Cosmonauts and Cartographers
Title: Cosmonauts and Cartographers
Fandom: Terminator: SCC
Pairing: John/Cameron, John/Allison
Rating: PG
Spoilers: "Allison from Palmdale", plus some general early-S2 spoilers.
Disclaimer: John, Cameron, Derek, Kyle, Allison, and all other characters mentioned here are currently the property of FOX, The Halycon Company, Josh Friedman et al, and, at least partially, James Cameron. Though who knows how long that will last, with the franchise for sale. Nevertheless, I make no money from this work of fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Notes: This was actually written for yuletide '08, as a last-minute treat, but I never got around to revising and posting it here.
~*~
The men of the machine resistance squadron are a road map of scars and tattoos. John, Kyle, and Derek often compare their brandings, making up elaborate stories as to their origins. The rule is that no one tattles - not even Derek, who knows that Kyle got the nick on his elbow from falling off a wooden picnic table as a kid, not narrowly escaping a Triple-8.
He catches the metal watching them sometimes - head cocked to the side, regarding their shirtless torsos with noted interest. John and Kyle never seem to care, but it makes Derek uncomfortable.
"What?" he snaps. Cameron straightens her head, blinks.
"Nothing," she says.
~*~
"Go!"
Allison leaps from their hiding place behind the old, rusted refrigerator. Adrenaline pounds through her veins as she runs towards the next closest shelter-providing scrap of twisted metal. She dives down behind it, hearing John right beside her. He slams against the solid surface and slides on the ground.
"About half a klick to base," Allison reports breathlessly. John hefts his gun onto his lap and glances over to see her doing the same.
"Ready?" he asks. She grins.
"Always." She's off like a shot, leaving John to scramble after her. She takes the direct path, leaping over obstacles instead of dodging around them like he does. There's an unmistakable grace in her movements - John knows that she used to dance, while her mother played the piano. He loses himself in watching her, lulls himself into a false sense of security with the entrance to the camp so close. It lasts only a moment, just a fraction of a second, but that's all it takes.
A bullet catches him in the shoulder. John tries not to cry out, but the pain that rips through him knocks him off-guard, and Allison whirls around to see him on the ground. She screams his name.
"I'm fine. Go," he commands. She wavers uncertainly. "Go!" he repeats. "That's an order, soldier!"
These are clearly the wrong words to use on someone as fiercely strong-willed as Allison Young. With three flanked 101's steadily approaching, Allison darts back out into the open and yanks John by his uninjured arm. He curses her the entire way, but lets her pull him to his feet all the same. As soon as he is standing, they unconsciously link hands and make a break for the bunker. They slip beneath a small crack into an empty room. Allison jerks open the trapdoor, slides down without looking back. John follows and slams the hatch shut behind him. The 101's are trained for sharpshooting, brute force; they've traversed the above-ground room many times but have still not located the door to the tunnels. It's another mile or so down the corridor before they'll reach the true entrance to the camp, so Allison stops and demands that John remove his jacket and shirt.
"You know I'm still your commanding officer," he grunts, pulling at the cloth as it sticks stubbornly to the drying blood. Allison helps him ease it away from his flesh and extracts a makeshift first-aid kit from her pack.
"So you keep saying." She sterilizes a pair of tweezers with a lighter before using them to extract the bullet from his shoulder. John cries out. She glances up at his face, but says nothing; uses a wet cloth to wipe away as much of the blood as possible and loops a clean strip of fabric under his armpit to act as a bandage. It's not exactly hospital-issue, but it's as good as they're going to get down here.
"That's gonna scar," he mutters. Allison secures her pack and winks at him.
"Hot," she declares. John scowls, but follows her nonetheless.
~*~
Allison keeps giggling. John tries to remain stone-faced, but her laughter is undeniably contagious, and he feels his mouth curl into a smile despite himself. The Reese boys regard them suspiciously as they enter the bunker.
"Did you drug him?" Derek asks. Allison laughs again, high and clear, ducking under the older brother's arm to give him a hug. John and Kyle exchange handshakes, Kyle reaching out to clasp his their commander's forearm. Allison winces as she sees it happening; sure enough, John recoils in pain. Kyle jumps back nervously.
"What'd I do?" he exclaims. Allison grins.
"Show them," she demands. John glares at her, long since having given up on reminding her who's actually supposed to be giving the orders around here. Obediently, he rolls back the sleeve of his shirt to reveal a mess of bandages. Allison undoes the knots, fingers small and warm against his skin. Beneath the cloth lies the new tattoo, stark black ink and raw red abrasions standing in sharp contrast against pale skin that so rarely sees the light of day. All of them look like ghosts down here.
