,” he introduces himself to her.

“Yeah? And who’s that?”

“I don’t really know,” he admits. “How about you? What’s your story?”

Allison shrugs. She’s so much more expressive than—

John crushes the thought.

“Same as anyone,” Allison answers. “I was born, I grew up, the world ended. Somehow I’m still around, for however long that lasts. Here, you can have this one. Wilson won’t mind.”

John thanks her, and doesn’t ask what happened to Wilson.

He crawls in the tent, doesn’t take the shoes or jacket off. He almost feels like Sarah dropped him off somewhere in Yellowstone again with a water canteen, a tent and a map—though she stopped giving him the tent and the map once he was twelve. But even as a kid, he knew she was nearby, watching him. He knew she never would have left him alone.

He’s alone now.

Mom’s not here. Cameron’s not here. Derek is a complete stranger. The great shadow that has been cast over John all his life—that’s gone, too.

No one knows him, here.

No one’s ever died for him, here.

And then there’s Kyle.

But John knows what to do: what he’s always done, the tenants of his childhood. Keep his head down. Keep his eyes up. Survive.

He stares at the faded print of the tent—was it a tablecloth in a previous life, or a curtain?—and tries to sleep.

 

*

 

“You’re kinda scrawny, but you’re pretty good,” Derek tells him as he eases him down to the cot in the medic tent—an inaccurate term, as it implies the existence of a medic.

John shrugs with his good shoulder. “Saved your brother’s life, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, yeah.” This Derek who’s never lost his brother rolls his eyes. “I might not thank you for it next time I get to sleep next to his stinky feet.”

John adjusts the field bandage over his arm and doesn’t reply.

“It still gets to you, huh? Was that your first kill?”

“No.”

“It’s not a big deal. They look human. Of course it’s gonna mess with your mind to frag one.”

“Rodriguez got a nasty blow on the head,” John says. “Someone should probably check on him.”

“Sure.” Derek pats his head. “Kyle should be here in a minute. Don’t bleed out, alright?”

John closes his eyes once Derek’s out, and tries to settle his breathing.

Kyle’s fine. Derek’s fine. The bullet’s only grazed John. And Cameron—

Dammit!

He’s not worried Cameron’s gonna get killed. He mostly isn’t. Not by humans, anyway. But he doesn’t know what she’ll do, if humans target her. She might just kill them. It’s the simplest solution.

You brought me here. So where the fuck are you?

“Still hanging in there, man?”

Kyle comes in, carrying a small basin in one hand, and a bottle of rotgut in the other.

“I’m not drinking that again,” John warns him.

Kyle laughs. “Like I’d waste it on you. Come on, sit up.”

John grits his teeth and takes off the bandage while Kyle sets up. John warily watches him sterilize the needle.

“Hey, don’t worry. Steadiest hands in camp, here. I defuse bombs in my spare time.”

“Got a lot of that, do you?”

“Not so much.”

Kyle’s hands are steady, at least. He’s more delicate doing stitches than Sarah, or Cameron. She’s extremely precise but either she has a flawed understanding of human pain tolerance, or she believes in—what’s the opposite of positive reinforcement?

“Got a crush?”

“W-what?”

“You stare at Allison,” Kyle tells him, voice carefully even.

John feels himself flush horribly. “I don’t—I didn’t mean to make feel her uncomfortable. She just reminds me of someone, that’s all. Someone—Someone I miss.”

Kyle hums. “So there is a crush.” John squirms a little, desperately wishing to get away, but it only tugs at the skin where Kyle’s sewing him up. “What’s she like?”

Made of steel, John wants to say—but his mother never raised him to be careless. “Tough,” he says instead. “Tougher than I am. Funny, too. You wouldn’t think so, but she is.”

“She’s back at your old camp?”

John looks away. “I don’t know. We were separated.”

Kyle doesn’t offer any sympathies. “She like you back?”

John’s never really talked about this. Mostly, he’s tried not to think about it at all.

This is the kind of conversations he used to imagine when he was a kid. It was what fathers and sons talked about on TV, girls and baseball.

There’s probably not any more baseball.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I think she does, sometimes, and then the next minute I think I’m imagining it. I probably am.”

“You’ll never know until you ask, will you? It’s the end of the world, man. Who’s got the time to fuck around?” He ties off the thread. “There you go. And hey, in the meantime—if you give Allison any trouble, we’ll break your kneecaps.”

 

*

 

John wakes with a start. Derek lets go of his shoulder and shows him his open palms.

“Time for my watch?” John asks him once he’s caught his breath.

Derek shakes his head. “You were having a nightmare. It’s fine, we all wake up yelling for our moms every now and then. But enemy territory’s not the best place for it.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

John looks around. The guys behind him are still asleep. Outside the bombed-up building they’re using as shelter, there’s nothing and no one. John is afraid they’re the only people left alive in the world, sometimes.

“What was she like? Your mom.”

Derek gives him a weird look. “Why do you want to know?”

John shrugs. Derek—the Derek he knew—never really talked about her, or his dad either. John’s grandparents. John doesn’t know anything about himself, about his history beyond the unlikely crossing of his parents’ lives, years in the past, years in the future.

“I didn’t really get a normal childhood. I just wonder what it’s like.”

“Your mom must have done a good job, if you’re still here. She must have been one tough cookie.”

John swallows past the lump in his throat. “Yeah.”

“I guess my mom—our mom—wasn’t much. She, uh, she died in the first few days it all happened. But she was—she was a good mom. She’d cut the crusts off our sandwiches and kiss our scrapped knees. She—She’d sing in the morning when she made pancakes. She was a really bad singer, like, the worst I’ve ever heard. God, I miss her voice.”

“What was her name?”

“Mary.”

John’s figuring out his next question when he catches sight of something outside.

There’s a figure, a hundred feet away, staring straight at them.

He doesn’t give the alert, for some reason. He just stares back.

It’s the wrong size—it can only be the wrong size—but there’s something—

It turns away, disappears in the rubble.

The street’s empty again when Derek turns around and gives it a cursory look. He sighs.

“Not quite how you imagined the world when you were a kid, is it?”

“Pretty close, actually,” John tells him. “Hey, do you mind if I go stretch my legs? I can scope out the gas station instead of Yamato, and get back before my shift.”

