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 5

When Kate was very little, her mother Candace had insisted on sending her to camp Roosevelt for 8 weeks the summer before she stared 5th grade. To impress her father and not seem a wimp, she'd feigned excitement over the whole ordeal. But when the bus arrived that foggy morning, a longing tugged at her heart. An irrational fear that she would never see her home again.

It wasn't until now that Kate recalled those days of summer camp so vividly. That childhood nausea had resurfaced, and under the most unlikely of circumstances. It seemed so inconceivable in the immediate wake of Judgment Day that she could ever think of Crystal Peak as home. But it was. For the past two months, this place…and John…were all she'd known.

"You ok?" Kate jumped. She was finding it a challenge, getting used to her other comrades when it been just her and John for so long. She turned around.

"Sorry," Mike Kinsella said, sheepishly, pushing his glasses up on the ridge of his nose.

Kate shrugged, heaving another crate up on the truck she was loading. "No need. Just didn't see you there." she hopped down and regarded her new friend. Showered and significantly healed from when she'd first found him, it was easy to see the resemblance between Mike and Jo. Same oval face, big hazel eyes, glasses. The two were quintessential laboratory scientists…forced now to become warriors.

Mikey looked a bit like an embarrassed schoolboy as he shuffled his feet, struggling to say something. "Listen," he began, "I never really said thank you…for you know-"

But Kate shook her head. She didn't want gratitude…she didn't deserve it. "It's all right," she said, then hastily changed subjects. "Did you find anything useful?"

Crystal Peak had an abandoned research facility several levels below med-labs. During those first few nights, Mike had extensively educated John about the Gemini project and other Mercury-Tech experiments that were in preliminary stages before the bombs fell. Before they moved out, John told Mike and Jo to gather whatever they felt could be useful, particularly in recreating some of those experiments.

Mike gestured to his bulging backpack before he added it to Kate's pile with a slightly cocky arch of the eyebrow. "Plenty," he answered her. Kate chuckled and Mike again cleared his throat. "Although I don't really know what Connor plans on doing with all of it. I mean, what good is replicating human skin tissue against like, a million pounds of robotic weaponry?"

At this, Kate sighed, turning her head. For it was one in a very long line of questions about John that she couldn't answer lately. He hadn't said much to anyone in the past few days, save for the occasional order…and in her case, request. It was bad for morale. It worried her.

"He's got a plan, Mikey," she offered, "and when we reach new ground, I'm sure you and Jo will be the first to know."

Mike regarded her with a shrug, seemingly unconvinced, but didn't answer. Kate continued moving crates in the silence, hoping the conversation was over. But Mike spoke up again, "Have you two uh…known each other long?" Kate slammed another crate (this one held ammunition) and wiped off the sweat from her forehead on her sleeve. In vain, she struggled to find something else to distract them from this particular topic of conversation. The question, after all…had so many answers. "I'm sorry…I didn't mean to…" Mike trailed off uselessly, sensing his error.

"No…" she said, realizing she was frowning and made a weak attempt at a smile. "No, it's ok. Um…" she thought for a moment more and then decided, "No…only a few months."

Mike nodded, grateful for the out and deposited the backpack on Kate's table. He moved to help Kane further down the line of trucks. Kate was left alone once more, contemplating the question that still hung in midair, demanding a real answer. As she did, she noticed John moving at the other end of the bunker. He seemed in the middle of a routine weapons check, his eyes traveling over the clutter of chambers, triggers, and barrels, somehow making sense of the chaos. And even over a hundred feet away, she could tell that while his trained hands worked habitually on the weaponry, his mind was in a mausoleum, gaping at a grave bearing the name of Sarah Connor. Kate sighed.

"John says to ask if you need any help." Another voice, a new voice, startled her once again out of her trance. Kate looked up and blinked. It was the boy, standing in the bed of the truck, giving her a classic pre-teen look that challenged her as if to say- What?

"Well, I see you've decided to join us," she smiled. The boy didn't smile back and stood tapping his foot atop the crates she'd just loaded, waiting for instructions. Kate almost laughed at his impatience. She shook her head and planted her foot on the ground in front of her, pointing at the kid and then down to the floor. He nodded and hopped off, his head now significantly lower than hers and she handed him Mike's backpack. "Take this to John. Tell him it's Mikey's and have him look over what they found." He snatched at the pack and walked toward Connor's table. She watched in awe as John took it and nodded, watched as the child's face grew bright and vibrant as John issued a new command and he ran off towards med labs.

Kate didn't know how long she'd stood gaping after that. If John sensed her eyes on him, he didn't let on, and eventually she returned to her work. As she did so she felt her face grow warm and her stomach begin to tingle…Oh God…

"Try it now!" Rico called from beneath the consul.

Luke cued up the CB. "Testing, testing, 1- 2- Hey! That did it, kid. Come on up."

Rico breathed a well deserved sigh of relief, pushing himself out from underneath the main ops station. He and Luke had been attempting to reconnect the concealed uplink tower at the base under John's orders to devise a sort of reversed message-in-a-bottle. The object was to record an encoded message within the base systems that could inform and direct any other survivors that stumbled across Crystal Peak, without exposing Skynet to the source. Rico frankly couldn't see the point since these machines were supposed to be super-smart, but he relished in the challenge of recalibrating something more complex than a cash register.

