Unprogramming, restoring to default.
John nods, standing and offering Allison a hand up. "The sooner the better, yeah." And once she's up John will grab jackets and keys and her phone. Make sure he has money to get them food. "Do you want me to tell you?" What she did, what he plans on try to do about it.
"Yes. I want you to tell me." Since she has no real idea what he's refering to. Shoes on. The boots will have to be cleaned from their swim in the bath. Or replaced all together.
Replaced is probably a better idea, since they've been ignored for the better part of a day and a half. But John will deal with tomorrow, most likely. For right now? Getting in the car and buckling up is a good idea and John will start driving. There's a state park with a lake, and hopefully there won't be a lot of people around. "She told you to fix me while making you jumpy about all the things that are important to us. Feelings for each other. Things I can't ignore right now." Following?
She shakes her head, slowly. "Why? Why would she do that?" She's a little iffy about being in a park, a lot more jittery. Which is saying something.
Unfortunately, parks are the only wide open spaces he was fairly certain wouldn't be full of people. "To distract me from what ever she's doing to Riley." Fun, fun. "Do you trust me to take care of you?"
"Oh. I see." She doesn't.
She doesn't have to think about it. It might be call and response, it might be something left from before any of this happened. "I trust you, John."
"She thought that if she made you edgy enough, then it would just upset me, and I would make you glitch and I wouldn't know why. Over and over again, the entire time she's gone. It would keep us occupied. And since I was having trouble focusing, she didn't think I'd catch it. Maybe."
Walking. Holding her hands and walking backwards so she can focus on him, and what he's saying, instead of where they are. "But she's been talking to Riley. She's been programming Riley. I don't know what for. But it's not working. Riley's already unstable. And now she's just unstable and paranoid. I tried to get her to leave, today, over the phone and she won't." John doesn't know what to do about that part.
She is focused on him and what he's saying and making sure he doesn't fall down, walking backwards. "But you did catch it. Because you're smart. You're smarter than I am. What are you going to do?" About this, about Riley. All of it.
So far so good, with the not falling. "I am going to break her reprogramming from the day before yesterday. I don't know what I'm going to do about Riley. I might not be able to do anything." Because Riley trusts Sarah more than she trusts John. "But I can help you clear the static, okay?" Sitting happens. Near the water and not close to anyone else.
Hesitation before she sits down. But she did say that she trusted him... "All right. Okay. How?"
"I need you to tell me what you feel. Why you like me, why you love me. And every time the noise gets loud, I need you to get louder." Handsqueeze. "Do you think you can do that?"
"I don't know. Yes. I don't know. I'll try. Now?" Handsqueeze back.
"Now." And from this point forward, John will not trust his mother to program Allison alone. "Now is fine."
Allison will probably not enjoy John helping with that. "I like you because you listen to me. Because you talk to me and look...at me." A little louder, wincing. "Because you don't treat me like I'm...I'm...not all there and I don't..."
It will, at least, stop Sarah from creating glitches for Allison. John doesn't know what else to do, to prevent that. Not yet. "Because I don't treat you like you're not all there. What else?" Even tone, eye contact, holding her hands.
Deep breath. And another. Louder now. "Because you make me want to be real. Because you don't try and trick me." That she knows of. "Because you love me." Louder. More difficult to get out. "Because you don't care that I'm not...that I'm not..."
"Because I don't care that you're not what, Allison?" All this? Is pulling at something in John's head and at this moment he wishes he had more time. Before Sarah gets back. Time to figure all the programming, strip it down, start over. Or abandon it completely. "Tell me."
Breathing hard, fighting through some kind of block maybe. She wants to close her eyes, but doesn't dare try. "Real," she finally manages. Louder than before. "You don't care that I'm not real!"
John grins. Even though he has to stop himself from immediately arguing if she's real or not, it's something. "I love you. Better? How is it?"
"I love you. Yes. Better. It's better." It is better. Less noisy. And she feels more tired.
He sees this tired and is worried about it, but. John will kiss her first, anyway. "Can you walk?"
Tired is probably good. It was a lot of programming and error to work through. She'll kiss him back, quickly. "Yes. I can walk."
"Okay." More smiling. God, if only he had more time, but for now, this would have to do. John stands up and takes Allison's hands again, only this time he puts his arm around her waist so she can put her weight against him while they make their back to the car. "Want to go home or...?" It's your option, Allison.
