November meant the nights had grown crisp in Lake Tahoe. Sarah Connor had grown accustomed to Reese's warmth beside her, wrapped around her, like the protector he was meant to be. But at some time during the night she always found herself looking for him. The soldier and child of war wasn't used to the soft mattress or sheets. Small sounds would wake him, and extreme silence put him on edge. Even with Pops on guard at all times, he slept with his gun within reach.

"Reese?" Sarah whispered into the dark bedroom. She rolled over and scanned the floor. She'd started finding him on hardwood floor of their small bedroom not long after settling into the little rented farmhouse. She would usually join him and pull sheets down on top of them, but now with no sign of him, she wrapped them about her naked body and tiptoed out of the room and down the creaky stairs.

"Reese?" she whispered again, opening the squeaky screen door.

"Here."

Her eyes found him sitting on the porch swing, peering up at bright full moon. He smiled, though distracted, taking in the sight of her. "You're so beautiful."

"What are you doing out here?"

He shook his head as she joined him. "I don't know. Grieving. Waiting."

Sarah took his hand. "I'm sorry."

Kyle stroked her cheek. "John loved you, Sarah. He is last words to me were "take care of her for me." Everything you thought you were fighting for, training for….it was worth it. I could still see a glimpse of him. John would have wanted it this way. To keep you safe…ensure that mankind had a future."

He sounded like he was trying to assure himself.

She swallowed, a tear escaping, for who she didn't know. Was it for Kyle, ridden with survivor's guilt, or for the son that had slipped through her fingers despite everything that she had supposedly prepared him for? She'd allowed herself to indulge when she had laid eyes on him in the hospital. John had her Dad's eyes, her smile….Kyle's curls, his mannerisms. It brought her own guilt to the surface, knowing that in another timeline, another life, the three of them together in a room would've been something she desperately wanted.

She had yet to feel the small kicks in her womb, them being all that was left of the man she loved. Ashamedly, she wondered if she wanted to.

"He'll exist," Kyle broke into her thoughts as if he could read them.

Oddly, she found that comforting. "How do you know?"

Kyle's eyes were troubled and he watched the horizon. "It's like there's a shadow in my peripheral. I can see something coming but I just don't know what." He shook his head. "The future isn't set, but…some things can't be cheated. Timelines are interweaved. Some people are always going to find each other."

"We stopped it though."

He couldn't meet her gaze. "Think Sarah, someone sent Pops back to save you, from a much later future I think. We're missing a piece of the puzzle."

Sarah opened her mouth, but no words formed. She stood abruptly, and pulled the sheets tightly around herself. "So what, we have another mission!?" Her despair was palatable, not accustomed to the world's darkness like Reese.

"We stay vigilant," Kyle whispered, standing and grasping her fingers in his own. "I know you're pregnant, Sarah."

Her lower lip quivered and she squeezed her eyes shut against the tears. He pressed his lips to her forehead. "You said you have one bullet to fire at the heart of Skynet….maybe it's always going to be John."