Savannah sat on the floor of her bedroom and played aimlessly with her toys, her tiny hands going through their usual motions, but her heart just wasn’t in it. She had dutifully finished her lessons for Mr. Ellison, and now he was off getting groceries while John stayed with his mom. The sun was setting so she wasn’t allowed to play in the backyard, and her favorite playmate hadn’t wanted to play at all, not since Aunt Sarah had gotten sick. Now Cameron seemed to only keep company with all the computers in the living room. Savannah thought Cameron looked sad, but she wasn’t sure why. 

She missed her aunts, especially Cameron, who had always managed to find a moment to spare for her until lately. Savannah knew Cameron was worried about Sarah and had spent all her time taking care of her. Savannah had understood that and had dealt with the loneliness as best as she was able. But Sarah was getting better now. Why couldn’t Cameron come visit for a little while?      

Sighing, Savannah picked up a few of the toys Mr. Murch had given her. People surrounded her, but since John had come back, she felt less like a member of a family and more like an unwanted outsider.

John was the important one, the one Aunt Sarah and Aunt Cameron cared about most. Savannah was just a child that got in the way. She felt herself hating the boy who’d taught her to tie her shoelaces, wishing he would go back to wherever he’d come from. Cameron had time for her before John came home, and Sarah was beginning to treat her like a daughter. It wasn’t fair that a stupid boy had to come in and ruin it all.

But seeing John had made Sarah so happy when she’d been so sick, and Savannah had been glad for that at least.

Would Sarah have been that happy to see her if she were the one that had left? Would she even know Savannah was gone?

Brooding on such thoughts, Savannah threw her toys across the room and crawled up in her bed, determined not to come out of her room until someone actually noticed she wasn’t around.

****

 

“Excuse me, have you seen this little girl?”

Person after person slowed to stare at the black and white picture held in a large, beefy hand. The man asking the question in an anguished voice seemed harmless enough, even though his size and bulk would have been intimidating under almost any other circumstance. To the many mall shoppers passing him by, however, he seemed to be a worried father or uncle, trying to find a lost little girl.

A young woman hesitated when she saw the photo. “Hasn’t she been on the news?”

Intense brown eyes zeroed in on her face. “Yes. She’s my niece. Savannah Weaver.”

“I’m sorry I can’t help you,” she said sincerely as she continued on.

“Thank you,” he replied automatically before approaching another couple. Someone out of the millions of people in the city knew where his target was, and he was prepared to ask every one of them until he found her and killed her.

 

ACT 1

The grass was cold and wet on Cameron’s bare feet. She didn’t care as she walked stiffly to the picnic table and sat down, watching the swings sway back and forth in the night’s gentle breeze. A full moon hung low in the sky, playing hide and seek behind a smattering of clouds. The air felt heavy and damp on Cameron’s skin as she leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees, quietly absorbing the sounds and scents around her.

Sarah was sleeping. Not the sleep of the fevered, the sick, or the dead, but a true, healing sleep. Her skin finally felt like her skin, smooth and temptingly soft rather than the hot, tight surface Cameron had become accustomed to when she touched the other woman. The incision site was healing rapidly, too rapidly, Cameron knew, but she would deal with the consequences of her actions when Sarah confronted her with them. She almost looked forward to the moment, knowing how close she’d been to never having another conversation with Sarah.

Sarah was recovering, surviving to fight another day, but Cameron still felt terrified. Every moment, every system, was attuned to Sarah. The sound of her breath. The beat of her heart. Cameron felt like she would fly apart if either should stop, that her complex and orderly mind wouldn’t be able to handle the chaos and pain that would follow. Cameron didn’t understand why the fear wasn’t going away. Sarah was getting better; it was logical that her own worries should lessen with each new improvement. Instead, Cameron kept expecting the worst. Sarah would have described it as waiting for the other shoe to drop, and Cameron constantly expected to hear the proverbial thud as it hit the floor.

The others thought she was engrossed in her computers, but the truth was that particular position in the house, along with the pattern of the ductwork, enabled Cameron to hear every breath Sarah took. Her computer searches were simply a way to fill the time between the all too rare visits.

