Tyler leaned his head back against the wall, smiling a little when he felt the warmth of Spinner pressed against his right outer thigh. Tonight they were staying the night at an abandoned warehouse.
A year had passed since he had left the Connors. A year since he had started this open war against Skynet and its development. He was so very tired and longed for some normalcy in his life. But what was normal? The end of the world was nearing, and it felt like he was running out of time fast. Unable to stop it.
He had learned so much this past year on his own by failure and by success. Stakeouts, blending in in crowds, hiding in the open. If you act normal, no one suspects you. Act suspicious and you draw attention. Become just another face in the crowd and walk away scot-free.
Early eyewitness reports had given fairly accurate descriptions of him, in later ones he had become a blur, a ghost. He reached for his sports bag and pulled out his laptop. It was time for a new life, a new identity.
The dog raised his head a little and wagged his tail.
“Who do you wanna be tomorrow, Spinner?”
The dog yawned, exposing a dangerous set of teeth, and put his head on his master’s leg, looking up at him with trusting eyes. In his self-imposed loneliness, Tyler found himself talking to Spinner like he was a person and not a dog. Like a friend and not the metal-detector he was supposed to be.
He scratched the dog behind its right ear and earned a paw. It caused him to smile: “You don’t care, do you? As long as you have your master to follow around, you don’t give a damn. Anywhere is fine, as long as I am there.”

John stopped in his tracks and looked back after he had passed by a diner and thought he had seen a familiar face. He walked back a few feet and took another good look.
His heartbeat quickened when he saw that he had been right. At a table near one of the windows sat a man sat a man bent over a newspaper, his hand closed around a mug of coffee.
Should he go in and talk to the man? Or should he keep on walking? And maybe come to regret it? After thinking it through twice he entered the diner and walked up to the table where the man was sitting, only to be greeted enthusiastically by a big German Shepherd that had apparently been laying at his master’s feet under the table.
He cleared his throat to draw attention but the man did not look up: “Tyler?”
Now the man looked up at him. It really was Tyler but he looking nothing like the man who had walked out on his mother and him over a year ago.
“John,” Tyler said in a low voice while he gestured that he should sit down across the table from him.
He slid into a chair and studied Tyler for a few seconds during which Tyler folded up the newspaper and took a sip of his coffee.
“How have you been?” He asked.
“Busy,” Tyler answered, taking a treat from his chest pocket and giving it to the dog who had resumed his position at his master’s feet.
“So we’ve seen and read,” he agreed in a whisper.
He watched as Tyler turned his head and looked out the window. Only now he noticed a big scar that ran parallel to his left eyebrow. A new one, one he had not seen with the other Tyler. Disappointment hit him suddenly when Tyler remained quiet; after a year of absence he had expected a waterfall of questions but none was asked. Then again this was not the Tyler who had left a year ago. This was a Tyler who had been on his own the past year, who had been making an loud and clear stand against Skynet and its development alone. Nothing like the warm and caring man he had been and everything like the cold and distant man he would become.
The lasting silence started to weigh heavily on him. He wanted to ask his friend, that is if he still was his friend, so many question but he automatically knew that he would not get many answers. After at least five minutes of quiet he could not take it any longer and broke the silence by stating with conviction: “She misses you.”
He hoped that he had guessed it right, that Tyler still carried a torch for his mother and that the detached attitude was only a façade. Tyler turned his head back to him and looked at him intently, a ripple of emotion undermining the cold expression on his face. Bingo! Nevertheless Tyler still kept quiet.
“Why don’t you come over for dinner tonight?” He offered hopeful.
Finally Tyler reacted: “I can’t, John.”
“You can’t? Or you don’t want to?” He asked pointedly.
“Can’t. Don’t want to.”
“Why?”
“Got other plans,” Tyler answered with a shrug.
“Can’t you postpone them? There will always be tomorrow to blow up whichever company you’ve targeted now,” he said in a whisper so only Tyler would hear.
“Is there, John? Will there be a tomorrow?”
From the way Tyler had said it, he could conclude only one thing: Tyler had a death wish already, not caring whether he lived or died. It was as he had feared: loneliness and war invited the presence of the nanoattrioids, slowly taking over their host, slowly destabilizing him. Without company, without love and care Tyler was slowly turning into the machines he was trying to beat. However the worst part was that he had no comeback for that.
“She’d love to see you,” he said instead, leaving out that their family situation had changed significantly.
He could tell Tyler about his little sister, Tyler’s daughter, but he could not risk it that Tyler would take off and disappear again. With Tyler back on the team, something he would need to do a lot of convincing for, his mother would be much happier, his little sister would have a father and he would have his friend and brother-in-arms back. There was too much at stake.

