She Moves (In Mysterious Ways)
Title: She Moves (In Mysterious Ways)
Author: Madelyn
Fandom: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Summary: Getting to know you.
Characters: Morris, Cameron, John, Derek, Cheri (the girl with the mystery background)
Rating: PG, 2,700 words.
Notes: Prompt by serrico: Five things Morris learns about Cameron at prom.
SORRY FOR ANOTHER WEIRD TITLE, PEOPLE. It’s a sickness. Also, thanks to isagel and sathinks for the beta work!
1 - Cameron’s good with cars.
“I really didn’t, uh. Plan this,” Morris says, looking down at the Cadillac’s engine with not a little trepidation and dismay.
Cameron tilts her head in that cute way that she has. “Plan this,” she murmurs as she peers in closer.
“No, I swear! I know what you’re thinking, that I like, set this up, but I’m not one of those guys, Cameron.”
She finally stops staring at the engine. “Sit down,” she tells him, and places her hand on his shoulder, half shoving him away.
“I’ll fix it!” he protests, rubbing at his arm. “That’s how I met your brother, you know. Shop class.”
“I’ll fix it,” she tells him, and fixes on him with those wide, beautiful brown eyes and Morris feels his knee go to jelly. Only the one, which is weird, but okay.
“You might mess up your dress,” Morris protests, but only feebly, because hey, she might know how to fix it, and he’s pretty sure he actually doesn’t. He shuffles off to the driver’s seat, and as soon as he sits down, he jumps at the sound of the hood slamming shut.
“Are you okay?” he asks as Cameron rounds the car and reclaims the passenger seat.
“It’s fixed,” she tells him. He keeps staring at her, and she smiles, bright, wide and beaming and Morris relaxes. She doesn’t look like she thinks he’s too much of a loser for not being able to fix the car. He starts the engine up.
“So how’d you do that?” he asks her, glancing at her sideways. “That was fast. I think it would have taken me like, twenty minutes.” He doesn’t really know how long it would have taken him, but longer than twenty seconds is a safe assumption.
2 - Cameron’s good under pressure.
“I like cars,” she tells him, eyeing her dress critically. “Is this wrinkled?”
“No, no,” he says, daring to peer a little closer at the shape of her leg under the fabric.
“It’s perfect,” he breathes.
“We are about to be hit by a Chevrolet Silverado Two-Mode Hybrid,” she tells him.
“Ahhhhhh!” Morris screams and pulls the car, screeching, over to the side.
“It is safe now,” she tells him, when he doesn’t pull out immediately.
“I know, I–oh,” he half-yells. “That was close!”
“It is still safe,” she says, looking over his shoulder, watching the cars pass by.
“Uh, thanks,” he says, straightening in his seat awkwardly, and they drive over to the gym in silence.
“So, did I tell you that you look really awesome tonight? Really pretty?” he amends quickly, jumping out of the car, but he doesn’t manage to get out fast enough to open her door.
“Yes. Three times. Thank you,” she says, brushing at her dress again. It’s green and long and swishy, and fits her like a glove. He can’t even look at her without his palms getting sweaty.
“Did your mom do your hair?” he asks, just desperate to make conversation so he won’t keep looking at her and making an idiot of himself.
“I read eight issues of Cosmopolitan magazine and decided this was a contemporary style that would complement my attire.” At his blank look, she amends, “My dress. My hair looks good with my dress.”
“Yeah,” he grins. “It really does. Wait!” he says, as she starts heading for the gym doors. “I didn’t give you your corsage!” She tilts her head again, and man, does he love when she does that. It shows she’s really *thinking* about what he’s saying, and most girls don’t pay him much attention.
“My corsage? Okay,” she nods.
“I had your brother scan a picture of your dress. I know you told me it was green, but like, there’s a lot of shades of green and I wanted to get it right.”
“I see,” she nods. “Getting it right is good.”
“I thought this one might be nice,” he says, trying to pry open the plastic box. “Got it!”
“It is nice,” she tells him, and he grins at her, happy she likes it. “Here, I’ll help you put it on, okay?”
“Yes,” she nods, and brushes aside a lock of her hair.
“I was going to go with the wrist corsage, but John told me you don’t really like stuff in the way of your hands, so I went with the pin, and I hope that’s alright,” he breaks off, realizing he’s stammering, and he’d *practiced* with the pin but it obviously hadn’t helped.
“Oh God! I’m sorry!” he mutters when he realizes he’s just jabbed her with the pin.
“Oh. Ow,” she says, and watches him get it into place. Sort of. It’s a little lop-sided.
“I can fix that,” he says, and moves to even it out a bit, but he doesn’t want her to think he’s like, *messing* with her or anything, or trying to touch her weirdly. John had been there when he’d asked Cameron to the prom. When it came up again a week later, John had gotten a strange look on his face, and told him his sister was a little stand-offish, (which Morris had kind of noticed) so he should be careful and not push things. And right, okay, that’s what every brother said about their sister, but John had looked really serious about it. So.
