A/N: Heeey there, thank you everyone who's taken the time to follow/ favorite and review! It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. I do want to take a moment to reassure everyone that this story is set to continue on for a good long while, I originally had five chapters mapped when I began writing and, well, this is chapter 4 and we're only about halfway through the content mapped to chapter 2, so yes, this will continue to completion. Don't panic! And uh, please do continue to review, and let me know if the characterizations are completely veering off into the wild here. Thanks!


The patrolling men were not difficult to track; they broke branches, flattened brambles, filled the air with shouting, cursing, complaining and laughing. It all seemed a little backwards to Kyle; there was something very wrong with his world when he was being hunted by his own species with dogs and guns. There were so many other existential threats in the world, how could they think that this level of effort was needed to find Sarah? Fortunately for them, their hunters were single-minded enough to never once look back and check over their shoulder behind them, much less run multiple sweeps over an area, compromising thoroughness for expediency.

Hiking was hot, thirsty work and neither he nor Sarah had thought to grab water before heading out. They kept within eyesight of the wide armored backs for what felt like hours until their progress, despite the canteens they carried and the urgency expressed earlier, slowed and then stopped. They squatted on the bare ground or balanced precariously on exposed rocks. Kyle pulled close to Sarah, whispering in her ear, "Do we try and go around them?" There was always a chance, and it would only grow as the afternoon progressed, that the men would give up and turn around for the night. They did not appear equipped to sleep out in the forest.

Sarah tilted her head in thought as she fluffed her sweat-matted hair, and had opened her mouth to respond, her mouth brushing his, when a shout went up behind them. Her fingers dug into his arm, dragging Kyle the first few steps perpendicular to the group ahead who had turned toward the noise and raised an answering shout. Reinforcements or replacements, then, expected and if not friendly, then certainly aligned with their aggressors. Awesome. The dogs turned with the men, tails and ears up and forward; one looked straight at Kyle and growled. It was ignored by its handlers, but not by its fellow four-legged associates and they turned as a unit to pursue the strange humans. Kyle gave up on subtlety and scrambled over the ridge in front of them, jogging awkwardly down the steep embankment into a ravine.

An alarm went up behind them and they ran. Sprinting in this environment was even less pleasant than the walking had been. Everything was slippery, hiding an obstacle or just generally more difficult than it had been before. Gunshots split the tranquil afternoon, chipping bark off a tree trunk a dozen meters to his left. Kyle dropped back enough to plant himself between Sarah and their pursuers and then ran on. Sarah glanced back as he changed his position, neglecting her footing, and stumbled, rolling along the ground under the force of her own momentum and pushed back to her feet. Her strides were off and he closed the distance he had placed between them too easily. "You okay?" Breath was precious, he grabbed her around the waist and jogged on as her arm clenched around his neck.

"Rolled ankle; keep going," Sarah set her jaw and pistoned her legs mechanically, ignoring the treacherous wobble on her right side. Behind them the dogs snarled and Kyle sent up a prayer to whomever was listening that they were still moving in the general direction of the cabin and not about to run themselves to exhaustion in the endless forest.

Fatigue and adrenaline battled in his nervous system, adrenaline winning the round when another round of gunfire kicked up puffs of dirt and leaf litter as they scrambled up another steep incline, slowing to kick down at snapping jaws that got too close. His thighs burned with the effort of climbing, of catching himself as his boots slipped again on the loose scree and his palms scraped on exposed stone as he clambered over a chunk of exposed granite. It would have been their luck to find a sheer cliff on the other side, but instead of a potentially lethal drop the hillock just sloped steeply down into another fucking ravine with a bright clear creek and, buried in the trees not fifty meters away, the back of the cabin. The view seemed to spur something in Sarah and she slipped out of his grip, half running, half sliding down the embankment as a bullet whipped by close enough to graze Kyle's jacket. He drew his pistol and returned fire, cursing the shortsighted thinking that had him leave the rifle behind when they started this poorly executed mess. A dog leapt up at him, catching his arm and the momentum sent them both tumbling down the hill, boots over tail. Kyle liked dogs on general principle, but the teeth in his arm fucking hurt and he slammed his unencumbered hand against anything that felt slightly furry as the world spun crazily around him. Gunfire roared again and the dog screamed around his arm and went limp.