Sarah had just put her daughter down for a nap when she heard a car pull up to the house. Most likely it was her son coming home with the groceries she had sent him out for two hours ago, but she went to check anyway, never leaving anything to chance. With her right hand firmly around the grip of her Glock, which she always had tucked ‘condition one’ in the waistband of her pants, she went over to one of the windows, pushed the curtains aside a little and peeked out.
It was John’s car alright, and a feeling of relief ran through her. He was home safe again. She watched as he got out of the car, walked to the back of the car and opened the tailgate. A big dog jumped out and ran in circles around him, barking enthusiastically. She rolled her eyes; like they needed a noisy dog like that. Any second now her daughter would wake up from the noise and would start to cry.
Her attention was drawn when the door on the passenger’s side was opened, her hand gripping the Glock even firmer than before. Her breath caught in her chest and it felt like her heart had skipped a few beats before starting to thump wildly in her chest: Tyler!
Even at this distance she could see that he had changed. Not just his physical appearance but his body language as well. Visibly emotionally detached, dressed in a black T-shirt, black cargo pants and combat boots, he could easily be mistaken for the other Tyler. Immediately it became a source of worry and wonder to her.
“Damn nano’s,” she said through gritted teeth.
Upon seeing them approach the house, she trudged to the couch and sat down, picking up the remote control and switching on the TV. She had to appear unaffected by his reappearance in their lives, assuming that he was here to stay. Flipping through the channels until she found the local news channel, she listened intently when the front door was unlocked and opened. “Just talk to her,” she heard her son say. “Whatever she has to say, hear her out, okay?”
Tyler must have nodded, shook his head or shrugged because she did not hear him reply. Suddenly the dog bounced into the living room, jumped on the couch and rolled onto his back in surrender and in search of some affection. He reminded her of Sarge, the German Shepherd she had had when she had been pregnant with John. Sarge, who had never left her side, who had given his life the night another infiltrator had come to kill them. John had been about two years old, and she had naively been thinking they had been safe in the rainforests of Central America. It had been during that attempt she had realized the impact of the past on the future, how it could alter it. The infiltrator had known precisely where to look. This Skynet had known about her hideout, about her life, unlike the Skynet who had sent back the infiltrator to kill her in 1984. Sarge had bought them precious time and she had been able to escape safely with John.
The dog lay on his back, milling his front paws through the air in an attempt to get her attention. She smiled and scratched him over his chest, her eyes never leaving the door opening. Any moment now he could be walking in and she had no idea what to expect. It had been over a year since she had seen him last and their goodbye had been less than ideal. Still she would have rather seen that her son had called her in advance so she could have prepared herself for what undoubtedly be a painful meeting.
Finally he appeared in the door opening. She breathed shallowly; he was everything she remembered and more.
“Hello, Sarah,” he greeted her coolly.
“Hello, Tyler,” she greeted back, keeping any hint of emotion from her voice.