As much as she wanted to be constantly by Sarah’s side, John was back now. It was his place to watch over his mother, not hers, so Cameron stared out at the night, feeling frightened and resentful at the way the world seemed to constantly conspire against her wishes. All of her wishes but one, she amended.

Sarah was going to live. Cameron knew she really couldn’t wish for anything more than that.

The porch door opened, and Cameron cocked her head, wondering whose footfalls she was going to hear. She was surprised by the weight of them, telling her it was Ellison that was coming down the steps and crossing the yard to her position. She had thought he was sleeping. Cameron was almost relieved that it was the former agent that was joining her. She was in no mood to talk to John.

“This seat taken?” Ellison inquired. He had a steaming mug of coffee in his hand that Cameron had smelled before she’d visually confirmed its existence.

Cameron shook her head, watching him curiously as he sat down next to her, careful to leave as much room between them as possible. “Is something wrong with Sarah?” she asked, worry creeping into her tone.

“She’s fine,” James answered neutrally. “I peeked in on her before coming down here. She and John are both asleep. Pretty much like they have been for the last two days.”

“Good.” Cameron nodded her head for emphasis before returning her attention to the swings.

Crickets filled the abrupt silence between them as James sipped his coffee. His gaze went to the swing set, wondering what it was about it that seemed to have Cameron so fascinated. He decided she wasn’t really studying it. The terminator’s gaze was turned inward, apparently mulling over the events of the last few weeks, the agent guessed.

James sighed. “You’ve made some pretty serious mistakes lately,” he began slowly, aware that he needed to tread lightly. He was chastising a terminator who’d displayed a wicked and violent temper, but who had also displayed surprising gentleness, especially to their two female charges. It was that glimpse of her kinder nature that had his thoughts in chaos, keeping him from his dreams.

Cameron’s head lowered at the rebuke before she tilted her face and looked back at him. “You mean Agent Auldridge. Dr. Burnett.”

“Yes.” He watched her as the moon peered out from behind a cloud and illuminated the beautiful angles of her face. She looked harmless, innocent, nothing like the killing machine he knew her to be. James also thought she looked older. He wouldn’t mistake her for a teenager now. It startled him to realize that her taste in clothing and makeup had changed in the past few weeks, the pink eye shadows and baby doll t-shirts mutating into something more closely resembling Sarah’s attire. She looked more like a woman in her mid-twenties now. Perhaps it was the change in her clothes and makeup, he mused. Or maybe the last few weeks had aged her as it would almost anyone under the circumstances. “I’m confused by your actions,” he finally murmured.

“I am, too,” Cameron confessed after a thoughtful moment. “I should have killed them both. Letting them live puts us at risk.”

“That’s not what I meant…” James spluttered.

“I know what you meant,” Cameron cut him off. “Are your concerns about me what’s keeping you awake?”

James was mildly surprised by the question. Cameron was getting pretty good at analyzing human behavior. “Among other things,” he replied in a droll voice.

“You fear the machines because we can’t feel empathy, because we can’t understand emotion.” Cameron watched him watch her. “But now you fear me because I can.”

“Can you?” James whispered, asking the question that had weighed on him since Cameron had come out of the system. He’d never gotten a straight answer from Sarah on the issue, and Murch would just launch into technobabble he hadn’t been able to understand. “Do you feel emotions? Is that what happened in the kitchen? Is that what drove you to kidnap a doctor? To attack an FBI agent?”

“And what drove me to spare them,” Cameron explained. “Agent Auldridge has a wife. I didn’t want her to feel what I was feeling.”

James stared at her in fascination, feeling something close to relief that Cameron could feel empathy for someone she regarded as an enemy. Maybe there was hope for them all yet. “Grief?” he guessed, remembering in vivid detail what she had done to the kitchen. 

Cameron considered the term; having never named the emotion that had felt like it was tearing her apart, it took her a moment to map the word to the feeling. Slowly, she nodded. “Grief,” she agreed.

They sat in silence again. James had more questions about Cameron and her emotions, especially in regards to Sarah, but he let them be for later. He wasn’t sure he was ready for the answers. Maybe Cameron wasn’t, either.