Kyle wrenched his arm free of the limp jaws, found the ground under his boots and staggered after Sarah, standing on the far side of the creek with her pistol braced in her hands. He stayed low and she shot over his head at the men on the top of the hill with their superior weapons' range and steady sights. He misjudged the width of the creek; water soaked his socks, but there was nothing to do but run on, zigzagging across the short distance of open ground and weaving into the cover of the trees clustering tightly around the cabin, propelling Sarah forward, cornering hard around the side and standing over her as she pressed open the door and dragged him inside.


Kyle slammed the door shut behind them as Sarah sagged against the long high countertop under the wall of rifles. She stretched up on her good leg and unhooked a Tavor Bullpup from the wall rested the short heavy weapon on her hip as she flipped a full magazine out of the drawer and slotted it home in the base. Then she gently put the loaded rifle down on the counter in front of her, closed her eyes and took several long breaths. "Can you see anything out the window?"

Kyle flattened himself against the wall and glanced sideways through the high dirty window. "No," He ducked down, "Yes, they're circling around." He tapped the wall by his shoulder with a knuckle. "I don't know how long these logs will keep them out."

Sarah opened her eyes and braced herself more comfortably where she balanced. "Pops always builds these places the same. There's steel under the logs; it should take them some time to figure it out, much less break into."

"The window?"

"Bulletproof."

"The door?"

"Same as the walls."

"What about the dugout?" Kyle nodded at the small earthy cave in the back side of the cabin.

"It's several feet submerged. They're not going to trip over it."

"The roof?"

Sarah raised an eyebrow at the inquisition. "They'd need to get inside to blow the roof off."

"If they got on top of it, could they pry up the shingles and chip through whatever's underneath?"

She chewed her lip and looked up at the dark space above. "I suppose they could, but it looks like there's a trap door, it would be defensible. We shouldn't be here that long, Pops always checks in at least once a day." Sarah shifted her weight to her good leg and stretched the damaged one out before her, rotating her ankle slowly.

"You okay?" Kyle asked again.

"It's still just a sprain," Sarah managed a small smile and looped the rifle's sling over her shoulder. "I would like to sit down while we can, though." Kyle offered her his arm and she squeezed the solid strength as she limped with his help, around the crates of supplies and sagged onto a musty old sofa stowed in the midst of the munitions, food and water. The rifle was propped against the low arm of the seat. "How about you?" She nodded pointedly at the tattered sleeve of his leather jacket.

Kyle held up the arm in question, clenched a fist, and either scowled or pouted at his closed hand. Sarah wasn't sure which. "Oh, son of a bitch."

"Bad?" Sarah straightened and leaned toward him, doing her damnedest to close the distance between them without getting up.

"Hang on," Kyle shuffled around until he discovered the location of the first aid supplies and tossed the large container onto her lap, easing his jacket off his intact arm and then gingerly peeling it off the other.

"Sit," She gave the order and Kyle complied, dropping the ruined leather by their feet. The couch sagged under the added weight and Sarah slid in towards him until their shoulders touched. With the ease of familiarity she sorted through the contents of the blue nylon bag, pulling out several bundles of gauze, isopropyl alcohol and tweezers. He provided his damaged arm, smeared brown and red, against pale skin and she soaked the first pad with alcohol and began wiping away the blood and dirt from the surface of the wounds. A muscle in his jaw flexed as he grit his teeth stoically and she nudged him with her shoulder, gently enough not to disturb the arm cradled in her lap, and smiled up at him. "Hey."

