Live Truly, My Heart: Pt. 17
This is Trinity's story - Slightly AU in the name of Fun With Narrative (The AU increases every day...).
Note: Mouse has not yet joined the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar.
Part One: Real
Part Two: Search and Rescue
Part Three: The Oracle Speaks
Part Four: Revelations
Part Five: Half of Her Heart
Part Six: Batteries
Part Seven: Life Goes On
Part Eight: Shattered Flight
Part Nine: Truth Be Told
Part Ten: Goodbye, My Friend
Part Eleven: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
Part Twelve: Negotiations
Part Thirteen: Out of Order
Part Fourteen: Getting In
Part Fifteen: Getting Out
Part Sixteen: Breathe
Title: Live Truly, My Heart
Fandom: The Matrix
Characters: Trinity, Switch, Apoc, Tank, Cypher (and, technically, the rest of the Neb's crew, although they don't have much to say).
Pairing: Switch/Trinity, Switch/Apoc
Rating: T (if that).
Walls and Doorways
I wake several times in the night - or whatever hour it is now - half expecting to see her startle, restless, fighting off nightmares. But she sleeps like a baby, breathing softly. She doesn’t even wake when I stir, slipping first my boots off, then hers, and pulling the blankets around us.
Hours later, or so it feels, I wake at the sound of gentle tapping - hollow on the metal door. I slip from the bed, finding my tunic and boots and pulling them on, guessing who it must be even before I turn the handle.
“Hey,” shy as ever.
“Hi,” I lean in the doorway.
He looks at his feet, looks at me.
“She’s out like a light,” I murmur, slipping into the hallway.
This feels vaguely familiar, the two of us speaking in low voices, while she sleeps beyond a half-closed door. It takes a moment to remember that morning (god... a year ago?) when I’d cooked rice for an unexpected third party, feeling like my heart was cracking in two.
It feels different now - like a wall I’d put up has finally come down, crumbling to dust in my sleep.
“Come on in,” I say, inviting him into a room he’s surely visited before.
“Switch?”
I murmur her name next to her ear, stroking her hair, her fingers, trying to wake her as gently as possible. It takes a few attempts to get her to open her eyes.
“Shit,” she groans, when she wakes, seeing me already dressed. “I should get up.”
“No,” two voices speaking at once.
Her eyes shift from me to him, her eyebrows quirk.
“Cypher’s taking your shift,” Apoc explains.
“Hm.” Her mouth twists, wryly, and her gaze shifts back to me. “Have fun.”
“Haha.”
She squeezes my hand.
“See you soon?”
My mouth quirks.
“If you’re awake.”
I leave them together, talking quietly, Apoc already pulling his boots off. He must be as eager to get beside her as I was. How he lasted through a six hour shift is beyond me. I find myself fighting a grin as I climb the ladder. For all that Switch needs to rest, I doubt she’ll be going back to sleep any time soon.
I make my way through the Main Deck, towards the Core, where I can see Cypher waiting for me, and my heart sinks again. In the year and half that I’ve been awake, he’s made it clear enough that he likes me as more than a friend.
I sigh.
It might be easier between Cypher and me if I could bring myself to want him, but I can’t. Twenty-four years old, and already so bitter… Switch may be sharp and angry - burning with fury, sometimes - and even bleak, but she nurses her hope as well as she can, and there’s a gentleness to her that Cypher’s never had.
Too bad.
He’d be a good guy if he wasn’t so damn twisted up inside.
“Hey, Trin,” he greets me, as I sit down.
“Hey,” I answer, booting up my consol. “Anything interesting happening?”
A shrug.
Hopefully it’ll stay dull.
Dull is good, I remind myself. Dull means no squidies nosing around, it means the engine’s running smoothly and the pads aren’t shorting out.
It also means that there aren’t any distractions.
Normally this is fine - a chance to chat with whoever else is working the shift with me, but Cypher’s been circling around a subject - the subject - for more than an hour already. Half of me wants him to drop the damn thing. The other half of me just wishes he’d spit it out.
“I dunno how you do it,” he says, finally.
“Do what?” I adjust the course, with undue attention.
“Switch and Apoc...” he trails off. Bait?
I turn my head, give him a long look.
“What about them?”
For all of an instant, he gives me the most sympathetic look I’ve ever seen.
