Work Text
Prologue
The moment Dr Cartledge opened the bag on the gurney she nearly choked on her cigarette. She had done this job for many years (too long really, but what could you do, when the screws in her shoulder messed with her ability to perform surgery on live patients), she had seen too many bodies to count, knew every stage of decay and this was not what a corpse should look like after a couple of hours of cessation of heart function and respiration. “Well, you boys fucked up and you better get your asses in gear and a trauma team down here ASAP.” She told the guys who had brought him in, already picking up a limp wrist and rushing through some preliminary tests. “What?” She threw her cigarette in the ashtray, already moving on to peel back an eyelid and clicking her tongue. “This kid is not quite dead yet, so you better run like the devil, have I made myself clear? I’m gonna do what I can, but clearly I don’t have the equipment down here. Now GO!” Hearing the two race down the corridor and hopefully up the stairs she turned back to assessing the not-quite-so-dead young man on her gurney and trying to work out what needed her attention first. “I’m not as good as I used to be, okay, kiddo? So you hang in there. Haven’t lost a patient in a long while. Not on my watch.” Granted, they usually turned up beyond saving but he did not need to know that. ***“That guy you sent back upstairs…” Joe interrupted her solitude in the cafeteria. Dr Cartledge looked up from her crosswords mildly. She was not entirely sure she was ready to hear this. She had done what had been within her abilities down in the morgue but it was never meant to be a place for the still living, even if they were only hanging on by a thread. At least she had handed him off still breathing, and perhaps a little more stable than he had been. “The police picked him up today, equipment and all. Said he was a fugitive and they’d transfer him somewhere safer.” Joe took a deep drink of his coffee. “I reckon they want to interrogate him - love to know if it’s to do with all the other attacks.” “With the head trauma and internal bleeding it’s a miracle he was still alive when I got him, never mind being able to answer their questions.” She noted. That was probably why he’d been stuffed in a bag by mistake in the first place. They had gotten so used to picking up after that serial killer in the last couple of days, finding one still alive after getting mangled all to hell was not something they still expected. A lot was in the job description of first responders and ER personnel but this sort of violence was usually reserved for drug wars or gangs. “I mean, he did wake up, you know.” Joe looked sympathetic. “Scared out of his mind and delirious, kept raving about some machine and this women but they’re fairly sure he’s gonna recover.” Dr Cartledge paused to savour the warmth that spread through her cynical self. “That’s good. Let’s hope the poor boy gets the help he needs and I don’t see him ever again.” ***
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“Hello again.” Dr Silberman took a seat across the hospital bed. He was pleased to see the patient had been secured, despite the injuries and reassurances from staff, that he was in no condition to even turn over on his own. Glazed green eyes blinked up at him vacantly. They had him drugged up good or perhaps the brain injury was worse than he had been made to believe. There was a large gauze wrapping covering the man’s head still and it had after all only been a day since he had regained conscience. Except, he could not let this opportunity slip by. He had been promised access to this man and he was determined to study his delusions. It was the most fascinating case he had come across after all. “You and I will be spending a great amount of time together, once you’re feeling better. I just wanted to see, how you are recovering.” He told him, trying to gauge how much of his words would make it through. Secretly he was decidedly disappointed, he had even packed his dictaphone just in case, complete with spare micro-cassettes if he needed them and they did not come as cheap as he wanted. He received nothing more than a slow blink, before the patient’s head lolled to the side and he seemed to stare into thin air, clearly not present enough to be much use. “Well, I shall leave you to it.” He got to his feet, turned to the door before pausing. Perhaps one thing might get a reaction after all? “The woman who was with you…” He scrutinised him closely, hoping for even just a twitch. “She has disappeared. I imagine that would be something you would like to know about.” He had been holding his breath, but there was no hint of the temper he had seen the man display, nothing even to indicate he had heard him. He cleared his throat, contemplating the time he had just wasted. Hopefully he had not lost his chance of studying this case entirely. In a bit of a huff, Dr Silberman left after another moment of nothing. In the bed, Kyle Reese’s eyes slid shut again. ***“I have some interesting news I’d like to share with you.” Dr Silberman entered the cell with a large file in hand. As was the norm these days, his patient sat slumped in a corner, most likely where the orderlies had left him. Most days it was a chore getting food into him and though loss of healthy weight was concerning, they had him stabilised to the doctor's satisfaction as he took him in. Despite the desperate craving to keep on studying the delusions this man had built for himself, he had been forced to up his medication quite radically to keep him manageable. He had caused too much trouble over the years and eventually he had to admit defeat. He scratched a little uncomfortably at the spot where he had nicked him with a shiv five years ago, one of his last attempts of escaping. At that stage he had gotten rather sloppy. Initially it had been quite a task to keep him subdued and there had been more escape attempts than Dr Silberman was willing to count at this point in time. The orderlies having to manage his food intake and hygiene was a small price in comparison. Of course these days, the man, who had no records anywhere and clearly invented the name he was going by too, was only likely to drool over his shoes and entirely docile. Granted, some of his colleagues had warned about