He'll be remembered through out history, the great hero, the leader of the humanity. His image is engraved in thoughts. How he stood up over the ruins of Sky Net, how he dropped his gun and held up his arms and everyone cheered and screamed and cried. They'll remember him yelling through the guns and the bombs. How he led the largest of armies, and saved the smallest groups of survivors. How he freed the concentration camps, protected the last libraries, spoke to people around the world, and how he found the time machines. The great John Connor.
But she'll remember all the little details about him. How he moved his legs in his sleep, and coughed when he woke in the morning. How his voice sounded when he was getting sick. How he used to skim his fingers down her back. How his lips felt on hers. She'll remember the way he used to talk about his mother, and how she felt she could never replace her. She'll remember his habit of kicking the rocks to the right, never the left. How his heart sounded in the dead of night.
He used to ask her if she thought they felt any pain when they died. But then he'd stop her before she could answer, and mutter "Never mind, stupid question." When the days were hot he'd wipe her forehead clean of sweat. And when they were cold he'd put his arm over her. In the spring sometimes it rained, and he'd hold their umbrella. On the frontlines they'd hold hands, dodging bullets and bombs, separating for the call of duty. When the nights were quiet and calm, you could look up and see the stars every so often, and they'd kiss and sleep and dream.
One night he didn't return to base. Another night passed. Communications were down, and there was no way of finding him without being found. On the third day he emerged from the dark, carrying a boy no older than sixteen in his arms. He found the boy in a pile of debris, he had lived off eating rats, and he was scared of the light. John passed out, she turned him over to see a deep gash in his side where his blood spilled out of him. There was a bullet inside him and she couldn't find it. He mumbled words in his sleep and she couldn't understand him. He just kept bleeding through out the night. That was the closest he ever came to dying.
"John, I won't let you die." She'd whisper in his ear. "There's too much left for us to do."
He woke up to her whispers, her prayers for a tomorrow with him.
Every year there was a great funeral all over the world for those who had fallen. Individual funerals were too time-consuming to be had as the dead passed. So one day was chosen to have them all. Candles were saved up and passed out on that day. People would go out into the fields all day with their candles, praying to Gods and to loved ones, saying goodbyes, and crying out for their return. Sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, all gone, without discrimination.
He'd stray away on those days, and she'd go to him. There he leaves two candles, one for his mother, another for his father.
He never prayed, he wasn't much for gods. He put the weight of the world on himself, and he never asked for help from anyone else. He knew he was meant to save this world, to make all these deaths worth something. Some people said this was hell, that the bombs killed them and now they were in hell. He knew better than that, and he wanted to prove it to everyone.
But there were nights when the bombs wouldn't stop, and there was no moment to sleep. Those nights he'd roll over to her and see her waking eyes, stroke her hair.
"I don't know if we can win this war." He'd say so only she could hear.
"Of course we can. We have you. And you have me." She'd say.
He didn't let many people know his fascination with Terminators, no one would really understand. He had known the Terminator only as a protector, while the rest of the world only saw them as murderers without souls and without regret. Sometimes after a battle he'd have one left alive. They'd be too damaged to be much of a threat, but they'd be alive.
"My name is John Connor."
One had no legs and only one arm. Its head bent back on its broken neck. It had been left in the bodies of its fallen brothers. But where their eyes were dim, its still shined with life. And it looked up from his broken neck, tilting its head in some sort of silent recognition. He would get close to it, closer than anyone else liked. He'd bend down to it, put his hand on its chest.
"Is there anything inside there?"
And with whatever it had left it would try to kill him. He'd just get up out of reach.
"Anything besides programming?"
He knocks it in the head with Kyle Reese's baseball bat.
"Do you feel that?"
He hits it on the head, breaking whatever is left of that neck. It falls over, it crawls away with its one hand.
"Do you want to live?"
It crawls away and he kicks it over onto its back. He breaks off its arm and stomps on its chest.
"Do you care at all?"
He drags it away by the wires hanging out of its spine. He takes it away from prying eyes, he puts a bullet in its head.
He didn't let the rest of humanity know about his close relation to the Terminators. He understood his image as a human leader needed to be retained. He understood that he could not associate himself with machines. But every so often he'd be awake at night, watching the red lights of their eyes walk by miles and miles away. She'd see him on those nights, and he'd look at her.
"They killed my father. They tried to kill my mother. But one, one protected me."
He'd lay his head down and turn to her.
"Do you ever think if Sky Net is afraid?"
"Afraid of what?"
"Afraid of me."
He smiles a little, puts his face in her shoulder.
"Do you think it can be afraid?"
"I don't know, John."
"Maybe it's in its own hole-in-the-ground, just as cold, and lonely as we are. Maybe it's waiting for the bombs to stop too."
"Maybe."
It's on those nights he'd talk about the Terminator who saved him, his mother, and his dreams of the future. He talks about how he never had a childhood, how he never had a moment where he could be just a kid. There was never time to be carefree. Every second was filled with training that turned him into a rotten hacker and criminal in a 12-year-old's body. All his life he has trained for this, and all he wants is for the days when he can stop, live with her, and be happy. Someday, soon, he promises on the darkest nights, the war will be over, we'll have a home in California where I grew up.
