Gavin.
Nanu
She opens her eyes slowly. The room is dark, the lights are out.
Very slowly she sits up. Pain lances through her neck and shoulder, and she stifles a sound.
Pirate is asleep on the floor, curled up near the doorway. Nanu doesn't move, she just watches him, trying to judge if she can get out without waking him up.
She'll have to. Gavin's waiting for her.
Very carefully she slides off the bed and stands. Walking as lightly as she can, she crosses the room and stops next to the man on the floor.
Nanu reaches over Pirate and curls her fingers around the door handle. She turns it, and gingerly pulls it open. A pause. The cool draught does not wake him. There is just enough space for her to slip through.
She steps over him, easing her weight from her left foot to her right. He moves in his sleep, and she freezes, fighting as insane urge to giggle. If he wakes and sees her standing astride him like this . . .
That would be a situation best summed up with a *cringe*
He relaxes again. She lifts her other foot and slips through the door, closing it silently behind her.
*Phew*
Gavin
He begins to wake as the door opens softly. The lights is still on, a dim golden glow.
He feels rather than hears the door shut. He stays still, lying curled on his side with his face to the wall.
Nanu
She pauses, just looking at him. She can see a glint of socket under his hair, and in his arms; he's taken off his shirt and is sleeping in a singlet.
He looks so much like a child. She inhales, smelling him painfully familiar.
Gavin
"I can't see you," he whispers, "but I know you're there."
"City of Angels," she whispers back.
"Why are you here Nanu?"
"I wanted to see you." She doesn't hesitate, she says the words clearly, simply. Honestly. Five little words. Is he reading into them too deeply? Taking them too far? Letting what he feels affect . . . what does he feel?
"I'm sorry," he says to the wall.
"What for?"
"For that day at the Lafayette. And for not trusting you to look after yourself."
There is a thoughtful pause. "There's no reason to be sorry. And you were right about the program anyway, it was a shoddy thing to get stuck in."
He rolls over and looks up at her.
Nanu. Her hair is still short and spiky, and she's still so thin. Her shirt is loose around her neck; it hangs to the side to reveal one shoulder. He can see the beginnings of a bruise and a mark that will scar.
She looks far older than sixteen. This is not Naiomi Harper.
Gavin sits up slowly.
He can see a new hardness to her eye that was not there when he saw her last.
Abruptly she turns from his scrutiny, laying her hand on the door.
"Wait," he stands, ignoring the pain in his ribs.
She stops.
"Something's happened. Tell me." The looks at the curves of her neck and the back of her head, the tense lines of her shoulders.
"You wouldn't understand."
"I'll try."
She turns back to him, leans against the door, and launched into it. "I've lived before. The Oracle told me she remembered my soul, and that I had to see Morpheus about it. When I went to see him he showed me his memories. I saw I woman, Morph's captain. Her name was Juno, and she looked like me. I used to be her.
He sits down carefully.
"Juno's captain was Raven, the first One. He was also her father."
"Raven had no children."
"No legitimate children anyway."
"Oh," he tries to absorb this as she continues. Without knowing it, she's telling a history no one remembers.
"In 2139 real world time, Raven's body was killed by another ship's EMP. He'd been on the way back from Juno's trip to the Oracle. At first everyone thought he was gone but then Juno met him inside the Matrix.
For another ten years he fought the war with them from the inside out. He was superman after all. But in 2149, it was 2009 in the Matrix and the time had to be looped back at the end of the year. Raven died for real, his mind was erased."
She closes her eyes and tilts her head back as she finishes.
"And you saw it all again?" he asks quietly.
A slow nod.
"So, if Juno was Raven's daughter, it's like Neo's your dad?"
"No," her eyes open. "I am no more Juno than Neo is Raven. I used to be her. This soul used to be hers."
"Oh," he's having trouble getting his head around this.
"Morph said you wouldn't understand."
How can she say so little and say so much? In five words she'd given him some form of hope, now with another five she crushes him.
Nanu
She watches him look down at his hands, and feels worse then bad. Of course he can't understand this, but he's trying to.
"I'm sorry Gavin," she moves away from the door and kneels in front of him, seeking eye contact. He avoids it.
What age gap there ever was has disintegrated. She has grown years in the past hour, and he has been left behind.
"Thankyou," he begins, words tumbling over each other. "Thankyou for saving my life."
She studies his down-turned face. "It's nothing - "
"No," he looks up. Almost audibly their eyes meet. "I would've died. So thankyou."
Nanu moves to get up but he squeezes her hand. She doesn't remember him taking it.
"Don't go. Don't come then go and leave me alone again."
"Gavin," just saying his name like this feels . . . right, and the taste of his name in her mouth begs her to stay. But reason battles with the other part of her that doesn't look away from his eyes. "This can't happen. You don't know what you're really asking."
