A Straight Line

by Vader'sMistress

Takes place after "Ending the Cycle". I recommend you read that first. A straight line, their mother said. After their father's violent death, the Reese siblings try to cope and accept their new roles in John's plans. Meanwhile a figure from his past reappears and sets everything their parents feared in motion. #2 of No Fate Series

"And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire..." -Revelations 10
"Do you know what legacy means? It's what you pass on to your children. It's all that remains after you're gone." ~Tywin Lannister, GOT season 2

My daddy always said that Judgment day would occur. He dragged me to the church when I was five and told me that I had to die because my brother was after us, just as Sky Net had been after him. I always knew that I was different. When I was three, I could hear things that nobody else could. I told my sister if I should tell mom and she said to me in a very harsh voice "No!" I never asked her why until a year and a half later when our parents divorced.

"Because you are different Jacob and people always fear what they can't understand." She said and the words felt oddly familiar. I knew I had heard them somewhere. But where? I asked her if she had dreams. She nodded her head and said "Yes." And asked me if I had them too. I nodded my head as well "But mine" I explained to her "are different. I see a man standing in a big gray room."

"Do you see his face?" She asked me. I shake my head. "He shows me things. Shows me the future, says that I am too important for him to see me die." A thought occurred to me. "Jane, do you think it could be our brother, John?"
"That is impossible Jacob, he died a long time ago."
"That is dad talking. You have seen him on the news. He is still alive and he hasn't aged a day. Maybe mom is right and he is going to come after us." I say, panicked at the thought of our evil brother bursting into our home and taking us from our parents. I am crying now and she tells me to stop it then wipes my tears with her shirt and softens her voice. "That is not going to happen. Mom won't let it happen. And we also have dad, he will die before he lets that happen."

But that only made it worse. The thought of any of my parents dying was unthinkable.

I spent the next six months praying. My mom didn't believe in praying, she said that if there was a God, he wouldn't have abandoned his children when they needed him the most. But I do it anyway because it is the logical thing to do. I ask Him to help me, to help my mother and to help my sister. They were the only people that were ever there for me. I wish I could say my daddy was there for me too, but he was always occupied trying to teach my sister how to defend herself and prepare her for the oncoming threat. When I did see him, he always looked away. Almost like he was afraid of me.

I did not know why at the time, but I learned from my older brother that my grandmother had put crazy ideas in his head, namely that me and my siblings were three sides of the Anti-Christ and that he had to kill us to save the world from complete obliteration. "Religion didn't do that to daddy. He did it to himself." I said to my brother the day after the funeral when he found me crying, hiding under the covers. He told me that grandma would never bother us again. I still want to ask him what he means by that but I'm afraid what the answer will be. "Daddy believed it wrong." I stressed out to John, closing my eyes when he looked down at me. Mommy always said that he wasn't my brother. (Never had been). He was a machine. Plain and simple. But daddy said he wasn't. That he had been twisted by Sky Net, and before it attacked him, he had been a good man and given humanity a future to look forward to.

John tried to talk me out of reading the same books that twisted my father. He said 'crazy' runs in our family and it doesn't come from our mother but our father. And the more I read these things, the crazier I will get. "But it is not a matter of what he believed or not, Jacob. Our father was a scarred man and I tried to help me, goodness knows I did but he was too lost and your grandmother took advantage of that, and put those ideas in his head."

"No, I don't believe it!" I begged John to stop. "My grandmother is not crazy. She loves me. I've seen it." I turned to Jane. "Tell him Janey, tell him!" But she was silent. John kept on talking, mildly amused by my interruption. He showed me a video he had obtained from the Starbucks my daddy and grandmother frequented.

"He is the devil, Kyle. Sarah doesn't want to believe me, she thinks I am some religious nut-"

"I wonder why."

"Listen to my Kyle. She and that boy are going to be the death of us. You've seen it. I know you have. Since you came, I have been having nightmares. Patrick too but he is too proud to admit it. I have talked to father Carmelo. He believes that we can change things if we kill the two right now."

"Jesus Christ, listen to yourself mom." My daddy hisses, swearing under his breath. "Suppose you are right. What am I supposed to tell the police when they catch me? Hello my name is Kyle Reese I was right all along, I am from the future and I am also the father of the freaking Anti-Christ and that is why I killed two innocent children? What are you crazy?"

"Don't call me crazy Kyle. Your father called me crazy, I won't have my son from the future call me crazy too."

"Sorry." He sighs and passed his hand through his dark brown hair. "But you must know how crazy this sounds. What if you are wrong?"