potential organ damage with such heavy medication but Dr Silberman did after all prescribe breaks in the regime to see if there was not anything else he might dig up for his paper. Unfortunately it had been some time since even that had been effective. The patient had stopped talking all together eventually and pretty much turned into a vegetable, barely able to follow instructions on how to perform basic functions. Still, this new discovery was a victory after spending the last few years simply trying (and failing), to find out where his patient had come from, to see if he could dissect the causes of his lunacy. He had already come to the conclusion, that the part about him being a soldier, was most likely true. Only he could find no records of anyone under his assumed name, or even someone who might recognise his face. “There has been an arrest and the police brought me in to evaluate one of the vandals trying to bomb a computer factory. Incidentally, it was the same one we dragged you out of half-dead, you might remember.” Silberman opened the file and took out a photo. Up until this point, his patient had been entirely distracted by the way the light broke through the window he had been resting his cheek on. He did that frequently, zoning out and honing in on light, colours, textures. On days when the guards would take him into the walled garden, he was also known to get uncharacteristically emotional, crying quite openly over a flower or a bee and they would have to bring him in pretty quickly again. When the photo slid into his line of sight, though, once his blown pupils had managed to focus on it, he gasped. Cracked lips formed a name. “Sarah.” Dr Silberman felt like jumping for joy. He had not spoken in months. The girl from back at the Police station, all those years ago, still held power over him then. He would have two subjects to study and perhaps there was more to get out of this one after all. Reluctantly the patient dragged his gaze away from the photo to meet his. For a moment his eyes seemed to clear a little. “Where is she?” He croaked. Dr Silberman smirked rather smugly, because voluntary engagement had been another thing he had not been getting in a long time. “She’s being transferred here, under my care. Perhaps if you cooperate, you’ll be able to see her.” His jaw worked as he stared the doctor down. “When?” Dr Silberman took his time considering. “We’ll see, won’t we. How about we talk about your parents again. I’d very much like to know, where they are from.” A slow blink, but the focus remained. This time it was up to him to smirk sloppily and shrug. It was enough to drive someone up a wall. Just when he had thought, he had taken a step forward too, offering something the man actually wanted. Dr Silberman grit down on any frustration, told himself that this was more progress than he had been hoping for in years and made to leave. “Take a few days to think about it. Perhaps you’ll surprise me. Until then, I’ll be speaking to your Sarah, maybe she will be able to shed light on some things.” He deliberately goaded. His patient lunged for him out of nowhere then and he just barely avoided him. Instead the man’s skinny frame slammed to the floor. Scrambling to get up but foiled by the muscle relaxants that were part of his cocktail, unhinged eyes tried to burn a hole through the doctor’s skull. “Leave her alone! Don’t you - don’t you touch her!” He slurred, still clawing at his legs, though at this point Dr Silberman had had enough. He also was not going to risk anything, he had been in enough scrapes with this lunatic. He walked out the room, making a mental note to send up an orderly with a sedative to prevent a scene from happening. ***
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It took her an embarrassingly long time, but eventually Sarah decided that her only course of action was to play ball for a while, so she could come up with a viable plan. They had sedated her again and again, after Silberman had driven her up a wall in their sessions and she had to avoid the meds somehow. That man knew just where to poke and push to set her off. She needed to be smarter about this. So she played along, cooperated and kept an eye out on anything she might be able to use. There was not a lot. “I would like to try something today.” Dr Silberman announced, in that tone of voice that he probably thought was pleasant, but just grated on her. She said nothing, just placed one bound hand on top of the other. He had eventually learnt to secure her to the table, another thing that was her own fault and would make escape only more difficult. “Now, I will do something very unconventional here, Sarah. This is not usually the way things are done, but I think this might help you reevaluate your trauma.” He leaned in, clearly trying to be reassuring. “I know that you are the victim here and we are here to help you. Even if you don’t feel that way now. But that is the point of this whole operation, if you will call it that.” He gestured for one of the orderlies to unfasten her wrists and she was pulled to her feet. “You say, that your son will save the world from the machines, something we both know you picked up from the man who kidnapped you all those years ago. You say that he is the father, don’t you?” Her stomach sank. Something sinister was going on and she was defenceless with those two goons flanking her as they made her follow Silberman into the corridor. Still, what choice did she have? Dr Silberman stopped by a particular cell door in another wing entirely to hers. This one looked if possible even more maximum security than her own. He turned a sympathy feigning expression on her. “This might be hard to take in, but I want you to understand that we are honest with you.” The goons stepped back a little, giving her room. So did Silberman. It took more than she knew it should to take those few steps to the door and to look through the opened window. She could have sworn the nuclear bomb from her dreams imploded in her chest. “No.” She breathed. It was impossible. It was a hallucination from some new meds Silberman was trialling on her. It was a wishful dream and she would blink and the light would change and… But if it were, it would never be like this.In the corner by the barred and secured window of the cell was a cot. It was no