He chews his lip.
“She’s sleeping with him, Trinity.” He drops his eyes, looking pained. “I thought you knew. I’m sorry.”
For what? For telling me?
Maybe he really did think I knew. Maybe he really thinks that this’ll hurt me less in the long run than… ‘finding out’ on my own. Maybe he really thinks Switch is that much of a liar. Hell, I spent a miserable twenty-four hours thinking just that, and I’d like to believe I know her better than Cypher does.
I sigh.
“I know,” I tell him. “I’ve known for a long time.”
“Oh.” He looks away, checking the scanners. “I wasn’t sure.”
He taps out a line of code, then another.
The silences stretches, tense, to the snapping point.
He laughs, still nervous.
“I still don’t know how you do it,” he comments, shaking his head. “If it was my girlfriend foolin’ around with some guy… I couldn’t. It’d be him or me, that’s it-” he pauses - thank god - but maybe it’s just because a new thought is occurring.
“Hey,” he says. New thought. Damn. “Is it because he’s a guy?”
He takes one look at my face, and back-pedals.
“Ah. Okay. So, no. Not because he’s a guy.”
No.
Not because he’s a guy.
But do I really want to go into that with Cypher? Do I really want to explain the obvious? That this isn’t about chromosomes or plumbing or any kind of biology, but because he puts his own life on the line for her, because I know he loves her as much as I do?
Cypher looks at me and sighs, heavily.
“Okay,” he says, turning back to his consol. “Forget I asked.”
Within the week we’ve had news from Zion, confirming that our diversion was a success, that the attack on the city was defeated.
It is cause for a celebration, in so far as we can have such a thing on the ship.
The whole crew crams into the Mess, passing cups and a can of Dozer’s moonshine around the table, laughing and teasing. I’m surprised to hear Switch, whose bruises have faded from purple to blue to yellow-green, joking about her near-death experience. I can’t help but smile at Apoc’s reaction to Tank’s recounting of the shipboard side of the, uh, adventure.
“He was, like, ’Drop me in! Now!’ Man...”
Tank shakes his head, grinning at Apoc, who is looks into his cup, embarrassed.
“I swear,” Tank goes on. “That’s more words than I’ve ever heard you use at once! It was intense!”
There is laughter, gentle, kind, and I catch Apoc smiling, sharing a glance with Switch.
The jug comes round the table to me, and I fill my cup.
“Careful with that,” Switch warns, amusement in her eyes. I am reminded, suddenly, that I’ve technically never had a drink before.
I pass the jug onwards, lifting my cup and sipping cautiously.
Oh, god, what’s in this??
Laughter erupts around the table as I cough and splutter, getting my breath back.
And that was just from a sip...
“Don’t worry,” I hear Tank chirp.
I turn my head, to see him grinning broadly.
“Everybody chokes the first time.”
He winks, and drinks the liquor like water.
He would.
He must have been sneaking the stuff from his brother since he was sixteen.
Too soon, the room begins to empty as people return to abandoned tasks, or stumble off to bed. I can feel the alcohol buzzing in my veins, my head is swimming and all the lights are haloed. I am very glad that I don’t have to work for a few hours yet.
I look across the table at Switch and Apoc.
Apoc looks tipsy, swaying ever so slightly in his chair. He drops his eyes when I look at him and his skin flushes. Huh.
Switch, it seems, is trying not to laugh. I can’t tell if she’s drunk or not.
“What’s so funny?” I ask, carefully, trying not to let my speech slur.
Switch giggles.
I blink.
Switch doesn’t giggle!
“You two,” she says, through her laughter. She glances at my half-empty cup. "Think you've had enough, yet?"
Enough.
It’s not like it took more than a few beers to get me drunk back when I was sleeping. Why should now be any different from then?
"Maybe," I hedge.
“I remember,” Apoc says, slowly, a smile spreading across his face. “I remember watching you get drunk.” He pokes Switch in the arm, chuckling.
She shoots him an amused glance.
“I seem to recall it was your idea to get me that way.”
He grins into his cup.
“It worked, too.”
She rolls her eyes.
“I was very impressionable.”
I shake my head, trying to pick up the thread of a conversation that’s only half spoken.
“What happened?”