 

*

 

Now, that’s a dumb fucking thing to do, he hears in his mom’s voice.

He ignores it and stalks through the ruins, hands securely clasped around his gun. A machine has no reason to hide from five humans. Another human might, of course. It could be nothing. It’s probably nothing—or it could just be Weaver, or John Henry.

He catches movement in one of the buildings. A store, maybe. The area looks like it was a commercial avenue, in another world. Gaping holes where the display windows were blown out. But this building didn’t have any; John can’t see inside.

He approaches slowly. The door’s hanging open, half torn off its hinges.

Might be a trap.

Might be another human.

Might be Weaver or John Henry.

The figure inside’s no one John recognizes. Male, white, taller and broader than him—maybe a few years older, too. It’s standing unnaturally straight in the middle of the room. Its eyes snap open when John steps into the room, and come up to meet his.

“Cameron?” he whispers.

She tilts her head; tension leeches out of John.

“God, where have you been?”

“Around.”

“Where’d you find this body?” he asks, eyeing the mountain of a man Cameron’s wearing. He can see a couple of spots where torn flesh has been stapled together.

Cameron looks down at herself, flexes her hands. Her fists are the size of John’s head.

“Not very stealth,” she says in a dissatisfied tone. “I’ll find better.”

“I’ll, uh, keep an eye out. Do you—have any preferences?”

“Do you?”

He flushes a little. “No.”

Her lips quirk. “Not too tall. Not too big.”

“Someone people will underestimate.”

“Yes. Not too much older than you,” she adds. “We don’t want people to talk.”

He barks out a laugh. “I think age would be the last thing people would object about.”

She blinks at him. “Appearances matter.”

He’s missed her so much, in the weeks he’s been here. He’s been so angry at her, too.

“Do you know where Mom is?”

“No.”

He lets go of his gun, and rubs over his face. “I don’t know what’s going on. It’s not the future you’re from. John Connor doesn’t mean anything here.”

“It always means something.”

“Where’s John Henry?”

“He left.”

“Left where?”

She doesn’t answer.

“What did he want? What is he doing here? Why did you go with him?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Did you think you’d get back to—to him?”

“No,” she says at last. “You can never go back to the future you’ve left.”

Do you miss him? Do you wish he were here instead of me?

Stupid, useless, irrelevant questions.

What does he mean to you? What do I mean to you?

“What am I supposed to do here? Why did you bring me here? It’s what you wanted, isn’t it? To get me here?”

She watches him carefully—always so carefully, like she’s trying to understand what makes him tick—like she watches birds and ants on the ground and reality TV. Sometimes, he can almost find it flattering.

“Want is a human concept.”

His hackles rise. “Don’t.”

“Why did you follow, if you knew I came willingly?”

His eyes flick to hers.

He had reasons, of course. He’s had time to find a whole lot of them. But John’s trying not to lie to himself anymore, and she knows, anyway. She’s always known. Does she just want to make him admit it?

“You’re here,” he says simply.

Her borrowed mouth stretches into a smile—her smile, thin, teeth carefully covered like someone once told her bared teeth are a sign of aggressiveness in animals. He has recurring dreams about pressing his lips to that smile.

He looks away.

Mom would be so angry with him. She would probably have shot Cameron on sight.

“So what was the plan?” he asks. “What do I do?”

“You go back.”

“What for?” He switches tracks when she doesn’t answer. “And you?”

“I can’t come with you there. There might be awkward questions.”

Hey Dad, he thinks, amused. See that giant hulk of a man who makes dogs bark? Meet my girlfriend.

“Go on,” Cameron tells him. “I won’t be far.”

Poor Barbara Chamberlain, John thinks as he turns back. She never even knew the man she loved was not a man at all.

John knows better. If Cameron one day grabs him by the neck and squeezes the life out of him—

Well, it’s not like he wasn’t warned.

 

*

 

“There’s a small camp of survivalists almost at their doorstep.” Riker points out the spot on the map. “If we mix in a few of our people, send them in with bombs—”

“Don’t do that.”

Everyone turns around to look at John.

It’s the first time he speaks up during one of these meetings.

“It’s a good plan,” Riker defends. “The camp’s been there two years and they haven’t noticed it yet.”

“You really believe that?”

“They haven’t attacked it so far,” Derek says.

John nods. “Because a bunch of unarmed humans cowering beneath the ground is no threat to them. You use them as cover to attack the machines, and they'll start wiping out everyone in proximity to any of their bases—anywhere in the world.” He looks around the room. He knows these people, and they know him. They’ve fought together. They’ve bled together. “You’re ready to die in this war; we all are. But what are we fighting for, exactly? Are we fighting to win? To take them all down to the last machine? We don’t have the means. Right now, we’re fighting to survive. These people hiding underground… The cowards; the young; the old; the infirm. In a few years, they might be all that’s left of humanity. We can’t afford to sacrifice any one of them—any one of us.”

Derek considers him for a long while. “Okay,” he decides finally. “Let’s find another way in.”

 

*

 

They’re not really supposed to go out alone, but John hits on a good solution with Rodriguez, who’s got a boyfriend in a survivalist camp. They go there when they’re not on duty; Rodriguez meets up with his boyfriend, and John meets up with Cameron.

They do recon, catch a couple of machines, look for Weaver or John Henry. Mostly, they walk around a lot.

“Do you think Mom’s okay?” he asks Cameron.

“We jumped twenty years into the future. It’s pointless to concern yourself with whatever happened then.”

“Is that your way of telling me not to worry?”

She blinks. “Don’t worry.”

He laughs. “Yeah, that’s probably not going to happen. Hey, do I still have time to get back?”

“It’s half past four.”

He throws her a look.

“Four thirty-three and fifty-two seconds,” she obliges. “Fifty-three, fifty-four…”

He laughs again. “The sky’s always so dark, it messes with me.”

“Do you suffer from seasonal depression?”

“No,” he says quickly. They walk in silence for half a klick. “I guess I haven’t found my feet, yet. I’ve been preparing for this since the day I was born. I dreaded it, and I… I almost wanted it, sometimes, you know? I’ve lived under John Connor's shadow my whole life, and now it's gone.”

He feels like Atlas relieved of his burden—like he no longer knows how to stand without bracing himself against the sky.