different to other cells. On it, squeezed into the smallest possible space was a thin, pale man with dirty blond stubble on his chin and equally light hair. He looked like he rarely ever saw the sun, half-starved and utterly diminished from the man she remembered. His eyes were closed, but if they had been open, they would have been an unmistakable green she had been sure she would never see again. Not after closing them herself when she had dragged herself back to his side, after destroying that monster of a machine that had taken him from her. “You see?” Dr Silberman stepped up next to her and it took everything she had not to lunge at his jugular at his patronising tone of voice. “He’s not dead. He is here as well and has been in therapy for his delusions, for years now.” If he was waiting for more of a reaction from her than stunned silence, he was going to be disappointed. “We will help you both, Sarah. I’m sure we can. You just have to work with us and accept that you are suffering from a disease caused by admittedly a very frightening incident. That is the first step.” He carried on and slid shut the window to the cell again, obscuring the man inside. She was already scheming in her head as they led her back to her own cell. ***That night, she broke out, not to escape but to find him. Unusually, they had not restrained her at night. Something about building trust, she imagined. Well, that ‘exercise’ would end quickly. Still, it would be worth it. Lock-picking his door after hers should have been easy, only her hands would not stop shaking. He had not moved, did not even acknowledge the door opening. His knees were tucked to his chin and he sat, leaning against the window, though he did not look asleep.Her hand reached out before she could think, caressing a scruff-covered cheek. It really was him. It could not be a trick. “Kyle?”“Sarah.“ ***They were not allowed to see each other often, and never to speak alone, except that one time when he blackmailed Silberman into an hour with her in exchange for the name of his mother.
Mary Reese (née Shea) was a troublesome little twelve-year old currently living with her family in Chicago and the information worth as much as anything else the good doctor tried to press out of them but it meant curling into each other for the briefest of moments before the orderlies came in to subdue them. At least he had been more aware then, she kept reminding herself. Ever since they had found each other again, even the hoard of doctors had been impressed with how he had come out of the near catatonic state he had been in before. Silberman never agreed to another trade-off like that one again. She also gave up on her strategy of playing along eventually. It just ate at her that he was keeping them separated to study them like his personal test animals. When one last attempt at getting transferred to minimum security got rebuffed very cruelly, she relished causing as much trouble as she could. Maybe if they drugged her up as well, she would be able to bear it more. Only then came the police-officers. They did not bother with him, perhaps clueless as to their connection (Silberman was not eager to share that tidbit, perhaps did not even believe her when she had told him that John was their child, no matter what he had told her) or simply thinking him too far gone, but she was already planning her way into his cell before the officers had even left. When she had told him the truth about John, he had shaken apart in her arms. It had been one of the first things she confessed to him, that night they had found each other again.“Our son.” He had mumbled into her hair as they held each other close like children in the dark. “Our son…” By the time she had been dragged away from him kicking and screaming, he had started to absorb the meaning of it all, dazed eyes wide with wonder. This time she would have to play her new cards with the orderlies and restraints and she should not go deeper into the damn building. This could potentially jeopardise a chance out of the damn place but she needed to tell him, needed him to know, to be there. “Kyle. Kyle, wake up!” She hissed, having slipped through his door just as easily as out of her own. For a maximum security facility they sure needed to learn to not have access to locks from inside the cells, but she was not going to complain. Kyle woke slowly, always having to fight his way through layers and layers of drugs. He blinked blearily, clearly struggling to make sense of her presence. They had no time. She clutched at him, helping him up to sit with his back against the wall and told him what she had learnt about the terminator’s return and that it was all starting again. The nightmare was back. “Where's our son, Sarah?” He slurred, frown on his face as his numbed mind tried to work through everything. “When they took him away from me, they didn’t give me any information.” She knew there was undisguised fear in her voice but it was all she could do not to give into the panic. What were they going to do? How could they do anything, in here? Kyle turned to look at her, eyes much more focused. Perhaps adrenaline was keeping the drugs at bay for the moment. “He’s the target now.” “I know.”He reached up with a trembling hand and cupped her cheek. “He’s all alone. You have to protect him.”“I know. You tell me how I'm supposed to do that. He doesn't even believe me anymore. I've lost him long before they took him.” She had not admitted her greatest failure to him until then, had not wanted to ruin the few moments they could steal with her own doubts about being a mother. The things she had done to survive, to prepare, to train John, may have lost her her child more surely than the machine currently after him. She knew that she had not been a good mother to him, but the future had weighed heavy on every decision she had made and so she had been hard, tough, perhaps too much so. In the end, John had rebelled against their lifestyle and in a desperate attempt to give him a normal life, she had gone to bomb Cyberdyne half-assed and gotten herself arrested. She had failed in so many ways. The tired smile on Kyle’s face as he stroked her cheek had her heart give out for a moment. “You’re strong, Sarah, stronger than you ever thought you could be.” He whispered and she understood only then that he