John. I'm not coming back. {Deceptively delicate looking fingers dancing a touch of the dilapidated truck's dusty dash, she lifted her head and scanned the horizon, scanning for incoming patrols.} You told me that the mission was what mattered. The end all and be all. --

-- Protect your family. Keep you safe. Be less... freaky. {Glancing to the backseat, she eyed Grady Travis, calculating the odds of #Grady believing that all of this, seeing World's End, the charred landscape of the future was a dream.} They're coming, John. --

-- Coming for your family. I'm going to take him home. When you find this recording... When. Know that he's safe. And that I'll see you again. Younger you. More fragile you. But I'll know you. The mission. {Protect Grady. At. All. Costs.} I'll see it through. --

-- Be careful. Hang in there, baby. {Dropping the handheld recorder to the floor, she nudged it under the seat with a thump of her heel, turning to face Grady Travis.} This used to be the Galleria... {Brow lifting, the ominous drone of H/K ship engines --

-- sounding in the distance registering, she reached for Grady Travis's arm and squeezed} Our ride home's inside. It's big. {How to explain the time shift tech to #Grady? Better to gloss over the details.} They're coming. I need you to follow. You're a soldier. --

-- I need you to follow me. {Kicking open the truck door, she hopped lithely to the ground and wrenched open the back, thrusting her hand towards Grady Travis.} Come with me if you want to live.

-- to offer you. Shall I go to street level and find one? {curiously} Are different hearts of different significance for - Grady Travis

-- the day? A cat or dog heart? Or does it need to be made of chocolate to be festively appropriate? Grady Travis

.Grady Travis? You seem comfortable near the tank. Safety in metal. {blinking} That's tight.

{Gently nudging Grady Travis awake, her long legs still across his lap, she pressed a protein bar and a bottle of water into his --

-- hands; offering the soldier a smile.} Eat. {nodding} You need two thousand calories per day to maintain your current weight. --

-- We'll get more grub when we get to camp. {Reaching for Grady Travis, warm fingers tracing a touch over a healed scar --

-- on his neck, she arched a brow; curious.} Shrapnel fragment. It didn't go deep. Blood loss would have been the most pressing threat. --

-- It's the sharpest cuts that bleed the most. Do you miss it? {Thumb brushing over the shell of Grady Travis's ear, she watched --

-- #Grady's face, monitoring his pulse and respiration rate for spikes.} Your people. The fight. Do you miss it? John says he can't --

-- remember a time before the war. That he was always fighting, even when he wasn't... {Leaning back against the door, knuckle --

-- trailing up and down Grady Travis's bicep in a move borrowed from #Savannah, she smiled up at #Grady, attentive and curious.} --

-- You were taken from your timeline. It was a calculated move. Get you /here/, where Skynet can find you. Kill you so Kyle and Derek --

-- Reese are never conceived. Kyle Reese never meets Sarah Connor. John Connor is never born. Skynet wins the war. {blinking} I will --

-- protect you, Grady. Now or then. Do you miss the fight? Grady Travis