Tyler swallowed a few times. Seeing her again after such a long time had thrown his heart into chaos. Old feelings, of which he had thought he had buried them deep enough to never resurface again, welled up and threatened to undermine his steel composure. All he wanted to do was scoop her up and kiss her until they were both out of breath.
“I heard that you’ve been busy,” her voice gave nothing away about her feelings this very moment.
In a way it disappointed him. But had he really been expecting a fairytale reunion? Where she would throw her arms around his neck and kiss him silly? It wasn’t in her nature, just like it wasn’t in his. He scratched himself behind his left ear and waited impatiently for what was coming. Would she chastise him for leaving? Or would she give him the silent treatment? And why did it suddenly feel like he had never left?
Someone cleared his throat behind him and instinctively he whirled around, immediately in a defensive crouch, ready to strike, only to see John standing a few feet away from him with a baby in his arms. He smirked; that was so like John. He could just imagine the surprise and anger on Sarah’s face when John had to tell her that she was going to be a grandmother at thirty-six.
“Cute kid,” he said, suppressing the urge to burst into laughter. “Yours?” He asked while he fought to keep a straight face.
John shook his head and sent him a smile he could not decipher before he walked past him to hand the little girl to Sarah. It started to dawn on him.
“Tyler, meet Wilder Storm, your daughter,” Sarah said with a distant smile that resembled one of victory the most.
All his thoughts stopped. His mind went blank, immediately followed by a weird increase of pressure on the sides of his head. It wasn’t the nanoattrioids. It was something different. The room was spinning. He had a kid? The end of the world was upon them and he had a child who would carry the legacy of the world burning.
He tried to swallow but his mouth and throat had gone dry as the Sahara desert. He couldn’t breath. Suddenly he began to shake all over.
“Hey, you okay?” John asked concerned. “You don’t look so good.”
A familiar feeling in his head made its presence known. The machine was coming.
“Now is not the time,” he hissed to himself through gritted teeth.
Spinner whined and jumped off of the couch before taking off. Sarah frowned and he could feel her study him: “John, leave… Now!”
“Mom?” John asked confused.
It became harder and harder for him to breathe but he had to fight it. The machine should not win because he didn’t know what he would do. Cold sweat streamed down his back, his shirt clinging to his body. The muscles in his upper arms flexed and twitched. His knees buckled and he found himself falling to his knees. He didn’t want the machine to win. The machine didn’t want to lose. Sharp pains in his head blinded him and he pressed his hands to the sides of his head.
“John, now!” Sarah ordered, wrapping her arms protectively around the little girl she was holding.
“But, mom?”
“He won’t hurt us,” she said determinedly. “It wants to, but he won’t let it happen.”
“What? The machine?” John sounded more confused than before.
The world began to blur and fade into darkness. Fear struck his heart; if he passed out, he would have no control over the machine. Until now he had always managed to control it, aside from the one time he had attacked the other Tyler, but this was stronger than ever before.

Sarah could do nothing but watch while Tyler fought with the demon inside of him. Everybody had their demons to face, but in Tyler’s case it was a little too literal. It wasn’t something he could run from and from the looks of it, it wasn’t something that was easily contained either.
Her heart ached for him when she saw the inward struggle between man and machine. She had seen the effects of the machine in the other Tyler. How, in spite of his efforts, it slowly won ground on its host. They should not have blindsided him. Surprises like this triggered strong emotional reactions and in Tyler’s case it could lead to a killing spree.
Yet she was determined to sit this out with him, keeping an eye on him and if necessary she would kill him. The other Tyler had told her about Skynet-mode. If Tyler were to see her son, he would become Tyler’s primary target, or so the other Tyler had told her. If that were to happen, she would be left no other choice but to put a bullet in his head. She sincerely hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
A sigh of relief crossed her lips when she saw him fall over and pass out. The danger had subsided, for now. She took in the room and saw John standing rooted to the floor.
“Next time you do what you’re trained to do. You run,” she told her son angrily.
John gulped nervously and she noticed his eyes were drawn to the still form on the floor: “Is it over?” He asked, his voice catching a little.
“You know as well as I do that it’ll never be over,” she hissed, holding Wilder close to her on one arm, drawing her Glock with her free hand before aiming the handgun at Tyler. “It’s in him and it won’t leave until he’s dead.”
“And I did that to him,” he mumbled with a deep sadness in his voice.
“You did what you had to do, John,” she said firmly. “It’s no use crying over spilled milk. You deal with it and move on.”
“That’s easy for you to say, mom,” he countered.
“Is it?” She asked, raising an eyebrow sardonically while she looked at him intently.

