Live Truly, My Heart: Pt.3
This is Trinity's story - Slightly AU in the name of Fun With Narrative (it may become more AU as the story goes on).
Note: Apoc, Tank and Mouse have not yet joined the crew, as such there are two OCs to help make up the rest of the crew's complement.
Part One: Real
Part Two: Search and Rescue
Title: Live Truly, My Heart
Fandom: The Matrix
Characters: Trinity, Switch, Dozer, Cypher, Morpheus, The Oracle, Glitch (OC) and Ginger (OC), mention of Shinogi (OC).
Pairing: Switch/Trinity
Rating: T - I think (for romance).
The Oracle Speaks
“How is she?”
Dozer looks up from his needles - I never saw such a huge man wield anything with such precision.
“Not nearly so bad as you were,” he comments, sliding another needle into Shinogi’s flesh. “Shouldn’t take more than another week to get her up on her feet.”
He’s been rebuilding her tissues for a week already.
Threads of wire coil from each needle, hooked into a generator. Dozer flicks the switch, sends the subtle current into Shinogi’s fragile body.
The needles shiver.
I see her fingers twitch.
I squeeze Dozer’s shoulder.
“Thanks.”
“Just doin’ my job,” he answers, mildly, checking the monitor, keeping the current well below what the little girl can handle.
I smile.
“Thanks for doing your job.”
I try to eat.
“Hello, Trinity.”
“Oh. Hi, Cypher.” I poke at my ration. I was shoo’d off the main deck over an hour ago and I’ve been trying to occupy myself ever since.
He fills his own dish, and sits down across from me.
“Can’t stand the stuff, can you?”
I shrug.
“I’ve had better.”
I swallow a spoonful of the rubbery gruel anyway. It’s not real food, but neither was anything I’d ever believed I’d eaten before I got out.
“It’s not liquefied dead people,” I point out.
He snickers.
“Yeah, it’s got that goin’ for it, I guess.”
He smiles at me - nervously, I think.
“You’re pretty, Trinity,” he tells me, like it’s a confession.
I drop my eyes, looking into my dish, startled.
“Thanks. Uh...”
I think I hear him sigh.
“I think Switch’ll be back soon,” he offers.
I swallow, hard.
Don’t get up, don’t get up, I tell myself. I force myself to take another spoonful of my ration, swallow it down.
“Are you sure?”
She’s been hooked up for nearly five hours.
It was supposed to be a three hour trip.
He shrugs.
“Just thought you’d wanna know.”
“Thanks,” I murmur.
I finish my ration without bolting it, wash my dish, my cup, my spoon and put them on the shelf to dry.
“Bye, Cypher,” I say, as I head out the door.
“Bye, Trinity.”
I hardly hear him.
When I reach the Core, Dozer is unhooking Morpheus.
Switch is still connected, but her eyes are open.
I breathe out.
“What took you so long?”
“Agents cut the hard line,” Morpheus explains. “It took a while to find another signal.”
Dozer unhooks Switch, who sits up, rubbing her neck.
“You could say that,” she confirms.
I hear the snap and pop as her joints shift back into place.
“We got it, though,” she says, with a smile.
Morpheus’s mouth curls up at the corners.
“She wants to see you, Trinity,” he says.
“Who?”
“The Oracle.”
“Did she ever talk to you?” I ask Switch, in one of our rare moments together.
She’s piloting the ship towards a distant signal point. I just can’t sleep. In the nine months I've been out, I've heard her spoken of only rarely, and in tones of awe.
“The Oracle?” she nods, adjusting a dial. “She’s... not what you’d expect.”
“What did she tell you?”
“Um…” she swallows, and I realize I’ve made a mistake.
“Forget it,” I offer, hastily. “Forget I asked. I should have realized it’s personal-”
“It’s okay,” she says, quietly.
She gropes for my hand, and I squeeze her fingers.
“She said... She told me when I’d die.” Another swallow, a deep breath. “She said I’d have to make a choice about that.”
I can feel the tears pricking at my eyes.
“Is it soon?” I ask in a small voice.
She shrugs.
“Don’t know. Depends when - if - Morpheus finds the One. Could be a week from now. Could be never. I won’t know ‘til it happens.”
I digest this, watching her check the charts, adjust the course of the ship.
“God,” I breathe. “Switch, how do live with that?”
She squeezes my hand again and when she turns to me, her eyes are shining.
