Watching Me Fall

by Meridian1

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. A short piece that follows Neo from the wreck of the Logos to his final battle with Smith at the end of The Matrix Revolutions.

Title: Watching Me Fall
Rating: PG-13 (again, just playing it safe, but heavy discussion of death, murder, wanting to die)
Author: Meridian
Email: TrinityVixen@aol.com
Summary: All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. A short piece that follows Neo from the wreck of the Logos to his final battle with Smith at the end of The Matrix Revolutions.
WARNING: If you have not seen The Matrix Revolutions, I promise this will spoil the ending for you. Please, do not keep reading if you do not wish to be spoiled. Read only at your own peril. You have been warned, and I take no responsibility if you continue to read. Thank you.
Author's Note: Inspired by a lot of sadness and a lot more love, this is my way of coming to terms with the ending of The Matrix Revolutions, once more without delving into the realm of AU. It's a scene filler/expansion. I apologize for any errors made on the dialogue; at the time of this writing, I have yet to find a completed transcript for the movie. I have filled in the gaps in memory where I could, and hopefully it's recognizable even if incorrect. Also, the title is borrowed from a song by The Cure. Other songs for a good and depressing time: The Cure - There Is No If, Limp Bizkit - Behind Blue Eyes, Depeche Mode - It's No Good, Three Doors Down - Love Me When I'm Gone, and, perhaps most moving of all, Don Davis - Trinity Definitely
Disclaimer: The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, The Animatrix, Enter the Matrix, and all the characters represented within them are the intellectual property of Larry and Andy Wachowski, Joel Silver, and Warner Brothers, among others. They are not mine, nor do I have permission to use them. I am not profiting from this. It is merely an exercise and a reflection of my own attachment to the Matrix franchise.

Watching Me Fall
by Meridian (2003)

He'd been dead once. There wasn't much to it, really. It was the dying that was a bitch, that hurt, that made you angry, that made you scream against the world, "this isn't fair!" even as you realized you couldn't breathe to shout the curse. The real bitch of it was it didn't matter who was dying. Dying hurt. Whether it was your first pet, a parent, a friend.

A Trinity.

He wasn't sure what she'd think about his dying, and that was all that distressed him this time, this time he knew he was dying. It mattered what she thought. It always mattered. In the great cosmic scheme that made people like him and people like Trinity, someone had though it a very great joke to give one all the power and the other all the responsibility. If Trinity were in his place, she would have done the right thing, would have won. Instead, she had to push him, had to get him to exploit what she would have known how to use from birth.

And she got nothing from it but his gratitude, his devotion. The physical pain meant nothing to him as his ruined eyes had cried for her when she said she loved him. He who had done so little to merit it. He who, even now as she lay still, had to be pushed to keep going when all he wanted to do was curl up and proceed with the dying he knew lay in his immediate future, one way or another. How had she ever hid so much power in that slight frame? Freed as it was now, he could not refuse it as it pulled him along, each stumbling step less hesitant, stronger than the one before.

All that she had shown him in so short a time. The wondrous light show all around him paled in comparison to any of even his most unhappy memories of Trinity. Each step saw his blurred outline sending ripples along the flood tide of light. Each step was a memory balling his gut into something sturdier than his spine felt right now.

Step. Hello, Neo.

Step. Neo, I want to tell you something.

Step. You can't be dead. You can't be because I love you. You hear me? I love you.

Then why was he alone? If it were a matter of loving, she would be immortal. His legs gave out but her will kept him moving. He put a hand to his stomach, as if to reach the emotions she woke in him there, to be close to her as he moved steadily away.

Step. Follow me.

Step. I want you to know that I'm here.

Step. Neo, I had to.

So did he. It's why he couldn't stop, why he had to fight. A simple "just because" and no other reason. It was he who fought now that she could not. Because. Because if he didn't, he would have to concede that he was nothing. That she had died for him and he was nothing. That could not be. Trinity didn't believe in nothing. How dare he even think it?

Step. Are you all right?

Step. If you tell me we'll make it, I'll believe you.

Step. I can't go with you, Neo. I've gone as far as I can.

That was okay, now. Because she'd taken him as far as he needed to go. The pathway of light ended in a blossom of energy so brilliant that she alone shone brighter in his eyes. Even the blind could see she was more brilliant than a star. Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.