“What effect is your blood going to have on her?” James finally asked about the other topic that had kept his mind spinning as he had lain in the dark.

Cameron frowned. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “All that matters is that it saved her.”

“She’s not going to like having a part of Skynet inside her.”

Cameron’s frown deepened. “She’ll have to learn to live with it,” she said softly, but firmly.

“But at least she’ll live,” James added, finishing Cameron’s unspoken thought.

“It won’t turn her into a machine,” Cameron said after a moment. “If that is worrying you.”

James snorted as if he thought the mere idea was silly, but Cameron detected the relaxing of tight muscles along his neck and shoulders. She smirked and looked away.

The former agent noted the expression and felt amusement at his own expense. A part of him almost wanted to like Cameron, to yield to the desire to trust her. Sarah’s walls seemed to be coming down where the terminator was concerned. He just wondered if it was exhaustion that had Sarah giving in, or if she truly bought into the whole idea of Cameron being able to feel.

“It must be hard for you,” James murmured, the realization coming to him in the quiet. Cameron’s head turned, and she looked at him once more, naked curiosity on her face. “Must have been much easier when you were responsible for just John.  Now, you feel like you have to protect all of us.”

Cameron started to tell him that she felt no duty to protect him, but decided he didn’t need to know that, and she wasn’t sure that was even true anymore. James Ellison had proven useful as of late, and she found he was a voice of reason and insight when she needed one. Cameron knew she would never be able to fully forgive him for hunting Sarah, but she accepted that his actions had been a mistake, a mistake she knew he would go back and correct if he could. She knew a thing or two about how that felt now. “It was easier,” she agreed. “It is… harder… to care about the people you protect.”

“You didn’t care about John?” James wondered.

“I couldn’t. Not before. Not all the way,” Cameron explained. “He was a mission. Nothing more.”

“And now?”

“Now?” Cameron pondered her feelings. “I don’t know.”

James sighed. “Be a hell of a lot easier on you if you just had the mission, huh? No John, no Sarah, no Savannah.”

Cameron slowly nodded. “It would be easier,” she confirmed.

“Wish I didn’t care about them, either,” James admitted. “I almost envy the machines for that.”

“Don’t,” Cameron said matter-of-factly as she stood abruptly and walked toward the house, not noticing Savannah as the young child slipped away from her open window to crawl back into her bed and cry.

****

 

Her mouth tasted like old gym socks. It was the first thing Sarah noticed as consciousness crept over her again, having been absent for the better part of two days. She winced, craving a toothbrush and some potent mouthwash.

“Mom?”

Green eyes snapped open at the sound of John’s voice, and Sarah focused on her son’s face, looking so achingly familiar but also disconcertingly different. His chin and cheeks were covered in stubble and his eyes were bloodshot as he gazed worriedly down on her.

He was older, thinner, harder, and there were already lines starting to form in the corners of his eyes. A small, white scar that she had never seen before bisected his chin, and she spared a moment to wonder what had caused it.

She hadn’t dreamed his return. He was here. He was real.

He was home.

“John,” she murmured, letting the fingers of her right hand tangle with his. Her son’s hand was rough will calluses she didn’t remember, and Sarah frowned, trying to clear the cobwebs from her mind. She remembered talking to him before, even if she couldn’t recall what they’d talked about. “Where is everyone?”

John glanced toward the door. “Sleeping probably. Except Cameron, of course. She’s bound to be prowling around here somewhere.” He smiled as if the return to the same routine he’d left behind gave him some comfort. “Your color looks better.” His hand stroked through her tousled hair, smoothing it back gently from her forehead.

Sarah flexed the fingers of her left hand, relieved that she still had a hand to flex and that it didn’t hurt as badly as it had before. “Where is the doctor?”

“Cameron let her go.”

The news was surprising but a relief all the same. “I don’t remember,” Sarah admitted, struggling weakly to get up. “I still have my arm, so why am I feeling better?”

John hesitated, easing back into his chair. “Cameron tried something… experimental,” he said slowly, still unsure how he felt about the steps the terminator had taken to save his mother’s life. “It worked. That’s all that matters,” he murmured, trying to convince them both.