Kyle blew out a breath and returned the smile, some of the tension in his jaw and shoulders easing as she continued her work. "Hey? Is that the best distraction you've got?"

He was teasing her, Sarah inferred, and it was odd but not unpleasant. "I'm working on it." She stuck her tongue out at him, which made him chuckle, which felt incredible, and tossed the dirty gauze on the floor by her boots. The wounds gaped, wet red punctures and gouges and she pulled and pushed as gently as she could manage, trying to see into the damage within. "Can you get me one of those water bottles?"

"Thirsty now?" He stood, shaking his arm out and sending rivulets of fresh blood zigzagging across his skin, and trudged across the confined space to where she pointed.

"Better make it two," Sarah amended the request; now that he had raised the point she felt the thirst, tight and painful in her throat. He saluted without turning around and grabbed two bottles before settling back beside her. She accepted the one he passed over and watched as he broke the seal on the one he had kept for himself. His throat moved as he drank deeply and Sarah was transported back in time to the moment, just last night, when she had touched him for the first time. These thoughts were neither appropriate nor useful, she banished it by pressing her injured foot against the ground until the discomfort brought her firmly back to the present moment and their current predicament. She took his arm back, guiding it out in front of them and away from the upholstery and trickled her water into the holes ripped into his flesh by the dog. She could feel him watching the process from over her shoulder as she manipulated the flesh to open it to the constant stream, the better to flush out any embedded debris that might linger inside and risk infection down the line. When she was satisfied in the completion of her task, she patted the skin dry with a second pad and drank the remaining water. A gun fired and a small white chip appeared in the center of the window. Her reactions were mechanical, automatic, thoughtless. The bottle of water clattered against the floor and she brought the Bullpup up from its resting position beside the couch, rolling off the couch into a kneeling position, bracing the butt-plate against her shoulder and fitting her eye against the scope before she had completely processed what was happening.

"Isn't it bullet proof glass?" Kyle ventured when she didn't look up from the scope.

Four more shots dinged against the glass and Sarah exhaled slowly, heart hammering against her ribs. "Yes." She eased her finger off the trigger and propped the rifle back against the couch before hoisting herself back beside Kyle, brushing the moment off and picking up a roll of gauze. She stayed steady, wrapping the gauze around his forearm, checking the tightness as she went, creating a strong, multilayered bandage as gunfire crackled against the window again. "What do you think they'll do when they realize their strategy won't work?"

Kyle took his arm back when she's done, running a finger under the edge and tucking the loose end away. "I guess it depends on the lengths they're will to go and whether their goal is capture or kill." He looped his arm around her neck and tugged until Sarah leans into his chest. "It's surprising they haven't-"

The boom echoed through the shack and this time they both brought weapons up, Sarah aiming at the door and Kyle the ceiling. A puff of dirt spattered across the floor from other the door and Kyle adjusted his aim toward the source of the threat as the steady thud of a ram started against the door. "Were you going to say blow the door?" Sarah asked over the ringing of her ears.

Kyle nudged her until she sat upright, still watching the unyielding door through her sites, and stood, crossing to take down an AR and collect the additional mags they were likely to need. "Something like that," He conceded. "Will it hold?"

Sarah lifted her face from where it was cushioned against the butt of her gun to shake her head at him, standing cautiously and limping to the wall beside the door. Ignoring the painful sounds of impact she presses her ear against the wall, bringing her eyes just about level with the door. The next impact made her wince, but she kept her eyes open and watched the door stay level with the wall. "Against what they're doing now, yeah," She reported back. With her ear against the wall she could almost make out the voices on the other side, words indistinct but the cadence indicative of discussion. "Wonder what they're saying."

Kyle jerked his head up to the faint outline of a trapdoor in the roof. "We could find out, get a sense of what they're planning. See what's out there."

Sarah frowned, weighing the risks. "If they notice us, it'll key them into a potential vulnerability."