"What if I am right? And you doomed us all by letting that boy live. Look Kyle, I know that things haven't been good between you and Sarah but trust your mother for once. You said that me and Patrick died in the future, but look at us now. Alive and talking to each other. Maybe this is God's plan, to let me live so I can give you the tools to end evil."

"Mom … they are my children. Mine and Sarah. Sarah would never forgive me if I do this." Daddy takes his drink. "I can't do this. I can't kill my own children."

"Except they are not your children Kyle. They never were." She looks around to make sure no one is watching, then looks back at her son. "I know this is hard for you. It is hard for me, they share my blood but we must put things into perspective. In the future, your future, your father and I urged you to be strong."

"Mom that was different ..."

"It's the same thing Kyle." She says softly. "Most of the human subjects died anyway, didn't they? What was it that machine said? Every time Sky Net turned them, they went mad."

"John didn't. He beat the odds and so have my children."

"For how long? It is only a matter of time before they end up like the rest. Is that what you want for us, for me? To be another target of Sky Net? Evil only begets more evil." She squeezes his hand. "I need you to become the man you were always meant to be. The man you were in the future."

"What you're asking me is murder. Pops and Sarah can ..." Daddy's voice broke. I can hear him choking on his own tears. He takes a napkin and wipes them off and he looks at his mother straight in the eye again.

"They can't do anything. Sarah Connor has always blinded herself to the truth. Haven't you wondered whey she fails? Why she always fails? God has given us a second chance, Kyle. He could have let you die but he didn't. He saved you. This is all part of His plan."

Daddy pressed his lips so tightly together. He was shaking.

"That is why you are the right man to do it Kyle. Because you love them so much that only you can see through them. God asks us to be strong. You are stronger than you know. When Mary was visited by the angel Gabriel, she didn't hesitate; she went to Joseph and told him that the angel Gabriel had told her that they would be the parents of God's child. God is asking you my son to be strong, to be his right hand man. You can do this. This will be your legacy. What you will pass down to us. The future of our world depends on you." She says reaching across the table for his hand.

His father looks down then up, making eye contact with her. The same eyes –is what I thought when I saw that video- the three of us (John, Janey and me) share.

"Sometimes I wonder if this is what God intended when He created humankind. Sarah never believed, neither did I... but I have seen so much ... I want it to be over."

"It will soon." Grandma assures him. "You can do this." She repeats. "You just go and you never look back."

My daddy chuckles. "That is what Sarah told the other me when she rescued you from the police station."

"It's exactly the same thing here. You just have to strike at the heart of Sky Net, and all of this will be over. You, the other you, will be able to have a normal life. The world will be at rest. No more time loops, no more fighting. Your dream of having a life without killing, will finally come true."

There is something in her voice, in the way she looks at him, in the way she squeezes his hand that convinces my father that she is telling the truth.

"You see Jacob." My brother told me after he turned off the TV. "He meant to kill you."

"He did." I said, feeling empty inside. My brother knelt before me and smiled at me. A healthy smile unlike the one my father had shown me. "Your father loved you, but like your grandmother, he was haunted by nightmares. I promise you, I will never let anything happen to you and Janey." He said, then hugged me.

And it felt so real, so heartfelt that I never questioned him after that.

The world might be cruel, might be unfair, but of one thing I am certain. I will always have my brother and sister with me to make things better. And I don't care if the world burns beneath our feet. Sometimes in order to create, as the good book says, you have to destroy. It is just like grandma's crazy stories from the bible with Noah's flood. If you want to save the planet and mankind, you have to let a few billion drown.

---

"Jacob is in bed. He was asking you to read his furry bunny story. He likes that." I say, trying not to show too much emotion. Too much emotion is bad, Pops told me once. It leads to making bad decisions. Just like what happened with dad.

John looks at me with those big sapphire eyes of his. The same eyes Jacob and I share. Our father's eyes. I think grimly, suddenly feeling my father pulling my hair again. It is a memory I thought I left buried but every time I look at John's eyes, I remember our father. The look of rage, hurt and breaking down before my eyes when he told us what we were.

My concern must be visible because John sits next to me and holds my hand. "You must know if there'd been another way, I would've taken it."

"Don't John. You gave me and Jacob a future and that is enough for me … I just wish that the dreams would stop. How did you make yours stop?"

"I didn't."

"Then how can you live with yourself?"

"I cheat. I pretend that I am still fighting and in a way I am. But you don't have to feel that way. You and Jacob can have the future that I always wanted." He says and moves his seat closer to mine. "I won't let anything happen to you. I said it and I keep my promises."

