Old Habits Rise Again
Is it spying if you didn't mean to read what was on the screen? John would easily admit that he'd been worried about Allison, had been since Cal Lightman had come into the video store and managed to set back several months of Allison being Allison within less than an hour.
There were several choice things he wanted to say to Dr. Lightman, but that was neither here nor there.
What was here, and now, were the words on Allison's screen:
What I am asking, dear Allison, is if your man or boy or what have you agrees that you're better if it doesn't matter.
No. He doesn't agree that I'm better if it doesn't matter.
Then why do you? If you live to protect him, as you say?
Because he can't be trusted. He risks things. He does things that could upset people.
That stopped him in his tracks, moving his hand to Allison's shoulder, the question he was going to ask her gone by the time he finished the motion. "Can you turn that off for me? I need to talk to you."
"Yes. I can turn it off for you." She finishes typing, one more reply before she does what he asks. Closing the laptop, putting it to sleep. She can go back to it later, if need be. The internet's not going anywhere.
She's noticed that she's different since Dr Lightman came to the store, she sees the metal under her skin more often. Feels more like a machine. Feels dull, lifeless. She hasn't baked anything, hasn't cooked anything.
She's cheerful around Dib, tries to be around John. But it isn't real. It doesn't feel real. It feels wrong now. Pretend.
John sits on the couch next to her, at something of a loss as how to start this. "...You don't have to pretend, around me." Did she think he couldn't notice that something was off? That she didn't laugh much, hadn't baked anything, didn't tease him?
"No. I don't have to pretend around you." That she's parroting more, maybe more than she did before? That she's starting to believe again, in the things Sarah taught her about? Yeah. She doesn't think he's noticed.
"Allison..." And now, with the sighing. How is he supposed to fix all this, now? "Why don't you trust me?"
How did he fix it before? "You risk things. You do things that upset people."
Before he had time. He's feeling a little overwhelmed. "Like what?" Slight confusion. Not a whole lot, however. "Why haven't you baked anything this week?"
"Things. Did we order from Pizza Planet?" She touches the back of his neck, pretty much ignoring his question.
"I need parameters for things." John frowns slightly. "I don't think so. What are you checking for?"
"Things that upset people. Open your mouth." ...What, Allison?
"I need parameters for that." Odd look. "...Why?"
"Making me more human. Changing what I am." She grips his chin, pulling him to face her. "Open. There's mold in Pizza Planet pizzas. Fungus."
John frowns but complies. And when she'd done seeing there's nothing wrong with him, he'll shut his mouth but he won't pull away. "You don't trust me because I want you to be Allison and not Sarah's machine."
"Yes." She lets go of him once she's seen that he appears to be fine. "Tell me if you get a rash or chest pains."
"So you want me to stop trying, then." Like she wouldn't know if he suddenly developed a rash.
"I didn't say that." She would, no doubt, know. "He said I'm crazy."
"And you believe him? He was pressed against a counter and kept saying shit just to see what you'd do; it's a huge fucking experiment to him and he doesn't care if you get hurt or not. I say he's fucking sociopathic."
She shakes her head. "I know I'm real." It's a concession, more than she'd like. "but sometimes I don't. More often than not lately."
"I don't understand." Not the knowing she's real part, and John knows he needs to clarify. "You don't trust me because I try to make you feel real, more often, and sometimes it upsets you. But you don't want me to stop."
"I don't know what I want."
"...I wish you'd trust me." John doesn't want to make this about what he wants. "What do you need?"
"I did trust you." To an extent, she still does. But then came Dr Lightman. "Need?"
"But you don't, anymore." John is...somewhat aware of the extent. "Yes. Need."
"No. I don't know." She tilts her head. "I don't know what I need."
"You told someone else that you didn't. That whether or not you get hurt doesn't matter to you." He won't point out the obvious. "...All right."
"It doesn't matter to me. I don't distrust you on everything." She stares at her hand, tilting it back and forth. "What should I need?"
"What do you distrust me on, then?" God. Would this conversation be easier drunk? It's probably a bad thing that John even seriously considers that. "You know that I can't be the one to tell you that, Allison."
"Knowing what's best when it comes to how I should be. How I need to be to protect you." Would he remember it, drunk? "Why do I know that?"
"I know that you don't need to go to Arkham to kill my mother in order to protect me. I'm not going to change my mind on that." Ever. Also he probably wouldn, there's only so drunk he'll allow himself to get after their first experiment. "Why do you think you don't?"
"That's what I need to do. That's not who I need to be." She keeps staring at her hand. "I don't know that. What I need."
"That's how you think you need to protect me. Why do you need to be this instead of the person you were a week or so ago?" Make him understated, please. John will also hold that hand you're staring at so intently. "If you don't know what you need, why do you think I can tell you? What do I need, Allison?"
"I need to be like this. So I can protect you. So I can keep you safe. Alive." She closes and opens her hand. "You want me to be real."
"Why do you think you can't do that and be the person you were?" John frowns. "But that's not what I need."
"I can't protect you from them if I'm real." Open, close, open. "There's a glitch in my hand. You should fix that." A twitch is not a glitch. "What do you need?"
"You don't forget to fight if you're real. Forget to shoot. Forget how to protect me. That's not how it works." John rubs his thumb on the inside of her wrist. "You don't have glitches, Allison. I need you."
"I feel pain if I'm real. They can hurt me if I'm real. Use me against you." She closes her eyes for a moment, and opens them again. "You have me."
"You feel pain when you aren't real. You flinch. You don't fall, but you feel it." John stops himself short of saying 'They could always use you against me.' Even though it's true. Because he loves her. "You don't want to be you though. So I have you. Pretending. Because you think it'll keep me happy. It doesn't."
"I feel sensation when I'm not real. That's not the same thing." She shakes her head, opens and closes her hand. "I'm not sure I can be me. What if she's dead?"
"Can you kiss me, when you're not real? Do you want to?" That is probably...not the most important thing for John to be asking, right now. "Tell me the difference between feeling and having sensation. Between being hurt and feeling hurt. If she's dead, then good riddance. I won't cry."
She thinks about this. "Yes. I want to. " Hand closed, around his. "I can feel warmth. I can feel heat. Wind. But if I burn, it doesn't hurt. I wouldn't scream. If I'm shot, I won't cry." She pauses, looking at him. "You won't cry if Allison Young is dead?"
"Well. That's good to know." Yet John's not smiling about it. "You have nightmares, either way. Why?"
Okay that makes John make a pained face. "...I thought you meant Sarah."
"Is that good to know?" She sees the not smiling, is confused by it. "I don't know why. No, I didn't mean Sarah."
"Yes." But John's still not happy about it; it doesn't make things better, you see. "I think it means you feel things, and you make yourself forget. But you can't really forget like that, not any more. So it comes out, when you sleep." A small sigh. "If Allison Young is dead then I'm in a lot of trouble."
"What do I make myself forget?" She looks over at that sigh. "In trouble?"
"What it means to feel things, as opposed to just sensation." John looks at Allison for a moment. "Because I'm in love with Allison Young just as much as I'm in love with the girl talking to me, now."
She looks at him some more. "I don't know what to do, John. I've gotten worse, I know that. I can see that."
"You got worse because that guy did and said everything to make you upset. Help me make it better?"
She nods, and looks at the floor. "How?"
John cups her chin, lifting her face. "By wanting my help."
She's quiet now. "Okay." Is it really that easy? Really? "I haven't felt like baking anything."
"Tell me what okay means." When Allison is like this is usually means let's placate John. "Why not?"
"Okay, I will let you help me." She shakes her head. "I don't know."
"That isn't the same as wanting me to." John really, really, wants to strangle Cal Lightman about now. "Will you teach me to bake chocolate chip cookies?"
