Title: I Know Now Why You Cry by Lexikal

Rating: T

Fandom: Terminator 2

Summary: 10-year-old John Connor contemplates his future immediately after the T-800 is lowered into the molten steel at the steel mill. A one-shot.

Author's Notes (longish- scroll down for the story if you don't care about the time line goofs in the various movies): I am a fan of the original Terminator movie and Terminator 2 (Terminator 2 is actually my favourite movie of all time), but not of T3 or T4, or the television series. In my world, I stick to the facts as presented in the first and second films. The original film takes place in May of 1984 and in T2 Sarah is referred to as a "29-year old female" by Silberman. When the T-1000 searches for John's info in the police car, his date of birth is listed as February 1995, and since T2 appears to take place in the summer, this would make him ten (even though Edward Furling was 13 during filming, apparently). This would make Sarah 18 when she got pregnant, and 19 when she gave birth to John, which I can live with... if he was 13, as they say in T3, Sarah would only be 15 at the time she gets pregnant with John.

There are date problems, still, of course. In T2, Judgment day is supposed to take place on August 29th, 1997, approximately 2 years in the future; however, the T-800 states that judgment day will take place in 3 years, which would make this movie take place in 1994. Also, if the T-800 was sent 35 years back in time from the year 2029, this would also suggest the film takes place in 1994. However, for the sake of brevity, I am going to assume the T-800 was just rounding off the date, and maybe it takes place in late '94 (some of the night scenes look cold, so it could possibly be winter in LA) which would make John almost ten.

However, for the sake of this story, I am assuming it takes place in the summer of 1995 when John is ten years old, Sarah is 29 and the T-800 is a bit off on when he was sent back in time. Also, time-travel probably does really weird things to reality, so I am not going to worry too much about it. In short, John is ten, it is 1995 and it's summer.

"Holy shit," John muttered, staring at the T-800, exhaustion and fatigue imprinted on his young features. The steam from the molten steel was swirling up through the grates, steam that probably had atoms of that wretched, horrible monstrosity in it. Atoms never really... went away.

"I need a vacation," the T-800 said, sounding tired. He was a machine, but he sounded tired.

John grabbed his backpack from the floor, the backpack with the Terminator arm in it and followed the T-800, his friend, towards the edge.

"Is it dead?" the boy asked, sounding so much older, so much wiser, than his mere ten years. His mother was standing and gasping, staring down into the molten liquid.

"Terminated." The T-800 said in a monotone, staring into the swirling pool of liquid metal. The heat radiating off the mass of steel was incredible, like being in a sauna.

"Will this melt in there?" John asked, indicating his backpack, the arm contained within.

"Yes. Throw it in."

His mother was still gasping, staring at the mechanical arm in dismay. All this madness, all this pain and suffering...and it all started with a damn idea.

John pulled the arm from his backpack and stared it for a moment.

"Adios," the boy snarled, and chucked the arm in without hesitation. It made a satisfying splash as it hit the steel below.

"And the chip..." the T-800 reminded the boy sternly. John pulled the tiny, broken rectangle of metal from his shirt pocket and stared at it intently, his lip curling slightly in disgust. This chip was where it had all really started. The war. The war with the machines. This little, tiny piece of metal had the potential to do so much damage.

He tossed it in, watching as it hit and flashed bright yellow for a second, before being instantly consumed.

"It's over," his mother rasped, still out of breath.

"No..." The T-800 said bluntly after a few seconds. "There is one more chip..." The T-800 pointed to his own head with one gloved hand, expression unreadable. John watched him warily.

"And it must be destroyed also," the machine said then, no sign of fear or anxiety, nothing human in his voice. Because he wasn't a human. For all his pretending, he would never be more than what he had been made to be; a machine. A killer. A terminator.

"Here," he was holding a control box in one hand now. He handed the box to Sarah. "I cannot self-terminate."

Self-terminate. A fancy way to say suicide. Suicide. John's heart skipped a beat. He was going to kill himself... end himself. He was going to...go wherever it was machines went when they no longer existed. Did they have souls? Did they have self-awareness like humans? These thoughts flittered through John's mind like a murder of disturbed crows. He swallowed and fought back the sudden onslaught of philosophical enigmas, ignoring the flashing, rotating yellow security light above his head. Ignoring the heat and the pain and strain in his muscles. Ignoring everything but the words of the machine. The machine who was his friend.

"You must lower me into the steel," the machine said, and Sarah snatched the control box from him. John couldn't see his mother's face, her back was to him. He could see the machine's, all beat up, obviously inhuman, metal skull exposed in far too many places to ever, ever, pass as a human. Ever.

