Don't Say Goodbye.
Pirate
They're in the galley again. He glances around the room, noting the grim and nervous expressions of the crew. Nanu huddles at the table, a blanket again around her shoulders. Gavin sits next to her, poised as if ready to catch the girl if she topples backwards.
Neo and Trinity are not sitting down, but are standing by the counter. Neo has his head down, but there's an acceptance to the curve of his shoulders that was not there yesterday. BC is perched on the table, her feet swinging. Her delicate features are pensive, and worried, a reflection of her mother's.
"This isn't the easiest thing to say," Neo begins, his arms folded as he studies the floor. They wait, none of them daring to speak. Pirate tucks his hands in his belt to stop them trembling.
Neo breathes in, looking up. He seems to search the air for the right words, as if trying to read the code beneath the skin of the world. But this is the Real, and there are no easy answers for him here.
"We might be able to bring down the Matrix."
Nanu shivers. Gavin wraps an arm around her shoulders but she barely notices.
"The world Nanu found is a glitch, a hole in the AI's defence. Through it, we can destroy the machine world."
Nobody asks how. And every one of them understands that winning this will somehow cost Neo his life.
Trinity speaks up, tucking her fringe behind her ear. "Nanu will take Neo and I back into the ghost world tomorrow. In the meantime we'll have to call back to Zion and have them send an alert to all ships to stay out of the Matrix. We might actually have to hold off for a few days if anyone has targets they want out before we take the Matrix down."
Pirate has to break the silence, "What will happen to the plant?"
The captain turns to him, her eyes somehow haunted. "We don't know what will happen. We don't even know if this will work. But it's all we know to do."
Ice trickles down his spine at her words. BC wraps her arms around herself, huddling into a smaller shape. The others, Tank, Achi, Gavin and Nanu, all seem to hover motionless, like wax sculptures with lifeless glass eyes.
This is the first real hope for the end of the war. They might just come out of this victorious. So why does he feel like he's just been gutted? Why is there such a cold grip on this room?
He looks over to Nanu. She's deathly pale, and curled into Gavin's side like there's nothing else in the world. Feeling his gaze on her, she blinks and looks back at him.
Wolf eyes. He sees again that flare of recognition, that assertion of the shared gift. And with that, he feels the beginning of a slow burn, a pain wound through his ribs that will make sense soon, but is now nothing more than an unresolved prophecy.
"Achi," Trinity's voice cuts through their collective daze. "Come up onto Deck, there's work to be done."
Pirate shakes his head, shaking off the errant sensation of being on the cusp of understanding.
Gavin
Wolf is coming along well. Although he still spends almost all of time sleeping, the muscle regeneration is on schedule. Another two days and he'll be up and about.
Another two days and he'll awake to a ship in chaos.
Gavin wonders idly who'll train him. But then, what will he train for? If this ghost world plan works, there won't be any war for him to fight.
The boy twitches in his sleep.
Will destroying the Matrix itself really end the war? The machines might have a back up power source, they might not even need the Matrix any more.
He realises that he is too used to only fighting this war on one front. To him the AI mean the likes of Cunningham and Jones. Sentinels are a whole other ball game. How can humans fight such huge monsters of electricity and plate metal?
Wolf makes a sound, a murmur, ". . . Lurker . . . "
"She's not here," Gavin replies quietly. Green grey eyes open slowly, and painfully focus on him.
"Where am I?"
"The real world."
"Who are you?" Wolf tries to sit up, but his abdomen is still covered in a patchwork of half healed scabs and prickling needles, and he hisses through his teeth at the pain.
Gavin crosses to his side, pushing him down gently. "Try not to move. You're not strong enough yet."
"What happened to me?"
"In short, you've been dreaming for the past sixteen years. The Matrix is one big über Visual Reality and we've been waging a hundred year war to bring it down."
Wolf relaxes into the thin mattress, staring numbly up at him.
"The worst part of all this is that any day now we might just win."
"Isn't that a good thing?"
"There's also a good chance that the three most important people in the world will die in the bloody process." He turns away, leaning on the second bunk and burying his fists in the sheets.
Nanu. Why does it have to be her to take them in? She's meant to come back once Neo and Trinity are in the ghost world but what if something goes completely wrong and she can't get back?
Gavin bows his head, blinking hard. He knows he shouldn't be taking this out on Wolf. He shouldn't have come down here so soon after the meeting.
"I'm sorry," the boy whispers from behind him.
"It's not your fault. This is a war. There are always casualties."
"All the same . . . " the young voice wavers back into sleepiness. By the time Gavin has turned around again, Wolf is dreaming.
He sighs deeply.