had no intention of coming with her; that he had made his peace with getting left behind. She could not do it. “No.” She tried to curl into the cot with him but he stopped her, grabbing her arms. Face hardening, he suddenly looked much more like the resistance fighter she had met all those years ago. It had been a long time that he had looked at her like that. He gave her shoulder an encouraging shove. “On your feet, soldier!” He ordered, mirroring the words she had once used to shake him back into moving.She reacted instinctively, scrambling to her feet and allowed the strategic mind she had been honing to reevaluate their situation. She was kept under minimal meds at the moment, having been allowed as such to demonstrate her state of mind for the hearing (not that it had done any good). She had already made her way to his cell undetected and had kept herself in shape as much as possible. He had not moved from his slumped position against the wall and returned her gaze patiently as she considered his options. He had been under medication for over a decade straight; there would be withdrawals to go through. The constant haze they kept him under also meant that he had lost muscle tone over the years, as they very rarely allowed him to walk around freely, never mind exercise. All conditioning he had been subjected to as a soldier was lost. He could tell the conclusion she came to, expression growing soft again with some effort and sagging into himself a little more. “I love you, Sarah. I always will.” Gravitating closer, their foreheads touching, she let her eyes close, just for a second.“I need you.” She weakly protested, could not help herself. How could she just leave him here when there was another one of those machines hunting them? But it was not hunting ‘them’ was it? It was hunting their son. “I'll always be with you but I’m no use like this.” He kissed her softly, before shoving her away again, more gently this time. “Remember the message. ‘The future is not set. There is no fate, but what we make for ourselves’.”She got to her feet, looked down at him and gathered herself as best she could. Still, she had to wipe at a stubborn tear. He just kept looking at her with an encouraging expression though his eyes betrayed him. She could tell he had given up on himself, that he thought he had lost his worth. He had only ever been a soldier, what value did a soldier have who could no longer fight; who was not able to protect anymore when it was most needed? “I’ll come back for you.” She promised on impulse, foolishly. Breaking eye-contact, he stared out the dark window with what might have been an attempt at a non-committal shrug. “It’s okay. There is not much time left in the world anyway.” “I’ll come back for you!” She repeated, ignoring his morbid words and placed the lock-pick she had used in his palm, (just in case, the only thing she had to offer up) before turning her back on the only man she had ever loved.She knew he did not believe her about coming back for him and truthfully she had no idea if she would be alive to do it, but damn it all to hell, if there was an ounce of life left in her after this, she would get him out of this hellhole. ***
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He should really have expected that his mom would be three steps ahead of everyone. What he had not expected at all, was the other patient he caught a glimpse of, who had thrown himself in front of her, yelling at her to run. With his mom occupying all the guards and orderlies, he must have somehow unlocked his room during the commotion and found her just before they arrived. A surprising feat with how he stumbled and barely looked able to keep his feet under himself.“Not again!” She had snarled in response and dragged him along with her before either of them could even see John come out of the elevator behind his terminator. When the orderlies grabbed them, John had only seconds to note how he tried to keep himself between her and the blows, shielding her with his body even when he was clearly not up for a fight, very quickly pinned by the weightier orderlies.Once the men in white had been taken care of, he had scrambled up and crouched, panting and covered in sweat over her, putting himself between her and the terminator once again, even as he wavered with exhaustion. Once John had slipped past and finally gotten through to her, she pulled the man up with her and they all raced for the elevator again, the other machine too close for comfort. At ground-level, he fell behind, slumped against the back-wall of the elevator, his legs giving out and it was only the T-800’s quick reaction, that made sure he was dragged along at Sarah’s insistent pleading to “Keep moving, soldier, come on!” At the car, John took the passenger seat while his mom and the T-800 fired everything they had at their pursuer. The stranger had taken a few shots with a handgun, which his mom had grabbed off the unconscious patrolman, but his aim was off and he instead soon helped reload when needed instead, in sync with John in the front, handing his remaining bullets over with all the mannerisms of a trained soldier. He seemed to fit into their rhythm like a missing cog, until his adrenaline ran out, after they lost sight of the T-1000 and his mom had just finished giving him a piece of her mind instead of, for once, acting like a mom. “What’s wrong with your eyes?” the terminator asked and John was perversely grateful for the long, low moan from the stranger that distracted everyone. For a second, they all thought he had been shot, but it seemed to actually just be his body giving out on him as he sagged to the side, eyes rolling into the back of his head. He fought it every step of the way, but his mom, gun still at the ready, reached over to pull him closer with her free hand, cradling his head. “Hey, hey, easy. It’s okay. I got you. Take a rest. We’re good for now.” She soothed continuously until he gave in, all tension going out of him as he sank into her arms. “Mom, who the hell is this guy?” John demanded over his shoulder, as they sped away on the highway. He did not understand how she had just gone from yelling at him about coming for her, to being so gentle with this guy he had never seen before.