Title: Objects in the Rearview Mirror

Genre: Television

Series: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles

Characters: Derek Reese, Kyle Reese, Cameron Phillips/Allison Young

Spoilers: 2x22-Born To Run

Rating: PG

Summary: He has very few regrets, but she is one of them.

...may appear closer than they are.

His eyes followed her every move, his body unmoving except for the slight clenching movements in his hands. The small twitch was telling; whoever the boy was he was used to holding a gun and in stressful situations his body automatically reached for one. He didn't have a gun, however; didn't even have clothes.

Derek Reese almost felt pity for John Connor, the stranger that appeared out of nowhere with nothing. Naked, afraid, surrounded by the Resistance, and staring at Allison like she was Heaven on Earth; the latter was something that Derek Reese knew the feeling of. At the same time the only thing Derek wanted to do was make John stop staring at her like that. If he couldn't look at her like that, then this stranger definitely couldn't.

Derek watched as Kyle held his hand out to Allison, pulling her to his side, just slightly behind. Aware of the eyes watching, not the least John Connor's, Kyle kept the affectionate touch confined to a small sweep of his thumb across her knuckles but Derek saw it anyways. Derek saw everything, looked for everything, and felt every touch like a blow to his chest.

"Confine him until we figure out where he came from," Kyle ordered quietly, maintaining his grip on Allison's hand. She pressed her cheek into his shoulder, large somber eyes following the movements the foot soldiers as they pulled Kyle's coat from John's shoulders and threw some pants in his hands, waiting until he'd pulled them on before shoving him towards the door. Derek smirked at the light blush that rose on Allison's cheeks as her eyes averted to the ceiling. No amount of sleeping with his brother would ever take away all the innocence that clung to her; it was one of the reasons Derek loved her, secretly and from afar.

"Derek," Kyle gestured for his older brother to follow him and Allison and Derek did so without another thought. There was only one General Reese and Derek wasn't it. Despite the irony of the younger brother being in charge Derek didn't begrudge his brother his place at the head of the Resistance; there were other things he begrudged, things best left unsaid.

Derek shut Kyle's door behind the three of them and watched as Allison moved across the room, situating herself on the edge of the desk with ease. She was comfortable here; it was only natural for Kyle's lover to be comfortable in his quarters. Small touches of her presence littered the space and Derek repressed the urge to touch them. His eyes slid over a discarded shirt, most likely forgotten in a moment of passion, and moved to his brother's face, full of worry lines and hard eyes.

"I want to know where he came from and how he got this far. We're supposed to be secure, especially here. I want to know if he's metal, I want to know why he had no clothes. I want to know-"

"Everything, yeah, I got it," Derek interrupted, knowing where his brother was going without needing him to go there. Kyle had other, bigger things to worry about other than a security breach by a kid with a death wish.

Kyle glanced over his shoulder and smiled at Allison, who smiled back but made no move to join the conversation. Turning back to his brother, Kyle spoke softly. "I didn't like the way he was looking at Allison." I don't like the way you look at her, Derek imagined Kyle was saying with his eyes but that might have been the guilt talking.

"I'll take care of it, Kyle," Derek replied and turned to leave. "I'll be back."

He resisted the urge to look at Allison one more time.

_____

They found her during a raid. He and Kyle had gotten separated from the rest of their squad and were running through the wreckage of a neighborhood, guns out, cocked, and ready to shoot anything that moved. The air was full of sounds, explosions and the whirring engines of Skynet jets; Derek almost didn't hear Kyle's shout for him to duck. Throwing himself to the ground he barely managed to avoid the plume of flame a sudden explosion sent his way.

She flew through the smoke, throwing herself over the burned out car they'd taken shelter against without even noticing that they were there. Derek and Kyle watched incredulously as she ran through debris, her long legs moving gracefully even when she was in full panic. She was a lamb in the middle of the butcher shop, all gazelle legs and deer eyes and frail bones that machines could break with only a touch.

Derek watched her move farther away from them, glancing over her shoulder at something that neither Derek nor Kyle could see. Her eyes slid downward, meeting Derek's and time seemed to slow down. He could feel the weight of the dirt on his skin, the small cuts from shrapnel that covered his face, the slick wet glide of blood on his cheek; he could smell the smoke in the air and feel the sting of ash in his eyes and he could hear the too heavy steps as a Terminator came near.

The girl faltered as the sight of other humans and in those few seconds that she wasn't watching a piece of debris caught her foot and sent her flying to the ground. She slammed into it harshly and Derek knew from the way she fell that her arm was broken. She was a fighter, though, and was already moving again; she pushed herself up with her good arm and swayed hesitantly before turning her attention again to what the Reese brothers could not see.

At his side Kyle started to get to his feet and Derek turned to his brother. Kyle's eyes were locked on the fleeing girl and Derek's stomach bottomed out. He clenched his fist around the younger man's collar and hissed, "Don't even think about it. She's fodder! We need to get out of here before we are too!"

"We have to help her, Derek," Kyle replied without even looking at him. Derek struggled to keep hold of Kyle, to keep him from doing the very stupid thing that Kyle clearly intended to do, but holding a large gun and a large man at the same time isn't easy. In a war, your first priority is to hold on to your gun; your second priority is to use it to protect your brothers in arms, especially if one of them was your actual brother.

Kyle moved quickly through the smoky landscape, following the girl's trail easily. Derek kept up as best he could but he tended to carry more ammunitions and guns than Kyle, always an extra round and spare gun where only he knew about it.