Pirate
Outside the infirmary door, he leans back against the wall, hands scrubbing fiercely at his eyes. The pain of imbalance shudders through him again, and Pirate swallows the taste of bile.
This isn't right.
Trinity
The ship is eerily quiet as Trinity sits down in the operator's chair. The battered padding is moulded to the shape of Tank, and irks her. She shifts a little as Achi hefts the camera up onto her shoulder.
"You ready captain?"
"In a minute," Trinity ducks her head. This will be hard. She could have drafted something to say, but she doubts she'd be able to focus on the words anyway. Taking a deep breath, she flicks hair out of her eyes and looks up at the dead glass of the camera.
Her mouth twists, "Action."
Achi thumbs a switch and the machine hums faintly.
"This is captain Trinity of Nebuchadnezzar the second with an urgent request for Zion communications. For those who believe in the One, this message may carry more weight, but regardless of faith I insist that all crews stay out of the Matrix from 0600 Zion time on November fifth. If this is unachievable the crews must contact us before that time."
She takes another breath, fingers curling into her palms.
"We have found a way to bring down the Matrix. If Zion officials have any objections to us carrying out this action, they're welcome to contact us. If the Neb receives no word by 0600 tomorrow morning, we will go ahead as planned.
"I do not pretend that this action will be without cost, but I would remind those with reservations that we are fighting a war, and now for the first time since the birth of Kenneth Jackson, we have a real chance of winning it."
Behind the camera, Achi swallows, her dark eyes solemn.
"Again, it is imperative that all crews stay out of the Matrix from 0600 Zion time on November fifth. This is the truth, and I swear that by the blue skies we will one day see." The Zion oath catches in her throat. "Achi, sign that."
The Zion-born turns the camera in her hands and Trinity takes the weight of it as she begins to talk.
"This is first mate Achi of Nebuchadnezzar the second. I witness this message and will add my own report. Neo knows what he's doing. Tomorrow morning he is going to win this war, and with all due respect Zion had better keep out of his way. This is Neb the second signing off."
She thumbs the record switch again. Trinity stares past the machine at the other woman, mouth open.
Achi smiles faintly. "I think I'm the first in history to render you speechless."
"I'll second that," Trinity agrees, stunned. "I never thought you'd pull a smartass stunt to the greater part of the Resistance, especially at a time like this."
"I never thought you'd use Zion religion as validation, although at a time like this I have to agree that it works."
Trinity frowns, taking the disk out of the recorder. "I never thought I'd need to believe in anything but this war."
"Trin," Achi takes the recorder and sets its bulk aside. "Don't get to worrying about that. Luckily for you, some things stay true whether or not they're believed in."
She takes a shaky inward breath. Achi looks steadily back at her, her gaze honest and unjudging.
"Achi – "
"Hush Captain. I'll send this off; you've got other things to be doing."
Trinity would say something to that but her heart seems caught in her throat.
***
She sits numbly on the bunk in Wolf's future room, holding an old shirt in her hands. She'd come here with the intent to mend it, to fill time until she could compose herself again. But it doesn't seem to be helping at all.
After all, why should she bother to patch the threadbare and fraying hems of her shirt when she'll be dead tomorrow?
Her shirt. It had been far from new when she'd received it. So many years ago, when she'd first found herself huddling in a dark corner of the ship, a crewmate had paused and crouched beside her, offering an oversized shirt and a ragged bandana.
"For until your hair grows."
Even then it had been tradition.
The bandana had been passed onto Switch, and from her onto Mouse. When he died, he had been burned with it wrapped around his neck. The shirt had worn thin, but still Trinity had managed to keep it, even though it wasn't really worth wearing for the warmth it gave.
She runs her fingers over it, smoothing out the cotton. There the weave is stretched transparent, where she had pulled it to cover the swell under her ribs. And when her daughter had been born, struggling silently in Achi's private quarters, this old shirt had been wrapped carefully around the tiny limbs. Repeated bleaching had removed the bloodstains the shirt had acquired over the years. The once rough homespun is now worn as fine and soft as faded blue velvet.
And what is it destined for now? More bloodshed? Or an agonisingly bloodless death?
She can't die in this shirt.
Trinity is surprised at the sting of tears behind her eyes. But she does not let them blind her. Calmly, she takes up a needle, coarsely spun thread, and a pair of scissors.
***
It is several hours later that the captain emerges from the room, carrying not a triumphantly mended shirt but a small object, nestled in cupped hands.
The hour is late, only a few permanent globes still shed light through the hall. The ship is quiet. Tank will still be up, monitoring the com's channels, but all others are in hiding, waiting anxiously for tomorrow.
Trinity walks quickly to her shared cabin. She opens the door carefully, slipping inside like she used to, when she had let herself believe that no one noticed her watching Neo.