Kyle was already dragging one of the larger crates into place under the hanging cord. "They're humans, if we do it now, while it's light, they probably won't notice."

"Why not wait until dark?"

"Because then they'll have spotlights trained on us. We'd be light-blinded trying to look out. Right now? Natural light, shadows," He checked his wristwatch, "and they'll probably be distracted by eating. Trust me, I've done this before."

His smile was warm and disarmed her completely. Sarah nodded, "Do it then, quickly."

Kyle adjusted the hang of his rifle and clambered onto the wooden crate, testing it beneath him before stretching up to fiddle with the catch on the ceiling. The door sunk down on a hinge and then slid partway open on a track, letting in a thin track of orange light and he could reach out of the narrow gap and pull himself up, just enough for eyes and nose to peer over the edge. He hung there for over a minute before slipping back down and shaking out his arms. He motioned for quiet when Sarah opened her mouth, turned 180 degrees and hoisted himself back up. The second time he dropped down he pulled the hatch shut behind him.

"What did you see?" Sarah asked as he hopped down.

"Twenty man perimeter; pretty much what we expected." Kyle hopped off the crate and closed the distance between them. "There's no way they're planning to just wait us out with what they've got with them. I imagine they're expecting something serious to come in the morning, reinforcements or heavy artillery. They might try and open negotiations for surrender when they have some leverage, but I think it'll be a relatively quiet night." He cupped her cheek with a palm and rested his forehead against hers. "We should rest while we can."

"You think they'll let us?" Sarah let herself be drawn to the air-mattress in the dugout and pulled down on top of him. She wasn't worried, not exactly, this wasn't the first problematic situation she'd encountered, but it was still nerve wracking. Pops should have been back to check in by now, it was nearly impossible that something had happened to him, but it was hard to imagine why he wouldn't do so if he were able to move freely.

"For a few hours," Kyle nodded at the window where sunset was still filtering in. "Start some siren or lights around midnight, rely on nerves to keep us up until then."

"Safe bet for them," Sarah muttered into the shoulder of his tee-shirt. "How do you know so much about this sort of thing?"

"You can't let them take the easy wins," Kyle adjusted his position on the thin mattress and began rubbing slow circles onto her narrow back. "It's just light and sound, annoying, sure, but they won't keep it up long enough to have any real psychological impact." Her muscles loosened slowly under his touch and she hummed and wrapped her arms around his torso, wriggling closer. "And, well, I've been on both sides of this situation. Right now we have the optimal position and they know it; they're soldiers the same as we are, just here for the job."

Sarah pushed herself up to frown down at him. "That is a civilian police force, not the military, and we are not just here for the job."

"They're close enough," Kyle ran his palms down the flexed muscles of her arms. "And I didn't mean it like that. We're here to stop Judgement Day and make sure Skynet is eradicated so that it can never happen. After that, though? Sign me up for peaceful obscurity." She relaxed against him, placated, and stretched up to run her fingers through his hair. It was peaceful, nice even, and he could almost forget the squad outside waiting to strike. Her hands felt amazing on his scalp, his skin and his hands found their way under her tank, kneading into the softness of her lower back. "What do you think-"

"I don't think I could, right now." She flushed warm against his neck and muffled her words against his skin. "Not with all those people outside, it's just a bit much, you know?"

Kyle took a minute to decipher the question she was answering and then gave the top of her head an amused look followed by a peck. "I was thinking more along the lines of a pre-emptive strike against our visitors before their reinforcements get here, say around three or four in the morning."

"Ah," Sarah fumbled with her words a moment, readjusting to the topic at hand. "You think they won't expect it?"

"Not in that time frame; it would be atypical." Kyle rolled them so she law beside him, his good arm winding under her neck and around her back. "But that relies on sleeping now."

Sarah dimpled at him and wove her legs through his, burrowing closer against his chest. "Okay." She felt his breathing even out in under a minute and when she glanced up under her eyelashes at him, his face was relaxed and peaceful in sleep, with none of the caution that made him look like an old soldier instead of a young man. Then she closed her eyes and let the quiet steady rhythm of his heart lull her to sleep.