Luke, however, understood. The goal was not to give away the crew's new position, but to inform whoever came along that it was indeed the machines that had turned. Martin Kane wasn't the only person who had doubted Connor's explanation that night. But it was increasingly evident that he was the only one among them willing to take command. Luke often found himself wondering who this man was. How did he know so much? How could someone so young look so old?…if he only knew. "Tell Connor we're ready to uplink."

"John!" Jo raced across the bunker, carting a bag behind her.

John turned from the set of lockers he and Kate had discovered early on in their isolation. Jo reached him, out of breath and held open the bag. "This enough?"

John glanced down. The duffle was packed full of emergency rations, gathered from the kitchens and freezers deeper in the base. John frowned, "Um…" he tried tactfully, "we're gonna need more than that-"

"Oh I know!" Jo said breathlessly, "Kane and I have 14 of these bags."

John smiled with a decisive nod, "'S more like it." He turned back to his work. Jo was about to leave but curiosity got the better of her. "What…what are those?"

John's eyes remained fixed on the locker in front of him, "Body gear. Armor, combat apparel." He felt Jo gulp behind him and he longed for the power to turn to her, ensure her it was just a precaution. But that was impossible. This young woman would one day need to don the gear facing her and feel the iron-cold handle of a gun in her hands. She would learn to fight and learn to die. It was all part of the grim reality that inevitably followed him his entire life. A reality to which Jo Kinsella and her other comrades now belonged.

"Ask Kate how long before the caravan is ready to move out." Jo nodded and he felt her silent gratitude for giving her something else to do. In the past 36 hours, John had discovered the secret to post-traumatic stress therapy. His orders not only ensured efficiency, but gave his entire crew something to keep their minds off of the Doomsday days still to come. In fact, the only one who seemed not to need such regimented distraction…was Seth. At the thought, John suppressed a proud grin. He was still the only one Seth seemed to respond to. And although John couldn't figure out for the life of him why, Seth was the only one of the group who seemed to exist solely to follow orders. Instead of the diversion they inspired in his peers, chores and assignments seemed to breathe life into the boy. And while a part of John recognized this wasn't exactly healthy…neither was hiding behind upturned cots.

When Crystal Peak closed down for the night, the crew was exhausted, having spent the better part of 3 days wiping the base of all its possible resources and preparing for the move at dawn. Continuously growing accustomed to his role, Connor all but ordered them to bed, while he resumed his nightly vigil at Operations.

"How much longer do you think we have?"

John swiveled around in his chair and was not at all surprised to see Kate, standing in the archway. He sighed as she walked forward and he turned back to the monitors, "Hard to tell. 2 days maybe? That's why I want to get moving tomorrow." Kate nodded as she drew up a chair beside him. John made a casual nod toward the crew quarters, "I'd move them out tonight if I could, but-"

"But they need to ease into it," Kate finished softly. John paused mid-sentence, the hints of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Kate looked down. She'd been finishing his sentences a lot lately…she used to do that with Scott. Moments more passed in silence. Finally, Kate leaned forward, resting her wrists upon her knees, an amused grin on her face. "So how'd you do it?"

John kept his head lowered but raised his eyes to meet hers, "Do what?"

"Seth."

This time, John did smile. Actually, even he couldn't really believe the transformation in the boy. For the first time, as he had observed earlier, the kid seemed alive. He looked up at Kate still waiting for an answer. He shrugged, "I gave him something to do."

Kate shook her head with a chuckle and leaned back. She stared at the ceiling as if she were staring at stars and sighed. "I hope you're that profound with our-" She froze.

John glanced up but didn't flinch. Kate however, blushed furiously as she kept her eyes glued to the ceiling. Eventually, she swung her gaze down and stared at the floor instead in the torturous silence that followed as she prayed her blunder would just mercifully pass.

John too, shifted uncomfortably but more out of frustration. Even in all their time before the call came from Mercury-Tech, this had been the one thing neither one of the seemed able to talk about. A prophecy that to both of them should have been a given by now. Truths they'd been avoiding all along.

"Later your children will become important…she's your wife…your John Connor's spouse and second-in-command." Kate shivered as that chilly, robotic voice filled her head like it always did whenever she was anywhere near him. It was the truth, wasn't it? Their future? Their life together? The Terminator had said so in his own tactless way, yet neither of them seemed able to address it out loud. John Connor's spouse. It scared her how something so seemingly preposterous could feel so…appropriate.

"I guess I'll…t-turn in," she whispered, suddenly hoarse. But she made no move to leave. Only sat, silently pleading for him to say something…anything. John winced as that awkward feeling tugged at his stomach. As if opportunity had opened wide for a brief second and shut itself tight again. He beheld her. She was beautiful; an observation as true as it was obvious. In fact, if John ever allowed himself to remember existence before Judgment Day, he could truthfully claim he'd thought so then…all those years ago. Could he tell her that now? Was he even allowed to feel this way? Was he capable of the words? "Kate," he murmured softly, leaning forward. But John never even had a chance to try.

The second attack began at 1:16am.

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