I take another cautious sip, feel the alcohol burn down my throat, managing not to cough this time. I watch the two of them.
She lifts her eyebrows at him. (Do you want to explain this, or shall I?)
He nods towards her, a smile ghosting around his lips. (You go ahead.)
Her mouth twists, wry and amused. (Alright. You asked for it.)
How do they say so much without any words at all?
Another hour and the three of us are making our unsteady way through the narrow passages of the Neb. I’m drunk enough, even now, even after switching to water, that my head is spinning. I trail one hand along the wall, cold metal under my fingers, to keep myself from stumbling. My other arm is draped around Switch’s shoulder.
Absurdly, the tune from ‘the wizard of oz’ turns up in my head - Switch’s arm around my waist, her other hand linked with Apoc’s. We’re off to see the wizard…
At my cabin door, we stop, I turn the handle, trying to keep it from squeaking too much.
“Have a good night,” Switch murmurs, pulling me into her arms.
I breath deeply, catch the smell of her hair, her skin, even her clothes. I drop a kiss on her shoulder, another on her neck.
“See you soon?”
“Mm-hmm,” she presses a kiss to my lips.
I pull her closer, tasting the moonshine on her lips, her tongue. Maybe it’s the booze, but I feel strangely fine about kissing her in front of him tonight. Maybe it's finally stopped bothering me.
“Get some sleep,” I suggest, when she pulls away, a lazy smile ghosting at the corners of her mouth.
“I will,” she promises.
Eventually, I add, mentally, noting the way Apoc’s arm has slipped around Switch’s body.
“’Night, Apoc,” I say, stepping into my cabin. Part of me wishes Switch were staying, but another part is - slowly - getting used to this.
Apoc lifts his hand in a kind of a wave.
“G’night,” he mumbles, dropping his eyes, not quite looking at me.
I can’t help noticing that Switch’s wry smile (I know something you don’t know) is back again, as her glance shifts from him to me.
“Sweet dreams,” she murmurs, far too amused.
What? I wonder, as I watch them walk away.
She is leaning into his shoulder, her arm around his waist, murmuring something that I can’t quite catch.
What am I missing?
*~*~*~*~*
Part Eighteen: Know Thyself
Comments? Pretty-Please? :-)
Note: Mouse has not yet joined the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar.
Part One: Real
Part Two: Search and Rescue
Part Three: The Oracle Speaks
Part Four: Revelations
Part Five: Half of Her Heart
Part Six: Batteries
Part Seven: Life Goes On
Part Eight: Shattered Flight
Part Nine: Truth Be Told
Part Ten: Goodbye, My Friend
Part Eleven: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
Part Twelve: Negotiations
Part Thirteen: Out of Order
Part Fourteen: Getting In
Part Fifteen: Getting Out
Part Sixteen: Breathe
Title: Live Truly, My Heart
Fandom: The Matrix
Characters: Trinity, Switch, Apoc, Tank, Cypher (and, technically, the rest of the Neb's crew, although they don't have much to say).
Pairing: Switch/Trinity, Switch/Apoc
Rating: T (if that).
Walls and Doorways
I wake several times in the night - or whatever hour it is now - half expecting to see her startle, restless, fighting off nightmares. But she sleeps like a baby, breathing softly. She doesn’t even wake when I stir, slipping first my boots off, then hers, and pulling the blankets around us.
Hours later, or so it feels, I wake at the sound of gentle tapping - hollow on the metal door. I slip from the bed, finding my tunic and boots and pulling them on, guessing who it must be even before I turn the handle.
“Hey,” shy as ever.
“Hi,” I lean in the doorway.
He looks at his feet, looks at me.
“She’s out like a light,” I murmur, slipping into the hallway.
This feels vaguely familiar, the two of us speaking in low voices, while she sleeps beyond a half-closed door. It takes a moment to remember that morning (god... a year ago?) when I’d cooked rice for an unexpected third party, feeling like my heart was cracking in two.
It feels different now - like a wall I’d put up has finally come down, crumbling to dust in my sleep.
“Come on in,” I say, inviting him into a room he’s surely visited before.
“Switch?”
I murmur her name next to her ear, stroking her hair, her fingers, trying to wake her as gently as possible. It takes a few attempts to get her to open her eyes.