“Identification: Reese, Kyle. Sergeant with TechCom. Status: KIA.” If the machine could show confusion this would be what it would look like. “What!?” Next to him, John turned to stare at the backseat and the man, curled into a foetal position on his mother’s lap. He was clearly very ill, from the pallor of his skin to the way he was covered in sweat and how he was shaking in his hospital scrubs. As far as John could tell, he had used up all strength he had left to get first to his mother, and then with them, to the car, even if the T-800 had ended up half-carrying him. “Not the time, John! Later!” His mother admonished, tightening her hold on the stranger even as she was intent on looking out the back for their pursuer. ***Later, apparently meant, when they were hiding in a shit-hole of a garage and he had been left to watch his mother ignoring her injury and helping the man onto a dirty couch. He had protested, about her taking care of herself first and John had been inclined to agree, but he knew better than to fight with his mother. After she had placed a ratty blanket over him, they whispered with each other, too quiet for him to pick up. His mother stroked the man’s hair and a shaky hand clutched her, drawing her down so he could inspect the damage the T-1000 had done, for himself. Rolling his eyes John turned to his terminator. “You got any ideas?” Behind dark glasses, the T-800 looked at him blankly. “My information was that Kyle Reese was dead. I have no other information. Is it relevant?” “He’s my dad.” John could only whisper, still in disbelief. “Yes. Kyle Reese is John Connor’s father. Sent back to 1984 and KIA shortly after fathering him.” That way of putting it made John wince. He really never wanted to think about that in any detail. “And you’re positive this is Kyle Reese?” “My system has run a positive facial identification. There is an error margin of 0.003% without DNA testing.” The T-800 informed him. “That’s my dad.” John only repeated. “Oh my God. That’s my dad.” He sat on the nearest box. The T-800 watched him. “Your vitals suggest this information has you in distress.” “Well, yeah! I thought he was dead, you know. Kinda screws with your head.” He watched as his mother got up and turned to them. By the stony expression, in such clear contrast to how she had looked while talking to the man who was apparently his father, John knew this was not going to be the explanation he wanted. Great! Apparently they were right back to her making decisions about him, without even talking to him. Perhaps he could at least get her to let the terminator help with her shoulder. *** John used most of the time it took to make it to their next stop, to covertly watch the stranger. The one thing his mother had shared was that he had been kept drugged up on sedatives and psychotropic medication for the last decade. It explained the shakes and the fever he was struggling with as they made their painstaking way to relative safety. Most of the time, John was sure he was not even conscious, huddled under blankets in the back of the car, head lolling against the headrest, eyes closed or far off. It left him incredibly unsure of the situation. Instead he decided to focus on teaching the T-800 more about how to fit in with humans, to distract himself. Still, he could not help but watch his mother show that side of herself that she had kept hidden except for a few precious moments. That side of her that was soft and warm; that side of her that had sung him to sleep when he had been little; that side that had taken care of him when he had been sick. She had usually very quickly reverted back to the military mind-frame that she thought they needed to stay alive, but it had been there; if not very often. And now he had the chance to see how his parents slotted together, like they just fit; like his mother had just been missing pieces of herself and the presence of the stranger (he still could not call him ‘dad’ or even use that almost larger than life first name) had brought it all back. When they stopped at a gas station, she had first made sure to get him to drink something and helped him hold the bottle when he struggled. She had patiently coaxed some food into him too, even when he had turned his head away, gagging a little (John really hoped he would not throw it all up in the car when they were back on the road). By the time she finally ate her own burger, it must have gone completely cold but she did not seem to mind. John shot another glance their way before stepping up next to the terminator by the pumps. She was still clutching his father’s (maybe he needed to get used to the word) hand tightly with her left, even with her burger in the other. He did not think she intended to let go ever again, their fingers entwined and locked in a tight grip. It was weird. It was more than weird to be honest, especially with that whole love at first sight thing. Had they not only known each other two days back then, a few hours really? How long had they been together in that prison? He could not imagine the doctors would have allowed them much time with each other. Also, how was it exactly, that he had grown up, thinking his father was dead, only for him to turn up now? He had had half-convinced himself after years spent in the Foster system that his mom was a nut-job; that she had not been able to deal with the fact that a guy had left her pregnant, as well as very young and alone, and had made everything up. When the terminator had turned up, all that had come rushing back. This newest revelation was a little too much for him to compute though. It was not like his father (it still felt weird to think that) would be taking the first step either, not for the time being anyway. If he was not delirious with withdrawal or whispering to his mom, (who would usually reassure him that they were keeping whatever concerned him, tactically or strategically, in mind), in a voice that sounded like he had not been speaking in far too long, Kyle Reese stole looks at him, out of the corner of his eyes, with an expression John could not begin to identify. At least it looked like neither of them knew how to deal with this unexpected situation. He was not really sure if he found that reassuring or even more unnerving, but then there were bigger problems they had to figure out.He focused back in on the discussion his mom was having with the terminator. ***“One