Set ten years after the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, John Connor and his mother, Sarah Connor, are off-grid and separated in 2005. While Sarah is at Norfolk, Virginia, for matters too personal to tell her own son, John is surviving on his o...
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After a lunch of roast beef and iceberg lettuce sandwiches, Mom disappears to the garage to pack the explosives in her SUV while Reyna injects Klevens with another sedative.
I should be looking over the floor plans and preparing for the worst possible, and I am, but how can I prepare when I don't even know what to do? How is Reyna supposed to return to her own time?
"Hey." I turn around to find Reyna with an assuring hand in my shoulder.
"I'm sorry." I blurt out.
Reyna cocks her head to the side. "For what? You haven't done anything wrong yet."
I sigh. "I haven't told you the entire truth, either."
Reyna leads me to the balcony, where the salty air calms the ocean in my stomach. "What is it?"
"I shouldn't have sent you on this mission. Because me and my mom....we lose people easily, and not on purpose. She lost Kyle. I lost my foster parents and Uncle Bob. And I'm terrified, Reyna, because I don't want to lose you, either. And don't say that I shouldn't worry and I know I'm not supposed to tell you what you need and deserve but I know that you deserve to have a second chance at your life.
"Don't take any of this the wrong way. If I had known how much any of this would hurt, I would not have sent you here in the first place."
I don't realize that I'm crying until Reyna embraces me and buries her head in the crook of my neck.
"Do you think it would have been better if your family was hurt?" She whispers in my ear.
I raise an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
She sighs hesitantly. "Your father, Kyle, was supposed to go on this mission, not me. I think you chose me to go on this mission because if anything happened to your father in this time and age, you and your mother would be hurt more than ever and never forgive yourselves."
My father was supposed to go on this mission? "Wh-Why? I don't understand."
"It's more simple than you think. John. You loved your father so much that you were willing to do anything to protect him. The last Homo novae solution? It was supposed to be administered to him, just like this mission. He was so angry when you wouldn't allow both, and I thought it was because he was your second in command, but I realize it's more than that."
"But it's so selfish of me to risk your life for his."
"Well, someone has to finish the job."
I kiss her temple. "When this is all over and you go back to your time, are we even going to remember each other? Are we ever going to see each other again?"
Reyna thinks long and hard. "I don't doubt that we'll forget each other. I guess that if all of this meant something, we'll find each other again. It depends on what we make for ourselves."
I press my forehead to hers, smiling only the tiniest bit. "Now where have I heard that before?"