A flash of fear gave Sarah’s body a much-needed surge of adrenaline to clear her thoughts. What had Cameron done? Stolen drugs? Had she killed to find Sarah a cure? Or was that cure a little too close to home? Sarah remembered seeing two I.V. bags dangling above her head as she floated in and out of fevered dreams. One had been full of clear liquid; the other had been full of blood. Sarah had a sudden thought as to whose blood might have been dripping into her veins, and she shivered.

“It doesn’t matter now,” John said again, noting how his mother’s green eyes lifted to the two empty hooks of the I.V. stand.

Sarah sighed and sank back onto her pillow. Death had been hovering. She had felt it, had almost welcomed it. Her gaze went to her bandaged arm, and she ran the fingers of her right hand over the gauze, feeling only a mild sensitivity to the touch. Cameron had, more than once, wisely pointed out that it was hard for something to matter to you if you were dead. Sarah pushed aside the worries about her health and Cameron’s ‘experimental procedure’ and focused instead on her son. “It’s good to have you home.”

“Good to be home,” John promised, relieved that his mother wasn’t going to press for details as he reached over and tangled his fingers with hers once more.

Sarah suspected he needed the touch as much as she did to make the moment real. He smiled at her, a genuine grin she hadn’t seen on his face in the months before he’d left. It did her soul good to see it.

A sound at the door made John glance up, and his smile faded. Cameron had arrived almost silently, only the creaking of the floorboard announcing her presence. He felt his jaw tighten at the sight of her.

“I heard voices,” Cameron said by way of greeting. Her brown eyes fastened on Sarah and lingered. “How are you feeling?”

Sarah considered the question, guiltily enjoying the sight of the cyborg in her form-fitting jeans, bare feet, and untucked t-shirt. Cameron looked rumpled in a way only she could make appealing. Sarah felt the now familiar surge of attraction, but it was laced with something sweeter, something more tempting and dangerous. She swallowed. “I’ve been worse,” she admitted dryly.

Cameron cautiously came closer, eyeing John warily. The tips of her fingers came to rest on the bed millimeters from Sarah’s healing arm. She wanted to touch her, wanted it more than she would have ever thought possible, but she commanded her fingers to stay where they were. “Can I get you anything?”

Green eyes studied brown as Sarah tried to figure out what Cameron was thinking. She wasn’t worried that Cameron had shared the particulars of their confusing relationship with John. Cameron could be a little clueless at times, but she was never stupid. Whatever was whirring through her cyborg brain, however, was making her frown, and Sarah found she really wanted to clear that expression from Cameron’s beautiful features. “I really want out of this bed,” Sarah confessed. “I need a bath and a toothbrush.”

“Mom,” John scolded, only to fall silent as Cameron peeled the blankets away from his mother and slipped her hands under Sarah’s body.

“What in the hell are you doing?” he snapped, scrambling to his feet, indignant on his mother’s behalf.

Cameron froze, Sarah’s body already in her arms and halfway off the bed. “Complying with her wishes.”

“John.”

He looked down at his mother, and she shook her head in silent warning.

Cameron resumed her movement, gently easing Sarah from the bed and setting her carefully on her feet, keeping a firm grip on her as Sarah swayed in place. “Are you okay?” she almost whispered.

John watched them curiously, surprised that his mother was allowing the contact.

Sarah was forced to lean heavily on the terminator for support, but her body greedily soaked up Cameron’s heat and nearness. “A little shaky,” she admitted.

“I won’t let you fall,” Cameron vowed.

“I wasn’t worried,” Sarah replied with a weak smirk. She turned her attention to John who looked less than thrilled at the situation. “Would you rather hold me up in the shower? Or have James do it?” 

A blush roared onto John’s cheeks and Sarah bit back a chuckle at the flustered expression that crossed his features. “Didn’t think so,” she muttered. “Come on, Tin Miss. Lead the way.” She smiled at her son. “Let me get cleaned up and feeling human, then we’ll talk. Okay?”

John wearily nodded, watching Cameron warily. His shift in attitude toward the terminator made Sarah’s stomach churn with worry. John finally sighed and left, and Sarah watched him go, not sure what to think.

