To the readers: I apologize. I am not controlling this story in the least!
It was dark – finally. John and Sarah had retired to their separate bedrooms to silently struggle with the aftermath of the event alone; with the rekindled emotions that seeing Kyle's face had brought them.
The others sat in silence for a long time, Derek watching the smoke from the fire in his memories crackle with sparks and rise, like a funeral pyre, to the dark sky above, where it wafted among the scattered stars and dissipated. That wasn't what the world was like now, and it might never be like that if they completed their mission – if they stopped Skynet – prevented Judgment Day.
How could they do it playing house with two Terminators?
Finally Kyle spoke. Derek jumped a little. "I know that look."
"No, you don't tin-head," Derek corrected him. "You don't know anything except what you've been programmed to know." Kyle didn't argue. "Riddle me this, toaster. Why am I here? What's my purpose?"
"I don't know," Kyle answered mildly.
"It made sense when you weren't around," Derek admitted. "It was the right thing. To take care of the kid, to watch over Sarah."
"It's no longer the right thing?" Cameron prompted.
"Not if what you claim is true. If you're really Kyle. If you're really my brother, his father, one of the only men that woman has ever cared about. Then it doesn't make any sense for me to be here."
Cameron looked off to the eastern horizon. The sky at the very edge of the land was beginning to lighten to the faintest shade of cobalt blue; otherwise the coming of foredawn was still indiscernible. "You have a purpose, Derek Reese."
"Oh yeah? What is it?"
Cameron did the most human thing yet. Her shoulders lifted and fell in the semblance of a shrug.