Careful it was.
“It is properly secured,” she says. “Can we go in? John’s probably here already.”
“Yeah, let’s go,” he exhales, offering his arm. She looks at him for a moment, and hooks her arm into his. He can’t help but have a little bounce in his step, because he hadn’t thought he’d actually *go* to Prom, much less with the hottest girl in school.
“Your tux is soooo awesome,” he hears Mindy McAdams tell Bryce Johnston over the low hum of the music as they stand in the line to enter.
“You are attractive tonight,” Cameron tells him, looking him up and down again. “Your pants are perfectly proportional to the length of your legs.”
“Thanks, Cameron,” he says, and nods at Bryce and Mindy kind of staring at them as they pass. Cameron, even hotter than Mindy McAdams, the co-captain of the cheerleading squad.
They have to pass through the school’s metal detectors again, but they wave Cameron through after she reminds them: “I have metal plates. In my head.”
He makes a quick stop at the refreshments table. “I’m finding John,” she tells him, after obviously looking through the room for her brother.
“I’m sure John’s just dancing. Maybe he doesn’t want his sister around for the big night, you know?” he only half-teases. He really likes John, but he’d hoped to get to know Cameron even better tonight.
“You don’t think he wants to be around me?” she asks, and it’s obvious that he said it wrong, got her all tensed up.
“No! I’m sure he loves being around you, you’re his sister. It’s just, you know. This sort of thing, maybe you don’t want to be talking to family too…” he breaks off, because Cameron’s already gliding across the room where John and his date, Cheri Westin are standing, kind of off to the side.
He follows, two glasses of punch in hand.
3 - Cameron is an air kiss girl.
“Hi John, Cheri,” Morris says, handing a glass to Cameron. John smiles at him, but not as big a smile as usual. Cheri’s gripping John’s arm a little tight and looking around the room.
“Cameron! You look so cute!” Cheri does the air kiss thing girls do sometimes. Only Cameron’s not really one of those girls, Morris doesn’t think, until she repeats the gesture.
John grins. “Hey guys.”
4 - Cameron doesn’t get along with her mother’s boyfriend.
“Who’s that guy, staring over here?” Morris asks, gesturing with his glass.
“Derek,” Cameron says, as John says “He’s my–our–”
“He’s our mother’s boyfriend,” Cameron says flatly.
“Yeah, Mom wanted to chaperone, but I thought that was–” John breaks off and makes a hand gesture that covers his feelings on the subject, “and so we compromised on Derek,” John sighs.
“Was he in the army or something?” Cheri asks.
“What makes you ask that?” John asks, brows furrowing.
“I dunno, he just looks it,” Cheri looks off to the side, and sips her drink slowly. Cameron’s looking around, taking it all in, so Morris decides it’s time to get the show on the road.
“Do you two not get along?” Morris asks quietly, gesturing at where Derek’s standing, steering Cameron onto the floor.
“No. He is a tool,” Cameron nods, and places her hand in his. He hears John choke on his punch as they move away.
“Well, maybe they’ll break up?” Morris asks, grasping Cameron’s wrist loosely. “How long have they been together?”
“It depends,” she says, sort of leading the movements. Morris shrugs, just glad that they look pretty simpatico on the floor.
“Depends on what?” he asks, feeling daring enough to spin her around in an arc.
“On when you start counting,” she says a little insensibly.
“Ooohkay,” Morris laughs. “I get it, you don’t want to talk about it. Cheri kind of came out of nowhere, asking John to Prom, huh? I told him she was a little strange.”
“She is irrelevant,” Cameron says, and…oh God, she’s *spinning him*.
“Was that wrong?” she asks him, taking in his expression.
“Uh, no. That was okay. Most girls just don’t really do that.”
“I am not most girls,” she says, and moves to do it again.
“No, you’re really not,” Morris agrees, and they wind up taking turns spinning one another around for a minute. John and Cheri have taken up dancing together beside them, and Morris doesn’t think life gets much better than this.
“Your mom’s boyfriend is looking at us kind of funny,” he whispers.
“He does that,” Cameron says.
The doors burst open and three guys in masks holding guns burst in.
“Crap,” Cheri breathes.
“Shit,” John whispers.
Cameron drops Morris’ hand like it’s burning her, and moves in front of John. “In two seconds–” she starts, but one of the gunmen yells, “Okay, we’re here for a few files from your principal. Once we’ve got those, we’re going to let everyone go. So sit down, right where you are, shut up, and you’ll be fine. Talk, and bullets in your head. Got it? No dumb heroics or anything, just sit down!”
People start throwing themselves to the floor.
“Oh, thank God,” John mutters.
“Oh thank *God*?” Morris repeats incredulously.
“Could be worse,” John shrugs philosophically.
“Much worse,” Cameron concurs.
