Day of the Living.

John hugged him mom tight. This was not an uncommon reaction. Once she was done ranting about how he was 'too important' and then finished emptying her gun into whatever she perceived as a threat, she collapsed and he rode it out with her. His mom was wound so tight that the second a fight ended she came unspooled. He didn't want to be like that, and he was the one who killed Sarkissian. He was the one who gave the kill-shot to Cromartie too.

I am not a general. I am not a warrior, but I have finished two monsters in one month. I am not the Great General Connor. I am just John Connor, the Killer of Killers.

Once Sarah's little tantrum ended, they finished filling the hole in. Sarah went quiet, still holding on to John, not really saying anything.

Derek was the one who got things moving again. "We should get out of here. The law will come looking."

"They'll be watching the roads." John said. "Safer if we wait a day."

"Where do we go in the meantime?"

John sighed. "I have a place booked, we'll have to split a room between the four of us though."

"Three." Cameron glanced at him. "I don't sleep."

"Split a room huh?" Sarah asked John, coming out of herself. "You just booked the one?"

John felt himself shrinking under her gaze. "A big room. Honest."

Sarah growled softly and led the way back to the cars.

Derek gave his nephew a look not long after they got to the hotel. "Is this the...?"

John shushed him furiously and glanced over his shoulder. Neither Sarah or Cameron had heard him.

"I'm going to take a shower." Sarah announced, and looked pointedly at John. "Is there a shower in this room, or just the hot tub?"

John swallowed and pointed to the bathroom.

"I'm gonna go get some food." Derek added.

Both adults headed out of the room, leaving John with Cameron.

Cameron gave him a glare. "The Honeymoon Suite?"

Another ten minutes, and Cameron had packed the cars in the event of a needed quick getaway, and she found John, stretched out on the bed, John with his phone. "Okay, how about this? 'Riley, here's what happened... I have an evil identical twin...'"

Cameron just looked at him.

"No." John agreed. "Okay, um... 'Riley, here's what happened. Mom's a secret agent, who ticked off some Mexican warlords, which is why the FBI had to come get me out of jail.'"

Cameron just stared.

"No." John agreed.

"You could tell her the truth." Cameron offered.

John gave a pained look. "I don't know."

Cameron came over, sat down on the bed, and calmly stretched herself out next to him. "John, if she stays with you, she'll find out sooner or later. Isn't it better to find out now?"

John wouldn't look at her. He looked at anything else but her face, and the fact that it was suddenly well within kissing range. "Why do you do this?" His voice was tired, desperate... "When you act this way with me, why?"

"I don't know. It just... it feels right."

It wasn't the first time they'd had the conversation, and John still didn't know what to do about it. He took her in. It was hard not to, given her location, and his mouth went dry. "The night I left... you didn't change because of the weather did you?"

"No." Cameron confessed.

He was aware of her proximity right down to his toenails, her warmth, her face...

And the smell of gunpowder that clung to her hair.

John calmed down fast, and sat up somewhat straighter against the headboard.

Cameron sat upright also, sensing the shift in his mood. "You don't like it? You spent most of the night talking to Riley this way, when she came over after we moved."

"What, you're spying on me with her now?!" John snapped, getting out of the bed.

"I have to. You lied to me about her." Cameron said.

"Damn right I did." John said.

"Why?"

"Because if I had told you the truth, you would have stopped me from leaving."

"You would have been safer."

"Bull. I would have been at the house while you were out stocking the supply drop, and Cromartie would have killed me, and mom before you even knew he was there."

Cameron didn't answer for a while. "She's not good for you John. She'll start fights you don't need, like with the camera."

"Human's do stupid things. Be happy you're a machine."

Cameron almost looked sad, and said nothing.

John shut his eyes. "You know what the worst part is?"

"No."

"The worst part is, I knew you were right. I am putting her in danger."

"Yes." Cameron agreed.

"It's just..." John cleared his throat. "Cromartie shot at her today. We spent the night in a Mexican prison, and... The last thing she said to me was that she didn't want to run away from me."

Cameron sat herself up on her elbows. A posture that made John gulp again. "She still got you arrested. As a direct result of that, Cromartie found you."

"Cromartie found me because he had mom's phone. Riley had nothing to do with that."

"Yes, but if you had brought me here with you instead of her, you would have been able to avoid most of today's violence. I could have got the camera for you too. Or kept you out of the jail cell. At the very least, I could have fought him for you once he started shooting police officers."

