Disclaimer: I don't own Terminator. AN: I have Kyle call his mother 'Mam' because that's the Irish pronunciation and Kyle's mother is canonically Irish. It's also canon (from Genisys) that he planned to return to his parents' house and rebuild it after the end of the war.

Chapter Ten

Of Photos and Memories

Several miles from Arcadia, California: May 15th (03:32), 1984

Kyle fixed his sleeve and pulled his coat back on as Sarah returned to her place at his side. He watched from the corner of his eye as she tugged her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around. She wore a troubled look and looked up at the ceiling, the dark circles under her sea-coloured eyes worsened by her pale complexion.

She looked exhausted.

Kyle himself was a bit weary, but he'd slept for about an hour the night he'd arrived, and he was used to doing intense missions on little-to-no sleep. Sarah, on the other, was not. Not yet at least.

"So, was John the one that sent you here?" Sarah asked finally, breaking the silence between them and glancing at him with a torrent of emotions in her beautiful eyes.

Kyle quickly shoved that thought away. His emotions were entirely inappropriate, on a dozen different levels, and he didn't want Sarah to know. She'd probably be appalled at worst, embarrassed at best. He didn't want to upset her more than he already had.

"November 30th, 2029," he replied after she began to frown, when he realized that he hadn't responded to her question. "John led an attack on the LA work camp while General Justin Perry took a strike force to destroy Skynet's central core. The attack on the work camp was partially 'cause we needed to distract the machines, and partially because John'd learned that was where the TDE was. The Time Displacement Equipment," he added as clarification at Sarah's raised eyebrow.

"We won, but we were too late. Skynet had already sent the terminator after you. Colonel Bedell suggested we send someone back to protect you, and John chose me out of the volunteers."

"Volunteers?" Sarah repeated, blinking. "You offered? Actually, several people offered to give up everything to come back and risk their lives for me? Why the hell would you all do that?"

"It was an honour," Kyle insisted, giving her a wide-eyed look of earnestness. "A chance to meet the Mother of the Resistance, the legendary Sarah Connor. John agreed that I would go, since he'd told me a lot about you, so it'd be easier for me to track you down then someone who had only heard the general stories."

Sarah surveyed him with a frown. "You and my son were close then? At least, I assume so if he told you stories about me personally."

"Yeah," Kyle replied. "We met when the resistance liberated the camp I was in, I was twelve. John shot a terminator right in front of me. First time I learned that they weren't indestructible. After that, he just kind of took me under his wing." He shrugged.

He'd never understood why John had taken a shine to him, but he was grateful for it. He'd been honoured to be trusted enough to be considered his left-hand man (Kate Brewster, his wife, was his right of course).

Sarah nodded again, craning her neck to look up at the ceiling and chewing on her bottom lip. "Why did you call me a legend?" she asked finally. "I mean, I get that I started this resistance of yours, but that could've been anybody. If I hadn't done it, I'm sure that someone else would've. I'm decent with a gun and all, but at the core of it, I'm nothing special. Certainly not a legend."

Kyle gave her a disbelieving look. Surely she didn't really think that? John had said once that his mother claimed her greatest achievement was giving birth to him, and that she wasn't important, but Kyle hadn't really thought he was telling the truth. How could she think such a thing, after everything she had done? Even if she hadn't done many of the things John had told stories about yet, she knew that she was going to found the resistance.

Despite what she said, creating and organizing a worldwide guerrilla army was not something just anybody could do, especially in his time.

"You're Sarah Connor," he emphasized the name. "Everybody in my world knows your name. You taught your son to fight...organize, prepare. From when he was a kid. When you were in hiding, before the war. Risked your life to try and stop Judgement Day. United the survivors against the machines after it happened. You never broke, no matter what happened. People call you the Saviour Mother, in my time."

Sarah swallowed and tapped on her knee. "You talk about things I haven't done yet in the past tense. It's making me crazy. I can't think." She paused and chewed on her bottom lip for a moment.

Kyle realized with a jolt that he was seeing beneath the confident, strong mask she showed to the world, to the vulnerable, compassionate side of Sarah. The part that had led to her taking in a young girl who had lost her family to the machines and raising her until that same girl had died, just months before her adoptive mother. The part that had regularly visited the medical wing and spoke as regularly to the grunt soldiers as she did to the officers.

She had been described by her soldiers as cold, but deeply caring, and willing to do whatever necessary to defeat the machines and reclaim their world.