thing about mom. She always plans ahead.” John watched the terminator as he inspected the weaponry. “I just thought this was how people grew up. Riding round in helicopters, learning how to blow shit up…” “She did what she could to give you a chance to survive.” A voice spoke from the stairs and made them both turn to see Kyle Reese limping his way down to them. “It’s exactly what I tried to do for her in the short time we had.” John watched a little apprehensively as he leaned heavily against a wall, breathing hard and with a frustrated sigh sat down on a box of ammunition. “It’s not fair.” John blurted eventually. “No. No, it’s not.” Their eyes met for possibly the first time. “Nothing about this is fair but there’s also nothing we can do about it.” “But you told her it didn’t have to be like this! You said: no fate-“ A barely there smile with a hint of mischief. “No, John. You said that. You told me to tell her that.” John froze, stunned. Kyle grimaced. “Or you will. ‘No fate but what we make for ourselves.’ You believed that and that is why you sent me back.” “But if I hadn’t, then I wouldn’t have been born!” John knew that he sounded like a hysterical child but he just wished the world would cut him some slack one of these days. He was not ‘too important’ or this great leader both his parents thought him to be. He was just a kid. He wanted to be just a kid, at least for a little while. “You don’t know that.” There was sadness in his eyes as his father took him in, simply taking what he was dishing out. “In my time, there is only your mother. You did not even mention any father, he was not important.” “So?! Maybe I just didn’t care!” John snarled. “Maybe I sent you back, fully aware that it was a suicide mission, that you weren’t prepared and had no idea what you were getting into, because if I didn’t, then I wouldn’t be born! Maybe I was being a selfish prick, who didn’t give a shit about you and only my own existence.” “Maybe.” Kyle conceded rather calmly, like that very real possibility did not bother him at all. Levering himself back up to standing, he approached him like a spooked animal. “But I’m not dead, John. I’m here and more importantly, so is he.” He nodded at the T-800 who was passively watching them. “What’s that supposed to mean?!” To his shame, John felt himself tearing up again, it was too much to place on his shoulders. Why him? Why was it always him? “In my time, we had no idea we could reprogram them.” Kyle placed a hand on John’s shoulder, ignoring the flinch and instead keeping their eye-contact unfaltering. “In my time you also had no idea that a second attempt would be made on your life or you would have shared that information as potentially important before sending me, so we’ve already changed something.” “You don’t think…?” “John,” The warm, calloused hand was cupping his neck at this point, a steadying weight he did not know what to do with, “trust me. If it had been relevant, you would have mentioned it. At least so I would warn Sarah. Am I right?” This last question was to the T-800. The terminator seemed to calculate an answer, then. “It’s true. The T-1000 being sent back took the Resistance by surprise. John Connor had not foreseen it.” “See? If nothing could change the future, if it was all destined to happen, you would have known.” John turned back to his father, tears obscuring his vision and just barely managed a nod before almost bowling him over in a tight embrace. He sobbed when the man’s arms wrapped around him after the shortest moment of hesitation, one hand brushing through his hair while he cried. He could not remember the last time he had been comforted like this by anyone other than his mom, and that had been years ago. “Why do you cry?” The terminator piped up then. “You mean people?” his father sounded wary and perhaps not entirely sure why the machine would be interested. He had been there when they had reprogrammed the CPU but John could not fault him for the way he kept looking at the machine, not knowing what he had lived through. He took one more moment and allowed himself for the first time to soak up his presence and the vibrations as he spoke, alongside his heartbeat. “You want to know why people cry?” “Yes.” He could feel his father stiffen and reluctantly turned enough to peek at the machine himself. “I don’t know. We just cry. You know, when it hurts.” He said to break the silence and what constituted a silent stand-off. “Pain causes it?” John felt the arms around him tighten, pull him closer. He squeezed right back, indulging for what he told himself would only be another second. “No, it's when there's nothing wrong with you, but you hurt anyway. You get it?”“No.” To John’s surprise, he felt his father chuckle at that. It sounded like it was a sound he was not used to making, rusty and unpracticed. It was strange to realise how damaged heroes from the stories you grow up with could be. He had never thought of his mom’s protector as a normal human with issues. It was another one of those weird thoughts and things he had been learning in the last two days. When they finally made it up the stairs, his mom had already gone off to prevent Judgement Day all on her own. She had made some connections they had not yet figured out themselves and left them behind.“She was always smarter than anyone.” His father noted wryly but John did not feel they had the time to discuss whether smart meant throwing herself headlong into snap-decisions or if they needed to discuss what constituted smart with him as well. ***
