FIC: If I'm Fated
Title: If I'm FatedCharacters: John/Cameron one sided Allison/John
Rating: Mature
Disclaimer: Sadly, not mine
He realizes as soon as she looks at him with eyes too full of humanity the way this was all supposed to be. He realizes the cruelest joke. Allison. Allison from the halfway house who laughed and grinned and had no clue who he was. And in that instant he can see the entire future mapped out, it's all a fucking circle that they're destined to repeat and repeat. He's only sixteen but he suddenly feels a million years old and as his father, his uncle, her, stare at him looking for answers he wants to break down and cry.
He kills her. It's all so clear to him now.
Future him this time around is a eighteen year old boy playing like a man, barking out orders and pretending like he knows what he's doing. He's trained for this his entire life but he feels inadequate, wrong. They fucked up. He's not supposed to be here.
The name John Connor doesn't stay unknown for long. John Connor who showed up in Kyle Reese's coat without a trace of metal in him who knows their enemy like the back of his hand. In two short years he goes from that strange kid to their leader. He constantly looks to his side as though expecting her to be there, especially when things get tough and he can feel the words, what would future me do, lingering on his lips.
At night Allison curls into him and she's warm and soft and when she kisses him he closes his eyes and thinks of metal.
Fate is nothing but what we make it, he tells Derek and Kyle and in that moment he realizes he's made it an endless circle. There is no escape. There is no future but the one that burns.
He is relentless in his pursuit of John Henry. Of her.
And when he finally does find her she stares out at him from behind eyes that aren't hers at all. It bothers him but it's still her, it's still the same intonation in a voice that isn't hers, the same head tilt, the same mannerisms.
She stands with Weaver and she asks him will you join us. He tells her he already has.
She tells him when the metal comes he has to pretend, he has to let it fool him. And then she hands him a switchblade. He strings her chip onto a chain and wears it around his neck, hidden under his shirt like the kill switch she had given him in another life.
Allison is twenty when he sends her on her final mission. She holds his face between her hands and tells him she loves him. He lies and tells her the same.
He feels like the worst kind of man. He knows he is selfish, wrong. He knows it is beyond twisted. But he can't help it. He needs her.
At night he dreams of time. He dreams of endless circles and overlapping patterns. He dreams of a Judgment Day he has yet to see but has lived a million times over. He dreams of his mother and some days when he wakes up he half expects her to be sitting on the edge of his bed.
He doesn't have a picture this time around but he tells Kyle everything he can. He makes his own father fall in love with his mother before he sends him back in time. Everything in his life is a delicate circle of time.
He counts the days until Allison will return with blank brown eyes, soft curls and coltan buried beneath her skin.
Hidden in his bunker he pulls the chip out and puts her back where she belongs. He holds a breath for a hundred and twenty seconds and only lets it out when her eyes find his and she gives him that small curl of her lips that wasn't quite a smile. "John," is all she says and it's more than enough.
He holds a hand to either side of her face. "Perfect."
He knows long before she says anything that he can't keep her. And at night when he moves in her and feels her skin against his, the soft moans she makes ("I have sensation, I feel.... I wouldn't be worth much if I couldn't feel") he tries to push the thoughts from his mind and allow himself the luxury of living in the moment. He wonders how many times they're destined to repeat this cycle.
He is thirty two when he sends her back. They can't win. The machines are planning a second Judgment Day and there simply isn't enough people left to survive it. She's flawless even in the midst of the end and understands it's time to go. He's resigned to his fate and puts his faith in her to fix it.
She rests a hand against the side of his face and holds his gaze for a long moment. "Thank you for explaining," is all she says and he looks at her, more human that he could have ever dreamed. And he knows he did that.
"Tell him..." he starts and rests his forehead against hers, a hand buried her her curls. "Tell him that future me would love you," he presses one last kiss to her soft skin and hits the switch.
He watches her disappear in a crackle of blue light as the sounds of bombs falling overtake the pounding of his heart in his ears. He grabs his gun, he's John Connor and he knows that means he's going out fighting. And in his last breath he will think of wide brown eyes and her words ringing in his ears, "we do... we will."
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