"Are you sure you've got the right person?"

Kyle looked firmly at her as he nodded. He had memorized every line and curve of the photo of Sarah that John had given him. He had recognized her on sight. "Yes."

"How can you be so sure?" she pressed. "I mean, there must be dozens of people, probably hundreds, with my name. How can you be certain that I'm the right one?"

"John showed me a photo of you," he explained briefly. He didn't add that John had later given him that picture and he had spent night after night gazing at it, using it to give himself strength.

Sarah pursed her lips and looked away, drumming her fingers against her leg impatiently. "I don't know anything about organizing armies or guerrilla warfare," she informed him abruptly, anger lacing her tone. "I'm ridiculously disorganized, nine times out of ten I'm late to class or my shift. I have to set my alarm an hour early to avoid it. And I'm terrible with people. 'Ice Queen' is one of the nicer ways people describe me. This mysterious father of my kid better hang around for John's infancy, otherwise I'll probably forget to feed him and he'll starve to death!"

Kyle kept his expression even. John really did favour his mother a great deal. This reminded him of the times when the anger and frustration his general bottled up finally erupted and he lost his temper over something. It was best, as Kate had told him the first time it happened, to just stay quiet until the rant was over, then use reason to calm them down.

Sarah was still ranting, and she had jumped to her feet to pace in a tight circle. "Look, Reese, you seem to think I should be honoured to be this future saviour mother, but I didn't ask for this and I don't want it. Any of it!"

She finished off with a sharp jab in his direction and fell silent, panting mildly.

"John gave me a message for you," Kyle told her evenly, unfazed by her fury. "Made me memorize it. 'Sarah"...this is the message... 'Sarah, thank you for your courage through the dark years. I can't help you with what you must soon face, except to tell you that the future is not set... there is no such thing as Fate, but what we make for ourselves by our own will. You must be stronger than you imagine you can be. You must survive, or I will never exist. Thank you, as well, for the love and care you gave me. Had it not been for your example, I wouldn't've had the strength for any of this. We all owe our lives to you, and I am proud to be your son.' That's all."

Sarah stared at him, her lip trembling slightly as the enormity of it all finished fully sinking in. Her breathing was ragged as she silently sat back down beside Kyle, hugging her knees to her chest tightly and staring out the entrance with a glum expression.

"You should get some sleep," Kyle told her. "It'll be light soon, and we'll need to get moving again."

"Okay," she agreed softly. "Talk some more."

"About what?" Kyle asked.

"About where you're from," Sarah answered softly. "I need to know, to prepare John and be ready."

"Alright," Kyle agreed, clearing his throat. He paused to think about what to say before beginning to speak. "You stay down by day, but at night you can move around. The H-K's use infra-red so you still have to watch out. But they're not too bright. John taught us ways to dust them. That's when the infiltrators started to appear. The Terminators were the newest, the worst..."

Sarah fell asleep, her head resting against his shoulder as he spoke. A little while later, Kyle too drifted off into a light doze, though he remained as alert for danger as ever.

San Francisco, July 29th, 2029

With a roar an Aerial Search craft flew overhead. Its flashing red and blue lights and powerful search-lights stabbed down, looking for any traces of humans. The sight of it inspired terror in the hearts of anybody unfortunate to spot it.

But it was the earth that was a scene straight out of nightmares. White ash blew in drifts among fire-gutted ruins. Blackened bones lay everywhere in heaps. Searchlights swept the night and the ground Hunter-Killers rolled along, crushing the skeletons beneath their wheels.

Tucked away in some debris for cover, Kyle fired at the nearby H-K with his plasma rifle. Combined with his comrades' attacks, they took the machine down quickly and quietly.

"Let's go!" Colonel José Barrera, the leader of his patrol group, hissed. Kyle rolled onto his back and scrambled to his feet to join the rest of the patrollers. They stayed low and in the shadows as they returned to the nearby base, the light from their torches barely showing the ground in front of them.

They made their way to into a labyrinth of tunnels that had once been the sewage system of the city, back before San Francisco had been reduced to ruins. As he made his way through the various checkpoints, Kyle listened absently to the various voices speaking over his radio. Updates, reports and troop movements were being reported. As one of General Connor's most trusted soldiers, Kyle considered it his duty to keep abreast of everything going on in the resistance, to ensure nothing could crop up out of the blue to cause problems for the general.