“Shit,” she groans, when she wakes, seeing me already dressed. “I should get up.”
“No,” two voices speaking at once.
Her eyes shift from me to him, her eyebrows quirk.
“Cypher’s taking your shift,” Apoc explains.
“Hm.” Her mouth twists, wryly, and her gaze shifts back to me. “Have fun.”
“Haha.”
She squeezes my hand.
“See you soon?”
My mouth quirks.
“If you’re awake.”
I leave them together, talking quietly, Apoc already pulling his boots off. He must be as eager to get beside her as I was. How he lasted through a six hour shift is beyond me. I find myself fighting a grin as I climb the ladder. For all that Switch needs to rest, I doubt she’ll be going back to sleep any time soon.
I make my way through the Main Deck, towards the Core, where I can see Cypher waiting for me, and my heart sinks again. In the year and half that I’ve been awake, he’s made it clear enough that he likes me as more than a friend.
I sigh.
It might be easier between Cypher and me if I could bring myself to want him, but I can’t. Twenty-four years old, and already so bitter… Switch may be sharp and angry - burning with fury, sometimes - and even bleak, but she nurses her hope as well as she can, and there’s a gentleness to her that Cypher’s never had.
Too bad.
He’d be a good guy if he wasn’t so damn twisted up inside.
“Hey, Trin,” he greets me, as I sit down.
“Hey,” I answer, booting up my consol. “Anything interesting happening?”
A shrug.
Hopefully it’ll stay dull.
Dull is good, I remind myself. Dull means no squidies nosing around, it means the engine’s running smoothly and the pads aren’t shorting out.
It also means that there aren’t any distractions.
Normally this is fine - a chance to chat with whoever else is working the shift with me, but Cypher’s been circling around a subject - the subject - for more than an hour already. Half of me wants him to drop the damn thing. The other half of me just wishes he’d spit it out.
“I dunno how you do it,” he says, finally.
“Do what?” I adjust the course, with undue attention.
“Switch and Apoc...” he trails off. Bait?
I turn my head, give him a long look.
“What about them?”
For all of an instant, he gives me the most sympathetic look I’ve ever seen.
He chews his lip.
“She’s sleeping with him, Trinity.” He drops his eyes, looking pained. “I thought you knew. I’m sorry.”
For what? For telling me?
Maybe he really did think I knew. Maybe he really thinks that this’ll hurt me less in the long run than… ‘finding out’ on my own. Maybe he really thinks Switch is that much of a liar. Hell, I spent a miserable twenty-four hours thinking just that, and I’d like to believe I know her better than Cypher does.
I sigh.
“I know,” I tell him. “I’ve known for a long time.”
“Oh.” He looks away, checking the scanners. “I wasn’t sure.”
He taps out a line of code, then another.
The silences stretches, tense, to the snapping point.
He laughs, still nervous.
“I still don’t know how you do it,” he comments, shaking his head. “If it was my girlfriend foolin’ around with some guy… I couldn’t. It’d be him or me, that’s it-” he pauses - thank god - but maybe it’s just because a new thought is occurring.
“Hey,” he says. New thought. Damn. “Is it because he’s a guy?”
He takes one look at my face, and back-pedals.
“Ah. Okay. So, no. Not because he’s a guy.”
No.
Not because he’s a guy.
But do I really want to go into that with Cypher? Do I really want to explain the obvious? That this isn’t about chromosomes or plumbing or any kind of biology, but because he puts his own life on the line for her, because I know he loves her as much as I do?
Cypher looks at me and sighs, heavily.
“Okay,” he says, turning back to his consol. “Forget I asked.”
Within the week we’ve had news from Zion, confirming that our diversion was a success, that the attack on the city was defeated.
It is cause for a celebration, in so far as we can have such a thing on the ship.
The whole crew crams into the Mess, passing cups and a can of Dozer’s moonshine around the table, laughing and teasing. I’m surprised to hear Switch, whose bruises have faded from purple to blue to yellow-green, joking about her near-death experience. I can’t help but smile at Apoc’s reaction to Tank’s recounting of the shipboard side of the, uh, adventure.
“He was, like, ’Drop me in! Now!’ Man...”
Tank shakes his head, grinning at Apoc, who is looks into his cup, embarrassed.
