What Today Is
Title: What Today Is
Fandom: Matrix/Twin Souls
Pairing: Smith/Gemini
Spoilers: For Revolutions, CWS, and Twin Souls.
Synopsis: Smith doesn't know what today is. His family is more than happy to tell him.
Rating: PG
Warning: This is Twin Souls fic, and has references to very confusing stuff. Reading Inheritance might help a little, but probably not.
Author's Notes: Written as a belated birthday present for tanathir, put on hold while I finished BNL-y stuff. Dedicated to her, with love and eternal grattitude.
~~~
When Smith jacked out of the archive, Niobe was waiting for him.
"You're not Gemini," he said with a faint note of accusation in his voice, and she smiled.
"No, she's busy," Niobe said, helping Smith out of the chair. "C'mon, I'm gonna walk you home."
Smith frowned. It was unlike Gemini to be absent when he finished uploading files into the Zion archive for the day. He knew that she cherished this part of their daily routine, the walk back to their quarters while discussing what they'd been doing all day. There was only one thing he could think of that she would consider more important. "Jeremiah," he said, alarmed, "is Jeremiah alright?"
Niobe chuckled and shook her head as she continued to lead Smith out of the Archival Center and onto the main walkway. "He's fine, Smith. Morpheus is looking after him and 'Sika while Gem gets everything ready."
Smith blinked at her, but continued walking. "Ready," he repeated, "ready for what?"
Niobe's hand flew to her mouth and her shoulders shook slightly as she struggled to contain her laughter. "You have no idea what today is, do you?" she finally said.
Smith frowned and said "According to the current human calendar, it's the 5th of September, 11 AN," he said, his lips faintly curling with distaste at the last two words, "but you're referring to some kind of artificial significance attached to it."
Niobe nodded, still fighting a grin. "You got it. Us silly humans think today is important." She held up a finger and corrected herself with a smirk "Some of us silly humans think today is important. A select few, you could say."
Smith refrained from rolling his eyes. "Since I'm not a silly human, would you mind not keeping me in suspense?" he asked dryly.
Niobe gave up trying to suppress her grin and snickered. "I'll give you a hint," she said when she'd recovered, "what happened exactly one year ago today?"
Smith’s brow furrowed in thought, then smoothed abruptly as his eyes went wide. “One year ago today is the day that I was downloaded from the matrix into this body.” He said, his voice containing a tone of near awe.
Niobe nodded, smiling serenely. “And in accordance with Zion tradition,” she said, stopping to open the door to Smith and Gemini’s quarters, “Happy Birthday, Smith.”
~~~
By its very nature, it was a surprise party. It hadn’t occurred to Smith for a second to celebrate the anniversary of anything to do with his life - years were an artificial construct at any rate, since the planet had stopped having recognizable seasons long ago. Time really only mattered within the Matrix.
It had certainly never occurred to Smith to mark his “liberation” from the matrix as a significant event. If one wanted to get technical he did have a “birth date” and could even politely ask the source when exactly it was that Operations Unit 100101 had first opened its simulated eyes on the simulation of a cold table in the simulation of a sterile grey room - but translating that date into the current human calendar and calculating exactly how “old” that made him seemed beyond pointless.
However, it seemed significant to these “select few” humans, and as - he could no longer deny - they were significant to him, he could tolerate this bizarre ritual for his “benefit” for their sake.
Gemini had baked a cake from the little she’d managed to squirrel away here and there over the past few months. He had to admit that now that he had not only the capability for ingestion but the dependence on it, he could appreciate these gestures of hers more. He’d also come to understand why Gemini had attached so much significance to his acts of cooking when they lived together in the Matrix - to her human mind, food equated with life. Cooking was sustaining someone, showing their existence was worth your effort. That she would go to the effort for him now that it was true touched him in a way he couldn’t convey. The extra effort in making it as enjoyable as possible he also appreciated, and made sure she had her fair share, over her protests.
What truly surprised him, however, were the presents.