Several of the members of the returning group separated at the different checkpoints to go to their own tunnels, and by the time Kyle reached his own tunnel only himself, his close friend Isabel Ferrera and the group medic, Allison Young, still remained.

He banged on the heavy metal door to his tunnel, reciting his name and ID number when the small hatch was pulled aside so a gun could be aimed at his head.

"Reese, DN38416," he declared. The hatch closed and the door was pulled open a moment later.

Kyle entered the smoky room, giving his hand to the German Shepherd to smell and petting it before continuing on to find himself a space to sit down and rest.

The tunnels were a depressing place to be. People could be heard sobbing and coughing, everyone was dirty and huddled close together for warmth.

Kyle passed a group of 'tunnel rats', children who had been orphaned and now had nobody to care for them, so they lingered around the tunnels doing jobs in exchange for rations while they waited to turn thirteen and become eligible to join the army.

The three children, their faces smudged with dirt and their ill-fitting clothes ragged and thin, were huddled around a TV that had been turned into a firepit, the glow reflecting on their downcast faces.

He finally found a small space and sat down, noticing a pair of boys, almost old enough to join the army, pouncing on a rat and lifting it triumphantly by the tail. A woman was sobbing loudly nearby. He recognized her as Anna Jeffries, whose only surviving son had been killed in action a week prior. She had been weeping and refusing her rations ever since. Everyone was certain that she would follow her three children and husband into oblivion soon enough.

Kyle ignored all of it, reaching into his breast pocket and taking out his most precious possession. The only surviving photograph of Sarah Jeanette Connor, Mother of the Resistance. It had been taken when she was pregnant with her only blood child. Her hair was tied back with a bandana and she appeared aware of the photo being taken, her expression determined and slightly sad as she gazed out at something unseen.

John had gifted it to him during the Nagadoches offensive four years before, and Kyle treasured it deeply. He was well aware of what an honour it was that John had entrusted him with such a precious picture. Just looking at it gave him the courage to keep going on.

She always had, after all. No matter what she had suffered, be it the loss of her lover (whom she had been deeply in love with from John's rare mention of his father) or Judgement Day itself, had kept her down. She had saved herself and son, and raised him even as she built up the resistance, uniting a hundred ragtag groups of survivors and teaching them to fight the machines.

Sarah Connor had been a goddess among women, and Kyle wished more than pretty much anything that he could have known her personally. Instead, he was forced to content himself with the picture of her and the stories told by the veterans who'd known her and the more personal stories John told him.

Her death while leading a supply convoy to Mexico had been a tragedy, even though her illness (cancer, it was believed, though they no longer had the equipment to be sure of the diagnosis) had been plaguing her for months beforehand. It was a testament to her strength that she had continued to lead the resistance (while subtly shifting more and more of her duties to her son) and going on missions despite her increasing weakness. Most hadn't even realized she was sick until a nurse had let it slip.

The sound of a dog barking loudly broke through his thoughts, making everyone's heads, including Kyle's, snap in its' direction.

"Terminator!" the sentry bellowed, moments before the infiltrator tossed off its' poncho to reveal its weapons and started firing in all directions. Kyle scrambled to his feet, gripping his plasma rifle. While the civilians all fled from the machine, Kyle ran towards it, with several other soldiers.

Powerbolts exploded among the fleeing people and beams seared the darkness.A running child was hit by a plasma bolt as he tried to escape and his body trampled on by the fleeing people.

Kyle ran straight toward the machine and as soon as he was within range he levelled his energy-rifle andstarted to fire. A powerbolt grazed his cheek, making a support column explode behind him. Part of the roof collapsed as Reese tumbled to the ground, burned and bleeding from the explosion.

Kyle was only semi-conscious with impressions imploding on him: running feet, flashes, energybeams raking the ground leaving molten worm-tracks, screaming, a dog howling.

His eyes managed to focus on his treasured picture. He reached out to try and grab it, but he was too late. It caught on fire and started to blacken and curl, Sarah's beautiful face withering away.

A noise forced Kyle to drag his unwilling gaze away from the picture, now little more than ashes.

The terminator loomed above him, a silhouette in the smoky, hellish glare. Its eyes glowed red.

'I'm gonna die' Kyle thought dully. 'I won't be able to rebuild Mam and Dad's cabin after all. At least I'll finally meet Sarah.'

His vision whitened out as an explosion racked the tunnel once more.