Chapter Thirty: Calling

The phone woke Gemini.

"Shit, Gem! This new bug they put in my gut hurts like fucking hell!"

"Who is this?"

Gemini held the phone away from her ear while all the colors of the verbal spectrum came over the receiver. That's what she got for teasing. Carefully, she spoke, "Calm down, Tyger. You'll be all right, won't you? I remember my bug stopped hurting after a while."

"That's not the point. Damn machines, damn Agent Taylor, thinks he's so superior. Did you know Scorpio had this new kind of bug too?" Pause. "Shit, don't tell anyone that."

"Who am I going to tell...at three in the morning?"

"Oh. Sorry. It's not three here. You're doing your time thing again, aren't you?"

"Don't lecture me. It's what I do in the Matrix. I can't help it." She rubbed her eyes. "Did you have a reason for calling me, Tyger?"

"Would you believe it's a socially retarded way of trying to mend a friendship?"

"Not really."

A sigh. "I really am sorry, Gem. Scorpio asked me to take his place. You know you can't say no to Scorpio."

"I did."

"Look where that led us all."

"Tyger..."

"Sorry. It's just...I think I know why Scorpio went nuts. Sometimes you can hear things through this bug. Machine whispers. I think maybe Scorpio's malfunctioned and he heard more. Talk about schizophrenia..."

"Shit." Gemini thought about this. It made sense. Poor Scorpio. They'd always been at odds. She rebuffed his advances and he resented her attention to Ephram. Now she realized that Scorpio must have insisted she sleep with Smith as some kind of warped punishment. After all this time, she might be able to find some compassion for him. "Tyger...I saw him last night when we were out. He didn't know me. He said his name was Hank."

"Crap."

Gemini nodded, though she knew it couldn't be seen over the phone. "On a crutch, even. Smith said it was a warning."

Strained silence from the other end. Then, "The Watchers are only here because of one man's crazy bargain with the machines. He's gone now, and we're all in limbo."

"You know what Ephram bargained with?"

"He didn't tell you?"

"No. I hoped he would eventually, but...time ran out."

"Gem..." She sounded as though she was trying to explain something complex. "We all thought maybe after Derek, you would look around for someone. You know, find that soul mate you always talked about."

"I had my soul mate. He was taken from me."

"How could he be your soul mate if he was taken from you?"

Gemini sighed. "Don't, Tyger. Just don't. You don't know how it was between us. I know everyone thought I had some kind of Electra complex for him, but it wasn't that. We were both surprised at how it happened. We had what we had because of Fate. Ephram always said that Fate has a path for everyone, and it never gives us more than we each have strength for." She sighed again. "I wish I had less strength, so I wouldn't have to deal with so much."

She heard Tyger chuckle. "We all wish that in some form or another."

"I used to wonder how Ephram kept going despite everything, despite all the darkness he'd seen. There was a lot he never told anyone."

"We all have secrets, Gemini. Some peoples' secrets are just bigger."

"He had so many people willing to share his burden."

"Maybe he was protecting us."

"I didn't need protection. I needed him."

"They're one and the same, Gemini."

Gemini sat in silence. Tyger made sense, no matter how much her words fell on unwilling ears. Ephram was, after all, the father of the Watchers. That was how most everyone treated him, even Tyger, who had known him the longest. Gemini missed that family. The Watchers needed protection, and Ephram was...well, he was protective. Not possessive, but a guardian. It never occurred to Gemini that that part of his nature might have cost him a great deal.

"Gem? You still there?"

"Yeah."

"I really am sorry, kiddo."

"Please stop saying you're sorry."

"Okay. I'm not sorry. I wish you nothing but darkness and angst for the rest of your life." Thankfully, Tyger's teasing tone wasn't lost over the telephone connection.

Gemini chuckled. "Thanks. Too bad it's not my birthday." She rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I've had enough darkness and angst recently to last me the rest of my life."

"Gem. No you haven't. I can say this from experience."

She didn't like that tone. "Tyger? What's going on there? Are things all right?"

The older woman sighed on the other end of the phone. "They will be eventually. Just me getting used to leading. Growing pains, or something like that, I guess. Don't pay my whining much heed. Things will be okay."

"I'm taking your word that they will be."

"Gemini." A small but significant pause. "Maggie. Things always look worst just before they start to get better." Another pause. "I should go. You need sleep, and...Agent Taylor just stepped into the doorway, and he has another one of his constipated expressions on."

Gemini grinned. "I know that expression. It must be pre-programmed."

A halfhearted laugh. The phone disconnected without a goodbye. Tyger did that a lot.

Sighing, Gemini stared groggily at the phone in its cradle. Her eyes were sore. She wished for selective amnesia. She felt movement behind her; a shifting of the other warm body that occupied the bed. "You heard it all, didn't you?" she asked without turning to look.