NO FATE, it says. It's what his mother used to tell him, what he tells his men. But he figures they won't be around forever, and he needs some way to tell himself every once and awhile.
Allison has the same words on her inner wrist, smaller and more delicate. Sanderson is the one that built the simplistic tattoo gun, and what it lacks in sophistication is made up for by his skilled hands and unending patience; the smooth curves of the cursive letters looks just as good as any of the professional, pre-J Day tats that some of the older Resistance members sport.
John shoots her a sideways look as the others congratulate him on his new ink, and she smiles back fondly. It won't be his only tattoo, but he will always remember it as his first.
~*~
The cyborg lasts seventeen minutes inside the base camp before John realizes that something is wrong. Allison doesn't greet anyone with a hug, doesn't tease either of the Reeses, doesn't smile at him quite right. He takes her by the arm to ask her what's wrong and notices that she's harder than she should be; harder than any amount of muscle or bone ever could be.
He gives the signal without it even realizing, and while it's still trying to emulate Allison's kind, innocent eyes, every soldier in the camp surrounds it. John whips his gun from its holster and pumps bullets into the thing's stomach. He swears that he sees a flash of betrayal on Allison's (its) face.
Kyle leaps onto the cyborg's back to jam his pocketknife into the base of its metal skull. He digs in deep enough to reach the endoskeletal spinal cord and it jerks in surprise, trying to regain control. Kyle just keeps wiggling his knife around, while Derek finally snaps out of his shock and launches himself at the cyborg's head. The others take this as their own cue to leap into the fray, wrestling the incapacitated metal to the ground until John can cut into the skull and remove its chip.
The entire camp is silent as they observe what they can only see as Allison splayed out on the floor, head sliced open. John clutches the chip in his hand, fisting it tighter and tighter.
"You're bleeding," says Hunter, one of the younger boys. John looks down and absently notes that the sharp edge of the circuit board has cut so deeply into his palm that he can no longer see the wound beneath all the blood. He bandages it himself, never feeling a thing.
~*~
John loses the respect of most of his crew when he re-programs Allison's doppelganger. He locks himself into one of the back rooms for weeks, growing paler and skinnier by the day. When he finally emerges, hair hanging dirty and tangled around his neck and heavy bags beneath his eyes, he can see the doubt written across their faces. They think he's finally gone off the deep end, like so many before him.
Maybe he has. He doesn't even know anymore.
What he does know is that he can't bring himself to destroy the only part of Allison that he has left. What he does know is that he's had terminators willing to die for him before; it can be done. If he can just figure it out, it could be a turning point; could put an actual end in sight to this whole damn war.
He doesn't figure it out on the first try; Cameron, as he's begun calling her, struggles to comprehend the overrides he installs. They clash with the original programming, and it (she) often freezes completely.
Sometimes she doesn't freeze. Sometimes, she manages to find her initial mission, even when he thinks he's buried it under layer upon layer of code. Sometimes she turns on them. Peterson loses an eye, Shannon loses her life. John himself manages to escape with only a burn on his thigh from the welding equipment she threw at him. When he re-programs her for the...sixth time? Dozenth? Hundredth?...she blinks back into animation with a small, demure smile that is all Allison. When she sees the damage to his leg, the smile melts into a frown.
"Did I do that?" she asks. John grimaces.
"Yes," he says shortly. Cameron sits up and reaches for the medical supplies, pushes his pant leg out of the way with an expression of intense concentration.
"I'm sorry," she says softly. John tilts his head back and concentrates on the ceiling as she fixes him up.
He doesn’t know if he's ever going to get her working right. Maybe he really is throwing away years of unquestioned leadership on a machine that looks like his dead not-quite girlfriend. He feels like everything he's worked so hard for is slipping away from him; like that battle-ready side of him is finally starting to grow tired and worn. All he knows anymore is the fight and the metal, and when it comes down to it there's little left that's worth fighting for on this decimated planet of theirs anyway.
John pinches the bridge of his nose and thinks of how furious his mother would be if she could see him now.
~*~
John isn't paying attention to where he's going, trying to keep grip on his dirty clothes and the towel around his waist at the same time. Mom and Derek will be gone for at least a few hours, scouting what they think is Cromartie's new hideout, and he's trying to figure out if he can get away with sneaking Riley in for a little while before they get back. He runs directly into Cameron as she's coming through the back door.
She stares. John shifts uncomfortably under her gaze.
Cameron inspects his bare chest, smooth and pale young, free of the marks she knows so well. She reaches out, touches his shoulder, his forearm, sliding down to pull his fingers into hers. She knows that she can't check his upper leg without deviating from acceptable human social behavior, but John is already trying his best to pull away from her.
"What?" he asks self-consciously. She lets go of his hand. Cameron straightens her head, blinks.