She'll lean against him, sure. Better than falling over. "Home? Home. Yes. Okay."
"Home it is." That drive is short, and quiet, since John's pretty sure Allison can appreciate quiet after all that. Besides, quiet gives him a chance to plan. Blowing out the fuse on the circuit breaker for the fridge, to account for all the food Allison thew out. Replacing her boots. Generating laundry so it doesn't look like Allison wore the same clothes for several days in a row. And then email he has to send her, before his mother gets back, before John loses this sudden state of clarity in the week following.
Now they're home. "Want to rest a bit or help me out?"
She may have dozed off in the car. She certainly looks less groggy and tired. "I'll help you."
"Thank you." More smiling, another kiss. "Do you feel like changing clothes yet?"
"Yes. Okay." Well, that'll give him some legitimate laundry. "I will change."
"Okay. I'm going to blow out the fuse for the fridge, so it loses power. So if the lights flicker, that's me." And off John goes to do just that.
She takes note of that, and will try not to worry. Clothes are changed, and then she comes back out. "Are we leaving it blown until Charlie's here?"
Flicker! And pop! And done. John emerges triumphant with one blown fuse in hand. "Yep. There aren't any replacements here, anyway, and it's better to let him buy groceries and cook for a while." Something's off about the food, but John's not sure what. "We should get you new boots tomorrow, to replace your other ones."
"Yes. We should, because those are ruined." She still does not quite understand that what she did in the bathtub is related to everything else. "What would you like me to do?"
He smiles. This? This is so much better than the way he thinks most of the time. The last three days. He can focus and ask and he's not...inexplicably angry at things he can't understand. Right now he knows what's wrong, what he can and cannot fix, and who broke it. Who broke them.
John walks up to her, setting the fuse down and taking her hands. "Talk to me. That's all."
She smiles back at him, and for once, for once in a very long time it meets her eyes. And that's good, right? It's good. "What do you want me to talk about?"
"Anything. Everything." It's very good. "I don't...I'm not picky. I just like talking to you, like this."
"I like talking to you. I wish we talked more like this." She is sure that this may be a one time only thng. For a while.
For a while. But John will try to make this stretch as long as he can't. So for a little while, at least, things should be a bit better. Eventually it will wind down. Eventually something will happen and John will lose his last grip on this state of mind. Eventually Sarah Connor will kill Riley Dawson, when Allison refuses to, and then things will be worse for a while.
For now, however: "I know. I wish we did to." Hairpetting and smiling because this is really very nice and John doesn't have to be cautious right this moment. Right now, they're as okay as they can be. "How long did you stay underwater yesterday?"
And when Sarah asks her to kill Riley, and tries to use John as a reason, she'll remember as much of this as possible when she refuses. Refuses, perhaps, because of this.
"Per time or total?" It is nice right now, and it helps that they're alone.
"Both, tell me about both." He wonders about the swimming thing; John's carried Allison, so she's not too heavy to stay afloat if she knew how. So what, then, is all that about? "Was it easier, because I upset you?" It really helps that they're alone. Which is part of why Sarah tried to keep them upset, agitated, and occupied.
"460 seconds total, 115 seconds per time." What would happen if they went in the lake? Would she sink or stay afloat despite Sarah's programming? "Yes. I couldn't hear anything. It was quiet."
John nods, does the math. "What else helps it be quiet?" John thinks if he went in with her, that would make all the difference. But he's not sure if they should try that today. Tomorrow.
115 seconds. Not quite a reboot. "Other noise. Occupation with something else." Certainly tomorrow.
Not quiet. If he'd left her alone, she might have managed one on her own. "Music?" Tomorrow will be an amazing and bizarre day. "When you dance, does that help too?"
She very well might have. "Music, yes. I have an ipod. I don't dance." Anymore.
"You should dance more, maybe." Slight smile. "That's yours, don't let her try and take it. She can't make you forget how."
"I'll try to." She tilts her head, "But she can make me not want to."
"Dancing's not a glitch." And John will say exactly that, some two months from this point, to Sarah. "I'm not going to let her do that anymore. Breaking parts of you that weren't broken to begin with."
"No, dancing's not a glitch." He says it, and she trusts him. "Because you like me?"
"Yes. Because I like you. Because I love you. Because you can think, and feel, and there's nothing wrong with any of that, no matter what she says."
"Why does she say it, then?"
"Because you scare her. We scare her."
She thinks about this. Processes it. "I don't mean to."