She reminds him that when the war is over the whole world will still look to him for guidance. They need you, they'll always need you. He plots out a future he'd make, a future where all the hate and despair of generations past doesn't exist. It took the deaths of three billion people, but now man is united with his fellow man. And he will teach them, there is no fate, but what we make.
A year later they have a son. Six years later she looks at him from a distance, he's holding their little baby girl in his arms. She's just a few months old, she's already used to the sounds of bombs and she's got a strong grip on her father's finger. He sways quietly through the broken home they've made their base. Outside the soldiers are going to sleep, and he's trying to get his daughter to do the same. But she looks up with her eyes, wide awake, looking up at her father. He holds her closer, sings her a song his mother taught him, tells her how bright and beautiful daddy's little girl is. When she's five he plans to teach her how to hold a gun, she'll be riding on her father's shoulders with a gun in her hands, scouting the miles ahead of them.
Kate starts to cry.
"Mom?" Their son tugs at her shirt. "Mom, what's wrong?"
"Nothing, sweetheart."
She holds up her son and carries him back into his room, where his guard has fallen asleep. She puts him back into his bed and kisses him goodnight. John walks in with their sleeping daughter, resting her down next to her brother.
"Watch her, okay, kiddo?" He asks.
"All right, Dad. You gotta watch Mom, though."
He looks up to see Kate with her back turned to them. He nods to his son and goes to Kate, sliding his hands down her arms, pressing his lips on her neck. She gasps at his touch, moves away from his kiss. He follows her into the bedroom, asks her what's wrong.
She looks at him, staring deeply into him. Her lips part, she's about the speak.
Bullets fire into the house. A rocket explodes in their living room. It's an ambush, a surprise attack. They run out to their children's room. Their son runs out with the crying daughter in his little arms.
"He's dead!" The son yells, referring to guard posted in his room.
John grabs his daughter, Kate grabs her son.
T-800s break through the windows, their red eyes shining in the dark. John holds his daughter as he lifts a gun and runs into the Terminator, shoving the gun up its mouth, and shooting its brains into the wall. Kate runs past him. Her son gets out her gun from her side and starts shooting at the Terminators behind his father and sister. They run out of the house into the soldiers' camps.
John Connor's orders scream over his daughter's cries. They get up and get their guns, they run to an underground exit, a tunnel that leads two miles into safety. Soldiers come to take his daughter, he kisses her before he lets her go. They take the boy as well.
"I love you, sweetheart!" His mom yells at him.
"I love you, too, Mom! Dad!"
"Watch over your sister!" His Dad commands.
"Yes, sir!"
John Connor gets his gun, reloads it, and runs to the frontlines.
"Kate, stay with them." He tells her.
"I'm not leaving you behind."
"Kate --"
She pushes him forward, making him go.
At the frontlines everything feels different. The world moves slower, everything is silent. He screams out orders, and soldiers die with Terminators. Surprisingly, they're winning, and the Terminator forces are drawn back.
But when he takes a breath he sees Kate, and behind her a Terminator with a gun pointed at her. He grabs her, spins her around, and the bullet hits him.
He looks down at her, shocked, looking to her for an answer. Because, he doesn't feel any pain from the bullet. He looks back at the Terminator, it shoots him in the head twice, but the bullets bounce off of him. He touches his face, there's metal where bone should be.
"John…" Kate tries.
The Terminator grabs John's shoulder, pulls him back, and punches him in the face, scraping away at the skin over that metal frame. John falls back, kicking up at the Terminator when it approaches him. It lifts its fist and slams down, but John grabs its arm. Those red eyes look up at him, and John looks back with his own, now exposed, red eye. He breaks the Terminator's arm in two with his own hands. He tackles it to the ground, gets on top of it and punches it repeatedly, feeling no pain as he starts to crush its face. Its one hand flies up, trying to stop him, but he breaks its eyes and it can't see. But he keeps on punching until the skull gives in, and the thing dies.
John gets to his knees, and falls over. He hears his heart beating in his ears. He crawls over to a puddle, he's panting and he can barely breath. He looks down into the water and sees his reflection. There, half his face has been torn off, revealing a Terminator skeleton beneath it. He rips his shirt off to see bullet holes with metal beneath them.
"Oh…Oh, God."
He looks up to Kate who kneels down before him.
"Kate!" he cries out. "Kate, what's happening!?"
She grabs his shoulders, and then his face.
"John."
"Kate, what's happening? What's happening to me?"
Tears fall from his one brown eye. He starts shaking his head, touching her soft lips with his fingertips.
"What's happening?"
She puts her forehead on his.
"John, I'm so sorry."
"Why…? I don't understand…"
She reaches up to his neck, pulling away at his jacket. She feels for a little bone, and she presses on it. The bone was an off switch and he falls over into her arms. A breath comes out of him, his red eye goes dim, his other one shuts. Kate Brewster sits amongst the dead, crying up at the sky, with a Terminator in her arms.
