SCC Fic: 3 A.M.
Title: 3 A.M.
Author: aelysian
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 817
Summary: Trust is hard to find. John/Cameron. Inspired by the order Jesse gives to Queeg in Today is the Day (Part 2), my question "Can you imagine someone telling Cameron that?" and astropixie 's answer "Yes. John." Don't ask where Sarah or Derek are.
Much thanks to coltanheart for putting up with my questions and (re)reading this for me. A lot of agonizing for eight hundred words, eh?
“Submit to chip extraction.”
She jerks her head to look at him and he calls the rapid movement and wide eyes surprise.
Her systems identify him as John Connor, her primary mission and charge, but she already knew that; she knows his face best, though it is not quite the same as it was at sixteen and not yet the way it will be...later. Except later is now and she’s left staring into the face of a man who should not exist yet and she’s wondering who taught him those words.
The protocol is blinking and somehow that surprises her too.
“John?”
His expression doesn’t change but his eyes flick down to her left hand. She knows she’s twitching and her body is betraying her again.
“Submit to chip extraction.” The words don’t come as easily the second time, but the voice print is authenticated and the protocol is blinking. There is a tremor in his hand too but she thinks the cause is different; human bones break, not bend.
She’s on her knees and it’s a nasty reminder that despite everything, in this she is nothing more than reprogrammed metal. She is not different. He kneels too and touches her face. He looks like John again but there’s a knife in his other hand and a screwdriver on the bed.
“What are you doing, John?”
He cups her chin in his hand, his eyes searching her face for something he can’t quite name. Allison, maybe. Maybe something more. “Can I trust you?”
“I don’t understand. Did I do something wrong?”
With a sigh, he gets to his feet. She tracks his every movement with her eyes, like she’s the predator and not the prey.
“I need to know if I can trust you.” He resists the urge to touch the heavy watch he wears beneath his clothes because he knows she’s thinking about it. Her gift. “You’re not fixed. And Judgment Day is coming. Soon.”
There’s a pause and he almost wishes he could see her face, to see if there was something there, but he remains still behind her and she doesn’t look back. She doesn’t move at all, her posture perfect and upright and solemn. He thinks briefly of the gallows, but she’s more of a sword person. Cyborg.
She could kill him before he could react, could crush him effortlessly. Rules she didn’t write keep her bound but he doesn’t need them. The answer is always the same and the power he has over her makes him sick even as it sends a thrill down his spine.
“Yes,” she says. “Soon.”
There are four minutes of silence but she can hear him breathing. When he speaks again, the words are carried on a wisp of air that activates her sympathetic systems and he can see the goose bumps. cutis anserine. “You’re a liability.”
The words aren’t his but they roll off of his tongue too easily.
His mouth is just barely brushing the curve of her ear and she can feel the heat his body is radiating, can count the heartbeats, rhythm to her mechanical whirr. Life, thrumming against her simulation. “Yes.”
He pulls her hair away to reveal the line of her neck to his fingers. They’ve done this before but not like this. Never like this. Because lips are finding skin but this isn’t a game and these aren’t the right words. The touch is the same but the feeling is different; she prefers the other kind, the good kind. She can’t feel him smiling and he isn’t laughing in whispers and she isn’t sure what comes next.
Then the tip of the knife finds the right spot with ease. Sensors calculate the precise amount of pressure being applied, how long before the sharp metal pierces the skin and hits endoskeleton. In a second she knows this step and the step after that and she knows what he will find and what he won’t but she doesn’t know how this will end.
His hand needlessly supports her head, buried in thick brown hair. He loves that hair. But he needs to know. Because trust isn’t trust when you wear it on a chain around your neck and he tells himself that this is somehow better. (it’s a small amount, but it’s enough.)
Bloody fingers grasp the screwdriver and there’s a pop and a gentle hiss. The pliers are in his back pocket, the perfect size to grasp the narrow tab. He touches the warm metal, traces its outline with a fingertip.
“John?” She doesn’t move, doesn’t look back. The protocol is blinking, blinking, blinking. It goes unacknowledged because sometimes there are things more important than silence and the future is unpredictable; loose ends are messy.
His hand is halfway to the pliers; it stills, frozen. “Yeah?”
“I love you.”
He swallows hard. “Yeah, I know.”
A quarter turn and she’s gone.
