"John…" Kyle tried to take another step forward but Sarah held him back, gun still raised. Her hand didn't deter him from finishing his thought. "That's…still you right?"

"I…" John leaned back against the wall, leveling a frown at the solider. "…don't know…"

"But you're not…about to kill us?" It hurt Kyle to even ask that. He didn't believe that John would turn on them, he couldn't believe that. John was still John.

Expression thoughtful, it took the resistance leader nearly a full minute to answer, running diagnostics a second time in fear that he'd missed something. "No."

"You're lying." Sarah still had one arm holding Reese back while the other held her gun steady. Her expression was hard, angry…distrustful. "We can't trust him, Reese."

"Sarah…" Reese started, turning his gaze to the young woman.

"No, Kyle…" John was the one who spoke then, turning all eyes in the room to him. "She's right that you can't trust me." He kept himself pressed against the wall, afraid that his body might move without his permission at any moment and strike down the two people most important to him. "I can't even trust myself. I…." He trailed off lowering his gaze. How much of him was lost in translation? How could he even know that this version of his was even entirely him? How much control could Skynet have over him that he didn't even know about?

Looking up again he spoke. "Right now…we need to get out of here…and then you need to get very far away from me."

"Look, John, just because something like this happened doesn't mean-" Kyle was cut off.

"Stop." The word was filled with exasperation and pain. "The last thing I want to do is leave you. But I can't…" He couldn't risk their lives, not because of his sentimentality.

"Ok..." Sarah finally spoke up, not daring to lower the gun yet. "So maybe you are still our John. How do you expect us to get out? The door won't open." While the resistance leader had lay unconscious on the ground both Kyle and Sarah had searched for some way out of the room. The only exit was the armored steel door that must weigh more than a truck with a locking mechanism that was beyond damaged. Neither wanted to accept it at the time but it had seemed that waiting for rescue was the only option.

Looking at her, the T-3000 shuffled along the wall towards the door, still afraid to move closer to them. The phase matter had made him stronger as a human…so it stood to reason that he would have a chance of getting the door open. Turning towards it, he slipped his fingers between the cracks like he'd done at the door in front of the Genisys hologram. Shutting his eyes, he focused on the phase matter.

Unlike before, calling it to his will was a completely different experience. Before, his human anatomy and the phase matter functioned almost separately; the phase matter he could control to an extent where his human side he could not. But now….he could feel every inch of the phase matter than made up his body. Without conscious thought it functioned as human anatomy would, mimicking the behaviour that it had for such a long time. But with only a thought, he could repurpose it to his needs.
The entire experience was so surreal that John nearly lost focus. To be able to control every single aspect of one's self…

Funneling the nanites to his arms, his hands rippled gray before he attempted to wrench the door open. The steel actually bent under his grip before the door inched open just a sliver. Letting go in surprise, he sucked in a long breath that was just out of sheer habit. Unlike the strain that was put on humans after great feats of strength, john wasn't feeling any burn at all. He certainly had to put effort behind the action, but there was no unpleasant after effect.

Setting his hands in place, he tried again, throwing all the weight and power in his body against the door. After a moment and a loud screech, the steel actually bent outwards. The door hadn't entirely opened for it was jammed stuck at the top. John had actually bent the entire bottom half of the door outwards, leaving room for someone to slip out into the darkness of the wrecked building.

Shocked by his own feat of strength, the resistance leader took a step back, staring at what he'd just accomplished before raising his shaking hands to look at them. Nanites still rippled in waves over his skin, making him uneasy and slightly ill.

"Holy shit…" It was Reese who spoke first, breaking the silence with an awed and quiet voice.

"That proves my point." John spoke quietly, lowering his hands to his sides and keeping his back to them. "It's too dangerous. I still don't know…what I am."

"Let's just…get out…find Pops, and then decide what we're going to do…" Sarah spoke calmly, finally lowering her gun to her side. If the T-3000 was that strong, what would a few meager bullets do anyway?

"There's no way he could have survived that explosion…" Kyle spoke then, tearing his eyes away from his friend to set a soft gaze on the young woman. "Sarah, I'm sorry…"

Swallowing, she quickly shook her head. "I know that. Of course I do. We just…can't leave any part of him behind for them to find." He voice came out rushed, like she was trying to choke back tears and succeeding. "That's all."

"Ok." Kyle nodded, hearing her tone and wanting to appease her. After all, her T-800 was like John to him and if their positions had been reversed he'd be saying the same. "let's go…"

...

Leading the way through the destruction and dark, John felt Kyle's hand on the back of his jacket. The halls of the sub-basement that housed the bunker were half crumbling and full of debris. And past the light from the room it was so dark neither Kyle nor Sarah could make out anything more than ten feet away. John on the other hand saw their path with clarity. It wasn't inferred, but it was similar.

Leading them to the left around a partial collapse, the T-3000 stepped carefully over a pile of rubble. "Step carefully. Debris." His voice echoed eerily through the dark in a way that made him want to begin whispering.

A quiet swear from Kyle behind him told him that his friend had not heeded his warning.

Going on like this, the resistance leader finally managed to find a way up that wasn't blocked and helped his parents through. Sarah was still uneasy in his presence, flinching whenever he touched her. He didn't blame her, it was a good thing really….but it made that sick feeling come back to him.