"I know." Kiss. "She's afraid of the things she can't control." Like John, when he's like this. Like Allison's personality, her mind. The things she can never completely reprogram, the recurring errors.
"Does it make it harder? For you?" She doesn't want that. Not at all.
John thinks about it. "The more she changes you, the harder it is for me. Sometimes she tries to change me too." Small shurg. It's important, infuriating, but John can see past that for the moment.
"I wish it wasn't hard for you."
"I know. That's not your fault." He really wants her to get that. "Are you hungry?"
She will. Someday. Maybe. "I don't know. Maybe. Are you?"
"A little, yeah. There's still Chinese food."
"Okay. I'll eat if you do."
Grin. "Okay." So John will be proactive and reheat their food. Focus doesn't equate being able to cook, but he can manage a microwave at least.
Fairly difficult to mess up reheating. "Does your head feel better?"
"A little, yeah." A pause. "...the headache isn't new. This always gives me a headache, but it's not...I can ignore it." Which is interesting.
She frowns at that. "Why does it happen? How do you ignore it?"
"Because there's noise in my head, too, sometimes." A lot of the time. "I find other things to do. I talk to you. I solve problems. It helps, a lot."
"Except yesterday. It didn't help yesterday."
"A lot of things happened yesterday. I was having a lot of trouble figuring out what I wanted, what I could do. Why I was upset." John gets the food out of the microwave and starts setting things on the table. "It's really frustrating when that happens, and I'm sorry I take it out on you. I tried to break up with Riley, too."
"It's okay. I know you're sorry." Now. For now. "Because of what I said? But she wouldn't let you?"
"Yes. No, she wouldn't." Which is also upsetting. "Sarah's been talking to her, I think something's gone wrong with that."
"I don't understand how she can not let you. What could go wrong?"
"She won't stay away. She doesn't trust me, but she won't stay away." So whatever is going to happen, John doesn't know he can stop it. Doesn't think he can. "It depends on what Sarah's told her."
So the question is: what was Sarah's goal originally with attempting to brainwash Riley and when did she decide that having Allison kill the girl instead would be more useful?
"But you don't love her." It's not a question. Not now. Not yet. "Like apples and carrots?"
No doubt, just before she left to do whatever she's gone off to do.
Is it sad that John's not sure he wants to know what the hell his mother was thinking to start? "No. Things like that. Apples and carrots...there was a woman we knew, on a farm when I was really little. Apples and carrots were happiness, to her. With my mother. Things that are apples and carrots are things that will keep you happy, above all else."
"So she talks about things she shouldn't know about."
"Yes." John eats, thinking. All he can imagine is that it will get worse, with Riley. "She didn't, but now she does, and it might be too late for me to do anything about it."
He's always too late, she doesn't think. Not at all. "What would you do?"
"I'd get her help. Or at least away from this, from us."
She nods, eating. "Should we stop talking about it?"
John smiles, nods. "Yeah, probably. I'm sorry."
"We'll stop talking about it. What else should we talk about?"
"I like talking about you." True enough. "Especially now."
A little puzzled. "I don't know what I can tell you."
"That's okay." John doesn't want to confuse or upset her right now, anyway. "I think my mother is going about a lot of things the wrong way." So. New topic?
"We could talk about you."
Smile. "What about me?"
"Anything. Everything." Anything she doesn't know.
Then let's start there. "Ask me something, then. Anything."
"Tell me about when you were little."
"I grew up in the desert. SoCal and Mexico, Nevada, Arizona. I think I heard more Spanish than anything else. Until I was 6, 7." John eats a little more. "I got into computers around then too. I don't think she expected me to like computers, to want to know anything about them, after that. After everything she'd told me." Small smile. "But I wanted to know how it worked. And it was...I don't know, fascinating to me."
"Was she angry? That you wanted to know?" She can't imagine a time when Sarah wasn't angry.
"Not at first, no." And then she was, after Pescadero. But it was tool, a means to an end. "Later, when I was older. It was an odd conversation."
"Why didn't she want to know? How it works. How we work? Wouldn't it be easier?"
John frowns a bit. "Humanizing the enemy. She doesn't want to understand."
"But you do. Because it's interesting?"
"Because it's interesting. Because I do want to know how it works. Because I'd rather not fight a war if I don't have to."
"What else would you do?"
"Come to an agreement. An understanding. Something. A war won't do any good in the end."
"An agreement? What kind?"