Only four other people know besides her, four of John's best technicians and scientists. Over a year ago they were able to determine how Sky Net created their artificial skin, and were able to reprogram previous Terminators that John needed to send back into time. It was they who came and got her, put a blanket over John's face, and took him to a room they called a hospital and wouldn't allow anyone in. They said John had been shot, he'll be fine, Kate is working on him.
A year ago John Connor died.
A year ago he was shot down by a stray bullet, they didn't know if it was from a Terminator or from a soldier. As he laid dying, Kate was still pregnant, and their son was only five. She held him, knowing that he was going to die. The bullet had hit his lung, and he was bleeding internally. She held his bloody hands as he looked up at her, shaking his head.
"There's so much left to do." He said.
She stroked his face.
"It's all right, John, we can take care of it." She lied to him.
"Name her Sarah." He touched her belly.
He lived for another hour, and they talked about happier days that were, and will come. She assured him that she will carry the Resistance, that she will show their children a world without war. He told her everything he knew about the Terminators. He told her how much he loved her.
He died.
And she knew, she knew that without John Connor there would be no resistance. Without him they would lose the war, without a leader they would be lost, without him their fate was sealed. She sat by his body for another few hours, remembering all the times he wondered how human a Terminator was. She held his cold hands as she shuddered at what she was thinking of doing.
They took a Terminator and they made a skin for it. They made it look like John Connor, they put his face on it. And they programmed it with all of John's memories, and they made it believe that it was John.
They emerged a week later with John Connor. No one could tell the difference. Except her, for despite all that programming, it never exactly moved like John again, or questioned like John did, or kiss her like John did. But the world needed him, her children needed a father, the war needed a victor.
So she looks down at the thing they call John Connor, its head peeled open so that they can delete any memory of his being a Terminator. The strange thing is that the thing wakes up half way through the procedure. It looks around with his red eye and brown eye. Everyone freezes, even Kate. But it looks at her and smiles.
"Hey…" It reaches for her.
She walks over to it, grasping its hand. It smiles at her, and looks around.
"Did I get beat up?" He asks.
She starts to cry at the sight of him.
"Yeah. You got knocked in the head."
"Oh. I forgot to duck again."
She nods, crying. He reaches over to her wiping her tears from her cheek.
"Are the children safe?"
She nods.
"The soldiers?"
"Minimal casualties."
He smiles and lays his head down, resting it.
"I love you." He tells her.
She pauses a great long while, staring into that red eye.
"I love you too." She finally coughs out. "You need to go to sleep, John. So we can work on you, so we can fix you."
He looks at her. She leans down, wrapping her head around the back of his neck, reaching for that button. He assumes she leans down to kiss him, so he presses his lips onto hers, she gets to that button and he slowly lays his head down into his mechanical sleep. She looks at him for a moment, wiping her tears and standing.
"Do it quickly." She tells the technicians.
She looks back at the lifeless heap of metal with John's face, they go to repair the skin and further wipe his memory. They're developing a new skin that will age with years, so that it can further appear to be a living human being.
She stands by the door and watches them work on it.
She remembers all the times John wondered how human a Terminator could be. How he was always pursuing evidence that they were somehow alive. That they could feel something. That they could be like human beings. She never believed him, he tried to tell her about his experiences with the machines. How he could look at them and see some sort of fear of death, some sort of determination that was very much human. She said she never saw it.
Now she sleeps with a Terminator, and it kisses her into the waking world, it holds her and tells her it loves her. It holds her daughter and her son. It laughs with them, plays with them, cries and smiles with them. At night it talks about being afraid, about being upset, about everything. It talks about Sarah Connor, with all the love of a son for his mother. It talks about Kyle Reese, with guilt and longing. But it's just a machine, isn't it?
It's not really John Connor. It's just a machine made to lie to everyone, to lead everyone. To help continue and illusion that will push everyone to fight. But is it at all feeling what it claims to feel?
It breaks her heart to imagine that thing actually loves her. And sometimes she thinks it might. What makes a man a man, John would ask. Can a machine ever be considered a man? Can it learn to hate and love? What was the makings of a man but a buch of bundled up memories and experiences, couldn't these things be programmed in?
When they're finished they carry him to a bed where she lays down with it. Their children sleep on the opposite end of the room. Everyone was asking her if he's all right, if John Connor is all right, because they all know just as much as she does, they need him to keep going. They lay the thing next to her, a little band-aid is put over his head where they stitched the skin back together. In a day it'll heal itself. She thanks them when they leave and she looks at her children, and then at the thing beside her. In its sleep it looks so much like him.
She lays her head down on its shoulder, puts her hand on its chest, feels it move up and down with motors inside its chest instead of lungs. She presses the button on the back of its neck and it wakes up. It yawns and stretches and turns over to her.
"Hey." He says.
"Hi." She fakes a smile.
"Did you guys fix me?"
She nods, patting the band-aid on his head. He laughs and looks over to see his sleeping children.
"They're so beautiful." He says, and she nods.
It turns back to her, holds her. It gives a heavy sigh, ready to go back to sleep.
"I love you, Kate."
They'll remember him as the great hero, the fearless leader, John Connor. Her children will remember him as a loving father. That's all that matters.