"Like the ones you said to Kate and Dany?"

He smirks then chuckles very quietly so he wouldn't wake Jacob. "You have our mother's mouth. I did a lot of mistakes with Kate, I believed she was the one then and I still believe it now."

"Why? John, she rejects you. You tried explaining the truth and she said no."

"That is because she doesn't know me in this timeline." He says firmly, stiffening at the memory when he told this Katherine Brewster who he was. "I won't make the same mistakes, I am going to keep my family by my side and I won't let anyone get between us." He vows and I believe him.

He is not like our father. He will never stop protecting us. He will die for us if necessary.

Before I can say thank you, he stops me and says "Do not say it. We are here and that is all that matters." And I know that he will go back to Kate, and this time she won't escape him.

I say good night and go to my room. No more prophetic nightmares. It is just me and my brother. When we dream, the two of us can talk alone. I can't explain it, I have been trying to when I am with John but he uses such big words that it is just so hard for me to understand him, but what I do understand is that me and Jacob share some kind of special connection and we can share secrets the way no other sibling can.
Tonight he asks me if John is going to go after Kate. "Have you been snooping around my memories little brother?" I ask him.

He nods and his head falls down, avoiding my gaze.

"Do not worry. I am not mad but I would like you to tell me ahead of time." I say. There are some things in my head that I don't want my brother seeing. Things that would scare even the toughest person on earth.

"So what do you think? You always liked Kate when she baby-sat."

"That is different. She just does it because she likes us, but she hates John. You have seen them arguing time after time. She will never love him."

"Oh, I am not sure about that. People change. Once she sees him for who he really is, she will come to her senses." I say then tilt my head when he laughs. "What?"

"You sound like him now." He says, still giggling.

"John?"

"No. Daddy."

I grow still. Daddy. Jacob still calls him daddy. After he tried to kill us. He still thinks of him as the man who twirled us in the air, who played with us in the mud, who always told us we were special even when we doubted it, even when Jacob doubted it.
I search my brother's mind to see if he is joking but he really means it. I want to shake my head and tell him that he man our father was, died the day he believed our sicko grandmother but Jacob still holds on to those few memories he has of him. Even after everything he has been shown, he still holds on to them.
It is the one thing that I admire and also hate about him. That he can see the goodness in people, even when said people are psychos.

"Jacob," I say, being very careful with this. "I don't think daddy is the right man you want to compare me to. Daddy … he uh … he was not right in his mind. You saw the footage of the coffee shop. Grandma convinced him with all her crazy talk."

"But that was her, not daddy. If daddy hadn't been stressed out by the war, then he would've been like the other him."

"You don't know that Jacob. What if this is what is going to happen to the other him?"

"It won't. He is not daddy. He is not a soldier, he will be a good man and he won't do the things daddy did." Jacob says, again very sure of himself.

"If you say so, little brother." I say and he smiled at me with that kind smile and those glowing blue orbs looking into mine, and I can't help but be won over by him.

Perhaps he was right. The next morning John greets me and tells me that the bus is here. I let the nanites do their work and change my PJs to the school uniform. He walks me and Jacob outside. We hold hands, nervous to meet our new classmates. Our previous school wasn't so strict or exclusive. We could wear whatever the hell we wanted, and dad always let me do whatever I wanted. But John is different, he stresses the importance of first impressions and I don't want to disappoint him so I follow his advice.

~o~

At the school Jacob and I are reunited at recess. He tells me that he made new friends, and I tell him a white lie that I did as well. The girls at my class were really dumb and I do not feel like being friends with any of them, and as for the boys, they were only looking for empty-headed blondies to kiss so they could brag about it to the whole school.

Not long after the day is over, we get an invite to one of the kids' parties. The most popular kids will be there and Jacob begs me to go so he can get permission from John to go as well.

When the bus drops off at John's place, we hear noises coming from his bedroom. "Stay behind me." I tell him. My arm shifts into a blade. Jacob whimpers. He doesn't like violence and neither do I, but if we are going to be what John and our father before him, says we are going to be, then he has to learn that sometimes violence is the only recourse left.

Making our way to his bedroom, I open the door slightly, insisting on Jacob to get behind me. He is so curious that it is almost impossible to restrain him. "Jacob, please." I hiss.

"But it could be somebody trying to kill John."

"If that were true, their brains would be on the floor." I point out, saying it like it is the most obvious thing in the world. (And it is. John is a step ahead of everyone. He would know if somebody was trying to kill him. My brother is not stupid. It's why Sky Net entrusted him with its project).