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Dyson listened as the terminator and him laid out what the future held. If there was anything specific he had not experienced himself, Reese would stop and look to the machine for details. It seemed to contain any and all information the resistance had managed to syphon from Skynet’s server; things he had never even heard of. He still did not know how Skynet had recaptured the TDE and if it had, how the resistance had sent back their own agent after the T-1000. It was even more proof that things had been changed, that things were changing. Hope was a foreign emotion but it certainly started to take root in his gut. He was still not entirely comfortable with the T-800’s presence, nor with the strange curiosity it displayed to learn about human nature, but he was a good enough soldier to know when to make the best of something. “I feel like I'm gonna throw up. You're judging me on things that I haven't even done yet. How are we supposed to know.” Dyson blurted, looking grey in the face. “Yeah, right. How are you supposed to know? Fucking men like you built the hydrogen bomb. Men like you thought it up. You think you're so creative. You don't know what it's like to really create something; to create a life; to feel it growing inside you. All you know how to create is death and destruction…” Sarah had been stewing away until then, still unhappy her initial plan had been foiled and it looked like she had finally reached the end of her tether. “Mom! We need to be a little more constructive here, okay? We still have to stop this from happening, don't we?” John interrupted her rant quite efficiently. Reese had gotten to his feet, but she had deflated even before he had made his way to her side. Casting him a frustrated glance, she nonetheless did not shy away when he placed a supportive arm around her back and stayed next to her, needing the contact himself more than he wanted to admit. She was practically vibrating with the need to do something and he understood it all too well. He also remembered that stopping the future from happening in the first place had been her plan all along, even if they had never gotten the chance back then. Still, if there was one thing he had learnt in the last decade, it was patience. He had almost lost any hope of ever walking free again and had resigned himself to simply wait to die in the fires of Judgement Day. This was a chance he had not counted on. There was no time to address the fear and desperation they both felt so keenly. There never did seem to be time for them. They shared another brief look when the plan to infiltrate Cyberdyne was laid out and she left to check their arsenal after squeezing his hand gently in passing. He would always be in awe of her adaptability and quick thinking. If someone could prevent the future from happening, it would be her and her pure stubbornness. “You’re staying with them, dad.” The unexpected voice behind him stopped him from following her. It took him a moment to absorb both the way John had addressed him, but also the order he had just given him. “What are you talking about?” The pre-teen did not even falter. “You’re still not well. This is gonna blow up in our faces even without the T-1000 and everyone needs to be 100% ready to haul ass out of there. You don’t take injured soldiers into the field if you have a choice.” “You’re 10 years old and you’re bringing a wounded civilian into the line of fire. You need all hands on deck.” Reese argued, falling back into his role as sergeant a little too naturally, considering this was his own son ordering him around. Pride crept up in the back of his mind, at the sharp mind of his boy, but he did his best to ignore it for the moment. “And what about them?” John nodded at the Dyson family. The kids were playing with their mother, slowly recovering from the terror of the evening. “What if we all go and something happens to them? I don’t want them to end up like Todd and Janelle.” He suspected that he was being played, just a little, but at the same time, for a moment he saw the John he had known, in place of the determined boy. John’s policy had always been to protect civilians at all costs. He had always said that there was no point in defeating the machines, if it meant sacrificing what was left of the human race. “He’s right.” Sarah spoke from behind him and when he looked at her imploringly, her eyes remained hard. “You’re not ready for this. But you can protect this family. After what happened to them, a little bit of assurance is the least we can provide them with.” Reese wanted to protest, but exhaustion was already spreading heavily through his limbs again and the damn headache he had not shaken yet, was making his vision swim every so often. It was only going to get worse if he did not rest, at least as much as he could in their situation. “Fine.” He grit out, through clenched teeth because they were right. Damn them, but they were right; and it was true that when it came down to it, he would be more of a liability at the moment. He had been willing to stay behind in the prison, had only lock-picked his way out of his cell when he had heard the fight that had broken out. Even then, he had just meant to delay and distract the orderlies enough for Sarah to get to John, had not been able to think past that one goal. He needed to give them their best shot now. Good soldiers knew when to stand down. It did not mean he had to like it. “Leave me some ammo for the shotgun and a few grenades.” They would need everything else no matter how much he wanted a proper assault rifle or machine gun. If the T-1000 showed up, all he would be able to do, would be to distract it long enough for the others to get away; maybe blow it up a few times. John nodded. “Thanks…dad.” This time there was a clear emphasis there. He could only nod stiffly. There was no point in telling him to come back, to bring his mother back, too. They all knew that nothing was certain, not with what they were planning to do. “You brought radios?” He asked instead, because he needed at least the illusion of contact. John had offered him an illusion of usefulness already, he could ask for this much at least.He could not bear to watch as they left, instead checking the barrel of the shotgun and the rest of the supplies they had left behind. It was the only way he could take it. Mrs Dyson’s eyes were watching on sympathetically from where she was keeping her children close. If only he had that luxury. John staying behind had never been in question, this was what he had been born for after all. ***“The police is coming over.” Mrs Dyson looked more resigned than shocked as she set down the phone. She had just been informed that there had been an explosion at Cyberdyne and her husband had been identified as one of the victims. It had not been a surprise, not really. They had both been listening to the police channel after she had finally put her children to bed. The silence between them had almost been calming until the cacophony of voices had exploded from the little speaker. He was not ashamed to say that