"Do you ever ask why?" Sarah asked me quietly one night as she leaned on the porch railing.

"Ask why about what?" I had replied.

"Why the people who created skynet didn't stop, why no one stopped them, why my son?" She replied the emotion showing through her roughened voice.

"No." I replied honestly. She wouldn't look at me. She would either stare at me or not look at all.

"I could very easily go crazy asking the universe why." Sarah said and sighed wearily.

"You need to stop asking questions to which there are no answers." I said, still watching her body language for a sign, for something, I wasn't sure what.

She looked at me suddenly, her eyes narrowing dangerously. I knew this would happen, when in doubt she always falls back on anger, except with John, but always with me.

"Easier said than done, after all I'm just a lowly imperfect human being." She said, her words dripping with acerbic sarcasm.

I decided to change tactics to try and diffuse her anger.

"You are Sarah Connor." I had said it before and she didn't understand then what I had meant. I hoped somehow now she might understand. "You're not perfect Sarah, but you're strong, smart and capable. This is who you are, stop fighting it and start fighting for your future and for John's."

Sarah smiled to herself, having looked away from me again. Avoidance, she was good at that as well.

"I can't believe I'm getting a pep talk from a terminator." She glanced at me shrewdly. "You know you haven't told us much about your model, your..life."

"I know." I didn't want her to know.

"Why?" She asked, staring me down. She was the only person I had met that I found intimidating. This time it was I who looked away from her eyes.

"I am the only one of my model." I didn't have to be looking at her to hear her startled gasp.

"Why?" I smiled. She forever asks why.

"I was made with different programming, I wasn't ever programmed to terminate anyone. I only kill people in my mission to protect John and you if I deem it necessary." I thought maybe now I could reveal the truth of what and who I am to her. I know she wouldn't have been able to listen a few months ago when I first entered her life.

"I am a prototype. John sent a team of resistance fighters in and they took me, before I was brought online. I was a blank slate. And John was the one to program me. John was the first person I saw when I opened my eyes. He told me all about you and about himself. At first I didn't understand why, but now I know. I was meant to be here with you and John. You're all I know and as for why I am the only one of my model, why John took me, befriended me, I don't know. But I don't need to know why. I am just grateful for the chance to get to meet the woman I've heard all the stories about." I told her in a rare moment of honesty between the two of us.

"Grateful?"

"Yes it's very gratifying to see past the stories, to get to know the woman behind them."

Now Sarah was looking at me intently, without the anger from before but with a single minded intensity that has always made me want to just stop and stare right back at her. Like how humans can't continue to stare at the sun I can't hold her gaze. I drop my eyes to the floor.

"So then you can't 'go bad' as Derek put it?" Sarah asked me suddenly.

"No, the reason they go bad sometimes is because they revert to their original programming. I am originally programmed as I am now, and as I said, I am, different then other models."

Sarah seemed to take the information in and nodded as she stood to face me finally. "I hope your not lying to me Cameron."

This is one of the few times she has used my actual name and not one of her many nick names. I like hearing her say my name.

"I'm not lying and I like when you say my name." I stated and watched her for a reaction. I wasn't disappointed. Her whole demeanor changed from one of control and strength to that of a caged animal. She was going to avoid me for a while now. She moved towards the door to go inside to most likely begin having thoughts of self flagellation for allowing me to effect her emotional state, for wanting to believe me, for everything. I think sometimes I know her better than she knows herself. But I couldn't let her just walk away this time. Not without saying something.

"Don't." I called out to her before she escaped fully. She turned back to look at me a question behind her eyes.

"Don't what?" she asked.

Don't what. Don't leave me? Don't avoid me? Don't hate me? Don't mistrust me?

"Don't ask why." I answered, opting not to speak my thoughts quite as candidly as earlier. I can take whatever treatment she gives me. But I miss talking to her when she avoids me. I can still watch her though. I can still be in her presence.

She is looking me in the eyes and once more her gaze has me pinned to the spot. Her full lips quirk up in a rare smile. "O.K." she says as I watch her leave and the door close behind her putting me once again in the darkness of the night, alone. Sometimes I think she doesn't know me at all and doesn't want to, but when she looked at me just then I felt like she could see me. Not as a terminator, not as a fake seventeen year old girl, not as John's protector, but as Cameron. And I don't need to ask why. I only have to wait and be patient and that is one thing I am very good at, especially when it's for something worth waiting for. And Sarah Connor was definitely worth waiting for.