"It has to be. For now." Another concession. The idea that maybe she will want his help later. "Yes. If you like."
"It isn't the same. But I'll accept it." He needs her to understand that, very badly. "Only if you feel up to it. I refuse to make the decision about that. You've see me cook."
"I feel up to it. I'll teach you how to bake chocolate chip cookies."
"Okay. Tomorrow?"
She nods. "Okay. Tomorrow. Why is it important that I'm a person?"
"Because you're happy, as a person. If you don't feel, you're not happy. You're happiness is important to me."
She closes her eyes. "What if I'm not happy, when I'm a person again?"
"Then I'll do whatever I can to make you happy." He's well aware that might not be possible.
"Because that's important to you? Does that make you happy?"
"Yes. I'm happy, when you're happy. That's not obvious?"
"I don't know. Does it keep you safe? Protect you?"
"Being happy keeps me safe, yes." John's much more...impulsive, when he's unhappy.
"All right. Then, I want you to help me."
"All right." John takes a deep breath. "When I met you, you used to pour pixie stix in your sodas. You smelled like...a bakery." Small shrug.
Slight smile. Very slight smile. "What else?"
"You were the most stubborn person I knew. Still are."
"I know that. I think I know that."
"Yeah." Slight smirk. "I didn't understand why you talked to me, why you liked me."
"Because you were different. I could talk to you, and you got what I was saying."
"Ah." John didn't realize until much later that people had trouble with that. "I think I told you that you were my first friend."
"Yes. I think you did. You were the only one whose opinion I cared about."
That's interesting. "Why?"
"You were the only one I liked."
"...All right. That still surprises me, a bit. Who was your friend before I showed up?"
"I didn't have friends. Not really. I had people I was friendly with. You knew them."
That's a bit more surprising. "I see."
"I had a friend. When I was six. That doesn't count. And my father."
"No, I'm pretty sure friends from ten years before you met me don't count. I liked your father." John wonders if her family is dangerous territory to be getting into, right now.
Possibly. Probably. It might shake her out of it. It might push her further into it. "He liked you. He didn't like your mother."
"Charlie was the only one who did." And look what that got him.
"Mary thought she was pretty." And look what that got her.
John winces. He's not sure he can talk about anything involving Mary.
She's not sure she can either. "I miss him."
"I miss him too." Even though he was pushy and nosy. "...I'm not sure I can do this, right now."
She gives him a look. "All right."
Deep breath. "I have no idea what that look means. There are times when I envy your ability to do...this. Forget."
"I don't want to forget. But I don't want to remember."
"We can't have it both ways."
She sighs. "I know that. I know we can't. I don't want them to be gone because she's crazy."
"The memories or your family?"
"My family. My memories."
"I can only help you with one of those."
"I know. I know that."
"Okay." John feels tired and like he's fighting a losing battle. Not just with her, but with his mother's programming, and people deciding to be nosy and hurtful because they can.
She can see that, and it hurts. In a way she says she can't feel, and she doesn't know what to make of that. "I don't want to hurt you."
Slight head tilt. "Why do you think you're hurting me?"
"Because you want to fix me, make me better and I keep fighting it. I keep losing what I gained."
"This wasn't your fault. Besides, you feel...stronger, like this. Less fragile. Less able to be hurt. So it makes sense, that you'd cling to it if you were forced back into that state of mind."
"Maybe. But I don't want it hurting you. Okay?"
"I'm trying not to be hurt." Sigh. "I wish I could leave it alone."
"But you are hurt. Yes?" She looks at him.
"...I don't know how to explain. It's not a physical hurt."
"Try? To explain? Please?"
Another sigh and John settles more into the couch. "I feel...lost, overwhelmed, a bit. Because it isn't permanent, it can't be. Things will happen. People will mess with you. Because that's the way the world is. And it hurts you, sometimes, and I don't know...if it's worth it. Right then. But I can't just leave it alone."
She's quiet for a long moment. Thinking. Feeling, or trying to. Closing her eyes, opening them. Watching him. "I don't want you to leave it alone."
John meets her gaze then. Thinking about it. Thinking about what it might mean, for her to say that now. What it probably means. What he wants it mean. "I won't, then. Since you want me to. But I am tired, right now."
That she wants to be happy. That she wants him to be happy. "What do you want to do right now?"
"Sleep, or try to." Because John knows it's a crapshoot. "Hold you. Kiss you. That's it."
"All right. Okay." She squeezes his hand. "We'll do that, then."
Smile. Hand squeeze in return. "Are you tired?"
"No. But I'll get in bed with you."
"How about you wait until you're tired, then? I'll wake up. It'll be fine."
"I might not get tired. I don't have anything else I'm doing." Brief pause. "Unless you don't want me to."
"Eventually, you should rest. Even if it's only for a few hours."
"I know. I'll rest when you do." Rest. Pretend to sleep.
"I can tell when you're pretending." For the record.
"I know you can." For the record. "How can you?"
"I'm not telling." Because she'll adjust her behavior to fit, without a doubt.
She smirks. Just a bit. Barely. "That's not fair."
"I never promised to be fair." He's not stupid.
"No? Why not?"
"Because you're smart. If I told you how I can tell, you'd just do your best to figure out a way around it." Like with the Arkham conversation.
Just like that. "Fair enough." No use denying that she wouldn't do that.
John chuckles. "I'm glad you agree."
She smiles, just the slightest bit. "I'm very stubborn."
"I love that about you." He traces her smile with one fingertip.
"Why do you?" She relaxes, just a tiny bit.
"I've never met anyone as stubborn as you are. It's a strength. Something I think I need." The finger moves past, to behind her ear, and his hand rests there.
"Why do you think you need that?"
"Because I don't have it. I'd sacrifice myself for the things I think would make your life better, and you won't let me."
"Of course I won't let you. Why would I let you?"
"Maybe you'd be happier without me. Safer."
She gives him a look. A Look look. "No. I wouldn't."
John just looks a little sad. All right, but sad. "I know."
Sometimes, sometimes, he wishes that wasn't true. He wishes he could do something that would give her the life he thinks she deserves.
Maybe she thinks that she has the life she deserves. More than likely this is true.. "Why do you keep saying things like that? Why do you keep trying to get rid of me?"
"I'm not trying to get rid of you." John frowns.
"Then why do you say things like that?"
"I think your life would be better if I had never been in it."
"I think you're wrong."
John doesn't say anything for a while. "I'm not trying to get rid of you."
"Then stop saying things like that." She has, to an extent, a point there.
"I don't get why me being around is helping you. How it's helping you." John. Really?
She's not sure how to put it more delicately. "I wouldn't try if you weren't around. I wouldn't care enough."
"What if something happens to me? What if I get sick, or arrested? What then?"
"I'll take care of you. I'll get you out."
"What if staying in jail means making things easier for us when I get out?"
She pauses. "I don't understand the question." Requires more parameters, good sir.
"All right." Small pause. "If there were a situation in which...my record would be expunged, or yours, if I went to prison for a while. What then?"
"Do you want your record expunged?"
"It would make our lives easier."
"Would it? I don't know. I would still get you out." Ask her why. Go on.
John sighs. He sees this logic trap. "Why would you still get me out?"
She will answer this with her own question. "If they put me in Arkham, and things would be better for us if I stayed and got out the normal way...would you leave me there?"
John shuts his eyes. "Point taken."
"Okay. If you get sick, I will take care of you. If you get arrested, I will get you out."
"Will you let me take care of you if you get sick, then?"
"I don't get sick." Not an answer.
"Try again."
Stubborn face. "No."
"I refuse to accept that as an answer."
"It's not your job to protect me."
"Oh hell. We keep going over this. Why isn't it my job to protect you? How can I be safer, or happier, if you don't let me."
"It's my job to protect you. To protect John Connor." That doesn't answer him at all.