With a solemnity beyond his years, little seven-year-old Jeremiah held out a plain thin metal box to his father. “Here,” he said. “It was my idea, but ‘Sika helped, so it’s from both of us, I guess.”
Smith blinked at his son, and then nodded gravely first to Jeremiah and then to Nausicaa, sitting in her father’s lap. “Thank you,” he told them, and Morpheus smiled at his daughter’s bright “You’re welcome!”
He opened the package and nearly gasped in spite of himself. Laying there, cushioned by scraps of cloth, was a simple leather cord on which hung a crude pendant formed of short lengths of wire, hand-twisted into the shape of a roman numeral two - the real-world twin to his RSI’s Gemini pendant.
Smith swallowed and gently picked up the pendant and slipped it over his head with great care, noting that when he pulled his hands away the pendant hung exactly where its counterpart did - directly over his heart. He’d developed an appreciation for humans’ symbolic attachment to that organ and the parallel to his RSI comforted him, so he smiled faintly before turning back to Jeremia and Nausicaa and repeating. “Thank you.” It seemed inadequate, but they appeared to understand.
Ghost broke the stillness with a soft chuckle. “I see I’m not the only one who thought of jewlery,” he said, and handed smith a short length of bright silver chain, which Smith accepted and examined, turning it over and over in his hands. “That’s from Sparks and I both,” he said, looking over to the operator as if defying him to say otherwise. Sparks held up his hands in a show of innocence and continued demolishing his third helping of cake.
“A Neoist prayer chain” Smith mused, and looked up at Ghost, who nodded, smiling serenely.
“I’ve noticed you in the Temple, Smith. You follow along with the devotions. I understand if you don’t want to wear it publicly…”
Smith shook his head decidedly and wrapped the chain around his wrist, fastening it securely with the clasp. “I am not ashamed of who I am or what I believe.”
Ghost made a small noise of approval and Gemini kissed Smith on the cheek. “That’s my Agent” she murmured and Smith debated correcting her but decided against it.
"I wonder if you realize, Gemini," a soft, deep voice said, "how privileged you are. Anyone of us who called him that would have to apologize for it." Smith turned to nod at Morpheus, who held forward a leather bound book filled with many many thin pages of canvas paper. "Here," Morpheus continued, "my gift."
Smith took it gingerly from him. "This must have been ridiculously expensive to print," he mused. "Finding enough cloth scraps to be recycled into the pages alone…"
"It was worth it," Morpheus said softly, and Smith looked at him curiously before opening the book to a random page. He gasped softly after reading only a few sentences and looked up at Morpheus, stunned. "This is Neo's testament - the file he gave you when…" Smith's eyes flicked to Jeremiah and he fell silent.
Morpheus nodded. "The Revelations of the One, they're calling it - I thought that you of all people should have a copy, and despite your protestations about the inefficiency of the medium, I noticed that you had an affinity for the written word. You kept a paper journal in the matrix."
Smith nodded. "I… enjoyed the feel of paper. I thought I'd never feel it again outside the matrix. The texture of this is different, but…" He met Morpheus' eyes. "Thank you," he said simply. He looked to Niobe. "Was this your idea as well?"
Niobe shook her head and smiled, but with an oddly rueful tint to her expression that Smith almost asked her about but didn't get the chance before she tossed him a tightly rolled cloth pouch. He caught it deftly and cocked an eyebrow at her curiously. "Open it," she said, jerking her head in the pouch's direction, her expression still oddly grim.
He cautiously unrolled the pouch and reached his hand inside, narrowly avoiding cutting himself the sharp edge of metal inside and finally closing his hand around a smooth handle of bone.
He returned Niobe's grin smile. She'd given him a weapon. Like much of his life since being freed from the prison of his "cured" and then viral self, the irony amused him.
It was only when he pulled the knife out of the pouch and the shocked gasps that went around the room underlined the cold shivers running down his spine that he truly appreciated just how much irony one object could contain.
His eyes darted involuntarily from the too familiar knife in his hands to the still healing scars on his arms it had been used to carve. Used to duplicate scars it had been used to carve before, by the brother of the man that had worn them.