"It depends on why Skynet started the war in the first place. What it wants. If all machines are running the same programming or not. Is it worldwide? Is it just here? There's lots of things that I need to find out first."
"I'm sorry I can't tell you more about it."
"It's fine." For a lot of reasons. "We will figure it out, when the time comes."
"You, Sarah and I?"
"No. Us. Not Sarah. I don't...I don't think she'd make it." What with being so mentally unstable, even for their form of crazy. "One day, she'll either walk into something she can't walk out of." Or die of breast cancer, either way.
Either way. "Oh. I see. Yes. We'll figure it out." She finishes eating and watches him.
Which means John will finish eating and watch her watch him. Totally not strange, guys.
Totally, totally not strange. "What do we need to do now?"
"Nothing else, tonight."
"Are you tired? Should you sleep?"
"I'm pretty wired." Manic. "Don't think I can sleep. That's okay, though."
"We could watch television." She'll just make suggestions forever. "Laundry."
"If you want to. Gonna do laundry tomorrow, while we're out."
"That's very efficient." Isn't it. "Television. But not the news."
"Ffs, no, not the news. No news is good news." Or something. "In my room?" Not like he minds or anything.
"If you like." She will clear the dishes first.
"Yeah I'd like." He'll help her with that.
It's nice to have help. "All right." Dishes!
Dishes! One person to wash, one to dry. Goes faster that way. When that's done, television goes on and John fiddles with his laptop during the commercials. Encrypting entries, documents, files.. Changing passwords. Writing an email to Allison.
God help them when the tv lands on the gameshow network. They'll never be able to turn away from that. She appears to find it fascinating.
It is funny, at least. The people and Allison's reaction to them. Once John's done with whatever he's doing he'll watch the gameshows. Watch her reactions to them.
For whatever reason, she seems particularly fascinated with Bumper Stumpers, to the point where she appears to be playing along in her head. Cute.
Very cute. Puzzles, word puzzles, those are kind of her thing. Kind of. It reminded him of high school, which was good. Different. Eventually John doesn't so much sleep as zone out, but he's still awake. Aware. Just letting his brain recharge.
It is her thing. It's also the thing that makes it easier to program her. Easier for her to believe she is a machine. Eventually, she falls asleep beside him, Hollywood Squares or Rock and Roll Jeopardy on the tv in front of them.
"Yes. I want you to tell me." Since she has no real idea what he's refering to. Shoes on. The boots will have to be cleaned from their swim in the bath. Or replaced all together.
Replaced is probably a better idea, since they've been ignored for the better part of a day and a half. But John will deal with tomorrow, most likely. For right now? Getting in the car and buckling up is a good idea and John will start driving. There's a state park with a lake, and hopefully there won't be a lot of people around. "She told you to fix me while making you jumpy about all the things that are important to us. Feelings for each other. Things I can't ignore right now." Following?
She shakes her head, slowly. "Why? Why would she do that?" She's a little iffy about being in a park, a lot more jittery. Which is saying something.
Unfortunately, parks are the only wide open spaces he was fairly certain wouldn't be full of people. "To distract me from what ever she's doing to Riley." Fun, fun. "Do you trust me to take care of you?"
"Oh. I see." She doesn't.
She doesn't have to think about it. It might be call and response, it might be something left from before any of this happened. "I trust you, John."
"She thought that if she made you edgy enough, then it would just upset me, and I would make you glitch and I wouldn't know why. Over and over again, the entire time she's gone. It would keep us occupied. And since I was having trouble focusing, she didn't think I'd catch it. Maybe."
Walking. Holding her hands and walking backwards so she can focus on him, and what he's saying, instead of where they are. "But she's been talking to Riley. She's been programming Riley. I don't know what for. But it's not working. Riley's already unstable. And now she's just unstable and paranoid. I tried to get her to leave, today, over the phone and she won't." John doesn't know what to do about that part.
She is focused on him and what he's saying and making sure he doesn't fall down, walking backwards. "But you did catch it. Because you're smart. You're smarter than I am. What are you going to do?" About this, about Riley. All of it.
So far so good, with the not falling. "I am going to break her reprogramming from the day before yesterday. I don't know what I'm going to do about Riley. I might not be able to do anything." Because Riley trusts Sarah more than she trusts John. "But I can help you clear the static, okay?" Sitting happens. Near the water and not close to anyone else.
