DISCLAIMER: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and its characters are the propert of James Cameron and Fox. No infringement intended.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I have mainly read fanfiction about these two and watched one episode with plans to watch more, so I apologize in advance if I don't get their personalities correct. If you haven't read Time Loop yet, please do before reading this one. It sets up the premise of this ongoing AU, other Time Loop stories can be read in any order. Please leave a comment, even if it's just one word. Comments tell authors their stories are being read and enjoyed.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Time Loop: Loop 59
By wkgreen
Cameron charges up to the abandoned building, reaching the door just as John comes running out and catches him, "John what is the situation?" Cameron asks, a hint of anxiousness in her impassive voice as she scans the abandoned building trying to find Sarah, but the reinforced concrete exterior of the building inhibits her scans.
John is looking back the way he came, "She is back there…" A scream of pain cuts thru the air before John can finish his sentence.
"SARAH!" Cameron gasps in shared pain as she hears Sarah's scream and starts moving towards the sound, her sensors now locked in on Sarah's location when John grabs her arm.
"Wait, Cameron. You can't go up there, Cromartie is up there with 3 other terminators!" John looks stressed with 4 terminators working together to kill him and knowing that Cameron has trouble with one terminator. "You can't take 4 terminators! We have to go get help, Derek, Jessie and other resistance fighters!"
Cameron pulls her arm free of John's grip easily, "I can not leave Sarah behind. She is my heart," Cameron's posture subtly changes, becoming less stiff, smoother, her eyes becoming more focused and emotional.
"Wait…what do you mean she is your heart?" John asks shocked, looking closer at Cameron, he notices the subtle shifts in her posture, losing the mechanical stiffness and looking more natural, seeing the emotion filling her eyes, "YOU have been pretending to be a terminator! You aren't Just a terminator are you, and you love my mother???" John is thunderstruck by the revelation that hits him like a 2x4 to the back of the head.
Cameron smiles and nods, her focus snaps back, completely on Sarah when they hear Cromartie call out, "JOHN! GET BACK HERE IF YOU WANT TO SAVE YOUR MOTHER!" and Sarah screamed out in pain again as one of the Terminators step on her.
John steps in front of Cameron as she starts to go up again, "Cameron, you can't go up against 4 terminators!" John keeps his hands to himself considering the anger that is radiating from Cameron's impassive face; her eyes are switching back and forth between blue and red as she holds control of herself.
"I am going up there and kicking their asses! I am much, much better at fighting then I have revealed so far." Cameron looks at John firmly, "You are too run now and find a safe place to wait for Sarah and me. The jeep is out front." Cameron hands John the keys, her hand twitching as she barely keeps herself from rushing immediately to Sarah's rescue.
John looks angry about being dismissed, "FINE, if you are staying I am too! I can help you."
Cameron shakes her head, "Not right now, in the future you will. Now you can not. And as long as you are free, they are not going to kill Sarah. Once they catch you, both of you are dead. I can either protect you or save Sarah, not both." Cameron states empathically, her blue eyes turning to face John with a hint of sympathy.
Sarah screams again and John flinches as Cameron's eyes turn red, "GO! I will save my heart!" Sarah pushes John out the door and towards the jeep and charges towards the stairway.
John stumbles towards the jeep, slightly off balance from Cameron's push, catching his balance, he jumps into the jeep and drives off, tires squealing as he accelerates away. Not liking leaving, but unable to refute Cameron's assessment, he decides to drive around close by to be ready to come to their help as soon as they call him.
Cameron charges up the steps, analyzing the structural integrity of the building. Running down a short corridor she examines the room Sarah is being held in, it is a rather large empty room and she immediately focuses on Sarah, cataloging her injuries with her heat sensors. Sarah has one snapped rib, and three fractured ribs, all mendable. She rounds the corner and comes face to face with the 4 Terminators who are moving to engage her, Cameron glowing red eyes analyze the terminators, all of them big and muscular to hide their T-888 frames, only obvious distinctive feature between them is their hair: brown, blonde, black, and Cromartie with dirty blonde.
Sarah is breathing hard, repressing the pain as she looks up at Cameron, feeling her presence, "What are you doing here! You are supposed to protect John!"
The four terminators lock on Cameron and 3 charge at Cameron, having come to the conclusion simultaneously that if they destroy her, they remove the biggest obstacle to terminating John Connors. Cromartie raises the M-16 he took from Sarah and releases a stream of bullets at Cameron on full automatic.
The first second passes.
Cameron slides to the side, the stream of bullets missing her, raising her pistol, her first shot takes out Cromartie's M-16, her second shot hits him in the upper thigh.