"No..." He could find his voice then, small and helpless. No. This wasn't happening. They had won. They had won. The boy shook his head, just the slightest amount, to indicate his distress, eyes never leaving the scene unfolding in front of him.

"No!" John said louder, this time with more emotion, more pain. His mother turned to face him and he could see her face, see the determination there. The machine stepped around her, approached him- approached its master.

"I'm sorry John," the machine said, and its voice held a lilt of compassion, a compassion it had learned and could mimic but couldn't possibly ever feel. It was acting. That's what his mother would end up telling him. Acting. It was a machine, and machines didn't have feelings. But the boy knew better.

"NO!" John hollered, grabbing the T-800 by the front of his black leather jacket.

"I'm sorry," the machine said again in the same, almost-but-not-quite sad tone of voice.

"No, it will be okay! STAY WITH US! IT WILL BE OKAY!" After all this, all this fear and pain, no, this wasn't happening. The machine was looking at him, its damaged eye bright red and glowing, its lips pressed in a thin, determined line.

"I have to go away," the machine said, and this time its voice was back to its usual, steely monotone.

"No, don't do it, please, don't go..." He was begging now. Crying. Hair sweaty from shock and fear and adrenaline and now... now emotion. Begging. Begging the machine. John Connor had never begged anyone for anything in his entire life.

"I must go away, John..." the machine pushed him aside and made a move to grab the chains dangling over the pit.

"NO!"

There was the eerie squeak of metal, like some strange animal screaming. Like metal itself screaming as the T-800 pulled the chain towards itself.

"No, please, wait, you don't have to do this!"

"I'm sorry." Not even a monotone, now the machine sounded almost bored. Blasé.

"No, don't do it! Don't go!"

"It has to end here."

John's begging cut off then. He still had one way. He lurched forward and grabbed the machine by the back of the jacket, stopping its movement.

"I order you not to go! I order you not to go! I ORDER YOU NOT TO GO!" He couldn't keep the high-pitched shriek out of his words, the pain. Couldn't stop the gasping, the urge to sob like a little baby. The machine stared at him then, really stared; a long, hard stare. Processing this latest bit of human behaviour. Making sense of it.

"I know now why you cry," The T-800 said sternly, one gloved finger reaching out to trace its way down John's cheek. "But it's something I can never do..."

John gasped and then fell into a hug, pulling the machine to him. He couldn't stop this. He couldn't. His friend- his only real friend ever, really, was going to...be terminated.

The hug lasted forever. The hug lasted a nanosecond. The machine cradled him, cradled his head like the child he was, before finally breaking free of the embrace. His mother offered a hand for it to shake, a blood stained hand, and the thing took her hand. Shook it. A final goodbye between comrades. She nodded at the machine, face both pensive and resolute.

And then he grabbed onto the chains and pushed himself away from the ledge. There was the clinking noise of the chains moving and groaning under his weight.

"Goodbye," the T-800 said simply, staring at the boy, at the boy's mother.

His mother pressed the button then, and John had the sudden insane urge to grab the control box from her hands and stop this, but he knew it had to be this way. Didn't make it any easier to watch, though. The chains continued to rattle, and the machine- his friend- began the slow descent into what could easily be called lava. John watched, head high, hands at his side, face coated with a fine sheen of sweat, mouth open as he sucked in air that might never feel right again.

Don't cry, John. Don't cry, don't cry. Don't break down like a little baby now. You are- or at least were- the defender of all of mankind, for crying out loud.

But it was so hard to breathe, and the T-800's gaze never left him. Not for the entire journey into the pit.

John gasped and his breathing became hitched as the Cyborg glanced downwards to his doom, before glancing up again. The heat and the stress and now this... no. No. Please no. But it was already happening. It could not be stopped now. And even if it could... it couldn't really be stopped. Not really. Because the T-800 had a point. As long as he- it- continued to exist, the war still lingered as a threat.

He wanted to turn away when the machine's legs entered the liquid steel, remembering what the T-800 had told him about feeling pain- data that could be called pain. Was he in pain now? Was he in pain, and unable to show it?

The rest of him sank quickly then, pink-orange flames rippling up around the body and head, crackling menacingly. God. GOD. John hissed in breath. His chest felt tight, like someone had tied tensor bandages around his ribcage.

The T-800 kept its arm extended, even after the head was under, and the last thing John Connor saw of the machine was the fist forming into a 'thumb's up' sign. They had won. They had won the war.

But they hadn't really won. Not in John Connor's mind.

His mother let the control box drop, almost with disgust, when the arm disappeared and John turned his head into her shoulder, unable to fight back the grief any longer.

