Sarah looked at Tyler as he gathered his scarce belongings. He was a different man than she remembered from two years before. He was silent and aloof, only looking at her for a few seconds once in a while before returning his attention to packing.
Despite the initial joy of seeing each other again, he now had turned cold and distant towards her. It felt as if she was to blame for something, but she had no idea what it could be. Just like she had no idea on how to break the ice between them. Silent and brooding, just like the other Tyler had been.
"S-so how have you been?" She asked hesitantly.
He shrugged his shoulders: "Surviving, I guess."
She smiled faintly; it could have been a joke if she hadn't caught the serious undertone in his voice.
"It's been a while," she remarked, hoping to strike up some form of conversation.
"No fucking kidding," he growled through gritted teeth.
"What's with the open hostility, huh?" She asked as her temper flared to life.
"It's been two goddamn years, Connor. Metal everywhere you look, and not one word from you in all that time."
"Is that it?" She hissed. "You needed me to hold your hand?"
He glared at her. His eyes still held the familiar kindness but the rest of his face was starting to
show the signs of the everlasting battle against Skynet. She noticed a scar she had not seen in the other Tyler's face. It started just above his right eyebrow and ended just below his cheek bone. He was lucky to still have his eye.
"Tin can and a pipe bomb," he explained. "Piece of shrap. I got off lucky."
She was surprised that he knew what she was asking herself in thoughts: How did he get that scar?
"But I don't need you to hold my hand. That little powder-puff girl you call your son. First he didn't
want to leave the shelter because his mommy could maybe return and now he parades around like he's the goddamn savior of mankind!"
Sarah managed to smile wryly. The irony of it all was that her life had been what it had been because her son was indeed the savior of mankind.
"Jealous much?"
"Hell no! Every night people die for him and his hollow promises of a better tomorrow," he seethed while he reached into a pocket of his pants and took out two dog tags. "Rodriguez, Thompson. Rooks under my command. Two kids dead. Nameless in the new history of this world, just like all the others who died this night."
She was genuinely shocked by his bitterness. He tossed the tags to her. She caught them and looked at the small metal plates. They were dented, covered in blood. Another solid proof of the brutality of this war.
"That," he nodded towards the tags she was holding. "Is the future. Not what that fat cat in his comfy command center says or promises," he said embittered.
"I thought that my son was your friend?" She asked somewhat confused while she put the tags aside.
"He is, but he isn't overly fond of people who have a different opinion. Giving me this assignment is his subtle way of telling me to butt out," he answered. "He knows you will never be safe, and he knows that I... I will never break a promise. He knows that you will be safe with me."
She looked at him again: "At least for the next twelve years," she paused. "He knows what will happen then, Tyler, and still he trusts you to keep me safe. Perhaps you are his biggest critic but he trusts you unconditionally."
"Well, he shouldn't. We have to distrust each other, as-"
"It is our only defense against betrayal," she finished his sentence. "I know, Tyler. I told him that."
She watched him while he stuffed his last clothes into an old and torn duffel bag.
"For what it's worth, Tyler, I trust you too," she said in a soft voice. "Whatever will happen in the future, I will always know that you're not to blame. You and my son are the only ones I can really trust."
There was a firm knock on his door.
"Enter!" He barked.
Catherine entered the room.
"Cathe?" Sarah asked surprised.
"Sarah, is that you? Whispers in the tunnels were that you were a goner, Baum," Catherine exclaimed.
Sarah saw the confusion on Tyler's face and she shook her head: "Long story, Tyler. I'll tell you someday."
"Sergeant Devlin," Catherine saluted him before she sent her a cryptic look. "Is that the guy you told me about?"
"Yes," Sarah answered with a crooked smile. "That's Tyler."
"No wonder he took on that tin man with his bare hands," Catherine muttered with a look of devote admiration on her face.
Tyler rolled his eyes and scratched himself behind his left ear.