"All I know is that I want you to stay here. With me."
She has to look down. She studies their hands together, the wonderful feeling of his skin totally still and motionless under hers.
She's too young for this, but she feels like she's lived eighty years. He's meant to be the mature one, but there's a quiet innocence in his unmoving hand that's hurting her in the nicest way.
"Okay," she breathes. "And thankyou," she forces herself to lift her eyes to meet his. "You saved my life this morning."
"No, I - "
"If you hadn't have been there, I think I wouldn't have gotten up again. I needed you than and I need . . . "
A silence. Her unspoken words wind around them. His hands are shaking.
She leans forward, raising a hand to the back of his neck, and carefully tilts her head to kiss him. Like the day in the Lafayette, it's unbelievingly soft. She leans back, breathing him in slowly.
His unsteady hands lift to her shoulders, and unlike the day in the Lafayette, the next kiss leads to another.
[Heeheehee, fade to black-ness!]
Nanu
She lifts her head from the pillow, looking around the unfamiliar room. The clock above the door displays the time, still too early to be up Zion time, but 10:14 MCS time.
She lies down again on her side, curled up with Gavin. She spends a moment just being aware of how her arm feels lying across his ribs and around his back.
He moves, shifting in his sleep, pulling the blanket into a new organisation. She feels it against her bare skin.
What have I got myself into?
Well for one, someone else's bed.
She can see her clothes on the floor, they seems a very long distance away. She can remember the sequence of taking them off last night, remember Gavin laughing at the stiff buckles of her boots getting stuck.
He's sleeping peacefully now, his blonde hair tangled a little and falling over his closed eyes. She hadn't realised until last night how long his hair was. His eyelashes are long too, almost white, and his eyelids are so pale she can see the tracery of veins under his skin.
She relaxes, lets her eyes drift closed. And she listens to him breathe. What is she going to say when he wakes up?
Gavin
He opens his eyes. Nanu seems to be sleeping. He watches her, and smiles.
The turmoil of yesterday has been laid to rest. For better or worse, he knows her now, and he knows what he feels.
"Nanu," he breathes. She doesn't move. "I love you."
Inhale, exhale. Her eyes remain shut. The clock on the wall clicks over the minute loudly, then silence reigns again. She sleeps on.
He closes his eyes again.
"Ditto."
He starts, eyes opening. Nanu is awake, was awake all along. And she's grinning at him.
He laughs, sitting up, "You sneak."
"Yeah well, I'm a good sneak."
"Damn good." He smiles down at her. The light gleams gold, and it makes her eyes glow the same colour.
Nanu
She stares up at him, wishing she had paint and canvas. The globe in the room is yellow, and the effect is of candle or firelight. Shadows curve around the muscles in Gavin's arms, shoulders and bare chest, and around his plugs. Despite his smile he looks tired and sore; there are bruises on his body and dried blood on his lip.
Slowly sitting up, Nanu leans forward and cautiously kisses the blood away. Gently, she smooths the hair back from his face.
He smiles faintly as she pulls back. "I've always wanted to be in this position."
She doesn't tell him to shut up, not this time. They sit in his narrow bed, their legs tangled and the blanket wrapped around them both.
Nanu runs her hand over his face, over the bruises he earned yesterday.
"I'm sorry you were hurt," she whispers.
"I'm fine. Compared to you I got off easy." He raises his hand to her neck, traces the mark of the virtual bullet with a finger before kissing it.
"Gavin," she asks, "what are we going to tell them?"
"About the Challenge?"
"About, this." She gestures to include the room, their scattered clothes, them together.
He lies back down, making room on the pillow for her. "Why do we have to announce anything? This kind of thing isn't uncommon on ships."
"I just don't want Neo or the captain to find out the wrong way."
"It'll be fine," he smiles upwards. "Come back here will you?"
She smiles and kisses him again. Neither one of them notices their lack of artistry, and neither one of them cares.
Gavin
"Were you serious before?"
"Before when?"
"Before I said ditto?"
Gavin smiles and turns his head to see her. She rests her head on his shoulder, looking up at him. "I've never been more serious in my life."
"Good," but she doesn't smile back. "Because, I love you. And that may well be the most overused phrase in the English language, but I'll use it again."
He laughs, drawing her closer and feeling her laughter reverberate through him.
"Hey," she says after a moment. "I can hear your heart."
"Well that's good to know."
Gavin pulls the blanket up over them both and wraps his arms around Nanu, holding her close against him. In the dim light, she's a small warm shape. And after a while, they drift off to sleep again.
/mush
This is one of the single weirdest things I've ever written, and I can't decide whether to huggle or despise it. I think it's both simultaneously.
And I'm really sorry for chopping up the flow with POV changes, but I couldn't not put them in.