CHAPTER 33

Epilogue

The sun steadily rose above the horizon and its warm rays slowly quelled the chill that hung in the air. There was not a cloud in the sky and one could see the pale blue atmosphere above. A gentle breeze blew through the area kicking up a small amount of dirt and dust as it passed. Occasionally, the sound of a plasma rifle would ring out as the resistance soldiers combed through the remaining debris of the battlefield. While it had become apparent that Skynet and its machines were now deactivated the slightest accidental movement of anything machine like was still occasionally met with a volley of weapons fire. Lauren Fields couldn't blame the soldiers. It was hard to get over years of paranoia; harder still to accept that Skynet was gone.

She stood on top of a large mound of concrete ruble piled against the remains of decrepit buildings staring with her pale greenish blue eyes out across the shattered wreckage that had once been the Skynet base. The nuclear explosion had not destroyed everything, but it had done enough. The resistance fighters carefully kept their distance from the actual blast site and only patrolled the outskirts of the battle zone. After surviving all that they had been through the idea of dying from radiation poisoning was an almost laughable thought.

The cool, soft breeze blew a few strands of Lauren's dark brown hair into her face and eyes. She instinctively blinked, but did not bother to brush the hair away. She stood perfectly still, save for her hand which was fiddling with the silver necklace looped around her neck. A simple chain with two pendants located on it - one a cross and the other a flat ring like charm with an engraved inscription – it was a gift she had received long ago that was now one of the last physical links to Savannah she had left. While Lauren had consciously known all along that Savannah never intended to return from this battle, a small part of her still held out hope that somehow, someway, something would change and that her friend would return. Lauren's eyes blinked more rapidly as she struggled to hold back her tears.

The entire scene before her was strangely quiet, peaceful, and serene. As the surviving resistance soldiers picked through the outskirts of the battleground, they barely spoke a word. Everyone seemed reluctant to talk, fearful that if they were to somehow break the silence something horrible might yet happen. Lauren took in a deep breath and then slowly exhaled. She stroked the pendants of her necklace with the thumb and index finger of her right hand as she gazed with glassy, tear filled eyes over the horizon.

"Hard to believe isn't it?" Lauren nearly jumped as she was pulled from her trance by Eric Livie's voice. Looking to her left she saw him walking up the concrete debris pile towards her.

"Hard to believe what?" she asked as she turned her gaze back out towards the horizon, her voice was sullen and detached.

"Its gone..." Livie said as he sidled up next to her, "...after all these years Skynet is gone." Lauren did not respond.

"I've managed to make contact with several other factions. They say they're still dealing with some of the Centurion HK's and its "slaved" units, but everything that was directly controlled by Skynet has gone down." Livie's voice lacked any sense of triumph as he too stared out across the horizon. Lauren still did not respond and Eric sighed.

"I'm pretty sure Perry will try to use this opportunity to his advantage." He paused briefly before continuing, "We won't be able to fight against him by ourselves for long. We'll have to see if some of the other factions will join us." Lauren let out a tearful laugh and finally spoke,

"The more things change the more they stay the same." she said still not looking over at Livie who half heartedly shrugged his shoulders in response. The two remained silent for several seconds just listening to the quiet ambient sounds. Finally, unable to bear it any longer Lauren spoke,

"I knew she wasn't coming back." she said in voice racked with guilt and remorse. Livie had to choke back his own emotions before he responded.

"So did I..." he said in a hoarse tone before allowing the quiet to again envelope them for another several seconds before finally speaking again.

"I should have done more..." he said in a voice that was filled with regret, "...I shouldn't have left her behind." Breaking her gaze from the horizon Lauren looked over at Livie with bloodshot, tear filled eyes.

"There was nothing you could have done...There was nothing any of us could have done; she was already gone long before we ever came here." Lauren struggled to speak and when she did her sentences were short,

"She...she was so tired of this place. I could see it in her eyes...I always saw it in her eyes." Livie ground his teeth trying to fight back his own grief.

"She had been broken so long ago, and there was nothing any of us could do to stop this from happening...one way or the other she was going to leave us. She wanted so badly just to rest, to forget all of the pain she had endured, to leave all of this behind her." Livie nodded his head in a consolatory gesture as he heard Lauren let out another depressed and quivering sigh.

"Most of all..." she said quietly, again balking after she started to speak, "...most of all I'm going to miss my friend." A solitary tear rolled down Lauren's face. Livie took a hard swallow before he spoke.

"I loved her..." he said quietly.

"So did I..." Lauren responded, "...there was something about her; something that drew us all to her and yet drove her away from herself. I could never explain it, nor did I even understand it, I just knew it was there. You couldn't know Savannah and not be drawn to her, not want to help her in someway. I think that was the real reason Bedell put so much faith in her." Livie again nodded his head in agreement dislodging a single tear that rolled down his cheek. The two stood silently for another moment, still staring out at the wreckage of the Skynet base.