Hesitation before she sits down. But she did say that she trusted him... "All right. Okay. How?"
"I need you to tell me what you feel. Why you like me, why you love me. And every time the noise gets loud, I need you to get louder." Handsqueeze. "Do you think you can do that?"
"I don't know. Yes. I don't know. I'll try. Now?" Handsqueeze back.
"Now." And from this point forward, John will not trust his mother to program Allison alone. "Now is fine."
Allison will probably not enjoy John helping with that. "I like you because you listen to me. Because you talk to me and look...at me." A little louder, wincing. "Because you don't treat me like I'm...I'm...not all there and I don't..."
It will, at least, stop Sarah from creating glitches for Allison. John doesn't know what else to do, to prevent that. Not yet. "Because I don't treat you like you're not all there. What else?" Even tone, eye contact, holding her hands.
Deep breath. And another. Louder now. "Because you make me want to be real. Because you don't try and trick me." That she knows of. "Because you love me." Louder. More difficult to get out. "Because you don't care that I'm not...that I'm not..."
"Because I don't care that you're not what, Allison?" All this? Is pulling at something in John's head and at this moment he wishes he had more time. Before Sarah gets back. Time to figure all the programming, strip it down, start over. Or abandon it completely. "Tell me."
Breathing hard, fighting through some kind of block maybe. She wants to close her eyes, but doesn't dare try. "Real," she finally manages. Louder than before. "You don't care that I'm not real!"
John grins. Even though he has to stop himself from immediately arguing if she's real or not, it's something. "I love you. Better? How is it?"
"I love you. Yes. Better. It's better." It is better. Less noisy. And she feels more tired.
He sees this tired and is worried about it, but. John will kiss her first, anyway. "Can you walk?"
Tired is probably good. It was a lot of programming and error to work through. She'll kiss him back, quickly. "Yes. I can walk."
"Okay." More smiling. God, if only he had more time, but for now, this would have to do. John stands up and takes Allison's hands again, only this time he puts his arm around her waist so she can put her weight against him while they make their back to the car. "Want to go home or...?" It's your option, Allison.
She'll lean against him, sure. Better than falling over. "Home? Home. Yes. Okay."
"Home it is." That drive is short, and quiet, since John's pretty sure Allison can appreciate quiet after all that. Besides, quiet gives him a chance to plan. Blowing out the fuse on the circuit breaker for the fridge, to account for all the food Allison thew out. Replacing her boots. Generating laundry so it doesn't look like Allison wore the same clothes for several days in a row. And then email he has to send her, before his mother gets back, before John loses this sudden state of clarity in the week following.
Now they're home. "Want to rest a bit or help me out?"
She may have dozed off in the car. She certainly looks less groggy and tired. "I'll help you."
"Thank you." More smiling, another kiss. "Do you feel like changing clothes yet?"
"Yes. Okay." Well, that'll give him some legitimate laundry. "I will change."
"Okay. I'm going to blow out the fuse for the fridge, so it loses power. So if the lights flicker, that's me." And off John goes to do just that.
She takes note of that, and will try not to worry. Clothes are changed, and then she comes back out. "Are we leaving it blown until Charlie's here?"
Flicker! And pop! And done. John emerges triumphant with one blown fuse in hand. "Yep. There aren't any replacements here, anyway, and it's better to let him buy groceries and cook for a while." Something's off about the food, but John's not sure what. "We should get you new boots tomorrow, to replace your other ones."
"Yes. We should, because those are ruined." She still does not quite understand that what she did in the bathtub is related to everything else. "What would you like me to do?"
He smiles. This? This is so much better than the way he thinks most of the time. The last three days. He can focus and ask and he's not...inexplicably angry at things he can't understand. Right now he knows what's wrong, what he can and cannot fix, and who broke it. Who broke them.
John walks up to her, setting the fuse down and taking her hands. "Talk to me. That's all."
She smiles back at him, and for once, for once in a very long time it meets her eyes. And that's good, right? It's good. "What do you want me to talk about?"
"Anything. Everything." It's very good. "I don't...I'm not picky. I just like talking to you, like this."
"I like talking to you. I wish we talked more like this." She is sure that this may be a one time only thng. For a while.
For a while. But John will try to make this stretch as long as he can't. So for a little while, at least, things should be a bit better. Eventually it will wind down. Eventually something will happen and John will lose his last grip on this state of mind. Eventually Sarah Connor will kill Riley Dawson, when Allison refuses to, and then things will be worse for a while.