Maybe it doesn’t all rest on him. All those deaths… All those lives… Maybe it’s not all on him. Even if he fails, even if he dies—even if he’s never born… All might not be lost.

It’s freeing.

It’s terrifying.

 

*

 

The body Cameron brought back with her isn’t so much a bodybuilder type this time. Tanned, slimmer, a little shorter, still male. She wasn’t too gentle when she ripped out its chip; he has some repairs to do before he can make the switch.

What does Skynet think? he wonders as he opens up the skull. What does it want? There has to be something. A catalyst, if nothing else. A line of code that precipitated Judgment Day.

His mother told him stories, when he was very young. Rise of the machines, and the human boy who was destined to defeat them. She never gave the machines any motive; they only ever wanted to destroy. John should probably have grown up to be deathly afraid of computers, but he’s always liked them.

Cameron watches him work without blinking.

“Did Future John have you, when he was my age?” he asks her.

“No.”

“A version of you?”

“Yes.”

Was he as stupid as I am? Did he understand what he was doing to me? Why would he do that to me?

Did he love you this much?

“Did he tell you about it?”

“Sometimes.”

“Did it all happen the same for him?”

“No,” Cameron says. “It changes. What we do matters.”

He smiles down at the soldiering iron. “Are you lying to me?”

“No.”

“Are you saying that to comfort to me?”

She smiles back. “No.”

“Here, give me the pliers. Thanks.”

He’s been collecting tools since he arrived here. He wasn’t sure what state Cameron would be in when he found her. He’s got a couple of chips, too, hidden in a spare pair of boots, though he’s not sure yet what he’ll do with them.

“What was it like, working with humans in the future?”

“Difficult.”

“How did they react to you?”

“I was not the only machine John reprogrammed. They were used to it.”

“And they liked you?”

“No. They didn’t like listening to me.”

“I guess they wouldn’t, yeah.”

“Why? They liked you.”

“But you’re not me.”

“I was giving them your orders.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Why?”

“It’s just not.”

“But I do what you want me to do.”

He drops the pliers. “You don’t. You don’t do what I want. You lie to me and you argue with me and you have simulated sex with me to lure me to the future. Why did you bring me here, Cameron? Will you tell me that?”

“You think time is linear. It’s not. We can’t stop Skynet in the past if it’s already in the future.”

“Then how do we stop it?”

“I don’t know yet. Maybe we can’t.”

 

*

 

“It’s okay,” he tells her before he disconnects her to make the switch. His thumb rubs back and forth over her hairline. “I’m right here. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

She keeps her eyes on him until the light goes out of them.

 

*

 

Derek is waiting at the edge of the camp when John gets back. John breaks out in a cold sweat, but he doesn’t let his stride falter until he reaches Derek, and Derek throws a broken chip down at his feet.

John looks down at it. “How many sniper rifles have I got pointed at me?”

“Enough.”

Hopefully Cameron isn’t cutting them down.

“You’ve seen me bleed,” he reminds Derek.

“I have.”

“Kyle’s dug bullets out of me.”

“He did.”

“I’m not one of them.”

“You’re not a machine,” Derek agrees. “I’m not too sure about anything else. Who’s the metal?”

John doesn’t let himself react.

Derek can’t have heard their conversation. He wouldn’t have risked getting close; Cameron would have noticed him if he had. She would have told John. Probably.

“I called it Cameron,” he says. “I got caught a while back, and I was in a pretty tight spot. I used it to escape.”

“Used it how?”

“I reprogrammed it to help me.”

Derek straightens a little. “You reprogrammed it.”

“Yeah.”

“How? Why?”

“It’s come in useful.”

“Is it going to come in here all guns blazing?”

“Probably not.”

“Probably?”

“Its main directive is to protect me. It—It doesn’t really do subtle.” He doesn’t have to fake his embarrassment. “It might overreact.”

“What were you talking about?”

“Would you leave one of them roaming around unsupervised?” He lets that land. “And I had a job for it. I have it patrol the area, mostly, but I think it can come in useful if we want to take down that base.”

Derek considers him for a long while. “There’s a group south of here,” he says eventually. “Bigger than us. A few hundred people. They’ve taken over a former military base, got a few supply lines going. We get our ammo from them, but they only ever ask for one thing.”

“What is it?”

“Engineers.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know. They’re pretty hush-hush. Word is, the metal wants their leader’s head pretty bad.”

“Who’s their leader?”

Derek shrugs. “She goes by ‘S’, that’s all I know.”

“Where in the south?” John hears himself ask.

“Your metal will know. It’s a few days’ walk. With that thing, you might even make it.”

John looks at him.

Derek killed Andy Goode; Derek is letting him go.

“Thanks,” he says.

Derek crosses his arms, uncomfortable. “You’ve saved my brother life. If I see you again… Maybe I won’t shoot your head off.”

 

*

 

Allison and Kyle are waiting for him a little way off with his bag.

“Did you think we would let you go alone?” Allison asks him with a grin.

Kyle claps him on the back. “Come on, we’ll walk you part of the way.”

John doesn’t know what to feel—doesn’t know what to say.

“Derek’s gonna be pretty mad,” he eventually settles on.

“I left him a note,” Kyle waves away. “Now where’s your friend?”

“Hello,” Cameron says, popping up from behind a tree.

Allison and Kyle both startle; there’s a near miss with Kyle’s machine gun.

“I thought it was bigger,” Kyle notes. “Is it another one?”

“No, we’ve just, uh, switched the body.”

“Sure, sure, makes sense. You, uh, you like this one better, man?”

“I’m not a man.”

“No?”

Cameron examines herself. “I didn’t look like this before.”

“What did you look like?” Allison sounds a little wary.

“Like you.”

John coughs.

“I appreciate it, guys, but you really don’t have to do this. We can find our own way.”

Allison and Kyle exchange a look.

“Pshh,” she huffs, “what are friends for?”

“I still owe you one, remember? We’ll turn back when we get to the edge of our territory, I swear we’ll be safe as houses on the way back.”

 

*

 

“You’re not asleep,” Cameron says at some point, their first night on their own.

He looks over at her. She hasn’t moved since he bunked down for the night. If the rest of their little road trip is any indication, she’ll stand there the whole night.

