Prologue

No fate but what we make

AU: Man, maybe if I get this out on paper I can get it out of my head. Or maybe not. Any hoot I hope u guys like it and want to read more, cause there will be more. And if the ages and dates don't match up plaese just go with it. Its time travel for crying out loud.

Disclaimer: No I don't own the Sarah Connor chronicles, cuz if I did these is what it would look like.

Prologue

2015, three years after Judgment Day

Her life centered on computers and learning about them. Her dad was some big time programmer before the world ended and with only the two of them stuck in the shelter together there was very little to do. Mom was visiting Washington D.C. when the bombs fell just after Kat's fifth birthday. At least she didn't find out what happened, what living after the end times meant.

Kat had forgotten what her mother did for a living. She was gone. It wasn't important.

Neither was grass and fresh fruit. It all fell under the category of 'gone'. Her father had taught her, along with other lessons in life, that if it was gone it didn't matter. It never mattered. And that's how Kat, a small child when war was declared, managed to forget everything that came before.

Her life centered on learning the one thing her father was willing to teach her. Computers inside and outside. "we have to win this war. To win we have to be able to write in their language, speak in their code, but think randomly as only a human can," her father preached the lesson and it became her religion.

Until the day her father didn't come home. He had gone out to find more food, and taking eight year old Kat was too dangerous. Instead, a boy on the brink of manhood stumbled down the stairs of their home. He said her father was gone.

And for the first time since Judgment Day Kat cried all about something that didn't matter.

Or maybe it did.

…..

Derek would think about her sometimes. When something in the present would make him smile, he would think 'man, she would love this.' But then again maybe she had it better off not remembering, not knowing what was gone. That made her special.

It made her smile when fresh water sources were found or when the guys would make some asinine joke about living in hell. It wasn't hell, she would say, it was home. My life was about fighting the war. She patch all the squad when they got hurt, and as she grew up male eyes lingered on her curves a little to long for Derek's liking.

For the six years he thought Kyle was dead, she became his only family. The little girl he found in that bunker after a HK had killed her father became his whole life, like Kyle had been before. He could take on the world as long as those green eyes looked up to him. Her father dieing breath begged the teenaged boy to protect his little girl knowing that the life blood was flowing through his wounds to fast to last.

It was the best promise a Reese had managed to keep.

Still, he couldn't bring himself to tell the Connors about her. His Katrina. Even after two years, the right time never seem to present its self. What kind of man doesn't tell his nephew he has an aunt. Doesn't tell the woman he loves that he has a sister.

No wonder Kyle couldn't fit everything about his life into two days with Sarah. Derek still hadn't managed it after two years. He'd think about her birthday, wondering if the anyone in the house even picked up on his mood. "man, now she's like two."

He didn't think about her age much, just one of the many things that gave him headaches about time travel. She was sixteen when he jumped back in time, and the last they said to each other were an argument about Kyle and what had happened to him. "why didn't she tell me? Did she even know?" he muttered to himself in the night wishing he could take back everything he had said to her.

Connor had taken away his whole family, and yet he had given him something else. The truth. Given him the tools to find out what had happened, why it was needed. Given him a part of Kyle back. Given Derek back 2007 and in this time he was as happy as he could get.

Still, he wanted her back.

Sarah didn't ask questions about why sometimes he didn't come to bed. She figured that it was the nightmares. Derek didn't have the heart to correct her. Now, he stood in the kitchen in sweat pants drinking a cold beer, thinking about the one thing that he couldn't get back even if they stopped Skynet.

His phone started buzzing on the counter, starling him out of his reflections. He shot the piece of tech a curios look. Everyone that he knew was currently asleep with the exception of Carmen keeping her nightly patrol of the property.

He picked up the phone and checked the caller ID. No help there probably a pay phone.

He debated answering, afraid of what could be on the other end. Against his better judgment he opened the line and waited on the other end. A voice took a second to answer to figured out he was there.

"Um, I don't know the date, but Derek," a hushed female voice carried over the wire, "Its me."

The phone slipped from his grip.