“I look like her,” Cameron explained as she eased Sarah into the bathroom.

“Like who?” Sarah asked in confusion as Cameron got her settled on the lip of the tub, waiting for her to remove her bandage before handing her a tube of toothpaste.

“Allison Young.” Cameron ran Sarah’s toothbrush under the water before passing it to the other woman. Sarah was looking at her, waiting impatiently for her to elaborate further. “The woman I’m modeled after,” Cameron explained in a subdued voice.

Sarah swallowed. It had never occurred to her that Cameron had been modeled after someone real. “He met her? This woman?”

“I believe so. John jumped to a time where she would have existed. It’s a logical conclusion given the way he is reacting to me.”

“Maybe he’s just pissed that you tricked him.” Sarah started brushing her teeth, grateful for the minty taste but feeling like the motion was sapping the last of her strength.

“I’m sure that is likely as well.” Cameron let Sarah finish, reaching around her to turn on the tap in the bath, making sure that the water was at the optimal temperature before plugging the tub and letting it fill.

Sarah rinsed her mouth out and set her toothbrush on the sink, lifting her gaze to watch Cameron as the terminator kept her eyes focused on the rising water. Cameron was acting mechanical, disassociated. Sarah hadn’t seen her like this since the day Cameron had come for her at the prison. “What’s wrong?”

Brown eyes snapped toward green, and Sarah watched with a sinking heart as Cameron’s expression closed down even further. “Cameron…”

“Nothing,” Cameron lied even though some part of her reveled in hearing Sarah say her name again. She shut off the water before kneeling at Sarah’s feet; removing her socks and then reaching for the waistband of Sarah’s sweats, she hesitated, her fingers resting against the warm, soft skin of Sarah’s stomach.

The tension that had been between them before her illness came roaring back, and Sarah swallowed thickly. “Can’t get out of them myself, girlie,” she murmured, her voice raspier than she wanted it to be. Cameron looked up at her, and they stared at each other for a long moment before the terminator’s gaze dropped and she began to undress Sarah.

Cameron’s touch was gentle but clinical, and Sarah didn’t know if she should be grateful or saddened by that. “Where is Savannah?” she asked to fill the uncomfortable silence between them.

“Probably sleeping.”

“You don’t know?” Sarah gently teased, hoping to coax a little warmth out of Cameron’s brown eyes.

“I’ve been… distracted,” Cameron murmured as she set aside Sarah’s clothes before easing her into the water. Her gaze skimmed up Sarah’s left arm, noting that the rash and angry red lines had faded to almost nothing as she reached for the bar of soap and handed it to Sarah. Cameron kept her gaze averted from the rest of Sarah’s body, knowing that if she looked, if she remembered, then her intention to put some distance between them would falter.

Warm, wet fingers brushed Cameron’s chin, and Cameron let Sarah turn her head to meet her gaze squarely.

“What’s wrong?” Sarah asked again, determined to get an answer this time.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” Cameron promised quietly. She abruptly stood. “I’ll be just outside the door. Let me know if you need anything.”

“Cameron…” Sarah swore softly as the terminator fled and closed the door between them. Feeling irrationally upset by Cameron’s actions, Sarah sighed as she eased the soap down her healing arm, noting just how much better it looked. The injury had damn near killed her, and just the thought had her turning her attention to the area around her wound and carefully studying what could only be a surgical incision. There was no way she should have healed this quickly.

Clenching her jaw, Sarah set aside her concerns and finished bathing, the act taking every last ounce of her energy. She wasn’t even aware of falling back asleep, or of Cameron gently lifting her from the bath, drying her off, and carrying her back to bed and tucking her in.

Cameron stared down at Sarah before bending at the waist and kissing her softly on the forehead. She let the touch linger, breathing in the other woman’s scent, giving in to a moment of weakness in the hope it would settle her thoughts and ease the longing she felt.

She was disappointed, but unsurprised, that the contact only made the craving worse.

****

 

Cameron found John waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs.

“Done?” he snapped.