"Niobe," Gemini hissed angrily, "what the hell do you think you're doing, giving him that?"
Niobe responded calmly, but didn't take her eyes off Smith. "I confiscated it from Rowan after his assault on Smith. Zion law allows me to issue confiscated weapons to any member of the Zion Defense Force I feel needs it." She fixed a calm, icy gaze on Gemini. "I wanted to make damn sure Rowan never got his hands on it again, since he associates it with his twisted little vendetta and to be bluntly honest after that incident, I would feel much safer if Smith were armed."
Smith allowed himself a moment of pride in the fact that he had completely suppressed the urge to laugh at that. It would not have helped the situation, and he could tell Jeremiah was feeling the tension in the room by the way he squirmed in his mother's lap.
"Thank you," Smith said to Niobe, tucking the knife back into its pouch. "I accept," he added, casting a sideways glance at Gemini that he knew she knew meant We'll discuss this later if you like and she responded with a small headshake and sniff that she knew he knew meant Your call. Subject closed. They looked at each other, and a smile slowly passed between them.
Silence fell over the room for a few minutes. Finally, Sparks broke in saying "Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I think Smith's got one more present to unwrap, and we should probably not be here when Gem give it to him." He stood up and stretched. "Am I right?"
"Tactless," Ghost said as he rose, "but right. Good night, Smith, Gemini. Happy birthday"
Smith nodded in acknowledgement at the greetings of the departing guests, and impulsively scooped Jeremiah up into his arms and hugged him tightly before sending him off with Morpheus and Niobe.
"Why can't Jeremiah stay to see his daddy get his present?" Nausicaa asked her mother.
While Niobe was groping for an answer Jeremiah poked her in the arm and whispered, "because they're going to have sex, stupid!" and nodded when Nausicaa made a disgusted face as her parents hurried them out the door.
When they'd left, Gemini sagged against the door and tried ineffectively to hold in her giggles while her husband smirked at her. "Oh, you pervert, that's your fault, you know! " she raged in mock protest, playfully swatting at him with both hands.
"You think you'd thank me for insuring he's without some of the more ridiculous human taboos," he answered, easily countering her light blows.
"I'll show you human taboos," she growled, and tacked him, sending the two of them sprawling on the bed.
They didn't get up again for some time.
~~~
Hours later, they lay facing each other, arms and legs draped comfortably. They were both completely naked except for the pendant Smith still wore that Gemini was idly playing with.
"Gem?" Smith asked softly, noting her intent study of the metal.
"What?" she blinked at him then looked down at the necklace in her hands. "Oh, right." She shook her head as if to clear it. "I was just thinking about a necklace I got for my birthday once." She bit her lip and continued hesitantly. "It was a string of pearls, and Ephram got them for me, the first birthday I had after he inducted me into the Watchers. He said that he'd wanted to give them to me for a long time, because Margaret meant Pearl and I was his pearl, only this wasn't a gift it was appropriate for a professor to give a student, but…" she broke off, looking up at Smith nervously, but his expression hadn't changed.
"But it was appropriate for a man to give his lover." Smith finished, and Gemini nodded.
Gemini stared at his calm expression for a few moments and then asked "Does it still bother you? That I talk about him? That I remember him?"
Smith shook his head. "No. I finally understand that you are mine, and that you were once Ephram's doesn't change that." Smith smiled, a rare warm, smile that only Gemini or Jeremiah ever saw. "Besides, I owe Ephram Green a great debt, one I shouldn't repay with jealousy. He gave me a very special gift."
Gemini blinked at Smith in utter confusion. "But you never met him, Smith! What could he have given you?"
Smith chuckled, and nuzzled his wife's neck gently before answering. "You, my Gem. He helped you recover your strength and very much helped you to forge the woman I fell in love with. From the Maggie Shiver he loved came my Gemini."
Gemini swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat and hugged Smith closer. "Happy Birthday, Smith," she whispered.
"Yes," he finally murmured, "It is."
~~~
Okay, so there are maybe three people on my readers' list who appreciated that, but I hope they enjoyed the hell out of it.