“You’re mine,” a mechanical voice carried in over the bluish-white mists that rolled in from out of nowhere.
He sat on his knees, trying to catch a full breath: “Never!”
“Will you join us?”
The mechanical voice had a point. Things would be so much easier if he were to surrender and join the other team.
“And the fun in that would be what?” He asked haughtily.
A pair of glaring bright red eyes appeared over the mists, casting their eerie glow into the darkness that surrounded them.
“No more pain,” the voice answered. “The harder you fight it, the more pain the machine inside of you will inflict upon you. No more war. Kill John Connor, and it will all be over.”
“Never!” He growled furiously.
Suddenly he found himself unable to move. The mists retreated a little and he found himself in shackles.
“You are bound by destiny,” the voice said monotonically. “Break the chains, set yourself free. Kill John Connor.”
“I’d sooner die than give up John Connor.”
“Foolish human. He will betray you and take away everything you ever cared for. He will ask you to stand down and let fate take its course. Side with us.”
He fought against the chains that bound him. A chain was only as strong as its weakest link, but so far he had not discovered any weak links.
“Give us John Connor… Give us John Connor and all this will go away.”
“Never!”
Mechanical laughter ensued. Now the mists parted, revealing a path of white light. A small woman dressed in a black leather jacket, a black tank top, blue jeans and multiclasp boots came walking towards him. Sarah! His heart skipped a beat. Then he realized there was something off about her: her walk. The determination in her stride was missing as well as the slight sashaying of her hips with each step.
“You’re not real!” He exclaimed as she came closer and closer.
“Give us John Connor,” the voice said slowly. “And she will be yours.”
“Where’s my son, Tyler?” She asked in a sweet voice after she lifted his chin with her left hand and made him look into her eyes.
“Not here,” he answered mockingly.
“You don’t know… You don’t know,” She taunted.
“Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you, you terminator bitch!”
The darkness around him cracked like a breaking window and glass shards came raining down on him, cutting him but no wounds showed.

John watched from the recliner as Tyler thrashed around violently on the couch. The dog lay on guard in front of the couch, letting out a pitiful yelp from time to time.
“Spinner,” he said to break the dog’s attention when he saw Spinner get ready for another gut wrenching howl.
The dog looked at him, wagged his tail a little and put his head on his paws again. John knew that dogs detected metal, but in this case Spinner was there for another reason as well. The dog could tell when his master was about to be taken over by the nanoattrioids.
He heard a noise coming from the door opening and he looked over his shoulder to see his mother standing there, leaning against the door post with her head and shoulder, her arms crossed, looking at him and Tyler. Spinner jumped up and went to greet Sarah, pressing his nose against her forearms. She smiled, uncrossed her arms and scratched the dog on the top of his head.
It was hard not to be envious because usually dogs would seek him out instead of his mother, but Spinner insisted on getting attention from his mother. Did it mean something? Or was he looking for ghosts?
Low groaning foretold Tyler regaining consciousness and he turned to look at his friend. Where did that Desert Eagle come from? When they had dragged him to the couch, they had searched him for concealed weapons. Two Beretta’s and one hunting knife. He expected Tyler to point the gun at him but to his surprise Tyler was aiming at Sarah.
“Terminator bitch!” Tyler growled.

Sarah straightened her back and looked at Tyler. She knew where he had gotten that Desert Eagle from. It would not surprise her if the gun she had taped against the underside of the couch was gone.
“Tyler, put down the gun,” she said in a calm and soothing voice while she raised her hands to show him she wasn’t there to hurt him.
How often had she pulled a gun on a foe? Only to discover there was no one there. Nightmares about killer machines chasing you and your son, nightmares about the end of the world did that to you. However in Tyler’s case the foe who had tormented him in dreams was very real.
It wasn’t the first time someone had a gun pointed at her. She had been stunned, shot, stabbed, sent flying, in car accidents more times than she could actually remember. A wry smile formed on her lips when she remembered the man she had fooled and disarmed by asking if he had seen a Dachshund puppy. Somehow asking Tyler if he had seen a Dachshund puppy would be ineffective.
“Calm down, Ty,” she said gently. “It was just a bad dream.”
He shook his head and looked at her again. The nightmare had left him in a haze, in a state of mind where he could not tell what was real and what was a figment of his dream. A very dangerous state of mind because he could easily pull the trigger.
She did a firm step towards him, knowing very well if he judged it wrong she would end up with a bullet wound or worse.
“It’s all okay,” she whispered.
A feeling of relief ran through her when he lowered the gun and secured it. The nightmare had left him and he could see again what was real. A deep sigh escaped her. It was never boring in the Connor household.
“Mom,” John rushed to her side.
She could hear that he was upset. He pulled her Glock from the waistband of her jeans and showed it to her: “You have a gun…Why didn’t you pull it?” He wanted to know.
“It would have made matters worse, John,” she answered.
She could have pulled her gun and aimed it at Tyler, but chances were that at the threat Tyler would have pulled the trigger. He wasn’t the Tyler who had left them about a year ago. In fact he was a lot like the Tyler who had lain down his life to save theirs. He would not hesitate to shoot to kill if the situation asked for it. If he was already this far along, it could only mean one thing: he had killed another human in order to survive.