Cameron ducks under the arms of the blonde terminator, her third shot hits Cromartie's upper thigh in the exact same place as the second shot. The brown haired and black haired terminators find themselves on wrong side of the blonde terminator to attack Cameron.
Second second passes.
Sarah, adrenaline spiking in her blood as everything slows down and all pain goes away, notices that Cameron's last two shots hit the exact same place on Cromartie's body and snaps her cuffed hands over her head and places the cuff links against Cromartie's thigh.
Cromartie tosses the ruined M-16 aside, bracing itself against the jarring impact of bullets against its thigh close to its hip, unbalancing it enough to keep it from charging forward.
Cameron spins around the brown terminator's punch to her stomach and snaps off a fourth shot that snaps the links on Sarah's cuffs as it pounds into Cromartie's upper thigh again and in one smooth continuous motion tosses the .45 to the left of Sarah and catches the black haired terminator's punch, takes the force of its punch, spinning with it and flipping the terminator up into the air and crashing down through the hardwood floor, sending up a cloud of dust and wood splinters, as the blonde terminator recovers from missing Cameron, the brown terminator in its way, which had to dodge the flying black haired terminator.
Third second passes.
Cromartie pushes Sarah to the left and leaps over the hole towards Cameron.
Sarah rolls with the push, picks up a long 2x4 from a pile of debris and swings it at Cromartie's ankles as he leaps, the 2x4 shatters but manages to tip him over to fall face first into the hole.
Cameron spins around and redirects the blonde terminator's first punch aside, spins away from the brown haired terminators punch, takes the blonde terminator's second punch and directs it straight into the brown haired terminator, which stumbles backwards.
Fourth second passes.
Cameron kicks the blonde terminator's knee, damaging its knee joint and sending it stumbling aside as she spins around the brown haired terminators straight punch and using its forward momentum to send it crashing through a wall, plaster getting pulverized and adding to the dust in the air as it slams thru the wall, tearing and exposing power cables that spark as they swing in the air.
Sarah scrambles and picks up the .45
Cromartie jumps up through the hole in the floor and lands on the edge of stable flooring as the black haired terminator charges up the stairs that Cameron had come up.
Fifth second passes.
Sarah recognizes that the terminators are using linear attacks and depend on their raw power as Cameron uses circular motions and using their strength against them, and fires off two shots, hitting Cromartie in the knee and tipping him back into the hole.
Cameron spins inside the blonde terminators swinging punch, grabbing its head and twisting, there is a horrible screeching as metal tears and the blonde terminator's legs snap into the air and catch the black haired terminator in the chest, Cameron lets loose of the blonde terminator's head which is twisted nearly backward, losing motor control, its limbs flailing and entangling the black haired terminator, sending them both to the ground.
The brown haired terminator comes crashing back through the wall and swings at Cameron, who is still spinning and the blow swishes just past her delicate looking jaw harmlessly.
Sixth second passes.
Sarah rolls away from the hole in the floor, firing down into it to keep Cromartie from jumping up, ending up by a power cable that has been exposed.
The black haired terminator tosses the flailing blonde terminator at Cameron who ducks backwards under it as it crashes into and through another wall, adding more plaster dust to the air.
The brown haired terminator is slamming a fist down to where Cameron's head is, but she keeps bending backwards to an impossible angle to let the fist just miss her, her body bent backwards displaying her incredible sense of balance as she leans backwards from her hip joint and arching her back gracefully into a full bridge, her head pointing downward as one leg snaps up to catch the brown haired terminator in the face and sending it flying backwards through another wall, as Cameron continues her backward motion cartwheeling to her feet.
Cromartie charges to the staircase as several bullets impact it in the back as it charges past the hole in the ceiling, its knee slowing it down.
Seventh second passes.
Cameron redirects the first punch the black haired terminator snaps out, spins around the its second punch and uses the force of its punch to throw it across the room to land face down close to Sarah.
Sarah catches a sparking power cable and slams it into the head of the black haired terminators skull, its body spasms as it short circuits, going into reboot mode.
The brown haired Terminator comes charging at Cameron's back, who spins and rolls backwards with its charge and flips it with her feet into Cromartie as it comes around the corner.
Eighth second passes.
Cameron continues her roll to end on her feet and twists to the side as Cromartie pushes to its feet and uses the momentum to toss the brown haired Terminator at her, the brown haired terminator reaches out for Cameron as she reaches out, grabbing its wrist and spinning around to use it as a bat against Cromartie who goes flying through several walls from the combined force of its throw and Cameron's swing.
Sarah releases the power cable as it heats up and sends two shots into the back of the black haired terminators head where its CPU is.
Ninth second passes.