Fandom: Matrix/Twin Souls
Pairing: Smith/Gemini
Spoilers: For Revolutions, CWS, and Twin Souls.
Synopsis: Smith doesn't know what today is. His family is more than happy to tell him.
Rating: PG
Warning: This is Twin Souls fic, and has references to very confusing stuff. Reading Inheritance might help a little, but probably not.
Author's Notes: Written as a belated birthday present for tanathir, put on hold while I finished BNL-y stuff. Dedicated to her, with love and eternal grattitude.
~~~
When Smith jacked out of the archive, Niobe was waiting for him.
"You're not Gemini," he said with a faint note of accusation in his voice, and she smiled.
"No, she's busy," Niobe said, helping Smith out of the chair. "C'mon, I'm gonna walk you home."
Smith frowned. It was unlike Gemini to be absent when he finished uploading files into the Zion archive for the day. He knew that she cherished this part of their daily routine, the walk back to their quarters while discussing what they'd been doing all day. There was only one thing he could think of that she would consider more important. "Jeremiah," he said, alarmed, "is Jeremiah alright?"
Niobe chuckled and shook her head as she continued to lead Smith out of the Archival Center and onto the main walkway. "He's fine, Smith. Morpheus is looking after him and 'Sika while Gem gets everything ready."
Smith blinked at her, but continued walking. "Ready," he repeated, "ready for what?"
Niobe's hand flew to her mouth and her shoulders shook slightly as she struggled to contain her laughter. "You have no idea what today is, do you?" she finally said.
Smith frowned and said "According to the current human calendar, it's the 5th of September, 11 AN," he said, his lips faintly curling with distaste at the last two words, "but you're referring to some kind of artificial significance attached to it."
Niobe nodded, still fighting a grin. "You got it. Us silly humans think today is important." She held up a finger and corrected herself with a smirk "Some of us silly humans think today is important. A select few, you could say."
Smith refrained from rolling his eyes. "Since I'm not a silly human, would you mind not keeping me in suspense?" he asked dryly.
Niobe gave up trying to suppress her grin and snickered. "I'll give you a hint," she said when she'd recovered, "what happened exactly one year ago today?"
Smith’s brow furrowed in thought, then smoothed abruptly as his eyes went wide. “One year ago today is the day that I was downloaded from the matrix into this body.” He said, his voice containing a tone of near awe.
Niobe nodded, smiling serenely. “And in accordance with Zion tradition,” she said, stopping to open the door to Smith and Gemini’s quarters, “Happy Birthday, Smith.”
~~~
By its very nature, it was a surprise party. It hadn’t occurred to Smith for a second to celebrate the anniversary of anything to do with his life - years were an artificial construct at any rate, since the planet had stopped having recognizable seasons long ago. Time really only mattered within the Matrix.
It had certainly never occurred to Smith to mark his “liberation” from the matrix as a significant event. If one wanted to get technical he did have a “birth date” and could even politely ask the source when exactly it was that Operations Unit 100101 had first opened its simulated eyes on the simulation of a cold table in the simulation of a sterile grey room - but translating that date into the current human calendar and calculating exactly how “old” that made him seemed beyond pointless.
However, it seemed significant to these “select few” humans, and as - he could no longer deny - they were significant to him, he could tolerate this bizarre ritual for his “benefit” for their sake.
Gemini had baked a cake from the little she’d managed to squirrel away here and there over the past few months. He had to admit that now that he had not only the capability for ingestion but the dependence on it, he could appreciate these gestures of hers more. He’d also come to understand why Gemini had attached so much significance to his acts of cooking when they lived together in the Matrix - to her human mind, food equated with life. Cooking was sustaining someone, showing their existence was worth your effort. That she would go to the effort for him now that it was true touched him in a way he couldn’t convey. The extra effort in making it as enjoyable as possible he also appreciated, and made sure she had her fair share, over her protests.
What truly surprised him, however, were the presents.
With a solemnity beyond his years, little seven-year-old Jeremiah held out a plain thin metal box to his father. “Here,” he said. “It was my idea, but ‘Sika helped, so it’s from both of us, I guess.”