Finally reaching the upper levels, the distant sound of sirens and loud voices could be heard. About an hour had passed since the explosion and the emergency crews were out in full force.

With there being enough light now from collapsed parts of the roof, Kyle and Sarah picked through the rubble on their own. Approaching ground zero of the blast, Sarah picked up her pace. Most of the room had been obliterated, leaving flattened steel and dust that had once been cement. There were still pools of polly alloy though, nested comfortably in large cracks that had formed across the room. Damn, that stuff was durable.

They found Pop's wedged in between a steel beams and a large cement chuck a few hundred meters away from the central blast. The majority of his skin had been incinerated and what was not was charred and black. His left arm had been ripped in half leaving dangling wires and bent steel. His endo skeleton on the other hand was only mildly harmed but trapped under the debris. Eyes that should have been glowing vibrant were flicking a dim red, sometimes dimming for minutes before coming back online.

"Help me get him out…" Sarah had her hands of the cement slab before turning large desperate eyes to her son. "Please." Any fear of John she had was suddenly gone, replaced with the desperation to help her protector.

John could hear Reese quietly swearing behind him when he moved to the cement slab. Lifting it with little more than a grimace of effort, John let the debris fall aside to free the T-800.

"We can't take him like that." Kyle ran his hands through his hair. "It's not like people will just nod and look the other way when we walk out of here carrying a future murder robot in all of its glory."

Sarah shot the soldier a cold look before kneeling next to her T-800's metal frame. As much as she hated to admit it, Reese had a point.
Pop's suddenly pitched forward, causing the young woman to jump a foot in surprise. He was able to move on his own? In a moment she realized that it was not the T-800 that was moving but John who had begun dragging him by the foot.

"What are you doing?" Sarah spoke, voice raised in question.

Not saying anything, John kept walking, dragging the metal frame across the room.

"What are you doing? Stop!" The question had turned angry when she realized. By god, Pop's was still alive and John was going to destroy him. All fear gone, Sarah rushed forward, throwing herself into her son and trying to get him to release his grasp but the T-3000 kept moving. Remembering she had a weapon, the young woman whipped it out, leveling it at John and blocking his way. "I swear to god, I won't let you."

John regarded the young woman with a furrowed brow. "Sarah, don't waste your bullets." He reached forward with his free hand, gently lowering her gun. "Trust me on this."

Shaking her head, actual tears filled those large blue eyes. She kept the weapon lowered though, even when John stepped past her, taking the T-800 with him.

"John?" Kyle picked up his stride to fall in step with the man. "What are you doing?"

Again not speaking, the T-3000 reached the edge of a large crack in the ground that had filled with Polly alloy. Then, in a quick movement, he tossed the damaged terminator in.

Sarah and Kyle stepping up beside the resistance leader, all three staring into the glossy silver pool. Surprise leaving his expression, the soldier finally spoke. "…but…that won't destroy him…will it?"

Turning to look at Reese out of the corner of his eye, John gave his friend a tiny knowing smile.

Suddenly, a hand flew out of the liquid to grasp the cement side. Both human's jumped back in surprise, horror on their faces. Only John stood unphased, looking down at the emerging body.

Fear struck Sarah like a shaft of ice through her heart and thousands of thoughts ran through her head. The most prominent one being that John had led them here to be killed by a T-1000. But as the form climbed out of the pool, the shiny chrome quickly morphed into a familiar shape.

"Pops….?" The young woman whispered stunned, as the T-800's body finally finished taking form, the last of the silver changing into color.

"Sarah Connor." He barely finished the words before the young woman had flung herself into her protector's arms.

"I thought you were dead…" Sarah pressed her face into his false jacket.

"No." He reassured her, voice the same as it had always been. "Upgraded."

Trying to suck up the tears, Sarah couldn't help but continue babbling. "I was afraid…I thought…I…." She pulled away then, turning wide eyes to her son. John stood modestly by the silver pool still, the dim light making the sad smile on his face look even more forlorn.

"The polly alloy only needs a CPU to be programmed. I wasn't sure it would work…" His words mimicked his expression.

"And you didn't want to give false hope." Kyle finished for him.

"John Connor." Pop's turned his unwavering gaze at the man, sizing him up. At his initial scan and analysis his first reaction was to start a fight, considering the man's complete transition. Instead, he started a second analysis regarding his Sarah and everything that had happened. Sarah had called him off the attack, and according to recent events, he wouldn't be functioning if it weren't for the T-3000.
"It was your initiative that upgraded me. You could have destroyed me, why didn't you?"

John leveled that same sad gaze at the upgraded T-800, a small smile tugging at his mouth. "Because someone needs to protect them when I'm gone."

Authors note:
Phew. Took a few days of thought to get through this one. I think I know where I'm going now. We'll see how things go.

Also! My burning desire to write post judgement day wartime has been entirely sated by one of the best fics I've ever read. If you want John feels and just general good writing and terminator plot, go to Archive of our own and look up a fic called 'Across these days like deserts'. It's under the terminator (movies) Catagory. It's amaziiiing.

Another obligatory John/Kyle song because sharing music is great :P
A secret calling by I Exist
EMOTIONS

Wow I have a lot to say today. I don't know if anyone is interested but there's art for this fic. You can find it on my Deviantart account darkshadowolf or on my tumblr VijaThorn. (I'm a better artist than writer)