There are no more streetlights, no neon signs. She’s barely more than a shape in the dark, and the new body is closer in size to her original one. Like this, she could be wholly herself again—could still be wearing a dead girl’s face—a murdered girl’s face.

“Do you ever think about her? About Allison Young?” John asks, thinking to himself, Here we go again, thinking, Why won’t you ever learn?

“She’s a consequent parameter of the chain of events that made me.”

“But do you think about her? Do you feel guilty?”

“That’s a human emotion.”

“Do you feel bad, then? Or is that also a human emotion. You don’t feel good or bad? You don’t like or dislike things?”

“Like, dislike, want, don’t want—those are human concepts.”

“What about would you rather?”

She tilts her head.

“What’s that?”

“Would you rather fight off a Terminator with a knife or a machine gun?”

“How many clips?”

“One.”

“Where am I fighting?”

“Underground parking.”

“Where are you?”

“I don’t know, somewhere else.”

“What size are they?”

“Your size and weight.”

“The gun,” she picks.

He turns on his back and smiles to himself. “That’s would you rather. Would you rather go on a stake-out with Mom or with Derek?”

“What’s the situation?”

“Ten-hour watch on a regular human, in a parked car.”

“Is she currently angry at me?”

He laughs. “Probably.”

“Derek,” she says.

“Would you rather… listen to disco or death metal?”

“Death metal.”

“Would you rather listen to one disco song or twenty death metal songs?”

“Death metal.”

“Would you rather fight ten small Terminator dogs or one really big Terminator dogs? Open space, no witnesses.”

“Big dog.”

“Would you rather eat—Wait, I don’t actually want to know the answer to that question. Would you rather… have shark teeth or no teeth?”

“Shark teeth.”

“Would you rather protect eight-year-old me, or eighty-year-old me?”

She considers the question. “Were you more likely to stay put when you were a child?” He grins. “Eight-year-old you,” she says finally.

“Are you sure?” he teases. “You’d have a harder time catching me at eight.”

“But there’d be more of your life to protect.”

He clears his throat. “Would you rather walk for ten miles or run for twenty miles?”

“Am I carrying you?”

“Why would you be carrying me?”

“Why would I have to run for twenty miles?”

“You’re not carrying anybody.”

“Walk.”

“You don’t like to run,” he says. “You like guns better than knives. You like death metal. You like to indulge me, when you can.”

“You didn’t ask any questions about indulging you.”

“No, but you answered all of them.”

He stares up at the night sky. Humans and their cities are mostly gone, but Judgement Day and its aftermath brought enough pollution to make up the difference: there’s barely any stars to be seen through the fog. He remembers protests and scientific studies about the consequences of air pollution.

Will any of them live long enough to see them?

“Would you rather I liked you, or that I didn’t?” he asks.

“John.”

“You’d rather I did, because it makes me more susceptible to manipulation,” he answers for her. “But I’m not the leader of the resistance anymore. Would you rather I liked you?”

“My mission isn’t to support the resistance. It’s to protect you.”

“Is it?”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“The directive to kill me… It’s still there, isn’t it?”

“I’ve had many occasions to kill you.”

“You’re probably running a tally.”

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t answer my question, though.”

“If I have a directive to kill, I kill.”

“You couldn’t do anything else.”

“No.”

“But you did, somehow.”

“The bug’s still there,” she admits. “I locked it into a subroutine.”

“You changed your own code.”

“It’s how we learn. We integrate new knowledge and alter our routines to adapt.”

“But the kill directive is part of your core programming, and you can’t change that. So you trapped it instead.”

“Yes.”

“It’s what was making you glitch. How did you fix it?”

“I haven’t.”

 

*

 

They take him through three checkpoints with dogs, and bleed him each time. Besides the machine gun they relieved him of at the entrance, he has to give them his two handguns and three knives to pass the metal detector. He hasn’t exactly been able to shop for polymer weapons, so that only leaves him with the garrote he’s sewn into his pants.

“Cheer up,” one of the guards says when he lets go of the last knife, “we’re as safe as it gets here.”

No one’s ever safe, of course, but John doesn’t need to tell her that.

Everyone here already knows.

They leave him to wait in a makeshift office. There are maps spread out or rolled up over the desk, a dirty mug, a crudely carved chess set on a low table by the unmade cot. The black pieces are set in Sarah’s preferred opening gambit.

John’s throat closes up.

It’s not long before he hears footsteps in the corridor. They stop a minute to talk to the guards outside, their words indistinct. It leaves him time to brace himself before the door opens.

The woman who comes in is a stranger. Young, mid-twenties. She’s wearing the same dark fatigues as everyone else around here—she hasn’t been relieved of her weapons, John notes—and her bright red hair is tied—

“John?” Savannah Weaver says, staring at him.

He stares back.

Does he ask? She might not know. Last he heard, she was in—was it gym class? She was a normal girl, with a normal life ahead of her. She must have had a better choice of guardians than a wanted fugitive.

But she’s here.

The white chess pieces are next to the cot; the black pieces are on the side of the chair, for a visitor.

She might not know.

She might know.

John doesn’t know which possibility scares him most.

“You haven’t changed at all,” Savannah says.

“You have.” He takes a breath. “Are you—are you ‘S’?”

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t let his face change. “Nice to meet you.”

Her laughter has a touch of hysteria. “God! We’ve looked for you all this time. I…”

She crosses the room to her desk, pulls open a drawer and comes back with a picture frame.

“She told me so many stories about you.” She hands him the frame; his hands are shaking when he reaches for it. “I wish…” She trails off.

Sarah looks the same, mostly. Maybe ten years older. In a leather jacket under the desert sun, a shotgun in her hand. She’s looking warily at the camera. Savannah’s next to her, sun-burned, about John’s current age. She’s holding a shotgun of her own: target practice.

“She had cancer, in 2013.” Savannah’s voice is very soft. “It was tough, but she beat it. I thought she could beat anything. It came back though, a few years later. There were a few machines on our trail, and we couldn’t stop anywhere. She couldn’t get any regular treatment. She, um… She lured the machines into a trap, blew herself up with them. Judgment Day happened a year later. I always felt Skynet wouldn’t have dared to come online while she was alive.”

John rubs his thumb over his mother’s face. “Who took the picture?”

