Pops watched as Sarah and Kyle disappeared before his eyes and then he stood there, alone. He hadn't been alone since the first time he'd arrived in this time and now he would need to do it for almost twenty years while he waited in real time to catch up with them.
He knew for Sarah it would only be moments before he saw her again but for him it would be almost two decades. He stood there, unable to move from the control panel they'd built together.
He continued staring at the now empty portal until something strange happened. The portal filled with blue light as it had done when Sarah and Kyle left.
Had he done something wrong, he thought to himself as she grabbed a gun ready for what might appear on the other side.
As he watched, the blue lights faded and a naked woman was crouched in their place. She looked up and saw Pops and a smile crept across her lips.
"Pops, it's good to see you," the woman said as she stood and hopped off of the platform.
"Who are you?" Pops asked, his gun still raised and pointing directly at her.
She paid no attention to it as she found Sarah's clothes and quickly pulled the pants and tank top on. "Pops, my name is Spencer and I am the one who sent you here. I knew it was time for you to spend nineteen years alone so I came here to be with you and check on the mission."
"If you sent me here, why don't I recognize you?" he asked, lowering his weapon just slightly.
Spencer sighed, "Do you know somewhere quiet we can go where I can explain all of this to you?"
Pops nodded as he gestured for her to follow him to a set of cots he and Sarah had set up deep beneath the plant where they would rest when they'd done enough preparing for what was to come.
"Tell me, now," he demanded as she walked forward and took a seat on one of the two cots.
"In my time, after John Connor beat back the machines, you and I united the two worlds. We acted us a married couple for all intensive purposes and we were a picture of what the rest of the world would want to be like. After a time, some machines decided to revolt once more and they planned to send one of their own back in time to kill Sarah as a child so that she could never even get the chance to conceive John. I decided since you were the most human of all the machines due to our time together, you needed to go back too but you didn't want to leave my side so I had your memories erased," Spencer explained before taking a deep breath.
"Why would you risk the mission to come tell me this now?" Pops asked looking at the strange woman who was actually his wife.
Spencer smiled as she looked at the familiar face now decorated with wrinkles and topped with grey hair, "It's selfish but I missed you," she revealed softly, "Would you like your memories back?" she asked, looking up at him, her eyes filled with tenderness.
"Will it risk the rest of the mission?" he asked, curious to know what she knew.
"Yes, but only if you tell anyone. I will leave just before you are set to meet them again and no one will ever need to know but I wanted more time with you," she replied softly.
Pops was not ready to spend nineteen years alone and he didn't want to do it with a stranger either so he nodded his head in agreement. Spencer stood up and placed what looked like a listerine strip on his tongue. She watched as he was flooded with memories from before he came back in time.
Pops was instantly overwhelmed as he staggered back onto the other cot in the room.