"Fine. That's your job. I'm not arguing about your job."
"It's not yours to protect me."
"No it's my job to save the world. Guess what? It doesn't need saving. But you need protecting. Because you won't protect yourself." John might be getting a little angry and frustrated with this.
"It doesn't need saving?" The conversation she just had on craigslist has made her think that that's not correct. "I don't need protecting."
"The hell you don't."
"I don't."
"Really. Really. You refuse to believe that you could get lost, or sick, or hurt. You're like the little girl that could and, what, I'm just supposed to sit back and let you run yourself into the ground? Don't do this, Allison. I have one thing that is important to me. One."
She's trying. Really, she is trying. But call and response, programming, all of that is very strong when she's this far regressed. Even if she's trying. "I...it's my job to protect you. I don't know how...I'm not a little girl."
"Letting me protect you doesn't invalidate your job of protecting me."
"How doesn't it? Why doesn't it?"
"If it were someone else, some other person, or a group of people, or the whole damned world, you'd let me do it. You'd watch my back and tell me when I'm risking too much but you would fucking let me. The only thing that's different about this, right now? Is that it's you. And you don't think you deserve saving."
She doesn't say anything. At all. That may be it, may actually be one of the things going on in her head. But she won't say it. Not yet.
"My job is to protect people. Lead them. Only there's no one to lead and you won't let me protect the one person I give a damn about."
"Not yet. There's no one to lead yet." She closes her eyes. "Theres nothing to protect me from. I don't..." Sigh.
John sighs and moves forward, putting his hands on either side of her face and resting his forehead against hers. "If there's nothing to protect you from, why do I need protecting?"
"Because they're coming. They're still coming, and they'll get to you and I'll be alone."
"Who is coming?"
"Metal. Machines. Infiltrators." Her voice is shaking, just a bit. "They're coming, and they'll take you and kill you and it'll be my fault, because I lost you."
"Oh, Allison." John puts his arms around her, holding her, whether she likes it or not. "I'm not going anywhere without you."
"You did. You have."
"...You're talking about the hospital?"
"Yes." Among other times, when she simply lost track.
"Even if I went to the hospital now, I'd let you know. Call you. You'd have the names I would use. I'm not going anywhere without you."
"And if they come?"
"I'm not going anywhere without you."
"Okay. All right. I'll protect you."
John sighs, just a little bit. "But you won't let me protect you."
Twitch. Just a tiny one. "What would you protect me from? Why do I deserve it?"
"From yourself. From the flaws in what Sarah taught you. From idiots like Lightman. You deserve it because I love you."
"From myself?" That seems to click...something.
"From yourself." John frowns a little.
"Like when I tried to cut the metal out?"
"Yes." John might be holding his breath.
She takes a really, really long time to answer. Going over things in her head. Parameter, possible outcomes. Details. Finally: "You can protect me from myself. Yes."
Well, he can't hold his breath that long. Eventually be has to breathe again. "Okay." The fact that it takes this long to get that from her makes him feel incredibly lost.
"Is that okay? Is that enough?"
"It is okay. It's all you can give me now."
"Yes. It's all I can give you now. I'm sorry."
"It's okay. You're trying. That's something."
"Yes. That's something. I don't know how to fix this. I don't want...I don't want to be like this again."
"Knowing that you don't want it is better. It means it's not as bad as you think."
"Is he right?"
"That you're crazy? No. That you need mental help?" John frowns a bit. "That's what I'm trying to do. He said it to see what would happen, what we would say. What I would say."
"What do we do if he comes back?"
"Ask him to leave. Possibly file a harassment claim." You don't get fingerprinted for those.
"Okay. All right." Sigh. "I'm sorry that I wasn't stronger."
"If someone went on and on about judgment day in front of me I'd have lost it. You saw what happened with Dib and he was kidding and I knew that. We're not in control of everthing." Small twitch. "Whether we like it or not."
"I know. I want to be. I need to be." She opens her eyes. "I will try baking more."
"I want to be too. Need, maybe. But we're still strong. You're still stronger than anyone I know." Smile. "Try wanting to bake more."
"I will. I'll try." She has no idea how to do that. No idea if he's right that they're strong.
Normal people, by John's measure, would have either killed themselves or gone more visibly insane by now. Normal people would've killed Cal Lightman before he left the building. Normal people in their situation, anyway. "Okay."
She wanted to kill Cal Lightman. Would have, if John hadn't said something. "Do you want to sleep now?"
So did he. He didn't want to deal with what that would have meant, for them. "Yes."
"You should sleep now."
John sighs. No, really? "Okay."
"Do you want me to go with you?"
"You'll check up on me, either way. I don't know, right now."
"Why don't you know?" Head tilting with her eyes closed is...interesting.
Amusing, slightly. Just a bit. "Because I don't want you to pretend to sleep or anything right now. I don't want to be the reason."
"I don't have to pretend." By which she means, she'll stay awake and stare at you. "The reason?"
"Mm. The reason you do anything, I mean." Well. Good thing he got used to that three years ago.
"You are the reason I do things."
"I know." And that's kind of sad, isn't it?
She doesn't think so, no. "Is that wrong?"
"No. It's not wrong. But the same way you don't feel you deserve saving, I don't feel I deserve that from you."
"You're wrong. You deserve that from me."
"I'll believe that when you believe the same."
"I don't know how to believe that."
"That makes two of us." John sighs.
"I'm broken."
"So am I. Hell, so is Dib, and Livvie, and everyone I can think of."
"Is that bad? Does that make it better?"
"It means that people break. It means you're not alone in that."
"I'm alone in how."
"In being broken. Am I even making any sense, to you?" Blink. "Wait, what do you mean in how?"
"No." She opens her eyes, finally. "No one's broken like me. Or like you. Or like Livvie or Dib."
"...Would you rather we were all broken in the same way?" Like people on an assembly line, he thinks.
Like machines? "It would be easier to fix."
"But then we'd all be the same."
"Would that be worse?"
"...To me, I think. Maybe not so much to other people."
"Okay. I'm sorry."
"Why are you sorry?" John wonders why he has these conversations when she sees metal and he wishes he did.
Maybe so she'll stop seeing it. "That I don't understand things."
Maybe. "I don't understand things either."
"What don't you understand?"
"How to fix us, sometimes. How I'm different from my mother."
Sharp look now. "You're nothing like her."
"I don't understand that." Your sharp looks aren't fazing him, he's that tired and out of it. "I don't understand why you love me after the last four years, after the times when I was just like her, after all the yelling and screaming and lies and treating you like you were worthless."
"You talked to me. You wouldn't let her leave me or get rid of me, even when you were yelling at me or screaming at me or treating me like I was worthless." She touches his face. "Even when I wanted to kill you. Tried to. Tried to hurt her. When I was glitching. I don't know why you didn't let her."
John flinches. Not from her touch but from the honesty of how insane that sounds. "Because I loved you. Because I needed you, even when I didn't think I did."
"You're nothing like her. Because of that."
"If I don't understand how something works, sometimes I would rather break them than leave them alone." John looks at her. "Do you understand?" How much that terrifies him?
"You would rather break me than leave me alone?" She's...not sure that that's it. At all.
"No. Not you...everything but you. This city, all of it. Start over, and see how it works from nothing."
"Why don't you?"
"I'd rather not be responsible for the death of that many people. Besides it wouldn't fix anything; it would just make new problems. There's no such thing as perfect, no such thing as utopia. No such thing as cultural history."
"You don't want to be skynet." Whatever that means.
"No, I don't." What it means is that John doesn't want to kill people to make things "better".
"I wanted to build robots."
John closes his eyes. "Your father told me."
Did it bother him? "Did she know that?"
John had the quietest panic attack ever. "No. I never talked to her about you."