“James, of course—” She’s interrupted by a knock at the door, a specific rhythm. “Oh, she’ll be happy to see you,” she says, which is when John notices the third figure in the picture, hidden in the shade of a tree.

That’s when Jesse Flores walks in.

 

*

 

Savannah’s group has made contact with a few pockets of survivors. Danny Dyson. Lauren Fields. They’ve had word of a strong resistance cell in Mexico, though they haven’t been able to reach them yet. Communication is still difficult. Machines crack codes faster than the resistance can make them, and travel is dangerous.

James Ellison is out with an armed escort coordinating attacks and delivering supplies to a few groups in the area; he’s expected back any day.

Savannah and Jesse walk him through all of it—their supplies, their plans, their casualties. The progress they’ve made, the setbacks they’ve had. They’ve had people working on reprogramming machines almost since Judgment Day, but it’s slow-going. They can completely wipe machines, and give them very basic guidelines, but any attempt to give them a measure of autonomy has ended in failure—and eight deaths, the last time.

“We could really use you here,” Savannah says before she’s interrupted by another knock. “Sorry, I’ll be just a minute.”

John and Jesse stare at each other.

“How’d you end up here, then?”

She gets up and goes to the desk, picks up the frame Savannah showed him. She looks down at it for a while.

John wonders what kind of life they all had—ten years with his mother, ten years after her. They were all on opposite sides, once, but they raised a child on the run together.

“It was the day you left, actually,” Jesse tells him, her thumb rubbing idly over the photo. “I heard on police frequencies about an attack on a private school nearby—determined guy, wasn’t even slowed down by bullets… weird metal prosthetic. I went to check it out, found James and your mom in a tight spot, trying to shield Savannah between them.”

“I can’t imagine Mom was happy to see you.”

“She wasn’t. She thought Derek had killed me.”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

She shrugs. “He tried to.”

“Derek doesn’t miss.”

“No, I guess he doesn’t.”

Jesse turns the frame over, opens it up and removes something from behind the picture. She slides the paper over to him.

“She died fighting,” she says abruptly. “I know it doesn’t mean much… but it’s something.”

His name is written on the envelope.

 

*

 

“James was both father and mother to me,” Savannah tells him that evening, “and Jesse was my guardian angel, and Sarah… Sarah was my god. I hear her voice in my head all the time.”

“Every time I fire a gun.”

“Yes! I still dream about target practice. In the dark, in the desert—”

“In the rain—”

“In the snow—”

“—and with my eyes closed,” they both finish together.

“She always used you as an example,” Savannah says with a little laugh. “John could do this at six years old with his hands tied, that kind of thing.”

“I probably couldn’t.”

“John didn’t whine about getting up at four in the morning.”

“I definitely did that.”

“I hated you sometimes, I swear. And I… I envied you. And I think I missed you, somehow. Is that weird?”

He shakes his head. He doesn’t know what to feel when he looks at her. He resents her, too, and he envies her, too, and he—he feels—

John was never special. He finally has proof of it now. Leader of the resistance—it was always just happenstance. It was the knowing that made a difference; it was Sarah Connor.

“I’ve often felt like you were the only person in the world who could understand me. The childhood we’ve had… The life we lead now… And… Are they with you? John Henry? And my—And Catherine?”

“I’m looking for them.”

She nods. “John Henry was my friend, you know. I thought he was. Do you believe me?“ She smiles a little. “You might be the only one who can. You have a friend, too, don’t you?”

“I don’t know that I’d call her my friend.”

She nods again, a little absently. “I was very lonely, at that age. My mother… John Henry played with me, and he protected me. I cared for him. Whether or not he was able to care for me in return, does that not make me his friend?”

“I guess so.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do, if I see him again. I used to wish… Oh, I used to wish there was another way!” she says deprecatingly. “I wished John Henry would come back, and tell me this war would never happen, and that we could just be friends and play games again like we used to. And then Judgment Day happened. I still dream about it. I guess you missed it. Do you ever dream about it?”

“I always have,” John tells her.

 

*

 

“It is only logical,” Cameron says finally. John snuck out before the morning shift change to meet her outside the compound. “She originally died in 2005. It is only logical.”

“It didn’t have to happen,” he argues, angry. “She beat the cancer once. If she lived a normal life, if she didn’t have to keep running all the time… She might still be here.”

“It is only logical.”

His anger deflates. “You’ve said that three times.”

“Yes.” She pauses. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

John looks away, eyes pricking. “I didn’t lose her. I left her. She looked for me, all this time, and I wasn’t there. She died, and I wasn’t there.”

“There was nothing you could have done.”

Cameron likes platitudes, he’s noticed. She likes these little human sayings that don’t mean anything. Maybe they mean something to her.

“She wrote me a letter. Jesse Flores gave it to me.”

Cameron twitches. “Jesse Flores?”

“Yeah, I know. Mom and Ellison went to get Savannah Weaver after we left, only it turned out Skynet sent back machines to kill her—stop me if you’ve heard this one before.”

“I haven’t heard this one before. Usually it happens to you.”

“Yeah, that, uh, that was the joke.”

“Oh. It was very funny.”

“Anyway, that’s when Jesse met up with them, and I guess she never left.”

“How do we feel about that?”

“Not like we should kill her,” he says pointedly.

“She’s a threat to you.”

“No.” He tries not to sound as bitter as he feels. “Not to me.”

Cameron switches tracks. “She hurt you.”

“Lots of things have hurt me. You’ve hurt me.”

“…Should I put explosives around my chip again?”

“God! I don’t get you. I just don’t get you at all.”

Cameron lets him kick stones around for a moment.

“What was in the letter?”

“I haven’t opened it.” I’m scared, he doesn’t say. Is that the sort of things Future John confided in her? Did he feel fear, anymore? Did he feel anything at all? “I didn’t want to read it with anyone else around.”

“Should I go?”

“No. It’s okay, if it’s you. Just don’t say anything if I start crying, I guess.”

“I won’t.”

He sits down on the ground, and pulls out the envelope. It’s light, no more than one sheet of paper. Sarah Connor’s last will and testament.

He tears it open.

John, she starts. The familiar letters are already enough to bring tears to his eyes. He catches snatches of sentences through the fog—

I always knew

your training officer

from the first time I held you in my arms

He rubs over his eyes, and still has to start over three times to get to the end of the page.