“I swear,” Tank goes on. “That’s more words than I’ve ever heard you use at once! It was intense!”
There is laughter, gentle, kind, and I catch Apoc smiling, sharing a glance with Switch.
The jug comes round the table to me, and I fill my cup.
“Careful with that,” Switch warns, amusement in her eyes. I am reminded, suddenly, that I’ve technically never had a drink before.
I pass the jug onwards, lifting my cup and sipping cautiously.
Oh, god, what’s in this??
Laughter erupts around the table as I cough and splutter, getting my breath back.
And that was just from a sip...
“Don’t worry,” I hear Tank chirp.
I turn my head, to see him grinning broadly.
“Everybody chokes the first time.”
He winks, and drinks the liquor like water.
He would.
He must have been sneaking the stuff from his brother since he was sixteen.
Too soon, the room begins to empty as people return to abandoned tasks, or stumble off to bed. I can feel the alcohol buzzing in my veins, my head is swimming and all the lights are haloed. I am very glad that I don’t have to work for a few hours yet.
I look across the table at Switch and Apoc.
Apoc looks tipsy, swaying ever so slightly in his chair. He drops his eyes when I look at him and his skin flushes. Huh.
Switch, it seems, is trying not to laugh. I can’t tell if she’s drunk or not.
“What’s so funny?” I ask, carefully, trying not to let my speech slur.
Switch giggles.
I blink.
Switch doesn’t giggle!
“You two,” she says, through her laughter. She glances at my half-empty cup. "Think you've had enough, yet?"
Enough.
It’s not like it took more than a few beers to get me drunk back when I was sleeping. Why should now be any different from then?
"Maybe," I hedge.
“I remember,” Apoc says, slowly, a smile spreading across his face. “I remember watching you get drunk.” He pokes Switch in the arm, chuckling.
She shoots him an amused glance.
“I seem to recall it was your idea to get me that way.”
He grins into his cup.
“It worked, too.”
She rolls her eyes.
“I was very impressionable.”
I shake my head, trying to pick up the thread of a conversation that’s only half spoken.
“What happened?”
I take another cautious sip, feel the alcohol burn down my throat, managing not to cough this time. I watch the two of them.
She lifts her eyebrows at him. (Do you want to explain this, or shall I?)
He nods towards her, a smile ghosting around his lips. (You go ahead.)
Her mouth twists, wry and amused. (Alright. You asked for it.)
How do they say so much without any words at all?
Another hour and the three of us are making our unsteady way through the narrow passages of the Neb. I’m drunk enough, even now, even after switching to water, that my head is spinning. I trail one hand along the wall, cold metal under my fingers, to keep myself from stumbling. My other arm is draped around Switch’s shoulder.
Absurdly, the tune from ‘the wizard of oz’ turns up in my head - Switch’s arm around my waist, her other hand linked with Apoc’s. We’re off to see the wizard…
At my cabin door, we stop, I turn the handle, trying to keep it from squeaking too much.
“Have a good night,” Switch murmurs, pulling me into her arms.
I breath deeply, catch the smell of her hair, her skin, even her clothes. I drop a kiss on her shoulder, another on her neck.
“See you soon?”
“Mm-hmm,” she presses a kiss to my lips.
I pull her closer, tasting the moonshine on her lips, her tongue. Maybe it’s the booze, but I feel strangely fine about kissing her in front of him tonight. Maybe it's finally stopped bothering me.
“Get some sleep,” I suggest, when she pulls away, a lazy smile ghosting at the corners of her mouth.
“I will,” she promises.
Eventually, I add, mentally, noting the way Apoc’s arm has slipped around Switch’s body.
“’Night, Apoc,” I say, stepping into my cabin. Part of me wishes Switch were staying, but another part is - slowly - getting used to this.
Apoc lifts his hand in a kind of a wave.
“G’night,” he mumbles, dropping his eyes, not quite looking at me.
I can’t help noticing that Switch’s wry smile (I know something you don’t know) is back again, as her glance shifts from him to me.
“Sweet dreams,” she murmurs, far too amused.
What? I wonder, as I watch them walk away.
She is leaning into his shoulder, her arm around his waist, murmuring something that I can’t quite catch.
What am I missing?
*~*~*~*~*
Part Eighteen: Know Thyself
Comments? Pretty-Please? :-)