"Not even after?"
"It was a quick way to start a fight, so. No." Not even after.
"I hate her."
"So do I." He does, really. He wishes he could just...imagine her out of existence as opposed to someone haivng to kill her, however, and then he feels somewhat cowardly for that.
Wish her into the cornfield, so to speak? "I don't think you do." Because she's his mother.
"I don't think you should."
Exactly. "It's too late for that. I can't forgive her of all of this. I don't like her. I don't even know that I love her. So what else is there?"
"I don't know." Very, very long pause. "I wouldn't be a very good mother."
Oh fuck, that startles John. A lot. "...Why not?"
Okay. Now he gets a Look. "Why do you think?"
"I don't know. Explain it to me. I'm pretty sure my crazy is genetic so it's a pretty much moot point but I don't get how you're a bad candidate for motherhood."
"You're not crazy. I'm too broken."
"Like hell I'm not. What do you mean, too broken?"
"You're not." Sigh. "Unfit."
"Allison, I am. I'm just functioning." Slight frown. "I doubt you'd let anything happen to your child. Or not love it."
"You're not." Apparently, she's still stubborn. "I have to protect you." And don't think she hasn't noticed that your.
"Mmm." John is not conceding on that point. "Does that mean you wouldn't be able to protect a child?"
"I don't know."
Well he's a guy and they're not talking about having children they're talking about Allison's ability to be a good mother. Which John doesn't see as exactly the same thing. "I don't think so."
"I think I would get annoyed. Bothered. Distracted."
"You're assuming most mothers don't."
"I'm assuming most mothers aren't efficiently lethal when they're upset." Not that she'd act on that, but.
"I'm having a hard time imagining you being efficiently lethal towards a child."
"Maybe. I don't think I could. Be a mother."
"Okay. It's not like I would force you to do that." Or even ask her, at this rate.
"No. You could not. I have many pills." Well. Okay, then.
"...Good to know."
"Is it?"
"I have no idea why this is the current topic of conversation but considering that nether of us has much faith in our own ability to be a parent....yes.."
"You'd be fine." Offhand, like there's no room for arguing.
"...Like hell." John will make room. "I don't even know what a normal childhood is."
"Ask Dib. Does that matter?"
"Dib didn't have one either." Like he hasn't researched their friend. "It matters. You don't think you could love a child and I wouldn't know the first thing about making sure they were normal."
"That would be a very bad equation."
"Yes." So they aren't having children.
"That's good to know." Not in this universe, anyway.
John gives a little sigh. "Yeah, it is."
She looks confused at the sigh. "Why is it? What else is?"
"Why is it good to know?" Slight sag in his shoulders. "Because these are things I assume couples talk about."
"Then, why are you so upset?"
She tilts her head. "I don't understand."
"Our reasons upset me."
"Maybe they'll change." Given that they aren't even out of their early twenties yet.
"I'm..." More sighing. "I don't know. I wish this wasn't such a big deal,with me."
"Why is it?"
"...Because of my issues with my mother." And the black hole of knowledge he maintains about his father.
"You're not your mother." Or his father. "Our reasons could change."
"I'm still her son. They could change."
"Yes. You're still her son. Do you want them to?"
"I don't know."
"I don't know either. Will we?"
"I think we'll get to the point where we have to talk about it again." He hopes for that.
"That's fair. I hope so. I would like to be at that point. I would like to be happier."
"Me too. I would like us to be happier."
"What do we need to do?"
"I don't know. Learn what makes up happier. Which sounds ridiculous, but there you go."
"What makes you happier?"
"When you laugh, unexpectedly. I don't know."
"Other than me. Things to do with me."
"I don't know. The nights when my dreams aren't nightmares." That's not often.
She hmms. "What do you dream about, when they aren't nightmares?"
"Bells." Those aren't nightmares, they're just creepy. "Parts of the desert I liked..." Pause. "Getting married."
"Bells? What part of the desert did you like?" She blinks. "To me?" No, Allison. To Riley.
"Large bells that sometimes don't actually make any noise." Because his subconscious is mean. "The red rocks of Arizona, for one thing. " A Look. "Yes, to you."
"Why bells? Do you want to?" They have such odd conversation tracks.
"Warning bells, I don't know." Startled look. "...Yes."
"Air raid sirens? Emergency alert system? Specific area message encoding?" Oh, hey, look. Some crazy leaked out. "Now?" ...yes, Allison. Right this second.
"Gigantic church bells." Oh God, you think. "...No not right this moment." John is trying so hard not to give her a wtf Look...and failing. Miserably.
"Why would that be a warning? A warning for what?" Head tilt. "You're very confusing."
"It doesn't exactly make sense, Allison. Dreams that aren't memories are like that." Sigh. A shrug. "How am I confusing, right now?"
"I don't understand what you mean."
The arms go up into the air. "What? What I mean about what?"
She gives him a look. "Marrying me. Bells." So. All of it.
"I don't see what's so damned confusing about wanting to marry you." Bells are a dream and he probably couldn't explain it if he wasn't so bone tired.
"You want to marry me, but not now?"
"I want to marry you. Not...tonight, right this moment. Do you want to marry me?"
She considers this, not because she doesn't know but because she's never thought it was an option. Oh, honey. "Yes."
She might want to tell John that. "You never thought about it before?"
"I didn't think we could."
Small headtilt. "Because of Sarah?"
"Yes." Obviously.
John looks at the floor. "I don't...know what to say about that."
"I'm sorry?"
"Don't be sorry! It's not your fault."
"No. It's not my fault."
"Do you believe that?" Oh, the repeating.
"Yes? No. I don't know." She's very confused, isn't she? "Are you asking me to? I don't remember how things work."
"How things..." Oh. Oh. Fucking A. "I will." When they aren't as insane.
"Oh. I see. Thank you for explaining." Not sarcasm.
"...I'm sorry I shouldn't have just...said that." God now he feels like an idiot. On top of everything else.
She tilts her head. "Why not?"
"That's not the way things like that are supposed to be done."
"Why does that matter?"
"Because we're trying to be normal."
"You said we were making our own normal," she points out.
"...That's true." He still would have wanted this entire conversation to start some other way.
"So why does it matter?"
"Because I would have preferred this conversation be more...something other than this."
"Oh." She blinks, tilts her head. "Something more like what?"
"Something more romantic for one thing." Mumblegrumble.
"Happiness, dreams, love, children, marriage." A litany of what you have discussed probably does not help. "I need different parameters."
"I can't...help you with that. Romance is kind of a personally defined thing."
"You can tell me your definition."
"Romantic things should rarely be uncomfortable conversations. I think."
"Have we had anything like that?"
"No. I'm not particularly thrilled with that."
"Can we?"
"I don't see why we couldn't, it just hasn't happened that way."
"Why not?" What are you, five?
"...I don't know." That's a damned good question, Allison. "Why do you think?"
Considering. "We don't focus on that."
"Because all our conversations about how we feel about each other are after other conversations?"
"Yes. Because of that."
John sighs. "Maybe we should be a bit more attentive of that, then."
"How?" She would like to be.
"By having conversations that start about things like our feelings for one another, I guess."
"Yes. Or baking." What.
"...Conversations that start with baking?" John's thinking of their cursed emotional kitchen.
"With cookies." As in tomorrow, John.
"...Ok." This should't be as frightening as it is.
"Is that all right?" Just make a list, John.
"Yes." He will so make a list.
"Okay." Face patting. What, Allison.
John looks as little lost. "Why did you do that?"
Well, now she looks confused. "I don't know."
Small headtilt. Smile. "...Okay. Let me know if you figure it out?"
"I'll do that. Yes."
"Thank you." Kiss. "I think I'll go to bed now." And dream about...who knows what.
"Okay." She kisses him back. "I'll be in later." The EAS?