"Nothing," she says.
Fandom: Terminator: SCC
Pairing: John/Cameron, John/Allison
Rating: PG
Spoilers: "Allison from Palmdale", plus some general early-S2 spoilers.
Disclaimer: John, Cameron, Derek, Kyle, Allison, and all other characters mentioned here are currently the property of FOX, The Halycon Company, Josh Friedman et al, and, at least partially, James Cameron. Though who knows how long that will last, with the franchise for sale. Nevertheless, I make no money from this work of fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Notes: This was actually written for yuletide '08, as a last-minute treat, but I never got around to revising and posting it here.
~*~
The men of the machine resistance squadron are a road map of scars and tattoos. John, Kyle, and Derek often compare their brandings, making up elaborate stories as to their origins. The rule is that no one tattles - not even Derek, who knows that Kyle got the nick on his elbow from falling off a wooden picnic table as a kid, not narrowly escaping a Triple-8.
He catches the metal watching them sometimes - head cocked to the side, regarding their shirtless torsos with noted interest. John and Kyle never seem to care, but it makes Derek uncomfortable.
"What?" he snaps. Cameron straightens her head, blinks.
"Nothing," she says.
~*~
"Go!"
Allison leaps from their hiding place behind the old, rusted refrigerator. Adrenaline pounds through her veins as she runs towards the next closest shelter-providing scrap of twisted metal. She dives down behind it, hearing John right beside her. He slams against the solid surface and slides on the ground.
"About half a klick to base," Allison reports breathlessly. John hefts his gun onto his lap and glances over to see her doing the same.
"Ready?" he asks. She grins.
"Always." She's off like a shot, leaving John to scramble after her. She takes the direct path, leaping over obstacles instead of dodging around them like he does. There's an unmistakable grace in her movements - John knows that she used to dance, while her mother played the piano. He loses himself in watching her, lulls himself into a false sense of security with the entrance to the camp so close. It lasts only a moment, just a fraction of a second, but that's all it takes.
A bullet catches him in the shoulder. John tries not to cry out, but the pain that rips through him knocks him off-guard, and Allison whirls around to see him on the ground. She screams his name.
"I'm fine. Go," he commands. She wavers uncertainly. "Go!" he repeats. "That's an order, soldier!"
These are clearly the wrong words to use on someone as fiercely strong-willed as Allison Young. With three flanked 101's steadily approaching, Allison darts back out into the open and yanks John by his uninjured arm. He curses her the entire way, but lets her pull him to his feet all the same. As soon as he is standing, they unconsciously link hands and make a break for the bunker. They slip beneath a small crack into an empty room. Allison jerks open the trapdoor, slides down without looking back. John follows and slams the hatch shut behind him. The 101's are trained for sharpshooting, brute force; they've traversed the above-ground room many times but have still not located the door to the tunnels. It's another mile or so down the corridor before they'll reach the true entrance to the camp, so Allison stops and demands that John remove his jacket and shirt.
"You know I'm still your commanding officer," he grunts, pulling at the cloth as it sticks stubbornly to the drying blood. Allison helps him ease it away from his flesh and extracts a makeshift first-aid kit from her pack.
"So you keep saying." She sterilizes a pair of tweezers with a lighter before using them to extract the bullet from his shoulder. John cries out. She glances up at his face, but says nothing; uses a wet cloth to wipe away as much of the blood as possible and loops a clean strip of fabric under his armpit to act as a bandage. It's not exactly hospital-issue, but it's as good as they're going to get down here.
"That's gonna scar," he mutters. Allison secures her pack and winks at him.
"Hot," she declares. John scowls, but follows her nonetheless.
~*~
Allison keeps giggling. John tries to remain stone-faced, but her laughter is undeniably contagious, and he feels his mouth curl into a smile despite himself. The Reese boys regard them suspiciously as they enter the bunker.
"Did you drug him?" Derek asks. Allison laughs again, high and clear, ducking under the older brother's arm to give him a hug. John and Kyle exchange handshakes, Kyle reaching out to clasp his their commander's forearm. Allison winces as she sees it happening; sure enough, John recoils in pain. Kyle jumps back nervously.
"What'd I do?" he exclaims. Allison grins.
"Show them," she demands. John glares at her, long since having given up on reminding her who's actually supposed to be giving the orders around here. Obediently, he rolls back the sleeve of his shirt to reveal a mess of bandages. Allison undoes the knots, fingers small and warm against his skin. Beneath the cloth lies the new tattoo, stark black ink and raw red abrasions standing in sharp contrast against pale skin that so rarely sees the light of day. All of them look like ghosts down here.
NO FATE, it says. It's what his mother used to tell him, what he tells his men. But he figures they won't be around forever, and he needs some way to tell himself every once and awhile.