“Trinity... Even if I died tomorrow, I’ll have lived longer than anyone in those battery towers.” She smiles, stroking my fingers with her thumb. “I’ll take this life over that one any day.”
A week later, we are sitting in the mess room, trying to enjoy another unappetising meal of goo. At the other end of the table, Ginger sits down across from Glitch.
“This really your last run?” he asks, out of the blue.
Glitch puts down his spoon.
“Kid,” he answers. “I have been piloting this bucketabolts since before you got dragged out of that battery pack. I think I’ve earned my retirement.”
I start at that.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yep. ‘Bout time, too. By rights I should have been off a year ago, but,” his eyes twinkle, “Morpheus’d found this crazy kid who hacked the IRS without getting caught.” He rolls his eyes. “He didn’t want to risk a new operator until he had you up and awake.”
“Oh,” I say. Across the table from me, I can see Switch trying not to grin. “Sorry about that.”
Glitch shrugs.
“Well, I figured, what’s one more year. But now I’m done.” He swallows a spoonful of his ration, and licks his lips. “Soon as that little girl of yours is up and about, we’re goin’ back to Zion and I’m not getting on a boat ever again. I’ll be eating hydroponic grapes every day, and you people can enjoy your Nutritious Amino Acids without me.”
I climb into the chair, setting my feet in the stirrups and leaning back against the head-rest.
“Comfortable?” Ginger asks, adjusting the straps across my feet.
“Haha,” I answer.
He moves to Morpheus’s chair, helps him settle into place.
On my other side, Switch is already strapped in, waiting for the pin to be slid into place.
“Okay,” says Ginger. “We’re just about ready. Your programs are loaded and standing by,” he checks over his shoulder. I can only assume the Glitch has given him the nod to hook us up. “We’re gonna drop you right in,” he continues, “so keep sharp.”
“Good luck, kids,” I hear Glitch say, just before the pin slides into my head and I hear the ringing begin.
We appear in what looks like a living room - there are cracks in the window, and the furniture has mildew growing on it. Our breath mists in the air.
Morpheus looks like he did when I first met him, a ground-dusting overcoat and thick leather gloves over a good suit. I look at Switch.
“Hm,” I say, sliding my over the white, white, white of her jacket, her boots, her necktie. “Nice.”
“Keep your head in the game,” she answers, but she’s grinning and I know she’s pleased.
Behind me, I hear Morpheus speaking into his phone.
“We’re in,” he says. “Anything we need to watch out for in the area?” A moment more and, “Good. This shouldn’t take long.”
He clicks the phone off, slipping it into the pocket of his coat.
“Trinity? The Oracle isn’t far from here,” he turns to Switch. “Give it an hour.”
“You’re not-?”
She shakes her head at me.
“Wish I could,” she says, quietly. She nods towards the hard line. “Guard duty. I’ll be waiting for you.”
Morpheus leads me down the snowy streets. Even under the cloudy sky, the imaginary world is brighter than anything reality has to offer. Faint as it is, the sunlight glinting off the ice dazzles me even behind my glasses.
“Whatever she tells you,” Morpheus informs me, quietly, guiding me through the doors of an aging apartment building, “it’s for your ears only.”
He taps in a number on the key-pad by the door, and a speaker crackles into life.
“It’s me.”
“Hello, Morpheus. You brought your little girl to see me?”
“She’s right here.”
“Well, you come on up, then.”
I don’t know what I’d expected. Crystal balls and tarot cards, maybe. Certainly not half a dozen grandchildren squabbling over lego on the wall-to-wall.
An elegant lady invites us to sit down before separating two of the kids with an admonishment to ‘play nice’.
It isn’t long before another child - this one looks about eight, with gap-teeth and braids in her hair - tugs on my jacket and points me towards the kitchen.
“Good luck,” Morpheus says, with a smile, settling back on the couch to watch the little kids play.
I get up and follow the little girl’s lead, brushing past a beaded curtain to have my fortune told.
There is an old woman sitting by the stove. She has a cigarette in her hand and a few dozen cupcakes set out on trays around her.
Huh.
I didn’t expect that, either.
“Are, are you the Oracle?” I ask, hesitantly, fiddling with the sunglasses folded in my hand.
“Hm? Just a second, honey…” beyond her shoulder, a timer dings, sharply. “My granddaughter’s birthday,” she explains, opening the oven. I catch the warm scent of chocolate and, for a moment, my mouth waters even though I know it isn’t real.
