Disclaimer: I of course…don't own any of The Terminator legend. The world and its characters belong to James Cameron and the Hollywood powers that be. I'm simply borrowing them for a while.
T4-Connor's War
Chapter 1
"No fate but what we make." That was her philosophy. Six ordinary words-the very fabric of Sarah Connor's being. She lived by these words. Died by them. Words she'd prayed for…hoped for…and knew were wrong. Now her son, destined from birth to ascend to power in the wake of the nuclear holocaust; meant to lead the human resistance to victory in a war waged by machines that had risen above their creators…John Connor was left to claim the throne he never wanted. Become the legend his mother bestowed on him in his cradle. It had come. Judgment Day. And he was left to clean up the mess.
No fate but what we make. But that wasn't ever true was it? Sarah knew it. What a fool he had been. Thinking he could yet again stop the world from destroying itself. But he had counted on it. His whole life, he had counted on the inevitable. It was the only true way to survive. Yes, John Connor had counted on it all. The bombs, the screams, and the deafening silence that followed. The only thing he hadn't counted on…was her…
* * *
"Hang on everyone!" Kate shouted as she slammed the accelerator of the ancient RV and drove it over mounds of rubble. Visibility had improved since the end of the snowcrash. The air still stank of burnt rubber and death, but Kate couldn't tell much with her orange and black radiation suit fitted to her. Besides, she'd gotten used to it.
Her calloused hands yanked at the steering as she grinded towards Crystal Peak. 2 months, she thought despairingly as she chanced a glance behind her. 4 men, a woman and a boy, uselessly nursing wounds as they huddled in the back of the cabin, gripping handlebars as the RV lowed through the endless wreckage. 2 months since Judgment Day and this is the first sign of life.
There was a part of Kate Brewster that still clung like a schoolgirl to the belief that this was all just some outlandish nightmare. She'd wake eventually in the protective arms of her fiancée, Scott, and her problems would consist solely of how to get her father to take some time off to meet him…Daddy, she thought but shrugged it off, refusing to grieve the loss of the one man as she drove the RV over the graves of thousands.
Truth be told, that hopeful, wishful part of Kate was nearly gone. She knew now her place in this world…what was left of it. In a way, she had always known. She was Kathryn Brewster, and her place was with John.
John Connor had appeared at a party, on a night that could now only be described as fateful, 10 years ago. Students together in junior high, John gave Kate her first real taste of adolescence in Mike Cripky's basement. He was the perfect boy to be her first kiss. Delinquent. Rebellious. A total mess. Everything the General's daughter was looking for. But his presence in her life was merely a necessary event. One of those special moments in time that a girl would dutifully remember as she approached womanhood, but never dwell on. There was nothing really special about John Connor…except that he disappeared the next day. So when he stumbled into her animal clinic 3 months ago…only 3 months ago…Kate preferred the word coincidence to the laws of fate and destiny that had governed her counterpart for so long…but it was destiny. Hers and his.
"Kate," a voice cut in through her helmet, muffled with static. "Kate---you copy?"
She adjusted the frequency on the board in front of her. "I copy. We're entering the perimeter."
More garbled words answered her, but she was pretty sure she heard 'thank God' somewhere in the static. A grin tugged at her mouth, but never became a smile.
"Prepare for decontamination," she spoke both to the voice on the radio and her passengers in back as an image of shattered glass flashed in her mind…
"Are you insane? Kate, you're not trained for this."
"Neither are you," she snapped back, her arms crossed defiantly over her chest. She was nearly appalled. After 2 months…2 months of complete solitude, with only each other to keep themselves sane, John and Kate had finally reached out beyond their desolate wasteland in the Sierra Nevada mountains and found survivors. Together, they'd labored for weeks updating, repairing and modifying the base, tampering with old radios, broadening the signal while trying not to expose it to Skynet. John knew they couldn't stay here indefinitely. Skynet had access to every government secret ever conceived…but it would have to suffice in the immediate wake.
The call hailed from a research facility called Mercury-Tech outside the state border, just beyond the blast radius of the nearest target point. This was the beginning. The strengthening of numbers. The formation of the great Resistance…and John was seriously going to stand here and argue about which one of them would command the search?
They both knew the underlying issue of course. Words neither wanted to speak for fear of making them real. Kate refused to risk John's life, knowing now how important he was to be, on the very first mission…and John refused to be treated like a fragile object. In the end, Kate had won out, but not before John shattered an empty ration bottle against the wall in frustration.
Beneath the surface, Kate understood all too well why she had angered him. The transformation had been gradual, but constant since Judgment Day. His hardened façade. The shutting down of emotions. A single man forced to literally bear the weight of the world on his shoulders since boyhood, living off the grid; unattached from the humanity he was destined to save. A man…alien to the prospect of having to share that responsibility. She saw it in his eyes every time she argued, disagreed, hesitated. John Connor had lived his life knowing he would do it alone. John Connor was wrong. And she'd be damned if she allowed that to happen…
"We're approaching the south gate," Kate spat into her helmet, sweat beading down her face as she fought the uncontrollable urge to rip off her sweltering mask. When they finally docked and descended underground, Kate never thought she'd be so happy to see the base again.
As she emerged with their newfound crew into operations, John met her eyes with a solemn nod, his gaze brief but intense. Then, without a word, he ushered the survivors down the corridor towards a makeshift triage point in med-labs. Kate was left without a welcome, exhausted and alone.
But she felt neither rejected nor spurned. This was war and there were no pleasantries here. No room for breathy hellos or anguished good-byes…merely a nod. That nod was all she needed. A gaze that spoke volumes more than a welcoming embrace ever could, because it was meant only for her…for Kate; a look that screamed emotions the rest of the resistance would never see. For in that brief moment of her return she saw staring back at her not John Connor, leader of the resistance, but a boy in Mike Cripky's basement. A thief crouched in her clinic. Raw need and relief glowed ever so slightly as he turned from her and lead the new arrivals down the hallway. John's destiny may be to save the world…but Kate's destiny…was him.