The nightmares had grown into full-blown night terrors over the years and he knew that it had to do with what was stored on the nanoattrioids’ chips. Memories that weren’t his came to haunt him in his sleep.
After the mists of dreams had dissolved, he had seen who he really had aimed at. The Sarah in his dreams had not been real. It had been that liquid metal monster Sarah had emptied clip after clip into it on the night the other Tyler had died. Bullets had not harmed it or even damaged it. It had absorbed the bullets.
He let himself fall back on the couch and looked at the ceiling. His mind wandered back to the morning when Cameron had suddenly reverted to her original programming and had killed Derek before moving on to John and him. It had become a mad day with Cameron hot on their tail, and Sarah close behind Cameron.
"You can't fix her, John. The chip's been overheated. She's gone," TJ said slowly without feeling a hint of regret for taking John's protector down. "It's over."
John had resented him for destroying Cameron that afternoon. Did John still keep the chip as a momentum of that fateful day? Did he still resent him? Or had John come to realize over time that Cameron, no matter how extremely sophisticated her programming had been, had only been metal?
He remembered the furious look in John’s eyes that night when they had burned her at a car junkyard. Had John even cared that the killing machine had killed Derek? It was an unfair question because of course John had been upset that Derek had been killed and by no one less than the machine he would send back to protect them. His mind and heart had just been clouded by the pretty face Skynet had given this particular infiltrator.
Tyler could understand that Cameron had been able to turn a head or two. She had not been too bad to look at, but unlike with John she had not been his type. Besides he preferred flesh over metal, a warm body over a cold one.
He had seen a lot, learned a lot the year he had been on his own. Good things and bad things. All things he had needed to put into perspective alone and it had made him blunt. Pain, physical and emotional, were things you allowed yourself to feel, so he had learned to disconnect it. Without the influence of pain, things had gotten a lot easier.
Sick to his stomach after he had been forced to kill another human being for the first time, but the man would not let up and his instincts to survive, strengthened by the nanoattrioids, had kicked in.
One night, while staking out the next company on his list, he had stumbled across a drunk hobo trying to rape a college student. He had put a stop to it, earning himself a switchblade between his ribs. After he got stabbed, he had snapped the hobo’s neck like it had been nothing else but a twig. It had been his virgin kill. He had expected a reaction from the nanoattrioids but they had remained awkwardly quiet in the background. They had been designed to take over and sent their hosts on killing sprees. It had not made sense until he figured out that the other Tyler, whose blood had infected him with those things, must have killed humans too. If only to survive the horrors of the future.

