Sarah Connor doesn't believe in fate (changeourfate) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-10-30 22:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, cameron phillips, commander tyra shepard, sarah connor |
"You have something to say to me."
Who: Sarah, Cameron, and briefly Shepard
What: Cameron has something to tell Sarah
When: Early Monday Morning/Late Sunday Night.
Where: Connor household
Status: Complete
Rating: PG-13 for bad news bears
It was past midnight before Sarah managed to make it through the door. She'd been at work longer than she even cared to think about, and it had been a hell of a night. Busy for a Sunday, and filled with all kinds of crazy people. Halloween. It really seemed to be a big deal around here.
She made her way through the living room quietly. The light was still on in John's bedroom and she figured he was up at his computer. She decided not to bother him - she'd been awkward enough with him in texts, and it had been an even more awkward day after that.
Sarah kicked her shoes off and made her way into the kitchen. The remainders of whatever the kids had eaten still lingered around in the form of various takeout containers and plates, and she started picking up without even a thought. Mainly because her mind was still muddled with thoughts of the woman who had brought her cigarettes and the makeout session they'd shared in the breakroom before she'd headed back out to the bar floor.
She was pretty sure she still had a welt on her neck.
Captain Sal could be very, very convincing when she wanted to be. She would have left more than a hickey on Sarah's neck, but some part deep inside her had balked, and in deference to the body of the woman she seemed to borrowing, she'd stopped. Oh well, there were other wenches to be had, and this Shepard person seemed intent on pushing her in the direction of an archeologist. Whatever that was, matey, she best be willing to put out.
She’d sauntered out of the break room, winked at everyone, and then sashayed out the door.
Cameron, meanwhile, was laying out her costume from The Wizard of Oz. It was a bit like Dorothy's from the movie, but the slippers were silver, like the book. She heard Sarah come home, and wondered if she really should tell her.
It was the right thing to do.
'Sal's' arrival and departure had left Sarah confused, but at least the cigarette she'd gotten to smoke an hour or so later had helped. It wasn't that Sarah didn't like women that way - she'd had an exception or two here and there. It was just that she hadn't had an encounter like that in a long time. Not since this one woman in Nicaragua.
She shook her head at herself as she washed the dishes in the sink. Obviously she was getting desperate. That lead to getting your picture in the tabloids. Not a thing she wanted, not a thing she needed John to see. Cameron already knew, at least. She leaned against the counter when she was done washing, and rubbed at her face.
Wasn't there something Cameron wanted to talk to her about? It could wait. She pulled the second cigarette out of her pocket and stepped outside, sat down on top of the picnic table, and lit up.
Cameron plucked the cigarette out of Sarah's mouth with deft precision, and put it out on the picnic table, "No, you shouldn't smoke. You really really shouldn't smoke."
The alarm in her voice was hard to conceal. She still wasn't sure how to explain the cancer risk to Sarah. She didn't want to go into detail about what she was, even if Sarah suspected.
But she had to know, she had to tell her. She had the right to know.
Sarah made a face when Cameron plucked the cigarette out of her mouth that was somewhere between annoyance and disbelief. It soon turned into a scowl of concern and confusion when she picked up on the alarm in the girl's voice, "Look, girlie, your concern for my well being is ... noted. And gives me all kinds of warm fuzzies inside, but you don't just go stealing a woman's cigarette out of her mouth like that."
She added, after a pause, "And you could have burned yourself."
She could have. She hadn't even thought about any harm to herself. She'd have to watch that. Cameron could hurt herself severely if she wasn't paying attention and thought she was a robot.
She turned to face Sarah, putting her hands on her shoulders, "Did you dream about jumping forward through time?"
Whatever this was, it was serious. Cameron was looking her right in the eyes. She glanced to either side, noting the hand on each shoulder, and wondering what it was she was about to hear.
Nothing good, Sarah figured. Maybe a reinforcement to what she'd already been suspecting, "I dreamed about a lot of things. You're in one of them."
It was a very vague answer, and Sarah had left it vague on purpose. She wanted Cameron to say what she had to say without having to be coaxed into it with details that were already known.
"Do you remember something about two-thousand and seven?"
Sarah let out a long sigh, and ducked her head a bit, "You have something to say to me. I can tell. It's your body language. And I wish that you'd just say it, instead of trying to get me to say it for you. Whatever it is."