He gasped and she held him. But not for long.

"John? We have to get going... this place will be swarming with cops in a few minutes."

And he knew she was right, so he followed her.

They stole a van, his mother hot-wiring the damn thing with ease, like the pro she was, and then they were off, fast, but not too fast, cruising on the black road at night, the future lying ahead of them, uncertain and strange. Things would never be the same again.

"Do you think he ever... ever learned to see us as worthwhile?" John croaked eventually, staring glumly out the window, hair still sweaty and slicked against his forehead.

"Yeah, I think he did, John. I think he did. I think you taught him well."

"Yeah. Mom?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think it's over now? The war? Do you think we did enough this time to stop it? For good, I mean."

There was silence for a long moment as Sarah Connor considered her son's question. Finally she sighed and nodded.

"I think so, John. I hope so. I really do."

"Yeah. But how will we know for sure... I mean, Jesus, Mom, are we going to have to live the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders, waiting to be attacked by something that's liquid metal? Me never knowing if you are you, and when I get a bit bigger, you not knowing if I am... well, me? Is that going to be our life, now, for the rest of it? Always looking over our shoulders, if not for machines, than at least for the police? We're fugitives, Mom..."

"John, stop talking," Sarah said dismally. Her son was bringing up valid points, but she wanted...no, needed... to have a few minutes of peace. She needed to believe- just for a bit- that it was over.

"I don't want to stop talking, Mom! Why should I stop talking?"

She ignored him and kept her eyes on the road, her jaw working silently. She'd never hit her son in his life, but she felt the sudden urge to strike him. There had just been too many days- years- of stress and pain and fear and worry. The kid was picking on her last nerve. But when she glanced over at him she saw how pale he was, how small, sucking and chewing on his lower lip like a child. God, he was a child. And yet... he wasn't. He was ten, but chronologically, only. He'd never had the option, the luxury, of being a child in the true sense of the word. He'd been born to be a warrior, and warriors didn't get to remain innocent and care-free for long. It just wasn't in the master blueprints.

"I need you to stop talking, John. The cops are going to be looking for us, and right now, after tonight, they are just as likely to shoot you dead on sight as they are, me," she told the boy bluntly. He nodded and fell silent.

And she continued to drive, and after an hour was certain he had drifted off. His face was pressed to the glass of the window and she couldn't see it. But he finally spoke.

"Where are we going?"

"To Mexico."

"Don't you think there are going to be roadblocks?" His tone was almost sarcastic and again she felt the urge to slap him, but held it in check.

"Probably. We take back roads. Call up some old friends and get some weapons and... then Mexico."

John Connor sighed heavily. It wasn't over. It wasn't. It would never be over. Even if the machine-aspect of it was, his life, his running, his fight, would never end. He knew that as much as he knew anything.

But maybe, in spite of all of it, he could still have a life. Maybe. He grabbed his backpack and riffled through it.

"Mom?"

"Just say what you want to say, John."

"Fine! Can we play this tape?" He shoved a tape of Public Enemy at her. She sighed but eventually took the tape and slid it into the cassette deck. "Public Enemy, huh?" she asked her son with a smirk. Some things never changed.

"It's a mixed tape; a little AC/DC, a little Metallica, Guns n' Roses, you know, good shit..."

"Yeah..."

And then the music came on, and John fell silent again, listening to the lyrics of a song that obviously wasn't Public Enemy, lost deep in thought.

Mama take this badge from me
I can't use it anymore
It's getting dark too dark to see
Feels like I'm knockin' on heaven's door

Kn-kn-knockin' on heaven's door
Kn-knockin' on heaven's door
Kn-knockin' on heaven's door
Kn-knockin' on heaven's door

Mama put my guns in the ground
I can't shoot them anymore
That cold black cloud is comin' down
Feels like I'm knockin' on heaven's door

Kn-kn-knockin' on heaven's door
Kn-knockin' on heaven's door
Kn-knockin' on heaven's door
Kn-knockin' on heaven's door

"You just better start sniffin' your own
rank subjugation jack 'cause it's just you
against your tattered libido, the bank and
the mortician, forever man and it wouldn't
be luck if you could get out of life alive"*

Kn-kn-knockin' on heaven's door

He fell asleep, and never saw his mother cry. Never felt her reach over and kiss the side of his sweaty head.

That's it. Terminator 2 is my favourite movie of all time, but it's such a masterpiece, I never bothered to write fan fiction for it (what do you add to a masterpiece?). However, this did occur to me, so I typed it out. I hope you liked it, but whether you liked it, hated it or were indifferent, please review! Thanks- Lexikal