"We need to destroy her, John," TJ said while he looked over his shoulder to check if she was still chasing them.
"I know," John growled out of breath.
John stopped in his tracks all of a sudden and TJ had to sidestep him in an attempt not to run smack into him. At the mouth of the alley, the person they were running from appeared and came walking towards them slowly and elegantly.
"Shit, she's here," John mumbled.
She raised her right hand, and TJ could see the sun reflect on the gun she was holding.
Tyler heaved a deep sigh when he remembered that day. She had turned on them. One moment she had been yelled at by Sarah for doing John's homework again, the next she had killed Derek without any sign of malfunction upfront.
TJ reacted on instinct by grabbing John by the arm and pushing him behind a dumpster, out of harm's way. A shot rang out and somewhere in the distance he heard himself howl. A searing pain set his left upper arm on fire.
Cameron had become a 'Runaway'. He assessed the situation. It looked grim: two teenage boys against a relentless machine on two legs. There was no escape. There was only one thing left to do: he had to take her down or die trying.
"I'll distract her," TJ said firmly while he kept a close eye on Cameron. "And you run."
"Junkyard filler," Tyler said to himself. "But I got you. I got you good."
TJ burst into a sprint with his body and head low. His arm stung, his lungs burned when he ran towards her in a zigzag manner, dodging the bullets she fired at him. He counted the shots. One more left and she would have to reload.
Another howl escaped him when a bullet ricochet off of the concrete and grazed his right calf. He stumbled a little and almost fell, but the adrenaline took over, surging through his veins, pushing him, driving him. He had nothing and everything to lose.
The only thought left in his mind was that he had to keep John Connor safe. Maybe he was insane for trying to take on a machine with his bare hands but he had to take the chance for the good of the future. Nothing venture, nothing gain!
Cameron looked almost surprised when he tackled her and managed to knock her over. The gun slid over the floor.
Tyler slowly turned to look at Sarah and Catherine, who were obviously catching up on what had happened since Sarah had left Catherine's 'pocket' four months ago. He shook his head wearily: "What is this? A goddamn tea party?"
A look at his watch told him that it was close to eleven in the morning. How time flies when you're having fun, he thought darkly.
"We leave at dusk," he added. "Be ready."
The world blurred and he could only focus on his target.
"Please, John?" Cameron begged, mimicking childlike fear into her voice. "Please, John? Don't let him kill me? Please?"
A voice in the distance said: "What you're gonna tell me that you ran a test and that you're good now?"
"Please, John? He will kill me if you won't stop him," Cameron pleaded with John.
The voice in the distance growled: "Don't listen to her! She'll deceive you with lies and empty words. She's a runaway."
"Please, John?" Cameron yammered. "I'm the only one who can protect you. I'm good now."
"What's next?" The voice asked sarcastically. "You gonna tell him you love him and that he loves you?"
That moment TJ realized that the voice in the distance was his own voice, drowned out by adrenaline swells that made the blood in his ears thunder.
Tyler crossed his arms and watched as Catherine nodded. She got up quickly, shook Sarah's hand and left in a hurry. He wasn't impressed with the dark look Sarah sent him.
"Now that was rude."
"No time for politeness," he countered, supported by a simple shrug of his shoulders. "Bag some zzz's. It'll be night again soon enough. You take the bed. I'll take the floor."
TJ gasped for air and looked at John for a short moment. The struggle with Cameron had drained him from his energy and he fell to one knee. His lungs burned stronger when he tried to catch a full breath. Slowly realization of what had happened set in.
He had been living with the Connor clan for almost a year now. A year in which he had learned more than he could have ever imagined. A year in which he had fought more than he had done his entire life. Cameron, Derek and Sarah, they were his mentors. And today he had lost two of them. It was a hard lesson they had been taught about the machine.
He looked at the chip in his bloody hand. It didn't look damaged at first glance but when he took a closer look, he could see two of the memory program cells had started to melt.
Sometimes they go bad. Nobody knows why. Cameron's voice sounded as monotone in his mind as it had been in daily life.
"Gimme that," John growled upset, snatching the chip away from him.
"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."
He scrambled to his feet again and looked at Cameron one last time: "Junkyard filler," he snorted.