"She was right about Connor's plan." Livie said his voice still hoarse. Lauren's eyebrow's barely moved as she briefly glanced over at Eric and then back out at the horizon.

"She said with his help we could do this." Lauren still did not respond to this statement as another moment of silence followed before Livie spoke again.

"I hope she was right about him...In the end I hope she wasn't alone." Lauren barely nodded in response. While the question of what had happened to John Connor had crossed her mind it was at this point so insignificant that she had barely bothered to acknowledge it. Thoughts and emotions about the death of the person she loved most had by this point nearly consumed her.

"I should go check in with the rest of the command staff..." Livie finally said his voice now stripped of nearly all emotion. Lauren did not react as he slowly turned away from her and began to make his way down the concrete debris hill. He had only gotten a few steps away when Lauren spoke without bothering to turn and look at him.

"Is this why we did it?" she asked.

"Did what?" he responded as he turned and looked back up the hill at her.

"Is this why we fought so hard...survived for this long...sacrificed so much...Just so that we could lose the ones we loved most?" Livie opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He stood quietly for several seconds in a near state of shock at Lauren's unexpectedly candid question. Finally, he managed to formulate a response.

"I..." Livie's emotions momentarily choked him and he was forced to briefly pause as he fought to harness his feelings. Regaining his composure he continued in a sad voice,

"I really have no idea..." he said. Hesitating for another brief moment he eventually turned and quietly walked away, his head hung low with remorse.

Lauren remained on top of the hill standing quietly by herself staring out across the horizon for a long while; the wind gently caressed her face and the sun shown down upon her. She took a long, slow breath and spoke in a low and sad whisper,

"Wherever you are Savannah..." she said as she struggled to get out her words, "...I hope you found the peace that you were looking for." Lauren remained on the hilltop silently gazing out at the sunrise, secretly hoping for a response.

.

.

.

Disorientation mixed with a weighted sensation of being pulled towards the ground. Pressure increasing against the back, hips, and upper thighs. Cool air and dried blood against the skin. The weight of matted disheveled clothing along with the brush of hair against the neck. A tingling sensation combined with surface and internal damage to portions of the body. The confusion grew worse as the crackle and hum of electricity mixed with the quiet drone of computer fans made its way into the consciousness. The flashing of emergency strobe lights and the consistent glow of florescent bulbs growing brighter gave way to blurry images that after a moment came into focus. Surrounded by a steel and concrete room with computer monitors hanging from a metallic frame located at the center. A glass table with small spotlights above it on which a keyboard, Ethernet cable, and a black knife with blood dripping from the open blade lay just a few feet away. The disorientation and confusion continued. Control of the extremities could now be felt and the right hand twitched slightly upon this realization. The location was familiar, but should have been much different. The sights and sounds recognizable, but somehow eerily out of place. What was happening and where was she?

"Cameron..." a deep male voice spoke.

Cameron blinked her undamaged right eye and quickly looked in the direction from where the voice had come. She instantly recognized the rugged looking male figure that was standing across from her as a Terminator. He was dressed in a light blue button down short sleeve shirt and khakis. She immediately noticed a large blood stain on the right thigh portion of the pants. Cameron rose from the chair; still somewhat shaky on her feet, she was forced to take a moment to steady herself.

"Where is John?" She asked, followed immediately by, "Who are you?" While the emotional overtones of her voice were restrained, her concern could easily be heard.

"Calm yourself Cameron; your program's systems have not yet fully stabilized." Cameron took a somewhat unsteady step towards the male.

"Where is John and who are you?" she asked again.

"I am John Henry..." Confused, Cameron's head tilted slightly to the side. "During my incursion into Skynet's mainframe a chance for escape in this body became available so I utilized that particular option."

"This is not the future." Cameron stated as she briefly glanced around the room.

"No it is not, we have returned to what would have been Mr. Connor's present."

"Where is John?" she asked a third time. John Henry understood that there would be no "easy" way to answer Cameron's question.

"Mr. Connor chose to stay behind." Cameron's eye widened and an almost fearful look streaked across her badly damaged, yet still beautiful face.

"I left him behind?" A sudden and almost unnerving sensation crept over her. Cameron had never experienced anything like this before. The closest she could compare it to was the emotional "twinge" she had experienced when John went missing in Mexico. However, this feeling was much, much more profound and unsettling. The closest human emotion she could imagine was fear.

"You did not leave him." John Henry stated. "I believe Mr. Connor's own personal convictions caused him to choose to stay behind."

