Disclaimer: I do not own Terminator. I am not profiting from this in any way.
This is a companion fic to "A Fracture in Time". I'll try to update just as frequently, but I make no gaurentees my schedule is very hectic right now. Thanks for reading.
May 14, 1984
She waits. Seconds, minutes, hours - she's unwilling to let go, and it breaks his heart to see her like this. He suggests that they come back tomorrow, but she's so stubborn and unwilling to let John go.
Her son - their son. A week ago he was merely a resistance fighter, and he's having trouble accepting his part in history. The man he looked up to - John Connor - is in fact his biological son. The thought makes his head spin.
He eyes Sarah Connor. She looks so distant and hurt. Kyle doesn't want to see her like this any longer, and he offers the kindest explanation he can. "He never intended to come back, Sarah."
"You don't know that!" she snaps at him. "He promised, Kyle. He said he'd come back with us."
She's emotionally unhinged and rightfully so. She's just been through too much in the past three days, and he understands that he needs to select his words carefully.
"He meant for us to come back and live," Kyle touches her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. "We can still see him again."
She is hesitant to respond. She becomes tense, and he pulls his hand away from her. He's argued with her countless times since they met, but now, he just wants to comfort and support her. He's grown from the blind naive respect he had for a woman in a photograph, to the mild irritation he had for her, to finally falling head over heels in love for her.
He doesn't want to bicker and argue. He wants her to let go of the past - or the future in this case - and live her life to the fullest. Kyle turns her around so that she faces him. He takes her hands in his.
"We can come back tomorrow," Kyle says.
"No, you're right," her voice cracks. "He's not coming back."
She wraps her arms around herself, and he can see she's about to lose herself. He hates seeing her like this. He never imagined he would fall for her this hard, but he's absolutely in love with everything about her.
It doesn't make sense to love a woman from a different point in time, and maybe he will never truly make sense of it. But, when he looks at Sarah, he knows that she is all he truly wants. She releases her arms to her sides, and looks at him with sad, distant eyes. He wonders if she feels just as lost as he does.
"What do we do now?" Sarah asks.
"We live," Kyle says. "That's all we can do. If you want, we can part ways from here."
"Do we, Kyle?" she stutters as she speaks. "Kyle, if you go, he won't exist. How do we live now?"
Kyle places his hands on her shoulders. He looks into her blue eyes. She's still so beautiful to him, and she is the only thing he knows in this world now. She is his light in the darkness.
"I never got to truly live. My entire life I have been trying to just survive. Right now-" he pauses as he feels the tension fall away from him. "It's just - Sarah - I've never felt so much peace before. Judgement Day may still happen, but right now I can just exist. Hell, we can both live normal lives even if only for a few years."
She's looking up at him with those eyes, and he knows that she is everything he wants. He hopes against everything she wants the him just as much.
"We can try this," she says. "If it doesn't work, we can go our separate ways."
He withdraws his hands from her shoulders, and he takes her hands in his. He cannot even begin to understand all that has happened in the last few days, but he's willing to try and make things work with Sarah Connor.
"We should find a place to stay," he says. "Just for tonight...just to clear our heads."
...
She's not sure how she feels about Kyle Reese. She's supposed to fall in love with him and conceive her son with this man. That's what she has been told her entire life.
She cares for him, but she questions the reasoning for her feelings. Meeting a man in a high stress environment is a terrible way to start a healthy relationship. She's not even sure if they'll really get along in the long run.
Perhaps it would have been better to only have their fated one night stand, and she loses him shortly after. There wouldn't be any concern on whether or not they have what it takes to be parents. John would be conceived, and she would go about her life.
She towels herself down. Her and Kyle have had their disagreements. She can't say for sure if she is in love, but she knows that if she doesn't engage in what she is about to do, her son may be lost to her forever.
She feels a stabbing feeling in her chest. She misses her son already. She wonders if in some far off deleted timeline that he managed to survive. She resents the fact that she will never truly know.
There is only one road she can go down. She hates how little power she has in her own fate, but if she doesn't at least try this, her son will cease to exist. Judgement Day will still occur, and that monster - that thing - will win.
She hangs her damp towel on a hook and throws a robe around herself. She takes in a deep breath and exits the bathroom. Kyle is relaxed on the hotel bed watching something on TV. She laughs at the thought. He's never had simple little luxuries like television or a telephone.
"Is this what you do to pass the time?" he asks. "You're entertained by this box?"
"Yeah," she says as she sits at the end of the bed. "It all seems so silly when you think about how little time we have to enjoy what we have left."
She laughs to herself a little. "You know, we could go to Disneyland tomorrow if you want. Now that would probably blow your mind."
"Dizzy land?" he says.
"You know, maybe we could just go to the beach," she suggests with a small giggle.
She takes in a deep breath, and she releases it just as fast. She is exhausted. She misses John. She misses Pops. She'll never even see Pops again...
Kyle must have caught her shift in emotion, because suddenly he's right next to her with a comforting arm around her shoulder.
"It's just John and Pops," she says as a few stray tears fall down her cheeks.
"I know," he whispers.
She leans into his shoulder, because she just needs someone - anyone - to just be there. She's lost too much already, and Kyle is the only person she has left.
"Do we do this?" she asks. "You and I - do we just continue the cycle?"
"I don't know," his voice is breathy and shaking as he speaks. "I just know that if we don't..."
She looks up into his eyes, and she can see that he must care for her a great deal.
"I don't know what else to do," her hands are trembling and her voice has become so thin, so broken.
She turns to him and looks into his eyes. She places her palms on his cheeks, and she waits to see if he'll stop her. He leans in to kiss her, and she knows that this is what she has to do.
This is what she wants to do.
Despite their differences, their pointless bickering, and the tension between them - Sarah has come to love him. She returns his kiss with equal passion. She cannot fight it anymore. Kyle Reese is her fate. It is all she has known, and perhaps it is all she will ever know.