Sarah was taken aback by how distant and calculating he had become during his absence. She remembered the young man who had sat at their kitchen table the night his life had taken an unexpected turn for the worst. So very different from the man he was today. Since he had returned ‘home’, he had already suffered from a nanoattrioid-attack and a nightmare. The two combined she considered to be a sign of a destabilizing mind, fed by anger and hate.
It would not be easy to convince him to stay and join forces with them again, but she had to give it a try for the sake of the future, for her son’s sake. He had hardly said a word during dinner and had barely touched his food, pushing it back and forth across his plate with his fork. Now he stood watching out the window in a similar manner as the other Tyler had done, ever vigilant, missing nothing.
“You can stay the night if you want,” she offered hopeful.
“Nah, it’s time for Spinner and me to go,” he replied. “Still a lotta companies to blow up.”
She felt disappointed for a few seconds. Had she really expected a different reaction from him?
“Ty?”
No reaction.
“Tyler?”
Still no reaction.
“Devlin?”
“I heard you the first time,” he stated with an unfamiliar harshness in his voice. “What?”
She kept quiet for a moment, trying to find the right words. She could have countered in a similar manner, but it would only lead to a new argument with him, and that was the last thing she wanted right now. Had she really been thinking that once he had seen his daughter he would cut back on the badass I’ll-do-it-myself-attitude and come running to her, asking to be forgiven for his time away? She knew she wouldn’t.
He had declared war to Skynet in the present. Anything that could weaken him he had blocked, whether it be an emotion or a thought. War touched people, changed people, killed people.
“What made you so cold?” She asked hesitantly, already fearing the answer before she had finished her question.
“War, death and destruction,” was his answer.
I’m a monster, forged in the heat of battle, formed and defined by war, death and destruction, echoed through her mind. Words spoken by the other Tyler. Words that now applied to this Tyler.
“The Tyler before me,” he continued. “He gave his life for you. He saved your sorry ass because… Because he loved you so.”
“And now you do,” she sighed.
He smiled faintly before he shook his head: “Not anymore. Love is an illusion, meant to give the fools hope of a better tomorrow, a better world.”
She walked up to him and wondered if she should put her hand on his shoulder to let him know that she was there. His denial of his love for her had come as a blow to the stomach. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and somewhere deep down inside of her still slumbered that silly college girl who had been a hopeless romantic.
“We never had a chance,” she remarked sadly after clearing her throat.
He took a deep breath: “We had… But you nipped it in the bud… I was crazy about you, but you never gave me a real chance. Maybe it was my age. Maybe it was because I was a little punk. However you toyed with me, screwed with my mind, used what I felt for you against me to have your night of pleasure.”

He did not dare to look away from the window. Untrue words as a shield to guard his heart. Detached and unemotional. Lie stacked upon lie as a last defense. He still loved her. He would always love her, but he could not see them together again. Too much had happened. Too much had changed for that to be possible.
“Wilder will need her father,” she stated firmly.
He nodded and said in a soft voice: “I’ll be around.”
“So you’re gonna stay?”
He could hear hope arise in her voice, and his heart ached because there was nothing he wanted more than to stay and see his little girl grow up in a world of which time was running out.
“Nah, but I won’t be far away,” he answered. “Whatever she needs or wants, I’ll give but that’s where my commitment ends.”
“I see.”
The tone of her voice did not bode well.
“We can’t go back, Connor, and pretend this never happened. Unless sex is no longer required to get pregnant the natural way, we did sleep with each other and because of that we got a kid.”
“What do you want, Devlin? An apology? Well, I’m sorry that you were too immature to understand it,” she hissed, giving him a rough push on the shoulder.
“Understand what?”
“You’re not alone in this war. You’re not the only soldier. I’ve been fighting long before you were even born. I’ve lost Kyle and I’ve lost Charley… I couldn’t afford to lose another man I loved.”
“What’s next?” He asked sarcastically. “You gonna tell me that my date didn’t cancel because of work but that you told her to cancel?”
His heart began to race when she kept quiet: “Tell me you didn’t!”
“I didn’t… It was just luck of the draw that she did… I knew that the other Tyler loved me and that it meant that you would come to love me one day as well. I just never thought that day would come so soon.”
Her sudden honesty caused his determination to crumble a little and before he realized it, he said: “I’ve always loved you. First as the heroine in my mother’s fantastic stories. I used to imagine what you would look like. And then I met you in real life and you surpassed all my expectations and imaginations.”
An awkward silence followed. He couldn’t believe he had blurted that out. Now she knew that all he had said earlier had been nothing but lies to keep her at a distance.