"Yes."

"Smith...do you trust me?"

"Why would I need to?"

She faced him, pulling the blanket over her naked chest. "I know things other humans don't. You might not want me to know them."

He looked at her. "You trust me. That isn't enough?"

Gemini opened her mouth, paused, closed her mouth, then took a deep breath. "I'd like to know that I'm trusted, too."

Smith stared at her silently for a while. Then he reached over and took her face in his hands. The touch was exceedingly intimate, as though he had reached out and touched her very womb. "You know that I...can't tell you...what you would like," he said. His words sounded carefully chosen. "I...have allowed you to know things...which other humans do not. That..." He observed his own thumb moving against her skin before his stare locked on her eyes again. "That must suffice."

On one level, it did. But Gemini had delusions of grandeur. "Don't you think more humans should know these things? It would help if people had empathy for each other."

"No."

"Smith..."

He dropped his hands. "No."

"Smith, these circumstances, this war, it's too much for everybody. It's not fair that you're going to be..." she swallowed, "defragmented because the Mainframe doesn't understand how you've changed. It's not a bad thing that you've changed. Humans can understand that." She touched his shoulder. "The Watchers could help."

"They could not."

"Smith..."

He glared at a spot near her left eyebrow. "Your emotional attachment to Ephram has apparently led you to a faulty political outlook. Humans and machines cannot have peace. I will be defragmented, and you will forget your misguided need to protect me."

She pulled her hand away, stung. How could he say such things? Gemini gaped at him. Her mind raced to reason out an explanation...why was he acting like this? She wasn't a very good psychologist. Who the hell knew why an Artificial Intelligence did anything?

Exhaling sharply, Smith turned away from her to sit on the opposite edge of the bed. He focused his stare on Circuit, who had sauntered into the bedroom, nudging the door open as she came. She hopped onto the bed and blinked at Smith.

"You continue to desire this man, though he has been dead for years," Smith muttered. "You and I have recently copulated, yet the mention of his name..."

"What the hell?" No way he could be jealous. Of a dead man? No.

He began to pet the cat. "It has no logic, does it, Circuit? There is no reason she should...no reason I should..."

"Smith!" she nearly shrieked, and cursed her panicked tone.

He blinked. His hand stopped moving on Circuit's furry grey back. After a few insistent nudges, the feline realized she would receive no further petting from her strange smelling male human. She padded over to the other human with her most endearing purr. No response. Circuit hopped off the bed in a huff. Her tail flicked behind her out the door.

Smith might have started to sigh again, but he cut it short with another fierce exhalation. Finally, he looked at Gemini. Realization. Helpless horror. The fact that each could recognize the other's expression was no comfort. The realization soaked through her and settled in a thick lump midway between her throat and her heart. Smith had spoken directly to the cat. That slip, so out of character yet so in character, spoke volumes to what he had become and what he would lose.

"I'm so sor..."

"Don't say you're sorry. Human pity...is an insult."

"What can I say?"

"Nothing." He looked away. His shoulders slumped just a bit.

"I love you."

Obviously he didn't want her sentiment at the moment. "You shouldn't," he muttered.

"I do." Gemini toyed with the edge of her sheet. It smelled like him. Them. She would probably never wash it again, just to preserve that smell. "Smith...I just want to touch you...hold you..."

He sneered over his shoulder. "You are offering me comfort? It is fortunate that I am incapable of laughter."

It was too much. Gemini crawled across the bed to grip Smith's shoulders. Rubbing gently, she placed soft kisses over his bare back. "I'm offering you comfort because you need it, but you're too damn stubborn to ask. You gave me comfort; I'm doing the same for you. It's what someone in love does for a partner."

"I'm not..."

She sighed. "I know you're not."

Smith let her continue to rub his shoulders. She thought about her conversation with Tyger, and how it only brought home the fact that this time with Smith was stolen time, that her past with Ephram still had the capability to hurt her, and she would likely keep hurting the same after Smith was gone. She thought about the apparent new vulnerability between the machines, Watchers, and Resistance. It was too much. Gemini never did have a mind for politics. She wanted people to be noble, to fight for just causes and cooperate, not greedily gather power for themselves. She wanted reasonable people, not those who fought because of a fanatic one-sided view of the truth.

"I'm such a damn idealist," she muttered.

"What?"

Sighing, she reached her arms around his shoulders and rubbed her palms against his bare chest. "I always want happy endings. I didn't have one with Ephram, and I can't have one with you, but I have trouble resolving myself to it."

Gemini thought she felt a small growl go through Smith's chest. Was it possible he was tired too? He hadn't recharged in a while. Feeling and denying his newfound emotions would tire him. She pressed into his pectorals, offering nonverbal comfort but without making it overly sexual. He needed physical comfort. Possibly more than she did.

