"The Unwritten Future" by Pouncer
Fandom: Terminator
Pairing: Sarah Connor/Kyle Reese
Length: ~5400 words
Author on LJ thepouncer:
Author Website: The Carousel
Why this must be read: There are plenty of variations on "Kyle Reese lives" fic, though I like the take on this one, which doesn't let you forget that John was Kyle's commander before he was his son, and that Sarah and Kyle aren't so much deeply in love as thrown together and making the most of their reality. This story only takes T1 into account (and was written well before TSCC premiered), but I would've loved to see it extended to include and further complicate later events.
Retreating from the dead thief, driving farther south into Mexico, they stopped to buy gasoline at a remote station, the first they'd seen in miles. Kyle went inside to roust the owner and returned to find Sarah negotiating with a small boy. He'd taken her picture and Sarah gave the boy four dollars for it.
She shared an amused smile with Kyle as she drove away from the station, then handed over the picture.
"What do you think?" she asked.
Kyle looked at the image and blinked. He watched the road unspool beside the Jeep for a hundred yards or so.
"What were you thinking about, when he took the picture?" Kyle asked.
Sarah shook her head. "I was thinking about what it would have been like, if you hadn't made it." She reached out and took his hand. "How alone I would have been."
Kyle's blood ran cold at the thought.
She never understood why he guarded that snapshot as if it were their most precious possession. He never told her the reason why.
* * *
The doctor handed Kyle the baby after he'd been weighed and cleaned. "Un muchacho, señor," he said.
Kyle looked down at John's tiny form, cradled his son close to his chest and murmured, "I know."
* * *
Lasers flash overhead that night, while Reese dashes from cover to cover. Skulls crunch under his boots, and he looks toward Perry's location. His commander gestures and Reese finds his position, waits for the ideal moment to spring their carefully planned ambush.
It all goes wrong. Reese fires his rifle, pulses of ruby energy lasing at their target, watches as more HKs converge on the battle. His unit is out there, is being killed one by one, and Reese has to save them.
He jerks awake, stretches out his arm to cover the empty space beside him, and wishes he could have spent the night with Sarah and John in the hospital.
* * *
Babies might as well have been the definition of helplessness. Tiny fingers, tiny hands, oversized heads too heavy for the fragile spinal column. No way to keep warm or fed without assistance.
The first year of John's life, Sarah didn't want to let him out of her sight. Kyle had seen mothers behave the same way in the tunnels; children were precious and longed for, the proof that humanity would survive the ravages of Judgment Day.
John did have Sarah's eyes, but Sarah cooed over the blond fluff on their son's head and told Kyle it must have come from him; she'd had black hair as a baby -- it had lightened as she got older. Kyle held John and rocked him to sleep and tried to block the knowledge that this child would become the man who led humanity back from the brink.
Time had never been the same since Kyle stepped out of a fused glass crater and into the streets of Los Angeles. Sarah asked him question after question about the future and Kyle did his best to answer since the smallest thing could make a difference. Too often he felt like he was living in a dream, an easy world of leisure, as though his childhood in the camps and teenage years learning to fight were a mirage. If he'd been alone, Kyle thought he'd probably have gone mad. Instead, Sarah's faith and their shared experience destroying the Terminator held them together.
The Unwritten Future
Pairing: Sarah Connor/Kyle Reese
Length: ~5400 words
Author on LJ thepouncer:
Author Website: The Carousel
Why this must be read: There are plenty of variations on "Kyle Reese lives" fic, though I like the take on this one, which doesn't let you forget that John was Kyle's commander before he was his son, and that Sarah and Kyle aren't so much deeply in love as thrown together and making the most of their reality. This story only takes T1 into account (and was written well before TSCC premiered), but I would've loved to see it extended to include and further complicate later events.
Retreating from the dead thief, driving farther south into Mexico, they stopped to buy gasoline at a remote station, the first they'd seen in miles. Kyle went inside to roust the owner and returned to find Sarah negotiating with a small boy. He'd taken her picture and Sarah gave the boy four dollars for it.
She shared an amused smile with Kyle as she drove away from the station, then handed over the picture.
"What do you think?" she asked.
Kyle looked at the image and blinked. He watched the road unspool beside the Jeep for a hundred yards or so.
"What were you thinking about, when he took the picture?" Kyle asked.
Sarah shook her head. "I was thinking about what it would have been like, if you hadn't made it." She reached out and took his hand. "How alone I would have been."
Kyle's blood ran cold at the thought.
She never understood why he guarded that snapshot as if it were their most precious possession. He never told her the reason why.
* * *
The doctor handed Kyle the baby after he'd been weighed and cleaned. "Un muchacho, señor," he said.
Kyle looked down at John's tiny form, cradled his son close to his chest and murmured, "I know."
* * *
Lasers flash overhead that night, while Reese dashes from cover to cover. Skulls crunch under his boots, and he looks toward Perry's location. His commander gestures and Reese finds his position, waits for the ideal moment to spring their carefully planned ambush.
It all goes wrong. Reese fires his rifle, pulses of ruby energy lasing at their target, watches as more HKs converge on the battle. His unit is out there, is being killed one by one, and Reese has to save them.
He jerks awake, stretches out his arm to cover the empty space beside him, and wishes he could have spent the night with Sarah and John in the hospital.
* * *
Babies might as well have been the definition of helplessness. Tiny fingers, tiny hands, oversized heads too heavy for the fragile spinal column. No way to keep warm or fed without assistance.
The first year of John's life, Sarah didn't want to let him out of her sight. Kyle had seen mothers behave the same way in the tunnels; children were precious and longed for, the proof that humanity would survive the ravages of Judgment Day.
John did have Sarah's eyes, but Sarah cooed over the blond fluff on their son's head and told Kyle it must have come from him; she'd had black hair as a baby -- it had lightened as she got older. Kyle held John and rocked him to sleep and tried to block the knowledge that this child would become the man who led humanity back from the brink.
Time had never been the same since Kyle stepped out of a fused glass crater and into the streets of Los Angeles. Sarah asked him question after question about the future and Kyle did his best to answer since the smallest thing could make a difference. Too often he felt like he was living in a dream, an easy world of leisure, as though his childhood in the camps and teenage years learning to fight were a mirage. If he'd been alone, Kyle thought he'd probably have gone mad. Instead, Sarah's faith and their shared experience destroying the Terminator held them together.
The Unwritten Future