Sarah studied him as he settled down on the floor. It was like he had skipped the transition time as the Jester and had gone straight for the end result, the Devil. He was very much like the other Tyler. Maybe a little too much already.
"Want to share?" She offered one final time.
He looked up but kept quiet. A faint smile formed on her lips while she made herself comfortable on the right side of the bed: "I promise I won't bite."
Now he smiled faintly too. Slowly he got to his feet and went over to the bed.
"Don't you agree this is much better?" She asked while he settled down on the left side of the bed.
"Better, much better," he chuckled.
She turned on her right side, using her bent arm as a pillow, and tried to fall asleep. Kyle’s words “You stay down by day but at nights you can move around” echoed through her mind. She listened to his breathing becoming slow and regular. It sure didn't take him long to fall asleep. The events of the past night had probably drained him. Nevertheless unlike him, she could not fall asleep that easily. Since the future had revealed itself to her she had been a terrible sleep, tormented by insomnia or tortured by recurring bad dreams.
As always her thoughts kept her awake, her mind milling over the events of the day and over the past two years. 'Not one word from you in all this time' bounced through her scattered thoughts. His voice had brimmed over with resentment, like he had taken it personally that she had never been able to contact them to let them know that she was okay. She shouldn't have strayed so far away from the shelter that night. She shouldn't have tailed that Skynet tank. There were so many things she should not have done.
Her thoughts wandered back to that one night she had been a little drunk and he had rejected her in a subtle manner. It had nothing to do with her disappearing act but maybe he had thought it had and that was why he was acting so distant and reserved towards her now.
During the past two years she had thought numerous times about that night that had followed a horrible day. Judgment Day, the day Skynet declared war on humanity. The fate of billions decided in a microsecond.
She had wanted to feel alive so badly that she had asked him the impossible. He could be so brutally honest, but then he had tried to let her down as gentle as possible. However it had not eased the pain and disappointment. In a way he had made her feel alive again that night, but not in the way she had hoped for.

Tyler woke up at the crack of dusk. A surge of odd excitement coursed through his veins when he realized that she had curled up to him in her sleep. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and allowed himself to wallow in this situation for a moment.
Taking his time to memorize how it felt to have her rest her head on his chest, how it felt to feel her arm so casually across his stomach. Slowly he opened his eyes again and raised his head from his pillow, looking at the dusty dark wavy locks of hair sprawled across his chest. A warm grin spread across his face.
Was it bad of him to wish that time would stand still? So that he could capture this moment and store it in his memory forever? Was it so bad of him to want to forget about the war raging on outside? So that for a short moment in time he could actually feel alive again?
The spell of tranquility was broken as soon as he felt her stir. His heart began to beat eratically in his chest. This meant nothing, he told himself in thoughts. They would be best friends. Best friends who could share a bed without a hidden agenda.
She raised her head from his chest and turned to look at him: "Oh, sorry," she mumbled sleepily.
The shocked expression on her face didn't go unnoticed and he grinned: "It's okay. It was kinda nice."
She looked him in the eye and he could see that she didn't really believe him. She sat up and ran a hand through her tousled hair, fighting with an unwilling lock of hair.
"I'm sure that you will use my chest as a pillow again," he quipped, hoping it would take the edge off.
It did because for a second he saw her slow smile appear on her face. It disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.
"You kept your promise," he laughed.
She looked at him with a mixture of embarrassment and confusion: "What?"
"You didn't bite."

John looked at the two girls. Savannah Weaver and Robin O'Conlin. This was not the future they other Tyler had told him about. The smallest change in the past could have the biggest impact in the future. He knew he had to make one of the most difficult decisions of his life.
It was obvious that Robin was Tyler's daughter and John pondered what he should do.
Tyler was unaware of the fact that he had fathered a child. He had never mentioned it and he had never looked for her after Judgment Day. Chances were that whoever Robin's mother had been she had never told Tyler about it.
John took a deep breath and remained quiet. Should he tell his friend? Or should he let the new future take its course?

Chapter 7: Family Matters

Chapter 9: Century - Part I