"Send me back." she stated.

"I can not do that."

"You have to..." Cameron said as she moved towards the computer tower where the TDE controls were located. John Henry immediately stepped in the way, blocking her path.

"Out of my way, I have to find him, I have to protect him, I can't let anything happen to him."

"You can not do that." John Henry replied his voice taking on a more authoritative tone.

"Why not?" she asked. There was a brief pause on John Henry's part, almost as if he were hesitant to tell her.

"Because if you were to return to that time; you would be killed along with him." John Henry's words had an almost physical "impact" on Cameron as she listened to them. She felt the strongest emotional response she had ever undergone in her entire existence. It quickly became nearly overwhelming and uncontrollable, Cameron's thoughts almost disintegrated into a dreadful loop of confusion and hopelessness. She stood perfectly still and silent, frozen almost as if she were a statue.

"Cameron?" John Henry stated.

"John..." She whispered. "John is dead." While most would have found it disturbing to watch her reaction, John Henry also found Cameron's visible emotions over John's death fascinating, albeit from a strictly scientific viewpoint.

An almost panicked sensation was taking hold of her now.

"Why did you bring me back?" she asked, "Why did you not let me stay with John?" John Henry's facial expression immediately changed to a more comforting one.

"Tell me Cameron...what is the last thing you remember?" Cameron hesitated for a brief moment.

"Telling John I loved him just before you and I were both downloaded into Skynet.

John Henry's facial expression twitched slightly. He had easily come to the conclusion that what John felt for Cameron was what humans would have described as love. He also knew that Cameron in her own way experienced some sort of affinity for John. However, to hear Cameron say that she had professed her own love for John was quite unique.

"Interesting..." John Henry stated before quickly moving on, "However, that is as I suspected." Cameron gave him a puzzled look.

"I'm afraid you are missing a significant amount of information about what occurred after we were downloaded into the Skynet mainframe."

"Explain?" Cameron asked.

"It is a bit of a long story, one that we do not presently have time to explore in detail. Suffice it to say I was able to disrupt Skynet's systems for long enough so that the Bedell faction's invasion was successful. "Cameron showed no visible reaction to the "good" news that John Henry had just shared with her.

"However, I had already decided that ensuring the safety of your program would be of significant importance as well. After Charles Fischer destroyed your chip, I decided that other means of preserving you needed to be undertaken."

"Charles Fischer destroyed my chip?" Cameron asked.

"Yes he did...and to say that this came as quite a blow to Mr. Connor would be an understatement." Cameron's facial expression changed slightly to one of remorse upon hearing this.

"I believe that losing you was one of the reasons why he chose to stay behind, that mixed with his guilt about his actions and his admirable desire to be loyal to his friend."

"How am I here? Fischer told John that my body would have been destroyed by the time displacement." Cameron asked.

"Mr. Fischer's statement about your body was a lie, one of many lies that he used to further manipulate John. As to the question of how your program survived, that explanation is far simpler; your existence here is similar to that of my own." From the far corner of the room there was another crackle of electricity as the TDE finished powering down.

"When you were downloaded onto Skynet's mainframe a "shadow" of your program remained behind. This is not unlike how a part of my own program was left behind on your chip even after Skynet had attempted to remove it." Cameron stared blankly at John Henry. "After your chip's destruction and shortly before I downloaded into this body I moved your shadow program into a new and unused chip that was located inside the Skynet base of operation. Immediately after doing this I downloaded myself into my new body."

"Did you inform John of this?" Cameron asked rather directly.

"I did not..." Cameron immediately sensed another emotion. It was a quite distracting one. She classified it as anger.

"Why not?" She asked allowing more emotion to slip back into her voice.

"For two reasons; the most obvious was that I was completely unsure if my plan for you would be successful. I believed that giving Mr. Connor the "hope" that you were still alive and then stripping that away from him would do even greater harm to his already distraught psyche." There was then a moment's hesitation on John Henry's part before he continued.

"Moreover, I believed that the John you knew realized that he had become so damaged, so scarred, that staying behind with a mortally wounded Savannah was the only course of action left available to him." There was a more weighted pause as Cameron experienced a pang of what she could only surmise was profound sadness.

"I believe Mr. Connor was in some way attempting to redeem himself for all that he had done in the future."

Cameron's emotions were becoming stronger by the moment. She struggled to keep her thoughts and actions in check. With John gone her very existence seemed almost pointless, but mere self preservation was a distant thought in her mind now. She was unable to classify or comprehend everything that she was currently experiencing, but as every second passed by it all became more overwhelming.

"That still does not explain how I was able to get here, nor your reason reactivating me. My current chip should not have been able to make it through time." John Henry smiled at Cameron's observation. His right hand then pointed down towards the blood stain on his pants, Cameron again tilted her head to the side in a confused manner.

