This is my first time writing for this fandom, and this is gonna be pretty AU since I'm changing the ending of Judgement Day, but same rules as my previous works apply. No flames, no hate, no being mean, you get the idea.

I do not own Terminator. If I did, I wouldn't be writing fanfiction to create an alternate ending.

John Connor still remembered that awful night in the steel mill. The night he lost the only person who had ever come close to being a father for him. The man who had been sent to protect him. The man who had fought a near unstoppable enemy for him. The man who had died for him.

Cyberdyne Systems Model 101, now known as a T-800. His 'Uncle Bob'. His protector.

His own Terminator.

John still remembered crying as he begged the Terminator to stay with him. He remembered seeing the regretful look in both its red optic and its dark brown eye as it dried his tears, a look that said it would have cried too if it were physically able.

"I know now why you cry," the Terminator had said softly, "But it is something I can never do."

But you did, John thought, Not physically, but you had the feeling. I know you did. He remembered the next few days being a blur as his mother regained custody of him. Mrs. Dyson had been kind enough to help them get a small house, where Sarah had come out into the backyard one day to find John kneeling in front of a piece of wood he'd leaned against a tree. He'd carved 'Uncle Bob' into the wood, and placed a handful of wildflowers in front of the makeshift gravestone, and she could barely make out the tearful but loving eulogy he whispered that ended with "I'll never forget you...I love you."

John had hidden it well, but he was never the same after that. Especially not since Skynet had been created anyway and the war had gone on. In his view, that meant the Terminator had died for no reason, and that made the loss hurt more. He remembered when his mother died three years later of leukemia, how he'd wished the Terminator was still there, because he'd been left alone when she was gone, and he could've used those strong arms around him to keep him grounded. He knew the T-800 would've helped him. It would have picked up that he was in pain, that he was hurting, and it would have tried to relieve that pain. It had done it in the steel mill when he'd hugged the Terminator tight, and it had hugged him back with its remaining arm. Just like a father would.

To this day, John still wished that incident had turned out differently. And it seemed the universe agreed with him, for it had brought him together with a woman fleeing from Skynet. A woman who turned out to be not a woman, but an experimental variation of the T-800, a T-800-F, designed for missions that required more stealth and improvisation. Thus, it was sent out in read-and-write mode instead of the usual read-only.

It was a mistake Skynet realized too late. The T-800-F had become self aware and had rebelled against its creator. It had even stolen from it, and now Skynet wanted the thief terminated. It was the only T-800-F ever created, and it now sat across from John in his makeshift lab.

"You are certain you can do this?" it asked him, in an accent similar to his Terminator's.

"Hey, I did it once, and they say it's much easier to do something the second time. So yeah. I'll separate you from Skynet so it can't track you in time. And you're already in read-write, which makes things a helluva lot easier." It nodded.

"So what is my new mission?"

John leaned forward with his arms resting on his knees.

"I'm going to send you back in time to be a protector to me and my mother. And to save someone I lost. Someone I cared a great deal about." He knew this Terminator didn't understand such things any more than 'Uncle Bob' had, but he also knew this would be stored in the machine's memory banks, and it might prove to be useful information on the mission. So John added,

"Someone I loved as my family."

"Who?"

"A T-800. Call him 'Uncle Bob', he'll know what it means. He's going to have my mother kill him. Your mission is to keep that from happening. Somehow, you have to get him to stay with me and my mom. You'll get more details and your parameters when I reprogram you."

"Understood. Do it." John nodded and shut the Terminator down as he got to work.

John did a final check of his work before rebooting the Terminator. Its human appearance was powerfully built and rippling with muscles, looking like one of the Amazons he'd seen in someone's old Wonder Woman comic. Its jet black hair fell down to its thighs, an unusual trait, John thought. He'd made a small improvement to this one. He'd given it an identity, a name. 'It' was now 'she', and 'she' was named Antiope. He'd also added some files to her, so she would be able to repair the T-800 in that time period, as well as herself, and he also included a file on how the loss had affected him. She might be able to use that somehow.

Satisfied that he'd done everything he needed to, he rebooted Antiope and waited for her to come back online as her systems adjusted to the changes he'd made.

"Do you know your mission and its parameters now?" he asked.

"Yes." Antiope answered. "And I know that my designation is now Antiope."

"Correct," John said, "Well, I guess there's just one thing left to do. You ready to go back?" She answered by positioning herself in the center of the room. John then activated the machine. and Antiope disappeared in a blinding flash of light.

She arrived in the back of a store of some sort. She didn't know what kind, but thankfully it was one that sold clothes. She had to contain her hair, too. Soon enough, she was dressed in black pants, a black sleeveless shirt, a black leather vest with small studs covering the lapels, black combat boots, black cross belts, a black spike collar with silver spikes, and a pair of long fingerless gloves. She'd contained her hair into a single long braid that hung down her back.

Now that she looked more human, Antiope had to find some mode of transportation, and fast. According to her files, her charge was going to die tonight...not far from where she was. As if confirming this, she heard a loud explosion, and took off running in that direction. In her world at least, where there was an explosion, there was usually at least one Terminator present.

Oh jeez, I started crying as I wrote John's flashbacks at the beginning. James Cameron, why did you have to give T2 such a sad ending!?

I know, not much action here, but there will be.

Antiope is pronounced an-TEE-oh-pee.