Baseball.

When John was a kid, bouncing around from foster home to foster home during those periods his mother was institutionalized, he'd had fantasies of playing baseball with his father, like he had seen other kids doing.

His father, always a rather shadowy figure back then, would throw a pitch, and John would smack it over the back of the white picket fence that surrounded his family's house. Dad was always immensely proud of him when he did that. His mother never saw it (she was inside baking cookies or doing something else horribly domestic), but she heard about it over dinner.

Sure, John didn't like baseball, but he also didn't have a house, a mother that baked anything but unusual bomb components, or a father. Fantasies generally didn't have a lot to do with reality.

To be honest about it, this didn't feel like it had a lot to do with reality, either.

"I have this one, sir."

John watched in fascination as Corporal Reese hefted the gun onto his shoulder, sited through the twisted piles of metal that surrounded both of them and fired. He no longer had to follow the line of fire to see the Terminator, Cyber Dynamics Model 600, fall. Really, the idiots should learn to travel in groups.

The next one was going to be his, he and Reese continuing to shift the responsibility until either the rubber-skinned Terminators realized that the reports of a group of desperate humans hiding in the area was a sniper trap (though not without a grain of truth to it -- all humans were desperate, these days) or until he and Reese were found. Since the Terminators were too arrogant to think they needed backup for refugees and he and Reese always fired before a report could be made, the two men suspected it would be the latter.

John nodded to the younger man. "Good shot." It had been, really -- In the two years Reese had been fighting with the resistance, he had become a credit to his teacher. John never phrased it that way, though -- it would have seemed too much like and ego trip. He had been Reese's teacher.

Reese smiled. "Good gun, sir." As he slid the gun off his shoulder with an appreciative glance, John had to agree. The latest creation of resistance techs, known among those who carried one simply as the "robot killers," the new cyborg sharpshooters were powerful little beasts, and the only things making this latest adventure possible.

John glanced over at his corporal. No longer focused on his latest target, it was obvious Reese was troubled by something. "Corporal?" As Reese's commander, John was well within his rights to force the younger man to discuss it. Troubles were distracting, and distractions tended to get people and those around them killed.

But that wasn't the real reason he said something. Reese was the best soldier John had in his squad -- it took more than thoughts to distract him. But... the man was his father, damn it, though he wasn't ever going to be able to know it. John wanted to be able to have a conversation with him, get to know Reese at least a little. The twelve year-old still somewhere inside John's brain felt he deserved that much.

Unfortunately, good little soldiers didn't feel they could become chummy with their commanders, and Reese was the best of the good little soldiers. John had tried to make Reese as comfortable around him as possible, but there was always the problem of favoritism to worry about. So for now, the closest he could get was practically ordering the man to tell John what was troubling him.

Mentally wrestling with himself a bit longer, Reese finally blurted out (quietly, of course) "Should you really be here, sir?"

For a moment, John was taken aback. There were several ways he could interpret Reese's question, a few of which John had asked himself a time or two. But even the most literal interpretation of the question came as something of a surprise. Reese wasn't known to question his commander, even when he privately suspected he was completely nuts. Anyone else might get their ego fed back to them, but not John. Maybe some borders had been breached, after all. "Explain, corporal."

"This isn't exactly safe territory, sir. Shouldn't you have sent someone a little more... expendable to accompany me on this mission?" His tone was nowhere near deferential -- John couldn't help but be pleased.

"Safest place for me to be is here, Reese." He wasn't exactly lying. Reese lived long enough for be sent back, didn't he? And John lived long enough to send him.

The "Reese" was a calculated move. If he dispensed with "corporal," than maybe Reese would dispense with the "sir." Probably not, but maybe.

Reese sighed. "I won't ask for the reasoning behind that, though I'm certain you have a whole string of it." He realized he'd forgotten something. "Sir."

There John was, having a little quality time with his father. The idea felt strange in his mind.

The next Terminator hadn't shown up yet, fortunately. John didn't want the conversation to stop. "So, what's next on the list of time-filling conversation starters?"

This time it was Reese's turn to be surprised. "Sir?" But he recovered admirably. "Any suggestions?"

John thought a moment. "Baseball?"

"Never played it, sir."

"I did -- you're not missing much. Your turn."

"Meals?"

"Ugh. I'm trying not to depress myself. Weapon specs?"

"Went over those this morning, sir."

Reese thought a moment. "Everyone knows about your mother, sir." The emotion in his voice for the topic was obvious to someone looking for it. "But what about your father?"

"My father." A tightening in his throat kept him from appreciating the irony. "What do you want to know about my father?" John hated to think it, but if Reese was just looking for more detail about the great hero...

"I... I wondered if your father was as good a man as you are, sir. I never knew mine, so I'm not certain what gets passed on in the genes." Reese kept his face carefully focused in the direction the next Terminator would be coming from.

Damn it. It wasn't good for commanders to keep getting lumps in their throat around subordinate officers, no matter what the secret family relation was. "My father died before I was born," he replied roughly.

He looked over at his father. "But I think he was a good man." Better keep things in past tense, no matter how much sharing was going on.

Seeing his commander's emotion, Reese reached out and touched John's arm. "I'm certain he would have been proud of you, sir."

"Thank you, corporal." Thanks, Dad. "Terminator at 5 o'clock."

"Your turn, sir."

"Right."