DISCLAIMER: I owe nothing of the Sarah Connor Chronicles. Just playing around :D
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
SPOILERS: Pilot episode.

Rules
By Faith

 

I'm scared. I'm so god damn scared that I don't know what to do with myself. I have machines hunting me. Hunting my son. I have a mission that is virtually impossible to complete and I have a son who I have to drag after me like a sack of potatoes. I love my son, do not get me wrong, but I have fought for him all my life. I have stopped at nothing to keep him safe so he can fulfil his destiny and he's still too much of a boy to step up to the plate. He puts it all on me as he has always done. As I have always done.

I long to let go, to stop fighting. When I wake up from those dreams where the Terminators kills John I sometimes wish they had done so, had killed me as well. I wouldn't have to be around, then, when the world comes to an end. But of course, those are just dreams and I fight like hell when reality comes knocking. Still, I feel out of my league and crawling out of my skin for it.

Always on the run. Trusting no one. Leaving everything behind without looking back. It's been my life for so long. Fight and run, fight and run. At this point in time, I feel I will snap in two if anyone just looks at me with compassion.

I long for release.

But we have rules. Rules that can't be broken.

So long it's been me and John and now she's here. Cameron, a machine, sent to protect John. It's all she cares about, it's the mission. She doesn't see me, falling apart. I crumble at her strength and marvel at her ability to think ahead. She's calm, collected, strong. I'm paranoia, weak and weary. I'm aching for compassion so much that, as she sat across from me on the truck, pulling bullets out of her torso, I could feel the heat spreading between my legs as I tried and failed to keep my eyes off of her young breasts. She's John's age in appearance and a girl so it's all wrong to want to melt into her arms and just… surrender. Even for a moment.

Her fingers on my skin as she bandages the bullet wound on my shoulder hurt more than the wound. She barely blinks as silent tears roll down my cheeks in shame and pain. I just want to scream at someone but instead I find myself holding on for all our sakes, so much that I nearly get everyone killed as I hesitate in the vault. I never hesitate. She just waits, it's John who shouts at me that we have to go. It's out of fear, I know, but it's a promise that one day he'll be able to make split second decisions and live with the consequences.

Time travel makes you sick. And cold. And it leaves you very much naked. It also gives you a moment of peace. I feel ashamed for wanting to remain there, on the interstate, without clothes and just close my eyes to the world, to her. She's standing already, stopping the car which could have easily run us over. She's beautiful and I hate her for spellbinding me so that I can't close my eyes.

I get up and run. John is beside me and he's too dazed to worry about the lack of clothing. It's funny because if we were at home and I would have walked in on him naked, he'd be yelling right about now and I would be escaping from the room with a million apologies. Mothers don't see their teenage children naked. Especially boys.

Cameron stops a car, knocks down the boys who come out, drunk and wearing clothes I'll soon slide over my broken body. I can't help but smile at her grace and skill. She's a good ally and she gives me strength just by allowing me to let her do the heavy lifting. I trust her and it feels so wrong. Still, as she dresses, she is watching my reaction. She can undoubtedly read the increase in body temperature and the slightly laboured breathing. Can she interpret it and would she act on it? I doubt it. She is, after all, a machine. An incredibly complex machine but a machine none the less. So it's not that I love her or even want her as a partner. Not even for a night. No, it's what she represents. Salvation. Peace. Rest. Strength.

So now I only drown in her eyes. I remember her body and save the image for the lonely nights to come where I have to be strong again the next day and all I want is release. And perhaps, some day, she'll break the rules and make my fantasies a reality.

Maybe.

Some day.

If we're still alive.

The End

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