Most likely. Thank you for that. "Goodnight, Allison."
He is so welcome. "Goodnight, John."
There were several choice things he wanted to say to Dr. Lightman, but that was neither here nor there.
What was here, and now, were the words on Allison's screen:
What I am asking, dear Allison, is if your man or boy or what have you agrees that you're better if it doesn't matter.
No. He doesn't agree that I'm better if it doesn't matter.
Then why do you? If you live to protect him, as you say?
Because he can't be trusted. He risks things. He does things that could upset people.
That stopped him in his tracks, moving his hand to Allison's shoulder, the question he was going to ask her gone by the time he finished the motion. "Can you turn that off for me? I need to talk to you."
"Yes. I can turn it off for you." She finishes typing, one more reply before she does what he asks. Closing the laptop, putting it to sleep. She can go back to it later, if need be. The internet's not going anywhere.
She's noticed that she's different since Dr Lightman came to the store, she sees the metal under her skin more often. Feels more like a machine. Feels dull, lifeless. She hasn't baked anything, hasn't cooked anything.
She's cheerful around Dib, tries to be around John. But it isn't real. It doesn't feel real. It feels wrong now. Pretend.
John sits on the couch next to her, at something of a loss as how to start this. "...You don't have to pretend, around me." Did she think he couldn't notice that something was off? That she didn't laugh much, hadn't baked anything, didn't tease him?
"No. I don't have to pretend around you." That she's parroting more, maybe more than she did before? That she's starting to believe again, in the things Sarah taught her about? Yeah. She doesn't think he's noticed.
"Allison..." And now, with the sighing. How is he supposed to fix all this, now? "Why don't you trust me?"
How did he fix it before? "You risk things. You do things that upset people."
Before he had time. He's feeling a little overwhelmed. "Like what?" Slight confusion. Not a whole lot, however. "Why haven't you baked anything this week?"
"Things. Did we order from Pizza Planet?" She touches the back of his neck, pretty much ignoring his question.
"I need parameters for things." John frowns slightly. "I don't think so. What are you checking for?"
"Things that upset people. Open your mouth." ...What, Allison?
"I need parameters for that." Odd look. "...Why?"
"Making me more human. Changing what I am." She grips his chin, pulling him to face her. "Open. There's mold in Pizza Planet pizzas. Fungus."
John frowns but complies. And when she'd done seeing there's nothing wrong with him, he'll shut his mouth but he won't pull away. "You don't trust me because I want you to be Allison and not Sarah's machine."
"Yes." She lets go of him once she's seen that he appears to be fine. "Tell me if you get a rash or chest pains."
"So you want me to stop trying, then." Like she wouldn't know if he suddenly developed a rash.
"I didn't say that." She would, no doubt, know. "He said I'm crazy."
"And you believe him? He was pressed against a counter and kept saying shit just to see what you'd do; it's a huge fucking experiment to him and he doesn't care if you get hurt or not. I say he's fucking sociopathic."
She shakes her head. "I know I'm real." It's a concession, more than she'd like. "but sometimes I don't. More often than not lately."
"I don't understand." Not the knowing she's real part, and John knows he needs to clarify. "You don't trust me because I try to make you feel real, more often, and sometimes it upsets you. But you don't want me to stop."
"I don't know what I want."
"...I wish you'd trust me." John doesn't want to make this about what he wants. "What do you need?"
"I did trust you." To an extent, she still does. But then came Dr Lightman. "Need?"
"But you don't, anymore." John is...somewhat aware of the extent. "Yes. Need."
"No. I don't know." She tilts her head. "I don't know what I need."
"You told someone else that you didn't. That whether or not you get hurt doesn't matter to you." He won't point out the obvious. "...All right."
"It doesn't matter to me. I don't distrust you on everything." She stares at her hand, tilting it back and forth. "What should I need?"
"What do you distrust me on, then?" God. Would this conversation be easier drunk? It's probably a bad thing that John even seriously considers that. "You know that I can't be the one to tell you that, Allison."
"Knowing what's best when it comes to how I should be. How I need to be to protect you." Would he remember it, drunk? "Why do I know that?"
"I know that you don't need to go to Arkham to kill my mother in order to protect me. I'm not going to change my mind on that." Ever. Also he probably wouldn, there's only so drunk he'll allow himself to get after their first experiment. "Why do you think you don't?"
"That's what I need to do. That's not who I need to be." She keeps staring at her hand. "I don't know that. What I need."
"That's how you think you need to protect me. Why do you need to be this instead of the person you were a week or so ago?" Make him understated, please. John will also hold that hand you're staring at so intently. "If you don't know what you need, why do you think I can tell you? What do I need, Allison?"
"I need to be like this. So I can protect you. So I can keep you safe. Alive." She closes and opens her hand. "You want me to be real."
"Why do you think you can't do that and be the person you were?" John frowns. "But that's not what I need."
"I can't protect you from them if I'm real." Open, close, open. "There's a glitch in my hand. You should fix that." A twitch is not a glitch. "What do you need?"
"You don't forget to fight if you're real. Forget to shoot. Forget how to protect me. That's not how it works." John rubs his thumb on the inside of her wrist. "You don't have glitches, Allison. I need you."
"I feel pain if I'm real. They can hurt me if I'm real. Use me against you." She closes her eyes for a moment, and opens them again. "You have me."
"You feel pain when you aren't real. You flinch. You don't fall, but you feel it." John stops himself short of saying 'They could always use you against me.' Even though it's true. Because he loves her. "You don't want to be you though. So I have you. Pretending. Because you think it'll keep me happy. It doesn't."
"I feel sensation when I'm not real. That's not the same thing." She shakes her head, opens and closes her hand. "I'm not sure I can be me. What if she's dead?"
"Can you kiss me, when you're not real? Do you want to?" That is probably...not the most important thing for John to be asking, right now. "Tell me the difference between feeling and having sensation. Between being hurt and feeling hurt. If she's dead, then good riddance. I won't cry."
She thinks about this. "Yes. I want to. " Hand closed, around his. "I can feel warmth. I can feel heat. Wind. But if I burn, it doesn't hurt. I wouldn't scream. If I'm shot, I won't cry." She pauses, looking at him. "You won't cry if Allison Young is dead?"
"Well. That's good to know." Yet John's not smiling about it. "You have nightmares, either way. Why?"
Okay that makes John make a pained face. "...I thought you meant Sarah."
"Is that good to know?" She sees the not smiling, is confused by it. "I don't know why. No, I didn't mean Sarah."
"Yes." But John's still not happy about it; it doesn't make things better, you see. "I think it means you feel things, and you make yourself forget. But you can't really forget like that, not any more. So it comes out, when you sleep." A small sigh. "If Allison Young is dead then I'm in a lot of trouble."
"What do I make myself forget?" She looks over at that sigh. "In trouble?"
"What it means to feel things, as opposed to just sensation." John looks at Allison for a moment. "Because I'm in love with Allison Young just as much as I'm in love with the girl talking to me, now."
She looks at him some more. "I don't know what to do, John. I've gotten worse, I know that. I can see that."
"You got worse because that guy did and said everything to make you upset. Help me make it better?"
She nods, and looks at the floor. "How?"
John cups her chin, lifting her face. "By wanting my help."
She's quiet now. "Okay." Is it really that easy? Really? "I haven't felt like baking anything."
"Tell me what okay means." When Allison is like this is usually means let's placate John. "Why not?"
"Okay, I will let you help me." She shakes her head. "I don't know."
"That isn't the same as wanting me to." John really, really, wants to strangle Cal Lightman about now. "Will you teach me to bake chocolate chip cookies?"
"It has to be. For now." Another concession. The idea that maybe she will want his help later. "Yes. If you like."