John stared at her. "Are you seriously in here, stretched out on my bed, telling me that you're a better choice than Riley, because killing people doesn't both you?"

"Killing one more person last week would have saved over a dozen today." Cameron pointed out. "That's why you need me more than her."

John turned away from her swiftly. "I'm getting out of here."

Cameron was on her feet and blocking the door, before John could get halfway across the room.

John pushed past her. "Relax, I'm not going any further than the balcony."

John left the room, and Cameron straightened up the bed, for reasons she couldn't really explain.

A few minutes later, Sarah came into the room, looking somewhat fresher.

"Riley is a security risk, and John cannot be trusted to be objective." Cameron said without preamble. "But John was right. Riley is not the reason Cromartie found him." She looked hard at Sarah. "You are."

Sarah went to the window, not looking at her. "I know."

"The fourth man at the Bowling Alley. I predict a high probability that he was there, and you hid him from me."

"I didn't want him to die." Sarah confessed quietly. "And I knew that was the only thing you would have considered doing."

"John killed someone because it was necessary. Something you still have not done yet."

It was the 'yet' that kept Sarah quiet.

"Riley is not a killer yet either. I think that's a quality he likes in Riley." Cameron said. "As long as he likes her, he will not do the necessary thing. We must take action for him."

"Riley isn't going to go away because her boyfriends mom told her to." Sarah told her.

"I am programmed with several ways to avert future confrontations with a minimum effort." Cameron said. "We have three options. One, we could recruit her."

"Recruit her?"

"Like Dixon and Ellison."

"I don't think John would agree. Riley's the one thing in his life that hasn't been a cause of violence. Well, till now."

"Option two, I can mimic John's voice and break up with her over the phone before we get back to Los Angeles."

"Bad idea. John's almost certainly going to go see her the second we get back. The deception wouldn't last for long."

"Option three, I can rip her head off, stick it on a pike and mount it over John's bedroom door, as a warning to any future girls he might bring home. It solves the Riley situation and future problems on this subject. I would recommend that option as the best long-term solution."

Sarah stared at her. "And you think John's not being objective?" She asked. "Even Cromartie thinks you're brain damaged."

This reached Cameron. She stared at Sarah, her eyes tightened. "I'm going to make a quick patrol of the town. Check for Police Activity."

Charley Dixon answered his phone. "Hello?"

"Will you accept the charges for collect call from Michelle Dixon?"

Dixon dropped the phone suddenly, then scrambled to pick it up. "Yes."

"Please hold."

A few quick beeping noises, and suddenly a familiar voice. "It's me."

"Sarah?" Dixon relaxed and tensed at the same time. "A call from Michelle Dixon?"

"Sorry about that, but I don't know if our fake ID's can still be trusted. Cromartie found the house."

"My god! Is-"

"Everyone's fine. John wasn't home. We managed to lead the thing to Mexico. Given your history with Cromartie, I thought you'd like to know. It's dead. We killed it."

Charley felt a hot surge go through him. The machine that killed his wife was dead. "Good." He snarled pleasurably.

Sarah reacted to the ferocity in his voice. Charley was a paramedic, the gentles soul she had known. Charely had become a soldier too. "Charley… John wasn't home, because he ran away, with this girl he likes."

Charley actually laughed. "It was going to happen sooner or later."

"John has to be smarter than that. If he gets himself killed, or for that matter, puts her in danger, just by being-"

"What's her name?"

"Riley. But if John actually cared-"

"Is she nice?"

Sarah struggled to stay on topic. "I guess, but it was her involve-"

"Have you been nice to her?"

Sarah gave up. "What the hell has that got to do with anything?!"

She could hear him grinning. "You hate her."

"I don't hate her..."

"You want her taken out and shot, and you're living in a house full of people who are good at that sort of thing."

"Charley!"

"John wouldn't have run away from home if he thought that she'd be welcome at the dinner table."

"She's not welcome at the dinner table." Sarah exploded, the whole week's worth of frustration on the subject erupting all at once. "She's gotten into my son's head, and now he's more concerned with her than he is with Skynet, and it's causing distractions, and friction between me and him, and Riley is just so, naïve and carefree and not at all worried, even when, lets face it, she should be worried, and John's more comfortable talking to her than to me, and…" She suddenly realized what she just said and rubbed her eyes hard. "Hell."

