A/N: I've been toying with this idea for quite a while now, so I hope you enjoy.
2029 A.D.
John watched as the Terminator and Sergeant Kyle Reese prepared to step into the Time Displacement Chamber. It had been a long road to this point and many of their friends and comrades had fallen in battle in the years since Judgment Day. Now it was time to make sure their loss wouldn't be in vain and that General John Connor would continue to live in order to give the human race hope.
John looked to Kyle and the Terminator. Both of them had been important figures in his life and he knew he would never see them again. Although his father had died before he was born, John had loved getting to know him in the future. Even before he met Kyle those years before, after his mother told him the stories of Kyle and how John had sent him from the future. He had often wondered if Kyle knew he would become the great John Connor's father that night he finally met Sarah.
Then there was the Terminator. TechCom had found the cyborg inside a factory they had raided. The Terminator had yet to be activated, so TechCom's forces had taken it back and reprogrammed it in their favor. Now it was going back to protect him from the T-1000 that Skynet had just sent back before their arrival.
John felt a small sting in his heart for both of them. Both would die before their mission was over to protect him. But he knew they couldn't stay or the human race would be lost.
Then his thoughts went to his mother. She had been diagnosed with Leukemia not long before Judgment Day and hadn't been given a long time to live. John bit his lip and turned his thoughts elsewhere to avoid the tears he sometimes gave his mother.
"Sergeant," John said, "are you ready?"
"Yes, sir," Kyle replied. "I'll protect with all I have. I won't let the Terminator hurt her."
"I know you won't, Sergeant," John replied. "Good luck." They saluted. Kyle stepped into the chamber and was sent back to 1984. John turned to the Terminator. "Do you know your mission objectives?"
"Affirmative," the Terminator replied.
A small smiled went across John's face for a moment.
"Good," John said. "Now get back to 1995 and protect me."
The Terminator walked into the chamber. Seconds later, he too disappeared in a blinding flash.
John sighed. Now his connections to the pre-Judgment Day world were gone forever. He wished he could have known his father much longer. John wondered what might have been otherwise without Skynet. Instead of spending these past few decades facing this war alone, would he be married and have kids now? He remembered a girl he knew as a kid. She always stuck in his mind because it was her that he had been making out with the night before he met the Terminator. He never knew what happened to her though. Most likely she died during Judgment Day. Or, as John thought, at least by one of the Machines. But that didn't matt….
John felt a strong sense of déjà vu come over him and shook it off as he looked around the Time Displacement Chamber now filled with TechCom soldiers. All of a sudden, he had felt the strong sense that he had been in this God-forsaken place before. He felt as if something had changed, but he just couldn't quite place his hand on it.
"John, what's wrong?" Kate asked.
"Um…" John stuttered back at his wife, "nothing. Just had this weird feeling is all."
"Oh," she replied. "Do you think they'll be successful?"
"Of course," John replied. "I'm here and so are you." He smiled. "We better hurry back. We need to celebrate our victory over the Machines." The soldiers cheered.
As they left, John gave one more thought to his mother who died not long after the original Judgment Day date. Kate always did remind him of her.
And he had the second Terminator to thank for bringing them together.