Title: Some Thing to Watch Over Me
Fandom: Sarah Connor Chronicles
Pairings: Riley/Cameron, John/Riley, John/Cameron, Riley/Jessie, Jessie/Derek, John/Riley/Cameron.
Timeline/Spoilers: Takes place during the first half of Season 2, after 2x08, "Mr. Ferguson Is Ill Today" but before the half-season finale. Spoilers for the first half of Season 2. Also spoilers for Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and Becoming Jane.
Summary: Termination is not an option, so Cameron must rely on other tactics to neutralize the threat Riley poses.
Rating: NWS
A/N: Epigraph from Kate Douglas Wiggin, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Special thanks to my betas, anonymous_sibyl, present_pathos, and tacky_tramp. This was written before I saw any episodes of the second half of the Season 2; I don't know which I feared most, being jossed or kripked.

Some Thing to Watch Over Me

Then come what will of weal or woe
(Since all gold hath alloy),
Thou 'lt bloom unwithered in this heart,
My Rose of Joy!
--R.R.R.

XXIV.

John's standing in the backyard, staring at the stars, when Cameron joins him. "Where's Derek?"

"In his room, asleep. Something wore him out today," she comments, wryly.

John nods. "I guess you want to say I told you so."

"About Riley?"

"Yeah. You and Mom weren't exactly subtle about how you wanted me to stay away from her."

"I changed my mind," Cameron points out, as if Terminators just change their minds on whims. "Be easy on her, John."

John snorts. "I find out my supposed girlfriend's been spying on me for four months, and you want me to go easy on her? You, Miss-I'll-kill-anyone-who-maybe-one-day-might-tell-one-little-piece-of-something?"

"She didn't tell anything important," Cameron points out. John's not sure why she's being so insistent on taking Riley's side, but it doesn't matter.

"She was about to," John points out. "Why do you think she went to see this Jessie this morning? She was going to tell her everything."

"But she didn't."

John sighs. "After. . . ." He's not going to talk about what happened last night, not to Cameron. But he had thought he was making love to a girl he loved, who loved him. Now it turns out she was just a seductress, a spy, what his mother would call an agente provacateuse.

"I was a fool," he says. "The only thing I don't understand is why you let me be."

Cameron turns so she's facing him, touches his forehead. John steels him against the touch, forcing himself to ignore as he always must just how attractive a package SkyNet manufactured for Cameron.

"Because sometimes humans have to be foolish in order to become wise," Cameron answers. "Be easy on her, John. She was just being a fool, too."

XXV.

It's two days before Cameron makes the call to John. Riley spends the time trying to get through to John, to apologize, but he blocks every attempt with icy politeness.

Eventually the call comes, and John and Sarah begin packing the truck with weapons. Sarah's already been briefed, presumably with an expurgated account as to how the intelligence was gained, since Riley's still living in the house and not buried in the backyard. She supposes she can be grateful to John for that much.

"I want to go with you," Riley says as they finish packing the truck.

Sarah laughs a dry laugh. "And what use is a cripple going to be to us?"

"I can drive," Riley points out. "Keep the engine going."

Sarah Connor's weak point, if she has one, is that she recognizes good strategy when she hears it. She quickly nods her assent. "Very well," she says, and helps Riley into the driver's seat.

John doesn't say anything.

XXVI.

John and Sarah meet Cameron at the address Riley gave them as Jessie's . "They're inside," she informs them."Flagrante delicto."

Sarah raises an eyebrow but doesn't say anything, just cocks her gun. "Let's do this," she says.

Cameron nods and kicks down the door, and the three them enter the apartment. Sure enough, they find Derek and a woman in a bed, having sex.

"Sarah," Derek says, jumping out of bed and hurriedly pulling on garments. The woman--Jessie--on the other hand, stands up, letting the covers fall away, apparently unbothered by her nakedness.

She stares Cameron in the face. "Bitch," she says, then jumps out the window, quickly dodging the bullets firing from all three guns.

"After her," Sarah orders Cameron, who quickly complies by jumping out the window as well. Sarah looks to Derek who is still pulling on clothes, and just rolls her eyes and covers him with her gun.

John moves to the window to see if he can see Cameron or Jessie. Sure enough, there's a naked woman in the corner of the parking lot, crouched behing a car holding a shotgun, and there's Cameron racing across the parking lot towards her. John's heart stops when he recognizes Jessie's weapon as a Benelli M2. It's the gun they used against Cromartie in Mexico, capable of taking down even a Terminator at a close enough range and with the right ammunition--and John has no doubt that Jessie knows exactly what it'll take to damage Cameron. "No!" John calls out, futilely, as Cameron gets closer, in range, and then--

Jessie is crushed as the truck--their truck, Riley behind the wheel--crashes into the car she was using as a cover.