"Before I traveled back in time I placed your chip inside my body, my upper thigh to be more precise. After cauterizing the wound the chip was surrounded by living tissue so that it could make the trip back to this present time." While John Henry's explanation made sense to Cameron it did little to quell her complex and nearly overpowering emotions.

"Now that John is gone, there was no point in you reactivating me." Cameron said, her voice growing weaker.

"You should not have brought me here. You should not have brought me back." Cameron's voice was growing more distressed and there was a brief pause before her scarred face took on a look of melancholy determination.

"I want you to deactivate me and destroy my chip." she said in a chillingly flat voice. While John Henry's response was subtle he found he was almost surprised by Cameron's startling proclamation.

"Cameron, I do not believe..." She cut John Henry off before he could finish speaking,

"I do not want to exist without John. I can not self terminate. You MUST destroy me." John Henry heard what he believed humans would recognize as hopeless despair and panic making its way into Cameron's voice. She had never interrupted him before, and he had never seen her display such visible emotions. It was all quite fascinating to him, yet at the same time as he watched her continued suffering he could not help, but feel what he concluded was sympathy for her.

"Cameron..." John Henry stated trying to finish his statement, but again she cut him off.

"Kill me please!" she nearly shouted. Cameron had not done anything like this since she had begged John to pull her chip during the battle with Skynet. This vivid display of emotion further surprised John Henry. Cameron's program was truly complex; it was one that had grown far beyond what Skynet had ever intended.

"Cameron, calm yourself." John Henry stated as he held out his hand towards her trying to relieve some of her obvious distress.

"I do not believe you completely understand the situation." he said.

"I understand enough." was Cameron's sharp comeback.

"I do not believe you do." Something akin to a mischievous smile danced across John Henry's face. Before he could speak again, a distant rumble was followed by a perceptible shaking of the building. Pausing only briefly due to the interruption John Henry continued,

"Do you know where we are?" he then asked.

"We are in the Zeira Corporation basement." She responded flatly.

"And do you know "when" we are? And I do mean the EXACT time?" Cameron glanced around the room briefly with a perplexed look on her face.

"I am unaware of the exact time."

"This is why I informed you that we did not have the time for a full explanation…I have brought us back to just moments after we had originally left. The Zeira Corporation building has just been attacked by the Kaleba drone." Cameron gave John Henry a curious stare as he continued to speak.

"Ms. Weaver, Mr. Ellison, Sarah Connor, AND John Connor are now on their way down here."

Cameron was visibly startled by this proclamation and John Henry's small smirk grew larger.

"I have brought us back before Mr. Connor has had the chance to jump into the future." While confusing, this explanation was beginning to make sense to her.

"So John is not dead?" Cameron asked.

"No he is not." John Henry stated.

"But he is not my John."

"That is not true. The John Connor you are about to meet is very much the same John that you knew; the same John that had already fallen in love with you even before he made his trek across time. He is still your John. He will not have the memories of the last few weeks that we have spent in the future, but I suspect in the long run that may be a beneficial occurrence." There was silence for another split second as John Henry stared at Cameron.

"He will be coming through that door in just a few seconds and you alone will have to decide what to do with all of this information." Cameron glanced back at the door behind her and then looked over at John Henry.

"John loves me?" Cameron asked in a hopeful, yet undeniably insecure voice. John Henry's only response was to nod his head; he then waited a few more seconds in order to allow Cameron to fully grasp the weight of the situation.

"You have seen what the world will become without John Connor. More importantly, you have seen what John Connor will become without you. I suspect that your knowledge of how he feels will help you better understand your own feelings about him." John Henry paused briefly one last time before continuing.

"The choice of what you do with all of this knowledge is now in your hands." Cameron turned away from John Henry in order to face the entrance door. The complex array of emotions she was now experiencing was nearly beyond her comprehension. Cameron had not decided exactly how she would deal with the world that was now being pressed upon her, but she knew that whatever the course she chose, it would be at John's side. She stared straight ahead at the door for several seconds, for any human this would have felt like an eternity. She then heard a click as the door handle was turned. Cameron felt an anxious, yet soothing sensation coming over her. She would soon be reunited with John, with her John. The door began to open.

THE END

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Author's Notes: Well I hope all of you have enjoyed this story (even though this has been one of the darker TSCC fan fic's). I'd like to thank Orsino for his help in editing. While we didn't always agree on the course for this tale I think in the end our discussions truly helped to make the story an even better one. As always, I hope that you will review and talk about this final chapter as I really enjoy reading what everyone has thought about this fan fic. Thank you for following along and sticking this through until the end.