Cromartie leaves the building, calculating that its odds of survival are too low to continue this fight, with two of the other terminators already out of the fight.
Sarah empties the clip into the back of the black haired terminators head.
The brown haired terminator twists its hand around and grabs Cameron's wrist, pulling her towards it, having leverage now that it is on the floor, Cameron goes with the pull and slams an elbow into its face, snapping its head back and embedding into the floor, Cameron pushes off the floor with both feet and using the grip the brown haired terminator is keeping on her wrist she swings it up, around and into a main support structure of the building, bending it backwards, sending its circuits into overload as it collapses to the floor.
Tenth second passes.
Cameron leaps on the back of the brown haired terminator, grabs it head and twists hard, snapping its head clear off, blood from its organic exterior spurting out.
Sarah is breathing hard as she points her empty .45 around the room looking for the next threat.
Eleventh second passes.
Cameron stands and scans, "Cromartie has left. We have neutralized the current threat." Cameron walks over to the rebooting black haired terminator and snaps its head off.
Sarah is panting hard as time returns to normal, looking around wide eyed, her hands shaking as she works to control the adrenaline running through her system, "My god, how did you do that! When did you learn to fight like that!"
Cameron looks at Sarah as her eyes turn blue, "You taught me to fight like that in my past." At Sarah's confused look, "I will explain later, but we must gather these terminators and destroy them. Call John, he is in the jeep." Cameron tosses her cell phone to Sarah who catches it automatically.
"I am going to need to set your rib soon, the adrenaline is wearing off and the pain will return." Cameron speaks softly to Sarah as she goes to terminate the spasming blonde terminator.
Sarah clenches her teeth as she is already feeling the pain returning, catching the phone not having helped, "Do it now, Cameron."
Cameron walks back to Sarah who leans into the wall with her good side, Cameron feels around Sarah's ribs softly until she finds the right place and pushes, Sarah screams as her rib slides back into place, Cameron reaches over, rips the black haired terminators shirt off of it and using the material, starts to bind Sarah's ribs in place tightly. Sarah is hissing in pain as she blinks back tears, dropping the cell phone.
Cameron finishes binding Sarah's ribs as she calls John with her internal wireless capabilities, "John, it is safe to return, but watch out. Cromartie escaped and is still on the loose." She appears to listen for a moment, "Sarah is fine, she has a broken rib and needs to get back home to rest." Cameron closes the connection, ending the call before John could start questioning her as she turns to Sarah who is looking at her strangely, "I am a highly advanced cybernetic organism, of course I have wireless capabilities." Cameron picks up the phone and pockets it.
Sarah hisses in annoyance, "And do all terminators have wireless capability," at Cameron's nod, Sarah looks very irritated, "and why didn't you tell me about this before?"
"Because you took all the necessary precautions to keep wireless communications secure," Cameron stated simply. "John will be here in a minute, I will help you down and you can go home with him while I steal a truck for transporting the terminators."
Sarah hisses as she looks at Cameron wondering what else she has been hiding from her, "You do your thing, girlie. I will get downstairs on my own." Sarah grits her teeth as she starts levering herself to her feet. "But, you have a lot of answers to provide when we get home, Tin Miss."
Cameron makes several aborted attempts to pick up and carry Sarah, but knows that Sarah would not accept that from her yet. She hovers behind Sarah until Sarah glowers at her, "Get to work, Tin Miss. I can walk on my own." Sarah hisses through her pain as she staggers slowly, one hand bracing against a wall for support, her other arm cradling her ribs. Sarah nods her head as she takes a step back and follows Sarah down, ready to leap forward and catch her if she stumbles. Sarah rolls her eyes as Cameron keeps following her down, just from a step back instead of breathing on her neck close, in too much pain to argue.
Cameron follows Sarah with concern in her impassive face and stays with her to make sure she doesn't fall into shock until John arrives, watching as Sarah steps into the jeep, "John, she needs pain medication and once the adrenaline finishes running its course she is probably going to pass out from exhaustion and pain. But she will be alright, the rib is set properly." John nods as he looks at his mother worriedly, seeing the pain she is holding back etched in her face as she glares at her self appointed nursemaid. "If she passes out before you get home, leave her in the jeep and I will carry her to bed when I get home."
"I will not pass out before I get home, thank you very much," Sarah hisses in pain and glares at Cameron, but can't help feeling soothed by Cameron's care.
"Got it," John nods as he drives off carefully with his mother, but knowing later he is going to get more answers from Cameron and have ammunition to tease his mother with.
Cameron watches John drive off and then turns to the task of gathering and transporting the deactivated terminators back to their home where she can burn them down to slag.
The End