"It isn't the same. But I'll accept it." He needs her to understand that, very badly. "Only if you feel up to it. I refuse to make the decision about that. You've see me cook."
"I feel up to it. I'll teach you how to bake chocolate chip cookies."
"Okay. Tomorrow?"
She nods. "Okay. Tomorrow. Why is it important that I'm a person?"
"Because you're happy, as a person. If you don't feel, you're not happy. You're happiness is important to me."
She closes her eyes. "What if I'm not happy, when I'm a person again?"
"Then I'll do whatever I can to make you happy." He's well aware that might not be possible.
"Because that's important to you? Does that make you happy?"
"Yes. I'm happy, when you're happy. That's not obvious?"
"I don't know. Does it keep you safe? Protect you?"
"Being happy keeps me safe, yes." John's much more...impulsive, when he's unhappy.
"All right. Then, I want you to help me."
"All right." John takes a deep breath. "When I met you, you used to pour pixie stix in your sodas. You smelled like...a bakery." Small shrug.
Slight smile. Very slight smile. "What else?"
"You were the most stubborn person I knew. Still are."
"I know that. I think I know that."
"Yeah." Slight smirk. "I didn't understand why you talked to me, why you liked me."
"Because you were different. I could talk to you, and you got what I was saying."
"Ah." John didn't realize until much later that people had trouble with that. "I think I told you that you were my first friend."
"Yes. I think you did. You were the only one whose opinion I cared about."
That's interesting. "Why?"
"You were the only one I liked."
"...All right. That still surprises me, a bit. Who was your friend before I showed up?"
"I didn't have friends. Not really. I had people I was friendly with. You knew them."
That's a bit more surprising. "I see."
"I had a friend. When I was six. That doesn't count. And my father."
"No, I'm pretty sure friends from ten years before you met me don't count. I liked your father." John wonders if her family is dangerous territory to be getting into, right now.
Possibly. Probably. It might shake her out of it. It might push her further into it. "He liked you. He didn't like your mother."
"Charlie was the only one who did." And look what that got him.
"Mary thought she was pretty." And look what that got her.
John winces. He's not sure he can talk about anything involving Mary.
She's not sure she can either. "I miss him."
"I miss him too." Even though he was pushy and nosy. "...I'm not sure I can do this, right now."
She gives him a look. "All right."
Deep breath. "I have no idea what that look means. There are times when I envy your ability to do...this. Forget."
"I don't want to forget. But I don't want to remember."
"We can't have it both ways."
She sighs. "I know that. I know we can't. I don't want them to be gone because she's crazy."
"The memories or your family?"
"My family. My memories."
"I can only help you with one of those."
"I know. I know that."
"Okay." John feels tired and like he's fighting a losing battle. Not just with her, but with his mother's programming, and people deciding to be nosy and hurtful because they can.
She can see that, and it hurts. In a way she says she can't feel, and she doesn't know what to make of that. "I don't want to hurt you."
Slight head tilt. "Why do you think you're hurting me?"
"Because you want to fix me, make me better and I keep fighting it. I keep losing what I gained."
"This wasn't your fault. Besides, you feel...stronger, like this. Less fragile. Less able to be hurt. So it makes sense, that you'd cling to it if you were forced back into that state of mind."
"Maybe. But I don't want it hurting you. Okay?"
"I'm trying not to be hurt." Sigh. "I wish I could leave it alone."
"But you are hurt. Yes?" She looks at him.
"...I don't know how to explain. It's not a physical hurt."
"Try? To explain? Please?"
Another sigh and John settles more into the couch. "I feel...lost, overwhelmed, a bit. Because it isn't permanent, it can't be. Things will happen. People will mess with you. Because that's the way the world is. And it hurts you, sometimes, and I don't know...if it's worth it. Right then. But I can't just leave it alone."
She's quiet for a long moment. Thinking. Feeling, or trying to. Closing her eyes, opening them. Watching him. "I don't want you to leave it alone."
John meets her gaze then. Thinking about it. Thinking about what it might mean, for her to say that now. What it probably means. What he wants it mean. "I won't, then. Since you want me to. But I am tired, right now."
That she wants to be happy. That she wants him to be happy. "What do you want to do right now?"
"Sleep, or try to." Because John knows it's a crapshoot. "Hold you. Kiss you. That's it."
"All right. Okay." She squeezes his hand. "We'll do that, then."
Smile. Hand squeeze in return. "Are you tired?"
"No. But I'll get in bed with you."
"How about you wait until you're tired, then? I'll wake up. It'll be fine."
"I might not get tired. I don't have anything else I'm doing." Brief pause. "Unless you don't want me to."
"Eventually, you should rest. Even if it's only for a few hours."
"I know. I'll rest when you do." Rest. Pretend to sleep.
"I can tell when you're pretending." For the record.
"I know you can." For the record. "How can you?"
"I'm not telling." Because she'll adjust her behavior to fit, without a doubt.
She smirks. Just a bit. Barely. "That's not fair."
"I never promised to be fair." He's not stupid.
"No? Why not?"
"Because you're smart. If I told you how I can tell, you'd just do your best to figure out a way around it." Like with the Arkham conversation.
Just like that. "Fair enough." No use denying that she wouldn't do that.
John chuckles. "I'm glad you agree."
She smiles, just the slightest bit. "I'm very stubborn."
"I love that about you." He traces her smile with one fingertip.
"Why do you?" She relaxes, just a tiny bit.
"I've never met anyone as stubborn as you are. It's a strength. Something I think I need." The finger moves past, to behind her ear, and his hand rests there.
"Why do you think you need that?"
"Because I don't have it. I'd sacrifice myself for the things I think would make your life better, and you won't let me."
"Of course I won't let you. Why would I let you?"
"Maybe you'd be happier without me. Safer."
She gives him a look. A Look look. "No. I wouldn't."
John just looks a little sad. All right, but sad. "I know."
Sometimes, sometimes, he wishes that wasn't true. He wishes he could do something that would give her the life he thinks she deserves.
Maybe she thinks that she has the life she deserves. More than likely this is true.. "Why do you keep saying things like that? Why do you keep trying to get rid of me?"
"I'm not trying to get rid of you." John frowns.
"Then why do you say things like that?"
"I think your life would be better if I had never been in it."
"I think you're wrong."
John doesn't say anything for a while. "I'm not trying to get rid of you."
"Then stop saying things like that." She has, to an extent, a point there.
"I don't get why me being around is helping you. How it's helping you." John. Really?
She's not sure how to put it more delicately. "I wouldn't try if you weren't around. I wouldn't care enough."
"What if something happens to me? What if I get sick, or arrested? What then?"
"I'll take care of you. I'll get you out."
"What if staying in jail means making things easier for us when I get out?"
She pauses. "I don't understand the question." Requires more parameters, good sir.
"All right." Small pause. "If there were a situation in which...my record would be expunged, or yours, if I went to prison for a while. What then?"
"Do you want your record expunged?"
"It would make our lives easier."
"Would it? I don't know. I would still get you out." Ask her why. Go on.
John sighs. He sees this logic trap. "Why would you still get me out?"
She will answer this with her own question. "If they put me in Arkham, and things would be better for us if I stayed and got out the normal way...would you leave me there?"
John shuts his eyes. "Point taken."
"Okay. If you get sick, I will take care of you. If you get arrested, I will get you out."
"Will you let me take care of you if you get sick, then?"
"I don't get sick." Not an answer.
"Try again."
Stubborn face. "No."
"I refuse to accept that as an answer."
"It's not your job to protect me."
"Oh hell. We keep going over this. Why isn't it my job to protect you? How can I be safer, or happier, if you don't let me."
"It's my job to protect you. To protect John Connor." That doesn't answer him at all.
"Fine. That's your job. I'm not arguing about your job."
"It's not yours to protect me."
