A/N: The fourth story in the series, here it is. Funny, never thought I'd do it, but enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own T:SCC. I created Joseph, I created Project Vader, and I came up with this thought of plot. Don't sue; I'm in college and broke.

Heartless Strike

Chapter One

Insecure Masculinity

"Cam," John wheezed, "Wait up a moment. I'm not…Joseph." Cameron did dutifully turn and watch John stumble into a standing position. Her eyes scanned his movements and breathing rate, before deciding that his physical efficiency rate was dangerously low. If they were assaulted at that moment, he would not be able to fight. Cameron usually prided the fact that John could. But right now the teenager was exhausted and leaning heavily against the wall. It was not his fault that he could not keep up with her at a dead sprint over a two mile distance uphill. He was only human after all; maybe he could handle a one mile run uphill.

"You c…certainly…know how to set…pace," John breathed, trying to stand up and take in more air. It wasn't working too efficiently, because he kept bending back over. She moved up and helped hold him up. Storing data for later………John cannot run two miles uphill; suggest trying two miles on flat ground at proper time. What surprised her was when John still tried to stand up on his own. Was he rejecting her in some way? Cameron felt a tiny pang of sadness from her automated emotion simulator. John had never done that before. Had she offended him? She began running visuals of the past forty eight hours.

"You are upset with me," Cameron stated, doing her best keep the unhappiness out of her voice. John felt terrible on the spot; he couldn't believe that he had just made Cameron think he was angry at her. He tried to steady his breathing.

"Cam," he whispered, putting his hands on her cheeks and bringing her face close to his. Cameron felt her CPU begin to heat up, and her skin was suddenly warm. "I could never, ever, be angry with you. That has nothing to do with it. I'm just…well…um…I'm jealous of you." Replaying back John's message………replaying message again; analyzing expression………expression during message is embarrassed………analyzing what I have John does not………

"You are jealous that you do not have a uterus and breasts?" Cameron asked. John's expression was dumbstruck, and he mouthed a few words she could not decipher. There were several meanings that could be in his movements, and she set to calculating which one it was. John meanwhile, was thinking, Did…did she really just say that? Cameron said that? Who has she been talking to? What on earth makes her think…Cameron continued, "Does this mean yes, John?"

His mind went on alert to deny any such request as quickly as was humanly possible. "NO! NO NO NO!" John shouted, panicking. Cameron cocked her head to the side; John was erratic when he appeared this way. He tended to deny things or act in ways that did not fit his pattern. He had done this similarly when she had first believed that since he loved her, she did not have to be dressed. He had quickly corrected her. He must be about to correct her here too. She was right. "Cameron, it has nothing to do with the fact that you have those. It has to do with the fact…well…" He began to turn red again. She listened intently, wondering what it was. "…that you can physically best me."

She was confused. "It is true that my physical capability is superior to yours. But that is to be expected: I am a cybernetic organism who is crafted from future technology, and you are a human from a long slow line of evolution. Is it bad that I am strong?" she asked. John's face twisted as he sighed. Analyzing………John is in deep thought; I have asked a difficult question.

"It's not bad that you're strong, Cam," John explained. He shuffled his feet; how was he supposed to tell the one he loved he felt like a wimp? Especially when that one was a machine who had not fully developed a sense of what was normal to talk about. "It's just, I feel like a weakling whenever you do something physically impressive, like rip a door off its hinges, or swing something through a wall."

"Should I stop doing these things? I do them to protect you."

"No, it's not that; I kind of, you know, feel inferior when you do something normally the man in the relationship should be doing. It's…an inferiority complex," John explained. Cameron's processes reviewed the definition in her memory from the dictionary. It was difficult for her programming to compute that John would have one; he was perfect to her, for a human. He was jealous that she was stronger, but yet he said it was important that she was. A few processes crashed trying to follow John's logic. John watched her think, and his mind temporarily strayed to how she did look in the moonlight. He nearly forgot what they were talking about before Cameron spoke.