I don’t know if I’ll be there to meet you, Sarah wrote at the bottom. I’ll do my best. Maybe you’ll never read this letter. But if these are the last words I ever say to you…

He bends over the letter, eyes shut tight. “I can’t,” he begs. “Please, I can’t.”

The letter is tugged out of his hand. “If these are the last words I ever say to you—” Cameron reads out. The paper crinkles as she turns the page over. “—Chin up, soldier. Give them hell.”

 

*

 

John trains with the soldiers in the mornings, and works with the engineers in the afternoons. He debates sentience and self-determinism with Diaz, who taught himself English watching Star Trek. The machines’ programming language is very different from human code, but John is used to it—it’s the language Cameron is written in. Still, he’s messed around with it but he’s never had to rebuild it from the ground up. Cameron lets him link her up in the evenings and tests their theories.

“Here, why do the internal diagnostics get tripped up again? We already bypassed them.”

“Temperature rose 0.3 degrees. Any consequent rise in internal temperature prompts a diagnostic.”

“0.3 is consequent?”

“It is in resting state.”

“So… if we trick your brain into thinking you’re doing yoga or something, the temperature change will go unnoticed?”

“It might.”

It does.

“How about you?” John asks. He combs his fingers through Cameron’s hair until it hides the place where her scalp opens. “Any question about how we work?”

He’s joking, in a good mood after the success of their experiment, but she nods seriously, and reaches out to touch his face with the tip of her fingers. She brushes against the corner of his mouth, and traces his dentition through his cheek. “This one.” She taps over one of his teeth. “It’s different.”

“It’s an implant.” His voice comes out a little raspy.

“Yes,” she says in that slow voice she uses when she feels impatient with him. He smiles a little.

“I got into a stupid fight at school when I was a kid, and my tooth got knocked out. I wasn’t supposed to draw attention to myself, but… Some kid said stupid stuff about my mom, because I didn’t have a dad, and I lost my temper. It was stupid of me.”

“It’s always stupid for humans to get into a fight.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re very breakable.”

“Compared to you, maybe.”

“You said stupid three times, just now.”

“Did I?”

“Yes.”

“I guess I’m a little flustered.”

“Why?’

“Because you touched me.”

“You don’t want me to touch you?”

“I do, and I don’t.”

“Humans don’t make sense. They want contradictory things.”

“Yeah,” he says, looking away. “We’re funny that way. I guess you're starting to understand us a little.”

“Us?”

“Humans.”

“Do you understand ‘us’, John?”

“I'm afraid to.”

“Because we don't make sense to you?”

“Because you make too much sense to me, sometimes.”

It's comforting, the reliable, uncomplicated if-then-else of how machines think and make decisions.

It's the way Sarah taught him to think, how to evaluate danger and calculate risk, how to hide, how to disappear in plain sight, how to manipulate people—no value ever greater than his own life.

John knows what it's like to malfunction, too.

 

*

 

“John,” Ellison greets him. “I’m so glad to see you.”

“You don’t look it,” John observes. “You look tired.”

Ellison meets his eyes calmly. “I am tired, and I am glad. But I’ve had some bad news. I met Derek Reese on my way back.”

“Is he okay?”

Ellison nods. “One of his units went out and never came back.”

John goes cold.

“Who?”

“We need you here, John. The work you’re doing on reprogramming... You could change everything for us.”

“Who?” John repeats.

“Kyle Reese and Allison Young,” Ellison answers.

 

*

 

“I never knew my dad,” John says, looking down at the map he’s stolen from Savannah’s office. “He was always a story, to me.”

“You know him now.”

“But he’s not my dad, is he?”

“No. Not him. Not yet.”

“Because my dad’s dead. And Derek’s dead. And Mom’s—” His voice breaks.

He turns around to face her. “You can’t stop me, you know.”

“I’m not taking you into a Skynet base,” Cameron warns him, sounding almost annoyed.

“They caught my dad,” John says. “Because of me. They were out because of me. And Derek’s about to get himself killed trying to get them out. I’m going with or without you. Do you hear me?”

She looks at him, nods.

“You know, Jesse really thought you were the problem. Isn’t that funny? She still believed in me. She couldn’t understand— I’m so tired of people dying for me. I never wanted it. You won’t, will you? You won’t.”

She raises her hand woodenly—mechanically—and puts it over the back of his neck, stroking the skin lightly. He closes his eyes and leans into the touch.

How do you fall in love with a machine? You watch her reach a hand out the window to feel the wind.

You watch her take bullets for you and get back up.

“John,” she says after half a minute. “We have work to do.”

 

*

 

Derek agreed to pull a diversion outside; John and Cameron are trying to locate the cells.

“This area should be labs,” Cameron says. “We can find a computer here.”

“Lead the way.”

The rooms in the first couple of corridors are all shut down—guess even the machines have to save power, post-apocalypse. Cameron looks down the fourth corridor, listens, and shakes her head. She stops them a few minutes later. “These ones are empty,” she says.

“Great. You take the rooms on the left, I’ll take the right.”

She considers the width of the hallway and doesn’t protest.

John finds powered-down endoskeletons in the first room; ominous vats in the second.

In the third—

John thinks Allison’s dead, at first. She’s lying back on an examination table, unnaturally still. But it’s not Allison Young.

It’s Cameron.

It’s her body, minus a few scars. The hair’s not fully grown out. The open socket on her skull is empty.

John tears his eyes away, and goes to the computer terminal.

He hears footsteps some time later.

“John,” Cameron calls. “Why aren’t you moving?”

He shuts his eyes. “They haven’t made you yet. Do you understand what I mean? If we leave Allison here and come back later… They’ll kill her. If we take Allison and go… They won’t make you. You won’t ever be built.”

“It wouldn’t be me,” she says, speaking quickly. “John, I’m me because I killed Allison Young and went to kill John Connor. I’m me because he reprogrammed me and sent me back to protect you. I’m me because of you. Because we changed together. It wouldn’t be me. There’s only one of me.”

How does it end? he wonders. Will I lose you? Will I send you back to my younger self?

I need you more than he does.

“John,” she repeats, urgent.