“No, honey, it’s not real,” the woman says, setting a tin of cup-cakes on the stove top. She turns to look at me. “They sure smell good though, don’t they?”
“I- yes. They do.”
She smiles, giving me a nod.
“Good answer.”
She takes a drag on her cigarette, and I get the distinct impression that she’s looking right into me.
“My, my,” she says, eventually. “Well, I can see why he wanted you out in the open.”
“You can?”
“Of course I can. Now… What am I gonna tell you?”
She asks as if she expects me to answer.
“What am I doing here?”
Another smile.
“Good question,” she says, taking another drag. White smoke floats in the air around her, clearing slowly. “Well, honey, I can’t say you’re the first to ask me that one.”
She turns, taking her time to set the cigarette down in an ash-tray on the kitchen table.
The table has one of those red and white plastic table cloths on it. There’s a plate of cupcakes decorated with pink and green icing there, too.
She sits down.
“Trinity, honey, do you believe what Morpheus does?”
“Abut the One?”
She nods.
I hesitate.
“Not sure yet, huh,” she says, kindly. Another drag, another cloud of smoke. “To be honest, honey, neither am I. But if he does find this… messiah of his… Honey, you’ll know it when it happens.” She smiles at me, and her eyes are kind and so, so old. “You’ll fall in love with the One, honey. That’s how you’ll know your… candidate is the real deal.”
In love?
“But I’m already-”
“Ah,” she holds up her hand, to stop me. “Who ever said you can’t love more than one person at a time? I love all my kids and all my grandkids… that’s more than twenty people right there, and that’s not even getting to my friends.” Another smile. “Don’t worry, honey,” she says. “You’ll figure it out.”
“Does she give everybody food?” I ask, sucking green icing off my fingertips.
“She always said that a little sugar helps strange news to go down.”
“Definitely strange,” I answer. The cupcake had been good.
We turn the corner, and I can see the dilapidated house we arrived in.
I catch myself holding my breath as we stroll toward it, feeling as though I’m walking into a trap, expecting a car - low, black, sleek - to roll up to the house, expecting trouble.
But nothing comes.
I turn the handle, push the battered door inwards, and walk into the barrel of a gun.
For a split second, I feel my heart stop.
But it’s not an agent on the end of the trigger.
I meet her pale eyes, and breathe out.
“Switch.”
“Sorry.” She says, lowering the gun, slipping it back into the holster under her jacket. She looks as relieved as I feel.
“Any trouble?” Morpheus asks.
“Enough to make me nervous,” she answers, already pulling a gleaming phone from inside her jacket. “Couple of unmarked cars went by,” she explains, as she dials. “You know what that means.” She speaks into the phone, “Glitch? We’re all here. Bring us home.”
As she slips the phone back into her pocket, the hard line beside her starts ringing.
“You first, Trin,” she offers.
I pick up the phone.
I don’t really get a chance to talk to Switch until the next afternoon, in the mess room.
I hand her a tin cup of water.
“How did it go?” she asks, taking the cup from me. “Yesterday, I mean.”
I pour myself a glass, and sit down across from her.
“Weird,” I say, taking a sip. “Really, really weird.”
She nods.
“Sounds about right.”
“She, um,” I trail off, fidgeting with my water cup. “She said I’d fall in love with the One.” I glance at her. “You’re not the One, are you? And just not… telling anybody?”
She stares at me.
“It’s just… I think maybe she got it wrong. Or something.” I am babbling, and I know it. Switch is still staring at me.
I take a sip of water, grateful for the distraction it offers.
Switch holds up a finger.
“Did you just… Did you just say what I think you just said?”
“Um.”
I think I just told Switch that I love her.
“I think I might have. Yeah.”
Her mouth drops open, just a little, and her eyebrows shoot up.
It is only the creaking of the door that makes me break eye-contact. I see her turn her head, just as I do, towards the open door.
Standing in the doorway, Cypher rolls his eyes, looking disgusted.
“I’ll come back later,” he mutters, darkly, and shuts the door again.
I breathe out.
I turn back, to look at Switch.
She giggles - a breathless little laugh that I feel welling up in my own throat.
Soon we are both laughing, tears streaming down our faces, laughing, perhaps, to cover up the enormity of what has just been said.