"I only wish to say what I've come to say. After that, do what you want. I won't try and stop you."

Would never stop it from whatever awful things this long-lived machine could have learned to do to its former masters. Part of him wanted to threaten, part of him to bribe it to listen. But the machine would not have understood. It held the power, and, to it, he was nothing. He would have to prove otherwise. He would prove otherwise.

Speak.

"The program Smith has grown beyond your control. Soon he will spread through this city as he spread through the Matrix. You cannot stop him, but I can."

We don't need you! We need nothing!

Light flew around him, embracing, penetrating, overwhelming. He felt no fear. Cold purpose settled firmly in his gut. If he could have blinked at these things that left gusts of wind in their wake, he would not have. He wasn't scared any more. The worst was over.

"If that's true, then I've made a mistake, and you should kill me now."

Oh, how he wanted to have made a mistake. How he prayed he hadn't. Not for what it cost him. Not for what it cost her. No, he couldn't have lost her for that. Not for nothing, not for a mistake. It was no mistake. It was harder to say there were no regrets.

What do you want?

His heart said, Trinity, but that was not within this creature's power to give. Had it been, he might make his heart's decision and not the right one. Could he only make the right choice if she were not a factor? Not an option for him to choose over the salvation of Zion? No, because she'd never forgive him for it. He'd rather be dead than lose her respect. At this point, he'd rather be dead period. But first things first. If he wanted nothing for himself, could take nothing for himself where he was going, there was still something this machine could give to others on his behalf. As an apology for what he'd taken with him already. What he wanted was irrelevant. What did Zion need from him? What would she have said?

"Peace."

Streams of light curled along his legs. He relaxed into their support, cradled like a child, arms wide in submission to this greater purpose. His vision extended beyond the range of his eyes, three-hundred-and-sixty degrees to the approaching axial line. All his determination focused on it, on willing it to take him where he needed to be.

And if you fail?

She'd kick his ass.

"I won't."

And then it took him away. From the chill of 01 to the creeping cold that soaked through his clothes in Smith's world. It was easier, here. No one but him and Smith and Smith and Smith and Smith. So much easier to pretend that was all that was and all that ever had been.

"Mr. Anderson, welcome back. We missed you."

It did not touch him. Rain drenched every layer of fabric on his body until it slid along the surface of his skin. Behind his sunglasses, it fell from eyelids that still existed in the false reality of the place. False reality because here he was the hero.

"Like what I've done with the place?"

"It ends tonight."

Enough. He had had enough. Let it end, let it be tonight. He could not bring himself to worry. It dawned on him then that this was how the Oracle must feel, this assurance of the future. It might be brutal, but it was at least definite. Let it end, let it be tonight. It would and it will.

"I know it does, I've seen it! That's why the rest of me is just going to enjoy the show. We already know that I'm the one that beats you."

She permeated any reality. His hands made fists of their own accord, taking cue from his gut, taking its strength from her. What need did he have for words? No one would be around to hear them who mattered. If she was watching, she would know anyway.

He ran. He fought. He kept trying. At some point, shortly before his body imagined itself being thrown through a wall, he lost his sunglasses. It didn't concern him. They were one more vanished piece of his past. With his future rapidly drawing to a close, the past did not seem so important. The glasses were just another blindfold, attempting to cover what he could see anyway-himself and the path ahead of him. He picked himself up while Smith sneered.

"Can you feel it, Mr. Anderson? Closing in on you? Well, I can."

Yes, he could feel it. Somewhere, beyond the cloying grip of waterlogged clothes, he felt the warm embrace of it. Closing in on him, yes. Folding over him. Waiting for him.

"I do wish to thank you, for, after all, it was your life that taught me the purpose of all life. The purpose of life is to end."

Feelings on her behalf replaced feelings for her as he fought this back. Rage blurred what little eyesight he could be tricked into having in this place. Not all life, not hers, but his-the purpose of his life was to end. Long ago, when dying for the first time, he felt it, he knew it. For the lives of others to go on, his would be forfeit. He had given it willingly for Morpheus even if he had tried to hold on in the end. To do over, he would have never lived at all for her to keep going on. Now, once again, others wanted his life, tore at it, clung to it, their life raft in a hostile sea of machines.

