Time takes it all whether you want it to or not, time takes it all. Time bears it away, and in the end there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness, and sometimes we lose them there again. -- Steven King

"Jesse?" John tries to follow what's happening, but the images flicker too fast and then they're gone completely. He turns on Murch, "Bring them back."

"We were lucky to get that close; it can be months either way." Murch shakes his head. "I'm sorry."

Kyle steps up beside them, still staring at the place where Sarah was. "What were they doing?"

"A lot of damage." Murch's faint smile becomes almost fond. "They destroyed the robotics division; most of the prototypes were in there, it set them back years. I don't know what happened to them. Afterwards, I mean. I wasn't there. I like to think they made it out. It … helped."

"They're in the bubble right there," John points. "You can help them make it out."

"It doesn't work like that, you can't just walk in and out. There are calculations and they have to be exact, and the machinery hasn't been tested, and there's still trials to run, and -"

John laughs under his breath and cuts the ramble off. "You've thought about it."

"Of course I did." Murch looks almost wounded. "But you have to understand that this isn't a time machine. This is the entity, this is where they get their juice. This is time. It doesn't belong here; it's four dimensions in a 3-D world. The only way we found to contain it was to siphon the energy out and – it doesn't matter. I can't do it."

"You can try," says Kyle, and shrugs when John looks at him.

"It could cause a catastrophic cascade – it could destroy everything."

John laughs again, louder this time, and Murch looks at him in confusion. "It doesn't," John says slowly. "We're here."

Murch still looks doubtful, and there's at least one John Connor who turned away; John knows it because he knows he should.

He should finish setting the charges and take Crystal Peak from the machines.

He should go back to Kansas bunker with new prizes and an army made of metal, and the promise they can fix this.

He should send Kyle back to his mother, and probably others back before that.

He should be bringing Skynet to its end.

He says, "Do it, Murch. Please."

"Twenty minutes," says Kate quietly.

Murch worries at his lip and then turns his head. "Dye," he shouts, "Begin the start up sequence."

-o-

Murch and Dye go from switchboard to switchboard, muttering to themselves in words John can't even parse as having meaning. Dye nods to John almost shyly the first time he runs past, John thinks he should know him but he can't quite make the connect.

Kate says, "Fifteen minutes."

Murch runs back to them, panting a little. "We need five more while it calibrates itself. This really isn't -- we weren't planning on this."

John turns and watches Weaver as she walks slow circles around the bubble itself. The intensity of her expression is more frightening to John than anything else she can do; death is quick and he doubts the same can be said for whatever she's planning.

Murch's eyes flick to the side and then back, making sure Weaver is too far away to hear him when he whispers, "Your mom, she said she trusted me to make the right choice. With the time machines, I mean. We had to build them, they're kind of a side product of the siphoning, but I made sure nothing inorganic can go through. I guess they figured a way around it," he finishes in a rush.

"You did that?" John stares at him. "Thank you," he says, and he's never meant it more.

Murch looks away, he seems almost embarrassed. "There wasn't anything I could do to stop Skynet, but when it started I was ready. Closed down the systems completely -- even the filters, it got pretty close in here. Everyone wanted to get out, but by the time they could open the doors, Bishop was gone. Only thing we could do was sit. Wait it out. We sent out messages sometimes, so the other bunkers didn't come looking."

"Then Bakov died and Jackson wouldn't listen to me, and then Reynolds … they killed-" He swallows and pulls himself together. "The machines kept me and Dye alive to work on the bubble. They can measure time down to the smallest pieces, but they can't manipulate it. They need us for that."

John feels the movement of the metal on his chest and swears; Weaver heard everything. It slithers down his skin and to the floor. Silver falls in rivulets from them all and pool in a single stream back to Weaver. "All debts are paid." She turns and begins walking up the stairs.

Derek growls and begins to swing his rifle around; John catches the barrel in his hands and shoves it back. "Let it go."

"You're protecting it?"

"I'm protecting you, or did you guys find a volcano back there? We have a chance against 800s, we can't even fight her."

From the top of the gantry, Weaver turns and waves down with a politely impersonal smile before she collapses into her liquid form and then spirals into the cavernous ceiling.

They have minutes before the machines detect them, probably not even that. The temperature is dropping rapidly and John can see the energy level readings beginning to spike.

He spins to Derek. "Go, get out of here. All of you."

No one moves.

"Go," he yells again, over the sound of the computers beginning to whine.