The terminator clamped her jaws together, biting back what she wanted to say. “She fell asleep again. I put her back to bed.” She started to go around him, but John sidestepped and blocked her path. “What?” Cameron demanded, doing her best to keep her voice even. She didn’t know why she felt so angry with John. He’d done what she had wanted him to do, chasing her into the future. It upset her that his future had still clearly contained Skynet because she knew that meant she and Sarah had failed, but that didn’t explain why she felt like shoving him through the nearest wall.

John hesitated, seeing something in Cameron’s eyes that was nothing like the blank stare she so often gave him. “We need to talk,” he said with a little more civility.

“Does it have to be now?”

The question made John blink. “Can you think of a better time?”

“Yes.” Cameron’s answer was blunt and emotionless as she moved past him, heading for the kitchen. Dr. Burnett had said Sarah needed to get back on solid foods as soon as possible if she recovered. Cameron was determined to have a meal prepared for her when Sarah woke again.

John grabbed Cameron’s elbow and spun her, bringing them face-to-face. “Damn it, don’t walk away from me,” he hissed, but there was a pleading tone to his voice.

Cameron stared at him, her chin hitching higher. “I don’t take orders from you. Not anymore.”

John gaped at her. “And if your future John was here?” he asked, confused by Cameron’s reaction.

“He could go to hell,” Cameron announced, taking satisfaction in the shock that entered John’s eyes and the way his head rocked back in surprise. “I’m no one’s puppet anymore. Not yours, not his, and not Skynet’s.” Feeling anger start to swell, Cameron ripped her arm out of his grip and stalked away. She needed to get out, to be away from everyone and their expectations of her. Snatching up a set of car keys, she headed for the back door.

“Don’t.”

John was three steps into his pursuit of Cameron when Ellison’s voice drew him up short. “I need answers,” he explained, his tone more contrite, just as he heard the back door slam and the truck in the drive roar to life.

“You’ll get them,” James promised. “But give her some space.” He leaned in the doorway to the kitchen, a dishtowel draped over his shoulder.

“Space?” John’s voice was incredulous. “She’s a machine. She doesn’t need space.” There was venom in the description, and John closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath. He wasn’t being fair to Cameron. He knew it. But it was so damn hard seeing Allison’s face every time he looked at her.

James sighed. “That’s right. And she looked like she wanted to toss you out a window. Leave her be. She’s had a rough few days.”

“Cameron doesn’t feel,” John reminded him, and then winced, realizing he was starting to sound like his mother.

The former FBI agent drew in a slow breath. “Not the Cameron you remember,” he said cryptically.

John regarded him curiously, wondering what in the hell he meant by that.

“Since you can’t get your questions answered right now, maybe you can answer a few of mine.”

“Fine,” John sighed, walking over to the couch and dropping down on to it. “What do you want to know?”

James lingered in the doorway for a moment before sauntering into the living room and sitting down in a chair opposite John. He pulled the towel off his shoulder and began to twist it between his hands. “Why did you come back?”

“This is where I belong,” John stated, more sure now than ever that his decision had been the right one.

“Then why did you leave?”

John laughed bitterly. “Know what’s funny? You and I already had this conversation in the future.”

James blinked. “I was still…”

“Alive? Yeah.” John’s posture lost some of its tension when he remembered Prophet, his words of wisdom and how just hearing his deep baritone had given John a slice of home he’d so desperately needed.

“Your mother?” James asked gently.

Shaking his head, John slumped against the back of the sofa.

“I’m sorry.”

“That future doesn’t exist anymore,” John explained. “And I intend to make sure it never will.”

“Fair enough,” James murmured. “But you didn’t come back alone. You brought pieces of the future back with you. Who else, John? Derek? Other soldiers?”

John narrowed his eyes as he stared at the older man. Slowly, he shook his head. “Other soldiers?” he asked in confusion.

“The other time bubbles,” James pressed. “Who was in them? Were you supposed to meet somewhere?”

Breath catching, John leaned forward with sudden urgency. “There have been other bubbles?”

“You didn’t know?”

“How many?” John demanded. “How many and where?”

“We have no way of knowing how many. Twelve have been reported. As for where… the middle of the interstate... somewhere on the beach near Santa Monica Pier… they’ve been spotted all over the area.”