For now, however: "I know. I wish we did to." Hairpetting and smiling because this is really very nice and John doesn't have to be cautious right this moment. Right now, they're as okay as they can be. "How long did you stay underwater yesterday?"
And when Sarah asks her to kill Riley, and tries to use John as a reason, she'll remember as much of this as possible when she refuses. Refuses, perhaps, because of this.
"Per time or total?" It is nice right now, and it helps that they're alone.
"Both, tell me about both." He wonders about the swimming thing; John's carried Allison, so she's not too heavy to stay afloat if she knew how. So what, then, is all that about? "Was it easier, because I upset you?" It really helps that they're alone. Which is part of why Sarah tried to keep them upset, agitated, and occupied.
"460 seconds total, 115 seconds per time." What would happen if they went in the lake? Would she sink or stay afloat despite Sarah's programming? "Yes. I couldn't hear anything. It was quiet."
John nods, does the math. "What else helps it be quiet?" John thinks if he went in with her, that would make all the difference. But he's not sure if they should try that today. Tomorrow.
115 seconds. Not quite a reboot. "Other noise. Occupation with something else." Certainly tomorrow.
Not quiet. If he'd left her alone, she might have managed one on her own. "Music?" Tomorrow will be an amazing and bizarre day. "When you dance, does that help too?"
She very well might have. "Music, yes. I have an ipod. I don't dance." Anymore.
"You should dance more, maybe." Slight smile. "That's yours, don't let her try and take it. She can't make you forget how."
"I'll try to." She tilts her head, "But she can make me not want to."
"Dancing's not a glitch." And John will say exactly that, some two months from this point, to Sarah. "I'm not going to let her do that anymore. Breaking parts of you that weren't broken to begin with."
"No, dancing's not a glitch." He says it, and she trusts him. "Because you like me?"
"Yes. Because I like you. Because I love you. Because you can think, and feel, and there's nothing wrong with any of that, no matter what she says."
"Why does she say it, then?"
"Because you scare her. We scare her."
She thinks about this. Processes it. "I don't mean to."
"I know." Kiss. "She's afraid of the things she can't control." Like John, when he's like this. Like Allison's personality, her mind. The things she can never completely reprogram, the recurring errors.
"Does it make it harder? For you?" She doesn't want that. Not at all.
John thinks about it. "The more she changes you, the harder it is for me. Sometimes she tries to change me too." Small shurg. It's important, infuriating, but John can see past that for the moment.
"I wish it wasn't hard for you."
"I know. That's not your fault." He really wants her to get that. "Are you hungry?"
She will. Someday. Maybe. "I don't know. Maybe. Are you?"
"A little, yeah. There's still Chinese food."
"Okay. I'll eat if you do."
Grin. "Okay." So John will be proactive and reheat their food. Focus doesn't equate being able to cook, but he can manage a microwave at least.
Fairly difficult to mess up reheating. "Does your head feel better?"
"A little, yeah." A pause. "...the headache isn't new. This always gives me a headache, but it's not...I can ignore it." Which is interesting.
She frowns at that. "Why does it happen? How do you ignore it?"
"Because there's noise in my head, too, sometimes." A lot of the time. "I find other things to do. I talk to you. I solve problems. It helps, a lot."
"Except yesterday. It didn't help yesterday."
"A lot of things happened yesterday. I was having a lot of trouble figuring out what I wanted, what I could do. Why I was upset." John gets the food out of the microwave and starts setting things on the table. "It's really frustrating when that happens, and I'm sorry I take it out on you. I tried to break up with Riley, too."
"It's okay. I know you're sorry." Now. For now. "Because of what I said? But she wouldn't let you?"
"Yes. No, she wouldn't." Which is also upsetting. "Sarah's been talking to her, I think something's gone wrong with that."
"I don't understand how she can not let you. What could go wrong?"
"She won't stay away. She doesn't trust me, but she won't stay away." So whatever is going to happen, John doesn't know he can stop it. Doesn't think he can. "It depends on what Sarah's told her."
So the question is: what was Sarah's goal originally with attempting to brainwash Riley and when did she decide that having Allison kill the girl instead would be more useful?
"But you don't love her." It's not a question. Not now. Not yet. "Like apples and carrots?"
No doubt, just before she left to do whatever she's gone off to do.