"No it's my job to save the world. Guess what? It doesn't need saving. But you need protecting. Because you won't protect yourself." John might be getting a little angry and frustrated with this.
"It doesn't need saving?" The conversation she just had on craigslist has made her think that that's not correct. "I don't need protecting."
"The hell you don't."
"I don't."
"Really. Really. You refuse to believe that you could get lost, or sick, or hurt. You're like the little girl that could and, what, I'm just supposed to sit back and let you run yourself into the ground? Don't do this, Allison. I have one thing that is important to me. One."
She's trying. Really, she is trying. But call and response, programming, all of that is very strong when she's this far regressed. Even if she's trying. "I...it's my job to protect you. I don't know how...I'm not a little girl."
"Letting me protect you doesn't invalidate your job of protecting me."
"How doesn't it? Why doesn't it?"
"If it were someone else, some other person, or a group of people, or the whole damned world, you'd let me do it. You'd watch my back and tell me when I'm risking too much but you would fucking let me. The only thing that's different about this, right now? Is that it's you. And you don't think you deserve saving."
She doesn't say anything. At all. That may be it, may actually be one of the things going on in her head. But she won't say it. Not yet.
"My job is to protect people. Lead them. Only there's no one to lead and you won't let me protect the one person I give a damn about."
"Not yet. There's no one to lead yet." She closes her eyes. "Theres nothing to protect me from. I don't..." Sigh.
John sighs and moves forward, putting his hands on either side of her face and resting his forehead against hers. "If there's nothing to protect you from, why do I need protecting?"
"Because they're coming. They're still coming, and they'll get to you and I'll be alone."
"Who is coming?"
"Metal. Machines. Infiltrators." Her voice is shaking, just a bit. "They're coming, and they'll take you and kill you and it'll be my fault, because I lost you."
"Oh, Allison." John puts his arms around her, holding her, whether she likes it or not. "I'm not going anywhere without you."
"You did. You have."
"...You're talking about the hospital?"
"Yes." Among other times, when she simply lost track.
"Even if I went to the hospital now, I'd let you know. Call you. You'd have the names I would use. I'm not going anywhere without you."
"And if they come?"
"I'm not going anywhere without you."
"Okay. All right. I'll protect you."
John sighs, just a little bit. "But you won't let me protect you."
Twitch. Just a tiny one. "What would you protect me from? Why do I deserve it?"
"From yourself. From the flaws in what Sarah taught you. From idiots like Lightman. You deserve it because I love you."
"From myself?" That seems to click...something.
"From yourself." John frowns a little.
"Like when I tried to cut the metal out?"
"Yes." John might be holding his breath.
She takes a really, really long time to answer. Going over things in her head. Parameter, possible outcomes. Details. Finally: "You can protect me from myself. Yes."
Well, he can't hold his breath that long. Eventually be has to breathe again. "Okay." The fact that it takes this long to get that from her makes him feel incredibly lost.
"Is that okay? Is that enough?"
"It is okay. It's all you can give me now."
"Yes. It's all I can give you now. I'm sorry."
"It's okay. You're trying. That's something."
"Yes. That's something. I don't know how to fix this. I don't want...I don't want to be like this again."
"Knowing that you don't want it is better. It means it's not as bad as you think."
"Is he right?"
"That you're crazy? No. That you need mental help?" John frowns a bit. "That's what I'm trying to do. He said it to see what would happen, what we would say. What I would say."
"What do we do if he comes back?"
"Ask him to leave. Possibly file a harassment claim." You don't get fingerprinted for those.
"Okay. All right." Sigh. "I'm sorry that I wasn't stronger."
"If someone went on and on about judgment day in front of me I'd have lost it. You saw what happened with Dib and he was kidding and I knew that. We're not in control of everthing." Small twitch. "Whether we like it or not."
"I know. I want to be. I need to be." She opens her eyes. "I will try baking more."
"I want to be too. Need, maybe. But we're still strong. You're still stronger than anyone I know." Smile. "Try wanting to bake more."
"I will. I'll try." She has no idea how to do that. No idea if he's right that they're strong.
Normal people, by John's measure, would have either killed themselves or gone more visibly insane by now. Normal people would've killed Cal Lightman before he left the building. Normal people in their situation, anyway. "Okay."
She wanted to kill Cal Lightman. Would have, if John hadn't said something. "Do you want to sleep now?"
So did he. He didn't want to deal with what that would have meant, for them. "Yes."
"You should sleep now."
John sighs. No, really? "Okay."
"Do you want me to go with you?"
"You'll check up on me, either way. I don't know, right now."
"Why don't you know?" Head tilting with her eyes closed is...interesting.
Amusing, slightly. Just a bit. "Because I don't want you to pretend to sleep or anything right now. I don't want to be the reason."
"I don't have to pretend." By which she means, she'll stay awake and stare at you. "The reason?"
"Mm. The reason you do anything, I mean." Well. Good thing he got used to that three years ago.
"You are the reason I do things."
"I know." And that's kind of sad, isn't it?
She doesn't think so, no. "Is that wrong?"
"No. It's not wrong. But the same way you don't feel you deserve saving, I don't feel I deserve that from you."
"You're wrong. You deserve that from me."
"I'll believe that when you believe the same."
"I don't know how to believe that."
"That makes two of us." John sighs.
"I'm broken."
"So am I. Hell, so is Dib, and Livvie, and everyone I can think of."
"Is that bad? Does that make it better?"
"It means that people break. It means you're not alone in that."
"I'm alone in how."
"In being broken. Am I even making any sense, to you?" Blink. "Wait, what do you mean in how?"
"No." She opens her eyes, finally. "No one's broken like me. Or like you. Or like Livvie or Dib."
"...Would you rather we were all broken in the same way?" Like people on an assembly line, he thinks.
Like machines? "It would be easier to fix."
"But then we'd all be the same."
"Would that be worse?"
"...To me, I think. Maybe not so much to other people."
"Okay. I'm sorry."
"Why are you sorry?" John wonders why he has these conversations when she sees metal and he wishes he did.
Maybe so she'll stop seeing it. "That I don't understand things."
Maybe. "I don't understand things either."
"What don't you understand?"
"How to fix us, sometimes. How I'm different from my mother."
Sharp look now. "You're nothing like her."
"I don't understand that." Your sharp looks aren't fazing him, he's that tired and out of it. "I don't understand why you love me after the last four years, after the times when I was just like her, after all the yelling and screaming and lies and treating you like you were worthless."
"You talked to me. You wouldn't let her leave me or get rid of me, even when you were yelling at me or screaming at me or treating me like I was worthless." She touches his face. "Even when I wanted to kill you. Tried to. Tried to hurt her. When I was glitching. I don't know why you didn't let her."
John flinches. Not from her touch but from the honesty of how insane that sounds. "Because I loved you. Because I needed you, even when I didn't think I did."
"You're nothing like her. Because of that."
"If I don't understand how something works, sometimes I would rather break them than leave them alone." John looks at her. "Do you understand?" How much that terrifies him?
"You would rather break me than leave me alone?" She's...not sure that that's it. At all.
"No. Not you...everything but you. This city, all of it. Start over, and see how it works from nothing."
"Why don't you?"
"I'd rather not be responsible for the death of that many people. Besides it wouldn't fix anything; it would just make new problems. There's no such thing as perfect, no such thing as utopia. No such thing as cultural history."
"You don't want to be skynet." Whatever that means.
"No, I don't." What it means is that John doesn't want to kill people to make things "better".
"I wanted to build robots."
John closes his eyes. "Your father told me."
Did it bother him? "Did she know that?"
John had the quietest panic attack ever. "No. I never talked to her about you."
"Not even after?"
"It was a quick way to start a fight, so. No." Not even after.
"I hate her."