Allison has the same words on her inner wrist, smaller and more delicate. Sanderson is the one that built the simplistic tattoo gun, and what it lacks in sophistication is made up for by his skilled hands and unending patience; the smooth curves of the cursive letters looks just as good as any of the professional, pre-J Day tats that some of the older Resistance members sport.
John shoots her a sideways look as the others congratulate him on his new ink, and she smiles back fondly. It won't be his only tattoo, but he will always remember it as his first.
~*~
The cyborg lasts seventeen minutes inside the base camp before John realizes that something is wrong. Allison doesn't greet anyone with a hug, doesn't tease either of the Reeses, doesn't smile at him quite right. He takes her by the arm to ask her what's wrong and notices that she's harder than she should be; harder than any amount of muscle or bone ever could be.
He gives the signal without it even realizing, and while it's still trying to emulate Allison's kind, innocent eyes, every soldier in the camp surrounds it. John whips his gun from its holster and pumps bullets into the thing's stomach. He swears that he sees a flash of betrayal on Allison's (its) face.
Kyle leaps onto the cyborg's back to jam his pocketknife into the base of its metal skull. He digs in deep enough to reach the endoskeletal spinal cord and it jerks in surprise, trying to regain control. Kyle just keeps wiggling his knife around, while Derek finally snaps out of his shock and launches himself at the cyborg's head. The others take this as their own cue to leap into the fray, wrestling the incapacitated metal to the ground until John can cut into the skull and remove its chip.
The entire camp is silent as they observe what they can only see as Allison splayed out on the floor, head sliced open. John clutches the chip in his hand, fisting it tighter and tighter.
"You're bleeding," says Hunter, one of the younger boys. John looks down and absently notes that the sharp edge of the circuit board has cut so deeply into his palm that he can no longer see the wound beneath all the blood. He bandages it himself, never feeling a thing.
~*~
John loses the respect of most of his crew when he re-programs Allison's doppelganger. He locks himself into one of the back rooms for weeks, growing paler and skinnier by the day. When he finally emerges, hair hanging dirty and tangled around his neck and heavy bags beneath his eyes, he can see the doubt written across their faces. They think he's finally gone off the deep end, like so many before him.
Maybe he has. He doesn't even know anymore.
What he does know is that he can't bring himself to destroy the only part of Allison that he has left. What he does know is that he's had terminators willing to die for him before; it can be done. If he can just figure it out, it could be a turning point; could put an actual end in sight to this whole damn war.
He doesn't figure it out on the first try; Cameron, as he's begun calling her, struggles to comprehend the overrides he installs. They clash with the original programming, and it (she) often freezes completely.
Sometimes she doesn't freeze. Sometimes, she manages to find her initial mission, even when he thinks he's buried it under layer upon layer of code. Sometimes she turns on them. Peterson loses an eye, Shannon loses her life. John himself manages to escape with only a burn on his thigh from the welding equipment she threw at him. When he re-programs her for the...sixth time? Dozenth? Hundredth?...she blinks back into animation with a small, demure smile that is all Allison. When she sees the damage to his leg, the smile melts into a frown.
"Did I do that?" she asks. John grimaces.
"Yes," he says shortly. Cameron sits up and reaches for the medical supplies, pushes his pant leg out of the way with an expression of intense concentration.
"I'm sorry," she says softly. John tilts his head back and concentrates on the ceiling as she fixes him up.
He doesn’t know if he's ever going to get her working right. Maybe he really is throwing away years of unquestioned leadership on a machine that looks like his dead not-quite girlfriend. He feels like everything he's worked so hard for is slipping away from him; like that battle-ready side of him is finally starting to grow tired and worn. All he knows anymore is the fight and the metal, and when it comes down to it there's little left that's worth fighting for on this decimated planet of theirs anyway.
John pinches the bridge of his nose and thinks of how furious his mother would be if she could see him now.
~*~
John isn't paying attention to where he's going, trying to keep grip on his dirty clothes and the towel around his waist at the same time. Mom and Derek will be gone for at least a few hours, scouting what they think is Cromartie's new hideout, and he's trying to figure out if he can get away with sneaking Riley in for a little while before they get back. He runs directly into Cameron as she's coming through the back door.
She stares. John shifts uncomfortably under her gaze.
Cameron inspects his bare chest, smooth and pale young, free of the marks she knows so well. She reaches out, touches his shoulder, his forearm, sliding down to pull his fingers into hers. She knows that she can't check his upper leg without deviating from acceptable human social behavior, but John is already trying his best to pull away from her.
"What?" he asks self-consciously. She lets go of his hand. Cameron straightens her head, blinks.
"Nothing," she says.