I tell my brother to shut up again, but he won't so I let him speak with the condition that he keeps his voice low. I am sure there are no burglars here, but if he is right, I don't want to waste my element of surprise. Surprise, father always said, is everything.

"What are you going to do if they come near us?"

"They won't get that close, trust me." I assure him and point him to my arm-blade.

Peering inside, I leaned forward, focusing my eyes on the shadows dancing behind the drapes on John's bed. I blink. The blade shifts back to an arm. I don't want to believe what I am seeing but there it is.

"What is Jane?"

I turn to Jacob, he is afraid. I smile sheepishly, my cheeks blushing, and tell him nothing's wrong then take him to my bedroom.

"What was it?"

"Nothing. You must promise never to speak of this again, ok?"

"I will but you must tell me what you saw. It could be the bad people."

"There are no more bad people Jacob. And it's … not important! Now let's forget about it and focus on the party tonight."

Jacob nods and we change our clothes. We don't even bother to tell John were are going out. We left him a text before we got home, asking him if we could go and he said yes as long as I kept watch on my brother at all times.

As we leave, I hear a feminine voice coming from his bedroom. I tell Jacob to go ahead without me and leave him outside. It won't take long, just a second. I must see it for myself.

Opening the door again, I peer inside. There, on top of John is Kate. She looks younger. About thirty to thirty five. This is her. The ideal version of her that John always worshiped. The one that he's always wanted.
I close the door quietly and go to meet my brother. He is waiting by the elevators playing another one of his silly games on his I-phone. The two of us step in the elevator, then head outside to wait by the bus stop. Michelle's dad, one of the friends he's made, will be picking us up.

"Janey?"

"Yes?"

"Do you believe in fate?"

"No."

"Yes, you do."

"Jacob, not another one of your games. I don't believe in fate, so let's leave it at that." I was not in the mood for his silly games. I didn't know what this meant for us. John's mission had been to ensure Sky Net's survival, not to be making friends. But part of ensuring Sky Net's survival had been making allies. So he had to sacrifice a little of his time, to accomplish his goals. But what goals was there for John now? Sky Net was dead. Genysis was destroyed. Even if something survived, the secret of its creation lay with John and John would die protecting it.
We are all that is left.
Was this what Sky Net intended all along? Leave John as the leader of its army in case it was destroyed? If that was so, then her father was right. Sky Net had taken everything the Connors and the Reeses loved and turned it into evil.

I sigh so low that my brother didn't hear me. I wish I had all the answers. Humanity was useless, this much I know. But does everyone deserve to die? What if the people that John turns, don't accept the change? What if they rebel? What if we don't turn out the way he wants?

"Jane." Jacob snaps me from my thoughts. "Michelle's dad is here." He points out to the black SUV. We greet her dad and get in the back seat. While Jacob talks to Michelle, I stare at the sky, pondering about the long road ahead.

What if I fail John? What if I fail my brother and Kate? Now that Kate is part of the family, John will raise the stakes. I want nothing more than to make my big brother proud, but I often find myself surrounded by doubt and I can't help it when the part of me that is human is still assaulted by memories of that night.

Whatever happens Jane, remember a straight line. I hear my mother's voice. You just go and you never look back. And I look to Jacob who is chatting happily with Michelle. A straight line.

We arrive. Michelle's dad walks out to Arthur's house. His father Michael Kripke is not home but his servants are. It is a big house with many rooms and tonight promises to be a party to remember. The boys that were eyeing me in the first period are there, winking at me. We play many games until we are dared to kiss. They choose the boy for me, but I pick another one at random. The two of us are led into a closet where we are supposed to make out. He is scared, I can hear his heartbeat and he is shifting his head constantly.

"Have you done this before?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "I only agreed because Daniel and the rest would have kicked my butt if they knew that I was a pussy."

"You're a pussy because you haven't kissed a girl?"

"Anyone who is anyone knows that if you don't kiss a girl by eleven you are one." He points out.

"What is your name?" I ask.

"Marcus. Marcus Wright." He says and lifts his face, his brown robs meet my sapphire ones. Lips trembling, he adds "I was named after my dad, he doesn't know I am here. He is going to be very angry when he finds I sneaked out of the house." He gives a nervous laugh. "Mom too. She was a pilot. The army, you know safety, discipline. She is really going to kill me."

"Well, you are not the only one." I say, giving him a white lie so he won't feel so bad. "And since we are both going to get ground, we might as well do it."

I lean forward, giving him an inviting look and he kisses me.

My mother was right. A straight line. Just go and don't look back.