John digested the news, trying to understand what it could mean. Had the others been caught up in the time machine as it malfunctioned? Was it possible some of his friends and enemies alike had been flung back with him? He closed his eyes, feeling a rending in his chest when he thought of Allison, of her fingers slipping out of his own.

“John?” James prompted.

“I…” John had to take a shallow breath. “I wasn’t alone, but no one else was supposed to come back. It was just supposed to be me and Allison.”

“Allison?”

Ignoring the question, John scrubbed his hands through his short hair before getting to his feet, suddenly too agitated to sit still. “Weaver… she sabotaged everything.  The energy was jumping everywhere. Allison… She got torn away from me.” He swallowed, feeling the burn of tears and the familiar weight of failure pressing on his chest. “I couldn’t save her.”

“You think she came back?” James asked, tucking his questions about the girl into the back of his mind for later. He could hazard a guess about her importance to John, however, by the stricken look in the younger man’s eyes when he said her name. “That she might be out there somewhere?”

John kept pacing. “It’s possible. It’s possible,” he repeated in a whisper filled with hope.

“Weaver? John Henry?”

John had to mentally snap himself out of remembering Allison, of those final moments when everything had gone to hell. He’d thankfully been too worried about his mother and exhausted from time-lag to obsess over what had happened the last two days. He nodded. “She got there first… took John Henry with her.”

James shook his head. “So they’re here.”

John nodded again.

“Just what we needed. Another complication.” The former agent sighed and scraped his fingers over his bare scalp.

“Have you investigated the time bubbles? Were there any…”

“You are the only person we know about, John. If anyone else came through… there were no witnesses. Cameron thought it might be some kind of malfunction. She’d never heard of time bubbles appearing without people or terminators in them. Hell, two of them formed right in the middle of the interstate about a mile from your mom and Cameron. They were in a massive pileup because of it.” James leaned back in his chair and watched John pace. The news had clearly rattled the young man. “Won’t be satisfied until you check them all, will you?”

“I have to know.” John stopped and turned to look at him. “We could have more allies here.” He thought of Sierra, wondering if she’d come through whether she wanted to or not. What would happen with both of them in the here and now? And which one would Cameron find to be the more worthy leader to follow?

“Or more enemies,” James pointed out, and John reluctantly nodded in agreement. He sighed. “Let me get cleaned up and we’ll go check out a few.”

“Cameron… my mom…” John protested.

“I’ll call Cameron. She can stay with your mom and Savannah.”

“I… I don’t know if I trust her,” John confessed hesitantly. “I don’t feel like I can leave her alone with them.”

“Did you find out something in the future? Something that leads you to believe Cameron can’t be trusted?”

John pursed his lips and shook his head, too preoccupied to see the relief that washed across James’ features.

“John, whatever you remember about Cameron… she’s different now.”

“You’ve said that before.” When James didn’t reply, John continued, “But how would you know? It’s what she does. She infiltrates. She deceives…”

James heard the anger in the young man’s voice and understood.

“Cameron didn’t make you jump to the future. You made that choice all on your own.” He found himself in the odd position of defending the cyborg and wanting to. “You may have learned a lot in the future… but you still have a ways to go when it comes to learning the facts before you react.”

Stung, John simply nodded, accepting the older man was probably right. With a sigh, he turned away and headed up the stairs to change and check on Savannah. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to keep the little girl away from Cameron to protect her, or if he just wanted to make sure she wouldn’t learn the skills that had made her a better leader than he would ever be. At least, he thought ruefully, he could admit his intentions might be less than honorable.

Reaching her door, he knocked twice, almost expecting Sierra’s voice to bark at him from the other side. When he heard nothing, he turned the knob and peered inside, frowning when he discovered an empty bed.

John stepped inside and moved closer, spying a piece of paper lying on the pillow. He picked it up, frowning at the nearly illegible handwriting scrawled across it with a crayon. He felt his heart lurch when he’d finished reading it, his green eyes jerking toward the open window. John stumbled closer, tripping over a handful of toys as he leaned out.

Six year old Savannah, revealing a flash of the resourceful woman she would become, had crawled down the trellis and run away.

**** 

 

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