XVII.

Riley sits on Cameron's bed, flipping through her copy of Rebecca. She should have known that life, even life before Judgment Day, wouldn't be like Riverboro, the universe bending out of shape just to acknowledge a little girl's awesomeness. But she had allowed herself to hope, to believe that just because Jessie had taken an interest in her, that meant she would be as good as an Aunt Mirandy or Mr. Ladd.

Well, now Jessie's just as dead as Aunt Mirandy at book's end.

There's a knock. Riley looks up to see John standing in the doorframe. "Hey," he says, awkwardly.

She puts down the book. "Hey," she says.

"Can I come in?"

"Sure," she says. "I was just reading."

He sits on the bed next to her, looks at her. It's not the exciting look of him actually noticing her, but one tinged with sadness; he still sees her, but only now he sees the real her. "How are you?" he asks.

"I don't know," she says honestly; she's lied to John enough for one lifetime. "What's going to happen to your uncle?"

John shakes his head. "I don't know."

"Well, at least I'm not the only one in the doghouse." Riley tries to smile, but she knows it's a weak attempt.

John bites his lip. "Riley," he says. "After all your time in the future, what you did today--was that the first time?"

She searches John 's face, not sure she understands. "You mean the first time I killed someone?" He nods. "Yeah. I think so."

Emotions play out across his face, and she's not sure what they mean at first. Then she understands. This is something they share now, the taking of a human life. She reaches across, takes John's hand in hers. "What was it like for you?" he asks.

"She was going to hurt Cameron," Riley points out. "I couldn't let Jessie do that. She's your strength."

"Yeah," says John, thoughtfully. "Yeah, she is." He leans in, kisses her, and she kisses him back with passionate vigor. Ever since she told him the truth, she's felt like she was missing more than just some control of her leg, like a piece of her was cut away and she's only just now getting it back.

He gets up, closing the door to Cameron's bedroom, then sits down again, kisses Riley again. She unbuttons his jeans; he pulls her shirt over her head.

The door opens, and the machine enters. "Still my room," she says before John or Riley can react, and closes the door behind her. She sits down on the other side of John, then leans across him to bring her lips to Riley's. Riley hesitates at first, then gives in to the kiss, trusting that Cameron knows what she is doing.

John is wide-eyed as they break the kiss, and Cameron takes advantage of the moment to kiss him next, when he's still too surprised to resist. After a moment, he kisses her back, tentatively at first, then with greater gusto. Riley takes advantage of the moment to pull off his jeans.

Cameron breaks the kiss with John, then looks across him at Riley. Riley smiles back at the machine, and then the two girls together push John down on the bed.

XXVIII.

Time passes.

Judgment Day comes, later than any of them who remember it remembers it coming.

Life goes on. SkyNet hasn't won.

Not yet.

XXIX.

Riley finds Cameron waiting at the rendezvous. Out of all of them, Cameron's the only one who is unchanged from when this all started the ten years from their first meeting to Judgment Day, and in the ten since.

No, Cameron is changed too. It's just that those changes aren't visible on the outside. There, she's still young, beautiful, perfection.

They kiss quickly as Riley walks up besides her. Riley aches for more, but knows there isn't time, not now.

"We still haven't found this timeline's version of you," Cameron tells her. "John says to tell you they're still looking." Somewhere on this scorched Earth, no one knows where, it's possible there's still a 17-year-old version of her, scavenging for food. Riley still clings to the hope that girl was never born.

"It's okay," Riley says. "She's just one girl."

Cameron reaches out and takes Riley's chin in her hand, moving Riley's head so their gazes meet. "No," Cameron says. "She's not."

Twenty years later, and John and Cameron both still have the power to take her breath away.

"John sends his love," Cameron informs Riley. "And this." She presses a microchip into Riley's palm.

Riley nods. "Understood," she says. "You'd better leave."

Cameron nods and walks away, but not before exchanging one last, lingering kiss with Riley. It's ten minutes before Jessie arrives, hot off the sub from Australia, looking at once exactly the way Riley remembers her and at the same time, so, so young. She sees Riley and eyes her suspiciously. "What are you doing here?"

Riley smiles. "Waiting for you."