She came up to his left side and tried to down his attention but he simply turned away from her. For a moment she felt like Sarah Jeanette Connor again. He wasn’t lying or telling her sweet words. She knew that he had not meant to be say honest or ever say those word aloud, but he had.
“I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have said that,” he muttered with embarrassment.
She walked over to his right side and gently placed her right hand on his left cheek, her left hand on his right shoulder, softly urging him to face her. The warmth of his breath caressed her thumb as she slowly ran it over his lips.
Finally he turned towards her, hanging his head in embarrassment. Words he had wanted to remain unspoken had been spoken, and even though her heart somersaulted with happiness, there was a deep sadness to it as well. She had been in this situation before, with another fighter for their cause. One night was all she had had with Kyle. Would one night be all they would have?
Technically that was impossible since they already had had one night together but this was not the Tyler who had stormed off a year ago. She looked at the scar that ran parallel to his left eyebrow. Most likely a do-it-yourself suture job. It was one the other Tyler had not had, and she knew it was because he wanted to change the future singlehandedly.
Her right hand slid down from his cheek to where his neck and jaw met and she used her thumb to lift his chin a little. Her eyes searched for his, and she felt a tear slide down her face when she caught the hard, determined look on his face. He was building up walls faster than she could break them down.
She rose to her toes to bridge the distance between them and pressed her lips against his. Her heart ached when he didn’t respond: she was putting her heart on the line and he wasn’t answering. Again she closed the distance between them, this time only brushing her lips against his.
He looked at her for a few seconds. If he were to turn her away now, he just could go and rot in hell for all she cared. The wind got knocked from her lungs when he suddenly pulled her into a tight embrace that spoke of his despair. His lips crushed hers in an intensely passionate kiss that left her mind reeling and her knees buckling. It was like the emotional dam broke, the walls he had been building to keep her out came tumbling down. With his left arm tightly wrapped around her neck and shoulders and his right arm around the small of her back, they stumbled into the wall.
He was now kissing her with unrestrained passion, hardly leaving her any time to catch a full breath. Her blood was roaring in her veins, drowning out any noise from the outside world.
Suddenly he broke away from the tight embrace. She glanced at him with confusion clearly written on her face. Was he having second thoughts? Was he exacting his revenge for her turning him away last time? Disturbing thoughts and questions flooded her mind until he picked her up and carried her up the stairs to her room, gently easing her down on the bed as if she were some frail woman instead of the badass warrior she actually was. She watched as he backed away and pulled his shirt over his head only to toss it aside carelessly, revealing a chest and stomach covered in scars and burn marks.
He smiled a little, even looking a bit self-conscious. She wondered what had brought that on. Were it the scars and burn marks? Or was it something else? She could ask him but she feared it would kill the mood so instead she held out her hand to him, encouraging him, inviting him to come to her.

He closed his eyes drowsily, just needing some time to recover. For some reason he had expected to feel like a sellout, but he didn’t. He felt a shift in weight and instinctively knew that she was leaning over him.
Expecting another kiss, his breath hitched in his chest when he felt her run her fingertips along the sides of his chest and under his arms. His eyes snapped open and he turned to look at her before he looked down puzzled.
“What are you doing?” He whispered.
“Tickling you. In a second, you will be begging for mercy,” she laughed.
“I’m not ticklish,” he stated convinced.
He fought to keep a straight face while she continued to tickle him at his sides, trying to look like it was sorting no effect on him but soon it was a lost battle. Unable to stop it, his lips started to curve upwards.
“Don’t fight it,” she giggled happily.
A grimace spread across his face while he tried to resist. The grimace turned into a grin. No longer to fight it off, he burst into laughter, squirming and wiggling in an halfhearted attempt to escape: “Have mercy,” he muttered out of breath from laughing when she would not let him escape.
He frowned when she giggled again and feared what she had in store for him now. She continued to tickle him and he laughed even louder until she silenced him with another scorching kiss, causing his heartbeat to shoot through the roof.
Abruptly she ended the kiss and backed away. She was probably done playing and wanted some rest, he concluded while he closed his eyes again. Her tickling had drained him from the last bit of energy he had left. If she wanted to catch some sleep, it was fine with him. He could do with some sleep too.
However he was mistaken. A low growl rose from his chest when she straddled his lap, her knees pressing firmly in his sides, and he opened his eyes a little. She took his hands, looked at them before lacing her fingers through his and leaned down to steal his breath away with a heated kiss again.