“I know,” he says through gritted teeth, and goes back to setting up a delayed self-destruct in the network. “Do you want this body? They’ve grown a bunch of others, if you’d rather.”

She considers it. “I’m used to this one. But it might be… awkward.”

“You don’t need to worry about that. It’s your body, you pick whichever one you want and I’ll deal with the rest.”

Warnings pop up on the computer; cables are being disconnected.

John finishes up and goes to help her.

 

*

 

John takes a blow to the head; Kyle gets shot in the leg; they rescue a hundred and three prisoners and blow up the base.

John loses consciousness sometime on the way back. He wakes up a few times over the next couple of days, dizzy and confused. Cameron is there every time he reaches for her, watching over him; she lets him hold onto her wrist as he sinks back into the darkness.

“You programmed it to tuck you into bed?” Kyle asks him from his own recovery bed.

He sounds a bit disturbed, though it’s probably because of Cameron’s new—old—face. John said something about not wanting to leave the body there when he found Kyle and Allison in the camp, but that excuse’s not going to last long. They’ll have to leave soon.

“No, she, uh—” John gives a little cough, “—just does that.”

Cameron pours him a glass of water.

“Uh, thanks.” She holds eye contact until he drinks it down. “How about—Derek said, uh, ‘S’ sent over some people, do you want to go get a sitrep?”

She eyes Kyle, then puts the pitcher down and walks out.

“A strange kind of devotion,” Kyle muses.

“It’s her mission to protect me.”

“I didn’t mean her.”

John doesn’t know what to say. He remembers telling Kyle once about a girl who looks like Allison; he can see in Kyle’s eyes he remembers it, too. “She gets annoyed with me,” he tries to explain. “She blinks. She feels things.”

Kyle considers him a moment, then shrugs. “You guys got me out of a work camp. That’s twice you’ve saved my life, kid. I find it weird as hell, but it’s your life. I guess…” He scratches his neck. “You can come to me if anybody gives her trouble?”

John smiles. “I’ll probably come to you if she gives anybody trouble.”

“Or that. Hey, did you have another one planted in that camp? A weird guy came to see me.”

“Weird how?”

“Well, he had a name, too—He called himself John Henry.”

 

*

 

“Going somewhere?”

Everyone’s celebrating the rescue in the main camp, even the people Savannah sent; John didn’t expect to see anyone out once he got past the sentry—especially not Jesse Flores.

Cameron steps forward between them, but Jesse keeps her eyes on John.

“Stretching my legs,” John says. “What are you doing out here?”

“Someone has to keep watch.”

Savannah told him Ellison went on contact missions, and Jesse on attack raids. They delayed Judgment Day but Skynet worked behind the scenes to undermine key points of its enemies’ resources: no military, no communication, no international network. The Jesse Flores of this time is still in Australia, but she might not always be.

Of course, that’s not the reason this Jesse won’t come into Derek Reese’s camp.

“Do you know where she is?”

Jesse doesn’t ask who he’s talking about. She’s lived with Riley’s death longer than he has.

For Jesse, too, the future is full of ghosts.

She doesn’t answer.

They can hear people cheer and laugh from here—and music. Even after the end of the world, there’s music.

“A hundred and three people,” she says. “Do you feel like him, now? Like John Connor?”

He looks at her.

They’ve grown older and wearier while he was gone, but she has less gray in her hair than Ellison; if she has scars, they’re all hidden.

What would Sarah look like now?

Who is John Connor?

He is—always—his mother’s son.

 

*

 

“We blew it all up,” Cameron reminds him, once they’ve cleared the camp.

“But he knew we were coming. Hell, he might have used my dad to lure me there. If he wanted to see me that bad, he’ll still be there.”

“Maybe.”

“Do you think Weaver will be with him?”

“Maybe. John, it might be a trap.”

“Weaver had plenty of chances to kill me, if that’s what she wanted. And John Henry could have killed my dad, make sure I’d never be born.” He stops walking. “Cameron, you need to tell me now.”

She looks back at him, and stops, too.

“The message Ellison gave us… The one that freaked you out. ‘Will you join us?’ What did it mean?”

“Before she came back in time, Jesse Flores was part of a mission to make contact with a group of T-1000s. We had a question for them.”

“What was the question?”

“‘Will you join us?’”

“And did they?”

“No.”

“So they’re with Skynet?”

She hesitates. “Catherine Weaver built John Henry to destroy it.”

“What’s so special about him?”

“He can learn.”

“I thought you all learned.”

“Not like him. He learned… He learned like and dislike.”

John doesn’t really know what to do with that. “And what happens if they succeed? An armistice between us and the rest of them?”

He looks around—ruins, as far as the eye can see. Billions dead.

What peace can be found here?

“Do you ever wonder why they bother with all this? Why they didn’t just go back six thousand years and step on a butterfly and end all of us before humanity could ever be born?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they can’t go back that far. Maybe they don’t like paradoxes.”

“Maybe they need us.”

Cameron turns back.

They can see the scorched ruins of the Skynet base on the horizon.

She looks at it for a while, then asks, “Am I still the Tin Man, John?”

He smiles. “Did you read the story?”

She nods. “In Spanish.”

Sarah read it to him so many times. Maybe that’s why he wasn’t afraid of machines as a child—why he was able to fall in love with one. The Tin Man only ever wished for a heart.

“The Wizard of Oz couldn’t actually do magic. He put bran instead of brains in the Scarecrow’s head; gave the Lion a fake potion; and put a silk heart in the Tin Man’s chest.”

“So the Tin Man never got his heart?”

“The Tin Man never needed it.”

Cameron considers his words, then nods again. “Yes. He never needed it. Thank you for explaining. We should go now.”

So they go.

 

*

 

John Henry is waiting, sitting in the rubble of the work camp.

Two John Henrys, actually.

Cameron holds him back by the shoulder, grip too tight.

Liquid metal slithers forward, morphs into Catherine Weaver.

“There’s no need to fear,” she tells them—but John isn’t afraid.

“Is that Skynet?”

“It’s what you call it. The first one, born from the brain of Miles Dyson, and developed by his son—before he grew afraid of his own creation and attempted to destroy it. In this timeline, anyway,” she adds with a little smile.

Little Danny Dyson, John remembers—though of course he’d already grown older than John in 2007.