"We jumped forward from 1999," Cameron said, seriously. Unlike her dream counterpart, there was emotion in her voice, and her eyes seemed to be watery. This wasn't easy. This was very, very hard, but if it was applicable in the dream world, then it could be here.
"We skipped eight years, Sarah. We skipped eight years because John needed you alive. You had six years to live. You died of cancer on December 5th, 2005."
There was a rushing noise in Sarah's ears. She remembered jumping forward - Cameron had told them that was the way to stop Skynet. That was where it started again, after they'd stopped it the first time. She'd never mentioned anything about cancer. About dying.
Sarah felt like the words were echoing through her head, but in some foreign language, slipping around with the meaning not quite taking hold the way it should. She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth for a moment, willing herself to grab hold of the information and deal with it.
Only it wouldn't. It just kept spinning around. She shut her eyes, "What?"
Watching her face, the flood of emotions and confusion and disbelief. Cam hung her head, pressing her forehead against Sarah's. Her voice was quiet, and tiny, "You died of cancer, and left him alone. He hurt so much, without you."
She remembered that. The grief on John's face before she was sent back. The hope in his eyes.
Most of all, Cameron remembered the hope. She hadn't understood it at the time, but here, in this world, she did. That wordless hope and wordless need of a son for his mother. Of a daughter for hers.
She'd gone back, because she was supposed to go back. She'd gone back to give him hope, and give Sarah a second chance.
John had been left all alone to deal with that. Had she stopped Skynet in the 6 years she'd had available? Had she been able to get him ready to lead mankind? She'd never know. She'd never know... She'd never see him grow up, she'd never see the other side of the war, the time when they won.
But she'd always known that, she'd known that part. Kyle Reese had never mentioned her in his future. He'd said he wanted to 'meet the legend'. Few 'legends' ever survived the things that made them legendary to begin with. Had she died of cancer then, too? That future had obviously changed when they'd blown up Cyberdyne...
Why hadn't Kyle told her?
Sarah sucked in a breath, and let it out, slowly. That didn't have to be their fate, here. No fate but what we make. But Cancer wasn't something you could blow up a building to stop, or keep at bay. She sucked in another breath, and let that one out, too. Tears were threatening to sting at her eyes, but she denied them, and instead asked the inevitable question, "Did he know? My John. The present John. Did you tell him?"
Cameron simply shook her head. John might have suspected, but she hadn't yet dreamed of if she'd told him or not. She wouldn't have. The Terminator wouldn't have. Maybe John had hoped she'd tell him of her own volition. Which was silly, she was a robot.
Robots only do what they were programmed to do.
Don't they?
It was possible for robots to overcome their programming. Sarah would begrudgingly agree, having witnessed it herself in the T-100 that had been reprogrammed to protect her and John.
That dream had been a trip and a half. Over 3 years in one night, including every year spent in the mental hospital. She'd had no love for psychiatrists before the dreams, but was pretty certain they could all go to hell now.
"... We don't tell him." Sarah looked Cameron in the eyes, "Not unless it's really happening, here. And then, not until we have to. Let him be normal. Let him have that, for as long as he can."
She wished that Cameron had the same chance, and frowned, “I wish you could forget the things you know. You never got to be a kid, did you?”
"Not like on television," She replied. It didn't seem to bother her on the face of it. She got to play music, but she'd missed out on playground, and recess, and lunch rooms. Middle-school had been bad, and high school worse for her, but she never talked about it. She got her grades and passed and got out, and that was what mattered.
"That's my fault," Sarah whispered. She should have done a lot of things differently. Moving out of the country had been extremely selfish. All of the moving around they did, even for their own safety. She always thought that eventually they'd get to a place where she could make up for it all somehow.
6 Years wasn't really a lot of time to do that.
She sighed, and got up off the picnic table, "I'm sorry. I know I suck at this. And I still think we should move away from here before it's too late. We don't know what's causing this. We don't know what we'll dream next. We don't know what we'll become. And now I might be dying. That's ... just great. Really."
The tears threatened to sting at her eyes again, and she bit her lip, "But for you. For YOU, and for him, we'll stay here. Just... don't mention this again."
Cameron silently hugged Sarah. In another place and another time, this might have been unnerving. Perhaps it still was.
But for her she did.
Sarah hugged her briefly. She didn't want to think about what Cameron might become if they stayed here. It might have been better for HER if they'd left. But she put that out of her mind, and headed inside.
She went to her room, and shut her door. There was a lot to think about, and like her counterpart, she did her best thinking alone.