Future Family Ties

Chapter 1

Pain. He felt pain. Pain means your still breathing. He'd been sure his time was up, but apparently he'd pulled through; again. How? He didn't know, but as he weakly opened his eyes, he saw him. John. He was younger, a lot younger, but the eyes were the same, older then his years, they always had been.

He still wasn't sure why John had sent him back to 2007; he'd only been told that he needed to look out for younger John, that John would need him. He'd pretty much thought, when he took that bullet, that that was what he'd been sent back to do. To take a bullet for the sake of mankind, so that the boy could live to become the man the world would need in the inevitable war against the machines.

John looked at him then, saw that he'd regained consciousness, and looked him in the eyes. Derek had seen that look before, more then once, it was almost as if John new something he didn't. Kyle had often gotten the same impression, but John had always refused the elaborate when questioned about it. That look was replicated in the boy's eyes,

"Are you in pain?" John asked, looking down at the wound.

"I'll live." He replied weakly and once again lost consciousness.

xxx

This was his uncle. His mom had told him so. His older self had apparently chosen to keep that to himself and he'd yet to come up with a good reason why he would have done so. This was his father's brother, one of his soldiers from the future, Derek Reese, his protector; sent back to the past by his older self, to look after him, to protect him. His own father had died coming back to the past to protect his mother; he refused to let his uncle die protecting him. That had been his reason for running out of the house and tracking down Charley, his mom's ex-fiancé, in hopes that he could save Derek's life regardless of the consequences.

"You have to live," John whispered to the unconscious man, "I need you."

xxx

"He should know!" John whispered vehemently, "He has a right."

"We can't, John." His mother whispered back, looking cautiously at the motionless man, "There's a reason you didn't tell him in the future so that reason stands until we know why."

"I need him to know," John argued, "He needs to know!" John had seen the look Derek had had in his eyes; he had no reason to live, the man thought he'd completed his mission by taking the bullet that could easily have been targeted at John. He needed a reason to live.

"No, John." Sarah whispered with a little less conviction. Honestly, she wanted Derek to know the truth, but there had to be a reason why John had kept it from the Reese brothers.

John looked at her with anger and defiance. Her son. She new she couldn't control him anymore, barely anyways; he would eventually do as he pleased, but she could still try. She put her hand briefly on his shoulder as she walk away and out of the kitchen.

John looked down at Derek and saw that he was awake, "You hear all that?"

"You finally going to tell me what the big secret is, John?" Derek said weakly, anger evident in his tone, "Or am I going to die like my brother without ever knowing the truth?"

John looked away at the mention of Derek's brother; his father. Guilt plagued him, how could he send his own father on a mission whilst knowing what the outcome would be? What kind of man could do that? A hard man, a man who'd spent his whole life fighting a war, a man with not heart. John looked back at Derek, guilt in his eyes.

Derek didn't know what to make of the look that crossed his young keeper; this John couldn't have known his brother, not yet anyways. He'd died on a mission, sent to the past to stop the terminator sent back to eliminate Sarah Connor, giving his life for hers, for her son, but that had been before John was even born, so why the guilt?

But the look in John's eyes was quickly replaced with one he'd seen hundreds of times, this was the look John got when he put everything aside and the soldier that he was shown through, "You have to live," Young John told him, "I won't let you die because of me, I won't!"

"You don't even know me!" Derek replied angrily.

"I know enough," John said heatedly, "and I won't stand by and watch someone else sacrifice themselves for something that hasn't even happened yet, and god only knows what the hell I was thinking when I sent you back to watch over me! To die for me!"

"It's my Job," he replied after a few moments of silence, "it's what I do; I'm a soldier, I take orders and follow through with them." He could feel his body starting to shut down, he was about to lose consciousness again.

"My father sacrificed his life for mine and my mother's," John said emotionally, "I'm not going to let his brother to the same."

Confusion shown through the slits of Derek's eyes,

"What?" he asked, baffled.

But before John could reply, he lost consciousness.