He is asleep, sprawled on the bed. BC is at his side, sitting up as if waiting for her mother. Everything about the girl is perfect silence, even the faint lines of tears spilling and falling, one by one.
Trinity steps forward, once, again, and again. She reaches the side of the bunk, and goes down on knees that want badly to shake. She doesn't let them.
"Here," she lifts her offering, a gift that is not enough to make up for a world of war, or all the years that she has missed, and will miss. As of tomorrow, this semblance of a family will be nothing. Their daughter will grow up an orphan, alone.
BC's hands lift, taking the roughly stitched rag doll from her mother, and cradling it against her heart.
"Not quite alone," she smiles.
Then Trinity gives in to the salt, curling up with her child and Neo on the narrow bunk. Neo awakes, but doesn't speak. He only shifts, making room for her to nestle in a comfortable tangle, with BC hidden warm between her mother and father.
"G'night," a small voice whispers.
Neo's arm wraps around Trinity, including BC in the gesture. "Goodnight rascal," he replies.
Trinity looks over at him in the almost darkness. He smiles back, and the sadness in his eyes is nearly more than she can bear.
"Goodnight Trin."
She swallows, reaching to hold her family together if only for a moment in time.
"Goodnight."
Nanu
She curls with Gavin, relaxing. His eyes are open and staring at the ceiling. Her hand lies on his chest, and she can feel his heart still drumming through his ribs. He's scared. To tell the truth, so is she.
Nanu considers saying something, but no words come to mind. What can she say, really? To reassure him that everything will be fine would be a lie, because she doesn't know if it will be. To promise him that she'll come back would be untrue, because she may not be able to.
She can't afford to make assumptions about a future that may not be. All she has to give is now.
She smooths her hand over his skin, letting the barriers between her mind and his melt aside . . . guilt and confusion and fear and doubts race through his head, stirring up deeper memories he's never reconciled. The woman who shot his brother. Morpheus' state of being. The fact that he has never met the Oracle. The countless souls he has killed in three short years. The possible end of life as he knows it, and the fear that all he has in this world will be stolen from his arms on the morrow.
Nanu sighs against him, thinking. The only solution that comes to mind is sleep. Sleep, perchance to dream? Under her hand, his heart begins to slow. The arm around her shoulders relaxes slightly.
Sleep Gavin. I'll hold you.
Thoughts quieten and his breathing becomes deeper.
To dream . . . the Matrix is a dream world and she can alter that. Is it possible then, for her to calm his mind through dreams?
She closes her eyes, letting the sound and scent of Gavin lull her to sleep.
Gavin
Green. When was the last time he stood knee deep in soft grass? When was the last time he looked up through the trees to see the moon, and did not question that it was real? When was the last time he tasted rain, fresh and new and pure?
He breathes in. He can smell colours, forest green and dark brown and night sky indigo and silver.
And grey.
Nanu.
He turns. She's wearing her real world rags but her hair falls halfway down her back.
"I've never dreamt of you before," he whispers.
"I've dreamt of you."
"Why are we here?"
"No reason," and she is by his side although he never saw her move.
Moonlight highlights the world with silver and makes shadows deeper than they are by day. Gavin traces fingertips over the curves in her face. Her eyes closed, she looks like an angel carved in marble, needing only a breath to feel life.
"So I thought of you when I first saw you sleeping," she smiles.
"Can you read my mind?"
"Our minds are part of each other's. We are closer than understanding can reach."
"You don't make sense."
"Nothing does in a dream."
He brushes lips over her eyelids, then down her cheek to her mouth, so light he is barely there. She's warm, despite this entire cool around them. "I love you," he admits.
"Can you fly?"
"What?"
Her hands twine with his, and with a dizzying rush of air they are in the sky. He inhales, smelling white, black, navy, silver, grey and grey and grey.
Textures like silk and velvet speak into his ear with words he will not remember.
"I love you," she breathes, heady and rich, "beyond everything."
Soaring up seemingly forever, they are two halves of what should be one soul. Rain falls, and they tumble with it, spinning and turning and dancing through the sky and the wild as if they have always been here. The world simplifies to raw sensation, sight and sound and smoothness - the wash of water against skin, the satin feel of wet grass tangling with her long dark hair. Contrasts of his breath against hers, skin slick with what might even be tears, though he kisses them away before he can be sure. Nanu arches against him, her eyes reflecting the moon and stars shining impossibly through the rain.
In the bewildering not-sense of a dream, there is a split instant where pulses slip into sync and lightening flares in an arc and everything in the universe is suddenly . . .
Perfect.
And a dream feels like a forever.
***