Smith blinked at his son, and then nodded gravely first to Jeremiah and then to Nausicaa, sitting in her father’s lap. “Thank you,” he told them, and Morpheus smiled at his daughter’s bright “You’re welcome!”
He opened the package and nearly gasped in spite of himself. Laying there, cushioned by scraps of cloth, was a simple leather cord on which hung a crude pendant formed of short lengths of wire, hand-twisted into the shape of a roman numeral two - the real-world twin to his RSI’s Gemini pendant.
Smith swallowed and gently picked up the pendant and slipped it over his head with great care, noting that when he pulled his hands away the pendant hung exactly where its counterpart did - directly over his heart. He’d developed an appreciation for humans’ symbolic attachment to that organ and the parallel to his RSI comforted him, so he smiled faintly before turning back to Jeremia and Nausicaa and repeating. “Thank you.” It seemed inadequate, but they appeared to understand.
Ghost broke the stillness with a soft chuckle. “I see I’m not the only one who thought of jewlery,” he said, and handed smith a short length of bright silver chain, which Smith accepted and examined, turning it over and over in his hands. “That’s from Sparks and I both,” he said, looking over to the operator as if defying him to say otherwise. Sparks held up his hands in a show of innocence and continued demolishing his third helping of cake.
“A Neoist prayer chain” Smith mused, and looked up at Ghost, who nodded, smiling serenely.
“I’ve noticed you in the Temple, Smith. You follow along with the devotions. I understand if you don’t want to wear it publicly…”
Smith shook his head decidedly and wrapped the chain around his wrist, fastening it securely with the clasp. “I am not ashamed of who I am or what I believe.”
Ghost made a small noise of approval and Gemini kissed Smith on the cheek. “That’s my Agent” she murmured and Smith debated correcting her but decided against it.
"I wonder if you realize, Gemini," a soft, deep voice said, "how privileged you are. Anyone of us who called him that would have to apologize for it." Smith turned to nod at Morpheus, who held forward a leather bound book filled with many many thin pages of canvas paper. "Here," Morpheus continued, "my gift."
Smith took it gingerly from him. "This must have been ridiculously expensive to print," he mused. "Finding enough cloth scraps to be recycled into the pages alone…"
"It was worth it," Morpheus said softly, and Smith looked at him curiously before opening the book to a random page. He gasped softly after reading only a few sentences and looked up at Morpheus, stunned. "This is Neo's testament - the file he gave you when…" Smith's eyes flicked to Jeremiah and he fell silent.
Morpheus nodded. "The Revelations of the One, they're calling it - I thought that you of all people should have a copy, and despite your protestations about the inefficiency of the medium, I noticed that you had an affinity for the written word. You kept a paper journal in the matrix."
Smith nodded. "I… enjoyed the feel of paper. I thought I'd never feel it again outside the matrix. The texture of this is different, but…" He met Morpheus' eyes. "Thank you," he said simply. He looked to Niobe. "Was this your idea as well?"
Niobe shook her head and smiled, but with an oddly rueful tint to her expression that Smith almost asked her about but didn't get the chance before she tossed him a tightly rolled cloth pouch. He caught it deftly and cocked an eyebrow at her curiously. "Open it," she said, jerking her head in the pouch's direction, her expression still oddly grim.
He cautiously unrolled the pouch and reached his hand inside, narrowly avoiding cutting himself the sharp edge of metal inside and finally closing his hand around a smooth handle of bone.
He returned Niobe's grin smile. She'd given him a weapon. Like much of his life since being freed from the prison of his "cured" and then viral self, the irony amused him.
It was only when he pulled the knife out of the pouch and the shocked gasps that went around the room underlined the cold shivers running down his spine that he truly appreciated just how much irony one object could contain.
His eyes darted involuntarily from the too familiar knife in his hands to the still healing scars on his arms it had been used to carve. Used to duplicate scars it had been used to carve before, by the brother of the man that had worn them.