She could hear Charley smiling. "You know what I think? I think you like her."

"No, I don't."

"I think if she was dating anybody else, you'd like her."

"If he were anybody else, I'd be happy for him." Sarah took a breath. "But John is not, anybody else."

"Sarah, you can't make this kid into the hero of the human race if he's not even human any more. Who else has he got? Cameron?"

Sarah went quiet. "He has to be safe Charley. He has to survive."

"Surviving isn't living."

Sarah shut her eyes. "I know. But it's the only option left sometimes."

Sarah hung up on him, and turned to see Derek holding out a beer bottle. "Wish I could have heard both sides of that conversation."

Sarah took the bottle off him, and the two of them sat on the couch, put their feet up on the coffee table, sipping their drinks.

"Mexican beer." Derek commented, looking at the bottle. "Tastes different than American."

Sarah nodded. "Best not to ask why."

It was a quiet pause, when Sarah suddenly chuckled bitterly. "Cameron left yesterday to restock the supply drop. On her way out, she told me not to worry about Riley. She'd talked to John and they agreed he wasn't going to see her any more."

Derek laughed. "It bought that?"

"It's not funny!" Sarah barked. "He should have stayed away from her."

"Like you did?"

"What do you mean?"

"You and Charley were happy, so you ran for it, and took John with you." Derek pointed out. "Didn't even have a Terminator hunting you then."

"That was to protect John!" Sarah protested. "I want him to have as normal a life as possible, but there are some things that are impossible regardless. it's a fact of his life. People we don't know is one of the things we have to watch out for."

"I don't believe what I'm hearing. You and Cameron were the ones worried about John being suicidal. Now he found somebody he actually wants to talk to about things..."

"He can always talk to me."

"No offence Connor, but when a soldier gets screwed in the head, he doesn't turn to his drill sergeant."

Sarah suddenly dropped her feet off the table. "You think that's why future John picked Cameron? A pretty, teenage robot that's hard to kill?"

Derek shrugged. "Well took you long enough to figure that one out. Have you noticed he's the only one in the house that refers to the metal as a 'she'."

Sarah shut her eyes. "Crap."

Long silence. Sarah took the beer Derek was offering and they sat silently for a while.

"Charley thinks that I should ease up on John about Riley."

"Dangerous."

"I know." Sarah agreed. "But who else does he have. Just Riley, me, you and... and Cameron."

"I don't know if John's sleeping with the machine." Derek said. "Could happen though."

Sarah dropped her glass. "What? I would have thought you'd be the first to…"

"Oh, don't get me wrong, I'd tear her down to her wires before I gave my consent." Derek looked at her evenly. "I would. But see, when I was still… well, I stopped being a kid once the first blast hit, but when I was still younger, there was this woman I knew, friend of Connor. Her name was Carla, lost her family, her kids, and her niece to the machines. She was with this guy. He was a little distant, little cold, but it's not like that was bizarre. Then one day in the mess hall, Connor suddenly yelled for his guards to execute that man on the spot. It's Connor, so nobody hesitated, and Carla's boyfriend got four slugs to the head, while still at the table. He didn't fall down."

"Oh my god." Sarah mumbled.

"That guy stood up, with half his face blown off, he pulled a gun, and killed half the people in the Mess hall. It was the first infiltrator we saw. Wasn't the last. Male, female, younger, older… You saw Vick's chip, did you think they fooled us just because they looked human?"

Sarah suddenly felt the bile rising in her throat.

Derek shrugged and took a long pull off his beer. "Anyway, there were a few guys who looked at Carla funny after that, but there wasn't anybody who thought to give Carla grief, or any of the other guys who got seduced into letting a machine in. Why the hell do you think Skynet makes machines that look like Cameron? We just got smarter about security, smarter about trusting… nobody gave them grief."

"Just like that?" Sarah demanded. She remembered the last time a machine had been sent to protect John. The same face that had killed Kyle. She had to swallow her rage and let the thing fix her, stitch her injuries shut. Cameron had done the same, and it had taken everything Sarah had to tolerate those things touching her. To tolerate them touching her son...

"Frankly, knowing you were sleeping with the enemy was bad enough, in a world full of bad things. They were duped." Derek said, as if answering her unspoken thought. "So no, I don't like it, but I know all about how near-death experiences screw with your head, and how people blow off steam afterward. What worries me isn't that John's attracted to it, that's just good design work on behalf of Skynet. What worried me was that he might be falling in love with it."

