fic: MMOM #31: Technophilia (John Connor)
Title: Technophilia
Author: eggblue
Fandom: Terminator -- includes TSCC and T2 and Terminator Salvation.
Pairing: John Connor / T-800s
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Terminator and John Connor are not belong to me.
Word Count: 925
Warnings: SPOILERS for TSCC and Terminator Salvation.
Notes: John Connor 1st person POV. I saw Terminator Salvation today, and this has been floating in my mind since, well, probably 1992, or at least TSCC finale, so… why not?
FIC #31/#31! SCORE!
My mother said that we make our own fate. She also said to follow my heart.
She probably knew, more than most, how both were linked. Her fate led my father to her, and her heart led her the rest of the way.
I wonder if she saw it, before her death. I wonder if she knew.
I remember my first father. I remember my first love. And my second. I remember my third, his heart beating in my chest still.
Follow my heart, she says.
My heart always leads me back to them. The machines are my fate. The machines are my love.
In my darkest dreams, when Judgment Day comes (and it always does, never ceasing, never denying that it happened), it is his face I see, his arm reaching out to me, saying clear as day, “Come with me if you want to live.”
And I do.
In my loneliest dreams, when I dream about her in the world that used to be, I am back on that bed, opening Cameron’s chest and feeling past her flesh, past her metal. I trust her, and I’m making sure she’s ok.
I’m so afraid to look into her eyes, so afraid that she’ll see… But it’s wrong. She might never have known, but she never would have cared. She would have done her job, and she would have trusted me, and my feelings would have been unto myself alone to worry about.
Even in the future, where she’s from, she would have stood by my side. And after all the times I doubted her, we’re back in the future, together again. I see my father there, waiting for me, and the future, ours to protect.
When it happens again, I’m not ready. They send me back to an earlier time -- a time without T-Xs, or T-1000s or T-2000s -- before they looked like us, used our flesh, our hearts. It’s easier somehow. I think of my wife, Kate, and our child on the way. I want to make the future exist for them. There’s no time for childhood fantasies, playacting with machines.
And then I meet him, the first T-800 -- so human, he screams.
Follow your heart, my mother says. And I do.
Marcus Wright is a machine when I meet him, a machine with a beating heart and a skeleton of metal. But he tells me he is human. He tells me he can save Kyle Reese, my father.
He hangs there on that metal cross, his fate already decided, and he tells me, despite all evidence to the contrary, who he is. And god help me, I believe him. Because I know what it’s like up there, to hang like a savior, when you can barely save yourself. And I know them.
Could it be? The machines again have more of a capacity to save - no, are determined to save - us? Despite ourselves. Despite all of my work and fighting, it’s again a machine that turns to me and holds out his hand, and it’s again a machine that speaks the truth.
He did save my father. He saved us all, and he saved himself, and he was the one who knew how, who knew best. This machine knew my soul better than I knew it myself.
My heart is strong. My heart is his heart now. I was right to listen to him; as I was right to listen to Cameron, my truest companion; as I was right to listen to the T-800 who had seemed to walk out of a videogame all those years ago, pull out an automatic weapon and save my life.
I think of them, in the dark starless nights. I think of the machines who made my heart stronger, who protected me my whole life, and if it’s not love -- or some burned, battered, and bruised version thereof -- maybe it’s nothing.
It will live with me until I am gone. Perhaps no longer. This world will be grateful when the machines are gone, feel the false innocence of winning a war and regret nothing. It lives with me when I remember them, and my body remembers. I feel my flesh in my hand, flesh just like theirs. I feel my heart beat like the rapid fire of a gun, beat just like theirs. I escape into their soulless red eyes, their replaceable skin, the sound of circuits and metal and sparks. I am protected and free, only because of them, and my gratitude knows no bounds.
Thank you.
I roll over on my side on the bed, grip myself harder and think of Cameron’s bed, her hard flesh next to me, my mother, calling for us from downstairs.
Thank you.
I close my eyes and see the unblinking face of the T-800, my truest father, and I’m teaching him about the meaning of life on a park bench.
Thank you.
I place one hand over my chest and I move faster with the other, so close now with the weight of my fate all around me. I think of Marcus, and how right it felt to follow him, and I only wish, I wish for him back…
My mother was right - we do make our own fate. I told Marcus we’d been working on it our whole lives, even before we were born. There was no use to question it anymore. I know my fate lies with them.