*~*~*~*~*
Part Four: Revelations
Comments, as always, are avidly sought and appreciated greatly. :-D
Note: Apoc, Tank and Mouse have not yet joined the crew, as such there are two OCs to help make up the rest of the crew's complement.
Part One: Real
Part Two: Search and Rescue
Title: Live Truly, My Heart
Fandom: The Matrix
Characters: Trinity, Switch, Dozer, Cypher, Morpheus, The Oracle, Glitch (OC) and Ginger (OC), mention of Shinogi (OC).
Pairing: Switch/Trinity
Rating: T - I think (for romance).
The Oracle Speaks
“How is she?”
Dozer looks up from his needles - I never saw such a huge man wield anything with such precision.
“Not nearly so bad as you were,” he comments, sliding another needle into Shinogi’s flesh. “Shouldn’t take more than another week to get her up on her feet.”
He’s been rebuilding her tissues for a week already.
Threads of wire coil from each needle, hooked into a generator. Dozer flicks the switch, sends the subtle current into Shinogi’s fragile body.
The needles shiver.
I see her fingers twitch.
I squeeze Dozer’s shoulder.
“Thanks.”
“Just doin’ my job,” he answers, mildly, checking the monitor, keeping the current well below what the little girl can handle.
I smile.
“Thanks for doing your job.”
I try to eat.
“Hello, Trinity.”
“Oh. Hi, Cypher.” I poke at my ration. I was shoo’d off the main deck over an hour ago and I’ve been trying to occupy myself ever since.
He fills his own dish, and sits down across from me.
“Can’t stand the stuff, can you?”
I shrug.
“I’ve had better.”
I swallow a spoonful of the rubbery gruel anyway. It’s not real food, but neither was anything I’d ever believed I’d eaten before I got out.
“It’s not liquefied dead people,” I point out.
He snickers.
“Yeah, it’s got that goin’ for it, I guess.”
He smiles at me - nervously, I think.
“You’re pretty, Trinity,” he tells me, like it’s a confession.
I drop my eyes, looking into my dish, startled.
“Thanks. Uh...”
I think I hear him sigh.
“I think Switch’ll be back soon,” he offers.
I swallow, hard.
Don’t get up, don’t get up, I tell myself. I force myself to take another spoonful of my ration, swallow it down.
“Are you sure?”
She’s been hooked up for nearly five hours.
It was supposed to be a three hour trip.
He shrugs.
“Just thought you’d wanna know.”
“Thanks,” I murmur.
I finish my ration without bolting it, wash my dish, my cup, my spoon and put them on the shelf to dry.
“Bye, Cypher,” I say, as I head out the door.
“Bye, Trinity.”
I hardly hear him.
When I reach the Core, Dozer is unhooking Morpheus.
Switch is still connected, but her eyes are open.
I breathe out.
“What took you so long?”
“Agents cut the hard line,” Morpheus explains. “It took a while to find another signal.”
Dozer unhooks Switch, who sits up, rubbing her neck.
“You could say that,” she confirms.
I hear the snap and pop as her joints shift back into place.
“We got it, though,” she says, with a smile.
Morpheus’s mouth curls up at the corners.
“She wants to see you, Trinity,” he says.
“Who?”
“The Oracle.”
“Did she ever talk to you?” I ask Switch, in one of our rare moments together.
She’s piloting the ship towards a distant signal point. I just can’t sleep. In the nine months I've been out, I've heard her spoken of only rarely, and in tones of awe.
“The Oracle?” she nods, adjusting a dial. “She’s... not what you’d expect.”
“What did she tell you?”
“Um…” she swallows, and I realize I’ve made a mistake.
“Forget it,” I offer, hastily. “Forget I asked. I should have realized it’s personal-”
“It’s okay,” she says, quietly.
She gropes for my hand, and I squeeze her fingers.
“She said... She told me when I’d die.” Another swallow, a deep breath. “She said I’d have to make a choice about that.”
I can feel the tears pricking at my eyes.
“Is it soon?” I ask in a small voice.
She shrugs.
“Don’t know. Depends when - if - Morpheus finds the One. Could be a week from now. Could be never. I won’t know ‘til it happens.”
I digest this, watching her check the charts, adjust the course of the ship.
“God,” I breathe. “Switch, how do live with that?”
She squeezes my hand again and when she turns to me, her eyes are shining.