“Incredibly worse,” Cheri nods.
Cameron and John narrow their eyes at her, but she just sits down on the floor and rubs at a spot on the waxing. John sits uneasily next to her, and Cameron gets on her knees, settling down in front of John. Morris sits off to the side, behind her.
Around them, a few of the kids are crying, but mostly everyone’s just staring at the walls nervously, or staring at the ground, probably hoping that if they can’t see the gunmen, the gunmen can’t see them.
At least, that’s what Morris was doing. Only he was able to watch Cameron’s smooth back underneath the pale green straps of her dress. She has nice shoulder bones.
“One night,” John says plaintively. “All I wanted was one, nice, normal night.”
“You had over half of a nice, normal night,” Cameron points out, her hands loosely clasped atop her knees.
“You’re right. It was too much to expect more,” John says.
“Yeah,” Cheri sighs. “I know what you mean.”
“Where’s Derek?” John whispers to Cameron.
Cameron looks around the room slowly. “Unknown,” she finally says.
The tallest of the gunmen pulled out a cellphone as soon as people had settled on the floor, and the other two moved to different sides of the gym. “Now you listen here! I got a room full of your students and you’re going to give me what I want!” he yells into the phone. “You’ve got ten minutes to get over here, with everything.” He hangs up.
Ten minutes pass, with nothing eventful happening. Morris hears someone whispering, asking why the police haven’t come, and he’d kind of like to know the answer to that one himself.
Then everything changes. “Just pick one at random,” the taller gunman shouts, slamming his phone against the wall in disgust. Suddenly, one of the gunmen who’d been pacing the side of the gym yanks John to his feet and places the barrel to John’s head.
Morris swallows hard, and Cameron jumps up. Before he knows it, he’s standing too.
“Take me, instead of my brother,” Cameron says, placing her hand on the guy’s arm.
“Brave girl,” the gunman comments, but shoves John aside. As he stumbles, the gun is put to Cameron’s forehead.
Maybe those metal plates will protect her, Morris can’t help but hope. “Take the brother too; out the back quick now,” the taller gunman says, having worked his way across the room.
“I said instead,” Cameron says softly, so soft that Morris can barely hear her.
5 - Cameron’s kind of violent.
Morris thinks, so huh, this is what slow-motion is like. Everyone’s focused on what’s happening with John and Cameron, and no one’s really noticing that behind them, Derek’s crawling out from underneath the refreshments table. He watches as Derek reaches into the front of his jacket, watches as Cameron knocks John aside with one arm, watches as Cameron reaches out and yanks the gun away with one hand, and kicks him so hard in the face with her leg that he’s knocked unconscious to the ground, and points the gun at the taller gunman’s face all within an eyeblink. She hits him in the face with her open palm, and somehow, somehow that *works*, and he goes down like a light.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the third gunman go down, a bullet to his forehead. Morris cringes, but watches as Cameron pulls John to his feet.
Morris feels himself flushing, warming, his jacket’s suddenly too tight. There’s chaos in the gym, and everyone’s screaming and running out of every exit possible.
“I’m going to take my sister home. She’s scared,” John says quickly, taking charge. “Morris, could you take Cheri home?”
It takes a moment for Morris to register that John said anything at all. “Yeah. Sure.” Morris nods.
“You are fine,” Cameron says, peering closely at John, smoothing a hand down his arm.
John doesn’t seem to think it’s a question, but answers anyway. “I’m okay. Let’s go home. Where’s Derek?”
Morris wants to say, he was over there, probably reaching for a phone or something, but when he follows the last sight he’d had of Cameron’s mom’s boyfriend, no one’s there.
“He probably ran to call Mom,” John says finally. “You know how she worries.”
“Uh, the police are probably going to want to…talk to people,” Morris points out.
“Yeah, and half the gym’s already gone home, and the other half is crying around in corners. If people wanna talk to us, they can come find us at home,” John says quickly, pulling Cameron behind him.
Cheri nods even as she’s gripping Morris’ arm. “John’s right, we should all just go and be glad nothing really bad happened.”
Cameron and Cheri walk past the gunman’s body like he’s not even there, but Morris is relieved to see that at least John kind of shudders.
“Uh, sorry that I can’t drive you back,” John shuffles from foot to foot, as they walk briskly outside.
“Really not a problem, John,” Cheri says politely.
“I…” Morris wants to say he had a good time, but Cameron would probably look at him in that cute, funny way she has. “Thanks for coming, Cameron,” he finishes lamely as they make it to John’s car.
“You’re welcome. There was fun,” she nods, not even a backward glance as she watches John pull on his seatbelt. Derek’s already in the driver’s seat. “I told you I should have had a longer slit on my dress,” he can hear Cameron saying, as Derek peels out of the parking lot.
“Their family’s kind of weird,” Morris tilts his chin at Cheri, only she’s already weaving her way around the cars rapidly pulling out. He jogs after her.