The sirens woke them at 0:15 in the morning, a keening wail that rose and fell arrhythmically, punctuated by the renewed pounding of the ram against the door. Sarah slithered off the air mattress and propped the nose of her rifle on a crate that shielded their sleeping space from view, peering over the edge as she balanced on her knees. "Plan?"

Bullets popped dully against the roof, just another component to the din erupting around them and Kyle trained his weapon on the sealed rooftop entrance. "See if it holds." His skin crawled as he made out the scuff of footsteps above them, crunching over the leaves that had settled on the flat roof. All he could do now was hope irrationally that his glimpse out earlier hadn't disturbed the camouflage covering the door. "See if they can break through. The entrance should funnel them in to us." Sarah grimaced, indicating what she thought of being told to just hold tight, but it would be suicidal to go on the offensive at this stage, so she complied as the assault against their house raged on. The numbers on Kyle's watch had rolled forward two hours by the time the sound of boots overhead disappeared, though the sirens and battering against the door continued. Still, it was hard not to feel like the most present danger had passed now that the roof was silent.

Sarah hadn't moved from her position for the entire duration, and Kyle helped her stand on numb legs, swinging her onto the crate she had been hiding behind and she hissed as blood began circulating back to her lower body. "You were saying something about a pre-emptive attack?"

"I guess it's more like a counter at this point," Kyle crouched in front of her, massaging the jean-encased legs as they twitched back to life as she watched the door behind him. "There's no line of site from in here, we'd need to get up on the roof to have a good shot, and we'd be vulnerable to any snipers on the hill we came down, so there's a risk." She snorted at that and he smiled shyly up at her. "It's the only way out I can see, they're going to wear through that door eventually and if they bring in heavy artillery we're pretty much boned."

Sarah nodded, then narrowed her eyes, straining in concentration. "That was gunshots on the perimeter. Go on the roof now."

Now that she mentioned it, Kyle could hear it too, almost lost under the wailing siren and he grabbed the last of the pre-filled mags for their rifles, loading his pockets and adding two heavy pistols for back up. He split his load with Sarah and helped her up onto the crate he had positioned earlier, moving carefully to hop up beside her without stepping on her. The skylight slid open and he hoisted her up, pushing against the soles of her boots as she scrambled onto the roof, going prone and dragging herself out of the way so he could follow. The night air was cool on his skin, bathed in magnesium white light. As long as he didn't look down directly it wasn't too bad and behind the light he could make out general, urgent motions of their attackers breaking position and moving towards a single converging point.

Gunfire spit out flashes of light into the night and plopped into something that glowed wet and silvery and kept advancing despite the holes torn into its front. It returned fire from an old hunting shotgun. "Pops!" Sarah cried out, but the noise was lost amid the sounds of guns firing and the shouts of the wounded. She put her eye to the scope and chose her target. A man in the back dropped with a gurgle and those in the back ranks returned their attention to the house.

Kyle flattened himself against the roof, adjusted his grip on the handguard and set his eye against the optic. He tried to keep his breathing steady as chips of shingle spattered up in his face from a lucky shot and fired. Gunpowder and the puff of gas generated by the bullet's firing gets in his nose and he can do this, has done this often enough without asking if it was difficult or easy, if it was right or natural or just survival. He fired again and dragged himself along the dead leaves and jagged shingles to face in the opposite direction, seeking out their unseen assailants and picking off the dark grey shapes crouching by the ravine. A sniper, hidden in the trees, winged him, gouging another tatter in his tee-shirt and Kyle grunted, holding the trigger for a steady cascade of fire in the general direction the shot had come from. The siren was cut off abruptly, and his ears rang with the silence. A cluster of foliage moved and he swung his sights down, squeezing off a series of rounds. Something tapped his boot and he glanced over his shoulder at Sarah's tired, grime streaked face. "Clear?"