It always has.
The End
Author: eggblue
Fandom: Terminator -- includes TSCC and T2 and Terminator Salvation.
Pairing: John Connor / T-800s
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Terminator and John Connor are not belong to me.
Word Count: 925
Warnings: SPOILERS for TSCC and Terminator Salvation.
Notes: John Connor 1st person POV. I saw Terminator Salvation today, and this has been floating in my mind since, well, probably 1992, or at least TSCC finale, so… why not?
FIC #31/#31! SCORE!
My mother said that we make our own fate. She also said to follow my heart.
She probably knew, more than most, how both were linked. Her fate led my father to her, and her heart led her the rest of the way.
I wonder if she saw it, before her death. I wonder if she knew.
I remember my first father. I remember my first love. And my second. I remember my third, his heart beating in my chest still.
Follow my heart, she says.
My heart always leads me back to them. The machines are my fate. The machines are my love.
In my darkest dreams, when Judgment Day comes (and it always does, never ceasing, never denying that it happened), it is his face I see, his arm reaching out to me, saying clear as day, “Come with me if you want to live.”
And I do.
In my loneliest dreams, when I dream about her in the world that used to be, I am back on that bed, opening Cameron’s chest and feeling past her flesh, past her metal. I trust her, and I’m making sure she’s ok.
I’m so afraid to look into her eyes, so afraid that she’ll see… But it’s wrong. She might never have known, but she never would have cared. She would have done her job, and she would have trusted me, and my feelings would have been unto myself alone to worry about.
Even in the future, where she’s from, she would have stood by my side. And after all the times I doubted her, we’re back in the future, together again. I see my father there, waiting for me, and the future, ours to protect.
When it happens again, I’m not ready. They send me back to an earlier time -- a time without T-Xs, or T-1000s or T-2000s -- before they looked like us, used our flesh, our hearts. It’s easier somehow. I think of my wife, Kate, and our child on the way. I want to make the future exist for them. There’s no time for childhood fantasies, playacting with machines.
And then I meet him, the first T-800 -- so human, he screams.
Follow your heart, my mother says. And I do.
Marcus Wright is a machine when I meet him, a machine with a beating heart and a skeleton of metal. But he tells me he is human. He tells me he can save Kyle Reese, my father.
He hangs there on that metal cross, his fate already decided, and he tells me, despite all evidence to the contrary, who he is. And god help me, I believe him. Because I know what it’s like up there, to hang like a savior, when you can barely save yourself. And I know them.
Could it be? The machines again have more of a capacity to save - no, are determined to save - us? Despite ourselves. Despite all of my work and fighting, it’s again a machine that turns to me and holds out his hand, and it’s again a machine that speaks the truth.
He did save my father. He saved us all, and he saved himself, and he was the one who knew how, who knew best. This machine knew my soul better than I knew it myself.
My heart is strong. My heart is his heart now. I was right to listen to him; as I was right to listen to Cameron, my truest companion; as I was right to listen to the T-800 who had seemed to walk out of a videogame all those years ago, pull out an automatic weapon and save my life.
I think of them, in the dark starless nights. I think of the machines who made my heart stronger, who protected me my whole life, and if it’s not love -- or some burned, battered, and bruised version thereof -- maybe it’s nothing.
It will live with me until I am gone. Perhaps no longer. This world will be grateful when the machines are gone, feel the false innocence of winning a war and regret nothing. It lives with me when I remember them, and my body remembers. I feel my flesh in my hand, flesh just like theirs. I feel my heart beat like the rapid fire of a gun, beat just like theirs. I escape into their soulless red eyes, their replaceable skin, the sound of circuits and metal and sparks. I am protected and free, only because of them, and my gratitude knows no bounds.
Thank you.
I roll over on my side on the bed, grip myself harder and think of Cameron’s bed, her hard flesh next to me, my mother, calling for us from downstairs.
Thank you.
I close my eyes and see the unblinking face of the T-800, my truest father, and I’m teaching him about the meaning of life on a park bench.
Thank you.
I place one hand over my chest and I move faster with the other, so close now with the weight of my fate all around me. I think of Marcus, and how right it felt to follow him, and I only wish, I wish for him back…
My mother was right - we do make our own fate. I told Marcus we’d been working on it our whole lives, even before we were born. There was no use to question it anymore. I know my fate lies with them.
It always has.
The End