John stretched himself lazily when he entered the kitchen the next morning. A deep frown creased his brow when he found Spinner sleeping on the floor. Last night he had gone to his room after dinner to analyze the latest technology reports. It was important to know where they stood with the technological advancements. The last known Judgment Day had been April twenty-first, two-thousand-eleven, but Tyler had undoubtedly changed it when he decided to go on a nationwide bombing spree. Had he changed it for the good or the bad? Delayed it or hastened it?
The only time he had looked up from his computer screen had been when Tyler had suddenly burst into laughter. Thinking nothing of it, he had assumed that Tyler had been told something funny. He knew his mother to be extremely witty if she was given a chance.
He trudged back and looked into the living room. Maybe Tyler had crashed on the couch after deciding it was too late to return wherever the hell he had been staying? The living room was empty. Maybe Tyler had woken up early and gone out for whatever exercise he would need to do to stay in shape?
He turned back and went into the kitchen again. Strange, usually his mother would be up and have breakfast ready by now. She always rose early and would be ready for a new day by the time he would get downstairs to have breakfast.
Spinner woke up, got to his feet and came to greet him.
“Hey, boy,” he said warmly while he patted the dog on the neck, earning a lick over his hands.
He went over to refrigerator and rummaged through it. If his mother had not made him breakfast yet, there was no other option than to make it himself. Spinner sat down next to him, looking up at him.
“You hungry, boy?” He asked, smiling at the dog’s subtle begging.
A distant noise caused him to be ultra-alert suddenly and he strained to listen. The noise increased in volume and he realized it was coming from upstairs. His stomach flipped, making him lose all appetite when he realized what he was trying to listen to. He grimaced with disgust and placed the breakfast he had been making for himself in front of the dog who started to eat it greedily.
Old people didn’t have sex, did they? Not that his mother was old, but the thought of her having sex was too sickening for words. Despite his need for coffee and breakfast, he needed to get out of the house.
“You wanna go for a walk, Spinner?”
The dog barked happily and he looked around for the dog’s leash, leading to new sickening thoughts until he remembered that Spinner didn’t have a leash, following his master’s commands obediently. He relaxed a little and opened the backdoor. Spinner shot past him, out of the house, out of the yard.
Great, he thought. Just what I need, a runaway dog.

When he returned home with an exhausted dog about forty minutes later, he found his mother preparing Wilder’s morning bottle. The house smelled of fresh coffee.
“Morning, John,” his mother smiled radiantly.
Oh brother! He rolled his eyes: “Morning, mom,” he mumbled. “Where’s Tyler?”
“Sound asleep.”
“I bet,” he remarked without thinking.
“What?” She laughed nervously while she turned bright red in the face.
“Oh nothing. Just wondering where he slept since I didn’t see him on the couch,” he grumbled as he sat down at the kitchen table. “Thanks,” he said when she placed a mug of steaming coffee in front of him.
He watched as she went back to preparing Wilder’s morning bottle. She seemed differently this morning, and he did not want to think about what had caused it. It grossed him out.
“He slept in my room,” she finally said.
“Mom,” he exclaimed upset.
Instantly he was reminded of what he had heard earlier and he shuddered.
“What?” She asked innocently, checking if the bottle had the right temperature.
Before he could say anything about it, Tyler walked into the kitchen, only wearing his jeans. John buried his face in his hands and sighed annoyed. Could it be more obvious that his mother and Tyler had entered into the Mattress Olympics?
Peeking through his fingers, he watched Tyler walk up to his mother, wrap an arm around the small of her back and plant a big kiss on her mouth. Really, did they have to? He closed his fingers, blocking them from his view.
“Ty,” he heard his mother laugh warmly. “As much as I like this, there’s a little girl waiting for her bottle.”
“Can I?” He heard Tyler ask.
Silence. Should he dare to peek through his fingers again, chancing he would see another sickening sight?
“You can look now,” his mother said to him.
He could hear the laughter in her voice and in weird way it made him happy that she was happy. Though he could have done without knowing how she had achieved that state of happiness. He looked at her and caught her yawning behind her hand.
“Did you even sleep last night? Or did Tyler keep you up at all hours?” He asked, rolling his eyes again.
“I kept Tyler up,” she answered with a cryptic smile.
He had tried to be a smartass about it, and had accidentally given her the opportunity to be even smarter about it. However the addition he had feared never came.
“Think he’s gonna stay? Or will he leave again?”
She sighed and turned to look out the kitchen window: “I don’t know, John,” she paused for a moment. “No matter what happened between him and me, I don’t have the power to make him stay. If he wishes to leave, he’s free to do so. If he wants to stay, he’s free to do so as well… I’m not gonna force him to make a choice.”

Chapter 23: For Love Of Battle

Chapter 25: The Fate Of The World Will Be As Such As The World Deserves