he almost broke off the handle of the knife he had been polishing to keep himself busy. “They want to ask me some questions, they said.” She sat back down in the seat she had occupied earlier, eyes far away. He nodded and swiftly started to pack up. “I’ll have to leave.” He told her, one eye still on the radio sitting on the table, waiting for a transmission that might be more informative than the chatter concerning the Cyberdyne attack. Anything that would be a sign of life, of where they had gone from there, if they had managed to get out even if Dyson himself had not. When he was almost at the door, she stopped him. “Thank you.” She said. It clawed at his insides. They had believed them, both her and her husband and they had known they would suffer for it. Still, they had been insistent that they would help, looking to their children when they had agreed, ready to do anything to keep them safe. It was a feeling he knew well, despite the short time he had been aware of being a father. If only he could have kept John safe from his destiny. Perhaps the worst of it, at least, would not happen after all their efforts. Perhaps he would have the chance to be a normal teen and the machines would never start their war. Perhaps Sarah too would be able to go back to a normal life. “No.” He told her firmly. “Thank you!” He squeezed her shoulder and left. The grief would hit her soon, he knew and then it was not his place to be here, even if the police had not been on the way. ***When there was finally something on the radio that he could decipher, pointing to a potential trail of the fugitives away from the Cyberdyne building, he was quick to turn the car in the direction of the steelworks the highway patrol had mentioned. With the disarray they had caused it would take the police a while to get there, so if he was lucky he would be able to get to them first. He only just made it in time to see, from one of the higher levels, how they lowered the T-800 into the molten steel vat. The place itself gave him shivers of deja-vu but even though they both looked worse for wear, the two people who mattered the most to him, were both alive. Sarah held John tightly as he cried at his loss. That machine had been more of a father to him than he had ever had the chance. The terminator had protected him, shielded him and saved Sarah from the T-1000. It had shown curiosity about humans and even, dared he think it, a sense of humour, only to unquestioningly give up it’s very existence to give them a fighting chance at a new future. He was once again reminded of how little he had been of use, how much more he wished he could have done. Most of all, he thought of how him and John barely knew each other; how his own son barely knew him; how he had not been there for his birth, for his first steps…He would have to make up for it, would have to find a way to offer his son a life without constant grief, make sure he never had to see the future he himself had grown up in. When he met Sarah’s gaze, he knew he had to make it up to her as well. As a soldier out of time, he had not expected to live, to have the time and luxury to figure this out, to worry about something other than surviving the next few hours, days until he completed his mission. If they had done everything right, there would not be another mission and that thought did not even really compute at the moment. He made it the rest of the way down to them, placing a hand on both their shoulders. As one they turned into him, including him in their embrace. He swallowed back the knot of emotions at the unfamiliar sensation and relaxed into the two of them. None of them had expected to come out of this as a family. “Let’s get out of here.”
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August 29, 1997, came and went. Nothing much happened. Michael Jackson turned 40. There was no Judgment Day. People went to work as they always do; laughed, complained, watched TV, made love. I wanted to run through the streets yelling; to grab them all and say: ”Every day from this day on is a gift. Use it well." Instead, I got drunk and Kyle and John had to carry me back home together. That was 30 years ago. But the dark future which never came still exists for me; more so, for my husband. And it always will, like the traces of a dream. John fights differently than it was foretold. Here, on the battlefield of the Senate his weapons are common sense and hope. The speech he had given just this morning is being broadcast all over the media and I could not be more proud.“Tie me, Grandma. Tie me!” My granddaughter launches herself at me, like she has a tendency to do. But before I can reach out, my husband plucks her up mid-run and tickles her. I watch as he finally relents and helps her with her shoe-laces. “How's that?” He asks, a gentle smile on his aged face as he bobs her nose. She giggles. Neither one of us can sometimes believe the reality we are living and I will never get tired of seeing him with our family; at peace. “Thank you, Grandpa.” She’s off again and he looks at me, smirking with an eye-roll at her antics as he settles back onto the bench we share. I laugh and reach for him, because I will never get tired of the fact that I can. Who would have thought that we would grow old together in a world still untouched by Judgement Day? He comes easily enough, one arm snaking around my back, holding me tight, like he always does; familiar green eyes still softening as he looks at me, in that way that makes my heart warm. It had not been easy in the beginning, negotiating our way around each other and to become the family we wanted to be. We were both too scarred for an entirely normal life and concessions had been made, at least until we had been sure that we really had managed to change things, ever wary that we had not changed enough, that we had missed something.After that, we had both slowly managed to acclimate ourselves to civilian life; to be nothing more than parents to an incredibly smart son and later grandparents to our whirlwind of a grand-daughter. Who would have thought? I kiss him and ignore my grand-daughter’s noises of disgust in the background. I can hear John laughingly scold her. The luxury of hope was given to me by the Terminator. Because if a machine can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too.