"You are unhappy that you are not stronger?" Cameron asked. Processing………solution: unsolvable problems are part of marriage Reminder: must work on wedding arrangements………solution is not correct; searching………analyzing………solution found; checking memory: John: Questions: Answers: Confusing………applying…….. "Is this a male thing?" Cameron asked.

John raised an eyebrow. "Where did you hear that expression?" he asked. Part of him was glad she knew what he was talking about.

"From you."

"I never remember saying it."

"You will. You said that you would explain it later."

"Oh," John finished. "Yes, this is a very important guy thing." One of Cameron's processes stored 'Male Thing' under undefined solutions, while another correlated guy and male. He simply watched her, and couldn't believe that he was going to be married to her soon. Seven weeks after the events with Skynet, and there had been little trouble. Other than the trouble they had chasing down leads, killing Terminators, and convincing Joseph not to sniff people's hands when they shook. One poor man had run away screaming cannibal; Joseph had not quite understood why he thought he would eat him when there was food on the shelves nearby. Nobody had wanted to explain it.

"We are approximately 2.03 miles away from our starting position," Cameron ran off, computing numbers. "There are no sirens yet and there likely will not be for another forty-seven seconds. Home is nearly .7452 miles away, and we have not been pursued." John nodded, his breath caught.

"We should get home, Cam," John decided. "I don't want to be questioned by police again." Cameron nodded and began walking. Trust Cam to attack a car because the drunk driver who flipped me off had a weapon. Was funny to see his face when she flipped the car over. We'll have to talk about that. He walked after her and put his arm around her waist. Cameron rested her head on his shoulder slightly, so as not to crush John. "And Cam?"

"Yes John?"

"It's not normal to talk about female body parts."

Cameron stored the information under her list of inappropriate topics for conversation. That file was quickly becoming as large as her file on John. A strange list of what John called innuendos were piling in as well. Derek seemed not to be as informed as she was, as he constantly brought up topics that were on the inappropriate list, such as the phrase, 'tooting his own horn.' She still had not made the correlation to that and male anatomy. Perhaps it was something was understandable after more years of activation.

*****

"I heard a car was flipped a few minutes ago." Sarah's voice was the only noise John could hear as he and Cameron entered the kitchen door. Derek was at the table, staring hard at the woodwork, while Joseph was out of sight; he had developed the habit of hiding under the couch when there was a loud noise or trouble he couldn't handle. Sarah counted as trouble he couldn't handle. Sarah was trouble nobody could handle, except perhaps a faster pair of legs. "They say whoever did it was a female, and that she had a boy accomplice along with her. Who could that be John?"

She was definitely angry. Either she was overly suspicious of Cameron, or something else had already upset her, because she had never held a knife in her hand before when confronting him about Cameron's antics. Usually it was a gun, but John feared the knife more. The knife took longer to kill you, and it hurt a lot more than a quick shot. "Cameron thought that he was a hostile, Mom. He was armed and somewhat aggressive." That's definitely not going to fly. If it didn't make me look so guilty, I would have Cameron massage my shoulders. She's good at that, and she's a good kisser too…

"Well the 'threat to John' is now going to be at the hospital for a few days, and you had better hope that he had not gotten a good look at either of you, because the police are bound to chasing after whoever did it," Sarah threatened. John wished Cameron was in-between them. He put on his best rebellious teenager and tried to mix it with future BA leader of the human resistance look. The unwavering expression his mother was giving him told him that it wasn't working. He began to formulate an idea on to get away before she did try to punish him. Fortunately, she left of her own accord, leaving him in a puddle of sweat. The puddle got larger when he heard what sounded like the knife sharpening.

Now Cameron put a hand on his shoulder. Her slender touch against the skin on his neck did calm him slightly, and he reached back and touched her hand before heading towards the fridge. As he was opening the door, Joseph's head peeked out from under the couch. How does he even fit under there? "It's safe," Derek told him, no longer interested in the table and pulling a bottle of alcohol out from under the table. So that's why Mom's so angry; Derek brought another bottle home. She hates it when he does that, which is part of the reason he does it likely.