They could have it. They had to have it to survive themselves. And for them to get it, Smith had to take it. So, he fell. A fall from the heavens that felt more like being kicked out of hell-even when he landed, he would be in a better place than where he started. One step closer, one step he had to take without her reassurances to back him up. Some time after landing, his body again responded to his will, to all the energy he invested in her to keep him going.

"Why, Mr. Anderson? Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you're fighting for something? For more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know?"

There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. He had to get up, had to keep walking, had to. He did not fight for his own survival. He did not fight for more than that. He fought only to die, to rid two worlds of the same problem. To cleanse his soul and not have to fight any more.

"Is it freedom?"

He was free. A hand braced him on a rough patch of broken asphalt.

"Or truth?"

The truth had set him free. His arm responded to his hand-hold, tensed to lift him up.

"Perhaps peace? Yes? No?"

Peace was a condition, yes. One foot slid underneath him, planted.

"Could it be for love?"

Could there be any doubt? It was always for love. A failed attempt to push himself up. He was so tired, so broken. But he could not stop.

"Illusions, Mr. Anderson, vagaries of perception. The temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself! Although, only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love."

He did not think of her just then. Rama-Kandra came to him, the program's love for its daughter came to his mind's eye. Humans may have dreamt up love, but it had spread, a more potent virus than Smith because it was one that you chose and chose you. It did not just take. It gave and gave. It had him on his feet, unsteady, probably unable to do much more unless Smith were willing to give him time he did not have.

"You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson. You must know it by now. You can't win. It's pointless to keep fighting. Why, Mr. Anderson? Why? Why do you persist!?!"

'Why' is the only real source of power. The 'why' had been his power since, so long ago now, he'd woken to words on a screen telling him to do so. The 'why' had brought him back, had led him to save Morpheus from Smith, to save Trinity from a fall, to save Zion from the machines. Why?

"Because I choose to."

Morpheus was right, the Merovingian was wrong. Everything in his life had begun with choice. Choosing had taught him much. Being chosen by her had taught him much more. Smith did not understand, would not because he believed he existed outside the vulnerability of choice. He wobbled, taking more hits than he could block. It allowed him an element of surprise, a last-ditch barrage that flung a frustrated Smith far away. Shaking, weaving back and forth, he looked up to the other Smiths. They seemed unsure whether or not to intrude at this point, to attack a clearly vulnerable opponent. He knew he could never have fought a handful of them, let alone the billions that were somehow on hand for his defeat.

"This is my world! My world!"

He barely felt Smith barrel into him, pick him up by the scruff of his collar, and toss him away. His eyes shut as he landed, a resonating crack as his head hit pavement. This was it. This was where Smith won. He felt nothing in his legs, half-wondered if they were even there any more.

"Wait. Wait, I've seen this. Yes. You were laying right there, like that, and I stand here, right here. And I'm supposed to say something. I'm supposed to say, 'everything that has a beginning has an end, Neo."

He opened his eyes.

"What did I just say?"

He was on his feet without controlling them again. Which brings us at last to the moment of truth wherein the fundamental flaw is ultimately expressed and the anomaly revealed as both beginning and end. Two very different programs, one very similar message. So simple, really. He could have smiled if such an expression would have dared attempt to trespass on his face. It did not need to; Smith backed away, eyes wild.

"Get away from me!"

He, who could only just stand, frightening he who was legion. It was a kind of funny.

"What are you afraid of?"

"It's a trick!"

Yes, it was. All a facade, a feint within a feint within a feint. Strange. He almost pitied this program, this one who had taken his life before, who would take it again now. If the purpose of life was to end, Smith was bound to it as well as he, and that was why he was afraid. It must have been a new feeling for Smith. He marveled at that, he who had been afraid his whole life in one form or another: paranoia, panic, doubt. He wondered at standing where he was without any of those things, amazed himself for fearing nothing, for possessing a confidence he never had. All he had to do, just like Morpheus said, was to let it all go.

"You were right, Smith. You were always right."

Again, it occurred to him to smile. He could see the end coming, his end. The end. The panic in Smith's eyes flashed over to a new shade of desperation. Smith would lash out, defensively, not expecting to win, not counting on the fact that he was counting on Smith doing just that. He could already feel it, the change, the encroaching darkness of that time before when it had been bullets in this program's hand. Now, the hand alone would suffice.

Neo looked into his opponent's eyes, the urge to smile stronger than ever, his disposition never less inclined.

"It was inevitable."

It felt like dying.

Fin.