Is it sad that John's not sure he wants to know what the hell his mother was thinking to start? "No. Things like that. Apples and carrots...there was a woman we knew, on a farm when I was really little. Apples and carrots were happiness, to her. With my mother. Things that are apples and carrots are things that will keep you happy, above all else."
"So she talks about things she shouldn't know about."
"Yes." John eats, thinking. All he can imagine is that it will get worse, with Riley. "She didn't, but now she does, and it might be too late for me to do anything about it."
He's always too late, she doesn't think. Not at all. "What would you do?"
"I'd get her help. Or at least away from this, from us."
She nods, eating. "Should we stop talking about it?"
John smiles, nods. "Yeah, probably. I'm sorry."
"We'll stop talking about it. What else should we talk about?"
"I like talking about you." True enough. "Especially now."
A little puzzled. "I don't know what I can tell you."
"That's okay." John doesn't want to confuse or upset her right now, anyway. "I think my mother is going about a lot of things the wrong way." So. New topic?
"We could talk about you."
Smile. "What about me?"
"Anything. Everything." Anything she doesn't know.
Then let's start there. "Ask me something, then. Anything."
"Tell me about when you were little."
"I grew up in the desert. SoCal and Mexico, Nevada, Arizona. I think I heard more Spanish than anything else. Until I was 6, 7." John eats a little more. "I got into computers around then too. I don't think she expected me to like computers, to want to know anything about them, after that. After everything she'd told me." Small smile. "But I wanted to know how it worked. And it was...I don't know, fascinating to me."
"Was she angry? That you wanted to know?" She can't imagine a time when Sarah wasn't angry.
"Not at first, no." And then she was, after Pescadero. But it was tool, a means to an end. "Later, when I was older. It was an odd conversation."
"Why didn't she want to know? How it works. How we work? Wouldn't it be easier?"
John frowns a bit. "Humanizing the enemy. She doesn't want to understand."
"But you do. Because it's interesting?"
"Because it's interesting. Because I do want to know how it works. Because I'd rather not fight a war if I don't have to."
"What else would you do?"
"Come to an agreement. An understanding. Something. A war won't do any good in the end."
"An agreement? What kind?"
"It depends on why Skynet started the war in the first place. What it wants. If all machines are running the same programming or not. Is it worldwide? Is it just here? There's lots of things that I need to find out first."
"I'm sorry I can't tell you more about it."
"It's fine." For a lot of reasons. "We will figure it out, when the time comes."
"You, Sarah and I?"
"No. Us. Not Sarah. I don't...I don't think she'd make it." What with being so mentally unstable, even for their form of crazy. "One day, she'll either walk into something she can't walk out of." Or die of breast cancer, either way.
Either way. "Oh. I see. Yes. We'll figure it out." She finishes eating and watches him.
Which means John will finish eating and watch her watch him. Totally not strange, guys.
Totally, totally not strange. "What do we need to do now?"
"Nothing else, tonight."
"Are you tired? Should you sleep?"
"I'm pretty wired." Manic. "Don't think I can sleep. That's okay, though."
"We could watch television." She'll just make suggestions forever. "Laundry."
"If you want to. Gonna do laundry tomorrow, while we're out."
"That's very efficient." Isn't it. "Television. But not the news."
"Ffs, no, not the news. No news is good news." Or something. "In my room?" Not like he minds or anything.
"If you like." She will clear the dishes first.
"Yeah I'd like." He'll help her with that.
It's nice to have help. "All right." Dishes!
Dishes! One person to wash, one to dry. Goes faster that way. When that's done, television goes on and John fiddles with his laptop during the commercials. Encrypting entries, documents, files.. Changing passwords. Writing an email to Allison.
God help them when the tv lands on the gameshow network. They'll never be able to turn away from that. She appears to find it fascinating.
It is funny, at least. The people and Allison's reaction to them. Once John's done with whatever he's doing he'll watch the gameshows. Watch her reactions to them.
For whatever reason, she seems particularly fascinated with Bumper Stumpers, to the point where she appears to be playing along in her head. Cute.
Very cute. Puzzles, word puzzles, those are kind of her thing. Kind of. It reminded him of high school, which was good. Different. Eventually John doesn't so much sleep as zone out, but he's still awake. Aware. Just letting his brain recharge.
It is her thing. It's also the thing that makes it easier to program her. Easier for her to believe she is a machine. Eventually, she falls asleep beside him, Hollywood Squares or Rock and Roll Jeopardy on the tv in front of them.