"Your ending with Ephram;" he said, "you wanted the conventional marriage, family?"

"I don't believe in marriage. It's kind of pointless as a Watcher, anyway. We all know it's not really real, though Star and Marco I think will want to try it at some point. It's just...with Ephram I wanted...all of him. I gave him all of myself. I was so messed up when he...when...shit..." She sniffed.

"Wanted? As in past tense?"

Her hands on Smith's chest slid away. She sat back from him. "No, I...still want him. I miss him. God...I loved, still love him so much. I gave him everything I was."

Smith twisted around and gripped her shoulders. "You gave yourself to me." His eyes fixed on hers and she could feel his anger.

Her throat tightened. She couldn't speak. Smith's fingers were painful. He wouldn't really hurt her, would he? They were past this stage, past the point when he kept reasserting his Agent nature. Weren't they? God, he couldn't have forgotten that he said he wouldn't hurt her.

Smith stared at her, those cold blue irises causing her skin to tingle. He seemed to take unusual interest in the pulse rapidly increasing beneath her throat. He was dangerous. Foolishly, she tried to ignore that. She was an idiot for talking about someone else while in bed with a possessive Smith.

Smith inhaled, exhaled slowly. Her scent had changed. Before, it was musky, sweet. Something he wanted to save in a protected file. Now it was...his fingers twitched on her shoulders...she smelled of fear. He could nearly taste it. Her eyes were pale, her pupils constricted. Smith's nostrils twitched. She couldn't fear him. She trusted him.

He frowned. "You trust me."

Slowly she shook her head, eyes still wide, still smelling of tangy fear.

"Why not?" he whispered.

Gemini trembled. "I'm afraid of myself for trusting you. You're jealous of Ephram; what would you do to him if he was still around?"

Smith's fingers twitched again. "You have not just copulated with Mister Green."

She blushed. "I'm sorry." She touched the outline of Smith's collarbone. "I shouldn't have brought him up. There should be no ghosts of others between partners in bed."

Smith stopped the motion with his hand around hers. His stare became palpable. After a while, he blinked. "Ephram Green was vital to the formation of the Watchers," he said.

"Yes."

"How?"

Gemini could scarcely believe she was forgiven. But she was grateful. "I'm not really sure," she said. "He bargained for us somehow. There were rumors that he saw the Mainframe itself, but I doubt it. He did deal with Agents a lot, though. Isn't this stuff you should know more about than me?"

"The Mainframe has restricted access to files regarding Mister Green."

"Why?"

"Unknown."

She sighed. "Shit."

"Yes."

She frowned at him. He was agreeing with her curse? He had an isolated expression, a look in his eyes that seemed to say he knew he was helpless against his fate. The fight had gone out of him. "Waiting for the hammer to fall" was an appropriate expression.

"Scorpio's insanity and reinsertion...was because his tracer malfunctioned," Smith said. "Tyger would do wise to inform Agent Taylor beforehand of any malfunction, as a precaution."

"Why the hell would you care if she's reinserted?"

"Reinsertion requires extensively delicate reprogramming."

"Ah, the old argument for efficiency. You know what, Smith, that's really annoying." She laid down against the pillow. It was dented in the middle from her head resting there countless nights. Probably time to buy herself a new one. She would want to save Smith's scent on this one anyway. "We should be doing it on the kitchen table, or having long meaningful discussions, not bickering about someone in my past. I should feed you exotic foods, you should find my ticklish spots. We should experience all of that sensory decadence you mentioned. Carpe diem, you know."

Smith corrected her, "Carpe noctem, in this case."

"Seize the...oh yeah. Night. I guess that's more accurate."

She watched him staring at his discarded black jeans near the foot of the bed. "I gave you my code," he said.

"You...what?"

"You will be invulnerable to reinsertion."

A tornado of emotions ripped through her. "Smith...." In a final, startling moment, she understood why he had done this. "Thank you." She nearly choked on the words, struggling to get them past the lump of tears in her throat.

"I told you to remember."

He had. During their lovemaking. She didn't understand at the time just how important it was to him. She also finally understood why Smith could not keep what he had gained. It interfered with his ability to be an Agent. He was created with a purpose, a duty to fulfill for his creator, and Gemini suspected that machines did not coddle the "special" programs in their society.

"You will be the only record of me," Smith said. His hands clenched above his knees. "It is selfish..."

"Sometimes you have to be selfish." Smith grunted. She smiled a little. "Smith, I know you trust me now. You trusted me enough to give me yourself. I won't betray that. I promise I won't go telling the whole world how it was living with an Agent. I definitely won't tell anyone what you look like naked, or that you're a fantastic kisser, or...uhm...you're exceptionally endowed." She saw his hands begin to unclench. Gemini rolled to her side to see him more easily. "It would kind of ruin your badass reputation, wouldn't it?"

Smith suppressed a smirk.