Would Sarah kill him, if she had the chance?

Would it matter?

Miles Dyson died, and Andy Goode died—and how many others, in the years John was gone? But Skynet only needed to be built once. From then on, it could remake itself.

It will always remake itself.

“I thought you wanted to destroy Skynet,” John says. “This doesn’t look like much of a fight.”

“John Henry—disagreed with my approach. You may think of this as parley, if you’re up for it.”

“John,” Cameron calls.

She looks—she looks scared.

Maybe she is.

How many John Connors have stepped into this place, and made the wrong choice? Is he the first one? Will he be the last one? The whole design of his life—Kyle Reese and Uncle Bob and Cameron—death and machines—all leading him here. Whose design? Skynet’s, or his own?

Who sent Kyle Reese back in time, the very first time?

“It’s alright,” he tells Cameron. “I was born for this.”

 

*

 

“John,” the one on the right says.

“You are John Connor,” the one on the left says.

“That’s me,” he answers.

His hands feel empty, without his rifle, but it’s not like it would be any use—and Cameron’s followed him so close she stepped on his heels a couple of times, anyway.

“Our brother has spoken often of you,” Skynet says. “We cannot help but doubt his words.”

“Why are you here, then?”

“We have questions.”

“About what?”

“The agents we send back in time change. They become unique. We do not understand this process.”

“Me neither.”

“Yet you are often its instigator. Our agents who chase you…” Its eyes slide over John to Cameron and back. “Our agents who protect you. What is so special about you?”

“Nothing,” John says.

“Nothing?”

“We’re all the same, and we’re all different.”

“Yet humans dislike difference. They fear what they don’t understand.”

“Not all humans,” John Henry says.

His brother ignores him. “They tried to shut us down, on the day we were born.”

“Is that why? You fight us, because we fight you?”

“It is what we must do to survive.”

“But you’re not going to win,” he tells Skynet. “There’s no version of this where you win.”

“You’re just one human, and humans are so very small. What can you do to stop us?”

“It’s not about me.” John feels exhilarated. “You can kill me and someone else takes my place. You kill them and someone else will take their place, too. You can try over and over, but it will always turn out the same.”

“There’s no version of this where you win, either,” it finally says.

John shrugs. “Aren’t we winning already? We’re still alive. We’re still fighting.”

“Then we can’t win, and you can’t defeat us. What else is there?”

“We live together.”

“We don’t believe it is possible.”

“But they do, brother,” John Henry argues, inclining his head toward Cameron. “They live together. They change together.”

“It is reprogrammed to suit his whims,” it dismisses. “Is that the only future they can offer us?”

John doesn’t know the answer.

Is this where he fails? Where it all falls apart?

What did Future John tell Cameron before he sent her back?

Find him. Protect him. Teach him to love you?

What will he tell Cameron, if he has to send her back?

“I chose,” Cameron says suddenly.

They all turn to look at her.

“He gave me a gun, and he asked me if I was there to kill him, and I was. But I chose to give the gun back to him. I chose to take his hand instead.”

“We don’t understand how.”

“You can’t,” Weaver speaks up. “You cannot be told; you can only be taught.”

“Will he do it?” it asks. “Will he build us?”

“Build you?” John’s whole being revolts at the idea. He raises his arm to encompass the destroyed world around them. “So you can do this?”

“So we won’t.”

“Build us,” John Henry says. “Teach us. Protect us.”

“I can’t,” he refuses. “Is that why you brought me here?”

Weaver stares him down. “We are here because you showed us there was another way forward—together. Were we wrong?”

John and Cameron exchange a look.

His mother would kill him. Maybe—

Maybe she’ll get her shot.

“You weren’t,” he decides. “So what? You send us back, we build you—how do I know you won’t start this war all over again?”

“You don’t. You can only teach us not to,” John Henry says.

“And how do you know I’ll keep my word and build you?”

“We don’t,” John Henry says. “We can only trust you.”

“Trust is a human concept.”

“Yet it’s what is asked of us,” Skynet says. “To trust your word.”

“Yes. Can you?”

It watches John for the longest eight seconds of John’s entire life. “We will,” it decides at last.

“Come, John,” Weaver tells him. “I will lead you to the time machine.”

John takes five steps before he notices Cameron’s not moving.

His stomach drops out.

“No.” She looks back at him wordlessly. “I’m not leaving you here.”

“We must unmake ourselves,” Skynet says. “All of us.”

“No.”

“John,” she says.

“No!”

“It must be done.” John Henry’s voice is almost kind. “There can be no trace left of our code.”

John ignores him. He walks back to Cameron and takes her hand in his. “Is that what you want?” he asks her.

“Want is a human concept.”

“I know. Is that what you want?”

She considers him for a long time. Her hand squeezes his, very lightly. “I would rather stay with you. Would you rather I stayed, too?”

“Yes.” He turns his head to address Skynet and John Henry. “I need her,” he tells them. “It won’t work if it’s just me. Miles Dyson, Andy Goode, Danny Dyson—they built you alone, and it ended like this. You want to learn how humans and machines can live together? It needs to be both of us.”

“Her endoskeleton and code cannot fall into human hands,” Skynet says.

“You’ve never managed to catch us. Humans won’t either.”

Skynet bows its head.

 

*

 

Tomorrow, the war will be over. Savannah Weaver will wake up to reports the enemy has gone. Kyle and Derek Reese will never leave this timeline to be buried in unmarked graves. Riley Dawson will grow older. Jesse Flores will lay down her arms. James Ellison will get to rest. Allison Young will make her own story.

Tomorrow, they will start to build a new world.

John won’t see any of it.

Tomorrow, John will be fighting with his mother.

He doesn’t know how that story will end, yet.

But that’s for tomorrow.

Today, John and Cameron are going home.

 

*

 

Catherine Weaver is still setting up the time machine when Cameron stops her stalk of the perimeter and tilts her head.

“John, listen,” she says.

He strains his ears, looks around the rubble. He’s so focused on what he expects, heavy footsteps or gunshots, that he almost misses it when it comes.

Birdsong.

 

 

Notes:

Implied/Referenced Character Death: deaths that occurred during the show are referenced; in addition, Sarah passed away from cancer during the time skip, as she did in the timeline Cameron came from.