The Stream of Time Chapter 2, a terminator fanfic

A/N: Hello, I updated the end of this chapter with what I have been able to write in my spare time. I am working on chapter 3 and hope to have it up soon! I hope you all enjoy it! Once I finish through more of the story I'll finalize the parts I have written as a whole. Peace!

He, Kyle Reese, was the father of the man – the legend – John Connor! It couldn't be true, could it? The man who had won the war against the machines, a man who was born before he himself was! How could a simple, nobody soldier be the father of the legendary Connor? Though going through his mind, it made perfect sense. When Sarah had asked him about her son, he mentioned that he was about his height. But then he realized how much John looked like an even more weathered, older version of his own reflection. It explained why John Connor had given him a picture of Sarah, and why he wanted Kyle to keep it. It explained what may have resulted from his and Sarah's intimate night together – the greatest night of his entire life. Why hadn't he realized this before?

"John…I…I don't know what to say…" Kyle spoke, though he felt words failing him in his moment.

"It's alright, Kyle. Or father, I suppose would be the right word. I didn't tell you any of this before I sent you back in time in order to ensure that the past events happened exactly as was necessary. I also didn't want to overwhelm you with that information – I wanted you to fall in love with my mother on your own terms, not mine." John replied, giving Kyle a small grin

"So you knew all this time that I was your father?" asked Kyle, still in shock over the revelation he had just experienced

"Yes. I knew that you were since I was old enough to remember. My mother told me about my brave soldier father, sent from the future to protect her from the Terminator. She told me everything she could about you, and how in the few hours you had together, you loved a lifetime's worth."

Kyle felt tears forming in his eyes at hearing Sarah's words from John. He felt the same way about her, and would have done anything in his power to protect the woman he loved. Seeing their son sitting in front of him – the great John Connor – was almost too much to take in. He looked so much like her, from the sparkle in his eyes to the kind, reassuring words he spoke.

"I would have given anything to have met you then, despite the fact that I knew I would meet you one day in the future." Said John "My mother told me about how you died when you were escaping from the Terminator, how you saved her life, and mine inevitably."

"Died?" gasped Kyle "I'm not dead…I mean, I'm alive! I'm here! What about Sarah?"

John replied as calmly as he could to deliver what he had to say "At that time, Sarah thought you had been killed by the Terminator."

"Sarah thinks I'm dead?" shouted Kyle "No! She can't! I have to get back to her right now! She can't think I died! She just can't!"

"It is vitally important that the events occurred exactly as they did." John responded "If they had not, I cannot tell what would have become of me in the future."

"She thinks I'm dead!" shouted Kyle "I can't let that happen to her. I can't have her forced to live and survive all alone after that Terminator tried to kill her! To have my child without me…." Kyle looked down towards the floor after his last comment, fully realizing that the child in question was now sitting across from him as his senior.

"It had to happen this way." Kyle responded "If she had thought you lived, she would have never raised me the way she did – teaching me to fight, to organize, and to become the great leader I am today. She did it because she was so determined to see that her son – your son - survived. She loved you more than I can ever explain, and I know that she tried so hard to keep surviving because you would have wanted it. It is very important that the events leading to my training remain unchanged."

"She had to have…the baby…you…all alone…" Kyle whispered "I wasn't there to help her. I wasn't there to be your father…to protect you, to protect her." He choked as he tried to hold back tears at the thought of Sarah enduring what had happened to them together only to be left alone carrying his child.

"You died that night." said John "That is, up until this point."

"What do you mean, up until this point?" Shouted Kyle without meaning to "If I died, then how can I be here? Unless of course I'm dead." Kyle winced grasping his chest, enduring a wave of pain from hits outlet of emotion.

"You must first understand how we sent you back to the first place to 1984 to fulfill your mission." He placed a hand on Kyle's shoulder, encouraging him to lie back down again, which he did without argument. "Let me tell you what I know, so you can better understand what happened."

"Skynet developed technology in 2029 called time displacement equipment, as you know. They sent the T-800 back in time to kill my mother – so we infiltrated the same equipment and sent a solider – you - back to that time to prevent her death. As you also know, we were unable to go both ways in time – we could only send you back, and you could not return to the future here."

Kyle nodded his head as he tried his best to follow what John was telling him. He was well aware that he could only travel back in time, and wasn't sure how to react to the fact that he had somehow managed to come to the future anyway.

"We have discovered a way to move time forward as well. Back then we did not have the technology, and thankfully, neither did the machines. However, I realized the potential of what future time travel could do – how it could give me the chance later on to truly repay my mother for everything she has done for me…for making me into the man I am today."

"The question was how to accomplish this without changing the past in 1984, as those events were vital to what came afterwards. At first it seemed impossible to find a way to intercept you from the past without it affecting the course of events. That is, until we delved back into the same technology information that we had destroyed not long ago. There lay the answer to how to remove you from the past before death, and prevent the timeline of events from being changed. We replaced you with a fake before you were killed by the explosion. A trigger in time that allowed us to save your life.

"Copy?" stammered Kyle "You replaced me with… a copy?" He was having a difficult time comprehending exactly what to think about what John was telling him.

