Title: Comfort

Rating: PG

Pairing: Switch/Trinity

Summary: It's cold in the real world; there is none of the warmth and joy that exists in the false life of the Matrix. Here, people must find comfort where they can

It was cold here, always cold. There was little comfort to be had in the great belly of the Nebuchadnezzar, surrounded by bitter iron, many-coloured wires and cables, and grim-faced people clad in rags.

In the first months after she had been freed, Trinity felt utterly alone, with only the cold comfort of Morpheus' assurances that she was doing the right thing to console her in the long dark hours. She did her duties; fought when it was required of her, learned the secrets of the ship, the ways of the rebellion. She discovered in time that she loved and respected Morpheus and the other crewmembers. But still she was alone.

Then came the girl. Trinity recalled the first time she saw her; shivering and pathetic, as they had all been at first; dripping with foul water, her skin paper-white, whiter even than the others' sun-starved flesh. And Trinity was struck, somehow, by this girl- Switch, as she called herself, discarding the name given to her in the Matrix, as they all did. She too seemed alone in the hollow, echoing spaces of the ship.

And so Trinity went to her, and together, they garnered what comfort they could.