After Judgment Day every human on the Earth had to start living differently. Before, they lived from day to day, sometimes hour to hour; after they lived moment to moment, because there was never any warning when those moments would end. Living that way, unplanned and foolhardy, one learned to be able to tell what moments would mean something.

Coming around the corner of a bombed out two-story home, Derek felt such a moment.

The girl was frozen in the middle of what remained of the street; her injured arm held to her side tightly, her eyes closed as she winced at the hit she knew was coming. Twenty feet away a Terminator raised its weapon, sighting down the barrel at the slip of a woman and preparing to fire, its red eyes coldly calculating whether it was worth the energy or if breaking her neck would be just as judicious. Ten feet away Kyle was running towards her, his gun swinging by its cord at his side, his face concentrating as he dove towards her and tried to get her out of the way of the projectile.

Derek's instincts were split; one half of him, the soldier, was prepared to retreat and fight another day, and the other half, the brother, would follow Kyle and die fighting just as hundreds of others before him and after. The girl, she would die, and Kyle, he would die, and himself, Derek, would die. The girl would die for nothing, Kyle would die for her, and Derek would die for him.

Kyle hit the girl in the side and used his weight to push her to the ground, both of them rolling towards a partially destroyed brick wall and out of sight. The laser from the Terminator's weapon scorched the wall and it turned to follow the fallen duo and finish the job it'd started. Derek reached for one of his pockets, hidden weapons coming easily to hand and he wasted several seconds feeling his way through it before finding what he sought. It was a grenade, old but still usable, and the last one he had.

The sound of it hitting the ground and rolling to the machine's feet garnered enough of the machine's attention that Kyle and his newly rescued friend could duck out of the way before the explosion sent bits of Skynet property sky high and everywhere else. Derek pressed himself against the same brick wall they'd used for shelter and waited several seconds before moving around the corner and towards his brother.

The explosion would bring other Terminators and Derek knew that if they were going to escape they needed to do it quickly. Their mission here was a failure, they'd never get deep enough into Skynet territory to do real damage, not now, and the best they could hope for would be to survive.

Kyle stood slowly, too slowly and Derek knew instantly that the blood on Kyle's side was his and not the girl's. Kyle knelt down and said something to her, Derek was too far away to hear, before sliding his arms underneath her legs and cradling her against his chest. The two of them turned to face Derek and Kyle smiled slightly before shrugging. Rage colored Derek's face deep crimson and he fought the urge to throttle his younger brother in the middle of battle. It wasn't the first time he'd gotten the urge, though it was the first time that the cause was a girl (first, but not last).

"Are you alright?" Derek asked as he reached them, his gun back in hand, safety off.

"A little bruised and bleeding, but I'm okay. How about you?" Kyle asked the girl in his arms.

She was small, smaller than Derek had thought when he'd first seen her. She wasn't a child but she wasn't far from it and Derek felt a knot form in his stomach as his eyes studied her face. It was dirty with grit and blood, and newly bruised with dark purple and green, but nothing could hide her beauty. Her hair was tangled but long and lusciously colored caramel; it glinted brightly in the light from nearby electrical sparks where it hung over Kyle's fingers on her back.

She started to speak but froze as another explosion rocked the ground. The trio watched as a flare shot into the air and sparked blue before fading into the smog that had become the Earth's sky many years ago. Derek didn't wait for her answer, instead drew his gun to his shoulder and gestured for Kyle to follow him. "Retreat!" Derek shouted needlessly, taking his orders from the Resistance signal in the sky.

They moved quickly, surprisingly since one of them was burdened with carrying their ward, but were still the last to reach the exit point. The reaction of the members of his squad to the rescued girl was a mix, from shock to apathy to instant lust. There were plenty of women in the Resistance, but attractive women were a rarer breed.

Safely ensconced in the underground cave system that the Resistance used to move around under the machines' sensors Derek took the time to stop pushing everyone to move faster and turned to his brother, still carrying the girl.

Kyle smiled at his brother, a tired weary smile, and gestured for Derek to come closer. Derek rolled his eyes but acquiesced. "Lieutenant Derek Reese," Kyle spoke softly, "this is Allison."

Derek didn't shake her hand, not that she offered it. Her good arm was wrapped tightly around Kyle's neck and showed no sign of releasing its hold. She nodded at him, though, and he returned the gesture. She smiled slightly, nervous and out of sorts, but stronger than he thought. "From Palmdale," she added with a voice roughened by lack of moisture in her throat.

"The Palmdale base has been out of contact for three weeks now," Derek said as he started to walk beside them.

Her gaze turned inward and a sort of grave acceptance shuttered her features. "Skynet."

It was explanation enough.

______

"What's your name?"

"John Connor."

"Where'd you come from?"

"What's her name? The girl by the dog?"

"Allison."

"From Palmdale, right?"

_____

Derek thinks that maybe the reason he didn't fight Kyle and Allison's relationship harder was because he didn't feel he deserved her. Kyle went after her, Kyle saved her; if Derek had had his way she'd have been dead on the side of the road like so many others. He doesn't regret backing up his brother in saving her, or fighting to keep her near when others wanted to send her away somewhere safer.

Months later, when she's calling herself Cameron and sticking to John Connor's side the same way she used to Kyle's, Derek realizes that he does regret something.

He regrets that she's the weakness all the Reese men have.

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