We made a clone – a biological copy of you, Kyle. It wasn't a copy that lived and had emotions and memories like you do – it was just a shell, just like the living tissue surrounding the Terminators. We were able to use the biological technology to create exactly what we needed in order to go to the past and prevent disruption of the timeline. In order to prevent the alteration of events in 1984, we traveled back in time to just before you were killed, and swapped your body for the copy. Our time travel device allowed us a short spurt of time, if only brief, of frozen time in order to do what we needed to accomplish. We did not affect the fixed timeline – you fathered my existence, and protected Sarah from the Terminator, and were perceived to have died in the course of events at the factory.

"In that situation, the timeline was fixed. The events in the past did not change the events of the future.

However, a short time after you had been sent, Skynet once again tried to target me at a time when I was still vulnerable. Only this time, instead of targeting my mother, they targeted me – as a child in 1991. They sent an advanced prototype machine – a T-1000 made of mimetic poly-alloy – liquid metal. I knew that if I didn't take action the superior T-1000 would succeed. The only way I could foresee stopping this advanced technology was to reprogram a Terminator myself as protection, which is exactly what I did."

"When I re-programmed the T-800 to protect my past self, I sent it with a message to myself and my mother -the same message that you relayed to her in 1984. The future is not set – there is no fate but what we make for ourselves. I knew that events in the past were fixed, but I also knew that it was possible to change the future by altering events in the past. That was the initial goal of Skynet. However, it did not take into account the theory of a fixed timeline – of set, concrete events that are fulfilled in the past because of actions in the present. If they had known this, they would have never sent the original Terminator back in the first place – hence preventing my birth by inhibiting your arrival in the past."

"However, I still believed that there existed another aspect of time to in fact change the future, or at least one possible future. The events in 1984 were self fulfilling and actually caused the future to happen – I knew this because my mother told me about you, and how you were sent to the past to protect her, and in turn, create my existence. However, I did not see a link to our current time when Skynet sent back the T-1000 – if it had succeeded, why was I still alive? If it had not succeeded, could we have stopped Judgment Day? I knew that my mother and I would have a chance to change the course of events with the aide of the T-800. I knew that Judgment Day could be prevented entirely based upon a specific course of action to eliminate it. I believe that it may have succeeded."

"I don't understand." Replied Kyle "If Judgment Day never happened, why is it still part of our history now?"

John took the water pitcher sitting on the nearby table and the plate it was sitting on. He began to pour the water down the edge of the dish to form a miniature river.

"Our understanding of time is very similar to the way a river flows. This river can only go one way. There is no alternative…no matter how far back one goes along it, the river will go only one way. This is the fixed theory of time."

Kyle nodded in understanding "So you mean that my actions in the past had already been set? Predestined for me?"

John nodded towards him "The course of events set in 1984 happened exactly in this manner. Up until some time ago, we did not know if the past could really be changed…that the course of the water is predetermined."

Kyle nodded as he observed the water flowing from the dish and spilling down onto the table.

"If Skynet had never been created, that means the Terminators would never have been created and all of the events of Judgment Day and beyond would have never occurred. This also means that I would never exist – I would have never sent you back in time to protect my mother because the threat never existed in the first place. This leads us to a gray area concerning time and changing the past. If the past is changed to alter the future, rather than happen as a set of predestined events, would it be possible to have a different future? Does the river only go one way?"

"I believe that the river can be changed to go two different ways – two multiple paths diverging from each other, never to meet again, and not just a theory of a fixed timeline. This is what may have been possible by sending the re-programmed Terminator to 1991, and why a new, alternative future could not have been experienced here even if the events of the past were changed. The events of that time were not part of a fixed timeline. Rather than affecting our future here and now, a parallel, alternative future would occur from that point in time onward – a future that we would not change the world of right now."

John picked up a small stone on the table and dropped it into the stream of water, causing the stream to split and flow in different directions around the small smooth surface.

"So you see, the river can go different ways than before, unlike the fixed timeline. That is why the T-800 and the T-1000 that were sent back are like a stone – the stone that split the stream of time in two."

"The stone that split the stream of time in two…" Kyle whispered to himself "So you mean that there may be a future that exists where there was no Judgment Day at all?"

"Exactly." replied John "It is an alternate timeline parallel to ours. I believe that if someone was sent back in time before the alteration of Judgment Day occurred, that would be the future he experienced, rather than what you see before you now."

"A future without Judgment Day…" Kyle replied. The thought of a world without pain and suffering – a world where Skynet never existed, a world without Terminators, war, famine, and death. It was almost too good to be true…a world where he would never have to try to destroy another Terminator ever again.

"So you can move forward in time…" Kyle stated "John…how can that be? The time displacement equipment was so large that nobody would be able to use it in the past without having to take it with them."

John placed his hand on Kyle's shoulder "I think I've given you enough of a shock for one day, father. You are still weak and need to heal…for now I shall leave you to rest – the medical staff will tend to you. Tomorrow I will show you what I can in order to make everything clearer."

Kyle nodded, and gulped nervously. Before John could open the door to leave, "John…"

John answered with a slight nod

"I'm sorry I never could be your father. The kind of father you deserved."

John gave a soft, kind smile as he shut the door behind him. After that, Kyle fell into a deep slumber, finally allowing his body a chance to regain its strength.

"The stone that split the stream of time in two…" Kyle whispered to himself "So you mean that there may be a future that exists where there was no Judgment Day at all?"

Kyle nodded, and gulped nervously. Before John could open the door to leave, "John…"

John answered with a slight nod

"I'm sorry I never could be your father. The kind of father you deserved."

John gave a soft, kind smile as he shut the door behind him. After that, Kyle fell into a deep slumber, finally allowing his body a chance to regain its strength.