Derek shakes his head and then pushes Kate and Kyle ahead of him. "We aren't leaving you here, Connor. We'll keep the door closed."

They make a run for the stairs and John doesn't have time to yell at them for being idiots, because Cameron's hand touches his arm, "John."

He slips out of her hold and paces in front of the spot where Murch estimates their bubble will grow. "What? Am I screwing up the future? You know what, I don't care."

She frowns pensively and then shakes her head. "This is new."

That cuts through the double clamor of panic and fear, he stops in front of her. "You don't know what happens next?"

"No. I want to know what happens next." She smiles. "Be careful, John."

Murch yells, "Once this starts, I can't stop it. Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Do it," Derek and John yell at the same time, and John has no idea what's happening above until there's an explosion so bright it lights the shadows of the ceiling above them.

Murch throws a switch, the lightning flickers and dies with the fire above. "If it happens, it will happen quickly. Please, move away."

John backs away and Murch slams down on another button; the blue bubble collapses completely in on itself with nothing in its center.

There's a push in the small of his back and he stumbles forward, tries to turn but he can't keep his balance. Cameron stands over him, her eyes blazing a clear, bright blue. A silver stream drops from her hand and disappears into the shadows so quickly he doesn't know if he saw it or not.

He tries to dive back, but it's too late – the bubble rises and they're caught.

The familiar wrench takes him down into the darkness. When he opens his eyes again, the disorientation of thoughts going a thousand different directions begins to fade, but the pain of a body that's just done the same grows.

The bubble flares and collapses, and he's lying naked in a glass box. There's smoke in the air beyond and he can see streaks of blood on the surface. Cameron moves.

Cameron.

He brings himself up fast, not sure what he's actually planning to do if she's turns on him, but she only stands. She runs her sensors over the container and then punches the glass once; it cracks. Twice, it shatters.

A figure beyond it is aiming a gun and he holds his hands up. The gun lowers. "John?"

"John!" His mother reaches for him and he throws himself back. He wants to tell her he didn't mean to, but all he can whisper is "No," because he's left them to die.

Sarah's mouth thins and she turns to begin working the clothes off the soldier at her side. Boots, pants, shirt. She throws them at John and he struggles into them automatically.

Here and now. He can do here and now. "Jesse?"

"Alive. Where -- what happened to the -- it?"

John stares blankly and then looks back. He gets it now; they're where the entity was, not where the bubble started. It's gone. If it's gone – they stare at each other and tentatively, they smile.

Sarah's smile fades first, "Can the Tin Miss get us out of here?"

Cameron finishes pulling on her own boots and looks around; she nods. "Follow. Stay low."

Like they need telling. They sling Jesse between them and stagger into a half run behind Cameron as she wades through the soldiers on the other side of Jesse's blockade.

There's no place like home.

-o-

Home is a motel room with blood on the sheets and walls; it's his mother holding him so tight it's painful and leaving red handprints on his shirt when she lets go.

It's a figure thrashing on the bed and trying not to scream; it's Cameron flipping to the music station to cover the noise anyway.

Home is wishing Kate were there and remembering Charley with a guilty stab.

It's touching the scar on his shoulder to know what's real.

-o-

When Jesse's passed out and Cameron has closed the door behind her, Sarah sits on the bed next to John. Her hand reaches out almost tentatively and he takes it, relieved, because that's something he can do. There's still blood under their nails.

"Jeanette, huh?"

She smiles and then grins, he's surprised to see a trace of embarrassment there. "Yeah, Jeanette." The smile fades. "You didn't mean to come back, did you?"

"No." His voice sounds hoarse; he's not used to the air here anymore. "I was trying to bring you to me. I thought you were going to die and … I shouldn't have done it. We could have taken down Skynet. We could have done it. I'm sorry."

Her hand reaches around him and pulls until his head is on her shoulder. He doesn't cry; it's long past that.

"You have nothing to be sorry about, John Connor."

He watches Jesse shift under the covers; blood is still sluggishly staining the bandages and they'll have to be changed soon. When Cameron gets back with the supplies that are so pathetically easy to find here.

"The time … thing here. Murch said it was unstable. But when you came back, it just disappeared," Sarah broaches carefully.

John nods against her shoulder. "He got it stable in the future, but it's a constant so maybe it's gone there too. If it's gone, maybe that's it. Is that it?"

Sarah strokes his hair back and says nothing at all.