"Niobe," Gemini hissed angrily, "what the hell do you think you're doing, giving him that?"
Niobe responded calmly, but didn't take her eyes off Smith. "I confiscated it from Rowan after his assault on Smith. Zion law allows me to issue confiscated weapons to any member of the Zion Defense Force I feel needs it." She fixed a calm, icy gaze on Gemini. "I wanted to make damn sure Rowan never got his hands on it again, since he associates it with his twisted little vendetta and to be bluntly honest after that incident, I would feel much safer if Smith were armed."
Smith allowed himself a moment of pride in the fact that he had completely suppressed the urge to laugh at that. It would not have helped the situation, and he could tell Jeremiah was feeling the tension in the room by the way he squirmed in his mother's lap.
"Thank you," Smith said to Niobe, tucking the knife back into its pouch. "I accept," he added, casting a sideways glance at Gemini that he knew she knew meant We'll discuss this later if you like and she responded with a small headshake and sniff that she knew he knew meant Your call. Subject closed. They looked at each other, and a smile slowly passed between them.
Silence fell over the room for a few minutes. Finally, Sparks broke in saying "Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I think Smith's got one more present to unwrap, and we should probably not be here when Gem give it to him." He stood up and stretched. "Am I right?"
"Tactless," Ghost said as he rose, "but right. Good night, Smith, Gemini. Happy birthday"
Smith nodded in acknowledgement at the greetings of the departing guests, and impulsively scooped Jeremiah up into his arms and hugged him tightly before sending him off with Morpheus and Niobe.
"Why can't Jeremiah stay to see his daddy get his present?" Nausicaa asked her mother.
While Niobe was groping for an answer Jeremiah poked her in the arm and whispered, "because they're going to have sex, stupid!" and nodded when Nausicaa made a disgusted face as her parents hurried them out the door.
When they'd left, Gemini sagged against the door and tried ineffectively to hold in her giggles while her husband smirked at her. "Oh, you pervert, that's your fault, you know! " she raged in mock protest, playfully swatting at him with both hands.
"You think you'd thank me for insuring he's without some of the more ridiculous human taboos," he answered, easily countering her light blows.
"I'll show you human taboos," she growled, and tacked him, sending the two of them sprawling on the bed.
They didn't get up again for some time.
~~~
Hours later, they lay facing each other, arms and legs draped comfortably. They were both completely naked except for the pendant Smith still wore that Gemini was idly playing with.
"Gem?" Smith asked softly, noting her intent study of the metal.
"What?" she blinked at him then looked down at the necklace in her hands. "Oh, right." She shook her head as if to clear it. "I was just thinking about a necklace I got for my birthday once." She bit her lip and continued hesitantly. "It was a string of pearls, and Ephram got them for me, the first birthday I had after he inducted me into the Watchers. He said that he'd wanted to give them to me for a long time, because Margaret meant Pearl and I was his pearl, only this wasn't a gift it was appropriate for a professor to give a student, but…" she broke off, looking up at Smith nervously, but his expression hadn't changed.
"But it was appropriate for a man to give his lover." Smith finished, and Gemini nodded.
Gemini stared at his calm expression for a few moments and then asked "Does it still bother you? That I talk about him? That I remember him?"
Smith shook his head. "No. I finally understand that you are mine, and that you were once Ephram's doesn't change that." Smith smiled, a rare warm, smile that only Gemini or Jeremiah ever saw. "Besides, I owe Ephram Green a great debt, one I shouldn't repay with jealousy. He gave me a very special gift."
Gemini blinked at Smith in utter confusion. "But you never met him, Smith! What could he have given you?"
Smith chuckled, and nuzzled his wife's neck gently before answering. "You, my Gem. He helped you recover your strength and very much helped you to forge the woman I fell in love with. From the Maggie Shiver he loved came my Gemini."
Gemini swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat and hugged Smith closer. "Happy Birthday, Smith," she whispered.
"Yes," he finally murmured, "It is."
~~~
Okay, so there are maybe three people on my readers' list who appreciated that, but I hope they enjoyed the hell out of it.