“Trinity... Even if I died tomorrow, I’ll have lived longer than anyone in those battery towers.” She smiles, stroking my fingers with her thumb. “I’ll take this life over that one any day.”
A week later, we are sitting in the mess room, trying to enjoy another unappetising meal of goo. At the other end of the table, Ginger sits down across from Glitch.
“This really your last run?” he asks, out of the blue.
Glitch puts down his spoon.
“Kid,” he answers. “I have been piloting this bucketabolts since before you got dragged out of that battery pack. I think I’ve earned my retirement.”
I start at that.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yep. ‘Bout time, too. By rights I should have been off a year ago, but,” his eyes twinkle, “Morpheus’d found this crazy kid who hacked the IRS without getting caught.” He rolls his eyes. “He didn’t want to risk a new operator until he had you up and awake.”
“Oh,” I say. Across the table from me, I can see Switch trying not to grin. “Sorry about that.”
Glitch shrugs.
“Well, I figured, what’s one more year. But now I’m done.” He swallows a spoonful of his ration, and licks his lips. “Soon as that little girl of yours is up and about, we’re goin’ back to Zion and I’m not getting on a boat ever again. I’ll be eating hydroponic grapes every day, and you people can enjoy your Nutritious Amino Acids without me.”
I climb into the chair, setting my feet in the stirrups and leaning back against the head-rest.
“Comfortable?” Ginger asks, adjusting the straps across my feet.
“Haha,” I answer.
He moves to Morpheus’s chair, helps him settle into place.
On my other side, Switch is already strapped in, waiting for the pin to be slid into place.
“Okay,” says Ginger. “We’re just about ready. Your programs are loaded and standing by,” he checks over his shoulder. I can only assume the Glitch has given him the nod to hook us up. “We’re gonna drop you right in,” he continues, “so keep sharp.”
“Good luck, kids,” I hear Glitch say, just before the pin slides into my head and I hear the ringing begin.
We appear in what looks like a living room - there are cracks in the window, and the furniture has mildew growing on it. Our breath mists in the air.
Morpheus looks like he did when I first met him, a ground-dusting overcoat and thick leather gloves over a good suit. I look at Switch.
“Hm,” I say, sliding my over the white, white, white of her jacket, her boots, her necktie. “Nice.”
“Keep your head in the game,” she answers, but she’s grinning and I know she’s pleased.
Behind me, I hear Morpheus speaking into his phone.
“We’re in,” he says. “Anything we need to watch out for in the area?” A moment more and, “Good. This shouldn’t take long.”
He clicks the phone off, slipping it into the pocket of his coat.
“Trinity? The Oracle isn’t far from here,” he turns to Switch. “Give it an hour.”
“You’re not-?”
She shakes her head at me.
“Wish I could,” she says, quietly. She nods towards the hard line. “Guard duty. I’ll be waiting for you.”
Morpheus leads me down the snowy streets. Even under the cloudy sky, the imaginary world is brighter than anything reality has to offer. Faint as it is, the sunlight glinting off the ice dazzles me even behind my glasses.
“Whatever she tells you,” Morpheus informs me, quietly, guiding me through the doors of an aging apartment building, “it’s for your ears only.”
He taps in a number on the key-pad by the door, and a speaker crackles into life.
“It’s me.”
“Hello, Morpheus. You brought your little girl to see me?”
“She’s right here.”
“Well, you come on up, then.”
I don’t know what I’d expected. Crystal balls and tarot cards, maybe. Certainly not half a dozen grandchildren squabbling over lego on the wall-to-wall.
An elegant lady invites us to sit down before separating two of the kids with an admonishment to ‘play nice’.
It isn’t long before another child - this one looks about eight, with gap-teeth and braids in her hair - tugs on my jacket and points me towards the kitchen.
“Good luck,” Morpheus says, with a smile, settling back on the couch to watch the little kids play.
I get up and follow the little girl’s lead, brushing past a beaded curtain to have my fortune told.
There is an old woman sitting by the stove. She has a cigarette in her hand and a few dozen cupcakes set out on trays around her.
Huh.
I didn’t expect that, either.
“Are, are you the Oracle?” I ask, hesitantly, fiddling with the sunglasses folded in my hand.
“Hm? Just a second, honey…” beyond her shoulder, a timer dings, sharply. “My granddaughter’s birthday,” she explains, opening the oven. I catch the warm scent of chocolate and, for a moment, my mouth waters even though I know it isn’t real.