"So do I." He does, really. He wishes he could just...imagine her out of existence as opposed to someone haivng to kill her, however, and then he feels somewhat cowardly for that.
Wish her into the cornfield, so to speak? "I don't think you do." Because she's his mother.
"I don't think you should."
Exactly. "It's too late for that. I can't forgive her of all of this. I don't like her. I don't even know that I love her. So what else is there?"
"I don't know." Very, very long pause. "I wouldn't be a very good mother."
Oh fuck, that startles John. A lot. "...Why not?"
Okay. Now he gets a Look. "Why do you think?"
"I don't know. Explain it to me. I'm pretty sure my crazy is genetic so it's a pretty much moot point but I don't get how you're a bad candidate for motherhood."
"You're not crazy. I'm too broken."
"Like hell I'm not. What do you mean, too broken?"
"You're not." Sigh. "Unfit."
"Allison, I am. I'm just functioning." Slight frown. "I doubt you'd let anything happen to your child. Or not love it."
"You're not." Apparently, she's still stubborn. "I have to protect you." And don't think she hasn't noticed that your.
"Mmm." John is not conceding on that point. "Does that mean you wouldn't be able to protect a child?"
"I don't know."
Well he's a guy and they're not talking about having children they're talking about Allison's ability to be a good mother. Which John doesn't see as exactly the same thing. "I don't think so."
"I think I would get annoyed. Bothered. Distracted."
"You're assuming most mothers don't."
"I'm assuming most mothers aren't efficiently lethal when they're upset." Not that she'd act on that, but.
"I'm having a hard time imagining you being efficiently lethal towards a child."
"Maybe. I don't think I could. Be a mother."
"Okay. It's not like I would force you to do that." Or even ask her, at this rate.
"No. You could not. I have many pills." Well. Okay, then.
"...Good to know."
"Is it?"
"I have no idea why this is the current topic of conversation but considering that nether of us has much faith in our own ability to be a parent....yes.."
"You'd be fine." Offhand, like there's no room for arguing.
"...Like hell." John will make room. "I don't even know what a normal childhood is."
"Ask Dib. Does that matter?"
"Dib didn't have one either." Like he hasn't researched their friend. "It matters. You don't think you could love a child and I wouldn't know the first thing about making sure they were normal."
"That would be a very bad equation."
"Yes." So they aren't having children.
"That's good to know." Not in this universe, anyway.
John gives a little sigh. "Yeah, it is."
She looks confused at the sigh. "Why is it? What else is?"
"Why is it good to know?" Slight sag in his shoulders. "Because these are things I assume couples talk about."
"Then, why are you so upset?"
She tilts her head. "I don't understand."
"Our reasons upset me."
"Maybe they'll change." Given that they aren't even out of their early twenties yet.
"I'm..." More sighing. "I don't know. I wish this wasn't such a big deal,with me."
"Why is it?"
"...Because of my issues with my mother." And the black hole of knowledge he maintains about his father.
"You're not your mother." Or his father. "Our reasons could change."
"I'm still her son. They could change."
"Yes. You're still her son. Do you want them to?"
"I don't know."
"I don't know either. Will we?"
"I think we'll get to the point where we have to talk about it again." He hopes for that.
"That's fair. I hope so. I would like to be at that point. I would like to be happier."
"Me too. I would like us to be happier."
"What do we need to do?"
"I don't know. Learn what makes up happier. Which sounds ridiculous, but there you go."
"What makes you happier?"
"When you laugh, unexpectedly. I don't know."
"Other than me. Things to do with me."
"I don't know. The nights when my dreams aren't nightmares." That's not often.
She hmms. "What do you dream about, when they aren't nightmares?"
"Bells." Those aren't nightmares, they're just creepy. "Parts of the desert I liked..." Pause. "Getting married."
"Bells? What part of the desert did you like?" She blinks. "To me?" No, Allison. To Riley.
"Large bells that sometimes don't actually make any noise." Because his subconscious is mean. "The red rocks of Arizona, for one thing. " A Look. "Yes, to you."
"Why bells? Do you want to?" They have such odd conversation tracks.
"Warning bells, I don't know." Startled look. "...Yes."
"Air raid sirens? Emergency alert system? Specific area message encoding?" Oh, hey, look. Some crazy leaked out. "Now?" ...yes, Allison. Right this second.
"Gigantic church bells." Oh God, you think. "...No not right this moment." John is trying so hard not to give her a wtf Look...and failing. Miserably.
"Why would that be a warning? A warning for what?" Head tilt. "You're very confusing."
"It doesn't exactly make sense, Allison. Dreams that aren't memories are like that." Sigh. A shrug. "How am I confusing, right now?"
"I don't understand what you mean."
The arms go up into the air. "What? What I mean about what?"
She gives him a look. "Marrying me. Bells." So. All of it.
"I don't see what's so damned confusing about wanting to marry you." Bells are a dream and he probably couldn't explain it if he wasn't so bone tired.
"You want to marry me, but not now?"
"I want to marry you. Not...tonight, right this moment. Do you want to marry me?"
She considers this, not because she doesn't know but because she's never thought it was an option. Oh, honey. "Yes."
She might want to tell John that. "You never thought about it before?"
"I didn't think we could."
Small headtilt. "Because of Sarah?"
"Yes." Obviously.
John looks at the floor. "I don't...know what to say about that."
"I'm sorry?"
"Don't be sorry! It's not your fault."
"No. It's not my fault."
"Do you believe that?" Oh, the repeating.
"Yes? No. I don't know." She's very confused, isn't she? "Are you asking me to? I don't remember how things work."
"How things..." Oh. Oh. Fucking A. "I will." When they aren't as insane.
"Oh. I see. Thank you for explaining." Not sarcasm.
"...I'm sorry I shouldn't have just...said that." God now he feels like an idiot. On top of everything else.
She tilts her head. "Why not?"
"That's not the way things like that are supposed to be done."
"Why does that matter?"
"Because we're trying to be normal."
"You said we were making our own normal," she points out.
"...That's true." He still would have wanted this entire conversation to start some other way.
"So why does it matter?"
"Because I would have preferred this conversation be more...something other than this."
"Oh." She blinks, tilts her head. "Something more like what?"
"Something more romantic for one thing." Mumblegrumble.
"Happiness, dreams, love, children, marriage." A litany of what you have discussed probably does not help. "I need different parameters."
"I can't...help you with that. Romance is kind of a personally defined thing."
"You can tell me your definition."
"Romantic things should rarely be uncomfortable conversations. I think."
"Have we had anything like that?"
"No. I'm not particularly thrilled with that."
"Can we?"
"I don't see why we couldn't, it just hasn't happened that way."
"Why not?" What are you, five?
"...I don't know." That's a damned good question, Allison. "Why do you think?"
Considering. "We don't focus on that."
"Because all our conversations about how we feel about each other are after other conversations?"
"Yes. Because of that."
John sighs. "Maybe we should be a bit more attentive of that, then."
"How?" She would like to be.
"By having conversations that start about things like our feelings for one another, I guess."
"Yes. Or baking." What.
"...Conversations that start with baking?" John's thinking of their cursed emotional kitchen.
"With cookies." As in tomorrow, John.
"...Ok." This should't be as frightening as it is.
"Is that all right?" Just make a list, John.
"Yes." He will so make a list.
"Okay." Face patting. What, Allison.
John looks as little lost. "Why did you do that?"
Well, now she looks confused. "I don't know."
Small headtilt. Smile. "...Okay. Let me know if you figure it out?"
"I'll do that. Yes."
"Thank you." Kiss. "I think I'll go to bed now." And dream about...who knows what.
"Okay." She kisses him back. "I'll be in later." The EAS?
Most likely. Thank you for that. "Goodnight, Allison."
He is so welcome. "Goodnight, John."