Secure that his life was not threatened again, Joseph slithered into the kitchen, took a sandwich off the counter, and left just as quickly. Derek rolled his eyes and took a sip of his drink. He watched lazily as John got food and suspiciously as Cameron followed him. His watching took a turn for the serious as he noticed that John was down about something as well. Taking a drink to wet his throat, he called out to John. "What's wrong with you? She didn't do anything to do you, did she?" Derek knew how they ended up, but that didn't mean he hoped otherwise.

John sighed. Even my uncle has noticed it? I must be wearing a sign that says WARNING insecure masculinity male walking. Beware of outbursts and failed attempts to increase confidence. I mean if Cameron and Derek notice it, then even John Henry could notice it. Well, better now and to Derek than later and to Mom. "It's nothing Cameron did to me. It's just that she's the strong one, and I'm not. You know what I mean," John said. Cameron watched as Derek's face changed. Apparently Derek did know exactly what John was talking about, and that confirmed that it was a male gender concept. Perhaps that was why she could not compute it.

"You mean you're upset that she's tough one? I can see what you're talking about?" Derek's expression turned darker. "Yeah, it must be tough be out muscled by your girlfriend. How much does she bench again?" He leaned back, putting his hands behind his head and putting his feet up on the table. "I mean, let's think: who does the heavy lifting and fighting? Oh yeah, Cameron." Shut up, Uncle. "Must really suck for you. Hello, my name is John Connor, I'm meant to save humanity and my metal girlfriend wears the pants. Sucks for you, especially when you're supposed to be the 'in charge' one. How is your ego—"

Derek did not get any farther, because he suddenly threw himself up from where he was standing. Moving from the table, he threw open the window, dived out, and began running as Sarah bounded around the kitchen corner and out the door, knife still in her hand. John smiled as he saw who was faster. Huh. Wonder who wears the pants in that relationship. Don't forget that you like my mom, either. He nearly threw up on remembering that his uncle crushed on his mother. Cameron turned towards him confused. "What does 'wear the pants' mean? Should I not be?"

"No, it doesn't mean literally. When someone talks about who wears the pants, it means who is in charge in the relationship," John explained. Cameron cocked her head in that cute way that made him want to kiss her. "In a relationship, it's not usually an equal thing. Usually one person tends to make more of the decisions than the other and keep things in order. Sort of like a power thing."

Cameron understood. "And Derek was inferring that I 'wear the pants' in our relationship. But what was he basing his analysis on? You make decisions that I follow."

"He was basing it on which one of us is physically stronger," John explained. Cameron stared at him; the logic did not make sense. "It's a guy thing." Cameron's curiosity was satisfied. But then John continued. "For example, you could chase me away brandishing a knife, and I would be helpless to stop you."

"I do not wish to hurt you. I love you."

"I love you too, Cam. But in principle, in theory, you would be the one who would be chasing me. I couldn't chase you away with a knife," John said. Cameron stored it under a new file: Guy thing.

"Thank you for explaining," Cameron said, and John knew he hadn't explained it well. Why do machines have to ask the most difficult questions. But Cameron said nothing of it and told John his calorie intake was low. John ate. While he was eating, Sarah and Derek returned. Sarah came in first, looking in good spirits from having a physical struggle. Derek came in a moment longer, a cut on his arm. He eyed where Sarah went before sitting back at the table and dabbing his wound with some of his drink. John said nothing and tried to hide the smile he had; he would blackmail his uncle with that later.

Once John had finished eating, he joined Cameron in sitting on the couch. He nearly regretted it when Cameron reached for a blue binder that he had come to hate. She opened it and began to mathematically calculate costs that would be for their wedding. John really wished Sarah would help her with this; he had no clue what to do, and Cameron knew nothing more than costs. Why can't her strangely intuitive fashion sense help her with this? He looked over ten minutes later to see his uncle grinning again and tapping his jeans.

Derek's expression was gone when Cameron rose and reached for a combat knife. "In principle I would be the one chasing you, John," she said to the man she loved, "so comparatively this should work just as well." Derek made sure John saw the finger he flipped him before taking off again. John decided he liked working on this as he watched the second footrace. Cameron was much faster than Sarah.