“No, honey, it’s not real,” the woman says, setting a tin of cup-cakes on the stove top. She turns to look at me. “They sure smell good though, don’t they?”
“I- yes. They do.”
She smiles, giving me a nod.
“Good answer.”
She takes a drag on her cigarette, and I get the distinct impression that she’s looking right into me.
“My, my,” she says, eventually. “Well, I can see why he wanted you out in the open.”
“You can?”
“Of course I can. Now… What am I gonna tell you?”
She asks as if she expects me to answer.
“What am I doing here?”
Another smile.
“Good question,” she says, taking another drag. White smoke floats in the air around her, clearing slowly. “Well, honey, I can’t say you’re the first to ask me that one.”
She turns, taking her time to set the cigarette down in an ash-tray on the kitchen table.
The table has one of those red and white plastic table cloths on it. There’s a plate of cupcakes decorated with pink and green icing there, too.
She sits down.
“Trinity, honey, do you believe what Morpheus does?”
“Abut the One?”
She nods.
I hesitate.
“Not sure yet, huh,” she says, kindly. Another drag, another cloud of smoke. “To be honest, honey, neither am I. But if he does find this… messiah of his… Honey, you’ll know it when it happens.” She smiles at me, and her eyes are kind and so, so old. “You’ll fall in love with the One, honey. That’s how you’ll know your… candidate is the real deal.”
In love?
“But I’m already-”
“Ah,” she holds up her hand, to stop me. “Who ever said you can’t love more than one person at a time? I love all my kids and all my grandkids… that’s more than twenty people right there, and that’s not even getting to my friends.” Another smile. “Don’t worry, honey,” she says. “You’ll figure it out.”
“Does she give everybody food?” I ask, sucking green icing off my fingertips.
“She always said that a little sugar helps strange news to go down.”
“Definitely strange,” I answer. The cupcake had been good.
We turn the corner, and I can see the dilapidated house we arrived in.
I catch myself holding my breath as we stroll toward it, feeling as though I’m walking into a trap, expecting a car - low, black, sleek - to roll up to the house, expecting trouble.
But nothing comes.
I turn the handle, push the battered door inwards, and walk into the barrel of a gun.
For a split second, I feel my heart stop.
But it’s not an agent on the end of the trigger.
I meet her pale eyes, and breathe out.
“Switch.”
“Sorry.” She says, lowering the gun, slipping it back into the holster under her jacket. She looks as relieved as I feel.
“Any trouble?” Morpheus asks.
“Enough to make me nervous,” she answers, already pulling a gleaming phone from inside her jacket. “Couple of unmarked cars went by,” she explains, as she dials. “You know what that means.” She speaks into the phone, “Glitch? We’re all here. Bring us home.”
As she slips the phone back into her pocket, the hard line beside her starts ringing.
“You first, Trin,” she offers.
I pick up the phone.
I don’t really get a chance to talk to Switch until the next afternoon, in the mess room.
I hand her a tin cup of water.
“How did it go?” she asks, taking the cup from me. “Yesterday, I mean.”
I pour myself a glass, and sit down across from her.
“Weird,” I say, taking a sip. “Really, really weird.”
She nods.
“Sounds about right.”
“She, um,” I trail off, fidgeting with my water cup. “She said I’d fall in love with the One.” I glance at her. “You’re not the One, are you? And just not… telling anybody?”
She stares at me.
“It’s just… I think maybe she got it wrong. Or something.” I am babbling, and I know it. Switch is still staring at me.
I take a sip of water, grateful for the distraction it offers.
Switch holds up a finger.
“Did you just… Did you just say what I think you just said?”
“Um.”
I think I just told Switch that I love her.
“I think I might have. Yeah.”
Her mouth drops open, just a little, and her eyebrows shoot up.
It is only the creaking of the door that makes me break eye-contact. I see her turn her head, just as I do, towards the open door.
Standing in the doorway, Cypher rolls his eyes, looking disgusted.
“I’ll come back later,” he mutters, darkly, and shuts the door again.
I breathe out.
I turn back, to look at Switch.
She giggles - a breathless little laugh that I feel welling up in my own throat.
Soon we are both laughing, tears streaming down our faces, laughing, perhaps, to cover up the enormity of what has just been said.
*~*~*~*~*
Part Four: Revelations
Comments, as always, are avidly sought and appreciated greatly. :-D