Long silence. Derek took another sip. "Anyway. That's what I meant about John Connor being too much like John Baum. Don't get pissed at the blonde for not being terrified of things she wouldn't believe exists. Between the two of them, security is John's problem. Going on a road trip with a girl he likes is human. Letting her have the access code and not checking whether or not she entered it was stupid. He doesn't have to be a monk, or a robot, he just has to be smart." He looked hard at Sarah. "And so do you."

Does he know how Cromartie found us? Finally, Sarah spoke. "When… Cameron and I confronted John about spending time with Riley, John came back at me with this thing about… about me not liking her, and that was why I reacted that way… It's kinda cliché for a mom not to like her son's girlfriend on principle, y'know?"

"Wondering if you were sending the wrong girl away?" Derek smirked. "I checked out for a time travel mission, I got briefed on a bunch of the others. Some of the techies really had things to say about Connor sending Cameron to his teenage self." He took a sip. "Nobody said anything out loud of course. Connor personally spent so much time getting it ready…"

Sarah took a long gulp of her beer. "Never thought I'd suddenly want Riley back so fast."

Derek smirked and rolled his head back.

"You're being awfully calm about this." Sarah observed.

Derek toasted Sarah. "You're a mother. You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

"Where I come from, there's plenty to worry about. So we don't worry about it. Cromartie's dead. We haven't lost anyone, we don't have to shift bases, we've verified whether or not Ellison's an ally, the one machine that knows John's face is no longer hunting us, and we did it all in a way that can't lead back to the house. Moms don't know how to stop worrying when a mission ends. Soldiers do. Today was a clear victory."

Sarah took that in; returned the toast. "It was."

"And hey," Derek smirked. "Who knows? Maybe Cameron'll get jealous enough to show Riley that pretzel trick she did back at the Shrink's office."

Sarah cracked up and the two of them laughed mirthlessly.

Cameron ended her patrol of the town. The police force was out in numbers, and though the celebration continued, it was muted, tense. Cameron left behind the music and came to the hotel, glancing past the fence to the small balcony, behind their hotel room, out of view of the street, as the night deepened. John was sitting in a deck chair, crouched over a notepad, scribbling furiously. Cameron came up over the side of the balcony railing, and settled in the deck chair next to him.

"Dia de los Meurtos." John said. "Day of the dead." He handed her the pad.

Cameron looked at the notepad. It was a list of names, and little sketches of skulls and skeletons.

"It's tradition, to honor those that have gone before."

Cameron looked at the names. Some of them she recognized from experience, some from her files, a few others not at all. "Would you do this if you were here with Riley?"

"Probably not." John sighed, and put down his pen. "I know I disappoint you Cameron. I can feel your disappointment in me, but I'm going to get my full measure of war. It will consume my life, and if I win or lose, I don't anticipate much of a life after it ends. If it ends. Just like Derek. I don't want to go looking for it when I don't have to. I want there to be something that warfare doesn't poison. My family lives and breathes it. Riley doesn't."

"It's lonely being John Connor." Cameron said.

"Yes." John whispered. "Yes it is."

Cameron came over, stood before where he sat, and ran the palm of her hand down the side of his face, put her other hand on his shoulder. "I can't feel it, but I can understand it." Cameron pulled away. "If I could, I would probably be lonely too. All those I meet of my kind, I have to kill."

Long silence.

"Don't offer details." Cameron said finally. "Don't tell her the truth, but tell her something she won't question. She was scared, her mind will be fuzzy on the details, so don't offer any. It will explain much of the things she doesn't understand about your life already, and if she's scared enough, she won't be tempted to push for more information. She'll accept something non-specific."

"What if she doesn't?" John asked miserably.

"Then I'll make you feel better."

"How?"

Beat. Cameron handled him a bundle of fabric. "Here's a present."

John unwrapped it. It was a novelty T-Shirt. "I Got Arrested In Mexico, And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt."

John smiled, just a bit.

"Derek and Sarah also seem to be amused by this pretzel trick I know." Cameron offered.

John stared at her without comprehension. "I have no idea what that means." He said, and dialed the phone. "Hi." He spoke into it quietly. "It's me."

End.

Read and Review