"Yeah."

"Good, get off the roof." Nothing returned fire from the dark woods and it made him uncomfortable. He hadn't seen anything definitive, the odds were against him having successfully hitting a hidden gunman firing blind into the dark, but perhaps the turn of the tide had sent them into a tactical retreat, to inform their superiors and await further instructions. Kyle raised himself to his knees, and when nothing happened stood to his full height, and turned to watch Sarah launch herself off the roof into the waiting arms of the Guardian below.

Pops caught her easily out of the air, swinging her down to reduce the force of the impact as she hugged him. "Where were you?" She demanded, prodding the Guardian in the chest.

Kyle lowered himself down off the roof more cautiously, hanging by his hands for a moment before freefalling the last three feet to the leafy ground. He straightened and looked around at the cluster of dead or dying men, and found himself too tired to feel anything. Sure they were human, not machine, but Sarah would have been dead by their hand just the same. He moved to the hot spotlights, exploring the back until he located a switch and flicked it off, killing the blinding lights one at a time.

"I was infiltrating the compound." Pops blinked down at Sarah. "The liquid metal in my system has some additional properties I am still discovering. I am sorry, Sarah Connor, for making you worry."

"Did it work?" Sarah chose to be pragmatic about it.

"Yes," Pops almost sounded smug. "I was able to join myself to the bottom of a truck going through the gate and explore the facility without detection."

"Did you find Skynet?" Kyle asked shortly. Now that they weren't stuck here, it seemed like a bad idea to linger.

"Not as we know it." Pops fixed his flat-eyed stare on Kyle. "The United States military has adopted Cyberdyne Systems for monitoring its nuclear facilities, but it does not have autonomous control and I do not believe it could evolve into independent intelligence within its current parameters."

"Are those parameters fixed, or is this just theorizing on your part?"

"Fixed; what we are looking for is not contained within that facility. What happened here?"

Pops redirected the conversation with a tone of finality that made Kyle nervous in a way he couldn't articulate. "I'd that that's pretty obvious, yeah? They found the truck and then found us."

"They were out looking for us, Pops. They're watching the roads, or someone is; they just about tripped over us." Sarah fidgeted with the canvas sling across her chest. "Why?"

Pops crossed to one of the dead men, rolling him over and looking down at the corpse's uniform. "Counter-terrorism unit," He announced flatly. "We need to move."

"Yeah, no shit," Kyle grumbled to himself and followed the pair back into the cabin, grabbing up the duffel he had somehow managed to hang onto since San Francisco and stuffing supplies into it.

Sarah was not as easy to distract. "Counter-terrorism? For us? Why?" She caught the items Pops tossed her and stuffed them into a bag of her own.

"Cyberdyne was considered a valuable government asset. It invested heavily in it for military and intelligence purposes. An attack on the facility would represent an attack against the United States Government, an act of war if perpetuated by another country."

She huffed a little disbelieving laugh. "That's ridiculous!"

"Not in this time. I will show you later." Pops looked around the cabin one final time and nodded, satisfied. "Come now." He led them back into the grey pre-dawn light, down yet another invisible path mapped only in his head.

Sarah shook her head slightly at Kyle when he offered her his hand, but stayed close as they trailed Pops down the mountain side. She reached for him in moment where her balance wavered, bracing against his arm long enough to sort her feet out or spare her busted ankle a few minutes, but the lines of stubbornness only deepened as they progressed until they emerged at a section of road that had been blocked off by unmarked black SUVs.

Pops nodded at the back one, "Sentry in the front, stay quiet." The shotgun rested weightlessly in his meaty hand as he brushed his free hand over the number panel on the driver's side door and the locks popped open.

Kyle dumped their things in the dark interior and climbed in the back seat. "Where are we going?"

"South Dakota." Pops waited until Sarah was strapped in to his satisfaction and then gunned the engine.