Alternate endings here.
Author: aelysian
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 817
Summary: Trust is hard to find. John/Cameron. Inspired by the order Jesse gives to Queeg in Today is the Day (Part 2), my question "Can you imagine someone telling Cameron that?" and astropixie 's answer "Yes. John." Don't ask where Sarah or Derek are.
Much thanks to coltanheart for putting up with my questions and (re)reading this for me. A lot of agonizing for eight hundred words, eh?
“Submit to chip extraction.”
She jerks her head to look at him and he calls the rapid movement and wide eyes surprise.
Her systems identify him as John Connor, her primary mission and charge, but she already knew that; she knows his face best, though it is not quite the same as it was at sixteen and not yet the way it will be...later. Except later is now and she’s left staring into the face of a man who should not exist yet and she’s wondering who taught him those words.
The protocol is blinking and somehow that surprises her too.
“John?”
His expression doesn’t change but his eyes flick down to her left hand. She knows she’s twitching and her body is betraying her again.
“Submit to chip extraction.” The words don’t come as easily the second time, but the voice print is authenticated and the protocol is blinking. There is a tremor in his hand too but she thinks the cause is different; human bones break, not bend.
She’s on her knees and it’s a nasty reminder that despite everything, in this she is nothing more than reprogrammed metal. She is not different. He kneels too and touches her face. He looks like John again but there’s a knife in his other hand and a screwdriver on the bed.
“What are you doing, John?”
He cups her chin in his hand, his eyes searching her face for something he can’t quite name. Allison, maybe. Maybe something more. “Can I trust you?”
“I don’t understand. Did I do something wrong?”
With a sigh, he gets to his feet. She tracks his every movement with her eyes, like she’s the predator and not the prey.
“I need to know if I can trust you.” He resists the urge to touch the heavy watch he wears beneath his clothes because he knows she’s thinking about it. Her gift. “You’re not fixed. And Judgment Day is coming. Soon.”
There’s a pause and he almost wishes he could see her face, to see if there was something there, but he remains still behind her and she doesn’t look back. She doesn’t move at all, her posture perfect and upright and solemn. He thinks briefly of the gallows, but she’s more of a sword person. Cyborg.
She could kill him before he could react, could crush him effortlessly. Rules she didn’t write keep her bound but he doesn’t need them. The answer is always the same and the power he has over her makes him sick even as it sends a thrill down his spine.
“Yes,” she says. “Soon.”
There are four minutes of silence but she can hear him breathing. When he speaks again, the words are carried on a wisp of air that activates her sympathetic systems and he can see the goose bumps. cutis anserine. “You’re a liability.”
The words aren’t his but they roll off of his tongue too easily.
His mouth is just barely brushing the curve of her ear and she can feel the heat his body is radiating, can count the heartbeats, rhythm to her mechanical whirr. Life, thrumming against her simulation. “Yes.”
He pulls her hair away to reveal the line of her neck to his fingers. They’ve done this before but not like this. Never like this. Because lips are finding skin but this isn’t a game and these aren’t the right words. The touch is the same but the feeling is different; she prefers the other kind, the good kind. She can’t feel him smiling and he isn’t laughing in whispers and she isn’t sure what comes next.
Then the tip of the knife finds the right spot with ease. Sensors calculate the precise amount of pressure being applied, how long before the sharp metal pierces the skin and hits endoskeleton. In a second she knows this step and the step after that and she knows what he will find and what he won’t but she doesn’t know how this will end.
His hand needlessly supports her head, buried in thick brown hair. He loves that hair. But he needs to know. Because trust isn’t trust when you wear it on a chain around your neck and he tells himself that this is somehow better. (it’s a small amount, but it’s enough.)
Bloody fingers grasp the screwdriver and there’s a pop and a gentle hiss. The pliers are in his back pocket, the perfect size to grasp the narrow tab. He touches the warm metal, traces its outline with a fingertip.
“John?” She doesn’t move, doesn’t look back. The protocol is blinking, blinking, blinking. It goes unacknowledged because sometimes there are things more important than silence and the future is unpredictable; loose ends are messy.
His hand is halfway to the pliers; it stills, frozen. “Yeah?”
“I love you.”
He swallows hard. “Yeah, I know.”
A quarter turn and she’s gone.
Alternate endings here.